Read on Twitter
Time to (Ashokan) Farewell the fuck out of 2020
LET’S GOOOOOOOOO
#civilitea https://twitter.com/gothamgirlblue/status/1344282502043750400
LET’S GOOOOOOOOO
#civilitea https://twitter.com/gothamgirlblue/status/1344282502043750400
I’m seeing that Florentine Films card; I’m hearing the name of Wilmer McLean, and I’m feeling nostalgic already. Did you know that this year is the 30th fucking anniversary of this documentary? #civilitea
This documentary series literally defined my childhood. And now that Donald Trump is trying to stage a coup, it’s defining my adulthood #civilitea https://twitter.com/gothamgirlblue/status/1344645405494140931
As soon as the stakes are laid out, you can get how difficult it is to pack that into a meaningful story. Like 2% of the entire population died. How can the impact of that get captured in a few hours? #civilitea
Barbara Fields is my North Star. She is extraordinary, and the fact that she comes after Shelby Foote is a symptom of the limitations of this series. #civilitea
It really should be emphasized that the political leadership of the Confederacy had been the political leadership of the United States. They were Senators and Reps and making and passing laws. #civilitea
And that it takes 12 minutes before we get to a Douglass quote shows how much we were unwilling to confront how central slavery was to this conflict. And Burns did the best job of centralizing it as a white guy. #civilitea
Well a fantastic stat that I had forgotten is that if I had been born in the wrong century, I would have a 4% chance of making it to 60 as an enslaved Black person #civilitea
I’m gonna say some real mean things about Shelby Foote in this, so if you can’t handle it, look away now #civilitea
People really can't fathom how central slavery was to the economy and foundations of this country. Slaves were the equivalent of iPhones. #civilitea
And abolition was like saying that smartphones couldn't exist, shouldn't exist but should have equal rights to participate in government and society. #civilitea https://twitter.com/GothamGirlBlue/status/1344650195250917376?s=20
Slavery was normal. It was just the way life happened. It made objects of human beings, and it built the foundations of wealth in this country. There's no immigrant dream of "America" without slavery. #civilitea
Love John Brown; love that allyship energy. #civilitea
So, quick, upsetting note on Brown ally, Newby: it was very normal to make souvenirs of Black bodies. There are probably a not small amount of people who, going through their grandparents' or great-grandparents' items, might find fingers or toes or lynching postcards. #civilitea
What John Brown did, what he said: this was the truth of the country. This brutality could not be purged but with blood. #civilitea
: This goes to our current moment too, because Michael Brown being left in the street, the constant snuff video and audio, the commodification and consumption of Black pain are all modern souvenirs. https://twitter.com/GothamGirlBlue/status/1344652692229152768?s=20
Yeah, I got grim fast. It's the Civil War, you know? #civilitea
Looking at the politics of the Civil War, it's alarming and upsetting that a political minority so thoroughly distorted the process in their favor that the majority asserting control was considered an *act of war.* #civilitea
If these people weren't also our cousins or whatever, we'd just be staring at them like why are u mad when the system worked as intended #civilitea
Lincoln is kind of the perfect person for this moment. He's so great at laying out the political framing that defines this moment. Imagine using your first inauguration to warn the Confederates that it will be their fault if shit falls apart. Imagine. 
#civilitea
#civilitea
So fucking wild that so many people thought that this was going to be a quick and easy conflict 
#civilitea
#civilitea
It feels so easy to put myself into the space of this time ahead of conflict, to see how easy it was to roll into it, how people told themselves that it wouldn't be so hard. #civilitea
Sherman read it right though. He knew that anything strong enough to get people to go to war is strong enough to keep them committed to it. I mean, what was the "peaceful" option? #civilitea
Once you start mustering armies, it's pretty much impossible to reel back and send everyone home. And the South left because they didn't see a political solution! #civilitea
There were only 5 million free people in 11 states and they really thought they were gonna fight and win against 21 million people. So fucking stupid #civilitea
#civilitea
"When Lee had to choose between his nation and [slavery], there was never any question" yes yes, I quite agree Shelby it's very clear what Lee was dedicated to #civilitea
Black people tried to sign up from the get-go, understanding *exactly* what this war was about and what it would cost. And white people actively dismissed them. So...nothing's changed then. 
