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Theme Of Hate In The Civil War

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Hate is defined by an intense feeling or passionate dislike for someone; feeling of hate and revenge. During the war of 1861-1865 the Northern Soldiers had a passionate dislike for the South and when the North fought, they fought with revenge. In a letter, a Wisconsin soldier wrote to his fiancée, “When there is no officer with us, we take no prisoners… We want revenge… We tell them that is what we want. We want to kill them all off and cleanse the country.” (40). This is just one script of many that describe how the soldiers felt during the war, it describes how much hate a soldier has to want to “cleanse” the country with them as if the south were unhuman. The hate towards the black was so immense, that they could not even imagine how it …show more content…

The white did not want the blacks to have the same rights as them; they did not want to be equal. A lieutenant from Mississippi wrote to his wife that he was willing to fight so the slaves won’t be freed since they were needed for labor, “This country without slave labor would be completely worthless…If the negroes are freed the country…is not worth fighting for…I am willing to continue to fight to the last.” (48) After the Emancipation Proclamation, slave prices in the South raised, as the Author James McPherson states, “Slave Prices in the South rose even faster…A number of soldiers wrote home advising relatives to invest in slaves.” (49) As the confederate soldiers continued fighting against slavery, their value kept increasing, so the North continued buying slaves because they expected for slaves to be worth more than what they were purchasing them for, “Now is the time… to buy some negro women and children… slaves will be worth a 1000 times more than now.” (49). The confederate soldiers continued to fight because they preferred to fight for freedom or die trying rather than to be sold to the

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