The American Civil War: 150 years later

The New York Times, in the spirit of James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, has been running a series of articles reflecting on the American Civil War that I've come to look forward to reading daily.

A recent article, entitled "The Defenders," is well worth passing on. Of particular interest is the description of the disparity between officers and enlisted men. On average the enlisted man was just short of five feet, six inches tall, while several of the officers were over six feet in height. Rations are explained, including the fact that while officers often ate meat, the enlisted men got buy more often than not on bread and what passed for coffee. The diverse nature of nutrition is worthy of note here. In addition, the enlisted men were, more often than not, at the beginning of the war, migrants, often unable to speak English, or, if they did, possessed accents that made them almost unintelligible. They were also almost always illiterate.

Finally, while a myth has persisted that nearly half of the Federal forces betrayed their country and joined the pro slavery southern forces, the truth is that, while nearly thirty percent of the officers did this, less than one percent of enlisted men did.