What is “the south”

Status
Not open for further replies.
FWIW, make Sure you check All gun laws Before Moving. Virginia is sure not what it used to be, the reason I left. Very Sad that the anti gun idiots have changed Va. laws.
 
Mike , I took his post to mean an interpreter for the southern accent. Not for illegal invaders. All in good fun.

I wasn't talking about illegals either.......If you can't understand the way we talk maybe you need to go back and take an English class.

NOT in good fun........Like I said misconceptions since 1886.
 
Last edited:
I speak as a southerner who can trace family who served their state in the unpleasantness. After what northern carpet baggers did to the south during the reconstruction years its no wonder there is an aversion to outsiders who come in. Stories of the abuse southerners withstood during that period were passed down generation to generation and maybe living generations today don 't fully understand why they distrust northerners in general, it's still ingrained in the culture.
 
Southerners can tell pretty quick when someone shows up who ain't from around here. It is not hard to tell.

By the way, Indiana and Ohio is not south unless you're from Michigan. We don't think of Kentuckians as Yankees, but they're not southerners either. Kinda the same for Missouri.
 
I’m kin to Missouri Turleys on my Momma’s side.
They came South after the Period of Max Regional Disagreement.
My Mother did not like it when a local Genealogical Lady called them Carpetbaggers!
A Missouri Mountain Man named Turley made the famous Taos Lightning Moonshine.
At that time It was the only distilled beverage in these parts.
My Buddy Eddie’s GGF from Iowa was down at the Battle of Vicksburg.
He might have been the only one who enjoyed it there.
After the War he moved down there!
I have Deer hunted on their family land just N of Vicksburg.
My GGF ? He rode with with Nathan Bedford (His Ownself) Forrest.
 
South of the Mason/Dixon line


This is pretty much the definition I grew up with, living in and around St. Louis and southern Missouri.

FWIW, Missouri was a state that was divided during the Civil War. The northern parts of the state were held by the Union, and the southern parts were under the control of the Confederacy. Even though the whole state was technically south of the Mason-Dixon line.

My great-great-great grandfather was conscripted (press ganged) off of the old family homestead, into the Confederate army. It just so happened that the Confederate army was the first one to sweep through the area gathering up young men and forcing them into military service.

Great-great-great grandpa was one of the young men "in the wrong place at the wrong time", so he ended up in a Confederate uniform. He didn't choose to be a Confederate, that choice was forced upon him.

AFAIK he and our family never owned any slaves. Did they favor or oppose slavery? I don't know. I can't say whether great-great-great grandpa was an abolitionist, totally opposed to the idea of slavery, or whether he thought that slavery was the way things "should" be - or some position between those two extremes. I don't know what he thought about the issue, and there is no way for anyone to know his mind on that question this far removed.

But, what I do know from family history and research, is that he was "drafted" into the army of the Confederacy. Records also indicate that after the "War Between the States" ended, as a former Confederate soldier, he drew a military pension - paid by the "Yankee" federal government - for the rest of his life. And that his spouse - my great-great-great grandma - continued to collect that same pension after his passing until she died.

In the post-Civil War era, those who served in the Confederacy were not demonized and viewed as the ultimate evil that time and modern sensibilities have declared them to be. They were viewed as honorable men who fought for the sovereignty of their States, but who were ultimately defeated.

This meant that they were viewed in a much different light at the time - because they were being judged by the societal standards of their time. Rather than being judged by the more modern, enlightened standards of our time - 150 years later.

As they say, hindsight is always 20-20, and the victors are the ones who write the history books...
 
Last edited:
What BC just said is most likely true if your family resided in a Border State.
Not true in the Deep South.
When doing family research I was surprised to learn that my Family did own Slaves.
It’s not so much that I thought we wouldn’t do that, more like I didn’t think we had the money to do it.
We most certainly never had any significant money for a 100+ years after the Civil War.
 
