This Sounds Weird; Army War College Erasing Lee & Jackson?

[Ivanhoe]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/17/robert-e-lee-and-stonewall-jackson-tributes-face-a/?page=1

 

The U.S. Army War College, which molds future field generals, has begun discussing whether it should remove its portraits of Confederate generals — including those of Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

 

...

 

She said one faculty member took down the portraits of Lee and Jackson and put them on the floor as part of the inventory process. That gave rise to rumors that the paintings had been removed.

 

“This person was struck by the fact we have quite a few Confederate images,” she said, adding that the portraits were rehung on a third-floor hallway. “[Lee] was certainly not good for the nation. This is the guy we faced on the battlefield whose entire purpose in life was to destroy the nation as it was then conceived. … This is all part of an informed discussion.”

 

It seems kinda peculiar to be "thinning the herd" at this late date.

 

PC run amok?

[Ken Estes]

Actually, it would be PC restored to turn of the 19/20th C. Lee only had a restoration at West Point and other army institutions after 1900. Not sure about Jackson, but likely later.

 

James Seidule, "Treason is Treason: Civil War Memory at West Point, 1861-1902," J of Mil History 76:2(Apr2012) 427-52.

 

"In the Guilded Age, West Point neither forgave nor forgot Confederate graduates for fighting against the US Army....West Point created a series of stone memorials, mainly in the 1890s, highlighting West Point's role in saving the union. All the memorials excluded Confederate graduates."

Edited December 19, 2013 by Ken Estes

[Michael Eastes]

So when do they start re-naming the forts in CONUS?

 

Ft.Bragg

 

Ft. Polk

 

Ft. Gordon

 

Ft. Hood

 

Ft. Lee

 

Ft. Jackson

 

There are probably others, but these are the ones that come to mind immediately. Some of the above are among the biggest military installations in the US, if not the world. Many of us have trained and/or served at these places. I was actually wondering earlier today, before even seeing this thread, when the P.C. Police would start in on Army facilities.

 

If they re-name those places, I insist that a couple of the biggest, say, Hood and Bragg, be re-named Fort Benjamin Butler and Fort Nathaniel Banks...in the finest traditions of the Army, don't you know.

[Archie Pellagio]

We up for round two of this debate?

 

My question from the Facebook discussion never got answered though, are there any bases, ships etc named after pro-British Americans from the revolutionary war?

[T19]

Well there are there eggs Benedict

[Rocky Davis]

http://www.history.army.mil/html/faq/base_name.html

[BP]

The long march through the institutions, military institution chapter.

[X-Files]

We up for round two of this debate?

 

My question from the Facebook discussion never got answered though, are there any bases, ships etc named after pro-British Americans from the revolutionary war?

 

If they remained Loyal to the Crown, then they weren't Americans.

[Archie Pellagio]

 

If they remained Loyal to the Crown, then they weren't Americans.

How do you draw a distinction between a pro-crown American not being an American but a pro-independence American being an American?

It isn't as though the revolution started with rampant secessionism, it was only when they got shot down for representation things escalated.

 

How is a pro-crown American, less 'American' than someone who wanted to no longer be a part of the United States of America, REJECTED America and decided to take their bat and ball and start their own country?

 

Seems an absurd double standard.

[Ken Estes]

North Americans not wishing to remain in the USA usually became Canadians; they were also known as Loyalists.

[Michael Eastes]

 

 

If they remained Loyal to the Crown, then they weren't Americans.

How do you draw a distinction between a pro-crown American not being an American but a pro-independence American being an American?

It isn't as though the revolution started with rampant secessionism, it was only when they got shot down for representation things escalated.

 

How is a pro-crown American, less 'American' than someone who wanted to no longer be a part of the United States of America, REJECTED America and decided to take their bat and ball and start their own country?

 

Seems an absurd double standard.

 

Possibly because:

 

1) the south saw it as their right to resign from a union which they believed no longer represented them ( a lot of that sentiment going around now, in some quarters ).

 

2) the fact that both the United States of America and the Confederate States of America were, well, American.

 

Lee and Jackson were American soldiers, as were Grant and Sherman. They disagreed on significant issues, but were all Americans. Some didn't want to remain USians. Some of the best soldiers that North America ever produced served in CS grey or butternut, and have been recognized as such by many historians.

 

As far as the Revolutionary period goes, I'm the wrong man to ask, as a descendant of Benedict Arnold.

[Rocky Davis]

If one compares Lee, Jackson etc. to Cornwallis, Burgoyne, Santa Ana, Ludendorff, or any of the other Generals that led non-US, foreign armies against the US in an effort to prove reason that they should now be forever disgraced and ignored, then one also acknowledges that (by logic) those that fought for the CSA were fighting for a free and independent, non-US nation against the US and, therefore, there was no treason by anybody in the CSA by their actions. They merely repeated what the colonies did with England (get fed up with bullshit being crammed down their throats, severe ties, and form a new nation that is more agreeable to the participants and try to move on - the "Second war of Independence.)"

