The Civil War: Most Important Event In History?

[TheDude]

I don't think so.
(Except maybe for the soldiers killed on both sides.)

Instead, how about the signing of the Declaration of Independence (1776) without which there never would have been a Constitution to establish a Union to (attempt to) seceed from? (Or "from which to attempt to seceed"?)

(How DO you spell "seceed"? I know THAT way doesn't look right.)

[gailkate]

Secede.
Still mulling the question.

[doctork]

Perhaps I might modify to say "most important event in US history," as being admittedly a poor student of history, I am no position to judge world historical events.

The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution were pretty important. Then there was the invention of the printing press, leading to the possibility of mass literacy and mass communication.

Still, the Civil War was remarkable as an event because not only did Lincoln preserve the Union in the face of immense opposition, but also, democracy held throughout an election held during a war in which two parts of that nation fought each other.

And after the war, the nation re-united as one United States of America, even if there were (are) some rough edges and hard feelings to this day. Slavery was abolished, civil rights progressed, women eventually also got the right to vote and own property.

However, I did not feel good when Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was quoted: "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this Earth." I do not believe we have that any more.

We have corporations buying whatever they want in a government, and almost everyone in Congress says they do not want to shut down the government, but it is about to happen because these people cannot get their act together enough to do their job, as requested by the people who elected them.

[doctork]

After reading joew's review of "1491" I decided to buy a copy. Though I have not yet read it, it serves as a reminder that Before Columbus, and the Brits, and all those other Europeans arrived, "Someone was already here."

The First Nations were well established, often in a strong democratic tradition, well before white Europeans and Black Africans got here.

Just adding some context to the situation - it didn't all start with Columbus, and there was a lot of history before white people decided to fight over black people, or the north's industrial economy was deemed "better" than the south's agrarian economy.

[gailkate]

And if we want to look to momentous events/eras we probably should start with the Greek city-states, particularly Athens. Maybe such true democracy can only exist in small populations, but the idea was passed on in the Classical education every privileged (white male) child received throughout Western civilization.

Historically, it's hard to begin. The Fall of Rome? The Norman Invasion of Britain? Luther's 95 Theses and the Reformation? And that's just looking at the West.

I'm kind of leaning toward Henry Ford as the real game-changer. Cars really did change the world, our social structure and even our moral structure given all those babies conceived in backseats. But communication might be the key. The printing press, for sure, and then Edison and Marconi. Could the world Wars have happened without the immediacy of radio?

Still mulling.

*****and where is Joe's review of 1491? I missed that.

[joew]

Apr 9, 2011 9:38:34 GMT -5 gailkate said:

…
*****and where is Joe's review of 1491? I missed that.

It's not really a review IMHO, but it's on the "Book, books, books" thread over at "The Lives of the Chatterboxers." I mentioned it at #3 on the thread, and somewhere around 27 or 28 roges asked about it. The actual discussion started at #30.

[joew]

As for the most important event in history, I'd rank Thermopylae, the Punic Wars, WWI, and WWII higher for starters, to say nothing of the life of Jesus, the "discovery" of America by Columbus and other non-military events.

[TheDude]

I think the discovery of The Monolith by those lower primates, somewhere in the vicinity of Oldivai Gorge in Africa, would rank up there in the Top Five Most Important Events in Written History . . . Except for the fact that it isn't actual "written" history.

Unless, of course, you count that book by Arthur C. Clarke.

Which causes me to lean, instead, in the direction of The Printing Press (as The Event) . . .

Except, possibly, for the day that Young Bill Gates discovered the existence of The Microchip.

(Note that I didn't say "invented"... I said "discovered" =)

Quick question, Joe (with your permission): Have you ever heard of a book called "Starmaker" by Olaf Stapledon? Maybe Olaf Stapleton? (I think he was a favorite writer of both Tolkien and Lewis).

[booklady]

This is a long article, but simply excellent. It's more satisfying to read in the newspaper, but since I can't pass the front page across the breakfast table to y'all this morning, I'll hand you this:
www.aolnews.com/2011/04/02/old-times-not-forgotten-civil-war-at-150/.

[booklady]

Certainly (IMO) in modern history, the American Civil War has had immeasurable impact on the world, on economics, on science, on technology, on medicine, on diplomacy and politics. I think it has affected everything that has come since, including the world wars, the television, and the computer. Without the Civil War and the result of the war, it's hard to see the power and influence of United States developing as it did in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In all of history? I don't know. A hundred and fifty years in the scheme of things is not that much. The printing press, heck, even something related to the microscope and medicine's power over disease is arguably more important than whether America becomes a superpower.

