Confederate Monuments: Taken Down or Leave it Up?

[Tangmo]

That was some defeated army you mentioned. The army of Northern Virginia:
'It is an army of 70,000 men. It is an army of remarkable unity
fighting for disunion.It is Anglo-Saxon & protestant. Though many couldn't read nor write they all spoke English. They share commons customs
& a common faith & they have been consistantly victorious against superior numbers. They have as solid a faith in their leader
as any army that ever marched.

Take Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, Robert E Lee at Chancellorsville & NBF at Brices Crossroads &
you have 3/4 of the Mt. Rushmore Generals ever born on US soil. Pick one of maybe 10 for the other spot all would be honored
to be memorialized with these 3. Memorializing the tactical genius & girth of being of men like these is justified & certainly not to be
ridiculed.

Robert E. Lee spent 17 years in grade as captain and he had the nick "King of Spades" due to his consistent command of ditch digging for ramparts and fortress walls from New York to the Mississippi for many and long years.

As one of the Confederate commanders Lee had success with some hit and run attacks but too many of his campaigns were disasters from the first one into West Virginia through to Gettysburg. It was only after Gettysburg that Lee wuz officially designated General in Chief of the Confederate States Army, more than anything else to brass him up as he continued to be run out of place after place.

CinC Lee met his Waterloo at Petersburg when he was beseiged by a competent and aggressive commander in General Ulysses S. Grant who finally broke Lee by the end of January 1865. The two met personally a few months later at Appomattox Virginia which is where General Grant found himself with two swords -- his own and the sword of General Robert E. Lee.

Your boy Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson of the Confederacy had the career nick of Tom Fool. Stonewall wuz shot by his own men in what came to be called "friendly fire." Pickett's Charge went on without Pickett who knowing better than to obey an order by Lee stayed back in the trees while his men were cut down during the one mile long attack across the open field.

Potus Lincoln and CinC General Winfield Scott had offered Lee command of the Union forces chiefly because it would have been a political coup against the embryonic Confederacy. The Custis-Lee family were known by Washington society and inside its circles of power. Getting Lee out of Virginia and away from the Confederacy was a smart move to attempt.

It was the case regardless that with the power and might of the Union industrial states at his command Lee could have succeeded as Union CinC. It would have been tough for Lee to have been any worse than McClellan or Halleck or Buell who among others were students of French fortifications, hence the "Do Nothing" tag applied to them during the first year of the war when they were in their naturally passive mode of command. These and other generals like 'em wanted to win without destroying Southern property -- not too much of it anyway. (We see the influence up to the present.)

Lincoln finally caught on that he needed attack generals who bite so he quickly advanced brass such as Sherman, Meade, Grant, Sheridan and a slew of other heavy hitters, shakers and fast movers. Admiral David Farragut who tied himself high onto his ship mast to command attacks routed the Confederate navy. Farragut cleared out the Mississippi starting at Mobile then New Orleans and upstream. He and Grant complemented one another by working a series of successes, Vicksburg most notably.

Given that Lee was anyway both timid and less than competent in campaign warfare, one of these generals would very likely have aced out Lee for the top spot. As it was, when Grant went after Lee in 1864 not only did Grant defeat Lee, Grant broke him. Gen. Meade hammered Lee at Gettysburg but Grant ended Lee at Petersburg. When Lee and his army fled Petersburg going west and away from Richmond and the Confederate main forces everyone knew Lee no longer knew up from down nevermind east from west. Game over.

Lee was a frail man. Grant was in contrast a bear of a man.

 

[iguanaman]

You can't take away from them that these Generals distinguished themselves in battle and led their men, regardless of their political positions at the time.

Again, just because a monument is raised, doesn't mean glorifying them, nor glorifying their political positions of the time, which are usually not well reflected when interpreted through present day lenses. Their acts of distinction should be no less minimize because of their being on the losing side. Their acts of distinction should be considered separate from that.

Just because the South lost the civil war doesn't mean that they didn't have brave mean, brave and inspiring leaders. Or is it your position that all of the South where cowards just because they lost? Just because they didn't back the political position that is acceptable in modern days and modern sensibilities?

