My great-great grandfather, George Carter, was at Appomattox Court House that day, as a member of the NY 9th Artillery.

great-grandfather James Austen was at Appomattox too that day - Battery E, 5th US Artillery.

... McLean had moved to Appomattox to get away from the war, after the first great battle (Bull Run) had been fought on his farm near Manassas.

Ironic for sure!

As a member of the 142nd Pennsylvania Volunteers, Company B.

Confederate Flag that has ever mattered.

marking one of the most fateful days in US history?

There is a day to remember the end of the Civil War, it is May 30. That is the day that supposedly all organized Confederate resistance was ended. Lee's surrender at Appomattox just started the ball rolling. May 30 was selected as the day to honor the Union war dead. Maj Gen John Logan prop-osed the date as a day to remember our honored dead and to decorate their graves with flowers. The day used to be called Decoration Day and then memorial Day. Over the years, it has become a day to honor all of the US war dead, but it originally was just to recognize the end of the Civil War and the dead in the union cause. My grandmother always called it Decoration Day.

the Civil War dead.

Unfortunately, that seems to have got lost in the hubbub.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day#In_the_North

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day#In_the_South

'This was the first Memorial Day. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution.'

Welcome to DU...

The formal naming of May 30 as Memorial Day was by the head of the Grand Army of the Republic on May 5, 1968 decreeing May 30 as a day to honor the dead Union soldiers.

Gen. Logan’s order for his posts to decorate graves in 1868 “with the choicest flowers of springtime” urged: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. ... Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

No one reminisced about the days before, during or soon after the war.

Historical reenactments are popular now, so I imagine some Civil War re-enactments are going on somewhere in the Northeast. However, I live in Boston and the only re-enactments with which I am personally familiar are of the Revolutionary War, of the discussions around separating from the British crown, etc.

I imagine the Northeast has as many genetic ties to the Civil War as the South has.

And I don't remember having much of Civil War era history taught. It was, as you said, mainly Revolutionary.

However, having lived in/near The South, there is something visceral about many people's connections to something that happened 150 years ago, or more likely, something about in inbred racism.

Of course, the South was devastated and humiliated by the War of Northern Aggression (sounds like a phrase from the NORKs). This might increase the level of historic animosity.

I could also hypothesize that people that live the the South vs. the North have some different characteristics (to be charitable.) Nothing to do with genetics, of course.

not far from a major Civil War battlefield (now Pea Ridge National Military Park). I think my town had mostly forgotten about the Civil War. But a few years after the Civil War Centennial, our school band marched in a parade in the small town of Pea Ridge to commemorate an anniversary of the battle. One of the songs in our repertoire was a march called "General Grant". I don't remember seeing a happy face in the small crowd who came out to watch us. Later it occurred to me that the "General Grant March" might have been the cause for our less than appreciative audience. Perhaps if we had played "Dixie", we would have been better received.

My great great grandfather was a Massachusetts general leading troops of free and freed African Americans. His sisters went south after the war to help freed families set up life on an island off the Carolinas. When I first moved to Houston, I had a recurring nightmare. I was at a gathering of people singing Dixie. I would belt out the Battle Hymn of the Republic as loud as I could. Tribes run deep. Being a descendent of a Declaration of Independence signer, I get extremely annoyed in Canada when I see signs for Her majesty's this or that. It's silly, I know, but it's there. New England is all about the Revolutionary War because that's what was fought there. The Civil War was fought in the south. The difference is we won the Revolutionary War and have reason to celebrate it.

As their beloved homeland sinks deeper and deeper into poverty, despair, ignorance, and malaise.

Stop flying the fucking slavery flag, get up off your lazy asses, get an education, and do something to lift the South out of regional irrelevancy...

Many of us who live 'here' (down South) are working hard to improve the socioeconomic dynamics of our towns and communities.

it's just that yours have a better rallying cry.

try to track down a copy of "Rednecks," by Randy Newman.

It makes your point spectacularly well, and it's especially meaningful to me since I grew up across town from the Hough riots.

always got a good laugh from 'Half a Man'.

Both extremely chilling about human nature. Virginia especially has a very dual nature: beltway and the rest of the red soil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederates_in_the_Attic

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2004/03/howling_in_the_.html

I regret not going up to visit him when he was still alive.

I spent 40 years in Virginia, both inside and outside the beltway
and he is spot on regarding the attitudes of far too many in the rural "south".
When I retired I moved as far west as I could, in part, to get away from
all the "civil" war BS. I don't miss it one bit.

Lee may have surrendered but the culture never did. The CSA
is alive and well. These days it's known as the GOP.

The list gets longer and longer...

lyrics https://www.google.com/search?q=Rednecks+Randy+Newman+lyrics&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=Rednecks+Randy+Newman+lyrics

Thank you for your + .
Running, but I had to support. Good intentions all around, I am sure.

called the South.

