OK, so you’ve read, along with lots of encouraging remarks, some of those ridiculous rationalizations that some otherwise decent folk use to justify continuing to fly a Confederate flag on the State House grounds. You know, Heritage not Hate, etc.
I feel obligated to inform those of you who have led sheltered lives as to one of the main reasons why the flag remains. It’s because lawmakers who would otherwise remove it fear getting messages such as the one I am about to share with you.
First I must warn you. This is something that I would never, ever put in the newspaper. We have standards in the newspaper. Nor would I mail anything like this to you. I am sharing this only so that you no longer entertain innocent thoughts about the flag or the purity of all its defenders. You may be really fond of your heritage and all that — the same heritage that I share, mind you, having had five great-great-grandfathers representing South Carolina in the War — but you must not blind yourself to the kind of evil with which you ally yourself when you insist on flying that flag.
I get anonymous messages like this frequently when we bring up the subject of the flag. Out of common decency and the love of, my yearning for, the kind of civility I keep writing about, I never share them. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. My delicacy on this point allows some of you to preserve precious illusions. But we don’t have time for such illusions any more.
This message is not only hateful, it is extremely obscene. But I’m not going to clean it up. I’m just warning you NOT to read it.
Only read it if you doubt me that ugly, hateful racial attitudes play a part in this debate. If you do doubt that, you should read on.
Again, this is highly offensive material! Do not read on if obscene words and sentiments will disturb you!
Its sad that bigots
such as yourself and the majority of your peers write for a publication known as
the state. The views expressed in your pathetic publication certainly do
not represent the views of the majority of the voters in this state, and I plan
to wage war against the purchase of your product! Perhaps when your liberal
publication is no longer in demand you can stand in the unemployment
line with the "fine" minorities you sarcasticly pretend to embrace! Hopefully
you will become impoverished to the point that you will be forced to commit
crime, therefore, being locked away in the jails and prisons with these animals
who represent the minority of the population but the majority of the criminals.
Then when they slap you around, take youe food, force you to do their
chores,like the little bitch you are mabe then you will be enlightened to your
ignorance in showing passion and empathy to the "poor" ol’ blacks, half breeds,
or what have you! You ,and those who share your views are a fucking disgrace and
should be forced to live with these sub-humans for the rest of your sickening
lives and at the end (which won’t be that long, for you will probally kill
yourselves) be ALLOWED to tell how wrong you were and apoligize to
your kids and others for forever fucking up the country and making the pure race
non-existant! Thanks asshole! Hopefully the spot in HELL you are sent to will be
full of these disease ridden criminal-minded animals who are the majority, and
then let us all know how fair you were treated !!!
It’s not signed, but the e-mail address is Cdavidcatoe@aol.com.
Welcome to my world. I’m sorry — sorry enough that I may think better of this before the day is out and take it down. For now, I’m just telling you that this is the sort of stuff I get, via e-mail, snail mail and phone message in connection with this subject. With me, it’s an occasional thing. With my colleague Warren Bolton, it’s much, much more frequent. Why? Well, Look at Warren. You figure it out.
Related Posts
Brad, you should be ashamed of yourself for this cheap shot. If you had even an ounce of fairness in you, you would now also admit that the other side sends just as nasty emails to pro-flag bloggers. This is just a brazen attempt by you to delegitimize pro-flag people.
BTW, I couldn’t care less about the flag one way or the other but you have absolutely crossed the bounds of fairness with this thread.
Have any of you in the “leave it up” camp received anything this nasty?
BTW – I’ve always used my legitimate email address on this blog, whether I was writing as Lily or Claudia. I’ve made my position as a “take it downer” clear on this blog on several occasions… the only email I have received on the subject was the one Brad sent out last night about SCAASC.
Well, Lex, I remain torn about it. I may yet take it down. I don’t feel good about sharing it at all.
But Claudia is right — I’ve never heard of anybody who favors keeping the flag getting anything like this from people on the other side.
It’s not beyond possibility, of course. Lord knows I’ve seen some crazy stuff from self-styled “liberals.”
But there is something about this issue, and our state, that combines to produce this sort of reaction among some people on ONE side of the debate.
Brad, I believe your warning was enough of a disclaimer. You don’t have to explain why you posted it, and I’m glad you did.
I hope the people whose posts I have been reading on here and on WIS all day did not go to church today, pray for their brethren, peace, and understanding, and then go online and write some of the things I have read. If so, what hypocrites.
“Heritage, not hate.” Right.
Let me know when you get ready for a meeting. If I can make it, I will.
Because I have taken time to do a little research, I do not agree with the idea of taking the Battle Flag from the Confederate monument. I would appreciate those who do want to take it down sharing with me their reasons, based on their own research. I do not agree with the hate based racist remarks you shared with us. I have no use for ignorance and less tolerance of it. I realize there are groups, as well as individuals, who have used that flag in hate speech. However, that flag NEVER flew over a slave ship. The American, Spanish, British,etc., etc. flags did. And, as repulsive as slavery was, it is just as repulsive in Africa today, where it is still in existence. So, if ignorance is to prevail, there are a lot of flags that will need banishing.
Yeah, I’ve heard that one about a thousand times, too — the “slave ship” thing. It’s very popular among flag defenders, so it wouldn’t take a lot of research to come up with.
I’m still, after all these times that I’ve heard it, trying to figure out what in the world it has to do with this insane situation of flying a military emblem of a long-defunct confederacy on the grounds of our present-day seat of government. Maybe you can cite some research that will explain the connection to me.
Here’s something for you to look up: The importation of African slaves was banned in this country decades before. In fact, it was mostly over before 1800. So ships flying the Confederate naval jack were so virtuous as to not engage in the slave trade because there WAS no transoceanic trade in human chattel.
Of course, that doesn’t have anything to do with our flying that flag today, but since you wanted to engage in that particular digression, I felt obliged to point that out.
For those of you new to this topic, one of the most maddening things about flag defenders is that they think that they’re the ones who know history, and that we — who are sick of their forcing our state to cling to a part of our past that we all know too well — are ignorant.
I wonder how many people heard all of Spurrier’s comments. He touched on domestic violence, health care, high school dropouts, the cigarette tax and the “damn flad.” His point seem to be that S.C. like USC w/ the chicken curse can’t ever see a better future. The reason being that progress can only be made by us if we will get off our duffs and do something. Admittedly the flag is controlled by a strong hard core in the legislature. they truly believe (I think) it is about heritage not hate. But many of them can be educated and at least embarrassed into taking a new position. One of the sports blogs I read about the speech was that none of us know any history and that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. They are right to a limited extent. It is probably more correct to say that it was fought about the rights of the 15 slave states to keep their slaves. States Rights were also used to keep the schools desegregated. I know Brad doesn’t want wild-eyed liberals like me posting but our problem in this state is that we (including the State Newspaper) are a White Republcian controlled stqate. And in my opinion the State does not hold the “heritage not hate” crowd accountable. The State has endorsed many of these guys for re-election over and over again. I am sorry but the roots of the S.C Republican party are racists and it has never retreated from that past. Look at what happened in the presidential primaries here in 2000. Why endorse George Bush when he has used racists tactics to get elected? The flag needs to come down, but the Republicans will never let it happen, and the State will continue to give free ride the Republcian Party. Yes, I know you want a third way. It is not going to happen. but you could start endorsing any S.c. Republcians until the state party calls for removal of the flag.
Lewis, Brad is too much of a “realist” to see the self-evident correctness of your advice.
Just as “third way” Democrats tried to emulate recent GOP success by turning the national Democratic party into Republican-Lite, he thinks that condemning the NAACP boycott will bring around flag supporters.
When Brad is willing to ignore John McCain’s blatant flag pandering because McCain is the last hope to keep sending Americans to die in the Iraq meat grinder, then you know that he’s neither serious about bringing down the flag nor electing a “straight talking” president.
Brad. Let’s change U.S.C.’s nickname and mascot to something more politically correct. Here you have a mascot whose activity is illegal and cruel. Skinheads wear arm bands with the swastika. As abhorrent as I find the latter 2 I find censorship and political correctness far worse. Let the Stars and Bars fly!
Robin Williams quote:
(In Southern Accent)”Well you know, the Confederate Flag is just a symbol of States rights and Southern Heritage”,
and a swastika’s just a Hindu good luck charm!
Whatever it STOOD for, whatever the innumerable reasons the south went to war over apart from slavery(which is what any pro-flag advocate is first to bring up), it has been hijacked by hate groups like the KKK, a myriad of neo-nazi organizations, and segregagionists. Don’t forget THAT history. Along with “Southern Pride and Heritage” that flag is a disgusting symbol of intolerance and hatred, and is viciously offensive to African-Americans. This isn’t a censorship issue. There aren’t Federal troops coming in to Charleston demanding the removal of the flag from the front lawn at gunpoint. It’s about a state coming to terms with the repulsiveness of some of it’s own past and (hopefully) finally deciding it may be best to limit the display of a symbol which glorifies that repulsiveness to the confines of a museum. Of course, those of you “Heritagists” who see nothing wrong with the flag are free to display them in your homes, on t-shirts, vehicles, etc. That’s where I display mine( http://www.stickergiant.com/Merchant2/imgs/125/j18_125.gif ). It’s all up to you.
Yankee Tom from Chicago
Hey Charles, we’re not talking about the “Stars and Bars”, we’re talking about the Rebel Flag(or Naval Jack) or Battle Flag. Isn’t it SAD when a yankee has to educate a rebel on his own history?
Yankee Tom
Bill, You’re right, a lot of these discussions have nothing to do with why the Battle Flag’s flying on the State House grounds. This is from an article published in The Atlanta Journal, 12 Apr 1931.
“Major, tell my father I died with my face to the enemy. I E Avery.” Shot from his horse and aware that he was dying far from his comrades, Col Avery’s first thought was of his aged father,.. who lived near Morganton, NC. The soldier’s right hand was paralyzed from his wound, but by using his left hand, he drew a scrap of coarse paper from his pocket. Plucking a twig from a nearby bush, he dipped it into his swiftly flowing blood, and scrawled the message,…
On the occassion of the unveiling of a statue to Sir Walter Raleigh,..Theodore Roosevelt,…stood before a distinguished gathering in the Hall of History. In his …hands, the President held the little scrap of yellow, blood-stained paper. Slowly he read aloud the almost illegible message. His hands trembled, his eyes filled with tears; he became almost speechless with emotion. Then, as if the little paper were some holy thing, he passed it to Lord James Bryce, Britain’s minister to the United States. The English minister read the paper, studied it for a moment, and passed it back. “President Roosevelt,” he said, “we have nothing to compare with this in the British Museum.” “People from all parts of the world,” remarked the curator of the (NC) Hall of History, “have come to read this message. Besides Roosevelt, Presidents Taft & Wilson visited the hall to see it. Many and many a sermon has been preached on it.” We could debate reasons for the war and discuss why not a single Confederate soldier was ever tried for treason, but Confederate soldiers like Col Avery are the reason why the Confederate Flag flies by the Confederate Soldier monument. They’ve earned our admiration & our respect, & we’re not going to forget them.
There’s more than a century of history after 1865 in which that flag has represented the worst of the south. Maybe the best way to remember and honor CSA vets would be to remove that dishonorable rag from over their monument.
What a load of sentimental guff. It might be instructional to remember that Jim Crow ruled the southern states during the administrations of Taft, Roosevelt and Wilson. Also, those presidents were elected entirely by men because women were denied the vote in the USA until 1920.
So those presidents, products of their times, were also content to allow gross violations of American’s human rights.
I’ve done “some research” and found that the South Carolinians who decided to secede were fairly straight forward in their reasons. Boil them down, however, and chattel slavery was the root cause.
The CSA was founded to preserve slavery. Slavery was the cornerstone of South Carolina’s economy and culture. Had SC developed economically as, say Massachusetts, then the economy wouldn’t have been dependent upon staple crops which required unpaid, chattel slavery to sell crops at competitive prices.
Had SC developed industry, as say New Jersey, instead of relying on imported manufactured goods then South Carolinians wouldn’t have complaints about protectionist tarriffs. Also, SC wouldn’t have evolved into the equivalent of an economic colony.
But, of course, many of these developments were impossible because the ruling oligarchy grew wealthy on the labor of made to work against their will without payment.
And, the ruling oligarchy saw popular education only as wasted money. The residual affects are still being felt in SC.
Of course, only a miniscule minority profited exorbitantly from slavery. However, it’s relatively easy to whip ignorant hoi polloi into a war fever when a “foreign” government threatens the only economy that the natives have ever known. Naturally, when faced with military occupation the poor dirt farmers were eager to protect home and hearth to fight for the system which enriched a few and inhumanly oppressed millions of black slaves.
The message that was supposed to be so offensive, was certainly no worse than many posts by anti-Southern bloggers. Being poor, does not indicate ignorance, any more so than having money indicates intelligence; Paris Hilton certainly gives proof of that! Intelligence and education are not one and the same. Some highly educated people have absolutely no real intelligence. Even today, while educational opportunities abound, many people are poorly educated. Maybe, some of the people who consider the Stars and Bars a racist symbol, should “educate” themselves about the black men who fight under it. Those people don’t have any excuse to be ignorant or uneducated.
My great grandfather was a confederate soldier and my grandfather drove an ammo wagon at the age of 11. Yeah, I’m proud they were patriots. I’m also proud of my WWII Marine dad. I’m a Navy combat vet.
When I was about 10, I asked my mom if my great grandfather and grandfather were members of the KKK. She said, “Of course not, they were good people”. I then asked her why the KKK used the confederate flag and why no one was trying to stop the KKK from dishonoring our relatives. My mom had no answer.
Well, nobody ever stood up back then and denounced the KKK for hi-jacking the flag.
Too bad, because it is now too late. That flag will forever be associated with the KKK.
Time to put it in an honorable place such as a museum or designated park.
It really is too late to attempt to restore that flag to patriotic status.
The KKK uses the US and Christian flag. Guess it’s time to put them in a museum, too!
“The KKK uses the US and Christian flag. Guess it’s time to put them in a museum, too!
”
Exactly! What is good for the goose is good for the gander. You can’t have it both ways, and if you think me or my wife will stop wearing the 2,000 Buddhist swastika, you are sadly wrong. Grow up, and be big boys and girls.
Hi! Sorry you got the loopy e-mail Brad.
I would like to speak up for a truly underrepresented minority of South Carolinians: people whose great-great-grandfathers delayed emigrating from Canada to the US because they thought the Civil War was a damned mess, and then moved to Illinois after it was all over. People like me!
