Posted on 02/07/2020 10:11:21 AM PST by nickcarraway
I do genealogy research and while researching a distant cousin, I found a newspaper clipping about the Lee-Jackson Day celebration in which she was involved. She helped provide the music. She had no Confederate lineage. Her family — and mine — had moved from the Carolinas to Illinois in the 1820s. As I understand it, one reason Scots-Irish Presbyterians moved from the south to places such as Illinois was because they were opposed to slavery. Her father had moved to Virginia for a job, and that’s where she grew up. The newspaper article gave lots of detail about what happened at the event. It looked like a good time, something I would have enjoyed. Of course, that was in the 1920s and there were different sensibilities then but still, I don’t like erasing history.
My two second great-grandfathers served in Illinois regiments. One served during the entire war and his regiment marched with Sherman to the sea. On the way back home, he met and married a Tennessee girl — my second great-grandmother — whose brothers and uncles served with Tennessee CSA regiments, One rode with Forrest. Two died at Murfreesboro. One was severely injured in battle and was taken in by a pro-Union family in western North Carolina who helped him recover until he could walk back home to Tennessee. If I recall correctly, he was also the one who, once back home, was mistaken for a deserter by the Home Guard and was close to being executed until his wife interceded and convinced the Guard of their mistake.
As a natural-born northerner, my sympathies would be with the Union. (A lot of good that does, though, 160 years after the event.) I know that the causes of the CW were complex, but it is hard if not impossible to imagine a CW had there not been slavery. Still, I find things to admire in men such as Lee and Jackson, who made the hard decision to fight for their “country”, which in their case was Virginia. (And yes, I know there were others who really had no use for the Union and made their decision easily.) I know Confederate soldiers fought gallantly to repel what in there minds was an attack on their homes and way of life. (Or, they were like all soldiers of all wars who fight so they can survive another day and be one step closer to going home alive and, ideally, in one piece.) When I have traveled in the South, I have been touched by memorials to Confederate soldiers. Many of these were erected by people close to those who fell —parents, siblings, wives, sons, daughters, grandchildren. I can understand their desire to memorialize those who were victims of the bloodletting which, in cases of places such as Clarksville, Tennessee, amounted to pretty much all of the young men of the town. I can understand how people today with long and strong attachment with a place — the South or any place — might have an interest in preserving the memories and culture of that place.
In the 1820s, my family came to Randolph County, Illinois, which had previously been settled by the French and still has a French presence. You see it in the names of towns and in the surnames of some people today. There has been extensive restorative work done on old Fort de Chartres. Colonial re-enactors bring the history of that time to life. People from places such as Prairie du Rocher and nearby Ste. Genevieve, Missouri celebrate the old colonial French fests in the French colonial way. Well, guess what? The French in that area had slaves and they were allowed by the Northwest Ordinance to continue to have slaves until they, or their slaves, died off. Should people today who want to preserve the good parts of the history and culture stop what they are doing because there were bad parts?
I understand how there are those today who would have a different take on this, and that’s fine. I just think we are missing something important when we start erasing a hugely important — and hugely dramatic — chapter in America’s story, which was a tragedy for some, and the beginning of the end of a tragedy for others.
Just my two cents as a student and teacher of history, who values the truth and objectivity in that pursuit.
The North invaded the South first.
The North was like an abusive husband who wouldn’t allow his wife or children to leave .
The viciousness with which the North shelled Vicksburg and the wanton destruction of southern mansions and food is disgusting.
The voluntary association of States under the Constitution became something like the mafia, easy to join and kept by force .
The North invaded the South first.
The North was like an abusive husband who wouldn’t allow his wife or children to leave .
The viciousness with which the North shelled Vicksburg and the wanton destruction of southern mansions and food is disgusting.
The voluntary association of States under the Constitution became something like the mafia, easy to join and kept by force .
No, the North did not invade the South first. It ‘’invaded’’ the South after a series of provocations by the South, including the South opening fire on Ft. Sumter.
Lee and Jackson will always be more fondly remembered than Ralph Northam ever will be.
“The last war we needed to fight was in 1812”
Maybe not. I our Navy and merchant marine would have been a little more selective in the sailors they shipped, then maybe the British would not have felt compelled to stop American ships searching for deserters from the Royal Navy.
The government(?) may not celebrate it but the people still will.
Should do like the Second Amendment sanctuary concept and have a bunch of counties give the Democrats in the state legislature the middle finger by passing the Lee-Jackson holiday locally. Democrats did the inverse as a bunch of blue areas in the state already disavowed it.
Yeah, good point.
Lee-Jackson Day was a state holiday in the Commonwealth on the third Monday in January, long before the Federal government passed the law establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day. So when the Feds finally rammed it down the states’ throats that they had to observe it, Virginia created Lee-Jackson-King Day and merged the two holidays. Obviously this was not sufficient for leftists and such, so the holidays were eventually split and Lee-Jackson Day is now on the Friday before MLK Day and is not really much of an official holiday any more. I saw this coming as soon as the MLK Day holiday was mandated in all states.
If we had a proper government in Virginia, they’d merge the holidays again and that would be that. But if we had a proper government in Virginia right now, we wouldn’t be having most of the discussions about my beloved native Commonwealth that we are right now.
}:-)4
Virginia has gone to hell and it is not the fault of the voters but the fault of the politicians they elected. Let’s hope that the next couple of elections, they look harder before they pull the lever.
“Virginia has gone to hell and it is not the fault of the voters but the fault of the politicians they elected.”
In other words, “It’s the voters’ fault.”
Sheila Jackson-Lee (Duhhhh- TX) is outraged!
Lee? Well, we grew up, even in New Jersey, thinking of him as a hero. That's getting harder to do now. Too much was denied or swept under the rug.
The thing that said the most about Churchill, was after he resigned after the Gallipoli fiasco, he headed to the front lines in France as an infantry officer with the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
What he did in 1915 as Lord of The Admiralty and Galipoli wasn’t good. Churchill was also aware ‘’The Lusitania’’ was carrying munitions in violation of wartime protocol and did nothing about it, the old bastard was hoping that would bring America into the war. The campaign in Italy in 1943, the supposed “Soft Underbelly of Europe’’ had his fingerprints all over it. If you want a good read on that I suggest the second volume of author and historian Rick Atkinson’s masterful trilogy “Day Of Battle’’. Sorry but as a Jersey Boy and having an ancestor who served in The Army of The Potomac to me Lee was a bastard.
Rich Logis in American Thinker: "The Democratic Party is the most dangerous group in the history of our republic, foreign or domestic — more than the Islamic supremacists, more than the Nazis, more than the Soviets and more than the communists."
Let this be fair warning to ALL AMERICANS!
What happens when LIEberal Democrats are elected to public office?
LIEberal Democrats LIE TO, CHEAT AND STEAL FROM the Citizenry!
LIEberal Democrats routinely violate the law and ignore the US Constitution!
LIEberal Democrats routinely destroy once viable and thriving cities and states!
Want proof? See San Francisco! Chicago! Baltimore! Los Angeles! Detroit! Minneapolis! See California! Oregon! Washington! Colorado! Illinois! New York! and now, Virginia!
TAXMAN: “A vote for ANY LIEberal, whether it be in a local, state or federal election, is a vote against America!”
POTUS: “A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American dream!”
TAXMAN: “America cannot survive a LIEberal victory in 2020!”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.