Southerners have always been great story tellers... hence their version--false or true-- had enough flare to become the best seller. -- Melinda C. P. Skinner Richmond, VA -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Brent Tarter <[log in to unmask]> > Kevin Berland wrote yesterday, > > "From the point of view of simple historiographical theory (and from the > point of view of the familiar proverb) the victors write the histories. > To claim that many histories of the civil war suffer from a one-sided > point of view is neither new nor radical. It's simply true." > > I hate to disagree with my friend Kevin, but a good argument can be made > (and I have hinted at it, myself, before) that even though the > Confederacy lost the Civil War on the battlefield, the South can be said > to have won the history. > > The influence of Southern and pro-Southern interpretations in the > post-Civil War histories may be in some part responsible for the fact > that we are still intensely debating whether secession was legal or > right (which are not the same thing), whether the South or the North > bore the larger share of responsibility for the first fighting, whether > or to what extent the institution of slavery was a cause of the war, > what the aims of the South and the North were and whether or why they > changed, why Southern leaders made different assertions about their > motivations after 1865 than they did in 1861, and so forth and so on. > Where else in the world, I beg to ask, have the leaders of an > unsuccessful rebellion against a government been so lionized as in the > American South? > > If the winners had won the literature as well as the last battles, > perhaps a national consensus would have developed that regarded the > Southern claims and objectives as invalidated by the verdict of the > contending armies. > > $0.02 U.S. currency from > > Brent Tarter > The Library of Virginia > [log in to unmask] > > Visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us