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Post by artraveler on Oct 24, 2019 12:00:12 GMT -8
. “We try to be authentic,” O’Neill said. “But no one wants to eat rancid bacon and lie in the mud all night. This is a hobby, not a religion.”The average Confederate soldier was about 5'6" and 150 lbs. Most of the modern day guys are taller and 200+ pounds. Being authentic only goes so far.
A lot of print could have been saved had he left it there. Reenacting is a hobby, and perhaps the only money raising venue the Sons of Confederate Veterans have. As an organization the SCV does community service. They place memorials at gravesites, clean headstones in cemeteries and working with UDC women replace flags (first national) in those places where appropriate. There is even a camp in South east Arkansas that is 40% black. I wonder how the author would relate to them? (Uncle Tom, sell out, wannabe slaves?)
Last I heard there are about 40,000 re-enactors in England who cover the scope of English history from 1066 to the English Civil War, which really was a civil war. There is a difference between wanting to overthrow a government and desiring to leave a government. Ask Cromwell. I doubt any one seriously wants to return the wars of religion in England except maybe the Moslems. |
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Post by timothylane on Oct 24, 2019 12:16:29 GMT -8
The insincerity of leftist denunciation of America for its past slavery is that they don't denounce the political party most associated with slavery, and for that matter the KKK and Jim Crow -- their own.
Sharyn McCrumb, in one of her later Elizabeth MacPherson books (I think it was the one with a woman who sued to marry a dolphin, with unfortunate but predictable consequences when she won) had a character named Amy Powell Hill, a descendant of the Confederate general. She's involved in a Roundtable group that watches Civil War-era movies (such as Shenandoah) and list and discuss the historical errors. She's also a re-enactor who points out that she's actually about the same size as a typical soldier of the era. (And there were always a few women, pretending to be men, who joined units. Both Harry Turtledove and McCrumb included one in stories they wrote -- both based on actual women.)
Actually, the Nashville Plow Company making sabers isn't entirely ironic. Isaiah, of course, famously predicts a utopian future in which, among other things, swords will be beaten into plows and spears into pruning hooks. But Joel has a call for war near the end (it's a very short book) with the admonition, "Beat your plows into swords and your pruning hooks into spears." They were merely following that admonition. A friend once had the idea of the Isaiah Agricultural Implements Factory and the Joel Arms Factory with conveyor lines running both ways.
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Post by timothylane on Oct 24, 2019 12:27:30 GMT -8
There are all sorts of re-enactors. When Elizabeth and I visited Tippecanoe battlefield, we found no one there (it was too late), but we gathered there were re-enactors -- not only of the battle, but of a nearby camp for Spanish-American War volunteers. I would be surprised if there aren't re-enactors for the Revolutionary War, and quite likely the Mexican War (some of the minor battles were fought in what is now the USA) and War of 1812 as well. There no doubt are some activities for wars of the past century, and perhaps some of the Indian wars.
Oh, and I forgot to include in my previous posting that "galvanized Yankee" was a standard term for Southerners who deserted and joined the Union. One of the two units defending Fort Pillow against Forrest in 1864 consisted of them (Tennesseeans). The other was a USCT regiment, and Forrest's men disliked both. This no doubt contributed to the murderous aftermath. (Forrest himself called for them to cease fire once the fort fell, but to no effect. It didn't help that the Union commander never surrendered.) Sherman, who knew barbarism very well because it was one of his techniques, concluded that Forrest's men behaved like barbarians but found no need for reprisals.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 24, 2019 13:26:58 GMT -8
It’s too much to write about at the moment, but Horwitz visits Shelby Foote at his home. It’s a great section of the book. Foote wrote a novel called Shiloh and remains mystically fascinated with that battle and that place. Horwitz visits the site on the anniversary of the battle, showing up at 4:00 in the morning. Because of daylight savings time, he finds he’s an hour early. It’s another good section of the book. I think Foote’s novel would be well worth reading. He gives (duh!) Horwitz some good insights including some quite politically correct ones. I’ll post of few of those section when I have time. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Oct 24, 2019 13:36:44 GMT -8
That sounds interesting. Foote was anything but politically correct in his three volume history of the War Between the States. He also wasn't politically correct in his comments in Burn's documentary on the war.
