The point is that there appears to many non-Southerners to be little, if any, reason why white Southerners “have yet to recover from the war’s aftermath.” A lack of recovery seems to be premised on “very bad things happened to my family.” Well, very bad things happen to lots of people’s families in 140 years. Around that time, my ancestors were starving to death in herring and potato famines, and desperately trying to pack onto boats for the New Country. Other people’s ancestors were being hacked up by Cossacks. Shit happens, and this particular shit happened a very long time ago. Moreover, if anybody has the right to complain about poor treatment and vicious current events leaving deep scars that cannot be forgotten or “recovered from,” it is black Southerners. But you don’t hear this stuff from black Southerners; you hear it from whites. This strikes many as extremely ironic.
That’s absurd. I’m a southerner, born and bred. My family owned slaves on a farm in Bethlehem, Tennessee. My great-great-great grandparents lost everything, too. Guess what, they rebuilt! My family today has lawyers, doctors, engineers, and a copy editor, so we’ve recovered nicely, thank you.
The Stars and Bars needs to be retired to the museums, folks. There can be no truth to “Heritage, not Hate” because the heritage is that of owning human beings. There is nothing noble about that. There is nothing worthy of celebrating about making money off the forced servitude of generations of black people. You can say that there might have been decent masters, but they were still MASTERS; do you get it yet? “Gone With The Wind” was a revisionist fantasy for people who wanted to whitewash the antebellum South of its sins. they wanted to believe in frima but fair plantation owners and their faithful slaves; in cotillions and Old World manners. The reality of slaveowning was a lot grimmer.
You should read up on the first person accounts of slaves, and see pictures of ex-slaves with backs scarred from whippings. You should read the accounts of rapes of women slaves and the enslavement of their children. There is no gray area, there is no equivocation. Slavery was an evil institution, pure and simple.
Frankly, people who want to wave the Confederate flag might as well wave the swastika; wait a sec, they do!
All this disparaging and degrading talk about Nathan Bedford Forrest. Y’all should be ashamed, y’all appear to be so well versed in the cause of this, the reason for that. Yet you talk about the man like he was the the devils spawn. Without having any real knowledge about the man. Have any of you taken the time to read up on him? May I suggest that you do? Start with this simple page.
Of course not: a substantial number of Northerners didn’t lose as much as Southerners as a result of the Civil War. (Note: I’m not discounting the people in the North who lost sons, fathers, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, and whose lands were ravaged in battles.) Accordingly, many Northerners don’t see the C.W. as a defining event whereas a lot of white Southerners can point directly to that as the event that re-started their family’s particular clock. You can’t (or won’t) understand that’s just the way some folks feel about it. It must be a cultural thing. Furthermore, if you look at national employment and industrial statistics, the South as a region still lagged behind the rest of country as recently as 1970 in terms of the quantity and quantity of jobs and the wages paid Southern workers.
Argh. You (and others) were wondering why the “Heritage” view pulls in some white Southerners. I gave what I thought was a thoughtful, rational answer. Perhaps you are directing your ire not at me personally, but to the flag wavin’, yee-haww contingent that most of us revile; hard to tell. So, again, with emphasis: I’m not complaining; I’m stating one family’s facts. Shit did happen. We moved on. Nowhere did I say that others didn’t have a greater claim (re-read my morning’s post, if you have to).
Let’s not generalize about what Southern black people may or may not say about the matter. Some of my black friends are past caring; others are quite frank about their anger; some people they know won’t associate with any white people; I would assume some others are in favor of reparations.
Again, you hear it from some whites. Ironic, sure. But some of you wondered. Asked, answered. Logical? Maybe not to you. But I stand by my offer to buy you a beverage and try to explain it in conversation that can cover the many nuances to this topic in a fashion that doesn’t make me look like I’m dragging my knuckles in the dust behind the trailer.
I’m glad you recovered nicely. Others didn’t (least not as quickly and completely). Some of those others go for the Lost Cause approach. I personally don’t.
Thank you and amen.
You mean ‘you’ as in me, personally, or ‘you’ as in the SCV folks? You’re a bit late for me, as I’ve already read a number of the accounts you mention. I agree that others, however, might learn something.