My small but unrecognized group feels that Great-Great-Grandpa would probably be embarrassed if by “honoring” him I meant thrusting his memorabilia in the faces of people who didn’t want to see it. At the least he would probably think I was a jerk. And he would probably be mystified about the role of coerced taxpayer support for the aforementioned thrusting. (He carried his support of low taxation to the point of tax evasion; that’s why I am sure he would have used the word “coerced.”)
I think I can reliably say that he would not support memorializing a time where partisanship exploded into hate and violence; where the humanity of people walking down the street would be questioned because of their skin pigment; and where the preferred solution to conflict was the utter annihilation of one side. But even if he wouldn’t, I’m mature enough to say screw him he’s dead anyway; this is MY time not his, and I don’t want people to belittle my kids because their accident of being born here. The flag should come down and the State House should be a place for business to get done not to memorialize long-gone days.
How can you be so lucky as to have five great grandfathers?
Everybody gets eight, Tom.
If Brad REALLY believed that the majority wanted the flag removed he would call for a referendum to settle the debate once and for all. Under no circumstances, does Brad does want a vote by the people because he knows he would lose. That says it all Brad. You are a small minded, small numbered minority who has too much time on your hands because you cannot find a “real” job. Keep writing your fluff pieces because that seems to be your only real talent.
I’d like to opportunity at least to vote on it.
Even if we are a minority, which has not been proven by a long-shot, the presupposition that the majority opinion is morally right is totally false.
What makes an opinion right is the moral standard against which it is measured, and several have already ably argued that this flag represents primarily evil and oppression. I think I represent a great number of white evangelical Christians who will now admit that we were much too slow to realize the inconsistency and wrong thinking that kept us from responding as we should have to the needs of the black community back in the 50s and 60s, when this flag was first put up. We now wish to repent of that wickedness, and as a symbolic act, move to have it taken down.
William Wilberforce was in the minority when he started working against slavery in the British parliament. He was working against much of the vested interests of the powers that were in control. But he persisted, and he eventually won.
The Biblical prophets often had to work against the majority who wished to keep evil structures as the status quo. But sooner or later, one way or another, truth will win the day.
Do not mistake majority opinion for moral truth and integrity. Even in a country with a partial Biblical heritage like the U.S., truth often has to struggle against a lethargic majority until the majority comes to its senses.
We may have somewhat different philosophies, Herb, but you certainly have my respect. You and others like you are why I keep coming back to this blog. That was a beautifully stated argument by a white evangelical Christian… and something that definitely needed saying. Bless you.
Heritage, not hate….hmmm..lets examine this “heritage”. A bunch of guys get together and decide to seize control, not of a neighborhood, or town, but a whole state. They grab guns and cannon and start firing at members of the United States Military. Since they were never formally recognized by any foreign govenment, and therefore not a legitimate army, they were what would now be termed “enemy combatents” , and therefore Guantanomo worthy. When a bunch of “enemy combatants” rammed an explosive charge into the USS COLE we called it terrorism. When the “Hunley” did the same to another american warship, killing members of the United States Navy it was lauded, and landed Charleston a brand new museum to commemorate it! As to the well worn argument that the war was about states rights….exactly what “right” was under assualt? Since the first thing the new independant South Carolina wrote into its constitution was the inalienable right to owns slaves, I would geuss that it was the foremost on their minds/. And finally as to the “blacks fought under that flag” claim? There was a black confederate regiment, formed late in 1864 when the south got really desperate for manpower. this regiment was formed of slaves who were promised freedom if they fought. Exccept they never did. In fact, the first time they marched down the streets of Richmond they were spat upon and stoned. And it is really a coincidence that the early forerunner of the KKK, known as “nightriders”, was formed by a former Confederate General? I have always found it best summed up by the poor confederate soldier who penned these lines ” I would rather die, and have my wife and children starve than to allow niggers to stand equal to any white man”
I’d like to vote, too. Nice post, Herb, but we did take it down. We took the Naval Jack off the State House & replaced it with a correct Battle Flag by the Soldier’s monument. Compromises require each side to give up something. This is a soldier’s flag, not a government flag. It represents Confederate soldiers who excelled at honor, duty & sacrifice. Their monuments are on Courthouse & State House grounds throughout the South because it’s appropriate to honor our veterans. The Federal government wouldn’t allow them to be buried in National Cemeteries, because it would “dishonor” Union dead. They are ours.
What is this flag fetish? If you really MUST have a flag at the monument, why not just fly the South Carolina state flag?
Nice posts Herb and Shane.
Chip thinks that rebel soldiers should have been buried in National Cemeteries?
Why?
He also notes that there are already monuments to rebel soldiers. Why should the flag representing the CSA (sorry, Chip, it’s a CSA flag) be accorded a place on the statehouse grounds of a U.S. state?
The rebel soldiers are already well recognized.
Someone wrote above that only Southern Heritage proponents claim to know or understand history. There is a lot of truth to that statement, because those who attack the Confederate Battle Flag repeat the same thing over and over.
Just to clear up a couple of points, misrepresented as usual:
Slavery was among the causes of the Southern States Seceding. This is NOT to be confused with what either side was fighting for. Remember that the Emancipation Proclamation which didn’t free a single slave at the time it was issued in Jan. of 1863, and that West Virginia was admitted to the Union in June of 1863 as a Slave State, because President Lincoln needed the additional Electorial Votes West Virginia could provide.
President Lincoln was very clear about his position on Slavery. “If I could preserve the Union by freeing all the Slaves I would do so. If I could preserve the Union by freeing none of the Slaves I would do that, and if I could preserve the Union by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others enslaved, then I would do that. General Grant said that if he thought for one second that the war was to free slaves, he would resign his commission and offer his sword to the other side.
The Confederate Battle Flag was a Soldiers Flag, it never flew over any Confederate Government buildings or institutions. One of the greatest ironies in the world is that Flags that did fly over Slavery are mostly unchallenged, the 1st National Flag of the Confederacy or the Stars and Bars looked too much like the Union Flag, the 2nd National Flag looked at times like a white surrender flag, and the 3rd National Flag added a verticle Red Stripe on the leading edge.
The Union Flag flew over Slavery before the War, during the War, and after the war, and as each state ratified the 2nd 13th Amendment then that state officially ended Slavery. Some States didn’t ratify the amendment until 1867, though most people think slavery ended when the 2nd 13th amendment was passed by Congress in Dec. 1865 some 8 months after the Confederate States of America ceased to exist.
Hate groups are of special interest to me, I am more than 50% Cherokee and my Mother was a Full Blooded Cherokee. My Family came to the attention of the KKK when my Father and Mother Marched with the Freedom Marchers from Chattanooga TN to Birmingham AL in 1963. They burned a cross in our yard, but the only flag they flew was the US Flag. Of course the fact that we flew a Confederate Flag in our yard made their producing one unnecessary. Hate Groups adopt all kinds of symbols. The KKK, Skinheads, Church of the Creator, National Alliance all fly the US Flag. The KKK and Church of the Creator also adopt the cross as an evil symbol. Yes there are some lowly buttwipes who misuse the Confederate Battle Flag, but I can produce more than 180 hate group organizational rules and regulations none of which claims the Confederate Battle Flag as OFFICIAL symbol. Every one of them has the US Flag as their official Flag.
This pretty much comes down to some people are offended by the Confederate Battle Flag. Some people are offended by Christians, others are offended by Jews, some people are offended by a holiday for Dr. King. I’ve lived long enough now to know that if you get my Confederate Flag banned today, it will likely be something you love dearly that goes next. Political Correctness knows no bounds, and eventually everyone’s ox is going to get gored. My opinions are not more valid than anyone elses opinions, but neither are they less valid.
Did “the soldiers” spontaneously get together and adopt the rebel battle flag?
The irrelevance and disingenousness of this argument is appalling. Whether this particular CSA flag flew over any other official CSA institution is beside the point. The armies of the CSA fought under this flag. It was certainly recognized as an official flag of the CSA by everyone concerned– Jeff Davis, Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant, R.E. Lee, whomever. It was NOT some ad hoc banner produced by a soldier’s mother that was unofficially adopted by “the soldiers.”
Perhaps Rev. Dr. Swann can explain why the very South Carolinians who felt strongly enough to convene and vote to secede from the U.S. cited essentially two causes in their Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union [Adopted December 24, 1860].
In this document they cite the unfairness of the non-slaveholding states threatening the “property rights” of slaveholders in the slave states. They also cite the sovereignity of states rights– by which they meant the ability for individual states to maintain slavery.
These are the words of the South Carolinians who attempted to dissolve the United States by officially seceding from the union. I take them at their word as to why they felt justified in doing so.
Whether Lincoln or Grant were abolitionists at the beginning of the war is irrelevant. By Dec. 6, 1865 the 13th Ammendment made the slaveholders’ worst nightmare come true: it abolished slavery in the U.S.
Reading the words unanimously adopted by the SC Secession Convention of 1860 must be quite inconvenient for southern history revisionists trying to re-cast the causes of the rebellion against the United States.
Granted that the secessionists felt politically emasculated and economically victimized by tariffs. Yet, the right to own slaves seems at least equally important. And, why wouldn’t it? Slavery was the basis the economy– the institution that made the SC economy viable; produced the products which made some South Carolinians wealthy; and, indeed, accounted for a large portion of the economic value of South Carolinian’s assets in aggregate.
South Carolina Secession Declaration Debate
(Transcribed from the Charleston, South Carolina, Courier, Dec. 25, 1860, by Ben Barnhill, Furman University)
Monday, December 24 (Seventh day of the State Convention)
[…]he moved to take up “The Address of the People of South Carolina, Assembled in Convention, to the People of the Slaveholding States of the United States.”
[…]
The Address was then put upon its passage, and after being verbally amended, was adopted as follows:
[…]
It cannot be believed, that our ancestors would have assented to any union whatever with the people of the North, if the feelings and opinions now existing amongst them, had existed when the Constitution was framed. There was then no Tariff – no fanaticism concerning negroes. It was the delegates from New England who proposed in the Convention which framed the Constitution, to the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, that if they would agree to give Congress the power of regulating commerce by a majority that they would support the extension of the African Slave Trade for twenty years. African slavery existed in all the States but one. The idea that the Southern States would be made to pay that tribute to their northern confederates which they had refused to pay to Great Britain; or that the institution of African slavery, would be made the grand basis of a sectional organization of the North to rule the South, never crossed the imaginations of our ancestors. The Union of the Constitution was a Union of slaveholding States. It rests on slavery, by prescribing a representation in Congress for three-fifths of our slaves. There is nothing in the proceedings of the Convention which framed the Constitution, to show that the Southern States would have formed any other Union; and still less, that they would have formed a Union with more powerful non-slaveholding States, having majority in both branches of the Legislature of the Government. They were guilty of no such folly. Time and the progress of things have totally altered the relations between the Northern and Southern States, since the Union was established. That identity of feelings, interests and institutions which once existed, is gone. They are now divided, between agricultural and manufacturing, and commercial States; between slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. Their institutions and industrial pursuits have made them totally different peoples. That equality in the Government between the two sections of the Union which once existed, no longer exists. We but imitate the policy of our fathers in dissolving a union with non-slaveholding confederates, and seeking a confederation with slaveholding States.
Experience has proved that slaveholding States cannot be safe in subjection to non-slaveholding States. Indeed, no people can ever expect to preserve its rights and liberties, unless these be in its own custody. To plunder and oppress, where plunder and oppression can be practiced with impunity, seems to be the natural order of things. The fairest portions of the world elsewhere, have been turned into wildernesses, and the most civilized and prosperous communities have been impoverished and ruined by anti-slavery fanaticism. The people of the North have not left us in doubt as to their designs and policy. United as a section in the late Presidential election, they have elected as the exponent of their policy, one who has openly declared that all the States of the United States must be made free States or slave States.
[…]
The Gulf states seceded, as they realized the NEW Republican party wanted to control the country. Only with a war could they prevent dissolving as the Whigs, Know-Nothings, and the Wide-Awakes. The wealthest people in America were Republicans, (same as today). The Civil war was ‘the vehicle’ to dominate America, and destroy the Democrats. (BTW, U.S. General Grant, Lincoln’s post master General Montgomery Blair, U.S. Admiral Farragut were all slaveowners, as was Major Anderson who refused to leave Fort Sumter and many other Union officers)
[Quote #1]
to any eye it was clear that war-weariness had reached a climax. Many things were responsible for this, including the fact that this war most damnably complicated by plain old-fashioned politics, played with venom and without much restraint even in the piping times of peace, and played in wartime with all of its ordinary qualities at double or triple strength. It could appear, in Indiana and elsewhere, that the war was being fought for unadorned Republican supremacy at all levels, from the county courthouse on up.
Source-”The Army Of The Potomac, Glory Road”-Bruce Catton, pages 117-118, Copyright – 1952, by Bruce Catton, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 52-5538.
[Quote #2]
He [N.Y. Gov. Horatio Seymour] believed that hard-minded Republicans were shamefully making political capital out of a war which they had taken over for their own purposes-which, as a matter of fact, was perfectly true-and he was protesting that the only way to prevent the establishment of a despotic central government was to preserve the powers of the several states. The war, he declared must not be turned into “a bloody, barbarous, revolutionary, and unconstitutional scheme” to destroy states sovereignty.
Source-”The Army Of The Potomac, Glory Road”-Bruce Catton, page 135, Copyright – 1952, by Bruce Catton, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 52-5538
[Quote #3]
Senator Douglas then said, “If you Republicans will not accept any of these compromises what are you willing to do? I am speaking to you Republicans, for if you are willing to accept nothing but war you are responsible for it, for the only difficulty in the way of a compromise is the Republican party.”
Source-”The Unwritten South”- J. Clarence Stonebraker, pages 54-55, Third Edition, Copyright – 1903 by J. Clarence Stonebraker, Reprinted 2005
[Quote #4]
The conversations they had during the day moved Buscher to put thoughts of his own on paper during the evenings. He had spent a lot of time in Washington and was disillusioned by many of his meetings with the figures in government. “The conviction is growing in me that if the American statesmen of the last fifteen years had been half as intelligent and only half as honest and capable as the soldiers, that is the Generals Grant, Lee, Sherman, etc.,then the war would never have been started.”
In the conversations, Lee was now talking without reserve:
Speaking of the war altogether he agreed with me fully that the war was only created by a set of poor politicians, but that it was by no means a necessity and could easily have been avoided, but that the republican party wanted to get control of the country and to obtain this they did not shrink back from anything.