Or do you plan on re-writing all of history every time modern day sensibilities change? To cast those of history who don't measure up to modern political measure into obscurity, just because?

Are you prepared to discard, minimize, eliminate all of history that you don't agree with? How about the history that others object to?
How much of history would be left? Any at all? Isn't that a loss for everyone?

Those General led their men to their deaths as surely as a concentration camp commandant did. We don't see statues of them and we don't need to see statues of Confederates Generals either or name our counties after them. That goes for Union Generals too as far a I am concerned. The entire Civil war was one big clusterf*** and should be remembered as such. Just another example of the folly of man and the horror of war.

 

[shrubnose]

Indeed.

Regardless of whom valiantly fought whom, or why,

it is still part of the nation's history, and shouldn't be erased.

There's no escaping history, no matter how much you try to.

I find this action a direct analogy to 1984's 'Ministry of Truth', re-writing the facts of history to suit the current political agenda. Done a few more times, the resulting 'history' has to resemblance of the actual history, and that would be a loss. A loss of history.

I predict that 50 years or so from now,after massive demographic change hits full force,you won't see Confederate flags or monuments to Confederate heroes displayed on government property anywhere in the USA.

Wait and see.

 

[Kal'Stang]

No, they didn't. It wasn't the right to secede, it was the "right" to ignore human rights. See, this is why we can't have confederate monuments, some people can't be trusted to be honest.

Did you happen to read VanceMack's post #28? Can you explain some of the history that he related? Do you think that maybe you're only relating part of the story? That there was far more going on during the civil war than simply pro-slavery vs anti-slavery forces?

[directed at no one in particular...]

One of the many excuses as to why monuments to Washington should be allowed while monuments to Confederates shouldn't be allowed is that Washington won his war while the Confederates lost theirs. We don't put up monuments to people of other countries in which we have defeated them after all right? (paraphrasing) The way I see it, yeah we don't. But then why would we? They're not American's. Whereas those in the Confederate Army were American's.

The Civil War is often referred to as a war between brother and brother (among other variations). For good reasons. There were literally brothers fighting against each other in that war. But the other reason is that it was American's fighting against other American's. I don't think that many today understand what that actually means. To see other American's as brothers. Sisters. Family. Today, everything is polarized and there is no sense of family. I find that kind of sad.

 

[shrubnose]

Did you happen to read VanceMack's post #28? Can you explain some of the history that he related? Do you think that maybe you're only relating part of the story? That there was far more going on during the civil war than simply pro-slavery vs anti-slavery forces?

[directed at no one in particular...]

One of the many excuses as to why monuments to Washington should be allowed while monuments to Confederates shouldn't be allowed is that Washington won his war while the Confederates lost theirs. We don't put up monuments to people of other countries in which we have defeated them after all right? (paraphrasing) The way I see it, yeah we don't. But then why would we? They're not American's. Whereas

those in the Confederate Army were American's.

The Civil War is often referred to as a war between brother and brother (among other variations). For good reasons. There were literally brothers fighting against each other in that war. But the other reason is that it was American's fighting against other American's. I don't think that many today understand what that actually means. To see other American's as brothers. Sisters. Family. Today, everything is polarized and there is no sense of family. I find that kind of sad.

They were rebels fighting against the loyal Americans in the Union Army.

The South lost and it will not rise again.Wait and see.

Anyone who likes Confederate monuments should build one on their property.

 

[Kal'Stang]

They were rebels fighting against the loyal Americans in the Union Army.

The reasons for fighting in the Civil War is far more varied than that. Too much use of Occam's Razor can be a bad thing ya know.

The South lost and it will not rise again.Wait and see.

Not only irrelevant but pointless statements do nothing to advance discussion.

I'll note that you didn't even attempt to address what I said in my post. Which is fine. I understand that its hard to put oneself in someone else's shoes for lots of people.

 

[shrubnose]

The reasons for fighting in the Civil War is far more varied than that. Too much use of Occam's Razor can be a bad thing ya know.



Not only irrelevant but pointless statements do nothing to advance discussion.

I'll note that you didn't even attempt to address what I said in my post. Which is fine.

