The Cross and the Confederate Flag

[homersapien 11,465]

Dr. Williams is correct! I've been trying to get this through the minds of my "former" friends but they are ardent in their beliefs.

Glad you liked it! You should check it out (literally).

I had read of the resisters in Northern Alabama and I actually live in an area that many Southern draft-resisters hid out. You may have heard of it - the "Dark Corner".

But the facts and statistics in the book blew my mind. Also things like the food riots and famines.

I think every Southerner should read this. It's an eye opener.

[homersapien 11,465]

Nice notes. Doesn't do much for me though. Especially the class divisions. Just from what I read previously, I wasn't surprised the army lacked the discipline or organization to effectively defeat the north. Fact of the matter is the Confederate Government was supported by the wealthy and catered to the interests of the wealthy.

Regardless, the Confederate army ran rings around the North for most of the War, at least in the east. But the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

[Mims44 1,890]

And for those who take pride in the Southern heritage, here's some interesting information from a historian who was an Auburn grad:

(My personal notes)

"Bitterly Divided - The South's Inner Civil War" by David Williams*

*(obtained his PhD degree in history at Auburn University)

Williams shows in this extensively documented work that from the Confederacy's very beginning, white Southerners were as likely to oppose secession as support it. He makes a compelling case that this was basically a rich man's war that was undertaken against the will of the majority of Southern residents, 3/4's of whom owned no slaves. In fact, he makes the case that a major driving force for the secession movement by slave holders was a fear that poor whites would come to realize that slavery kept them poor and an abolitionist movement would arise in the South.

He also describes the acute class divisions in the South. Anyone owning 20 or more slaves were exempted from the draft. Men of wealth could also avoid military service by paying an exemption fee. Meanwhile poor men were subject to conscription, often having to leave their wives and children to fend for themselves on subsistence level farms. And because growing cotton and tobacco were much more profitable the rich planters favored those crops instead of growing food crops. This resulted in outright famine for poor throughout the South.

As a consequence the desertion rate from the Confederate army was tremendous. In 1864 Jefferson Davis admitted that 2/3 if Confederate soldiers were absent, most of them without leave. Many of these deserters went on to serve in the Union army. Southerners, including ex- slaves, who served in the Union military totalled nearly half a million, or about a quarter of federal armed forces.

Large geographical areas of the South resisted secession and supported the Union. Many of these areas were in the mountainous regions of northern Alabama and Georgia and eastern Tennessee and North Carolina.

While I have always known that there was considerable resistence to the Confederacy in the South, I certainly did not realize that this was a war that was brought on by a relatively small minority of rich planters. For someone raised in the South and has had a long term interest in the Civil war, this book was a paradigm shifter. I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in the Civil War.

It also puts any theories of how the South may have won (militarily) the Civil war into perspective. The Confederacy was destined to be defeated, if not by the North then by Southerners themselves.

Dunno when he wrote this, but it kind of upsets me if he got this knowledge while going for his PhD, when other university's teach this in sophomore classes.

Many in the South who were for secession, because they bought into the state pride deal, or the idea of a new nation petitioned multiple times to abolish slavery within the confederacy, confederate military officers among them. Seeing the slim chances they had of winning, adding a million fighting men to the confederacy by abolishing slavery while also helping engender positive relations with England and France (who were sympathetic to the confederacy, but would not support slavery) would have helped their cause tremendously.

All petitions to abolish slavery were of course shut down as the people with the power in the confederacy were not about to give up what had gotten them to their positions of power (IE: Slaves). In the case of military officers pushing for abolition, their careers were damn near killed by bringing it up (See: Patrick Cleburne)

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Titan...call it BS if you like. But you are wrong.

[AUDub 11,184]

Nice notes. Doesn't do much for me though. Especially the class divisions. Just from what I read previously, I wasn't surprised the army lacked the discipline or organization to effectively defeat the north. Fact of the matter is the Confederate Government was supported by the wealthy and catered to the interests of the wealthy.

