Bitterly Divided by David Williams makes sense. If the political establishment in a bunch of states decided to secede, there would obviously be inhabitants who retained a stronger loyalty to the United States of America. After all, they had been proud U.S. citizens for their entire lives. I bet you saw a but coming. The but is that although Williams presents voluminous evidence of insurgence within the CSA, it is not clear that it materially hampered the Confederacy’s war efforts until the final year or so.
The catchphrase, ‘rich man’s war, poor man’s fight,’ may have been a truism, but Southern men continued to fight until victory became hopeless or they received news from home that their families were starving. Williams contends that slaveholders masterminded the war, but, for the most part, non-slaveholders fought it. Three-fourths of southern whites owned no slaves, so arithmetic alone proves Williams correct.
Statistical data show that by every economic measure, the North far outperformed the South. The only area in which the South exceeded the North was in income inequality. Williams writes: “On the Civil War’s eve, nearly half the South’s personal income went to just over a thousand families.” The rich were very rich and few in number. The uneducated poor whites were as omnipresent as slaves.
At the start of the war, a recruitment broadside oddly read, “To arms! Our Southern soil must be defended. We must not stop to ask who brought about the war, who is at fault, but let us go and do battle… and then settle the question who is to blame.”
Today, that poster may not appear convincing, but decades of Democrat propaganda had bred hatred for Yankees and instilled fear of “Black Republicans.” Repeatedly, poor whites were told that freed slaves would “come into competition, associate with them and their children as equals—be allowed to testify in court against them—sit on juries with them, march to the ballot box by their sides, and participate in the choice of their rulers—claim social equality with them—and ask the hands of their children in marriage.”
When the conflict began, relentless propaganda claimed the North had invaded the South, but the Confederate Army was a reality well before Manassas. Before that opening battle, the North had only resisted Confederate confiscation of United States property and taken some Washington City suburbs. Still, men believed that they went to fight an enemy that had violated the hallowed land of the South. Why?
Jefferson Davis believed slavery gave every white person an elevated position in society, independent of their lot in life. Were the poor fighting to retain this artificially elevated position? Not sure, but I’ll keep reading to find the answer.
Comments
Post a Comment