Posted on 05/16/2015 5:12:04 AM PDT by OttawaFreeper
The North rejoiced: The rebellion had been put down and the Union saved. But Northerners also breathed a sigh of relief. Many had feared that the Confederacy would not accept defeat, but instead would continue the struggle by means of guerrilla warfare. Indeed, Lee’s chief of artillery, E. Porter Alexander, had suggested this option before Lee’s surrender. The Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, also wished to continue the war in this manner. But Lee rejected the guerrilla option in favor of unifying the country. And General Joseph Johnston defied Davis’s orders to continue hostilities, instead surrendering his force to William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station in North Carolina in order to “save the people [and] spare the blood of the army.” But in reality, the war was not over. It would continue for nearly another decade and a half in the form of Reconstruction.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Johnson is an interesting guy.
He was essentially a class warrior against the southern aristos he’d been patronized by and insulted for his whole life.
The problem is that in his innermost heart he was in awe of them, and when they sucked up to him after his becoming president he rolled over on his back.
With the federal government fully in charge of the country, the push to the West picked up a lot of steam and many uprooted people moved West with grudges against the other side. It took a while for the "microaggresion" to settle down.
Not to be glib, but in the movie "Shane", the farmer character known as "Stonewall" is gunned down by Wilson (Jack Palance) in part because Wilson doesn't like the guy's nickname.
Reconstruction would not have turned out as it did had Lincoln survived for the simple reason that the Radicals would have been unable to outmaneuver Lincoln.
Nobody EVER outmaneuvered Lincoln, probably the most effective pure politician in US history. Johnson, OTOH, was perhaps the worst. He alienated even people who really, really wanted to support him.
Lee’s house became the Arlington cemetery center.
Lee lived at the Greenbrier for some time.
Problem with the theory is that the James, Younger and Dalton gangs didn’t really operate in “the West.” They were pretty much entirely in what we now call the Middle West, which had been settled for most of a century by then.
Lee’s home was turned into a national cemetery as an insult to him.
Always seemed to me that having it be the resting place of the greatest American soldiers and other leaders is something Lee would have, in contrast, considered a great honor.
Let’s be honest. No one in Washington wanted Lee perched over them.
Bkmk
bookmark
Perhaps I am wrong to emphasize “The West” — but the James-Younger gang operated in these states: Missouri, Kentucky, Iowa, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and West Virginia. That encompasses a fair amount of the periphery of the Confederacy, where you can hit Northern interests (Banks and Railroads) while staying close to friends.
Except, of course, for their rather disastrous raid on Northfield, MN.
I was not disagreeing with your basic concept, simply pointing out that the association of these gangs with The West is not really accurate.
Would like to point out that this author has had a whole series of articles about the WBTS on NRO.
Here’s a link.
http://www.nationalreview.com/author/mackubin-thomas-owens
Highly recommended.
“He alienated even people who really, really wanted to support him.”........
Sounds an awful lot like odumbo.
The South was brought to its knees.......
Reconstruction was an insult upon insults.....
If only Lincoln lived.....who knows......a kinder, gentler reconstruction?
But the South survived ......Atlanta rose from the ashes.....
And the South is considered the Bible Belt of the country.
We were brought to our knees......and the only place to look was up, from whence cometh our help.
or, at least, that’s the way it was for many years in our Judeo Christian nation.....
But that, too, may be gone with the wind soon.
Acknowledging the role of Southern Democrats in dismantling reconstruction is a vital component of LBJ’s brilliant efforts to institutionalize blacks in poverty status after the passage of civil rights law.
By providing financial support that required families be broken and fatherless generations of blacks have grown up without the foundation of an in tact family. This was more than incentive. It was and remains today a requirement. It was not simply unintended consequences.
Government welfare was a deliberate effort to create and sustain economic hardship and dependency in the black community. It persists even today with cries of more money for the embattled ghettos of Baltimore.
Reconstruction was an evil America has never fully recovered from.The awful calamity of civil war is a wound that has not been allowed to heal. Both North—and South tolerate each other almost like the Sunni and Shia of Islam.We have much in common—yet much that to this day divide us.
I think it interesting that the South, particularly its soldiers, eventually (if begrudgingly) accepted the unified nation. While it was not so much let “bye gones be bye gones” the collateral and longer term strife it produced is today pretty much an artifact. Apparently such is not the case for the legacy of slavery which was largely a national institution at its inception.
Yikes! I tought to some of the more nuanced libs, the mere utterance of “Jefferson Davis’” name was racist. To some it appears that there was absolutely NOTHING positive done by the southern states. Ever.
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