ECW Podcast: America 250: Lexington & Concord (with Rob Orrison)
Rob Orrison from ECW’s sister-site, Emerging Revolutionary War, joins the ECW Podcast to talk about the start of the America 250 celebration in Lexington and Concord. Rob recaps ECW’s round-the-clock coverage and talks about the events that sparked the American Revolution.
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On its face, this recognition of the 250th Anniversary of the War of Independence may seem out of place on a Civil War site. But as one dives deep into “causes of the Civil War” and motivations for men, North and South, to take up arms against each other, a disturbing fact appears: Both Sides believed “their side was in the right,” and the Revolutionary War and its aftermath were used as justification for both sides embarking on their programs of action and reaction.
For the South, it appears The Constitution of the United States (1787) and its supposed violation by “the North” was a touchstone for rebellion in 1860/1861. [The Constitution was one of two major outcomes of the War of Independence, the other being “recognition of the United States of America as sovereign nation.”] For the North, “the Experiment” of Rule “by, for and of The People” which their ancestors had achieved as result of mighty struggle and sacrifice against the British Empire was under threat due to hasty actions of the South. Be it remembered that the War of Independence was fought under the cloak of the Articles of Confederation; and The Constitution (1787) came about almost as an afterthought. But both sides fought the Civil War under The Constitution: the North under the original document, as amended; and the South under the original document, with minor adjustments.
Both sides claimed George Washington “as their own.”
Both sides accepted the necessity of separating from England in the 1700s; but the South had a different slant on “Who were the rebels fighting in that War of Independence?” Many Southern elites viewed themselves as descended from English and Scottish nobility, and these elites created a narrative labelling Yankees of the North as inferior stock. This self-fulfilling assertion resulted in an expectation that “Britain HAD to recognize the South, and not the North, because Southerners were more Royal and had more in common with Mother England.” It also led to the beliefs that “Southerners are born to rule,” and “One Southerner is worth ten Yankees.”
Of course, the physical destinations of many soldiers, North and South, during the Civil War brought them into contact with places of importance during the Revolutionary War: Yorktown, during McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign; Annapolis (where George Washington resigned his military commission); Pensacola (where Spanish “allies” drove away the British in 1781); Mobile, site of another Spanish victory in 1781… Civil War soldiers had only heard stories about such places; and now they were walking the same streets where those stories originated.
Thanks to Chris Mackowski and Rob Orrison for providing this discussion, linking the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, and encouraging further studies of both.