American Civil War question.

I read in Battle Cry of Freedom that most Southern commanders defected to the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War. What about the rank and file? Due to most of the military colleges being in the South, there were many Southern soldiers. Those commanded by Southern generals I could see them easily following their generals off the cliff of defection. What about the Southern soldiers with non-Southern officers? Did they just resign and head south? Or did they continue to serve their officers to protect the Union (and later on end slavery?).

I know example-seeking is not a good idea, but I was curious as to the rates of southern soldiers defecting vs staying as well.

Firstly, I'm sorry if this is a dumb question or if there are any misunderstandings on what I've written below. I'ts just that I've always read that The Great Depression had basically two major factors:

1. Factories producing too much and, due to low wages, there wasn't enough demand to consume it, which affect the stock market because their shares dropped.

2. Unregulated buying of shares due to the post-war economic optimism, creating a speculative bubble that would later explode.

And there are a lot of websites and even scholar books out there associating the overproduction to Fordism. However, some weeks ago, my History teacher told us that Fordism has nothing to do with it and told us that this a common misconception, but to be honest I'm not sure what explanation he gave us because I don't remember the exact wording, just some loose pieces of memories here and there. I was wondering about it so I decided to give it a search. However, when I've googled it today, I didn't find any reliable article clarifying if they were actually related or not, only contradicting data between different websites. They either mention Fordism as a factor, saying that its revolutionary method of production created stocks due to low demand and this impacted the stock market, or they just don't mention it at all and just mention the overproduction itself.

So what is exactly the relation between Fordism and overproduction? Was Fordism really the cause of overproduction or it wasn't it at all? And if it's not related to the issue, why did the overproduction happen and how did it begin?

Thank you a lot.

Going through a list of Roman Emperors most of them seem to be adopted, came to power through rebellion or were appointed by the senate. Why is that? Especially considering the importance of blood relationship in the middle ages.

Despite the fact that crusaders came from places all over Europe it seems that only Franks and Normans ever ruled the states founded in the East. Why was there never a German lord of Acre or a Norwegian Count of Tripoli or something like that?

I’m trying to understand it from a holistic perspective so I can gauge what it would be like for the average _____ person (soldier, priest, tenant, lord, etc)

I basically wanted to know why people regard this book as an important work and if it's something that frequently comes up in historical discourse when discussing similarities between Nazism and Stalinism. What did Hannah Arendt uniquely bring to discussion?

Also are there any criticisms or controversy surrounding this work that makes people consider to be of less value or biased when considering that Question?

I understand that life in those times were harsh and left little room for laziness, but I’m interested whether people worked out or played sports back then. Did soldiers receive endurance training? People engaged in sports in classical Greece and Rome, that’s why I’m wondering whether this carried on to medieval times as well.

Thanks!

EDIT: I would like to thank everyone for their time in answering my question. Got more than I hoped for and learned a lot. You’re the best!

The empire was in a difficult position at the time and it couldn’t afford an entire line of bad rulers. Why weren’t they deposed by some noble coup or some sort of revolt if they were as underwhelming as history often portray them to be? Did the nobility tolerate them because they served their interest in some way? Were the byzantine nobles also pleased by being overrun by Turks and Slavs?

Hypothetically speaking, lets say a Roman general set out from the city of Rome with an army of 10,000 men. Assuming ships were prepared ahead of time for when the army reached the sea, about how long total would it take to transport this army from Rome to the Island of Great Britain? This includes the march, sea voyage, rest, eating, etc. Total time. Thanks

Please correct me if my assumption is incorrect, but it seems the Chinese (or other Eastern cultures) never figured out plumbing until the 20th century, despite being quite advanced throughout ancient times in many other forms of technology. In contrast, the Greeks and Romans had sewage systems millennia ago. Was this actually the case? And if so, why?

I usually hear this argument in defense of racists or slave owners (ie Lovecraft, Andrew Jackson) which makes me quite suspicous. Most questions regarding this on here are answered in a way that shows that these people were in fact more racist than their contemporaries.

Is that the important thing though? Can historians only ever try to gage if someone was more racist/antisemitic/misogynist than their time's average? The argument seems to suggest that people are entirely incapable of thinking about their culture and values.

My point is not judging or condemning these people but more if critiquing their veneration is valid. A lot of questionable figures are hailed as great statesmen or heroes and their supporters usually use the above-mentioned defense.

Flippantly said: Is Columbus day a bad idea because of him being more racist than a lot of his contemporaries or because he was a racist slave owner?

It seems like alot of art features nudity and public bathhouses seem to be the norm for a long time, but seemingly out of no where (to me at least) nudity was viewed as something to hide and be humiliated by.

I know the silk road lasted for a long time, but at it's peak how busy was it, specifically the parts going through Asia? In other words, if I were to have traveled the silk road in a caravan at it's peak, how often could I have expected to cross paths with another caravan? I imagine the closer you got to trading hubs and into Western Europe the busier the routes would become.

Were scabbards worn on your back ever actually used? And if they were what advantages or disadvantages did they have?

One sometimes sees the claim that the date of December 25, and sometimes other aspects of the Christmas celebration, were borrowed from pagan cults contemporaneous with early Christianity. Saturnalia, the feast of Sol Invictus, and the birth of Mithras, among others, have been named as precursors/models for Christmas. The reason given for the borrowing also varies: as a way to entice potential converts, a way to blend in and avoid persecution, or a natural process of syncretism and cultural evolution.

Arguments about this are very common on the internet, but very rarely, in my experience, does anyone cite what looks remotely like a reliable source. What do we really know about the origins of the Christmas holiday and its relationship to the various pagan holidays that were celebrated around the same time of year? Are there other reasons that specific date might have been adopted?

I know that few in Europe and the US believed in a all-encompassing ‘white’ race during WW1. In the 1930’s, the Nazis supported ‘pan-germanism’, or unity of all Germanic peoples. Yet during the US African-American Civil Rights movement, it appears as though the old divisions between ethnic Italians, Germans, Poles, and English had disappeared and it was just ‘white vs black.’ We take it for granted today that ‘white’ is a uniform and distinct race. I have never heard of anyone working to ‘unite the whites’ in the 1940’s and 1950’s and 1960’s, but that is exactly what happened.