...dead bodies...

Warning: The post you are about to read contains my ramblings about history. Also, dead bodies.


Confederate dead behind the stone wall of Marye's Heights, Fredericksburg, Virginia, killed during the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1863

I've been mulling this theory over and over in my head for awhile now. It's just that I really don't understand why the Southern states decided that they should seceed from the Union to start the Civil War. My reasoning is this: It was the issue of the expansion of slavery that ultimately caused the war. The southern slaveholding states felt it pertinant to expand slavery to other states and/or territories as a safety valve. By 1860, many slaveholding states actually had a majority of slaves than slave owners. The slave owners felt they needed expansion as an outlet to get rid of slaves who were rapidly procreating. To me, it seems that it would have been better to try and attain this through the channels in the government than by seceeding from the union.

I feel that they should have realized that by seceeding from the union they were going against what they wanted in the first place. Had the South won the Civil War, eventually the slaves would have realized that they were in the majority and they would have eventually revolted to put down the slave owners. Either way, this is bad. Civil War=Death of many many many people. Slave revolt=Death of many many many people. Stay with the union=No Death.

Bottom line: War doesn't make sense.


Chancellorsville Campaign, Virginia, May 3, 1863: A Southern soldier who died attempting to hold the Confederate line on Marye's Heights overlooking Fredricksburg, Virginia. Note the rifle across the soldier's body—photographers loved to place weapons on bodies to add drama to the image.