So this question has been in my head for a few years now and needs to surface.
I have spent more than my fair share of time traveling Europe and only recently have been flying about the US. I have been going progressively farther south and noticed a recurring theme:
Some from the South do not like Northerners (yanks?) and to this day are still bitter about the Civil War. Slogans like "The South will rise again" or something like that are common on shirts etc...
So the main question is:
Are people still bitter about the Civil War and do they really believe there will be another?
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RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting AirPortugal310 (Thread starter): Are people still bitter about the Civil War and do they really believe there will be another? |
It's called "The War of Northern Aggression!"
Signed, DL021
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- airportugal310
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RE: US Civil War Feelings
It's been said that there are those in the South that are still fighting the Civil War, and I agree. Being a yankee who has lived in Mississippi and Georgia, I had my balls broken by plenty of 'good ole boys' about being from New York/a Yankee. All kinds of crap too about the south rising again and all that nonsense. Whatever fellas. We're all one nation.
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- desertjets
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RE: US Civil War Feelings
First of all I am not sure how one can be nostaglic for the antebellum south. It enforced and economic and social structure that benefited very few people. IMO the north was relatively more egalitarian at the time. In the end the south needed the north and vice versa. The south could not stand alone as a heavily agricultural economy in an industrializing world. And the rapidly industrializing north needed the raw goods like cotton to grow.
Part of this entire issue is that the idea of a national identity is still relatively new. For much of America's history people thought of themselves as Virginians or New Yorkers first, then maybe Americans. It was not until the increased mobility, both physically and economically of the 20th century did a national identity arise. Certainly major world events like WWII helped as well.
I cannot confirm nor deny that. Might be more of an urban legend. Though the way the Civil War is taught at the K-12 level, at least how I experienced it growing up in the midwest and southwest, was awfully simplistic and probably biased towards the north. It would be very useful to learn about the war and the cases leading up to the war from a more southern perspective.
Part of this entire issue is that the idea of a national identity is still relatively new. For much of America's history people thought of themselves as Virginians or New Yorkers first, then maybe Americans. It was not until the increased mobility, both physically and economically of the 20th century did a national identity arise. Certainly major world events like WWII helped as well.
| Quoting AirPortugal310 (Reply 2): A college professor of mine once said that the version of the war taught down there is not the same as the version taught up North...very interesting indeed! |
I cannot confirm nor deny that. Might be more of an urban legend. Though the way the Civil War is taught at the K-12 level, at least how I experienced it growing up in the midwest and southwest, was awfully simplistic and probably biased towards the north. It would be very useful to learn about the war and the cases leading up to the war from a more southern perspective.
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting KROC (Reply 3): It's been said that there are those in the South that are still fighting the Civil War, and I agree. Being a yankee who has lived in Mississippi and Georgia, I had my balls broken by plenty of 'good ole boys' about being from New York/a Yankee. All kinds of crap too about the south rising again and all that nonsense. Whatever fellas. We're all one nation. |
Springing from divided (Nebraska-Texas) parentage, I somewhat agree with KROC. The South loves to romanticize about rising again, but it's only a very small percentage who would actually welcome it happening. There has been too much cross-pollination of northerners living in the south and southerners moving north to keep the division going. The only people really fighting the Civil War - apart from the re-enactors - are a very small number of largely uneducated and rural southern rednecks.
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- AsstChiefMark
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RE: US Civil War Feelings
I detest the yeehaw good ol' boys who continue to display the flag of racism and discrimination. You lost. Get over it.
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting DesertJets (Reply 4): Though the way the Civil War is taught at the K-12 level, at least how I experienced it growing up in the midwest and southwest, was awfully simplistic and probably biased towards the north. It would be very useful to learn about the war and the cases leading up to the war from a more southern perspective. |
It is taught differently. Both of my kids went through high school in Virginia, and their version of the Civil War isn't the same one I got in California.
