(Part 2) Best us civil war history books according to redditors
We found 767 Reddit comments discussing the best us civil war history books. We ranked the 298 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
First of all, the United States was not yet important as a world power, so European issues such as the Italian War of Independence of 1859 or the Prussian-Danish War of 1864 were far more important than the internal squabbles on a distant continent.
Until the end of 1862, both North and South supported slavery, seen by most of Europe as a vile outdated abomination. In Europe, it was game over for the South as soon as Lincoln made the war into one against slavery. Amanda Foreman's A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War becomes rather boring after 1863 precisely because the issues had been settled.
Sharp observers like Karl Marx noticed that the North's resources and infrastructure would crush the decadent Southerners. Not so smart observers like Napoleon III thought that the American distraction would allow him (and the British and the Spanish) to dabble in a colonial venture in Mexico.
Generally, the South's support was limited to their trading partners (textile mill owners, shipping magnates, bankers) and parts of the nobility while the working public and the religious were vocal opponents. Foreman even presents the case of a Southern false flag operation of claiming to fight for the abolishment of slavery to garner support.
Overall, support for the South was tepid at best. Support for the North was stronger (especially among the Irish and Germans). Anti-Irish and anti-German resentments within the US dampened the support for the North as the war progressed.
It goes beyond just misguided family members. Groups such as Daughters of the Confederate fought to ensure history books did not include the discussion of slavery. On top of that, even as late as the nineties, very few history teachers (I'm speaking less than 5% in some states) earned even a history minor. Combine these factors, and you have huge populations of people with majorly flawed education. We're now facing the backlash.
This book is very informative on the matter.
I'm actually from the Deep South (Baton Rouge), I went to public school there after Judge John Parker desegregated the public schools. I'm also a beneficiary of desegregation as being an Asian I was counted as a minority. So I'm well steeped into the mind set of Southern Pride and how the past can be romanticized. But unfortunately, not enough emphasis was ever made in school (I think about the only thing we did was read The Peculiar Institution in American History AP) about how evil of a practice that Slavery was or how hateful the Confederate States were or its leaders.
> to actually kind of getting it.
Unfortunately the "it" you've gotten is the Neoconfederate whitewashing of history. I recommend you read:
The South was not genocidal, so no, they weren't literally Hitler. But they did secede over slavery. "No, they seceded over the right to own slaves" is the same thing. Be very careful accepting the Neo-Confederate whitewashing of American history. As their own words indicate, institutions and beliefs they fought for all boiled down to white supremacy and slavery. They were not advocates for states' rights, and the Confederacy itself did not give its states the right to decide slavery.
Here is a decent article on the subject. Here is another decent list of quotations from prominent Southerners on the centrality of slavery leading up to the Civil War.
Be careful falling for the "they fought for their beliefs" argument. No kidding, the Nazis and iSIS and everyone who isn't a straight mercenary is fighting for beliefs. That alone is not ennobling of the cause. We still have to look at the cause for which they fought. Moral neutrality is in practice just a fig-leaf covering what someone happens to admire, or at the very least they don't find it all that offensive.
All slaveowners benefited from slavery. Even non-slaveowners did.
I'm not sure how to put this any other way, but time simply moves faster these days. Culture fluctuates so rapidly in our modern world that we can see a very distinct shift every decade, and even quicker sometimes. In the past, events and changes in culture moved at a slower pace. That could be why there aren't as easy categorizations for the 19th century as there appear to be for the 20th.
Below are two big changes I haven't seen mentioned yet, which may not seem obvious, but affected American culture in a big way in the 19th century.
Not at all. Confederates were so divided that I can not fathom how they were able to last so long. http://www.amazon.com/South-Divided-Portraits-Dissent-Confederacy/dp/B005FOH3K6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1331184410&sr=8-2
The capital of the Confederacy would have been substantially more defensible by land, but it is worth remembering that ultimately the fall of Richmond was more a symptom of the Confederacy's loss of the war than its cause, which came as a result of the Union's systematic encirclement, isolation, and division of the economy, followed by pinning its main army down by the use of superior numbers. As a result, I'd argue that keeping the capital in Montgomery doesn't prolong the war.
