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How the Civil War Changed Your Life
AARP ^ | April 12, 2011 | Betsy Towner

Posted on 04/27/2013 3:45:10 AM PDT by daniel1212

8 things to think about as we mark the conflict's 150th anniversary.

Some ring strong: of course the end of slavery, perhaps the worst disgrace in the nation's history. And the 620,000 ancestors lost. Other vestiges have weakened with the passage of time but are no less legacies of the four horrific, heroic years that shaped us as one nation.

Here are eight ways the Civil War indelibly changed us and how we live:

1. We have ambulances and hospitals.

The Civil War began during medieval medicine's last gasp and ended at the dawn of modern medicine. Each side entered the war with puny squads of physicians trained by textbook, if at all. Four years later, legions of field-tested doctors, well-versed in anatomy, anesthesia and surgical practice, were poised to make great medical leaps.

The nation's first ambulance corps, organized to rush wounded soldiers to battlefront hospitals and using wagons developed and deployed for that purpose, was created during the Civil War. The idea was to collect wounded soldiers from the field, take them to a dressing station and then transport them to the field hospital.

Doctors laid out the hospitals as camps divided into well-defined wards for specific activities such as surgery and convalescence. Women flocked to serve these hospitals as nurses.

Before the war, most people received health care at home. After the war, hospitals adapted from the battlefront model cropped up all over the country. The ambulance and nurses' corps became fixtures, with the Civil War's most famous nurse, Clara Barton, going on to establish the American Red Cross. Today's modern hospital is a direct descendant of these first medical centers.

More

(Excerpt) Read more at aarp.org ...


TOPICS: Education; History; Military/Veterans; Reference; Society
KEYWORDS: anniversary; civilwar; dixie; healthcare; lincoln; slavery; war
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To: USS Alaska

Why aren’t the black race baiters pissed at England and happy with the USA for ending slavery?


Why aren’t they pissed at the nations in Africa and the Middle East who still practice slavery?


61 posted on 04/27/2013 9:34:49 AM PDT by Rides_A_Red_Horse (Why do you need a fire extinguisher when you can call the fire department?)
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To: USS Alaska

“The United States of America didn’t invent slavery, nor did we introduce it to the shores of America.

When the Nation was founded and the Constitution written, the founders had to deal with the reality that half of the Country used slave labor and would have fought with England if they couldn’t continue to do so.

There would have been no United States of America because much of the money and military talent came from Virginia...a slave state.”

Thank you for making that point! Thomas Jefferson addressed this and would have liked to end slavery, but fact is the revolution could have never succeeded if they had taken on doing away with slaves at the same time. Heck, we haven’t solved the problems of emancipation yet.

In a prophetic letter decades earlier ,
President Thomas Jefferson expressed
the fears of many of his contemporaries over conflicts
of states’ rights, westward settlement, federalism and slavery.
“This momentous question,
like a fire bell in the night,
awakened and filled one with terror,
I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.
It is hushed indeed for the moment.
but this is a reprieve only,
not a final sentence . . .
we have the wolf by the ears
and we can neither hold him
nor safely let him go.”


62 posted on 04/27/2013 9:44:11 AM PDT by AuntB (Illegal immigration is simply more "share the wealth" socialism and a CRIME not a race!)
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To: Sherman Logan
The problems in our country have very little to do with disloyal naturalized citizens. Most of our problems arise from disloyal but impeccably natural-born citizens.

Largely yes, many as product of antiChrist secular seminaries (universities) poisoning the well with a victim-entitlement ideology from Hell.

63 posted on 04/27/2013 10:05:31 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: AuntB

Interestingly, TJ’s letter expresses his opinion that attempts to restrict slavery appear to be the problem leading to future civil war, not slavery itself. Let slavery spread indefinitely and it will end more quickly.

This is, of course, the exact opposite of the later consensus on both sides of the issue that preventing slavery from expanding would eventually kill it.

But even in this letter he states that slavery is an evil, quite different from the later conventional wisdom of the South that slavery was a positive good.


64 posted on 04/27/2013 10:09:40 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: daniel1212; rockrr
Yes, i know the source is liberal, but it is a good read and subject apart from the rest.

Yes. She's starting out from where she is now and trying to figure out how the war affected the way we live today. I'm pretty sure we would have gotten hospitals and ambulances somehow by now, civil war or no Civil War, but it's not bad to be reminded of the historical connections.

People are certainly free to disagree with her. She may be wrong or naive, but it is "history from the bottom up" (not in a Marxist way, though) and a bit fresher than the standard line about how we freed the slaves and all became slaves that gets regurgitated over and over again.

65 posted on 04/27/2013 10:23:33 AM PDT by x
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To: Oatka

Are you sure those are the bodies of Union soldiers? I was told that nearly all the photos you will see of bodies on Civil War battlefields are of Confederate dead.