[doctork]

I read the USA Today/AOL stories on "The Civil War: 150 years later. I thought both were quite good.

Here's one line from AOL that struck me, where the scholar/historians took nominations for who would have been "Person of the Year" in 1961:

//the person of that pivotal year was the Virginia volunteerThis rank-and-file soldier was typically not a "fire-eating" secessionist in the mold of the South Carolinians who started the war, but a small farmer grimly determined to resist what he considered invaders.//

Now my great-great grandfather was a South Carolina farmer (he did not own slaves, and he plowed his farm with a mule), but I do believe this is why he fought for the Confederacy, based on what my grandparents and great-grandmother told me. No doubt my opinion was also colored by studying Virginia History in Virginia in 1961 - 1962.

Yesterday I finished Olive Ann Burns' book "Cold Sassy Tree," which is about growing up in small town Georgia in 1906 - 1907; I found it to be a wonderful book. Here is the protagonist's description of elementary/junior high school:

//Cold Sassy is the kind of town where schoolteachers spend two months every fall drilling on the Greek and Roman gods, the kings and queens of England, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Marco Polo, Magellan, Columbus, the First Thanksgiving, Oglethorpe settling Georgia and how happy the slaves were before the War.

A good teacher could cover the history of the whole world in two months and spend the rest of the school year on the War of the Sixties and how the Union ground its heel in our faces after it knocked us down Seems like we never got much past the invasion of Yankee carpetbaggers before school let out for the summer.

The Declaration of Independence and the Revolution were mentioned at school of course, but just barely.//

Obviously Ms. Burns actually did attend school in Georgia, because in Virginia, we certainly did not waste any time on Georgia (well maybe there was something about Oglethorpe and prisoners). And of course since most of the important events about The Revolution happened in Virginia, performed by famous Virginians, we learned quite a bit about that. Look, those poor Georgia students did not even learn about The Three Little Ships or Jamestown!

[booklady]

I'm about to get into a fistfight with you about that Virginia and Important Revolutionary War events business. Massachusetts was of course the seat of the Revolution.

[BoatBabe]

Apr 10, 2011 11:09:12 GMT -5 booklady said:

I'm about to get into a fistfight with you about that Virginia and Important Revolutionary War events business. Massachusetts was of course the seat of the Revolution.

Fight!!! Fight!!!









IMHO, "The Most Important Event" is in the eye of the beholder, a never ending debate/fight.

So let's go for it!

[BoatBabe]

Whether or not The Civil War was the Most Important Event, it certainly beautified our cemeteries:

[booklady]

Yes, ma'am. (To both of your observations.)

[joew]

Apr 10, 2011 0:27:05 GMT -5 TheDude said:

… Quick question, Joe (with your permission): Have you ever heard of a book called "Starmaker" by Olaf Stapledon? Maybe Olaf Stapleton? (I think he was a favorite writer of both Tolkien and Lewis).

I don't think I have heard of it until you mentioned it.

Is it any good?

[doctork]

Apr 10, 2011 11:09:12 GMT -5 booklady said:

I'm about to get into a fistfight with you about that Virginia and Important Revolutionary War events business. Massachusetts was of course the seat of the Revolution.

Well of course I know about that, fer sure. Just that the Rebels in my family held substantial influence over the Yankees while I was growing up (almost all of them were south of the Mason-Dixon Line except for a few Swedish hold-outs who lived in the Bronx).

The original bearers of my surname (I kept my maiden name after marriage) immigrated to the US in the early 1600's, and since my paternal grandfather was into genealogy, and had the records traced all the way back to London in the 1600's - 1700's, and to northern England in the 1400's, I actually know the names of my ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War, the dates they served, the names of their commanding officers, and their regiments and units.

And guess what? They were all in Massachusetts! Imagine that - a bunch of Yankees in my very own family.

Somewhere along the line, most of those (paternal-side) Yankees moved south and met up with the Confederate side of the family, as my maternal grandparents were South Carolinians, while my father was born in North Carolina. Which is I guess where the Cherokee great-grandmother came into the picture.

We Americans are a mixed-up lot aren't we? And it seems quite remarkable how differently we have learned history. My own children, having studied state history ("social studies") in elementary school in West Virginia, learned the Civil War very differently from their mom, since WV became a separate state in 1863, joining up with the Union.

And Booky, if it makes you feel better, even in Virginia, I did learn about Paul Revere, and the 18th of April in '75, hardly a man is now alive...Old North Church too, especially since in junior high, I attended a private school in Honolulu that was originally founded to serve the children of Congregational Church missionaries. Old North Church was a Congregational Church. (I hope I got that right Booky, or was it yet another instance of revisionist history?)