I understand that its hard to put oneself in someone else's shoes for lots of people.

Come back and tell us all about it 50 years from now.

:lol:

 

[Kal'Stang]

Come back and tell us all about it 50 years from now.

:lol:

I'll more than likely be dead in half that time so sorry, won't be around for that.

 

[Port & Starboard]

We don't have any Nazi monuments in the USA and we don't need any Confederate monuments in memory of those who fought to keep slavery in the South

We used to Nazi's to create 2 huge monuments in Japan.

 

[shrubnose]

I'll more than likely be dead in half that time so sorry, won't be around for that.

I hope that you're still on the green side of the grass then.

In any case I doubt that we'll see any Confederate flags or memorials on government property 50 years from now.

Putting them there gives some racists the idea that they have government support.

 

[BillRM]

To be fair, 90% of the confederate soldiers did not own slaves. Only wealthy aristrocrats did. And while it was on the way out, slavery still existed at some level in the north.

Slavery in the north was very very rare and only existed in a few states such as NJ and we are talking about a few dozens or so at that.

 

[Kal'Stang]

I hope that you're still on the green side of the grass then.

In any case I doubt that we'll see any Confederate flags or memorials on government property 50 years from now.

Putting them there gives some racists the idea that they have government support.

Thanks.
.
.

Actually it has appeared to me that social justice warriors think that. Do you have anything that shows racists saying that? And please, provide actual racists as examples. Not people that are called racists simply for disagreeing with SJW's political stances.

And after that, please explain to me that if they actually have government support now a days then why is it that the KKK is such a marginalized group? Why is it that Stormfront only has 3.3 hundred thousand members world wide? And that is including all the people that signed up just to hate on them.

Back in the day, when racists actually had government support racists numbered in the 10's of millions. Now a days? What they think is irrelevant and should not be used as a pretext for tearing down something of historical importance.

 

[BillRM]

This draws strong parallels for myself to the decade-long arguments that I witnessed or personally engaged in with other individuals concerning same-sex marriage. You absolutely know that I know that the sole reason behind your anti-SSM position is the simple fact that you don't like or feel uncomfortable around gay people, so cut the "tradition" or "sanctity" or "I'm not homophobic, but ..." bull**** and actually own up to your beliefs.

Similarly there's not a single literate person reading this forum who doesn't know the literal, exact reason why white Southerners want to preserve Confederate memorials, have separate proms or fly Confederate flags on government property, and for anyone to attempt to claim ignorance otherwise is ri-damn-diculous.

Nonsense as my family is from the north and I do have families members that fought and one fact one died in the civil war and I see nothing wrong in honoring both sides of that conflict.

Thank god that Lee and other southern leaders did not support an ongoing guerrilla conflict and for the most part join northern leaders is healing the wounds.

 

[BillRM]

Glorifying Confederate GENERALS is what I have the problem with. They are the worst traitors because they led the rabble that were conscripted to fight their own country for the Wealthy southerners benefit. Without those Generals there would have been no war. Yet even my County in Florida is named after one of them. Why are those losers so special to so many? It seems unhealthy to me.

Sorry but General Lee was in my opinion and others was the best military mind ever born on our soil and he acted with honor before, during and after the war.

I do regret that he decided that his duty was to his state and not to the union and he would had accepted the offer to lead the northern forces that Lincoln and Scott offer him.

The death toll, at least in my opinion, would had been far less on both sides if he had done so.

 

[BillRM]

In that case.....should we force Dodge City Kansas to remove all of the monuments to famous characters of the old west? afterall, the cowboys and Indians cultures in long gone. Should the south be forced to remove all of the old civil war forts, that bring in tourism? Personally, I would have fought for the north. However I do enjoy an occasional walk through of a preserved civil war fort, just over the history. How far would you like to go with the "Take it down" movement. Shall we burn all of the Mark Twain Books? Ban the showings "Gone with the Wind"?

Do not forget the Alamo as the conflicted with the Mexican government of the time center on the desire of the American settlers to bring in their slaves while slavery was not allow under the laws of Mexico.

Let tear down the Alamo.

