150 years since US Civil War, still Yankees versus Rednecks? (Feature)

By Chris Melzer Dec 21, 2010, 4:36 GMT

Atlanta - It was the bloodiest war in US history, tearing the land between North and South and even dividing families.

As the United States nears the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War, the conflict's mark on the nation is indelible.

The impact is embedded in dozens of small ways, from the Confederate symbols embedded in several Southern state flags to the words of the Maryland state song calling for residents to spurn the 'Northern scum,' to the enduring popularity of the Confederate battle flag on bumper stickers and t-shirts.

'It is more than 'just history,'' said Eric Emerson, head of South Carolina's state archives.

The state collection he oversees includes the Ordinance of Secession, the document by which the Southern states declared their separation from the North. South Carolina was the first, declaring it would secede from the union on December 20, 1860, in response to the election of President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery.

To mark the anniversary, on Monday the state unveiled a marker at the site where the declaration of secession was signed, and commemorations were held at a plantation outside Charleston including a reading of the document and musket firings, local television reported.

The splintering of the US into North and South led to a four-year civil war that would devastate the Southern landscape, leaving more than 620,000 soldiers dead on both sides. The war would ultimately free some 4 million people held as slaves were and preserve the United States as a whole and complete country, redefining the nation only 85 years after the Declaration of Independence from England.

The United States is preparing to mark the 150th anniversary of the conflict beginning in 2011 with a series of events at battlefields, museums and other sites.

The official start of the celebrations will come on April 12, the anniversary of the Confederate attack on the Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The shots are widely seen as the first of the conflict.

But how the war is seen still differs between North and South.

'You have in the South a much stronger relationship to that past, and every family knows stories about fallen relatives or burned houses,' Emerson notes. 'But it's also a question of generation: the younger are much less interested.'

The New York Times notes a change in how this anniversary will be marked. At the centennial commemorations, the state of Georgia still defended the view that the South was simply protecting itself against 'Northern aggression.' Since 1960, though, the civil rights movement has largely changed the view of the conflict and its basis in slavery.

'During the centennial of the Civil War starting in 1960, Georgia celebrated the Confederacy and the view that the state had seceded in a valiant act of defending states' rights against Northern aggressors,' the newspaper noted. 'This time around, state historians are taking a different approach, declaring that Georgia seceded to defend the institution of slavery.'

But after the war, the South held onto the legend of the Lost Cause.

'There are without any doubt some people who think that we lost the war but were the more civilized, the 'Southern Gentleman,'' says Emerson. 'For example, if someone is in a car and blows the horn again and again, some people say 'Look, a Yankee!''

In the North, the many immigrants who arrived after the war dimmed the memories slightly even by the late 1800s. But after 150 years, both sides look at their opponents more mildly than before.

Even in the South, views have changed.

Historian Joanna Arrieta pointed to General William Sherman, who led an infamously merciless Union offensive that brought the South to its knees, as 'a good example' of how views have changed, even in the South. Sherman burned much of her home state of Georgia, becoming an icon on both sides, but today 'is not longer only the saint or only the villain.'

'Now we find some attention also in the North,' Arrieta said. 'We can mourn without the allegation that all Southerners are rednecks who want to defend slavery. How many soldiers had slaves?'

The next four years will surely see yet another round of reflection and re-evaluation of some of the most painful episodes in US history. It will also give Americans a chance to celebrate what makes them a nation.

'We found out how to become one thing, not just a collection of states,' documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, whose series on the conflict helped shape current views, has said. 'The Civil War will always be relevant.'

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