66 posted on 04/27/2013 11:49:08 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: daniel1212

Try reading this: The Three United States
This is the Supreme Courts interpretation
http://www.supremelaw.org/fedzone11/htm/chapter4.htm

This whole site is extremely informative:
http://www.supremelaw.org/fedzone11/index.htm


67 posted on 04/27/2013 11:51:42 AM PDT by phockthis (http://www.supremelaw.org/fedzone11/index.htm ...)
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To: WVNan

I was born and raised in Lynchburg....got married, and my husband brought me down here to the country. Love it, although the population is growing by leaps and bounds now.

We’re just a wide place in the road, but we won’t be that for long.


68 posted on 04/27/2013 1:14:54 PM PDT by CatherineofAragon ( (Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization))
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To: M Kehoe

My Mother’s family was scattered all over Appomattox and Buckingham counties. We moved from Baltimore and my folks built a house in Vera in 1961. I graduated from Appomattox High School in 1969. I was accepted at Virginia Tech, but was holding back waiting on an appointment to USAFA. My physical for USAFA was at Fort Lee. Funny, but AFROTC wouldn’t accept the USAFA physical from Fort Lee (Army?), so I had to retake it at Langley, AFB a few weeks later. When I got to USAFA, they had lost my records and I had to retake the physical again. My parents passed away in ‘78 and ‘89. We still have 68 acres of land there. I was railroaded out of the Academy after 2 years by a AOC who had to get rid of 5 of our group. I ended up working for large contractors in DOE and DOD, and still get invited back to Academy reunions (one coming up in September).


69 posted on 04/27/2013 1:51:00 PM PDT by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, Democrats believe every day is April 15th.)
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To: CatherineofAragon

Yep. I’ve lived in Altavista and Lynchburg. Used to cut through Concord and Rustburg to get to Altavista from Appomattox. I worked in tobacco fields when I was in High School. Harvesting dark leaf was backbreaking work, but got us out of school a few weeks.


70 posted on 04/27/2013 2:00:16 PM PDT by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, Democrats believe every day is April 15th.)
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To: albie

They have one of the best book stores I’ve ever been in.


71 posted on 04/27/2013 2:02:21 PM PDT by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, Democrats believe every day is April 15th.)
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To: USS Alaska
"When the Nation was founded and the Constitution written, the founders had to deal with the reality that half of the Country used slave labor and would have fought with England if they couldn't continue to do so. "

When the nation was founded, ALL of the states were slave-owning states. Laws were passed in 1804-1805 calling for a gradual end to slavery, but they didn't result in a wholesale end to bondage above the Mason-Dixon line; in many northern states, there were still slaves to be found on the census records nearly up until the Civil War.

New York abolished the practice in 1827; Rhode Island in 1840; Pennsylvania in 1847; Connecticut in 1848; New Hampshire in 1857; and New Jersey didn't make it official until the state ratified the 13th amendment in 1866, having rejected it in 1865.

72 posted on 04/27/2013 2:45:53 PM PDT by CatherineofAragon ( (Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization))
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To: daniel1212

Before the war: “The united States are”. After the war: “The United States is”. States rights went to Hell. The Feral Government took over.


73 posted on 04/27/2013 3:28:11 PM PDT by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off.)
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To: Patriot365
We lost the best President we ever had, Jefferson Davis.

Your presidential standards must be really, really low.

74 posted on 04/27/2013 4:44:29 PM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: Chickensoup

That is such a bullshit answer.

Slavery then was bad. Slavery today is bad.

A truth is always true.


75 posted on 04/27/2013 7:06:04 PM PDT by Vermont Lt (Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?)
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To: daniel1212

Sons of Confederate Veterans, Grimes co. Greys

http://confederateheritagemonth.com/heritage/2008/texas/grimes_county.php


76 posted on 04/28/2013 6:53:20 AM PDT by servantboy777
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To: CatherineofAragon; OrioleFan
CofA: "I’m in Concord....I bet you’re the only person on FR who’s heard of it and knows where it is, LOL."

A couple of times a year I travel south through Gettysburg, PA, Concord and Appomattox. VA.
Usually stay overnight near Appomattox.
Sometimes visit if time permits.

That trip always gives me pause to think about the Civil War, and descendants from both sides who post here on Free Republic.

77 posted on 04/28/2013 9:35:15 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: 0.E.O
We lost the best President we ever had, Jefferson Davis.

Your presidential standards must be really, really low.

Well, if he was referring to the CSA, he's correct. Jeff Davis was the best, worst, tallest, shortest, and ugliest President they ever had.

78 posted on 04/28/2013 9:54:28 AM PDT by LexBaird (Tyrannosaurus Lex, unapologetic carnivore)
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To: OrioleFan

Before long, I imagine there won’t be any tobacco fields left in Virginia.

What a small world it is.


79 posted on 04/28/2013 2:01:39 PM PDT by CatherineofAragon ( (Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization))
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To: BroJoeK

Yes. It often gets fought all over again, right here, LOL. Oh, well...we’re all Freepers in the end.

My little village is known by more folks than I thought.


80 posted on 04/28/2013 2:05:25 PM PDT by CatherineofAragon ( (Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization))
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