Civil War - 150 Years

[Mark]

I was reading an article about how it is the 150 year anniversary of the start of the Civil War or as the south called it, The War of Succession and how no one is really paying much attention to this anniversary.

Why is that?

The biggest and bloodiest war on our soil and nary a peep in these parts.

Have we forgotten?

[BillW]

LOts of people would like to forget it, but you better hope to hell that they don'tMost of the Southerners fighting that war couldn't even afford to buy a slaveOur family losT Members,land, and what went with it (if you get my drift. I just gave my brother a print rom the 'Daughters of thE Confederacy' of General Robert E. Lee ,that I had as I figured it fit better in NC than up here in DE

PS we actually prefe he 'War of Northern Aggression'.

[cowboygilbert]

President Lincoln never denied Southerners were citizens of the United States whether they liked being citizens or not. Secession was NOT an option in 1861. Southerners were not "free" to secede from the Union because they gave that right up in exchange for the US Constitution being ratified by ALL the States when ONE Republic was founded. Southern rights like the rights of Northerners were only guaranteed in the US Constitution. Lincoln took great pains over and over again to stress this crucial point in justifying his military actions to put down the Southern insurrection.

[gongoputch]

I would not cll myself a civil war expert by any stretch, but I have spent some time thinking about it.
Gettysburg 2009 - Gongowiki
Antietam 2009 - Gongowiki
Fort delaware is also an historical site for the civil war. Tho no fighting was done there it was a major prison, with quite an unexpected and interesting history. They have re-enactors there and everything. Might not be a bad place for a delawarean to commemorate the anniversary.
BillW - A small piece of trivia, Delaware was (arguably) EAST of the Mason/Dixon line. While it joined the northern cause, there was plenty of southern sympathetic politics and public sentiment here.

[longnecker]

I was reading an article about how it is the 150 year anniversary of the start of the Civil War or as the south called it, The War of Succession and how no one is really paying much attention to this anniversary.

Why is that?

The biggest and bloodiest war on our soil and nary a peep in these parts.

Have we forgotten?

Not something I would want to celebrate.

[gongoputch]

Not something I would want to celebrate.

Celebrate is not the word, commemorate would be a better one. It is my considered opinion that without an understanding of the civil war, one can not understand this country. It was the hammer blow that forged the mettle of what we are today. Valor on both sides deserves to be honored. Much was lost and just about everything was changed.
Militarily it was the transition from the old napoleonic tactics and modern warfare. Fredericksburg was the foreshadowing of the WW I trench warfare. "Ironclads" were developed and while they had little effect militarily, it spelled the end of the wooden war ship.
Politically the changes and mechanisms of those changes were no less sweeping, but I will refrain from going on and on about this ...

[neversilent]

Out of sight, out of mind.

Kind of like Carrot Top.