Posted on 09/30/2010 3:55:02 AM PDT by golux
The University of Mississippi has terminated its mascot, "Colonel Reb." The mascot, an archetypal Southern gentleman with a hat, cane, and a little bow-tie, is of course racist.
Affable, bearded and jaunty, with a bright costume that cleverly foiled his dark history on the plantation, Col. Reb, when he was alive, looked rather like that other infamous slave-driver, Col. Sanders, whose inscrutable and permanent smile these days (in markets where he still shows his face) offers only a faint clue as to the fortunes he's made in his long, post-war masquerade as a peddler of fried chicken.
"We just want it to be over," said one Mississippi student on the subject of Col. Reb's execution.
Watch your back, Sanders.
There is of course nothing sacred about a football mascot or a corporate brand, and nothing particularly sad about the disappearance of either one, except for the fact that now there is nothing left of Southern symbolism to erase.
(SNIP)
And now we learn that what legions of Americans consider to be a transcendent symbol of extraordinary military leadership and valor, states' rights, indefatigable heroism, enduring pride and strength in the face of terrible odds and calamitous defeat – the Confederate battle flag – is now officially deemed a symbol of hate by the U.S. armed forces. Prospective members of all branches of the armed forces who happen to have a "Confederate flag" tattoo are automatically rejected.
(SNIP)
When they once again encounter their ancestors, which I believe they will, how will so many Americans account for their feeble treachery?
Maybe, like the Mississippi student, they will say: "We just wanted it to be over."
I wonder what some of those old heroes might say in reply....
(SNIP)
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
A number of Union officers considered Bragg to be their best general. My favorite quote concerning him:
At the Battle of Chickamauga, Bragg was fixated on George Thomas's corps, allowing the rest of the Union army to retreat in confusion. Bragg's corps commanders begged him to break off the attack and pursue the retreating Yankees. Bragg refused to accept the fact that they were retreating, so they brought in a soldier who'd been captured by the Union forces and managed to escape, so that he could tell Bragg what he'd seen. After hearing the solider give his account of the retreat, Bragg glares at him and asks, "Do you know what a retreat really looks like?" The soldier responds, "I ought to. I've been serving with you for over a year now."
At the very least you're more deviled.
We are so kind and gentle to them. I can remember when they would have to run from the room balling and shut down their computers.
Those were the good old days, when FR was a Republic, not a RINO recruiting ground.
“If enough people start walking around with Mexican or German or Japanese or Soviet flags on their clothing, the rest of us are going to wonder what’s going on and what’s wrong with you.”
It can hardly be the problem of the wearer that there are idiots who can’t differentiate between symbols from other countries and symbols of American history.
And who exactly is “the rest of us?” The enlightened ones like you?
It was a black woman around early to mid 30s. There was a younger black man in the store who agreed with her.
“And I say that as probably the most reviled Yankee on FR.”
You are far too modest. There is nothing probable about it.
I do not see Sherman that way. The communications between “Sherman an Union general Jeff Davis about the suppression of the criminal element in the Ocoee valley of East Tennessee show that there was a concern about protecting the lives of Southern citizens when possible. And General Davis reported that that effort was supported by the Confederate citizens just as much as by the Unionists. Who knows, Sherman and Davis might have saved the lives of ancestors of mine. Sherman’s later efforts in Georgia were hard,...”
The American Civil War did not involve ethnic cleansing per se. But the attitude of some of the Northern commanders paralleled those of the Serbian commanders more than many contemporary Americans would like to admit. The statements of Union officers in their official reports reveal attitudes far different from how the war is presented in American school textbooks.
The longer the American Civil War lasted, the more Union generals acted as if they were conducting a crusade to crush infidels. In a September 17, 1863, letter to Henry W. Halleck, the general in chief of the Union armies, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman wrote:
“The United States has the right, and ... the ... power, to penetrate to every part of the national domain. We will remove and destroy every obstacle - if need be, take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper.”
Halleck liked Sherman’s letter so much that he passed it on to President Lincoln, who declared that it should be published. Sherman, in a follow-up to Halleck on October 10, 1863, declared:
“I have your telegram saying the President had read my letter and thought it should be published. I profess ... to fight for but one single purpose, viz, to sustain a Government capable of vindicating its just and rightful authority, independent of niggers, cotton, money, or any earthly interest.”
On June 21, 1864, before his bloody March to the Sea, Sherman wrote to the secretary of war: “There is a class of people [in the South] men, women, and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.” A few months later, Sherman informed one of his subordinate commanders:
“I am satisfied ... that the problem of this war consists in the awful fact that the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than in the conquest of territory, so that hard, bull-dog fighting, and a great deal of it, yet remains to be done. Therefore, I shall expect you on any and all occasions to make bloody results.”
