Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Understanding The Civil War More Clearly

A common foe, imperialistic nationalism, and so on and so forth. It was the first instance of significant numbers of US troops being in the south since Reconstruction. Lots of southerners and northerners fought together and formed relationships. Plus, with no standing army to speak of, the government was still heavily dependent on volunteers and HAD to foster a feeling of reconciliation to get the south fully on board and behind the effort.

Some more stuff.

After you work through the Tindall and Shi history book up to 1861 its time to move on to different sources. Oh, you should probably have at a minimum of 100 pages of typewritten or 200- 250 pages of hand written reading notes if you're doing the historian thing.


Now, that you have laid the foundation (you might want to think of being an Historian as partially the process of layering up a cake or a brick wall) its time to start building upon it.


First, attack as much primary source material as you can lay hand on. Remember that these sources will likely be localized or regionalized.

I would recommend starting with the newspapers dating back to at least 1835 if possible. Many towns did not have a paper in those days so concentrate in general terms on the bigger cities.

I would try to get at least two from North, South, and West.

Say the Boston and/or NYC papers. Baltimore and Richmond. Atlanta and New Orleans. St.Louis and Kansas City, etc.

The majority of these papers are available on microfilm and can be accessed via the Inter-library Loan system at public libraries, or community college and university libraries. For the most part librarians at the collegiate libraries are really happy to help and help you learn to use a microfilm reader.

Hitting the newspapers will let you see what and how people were thinking about things. Look especially for articles and editorials and letters to the editor dealing with slavery, sectionalism, and new states entering the union. Look at the advertisements for things such as land sales, cotton markets, slave auction, etc. to inform you on the thinking of people.

By the end of the newspapers you should have another 250-400 pages of notes and or copies of newspaper articles.

And... key thing to understand is there is no one reason for the Civil War. The reasons varied from person to person and from state to state.

Most northerners weren't fighting and dying to free the slaves, no more than most southerners were fighting to keep their slaves - since most southerners didn't have any.

But slavery sat there behind everything, being the core catalyst for pretty much the entire thing.

Fightin' Joe Wheeler.

They put a former confederate general in charge of all mounted troops.

I also seem to remember reading that we almost went to war with Spain like in the early 1880's. And N B Forrest offered his services to the cause at that time.

Here you go,hbb
https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...e-our-textbooks-and-monuments-are-wrong/

I am not disagreeing with your newspaper research. But beware of rampant sensational journalism that went along with the rise of the telegraph that fed the newspapers.

Right on. Man, where were you at when I needed good students in class?

I thought you were asking something significant. Everyone knows that Gary Bussy was in command at San Juan Hill.

Gary Busey being cast as Joe wheeler is one of the most epic miscasts in cinematic history.

The Washington Post sucks. Notice that this article was written by a Sociologist.

I saw that........ and the anti-NRA ad at the bottom of the page.

Keep bumping this thread up with new info, Mr. Bear. Just because it gets few worthwhile responses doesn't mean we aren't reading it.

I saw that........ and the anti-NRA ad at the bottom of the page.

Keep bumping this thread up with new info, Mr. Bear. Just because it gets few responses doesn't mean we aren't reading it.

History - stuff that already happened. Historians - people who professionally and objectively look at stuff that already happened.