history question??

Question

i was watching gone with the wind last night and as i am no good at history can someone explain the civil war to me please? who was fighting who and why??

Answer 1

The Civil War started when Abraham Lincoln led a Northern raiding party into the South to capture the three holy Southern relics collectively known as the Triforce. The South, organized under Jefferson Davis and St. Robert E. Lee, resisted the raiding party and struck back across the Potomac. Lincoln escaped with the Triforce of Power, Lee kept the Triforce of Wisdom, and the Triforce of Courage was hidden in the West.

After two long decades of fighting, the war reached its head when Jackson Pickett clashed with George Pershing at Gettsyburg. Pershing had constructed a number of fortifications and deployed his crack Massachusetts troops in two rings about the small town. Pickett attacked three times with heavy infantry and dragoons, and each time was repulsed. Finally, Pickett ordered his dragoons to dismount and led a charge himself. Pickett was killed in battle, but would forever be known as "Stonewall Jackson" for his resoluteness.

Bereft of Pickett's army, the South's defenses quickly crumbled. General Sherman burned a path to the sea, including the unfortunate city of Atlanta, to better allow the North to move supplies from the Atlantic ports into the interior. General Ulysses "Fitty" Grant harassed St. Lee's Grand Army and defeated it in detail. Finally, St. Lee surrendered to Grant, presenting him with Jefferson Davis's head in exchange for his own life. The Southern resistance at last fell, and Lincoln had two parts of the Triforce. He was shot by voiceover actor John Wilkes Boothe before he could mount an expedition to recover the Triforce of Courage, and to this day, that portion of the Triforce remains lost.

Answer 2

I'm going to star this, not because it's a 'new question' but because its a genuine one. For once we are responding to a genuine interest (triggered by a great classic in literature and cinema) instead of doing some lazy b's homework for them!

Then it also deserves a star for two of the most 'interesting' answers I've seen in a long time - and ones that you will never find in Wikipedia! Bravo ChrisA for one of the most entertaining and misleading answers I've ever seen in Yahoo, and to Kobaincito's insightful answer. You might disagree (I don't entirely...) with Kob but you know that you are reading a thoughtful opinion and not a Wiki slice.

I'd say that three things triggered it, and sustained it, and that is:

(1) State rights versus Federal rights. The South were expressing a view that States 'made' the 'United States' and had the right to govern their own affairs, and even 'unmake the United States if that was their wish (and it was).

(2) Clash of cultures, an industrial north and an agricultural south had different 'ambitions' for themselves and had different priorities in terms of overseas trade and trade protection.

(3) Slavery, which was part of the 'agricultural' South's essential makeup was generally not in favor in the North - but as Kob notes, was not 'needed' in the North because there were large numbers of people in the North willing to work as hard as the slaves did in the South, for very little pay in factories.

You'd note that that different folk held these things to be the 'real' reason at various times, and that for some what started out as an 'economic' issue became an issue of 'human dignity'. I'd have to say (sadly) that the treatment of African Americans following the Civil War, suggests that the economic and States rights arguments had more impact (at least back then) that the argument about the moral necessity to bring 'equality to all men'.

But we shouldn't discount the genuine and honorable belief that some had at the time that the notion of human liberty was a cause worth fighting and dying for. If it took a hundred years or so (until the 1960's) for that to come to full fruition, then we should only note that some great ideas and noble causes take a while to come to full flower, and respect those folk back then for 'starting' that work. I'd have to say in all other respects but this, I have a great deal of sympathy for the position taken by the South, and admiration for the vigor and intelligence (if there is such a thing in war) with which they prosecuted it.

But the other lesson, found in the horrific casualties suffered on both sides, is that war is a bad way of resolving differences, and that - if we remember that cost - we should be inspired to look for every other way before we resort to it.

Answer 3

There is an alternative perspective that views the U.S. Civil War as a struggle between the two distinct societies which came to develop above and below the Mason-Dixon line. That is, an agricultural pre-modern society responsible for producing raw materials at low cost competed with an industrial pre- and early capitalist (arguably modern by the time of the revolution) competed for eminence over the legislation of production. Realizing that it was doomed to submit to a coalition attacking the institution at the very core of its production, the South decided to move on its bid for autonomy. Significantly the south wrapped itself in the flag of confederacy, which gives a second meaning to the civil war as the most enduring turn in the debate (started early on and best represented by Madison and Hamilton) between state and federal power.
Slavery was brought to be the central issue by the fact that it was the institution under attack, and that the Lincoln made his Gettysburg Address into a fighting standard, continuing an enduring European tradition of proclaiming lofty justifications for the most pragmatic actions.
The truth is racism was to continue into our day and that the abolitionist movement was not very credible since it did not concern itself with blacks' adaptation to freedom unfettered by local tyrants. Just look at the British abolitionist movement of the XIX c., involved with their self image, Anglo-Saxon's often embrace causes which they easily abandon. The British lent credibility to the most brutal murderer (Leopold II) without even lending an eye, supervising or just checking in on Congo, where the British are responsible for sheer lack of interest, for legitimizing the cover of a genocidal campaign. 8-10M Congolese died, but the British were happy slave runners did not roam the W. African shores.
The point is blacks did not become free until they free themselves, and all that self-praise of whites about the lofty principles of the north are BS. The truth is slavery was not abolished until a more efficient system of exploitation was put on the table. When the North could truly say to the South, "It is more efficient to exploit workers than it is to exploit slaves", then slavery was wholly demonized. The South's aristocratic culture could not abandon status for mere efficiency and the North saw to it that its will be done.
So, we can say that the Civil War is the first US experiment in state building. Looking down on a distinct state's cultural economy and then forcing it to accommodate to the needs of the US for raw material. All done under the cover of democratization or anti communism or abolitionism with te express purpose of obtaining cheap oil, cheap bananas, cheap cotton, and the markets to sell those products at.
The North forced the South to enter the modern era because it meant cotton could be more readily deployed to the north's textile industry without the price volatility caused by constant unrest under bodange.






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Answer 4

The United States fought against each other over states rights and how the southern states wanted to make their own money and have their own governments apart from the central government and to have the central government just be a figure head alot like England. It was also about the states rights to have slaves.

Answer 5

The northern states were fighting the southern states.
Issues were:
Must all the states remain in the Union (can some break away to form their own country)?
Must chattel slavery be abolished, contained, or sustained?

Answer 6

Americans fought each other

Answer 7

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