I guess that shows it is hard to hold out against the deluge of PC rubbish which is constantly pouring over us.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 24, 2019 13:38:21 GMT -8
Horwitz writes:
Horowitz continues:
Footes’ views on the KKK are interesting and more nuanced. Horwitz writes:
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 24, 2019 13:47:03 GMT -8
A related quote from a man from Wisconsin visiting the Shiloh battlefield where his great-great-grandfather had fought (and later died of injuries):
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Post by kungfuzu on Oct 24, 2019 14:05:55 GMT -8
A few examples of the insane "racist" meme which is repeated everyday in our country. I have no time for subtlety when fighting back against these scoundrels.
And finally, this is how the left reduced persecution in the past and will do the same in the future once they have the opportunity. In the meantime, they are letting radical Muslims step into the breach. Like killing the patient to cure the disease.
Oh my God! How else can this be explained but as more racism?
And another racist piece dealing with Seattle.
Racist 5
Racist 6
These various racist pieces came from a number of different sites. Similar pieces appear frequently across the web. One does not have to look hard to find evidence of the extent of race-baiting and dishonest promotion of the racist meme in the USA and elsewhere.
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Post by timothylane on Oct 24, 2019 14:57:48 GMT -8
I've read Foote's historical novel about Shiloh, which consists of alternating chapters by (fictional) Confederate and Union soldiers. Included is one witnessing the death of Albert Sidney Johnston, a scene he repeated with almost identical phrasing in his narrative history. (I remembered it from the novel, and in fact still do.) It also has a final section on Forrest's attack on a pursuing Union brigade at the Fallen Timbers. (When I say Forrest attacked, I mean that literally. His men stopped after driving back the skirmish line. He went on into the brigade's main body, and when he realized he was alone he made his way out, though he was seriously wounded first.)
In the introduction to the first volume of his narrative (I picked up the first 2 volumes at Purdue, and had a long wait until he finished the final volume), he thanked the governors of Mississippi (his home state), Alabama, and Arkansas for reducing his sectional bias by reminding him of the bad side of why his ancestors went to war a century earlier.
I gather there have been some of the more politically correct types who consider Foote a racist.
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Post by artraveler on Oct 24, 2019 16:51:24 GMT -8
I gather there have been some of the more politically correct types who consider Foote a racist. It is worse than that. History departments all over the South no longer use Foot's work as either text or commentary. Instead they are using Howard Zinn, or worse, copious numbers of his followers. I once asked an American history, post doc, why he was using a known communist as a text. His response is enlightening, "why not communists are Americans too". I told him he was "wrong on so many levels that it wasn't worth the time to argue with him". Another time just recently I was chatting with Dr. Randall Wood and both of us were bemoaning the sad state of education at the University of Arkansas. I told him the problem with the history dept was there were too many Yankees on staff, he just nodded. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Oct 24, 2019 17:57:46 GMT -8
Too true.
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Post by artraveler on Oct 25, 2019 3:57:28 GMT -8
Brad,
If the book were judged on volume of discussion then it was a success. I have had a chance to look over this book and my impression is that the late Mr. Horwitz went looking for "hardcore" Southerners and lo and behold he found them.
There is a story about a helicopter pilot headed to Sea-Tac and is caught in the fog. All he can see is the lights of a building in the distance. He flies up to the building and having no other way of communicating holds up a sign that says, "where am I?". The people in the building scramble around and hold up a sign, "You are in a helicopter". He immediately turns his aircraft flys his passengers to the airport. Asked how he knew where to go he said, "I knew that was the Microsoft building and from there I knew the direct route to the airport. How did you know that from their answer? "Well the answer was technically correct, but practically useless."
Perhaps a long way of saying that Horowitz went looking for his assumptions of the South and damned if he did't find them. He may have talked to some real Southerner's but he did not talk to the South. As a southern Jew I have never in 72 years encountered the "hardcore" types he talks about.
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Post by timothylane on Oct 25, 2019 6:02:50 GMT -8
I spend a considerable amount of time cursing Microsoft, so I can certainly appreciate the joke. The nurse was just here giving me my morning medications, and I told it to her.
