# How is the Civil War taught in the south? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 10, 2016, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752 "2016-01-10T23:25:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/61 "2016-01-12T18:43:22Z")
What about the white Northerners who benefited, directly or indirectly, from slavery? Those that made money in slave markets. Those that made money in processing slave produce. Those that ate rice, wore cotton, and used tobacco. And while we’re at it, those who opposed equal rights for black people for a lifetime after the war. Should they not also have shame and guilt for their roles? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > …white people who supported (or failed to oppose) slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation, redlining, or other white supremacist policies… That is, the majority of all white Americans, North and South, throughout the whole of that century, and into the next. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/62 "2016-01-12T18:58:40Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > What about the white Northerners who benefited, directly or indirectly, from slavery? Those that made money in slave markets. Those that made money in processing slave produce. Those that ate rice, wore cotton, and used tobacco. And while we’re at it, those who opposed equal rights for black people for a lifetime after the war. Should they not also have shame and guilt for their roles? Yes, to varying degrees (eating rice is quite different than raping a slave, or ignoring when your neighbor beats up a free black person for no reason). > [@](#): > > That is, the majority of all white Americans, North and South, throughout the whole of that century, and into the next. To varying degrees, yes. I’ve seen very few (if any) examples of Northerners championing pre-Civil War society, tradition, and culture as overall great and positive and unfairly maligned, and no non-Southern examples of resurrecting a dead symbol to use to oppose integration and equal rights under the guise of regional pride. Out of curiosity, do you disagree with any of my points, or are you just saying “Yes but these other guys should have felt bad too”? 'Cause human history is replete with these sorts of things – I’m only pointing out the examples that, in my experience, so many white Southerners seem to purposefully ignore or deny. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/63 "2016-01-12T19:05:43Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The following apologetics for slavery are pretty common (but by no means universal) among Southern whites: > -We didn’t do it! Don’t blame us! > -What we did wasn’t really bad! We had a good reason for it! > -Everybody else was doing it too! > -We won’t do it again! > > They’re pretty common in elementary schools too, for that matter :). A big boy did it and ran away! ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/64 "2016-01-12T19:24:33Z")
I was raised in The South and there didn’t seem to be anything abnormal about how we were taught about The Civil War, it wasn’t presented as the War of Northern Aggression or anything silly like that. We talked about why the North was able to prevail over the south because of superior industrialization vs the South and their dependence on slavery. There was in-depth articles in the text about the suffering of slaves, the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman. Honestly when I was younger in grade school it was hard to relate to any of that stuff because I felt so far removed from it. It really struck me in middle school though when we covered the Civil Rights era of the 1960’s I remember specifically seeing a picture when schools in the south were desegregated and it showed a couple black children sitting at the lunch counter while the white children bullied them and poured food and drinks and stuff on them, humiliating them, that really struck a nerve with me and I actually cried because it seemed so much more recent and relatable to me as a young kid in school, I just didn’t have any connections to the Civil War or slavery so I read it in a much more emotionally detached mindset. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/65 "2016-01-12T19:42:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Your CA History teacher is turning over in her grave. CA became a state in 1850. Yeah, it’s pretty easy to remember … In a cavern in a canyon excavating for a mine, dwelt a miner **forty-niner** and his daughter Clementine… ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/66 "2016-01-12T20:28:04Z")
> [@bump](#): > > It’s not that simple. Saying it was about slavery is about as facile as saying it was about states’ rights… > > That’s an important distinction that **Shagnasty’s** Lincoln quote above points out- the war was a result of the secession, not of slavery, and at least from the Northern point of view, was fought to preserve the Union and quash the rebellion, not as a crusade against slavery. However, it’s undoubtable that 1. the war was started by the Confederacy 2. They gathered/formed/warred for the right to enslave blacks. Black enslavement really was the reason for the war. Of course, Lincoln’s response to the hostilities was due to his desire to hold the Union, but the war was over the right to keep/expand black enslavement. This was the main reason to outright ban the barbaric practice. If you ban it, there will be no more wars fought for its preservation. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/67 "2016-01-12T20:33:38Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > That it wasn’t about slavery. It was about state’s rights. > [@bump](#): > > It’s not that simple. Saying it was about slavery is about as facile as saying it was about states’ rights. > > Saying it’s about slavery is about as dumb as saying that a short circuit destroyed your house, when in fact it was the raging fire that actually destroyed it. But that short circuit definitely started the fire- that can’t be denied. And the greasy rags near the shorting electrical outlet certainly helped. > > Slavery was an issue in US politics since the country’s inception- the Three-Fifths compromise was probably the first evidence of this. And it continued to be an issue- there were periodic congressional dust-ups during the entire first half of the 19th century about adding slave vs. free states- see the Missouri Compromise (added Maine as free, Missouri as slave), the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas/Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott case. Between 1820 and 1845, states were admitted in