At 06:30 PM 3/2/2004 -0600 Robert Seeberger wrote:
>> A friend of mine and I recently had a long discussion regarding the
>> motivations of the "ordinary Confederate soldier" with an
>outstanding NPS
>> Ranger at Richmond National Battlefield - Cold Harbor a couple
>weekends
>> ago.
>>
>> He pointed out that every white Southerner knew that he was fighting
>to
>> defend a system that ensured that no matter how low you were, no
>matter how
>> much you messed up, in this system you were always "better" than
>every
>> single black man.
>
>I have no doubt that there were people who believed that way. I've
>even met a few who spouted that kind of rhetoric.
>
>But I find it hard to credit that even half of Southerners held
>beliefs that extreme. Those Abolitionists who worked the South were
>not all Northern infiltrators. My wife has an ancestor who was part of
>a company of Alabamans who fought for the Union. My point being that
>not all Southerners were extreme racist bigots.
>
>Of course I recognise that there were enough of them to seceed, but
>such a blanket statement like the one above is a bit insulting because
>it is *too* general. I don't care where you go, there are always a
>variety of memes floating though a populace.
I am sure that there all kinds of memes floating around. I think that the
above meme provided by the Park Ranger pretty accurately describes a
dominant meme among the rank-and-file Confederate soldiers.
>I think that is to some extent "spin". The kind where only part of the
>truth is presented in order to make a point. I suspect that it
>originates with the Radical Republicans
For what it is worth, the Park Ranger in question grew up in Richmond, VA
and graduated from VMI.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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