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BTW, if you simply want to ignore the first 18 years of her life, you left out her degree from the University of Ireland, Galway; her time teaching at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, and her current position at Georgetown University (she lives in Virginia with her family). That is what is fairly well described as an impressive resume. What is it you are trying to say about it?
Also, BTW, Mount Holyoke is a long-established and well-respected college. I got my own undergraduate degree just down the road apiece from it.
Again, BTW, Chandra Manning won the annual C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize from the Southern Historical Association. The award is for the best dissertation on some aspect of southern history. This was for Manning’s 2002 dissertation, “What This Cruel War Was Over: Why Union and Confederate Soldiers Thought They Were Fighting the Civil War", now turned into the book you are trying to smear. Why do you think the Southern Historical Association awarded her that prize?
With the observation some have made that slavery perhaps 'was not that bad,' I offer the following from the book, Richmond Burning, The Last Days Of The Confederate Capital, by Nelson Lankford.
From Chapter 19, The Sorry Silence of a Conquered People, page 237, comes the following:
White ministers of black churches did not last many Sundays after the occupation [of Richmond]. On Palm Sunday, before the news of Appomattox reached they city, Robert Ryland dared to warn his flock at the African Baptist Church against the USCT recruiting officers. On hearing his inflammatory remarks, black [Union] soldiers in the congregation tried to arrest Ryland when the service ended. Some parishioners pleaded with them to spare the old man that indignity. Like so many whites who thought they understood black Richmonders, [Rev. Robert] Ryland could not fathom the loathing of people for their enslavement and their exaltation at its demise.
As much was clear from a conversation he had with the Rev. Peter Randolph some weeks later. Born a slave in Prince George County, Virginia, but freed by his owner before the war, Randolph moved to the North. He returned to be the postwar pastor of Ebenezer Bapist Church in Richmond. Nor realizing Randolph was a Virginian, Ryland tried to tell him that slavery in the Old Dominion had been an exceedingly mild institution. Randolph later remembered that he replied, with a long sigh, "If Hell was any worse than slavery in Virginia, I did not want to go there."
Now, who should know better on how well slaves were treated while slaves than slaves themselves?
Of course, my suggestion should be quite obvious. Unless one has been a slave, no amount of what is thought to be 'kindness' shown by a white slaveholder to an enslaved black man, can be understood how much that enslavement was loathed, hated, and resented by him.
Unionblue
Good post as is your habit. Wouldn't conditions have varied a bit with individual situations? This generalization seems to add a stink to a pot that didn't probably smell all that good to begin with, but had some more nearly pleasant circumstances. Yes, slavery was a no, no.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
you left out her degree from the University of Ireland, Galway; her time teaching at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, and her current position at Georgetown University (she lives in Virginia with her family). That is what is fairly well described as an impressive resume.
Also, BTW, Mount Holyoke is a long-established and well-respected college. I got my own undergraduate degree just down the road apiece from it.
Again, BTW, Chandra Manning won the annual C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize from the Southern Historical Association. The award is for the best dissertation on some aspect of southern history. This was for Manning’s 2002 dissertation, “What This Cruel War Was Over: Why Union and Confederate Soldiers Thought They Were Fighting the Civil War", now turned into the book you are trying to smear. Why do you think the Southern Historical Association awarded her that prize?
Tim
Mighty fine....mighty fine......
~
I'm conducting my own appraisal of letters written by Confederates.
And your answer to the question I asked, "Why do you think the Southern Historical Association awarded her that prize?", is ...?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
I'm conducting my own appraisal of letters written by Confederates.
Reviewed and counted as found.
Current status-
Letters- 20
Slavery mentioned as TheCause- 0 (Zero)
I drove by a library and looked at a copy of Chandra Manning's book at lunch. Her footnotes are extensive, and all the ones I knew or could check in a hurry were accurate references. But, of course, her footnotes run to 85 pages in that edition, so I didn't check anything like all of them. Manning herself reviewed letters from about 1100 different soldiers in her work, so you have a way to go: how many different men are you up to now?
It looked like an interesting book, if not too exciting. I'd suggest you might try reading the book before you start trying to contradict it.
Noted that myself, trice. The book is about half footnotes and bibliography. And I made the same once-over judgement: "I'll bet this book is dry, dry, dry." But it would appear from the hooplah that it's an ought-to-have. Don't know when I'm gonna get to it 'though.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I myself have been looking - here's some if the words used..John King..joined the South for patriotism
Dutch Wuzkach joined for "wanderlust"
THe Truehearts of Galveston joined for "patriotism" even though they despised that slavery had become an issue.
