Historian: Civil War tales are pure bunk

The Orlando Sentinel ^ | SUNDAY, JULY 5, 1998 | Mark Pino

[WhiskeyPapa]

The Osceola Sentinel SUNDAY, JULY 5, 1998 -- An Edition of The Orlando Sentinel

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Historian: Civil War tales are pure bunk

History doesn't lie. Right? Well, the winners want history to make them look good. Sometimes the losers get their say, too.

Perspectives can change. Villains can be made to look like heroes. Interpreting the past can lead to lively debates. And because it is history, often the only confirmation comes from what was written down or told orally through generations.

Even so, care must be taken.

When talk turns to the Civil War and blacks' role with the Confederacy, there is no room for revisionist theories for Asa R Gordon.

For instance:

The Confederate states were interested in white supremacy.

The war between North and South was not about states' rights or a War of Southern independence. States' rights and independence are WHATS of the Civil War. The WHY of it was to preserve slavery, Gordon told a small group at St. James AME Zion church in Kissimmee last week.

Simply put, there should be no memorials honoring men like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They and others resigned from the Union Army and fought against their country.

They were rebels, and they are traitors to the United States. Nations normally don't honor traitors, Gordon, a retired astrophysicist, said to a crowd that included a group from the Osceola Children's Home.

People normally don' t build memorials for traitors, racists or those who practice genocide.

There are no memorials to the Nazis.

In the United States, Confederate memorials dot the countryside. The flag is flown with pride. The Nazi flag - and Nazi leaders - inspire hatred.

It should he no different for Lee and others who fought for the South. The real heroes, Gordon said, are those Southerners who fought for the North.

As for those who try to promote the idea that blacks were willing soldiers for the South, Gordon's research disproves it.

In a lecture that was close to three hours long, the founder and executive director of the Washington, D.C. -based Douglass Institute of Government left no doubt about the fantasies and historical myths of Afro-Confederates.

"The South won in peace what it lost on the battlefield," Gordon said.

The commitment to the neo-Confederate movement is often emotional rather than intellectual, he said. It cannot stand the scrutiny of scholarship. The belief that blacks willingly served in the Confederate Army is ludicrous and harmful, he said.

"A slave didn't have a choice. If his master said he was going, the slave couldn't say no. He was a slave."

Those who say blacks fought for the South should look at Confederate documents, which ban blacks serving as regular members of the Army. They also need to look at records showing that those who did serve deserted when they got the chance.

Propagation of the present-day theories make it hard for people to realize that blacks were unhappy about their condition, Gordon said.

"How can you owe a people anything, if in fact they were so satisfied with the state that suppressed them?" he asked. "How can you correct that legacy if you are in denial about the true reasons?"

Gordon's visit was sponsored by Ann Tyler and Evan McKissic. McKissic, a retired Osceola teacher, has been critical of the theories of another retired local teacher, Nelson Winbush.

Winbush travels the country recounting the stories of his grandfather, who he said willingly and proudly served with Southern forces.

"I try to get the truth out. I talked with my grandfather, and I know what he said," Winbush said.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Pino welcomes comments. He can be reached at (407) 931-5935, by e- mail at OSOpino1@aol.com, by fax at (407)931-5959 or by mail at The Osceola Sentinel, 804 W. Emmett St., Kissimmee, 34741.

[docmcb]

BTW, today is the anniversary of Pickett's charge. Faulkner said it best:

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is stll time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armstead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago....

(Intruder in the Dust)

[stand watie]

there you go again-posting more anti-southron NONSENSE!

