Letter to Soldier
When faced with obstacles in life, people rely on their family and friends to give them support and encouragement. Sometimes, family members can seem harsh and unkind, but their intentions are sincerely good. Mothers will always disapprove of their son’s choice in girlfriends, but she will shed tears of joy at the wedding. Fathers will never like their sons-in-law, but they still tell their daughters that they will find the perfect man. Thirty-year old men will always be treated as if they were ten by their mothers. It has been this way for centuries in our society. A letter from a worried mother to her son, a soldier in the Confederate Army, proved this point. While this young man was, by that time’s standard, an adult, his mother still felt the need to keep her child safe.
Aside from the content and ideas relayed in the letter, the document itself is a powerful item from American in history. Reading about a person or event in history is a good experience; a powerful experience, however, is to hold history in your hand and listen to people in their own words. Discovering the story and history behind this letter proved to be even more rewarding than holding and reading the letter itself. Expecting to find a few, uninteresting facts about this Civil War Era, I found that this letter brought to life five southern boys that were thrown off the farm and into battle. The letter also helps to illuminate the way a society lived while it told a story of a mother, her sons, and several friends
On January 6, 1863, a mother sat down and wrote her son a letter. The author of the letter was a forty-five year old woman named Kerney A. Stocks. She was writing to her son, John, who was a soldier in the Civil War. From what she mentioned in the letter, she was a very passionate woman. She made some very blatant remarks concerning her feelings toward her son’s behavior. For example, Mrs. Stocks says, “I feel [sort of] mad this morning because I did not get no letter from you yesterday,” expressing her displeasure to her son. Kerney Stocks was more than likely a middle class woman, since she could read and write.
In, “Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War,” Charles B. Dew analyzes the public letters and speeches of white, southern commissioners in order to successfully prove that the Civil War was fought over slavery. By analyzing the public letters and speeches, Dew offers a compelling argument proving that slavery along with the ideology of white supremacy were primary causes of the Civil War. Dew is not only the Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College, but he is also a successful author who has received various awards including the Elloit Rudwick Prize and the Fletcher Pratt Award. In fact, two of Dew’s books, Tredegar Iron Works and Apostles of Disunion and Ironmaker to
The book “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought In The Civil War” by James M. McPherson examines the motivations of the soldiers who fought in the Civil War. McPherson wanted to understand why the men fought in the Civil War and why they fought so ferociously for such a large amount of time even though there was a huge possibility of death, disease and injurys.To answer the question regarding the reasons why men fought in the Civil War so viciously, and for such a long period of time, James McPherson studied countless amounts of letters, diaries and other mails that were written or sent by the soldiers who fought in the Civil War.
As the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner and the wife of an assistant to the confederate president, Jefferson Davis, chestnut always found herself surrounded by the wealthy and high-end confederacy’s gentlemen and their views on the civil war. Mary recorded her most significate impressions of the conflict from the begging when the first shot in Charleston South Carolina went off. Mary Chesnut's diary is a glorious and rich with vivid comments on race, genders, wealth status, and power from those who had enough but wanted more within a nation divided Mary Boykin Chesnut was an incredibly intelligent woman, whose wartime experiences brought to live intimate and important details of southern culture. Since its publication in 1905, Chesnut’s diary has become compelling reading. Chesnut’s wartime diary begins when Mary learns of Lincolns election in 1860 later catching more focus when she grew to worry about her husband’s well-being and who was in charge of giving and following Jefferson’s orders without any hesitation. Mary’s carries her persona as a feminist but she seems sad that women are not able to do nothing outside the husband’s hands in one passage
...nless it was a matter of national security, and she would work to improve its dire state of self deprecation. In the case of family, today’s people are further depreciating the value of such a thing. Disturbing side effects include adultery, fornication, spousal abuse, and rampant amounts of children from unmarried partners. Where Men Win Glory exhibits the influence of family in creating enlightened people and the positive effects it can have on others from being in a loving environment – happiness being one. Finally, change as I explained above is an amazing feat that is life changing. Picture such a movement on a global scale. If one has not perused this book, then one is missing out on life; read this book and interpret your own meanings. Then, I challenge you, as Pat would, to become actively involved in improving yourself. See what happens; you might like it.
Leading up to the year 1981, America had fallen into a period of “stagflation”, a portmanteau for ‘stagnant economy’ and ‘high inflation’. Characterized by high taxes, high unemployment, high interest rates, and low national spirit, America needed to look to something other than Keynesian economics to pull itself out of this low. During the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan’s campaign focused on a new stream of economic policy. His objective was to turn the economy into “a healthy, vigorous, growing economy [which would provide] equal opportunities for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination.” Reagan’s policy, later known as ‘Reaganomics’, entailed a four-point plan which cut taxes, reduced government spending, created anti-inflationary policy, and deregulated certain products. Though ‘Reaganomics’ was successful both at controlling “stagflation” and promoting economic growth, it has and always will be an extremely controversial topic regarding the redistribution of wealth.
U.S. Government. "2012 World Oil Consumption." Countries. U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2012. Web. 03 Dec. 2013. .
Blair Jr., Clay (1975). Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. p. 1072.
