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Valdosta State professor pens ‘Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War’ Generations of students have been taught that the South lost the Civil War because of the North’s superior industry and population. A new book suggests another reason: Southerners were largely responsible for defeating the Confederacy. In “Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War” (New Press, $27.95), historian David Williams of Valdosta State University lays out some tradition-upsetting arguments that might make the granite brow of Jefferson Davis crack on Stone Mountain. “With this book,” wrote Publishers Weekly, “the history of the Civil War will never be the same again.”...

--Snip-- On this date: In 1863, Federal batteries and ships began bombarding South Carolina's Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of pounding.

TAMPA, FLA. - Chip Witte doesn't consider himself a Rebel. He doesn't hang Dixie battle flags in his living room, nor does he wear one on the back of his leather jacket. Yet when the Tampa motorcycle mechanic saw the world's largest Confederate battle flag unfurl above the intersection of I-75 and I-4 in June, he felt a jolt of solidarity with the lost cause and lost rights that he says the battle flag represents. "I think it's great that they're allowed to fly it," says Mr. Witte. [Editor's note: The original version misidentified the highway intersection.]

Chip Witte doesn't consider himself a Rebel. He doesn't hang Dixie battle flags in his living room, nor does he wear one on the back of his leather jacket. Yet when the Tampa motorcycle mechanic saw the world's largest Confederate battle flag unfurl above the intersection of I-10 and I-4 in June, he felt a jolt of solidarity with the lost cause and lost rights that he says the battle flag represents. "I think it's great that they're allowed to fly it," says Mr. Witte. Despite years of boycotts, schoolyard bans, and banishment from capitol domes, the Southern battle colors...

Newsweek Paris Bureau Chief Christopher Dickey recently returned to the U.S. South, where his family has roots, and found that George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama have unsettled the region deeply: "the first with a reckless war and a weakened economy, the second with the color of his skin, the foreignness of his name, the lofty liberalism of his language." In the August 11 Newsweek cover, "The End of the South" (on newsstands Monday, August 4), Newsweek looks at the race issue head-on in the region that has fought the longest and the hardest, and suffered the most, trying...

MONROE – At first glance, it’s an unlikely combination. A black family seated under a tent facing a line of Civil War re-enactors, proudly holding Confederate flags and gripping their weapons. But what lies between these two groups is what brought them together: An unmarked grave about to get its due, belonging to a slave who fought for the Confederacy. Weary Clyburn was best friends with his master’s son, Frank. When Frank left the plantation to fight in the Civil War, Clyburn followed him. He fought alongside Frank and even saved his life on two occasions. On July 18, the...

A woolen flag with cotton stars flew the night Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson caught a bullet in the arm -- a quiet witness to one of history's great accidents. You can see it inside a case on the third floor of the N.C. Museum of History, hanging over a Confederate ammunition chest recovered from a Johnston County farm: the flag carried by the regiment that inadvertently shot the man who was arguably the South's No. 2 general. The museum just bought the flag for a price Curator of Military History Tom Belton would describe only as a bargain. Any price...

Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetting team will undoubtedly run across some quirky and potentially troublesome issues as it goes about the business of scouring the backgrounds of possible running mates. But it’s unlikely they’ll find one so curious as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s affinity for the cause of the Confederacy. Webb is no mere student of the Civil War era. He’s an author, too, and he’s left a trail of writings and statements about one of the rawest and most sensitive topics in American history. He has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many...

I told myself I'd limit myself to one vanity post per several hundred comments and threads I'd posted, so I apologize in advance. Currently, I'm doing some summer reading and I'm looking specifically for books on the Civil War/War Between the States--or the "War of Northern Agression" if you're so inclined. While I am for certain that this topic could fill up my living room and perhaps my grandparents' entire house, I'm looking for anything that those of you who argue back and forth on the Civil War threads have read. Thanks in advance.