Regardless, the Confederate army ran rings around the North for most of the War, at least in the east. But the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Would have been a much shorter war had McLellan not been an absolute wuss and taken the plunge for Richmond. The man positively worshipped his own fears.

[AUDub 11,184]

Titan...call it BS if you like. But you are wrong.

I present to y'all the winner of today's Dunning-Kruger post of the day award.

[TitanTiger 20,530]

Titan...call it BS if you like. But you are wrong.

On the contrary, you're not the only person that knows how to read primary sources. I've shown you in concise form the clear evidence for why the South seceded. I'm as right as rain and you're clinging to revisionist fantasy.

[WarTim 3,457]

War. No need to do 30 pages on the Civil War. It's been beaten to death here before. Slavery became an issue soon after the war began but the initial issue was state's right. My wife went to school in California and he were taught that in elementary school.

Well start another thread on the matter then. Fact of the matter is, no matter how you try to justify it, the Confederacy was formed to preserve the institution of slavery.

Perfectly wrong...

[cole256 17,084]

Lol. All that's cool but I am right and you're wrong....

[TitanTiger 20,530]

War. No need to do 30 pages on the Civil War. It's been beaten to death here before. Slavery became an issue soon after the war began but the initial issue was state's right. My wife went to school in California and he were taught that in elementary school.

Well start another thread on the matter then. Fact of the matter is, no matter how you try to justify it, the Confederacy was formed to preserve the institution of slavery.

Perfectly wrong...

Yes, you are laughably and demonstrably wrong.

Quote after quote from the writings of the states themselves showed slavery to be the key reason from the beginning for them seceding from the Union. Stop believing Lost Cause revisionism to salvage some pride or soften the blow in what the South actually did and what they were about at the time.

[Weegle777 78]

Devil's Advocate question:

Since the CF is considered racist and oppressive, and believed by many that it should be taken down, if you have a neighbor from Japan that had relatives die in Nagasaki or Hiroshima, and the American flag is a symbol that brings them the same amount of bad feelings that the CF does to my darker skinned brothers and sisters, should you take it down as well out of respect for our Japanese brethren?

It's about local and state and government not what my neighbor has on his front lawn. If my "darker skinned brothers and sisters" as you state think something like that can be controlled or should be controlled....that's wishful thinking. It's plain and simple remove it from gov't institutions. To have it raised next to the USA flag on gov't grounds is a pure insult. This is something that happened on USA soil. I don't expect to control what my neighbor does no matter what he believes; as long as he or she is not a threat to the public. This is really not that complicated.

No one said anything about it being complicated. These aren't my views on this subject. I have made my views perfectly clear. Do you even know what playing "devil's advocate" means?

[AUUSN 823]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0&referrer=

[TitanTiger 20,530]

Another arch-conservative Christian gets it:

The ludicrous, self-defeating hypocrisy of flying the Confederate battle flag

Jun 23, 2015

by Dr. Joel McDurmon 72 Comment

As a radically conservative defender of liberty and states’ rights, I say that there is no good biblical, historical, or strategic reason to defend a state’s flying of the Confederate battle flag today. It is rather a sign of utter hypocrisy, sentimentalism, and misguided zeal. Every Christian of every stripe ought to be calling for the removal of that profound distraction in SC—and every other state-sponsored location—in the name of Christian integrity and the advance of true Christian values and culture...

Yet no matter how many facts we leverage to counter the systematic attacks—right or wrong—on the Confederacy, we will never get past the fact that as a civil government, the Confederacy instituted a wicked and godless form of racist, chattel slavery, and that the leaders and founders of said government enshrined this unforgivable sin into their founding laws and argued for it in their most foundational speeches and debates. This outstanding sin is perfectly separable from what was good about Southern culture and value, but it is permanently inseparable from that government and its flags. This is especially true of its battle flag under which it fought and shed human blood in order to continue that institution.

The Confederate Constitution enshrined the unbiblical and unspeakably wicked practice of owning slaves—and not just slaves in general, but specifically “Negro slaves”—as property, and it forbade any law to the contrary going forward: “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.”