It's an interesting counterfactual, though, because there's not a lot of reasons to stick with Montgomery besides defensiveness. Richmond was chosen as the capital of the Confederacy for a number of reasons, both political and economic. You correctly point out that Alabama possesses industrial capacity today, but the iron and manufacturing center of Birmingham didn't develop until after the war. In fact, in 1861, the South possessed precious little industry at all. Richmond was one of these, and one of the mightiest, thanks to one key advantage: the falls of the James. Since the city was built directly on the Fall Line, unlike most of its neighbors to the north and south which were typically built just below the Fall Line for easy access to navigable water (for example, Fredericksburg, Alexandria, and Petersburg), it had easy access to water power simply by exploiting the natural ~100' drop in elevation. This provided a fertile environment for businesses such as Tredegar Ironworks (the third-largest in America and the largest in the South, which produced half of the artillery used by the Confederacy by itself) and the Gallego Flour Mills (the largest of its kind in the world). In fact, according to an estimate by James McPherson, Virginia's industrial capacity was "nearly as great as that of the seven original Confederate states combined," and was focused in areas the South sorely needed: ordnance, cannon, and manufactured comestibles. Richmond was also one of the largest rail hubs in the South, with Atlanta close behind and developing into a more important one following the war.
Without all of that protected by the Confederacy with all of the energy and money that desperate self-preservation can provide, you run the risk that Virginia falls more swiftly, and with it the South. The Confederates knew this, and it factored into their decision-making. Better to risk attack from the North than to lose the only ironworks large enough to supply the army they knew they would need. Ultimately, I think their decision was correct. It just wasn't enough.
Seward's life from 1860 onward was a Shakespearean tragedy. Seward stated late in his life that he wished he had just died when he was attacked: "I have always felt that Providence dealt hardly with me in not letting me die with Mr. Lincoln. My work was done, and I think I deserved some of the reward of dying there." (source, from A World on Fire, cited below)
Here's a synopsis off the top of my head:
Seward was a respected career politician and the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, but did not attend the party convention in Chicago. Lincoln supporters packed the convention (Illinois was his power base, after all) and managed to get their dark horse candidate nominated instead of Seward. This was a shock to the establishment-- it took the media a couple weeks to figure out for sure whether the nominee's name was "Abraham" or "Abram," for example, which illustrates how much of a nobody he was.
Lincoln offered Seward a position as his Secretary of State, which was humiliating for Seward, who considered Lincoln to be a country bumpkin who was absolutely his inferior. He grudgingly accepted the position. But after assuming the role of Secretary of State, Seward privately tried to pressure Lincoln into letting him set the administration's policies and be the head decisionmaker. Lincoln shot him down.
It also turned out that despite how intelligent and generally competent he was, Seward was awful at his job at maintaining foreign relations. He had unashamedly imperialistic ambitions for the United States, and this put him at odds with the rest of the world. He was tactless, and he tended to overdrink in the presence of foreign ministers, which further loosened his tongue. He seemed to view his position as a bully pulpit from which to help bring North and South back together by uniting them against Canada, Mexico, and Europe. His words and actions constantly antagonized the European powers, and he was ridiculed and considered a pompous, overblown windbag by the British in particular.
Seward gradually grew more effective in his role over time, and he grew to respect Lincoln more and more. The two developed a good working relationship. By 1865, they were close friends; Seward was clearly Lincoln's right-hand man.
In April 1865, Seward was seriously injured when he was thrown from a carriage. While recuperating in bed with numerous broken bones, he and his family were brutally attacked on the day of Lincoln's assassination. No one died, but Seward suffered grievously grisly injuries. From the way he was butchered, Seward was in fact assumed dead until he miraculously regained consciousness.
After the attack, Seward's wife, Frances, had a nervous breakdown, and she died of a heart attack. She was followed in quick succession by their final living daughter, Fanny, whose health plummeted after she witnessed her father's gruesome attack and her mother's sudden death; a bout of tuberculosis finished her off.
Seward's dear friend Lincoln was dead, but Seward was still Secretary of State. He had an antagonistic, frustrating, and fruitless relationship with Andrew Johnson, the next president.
Seward's thankless years under Johnson had one bright spot: he initiated the purchase of Alaska from the Russians (which fit perfectly into Seward's dream of annexing the entire continent-- remember what I said about him being AWFUL at foreign relations?), which is now considered to have been a genius move. At the time, though, Seward was absolutely ridiculed by the American public he had spent his life serving.
So ended his decades-long career: from his height as a respected national politician and presidential front-runner, he ended up a traumatized, ridiculed object of scorn whose family and closest friends were dead.
NB: I am not a historian. Don't take all this as gospel. But to cite a couple sources, Team of Rivals and A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War taught me most of what I know about Seward's life and career.
