In 1960, I grew to become consumed with the Civil Battle as America approached the a hundredth Anniversary of its starting. I used to be 8 years previous, dwelling 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 through the years, most of them greater than as soon as.
In these early years, the Civil Battle was attention-grabbing and thrilling to me as a younger white boy, largely due to the brilliance of Bruce Catton whose in depth analysis made the battle come to life. His descriptions of the folks and the occasions had 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 wood ambulances.
I continued to learn Catton and others after transferring to Maryland for faculty in 1970, and over the following years, I traveled to lots of the Civil Battle battlefields in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia. I discovered a fantastic deal in regards to the Civil Battle — what occurred, the place it occurred and what number of casualties there have been. I discovered who gained and who misplaced every of the engagements.
However what I by no means actually thought-about was why: Why was the battle 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 battle wounds for the remainder of their lives?
Because the nation continues to grapple with deep divisions based mostly on race and sophistication, and pundits discover whether or not we’re headed towards a second Civil Battle, of the type proven in Alex Garland’s new dystopian film, I’ve been fascinated by these questions and clarifying my understanding of the Civil Battle in immediately’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 immediately over the ignominy of the Accomplice trigger?
Merely put, the battle 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 had been keen to sacrifice a technology of their very own younger males with a view 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 battle.
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 incorrect. 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 shaped by Quakers sought to abolish the heinous observe.
What was promoted and marketed to kids like me within the early Nineteen Sixties was a whitewashed model of the darkish, ugly actuality that was the American Civil Battle. The battle 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 battle was merely a heroic protection of the Southern lifestyle towards the overwhelming forces of the North. Enslaved folks had been mainly completely satisfied, and the battle 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 keep up slavery.
All their lies had been additional compounded by the emergence of a really highly effective group of girls — the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) — in 1894. They had 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 had been constructed throughout the Jim Crow period to bolster white supremacy. The UDC additionally sought to show the subsequent technology these lies that whitewashed the horror of slavery and the explanations for the battle by regulating the content material of faculty textbooks within the south.
Additionally, streets, colleges, parks, even U.S. navy bases had been named after Accomplice generals as a manner of normalizing their traitorous deeds. How may 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 colleges.
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 struggle. 1000’s gave up their very own kids 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 Battle was actually about.
Stephen Milmoe ([email protected]) is a retired trainer.