Black Confederate Redux

The black Confederates issue pops up again like breakfast toast out of a three-slice Cuisinart.

To recap the argument as I understand it -- the yes-they-did folks believe that evidence supports blacks -- slave and free -- serving the Confederacy in a military capacity, whether cooks, teamsters, foragers, or infantrymen, snipers, whatever -- regardless of the Confederate government's official stand on the issue.

The no-they-didn't folks cite the Confederate government's refusal to allow blacks to serve in the army as proof that they didn't serve.

As I may have noted before, I'm not deeply invested in this issue. Still, I've developed a mild interest, not in the issue itself, but in the mentality of those taking sides on it.

Personally, I don't think the Confederacy "needs" blacks among its military to justify its struggle for independence. I think it was justified first in seceding and second in protecting its people and territory from a particularly brutal military invasion. On the other hand, I think all who served, in whatever capacity, but especially those who served on the battlefield risking life and limb, should be acknowledged, and I believe this notion motivates many yes-they-did folks.

What I find most interesting is the no-they-didn't camp's almost mad scramble to neutralize any documentation discovered and presented by the yes-they-did people. If it says "servant" or "slave" anywhere on it, that is proof enough to these folks that the servant or slave was not a soldier -- or, did not engage in soldierly conduct (i.e., shooting at the enemy). As if the two statuses are mutually exclusive. They aren't. Slaves have served in armies throughout history and around the world.

One thing I find interesting about the debunkers is their virtually total reliance on what they accept as official documentation. If the Confederate government prohibited it -- or at least didn't authorize it -- it couldn't have happened. Of course, we know all sorts of unauthorized and even prohibited activity takes place all the time -- but they can't allow themselves to accept it in this case.

I went to school with a guy who became an officer of the U.S. Navy and commanded a boat that patrolled rivers during the Vietnam war. He flew a Confederate flag from his boat. Presumably, this was/is officially prohibited somewhere, because his superior officers repeatedly ordered him to remove it. He didn't.

To believe something didn't happen -- couldn't have happened -- because it was forbidden by law is to believe there were no abortions in the USA before 1973, or that nobody drank alcohol during Prohibition.

I believe the reason there is such resistance to the notion of black Confederates has nothing to do with documentation or historical accuracy or any of that. It is the belief, shaped by modern, politically correct (i.e., socialistic) indoctrination, that blacks simply would not, could not, have fought to keep themselves enslaved.

Of course, this thought process is totally dependent on believing that Confederates fought the war solely for the purpose of keeping black folks in chains. What that means is, South=fought to keep slavery=evil, North=fought to free slaves=saintly, the war was all, all, all about this and nothing, nothing, nothing else.

Anyone who scratches off the layer of victor-pablum coating the "history" of the war is likely to see in short order that it simply wasn't that cut and dried -- indeed, slavery itself wasn't that simplistic -- but people are loathe to go against what they've been spoonfed their entire lives. They simply cannot violate their programming, regardless of the enormous amounts of truth it leaves out.

But there's an even greater/deeper reason for this belief, I suspect. What the north did to the South in the Civil War was not justifiable by any standard of decency known to civilized man. There was no justification for responding to the peaceful and democratic act of secession with war -- particularly war on civilians and particularly not with such savagery and barbarism. And so, to justify the unjustifiable, the victors had to fabricate a people so evil and a culture so malevolent that destroying both justified the union's bloody brutality.

That was accomplished by focusing solely on slavery, and not the whole of it, but the small, worst component of it -- and then smearing all Southerners with it. This process actually started before the war, and helped to build up the bloodlust of the north that resulted in the horrors perpetrated upon the South during the war. To acknowledge that blacks could have fought for the Confederacy is to acknowledge that the evilization of white Southerners, to justify their destruction in war, was wrong.

But once it was done, there was no turning back possible. The victimization of the South, justified by it's "evil," had to continue, and the result was four or five generations of deliberately created regional poverty that did not begin to ease until World War II. The demonization of Southerners continues to this day in books, fiction and nonfiction, scholarship, movies, comics, video games -- the whole of the popular culture.

There are likely diehards, like the pro-yankee bloggers who can't seem to get through a week without "monitoring" Southern heritage advocates online, who will never change. But it is past time for the self-deluded north to come to terms with what it did -- to realize that the evilization of Southerners was and is a fabrication (we're no worse than anyone else), and admit that, slavery notwithstanding, the union's savage war on the South was wrong. Just plain wrong -- whether a single black fought for the Confederacy or not.

(Photo: Matthew Bowden, Stock.Xchng)

A Reply to a Responce [sic]...

...to Corey Meyer, aka Kindred Blood, aka Billy Yank, who wrote about me on his blog. His comments in italics, mine normal text:

Connie,

I nor the other blogger* claim no more authority than you…you run a blog about the south…what authority do you have? You and yours have repeatedly shown that you do not have a grasp of the original source material that you present.

Nope. We haven't shown that. You're expressing an opinion, that's all. We show that we have a grasp of the original source material that's at least as strong as yours.

However, the other blogger* and I have history degrees which is the be-all-to-end-all on the situation, but it does help us when we are working with source materails…we have a background understanding of how to work with those items.

Your degree didn't help much with your spelling and grammar, though -- so why should I believe it gives you some kind of edge understanding history or anything else? Having a degree doesn't automatically give you a "background understanding" of anything. It depends on how well your were taught, how well you learned, and whether you were learning for the sake of knowledge, or to promote your pre-existing agenda.

Your problem is that you want to define any black person who supported the war effort of the south to be labeled a black confederate and even black confederate soldier.

That is not correct. http://one80dts.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-confederates-controversy.html Besides, it's not a matter of what I want, anyway, but a matter of what is/was. The people of the Confederacy were Confederates. If they were black, that made them black Confederates. YOU are the one trying to equate "black Confederate" with "soldier" -- not I, so don't try to palm your misconception off on me, buster.