Colonel Fremantle recorded meeting a Captain Chubb who recruited a black crew for his ship in Boston, sailed to Galveston, and sold the goods and then the crew. He was imprisoned on his return to Boston, but escaped.
>Current historiography tries to make the civil war only about slavery.
That's because it's correct. Slavery was the single largest and most consistent political battle of the 50 years leading up to the civil war
>Older historiography emphasized the different tribes coming over from England and their interactions e.g. Albion's Seed. Later historiography still has how the actual civil war was an irrational act brought on by hatred between groups e.g. Madness Rules the Hour
Yes that's because historiography has advanced. Older historiography was also based on flawed ideas like Great Men theory and was by and large reductionist and not focused on empiricism. I'm not sure what argument you think you're making by saying "older historiography said thusly", yeah they did, and they were wrong.
Just like older anthropology was wrong in its usage of Tylor's view of primitive culture evolution
Just like older psychology was wrong in its focus on psychoanalysis.
These fields advance as time goes on and outdated ideas and unsophisticated methods of analysis are cast aside
You're not going to find any modern historical consensus in academia that the civil war was primarily caused by anything other than slavery.
Potentially not. The education system in the south is fraught with Lost Cause-ers, unfortunately. A lot of people take that as gospel and never look into it further.
For anybody hoping to slip free of that propaganda and return to reality, I recommend this book as a primer.
The Civil War Trust, a group dedicated to preserving battlefields, has a really good map section. Some of them are even animated.
http://www.civilwar.org/maps/animated-maps/
You can also check the NPS sites for various battlefields, as they sometimes have good maps.
This book is also pretty good:
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Civil-War-Complete-Tactics/dp/1426203470/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=61TsRd1h-jL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR122%2C160_&refRID=08882N170JEKS439HZDE
You can alwAys just do a quick Google search, too.
I think racism and ignorance are everywhere. For example, it's ignorant for Southerners to assume all Northerners are cold-hearted jerks if they've never even been there just like it's ignorant for Northerners to assume all Southerners are uneducated racists. People need to realize that a small portion of the population doesn't represent the WHOLE population. Have I met racists, ultra-conservatives, and religious fundamentalists? Why yes I have, but these people are few and far between, either that or others are smart enough to not be so vocal about their beliefs (which is what I think the people up North probably learned a while back ago). It's insane to me that people have this mindset about the "racist history of the South" as if the North were immune. Guess what, Washington had slaves, the ground the Liberty Bell rests on was once slave quarters. (source)
I can point you to sources but I know nothing of that area particularly.
Check out these: http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Conflict-Decisive-Guerrillas-American/dp/0807832774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334960811&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/South-Divided-Portraits-Dissent-Confederacy/dp/B005FOH3K6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334960827&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Bitterly-Divided-Souths-Inner-Civil/dp/1595584757/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1
However, if you really want to know, the only way would be to go to Humphreys County and check out the local archives, courthouse records (see what people were being arrested for [Also a great way to put some real local historical events for added drama!]), check out the museums and see what their reading rooms have, etc..... That would be your best bet for finding information. Also check out local universities and see if their archives have any letters or newspapers.
The Appalachian area was rife with pro-unionist sentiment. It was like a Civil War within a Civil War.
Hope this helps some.
This is an excellent comment, I wish I could give you gold. I just downloaded a sample of the book, the first essay is supposed to be one of the better ones so maybe most of it will be in the sample for now, ha.
Here's a link if anyone is feeling lazy:
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Lost-Cause-Civil-History-ebook/dp/B00866HAI0
I have a dog. A family pet. A domesticated animal. Not a "beast" or a "killing machine".
If you have a dog, then you're the same. Your irrational fear mongering doesn't affect that in the least.
You should read this for some facts and perspective: https://www.amazon.com/Pit-Bull-Battle-over-American-ebook/dp/B013ZNK5HG/
The Conscience of the Constitution, by Timothy Sandefur.
As a general rule I expect that they, lacking knowledge of the bigger picture, would side with the people closest to where they each appeared.
That being said, here is where I would think it would be most interesting to see them:
RWBY has an industrialist's daughter and an oppressed racial minority in their group. This would normally indicate a pro-abolitionist slant. However, there was a significant number of wealthy free blacks who owned slaves during that time. Further, Blake's ability to "pass" was an earlier plot point (and parallels a number of mixed-ancestry people at the time); so the most interesting place to put this group is in one of the Confederacy's larger cities (Richmond, Atlanta, Charleston, New Orleans, etc.) And see how that affects their dynamics.
