A very good come back Doug. Some folks can't see their hand in front of
their face and will never be objective. Enough said!

Bill Bryant



----- Original Message -----
From: "J. Douglas Deal" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 12:45 PM
Subject: POSSIBLE SPAM[0]: Re: Gods and Generals


> It is interesting to turn the question around and ask why the average
> soldier in the Union Army was fighting--presumably to join friends,
> neighbors, and community to defeat an attempt to dissolve the Union. That
> Union still included several states with slavery, of course, and if the
> southern "insurrection" had been defeated quickly and the former
> Confederate states brought rapidly back into the Union, slavery would not
> have been eliminated anywhere in the United States--at least not then. In
> this sense, the Rebels were trying to save their way of life (the
> "cornerstone" of which was slavery, said Stephens) by separating from the
> Union, while the Yankees were trying to preserve the Union as they knew
> it--a large portion of which sanctioned and depended on slave labor and
> would continue to do so.
>
> As we know, the war did not end quickly, and bringing an end to slavery
> eventually became a war aim of the Union. But at every stage, we need to
> allow for the possibility that official war aims and the ordinary
> soldiers' motives for fighting were not identical to each other.
>
>
>
> Douglas Deal
> Professor of History (on leave 2002-2003)
> State University of New York at Oswego
> Oswego, NY 13126
> [log in to unmask]
>
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