I was born and raised in Texas to an all-Southern family based in Alabama and Georgia. My great-great-great-grandfather, Bright W. Hargrove, signed the order of secession for the State of Georgia. Every one of my relatives who fought in the Civil War fought for the Confederacy. I'm not an idle keyboard commando on the issue.

I remember growing up with the sound of cicadas in the trees, and the smell of honeysuckle drifting through the window on Sunday mornings before church. I remember the kindness of neighbors and even strangers. I remember the reassuring closeness of family members, however distantly-related. And I remember how these same kind, loving people would turn into reddened, quivering towers of helpless rage whenever the subject turned to "The War of Northern Aggression", or the thought that "neegras" could receive anything like equal treatment with white people. I don't miss that part of the South at all.

Whatever the racial problems in the North, we never codified it in legal language. There seems to be no overt sense of entitlement or lingering resentment. I long for the day when Southerners lose the delusion of a grand and glorious way of life that is gone with the wind, never to return.

But not until the majority of us accept that the Confederacy won't.

and the only time, I've heard that comment is in jest, usually after some inane comment aimed at belittling those of us who live in the South.

Do you all really think we sit on the veranda, sipping sweet tea and plotting the rise of the Confederacy? This goes beyond typecasting into outright bigotry against citizens of the US due only to where they live.

You implied you are one of 'us" in your comment, and knowing what an intelligent person you are, I find your statement confusing. There is no doubt there is a segment of the population who believes reverting to the 'old ways' will make things better. But these same types of people exist in all segments of this country and across the globe.

By the way, the South has risen... have you visited lately? We have major metropolitan cities, interstates, even have Starbucks. We don't look any different than anywhere else. We're simply perceived differently because it's fun to bash someone. I'm tired of it.

Most of the time, however, it was just a slogan on a t-shirt or poster, but it was there. The flag too.

But downtown Atlanta and downtown Dallas are, alas, not representative of the south, even today. They are our shining beacons that we can present to the world, but they are not what that majority of us are. Otherwise, our governor would be named Bill White or Wendy Davis. Georgia would not be trying to put a gun in every hand if the place was like Atlanta. Go outside of Dallas and you run into the kind of people for which Tom DeLay gerrymandered Martin Frost out of a district to insert Ted Cruz. The enlightened among us are not the majority yet, far from it. Outside the centers of enlightenment, there is still a lot of darkness out there, I'm sorry to say.

I know WE don't sit on the veranda all day, but in the small and medium sized towns where the bright and the able go elsewhere to live and work, the old mentality DOES persist in far more pervasiveness than is comfortable. We can't improve it if we don't recognize it.

I've never known one single person to glorify the civil war.

This is just another "bash the south" thread. Yawn.

Predictable and with the same old haters.

That symbol of hatred is supported by the voters.

As I said, I've never heard anyone glorify that war here.

I've seen that flag on cars all over the country.

another broad brush...

The South is nothing as you describe it... it is certainly no different than any other part of the nation. Your "poverty, despair, ignorance, and malaise" occurs everywhere.

I'm from South Carolina, I have an excellent education (grade school through college), I'm not lazy, and I work hard to better my community. The people I know, educated or not, are hard workers trying to get through life. Is there racism.... yes... but racism exits everywhere and it needs to be eliminated everywhere.

I only hope you practice what you preach where you live.

And I live in Arkansas. If a person looks at my Facebook feed, they'd never guess who is from the south and who isn't based on the attitudes of the poster.

Idaho could in no way shape or form be considered south, but all of the things that I see folks listing as bad southern behaviors, the Idahoans embrace those behaviors whereas the locals do not.

It is not a south versus north battle as much as it is a rural versus urban battle.

Thank you for you comment. How true it is.

less educated vs. more educated

less enlightened vs. more enlightened

Republican vs. Democrat

conservative vs. progressive

In MY part of the south, no ever ever talks about "the war of Northern Aggression" or "the south shall rise again", some other similar nonsense, or blatant racism. Yes, of course, there's racism where I live, but I never hear it stated openly. It's a subtle thing.

As I said in another thread, this meme of the Civil War still being fought needs to die.

On facebook of my small hometown friends. Those who left town and got an education, are typically more liberal. Those who 'chose' to stay are, to a person, tea party conservatives.

So, yeah, no one in my part of the south calls it 'the war of northern aggression' either. They aren't far away if I were to seek them out, but I'm not gonna do that.

Haven't heard it in a really long time. I also rarely see the confederate flag anymore (except in pictures of NASCAR events). I live in redneck No. FL, so maybe in the "deep" south as we call it, they're even further behind than we are?

