# Is the Confederacy/South more interesting than the Union/North? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 11, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643 "2019-10-11T18:40:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/81 "2019-10-13T02:45:21Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Yeah, the whingeing over Sherman is more trying to cast the South as the poor put-upon underdog. Destroying your enemy’s capacity to continue to sustain the war effort is by-the-book strategic warfare. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Tearing up the railroads that take supplies to the troops is not attacking civilians. It’s destroying the infrastructure that allows the CSA to carry on its war. > > Capturing food supplies that will support the CSA troops and enable them to fight is a war measure. > > Destroying the economy that supports the CSA troops is a war measure. > > Blockading the southern ports so the southern economy collapses is a war measure. > > Freeing slaves and turning from property into freemen is a war measure, even though it will destroy “capital investments” and the plantation economy. > [@DrDeth](#): > > And the South stared it with their calvary raids, not to mention terrorists like Quantrill & “Bloody Bill” Anderson. > > [William Quantrill - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Quantrill) > Just that Sherman had the manpower to make it more than a “raid”. > [@madmonk28](#): > > I really don’t think it is in the interest of the Confederate apologists to throw around terms like war crimes. When Lee marched north, he seized every black he could as “contraband.” It didn’t matter if they were ever enslaved (not that it matters) or not. Black people became property of the Confederate Army. > > When you find yourself sticking up for an army marching through America enslaving its people, take a step back and examine your values. What does any of this have to do with whether the Confederacy was more or less \*\*\*interesting \*\*\*than the Union? ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/82 "2019-10-13T03:03:49Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > What does any of this have to do with whether the Confederacy was more or less \*\*\*interesting \*\*\*than the Union? Ask the people pushing back on the Confederacy being evil, I think it’s important that we examine what they are defending. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/83 "2019-10-13T03:18:30Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > What does any of this have to do with whether the Confederacy was more or less \*\*\*interesting \*\*\*than the Union? Ask **MadSirCool** , who seemed to be trying to argue that both sides were equally bad, and stating that Sherman’s march was a war crime. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/84 "2019-10-13T03:32:02Z")
Plus , i find it very interesting to see how dedicated the Union Army and government were to preserving the Union and ending slavery. To me, that is more interesting than the measures the slave owners took to defend their right to own other human beings. YMMV, of course. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/85 "2019-10-13T04:11:42Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > What does any of this have to do with whether the Confederacy was more or less \*\*\*interesting \*\*\*than the Union? Evil is always more interesting than Good. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/86 "2019-10-13T10:26:20Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I really don’t think it is in the interest of the Confederate apologists to throw around terms like war crimes. When Lee marched north, he seized every black he could as “contraband.” It didn’t matter if they were ever enslaved (not that it matters) or not. Black people became property of the Confederate Army. > > When you find yourself sticking up for an army marching through America enslaving its people, take a step back and examine your values. I think you’re being a little self-congratulatory about the outcome of a 155-year-ago conflict. Are you this vested in the War of the Roses, or Oliver Cromwell? You seem to think that the country that emerged from the Civil War was essentially the same one that existed before and during it, and it just wasn’t! ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/87 "2019-10-13T11:28:37Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I think you’re being a little self-congratulatory about the outcome of a 155-year-ago conflict. Are you this vested in the War of the Roses, or Oliver Cromwell? You seem to think that the country that emerged from the Civil War was essentially the same one that existed before and during it, and it just wasn’t! Well, first off, this thread is about the American civil war, no the others you mentioned, so not surprisingly, that is what I wrote about. Secondly, America’s attitude towards the Confederacy demonstrates just how mainstreamed white supremacy is in American culture. Starting almost as soon as the war had ended, there was a concentered effort to re-write the history of the war. The fact that white nationalists marched on Charlottesville in 2017 and committed murder to stop efforts by the city to take down a Confederate statue and that the president of the United States sided with them in the conflict shows just how intertwined white nationalism is in American culture and the role that the Confederacy still plays in maintaining this corrosive belief. The fact that so many American whites just want to avoid discussing the topic at all allows for the most destructive forces in our society to spread false history and hate. As our demographics change and people of color start to claim their place in America and push back on attempts to whitewash a very dark part of our history, racists are reacting with violence. In light of these facts, I would argue that it is your apathy that is misplaced. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/88 "2019-10-13T12:17:23Z")
As a former resident of both Charlottesville and DC (I notice you’re from there too), it hurts me that you think I’m “apathetic.” My modern contemporaries should be aware that a consensus on slavery and racial and gender equality has been reached, and if they think the illegitimate goon presently occupying the White House gives them a free ride to pretend otherwise, I’m not sympathetic to them. But this thread is about the Old South, the people who lived there before any of these consensuses were reached. To them, a slightly different standard applies. The South didn’t invent slavery; it’s as old as the written word, and certainly older. The South’s sin is that when the rest of the western world started abandoning the practice, Southerners doubled down on it. After generations of just breaking even on cotton plantations, the invention of the Cotton Gin suddenly made such plantations insanely profitable, in the only part of the world where that plant could reliably grow. The North abandoned the practice because it was unprofitable. Northern manufacturers invested less in their wage workers than Southerners did in slaves. Abolition was at least as much of a financial stance as a moral one. You know those National Guard armories in the North? (There’s one in DC and another in downtown Silver Spring, you might want to swing by sometime.) Do you know who they were arming themselves against? It wasn’t invading British soldiers or rebel slaves, it was striking workers! Do not tell me about the moral superiority of free Northern labor. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/89 "2019-10-13T12:24:56Z")
