The South is Right!

In the North it was “The Civil War”, to the Southern media and politicians it was “The War for Southern Independence”, to the those in the South who did the killing, the dying and the mourning, it was “The War Against Northern Aggression”.

C'mon, that sounds an awful lot more like something wiseacres and malcontents thought up much, much later.

Didn't it sound a little comical the first time you heard it?

Google finds it used exactly once during the war, by a Northern General as something he wanted to refute.

It looks like the phrase really got started in the 1950s and took off in recent decades. Source

Nowadays, somebody's going to accuse somebody like me of saying Confederate soldiers were stupid if I point out that "War of Northern Aggression" was pretty highfalootin' for use in the trenches and encampments, but ordinary folks, North or South, would have felt pretentious talking that way.

I can't say that nobody ever said, "This is a war of Northern agression," but that wasn't what soldiers commonly called the war.

I’ve heard it all my life and “The War for Southern Independence” was used extensively by politicians and newspapers, “Ive also heard and seen in print “The War Against Northern Aggression” all my life and it probably didn’t come into use until after the war. Some of it’s origins are attributed to the fact that the “Cause” hadn’t attracted great numbers of enlistments, enough to fight a war until President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South. It has always been known in the South that for many of those who participated it was not political. And yes I did make the statement with a degree of tounge in cheek, the same way I often ask a newcomer from the North if he’s a yankee or a damn yankee, this is part of our history and with it came great suffering and hardship of our people. The women of the South were bitter and held grudges for generations beyond the years when the vetrans of both armies would sit together and share stories. There were atrocities commited against the civilan populations, an example would be the shelling of the civilan population of Vicksburg as well as the shelling of yellow flag marked military hospitals in Vicksburg. I’ve not commented on slavery, secession, then or now, but only something that may offer a little insight into how this Southerner views the history of the war and the aftermath. Many of us had ancestors who served in this conflict and while most came home all didn’t and none including the civilans were unscathed.

There's an old joke. I don't remember the exact wording but it went something like this: "You know you're in the South when they call the Civil War 'the War Between the States.' You know you're really in the South when they call it 'the War of Southern Independence.' And you know you're really, really in the Deep South, when they call it 'The War against Northern Agression.'"

I thought it was something "Senator Cleghorn" the radio comedian came up with that some people took too seriously, but sure, it's possible that some Southerners actually used the phrase before the joke started circulating. Given the depth of bitterness after the war, it's wholly likely that some Southerners did use the expression in deadly earnest before somebody thought up the joke.

But now some people actually believe that Southerners who experienced the Civil War actually called it "The War of Northern Aggression" or "The War Against Northern Aggression" while they were fighting it. When you wrote "In the North it was “The Civil War”, to the Southern media and politicians it was “The War for Southern Independence”, to the those in the South who did the killing, the dying and the mourning, it was “The War Against Northern Aggression”" it certainly leaves that impression. But that isn't true. As you say, it was something that most likely came into use after the war.

The people who actually fought the war were less bloodthirsty and warlike than politicians and newspaper writers who didn't see action. That's true of most wars when people are actually fighting. Afterwards politicians and journalists may want to forget what veterans can't.

Also, when you're fighting a war you also don't have the time or the motivation to overthink things the way that people do after a defeat. There are more important things to do and to worry about than playing word games.

I don't have an opinion about the rest, except to say that it all happened a very long time ago.

I left out of my response that the men in the trenches on both sides and the populace in the North and the South would simply refer to it as the war and probably even did so after the Spanish American War until WWI. But of course Mississippi is one of the Deep South States. The point is that there are many who believe that the bulk of the Southern Army consisted of men who were there not for political purposes but to stop the invasion of their homeland, as I pointed out the surge of enlistments came after the call for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South.
It did happen a long time ago and most of the time these things are kind of said tounge in cheek now.

“A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow, ping”

Granted, and bump!

“The South is about understanding that wealth is not money. Wealth is in the land, in the family, and in the things we produce. Money is a tool, not a source of value.”

This is true, though. Family values is the bedrock of the South, at least in the rural South.

Southern big cities are as as bad as any other big city...anywhere.

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