Posted on 07/22/2002 12:30:48 PM PDT by Aurelius
I occasionally get some rather rude e-mail from those with a deep-rooted Yankee mentality in regard to my little web site. Usually the writer informs me, rather contemptuously that my web site is all wet, that it stinks, that the War of Northern Aggression was really fought to preserve slavery, that I am totally in error about Abraham Lincoln, who, in the writer's opinion, is really god, and on it goes. 'Those people' never offer historical argument to back up what they say [they can't] but they are quite accomplished at ridiculing others when they, themselves, don't have a clue about the historical accuracy of anything. No doubt many of them are cultural marxists and don't even realize it. But, then, no one has ever accused those with a Yankee mentality of being over-endowed with discernment. Let me say here, that when I refer to the Yankee mindset, I am not offering a blanket condemnation of all Northern folks, else I would also condemn myself. I know lots of good Northerners who would cringe at being thought of as Yankees, and I know some Southerners who, unfortunately, fit perfectly into the Yankee mold. What I am talking about has no connection whatever with where you were born.
I got a rather nice e-mail recently from a Southern-born Yankee type who crudely informed me that "Lincoln was right and J W. Booth, and R. E. Lee and Jeff Davis and the rest of the gang were murderers who all deserved to be hanged." You can really tell that this character did his homework - what historical insight! He then went on to inform me that he was a white man born in the South but was, "thankfully educated in California." Folks, I submit, that anyone today who is thankful for having been 'educated' in California the way this man seems to have been 'educated' is just not the brightest light in the harbor. He then informed me, in his infinite wisdom that I should 'get a life' beyond my web site and 'grow a brain.' He closed his tirade with the statement that Lincoln was the last of the good Republicans, and his parting salutation was 'Long live Bill Clinton.' Usually I don't bother replying to such sanctimonious drivel, but, in this man's case I made an exception. I e-mailed him back and told him that if people such as he didn't like my web site then I must be doing something right. I suppose I should have ended my reply to him with 'Have a nice day' but, for some unknown reason, I didn't bother to.
This individual is a perfect example of the Yankee mindset - smug, self-satisfied, egotistical, and totally ensconced within a sense of their own perfect rightness in all things and on all issues. Anyone daring to disagree with them has to be berated because 'those people' have got it all figured out - after all, their 'teachers' and 'college professors' dutifully informed them that the war was all about slavery and that Lincoln freed all the slaves, and the 'history' professor wouldn't lie - would he? Lincoln must be more astute than Jesus Christ because, after all, Lincoln came along more recently on the evolutionary scale didn't he?
I have had people that checked out my web site and disagreed with something they saw on it. Often they have contacted me and have been courteous enough to voice their opinions in a civil manner. Others have offered constructive criticism, which was all right, because I took it in the spirit in which it was given. I had a black man once that read one of my articles and took exception to it, stating that he was a Christian. I contacted him back, informing him that I was also a Christian and with Christian charity, I sought to correct the misconception that he had. Once he understood where I was coming from we were able to carry on a dialogue with no bad feeling on either side. Some folks will check out the site and come back with genuine questions about something. That's fine. I answer what I can historically [unlike the Yankees, I don't claim to have all the answers about everything] and I often try to pass these folks on to someone else that knows more than I do.
But there is a certain class of Yankees - often well 'educated' that are just so superior to the rest of us 'great unwashed' that they don't even feel the need to attempt courtesy. They howl about us 'rednecks' and what we write and tell us to 'get a life' yet the sum total of their 'life' seems to be wrapped up in demeaning those who dare to disagree with their vaunted opinions.
A while back, Professor Clyde Wilson wrote an excellent article in Southern Partisan magazine called The Yankee Problem in America. In it Professor Wilson took on such Yankee paragons or 'virtue' as Ted Kennedy, the man who never learned to drive over a bridge straight, and St. Hillary Clinton of 'Cattle Futures' fame. Wilson described such people as smug, self-righteous, above the rules the rest of us live by, and completely convinced that they are right in all things - right enough that they deserve the privilege of telling the rest of us how to live - all for 'our own good' of course [and just maybe for their profit.]