Worse yet, the Confederacy was imperialistic in this particular evil, decreeing that “The Confederate States may acquire new territory,” and that “In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government. . . .” This overturns any narrative that the South just wanted to be left alone. Nonsense. It looked west with pretensions as imperialistic as anyone else, and it constitutionally reserved itself the right to expand its wicked institution as it went.

For those who need further proof, Gary North’s “Appendix D” in his Commentary on 1 Timothyrelates the official secession declarations from several states showing that the official stated cause was in fact the protection of their institution of slavery. SC went even further, with one of its key voices, Lawrence Keitt, arguing explicitly that the cause was not tariffs, and separately that “African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South.” Let that sink in: “corner-stone.”

These official and institutional foundations of the Southern Confederacy, for whatever other good may have existed in it, render any appeal to its heritage absolutely indefensible. And for this reason, I unhesitatingly say, “Tear down that flag.” Christians have much to do in society and much ground to make up, and we don’t need the baggage of the greatest of the sins of our fathers hindering us as we endeavor to do it.

I say these things, loud and clear, as one of the most radically outspoken voices in our time in favor of states’ rights, radical decentralization, non-interventionism, radically free markets, private property, anti-taxes, anti-war, anti-tariffs, pro-life, pro-family, pro-militia, pro-gun, pro-nullification, pro-jury nullification, anti-administrative law, anti-Marxism—all backed up from a biblical perspective. As the Apostle Paul could boast against his Pharisee critics because he was a Pharisee and a Hebrew of Hebrews, and could outdo them all, so will I compare myself to anyone on those good things for which the South stood and for which many Southern partisans today continue to stand. And where I don’t measure up, biblically speaking, I’ll strongly reevaluate my position in order to get there. And yet I say “Tear down that flag, immediately.” This should not even be a question.

http://americanvisio...te-battle-flag/

To continue to claim otherwise is to engage in the most willfully ignorant fantasizing. It's a refusal to accept the truth and an intellectual suicide of the highest order.

[WarTim 3,457]

While I personally would say take it down.........It is a piece of cloth. Clinton had campaign badges with this flag on it in the early 90's. That flag is flying because the dems in SC made the choice to put it there.......While well meaning folks would REALLY like to see it gone because of the history, make no mistake, this is setting up as the usual political "football" for 2016. JMHO

[homersapien 11,465]

Dunno when he wrote this, but it kind of upsets me if he got this knowledge while going for his PhD, when other university's teach this in sophomore classes.

Many in the South who were for secession, because they bought into the state pride deal, or the idea of a new nation petitioned multiple times to abolish slavery within the confederacy, confederate military officers among them. Seeing the slim chances they had of winning, adding a million fighting men to the confederacy by abolishing slavery while also helping engender positive relations with England and France (who were sympathetic to the confederacy, but would not support slavery) would have helped their cause tremendously.

All petitions to abolish slavery were of course shut down as the people with the power in the confederacy were not about to give up what had gotten them to their positions of power (IE: Slaves). In the case of military officers pushing for abolition, their careers were damn near killed by bringing it up (See: Patrick Cleburne)

Not sure what your point is. If universities are teaching it, they are undoubtedly drawing on his research.

Are you suggesting it's not original?

[homersapien 11,465]

War. No need to do 30 pages on the Civil War. It's been beaten to death here before. Slavery became an issue soon after the war began but the initial issue was state's right. My wife went to school in California and he were taught that in elementary school.

Well start another thread on the matter then. Fact of the matter is, no matter how you try to justify it, the Confederacy was formed to preserve the institution of slavery.

Perfectly wrong...

What was that you were lecturing us on about liberals not respecting "knowledge and truth"?

I can understand ignorance. After all that's where we all start from, regardless of subject. It's the simple rejection or denial of knowledge that baffles me.

Obviously emotional maturity plays an important role in overcoming ignorance.

