Old times not forgotten: Civil War at 150

hosted ^ | Apr 2 | CHRISTOPHER SULLIVAN

[JoeProBono]

A hush fell over the crowd filling the elegant hall in downtown Richmond, Va. The vote was about to be announced, and a young staffer of the Museum of the Confederacy balanced his laptop across his knees, poised to get out the news as soon as it was official.

Who would be chosen "Person of the Year, 1861"?

Five historians had made impassioned nominations, and the audience would now decide.

Most anywhere else, the choice would be obvious. Who but Abraham Lincoln? But this was a vote in the capital of the rebellion that Lincoln put down, sponsored by a museum dedicated to his adversary. How would Lincoln and his war be remembered in this place, in our time?

A century and a half have passed since Lincoln's crusade to reunify the United States. The North and the South still split deeply on many issues, not least the conflict they still call by different names. All across the bloodstained arc where the Civil War raged, and beyond, Americans are deciding how to remember....

[JoeProBono]

[DryFly]

[central_va]

Nice horse, stolen from a Southerner I am sure. :)

[Berlin_Freeper]

I had a friend from Louisiana who swore the South was going to do it again.

[RayChuang88]

I my humble opinion, the biggest blunder the Confederates made was the infamous Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863 against the Union positions on Cemetery Ridge. You'd think the very able Confederate commanders would have figured out the lessons of the Battle of Bunker Hill (the British lost over 1,000 soldiers in taking Breed's Hill) and NOT do a direct frontal attack on enemy position that had a major height and sight advantage over the attackers.

[JoeProBono]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47ak4vjiNzw

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[central_va]

Actually, IMO Pickett’s Charge was so devastating to both sides it prevented Meade from pursuing Lee across the Potomac.

[donmeaker]

Would this be the RE Lee who impregnated his and his father in law’s female slaves so he could profitably sell the female children to brothels? That fellow?

Tells us more about you than it does about the times 150 years ago.

[KoRn]

I look at the War Between the States as the beginning of our end as a country. It marked the death of the country that our Founders started, and the birth of the country that is in serious decline today.

[donmeaker]

Most of our problems were instituted by Southern Democrats working with FDR to reinstitute slavery. Perhaps we can have a new birth of states rights, so just as individual states banned slavery then, individual states can ban the new slavery now.

The southern states rebelled because they were opposed to states rights to ban slavery

[donmeaker]

The official name of the conflict was ‘The War of the Great Rebellion”.

[donmeaker]

Yellow Tavern

[central_va]

I live about 15 miles from there.

[jmacusa]

‘a great slaveholding Confederacy, stretching its arms over a territory larger than any power in Europe possesses’’- Francis Pickens, govenor of South Carolina.

[central_va]

Would this be the RE Lee who impregnated his and his father in law’s female slaves so he could profitably sell the female children to brothels? That fellow?

You want to back down on this apparent psychotic talk or back it up with some facts?

[jmacusa]

Good guys usually win. The South lost. Thank God.

[jmacusa]

It did good enough 150 years ago, didn’t it? It beat the CSA.

[central_va]

Good guys usually win. The South lost. Thank God.

I agree Good Guys usually do win and the South lost. But why would you thank God for such a horrible outcome?

[jmacusa]

Who swore what? That the South was going to get it’s ass kicked again?