For Southerners — What was civil war education like for you? Any differences?
Posted by ChessedGamon@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 174 comments
It'd be nice if you could also tell me when you were in school since I'm sure things will be different across time as well.
I'm not trying to imply or fish for anything with this question either, I'd just like to know if there are any differences from the mainstream narrative or what the takeaways are.
DistinctJob7494@reddit
From what I remember I think it was pretty standard. We may have done a tad more for NC as a whole during lessons but I honestly don't remember much.
Joliet-Jake@reddit
In Georgia in the ‘90s they taught us that it was over slavery and touched on economic factors that made the South feel like slavery was necessary to preserve while the North didn’t need it. They also veered a little bit into Confederate conscription and that relatively few Confederate soldiers owned slaves.
Nastreal@reddit
Did they leave it at that or did they actually go into why those Confederate soldiers would see keeping slaves in bondage was in their own best interest?
To-RB@reddit
A lot of Confederates weren’t interested in the issue of slavery.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
Yeah, but for a few decades pro-slavery elite were working up the folks with how Northerners were coming for their "way of life". It was the beginning of the city/country divide. They said Nyers and Boston folks hated them and were coming for them.
devilbunny@reddit
To be fair, the Bostonians and upstate NYers really were coming for them.
NYC, being a city of commerce, loved that cheap cheap cotton.
The US Civil War makes a lot of sense if you view it as a last gasp of the Roundheads vs Cavaliers from the English Civil War.
In Mississippi, at a private school, the Civil War was pretty glossed over - not the causes, not the results, but the war itself. Of course, that's also true of pretty much every war we covered in history classes, so I can't say I knew any of them all that well.
Grant's memoirs have been great fun to read, as he is a very good storyteller and had a superb strategic understanding of the war from the very beginning, well before he became the head of the Union forces.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
"To be fair, the Bostonians and upstate NYers really were coming for them."
Are you saying the South wanted slavery and that's what they were fighting for? ?
devilbunny@reddit
The leaders certainly did; the rank and file were fighting for their home, and for slavery, and for their precarious place in society.
"It was about slavery" is wrongly treated as irrelevant by the apologists for the Confederacy, but they are right that it wasn't the whole story. Just the vast majority of it.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
"Hardcore"? Yes, not everyone was John Brown but abolitionist meetings were numerous in all the non-slaveholding states and they voted for Lincoln- and there was no doubt that Lincoln's opinion about slavery and most thought he would end slavery. And you are forgetting Philadelphia.
Not everyone was going to a protest supporting gay marriage but the data was pretty clear - before it was federally legal 55% were in favor of it.
devilbunny@reddit
Okay. Passive support, active support, and agitation for war are three very different levels of arguing for something.
albertnormandy@reddit
If we’re going to open the door to that kind of nuance we also need to discuss northern soldiers.
Nastreal@reddit
If we're talking about racial tensions, concern over losing jobs to freedmen and conscription, go right ahead.
That doesn't change the fact that Union volunteers fully embraced emancipation as the cause worth dying for. While Confederate soldiers died to keep their social status and free labor.
albertnormandy@reddit
Lincoln didn’t announce emancipation until halfway through the war. If he had said from day 1 “We’re going to go kill Johnny Reb and free his slaves” he would have had no army. It was only after the North occupied large parts of the south, and conscription keeping their ranks full, that they “accepted” emancipation.
Joliet-Jake@reddit
Yeah, I seem to recall some statements from Union soldiers about how they felt about the idea of fighting and dying for emancipation and they were not fans of the idea.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
Yeah, while being an abolitionist wasn't uncommon, lots of people did NOT want to go to war for it. It was a time when losing a parent meant the family would be destitute -- mother could easily lose custody of the kids.
albertnormandy@reddit
Abolitionists were a minority within the Republican party, to say nothing of the northern political body in mass.
Luckytxn_1959@reddit
BS. Show link to this. And stop trying to change the republican party. Now I bet you going to try and change the history of the Democratic party not being the political arm of the KKK and the actual party of Liberty and civil rights.
albertnormandy@reddit
Show a link to what? Election returns from 1860 showing millions of Democratic voters in the North? Or maybe speeches from Lincoln himself where he says he has no intention to meddle in slavery where it already existed? I don’t need to provide links to those things.
Luckytxn_1959@reddit
Waiting futilely over here... as usual.
albertnormandy@reddit
I’m not doing basis Google searches for you.
Luckytxn_1959@reddit
I knew you wouldn't. It is constant make shit up and hope no one calls you out here. Smh.
albertnormandy@reddit
The only one making shit up is you. Go be angry at someone else. The weatherman on TV perhaps?
Luckytxn_1959@reddit
You the one refusing to not post link to prove what you are saying and got called out. I am not upset but knew you were full of shit and just spouting off fake crap and it feels good to be proven right... as usual.
ShadesofSouthernBlue@reddit
There are ample essays and books, both primary and secondary sources, out there if you care to read them. While the majority of people in Northern states opposed slavery, actual support for going to war for it was much lower. While we do get a lot of propaganda in the South, I think we also get a much broader education on the Civil War and the nuances of the people and politics at the time. We don't get "North Bad, South Good," and when I speak to people who aren't from former Confederate states, that's often how 1) they think we learned about it and 2) how it was portrayed to them (obviously as "North Good, South Bad.") Considering that a draft was necessary on both sides, it's clear that everyone wasn't gung ho about fighting.
RolandDeepson@reddit
The DNC absolutely was the party of white supremacy, confederacy, and regressive politics.
And then that changed during the 1960s.
Happy?