JNPR is perfect for the Shenandoah and Tennessee Valley theatres. Two scions of respected, if not powerful, families; a cherished but tough daughter, and an orphan of the back woods. They are, by definition, more morally ambiguous; so they could fall on either side of the conflict.
CRDL makes the most sense in one of two forces: those of William T. Sherman (who is still hated by many Georgians for his March to the sea) or those of Nathan Bedford Forrest (who thought that political terrorism in the form of the original KKK was a good idea... Asshole.) In either case, they are bullies, bad news for whoever isn't actually fighting the war.
CVFY and SSSN both belong in the Western Theatre. The two sides of the conflict we're far less defined out there, and there were two other parties involved as well (Mexico and the Tribes with a Frenchmen or two thrown in). Think "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "A Fistful of Dollars" or "Magnificent Seven" for reference.
I don't think my argument is the be all end all, but if I had to suggest reading on the subject, I would say read Battle Cry of Freedom:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002NXOQLQ/
I think a few things have recently been debunked, but it's still pretty much the go to for what I would call an even handed approach. Also, probably my favorite all time non-fiction book.
I hope you try this one, too:
The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 by Leander Stillwell..
As a combat vet myself, I find it interesting what people choose to focus on, and what I looked for before I'd been in a real war. Sure, the guns and gear are cool to study, and looking at huge maps depicting precise maneuvers seem like they're explaining stuff....but often battles turn on things textbooks miss.
Saying,"The enemy platoon broke contact when subjected to the concentrated fire of Captain Smith's lead element. Smith was able to move up Objective Hill before noon on the 25th," is only scratching the surface.
That doesn't tell you that a couple guys of the "enemy platoon" were asleep in their OP, and bullshitted their Lieutenant about how many enemy troops were coming up the road so they didn't get busted. Then the LT, who'd eaten a bunch of green apples the day before, didn't feel like sitting in a fighting hole all day with the shits....so he fired two shots from his carbine in the enemy's general direction and pulled back to base.
I'll always try to find a few individual autobiographical accounts by a low-level grunt, and read those. It helps to keep the high-level clinical history in context for me.
With that in mind, please consider reading Shelby Foote's excellent series on the Civil Waralongside Stillwell's work.
If you're reading about the Korean War now, I recommend to you one of my favorite books, The Last Parallel by Martin Russ.. Russ really lets you into his head, and his sketches are simple yet brilliant adjuncts to his prose. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn about life as a grunt.
> I literally started a book about the Civil War
Which book? I'm looking to start to know more, too. I've started with "The Myth of the Lost Cause."
Completely off topic, I had to read a book called "The Peculiar Institution" in college. Quite the interesting read, and I hadn't even thought about it in decades. https://www.amazon.com/Peculiar-Institution-Slavery-Ante-Bellum-South/dp/0679723072
Also: "peculiar" is a hard word to type.
I'm not disagreeing with your argument, I think there are great points in there I would like to discuss.
However, I want to point out that your statistics on how many people owned slaves is wrong. Its factually inaccurate and has been repeatedly disproved.
Summarization here
Relevant reading
To sum up the largest point, you are taking census data after states independantly banned slavery (and additionally stopped recording illegal slave holdings). You're also taking individual slave holdings which ignores the most common form of slave holdings, family slave holdings.
The same census also points out;
> an average of more than 32 percent of white families owned slaves. [And in states where slavery was still lega] Some states had far more slave owners (46 percent in South Carolina, 49 percent in Mississippi) while some had far less (20 percent in Arkansas).
And even if you factor in the entire individual slave holdings, inclusive of places where slavery was illegal, and exclusive of family slave holdings, the figure is 5% (4.9%) using the incomplete census data.
It makes me feel like I cannot trust your arguments - even the well made ones - when you start off the bat with a disproven and factually inaccurate representations. One that is commonly known to be wrong for more than a decade. Sorry, not biting on a post like that.
Current historiography tries to make the civil war only about slavery. But it wasn't. Older historiography emphasized the different tribes coming over from England and their interactions e.g. Albion's Seed. Later historiography still has how the actual civil war was an irrational act brought on by hatred between groups e.g. Madness Rules the Hour
Reconstruction, in general, is pretty depressing, from both sides. I think that's another reason that not many like to teach it. Look at the this, not for the full understanding, but just to start to realize how many different opinions existed on how Reconstruction should be done, and how much it got fought over. The major Parties were splitting and fighting, people were getting assassinated, laws were passed by Congress that generals refused to implement, States were re-accepted then had congressional delegates blocked from entering congress... It was chaos.
