[northwest_al] Civil War
- From: "Mike Sullivan" <sulliv812@xxxxxxx>
- To: "northwest_al" <northwest_al@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 20:46:13 -0500
Hi!
Happy to see some traffic starting up. All of us that can and will post will
help someone, somewhere, sometime. I have been doing some research of the Civil
War recently for the reason of writing articles for a newsletter that I belong
to. I also wanted to find out about my ancestors that served in that war. I can
honestly say that in all of my research in genealogy, it has been very
enjoyable until I looked into the Civil War era.
My studies of the war has been fascinating but if you dig a little bit, you
will find stuff that will make you put it aside and have a good cry. To say
that the events were tragic will not come close to describing what our
ancestors lived through. There are many reasons debated about why the war was
fought but if you really want to know, as with most conflicts, follow the
money. Find out who was making money and who was losing money and you will find
out how senseless that war was.
It is a real shame that it took the loss of around 620,000 people, with
around two thirds of them dying of disease not combat to end slavery. Ending
slavery was the only thing good achieved by the war. It was not the root cause
of it. Let me paint a couple of pictures if I may.
I will disclose that I am white and can only pass info from my research.
Imagine yourself as a slave. Yes, there were many mistreatments of slaves and I
have read court cases where masters were punished by law for this. Yes there
were lots of times when nothing was done, even in cases of death. From what I
have read, most were treated well. I didn't say very well.
As a slave, you were considered property just like a cow. I think you can see
where most people took care of their cows and so it was with their slaves. The
only rights you would have were whatever your owner allowed. You were fed,
clothed and provided for by the master in which ever way he could and/or would.
Sometimes good, sometimes not so good.
Many white people endured similar situations as indentured servants. There
were men that formed companies for the expressed purpose of paying other men's
debt and inducting them into their labor force for hire. The differences would
be in that this indenture would last usually five years. Sometimes you would
learn a trade and most of the time you would get a new suit of clothes and a
few dollars at the end of your contract. In other words, you were allowed to
get a head.
The best argument, in my mind as to why slavery was wrong, would be in that
as a slave, first you were forced into this indenture and although cared for in
some respects, this would be a life sentence for most. To compound all of that,
this very same life-long sentence would be passed on to your children.
Let's look for a minute at the life of a white woman during this time. Again,
as a white male, I can only write from my studies. Having married around the
age 16 to 22, over the last 12 to 15 years, you and your husband have worked
very hard at clearing fields and planting crops. About 95% of the Confederate
soldiers never owned any slaves and most of the others had very few. The large
land owners with many slaves might have paid your husband to substitute for him
or his sons. Your husband may have joined for patriotic reasons but probably
for the $50 bonus and $11 a month pay, which was much needed by most families.
During these past 12 to 15 years, you have born 6 to 8 children, some of whom
may have joined the army for the adventure or maybe to impress a girlfriend
that he wasn't afraid to go see the Elephant, which was slang for having been
in battle. Now that the war has proven to not be a short one, you are faced
with not helping to raise a family but the entire burden fell on your
shoulders. All the help you would get would come from the elderly, handicapped
and
insane.
As the war continued, the South fell into chaos. Where there was
thoughtfulness, consideration and community pride, now there were roaming bands
of lawlessness. Not only did the Union Armies burn and steal whatever they
could but these bands of desperate thugs had only two emotions and that was
hate and fear. They hated anyone that was getting by and feared that for some
reason they would not.
Suffering through all of this, the Southern woman not only survived but in
due time would recover and flourish. It was she that fought the greatest and
longest battle and there is only one way I can tell you how her life could have
been made worse. One afternoon, she would be interrupted from her work with a
visit from the tax man.
Bye, Mike
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