Posted on 07/06/2006 7:01:52 AM PDT by SquirrelKing
Actually, the anti slavery yankees fought right next to the black regiments, notably in the battle of the crater, and many accepted officer positions in those regiments eventhough that was a certain death sentence if captured.
Yes, the Oh so brave confederates murdered the white officers of the black regiments.
When I was at West Point, I was taught that it was the southern officers that "silenced" the first black cadets. Jack Pershing suffered during his career from the bigotry of southern officers because he has served as an officer in the black regiments (say 9th and 10th CAV).
The other reasons why the Confederate blacks were not in separate regiments was the blacks needed a white advocate close by their side. I don't doubt the loyalty of black to white, or white to black in those situations. Humans we all are, no?
face it, what your posting is FALSE. i will "call you on it" each time you LIE!
the FACT is that BG Stand Watie in February of 1861 had GROSS ASSETS of LESS than US $100.oo. he was so POOR that he couldn't afford to buy either a CSA uniform OR a horse, so he pinned his rank on his civilian clothes & had to borrow a "good,young, red mule" from a cousin.
wherever you are getting your "data" from is BAD information & i suspect KNOWING false on the part of the "source".
free dixie,sw
So you admit that he had motive to please the white slave powers to turn his financial situation around?
like MOST things said/done by the "lincoln gang of merrily corrupt politicians", those "guarantees" were BOGUS & worth NOTHING.
the FACTS are that the dixie war for FREEDOM was NOT about "preserving the peculiar institution" for ANYONE except the 5-6% of southerners, who actually OWNED slaves. HARDLY anyone else cared a damn about the slavers"right to trade in human flesh".
face it, DM, what you believe is a PACK of KNOWING LIES, which are PROPAGANDA out of the MOST extreme, lunatic fringe of REVISIONIST historiography. there is nothing more,nothing less to this situation than that.
frankly, NO traditional scholar would do anything but laugh AT you, if you said those things in their presence.
free dixie,sw
The Cherokees, linguistic kinsmen of the Iroquois, numbered about 30,000 in 1605 and lived in what is now Georgia, Tennessee and western North Carolina. Smallpox and other diseases struck often in the 1700s. By 1800, the Cherokee population was probably about 16,000. In the Georgia Compact of 1802, Georgia gave up the land that became Alabama and Mississippi with the understanding that the federal government would force the Cherokees west. The Cherokees refused, and Washington stalled. Most of the tribe decided that assimilation gave them the best hope to stay in their homeland. Cherokees began to take on white ways, seeking education, material profit and cultural interchange. Assimilation, though, didn't work as planned. Growing economic power on the part of the Cherokees enraged white Georgians, who redoubled expulsion efforts.
To some natives the solution was obvious, and one-third of the tribe had moved west of the Mississippi River by 1820. They were eventually pushed all the way to what would become Oklahoma. The bulk of the tribe went to court, and the debate over relocation simmered. Meanwhile, the tribe (which numbered about 14,000 in the Southeast in the mid-1820s) began to suffer a debilitating internal split. Perhaps 20 percent of the Cherokee people successfully adapted to white lifestyles, some becoming affluent Southern slave-owning planters.
Among the most prominent slave-owning Cherokee aristocrats were the Watie and Ridge families. The faction of the tribe headed by the Ridges and Waties owned most of the estimated 1,600 slaves held by tribesmen. Cherokee slave owners tended to work side by side with their chattels, children were born free, and intermarriage was not forbidden. Only about 8 percent of tribal members (1 percent of full-blooded families) actually owned slaves. Because of the influence of mission schools, many Cherokees were intensely anti-slavery. Poorer than the Ridge-Watie faction, the traditionalists had neither the money nor the inclination to move West.
In 1827, the Cherokees created their first central government to better deal with the white world. At a convention the next year, John Ross was elected principal chief--a post he held until his death in 1866. Ross, born in 1796 in Tennessee, was mostly Scottish, having only one-eighth Cherokee blood. But he was Cherokee to the core and enormously popular.
