The Civil War Sucks

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You know the feeling: Some friends call and invite you down to their house in Charlottesville, Virginia. There'll be pecan pie, horseback riding and, of course, that old barn burner between Virginia and Virginia Tech. But the real lure - the bait they know you can't refuse - is a chance to visit some of the important landmarks of the War Between the States. Your friends, huge Civil War buffs, are real tight with this 103-year-old lady who just happens to be Stonewall Jackson's niece, and she'll be taking everyone on a guided tour of the battlefields of Fredericksburg, Richmond, Appomattox and, yes, even Bull Run. Sound like fun or what?

You can hardly suppress your enthusiasm. Ever since PBS ran that nine-part series about the Civil War three years ago, you can't get that titanic struggle for the nation's soul out of your thoughts. You positively love Civil War history - the War Between the States was the crucible in which this Mighty Union was forged, and that brother vs. brother imagery hits you right in the pit of your stomach every time. You adore Civil war films like Glory; your eyes get all misty whenever you hear "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" - particularly when it's sung by Mahalia Jackson - and one of your lifelong ambitions has been to free up enough time to read Shelby Foote's peerless, three-volume, 2,976 page history of the Civil War. Oh, yes, you'd love to visit Fredericksburg, Richmond, Appomattox and Bull Run with Stonewall Jackson's niece.

But then you remember: Your apartment needs a paint job, your car's been acting up lately, there's the new Laurie Anderson show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this Friday, and, oh yeah, your mom's planning to come up for the weekend. So reluctantly, remorsefully, you beg off.

But after you put down the phone, you have to be honest with yourself and admit that the real reason you turned down that trip to Charlottesville isn't because of your apartment or your car or Laurie Anderson's new show or your mom. The real reason you backed out is because deep down inside, you harbor a dark secret that millions of Americans share with you but never, ever dare to admit in public.

Admit and you'll feel a whole lot better. Ever since you were a kid, you've despised the Civil War, an inglorious, unheroic and wretchedly downscale series of horrid massacres pitting scraggly gangs of racist, barefoot, poorly equipped Neanderthal rustics against a sea of inept but numerous urbanites in a pointless confrontation that schoolchildren are still taught to believe was fought for moral principles, when everyone knows it was fought over money. Ever since you were a little kid, you're dreaded words like Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, bland theme parks for the dead where Civil War-buff teachers used to drag you on class trips when you'd really rather have been in New York City, Disney World or even Asbury Park learning something useful. Ever since you were a little kid, you've had a niggling suspicion that, compared with the Peloponnesian War, Caesar's Gallic Wars, the Crusades, the Napoleonic Wars or World Wars I and II, the American Civil War was a hokey, small-time, ginsu-knife affair that would have been over in three months if the North's generals hadn't all been cowards, bunglers or drunks. The only reason people visit Gettysburg is because it's easier to get to than Waterloo, el-Alamein, Stalingrad or Hastings, battlefields were genuinely important historical events took place.

By every criterion imaginable, the Civil War is a hopeless failure. Certainly we are taught as impressionable schoolchildren to believe the Civil War was a noble crusade to free the slaves. But by the time we reach adulthood, most of us either are white people or have been around enough white people to know that white people just don't do things like that - it isn't in their DNA. And unlike other famous wars, which were suffused with brilliant strategic ploys such as Hannibal's sneaking over the Alps with his elephants or Nelson's slipping between the French fleet and the Egyptian shoreline at the Battle of the Nile, the Civil War was a dreary series of slogging hecatombs in which the Union expended vast amounts of manpower to defeat absurdly outnumbered, poorly equipped rebels who never really had a chance to win a war they had no business starting in the first place. The North vs. The South at Vicksburg was like a fistfight between you and your three-year-old niece Brittany - with Brittany blindfolded. Gettysburg involved about as much tactical genius as a contest between the Indianapolis Colts and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

If Americans were really honest with themselves, they would admit that few words in the entire English language inspires more pure dread than Civil War. What was the novel that tens of millions of Americans grew up loathing? The Red Badge of Courage. What's the movie that Aunt Emily always drools over? Gone With The Wind. What was that horrible song Elvis used to bring down the house with just before he died? "American Trilogy" - featuring "Dixie," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "All My Trials," Cuisinarted together in one odious smorgasbord of patriotic twaddle. Gone With The Wind, indeed.

