We
didn't celebrate the end of the Civil War in 1964 and we probably won't
celebrate the 150th anniversary in 2014 because the South won the
politics of the post war Era. The South still controls the Northern
view of the Civil War history and will not let the North celebrate its
well earned victory (from an earlier blog).
The following are artifacts of history that we have all been taught about the Civil War based entirely on Confederate ideology.
1. The war was not about freeing the slaves it was about states rights and the right to secede.
2. The North won because it was the richest region.
3. The South had the bravest troops and the greatest generals.
4. General Sherman's march to Atlanta was pure cruelty and intentional human slaughter.
5. The carpetbaggers were sent south to permanently suppress the South.
The only reason any of this is taught is because the South has dominated our view of history. The South has created a victory of historic ideas all of which are false.
1. Here is "the song John Brown
that Julia
Ward Howe heard in 1861 in Washington D.C. from marching soldiers."
The Northern soldiers were preparing to fight to free the slaves. The
original Congressional battle that led Lincoln to run for the Senate
dealt with admission of California as a state free of slavery. Slavery
was the only issue, everything else was secondary.
2. The South was much richer at the beginning of the War with vast agricultural exports to Europe. The War created the industrial North, with the required extensive railroad building and the necessary expansion of manufacturing.
3. The Southern Generals were continually at each others throats, rarely cooperated and took high risk strategies that all too often failed. Bravery and good strategy belonged to the Northern generals (except for McClellan's who was in many ways a turncoat).
4. General Sherman is excoriated by the south because he freed the slaves as he went south. He burned crops to force the South to surrender; he moved ahead of the rail lines he was building which supplied his troops and defecting Southerners with food.
5. The North gave the South the most favorable possible surrender conditions, so favorable that the Northern General, Grant, was popular in the south when he was elected president. The North sent agents south with money and skill to build public schools and libraries for blacks and whites. The whites didn't like the school and library building program for former slaves and invented the derogatory term carpetbagger.
1. The war was not about freeing the slaves it was about states rights and the right to secede.
2. The North won because it was the richest region.
3. The South had the bravest troops and the greatest generals.
4. General Sherman's march to Atlanta was pure cruelty and intentional human slaughter.
5. The carpetbaggers were sent south to permanently suppress the South.
The only reason any of this is taught is because the South has dominated our view of history. The South has created a victory of historic ideas all of which are false.
2. The South was much richer at the beginning of the War with vast agricultural exports to Europe. The War created the industrial North, with the required extensive railroad building and the necessary expansion of manufacturing.
3. The Southern Generals were continually at each others throats, rarely cooperated and took high risk strategies that all too often failed. Bravery and good strategy belonged to the Northern generals (except for McClellan's who was in many ways a turncoat).
4. General Sherman is excoriated by the south because he freed the slaves as he went south. He burned crops to force the South to surrender; he moved ahead of the rail lines he was building which supplied his troops and defecting Southerners with food.
5. The North gave the South the most favorable possible surrender conditions, so favorable that the Northern General, Grant, was popular in the south when he was elected president. The North sent agents south with money and skill to build public schools and libraries for blacks and whites. The whites didn't like the school and library building program for former slaves and invented the derogatory term carpetbagger.