Quote:
|
Originally Posted by gary While the Southern boy came to believe that they were fighting a rich man's war, this belief didn't come about until the 20 slave rule that followed in the wake of the draft. Many of the Southerners initially believed that they were fighting for states' rights (with its inference of legalized slavery) and the right to secede. Many stayed because of loyalty to each other (modern studies shows that after the initial bloodletting, men stay to fight for each other as opposed to the ideal of "God, King & Country." I would submit that those who stayed did so because of loyalty to their comrades. If they ran, how could they face their comrades when they (the latter) came home? Remember that units were recruited from specific towns or counties and everyone knew everyone else in civilian life. Then again, enough seceded from the war anyway because of their greater sense of duty to their immediate family. Good question. |
I'd like to make a comment here, and perhaps to insert a certain insight. It is a little personal to me, and I would like to state up front that I think this comment has a lot to do with men who fight in wars, and no particular relationship to Northerners or Southerners.
Saturday night I was at a dinner in Philadelphia. It was the annual Founder's Day dinner of the West Point Society down there. (I have relatives who graduated USMA, although I did not.)
The reason I was there was that my brother-in-law is a member. He had mentioned my Dad's wartime service to another member, someone had done some research, and they had decided to honor him with a formal ceremony for some of the awards he had never been presented with.
In doing that, they read the Presidential Unit Citation his division received (the 96th, fought at Leyte and Okinawa, one of only four division level Presidential citations given in WWII). There was a phrase in there about closing to "bayonet range" to drive the enemy out. Then retired Chief-of-Staff Shinseki started pinning ribbons and medals on the chest of Dad's tuxedo.
I knew a lot of the history. Dad's company, 192 official strength, took several hundred casualties in the war, about 60 or so KIA. They went straight through the meat grinder on Okinawa, and were still there digging out Japanese at the end. At one point, all the company-level officers at the front of his battalion were gone (killed, wounded, missing, collapsed in exhaustion) and Dad, a First Sergeant, ran the battalion front for three days until his Captain could get back up to the front.
But it had been my understanding Dad never took a scratch in the war. Somewhere in that research they had discovered he qualified for the Purple Heart. With two clusters.
I found a quiet moment after that and asked Dad about it. He said yes, they had the award right; he'd just never gone back from the line and nobody pushed the paperwork. If he'd gone back, he'd probably have been on a plane to Guam.
I knew others had done that. I once picked up a book around the house about Okinawa and noticed that Dad had written notes into the margins. One marked a certain day on Okinawa, a river crossing, and said he had only 7 men on the company morning report (reinforced to 220 men for the April 1 landing, worn down to nothing in about 40 days.)
So I asked Dad why he didn't go, just get out of the line and get into the hands of the medics and away from where people were shooting at him. His answer was a bit involved, and personal. But I guess you could say it came down to loyalty to the unit, and a sense that the Japanese weren't going to force him out of the fight.
I don't for a moment think that feeling was unique to Dad. He told me once about the "toughest" man he ever knew, an Apache man. There was a point on Okinawa where that guy was shot in the shoulder, obviously by a nearly spent bullet that penetrated under the skin. They could see it there. It took Dad, the 1st Sergeant, three days to talk that guy into going back to an aid station.
I remember sitting in a restaurant once with Dad, while he was telling me about the only one of their KIA the company had not been able to recover themselves despite three attempts (they were relieved by the 77th Division that night, and the 77th recovered the man for them the next day). Sixty years later, and the pain of not having done that last bit for one of their own was still there.
I am not sure how clearly that puts it, but I think it is in there somewhere. Every well-regarded unit I have ever read about had something like it: pride, fighting for each other, just plain stubborn, call it what you will. When you are where the bullets are flying and naked steel is bared, I don't think people are fighting for abstract things like slavery or states' rights, or tariffs. A few might say so, but I don't really believe them. I think that kind of talk is heard more in political speeches and bar-rooms than frontlines. I think that if a man found himself in the front and all he had to motivate himself was the thought of owning slaves, he'd find a way out of the line of fire.
So I agree that individuals probably fought for a lot of reasons. Probably the only "political" reason that might make sense in the thick of "action" (as my Dad calls it) was us-against-them, the Union or the Confederacy. All the rest of the talk and slogans is about the reasons the stupid war started in the first place, not about what the combat soldiers feel when they fight.
Personally, I think the most accurate summation of that was written decades ago, in the play "Shenandoah", in the song "I've Heard It All Before", written with the bitterness of the character's hindsight:
Stand and show your colors
Let's all go to war
The Lord will surely bless us
I've heard it all before
I’ve heard it all a hundred times
I’ve heard it all before
They’ve always got some holy cause
To march you off to war
Tyranny or justice, anarchy or law
We must defend our honor
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all a hundred times
I’ve heard it all before
They’ve always got a holy cause
That’s worth the dying for
Someone writes a slogan
Raises up a flag
Someone finds an enemy to blame
The trumpet sounds, the call to arms
To leave the cities and the farms
And always, the ending is the same
The same,
The SAME!
The same…
The dream has turned to ashes
The wheat has turned to straw
And someone asks the question
“What was the dying for?”
The living can’t remember
The dead no longer care
But next time it won’t happen
Upon my soul, I swear
I’ve heard it all a hundred times
I’ve heard it all before
Don’t tell me it’s different now!
I’ve heard it all
I’ve heard it all
I've heard it all before
Regards,
Tim
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Yeah UB................. 
Linear Mode
