Information Overload!

BC of F .....wow....I haven't tried to remember so many people, events, dates, provisos, purchases, inventions, political uprisings, etc. since AP American and AP European history classes in high school. I do have to say, though, that it is really interesting to go back and be able to "dissect" early America and its development both politically and defensively.

In Chapter 11, Amateurs Go to War, it shows how many of the southerners, even the non-slave holders were fighting "just because the northerners were there". It wasn't the fact that they were defending slavery really, but that they were defending their liberty and their way of life, their land, and their families and traditions. These southern soldiers were farmers, not trained cavalry. I have also learned more about artillery and weapons in my reading of this book and watching History Channel's America the Story of Us. I now now the difference between smoothbore and rifled muskets, and see how the evolution of the weapons greatly changed the dynamics and strategies of the fighting in the civil war; bringing about an entirely new way of combat.....and unfortunately numbers of casualties. All very interesting, I have to say....but my brain is really on overload about now!