[Colonel Kangaroo]

I just don't see such a big cultural difference between Union and Confederate soldiers than people like McWhiney do. Both sides were composed of hard men who led a harder, more survival-driven life than modern Americans. Was it a special cavalier or cracker culture that led to the Confederates panic-driven charge to the rear off a strong position on Missionary Ridge? The myth of a superior southern martial quality during the war has long served as a sort of a consolation prize to offset coming up second best in the great contest, but the final result would suggest that the fighting qualities of the soldiers of the two armies were much more similar than conventional myth acknowledges. There were the brave and occasionally not-so-brave on both sides.

Behavior on a day was driven by factors external to the soldiers' martial fiber. The Yankees at First Bull Run were hampered by bad generalship, lack of training and the task of an untrained force to take a field in the age of rifles. The rebs that day had the easier task of holding their ground. By the time of Chattanooga, the rebs there were handicapped by a bad commanding general and mass weariness and disgust for fighting for an unworthy cause. On that day the American farmers of the Northwest routed their cousins, the American farmers of the Southwest.

[Tublecane]

I think you have to give it to the South that their boys were more experienced in camping, riding, and shooting—in the beginning. However, war depends on more than the fundamentals (would a nation really good at marching be unbeatable? hardly). What does it profit you to have killed a thousand rabbits as a boy, when you are running toward a column of smoke with thousands of people screaming and dying around you?

Personally, I think the South’s audacity stemmed from the fact that they were in the more desperate situation. They were being invaded, and they lacked the men, the industry, and the “legitimacy” of the Union.