Another joke appropriate to the topic is one I read in a book Elizabeth got. A distraught man was about to jump from a tall Atlanta building, and someone on the ground (it can't have been too tall) asked him to think about his family. "I don't have any family. They're all dead," the man cried. "Well, think of your friends. "I don't have any friends" Finally, the man on the ground said, "Well, think of Robert E. Lee." At this, the distraught man, confused, asked, "Who is Robert E. Lee." To which the man on the ground replied, "Well, go ahead and jump, you Yankee son-of-a-bitch."
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Post by kungfuzu on Oct 25, 2019 7:14:05 GMT -8
As a Southerner who is not terribly computer literate and dislikes Microsoft, I enjoyed both jokes.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2019 7:30:32 GMT -8
LOL. Indeed. Regarding what Horwitz was looking for, it would appear he easily found them. And the book is by no means focused on hardcore believers. But in trying to understand Southern commemorations and celebrations of the Confederacy, it would have been silly to sugarcoat the story by ignoring this element. And I don’t hear any complaints from the peanut gallery when Horwitz paints a pleasing picture of things as well.
Like I said, I don’t have a trip-wire need to defend the South’s honor. In fact, I think what the South stood for and fought for was completely poisonous. Men often need very little prompting to go to war. But I think clearly the North was living rent-free in the minds of the South. Here the South was, a supremacist ideology. It had to be because they had based their society on the inferiority of the black man and thus the superiority of themselves.
But here you had the free North just trouncing them economically. The North was a sore reminder of how backwater the South was, no matter how much bluster the South threw up about “Damn Yankees.”
I watched about the first 60% of the first episodes of Ken Burn’s Civil War series. There’s a quote featured from the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens:
There. That’s the vice president of the Confederacy. No one had to go looking in dark corners for confirmation bias.
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Post by timothylane on Oct 25, 2019 7:45:12 GMT -8
In some ways the Enlightenment made things worse for blacks. Prior to that, one could just accept that slavery happened to be their unfortunate lot (more or less Stonewall Jackson's Calvinistic view), but that sort of inequality was unacceptable with the Enlightenment -- unless black really were inferior in some way.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2019 7:51:04 GMT -8
In Lincoln’s inaugural speech he basically talks directly to the South and says “We won’t make war on you. It’s up to you how this goes.”
The South was full of hot-heads. There were plenty of hot-heads in the North as well, particularly the abolitionists. And the most annoying thing about the abolitionists is that they had right on their side.
Hortwitz meets this one couple in the parking lot as Shiloh. The wife explains to him:
Lincoln made it known way before his election (it was part of his platform) that he had no desire to abolish slavery. He merely would halt its advance. That isn’t telling anyone how to live. I think there’s a paranoid lunatic factor in the South that still exists today among many.
And the crux of the differences between North and South was about the South’s demand that they tell a certain group a people exactly how to live (slavery).
Yes, one can point out that the North for a time was complicit in the slave trade and profited from it. That’s all well and good. But usually such factoids are presented to deflect from criticism of the South.
It sounds as if today that people (via reenactment) have found a peaceful and productive way to deal with this vast reality of that immensely destructive Civil War. It’s memorialized, and perhaps glorified a bit too much, but from Horwitz’s reporting, it would seem the main draw is simply nostalgia for a simpler time.
Having been to a Renaissance Faire or two, the novelty of living in a different time is usually appealing. From what Horwitz is reporting, the mainstream fascination with reenactment has little to do with wanting to re-institute slavery, to secede, or even to get lost in rationalizations for what really happened and why. As Horwitz noted, many people who happened upon Civil War battle sites today simply see the sign “National Park” and have little other than a picnic in mind. Many have no idea what happened at Gettysburg, for instance.
Horwitz notes that the Shiloh battlefield is different because it’s so far off the beaten track. Those who are there know exactly why they are there, and it’s not to use a National Park for a rest stop or a picnic.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 25, 2019 8:01:46 GMT -8
One could also view this as a sort of Darwinian battle of civilizations. What probably irks Southerners most is that it is difficult to disguise that they were deeply in the wrong and that they were backward compared to the North. Only a inflamed and somewhat lunatic big-attitude could disguise this fact.