His rivals turned out to be the sons of old-time full bloods. Major Ridge and his brother, David Watie (or Oowatie), were descended from warrior chiefs. Both men married genteel white women and rose in society, dressing and acting like planters. The family was close, and family members wrote more often and better than most whites of the time. Some 2,000 family letters were found in 1919. Following Sequoyah's development of a syllabary in 1821, Cherokees took enthusiastically to reading and writing. When Stand Watie began writing is not certain, but his only surviving letters date to the Civil War.
Stand Watie was born in Georgia, probably in 1806; his early life is obscure. He was educated at a mission school, but less thoroughly than his brother Elias Boudinot, who was born Buck Watie but took the name of a white benefactor. Elias became a newspaper editor, and Stand held the job briefly during his brother's absence. Stand Watie married several times, losing a number of wives and children to disease. The family did not record dates and details.
Watie's rivalry with John Ross, whose bywords were unity and opposition to removal, slowly began to grow after 1832. Most of the Cherokees who had not moved West in the removal treaties of 1817 and 1819 continued to be against relocation, and Ross was their spokesman. The Ridge faction thought relocation to be in the best interests of the people. Major Ridge, a full-blooded Cherokee, and his son John Ridge felt that the educated and wealthy Cherokees could probably survive in Georgia but that the others would be led into drunkenness and then cheated and oppressed. War would be the inevitable result. Each faction thought the other was corrupt. The Ridge-Watie party allied itself with U.S. President Andrew Jackson and his supporters, and connived behind the backs of the Cherokee councilmen, who usually opposed them.
The atmosphere became poisonous as rival Cherokee delegations went to Washington, D.C., with different plans, and President Jackson played both sides against each other--fostering allegations of bribe-taking. In 1835 the issue came to a head. Ridge's faction helped draft a treaty that would require Cherokee removal west of the Mississippi in return for about $5 million. Ross and the council rejected the treaty, holding out for $20 million and other terms; they would not move on Ridge-Watie terms. By October it was clear that most Cherokees sided with Ross. It was also clear that the government would not pay $20 million.
Then, in December 1835, the Ridge-Watie party committed what amounted to suicide. Major Ridge, John Ridge and the Watie brothers were the only prominent Cherokees to sign the Treaty of New Echota, in Georgia, on December 29. A free-blanket offer attracted some 300 to 500 people--probably 3 percent of the tribe--to the signing place. Only about 80 to 100 people eligible to vote were present. Ross and the legitimate council were nowhere near. The treaty was roundly denounced--even by such unlikely allies as Davy Crockett and Daniel Webster. Cherokees in the East had to leave the Southeast in return for a payment of $15 million and 800,000 acres in Indian Territory (in what would become northeastern Oklahoma and part of Kansas). The Cherokees were to be removed within two years. The Ridge-Watie faction ("treaty party") thought the terms generous--that they had gotten a good price.
Whether or not the terms were generous, the treaty was a disgrace, as it was opposed by some 90 percent of the tribe. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the treaty invalid, but President Jackson refused to void it. The Martin van Buren administration did likewise. Ross and his "anti-treaty party" fought a losing court battle, and they were not well-prepared for removal when it began. In 1837, only about 2,000 Cherokees went West; most of the others held out, perhaps not believing they would be forced to leave their homeland.
The so-called Trail of Tears (the Cherokees called it Nunna daul Tsuny, "Trail Where We Cried") came in 1838, when Federal troops and Georgia militia removed the holdout tribe members to Indian Territory (about 1,000 avoided capture by hiding in the mountains). As many as 4,000 Cherokees may have died from disease, hunger, cold and deliberate brutality by volunteer Georgia troops and regulars led by a reluctant General Winfield Scott. The Ridge-Watie parties had been among the first to depart to the new country, arriving in 1837. They had gone in comfort and had located themselves on choice Indian Territory land. Because most of the Cherokees who followed suffered during the migration and after their arrival in the West, resentment against the Ridges and Waties grew.
