Is Civil War History Being REWRITTEN?!?!?!?!?!

slavery the war was about slavery God damn it how is this even possible is it the school system is it your homework oh come on I was into that that disgusting feeling was nothing more than you ain't get propaganda history is written by The Victors and now through political correctness today's media are re-rotten as those of us with common sense nowhere's true history well that's a bunch of baloney and you're living proof of that millions of people around the world believe that the South seceded in the Civil War because of states rights and Taxation and through most of the 20th century many Americans even regarded Antebellum slavery as a relatively benevolent and Humane institution and I don't know if you remember but you guys lost like big time you got your asses handed to you simmer down your asses were surgically removed and physically placed within the grasp of thine own hands all right that's enough for your cheek this is serious business in elementary school middle school high school and college we all learned that the Civil War was about states rights and all the reasons behind the wall but then not too long ago the narrative changed and certainly the Civil War was 100 about slavery and only slavery literally and nothing else I've literally watched history and be Rewritten in front of my eyes but I suppose you think I'm just being ridiculous no I I think you're right Civil War history is absolutely being Rewritten check me to the Lincoln Arts but history is always being Rewritten that's how it works historical hypotheses are made to be challenged and questioned as others bring attention to different evidence or come at the issue from Illuminating New Perspectives that's right there are always two sides of history and both need to be heard even if you disagree with one point of view well I think there's a hell of a lot more sides of History than just two there are as many different perspectives on the Civil War as there were people who lived through it but not all perspectives are valid history some narratives can be misleading or even outright false and for a historian to Parrot them uncritically out of some misguided sense of inclusion is just really [ __ ] irresponsible what you consider to be the southern side of the story of the Civil War is literally just lost cause mythology the Lost Cause isn't a valid point of view on anything it's just a collection of factually incorrect claims it's not a question of perspective or interpretation this stuff is just demonstrably wrong says you you and what exactly do you and your cronies consider the last cause myth because from what I've seen in your channel anything that doesn't depict Confederate soldiers is bloodthirsty villains is Lost Cause propaganda what you are calling the last cause myth is so unbelievably broad it could Encompass essentially any unbiased review of the Civil War oh I'm referring to something very specific when I talk about the Lost Cause myth essentially it's a pro-confederate belief system that emerged from the post-war histories of the white South its seeds were planted during the war itself as Confederates try to solicit International Sympathy by distancing themselves from the cause of slavery for which they seceded but really came to the fore in the 1880s and 90s when ex-confederates began a systematic campaign to sanitize their reasons for secession and paint their actions during the war in the best possible light seems far-fetched to me what so former Confederates just rewrote history within living memory and everybody just went along with it pretty much yeah that's crazy is it I mean look at what's been happening in recent American history no matter what side of the political divide you're on I think you would confidently say that the people on the other side have deceived themselves into believing a narrative that's completely divorced from reality Amen brother at least with the lost cause there's a grain of Truth like if you squint at Civil War history and [ __ ] your head you can kind of see it but today I mean [ __ ] remember the gay frog guy lots of people were totally on board with the gay frog guy people crave meaning in their lives people desperately crave meaning and myths can give it to us well I say there was no Lost Cause State rats well let's look at some of the evidence as we've talked about before defensive home and hearth was not the only reason Confederate soldiers went to war defense of slavery and white supremacy were also powerful motivating factors and a significant number of them said as much in their Diaries and letters oh gracious this again and I suppose this is where you'll bust out her racist quote I literally have a whole duffel bag full of them uh uh okay pick a quote any quote the vandals of the north are determined to destroy slavery we must all fat and I choose to Fat for southern rats and Southern Liberty Lansford Yandel Juniors staff surgeon fourth Tennessee infantry April 1861. another one where are you going with this you'll see a stand must be made for African slavery or it is forever last William Grimble First South Carolina artillery November 1860. another this country without slave labor would be completely worthless we can only live and Exist by that species of Labor and hence I'm willing to fight to the last William Nugent 28th Mississippi infantry September 1863. let me tap you out there Lincoln declares the blacks entitled to all the rats and privileges as American citizens so imagine your sweet little girls in the school room with the [Music] black woolly-headed Negro and have to treat them as they equal William Garner 10th Arkansas Cavalry January 1864. refills are free