Moreover, many heritage defenders who make claims of black Confederate soldiers, are using neither the dictionary definition of "soldier" nor the legal or political or military definition -- they're using the organic definition or the reality-based definition -- i.e., did the black Confederate pick up a gun in a battle and shoot at Yankees? Then that makes him a soldier to those folks -- in the sense that a soldier is as a soldier does.

The problem is … is there is no strong evidence that those who are claimed by you to be black confederates or black confederate soldiers are soldiers.

That may be a problem for you. It's not for me. Besides, where do you imagine I have made such a claim? I'd like chapter and verse, please. I've already 'splained it and 'splained it and posted a link to my position on this subject; so where are you getting this misinformation? Do tell. It might give some insight in how you traverse convolutions to arrive at the conclusions you arrive at.

Do I deny that tens of thousands of blacks were in a support role for the confederacy…no.

Now, why don't you tell me why I should care what you don't deny?

Do I deny that a very small number of blacks fought…no. However I will not and the historical data does not support the contention that tens of thousands of blacks fought as actual soldiers.

I don't contend that, either, so what are you bitching at me for? The ones who fought, however many there were, probably fought because they were at a place where circumstance -- i.e, marauding yankees shooting at them -- demanded it. I recognize that as soldierly conduct. Because this fellow wasn't on some muster roll somewhere, you refuse to see that as soldierly conduct. What? Certain conduct is what it is, only if something is written down on a piece of paper somewhere? You self-styled academics are so trussed up in paper that you're smothered by it, blinded by it, so you can't see the reality of the world and human nature and the human experience going on all around you.

You calling them black confederates denotes soldiers and loyalty.

No, you INFER that's what it denotes. That isn't necessarily what I'm implying, so don't put your words in other people's mouths and then condemn them with your own misunderstanding. If you could learn not to judge people, their beliefs, and what they say by your own misperceptions, you'd be waaaay ahead. I don't denote anything by it. I'm saying what was. They were residents of the Confederacy -- that made them Confederates, just like blacks, slave and free in the USA, were Americans. Voila -- black Americans, black Confederates.

Despite what you think, we just simply do not have the documentation to provide evidence of loyalty.

Well, you don't know what I think. You only prejudge what I think. However, if the documentation cannot provide evidence of loyalty, neither can it provide evidence of an absense of loyalty, can it? Thus, the documentation is neutral -- and irrelevant.

I too and saying that those who served should be acknowledged…but for what they were…and that was that the lions share of those you call black confederates were really slaves or free blacks that felt that any action in support of the south would lead to greater freedoms for themselves.

You know how they felt? You demand "written proof" from others, but you turn around and imply that you know how they felt? How? Do you hold seances? Do you put your hands on the "documentation" and the knowledge just ... sort of ... flows up your arms and into your head? I simply recognize what they did. You're telling me you know how thousands of people who lived a century and a half ago felt? This is one of the most ludicrous claims you've ever made.

Besides, being a slave, and being a black Confederate were not mutually exclusive, any more than being a slave and being a black American were mutually exclusive.

The only issue we have is how those men are acknowledged…and that needs to be done in a historically correct way. Calling a black slave who served his master during the war a black confederate will sound to a lay person on the War of the Rebellion as if blacks served as soldiers willingly and that the south openly enlisted blacks as soldiers and we….despite what you say…know that is not true.

You are once again doing the thinking for people you don't know, haven't met, never will know. You don't know that's what they'd think. Not everyone, lay person or not, has your mental limitations, Corey (limited to fit into your preexisting agenda). Frankly, I don't know how many "lay persons" would care one way or another. However, they are perfectly free to hear both sides of the issue and make up their minds about it. YOU would deny them that by shutting down the voices of those you disagree with, claiming that only YOUR way is the "historically correct" way.

Besides, when you show the same zeal for "historical correctness" regarding the Union's treachery, brutality and betrayal of the Founders, maybe we can revisit this.

As for the the example you refer to a couple of things. 1)If the writer is refering to new found information they need to tell the reader what that information is and where it comes from…Historical Honesty. 2)As for Kevin’s right to call anyone out I have this to say. Kevin is a published author, his first book is at the publishers and he has had numerous article published in journals and magazines about the War of the Rebellion. He is also currently under contract to write a book about black confederates and is in the research stage of the process. Therefore I would take his comments in higher esteem than say someone who writes southern romance novels!!

You expect me to be impressed? I'm not as gullible as you are. Levin is a published propagandist. I freely acknowledge my novels are fiction, and that they're written to an agenda. I say so right on my author website. http://conniechastain.com/bio.html You think Levin is candid enough to admit his writing is propaganda designed to push his pre-existing agenda? Ha!

Can't wait to see his book about "black confederates," which you and he say didn't exist. What's it gonna be, a back and front cover with nothing in between? LOL!

So are you saying that southern heritage is not synonymous with history.

Well, it's not me saying it, Corey. It's the very definition of the words themselves. Why don't you look and see? From dictionary.com:

==========

his·to·ry [his-tuh-ree, his-tree] Show IPA
noun, plural -ries.
1. the branch of knowledge dealing with past events.
2. a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological account; chronicle: a history of France; a medical history of the patient.
3. the aggregate of past events.
4. the record of past events and times, especially in connection with the human race.
5. a past notable for its important, unusual, or interesting events: a ship with a history.

==========

her·it·age [her-i-tij] Show IPA
noun
1. something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion: a heritage of poverty and suffering; a national heritage of honor, pride, and courage.
2. something reserved for one: the heritage of the righteous.
3. Law.
a. something that has been or may be inherited by legal descent or succession.
b. any property, especially land, that devolves by right of inheritance.

==========

Is the distinction too subtle for you? Perhaps I need to spell it out. Our history is PART of our heritage in that it has been handed down to us. It is a part, a large part, of what we as Southerners have inherited. But it is not the WHOLE of our inheritance. Our region -- the very land itself, the mountains,, the plains, the rivers and bays, the flora and fauna -- our culture, our food, our kinfolk, our music, our language and much, much more. That's heritage. And while the SHPG concentrates mostly on Confederate history (primarily because it is under concerted attack, and has been for over a decade, and the attack will get worse now because of he sesquicentennial) that is not all we post about.