Well, there's no one singular definition that I know of. It's a lifestyle rather than a geographic area. There's some drop dead lines that I'm aware of, but a bunch of us hillbillies don't consider Miami to be the south.

As culturally diverse as Atlanta is these days, I don't really think of it as "the South" either...
 
...We’re looking for property in southeast West Virginia. The location is further south than over half of Virginia and half of Kentucky. So my question is where do you think “ the south” starts ? Is it where there is little or no snow? Is it a geographical line? Or simply where people speak with a southern accent ? They definitely do that in WVa.

When I was growing up, Maryland was referred to as one of the "Middle Atlantic" states, a term that is rarely used today. Now, my friends in Georgia think we're Yankees, and my friends in New York think we're part of Dixie...
 
Since this thread inevitably turned into a rehash of the Civil War, try to remember that not all Southerners were pro Confederacy even if from the "deep South."

For instance, Gen. Sherman's personal escort during the Georgia
March to the Sea was the volunteer First Alabama Cavalry USA.

Many Southerners were strongly Unionists and did what they could to defeat the Confederate States of America. Throughout
the South enclaves existed for runaway Confederate soldiers who wanted no part in the fight.
 
Maryland? Border State
‘In the American Civil War (1861–65), the border states or the Border South were four, later five, slave states in the Upper South that primarily supported the Union. They were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and after 1863, the new state of West Virginia. To their north they bordered free states of the Union, and all but Delaware bordered slave states of the Confederacy to their south.’
Way back in the late 1600+, my Mothers family coasted in on the North side of the Chesapeake.
By the time of secession the folks I spring from had moved down to South Carolina.
Some of them are still in Maryland.
Cousin Rod had written 3 Family histories.
Yes, I’m in number 3.
 
Last edited:
We have a friend from the North.....

Who is a Civil war buff and loves everything Southern. He moved to TN and was disappointed because all of his neighbors were from California. In a year, he moved to Blufton, SC. Why he moved there I don't know because it is in proximity to Hilton Head and Sun City, both full of people from 'elsewhere'.
 
Jim this is true. A lot of people think all of NY is NY City. Ask Marshawn Lynch. That idiot thought Lake Erie was the Ocean. When I show people pics of my hunting camp in NY they can’t believe it’s in NY. I hunt oak ridges and benches at 2300’.

I can't be too hard on someone for that. I have spent my entire life here in Central Virginia. I'd never been anywhere. I had this image in my mind that "the north" was one big city from New York to at least Chicago. I think I KNEW that wasn't right, but it was the mental image I had. I was surprised when I started to risk falling off the end of the earth and started to get out to discover that the rest of the world really wasn't much different than Virginia. Cities were cities. Country was country. People are people.
 
What is the south?

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8L4ZZ1fweE[/ame]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAwlj9wqFnI[/ame]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plD1MbOGLfQ[/ame]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8wLI4gHvts[/ame]
 
I can't be too hard on someone for that. I have spent my entire life here in Central Virginia. I'd never been anywhere. I had this image in my mind that "the north" was one big city from New York to at least Chicago. I think I KNEW that wasn't right, but it was the mental image I had. I was surprised when I started to risk falling off the end of the earth and started to get out to discover that the rest of the world really wasn't much different than Virginia. Cities were cities. Country was country. People are people.

Yes Bass, not exactly NYC. In fact I’m as far from NYC as I am from you. Couple pics to put it in perspective. Like GypsmJim said. Looks are deceiving. I’m sure his camp has the same terrain as mine.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_8141.jpg
    IMG_8141.jpg
    58.2 KB · Views: 16
  • IMG_6292.jpg
    IMG_6292.jpg
    68.3 KB · Views: 16
  • IMG_7953.jpg
    IMG_7953.jpg
    47.5 KB · Views: 16
  • IMG_8036.jpg
    IMG_8036.jpg
    139.3 KB · Views: 18
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top