Was the South REALLY that excited about the Civil War?

[Placebo]

At least that's how they're portrayed in 'Cold Mountain'.

Rushing out of the church all "We're going to war! We got our war! I'm gonna go kill me some Yankees! WHOO-HOO!!! WAR! WE'LL BE BACK IN A MONTH! YAAAAAAY!!!"

And if so, maybe there's a tradition of crazy southern warmongers getting all excited about a war they can't even win. *cough*W*cough*

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Texasgal]

15. Errrr...Blueknight

I find your statement about southerners being dumb extremely inflammatory.

How DARE you call me dumb!

I think an apology is in order. :grr:

[Maddy McCall]

25. Then you know little about the Civil War.

Perhaps your evaluation of who is dumb should be adjusted.

What about Southern unionists? Have you read anything about Grierson's Raid? The city of Natchez unfolded giant union flags when Grierson passed through. There were MANY southerners who stood with the union.

[JohnKleeb]

27. Our 17th president was a Southern Unionist

Andrew Johnson. He even was tolerant of Catholics at a time when that was very unpopular.

[Left Is Write]

2. The Southerners said the same thing in GWTW.

That it was a war of pride, a "gentleman's war", and they'd win in six weeks.

[saltpoint]

3. Maybe some were.

It does seem as if some Southerners were gung-ho about the war.

But when you take that enthusiasm and fire on Fort Sumpter, there WILL be a response.

[joefree1]

4. Not all

My ancestors joined the Tennessee Volunteers to fight for the United States. But our family had to leave the state after they were harassed by supporters of the Confederacy. One reason why we ended up in California.

[deadparrot]

5. The rich ones probably were.

The impoverished, backwater folks who made up the majority of Southern whites and who didn't have slaves were probably a lot less anxious to go out and die. I think, for them, it was about protection of their home as opposed to a visceral hatred of Northerners or the protection of the peculiar institution.

[Cuban_Liberal]

6. Some were, some weren't.

There was a substantial plurality who were gung ho about it, and a smaller plurality who 'followed' them, just like today, and the smallest plurality opposed it. We sometimes forget that there were large parts of the South that remained loyal to the Union, like eastern Tennessee, western Virginia, large parts of Louisiana, etc. .

[JohnKleeb]

8. Yes, Western Virginia even branched out and started West Virginia

Funny how we regarded them as redneck hicks when they had the brains to sucede from Virginia because of their opposition to slavery.

[JohnKleeb]

7. for the last time dubya is not a southerner, hes a northerner

Yeah they were excited so were the Yankees. It's true that many on both sides thought the war would be a quick war, many made the same mistake about World War I too. To be fair to the south, for a lot of 1861, 1862, and 1863, it did look like they would win the war. Scary I know but true.

[Placebo]

10. Don't try and dump him on US..

he's all yours :)

[JohnKleeb]

11. Boy last I checked

he was from here.

[Placebo]

12. Pssh, whatev.

[JohnKleeb]

13. Don't whatever me

when truth comes a flyin.

[Placebo]

14. Everyone knows that W, whether you like it not...

is as Southern as you can get. Get over it.

[JohnKleeb]

16. hah c'mon man, it's a show he puts on

Ive seen interviews with him pre 1994 before he ran for governor there, not an accent on that boy, none at all. Notice that his father, mother, and brothers don't have the accent. He's the best actor, we've had in the white house since Reagan.

[Left Is Write]

19. The fact that no one in his family has that accent

and HE does - a fakey folksy put-upon one at that - always makes my eyes roll.

Isn't it amazing that he is the ONLY one in that family to have a so-called Southern accent?

[JohnKleeb]

21. The fact that he didn't have it pre 1994 makes me even more suspicious

It's good acting honest.

[WoodrowFan]

22. he's ADOPTED the South

he adopted the South as his own and his strongest supporters tend to be in the South as well.

[JohnKleeb]

24. right and its not his damnit

I believe he got his biggest support from the great plains area.

[Texasgal]

26. That's BULLSHIT!

He is NOT FROM TEXAS! So what he fucking lived here and was Governer, that dosen't make him a TEXAN!

Plus, we don't claim that carpetbagger!

