You know very little. I know about the Klan. I grew up with it. They did not hold their crossburnings and such at memorial monuments. The local authorities would not have tolerated it. They were scarcely allowed in town at all , at least in their robes, due to laws against wearing masks for illegal purposes. These things were done several miles out of town, usually at a crossroad that was little traveled.
You paint with a broad brush. The United Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy are merely decendants remembering their ancestors who died in a useless war. Most of these statues and such were erected with private funds by them and are technically still private property. I have seen none that commerorate slavery. I’m not into this geneology craze but it is almost inevitable that some of my ancestors fought in that war. I can assure you that my ancestors never had the means to own slaves.
The Civil war was a savage war. Many, many bodies were never recovered. Many of those that were were never identified. It is fitting that their demise be acknowledged and remembered.
By law every man that fought in the Civil War is a U S veteran. So you are saying that U S veterans should not be remembered by even a statue when there may be no other grave, headstone, or marker?
Baltacd, we are the only country where those who fought and lost might be remembered. There are no monuments to Czarist troop in Russia. There are no statues remembering the dead of Chian Kai Cheks army in China. This is something that makes us unique. We can remember the deaths of all, regardless of what side they were on.
Have you ever been to the Vicksburg battlfield? There is a monument from every state commemorating that states dead in that battle. What next, you will want to take down all the confederate states monuments and leave the northern states?
The Gettysburg address did not only remember Northern Troops. In fact until
Incorrect. The only point I have is that wonton hate against people who are long dead serves no purpose. Hate, only weakens the “hater” and strengthens the “hated”. A marble, bronze or tin-plated representation of something or someone is capable of neither of those things, as it is merely only an object. When you destroy it, you damage yourself more than the thing you’re railing against. Monuments need to be kept in their proper place. And more importantly, their proper context. They can be moved, modified and corrected.
I could give many examples of my position, but this is a railroading forum and we’re supposed to leave politics at the door.
Ever read about the Fiftieth Anniversary Reunion at Gettysburg PA, in 1913?
It was a massive gathering of surviving Civil War veterans, both North and South, all were welcome. All met under their respective flags, and no-one minded a bit.
When the survivors of Pickett’s Charge re-enacted the charge on the same ground where it took place, veterans of both sides shook hands over the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge, some embraced, and there were quite a few tears shed.
Now, if these men in their seventies and eighties, who were trying to slaughter each other when they were in their twenties could put all that hate behind them, what excuse does anyone living today, who never marched across a field where a man’s life expectancy could be measured in seconds, who never slept in the mud, never had to survive on hardtack or greasy pork, never went through the horror of an unsanitized field hospital, and never lost some of the best friends a man could have, I say what excuse does anyone living to day have for moaning and whining about a four-year horror that ended over a century and a half ago?
Sorry for the rant of an old Marine. Maybe other veterans know what I’m trying to say.
And certainly, politics don’t belong here, except as they pertain to railroads.
I’ll say no more. Signing off on this particular subject.
From Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only of levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
It appears that the rebellion of the eleven states against the United States meets the Constitutional definition of Treason.
Those reunions were touching but that is not the issue. If you were Jewish (I have no idea of your background) how would you feel if your children had to attend an Adolph Hitler High School? Or you had to walk by a statue of Heinrich Himmler on your way to your office? Or that most of your neighbors flew the Hakenkreuz flag or awore the arm bands on April 20? Or if you were a white southerner in Madison, GA, how would you like to face a memorial to Gen. Sherman and his bummers
May I suggest another reason those aged veterans clasped hands 75 years later?
My dad felt no particular animus towards ordinary Japanese soldiers and sailors, which surprised me as he survived the Pearl Harbor attack and was a 8-year Navy vet. He was clear that “those guys” were just serving their country and doing as they were told, just as he did.
He did, however, feel a visceral dislike of high officers and officials because they were calling the shots.
In the same way, I think it’s OK to keep monuments in cemeteries to Confederate dead, as long as the soldiers depicted are just common soldiers. However, it has bothered me all my life that there are statues to Confederate generals and officials; as others here have pointed out, these men were traitors, pure and simple.
