Posted on 07/02/2002 3:37:44 AM PDT by 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.
I think he got downright cranky with age ---- but still lots of fun to read. And you are correct in that he did bring out the best in Southern culture while at the same time savaging the excesses of the aristrocrats. Sadly what I see in many of neo-confederate ranks today is a celebration of those excesses that can only be justified by re-writing the record.
The Nazi/CSA illustration is overdone and is a stretch - I wouldn't try to paint that picture!
I have not seen this article in person and would highly question it considering who has this 'Temple' linked. Would you like to know who has a direct link on their page to the grand ol' Temple of Democracy? Why, none other than Asa Gordon himself!! You do remember who Asa is don't you? The fool who wrote this article Walt posted
Well now, we can't argue with the records now, can we?
Well, yes, we can. After more than decade of intense genealogical research of my Southern Georgia ancestors, it's pretty evident that thousands of CSA soldiers were people of (some) color. The Creek, Cherokee and other Indian cultures were prevalent in deep south states and intermarriages were much more common than most people realize. Add the Melungeon theories to that and you get quite a mix, from "Brass Ankles to Redbones."
In addition, all the "records" that are so often cited, are very often suspect, since record keeping was not the prime objective during those bloody years and it is even likely many records were politically "cooked."
It is always refreshng to see and hear Nelson Winbush give his presentation of support for Confederate heritage and extoll the valor of his black ancestor, who was with a North Carolina cavalry unit.
A retired teacher and a lifetime member of the SCV, Winbush minces no words in his disregard for yankee revisionist history.
As far as "loyal servants", anybody who's served in combat will tell you that everybody's first loyalty is to his buddies, bunkies, platoon, whatever you want to call your little group of men. (That's what I hear from my husband, father, and grandfather anyhow.) If Bas put down his hammer and picked up a rifle, the men he worked, fought, and lived with weren't going to say him nay. And the Confederate units were pretty independent . . . witness the vote to add Mr. Levi to the muster roll. Grandpa Long's unit elected their own officers themselves, without so much as a by your leave from a colonel, let alone Gen'l Lee or President Davis. Some have posited that all this democracy run wild was bad for the war effort . . . ;-) but it certainly means that what the "official CSA position" happened to be doesn't necessarily reflect what was happening in the field.
Bringing up bussing in Boston is hardly the last word, as the Charlotte and Richmond cases of the same years indicate. Bussing and "de facto segregation" weren't strictly Northern problems. Nor has this question, North or South, been settled. A federal judge can still impose such a "solution." The end result, North or South, is usually a flight of whites and ambitious blacks to further suburbs or private schools.
I'm not aware that "the city was basically shut down for a week." Given tightly-connected, white working-class, ethnic neighborhoods whose best asset was their local school and team, it's not unnatural that there was resistance. Someone else may know more about the Charlotte and Richmond cases of the same years, but resistance in all these cases was nothing compared to what had greeted the desegregation decisions of the 1950s in the states where the legal color bar existed.
There's a Southern schadenfreude that takes pleasure at seeing court-ordered "desegregation" applied in Northern cities. When the federal government takes actions against "segregated academies" in the South, the shoe is on the other foot.
Race is a national problem, that can't be confined to one section or another, but if one wants to cast stones, it's hard to see how the federal government could have gotten involved in these questions had it not been for the across-the-board, de jure segregation of the Southern states. Had the rebellion suceeded those states might have been able, even down to the present, to practice segregation, but it's hard to see how this would have been an improvement.
You're parsing words. The term "Soldier" during the War for Southern Independence was not always the same definition we give to the title nowadays.
Many loyal blacks were more than ready to take up the banner if those they served fell in battle.
Yeah I get the idea that leftists, feminists, socialists, and statists are something in which you take pride. Especially when Twain and Mencken are omitted.
Explains a lot.
Temple of Revisionists is what it ought to be called.
It's on the front lawn of the National Gallery. It's a duplicate of the original one in Richmond, Virginia, and was given to the United Kingdom in 1921 by Commonwealth of Virginia. A fun fact is that the soil beneath the statue was brought in from the United States. It's because Washington had refused to ever set foot on British soil again.
Why do you have to be such a jerk about this?
First of all, the Confederates were not Nazis and their brutality (which is plainly evident) was not in the same league with Nazi brutality. The Confederates sought to subjugate a race, the Nazi's wanted to exterminate a race.
Next, the moral bankruptcy that motivated slavery does not compromise other noble principles that were part of this struggle. Certainly, slavery was a primary cause of the schism and the Confederacy was on the wrong side of that issue. But you blithely ignore or reject other important causes where the Confederacy was not on the wrong side.
Finally, that men fought for the Confederacy does not make them monsters. Even some who fought for Nazi Germany were of noble character and hated the monster they served. Some even died trying fighting the Nazis while the fought for Germany.
These men seriously weighed important issues: The rights of man, loyalty to a state, loyalty to the Union, and what political arrangement is best suited to securing and protecting the rights of man. I don't agree with their decisions, but some of them really did not fight to perpetuate slavery. Many were duped, but you can't find a war where fighting men and the blood they shed is not treated with contempt by political leaders.
Jerks like this guy to come along 150 years after the fact and slander long dead heroes so he can feel like he can fire a shot from his plush office at the long dead demon of slavery.
This guy came across my desk a couple of years ago . I'm grateful to have the opportunity to refresh my memory on his malcontent following .
Thanks Bill !
Thanks for your misplaced concern regarding my mental health, but I bet we'd see some really scary results if the group of you anti-Southern types started looking at inkblots.
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