How can you tell when someone really, really wants to be vice president? He becomes very outgoing, and very sensitive, at the same time. That’s what has happened with Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) lately. I have not, in the past, been on the senator’s press mailing list. Nothing unusual there; I don’t cover him and don’t usually write about him. But lately, his press office has wanted to make sure I know everything he’s doing. Which TV shows will he visit? Which hearings will he attend? I’m getting frequent updates. There are also signs Webb is paying a lot of...

Petition Seeks to Remove Denton Confederate Statue(Denton County, Texas)DENTON - While to some the statue of a Confederate soldier that stands before the Denton County Courthouse represents a piece of history, others say they believe it just represents hypocrisy. That stand has incited two University of North Texas students to start a petition for the removal of the historical landmark, a statue of a Confederate soldier holding his gun to represent the South in the Civil War. "It's really very frustrating that so many people would look at this and clap," said Aron Duhon, one of the students behind the...

The South Rises Again by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 20, 2008 Academics’ attitudes towards the South color their teaching about the region, particularly lessons on the Civil War, and their histories, thus, often project myth rather than reality. “Many historians, myself excepted, go in with an argument before they have done their research and seek to impose their present policy positions on the past,” University of Pennsylvania historian Walter McDougall said on March 11 in an appearance at the Cato Institute here. “I prefer to go in plug ignorant.” McDougall is the author of the recently released Throes of Democracy:...

Does the Confederate battle flag represent heritage or hatred? The answer is yes. It represents a heritage that included hatred.

They will tell you the Civil War was not about slavery. Remind them that the president and vice president of the so-called "Confederate States of America" both said it was. They will tell you that great-great grandpa Zeke fought for the South, and he never owned any slaves. Remind them that it is political leaders - not grunts - who decide whether and why a war is waged. They will tell you the flag just celebrates heritage. Remind them that "heritage" is not a synonym for "good." After all, Nazis have a heritage, too.

At the outbreak of the War Between the States, a group of young men who were students at Washington College formed a military company that eventually would become part of the legendary "Stonewall Brigade."

Some things that are blatantly offensive, such as a Nazi swastika, incite a visceral reaction. The Confederate flag is one of them, too. It's a symbol of a time when our nation was split into two warring factions. The Confederates, the folks who advocated slavery, lost.

(Representative) Brown says it would give motorists a way to show pride in their heritage, but that flag represents a heritage of treason, bigotry, hostility, division and an overall ugly time in American history. No way should his plate proposal become No. 110.

Ringgold City Council is facing potential legal action based on its 2005 decision to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from the Ringgold Depot Civil War Memorial. The Southern Legal Resource Center notified the city Feb. 11 by letter from SLRC chief trial counsel Kirk D. Lyons that it will face legal action unless it replaces the battle flag within 10 days. According to Roger McCredie, Southern Legal Resource Center executive director, the letter puts the city on notice that its clients, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and its local Joseph McConnell Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp...

I hope no actions of my life will be divisive or hurtful to others. If so, I instruct my descendents not to hoist symbols of hurtful or divisive actions on a flagpole for all to see, even if they perceive my service to the action to be honorable.

Have you noticed there are questions liberals are seldom asked that conservatives always are, and vice versa? Democrats are very seldom grilled about their abortion views, while Republicans are required to defend them. And it would appear every four years, Republican presidential candidates are called upon to answer for that South Carolina "solidarity" flag which includes the brand of the confederacy.

The Rev. Al Sharpton released a statement Friday chastising one “John Huckabee” for saying South Carolina should be able to decide whether it wants to fly the Confederate flag. Of course he meant Mike Huckabee — the GOP candidate who on the campaign trail Thursday said outsiders should not tell South Carolina what to do when it comes to that flag. Either way, as the controversy of race settles on the Democratic side, Sharpton said Republican Huckabee is now offending the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. “In the midst of a national celebration of the life and teachings of...

The president of the western York County NAACP chapter wants a flag that pays homage to the Confederate flag removed from in front of a downtown business...A flag that is half South Carolina state flag and half Confederate flag flying next to the U.S. flag at Exchange Publishers in downtown York.