ParChadders@reddit
IIRC Lincoln’s objective was initially to prevent the Southern states from seceding. He only included emancipation as an objective due to pressure from Europe (primarily Britain and France).
therealdrewder@reddit
Lincoln hated slavery, always did. But he was shrewd enough to know that using the E word too early would lose him the support of the country.
albertnormandy@reddit
There was pressure from within his own party. Lincoln was a pragmatist and by 1862 he had realized that killing slavery was necessary to win the war.
Nastreal@reddit
You're right though that as the Union occupied more and more Southern territory, the more Abolitionist the army became, because many of them were actually seeing Southern slavery for the first time.
I hate to break it to you, but only roughly 10% of the Union army consisted of draftees(or substitutes) at any given point. Volunteers made up the vast majority of soldiers on both sides. The Union didn't have much of a manpower issue even with the added burden of occupation. Whereas things like concription and desertion rates were proportionally(roughly 2x) higher for the Confederacy.
Joliet-Jake@reddit
Higher conscription and desertion rates would seem to suggest that the Confederate army was not made up entirely of guys who were in favor of slavery(or any other Confederate objective).
Undispjuted@reddit
Historical trivia note: Lincoln ordered the band to play “Dixie” after the surrender.
buttsharkman@reddit
The Civil war was not very popular in the north and emancipation wasnt a big concern. New York City had draft riots where black people were lynched and they only ended after the Union had ships start shelling the city.
The Confederacy used conscription as well. It was noted a huge problem for them as the war went on was their troops were quick to surrender or go AWOL. This actually led to multiple desperate schemes to break troops of who actually wanted to fight out of prison.
majinspy@reddit
The Confederacy has been made the scapegoat of America's sins from 1776-1941.
The Civil War is not a tale of the heroic US defeating the evil nega-America. It's a tale of a genocide-powered nation being slowed down by a slavers' revolt. Both sides were steeped up to their gills in evil. The difference is that people want their national creation myths and need to demonize the Confederacy enough to justify lifting up the US as the "good guy" during the era.
BurgerFaces@reddit
The nation as a whole is obviously full of sin, but to try and "both sides" the confederacy is a bunch of racist lost cause propaganda. You rebelled to preserve and expand the right to treat black people as property, and all the pain and torture that came with. The confederacy was evil, and wrongdoing by other people at other times doesn't make it less so.
majinspy@reddit
I'm not saying it does. We had that ass-whipping coming. What I'm saying is that defeating the south doesn't erase genocide. The SECOND the Civil War was over, the Union started marching west and genociding the Native Americans. And, just like slavery, a hell of a lot of people knew it was wrong.
Robert E. Lee and Sherman both did more than enough to earn opprobium - but people like their creation myths. Everyone is SO adept at pointing out the bullshit of other countries / peoples, and so less able to dissect their own.
BurgerFaces@reddit
In order for this whataboutism to work you'll have to provide some sources for the people saying the treatment of native americans was righteous.
majinspy@reddit
Whataboutism is meant to detract attention. I'm not here saying the confederacy was good because the union was bad. I'm saying both did super evil shit: slavery and genocide. Noone gets to be the heroes, I'm sorry.
What? I genuinely am confused by this. I'm saying it wasn't righteous.
BurgerFaces@reddit
You are deflecting the evils of the confederacy by saying "What about native american genocide?"
You are saying people are accepting of native american genocide while also pointing out the evils of the confederacy. I am asking you to provide a quote from someone who thinks that the confederacy was evil and the native american genocide wasn't in order to back up this claim.
majinspy@reddit
I am not deflecting. The confederacy formed entirely around slavery. That's bad.
They separate the two out as if it weren't the same people.
BurgerFaces@reddit
You keep using vague generalities. Who is "they"? Identify someone accepting of native american genocide and also critical of the confederacy.
majinspy@reddit
Sorry, I was in a hurry and should have waited to reply in a better way.
"they" = the US army. The glorious slavery crushing US army saved the day....and then those same people of that same army went west and shot Indians.
RolandDeepson@reddit
Yes. The Union did terrible things both before and after the war. Fully agree.
AND ALSO, when comparing the Union to the Confederacy during the CW, the Confederacy was the (singular) bad-guy team, and the Union absolutely was the (singular) good-guy team.
Period.
majinspy@reddit
I just don't think you get to narrow the scope like that. During the Civil War the Confederacy was allied with Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, Osage Native Americans. The confederates were happy to stop genociding the natives in return for help in maintaining their grip on slavery.
The idea that you can just zoom all the way in on this one aspect and declare the Union "the good guys", especially to the point of some historic struggle, doesn't hold water - and if it does hold water, it doesn't NEARLY hold the amount that people want it to.
The difference is the South lost and slavery was ended. The genocide was completed. The Union won that too. Hitler was actually inspired by the Native genocide the Americans had carried out. Do you think the US would be a more peaceful place with millions of enraged Native Americans? Hell no! There's just so few left and they were so absolutely crushed that resistance was just not tenable. The Americans proved that genocide works if you pull it off, and Hitler thought that was pretty neat.
source: https://www.sctimes.com/story/opinion/2021/01/04/how-american-fascism-inspired-holocaust/4131329001/
Let's fast forward 50 years from 1861 to 1911. Do you think slavery persists in a world with tractors? I think its clear that, eventually, slavery just cannot be maintained. I live in Mississippi. Endless fields with giant green and red machines piloted by one person scour the land. How about genocide? Well that seems to have stuck. Native Americans are still worse off.
Is this apologia for the south? Hell no - The south has at EVERY turn been intransigent and inhuman to its Black citizenry. The south basically "won" at racism, creating a world of self-fulfilling prophecy where racism works because Black people have been so excluded and hobbled. A lot of white people are secretly (or not so secretly) quite ok with the Great Migration happening because they would not have wished to live in a Black-majority state.
