Posted on 08/07/2006 8:54:36 AM PDT by Republicanprofessor
a DAMNyankee is a person, born in the north, who is filled with HATRED for the south/southerners. DYs are LOUD-mouthed, ignorant, arrogant, sanctimonious & SELF-righteous, BIGOTS. (THANKFULLY only about 10-15% of northerners are DAMNyankees.)
if they weren't so busy HATING the southland, our CSA flags, our memorials to our HONORED dead, our "final resting places",our southern culture & our wonderful dixie PEOPLE, they would be some other sort of BIGOT!
fwiw, DAMNyankees are NOT born that way;they have a LEARNED prejudice, which is NO different than RACISM.
btw, every child, born in dixie by the age of 8, KNOWS the difference in a "northerner" & a DAMNyankee.
free dixie,sw
If anyone has ideas of where to submit this as an essay to be published, let me know. I don't have much luck publishing, perhaps because I am such a generalist.
That's why I love FR. People seem to appreciate what I write here, and I can have the utmost freedom in subject matter.
BTW, it is assumed that many Freepers do value the loyalty and dedication of our soldiers that I mention in the last paragraph. It is others of whom I think when I write that many do not value those things.
We spent a night in Atlanta with friends, and she was very interested in Kennesaw Mtn. and the Cyclorama, neither of which had she visited before. We did not otherwise explore Atlanta much (other than the High Museum, which I had to see). We'll have to go back to see the things you note.
I think one of the coolest battlefields to visit is Point Park, south of Chattanooga, TN, if you go up the incline. What a cool experience that was. The incline is really even more fun than the battlefield, but all battlefields have meaning.
Kennesaw was a routing by Johnston. It's painful to think of the blue wave building up those earthworks and being pushed back each time, but that was the Union strategy.
"walking the very fields where the soldiers fought and died is quite another. It took me a little time to really feel the power of these battlefields."
I'm glad you mentioned this. I've walked Concord & Lexington and Custer Battlefield and others, but nothing gave me the feeling of being on hallowed ground like Gettysburg, Antietam, or Bull Run.
Every American family should take a week or two to visit the main battlefields, at least once.
Sorry we missed you on your swing through. If you come back this way again, I have a BUNCH of stuff to show your son, including letters from my gg grandfather and the cavalry saber he took off a dead Yankee at Chickamauga.
One of the best writers on the contrast you describe between the peaceful battlefields and their bloody past is Bruce Catton. He did a splendid series of books on the war, Mr. Lincoln's Army, Glory Road, and A Stillness at Appomattox. You may find more meticulous historians (Southall Freeman comes to mind), but you will find no better evocation of the atmosphere of the WBTS. Catton was a Yankee born and bred (a Michigander) but he was sympathetic and even-handed to the Confederacy and the Confederate soldier. Some of his writing is so beautiful it breaks your heart.
He was also the editor of American Heritage magazine for many years -- that magazine during his editorship and that of his successor, Oliver Jensen, was the best history magazine I have ever read (and I was a history major and wrote my thesis on the WBTS). It's fallen on evil days now, just a PC shadow of its former self, but if you can get hold of back numbers from 1953 to the early 70s, it's a treasure trove.
marker bump
How interesting!
Well, God Bless you! I really appreciate your write-up. My mother's family is from Henderson county, TN, about 60 miles north of Shiloh. Some of her ancestors used to tell about sitting on the front porch and hearing the rumble of the artillery. It was a HUGE battle.
I've spent a lot of time on the Shiloh battlefields, as my Mom and Grandparents used to take us kids there quite often.
And - you must have had the same tour guide we had at Franklin a couple of years ago. As you closed your eyes, he could make you hear the battle and the moans of the wounded. You could just see the bodies piled up like chord-wood on the porch of the Carter House. He did a GREAT job.
In response to your question about what if the South had won, I'd just like to say that I sure wish the cotton gin and other mechanization had shown up before the war. If we could have rid ourselves of slavery without the war, our original republic could have been preserved, instead of the huge mess of a Federal government we have now. I love this country, but I do believe that Washington needs to "uninvolve" itself with many things, and let the states decide.
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RP:
Welcome back. I am just in for lunch, will read this when I get back tonight. Looks interesting.
McVey
Spain would most definitely not have taken over either part of the country.
They were trying to govern a shrinking empire with an administration that had preserved a sixteenth-century management style. Just as oil producers tend to stagnate today, the silver and gold of the Americas had allowed them to keep a system that simply did not measure up to the far more advanced systems around her and here in America.
McVey
Thank you very much for sharing this with us! Very well-written essay!
Mrs. Reb and I took a week-long trip a while ago trying to follow the path of the Confederate artillery battery we portray as reenactors. Manassas, Petersburg, Harper's Ferry, Gettysburg... The names alone send a bit of a chill down my spine. It sounds like you had a similar experience. Did you visit Pamplin Historical Park in Petersburg? The Museum of the Civil War Soldier there is quite good and they put on excellent demonstrations.
I would encourage you to try to get to a larger reenactment if you can. I enjoy the smaller ones that allow a bit more interaction between reenactors and spectators, but the big ones give you a taste of what some of the big battles must have been like. You can find schedules and other information in Camp Chase Gazette (www.campchase.com) or The Civil War News (www.civilwarnews.com).
Very, very interesting and inspiring essay. I would dearly love to visit all the battlesites and other memorable places during this time of history. I, however, read up on it all first then briefly, oh so very briefly visited Gettysburg and Arlington, mostly due to time constraints and an impatient husband. However, I think he has seen the error of his ways and we will visit more places.
Regarding the mall and money hysteria, I think they only behave that way out of their own shame over these events. It was all incredibly unconstitutional and immoral and should never have occurred. But Lincoln sowed the wind, and we are reaping the whirlwind effects of his...wisdom????
There's a memorial to him in the old Methodist Church cemetery in Coosa, AL. . . "his body lies on the battlefield, lost and unknown . . . " gave me a shiver to read those words.
I don't know for sure because he died when my g grandmother Emma was pretty young, but I'm pretty sure that my gg grandfather on that side never did get over that battle (he was with his brother in law when he was killed.) He died of pneumonia at 57, he was living with Emma, his only surviving daughter. His wife had lost 2-3 children at birth and died laboring of twins, who died with her, during the War. She's buried with her babies over in Goshen AL . . . one of the lost rural towns. The cemetery is bigger than the little crossroads that's all that's left of the settlement.
Many's the childhood field trip I took to both of those places. I still go back from time to time. You might find it interesting that, as a child roaming the woods around my area, I would occasionally find an old minnie ball. I had quite a collection once.
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