confederate symbols

[GO-NAD!]

As far as Jackson goes, I consider him highly over rated. He also probably shot more of his own men for disciplinary reasons than any other general in the war. As brilliant as his Valley campaign was, he was awful in the seven days battles. His troops deserted en masse during the invasion of Maryland in 1862. He missed an opportunity to counter attack during the battle of Fredericksburg when the union troops had their backs to the river. Finally, he had no business being where he was ahead of the lines when he was mortally wounded.

I am an avid student of the Civil war, have a large bookcase full of books and have been to most every major and minor battle site in the Eastern theater including more obscure ones like Ball's bluff and Cross Keys. I cannot recommend strongly enough "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James MacPherson. It won a Pulitzer and is the best one volume work there is on the subject. Half the book leads up to the civil war. When you are done, you will realize how wrong the South was about everything.800 pages and well worth your time. Ken Burns series has aged rather badly, one of the few things he has done that has done so.

I know of the book, but haven't read it. It's on my list now though. I find this observation from Wikipedia quite interesting. Battle Cry of Freedom (book) - Wikipedia

A central concern of this work is the multiple interpretations of freedom. In an interview, McPherson claimed: "Both sides in the Civil War professed to be fighting for the same 'freedoms' established by the American Revolution and the Constitution their forefathers fought for in the Revolution—individual freedom, democracy, a republican form of government, majority rule, free elections, etc. For Southerners, the Revolution was a war of secession from the tyranny of the British Empire, just as their war was a war of secession from Yankee tyranny. For Northerners, their fight was to sustain the government established by the Constitution with its guaranties of rights and liberties."[2]

Can we not see parallels today?

 

[Dan]

Of course there are many parallels. First and foremost to me is that the South seceded because they didn't like the outcome of an election. They started leaving before Lincoln was even sworn in. Imagine if States could leave every time an election didn't go their way.

 

[GO-NAD!]

Of course there are many parallels. First and foremost to me is that the South seceded because they didn't like the outcome of an election. They started leaving before Lincoln was even sworn in. Imagine if States could leave every time an election didn't go their way.

If you haven't been following this guy, he's quite entertaining.

https://twitter.com/CivilWarHumor?t=UTr8TbdkHyhi77DPZy4ZIg&s=09

 

[Swerd]

I have to agree with Dan (my brother ) about James MacPherson's excellent book, "The Battle Cry of Freedom". Dan once gave me a copy as a birthday present. I've read it several times, and lent it to several friends.

I never learned so many details of the Civil War that Dan has. But I once spent a very memorable day with him as my guide as we toured the battlefield at Antietam in Sharpsburg, MD.

 

[Swerd]

Of course, there are always differing points of view – especially with the Civil War.
For example, Granny Clampett.

 

[GO-NAD!]

I have to agree with Dan (my brother ) about James MacPherson's excellent book, "The Battle Cry of Freedom". Dan once gave me a copy as a birthday present. I've read it several times, and lent it to several friends.

I never learned so many details of the Civil War that Dan has. But I once spent a very memorable day with him as my guide as we toured the battlefield at Antietam in Sharpsburg, MD.

The closest I've come to a US Civil War battle site, is when we sailed past Fort Sumter while entering Charleston Harbour many years ago.

 

[Steve81]

Can we not see parallels today?

In truth, I'm not sure were so much more advanced than our ancestors. We stuff ourselves silly, rot our brains with garbage (can you believe there are 20 seasons of Keeping Up With The Kardashians to binge watch?), mostly ignore the climate going to hell around us, and spend considerable resources on new ways to slaughter one another. We still rely upon exploited labor for a great many products on our shelves, we can't agree on whether or not a woman should have bodily autonomy, racism is still very much alive and well, etc....

What makes us even less redeemable is that we have access to information / education, communications, and travel that simply wasn't available in the 1800's, yet we still can't figure much of anything out beyond tweeting inane memes and cat videos. Score one for progress I guess.

 

[Dan]

I have to agree with Dan (my brother ) about James MacPherson's excellent book, "The Battle Cry of Freedom". Dan once gave me a copy as a birthday present. I've read it several times, and lent it to several friends.

I never learned so many details of the Civil War that Dan has. But I once spent a very memorable day with him as my guide as we toured the battlefield at Antietam in Sharpsburg, MD.

