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."
So once again you are back to attacking the person rather than the argument itself. For the record, I will simply note that Spooner's argument was no more "lunatic" than the famous Somersett case upon which much of it was based. Considering that the Somersett case was one of about three landmark blows to slavery on the British Isles (it is sometimes called the anti-Dred Scott case as it did the opposite), to call it lunatic is in itself, well, lunacy.
We will give you credit for a devil's advocacy, but such a contention is utter tripe.
Once again, calling the argument names does not alter its content. And again I need only note that it was no more "tripe" than Frederick Douglass, who embraced it and centered his famed abolitionist message around it.
Other than that, Spooner has a rather whimisical twist, but you neglect the full implications of his argument.
Not really. I'm fully content to take the implications as they stand. I do however doubt that you would either understand or faithfully represent those implications.
I rather doubt anyone in the ante bellum south would have bought Spooner's argument, as he voiced it as an argument against the crime of slavery.
Actually you are wrong there. As previously noted, it caused such a stir that in 1856 it was the subject of a debate on the floor of the senate. That debate is particularly interesting as it was the northerners (Henry Wilson, to be specific) who backed away from accepting the merits of Spooner's argument, not the southerners. Even more noteworthy is that Wilson did so on wholly political grounds. He made no effort to discredit the argument itself and simply started repeating that he didn't believe in it (a 19th century version of Clinton, in a way). As I noted, Senator Brown of Mississippi stated that he found the argument to be nothing short of brilliant. He also called it dangerous (and to him it was just that) but he understood and openly admitted that it was brilliant. According to Brown, "the book is ingeniously written. No mere simpleton could ever have drawn such an argument. If his premises were admitted, I should say at once that it would take a Herculean task to overthrow his argument." Naturally, Brown stated that he disputed the premises though he never specified what he believed was wrong with them.
Here is where the boats slip out from under you and you have to swim home looking, soaked to the bone.
Another amusing little allegory, but no less irrelevant than the first one. Seeing as you have yet to provide any substantial dispute of either the facts I have stated or the arguments of Spooner I have laid out for you, in part at your own request, I consider it safe to note that your boat hasn't even left the dock yet.
Well, most records place our numbers at about 900,000 and your numbers at about 2,750,000. That means it turned out to be something closer to one southerner can whip three yankees...which still leaves you at a substantial deficit.
By noting the silliness of your arbitrarily assigned and therefore meaningless story about rowboats? I think not. I don't expect any compliments from your ilk to begin with so as not to be disappointed. As for sarcasm, your self opinion in that area extends much further than your skill.
No doubt you would contend that a horse chestnut was the same thing as a chestnut horse.
Curious - another catchy yet irrelevent saying arbitrarily tossed out into this discussion, and a Lincoln one at that (he used that one to deny that he believed in black equality, you know). Is that what you pass off as a debating style? I ask because as of the present you have not even addressed my original post to you, much less any of the content in subsequent posts.
What's the reference by session and page?
I already put the copy back in my file cabinet and i'm not looking through there again tonight. The date was December 2, 1856 though so you should be able to find it with relative ease.
You do seem to have a problem with comprehension today. Both sides expected to win, but only one side did and it wasn't yours.
Does it not harken back the days when sailors lined the side of the ship and fired muskets at enemy ships? But then, the Union was not expecting an enemy fleet to engage.
After deep and prolonged thought, I have determined that the Union thought the ocean was seceding and they declared the Atlantic Ocean and inland waterways to be Enemy Belligerents and traitors and the arms were for the men on the ship to shoot the Atlantic Ocean until it submitted to the will of superior force.
[#3Fan #259] Again, they were US troops and they are to be supplied by the federal government.
Were the US troops really in the habit, for years, of getting their food from Mr. McSweeney, a Charleston butcher, under a still-unexpired Federal contract? Or did the Feds ship them C-rats direct from a warehouse in New York?
As commandant of a military post, I can only have my troops furnished with fresh beef in the manner prescribed by law, and I am compelled, therefore, with due thanks to his excellency, respectfully to decline his offer. If his suggestion is based upon a right, then I must procure the meat as we have been in the habit of doing for years, under an unexpired contract with Mr. McSweeney, a Charleston butcher, who would, I presume, if permitted, deliver the meat, &c., at this fort or at Fort Johnson, at the usual periods for such delivery, four times in ten days.-- Major Robert Anderson, Commanding Fort Sumter,
to D.F. Jamison
Charleston, S.C., January 19, 1861
[NS 358] Only one side was surprised by the outcome of the War of Southern Rebellion, and it wasn't mine
Since the war was won by waging war against civilian property and civilians (mostly women, children, and elderly men), I thought you were saying by the above comments that was the plan from the beginning (i.e. we never doubted the outcome).
Apparently the message was that the North was willing from the beginning to sell its soul for victory, they just didn't have to until late in the war.
The "ship's men" needed arms. Talk about lost at sea.
[#3Fan #282] The Confederates had attacked ships before any agreement was made between the Buchanan administration and the rebels, so they had a thing about attacking ships.
The "ship's men" needed arms to return fire expected from the shore batteries.
Picture it in your mind and try not to snork coffee all over your keyboard.
Yeah. It is more like a divorce.
Sore loser.
Where?
Well, you admit the 'one southerner can whip 10 Yankees' was wrong, and you point out that one southerner couldn't whip three Yankees, either. Y'all got yerself in a cat fight y'all jess couldn't win, no way no how. All things considered that was pretty dumb of y'all, wasn't it?
Slingshots weren't available? Maybe the "ship's men" needed body armour as well to deflect those cannonballs.
I read the statement the same way you did. It was either that or concede.
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