[stand watie]

NOPE. it would have been the northern cities that would have burned and damnyankee officers who would have been singled out,hunted down & captured or killed.

if the US army, USAF & NAVY combined couldn't stop <30,000 VC armed with outdated and homemade weapons (and we could NOT!), what makes you think that >100,000 southron partisans couldn't have wreaked unbelievable havoc on the north, until such time as the northern people said "ENOUGH ALREADY-give the rebels their freedom".

there it is. the blueprint for southron victory in 1862. (too bad they didn't ask COL Quantrell!)

for dixie,sw

[stand watie]

walt is ALL-vinegar and damn little fact;HOWEVER he is REALLY good at posting long, meaningless,frequently off-topic pieces of nonsense, authored by the most extreme of the revisionists, bigots and south haters.

for a free dixie,sw

[Non-Sequitur]

Not at all. I find it highly amusing that you and TwoDees insist on using that discredited label on those who you disagree with. By all means use it how you wish. No doubt you are hitting the 'Back' button and muttering about that damn commie Non-Sequitur right about now.

[Non-Sequitur]

NOPE. it would have been the northern cities that would have burned and damnyankee officers who would have been singled out,hunted down & captured or killed.

Oh puleeze. Any southern partisans would have had to live off the land with at least the tacit support of the local populace. Something they wouldn't have found up North. The closest your side got to that was the massacre at Lawrence.

...too bad they didn't ask COL Quantrell!...

They could have, for all the good it would have done them. He was dead by that time, remember? June 6, 1865 he got his just deserts.

[stand watie]

i think you just contradicted yourself. Lawrence was the most sucessful cavalry raid of the war, led by an AMATUER local partisan leader of the MO Home Guard BTW, FAR behind enemy lines. KS folks were NOT supporters of the TRUE CAUSE.

GEN Jackson, MG Cleburne,COL MOSBY and LOTS of other southron partisan officers could have done FAR BETTER, had REL & Davis approved. may i gently remind you that the south had the CREAM of the old officer corps, but lost not because of lack of valor & expertise, but rather ONLY because we had far less things/men.

for the sake of your side, be GRATEFUL that LEE & DAVIS were gentlemen who didn't wish to do anything dirty.

[GOPcapitalist]

Not at all. I find it highly amusing that you and TwoDees insist on using that discredited label on those who you disagree with.

No, only those deserving of it. I further invite you to demonstrate otherwise if that is what you maintain. In the meantime, I think it suffices to say that my characterizations are accurate.

Or do you dispute that Karl Marx was a communist?

Do you dispute that James McPherson writes for a communist organization's website?

Do you dispute that the hosts of the bush basher radio show that McPherson appeared on were communists?

Do you dispute that several of the transcendentalist yankee authors experimented with communal utopianism at Brook Farm?

Do you dispute that John Steinbeck was a left wing political propagandist for the communist New Deal policies of FDR?

If so on any of these, please explain yourself. Otherwise don't shoot your mouth off with accusations you cannot substantiate.

[Treebeard]

I would like to publicly apologize for my post that wished Walt a horrible death. It was juvenile and sophomoric. There was no excuse for such conduct, and after reflecting on it, I regret it.

My dad, born in 1902, grew up with a Confederate veteran in his family, Grandpa Thompson, and I remember the stories. I was b. 1961, so dad was almost done with life by the time I came along, and he used to tell me stories about Grandpa and Uncle John Thompson in the Confederate States Army.

For whatever reasons, they fought what at the time they considered a just war. The Thompsons MAY have owned 2 slaves during all the time I've researched them. They ran the poorhouse in Lincoln county TN, they weren't big landholders.

Granddad and Uncle John deserted the Confederate army in Knoxville on Nov 28, 1863, after watching the Alabamans butchered in the "pit" at Fort Sanders. Grandpa had just used his shirtsleeves to make "shoes" for him and Uncle John, and neither had weapons, so they called a halt to their Confederate service, having already served one whole year past what they signed on to do.

Uncle John passed in 1910 and Grandpa in 1930, their battles are over. So are mine, on this topic. I'm sorry for anyone I may have offended.

[Non-Sequitur]

Lawrence was the most sucessful cavalry raid of the war.

Yeah, it isn't that often that you get to slaughter so many defenseless civilians in one place is there?

LEE & DAVIS were gentlemen who didn't wish to do anything dirty.

They left the dirty work to scum like Quantrill.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Walt Walt Walt...............you keep pointing at what YOU interpret to be "the record". I've addressed this........twice. To no avail.