 

[shrubnose]

Thanks.
.
.

Actually it has appeared to me that social justice warriors think that. Do you have anything that shows racists saying that? And please, provide actual racists as examples. Not people that are called racists simply for disagreeing with SJW's political stances.

And after that, please explain to me that if they actually have government support now a days then why is it that the KKK is such a marginalized group? Why is it that Stormfront only has 3.3 hundred thousand members world wide? And that is including all the people that signed up just to hate on them.

Back in the day, when racists actually had government support racists numbered in the 10's of millions.

Now a days? What they think is irrelevant and should not be used as a pretext for tearing down something of historical importance.

What they think isn't irrelevant to the innocent Black people who are murdered by racists like Dylann Roof.

Think about that a little bit.

 

[Kal'Stang]

What they think isn't irrelevant to the innocent Black people who are murdered by racists like Dylann Roof.

Think about that a little bit.

Since Dylan Roof didn't kill anyone because of a monument not sure what I'm supposed to think on. :shrug:

Also afaik Dylan Roof also never claimed that the government supported his actions. As such why are you using him as an example for reasons that Confederate monuments "gives some racists the idea that they have government support"?

 

[TurtleDude]

The reality is that the current war over the monument s like the war over the Confederate flag and the war over sports teams mascot names are just the modern version of appeasement acts. Its ****ing embarrassing IMO to see the number of people even on this site that lose their minds over a monument but that never once express the first **** about the ongoing genocide in this country and about all the social ills that continue to plague the black community. Oh...but they 'care'. Bull****.

pretending to care more than the right is an attempt to seize politically correct high ground by the faux indignant types

 

[JasperL]

To be fair, 90% of the confederate soldiers did not own slaves. Only wealthy aristrocrats did. And while it was on the way out, slavery still existed at some level in the north.

That's false, sorry.

1860 Census Results

In Mississippi 49% of all families owned at least one slave. SC 46%. Georgia 37%. Alabama 35%. Florida 34%. NC and TX 28%.

And there were 0 slaves in most of the NE. DE 3%, and MD 12%. Every other state 0.00%.

 

[JasperL]

Little known fact. The tomb of Ulysses S. Grant is located in New York City, NY.

Odd, since he was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio.

New Orleans has a wide cultural history, French, Spanish, and a unique American blend.

Under your argument, would you then have us eliminate the French and Spanish Quarters simply because most citizens are no longer French or Spanish? :roll:

I'm not arguing that all monuments have merit...for example Nathen Bedford Forrest, who founded the K.K.K. is undeserving of remembrance and his monuments would serve better in some "holocaust-like" anti-slavery museum.

But many Southern leaders did fight for another cause, the right of sovereign States to secede from the Union, whatever the reason (good or bad). That was a major issue throughout the first 60 years after the founding of the Nation. We tend to forget that by burying it all under the cloud of "Slavery."

It's just not true. You can read the southern states own words about why they seceded if you want. Mississippi said it the clearest. Starting from the beginning:

In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world.

Doesn't get any clearer than that. The rest was and still is window dressing, and Lost Cause nonsense.

Lincoln was elected and the South seceded before he was even inaugurated. Why was his election the spark? His position on secession? Tariffs? Hell no - it was his and the Republican party's position on slavery.

 

[JasperL]

Please stop with the silliness. Look at the other side of the coin!
If you look at the make up of Union troops, you can plainly see that blacks were
segre gated into separate units, while in the South, they were mixed in with the white
troops. They were also given the same pay and rations as other Confederate troops as
opposed to their counterparts in the North.

You'll need to cite this. Blacks were prohibited from combat roles until the last few weeks of the war, so any numbers of them as combat troops as trivial in the big picture. I doubt if any were paid anything except food, because they were still SLAVES. Many of them at that time wrote they fought because they had no choice, being slaves this was their fate.

Although blacks were repressed in the South, the same was true in the North. Blacks
were probably discriminated against in New York City and Boston more than they were
in Charleston or Atlanta. Yes, they were ‘free’ in the North, but were still considered
second class citizens to many in the North. They still did not have the right to vote nor
were they allowed in the same establishments as whites. This may be why the majority of
blacks stayed in the South when the war started. They Fought for their homeland
against the ‘Yankees’. There were between 50,000 to 100,000 blacks that served in the
Confederate Army as cooks, blacksmiths, and yes, even soldiers.

