Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Sam:
I don't have enough thanks to give you for that quote. It ought to be engraved on the tablets of the SCV, GAP and every "patriotic" organization now jockeying for first place in bestowing honor.
Stunning in its clarity and emotion. Kinda says it all. I am now an Ambrose Bierce worshipper.
__________________ 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
Bierce... as cynical as they came but as accurate as a man who had been there could be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by samgrant
"On one of his visits to the South, he found, in a little West Virginia valley, a graveyard of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in one of the battles in which he had taken a part, and he wrote of them - in a piece called A Bivouac with the Dead - with a tenderness that was very rare of him:
"They were honest and courageous foemen, having little in common with the madmen who persuraded them to their doom and the literary bearers of false witness in the aftertime. They did not live through the period of honorable strife into the period of vilification - did not pass from the iron age to the brazen - from the era of the sword to that of the tongue and pen. Among them is no member of the Southern Historical Society. Their valor was not the fury of the non-combatant; they have no voice in the thunder of the civilians and the shouting. Not by them are impaired the dignity and infinite pothos of the Lost Cause."
"he wrote to his friend "They found a Confederate soldier the other day with his rifle alongside. Im going over to beg his pardon.""
from: Political Gore by Edmond Wilson
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Honoring the soldiers is and never will be the problem.
The history of why they died and came to fight all those battles with courage and devotion will always be a source of contention, just as Sam's quote points out.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Neil, I merely contend that those reasons for fighting were complex or quite simple as were the perspectives of the individual soldiers. No catch-all answer. Fascinating subject, this civil war.
__________________ 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
I'm enthralled with the notion that Ambrose said in a seven-line paragraph, what we've been talking about for years and years, again and again. Johnny got hosed. Big time. No taint on him -- he did what was expected of a young man on this or that side of the fence. He had no dog in the fight; he was someone else's dog.
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
You contend, I portend, but I can agree that this civil war is a fascinating subject.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
I love that: "Their valor was not the fury of the non-combatant; they have no voice in the thunder of the civilians and the shouting. Not by them are impaired the dignity and infinite pothos of the Lost Cause."
"he wrote to his friend "They found a Confederate soldier the other day with his rifle alongside. Im going over to beg his pardon.""
The Lost Cause is obviously nothing new and it certainly picqued the MEN who were there on the sharp end. Bierce... interesting to me that Twain called him the most cynical man in the world. I think he had just grown so disgusted that it was the stay behinders who influenced the world after and not the men who made the changes from the sharp end of the spear.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
This topic reminds me of the movie Rainmaker, where the abusive husband regularly beats up his wife because she just won't recognize how much he loves her.
This is more of the same form of Unionist lunacy, just on a larger scale.
The fact that they really do love us inferior, ungrateful Southern rascals is proof how bad we are.
If only we would embrace them and admit how bad we are and how much they really truly love us we wouldn't need to be punished anymore. We should be ashamed of ourselves. How can we sleep at night.
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