Civil War Started 150 years ago today........

[FinanceDude]

Wonder if Sarah in SC is celebrating by flying her Confederate flag and telling them "Yankees" to "go home"??

I imagine Charleston is doing some sort of celebration near Fort Sumter.........

 

[rescueme]

My family did not reach these shores till post WWI.

Funny that I'm referred to as a "damned yankee", with folks I worked with from the south when I was still employed, yet I (or my family) were not around during that time.

Some people just can't move on with their lives (even if the event was during their lifespan)....

 

[FinanceDude]

Well, my great great grandfather settled in Wisconsin in 1845, 3 years before we became a state. I think it was a territory or something back then. So if I am a damn Yankee oh well...........

I was in Charleston with my family in April of 2009. We met Sarah from SC, and had a great time hanging out in Charleston. However, it was the buggy ride we took around with a good ole boy as a driver that really made me think I was a Yankee. He asked where we were all from, and the whole buggy was from New York State, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota! His reply: "Wow, looks like I got the Yankee tour today"!!!!

Later, he told us southerners refer to the Civil War in one of three ways:

1)The War of Northern Aggression (my favorite)
2)The War between the States
3)And, as well-heeled southern gentlemen called it: "The Time of Unpleasantries"..........

 

[Sarah in SC]

Today we are indeed celebrating, and I can hear the cannon fire from my office. Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, White Point Gardens (the Battery where I met Finance Dude) and Fort Johnson over on James Island are all participating.
Thousands of reenactors have come to the city to share this historic day. I grew up just a few blocks from Fort Moultrie and spent many childhood hours crawling over the fort.
We don't get all hung up on Yankees--they've been here a long time, and there is no greater set of Anglophiles than Charlestonians.

I should add that most of us normal folk wouldn't fly a Confederate battle flag under normal circumstances, but if I had the figure for it, I might wear one of them there Confederate flag bikinis as a joke!

 

[HFWR]

Later, he told us southerners refer to the Civil War in one of three ways:

1)The War of Northern Aggression (my favorite)
2)The War between the States
3)And, as well-heeled southern gentlemen called it: "The Time of Unpleasantries"..........

Just finished re-watching Ken Burns' Civil War. Initially, I don't think many were expecting it to escalate into what it became. The South was, imho, correct that they should be able to secede, slavery notwithstanding. If one of the major European powers had recognized the Confederacy, it might have been enough to make it stick. As it was, no one wanted to support the Confederacy, because of slavery.

The art of war began to change as well. The old "march in columns and charge the enemy head-on" method didn't work so well with the improved weaponry.

As for number three, the 600,000 plus killed in the war probably considered it unpleasant...

 

[fisherman]

Well, my great great grandfather settled in Wisconsin in 1845, 3 years before we became a state. I think it was a territory or something back then. So if I am a damn Yankee oh well...........

I was in Charleston with my family in April of 2009. We met Sarah from SC, and had a great time hanging out in Charleston. However, it was the buggy ride we took around with a good ole boy as a driver that really made me think I was a Yankee. He asked where we were all from, and the whole buggy was from New York State, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota! His reply: "Wow, looks like I got the Yankee tour today"!!!!

Later, he told us southerners refer to the Civil War in one of three ways:

1)The War of Northern Aggression (my favorite)
2)The War between the States
3)And, as well-heeled southern gentlemen called it: "The Time of Unpleasantries"..........

As a TN native I grew up hearing it called the War of Northern Aggression against States Rights. (Historically this is probably correct as Lincoln did not make it about slavery for a few years although that is the state right they were fighting about). The South has changed some finally and my kids do not hear a lot of the trash I grew up with but there is still plenty of anger being taught against other groups and policies now. By the time I reached High School I was smart enough to be very thankful the South lost that war and ashamed they ever started it.

The not so funny thing is the current news environment using different words for some different causes is much like what I heard as a child and it is very troubling to see this country so split. We definitely do not want a repeat!

 

[HFWR]

One thought posited is that the US finally became a country, rather than a collection of states, after the war.

 

[ziggy29]

One thought posited is that the US finally became a country, rather than a collection of states, after the war.

