Your link to the NY Review of Books doesn’t bring up the work you’re citing.
Sorry about the link- it is what appears in the IE window but?-
If you go here:
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/currentissue_contents.html
and then link to the article entitled “Southern Comfort” by James Mcpherson you’ll get there. JDM
How’s your dog’s prostate, Ivorybill?
First off, apologies for the double-post earlier. (Note to self: don’t try to stop a reply after clicking the “submit” button.)
Second, thanks JDM for getting a working link. [sarcasm]And thanks for giving this Southerner a chance to write about the C.W.! I had gone almost an entire hour w/o sighing about the “Lost Cause” and nearly two hours since my last shakes of rage and indignation about the “Yankee Invasion.”[/sarcasm]
Seriously: I’m reluctant to post anything more to this thread since the horse is dead, has been beaten aplenty, and since efforts to present portions of the “Southern Perspective” on various aspects of the C.W., including pre- and post-war actions, motivations, and interpretations are not infrequently met with replies that approach righteous indignation. However, you raise some interesting points with your review piece, and I’d like to address these in a spirit of friendly debate and not in post-bashing.
(1) The weight of the evidence in terms of the statements made by leaders of the Confederate Government and by several Confederate state assemblies irrefutably indicates that many Southern politicians cited slavery as the main reason for secession. spoke-, xeno and I have posited that there were many other Southerners for whom slavery was not the overriding issue behind their taking up arms for the South. These include defending their homes and families, defending their right (as they saw it then) to wean themselves of slavery when (if?) they saw fit, and irritation with Northerners who profited handsomely from their participation with slavery economics (cotton to Northern textile factories; the cod traded for sugar and rum in the Indies) but were quick to press moral AND economic advantage. Similar to the U.S. today telling Brazil not to cut the rainforest (or to cut just the trees that yield the lumber we like to import) while we enjoy the economic prosperity bought in part by clearing a significant amount of forest from this country and putting that land to use in other purposes.
(2) The book review article does a thorough job of pulling up numerous quotes from actual participants, from period leaders, and from numerous history books. Now, some might say that I and other modern Southerners have been deluded by being raised under the “myth” the article describes; however, my reading and study of the issues, my own cache of family history documents (as well as my wife’s family’s - - letters, diaries, farm journals, wills, etc.) presents a portrait of the Southern psyche that is not as one-dimensional as the book review article. I’m not saying that there are not worthy aspects of the article; rather that there appears to have been little effort to include source material that indicates other facets of Southern attitudes towards the C.W. I point to this from the article:
That the author thinks this a statement of exceptional candor might indicate merely that a majority of Southerners really did have a more complex attitude toward the events of the time, and that the “myth” might be partially constructed by the historians whose research is centered on it.
(3) The diary of the Eliza Frances Andrews presents her views on the subject of race relations; not that of all period Southerners. Case in point: my great-grandmother (with her father’s approval - - which was significant given the risks he faced by doing so should her “awful” deeds have been discovered) taught a number of their slaves how to read. Now, this by no means comes anywhere close to sanctioning their behavior in holding slaves in the first place, nor does it imply that there was anything approaching a relationship between slave and owner based on respect, etc., (other appropriate disclaimers here) but it does indicate an awareness of the human condition that Miss Andrews didn’t seem to grasp.
(4)
At least one other post in this LONG thread has indicated that most Southerners, including most slave owners, worked, and worked hard, managing their farms. My great-great grandfathers’ farm journals never once mention julep sipping. Nor veranda sitting. Likely there were a few places like Tara of GWTW; these would have been the exception, however. Too, some did have lots of money; ditto many Northern textile factory owners who processed slave-grown cotton.
(5) I’ll have to leave the implications of the political aspects of the book review article to persons more well-read in this area. Without a doubt Southern influence in national politics was great, and was due to factoring slaves into the Southern population base. Gag rules are reprehensible. Castigating politicians for hypocrisy and duplicity (Southern support for federal slave laws) is seldom worthwhile in any era, however. Present Republican sentiment of local authority EXCEPT for federal abortion control is just one example.
Finally, a busy weekend will likely preclude my checking in on this thread before Monday afternoon. I’ll do my best to reply to any specific comments (if there are any) at that time. Cheers.
The point that I was making, which was reinforced by the introduction to the diary, was that the romantic conception of the antebellum (what the hell is a bellum?) south, which is what I see as the basis for all the nostalgia and pride in “heritage,” comes from the society of the “4000,” and not from the middle and lower classes. Of course most Southerners were more akin to your forebears than to the Wilkes’s and the O’Haras, but I really don’t think that anyone today who waves a CSA battle flag is fantisizing about a return to having to work really hard on the family farm just to stay alive.
JDM
P.S.- As an aside regarding romantic fantasies about the past- I can say that I am living one now in St. Petersburg. As a musician, to be in the city that produced Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, to go to the school that was headed by Rimsky-Korsakov (and go up the worn stairs that were worn down by his feet), sometimes brings me to tears. [Message] OTOH What I would give for good plumbing, and drinkable tap water (vodka’s cheap,though) [/Message].
