There's a lot of historical evidence out there that indicates the idea of a united Confederate South is a myth.
This is about that new book you told me about a couple of weeks ago.
Bump for later...
How did all of this take so long to get out?
The proud Southern Heritage of the Confederacy represented by the “Rebel flag” as you call it, most likely was a by-product of Reconstruction, more than a yearning for the days of the Confederacy.
If the whole of the South wasn’t united before that occupation period, and it likely wasn’t, the actions of the occupiers sealed the deal.
I know that there are places in Alabama where secession was not favored - Fort Payne, Alabama still has a “Union Park” because the secession was generally not supported in that area.
I have been to Looney’s Tavern in Winston County, Alabama as well - they used to put on a show telling the story of Winston County’s secession from the state of Alabama over the secession issue. I bet that the “Free State of Winston” is not discussed much in today’s history books - would detract from the narrative that the South was uniformly racist and bigoted.
Both of the above areas were generally poor rural areas where there were not many slave holders.
ITT: >9000 posts, death threats, and several bans.
Sounds like a Yankee dis-information plan to me.
Actually, I said this in my 2006 book, "America's Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars," although the number I gave was 100,000 southern whites. I'm anxious to see his source on this, because it only strengthens my case.
But it didn't help the South that in 11 of the first 12 major battles or campaigns in which more than 6,000 men were involved, the Confederacy lost a higher % of troops deployed than did the Union, even though the Union occasionally lost more men in real terms. You can't win a war, particularly a defensive war, losing more in every engagement with the enemy.
(Looking for popcorn. This is going to be good.)
Ping
And how united were the northern states?
I remember seeing a print of Lee handing these battle flags to regiments of the Army of Northern Virginia. There should have been a loud outcry throughout the South when the Klan adopted the battle flag as its emblem. I think that is a point when the Southerner irretrievably compromised his heritage, and disfigured the image of arguably the finest infantry this country ever produced.
I think people could answer most of those questions themselves after watching Ken Burn’s history, so it should not be new. I remember one line in the television series where someone says the South died of a concept.
Sherman’s march through Georgia highlights the power, yet disinterest of the planter aristocracy of the South. There were food riots in Georgia, yet Sherman’s army never lived better than when it plundered the plantations.
Civil War historian Henry Steele Commager’s words from more than fifty years ago still ring true today:
“No other war started so many controversies and for no other do they flourish so vigorously.Every step in the conflict, every major political decision, every campaign, almost every battle, has its own proud set of controversies, and of all the military figures only Lee stands above argument and debate.”
That I thought was always understood.
“Yep, son. We have met the enemy and he is us.”
—Pogo
By the way, good luck with the Neo Confederates. Hope they don't burn your keyboard.
Joesph Glatthaar touches on a lot of these same points - supplies, desertion, treatment of local population - in his book “Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse”.
If anyone who considers the secession of the Southern States to have been been unconstitutional wants to be historically (and legally) accurate, maybe they should read the United States Constitution (as it then existed) instead...
There’s a fable common in libertarian circles according to which the Confederates were defending what they took to be their rights against the government. In fact, probably most of those who fought for the Confederacy did so precisely in obedience to government (this must have been true of Lee, who had no other reason for taking the Confederate side). The Civil War was just what it has been called: the war between the states - the states as opposed to the people.