All the States east of the Mississippi River up to the state of Georgia, had felt the hardships of the war. Georgia, and South Carolina, and almost of North Carolina, up to this time, had been exempt from invasion of the Northern armies except upon their immediate sea coasts. Their newspapers had given such an account of Confederate success that the people who remained at home had been convinced that the Yankees had been whipped from first to last, and driven from pillar to post, and that now they could hardly be holding out for any other purpose than to find a way out of the war with honor to themselves.
Even during this march by Sherman’s the newspapers in his front were proclaiming daily that his army was nothing better than a mob of men who were frightened out of their wits and were hastening, panic-stricken, trying to get under the cover of our navy for protection against the Southern people.
Ulysses S. Grant
1894
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant Page 652
[I just finished this book, except for the appendix.
I found it striking that the Democrats of the 1860s were as out of touch with reality as the Democrats of 2016.—Joe]
How about that dying gun industry?
“I found it striking that the Democrats of the 1860s were as out of touch with reality as the Democrats of 2016.”
Yep; nothing has changed a bit, except that the Republican Party has atrophied, stumbled, forgotten it’s purpose, and then mostly gone over and joined the Democrats. The Democrats now run almost totally unopposed except in the minds of a few who have nothing to do with politics. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
It is striking, but only because of the miserable state of our education can we go through twelve years of primary ed, and who knows how many years of “college”, and have to learn this stuff on our own rather than by, say, eighth grade. If we’d known it in the 1960s we’d be seeing 95 percent of black Americans voting Republican today instead of voting Democrat, and we might even still have a Republican Party that means something,
And THAT, Young Grasshopper, is why such things are not taught, why they MUST NOT BE taught, and why we must learn them on our own.
This brings us to the matter of the first amendment and public education. Government education should have been prohibited from the beginning, along with nationalized religion, and for exactly the same reasons.
For a corrupt government, truth is the enemy, as are the American Principles. When that government runs education, we get anti-American anti-education. There’s nothing more or less to it. It’s that simple. And so, when we stumble into some real history, such as the actual words of the actual people who lived it, we are surprised for that reason and that reason alone.
In short then; under a system of government-run education, any discovery of truth will be a surprise. It will also be a matter of controversy.
Grant’s Memoirs is a fascinating , well written book that I would highly recommend to anyone who is interested in the Civil War. Sherman’s Memoirs are also quite good. Both are available as free downloads on Gutenberg.org