SO WHAT ABOUT HISTORY?

Category: Take Back the Civil War

  • THE REAL POISON OF THE MYTH

    “All men are created equal, says the great Declaration, and now a great act attests to this verity.  Today we make the Declaration a reality.” Charlese Sumner, 1870; at the inauguration of the first Black Senator, Hiram Revels of Mississippi.

    “They came at night, in disguise, and dragged me from my house…they whipped me because I had voted Republican and taught school to colored children.” Eyewitness account, Congressional KKK Hearings, 1871

    “The whole public are tired out of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South…and the great majority are ready now to condemn any interference on the part of the government.” President Ulysses S. Grant, 1875

    “These things happened.  They were glorious and they changed the world…and then we fucked up the endgame.” Charlie Wilson’s War, 2007

    ***

    The Lie

    The culture of the pre-war South was built on the myth of White Supremacy. 

    Whites, being superior to all other races, were said to be granted the responsibility to care for lesser beings, including their black slaves.  For this honor, those slaves would handle the menial labor so that Whites could focus on a life of culture, knowledge, and self-improvement.

    Those slaves, due to their lesser condition, were completely satisfied with their lot in life.  Always happy to serve and unquestionably loyal to their Masters and Southern society.

    What, then, needed to be reconstructed in the post-war South other than that which had literally been deconstructed during the war?  The society had been perfect and idyllic, a mirror of the world a benevolent God intended.

    That is the lie – there was nothing wrong with slavery and the pre-war South, therefore there is no need to rebuild the institutions.   If White Supremacy is correct, then the continued dominance of newly freed Blacks is not just inevitable – it’s natural.  Lesser beings don’t need a voice in government, their concerns will still be governed by their former Masters, as nature intended. 

    All that is truly needed for a successful Reconstruction is to rebuild broken things and then let the South manage herself.

    The Truth

    That is all a crock of shit. 

    The South wasn’t noble.  Slavery isn’t humane.  Reconstruction failed because pride, resentment, and White Supremacy rotted the core of the South until there was nothing left to rebuild upon.

    Reconstruction failed because former Confederates were allowed to shape its aftermath, and ultimately, did what the Confederacy couldn’t – outlast the political will of the rest of America. 

    And they succeeded.  Their poison is still in our system today, choking the very life and liberty so freely promised by the words in the Declaration of Independence.

    Let’s start with the easy one first – Slavery isn’t noble or humane.  If slavery was humane, and those subjected to it were content, then why were there more than 250 documented slave revolts in America?

    In the antebellum South, ‘slave patrols’ were organized groups of armed men responsible for maintaining order and discipline among the enslaved population.  Why do loyal subjects require an armed force to ensure their acquiescence?   

    If the enslaved had no desire to be free and rule their own lives, then why was a Fugitive Slave Act, requiring the return of any person who escaped their enslaver, part of the federal law from 1850-1864?  Why did the black population in Canada increase by 20,000 between 1850 and 1860?  Why did entire escaped slave communities spring up where Quakers or other abolitionists were? 

    The Truth is, the South was already an anachronism when it existed.  The South was run by Planters, large land and slave owners who primarily made their money by the sale of cash crops and humans – this was a small and elite class.  The reliance on forced labor and focus on cash crops meant that Industrialization in the South was far behind the rest of the county.  Due to fewer opportunities, most Southerners were subsistence farmers or laborers – they didn’t own slaves and mostly eked out a survival. 

    The new opportunities for upward mobility and self-improvement that were occurring in the North were not happening in the South.

    The Truth is that the economy, culture, and mythos of the antebellum South was built on slave labor.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, it’s estimated that the total value of all enslaved people was over 3 billion dollars.  The sale of enslaved people is estimated to have generated 7 to 8 million dollars a year in Virginia before the start of the war.

    The Truth is – the war was about slavery, and Reconstruction failed because the South refused to adapt…

    Why It Matters

    It helps to learn history in context, so let’s break Reconstruction down into three stages:

    • “This Could Work” (1865-1870)
    • “Uh-Oh” (1871-1874)
    • “It All Goes to Shit” (1875-present)

    From 1865-1870, the nation struggled.  We had just been through a destructive war, the man we expected to lead us through the post-war reality was assassinated, and a man with odd allegiances, Andrew Johnson, ascended to the Presidency.  The nation struggled with what it had been, what it wanted to be, and how to get there.

    The period of Reconstruction I call “This Could Work” wasn’t utopian.  There was still mass racial violence in cities in the South, newly freed Blacks were subject to discrimination, forced to sign labor contracts, or barred from all work except low-paid manual labor.  The right to vote for the Black man had not been secured, and this was generally a time of uncertainty. 

    In the midst of all that, though, citizenship was granted to all male persons, regardless of race or color, or previous condition of slavery.  The 14th amendment was passed that secures naturalized citizenship and increases the federal government’s authority to protect Americans’ rights. 

