If you lived during the American Civil War, which side would you have supported and why?

Question

Confederate or Union? And why? Don't just keep your answers on the topic of slavery, even though that is important and I want to hear about that as well. Also, tell me your thoughts on whether the states had a right to secede or not. Girls... would you have been satisfied to sit at home and darn socks and make quilts for your soldiers, or would you have been tempted to disguise yourself as a guy and join up with the army? Guys, would you have the guts to fight for what you truly believe is right?

You are so right wonder woman! Slavery was very wrong. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't get answers like: "north because slavery is bad" because even though slavery was a huge part and it is good that it was abolished, the fact of state's rights are so often overshadowed by the slavery issue.

Answer 1

Neither. They were both wrong. Yes the states have a right to secede. If they don't want to be a part of the US then so be it. Is this a democracy or not? The Union didn't respect blacks anymore than the slave owners did. There were some on each side that didn't like slavery and some that respected human life regardless of color but as a whole neither side really gave a krap about the blacks. There were attrocities commited by both sides. I would have defended my home and let the other idiots fight for something I didn't believe in. I would have aided anyone wounded and probably been killed for it as a traitor. As for disguising myself as a man....no I wouldn't. If I were there as I am now I would have been seen as too outspoken and not knowing my "place" but I would not have disguised who and what I was even if it meant punishment. If my children were in danger I'd move them to a safer location to stay out of it. It was a rediculous war as most are but even more so because both sides were shaming us as a country. IT's a very embarrassing part of American History.

Anyone that thinks the Civil War was all about slavery needs to do some research. They are disillusioned. That is like believing the Iraqi war is about the people there.

Answer 2

This is a great question and its a really hard one to answer. On one hand I would choose the North because, obviously, they won the physical battle and did not see the same amount of damage as the South did. I'm also from NY so that would naturally put me in a blue uniform, although NY did lose the most soldiers out of any northern state.
On the other hand, the South had fought for state's rights, something I hold dear to me. I know that we are taught that the South fought for slavery, which they did, but they mainly fought for a state's RIGHT to have slavery. Now, I do not advocate any kind of inhumane and inherently racist institutions like slavery or racial inequality, but I do favor a system of government that lets it's people decide on how they should run their own show. Personally, I think that the North should have let the South secede and continued their enormous growth. It would have opened the possibility of a stronger, more progress United States and would have gotten rid of strong, conservative ideology that has held the current U.S. back from real progressive change in science, technology, and civil rights. So, like I said before, this question is hard to give a definitive answer for me, but its a great question to ask!

Answer 3

I've always heard people say that civil war wasn't really about slavery = about state rights. But i think it would be more accurate to say that it was about the right of states to have slavery. I don't think you can seperate the two here?

Having said that I 'd have sided with the north, since the south agreed to the constitution, which guarantees all (people) are equal. Constitutional law overides individual states rights. That was whole point of constitution and articles of confederation.

Having said that, I might have sided with the south since I don't think this war was really about slavery at all but corporate greed. The industrial north -- big business -- versus private land owners. (The war 'freed' the slaves but I don't think that was their goal, just the rhetoric).

None of this is even my oppinion, just stuff I'm contemplating while wanting to know more about the civil war.=) Like, did the north try any kind of comprimise such as returning to indentured servents rather than slavery or was it just a flat out demand? Was any compensation made? While slavery strikes me as immoral, you're talking about the collapse of an entire economy (cotton) -- which northern industry greatly profited from.

In short, I might have high tailed it to Canada. Either to avoid the draft(?) or to join the Irish Regiment that got drunk, went up to Canada and attacked a Brittish fort. I'm pretty sure I would have fought in the American Revolution; and had I been just a wee bit older, I definately would have been there in the 60s -- both canada and the south.

Answer 4

For a start, slavery would probably not have had a lot to do with it. Several Union generals were slave owners and several Confederate generals were not. The average Union soldier did not fight to end slavery but to preserve the union. Lincoln was well aware of that. Consider that the emancipation proclamation was very slow in coming out and then only affected slaves in territory not controlled by the union. So, Lincoln freed slaves he had no control over and retained in slavery those he could have freed. Why did he do this? Because a lot of influential Northerners were slave owners. The ordinary man in blue was from the inner city, where conditions were as bad as slavery, or the farm boys from the mid-west who lived a hard life doing the tasks that the slaves did in the south. Neither group had time to care about slaves, their lives were just as bad, just as hard and with the same lack of prospects. They fought for the union and nothing else.

Which side you supported would almost certainly have come down to where you lived unless it was one of the border states and even then it would have depended on your family's background.

Answer 5

To answer this you really have to put 20/20 hindsight aside and put yourself in the place of an 1860's American.

Assuming that's true, I would probably have not traveled more than 20 miles from where I was born - so I would support my neighbors and family, then possibly whatever state I was living in.

The concept of Union wasn't as entrenched then as it is now, especially in the South where people felt a direct connection with their state. Most southerners were too poor to own slaves, so for many of them slavery was not the major issue. In fact, for most poor southerners who filled the ranks, the bigger issue was whether or not a federal government could tell them what to do.

I would have been raised with the social moors of the time, and as a female, I would probably have stayed at home to help run the farm and provide for the soldiers while reading Ivanhoe by Walter Scott and dreaming of chivalry.

That was the case for gals on both sides of the conflict.

Answer 6

II hate to tell you that the side that you would have been on was almost entirely geographical. I doubt very seriously anyone would buck the government and their families for ideological reason. If you had grown up in the South you would not see anything wrong with slavery (most likely) since it was part of your life everyday. That doesn't make it right but it was just how it was. Today we don’t see anything wrong with women wearing pants but it was unthinkable before 1940. If you grew up in the North then you would have supported the Union. Once again it would have been what you had always known. Ideology is great but it is not reality.

Since I live in WV I could have gone either way since I live on the VA border. I'd like to think that I would have supported the Union but in reality I would have supported which ever side my family was supporting.

Answer 7

Sure, slavery was behind everything, but the war actually began over the issue of states' rights -- essentially, was the nation a single entity or a collection of independent states who had the right to withdraw from it?

I can't really accept the Union's ad baculum argument, so I have to believe that states, southern or not, had the right to leave the union. Slavery became a primary issue only halfway through the war, though of course abolitionists had all along supported the single-nation argument.

Answer 8

It is not a sin to fight to secede, especially when you are up against an oppressive regime. That was not the case in the American Civil War. The Confederates wanted to secede because they could not agree to stop slavery. I would have certainly fought with the Unions, in support of their measures for abolition of slavery.

Answer 9

The Confederacy, without question. Why? For the same reasons I would have fought for the 13 Colonies if I'd lived during the American Revolution; self-determination.

There are a lot of myths and outright lies about that era, and one I want to correct here is that most Southerners were poor; they were not. Not being rich doesn't mean you're poor. Most Southerners owned their own land and lived off it. They were very much more free than we are today. The government did not intrude into every nook and cranny of their existence. They lived pretty much as they pleased, and this is one reason so many of them put on gray uniforms and took up arms against an intrusive Federal government.

Answer 10

Being from the South, and believing slavery was and is immoral,heinous, and degrading in every way to everyone involved,I believe our founding fathers wanted it eradicated, even though they themselves were mostly slaveholders,should not have allowed it in the constitution for any period of time just to form the union. The only way I would have fought for the south would have been to defend my home and family.