Summary Of John Crocker's The Long Goodbye

Crocker believes that the Southern states that followed South Carolina were justified in seceding from the Union. The federal government failed to seek the preservation of the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of South Carolinians, Mississipians, Floridians, Alabamans, Georgians, Louisianans, and Texans. A new republic had sprung up in North America. It was based – despite what Yankees would say – not on treason, but patriotism. This new nation was led by Jefferson Davis, a U.S. Senator.

Was the war really about slavery? U.S. President Lincoln stated his policy in a letter to the New York Tribune, on August 20, 1862: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I

He calls these battles from 1861-1863.

After the defeat at Gettysburg in 1863 the southern cause was doomed. The South did not have the resources to fight a long war. At the outset the North numbered 20 million people; the South had only nine million, four million of these were slaves. The Federals waged a war against Southern civilians destroying their crops, their cities, and their homes. These battles from 1863-1865 Crocker calls The Long Goodbye.

Crocker wrote a biography about nine Generals of the Civil War giving each a human appeal and their role in the War. He said what George Washington was to the War of Independence, Rogert E. Lee was to the War of Southern Independence, he stated Sherman believed Southerners needed to be exterminated. He said General Longstreet wore carpet slippers in the battle because of a painful blister.

My Opinion:

Crocker 's politically incorrect guide is very interesting. He wonders what if the South had won. Maybe they would have abolished slavery peaceably as every other country in the Western Hemisphere did in the nineteenth century. Crocker gave lots of facts to make his guide possible, but to most history lovers that is simply politically