As far as working, there aren't a ton of jobs here. Lots of people would love to have a job, but just don't have the training or experience for the jobs that are available, which are in banking, call centers and healthcare. Of course, there are some folks (like one of my cousins) who could work at least part time, but who don't want to. At least she's a liberal and doesn't want to prevent other people from being on disability and getting the same deal as her, so she's still better than the redneck slackers who only want that privilege for themselves or their families.

I was thinking the same thing recently. How do they wake up from their collective madness that they are still fighting the Civil War? They have been infested by false prophets who lie to them and weave their religious story in with this age old myth. I've been to the South, well mostly the tourist parts admittedly, and it was nice (though I liked the food more than the weather). I met many cool people and did not experience racism to my face. But I was wary to be honest.

Does anybody remember that old folk song "Where have all the Flowers Gone"?
I think we all know what happens to the flowers in this world.


You are the change you've been waiting for.

Maybe the time and need has come for a law to make clapping illegal (snark)

What the world needs more of; white flags flying.

Japan should fly one over its nuke plants and beg for help and forgiveness.

the current Republican party is basically a coalition of the worst aspects of each party from the post-Civil War era: corrupt plutocrats and racist (and otherwise bigoted) demagogues.

from their first years.

"
The Republicans rapidly gained supporters in the North, and in 1856 their first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, won 11 of the 16 Northern states. By 1860, the majority of the Southern slave states were publicly threatening secession if the Republicans won the presidency.


Reference: www.history.com/.../republican-party-founded
"

The 1860 Republican nomination convention was held in Chicago. They strongly supported the Illinois "favorite son" A. Lincoln who had promised the immediate Emancipation Proclamation, a move that all but guaranteed secession , the civil war and Republican control of the American Government.

read "The Republicans and the Civil War"
http://civilwarhome.com/republicans.htm

Republican fingerprints were all over the political moves leading up to the Civil War, during it and following the war.

Thanks for the link!

I'm currently in the middle of Freedom National myself (http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-National-Destruction-Slavery-1861-1865/dp/0393347753).

The Republican party was certainly on the right side of history during that era, which is why I find it depressing more than anything to compare its current state with where it once was.

about "the right side of history" caught my attention. I would like to follow up on that.

is a political party wanting POC and women back in their place. And those very same people falling to their knees worshipping the ground they walk on.......the origins of that party is moot except to be able to see what true racist inhabit the ranks of today's republican faithful. Sad indeed.

initially only to CONTAIN slavery within its current borders, i.e., not allow it to expand.

Unless you have a reputable source for Lincoln promising 'immediate emancipation,' you should retract your assertion. It is categorically FALSE.

My careless writing style allowed me to insert the word "immediate" prior to the "Emancipation Proclamation". My statement pertained to the fact that upon the execution of the EP, the slaves in the seceding states would be freed immediately rather than some sort of slave ownership phase out.

He, like all intelligent and humane people, was opposed to slave ownership. The die was casted for the South when the owners purchased the slaves. In one way or the other, the practice had to end as soon as possible. My argument is that there were probably less destructive ways to end the practice.

emancipation (whether immediate or otherwise) before being elected. Lincoln proposed before his election simply to contain slavery within its current borders and not allow it to expand its reach into any of the new 'western' (now mid-western) territories.

It's not Lincoln's fault that a bunch of treasonous Southern hot heads decided to secede from the Union without so much as a by your leave. I would remind you that the South fired the first shots at Fort Sumter. The South deserved everything it got and then some. In my opinion, Sherman and the radical Republicans did not go far enough. The lands of the treasonous plantaiton owners and all property they owned should have been forfeit, clear title thereof transferred to the freed bondsmen. Force those mint julep swilling parasites to work for a living. And recompense the bondsmen for the century's long theft of their labor and lives.

he did not like the political power wielded by the slave owners and he was opposed to the expansion of slavery into the midwest and western territories. He morally opposed slavery but married Mary Todd, who came from a prominent Kentucky slave holding family. Lincoln wanted to get rid of blacks in america after the civil war. He did not want blacks in america. The various plans to colonize blacks outside america just never worked out. Lincoln, to me was no great emancipator, just a political pragmatist. Period.

re-reading Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address". If Lincoln was no 'great emancipator,' just what do you think he was talking about when he talked about a "new birth of freedom"?

please don't expect me to embrace 'the great emancipator' or his Gettysburg Address. "New birth of freedom". For who exactly? I never have, never will understand those words as meaning anything for POC, especially since black people are still losing rights and lives for that "freedom" to this day. He was a pragmatic politician trying to keep a divided country from ripping itself apart because one race wanted to enslave another race, among many sins of his day. And by the way the repubthugs have come full circle. They would like to put POC and women back in their place. Who does that leave as free people with full rights, again?

