I recently listened to a 'In the Past Lane' podcast about African American soldiers in the Civil War, and the historian interviewed by the host seemed annoyed that the United States is referred to via a myriad of names (North/Union/Federals/etc) rather than the US in Civil War history, and I've been wondering the same question myself for years. Is there a reason? And is there a movement to change this? Thanks.
Could you clarify a bit? I don't understand exactly why the historian was annoyed by this.
For each "Northern" term, there is a matching "Southern" term. For example:
Nothing about the naming system is skewed in the South's favor. Were they implying that the multiple names was somehow unfair to the North? Too confusing maybe? If so, why were they only focused on the North? If it's too confusing, then it must be too confusing for both sides, right? To be clear: the North did not have more nicknames than the South. To be honestly insulted by this is insane.
via a myriad of names (North/Union/Federals/etc) rather than the US in Civil War history
This is simply untrue. It wouldn't be strange at all to see "USA" and "CSA" used interchangeably with names like Union, Federal, etc. If you ever see the letters "US" or "USA" together when reading about the Civil War, there's absolutely no way the author is talking about the South. It's always The United States of America. Always always always. The regular army units that fought in the war (as opposed to volunteers) were always called the "Nth United States Infantry / Cavalry / Artillery". No exceptions. Were they implying it was disrespectful to the US to not exclusively use the term "USA"? If so, then it must have also been unfair to the south to use any other term than "CSA". Even if the multiple names are confusing to a modern person, there's no way a Union soldier would ever take offense to being called "Yankee", "Federal", "Union", etc. Those names were simply to differentiate them from their Southern counterparts.
What was their biggest problem with this? Did they have one singular point they were trying to make? Cause honestly, the way you're describing it, it sounds to me like this historian doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. I'm not trying to be an asshole or anything...I'm just honestly very confused as to why somebody would be so upset about this.