Posted on 10/19/2010 9:15:22 AM PDT by Bodleian_Girl
Shortly after 10 o'clock on a crisp Saturday morning two weeks ago, 75 folks solemnly clutching small American flags and digital cameras assembled in a grove of young pines at a modest farm in the Zion community, tucked into in the soft hills west of downtown Rockingham.
Their objective was to honor five forgotten Union soldiers who died in a skirmish only days before the end of the Civil War. Until now, the solders' remains have lain in hand-dug graves marked only by small piles of white stones for 145 years, their identities unknown.
The event, sponsored by the Richmond County Historical Society, was an unlikely memorial service to honor their service to country and unveil official grave markers for the newly identified deceased. Invited guests included ancestors of the dead soldiers from as far away as Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, plus local citizens and history buffs and even a color guard made up of the Sons of Confederate Veterans from both North and South Carolina.
As local historian James Clifton reminded the participants, what happened at Lassiter Farm on March 7, 1865, was only a tiny incident in the bloodiest conflict in American history, a vast conflagration that produced more than a million casualties including 620,000 soldiers - an estimated 8 percent of all white males from the North and 18 percent from the South. More American soldiers died in the Civil War than in the next six wars combined.
Ironically, it was only the honor of a Confederate soldier that kept the memory of the five Union deaths from vanishing forever into the ether......
(Excerpt) Read more at thepilot.com ...
There, fixed it.
Did some Rebels steal, yes. Was it the policy of the P.A.C.S. Officers to condone that behavior? - NO. They didn't know the money was going to be worthless.
OTH, the policy of the Union army was scorched earth. Get the difference? The USA condoned the animalistic behavior, promoted the behavior. Even you can see that. Well maybe not that Lincoln curse is strong in you.
People didn't agree about whether such a "perfect right" existed. You can say it does and Jeff Davis could say it does, but that wasn't universally accepted. That's why there was a war.
The Union didn't want them to so they pushed the South until a war started.
Didn't take much pushing. It's highly possible that those Confederates leaders and firebrands wanted war. Look at some of the speeches. War would push or pull wavering states like Virginia or Tennessee into the Confederate camp.
I can't say for certain, but that must have at least crossed Davis's mind. Some of the Southern fire-eaters were passionate about war, which they thought would be short and glorious and victorious for them.
The Union could have left the seceded states alone BEFORE a war started but they chose(or Lincoln did) to make sure a war started in order to force the states back into a Union they no longer wanted to belong to.
Hey, when the fort doesn't surrender, just don't friggin' shoot at it. No war then.
If you join something you have the right to unjoin, but the Union didn't see it that way therefore there was a war, of the Union's making.
If you join the military you can't just up and leave. If you set up a partnership, you can't just decide on your own to take back what you think you put in and go your own way. If the bank tells you there's a significant penalty to early withdrawal when you buy a certificate of deposit, you can't take a gun into the branch office and demand all your money bank.
I certainly suppose a state could get out of the Union and sever its tie to the rest of the country. The question is whether it could do this unilaterally, on its own without the consent of the rest of the country, without negotiations about settling the questions that arise. There's no right to do that, and there certainly isn't -- and wasn't -- universal agreement that such a right exists or existed.
Uh, I brought up Murtha as an example of a POS who had contempt for servicemen. Why would I defend him?
You were the one who was defending folks based upon their status of being ‘dead American servicemen’. Seems like those two would fall within your definition.
It has been spun down through the years and taught as if the south started it but they didn't. The north could have very simply let the southern states go their way and no war would have occurred. Whether this would have been good for the US I'm not sure, but I do know states rights would still be in effect.
The ever popular "We wuz so stoopid we done fell for Linkum's trap" defense.
Actually, the trap Lincoln set was for the Northern people. He needed public approval for his war and succeeded in pulling a "head fake" on the Northern populace with Fort Sumter.
LOL! Good luck w/your MIL:)
Thanks. Nice to see in the participation of the local SCV. It’s gratifying to see that there are still some rank and file in that organization who see the honor in soldiers of both sides.
Foraging often meant survival for marching armies. And it was not limited to one side or one army. A reading of Southern citizens complaining about the locust swarm known as Bragg's Confederate army shows that both sides were adapt at the foraging art.
It takes two to make a war. Are you suggesting that the rebel leadership was so dumb that they couldn't see through his 'provocation'?
Not at all. I'm saying the northern populace had no way of knowing that Lincoln was the provocateur. All they knew was Fort Sumter had been fired upon. That was Lincoln's intent all along.
And had the rebel leadership not fired then all that provocation would have been for naught, right? Surely the Davis regime knew what they were getting into?
Yep. But, again, the northern populace had no way of knowing what went on behind the scenes.
Gotta get kids to school. Back in a little while.
What about the Southern populace? Didn't they deserve to know that their government was preparaing an act of war? Without the approval of their congress, I might add.
IMHO, the Southern populace understood what was likely to happen when Major Anderson abandoned Ft. Moultrie for Ft. Sumter.
As far as Lincoln's trap for the Northern populace.... that's a politician for ya. Always manipulating the public. Makes me all the more grateful that we have the internet now!!!!
Then why didn't the rebel congress declare war ahead of time? If they knew it was coming and all?
Why would they declare war ahead of time? Their hope was for peace.
maybe they were freeing slaves before the states rights morons killed them first??
Dont like my response?? TOUGH!
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