The Prison-Labor thing is pretty well known. Just google it. It certainly didn't happen everywhere or to all blacks, but it was significant. And specifically allowed by the 13th amendment, which the southern states had little to no say in authoring. Again, the main controversy wasn't that it was happening, but the details in who actually started it and ended up controlling it. Most resources simplify it to being controlled by the States, but don't go into the details of who was lobbying for it or benefiting from it.
You could start with the [Penal Labor wiki] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#United_States) and Convict Lease. Slavery By Another Name by Blackmon is about it, although it's not really a southern perspective or centered on reconstruction. But it's recent, really well researched, and won a Pulitzer. Confederate Military History by Evans is probably the standard resource for southern perspective on Reconstruction. It's a 12 volume set, written in 1899, and not exactly a weekend novel. But it is available free online. Evans (a confederate general) traveled around the south, gathering stories, opinions, etc from other prominent southerners.
"The Wheel of Servitude: Black Forced Labor After Slavery" by Novak discusses it in detail, and during reconstruction. [Complicity] (www.amazon.com/Complicity-Promoted-Prolonged-Profited-Slavery/dp/0345467833) discusses Northern encouragement and profiting from slavery, but I believe only pre-war. But before diving into any of that, it might help you to just get an idea of exactly how corrupt and misguided reconstruction was in general. That makes understanding the specifics a lot easier. And ties a lot of things together.
The Lincoln getting shot thing is significant. Really significant. It's hard to say exactly how it would have gone better with Lincoln, but it was so bad that everybody generally agrees that no matter what, his leadership would have helped unify the chaos. And the chaos is what led to different policies being put in place in different areas, as well as the crazy power struggles that started. Which besides prison-labor in some places, led to one of the other reasons racism got worse (and might address your question about Wilmington, I don't really know specifics).
The flip side of the prison-labor stuff, is of course, all the black discrimination that somehow happened where there were no prison-camps. Sure, some of it is exactly what most northerners assume: Whites resisting Reconstruction and still wanting to own slaves and just being racist in general. (See: John Wilks Booth). But that was a much smaller group than most realize.
A large number of southerners weren't racist, at least in the same way that Lincoln and Grant weren't racist. Remember that the vast majority weren't ever slave owners. They had lost the war, slavery was over, and everyone just wanted to move-on. There still might have been white superiority, but this was still an idea held by many, including northerners, and even Lincoln and Grant. This did not mean that blacks should be slaves or even shouldn't have equal rights. And there wasn't really any "hatred" behind it. With that in mind, you might describe this as the point of minimum racism during the whole thing. This was probably the best chance to implement policies that would quickly lead to equality.
But then Reconstruction fell into chaos. As the Radical-Republicans gained power, Congress started implementing "punishment" with reconstruction, as well as blocking previously passed reconstruction policies. Keep in mind, during this time, it was generally Republicans that were anti-slavery, like Lincoln. Related Video. The Radical-Republicans were for punishing the south, mostly as a way to "prove" that the war was about the morality of slavery, and somehow punishing the sinners proves this. Also, they were pretty much against southern re-admission, so that they could control the south as territories, preventing representation in congress. Union Generals sometimes followed the old policies that were still law, sometimes the new ones, and sometimes interpreted them into their own policy. Part of the "punishment" was to discriminate against southern whites. (Ironic, I know.)
This discrimination wasn't nearly as long lasting as the discrimination against blacks, but was significant in the mindset that led to it. Many whites were denied citizenship, prevented from owning property, not allowed to vote or run for office... Mostly by troops refusing to let them swear (re)allegiance. The troops had a stranglehold on everything, especially elections. As governments were elected/installed, whites got seriously pissed off about being excluded. (Again, ironic.) People that could run generally had to be a citizen that never was a confederate, or an ex-confederate that had serious Union connections. This is what led to underground political groups to form. Some only wanted to get to vote, some wanted to overthrow politicians that were a result of illegitimate elections, some wanted to get their property back, and some just find a way back to normalcy. They were all viewed by the North as organized insurrections. Which only re-polarized everything.
At the same time, you still have Carpetbaggers. You have Troops generally helping blacks build homes and schools, but in many areas, because of either asshole generals or asshole Congress, whites weren't getting any of the help they were supposed to get. They're poor because their confederate money is worthless. The Generals and new governments are foreclosing on property everywhere to be able to sell it (usually to Carpetbaggers), or give it to Reconstruction projects. So people started getting really pissed. Who did they now see as the enemy? Not only the north and carpetbaggers, but also the blacks, who were benefiting from the same policies that were screwing over the whites.
