The War of Northern Aggression Analyzed from
the Confederate Viewpoint
Josh Autry
Mrs. Mallow
English 11
April 29, 2000
The War of Northern Aggression Analyzed from the Confederate Viewpoint
Josh Autry
Mrs. Mallow
English 11
April 29, 2000
Thesis: The world today is blinded from the truth about the "Civil
War" just like they are the truth of the creation vs. evolution debate.
They’re blinded in the same way as well, misleading text books. The truth is
that the North, Lincoln, etc. weren’t as great as they claimed to be, and that
they went to illegal measures for an unjust cause.
I. The schooling controls the people’s view
A. Jefferson Davis’ prediction
B. Public school’s position
1. Why start then?
2. What was the mindset?
3. What was it changed to?
II. The confederates fight for slavery view
A. Southerners didn’t fight for slavery
1. Most soldiers didn’t have slaves
2. Slave property lost either way
B. Not only white Southerners had slavery
1. Black slave-owners
2. Northern slavery
a. From the beginning
b. During war times
C. Lincoln’s real view of slavery
1. White supremacy
2. Black separation
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III. Africans by the Northern view
A. Racism like Lincoln their leader
1. Laws against blacks
2. Abuse on blacks
3. Resulting injury of blacks
IV. The secessionist standpoint
A. The legality of
1. They founders say
2. The only just way
3. The price they paid
B. The work of
V. The horrifying truth of Northern aggression
A. Massacre at Camp Jackson
B. U.S. Gen. Benjamin Butler
1. Harsh punishments
2. Rude abusiveness
3. Slavery in war
C. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
1. As an arsonist
2. As a murderer
D. U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton
E. Lincoln
F. Prisons
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Josh Autry
Mrs. Mallow
English 11
April 29, 2000
The War of Northern Aggression Analyzed from the Confederate Viewpoint
The public school system was used as a tool of the government and still is to
skew the American mind into believing whatever it wants. For example: at the
present time the school child has evolution drilled into their head as fact,
even though it has already been accounted for as false. The C.S.A. (Confederate
States of America) President Jefferson Davis actually predicted this. He taught
that if the South lost, then the North would write it’s history. Therefore, the
generations to come wouldn’t understand the Confederate call for independence
(Kennedy 17).
The public school system was put into effect after the North won the war. It’s
plan was to appeal with a free education, which it did. Then it used it’s
captives in it’s scheme of confusing them about their parents cause. They were
fed by such lies as the Confederates were prejudice slave-holders who beat
black people for fun. This, of course, was very successful. Now a people who
once believed in the federal government was here to help the states reach
common goals, believe it’s their supreme authority.
One of the lies that has already been mentioned is that the "Civil
War" is over slavery. This is one of the most dead wrong statements that
one could think of. First of all, 70 to 80 percent of Southern soldiers didn’t
even own slaves (Kennedy 34). People just don’t get motivated enough to give up
their life over whether their neighbor is going to be able to continue having
something. One soldier in the Confederate army claimed, "I declare I never
met a Southern soldier who had drawn his sword to perpetuate slavery."
Secondly, even for the few slaveholders in the war, C.S.A. President Jefferson
Davis, their leader, predicted that all slave property "will eventually be
lost" no matter what the outcome (Kennedy 35). Why would a slaveholder
risk his life to keep a slave that his leader already told him he’ll lose in
the future?
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The next popular belief to destroy is that only white Southerners owned slaves.
This one isn’t even close to accurate. First things first, white men weren’t
the only slave holders. In fact, black men started slavery by enslaving their
own people in Africa, but that’s beside the point. In the 1830 American census,
over 10,000 slaves were owned by other African-Americans (Kennedy 64, 65). This
would also have to mean that there were free blacks in the South. Actually when
a member of the 12th Connecticut came down, he said that he saw as many free
blacks South as he did in larger cities North (Kennedy 134).
Another surprise will be that the North legalized slavery first in America.
