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."
I don't wish for the demise of my fellow Americans like you neoconfederates do.
Who did this? When?
You say you can't link to something that may or may not have been posted three years ago, heck you can't even understand the citations you italicize as you reply to them.
You said it's unfortunate that lights will stay lit in the northeast. What did you mean if you didn't wish for their demise?
You say you can't link to something that may or may not have been posted three years ago, heck you can't even understand the citations you italicize as you reply to them.
Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't believe my lying eyes.
Someone who lives in the past and sees the South's fight for slavery as virtuous and Lincoln's struggle to preserve the Union as evil.
I meant that there were no conservatives left in the Northeast to "turn the lights off" when the left. If you've never heard this before, "turn off the lights" is a phrase commonly used to indicate that the last person has left or is leaving. For instance, during a mass exodus from my place of employment due to higher paying jobs across town, people would say, "Last one out, turn off the lights."
It is common where I'm from for the last person to leave a room to turn off the lights. Perhaps people aren't taught this in the Land of Lincoln.
How you got from that to wishing others dead is your deal.
If you need help with other common sayings or phrases, let me know. I'd rather explain them than have your imagination run wild (as it has in this case).
free dixie,sw
GREAT GUY!
free dixie,sw
History is set. You are entitled to your own opinions, but the facts are not malleable to your twisted vision.
A viable explanation. But still the post you responded to was hate-filled and you didn't repudiate anything in it. I don't think it's a nice thing to say that some states have no conservatives. We have conservatives on this site from every state.
It is common where I'm from for the last person to leave a room to turn off the lights. Perhaps people aren't taught this in the Land of Lincoln.
I saw your post as saying it's unfortunate the lights will be left on. If what you meant was that the last person out should shut out the lights, you just repeated what moonman said at the end of his statement, which there is no reason to do. Of course when moonman made that particular statement it was understandable because it was in it's natural form. Your response didn't put that saying in it's natural form and was unrecognizable if what you say is true that you were repeating the saying moonman made. I gave you the benefit of the doubt now with your explanation.
How you got from that to wishing others dead is your deal.
With the things you guys say about northeasterners, it would be nothing out of the norm.
If you need help with other common sayings or phrases, let me know. I'd rather explain them than have your imagination run wild (as it has in this case).
Put them in their regular form and there won't be any confusion. A saying is not a saying if you don't say it the way it's traditionally said.
I'm not the one twisting history, I cited the Declarations of Secession. You guys are saying that Lincoln was solely motivated by money and power which is absolutely delusional and ridiculous. You refuse to acknowledge both sides without being prompted. So deception by omission is your game when you don't outright lie. (By "you" I mean neoconfederates)
I used the same phrasing the author did.
A cyclone of popular indignation was raised against Gen. Sherman as he led his army through Georgia, and there were no "Union men" left in his track.Besides the gentleman who was choked in Milledgeville, other old men--non-combatants who had nothing to do with the war, further than to indulge in that sympathy which nature prompted--were seized and brutally tortured to compel them to deliver up treasure which they were supposed to possess. Judge Hiram Warner was hung until life was nearly extinct. It was suspected that he had money, and this was what these "truly loyal" "Union Restorers" were most eager to secure. A girl eighteen years of age was stripped and beaten to force her to tell where her uncle, who was also her guardian, had concealed her money and his own. It is recorded with pride that this tenderly reared Georgia girl endured the torture, but never divulged the secret! Weak old men and defenseless women and children were in some instances driven from their homes, their dwellings fired, and these non-combatants subjected to insults and privations. For years the landscape in Sherman's track was disfigured with lone chimneys, which were called "Sherman's Sentinels".
Frances Letcher Mitchell, Georgia Land and People, Atlanta, Ga.: The Franklin Printing & Publishing Co. (1900) , p. 365.
Good! Thought provoking for sure.
You cited nothing.
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition." --Thomas Jefferson
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas Jefferson
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28
"The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation." --Alexander Hamilton
"...[T]he States will retain, under the proposed Constitution, a very extensive portion of active sovereignty..." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just (meaning limited) powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." -The Declaration of Independence (The cornerstone of American Ideology)
"It doesn't take a great legal mind nor a genius to understand the meaning of the 2nd amendment. It only takes the ability to read what our forefathers said the meaning is by reading their words in the Federalist papers and other documents, and a modicum of common sense. If you believe what the people who would take your rights from you say, then you are no better than a sheep who needs a shepherd to lead you around and tell you what you need and what's best for you. If you are one of these folks, don't bother trying to understand the obvious, because it will only confuse you." -Stan Jordan
Insert Constitution and Bill of Rights where it says 2nd Amendment.
Anything else you need to know Bunky? I think the Founders' stated it quite clearly, and Lincoln disregarded what they intended.
"read my lips: your racist puke bears no relevance to a FREE Republic"
Perhaps you should change your screen name to DWEEB, for the record, I'm not a racist, but I am against those who would have the government interfere with the right of self-determination. I spent 20 years of my life to protect that right, and it is you who should go back and study up about the Constitutional debates and the Founders' intent.
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