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I've read that approximately 30% of southern families owned slaves, pre Civil War.
So that would be a reason for Southerners fighting.
Another reason, psychologically, the poor Whites were a rung up in the social hierarchy from slaves.
If slaves were freed, then the Blacks would be on the same social level in comparison to poor Whites.
This may sound far fetched to our 21st century mind, but I think it might have been a big motivator for
Confederacy recruiting. We see modern poor people who are in favor of policies that are against their own best interests ( right to work, Medicare for all, ....), so it's not a leap to assume that in 1860, poor Whites could be motivated to fight to maintain the institution of slavery.
Many Good points made above..As it happened.
KNOWING what WE do know NOW~~ your outline of "Black's freedoms back then" ultimately became equal (on paper) ~~ thus as you said~~ Became Equal ~LOL However, reality indicates a far aberrant view post "Freedom" of the '60's~~~ It's astounding that most would vote against their interest but not surprised Many over the decades voted against their interests And Yes it continues TODAY!!
I'm not out there, because many do NOT agree with false recollections!!! TY all who are OLD enough to recall how it all unfolded!! Or at least Knew or studied HISTORICAL FACTS> Much History has been missing since 2016~~
And don't forget the fog of war. Once the blows start flying, a whole host of reasons come into play. Personal pride, sectional pride, revenge, family anger, fear, tribalism, religion, politics, economics, survival, you name it.
I think the motivation that many if not most ordinary southerners had for fighting was that they had been attacked and were defending their homes.
This is different than believing that the Civil War occurred because of a belief that individual states were "sovereign" . I doubt most people even understood the most basic notions of government or the social contract.
Mark, these two concepts aren't mutually exclusive. Southerners viewed their states as sovereign, and viewed the forceful retention of the Union as a trespass/invasion to fight against.
Instead of speculation, read primary source letters. They're generally mundane & universal themes.. asking about life at home, complaining about conditions in the camp, etc. But when Confederate soldiers did talk politics: they often wrote about fighting to defend their state independence. Americans (North & South) were well versed in the 'notions' of sovereignty, & fighting for political independence. It was in the cultural DNA of America. peace
While doing family history research for people, I've run across numerous different reasons. Each man is going to have his own story. I can't speak to families from the old costal states, but have worked on various frontier families. The one recurring theme seemed to be northern aggression. They didn't have much love for the government and I must add they also had a dislike for plantation owners too. Most were worried about their family farms and just wanted to go home. I'm not saying they didn't want to win, just saying it was complicated. Their letters and diaries certainly paint a far different picture than some authors have penned.
It's not belief so much as a matter of what 'slave ownership' means.
For example, consider a plantation. There's the master and his wife, six kids of which three are sons. There's an elderly parent or two of the master and his wife, maybe one of their siblings, perhaps a cousin. There's also an overseer, any number of various workers and hands. And a dozen slaves.
So who actually owns the slaves? The master. No one else. So the three sons don the grey and march off to war, probably joined by some of the younger workers. Yet technically they're not slave owners. So fast-forward 150+ years and they're held up as non-slaveowners who nonetheless fought for the South, which just goes to show that the war wasn't really about slavery at all! Or so the spiel goes...
Yes. Only the head of the household owned the slaves. Yes, there were other white people in the household. Extended family members like you just mentioned. So while none of those people were the owner, those participating in slavery certainly the numbers get a lot bigger.
Also unless there's serious incest going on, everyone has 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great grandparents, 32 great great grandparents, and so on (even incest would only reduce those numbers). So if someone's family has lived in the South since the 1800s or the 1700s chances, at some point they'd have ancestors who were either outright owners or otherwise directly involved in slavery.
In those days most people held greater loyalty to their home state over the nation as a whole. Most never left their home state. They were fine with volunteering to fight and defend their home state against invaders. Those who didn’t want to fight didn’t really have much choice as they were conscripted into service or face arrest or even death for desertion.
The other issue is their source of news information. To them this wasn’t about fighting to keep the institution of slavery. The motivation to fight for the individuals who didn’t own slaves varied based upon what their local source of news was printing or passing on verbally.
Now to reverse the topic. Most of the Union troops didn’t care about ending the institution of slavery and they hated black people just as much as those in the south so what was THEIR motivation to fight? For some they saw the assault on Fort Sumpter as an attack on them. Some were also drafted or conscripted into service. But what were the motivations to fight for those who didn’t care about black people and slavery?
Yes. Only the head of the household owned the slaves. Yes, there were other white people in the household. Extended family members like you just mentioned. So while none of those people were the owner, those participating in slavery certainly the numbers get a lot bigger.
Also unless there's serious incest going on, everyone has 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great grandparents, 32 great great grandparents, and so on (even incest would only reduce those numbers). So if someone's family has lived in the South since the 1800s or the 1700s chances, at some point they'd have ancestors who were either outright owners or otherwise directly involved in slavery.
You might want to look at a map showing the location of slave plantations in the south. Most of the population in the south could not afford to own slaves. They worked the family farm on their own. Only the wealthy could afford to own slaves. In the south there were white people out in the fields just as much as you envision black slaves in the fields. Difference is one was doing it to support their family while the other was doing it under threat of the whip or death. The reports of the behavior of some Union troops shows they weren’t at all interested in “freeing the slaves” nor were they much better towards those who were slaves. In some cases the Union troops treated slaves as bad or worse than those who owned the slaves. Taking an over simplified view that Union troops were fighting to free slaves and Confederate soldiers were fighting to keep slavery is willfully ignorant to the full scope of the war.
Union armies weren't invading armies. They were reclaiming the southern United States from traitors.
IIRC the looting and destruction from the Union armies escalated as the war dragged on. This was done on purpose... to wear the population out. If the population stopped supporting the war, the war would end sooner. Remember; everyone thought initially it'd be over quickly.
Freeing slaves didn't become an aim of the north until around Gettysburg.
The South was the first to use force. That's not voluntarily leaving.
DC wasn't far from the border. The South had representation. So nothing like the Revolutionary War.
The Southern upper class knew that at some point slavery wouldn't exist anymore and so they dragged the south into a war over it. The lower classes like usual were cannon fodder easily swayed by propaganda. The Confederacy was the first to use the draft when their original soldiers who signed up initially for 12 months woke up one day and were told by their government "guess what! we've extended it to three years because we said so!"
This topic is generally about the reason why non-slave owning southerners fought for the South. From the “perspective” of the northern Union Army your first statement is correct. However, from the view of those in the southern states those Union troops were foreign invaders to their states. They saw a foreign army marching into their lands, stealing their food, stealing their livestock, burning homes and farms, and committing other crimes. There were some officers in the Union army who tried to prevent such crimes but those crimes did happen and sometimes they happened on the orders of the officers. The Union Army and their officers my have had justifications for the things they did but this is about perception. They perceived they were doing what was needed to feed their soldiers and help bring a quick end to the war while the other side saw thievery, destruction of their properties, and crimes that could not be forgiven. Though the worst crimes were committed by rogue Union troops, they were wearing Union army uniforms and carrying Union army weapons at the time of their crimes and so the perception of their victims was Union army is committing these crimes.
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