Q:
This is the last full year of the Sesquicentennial Observance, what new
efforts and activities will we see in North Carolina in 2014?
A:
Being a volunteer and private-donation based organization we are
planning and doing what our many supporters and researchers suggest and
participate in – and this should be a very active year. More pertinent
and informative topics presented on the website, and some interesting
living histories touring the State and featuring “Generals in
Conversation.’
Q:
By the way, your organization is the War Between the States
Sesquicentennial Commission, not the North Carolina Civil War
Sesquicentennial, is this correct?
A:
Yes, the civil war-titled group is with the State government. They
seem to do a good job with a chronological listing of battles and such
during the war while www.ncwbts150.com
is a view of that conflict from a North Carolinian perspective, and I
think we take a deeper and more philosophical approach to the sectional
war, why it occurred and why it was not avoided.
Q: Why avoid the common “Civil War” moniker? Is this not the most accurate name?
A:
We are historians and see nothing admirable in continuing to use an
incorrect and confusing term for the war, and prefer what North
Carolinians called the conflict in the postwar. “Civil war” is a
Northern term which followed the previous incorrect term referring to
the war as one of rebellion. North Carolina was not involved in gaining
control of the Washington government in 1861 and hence no “civil war”;
nor did it “rebel” against anything. It voluntarily withdrew from the
1787 union as it had withdrawn from the Articles of Confederation;
remember the State voluntarily joined the 1787 union and had no
withdrawal been mentioned then, there would have been no union. One has
to use language accurately.
Q: Do you see the war as a Lost Cause on the part of the South, and North Carolina?
A:
Of course. Keep in mind the cause that was lost was of maintaining
constitutional government against usurpation of power. In that sense it
was lost, and recall Lord Acton’s grieving more about what was lost at
Appomattox than what was gained at Waterloo. We lost the 1787 republic
of the Founders’ and still live in a consolidated union that was never
intended.
Also,
there is a fixation on the part of some revisionist historians today on
a so-called “Myth of the Lost Cause” and how Southerners in the postwar
had the nerve to rationalize their defeat and commemorate their losses
and dead heroes. These limited-vision scholars need to take a look at
what the North did in the same period in their towns and cities as they
erected a Myth of Saving the Union. It is an easy task to reveal this
mythology and that the Founders’ union was destroyed beyond recognition.
Q:
Your topics run the gamut and highlight what seem to be overlooked
questions. The very impressive bibliography directs your visitors to
further investigation of the topics.
A:
Indeed, and most of our topics have been suggested by our Commission
members who I am proud to say are private citizens, and many of them
fine historians in their own right. As a Commission we wanted to tell
the story of North Carolinians in this tragic conflict, why they fought,
what they did, and what they thought of what they were doing – and
through the eyes of them then – not our assumptions or often mistaken
views of today. We highly recommend books written on the war before the
1960s cultural revolution in this country, though there are many recent
ones that we recommend.
I
believe, and we have gotten many good comments about this, that the
varied topics of the website make people think about the many issues
swirling about when it comes to that war. There of course was no single
issue which caused the war and those who read through our webpages will
gain a wide-ranging view of not just how the war came about and how
North Carolina responded, but also causes them to think very deeply
about why the war came about in the first place – and why was it not
avoided.
Q: Many books on the war say that Sherman did not devastate this State as he did others. Was he easier on North Carolina?
A:
This is hard to understand as there is much literature regarding his
harsh treatment after crossing into North Carolina. One of our most
recent pages is Sherman and Total War – it is not only a compilation of
his brutality and writings regarding his view of total war, but also
scholarly reflection on what this man had unleashed upon the American
people in the South, and how it opened the way for more cruelty in Cuba,
and the two World Wars. As to Sherman in North Carolina, see: http://www.ncwbts150.com/
This
I think is one of the most productive ways to understand the human
condition and recourse to war and its brutality, and better understand
this WBTS and its effect upon America after 1865. Well-known author Tom
DiLorenzo recently wrote on the question of Hitler being deeply
influenced by Sherman’s treatment of Americans in the South, and the
Plains Indians after the war. I have also found a young Spanish attaché
with Sherman during his march, Valeriano Weyler, who eventually rose to
general by the mid-1890s and was sent to Cuba where he brutally
suppressed the independence-minded revolutionaries. The obvious
question is where did he learn his scorched-earth strategy and war
against noncombatants?
Q:
Interesting. You indicated a new page discussing a “Myth of Saving the
Union.” The common knowledge is that Lincoln did save the Union, so how
is this a myth?