Historians disagree about the level of brutality on the Trail of Tears, but most historians agree the suffering and death continued in the West, mainly because of epidemic diseases. And historians also agree that the treaty was invalid, the military high-handed, the preparations and logistics inefficient, and the intent rapacious. The Cherokees certainly thought so, and feelings against the treaty party ran higher and higher. Ironically, Major Ridge himself had helped write the death penalty into the Cherokee Constitution for those selling tribal land without authorization. Many years earlier, he had killed a fellow chief named Doublehead who was convicted by the tribal council of such a land deal. Clearly, Ridge knew the penalty.
More than 100 members of the anti-treaty party met at Double Springs on June 21 and pronounced death sentences in secret--outside the council and without vested authority--purportedly to keep John Ross from finding out about their plans. Either Ross had reached the end of his patience with his enemies--or he simply could do nothing to stop the killings.
Death came early and with ritual touches for John Ridge at his Indian Territory home on Honey Creek, near the northwest corner of Arkansas. About 30 killers dragged him from his bed and into his front yard around dawn on June 22. They knifed him repeatedly before his distraught family. Old Major Ridge, John's father, was ambushed a few hours later while riding past a small bluff on the road to Washington County, Ark. Rifle-toting bushwhackers opened fire, hitting him five times. Boudinot, at about the same time, was going about his daily work, helping a friend build a house near Park Hill, some miles from John Ridge's house. Three Cherokees approached him and told him they needed to get medicine. Because Boudinot's tribal responsibilities included providing medicine, he followed, unsuspecting. One of the men quickly dropped behind him and stabbed him in the back. Another axed him in the head.
Boudinot's brother, Stand Watie, was also apparently marked for death that day. But Boudinot's cries on being stabbed were heard by friends. The youth who delivered the warning to Watie was probably the son of the Reverend S.A. Worcester, a family friend. Watie's store was close to John Ridge's home.
Because John Ross was proud of his ties to the average Cherokee and was very popular among them, he was in a difficult position. He repudiated the murders, but he did not turn the killers in and may actually have hidden some of them. He denied complicity and does not appear to have been directly involved. Former President Jackson wrote to Watie and condemned "the outrageous and tyrannical conduct of John Ross and his self-created council....I trust the President will not hesitate to employ all his rightfull [sic] power to protect you and your party from the tyranny and murderous schemes of John Ross."
Jackson didn't curb his habit of speaking from both sides of his mouth. He urged Watie to make peace but endorsed seeking vengeance if Watie didn't get what he wanted. Watie formed a band of warriors, and Ross complained to Washington that he had to go armed among friends. The government ordered Watie to disband his followers, to little avail.
Until 1846 the Cherokees were involved in a murderous internal feud. As chief of his segment of the tribe, Watie authorized retaliation, and vengeance murders were common. Legend has encrusted Watie's activities, giving him heroic courage and coolness and deadly fighting skills. His most documented exploit occurred in an Arkansas grocery where he confronted James Foreman, an alleged killer of Major Ridge. The two men had threatened each other frequently, but this day they bought each other a drink. A challenge was quickly issued, and the drinks were hurled aside. Foreman had a big whip, which he used against Watie. Watie stabbed Foreman when Foreman tried to hit him with a board. He then shot and killed the escaping Foreman. Watie successfully argued self-defense at his trial.
The tribal situation was brutal. In one letter to Watie, a relative recounted family news that included four treaty-related killings (and two scalpings), three hangings for previous killings and two kidnappings. The letter said that intertribal murders were so common "the people care as little about hearing these things as they would hear of the death of a common dog."
The Cherokees made internal peace in 1846--Watie and Ross reputedly shaking hands--and sought to rebuild tribal prosperity in the West. Times were improving until the Civil War. Stand Watie was a member of the Cherokee Tribal Council from 1845 to 1861. He declared his support for the Confederacy early on, but Ross resisted at first. The Confederacy was successful in seeking alliances with Comanches, Seminoles, Osages, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Creeks. Ross was finally forced into the Confederate alliance.
