Those believe that line will also line up to purchase this bridge. :)
Posted on 02/26/2005 9:53:22 PM PST by SmithL
The month of February has begun and so has the celebration of Black History Month in the nation, schools and communities. Throughout this time, many noteworthy leaders, citizens, scientists and soldiers who fought in wars and conflicts will be recognized.
However, there is one group of African Americans who will receive no recognition again this year during this month. I am speaking of black Confederates who served and fought to defend their homeland from what they believed to be an armed invasion.
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The South was home to some 4 million who lived there and had roots going back more than 200 years. Deep devotion, love of homeland and strong Christian faith joined black with white Confederate soldiers in defense of their homes and families.
A conservative estimate is that between 50,000 to 60,000 served in the Confederate units. Both slave and free black soldiers served as cooks, musicians and even combatants. The first northern officer killed in battle was Maj. Theodore Winthrop, who was shot by a black sniper of the Wythe Rifles of Hampton, Va.
The most amazing fact concerning black Confederates is that they served within the Confederate units alongside their white brothers in arms while their Union counterparts were kept separate in all-black units led by white officers (as portrayed in the movie "Glory").
In fact, it was not until 1950 that the U.S. military integrated its units at the start of the Korean War.
On Jan. 22, H.K. Edgerton, a former head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in North Carolina, was the keynote speaker for the annual Sons of Confederate Veterans dinner in Knoxville. Although his scheduled appearance to speak on southern heritage and black Confederates was published a week ahead in the local paper, not one representative of any established mainstream news media was present to record his comments.
Edgerton was the second African American to speak on black Confederates and other historical facts in the last five years whose comments were only heard by the attendees and went unpublished. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a professor at Southern University, stated: "When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you've eliminated the history of the South."
For those who have been taught or misled to think the people in the northern cities were more tolerant and supportive of their black population, look up the Draft Riots of 1863.
Maj. Arthur Fremantle of the British Army was an observer for Queen Victoria and spent three months with the Army of Northern Virginia and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Freemantle kept a diary and had arrived in New York City just in time to personally observe and witness the worst riots in our history.
He included in his diary seeing gangs of white men chasing, beating and even hanging blacks. Some black men and women were even pulled from their homes and beaten. Police and militias were called out, and more than 1,200 people lost their lives during the three days of riots.
The rioters resented free blacks being excluded from the draft since they were not considered citizens. The motion picture "Gangs of New York" shows some of this violence.
In closing, I have written this article in the hope that it will ignite people to research, read, study and discover the true historical facts. For me to remain silent as an American citizen, Southerner, retired soldier and living historian and ignore the service and sacrifices of these forgotten soldiers is unacceptable.
I quote the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
BTW was referring to blacks being loyal to the South in the postwar era, as loyal citizens of their states. he was not asserting that blacks had been loyal to their Confederate slavemasters during the Civil War.
Try "Been In the Storm So Long," by Leon Litwack. Citing Booker Washington's singular impressions is hardly the same as doing historical research, and the overwhelming evidence is that blacks were not at all sorry to see the disappearance of the slave system.
Southerners were utterly crazy about slave revolts since the 1820s, mainly because they KNEW that slaves would leave in a heartbeat if given the opportunity. It is a disservice to yourself, and certainly to Republicans to propagate the myth of "beloved ol' massa." I almost NEVER invoke race or racism, but in this case it is truly a racist concept that blacks "enjoyed" slavery and did not welcome Yankee troops.
The first black unit I ever heard of was one who was the rear guard of Washington's army when he retreated from New York during the Revoluntionary War. They held their ground and died while the rest of the army (white) all fled.
"in other words you think the black CSA vets did NOT know what they were fighting for?????"
Well they sure weren't fighting for THEIR OWN freedom...
Those believe that line will also line up to purchase this bridge. :)
free dixie,sw
i note you didn't answer that question, but rather answered a question i did NOT ask.
so, what's your YES or NO answer to that question?
free dixie,sw
thus, you are just being a LITTLE TROLL.
the TRUTH is that lincoln, the TYRANT & WAR CRIMINAL, started the WBTS because he wanted to keep the boot of the damnyankee elites on the south's neck AND because he would do/say ANYTHING to get MORE POWER!
lincoln was nothing more or less than a cheap, scheming POLITICIAN & shyster railroad lawyer, who would DO ANYTHING to GET AHEAD. he was of the exact same sort as wee willie klintoon. either would do ANYTHING for power & $$$$$$$$!
free dixie,sw
The strength of Booker T. Washington's examples, was in the fact that every one in his audience knew them to be true. You cite polemics by people trying to prove a point, to fit an ideology. That is not research but simply affirming someone else's assertions.
