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Re: [tlug] [OT] US Civil War
jep200404 wrote:
Daniel A. Ramaley wrote:
How is the Civil War taught in Southern schools?
The what? Perhaps you mean "The War of Northern Aggression[0]"?
... or the War of the Southern Secession ...
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[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_the_American_Civil_War#War_of_Northern_Aggression
One of the things that doesn't get mentioned much any longer is The
Jubilee (aka "Sherman's March to the Sea") and even Wiki seems to ignore
or not know of it except for the song that eventuated after the surrender:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marching_Through_Georgia
I knew of it from a the time I was a small child because of a chest of
old uniforms and medals in my grandmother's attic. One of my ancestors
was an officer in one of the New England regiments that was part of
Sherman's Army and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic afterward.
Pile upon pile of paper in which "Bring the Jubilee" figured
prominently in the speech of some Fourth of July address or political
handout. Frankly, most of the people who would say something like that
today are the kind of people who we'd prefer to remove from television
ministries or political office, and with good cause.
But the impact of what they had done didn't really hit home until, as a
military aviation trainee, we were able to fly the route of the Jubilee
as part of our NOE ("nap of the earth" = low level, high speed) flight
training, picking it up in eastern Georgia and following it through the
center of the Confederacy. From the air there is still a one-mile wide
swath across the landscape where the trees are only about half as tall
and where the same crops cannot grow. Train lines seem to be on a
different grade and roads detour around it to cross the rivers at some
other point. Where you can see the ground, it is a different color and,
even now, there are almost no buildings standing on the route. When you
stop to realize that they wrought this much destruction with nothing
more than shovels, hoes, pickaxes, horse-drawn plows and breaker carts
(to rip up train lines) the enormity of the effort and the determination
of the Army is awesome.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee#In_the_United_States
I have been involved in negotiations in Japan with some of the punch
perm, tattoos and missing pinky crowd. I've had some of them get in my
face and call me "Yankee" in an attempt to insult me. Being New England
born, I just thank them i my best Bahston accent, which gets laughs from
the native English speakers but which is just as bewildering to the name
callers as their choice of epithet is to me.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rallying
... ummm .... this fits .... how? Buy me a few beers at a nomikai and I
will regale you with stories of my one professional drive in the RAC
Welsh Rally when I was employed by a Brit car mag.
--
CL
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