Americian History
The Civil War.
America has been part of some devastating battles over her long history. World War I and World War II were tremendously difficult conflicts and ones that taxed the nation’s resources to the maximum. But none of those conflicts can compare to The Civil War not only for the brutality and devastation of human life but in the damage to social fabric that was caused by that terrible conflict.
America is proud that it has never had a battle on its native soil.
Other than Pearl Harbor and 911, we have never even been attacked on our
own soil. So it took a war of brother against brother, American
against American to make even the possibility of war within the borders
of America even possible.
The war’s statistics are staggering for a relatively short conflict.
The war started on April 12. 1861. It was the confederacy that drew
first blood attacking Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The battles of the
Civil War and legendary. We have come to honor the dead of both sides
of this bloody conflict by preserving many of those historic
battlefields even to this day.
Throughout the war, the North was at an advantage in preparation,
equipment and supplies. But General Lee, who commanded the confederate
army, was a brilliant strategist and the battles often resulted in
massive casualties on both sides. When the final tally was drawn up,
over 970,000 American citizens died from the Civil War. While that may
not compare numerically to the huge losses in the two world wars later
to come, this figure represented 3% of the American population at the
time. And since the huge majority of the war dead were from America’s
youth, the hope for her future, the set back this war had on the
development of America’s economy was truly remarkable.
In modern times we look back on the Civil War as a titanic battle to
bring an end to the horrors of slavery in this country. And to be sure,
the Civil War is and will forever remain a central part of black
history and the beginning point of the civil rights movement in America.
But the causes of the Civil War were complex and diverse which only
made negotiation and resolution of the war more difficult in advance of
conflict.
Part of the issue that was being fought out was the rights of states for
self determination as balanced with the rights of the federal
government to determine affairs in the individual states. On the
surface, this may seem trivial compared to ending slavery but put in
context, it was a critical relationship to iron out in light of our not
very distant memory of our revolution against England for trying to
impose unreasonable controls on the colonies.
American’s are fiercely independent people and that independent spirit
was born in the battles of the revolutionary war where America stated
firmly that they would no longer bow to a king or let the centralized
government have such sweeping control over individual lives. The
outrage over how England tried to put the colonies under servitude was
the foal that caused the explosion known as the Revolutionary War. And
much effort was made to assure there was language in the constitution
and other critical documents to assure that the federal government would
be severely limited from interfering in the lives of its citizens.
Beyond that the preservation of the union as one country was also in
contest in the Civil War. But it was the moral issue of slavery that
made the Civil War such an emotional issue and one that caused people to
fight with such ferociousness to defend their side. In the end, even
Abraham Lincoln made slavery the central rational for the war and
determined that the end of this barbaric practice would be the legacy of
this horrible conflict.
But one thing that also was a legacy of the Civil War was the
determination that we, as Americans, would never turn our war machine on
our own citizens again. The war tore families apart and literally
caused brother to war against brother. Since reconstruction and the
union of America, the country has had a bruise in its national psyche
over this war and that bruise reminds us that we are one people and we
would always be one people devoted to the causes of truth, justice and
the American way of life
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