Monument to Confederate and Union Dead, Crossville, Tennessee

This monument in downtown Crossville, Tennessee, is to the local men who gave their lives fighting for what they thought was right during the War Between the States, also often misnamed the "Civil War." Many Southerners still rightfully refer to it as the "War for Southern Independence."

This monument, erected by a Confederate organization, honors both Confederate and Union Dead.Although Tennessee was a part of the Confederate States of America, Cumberland County was almost equally divided between Confederate and Union sympathizers. This was true in much of the country - especially in the Appalachian mountain regions which includes East Tennessee. The monument is a vivid illustration of the division that The War brought to local communities as well as to the nation.

There were many reasons for the War Between the States. It is often stated that The War was fought over states rights - which is true. However, a more personally felt cause was unjust taxes against Southern planters. At the time that the Southern states seceded from the Union, they were paying as much as 85% of the entire Federal budget in taxes on southern grown agricultural products - especially cotton. However, only about one third of the nation's population lived in the south. The North, which held most of the votes in Congress, was taxing the South but spending most of the tax money in the North building railroads, canals, and infrastructure in Northern cities.

The South's cause was even more just than had been that of the original thirteen colonies when they rebelled against Great Britain for "taxation without representation." The tax on cotton was much higher than had been the tax on tea which inspired the famous Boston Tea Party. The mountain areas of the South were more severely divided because they were not as directly tied to the plantation economy of the deep south. The hardy independent mountaineers were largely subsistence farmers, growing untaxed crops more akin to those grown by farmers in the north, and on a smaller scale.
.
Check out my Confederate blog: http://confederatedigest.com/