It's ~~turtles~~ hell all the way down, man.
BurgerFaces@reddit
Slavery wasn't so bad y'all! Some of them got to live!
I don't want to take anything away from this, but I cannot write a sentence without whataboutism
majinspy@reddit
I think we have different definitions of that term.
I object to your characterization that I contend that slavery wasn't so bad - it was.
partypat_bear@reddit
Additional reading on this view?
majinspy@reddit
"we must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, and children." - William T. Sherman
source: https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/historyofus/web08/features/source/C01.html
The US history on this is pretty clear. The army of the United States attacked the homes, culture, and lives of Native Americans in a ceaseless quest for land and dominance over the continent.
partypat_bear@reddit
Can’t argue there, it was fucked up and Sherman was particularly egregious
BurgerFaces@reddit
There's probably some podcasts out there in the depths of the internet. Look for the dudes in white hoods that are burning crosses.
ShadesofSouthernBlue@reddit
Even Lincoln didn't fully embrace emancipation.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
And go?
FerricDonkey@reddit
I don't remember everything that was taught, but I recall being taught a) racism making slavery not appear as abhorrent as it actually was, and b) a huge amount of loyalty to state/pride both being given as reasons.
Eg random Joe is fighting for Virginia. He is fighting because Virginia is fighting. He knows that Virginia is a slave state, but the general background he was raised in makes him not really mind. This random Joe may not have decided to fight out of explicit philosophical support for slavery, but he was fighting for the side that was fighting for slavery, usually without minding that much. He was wrong, though to some extent that's not surprising given the context he was raised in.
Joliet-Jake@reddit
I don’t recall there being a whole lot of depth on the subject. They briefly hit the point that Confederate soldiers weren’t all there simply because they wanted to preserve slavery, it they individually wanted it preserved at all.
albertnormandy@reddit
Did your teachers go into how most northern soldiers were actually indifferent on slavery and perfectly willing to let the South have slaves as long as they kept it out of the west?
SyndicalistHR@reddit
Born and raised in Georgia, 8th grade Georgia history in 2009 was presented as “the war of northern aggression” jokingly, but not jokingly was the focus on states rights as a core principle of the south’s cause. Slavery wasn’t denied as a factor leading to the war, but it was certainly presented as secondary to the states rights argument. Our teacher (ex marine) did show Glory as the unit movie though, so I think he was doing the best he could with the approach to the material dictated by the county school board.
Generally, where did you go to school in Georgia? I was north-west Atlanta rural-metro that saw a lot of migration of midwesterners and northerners in the 2000s. By the time I got to high school the remnants of the lost cause mythos were officially cut out.
Joliet-Jake@reddit
Southwest Georgia.
SyndicalistHR@reddit
It’s interesting to see how the state changed across time at different rates. It’s just conjecture, but I wonder if we were more regressive for longer due to being in the direct path of Sherman’s march through Atlanta. Like, burnt courthouse and everything. We were also the very foothills of the Blue Ridge, so Appalachian culture probably was woven into it in certain ways, too.
FerricDonkey@reddit
Same in Tennessee.
BioDriver@reddit
Same, but we also got info on how Texas wasn’t as screwed thanks to our cotton trade with Mexico and Sherman leaving us alone.
Cacafuego@reddit
That's pretty similar to what we got in Ohio in the 80s.
lavasca@reddit
Wait. What happened in Ohio in the 1980s?
Cacafuego@reddit
Confederates came through and conscripted a bunch of us who didn't own slaves. Really sucked, man.
theflamingskull@reddit
Were the conscripts happy to get out of Ohio?
FlyByPC@reddit
Probably. IIRC Ohio has produced the most astronauts, so something is compelling them to leave.
BurgerFaces@reddit
They were getting out of Ohio. They were volunteers.
Eric848448@reddit
Most people are, yes.
Cacafuego@reddit
We never got far enough south to find any decent college football, and I can't even look at grits, anymore.
Reverend_Ooga_Booga@reddit
That it was about states rights... to own slaves as slavery was the central economic engine of the agricultural south.
Also that the emancipation proclamation only freed slaves in thr CSA and norther US slave states got to keep their for quite a while after.
Brilliant_Towel2727@reddit
IIRC North Carolina in the late 90s-early 2000s didn't get too much into the 'states rights.' It was mostly about the actual military stuff, with a nod to the Emancipation Proclamation. The narrative you would get outside of school was more influenced by the Lost Cause mythology.
TheRandomestWonderer@reddit
Wasn’t this just asked a little while back? Why does this keep being asked about?
Anyway, Alabama public school years school years 87-2001. Learned it as due to slavery. It was celebrated as MLK day, not Robert E. Lee day. Didn’t hear of that nonsense until recently on the internet.
Mainestate@reddit
Awfully defensive, alabama
MMAGG83@reddit
From Wisconsin, so fellow Yankee. Don’t be a dickhead. This shit happened 150 years ago.
BUBBAH-BAYUTH@reddit
Are you trying to make a point of some kind? If so be less passive aggressive about it, Maine.
TheRandomestWonderer@reddit
I see your presumptive bigotry peaking through, Maine. Hope you didn’t pull anything with that reach.
Undispjuted@reddit
Of course we are. We’re all tired of anti-Southern rhetoric that isn’t based in most people’s reality.
amcjkelly@reddit
For a long time in the South they would try to put on a spin that the lost cause was more about state rights than slavery.
The extremely odious idea that Slavery was on the way out on its own was a popular one. Or that some slaves had it o.k.
The idea that they were doing really well in the east, were so close to winning. Stuff like that.