I've had enough of lionizing all these so called heroes when we're still fighting the battles of his day 150 years later especially since he would have been gotten rid of all black people by recolonizing. The only reason they probably couldn't do something like "recolonizing" black people is it probably cost too much to round us up and ship us out. It would have been a black "Trail of Tears" marching to the coast(s) to board ships for who knows where. No I am NOT unfair to that politician. The 'great emancipator' leaves me empty inside.

history of the English language, on a par with Shakespeare at his greatest. If you choose not to recognize its greatness, that is your right, of course. "New birth of freedom" applied (and applies) to all men (people), not to blacks or whites (or Latinos) alone. 1776 gave us one type of freedom. The battle of Gettsyburg helped advance an entirely new, more expansive, conception of freedom. Lincoln understood this. He never said the battle was over, nor that the remaining struggles would be easy:

that's Douglass and his feelings. Lincoln was a pragmatist. A man (politician) for his time. That's it in my book.Yep "the great task remaining before us", still remains before us. Just ask the relatives of Walter Scott, Tarika Wilson, Michael Brown, 7 year old Aiyana Jones, Eric Garner, John Crawford, 12 year old Tamir Rice, and I could go on and on......but I won't. It's because every 36 hours or so another black human life becomes representative of "the great task remaining" and they represent the larger problem of the task still remaining. That is the gaining of respect, by hateful, racist confederates for human life, which the Lincoln address did acknowledge, but which I feel will NEVER happen in this country as long as the Civil War continues. We've had 150 years to take care of the great task Lincoln spoke off. Ain't happened yet.

I respect your right to lionize the man and his speech. That's it. I'm still empty inside.

I wonder if Douglas, on his visit to the White House, had to enter by the back door?

neighborhood of some 40%. That is simply unacceptable by any standard and a living testament to the bankruptcy and utter depravity of late-stage capitalism. It matters little that these 40% unemployed are largely black (and now also some Latino); the persistence of these unemployed shows that the 'great task remaining before us' may be even greater than Lincoln himself realized. (Interestingly enough, though, Karl Marx' British Workingman's Association sent Lincoln a testament of appreciation upon his re-election in 1864.) It is little wonder that Martin Luther King, Jr. had turned his attention to the anti-poverty campaign in the final years of his life, moving away from strictly civil rights for which the mainstream mostly remembers him today. The events in Ferguson, New York City, Albuquerque, Cleveland and now North Charleston -- the extra-judicial murder of young black American males by cop -- give blunt testimony to the fact that much of that 'great task' still remains before us. I think we should at least give Lincoln credit for giving voice to that concept, to let his fellow Americans know that the hard work was far from finished, was in fact only just beginning.

But I get what you're saying, I really do. Here's a question for you to ponder, though. Assuming you could have voted in 1860, would you have voted for A) Lincoln, B) Steven Douglas or C) John Breckenridge? This nation is damned lucky it elected Lincoln to smash the rebellion. Imagine for a moment what might have transpired had the President at the time been George W. Bush. When the South fired on Fort Sumter, Bush would probably have attacked El Salvador.

ETA: El Salvador being south-y and all.

I'll have to go back to my study and do a little research. Lincoln seems to have been the man for the time and given what little I know of the Missouri compromise and Douglas and his legislation, the' Kansas-Nebraska Act, which I know helped to speed up the march to Civil War, which was not the intended result, I'll have to decide who I would have cast my vote for. Breckenridge? I truly know nothing of him. I'll search. Thanks for your reasoned response and yes 'the shrub' would have been the total disaster in those days as he and bushco were in ours....El Salvador?...true

While the man was a slave owner, a CSA major general, and the last Secretary of War in the Confederate government, in his favor, he tied to do the following:

1. Get the Confederate forces to surrender intact and not disperse to become guerrillas and carry on partisan warfare. He tried to get as many CSA units as possible to be covered by Joe Johnston's surrender to Sherman.

2. To get Jeff Davis out of the country without trying to revive the CSA cause in the Trans-Mississippi (Davis was seeking to continue the war).

... for a very bad cause.

I'm a bit of a Civil War history buff, and it's amazing what the soldiers (on both sides) were able to do, and what they endured. I can understand why both the common soldiers and many prominent generals in the South are remembered with honor and high esteem. Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson were outstanding leaders and deeply religious men who were greatly respected.

You don't have to tell me they committed treason and were responsible for killing thousands in order to sustain the institution of slavery. I am not making excuses for them, but merely pointing out indisputable facts.

We need to tell today's neo-Confederates and make them understand that their heroes fought for a very bad cause.

It can be very difficult to separate the men from the cause they fought for, both 150 years ago and today.

For example, after 9-11 many brave patriotic young Americans volunteered to put their lives on the line for their country by joining the armed services. Many thousands of them were killed or maimed fighting in Iraq. They were sent there on the basis of lies, in the commission of what amounts to a serious war crime.