[Mims44 1,890]

And for those who take pride in the Southern heritage, here's some interesting information from a historian who was an Auburn grad:

(My personal notes)

"Bitterly Divided - The South's Inner Civil War" by David Williams*

*(obtained his PhD degree in history at Auburn University)

Williams shows in this extensively documented work that from the Confederacy's very beginning, white Southerners were as likely to oppose secession as support it. He makes a compelling case that this was basically a rich man's war that was undertaken against the will of the majority of Southern residents, 3/4's of whom owned no slaves. In fact, he makes the case that a major driving force for the secession movement by slave holders was a fear that poor whites would come to realize that slavery kept them poor and an abolitionist movement would arise in the South.

He also describes the acute class divisions in the South. Anyone owning 20 or more slaves were exempted from the draft. Men of wealth could also avoid military service by paying an exemption fee. Meanwhile poor men were subject to conscription, often having to leave their wives and children to fend for themselves on subsistence level farms. And because growing cotton and tobacco were much more profitable the rich planters favored those crops instead of growing food crops. This resulted in outright famine for poor throughout the South.

As a consequence the desertion rate from the Confederate army was tremendous. In 1864 Jefferson Davis admitted that 2/3 if Confederate soldiers were absent, most of them without leave. Many of these deserters went on to serve in the Union army. Southerners, including ex- slaves, who served in the Union military totalled nearly half a million, or about a quarter of federal armed forces.

Large geographical areas of the South resisted secession and supported the Union. Many of these areas were in the mountainous regions of northern Alabama and Georgia and eastern Tennessee and North Carolina.

While I have always known that there was considerable resistence to the Confederacy in the South, I certainly did not realize that this was a war that was brought on by a relatively small minority of rich planters. For someone raised in the South and has had a long term interest in the Civil war, this book was a paradigm shifter. I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in the Civil War.

It also puts any theories of how the South may have won (militarily) the Civil war into perspective. The Confederacy was destined to be defeated, if not by the North then by Southerners themselves.

Dunno when he wrote this, but it kind of upsets me if he got this knowledge while going for his PhD, when other university's teach this in sophomore classes.

Many in the South who were for secession, because they bought into the state pride deal, or the idea of a new nation petitioned multiple times to abolish slavery within the confederacy, confederate military officers among them. Seeing the slim chances they had of winning, adding a million fighting men to the confederacy by abolishing slavery while also helping engender positive relations with England and France (who were sympathetic to the confederacy, but would not support slavery) would have helped their cause tremendously.

All petitions to abolish slavery were of course shut down as the people with the power in the confederacy were not about to give up what had gotten them to their positions of power (IE: Slaves). In the case of military officers pushing for abolition, their careers were damn near killed by bringing it up (See: Patrick Cleburne)

Not sure what your point is. If universities are teaching it, they are undoubtedly drawing on his research.

Are you suggesting it's not original?

Maybe it was the way I read it, that made me assume this was covered in a graduate level class. I also have no idea if it is original or not, if by the question you mean plagiarism... the scope is not original at all, but as long as it's original thought then it doesn't matter. I feel like I might be over explaining this but... if I wrote a paper and drew on Corbett's Politics of Emasculation works, as long as I give credit and present my own thoughts it would be considered "original" even if my scope was the same as his.

And the "upsets me" part of my post was for Auburn University, not this subject. If other universities are covering this in sophomore classes and Auburn doesn't get into it until graduate classes, that would point towards history being a weaker field of study for the Auburn school. Of course, these are all assumptions made and replied to on a side forum of a football website sooooooo

[homersapien 11,465]

While I personally would say take it down.........It is a piece of cloth. Clinton had campaign badges with this flag on it in the early 90's. That flag is flying because the dems in SC made the choice to put it there.......While well meaning folks would REALLY like to see it gone because of the history, make no mistake, this is setting up as the usual political "football" for 2016. JMHO

The "Democrats" put it up there? :-\

Were you aware that the Democrats who did so are now Republicans?

But you are correct that the issue does split along party lines, with Republicans generally supporting the flag remaining and Democrats virtually united in opposition.

