Posted on 02/25/2004 11:52:26 AM PST by 4CJ
THOMASVILLE -- Nelson Winbush knows his voice isn't likely to be heard above the crowd that writes American history books. That doesn't keep him from speaking his mind, however.
A 75-year-old black man whose grandfather proudly fought in the gray uniform of the South during the Civil War, Winbush addressed a group of about 40 at the Thomas County Museum of History Sunday afternoon. To say the least, his perspective of the war differs greatly from what is taught in America's classrooms today.
"People have manufactured a lot of mistruths about why the war took place," he said. "It wasn't about slavery. It was about state's rights and tariffs."
Many of Winbush's words were reserved for the Confederate battle flag, which still swirls amid controversy more than 150 years after it originally flew.
"This flag has been lied about more than any flag in the world," Winbush said. "People see it and they don't really know what the hell they are looking at."
About midway through his 90-minute presentation, Winbush's comments were issued with extra force.
"This flag is the one that draped my grandfathers' coffin," he said while clutching it strongly in his left hand. "I would shudder to think what would happen if somebody tried to do something to this particular flag."
Winbush, a retired in educator and Korean War veteran who resides in Kissimmee, Fla., said the Confederate battle flag has been hijacked by racist groups, prompting unwarranted criticism from its detractors.
"This flag had nothing to with the (Ku Klux) klan or skinheads," he said while wearing a necktie that featured the Confederate emblem. "They weren't even heard of then. It was just a guide to follow in battle.
"That's all it ever was."
Winbush said Confederate soldiers started using the flag with the St. Andrews cross because its original flag closely resembled the U.S. flag. The first Confederate flag's blue patch in an upper corner and its alternating red and white stripes caused confusion on the battlefield, he said.
"Neither side (of the debate) knows what the flag represents," Winbush said. "It's dumb and dumber. You can turn it around, but it's still two dumb bunches.
"If you learn anything else today, don't be dumb."
Winbush learned about the Civil War at the knee of Louis Napoleon Nelson, who joined his master and one of his master's sons in battle voluntarily when he was 14. Nelson saw combat at Lookout Mountain, Bryson's Crossroads, Shiloh and Vicksburg.
"At Shiloh, my grandfather served as a chaplain even though he couldn't read or write," said Winbush, who bolstered his points with photos, letters and newspapers that used to belong to his grandfather. "I've never heard of a black Yankee holding such an office, so that makes him a little different."
Winbush said his grandfather, who also served as a "scavenger," never had any qualms about fighting for the South. He had plenty of chances to make a break for freedom, but never did. He attended 39 Confederate reunions, the final one in 1934. A Sons of Confederate Veterans Chapter in Tennessee is named after him.
"People ask why a black person would fight for the Confederacy. (It was) for the same damned reason a white Southerner did," Winbush explained.
Winbush said Southern blacks and whites often lived together as extended families., adding slaves and slave owners were outraged when Union forces raided their homes. He said history books rarely make mention of this.
"When the master and his older sons went to war, who did he leave his families with?" asked Winbush, who grandfather remained with his former owners 12 years after the hostilities ended. "It was with the slaves. Were his (family members) mistreated? Hell, no!
"They were protected."
Winbush said more than 90,000 blacks, some of them free, fought for the Confederacy. He has said in the past that he would have fought by his grandfather's side in the 7th Tennessee Cavalry led by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forest.
After his presentation, Winbush opened the floor for questions. Two black women, including Jule Anderson of the Thomas County Historical Society Board of Directors, told him the Confederate battle flag made them uncomfortable.
Winbush, who said he started speaking out about the Civil War in 1992 after growing weary of what he dubbed "political correctness," was also challenged about his opinions.
"I have difficulty in trying to apply today's standards with what happened 150 years ago," he said to Anderson's tearful comments. "...That's what a lot of people are attempting to do. I'm just presenting facts, not as I read from some book where somebody thought that they understood. This came straight from the horse's mouth, and I refute anybody to deny that."
Thomas County Historical Society Board member and SVC member Chip Bragg moved in to close the session after it took a political turn when a white audience member voiced disapproval of the use of Confederate symbols on the state flag. Georgia voters are set to go to the polls a week from today to pick a flag to replace the 1956 version, which featured the St. Andrew's cross prominently.