It's possible they stayed in the South because trying to go north meant they'd be hunted and killed by Southerners as runaway slaves and traitors.

Audey Murphy in WWII & Alvin York in WWI were the most decorated
soldiers of their respective wars! Everyone has acclaimed their daring-do.
Had they been unfortunate enough to be born born during the civil war era, you would be bashing
them too for fighting to 'retain slavery' after all
York & Forrest were both Tenneseans & Murphy I believe was Texan.

It's possible about York and Forrest but E. Tn was mostly union - not much need for slaves in the mountains - while W. TN, aligned with the Confederacy.

 

[BillRM]

That's false, sorry.

1860 Census Results

In Mississippi 49% of all families owned at least one slave. SC 46%. Georgia 37%. Alabama 35%. Florida 34%. NC and TX 28%.

And there were 0 slaves in most of the NE. DE 3%, and MD 12%. Every other state 0.00%.

On it very face that seem to be complete nonsense and surely need to be check out by going to the 1860 source censor material.

The price of one slave in the 1860s was over a thousand dollars or roughly the yearly wage of a skill blacksmith.

In other word one slave would be one hell of an expense item for a family to own.

 

[JasperL]

The reality is that the current war over the monument s like the war over the Confederate flag and the war over sports teams mascot names are just the modern version of appeasement acts. Its ****ing embarrassing IMO to see the number of people even on this site that lose their minds over a monument but that never once express the first **** about the ongoing genocide in this country and about all the social ills that continue to plague the black community. Oh...but they 'care'. Bull****.

Whataboutism "I dismiss your opinion on X because of your opinion on Y that I made up!" isn't much of an argument.

Besides, a lot of the opposition to the Confederate flag (aka the banner of white supremacists) and the monuments in NO comes from blacks. You don't think they care about that stuff? And what are we who oppose a GOVERNMENT flying a banner to white supremacists supposed to say about the "ongoing genocide" or "the social ills..." to make you happy?

 

[JasperL]

On it very face that seem to be complete nonsense and surely need to be check out by going to the 1860 source censor material.

The price of one slave in the 1860s was over a thousand dollars or roughly the yearly wage of a skill blacksmith.

In other word one slave would be one hell of an expense item for a family to own.

Here's an article that explains how the data were compiled. Unfortunately the UVA source material is no longer online.

https://deadconfederates.com/2011/0...xas-confederate-soldiers-never-owned-a-slave/

But I've looked and can't find any other BETTER data that answer the question - what percentage of households owned a slave? You can't use "slaveowners" because that's invariably going to be the male head of the household, and a family with a wife and kids, grown or not, with a slave is a better measure of the extent of slavery than knowing that the male head owned one or more slaves.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be deceptive, so if you search and find different results, please cite what you find.

 

[VanceMack]

Whataboutism "I dismiss your opinion on X because of your opinion on Y that I made up!" isn't much of an argument.

Besides, a lot of the opposition to the Confederate flag (aka the banner of white supremacists) and the monuments in NO comes from blacks. You don't think they care about that stuff? And what are we who oppose a GOVERNMENT flying a banner to white supremacists supposed to say about the "ongoing genocide" or "the social ills..." to make you happy?

Do I think they care about it? Yes...because people have made it a 'cause'. Does it matter? Not a tiny ****ing bit. In every city and every community where the black community is literally dying, you know what you WONT find flown by those doing the destruction? A Confederate flag. What has happened is a bunch of people have for political gain shrieked THATS RACIST! And everyone else has followed suit. Now...let me save you the trouble. Your next comment will be "SO you are saying black people dont think for themselves?" To which I will respond, politically? In the sake and name of causes? Hands up dont shoot. Black Lives Matter. 80% voting as a bloc for the rat party since the 30s (approx average). Fractional political diversity. No...they think as a collective politically. History has proven it. So does the obsession over the confederate flag while they ignore the blood in the streets daily.