Source-”Lee The Last Years”- Charles Bracelen Flood, page 221, Copyright-1981 by Charles Bracelen Flood, ISBN 0-395-31292-2
Bill Starnes wrote:>”The importation of African slaves was banned in this country decades before. In fact, it was mostly over before 1800. So ships flying the Confederate naval jack were so virtuous as to not engage in the slave trade because there WAS no transoceanic trade in human chattel.”< ************************** Sorry Bill, but that's not true, it continued to flourish. [under the U.S. Flag] [Quoting directly #1] The finest ship of the large class was the Venus, a vessel of four hundred and sixty tons, built at Baltimore, at a cost of $30,000. So swift was this vessel that when chased on the coast of Africa her captain actually shortened sail in order to play with the man-o‘-war. There was nothing under sail that could equal her in her day. She landed over eight-hundred slaves on her first voyage, with a net profit not far from three hundred dollars per head. Source-“The American Slave Trade”- John R. Spears, Copyright-1960 by Ballantine Books, Inc., page 34 [Quote #2] In an official communication to Secretary of State James Buchanan, under date of May 1, 1845. James K, Polk was then President of the United States, and this story and other stories of like character were sent to the congress of the United States in House Ex. Doc. 28 of the same session. Said Consul [Henry A.] Wise [of Virginia] in an official letter dated February 18, 1845; “I implore, the President of the United States to take a decided stand on this subject. You have no conception of the bold effrontery and the flagrant outrages of the African slave-trade, and of the shameless manner in which its worst crimes are licensed here. And every patriot in our land would blush for our country did he know and see, as I do, how our own citizens sail and sell our flag to the uses and abuses of that accursed traffic. We are a ‘by-word among nations’-the only people who can now fetch and carry any and everything for the slave-trade…and, because we are the only people who can, are we to allow our proudest privilege to be perverted, and to pervert our own glorious flag into the pirate’s flag?” Neither James Buchanan nor James K. Polk, nor any other member of any administration from and including that of Andrew Jackson down to the Civil War, did anything that could in justice be called an effort to stop the use of the American flag for covering such atrocities. It is a significant fact that there was one slave-ship named Martin Van Buren and another named James Buchanan. Source-“The American Slave Trade”- John R. Spears, Copyright-1960 by Ballantine Books, Inc., pages 64-65 [Quote # 3] Having fallen in with a British cruiser, Perry got authentic stories of two American vessels, the Illinois and Shakespeare, that brought slave-goods to the coast, and, after discharging, were loaded with slaves. Then the American flag was hauled down and away they went over the sea. The Illinois hailed from Glouster, Mass., and was the property of Pason & Co. In the instructions issued to British naval officer on the coast after the treaty of August 9, 1842, appears the following sentence: “The commanding officers of Her Majesty’s vessels on the African station are to bear in mind that it is no part of their duty to capture or visit, or in any way interfere with, vessels of the United States, whether these vessels shall have slaves on board or not.” Source-“The American Slave Trade”- John R. Spears, Copyright-1960 by Ballantine Books, Inc., pages 114-115
Confederate Glory
(if you can’t ‘click on the link’, try copy & paste.) Excellent video!
It seems a bit uncivil to create a thread intended to smear those who want to abide by the compromise relocation of the Confederate flag, by insinuating that anyone who doesn’t want the flag removed and banned is just like the worst example of “the underbelly”.
I remember a compromise several years ago. The battle flag was removed from the dome of the capitol and placed at the confederate soldiers monument. This is an appropriate place for the flag. It is a shame that anti-confederate writers continue to spew anti-flag rhetoric and side with radical, anti-compromising groups like the NAACP(National Association of Always Complaining People) or (National Association of Anti-Compromising People). Let the compromise stand. However writers at the State and others will continue, it seems, to spew their anti-confederate venom and will not rest until all traces of the confederacy are purged from public display.
Was that a compromise, or a cop-out, or even a capitulation? We are saying that the right compromise is to get it off of government buildings altogether, and into the museum where it belongs. It should never have been placed on the State house in 1962, and JFK should have had it brought down immediately. Putting it up there was an act of defiance in the first place.
And then you “moderates” would disappear, to be replaced by a new set of radical agitators who would not honor your compromise.
They would demand removal of the flags from the government museum buildings, government military cemetaries (already have), private residences (already have, including the American flag)….
No, Ready-To, I didn’t mean Confederate soldiers should be buried in National Cemeteries. I meant the Southern people buried them then & it’s up to the Southern people now to preserve their memory and their good name. Yes, there are memorials to Confederate soldiers. Did you mean the plaques on the Texas State House that were removed in the middle of the night under Bush’s tenure or the Confederate statues at the University of Texas they’re going to try to remove this year. Maybe you meant the Jeff Davis Hwy marker on the Canadian border in Washington State that the UDC placed in a “spirit of concilitation.” That one was ripped out of the ground & hidden on museum grounds. Vanderbilt tried to remove “Confederate” from a Peabody dorm, but the court stopped them. It’s a McCarthyesque Witch Hunt, & all you’re doing is promoting a single-minded political agenda and smearing the good names of citizen soldiers who were defending their homes. Yes, Confederate politicians did plenty of racist posturing, so did Lincoln. We’ve all heard it. Have you read any books based on the letters of Confederate soldiers? If you haven’t, you’re just getting somebody’s opinion who wasn’t there. I’ve just finished “A Boot Full of Memories” by David Douglas, 135 letters written by the Captain of one of my Confederate ancestors. One of his “servants” kept his farm going and another one was still with him in the field when news arrived that Lincoln was assassinated. They had plenty of chances to leave. What about these Black Confederates? Maybe 90,000 or more supported the Confederate war effort and that means it was their flag, too. We’re just as proud of them as the white soldiers and eventually the truth will come out. When it does, people like Steve “If you talk like that you better win big” Spurrier are going to look bad. I can’t wait..
[Quoting directly]
I was at the battle of Gettysburg myself, and an incident occurred there which largely changed my views of the Southern people. I had been a most bitter anti-Southern man, and fought and cursed the Confederacy desperately. I could see nothing good in any of them. The last day of the fight I was badly wounded. A ball shattered my left leg. I lay on the ground not far from Cemetery Ridge, and as General Lee ordered his retreat he and his officers rode near me.
As they came along I recognized him, and, though faint from exposure and loss of blood, I raised up my hands, looked Lee in the face, and shouted as loud as I could, “Hurrah for the Union!” The general heard me, looked, stopped his horse, dismounted, and came toward me. I confess that I at first thought he meant to kill me.
But as he came up he looked down at me with such a sad expression upon his face that all fear left me, I wondered what he was about. He extended his hand to me, and grasping mine firmly and looking right into my eyes, said, ”My son, I hope you will soon be well.”
If I live a thousand years I shall never forget the expression on General Lee’s face. There he was, defeated, retiring from a field that had cost him and his cause almost their last hope, and yet he stopped to say words like those to a wounded soldier of the opposition who had taunted him as he passed by! As soon as the general had left me I cried myself to sleep there upon the bloody ground. (23)
(23) A. L. Long and Marcus. J. Wright, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: His Military and Personal History (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1886), 301-2.
Source-”My Brothers Keeper”-Daniel N. Rolph, pages 39-40, Copyright 2002 by Stackpole Books, ISBN 0-8117-0997-3
[Quoting from the book]
“THEY WHIPPED MRS R.”
Twenty-four-year-old Julia Gott, daughter of William and Jane Gott, worked in the Treasury Department in Columbia, where she signed $100.00 bills. One of General Beauregard’s sisters worked in the same department and sat next to Julia. Before Sherman reached Columbia, the girls in the Treasury Department were packed off to Richmond. Julia joined members of the family at Chester, and from that place sent the following letter to her sister Anne in Edgefield.
Chester, S. C. Feby. 27th, 1865.
My dear darling Sister,
* * * *
I must tell you some of the outrages the Yankees have committed around here. An old man by the name of Brice lived in Fairfield District. He used to send Beef here for sale every week. The Yankees hung him because he would not tell where he had hid his money and silver. They robbed every house they passed, burnt a great many. They have burnt Tom Boulware’s and some house never there, burnt Mary S. DeG’s gin house, cribbs, &c. and took two watches and some other things from here. They stripped old Mrs. R., Kate’s mother, and whipped her, destroyed everything Mrs. N. Beckham had to eat and the Boulwares and Watsons, I hear, are living off the corn left by our cavalry men in the woods. They have it to beat and make into Bread but hope they are not that bad off.
* * * *
Wheeler’s men killed sixteen Yanks I hear in retaliation for whipping Mrs. R. Oh, Ann, I do think the idea of a Lady’s being stripped and whipped by those villains is outrageous, the most awful thing I have heard of…
Oh, Annie is it not awful to see the way our people are suffering and the sin that is committed…I just know people cannot die from fear…
Source-“When Sherman Came: Southern women and the “GREAT MARCH”-Katharine M. Jones-pages 229-230, Copyright-1964 by Katharine M. Jones, Library of Congress catalog card number 64: 25309
Mr. Brasher, my response to you was that compromise with most who claim to be moderates and liberals is not really possible, because they either don’t intend to honor any deal they make, or don’t care if someone more radical on their side tries to tear it up and move the lines in a more extreme direction.
When was the last time you saw a liberal, socialist, moderate, progressive come out against a more radical position and say, “No, that’s not fair. We already reached a compromise on ____(Confederate flag, statute, gun laws, tobacco, …)___”?
Lack of honesty or courage to stand up to the extreme statists is what makes most Americans hold no respect for any of the so-called “moderate liberals”.
This flag issue is just a small corner of the entire attack on Western Civilization, capitalism, and individual liberty, and it is driven by extremists of all types, from Robespierre to Marx to Bin Laden. The moderates are just along for the ride.
In the 50th Georgia at Salem Church, a litter-bearer came to a Scottish-born officer, Col. Peter McGlashan, and told him that one of his soldiers wanted to see him before he died. McGlashan went back and found a “plain pine woods farmer” from Colquitt County, whose eyes and nose had been shot out by a ball through his temple. “Is the colonel here?” asked the soldier. When McGlashan answered, the soldier said “Colonel, take my hand.” McGlashan did, kneeling beside the stretcher. “Colonel, have I done my duty?” asked the soldier. McGlashan assured him that he always had.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said the soldier. “Tell my people, when you return home, that John Culpepper died doing his duty.”
Source: Col Peter McGlashan, “Battle of Salem Church” Address to Conf. Vet of Savannah, Ga: Breid & Hutton, 1893
John, Thanks for everything. There are men & women in Iraq & Afghanistan right now, doing their duty & defending their country just like you did. Some guy from Tennessee needs to recruit some black athletes, so he wants to remove your flag from the Confederate soldier monument. Remember that old saying, “Nothing worse than a Tennessee Yankee?” I always liked that one. Well, there’s worse, John. 6,000 of us marched thru Charleston 3 years ago, not reenacting but conducting a real military funeral for your submarine comrades. The politicians wouldn’t let them lie in state in the state house. Even Washington & Lee is distancing themselves from anything Confederate. It’s like the Federal Government has made a complete mess of race relations in the 142 yrs since the war ended and now they want to blame you. It’s a joke, and I don’t think South Carolinians will be fooled by it. Thanks again, you & our soldiers today are a constant inspiration. We won’t let you down.
God Bless You
Lamont, I can hardly believe that you’d remain in a country who’s soldiers committed such atrocities. I understand that many Confederates fled to Brazil after their rebellion cost the USA untold misery, death, pain and money.
Perhaps you would be happier among their descendants in Brazil.
Lee, or BizWiz7, here is the same response that I posted below to your same comment:
I think that it is useless to try and rejoin your statements, because of the labels you put on the groups you don’t like, and the generalizations to boot. “They don’t intend to honor any deal they make,” and “they don’t care” are the radical statements of extremists who don’t want to dialog on issues, just stick on labels.
At the bottom of our disagreements, I suspect, are radically different core values, and the conception of what is truth, and what is evil and a lie. The values that I personally, and many with me, want to have at the basis of our pre-suppositions are what is true and good, regardless of who may hold to them–for truth is truth, regardless of how many people “vote” for it, or even how many people like it–and how to apply that as evenly and as best as possible in the context that we have, without completely tossing out all restraint and order. Your presuppositions are evidently formed around core values that are maintained by a particular group, with all others labeled as “liberals” or “progressives,” or whatever. Truth lies within your group, and everything outside of your group is, by definition, a lie, and evil. The evil, then, is always out there. Your group is right; everyone else is wrong (or a “liberal,” or a “progressive,” or whatever label you choose to give your enemies. You learn from nobody, except from those within your group.
I have to maintain that evil is much more pervasive than that; that all of us, no matter what “group” we belong to are infected with it. That will, among other things, necessitate a constant, precarious balance between individual rights and freedoms on the one hand, and corporate responsibility on the other. It demands constant watchfulness and adjustments, because the evil is not just “out there,” but in us all, and will overpower us if we don’t stay alert.
The flag of the confederacy, no matter which one is used, is a case in point. It was placed where it was in 1962, not because those involved were doing research in Civil War history, or even ultimately to celebrate 100 years, but in order to make plain what many people thought and maintained at the time, that the black man is inferior, and apartheid, American style, is just. And any time a black person looks at that flag, she/he knows what it represents. And so it needs to come down. That is the truth, as I understand it, and I think I am not far off.
If I were arguing in church from the Bible, I could at the very least argue on the basis that anything that makes my brother or sister to stumble should be avoided, and at the very least, this flag is a stumbling block. Christians who take the Bible seriously (and there are quite a few in the state of SC, I am told) should have no difficulty understanding this.
And to end on a general note, labels generally don’t help. They jam up human relationships and dialog, just like they jam up my old HP ink-jet printer.
‘Ready to Hurl’,
So you approve of the ‘atrocities’ the Yankee soldiers did!! I guess that tells us something about you! BTW, there was no ‘Rebellion’, the South seceded, which they had the legal right to do so. There is NO “GANG UP CLAUSE”, which reads other states can gang up on another. “Consent of the governed” is clearly stated. The President is NOT the law of the land. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence is the law, which can be found in any library.
Below is from the Southern Historian William Gilmore Simms, which was printed in the Columbia, S.C. newspaper.
[Quoting directly]
From the Columbia Phoenix
* * * * * * * * * *
XIX.