I will show the Yankees that a white man is better than a yeah that's a bad word Jonas Bradshaw 38th North Carolina infantry April 1862. and that guy was just a private a poor farmer well let's do one more just because we're having so much fun it is liberty or death with me I love home and all that surrounds it as much as anybody but if I have to be the equal to a nope nope nope nope nope nope I had rather never come home and better may fall in the struggle for it will McKee 18th Georgia infantry September 1861 Jesus there's a lot more where that came from in the duffel bag but I don't want to belabor the point we've covered this before so during the Civil War many Confederate soldiers expressed very strong pro-slavery sentiments but decades after the war they changed their tune and Sam Watkins famous Confederate Memoir company H written 20 years after the events in question the author plainly stated that we believe in the doctrine of State rats they in the doctrine of centralization we only fought for our state rats feel better then I'll stay right but yet Grand and glorious Ian F weird right or we can listen to the 1947 audio interview of 101 year old Confederate veteran Julius Howell which has gone viral in a video posted by the eminent historian black Confederate one and is often touted as definitive proof that Confederate soldiers did not fight for slavery the South did not fight for the presentation or extension of slavery that famous is a great crush on this country that we had slavery and I thank God that I did not bring up my boys and girls under a system of slavery only which I was brought under what did you guys fight for then for states rights our state's rights and it wasn't just the soldiers who were saying this stuff the men of the upper echelon of the confederate government former plantation owners who in 1860 had shouted from the mountaintops that they were seceding to preserve slavery seemed to suffer from a severe case of post-war Amnesia so said Jefferson Davis in his memoirs holes of the conflict and as former Confederate vice president Alexander Stevens argued in 1868 so what changed what happened the Lost Cause happened look after 1865 material conditions in the rebellious states were dire Southern wealth had been reduced by 60 percent down from pre-war levels caused as much by Confederate mismanagement as by Union Invasion half of all their farm machinery was inoperable the railroad system was in Ruins and with little industrial capability they had was utterly destroyed these factors had a dramatic negative impact on white Southerners quality of life and the humiliation of defeat was psychologically devastating in their personal correspondences many Confederates wrote frankly about their experiences of despondence and hopelessness after the surrender many fell into a spiral of anxiety depression and alcohol abuse the imagery that pervades their writings were of death and darkness Gloom in the Tomb with the power of the slavocracy forever shattered ex-confederates of the plantation class would soon have to jostle for political power against a whole host of highly motivated new Rivals up country unionists white Yeoman Farmers afro Creole Elites and Republican freedmen and all these other Southerners had something that ex-confederates distinctly lacked a story a unifying mythology that defined them as a group and a people in 1865 what was the Confederate story Rebels failures slavers traitors as an early leader of the United Confederate Veterans put it if Brave impulsive rash people of our country it was a fate worse than death an eternally dishonorable reputation something had to be done to avoid it ex-confederates needed to improve their self-image less than a year after Appomattox one Georgia newspaper predicted that an opinion opinion ex-confederates were determined to control the narrative and almost as soon as the guns went silent they rushed to write and publish southern-centric histories of the war between the states seems they were wrapped to do so the Tam proved that newspaper man rat Marxist maoist mainstream historians have made it their non-binary mission to shove a plant-based Civil War narrative down our Collective throats descendants of the Confederacy take prad in the ancestors and shall be allowed to honor them as New England and other regions honors their ancestors but the Confederacy has been unfairly disparaged by today's cultural genocide that is also degrading the founding fathers and other ones esteemed aspects of American Heritage well you're allowed to honor your Confederate ancestors just like you're allowed to buy truck notes you're free to do these things they just make you look like a [ __ ] [ __ ] and cultural genocide Jesus Christ you're a drama queen but is their term not apropos for the reconstruct auctioneers out we had failed to achieve political Independence but in undertaken to write our own history as we began a fact for cultural Independence that would become an enduring part of American Life what it's very uncanny how you go from just totally insane to completely reasonable the drop of a hat it's just profoundly weird but yeah you're absolutely right the first major offensive of this cultural war of independence came in 1866 when Edward a Pollard the wartime editor of the Richmond examiner began publishing his War histories most notably the Lost Cause a new Southern history of the war of the Confederates which is probably the origin of the term rabidly pro-slavery before the war Pollard went on to become a Confederate True Believer and a tireless evangelist of the southern side of history in his books Pollard did not deny that slavery played a role in secession but tempered his