The Civil War Turns 150

As we prepare to commemorate another Memorial Day it occurs to me that we are in the process of marking the 150^th anniversary of the events that led to the creation of Memorial Day; The American Civil War. Many Americans are likely not aware that it was 150 years ago that their nation was sundered; torn apart by the politics of slavery and the clashing of two cultures which could no long coexist in this young, growing and developing nation.

The war carries other names.  The War Between the States; a name that die hard Confederates, and yes 150 years later they still exist, refuse to acknowledge because it’s their contention that the 13 Southern States left the Union and were states no more making the term a misnomer.  Many of those same die hards also refuse to acknowledge it as the war over slavery.  They prefer to believe that it was a war over state’s rights.  They like to think of it as The War of Secession; a group of former states exercising their right to leave a Union that they considered, at the time, tyrannical.  On the other hand it was always the Union contention that the states never left the Union; there was no Confederate Government to recognize and the war was simply an uprising by the citizenry.  No matter; a cataclysm by any other name is still a cataclysm. 

It was the Civil War that, at an early age, spawned my interest in history.  When I was a child my parents bought, A LIFE History of the United States, one of those invaluable Time/Life book sets that can jump start a child’s interest in learning.  I spent weekend afternoons leafing through the two volumes that covered The Civil War, captivated by the battle paintings and Matthew Brady photographs.  I still have those books and flipping through the pages I found the painting that most captured my attention as a boy; a work by Tom Lovell depicting Admiral David Porter’s Union fleet of gunboats running a gauntlet of Confederate cannon fire as it sails down the

Union Fleet Passing Vicksburg by Tom Lovell

Mississippi past Vicksburg.  The painting is bathed in the orange hue of the city in flames as the Confederate gunners had torched buildings to illuminate the night.  When I hit my teens I was reading Bruce Catton’s narrative histories of The Civil War and those led to more analytical studies.  Today my bookshelves contain a small library covering the battles, the strategies, the politics, characters, the societies and daily life of that tragic, tumultuous time.  And it still includes the Time/Life books and the now worn original paperbacks by Bruce Catton that I read back in the sixties.

It was an inevitable struggle that tore families, communities, states and the nation apart and still, 150 years later stirs passions.  It changed American culture burying the outdated agrarian society of the Southern States.  In the Northern States where it was discovered that putting industry on a war footing could generate vast profits, the war provided a harbinger of what Eisenhower would describe 100 years later as the military-industrial complex.  

It was precipitated by the election of a president who would become the benchmark for presidents and world leaders since.  In something of an irony we may not have ever come to realize the mettle of Lincoln and his greatness had it not been for that war and it’s carnage that wrenched his heart as it did the nation. 

It led to the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th amendments; abolishing slavery, establishing due process and equal protection and prohibiting the denial of suffrage on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude.  The Southern backlash at the end of the war and in response to these amendments incited the establishment of Jim Crow laws which lasted well into the next century and the Ku Klux Klan which still exists to this day. 

It was a war in which the new technologies of the day conspired with outdated Napoleonic tactics of massed assaults to create horrific casualties.  In terms of casualties it was America’s bloodiest war; taking approximately 620,000 lives, representing 2% of the population.  If that percentage was extrapolated to today’s population total the number of deaths would reach 6 million.  One hundred forty nine years ago, to the month, at the Battle of Cold Harbor the Union Army suffered 7000 casualties in less than one hour; by some accounts most of those occurred in 10 minutes.  The battle lasted 13 days and ultimately cost the Union 12,700 casualties, more than those suffered in the current war in Afghanistan.  These kinds of numbers are inconceivable today.  Consider for a moment the public outrage if America suffered such carnage today.  In fact, a version of the post battle events hints that, in order to avoid the ensuing public fallout, General Grant, Secretary of War Stanton and Lincoln himself may have conspired to cover up the massive casualties at Cold Harbor; something that would not surprise us about our most recent Commander’s in Chief but we would never attribute to “Honest Abe.”

It’s almost as if The Civil War was preordained at the time of our nation’s founding and it continues to be fought to this day.  There is probably no more recognizable symbol of the war, whether you’re from the North or the South, than the Stars and Bars; the Confederate battle flag.  Some consider it an ongoing, divisive symbol of deeply rooted racism, others one of regional and ancestral pride and still others look upon it with less emotion (as I do) as a banner from our historical past.  Anyone who believes, despite the rending and reunification of the nation and the election of a black president, that racial equality has been achieved is sadly mistaken; 150 years later, the struggle continues. 

And then there is the continuing battle over what actually precipitated the war; slavery or state’s rights.  150 years later one would think that there would be a general acceptance that had there been no slavery there would likely have been no war.  Surprisingly one would be laboring under a misconception.  A Pew Research survey done two years ago found that 48% of respondents believed that state’s rights was the main cause of the war while 38% believe that it was fought over slavery.  More surprisingly 60% of those under 30 believe that the war was a state’s rights issue, begging the question in my mind, what in the hell are they teaching kids these days?  Consider the words of Kimberly Mauch, president of the Turner Ashby chapter, No. 184, United Daughters of the Confederacy of Winchester Virginia, at a 2010 memorial who in a masterpiece of understatement said; “Yes, slavery was, um, a very hot topic back then, I guess you could say.”  "A very hot topic," is something like saying that The Super Bowl is a sporting contest.  She went on to say, “State’s rights started everything.”  Even today the issues of state’s rights and secession have been resurrected in the South like they were more than 150 years ago over the policies of a president considered to be tyrannical.  Ironically that president today is a black man. 

What I find disappointing is the lack of relevance that The Civil War carries these days.  The Pew Survey found that 56% of Americans consider The Civil War relevant.  The center calls that a sign of relevance; I disagree.  It is barely a majority.  Yet I’m not surprised.  I found that the curriculums at the schools my children attended were sorely lacking in coverage of The Civil War.  And I’ve found over the years, particularly when I was a Civil War reeanactor that there is a shocking lack of basic knowledge about the war, the years leading to the war and the reconstruction years.  

Some years ago interest in the Civil War hit a spike possibly with the popularity of programs on The History Channel, before that outlet forgot about history and took up nonsense like American Pickers, Ax Men and Counting Cars.  After that surge in popularity The Civil War has been returned to the same dusty forgotten shelves that house other matters of historical significance; indeed, history itself.  As we mark a sesquicentennial that is being largely ignored, I encourage anyone reading this to take a few moments to learn about this significant event that occurred 150 years ago in America.  

Some websites of note include.

The Civil War Trust

The Civil War Home Page

National Park Service - The Civil War

The Smithsonian

Civil War 150