Old times not forgotten: Civil War at 150

hosted ^ | Apr 2 | CHRISTOPHER SULLIVAN

[JoeProBono]

A hush fell over the crowd filling the elegant hall in downtown Richmond, Va. The vote was about to be announced, and a young staffer of the Museum of the Confederacy balanced his laptop across his knees, poised to get out the news as soon as it was official.

Who would be chosen "Person of the Year, 1861"?

Five historians had made impassioned nominations, and the audience would now decide.

Most anywhere else, the choice would be obvious. Who but Abraham Lincoln? But this was a vote in the capital of the rebellion that Lincoln put down, sponsored by a museum dedicated to his adversary. How would Lincoln and his war be remembered in this place, in our time?

A century and a half have passed since Lincoln's crusade to reunify the United States. The North and the South still split deeply on many issues, not least the conflict they still call by different names. All across the bloodstained arc where the Civil War raged, and beyond, Americans are deciding how to remember....

[jmacusa]

“LOL” Laugh a lot at yourself do you?

[stainlessbanner]

Hi Non - still hiding under that new handle? Knew you couldn’t stay away from WBTS very long

[vetvetdoug]

Or the murdering of Confederate POW's by the 6th Tennessee Cavalry, USA.
Andersonville was bad but since the North had ample resources and men why was the percentage of deaths in POW camps in the North only 4% less that the Southern Prisons?
Or the rape of female freedwomen by Sherman's bummers through Georgia?
Ft. Pillow was investigated by the Federals and found that the refusal of the Union soldiers to surrender was a major reason for the large number of casualties. Even Sherman was on the board of inquiry.
Or the sending of black regiments because the commanders thought the blacks to be cheap into battles where the reason was to just have the enemy to expend ammunition like at Olustee or the Battle of the Crater?

The Union was stained with just as much racism as was the South and unbiased historians know this.

[vetvetdoug]

Yes, NJ believes in such rights that one cannot even own weapons there without much paperwork and the threat of confiscation. THAT NJ? Can you carry a pistol in your car without registration? Can you have 100 rifles that aren’t registered in your house and carry them to a shoot? How safe are you in downtown Newark unarmed?

[Iris7]

I see you assailed unjustly by what appear to be products of the Empire's “education” system. Having raised children exposed to this system of Indoctrination - not Education - I am very familiar with “public” education's insidious attack on mind and spirit, and of the great effort required to save a growing child from mindless conditioned emotionalism and to preserve the child's natural inclination towards critical thought and self awareness.

My sympathies and warm regards. The War was a great tragedy and destroyed the Republic. We live in post Republic times; there are metaphors in 2nd Century Rome.

[jmacusa]

No argument there. I’m not happy about the gun laws here but where in America can you legally buy a gun without paper work? And your Confederate utopia would allow guns for all no problem?

[Iris7]

Good to see you.

Been gone a long time. I became annoyed with the increasingly vulgar discourse.

Can’t resist this post. Got a live one on the hook.

[K-Stater]

Hi Non - still hiding under that new handle? Knew you couldn’t stay away from WBTS very long

Obviously you have me confused with someone else.

[stainlessbanner]

Howdy Iris7 - good to hear from you. I’ve been keeping a low profile, too. Sometimes you can’t resist jumping in the fray, other times you realize there are non-FR things to be done, other priorities.

[JoeProBono]

[southernsunshine]

This one is getting nasty.

Indeed!

jmacusa - The gentleman from Virgina you are assailing is a US Navy veteran. Also, the slur you apply to a conservative North Carolina teacher is egregiously misplaced. You could learn much from both of them if you allow yourself the privilege.

[Happy Rain]

Comparing any damage the South did to the atrocities of Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley or Sherman's March to the Sea is simply stupid.
Like comparing corporal to capital punishment.

One thing is for sure,like in all wars,there was a lot of mendacious propaganda churned out then and some of it is repeated now.
But the scars and shattered lives caused by the evil Yankee invaders will still be long remembered because it actually happened.

[Darnright]

>Would this be the RE Lee who impregnated his and his father in law’s female slaves so he could profitably sell the female children to brothels?<

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

[central_va]

Obviously you have me confused with someone else.

LOL!

[donmeaker]

Lee had a problem. He had to free all the slaves named in his father in law’s will. He had to pay off his father in law’s debts. He had to give the property, unintailed to his children. By creating mostly white female slaves, not named in the will, and selling them at the highest rates, to the brothels, he could accomplish all those things. Doing that was legal, and in accordance with the honor of such a gentlemen. In asserting that he did what was necessary, I do not impugn his honor, but rather the morals of the society which held such behavior to be honorable.

[central_va]

By creating mostly white female slaves, not named in the will, and selling them at the highest rates, to the brothels, he could accomplish all those things.

Documentation please. Our maybe you should stop this crap.

[Happy Rain]

You are correct—in 1861,like 1776,a dozen or so sovereign states again tried to exit another hostile tyranny and in the process gave birth to an almighty Federal government more than willing to rape murder and burn them back into line.
Don't get me wrong,I'm glad the South lost because of the great country we all love that emerged—well, til now anyway.
It's just the domestic precedent of the big all powerful central government the damn Yankees invented to destroy the Southern patriot that many of us can't forgive.

[central_va]

I'm glad the South lost

You're only glad because you know without the South the USA would be the USSA by now.

[JoeProBono]

[Little Bill]

I get a laugh out of these threads. Since the end of the great unpleasantness and before I have acquired relatives in Virginia, Alabama, and Mississippi. We all lost some people and have great arguments.