Civil War Watch Stopped Suddenly; Sub End Still Unknown Bruce Smith in Charleston, South Carolina Associated Press December 17, 2007 When scientists opened the watch belonging to the H.L. Hunley commander three years ago, they thought they had the key clue to why the Confederate submarine sank off Charleston, South Carolina. But the 18-karat gold watch now seems to raise even more questions, despite the finding announced last week that the watch did not slowly wind down but stopped quickly—perhaps the result of a concussion or rushing water. "All of us were thinking the watch pointed to the crucial moment,"...

Charleston, S.C. (AP) -- When scientists opened the watch belonging to the H.L. Hunley commander three years ago, they thought they had the key clue to why the Confederate submarine sank off Charleston. But the 18-karat gold watch now seems to raise even more questions even though scientists announced Friday it did not slowly wind down but stopped quickly — perhaps the result of a concussion or rushing water. "All of us were thinking the watch pointed to the crucial moment," said state Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, chairman of the state Hunley Commission. "But I would say instead of the...

Death of Jefferson Davis Remembered - The Christmas of 1889 was a sad time in the South. By Calvin Johnson Jr. Staff Email Contact Editor Print Jefferson Davis - AuthenticHistory.com December 6th, is the 118th anniversary of the death of a great American Hero---Jefferson Davis. The "Politically Correct" would have you forget the past...But do not forget the history of the men and women who made the USA great. Caution, this is a family friendly story to be shared. The Sons of Confederate Veterans have declared 2008, the "Year of Jefferson Davis." Remembrance events will include the re-opening of "Beauvoir"...

In 1861, free institutions seemed poised to carry all before them. In Russia, Tsar Alexander II emancipated 22 million serfs. In Germany, lawmakers dedicated to free constitutional principles prepared to assert civilian control over Prussia’s feudal military caste. In America, Abraham Lincoln entered the White House pledged to a revolutionary policy of excluding human bondage from the nation’s territories. The new machinery of freedom, though Anglo-American in design, was universal in scope. At its core was the idea, as yet imperfectly realized, that all human beings possess a fundamental dignity. This was a truth that, Abraham Lincoln believed, was “applicable...

AMERICANA, Brazil Now well past 90, Judith MacKnight Jones is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the illness that robbed her of all of her memory, her most precious asset. She has been lying here for the past 11 years, covered by a patchwork blanket, made from pieces her great-grandmother brought from the United States between 1865 and 1885, after the Confederacy lost the Civil War. Unable to speak or remember now, her book "Soldado Descanso" ("Rest Soldier") is written in Portuguese, but soon will be translated into English, as the publisher thinks Americans should know about the proud history of Confederate...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Copperhead Chronicle Al Benson, Jr. Articles Guess What Folks--Secesson Wasn't Treason by Al Benson Jr. More and more of late I have been reading articles dealing with certain black racist groups that claim to have the best interests of average black folks at heart (they really don't). It seems these organizations can't take time to address the problems of black crime in the black community or of single-parent families in the black community in any meaningful way. It's much more lucrative for them (and it gets more press coverage) if they spend their time and resources attacking Confederate...

1864 : Battle of Mobile Bay Union Admiral David Farragut leads his flotilla through the Confederate defenses at Mobile, Alabama, to seal one of the last major Southern ports. The fall of Mobile Bay was a huge blow to the Confederacy, and the victory was the first in a series of successes that secured the reelection of Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Mobile became the major Confederate port on the Gulf of Mexico after the fall of New Orleans, Louisiana, in April 1862. With blockade runners carrying critical supplies from Havana, Cuba, into Mobile, Union General Ulysses S. Grant made the...