Watie raised a cavalry regiment and served the South with distinction and enthusiasm. Another Cherokee regiment served under John Drew. In all, about 3,000 Cherokee men served the Confederacy during the war. Watie was beloved by die-hard Confederates. Judge James M. Keyes of Pryor, Okla., said: "I regard General Stand Watie as one of the bravest and most capable men, and the foremost soldier ever produced by the North American Indians. He was wise in council and courageous in action."
Watie fought most of the war at the head of a band of very irregular cavalry. He led with dash and imagination as they ambushed trains, steamships and Union cavalry. He also fought in one major battle.
On March 7-8, 1862, Watie was part of Confederate Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn's army of 16,000 men. They were in the region of Fayatteville, Ark., trying to encircle the right flank of Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis' 12,000-man army. Curtis, who was on the defensive about 30 miles northeast of Fayatteville at Pea Ridge, discovered the plan and spoiled the offensive. Van Dorn withdrew after two days of stubborn fighting, but Pea Ridge cemented Watie's reputation. He captured a Union battery after a dramatic charge, and also proved skillful in withdrawal, helping to prevent a disaster. One of his soldiers said: "I don't know how we did it but Watie gave the order, which he always led, and his men could follow him into the very jaws of death. The Indian Rebel Yell was given and we fought like tigers three to one. It must have been that mysterious power of Stand Watie that led us on to make the capture against such odds."
After the Battle of Pea Ridge, Drew's regiment deserted the Confederacy. Watie, though, stuck to the Southern cause. Untrained as a soldier, he had good sense and cunning and was an effective guerrilla. "Stand Watie and his men, with the Confederate Creeks and others, scoured the country at will, destroying or carrying off everything belonging to the loyal Cherokee," wrote 19th-century anthropologist James Mooney. Watie was promoted to brigadier general on May 10, 1864, and on June 23, 1865, was the last Southern general to capitulate. Watie returned to absolute devastation. (According to Mooney, the Cherokee population during the war was reduced from 21,000 to 14,000.) Watie then fought some losing postwar battles. He was rebuffed in his bid for federal recognition as Cherokee chief and was also rebuffed in efforts to rebuild his fortunes.
Watie's last years were careworn as his family dropped around him. All his sons died before he died on September 9, 1871, and his two young daughters followed in 1873. But Confederate veterans and sympathetic writers kept Watie's legend alive. He became the example of devotion to "the Cause." Even enemy Cherokees came to respect his devotion to his beliefs, and "Stand" and "Watie" became common Cherokee first names.
Watie had displayed unfailing courage, devotion, constant optimism and good humor--at least according to his friends. He never, they say, had a harsh word for his family and never gave way to despair or dejection. In reality he was not a shining cavalier--his Indian troops sometimes reverted to scalping and torture. He clearly was involved in shameful political skullduggery. But he was a man who fought hard for his beliefs and stuck to his guns even when the odds were against him. He had supported two lost causes--the Ridges and then the Confederacy--but he had never given up.
http://historynet.com/we/blstandwatie/index.html
I agree that the people who thought to benefit from the rebellion were only 5 to 6 percent of the south.
You must agree that those were the people who had control of the state legislatures who rebelled, drafted the articles of secesssion, conscripted the common man into state regiments, fired on Ft. Sumpter.
The end of slavery in the south marked the end of oppression of the many by that 5 or 6 percent, at least until the end of reconstruction put many of those same people back in charge.
for once, use your common sense, instead of believing BILGE & KNOWINGLY FALSE "data". (btw, don't you CARE that smart FReepers think you aren't bright enough to tell lies from truth???)
free dixie,sw
No. He was not the Confederate version of a scalawag.
He was the indigenous version of a Confederate. (You're an engineer?)
Stand Watie saw that trying to hold on to the Georgia land was hopelessly futile in the face of white population and treachery and made one hell of a deal for his people.
