Free Republic

1861 - Colonel Robert E. Lee resigned from the U.S. Army. Two days earlier he had been offered command of the Union army.

This is a perplexing question, as it relates to the WBTS. In some ways, yes. In others, no. I, like many of you, recently (and for the 3rd or 4th time), watched Ken Burns' PBS documentary, The Civil War. Even though I have several criticisms of the Burns' film, I still find it a fascinating piece of work and very educational. I've always thoroughly enjoyed watching the film, despite its shortcomings. One of the more moving parts of this film comes near the end, as shown below. Pay close attention at about 30 seconds in and listen as historian David...

By the act of a handful of ingrates and traitors, war is inaugurated in this heretofore happy and peaceful Republic! While we write, the bombardment of Sumter is going on; and the blood of the few gallant defenders of the glorious old flag which yet, we hope, floats over that fortress is being poured out for their fidelity to the Constitution as it is, and the Union as our fathers made it! The people know the cause of the fratricidal strife. The party, which, in the interests of a barbarous institution, has governed the country for the last 40 years,...

Tuesday, April 12 marks the 150th anniversary of the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the start of the U.S. Civil War. Over the next four years, the nation will be commemorating the bloody events of a century and a half ago, pondering their meaning and their place in history. Media outlets will produce features on the valor and the squalor, the heroes, martyrs and villains, and what they mean to today’s Americans.

"The fact that it is acceptable to put a Confederate flag on a car *bumper and to portray Confederates as brave and gallant defenders of states’ rights rather than as traitors and defenders of slavery is a testament to 150 years of history written by the losers." - Ohio State Professer Steven Conn in a recent piece at History News Network (No, I'll not difnigy his bitterness by providing a link) This sounds like sour grapes to me. Were it not for the "losers" . . .

New Research Questions Who in the Confederacy Had the Most War Dead Josh Howard is playing with fire here in the heart of the old Confederacy, with a scholarly finding that could rewrite the history of the Civil War. For more than a century, North Carolina has proudly claimed that it lost more soldiers than any other Southern state in the nation's bloodiest conflict. But after meticulously combing through military, hospital and cemetery records, the historian is finding the truth isn't so clear-cut. Official military records compiled in 1866 counted 40,275 North Carolina soldiers who died in uniform. Though known...

Texas' secession from the Union was not official until the next day.

Back in the Jurassic Era when I was young, we learned “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in school, and I often heard it on the radio on national holidays. We learned two verses, the first and the fifth. The words of the fifth verse made a deep impression on me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. It implanted in my youthful mind the idea that fighting for freedom sometimes requires actually FIGHTING for freedom, which includes the possibility of dying for freedom. But now, I rarely hear this inspiring hymn on...

JACKSON, Miss. – Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Tuesday he won't denounce a Southern heritage group's proposal for a state-issued license plate that would honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Barbour is a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate. Questioned by reporters Tuesday after an energy speech in Jackson, Barbour said he doesn't think Mississippi legislators will approve the Forrest license plate proposed by the Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans.

It was 150 years ago today that Florida declared itself sovereign from the United States. Some Southern states have marked the anniversaries of secession with celebrations; in South Carolina, a secession gala was met with protests and controversy. In Florida, a reenactment was quietly held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tallahassee on Saturday, where about 40 volunteers dressed in period attire performed a condensed version of the convention. It was at that convention where a 62-7 vote led to secession in 1861, making Florida the third state to leave and later join the Confederate States of America.

Recently the History Channel proved that it is as snarky as those of who watch it thought. To wit: the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) wanted to run some ads on the History Channel. These ads pointed out the legal basis for secession and, quite accurately, that the North invaded the newly configured Confederacy (Manassas/Bull Run is, after all, in Virginia). Another pointed out that Northern interests essentially ran the Federal government, frequently to the advantage Northern supporters at the expense of the South. The most accurate ad of all simply stated that ANY STATE had...

The Civil War is about to loom very large in the popular memory. We would do well to be candid about its causes and not allow the distortions of contemporary politics or long-standing myths to cloud our understanding of why the nation fell apart. The coming year will mark the 150th anniversary of the onset of the conflict, which is usually dated to April 12, 1861, when Confederate batteries opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on federal troops occupying Fort Sumter. Union forces surrendered the next day, after 34 hours of shelling.

Event marks war's anniversary CHARLESTON -- The shots are solely verbal -- and expected to remain that way -- but at least one Civil War Sesquicentennial event is triggering conflict. The Sons of Confederate Veterans plan to hold a $100-per-person "Secession Ball" on Dec. 20 in Gaillard Municipal Auditorium. It will feature a play highlighting key moments from the signing of South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession 150 years ago, an act that severed the state's ties to the Union and put the nation on the path to the Civil War. Jeff Antley, who is organizing the event, said the Secession...

Exactly 150 years after South Carolina became the first state to leave the United States, a group whose purpose is to preserve Confederate history is holding a dance in Charleston. The NAACP plans to protest Monday night's "Secession Ball." Leaders of the civil rights group have said it makes no sense to honor men who committed treason in order to maintain a system that kept black men and woman in bondage as slaves. But organizers of the ball say their intention is to honor men who were willing to die to protect their vision of states' rights and what this...

Called to the difficult and responsible station of Chief Executive of the Provisional Government which you have instituted, I approach the discharge of the duties assigned to me with an humble distrust of my abilities, but with a sustaining confidence in the wisdom of those who are to guide and to aid me in the administration of public affairs, and an abiding faith in the virtue and patriotism of the people.

n my youth there was a popular song entitled: “Save Your Confederate Money, Boys… the South Is Gonna Rise Again!” I began thinking about it as I watched a group of talking heads discussing the future of America, as a single entity comprised of 50 states. The consensus was -- America will not survive as a 50-state nation. It is a conclusion, which I, unhappily, arrived at years ago. I am convinced we Americans are being lied to by our government. I am also convinced our economy is on the verge of collapse. Maybe it is just my natural paranoia,...

The University of Mississippi has terminated its mascot, "Colonel Reb." The mascot, an archetypal Southern gentleman with a hat, cane, and a little bow-tie, is of course racist. Affable, bearded and jaunty, with a bright costume that cleverly foiled his dark history on the plantation, Col. Reb, when he was alive, looked rather like that other infamous slave-driver, Col. Sanders, whose inscrutable and permanent smile these days (in markets where he still shows his face) offers only a faint clue as to the fortunes he's made in his long, post-war masquerade as a peddler of fried chicken. "We just want...

SAVANNAH, Ga. – Preserved for nearly 150 years, perhaps by its own obscurity, a short-lived Confederate prison camp began yielding treasures from the Civil War almost as soon as archeologists began searching for it in southeastern Georgia. They found a corroded bronze buckle used to fasten tourniquets during amputations, a makeshift tobacco pipe with teeth marks in the stem, and a picture frame folded and kept after the daguerreotype it held was lost. Georgia officials say the discoveries, announced Wednesday, were made by a 36-year-old graduate student at Georgia Southern University who set out to find Camp Lawton for his...

“Why doesn't the Confederacy just fade away?” The answer is simple—because many Southerners continue to teach our children and our grandchildren what our fathers and mothers and grandparents have taught us and passed down for generations . . .

Open Message to Mr. Beck (self proclaimed historian). Tonight on your TV show you said that you read the Confederate Constitution and I paraphrase "it had slavery written all over it, all about slavery blah blah blah". You are incorrect sir, I did a word search on the document and the word slavery appears "one" time. Everyone can try it for themselves at the link provided below.CS ConstitutionCan never trust a Yankee, even a goofy entertaining one.