Politics_Observer wrote:@Juin
Politics_Observer <<I am descended of a Confederate ancestor who was a POW at Camp Douglas. My family has his pension records. He survived the war. Personally, I hold no ill will towards Sherman but I did not live during those times either. Sherman was doing his job. My family believes that my Confederate ancestor did not volunteer to fight but was actually conscripted to fight by the Confederate government at the time. He was conscripted in 1863 as the Union army moved on his home county.
He fought in several engagements around or close by Atlanta (I can't say for sure on Altanta) and in Nashville, Tennessee (he was definately in Nashville fighting and had participated in several engagements prior to being captured close by Nashville) where he was captured by Union forces. We think he was likely captured at the Battle of Shy's Hill. Another person who has ancestors that lived during the American Civil War talked about how the Union army stole all their lifestock and put their farm out of business and that the family almost starved to death. His direct descendant became angry and took revenge on Union soldiers and the Union soldiers eventually hunted him down and hung him. This particular person told me his ancestor rode with Confederate guerrillas after losing his farm to Union forces. So, it was a mess.<<Politics_Observer,
Sorry, it took me a while to respond. It was very profound what you wrote. It did not merit a casual response. And it was cause for some reflection on my part.
As to whether your ancestor was a conscript or volunteer. If he was born in the South, I expect him to serve the Southern cause. Except for a very negligile fraction, by and large young men of military age, not the much older ones who make policy, have always fought the wars. And the duty to serve is almost never conditioned upon whether the young man being called to arms agrees with the cause. It is my estimation that if a white man was a resident of the South then his duty was to take up arms with the Southern cause. As equally, the white man born in the North's duty was to take up arms with the North. I see evidence that because Billy Yank wore the blue perforce he was more sympathetic to the plight of blacks than gray clad Johnny Reb.
My suspicion, Politics_Observer, is that there are more like you in your family going back up the tree to your ancestors: decent, anti slavery, upright to the highest degree. And even you, Politics_Observer, if you were born say in 1940, instead of today, you will be the same shining example of a human being. Yet, I expect you to have taken up arms for your State when it was under attack. I wont consider you less of a decent man for for taking up arms for the Confederate cause, given that, for better or for worse, that was the cause you State had taken up.
I will give you another example. And keep in mind I am Roman Catholic. Pope Benedict XVI, before he was Pope, and as the kid Joseph Ratzinger, was in Hitler Youth and did a stint in a flak unit. Some, for that stint in Hitler Youth and in a flak unit, would place Benedict alongside Goebbels in the dock. I do not. As to serving in a flak unit, I expect him, like all German youth, to answer the call to arms. I dont believe he had a choice in the matter anymore than his American age mate answering the call to arms for America. The Hitler Youth thing was different, but it was nevertheless compulsory.
By now you can guess I am a far cry for those contemporary of ours, who go back a century and a half to pass judgements on warriors of another era. It is just plain silly.
Or another food for thought. Given the vehemence which you habour for Donald Trump; and many aside from you do, and some easily see in him Hitler inclinations. Ok. A question to you: if you were still serving in the US Army with Trump as commander in chief, would you have quit the Army and joined some foreign Army to fight against the US, so as to rid it of Trump? Should all soldiers who served in the Army while Trump was President be stripped of medals, purple hearts, and their graves desecrated?
As humans we are hostages to our circumstances. It just happens that the Southern economy depended on slavery directly, while that of the North did not. Some Northerners hated slavery as a concept, fought against it, but also despised the black man as a human. There were riots in northern cities like New York over blacks competing for jobs.
The devil is always in the details.
I also happen to be into the Civil War. I always liked to ponder over which of the Generals I would consider the greatest General. For a long time I leaned towards Grant. But then for much of my life I mostly was interested in the Union. But then, much later, I started looking at their performances with much less bias. Then my vote shifted from Grant to Lee. Lee was like a quarterback with a bag full of tricks. He always led his army into the field against greater odds. And pulled it off a few times. But tricks can only carry you so far.