Lardawan@reddit
I don't think anyone who attended southern schools back then is still alive. It's good to be curious though...
voidcritter@reddit
Texan, my school taught that it was about "states' rights" (same with Texas fighting to break from Mexico). They never quite elaborated on *what* those rights were for.
azuth89@reddit
I had never actually heard of the "northern aggression" or "state's rights" stuff until I was in my 20s if that's what you mean. Would have been a difficult case to make given the primary source stuff from Texas leaders at the time.
Not even from people supporting it much. Just from people online insisting that's what's taught "down there".
Would've been 90s or early 00s depending on which grade's history class we're talking about.
buttsharkman@reddit
I heard it called the War of Northern Aggression during the episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle where they play college football
azuth89@reddit
That kinda tracks on two fronts.
It's from the early 60s and there really was a lot more of that narrative going around as part of the generally hostility towards the civil rights movement.
But also the show creators were all californian and their impression of southern rhetoric would be shaped by those news stories rather than experience, so they'd really only see the worst.
Alex_2259@reddit
Wait "war of Northern aggression" is fake and not taught in the South? Bro I believed that was the norm in the south for the longest time
FutureEar6482@reddit
I saw that phrase in a museum in NC when I moved here in 1998. I wouldn’t say it’s fake necessarily but I don’t know how much it was taught. The placard at the museum was not tongue in cheek or listing other names for the war. They really referred to it as the War of Northern Aggression and it took me a minute to realize they were talking about the Civil War.
That said, there has been a move in the last 10-15 years to change how slavery and the Civil War is presented at museums so I wouldn’t be surprised if the museum I saw it at changed it at some point.
We toured a plantation in Durham NC in the early 2000s and I was really surprised that there was little discussion of the slaves who lived there. There were slave quarters that you could walk past but there was no information about them and they were not part of the tour. That particular plantation has been working on focusing more on slavery and the slaves themselves in the past few years.
azuth89@reddit
I mean...maybe it was in the 60s or something, idk. It's certainly not now or when I was a kid.
BUBBAH-BAYUTH@reddit
Like many things people think about the south, that’s bullshit
Undispjuted@reddit
I’m from Alabama and grew up in Tennessee and East Georgia mostly and never heard it until adulthood.
MossiestSloth@reddit
My girlfriend's mom and stepdad will spout that the civil war was over "states rights." They drive me nuts.
BookLuvr7@reddit
I'm sorry you have to put up with that. Minor detail it was over the "states rights" to own other human beings.
bluepainters@reddit
It’s not just northerners making it up, though
I grew up on the west coast and had no idea southerners were known to be taught a different version of civil war history until I moved to Augusta, Georgia. It only came up once, but a friend I made there who lived her whole life in Georgia was taught the “state’s rights” version growing up. She claimed that it was only recently, like the 2010’s, when recent scholarship had uncovered evidence that the war was actually fought over slavery.
I told her that I had been taught all the way back in the 80’s in California that it was about slavery as well as my mother in the 60’s, and that many southern state’s declarations of succession specifically named slavery as the reason.
She didn’t believe anything I said. She claimed I was mistaken, and someone who otherwise seemed like an educated, intelligent person was dead set that absolutely everyone thought the civil war was fought over states rights until proven otherwise by researchers more recently. It was such a weird conversation.
Undispjuted@reddit
Same, I never heard that. Except the Dixiecrat flag was excused as a symbol for “fuck the government,” but my family never displayed it; they’re all highly anti racist.
GTRacer1972@reddit
Years ago I met some people from the South that told me it's called "The War of Northern Aggression" and that the South won. I'm not sure if they still call it that and still think they won, but at least some were taught that.
nine_of_swords@reddit
Grew up in Alabama when learning about the Civil War
There was emphasis on the economics and tariffs leading up to the war, that led politicians to want to secede to protect slavery. So the call to separate was based off fat cats wanting to save slavery. That said, that only goes so far to getting the populace to go with it (kinda makes the hill country opposition to public education make sense considering the big push behind it by the plantation class). State loyalty dragged in a lot the rest, and they used Robert E. Lee as an example of that. Can't do the Unified South thing either, as the "Free state of Winston" is a pretty prominent counter to it.
Alabama was relatively untouched during the Civil War (probably had more education about the War of 1812 compared to other states, though Civil War still predominates), and there was pretty much only around 30 years of development of the "big plantation" culture in the state before the war (while there were plantations before, the mass growth didn't happen as much until the Indian Removal Act). So there more talk about carpetbaggers and other speculative players after the war. It's kinda hard to avoid talk of post war big investor speculation considering Birmingham exists.
KaiserGustafson@reddit
Grew up in the 2000s in Texas, very much emphasized that it was over slavery and that the Confederacy was bad.
the_real_JFK_killer@reddit
There was no attempt to justify it or downplay slavery, but there was a big focus on things like the march to the sea, and the damage things like that caused.
So, not nearly as bad as northerners seem to assume my education on the civil war was, but still for sure slanted.
FutureEar6482@reddit
That’s interesting. I grew up in the Midwest and the first time I ever heard War of Northern Aggression was after I moved to NC when I was 30. It was at a museum and I was really confused at first then it dawned on me. lol
whip_lash_2@reddit
I've heard it's regressed a bit, but yeah. In elementary school in Texas in the 1980s, it was, "It was about slavery. Maybe some tariffs, but mostly slavery. Sam Houston warned Texas that they were about to fuck around and find out, they fucked around, and Lincoln saw to it that they found out." In high school in the 90s it was slightly subtler but not a lot. I think "War of Northern Aggression" was covered as the way Southerners thought of it, but definitely not in an approving way.
dabeeman@reddit
my grandfather called it that and called me a yankee his whole life. He was from Jacksonville.
