I was an avid Civil War buff, but the version I was taught was whitewashed

The people who were in charge in the South were willing to sacrifice an entire Generation of the South’s own youth in order to preserve slavery.

By Stephen Milmoe

May 24, 2024 09:00 AM

In 1960, I became consumed with the Civil War as America approached the 100th Anniversary of its beginning. I was 8 years old, living on Long Island, and had already read Bruce Catton’s “A Stillness at Appomattox,” written in 1952. I would go on to read eight more of his books over the years, most of them more than once.

In the early days during those early years, it was the Civil War was interesting and fascinating for me as a white young man due to the dazzling work of Bruce Catton whose extensive research brought the war to life. The descriptions of his subjects and events were personal to me. You could sense the pain from wounded Union soldiers who travelled the treacherous 17-mile journey from Wilderness up to Fredericksburg in the shabby wooden ambulances.

It was a pleasure to continue reading Catton and other books after I moved to Maryland to attend college in the year 1970. In the next few years, I visited numerous Civil War battlefields in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia. I learned lots regarding how the Civil War — what was happening, where it took place and the number of casualties. I also learned who was victorious and who lost the wars.

What I haven’t thought about was the reason what was the reason why this war was not fought? What was the reason 6222,000 Union or Confederate soldiers be killed? What caused a few hundred thousand more be afflicted with crippling wounds from war for the remainder life?

As the nation continues to struggle with deep divisions due to classes and race, and as pundits discuss whether we’re heading towards another Civil War, of the type depicted in Alex Garland’s upcoming dystopian film, I’ve been considering these questions and redefining my understanding of how to understand the Civil War in today’s context.

I thought I was in the position of families who mourned the loss of brothers, fathers and sons – North as well as South. And I thought of what? Low-cost labor? We aren’t in awe of the shameful state of Confederate cause?

The war was waged to keep the enslaved Black prisoners in bonds to ensure they could be free so that the White Southern planters could make a profit from their work. The people who ruled the South were willing to sacrifice generations of their own men to preserve slavery. They viewed their way of life being threatened, and noticed their power was slipping away in the halls Congress. This led to their independence and war.

The threat of slavery was posed across America. Slavery was threatened in United States because enough people both in both the North and West realized that the idea of enslaving humans for profit was not right. The Abolitionist movement was officially launched in 1830, however the gradual awakening of whites began some time earlier. From in the Colonial time period, the anti-slavery groups founded by Quakers were seeking to end the sinister practice of slavery.

What was advertised and sold to kids like me in the 1960s was a glossy version of the ugly, dark reality of that of the American Civil War. It wasn’t about two rival forces who each struggled to defend a noble causethe war was fought by one side to defend an noble cause. Contrary to the many lies of the past 160 years the one side was fighting to make human beings slaves.

A concerted campaign of deceit started just after Lee’s surrender Appomattox Court House. Southern historians believed in the journal that wars were an act of bravery to defend the Southern lifestyle against the vast forces that were from the North. People who were slaves were generally content and the war wasn’t about slavery. However, documents such as that of the Confederate Constitution and the Declaration of Secession in various southern states revealed an entirely different tale. In these documents the Confederate leadership made clear evident that they were fighting to preserve slavery.

The lies of the Confederacy were complicated by the rise of a powerful group of women dubbed they were the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in 1894. They were the main reason behind the emergence of many statues across the South and some of them in the North which honored those who were “heroes” of the Confederacy. A lot of these monuments were constructed in the Jim Crow era to reinforce the notion of white supremacy. It was the UDC also wanted to educate the future generation myths that covered up the ghastly reality of slavery as well as the motives for the war through restricting the content of school textbooks in the south.

Additionally, schools, streets and parks, as well as U.S. military bases were named in honor of Confederate generals in the hope to justify their treasonous actions. What could be the reason? They were all traitorsYes and even Robert E. Lee. In recent times, a lot of the statues have been taken down because sanity and logic gradually prevail. There are however locations such as Shenandoah County, Virginia, where the school board last month approved a decision to restore Confederate names that were taken off of schools.

I’ve never been able to understand was the reasons why there was any voice in the South asking the reason their ancestors permitted these powerful politicians and planters in their families to send their boys to fight. Many people gave up their children to help the wealthy continue to enjoy the wealth they earned through the enslaved people, and the power structure of white supremacy. That’s the reason why was the Civil War was really about.

Stephen Milmoe (djgain2005@gmail.com) is a retired teacher.