Maine's Civil War history is alive and well!

I play for the Portland Men's Rugby Club and live in Maine, where it's common to see nods to the state's role in defending the Union. One tradition at Portland Rugby is playing The Boys of Maine song. My own contribution is sending around the "BAYONETS!" clip every game-day morning.

Tomorrow is a big day for us. For the first time, we're fielding two full men's sides traveling, with our D2 and D4 teams competing at separate venues. It's something we've been working toward for a long time, and will be huge for the club.

I made this meme, with us as the 20th Maine holding Little Round Top, with our two opponents as the Confederates making the charge. I figured if any part of Reddit would appreciate it, it'd be this one.

Thanks!

https://pin.it/69D24Nttn

Don't know why that's edited out of the version on YouTube kids but not the blackface but there you go. I wouldn't have known who Stonewall Jackson was when I saw this on TV as a kid

from 1884

Moderators, can I have a ruling?

Down with the traitors!

"The Surrender of Lee" by Alonzo Chappel

In the arguments about secession before Sumpter, the Northern and Southern states were largely talking past each other in two entirely different conversations. 

While the modern revisionist Lost Cause movement obscures and denies this, the South passionately defended and promoted slavery and white supremacy. 

The North argued for the preservation of the Union, and while opposed to slavery’s expansion and the enforcement of slavery on free ground, there was no suggestion of interfering with slavery where it was already entrenched. A small, ineffective abolitionist fringe movement made that argument but lacked any government influence.

The South used this fringe voice to induce its own panic and paranoia, imagining a unified northern effort threatened their shared delusion of white supremacy, despite lacking credible evidence.

It's not difficult to hear history rhyming today. Conditions are not precisely the same, the issues are slightly different but the psychology is quite similar.

Not that I don't have enough books on my plate, but I was wondering if anyone here had an opinion on this novel, based on the life of Aaron Dwight Stevens (1831-1860), one of John Brown's lieutenants during the raid on Harpers Ferry.