    President Andrew Johnson was a Southern War Democrat who hated the Planter class, but still believed in White Supremacy and a South run by White men.  His policies were lenient towards the former Confederacy, making him hated by the Republicans.  In 1866, Americans agreed with Republicans, who wanted stricter requirements for readmittance to the Union, and elected enough Republicans to Congress to override Johnson’s policies. 

    In 1867, Radical Congressional Reconstruction starts, and Southern states are required to draft new constitutions that protect the right to vote for the Black man and require adoption of the 14th amendment. 

    Schools, the precursor to our modern public school system, were constructed all over the South to provide education to the newly-free.  Over 1,500 Blacks were elected to office by 1870.  It wasn’t perfect, there was still violence and upheaval, but there was positive change and momentum.

    In 1871, the start of the “Uh-Oh” period, things started to change.  The last of the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union – and all but about 500 former Confederates were eligible to hold office.   A new evil has arisen, the Ku Klux Klan, that was stoking racial violence and intimidating those working for change.  Blacks in office in the South are accused of corruption or being in cahoots with the federal swindlers.

    In the rest of the country, the Age of the Robber Baron is unfolding and there is rampant corruption in government and finance.  Eventually corruption crashed the economy in 1873 and the rest of the country loses the will to deal with a still rebellious South.

    By 1875, It All Goes to Shit.  There are some attempts at legislation to force compliance in a rebellious South, but without the will to enforce it, the new laws are ignored.  In 1877, to ensure they won the Presidency, Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction.  Reconstruction end, segregation is codified, and civil rights are basically ignored until the late 1940’s. 

    ***

    The Civil War wouldn’t be the last time America fucked up the endgame.  WW2, Vietnam, both Afghanistan adventures, healthcare are just some in the long list.  Losing focus is a consequence of a free and Democratic society.  In most cases, it’s too late to go back and try to get it right. 

    Reconstruction isn’t one of those cases.

    Reconstruction was murdered because we abetted liars and traitors.  We allowed the worst among us to retain their hold in society and that poison has trickled through the ages.

    Due to our belief that an idiot should be allowed to say whatever he wants, we are loathe to go the German route and prohibit certain types of speech.

    That means it’s on us, as a society, as participants in our creaky-but-still-functional Democracy, to call out the poison when we hear it.

    ***

    In May of 2020, most of us were stuck at home.  Most businesses were closed due to COVID restrictions, a lot of us were working remote, and we, while terrified, all had a break from the grind and hustle of a Capitalist society. 

    So, when a police officer murdered a Black man named George Floyd on the streets of Minneapolis, most of us couldn’t believe what we’d seen.  We were shocked and outraged.  In the immediate aftermath, most Americans, according to polling, agreed that policing in this country was racist.  Most Americans felt that the protests were justified, even though they’d prefer there was no violence.

    NASCAR banned Confederate flags from their events.  Communities began talking about options for policing to try to circumvent the racism inherent in the system.  For a while, at least, it seemed like we understood how short we were of true equality.

    Just like the post-war momentum, we got distracted.  Distracted by COVID, and fear, and our lives.  New liars brought out the same lies – it’s not the police, it’s those people.  The system isn’t rigged, those people are criminals.  There’s no point in helping those people, they’ll just waste any opportunity.

    We, again, let them get away with it because we were tired, distracted, beaten down.

    ***

    If we don’t take our history back, it will keep being used against us.  The lie is still told on the news, it’s written into laws, it’s hung on flagpoles and porches.  And we let them keep lying.

    We have to name it.  The Civil War was fought over slavery.  The Confederacy existed to preserve the institution of slavery.  The men in gray fought to preserve slavery; the men in blue to end it.  Slavery was brutal, horrible, and evil.  Slavery, and its less oppressive descendants, have destroyed the fabric of Black culture, society, and family.

    And that is still in our system, continuing to do its damage.

    I know we’re all tired.  We’ve been fighting this fight for generations – and every time we make the slightest progress, the bad guys lie louder, dig deeper, and distract too many of us with some other shiny problem.

    But the truth still matters…it has to matter.  If we want a future that looks like the original American Promise, we have to take our history back.  We have to speak freely, fiercely, with conviction – and refuse to let the lie go unanswered.  We have to take back the truth in our schools, politics, and daily lives. 

    If we don’t tell the truth about the past, they’ll keep telling their version – and using it to justify everything that happens next.

  • YOU KNOW THERE ARE GOOD GUYS IN THIS STORY, RIGHT?