Black-hate didn't lead to organized insurrections, as much as organized insurrections led to black hate. And the power grabbing, election fixing, wealth redistribution, and chaos that was Reconstruction led to these organized insurrections.
In my opinion, this is what really changed the mindset from a "relatively benign" superior-racism (that Northerners also had) into an us-vs-them hatred-racism. Yes, people were racist before the war. But they generally were fond of blacks, even if it was in a belittling way. They might have thought of them as lessor, whether a slave or freeman. But they generally didn't hate them. At least until Reconstruction gave them a reason to.
Does this give southerners a free pass for racism? Nope. But just like the Prison-Labor, it implicates the North in a way that most people aren't aware of. It caused the us-vs them that went on through the civil rights movement. It explains why the south is still leary of federal control. And is a reason one can be for equality, but against affirmative action.
/rant Didn't intend to type all that. Really just meant to give those sources way up at the top... Hope it ties some stuff together for you.
Interesting point about Germany and Japan. It's easy to forget the success stories sometimes. Interesting to think about what the reasons for success vs failure tend to be. I have heard parallels drawn between post-civil war and Germany post-WWI though, with the major common element being excessive punishment leading to instability and hate. Just don't extrapolate this one too much.
If you really want to get a better picture of Reconstruction, or the war in general, the best place to start is reading about the people. Read both perspectives about one person, then move on. Especially [Lee] (www.amazon.com/Lee-Richard-Harwell/dp/0684829533/). Or his [letters] (www.amazon.com/Recollections-Letters-General-Robert-Lee/dp/1146396341/). He might be the most misperceived person in recent history. Plus he's documented enough to make you realize exactly how one-sided "mainstream" history can be, even when it's not controversial.
Some other popular "non-northern" views. Alternate them with the "mainstream" stuff. You'll quickly get an idea of what was going on.
The South Was Right! by Kennedy
The Real Lincoln by DiLorenzo
When in the Course of Human Events by Adams
Blood Money: The Civil War and the Federal Reserve by Graham
War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Cisco
Lincoln Über Alles: Dictatorship Comes to America By Emison
Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong by Seabrook
You should clarify if you are writing about a Union or Confederate soldier. Also the Eastern Campaigns were fairly different than the Western theatre and Sherman's path thru Georgia.
I read a Union one about a common solider (Leander Stillwell) which was pretty good. It's free here:
https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/aw/d/B004SQX51I?fp=1&pc_redir=T1
IIRC Turner was still there and the Civil War](http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Lost-Cause-Civil-History-ebook/dp/B00866HAI0)*. This is a good way to make SS jokes.
You can read https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GTSJAJ4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Only $2. The deceleration of independence is the example.
We have an example of limited government. It’s ours. You and people like you have and are changing that by confiscating lawful property to give to others whom you deem more worthy of it.
A working family has to move because they can’t afford rent. Just like how I would have to move if I can’t afford rent.
Some quality time with an economics books would serve you well. https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowell-ebook/dp/B00L4FSSTA/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=basic+economics+thomas+sowell&qid=1563764131&s=gateway&sprefix=basic+economics&sr=8-1
Throwing out feel good platitudes doesn’t change 1. The constitution. 2. Basic laws of economics and 3. Human nature.
Everything you are railing against is from democracy driven decision making from local and state politicians and direct ballot initiative. You do realize this right? Limited government would allow someone who owns property to easily build housing that would lower prices. Now the grafters that make up government have to all get a cut or mandate certain “ideals” are meet that drive up the price considerably so that the poor and middle class can not afford to buy/rent.
I'm not one of those people who call northern people Yankees on a daily basis (just used it to try and get my point across in this post). I don't call the Civil war the "War of northern Aggression". I don't have a thick southern accent. I don't spit dip into a spittoon. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was some stereotypical southerner.
Atlanta being small doesn't make it right to burn the whole place down. Sherman ordered his troops to burn down any public building that could be used to aid confederate troops. It may sound fine if you're thinking barracks, post offices, city halls, etc. but the fact is that his troops did a lot worse. They burned down houses, and killed civilians to make an example to the people. Sherman openly believed in Total Warfare, which means you demoralize the citizens so much that they no longer support the war, and the call the boys back home, which basically means the other side will surrender. So then you have to ask yourself, is destroying thousands of innocent people's lives worth not destroying the lives of thousands of soldiers? That is a real hard question to answer, and you can understand why the people who got the raw end of the deal become angry.
