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."
They were left alone until they fired on Sumter.
...slavery would've died a natural death,...
Decades later. You must not think slavery is much of a crime against humanity if you think that it's OK for it to go on for another hundred years.
in fact many Southerners were trying to figure out what to do with the slaves once they were freed.
Their Declarations said they intended to keep it going forever.
Don't believe me, go research it for yourself. As to your illusion that all the wicked Southerners wanted to perpetuate slavery - think again.
I don't have to think again, I can simply read the South's own official word, and their official word in the Declarations said the whole purpose of secession was to perpetuate slavery.
How could that be true when only 10% of the Southern populace owned any? So then what would make a white backwoods Southerner fight for the Confederacy? His rights of self-determination was what the driving force was.
No, he fought because they were down there. That's what made secession such a crime. The peasants fought for the criminals for a cause which would not have benefitted them even if they'd won.
What you Yankee idiots can't stand is the fact that you did repudiate the cornerstone of American ideology in 1865 and hand over all the States to bigger government.
What do you mean "what we can't stand"? Things went perfectly considering there was a war. We won. We established freedom. We defeated all the little dictators (those who drove secession) of the South. It doesn't get any better than that.
You hide behind the supposed cloak of moral righteousness to cover up your aggressive bullying of the Southern states.
I'm proud that the north agressively bullied the little dictators after Sumter was fired upon. Death to tyrants!
You think you have it all sewn up, but if you would take the time to study what the Founders' intended you would find that you are wrong. You say "Well the Supreme Court ruled that the unilateral secession of the States was illegal." I however, take my cue from the Founders', and I quote Thomas Jefferson.
I've never said secession was illegal. I've said that the way they did it was illegal. Article IV, Section 1 lays out the procedure for states to prove their acts. The South didn't follow the Constitution.
"[T]he germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary." --Thomas Jefferson Meaning this - "The overarching issue is that the system of government envisioned by our Founders and defended in The Federalist Papers -- a government "to ... establish Justice," a republic where "we, the people" would elect representatives who were to be held accountable by an independent judiciary -- has devolved into little more than a system of government by judicial decree. Alas, our Founders expected judges to honor our constitution; to be constitutional constructionists bound by the letter of that venerable document; to be above the whims of democratic elections that would, inevitably, politicize the courts. But once an activist judge begins, in the words of that stalwart old Sen. Sam Ervin, to "interpret the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it," our Constitution is, in effect, rendered null and void. No sooner had judicial activists begun "interpreting" the constitution such that it comported with their political agenda, than the courts became political instruments. Elected officials were thereafter chosen based upon who they'd appoint to the courts, knowing that those appointments would reflect a particular political agenda. Thomas Jefferson warned of the potential tyranny of the "despotic branch": "Over the Judiciary department, the Constitution [has] deprived [the people] of their control. ... The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will. ... The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch. ... It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power [the judiciary] is independent of the nation. ... It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression...that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped." - The Federalist, 04-08 Digest You can't argue with the Founders' they knew what they wanted, and you and the rest of the Yankee ilk denied the States that vision under the noble guise of "Freeing the slaves". The war was really "to preserve the Union" was it not? And in doing so you all nullified the 9th, and 10th Amendments to the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and in effect - the Constitution as it was explained in the following quote -"...[T]he States will retain, under the proposed Constitution, a very extensive portion of active sovereignty..." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45 "Indeed, virtually all has been usurped. Jefferson, in his great wisdom knew that human nature being what it is, judges would eventually abandon the plain language of the Constitution." - The Federalist 04-08 Digest
Secede if you want, but follow the Constitution when you do.
But what the hell, you trashtalkers won and all the "People" lost.
No, freedom was established for 4 million people. A very good outcome.
So you can still wallow in your self-righteous putridness by deluding yourself with the following phrase "It was for the good of the Country". But then how many tyrannical abuses have been committed under that phrase?
There was no tyranny here. You seceded, you attacked, we responded, the south's little tyrannists (those who drove secession) were defeated, slaves were freed. Like I said, it doesn't get any better than that.
And how many are still being attempted today? Activist judges with their "Gays can marry", and the 10 Commandments cannot be placed in state office mall. Seems to this "neo-confederate" redneck that you turds got it all wrong all those years ago. You made the Federal government bigger, and the States (ergo the People) less powerful. It isn't about slavery, and never was ... its about the right of self determination.