    “I consider involuntary slavery a never-failing fountain of the grossest immorality, and one of the deepest sources of human misery; it hangs like the mantle of night over our republic, and shrouds its rising glories.” John Rankin, Presbyterian Minister

    “I have only a short time to live, only one death to die, and I will die fighting for this cause.  There will be no peace in this land until slavery is done for.” John Brown, 1856

    “…slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude…It being  among my first wishes to see some sort of plan adopted, by which slavery in this county may be abolished by law.” John Adams, Founding Father, 2nd President of the United States

    “Every man knows that slavery is a curse.  Whoever denies this, his lips libel his heart.” Theodore Dwight Weld, speaker, writer, abolitionist

    “Slave power crushes freedom of speech and of opinion. Slave power degrades labor. Slave power is arrogant, is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic, not only over the slave but over the community, the state.”   Elizabeth Van Lew, Richmond citizen and Union spy during the war

    ***

    Slavery is awful.  It is the domination of another human, while forcing them to do labor, with no promise of compensation, food…or even the most basic care.  Approximately 4 million people were under the chains of slavery in 1861.  Slavery destroyed individuals, families, communities, and countries. 

    The horrors of slavery make this period of American history hard for many people to talk about.  “It’s just so sad and ugly,” or “It makes me feel bad – I wasn’t there, and I had nothing to do with it.  I don’t want to feel bad about something I didn’t do.”  But to skip the hard parts of our past is passing up the opportunity to learn the most valuable lessons. 

    Sometimes, having a hero makes a hard story easier to digest – and there were heroes in the 1800’s.  There were millions of Americans, both north and south, that railed against the evils of slavery.  They screamed from pulpits, street corners, and podiums that slavery would ultimately cost the nation its soul, that it had to be stamped out no matter the cost.  Some even preached the equality of all mankind – and were so tantalizingly close to success in the early days of Reconstruction that it hurts to imagine how close America came to truly fulfilling her promise.

    Were all of them perfect?  No, and that’s a ridiculous standard anyway.  But the fact is they, even in their imperfection, were a force for good and change.  When we teach the lessons of the Civil War, we should celebrate these bright matches in the terrifying darkness.

    Since we’ve talked about what the Confederacy fought for, let’s celebrate those who stood against it:

    Thaddeus Stevens
    Stevens served as a Representative of Pennsylvania in Congress from 1859-1868.  He was a founding member of the Republican Party, a staunch abolitionist, and advocate for equal rights.  It’s fair to say, with no exaggeration, that he hated slavery and the slave holding south.  His words from 1862 – “Abolition – Yes! abolish everything on the face of the earth, but this Union; free every slave – slay every traitor – burn every rebel mansion if these things are necessary to preserve this temple of freedom to the world and to our posterity.” 

    During the war, he created coalitions to ensure the Union war effort was funded, and kept constant pressure on the Lincoln administration to press the Confederacy as hard as possible.  After the war, he was an advocate for Radical Reconstruction which would have forced the South (and the nation as a whole) to accept newly freed African-Americans as equals in everything – employment, politics, bureaucracy.  He ultimately led the impeachment against Andrew Johnson because Johnson opposed Radical Reconstruction and sought to restore power to former Confederates without securing the rights of freed people.  He died in 1868 without seeing his vision realized.

    Thaddeus Stevens is a man to celebrate.  He’s a hero who stood against the wealth and political clout of the Planter Aristocracy and, until the Myth took over, won.

    Charles Sumner
    Sumner served as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts from 1851-1874.  Sumner was a staunch abolitionist and advocate for equal rights.  In 1856, during the debate on whether to admit Kansas as a slave or free state, Sumner said this on the floor of the Senate about Andrew Butler, fellow Senator from South Carolina – “The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot, slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this senator.”  A couple of days later, Andrew Butler’s cousin, Preston Brooks, attacked Sumner with a cane while Sumner was at his desk in the Senate chambers.  Brooks almost killed Sumner, who, once recovered physically, still took almost three years to recover from PTSD. 

    During his first speech on the floor of the Senate after he returned, some Southern Senators took offense at Sumner’s renewed attack on slavery.  Sumner responded, “Say, sir, in your madness, that you own the sun, the stars, the moon; but do not say that you own a man, endowed with a soul that shall live immortal, when sun and moon and stars have passed away.”  I mean – damn near killed for attacking slavery and walks back in with a mic drop.  That is a man filled with the holiest of fires.

    Sumner would join Stevens in the same efforts during and after the war.  Sumner fought for equal rights for the newly freed peoples and…pretty much everyone else after the war.  He repeatedly tried to remove the word “White” from naturalization laws, and ultimately believed that any sort of legal discrimination against anyone flew in the face of the Declaration of Independence. 

    Sumner wasn’t just an abolitionist, he was an advocate for the American Promise.  If you need a light when exploring the darkness, Sumner is as close as you’ll get to the Batman signal.

    Elizabeth Van Lew
    A lifelong citizen of Richmond, and belonging to a reasonably well-to-do slave owning family, Elizabeth Van Lew was also kind of a badass. 

    Though Van Lew was raised in a household with slaves, she was educated in a Quaker school.  Lew adopted the Quaker’s abolitionist beliefs, and worked to end slavery and the Confederacy.