"Those of us who are serious about our Confederate heritage are very unhappy with the trivialization of Confederate symbols and their misuse," he said. "Part of what we are trying to do is correct this misunderstanding."
"To the dismay of his biographers and Lincoln Day Orators everywhere, Lincoln was indiscreet enough to say on public platforms that he believed in the Illinois Black Laws that Douglass and other Blacks deplored. It was in Charleston, Illinois, on Saturday, September 18, 1858, a day that will live in infamy to all those condemned to the unenviable task of denying the undeniable, that Lincoln defined himself for the ages, announcing:" ~ Lerone Bennett, Jr. ~
While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]---that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
So there he is, then, everybody's, or almost everybody's, favorite President, confessing his racial faith and giving unimpeachable testimony before some fifteen thousand Whites that he was opposed to equal rights and that he believed there was a physical difference between the Black and White races that would FOR EVER forbid them living together on terms of political and social equality.
The Charleston speech in which Lincoln said these terrible things is not in a foreign language. It is not in Latin or Swahili or Greek-it is in short, blunt Anglo-Saxon words, and no literate person can misunderstand the man or his meaning. Who was he? He was, he said, a racist who believed, as much as any other White man, in White supremacy and the subordination of Blacks.
How do the defenders of the faith deal with this smoking-gun evidence? They deny, first of all, that the gun is smoking or that it is even a gun. Few Lincoln defenders, for example, quote that paragraph in its entirety or in context. The usual practice is to paraphrase the offending paragraph without telling us what Lincoln said.
Another technique is to give us the paragraph or parts of the paragraph, en passant, and to smother the harsh words with great Mahlerian choruses of affirmation. Neely, in fact, praises Lincoln for his restraint, saying that in this statement Lincoln went as far as he was going to go in denying Black rights (1993, 53). But a man who denies Blacks equality because of their race, and who denies them the right to vote, sit on juries or hold office, couldn't have gone much further.
All who report the statement in whole or in part give Lincoln instant absolution (see pages 122-3). Fehrenbacher and Donald say Lincoln was forced to make the statement. "The whole texture of American life," Fehrenbacher says, "compelled such a pronouncement in 1858... (1962, 111, italics added). Fehrenbacher, a sophisticated scholar who added to our knowledge of the nineteenth century, didn't mean that, for he knew that sticks and stones can break bones but that a texture can't compel a grown man to say anything.
Donald, like Fehrenbacher, said it was politically expedient and perhaps "a necessary thing" for Lincoln to say he was a racist in a state where most Whites were racist, adding, to his credit, that the statement "also represented Lincoln's deeply held personal views." Having conceded the main point, Donald says paradoxically that it was not Lincoln's true feeling and that Lincoln was not "personally hostile to blacks" (221). But here, once again, an attempt to prove that Lincoln was not a racist backfires and ends up proving the opposite. For what could be more hostile than an attempt by any man to deny a whole race of people equal rights because of race?
Almost all Lincoln specialists blame not Lincoln but Stephen Douglas who, they say, made Lincoln say it. According to this theory, Lincoln, pressured by Douglas, said he was a racist because he, wanted to get elected to office. The proof, they say, is that he was ashamed of what he said at Charleston and didn't say it again.
If Lincoln was ashamed, he had a strange way of showing it. For he traveled all over Illinois and the Midwest, proudly quoting the Charleston Confession, even to people who couldn't vote for him. Nineteen days after the Charleston speech, he quoted the same words to an even larger crowd at Galesburg. A month later, he prepared an extract of his best speeches on the subject and listed the Charleston Confession (CW 3:326-8). A year later, in Columbus, Ohio, he was still quoting the Charleston speech to prove that he was opposed to equal rights.
The most ingenious -- and startling -- explanation of what Lincoln said at Charleston comes from the Bogart School (see page 211), which praises the aesthetics of the Charleston Confession while deploring its sentiments. At least one interpreter, Pulitzer Prize-winner Garry Wills, said there was poetry or potential poetry in the passage, which he scanned:
I will say then/that I am not/nor ever have been/in favor of bringing about/in any way/ the social and political equality/of the white and black races ....
In a triumph of style over content, Wills said that what Lincoln said was indefensible but that he said it "in prose as clear, balanced, and precise as anything he ever wrote;" a view that depends, of course, on one's perspective and one's understanding of prose and clarity (92).
