# Do Confederate soldiers count for Memorial Day? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 28, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568 "2013-05-28T18:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/241 "2013-05-30T03:20:17Z")
[Flag of Mississippi.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Mississippi) The Confederacy is still there, and still needs fighting. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/242 "2013-05-30T03:36:28Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > [Flag of Mississippi.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Mississippi) > > The Confederacy is still there, and still needs fighting. The flag is truly the least of Mississippi’s problems. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/243 "2013-05-30T04:02:15Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > My great, great grandfather was a Confederate soldier. My great grandmother, his daughter, was still alive when I was a little kid. He was mentioned twice in dispatches for his bravery at the frong. Fuck him. > > He was one of the bad guys, he fought for a disgusting cause and when he finally put down his arms, he was welcomed back into the nation that he tried to destroy. Why the fuck would we honor people like that? My sentiments exactly. Pissing on Confederate soldiers’ graves is about the best they deserve, no joke, and I think Civil War Memorial Days by Southern states disgusting. The ancestor I mentioned who fought at Gettysburg, he was on my father’s side. My Confederate ancestor on my Arkansas mother’s side, I found the names of him and his brother or cousin on a roll of his Confederate unit, and both had “Deserted” and the dates of their desertion afterward. (They deserted about six months apart.) Now _those_ two guys had the right idea. I’m glad the authorities of the day never caught up with him, because my ancestor who was his son was not born until after the war. ---
**Author:** ![wedgehed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wedgehed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wedgehed)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/244 "2013-05-30T04:06:07Z")
Yeah Sampiro, it’s hard to be a Southerner sometimes. I was born in 1957. If all I knew of the South was from TV coverage from the 60s, then I’d probably expect the place to be wall-to-wall Klan. I saw my first Klansman in the 1980s. They were demonstrating in a neighboring town that I was driving thru. My first reaction was to look for the cameras that must be filming a movie. I guess I was spoiled by my redneck relations who were more concerned about crops & weather than black folks voting. I was obviously ruined by my eighth grade educated dad who was (and still is) an FDR Democrat. I suppose my family & neighbors let me down when they didn’t lose their minds when my school desegregated. I must be a disappointment in every way to my northern brethren on the SD…except for the fact that I hold my Confederate ancestors in esteem, even though I’m glad they did not win. If they fought, I hope they fought well. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/245 "2013-05-30T04:18:21Z")
As you might guess, I don’t. I hope they deserted like **Siam Sam** ’s relatives. ---
**Author:** ![wedgehed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wedgehed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wedgehed)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/246 "2013-05-30T04:31:30Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > As you might guess, I don’t. I hope they deserted like **Siam Sam** ’s relatives. If it makes you feel any better, I have a g-g-grandfather who died in a POW camp in Indiana. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/247 "2013-05-30T04:41:25Z")
We should have a day to honor all the confederate soldiers who deserted. Now there’s an idea I can get behind. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/248 "2013-05-30T05:12:56Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > You really don’t know very many people from the South do you? You don’t seem like you’ve met one person if you don’t think that is a common belief. > [@Sampiro](#): > > The closest I’ve come to a neo-Confederate was a recent old Jeep I saw that had a rebel flag (not the actual CSA flag) bumper sticker on one side and what I thought at first, second, and third reading said **PROSTATE RIGHTS** before realizing there just a tad of space twixt Pro and State. However, I don’t think you’d have to google very long to find out that misinformed bigoted statements are no more an exclusively southern phenomenon than are eccentrically worded/spaced/spelled signs. (No Georgian or Alabaman ever elected Michelle Bachmann, for example.) The Midwest is often just as crazy as the South, but we’re looking at trends here, not isolated incidents. Hell, Darrell Issa is from California and is as batshit crazy as any of them. But we’ve got more normal people than the South, and if there really isn’t much difference, then why do Southerners bother to take pride in it? They know, and we all know, there is a quality about the South, and whether one wants to dress it up as pro-state or just come out and admit they are racist fucks, we all know that the stereotype is often true ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/249 "2013-05-30T08:30:38Z")
