In 1960, I turned consumed with the Civil Struggle as America approached the one hundredth Anniversary of its starting. I used to be 8 years previous, residing on Lengthy Island, and had already learn Bruce Catton’s “A Stillness at Appomattox,” written in 1952. I might 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 Struggle was attention-grabbing and thrilling to me as a younger white boy, principally due to the brilliance of Bruce Catton whose in depth analysis made the struggle come to life. His descriptions of the folks and the occasions have been so actual to me. I may really feel the anguish of wounded Union troopers, touring the torturous 17 miles from the Wilderness to Fredericksburg in rickety picket 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 Struggle battlefields in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia. I realized an amazing deal concerning the Civil Struggle — what occurred, the place it occurred and what number of casualties there have been. I realized who received and who misplaced every of the engagements.
However what I by no means actually thought-about was why: Why was the struggle fought in any respect? Why did 622,000 Union and Accomplice troopers must die? Why did a number of hundred thousand extra must endure from crippling struggle 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 Struggle, of the type proven in Alex Garland’s new dystopian film, I’ve been serious about these questions and clarifying my understanding of the Civil Struggle in at the moment’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 at the moment over the ignominy of the Accomplice trigger?
Merely put, the struggle was fought to maintain enslaved Black folks in bondage in order that white Southern planters may revenue from their labor. These in energy within the South have been prepared to sacrifice a era of their very own younger males with a purpose to keep slavery. They noticed their lifestyle as being threatened, and so they noticed their energy waning within the halls of Congress. That led them to secession and struggle.
Slavery was threatened in the USA as a result of sufficient folks within the North and West acknowledged that enslaving human beings for revenue was fallacious. The Abolitionist motion had formally begun in 1830, however a gradual awakening amongst white folks had began a few years earlier. Way back to the Colonial interval, anti-slavery societies fashioned by Quakers sought to abolish the heinous observe.
What was promoted and marketed to youngsters like me within the early Sixties was a whitewashed model of the darkish, ugly actuality that was the American Civil Struggle. The struggle wasn’t about two opposing forces that each fought for a noble trigger — just one aspect fought for a noble trigger. Regardless of all of the lies of the final 160 years on the contrary, one aspect fought to enslave human beings.
A concerted program of disinformation started shortly after Lee’s give up at Appomattox Courtroom Home. Southern historians wrote that the struggle was merely a heroic protection of the Southern lifestyle towards the overwhelming forces of the North. Enslaved folks have been principally glad, and the struggle was not about slavery. However paperwork just like the Accomplice Structure and the Declaration of Secession in a number of southern states advised a unique story. In these paperwork, the Accomplice leaders made it abundantly clear that they fought to keep up slavery.
All their lies have been additional compounded by the emergence of a really highly effective group of ladies — the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) — in 1894. They have been largely accountable 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 have been constructed through the Jim Crow period to strengthen white supremacy. The UDC additionally sought to show the following era these lies that whitewashed the horror of slavery and the explanations for the struggle by regulating the content material of college textbooks within the south.
Additionally, streets, faculties, parks, even U.S. navy bases have been named after Accomplice generals as a manner of normalizing their traitorous deeds. How may this be? They have been all traitors — sure, even Robert E. Lee. Lately, many of those statues have been taken down as sanity and purpose 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 purpose within the South demanding to know why their ancestors allowed these rich planters and politicians to ship their sons off to battle. Hundreds gave up their very own youngsters so the wealthy may keep the wealth they constructed on the backs of enslaved folks, together with the white supremacist energy construction. That’s what the Civil Struggle was actually about.
Stephen Milmoe (srmilmoe@hotmail.com) is a retired trainer.