I had recently read Stephen Sears "Landscape Turned Red" about the invasion of 1862 in Maryland so I knew the battle in detail. It is a great site to visit because it is well preserved and marked. Also it was a one day set piece battle that you can fully cover in a day.

Gettysburg while much more popular to visit, lasted three days and covered a lot of ground. You need at least one day for day 1, two or more for day 2 and one for day 3 just to do it justice. When I go, I focus on one thing and if it is confusing to me, I hire a good guide to help me through it, and that's me with two huge books just devoted to day 2 and one on day 1. Parts are still confusing. Maybe a drone would help. Also, the park service has been cutting back the trees to restore it to the 1863 appearance which will help a lot.

 

[GO-NAD!]

OK, time for a joke.
What's the difference between Georgia and Germany?
It only took one Sherman to cross Georgia.

 

[Swerd]

What makes us even less redeemable is that we have access to information / education, communications, and travel that simply wasn't available in the 1800's, yet we still can't figure much of anything out beyond tweeting inane memes and cat videos. Score one for progress I guess.

Clear evidence that the Internet makes us stupid.

 

[Dan]

In truth, I'm not sure were so much more advanced than our ancestors. We stuff ourselves silly, rot our brains with garbage (can you believe there are 20 seasons of Keeping Up With The Kardashians to binge watch?), mostly ignore the climate going to hell around us, and spend considerable resources on new ways to slaughter one another. We still rely upon exploited labor for a great many products on our shelves, we can't agree on whether or not a woman should have bodily autonomy, racism is still very much alive and well, etc....

What makes us even less redeemable is that we have access to information / education, communications, and travel that simply wasn't available in the 1800's, yet we still can't figure much of anything out beyond tweeting inane memes and cat videos. Score one for progress I guess.

True story from the civil war. About a dozen Union soldiers were captured and were being sent to the POW camp. A confederate soldier asked them how many could read and sign their name. The Union soldiers replied they all could which amazed the Southerners. Many of the enlisted troops in the South were illiterates(and did not own slaves). Hence the phrase "rich man's war, poor man's fight" in the south. Nothing really changes.

 

[Swerd]

I always remember these two observations about the Civil War:

Shelby Foote noted that before the Civil War, people spoke of our nation as "These United States". After the war, it became "The United States". A long-term result of the war was that it created a concept of a unified nation that hadn't existed before. Or, it ended the concept that individual states of the USA were sovereign and independent.
(I don't remember if Foote said this in his 3-volume work on the Civil War, or if it was in one of his many on-camera appearances in Ken Burns's "The Civil War".)

James MacPherson had a completely different take – one that I like better. He said the southern land & slave owners were the last bastion of The Ancient Regime remaining from Medieval Europe, where aristocrats owned both the land and the people (serfs or slaves) who worked the farms. These aristocrats operated governments solely for their own benefit.

In Europe, nearly all of those ancient regimes had fallen violently, or had been significantly altered & modernized by the Industrial Revolution. The last European example of an ancient regime practice was Imperial Russia, where Czar Alexander II, in 1861, proclaimed the end of serfdom on private estates and domestic households. It was estimated that serfs on private estates in Russia accounted for ~38% of the population. That pre-dated the end of slavery in the southern USA. Russia took a long time to modernize, but so did the former Confederate States of the southern USA.

 

[Dan]

One of the main points I got from MacPherson is the economic situation in the US by 1860. Let us consider slavery as an economic form and leave the morally repugnant aspect of it for this discussion.

The industrial revolution had come to America in a major way. The agricultural south saw no need to change from it's unpaid labor model and was lagging badly in industrial development. At the same time there was a huge influx of immigrants from Europe fleeing the unrest from the above revolutions and the Irish potato famine (absolutely as bad for the Irish as was the Holocaust for Jews). There was a huge demand for unskilled labor to work the factories in the North and the overwhelming majority of these immigrants went there especially Irish and Germans. The result of the population swing meant that the South no longer mattered on the national political stage. Lincoln won without even being on the ballot in most southern states and with a new census the North would dominate the House. So the south pouted, picked up there toys and tried to leave.

 

[Swerd]

That's a good summary of MacPherson's main point.