From what I have read on pages like Facebook’s Southern Heritage Preservation Group or Virginia War Between the States Sesquicentennial you are very correct…history and heritage are in no way connected or your’e not connecting them.

Sigh. Certainly they're connected. They're just not the same thing. How difficult a concept is that to comprehend? That two things which are not the same thing are nevertheless connected?

As for being drawn to your type…I suppose I am**…I won’t speak for others. You provide a comic relief!

Nope, that doesn't get it. If all I provided was comic relief, you wouldn't have responded here with such ernestness and gravity. LOL!

The difference between you and me, as bloggers, Corey, is that you're a censor. You would silence those you disagree with if you could, or make what they say conform to what you believe. I, on the other hand, don't seek to silence anybody. I just point out how wrong you are.

End

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*The "other blogger" being Kevin Levin, owner of an anti-Southern, authoritarian, granite-minded blog called Civil War Memory (a virtually limitless subject matter that allows him to pontificate on anything and say it is "connected" to the Civil War because it's really about how the war is remembered, not about the war itself....) Anyhow, this fellow is a thin-skinned yankee teacher who came South to "educate" the poor, benighted chirren of scum-sucking, racist hick Southerners, and teach them about the evil reality of themselves and their kin, region, history, heritage, culture.... and who now -- praise be -- has relocated to Boston. I can't think of a better place for him. (Yes. This is my opinion, developed from reading Levin's blog and my personal experience with his childish whims and tantrums .)

**You can see how long Cory has been drawn to us by reading these columns from my original 180 DTS e-zine. They date from 2000 or so. About the only thing I got wrong was my caricature of Billy as a big, burly, Bluto-type of guy.... Talk about comic relief....
http://members.cox.net/180dts/Billy.html
http://members.cox.net/180dts/DigitalBilly.html

Getting OUR Message Out

(Note: A slightly different version of the following appeared in a post by me at the Southern Heritage Preservation Group's Facebook page.)

Recently at the forum Southern War Room, there were two posts that illustrate part of the reason why our side of the story is seldom heard.

The first was a link to an excellent essay by Dr. Donald Livingston, *Why The War Was Not About Slavery, found here: http://www.carolannwilson.net/Livingston.pdf

The second was a link to a Power Point presentation titled *The Antebellum South by Ms. Susan Pojer of Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua, NY, found here: http://www.pptpalooza.net/PPTs/AHAP/AntebellumSouth.ppt

(The Power Point Palooza page is here: http://www.pptpalooza.net/ While there, you might want to check out other of Ms. Pojer's Power Point Presentations -- Civil War Atrocities, which concentrates heavily on the Ft. Pillow lie and Andersonville, barely gives a nod to Point Lookout, and doesn't have a syllable about deliberate starvation and murder at Hellmira and torture at Camp Douglas, what a surprise, huh?.... Also check out Reconstruction and I'm A Good Ol' Rebel [that last one's great, although I'm sure Ms. Pojer doesn't think so!] )

My observations:

1. Dr. Livingston's essay is wonderful but it isn't likely to be read by anyone except we who are in the choir. It is nicely laid out, illustrated, etc., but it is thirteen pages of almost unrelieved text. THIRTEEN. PAGES. We do not live in a thirteen-pages-of-text world anymore. We live in a Power-Point, Facebook, Twitter, You-Tube, e-reader, SMS, sound-bite world.

2. If Ms. Pojer's entire lesson plan for her students follows what she has put in these Power Points, and if they're representative of what's taught in northern schools, is there any wonder why yanks continue to hate us?

3. ProSoutherners and Southern heritage advocates need to be making our own PPPs -- Power Point Presentations -- (and You-Tube videos, and other short-message venues) to get our message out. For example, a Power Point that distills the major points of Dr. Livingston's essay (with his permission, of course) that includes a link to it for those who can still read. A PPP refuting and/or "expanding" on Ms. Pojer's anti-South PPPs (i.e., showing what she leaves out). A PPP showcasing northern slavery, the truth about how/why it ended up there, and how the region continued to profit from "remote" slavery in the South. Think of all the subjects that can be presented this way. The truth about Forrest. Sherman's March. Black Confederates. Torture of Confederate captives in northern POW camps. And on and on and on.

4. Keep our presentations honest. In a section titled, "The South's Peculiar Institution," Pojer's The Antebellum South PPP includes a drawing of a slave wearing a metal muzzle, and a photo of three slave brands. If branding slaves had been routine in the plantation South, we would already have heard about it (and would never hear the end of it). I've done some rudimentary Google research on these images, and according to this site -- http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts/slavery_4446.jsp -- these items are relics of the Atlantic slave trade. To identify them as part of the South's peculiar institution as Ms. Pojer has done is either boneheaded ignorance, or willful lying. However, you see this all the time -- the conflatation of the Atlantic slave trade (which sent far more slaves to other parts of the western hemisphere than the South and was truly horrifically inhumane) with Southern plantation slavery, and it needs to be vigorously refuted -- with facts.

5. Thus, our presentations, whatever method is used to present them, must, must, must include source documentation. Pojer's doesn't. (Does anyone really believe she tells her students, "Now, that picture of slave muzzles and brands actually relates to the Atlantic slave trade, not the antebellum South, but I included them in this presentation about the South because _____ "(fill in the blank).

6. A note about execution. Don't use fancy transitions (checkerboard wipes, etc.) in PPPs and videos, as Pojer does, or use them sparingly. Especially don't use them on title pages. Don't make the fonts on your title pages too big, also as Pojer does. There's lots of instructions available for making high-quality video, much of which would apply to slide presentations like PPPs. There's no excuse for making stuff that looks amateur and thrown-together. (In the future, hope to write or link to articles with instructions on how to make professional-looking videos and presentations that have impact, so check back often.)

