“Listen here, ya’ damn Yankee!”
Written: Jan 25 '09 (Updated Feb 02 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well-researched view of the Civil War that you're not taught in school
Cons: Nothing really, except a lot of information to digest.
The Bottom Line: A controverisal, yet unmentioned, point of view and historical facts about the Civil War.
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| matthewn's Full Review: H. W. Crocker - The Politically Incorrect Guide to... |
Okay, I just thought I’d get your attention. I'm joking. I’ve never referred to a Northerner as a Yankee or Scalawag, but I have been called a Yankee when I was down South in 2000 for a summer job in college (though it's strange, being that us Kansas people weren't in the Civil War). Like most of you, I was taught that the Civil War was simply about ending slavery. According, to The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War, we get insight on the Emancipation Proclamation, many generals during the Civil War, closer looks at famous battles and more. The author is HW Crocker III. Here are the Sections:
PART 1: Why the South Was Right
PART II: The History of the War in Sixteen Battles You Should Know
PART III: Eminent Civil War Generals
PART IV: Call in the Calvary
PART V: Beating Retreat
As you can tell, this book will stir up controversy. If you’re from the South, I’m sure you will definitely agree with the author that the South was in the right. If you’re from the North, you probably will be biased against this book and think the author has some hidden agenda. As I said, I’m originally from the Midwest and we had no involvement really in the Civil War. (Unless you count the fact we had some Union troops stationed in my town during this period in history). Nonetheless, I thought this book was well researched and got me to see another side of the Civil War, albeit, the Southern view. The author used the analogy of when the colonies broke away from the British Empire and said that the South’s wanting to break away from the Union was more constitutionally based than when we declared independence from England. He said, basically, that the South didn’t want to revolt or change the Union. All they wanted to do was have their own country.
What I found most interesting was that the author pointed out Lincoln was in favor of a part of a nation seceding from the entire country, however, once it came to the Civil War, he was against the South seceding for political reasons. Lincoln also suspended the law of Habeas Corpus and imprisoned 13,000 “enemies of the state” and even Northerners who were in favor of the South, and he even imprisoned Northerners who were in favor of the South declaring independence. I also learned that the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the South; states that wanted to break away from the Union. There were even slave owners up north and even free blacks who owned slaves, as well as free blacks living in the South (not all blacks in the South were slaves). It was also interesting to point out that the Union at Fort Sumter where the “south fired the first shot” that they (the South) were basically put into a corner, that the Union blocked off the South’s supply of medicine but not the South’s whiskey. It was the North who sent troops down to the South and never the other way around. Must be way the South calls the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression”
I also learned that Lee as well as many other Civil War generals was not anymore racist against blacks as were the North. The North had segregation. The men in the North were resentful of slave labor competing for their jobs and they were resentful (the northerners) that people could pay their way out of fighting if they had the money. Most Southerners felt that slavery was an evil that they inherited, but that also the South felt slavery would die a natural death. Even Southerners before the Emancipation Proclamation were freeing slaves. Lincoln only cared that the US was "not divided" regardless whether we became an all-slave nation or a non-slaving nation. He did what he felt was politically expedient for him at the time. Lincoln also wanted to ship blacks back to Africa at the time he was killed by John Wilkes Booth.
One of the interesting generals, other than Lee, was reading about Nathan Bedford Forest. He did make over $1 million trading slaves, but he was one of few slave traders that when they sold a family, most times the slaves were broke away from their family. Forest wanted to make sure that the families were kept intact and that Forest even, after the Civil War, gave blacks some ownership (vote) in a company he was forming. Also, about Forest, was the issue of the Ku Klux Klan. Yes, he was involved in it, but in Forest’s mind, he felt the KKK was more anti-republican (the “carpetbaggers”) than being anti-black. When he found out that the KKK was terrorizing blacks, he disapproved of that. In fact, Forest is on record as saying, “I’d most sooner trust a Negro over a Scalawag or a Carpetbagger.”
Another point that I liked being addressed was how it’s wrong to compare the South to Nazi Germany as the NAACP compared the Confederate flag to the Swastika a couple years ago. The Nazis entire platform was about, obviously, racial extermination, world domination, suppression of free speech, a military police state, and oppressive government control. The Southerners didn’t want to dominate. All they wanted to do was break off and they believed more in limited government (states rights, if you will) and individual responsibility. The author predicts if the South seceded without the North interfering, that they’d not have had all the racial division and racial tensions that developed after slavery and especially at the time of Reconstruction. It was after the Civil War that Jim Crow, lynchings were more common and that groups like the KKK formed as white southerners felt that they were becoming disenfranchised to give blacks equal rights (voting, for example).
In summary, I would say this was a good look at the Southern point of view on the Civil War; one that you won’t hear in the public schools or at college for that matter. I'm still trying to understand how the author concluded that if the South broke off WWI would have been different and "we'd also be able to enjoy sunny days in Cuba." If you disagree, that's fine, but please be civil (no pun intended) in leaving comments and I will do the same in responding. Thanks for reading
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
matthewn
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