Before then, many people considered themselves a "state resident" first and foremost and an American second. General Lee, for example, wanted to remain loyal to the Union and opposed secession -- but he was a Virginian first and foremost, and if Virginia went, so did he.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Here's a photo from this morning's first shot fired from Fort Johnson, timed to mark the 150th. And a link to the Charleston paper.

Cannon fire signals start of sesquicentennial remembrance | The Post and Courier, Charleston SC - News, Sports, Entertainment
Charleston kicked off America's national Civil War remembrance this morning with a simple mortar salvo fired toward Fort Sumter, launching four years of events to come around the country.
At 6:45 a.m. a thunderous boom rattled houses around James Island where the flash of a mortar fired from Fort Johnson on took the nation back 150 years.
On cue, batteries of cannons stationed around Charleston Harbor -- and pushed into place earlier this week by re-enactors -- opened up, marking their many positions by puffs of distant white smoke.
A "star shell" was also fired into the dawn sky -- looking more like a bottle rocket than a powerful wartime burst -- as a visible signal to re-enactors to begin re-living the attack that started the war on April 12, 1861. The flare seemed to rise not much higher than 40 yards.

 

[dex]

Today we are indeed celebrating, and I can hear the cannon fire from my office. Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, White Point Gardens (the Battery where I met Finance Dude) and Fort Johnson over on James Island are all participating.
Thousands of reenactors have come to the city to share this historic day. I grew up just a few blocks from Fort Moultrie and spent many childhood hours crawling over the fort.
We don't get all hung up on Yankees--they've been here a long time, and there is no greater set of Anglophiles than Charlestonians.

Southerns are tough people - soft on the outside tough on the inside. They had everything against them during the war, yet really didn't loose until Lincoln was elected the 2nd time. If, McClellen was elected there would have been a different history.

I should add that most of us normal folk wouldn't fly a Confederate battle flag under normal circumstances, but if I had the figure for it, I might wear one of them there Confederate flag bikinis as a joke!

The Confederate Battle flag only has the power people give it. If, the black community took it as their own it would have a whole new connotation. It would become a flag of equality. Just imagine it!

 

[HFWR]

Before then, many people considered themselves a "state resident" first and foremost and an American second. General Lee, for example, wanted to remain loyal to the Union and opposed secession -- but he was a Virginian first and foremost, and if Virginia went, so did he.

The Constitution arose because the Articles of Federation did not provide a strong enough central government.

Ironically, Jeff Davis saw the same need for a relatively strong central government, but had the same trouble of states wanting to go their own way.

As it relates to slavery, or other violations of the rights of citizens guaranteed under the Constitution, the states are subordinate to the "people", as represented by the federal government. IMHO, of course, since I'm no law expert.

 

[rescueme]

Here's a photo from this morning's first shot fired from Fort Johnson, timed to mark the 150th. And a link to the Charleston paper.

Cannon is pointed in the wrong direction (IMHO). Expect less than a "damned yankee"? ...

(BTW, I would pull the chain of those I formerly wor*ed with, from the south; they were so easy to get riled up..)

 

[Sarah in SC]

I thought it was a beautiful photo of the sunrise. The reports I heard on the radio made it sound like a really nifty commemoration.
And rescueme, again, I recall that your wife left you at home when she vacationed in our fair city last month.

 

[rescueme]

And rescueme, again, I recall that your wife left you at home when she vacationed in our fair city last month.

True, but I'll admit I married a crazy person ...

(she must have been crazy to hitch her wagon to my train..)

 

[FinanceDude]

True, but I'll admit I married a crazy person ...

(she must have been crazy to hitch her wagon to my train..)

Maybe all the other trains were out of coal or wood that day..........

 

[Orchidflower]

When I was a toddler of 1-1/2 until age 4 I was raised in the South where I was told by a cousin over and over that I was from The South. It impressed me that this is considered important.
Then my mother married a Yankee from Iowa and we moved up north to Illinois, and I became a Yankee.

