Cherokee Confederate veterans of the Thomas Legion at the 1901 annual reunion.
The North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial
www.ncwbts150.com “Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty”
Some
contemporary historical sources in North Carolina continue to use the
Northern term (and viewpoint) for the 1861-1865 conflict, "civil war,'
though a North Carolina-specific commemoration of that period would
properly use the terminology of the period – e.g., that of Alexander
Stephens, Admiral Raphael Semmes and others. This website relates that
historical period through the eyes and minds of North Carolinians then,
and this is the only manner with which we can today understand those who
preceded us in time. Below the reader will find our reasons for using
the proper historical term, the one which North Carolinians would use to
describe that struggle for independence.
The Phrase “Civil War”
“A
civil war is a war between citizens of the same state contending for
control of the same government. The war between the North and South was
the war of the North against a separate government, that as long as it
lasted was a de facto nation, exercising all the powers of an
independent government.
The
term “civil war” concedes all that the North ever claimed, makes [the
South] guilty of treason, and is untrue to the facts in the case. [The]
term “civil war,” while incorrect as a simple definition of the
struggle, does a gross injustice to the South by degrading her struggle
for a national existence into a partisan conflict. I never use it and
mark it out of every book where I find it. Let history tell the
truth.”
(“The Phrase “Civil War,” Rev. S.A. Steel, Jackson, Tenn., Confederate Veteran, July 1912, pg. 347)
