I was born in 1950, and grew up hearing the stories my grandmother told about her childhood. She had a neighbor who was a veteran of the War Between the States. He told her stories about such things as being in a battle and getting so thirsty that he drank out of a creek filled with the blood of dead and dying soldiers. We lived near the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, and my grandfather helped build the 351 tall monument that honors him.
Although Kentucky was a border state, and didn't secede, I live in a part of the state that was pro-Confederate in it's sentiments, partly because of the large farms that were here, and the slaves that went with them. When you have been raised since childhood being told the stories that I was, it is very easy to be swayed by what you hear. As I got older and learned more about the war, and it's local connections, it was easy to become more and more pro-South in my feelings. My late brother was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and tried to get me to join up. I just didn't have the time to spend doing it, and wish now I had done so.
Anyway, I don't hold any animosity or hatred towards any from the North, but I do get pretty heated up when they tell the lies that they do as to what they perceive to be the causes of the war. Other than that, I'll go to my grave believing the South had every right to secede from the Union, and that Lincoln pushed the South into war.
It's only too late to join the Sons after you're in the ground.
My 3rd Great Uncle marched off with the boys in gray and was never seen again. My Mom's Great Uncle got the paper from his Brigade's executive officer saying he was a good and faithful soldier in all his duties and was present with Lee at the surrender. I have it. A bunch of other offshoots of my lineage served the Confederacy. My Great Great Grandfather helped build the works at Mobile Bay. My wife's 3rd Great Grandpa served the Confederacy at Vicksburg.
After the war, occupational troops came through and shot my Great Great Uncle's bulldog. He was just a little kid. The family moved west soon after that.
I believe the South was right. I believe Lincoln precipitated the war and that the main reason was to keep the South in the Union in order to tax them and force them to pay tariffs. There were powerful landowners in the South that did not wish to give up their slaves, so from the southern perspective, certainly the war was about slavery, but most did not own slaves and would not have gone to war just to protect the property of others. As Bristoe said, we are diminished by the outcome of the war.
