A Southern point of view

As a near novice to the events pre, during and post your historical conflict. I have learned more reading through these threads than I believe any library of books could have given me.
I hold the greatest respect for the people of both North and South who gave so much, including their all, to create a nation you all enjoy today.
My original opinions may have been more split between right and wrong. I now see more blurred edges to the whole shooting match.
My preference in any historical context, is to put myself in the shoes of the "everyman". As we can all attest to today. Often our elected representatives are not pulling their weight in the interests of the majority. It seems more about keeping big business, the utility companies and bankers sweet. And yet we the "everyman" pay for the privelege of making these wheels of industry run smoothly, by paying our taxes and accepting the roles of sub-ordinates.
I do not believe it could have been much different to the ordinary citizen of mid 1800s America. Even though we have such access to media and news reports today, we are still often hoodwinked by those working to their own agenda.
What media would the people of mid 19th century have had at their fingertips. Newspapers would have no doubt reported in full all debates, and polical manouvering leading up to the impending crisis. But how many, even by todays standards, read so thorougly as to formulate our own opinions. Some but not all may do so. But many would rely on abridged testimony, with opinions of the day prevalent. Add this to rumour spreading. And you have a population primed for shadowing of the truth and propoganda.
As many threads here point out. Slavery was the outright cause and underlying reason for the war. This I do not doubt. But what I also see is the vieled references to this fact by politicians. They would even give it a different name "peculiar institution", rather than refer to it directly.
For this reason I feel many people were drawn into a war under false pretences. Not until 2 years into the conflict were the cards placed into view upon the table. By which time for right or wrong, the war continued unabated with both sides determined to see it through to the bitter end. There would be soldiers on both sides who had witnessed many horrors, lost many friends and family. And would fight on with pride and valour. Even though the morality of the war was now firmly with one side and their objective was now "Banner headline","End of Slavery".
For those who went into the war 2 years previous, I can't help but think that they may have felt more than a little bit hoodwinked.
Even for the ordinary man of the South, who may have viewed slavery as wrong. How many ever actually had the power to change such an institution? How many of us today see injustices all around. Homelessness, Sickness, Poverty within the shadow of oppulence, Child neglect. And we as a lone voice are powerless. That is the job of our elected power brokers.
That is why. I firmly point the finger of blame, that so many gave their lives. For the benefit of the few. Who had it within their power to do the right thing at the outset, and set the people free.
Both the black ones and the white ones.

Very nice post. I would also point out, that many people couldn't read or write at time of Civil War. They would have relied on the spoken word. It be interesting to know the percentage of people who could read or write. It would have to be broken down men. women, and races. Maybe some one out on forum has researched this question.

I was under the impression that the Civil War was the first conflict in which the vast majority of participants could read and write. Of course, those numbers would vary depending on race.

R

There are census compilations, and one can get an idea of ex-slaves' literacy by looking at the 1870 census. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking it's around 90-95% literacy for whites, 50% for blacks. Should be a fairly quick google. Yes, here we go, page forward and back for lots of tables, broken down by economic status, immigrant status, region etc.: http://books.google.com/books?id=mY3zX8uAm1kC&pg=PA344&output=html

James B. White thanks for site. I have been checking into question of literacy since I posted. It appears it was much better at outbreak of Civil War. I guess I was thinking more of Ky. Many of my ancestors from areas of Ky. could not read or write. Kentucky did lag behind when came to literacy.

To get very specific regional information, you could browse through census pages for a town and count the percentages.

Great post. It's nice to get an analysis from someone "outside" the situation; you have no stake in the issue, no subconscious childhood "indoctrination" from family, peers, or local society. It's hard for us born into and trained within the "situation" to come to the issue with a fresh, open mind and try to ignore everything we've absorbed since early childhood.

Agreed.......

