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."
The Constitution says the Congress may enact laws for states to prove their acts and the effect thereof. There was no limit on the number of laws and the fact that secession would have effects other than, say, marriage means that the South broke the law when they wouldn't allow the Congress to do as the Constitution allowed it.
The Congress did decide how the legislative act of a state is proved.
There was no limit on the number of laws and the fact that secession would've had different effects than, say, marriages means that the South broke the law when they wouldn't allow the Congress to prescribe laws for secession.
By choosing adopt your own interpretation of the Constitution, and to ignore legal authorities, the relevant act of Congress, and the relevant decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, you have left yourself as lost as Jessica Lynch navigating in the desert.
In other words, you are saying to not read the Constitution but to go by what someone else says it says. Sorry, the the accurate way to know what the Constitution says is to simply read it first hand and it says that the Congress can prescribe laws and determine the effect thereof.
He claimed Sherman's men committed thousands of rapes. All he can come up with are about 370 for the entire war and all armies. Divide 370 into all armies and 4 years and Shermans men probably didn't have more than a few. Considering the Confederates also raped their women as they went, Sherman's men don't look out of the ordinary.
Legislatures commissioned the Declarations.
Can you show me where arms were going to be delivered? Can you link me to the signed armistice?
"Your attention is also called to the reports which come to me directly and from innumerable sources of great atrocities committed by your troops ..."
"... committing rapes [plural] on the negroes and such like things ..."
"... quartered in the negro huts for weeks, debauching the females ... [not a solitary incident]"
"A number of cases of atrocious rape by these men ..."
Your reading comprhension skills are pretty weak. Is English a second language?
Is Lee also a war criminal also since his troops were also raping Confederate women?
No. It was not his policy to direct his men to loot, plunder, murder as a war measure. Please cite such orders if you believe otherwise.
But I post the following as being indicitive of the Yankee/Union sentiments, and of their arresting Confederates for failure to pray for Caesar Lincoln:
"I attended Saint Paul's Church on Sunday morning and when Steward omitted to read the prayer for the President of the United States as required by the church service I arose and respectfully requested him to do so. He paying no attention to my request I again requested him to read the prayer with the same result. Immediately Captain Farnsworth, of the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, who was present and to me an entire stranger, arose and demanded that he should read the prayer. Still refusing Captain Farnsworth ordered his sergeant to arrest and take him to the quarters of Colonel Farnsworth, of the same regiment, which order was immediately executed. Fearing a collision between the congregation ad the military present I immediately directed Captain Farnsworth to hold him only as a state prisoner subject to your order. "
"The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, the Official Records, Ser. 2, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 218"The preacher McFarland has the reputation of being a strong rebel. Major Davis closed his church because he refused to pray for the President and paid no attention to Governor Fletcher's order, although notified of it."
The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, the Official Records, Ser. 1, Vol. 48, Pt. 2, p. 250.
"A meddling Yankee troubles himself about every body's matters except his own and repents of everybody's sins except his own." - D. H. Hill
It's like a cat playing with a mouse. We have ZOT threads where the mods allow us to play with trolls. Here we have a person that considers anything written refuting yankee dogma to be unreliable, even when from the Chief Justice of Georgia. This same man thinks that attempted murder is nothing, and that rape and war crimes are allowable for yankees, and whose reading comprehension skills are questionable.
They claim similarity in that political ties were unilaterally breached, however most people would expect that His Majesty's Loyal Subjects understood the illegality of their actions, whereas the People of the thirteen independent North American States probably had little or no expectation the extent to which the Republicans would go to hold power.
All that is to say that his Majesty's Loyal Subjects knew they would have to shoot their way to independence. The people of the thirteen independent States had already been granted it.
I'm waiting for the book, if our library system has a copy (I refuse to spend my money on such vitriol). I would think that with all her defense of Sherman [*spit*], Sheridan, "Beast" Butler et al she's bound to have something in there.