I'm very sorry people from Georgia called you a Yankee. I've never actually hated someone I don't know and blamed them for doing something they didn't do. Not everyone feels that way. My mom is from Atlanta and went to college in south Georgia, where she got called a Yankee, so no, people are not always reasonable.
> And wikipedia downplays Sherman's atrociousness because it is more concerned with fact than the stories that southerners tell to their kids.
If you are trying to say that Sherman didn't do wrong, then you probably shouldn't be in this argument.
Wikipedia downplays Sherman's role because people would rather believe that the world is black and white; that the good guys are always good, and the bad guys are always bad. Why do you think people don't like to accept that MLK or JFK had extramarital affairs? We think of them so highly that we forget that they are human beings, and are capable of making human errors. We'd rather ignore the facts, and romanticize fantasy. No one really wants to think that the Union troops were capable of anything bad when they were fighting slavery. No one wants to take a good look at an ambiguous situation and form an real opinion.
EDIT* Sorry, I don't own any complete detailed anthologies of the war, and am not anywhere near a professional historian, but google got me this. It's just people arguing about whether Sherman's acts were justifiable.
And by the way, don't even try to say that anyone saying Sherman acted inhumanely is just repeating stories that southerners tell their kids, because that a pretty silly way of saying you don't like to look at evidence. and I could always say that you are more interested in stories that northerners tell their kids, than you are in fact. It's a double edged sword, and you probably don't want to deal with it.
EDIT** Ok, here is a book written about Sherman's war crimes.
I'm sorry to tell you, but most Civil War historians will tell you that the north's atrocities get downplayed in history books, documentaries, etc. Here is the only thing I've found so far on Wiki (read the Total Warfare and Modern Assessment articles).
Yes, I made up the fact that rape and pillage occur in war. I wish.
here
here
here
It wasn't his sole property, it was the home of his family. They rendered his family homeless in retaliation for what he did. That was the sole purpose in their own words - retaliation and subjugation. So yeah, collective punishment.
The best way for a British person to start learning about the Civil War, is to read what a British person learned when he visited the Civil War. The Fremantle Diary: A Journal of the Confederacy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1580800858/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
The census data you cited does not contradict what the poster was saying. Just counting the number of slave owner does not show how rampant slavery is relative to family units.
Let's say you own a car. The car is in your name and that's the only car in your family of 5. All five in your family would benefit from having a car, but technically only 1/5 of the people were car owners. Furthermore, let's say your car is leased from a dealership. and the dealership owns 1000 cars that they lease out to families. Now 5000 people benefits from having cars, but only 1/5000 (the dealership owner) would be considered a car owner.
In a statistical study for a book by Joseph Glatthar, he found that even though only 4.9% of people owned slaves in slave owning states, 24.9% of people had slaves in their household. Over 44.4% of solders in Robert E Lee's army had slave in their household. source
Earlier this week, I ordered the 2nd and 3rd and this one. I've read many, many positive reviews on the second book, so I figured it was something worth looking into.
http://www.amazon.com/ECHOES-OF-GLORY-VOLUME-Echoes/dp/0737031530
Every Reenactor should have a copy of the bible... "Echoes of Glory"...
No problem!
Yeah, I'm trying to think of books that he may not have read. There's a good chance he's already read Foote or McPherson. If you're going obscure those autobiographies might be a good start.
If you're willing to shell out a little more (though still under $100), there's the Echoes of Glory illustrated series, mainly about the arms & equipment used by both armies. More than fifteen years after I got my set, I still thumb through them.
Just thought of another: Confederates in the Attic is a great look at modern-day obsession with the War, especially in the South. His description of Civil War reenactors is dead on from what I'd experienced when I was part of the hobby.
Another good one he may not have read yet is Stonewall of the West, about Confederate General Pat Cleburne. Cleburne was a flamboyant and fascinating figure, easily one of the best division commanders on either side, but his career was hampered because of his controversial suggestion that the Confederacy should arm the slaves in exchange for their freedom.
Its been in print for over half a century but you cannot ignore The Peculiar Institution.
edit:The African Burial Ground Cemetery discovered in New York City in the early 1990s and now a national monument also tells a lot.