analysis with white supremacist apologia education of the labels which are slavery but was in fact nothing more than one of the miles servitude in the world this claim was still pretty close to the wartime Confederate party line at this early stage the exact tenets of the myth were still unformed but very quickly more and more Southern histories began to deny that slavery had had anything to do with secession instead fixating on more defensible motives like states rights libertarian government and anti-industrialism the first issue of the Southern Historical Society papers an influential Lost Cause periodical indicated a subtle but definitive shift in southern historiography raged in the United General the Abolitionist slavery study at this he'll bring us to the conclusion are more extensive and deeper even than the neck was inevitable rats and her Liberties to be surreptitious on her without resistance and make no would she not have if the alternative were between such a loss and arm resist the letter Lost Cause writers paid particular attention in those early days to rehabilitating the reputations of key Confederate leaders especially Robert E Lee no one was more instrumental in this than Lee's old division Commander Jubal early who published the first book length Memoir of any Civil War General late in 1866 drawing on experience from his ears as a lawyer early began a campaign of ideas that was so scorched Earth it would have made Sherman blush his histories defended every last aspect of Lee's generalship and when any historian dared to disparage the old hero early viciously attacked them in print for decades after the Civil War no one ever took up a pen to write about the conflict without living in Mortal fear of Jubal early old jube simply wished to defend generally from the defamations and attractions the ignorant persons concern on the Battle of Gettysburg for example he set the record straight some said Moss Robert was responsible for all defeat imagine in that it's nonsense General Longstreet bless his heart failed to carry out Lee's order to attack and Dawn on July the second if he had attacked promptly we would have carried the day and won the battle I doubt it not well there's only one problem with that which is that no Dawn order was ever given as far as anybody knows early made that little factoid up at Lee's birthday celebration in Lexington Virginia in 1872 and a lot of Confederate Veterans who had been Officers at Gettysburg were kind of baffled by it but early kept repeating it man writing about it and William Nelson Pendleton Lee's old chief of artillery dutifully propagated the lie in his writing it would become so prevalent that it was part of most histories of the Battle of Gettysburg until well into the 20th century what possible reason what they have to FIB well because Long Street had quarreled with leap and Long Street had been right after the war he publicly criticized Lee's leadership so he was high on jubal's [ __ ] list not to mention he famously became a Republican and worked closely with the grant Administration to help enfranchise Friedman during Reconstruction wait so when I call him a scalawag I'm basically just saying that he didn't completely hate black people yeah that's more or less the historic context of that word a scalawag is a white Southerner who doesn't completely hate black people and a carpetbagger is a white northerner who doesn't completely hate black people oh yeah well then what in Long streets try to defend himself huh if he was so blameless and innocent he did just badly his public retorts to early in Pendleton were ponderous and tone deaf and full of sloppy misstatements of fact it only made him more unpopular and his inaccuracies gave Lost Cause evangelists an opening to shred his credibility you would call these historians ifanger lists like the last cause was some sort of religion or something well it kind of became one in a way especially after reconstruction in the 1870s the tenets of the Lost Cause Consolidated themselves into a coherent mythology slavery wasn't a major cause of the war states rights tariffs whatever Lincoln was a tyrant slash Northern aggression the Confederate Army was completely badass and Bob Lee was the perfect man Sherman was worse than Genghis Khan and the Union Army was full of rapers and pillagers basically the stuff you and I have been talking about for years now black people and everybody up north still thought this stuff was pretty Bonkers Union veterans organizations were particularly outspoken in their skepticism and disgust but it came to be widely believed in the white South and just as people congregate in churches temples or mosques to worship their God Southerners congregated at reunions funerals and Monument dedications to reinforce their cultural myth through ceremony and ritual oh come on these were veterans reunions not the black sleep of Kali are these events were just soldiers hanging out in reminiscing what's the big deal oh but it was so much more than that these were profoundly meaningful events for these people and the level of reverence on display was over the top even by Victorian standards the ecclesiastical aspects were overt Southern religious leaders had been among the most vocal secessionists and later became some of the most passionate Lost Cause evangelists sermons delivered by these men were a Mainstay of post-war ceremonies blending Evangelical protestantism with the emerging Theology of the Confederate Redeemer Nation Reverend J William Jones a wartime chaplain Baptist preacher and key contributor to the southern Historical Society papers typically began his prayers with the words of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God