My point is that *lots * of families have events that "re-start its family clock – regardless of whether that event was the civil war or a famine or religious persecution or whatever. The fortunes of lots of families go up and down; bad things happen to everyone. The only large group of people I know of who continually to sigh nostalgiacally over perceived injustices that happened over a century ago are white Southern Confederate apologists – and certain other white Southerners, such as yourself, who while not meriting the title “apologist,” still hark back to when gread-great-grandpappy lost everything in the war. Why is it that only Southerners appear to be able to let this go?
:rolleyes: Yeah, it sure must be. I certainly do understand that some white folks still feel strongly about the Civil War, and how tough it was for their ancestors, and how much better things were before. But I have never heard a good reason for glorifying antebellum times, or for honoring the cause of the Confederacy, or for elevating what your great-great-grandfather did and suffered over what your other ancestors did and suffered – and what other people’s ancestors did and suffered – especially when, as with Southern blacks, their ancestors’ suffering probably far exceeded that of your ancestors.
So what? I doubt you can lay that entirely at the feet of the Civil War, given that the Industrial Revolution proceeded apace prior to it, but the South remained stubbornly and overwhelmingly agrarian. In any event, it isn’t 1970, and it sure as heck isn’t 1870.
But, you see, you failed (at least as far as I’m concerned) in the “rational” part. I continue to fail to see why, as a matter of heritage, the entire region would continue to desire to hark back to a war fought for a cause that was at bottom unjust, and a war that was lost, at that. It’s sort of a collective “We Shall Not Forget,” to which I ask: Why the hell not?
Listen, the fact that you brought it up here and phrased it in terms of something Southerners “have yet to recover from” (your words) indicates that you (meaning both you personally and the South collectively) have not moved on, at least not entirely.
I can only repeat: I do not hear this stuff, in print or in real life, from black Southerners. They may speak in the abstract of the injustice of the war and the indignities suffered by blacks as a people, but they do not on a personal level continue to mourn over the hardships endured by their own personal forebearers – as if that has any relevance to the lives they live now and the problems they encounter now, in modern America.
More precisely, I now hear it from you. And I’m genuinely asking: To those who would remember, much less honor, a Southern heritage based on human bondage – and again, when we talk about the Civil War, that’s what we’re talking about – I ask: Why bother?
Ha! You don’t strike me as a knuckle dragger. I am not demeaning your history, but when white people say to me “my family had it so bad during the Civil War,” my honest reaction is, so what? What relevance does that have to any issue we’re dealing with today? I certainly won’t consider you a knuckle-dragger if you can answer that.
Thanks. Now, if I can just break that nasty tobacco-chewing habit I’ll be able to mix in polite society…
Ahh… conditional love, and tossing the gauntlet. It only has relevance in that you, me, goboy, Jackmannii, and nearly every other person in America are having to deal with cultural baggage (racial hate groups, bad schools, white flight among them) that has its origins in slavery, slave economics, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, etc., etc., ad nauseum. It has relevance in the way some people view the pace of cultural development. You look at 140 years and see a long time; I look at 140 years and see a shorter time. Another personal example (to illustrate a point): my great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier. My grandmother, his youngest child, told me stories about his life. So, I knew someone who knew someone who participated in the actual events - - 140 years doesn’t seem that long a time from that perspective, agree? It has relevance in that while as a society we may have come a long ways, we still have far to go. Living in a black-majority city can be sobering at times: many of the persons I interact with on a daily basis lived through the civil rights movement and KNOW how shitty life in the South used to be (born in 1965, I have only experienced the “aftershocks”). Our collective cultural experiences make for interesting relationships and encounters, and knowing they know affects how I approach our relationships.
Faulkner said: “The past isn’t history. It isn’t even past.” That apparently a significant number of people agree with that sentiment means that what happened 140 years ago to some people, and that some people today remeber what happened, and that you have to deal with it (and them, like it or not), makes it relevant.
Oops! Gotta go! Wrasslin’s on the TeeVee and Ma jus’ cooked a messa’ grits.
Certainly it’s relevant, and it should be studied and remembered. The problem is the ideal of a romantic, just Cause and the Confederate apologists’ attempts at rewriting history in support of that ideal. Your opening salvo in resurrecting this discussion tried to minimize the role of slavery in provoking the insurrection, and that just won’t fly.
The fact that there is a positive Civil War heritage is owed almost entirely to the hated Yankees.
I can share some admiration for Nathan Forrest’s ability to fight. The previously cited link was an ingenious attempt to clean up his image. The truth is more sordid.
