Aren't these supercilious moral absolutist in-your-face presentist attitudes that completely miss the point of the post a brilliant depiction of just why folks get to the point where they fight wars in the first place? Lyle Browning, RPA On Jun 17, 2007, at 10:39 PM, Paul Heinegg wrote: > Rick Paddock wrote, "The Civil War devastated families, and my > ancestors in Henderson CO, TN, were not spared. One of them was a > woman of means before the War but destitute during and after. One > of her brothers was killed in fighting in Georgia. The family had > hardly assimilated this news when word came that another brother > lay languishing in a primitive field hospital in Vicksburg. > > Gritty and determined, she gathered provisions, a feather mattress, > her > grandmother's quilt, and put them into a wagon. All the horses on > her farm > had been commandeered earlier by General Forrest, leaving her with > one mule > and a cow to pull her wagon. But that didn't stop her. She enlisted an > elderly member of the the freedmen who had stayed on out of loyalty > and > served as houseman, and set off for Vicksburg, some 500 miles to the > south-to bring her brother home." > ------------------------------ > > Do I understand you to say that this "gritty and determined" > woman's family did not free any of their slaves but instead fought > a war to maintain slavery, and we are supposed to feel sorry for > her that she faced such a hard time without the slaves and the > horses commandered by the millionaire slave-trader Nathan Forrest? > Paul