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Gone with the Wind and The Lost Cause

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  • #31
    Can I just jump in here? I think my training in the dark arts of historical research may shine some light.

    Just one point which is worth repeating, the notion of the 'victors' writing the history here simply does not apply for almost a century after the war ended. Sniper, I urge you to find some writing on the historiography of the war - the history of the writing of its history (I'll try to find something, perhaps shek has something too). What is clear is that the way the war was understood for almost a century was largely shaped by southerners or people sympathetic to the southern perspective.


    Originally posted by 7thsfsniper View Post
    The fact that that there is so little info is disconcerting. Honestly, the lack thereof calls into question the validity of the claim. Blame yourself for educating me in the quest for validation of facts.;)
    Not necessarily. The issue is the quality of the info. The fact that it is not widely known doesn't make it untrue (which I think is what you have been saying elsewhere about the 'southern view' of the war).


    Fair is fair, I'm open. This is what is fishy about the whole thing. What did the south have to hide? The worst thing you could think of was already enough justification for Lincoln to fire it up. Slavery, right?
    Why do you assume anyone was hiding anything? Remember that the narrative about the Nth being worse on civil rights than the Sth was treated as 'truth' for generations. The sort of research entailed hare is not like popping down to the library & checking out a book. It can involve months or even years of first finding & then trawling through archives just trying to find info that is relevant. Also keep in mind that these were the record of a political entity that ended almost 150 years ago - this means there may not be continuity in record keeping.

    Histories based on extensive archive searches rarely take place immediately after events take place. Records tend to be classified for a period of time, or at least subject to restriction. Further, the nature of history is that it is written time time later. In this case people in the Sth had better things to do in the aftermath or war than trawl though often obsucre Confederate records to write history. Such early documents as were used most likely were stuff like cabinet & Presidential level papers. The most interesting stuff is often the minutae stashed away in boxes for decades. In this case the narrative was set decades before historians would normaly start lookign at records anyway. For those who considered the matter closed, why go looking for evidence of something you don't think exists?

    Also, you are looking at this in terms of someone looking for 'justification' for the war. Not fair. Most people who do this sort of research are simply looking to find out something. They probably have a bunch of questions, but not everyone is running some agenda. It sounds like this guy wanted to find out something he didn't know & got a surprise.

    Emancipation was the northern narrative, was it not? Furthermore, no, its not over. Damdest thing, but I don't think it is. Distrust of our current US government was bred in 1860 in the south and has been spreading ever since. It is not a north vs south thing anymore though. It is a freedom loving citizen vs BIG central govt thing now. I made this part bigger so anyone reading this at least should read this. ;)
    I'm pretty sure distrust of the government pre-dates the war & is not an exclusively southern thing.
    Last edited by Bigfella; 09 Jan 10,, 06:52. Reason: thought of somethng else
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    • #32
      Originally posted by Shek View Post
      More on the power of narratives to influence how we look at historical events:
      So who is the teacher there? Who wrote that?

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      • #33
        Originally posted by 7thsfsniper View Post
        Maj,

        The fact that that there is so little info is disconcerting. Honestly, the lack thereof calls into question the validity of the claim. Blame yourself for educating me in the quest for validation of facts.;)

        But seriously, I would be up checking out Neelys book.
        Some of it simply poor Confederate record keeping. While the South had the local structures, experienced national-level politicians, etc., it didn't have an established bureaucracy to keep and then centralize records at the national level. So, part of the lack of history is simply that it's not consolidated.

        However, there's a clear Southern agenda following the war to frame the war. As an example, VP Stephens before the war gives his famous Cornerstone speech that clearly articulates slavery as the central aspect of the Confederacy. After the war, in his writings Stephens ignores slavery and instead elevates states' rights to the pedestal. It's as if slavery wasn't important to cause of secession and should simply be a footnote.

        In advancing this narrative, you don't want to point out how the Confederacy restricted civil liberties and centralized power in many facets as this runs counter to the state's rights narrative. It undercuts the validity of the narrative since the actions don't match the words. As I said earlier, just as I don't get much heartburn over Lincoln's actions in general, I don't get much heartburn over the actions themselves. However, there still remains an inherent contradiction between the rhetoric and action, and so the rhetoric can't hold the weight that the narrative wants.

