In 1960, I turned consumed with the Civil Battle as America approached the one hundredth Anniversary of its starting. I used to be 8 years outdated, residing on Lengthy Island, and had already learn Bruce Catton’s “A Stillness at Appomattox,” written in 1952. I’d go on to learn eight extra of his books over time, most of them greater than as soon as.
In these early years, the Civil Battle was fascinating and thrilling to me as a younger white boy, largely due to the brilliance of Bruce Catton whose intensive analysis made the warfare come to life. His descriptions of the individuals and the occasions had been so actual to me. I might really feel the anguish of wounded Union troopers, touring the torturous 17 miles from the Wilderness to Fredericksburg in rickety wood ambulances.
I continued to learn Catton and others after shifting to Maryland for school in 1970, and over the following years, I traveled to most of the Civil Battle battlefields in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia. I discovered an amazing deal in regards to the Civil Battle — what occurred, the place it occurred and what number of casualties there have been. I discovered who received and who misplaced every of the engagements.
However what I by no means actually thought-about was why: Why was the warfare fought in any respect? Why did 622,000 Union and Accomplice troopers need to die? Why did a number of hundred thousand extra need to undergo from crippling warfare wounds for the remainder of their lives?
Because the nation continues to grapple with deep divisions primarily based on race and sophistication, and pundits discover whether or not we’re headed towards a second Civil Battle, of the sort proven in Alex Garland’s new dystopian film, I’ve been desirous about these questions and clarifying my understanding of the Civil Battle in in the present day’s context.
I put myself within the place of these households who grieved the lack of fathers, brothers and sons — North and South. And thought, for what? Low cost labor? Why are we not outraged even in the present day over the ignominy of the Accomplice trigger?
Merely put, the warfare was fought to maintain enslaved Black individuals in bondage in order that white Southern planters might revenue from their labor. These in energy within the South had been keen to sacrifice a technology of their very own younger males with the intention to keep slavery. They noticed their lifestyle as being threatened, they usually noticed their energy waning within the halls of Congress. That led them to secession and warfare.
Slavery was threatened in the US as a result of sufficient individuals within the North and West acknowledged that enslaving human beings for revenue was improper. The Abolitionist motion had formally begun in 1830, however a gradual awakening amongst white individuals had began a few years earlier. Way back to the Colonial interval, anti-slavery societies fashioned by Quakers sought to abolish the heinous follow.
What was promoted and marketed to youngsters like me within the early Nineteen Sixties was a whitewashed model of the darkish, ugly actuality that was the American Civil Battle. The warfare wasn’t about two opposing forces that each fought for a noble trigger — just one facet fought for a noble trigger. Regardless of all of the lies of the final 160 years on the contrary, one facet fought to enslave human beings.
A concerted program of disinformation started shortly after Lee’s give up at Appomattox Court docket Home. Southern historians wrote that the warfare was merely a heroic protection of the Southern lifestyle towards the overwhelming forces of the North. Enslaved individuals had been principally completely satisfied, and the warfare was not about slavery. However paperwork just like the Accomplice Structure and the Declaration of Secession in a number of southern states informed a unique story. In these paperwork, the Accomplice leaders made it abundantly clear that they fought to take care of slavery.
All their lies had been additional compounded by the emergence of a really highly effective group of ladies — the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) — in 1894. They had been largely chargeable for the proliferation of statues all through the South, and even some within the North, that honored the “heroes” of the Confederacy. Many of those statues had been constructed through the Jim Crow period to strengthen white supremacy. The UDC additionally sought to show the following technology these lies that whitewashed the horror of slavery and the explanations for the warfare by regulating the content material of college textbooks within the south.
Additionally, streets, faculties, parks, even U.S. army bases had been named after Accomplice generals as a manner of normalizing their traitorous deeds. How might this be? They had been all traitors — sure, even Robert E. Lee. Lately, many of those statues have been taken down as sanity and motive slowly win. However then there are nonetheless locations like Shenandoah County, Virginia, the place the college board this month voted to reinstate Accomplice names that had been faraway from faculties.
What I’ve by no means understood was why there was no voice of motive within the South demanding to know why their ancestors allowed these rich planters and politicians to ship their sons off to combat. Hundreds gave up their very own youngsters so the wealthy might keep the wealth they constructed on the backs of enslaved individuals, together with the white supremacist energy construction. That’s what the Civil Battle was actually about.
Stephen Milmoe (srmilmoe@hotmail.com) is a retired instructor.
