stoner22 on Sidechat | Today I learned the South largely teaches the civil war as a “war of northern aggression” This is why we need more Sherman’s. We didn’t destroy the confederacy. We didn’t end white supremacy. We didn’t even abolish slavery. Death to Jim Crow.

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US Politics 23h

stoner22

Today I learned the South largely teaches the civil war as a “war of northern aggression” This is why we need more Sherman’s. We didn’t destroy the confederacy. We didn’t end white supremacy. We didn’t even abolish slavery. Death to Jim Crow.

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Anonymous 22h

I was lucky enough to have history teachers that didn’t fall for the lost cause myth, so I learned the truth about the cause of the war just for state curriculum to mandate teaching the lost cause lmao

Anonymous 20h

my schooling in the south taught me that the right answer to “what started the civil war?” on tests was NOT “slavery” but rather “states’ rights to secede.” cool story bro! why were they seceding 🤡

Anonymous 14h

This is always so funny to me because the confederate states literally started the war. How could it possibly be a war of northern aggression?

Anonymous 21h

Unfortunately this country quit fighting racism immediately after the civil war. We had far more work to do.

Anonymous 22h

I don’t think y’all understand what Sherman actually did and its purpose

Anonymous 14h

Idk. I lived in Texas all my life and we were taught that there were many reasons, including and at the forefront of reasons, slavery, that the south succeeded. We were taught the requirements for states to rejoin the union and the stubbornness of the southern states to truly adhere to that. We were taught about the bison eradication, although I admit I feel like we never learned the true extent of negative effects on natives, at all, even when getting to Andrew Jackson.

Anonymous 16h

I mean technically it was

Anonymous

#1 22h

He pursued a policy of total war to bring the South to its knees socially and economically. He was not in charge of what happened to the South post-reconstruction. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t destroy more shit, it was that reforms weren’t followed through on after the war ended.

Anonymous

#1 22h

I feel that none of us learn about Sherman’s career after the civil war. He brought his total war tactics to the plains against native Americans. He argued for the extermination of the Sioux. The Navajo Long Walk? He negotiated the treaty that mandated that.

Anonymous

#1 22h

I live near traditional Modoc lands in Northern California and Oregon. During the Modoc war, they were victims of massacres, and afterwards were deported to Oklahoma. Sherman ordered that. He encouraged the policy of bison eradication to starve out the plains tribes.

Anonymous

#1 22h

So when we glorify Sherman, we are both misunderstanding the purpose of his tactics and what they achieve. Destroying even more infrastructure, burning cities, spoiling crops. That wouldn’t fix the south. It would make it worse for everyone. Former slaves need food and houses too. Sherman’s tactics did their job. The south surrendered. It’s the failures of reconstruction that was the problem.

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Anonymous

#1 22h

Thats a fair point.

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Anonymous

#1 22h

Sherman did objectively not great things to the south but it was necessary. His actions against Native Americans are inexcusable I agree. His actions towards the south though were overall justified, the entire society needed to be torn down so it could be rebuilt, though we failed on that and that si why we have the problems we do today.

Anonymous

stoner22 22h

I don’t think that the destruction of infrastructure was a necessary part of reorienting southern society. Rather it was a short term but effective tactic to get the south to surrender. Had the south been easier to defeat, reconstruction probably would have been easier if more infrastructure was still in place. But if that’s what it took to end the civil war, it was worth it.

Anonymous

#1 22h

Interestingly most southerners at the time actually didn’t begrudge Sherman that much for his tactics. They viewed him as doing his job. Sherman only began being demonized in the south (which I experienced in school in Virginia) after the daughters of the confederacy began propagandizing the lost cause narrative. To make the South seem noble, they also made Sherman seem evil. God I hate the daughters of the confederacy.

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Anonymous

#1 22h

Scum on earth

Anonymous

#2 15h

I learned about the lost cause myth in college (history major), it’s crazy how much high school leaves out, and I didn’t even grow up in the south.

Anonymous

#7 14h

I really feel like Andrew Jackson was never demonized enough for the piece of shit he was. Even back then, it was “ah he was the people’s guy, the homeboy…. And he was also lowkey a genocidal maniac” - like, “lowkey”??????? But anyway I get what y’all mean by saying we were taught there were reasons other than slavery for the civil war, the truth just is that there was, but also that slavery was like a ginormous and definitely MAIN reason. At least I understood that from what was communicated

Anonymous

#1 43m

Thank you for saying this holy shit. I try and explain exactly this to people and it gets exhausting tbh