What shall we call the scanned Lincoln lines? The poetics of racism or the racism of any poetic that subordinates any man or woman to any other man or woman because of race, color, or religion?
And to understand the truth of Lincoln's poetic, and how one racism invokes and includes all racisms, one must make another transposition and ask what Lincoln's words would sound like in another language and another color:
I will say then...
that I am not
nor ever have been
in favor of
making voters
or jurors
of Irishmen
or Italians
or Albanians.
It's the same principle, and Lincoln pressed that principle from one end of the state to the other from the 1830s to the 1860s.
Between 1854 and 1860, Lincoln said publicly at least two times that America was made for the White people and "not for the Negroes."
At least eight times, he said publicly that he was in favor of White supremacy.
At least twenty-one times, he said publicly that he was opposed to equal rights for Blacks.
He said it at Ottawa:
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. (CW 3:16)
He said it at Galesburg:
I have all the while maintained that inasmuch as there is a physical inequality between the white and black, that the blacks must remain inferior.... (Holzer 1993,254)
He said it in Ohio. He said it in Wisconsin. He said it in Indiana. He said it everywhere:
We can not, then, make them equals. (CW 2:256)
Why couldn't "we" make "them" equals?
There was, Lincoln said, a strong feeling in White America against Black equality, and "MY OWN FEELINGS," he said, capitalizing the words, "WILL NOT ADMIT OF THIS..." (CW 3:79).
You guys said it yourselves. You said the south demanded terms for exchange (which was terrorism considering the union soldiers were going to die if they weren't released) and they weren't met. The south then let the POWs starve, which was murder.
Congress refused to investigate Ould's charges. The Radical Republicans voted down the inquiry with an 'our guys would never do that' sort of response.
Then what you're saying is there is no proof confederate POWs were massacred. Just as I expected.
I've checked the Charleston papers of the time and found reference to the 600 prisoners and their low rations. The prisoners were placed in a stockade in front of a Union battery such that Confederate shells falling short of the battery would fall in the stockade. There is reference to this in the Charleston paper, IIRC.
Charleston South Carolina?
BTW, I never said "massacred." I said intentionally starved to death.
That's a massacre.
Perhaps it was unintentional -- I can't read the mind of the Federal General in charge of the prisoners. Several of the surviving Confederate diaries from the 600 Confederate POWs document the shock of the Federal medical staff when they saw the condition of the prisoners. They were only permitted to see the Confederate officers when the Federal General was removed.
Without the words of the authorities, you still don't know the circumstances. Supplies, ships, medical personel, etc, can get squeezed at times.
One of them stated that he would not have believed that a Federal officer guilty of such brutality if he had not seen it himself. One stated that in all his experience he had never seen a place so horrible or known of men being treated with such brutality. [2nd Lt. Henry Cook, 44th TN Infantry] A medical director made his appearance with a number of subs; we learned that General Foster has been relieved and that our situation under Gilmore, his successor, will be much better. The medical director declares that our situation is terrible, and says he will insist on a more generous diet. [Capt. Henry Dickinson, 2nd VA Cavalry] After remaining in this condition until about February, 1865, we were visited by one of the chief surgeons of the U.S. Army, who I was informed, said if this treatment lasted for one month longer that there would be none of the prisoners left to tell the tale. An immediate change was therefore ordered, and much better rations were given to us, but alas it was too late for many who had borne bravely only to fall at the gate of relief. [2nd Lt. David Gordon, 4th SC Cavalry]
Were these soldiers in on the strategy meetings where they knew why these things were happening? Things may have been squeezed at times.
My medical director yesterday inspected the condition of the Rebel prisoners confined at Fort Pulaski, and represents that they are in a condition of great suffering and exhaustion for want of sufficient food and clothing... [C. Grover, Brev. Maj. Gen. Commanding] Despite this, the conditions at Fort Pulaski did not change for at least another week [Joslyn, pg 220]. For 43 days they lived on 10 oz of wormy meal and 4 oz of pickles a day, sometimes without the pickles. After a month of much improved rations, about 100 of them still could not walk. Many had scurvy. I don't think Northern or Southern soldiers in general were so cruel as to so horribly mistreat POWs. My own belief is that there were exceptions like the 600 and that some cruel treatment of POWs did occur on both sides. However, I think that the general prisoner problem itself can be laid at the feet of the Lincoln Administration for their policy of not exchanging prisoners -- this led to the overcrowding of prisons and the spreading of disease you mentioned.