Why in Hell there should be statues in the Capitol to Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, etc. is something I have never understood nor ever will.
In the words of one of my favorite Civil War songs:
“Down with the traitor, up with the Star!” (Rally 'round the flag)
One last thing: When I was teaching the skill of writing good history essays I used to impl
While historians and others can argue about R.E. Lee’s place today, there can be no justification for statues and other memorials to Nathan Bedford Forrest, responsible for the massacre of Union troops, black and white, at Ft. Pillow. U.S. Grant quotes from Forrest’s original dispatch: ‘The river was dyed,’ he says, ‘with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty killed. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.’
The fact that he was a wealthy slave trader and early member of the KKK only makes the case against him worse. He should have been executed for war crimes.
Schlimm, your post asking one to imagine being Jewish but having to walk daily past a Hitler statue is not very different than what most Israeli’s do endure.
I don’t have to listen to the radio or watch TV or read newspapers that extole Hitler, but I am aware that a few of my neighbors do exactly that and approve of these broadcasts and newspapers. Yet, in my daily dealings I never assume that they do and neither do most Israelis. Treat everyone with kindness and respect is a commandment.
Of course I agree with your comment. So, incindentally, do most writers in the National Review. And no “fine people” would march with group displaying a Nazi flag, no matter how much they adored a statue. Another point made in The National Review. Seconded in the Jerusalem Post.
Well, anyway to get back to “the General” does anyone know what happened to the locomotive that was used as the General after Buster was done filming? Also, what about the locomotives used in the Disney film about the Andrews raid? I remember that one looked like Stephenson’s Rocket, called the Yonah, I think.
The locomotives in Buster’s film were scrapped shortly afterward.
Now in the Disney film, those locomotives came from the B&O Museum in Baltimore, the “Yonah” is a replica built by the B&O shops of the “Lafayette” and was exhibited in the B&O’s Fair Of The Iron Horse in 1927. The “General” was portrayed by the “William Mason.” Any others I’m not sure about.
Both are still at the B&O museum and both are still operable.
You bet! Along with the USS Constellation and Fort McHenry (you’ve gotta see that! Wow!) the B&O Museum is not to be missed!
Steamed crabs, I wish. I like crab, but for some reason it doesn’t like me.
By the way, the museum fires up the “William Mason” on occasion for a romp through the countryside. You have to check the museum’s website to find out when.
From what I’ve read, the Gordons were pretty competent. Can’t say the same is true of two other generals for whom large forts are named, (Bishop) Leonidas Polk and Braxton Bragg. John Bell Hood had a mixed reputation, outstanding as a brigade and division commander, a disaster as commander of the Army of Tennessee.
Of course you neglect to add that there was an investigation by the North which did not implicate Forrest in the slaughter of the black troops but in fact revealed that he tried to stop it. As I recall he had 2 units of black Southern soldiers in his army. There is absolutely no evidence of a war crime by Forrest.
There is however plenty of evidence of war crimes by William T. Sherman in his “March to the Sea” where civilian homes, crops, and churches were burned. Livestock was killed and left to rot. In a Fifty to one hundred mile swathe civilians were left to starve with no shelter. Yet he is a hero.
Regarding Forest’s association with the Ku Klux Klan, He indeed was involved with it’s initiation. The Sout6h was in the grip of an oppressive occupation and the Klan was an effort to bring law and order to it beneathe to view of the northern occupation. In 1869 he realized that it had turned into a criminal, terrorist organization and issued his "General Order No. One&
It would seem that Jim Crow laws like seperate waiting rooms and rallroad cars for blacks came in the latter part of the 19th century as retibution for gains in civil rights made during recontruction. There were a number of black polititions in DC and then Congress put the kabash on that by tighting federal control over the city.
General Grant stated one of his regrets in life was not adopting a more confrontational stance with the Lost Cause Movement and rubbing their noses more in the defeat instead of letting them run around attempting to persuade people to the fallen South’s viewpoint of the war. Not sure if General Lee sided with him or not but definitely a part of historical record that Grant made those comments.
The mood in the country after the war was to heal the divisions at any cost and that meant overlooking some peoples behavior 80-100 years after the war was over and that was the main reason Grant held back.
