“…People who say slavery had nothing to do with the war are just as wrong as people who say slavery had everything to do with the war. That was a very complicated civic thing…it’s always been identified as a war over slavery, believe me, no soldier on either side gave a damn about the slaves. They were fighting for other reasons entirely in their minds. Southerners thought they were fighting the Second American Revolution, Northerners thought they were fighting to hold the Union together. And that held true throughout the whole war, except for some people who were absolute poisons on both sides fire-eaters in South Carolina, and abolitionists in Massachusetts, but most of the people were fighting because… southerners once said I’m fighting because you’re down here, if you want to invade my home you got me to fight. Others say you’re trying to tear the fabric of the Union therefore you should be put down and not allowed to do what you think you want to do. It’s a very complicated subject, and I’m sorry to see it degenerate into such things.”
-Shelby Foote
-Shelby Foote
Forwarded from The Wardrobe 👑
“I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.” — Robert E Lee’s Maxims for Young Gentlemen
Painting of Gen. Lee ennoscriptd:
“Oh, I Wish He Was Ours!”
Those who had seen the General at the time of the first invasion of Maryland remarked that he had aged perceptibly in ten months, but Southern sympathizers did not lionize him less on that account, and even one Northern girl who persisted in waving a Union flag was heard to say as he passed, "Oh, I wish he was ours"
“Oh, I Wish He Was Ours!”
Those who had seen the General at the time of the first invasion of Maryland remarked that he had aged perceptibly in ten months, but Southern sympathizers did not lionize him less on that account, and even one Northern girl who persisted in waving a Union flag was heard to say as he passed, "Oh, I wish he was ours"
“I was at the battle of Gettysburg myself, and an incident occurred there which largely changed my views of the Southern people. I had been a most bitter anti-Southman, and fought and cursed the Confederates desperately. I could see nothing good in any of them. The last day of the fight I was badly wounded. A ball had shattered my left leg. I lay on the ground not far from Cemetery Ridge, and as General Lee ordered his retreat, he and his officers rode near me. As they came along, I recognized him and, though faint from exposure and loss of blood, I raised up my hands, looked Lee in the face, and shouted as loud as I could, ‘Hurrah for the Union!’
The General heard me, looked, stopped his horse, dismounted and came toward me. I confess that I at first thought he meant to kill me. But as he came up he looked down at me with such a sad expression upon his face that all fear left me, and I wondered what he was about. He extended his hand to me, and grasping mine firmly and looking right into my eyes said, “My son, I hope you will soon be well.”
If I live a thousand years I shall never forget the expression on General Lee’s face. There he was, defeated, retiring from a field that had cost him and his cause almost their last hope, and yet he stopped to say words like those to a wounded soldier of the opposition who had taunted him as he passed by! As soon as the General had left me, I cried myself to sleep there upon the bloody ground.”
-Marcus J Wright
From a narrative from a collection of first-hand accounts found in “Civil War Treasury” edited by B.A. Botkin
The General heard me, looked, stopped his horse, dismounted and came toward me. I confess that I at first thought he meant to kill me. But as he came up he looked down at me with such a sad expression upon his face that all fear left me, and I wondered what he was about. He extended his hand to me, and grasping mine firmly and looking right into my eyes said, “My son, I hope you will soon be well.”
If I live a thousand years I shall never forget the expression on General Lee’s face. There he was, defeated, retiring from a field that had cost him and his cause almost their last hope, and yet he stopped to say words like those to a wounded soldier of the opposition who had taunted him as he passed by! As soon as the General had left me, I cried myself to sleep there upon the bloody ground.”
-Marcus J Wright
From a narrative from a collection of first-hand accounts found in “Civil War Treasury” edited by B.A. Botkin
Forwarded from Old North State
Walter Washington Williams was a forager for Hood's Brigade and at the time of this photo was presumed to be the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War.
In this photo the local American legion band came by to serenade him on his death bed and gave him a cigar
In this photo the local American legion band came by to serenade him on his death bed and gave him a cigar
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“On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate the slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could be thereby induced to stay in the Union.
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this:
That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.
No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self evidently false than this or more self evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it be really established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle - but only in degree - between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.
Previous to the war, there were some grounds for saying that- in theory, at least, if not in practice - our government was a free one; that it rested on consent. But nothing of that kind can be said now, if the principle on which the war was carried on by the North, is irrevocably established.
If that principle be not the principle of the Constitution, the facts should be known. If it be the principle of the Constitution, the Constitution itself should be at once overthrown.”
Introductory of the essay “No Treason” by Lysander Spooner (1867)
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this:
That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.
No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self evidently false than this or more self evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it be really established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle - but only in degree - between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.
Previous to the war, there were some grounds for saying that- in theory, at least, if not in practice - our government was a free one; that it rested on consent. But nothing of that kind can be said now, if the principle on which the war was carried on by the North, is irrevocably established.
If that principle be not the principle of the Constitution, the facts should be known. If it be the principle of the Constitution, the Constitution itself should be at once overthrown.”
Introductory of the essay “No Treason” by Lysander Spooner (1867)
This is the hard truth that few in the Country are honest enough to accept
That regardless of the outcome of the War for Southern Independence; it rendered the concept of our government, founded on consent of the governed, illegitimate.
Y’all think of this, every time you see a Southerner waving an American flag and talking about “freedom” and “liberty” he is a demoralized, defeated person who has encompassed the Stockholm syndrome like schizophrenia of liking the conquering Government his ancestors once fought and died to be free from.