Restricted The Mythical Civil War and the Historians' Civil War

donovan67

Cadet
Joined
May 12, 2020
I just left a very active Civil War group on Facebook. There are a lot of good folks there but it eventually dawned on me that a (extremely vocal) subset of the members is not interested in discussions based on evidence and current historiography. Rather, they feel a sincere passion for the Civil War as it exists in our collective memory. Which, unfortunately, tends to draw heavily on Lost Cause narratives and historiography that have been largely discredited in the last 60 years. The conversations were fun for awhile but eventually got tiresome. Finally, I came to see them as a waste of my time and I bailed.

I don't know if this is a question or a general comment. But it's got me thinking about the war as pictured in the stories we tell ourselves and the war as historians (particularly those in academia) describe it. Do the differences matter?

NOTE: I chose Restricted as the prefix because it and Book Review seemed to be the only choices. I assume that is because I am new to the forum and this topic can be controversial. Apologies if I messed that up somehow.
 
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