EvaisAchu@reddit
Same, I was in school in the 2000s and 2010s. There was never any downplaying or attempt to justify. I feel like the coverage was fairly even between union and confederate. No one was highlighted more but we did go into the way the south was impacted afterwards very heavily. Tho, that was to go into the effects of why the south went the way they did with stuff like Jim Crow after.
One of my teachers did bring up the phrase "war of northern aggression" and explained where that came from when I was in like 6th grade. She wanted to make it clear what that phrase was and the skewed thoughts behind it.
This was all in a very small town (500 people) in Texas. Most people I tell, tend to assume that I was taught the skewed history they say.
adriennenned@reddit
When I (someone from New England) went to college, my roommate (from Georgia) told me that she was taught it was the war of northern aggression. (1990s)
Undispjuted@reddit
That’s wild. I’m only a little younger and never even heard that rhetoric until adulthood.
dumbandconcerned@reddit
South Carolina, early 2000s. We studied in in 3rd grade and 8th grade, then in high school I had it again in AP US History. Each age group, we dove a bit deeper into detail. Major take-away of each year was that it was a war fought over slavery, with some other issues mixed in, but primarily slavery. We had to memorize important figures, dates, battles, etc. And of course it wasn't just the war itself, but Antebellum, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, etc etc.
VampireGremlin@reddit
Yep, This is exactly how I was taught as well.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
My kid is in AP history and it feel like they had to gloss over a lot of stuff -- maybe to get it okayed?
It literally saws "few" people owned slaves, when as someone who has studied it, even though it wasn't the majority that owned slaves, over 50 benefited in the household from slaves. A patriarch was likely to own them, but many children and their families lived on the family and had house slaves and made money from family slaves, despite not personally owning them. I think about 60% benefited from slave labor because of family ties.
G00dSh0tJans0n@reddit
Here in North Carolina it was pretty interesting as we learned about more perspectives. While the state was in the Confederacy there were a lot of slaves who escaped and went to the New Bern area which was pretty much always under Union control throughout the war.
A lot of the slaves (considered contraband initially) were given manual labor jobs for the Union but also served as spies and scouts and formed into the NC Colored Volunteers regiment. The 1st went on to fight in Florida alongside the 54th Massachusetts so we watched Glory in class.
jacksbm14@reddit
I went to a pretty good private school so we didn't learn that it was about states' rights or anything like that, we learned that some people still believe that though. My APUSH teacher was really good about giving us the truth and then also explaining what different groups feel about it, because I went to HS in Alabama and obviously different feelings about the Civil War are very common. However, my dad grew up in Texas and my mom grew up in Mississippi and he they both learned it as "The War of Northern Aggression."
Prowindowlicker@reddit
It was over slavery big time. That’s what I was taught growing up in Georgia in the late 2000s
Worried_Amphibian_54@reddit
Went to Kirby Smith elementary, Stonewall middle, and Robert E Lee high. We literally had a picture of Reagan above the chalkboard on one side and Lee on the other.
We were taught mostly lost cause Daughters of the Confederacy lesson plans. By then they'd stepped away from the "KKK is good" and "black people liked being enslaved" parts, but a lot of the rest was still there.
Took years of reading in the library (mostly old microfiche things of newspapers of the time since non lost cause books weren't around) to see what really happened.
Sweet_Race_6829@reddit
I was in elementary school in rural SC in the 80s and then middle school in urban NC in the early 90s. Both areas were like 60% black / 40% white in demographics.
We definitely learned it was about slavery but SC also had some degree of “Yankees=enemy” in the whole thing. In SC there also was a local pride element, like it was supposed to be that major events happened in our area. We went on a field trip to a cotton field and actually picked cotton, which is insane.
Urban NC was more in tune with slavery as nothing but deplorable. We watched Roots in seventh grade.
Otherwise_Trust_6369@reddit
To be drop dead honest I don't even remember what I was taught. Despite what a lot of people seem to think, most of us didn't really have a strong "lesson" about it so it's similar to asking us what we were taught about the Revolutionary War, WWII, or anything else. You also have to keep in mind that most people view the media, talk to other people, etc. and are impacted by that even more than whatever they were taught in schools.
Undispjuted@reddit
My 8th grade history teacher taught American Revolution as an unjustified rebellion against king and country and firmly believed we should have stayed colonies.
toridyar@reddit
I was in private Christian school in Alabama, 8th grade Alabama history in the 90s
We were taught the war was about states rights/taxes, that it specifically was not about slavery
worthwhilewrongdoing@reddit
I literally had a history teacher use "us" and "them" to refer to the South and North, respectively.
I moved there from Michigan.
reyadeyat@reddit
We learned that it was about slavery and discussed why the South felt that slavery was necessary and why there were/are people in the South who framed it as the "war of northern aggression" or wanted to say that it was instead about states;' rights. We also visited some local historical sites related to the Civil War and heard quite a bit about the continuing impact of the legacy of slavery.
collapsingrebel@reddit
I grew up in Florida within a very old Southern family. Culturally, I learned 'Lost Cause' narratives growing up to the extent my very Methodist grandmother used 'Yankee' as a pejorative. I don't personally recall a teacher in K-12 definitively stating "It was about slavery" but at the same time slavery was identified as a primary driver behind the War.
Undispjuted@reddit
My mama got a spanking in Alabama in the 70’s for mixing her food on her plate because “that’s how Yankees eat” and my great grandparents did not attend their favorite daughter’s wedding because she married a “damned Yankee.”
That being said my grandparents were extreme forces of anti racism in Tuscaloosa during their lives so clearly they didn’t internalize that madness.
collapsingrebel@reddit
I don't know if anyone in my extended family ever took it that far to identify food mixing as something uniquely 'Yankee'. We're a family of eaters so as long as you're eating the older generation has always been happy. The only real direct link to the War that my family maintained was the Flag and I had a GG Uncle (long dead by the time I came along) who had been named after a regional Confederate General for some reason. I've actually seen 'Yankee' being utilized again as a cultural pejorative in some political arguments online which was odd.