His tribal adversary, Ross, wanted to keep Watie and his followers bound to a system in which they could not prosper.
If you think about it, it quite nicely parallels the union and the Confederacy.
I think you owe Stand Watie and stand watie a sincere apology.
the FACTS are that our ancestor's war was for FREEDOM, from a faraway central & increasingly corrupt government, that the AVERAGE southerner believed (RIGHTLY in my judgment!) had ceased to serve his needs & protect his interests.
southerners simply wanted to be FREE. period.end of story.
free dixie,sw
the HATERS from the "unionist coven of HATERS , fools & lunatics" are ALWAYS SELF-righteous & "persuaded of their own superiority" to other FReepers.
they NEVER admit LYING, being STUPID & PREJUDICED AND "they are always PERFECT". it's a case of (from their lofty perch) "don't confuse me with facts, as i KNOW i'm right and you are always wrong" and/or "my eyes & mind are TIGHTLY closed against anything you say, regardless of the source". (and then DYs wonder why we southrons think they are no better than the hate-FILLED & terminally IGNORANT KKK-idiots???)
free dixie,sw
Slavery was THE issue?
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so."
From Lincoln's first inaugural address
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery."
Lincoln in a 1862 letter to Horace Greeley, New York Daily Tribune editor
A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, referred to as the "Tariffs of Abominations." A compromise lowering the tariff was reached, averting secession and possibly war. The North favored protective tariffs for their manufacturing industry. The South, which exported agricultural products to and imported manufactured goods from Europe, favored free trade and was hurt by the tariffs. Plus, a northern-dominated Congress enacted laws similar to Britain's Navigation Acts to protect northern shipping interests.
Shortly after Lincoln's election, Congress passed the highly protectionist Morrill tariffs.
That's when the South seceded, setting up a new government. Their constitution was nearly identical to the US. Constitution except that it outlawed protectionist tariffs, business handouts and mandated a two-thirds majority vote for all spending measures.
BTW, 620,000 is the accepted number for WBTS killed, not 900,000.
But I don't think of you as one of the smart Freepers.
Most died from disease in any case. I have seen 620,000 as the number of Union dead. Southern dead were a smaller number.
The seccession Must not have been about Lincoln, because it happened before he took office.
It was a damn war, you dumb knobhead. You're sounding like Cindy Sheehan and John Murtha calling our soldiers in Iraq murderers.
I was taught that it was the southern officers that "silenced" the first black cadets
Well, I doubt that a yankee school would teach otherwise.
the blacks needed a white advocate close by their side
Yankees were extra cruel to blacks caught fighting for the Stars and Bars.
Humans we all are, no?
Hmmmmmmm........let me get back to ya.........
free dixie,sw
I do thank you for the correction.
I confused "Casualties" with "Deaths".
620,000 is a good estimate for "Deaths", but in the campaign from Wilderness to Cold Harbor, the South no longer collected casualty numbers. That hinders accurate study. The Southern commanders also didn't collect much data on the number of their soldiers that they murdered themselves to keep them from returning to their homes. That difference in record keeping helps perpetuate the myth of loyal southern units.
"In all, around 360,000 Union soldiers died as a direct result of the war. The Confederacy lost 260,000 dead."
Thousands Serving: killed: died: wounded: total
Civil War: Union 2,803.3: 110,070: 249,458: 275,175: 634,703:
Confederate 1,064.2: 74,524: 124,000: 137,000 +: 335,524 :
Combined 3,867.5: 184,594: 373,458: 412,175 +: 970,227:
This suggests that totals of killed, died and wounded are around 970,227.
I agree, I got confused there. You got me. congratulations.
Lincoln was elected November 6, 1860.
South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860.
Lincoln's election was no more the cause for secession than slavery; merely the catalyst.
The Constitution, at that time, did not allow the United States Congress to interfere in the states' internal affairs, which included slavery.
The Declaration of Independence states "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."
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