DISCLAIMER: This troper does NOT support slavery, white supremacy, racial discrimination, or any other causes that are indirectly attached to the Civil War. In fact, she opposes all such causes and thinks people should just learn to like each other already, but that's not the point of this discussion. So please, keep your flames to yourself.

BEFORE you all start to flame, listen to me. Today's an important day in American history. It's the 150th anniversary of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, the attack that started the Civil War. Now, I'm from the North, so kids like me learn about the Civil War a little differently than Southern kids. And today, I learned something about the South that makes me understand the Civil War and its purposes a little more.

You see, this semester, I've had a course revolving around Southern literature. During the first few weeks of the semester, I asked my two Southern teachers: why is it that the South re-enacts the Civil War every year if the North won? They laughed and one of them said, "The answer to your question is 'yes'."

I didn't get it at first, but today, when we were discussing the themes of what we've read so far, I started to understand. I brought it up in class and we discussed what the South thought of the Civil War. A major theme in Southern literature is the search for an identity of one's own and how one's past affects the future. A lot of characters in the books we've read cling to the past, and for a while, that's how I saw the Civil War re-enactments. But now, I'm seeing it as something more.

Up till now, I assumed that the South remembered the Civil War the same way as the North does, i.e.: You guys wanted slavery. We didn't. We fought you and won. But that's not true at all. The South wasn't JUST fighting for slavery, any more than the North was JUST fighting to end it. We owned slaves at the time too. Hell, Lincoln himself said that even if NO slaves were freed, he'd fight to preserve the Union. Not even the South was fighting only for slavery. My teacher said there was a story he heard as a kid, about a Confederate soldier who was caught by the union. This guy wasn't a slaveowner, but he was fighting for the South anyway. The Union soldiers asked him, "Why are you fighting for the South if you don't care about slavery?"

The man answered: "Because y'all are here."

THAT'S what the South remembers about the Civil War: that for a brief period of time, it was its own separate country, fighting to preserve its identity. The Union didn't truly recognize it as a separate nation, but others did. The Vatican itself recognized the Confederacy as a separate country. That war is the whole reason why the South and the North are so different. The war gave us identities, separate from one another even if we basically want the same things as a country, even if separating the two halves would be economically disastrous. That war re-enactment is the South's way of saying: This is what we were. This is part of what made us who we are. The principles of our forefathers don't matter. What matters is that you were there, and we fought back. We fought for ourselves.

And you know what? I found that pretty darned cool.

edited 12th Apr '11 4:39:10 PM by burinnu

Very well-thought-out post.

Not sure what to add, other than that.

The American Civil War is one of the few (relatively) modern wars I've never studied, and now I want to. That was an awesome post.

If you had made this three days ago you would've been posting on Appomottox Day.

It is interesting how the war shaped both sides. The two regions were already vastly different, the war just made them different in different ways. There's an old quote about how even the North wasn't really united before the war but the crossing over from one state to another by soldiers from across the country gave them a sense on unity, When the war ended not only were Virginia and South Carolina solidified into the Union, Minnesota and Ohio were too.

"Lincoln himself said that even if NO slaves were freed, he'd fight to preserve the Union"

I found the most amusing thing about this letter was that he wrote in after he had written the Emancipation Proclamation.

edited 12th Apr '11 1:04:47 PM by Parable

Huh. This thread just keeps getting more educational.

Not to mention the whole point of waiting till a victory (Or victory enough, as Antietam ended up being) to proclaim it was to show everyone that the Union could enforce it as they went along taking back the rebel states.

The Border States were excluded but they followed the example and I think all of them except Kentucky abolished slavery on their own within the year.

Edit: Kentucky and Maryland Delaware. I always get those two mixed up. Where are those books when you need them?

edited 12th Apr '11 1:51:27 PM by Parable

@burinnu: Southerners generally saw the American Civil War as repeating the English Civil War, the Northern states having originated as Puritan and Quaker colonies, while Maryland and points south were founded by Anglicans and Catholics, making the Southerners Cavaliers. Part of antebellum Southern cant was the use of "fanaticism" for "abolitionism", identifying the attempt to abolish slavery as religious fanaticism that a tolerant state, let alone a Constitutionally secular one, had no right to impose.

Mark Twain went so far as to blame Walter Scott for the war, by having revived affection for the Middle Ages among a demographic vulnerable to it.

edited 12th Apr '11 4:12:15 PM by Rottweiler

Would it be violating the "please don't flame me" request to say that a way of life revolving around enslaving people is not in any way worth protecting or remembering?

edited 12th Apr '11 4:39:13 PM by Wicked223

That does raise the point that in the South, only two-thirds of the population rebelled and fought "Because y'all are here." The remaining third were slaves and didn't have a say in the matter.

What Wicked said. Personally, I find the South's celebration and glorification of the Confederacy to be pretty disgusting.