On September 27, 1864, Sherman wrote to Gen. John Hood, the Confederate commander of the Army of Tennessee, and announced, “I have deemed it to the interest of the United States that the citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove, those who prefer it to go south and the rest north.” Sherman’s comments could have been a model for the Serbian leaders who drove ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo.
On October 9, 1864, Sherman wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant:
“Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources. I can make the march, and make Georgia howl.”
Sherman lived up to his boast - and left a swath of devastation and misery that helped plunge the South into decades of poverty.
Scorched-earth tactics were also used in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864-65. On September 28, 1864, Gen. Phil Sheridan ordered one of his commanders to “leave the valley a barren waste.” General Grant ordered Union troops to “make all the valleys south of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad a desert as high up as possible ... eat out Virginia clear and clean ... so that crows flying over it for the balance of the season will have to carry their provender with them.” Union Gen. Wesley Merritt proudly reported to Sheridan on December 3, 1864, that “the destruction in the valley, and in the mountains bounding it, was most complete.”
Such tactics were typical towards the end of the war. On December 19, 1864, a Union colonel reported that he had followed orders “to desolate the country from the Arkansas River to Fort Scott, and burn every house on the route.” In the same month, a major general with the Army of the Potomac noted the success of a Union expedition south of Petersburg, Virginia: “Many houses were deserted contained only helpless women and children ... almost every house was set on fire.”
Many Union officers were horrified at the wanton destruction their armies inflicted on the South. On March 8, 1865, Gen. Cyrus Bussey reported:
“There are several thousand families within the limits of this command who are related to and dependent on the Arkansas soldiers in our service. These people have nearly all been robbed of everything they had by the troops of this command, and are now left destitute and compelled to leave their homes to avoid starvation.... In most instances everything has been taken and no receipts given, the people turned out to starve, and their effects loaded into trains and sent to Kansas.”
The source of the preceding quotes is The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (128 volumes published by the Government Printing Office). Thomas Bland Keys compiled some of the most shocking comments in his excellent 1991 book, Uncivil War: Union Army and Navy Excesses in the Official Records, published by the Beauvoir Press in Biloxi, Mississippi. For a masterful examination of the broad issues surrounding the war, check out Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’s Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men (Chicago: Open Court, 1996).
Yep. they “were hard” alright.
You said:
My son went into a convenience store the other day wearing a cap with a Tennessee state flag on the front of it, and the black clerk told him it was racist and to take it off or leave the store.
I think its the north that wants to keep fighting the Civil War. They aren't content with just winning.
Pretty strange transition. It's hard not to draw the conclusion that you don't want to accept that a lot of people in the South aren't that enthusiastic about Confederate mythology and symbols.
I'm honored.
War is hell. Complain as you will, I would defy you to point out a single rebellion where the instigators suffered less and were incorporated back into the body politic more quickly than the Southern states were.
“Get real. The north had slaves too. They just freed them 3 years before the south did.”
General Grant freed his personal slave of four years ONE year before the war. Had to. He was moving to IL and couldn’t bring him with him. Sad day for him to, he loved renting the slave out for three dollars a day. Kept him in whiskey. He didn’t really need him though; there were 30 at his disposal on his wife’s plantation where he lived.
A lot of the others out of the 30 they kept at White Haven, the family plantation he oversaw, walked off, but were not set free until years after Robert E. Lee freed his:
Robert E. Lee vigorously opposed slavery and as early as 1856 made this statement:
“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.”
Lee also knew that the use of slaves was coming to an end. Cyrus McCormick’s 1831 invention of the mule-drawn mechanical reaper sounded the death knell for the use of slave labor. Before the Civil War began, 250,000 slaves had already been freed.
Robert E. Lee did not own slaves, but Union generals did.
When his father-in-law died, Lee took over the management of the plantation his wife had inherited and immediately began freeing the slaves. By the time Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, every slave in Lee’s charge had been freed.
Kind of ironic. Lee freed his family’s slaves before old General Grant’s family got around to letting his go.
“War is hell. Complain as you will, I would defy you to point out a single rebellion where the instigators suffered less and were incorporated back into the body politic more quickly than the Southern states were.”
Clever. But in the post to which I was responding, I think you were saying that some of the actions “were hard.”
Some Northern leaders claimed to be deeply concerned about the well-being of slaves liberated by the Northern armies. However, Union tactics intentionally devastated the economies of much of the South - leaving people to struggle for years to avert starvation. This destruction made the South’s recovery far slower than it otherwise would have been - and greatly increased the misery of both white and black survivors.