Actually, it was the South that voted for Democrats in all those decades that they overexpanded the powers of the federal government. They voted for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson. They wanted every bit of the bigger federal government these three were able to dish out to them.
Lastly I'll leave you with this, I served for 20 years to defend the Constitution of the United States, and I'm not relenquished from that oath. But in trying to educate you to another view, I still serve -"The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing." --James Madison
And you should get your facts right then. The South seceded for the tyranny of slavery as clearly declared in their Declarations. The South voted Democrat in all those decades the Democrats turned this nation into a welfare state, from the 1910s through the 1970s.
I'll leave you with this from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Can you prove that there were thousands of "conduct prejudicial" cases that were actually rapes?
It's not as if he's a novice on the subject, Lowry authored Tarnished Eagles: The Court-Martial of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War Tarnished Scalpels: The Court-Martials of Fifty Union Surgeons Swamp Doctor: The Diary of a Union Surgeon in the Virginia and North Carolina Marshes The Attack on Taranto: Blueprint for Pearl Harbor Curmudgeons, Drunkards, and Outright Fools: Courts-Martial of Civil War Union Colonels Don't Shoot That Boy! Abraham Lincoln and Military Justice
A very biased author, it appears. Where is his stories of Confederate malfeasants?
And refering to the rapes you report by Confederates - that was the "bait". Despite NOT being documented in the Confederate Records which they researched, you located some not documented. Thank you for proving my point for me.
So you say they didn't happen?! Man you are more delusional than I thought! All that documentation is fake?! Why you your documentation real and mine fake? You guys are out there, really out there. lol
Still smarting from the whoopings I gave you too, I see. LOL
U.S. Const, Art 4, Sec 1, Cl 1:
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.
U.S. Const, Art 4, Sec 1, Cl 2:
And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
By what general laws did Congress prescribe the Manner in which an act of secession be proved? What procedures were prescribed? To the best of my knowledge, no such procedures have ever existed.
What prescribed procedures, if any, were not followed?
An assertion that the failing of the secessionist states was procedural appears to concede that secession was lawful and constitutional. Were secession unlawful or unconstititutional, there could be no proper constitutional procedure.
Exactly my point. The South didn't allow the Congress to prescribe the general laws that would've proved the South's secession. If the Southern legislators would've went to the Congress and said they intended to secede and needed to enact the general laws to prove that secession, then there would not have been the messy separation if the Congress would've went along with it.
What prescribed procedures, if any, were not followed? An assertion that the failing of the secessionist states was procedural appears to concede that secession was lawful and constitutional.
It was not lawful because they didn't allow the Congress to prescribe the manner to prove it in accordance with Article IV, Section 1.
Were secession unlawful or unconstititutional, there could be no proper constitutional procedure.
I've never said secession was illegal. The manner in which the South seceded was illegal though. In any case, they started the war anyway, so they technically weren't taken to war because of secession, but because of an attack against the United States.
You aren't too bright in leveling this kind of criticism toward me since your own posting history can be looked at. In the last few months, I've posted extensively on the subjects of:
the JFK assassination
Nascar
Lynch
Kerry's Purple Hearts
the men who Killed Jesus
Stern
migrations of peoples
Nixon/Deep Throat
Kerry vs. Edwards
Bryant's alleged victim
drug dealers
forest policy
immigration
border security
free trade
labor and wages
offshoring
the quest for Saddam
Saddam's connections to terrorism
miracles in the bible
off the top of my head. Now, what does one see when they look at you posting history?: Civil War, Civil War, light rail, Civil War, civil War, Civil War, light rail, Civil War.... You narrow little mind just can't handle more than two subjects it would appear (and you're totally screwed upon one of them). Either that or you're obsessive compulsive. Probably both. lol
(Now go run off and post a couple of sentences on about 7 threads to try to cover up your recent posting history like last time...LOL)
I accept your concession that the procedures that you said were not followed, in fact, did not exist.
I've never said secession was illegal.
[#3Fan] I accept your concession that there was nothing inherently illegal about an act of secession.
[#3Fan] The manner in which the South seceded was illegal though.