Believe it or not, Massachusetts legalized in 1641 while still a colony
(Kennedy 71). Also, New Jersey still had slavery going on at the start of the
war. In New Jersey to become a free black, you must be born after 1804 and be
older than 21 years of age. So this means that everyone not born after 1804 is
a slave for life and everyone else is until over 21. In the 1851 census, New
Jersey still had 236 slaves for life (Kennedy 75). This was only ten years
before the war! Here’s the last one on slavery for now, Major General Ulysses
S. Grant’s wife owned slaves during the war (Kennedy 27). This is even more
evidence that no one was fighting about slavery.
Everyone had their own views on whites and blacks or blacks and whites at this
time, including the President Abraham Lincoln. Everyone loves him, yet no one
knows him. It’s really easy to appreciate what you don’t know much about. In
1858, Lincoln was in a debate with Douglas in which he spoke on the
relationship between whites and blacks. Listen for yourself:
I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about
in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races-that I
am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor
of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I
will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the
white and black races...I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the
superior position assigned to the white race (Kennedy 27).
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Go figure, Abraham Lincoln a white supremacist! Now that is something you won’t
here in the history books and neither is the next point about him. But if he
was a white supremacist, then why would he be against slavery? It’s because he
wants separation from the black people. In another debate with Douglas, he
says, and I quote, "Let us be brought to believe that it is morally right,
and at the same time favorable to, or at least not against, our interests to
transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it,
however great the task may be" (Kennedy 28). It sounds like everyone will
rejoice at Lincoln picking the splinter out of the South’s eye, but they all
miss the plank in his.
The Northern hypocrites were found more racist than their leader. In the North,
the white carpenters, bricklayers, and painters refused to do work with the
black people, but the whites in the South worked side-by-side with blacks on a
regular basis (Kennedy 53,54). Then as well as Lincoln had his ideas with
abolition, the Northern states had racist laws working with abolition in their
states to keep Africans out. You see, the Northerners became abolitionist when
they no longer felt a need for slaves or the black race at all. For example,
Connecticut refused to educate blacks because they claimed it would bring them
closer to equal with whites. New Jersey prohibited blacks from settling there
(with the exception of the slaves we already mentioned). In Massachusetts the
punishment of blacks staying there longer than two months required a public
flogging. Then in Indiana, Illinois, and Oregon they just weren’t allowed to
enter the states at all (Kennedy 55). What does this tell you about what you’ve
been taught?
The truth is that the average African-American was treated better as a slave
than as a free man in the North. The famous William Lloyd Garrison stated that,
"The free colored people were looked upon as an inferior caste to whom
their liberty was a curse, and their lot worse than of the slaves..."
(Kennedy 54). Now that is something that wasn’t in my history books, any of
them. Here’s more proof: the people with a disability ratio, for whites it was
1 out of every 1000, for slaves it was 1 out of every 1464, but for freed
blacks it was 1 out of every 506 (Kennedy 78). The freed slaves had almost 3
times as many ratio-wise!
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It’s hard to believe it was these people in the North controlling the
government, but it makes it easier to understand the South’s secession.
Secession was a right given to the states back with our forefathers. Daniel
Webster said in 1833, "If the Union was formed by the accession of States,
then the Union may be dissolved by the secession of States" (Kennedy 313).
This was something that Thomas Jefferson & James Madison also stated in the
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions or 1798 (Kennedy 165). This is a right that
was given to all states since the forming of the Constitution. The South
seceded from the Union just like Norway from Sweden, but the North didn’t
accept the right and invaded the South anyway (Kennedy 199, 200).
This forced the South to fight a battle or liberty and independence (McPherson
9). In the Creation of Confederate Nationalism, Faust writes that, "...the
ideology of Southern independence made it clear that a military victory would
not be achieved without a significant moral and society change" (9). A
reply to this is that if the Confederates had anything, they had moral
character. An aspect that the yankees showed next to nothing.
