South-bashing

[carolinayellowdog]

129. one anecdote doesn't justify ignoring a great many indisputable facts.

Last edited Sat Apr 11, 2015, 07:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Re the Civil War, until I attended a reenactment, I shared the general perception that it was all about good ole boys wishing for the return of slavery. Since all but one of my southern Civil War ancestors fought for the Union, I figured that was the LAST thing I'd want to witness. But I did attend one NC reenactment-- of a battle in which 22 Unionists from my ancestral county were captured by Confederates and ended up imprisoned at Andersonville. Only one came home alive. The atmosphere was hardly pro-Confederate. For every reenactor playing a Confederate, there is at least one playing a Unionist. And I was quite surprised by how many of the latter were black. Virginia was literally rent asunder by the Civil War, the only state to suffer that fate. This week at Appomattox the reenactment is very much 50/50, Union and Confederate. But a lesson I should have learned a thousand times over at DU and elsewhere online: People who study history with a deep desire to appreciate all the nuances can NEVER "win" against people who want to use history selectively to justify their antagonisms.