Undispjuted@reddit
My social circle makes the very occasional joke about Yankees/carpetbaggers/kudzu (transplants from anywhere in the US) but it’s VERY CLEARLY meant as ironic. Rarely have I ever heard any actual anti-Northern sentiment anywhere offline. Anti urban maybe among rural friends (I work in agriculture) but never anti Northern.
squarerootofapplepie@reddit
My (actual) Yankee grandmother does not think much of the South either. Both politically and personally.
Undispjuted@reddit
Please bear in mind our politics are a result of extreme gerrymandering and we have the most demographically diverse population in the US.
tu-vens-tu-vens@reddit
I mean, it really doesn’t. Gerrymandering doesn’t account for Republicans winning statewide office, and it’s also a simplification of the fact that some of the more interestingly drawn districts were supported by Democrats wanting solid Democratic seats.
Welpmart@reddit
I hear ya. I don't think it completely explains Southern politics but I had a TA from Mississippi for a voting rights class and oh boy did that make my blood boil. She talked about a legal clinic she worked where some people couldn't get passports (I think) because they were born in segregated hospitals where record keeping (and caring about Black patients) wasn't really a thing.
Undispjuted@reddit
It doesn’t completely explain Southern politics, I’ll admit, but it does make things much more difficult for those of us who like to vote in our own best interests.
Welpmart@reddit
Absolutely. Solidarity from the North.
squarerootofapplepie@reddit
Senators, governors, and presidents aren’t elected because of gerrymandering.
Undispjuted@reddit
They kind of are. Because the two party system also exists at those levels. Additionally, money is real and so are barriers to voting.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-gerrymandering-tilts-2024-race-house
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
"My mama got a spanking in Alabama in the 70’s for mixing her food on her plate because “that’s how Yankees eat”"
Sorta feels like they did?
Undispjuted@reddit
The great grands administered the spanking, not the grands.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
AH!
cdb03b@reddit
That it was about States Rights, with the primary one being Slavery and how it was economically vital at the time.
Most of the men fighting for the South did not own slaves and were fighting because the North had invaded their State threatening the lives of them and their family directly. Those in power in the South owned slaves and they were fighting for their economic model and livelihood that required slaves to operate.
fowmart@reddit
The same as anywhere else (private school in MS). I've heard of some revisionism but I doubt public schools taught it much differently from us.
cadabra04@reddit
In small town Louisiana public schools, we were taught it was about slavery. I literally had to google “northern aggression” just now. We were taught the tension between the north and the south was always about slavery and the south’s economic benefit from it, going all the way back to the revolutionary war. Slavery wasn’t ever softened for us either, I’m pretty sure we visited at least one plantation home where we could see how the slaves had to live and work. We also focused a lot on reconstruction.
My kids are also in Louisiana public schools. By 4th grade, they’ve already had an impressive curriculum around Jim Crow laws, MLK Jr, Rosa Parks, peaceful protests, and civil rights especially.
The school my children are at now may be seen as slightly progressive but I grew up in a very conservative town.
dapperpony@reddit
From SC, we covered it pretty extensively over the course of K-12 education. None of the “war of northern aggression” stuff people love to pretend everyone down there was taught, in fact I’d never even heard that phrase used to describe it until high school when a teacher used it mockingly/sarcastically. We learned about the plantation systems and agrarian society that relied on slavery to exist/be profitable, the Triangle Trade and how horrific the trans-Atlantic slave ships were, took field trips to Charleston-area plantations, watched Civil War movies, and also went over Reconstruction and Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era thoroughly. It was never downplayed or glossed over and it seemed like we covered at least one of those topics in class every year.
EspressoOverdose@reddit
Missouri is kinda weird because it’s not really the south, but heavily influenced by the south. We learned that Missouri wanted to remain neutral, that southern states wanted to fight for their rights, and northern states wanted to fight to end slavery.
designgrl@reddit
East Tennessean Appalachian, look it up’
therockhound@reddit
I was taught that the leaders of the confederacy were civic leaders who had no choice but to put down the plows and pick up their swords when the yankees invaded their towns/states. They also told me that slavery was not the core issue, but governmental overreach and had the northerners not invaded, slavery would have melted away of its own accord without the loss of 100s of thousands of countrymen's lives. One of my teachers was a well known pop historian who wrote confederate nostalgia fiction.
Techialo@reddit
Had a really cool teacher in the 2000s say "the South claimed it was over state's rights. The rights in question being to own slaves."
Don't think she's a teacher in Oklahoma anymore.
pirawalla22@reddit
I went to what was essentially a northeastern prep school, and my US history teacher was a bit of an edgelord who harped on the "civil war acktschually had nothing to do with slavery" angle very aggressively. I think he was trying to get us to appreciate the complexity of the economic situation at the time, but "it was NOT about slavery" was such a stupid way to do this.
He was such a great teacher in so many ways but there were a couple of drums he loved to beat that make me roll my eyes now, thinking back on it.
sammysbud@reddit
As someone who grew up in the deepest of the south with more than one teacher in my underfunded rural public school system who insisted it wasn’t entirely about slavery…. This is wild to read that it also happened from the opposite of perspectives lol
sammysbud@reddit
I’m not going to sugar coat this… I was born in rural GA in the 90s. Also, for context, my mom taught elementary social studies (she covered the civil war though WWII)
She was also from Illinois, and one of the few northerners in our small town.