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- airportugal310
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RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting Halls120 (Reply 7): Quoting DesertJets (Reply 4): Though the way the Civil War is taught at the K-12 level, at least how I experienced it growing up in the midwest and southwest, was awfully simplistic and probably biased towards the north. It would be very useful to learn about the war and the cases leading up to the war from a more southern perspective. It is taught differently. Both of my kids went through high school in Virginia, and their version of the Civil War isn't the same one I got in California. |
This professor was a psychology professor who went to school in North Carolina....
| Quoting AsstChiefMark (Reply 6): You lost. Get over it. |
I dont get the feeling they ever will, if after over 100 years, the possibility exists in their minds that they will once again reclaim something
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting Halls120 (Reply 7): their version of the Civil War isn't the same one I got in California. |
Mother was born in Florida, her version of the Civil War was different than what I was taught in California, it was thanks Mom for your input, but I'll learn the version that gets me a passing grade.
| Quoting AsstChiefMark (Reply 6): You lost. Get over it. |
And if we had any Generals with guts, the civil war could have ended at Gettysburg.
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting LHMARK (Reply 1):
It's called "The War of Northern Aggression!" |
Love the signature about General John Sedgwick, LHMARK - thought I was the only one who knew about him. A good officer whose luck ran out - just like Stonewall Jackson? Met a tour guide at Chancellorsville/Spotsylvania who told me he was hit at about 500 yards by a sniper using one of the very first telescopic sights - don't know if that's true.
"A few seconds after, a man who had been separated from his regiment passed directly in front of the general, and at the same moment a sharp-shooter's bullet passed with a long shrill whistle very close, and the soldier, who was then just in front of the general, dodged to the ground. The general touched him gently with his foot, and said, " Why, my man, I am ashamed of you, dodging that way," and repeated the remark, " They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." The man rose and saluted and said good-naturedly, " General, I dodged a shell once, and if I hadn't, it would have taken my head off. I believe in dodging." The general laughed and replied, "All right, my man; go to your place."
"For a third time the same shrill whistle, closing with a dull, heavy stroke, interrupted our talk; when, as I was about to resume, the general's face turned slowly to me, the blood spurting from his left cheek under the eye in a steady stream. He fell in my direction ; I was so close to him that my effort to support him failed, and I fell with him."
http://www.civilwarhome.com/sedgwickdeath.htm
About the South after the Civil War - I do wonder if the worst thing southerners ever did was assassinate Lincoln as soon as the war ended. He seemed a very wise man and he'd have understood the need for reconciliation - I'll always believe that he'd have stopped the carpet-baggers in their tracks.
[Edited 2008-01-15 04:35:11]
RE: US Civil War Feelings
There is a very good book on this issue called 'Confederates in the Attic' by Tony Horwitz. Basically, he lives very close to the Manassas Battlefield here in Virginia, and woke up one morning to find a bunch of reenactors in a field across from his house, and then spends a year following the most hardcore of the reenactors around, while also trying to figure out why there is this romantic notion of the pre-Civil War South. While I'm sure it isn't the be-all and end-all on the subject, it was an excellent read.
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting AirPortugal310 (Thread starter): "The South will rise again" or something like that are common on shirts etc... |
Common? ROTFL I live in Georgia, have relatives in Alabama and I've never seen one. But thanks for the laugh!
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting AirPortugal310 (Thread starter):
"The South will rise again" |
The number of people who truely think it would be a good idea probably number in the few dozens. But it is a cute little way of giving the finger to the Yanks (northerners) who think of southerners as inbred rednecks.
| Quoting AirPortugal310 (Thread starter):
Are people still bitter about the Civil War and do they really believe there will be another? |
The bitterness comes from the fact that "the victor writes the history books". We are taught in school that the war was all about slavery and how Lincoln wanted to free them, and the South wanted to keep slavery. That is utter BS. Lincoln, in his own words, did not give a flying fig whether the slaves were free or not. His sole and only purpose was not permitting a part of the country to break away.
| Quote:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." |
Put it this way. There is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE between the Lincoln's reasons for fighting the war than Slobodan Milosovic's attempts to keep Croatia, Bosnia, and other parts of Yugoslavia together, or Russia's resistance to Chechen independence.
