Here in Ireland we call it the American Civil War but I think some folks in the States call it the War of Northern Aggression? Is it ever called the War of Southern Secession?
I guess most Irish Americans fought on the Union side but I think some also fought on the Confederate side but not as many, I think. Is there much bitterness these days in the Southern States towards the "North"? Thanks.
Update:"This helps explain why Americans today are sorry they allowed in so many immigrants during the 19th and 20th Century"? Source? Yeah, didn't think so.
Today in the US there are about 40+ million who claim Irish American ancestry. I have never heard Americans in this day and age complain about immigration in the 1800's........The Americans you speak of are themselves immigrants. America is a nation of immigrants. To suggest Americans today are sorry they allowed in so many immigrants during the 19th and 20th century is ridiculous. The great grandparents of those very same Americans could quite possibly be immigrants who came during those years.
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It's known as the American Civil War.
Some Southerners who disagree can hardly describe an elected government sending its military to crush an armed rebellion 'aggression' - especially when it was the rebels that fired the first shots,and not in self defence.
The term used in history books and by virtually all educated Americans is "the Civil War." That name is based on the historical position that the war was fought within a single country, not between two separate countries. The United States of America never accepted the claim that there was a country called the Confederate States of America. The official U.S. position was that a group of Southern states were engaging in armed rebellion against the national government, and that those rebellious states had no legitimate basis for calling themselves a separate country.
The most common alternative name for the war is "the War Between the States." That name is based on the historical position that the war was fought between two separate countries and that the United States conquered the Confederate States.
The name "War of Northern Aggression" has no legitimacy. It's used by the kind of diehard distorters of history who like to wave Confederate battle flags, holler "The South shall rise again!" and claim that slavery wasn't the war's central issue.
You'll find some Civil War memorials in the North that refer to the conflict as "the War of the Rebellion" or "the Great Rebellion" or names of that nature, which have long since gone out of use.
Some Southerners have preferred to keep any talk of the war at arm's length by referring to the conflict only as "the late unpleasantness." That's another term that has pretty much disappeared in modern times.
Most people call it the Civil War. Some southerners in the US call it the war of northern aggression; there is still a lot of bitterness toward the north in the south.
Many Irish Americans fought on the side of the Union because they settled in the north, in places like New York and Boston.
It depends on which side of the war your family fought. Mostly it's called the American Civil War (or if you are American just Civil War which causes confusion on international boards). I still hear Southerners refering to it as the War of Northern Aggression, although not that often. If you read old newspaper stories and letters from Southerners, that term was used a lot around the period of the war. Not sure when it started to shift to the Civil War.
We also call it the American Civil War. And most Irish immigrated to the North to work on the canals, railroads and thriving industries, so most Irish fought with the Union.
The 'War of Northern Aggression' is propaganda used by the Secessionists to paint themselves as victims, later because the North sent troops to the South first and not vice verse. However it was secessionist forces in the state of South Carolina which attacked US officers and soldiers garrisoned at Fort Sumter in 1861. They'd actually commenced a siege of the federal forts the preceding year, taking over federal forts and driving the army out of Charleston and to defend itself at Fort Sumter, where they were slowly being starved. President Lincoln responded by calling for troops to retake federal property and preserve the Union, causing then undecided states (Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas) to secede, the war had begun.
If you are a loser from the south it's the War of Northern Aggression. War of Southern Secession sounds like an old term that nobody uses anymore. Most americans just call it the Civil War.
History is written by the winners. The north won, so they get naming rights: The Civil War.
Irish fought on both sides.
In the North many Irish showed disloyalty and rioted when they heard they were going to be drafted to fight. This helps explain why Americans today are sorry they allowed in so many immigrants during the 19th and 20th Century.
It was called The American Civil War. This was caused by northern aggression and the lack of industrialization the south had. I'm sure you are aware of that story so I'm not going to ramble.