Last Friday, I was at Barnes & Noble (the book store) wandering in the history section. I picked up a book titled "Lies My Teacher Told Me," and flipped to a section about the War Between the States. Of course, they referred to it as the "Civil War." After reading for roughly 2 seconds, I gave up all hope of a politically incorrect book. Below are the claims the author makes, and my responses.
Insane Claim #1: Textbooks are slanted toward the Confederacy. Yes, the author actually made this claim.
Response: Yeah, that explains why the public is generally convinced that Lincoln was a saint, the Confederates were racist Nazis, and that Gen. Grant was a hero. This applies, pathetically enough, to Southerners as well.
Insane Claim #2: South Carolina seceded almost completely because of slavery and tried to control the actions of other states.
Response: No, they didn't, and no, they didn't. Granted, the author backs up the first subclaim, which is better than what I see from most liberals, but it's still highly inaccurate. Of course slavery was one of the reasons, but the author claims that the tarriff was only a minor issue and fails to mention the cultural/religious differences, which gave secession a boost. The tariff was in fact a huge issue. The way it worked was this: The government raised large import/export taxes, which delivered three blows at once. It hurt the cotton industry, which relied on Europe to buy most of its cotton. It made it expensive for the South to buy goods from Europe and forced them to rely more on Northern goods, which were more expensive and often lower quality. Last, all the tax money was spent on projects in the North, and not a penny went to the South. Lincoln also promised higher tarriffs. Now, as for trying to control other states' actions, the author cites South Carolina's complaint about some Yankee states discouraging officers from enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law. That's not an attempt at control, that's just a complaint! Sure, it may have INFLUENCED those states, but that's not control. Oh, yeah, and if good old South Carolina seceded over slavery, why did the C.S.A. Constitution ban the slave trade?
Insane claim #3: Sherman never burned Columbia, it was because the Confederates burned cotton and bridges, which started the fire. See why I call these claims absurd?
Response: Fortunately, the author never denied Sherman's burning of Atlanta (to my knowledge, at least). As for this claim, everyone knows that Sherman's men burned a whole lot of small, unimportant towns as well as some major ones, and we're expected to believe that he never touched the capitol of the first state to secede! The author completely neglected to mention the eyewitness accounts of drunken Yankee soldiers running around with torches. Of course, those eyewitnesses were biased, so we can't trust them! However, we can trust whatever Mr. Sherman says, because he wasn't biased! I don't believe a word of it.