7. How do we get our view out there? We need to move beyond blogs and forums, and create our own proSouthern alternate media, including e-newspapers and e-magazines, books, both fiction and nonfiction (we already have many fine books, but more never hurts!), videos and PPPs, our own coloring books for our kids, comics for our teens, puppet shows, toys -- an entire proSouthern pop culture, including music, movies, radio and eventually television (featuring our own "stars") -- our own sports, our own schools (shadow schools with classes held after regular government indoctrination center classes, or on Saturdays and in summer), our own home-schooling curriculum and our own **awards for excellence in these endeavors. The digital revolution makes most of it accessible, relatively affordable, and easier than ever. We simply need to learn how to use it.

So read up on self-publishing, learn screenwriting. Educate yourself on independent filmmaking. Draw a coloring book or comic book (called "graphic novels" these days). Write songs, form a band or singing group, record the music, burn it on CDs and/or make your own digital recordings to sell as downloads. If you don't have the time or inclination to do all this, donate money to those who do and cheerlead for them. (Which leads to another though -- we need our own fundraisers and financial backers.)

In my wanderings through cyberspace, I've found lots of Southern sites. These aren't necessarily heritage or Confederate sites (though some to pay homage to Confederate heritage) but they are very, very culturally Southern. (See http://usadeepsouth.ms11.net/index.html and http://www.propersouthernwoman.com/ What this says to me is, despite encroachment by the rest of the country, despite the homogenizing effects of TV and other pop-culture elements, and ridicule of the South by Hollywood and the big six publishers in New York, and despite anti-Southern indoctrination in schools, our people still tenaciously retain much of their regional identity. These are the people we need to be reaching.

I would add one other item to my list:

8. Don't confine your efforts for the South to Facebook, forums and such. As wonderful as it is to "meet" with likeminded folks in this manner, there is a possibility that it will become too cathartic and take the fire from our bellies.

How do we create our own media, movies, pop culture, etc. Start small, with Power Points or YouTube videos that will not only illustrate our views, but attract others (perhaps even indie filmmakers or financial backers we need). We start with what we can do, and then move up....

In the spirit of practicing what I preach, I have produced a short (under three minutes) video about secession that I will post at the end of this essay. If you agree, please repost far and wide, and leave comments here and/or at the video's YouTube page.

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*(These were posted by Roy and RHC40AL; thanks to forum manager PoP for permission to repost.) http://www.southernwarroom.info/

**Kudos to the Military Order of the Stars and Bars for their Literary Awards: http://www.militaryorderofthestarsandbars.org/programs-services/service-programs/literary-awards/

If you know of other awards issued by proSouthern organizations, please let me know and I'll post links here.

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Why I'm In This War of Words

There are manifold reasons. To honor those who went before; to strengthen and protect what's left of my culture (it's worth saving, and it can't make a come-back if it's all gone); to correct age-old lies and slanders about my region and its people, to name a few...

As an example (we run into stuff like this. All. The. Time.) I recently ran across somebody's personal website, The Civil War in Georgia, created in 1996 and last updated in 2000. It's an amateur site -- both in design and writing (and the Internet has come a long way since then).  It's just an illustration of the dismal ignorance rampant out there today.

The site deals with several subjects related to the war in Georgia --the cause, the blockade, Sherman's march, etc.  It sez the war  ...was America's defining moment, when the rural collection "These United States" transformed into the industrial powerhouse of "The United States."  (If one is old enough to remember, one might call it the military-industrial powerhouse bully....  but I digress.)

What caught my attention, though, was  in the "causes" section: "Slavery caused the war. It was the desire of the South to keep humans enslaved for profit and the inability of the North to stomach the evil of slavery that led so many thousands to their deaths."

The inability of the north to stomach slavery?  Really?  Actually, he's partly right.  The north was unable to stomach those parts of the slavery enterprise that were no longer profitable for them -- the financial responsibilities of round-the-clock, cradle-to-grave support of slaves who did not, could not, produce round-the-clock, cradle-to-grave.

However, when they were relieved of that responsibility, and it rested solely with plantation-owners in the South to support their slaves, the north was all too happy to get rich off the products of the evils of slavery -- that is, weaving slave-grown cotton in their textile mills (i.e., the infant "industrial powerhouse" ran on "remote" slavery) and the shipping of slave-grown cotton in the cargo holds of their ships headed for England.

As long as they didn't have to come in close proximity to slaves, Northerners were fine with the "evil of slavery" -- particularly when they profited so handsomely off the work of slaves who were out of sight, out of mind.

I have said it before, and I will continue to say it.  Whatever "sins" the Confederacy committed, the Union's were just as bad, and some of them worse -- and continue to be so to this day.

Another Walk Down Memory Lane

One of my favorite 180DTS covers from back when. This was the cover for February 2001, shortly after King Roy Rat Barnes arbitrarily changed the Georgia flag (and was subsequently thrown out of office by the voters). Look closely and you can see Kerosene Billy's ghostly face above the city skyline. (Click image for a larger view.)

Test your history indoctrin-- I mean, knowledge

(Warning. This post contains language that some might find offensive.)

Who said this?

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition."

Dingdingdingding! Right, we have a winner! Everyone! Because everyone knows it was Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy. It's repeated in website after website, and all over the blogosphere, and even in comment threads, as proof that the inbred, scum-sucking racist hick Confederates were fighting to keep an entire race in chains!

Okay, now, who wrote this?

The negro of the North is the ideal negro; it is the negro refined by white culture, elevated by white blood, instructed even by white iniquity; -- the negro among negroes is a coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled creature, ugly as Caliban, lazy as the laziest of brutes, chiefly ambitious to be of no use to any in the world. View him as you will, his stock in trade is small; -- he has but the tangible of instincts of all creatures, -- love of life, of ease and of offspring. For all else, he must go to school to the white race, and his discipline must be long and laborious. Nassau, and all that we saw of it, suggested to us the unwelcome question whether compulsory labor be not better than none....