I can respect those men (and women) for their motives and their sacrifice. They were badly misinformed, and most of them honestly believed they were fighting the "bad guys" to protect their families at home.

What Americans desperately need to learn is that support for "the troops" can and should be decoupled from the cause they fought and died for, when it is a very bad cause.

If the South fails to learn and understand that about the Civil War and Americans today fail to learn and understand that about our invasion of Iraq, this catastrophically tragic history will continue to repeat itself in new and deadly manifestations.

Even Robert E Lee, who was no fan of slavery, felt compelled to fight for what he considered his "country" (Virginia).

They average Confederate soldier was too poor to own slaves.

As is often the case in war, those who do most of the fighting & dying were misled by the One Percenters of their day who were motivated by greed and/or a misguided ideology.

Some of the best and toughest of the Confederate regiments came from areas like the Shenandoah Valley where the plantation economy did not take hold. Some of the wealthier people had domestic slaves, but there were very few field hands. The war was fought largely by the hillbillies, rednecks, and crackers.

Growing up in plantation country, I wondered why my paternal ancestors didn't fight. Well, they owned enough slaves to be exempt. "It's a rich man's war and a poor man's fight."

But the Free State of Jones -- Jones County, Miss. -- ran the Confederate government out and opened the way for Sherman. I wonder if any of their descendants know that. Most of the southern states have a "Lincoln County" or "Union County" that tried to secede from the Confederacy, as West Virginia did. The Confederacy was fighting (at least) a two-front war. And it is no accident that by the end of the war, one union soldier in five was a "hillbilly, redneck, or cracker."

Speaking as a redneck my ownself.

Sherman's march went from Chattanooga to Atlanta to Savannah and then north through the Carolinas.

Sherman was only in Mississippi as a part of Grant's forces at Vicksburg.

Mississippi stayed pretty much untouched by the federals until May 1965 when Lt Gen Richard Taylor (son of President Zachary Taylor) surrendered the CSA forces in Mississippi and Alabama to Union Gen Canby long after Lee surrendered to Grant and Joe Johnston surrendered to Sherman

My source on the Free State of Jones was print, thus no links. However, there is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Knight

I recently visited the Wilson's Creek battlefield in SW Missouri while in the area to do some hiking in the Ozarks. I picked up a book about how the Civil War was fought in that region, which included Quantrill's guerrillas with Frank & Jesse James. This was the far west of the war, while the "western theater" (fought by larger more organized armies) included territory from the Chattanooga-Atlanta line west to the Mississippi River.

One of my ancestors was a confederate bushwhacker -- later became a bit of a gangster, though not in Jesse's league -- and another ancestor probably shot back at him in one of the bushwhacker raids.

And after the war in the 1880's came the vigilantees known as Baldknobbers, which i learned about on my trip.

All of the wars we fight fit this description.

as to how many rich Northerners BOUGHT their way out of the war?

But not on the basis of owning slaves. I think there is a difference there.

which is neither here nor there, as it was still a "rich man's war" no matter which uniform you wore.
Also the conscripted poor southerners bitterly resented the exemption, having been given no choice themselves on whether to enlist.

in Vietnam or about individual German soldiers in World Wars I and II. One thing about Iraq that most disturbed me was that we had done the exact same fucking thing not 50 years earlier (in Vietnam). Ole Cheney and Bushie boy could smirk and snarl with wild abandon as they moved the troops of their Praetorian Guard around Iraq like pieces on a chessboard. And meanwhile the American middle class snoozed its way through yet another Super Bowl and yet another American Idol, as the bombs fell upon Baghdad, as women and children were tortured by American personnel and contractors.

We had been through this before -- see My Lai and the Phoenix Program -- and I'll be god-damned if we didn't go through it again! In some ways the Iraqi Resistance surpassed its Vietnamese forbears in giving us a good old-fashioned ass kicking, as the Iraqi Resistance had no USSR or China from which to obtain arms and materiel. The Iraqi Resistance in Anbar did it all on its own.

Last edited Thu Apr 9, 2015, 04:40 PM - Edit history (1)

...and it was well worth the time spent. Ken Burns does such a brilliant job on ALL of his documentaries. This was no exception.

The closing comments by a woman historian of color was that "the Civil War is not over", or something to that affect. It goes on to this very day. The blacks were set free from slavery, but the struggle is still going on, 150 years later. How sad is that.

And once again, the South sickens me. There were many in the North, just as sick and hateful. But once the Civil War concluded, the struggle of the negro was even worse in many ways. The KKK began, and the linchings and murder and humiliation just took a new form.

I'm hoping to watch "The Reconstruction" again. I've seen it before, and it was horrendous in the South. Just made me so disgusted with humanity, but it also explained why we are where we are today.

