Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Civil War: 150 years later

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the War of Northern Aggression, the Late Unpleasantness -- whatever you want to call it. In short, it was an ugly period in American history. Fortunately, some VERY good things came from it.

Yahoo News has put together a slideshow of rare photos from the time. You can view it here. After all, it was probably the first war to be documented with film.

The war, writes Yahoo News, "is so often described in battles — the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Fort Sumter — that it may be easy to forget that the soldiers who fought in the four-year war had a lot of time between fighting."

North Carolina was late to "the game" (actually, the latest of the southern states to get involved) of the War.

"Many North Carolinians, especially yeoman farmers who owned few or no slaves, felt ambivalently about the Confederacy; draft-dodging, desertion, and tax evasion were common during the Civil War years," writes Wikipedia. "However, North Carolina contributed more troops to the Confederacy than any other state. The Union's naval blockade of Southern ports and the breakdown of the Confederate transportation system took a heavy toll on North Carolina residents, as did the runaway inflation of the war years. In the spring of 1863, there were food riots in North Carolina."

In the end, North Carolina gave more resources and men to the Confederate cause than any other state. (That includes you, Virginny.)

Also from Wikipedia: North Carolina "provided an important source of soldiers, supplies, and war materiel to the Confederate States of America ... The city of Wilmington was among the leading ports of the Confederacy, providing a vital lifeline of trade with England and other countries, especially after the Union blockade choked off most other Confederate ports. Large supplies of weapons, ammunition, accoutrements, and military supplies flowed from Wilmington throughout the South.

"Troops from North Carolina played a major role in dozens of major battles, including the Battle of Gettysburg, where Tar Heels were prominent in Pickett's Charge. One of the last remaining major Confederate armies, that of Joseph E. Johnston, surrendered near Bennett Place in North Carolina after the Carolinas Campaign."

As the famous memorial states, North Carolina's troops are remembered as such: "First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and last at Appomattox."

1 comment:

Atlanta Roofing said...

Not about good or bad, but I think we must recognize the Civl War for what it was, a war mainly about slavery and how to end it. This doesn’t make the South bad and the North good, as both sides engaged in a heinous practice in order to be prosperous at the expense of an entire people. The fact is, slavery was the issue, and we are, as a nation, both North and South, Red and Blue, conservative and liberal, completely responsible for it. May God have mercy.