Why, that sounds like the writer is saying that that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition -- a mirroring of Stephens' comment, only couched in far, far more insulting terms. So, who wrote it? Jefferson Davis? Robert E. Lee? Some other inhuman Confederate slaveholder?

Why, no. That was written by the famous abolitionist Julia Ward Howe.

Yes, she who penned the Battle Hymn of the Republic, about grape stomping and vorpal blades going snicker-snack-- wait. I'm getting my nonsense verses mixed up. Grape stomping and terrible swift swords, it was.

What kind of abolitionist advocates slavery (i.e., compulsory labor)? Well, the kind of abolitionist Julia Ward Howe was. The kind that believed negroes were inferior to whites and had to be refined by white culture, elevated by white blood, instructed even by white iniquity.

With abolitionist/friends like this, what slave needed Confederate/enemies?

Frankly, I think, as abolitionists go, Julia Ward Howe was a fraud. Even worse -- she became a feminist after the war, and anyone who knows me for a while knows what I think of feminism. (It is man-hatred; its goal the destruction of the natural family.)

Look. Confederate descendants and heritage supporters have nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever sins the Confederacy may have committed, the sins of the Union and its pet abolitionists were as bad or worse. For example, the murder of a black man by the raiders of Slave-Savior/Terrorist John Brown. I guess this is an example of the makin' omelets school of abolitionism.

Oh, one other thing. You know how South-bashers are always claiming the "traitorous rebels" wanted to "tear the Union apart" with secession and war? Next time you encounter some mad, neo-yankee blogger screeching about that, send them to this link:

A Trip to Cuba by Julia Ward Howe
Tell them to use the drop-down CONTENTS menu and to go Chapter 2 - Nassau, where they'll find this:

Now we who write, and they for whom we write, are all orthodox upon this mighty question. We have all made our confession of faith in private and public; we all, on suitable occasions, walk up and apply the match to the keg of gunpowder which is to blow up the Union, but which, somehow, at the critical moment, fails to ignite.

She and her fellow travelers wanted to blow up the Union -- and had tried to, multiple times, with their writings.

I'll say it again. Hereditary Southerners whose ancestors served the Confederacy have nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever sins the CSA may have committed, the USA was, and is, no better

Be proud you're a rebel!

(Photos from the Library of Congress)

The Black Confederates Controversy

Were there black Confederates? I dunno. I don't care, either. At least, not in the sense that those involved in the Big Controversy About Black Confederates care about it.

My personal view? I think that anyone who fought for the Confederacy -- red or yellow, black or white -- whether as duly signed-up soldiers or not, should be honored and their service acknowledged. So they weren't on some official muster roll and they weren't handed a uniform and soldierly accouterments. So? What interests me is... did they pick up a gun and shoot at yankees? Then they need to be commemorated.

And not just the ones who fought, but the wives and families, the servants, the farmers and merchants, the teachers, preachers, elected officials... all who supported the new nation and its fight for independence.

When the No-They-Didn't folks cite the Confederate government's barring blacks from service as PROOF that there were no blacks fighting for the Confederacy, I have to laugh.

Do you suppose these folks also seriously believe that nobody drank alcohol during Prohibition -- because the government barred drinking alcohol?

What gets me is that so many of these No-They-Didn't folks are -- or claim to be -- intellectuals and academics. You'd think they'd know better. Oh, wait. Intellectuals... and academics... Never mind.

But what's actually fueling this controversy is not the B word (black) or the C word (Confederate). It's the S word. Slavery.

In a historical context, at least, Confederacy-bashers think of "black" and "slave" as synonyms. Thus, all blacks in the South were slaves, and it is unthinkable to them that blacks/slaves would "fight to perpetuate their own enslavement," as one of them put it For you see, slavery was the ONLY THING the Confederates were fighting for, so any blacks fighting for the Confederacy would be fighting for their own enslavement.

That's how they see it. They can't see it any other way.

Well, they probably could. But they WON'T.

This is why, bloggers at websites like this (http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/06/civil-war-was-about-slavery.html and http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2011/06/pimp-slapping-black-confederate-soldier.html) truncate the secession documents to leave out all the OTHER reasons the states cited for seceding. It has to be all-slavery, only-slavery, or they blow a gasket.

For example, Transgriot posts 136 words of Mississippi's 708 word secession document. She posts 60 words of Georgia's 3300-word secession document. Why did she leave out so much? Because they were about things she wasn't interested in? If Mississippians and Georgians didn't care about what she left out, why did they include them? If what she cut out was important enough to Mississippians and Georgians that they LISTED THEM among their CAUSES FOR SECEDING, why did Transgriot leave them out?

Yes, dear reader, that IS a rhetorical question. We KNOW why she left them out.

Once Confederacy-bashers like this see what they're looking for -- the S word -- they QUIT READING. They don't want to know the rest of the story. They don't even want to acknowledge that there IS a rest-of-the-story.

Well, there is. I have already examined Mississippi's Secession Declaration to explain it to a "journalist" here: http://one80dts.blogspot.com/2011/03/backsassin-yet-another-journalist.html

The Yes-They-Did folks seem levelheaded and motivated mostly by (1) a desire to acknowledge these men and their contribution and (2) historical accuracy, while the No-They-Didn't folks get plumb apoplectic in their denial. For me, that says a lot about the quality of the substantiation each waves before the public.

The no-folks claim that yes-folks (frequently slandered as "Confederacy worshippers" and "historical revisionists" and "slavery apologists") are attempting to "legitimize" the Confederacy by taking away the idea that the South fought to perpetuate slavery, because, as we have noted, it is unthinkable that blacks/slaves would "fight to perpetuate their own enslavement." So, if blacks fought for the South, the South couldn't have been fighting to maintain slavery.

However, that this is an accurate description of the yes-folks' motive is a bunch of baloney, as far as I'm concerned..