The movie we should really be paying attention to is The Miracle Worker. About halfway through this inspirational classic, the Keller family is sitting around the dinner table chatting when suddenly the deaf, dumb and blind Helen, played by Patty Duke, throws an unbelievable fit and starts breaking all the furniture in the house. Why would she unexpectedly explode in such a fit of rage? Easy. She threw a fit because her dad was discussing Ulysses S. Grant's siege strategy at the Battle of Vicksburg. Even though the kid is deaf, dumb and blind, she can sense that another idiotic conversation about the War Between the States, conducted by a pair of pedantic Civil War buffs, is taking place a few feet away. So she loses it.

Don't we all feel some of Helen Keller's rage deep down inside? Thanks to Civil War buffs, we've got mind-numbing board games with names like Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, in which geeky teachers' pets manipulate a bunch of cardboard armies in a prepubescent effort to recreate the great one-sided battles of the past. Thanks to Civil War buffs, we've got Raymond Massey as Young Abe Lincoln, Henry Fonda as Young Abe Lincoln, Sam Waterston as Young Abe Lincoln.

Thanks to Civil War buffs, we've got unreadable crap like Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and washed-up first basemen like Keith Hernandez who would rather talk about the silence at Appomattox in 1865 than the silence at Shea Stadium in 1987. Thanks to Civil War buffs, the Disney Company's perfectly wonderful plan to build an amusement park that normal people might actually enjoy a few miles down the road from Manassas Battlefield may now be deep-sixed. Thanks a lot, Civil War buffs. Thanks for books like The Outlaw Josey Wales, written by a redneck fascist, that make redneck fascists seem like heroes. Thanks for all that horrible Walt Whitman poetry. Thanks for "O Captain, My Captain." Thanks for "Sic semper tyrannis" or "Sic semper fidelis" or whatever it was that screwy #!@#!! was hollering while leaping from the balcony at Ford's Theatre. Thanks for Confederate flags that bikers can wrap around their foreheads. Thanks for movies like The Birth of a Nation that the Ku Klux Klan used as recruiting films. Thanks for expressions like "You ain't just whistlin' Dixie.'"

Let's face it: The only good thing that ever came out of the Civil War was the remark "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" And Mrs. Lincoln, a retard, probably didn't get the joke.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

for me, the best series on the War are still (1) Douglas Southall Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants, and Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy (Mr. Lincoln's Army, Glory Road, and A Stillness at Appomatox).

These are first rate books, but I generally recommend Shelby Foote's trilogy to a newcomer simply because -- in addition to being beautifully written -- it covers the war outside Virginia.

Foote is reputed to be a bit of a pill personally but he's an engaging speaker. He once teased a Virginia audience (in Lexington, IIRC) with the assertion that Virginians know less about the war than anyone else. This had the intended effect, which was exactly what you would expect in Lexington.

Once the smoke cleared, his humble point was that the Virginia Mafia is so preoccupied with Bobby Lee's defense of northern Virginia that they lose sight of whole chunks of the Confederacy being swallowed each year in the west. True, of course; the war was decided in the west.

Fort Sumter was in a strategic location to control trade up and down the river. It was also a Federal Tax collection point. The southern troops chased the Federal troops off the fort on the Virginia side of the river. Those troops fled to Fort Sumter, and were still an unwelcome presence. Lincoln had actually sent a ship to withdraw the troops from the fort, but it didn't arrive before the southern troops fired at the fort. There is some historians who say that the ship was deliberately late in hopes of actually provoking a fight.

River????? Virginia????? Customs Post???? You might want to do a little more research on this subject.

I think it used to be Southern right up until the Sixties but too many outsiders moved in from the Northeast. The same thing happened in Fairfax, Virginia and Delaware. But during the Civil War it was definitely Southern and would have seceded if it weren't for Lincoln liberal use of Martial Law. But I consider it Northeastern now.

YES! - The South wasn't hurt by EXPORT taxes - they were hurt by import taxes -- i.e. tariffs. The tariffs were pushed by New England interests once their economy shifted from Merchant interests to Manufacturing. The South's exposition of the Nullification Nonsense (sorry Calhoun) enabled Daniel Webster to make the Southerners look like traitors and prevented the formation of a Western-Southern alliance in Congress which would have fought high tariffs.

John C. Calhoun, brilliant as he was, blew it big time. The Western-Southern alliance was a real possibility and should have carried the day - after all, at the time Jackson was President and Calhoun Vice-President. The tariffs benefitted a few interests in the protected industries at the expense of the general population. By pushing Nullification, Calhoun alienated the West (and Jackson), which was the key region in the initial East vs. South battle (or Massachusetts vs. South Carolina).

As far as tariffs are concerned, I agree with the Southerners - they stink. Why should Americans pay taxes for the benifit of a select few local industries?

States' Rights - I agree with Jackson and Lincoln. Leaving the Union just because you lost an election that you freely took part in sounds like Sore Loserman to me.