Gee what a surprise. Tens of thousands of soldiers die of starvation at a southern POW camp and it's all Lincoln's fault for not giving into the demands of those acting as terrorists. When the south couldn't feed their POWs, threy should've been released. To hold them hostage for demands was terrorism, and to not release them and let them starve was murder. Like You I agree there are murderers in every war, but the scale of the south's murder of thousand of POWs by not releasing them is ridiculous. This started by me asking Stand Watie for a truth test. I asked if the POWs were treated well. The treatment of the confederate POWs makes no difference as to the truth of how Union POWs were treated. In other words I never claimed that confederate POWs were treated well, I just wanted to see if he could be honest about one thing, and he couldn't, one thing that is obvious to all of fair minds.
Fifth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas, at Galesburg, Illinois, October 7, 1858
[Lincoln] When we shall get Mexico, I don't know whether the Judge will be in favor of the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for themselves and all others; because we know the Judge has a great horror for mongrels, [laughter,] and I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels.
Lincoln said he was in favor of the new territories "being in such a condition that white men may find a home."
Lincoln, Alton, Illinois, 10/15/1862
"His democracy was a White mans democracy. It did not contain Negroes." Oscar Sherwin
Lincoln's dream did not contain Indians or even Mexicans who he referred to as "mongrels."
Lincoln, CW 3:234-5
"Resolved, That the elective franchise should be kept pure from contamination by the admission of colored votes."
That got Lincoln's vote, January 5, 1836.
"in our greedy chase to make profit of the Negro, let us beware, lest we 'cancel and tear to pieces' even the white man's charter of freedom"
Lincoln, CW 2:276
Translation for the intellectually challenged:
The White Man's Charter of Freedom = The Declaration of Independence
Lincoln wanted the territories to be "the happy home of teeming millions of free, white prosperous people, and no slave among them"
Lincoln, 1854, CW 2:249
The territories "should be kept open for the homes of free white people"
Lincoln, 1856, CW 2:363
"We want them [the territories] for the homes of free white people."
Lincoln, CW 3:311
If slavery was allowed to spread to the territories, he said "Negro equality will be abundant, as every White laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave n-----s"
Lincoln, CW 3:78 [Lincoln uses the N-word without elision]
"Is it not rather our duty [as White men] to make labor more respectable by preventing all black competition, especially in the territories?"
Lincoln, CW 3:79
He honored Booth's actions.
B. "Typical"
You guys never disagree with each other.
C. Neoconfederate
You live in the past and blame Lincoln for everything and the south for nothing, and you deny historical documents such as the Declarations of Secession.
Where in his posts does nolu chan advocate the separation of the 13 States of the old Confederacy from the United States? Our man s_w posts that all the time -- what, "all you Southerners look alike"? But humor aside, please prove, promptly and by quotation, that nc is, in fact, a Neoconfederate.
See above.
And while you're at it, prove that I am a Neoconfederate.
See above.
And as long as your mouth's open, cite and quote something I posted that evinces certifiable hatred of someone or something.
Your post you said something like someone's grandpa was SS or something.
Come on, alligator, don't just gum us to death, cite and quote.
Your first post.
Allowed because it was rebellion.
Lincoln obviously violated the Constitution in numerous ways, for example, by spending funds without authorization.
Not under rebellion.
Lincoln tried to get Congress to ratify his criminal misconduct in 1861 by Senate Resolution 1 (SR-1). The Congress refused to pass the Resolution. In 1863, Congress finally passed an Indemnity Act which gave Lincoln protection from prosecution for his criminal misconduct
Sounds like a "you did right" act.
He said I worship Butler as God.
You're losing your mind.
"Resolved, That the elective franchise should be kept pure from contamination by the admission of colored votes."
That got Lincoln's vote, January 5, 1836.
There is what the racist Lincoln did there. The racist Lincoln voted for racist Illinois Black laws.
It's each person's judgment.
By God, do you refer to your god, Spoons Butler, or some more traditional deity recognized by those outside #3World?
You're a despicable liar.
You ran it several times, the one about Butler. You suddenly can't recall that post? Figures.
Congress has the power to impeach.
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