[Maddy McCall]

28. Wrong. He's a transplant...

and if you knew anything about the South, you would know that transplanting one's self to the South does NOT make one a Southerner.

[JohnKleeb]

from what I know about southern values and such last year

He's not one.

[Texasgal]

36. Agreed!

One must be BORN AND RAISED before truly claiming to be a southerner!

[JohnKleeb]

38. Hell I am born and raised, and I am even reluctant to call myself one

[Not_Giving_Up]

61. He's a transplanted Texan

He's a drugstore cowboy. He likes the accent he's acquired, it makes his inability to speech English look like it belongs there. People forgive his grammar because he's a "Southerner". He's an idiot who just happens to live in Texas because that's where the oil was.

[JohnKleeb]

62. Yeah his father went to Midland to be an oilman

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

17. I think he's more a Texan than anything.

He was born in New England and went to prep school and college there, but he was still raised in Texas.

[JohnKleeb]

20. still, I believe Ive read that Texans only consider

people who are born there one of their own, he wasn't. BTW I am being stubborn, I just think Dubya's acting southern is a charade. The Bush family is as northern as the state of Connecticut is all I am trying to say.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

39. It's a matter of where W thinks he belongs, not

what everyone else thinks. The man obviously indentifies more with Texas (regardless of whether or not his accent is real).

A lot of people in Maine are that way too. It's not so much about being born there, but at least being raised there and living there a good long time. If you were born in Maine, but grew up in California, for instance, you would be considered an out-of-stater as well. My dad was born and raised in New Hampshire (which is not so different from Maine). Many of the locals regarded him as an out-of-stater for at least the first 5 to 10 years he lived there. I think now he would be considered a Mainer since he has raised a family there and he has lived in Maine longer than he has lived in New Hampshire.

[Texasgal]

40. Well then

It's obviously based on OPINION rather than fact.

WHEW! That makes me feel better!

[JohnKleeb]

41. The point is he chooses to identify with Texas

His family has only been in the south for 5 years more than mine has and we even don't consider ourselves southerners really. Did it make Hitler any less Austrian when he acted like he was this German.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

46. So being from a different state is comparable to

being from a different country?

[JohnKleeb]

48. ok not really, sorry

its similiar the way our states are set up in a way though.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

50. You could be a southerner too,

if you claimed to be one. I think if you lived in an area for a long enough period of time (say at least 10 years), and you indentify with the area and the other people there, then there is nothing wrong with calling yourself a southerner, or Texan, or whatever else. You are whatever you feel you are.

[Texasgal]

54. Whatever you "feel" you are

still does not equate with being "from" Texas.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

63. If you say so..

That's your opinion.

What about people that have moved around a lot as children (not by their choice)? I guess they cannot be from any where.

[Texasgal]

64. What I am trying to convey

Is that there is alot of anti-south bigotry going on, especially here on DU. Surprising as it sounds

Northerner Libs LOVE to point out that Bush is from Texas, I am just trying to dispell that myth.

This thread started off being hateful and bigoted regarding people from the south. Frankly, I am getting quite tired of it.

For the last time, BUSH IS NOT FROM TEXAS.

We are not stupid, arrogant rednecks.

Just the facts ma'am.

[Not_Giving_Up]

65. I agree!

I was born in Texas, therefore I am a Native Texan (these bumper stickers are everywhere)...* was not born here, therefore he is a Transplanted Texan. It doesn't matter what he thinks he is.

[Maddy McCall]

29. Nope. If you knew any Texans and could compare them to him...

you would see that he is not a Texan. He's a "rhinestone cowboy"--all hat, no cattle.

[JohnKleeb]

31. hah I like that, rhinestone cowboy

[jonnyblitz]

18. no northerner has an accent like that kleeb.

don't even try. :P

[JohnKleeb]

23. a manufactured accent

He didn't always sound like that.

[Maddy McCall]

35. Plus, I've seen b-movies about the south and about Texas that...

had actors doing better put-on Texas accents than Bush's.

Hell, even Dean Martin, in Four For Texas, sounded more like a Texan than Bush does. :P

[JohnKleeb]

37. hahaha Dean Martin

God if he can sound more Texan than Bush than hell even I could with a little bit of training.

