Monday, July 22, 2013

Romanticizing the Villains of the Civil War

From the Atlantic, a review of the new movie "Copperhead".
Caveat Lector,
CCC

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/the-copperhead-myth/277969/

Romanticizing the Villains of the Civil War
The newly released film Copperhead is in the same tradition as Gone with the Wind andGods and Generals. Its history is highly revisionist.


Excerpt: "The Copperheads opposed the draft, emancipation, and suspension of habeas corpus. They were not pacifists; none of them were Quakers (who were deeply antislavery and had supported the Underground Railroad). Rather, they were an organized political movement, with political aims, chiefly to undermine the Union effort. Nobody really knows how big it was. They belonged to groups such as the Knights of the Golden Circle, which claimed a half million members, and its successor organization the Sons of Liberty, .."