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.
(Excerpt) Read more at aarp.org ...
I was interested in the content but dubious of the web source and it turns out I was right. It’s a scam for page views with the article being broken up across 8 web pages just chock full of ads of every stripe. Glad I keep tossing those AARP mailers in the trash...
#8 We’re all Americans. I disagree. The government goes to enormous lengths to make certain immigrants don’t lose their ethnicity. They teach them in their own language. I spoke with a man born in California to El Salvdoran parents. He spent his first 16 years in California public school. He said, “I quit. I hardly spoke a word of English. I was taught English by a Cuban worker. They were holding me down.”
This is commonly believed but actually not true.
The United States was used as both a singular and plural noun almost from the beginning, with a gradual shift from singular to plural in frequency.
The biggest jump in the shift came during and after the War of 1812, with another during the Civil War. The process was pretty much complete by 1900.
I grew up in Appomattox, VA - about 3 miles from the National Park. Our house and my father’s Texaco were on the road to Richmond (now US-24), so we dug up lots of minnie balls, pieces of uniform with buttons, 3 cannon shells (sombody with a metal detector found them in a field next to the Texaco), and a bayonet (my brother hung his rake on this one in our front yard). Next to the surrender grounds is the home of Joe Sweeney (5-string banjo).
you are correct. When all government and most businesses say press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish, they completely remove any incentive to immerse in the American culture. Same goes for written information and documents from the government and business.
Go to France and see if they have have the same system. I guarantee they won’t for English but might for Arabic.
Very poorly written. The end of slavery was not a disgrace, it was a triumph.
It is also odd to assign disgrace for the temporary continuation of a universal practice, rather than kudos for the nation (or part of it) being willing to pay the enormous price to end it.
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.
Slavery was only legal in the USA for 78 years, not the 400 years that all the race pimps whine about, before the American revolution, this was a British Nation.
Why aren't the black race baiters pissed at England and happy with the USA for ending slavery?
Well stated.
“perhaps the worst disgrace in the nation’s history.”
I too took issue with that particular statement, as well as a couple of others:
1. As the name of their party suggests, these activists believed that the republic’s interests should take precedence over the states’
2. Before the Civil War, the concept of liberty and justice for all meant little unless you were white and male.
Both of the above statements, show a bit of bias all neatly wrapped in the history package, much of which might sound good but is revionist to a degree.
My Side Lost.
And lets not forget that we got the 14th amendment as well, but do you understand what it really means.
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT- REVISITED
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/whoru/message/2
The trend away from doctors home visits isn’t necessarily good. For surgery yes .
I used to work with a woman from Puerto Rico. I knew her husband was a teacher in a local school. When I met him I was shocked to see that he could barely speak English.
Buts strictly speaking he didn’t need to. The school system had a huge Spanish speaking population that he was serving, and his wife took care of the English needs.
Strange world.
I get an AARP letter every month or so.
Cutting up the paperwork, I mail it back in their postage paid envelope.
“My side lost”
Not yet.
Don’t toss them in the trash. Use their prepaid mailers to send back a hand-written index card with “How’s that ObamaCare Thing working out for you?” written in large block letters.
And how did it change my life when I didn’t have a life in the 1860s?
I was just in Appomattox at the Court House on a tour. It was fascinating! My wife and I loved it.
What I don’t understand is how people today can talk about slavery with anything but disdain.
If it were legal for a single day it would be a disgrace.
And it doesn’t matter whether it was common or not. They buying and selling of people is just wrong.
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