Good scholarly work on slave patrols: https://www.amazon.com/Slave-Patrols-Violence-Carolinas-Historical/dp/0674012348
If you study what slave patrols did (monitor the roads for escaped slaves, making sure slaves who traveled about had their masters permission through permission pass/paper checks, inspecting slaves for contraband (reading material, weapons, etc), defending the interests of the wealthy, we see a lot of what modern policy does particularly through stop and frisk, particularly in cities like NYC where being black and on the street in certain neighborhoods means the same surveillance and physical harassment, without assumption of innocence, for simply wishing to travel freely in public.
Also, Blackmons book, Slavery By Another Name, goes into how post civil war southern states passed Black Codes which made it illegal for a black individual to not have a job (vagrant), carry guns, curse a white man, etc. Police essentially rounded up blacks and poor whites for such offenses, fined them, and when fines could not be paid, sent them to prison chain gangs and convict lease camps. Police did same shit as slave patrols.
Just gonna leave this here.
TLDR-- The 2nd Amendment re: existing [in part] because SLAVERY.
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It was an addition to The Constitution by the government of Virginia, because the slaves outnumbered the plantation owners and Virginians were worried about slave rebellions.
“The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search ‘all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition’ and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds.”
In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state. The law defined which counties had which armed militias and even required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings.
sources: https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/31/2/Articles/DavisVol31No2_Bogus.pdf and Slave Patrols by Sally Haden and https://truthout.org/articles/the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery/
pop culture example---Django Unchained: “Why don’t they just rise up and kill the whites? (rhetorical mention from article linked above-- well, those well-regulated 'slave patrol' militias)
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from this article linked, it has embedded sources at the link
> Madison, who had (at Jefferson’s insistence) already begun to prepare proposed amendments to the US Constitution, changed his first draft of one that addressed the militia issue to make sure it was unambiguous that the southern states could maintain their slave patrol militias.
>
> His first draft for what became the Second Amendment had said: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”
>
> But Henry, Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government. So Madison changed the word “country” to the word “state,” and redrafted the Second Amendment into today’s form:
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> “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
>
> Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations, newly defined as “persons” by a Supreme Court some have called dysfunctional, would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their “right” to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder schoolchildren.
>
**Note: Personally I find this interesting and while not arguing this point-- State (capitol "S") refers to the governmental body as a whole by modern definitions (as I understand it) and state (lowercase 's') refers to states themselves as locations in the country, but I cannot discern editorial accuracy from an online article and am looking into my primary sources more. I do think the whole piece is worth a read but did not want to paste the entire thing here just all the relevant links and some points.
Also BIG CAVEAT---> I am always a little skeptical using TruthOut as a source that's why the primary sources are linked above, and here are their mediabias links for transparency.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/truth-out/
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/truthout/
There's no simple answer, largely because the data doesn't exist, but if you'd like a very thorough understanding of everything pit bulls, I'd recommend the book Pit Bull: Battle Over an American Icon
History textbooks today are so beyond horrible. It's part of why I hated history classes in school. They ignore so many primary documents; it's quite sad.
I would suggest you check out this book...
http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything-ebook/dp/B0041OT8EK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405829084&sr=8-1&keywords=lies+me+teacher+told+me
And this one if you want more of a only Civil War book...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Confederate-Neo-Confederate-Reader-Great/dp/1604732199/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405829118&sr=8-1&keywords=neoconfederate+reader
Them how do you explain the thousands of “black” slave owners in the American south? https://www.amazon.com/Black-Slaveowners-Masters-Carolina-1790-1860/dp/0786469315/ref=nodl_
The amendment had two main purposes. First, the founders were very suspicious of standing armies and so, in the constitution they only allowed funding for two years. Instead, they thought militias would fill the gap.
Here's the important bit.
>To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
Second, slave militias were also a necessity; required in Georgia and used throughout the slave-owning colonies. People needed guns handy to keep their slaves from rebelling. Militias are a slave thing.
https://www.amazon.com/Slave-Patrols-Violence-Carolinas-Historical/dp/0674012348/
The English were Anglican (Protestant), Catholic, and various other shades of Protestant. If anyone were to be disarmed it would have been the Catholics. Could you cite some sources on disarming Protestants?
I'd be glad to discuss this with you after you've done a bit more reading on the topics.
Yes, all the way up until the war, there were thousands of slaveholders who themselves had been slaves. https://www.theroot.com/did-black-people-own-slaves-1790895436/amp
And there is a book just about “black” slave owners in SC: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Slaveowners-Masters-Carolina-1790-1860/dp/0786469315