Here, does this bring back some happier memories for you?
Posted on 06/13/2003 6:22:01 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
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.
Abraham Lincoln certainly thought not:
"When you give the Negro these rights, when you put a gun in his hands, it prophesies something more: it foretells that he is to have the full enjoyment of his liberty and his manhood."
Walt
Don't mention it. You're the one doing the heavy lifting - I should thank you. So, I will - thank you!
Oh, there's more ammo in that document if you have the time to read it. For instance, count the number of passages covering slavery, and then count the number of passages covering state's rights, and the number of passages covering tariffs. One of those three is WAY over-represented, and it's not state's rights, and it's not tariffs - contrary to what revisionists in deep clinical denial over the matter will repeatedly claim.
I have some ideas that are considered liberal, and some that are not. People don't realize that when the entire spectrum of politics is considered, Republicans and Democrats in this country are not very far apart.
I really feel that we have a problem in this country of polarization. The idea of a "loyal oppostion" has slipped away from both Republicans and Democrats. I think this had one manifestation in the way Nixn's "dirty tricks" group would heckle and picket democratic rallies way back in the early '70's and the way Clinton was attacked over White Water and the suicide of Vince Foster. There was certainly nothng to either of those attacks; they crossed a line that you used to not see crossed. FDR had a mistress for years, but you didn't see it in the papers. Kennedy's indiscretions were well known to some. He wasn't pilloried over it.
On the other hand, I think some of the Democrats opposed the war and ongoing operations in Iraq for the most partisan of reasons.
But this polarization of conndemning -every- "liberal" per se, and over at DU of condeming every Republican per se, is a really scary thing that is going on in our country today. It may be the -most- scary.
Walt
Here, does this bring back some happier memories for you?
When the neo-confederates wax euphoric and get teary-eyed over the ostrich plumes in Jeb Stuart's hat, they forget that the rebel government found empoyment for SEVENTY THOUSAND workers. It was -very- centralized; it was also very ineffective. The rebel givernment also had 4,000 people locked up who only be called political prisoners; that doesn't speak to the dozens of loyal Unionists who were hung. The Richmond government even had internal passports, like the USSR.
But they have the nerve to criticize President Lincoln.
The Neo-confederate movement is really a joke. Any movement of its nature that strays so badly from the historical record should be called on its wanton rationalizations and bogus history, no matter how innocuous its subject.
Walt
Well, thanks. If more people would speak up, you wouldn't see this blizzard of laughably wrong neo-confederate crap posted all the time.
Walt
That is interesting.
Some of the neo-confederates want to quote Lincoln's "any people may rise up and throw off their government" speech from the 1840's, but they forget that a county in northern Alabama voted to remain loyal to the Union, and was coerced into submission by force. I guess the 9th and 10th amendments only apply when neo-confederates want them to apply.
Walt
Sorry.
I forgot comparisons are odious.
But this comedian can't even figure out what...
Never mind.
Not important.
I've read some pretty poignant accounts of loyal Union men hanged in East Tennessee, but I've never seen any figures. Seems like Non-Sequitur had a relative that was executed. I was born in East Tennessee, but my people are all from West Tennessee and northern Alabama. I had a number of relatives who fought for the rebels.
When I go up to Knoxville this fall to see my Tenneseee Volunteers play in Neyland Stadium, the UT pep band will play a flourish based on "Rally 'Round the Flag!"
Walt
This is my agenda:
Right. Governor Isham Harris chased Parson Brownlow out of the state in 1861; in 1865, Parson Brownlow chased Isham Harris out. The Civil War was as bad in Tennessee as it was elsewhere.
Walt
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