Anyone, fox-dildos, that can spew the line that "racism is dead" today is an actual walking idiot.

Totally based on cheap labor.

out of Franklyn County, Misssouri. Missouri was a divided state and their journey to Saint Louis was nearly stopped by Confederate forces. The account goes that as the train carrying the men of !st Missouri neared a station full of Confederate enlistees, the captain persuaded the engineer - with a pistol to his head - to NOT make this particular regular stop. The train was peppered with gunfire as it continued on through, down along the Missouri River to St. Louis.

The encryption reads on the old brass framed photo we found of him says that he was "wounded in the knee and died later of his wounds". It doesn't say which battle. Or how many he fought before being wounded.

Before we found these photos, we had always wondered why his branch on the family tree drawing ended so abruptly.

Today's 150th anniversary of the peace treaty signing at Appomattox Court House is indeed a good date to celebrate.

Years ago I visited a small, nearly abandoned cemetery at an old church in the small (population 267), nearly abandoned town of Geneseo, Kansas. Many of the 19th century tombstones/family plots had dramatic memento mori tombstone inscriptions and sculptures - I was focused on them, but then realized that there were civil war dead with tombstones listing regiments from both the Union and the Confederacy - settlers from both parts of the country having settled in Kansas. Tragic that these young men in a small farming/ranching community grew up together, were divided by war, but then ended up buried next to each other. For those of you who grew up in such small, rural towns, you know that they have a very strong sense of community. When disaster strikes an individual or family, the whole community rallies around.

The first Kansas regiment was called on June 3, 1861, and the seventeenth, the last raised during the Civil War, July 28, 1864. The entire quota assigned to the Kansas was 16,654, and the number raised was 20,097, leaving a surplus of 3,443 to the credit of Kansas. About 1,000 Kansans joined Confederate forces, since a number of people from the nation's south had settled in Kansas. There are no statistics on those serving the Confederacy, since some joined guerrilla units. Statistics indicated that losses of Kansas regiments killed in battle and from disease are greater per thousand than those of any other State. This led to a 19th Century nickname for Kansans: the Spartan State.

irregardless of which side they fought.

and for equal treatment in all areas of american culture. The military? I found that we all had red blood, when spilled. No confederate is a hero in my book.

These names shall not die as long as they remain in our hearts.
This line from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound stands out for me
in these dark days of a return to tyranny and what Prometheus
also calls the "thought-execution" of tyrants.

Weirdly enough, I recently read Walter Scott's Lay of the Last
Minstrel with Mark Twain's excoriation of Scott in mind. Then,
the same week a man by the name of Walter Scott is wrongly
shot and killed by the police. Now it's really on my mind, burned
so to speak. Anyhow ...

Shelley certainly beats Walter Scott by a wide mile. While Scott can be enjoyable to read, he is jejune and jingoistic in his glorification of war, misguided chivalry, and tribal values. While Scott’s narrative read rather well in the tradition of gothic and medieval romance, reminding me a bit of Longfellow, Shelley's Prometheus reads as a modern and mature masterpiece that defies all limits of place and time, evoking all tyrannies and the ways of tyrants past, present, and future. Both works have elements of the gothic romance; but while Scott's is childish, proving dangerous in its abillity to seduce the minds of southern racists and slaveowners, Shelley's work appeals to our higher and better natures, our long history of standing up against tyranny and the abrogation of human rights. We descendants of the old south and white privilege could thereby benefit greatly from a re-examination of our cultural forebears in this respect.

A man named William Mahone founded a railroad before the Civil War called the Norfolk and Petersburg. During the war, Billy Mahone became a CSA major general. After the war, Billy consolidated several railroads in Virginia into the Norfolk and Western (now the Norfolk Southern). Mahone also became the governor of Virginia.

Before the Civil War when he was running the Norfolk and Petersburg, he and his wife named all of the stations along the line from locations in the Scott novels (Myrtle, Windsor, Zuni, Ivor, Wakefield, Waverly). When they got to the last station before Petersburg, they couldn't agree on an name and called it Disputanta.

Going to Roanoke and back, returning to Richmond "the land of second place trophies"

The only circumstances in which Grant would meet with Lee was to agree on a surrender of Lee's army. Grant then met woth Lee and Grant wrote out the terms of the surrender which Lee agreed to. The picture on your OP was the formal laying down of arms which took place several days after the surrender.

Plow all of the Confederate cemeteries and salt the land?

Make the display of all ensigns of the Confederates illegal to display or own?

Change the history books to show the Confederate States as only evil?

Remove and melt down all statues and monuments to Confederates?

Destroy all battlefields where confederates fought?

All of the above?

