Was the South Ever Confederate, Anyway?

[LunaSea]

A worthwhile read.


In The Scruffy Citizen by Jack Neely

Everybody has an opinion about whether the Confederate flag is good or bad. They’re all dug in. Some are certain it’s racist and the very signature of evil. Others say it’s purely an expression of Southern pride and reverence for ancestors who fought and died a long time ago. Some of them have devoted careers and personal reputations to these propositions. A newspaper column is not going to change any minds.

The Civil War is a big bagful of ironies and paradoxes, and not a recommended study for folks who like to keep things simple. It would be a particular challenge for anyone to survive the 1860s in Knoxville and either idealize one side or demonize the other. It took a later generation, one that didn’t remember the war, to glorify it.

I do want to point out something provable. Whether the Confederate flag is an irredeemably racist and oppressive symbol or not, the Confederacy is not “the South.” It is not “the South now,” certainly. It was not even “the South” in 1861. The conflation of the Confederacy with “the South” began, I suspect, as some tired editor’s attempt to make a headline fit.

More-

http://www.knoxmercury.com/2015/07/01/was-the-south-ever-confederate-anyway/

[MisterP]

1. alternate histories and historical "wargamers" in general doubt it would've lasted that long, either

even full French support would've just seen TX and LA shear off (easier to manipulate that way ...); there'd be massive rifts between the Fire-Eaters and Lee's hyper-pragmatists so at best it'd be "temperate Brazil"