Topics of the Civil War

With General Grant disregarding the normal way of warfare and pursuing total warfare on the South even though it was completely dangerous, wiping out miles and miles of other citizens property is horrible. But I think that if he had not decided on going that way, I don't think the North would have won over the South. Yes, I know total warfare is bad and yes, I know that if Grant didn't go all out on warfare that reconstruction would have been easier for the south. Then maybe there wouldn't have been such a hard time of trying to make peace (even though the north punishing the south for basically the whole war added to that tension). The destruction added to the south crumbling and the North rising to the top after losing for more than half the battles during the civil war. So in my opinion the North would have not won if General Grant didn't decide to go for the norm in warfare, also if the south didn't make the bad move of moving off their land and into the North

On the topic of the Civil War being completely about slavery being myth, there are many things that happened during the Civil War that could have supported this myth to make people believe that that was the reason for the war. First of all what I think was one of the main reasons why so many people thought that the war was about slavery was Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which I'm just learning is a bunch of crap. It was made up to be such a big deal of finally freeing all the slaves from the South when really it freed absolutely no slaves especially since the South seceded and wasn't even apart of America at the time. Also a big part in supporting the myth was Abraham Lincoln turning America's attitude towards the war around by saying that they would be fighting for civil rights of basically slaves. These situations and or tactics by Abraham Lincoln were so highly publicized that i would have been surprised if nobody thought the war was all about slavery.

On the division of state government and federal government I still believe there is a major issue still at hand. I don't see how states really have that much power anyway, it seems to me that the federal government is still controlling over the states like their little puppets. The states can make their own laws but only little things, gay marriage, cell phone use while driving, etc. The Federal government though still makes the big decisions like war, with really no real consent from the states. This issue will probably in the future become a problem. States might even start seceding from America like they did between 1861 and 1865. With the state and federal government I think there will always be that issue of if the federal government having to much power over the states or just the differences in important issues that are going on.


Between the North and the South, after the civil war and in the present these two areas still stayed the same on how they were before the civil war began. The north is still more industrialized than the south, and the south is still more agriculture than industrial. Really the north and the south have stayed at their differences politically, economically, and socially just as they were in 1865. The north is still democratic, industrialized, and more fast moving than the more republican, agriculture, sort of slow moving south. For unity between these two sections of the country I think it could happen in the future, but I can't see how they would unite or what would have to happen to unite the two sections.

What we've covered in class has some what really opened my eyes more to the civil war and the real reasoning why it all started and what it was really about. Now given the right information about the civil war I can now see how it affected the northern and southern states politically, economically, and socially, and how their differences back then compares to how the people in the north and the south respond to political or economic problems today.