    During the war, Van Lew cared for wounded Union soldiers, passed information from Confederate prisoners to the Union, and helped Union prisoners and Confederate deserters escape. 

    Not finding that exciting or impactful enough, she started a literal spy ring in the Confederate capital to funnel information to the Union.  It’s suspected that one of the spies was a maid in President Jefferson Davis’s mansion.  Her spy ring was so effective that General Grant sent her flowers…several times.  After the fall of Richmond, she was the first person to raise the US flag.

    After the war, she was mostly an outcast in her home city – which she had to have known was the likely consequence.  She managed to survive on the generosity of friends, but never expressed any kind of regret for her work. 

    Elizabeth Van Lew directly helped end slavery and the Confederacy, and she did it in one of the coolest ways possible.  Let’s take Lee off the Good Guys list and replace it with Lew.

    A Personal Story and an Anecdote
    Most heroes aren’t perfect.  Even our favorite action heroes always have a flaw – booze, women, failed relationships – they make the best heroes because they still fight through the darkness.

    My ancestors owned slaves.  That’s not something said with any amount of pride.  Those ancestors shared my last name, and their actions, despite what they believed, are a scar on our name. 

    But before the outbreak of the Civil War, and before North Carolina seceded from the Union, my way-back, wealthy, slave holding Uncle wrote a letter to the Governor and other politicians in Raleigh.  That letter said, in paraphrase, “I will free my slaves today if that saves the Union.”  After the war started, the family’s young men of fighting age were sent west to Arizona – they didn’t want them to fight and die for a cause they didn’t believe in.

    I’m sure in other ways, these people were backward as hell in their beliefs on race and equality.  But when the moment came, they stared at the moment, challenged to support something they didn’t believe in to continue the life they knew and said…No.  They believed in something more important than themselves, and their comfort, and were willing to give that up because of their convictions.  I can take some pride in knowing I come from a bloodline willing to stand in the breach for what they believe.

    …which leads to the anecdote.  The war is full of quick moments that were captured in soldiers’ letters, diaries, and newspaper.  Little moments like “Turn up For Richmond” or Sherman gifting Lincoln Savannah for Christmas carry so much gravity because of the immensity of the struggle.

    Grant took command of the Union armies in 1864 and chose to stay in the eastern theater to oversee the campaign to eliminate the Army of Northern Virginia.  As every other commander before him had done, he trained his troops, made plans for the campaign, and set off south to fight General Lee. 

    The first battle was the Battle of the Wilderness, fought in the forest, thickets, and brambles of northern Virginia.  It was a brutal, nasty three-day fight where many men were killed by fire when the dry vegetation was lit during the battle.  The fighting was close-up, even hand-to-hand, due to limited visibility.  In the end, the Union army lost over 17,000 men in three days, the Confederacy over 11,000.  (Since we played the casualty rate percentage game earlier, in this battle they were Grant: 14.88%, Lee: 16.68%.  Suck it, Lost Cause.)

    At the end of the battle, most soldiers in the Army of the Potomac expected they would pack up and head back north…like every general before had done.  When they started marching and realized they were going south, the men in the ranks erupted in cheers.  After all the fighting, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and years of being away from home, these men were excited that they were finally going to take the fight to, and out of, the Confederacy.

    We don’t know WHY they fought, but every one of those men is a hero who deserves to be celebrated.

    This is just a tiny taste of the many heroic figures who worked for a better day in the American 1800’s. Even a cursory Google search or quick chat with your favorite LLM can provide you with an almost endless list of heroes.

    These are names we should celebrate – and our education shouldn’t include the greatness of Lee, but rather the courage and audacity of Lew. Instead of celebrating Stonewall’s marches, we should celebrate the walls of justice that were Stevens and Sumner. And we should celebrate the memory of all those who fought in blue.

    That is how we take back our history.

  • YEAH, THAT’S WHAT IT WAS ABOUT

    “The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery…Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.” – Georgia Declaration of Causes, January 29, 1861

    “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.” – Mississippi Declaration of Causes, January 9, 1861

    “The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution…Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.” – South Carolina Declaration of Causes, December 20, 1860

    “She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.” – Texas Declaration of Causes, February 2, 1861

    ***

    The Lie

    According to Encyclopedia Virginia, there are six tenets to the Lost Cause Myth:

    1. Secession, not slavery, caused the Civil War.
    2. African Americans were faithful slaves, loyal to their masters and the Confederate cause.
    3. The Confederacy was defeated militarily only because of the North’s overwhelming manpower and resources.
    4. Confederate soldiers were heroic and saintly.
    5. The most heroic and saintly of all was Robert E. Lee
    6. Southern women were loyal to the cause and sanctified by the sacrifice of their men.

    Let’s take a sledgehammer to the load-bearing wall of the Myth – the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery. As it was told to me growing up, had the northern states just let the Confederacy be, there would have been no war. 