My point is: During my entire life in Illinois I never once--not once--heard any parent emphasize to their child that they were from The North. In fact, I was raised in the city where the Yankees had their most important outpost/prison during the war, but this was never brought up even in high school. I had to learn it by reading, of all things, Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind! They keep a Civil War cemetary there until today at the Arsenal in that town, and it's kept up quite beautifully but no real festivals center around it ever that I'm aware of.
http://www.censusdiggins.com/prison_rock_island.html

The South is still to this day fighting the Civil War and still--if I can go by my cousins in The South who, by the way, are college and high school teachers--teach it to their own children that they are from The South. I, personally, wish they would stop it.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Maybe DH and I will have to watch this little gem again tonight:

YouTube - Gone with the Wind

 

[Orchidflower]

I never listened all that well to all the words in the movie, but Rock Island is surely mentioned in the book. It was the Yankee's version of the Confederate's Andersonville. Very sad...so many lives wasted.

 

[ziggy29]

I never listened all that well to all the words in the movie, but Rock Island is surely mentioned in the book. It was the Yankee's version of the Confederate's Andersonville. Very sad...so many lives wasted.

Camp Douglas in Illinois was another one. One of my great great great grandfathers was a Confederate soldier captured at Cumberland Gap in 1863; he spent nearly two years confined in Camp Douglas. He was one of the fortunate ones who survived it. But since history is written by the winners, you hear very little about the horrors and terrible conditions in the POW camps run by the Union side.

 

[homestead]

Watched this video recently and enjoyed it.

Rare Film of Civil War Soldiers Reunion

This very rare film is over 98 years old.......





Rare Film of Civil War Soldiers Reunion


This rare War of Secession footage from 1913 is very interesting and moving.
Much of the footage is from the 50th anniversary reunion of soldiers from Both sides at Gettysburg . It's also interesting to note that this 98 year Old film also features African-American soldiers when the popular conception
Is that they were ignored in that era.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIJaxu3w4-U

 

[Sarah in SC]

I'll be completely honest with you Orchidflower--I would never consider Illinois to be "the North" and can't imagine referring to anyone from there as Northern. Even Ohio, which surely must have emptied out years ago with the exodus to the South, isn't really North to us.
I'm okay with being from the South, and think there is nothing wrong with your cousins reporting that is their heritage.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Here's an sort of interesting story (it was in the Travel section) about Missouri's Civil War battlefields: Missouri's bloody Civil War battles - chicagotribune.com

More than 1,000 battles took place in Missouri, making it the third-most fought-over state of the war, after Virginia and Tennessee. In 1861 alone, the war's first year, 42% of all battles were on Missouri soil.... Boonville, about midway between Kansas City and St. Louis, is where the Civil War's first significant land battle took place, on June 17, 1861, more than a month before Bull Run (also known as First Manassas) in Virginia.

 

[Orchidflower]

I'll be completely honest with you Orchidflower--I would never consider Illinois to be "the North" and can't imagine referring to anyone from there as Northern. Even Ohio, which surely must have emptied out years ago with the exodus to the South, isn't really North to us.
I'm okay with being from the South, and think there is nothing wrong with your cousins reporting that is their heritage.

Well, I think Springfield, Illinois, was the big recruitment center for the Yankees. And Rock Island, Illinois, is where the main prison for the Confederates was, so Illinois is definitely Yankee northern territory, Sarah. My guess is you think North is NE (as in NY, Connecticut, Maine, etc.).

I love the South and many of the customs. My Mother was a Southerner thru and thru.
I do not love the way Southerners hate people from the North/Yankees today...and there are still plenty of prejudiced Southerners out there in 2011. If you don't believe me, please let me introduce you to my mother's family.

One of my friends is a Dixon from the famous Mason-Dixon line, by the way. A Delaware resident to this day, by the way.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Mason and Dixon were English surveyors who came over here to do land surveying. I don't think they knew at the time that their names would be associated with the North/South thing.
Interesting that it is self-proclaimed Northerners/Yankees who persist in this name calling business. It seems improvident to make claims like "the way Southerners hate people". Doesn't sound like me, and I'm a Southerner. Maybe it is just your family that is rude, but mine isn't. I would no sooner suggest a whole cohort of people "hate" than fly to the moon.

 

[FinanceDude]

Shucks, I'm from Wisconsin, I guess we are really one of those "Northerners". However, I have family in Mississippi, so there you go, have Yankee, half Rebel!!