LOL. My great grandfather, a German immigrant, fought for the Union during the Civil War, and according to family lore, felt no great personal animosity towards the men who shot at him. None of his descendants were instilled with a bitter hatred of all things Southern. And me? I served with a whole slew of Southern boys who, like me, had a family tradition of military service, and I remain friends with several of my rebel buddies 25 years later. Yet the Lost Cause caucus, as you call them, just can’t let it go. The truth is Lincoln out-thought and out-fought the lot of them—Lee and Davis and Jackson and all the rest. A good thing, too, and so pathetically bizarre those CSA lovers still—to this day—go on about ‘the war of Northern Aggression’.
Was Lee a traitor? Given the tenor of the times, the loyalties involved, I (personally) would have to say no, and the same would hold true for all of the CSA’s leadership. They were, for the most part, men guided by firm principle and iron conviction. No, the traitors were the copperheads, Southern supporters in the Northern states too chicken to actually fight for the Cause they so vociferously espoused, along with quisling, peace-at-any-price politicians like Valandingham. Had I lived in those times, I would’ve advocated hanging them all. Suspension of habeas corpus would’ve been the least of their worries.
bttt
Good post. Thanks for your service, when and which service?
bttt
just for the record, my beef with Neo-Yankees here is that they join the same bandwagon as the NAACP or Morris Dees in trying to demonize the South for the Civil War and slavery. it appears to me that they are the ones trying to refight the war or perhaps more accurately Reconstruction specifically
i for one am tired of seeing my history down here being supplanted with their idea of what it should be...no regional pride flags, no courthouse monuments to my dead kin, no plaques like George Bush took down, no schools named after Southerners, basically the South presented in their image....Reconstruction 150 years later.
I am opposed to that and have been since it started up around 20 years ago with a coalition of northern liberals and local black agitators and John Edwards types using this to enrich their coffers. that folks who call themselves conservative play along is the real depressing fact, not that some southerners like to go on about Lincoln’s excesses.
I do find discussing that period of history interesting and many southerners are more likely to be more supportive of why the South fought and to think differently of why our kinfolk fought. You have to remember many of us were born and raised on land our families had for generations precisely where these battles were fought. I for one dug for artifacts as a boy on the Jackson-Clinton road with my dad on our land....found stuff too. Everywhere you turn, there is more to remind ya. My land has redoubts still at the top near Shy’s Hill. To Northerners...most of whom came after the war, this is a distant history thing, for us down here, we are living in the middle of it...the memories, the peoples and the ramifications. You guys are not except at Gettysburg for the most part.
Why we would resist that history we live with daily and our ancestors died as a part of being retold by outsiders who reject us should not surprise you. I would not respect anyone from anywhere who would allow their traditions trampled as such.
That does not mean anyone but the most unusual are calling for secession today.