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Summary Of What This Cruel War Was Over Chandra Manning

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What this Cruel War was Over: Chandra Manning

Chandra Manning opens up her important book with a quote that states, " The fact that slavery is the sole undeniable cause of this infamous rebellion, that it is a war of, by, and for slavery, is as plain as the noon-day sun."(p.3) This book is about what soldiers thought about slavery and what it has to do with the civil war. In 1862 the white southerners did not agree with the Wisconsin men on a lot of things but one thing they did agree on was that any man who believes that this is not a war for the freeing of blacks is either a fool or a liar. Getting to the question on how did white Union soldiers’ understanding of slavery change during the course of the war, well two years later black men …show more content…

White soldiers understanding of slavery changed during the course of the war because at one point they were willing to free some slaves but not all and when the president fed into this it only made the southerners upset because then they knew all of them would be free. Soldiers identified slavery as the reason for the war. For Manning, such samplings of soldiers' writing represent the fundamental fact that right from the beginning soldiers knew that the war was about slavery. Chandra Manning tries to get at how common troops black, Union, and Confederate viewed the Civil War and the reasons for fighting in the war. The answer? Slavery. They tried to separate the issues of slavery and black rights, but the more they saw of slavery, the more they came not only to dislike the institution but to give special importance with the slave. Although in the beginning they were for slavery, many soldiers later thought they were …show more content…

White men knew what they were doing owning slaves and fighting in the war. Even unmarried men owned slaves because all white men had a duty to protect women. I agree with Manning when she says this is "patronizing and insulting" because it was, men were fighting and risking their lives just to own slaves. They wanted power over another human being, I have read many articles and books on men being "breadwinners", and I understand the men were in titled to make the money and protect their families but slavery was horrible. Slavery is something I do not agree with and maybe if it was the other way around white men would feel differently but this is a part of history. To the north slavery was cruel and wrong and what made them upset was the south pushing the expansion of slavery. The north thought this was taking more jobs away from the whites. Racism was something I was familiar with but after reading this book it made me open my eyes more to real life issues this world had to go through. I'm happy manning made this book to show how life as a soldier was and I'm also happy slavery was

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