I like to learn new words. I was doing some genealogy research and one of my great x whatever grandfathers was in the Civil War on the Union Side. Apparently he was on the way to Bull's Gap, NC when word came down that Bob Lee surrendered. The quote was 'They lay there one week having a jollification.' jol·li·fi·ca·tion /ˌjäləfəˈkāSH(ə)n/ noun lively celebration with others; merrymaking
I've heard and read the word "normie" several times the past couple weeks. I'm not sure if it's actually in the dictionary or not, but it's a dumb word that I hope dies a quick death.
My oldest son went to a magnet middle school for gifted & talented kids, but half of the students were still 'regular' kids zoned for the school. The GT kids called the regular kids 'normies'. It was sort of a condescending insult so the school shut it down. There was not much jollification from that.
I know lots of new words: **** **** damn hell b**** (I had to edit that….apparently the filters don’t asterisks the dreaded “C” word the ladies hate so much).
I don't know, that uniform looks a little gray to me. JK, that's good **** that you are learning more about your family. So I just really noticed that grey is spelled 2 ways and the difference, for some reason it never really registered with me.
I had an aunt bust out numerous photos and letters from my long dead relatives and lets just say that they were not on the Union side. Apparently Scandinavians are all about that oppression and owning other people..... Jesus Christ the stuff I read. My friend Wendell asked if I feel guilty, and maybe I am a bad person but I don't.... I didn't and don't own anyone and I never met these people, and they sounded like assholes from the letters and comments that they wrote.
No reason why you should feel bad those people have no bearing on what you believe. Interesting to hear that about Scandinavians even the slaves they did keep back in the day had more rights. But then every ethnicity or cultural group are capable of thinking they are superior and believe in oppression to stay in power. What stuff were you reading? Diaries, newspaper clippings? Ok I saw you said letters what was the topic?
A lot of them were letters that my aunt had from a few direct relatives that fought for the South. The letters discussed a lot of stuff from business, to food, to the house they owned. They all were very critical of the Union and their idea of "America" was very different than ours. They believed that the government should have basically zero power, that the federal government on both sides were the enemy. They believed that the Union had invaded them and were telling them how to live and what they could or couldn't do. To them the idea of USA didn't mean much, the state and town meant everything. They discussed who I am assuming were slaves that one of them owned, and saying that she should feed them well and then sell them during the war. Most the letters were between a man and wife and his mother. His mother was against the war and basically said that the war should end and the government should pay all the slaves and send them away from the USA to a country they could have as their own. She seemed to be less racist than her son or his wife. None of them though could foresee or comprehend that slaves would be viewed as Americans or equals or even be part of American society. They all viewed them as basically foreigners. She was more compassionate and felt bad for them and seemed to feel they deserved to be free. Her son and his wife viewed them as basically chattel. I know that sounds bad, but they acted like they were property and outside of not letting them freeze or starve, they deserved nothing more. The wife was angry at the Union for starting a war and Robert E Lee for taking her husband. She did not want to see slaves and was worried that they would lose their money and status with him in the war. She asked him to come home. She also blamed the slaves and said that she wanted to have females slaves to be kept and get rid of who I am guessing was a male slave because of how he would stare at her. They didn't think they were bad people (who does though?) and they were less worldly than people are now - very self centered and in constant fear of poverty and physical violence.
Had a lot to do with where they lived, I think. My family is all Yankees. According to Ancestry.com DNA, I'm super white at 29% Swedish, 28% Scottish, 27% Finnish and 9% Norway (the rest is UK or German) I can't find any family history with slaves in the US.
Very likely that your family didn't own slaves, most slaves were owned by a small percentage of the population. The feeling I got from the letters is that people back then did not consider a lot of the moral issues that we do now. They seemed to be more accepting of authority and how the world was. Yeah you are very white.
As a black guy I found it astonishing to see some of my ancestors were slaves and slave owners. People forget anyone could own slaves as long they were free themselves.