As a further aside, did y’all see the Daily Show spot last year about Civil War Re-enacters? JDM
Gotcha. (BTW, “bellum” in this instance, means “war.” However, a latin scholar would likely provide a more accurate rendition.)
AND, Jodi and I ran 'round and 'round with that one. No, there’s little historical or rational reason why some white guys in the South join SCV groups, outfit themselves to recreate old battles; even less why other white guys put Confederate flags on everything from beer bellies to belt buckles to display their special brand of “heritage.”
Lucky you. Savor it.
Didn’t see the spot you mention. Did read an article in the WSJ a few years back about “hard-core” re-enactors (NO! Not THAT kind!) who lose substantial amounts of weight, hand-sew their uniforms from home-spun cloth, go barefoot even in winter, etc. One doctor quoted in the article said: “At least they’re not attempting to catch period diseases, too.”
TexasSpur;
You’re wrong about Ft. Sumter.
I went to a college in Tennessee called The University of the South. An elderly woman who lived close to our dorm died and her house became the local haunted house. I went in with a group of guys and found a large chest filled with letters. I picked one up: it was written by a young lady from Charleston. She told about how they sat out on their veranda that morning and watched the shelling of Ft. Sumter. I put the letter back. A couple of years ago I found out that the letters in the chest had been destroyed because the family had so many letters. I now wish I’d have taken it to someone in the college.
Last week Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story” told about the fact that no one knows who is responsible for the first shot, although there are some theories. It is however known who returned the first shot for the Union. Paul said the soldier is famous for something he really didn’t do, but few people know it was Abner Doubleday that first shot back.
Any southerner worth their salt will tell you that if you weren’t born in the south, you aren’t a southerner. However, I moved to the south in 1949 and so this is where my heart is. I can tell you that I have owned a confederate flag and stood up when they played “Dixie”. Both had to do with regional pride. Lately, I have thought it was racist groups (from all over the country) using the flag, that has identified it with racism. Reading this thread I have learned that there are people that actually think that when southerners talk about the Civil War that they are wanting a return to slavery and to secede again.
Some of you have obviously studied the war and know more than I do. I wonder though, do you know anything about the Restoration Period? When I moved to Atlanta the south was still suffering from it. Back then a favorite saying was “The south shall rise again”. You don’t hear that any more and it is because since the 60’s we have been on the rise. We haven’t made it yet and maybe we will never get there, but the spirit is there. And “no”, we aren’t planning on bringing back slavery.
Paul Harvey is hardly a reliable source.
I wrote a much longer post a couple of nights ago and it has disappeared. I live in Mississippi and although I have lived in the south most of my life, have learned to live with the fact that I will always be a Damn Yankee. I want to correct TexasSpur even though he may be a true southerner.
Last week on Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story”, he told that although there a names tossed around, no one knows who the southern soldier was that fired the first shot. However it is well documented who returned the fire for the Union. The ringer is that we all know the guys name because he is famous. Paul says the problem is he is famous for something he didn’t do and no one knows that he was the first Yankee to return the fire. His name was Abner Doubleday.
The trouble I have with TexasSpur is that in the parts of the south that I am familiar with, everyone is proud of the fact that we shot first. I went to college in Franklin County, Tennessee. There they are proud that it is the only county that ever seceded from the Union. Five states first seceded and the rest were lolly gagging around, so Franklin County seceded from Tennessee and the Union.
Okay, Jab1:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/doubledy.htm:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/doubledy.htm:
http://www.mcn.net/~jimloy/abner.html:
http://library.thinkquest.org/3055/graphics/battles/fortsumter.html:
These are from searching Google
The South was ** not ** in any analytically meaningful way *still * suffering from the brief restoration period almost a century before. At best this is a mere excuse. At best.
What the South ** was ** suffering from was a retrograde political system, a pitifully underfunded public education sector, an overall poor investment climate (e.g. poor infrastructure, racial violence, corruption tied to the political system etc.), combined with of course poor real climate overall (i.e. the heat).
Air-conditioning, civil rights and federally financed infrastructure helped pave the way for the current rebound.
Anyone blaming the handful of “Reconstruction” years for problems in this century needs their head examined.
None of those links worked for me.
But Britannica says Doubleday was in command of the gunners at Sumter. In fact, I just now recall that his Civil War actions are why he was credited with inventing baseball. The people in charge of Major League Baseball wanted to “prove” that baseball was an entirely American sport and they concocted the story that an American hero invented it. Since Doubleday is credited with firing the first Union shot in the war, he was selected. It was later proven that Doubleday had not been in Cooperstown, NY in the summer of 1839 (he was at West Point), which is when and where he is supposed to have invented the game. It’s possible that he had never even played the game!
I guess even Paul Harvey can’t be wrong all the time.