SO WHAT ABOUT HISTORY?

Tag: slavery

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.