You've provided no data from the period at all. I have.

Walt

[Dan Day]

I guess I'll just have to be content with northern authors like Herman Melville and Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck.

Excuse me? John Steinbeck is a "northern author"? Since when did they move Salinas California to the Union states?

It's farther south than Lexington Kentucky, son.

Steinbeck spent most of his life in the Monterey/Salinas/Pacific Grove region of California. He placed most of his stories in that area, also (so much so that the area is well-known as "Steinbeck Country"). If you had actually *read* any of his books, you couldn't help but notice that they were deeply rooted in California. How on earth do you figure he's a "northern author"?

He may have lived briefly in his New York residence and died in New York, but he was born and lived as a Californian, and that' where his heart ever was.

Mark Twain lived in New York longer than Steinbeck ever did, and is buried there (died in Connecticutt). Are you going to try to claim him as a "northern author" too?

Hemingway? Here's an actual picture of Ernest Hemingway as a child -- nuff said:

James Fennemore Cooper

Who? Try "Fenimore". You can have him, he was the starry-eyed ivory tower writer who started the whole "noble savage" PC nonsense:

"Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may so express it, greater antithesis of character than the native warrior of North America. In war, he is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious, modest, and commonly chaste."
(from The Last of the Mohicans)

Puh-leaze... I can't say much for the turgid literary style, either.

Nathaniel Hawthorn

*cough*Hawthorne*cough*. You can keep him, too. The House of the Seven Gables was one of the most waste-of-time books I've ever read. Very overrated.

Henry David Throreau

Drop the extraneous "r" and you'll have it right. Are you sure you're as familiar with these authors as you like to imply?

Louisa Mae Alcott

Sigh. "May".

Julia Ward Howe

Are you sure you want to include such cultural literary icons as the woman whose best remembered work today is the lyrics (but not the music) of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"? She was an admirable reformer, but her lasting value as an author leaves something to be desired.

Walt Whitman

Whitman certainly had a way with the language, but there's no doubt why Clinton gave out copies of "Leaves of Grass" to the objects of his sexual desire:

Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.

Horatio Alger

I wasn't aware that the Unitarian minster wrote anything of note. Perhaps you meant Horatio Alger Jr.

Henry James

Henry James may have been born in New York, but it's a gross oversimplification to try to label him a "northern author". Most of his youthful education was with tutors in Geneva, London, Paris, Bologna and Bonn. He omnivorously read British, French, German, and Russian classics.

He continued to travel in Europe, and from the age of 26 until his death at the age of 72, he lived in Europe. He wrote his first novel while traveling through Venice and Paris.

He lived mostly in Britain, in Rye and London, which he loved so much that he wrote, "It is a real stroke of luck for a particular country that the capital of the human race happens to be British. Surely every other people would have it theirs if they could." He became a naturalized British citizen, and was decorated by King George V with the Order of Merit. When he visited the US in 1905, it was the first time he had been to the US in twenty five years.

It would be arguably more accurate to call Henry James a "European author" than a "northern author".

Edith Wharton

Wharton, too, spend some of her formative years in Europe, visited Europe frequently as a young adult, and adopted France as her home for the last half (and most literarily productive years) of her life. She never visited the US in the last 16 years of her life -- her last visit was only made to return briefly to accept her Pulitzer prize and bring it back home to France.

Upton Sinclair

Keep him. He was a lifelong crusader for Socialism. Even his most famous work, "The Jungle", is as much a screed for socialism as a broadside against the unacceptable practices of the meatpacking industry as it was in 1904. Six publishing houses rejected it, one (Macmillan) with the insightful comment that "One feels that what is at the bottom of his fierceness is not nearly so much desire to help the poor as hatred of the rich."

Jack London

There you go again -- Jack London is another Californian who you are trying to misappropriate as a "northern author". London was born in California, died in California, and lived the majority of his life in California, the exceptions being time in Alaska and a few years living on his boat cruising the Pacific Ocean.

