What Were the Confederate Soldier Reasons for Fighting

1stvermont

Corporal
Joined
Oct 22, 2016
Confederate Soldiers

The confederate solder “Fought because he was provoked, intimidated, and ultimately invaded”
-James Webb Born Fighting a History of the Scoth-Irish in America


I was fighting for my home, and he had no business being there”
-Virginia confederate Solider Frank Potts


We are told that the south left the union to preserve slavery, while I disagree and future threads will dress that issue and are current. The question of this thread is what did the southern solider fight for?

To think the southern armies were full of non slave owning soldiers leaving their families and risking there lives so a few rich slave owners could keep there slaves seems a stretch. 80% of southern soldiers did not own slaves. In every major battle there were slave owning union soldiers fighting for the north, and non slave owning southern soldiers fighting for the south. In the book What They Fought For, 1861–1865 by James McPherson reported on his reading of hundreds of letters and diaries written by soldiers on both sides of the war on the question of what they believed they were fighting for. McPherson concluded that nearly all Confederate soldiers believed they “fought for liberty and independence from what they regarded as a tyrannical government.” As one Illinois officer explained, “We are fighting for the Union . . . a high and noble sentiment, but after all a sentiment. They are fighting for independence, and are animated by passion and hatred against invaders” “The letters and diaries of many Confederate soldiers bristled with the rhetoric of liberty and self-government and with expressions of a willingness to die for the cause.” An Alabamian solider wrote “When a Southerner homes is threatened the spirit of resistance is irresistible.” [1]

The south was fighting for independence, the north to restore the union...young southerners rushed to arms to defend home and family while like their revolutionary grandfathers- seeking a new Independence"
-James Robertson The Untold civil War Exploring The Human Side Of War National geographic


In The Confederate war by Gary W Gallagher he quotes multiple soldiers letters home as saying the reason they were fighting was because of what they saw as northern tyranny, oppression and northern invasion. In the book the common solider of the civil war[2], The average southern soldiers diaries and letters to home barley even mentioned slavery, much less as a reason for fighting. It was because they were defending their homes and families and country, or the expansion of government [3]. Thousands of Californians [non slave owning state] volunteered for the confederacy [4]. The confederate soldiers flags mottos talked of liberty, justice, freedom, and god, not of slavery as reason to fight[3].

Believe me no solider on either side gave a **** about slaves, they were fighting for other reasons entirely in their minds. Southerns thought they were fighting the second American revolution norther's thought they were fighting to hold the union together [With a few abolitionist and fire eaters on both sides].”
- Shelby Foote


To tar the sacrifices of the Confederate soldier as simple acts of racism, and reduce the battle flag under which he fought to nothing more than the symbol of a racist heritage, is one of the great blasphemies of our modern age”.
-James Webb-Secretary of Navy And Assistant Secretary of Defense



1]What They Fought for James Mcpherson
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/what-they-fought-for-1861-1865-james-m-mcpherson/1003238237
2] The Confederate war Gary Gallagher Harvard U Press 1999
3] The South was Right James and Walter Kennedy Pelican Publishing 1994
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1565540247/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
4] War on the Frontier Alvin M Josephy JR Time Life Books Alexandria, Virginia 1986
 
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