Tag Archives: Civil War

May 30, 2011 · 7:35 pm

The Southern Roots of Memorial Day

Very interesting article about the real origin of “Memorial Day” at the Institute for Southern Studies…

Shows South Carolina wasn’t always as demented as it is today….

Year in which former slaves in Charleston, S.C. held a funeral procession to honor Union soldiers who died in a local Confederate prison camp: 1865

Number of people who took part in the May 1 procession, called Decoration Day, held after the freedmen dug individual graves for the soldiers (in photo), who had been buried en masse: nearly 10,000

Number of African-American children who marched past the graves, strewing flowers and softly singing “John Brown’s Body” and “The Star-Spangled Banner”: 2,800

MORE:   ISS – INSTITUTE INDEX: The Southern roots of Memorial Day.

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April 12, 2011 · 11:48 pm

150 Years Later, Tea Partiers Still Aren’t Over The Civil War

Unbelievable….

But not really…

I could have guessed this of the Tea Party and most of the GOP…

More like sad, but true….

From ThinkProgress.org:

Today is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginning, when secessionists fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. According to a new poll from CNN, the Civil War’s legacy remains unresolved. The poll finds that Republicans and Tea Party supporters are more likely to support the Confederacy and confederate leaders than Democrats or Independents.

According to the poll, nearly one in four Americans sympathize with the Confederacy more than with the Union. That number grows to nearly four-in-ten among white Southerners. Among Tea Party members, 26 percent sympathize with the Confederacy more than the Union, and that number grows to 28 percent among Republicans.

via ThinkProgress » 150 Years Later, Tea Partiers Still Aren’t Over The Civil War.

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April 11, 2011 · 10:10 pm

4 ways we’re still fighting the Civil War – CNN.com

This article gave me a lot to think about.  Since Americans don’t know, don’t care about and don’t learn from their history, it’s also rather scary.

Some amazing parallels here in this article.

I encourage you to click the link and read the entire thing on CNN.com:

But you don’t have to tour a battlefield to understand the Civil War. Look at today’s headlines. As the nation commemorates the 150th anniversary of its deadliest war this week, some historians say we’re still fighting over some of the same issues that fueled the Civil War.

“There are all of these weird parallels,” says Stephanie McCurry, author of “Confederate Reckoning,” a new book that examines why Southerners seceded and its effect on Southern women and slaves.

“When you hear charges today that the federal government is overreaching, and the idea that the Constitution recognized us as a league of sovereign states — these were all part of the secessionist charges in 1860,” she says.

“Living history” on Civil War battlefields

These “weird parallels” go beyond the familiar debates over what caused the war, slavery or states’ rights. They extend to issues that seem to have nothing to do with the Civil War.

The shutdown of the federal government, war in Libya, the furor over the new health care law and Guantanamo Bay — all have tentacles that reach back to the Civil War, historians say.

They point to four parallels:

via 4 ways we’re still fighting the Civil War – CNN.com.

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