I have seen information on literacy showing percentages as low as 50% for Virginia and some states were even lower. Virginia fought the idea of public funding of schools and this was apparent in the low literacy rates before and for a long period of time after the Civil War. The landed gentry of the south did not want to pay taxes or in anyway fund education. This is a reason that illiteracy was common in the Appalachian Mountains for much of the late 19th to the mid 20th Centuries. The political power (before, during and well after the War) was in the hands of many who felt that only the well-to-do needed to have a education and that most people only needed to develop a vocation.

Could you post a link or a source for those statistics?

It's true that free public education tended to be a northern thing, while the south resisted public schools and relied on paid education, but 50% sounds very low for white people.

Here's a site I found to play around with, though some of the data is limited:

http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/newlong.php

Using that, the 1870 census data for Virginia shows 390,913 illiterate people over 10 years old, out of 1,225,163 total population. But that would still make for a literacy rate of 68%, and that includes all the newly freed slaves. The actual rate would be a little higher, since one really should exclude children under 10 in the total population.

Under "change category listing," choose Education & Literacy and hit "submit query" to get a dropdown menu of different categories. Then select the topic in the upper box and hit "submit query" beneath that box. To compare illiteracy to the total population, go back to "general population" in the lower box to get those figures.

I'd be very surprised to see white literacy in Virginia at 50% statewide, in the wartime or antebellum era. Among blacks, sure, and perhaps some smaller regions.

I look at history as a 20th century American. And a good thing that the Union was preserved, the Confederacy lost, and we were a large enough and powerful enough to handle the 20th century Kaiser, Tojo, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and the various desposts that covered the 20th Century. I think more emphasis should be placed on the total incompetency of the Confederate leadership in starting the war. The Confederacy, like the U.S. was totally unprepared for war, but unlike the U.S. was unprepared for war during the entire Civil War.
I think well of the Confederate soldiers, whose only objection to the war, against their Confederate leaders, was to desert. Many were gone, before R.E. Lee surrendered. Not only did these men contribute to ending the war, many living Americans are descendants of these Americans of the 1860's, a connection all but forgotten.

Might we surmise that the Federal opposed their leadership even more than the Confederates given the Federal soldier greater penchant to desert?



Union desertion

In view of the conditions which prevailed in the war department and in the Union army, it is not surprising that desertion was a common fault. Even so the actual extent of it, shown in official reports, comes as a distinct shock. Though the determination of the full number is a bit complicated, the total would have been over 200,000. From New York there were 44,913 deserters according to the records; from Pennsylvania, 24,050; from Ohio, 18,354. The daily hardships of war, deficiency in arms, forced marches sometimes made straggling a necessary for less vigorous men), thirst, suffocating heat, disease, delay in pay, solicitude for family, impatience at the monotony and futility of inactive service, and (though this was not the leading cause) panic on the eve of battle—these were some of the conditioning factors that produced desertion. Many men absented themselves merely through unfamiliarity with military discipline or through the feeling that they should be “restrained by no other legal requirement than those of civil law governing a free people”; and such was a general attitude that desertion was often regarded “more as a refusal… to ratify a contract than as the commission of a grave crime.”

The sense of war weariness, the lack of confidence in commanders, and the discouragement of defeat tended to lower morale of the Union army and to increase desertions. General Hooker estimated in 1863 that 85,000 officers and men had deserted from the Army of the Potomac, while it was stated in December of 1862 that no less than 180,000 of the soldiers listed on the Union muster roll were absent, with or without leave. Abuse of leave or furlough privilege was one of the chief means of desertion. Other methods were: slipping to the rear during a battle, inviting capture by the enemy (a method by which honorable service could be claimed), straggling, taking French leave when on picket duty, pretending to be engaged in repairing a telegraph line, et cetera. Some deserters went over to enemy not as captives but as soldiers; others lived in a wild state on the frontier; some turned outlaw or went to Canada; some boldly appeared at home; in some cases deserter gangs, as in western Pennsylvania, formed bandit groups.