In the first class she taught (c.1993), she presented the arguments behind each side in the civil war, and had the students choose a side (hoping to do a mock debate). Every one of them chose the confederacy… and the class was pretty diverse. She never tried that activity again, and says it was a wake up call for her.
My dad was from SC. He jokingly called my mom a “yankee” and called it “the war of northern aggression.” He did it to get a rise out of her, but my siblings and I didn’t realize it was a joke until much later.
My memories of learning about the civil war, was being based on states rights and economics (industrial north oppressing the agrarian south). Yes, slavery was there and it was awful… but I had most teachers assert that it was states rights and not slavery.
We always learned that slavery was bad, but that emancipation was an effect of the war and slavery wasn’t really taught as the cause. A lot of focus was on Sherman’s march to the sea and the conditions of Andersonville (probably bc of the proximity)
I’m sure some GA schools taught it better, but I didn’t have that experience. Again, I was in a rural school district. Thankfully, by the time I got to HS in the late aughts, I had the internet and kinda rolled my eyes when teachers would talk about states rights.
DOMSdeluise@reddit
ap us history in 2004, Houston, we got real information. No war of southern aggression or states rights or whatever.
tiptoemicrobe@reddit
I actually got that in high school in the mid 2000s, in Tennessee.
No one defended slavery, but I vividly remember my 10th grade history teacher correcting someone who said that it was about slavery rather than state's rights.
pneumatichorseman@reddit
That's a new one.
DOMSdeluise@reddit
lmao oops
xxxfashionfreakxxx@reddit
Im from Texas and learned it in the 2000s.
Learned everything about it and reconstruction era, how bad it was. One of my teachers showed a video of the abuse slaves received and it was brutal.
Throwaway_shot@reddit
Well first off it's called The War of Northern Aggression. So write that down. . .
AKDude79@reddit
Two things. First, the winner always writes the history books. Second, most textbooks used in the US are written in Texas. So what we learn is pretty much the same as what everyone else in the rest of the country learns: The presidential election of 1860 led the South to secede over fears that slavery would be abolished, the South had an agricultural economy that depended on free labor, while the North was industrial and had long since abolished slavery, the North was thus better equipped for a war than the South was.
nashvillethot@reddit
I went to a very, very good high school in Illinois and then a very, very good high school that was literally on top of a former civil war battle field.
It was good. Great? No - but it’s really hard to fully address one of the billion wars the US has been in, in one school year.
Ihasknees936@reddit
I graduated from a small 2A school in East Texas a few years ago. Was barely taught anything on it in 8th grade, during the first part of U S. History (in Texas, US history is split in 2, everything up to reconstruction is taught in 8th grade) due to it being at the end of the curriculum and the coach who taught the class not caring to teach anything. Whatever I learned in that class was whatever was in the textbook which pretty much just focused on the major battles, the deviation in the South, and touched on the emancipation proclamation and didn't really mention slavery outside of it. It did mention the mass hanging in Gainesville and the Nueces Massacre (and by mention the Nueces Massacre I mean just say that there was an altercation with the Germans in the area).
Saltpork545@reddit
The civil war was first discussed in 4th grade for me. That was 1994. I was taught lost cause in Missouri in the 90s. It wasn't until high school when I purposefully took a civil war history class that the ideas of lost cause were even talked about. I didn't know who the Daughters of the Confederacy were until I was 17, and it took a few more years for me to study and understand fully.
Illustrious-Lead-960@reddit
I went to school partly in the south and partly up north and we learned exactly the same things in both places.
kateinoly@reddit
I took American History in Mississippi in the 1970s. It was taught asca state's rights issue.
Reduxalicious@reddit
mid 2000's
Zero attempt to justify any of it- We went into the Civil War right after Texas History so we also learned how Sam Houston basically was over-thrown in order to join the Confederates and he was of course pissed about it and guessed how the War would end.
Learned about the economics of it and how the South assumed the Brits might come and help them due to "old king cotton?" Or something like that.
I've never heard the term "War of northern aggression" except from anecdotes from people in other Southern states.
Why that is? I have no clue, It may be because Texas identifies itself with Texas and not as a southern state, or because the Civil war result in a Governor being over thrown as well as the Hill Country having friction with the Slave Owners and German Immigrants who were against being conscripted into the Confederacy.
kangareagle@reddit
In Georgia mostly in the 80s: Slavery was bad and the South wanted to keep it.
Sabertooth767@reddit
I'm a Zoomer, so I was in school relatively recently.
I was taught that the war was about slavery. I don't think that the cruelty of slavery was downplahyed, per se- there was certainly no effort to portray slavery as anything but negative- though I do think it could've been highlighted in a more effective manner. I remember being at a mueseum (unafilliated with school) and being struck by the sight of a list of slaves for sale. Obviously we all know that slavery involves the buying and selling of human beings, but literal advertizements detailing that young women are the most valuable because they can produce more slaves you for... ugh. We didn't get into how the domestic slave trade worked: systematic sexual exploitation.
A point strongly, and perhaps wrongly, emphasized was that NC sent many men to the Union. In reality, the vast majority of North Carolinians who faught in the war did so for the South.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
One of the things that was the most jarring to me that I learned only as an adult was selling boys away from their mother early as possible that they could work and didn't need a mother to feed them, etc - was best practice. So a common sight was little boys shackled together age 4-6 getting sold away.
It meant a mother wouldn't be a problem protecting them from physical abuse and that the kid was less likely to know who their mother was and unable to find a place to run.
rogun64@reddit
I went to school in the 70s and 80s. Although I've heard others say they were taught the Civil War wrong in the South, and I don't doubt that they were, I was taught it correctly. My teachers also spent a lot of time teaching it.
