Quote Originally Posted by Whacker View Post
Most of my ancestors were broke-*** and starving potato farmers, but along one branch, I'm descended from Confederates from Tennessee who fought against the Union. Suffice to say, that fact is a bit embarrassing to me. I was born and raised in a Union state, but have lived most of my life in a Southern state. My opinion hasn't changed, if anything as I mentioned it's become even more dim of the South and what they did leading up to and even more so after the war.

The whole Southern Victimhood thing is one of those myths that needs to die with the past. The reason that much of the US still thinks of the southeastern chunk as a backwater, racist haven is because ... well, in many ways it is. The South started the war, this is a fact. The South seceded, then forcibly occupied and evicted US troops viewed as "Union" from locations all throughout the region. They fired the first shots. Wars were fought on both sides of the thin red line. Both sides pillaged and looted. Whom did what to whom is a separate matter, but the South brought all this upon themselves. Again, not only did they start it, but after it was all said and done, they doggedly continued to fight against the legislation that lead them to decide to break away to begin with. It takes two to make a fight, but in most cases it's pretty clear who the most responsible party is.

Until the South gets over themselves and this self-perpetuated nonsense, it's unlikely those century and a half old wounds will truly heal up and close.
You suffer from the confusion of the Victor, that the loser was in the wrong and that if only he is given enough time and told often enough, he will come to realise that fact.

It. Will. Never. Happen.

The South lost the War, Southerners see the actions of Union forces, particularly the massacres as war Crimes, they consider Lincoln pursuit of the War - rather than anquiencing to sessecion as a war Crime. Those beliefs are backed by blood and suffering, and they will never change. If the Welsh and Irish can still fume about things that happened 1,000-2,000 years ago then you bet the South will hate the Yankees for the reamainder of your life and your children's lives.