Lincoln sold the war to the north on "preserving the union", not "freeing slaves." Read his proclamation calling for volunteers to invade the South. Not a word, nary a syllable about slaves, slavery or freeing. A preserved union would keep the cotton flowing northward unimpeded, you see.... The war didn't become "about" slavery until well into the fighting.
You're an American? Fine. I don't care what you are. It's none of your business what I consider myself to be. This nation is no longer great, and hasn't been for a long time, and the South is not merely a point on a compass. Far from it, it is region, a separate and unique culture, long known as a nation within a nation and it pre-dates most of the rest of the USA. That is something I don't expect you to understand. In fact, the South is where America began, and I don't expect you'll like that much.
Sure, go ahead and speak for your flippin' ancestors who came South to kill, maim and steal... who invaded the Southern states, made war on war on women, children, the elderly, servants and other noncombatants, burned homes, barns, farms, crops in the field, and entire towns, shot pet dogs just for spite, killed livestock and threw the carcasses in streams and wells to contaminate the water and sicken the population (when there was no medicine, because that great humanitarian, A. Lincoln, had included medicine in the blockade -- makes you proud to be an American, don't it?), stabled horses in church sanctuaries to show contempt for the religion of Southerners (and for God), and dug up fresh corpses looking for valuables to steal.
Here's a partial list of Southern towns destroyed by the army from the north, most of them by burning... Notice how many occurred in fall and winter, forcing civilians to face cold, sometimes freezing, temperatures without food and shelter.
Osceola, Missouri, burned to the ground, September 24, 1861
Dayton, Missouri, burned, January 1 to 3, 1862
Columbus, Missouri, burned, reported on January 13, 1862
Bentonville, Arkansas, partly burned, February 23, 1862
Winton, North Carolina, burned, reported on February 21, 1862
Bluffton, South Carolina, burned, reported June 6, 1863
Bledsoe's Landing, Arkansas, burned, October 21, 1862
Hamblin's, Arkansas, burned, October 21, 1862
Donaldsonville, Louisiana, partly burned, August 10, 1862
And then there was the sack and pillage of Athens, Alabama, on June 30, 1862, by Colonel Turchin's men, who committed rapes and other atrocities on the inhabitants. Turchin was subsequently court-martialed and put out of the military. What happened next? Turchin was rewarded by lincoln, returned to the military and promoted to Brigadier General.
Athens, Alabama, partly burned, August 30, 1862
Randolph, Tennessee, burned, September 26, 1862
Elm Grove and Hopefield, Arkansas, burned, October 18, 1862
Napoleon, Arkansas, partly burned, January 17, 1863
Mound City, Arkansas, partly burned, January 13, 1863
Hopefield, Arkansas, burned, February 21, 1863
Eunice, Arkansas, burned, June 14, 1863
Gaines Landing, Arkansas, burned, June 15, 1863
Sibley, Missouri, burned June 28, 1863
Hernando, Mississippi, partly burned, April 21, 1863
Austin, Mississippi, burned, May 23, 1863
Columbus, Tennessee, burned, reported February 10, 1864
Meridian, Mississippi, destroyed, February 3 to March 6, 1864
"For 5 days 10,000 men worked hard and with a will...with axes, crowbars, sledges, clawbars, and with fire, and I have no hesitation in pronouncing the work as well done. Meridian, with its depots, store-houses, arsenal, hospitals, offices, hotels, and cantonments no longer exists." -- w.t.sherman
Washington, North Carolina, sacked and burned, April 20, 1864
Hallowell's Landing, Alabama, burned, reported May 14, 1864
Newtown, Virginia, ordered to be burned, ordered May 30, 1864
Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, burned, June 12, 1864
Rome, Georgia, partly burned, November 11, 1864
Atlanta, Georgia, burned, November 15, 1864
Camden Point, Missouri, burned, July 14, 1864
Kendal's Grist-Mill, Arkansas, burned, September 3, 1864
Shenandoah Valley, devastated, reported October 1, 1864 by sheridan
Griswoldville, Georgia, burned, November 21, 1864
Somerville, Alabama, burned, January 17, 1865
McPhersonville, South Carolina, burned, January 30, 1865
Barnwell, South Carolina, burned, reported February 9, 1865
Columbia, South Carolina, burned, reported February 17, 1865
Winnsborough, South Carolina, pillaged and partly burned, February 21, 1865
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, burned, April 4, 1865
Here's something else for you to be proud of:
SOURCE: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, United States Government, Series I, Volume XXXIX, Part III, p. 494
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Hdqrs. Military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Rome, Ga., October 29, 1864 Brigadier-General Watkins, Calhoun, Ga.:
Cannot you send over about Fairmount and Adairsville, burn ten or twelve houses of known secessionists, kill a few at random, and let them know that it will be repeated every time a train is fired on from Resaca to Kingston?