I had the opportunity this weekend to visit Gettysburg National Military Park, and experience walking the battlefield. StainlessBanner, Stand_Waitie and all of my southron brothers, for this Yankee (and a descendant of men who fought at Little Round Top, Devil's Den and behind the stone wall during Pickett's Charge) to stand at the Virginia Monument and look down the Confederate line and stare across that wide open field, and to think of what your ancestors did there, brought me to tears, what brave honorable men they were. God Bless their memory and God Keep their sacred honor.

Remember the American soldier's who defend our great nation. A article recently appeared in a Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper about Wary Clyburn, a Black Confederate, who will be remembered on August, 26, 2007 during a reunion of his descendants in Monroe, North Carolina. August 10th, will also mark the 102nd anniversary of the death of a Black Confederate, Amos Rucker, of Atlanta, Ga. Black Confederates, why haven't we heard more about them? "I don't want to call it a conspiracy to ignore the role of the Blacks, both above and below the Mason-Dixon Line, but it was definitely a tendency...

At the beginning of the Civil War the United States had a merchant marine that was second only to Great Britain’s in size. By the end of the war the nation was no longer a maritime power, except in its Navy, which would be quickly and radically reduced in size. Although little noted by history, this profound change had been brought about by Confederate naval strategy. It was perhaps the South’s greatest victory of the war, and the only one to affect the country permanently. Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama, by Stephen...

Wary Clyburn is a local Civil War hero I bet many of you don't know about.He's a former slave who fought for the Confederate Army from 1863 to 1865.He was born in Lancaster County but moved to Union. Many of his descendants live in the Wingate area, and they're planning to honor his memory next month.Pension documents confirm that Clyburn was a former slave and a Civil War veteran. The documents say he volunteered for the Confederacy with Capt. Frank Clyburn, who was the son of the man who owned Wary Clyburn (Note: The documents spelled his first name several...

American Culture on the 4th of July By John E. Carey Peace and Freedom July 4, 2007I am never sure whether it is our American culture that shapes our TV, movies and other media or whether our media shapes our thinking to such an extent that it changes culture.Probably a little bit of both.What is culture? One very good online dictionary calls it “The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population.”On July 4,...

Historian James M. McPherson's magnificent collection of essays This Mighty Scourge; Perspectives on the Civil War contains an essay on General William Tecumseh Sherman's famous, or infamous, "march through Georgia " that sheds light on the success of his march in bringing victory, and peace, to the United States. ********************************************* Calling such counterterrorist strikes "war crimes," as many who are critical of both America (and Israel) do, is extremely unfair. In fighting an enemy who kills soldiers and civilians without distinction, it is not possible to fight a completely "clean" war, without losing it to the terrorist enemies. No country...

...he was stunned to see two large Confederate flags flying from trucks...emblazoned with the words "The South Shall Rise Again." I'm stunned, too, that people still think it is cool to fly this flag. Our society should bury these flags -- not flaunt them...because the Confederate flag symbolizes racial tyranny to so many... ...This flag doesn't belong on city streets, in videos or in the middle of civil discussion. It belongs in our past -- in museums and in history books -- along with the ideas it represents.

WASHINGTON - The last time anyone from Alabama saw the flag of the 1st Alabama Infantry was when its own Confederate troops woke up for morning muster on a Mississippi River island off the Missouri shore on April 8, 1862. In that day's surrender, Brig. Gen. Elazer Arthur Paine confiscated the 7-foot, red, white and blue banner as a trophy, and decades later, a Civil War historian would speculate only that the flag was still somewhere up North. On Wednesday, Alabama got it back. In an outdoor deaccession ceremony with the U.S. Capitol as a backdrop, two Nebraska congressmen and...

A millionaire couple accused of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves were held in jail on Thursday amid new allegations that the women's relatives were threatened and offered bribes to make the case go away. Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her husband, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, who operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Long Island home, pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on federal slavery charges. Prosecutors have called the allegations "truly a case of modern-day slavery." "The defendants operated a torture house," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko told the judge, who put the Sabhnanis' bail request on hold until...