What is also a problem is that some folks seem intent upon re-writing history with just the opposite slant, presenting Confederate leaders such as Forrest as pure embodiments of evil. The truth is not so simple.
We debated Forrest’s record extensively in this thread.
I don’t want to rehash that debate in its entirety here, but I do want to make a few salient points about Forrest:[ul][li]Forrest was an early leader of the Klan in its original incarnation. However, he ordered the Klan disbanded when he saw it descending into terrorism. According to Brittanica, “Forrest ordered it disbanded in 1869, largely as a result of the group’s excessive violence.”[/li][li]The Ku Klux Klan with which most folks are familiar was founded in 1915, some 46 years after Forrest disbanded the original Klan. Tough to hold Forrest accountable for the later Klan’s activities.[/li][li]In the years following his order disbanding the Klan, Forrest railed against those who perpetrated acts of violence against blacks. Following one such incident, Forrest took the podium at a public rally and said that if he “were entrusted with proper authority he would capture and exterminate the white marauders who disgrace their race by their cowardly murder of negroes.”[/li][li]In 1875, two years before his death, Forrest accepted an invitation to speak at a meeting of an organization of black Southerners known as the Jubilee of Pole Bearers. Forrest gave a very conciliatory speech. Among his remarks:[/li][quote]
I came here with the jeers and sneers of a few white people, who did not think it right. I think it is right, and will do all I can to bring about harmony, peace and unity. I want to elevate every man, and to see you take your places in your shops, stores and offices.
I don’t propose to say anything about politics, but I want
you to do as I do - go to the polls and select the best men to vote for. I feel that you are free men, I am a free man, and we can do as we please. I came here as a friend and whenever I can serve any of you I will do so.
We have one Union, one flag, one country; therefore, let us stand together. Although we differ in color, we should not differ in sentiment.
[/quote]
I have yet to hear anyone offer any motive for Forrest to make these remarks, or even to accept an invitation to speak to a black audience, except for a genuine desire for reconciliation.
[li]Forrest’s role in the Fort Pillow massacre is ambiguous. Did he order the massacre, or did he lose control of his troops? Confederate Samuel H. Caldwell, writing home to his wife, said that the Fort Pillow battle “was decidedly the most horrible sight I have ever witnessed,” and went on to add that “[t]hey refused to surrender–which incensed our men & if General Forrest had not run between our men and the Yanks with his pistol and sabre drawn not a man would have been spared.”[/ul][/li]
When Forrest is attacked today, the attacks always omit the details I have listed above. Is that any less an attempt to “re-write history?”
Note: The full text of the speech to the Jubilee of Pole Bearers, as well as cites for the other facts, are set forth in the thread I linked at the beginning of this post, for any who are interested.
Part of the problem facing Forrest defenders is that so many of the sources that supposedly omit what a great guy he really was, are mainstream and respected histories of the war without axes to grind one way or another. The ones that labor to excuse him fall largely into the Confederate apologist camp. The latest link re Fort Pillow attempts to justify the killings by mentioning supposed insults and rude gestures to Forrest by the fort’s defenders, and the fact that Tennessee law gave his troops carte blanche to execute “fugitive slaves”…and at the same time casts doubt on whether the killings actually occurred by noting that Forrest didn’t mention the subject in his official report (what a conclusive factoid). But it points up a certain weakness in one’s argument if one is saying a) the massacre was justified, and b) it didn’t happen. You can’t have it both ways.
I’m sure the Jubilee Pole Bearers were members of the Forrest fan club, though. Makes it hard to understand those ungrateful black residents of the Bedford Forrest Homes in Selma, Alabama, who only recently succeeded in getting a name change for their housing project.
Do you think the rest of us can’t read, Jack’? As a matter of fact, the article linked to by spokedoes not attempt to justify the killings, nor does it attempt to deny the killings occured. What it attempts instead is to portray the events at Fort Pillow as accurately and completely as possible. For instance, the following paragraph doesn’t seem very evasive to me:
In addition, concerning Forrest’s and Chalmers’ reports on the engagement, the article states that the killings were not only mentioned by both generals, but some explanation was offered:
Maybe instead of misrepresenting the link you might care to respond directly to the points raised by spoke’s post?