The only Confederate that surrendered that day was Lee. The rest, like Nathan Bedford Forrest, kept fighting that war, and handed the baton to people ranging from D.W. Griffith to Bob Jones to George Wallace to David Duke to Tom Delay to Rand Paul. Dixie has never stopped fighting the Civil War, which is why America is mostly controlled by a bunch of GOP operative and their allies in the democratic party, the Blue Dogs who should be called "Dixiecrats."

I do not want a second civil war, as all that will do is make Moscow, Dubai and Beijing pop champagne as they decide to divvy up our bones. But the time is coming very soon where the South may be reminded that that just because we tried to show "malice toward none" we will not allow ourselves to be played for fools. Whenever a Mary Landrieu or Debbie Wasserman Schulz or Joe Manchin actively throws spanners into the gears to suit their purpose, they need to ushered out, and when the GOP starts waving the stars and bars to suit their agenda, they need to be called out as fools, and reminded that the South not only lost, but that they deserved to lose, and that most countries would not have shown them mercy, much less allow them right back into the same poloitical process they tried to destroy!

I do nto support Martyr making, but Jeff Davis should not have died free. At the very least, he should have died in a jail, where he probably would have enjoyed a better lifestyle than the people he tried to keep as slaves.

The reality of my high school history course in the deep South: we never got past the "War Between the States." It was the 1950s, and for the people of the city in which I lived, American history, time itself maybe, stopped right there, right in the moments before the South was defeated. The reality of the defeat was not to be acknowledged. It hurt their pride too much.

And now we have Rand Paul and the rest of the Republicans who want to be in the White House but who cannot afflord to live in the present because they need the votes of Southerners. And the majority of Southerners have to this date not yet admitted they were wrong about slavery, about segregation, about race more generally.

Yet we are a nation of diversity. And it is the failure to deal with that reality that holds large portions of our country back.

Every major issue cannot be viewed clearly by just a little less than half the country because that less than half sees everything through a filter of color and race. They fear and hate people of color, anyone they perceive as different from themselves, and they pretend that their ignorance and prejudice is some righteous expression of religion.

They confuse religious freedom with the freedom to hate and despise people who are different from them. That is what they did in the Civil War, and that is what they do today.

Let everyone over 18 vote. Everyone.

By the time I was in the 5th grade, I would guess that I had read about 10 books written about that war.
I knew more about that time in our nation's history than my elementary school teacher did.
I was fascinated with the history of that war.

In 1965, for the Centennial celebration of the end of the war, The Purina Company included a multi-colored brochure in their 50-pound bags of Purina Dog Chow dog food.
The brochure folded out like a road map, with 4 completely different pages of facts.

When the brochure was completely opened and folded out flat, there was a map of all of the states in the South, and all of the areas where most of the major battles of that war took place.
They even had arrows drawn from battlefield to battlefield showing the different military campaigns that were fought during the war.
When the left and right leafs of the brochure were folded inwards 1 time, there were pictures and a short history of the Generals of those battles on the back of those leafs.
The Union Generals were depicted on the left side, and the Confederate Generals depicted on the right.
After folding the leafs in a 2nd time, there were other officers of less rank who had became famous in that war, with pictures and a short history of what they became famous for on the back of those leafs.

After my parents when to the store to shop for groceries, my dad opened up the dog bag, and took the brochure out of it.
There was a big advertising note on the lower front of the bag that stated the brochure was contained inside.
But then, to my horror, he gave it to my older brother!
I thought my brother was just going to read it for awhile and then give it to me.
But no, he wanted to keep it.

So, I raised holy hell over it, saying that he didn't even care about history, he didn't even study the Civil War as much as I did.
We almost went to blows over it.
My dad was kind of shocked that I threw such a fit over it.
But, that's because my older brother got everything he wanted; he was spoiled rotten.

So, on the next weekend, my parents went back to get groceries for the family again . . and my dad bought another 50-pound bag of dog food for our dog, even though we didn't need it yet, in order to get another brochure about the Civil War just for me.
I was only 9 years old at the time, but man, was I ever surprised when my ol' man said, "here, I went and got one for you, too."
I couldn't believe it.
I almost cried.

I studied the shit out of that brochure.
I memorized the most famous Generals and the most famous battles.

History is one of the most overlooked and underrated subjects taught in America.
They just don't have the time to go in to great detail about American history, until about high school, and then, only briefly.
Nevertheless, by the time I was in the 5th grade, I was chock full of facts about the history of that war.

But by 1968, just 3 short years later, all the hell that was in the news broke out on the tv . . . and it just seemed to me like we never got over that war.

