Getting through this book has been quite the process, but I finally made it! I thought it was so interesting that near the end the confederacy chose to use blacks as soldiers. Though they never actually fought, it was still a surprise to me. I never would have thought that blacks would have wanted to fight for their masters. I'm sure some didn't want to, but some did. This was just one more thing to show me there were so many sides to the war that I'd never considered before. It wasn't just about slavery. There were so many politics involved. Many in the confederacy didn't own slaves, and many in the union didn't want to abolish slavery.
I was also surprised that Lee didn't surrender sooner when it seemed all hope was lost. What a tragedy this war was! I can't really even comprehend the number of casualties. I was impressed to read of many of the class act leaders from the north and how they treated the southern soldiers after the surrender. I sure learned a lot from this book!
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I liked some of the thinking that McPherson included on the debate to use the black soldiers in the south. If blacks did end up making good soldiers, then they truly had no justification for their beliefs that slavery was a blessing to the blacks. The whole argument becomes a house of cards.
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised by a lot of the things I learned in this book too. If nothing else, it opened my eyes to different perspectives.
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