[Brian Kennedy]

Well, that and the fact they had enslaved a hefty percentage of their population.

[Michael Eastes]

Well, that and the fact they had enslaved a hefty percentage of their population.

Lincoln himself claimed that if he could restore the Union by freeing NONE of the slaves, he would do it. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a political ploy to keep France and Britain out of the war. Read the text of that proclamation - it didn't actually free a single person. When the US capitol dome was capped with the statue in 1865, it was placed there by a crew of slaves from Maryland, one of many areas not covered by the proclamation. Lincoln was a lot of things, including a very cynical political operator, when it suited his goals.

 

FWIW, the Confederate constitution made importing slaves illegal, possibly partially because most of the slave ships were owned by yankees.

[Tony Evans]

From the Union point of view, these men were rebels and traitors. Oddly enough, the direct lineal descendants of the Union's army sponsors the institutions in question. At the very best, portraits and statues of Confederate commanders at these institutions is a political sop to Congressmen from the re-united South, who vote money for the institutions, and to students and faculty from that region as well. Easier and more profitable to let them have their way over some institutional art than dig one's feet in on principle.

[Rocky Davis]

Lincoln’s narcissistic (and successful) attempt at being the first King of the United States of America (violating the written Constitution at will time and time again, and almost never being called on it by anybody of any importance within the US government) was all done with the proviso that “we do what has to be done to keep the Union together” (f**k the slaves – that was always a Lincoln afterthought until 1863, and even then, the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in the CSA, for fear of alienating slave owners in the North and in the non-aligned states such as Kentucky). Lincoln’s blatant disregard of the original US Constitution (which did not address secession one way or another at all and was, hence, not illegal for member-states) and the eventual Union military victory is responsible for the birth of US Government that we still have today – which is to say that, the citizens of the US exist to serve the government rather than the government being elected to serve the citizens (as laid out by the original Founding Fathers).

[Richard Lindquist]

 

Well, that and the fact they had enslaved a hefty percentage of their population.

Lincoln himself claimed that if he could restore the Union by freeing NONE of the slaves, he would do it. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a political ploy to keep France and Britain out of the war. Read the text of that proclamation - it didn't actually free a single person. When the US capitol dome was capped with the statue in 1865, it was placed there by a crew of slaves from Maryland, one of many areas not covered by the proclamation. Lincoln was a lot of things, including a very cynical political operator, when it suited his goals.

 

FWIW, the Confederate constitution made importing slaves illegal, possibly partially because most of the slave ships were owned by yankees.

 

A little bit of cynicism here, Michael, as it wasn't altruistic. They made importing slaves illegal to hold the value of their current slaves. Slavery had become uneconomical in Virgina and some other "northern tier" southern states. They were essentially "breeding slaves" for sale down the river to the deep south where slavery still made economic sense. Nobody wanted the comptetition of cheaper imported slaves.

[RETAC21]

If one compares Lee, Jackson etc. to Cornwallis, Burgoyne, Santa Ana, Ludendorff, or any of the other Generals that led non-US, foreign armies against the US in an effort to prove reason that they should now be forever disgraced and ignored, then one also acknowledges that (by logic) those that fought for the CSA were fighting for a free and independent, non-US nation against the US and, therefore, there was no treason by anybody in the CSA by their actions. They merely repeated what the colonies did with England (get fed up with bullshit being crammed down their throats, severe ties, and form a new nation that is more agreeable to the participants and try to move on - the "Second war of Independence.)"

 

The British applied the same treatment to Nathan Hale, among others, the key difference being that they lost the war.

[Colin]

North Americans not wishing to remain in the USA usually became Canadians; they were also known as Loyalists.

Those loyalists often considered themselves "american" up until the war of 1812, where people were finally forced to decide who they were. Likely the best thing the US could have done for us.

[R011]

Loyalists didn't vote in US elections. Former Confederates did. Honouring Confederate soldiers made a great deal of political sense back when those bases were named. Now Blacks have political influence at least as proportionate to their numbers as Southern Whites, they're challenging the continued veneration of people who fought for people who seceded to keep Blacks enslaved. So are a lot of other people who do not sympathize with the racism behind secession.

[Rocky Davis]

Racism was not behind secession. Racism was behind slavery, regardless of where in the US slaves were owned and used.

 

As Michael earlier posted, ending slavery was not the pronounced objective of militaruly subduing the CSA. Slavery was not ended in the entire US until passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865. That's when General Grant's remaining slaves were freed.