To suppress desertion the extreme penalty of death was at times applied, especially after 1863; but this meant no more than the selection of a few men as public examples out of many thousands equally guilty. The commoner method was to make public appeals to deserters, promising pardon in case of voluntary return with dire threats to those who failed to return. That desertion did not prevent a man posing after the war as an honorable soldier is evident by a study of pension records. The laws required honorable discharge as a requisite for a pension; but in the case of those charged with desertion Congress passed numerous private and special acts “correcting” the military record.

Source: J.G. Randall, David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company) pp. 329-331


Confederate Desertion

Desertion in the South though less extensive than in the North, was a factor of large significance; and a study of the causes that produced it goes far toward revealing the conditions which made the war intolerable to thousands among people and soldiers. As explained by Miss Ella Lonn, backwoodsmen and crackers were drawn into the army who had no sympathy with slavery and no interest in the issues of a struggle which they did not understand. The conscript net gathered in even Northerners and Mexicans, whose tendency to desert was natural enough. Many of the deserters were mere boys. Poor food and clothing lack of shoes and overcoats, and insufficient pay inevitably produced dissatisfaction. Sometimes the pay was fourteen months behind; Often a soldier on leave could not pay the transportation to return to his command. Unsanitary camp conditions had their debilitating effect. Soldiers kept in unwholesome inaction were more than commonly subject to homesickness and depression. Often the alternative was abandonment and neglect of wife and children or departure from the army – in other words a choice between two kinds of desertion, a dilemma in facing conflicting loyalties. Not a few Southern soldiers found themselves in the situation of an Alabaman who deserted the army when his wife wrote him: “We haven’t got nothing in the house to eat but a little bit of meal… I don’t want you to stop fighting them Yankees… but try and get off and come home and fix us up some and then you can go back.” Some Arkansas soldiers deserted when informed that Indians were on a scalping tour near their homes. Indignant at extortioners and profiteers, soldiers would become disgruntled at the “rich man’s war and the poor man’s fight.” For such men desertion bore no stigma; and, in sum, it appears that this factor (which after all, was but a reflection of many other factors) ‘contributed definitely to the Confederate defeats after 1862 and to the catastrophe of 1865.”

Ibid. pp. 516-517

Thanks for all the input! These statistics are very interesting. One could get lost in all of this!

When I read the name of this thread, A Southern Point of View, I assumed there would be some question directly relating to a southerner's point of view. I'm actually looking in the forum for this exact topic. I'm actually very interested in hearing from those on this forum from the south who consider themselves either direct descendents or otherwise those who have inherited the southern tradition and culture.

Why do you think the war was fought? What from your perspective in your community was the result of the conflict, and are there repercussions you feel the south is still recovering from? For example, I've heard it said that the south still hasn't recovered from the war. I think it's a very interesting statement to consider. Did we ever truly heal?

Thoughts??

There are varying degress of loyalty, but it's easy to understand how someone from the South would eventually brought into the conflict.

Mulejack

Thanks Mulejack. Any thoughts on my questions?

When you pose the question in the eyes of everyman It actually led me to think what I myself would have done had I been a man of age during the Civil War. Having been born in the North and always one who back northern sympathies about the Civil War and the deep loyaties I feel for country, friends and family. I realize now those same loyalties would have been reversed had I been born in some Southern States. It's simplistic, but I think understandable. Thanks for asking the question.

Mulejack

Literacy among young southern white adults was 89% in 1860 and fell to 81% by 1880.

http://books.google.com/books?id=AI...age&q=southern white literacy history&f=false

As far as the mountain areas, even with adequate funding, literacy was low. Only when the textile mills moved in did the population concentrate enough in one area to get all the kids to school. The population was too spread out and their weren't but few roads and none paved. The last mile to my great grandparents house in Swain County, NC was either by horse, wagon or foot in 1960.

After checking out my old college notebooks I found that I had used an estimate that included white, black and Indian groups in Virginia averaged together.
An interesting note was that many who were classified as "literate" individuals learned to read from other family members. It was an old idea of many families that literacy was being able to read the Bible.
In our local area three are still old school buildings that were "coal camp schools", small schools built by the coal companies.