Saving The Civil War Honor Versus Disgrace

Just a simple question. Do you honestly believe that hundreds of thousands of Southern men, the huge majority of which never owned a slave, left their homes and their families knowing they might never return because they cared that much that an extremely small number of their very rich neighbors might have to give up their slaves ?

Yes.

Though I'm not so sure about your "huge majority".
 
In some southern states close to 50% of families owned slaves.

"The vandals of the North . . . are determined to destroy slavery . . . We must all fight, and I choose to fight for southern rights and southern liberty." [Lunsford Yandell, Jr. to Sally Yandell, April 22, 1861 in James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, p. 20]
In his book, McPherson admits that letters of slave owners/slave owning families are over-represented by 100%. At least he admits it.
 
Yes.

Though I'm not so sure about your "huge majority".
Perhaps the specific size of the "Majority" should be ascertained. Of course yours truly is not convinced it could be 100% accurate but surely someone has made an honest effort to arrive at a %.
 
Yes.

Though I'm not so sure about your "huge majority".

Seventy percent of the families in the 11-state Confederacy did not own slaves. That's about as generous an estimate as you can get for the percentage of slaveholders because the percentage of individuals who owned slaves was under ten percent.

Consider, for example, that Ulysses Grant did not personally own slaves during the Civil War, but his family did. Thus, those who look the ANV to try to show bigger connections to slavery would have to include Grant in the definition that they apply to the ANV. In reality, however, they don't apply the same standard to Grant because . . well, that's different, see?
 
Last edited:
Just a simple question. Do you honestly believe that hundreds of thousands of Southern men, the huge majority of which never owned a slave, left their homes and their families knowing they might never return because they cared that much that an extremely small number of their very rich neighbors might have to give up their slaves ? And by the way even though I currently live in Tennessee I'm a native of New Hampshire and have Union Veterans in my direct line of descendants. I'm just trying to understand your logic.
No. But the natural leaders of southern society and politics (ie. that same "small number of their very rich neighbors") put forth the specious argument that "the Yankees" were determined to deprive them all of their "rights, liberties, and way of life." They persuaded the good people of the South that secession would benefit them all ... it was a cynical lie, and a fraud, formulated to keep the "small number of their very rich neighbors" in political power and economic control.

"Hundreds of thousands of Southern men" (good, honorable, brave men, but sorely misled) may not have decided go to war to protect slavery, but the slave owners' determination to do so is the reason why there was a war to go to.
 
More and more of the original sources are being digitized, so I doubt there be less access for family historians. I'm not familiar with libraries pulling books. You're saying that libraries are removing books? For what reason?
I would only add that digitized material can easily be altered or destroyed. We must always be vigilant to prevent this modern manner of 'book burning' from happening.
 
Non-slaveholders fought for slavery because secessionists persuaded them that they benefited as much or more from slavery as slaveholders did. Here's James McPherson in Battle Cry of Freedom:

Nevertheless, the partial correlation of cooperationism with low slaveholding caused concern among secessionists.​
So they undertook a campaign to convince non-slaveholders that they too had a stake in disunion. The stake was ****. In this view, the Black Republican program of abolition was the first step toward racial equality and amalgamation. Georgia's Governor Brown carried this message to his native uplands of north Georgia whose voters idolized him.​
Slavery "is the poor man's best Government," said Brown. "Among us the poor white laborer... does not belong to the menial class. The negro is in no sense his equal... He belongs to the only aristocracy, the race of white men." Thus yeoman farmers "will never consent to submit to abolition rule," for they "know that in the even of the abolition of slavery, they would be greater sufferers than the rich, who would be able to protect themselves... When it becomes necessary to defend out rights against so foul a domination, I would call upon the mountain boys as well as the people of the lowlands, and they would come down like an avalanche and swarm around the flag of Georgia.​
Much secessionist rhetoric played variations on this theme. The election of Lincoln, declared an Alabama newspaper, "shows that the North [intends] to free the negroes and force amalgamation between them and the children of the poor men of the South." "Do you love your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter?" a Georgia secessionist asked non-slaveholders. If Georgia remained in a Union "ruled by Lincoln and his crew... in ten years or less our children will be the slaves of negroes. "If you are tame enough to submit," declaimed South Carolina Baptist clergyman James Furman, "Abolition preachers will be at hand to consummate the marriage of your daughters to black husbands." No! No! came an answering shout from Alabama. "Submit to have our wives and daughters choose between death and gratifying the hellish lust of the negro!!... Better ten thousand deaths than submission to Black Republicanism.​
To defend their wives and daughters, presumably, yeoman whites therefore joined planters in "rallying to the standard of Liberty and Equality for white men" against "our Abolition enemies who are pledged to prostrate the white freemen of the South down to equality with negroes." Most southern whites could agree that "democratic liberty exists solely because we have black slaves" whose presence "promotes equality among the free." Hence "freedom is not possible without slavery."​
 
Seventy percent of the families in the 11-state Confederacy did not own slaves. That's about as generous an estimate as you can get for the percentage of slaveholders because the percentage of individuals who owned slaves was under ten percent.