    The Confederacy (please read this in your best Foghorn Leghorn) didn’t want to keep slaves, you see. They were simply tasked with the care of lesser beings, whom God (in his wisdom) had placed in their care. After a time, slavery would have gone away and then the Confederacy would have become a happy Utopia where an inferior race was “managed” by the superior White man. 

    No, I didn’t hear this at neighborhood Klan rallies, I heard this at church.   I didn’t have to seek out the kooky skinheads at school, I just had to go to American History class.

    I was told that to the people of the time, the fight wasn’t about slavery.  That was just something Yankees came up with to make Southerners feel bad about themselves after the fact.  And that those damn Yankees did that because of the whooping they got.

    But, then, what the hell are these Declarations of Causes?

    The Truth

    The Truth is that four States issued Declarations of Causes when they seceded from the Union.  I had never seen or heard of these until 2023, when I stumbled on a random Reddit post.  Bookmark that link – it has the same effect on Lost Causers that garlic has on vampires.  I plucked out the juiciest sections, but please read them in their entirety.  And, if you’ll allow me to use the same joke twice, please read the whiny parts of South Carolina and Mississippi in your best Foghorn Leghorn.

    This…this is a tough section to write.  What can I say when the sons of bitches already said it all?

    “But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

    Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.” Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President, Confederate States of America, March 21, 1861.

    Let’s say we entertain the attempt at an intellectual argument that if the war was about slavery, then why didn’t Lincoln say that from the start? 

    The answer, as always – and in the most American way possible – is politics.  There were four states that permitted slavery and were on the fence about secession – Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri.  In the early stages of the war, Lincoln had to toe the line to ensure that those states didn’t also leave the Union.  Can you imagine if Maryland secedes, and DC is suddenly surrounded by a foreign country?

    Also, until after the Seven Days’ in 1862, there was still a chance that the two sides would make up and the parts would become whole.  While that chance existed, Lincoln couldn’t do the one thing that would make reunion impossible – touch slavery.  It wasn’t until the war had essentially gone total in 1862 that it was clear that the parts were irretrievably broken with no hope of reassembly and would have to be replaced with something new.  Then, and only then, was it politically safe for the Union to make the war about ending slavery.

    The individual soldier?  Well, it matters less what he’s fighting for.  This is not a dig at individual soldiers – I come from a military family.  But does the gun care where the soldier points it?  No, and while the individual soldier surely contemplates his purpose in the larger scope of geopolitics, what he believes doesn’t matter as long as he fights.  In 1863, the Union made the war about ending slavery.  The army didn’t evaporate or stop fighting. It grew in strength and power and, ultimately, ended slavery.

    Why it Matters

    Until 1865, slavery existed in America.  Slavery was included in our constitution, those in bondage were counted as three-fifths of a person.  Slavery was known to be the poison pill at our founding.  Slavery was the main source of conflict between the sections before the war.  Slavery is America’s original sin.

    It’s painful.  It’s ugly.  It hurts. 

    It’s on the list of things that makes me cry if I think about it.

    But it’s the truth.

    And in 1860, the majority of the country voted for a man they knew would likely take slavery on – if only to contain it.  And when States left to protect their right to own slaves (see what I did there?), they gave him the political support to restore the union and end slavery.

    In 1865, they were successful.  Through might of arms, political stamina, innovation, and downright courage, millions of people were freed from bondage.  We should celebrate this every day.

    But the poison of the Myth has the power to erase that accomplishment from history.  Just like the “Great Men” argument, this part of the Myth makes it easy for one to make dark leaps in logic.

    If the South didn’t secede to protect slavery, and the Union only went to war to keep the South from leaving – then slavery wasn’t worth fighting over?  If slavery wasn’t worth fighting over, was it that bad?  Or, alternatively – if we weren’t fighting to end slavery, then are they right that one race is superior to another?

    This pillar of the Myth is the most destructive and was effectively used to ruin the proper reintegration of the South into the Union.  It’s been used as the philosophical basis for racists laws and structures since the end of Reconstruction.

    It’s stolen our history from us.

    And it’s time we took it back.