I’d be happy to point out that your notion that the South was “incorporated back into the body politic more quickly than ...” gave me the best laugh I’ve had in years. Thanks. No response but this? What’s the matter, truth got your tongue?
that’s ridiculous!
"Modern secession"?
I have this vision of some poor fella standing on the ledge of a tall building threatening to jump. They have to close the street below and traffic backs up for miles. Thousands of people are delayed and inconvenienced. If you're down on the sidewalk, you know you should move on and get something productive done, but somehow you can't help but watch the fella up on the ledge. Even though you know that the fella ain't gonna jump, you keep watching. At long last, negotiators are able to get the fella to try to get off the ledge, but now they have to put safety lines on the fella because, well, because now the fella has become terrified that he might fall from the ledge.
Let me know what I can do to help, buddy.
Isn't the standard Lost Causer position that the confederacy WAS another country?
Vigorously? Make me laugh. Here's what he had to say a couple of lines later:
The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day.So, Lee's idea of vigorous opposition was to consider that slavery was the best thing for blacks, that there was no sense in anyone trying to do anything about it, and that God would get around to it in a thousand years or so.
When his father-in-law died, Lee took over the management of the plantation his wife had inherited and immediately began freeing the slaves. By the time Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, every slave in Lee’s charge had been freed.
Again, a laughable interpretation of the facts. Lee was made the executor of his father-in-law's estate. Included was a stipulation that he free the family slaves within five years. He didn't make it, blowing the deadline by several months. His final emancipation of the slaves took place a whole 3 days before the Emancipation Proclamation. Of course, by that time all the slaves affected had already freed themselves by walking away.
But, hey, nice job cutting and pasting most of your post from this site
Sure they were, why shouldn't they be? In the words of Sherman himself, "War is the remedy our enemy's have chosen. They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunderstorm. I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in till we are whipped or they are."
If you choose to start a war you have nobody but yourself to blame if that war comes home to you.
I’d be happy to point out that your notion that the South was “incorporated back into the body politic more quickly than ...” gave me the best laugh I’ve had in years. Thanks.
Feel free.
What’s the matter, truth got your tongue?
And what would you know about that?
Vigorously? Make me laugh. Here’s what he had to say a couple of lines later:
The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day.
You idiot, he was responding to Lincoln and his savagery; of course he thought slavery was more humane than this;
“You and we are different races,” Lincoln observed. “We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races . . . . This physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both” and “affords a reason at least why we should be separated . . . . It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated.”
“The colony of Liberia has been in existence a long time. In a certain sense it is a success. The old President of Liberia, Roberts, has just been with me – the first time I ever saw him. He says they have within the bounds of that colony between 300,000 and 400,000 people . . . . They are not all American [black] colonists, or their descendants. Something less than 12,000 have been sent hither from this country. Many of the original settlers have died, yet, like people elsewhere, their offspring outnumber those deceased.”
Then why did Grant free the man rather than sell him? If Grant was so greedy and needed likker money so badly, why didn't he sell his chattel rather than let several hundred dollars just walk away?
A lot of the others out of the 30 they kept at White Haven, the family plantation he oversaw, walked off, but were not set free until years after Robert E. Lee freed his...
Actually no. The Dent family slaves were freed in early 1863, a few months after Lee freed his and without any legal requirement that they do so.
Robert E. Lee vigorously opposed slavery
Complete and utter bullsh*t.
Cyrus McCormick’s 1831 invention of the mule-drawn mechanical reaper sounded the death knell for the use of slave labor.
Really? Did they grow a lot of wheat down there on the plantation?
Before the Civil War began, 250,000 slaves had already been freed.
Nonsense.
Robert E. Lee did not own slaves, but Union generals did.
What Union generals owned slaves?
When his father-in-law died, Lee took over the management of the plantation his wife had inherited and immediately began freeing the slaves.
No he did not. He rented out the slaves for income and used the money for his own benefit.
By the time Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, every slave in Lee’s charge had been freed.
By a day or two. The Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. Lee freed his slaves December 29, 1862. That was actually a few months after the 5 year deadline mandated by his father-in-laws will, but since Lee was busy rebelling then I suppose it's only fair to cut him some slack.
Kind of ironic. Lee freed his family’s slaves before old General Grant’s family got around to letting his go.
Not ironic at all when you consider that Lee had no choice in the matter while the Dent's were not required to do so.
In 1856? What savagery do you accuse Lincoln of in 1856?
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