Posted on 05/10/2010 3:17:06 PM PDT by Davy Buck
"If Lee was a traitor (and I don't believe he was), he would be the only traitor for which a ship in the United States Navy was ever named. He would be the only traitor in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. He would be the only traitor whose image was used in a positive way to recruit military personnel to fight and win WWII. Quite an accomplishment for a "traitor", wouldn't you say. . ."
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
During WWII, we bombed the crap out of the enemy’s cities. I have never, not once, heard one of the south’s defenders on this forum suggest that it was evil to do so. And yet, Sherman was evil?
Were large numbers of our soldiers in WW II thieves and rapists? Consider Sherman's treatment of Columbia, South Carolina. From page 61 of A City Laid Waste, by William Gilmore Simms (a leading author and journalist and eyewitness to the sacking of Columbia who collected more eyewitness accounts), published a few weeks after it happened, edited by David Aiken:
Hardly had the [Union] troops reached the head of Main street, when the work of pillage was begun. Stores were broken open in the presence of thousands within the first hour of their arrival. The contents, when too cumbersome for the plunderers, were cast into the streets. Gold and silver, jewels and liquors, were eagerly sought. No attempt was made to arrest the burglars. The officers, soldiers, all, seemed to consider it a matter of course. And wo to him who carried a watch with gold chain pendant; or who wore a choice hat, or overcoat, or boots, or shoes. He was stripped by ready experts in the twinkling of an eye. It is computed that, from first to last, twelve hundred watches were transferred from the pockets of their owners to those of the robbers. Purses shared the same fate; nor was Confederate currency repudiated.
Sherman's troops had marched into town in an orderly fashion. Then when they were dismissed, wholesale robbery and plunder began and lasted the rest of the day and night. From page 64:
Sherman, at the head of his cavalry, traversed the streets everywhere – so did his officers – yet they saw nothing to rebuke or restrain. Subsequently, these officers were everywhere on foot, yet beheld nothing which required the imposition of authority. Robbery was going on at every corner – in every house – yet there was no censure, no punishment.
Sherman traversed the streets everywhere, but no censure or ounishment of the wholesale robbery going on around him? It is not my understanding that such practices were widespread in the US Army in WW II. Occassional, yes, but not widespread and observed by senior officers who did nothing to stop the thievery.
Union Captain George Whitfield Pepper says the following about the amount of looting on Sherman's campaign through Georgia and the Carolinas [Source, Personal Recollections of Sherman's Campaigns: In Georgia and the Carolinas, by George Whitfield Pepper, published by Hugh Dunne of Zanesville, Ohio, in 1866]:
There are hundreds of these mounted men with the column, and they go everywhere. Some of them are loaded down with silverware, gold coin, and other valuables. I hazard nothing in saying that three-fifths (in value) of the personal property of the country we passed through was taken.
In his book, Pepper said he was on the way into Columbia the morning after it had been burned by Sherman's men and he was met by crowds of soldiers "waving gold watches, handfuls of gold, jewelry, and rebel shinplasters [rb: paper money] in the air, and boasting of having burned the town." [page 312-313]
Simms made the following comment about rape by Sherman's troops on page 90:
We have been told of successful outrages of this unmentionable character being practiced on women dwelling in the suburbs. Many are understood to have taken place in remote country settlements, and two cases are described where young negresses were brutally forced by the wretches and afterwards murdered -- one of them being thrust, when half dead, head down, into a mud puddle, and there held until she was suffocated. ... Regiments, in successive relays, subjected scores of these poor women [rb: black women in this case] to the torture of their embraces ...
Yes, IMO, Sherman and a proportion of his troops were indeed evil. It is no wonder my Georgia in-laws hated Sherman with a passion 100 years after Sherman's march through their farms.
"Befo' the wah we never had no good times. They took good care of us, though. As pa'taculah with slave as with the stock - that was their money, you know. And if we claimed bein' sick, they'd give us a dose of castah oil and tu'pentine. That was the principal medicine cullud folks had to take, and sometimes salts. But nevah no whiskey - that was not allowed. And if we was real sick, they had the Doctah fo' us.
"We had very bad eatin'. Bread, meat, water. And they fed it to us in a trough, jes' like the hogs. And ah went in may [sic] shirt till I was 16, nevah had no clothes. And the flo' in ouah cabin was dirt, and at night we'd jes' take a blanket and lay down on the flo'. The dog was supe'ior to us; they would take him in the house.
"Some of the people I belonged to was in the Klu Klux Klan. Tolah had fo' girls and fo' boys. Some of those boys belonged. And I used to see them turn out. They went 'round whippin' niggahs. They get young girls and strip 'em sta'k naked, and put 'em across barrels, and whip 'em till the blood run out of 'em, and then they would put salt in the raw pahts. And ah seen it, and it was as bloody aroun' em as if they'd stuck hogs.