  • THE GALLANT HEROES VS. THE MINDLESS BUTCHERS

    “All over these United States we recognize him as a great leader of men, as a great general.  But, also, all over the United States I believe that we recognize him as something much more important that that. We recognize Robert E. Lee as one of our greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936

    If the war is judged as “an intellectual exercise rather than a match of brute force, that title will be given to Robert E. Lee above all men in America, and the Confederate commander will be declared to have been much greater in defeat that Grant in his boasted victory.” – Edward A Pollard, 1866

    “Since the Son of Man stood upon the Mount, and saw ‘all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof’ stretched before him, and turned away from them to the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, and to the Cross of Calvary beyond, no follower of the meek and lowly Saviour can have undergone more trying ordeal [than Lee].” – John W. Daniel, 1883

    “A man who butchered his way to success.”  Andrew Johnson, 1866

    “The devastation wrought by Sherman’s army stands as a testament to the horrors that can be inflicted under the guise of military necessity.” – Alexander H. Stephens

    ***

    The Lie

    One of the first things I remember being taught about the Civil War in that 8th grade North Carolina History class was that the Confederacy never stood a chance. The Union had more men, money, and material – the Confederacy knew this but stood up for their rights to self-govern anyway. And, as the Legend goes, despite all their shortcomings economically and militarily, the Confederacy dragged the Union into a long and costly war due to the gallant efforts of their brave and courageous generals, officers and soldiers. The only reason they were ultimately defeated was due to the overwhelming manpower and industrial capacity of the north, who just kept throwing men into the breach until the Confederacy had nothing left to give. 

    Grant was painted a drunken monster who wasted thousands of lives on his relentless march to Petersburg in 1864. Sherman was a craven villain despoiling lands, buildings, and ladies (*gasp!*) as he marched from eastern Tennessee to Georgia to North Carolina.

    Despite the best efforts of Lee and Longstreet, there was nothing that could truly be done to stop the northern horde. Grant and Sherman would have every man in their army killed on Tuesday and be restocked for attack by Friday. The Confederacy was doomed from the start, only gallantry and strong, Christian bravery allowed them the brief time they had.

    That’s the Myth.

    The Truth

    Except…

    Grant
    – Total number of men: 1,000,000 
    – Killed or wounded (1861-1865): 200,000
    – Casualty Rate: 20%.

    Sherman
    – Total number of men: 500,000
    – Killed or wounded (1861-1865): 53,000
    – Casualty Rate: 10.6%

    Lee
    – Total number of men: 650,000
    – Killed or wounded (1861-1865): 170,000
    – Casualty Rate: 26.15%

    The genius Lee, despite commanding a smaller force with a smaller base to pull from, lost a higher percentage of his men than his northern opponents.  Not just in defeat, but in victory too.

    Fredricksburg

    Men under Lee: 78,513
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 5,377
    Casualty Rate: 6.84%

    Men under Burnside: 122,009
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 12,653
    Casualty Rate: 10.37%

    After Fredricksburg, Lincoln reportedly said that if such a battle were fought every day for a week, “the army under Lee would be wiped out to its last man, while the Army of the Potomac would still be a mighty host.”

    Chancellorsville
    Men under Lee: 60,298
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 12,764 
    Casualty Rate: 21.16%

    Men under Hooker: 133,868
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 17,287
    Casualty Rate: 12.91%

    One interesting little nugget that the entire Battle of Chancellorsville turned on (not Stonewall’s march around the flank) is that Union General Hooker was the recipient of an epic concussion after a cannon shell knocked the roof of the porch he was standing on down and onto his head. He was out cold for 30 minutes while the flank attack was raging, and when he came to, he wasn’t removed and didn’t relinquish command. General Hooker basically didn’t know where he was for most of the battle.  As so often happens in war, the best laid plans (and Hooker’s Chancellorsville Campaign is largely considered a good plan) are upended by the smallest incident. Had Hooker retained his senses – or had General Couch been given command – Meade’s Corp likely moves south to smash Jackson.

    That, friends, is called luck.

    And are you tracking the percentages? A great general preserves his army – especially when fighting with fewer men and resources. Even in victory, Lee was losing men roughly on par with his enemies. How does a supposedly great General lose the same amount of men as the bunch of dummies in blue?

    We haven’t even gotten to Antietam and Gettysburg yet, two battles celebrated as evidence of Lee’s tactical genius.

    Antietam
    Men under Lee: 30,646
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 10,337
    Casualty Rate: 33.73%

    Men under McClellan: 53,632
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 12,410
    Casualty Rated: 23.14%

    At Antietam, Lee took the low ground with his back to a river and a single crossing to escape. McClellan left two-fifth’s of this army out of the battle. A.P Hill showed up at just the last minute and just in time to hold the bridge so the Army of Northern Virginia could escape. Once again, that’s called luck – and a really bad opponent.

    Gettysburg
    Men under Lee: 75,000
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 28,000
    Casualty Rate: 37%

    Men under Meade: 104,256
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 23,049
    Casualty Rate: 22.10%

    At Gettysburg, Lee stumbled accidentally into a battle, let his opponent take the best defensive ground, and still insisted on repeated attacks. The last attack was a frontal assault on fortified positions that could only be attacked by crossing a half mile of flat, open ground. 

    In the end, he wasted over a third of his army, and the Army of Northern Virginia never recovered. The main reason Lee’s army survives its retreat to Virginia is due to the legend that surrounded Lee, and Meade’s concern that Lee would lash out like a wounded animal if threatened.