Something is not illegal unless there is a law against it. You have just conceded such law did not exist.
[#3Fan] In any case, they started the war anyway, so they technically weren't taken to war because of secession, but because of an attack against the United States.
Actually, orders to violate the existing armistice were issued within 8 days of Lincoln's inauguration.
March 12, 1861
To Captain I. Vogdes
First Artillery, U.S. Army
[in USS Brooklyn]
"At the first opportunity, you will land your company, reinforce Fort Pickens, and hold the same till further orders, etc."
[This order was received by Capt. Vogdes on March 31, 1861]
U. S. TRANSPORT ATLANTIC,
[New York,] April 6, 1861 -- 2k p. m.Hon. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State:
DEAR SIR: By great exertions, within less than six days from the time the subject was broached in the office of the President, a war steamer sails from this port; and the Atlantic, built under contract to be at the service of the United States in case of war, will follow this afternoon with 500 troops, of which one company is sappers and miners, one a mounted battery. The Illinois will follow on Monday with the stores which the Atlantic could not hold.
While the mere throwing of a few men into Fort Pickens may seem a small operation, the opening of a campaign is a great one.
Unless this movement is supported by ample supplies and followed up by the Navy it will be a failure. This is the beginning of the war which every statesman and soldier has foreseen since the passage of the South Carolina ordinance of secession. You will find the Army and the Navy clogged at the head with men, excellent patriotic men, men who were soldiers and sailors forty years ago, but who now merely keep active men out of the places in which they could serve the country.
If you call out volunteers you have no general to command. The general born, not made, is yet to be found who is to govern the great army which is to save the country, if saved it can be. Colonel Keyes has shown intelligence, zeal, activity, and I look for a high future for him.
England took six months to get a soldier to the Crimea. We were from May to September in getting General Taylor before Monterey. Let us be supported; we go to serve our country, and our country should not neglect us or leave us to be strangled in tape, however red.
Respectfully,
M. C. MEIGS.
Yes they did exist. The first step was to allow the Congress to prescribe the general rules for the South to prove their secession. The South refused to follow this first step.
[#3Fan] I accept your concession that there was nothing inherently illegal about an act of secession.
What concession? If I never said that secession was illegal, there's nothing to concede.
Something is not illegal unless there is a law against it. You have just conceded such law did not exist.
Article IV, Section 1 did exist and it said the Congress would decide how the South would prove their secession. The South refused to follow this rule.
Actually, orders to violate the existing armistice were issued within 8 days of Lincoln's inauguration.
Sumter was fired upon, there's no getting around that.
March 12, 1861 To Captain I. Vogdes First Artillery, U.S. Army [in USS Brooklyn] "At the first opportunity, you will land your company, reinforce Fort Pickens, and hold the same till further orders, etc." [This order was received by Capt. Vogdes on March 31, 1861] LINK U. S. TRANSPORT ATLANTIC, [New York,] April 6, 1861 -- 2k p. m. Hon. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State: DEAR SIR: By great exertions, within less than six days from the time the subject was broached in the office of the President, a war steamer sails from this port; and the Atlantic, built under contract to be at the service of the United States in case of war, will follow this afternoon with 500 troops, of which one company is sappers and miners, one a mounted battery. The Illinois...
Woo hoo!
...will follow on Monday with the stores which the Atlantic could not hold. While the mere throwing of a few men into Fort Pickens may seem a small operation, the opening of a campaign is a great one. Unless this movement is supported by ample supplies and followed up by the Navy it will be a failure. This is the beginning of the war which every statesman and soldier has foreseen since the passage of the South Carolina ordinance of secession. You will find the Army and the Navy clogged at the head with men, excellent patriotic men, men who were soldiers and sailors forty years ago, but who now merely keep active men out of the places in which they could serve the country. If you call out volunteers you have no general to command. The general born, not made, is yet to be found who is to govern the great army which is to save the country, if saved it can be. Colonel Keyes has shown intelligence, zeal, activity, and I look for a high future for him. England took six months to get a soldier to the Crimea. We were from May to September in getting General Taylor before Monterey. Let us be supported; we go to serve our country, and our country should not neglect us or leave us to be strangled in tape, however red. Respectfully, M. C. MEIGS.
It was federal property. We could do as we wished.
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