La Guerre Civile

Still working on the third installment of Sarge's "Off the top of my head" History Lectures*... (Too dang busy answering comments last night!)

I want everyone here to bear in mind that I was born and raised in Vermont, if you go any further north, you're in Canada. So I was born and raised a Yankee. What, you may ask, is a Yankee? Well, this is the definition that I prefer -

1. To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
2. To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
3. To northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
4. To easterners, a Yankee is an New Englander.
5. To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
6. And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.

I heard a variation of that definition a long time ago. The version I heard is that the pie one had for breakfast had to be apple pie. And yes, I've done that but only when The Missus Herself isn't looking.

So I'm about as Yankee as it gets, though my brother, Ye Olde Vermonter, is even more Yankee than I. He still wears flannel shirts, chops his own wood, and talks like a Vermonter. Which is both an accent and an attitude, to wit -

Car pulls over, tourist leans out: "Say old fellow, can you tell me how you get to the local shopping plaza?"

My brother, tipping his flannel hunting hat back on his head: "Well, sometimes I walk, sometimes my sister drives me..."

And yes, that story might be apocryphal. I wasn't there, he claims it's true, though he's been known to stretch the truth from time to time.

Anyhoo.

A few more definitions are in order, for reference purposes of course -

civil- relating to ordinary citizens and their concerns, as distinct from military or ecclesiastical matters. (Yeah, it can also mean courteous and polite. If you use the term "civil war," then neither courteous nor polite really apply.)

war - a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.

civil war - a war between citizens of the same country.

All that being said, it was sort of a "War Between the States," though technically it was a war between two groups of states. So I don't much care for that term. As to the "War of Northern Aggression" - we can probably debate that one from now until Kingdom Come (and yes, that was intentional) and we still wouldn't agree.

I always point to the buggers who fired the first shot when I say, "Well, you started it." The shooting bit anyway. But want to know a secret, it's always the politicians who scream for war. It's seldom politicians who do the bleeding and the dying. Part of the reason I care not for that breed.

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Not to veer off on a tangent (which I love doing), while looking at Civil War** photos the other day I stumbled upon that fellow above, one Corporal Joseph Pierce, of the 14th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, born in Canton, the one in China, not the one in Ohio. You should chase this link and read more about Corporal Pierce. It's worth your while, chase the link under his photo as well. He wasn't the only man of Chinese descent to fight in the Civil War**. Chase this link to read about Thomas Sylvanus, born in Hong Kong, brought to the U.S. and enslaved in Baltimore. From said place escaping at the start of the Civil War** to join the Union Army. More on him at the link under the photo below.

There's even a blog called The Blue, The Gray and the Chinese! Hasn't been updated in a while, but it's interesting reading.

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The things you learn from blogging!




* Meaning which, I don't do a lot of research before writing, picture me answering a question about a topic while sitting down, face to face, avec moi, perhaps over an adult-type beverage. Hopefully which the questioner is buying. (Hint.) Reader suggestions for future topics along these lines are welcome. Of course, the post might wind up being. "Hhmm, I know next to nothing about that." Hey, it happens.
** Insert whatever you like to call it in place of "Civil War."