    By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, that’s two battles where Lee lost over a third of his Army. The supposedly gallant and genius Lee, fighting for a country with few resources and manpower, lost over a third of his army. Twice. Both of those battles were on enemy ground fought by an Army whose job it was to defend the Confederacy.

    One additional footnote to Gettysburg is that John H. Reagan, Confederate Postmaster (and the only Confederate cabinet member to actually be successful) strongly opposed Lee’s move north and instead felt it more prudent to send men west to hold Vicksburg. He said “If we lose the Vicksburg, we lose the Mississippi. If we lose the Mississippi, we lose the war.” He was overruled, Vicksburg falls the day after Lee is defeated in Gettysburg and the Confederacy has about 18 months to live.

    The great and powerful, the all-knowing Lee was out-generaled by a Postmaster?  Don’t remember that in my middle and high school history books.

    And one more for funsies because I can’t believe this General had bases named after him.

    Franklin
    Men under Hood: 31,000
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 6,252
    Casualty Rate: 20.16%

    Men under Schofield: 27,000
    Total killed/wounded/captured: 2,326
    Casualty Rate: 8.61%

    The Battle of Franklin happened after the fall of Atlanta and before the fall of Savannah.  General Hood marched his men to Franklin, in the cold and without proper equipment, to besiege the city in an attempt to draw Sherman out of Georgia.  He then attacked an entrenched force of equal size, essentially lost his Army in the process, and came away shattered – the written records of Hood after the Battle of Franklin are a reminder of the haunting effects of PTSD.  General Grant said he couldn’t comprehend the move to Franklin; if it had been him, he would’ve marched to St. Louis where no Union Army was and really have caused some trouble. 

    Why it Matters

    Know how a religion starts? Someone, or several someones believe that a certain person, place, or thing is holy or has some kind of special powers. They are able to observe their truth in some way and then explain how to see it to someone else.  If the original tellers are convincing enough, more people will decide that said person, place, or thing is special and align their beliefs accordingly.  

    This is rough math, I’m not a sociologist.

    Convince enough people to believe that Lee and his fellows in gray were gallant defenders of virtue – while Grant and the villains in blue were only out for blood – then it’s not too far a leap to convince those new believers that, obviously, so noble a man as Robert E. Lee would never fight for a cause as unjust and evil as slavery. 

    To glorify these men is to whitewash their cause and frame victors as villains. Even today, millions of Americans revere the names of Lee, Longstreet, and Jackson and despise the names of Grant, Sherman, and Thomas. And, to some of the most indoctrinated, the thought has to be: if these super awesome dudes were fighting for slavery, maybe slavery wasn’t so bad after all.

    This is the consequence, the slippery slope we stand upon when we choose to write the history we enjoy rather than the truth – a war was fought between the states and hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. In the end, the southern Confederacy was defeated because of a lack of industrial base, manpower issues, wasteful generalship, narrow-minded political leadership, and as unjust a cause as man has ever fought for.

    That is our American history – we struggled, with each other, to end slavery. Our best and brightest strapped on blue uniforms and marched into battle. They fought to preserve the union, or to end slavery, or just to see the elephant. But they fought well, bravely, and largely with honor. Their efforts reduced a strong and defiant rebellion through the use of arms and politics. In the end, we should have been rewarded with a more equitable future for all, but we let the losers frame the conversation and so much effort was simply…wasted.  History should challenge us, not comfort us. The truth is hard – but it’s ours. And if we’re brave enough to face it, maybe we can finally begin to honor the right side of that terrible war and move to correct what they ultimately fought and died for.

  • A DUMB LITTLE KID AND GREAT BIG LIES

    I grew up all over America.  I was born in Colorado, lived in south Georgia for 5 years, a couple of different places in Oklahoma over 6 years, and finally North Carolina, where I’ve been since 1990.  The South has always been a place of wonder for me – men still adhere to an honor code (even if they don’t know it), and there’s a nobleness to the way they tell their history about the bravery it takes to tame such lands, and the courage of their ancestors to stand up to a great oppressor.

    Except that most of that history is a lie.  A lie about history, about race, about who we are as a country and how we got here.  These myths shaped me and society at large, creating biases and blind spots that we all carry.  This is the story of how I came to see through these myths and why telling the truth about American Civil War is essential – not just for me, but for all of us.  

    I was young when we lived in south Georgia in the 1980’s, too young to understand history or hate, and I remember the bus for my private, Christian elementary school would drive through a black neighborhood and all the white kids on the back of the bus would hang their heads out the window and yell n-bombs at anybody standing outside.  My family was southern, but I’d moved here from Colorado when I was 4 so this scene was strange to me.   We didn’t drive through that neighborhood the whole year – eventually the bus was attacked with projectiles after a kid on the bus had hit someone in the head with a sparkplug.  I was too young to understand it then, but the American South is a place still clinging on to legends and myths.