of Israel god of the centuries God of our fathers God of Jefferson Davis Robert Edward Lee and Paul Jackson Lord of hosts and King of Kings like any other religion the Lost Cause had its Pantheon Leon Davis having suffered for their people were identified with Christ Stonewall Jackson long bearded and wild-eyed syncretized with Moses Long Street that Aaron's disciple and betrayer was Judas the Lost Cause had its iconography the Battle Flag was as sacred and ubiquitous as the crucifix and his monuments started springing up all over the south in the 1880s and 90s graven images of Confederate saints were imbued with special significance as altars and gathering places wartime artifacts took on the quality of medieval relics and Veterans organizations were encouraged to guard official Confederate documentation as one United daughter of the Confederacy put it as zealously as the children of Israel did the Ark of the Covenant Lost Cause histories were literally referred to as catechisms you can still find one on the Sons of Confederate Veterans website so ex-confederates were a little extra in their commemorations of the so what still seems pretty innocuous to me not so much there was always a political Dimension to Lost Cause ceremonies and political advocacy was an important function of veterans groups mainly in support of segregationist policies designed to continue white rule in the South politicians frequently spoke at Confederate reunions and as the decades wore on different political movements claiming the heritage of Lost Cause cultural memory made veterans events their soapbox in the 19th century it was anti-reconstructionists and populists in the 20th wilsonian Democrats and Civil Rights era reactionaries this continues today in Lost Cause spaces online where pro-confederate blogs Facebook groups and subreddits fear Monger about cancel culture just as much as they celebrate Civil War history those websites show love you oh yeah big fans in the late 19th century a major goal of the Lost Cause religion was to institutionalize itself early Pendleton Jones and others were keenly aware that passing their ideas down to the Next Generation would be crucial to preserving the Confederate Legacy so they focused their advocacy on the education system now that the United Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy were established and active Lost Cause evangelists had an organizational Network to spread their ideas young women of the pre-war planter class finding themselves in need of income after the abolition of slavery gravitated toward teaching and by the 1890s dominated primary school education Reverend Jones and Susan Pendleton Lee who was William Pendleton's daughter both authored popular textbooks in the 1890s advancing the Lost Cause Mythos and Jones urged his fellow ex-confederates to fight tooth and nail against the introduction of Northern authored textbooks into Southern classrooms should demand the abolition they is from our schools and if they force the issue we should squarely meet it and fight for a change in our school authorities if the if they persist in using ex-confederate's mission to indoctrinate the rising generation was a resounding success by the turn of the 20th century the culture war was won and the impact of that victory was soon felt all around the country in 1896 post-war racial issues came to a head with the Supreme Court ruling Plessy versus Ferguson which of course established separate but equal as the law of the land white Southerners accepted legal segregation to Be an Effective substitute for slavery as a tool to control the black underclass when the Spanish-American War and World War one gave the reunited States a new sense of national purpose white Northerners grew more inclined toward reconciliation and many came to accept the Lost Cause version of Civil War history essentially to reunite White America Northerners sacrificed the rights and dignity of Black America blacks had fought and died for the union and were instrumental in quelling the Rebellion but the Jim Crow era saw the Confederate vision of a white supremacist Nation rise from the grave hell the federal government even retired the hated blue uniform in the trenches of the Western Front northern and southern Soldier alike were khaki but that wasn't the reason behind that decision most militaries switched to khaki uniforms around the turn of the 20th century you should know this still a hell of a metaphor though ain't it I'm still skeptical that everybody would just go along with this well in the 20th century the Lost Cause had a lot of help from the most effective propaganda tool in human history the movies D.W Griffith's Infamous 1915 Blockbuster The Birth of a Nation and the classic 1939 historical epic Gone With the Wind both reflected and cemented white supremacist interpretations of Civil War history and American culture by the time Julius Howell was interviewed in the 1940s the Lost Cause was firmly established in the popular imagination of a deeply segregated America but then in the 1950s 60s and 70s things changed the Civil Rights Movement was a major blow to white supremacy in America and as people of color gained more social and political agency historians began to focus more on black perspectives in American history the story that emerged from this research was a continuous struggle against authoritarianism and bigotry that resonated with Americans of the Vietnam era in contrast the Lost Cause came increasingly to be seen as a hateful and oppressive ideology and mainstream historiography started to seriously question its legitimacy the cat was out of the bag in the 80s and 90s historians like Gary Gallagher James McPherson