Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 13: The US Civil War and “Tragedy”
brucemillerca.substack.com
Kevin Levin with his long-running Civil War Memory blog (currently on Substack with the name Grape & Canister) back in 2011 looked at the question of whether we should consider the Civil War tragic: One way to explore this is to reflect on the very real possibility of the war coming to an end in the early summer of 1862. We know the drill: George McClellan’s massive army defeats Confederate General Joseph Johnston’s army outside of Richmond and within weeks the Confederacy surrenders. [Fill in the details however you choose.] In that event the war would have ended without emancipation. Under these conditions we can place into sharp focus the value that we assign the overall meaning of the war in connection to emancipation with the strong identification among millions of Americans with the preservation of the Union as the war’s greatest achievement.
Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 13: The US Civil War and “Tragedy”
Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 13…
Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 13: The US Civil War and “Tragedy”
Kevin Levin with his long-running Civil War Memory blog (currently on Substack with the name Grape & Canister) back in 2011 looked at the question of whether we should consider the Civil War tragic: One way to explore this is to reflect on the very real possibility of the war coming to an end in the early summer of 1862. We know the drill: George McClellan’s massive army defeats Confederate General Joseph Johnston’s army outside of Richmond and within weeks the Confederacy surrenders. [Fill in the details however you choose.] In that event the war would have ended without emancipation. Under these conditions we can place into sharp focus the value that we assign the overall meaning of the war in connection to emancipation with the strong identification among millions of Americans with the preservation of the Union as the war’s greatest achievement.