A:
Right, that is the common knowledge but is it true? That is the
question we explore, the mythology erected by the North during and after
the war – and it of course continues to this day. Dr. Clyde Wilson has
spoke often about the greatly untilled ground of Northern history, and
that we need a serious and unbiased inquiry into that section’s history –
warts and all – leading up to the war and afterward. What was saved
was a territorial union of States held together by force, and this new
reality was not lost on Northerners who then realized the trap they were
in as well. They now had to accept unconditionally any dictates from
Washington which now had the large standing army the Founders’ feared so
greatly.
It
is a mistake as well to assume that the conqueror, in this case, can
devastate, desolate and depopulate the Southern section of the country,
replace their elected governments with military despotisms and political
opportunists from the North, and expect those subjugated to be
now-loyal citizens of the republic of Washington and Jefferson. There
was no saving the union – it is pure mythology. See: http://www.ncwbts150.com/
Q:
The website contains several references to New England actually being
responsible for slavery in this country, as well as its perpetuation.
Can you elaborate?
A:
What is hard to believe is that this has been suppressed for so long.
In fact, Providence, Rhode Island was the slave-trading capital of North
America by 1750, with Liverpool firms complaining to the Crown about
their inability to find qualified shipwrights locally due to Providence
companies luring them overseas for higher pay.
What
we also find is not only a strong involvement in the African slave
trade and keeping slaves themselves in New England, but also the near
extermination of the Pequot Tribe violently resisting Puritan
encroachment into their territory and the enslavement of the Pequot
survivors – who were then sent to the West Indies as chattel.
Southerners
would then rightly wonder about the New Englander’s past actions of
supplying the South with slaves and demanding slave-produced cotton for
their busy mills in Massachusetts; then theses New Englanders rediscover
their moral compass in the 1830s and embrace radical abolitionism with
the demand of immediate freedom of those they themselves had enslaved.
Another irony and sad fact is that these New Englanders never advanced a
practical and peaceful solution to the slavery they seemed to abhor,
and which could have avoided the war we are talking about.
Q:
We are familiar with one or two conferences in which peace between
North and South were discussed. This certainly would have saved lives.
You cover this on your site?
A:
Yes, we already have the “Washington Peace Conference” page online and a
more extensive “Peace Conferences to End the War” page is coming. This
is derived from a Powerpoint program I have presented across the State
during the Sesquicentennial. There were at least six peace conferences
before and during the war, the first being the Crittenden Compromise
debates which, had the Republicans been compromise-minded, would have
avoided war.
What
emerges from our research is a strong and unmistakable pattern of
outright obfuscation and refusal by Northern politicians and leaders to
effect any and all compromise with legitimate Southern grievances. This
of course increased the possibility of political secession as Southern
leaders saw no manner in which they could continue in a fraternal
political union with those who would only have their way. Up to the
last conference at Hampton Roads, Lincoln would entertain no peaceful
solution that did not include the unconditional surrender of the
American Confederacy, and renouncing all that they had embraced toward
self-government. Lincoln and the Republicans wanted all – and after
Appomattox the South received subjugation, something that was probable
if they had accepted Northern-dictated peace in 183 or 1864. The
Republican party was intent on war and would have no compromise.
Imagine
if there was negotiation, compromise and . . . the same that allowed
the American political union to exist in the first place – and war was
avoided – thus saving the lives of a million people, a South not
devastated by war, ruin and desolation, and the Constitution intact.
This brings to the forefront James Buchanan’s last days in office and an
obvious question as to why this former minister to England and skilled
diplomat did not forcefully promote negotiation and settle the
controversy peacefully. Our website visitors are left with many “whys,”
and reasons to investigate these topics further on their own. See: http://www.ncwbts150.com/
Q: What seems to be a very sensitive topic on your site is about treason against North Carolina.
A:
Yes, it is sensitive for some reason but we tackled it nonetheless
since it reverberates today. Before the War the US Constitution
addressed treason against the “United States,” meaning against the
individual States, and this continued under the Confederate States
Constitution, and North Carolina amended its own Constitution in 1861 by
addressing treason against the State. Remember that John Brown was
tried on a charge of treason against Virginia, found guilty, and was
hung for the crime. That said, we look critically at those who went
over to the enemy by spying or fighting against our State, what that
meant then, and perhaps we can better understand what that means today
in light of Al-Qaeda and Homeland Security. Please see: http://www.ncwbts150.com/
Q: Thank you for speaking with us today, it seems the past can teach us much about ourselves and our country today.
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial
“The Official Website of the North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission”
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