[AUDub 11,184]

Confederate flag removed from Alabama Capitol grounds on order of Gov. Bentley

[homersapien 11,465]

And for those who take pride in the Southern heritage, here's some interesting information from a historian who was an Auburn grad:

(My personal notes)

"Bitterly Divided - The South's Inner Civil War" by David Williams*

*(obtained his PhD degree in history at Auburn University)

Williams shows in this extensively documented work that from the Confederacy's very beginning, white Southerners were as likely to oppose secession as support it. He makes a compelling case that this was basically a rich man's war that was undertaken against the will of the majority of Southern residents, 3/4's of whom owned no slaves. In fact, he makes the case that a major driving force for the secession movement by slave holders was a fear that poor whites would come to realize that slavery kept them poor and an abolitionist movement would arise in the South.

He also describes the acute class divisions in the South. Anyone owning 20 or more slaves were exempted from the draft. Men of wealth could also avoid military service by paying an exemption fee. Meanwhile poor men were subject to conscription, often having to leave their wives and children to fend for themselves on subsistence level farms. And because growing cotton and tobacco were much more profitable the rich planters favored those crops instead of growing food crops. This resulted in outright famine for poor throughout the South.

As a consequence the desertion rate from the Confederate army was tremendous. In 1864 Jefferson Davis admitted that 2/3 if Confederate soldiers were absent, most of them without leave. Many of these deserters went on to serve in the Union army. Southerners, including ex- slaves, who served in the Union military totalled nearly half a million, or about a quarter of federal armed forces.

Large geographical areas of the South resisted secession and supported the Union. Many of these areas were in the mountainous regions of northern Alabama and Georgia and eastern Tennessee and North Carolina.

While I have always known that there was considerable resistence to the Confederacy in the South, I certainly did not realize that this was a war that was brought on by a relatively small minority of rich planters. For someone raised in the South and has had a long term interest in the Civil war, this book was a paradigm shifter. I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in the Civil War.

It also puts any theories of how the South may have won (militarily) the Civil war into perspective. The Confederacy was destined to be defeated, if not by the North then by Southerners themselves.

Dunno when he wrote this, but it kind of upsets me if he got this knowledge while going for his PhD, when other university's teach this in sophomore classes.

Many in the South who were for secession, because they bought into the state pride deal, or the idea of a new nation petitioned multiple times to abolish slavery within the confederacy, confederate military officers among them. Seeing the slim chances they had of winning, adding a million fighting men to the confederacy by abolishing slavery while also helping engender positive relations with England and France (who were sympathetic to the confederacy, but would not support slavery) would have helped their cause tremendously.

All petitions to abolish slavery were of course shut down as the people with the power in the confederacy were not about to give up what had gotten them to their positions of power (IE: Slaves). In the case of military officers pushing for abolition, their careers were damn near killed by bringing it up (See: Patrick Cleburne)

Not sure what your point is. If universities are teaching it, they are undoubtedly drawing on his research.

Are you suggesting it's not original?

Maybe it was the way I read it, that made me assume this was covered in a graduate level class. I also have no idea if it is original or not, if by the question you mean plagiarism... the scope is not original at all, but as long as it's original thought then it doesn't matter. I feel like I might be over explaining this but... if I wrote a paper and drew on Corbett's Politics of Emasculation works, as long as I give credit and present my own thoughts it would be considered "original" even if my scope was the same as his.

And the "upsets me" part of my post was for Auburn University, not this subject. If other universities are covering this in sophomore classes and Auburn doesn't get into it until graduate classes, that would point towards history being a weaker field of study for the Auburn school. Of course, these are all assumptions made and replied to on a side forum of a football website sooooooo

I meant original as in original research.

And you do understand that the only reason I mentioned Auburn was that the author received his PhD at Auburn. It has nothing to do with this book specifically. As an Auburn grad, it's just something to be proud of.