[Maddy McCall]

32. He doesn't have a Texas accent.

I was born and raised in Texas, and have lived in various Texas towns. I have relatives all over Texas.

Bush's accent is put-on. No one I know in Texas speaks like him.

[Vidar]

49. He's a carpetbagger, justifiably despised by both North & South.

[JohnKleeb]

51. yep thats better word if any

[Bridget Burke]

58. And I'll bet Dubya's ancestors didn't fight for the North.

They probably paid some young immigrants to take their places in the draft. It could be done legally in those days.

[JohnKleeb]

59. Yeah I would assume the same thing

Thats actually how President Cleveland got out of the war.

[trof]

9. Boy, I sure was.

Didn't turn out to be near as much fun as I thought it would be though.
;-)

[madison2000]

30. Did the women really look and dress like Nicole Kidman?

[trof]

33. Nope. They all looked like Scarlett O'Hara.

I sweah they did.

[JohnKleeb]

34. Ahh shucks, I thought they all looked like Natalie Portman

[Placebo]

42. You must have been QUITE upset...

when they tried to rape her in 'Cold Mountain'

[JohnKleeb]

43. That was pretty sick, those Yankee fuckers

Good thing her and Jude kicked ass. No one should mess with a woman like that, it's just wrong.

[joefree1]

66. You mean when the Aussie and the Brit kicked the ...

Romania soldier's ass? I refuse to see this bullshit outsourced lie of a movie about the Civil War.

[JohnKleeb]

67. I think Natalie Portman is the woman the soldier tries to rape

She's Israeli by birth though. Yeah, I know some of those soldiers were Romanians but not all of them, my friend who is a reenactor got offered a job as an extra in the movie.

[RoyGBiv]

44. Pretty much, but ...

The "excitement" was equally felt in the North. Regiments were being formed in Minnesota, for example, before anyone in any official capacity had called for them.

And, they thought the same thing -- we'll be back in a month.

They were both wrong.

[JohnKleeb]

45. Do you know the story about what happened at the first Bull Run?

About the many spectators who came to watch. It's pretty sick if you think about it.

[RoyGBiv]

52. Yeah ...

Washington "society" stepped out to see the festivities, brought picinic baskets, etc. The idea of a "noble" essentially clean war was pretty common during the era. Few Americans alive at the time had actually seen the effects of one.

Made for more chaos than would have occurred during the Federal retreat.

There was the other side of the coin, people like William Sherman, who was called crazy and risked ever being taken seriously by suggesting it would take years and oceans of blood to end the war once it started. But he's the exception that proves the rule. He *was* considered crazy for thinking such things.

American arrogance and cluelessness knows no regional boundaries.

[JohnKleeb]

53. I believe there was a congressman captured by the confederates.

But yeah everyone expected it to go easily. Same thing happened with WWI, "We'll be done by x-mas", and both of those wars well they changed the world forever.

[Maddy McCall]

55. WWI more than the Civil War...

but I won't argue the fine points. :-)

[JohnKleeb]

56. Yeah I guess you could say the Civil War changed the US forever

and WWI, the world. WWI makes for some great reading, All Quiet on the Western Front is one of my all time favorite books, it's also a tearjerker big time.

[catbert836]

47. They weren't excited

And they lost, but almost 150 years later, they control the whole country. :cry:

[Radical Activist]

57. Many were not. Many others joined the union side.

Many people refused to serve in the confederate army, especially people from hilly areas where there were fewer slave owners and plantations. There were many who thought it was a rich mans war for those who owned lots of slaves.

In fact, Tennessee sent almost as many troops to the union side as to the confederate. All southern states had at least some people join the union army and most had a number of regiments. I have an ancestor from Tennessee that everyone always believed was a confederate veteran. We recently discovered that he was a union soldier.

There are a lot of myths in the South designed to glorify that war.

[sparky_in_ma]

60. At first

many people, both in the north and south,rallied to the war drums. Most southerners were not rich, and didn't own slaves. The majority of southern men saw the war as a defense of their homeland against northern aggression in the form of taxes, tariffs, and military presence.

A good book on the southern soldier is Bell Irvin Wiley's "The Life of Johnny Reb. Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton also have excellent books on the period.