The South has a legacy that’s for sure. I doubt we’d be having many objections to Confederate soldiers being recognized on Memorial Day if it weren’t for the efforts of southerners for the better part of the last 150 years to present their myth of a Lost Cause as the truth. As someone already pointed out, Memorial Day started as Decoration Day which was a day to decorate the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers who died during the war. Again, it doesn’t help that southern organizations eventually ended up using the holiday to propagate the Lost Cause myth rather than honoring the soldiers who died. I don’t have a problem with Memorial Day including Confederate soldiers provided that people don’t use the occasion as a platform to spread lies about the Lost Cause. Unfortunately organizations like the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy exist exclusively to preserve those lies. The south made their bed and they’ve got to lie in it. It would probably help of Confederate apologist went ahead and admitted that the war was over slavery, that it was wrong and stop clinging to the Lost Cause myth. I don’t think it’s fair to categorize every soldier who fought for the Confederacy as evil. Hell, I feel sorry for them being duped into fighting a war for the benefit of the relatively few who benefited the most from the slave system. I work in a museum and I get to deal with the SCV and the UDC frequently. Some of the things they believe… ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/250 "2013-05-30T10:26:56Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I swear I never feel more southron in my sympathies or more fully understand the mindset of those who locked shields with their neighbors in spite of any objections that they had when I read the levels of uniform hatred and simplification and need for 4th grade comic book heroes and villains without any moral wiggle room that is in these threads. > > Though it is usually just a handful of “I’m an abolitionist and don’t care who knows it!” fanatics who keep it running. The poll currently shows 58% in favor or undecided on the issue, hardly a fanatical “let me get my licks in since I missed Appomattox” landslide. Though it is possible the silent ones are planning to hire a substitute to argue against the south for them. Meh. You gotta feel what you gotta feel, but I’m also a Southerner who loves this region and hates anti-southern bigotry and has gotten in big old fights with Yankees who talk about how nobody with a soul lives in the South or whatever. There’s no need for comic book ethics to say that chattel slavery is probably the worst thing our country’s ever done and up there with the worst things that humanity has ever done; the death toll from the middle passage alone places it in the top 20 atrocities in human history. Mocking people who keep that front and center is a pretty, uh, special attitude to take, as though we ought to say, “Yeah, on the one hand it was a horrifying and nearly unparalleled atrocity, but let’s not make too big a deal out of it.” Chattel slavery is one of those rare things it’s hard to make too big a deal out of. Frankly if there’s comic book morality in this thread I think it belongs to people who think that soldiering carries some inherent nobility or honor, and if that soldiering is done by people born in the US, doubly so. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/251 "2013-05-30T11:34:18Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Frankly if there’s comic book morality in this thread I think it belongs to people who think that soldiering carries some inherent nobility or honor, and if that soldiering is done by people born in the US, doubly so. Spot on. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/252 "2013-05-30T11:37:42Z")
For those wringing their hands about stereotyping of the South and Southerners, I’ll point out that in my posts, I have consistently referred to “Confederates” and “traitors.” I have made no sweeping generalizations about the South. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > This isn’t about Confederates asking to be honored, though. If someone wanted to honor you after your death, that’s their decision. You’re the one who made it about the feelings of the dead, or, rather, my feelings if by some trick of fate I had ended up as a Confederate soldier. > [@](#): > > That exception is long established. The ever-helpful VA links it back to antiquity: I betcha that in all those cases throughout antiquity, there was a considerable reluctance to honor those who died as traitors to the state that was doing the honoring. > [@](#): > > I guess it doesn’t, though I’m still left puzzled. It’s not so puzzling. Treat it as a separate question if you like. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/253 "2013-05-30T11:40:15Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Frankly if there’s comic book morality in this thread I think it belongs to people who think that soldiering carries some inherent nobility or honor, and if that soldiering is done by people born in the US, doubly so. +1 ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/254 "2013-05-30T11:52:11Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > … I admit that slavery was evil, that’s pretty simple to modern eyes. … Pretty simple to period (any period) eyes too . . . if they’re in the head of a slave or anyone with the tiniest bit of empathy. (Find me the slavery approving folks that wouldn’t mind at all if **they** were made into slaves!) > [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > My direct ancestor fought for the North at Gettysburg, and lived thank goodness or I’d not be here now. But if he _had_ been killed, we’d be supposed to honor the side that killed him? I don’t think so. “I raise this glass in honor of the United States soldiers who died in the Civil war . . . and in honor of the Confederate soldiers who died trying to kill them!” CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/255 "2013-05-30T12:00:17Z")
But here’s the thing: what are we allowed to say to you that isn’t anti-Southern bigotry? Even it it’s the same stuff or weaker that you yourselves bitch about (see 1. below), we are labeled as rude Yankee bigots (see 2. below). Some of us transplants are here because we fit your acceptable “I wasn’t born here, but I got here as son as I could,” model, but a lot of us are here because we are mobile. We’ve seen more of the outside world besides your South, and also besides our original Yankee-land. 1. A transplant comments on: State taxes and high sales taxes (in WA vs OR it was one or the other); corrupt local politicians enriching themselves and their cronies (to rival Chicago, but without the local newspapers going after it); People who are just fucking rude while insisting that the South is the friendliest place on earth (which fails to convince anyone who’s lived in Hawaii or the Philippines) 2. What a lot of Southerner’s are conditioned to hear when these complaints are voiced: “You crackers hunt niggers for sport, and have sex with your kids or your livestock, whichever can’t outrun you on any given day; which isn’t much of a rece since you’re so fat and lazy. Oh, and you lost the war.” Which confirms that you should never criticize as an outsider (just as true in friendlier Hawaii as in the South: “there no such thing as a [kamaaina](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kamaaina).”). But the South does have a lot of problems, and one solution to them is us Yankees: we came down here, with our money and skills and helped make this place what it is today. Responses like “Well bless your heart,” and “Delta is ready when you are” only keeps the problems in place. ---
**Author:** ![Tioga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tioga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tioga)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/256 "2013-05-30T12:18:22Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > They are all Americans now. At that point, the Confederacy, by choice, seceded and directed their allegiance elsewhere. This is your ongoing non sequitur. I am saying that during that period, they traitorously took up arms against their country and killed American soldiers. Had you asked a Confederate soldier if he was a citizen of the U.S., he would have told you hell no. As a result, I don’t honor the dead who sacrificed their lives for an evil cause, in support of another government, and in doing so killed American soldiers. Your use of the word “evil” is a non sequitur. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/257 "2013-05-30T12:18:42Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > My response to this is twofold. > > First, You might be trying to introduce me to the concept that nobody is a goddamn saint, and if so, I appreciate your time, **but I already knew that**. Not only did I know that, I also took it under consideration when I set up my standard. You needn’t point out the bleedin’ obvious to me. Noted. > [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Second, however, you’re way off base. Anthony worked on behalf of the abolitionist movement, and she was friends with leading black abolitionists in her day. I’ll trust their judgment over yours (or over any right-winger trying to discredit social activists). Anthony wrote some pretty insulting things about the foreign-born, and also newly-freed slaves, during the period when the 15th Amendment was being considered and passed, she was offended that they could vote when women could not. I point this out not to tarnish Ms. Anthony, but to illustrate that the past is another country, and trying to impose our views onto it is unwise. Lincoln was obviously key to abolition, and yet can only be described as “racist” in his view of black folks. > [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Yes, she had some opinions that aren’t going to stand up to 21st-century standards, but if you think that’s equivalent to committing murderous treason on behalf of chattel slavery, as Confederate soldiers did, you’ll need to explain the parallels. Not equivalent, no, but of a kind: unsavory views that shouldn’t be held to modern standards. > [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Not necessarily, although as an aside I don’t see