Posted on 01/25/2014 6:38:12 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
Florida’s first state park has become ground zero for a raging political fight to establish a monument honoring Union Army soldiers who died during the Civil War.
The three-acre Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park currently includes three monuments honoring Confederate soldiers who died fighting to secede from the country.
The park, first established in 1912, was the site of Florida’s largest and bloodiest Civil War battle that killed 3,000 Union and 1,000 Confederate soldiers. It occurred on February 20, 1864, and raged on for four hours.
With no marker respecting the sacrifice of so many northern men, the Florida chapter of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War asked the state parks department last year for permission to place an obelisk to honor Union soldiers.
State officials agreed that the park needed some historic balance. They held a public hearing about the new monument and chose a location within the park for it.
But those actions angered the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which called the proposed monument a “Darth Vader-esque obscene obsidian obelisk.”
Opponents enlisted the help of key politicians, like State Representative Dennis Baxley, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, to stop the addition to the park. “There is a sacred trust that's being violated when you go in and change an historic site from the way it was commemorated by those who established (it),” Baxley told the News Service of Florida.
“Putting a Union monument at Olustee would be like placing a memorial to Jane Fonda at the entrance to the Vietnam memorial,” added Leon Duke, a wounded veteran.
Longtime historical park exhibitor Mike Farrell, who is a descendent of a Union soldier who died at Olustee, said that park visitors often seek out a Union memorial at the site. “I always have the visiting public approach me and ask me where the Union monument is on the battlefield, and I often tell them, ‘There isn't any,’” he told the News Service. “I'm not talking about…a cemetery marker to the dead. What I'm talking about is a battlefield monument.”
Ancestors of Charles Custer fought on both sides of the war, and he favors a Union monument. “There were twice as many Union casualties there as Confederate,” he told The New York Times. “They fought. They bled. And they are really not recognized anywhere.”
The battle of Olustee is reenacted each year, making it one of the Southeast’s largest Civil War re-enactments.
Although it was not nearly as large as many other Civil War battles, the Olustee one was significant because the South’s victory denied the North from establishing a government in Florida and cutting off supplies to the Confederate army.
Well said. Some folks just haven’t the common sense of a rock
The Union forces not only lost the battle but were an invading army.
No nation builds monuments to an army that invaded, overthrew a government and occupied their land.
It would be just like the Frence erecting monuments to be German army and all others who have invaded.
The Union forces not only lost the battle but were an invading army.
No nation builds monuments to an army that invaded, overthrew a government and occupied their land.
It would be just like the French erecting monuments to be German army and all others who have invaded.
The Confederates invaded Pennsylvania yet nobody begrudges monuments to the brave Confederate dead at Gettysburg.
I for one am glad the “war isn’t over.” DEO VINDICE.
I now live in Texas. When in Minnesota, I expect to see memorials to the Union. When in Texas I expect to see memorials to the Confederates. I don't expect Minnesotans to erect memorials to their enemies of the times, and I don't expect the Texans to do it either. There are no memorials to Confederates in Minnesota that I have seen.
Exactly...and, 150 years is nothing in the grand scheme of the history of the world. People need to realize that.
Just look at the people on the other side of the world, in the desert...they keep grudges for thousands of years. 150 years?! That’s nothing. That was just a few generations back.
150 years later and we see that the current Administration desires to take Pres Lincoln’s mandate of a Federal government to the extreme and get rid of all state’s rights. Just what the Confederates were fighting against. (at least a major issue for them)
I would not object to a Union monument to their dead as long as it was done in good taste and did not seek to overshadow other monuments.
According to the story there were 3 times as many Union dead. I do know that soldiers who fought in the battle all agreed that it was the most ferocious fight they were ever in.
There is a monument to the Union soldier in Lynn Haven, Florida, just North of Panama City.
The first Confederate monument in Florida and the second one anywhere is in my home town of DeFuniak Springs, FL.
War is brutal. It was brutal before Sherman invaded Georgia and Southern citizens were suffering many months before Sherman’s invasion, often at the hands of Confederate authority, both civil and military. Sherman’s march had the effect of shortening the suffering of war.
Hell... The whole south is still fighting the civil war AND they’re still saving their confederate money.
Be sure and read the last paragraph and let it sink in thought your twitted mind.
To those unfamiliar with Florida, Miami, West Palm Beach, etc., probably comes to mind, the area this battlefield is located is up next to Georgia. Rebel flags on almost every pickup truck up there.
Some have noted that the folks in this part of Florida are even more zealous of things southern than their neighbors in the southern states nearby. It thus comes as no surprise to see the brouhaha about this monument. To those who know this area, we would not expect otherwise.
“With no marker respecting the sacrifice of so many northern men...”
Put up a marker...see how marked up it becomes.
The viciousness of the Sherman quotes lives on in the heart and soul of Obama, Obamoids, and most Democrats/Gubment Trough Feeders.
“Should have won at Gettysburg and then taken Washington.”
Without a doubt that our lives would be better if the USA were now the CSA.
No meddling government, no reconstruction, no plethora of pesky post War of Northern Aggression constitutional amendments.
This is the first Confederate monument in Florida and maybe the first anywhere. It is at the Walton County courthouse in DeFuniak Springs.
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