Jackman of the Orphan's brigade wrote that he was "lured" into duty by the stumpers speeches and rhetoric.
The word lured doesn't invoke undying loyalty to the principle of slavery!
The words "fighting for the South" come up over and over again. "Manliness, duty, honor and courage"were watch words too.
So it occurs to me that this is all about framework..how the reader percieves the meanings.
By the way some of the leters I read are listed in Chandra's study cause they're in everyone's study.
If a man states he's going to war to "see the elephant", then thats what he means...he did not say "oh, and to fight for slavery too."
Did the Southern boys know slavery was an issue - yes. Did they know states rights was an issue - yes. Were they fightin for anything? No...they were fightin against.
It's enough of a question that great scholars have questioned it. Read Embattled Courage, an older but wiser tome that studies both Northern and Southern men. Men were not fighting for those grand ideas that the politicians put forth. They were signing up to take measure of thier manhood!
Our troops are not fighting in Iraq for the grand idea of democracy. They are there because they are "patriotic" young people, because they felt called to "duty", some have said they are fighting against the tyranny of religious groups.
I know this will not be popular but I had to address this.
When circumstances of the ACW are not looked at and judged by that period in time, misunderstandings and wrongful impressions abound.
Whipping and Flogging were considered fair punishment in the 1860's. They did it in both the Southern and Northern armies and navies to military men. Often.
It had been officially abolished before the ACW but never had been by troops.
Some asked for whipping rather than suffer being spread on a wagon wheel all day in the sun with no water or bucked and gagged.
In that day and time whipping and flogging were not viewed as inhumane punishments.
Just an FYI for those of you who didn't know.
Texas2nd
I myself have been looking - here's some if the words used..John King..joined the South for patriotism
Patriotism is love of country. It represents allegiance to what the country stands for.
And what was the cornerstone of the confederacy? What did it stand for?
"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition." [Alexander H. Stephens, Savannah, Georgia, 21 Mar 1861]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas2nd
THe Truehearts of Galveston joined for "patriotism" even though they despised that slavery had become an issue.
See the above. They may have despised the fact that slavery had become an issue, but they were willing to stand by the side that was fighting to perpetuate slavery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas2nd
Jackman of the Orphan's brigade wrote that he was "lured" into duty by the stumpers speeches and rhetoric.
The word lured doesn't invoke undying loyalty to the principle of slavery!
The speeches and rhetoric that lured him do, though.
"If the policy of the Republicans is carried out, according to the programme indicated by the leaders of the party, and the South submits, degradation and ruin must overwhelm alike all classes of citizens in the Southern States. The slave-holder and non-slave-holder must ultimately share the same fate-- all be degraded to a position of equality with free negroes, stand side by side with them at the polls, and fraternize in all the social relations of life; or else there will be an eternal war of races, desolating the land with blood, and utterly wasting and destroying all the resources of the country.
"Who can look upon such a picture without a shudder? What Southern man, be he slave-holder or non-slave-holder, can without indignation and horror contemplate the triumph of negro equality, and see his own sons and daughters, in the not distant future, associating with free negroes upon terms of political and social equality, and the white man stripped, by the Heaven-daring hand of fanaticism of that title to superiority over the black race which God himself has bestowed?" [Stephen Hale to Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky, 27 Dec 1860]
And therefore "lured" most certainly does, in this case, invoke undying loyalty to the institution of slavery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas2nd
The words "fighting for the South" come up over and over again. "Manliness, duty, honor and courage"were watch words too.
Again, what did the confederacy stand for? It stood for maintaining slavery and white supremacy.
And how did they define their "manliness," their "duty," and their "honor?" Read Stephen Hale's quotation above again for the answer to those questions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas2nd
Did the Southern boys know slavery was an issue - yes. Did they know states rights was an issue - yes. Were they fightin for anything? No...they were fightin [i]against.
Except state rights wasn't an issue in the war. If state rights were an issue, why did the seceding states want to trample on the state rights of free states who passed personal liberty laws?
Noted that myself, trice. The book is about half footnotes and bibliography. And I made the same once-over judgement: "I'll bet this book is dry, dry, dry." But it would appear from the hooplah that it's an ought-to-have. Don't know when I'm gonna get to it 'though.
Ole
It's not dry at all. It's a terrific read. The words of the soldiers themselves spice it up.
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