 

Here are some quotes by some of the players at the time:

 

**********************************************************************************

 

"Help me to dodge the nigger--we want nothing to do with him. I am fighting to preserve the integrity of the Union and the power of the Govt--on no other issue. To gain that end we cannot afford to mix up the negro question--it must be incidental and subsidiary. The President is perfectly honest and is really sound on the nigger question." General George B. McClellan

 

"If their whole country (the South) must be laid waste and made a desert, in order to save this Union from destruction, so be it." -- Thaddeus Stevens

 

"I most cordially sympathize with your Excellency, in the wish to preserve the peace of my own native State, Kentucky; but it is with regret I search, and can not find, in your not very short letter, any declaration, or intimation, that you entertain any desire for the preservation of the Federal Union." -- Abraham Lincoln to Kentucky's Governor Magoffin on the latter's request to have Kentucky remain neutral.

 

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the near the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, about the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." -- Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley.

 

"We didn't go into the war to put down slavery, but to put the flag back; and to act differently at this moment would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith..." Abraham Lincoln

 

"It was a war for a great national idea, the Union, and that General Fremont should not have dragged the negro into it..." -- Wife of Union General Fremont.

 

"There are two radical difficulties here. The Tariff is a stumbling block. It gave the Emperor (of France) decided offense. But that is not more, or perhaps not as serious, as the Slavery question. If ours was avowedly a War for Emancipation, this Government would sympathize with and aid us." -- Diplomat Thurlow Weed in a letter to Secretary Seward on whether the European powers would recognize the Confederacy.

 

"The Constitution was not framed with a view to any such rebellion as that of 1861-65. While it did not authorize rebellion it made no provision against it. Yet the right to resist or suppress rebellion is as inherent as the right to self-defence, and as natural as the right of an individual to preserve his life when in jeopardy." -- U.S. Grant (from his Memoirs) on the reason for which the Northern states contended.

 

"It is idle to talk of Union men here (in Tennessee): many want peace, and fear war and its results; but all prefer a Southern, independent government and are fighting or working for it." -- General Sherman, 1862.

 

"Obedience to law, absolute--yea, even abject--is the lesson that this war, under Providence, will teach the free and enlightened American citizen. As a nation, we shall be better for it." -- General Sherman.

 

"Resolved, That the war is not waged on our part, in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest, or for interfering with the rights, or established institutions of these States (the Confederate states), but to defend, and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity and rights of the several States unimpaired." -- Resolution of Congress in the wake of First Manassas.

[R011]

Much as you like to whitewash it Rocky, the CSA was formed to preserve slavery and justified slavery on the basis of racism. There is copious documentation of this, including the acts of secession of most of the states that formed it. That the new administration did not actually have any intention to abolish it any time soon, that the North fought to preserve the Union, or that some Unionist states were still slave states is not especially relevant.

[Rocky Davis]

The primary reason for the war was to "preserve the Union" (which is the reason I posted the quotes above)

 

The last of the slaves working on Grant's farm were released in 1865:

 

http://www.nps.gov/ulsg/historyculture/slaveryatwh.htm

 

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued only to those slaves living in the CSA - as a method of throwing a monkey-wrench into the internal workings of the South. It did not apply to any slaves or indentured servants living and working elsewhere. Who owned and who did not own slaves, and where they lived, is very relevant, as slavery was legal in certain specified states. Lincoln was especially afraid that if the Emancipation Proclamation (akin to a modern-day Presidential Executive Order) applied to non-aligned states like Missouri or Kentucky, they would join the Confederacy.

 

The South was mostly agrarian and much, but obviously not all, of the crops could not be properly planted, tended, and harvested without the slave population. Taking away that cheap labor source from the South would have been like taking methods of powering industry in the north (coal, perhaps) from the North. Their economy depended on it heavily.

 

Many of the state proclamations of secession mention the preservation of slavery as a vital institution, but not all. Nearly all mention an ever-intrusive Federal Government usurping traditionally States' Rights (of which slavery was one).

 

"There is copious documentation of this" also. You might want to investigate further before accusing me (or anybody) of "whitewashing" anything in the future.

[R011]

The primary reason for the war was to "preserve the Union" (which is the reason I posted the quotes above)

 

 

Which doesn't address the fact that states seceded to preserve slavery.

 

Nearly all mention an ever-intrusive Federal Government usurping traditionally States' Rights (of which slavery was one).

 

 

And for nearly all of them, including all the ones that seceded before Sumter, the only one mentioned or given any prominence.

Edited December 20, 2013 by R011

[Rocky Davis]

Secession Acts of the 13 CS States:

 

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/secessionacts.html

 

Do a word search for the word “slave” in the link above.

 

You will find a hit on this (Texas): . . . the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States . . .

 

You will find a hit on this (Virginia): . . . the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States: . . .

 

You find a hit on this (Alabama): . . . to meet the slaveholding States of the South . . .

 

That’s all you will find.

 

Now, this is not the FFZ and this is not the topic in the thread header. I will, respectfully, cease and desist the current conversation.