Now, it's true that, over the years, I've run into a few people who claim, "The war had nothing to do with slavery! It was about..." states rights, or the tariff, or whatever. Well, it was "about" all those things, including slavery, and more. However, when someone makes the distinction (as I do) that the secession of the Deep South states was over slavery and other things, but the shooting started for another reason, that is frequently characterized as saying, "The war had nothing to do with slavery...." It's dishonest, of course, and the people doing it know it is.

The reason it is so important to the anti-Confederate folks to tie the Southern cause forever to slavery, and only slavery, is their faith that slavery delegitimizes the South's struggle for independence.

It doesn't.

The reason for demonizing the Confederacy this way is to take the focus off the sins of the United States.

Whatever claim of moral superiority the north/union/United States had/has over the South because some of its states abolished slavery when it became unprofitable, that moral authority was obliterated by northern industry's accumulation of wealth processing slave-grown cotton in its textile mills and its maritime interests' accumulation of wealth shipping slave-grown cotton to Europe.

The north's moral superiority vanishes when you realize that the Confederacy had legalized slavery for four years, and the United States for 80 years -- including eight months AFTER the Confederacy ceased to exist.

The north's moral superiority vanishes when you realize that while the union army making war on the South, slaves were helping to build the U .S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

The north's moral superiority was obliterated by the military invasion of the Southern states, the barbarity with which the Union Army made war and the economic enslavement of the Southern people, black and white, for generations after the war, with purposely created poverty.

The claim of U.S. moral superiority was obliterated by the U.S. government's official policy of genocide of the Plains Indians; by herding native Americans onto reservations in conditions worse than slavery; by the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII; by the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments; by the CIA's torture and murder in Central America; by the U.S. military's herbicidal warfare program against Vietnamese civilians, and on and on and on.

The South was fighting for its political independence motivated by more than preserving its slave-based economy, but even if that had been its only motivator -- and whether or not blacks fought for the South -- the Confederacy's struggle for independence from Washington, D.C. was as legitimate as the colonies' struggle for independence from the British crown.

Emotionalism trumps cognition -- again

Checking the hits on my blog recently, I noticed 180 had been visited by somebody who followed a link from www.anti-semitism.net, so I went over there and looked around.  They had posted two sentences from my 180 essay titled "More Sesquicentennial Slime" evidently as some sort of proof that my blog is anti-semitic.

CLICK HERE TO SEE SCREENSHOT
So, I sent them a reply using the contact form on their site. Here it is:

Cherrypicking a quote from my blog about Leo Frank -- evidently to "prove" anti-semitism on my blog --  is at best misleading because the quote is lifted from its context. The context demonstrates that my blog essay, "More Sesquicentennial Slime", is not anti-semitic in any way; it is anti-Jill Howard Church and anti-the manipulation and mendacity in her editorial.

In your rush to find (or create) anti-semitism, you had to leave out most of the paragraph in which that quote appears. How honest is that?  Did you even read it?  Of course, you couldn't paste the whole paragraph on your site because it clearly demonstrates that my comments were not  an anti-semitic insult to Leo Frank and were not intended as such, but were made to show my contempt for Jill Howard Church's claims, and her dishonest presentation of them. Her cynical use of the Leo Frank case to smear the people of Peachtree City (by associating them with violence for their commemoration of Confederate history) is odious.

Here's the context, including the entire paragraph you intentionally truncated:

------------------
CHURCH: There were also thousands of Jewish soldiers, but their service was conveniently forgotten once the Klan showed up (just ask Leo Frank).

ME: Well, since Leo Frank has been dead since 1915, we can't exactly ask him, can we?  However, perhaps you will kindly point me to any published work by Leo Frank that indicates he knew the service of Jews to the Confederacy was "conveniently forgotten" after the KKK showed. Oh, and which KKK are you talking about, by the way?  There have been several "incarnations" of the Klan. If you are facetiously referring to Frank's lynching by the "Knights of Mary Phagan," that has nothing to do with Jewish service to the Confederacy, or the commemoration of it.  Yes, Ms. Church, I'm being as deliberately obtuse as you are. Only I'm not being nearly as dishonest as you are.
------------------

So, do you folks at Exposing and Fighting, etc., truly believe that the Frank case somehow proves that the service of Jewish soldiers to the Confederacy was "conveniently forgotten" once the Klan showed up? (The Klan "showed up," BTW, in 1865, eighteen years before Leo Frank was born.) Or that Frank had knowledge that proves it? If you believe that, I'm sure you have a reliable source to document it -- unlike Ms. Church. You can post it in the comments section of my blog. However, if you know it's not true, you're being as dishonest about it as Church is.

How is it anti-semitic to tell my readers why Leo Frank cannot prove what Church is using him, unsuccessfully, to prove? It is Ms. Church's patronizing and gratuitous inclusion of Frank in an article that had nothing to do with him, solely to smear Georgians as violent haters indifferent to the law, that you should be upset about.

Yes, my reply to her was flippant and rude, because that's what her claims deserve.  But flippant and rude are not synonymous with anti-semitic.

Connie Chastain

I think I made my case to the objective and thoughtful. Of course, those who are determined to see a racist and an anti-semite behind every blog won't be impressed.

One thing this experience does prove is that political correctness is not only pernicious to free speech rights -- it's also making succeeding generations of Americans dumber than boxes of rocks, unable to relate on any level except hyper-sensitive emotionalism.

Response to The Oxford American

Colors That Bleed by Warwick Sabin
http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2011/mar/07/colors-that-bleed/

The voluntary obtuseness in pieces like this one never ceases to amaze me. The city of Marshall's name is a disavowal of the Confederacy? Or the result of the influence of the military dictatorship set up by the federal government in the former Confederate states, as represented by the U.S. troops in Burrowsville? The forced imposition of northern/federal will upon the Southern states was practically the definition, and certainly the reality and practice, of Reconstruction.

