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.
I’m glad you get it.
Have you also figured out that the Civil War rhetoric that is currently raging is also a proxy war between conservatives and Liberals?
This country is literally unwinding. It will likely in the next 15 years break up into Regional coalitions like the Soviet Union did.
I believe it is a bit naive to think that even a regional split would work. For example, my home state of Maryland is herself cleaved down the middle, with the west and east very conservative, with the major population centers very liberal cutting a swath from the PA border down to the DC beltway (Prince Georges County and Montgomery County).
I suspect other states are not terribly different. Even your Georgia with her major population centers. In order to have your regional dream come true, you may have to finish what Sherman started. Burning Atlanta to the ground. And then what separates you from him?
I know it sounds crazy and completely unworkable, given the degree of intransigence on both sides, but for America to be successful and prosperous again, we will need to take National interests to heart, not simply regional ones.
Turning my fantasy world projection system off now.
I’ll take my thesis one step further and predict some individual states splitting into separate states as things get more contentious. Not GA.
GA is not Atlanta or rather Atlanta is not GA. Suburbs of Atlanta have already split themselves off from downtown and created their own townships so they don’t have to pay the taxes to support the decaying inner city and its corrupt politicians. The bro’s and downtown Atlanta are becoming an Island. Nobody in their right mind even goes down there.
If the people of a given state votes for secession then the ENTIRE state goes, leaves the union. Will the vote be 100% for, no. Lets say it splits 70-30 for, So what? The ENTIRE state leaves the union. This is how the republic was set up. Each state is an separate political entity.
If you think the entire union is saveable, or worth saving yo are the dreamer. All of New England is socialists. Why would they not want a split to be free to create their socialist Utopia?
And now, to bring this full circle ...
Imagine, seeing what you see in front of us, and worrying about a monument in a park as though it’s a big deal
A lot of us are rearrangng deck chairs on the Titanic.
Myself included, if what you envision comes to pass. I hope it does not.
“Imagine, seeing what you see in front of us, and worrying about a monument in a park as though it’s a big deal”
Its a sign of the times then and a sign of the times now.
No it wouldn't, France and Germany are separate countries........
The Civil War involved the citizens of the United States, in some cases pitting brothers against brothers. Those who died have the right to both be buried together and honored together........
I’ve been called worse, central_va.
When the big players in the economic engine start talking about secession, or a regional breakup as a strong idea for economic growth, I’ll dig that confederate money from the underground vault.
Do you think Virginia could muster enough votes for secession these days?
I think it would be a crap shoot, but I’m across your northern border in Md, so what the hell do I know?
I assume you've never been to Gettysburg.
Darn that 13th Amendment anyway.
Take a look at the 14th Amendment and what it has brought us just in the last 40 years.
Abortion, Gay Marriage.
Destroying our lives and the fabric of our nation.
It’s amazing, isn’t it?
We’re living in a time where our true enemies are showing us exactly how not to govern. The consequences of his arrogance and incompetence is withering but this nation is resilient. The lessons to learn and capitalize upon could not be clearer. Conservatives have before them a once in a lifetime opportunity to drive irresponsible corrupt dhimmicrats from office by demonstrating the difference between good governance and bad.
But instead we see folks like these who plod along under the weight of an ancestral grudge and who would willingly strike out against an enemy that is largely a chimera. In reliably knee-jerk fashion they slap a label in their perceived foes, “damnyankee” as a focal point for their retribution. Anyone who is perceived as presenting an obstacle to their agenda is branded with the appellation and immediately the character assassinations begin. In essence they are trying to out-obama Øbama. If they had their way they would cleave our nation into untenable fragments. Any victory on their part would be purely Pyrrhic and most assuredly temporary.
I am reminded of the days revolving around the first constitutional convention. The year is 1787, the place is Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The proceedings had been contentious and rancorous. Factions spoke of their issues at the expense of unity. Ben Franklin was 81 years old at the time and irritable from the impact of his Gout. And yet he stood as a voice of moderation. Too weak to stand and orate his case, and in response to Randolf of Virginia who darkly predicted the conventions failure, Franklin had the following spoken on his behalf:
““Mr. President, I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions — even on important subjects — which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.
“The older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth — and that, wherever others differ from them, it is so far error.
“When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected?
“Thus I consent, sir, to this constitution. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good.
“If every one of us, in returning to our constituents, were to report the objections he has had to it and endeavor to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received — and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages.
“Much of the strength and efficiency of any government in procuring and securing happiness to the people depends on the general opinion of the goodness of the government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, that we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this constitution.
“On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the convention who may still have objections to it would, with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility — and to make manifest our unanimity.”
As he left the convention he was asked, “What have you given us?” to which Ben Franklin replied:
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
I may be an old softy but that’s the vision of our nation that I prefer to defend.
Personally I have zero in common with any democrat. No common ground at all. They want to destroy me and everything I've worked for. I am treated like I am the problem but I've financed their socialism for over 30 years now thru onerous income taxation.
Secession is the solution where people are given a choice to vote with their feet. Better a divorce into two countries than the entire thing drag everyone down.
I’m curious what you’ve done for the cause. How much of your life, your fortune, & your sacred honor have you invested in your last, greatest, most desperate hope? Have you joined/formed a secession movement in your state? Oh, that’s right - you were going to bail on your state and move to Texas. I guess there’s more than one way to “vote with their feet”. How’s that progressing?
As far a secession, the people of the may states will beg for it as soon as a tyrant usurps all authority. Will be it O'Bastard to push us over the edge? Maybe.
Several states resorted to a militia draft during our Revolution. Washington requested a national draft, which was ramping up when the French entered the war and removed the necessity.
The War of 1812 also saw preparations for a national draft when the end of the war got rid of the need.
The CSA passed a national conscription law in April, 1862. The Union only in March, 1863.
The vast majority of men who served in WWII were drafted.
So feel free to sneer at Union conscripts in the WBTS, who made up only a little more then 5% of Union forces, anyway. But keep in mind you're also sneering at those who fought for the United States in our Revolution, War of 1812, both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam.
Not to mention most who fought for the South. Were you aware that the Confederate Conscription Act of 1862 unilaterally extended the period of service of 12 month volunteers to 36 months, in essence conscripting every solder in the army? The Union Army never violated agreed terms of service in this way.
http://www.etymonline.com/cw/conscript.htm
If what you say is true then it will be too late to do anything by the time they are ready to act. Shouldn't you be starting now?
Secession is done at the state level, bottom up, so I am not sure what your getting at? Please explain.
I was “sneering” at anyone. You are mistaken.
Florida’s largest and bloodiest Civil War battle that killed 3,000 Union and 1,000 Confederate soldiers.
Since there were about 10,000 engaged on both sides, this would have been a death rate of ~40%, making it far and away the most bloody battle in American history.
At Gettysburg, which lasted three days, not four hours, the dead totaled about 8,000 out of 160,000 or so, or about 5%.
From trying to find these figures, it is astonishing how few people understand the difference between dead in combat and total casualties. Which is of course what happened in this case.
Actual deaths in combat at Olustee: USA - 203, CSA - 93.
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