If that is the case then why was slavery still allowed in the Union-loyal border states, including Maryland and the city of Washington, until war's end? And, why would a rightious, liberating army conduct war on a civilian population? Sherman wasn't distroying only military targets when he burned every farm, home, and town from Atlanta to Savannah, taking what livestock he could and killing the rest, burning fields, and leaving women & children (since all the men were off fighting the war) homeless and starving. In Lee's two invasions of the North, not one home was looted, not one farm was burned. Be careful who you call hero. You just might find that, when you look behind the historical headlines of their achievement, they have more sins than their adversary. The South and the Southern population were not evil. They were an agrarian society dependent on an unpopular practice for their economic survival. Slavery was dying. Southern states were simply caught too soon by a Northern dominated and very impatient Congress before they could make the transition peacefully. The South was fighting for the states' right to decide. The slavery issue just happened to be the last straw that pushed the South to secession.
I'm sorry for the rant, but an unpopular stance has to be defended constantly. I am a proud Southerner and I hold my head high in the legacy of the Old South. Erasing symbols of it, hiding one's heritage, and believing everything a New York published textbook tells you, will only lead to an unfortunate and harmful retardation of our AMERICAN history. God save the South. |
