But even putting political hyperbole aside, the Civil War does still very much inform the American experience. The emancipation of blacks is not quite resolved and the disagreements between Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln throw their long shadows across issues like health-care reform and entitlements. Moreover, the tea party, promoting small government, has risen to challenge the post-Civil War view of government as a superior, benevolent force of good.
After the Civil War, “the older Jeffersonian tradition was suppressed by the new Lincolnian vision of a unitary nationalist regime, and it was never able to digest the Jeffersonian tradition,” says Donald Livingston, a philosophy professor at Emory University in Atlanta. “But it’s still there, suppressed, in the memory of Americans. What’s interesting about the South is that it held onto the Jeffersonian tradition longer ”“ which is why you can’t understand America today without seeing this deep conflict between these two groups.”
Indeed, 56 percent of Americans, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center, believe the Civil War remains relevant. That’s partly because of its overarching themes, but also because it remains a deeply personal conflict for many Americans: One out of 17 Americans ”“ or about 18 million ”“ can claim a direct line to someone who fought in the war. “It really wasn’t that long ago,” says Michael Hill, president of the League of the South, a Southern nationalist group in Killen, Ala.
My great great grandfather was in the 11th Florida Infantry. Wounded at Petersberg.
I had ancestors on both sides. The Union Army ancestor (great-great-grandfather) died in the war. The Confederate ancestor (great-grandfather) survived, although he refused to surrender, escaped into Mexico and ultimately went to England.
My great-grandfather was in the Powhatan Artillery, 1st Virginia Artillery, Army of Northern Virginia. He lost an arm at Ft. Gilmer and his brother was killed helping him off the field. His wife was a clerk in the Confederate War Department in Richmond. Their home in Fredericksburg was looted and destroyed by Yankee troops. On my grandmothers side her grandfather was assistant regimental surgeon to the 39th KY Vol. Infantry, USA. We don’t talk about him. His brother was a Confederate.