He's currently a professor at Valdosta State University.

http://www.cwbr.com/civilwarbookreview/index.php?q=4229&field=ID&browse=yes&record=full&searching=yes&Submit=Search

David Williams has authored several influential books on the Civil War, including A People’s History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom (2005). In his latest accomplishment, he presents an impressive collection of stories and quotations that reveal cracks and crevices in the façade of Confederate unity dating from early 1861 until the critical last year of the war. He draws his evidence from both published monographs and firsthand accounts, creating an effective synthesis of the Confederacy’s internal conflicts. Bitterly Divided blends the results of recent regional and community studies (including Williams’s own published works) to create a solid explanation for how the divisions within the Confederacy resulted in ultimate defeat. Some scholars have previously critiqued many of these local studies as only representative of a single locality and limited in application to the entire South. But Williams draws all of these studies together and allows us to see the “big picture” of dissent and conflict within the Confederate States. The strength of Williams’s book is its attention to the experiences of people who have been neglected by historians occupied with military strategy and leadership. Williams gives center stage to the experiences of African-Americans, Native-Americans, non-slaveholding whites, southern Unionists, and other common folk often ignored in favored of the planters and southern elite. Further, Williams gives attention to both the upper and lower South, along with the eastern and western portions of the Confederacy.

http://www.accessatlanta.com/news/entertainment/calendar/q-a-david-williams-historian-author-civil-war-how-/nQxmg/

http://thenewpress.com/books/people%E2%80%99s-history-of-civil-war

[homersapien 11,465]

Confederate flag removed from Alabama Capitol grounds on order of Gov. Bentley

Lucky you can do it via an executive order. We (SC) will need a 2/3 legislative vote.

Can't wait for the debate to begin.

[WarEagle1983 2,185]

Devil's Advocate question:

Since the CF is considered racist and oppressive, and believed by many that it should be taken down, if you have a neighbor from Japan that had relatives die in Nagasaki or Hiroshima, and the American flag is a symbol that brings them the same amount of bad feelings that the CF does to my darker skinned brothers and sisters, should you take it down as well out of respect for our Japanese brethren?

It's about local and state and government not what my neighbor has on his front lawn. If my "darker skinned brothers and sisters" as you state think something like that can be controlled or should be controlled....that's wishful thinking. It's plain and simple remove it from gov't institutions. To have it raised next to the USA flag on gov't grounds is a pure insult. This is something that happened on USA soil. I don't expect to control what my neighbor does no matter what he believes; as long as he or she is not a threat to the public. This is really not that complicated.

No one said anything about it being complicated. These aren't my views on this subject. I have made my views perfectly clear. Do you even know what playing "devil's advocate" means?

I do. I answered the question. I didn't say they were your views.

[AUUSN 823]

Confederate flag removed from Alabama Capitol grounds on order of Gov. Bentley

The comments at the site........yikes!

[AU_Tiger_88 417]

It has already came into play in the 2016 race and it is despicable what Cumo pulled on Dr Carson. So this is the liberal agenda. As he would never pull this crap on a democrat running for office.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/06/24/cnn-should-the-gay-pride-flag-also-come-down/

[Mims44 1,890]

And for those who take pride in the Southern heritage, here's some interesting information from a historian who was an Auburn grad:

(My personal notes)

"Bitterly Divided - The South's Inner Civil War" by David Williams*

*(obtained his PhD degree in history at Auburn University)

Williams shows in this extensively documented work that from the Confederacy's very beginning, white Southerners were as likely to oppose secession as support it. He makes a compelling case that this was basically a rich man's war that was undertaken against the will of the majority of Southern residents, 3/4's of whom owned no slaves. In fact, he makes the case that a major driving force for the secession movement by slave holders was a fear that poor whites would come to realize that slavery kept them poor and an abolitionist movement would arise in the South.

He also describes the acute class divisions in the South. Anyone owning 20 or more slaves were exempted from the draft. Men of wealth could also avoid military service by paying an exemption fee. Meanwhile poor men were subject to conscription, often having to leave their wives and children to fend for themselves on subsistence level farms. And because growing cotton and tobacco were much more profitable the rich planters favored those crops instead of growing food crops. This resulted in outright famine for poor throughout the South.

