Posted on 12/16/2004 6:48:26 AM PST by cougar_mccxxi
Americans Owe Confederate History Respect
By CHRIS EDWARDS
The Time Has Come To Take A Stand After attending the Confederate Memorial Day service on June 1 in Higginsville, I found myself believing our nation should be ashamed for not giving more respect and recognition to our ancestors.
I understand that some find the Confederate flag offensive because they feel it represents slavery and oppression. Well, here are the facts: The Confederate flag flew over the South from 1861 to 1865. That's a total of four years. The U.S. Constitution was ratified in April 1789, and that document protected and condoned the institution of slavery from 1789 to 1861. In other words, if we denigrate the Confederate flag for representing slavery for four years, shouldn't we also vilify the U.S. flag for representing slavery for 72 years? Unless we're hypocrites, it is clear that one flag is no less pure than the other.
A fascinating aspect of studying the Civil War is researching the issues that led to the confrontation. The more you read, the less black-and-white the issues become. President Abraham Lincoln said he would do anything to save the union, even if that meant preserving the institution of slavery. Lincoln's focus was obviously on the union, not slavery.
In another case, historians William McFeely and Gene Smith write that Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant threatened to "throw down his sword" if he thought he was fighting to end slavery.
Closer to home, in 1864, Col. William Switzler, one of the most respected Union men in Boone County, purchased a slave named Dick for $126. What makes this transaction interesting is not only the fact that Switzler was a Union man but that he bought the slave one year after the issuance of the Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Of course, history students know the proclamation did not include slaves living in the North or in border states such as Missouri.
So if this war was fought strictly over slavery, why were so many Unionists reluctant to act like that was the issue?
In reviewing the motives that led to the Civil War, one should read the letters soldiers wrote home to their loved ones. Historian John Perry, who studied the soldier's correspondence, says in his three years of research, he failed to find one letter that referred to slavery from Confederate or Union soldiers.
Perry says that Yankees tended to write about preserving the Union and Confederates wrote about protecting their rights from a too-powerful federal government. The numerous letters failed to specifically say soldiers were fighting either to destroy or protect the institution of slavery. Shelby Foote, in his three-volume Civil War history, recounts an incident in which a Union soldier asks a Confederate prisoner captured in Tennessee why he was fighting. The rebel responded, "Because you're down here."
History tends to overlook the South's efforts to resolve the issue of slavery. For example, in 1863, because of a shortage of manpower, Lincoln permitted the enlistment of black soldiers into the Union Army. Battlefield documents bear out the fact that these units were composed of some of the finest fighting men in the war. Unfortunately for these brave soldiers, the Union used them as cannon fodder, preferring to sacrifice black lives instead of whites.
These courageous black Union soldiers experienced a Pyrrhic victory for their right to engage in combat. However, history has little to say about the South's same effort in 1865. The Confederacy, its own troop strength depleted, offered slaves freedom if they volunteered for the army.
We know that between 75,000 and 100,000 blacks responded to this call, causing Frederick Douglass to bemoan the fact that blacks were joining the Confederacy. But the assimilation of black slaves into the Confederate army was short-lived as the war came to an end before the government's policy could be fully implemented.
It's tragic that Missouri does not do more to recognize the bravery of the men who fought in the Missouri Confederate brigades who fought valiantly in every battle they were engaged in. To many Confederate generals, the Missouri brigades were considered the best fighting units in the South.
The courage these boys from Missouri demonstrated at Port Gibson and Champion Hill, Miss., Franklin, Tenn., and Fort Blakely, Ala., represent just a few of the incredible sacrifices they withstood on the battlefield. Missouri should celebrate their struggles instead of damning them.
For the real story about the Missouri Confederate brigades, one should read Phil Gottschalk and Philip Tucker's excellent books about these units. The amount of blood spilled by these Missouri boys on the field of battle will make you cry.
Our Confederate ancestors deserve better from this nation. They fought for what they believed in and lost. Most important, we should remember that when they surrendered, they gave up the fight completely. Defeated Confederate soldiers did not resort to guerrilla warfare or form renegade bands that refused to surrender. These men simply laid down their arms, went home and lived peacefully under the U.S. flag. When these ex-Confederates died, they died Americans.
During the postwar period, ex-Confederates overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party. This party, led in Missouri by Rep. Dick Gephardt and Gov. Bob Holden, has chosen to turn its back on its fallen sons.
