Corruption of history

[L Verge]

I think I know where this is leading, and I am not touching it with a ten-foot pole. Each one of us can express our personal opinions (and many of those opinions can be backed up with factual data - believe it or not). The end result of this will be another contentious disagreement between our factions.

Personally, I have friends in both of those particular organizations as well as acquaintances in various Union organizations. I neither condemn nor praise them for their opinions and actually appreciate that both sides are keeping the study of history and lineage alive in a culture that is certainly turning away from those topics. Along the way, most of them will likely encounter a fact or incident that might make them learn even more.

As for the origins of these groups, I know enough about the aftermath of the Civil War to know why people created them. Some held to a Lost Cause syndrome, but those of Northern persuasion seem to have formed their patriotic groups as a way of bragging that they had won (IMO - and the ones I know today still do...).

Some of my favorite CW photos were actually taken many years later at the anniversaries of Manassas and Gettysburg, where the fading fighters of 50 years before are shaking hands and/or posing together. They seem to be saying that they still have their beliefs, but that the war is over and that they have moved on. I wish modern "debaters" would do the same and just study all aspects of the Civil War (actually the entire 19th century) and stop trying to pick "fights" nearly 160 years later.

Sorry, but that's how I feel. BTW: Should I ask about the DAR? Nobody (except one of my history profs in college) seems to pick on them.