Remembering the Civil War

Today marks the 149^th anniversary of the fall of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.  April 12th of next year begins the four year Sesquicentennial of the Civil War.  I wonder, how we will remember the war that for four years tore our country apart.

In the last week Virginia Governor Bob McDonald has been criticized for statements made in regards to his proclamation of April as Confederate History Month.  He was chastised by none other than our own President for not mentioning the role that slavery played in causing the war.  The President said “I don’t think you can understand the Confederacy and the Civil War unless you understand slavery.”

As a historian and Civil War buff, I both agree and disagree with the President.  I think that the problem here is not an appreciation of slavery’s role in the South and its contribution to the origins of the war, but that it has been given preeminence as THE cause for the war.  There the President and I part ways.

There were approximately 5.3 million “free” residents of the south in 1860. Less than 20 percent or 1.06 million owned slaves.  50 percent of those owned fewer than five slaves. That is a statistical fact.  Only 1 in 5 southerners owned slaves.

Most southerners in 1860 were poor, subsistence farmers.  They lived in small hamlets, far from the cities of Richmond, Charleston, Montgomery or New Orleans.  While most had seen slaves, they could not afford the $500-$1500 it took to purchase one.  These people lived day to day on what they grew and harvested with their own two hands.

Whether or not the “rich” Doctor, Lawyer, Plantation Owner or Merchant had slaves was of little or no concern to the average southern white, and they damn sure wouldn’t risk their own death to protect other’s right to own slaves.

So what would make 750,000 southern men, most of which never owned a slave, fight in a horrible war?  How could the small percentage of slave owners convince the majority of the population to fight for slavery?

This is where the teaching of history fails us.  This is where the understanding of the role of slavery fails to provide answers.  This is what the President doesn’t understand and can’t explain.  But, history provides us with the answer if only we will listen.

The majority of Southerners did not fight for slavery.  When captured at Gettysburg they had an answer.  When asked why they were fighting for slavery, they said that they weren’t “fightin’ for no darkies.  We is fightin’ for our rights!” 

At Vicksburg another, perhaps more insightful prisoner, said he was fighting because “you’re down here”.

To put it simply, the average southern soldier was fighting for his home, his state that he often referred to as his ‘country’. 

The greatest example of this was the greatest leader of the South.  Robert E. Lee owned NO SLAVES.  As early as 1856 Lee said “There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil."

The average southerner merely wanted to be LEFT ALONE by his government.  He was fighting for his RIGHT to live where he wanted, how he wanted.  This was not an argument about Slavery or States Rights; this was an argument about INDIVIDUAL rights.  The rights that southerners saw as enshrined in the Constitution.  Right for which many of their ancestors had fought the British for:  Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Abraham Lincoln himself, for the first two years of the war, proclaimed that the war was not about slavery, but about the restoration of the Union.  ONLY when it became POLITICALLY necessary for his administration, did he issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

I am proud to say that I have ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War.  They road with JEB Stuart in the Peninsula Campaign, fought at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, and even participated in Sherman's drive to Atlanta.

I am also the descendant of slave owners, something of which I am not proud.

The question is how shall we remember the Civil War?  Was it ONLY as the war to end slavery?  Are we who believe otherwise to be condemned for thinking so?

We have ONE YEAR to make up our minds.  Do we honor those who fought and died for what they believed to be right, or do we paint one side as “righteous” and the other as “evil” based ONLY on the side for which they fought?

As a UNION, we had better figure this out!