that as a terrible thing at all. Of all the categories of labor in our world, soldiering is the dirtiest, and while its commission should in the rare case of its necessity be appreciated (in the same way we appreciate folks who clean bedpans in ebola-ridden hospitals), the beatification of soldiery as a career is a pernicious evil in our society. > [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Frankly if there’s comic book morality in this thread I think it belongs to people who think that soldiering carries some inherent nobility or honor, and if that soldiering is done by people born in the US, doubly so. I agree that we go too far at times as a nation in appointing our soliders as secular saints, but, _as long as we’re doing so_, I think Confederates should be honored by those who wish to do so. If your objection is with Memorial Day as a concept, the uncritical adulation of American soldiers regardless of the cause (as opposed to side, i.e. the CSA) they fought for, that’s its own issue. That said, soldiering obviously requires great physical courage, which is a trait worthy of admiration. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/258 "2013-05-30T12:30:05Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You’re the one who made it about the feelings of the dead, or, rather, my feelings if by some trick of fate I had ended up as a Confederate soldier. I must not have been clear, then, I was referring to how we 21st century folk should view the actions of Confederate soldiers. Whether the actual Confederate soldiers thought they were entitled to honor (or dishonor) has nothing to do with whether we should honor them a century and a half later. > [@Acsenray](#): > > I betcha that in all those cases throughout antiquity, there was a considerable reluctance to honor those who died as traitors to the state that was doing the honoring. Possibly. Civil wars can certainly lead to decades or centuries of hostility and bitterness, though normally this occurs when differing ethnicities or religions are involved, like the Balkans. In cases where the peoples involved are similar, like the American Revolution or the American Civil War, reconcilliation seems much easier to achieve. > [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Pretty simple to period (any period) eyes too . . . if they’re in the head of a slave or anyone with the tiniest bit of empathy. (Find me the slavery approving folks that wouldn’t mind at all if **they** were made into slaves!) And yet, slavery is about as old as mankind, and has only been eliminated from the bulk of the planet in the last 150-200 years or so. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/259 "2013-05-30T12:41:20Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > And yet, slavery is about as old as mankind, and has only been eliminated from the bulk of the planet in the last 150-200 years or so. So _what?_ They didn’t live 10,000 years ago, or even 1000 or 500 years ago. _They_ lived in a time where slavery was both wrong by their own claimed standards, and known to be in no way necessary. You keep trying to treat them like they were ancient Romans or some Stone Age barbarian tribe that didn’t know any better. Nor is hypocrisy an admirable quality, such as the hypocrisy of those who opposed slavery for themselves while practicing it on others. And “it’s always been around so we shouldn’t judge people who do it” is a morally bankrupt position to take. Should we release all the rapists and murderers from prison too while we are at it? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/260 "2013-05-30T12:41:24Z")
[QUOTE=YogSosoth] we all know that the stereotype is often true [/QUOTE] All stereotypes are often true; that’s why they exist. So is it okay to make sweeping comments about how Jews are clannish and greedy, blacks are lazy and on welfare, Asians are overachieving bad drivers, gays are vapid promiscuous lispers, and Mexicans are menial laborers or gang members because “we’re just talking about trends here, not all of them”? And while I don’t dispute for a moment that the primary raison d’être of the Confederacy was to keep slavery legal, my problem with Confederates being included in Memorial Day has zilch to do with the issue of slavery; it’s the fact they were not fighting _for_ the U.S. but were in open rebellion against it. Morally, the north did not have a lot of high ground; while the Confederacy was fighting to keep slavery, most northerners were not fighting to end it (colored troops and a very few abolitionists being the exception) and there were racist atrocities committed on both sides of Mason-Dixon during the war, and as always the notion that most enlisted men were no more apologists for the governments they fought for than most U.S. born teenagers in Vietnam were capable of arguing Karl Marx v. Freemarket with anything more than the occasional talking point- they fought because there was a war on (and yes, the same thing goes for most soldiers in the German armed forces in WW2- the notion of an entire side being evil and deserving to have their graves pissed on is a longing from an attention starved subscriber to a puerile mindset). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568.md?page=14)