COLUMBIA, S. C., THURSDAY, 30 MARCH 1865, VOL. 1, NO. 5
We have adverted to the deeper black of those horrid outrages which were perpetrated within the households of the citizens, where, unrestrained by the rebuking eyes of their own comrades, and unresisted by their interposition; cupidity, malignity and lust, sought to glut their several appetites. The cupidity generally triumphed over the lust. The greed for gold and silver swallowed up the more animal passions, and drunkenness supervened in season for the safety of many. We have heard of some few outrages, or attempts at outrage, of the worst sort, but the instances, in the case of white females, must have been very few. There was, perhaps, a wholesome dread, on the part of the ruffians, of goading to desperation the people whom they had despoiled of all honor. They could see, in many watchful and guardian eyes, the lurking expression which threatened sharp vengeance should their trespasses proceed to those extremes which they yet unquestionably contemplated. The venerable Mr. H. stood ready, with his couteau de chasse, made bare in his bosom, hovering around the persons of his innocent daughters. Mr. O., on beholding some too familiar approach to one of his daughters by one of the ruffians, bade him stand off at the peril of his life; saying that, while he submitted to be robbed of property, he would sacrifice life without reserve-his own and that of the assailant-before his child’s honor should be abused. Mr. James G. Gibbes with difficulty, pistol in hand, and only with the assistance of a Yankee officer, rescued two young women from the clutches of as many ruffians. We have been told of successful outrages of this unmentionable character being practiced upon women dwelling in the suburbs, many are understood to have taken place in remote country settlements, and two cases are described where young negresses were brutally forced by the wretches and afterwards murdered-one of them being thrust, when half dead, head down, into a mud puddle, and there held until she was suffocated. But this must suffice. The shocking details should not now be made, but that we need, for the sake of truth and humanity, to put on record, in the fullest types and columns, the horrid deeds of these marauders upon all that is pure and precious-All that is sweet and innocent-all that is good, gentle, gracious, dear and ennobling-within the regards of white and Christian civilization, And yet, we should grossly err in, while showing the forbearance of the Yankees in respect to out white women, we should convey to any innocent reader the notion that they exhibited a like forbearance in the case of the black. The poor Negroes were terribly victimized by their brutal assailants, many of them, besides the instance mentioned, being left in a condition little short of death. Regiments, in successive relays, subjected scores of these poor women to the torture of their embraces, and-but we dare not farther pursue the subject-it is one of such loathing and horror which the historian dare not pursue-which the painter dare not delineate. They both drop the curtain over crimes which humanity bleeds to contemplate. (28)
Some incidents of gross brutality, which show how well prepared were those demons for every crime, however monstrous, may be given.
A lady, undergoing the pains of labor, had to be borne out on a mattress into the open air, to escape the fire. It was in vain that her situation was described to the incendiaries, as they applied the torch within and without the house, after they had penetrated every chamber and robbed them of all that was either valuable or portable. They themselves beheld the situation of the sufferer, and laughed to scorn the prayer for her safety.
Another case was that of Mrs.-, a widow. Her corpse, decked for the grave, was surrounded by watchful mourners, sisters and daughters. Into this sacred presence the ruffian made their way, plundering as they went, making offensive comments, and exhibiting no sort of regard to the solemn preparations for the grave which they beheld, or for the bereaved sufferers, silent in their sad offices of love.
Another lady, Mrs. J-, was but recently confined. Her condition was very helpless. Her life hung upon a hair. The demons were apprised of all the facts in the case. They burst into the chamber-took the rings from the lady’s fingers-plucked the watch from beneath her pillow-shrieked offensive language in her ears, and so overwhelmed her with terror, that she sunk under the treatment-surviving their departure but a day or two. Language fails in all adequate speech, when it would properly characterize the nature of these demons or their diabolical performances.
In several cases, newly made graves were opened, the coffins taken out, broken open, in search of buried treasure, and the corpses left exposed. Every spot in grave yard or garden, which seemed to have been recently disturbed, was sounded with sword, or bayonet, or ramrod, in their desperate search after spoil. These monsters of virtuous pretension, with their banner of streaks and spangles overhead, and sworn to the Constitution, which they neither understand nor read, never once forget the greed of appetite which has distinguished Puritanic New England for three hundred years; and, lest they might forget, their appetite is kept lively by their women-letters found upon their dead, or upon prisoners, almost invariably appealing to them to bring home the gauds and jewelry, even the dresses, of the Southern women, to deck the fond feminine expectants at home, whom we suppose to be all the while at their devotions, assailing Heaven with prayer in behalf of their thrice blessed cause and country.
(28) [p.116] No rapes were officially reported. Omitting rape accounts in not surprising, Simms called such crimes “horrors which the historian dare not pursue.” As Simms implied, the rapist was more likely to receive his punishment from a male member of the victim’s family than from a law-enforcement official.
Source-”A City Laid Waste, The Capture, Sack, and Destruction Of The City of Columbia”-William Gilmore Simms-pages-89,90,91-Edited with an introduction by David Aiken)-copyright-2005 Published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press-ISBN 1-57003-596-2
Mr. Brasher, all you have done in your long post is to try to dismiss everyone who makes an observation which you cannot answer. That is rude.
Labels are valuable when they are correct and used by people who understand them. Unfortunately, most people know so little about philosophy that the names of various schools of thought mean nothing to them, or some misconception.
Real liberalism means something. Socialism has many forms, but they all share some core beliefs in state ownership and control of economic enterprise and people’s lives. Socialists who call themselves “liberals” are dishonest, and but they have redefined liberalism to mean socialism that cannot admit to it.
In general, the observations about liberals, like all socialists, being dishonest negotiators is quite correct.
A lot of the extremists who want to BAN tobacco, CONFISCATE firearms, and OUTLAW large vehicles are just now out in the open, after a series of compromises which they claimed was all they wanted.
Lamont, what makes you think that I approve of any atrocity?
War is a savage business. It looses basest urges of humans. I’m guessing that you romantically envision southern soldiers as noble upholder’s of chivalry.
It was a custom of the time for armies to “live off the land.” This is a fancy way to say that they stole food and livestock from civilians in the area. Rebels and Yankees did this.
Both sides committed “outrages.” Indeed, I’d say that killing 16 prisoners in retaliation for the whipping a woman was an atrocity. I’m not going to get into a “who was worse” argument but I trust that you’ve heard of Andersonville prison or the Fort Pillow Massacre by troops under the founder of the KKK. Or, are those another “myth” perpetrated by the “Yankee race?”
The post by “Lexwolf” displayed remarkable perception – “Ugly Underbelly” is indeed a disguised attempt to de-legitimize anyone who disagrees with you and your take on the Confederate flag.
And your BIG BOLD WARNINGS about “obscene” and “hateful” language are truly laughable. Either you don’t get out much or you’ve spent most of your life in a cloistered monastery. OH MY!!!!! Someone used the “F” word! OH HORROR OH HORROR! In the immortal words of Joan Rivers – “Oh Grow up!”
And what’s all this B.S. about “the fear” of getting such messages? You’re on the internet, you write for one of the biggest socialist rags on the East Coast, you and your fellow drones rank on anyone who doesn’t agree with your dogma, and yet you act shocked, surprised, hurt, offended and angered when you get a letter like this? If that’s the case then maybe you should take a job as a mail boy in the back room. Or, as someone once said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. Spare us your outrage. We get enough of that from Al Sharpton. And please spare us your public angst. Call Joyce Brothers instead.
As far as your uncivil critic goes, language aside, he makes some valid points and it is those points I believe which I think really irk you:
First, your paper indeed does not represent the views of the people of the State. You simply have the stage and the microphone while the citizens of the state do not. Therefore, you can make any situation “seem” to be exactly the way you want it to be. Want to settle the flag issue once and for all? Then have the ba**s to have a flag referendum the way Mississippi did. And when you lose 2-1 the way the Mississippi flag critics lost I will come back to watch you and all the other drones in “The State” cry in your beer!
Second, “…minorities that you sarcastically PRETEND to embrace”. C’mon, admit it. He’s got you dead to rights on that one and you’re mad as hell about it!! If you really cared about the minorities you would address critical issues which really do impact them and for which they have no one to blame but themselves. How about – “out of wedlock births”? What’s the figure? 70% of black babies born out of wedlock? Are you aware that most of the prison population comes from this type of home? If you really cared about “minorities” you’d issue a recall to all those black ministers who have taken leave of their congregations in order to pursue their 15 minutes of political activist fame chasing the Confederate Flag. You’d tell them to get back on their pulpits and focus on reminding their congregations about what is right and what is wrong. But you won’t do that. It’s much easier to rank on the Confederate flag. Why bother actually DOING something constructive when you can PRETEND you’re doing something constructive without actually having to exert much effort and without having to take much risk? After all, when you bad mouth the Confederate flag and its supporters, you don’t have to worry about having to go on Al Sharpton’s show to explain yourself. All you have to worry about is occasionally pi**ing your pants over letters like the one in your column.
Third, about your critic’s description of prison and who comprises most of its population – do you know which ethnic group represents 14% of the population and yet is responsible for 52% of the murders? It’s an astounding figure when you come down to it and it’s no surprise that they comprise a large percentage, if not a majority percentage of the prison population. And you know that it’s a valid figure so don’t try to tell me otherwise.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
Language aside, he’s right – you would not like having to deal with the prison population and it WOULD alter your point of view. I had to deal with some of them before I retired – and my job only included dealing with a few of the mentally ill ones. In comparison to the rest of the prison population they were the lightweights and yet were they a load to handle!!! Trust me – your polly-annish views would change in a big hurry.
Fourth, about your supposed 5 great grandfathers who fought under that flag; since they knew what it was to go hungry, (most Johnny Rebs did), there’s a good chance that they might forgive you for leading the charge to take down their gallant banner. We both know that if you took the opposite view about the flag flying that “The State” would fire you faster than you can say “Don Imus” and you too would be experiencing hunger the way your ancestors did. Seeing as how you’re a family member and that they fought primarily to protect their families, they probably wouldn’t want to see you go hungry.
Decorated UNION war veteran Ambrose Beirce might be less forgiving however. A brilliant writer, he once told someone like you – “The brave respect the brave, the brave respect the dead, but YOU, you wave that ancient blade, THE ASSES JAW, and shake it o’er a hero’s grave”! My own inclination is to say that you and the rest of your co-workers are simply a freakin’ disgrace. Ole Ambrose was much more eloquent. I hope he will forgive me copping his stuff.
‘Welcome to my world’? ROFL!!!! Yeah right, it must be difficult being a drone.
Bill Vallante
Commack NY
SCV Camp 3000 (Associate)
SCV Camp 1506 (Associate)
‘Ready to Hurl’, Yankees raping or digging up graves looking for loot, is not ‘living off the land’. As for Andersonville, there fault lies with Grant for refusal to exchange POW’s. The POW’s there were to receive the same rations as Confederate soldiers. Railroads made transportation of food difficult to Andersonville as it did the Confederate soldier. When Forest captured Fort Pillow in 1864, the Northern support for the war was very low. The [Yankee] Committee on the Conduct War, needed to ‘fire the hearts’ of their people, thus creating the propaganda, which anyone that seriously studied the war knows it to be. Forrest also was not ‘the founder of the KKK’, which was formed in Pulaski, TN. (Forrest wasn’t even there) The war happened in the South. Neither in MI, MA, MN, NJ, CT, or many other several Northern states. Trying to equate Union atrocities with the South, is like trying to compare what some U.S. soldiers did in Vietnam, to what Vietnamese soldiers did in America. (The war was over there, not here)
[Quote #1]
Foreword By Colonel James “Bo” Gritz
In March 1968, the Americal Division moved on the Vietnamese village of My Lai. There to protect the populace from Communism, they murdered more than 300 women, children and infants.
Source-“The Federal Siege of Ruby Ridge”-by-Randy & Sara Weaver, page xi, Copyright-1998 by Randy Weaver and Sara Weaver, ISBN 0-9664334-0-8
[Quot#2]
OUTRAGES ON COLORED WOMEN
Colonel Ignatz. G. Kapper, Second U.S. Heavy Artillery (colored), commanding Fort Pickering, near Memphis, on April 7, 1864, reported to Brigadier General Ralph P. Buckland, District of Memphis, “The [white] cavalry broke en masse in the camps of the colored women and are committing all sorts of outrage. The black is made a man by being trusted with arms, and it is very hard for a man to see his family abused and not to use the arm.” (25)
(25) O.R., Vol. XXXII, pt. III: 286.
Source-”The Uncivil War: Union Army and Navy Excesses in the Official Records”-Thomas Bland Keys-page-72-73, Copyright-1991
[Quote #3]
TURNED OUT OF THEIR HOUSES AND ROBBED
[Union] Major General John A. Dix, Department of Virginia, Seventh Army Corps, Fort Monroe, on November 26, communicated to Brigadier General Michael Corcoran, commanding at Newport News, “A complaint has been made to me that the colored people who are to go to Craney Island have been forced to remain all night on the wharf without shelter and without food; that one has died, and that others are suffering with disease, and that your men have turned them out of their houses, which they have built themselves, and have robbed some of them of their money and personal effects.” (9)
(9) O.R., Vol. XVIII: 464.
Source-”The Uncivil War: Union Army and Navy Excesses in the Official Records”-Thomas Bland Keys-page-44, Copyright-1991
[Quote #4]
NEGRO WOMEN DEBAUCHED
[Union General] Buell in Huntsville on August 12, 1862, admonished Lieutenant Colonel Douglas A. Murray, Third Ohio Cavalry (of Colonel Lewis Zahm’s Second Brigade, in Colonel John Kennett’s Cavalry Division), in Woodville, Alabama, fifteen miles east-southeast of Huntsville, “Reports are made to me of the most disgraceful outrages on the part of troops along the road within ten or twelve miles of your station. Not only is property taken…but property is wantonly destroyed, negro women are debauched, and ladies insulted. Such acts are said to have been committed at Mr. Clay’s place, ten miles west of you, yesterday.” (9)
(9) O.R., Vol. XVI, pt II: 319
Source-”The Uncivil War: Union Army and Navy Excesses in the Official Records”-Thomas Bland Keys-page-35, Copyright-1991
[Quoting #5]
Now think of the march of Sherman’s army, which could be discovered a great way off by the smoke of burning homesteads by day and the lurid glare of flames by night, from Atlanta to Savannah, from Columbia to Fayetteville, and suppose that such an order as a this had been issued by its commanding officer and rigidly executed, would not the mortality have been quite equal to that of a great battle?
