The Belief that Southerners were 'Better Men'

1) apart from the bible, southerners thought of themselves the true inheritors of english culture. by contrast they did not like the puritan culture of new england and rather enjoyed the aristocratic activities of english lords. they thought of themselves as men who drank, dueled, were horsemen, and protected their women, and the better you were at any of these the more of a man you were.
2) yes , in the sense that they believed they were meant to be the masters and blacks, being inferior, meant to be servants. they also believed they were doing god's work by bringing blacks to christianity and were their shepherds in cultural and spiritual endeavors and protocols.
3) yes, it was generally said at the time that a southerner could whip 5 or 10 yankees. some believe this today.
4) yes, as mentioned above but also because god was on their side.
5) yes, how could god turn his face on the south ? there must be an explanation.

edit to add: also in reading some of the replies i would like to point out that these beliefs were preached from almost every southern pulpit.
Thanks for your response.
Yes, the influence of the Southern ministry must not be ignored. They were integral in building the culture and sustaining it through secession and rebellion. Even in the darkest days, Southerners were being told- and earnestly believed- God would rescue them.
 
Fun topic.
But once gunpowder is used to fight wars, individual merit is immaterial.
The army with the most artillery practice, and the brigade with the most repeating rifles is likely to win.
How much does the individual sailor matter on an armored gunboat?
The main who became the overall commander of the United States armies almost never handled a firearm, and never hunted.
War is not a duel. The weapons are not equal. Individual merit has almost nothing to do with it.
So the initial Confederate volunteers were the best fighting material in either army. But learning to shoot a Henry's rifle is not that difficult.
 
As Mr. Henry Williams the Second, so eloquently explains
in his:

clasic hit
mr williams is typical of the myth ( what a poor example ). i guess you never hunted pheasant in michigan or tracked a wolverine that has been robbing your traps. or hunted elk in Wisconsin or Minnesota.
southerners were in the south precisely because it was easier to "survive" and that is about all they wanted to do, get by.
southerners don't hold a monopoly on "country", literally or figuratively but that is part of the myth.

edit to add : BTW northern Minnesota , in the summer, has skeeters of jurassic nature that can almost haul you away as you sleep.
 
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although many southern states did not exist then i would like to use as an example the "Corps of Discovery". the farthest south any members were from is virginia and kentucky. except for these the rest were yankees , canadians, or native-americans. no one was from georgia or the carolinas or the mississippi territory.
 
We've been through this a hundred times on this site.."Who's the better soldier? A Confederate can whip 10 Yankees, etc."Who's the better "man?" They were, for the most part, ALL good men. And like any war, most wondered what it was all about...
 
Do you have a source or two to support the allegation that regiments raised in cities were inferior to those raised in rural counties?

I would think the combat history of units like the 14th Brooklyn or the Irish Brigade would quickly dispel any notion that city-dwellers were made of less stern stuff.

Conscription was also not limited to big cities, north or south.
I don't think they were lacking in zeal or bravery but in the mechanics of soldiering. Riding, shooting, concealment etc.
This is not comparing North versus South but rather rural versus urban.
 
Fun topic.
But once gunpowder is used to fight wars, individual merit is immaterial.
The army with the most artillery practice, and the brigade with the most repeating rifles is likely to win.
How much does the individual sailor matter on an armored gunboat?
The main who became the overall commander of the United States armies almost never handled a firearm, and never hunted.
War is not a duel. The weapons are not equal. Individual merit has almost nothing to do with it.
So the initial Confederate volunteers were the best fighting material in either army. But learning to shoot a Henry's rifle is not that difficult.
I agree that war is not a duel. Our firearm experts can speculate just how much did repeating rifles make a difference overall. Put another way what percentage of Union troops were issued repeating rifles vs breech loading vs muzzle loading rifles.
I will defer to others in that topic such has @cash @johan_steele @Dom71 @unionblue @67th Tigers on that issue.
Based on what criteria were early Confederate enlisted men better then Union?
Yes performance matters bigly.
In 2014 approximately 1,500 well motivated men chased 60 thousand men out of Mosul, Iraq. Motivation still is a big factor in who wins and who losses.
Leftyhunter
 
It has always been my belief that the Union soldier in particular from the AOP has been given sort of a bad rap. They, in my mind were just as dogged,determined, dedicated, proud, hard charging fighters as there Confederate adversaries. The difference is in leadership. I'm reading Stephen Sears book Lincoln's Lieutenants, and in it he states nearly a quarter of the west Pointers on active duty in 1861 went south of them the majority were of high rank and had combat experience. The regular army was being led by young untested officers, and politically appointed volunteers. It took some time and defeats for the pretenders to be weeded out,I would say by July 1863 the cream started to rise. JMO
 
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No words.
that's because they deleted my post. it was historical evidence that Elmer Fudd was at some point in time a Confederate. if he is representative of confederate marksmanship and survival skills then the idea that confederates were better soldiers is just wrong. i say it's wrong son, all wrong. "Southerners gotta mouth like a cannon, always shootin’ it off”

BTW the deleted post was , in fact, evidence of our indoctrination into beliefs on issues like this , from childhood. also to whoever , the cartoon was real, was aired not to long after GWTW, was a parody, and was watched by kids like me in the fifties and sixties. it would be inappropriate almost anywhere but here.
 
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