[snippy_about_it]

Watie is nothing if not consistent in his intellectual hypocrisy.

Dear Heyworth,

Welcome to the FR Foxhole. We welcome all opinions and comments for an intellegent debate about our history. However, we do try to keep our conversations polite and civil, understanding that we all have differing views. Name calling and accusations aren't called for or necessary for constructive debate. Not here.

Speaking of opinions, imo, you could have stated your beliefs without the added stabs.

The Foxhole has a large contingent of intellegent readers that can make up their own mind based on information from many sources and persuasions offered by the group and we do so in a kindly manner and would appreciate the same from all who visit here.

Please don't take my reply as an invitation to stop visiting but as a gentle reminder to debate the issue without attacking others personally.

Sincerely,
snippy about it (could you tell?)
Foxhole hostess

[Heyworth]

So noted. With an apology to the forum, let me rephrase. While Watie's version of events is colorful, it appears to bear little resemblance to the reality as accepted by nearly every source. The New York Tribune was a hardline Republican paper in a Democrat city, and was prone to exaggeration in opposition to their political rivals. Therefore, its version of the event has to be taken with a large grain of salt. Also, notably, it doesn't present a number of victims, only a visual metaphor.

The argument that the reporter was there and therefore not to be doubted doesn't hold water either, unless one is also willing to accept every first person account of the period as equally reputable. The same paper, for instance, published first-person accounts of the massacre of innocent victims at Lawrence, Kansas by Quantrill's guerillas, but Watie's oft-repeated position is that every last victim of Lawrence --150 of them--was a murdering Jayhawker who had it coming.

[SAMWolf]

Sorry, Heyworth. I see Snippy already answered you. That's what I get for not reading ahead.

[stand watie]

well said. you said it better than i did.

free dixie,sw