Mary Anne Warren’s “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” describes her justification that abortion is not a fundamentally wrong action for a mother to undertake. By forming a distinction between being genetically human and being a fully developed “person” and member of the “moral community” that encompasses humanity, Warren argues that it must be proven that fetuses are human beings in the morally relevant sense in order for their termination to be considered morally wrong. Warren’s rationale of defining moral personhood as showcasing a combination of five qualities such as “consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, capacity of communication, and self-awareness” forms the basis of her argument that a fetus displays none of these elements that would justify its classification as a person and member of the morally relevant community (Timmons 386).
The ancient Maya once occupied a vast geographic area in Central America. Their civilization inhabited an area that encompasses Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and parts of the states of Chiapas and Tabasco, as well as Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. "From the third to the ninth century, Maya civilization produced awe-inspiring temples and pyramids, highly accurate calendars, mathematics and hieroglyphics, and a complex social and political order" ("Collapse..." 1). Urban centers were important to the Maya during the Classic period; they offered the Mayans a central place to practice religion.
It’s not easy to build an ideal family. In the article “The American Family” by Stephanie Coontz, she argued that during this century families succeed more when they discuss problems openly, and when social institutions are flexible in meeting families’ needs. When women have more choices to make their own decisions. She also argued that to have an ideal family women can expect a lot from men especially when it comes to his involvement in the house. Raymond Carver, the author of “Where He Was: Memories of My Father”, argued how his upbringing and lack of social institutions prevented him from building an ideal family. He showed the readers that his mother hide all the problems instead of solving them. She also didn’t have any choice but to stay with his drunk father, who was barely involved in the house. Carvers’ memoir is relevant to Coontz argument about what is needed to have an ideal family.
More confederates than unions were illiterate due to the fact that most held professional or white-collard jobs (36). To make the Union soldiers sample fair sense most blacks couldn’t read or write, 2 who could were included in the sample (36). The levels of patriotism differed from the upper and lower south given to the fact that the upper south were mainly cotton states. The confederates felt as if it was a “rich mans woar but the poor man has to do the fifting” (16). The confederates were mainly fighting for “independence, property and way of life” (27). Some characteristics the soldiers had in common were McPherson’s calculations for the Union. He came to seeing that out of 562 Union soldier’s letters read only 67 percent voice strong patriotic motives. This is the same as the two-thirds of Confederates. As a result from reading McPherson’s book, research showed that the Union and Confederate soldiers expressed about the same degree of patriotic and ideological convictions. Even though they both had different reasons for fighting the levels of sincerity and dedication in their notes were
The criterion for personhood is widely accepted to consist of consciousness (ability to feel pain), reasoning, self-motivation, communication and self-awareness. When Mary Anne Warren states her ideas on this topic she says that it is not imperative that a person meet all of these requirements, the first two would be sufficient. We can be led to believe then that not all human beings will be considered persons. When we apply this criterion to the human beings around us, it’s obvious that most of us are part of the moral community. Although when this criterion is applied to fetuses, they are merely genetic human beings. Fetuses, because they are genetically human, are not included in the moral community and therefore it is not necessary to treat them as if they have moral rights. (Disputed Moral Issues, p.187). This idea is true because being in the moral community goes hand in hand w...
This paper explores information gather from several articles that report on the Mayan Civilization throughout the years of their rise, their conquering, and their fall, as well as their interactions with other civilizations, specifically the Spanish. The Mayan civilization dates back before the 16th century, before they were conquered by the Spanish Conquistadors and the civilization diminished. During their reign, the Maya civilization thrived in what is now parts of Southern Mexico and Central America. However, their supremacy was struck down when the Spanish and their beliefs
...lowed me to step into the early 1800's of America and get a good, solid grip of what a brave woman went through to secure the freedom of her children. I was able to connect with Harriet Jacobs and her life as she was an incredibly venerable woman with a good heart and a bit of a stubborn streak that a lot of people could relate to in one way or another. This book definitely made a large impact on me and I feel like I will carry a majority of it with me for quite a while, in particular the seven years that Jacobs spent in an cramped "attic" in a shed. She was so close to her children, yet wasn't able to do anything for them for all those years except remain quiet and wait for the time to take action so she could keep them safe. This book has maintained the part of an American classic for many reasons and it was an absolute wonderful and enlightening book to read.
Homeschooling offers students a more time efficient education that allows the student to focus on education in which is the sole purpose for school. Homeschooling also gives the teacher a thorough evaluation of a student’s strengths and weaknesses by visually seeing what subjects they excel in and what subjects they are weak in. At this point students can increase their individual progression in each subject. Homeschooling permits control of the environment a student learns in to retain the focus of the student. This will reduce the chances of drug usage, bullying, and violence. Samuel Blumenfeld said this on the importance of homeschooling “The home is a safe haven for the children in a world awash with drugs, sexually transmitted diseases, violence, and moral corruption” (Cindy Mur et al.76). When parents come to realize that the home is the safest place for their children, then will they act as Blumenfeld concludes “I look forward to the day when the public schools will be virtually empty not because we have abolished public education but because the parents will have abandoned it” (Cindy Mur et al.