There is no place in the Yankee mindset for grace, courtesy, compassion, consideration of the feelings of others, or for any of those Scriptural virtues that have graced and improved our civilization in the past. The Yankee knows only complete self-righteousness and, in that self-righteousness he exhibits a certain perverse pleasure in seeking to trample on the feelings of those who dare to disagree with his elevated opinions. In most cases, the Yankee understanding of accurate history is about an inch deep, and therefore, he becomes little more than a 'useful idiot' that the cultural Marxist professor that 'educated' him can turn loose on the world for the total benefit of the New World Order.
CSA military prowess has been grossly inflated by myth, and myth alone.
If that is the case, how did 44 men hold off an army of 5,000 on 20+ warships at Sabine Pass? How was a heavily equipped full scale campaign for the Red River, complete with naval support, repulsed by a significantly smaller confederate force starting with Mansfield? How did smaller confederate armies thoroughly route the yankees at Fredericksburg? At Manassas? At Chancellorsville? And how did confederates manage to take out 100,000 more yankee casualties than they suffered on their own?
Sounds like your side took a pretty heavy losses for fighting a "mythical" enemy!
Napoleon said, "The moral is to the physical as three is to one."
This means that it takes at lest three attackers to dislodge one defender. But the ratio was roughly only 3 to 2. To even break even the so-called CSA would have needed 3 to 1; of course the CSA armies colapsed and melted away, so maybe it isn't really the measure after all.
You tout this thing in Texas. I doubt that you are telling the whole story. But I know which flag I see down at the post office.
Walt
It was well recognized that the "west" was the theater of decision.
Lee gets a good press. Those four victories nestle in among the Seven Days battles, where Lee lost more men every day than McClellan, and of course Antietam and Gettysburg, obviously rebel defeats. Sounds to me like the so-called CSA did no better than break even.
It should be remembered that Lee had absolutely no success outside Virginia. Flip that, and you logically have him equal in prowess to Pope, Hooker and Burnside, who had no success inside Virginia.
Walt
There is no real reason to think that. The Nazis used slave labor quite effectively.
Walt
You're talking about this far west thing. I'd say holding Nashville was more important.
The Army of Tennessee essentially never had any victories at all, except for Chickamaugua.
They did a lot of campaining and a lot of dying without much to show for it.
Walt
Me too! I think we were only one or two of the western countries who practiced slavery that resulted in violent abolition.
He might start calling YOU a Yankee. :)
I like it!
Nukes weren't invented down south, as you have been informed of by now. On the other hand we can be certain that the tooth brush was invented down south. If it had been invented up North it would have been called a teeth brush.
With all due respect to the western theater, the true decisive battles were in the east - Antietam and Gettysburg. They were the battles upon which european involvement largely turned and upon which the strategy of turning northern opinion against the war was settled.
Lee gets a good press. Those four victories nestle in among the Seven Days battles, where Lee lost more men every day than McClellan,
Yet without any decisive losses.
and of course Antietam and Gettysburg, obviously rebel defeats.
Antietam is considered a stalemate in practically every credible history of the war. Its effects with europe were strong, but the battle itself ended in a draw.
It should be remembered that Lee had absolutely no success outside Virginia.
Considering that Lee's action was almost entirely in Virginia, such a statement is both misleading and silly.
Flip that, and you logically have him equal in prowess to Pope, Hooker and Burnside, who had no success inside Virginia.
No. That would be illogical. See above.
I'd say holding Nashville was more important.
In strategy to that part of the war, yes. Regardless you cannot downplay the effort the yankees put into the far western theater as it is perfectly comparable in size, and what was at the time importance, to the more famous operations conducted elsewhere. Lincoln knew that taking the far west would cripple southern commerce entirely because that is where they still had cotton, where they were war producing supplies, and where they were still shipping in and out of the ports. But Lincoln never could take it and failed repeatedly while trying. So instead he turned to the total war strategy of destruction exercised by Sherman and others.
Well, since Napoleon said it I guess that makes it so!
You tout this thing in Texas. I doubt that you are telling the whole story.
Look it up if you doubt me! Look up the battles of Galveston, Sabine Pass, Mansfield, and the Red River campaign itself. The stuff about Brownsville and Corpus Christi is more obscure beyond mentioning the Battle of Palmeto Ranch, which is known simply because it was the last battle of the war. But it can be found if you do some serious research.
But I know which flag I see down at the post office.
Last I checked, the Post Office wasn't the seat of my state's government and when I do go to the seat of my state's government, I see the Lone Star flying as it has since the 1830's. At some of the government buildings it is along side five other flags at equal height, among them the confederate flag and US flag.
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