And if you don't understand Kim Ragland's reference to the flag prohibition being a "slap in the face" of the men and women fighting for our country, let me give you a way of looking at it that obviously didn't occur to you. Our military personnel take an oath to uphold the Constitution -- the document that is supposed to charge the government with securing the rights of citizens, including the right to free speech and free expression. The troops may not feel about the Confederate flag the way the people of Marshall do, but they don't have to agree with the way Americans express their views in order to protect that expression. It is not the place of the city council to circumvent the will of the people. They are elected servants who are supposed to do the will of the people. The imposition of government on the people's rights and will are what the troops fighting against overseas -- but they're just supposed to accept it here, in their own country?

I suspect most of the troops remember what elitists back home have forgotten, or rejected: "I may not agree with what you say but I defend to the death your right to say it." Or, in the case of the mayor and people of Marshall, to display it.

There was no violent rebellion 150 years ago. There was a violent invasion of the Southern states by the federal government's military. There was absolutely no justification for responding to the peaceful and democratic secession of the Southern states with military invasion and war.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson established that people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that governments are instituted to secure those rights. One right he specifically identifies is the right of the people to alter or abolish their government and create another that suits them better. This right both pre-exists and transcends the Constitution. How grotesque, then, that the only time Americans have attempted to exercise this right, the government that was supposed to secure it for them made brutal war on them instead.

That the people of Southern towns likely do not share your elitist view of history (and of them) doesn't mean they are conflicted and confused. It's far more likely that you're seeking to create in yourself the warm fuzzies of moral and intellectual superiority by bad-mouthing people simply for seeing the issue differently than you do -- i.e., you're right, they're wrong.

The Confederate flag did not inspire treason. The charge of treason applies only to people who, owing allegiance to the US, make war on it, or assist those who do. Since the states had already seceded (as was their right, enunciated by the Declaration of Independence) the people of those states no longer owed allegiance to the US. Thus, no treason.

The South did not tear itself apart OR tear itself away. It peacefully and democratically seceded, state by state, and it was invaded, blockaded, and starved. The invaders burned entire towns as well as farms, homes, barns, stored food and crops in the field; shot family pets; killed livestock and threw the carcasses in wells and streams to contaminate drinking water, stabled horses in church sanctuaries just for spite, and dug up corpses looking for valuables to steal. Oh, but I'm sure it was done without malice and with charity, since Lincoln suggested it should.

What I find grotesquely hypocritical of your essay is your charge that admirers of the Confederate flag do not fully comprehend its "complicated heritage" -- but then you simplistically reduce that heritage to "a nation conceived to deny fundamental human rights for some of its citizens." No, you got it right the first time; the issues that went into the creation of the Confederate States of America were not as simple as the all-slavery, only-slavery school would have us believe.

It is even more complex when you realize that virtually everything the Confederacy is criticized for, the United States is also guilty of -- and worse. The Confederate government did not have as official policy the genocide of the Plains Indians. It did not herd native Americans into reservations where their condition was worse than that of slaves. It did not engage in domestic mind control experiments and torture in Central America, like the CIA after WWII. When you compare the sins of the two governments and cultures, the CSA actually comes out as morally superior.

You seem to have a grudging respect for the hillbillies of Searcy County since they evidently didn't think secession and war was worth their time and trouble. Of course, that's probably the only thing admirable about them, judging by the way white Southerners -- especially hardscrabble rural ones -- are perceived and portrayed by the USA, especially in popular culture. They are among the last few groups people can ridicule and mock without rousing the wrath, or at least the verbal condemnation, of the political correctness police. I wonder if your grudging respect for their uninvolvement in the Confederacy's denying fundamental human rights to some of its citizens would move you to defend them from such as this:
Arkansas Hillbillies Google Search

And this: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2206742081&v=info
And this: http://fuckthesouth.com/
And this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/

I'm a self-taught writer. I found the Oxford American website while searching the Internet for writing-related content. I'm also a Southerner, and a descendent of poor, hardscrabble Georgia mountaineers. I am pleased with and proud of my region and its people and I write to honor them by accurately portraying them. I do not feel it necessary to portray them as scum-sucking racist inbred hicks in order to please some New York editor, or some Southern carpetbagger-or-scalawag editor. I would rather never be published than to achieve publication by lying about the good people of my region and their culture.

Fortunately, there are alternatives now, thanks to the digital revolution. Self-publishing has become affordable with print-on-demand technology. Downloadable electronic books circumvent brick and mortar bookstores. This same technology has given Southerners access to information about the past unfiltered by self-appointed gatekeepers who wish our view of history and our beliefs about ourselves and our culture to conform to theirs.

Not only do I feel no compulsion to trash my region and its people with my writing; I feel no desire to read others who engage in such. For example, "After all, the South is often mercilessly derided by outsiders for the more shameful aspects of its history; for its standing in many socioeconomic categories; and for the political systems and attitudes that are largely responsible for both." Anyone who writes such without pointing out that the political systems and attitudes responsible for both are not Southern in origin, but imposed from without, loses me quickly. As for the South's "socioeconomic categories" -- i.e., its poverty -- don't blame that on the Southern people....Blame it on things like this: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cescott/freight.html

I'll happily leave the Oxford American website, go outside for some breaths of fresh air to clear my head and get the bad taste out of my mouth... and get back to the real South, a wonderful place regardless of 150 years of elitist efforts to sanctify the north of its sins by pretending only the South has them -- and that the sins are the crux, the definition, the sum-total of the South.

More Sesquicentennial Slime

The Sesquicentennial of the War for Southern Independence will create a blizzard of claptrap like this, so Southerners who honor their culture, history, heritage and forebears -- brace yourselves... Oh, and if you're so moved, backsass the people attempting to palm off this claptrap. You may or may not teach them anything, but if my experience is anything to go by, it'll sure make you feel better.