pairs- one slave, one free, to keep the balance, and the peace. Eventually however, the greater population of the North started to overwhelm the South in the House, and were also threatening to get an advantage in the Senate as well, with the addition or pending addition of several free states. > > This all eventually came to a head in the Civil War, when the South seceded, because they felt like they were ceasing to control their own affairs, and that the North was starting to dictate what they’d do, and to a great extent, threatening to deprive them of their wealth and property (slaves) without due process or compensation. The threat of Federal legislation to change what they saw as their way of life and source of wealth was real- the limitation of slavery in the territories was a major plank of the 1860 Republican platform, and this was seen as a stepping stone to limiting it in the South proper. > > Slavery was certainly the short-circuit that started the smoldering fire, but it didn’t burst into flame until 1861, when the South seceded with the intent of regulating its own affairs and making their own decisions about slavery. And the North fought… not in some kind of noble crusade to free all those poor Southern slaves, but rather to quell a rebellion and keep the Union together. > > That’s an important distinction that **Shagnasty’s** Lincoln quote above points out- the war was a result of the secession, not of slavery, and at least from the Northern point of view, was fought to preserve the Union and quash the rebellion, not as a crusade against slavery. You can blah, blah, blah about whatever. _The OP was “How is the Civil War taught in the South?”_ And that was **exactly** what I answered. I must have missed where you were sitting behind me in that Mississippi classroom that you can dispute what I said I was taught. So tell me, who are you so I can look you up and we can catch up on old times. And, oh, by the way, what was the name of the school because if you were there in my classroom, then you must remember the name of the school we both attended. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/68 "2016-01-12T21:10:39Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > You can blah, blah, blah about whatever. _The OP was “How is the Civil War taught in the South?”_ > > And that was **exactly** what I answered. I must have missed where you were sitting behind me in that Mississippi classroom that you can dispute what I said I was taught. > > So tell me, who are you so I can look you up and we can catch up on old times. And, oh, by the way, what was the name of the school because if you were there in my classroom, then you must remember the name of the school we both attended. Sorry. That was a little too dismissive. But I’m not getting into a discussion about the cause of the Civil War. I’m sick to death of those and of the excuses/apologists. I was answering the OP about how it was taught. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/69 "2016-01-12T21:23:52Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > A big boy did it and ran away! You’re talking about Sherman, right? ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/70 "2016-01-12T21:29:25Z")
Here in Austin, back in the 70’s ,the extent of Civil War coverage in history class consisted of watching Gone With the Wind. I shit you not. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/71 "2016-01-12T21:30:16Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > Sorry. That was a little too dismissive. But I’m not getting into a discussion about the cause of the Civil War. I’m sick to death of those and of the excuses/apologists. I was answering the OP about how it was taught. And I’m saying it wasn’t taught as caused solely by states’ rights OR as a result of slavery, at least not to me. We actually got a fairly even-handed treatment. I’m just personally sick of people reducing it to “it was about slavery” and “the Confederacy was evil”, when in fact there was a lot more to all of it than that. It’s about as dumb as saying that the American Revolution came about because the colonists didn’t want to pay taxes. It’s just a convenient simplification of the causes of the war that I feel doesn’t do the actual historical facts any favors. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/72 "2016-01-12T21:42:24Z")
I grew up in the Deep South. Not Atlanta or Huntsville or Montgomery or New Orleans. But not one of those “new” southern cities like Jacksonsville or Orlando. Nor one of the classic old south cities like Charleston. My city was kinda small but there for a long time. WWII made it big(er). Or in other words it was a random southern city that got bigger and it was neither “old school south” or basically “yankees relocated”. A mix of both probably. My high school had a graduating class of 500 give or take. There were a handful in the city that size and about a dozen in the whole county to give you an idea of the size. We covered the Civil War pretty thoroughly IMO. Slavery wasn’t presented as nice. The North was never presented as anything other than the winners that should have won. At best there was some debate as to the details as when something was right or wrong (as is often seen here). In high school American history here we covered a handful of big history items. American Revolution. Expansion out west and screwing over of the Indians. Something something about a few other piddly wars. The Civil War. WWI and WWII. And some “famous” historical moments here and there. The Civil War got its fair share of treatment time wise IMO. And it wasn’t whitewashed either. I can probably gripe a good bit about my local education, but getting some BS version of the Civil War in high school ain’t one of them. Just a data point. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/73 "2016-01-12T21:54:13Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m just personally sick of people reducing it to “it was about slavery” and “the Confederacy was evil”, when in fact there was a lot more to all of it than that. Well, of course there’s more to it than that, in the same way that there’s more to World War II than “It was about Hitler’s grand vision for the Aryan Race” and “Nazis were evil.” The problem comes about when people deny the evil of the confederacy or downplay the central role protecting and expanding slavery had in the Confederacy’s villainous vision. Folks who downplay the role of the Holocaust in World War II, or who talk about how morally nuanced the Nazi party were, are justifiably looked at askance. But when people downplay the role of slavery in the Civil War, or talk about the moral nuance of the Confederacy (including putting up statues in honor of them, ferchrissakes), they’re just participating in a 150-year-old tradition of revisionism. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/74 "2016-01-12T22:17:39Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Which raises the often difficult to answer question of whether Maryland is “in the South”. However, since we are talking specifically about views by the losing side of the American Civil War, I think we ought to treat Maryland as “in the North” in this case. You sure are finicky about stuff like that. It’s an easy question to answer, Maryland is regionally in the South, was a Slave State, but did not join the Confederacy. Seemed reasonable to include info about such a state in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/75 "2016-01-13T02:49:39Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Your CA History teacher is turning over in her grave. CA became a state in 1850. Right, and the Civil War was, like, 1820 or something, right? ( :smack: ) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/76 "2016-01-13T03:46:32Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > You sure are finicky about stuff like that. It’s an easy question to answer, Maryland is regionally in the South, was a Slave State, but did not join the Confederacy. > > Seemed reasonable to include info about such a state in this thread. Maryland is “regionally” in the [mid-Atlantic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_states), not “the South”. If you mean that I’m finicky about facts, well yeah, I’ll cop to that. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/77 "2016-01-13T06:46:58Z")
Since the Civil War Between the States concerned only “North” and “South” (NO “Mid-Atlantic”), MD was South. It was even south of the fabled Mason-Dixon Line. I’ll leave it to others to decide if the culture was North or South. The fact that it (and KY, too) was a slave-holding state would indicate it is properly grouped with the South. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/78 "2016-01-13T08:26:22Z")
I grew up in east Tennessee where teaching on the Civil War included a lot of local history in addition to the larger national level backdrop to the war. In the lead up to the war we learned that [the country’s oldest abolitionist newspaper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonesborough,_Tennessee#/media/File:Jonesborough-abolitionism-tn1.jpg) was published locally in east Tennessee. We learned that [secession sentiment was not uniform across the state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Tennessee_Convention), and that east Tennessee voted twice against secession. We saw exhibits of the local historical society depicting Union and Confederate r[ecruitment rallies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Street_%28Knoxville%29#The_Civil_War) occurring simultaneously in Knoxville. Overall, we learned that the Civil War was not such a cut-and-dried conflict.While slavery was the overarching cause, it is not accurate to paint with a broad brush about the motivations of the soldiers and civilians involved. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/79 "2016-01-13T10:30:48Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I grew up in the Deep South. Southerners in general are deeply interested in the Civil War and schools spend much more time on it than they do in other regions (at least that is my impression). We were never taught that the South was truly evil like the Nazis even though that is the current and more recent meme. Instead, we spent lots of time going over the causes leading up to it and then specific battles and finally the reasons for defeat. We also went to the nearest Civil War battleground museums for field trips and had the option to attend very large scale full battle reenactments that required thousands of enthusiasts, period equipment and countless hours to pull off every year. Occasionally we would have historians come in and we got to fire Civil War period muskets one time when I was in high school. We probably saw all of Gone with the Wind at least 5 times between 7th grade and 12th grade in class. > > My high school was about 50% white and 50% black so there was no glamorizing slavery or glossing over that part (almost all the black students were direct descendants of slaves and knew what area plantations their ancestors worked on; they also had the last names of their ancestor’s former owners). Believe it or not, it was just accepted as a simple reality by everyone whether they were black or white and nobody got upset about the subject matter. From what I see on my Facebook feed from the kids of both my black and white friends that still live there, it is largely the same today. Most black Southerners are just as proud of their heritage and deep roots as white Southerners and they don’t like outsiders taking swipes at the region either whether it is because of the Civil War or anything else. I want to tell you that I very much enjoyed this post. It was really good to hear from someone who gave a personal account based on their own experiences. I feel as if I learned more from your post that I ever could have learned from text books or other text written by people who were not raised in the South. I know that sounds silly. But I still do feel that way about personal accounts. Thank you for telling us about your personal experience. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752/80 "2016-01-13T14:47:23Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Maryland is “regionally” in the [mid-Atlantic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_states), not “the South”. If you mean that I’m finicky about facts, well yeah, I’ll cop to that. It’s in the Mid-Atlantic states also because it’s so popular and much cooler than the other states. But you’re arguing with the [US Census Bureau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States). > [@](#): > > As defined by the United States Census Bureau,[1] the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U.S. residents, lived in the South, the nation’s most populous region.[21] The Census Bureau defined three smaller divisions: > > The South Atlantic States: Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware > > The East South Central States: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee > > The West South Central States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. So it’s in the South Atlantic too. Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful.` [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-civil-war-taught-in-the-south/742752.md?page=5)