Now nobody in their right mind will argue that the South is not better off today for having remained in the Union, in the long term. But what ticks southerners off is how the "official" history draws the Yanks as saintly protectors of human rights and the Rebs as backwards slave-owning bastards. It was not that simple. The South's desire for independence was based on a number of issues, including taxation, trade restrictions, etc.
| Quoting DesertJets (Reply 4):
IMO the north was relatively more egalitarian at the time. |
Hardly. The north was in the early industrial revolution. Industrial workers made poverty wages, no safety considerations, no rights whatsoever, child labor and all the other bad paints that convinced Marx to dream up communism.
Edited for formatting
[Edited 2008-01-15 05:11:48]
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting Halls120 (Reply 13):
I suspect that if Grant had been in command instead of Meade, he'd have pursued Lee instead of holding back as Meade did. |
The same was said about McClellan after Antietam - that he 'held back.' I'm not sure that, after having about one-third of their forces killed or wounded, and with everyone worn out, either McClellan or Meade would have felt able to pursue a general of Lee's brilliance deep into the South with whatever 'effectives' they had left.......
Agreed that, in the end, Grant went on the offensive in 1864 and never let up, and therefore won. But he had two advantages - the draft was in full swing, providing an endless supply of men, and he had the President's entire confidence. Even so, he learned the hard way that a continuous offensive could not succeed, in terms of defeating Lee and taking Richmond - and had the sense to change his strategy, take his army across the James River, and settle for six months of grinding siege warfare at Petersburg, cutting off the Southerners' supplies until Sherman - NOT Grant himself - succeeded in finally defeating the Confederates in the open field:-
"I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22d of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained. Indeed, the advantages other than those of relative losses, were on the Confederate side."
http://www.bartleby.com/1011/55.html
[Edited 2008-01-15 05:19:27]
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting Cfalk (Reply 14): The bitterness comes from the fact that "the victor writes the history books". We are taught in school that the war was all about slavery and how Lincoln wanted to free them, and the South wanted to keep slavery. That is utter BS. Lincoln, in his own words, did not give a flying fig whether the slaves were free or not. His sole and only purpose was not permitting a part of the country to break away. |
That's a bit simplistic. As the rumblings of war grew closer, with Bloody Kansas and the Missouri crisis, it became evident to Lincoln, and indeed the leadership of both northern and southern states, that slavery would make it impossible to keep the Union together in the long run. Either it had to go, or the South would go. In that sense, Lincoln had a great deal of interest in freeing the slaves.
I could look this stuff up and support it, but I'm too lazy right now.
RE: US Civil War Feelings
As a friend of mine from down South put it 'Lee surrendered...we didn't.'
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting LHMARK (Reply 16): Either it had to go, or the South would go. In that sense, Lincoln had a great deal of interest in freeing the slaves. |
Dead right, I reckon - Lincoln was the consummate politician, but ALSO a principled man.
The War at the outset was about Union. Oddly enough, the South was in the right there - there was, and is, nothing in the Constitution that forbids secession - but Lincoln could see that control of the Mississippi would prevent any expansion of the USA westwards to the Pacific. So the South had to be kept in the Union.
In point of fact, he only took steps to 'make the War about slavery' in late 1862, once McClellan had delivered a victory at Antietam, and in response to a threat by Britain to recognise the Confederacy. And even THEN he only abolished slavery in the South, not slavery in key Northern states like Maryland and Missouri.....
A brilliant man altogether. He always got the politics right - but he needed to find people like Sherman and Grant before the military side got sorted out. Funny to reflect that if Robert E. Lee had accepted Lincoln's offer of command of the Northern forces at the very beginning, the Civil War would probably have been over in a few months......
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting LHMARK (Reply 16): That's a bit simplistic. As the rumblings of war grew closer, with Bloody Kansas and the Missouri crisis, it became evident to Lincoln, and indeed the leadership of both northern and southern states, that slavery would make it impossible to keep the Union together in the long run. Either it had to go, or the South would go. In that sense, Lincoln had a great deal of interest in freeing the slaves. |
We can't help oversimplifying matters in a thread like this. The politics at the time were just as complex and convoluted as they are today, and do you think we can accurately describe today's political landscape in a single thread? I don't think so.