Fayette: Peachtree City honors the wrong cause
By Jill Howard Church

Talking about the Civil War is a minefield of politics and emotion. As was the case with actual land mines during that war (as developed by Confederate Brigadier General Gabriel J. Rains), some Southern tempers tend to detonate under the slightest pressure, even after 150 years. But it’s not easy, or even appropriate, to tread lightly.

Folks, isn't it amazing how "opinion journalists" make baldfaced statements like this "detonate" accusation  without offering a shred of explanation, let alone evidence.  Frankly, Ms. Church, you're the one who seems to be detonating, here....

Peachtree City’s proclamation of Confederate History and Heritage Month was read aloud at a City Council meeting recently. Its wording took me aback, and I grew up in the same state as Robert E. Lee. My long-lost cousin Samuel’s Confederate sword is a family heirloom. I “get” the heritage, but only to a point.
This is 2011, generations removed from that most uncivil war. And I had hoped its lessons would be better reflected in modern mention. The proclamation begins, “April is the month in which the Confederate States of America began a four-year struggle for independence, state rights, individual freedom and local government control ...” I guess that depends on which individuals and whose freedom we’re talking about. The 4 million men, women and children held in bondage in 1861 struggled much differently.

Kind of like the slaves during the American Revolution, who didn't fall under the category "all men" as in the Declaration's "all men are created equal"? Kind of like American slaves who had no rights but three-fifths of them were counted for legislative apportioning, by Constitutional authority? Are the situations similar, Ms. Church, or not? And if not, why not?

The proclamation says April 26 is when “Georgians honor the brave men and women of all ethnic backgrounds who served the Confederate States of America.” Well, not exactly. True, there were Canadians, Europeans, Native Americans and Mexicans in the Confederate ranks. There were also thousands of Jewish soldiers, but their service was conveniently forgotten once the Klan showed up (just ask Leo Frank).>

Well, since Leo Frank has been dead since 1915, we can't exactly ask him, can we?  However, perhaps you will kindly point me to any published work by Leo Frank that indicates he knew the service of Jews to the Confederacy was "conveniently forgotten" after the KKK showed. Oh, and which KKK are you talking about, by the way?  There have been several "incarnations" of the Klan. If you are facetiously referring to Frank's lynching by the "Knights of Mary Phagan," that has nothing to do with Jewish service to the Confederacy, or the commemoration of it.  Yes, Ms. Church, I'm being as deliberately obtuse as you are. Only I'm not being nearly as dishonest as you are.

From the accounts I’ve read, black Confederates served mostly as laborers, relatively few as soldiers. And many who fought did so believing (or having been promised) they’d be freed in return.

What accounts have you read? And whether they served as laborers or fighters, what's your problem with acknowledging their service?  The same thing happened during the Revolution. Can we expect to see a similarly snide editorial penned by you denigrating the United States come the Fourth of July?  What a silly question, of course we cannot. Critics of the Confederacy are virtually always blind to the sins of the Union.

“Georgia has long cherished its Confederate history and Georgia’s great leaders who made sacrifices on behalf of the Confederate cause,” the proclamation says. But that way of life was built on broken backs and lives, and it is disingenuous to either contend or pretend that the “Confederate cause” isn’t stained by atrocity. Section 9 of the Confederate Constitution specifically bans restricting “the right of property in Negro slaves.”

The Confederate Constitution also forbade the importation of slaves from any foreign country except the United States, which some say would eventually cause the demise of slavery. Why no mention of that? Only what's worthy of criticism is worthy to be mentioned? Oh, and the United States isn't stained by atrocity?  For example, the official U.S. Policy of genocide against the Plains Indians. That's not an atrocity?  The 3/5th clause in the U.S. Constitution is hunky-dory with you? The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments... CIA torture in Central America during the Cold War...  Gitmo, Abu Ghraibe...  Is slavery the only circumstance you recognize as atrocity?

Be careful how you criticize the Confederacy, Ms. Church; you're liable to find just as bad or worse done by the United States.

As I listened, I realized the only African-American person in the room was the police officer on security duty.

How ironic that the individual there to protect the lives of everyone else was the one person who, in the days of Dixie, wouldn’t have been considered a person at all. What did those words mean to her or her family?

I couldn’t bring myself to even look in her direction.

What do you mean by "in the days of Dixie"? Dixie means "the South".  The South predates the United States.  It still exists today, and will very likely exist after the United States ceases to.  That entire timeline is the "days of Dixie." Are you clumsily attempting to imply that slaves were not considered persons in the era before slavery was abolished? Where did you get that information? Certainly not from the laws of the day. 

I suggest you're going by your own personal concept/understanding, perhaps shaped by Hollywood and lurid paperback novels, or perhaps leftist race-baiters. I also suggest you look at the laws back then. Slaves were indeed considered persons. They had rights by law, very limited ones, to be sure, but non-persons do not have any rights (just ask an aborted fetus). Law mandated that slaveowners support slaves in sickness and old age. It gave slaves the right to give testimony in certain case. Slaves were also afforded more rights not by law but by custom -- for example, lighter work for women, especially during pregnancy, and the right to religious instruction. I suggest you attempt to rise above your anti-Confederate indoctrination and read real history, from source documentation dating from that era. You badly need it.

I understand that there are people for whom certain periods of history hold particular interest for one reason or another. Some Civil War aficionados re-enact the battles like a costumed chess game but not, thank God, the beatings, lynchings or other horrors of the time. I guess it’s easier to make believe than to make amends.

Civil war re-enactors re-enact the war; they don't re-enact plantation life or town merchant life or yeoman farmer life. Every time has its horrors, but the horrors of the time (and place) you're referring to are only a small portion of the total.  I understand that indoctrinees such as yourself have been taught to focus solely on the small, negative portion and pretend it is the whole -- and to try to convince others of the same distortion -- but it isn't. I guess it's easier to engage in false demonization than to see things as they really were.

But with the war 150 years past, and with African-Americans now 20 percent of Fayette County’s population, it seems more honorable to mourn the dead — from both sides — without constantly picking at our nation’s deepest wound.

Then stop picking.