Consider, for example, that Ulysses Grant did not personally own slaves during the Civil War, but his family did.
Thank you yes I have seen that used before in that many family members were listed in a deliberate attempt to inflate the number of slave owners vs non slave owners in the Antebellum South. I have family members that are millionaires and I could imagine someone for whatever ulterior motive could attempt to describe or present yours truly as the product of a very wealthy family when I have no access to wealthy family members money nor do I want such a thing.
 
“It is important to build memorials and educate people about historical wrongs. Still, the higher priority is to release the bitter anguish and anger harbored by those who came before us and who suffered and died unjustly.”—Hak Ja Han Moon, Mother of Peace.

There are many sides to these issues, as reflected in the many thoughts, opinions and beliefs in this post. From, truth has many sides to truth is only one. Or how about, the one and only truth has many sides? Like the allegory of elephant in the room. One side not often looked at is the “fact” (I believe it’s a fact but some will disagree, and that is a fact) that some people took their bitter feelings and anger to their graves, feelings that were literally buried in their hearts when they entered the spiritual realm and where for over 150 years they have been waiting for some kind of deliverance (forgiveness?) only to find the same battles are being fought still by their descendants today. Battles of the heart.

That our ancestors fought against each other, throughout history but specifically in the Civil War, is acutely reflected (and repeated) in today’s social atmosphere.

Topple a statue, don’t topple a statue. Wear a mask, don’t wear a mask. Black lives matter, all lives matter. Each of these divisive issues bring up intolerant emotions that seem bigger than the issues themselves. Perhaps we need to consider that they are channeling (like conducting electricity) the very real and still alive feelings of the dead people we are related to and love researching and knowing about, whose blood runs in our veins and whose feelings did not perish with them on the battlefield but transcended time and place to the present generation.

If anyone can distill the “facts” of history with an objective view (although it’s been said no one really can) it’s the historian or the genealogist or even the DNA scientist—who tells us we inherit diseases from our ancestors, so what else are we inheriting from them? Any one of these avenues of research could see how the heart-linked connection to the past is wreaking havoc on the present. And we could come up with tangible solutions if we had the perspective that included our ancestors as if they were in the courtroom with us today—they are!

I too have a civil war letter from a soldier ancestor and he hated the rebels to death and loved Jesus. Such a dichotomy cannot be dispelled with death and the regret that must have embedded in his heart still needs to be resolved. (It’s a myth that we die and all is forgiven if you can’t forgive yourself). That ancestor wants to be forgiven for his wrongs—but he can’t forgive himself in isolation when what he was a part of is alive and well on earth today. I’m not the judge of his rights and wrongs, but he wants me, his descendant, to acknowledge and forgive him nonetheless, to be a sort of mediator while I’m on earth, to address what he felt, fought and died for while on earth--whether right or wrong it left a great chasm that does not heal with time alone. Such acknowledgment can go a long way toward restoring the past and allowing future generations to honor and forgive.

If these are battles of the heart, then only solutions of the heart will change things.
 
The abolitionists were promoting disunion, slave insurrection and civil war. "Let the blood flow to the horses' bridles" they said. All of the South knew what was going on. There was no need to be harangued by slaveholders.
There were extremists on both sides saying violent, uncompromising things. Those in the South won over their neighbors, whereas those in the North remained a marginal minority.

And, it wasn't the abolitionists that actually put disunion into practice. A few talked about it, even advocated it (free speech is free speech) ... but none of them did it ... that's a game-changer. And, you can bet the planter-controlled southern press only stressed the most extreme violent abolitionist rhetoric.
 
The abolitionists were promoting disunion, slave insurrection and civil war. "Let the blood flow to the horses' bridles" they said. All of the South knew what was going on. There was no need to be harangued by slaveholders.

If that was the case then white Southerners rather than choosing to fight to protect slavery could have chosen to do away with the practice themselves if, as is being argued here, most had no financial interest in it.
 
I am a student of history, but my formal education is not in history. I served over 20 years in the United States military. During that time I was both taught and, on my own, learned much about war and military history. From this I learned that many, perhaps most, wars are fought for stupid, evil and even accidental reasons. There is rarely a clear good side and bad side.

This is not the case for the civil war. The southern rebels were clearly in the wrong, they were on the side of evil. While the rest of the western world had moved towards the realization that slavery was wrong, the powers that be in the south actually moved in the opposite direction and claimed that slavery was a positive good.

On top of that they started a rebellion in a constitutional republic were they had full representation primarily to protect their institution of slavery from what they viewed as an anti-slavery party. They proclaimed this reason over and over in their declarations and in the speeches they gave.