O. Henry

And yet again... O. Henry was born in North Carolina (which was part of the Confederacy, son), and lived there until moving to Texas when he was 20. Only the last ten years of his life were spent in New York. Does this somehow make him a "northern author" in your book?

e.e. cummings

Cummings is yet another US-born author who did most of his writing while in France. I'm not sure he would consider himself a "northern author".

and, well you get the idea

I'm indeed getting an idea, but probably not the one you intended.

[muleboy]

They left the dirty work to scum like Quantrill.

I presume you prefer your reprisals and atrocities to be sanctioned by federal authority and include the use of artillery and infantry?

With the assertions you've made on FR, where do you get the gall to refer to anyone as "scum"?

[x]

How could smaller units possibly be more ineffectual and tyrannical than the current status quo? Is yours an argument for One World Government as well? I thought competition and choice were good things to be encouraged, especially in commerce and government.

How can a return to a homogeneous culture under a severely limited government be a "pernicious post-modern fashion"? It is so 18th Century.

I base my view on the slave and segregationist states which clearly did have a tyrannical component. And this aspect would have been greater were they independent. Indeed, but for wartime, states were more apt to be oppressive until the federal government got the power to tax incomes progressively.

I'm also thinking of my own dealings with the state government. I don't know whether it's more inefficient than the federal government, but it certainly is moss-bound, musty, incompetent and indifferent. A dynamic national economy showed up the state governments for what they were. If they had remained little pools of absolute sovereignty we would be drowning in red tape and dust by now. I don't want to leave the implication that we've avoided that fate through federal rule, just that things aren't as simple as state's rights advocates would have it.

I would argue that secession would promote one world government. America is large enough and powerful enough to go its own way. Break it up into halves or quarters and it won't carry as much influence in the world on questions like abortion, capital punishment, gun control and homosexual marriage. Fragment the country and international organizations and markets grow more powerful.

Half tongue in cheek, I called confederatism post-modern because of the games it plays with history and because of its opposition to the grand national narratives of recent modern history. Maybe they have their own "grand narrative" of history with Lincoln as Satan, though. But the new smaller states coming into the world, ostensibly based on local culture, don't seem to have the power of the larger nations to resist globalization and international organization.

The 18th century was also the age of Enlightenment universalism. The question for those who want to break up the country is whether they will go the libertarian route and produce a managerial market state that's just another unit in the global economic structure. Or whether they take the route of cultural uniqueness and homogeneity, which will bring them into conflict with globalization and the economic direction of the world today. It's not an enviable choice. It's one a superpower may be able to avoid or postpone. Smaller states do have to decide.

I doubt one can restore 18th century conditions or ways of looking at the world by fiat. The effect of secession would be to tear down those walls that have allowed national and regional cultures and ways of life to survive to the degree that they have.

[Old Professer]

As long as Blacks in America self-identify with what they see in the mirror, there will be a divided America.

The war between the states was fought for the same reason all wars are fought: politics and money.

Ordinary people are simply leaves in the gutter being swept by the raging rain of greed and power.

[varina davis]

They left the dirty work to scum like Quantrill.

Sherman and Butler weren't exactly choir boys.

[azhenfud]

I know this is off topic - well sort of - but Giddy Dolt has said in one of her ads that she "worked along side our textile workers". Can you believe she claims to have WORKED, and to deepen the cut, "along side" North Carolinians.

Those who fall for that Balloon Stuffing are no less guilty of being complicit to a liar's deeds and deserve all the deception she can "dole" out if she is elected confirmed by voters nodders.

Someone ought to force her to produce a paystub to confirm her claimed "employment" or force her to shut up. But she won't field quesstions from the public, neither will she debate the other candidates.

I won't vote for her because I KNOW she has built her campaign on deceptive claims....

[Non-Sequitur]

With the assertions you've made on FR, where do you get the gall to refer to anyone as "scum"?

Whem it comes to people like Quantrill then it's an appropriate description.

[Non-Sequitur]

Neither were Early or Forrest. Choir boys didn't get the job done. But there it's another matter to line up civilians and shoot them, like Quantrill did at Lawrence.

[Godebert]