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."
When did they condemn it?
Hundreds of thousands of German ghosts may disagree.
Deliberate savaging of civilian targets was something more typical of the German side (Rotterdam, London, the V-weapon offensives, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau's gratuitous shelling of Deal during their Channel breakout, Ouradour, Lidice, half a hundred Polish and Russian towns). However, any fairminded person would have to admit that Sherman's march to the sea did adumbrate this kind of warfare, which had no precedent since the Thirty Years' War, or even the Hundred Years' War.
What about what the British did to the highlanders?
Why? The war was fought to save the union.
I've heard he had the snappiest shawl in Washington in his day.
Hmm... What did Gianni say?
[Gianni, post 1743] Haven't read enough about Ike to really form an opinion,
It's pretty difficult to separate anti-semitism from honest opinion when looking for info on Ike, and I certainly haven't done enough digging to really know his mind. Col. Ernest F. Fisher, PhD Lt. Senior Historian, United States Army calls Ike was a war criminal.
Don't suppose I can get you to go away and argue with him?
About the 50th time we've seen this from you.
Please name the military targets in Chaleston, Atlanta, and Columbia which Sherman's men were after. Please also cite evidence of the military value of the swath of Georgia countryside 200 miles wide which was destroyed, and the military value of the homes which were destroyed.
Perhaps you can also afford us information concerning what supplies were being shipped out of Dresden for the German army, and what supplies were being furnished by German POWs in American camps after the European war was over. I don't want to sidetrack this thread into WWII, but since you keep bringing it up...
Looks like you were giving opinions to me.
It's pretty difficult to separate anti-semitism from honest opinion when looking for info on Ike, and I certainly haven't done enough digging to really know his mind. Col. Ernest F. Fisher, PhD Lt. Senior Historian, United States Army calls Ike was a war criminal. Don't suppose I can get you to go away and argue with him?
I wouldn't argue with him too much as long as he's consistent. You guys aren't consistent.
4CJ admitted that Sherman's actions cut supplies to the Confederate armies because he said the POWs got what the armies got and Sherman caused both to be short of supplies. So you may want to ask 4CJ to prove it also. lol
Please also cite evidence of the military value of the swath of Georgia countryside 200 miles wide which was destroyed, and the military value of the homes which were destroyed.
Ask 4CJ, he's my source.
Perhaps you can also afford us information concerning what supplies were being shipped out of Dresden for the German army, and what supplies were being furnished by German POWs in American camps after the European war was over. I don't want to sidetrack this thread into WWII, but since you keep bringing it up...
If you want to be consistent and call Ike a war criminal, that's fine with me, that's what I was asking for...consistency. So according to you, Sherman was a war criminal, Ike was one, whoever ordered the firebombing of Germany was one, Truman was one for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, someone else was for the firebombing of Tokyo. Again, all according to you. I don't think any were, I think that to win, you go after supplies. I wonder if a general with Gianni's philosophy ever won a major conflict. Even the confederate troops under Hood looted as they went through confederate Tennessee (I think that part was confederate).
I'm no reed in the wind.
As a matter of clarification, I find it pertinent to this thread to post the dictionary definition of that same "forbidden verb" that he apparently thinks to have inherent criminal quotations. That verb is defined as follows from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000:
"To follow or observe a person persistently, especially out of obsession or derangement."
As you will note, there is not so much as a single word in that definition denoting any form of a criminal act, criminal behavior, or any illegality whatsoever. It simply described a psychological affliction of obsession with another person that exhibits itself in persistent observation of that same person.
It should also be noted that all of the other definitions to this same "forbidden verb" in this same dictionary refer to it in a connotation of animal tracking and game hunting, thus the definition intended could not have been confused. As further explanatory note, I previously described and will again describe the pet lunatic's lengthy and documented posting history on this forum to include activities that fit the said "forbidden verb's" definition with precision. As a poster here he:
(1) "observe(d)...persistently" the activities of (2) "a person," in this case being a celebrity former POW, by actively posting upon, and coming to dominate in posting frequency, an abnormally high number of threads, possibly in the hundreds, pertaining to that said former POW celebrity over the course of barely a few months. In doing so he exhibited, through the frequency of both threads and posts upon those threads, that he was doing so (3) "especially out of obsession." He further exhibited a strong degree of (4) "derangement" upon the same subject by posting in excess of a thousand overtly hostile, rude, and intentionally inflamatory posts to dozens if not hundreds of other freepers who so much as even slightly differed in their own personal opinions of that same said former POW celebrity. If anyone disagrees with this characterization I (1) ask that they clarify the reasons as to why the "forbidden verb" does not apply to his very real and very well known behavior as I have described and (2) make it known to the dictionary authors that their commonly accepted definition is deficient in portraying what they believe to be a central feature of the "real" definition of that same "forbidden verb."
Odd. The #3pet lunatic apparently believes that (a) no reason exists to alert the moderators to the return of a known disrupter who has been previously banned over a dozen times under equally many pseudonyms, and (b) that doing so while simultaneously noting his clicker-happy abuse of the abuse button is somehow contradictory. By that same illogic, I suppose it would be wrong for to alert the police of an armed robbery in progress since I have previously complained about their exceedingly high propensity to dispense parking tickets.
And you didn't answer the question, choirboy.
You said the South was morally obliged to release Union prisoners under the circumstances, and you added some mustard to your statement, calling Southerners some names in the process.
So what was the North's excuse for all those deaths?
They had the resources. They had room. They had enough of everything.
Okay, the British "puttings down" among the Scots borderlands and among the Irish after the Boyne would be another couple of cases.
Every time Lincoln opened his mouth from 1854 to 1865, how about? The issue of chattel slavery was his political lodestar from the moment he reentered the public arena in 1854.
I can't believe you're trying to play dumb about this -- that is just disingenuous. Bad faith will get you nowhere.
Yeah, you are. You're combative and distortive in reply, you're disingenuous, and then you complain everyone else does the stuff you do.
The people you scorn and scoff at would make two of you, lightweight.
I dunked you, and you wouldn't take your beating. You're just a punk from Chicago with a big attitude and a flair for baiting people. Alfa mike foxtrot, I'm done with you. You can join Wlat on twit filter.
<sneck>
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