Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
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>Can you explain this, Dan? The definitions I find seem to fit the >U.S.
>Civil War to a tee: a war between political factions of the >same country,
>a war between citizens of the same country. Its >listed in Britanica as
>"The American Civil War" and every reference >I have calls it a civil war.
IIRC, modern textbooks are now starting to call it the War Between the
States. It�s called that in my kid�s textbooks, and they have national
textbooks.
It was certainly not a typical war between political factions. A number of
states declared their intention to leave the Union. The state assemblies
voted to succeed, and the states then formed a Confederation. Each state
had its own standing militia. When the Union forces opposed the Confederate
forces, it was the militia of the northern states fighting the militia of
the southern states.
The clearest example of this is the case of Robert E. Lee. Lee was
Lincoln's first choice for commander of the Union forces. Lee was opposed
to secession. But, he considered himself a citizen of Virginia first and
foremost, and when Virginia left the Union, he had no choice but to serve
his state loyally.
The war between 1860-65 was a war between States that had a certain
independence, and at least some of the attributes of nation-states for a
number of years. The United States was considered to be a union of
autonomous states, with many people always seeing their first loyalty to
their own state. I don�t see this as typical in a true civil war. I gave
two examples of true modern civil wars, Russia and Spain, that fit the
concept of civil war more closely.
Dan'm Traeki Ring of Crystallized Knowledge.
Known for calculating, but not known for shutting up
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