Gaines Foster and others thoroughly dismantled the tenets of a lost cause with some excellent scholarship but there remained a serious disconnect between this growing academic consensus on one hand and the perception of the public at large on the other the 1990 Ken Burns documentary the Civil War and the 1993 Ron Maxwell film Gettysburg spawned a huge surge of public interest in the Civil War but they also propagated common misconceptions with origins in the Lost Cause myth the burns documentaries over Reliance on narration by Southern novelist Shelby Foote left many viewers with a mistaken impression of the causes of secession and the overwrought sentimentality and sanitized violence of Maxwell's film glorified the war and the soldiers who fought in it it also downplayed the importance of Slavery to the Confederate cause Gettysburg inspired thousands of people to become civil Warrior actors and to this day at public events many reenactors will teach a version of Civil War history more inspired by the movie than by actual evidence are you about to [ __ ] on Gods and Generals again just one more time please and then I'll be done forever you really can't help yourself can you the Lost Cause regained even more ground in 2003 with Gods and Generals Maxwell's prequel to Gettysburg this film wholeheartedly endorses the most counterfactual aspects of the lost cosmith and has done enormous damage to public understanding of the Civil War heavily based on late 19th century Lost Cause histories the film has become a banner for white supremacists and neoconfederates to Rally under a powerful 21st century expression of the Lost Cause religion great movie The South was rat but then came the 2010s and the dawn of a new and wide-ranging social justice movement police brutality against black Americans in particular proved to be a major Flashpoint for lingering racial issues this new movement is complex and contentious and since it's ongoing it's difficult to make categorical statements but one thing we seem to be in the midst of is an attempt to break down systemic inequality in the government and economy which has led to a far more critical historiography of the eras of American History when those systems were established the growing interest in black history seems to be inversely proportional to the Lost Cause of staying power as more and more Americans renounce the Confederacy for the slaver's Rebellion that it was those still cleaving to the Lost Cause religion have become more culturally isolated their ceremonies rituals and catechisms increasingly esoteric and irrelevant over the past decade the Lost Cause has taken a severe beating maybe even a fatal one and a tiny part of that has been this show oh you lack that wouldn't you but you are unfit to lick the boots of the Confederate Heroes you defame you dare insult generally General Jackson well let me tell you something Billy you will never compare to the man that Thomas Jackson was for you will never be remembered or mentioned 160 years after your death with all your videos probably not if this show is remembered I would guess it would be as a small footnote of Civil War history's intersection with 21st century internet culture if we're fortunate enough to have any Legacy at all I fully expect Checkmate Lincoln Heights to be considered an imperfect product of its time like all written or filmed history I hope to remember it as a nail in the coffin of the Lost Cause but who knows only time will tell but there's one prediction that I am reasonably certain about if things keep going the way they're going the Lost Cause is doomed the myth is like a frail diseased very racist Old Man drawing rattling breaths from a life support system can't we just go ahead and pull the plug [Music] 1984. oh my God 1984. the cultural marxists and the radical lift Austin control race the truth of Civil War history I will always stand for the truth no matter how unpopular it may be you're projecting the evangelists of the Lost Cause rewrote history in the late 19th century now their work is finally being undone we're finally course correcting away from all their Madness and their baggage and you can't [ __ ] handle it you're not even pretending to be objective anymore you reveal yourself for what you've always been a biased moralizing Yankee dammit Johnny you'll never give me the benefit of the doubt most people think you're a [ __ ] racist scum of the earth because you fly this [ __ ] flag you think I'm the bad guy no I'm coddling you like the big [ __ ] baby you are trying to gently coax you into the 21st century before the people behind me [ __ ] drag you there people think you are a [ __ ] joke Johnny you've been discredited time and again your monuments are coming down your staunchest Advocates are daughtering old fools and pretty soon they're gonna be in the [ __ ] ground what what have we been doing all this time if I've been talking to a brick wall Jesus hahaha [Music] sword of Baron samity though of the Dead to keep off cemeteries my Lord with all due respect I'm uncomfortable with this Voodoo ritual it doesn't feel very Christian to me fear not my patriotic friend you have but a small path to play in it what do I need to do die oh Brothers of the master race oh various of the Southland [Applause] time for your Vengeance has come rise up don't claim your destiny yeah wow right inside oh yeah [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Atun-Shei Films

Views: 1,534,747

Keywords: checkmate lincolnites, civil war, history, american history, lost cause myth, educational, informative, funny, reconstruction

Id: 02GLtie62tE

Length: 36min 47sec (2207 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 17 2022