There is a kernel of something here, but if you think the take away from “Northern Arkansas was pro Union, and still suffered Reconstruction” is that somehow we have those cruel Yankees to blame and how grossly unfair reconstruction was to those people (in your view), I think you missed the bigger point. Specifically, if Northern Arkansas was among those parts of the CSA that was pro-Union, how do you suppose they felt being drawn out of the Union by a bunch of slaveholding men of privilege, and how do you suppose dissent was dealt with by the rebel government?
My wager? Not too happy, and not too good.
A couple months back, I wrote a blog post dealing with how some Unionists were dealt with in NC, and also touched on a mass hanging in North Texas (where there was also a substantial amount of Union sympathy):
They Fought for Their Rights. And the Confederate Army hanged them for it.
(mildly disturbing image warning: the post opens with a portrait of George Pickett in the foreground–as he was the one who ordered the hangings–with a low-detail depiction of the hangings, as represented on a historical marker once kept at the site, in the background).
Not only does the Lost Cause distort history: it effectively erases those southerners who did not own slaves and were opposed to secession from history, in addition to ignoring (as you yourself have done) the substantial number of southerners who saw greatly enhanced freedom in the reconstruction ere (that is, the slaves, who were people too, after all).
Congress suspended the voting rights of about 10,000 former Confederate officers and officials; not innocent Northern Arkansans, in other words, but people who had been actively engaged in treason and rebellion. Many State governments, however, were more enthusiastic; Tennessee disenfranchised about 80,000, for instance.
On the other hand, about 4 million Southerners GAINED the right to vote during Reconstruction, so it’s hard to see how that wasn’t a big win for democracy on the whole.
Complaining that these traitors went through “hell” because they temporarily lost the right to vote in the nation they had tried to destroy is racist as fuck.
I’m generally against punishment. All the punishment in the world couldn’t bring back any of the millions who died in the middle passage and subsequent slaveholding crimes. And later war criminals don’t hesitate because of ones punished after past wars.
Slavery hurt the slaves the most by far, but also hurt the average white southerner. States that held the most slaves are generally the most impoverished ones in the U.S. to this day, as they also were in slavery days. This could be a factor in a nuanced answer to the thread opening question.
Some of them were. Most were not, just guys fighting for their state and the hope of someday becoming filthy rich with a plantation full of black slaves to rape and torture.
And yet, as a Northern Arkansan, I’m not remotely offended.
It was clear from context that “The South” referred referred to the governments of the then Confederate states. This is the same way we talk about, say, “Russia” or “North Korea” doing something. It’s understood to be the government and not the people. You yourself used the same language when you talked about “New Jersey” and “Maryland,” as it was their governments who made the apology, not the people of said states as a whole.
Seeing as the people we are talking about argue that the Confederate state governments did not secede over slavery, I do not think it is the language that is causing misunderstanding.
As long as they continue to try and rewrite history on this aspect, we can’t really get into any potential issues with Reconstruction. You have to recognize the actual issue that Reconstruction was enacted to try and address before you can discuss how effective it was.
Personally, my opinion is that it was a good idea but would only work if completed, and that its defeat actually made it more harmful than it would have otherwise been.
I still don’t understand the punishment you’re talking about. Those were military tribunals for war crimes. That’s not punishment for starting the war, being traitors, etc., It’s just regular war punishment that any war criminals would face. Slavery also hurting poor white Southerners is self-imposed and should have nothing to do with any Lost Cause narrative.
But if your ancestor was fighting for the cause of white supremacy and the right to own black people as property, by modern standards that could be seen as a monster. I don’t think the dividing line is that clear-cut.
Some – more in the South than North – were conscripts. But not most.
Except at the start, and for a short time around the Gettysburg battle, the Civil War was an invasion, by the North, of the South. It was justified. But invasion does motivate enemy enlistments.
Since there were no polls, this is as good a guess as any as to how it felt to average whites who enlisted::
There were no polls, true, but there were votes for and against secession. We know for a fact that large swathes of various southern states did not support secession, and yet were subjected to the unlawful authority of rebel leaders anyway. And many of them paid the ultimate price for even mild resistance.
I’m not particularly impressed by Joan Baez’ copying of a song with Lost Cause lyrics written a century after the fact as evidence of how common southerners may have felt. Because we do have actual evidence of how common, white southerners felt, and it was not always “Let’s keep our heads down while we can and defend the farm from them damn Yankees if we must!” or words to that effect. Quite the opposite, in some cases.
What does “suffered Reconstruction” mean to you? Reconstruction happened, but it’s not clear that anyone really “suffered” (unless you count white people who experienced suffering to see black people becoming their social equals, at least for a blessed window of time before Jim Crow reared its head.
I don’t disagree. For every conscript, there might have be several who, with zero enthusiasm, enlisted for fear the soldiering experience would be worse if they waited to become a draftee. The average southern would not have had steel production figures, but you probably did not have to be a military mastermind to know that the USA had the CSA seriously outnumbered.
Of course, being outnumbered by the USA total population may not be discouraging the Taliban.
One of my relatives has the confederate flag flying, and when we visit they usually have Black children, friends of their own children, in the house. Often the neighboring parents are there as well. I’m not the type to make inquiries about motives. However, I don’t think a frontal attack on the Lost Cause would help. That could be why my approach here is more of an attack, if it is one, from the flank.