Arriving in Fayetteville on the 10th of January, 1865, he not only burned the arsenal, one of the finest in the United States, which perhaps he might have properly done, but he also burned five private dwelling-houses nearby, he burned the principal printing office, that of the old “Fayetteville Observer,” he burned the old Bank of North Carolina, eleven large warehouses, five cotton mills and quite a number of private dwellings in other parts of the town, whilst in the suburbs almost a clean sweep was made; in one locality nine houses were burned. Universally, houses were gutted before they were burned; and after everything portable was secured the furniture was ruthlessly destroyed -pianos, on which perhaps rebel tunes had been played -”Dixie” or “My Maryland”-disloyal bureaus, traitorous tables and chairs were cut to pieces with axes; and frequently, after all this damage fire was applied, and all consumed Carriages and vehicles if all kinds were wantonly destroyed or burned; instances could be given of old men who had the shoes taken from the feet, the hats from their heads and clothes from their persons, their wives and children subject to like treatment. In once instance as the marauders left they shot down a dozen cattle belonging to an old man, and left their carcasses lying in the yard. Think of that, and then remember the grievance of the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers who came in all seriousness to complain to General Longstreet, in the Gettysburg Campaign, of the outrage which some of his ferocious rebels had committed upon them, by milking their cows! On one occasion, at Fayetteville, four gentlemen were hung up by their neck until nearly dead to force them to disclose where their valuables were hidden, and one of them was shot to death.
Source-“Life of Zebulon B. Vance”-Clement Dowd-1897-p.470-1; Charlotte, N. C. Observer Printing and Publishing House; Entered According the Act of Congress, in the year 1897, by Clement Dowd, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
I’ll have to hand it to your Lamont, I haven’t spent a lot of time and energy researching the victimization of civilians by Confederates. And, as you note, the war was fought on home ground. Confederate soldiers would be less inclined to commit atrocities against southern civilians and officers would be less inclined to ignore such “outrages.”
However, that hardly makes Confederate soldiers immune from the contagion of brutality of war as the following excerpt shows.
From a review…
In his new book, Black Flag Over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War (Southern Illinois University Press), Urwin brings together some of the nation’s leading 19th century military historians to illustrate the central role race and racism had in some of the war’s ugliest battles.
[…]
“A lot of people like the Civil War because they find aspects of it entertaining. It’s so attractive, so compelling. And there are a lot of great stories–and many tales of heroism.
“But the Civil War community prefers a sanitized picture of the most wrenching experience in American history. A vicious and bloody conflict is now fondly remembered as an ennobling experience.
[…]
By telling the stories of brutality suffered by black troops–and, in many cases, their white officers–at places like Fort Pillow, Tenn.; Poison Spring, Ark.; the Crater at Petersburg, Va.; Plymouth, N.C.; and Olustee, Fla., Black Flag Over Dixie authors do more than simply explore tactical decisions and list casualties. They also take an in-depth look at why the atrocities occurred–and explore the impact the tragedies had, and continue to have, on race relations in the United States.
[…]
To the Confederates, the sight of a black man in a uniform was a “crime against humanity,” an offense so severe that Southerners felt they were not obligated to treat black troops and their white officers as “honorable opponents.” Blacks, says Urwin, were savages in the eyes of white southerners, who fought the war intent on “preserving their way of life.”
“When you’re fighting enemies you’re convinced are savages, that leads you to suspend the rules,” says Urwin, noting that the Confederate leadership issued an edict that black soldiers weren’t to be taken prisoner. “And once you convince yourself your opponents don’t play by the rules, ostensibly decent people can do indecent things.”
The atrocities outlined in Black Flag Over Dixie include, among others:
– Poison Spring, where 4,000 Confederate calvarymen ambushed 1,170 Union troops. Over 300 soldiers-including 182 from the 1st Kansas U.S. Colored Troops–were listed as killed, wounded or missing. Many of the casualties occurred after the battle had ceased, Urwin illustrates in journal and newspaper accounts of the time. One account states that Arkansans, ordered to remove their wagons from the battle site, “drove over the dead and dying blacks,” competing to see who could crush the most heads of black soldiers.
– Fort Pillow, where “all who attempted to escape were hunted and shot down,” writes contributor Albert Castel. “Many who raised their hands to surrender also were shot down, especially the black soldiers. Pleas for mercy were answered with curses and bullets.”
– And the Battle of the Crater, which contributor Bryce Suderow writes, ranks as “the worst massacre of blacks during the Civil War, as the Union lost 1,269 men, including over 400 from the black 4th division.” In describing the massacre, Suderow quotes George Bernard of the 12th Virginia from the book War Talks of Confederate Veterans. Bernard witnessed a black soldier begging for his life on the outer edge of the crater, as two Confederate soldiers, one striking him with a rod, the other holding a gun, confronted him. The man was shot in the stomach while being beaten to death.
“It was a brutal, horrible act…This, I have no doubt from what I saw and afterwards heard, was but a sample of many other bloody tragedies during the first 10 minutes after our men got into the trench, many of whom seemed infuriated at the idea of having to fight negroes,” Suderow writes.
[…]
Racial inequities didn’t end when the war did, Urwin notes. “The original Ku Klux Klan killed as many as 50,000 blacks during Reconstruction” as they held fast to the notion that blacks were a threat to the Southern white ideal, says Urwin. At the same time, Confederate veterans and their heirs lobbied so that pro-Confederate history, which didn’t focus on slavery or racism, was taught in Southern schools.
“From the Gilded Age into the first half of the 20th century, educators who did not justify secession or who dared to suggest that slavery had something to do with the Civil War ran the risk of censure, ostracism and even termination,” says Urwin, who himself had run-ins with the Sons of Confederate Veterans while teaching at the University of Central Arkansas more than a decade ago.
But, Urwin notes, knowing the truth about the Civil War, with its atrocities and retaliations, has little bearing on the valor of the soldiers–on either side.
Lamont, surely you’re kidding. Blaming the Union for the Andersonville atrocity?
I’ve seen two explanations for refusing to trade prisoners: (1)Confederate authorities refused to treat African-American Union soldiers as they treated white soldiers; and, U.S. Grant saw giving soldiers back to the enemy as stupid militarily.
The reason doesn’t matter. Treating prisoners humanely is the responsibility of the authorities in charge of the prisoners.
Here’s a citation about one of those Confederates in charge: The overcrowding had become a serious problem on both sides of the stockade. Captain Wirz wrote to the Confederate War Department for additional supplies, but nothing was done to alleviate the situation. In fact, General John Henry Winder, supervisor of all of the P.O.W. camps east of the Mississippi, was probably at the root of the failed request, for he was quoted as saying that all Union soldiers must die. He took pride in the fact that more Union soldiers were dying in his prisons than on the battlefield.
===
Of course, Union prison officials are just as much to blame for inhumane conditions in their prisons.
Bedford Forrest may not have been present at the founding of the KKK but he certainly lent his endorsement to the organization. He was reputedly elected a leading KKK officer.
While Forrest claimed in an interview not to be a member of the KKK (and, also gave a sanitized description of it), he certainly seems quite knowledgeable about this secret society.
========
My first visit was to General Forrest, whom I found at his office at 8 o’clock this morning hard at work, although complaining of an illness contracted at the New York convention. Now that the southern people have elevated him to the position of their great leader and oracle, …
[…]
After being seated in his office, I said: “General Forrest, I came especially to learn your views in regard to the condition of your civil and political affairs in the State of Tennessee, and the South generally. I desire them for publication in the Cincinnati Commercial. I do not wish to misrepresent you in the slightest degree, and therefore only ask for such views as you are willing that I should publish.”
“I have not now,” he replied, “and never have had, any opinion on any public or political subject which I would object to having published.
[…]
I replied, “Sir, I will publish only what you say, and then you cannot possibly be misrepresented. Our people desire to know your feeling toward the general government, the State of Tennessee, the radical party, both in and out of the State, and upon the question of negro suffrage.”
[…]
“Then I suppose, general, that you think the oppression has become so great that your people should no longer bear it?”
“No,” he answered, “it is growing worse hourly; yet I have said to the people, stand fast; let us try to right the wrong by legislation. A few weeks ago I was called to Nashville to counsel with other gentlemen who had been prominently identified with the cause of the confederacy, and we then offered pledges which we thought would be satisfactory to Mr. Brownlow and his legislature, and we told them that if they would not call out the militia we would agree to preserve order and see that the laws were enforced. …It is true that I never have recognized the present government in Tennessee as having any legal existence, yet I was willing to submit to it for a time, with the hope that the wrongs might be righted peacefully.”
“In the event of Governor Brownlow calling out the militia, do you think there will be any resistance offered to their acts?” I asked.
“That will depend upon circumstances. If the militia are simply called out, and do not interfere with or molest anyone, I do not think there will be any fight. If, on the contrary, they do what I believe they will do, commit outrages, or even one outrage, upon the people, they and Mr. Brownlow’s government will be swept out of its existence; not a radical will be left alive. If the militia are called out, we cannot but look upon it as a declaration of war, because Mr. Brownlow has already issued his proclamation directing them to shoot down the Ku-Klux wherever they find them, and he calls all Southern men Ku-Klux.”
“Why, general, we people up north have regarded the Ku-Klux as an organization which existed only in the frightened imagination of a few politicians”
“Well, sir, there is such an organization, not only in Tennessee, but all over the South, and its numbers have not been exaggerated.”
“What are its numbers, general?”
“In Tennessee there are over 40,000; in all the Southern states they number about 550,000 men.”
“What is the character of the organization; May I inquire?”
“Yes, sir. It is a protective political military organization. I am willing to show any man the constitution of the society. The members are sworn to recognize the government of the United States. It does not say anything at all about the government of Tennessee. Its objects originally were protection against Loyal Leagues and the Grand Army of the Republic; but after it became general it was found that political matters and interests could best be promoted within it, and it was then made a political organization, giving it support, of course, to the democratic party.”
“But is the organization connected throughout the state?”
“Yes, it is. In each voting precinct there is a captain, who, in addition to his other duties, is required to make out a list of names of men in his precinct, giving all the radicals and all the democrats who are positively known, and showing also the doubtful on both sides and of both colors. This list of names is forwarded to the grand commander of the State, who is thus enabled to know are our friends and who are not.”
“Can you, or are you at liberty to give me the name of the commanding officer of this State?”
“No, it would be impolitic.”
“Then I suppose that there can be no doubt of a conflict if the militia interfere with the people; is that your view?”
“Yes, sir; if they attempt to carry out Governor Brownlow’s proclamation, by shooting down Ku-Klux – for he calls all Southern men Ku-Klux – if they go to hunting down and shooting these men, there will be war, and a bloodier one than we have ever witnessed. I have told these radicals here what they might expect in such an event. I have no powder to burn killing negroes. I intend to kill the radicals. I have told them this and more, there is not a radical leader in this town but is a marked man, and if a trouble should break out, none of them would be left alive. I have told them that they are trying to create a disturbance and then slip out and leave the consequences to fall upon the negroes, but they can’t do it. When the fight comes not one of them would get out of this town alive. We don’t intend they shall ever get out of the country. But I want it distinctly understood that I am opposed to any war, and will only fight in self-defence. If the militia attack us, we will resist to the last, and, if necessary, I think I could raise 40,000 men in five days ready for the field.”
“Do you think, general, that the Ku-Klux have been of any benefit to the State?”
“No doubt of it. Since its organization, the leagues have quit killing and murdering our people. There were some foolish young men who put masks on their faces and rode over the country, frightening negroes, but orders have been issued to stop that, and it has ceased. You may say, further, that three members of the Ku-Klux have been court-martialed and shot for violations of the orders not to disturb or molest people.”
“Are you a member of the Ku-Klux, general?”
“I am not, but am in sympathy and will co-operate with them. I know that they are charged with many crimes that they are not guilty of. A case in point is the killing of Bierfield at Franklin, a few days ago. I sent a man up there especially to investigate the case, and report to me, and I have his letter here now, in which he states that they had nothing to do with it as an organization.”
How can you be so lucky as to have five great grandfathers?
Posted by: tom | Apr 17, 2007 3:57:19 PM
Everybody gets eight, Tom.
Posted by: bwarthen | Apr 17, 2007 5:56:39 PM
I hate to break it to you Brad, but you (and everybody else you know) can only claim four great-grandfathers. Not eight.
You forgot about gay marriage.
“I hate to break it to you Brad, but you (and everybody else you know) can only claim four great-grandfathers. Not eight.”
Indeed, and if Brad can’t even get such an elemental fact right, what else does he get all wrong?
# 1.) —As to the “propaganda” of Fort Pillow:
[Quote]
Assurance of action from Lincoln was all the Jacobin bosses wanted. They sped through both houses of Congress a joint resolution directing the Committee to investigate the fact of the affair at Pillow. (22) The Committee eagerly accepted the assignment and designated Wade and Gooch to proceed to the West and collect evidence on the spot. The two inquisitors set out on their mission armed with orders from Stanton instructing the military authorities to furnish them full cooperation. At Cairo, Mound City, Fort Pillow, Memphis, and elsewhere, they took evidence from seventy-eight witnesses, eighteen of whom had not been present at the Pillow massacre. This list included hospital surgeons who had cared for the wounded survivors, soldiers of the garrison who had escaped unharmed, and people who had visited the fort after the battle.
Their evidence collected, Wade and Gooch returned to Washington and submitted their information to the full Committee. On May 4, while the members were discussing the report Wade had written, the chairman showed them a letter he had just received from Stanton. The wily secretary, ever alert to what was good propaganda, suggested that the inquisitors go to Annapolis and examine a group of Union soldiers just returned from Southern prisons. “The enormity of the crime committed by the rebels towards our prisoners for the last several months is not known or realized by our own people and cannot but full with horror the civilized world when the facts are revealed,” he wrote. “There appears to have been a deliberate system of savage and barbarous treatment and starvation. (23) Hurriedly the Committee approved Wade’s report on Fort Pillow, and two days later they proceeded to Annapolis to revel in more examples of Southern barbarity. A report of the evidence taken from the prisoners was whipped into shape immediately, and on May 9 Wade released the two reports to the press as one document.
These reports were the most expert atrocity-propaganda productions of the war period.
* * * * * *
The techniques of the conscious propaganda appeared on every page of the two reports. The many sweeping accusations which did not square with the evidence showed a deliberate purpose to twist and distort the facts in order to implant the desired opinions in the mass mind.
p. 347
[end quote]
(22) Senate Report, 38 Congress, 1 Session, no. 63, p. 1, “Ft. Pillow Report,” hereafter cited as “Ft. Pillow Report.” The resolution was passed on April 16.
(23) Edwin M. Stanton to Benjamin F. Wade, May 4, 1864, in C. C. W., 1865, 1: xxv; House Reports, 38 Congress 1 Session, no. 63, p. 1, “Returned Prisoners,” hereafter cited as “Returned Prisoners Report.”
Source-”Lincoln and the Radicals”-T. Harry Williams- pages 344-5, Copyright 1941 by the University of Wisconsin
# 2.)— As to the overcrowding at Andersonville. The fault lies directly with U.S. Grant, who ended the POW exchange, knowing the North could easily afford to lose all the soldiers in Southern POW camps and still win the war.
