Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Civil War Is Over . . . . Or So I Thought


What or Where the "South" is changes according to whom is saying it. "Why is there a South" is another question entirely, and that answer also varies according to speaker. 

The Mason-Dixon Line divides Maryland and Pennsylvania. It is not, as many think, the line that rebels used to decide which states were for the Union and which were for the Confederacy. The line became shorthand for that use, though its own history is disconnected from the Civil War. Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, land surveyors of the British colonies, took the task of solving a land dispute between the Pennsylvanian and Maryland colonies. In 1763––before not only the Civil War, but the Revolutionary War as well––Mason and Dixon surveyed a 316 mile stretch using the heavens and a chain to measure the distance. The stones that marked the borders between Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware predate the USA. Maryland residents now cross the line to get into Pennsylvania for a day of sales tax free shopping.

Politics determined which pieces of the country were North and South. Pennsylvania (and West Virginia) to the north were Union, and Virginia south was Confederate. Maryland was under martial law, because it contained the District of Columbia, and so she could not choose what she wanted, though she was a slave state (therefore, technically Southern). 

I have found, in my college meanderings, that what defines North and South in the memory of Americans is not politics or historical fact. Anna Rose Bennett, of Jackson, Mississippi, thinks that Virginians are Yankees. In fact, everything north of South Carolina is Yankee. I have attempted to tell her that Virginia took the brunt of the fighting, that the capital of the Confederacy was in Richmond, but her reply is usually, "No, no. But the capital was supposed to be in Jackson, because the Mississippi River was necessary for trade and transportation." Though the capital became Richmond, she won't admit defeat in debate. In any case, General Grant sacked and burned Jackson thrice to the ground. Good move on Jefferson Davis' part.

Virginians are not "Southerners" to those in Mississippi either. They think Virginians are mountain people, who live in the Appalachian mountain chain and have their own music and culture––but that culture and music is Northern.

"The North" does not care whom was who. They learned that the Civil War occurred, they passed their history tests, and then they moved on with life. My grandmother, Martha Muhles, who grew up near Baltimore, says, "Nobody that I know really brings it up. It's a done deal. It was interesting. We liked Gone with the Wind." Her husband Edward Muhles, an amateur historian, can lecture on about the politics of the time, how the war was about states' rights and slavery. That bit of history was a passing phase with him, and he has since moved on to other projects. The "North" has its own descendants of Civil War veterans. I'm related to a general or something––I think. But the war is over, life has more to offer, and I digress.

The Mason-Dixon Line is always associated with the Civil War, but its location changes according to whom is speaking. If it is a Mississippian or Georgian, the line is between South Carolina and North Carolina. If it is a Virginian––the line should be somewhere in the middle of Virginia. If it is anyone Maryland and north, you get a weird look that says Why are you asking me? Who cares?







Hopefully this will be published in The Carroll News. If not, or if I know longer ever post any more blog posts, it could be that I was exiled or tarred and feathered. If it is published––well, now I'm not breaking copyright, am I?

2 comments:

  1. The reason that nobody in the North really thinks about it anymore is because any damage or wounding that the Union received was satiated by "victory" over the South. In the southern states, they'd lost nearly an entire generation to what seemed, after all was said and done, a pointless venture.

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  2. True, there was a generation gone and a whole era of rebuilding and industrialization. However, there are still some petty prejudices going on. I realize I'm taking part in it by writing about it. However––they exist, a century and a half after the war.

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