W.T. Sherman, Major-General, Commanding.
(Don't worry about their guilt or innocence in firing on trains. Just murder them and burn their families out of their homes....)
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moawar;cc=moawar;q1=Adairsville;rgn=full%20text;idno=waro0079;didno=waro0079;view=image;seq=0496
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Calhoun, October 30, 1864
Major-General Sherman: My men killed some of those fellows two or three days since, and I had their houses burned. Watkins is not here, but I will carry out your instructions thoroughly and leave the country east of the road uninhabitable, if necessary.
E.M. McCook, Brigadier-General
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moawar;cc=moawar;q1=Watkins;rgn=full%20text;idno=waro0079;didno=waro0079;view=image;seq=0513
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Confederate symbols, particularly the flag, not only represent the courage and valor, grit, determination, endurance and nobility of the Confederate soldier, who fought against that barbarous enemy, but the unimaginable suffering and death they experienced, not only on the battlefield, but in the north's POW camps. At Hellmira, (Elmira NY) Confederate POWS were fed potato peels and had to drink water befouled with sewage. One doctor there bragged that he had killed more Rebs than any union soldier by withholding medicine and blankets (which there was plenty of). The yanks built "observation decks" above the camp and charged townspeople 15c to sit there and watch the suffering of Confederate POWS in a land of plenty. Some townspeople were moved to donate bankets and such to the care of the soldiers, but camp officials refused to distribute them. Hellmira's death rate was about the same as Andersonville's in the South, where there was no donations to withhold, little food for either guards or prisoners.
There was no deliberate torture at Andersonville. It was so horrific because there was no food, no medicine (again, thanks to Lincoln's blockade), and the union refused prisoner exchanges. The north had plenty of food, blankets and medicine but deliberately withheld them from Confederate POWS. All the POW camps were overcrowded, though the union could have built more accommodations. At Camp Douglas, overflow prisoners slept in tents during the Chicago winter, as at Hellmira. Well, they spent the night in the tents; but sleep? Guards fired guns through the tents and barracks throughout the night to create sleep deprivation. They made prisoners sit bare-bottomed on blocks of ice. Made them sit astride a narrow rail raised high in the air, with weights on their ankles, for hours, and when they were taken down, they couldn't walk.
Whatever "sins" the South committed, the same and worse are racked up under the StarznStripes...
The USA was born in treason and rebellion. Confederacy -- slavery for 4 years. Under the US flag -- slavery for 89 years... this in a country founded on "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with ... liberty."
Remove all items that honor the US government because of its official policy of killing off the buffalo to genocide red people -- the Plains Indians -- by starvation and take their land for white settlers; and for confining more red people to concentration camps artfully known as "reservations" in conditions worse than plantation slavery; the same government that imprisoned Japanese Americans in concentration camps during WWII.
This is my bottom line, and I don't care what you think of it:
There was NO justification for the union army's presence in the seceded states and no justification for a union soldier so much as kicking a Southern dog. Regardless of how much or how little destruction Sherman and his rapacious men did, regardless the efforts of every Confederacy-bashing "historian" to santitize Sherman, Sheridan, Butler, etc., and downplay the destruction wrought upon the South by the union army, it was ALL too much because the union army should not have been down here to begin with.
Nothing -- not secession, not "preserving the union," not ending slavery, not anything -- justified the union's barbaric war on the South.
You’ve a right to your opinion but not your facts. The North didn’t come to murder , maim and steal anything. The South stole the labor of slaves. Northern bankers got rich? And no Southern bankers did, right? Who got all the money, just Yankees? And virtually every Southerner tells of having a home destroyed by the Yankees. Truth is the Yankees weren’t any where near the locations. Anyone can make up facts on the internet. You’re placing all the blame for slavery on the North when it was being preserved in the South. This nation is no longer great? She ain’t done yet and people with your attitude are part of the problem. Tribalism, factionalism whatever you call it by black or white is what is destroying this country. You’re an embittered person. You venerate an age you know nothing about and certainly would not have wanted to live in, truth be told. I’m done talking to Madame, good bye.
Northern banks got rich financing the purchase of plantations and slaves
Little did i know how many Northerners came south with money(from New York investors) to start plantations in the South until i visited Natchez, Ms and learned the whole story....very eye opening...Poor Irish and Scots had it tougher than the Negros....Not to mention the Natchez Indians. that got pushed out before slavery.