#civilitea
#civilitea
lol, love Lincoln ignoring the Constitution to save the Union. (Which just shows how fucked that document is) #civilitea
I want a modern Ben Butler. Who is going to step up to make it happen? #civilitea
The documentary focuses heavily on politics and battles (fair), but I would love to see a Civil War spy drama. Love. It. #civilitea
Like Harriet Tubman was a spy for the Union side, so we already have a great main character. I know someone, somewhere can make this happen #civilitea https://twitter.com/GothamGirlBlue/status/1344663567614799873?s=20
#civilitea https://twitter.com/GothamGirlBlue/status/1344663567614799873?s=20
Oh look, it's time for Jackson hagiography. The perfect time to pick my toenails. #civilitea
It is not the first nor last time where I will express my appreciation for modern surgery and penicillin. #civilitea
American capitalism is buying up a recently battered battlefield in an active war zone to turn it into a tourist attraction #civilitea
We all live with the benefit of hindsight, so we know that everyone who predicts the collapse of the Union is wrong. But from a political standpoint, the United States died at Fort Sumpter and had to be reconstituted. #civilitea
I fucking haaaaaate George McClellan. What a smarmy fuck. #civilitea
George McClellan is the guy who says that you can't fail if you never try, but with the entire Union army #civilitea
Oh, Sarah's letter 
#civilitea
#civilitea
Across all the space and time, that letter -- of remembrance, of loyalty, of love -- binds our hearts. #civilitea
Ok! First episode is over, and I'm taking a quick break because these are an hour and a half each and I'm only human. #civilitea
I'm back! Let's get through Episode 2! #civilitea
I've said this before, but it's really bullshit that Julia Ward Howe only gets $4 for writing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. #civilitea
There's a Shanghai, Missouri? Of course there is. #civilitea
Going through the chains of command just put into perspective how many layers there are between Presidents and the regular people affected by their decisions. It's like telephone, but with life-altering power! #civilitea
George McClellan 1862: politicians are the worst
George McClellan 1864: elect me President of all the politicians
#civilitea
George McClellan 1864: elect me President of all the politicians
#civilitea
We go from personal tragedy to ironclads, and it is the weirdest transition, especially since there's no context to the blockade. #civilitea
It's so American that we fight a war with ourselves and somehow come out with the strongest and most advanced military on the planet. #civilitea
Allowing Shelby Foote to speak was such a sop to Lost Cause apologia, and his presence drags down the quality of this brilliant piece of work. #civilitea
I get the desire to humanize the Confederacy. After all, they are also my ancestors. But it's a mistake to act like their humanity can somehow save the inhumanity of their cause. #civilitea
Fucking McClellan, man. #civilitea
There's no deeper cowardice that refusing to fight because it will reveal your own deficiencies as a leader. McClellan has more resources at his disposal than any general on the planet, and he won't use any of them. #civilitea
Oh, Shiloh. #civilitea
There's this strong sense in our memory that these were two armies against each other, when really it was more like a guerrilla rebellion against a disorganized mass of conscripts. #civilitea
It was so much better to die quickly in battle than to survive with a wound. #civilitea
It's seriously grotesque to listen to Shelby Foote fondly describe Nathan Bedford Forrest using a Union soldier as a human shield in the Battle of Shiloh. #civilitea
There's this discussion of how Shiloh changed the calculus of war for white people, because Grant understood that this would be a war of conquest for the Union to win it. Enslaved and free Black people understood that they had lived under war for generations. #civilitea
I love this documentary, I really do, but after the events of the last few years, especially around Confederate monuments, we need a remake that dispatches with personal storytelling about white men and focuses on a broader swath of identities in the midst of war #civilitea
I swear to god there must be some narratives of Black Americans, enslaved or free, who can carry the story of the war for the first emancipation of our people in this country. #civilitea
White women were major forces of support on both sides, and it might be worth asking more of how white women supported white supremacy even as some Union counterparts energized abolition. #civilitea
It honestly cannot be said how unprepared the American South was to wage a war, other than culturally. It had no resources, no systems, no manufacturing, no transportation, and no fucking people! Wild as hell. #civilitea
McClellan is so fucking useless and yet he got close to seizing Richmond, which should have just put into perspective how fucked the Confederacy was in this war, and how completely wild their belief was that war would yield a victory that politics could not. #civilitea
Can we still talk about how awful McClellan is though? Can we? Can we make that a known thing? Can we make American children feel like they will be failures in their lives if they turn out like him? Can we make that happen? #civilitea
We're in Episode 3! Emancipation Proclamation up in here, woot! #civilitea
Not using your resources, not feeling compelled to fight for your beliefs, not putting action behind virtue -- these are equal sins to fighting passionately in malice. #civilitea https://twitter.com/GothamGirlBlue/status/1344686252256342021?s=20
Barbara Fields is back! 