The act of pulling down Confederate flags at two obscure Confederate cemeteries for the sake of promoting Gephardt's hopeless quest for the presidency was a cowardly decision. I pray these men will rethink their decision.
The reality is, when it comes to slavery, the Confederate and United States flags drip with an equal amount of blood.
Chris Edwards is a local musician and MU graduate student of history. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and of the board of Missouri's Civil War Heritage Foundation.
Here's one that will go to 5000+ posts. Too bad it will be as anti-historical as all the others.
This is completely true and nice to see someone finally point it out. At the same time, I believe we may have glorified the Confederacy a bit too much. While I realize that they were good people and most of their motives were pure, the simple fact is that they took up arms against their government. Last I knew, that is considered treason. The Confederate veterans have been treated throughout history much better than most guilty of treason could ever hope for.
bump
There is more than enough 'conveient memories' on both sides.
Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. The North was just as guilty of exploiting slaves as the South. The majority of the people just tended to stop at an earlier date. However, that was more to do with the economic culture than a sudden wave of morality towards the black man.
What's to be upset about? The end had to be in Canada since the Fugitive Slave Act required that runaway slaves be sent back South if apprehended.
They also didn't like the fact that the first slaves sold in the Colonies were in Massachusetts.
If they check their history they would have found that the first slave was in the Virginia/Maryland area.
Nor did they like to remmeber that the triangle trade that made Boston very rich included bringing molasses to Boston to be made into rum which was taken to Africa to be traded for slaves.
Without demand for those slaves the Boston traders wouldn't have brought the slaves anywhere, would they? So the south has no moral high ground in the slave trade scenario.
Well, for one thing taking up arms against the government is not neccessarily a bad thing. The colonies did it against the King. Second, it's not like they were trying to take over the government or rule the country as is typical in a civil war. They had no interest in ruling the northern states, they just wanted to be let alone. That being said I agree with the above comments that there is too much glorification of the South, even though I agree with their fundamental right to secede and admire some of their military leaders.
No, we don't. But the Northern states don't either. Both sets of states had businessmen that grew rich off the slave trade, directly or indirectly.
}:-)4
Exactly. What gripes me most as a southernor is the false idea that all the morality was in the North and that all Notherners were fighting for the sole purpose of defeating slavery. That's totally bogus.
Both sides share the guilt.
I sympathize with southerners who are sick of the insulting, bigoted attitudes of northeastern white liberals, but I don't understand at all how that translates to celebrating treason.
To be reviled by a liberal, regardless of shade or location, is more of a badge of honor than a mark of shame. But the south itself does it's cause little good by clinging so tightly to their myths about the war.
I can agree with that. But it's an "all or nothing" type of situation. Had we lost the Revolutionary War, the military and political leaders of the revolution would have been tried and, most likely, executed. You have to admit that the North was much kinder to the South than that.
. . . even though I agree with their fundamental right to secede and admire some of their military leaders.
The genius of the South's military leaders is what kept the South in the war as long as it was. Think about it, the Conferacy had no pre-existing government, no tax base, no economic prosperity, and a much smaller population than the North. What else could explain their relative successes, or at least the success in delaying the inevitable, than their military genius. Think about it this way, who is more revered in the South even today, Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee? One was a so-so political leader, the other was quite possibly the best military mind we ever had. Too bad he lived in a time where his expertise had to be used in the way it was.
Not sure I agree that they had the right to secede though.
"To this day, The South is reviled and held in contempt by northern white liberals. It's almost pathological."
Its not almost pathological; it IS pathological. In the same way that "northern white liberals" hate America herself.
The only thing wrong with trying to utilize the truth in this argument is that truth doesn't matter much to those of the NAACP persuasion.
I once watched footage of a black speaker in the house of reps state that "sharks still swim the route of the slave ships because so many were thrown overboard" on their way from Africa to here. Any ideas on how he was able to verify this outrageous claim?
Yes, it's true that our American flag stood for slavery for far longer than the Confederate flag did. But it's also true that people were captured/kidnapped by black slave traders before they were brought here to be slaves. Another snippet of truth is that there were black plantation owners who owned slaves.
If truth mattered to these people, they'd just shut up.
Yes, I agree.
Not sure I agree that they had the right to secede though.
I do, It's strait out of the declaration of independence.
Sorry, but they didn't take up arms against their government. They SECEDED from the US Gov. formed their own, and took up arms to protect themselves from invasion.
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