During the war, Winchester VA suffered greatly under five major periods of Union occupation:
The Occupation of Major General Nathaniel Banks – (March 12 to May 25, 1862, and June 4 to September 2, 1862)
The Occupation of Major General Robert Milroy – (December 24, 1862, to June 15, 1863)
The Burning and Occupation of Major General Philip Sheridan – (September 19, 1864, to February 27, 1865)
The Occupation of Major General Winfield Scott Hancock – February 27, 1865, to June 27, 1865
The Occupation of the First Military District of Major General John Schofield – (End of War to January 26, 1870)
During the Federal occupation of Winchester, many residents were exiled from town, personal property was stolen, citizens rendering medical assistance to wounded soldiers were shot and murdered, homes were illegally stolen, occupied and destroyed, a medical school was burned down, and the citizens of the Commonwealth were not allowed to vote on re-admittance to the Union under the reign of Major General Schofield.
There are no statistics to support such claims.
Here's what we do know:
Nellie Wilkerson: "If the north had really wanted to end slavery, they didn't have to send an army to kill Southerners.
All they had to do was quit buying the cotton.
They didn't."
In 1860 "the North" didn't want to end slavery, regardless of what Fire Eater secessionists claimed.
What Northerners did want was to prevent slavery's expansion into Western territories and even (via Dred-Scott) into their own states.
That's why they voted for "Ape" Lincoln's "Black Republicans".
But it was enough to convince Deep South slave-holders to declare secession, form a confederacy and start Civil War against the United States.
Nellie Wilkerson: "The war didn't become "about" slavery until well into the fighting."
For slave-holding secessionists it was always and only about protecting slavery.
But for Unionists, North and South, it was primarily about preserving the Union.
In that effort, freeing the Confederacy's slaves had an obvious strategic benefit.
Yes, there were some Northern abolitionists for whom slavery was always the major evil.
But they were a minority.
What the majority cared about was preserving the Union against a Confederacy which provoked, started and formally declared war on the United States, while supporting military actions in Union states like Maryland and Missouri.
Nellie Wilkerson: "In fact, the South is where America began, and I don't expect you'll like that much."
Actually, the moment of creation of the United States can well be said to be in the Continental Congress, in Philadelphia in 1775, when Massachusetts's leader John Adams nominated and recommended Virginian George Washington to be Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.
Nellie Wilkerson: "Here's a partial list of Southern towns destroyed by the army from the north, most of them by burning..."
What serious historians say is that there was some destruction by both sides, but very few war crimes of the type seen in, for example, the Second World War.
They also say there was great exaggeration of damages in the South after the war, claims which are not supported by contemporary reports.
But we should also mention, there was one crime committed consistently by Confederates, whenever in Northern states or territories, which has no Norther equivalent in the South: Confederates rounded up and sent back for sale in the South any Northern freed-blacks they could grab.
Nellie Wilkerson: "Whatever "sins" the South committed, the same and worse are racked up under the StarznStripes... "
My best judgment is that the sins of one side roughly equated to sins of the other, and that by comparison with any other war you'd care to mention, both sides were quite civilized, gentlemanly and Christian soldiers.
Nellie Wilkerson: "The USA was born in treason and rebellion."
No, not really.
The United States was born from the effort to extend normal rights of Englishmen to those Englishmen who happened to live in North America.
The fact that the English king & parliament reacted poorly, first rejecting colonists, then declaring them "in rebellion" and launching war against them -- that does not negate the fact that what Americans wanted was better union, not separation, from Great Britain.
Nellie Wilkerson: "Under the US flag -- slavery for 89 years... "
It's extremely important to understand that in 1787 slavery was a precondition for Union, that had our Founders rejected slavery in their Constitution, there would have been no United States, period.
Instead, there would have been at least two separate countries, North & South, and more likely, several including the independent nations of Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, etc.
Only by accepting slavery could the essential compromise be reached creating a United States of America.
Nellie Wilkerson: "Remove all items that honor the US government because of its official policy of killing off the buffalo to genocide red people -- the Plains Indians -- by starvation and take their land for white settlers..."
Today's US Indian population, full blooded plus partial (not including Senator Pocahontas) is about five million.
Estimates of North America's Indian populations before Columbus in 1492 range in the low millions.
Of those huge numbers died from European diseases, and the numbers killed in combat with the United States are estimated as:
Nellie Wilkerson: "This is my bottom line, and I don't care what you think of it:
...Nothing -- not secession, not "preserving the union," not ending slavery, not anything -- justified the union's barbaric war on the South."
You've forgotten, haven't you?
Then the Union had no choice except to defeat the military power which represented an existential threat to the United States.