[Quoting the Official Records]
CITY POINT, VA., August 18,1864
On the subject of exchange, however, I differ from General Hitchcock. It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. Every man we hold, when released on parole or otherwise, becomes an active soldier against us at once either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold those caught they amount to no more than dead men. At this particular time to release all rebel prisoners North would insure Sherman’s defeat and would compromise our safety here.
U.S. GRANT
Lieutenant-General.
Source- O.R.–SERIES II–VOLUME VII, pp.606-7
# 3) —The POWs in the South were to recieve the same food as the soldiers in the field. Let’s look at what Lee’s soldiers had to eat::
[Quote]
The hunger, the hope, the exhaustion of suppliers and the spirit of the men, strong and weak, were exhibited in the “Christmas feast” the women of Richmond undertook to provide. Appeals were directed to farmers and to merchants. The soldiers in the trenches were told to expect the food on New Year’s Day. A member of the Eighteenth Georgia now speaks: “…our mouths ‘watered’ till January 1, 1865. On that day all who were able to do so got up very early. The army was to do nothing. The ladies were to do all. They would provide all vehicles, and the ‘goodies’ would be taken right along the lines and distributed to the half-famished men by dainty hands. And we waited. What a long day that seemed to be! We whiled away the tedious hours by telling stories and cracking jokes! Noon came, then two, four, eight, ten, and twelve o’clock, and still no ‘goody’ wagon. Being still a little weak, I became tired and lay down and went to sleep with the understanding that those on watch would call me when our dinner arrived. It was after 3 A. M. when a comrade called me and told me that a detail had just gone out to meet the precious wagon and bring in our feast. But O what a disappointment when the squad returned and issued to each man only one small sandwich made up of two tiny slices of bread and a thin piece of ham! A few men ventured to inquire, ‘Is that all?’ But I think they were ashamed of themselves the next moment. After the ‘meal’ was finished a middle-aged corporal lighted his pipe and said: ‘God bless our noble women! It was all they could do; it was all they had.’ And then every man in that tent indulged in a good cry. We couldn’t help it!” (51)
(51) John Coxe in 22 C. V., 359.
Source- “Lee’s Lieutenants, Vol. III, pages 620-621, Copyright-1944 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, Copyright renewed-1972 by Inez Goddin Freeman, ISBN 0-684-83785-4
# 4)—Let’s see what General Winder really did at Andersonville, by a Professor of History:
[Quote]
Winder also reported that he had finished enlarging the compound during the last week of June and the stockade now exceeded twenty-six acres in size, but he complained that the constant arrival of new prisoners rendered even the additional space inadequate and requested that no more prisoners be sent. He ended the communication by stating that he had heard that Johnston, attempting to stem Sherman’s advance, had strongly recommended that the prisoners at Andersonville be dispersed, and that he agreed with that assessment.
Four days later, on July, Winder traveled to Macon to consult with Cobb and to inspect the prison facilities there. He immediately dispatched three telegrams to Cooper in the most urgent manner. In the first he asked, “Please get authority for me to impress labor and teams to establish the prison at Silver Run, Alabama. The people prefer impressment. Please answer at once.” He followed this up with the notification that he had been “absolutely compelled to detain” the Virginia and North Carolina regulars who had accompanied the most recent prisoner transfer. And finally, he stated that it was imperative to move the officers from the unhealthful and insecure Macon facility. “Charleston is the only place where accommodations can be had.”
Three days later he wired that the move to Silver Run could not be accomplished because no guards could be found for the transfer and asked if the move to Charleston could commence without delay. The next day Seddon authorized him to distribute the prisoners and obtain guards “in the best manner and with the least delay” possible. Winder was to act on his own authority. Richmond had no information upon which to issue instructions. Seddon’s telegram placed Winder in a quandary. Cobb could not furnish guards and neither could anyone else. A second wire from Seddon ordered Winder to confer with Bragg at Montgomery and to follow his instructions. Winder complied and learned that the Federals had raided Opelika and destroyed the railroad facilities. He informed Seddon that the raid “for the present puts and end to all ideas of a prison in Alabama.” Winder had no choice to leave all prisoners in place, regardless of how many suffered and died. (26)
If it was impossible to secure transport and guards in July, conditions were not much better the previous month, when the prison population was about 10,000 men less. Edward Clifford Anderson, who cooperated with Winder and left an extensive and accurate account of their activities for the latter half of 1864, noted on 11 June that all Union officers, from brigadier generals to lieutenants, had to be shipped from Macon to Charleston in boxcars. Every effort was made to secure passenger cars, but it was not possible. Even captured Brigadier General Thomas Seymore, who had a note from Davis asking that Seymore receive preferential treatment, was shipped to Charleston in a cattle car. (27)
By the middle of July, Sherman’s inexorable advance had forced Johnston back to the outskirts of Atlanta, and reports of a Federal raid to free the prisoners intensified. Winder and other prison officials could only hope that any attempt would fail. Crisis followed crisis on a daily basis, but not all of the fear was the result of the Federal presence. The home front was crumbling as rapidly as the military position, and Richard Winder at Andersonville was in a state of total desperation. On 18 July he pleaded with Treasure official William L. Bailey for immediate relief. “I am so seriously in need of funs that I do not know what I shall do. For God’s sake send me $100,000 for prisoners of war and $75,000 for pay of officers and troops stationed here.” He had received only $75,000 for all purposes since 1 April and feared the worst. (28)
(27) [p.251] Anderson Papers, SHC, 3602, 6: 91-92
(28) [p.251] O.R. 7:473.
Source-“General John H. Winder C. S. A.“-Arch Fredric Blakely-1990 by the Board of Regents of the State of Florida-p.187-9
{Arch Fredric Blakely is associate professor of history at the University of Florida}
#1) The KKK was disbanded in 1869. #2) When it came back, it’s was in the NORTH. #3)The Congressional records show that Gen. Forrest was absolved of all complicity in the founding or operation of the Ku Klux Klan
[Quote #1]
The Klan was formally disbanded in 1869 and the Knights [of the White Camellia] the following year.
Source-”The Oxford History of the American People”-Samuel Eliot Morison; Vol. 2, page-519; Copyright- 1965 by Samuel Eliot Morison; Copyright-1972 by Samuel Eliot Morison; Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-12468, Published by Oxford University Press.
[Quote # 2]
The Role of the Ku Klux Klan
The Rise of the KKK after 1915-the so-called second Klan-often amounted to an implicit threat to blacks in largely white communities. In many towns across the North, from Maine to Illinois to Oregon, Klan rallies in the 1920’s drew more people than any assemblages before or since. On August 20, 1923, for example, 8,500 members of the Ku Klux Klan met two miles east of West Frankfort, Illinois-a gathering equal to the town’s entire population at the time-and inducted 400 new members. A 1925 Klan rally near Montpelier, Vermont, drew nearly 10,000, almost twice that city’s population. Such huge gatherings gave whites a sense of power, a feeling that they could do whatever they wanted to African Americans, and sometimes to Jews and Catholics as well. West Frankfort was already a sundown town, but in towns with black residents, these monster demonstrations had a chilling impact on the few and scattered African Americans, who knew their safety depended upon white goodwill. (28)
In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, for instance, local historian Sally Albertz believes “the KKK was instrumental in driving the blacks away.” In the early 1920’s the Klan held a “Klanvocation” at the Fond du Lac fairgrounds; newspapers claimed that 5,000 people marched in the parade. Subsequently, several crosses were burned in the areas where the blacks lived in the city. The earlier sense of possibility for African Americans in Fond du Lac-the welcome meal, the rooms at the hotel described in the previous chapter-had been replaced by a sense of terror. (29)
Sometimes this implicit threat became explicit. The Klan played a direct role in making some Oregon towns all-white in the 1920s. In Medford, Klansmen took George Burr, a bootblack, to the mountains, placed a noose around his neck, hung him from a branch, then cut him down and ordered him to leave town. He did. In Oregon City, six masked Klansmen confronted car wash owner Perry Ellis, the only black man in town, accused him of sleeping with a white woman, and nearly lynched him. Ellis moved to Tacoma, Washington, and Oregon City had no black household thereafter until the 1980’s. (30)
(28) Burlington (VT) Free Press, 6/1/1925.
(29) Henson, History of Franklin Country, Illinois, 151; Sally Albertz, e-mail, 5/2002.
(30) Howard Goodman, “Bigotry: Oregon’s Sad History,” Salem Statesman Journal, Oregon Territory magazine, 2/8/1981, G3-5.
Source-”Sundown Towns”-James W. Loewen, pages 98-99, Copyright-2005 by James Loewen, ISBN 1-565584-887-X (hc)
[Quote #3]
The primary accusation before this board is that Gen. Forrest was a founder
of The Klan, and its first Grand Wizard, So I shall address those
accusations first. In 1871, Gen. Forrest was called before a congressional
Committee along with 21 other ex-Confederate officers including Admiral
Raphael Semmes, Gen. Wade Hampton, Gen. John B. Gordon, and Gen. Braxton
Bragg. Forrest testified before Congress personally over four hours .
Forrest took the witness stand June 27th,1871. Building a railroad in
Tennessee at the time, Gen Forrest stated he (quote)”had done more ,
probably than any other man, to suppress these violence and difficulties and
keep them down, had been vilified and abused in the (news)papers, and
accused of things I never did while in the army and since. He had nothing to
hide, wanted to see this matter settled, our country quite once more, and
our people united and working together harmoniously”.(unquote)
Asked if he knew of any men or combination of men violating the law or
preventing the execution of the law: Gen Forest answered emphatically, “No”.
(A Committee member brought up a document suggesting otherwise, the 1868
newspaper article from the “Cincinnati Commercial”. That was their
“evidence”, a news article.)
Forrest stated “any information he had on the Klan was information given to
him by others.”
Sen. Scott asked, ” Did you take any steps in organizing an association or
society under that prescript (Klan constitution).
Forrest: “I DID NOT” Forrest further stated that “he thought the
Organization (Klan) started in middle Tennessee, although he did not know
where. It is said I started it”.
Asked by Sen. Scott “Did you start it, Is that true?”
Forrest: “No Sir, it is not”.
Asked if he had heard of the Knights of the white Camellia, a Klan-like
organization in Louisiana,
Forrest-“Yes, they were reported to be there”.
Senator-“Were you a member of the order of the white Camellia?”
Forrest: “No Sir, I never was a member of the Knights of the white
Camellia.”
Asked about the Klan :
Forrest: “It was a matter I knew very little about. All my efforts were
addressed to stop it, disband it, and prevent it….I was trying to keep it
down as much as possible.”
Forrest: “I talked with different people that I believed were connected to
it, and urged the disbandment of it, that it should be broken up”.
The following article appeared in the New York times June 27th. “Washington,
1871. Gen Forrest was before the Klu Klux Committee today, and his
examination lasted four hours. After the examination, he remarked than the
committee treated him with much courtesy and respect.”
The following findings in the Final report of this committee of Congress
concluded, “The statement of these gentlemen (Forrest and Gordon) are full
and explicit…the evidence fully sustains them,”.
Source-“The reports of Committees, House of Representatives, second session, forty-second congress, P. 7-449.
No, the responsibility lies with the government in charge of the prisoners.
Here’s a simple parallel: is the current U.S. government at “fault” because we didn’t withdraw our troops from Saudia Arabia as Osama bin Laden demanded before 9/11? By your logic, the answer is yes.
If the CSA couldn’t feed or care for the POWs in camps, then there was always other options. Why not simply repatriate them? Instead of sending them be confined at Andersonville, they could have been released to U.S. authorities in the west, far from the main theaters of battle. This might seem pretty radical but the other option seems to have been slowly killing 13,000 of the POWs by disease and starvation.
Was there a water shortage in the CSA, also?
———
This Hell on Earth
As the months progressed, the stream which ran through the center of the camp became polluted with waste and, sometimes, human remains. The stench became unbearable and those who drank from it tended to develop dysentery and diarrhea while others who attempted to cleanse a wound in the stagnant water quickly suffered from gangrene. One interesting event occurred at this time. In the heat of the Georgia sun, the river became a mere trickle and the waste and muck of the riverbed attracted thousands of flies and maggots. During this horrible time, a fresh water spring burst inside the stockade and provided fresh, cool water for the men. Many saw this as a gift from God and duly named it Providence Spring. This permanent source of water still exists to this day.
[…]
In the heat of summer, disease and famine slaughtered hundreds of men each day. “The dead…are carted out by the ration wagon, piled up like cordwood, with arms and legs hanging over the wheels, glassy eyes, and open mouths.” (Sneden 218). In the evening, the horrors continued. As the night came on, the “shrieks, oaths and moans of the [dying] was horrible….Those who would be sleeping near would kick them in the side or the head saying ‘why don’t you die quietly you!'” (Sneden 249). The dead would lie strewn about the camp for quite some time because the prisoners were too weak to remove them, and the guards feared catching a disease if they entered the prison.
By the end of 1864, the Confederacy offered to unconditionally release the prisoners if the Union would send ships to retrieve them. These ships did not arrive until December. With the surrender of the Confederacy in April 1865, the camp at Andersonville was officially closed. Over the fourteen months of its existence, approximately 45,000 Union prisoners were held within its walls. Thirteen thousand never returned home. Although the death rates in other prisons were extremely high, none of them compared to the horrors witnessed at Andersonville Prison.
So the CSA eventually decided to face its responsibility and repatriate the POWs.
But, how do you reconcile the apparently deliberate attempts to inflict sickness and starvation on the POWs?
=====
Andersonville
Rations were rather meager while the Confederate forces claimed that they were receiving the same amount of food as the guards. The daily fare consisted of one and a quarter pounds of corn meal along with the occasional serving of beans, peas, and molasses. Rations of meat arrived on an inconsistent basis, with either a pound of beef or a third pound of bacon being offered. Sometimes, the meat was left in the blazing sun for days and when it was finally disbursed, the spoiled substance only exacerbated the pangs of hunger and the intestinal distress of the prisoners. Additional rations were sometimes offered by the area residents, but General Winder only turned them away.
‘Ready to Hurl’–Your source of information, appears to be the testimony of Dan Chandler [who wanted to avoid Conscription and return to the North], Your other source sounds like three Union POW”s. Spencer, Reed and Stevenson. (all three were proven to FABRICATE stories, at the Wirz Trial. See pages 192-3, “General John H. Winder” book by Professor of History, Arch Fredric Blakely. See also Hesseltine-“Civil War Prison”.)
Common sense should tell anyone that Hoods and Lee’s army was both starving at this same time. There were not only huge food shortages, but very poor to no transportation to send what food there was.
As for the polluted water, the POWs were told to use the lower end of the stream for their toiletries. They did not do this. This created the same problem, which killed Lincoln’s son when 130,000 Union soldiers polluted the water around the capitol in 1862.
