I can't believe I'm saying this...

[DB Curtis]

I'm still very pro-south, don't get me wrong, just not to the point of assuming the south was always right.

Bill Torrens, thanks.

[ole]

Originally Posted by bill_torrens

[i]

The truth is that the call for 100,000 Southern volunteers was not in anticipation of fighting 16,000 U.S. regulars but in anticipation of fighting considerably more than 100, 000 Northern volunteers. Which is precisely how things panned out.

Which proves that the secessionists knew that what they were doing would lead to war. They had twisted the tail of the tiger, but forgot to remember the teeth on the other end.

Ole

Rather than do another, I'll comment on my CW education: Zip. In grade school, we had the 3Rs. Period. (One room rural schoo, BTW.)

In high school, history classes were for those who didn't opt for advanced geometry.

In college, I was having too much fun to remember if sosh included anything but world history. I began reading on my own. A BOMC membership came up with Catton's trilogy, "The Army of the Potomac." From then on, sporadically over the years, I've been reading.

But nothing compares with the learning I've been getting on this site. Thanks.
Ole

[rbenne]

You are all lucky you get that much in your schools. I teach at a college where I have heard everything from the civil war was to free us from the English to "that war with the Germans". As it is a minority dominant school I also hear a lot about how the 54th Mass won the war single handed, against the Germans and English.....

Sigh

[TimNichols1956]

The novel I've just published, The Reunion, is written from the point of view of a Union soldier fighting with the 12th West Virginia Infantry. To try to be completely honest with what must have motivated him I had to try to put myself in his skin and ask myself what would drive me to do what he and thousands of others did. His motives evolved from putting down rebellion after Fort Sumter to revenge (for offenses you have to read the book to understand ) to freeing slaves. I've thought about trying to tackle the same events from the point of view of a Confederate soldier trying to sort out some of the same moral issues (foraging -- official and unofficial, mistreatment of civilians in occupied territory, etc.). I wonder if there is a reasonable way to compare today's abortion issue with the slavery issue? Many in the south were not personally "pro-slavery." They were in favor of the state's right to choose ("pro-choice"). I think that soldiers on both sides, to some degree, chose to believe the things most consistent with what they were doing and resisted truths that were not consistent with what they were doing. I don't claim to know, just thinking. -- Tim Nichols www.timothynichols.com

[hoosier]

I'm surprised I hadn't noticed this thread earlier.

I'm not going to try to go into a lengthy discussion of who did what right and who did what wrong.

However, I will comment that if Judah Benjamin was a Christian, as asserted in the initial post, I know less about the Civil War than I thought I did.

[sgtcsa]

Gentlemen, and any ladies that I might have missed,

First, I went to High School in, at the time, a small town called McLean, in Fairfax County, in Northern Virginia. I can remember that we were taught that Virginia went to war because the North invaded the South over very hot political issues, including not allowing slavery in any State that might be added to the Union, because slavery, at the time, was essential to the Sountern economy, and that slavery was permitted by the Constitution to exist in the South as well as any other State that would have it.

Although we were taught this, we were also taught that there were other issues thrown into the mix, to cause the Southern States to 'rebel' against the Federal Government, such as Sectional jealousy, States rights, Tarrifs, and the growth of that central government, to the point of it becoming too big, although I suppose you could put this under the States Rights heading. The teachers I had almost always put a Southern slant on things, looking at the conflict from a Southern point of view. Some of those points seemed wrong, such as the act of slavery itself, however, it was 'legal' at the time, and I suppose that was the bottom line. Growing up, I was brought up and taught, that the blacks were not quite as good as whites, at that time, which was certainaly no novel idea, as the idea was a Northern one as well, perhaps just not as widely publicized or talked about, especially up North.

We had segregated schools, stores and just about everything else, where the 'public' congregated. But, we didn't really believe that it was wrong, because that is the way we were brought up, that was what my parents taught me, and my school mates and friends, all believed, as their parents taught them. That's just the way it was. My views didn't really change until I inlisted in the military in 1961, and even then, it took many years after that, to change the philosophy I had grown up with, and to realize that all men are equal. But, those were different times I grew up in and peoples ideals were different as well.

It is very easy to look down your noses at anyone who believed such things and ideals then, but over time, those ideals have changed and thus, people look at those issues much differently now. Hindsight?......I suppose you could say that. It is easy to point out wrongs done then, with todays mind, and that hindsight. The one thing that has stood out to me over time, has been the Yankee myth that the South was an almost evil section of the country, and that they were totally wrong in everything they did. I have stated this more than once, and I mean this with all my power to believe anything, and that is.............my ancestors did not fight in that terrible conflict to advance the institution of slavery. They fought against something that they percieved to be a threat to their well being, livlihood, and their homes, and anyone who tells me different, knows nothing about who those people were.

The South did what they thought was right at the time, in spite of what people say today. They may have gone about it wrong, but they did it anyway, and hoped for the best. They were outmanned, out gunned, out outfitted, and out fed by the North, but still they went to war. Nobody goes to war like that, and not believe in what they are doing, is right. I for one, like this board, and the people who come here, but it hits on me, just as the Southerners of '61, that it hurts a little to have someone come down to your 'land',or home, and tell you that you're wrong in what you're doing, and to stop it. It may be, but it's your town, your home and your way of life, and to have someone come to you and tell you to quit doing what you've been doing for years, and don't believe it's wrong, wears kind of thin on you. I mean, let's face it, it had been done for a hundred years, both North and South, and then, it's wrong.

It takes time for things like that to be corrected and ideas to be rethought, but I'm sure that they would have changed with the passage of time. But, there were too many who just wouldn't wait, and others who thought that they were being put upon by unscrupulous politicians who were against what they thought was good for the South. And so........the war began.

Respectfully,
SgtCSA........

[russ_aukerman]

sgtcsa -

I believe it is wrong to judge the people of the CW era by today's moral standards. But that won't stop people from doing so. I see no guilt in believing in those you were raised to believe in - parents, teachers, etc. It strikes me that your evolution of moral conscience coincided with that of much of the country. I hope that is something you'll feel good about, and not let anyone take away from you.

[ole]

I fail to see the point (and not the first time, either). I have yet to see any posting on this board denigrating the southern people for what they believed to be true. There is a consistent effort to look at any situation through the eyes of those who were faced with that situation.

Slavery was wrong, although many at the time did not think so, that argument is removed from the table. That the leaders did attempt to use constitutional sanction for slavery to extend their own political power remains on the table. That the leaders went to war to defend an institution that they believed to be threatened remains on the table. Slavery, in their short-sighted minds, was worth destroying their brothers for. That remains on the table.

[larry_cockerham]

SgtCSA was stating what he remembers from the 1960s, an era that I recall as well. I was born in 1947 in western North Carolina. I agree with his sentiments and concur with his memory of the way things were. That doesn't make the practices of the 1960s and prior right or moral, but his description is pretty accurate. I've got to agree with him. As I've tried to state a few times, that there was more to this war, and the reasons individuals were swept up in the tide, than slavery, tariffs, states rights etc.

[ole]

Larry:

I'm not disputing SgtCSA's contention that his education in the 60's was slanted one way and that others' educations were similarly slanted. I was holding that on this board, sincere attempts are made to avoid looking at the past through modern eyes.

I grew up a bit before that in the upper midwest and have no recollection of any bias in the study of the CW. In fact, I have no recollection of studying it at all, except for mention that it did happen. My personal theory holds that political power plays on both sides spread combustible material over the entire situation. I'm still trying to determine why the match was lit in Charleston Harbor.

Regards, Ole.