The United States went to war because they were attacked. They had actually been attacked many times before they actually responded with troop. They showed much foreberance with their wayward sister states hoping that cooler heads would prevail. They did not.

Just the fact that the southern leaders rebelled for an indefensible reason and also fired the first shot puts them clearly in the wrong and the United States in the right. When you later add the emancipation proclamation that then made the US military an Army of liberation it puts the United States even more in the right.

The problem we have, and when I say we I mean all of America, is that for about 100 years we allowed the "lost cause" myth to be the dominant interpretation of the war. Despite all the evidence that shows it never was more than a myth. There were voices that fought against this myth and attempted to tell the truth of the war but they were, until the 1960s, overwhelmed by the lost cause narrative.

So it matters very much how we view this war. It matters for the soul of America. If the lost cause narrative is correct then the south didn't go to war to protect slavery, they went to war for states rights. This makes the United States wrong in their actions against the south. The true reason the south rebelled was to protect slavery, this puts them firmly in the wrong, and puts America in the right.
while your wide ranging generalization that the south was evil, MAY be right, the PEOPLE that made up the south were not. AGAIN it must be said, most all southerners were fighting for home and hearth. not for plantations not for slaves but, for their own families and circumstances. you might as well be saying all democrats are evil or all republicans are evil. its just not so.
 
There are only two main positions when it comes to slavery, either in the present day or at the time of the civil war. You are either against slavery or for it. These positions can be seen in the words of President Lincoln and "President" Davis.

"African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing."
~Jefferson Davis

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think and feel."

- Abraham Lincoln

If you are unable to determine which of these statements is morally right and which is morally wrong, which is the virtuous statement and which is the evil statement, then any discussion between us is pointless.
and yet lincoln said if he could keep the union without war by keeping the institution of slavery he would do it. he also had at the end of the war reparations in mind for southern plantation owners for loss of said slaves. just the facts, just the facts
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lee
The efforts of today to remove monuments to the Confederacy are not a coordinated and thoughtful result of deliberative process. At least not when a mob tears one down. That can get out of hand, such as seen when efforts to bring down a statue of Washington or of Jefferson takes place. But it is time that monuments are removed. They were put up to remember a movement of brothers, parents and grandparents, a mourning of people who had passed or were passing, and their time has gone. There is no one alive who personally remembers a soldier of the Rebellion.

That being said, it is impossible to view the history of the 19th century from today's vantage point without distortion. Slavery is today seen as barbaric and evil. At the time, it was an obsolete relic of mankind's history, and the South was on the wrong side of that history. The institution allowed great wealth to be concentrated by the free work of other people, and by today's standards that is not acceptable. Arguments could be made about low-wage jobs today without union representation, but that is not the same as being born into servitude and leaving it as a legacy forever to your children.

All records of history should be preserved and available to historians. Today's digital systems allow for all of it to be retained, though there is the danger of it being colored and shaded by revisionists. Better to keep the original newspapers and journals, too. As Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said, "Don't believe everything you see on the internet."

We can all hope that right will win, and a careful re-appraisal of history and its monuments will continue into the future, with all important sides being preserved for future study and contemplation. But let's see that it is done thoughtfully, and without the urgency of the mob. -George WB Scott
Well said. Always easy to be the “right” Monday morning QB..from the vantage point of 159 years of retrospection!
 
while your wide ranging generalization that the south was evil, MAY be right, the PEOPLE that made up the south were not. AGAIN it must be said, most all southerners were fighting for home and hearth. not for plantations not for slaves but, for their own families and circumstances. you might as well be saying all democrats are evil or all republicans are evil. its just not so.
If you will notice my wording I said that the southern rebels were on the side of evil, not that all of them were evil. And no matter what the personal reasons for fighting the southern soldier the reason his leaders started the war for was to protect slavery. Though as my previous post showed some southern soldiers were fighting for slavery.

It is really very simple. Each side had a diametrically opposite view on the main issue that caused the war, whether slavery was right or whether it was wrong. Not everyone on either side believed this, but certainly the majority of leaders in the south believed it was right (and considering that for the last 30 years anyone who held a viewpoint that slavery was wrong had been run out of the south there were very few in south left that believed it was wrong), and republicans in the north believed it was wrong.

Even for that time period the south was considered in the wrong for the majority of western civilization had realized that slavery was morally wrong. (England had outlawed slavery in 1833.)

That's why we see such misdirection and obfuscation on the reason the southern states seceded by those who are pro-confederacy. For to admit the real reason automatically puts the confederacy in the wrong.
 
In his book, McPherson admits that letters of slave owners/slave owning families are over-represented by 100%. At least he admits it.

Yes, but didn’t he say that this was likely due to the fact that those from more well off families were more likely to be literate?
 
Back
Top