(I promise I will read her books in 2021) #civilitea
(I promise I will read her books in 2021) #civilitea
Lee was just a military adviser in 1862! He wasn't even officially the leader of the Confederate Army (to the degree it ever really existed). Which kind of makes it clear how much fuckery was behind his invasion of the North strategy. #civilitea
Oh yay, more Stonewall Jackson hagiography. Let me be clear: Jackson's persistent place in the memory of the war is mostly a function of Lost Cause mythology, because his impact is relatively minor in the broad scope of things. #civilitea
It's a really fucking dark irony that the Confederacy relied on European appetites for cotton to maintain slavery when their developments in colonialism made it meaningless. Sigh, global white supremacy. #civilitea
General Butler was a gift to the Union and they should have trained every officer to act as he did. He just had brutal and undeniable contempt for the Confederacy and slavery, and it was wondrous how he made them suffer for it. #civilitea
I love how white Southerners were trying to keep enslaved people from seeking out white Unionists by saying that they would be treated *worse than slaves* if they left. ::chortle:: #civilitea
I'm convinced that George McClellan has reincarnated his spirit into every man who "well, actually"s every woman who makes a declarative sentence anywhere on the internet #civilitea
I love how even McClellan's own officers are like "this man is either a straight-up coward or a traitor" #civilitea
In a fucked up way, the war brought the North closer to the South because it was fought on southern land. People of that time hardly left the areas around their hometowns, and now they're practically halfway around the world (to them). #civilitea
This fucking Lost Cause apologist keeps showing up and I fucking hate him. The veneer of gentility is exactly what makes him so disgusting. #civilitea
Too many white men are in this documentary. I request a civil war documentary where literally no white man is asked to speak unless at least five experts of literally any other identity have turned down the chance first. #civilitea
Can we spare a thought for McClellan's poor wife who had to live with this fucking whining all the damn time? #civilitea
Stop. Humanizing. Confederates. #civilitea
Look, if we were living in a world where this conflict was understood and integrated into our knowledge and history of ourselves, I would be a teensy bit more sympathetic. But we don't know this history. So I'm not. #civilitea https://twitter.com/GothamGirlBlue/status/1344695411987120130?s=20
They got the most poncey voices for these Brits #civilitea
"There was a dash about them that the Northern men lacked" 
#civilitea
#civilitea
Fredricksburg really makes you wonder if McClellan was a traitor. Has anyone done any scholarship on this? Because it feels like it's ripe for it. #civilitea
I mean, 18 fucking hours of *nothing* when he has his enemy's battle plans? The fuck?? #civilitea https://twitter.com/GothamGirlBlue/status/1344696998151278595?s=20
I wrote "Fredricksburg" about McClellan's perfidy when it should be "Antietam" because I was definitely going too quickly. #civilitea
"It would not be prudent" to attack the splintered Confederate line, McClellan? This motherfucking motherfucker #civilitea
The number of times that the narration points out that the war could have been won if only a Union general followed up on Lee's Army is embarrassing. Like I am here 160 years later being fucking embarrassed. #civilitea
Watching McClellan manage Antietam is like playing "America, Fuck Yeah" for six days. #civilitea
Watching this, I realize that somehow, I have never actually read the text of the Emancipation Proclamation. Fixing that! #civilitea https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation/transcript.html
I can't say anything more about how I feel about the effects of the Proclamation, what it meant, what it did to this country than I did in my thread to start the year. #civilitea https://twitter.com/GothamGirlBlue/status/1212441647511986176?s=20
Before I start Episode 4, a pause! I'm going to get some lunch and return in a few minutes 
#civilitea
#civilitea
And I’m back! Let’s get into the joy and majesty of Episode 4, titled ::looks at the details:: ...”Simply Murder”. Oh. #civilitea
Oh, did massive groups of unvaccinated people gathered together with minimal sanitation lead to a raft of disease? Who could have known #civilitea
Ah, ok, so actual Fredericksburg is happening now, and it’s time for more Union incompetence! I swear that 90% of Lee’s genius is just Union failure. #civilitea
