This epitaph, ‘for your tomorrow we gave our today,’ was published on a Confederate page relating to the American civil war, on a social media website.
It was originally written by a British soldier during World War 2, during the Allied (but American dominated) war against the Japanese.
In the original epitaph the message was that the generation which fought the Japanese did so for the survival of future generations.
But by adapting it to the Confederate cause in the civil war, the person who posted it seems to be inferring that the soldiers of the Confederacy also sacrificed their lives for the survival of future generations.
Of Southerners, presumably, and presumably only white Southerners, although he doesn’t make this clear.
Let’s take a look at the circumstances around the original epitaph.
The war against the Japanese was a reaction to Japanese aggression, which culminated in the attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
So is this person saying that the Confederate cause in the civil war was also a reaction to aggression.
But to ‘Yankee’ aggression?
This isn’t true.
At least, not in a military sense.
In a military sense, the Confederacy was the aggressor, when Confederate forces attacked the United States government fort at Fort Sumter, in 1861.
(From that point, it became the Union government fort, not the United States government fort, of course.)
Let’s look at it from a different perspective, from a non- military perspective.
‘Aggression’ can mean several things, can be used in several different senses, it doesn’t have to be in a military sense.
It can mean cultural aggression, or religious aggression, for example.
One of the characters, a die-hard Confederate officer, in my ‘Rebel Liar’ novel, refers to this alleged cultural aggression.
He describes the United States government, aka the North, aka the Union, aka the ‘Yankees,’ as an ‘alien creed,’ and vehemently swears that they are trying to impose this creed on the South.
Whether this was true or not is open to debate.
What might also be open to debate is, did the soldiers of the Confederacy really sacrifice their lives for future generations?