        Originally posted by 7thsfsniper
        Everyone knows the Confederacy was no angels after the war started, they were desparate. Whos fault is that?
        Davis was advised by Toombs that firing on Fort Sumter would lead to a bloody civil war (the other cabinet members didn't see it that way, but it was an opinion that was expressed and a possible outcome of Southern aggression against a federal fort that was property of the United States of America). He chose to do so and entered the unnavigated waters out of choice. As I said earlier, I don't get much heartburn over taking some measures to increase chances of success, but at the same time, the Southern government consisted of humans all capable of free will. They can take responsibility for the actions they took and the consequences that came with those choices.

        Originally posted by 7thsfsniper
        I'll PM you. We''ll see.
        This will be fun :) As in the other thread that started out talking about the different narratives, while I certainly lean towards one of them, I think big thing that most all of us captured is that the American Civil War is much more complex and nuanced than our grade school and high school courses can portray. For that matter, even college survey courses of American history miss the boat.


        Originally posted by 7thsfsniper
        Your smarter than the average Bear and way more educated than most. Your a hard read at times.
        I keep some cards close because then the conversations just aren't as interesting. This board is good because it rarely devolves into personal attacks. However, when I did post at Strategy Page I would be called a flaming liberal in response to a post and in the very next response to the same post I'd be called a diehard neo-conservative. I do it too, but sometimes it does get easy to miss nuances and read into things too much.

        Originally posted by 7thsfsniper
        Emancipation was the northern narrative, was it not? Furthermore, no, its not over. Damdest thing, but I don't think it is. Distrust of our current US government was bred in 1860 in the south and has been spreading ever since. It is not a north vs south thing anymore though. It is a freedom loving citizen vs BIG central govt thing now. I made this part bigger so anyone reading this at least should read this. ;)
        Emancipation is a Northern narrative, but as I stated, it depends on who you classify as the "winners." I can agree that the South essentially waged a 100-year insurgency against what was a Northern-mandated changed in the social structure of the South, and so in that extremely broad brush I could buy an argument that the "winners" started writing the history. However, if you frame the "winners" as being those Union troops who fought from 1861-1865, they didn't begin pursuing a narrative until The Lost Cause narrative had been firmly established by the end of that century when the GAR sought to counter the narrative. However, they clearly were not in the ascendancy in winning the battle of the narrative.

        Originally posted by 7thsfsniper
        Desertion was a problem. When you are faced down 5 to 1, hell, I'd even have to think about that for a second.
        Not sure where you're getting the 5:1 odds. Until the Appomattox phase of the Petersburg Campaign, the best odds that Grant ever saw was just around 3:1, and that was when Lee was out of position in the June 15-18 timeline to cover down on Petersburg due to Grant's brilliant disengagement at Cold Harbor and movement across the James River. I can't vouch for astalis' exact figures of a 1.5:1 ratio of Union:Confederate troops, but if there is a quibble, I know that it's not far off from that (i.e., off by the tenths).

        Originally posted by 7thsfsniper
        Lincoln and Davis cannot be compared on the same piece of paper though. One is the aggressor, the other the defender. Aggression, in the matter of the WFSI, has no defense AFAIC. Defense of your homeland, in the case of the south, does. What would the US do today in the same situation?
        Not sure what the WFSI acronym is, but I can think of two times after Fort Sumter that the United States saw an attack on its homeland (Pearl Harbor, 9/11) that it invaded the aggressor.
        "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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        • #34
          Originally posted by 7thsfsniper View Post
          So who is the teacher there? Who wrote that?
          Kevin Levin. He teaches at a private high school in Richmond and has a MA in history (I'm not sure if it's in ACW history or if he did a program on historiography and researched the ACW for his thesis). The link is to a specific blog post, you can find links to the rest of his blog at the top of the site. Albany Rifles knows him, but I'm not sure to what extent.

          His high school is an exception to the education that most of our youth receive - I'm not aware of any public high schools that could support such detailed electives (in any subject, and certainly not in history).
          "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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          • #35
            Here's a book that traces some of the historiography of The Lost Cause narrative.

            The myth of the lost cause and Civil ... - Google Books
            "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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