I was an English Lit major, but I devoted many years to personal scholarship on the topic. Half my family is from Alabama, the other half is from Boston, so the issue has deep purchase for me. Plus, as I said, we're still dealing with it to this day. The Civil War and all its facets is necessary knowledge to fully understand modern politics.

circa 1962, the neighbors visited us with an interesting game called "Gettysburg," published by Avalon Hill, which started for me a lifelong obsession with wargames, and consequently military history. Catton's Army of the Potomac had just been re-released by Doubleday, and it was one of the first history books I'd ever read. (In my somwhat-jaded opinion, more romance than history; but that applies to a lot of books about the Civil War) Great introduction to history, as Catton was a good writer. The volumes of AoP have a coherent thematic structure as well, which I have come to appreciate greatly since those far-off years.

It's interesting to juxtapose Army of the Potomac with Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants. Without going into a long rant about it, the thing that strikes me the most is how Freeman was writing about (and glorifying) individuals, whereas Catton was more interested in the institution of the Army itself. I wonder how much their different approaches were influenced by different regional attitudes towards the war.

-- Mal

Half my family is from Alabama, the other half is from Boston, so the issue has deep purchase for me.

GET. OUT.

That's amazing.

Last edited Fri Apr 10, 2015, 11:29 AM - Edit history (2)

DU). I hope you will share this story with your children and grandchildren. It sings of life and of the distant and more recent past. My deepest compliments.

Though it may have extended the war, he needed to grind the South away to nothing sonthe taint of their racism and rebellious wouldnt come back to haunt future generations.

Every confed politician and officer of the rank of colonel or higher should have been imprisoned for life or swung from the gallows. Every plantation and business should have been seized and handed over to former slaves. Every member of the confed army should have been barred for life from voting or holding office.

Lincoln's assassination was the true disaster. He was prepared to "Let 'em up easy" and not make Reconstruction a brutal exercise. Once he was dead, the process fell to bitter-enders like Thaddeus Stevens, who ground the South under their boot, impoverished the region for generations, and by doing so radicalized the worst elements. It's the oldest story in the world.

Lincoln's assassination? Armed sedition is a pretty radical position, imo. How much more radicalized can you get than that? I disagree with you; the 2nd American Revolution of 1865 did not go far enough. No plantation owner should have retained title to his lands and properties after 1865.

It's interesting, isn't it? I'm a pretty hard-line Unionist, myself, although I have some rather idiosyncratic opinions about much of that period that I won't burden you with. Yet all-in-all I think Lincoln had the right idea: With Malice Towards None is the kind of ideal I can get behind. But it seems that the war (or its underlying causes, which is more to the point) left sufficient malice for many. There has been a lot of South-bashing in this thread, and complaints that the South hasn't "gotten over" the war. But I wonder how many in the North have also not gotten over it, in that they continue to wish that the CSA had been crushed even harder than they were, and that Jeff Davis should have decorated a gallows? Ultimately, though, isn't it interesting that Lincoln is the one who was a casualty of war, and Davis died of natural causes? What does that tell us about those who have no malice in their hearts?

-- Mal

And thanks for the OP.

armed sedition and, at a bare minimum, the slaveocracy's lands and properties should have been forfeit (and distributed with clear and free title to the freed slaves). I'm not sure, though, that we can say that Lincoln 'messed up' at the end, since his 2nd term was cut short by his assassination.

who are devoid of thinking skills to stop fighting the war. Hatred is their only tool.

APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE, VA.
April 9, 1865

General R. E. LEE:

In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th instant, I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged; and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by U. S. authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.

U.S. GRANT,
Lieutenant-General

Too bad "Reconstruction" was anything but sweet.

The terms offered were customary. Well, one could quibble about officers not being forced to surrender their sidearms, but it was a not-uncommon gesture. Parole and exchange of prisoners was SOP in years past, although by 1865 the practice had been discontinued. Grant was willing to resurrect the practice because he didn't want to feed and care for a mass of POWs, and he rather expected that the war would be over pretty soon after the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered. He did somewhat exceed his authority in guaranteeing there would be no reprisals, but he knew he'd have Lincoln's backing there, and he had an eye to the future.

Grant offered much the same terms to the Vicksburg garrison. However, in 1863, he was afraid that the Confederates would construe being secured in private property as to also include slaves, so he refused to make that concession. By Appomatox, he wasn't worried about that, although you might note the text refers to "baggage," and not property. Incidentally, Grant informally assured Lee that private soldiers would also be allowed to retain their horses, after Lee pointed out that in the CSA soldiers often supplied their own mounts.

Grant was something of a master in the art of surrender, and differed from the fire-eaters of the US army in that he was disinterested in humiliating his enemies, and wanted only to get the process over with as quickly and simply as possible. He was careful to ensure, however, that a surrender was a surrender, hence the important stipulation that arms and equipment be turned over to the US forces, and not simply dropped in place.

One can imagine that if, say, Ben Butler had received the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia the terms would have been rather harsher!

-- Mal

Last edited Fri Apr 10, 2015, 12:40 PM - Edit history (1)