While I’m not a Confederate apologist in any way, I hate to see the conflict described in simplistic ways that glorify the Union cause and demonize the South. “The truth, as always, is more complicated.”
This seems to be the only active thread on the boards debating the causes, reasons, perspectives, and facts of the C.W.; as such I’d like to add another comment or two.
First off, much of the discussion here, some at the Mencken thread (sorry, don’t know how to link it and I’m too lazy to learn right now), and a LOT at the Georgia flag thread (ditto the link thing) bring to mind something my grandmother used to say: “Never wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.” It should come as no surprise to the few Southerners who have posted on these threads that what we percieve to be facts about the C.W. are seldom, if ever, discussed in what our Northern friends consider unbiased sources. For our efforts, we are called apologists, perceived to be ignorant, racist, etc., etc., by more than a few posters. I, for one, plan to quit wrestling. I haven’t changed anyone’s mind, despite going more than half-way in meeting others’ comments and points.
Second, thanks spoke-. It’s been so long since I read anything about NBF that I’d forgotten much of the details about his total record. Good for you for standing up to DITWD and carrying on beyond what must have been good for your blood pressure.
Third, I’m dismayed by the tone on many of these posts. Look to the “Why is Homsexuality Considered a Sin?” thread for an example of people debating a topic. What has gone on here is more like a “Whack-a-Mole” game where some efforts to explain individual and other perspectives are hit hard wherever they arise.
Finally, perhaps some of you with more time might dig around your sources and answer this one: Did the Union Army free slaves as they captured Southern territory? Seems to me that if that’s what the war was really about, then that’s what would have happened.
Perhaps not “can’t read”, but “won’t read”. That article states that "The only existing official Confederate reports of the engagement are those prepared by Generals Forrest and Chalmers, neither mentioning any “massacre” (italics mine, quotation marks theirs). **
Your “accurate and complete” article also tries to show Forrest as being an exemplary military man up until Fort Pillow as a way of casting doubt on the events there, with statements such as “Known to be a man of integrity…”. Your “man of integrity”, according to the Britannica link, “ordered his troops to take no more Negro prisoners when they assaulted and captured Fort Pillow.”
But I guess you failed to read that one too.**
It seems then that the compelling need to purge the history books of anything that casts Americans in a positive light is what’s pushing you to join ranks with John Ashcroft and other Confederate apologists.
Your presence here seems appropriate though, as you can advise your pro-Confederate colleagues on the best way to haul around old baggage from lost causes (in your case, generated by prior SDMB debates).
Ivorybill: This has been clarified countless times (and will doubtless have to be many more), but the North went to war to preserve the Union. It was the leaders of the South for whom slavery was an all-important preoccupation.
Where in the world did this come from? Who’s demonstrated a need to purge history books of “anything that casts Americans in a positive light?” The truth is more complicated than your Manichean generalizations, and stating that fact does not make one an enemy of the Union. Bring your assertions over here, Jack: I’ve got a match, and we can make a lovely Burning Man.
Here’s a tip, tenderfoot: stick to statements that can be reasonably defended, or you’ll get torn apart 'round here. (If there’s anyone in this debate who’s bringing in baggage from previous threads, boy howdy…)
Good. Some progress there. Now, why did the North fight to preserve the Union? Altruism? End slavery? Keep a handy source of arable land, raw material, and cheap labor?
(Yeah, yeah: I said I’d stop, but didn’t. I’m a big hypocrite.)
What is “to end slavery,” Alex? The “handy source of arable land and raw material” Northerners had was the West, not the South. And the source of cheap labor was the Scotch-Irish and other immigrants. Actually, the North found to preserve the Union for it’s own sake, because the South, by declaring war and seceding, sought to unilaterally destroy it.
BTW, I think you have NOT been given the “Whack-A-Mole” treatment in this thread. People have been fairly respectful of your views; they just don’t buy them and/or agree with them.
We now progress toward the following motivation: the desire to maintain a unified nation, rather than two weakened, mutually hostile states, looking to wrestle over expansion West.
And above all (prepare to shudder, historical revisionists): patriotism. A love of country, going beyond a love of one’s region.
You don’t strike me as a knuckle dragger. I am not demeaning your history, but when white people say to me “my family had it so bad during the Civil War,” my honest reaction is, so what? What relevance does that have to any issue we’re dealing with today? I certainly won’t consider you a knuckle-dragger if you can answer that.