The "Has The Civil War Never Ended?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading an online article that told about the five things you never knew about the Civil War.  I must admit there are more than five things I don't know about any war, since I was never a good student in any history class I ever took both in high school and college.  History just never interested me...until about 20 years ago when I began to write this blog.  I have learned more world, national and local history in the past 20 years than I had in the 55 years before that.  Not only learned more, but I actually joined the Lancaster Historical Society so I could visit their library and display rooms to see what I missed in the first two-thirds of my life.  I recently read quite a bit about the Civil War on a trivia website I enjoy visiting from time to time.  The Civil war began in 1861 and ended in 1865.  Why is it that so many wars lasted 4 years?  The Civil War set Americans against Americans, and it affected everyone in the United States.  The Battle of Gettysburg occurred about 50 miles from my hometown in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  When Carol and I travel to visit our daughter and her family that live in neighboring Maryland, we travel West along the old Route 30.  Every town along the way has memorial signs along the road telling of the Civil War.  The Civil War was between the United States (the Northern States) and the 11 Southern States.  It was the deadliest war on American soil with 620,000 deaths which was about 2% of the total population.  And, it all started due to uncompromising differences between the Northern States, who were mainly free, and slave states over the position of the national government to disallow slavery in the territories that had not yet become states.  Lancaster's own James Buchanan was President of the United States before the war began and it seems as if he did nothing to try and stop the war.  He is called our nation's worst President because of that.  

President Abraham Lincoln visiting the troops.

In the 1860 election, Abraham Lincoln ran on a pledge to block the institution of slavery in the new territories.  In retaliation, a Confed- erate States of America was created by seven Deep South states that separated from the Union.  It was feared that a Confederate secession would lead to the dissolution of the United States and divide our country into two countries.  In the course of the war, 385 battles took place.  Many of those battlefields have since been developed and turned into housing developments and shopping malls.  Veterans and concerned citizens are trying to identify all battlefields and mark them with plaques for the sake of history.  The bloodiest battle of the Civil War took place in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with 51,112 casualties.  23,049 Northern soldiers were killed and 28,063 Southern soldiers died.  The battle ran from July 1 to July 3 of 1863.  Battles in Chickamauga, Georgia (34,624 deaths); Chancellorsville, Virginia (30,099 deaths); Spotsylvania, Virginia (27,399 deaths); Antietam, Maryland ( 26,134 deaths); the Wilderness, Virginia (25,416 deaths); and the Battle of Second Manasas, Virginia (25,251 deaths) were the deadliest battles of the war.  

General Robert E. Lee leads his troops into battle.

The article I was reading on the trivia site said the reasons for the deaths were: musketry (50.6%); cannons (5.7%); pistol/ buckshot (1.2%); saber (0.2%); bayonet (0.2%) and unknown (42.1%).  As I read those numbers, I wondered how, and why, someone would take the time to tally up all the deaths and how they occurred.  Was it just for history's sake?  The total number of soldiers who fought for both sides was 2,128,948 for the North and 1,082,119 for the South.  I have stated earlier that about 620,000 died, but a more recent study said that perhaps it was as high as 850,000.  The soldiers naturally got paid for their service with white union soldiers getting $13 a month while black union soldiers got $7 a month.  Confederate soldiers were paid $11 a month.  At times there wasn't enough money to pay the soldiers, so they might have gone months without pay.  The Confederates called a truce in April of 1865 and the United States allegedly prevailed.  Did the war mean anything?  At times I believe it did, but at other times it looks as if it did nothing to stop the divide between the whites and the blacks.  I could write here that only time will tell, but time seems to mean nothing anymore.  Many people still believe the war has never ended.  Is it not why we are still fighting today?  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.