    After a few years in the Midwest, where racism exists but it’s not as out and proud because the only people around are people that look like you, we moved to Eastern North Carolina.  I started my 8th grade year in Onslow County Public Schools. 

    North Carolina was and is so very different from the Midwest, and I was old enough to catch and understand the differences.  First, it’s so damn hot and humid.  Just…my God.  Second, the minority population compared to Oklahoma was…dizzying?  This was a military town, so people from everywhere went to school here.  So many colors, styles, different sounds.

    My first class was homeroom / North Carolina History.  I loved, and still love, history and was excited by the syllabus – Native Americans in NC (huge for a kid coming from Oklahoma), NC natural history, the American Civil War…all exciting stuff.  The Civil War especially – I knew it was about slavery but hadn’t really learned any details in previous schooling.

    First day of class, the teacher, an old southern white lady native to eastern NC, was reviewing the syllabus.  When we got to the Civil War part, she very proudly and loudly said “Your syllabus refers to a period of American history as the Civil War.  In my classroom, we’ll refer to that period as The War of Northern Aggression.”  My little brain freaked out – The War of Northern Aggression?  The North went to war to preserve the Union and free the slaves.  What the hell is the War of Northern Aggression?

    For 5 years, whether in school, church, or around the neighborhood, the myths and lies that, in part at least, keep Southern society afloat, were slowly and methodically poured into me. 

    5 years later, I’m a senior in high school in North Carolina.  I drive an old pickup with a couple of rebel flag stickers in the back window.  Had a rebel flag on the wall in my bedroom.  Our senior trip was to Washington DC – while I was there, a friend and I found a stand selling Rebel flags (in Washington DC…the Capitol of the nation that defeated the Confederacy…), bought one and excitedly returned to our hotel room to show all our classmates.  A pair of black classmates saw the flag, looked at me with real hurt in their eyes and said, “Really, Charlie?”  Their hurt and disappointment confused me – I’d been taught for 5 years now that the Civil War wasn’t about racism or slavery, it was about States’ Rights.  Who can be upset about that?

    The question I should have asked is – how did a kid from the Midwest who didn’t even understand the south 5 years ago come to adopt hate symbols from more than a century before? 

    The answer is easy – Indoctrination and Ignorance.

    And that ignorance festered and became a foundational part of who I was and how I identified.  I was Southern, by God, from the people proud enough to stand up to tyranny even though they knew they’d lose everything in the process.  We were noble, we were proud, and we were unstoppable.

    I graduated High School and moved onto college, where I proceeded to fail in ways so epic and spectacular they are told as legends on the campus of East Carolina University to this day.  I failed out of college and had to get a job.  I failed to get a good job and spent the next 3 years working shit hours for shit pay in a shitty apartment.

    And I was angry about my failure.  It wasn’t because I partied too hard, didn’t go to class, and generally made no effort to better myself after High School.  It was because I was Southern, and the world was against me.  People that didn’t look like me were successful because the system was rigged and had been for years.  Blah blah blah blah.  Eventually I got my head out of my ass, finished college and started a career. 

    If you’ve gotten to this point and, in the back of your mind, you’re hanging on for dear life waiting for the epiphany moment, the big ah-ha that changed my life, well I’m sorry.  Just like the indoctrination into the cult of the Lost Cause (and many other American History myths we’re likely to explore), the reverse was a slow trickle of real-world truths and study. 

    I got married and raised kids.  We went on cheap cruise vacations where we explored the Caribbean.  I’d be on some random island I’d never heard of, look it up on Wikipedia and read the awful history of the slave trade there and elimination of the natives.  Or, as I worked in local government, I could see the hidden yet insidious ways some ordinances are designed to exclude people.  Whatever it was, it was a slow trickle of unwinding myths and lies.

    By the time of COVID, my views on race had modernized.  I’d seen, been, and done enough to know that I wasn’t special and that everybody has something to contribute, but I still struggled with history.  I struggled with what little I actually knew about the Civil War against what I was taught.  I struggled with the idea that we had fought to cleanse our sordid past for a brighter future while watching what seemed to be the same old fights being fought over and over again.

    Like most of us, I was looking for any way to escape reality in 2020 and 2021.  One night, I was doomscrolling TikTok when I saw a 15-second video for The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the War and Why the North Won by Edward H. Bonekemper II and the voiceover said “If you want to know how we got here, read this.  It’s also an Audiobook.”

    So I downloaded the Audiobook (the narrator is tough, so prepare yourself if you go that route) and in 9 hours and 3 minutes my entire foundation was rocked.  One by one it challenged the basic ‘facts’ I ‘knew’ about the Civil War.  And after that foundation of myths, lies, and hate was destroyed, I went looking for the truth.

    That’s what we’re going to do here – present the lie, tell the truth, and then show how it led us to modern America.  History is usually told by the victors, but somehow the losers framed the American Civil War.  Join me as we take back our truth, the American truth.