Greatest American? (All Over on Page Eight)

[diaglo]

The question of which side is "more morally defensible" or more "civilized" is like asking which of these two apples is more like an orange.

the yellow one

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I'd also like to point out that the United States has never had a civil war.

you know I would like to point out... but I'm going to.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Semantics.

There is an important difference between "civil war" and the war between the United States and the Confederate States . . .

Everyone is getting tied into knots about "the rules of civilized warfare" and other such nonsense phrases. You're talking about the escalation of a situation where two parties have already come to the decision that killing vast numbers of people is a better solution to their differences than continuing to talk about it.

The United States invaded the Confederate States. The decision the Confederate States made was to secede from the United States, not to invade her or capture her leaders, etc.

And as I said, the debate on the wisdom of fighting by the rules of civilized warfare is another topic.

My point is: Lincoln doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

The United States invaded the Confederate States. The decision the Confederate States made was to secede from the United States, not to invade her or capture her leaders, etc.

In April 1861 Lincoln sent word to Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy. He told Davis he was sending needed supplies to the troops at Fort Sumter.

This left Davis with two choices. He could let the supplies in, or he could order his troops to fire on the fort. Davis ordered his troops to fire. The fort returned the fire. This was the beginning to the Civil War.

Source: Link

So the Confederacy didn't start the war?

 

[diaglo]

Source: Link

So the Confederacy didn't start the war?

the way i was taught in elementary school.

the US troops were ask to leave.

they refused.

the South defended its sovereign soil.


but you can't always believe what you were taught now can you.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

but you can't always believe what you were taught now can you.

Probably not in this case...

 

[Elf Witch]

I agree totally, its a shame the Booth killed/assassinated the man that was going to give them the easy piece they deserved.



Again I agree totally. The America we are now could not have been formed without the Civil War but I also think, and again this is opinion, that the world would be a worse off if the Confederacy had been allowed to succeed. Small wars between the two countries would have happened and America wouldn’t have been around to be the backbone for the trials and tribulations of the 20th century.

I agree that holding the states together at all costs was necessary. I have always felt that Lincoln was a great man.

My family is from the south and I have always been fascinated by history. So I used to spend my visits to my Grandmother in her nursing home asking to hear about her life. I used to spend hours talking to other residents as well. I learned so much of what happened after the war effected these people's lives. I heard the the family war stories that they had been told. A lot of them had families who suffered at Sherman's army hands. From hearing these stories and the reading I did it is hard for me not to think of him as a monster. Maybe part of it is that I was young "13" and these were flesh and blood people not cold hard facts in a history book.

I miss those days my Grandmother died when I was 14. It was amazing talking to people who were born before cars and planes and lived to see a man walk on the moon. A lot of history has been brought to life by talking to people who lived it. Like my uncle who was at Pearl Harbor or a friend of the family who lived through the blitz of London.

 

[billd91]

For those of you looking at Sherman as a monster or trying to claim that the Union army disregarded the rules of warfare more than the Confederacy, you should realize that war is brutal business and it generates examples of the both the best and worst in people and nobody is immune.
Did the treatment of black soldiers at the Confederacy's hands conform to the rules of warfare at Poison Spring, Battle of the Crater, or Fort Pillow? I think not.

Was the society under attack by the Union armies, a society where a large segment of the agrarian economy was based on systematic abuse of human rights and racism, somehow not monstrous in its own right? I think not. I won't even get into the issue of reprisals against freed blacks once the war was over and Reconstruction under way. That would just get uglier.


For all the damage Sherman meted out, he's not the only person in that day and age who might be called monstrous by some.

 

[Elf Witch]

For those of you looking at Sherman as a monster or trying to claim that the Union army disregarded the rules of warfare more than the Confederacy, you should realize that war is brutal business and it generates examples of the both the best and worst in people and nobody is immune.
Did the treatment of black soldiers at the Confederacy's hands conform to the rules of warfare at Poison Spring, Battle of the Crater, or Fort Pillow? I think not.

Was the society under attack by the Union armies, a society where a large segment of the agrarian economy was based on systematic abuse of human rights and racism, somehow not monstrous in its own right? I think not. I won't even get into the issue of reprisals against freed blacks once the war was over and Reconstruction under way. That would just get uglier.


For all the damage Sherman meted out, he's not the only person in that day and age who might be called monstrous by some.

There were other people who did some very evil acts in the war. Some of what went on out west was very bad whole towns burned and butchered. There were bad things done by both sides. War is hell and usually the innocents suffer the most. The people trapped where the war is raging. Looting and rape have been going on for centuries it part of war. But it does not make it right nor does it excuse the soldiers who particpatein it.

As for slavery you will get no argument from me that it is an evil thing. But please don't make it sound like the majority of union soldiers were some kind of freedom fighters they were not. Racism was just as alive in the north after the was as in the south.

In the riots of New York city the mobs targeted blacks because they blamed them for the draft and having to go fight in the south.

Also not every southner owned slaves nor did all southners believe in slavery. I have noticed this new trend to say that all the south was evil and deserved whatever punishment they got. That is very naive. The only reason there was no slavery in the north was because it was not feasible the land was different the crops grown were different. Slavery was impratical. But to point out a song from the musical 1776 most of the slaves were brought in on New England ships.

Slavery is a horrible thing that has been praticed through mankind's history.

 

[Mark]

I guess the things I like about Ben Franklin have to do with his being an inventor and a businessman, as well as a diplomat.