Posted on 05/24/2009 6:22:51 AM PDT by kellynla
The Morehead chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans have been denied a request to march in the Ironton Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade.
The 5th Kentucky Infantry Camp #2122 received a letter from Arthur J. Pierson, parade grand marshal, rejecting the group’s request to participate in the parade, without giving any reasons why.
“Your parade request for SCV, 5th Kentucky Infantry camp #2122 Morehead, KY, has been considered and NOT APPROVED,” the letter stated.
The 5th Kentucky wanted to march with a color guard that would feature two Confederate flags – the Kentucky Confederate flag and the Confederate battle flag – and two motorcycles.
The group wanted to march to memorialize the service of Confederate veterans, many of whose descendants live in the tri-state.
It seems the flags were the reason for the camp’s exclusion.
Pierson said later that it would not be right to fly the Confederate flag when there is only one flag – the United States flag. He also said he was concerned about the group wearing the Confederate uniform and other memorabilia.
Memorial Day traces its roots back to the post-Civil War era, in 1868, when General John A. Logan, Commander of this nation’s army, declared that “a day be set aside to honor those men killed in the Civil War.” Originally it was called “Decoration Day,” and as the years passed, its scope was expanded to include all military veterans. Darrell Crawford of Morehead, Adjutant of the 5th Kentucky Infantry Camp 2122, said his group will be marching in Morehead’s Memorial Day parade where they are appreciated by local veterans and citizens of the city and county.
The group marched in last year’s parade.
"It was an honor to get to march in front of the veterans that were at the old courthouse as we fired a volley in their honor and for veterans past,” Crawford said. “When the veterans saluted, tears rolled down my face. That means something of these fine men who served our country. They knew that the Confederate flag was an American flag as well, as some of their ancestors were Confederate-Americans.”
In fairness, how many 160+-year-olds can march?
Your statistics are misleading, perhaps intentionally so, because you state the number of individuals owning slaves (actually 393,375) rather than the percentage of families. In fact the percentage of families owning slaves in the southern states was very significant. When you consider that these must also have been the wealthiest families with the most influence, then it is reasonable to conclude that the continuation of slavery was a central cause of the civil war.
Percentage of families owning slaves: (1860 census data)
Mississippi________49%
South Carolina_____46%
Georgia____________37%
Alabama____________35%
Florida____________34%
Louisiana__________29%
North Carolina_____28%
Texas______________28%
Virginia___________26%
Tennessee__________25%
Kentucky___________23%
Arkansas___________20%
See #82.
“In fairness, how many 160+-year-olds can march?”
Well, how many WWI veterans are alive much less can even march?
And fyi, there are quite a few organizations like the
Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy who commemorate & celebrate their ancestry.
“then it is reasonable to conclude that the continuation of slavery was a central cause of the civil war.”
Yes, it was A cause. When you look at your figures, with states like Arkansas at only 20%, it’s also reasonable to assume it was not the ONLY or major cause.
“A more high profile example is the heroes’ welcome received by Burnside as liberators of Knoxville.”
Knoxville, TN was a divided city, with half its citizens remaining pro-Union and half alligning with the Confederacy. Tennessee itself, of course, seceded. I equate the pro-Union sympathizers in the same light I view thge Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia in 1938. The Sudeten Germans welcomed the Nazis as liberators, but they were hardly representative of Czechoslovakia as a whole, just as the pro-Union symnpathizers in Knoxville were not representative of Tennessee. I alluded to this in an earlier post.
It is a mistake to assume anecdotal references bespeak a larger sentiment, as you are doing with the Knoxville illustration.
Congress has recognized Confederate Veterans as American Veterans so tbhat makes them official Veterans just as much as Union Veterans.
I’m sure that many, if not most, of these Decendents of Confederate Veterans are Veterans themselves. These “officials” dishonor themselves and Veterans groups as well by their treacherous actions.
Btw, I served in the USMC, my father was a WWII veteran, 2 Great Uncles served in WWI (One of whom was gassed), Three of my GGFs and many of their brothers were Confederate Veterans (One of whom lost an arm at Gettysburg and another was severely wounded at Decatur, Alabama) and one of their Fathers seved in the Mexican War that I know of. Several of their Grandfathers were veterans of the Revolutionary War as well.
And yes, I’m a member of The Sons of Confederate Veterans.
So these “official” jerk offs can kiss my illy white ass!
I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than to take my CBF and shove it up their asses. It would “make my day”!
The United States has never treated a defeated foreign enemy as harshly as the South was treated.
I am old enough to have heard first hand the reports of people who lived through those days. The North was bent on vengeance, plain and simple.
“The United States has never treated a defeated foreign enemy as harshly as the South was treated.
I am old enough to have heard first hand the reports of people who lived through those days. The North was bent on vengeance, plain and simple. “
Swampsniper, I don’t know how much retaliation came from the Union, but it did exit. My grgrgrandfather was tried for treason at Fort Smith, Ark. 10 years after the war. But that was more about him being Indian than being confederate. It’s just all at the time they could come up with to harass him over. He was a lawyer, defended himself and was cleared.
“Some groups are very much out of favor. Among these are those who commemorate the Confederacy and its cause...”
nathanbedford, you’ve taken screen name of the founder of the Ku-Klux Klan. I don’t think I’d be particularly welcoming to you if you were asking to be in my parade with a name like that.