At the same time there was a huge influx of immigrants from Europe fleeing the unrest from the above revolutions and the Irish potato famine (absolutely as bad for the Irish as was the Holocaust for Jews). There was a huge demand for unskilled labor to work the factories in the North and the overwhelming majority of these immigrants went there especially Irish and Germans.

In addition to the factories in the North, new immigrants were also attracted to farming in the mid-west and prairie territories. In those states and territories they had the opportunity to actually own their farm land. That was something denied to them in Europe and certainly not available in the South.

 

[Dan]

Something I find a bit odd is that the most strongly conservative Trump areas were actually mostly pro Union during the civil war. West Virginia (remember they seceded from Virginia during the war) Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, western North Carolina (now "represented" by Madison Cawthorn). These areas were poor and non slave holding. They don't know their own history.

 

[Swerd]

I take it that some in the Confederacy thought they would receive outside help to fight the North. According to some, they might have had it had the French won at the Battle of Puebla (Cinco de Mayo) in 1862.

Your comment made me remember a long-forgotten episode from my freshman year in college. I went to college in the south, at the U of North Carolina. And this was one of those freshman dorm bull sessions. Most of the people I met would roll their eyes and laugh at anyone who believed that 'South will rise again' nonsense. But some took the Lost Cause propaganda as gospel. One guy in particular told me, with a straight-face, that if the war was re-fought, the South would win because 'we have all the lead mines'. He never seemed to understand that bullets were also made of lead in 1861-65. He also refused to call the Civil War anything but the War of Northern Aggression.

It didn't take me long to get tired of his dogmatic narrow-minded thinking. So I decided to tweak him. As you pointed out, the South tried hard to get both UK and French help in their war. Both countries were glad to sell some weapons to the Confederates, but neither of them considered open recognition and direct support of a slave-holding nation. This was especially true in the UK, where such an act would have been political suicide in British politics. And Napoleon III in France was acting more out of wishful thinking than reality.

So, back to my freshman dorm bull session. I told this ardent rebel that if the South had won the war, they would have large debts with the UK, and their only export product was cotton, a raw material. That could easily result in the southern states being re-absorbed into the British Empire. The South simply could not stand up to British Imperialism without the manufacturing and shipping of the North. Even though that sounded believable, I was making it all up, much as he was fantasizing about any advantage from Southern lead mines.

It worked. I could see his jaw tighten and veins begin to throb in his temple. He stomped out, declaring that he would never converse with a damned Yank again. Apparently, I had offended his honor .

 

[SithZedi]

Your comment made me remember a long-forgotten episode from my freshman year in college. I went to college in the south, at the U of North Carolina. And this was one of those freshman dorm bull sessions. Most of the people I met would roll their eyes and laugh at anyone who believed that 'South will rise again' nonsense. But some took the Lost Cause propaganda as gospel. One guy in particular told me, with a straight-face, that if the war was re-fought, the South would win because 'we have all the lead mines'. He never seemed to understand that bullets were also made of lead in 1861-65. He also refused to call the Civil War anything but the War of Northern Aggression.

It didn't take me long to get tired of his dogmatic narrow-minded thinking. So I decided to tweak him. As you pointed out, the South tried hard to get both UK and French help in their war. Both countries were glad to sell some weapons to the Confederates, but neither of them considered open recognition and direct support of a slave-holding nation. This was especially true in the UK, where such an act would have been political suicide in British politics. And Napoleon III in France was acting more out of wishful thinking than reality.

So, back to my freshman dorm bull session. I told this ardent rebel that if the South had won the war, they would have large debts with the UK, and their only export product was cotton, a raw material. That could easily result in the southern states being re-absorbed into the British Empire. The South simply could not stand up to British Imperialism without the manufacturing and shipping of the North. Even though that sounded believable, I was making it all up, much as he was fantasizing about any advantage from Southern lead mines.

It worked. I could see his jaw tighten and veins begin to throb in his temple. He stomped out, declaring that he would never converse with a damned Yank again. Apparently, I had offended his honor .