[booklady]

doc, are you in the DAR?

My dad traced our ancestry at least to 1630s Newburyport, Mass., (and he was an Arizonan and I a Californian), but I don't know if we are directly descended from Revolutionary War fighters.

You have an impressive pedigree, my dear.

[doctork]

I am not in the DAR, but I suppose I am eligible.

Being from the South, it hadn't occurred to me to consider the DAR. And I suppose I can join the Confederate Equivalent too, I believe it is the DOC - Daughters of the Confederacy.

Though I spent much time growing up in Virginia, I am not a "real Virginian," but I think real Virginians are OK for DAR. Not so sure about Carolinians. I was born in Washington, DC, one of those rarest of the rare - a Native!

PS - Real Virginians are "FFV," or First Families of Virginia. Names like Washington, Lee, Madison, Monroe...I forget now, but when I am in Virginia, or even West Virginia, I recognize them right away. Quite a few FFV's in my medical school class.

[doctork]

OK I looked at what it takes to join up with DAR. I have the "pedigree" data already (and really, it's just a matter of who my ancestors hundreds of years ago chose to fight with!) thanks to the genealogy-drawn grandfather, but you have to produce photocopies of all the relevant records for each generation, all the way back to the ancestor who fought in the Revolution.

The very thought gives me a headache. My dad was the 17th or 18th generation in this country, though I suppose it was the 3rd or 4th generation in the US who actually fought in the War. That's gonna be hundreds of birth/death/marriage certificates, as well as copies of the original church/school/enlistment/military records - most of which are no doubt in Massachusetts.

"The Book" (the genealogy book my grandfather commissioned) has all the data but I would have to go get the copies of everything to submit to DAR. I don't think I am willing to do all that.

But if you are, here's the DAR website on "Becoming a member"

www.dar.org/natsociety/content.cfm?id=92&hd=n&pf=n

Looks like they offer a lot of help in finding your "patriot ancestor." So if you know who he/she was in Newburyport, MA in the 1630's, you can probably move down another 4 or 5 generations and find the ones who served during the Revolutionary War.

Note that the ancestor did not actually have to fight; they could have simply provided civil or patriotic service. It's my impression that most people did provide such service back in the day - food for soldiers, a clean place to sleep, sewing uniforms. It's not like today when only a few people serve, and they are quite removed from everyone else - living "on base," serving overseas; most people don't even know a service member today.

[doctork]

For the Confederacy, it's UDC - United Daughters of the Confederacy, and membership is much easier.

For me all I have to do is prove descent from my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother, as they were members of UDC, and UDC allows that. Three birth certificates and a marriage certificate (my great-grandmother's marriage to her Civil War veteran husband), three of which I already have.

For DAR, you have to provide all the documentation over again, even if your mother or brother were already admitted to DAR or SAR, and already provided all those records!

[BoatBabe]

Yah, I haven't done the DAR thing either. Mom was SO excited when she discovered that Daniel Boone's sister is there on our family tree.


Did y'all read "Parade," the magazine insert in the Sunday paper? There are quite a few interesting articles on The Civil War, "The Conflict That Divided America Began 150 Years Ago This Week."


Robert Redford examines its impact in "The Conspirator."

Jon Meacham addresses the lessons of our bloodiest struggle.



PLUS the best Civil War books and movies!

[gailkate]

I haven't read it yet, BB, but am saving it to read tonight.

K, where did I get the idea that you or someone in your family was adopted?

Watched an hour of "Truman" on PBS this afternoon and will make a point of catching the second half at some time; it shows up fairly regularly. Fascinating! Some of what he went through - general contempt of many (he's not FDR and just a storekeeper) and the disastrous midterm elections of 1946 - sound a lot like what's happening to Obama now.
He deliberately used the media to fire up the country against Communism and then pushed for the Marshall Plan to save Europe. So now I'm back to communication as the key to major historical events. Not just books and radio, but newsreels.
Also, did you know that Truman, from Missouri no less, started the momentum for black civil rights? No wonder they thought he didn't have a prayer of beating Dewey.

[TheDude]

Watched the last half of D.W Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" on TCM last night.
Commercial free. (TCM or maybe PBS . . . in either case, commercial free.)

Now THERE is an example of "media propaganda" that would be hard to top.
Especially in terms of current "political incorrectness" . . .
(Except maybe for "Triumph of The Will" that that German flickchick made back in the '30s)