Confederate Soldiers Quotes
He had worked himself into a crescendo of shouting when he delivered this quotation. The main reason this quotation is important is that most politicians of North and South wanted to get the animosity of the Civil War over with and to do so sponsored these memorial events where both sides could celebrate and remember the bravery of men fighting and dying for their cause. The photographs of former enemies shaking hands which the newspapers ran frequently, would give the impression that by the 1880s the hatred and animosity of the Civil War was behind the nation. However, that was not at all true. Most veterans of both sides maintained their hatreds throughout their entire lives. Even their children carried the hatred into the next generation. Politicians were expected to not open the scabs of the old wounds in public, but many like Oates found political utility in not doing so. The moral outrage of many in the North remained until WWII when regional unity genuinely transcended the Civil War.
This quotation is historically very interesting. Southern educational materials were extremely scarce with paper one of the commodities most in short supply as the only book paper in the South came from England and had to be smuggled through the Union blockade. Yet the priority was so high that paper was made available in the midst of the Civil War. Confederate civilian morale was a very serious problem while at the same time large numbers of Southern civilians and military were delusional about the Confederate fighting capability. Central to that theme was the myth that the Southern soldier, fighting for such a righteous cause, was several times more effective than his Yankee counterpart. Therefore, the fact that the South was outmanned, out gunned, and out supplied, did not imply a Union victory. So teaching this to the young Southern children who would spread it to the adults on the home front, was a conscious Confederate propaganda effort at this time. Also, the use of these kinds of death and killing arithmetic problems for young children, while considered patriotic in the South was thought to be gross, crude, uncivilized and unchristian by most in the North. The implied 90 to 1 superiority ratio was laughed at in the North, but actually believed by a substantial number of Southerners.
This cry echoed throughout the North where the public wanted a full invasion of the capital of the Confederacy to put an end to the rebellion. However is was not clear what effect that would have on the Border States—Maryland and Kentuucky—and many politicians thought that the South would “come to its senses” once they realized what they had done. But the South would not change its course, and the Union Generals in Command were very reluctant to actually invade the South. It was only after the South attacked in the North that the Union Military began to realize that this was a Civil War that would not be resolved politically.
After the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American nation was still bitterly divided intelelctually, socially, emotionally and poliotically. In an effort to bring more unity to America, most of the power stucture and the influentials of the nation began to avoid those issues that would divide North and South and try and promote a narrative that both sides might be able to live with. And this is what Zeitz describes in this quotation. America went through a period of Revisionist History that even in the 21st century was held by many people. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that the real history and narrative of the Civil War and Reconstrution emerged from the few academics who had all along criticized the fabricated narritive that did unify the country at the cost of historical accuracy and truth. Many scholars point out that the price that America paid for this unity was the Jim Crow era and a century of legalized racism. Much of the nation was built on the labor of Negro slaves and the victims of the slavery era, also bore the brunt of American unity and reconcilliation.