On the other hand, commemorators are generally pretty harmless and do us all a service by keeping the history tangable and alive. Besides, the Union commemorators would look pretty silly reinacting the Battle of Gettysburg with no enemy. It would be like having cowboys with no indians. Of course, in our current politically-correct brain-washed society, the cowboys would be the ones excluded.
Someone pointed out further below that we used to honor all our war dead, Confederate or Union. My father remembers attending a parade in his youth that honored the last living Confederate soldier in his town.
We used to venerate Lincoln’s words no repudiate them by our actions:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
I Have been flying it for the past five years. I probably should have started sooner.
It sure gets some strange looks up here
It’s a shameful disservice to such a large population of our country to have revisionist politicians and academics defame the entire Confederate Army in a move that can only be termed the Nazification of the Confederacy. Their way of thinking goes something like this: Slavery was evil. The soldiers of the Confederacy fought for a system that wished to preserve it. Therefore they were evil as well, and any attempt to honor their service is a veiled effort to glorify the cause of slavery.
It’s a blatant use of the “race card” in a seemingly endless game . And it dishonors hundreds of thousands of men who can defend themselves only through the voices of their descendants.
Slavery may have been the catalytic issue from a governmental perspective, and its moral dimensions may have motivated many Northerners, but other factors, some cultural and some historical brought most Confederate soldiers to the battlefield. Region wide less than 5 percent of the whites in the South owned slaves and three quarters of the population had no economic interest in the maintenance of the plantation system.
Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier.
Charlotte, N.C.: Stone Publishing Co., c1913.
The Sudetenland example is a very well thought-out analogy for your point, but I think an examination of the secession election returns for the broad East Tennessee region suggests a scale of widespread sentiment that differs in quality from the narrow ethnic Sudeten element. And all over the South there was a seed of latent Unionism from the beginning which later gave rise to the fatal level of southern disenchantment with the Cause.
Of that I have no doubt.
NBF did NOT found the klan. It was founded in 1866 in Pulaski, TN by James R. Crowe, Richard R. Reed, Calvin E. Jones, John C. Lester, Frank O. McCord and John B. Kennedy. Forrest DID issue Order No. 1 in early 1869, disbanding the group: 'It is therefore ordered and decreed, that the masks and costumes of this Order be entirely abolished and destroyed.'
bttt
Too bad NBF's peacetime orders didn't have the affect as his wartime orders had. I doubt that any of the Wizard of the Saddle's military orders were ignored to the extent as his klan disbanding command was.
I apologize for the long reply below, but I found some things I want to cite.
Like Sherman, Wheeler had unassociated groups of people following his troops too. Those groups apparently did pillage. Like Sherman’s troops, Wheeler’s cavalry lived off of foraging and people complained when their food stuffs were taken by either side. I don’t think Wheeler’s cavalry did any burning of homes like Sherman’s troops did. They destroyed things (bridges, railroads, etc.) and ran off stock and sometimes took stock that approaching Federal troops might use.
On the other hand, Sherman’s regular troops, not the bummers or Kilpatrick’s robbers, participated in wholesale burning of homes, villages, towns, and cities and the robbing of citizens in South Carolina. Consider the following from "A City Laid Waste; The Capture, Sack, and Destruction of the City of Columbia," by William Gilmore Simms, edited by David Aiken (an excellent book by the way). Simms was an eyewitness to the destruction and sacking of Columbia, South Carolina, and he published eyewitness accounts of the actions of Sherman’s troops in an 1865 Columbia newspaper just weeks after the city was burned. From page 61, originally from Simm's newspaper account:
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.
The huge fires that destroyed much of the city began at night started by Sherman's troops. They would rob a house of its valuable contents, then burn it. A few of Sherman’s sympathetic troops had earlier warned locals that this was coming. When local fire fighters attempted to put out fires, some of Sherman’s troops bayoneted and cut up the fire hoses.
Simms did report some plundering of commissary and quartermaster stores by Wheeler's cavalry and others just prior to the entry of Sherman's troops into Columbia.
I did find a report of apparent robbery by people under Wheeler’s command. From a Tennessee source about an 1863 raid by Wheeler: [Link]:
Following the surrender [of Union troops], according to Major Patterson, there occurred "the most brutal outrages on the part of the rebels ever known to any civilized war in America or elsewhere." The Major was shocked as the cavalrymen proceeded to outfit themselves in new clothes from head to foot, taking "boots, watch, pocket-book, money, and even finger-rings, or, in fact, anything that happened to please their fancy". Patterson, observing that General Wheeler had arrived on the scene, appealed to him directly to stop the pillaging. Wheeler only replied that he could not control his men, and that they would do as they pleased. Considering the dire condition of Forrest's men, whom most of these were, and their known reluctance to obey Wheeler's orders, the General probably stated the simple truth.
The book, “Those Damn Horse Soldiers” by George Walsh, reported (on page 234) that Patterson’s claim above was exaggerated.
Finally, here is a link to a National Parks Service site that says plundering by Confederate calvary became necessary for survival. [Link2] It mentions that Wheeler’s cavalry had not been resupplied for two years and that the clothes worn by Wheeler’s men were very tattered and that many did not have overcoats for the cold weather. It explains why they might have taken clothes from Union troops like in the 1863 raid above.
I don't know anything about the Captain Brown you mentioned. When and where was this and what exactly happened?
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