But mankind (including those in the North) rarely lived particularly righteous lives. I view “the war between the states” more along the lines of how Lincoln I think quite correctly characterized the situation:
These two ways of life (economic, political and social vitality vs. the South) were already competing by proxy in places such as Kansas. This mere “North/South” characterization of the war is false. This was a battle for the continent which had to be all free or all slave. I think it’s foolish to believe that if the South had been allowed to secede that the problem was solved. There would have been a pitched and running battle over every piece of real estate clear to the Pacific coast.
It had to be all one thing or the other. And given our founding principles, it would have been monstrously wrong for the South to spread itself further.
As far as blacks making their way in this world, well, that's still a problem and not one that I think is primarily the fault of whites (or any other race).
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Post by timothylane on Oct 25, 2019 9:14:53 GMT -8
Lincoln had a great talent for getting to the heart of a matter. He did it in his "House Divided" speech (though it may have cost him the Senate race that year), and also in his formulation that one side thought that slavery is right and ought to be extended, and the other thought that slavery is wrong and ought not be extended.
Elizabeth and I visited Shiloh for the same reason that we visited many other battlefields (including, on that same trip, Vicksburg and Chickamauga). We attended a historian lecture, in this case about Grant's final line and the (un)likelihood that Beauregard could have breached it.
An interesting take on Northern hypocrisy over slavery is in the superb song "Molasses to Rum to Slaves" from the musical 1776. It ends with a condemnation of both North and South, with Edward Rutledge singing, "Mr. Adams, I give you a toast. Hail Boston. Hail Charleston. Who stink the most?"
There's an interesting take on re-enactors and other such eccentric pursuits at the end of Sharyn McCrumb's Highland Laddie Gone, set at a Highlander festival. The investigating sheriff is a re-enactor, taking the persona of a Confederate colonel. Series heroine Elizabeth MacPherson is there as the Clan Chattan Maid of the Cat (a wildcat named Cluny). And they both agree that the SCA people who'll be using the festival area next weekend are crazy.
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Post by artraveler on Oct 25, 2019 11:54:12 GMT -8
The South was full of hot-heads I don't think it was a Southern hothead who tried to start a war at Harper's Ferry. Ironic thing, John Brown University is in Arkansas, about 20 miles from my front door. It is to be expected that criticism from both sides was reaching fever pitch in the late 1850s and 1860. The regional differences that had been glossed over in favor of unity were coming apart, pushed on both sides by hotheads who, would not, could not compromise. The violence in Kansas in the 1850s instead of being contained, spread into the midwest and without a strong hand to stop it would surely have ultimately resulted in some sort of regional war. John Brown did his best to start it. Slavery is over, the debt of America, north and south, for this horrific practice is paid in full with the blood of hundreds of thousands. No one's hands are clean. The merchants of the north profited from the slave trade and the goods, textiles mostly and asked no questions about how they came to their plants. The slave owners in the south and north, yes there were absentee owners of plantations living in the north, were at least more honest about what they were doing. When a people are pushed too far the pushback is likely to be violent and in your face. The inclusion of a slavery clause in the confederate constitution was as much a slap back at the abolitionists in the north as it was a statement of principal. That does not make it right, but it is more understandable. Lincoln was not some paragon of virtue standing above the fray asking for peace. His hands in starting the war are no less clean than Jeff Davis, maybe more so. Lincoln set up a situation where the south was going to have to use force ar Ft. Sumter and he knew it. He could have withdrawn and not provoked a conflict. Instead he kept force there and poked the snake and was surprised it bit. He called for 70,000 volunteers to invade his own country. There is a story of a confederate soldier captured after the battle of Corinth. Asked why he was fighting the federals; his answer was very southern, "because you're here". No mention of slavery, states rights, economics or any other issue. His home was invaded by people he did not invite and he responded in an appropriate fashion, as you would. The issues of the war are still with us, except slavery. We see them played out on the street daily. There is violence on the streets and at least one section of the country is better armed than the other. The regional differences of the 1860s are a not so faint memory, and the philosophical differences of the 21st century are moving history. I never leave home without it, and its not American Express; my friends Colt, Rugar Smith and Wesson are always around. |
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