Can you find instances of badly abused slaves? Of course! We are talking about millions of peoples, interacting over generations. Can loyal Southerners cite instances of completely loyal slaves? Of course, and if nothing else, for the very same reasons. But the proof is not in trotting out scores of individual examples on one side or the other. The proof is in the contexts of both sets of exhibits. And in that context you lose.
Were the Southerners concerned about a slave revolt? Of course, they were. That does not mean that there was not a certain amount of paranoia in that fear. The proof came in the war, when the slaves in general remained loyal. Deny it as you like. Point out how individual groups acted when an invading army came through--as though that proves anything (ever read an account of how the population of Cairo acted in World War II, from one day to the next, depending on the reports from Al Alamain?)--but the fact is that most people, in any age, are loyal to their societies.
Now the whole debate is academic, except for this. The need that some of you have to insult Southerners at every opportunity, because of your particular historic spin. There is something sick about trying to endlessly fight an historic debate, when all it does is divide the ever smaller group of Americans who are still devoted to preserving past values.
You will not, I suspect, get over it. But it does you no credit. Remember those Southerners whom you vilify were the sons and grandsons of that class of Americans which produced Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lee, Monroe, Pinckney, Mason, Patrick Henry, etc.. When you slander them, you truly defame the ethnic American, as well as the true values that led to America.
William Flax
Oh! Was, he now. Let those who are more objective than you, judge his words for themselves:
While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site [Where we respect the right of the rooted people in every State and Nation to honor their respective heritages.]
One of the reasons there were no slave revolts during the war was that the Confeds kept an unusual number of white males on the plantations through exemptions, including the famed "home guards" of "Cold Mountain" fame.
But keep posting about how great slavery was. By doing so you will continue to insult Americans in both regions who had common sense enough to know what a tyrannical institution it was, and how the South was obsessed with preserving it.
Liberation, indeed.
Some other interesting people missing: the first black Supreme Court Justice, the first black National Security Adviser, the first Black Secretary of State, etc.
My points, in repeatedly challenging the South haters, is that their obsession insults the American tradition and divides traditional Americans, at a time when we are losing more and more of our common heritage. I attack you, because you sabotage what I believe in; you slander the freely entered into Union of proud States, where it was understood that we would not interfere with each others' unique customs. For you, that frustrates your need--compulsion, apparently--to slander the South. But it also means that I, who identify with the Jeffersonians, must accept and respect the right of the people in New England to pursue their more strait laced value systems; the right of Massachusetts, to this day, to impose absurd policies on its people, etc., etc..
You know, respect begets respect, and contempt invites contempt. Your lack of respect for the Old South invites the disrespect for other things that you value. It is a short dead end street, which rapidly ends meaningful and mutually beneficial discussion. It is pathetic.
This says it all.
And Jefferson Davis, what was he, besides being a traitor & promoter of the perpetuation of slavery?
Getting out more, away from the computer and among humans, you know, Americans, in the real world, just might convince you the Civil War ended some 140 years ago.
Corrective treatment is available, some in fact at no charge. Seek help before this repugnant obsession to remain cemented in the segregation of the old failed South overtakes you.
Another thing, if you despise America because it's not to your liking, relocating overseas is done everyday of the week.
The majority of these modern day confederates are nothing more then masked promoters of segregation but they even understand admitting the obvious would not be kosher, except when among fellow anti-Americans.
That's a load of garbage. I showed you documents over a year ago that demonstrated the Louisiana Guards had received orders and assignments from the Louisiana state militia command. Yet here you are on another thread and another day, repeating the same old lie as if nothing had changed.
After all, blacks were expressly forbidden to enlist in the rebel forces by Confederate law until March 1865.
Incorrect. They were prohibited from enlisting in the federal units. State units could and did enlist blacks at their own discretion. The first state to do so was Tennessee in June of 1861.
Why would the NAACP honor those who fought for freedom 140 years ago, when they dishonor those who fight for freedom today?
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