Yes, slavery was a big problem - mainly concerning its expansion into new territories, not so much as to whether or not it would be allowed to exist in the 'Old' South. Indeed, many northerners had no wish to see slavery abolished, as Congress forced the south to export its agricultural products through northern trading houses (one of the many causes of the war), and the elimination of slavery would have reduced profits for all sides (it sucks when you have to pay your workers, doesn't it
)RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting Cfalk (Reply 20): Yes, slavery was a big problem - mainly concerning its expansion into new territories, not so much as to whether or not it would be allowed to exist in the 'Old' South. Indeed, many northerners had no wish to see slavery abolished, as Congress forced the south to export its agricultural products through northern trading houses (one of the many causes of the war), and the elimination of slavery would have reduced profits for all sides (it sucks when you have to pay your workers, doesn't it sarcastic ) |
But at the same time, the abolitionist movement rumbling out of New England (and Rochester, home of Frederick Douglass and his newspaper 'The North Star') was growing exponentially as a social force in the North.
Slavery was met with various levels of unease in the North. The importation of new slaves was banned in 1808, and many hoped it would quietly die over time. The shock of sudden emancipation was sure to cause a torrent of social problems, like a sudden dumping of millions of workers into the labor pool. So many in the North were content to shut their eyes to the problem. Politicians like Lincoln had to weigh their own principles against the potential for damage to the nation as a whole, and as such they found the Abolitionists' position too extreme.
Yet the movement had been picking up steam since 1775, and as John Brown demonstrated, was growing more violent. I think, eventually, the Abolitionists would have gained enough political power to field the congressmen, and maybe even the president, to go to war over this issue alone.
RE: US Civil War Feelings
My feelings:
The war is over-get over it.
(aimed toward those who sport the rebel flag).
The war is over-get over it.
(aimed toward those who sport the rebel flag).
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- AsstChiefMark
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RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting AA61Hvy (Reply 23): My feelings: The war is over-get over it. (aimed toward those who sport the rebel flag). |
Hmmmm ... sounds vaguely familiar
US Civil War Feelings (by AirPortugal310 Jan 14 2008 in Non Aviation)
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting LHMARK (Reply 22):
Slavery was met with various levels of unease in the North. The importation of new slaves was banned in 1808, and many hoped it would quietly die over time. The shock of sudden emancipation was sure to cause a torrent of social problems, like a sudden dumping of millions of workers into the labor pool. So many in the North were content to shut their eyes to the problem. Politicians like Lincoln had to weigh their own principles against the potential for damage to the nation as a whole, and as such they found the Abolitionists' position too extreme. |
This is a thread that I read with interest, but just to throw this in there for what it is worth, when Brazil ended slavery there was a period of huge immigration - especially from Italy/Europe but also as far away as Lebanon and Japan, due to the demand for workers. What you said makes sense but in the end something unexpected happened in Brazil. Maybe it's just the fact that they needed skilled labor and most slaves didn't have many skills.
[Edited 2008-01-15 08:34:00]
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- rfields5421
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RE: US Civil War Feelings
Another item often overlooked is that in many of the original southern states - farming by slave labor was no longer economically productive. In states such as Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia, the raising and sale of slaves to states farther west was their main "crop".
The leaders and landowners of those states needed the new states to be slave states to keep their market for their main product.
But, having been raised in the south - the biggest reason of the "South will rise again" was not the war itself - the the 10-20 years after the war.
When the people of the south had almost all their constitutional protections stripped, their land stolen, etc.
The Civil War was about economics - as almost all wars. But slavery was a cancer eating at the nation's soul - it had to be abolished.
Unfortunately it was replaced by the cancer of poverty.
The leaders and landowners of those states needed the new states to be slave states to keep their market for their main product.
But, having been raised in the south - the biggest reason of the "South will rise again" was not the war itself - the the 10-20 years after the war.
When the people of the south had almost all their constitutional protections stripped, their land stolen, etc.
The Civil War was about economics - as almost all wars. But slavery was a cancer eating at the nation's soul - it had to be abolished.
Unfortunately it was replaced by the cancer of poverty.
RE: US Civil War Feelings
| Quoting Cfalk (Reply 14): The number of people who truely think it would be a good idea probably number in the few dozens. |
Whoa - maybe I underestimated it. Lookee here what I found...
http://www.newconfederacy.com/
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- AsstChiefMark
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