You know, school doesn't really teach the "whole" story . . . they only offer condensed, sometimes skewed versions . . . and even if you had a million years, you'd never be able to learn everything.
I didn't LOVE history when I was in school, but I've grown to love AND appreciate it. I've been lucky enough to have visited places that have rich, historical value . . . but there's so much more I need to see.
After I wrote yesterday's entry, I started reading through some of the information on the websites I used. I know you won't learn ALL of this in school, so I'm putting it here in hopes that you'll actually read it and understand how truly horrific this war that pitted brother against brother . . . father against son . . . cousin against cousin. It literally ripped our nation in two and took years to heal. Even today you'll find people that are still pretty angry about it . . . anger passed down through generations . . . people who just won't let go!
When I was a kid, I saw these license plates everywhere . . . people mostly used this phrase tongue-in-cheek . . . not really "mad" that the North won . . . just "sad" that the South lost.
Stop with the anger if that's what you've learned . . . especially if you've decided to get ticked off about a war that was fought and outcome decided YEARS before you were born! I would hope, by the time you read this, that our country has learned to stand united once again!
So, without further adieu, here are some facts I may or may not have known about the Civil War:
- Fought from 1861 - 1865 (1866 really, but history books say 1865
- There were only 34 US States . . . seven Southern states declared secession to form the Confederate States of America . . . seceding states would grow to eleven
- In April of 1861 Confederates "threw the first rock" . . . they attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, forcing surrender and lowering of the American Flag
- The Union had more than 2 million men compared to the less than 1 million Confederates
- More than 800,000 soldiers died
- There were almost 200,000 other casualties
- The last shot was fired June 22, 1865
You can't really boil the cause of the war down to one issue though many people believe it had a singular cause: slavery. You have to understand, the lifestyles of the North and South were very different, and a number of events led up to the first shots fired.
I think today's point . . . what I want you to really take away from this "history lesson" is that you really need to know all of the facts before you jump to conclusions. We have all kinds of groups of people that just stay mad at each other for no reason other than the "Well, my dad or my grandfather hated them, so I guess I should hate them too" mentality.
Educate yourself kid . . .
"A child without an education is like a bird without wings." ~ Tibetan Proverb
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