The American Civil War emanated feelings of joy, exuberance, and glory, yet it substantiated loneliness, destruction, and death. In the antebellum South, nationalism and pride forged a new path, and society saw soldiers as heroic actors and war as their stage. While these actors played out their roles, the audience, the world, could see that their stage did not make them heroes, but war deprived them of body and soul. In Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier develops this excitement and progression to hardship in both Ada and Inman’s journeys. The progression, corroborated by historical evidence, shows that while the antebellum South held a Romantic ideal of war, war itself negated the romantic opinion and became destructive, monstrous, and deadly.
The South implemented many unjust laws to still allow the whites to stay ahead and to keep the blacks poor and dependent. Overall, though, I believe that the North and the former slaves won because of the outcome of the Civil War. Although the effects of the war were not immediate for the slaves and abolition did not automatically mean freedom and equality for slaves, the war and the legislation that followed it set the groundwork for the advancement of black people. The thirteenth through the fifteenth amendments helped to pave the way for blacks to enjoy the same opportunities as whites. Obviously the North achieved its objective of reuniting the country and preserving the Union.
For generations students have been taught an over-simplified version of the civil war and even now I am just coming to a full understanding of the truth. The civil war was a terrible rift in our nation, fought between the northern states (known as the union) and the southern states (the Confederate States of America). The people’s opinions were so divided over the issues of the civil war that, in some families, brother was pit against brother. Eventually, the south succumbed to the north and surrendered on April 9th, 1865 but not before the war had caused 618,000 deaths, more than any other war in U.S. history.
In Classics of Moral and Political Theory, 2nd ed., edited by Michael L. Morgan. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996. Sherman, William. "General William T. Sherman Explains How the War Has Changed, September 1864," in Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconsrtuction, 2nd ed., edited by Michael Perman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Hubbell, John T. Battles Lost and Won: Essays from Civil War History. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1975. Print. Keegan, John. The American Civil War: A Military History.
13. Ibid., 308. Bibliography Detzer, David. Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001.
Examples could be: political issue social issues, or even issues of equality between races in one country. Some of these events are the causes of the American civil war. Let’s start with some of the effects of the war.The American civil war was the most costly war ever fought on American soil. It took a long time for the American society to become stable after to the war. Along with that,out of the 2.4 million solders’ that fought in the war, 620,000 of them were killed during the war.Millions were injured (The History Channel Website).
Men all around the country and world left their families and jobs to fight for a cause that did not directly affect them. Our nation was plagued by the deaths of over 500,000 white men who were fighting for another race. When looking at the efforts of the white man from 1861 to 1865 all the glorified movies and textbooks can be justified. Fighting during the Civil War made our country what it is today, the land of the free. The United States Civil War was a time of great change not only for the United States but the world.
Confederate dead were estimated at 258,000 including 94,000 who actually died on the field of battle. The Civil War was a great waste in terms of human life and possible accomplishment and should be considered shameful. Before its first centennial, tragedy struck a new country and stained it for eternity. It will never be forgotten but adversity builds strength and the United States of America is now a much stronger nation. Works Cited: 1.
Perhaps the one thing that sticks strongly in my own mind are the passings of many great individuals -- the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcom X. The second half of the decade marks itself with the untimely deaths of rock legends Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and the subject of this essay -- Janis Joplin. [2] After the fifties, Americans were emotionally dead. During the next decade the population would search again for the “grand ideals” of democracy. The American people were looking for something in the 1960’s; they were searching for ideals and dreams.