Now, what we didn't talk about was Reconstruction. I don't know if that was due to being in the South or just represents the time I was in school, but while it was covered, it was covered very quickly. I think we should have spent more time on Reconstruction than we did. I'm not sure who's to blame for that, however, because I think my history teachers were good teachers.
Embarrassed_Tip6456@reddit
I got mine in the Carolinas, it was taught as a conflict that was inevitable due to a lot of vagueness in the constitution and slavery being the primary political wedge however they did say generally that in that era the federal government and the states didn’t really have as well set hierarchy of power and many states held the belief that they could exit the union so war was inevitable it was just a matter of when
pastari@reddit
Raleigh, NC in the 90s: The Civil War was about states rights.
My middle school history teacher had a confederate flag pinned to the wall as "decoration." I'm sure that would go over like a lead balloon today, especially in North Raleigh.
I knew it was actually primarily about slavery maybe late highschool but still would have told you it was about "states rights to own slaves" with a straight face. I didn't learn that "states rights" was complete horseshit specifically taught in public education to try to reframe the war until my early 30s.
Content_Structure118@reddit
We were taught in the 80s in Virginia that the war was over state's rights. We were shown both sides of the conflict because we literally lived within 2 miles of a major battleground. The civil was was a major part of our history class.
kingoden95@reddit
I went to a rural school in Alabama in the 2000’s, we were taught that slavery was the main factor in starting the civil war, and were taught about the horrors of slavery. Never once was slavery justified by my teachers, and the whole conversation about “states rights” or “the south being taxed” never came up. I will say however that there was more focus on the economic impacts on the south after the war, rather than the war itself.
VampireGremlin@reddit
It was taught that slavery was the main reason for the war.
To-RB@reddit
My elementary school history teacher told us she wished the South had won. It wasn’t controversial and I agreed with her. The world wasn’t as woke back when I went to school. We were allowed to study the history of wars without demonizing one side or the other, which seems possible in today’s environment where everything has become moral.
yellowbubble7@reddit
Maryland, so questionably the South: over time we were taught the war was because of slavery, Maryland didn't secede but some people wanted to and Lincoln pressured Maryland into staying (as we got towards high school they explained the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus), Marylanders fought on both sides, and Maryland was a slave state (they never directly said slaves in Maryland weren't freed with the Emancipation Proclamation). Oh, and depending on the textbook for the year we could have either Southern or Northern names for battles, leading to my not always knowing that certain battles were the same (like Manassas and Bull Run).
IndependentMix676@reddit
I’m from Kentucky. Mom’s side was Confederate; dad’s was Union. Mom’s side owned slaves; dad’s side was part black and part native (known as “Melungeons”). Mom’s family was from a wealthy county; dad’s family was from the historically “Unionist” chain of counties forming southern Appalachia that stretched as far south as Georgia.
Kentucky was a border state, tried to stay neutral at first, then joined the Union after an organized Confederate invasion in the south of the state.
We were basically taught that the Civil War was about slavery, full stop. This was in AP US history. But in other classes / in everyday conversation, there was a lot of disagreement. It basically boiled down to someone’s politics at home. Conservatives tended to say one thing while liberals tended to say another. There was a tendency by those with Confederate ancestors to try and frame the rebellion as something noble.
People generally don’t want to accept that their ancestors fought for a cause meant to preserve slavery. It’s generally understood to some degree that many southerners didn’t really know what they were fighting for. They weren’t well-educated and were largely from small, isolated farms. Same thing goes for Union soldiers.
wooper346@reddit
I remember a lot of attempts to “both sides” it, especially to point out that the house slaves were allegedly thought of as family and typically well taken care of.
Agile_Property9943@reddit
LMAO “you know ol’ Sally! She’s been forced to serve our family on torture of death but besides forcing her to do everything we want her to do, the beatings, whippings here and there and hard labor with no rewards and the everyday terror without a life of her own or body autonomy she likes it here! We’re just like family!!”
WashuOtaku@reddit
People got mad, made a few irrational decisions and regretted it for 10 years afterwards till people got tired why they fought and went back to status-quo.
Undispjuted@reddit
My Tennessee education consisted of “white people evil, Southerners extra evil. No nuance or discussion of the effects of the war on civilians, draftees, or those who joined the war out of desperation/fear/other factors will be allowed. Whiteness is evil and since you were born in the former Confederate States, you are tainted by evil.” This continued into college and everything I know beyond that I had to learn myself by visiting museums and interviewing historians and reading the books and letters of the time.
Recent-Irish@reddit
Oh we were clearly taught how about Lincoln was a tyrant /s
Vachic09@reddit
Mine was relatively in depth regarding the eastern front.
rjm1378@reddit
Oh, you mean the War of Northern Aggression? Or, if they were trying to be polite, the War of the Blue and the Grey?
In most of my classes (Suburban Atlanta, 80s/90s), it was officially called the Civil War, but, there were two or three teachers who definitely referred to it as the War of Northern Aggression. It changed as I got through high school in the late 90s but earlier teachers definitely called it that.
albertnormandy@reddit
When I was a little kid I thought it was called the Silver War and was a war over silver, which made perfect sense to me. Then I learned the real truth. Lincoln put a whoopie cushion under Jeff Davis’s senate chair, one prank led to another, and things got out of hand.
lamby_geier@reddit
so luckily i was homeschooled, so my formal education was very much “yes. this was about slavery. here is everything that happened, and here are a lot of the horrors enslaved people faced.”
(although there was a lot we didn’t cover, but i think that was the nature of the program.)
but from people around me? no, it was just about the north, trying to control the south… slavery barely had anything to do with it!
QuarterMaestro@reddit
I had South Carolina and American history in 8th grade, in the early 90s. The teacher actually had a PhD so he was thorough and unbiased. I remember he did explicitly say, "It was about slavery."