In fact the Confederacy DID offer in August 1864 to send the sick and wounded POWs back to the North, without any exchange. The North refused this offer until December.
[Quote #1]
Secretary Southern Historical Society.
[Page110]
VOLUME I. JANUARY TO JUNE, 1876.
RICHMOND, VA.:
Rev. J. WILLIAMS JONES, D. D.
The order-books on that side are filled with vindictive orders. Though in a land flowing with plenty, our poor fellows in prison were famished with hunger, and would have considered half the rations served Federal soldiers bountiful indeed. Their prison-hospitals were very far from being on the same footing with the hospitals for their own soldiers, and our men died by thousands from causes which the Federal authorities could have prevented. But the real cause of the suffering on both sides was the stopage of the exchange of prisoners, and for this the Federal authorities alone were responsible. The Confederates kept the cartel in good faith. It was broken on the other side.
The Confederates were anxious to exchange man for man. It was the settled policy on the other side not to exchange prisoners. The Confederates offered to exchange sick and wounded. this was refused. In August, 1864, we offered to send home all the Federal sick and wounded without equivalent. The offer was not accepted until the following December, and it was during that period that the greatest mortality occurred. The Federal authorities stood by and coldly suffered their soldiers in our prisons to die in order that they might “fire the Northern heart” with stories of “rebel barbarities.”
But the charge of cruelty made against the Confederate leaders is triumphantly refuted by such facts as these: The official reports of Secretary Stanton and Surgeon-General Barnes show that a much larger per cent. of Confederates perished in Northern prisons than of Federals in Southern prisons. And though the most persistent efforts were made to get up a case against President Davis, General Lee and others (even to the extent of offering poor Wirz a reprieve if he would implicate them), they were not able to secure testimony upon which even Holt and his military court dared to go into the trial.
[End Quote]
Is it not interesting that the Northern POW camp had a HIGHEST percentage than any Southern POW camp! ( *It should be noted Professor James I. Robertson, JR. is one of the top Civil War Scholars today!*)
[#2 Quoting the book]
THE SCOURGE OF ELMIRA
James I. Robertson, Jr.
In the past century embittered veterans, biased writers, and imaginative novelists have poured fourth reams of printed matter emphasizing (and often exaggerating) prison life at Andersonville. Largely forgotten in this never-ending avalanche of persecution is the uncontestable fact that Northern prisons killed more than their share of Southern soldiers. And far at the head of the list was Elmira Prison Camp, whose 24 percent death rate topped even that of the more publicized compound at Camp Sumter, Georgia. (1)
(1) The 24 percent figure is a conservative estimate. Some sources put Elmira’s mortality rate as high as 28-32.5 per cent. The Nation, L (1890), 87; Confederate Veteran, XAVIER (1929), 157; Clay D. Holmes, Elmira Prison Camp (New York, 1912), pp. 254-55. Hereafter cited as Holmes, Elmira.
Source-“Civil War Prisons”-William B. Hesseltine; p.121; copyright 1962 by Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242; ISBN 0-87338-129-7; The contents of this book first appeared in Civil War History, volume 8, number 2, under the general editorship of James I. Robertson, Jr.
You title this ‘Blog’ “Confederate Flag, the ugly underbelly”. What of” The U.S. Flag, the ugly underbelly”, Such as when the Confederacy was fighting for their homes, the Yankees hung 1,000 BLACK people to lamp posts.
[Quote #3]
The 13th of July, 1863, had not been by any means forgotten. On that day the opposition to the Draft Law had found its voice and its right hand. The act of Congress had exempted from its operation all who would make a money payment of Three Hundred Dollars. The measure was not entirely popular in New York. The politicians, with vulgar championship of the poor (so it seemed to the indignant residents of the better quarters) were contending that the law was not altogether a perfect thing and that it would work out just a bit inequitably for those utterly legible but quite numerous persons who could not pay others to fight for them. In fact, finally on that Monday morning, the poor people of the city took arms against their “sea of troubles,” and used them somewhat effectively throughout five days and nights. When they had finished their work the limp forms of nearly one thousand negroes were found hanging to the lap posts or were left crumpled in beaten heaps upon the sidewalks. More than fifty buildings were burned and sacked. The police, as always, battled bravely, but they were too few and it was not until then thousands troops marched into town that order was restored (4)
(4) Life of Andrew Johnson, by John Savage,- pp. 293-7, copyright 1866
Source-”Andrew Johnson”-Lloyd Paul Stryker,-pages 126-7, Copyright 1929, The Macmillan Company
AND Union [Yankee] General Nathaniel Lyon would proudly fly the U.S. flag, when:–
[Quote #4]
Lyon intended now to complete his “punitive” attack. He ordered his men to sling their cartridge boxes around their necks, fix bayonets, and follow their quarry into the reeds, “to pursue and destroy as far as possible.” A murky red soon clouded the blue lake water along the shoreline as the soldiers plunged into the tule and, in water in many places shoulder high, butchered summarily between sixty and one hundred braves hiding there. Yet, as with Kelly at Madison Barracks, Lyon’s vengeance by this time overrode all sense of reason. Possessed by his own power, he then turned his men on the women and children of the island camp. The scene turned from savage to macabre. As native women pleaded for mercy, they and their offspring were bayoneted or shot to death, their bodies then dumped into the lake. Grotesque images emerge: jubilant soldiers swaggering toward the lake with babies impaled upon their uplifted bayonets, shrieking squaws and children diving into the lake to drown themselves rather than suffer death at the hands of the men in blue, old men hanged, their bodies then burned with the rest of the camp. The day’s massacre consumed between two hundred and four hundred Indians, without a single loss to Lyon’s force. (20)
(20) Radin, “Stone and Kelsey Massacre,” 270-73; Lyon to E. R. S. Canby, May 22, 1850, Letters Received, RG 94; P. F. Smith to Irwin McDowell, May 25, 1850, Senate Executive Document, 78-79. The site of the battle, no longer surrounded by water, is known locally as Bloody Hill.
Source-”Damned Yankee, The Life of General Nathaniel Lyon”- Christopher Phillips, pages 68-69, Copyright-1990 by The Curators of the University of Missouri., Louisiana State University Press, ISBN 0-8071-2103-7 (pbk.)
But, Lyons was only doing the work of the Lincoln administration:
[Quote # 5]
In 1862 they [the North] were also engaged in a campaign of genocide against the American Indians. Union general John Pope gave expression to how the “Indian problem” was to be handled when he stated, “It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux.” (4) Pope planned to make a “final settlement with all these Indians.” His plan was to shoot and hang as many as possible and then remove the rest from the land. (5) Here is how General Pope described the Native American population to his troops: “They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made.” (6) Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of the navy, Gideon Wells, made it clear as to what was motivating the Federal government’s campaign against the Native Americans when he sated that the Indians “have good land which white men want and mean to have.” (7) Imbued with the all too typical white supremacy dogma of the nineteenth century, the Lincoln administration had few if any qualms about destroying the culture and lives of the red man.
(4) Nichols, David A., Lincoln and the Indians, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri, 1978. P. 87
(5) Ibid., p. 95.
(6) Ibid., p. 87.
(7) Ibid., p. 97.
Source-”Myths of American Slavery”-Walter D. Kennedy, page 200, Copyright- 2003 by Walter D. Kennedy, ISBN 1-58980-047-8 (alk. paper)
Does anyone wonder what those ‘morally rightous’ Yankees thought about African-Americans? Well, here’s what history tells us.
[Quote #6]
“I don’t think enough of the Niggar to go and fight for them. I would rather fight them,” wrote an Ohioan shortly before enlisting, while a New Yorker after a few months’ service remarked to his homefolk: “I think that the best way to settle the question of what to do with the darkies would be to shoot them.” (1)
a young Boston blue blood who early in 1863 wrote his brother from New Orleans: “As I was going along this afternoon a little black baby that could just walk got under my feet and it look so much like a big worm that I wanted to step on it and crush it, the nasty, greasy little vermin was the best that could be said of it.” (2)
James T. Ayers, a somewhat erratic but usually intense friend of the freedmen, wrote while recruiting colored men in Alabama: “I feel now much inclined to go to Nashville and throw up my papers and Resign as I am hartily sick of Coaxing niggers to be Soaldiers Any more. They are so trifling and mean the[y] don’t Deserve to be free. (9)
A Hoosier private wrote from a hospital shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation: “As soon as I get my money…I am coming home let it be deserting or not, but if they don’t quit freeing the niggers and putting them in the north I wont go back any more…it is very wrong to live with the niggers in freedom.” (12)
Soldier ideas of fun were sometimes crude and the results brutal. A Connecticut soldier wrote from Virginia that his comrades had taken two “niger wenches…turned them upon their heads, & put tobacco, chips, sticks, lighted cigars & sand into their behinds.” (19)
At Hampton, Virginia, in 1861, soldiers tried a rope around the neck of an officer’s servant and hilariously drummed him about the camp with drawn bayonet, and at Paducah the next year, Midwestern troops pelted with stones colored fugitives who tired to enter the lines. In a few instances Negro camp followers were shot by Yanks whose hatred they had aroused to extreme heights. (20)
One of the most shocking cases of maltreatment, occurring in connection with the invasion of the South Carolina coast in 1862, was described by a German soldiers thus: “While on picket guard I witnessed misdeeds that made me ashamed of America…For example about five miles from the fort about 8-10 soldiers from the New York 47th Regiment chases some Negro women but they escaped, so they took a Negro girl about 7-9 years old, and raped her.” (22)
(1) Artemas Cook to Curtis Babbott, Jan. 3, 1864, manuscript, Hayes Memorial Library; A. Davenport to his homefolk, June 19, 1861, manuscript, N.Y. Historical Society.
(2) Capt. F. M. Abbott to his brother, Feb. [no day or year, but 1863], manuscript, Harvard.
(9) John Hope Franklin, editor, The Diary of James T. Ayers (Springfield, Ill., 1947), 46.
(12) Stephen A. Miller to his sister, Jan. 31, 1863, manuscript, Ind. Historical Society.
(19) Henry J. H. Thompson to his wife, June 20, 1863.
(20) A. Davenport to his homefolk, June 14, 1861; Thomas N. Lewis to his uncle, Nov. 14, 1862, manuscript among Moulton Letters, Western Reserve Historical Society; for an example of soldiers shooting Negroes, see diary of Matthew Marvin, Jan. 12, 1862.
(22) John Bessemer to John Weissert, Nov. 17, 1861, manuscript, Univ. of Mich. This letter is in German script.
Source-”The Life of Billy Yank“; (The Common Soldier of the Union)-Bell Irvin Wiley-pages 109-114; copyright- 1952, 1971 by Bell I. Wiley; Reissued by Louisiana State University Press in 1978, 2001 printing- ISBN 0-8071-0476-0 (paper)
Obviously the U.S. flag has a REALLY “Ugly Underbelly”
You do not understand what is happening in our country. Africans are not Americans they are Africans and belong in African killing each other not us and not on our soil. We as whites are superior and because of people like you the lie is being spread. But you have got to understand the response you get defending the white race and the flag for which freedom was fought over is a large part of the population. Please have the balls to post the url I have sent you and take heed to it yourself.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLXKNxaUd9U
Venom Hot Rods
HOT ROD GANG, THE JUBILEE PARTY, RUMCD034, 12.00, Add to cart Hot Rods and Cycles Comi
I found this Slave Narrative report of a Confederate Black man while researching geneaology. Why don’t blacks know their Confederate History?
State: Texas Interviewee: Price, Lafayette
(Dibble, Fred, P. W., Grey, Bernice, Beaumont, Jefferson, Dist. #3, 26 July 1937) ”
Reverend Lafayette Price, the ancient and venerable minister of a small, dilapidated church on the outskirts of Beaumont, received his education under his old master, a plantation owner of the South. He was born in Wilcox county, Alabama, a slave of the Higginbotham family, but after the death of his original masters, became known as ‘orphan children property’ and went to Louisiana to live with Robert and Jim Carroll, brothers-in-law of Sam Higginbotham. During the Civil War, LaFayette, then about 12 years old (he cannot recollect his exact age) served as water boy for young Robert Carroll at the battle of Mansfield. When the slaves were freed he came to Texas and has been engaged in the ministry since that time. The Reverend lives with his one daughter in a small ramshackle house about a hundred feet from the church, and conducts services every Sunday according to his creed as a Baptist. LaFayette is a small, very dark-skinned type, and with is crop of almost white hair and Van Dyke beard, has facial characteristics much like those of the patriarch who played the part of “De Lawd” in “Green Pastures.” His conversation, which lapses only occasionally into the old-time dialect, is that of a devout person, and he shows himself well informed in the Scriptures.
“Now, I wanter say dis, dat I was bo’n in Alabama, raise up in Lou’siana, and now I’s in Texas. I had a statement w’en I was bo’n, but I don’ ‘member jis’ now. I ain’ got much strenk (strength) and so fo’th but I’s t’ankful. Once I git start I kin go ‘head wid dis yere hel’. (Here he indicated his walking stick)
“Dem times befo’ de war dey uster hab co’n shuckin’s. Dey h a big pile of co’n in de shuck. De cap’n of de co’n shuckin’ he settin’ up on de pile of co’n. He’d git a lick givin’ out and throwin’ de shuck sometime’ ’cause dey’d be years of co’n and de shucks jis’ a-flyin’. Dey hab lotser cullud folks come from ev’r w’er. Marster he uster be ‘roun’ ’til all de co’n mos’ shuck de he dodge ‘way and hide, ‘cuase iffen dey ketch ‘im dey “cattle” ‘im. W’at I mean by “cattle” ‘im? Why dey ketch ‘im and put ‘im up on dey shoul’ers, and dey march ‘roun’ wid ‘im and dey sings. De cap’n he settin’ on de co’n and givin’ out de song. Dey uster sing:
‘Shuck man can’t let git away, Oh, hood a laddy oh hooey.
Mule want co’n and cow want shuck, Oh, hood a laddy oh hooey.’
“W’en us was comin’ to Lou’siana us hafter cross a big ribber. It was sho’ a turrible t’ing to git ‘cross dat ribber. W’en dey all git ‘cross safe, us so t’ankful us sing:
‘Jesus has been wid us
Yet still wid us
He’s promised to be wid us
State: Texas Interviewee: Price, Lafayyette
“W’en de war fus’ start’ I was water toter for my marster. Well, now den, I want to say dat my marster w’ere I was bo’n in Wilcox county, Alabama, his name was Higginbotham. W’en Mr. Higginbotham die’, his son, Mr. Sam Higginbotham, was my young marster. W’en he married, he marry in de Carroll family.