I can’t speak for **madmonk28** , but I’m not very invested in the War of the Roses, because first of all, it was resolved centuries ago, and second, it doesn’t affect my nation one whit. But my nation is still fighting the American Civil War, and that makes it very relevant to me. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/90 "2019-10-13T12:48:14Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > As a former resident of both Charlottesville and DC (I notice you’re from there too), it hurts me that you think I’m “apathetic.” My modern contemporaries should be aware that a consensus on slavery and racial and gender equality has been reached, and if they think the illegitimate goon presently occupying the White House gives them a free ride to pretend otherwise, I’m not sympathetic to them. But this thread is about the Old South, the people who lived there before any of these consensuses were reached. To them, a slightly different standard applies. > > The South didn’t invent slavery; it’s as old as the written word, and certainly older. The South’s sin is that when the rest of the western world started abandoning the practice, Southerners doubled down on it. After generations of just breaking even on cotton plantations, the invention of the Cotton Gin suddenly made such plantations insanely profitable, in the only part of the world where that plant could reliably grow. The North abandoned the practice because it was unprofitable. Northern manufacturers invested less in their wage workers than Southerners did in slaves. Abolition was at least as much of a financial stance as a moral one. You know those National Guard armories in the North? (There’s one in DC and another in downtown Silver Spring, you might want to swing by sometime.) Do you know who they were arming themselves against? It wasn’t invading British soldiers or rebel slaves, it was striking workers! Do not tell me about the moral superiority of free Northern labor. I find these attempts to excuse and explain southern slavery and equate actions by the Union with slavery to be attempts to maintain a white supremacist status quo that has so permeated American culture that often the white so-called moderates who put forward these tired arguments are often unaware they are doing it. Basically the arguments come down to “other bad things happened in history, so can we just drop talking about slavery?” The fact that white nationalist commit terrorism over confederate statues and that the president tweets about them demonstrate that the civil war still matters. The fact that white America doesn’t want to have an honest discussion about slavery demonstrates that it still matters. The fact that the Texas school board rewrites the history of slavery in textbooks show that it still matters and the fact that people engage in knee-jerk defense of the confederacy to minimize its brutality in threads like these demonstrate that the civil war still matters. America let the losers write history beginning in 1865 and we are still dealing with that ignorance and racism. It is so pervasive that we don’t even question why so many of our cities are littered with statues to treasonous slavers and when challenged on it, the purveyors of the status quo mumble something about factory conditions in the north. ---
**Author:** ![Stowed\_Bob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stowed_bob/32/3312_2.png) [@Stowed\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stowed_Bob)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/91 "2019-10-13T22:43:30Z")
For the actual war, the South seems more interesting because of being under/poorly supplied and having less soldiers. When you scrabble, that makes for good drama. But really, what is grossly overlooked is the chaos in the West. Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers were pillaging willy nilly, you got refugees from the war moving in, and each state’s extremist minorities (both in and out of government) getting fanatical in forcing their Union or Southern loyalties on everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/92 "2019-10-13T23:12:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I can’t speak for **madmonk28** , but I’m not very invested in the War of the Roses, because first of all, it was resolved centuries ago, and second, it doesn’t affect my nation one whit. But my nation is still fighting the American Civil War, and that makes it very relevant to me. How is the US still fighting the Civil War? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/93 "2019-10-14T00:21:27Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > In addition to what’s already been noted, I suspect that at least part of the allure, for fiction writers, is alternate-history fiction, in which the South won, and remained independent – and the focus of that is primarily in what an ongoing Confederacy might have been like. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > It’s like, in WWII, Germany is far more interesting tan France or Poland, or even the UK. For this reason, I find the WW2 UK just as interesting as Germany, because of all the preparations for Sea Lion and imagining how that would have worked out (spoiler alert: poorly for the Germans.) I do find both of them to be more interesting than France or Poland, because there is nothing romantic about either losing a war by being completely surrounded with no chance at all to mount a proper defense, or losing a war by being outflanked and with a poor tactical doctrine and communications technology. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/94 "2019-10-14T01:07:32Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > How is the US still fighting the Civil War? Seriously? You have heard of Charlottesville, I imagine. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/95 "2019-10-14T01:32:57Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Seriously? You have heard of Charlottesville, I imagine. Where are the armies? A minute number of radicals engaged in sporadic and low intensity street violence is not a civil war. Is the unrest in China a civil war? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/96 "2019-10-14T02:40:32Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Where are the armies? A minute number of radicals engaged in sporadic and low intensity street violence is not a civil war. Is the unrest in China a civil war? Timelines do exist, whereas you think they do not. On another issue, before the item about the current unrest in China goes away, please note that one point of the right looks really ridiculous when one notices that liberals from the USA are not in cahoots with the communists, as many are complaining to big corporations for the kowtow those corporations are doing, just pointing out that many on the left in the USA are not communists like many on the right media likes to paint them. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/97 "2019-10-14T02:42:09Z")
By definition most of the battles were going to take place in the South, so there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/98 "2019-10-14T02:48:37Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > How is the US still fighting the Civil War? You know what he meant. But if it suits you better to be literalistic then call it still relitigating, rejustifying, spinning, redefining. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/99 "2019-10-14T03:24:18Z")
In some ways its like WW2 where one can find nazi Germany with its Tiger tanks, jet fighters, rockets and cool uniforms more interesting that what the allies had. Try playing any WW2 game and you find this. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/100 "2019-10-14T03:36:32Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Where are the armies? A minute number of radicals engaged in sporadic and low intensity street violence is not a civil war. Is the unrest in China a civil war? The intended meaning was of course figurative. We are still fighting over some of the basic issues of the Civil War. And that fight involves large portions of the population, not a small number of radicals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643.md?page=6)