U.S. Captain N. Lyon and his men forced the surrender of Camp Jackson which was
holding a picnic, unarmed. General Frost was there and tells of how the unarmed
people were fired upon, killing innocent men, women, and children. Later a
crowd of citizens formed, to which the troops fired at, killing 10 and wounding
20 non-combatants, mostly women and children (Davis 357). This is the one of
thousands of ruthless attacks by Northern oppressors on unarmed civilians.
U.S. General Benjamin Butler had a 21 year-old young man hung for lowering the
American flag. While in Louisiana, he told his officers that they were to treat
the ladies of the invaded cities as prostitutes (Kennedy 129). Later U.S.
General Palmer wrote him a surprising letter on the forced "saving"
of slaves by Union troops. He wrote, "The negroes will not go
voluntarily...The matter of collecting the colored men for laborers has been
one of some difficulty...They must be forced to go...this may be considered
harsh measure, but...we must not stop at trifles" (Kennedy 102).
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How can this be that blacks would rather stay than go with yankee troops? Maybe
slaves weren’t so eager to escape as they were thought to be. The majority of
slaves actually stayed and kept watch for their master’s and supervisors while
they were at war (Kennedy 89). Another interesting fact is that over 70% of
slave narratives only had positive things to say about their relationship with
their masters (Kennedy 85, 86).
Major General William Tecumseh Sherman was a famous, but evil man. He sent his
army to Marietta, Roswell, and New Manchester, Georgia. His troops were
assigned to take or burn everything which sent the civilians of the area into
starvation, except for over 2000 women and children that were shipped North as
"workers", or white slaves (Kennedy 123, 124). He wrote once,
"...[I] fight...to sustain a Government...independent of niggers, cotton,
money, or any earthly interest" (Kennedy 291). He wasn’t the only racist
general though. General John Pope wrote, "It is my purpose to utterly
exterminate the Sioux." Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant was also in on
the havoc & chaos. He wrote in 1864, "In pushing up the Shenandoah
Valley...it is desirable that nothing should be left...such as cannot be
consumed destroy..." (Kennedy 283).
Even the U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton was a partner in these awful
crimes of terror. In the summer of 1864, the Union Captain Harry Truman was
convicted of murder, arson, and larceny, and sentenced to be hanged. Stanton
had him released and reassigned to D.C. even though he was caught
"plundering" men, abusing women, killing unarmed civilians, etc. No
one saw Truman again until he returned to Missouri with the same war crimes
(Kennedy 284).
In September or 1861, General James H. Lane reported a skirmish that required
him to reduce Osceola, Missouri to "ashes". On Lane’s conduct, Major
General Henry W. Halleck wrote to Major General George B. McClellan, "The
conduct of the forces under Lane...I receive almost daily complaints of
outrages committed by these men...the evidence is so conclusive as to leave no
doubt of their correctness. It is rumored that Lane has been mad a Brigadier
General. I cannot conceive a more injudicious appointment...its effect...is
offering a premium for rascality and robbing generally." So McClellan took
the letter to the President, Abraham Lincoln. After
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reading it, he turned it over and wrote, "An excellent letter, though I am
sorry General Halleck is so unfavorably impressed with General Lane"
(Kennedy 285).
The conclusion will be some yankee prisons statistics. Approximately 26,500
Confederate POWs died due to bad living conditions and murder while being held
by the Union (Lang 350). The Union controlled prison in Elmira, New York had a
24% death rate. The Surgeon-in-Chief E. L. Sanger boasted he had, "killed
more Rebs than any other soldier at the front" (Lang 334, 336). On the
contrary, the Confederates offered complete Bibles and New Testaments as
reading materials to their prisoners.
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Works Cited
Davis, Jefferson. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I.
New York: Da Capo Press, 1881.
Faust, Drew Gilpin. The Creation of Confederate Nationalism. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State Press, 1988.
Kennedy, James Ronald and Walter Donald Kennedy. The South was Right! Second
ed. Gretna: Pelican Publishing Company, 1994.
Lang, J. Stephen. The Complete Book of Confederate Trivia. Shippensburg, PA:
The Burd Street Press publication, 1996.
McPherson, James M. What They Fought For, 1861-1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 1994.