That's hilarious and well played. I've had similar experiences with people over the years using that mode of conversation, the "What ifs" of history. It especially comes in handy if you spend extended time overseas doing business. They told us in business school in the 80s' that when doing business abroad, you should never bring up politics, sex, and religion. What they don't tell you is that foreign nationals always bring it up and it's rude to not engage them, civilly of course. I wish I had a dollar for every time a sentence started with "Why do Americans .......?" The 'what if' game comes in handy in the response and usually generates interesting dialogue.

Warming to the subject, another book recommendation for history buffs. It's one of three in a series:

https://www.amazon.com/What-If-Foremost-Military-Historians/dp/0425176428/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TNUBSGNZMZA1&keywords=what+if+history&qid=1652392660&sprefix=what+if+history,aps,93&sr=8-1#customerReviews

 

[Swerd]

That's hilarious and well played. I've had similar experiences with people over the years using that mode of conversation, the "What ifs" of history. It especially comes in handy if you spend extended time overseas doing business. They told us in business school in the 80s' that when doing business abroad, you should never bring up politics, sex, and religion. What they don't tell you is that foreign nationals always bring it up and it's rude to not engage them, civilly of course. I wish I had a dollar for every time a sentence started with "Why do Americans .......?" The 'what if' game comes in handy in the response and usually generates interesting dialogue.

Warming to the subject, another book recommendation for history buffs. It's one of three in a series:

https://www.amazon.com/What-If-Foremost-Military-Historians/dp/0425176428/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TNUBSGNZMZA1&keywords=what+if+history&qid=1652392660&sprefix=what+if+history,aps,93&sr=8-1#customerReviews

That story was mostly true, but it was in the winter of 1967, a long time ago. (I may have embellished just a bit.) I was young, barely 18 years old, and I hadn't yet learned that most Southerners thought it was bad form to argue so vigorously about anything, much less something as inflammatory as the Civil War. They also thought that 'Lead Mine Boy' was rude and boring.

I later learned that most of those who called me a Yankee were actually pulling my leg – as Yankee baiting was considered great sport. They were also making fun of Rednecks who actually took that 'South Shall Rise Again' crap seriously. The only proper answer to Yankee baiting was to answer them with an exaggerated Southern drawl (use your imagination as I attempt to write in Southeren), saying "I've been meanin' to faht choo (fight you)! Let's you and me get some 6-packs of Bud and go faht in the parking lot! That always got them to laugh and drop the Yankee baiting.

In 1972-73, I was in the Navy, stationed in Southern Italy. Among the Italian friends I had, I was the only American. As such, I had to defend America's racism as well as the war in Vietnam. It was difficult because I didn't want to offend them, and I couldn't easily explain my being in the Navy while also being opposed to that war, much less explain racism. I had to resort to the idea that the USA (at that time) was the only modern western nation that actually had significant numbers of people of different races. It was no wonder that the USA had problems with that. At the time, Italy and most of Europe was uniformly white. African immigrants were not welcomed. Asian immigrants were unheard of. Amazingly, that worked. When I later got orders to return to the USA, every one of my Italian friends admitted, privately, that they would give their right arms to go with me.

Were you ever in Russia or Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism? In the West, we often have great trouble understanding Russian ways of thinking, especially about things like success or failure. We often are baffled by their stubborn refusal to cooperate with others, even if cooperating was for their own benefit.

There is a famous Russian proverb about this mentality. (I’m paraphrasing it from a book I read, Red Notice by Bill Browder.)

One day a poor villager happens upon a magic fish. It could talk. The fish said it will grant him a single wish. Overjoyed, the villager weighed his options: “Maybe a castle? Or even better, a thousand bars of gold? Why not a ship to sail the world?” As the villager was about to make his decision, the fish interrupted to say there is one important caveat: Whatever the villager gets, his neighbor will get two of the same. Without skipping a beat, the villager says, “In that case, please poke one of my eyes out.”

The moral is simple: Russians will gladly – gleefully, even – sacrifice their own success to screw their neighbor. This pessimism infects all their thinking. When first exposed to American optimism, they take offense at our confidence, claiming we are both arrogant and naïve about the ways of the world.

 

[lovinthehd]

Clear evidence that the Internet makes us stupid.

So they've officially taken over from television?

 

[panteragstk]

So they've officially taken over from television?

Well, when the TV gets it's "news" from shoddy internet "articles" so they can be first without any fact checking, yes.

Denzel Washington put it pretty well.