The Civil War: taught in schools & freely discussed here

[Daniel Buck]

For some reason, my message was deleted from the Blog Post series titled", "Confederate Soldiers Served Too."  Here it is again.  Summary: the suggestion had been made that the Civil War was not being allowed to be taught in schools, a suggestion I found not only ludicrous, but prompted by a misunderstanding of a vague remark someone else had posted.  Think of the telephone game -- galloping misunderstandings. 

Dan

PS  I do not monitor messages.  Post what you wish.

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Fredda,
Assisted by my guide-dog Google, I tried searching the words < Civil War taken out of classroom > and the only hit of interest was Sue's post here, at TW.  It was no. 3.  From a single blog post to urban legend in 24 hours.  A new record.

I tried variations on those words.  Nada.  Snopes.com, the clearinghouse for urban legends large and small came up blank. 

But of course you yourself never said that the Civil War had been 86'd from American classrooms.  What you said was "which is one reason I can't stand that all of these things have been or are being taken out of the classroom."  I'm not sure what "all these things" are, but now the no. 3 hit on Google is that the Civil War is not being taught in American school. 

Of course, there are thousands of elementary, middle, etc., schools in the United States and no one can say with certainty what each one is doing on any given day with its curriculum.  For all I know today there's a school somewhere teaching that the world is flat, or that employs a teacher who cannot define a dangling modifier, or that allows children at recess to play rugby.  It's a big country.

Now, for the bright side.  While stumbling about looking for evidence of the Civil War being hosed out of the schools and finding only the the original TW post that launched my search I did find hundreds of references to the Civil War being taught in schools, including this informative interview with James McPherson and other historians:

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/of-course-the-civil-wa...

Dan

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[Daniel Buck]

You think we got problems, read "Taking on Soccer Violence, One Derogatory Chant at a Time," NYTimes, 27 January 2012, here, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/sports/soccer/taking-on-soccer-vi...

My favorite reader comment: "Now entering the British Isles. Set your watches back 300 years."

Dan

[anthony martin]

  Pat,

    You said"It is of great interest to me because of my 400 year history in this country."Judging by the last photo of you that I saw you don't look nearly that old!

   I'm half English and the rest is mostly a celtic grab bag with Cherokee thrown in.Whenever an Englishman queries me about my half English status I always say"Fortunately it's the half covered by the trousers and saves me a great deal of public embarrassment!"That's the pure orneryness of my celtic genes speaking!

[Bob Boze Bell]

Daniel Buck you sure know how to stir the pot, sir, and I commend you for your trouble making, thought provoking posts (and for all the thoughtful posts they spawned).

[Daniel Buck]

Bob,

It all began when the someone suggested that "the Civil War wasn't being taught in schools anymore," which led inexorably to the nut of the matter, which is that "the Civil War isn't being taught the way I want it to be taught," which is of course true, since there are more different views about the Civil War than there were combatants in the actual war, or so it sometimes seems.

All of which did result in one new insight on my part, an attempt to defuse the Confederate flag tempest, that we might think of the confederacy as a hare-brained scheme that went awry and resulted in the abolition of slavery.  Plus, lots of monuments got built, a full-employment program for stonemasons.

Dan

[Murray A. Gewirtz]

Bob and Daniel, to give credit --- or blame --- where due, don't forget that this thread was a spin-off of Fredda Davis Jones' "Confederate Soldiers Served Too," which began this mini revival of the Civil War.

[Murray A. Gewirtz]

Anthony's Englishness may be covered by trousers, but they are Celtic Jeans.

[anthony martin]

  Nothing gets between me and my Calvin O'Kleins.

[anthony martin]

  Pat,

     Not to worry-that was a wordplay on an old Brooke Shields Calvin Klein jeans commercial.Sheesh,tough room!

[anthony martin]

 Pat,

   Nah,I'm more of a striped pants and spats sort of fellow.It's a state's rights issue.Note the clever way that I steered things back on topic-well,sort of kind of...

[Robert E Lee Hyde]

In researching a book I'm currently finishing, "Fate Rides a Twisted Trail", the early part of the book takes place in East Texas, 1869, which was still under Martial Law.  At war's end, Lincoln wanted to uphold the terms of the treaty Grant had signed with Lee, the terms of which would have healed the wounds of war and brought the country back together.  Grant, however, and the "Radical Republicans" in congress wanted revenge and punishment.  To do this, they passed the "Reconstruction Act of 1865", in which the South came under Martial Law, and under which it remained until 1879.  Grant was elected president in '68, and again in '72.  He was the one who kept the flames of hatred going.  Many Southerner's felt more bitterness toward the "Yankees" as a result of that period of occupation and oppression than from the war itself.

Some interesting things about the slavery issue:  Fewer than 2% of the people in the south were slave owners.  The common people did their own work and had no interest whatsoever, in preserving slavery and helping those rich plantation owners.  Like today, though, the plantation owners had the gold, and they bought the politicians. True, many Southerners volunteered, but many more were conscripted -- just as they were in the north.  Men fought becaused they were forced to fight; basically, they fought to stay alive and go back home.

 Secondly, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, that act only freed the slaves in the states that were trying to secede.  He did this because congress felt that if they freed those in the North and turned them loose on the countryside, the people would reject all the slavery hoopla.  Just before the war Lincoln's cabinet was searching for a country in South America that would take the slaves, once freed. They couldn't find one, nor could they get enough support to pursue the plan.

Another interesting fact I stumbled on was: The state of New York passed a law in 1825 forbidding slavery within that state.  The caveat to the law was that no slave could be set free within the state, nor could they be taken to another state and set free; they had to be sold out-of-state.  How's that for hoopla and hypocrisy?