Winston Churchill called him "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived," and Theodore Roosevelt called him "the very greatest of all the great captains that the English-speaking peoples have brought forth." But has political correctness turned Robert E. Lee into a villain? That will be the question explored by six historians this weekend at a symposium commemorating the bicentennial of the Confederate commander's birth. "We were afraid that Lee would not receive the honors he should get because of the prevailing political correctness," says Brag Bowling, a Richmond resident who helped organize Saturday's event at the Key Bridge Marriott...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?pollId=44465

On March 5, 1861, the day after his inauguration as president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln received a message from Maj. Robert Anderson, commander of the U.S. troops holding Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The message stated that there was less than a six week supply of food left in the fort. Attempts by the Confederate government to settle its differences with the Union were spurned by Lincoln, and the Confederacy felt it could no longer tolerate the presense of a foreign force in its territory. Believing a conflict to be inevitable, Lincoln ingeniously devised a plan that would...

On April 9 1865, only days after fleeing Richmond, Robert E Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. On the evening of April 8, the ANV had arrived at Appomattox where Lee planned on meeting a supply train that had arrived at nearby Appomattox Station. The plan was to feed and rearm as many troops as possible before continuing their retreat. A fast-moving Federal cavalry unit dispersed a small Confederate detachment guarding the supply train and captured it. At this point, Lee did not believe that Federal infantry was anywhere near his position. He believed that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUigNi5HZ2U

An unusual display of the Confederate flag in a Tallahassee museum revives an old Florida debate. TALLAHASSEE --Bob Hurst walked into a Tallahassee art museum this week and saw the symbol of his Southern heritage hanging by a noose. The art work, which has led to a standoff between descendants of Confederate soldiers and the museum, is a life-size gallows with the Confederate flag dangling from a frayed rope. Created by a black artist from Detroit and titled The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag, the piece has brought an old debate to Florida anew. Hurst and his compatriots...

Georgia would establish April as Confederate History and Heritage Month under a bill approved Thursday by a state Senate committee. The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Jeff Mullis -- a Republican who represents Chickamauga, site of a major Civil War battle -- says its goal is to encourage tourism and preservation of history, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. "I'm not doing this for controversial reasons, but to commemorate a struggle that happened," Mullis said. While there was no opposition on the Senate Rules Committee, the state chapter of the NAACP does not like the bill. The organization has called on Georgia officials...

State Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga) has proposed a splendid way to recognize Georgia's contributions to American history during a pivotal period in time. He wants to establish a permanent Confederate History and Heritage Month. What better manner to encourage tourism related to the Civil War and to demonstrate how far Georgia has come since then? Perhaps Confederate History and Heritage Month, proposed to be observed in April by Georgia, could spotlight such Civil War era items as ads for slaves. Mullis' proposal, Senate Bill 283, sailed through the Senate Rules Committee last week. If adopted by the General Assembly and...

RICHMOND, Va. — Meeting on the grounds of the former Confederate Capitol, the Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously Saturday to express "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery. Sponsors of the resolution say they know of no other state that has apologized for slavery, although Missouri lawmakers are considering such a measure. The resolution does not carry the weight of law but sends an important symbolic message, supporters said. "This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and passed...

Political considerations color the divergent views of presidential candidates on whether the Confederate flag should be moved from the State House grounds. For Republicans competing in the Feb. 2, 2008, GOP primary, where white voters will hold sway, the flag is a state issue that the candidates are not eager to discuss. On the Democratic side, where half or more of the voters in the Jan. 29, 2008, primary will be black residents, candidates have no qualms about calling for the flag’s removal. “Each side is playing to its basic constituency,” said Blease Graham, a political science professor at USC....

Clinton Objects to Confederate Flag Feb 19 4:25 PM US/Eastern By JIM DAVENPORT Associated Press Writer ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war. "I think about how many South Carolinians have served in our military and who are serving today under our flag and I believe that we should have one flag that we all pay honor to, as I know that most people in South Carolina do every single...

ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war.