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2014-08-20 Europe

Walt Whitman: American Civil War and Europe

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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2014-08-20 03:51|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 The bitterness occupation and reconstruction did not subside so quickly. People were getting killed over this bitterness for a decade or so later. A good source on the Civil War in and around Knoxville is: Divided Loyalties: Fort Sanders and the Civil War in East Tennessee by Digby Gordon Seymour.

Lincoln's generals differed on the strategic value of Knoxville. Lincoln and Sherman favored a campaign against Knoxville as they viewed Knoxville as the linchpin of the South. Other generals favored launching a campaign farther west that would control the Mississippi Valley.

One historical account about reconstruction stated: "Thousands of Southern whites were meanwhile being denied the vote, either by act of Congress or by the new state constitutions. At one dinner in South Carolina, the company cosisted of a distinguished group of ex-governors, ex-congressmen, and ex-judges. The only voter in the room was the black waiter who served the meal. In some localities, about half the eligible white voters were temporarily disfranchised, and at one time the black voters in five Southern states outnumbered the white voters, many of whom were also illiterate.

Many Southerners were reduced to abject poverty--times were very hard for them; they lost everything. In East Tennessee slavery was not rampant. A few people had slaves but most people around Knoxville did not. The phrase "Divided Loyalties" described the Knoxville area very well. Some people were staunch abolitionists while others were not. Often, this division existed within individual families.

Posted by JohnQC 2014-08-20 09:30|| 2014-08-20 09:30|| Front Page Top

#2 Things were very divided in Texas, too - during the War itself and afterwards. There were half a dozen counties which voted against secession, and there were many men - like Sam Houston who were both slave-owners and Unionists. Some of the most notorious Texas feuds came about post-war between factions and families who were on opposite sides; the Sutton-Taylor feud for one, and the Mason County Hoo-Doo War for another. (Both of these ended with just about every original party to the feud dead.
The most ironic part to me is that Texas really didn't have that many slaves at all. Most families who owned slaves owned three or four, or perhaps as many as a dozen - and many of the slaves worked for hire at skilled or semi-skilled work. Reconstruction didn't wreck Texas nearly to the degree that it wrecked other Southern states. Former slaves went on working pretty much as they had before, and there were enough well-respected Unionists in the Reconstruction-era establishments to carry out the work of governing. Of course, many Texans were about dead broke and temporarily disenfranchised by the end of the war, but hey ... been there, done that.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2014-08-20 11:34|| http://www.celiahayes.com 2014-08-20 11:34|| Front Page Top

#3 Most Germans were not Nazis, nor Japanese militarists. However, their culture dragged them along into the fires with those exercising power.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-08-20 12:03|| 2014-08-20 12:03|| Front Page Top

#4 JohnQC, The South lost the war. Historically things are bad when you lose. The South got off kind of light compared to the Trojans.

It doesn't matter if some states had slaves or had black slaveowners or not. I believe a couple of states that had slavery sided with the North. They stood up against the Federal Government, whatever their reasons, and they lost.

Posted by rjschwarz 2014-08-20 14:52|| 2014-08-20 14:52|| Front Page Top

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