As a consequence the desertion rate from the Confederate army was tremendous. In 1864 Jefferson Davis admitted that 2/3 if Confederate soldiers were absent, most of them without leave. Many of these deserters went on to serve in the Union army. Southerners, including ex- slaves, who served in the Union military totalled nearly half a million, or about a quarter of federal armed forces.

Large geographical areas of the South resisted secession and supported the Union. Many of these areas were in the mountainous regions of northern Alabama and Georgia and eastern Tennessee and North Carolina.

While I have always known that there was considerable resistence to the Confederacy in the South, I certainly did not realize that this was a war that was brought on by a relatively small minority of rich planters. For someone raised in the South and has had a long term interest in the Civil war, this book was a paradigm shifter. I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in the Civil War.

It also puts any theories of how the South may have won (militarily) the Civil war into perspective. The Confederacy was destined to be defeated, if not by the North then by Southerners themselves.

Dunno when he wrote this, but it kind of upsets me if he got this knowledge while going for his PhD, when other university's teach this in sophomore classes.

Many in the South who were for secession, because they bought into the state pride deal, or the idea of a new nation petitioned multiple times to abolish slavery within the confederacy, confederate military officers among them. Seeing the slim chances they had of winning, adding a million fighting men to the confederacy by abolishing slavery while also helping engender positive relations with England and France (who were sympathetic to the confederacy, but would not support slavery) would have helped their cause tremendously.

All petitions to abolish slavery were of course shut down as the people with the power in the confederacy were not about to give up what had gotten them to their positions of power (IE: Slaves). In the case of military officers pushing for abolition, their careers were damn near killed by bringing it up (See: Patrick Cleburne)

Not sure what your point is. If universities are teaching it, they are undoubtedly drawing on his research.

Are you suggesting it's not original?

Maybe it was the way I read it, that made me assume this was covered in a graduate level class. I also have no idea if it is original or not, if by the question you mean plagiarism... the scope is not original at all, but as long as it's original thought then it doesn't matter. I feel like I might be over explaining this but... if I wrote a paper and drew on Corbett's Politics of Emasculation works, as long as I give credit and present my own thoughts it would be considered "original" even if my scope was the same as his.

And the "upsets me" part of my post was for Auburn University, not this subject. If other universities are covering this in sophomore classes and Auburn doesn't get into it until graduate classes, that would point towards history being a weaker field of study for the Auburn school. Of course, these are all assumptions made and replied to on a side forum of a football website sooooooo

I meant original as in original research.

And you do understand that the only reason I mentioned Auburn was that the author received his PhD at Auburn. It has nothing to do with this book specifically. As an Auburn grad, it's just something to be proud of.

He's currently a professor at Valdosta State University.

http://www.cwbr.com/...s&Submit=Search

David Williams has authored several influential books on the Civil War, including A People’s History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom (2005). In his latest accomplishment, he presents an impressive collection of stories and quotations that reveal cracks and crevices in the façade of Confederate unity dating from early 1861 until the critical last year of the war. He draws his evidence from both published monographs and firsthand accounts, creating an effective synthesis of the Confederacy’s internal conflicts. Bitterly Divided blends the results of recent regional and community studies (including Williams’s own published works) to create a solid explanation for how the divisions within the Confederacy resulted in ultimate defeat. Some scholars have previously critiqued many of these local studies as only representative of a single locality and limited in application to the entire South. But Williams draws all of these studies together and allows us to see the “big picture” of dissent and conflict within the Confederate States. The strength of Williams’s book is its attention to the experiences of people who have been neglected by historians occupied with military strategy and leadership. Williams gives center stage to the experiences of African-Americans, Native-Americans, non-slaveholding whites, southern Unionists, and other common folk often ignored in favored of the planters and southern elite. Further, Williams gives attention to both the upper and lower South, along with the eastern and western portions of the Confederacy.

http://www.accessatl...war-how-/nQxmg/

http://thenewpress.c...ry-of-civil-war

That makes a heck of a lot more sense, as the way I read it was someone with a PhD writing about his learning experiences in a classroom (from the way the paragraphs are written).

I've been on a horrible streak of misreading things lately, I keep this up and I might as well move into WarTims trailer with him:)