"I sho' is glad I ain't no slave no moah. Ah thank God that ah lived to pas the yeahs until the day of 1937. Ah'm happy and satisfied now, and ah hopes ah see a million yeahs to come."
Source: The American Slave, Vol. 16: 97-101.
LOL!
Living in a FREE REPUBLIC is surely a dream that needs to be chucked! /sarcasm
You Neo-Yankee statist coming to a web site called Free Republic is like inviting the SS to a baht mitzvah!
Documentation is one thing, stalking is another, and FReepers who claim to have picture of other FReepers are just down-right weird. And then there's you...
Please, don't flatter yourself....
Gosh - didn't see any mention of "stalking!" Filed a police report yet?
;>)
And then there's me - I must sympathize: managed to accomplish anything in that regard (i.e., reply to any of of my posts in a responsible & intelligent fashion ;>)?
;>)
You haven't seen the claims mojitojoe has made in his emails. I'm not sure whether to be flattered or offended by his antics. But it sure is weird.
Well when I see you come up with a reasonable and intelligent post then I'll be sure to respond to it.
See my Post #448 , & previous.
If you care to debate anything in particular, have at it (& please be specific, which I know is problematic with you ;>).
Speaking of which, we're all still wondering how you missed the Eleventh Amendment...
;>)
You can find both good and bad treatment of slaves documented in the Slave Narratives. I exerpted these examples below so many years ago, I don't remember the web site:
"Yes Mam," there was strong emphasis in this reply. "I sho would rather have slavery days back if I could have my same good Marsters 'cause I never had no hard times den lak I went through atter dey give us freedom."
"Oh Missy, dem was good old days. Us would be lucky to have 'em back again, 'specially when harvest time comes 'round. You could hear Niggers a-singin' in de fields 'cause dey didn't have no worries lak dey got now."
"Yes Honey, I was raised and loved by my own white folks and when I grew old enough and large enough, I worked for them. I have been with or worked for, white folks all my life and, just let me tell you, I had the best white folks in the world, but it was by God's plan that the Negroes were set free."
"One mornin' Marster blowed the bugle his own self and called us all up to the big 'ouse yard. He told us: 'You all jus' as free as I is. You are free from under the taskmarster but you aint free from labor. You got to labor and wuk hard effen you aims to live and eat and have clothes to wear. You kin stay here and wuk for me or you kin go wharsomever you please.' He said he 'ud pay us what was right, and Lady, hit's the troof, they didn't nary a nigger on our plantation leave our marster then! I wukked on with Marster for 40 years atter the war!"
...when asked if she had ever been whipped when a slave, "Aunt" Mary replied, "Yes, and thank God fur it, fur ole Miss taught me to be hones' and not to steal." She admitted that being whipped for stealing made her an honest woman.
I present the above excerpts only to show that some ex-slaves had fond memories of slavery. I saw some that documented whippings and bad treatment too, like the one you presented. I found mention by one former slave that his mother was whipped -- no reason given other than the Mistress didn't like her. I found one account of a slave hiding in a cave after she had been beaten and another who was very mad that her parents had been sold away from her.
In my small subsample of the original Slave Narrative documents, I found that there were more positive comments about masters and slavery than negative comments. My sample size was too small to draw a definitive conclusion, however.
With all the caveats slavery was evil .etc. my comment would be: In today’s dollars a slave was about $100,000. Most owners bought insurance on their slaves also. A huge investment. Not likely to purposely abuse them.
Wow, if I knew it was that easy to get rid of it...;-)
I never heard about insurance on slaves.
I suspect that your slave price in today's dollars is too high, but I agree that it made sense to treat your slaves well. We visited an old plantation outside of Charleston, SC -- the staff there pointed out that if you treated your slaves badly, you might end up some night with some of your farm buildings on fire.
After he had been in office for a while, Lincoln floated an idea that the government would purchase slaves in Delaware for $400 [Link]. On the other hand, the average price for slaves from 1856 to 1860 was about $1,658 [Source]. Using Inflation Calculator, that $1,658 translates to about $39,000 to $40,000. Using Inflation Calculator Number 2, the price is about $44,000. The modern equivalent of Lincoln's price would be a quarter of those values.
The inflation calculations by these sites depend on how they calculated inflation in the first place. If they leave out key factors like fuel or food like the Core CPI does, they may undercalculate the modern equivalent price.
Good old Sam Walton, always one to make a buck, noticed his employees died even faster than the actuarial charts allowed for. He too took out life insurance on his employees ... but reluctantly stopped when he wanted to national.
Please Lord, send me a knee pad wearing Free Trade Walmartian to dispute this ... Please?
You guessed right.
rrr: Wow, if I knew it was that easy to get rid of it...;-)
See my Post #409 - and have a nice day...
;>)
I've read them all, sport. And my statement still stands.
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