Different mindset that we cannot contemplate or understand and never will.
The Grant biography is very long but very good. Unfortunately he/ we had to sacrifice a lot of men to gain every inch of ground we took but it finally paid off at Appomattox:
Pretty much everyone both north and south, held what we would consider to be racist views. That would include Lincoln. All you have to do is read anything written by people who lived in that period. Sherman, for example, believed slavery was a good thing.
And in the South the Twenty Negro Act you could get an exemption from the draft if you were a slave owner or overseer - because somebody had to keep the slaves in line.
During the first Christmas of WW1 there was a cease fire and they ended up playing soccer at one point in no man’s land.
Slaves and immigrants do jobs people don't want to do. The argument that immigrants steal jobs is laughable. The jobs they take are available because no one wants to do them.
Interesting discussions of his tactics, probably the most effective of them being attacking in multiple places so that Lee couldn't move his army around from engagement to engagement.
Interesting book if you are a Civil War nerd “Apostles of Disunion” by Charles Dew deals with commissioners Deep South states sent to other southern states to convince them to join secession
Absolutely correct, we live in the best possible time in the best possible world.
That may be your experience, but I see this all the time. I am an investor in a family real estate development company. We hire a number of legal immigrants and American-born workers from latin-American backgrounds and Puerto Ricans (who are American) to work in skilled and unskilled manual labor. I constantly hear derisive comments that the jobs should go to 'Americans'. And guess who're the harder workers?
Of course my comment was sarcastic, but in spite of all our problems, I still do believe we live in the best possible time in the history of the world. The world has always been a messed up place and always will be.
Checked the sight pretty cool. A few that I would suggest 1 right in our back yard the USS New Jersey was awesome, the WW2 museum in New Orleans was real good only got to spend about an hour in there. I could have gotten lost in there for the whole da.
I have my dad's Army Air Force uniform from WWII: I need to figure out how to display that.
No doubt. Slavery was a major sticking point after the Revolutionary war too. Many wanted it ended then but they went ahead and kept it to stay unified or else Great Britain would have come right back at us. Again, the wealthy and those in power wanted slavery to get richer and have more power. Not every person in the USA wanted it.
So much cool history. Some thing you dont hear about on old wars were training injuries/deaths I'm sure there were a ton. My uncle was one of them. Training in England for D-day LST door opened and Compound fractured his leg. Turned out very lucky injury that haunted him for the rest of his life, everyone in his platoon either died in their LST or never made it onto or off the beach. My mom told me that story. Dr's must have been pretty bad back then or the technology was god awful just remember being about 10 or so and he had a real bad limp still from his leg. Then we went to one of my wife's besties parents house for dinner they were German. I went into a room and her parents dad was in German military and just saw like 50 mounted pictures of him in uniform., medals etc I was amazed could have spent all day going thru scrap books on the German end of things. They showed me some but we had to go. Totally humanized the German end of things for me.
Also covers corruption, drafts being picked up by poor Irishmen from rich men, fixed elections and how the powerful oppress those less powerful. Right out in the open back then. Great flick.
They briefly touch on the fire dept stuff too.
What we consider to be racist views today would be laughed at by those who gave their lives in this war. However, I do agree blacks, Chinese, Irish (lesser extent but abused in that day) and other minorities were treated very poorly during these times. Later it was the Italians. Then the Puerto Rican’s and so on. NJ is pretty much a melting pot today. People with money may feel superior and poor people may feel inferior but I view neither that way. You’re either a good dude or you’re not in my rating scale. Many levels in between but that’s how I view people.
The period right before the war gave rise to the American Party aka the No Nothings. They hated all immigrants, Catholics, Masons, etc.
Myth of the “Lost Cause” pushed by the South to rewrite history.
Thanks I’ll do that now. The Irish and Scottish were also abused by the Brits. Slavery and all.
Losing 6,000 men in 20 minutes at Cold Harbor in 1864 was very hard on Grant. Took that to his grave.