Slavery - It can't be denied that a lot of rich & powerful Southerners made a lot of money off slave labor and weren't happy about the prospect of abolition. To say slavery "caused" the Civil War is an oversimplification and incorrect; to say it wasn't one of the causes of the War is also incorrect. In a country of millions, there were and are always a wide variety of motives for political decisions.

The Civil War was the last Napoloeonic war, and the first fully modern war dependent upon railroads, and telegraphs. The year-long siege of Petersburg fully anticipated the First World War, and Grant's Richmond campaign anticipated our strategy in the Vietnam war. My favorite Civil War history, by the way, is Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, a four volume collection of first hand accounts colleced and edited by The Century Magazine. Sadly, it's out of print, but used copies are avaiable on the Am**on Marketplace.

Yes I agree with you that Civil war was important. If you reread my post I was commenting on an excerpt from the article I just didn't use Italics.

Today, parts of Maryland, those areas South of the District of Columbia, are certainly Southern: St. Mary's, Charles, and Calvert Counties, for example. But back in 1860, everything below Frederick, including Baltimore and the District of Columbia, was sympathetic to the South. Understanding this, General Windfield Scott was wise to quickly sieze the District of Columbia armory when Virginia succeeded to prevent the pro-Southern District of Columbia militia from taking control of the city, which is just what they had intended to do. While in Maryland Southern sympathy was so strong that General Benjamin Butler was forced to place cannon on what is still today known as Federal Hill to keep Baltimore under Union control. Recalling those troubled days, Maryland's official state song written in 1861, Maryland, My Maryland, contains the following lines :

Yes, Maryland, along with Delaware was a Southern state during the Civil War and right up until the 1960's. And there are a few vestiges of its heritage left, but too many Northerners, came in and changed the demographics. The same thing happened to Fairfax County, Virginia.

If Jackson had survived Chancellorsville, Culp's Hill and Cemetary Hill would not have been an issue... The whole reason Jackson wanted to go north was to shut down the coal shipment from western Pennsylvania... no coal, no industry...and more importantly, no naval ships steaming off the Southern coast. This was Jackson's goal since he took Maryland Heights in 1861. So, if Jackson has lived, the northern invasion's goal might have been different.

Furthermore, if Lee's goal of Harrisburg still stood with Jackson in charge of the II Corps, there is no reason not to believe that Jackson wouldn't have made it to Harrisburg.

You might want to amend Gettysburg to Sharpsburg and perhaps also admit that slavery played a part, a large part, as a cause of the war.

You confuse Gettysburg with Antietam. Yankees named battles after terrain features (Antietam Creek, Bull Run), while Southerners named them after the nearest town (Sharpsburg, Manassas).

I think it used Southern right up until the 1960's but like Fairfax County where I live. To many Norherners came in and changed the demographics.

But in the countryside you will see many Confederate flags flying from private residences, and the rural lifestyle is very Southern.

Yeah, it is kinda like that in parts of Centreville. There are a few old farms and a Confederate flag or two. Didn't seem to notice that when I go up there though.

Jackson wanted to do lots of things Lee just ignored, or ordered him not to do.

You've said that before, but it isn't true.

Lee agreed with Jackson more than he disagreed with him.

Lee liked Jackson's idea to cut off the coal shipments and worked with Jackson to make it official policy.

Yes, they had minor disagreements, but as for Jackson wanting to do lots of things and Lee just ignoring him or ordering him not to do... just not true.

"That said, your comment that he was the "best artillery commander on either side" just isn't supported by fact in my opinion. The Union Army's superiority in Artillery, both in actually numbers and proficency, is akin to the CSA's vaunted superiority in the first two years in Cavalry."

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. (which is one of the things that makes debating history so much fun.) While I agree with you that the Union was superior in numbers of artillery (and more importantly in the availablility and quality of ammunition) I have seen nothing to indicate they were superior in proficiency. Both sides learned artillery tactics and use in the same schools and generally fought with equal proficiency despite the fact that the South had fewer guns, especially rifled artillery. (interestingly, Jackson taught artillery at VMI at the time the war started). I have always admired EPA's ability to spot and adapt his gun placment in battle. His cover of the battleground at Fredricksburg was perfect (although, granted, Burnside was quite obliging) and his presence of mind to bring the guns to the high ground immediately once the opening presented itself on the last day of Chancelorsville clinched what was probably Lee's greatest victory.

There may well have been Union artillery commanders every bit as good as Porter. I've actually read very little about Union commanders in this regard. Alexander does get mentioned a lot just because there was much written about him after the war. ("Sir, a chicken could not survive on that field once fire is commenced.")

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.