My father and mother b’long to Mr. Higginbotham. Mr. Sam, he move’ to Lou’siana. W’en he went back to Alabama, he tuk sick wid de c’olra, and die dere. Mr. Sam, he marry Miss Ca’line Carroll. Later on, after Mr. Sam die’ Miss Ca’line marry Mr. Winn. I becom’ orfan chillen property, Mr. Winn was de overseer. W’en I was a small boy I had play time. I allus had good owners. W’en I get bigger I had some time off atter wuk in de ev’nin’s and on Sundays. Then I want to say I was hire’ out and dey claim’ dey was goin’ to be a war. De North and de South was goin’ to split apart. In 1861, war commence and she (his mistress) die’. I was den stayin’ wid de Carroll family.
De Carrolls was brothers of my owner. Mr. Jim and Mr. Robert was sojers in de war. Mr. Robert was in de infantry and Mr. Jim tuk him ‘long to drive. W’en dey was goin’ to Barn Chest (evidently the name of a place) Mr. Robert he say to me, ‘Fay, you go back home and tell ma she need not be uneasy ’bout me ’cause de Yankees is retreatin’ to Natchitoches.’ So I drive back but I didn’ put up de team. W’en I was tellin her it was ’bout t’ree mile’ over to Mosses Fiel’ (local name for the tract of land on which the battle of Mansfield was fought). W’en I was tellin’ her, a big cannon shot over head–‘B-O-O-M.’ She jes’ shook and say, ‘Oh, Fay, git some co’n and th’ow it to de hogs and go to Chicot.’ I got some co’n and start to git out de crib. Dey shot another cannon. She say to me, ‘Go back and give de co’n to de pigs.’ W’en I put my feets through de crib dey shoot another shot, and I pull my feets back. She tell me to go back and feed de pigs, but I don’ know if I ever did git de co’n to de pigs. Mr. Carroll say dat at Mansfiel’ w’er dey was shootin’ de big guns de ladies was cryin’. He tol’ ’em dey needn’ to cry now; w’en dey was shootin’ de big guns dey wasn’ killin’ men, but w’en dey hear de li’l guns shoot, den dey could start cryin’ ’cause dat mean dat men was gittin’ kill’. I dunno if you ever parch popco’n. Dat de way de li’l guns soun’. He say dat den dey would begin cryin’. Our w’ite people (the Confederates) was comin’ from Shrevepo’t to meet de Yankees from Natchitoches, aimin’ to go to Shrevepo’t. If anyt’ing was a wunnerful consideration it was den. Mr. Robert Carroll was stood up by a big tree there at Mansfiel’ and de captain he said, ‘Is anybody here dat know de neighborhood?’ Here’s de t’ing dey want to know. W’en de sojers start out dey didn’ want ’em to launch out and git mix’ up. Dey sont for Mr. Carroll ’cause he live ’bout a mile ‘way. He was order’ to stan’ by de tree and de captain went by wavin’ a sword, and purty soon de captain was kill’. Dey kep’ on fightin’ and atter a w’ile a sojer come by and ax w’at he doin’ dere. He say he had orders to stan’ dere. De sojer say dat de captain was kill’ and for him to go and he’p wid de wounded sojers. W’en de big Gen’ral come from Shrevepo’t and comman’ ‘Charge’, de Yankees git in de corner of a rail fence. Dey broke right through dat fiel’, ol’ prairie and 60 men git kill’ dead befo’ dey git ‘cross. Nex’ day, comin’ home, I want to tell you de hosses didn’ lay on dis side, nor on dat side; dey jus’ squat down, dey was dead. I t’ink it was a wunnerful consideration to bring up in mem’ry. One night right w’ere de battle was fought we had to camp. It was rainin’ and sleetin’ and snowin’. I said, ‘W’at you goin’ to do tonight?’ Mr. James Carroll say, ‘We jus’ hafta stan’ w’ere we camp. Jus’ stack de guns and put out, w’at you call de watchman.’ Dey had w’at you call de relief. Dey wasn’ in bed, dey was out under a tree in de col’. Ev’ry hour dey walk ’em out ‘long a runway to walk guard. It was a wunnerful distressin’ time. De sojers had a li’l song dey sung:
‘Eat w’en you’re hungry,
Drink w’en you’re dry,
Effen a tree don’ kill you,
You’ll live ’til you die.’
Dis was ’cause dey had to stan’ under trees and w’en de Yankees shoot cannon dey’ knock off lim’s and tops of trees and them under de trees might git kill’ from de fallin’ branches. Anudder song was:
‘It was on de eighth of April,
Dey all remember well,
W’en fifes and drums was beatin’
For us all to march–away.'”
“In slav’ry time de slaves went to chu’ch wid dere w’ite folks and heerd de w’ite preacher. I nebber know of cullud baptisms. Dey’ hab camp meetin’ and w’en cullud people want’ to jine de chu’ch dey’ take ’em in den. I didn’ quite git through ’bout de Mansfiel’ battle. Dem 60 men dat was kill’, dey jus’ dig a big hole and put ’em in and throw dirt on ’em. I went back atter two or t’ree days and de bodies don’ swell and crack de groun’. Marster’ plantation comin’ from Shrevepo’t was on de eas’ side of Mosses Fiel’. We was ’bout one and one-half or two mile’ from Mosses Fiel’. I wasn’ acquaint’ wid many w’ites ’cause I was wid de Carrolls and dey was allus kind. I heerd dey was people dis way and dat, but I don’ know ’bout dat. My w’ite folks see dat I was not ‘bused. W’en news of de surrender come, lots of cullud folks seem to be rejoicin’ and sing, ‘I’s free, I’s free as a frog,’ ’cause a frog hab freedom to git on a log and jump off w’en he please. Some jus’ stay’ on wid dere w’ite folks.”
“One time dey say dey sen’ all de niggers back to Africa. I say dey nebber git me. I bo’n yere, and my w’ite folks bo’n yere, and yere I doin’ to stay. My young marster say he want me for a nigger driver so he teach me how to read and spell so I could ten’ to business. In time of de war Miss Ca’line say de sojers been dere and take de bes’ hoss. Dey sen’ me off with Ball, a li’l hoss. W’en I come back I meet some sojers. Dey say dey goin’ take de hoss, if dey don’, de Yankees come take ’em. I tell ’em dey done got Marster Carroll other hoss, to leave dis one. Dey say, ‘Git down, I goin’ give you a few licks anyhow.’ I fall down but dey nebber hit me and dey say, ‘Maybe dat de Mr. Carroll whose hoss we tuk, let dis boy go on wid de hoss.’ Miss Ca’line say she wish she’ let me take Dandy, dat was de bes’ hoss.”
The other day I was appalled to hear the QUEEN comment about the improvement in diversity in America.
Where is my apology from Britain for the burden of slavery fostered on us by them?
Why don’t we ever see this discussed? Why don’t they print and teach how we really felt about slavery? Below you can read what Robert E. Lee’s ancestor had to say about it.
Richard Henry Lee Rails Against England’s Slave Trade
From: Bernhard1848@att.net
Before the New Englanders discovered abolition (and after profiting handsomely in human traffic), and before the British freed their slaves (knowing that it was far cheaper to employ wage slaves rather than support those they enslaved cradle to grave), Southern Americans were calling for an end to the British slave trade to the American colonies. As Richard Henry Lee suggests below, any and all demands by Virginians and Carolinians to halt the nefarious slave-trade were nullified by the British Crown.
Who then, is responsible for the sin of slavery in North America; and which flag shall we point to as the flag of slavery? It seems that the wrong target of abuse has been selected, according to history.
Bernhard Thuersam, Executive Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
Post Office Box 328
Wilmington, NC 28402
http://www.CFHI.net
“Massachusetts invalidated the British commercial system, which Virginia resisted from abhorrence of the slave-trade. Never before had England pursued the traffic in Negroes with such eager avarice. The remonstrances of philanthropy and of the colonies were unheeded, and categorical instructions from the (British) Board of Trade kept every American port open as markets for men. The Legislature of Virginia had repeatedly showed a disposition to obstruct the commerce; a deeply-seated public opinion began more and more to avow the evils and he injustice of slavery itself; and in 1761, it was proposed to suppress the importation of Africans by a prohibitory duty. Among those who took part in the long and violent debate was Richard Henry Lee, the representative of Westmoreland.
Descended from one of the oldest families in Virginia, he had been educated in England and had returned to his native land familiar with the spirit of Grotius and Cudworth, of Locke and Montesquieu; his first recorded speech was against Negro slavery, in behalf of human freedom. In the continued importation of slaves, he foreboded danger to the political and moral interests of the Old Dominion; an increase of the free Anglo-Saxons he argued, would foster arts and varied agriculture, while a race doomed to abject bondage was of necessity an enemy to social happiness.
He painted from ancient history the horrors of servile insurrections. He deprecated the barbarous atrocity of the trade with Africa, and its violation of the equal rights of men created like ourselves in the image of God. “Christianity,” thus he spoke in conclusion, “by introducing into Europe the truest principles of universal benevolence and brotherly love, happily abolished civil slavery. Let us who profess the same religion practice its precepts, and by agreeing to this duty, pay a proper regard to our rue interests and to the dictates of justice and humanity.”
The tax for which Lee raised his voice was carried through the Assembly of Virginia by a majority of one; but from England a negative followed with certainty every colonial act tending to diminish the (British) slave-trade.
South Carolina, also appalled by the great increase of its black population, endeavored by its own laws to restrain the importation of slaves, and in like manner came into collision with the same British policy.”
(History of the United States, George Bancroft, Brown, Little and Company, 1856, pp. 421-422)
***********************
A pox on the Queen, We had plenty of diversity in the Confederate Army, the Spainish from Florida, the French from Louisiana, Germans, Prussians, Indians from Oklahoma and everything in between. We used to celebrate and enjoy our differences in food and style. We gave due respect in the Southern States to all. Live and Let Live was the motto! The 1960s and the 1990s NAACP JIAHAD and cultural genocide has made this forbidden now. We are not allowed.
Think about it!
So many people mis-represent the Confederate flag and other flags of the antebellum South. The flag stands against tyranny and oppression. It represents honour, courage, and the right of the people from each state to be an independent and sovereign people, away from the union as a whole. If you think Abraham Lincoln give one inkling to the slaves or blacks in this country, you are gravely mistaken. Lincoln was under the direction of the big money men in the North who’s only interest was that they would lose cosiderable amounts of money if the South were able to become its own country. Money, power, and control was why the North invaded the South, which was completely and deliberately against the Constitution of the United States which the founding fathers created. You should read the real history instead of believing what propaganda is being taught in schools and written in news papers. Groups like the Klan are using the flag to rationalize their ignorance. Groups of that nature are being disrespectful to the memories of such great Christian men as Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, J.E.B Stuart and countless other men who fought for the South including the Colored soldiers who fought for their homes too. Many of the Colored men were free. So don’t hate what you don’t understand because the Klan are only supposed to fly and carry the Stars and Stripes that flies over this country today. You might want to check out a church in Lexington, VA. where General Jackson started an all black congregation of free and enslaved men and women, before the War, it is still there to this day and going strong. They have a stained glass window that is a memorial to the great General.
Most white Mississippians are aware that our immediate ancestors paid a heavy price in death and destruction during the war between the states. That is why our state flag remains unchanged, in spite of recent efforts to change it. We simply would not dishonor our fathers. It is as simple as that. What sort of people could forget the sacrifice, even if in vain, of theirfathers?……..Not us, not ever.
Most white Mississippians are aware that our immediate ancestors paid a heavy price in death and destruction during the war between the states. That is why our state flag remains unchanged, in spite of recent efforts to change it. We simply would not dishonor our fathers. It is as simple as that. What sort of people could forget the sacrifice, even if in vain, of theirfathers?……..Not us, not ever.
Here’s something for you to look up: The importation of African slaves was banned in this country decades before. In fact, it was mostly over before 1800. So ships flying the Confederate naval jack were so virtuous as to not engage in the slave trade because there WAS no transoceanic trade in human chattel.
Of course, that doesn’t have anything to do with our flying that flag today, but since you wanted to engage in that particular digression, I felt obliged to point that out.
Posted by: Brad Warthen | Apr 15, 2007 10:08:40 PM
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Efforts to curtail the transatlantic slave trade resulted in legislative breakthroughs in the early nineteenth-century. Following the example of Denmark in 1805, the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress both passed laws banning the trade in 1807, yet other nations continued to pursue it aggressively for several decades afterward. Spain and Portugal, for instance, despite token agreements to scale down their participation in the trade, continued importing African slaves in significant numbers well into the middle of the century, often with the covert assistance of U.S. ship-building companies. As Philip Curtin has pointed out, the illegality of the nineteenth-century slave trade makes it difficult for scholars to quantify, since much of the trade was conducted clandestinely. As late as the 1840s, however, import levels may have approached nearly two-thirds of peak eighteenth-century importation figures. Only in the 1850s, with the removal of the Brazilian market, did the slave trade decline markedly. By the 1860s it had virtually ceased.
Source: http://www.tulane.edu/~rhc/unesco/History%20of%20the%20Trade.htm
So, Brad Warthen, again you are shown up. Since you so deftly and unashamedly display your miniscule intelligence vis-a-vis American history, how about you lay off of us and our noble Confederate Battle Flag.
Moreover, the importation of slaves to the United States was outlawed effective 1 January 1808, but the law didn’t completely prevent people from profiting from the slave trade. The Wanderer was built in 1857 at a Long Island shipyard, and in 1858 it was outfitted for hauling slaves. The ship was inspected as it was leaving New York, but there was no conclusive evidence that it was to be a slave ship, so it was allowed to pass. It sailed to Africa where 490-600 slaves were loaded on the ship. Many of the slaves died on the six-week journey across the Atlantic Ocean. The Wanderer reached Jekyll Island, Georgia on November 28, 1858 and delivered 460-490 slaves.
lay off!
Jonah Goldberg: The Genocide Loophole
The United Nations defines genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
“Today I disown the American flag as a symbol of unequalled hippocrisy and transcendant opression……Today I renew my accusation against the Ameican constitution, that it is a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell which ought to to be annulled now and forever. Today I pronounce the American Union a league of despotism to perpetuate which is a crime against common humanity and a sin against God.”
Quoted in the Abolitionist newspaper “The Liberator” 11th of July 1856, by William Lloyd Garrisson, American Abolitionist.
Yours sincerely
Jethro
P.s. Both flags are equally a disgace to the human race. Anyone who pledges allegiance to either of them, pledges allegieance to the satanic manifestation of radical evil: United States Govermemt
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