@Wicked and Spork: Well, my point was that they're not really celebrating slavery. It's been 150 years. If they'd JUST been glorifying slavery all that time, the re-enactments would have ended years ago. They're celebrating their identity.

@Wicked:

Damnatio memoriae only works on a man; you can't do it to an entire way of life.

I agree the abolitionists were right, and the lasting victory of their cause was a great miracle of Christian civilization, but come on.

The Lost Cause identity was originally to celebrate the aspects of the Southern way of life, including a white washed version of slavery, and their martial skills. They forged their identity around fighting hard and less around why they were fighting in the first place.

@burinnu: That's just as bad. People need to remember history as it happened, not as how they'd like to remember it. It blinds them, in a way.

edited 12th Apr '11 5:02:54 PM by Sporkaganza

@Spork: So there is not a single illusion about Western history that shapes your worldview, then?

@Rott: Probably, but I don't know what it is. If I ever find out I'm wrong I hope I can learn what really happened.

What's the point of using that argument, anyway? You think that suddenly because I do something that I don't think is right, that means I'm full of it? Because we all know that if you've ever cheated or lied, that automatically means that you think those are awesome. And if you really want to get started with the ad-hominem argument, your hypocrisy is immense on that account; how many illusions do you have about history? Hell, forget mere illusions; your entire view of history is based upon a reactionary narrative. The number of times I've heard you prattle on about Enlightenment thought...

@Spork: First of all, ad hominem has a technical definition. Learn it.

Second,

Well duh. This is based on hard, unromantic analysis of the historical record of people's behavior in the 20th century, and their stated motivations.

You know how some people believe ethical imperatives can and must be drawn from rational analysis of the Holocaust? I'm like that with every genocide, even if they were committed in the name of a fashionable ideology.

Is this topic only about what the OP posted or the Civil War in general?

I think it's more about the Lost Cause of the Confederacy than about the Civil War, though I see no reason why it can't be a general Civil War thread.

General awesome from the Civil War... Hmmm...

The 54th Massachusetts. One fo the first black regimetns formed to fight for the Union. Ever seen Glory? It is about them and their colonel, Robert Gould Shaw. They were the leading regiment on the attack on Fort Wagner, one fo the batteries that protected Charleston, South Carolina. Battling not only rebels but discrimination in their own army they found their greatest moment in leading the attack.

They charged the fort and despite heavy rifle and cannon fire from the defenders managed to reach the parapet, Shaw was killed after being shot several times in the chest while rallying his men (The two brigade commanders above him as well as another colonel were killed as well). The attack failed, the 54th took casualties of almost a third of its men.

The Confederates buried the dead in a large ditch, and intending an insult, dumped Shaw's body along with his black troops (the dead officers of white regimets had been retunred to the Union). Shaw's father said:

"We would not have his body removed from where it lies surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers....We can imagine no holier place than that in which he lies, among his brave and devoted followers, nor wish for him better company – what a body-guard he has!"

In the end, the 54th and the other regiments who made the attck got the last laugh. Shelling from Union ships unearthed the bodies, which led to a horrible reek the Confederates couldn't stand and poisoned their water supply, leading to a miserbale existence for the forts defenders until they evacuated.

I remember watching Ken Burns' TV history of the American Civil War some years ago and being really impressed by the literary standard of the letters they were reading from, even from soldiers who were probably semi-literate. If you're only going to be exposed to one book ever, that's one thing in favour of it being the King James Bible.

On the more general point, there's a well-known joke in 1066 And All That about the Roundheads being Right but Repulsive and the Cavaliers being Wrong but Wromantic (sic). I think the latter definitely applies to the Confederates too. Slavery is wrong, but the ideal of a decentralised, agricultural society with lots of local character, even if it wasn't really true,has romantic appeal.

The Emancipation Proclimation was a brilliant move to keep Britain and France out of the war.

By making the war about slavery it morally bankrupted the south in the eyes of nations that were considering throwing their lot in with them. When it was still about State's Rights the other nations could've justified an intervention (that was the REAL issue, before the war some of the most vocal proponents of Abolitionism promoted a Northern succession, to boycot the slave-owning South).

The war was only about slavery because Lincoln made it about slavery. Southern schools may impart some less than accurate facts, I wouldn't know, but that fabrication, that it was the main issue, is not one of them.

And yes, I know, the Emancipation Proclimation wasn't the Point-of-divergence that all the alt-hist writers make it out to be, but it was an important factor.

@Hungry Joe: I'll admit there were definitely other things going on, but my beef doesn't lie with the idea that the war was mainly about slavery. It's with the idea that the war wasn't about slavery at all. Some people seem to actually believe this, and it's a little scary. The fact is, slavery was always an issue. Even if it wasn't the South's main beef with the North, the fact that it was a beef at all means that the South should not have won.