There are innumerable sources that account the planes going into the towers, but there were still only two planes.
"... committing rapes [plural] on the negroes and such like things ..." "... quartered in the negro huts for weeks, debauching the females ... [not a solitary incident]" "A number of cases of atrocious rape by these men ..."
"A number" could be as little as three.
Your reading comprhension skills are pretty weak. Is English a second language?
At least I can count and I don't mistake 20 for "thousands".
No. It was not his policy to direct his men to loot, plunder, murder as a war measure. Please cite such orders if you believe otherwise.
A double standard. You say Sherman was a war criminal because there may have been rapes by his men, but somehow Lee isn't a war criminal when his men raped. Lee didn't have time to plunder supplies due to not spending hardly any time in the North. If Lee could've attacked supplies to win the war, he would've.
But I post the following as being indicitive of the Yankee/Union sentiments, and of their arresting Confederates for failure to pray for Caesar Lincoln: "I attended Saint Paul's Church on Sunday morning and when Steward omitted to read the prayer for the President of the United States as required by the church service I arose and respectfully requested him to do so. He paying no attention to my request I again requested him to read the prayer with the same result. Immediately Captain Farnsworth, of the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, who was present and to me an entire stranger, arose and demanded that he should read the prayer. Still refusing Captain Farnsworth ordered his sergeant to arrest and take him to the quarters of Colonel Farnsworth, of the same regiment, which order was immediately executed. Fearing a collision between the congregation ad the military present I immediately directed Captain Farnsworth to hold him only as a state prisoner subject to your order. " "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, the Official Records, Ser. 2, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 218 "The preacher McFarland has the reputation of being a strong rebel. Major Davis closed his church because he refused to pray for the President and paid no attention to Governor Fletcher's order, although notified of it." The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, the Official Records, Ser. 1, Vol. 48, Pt. 2, p. 250.
Possible traitors should be detained.
"A meddling Yankee troubles himself about every body's matters except his own and repents of everybody's sins except his own." - D. H. Hill
You're just mad that we crushed the South's little tyrannist dictators:...slaveowners. At least we didn't try to perpetuate the tyranny of slavery. Death to Tyrants!
Murder and rape are crimes. What's laughable is your implications that the Confederates never murdered or raped. Why don't you lament the murders and rapes of the Confederates against their own people and against their own women?
Arms were to be delivered. Troops were to be landed. No armistice has ever been signed by the president of these United States to the best of my knowledge, yet many have existed. When Lincoln was informed that his orders were in violation of the armistice, he found men willing to carry them out in spite of it. It is tantamount to discovering that GW ordered Sept. 11th to get the country motiviated to war, yet Lincoln is venerated as an Amercian hero.
Get over it.
I think it's preferable than going by precedent though. One activist judge decides to break the Constitution and the whole country decides it's OK because "precedent" was set. If everyone would read the Constitution for themselves instead of going by what someone says the Constitution says, maybe our laws would more reflect the intentions of the Constitution.
Exactly. It was an act of the legislature and therefore subject to the Congress to decide how it was to be proven and the effects thereof.
He's like Je$$ee Jackson:
He's not mute
We must refute
I'm not destitute
Just a Lincoln prostitute
It seems all three of us have come independently to the same conclusion. Maybe if I translate (courtesy South Park):
When the Marklar seceeded, the Marklar formed a Marklar with the Marklar. This lasted for a few short Marklar, while the Marklar sent Marklar to negotiate the Marklar, the Marklar, and the remainder of the public Marklar. Refusing to negotiate, the Marklar violated the Marklar by attempting reinforcement of the Marklar.
All of Marklar touched off a Marklar that culminated in Marklar storming across the Marklar burning, looting, and raping Marklar they could get their Marklar on.
I'll call the lib today and see if I can get a copy as well... should be good for a few laughs. Do you suppose the daughter of one of WTS's troops will dwell long on the rapes? Tune in next week to find out.
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