But that is the Big Lie that the defenders of
The war was about slavery. The poor Southerners knew it at the time, which is why draft dodging and desertion were epidemic in the South. In areas of the South away from the plantations, men went north to fight for their country, not for the rich planters. In those areas, the Confederate press gangs had to go around with a heavy armed escort to preclude being captured and hung by the locals. It was why many Southerners regarded the war as a "rich man's war, a poor man's fight."
No, it was only a generation or two after the war that this "noble cause" bullshit began to be shoveled about. And it has only been in the last century or less that the apologists for the traitorous rebels have been trying to walk away from the brutal fact that their ancestors fought, first and foremost, to preserve slavery.
You cannot defend the Confederacy without defending slavery. To do so is like defining water as "a molecule made up of one atom of oxygen and two atoms of something else."
The war was about slavery. The poor Southerners knew it at the time, which is why draft dodging and desertion were epidemic in the South. In areas of the South away from the plantations, men went north to fight for their country, not for the rich planters.
ReplyDeleteThank you, repeatedly and profusely. I'm a native Southerner with zero patience for neo-Confederate bullshit. If we can believe Jefferson Davis's subsequently published correspondence on this point, the Civil War was about slavery, but it would be a mistake to assume that all Southerners agreed with Mr. Davis & co. on the rightness of that cause. It's really gratifying to see that some people get this.
Book recommendation, for anyone who hasn't read it: Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War.
Bet ya knew that was coming.
I have been one to argue it was a primary issue of interstate commerce. The nexus of commerce specifically at issue was slaves.
ReplyDeleteTo separate the two is a problem. The souths trade and produce revolved around it.
Eck!
Oh for the love of gawd. Frankly, not much has changed down here. They're as anti-American as they've ever been.
ReplyDeleteThe draft dodging and desertion were indeed a huge problem for the Confederacy. As the war wound down to its close, Confederate armies that on paper had 120,000 men had less than 1/4th that, because in many cases men didn't even wait to join the armies before deserting -- they simply jumped train on the way to the front, and skeedadled back home. The fact that the Confederate rail network was disintegrating because of President Jefferson Davis's disinclination to think about logistics did not help either, since it meant that the creaky worn-out trains were running so slow you could jog as fast as they were going.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the war Jefferson Davis was probably the most hated man in the South, the man who was widely considered to have lost the war for the South, widely considered to have been incompetent and a petty tyrant who would have never won election in any Presidential election (note that Jefferson Davis was *not* elected as President of the Confederacy by the voters of the South, he was installed by the secession convention that also wrote the Confederate constitution, which, err, prohibited Confederate states from banning slavery -- so much for the whole "it was about state's rights" thing!). It is awe-inspiring to see just how thoroughly such a vile, despicable man could have his reputation whitewashed by generations of concerted propaganda...
- Badtux the Southern Penguin
I had a history class once where the professor maintained that the war wasn't because of slavery. He put forth some arguments that seemed reasonable at the time. I think the idea was that there was so much enmity between the North and the South that slavery didn't enter into the question, they were pissed off and they were going to have a war, slaves or no slaves. Of course, slavery was part and parcel of who the South was, so it really ended up being about slavery.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who believes the American Civil War was not about slavery is probably so gullible that he thinks the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with oil. The reality is that if the South hadn't had slaves, there would have been no American Civil War, and if Iraq hadn't had oil, there would have been no invasion of Iraq. That's just the reality on the ground. Too bad some folks seem to live in universes where unicorns are pink, cotton candy grows on trees, and the two wars mentioned above were all about "freeeeeeeDOOOOM!".
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Snarky Penguin