The Savage Civil War

[Draggingtree]

Nov07

The Savage Civil War

by editor on November 7th, 2016 at 5:38 pm

Photo: The Library of Congress

Americans have a perhaps understandable tendency to romanticize the Civil War, a four-year “Iliad” that remade the nation at the cost of at least 750,000 lives. Its effects still echo through our present-day controversies over the legacy of slavery, the display of Confederate symbols and even our remembrance of the war itself. For some Americans, the Civil War remains a tragic epic of “brother against brother,” for others a triumphal crusade against slavery, for others an epic of Southerners defending their rights against a soulless Yankee war machine, and for still others simply an inspiring saga of heroic warriors slugging it out on battlefields whose names—Bull Run, Shiloh, Gettysburg—still glow with a near-sacred aura. The armies of re-enactors who bloodlessly refight battles over the war’s once blood-soaked fields testify to the degree to which the Civil War retains its grip on our imaginations.

http://www.southernpartisan.com/the-savage-civil-war/

[Draggingtree]

Why No Southern Nationalism?

By John Shelton Reed on Nov 11, 2016

In the Partisan’s last issue, I raised the question of why the United States has not been troubled in this century by regional nationalisms of the sort that are currently disturbing most other industrialized countries. In particular, I asked, why has there not been a serious version of Southern nationalism?

 

Answering my own question, I suggested that (1) the outcome in 1865 was discouraging, (2) the United States as a whole offered a compelling object for nationalistic sentiment, and (3) identifying the cause of the South with the cause of white supremacy alienated those elements within the South’ s population that might have been expected to formulate a separatist program. I concluded that the United States is not immune to the centrifugal forces operating elsewhere, merely protected from them by a number of unique historical accidents—factors now dwindling in importance.

 

Consider, in the first place, that the old Confederates have gone, and with them the memories of the last go-round. The veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic are equally extinct, taking with them, I believe, the mystical commitment to the Union that led them to preserve it by stomping the South.

 

Difficult as it may be to imagine another go at secession, it is even harder to imagine that the U.S. Army would burn Atlanta again to stop it.

http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/why-no-southern-nationalism/

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Many times I muse about the tragedy of abortion and who we may have murdered that would have been great figures of our time - but I am more likely to have these thoughts when I see the faces of young meant tragically losing their lives (Present and Past) in War. Recently the casualties have been heavily Special Forces which are the ‘cream of the crop’. Not that any mothers child is not also a child of God with a purpose. Many of these young men sent to war, just teenagers. When I read their histories, large and small, it tears my heart. Sometimes war is necessary, but lets make damn sure it is. Is it a cause worth sending your child for - if not, don’t send someone elses.