(I made these. It's a great site. I made some for Obama, too.)
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Great Seal Of The Confederacy
From civilwarhome:
The Great Seal of the Confederacy
Deo Vindice
"God Will Vindicate"
The Great Seal of the Confederate States of America was engraved in 1864, by the late Joseph S. Wyon, of London, England, predecessor of Messrs J. S. and A. B. Wyon, chief engravers of Her British Majesty's seals, etc., and reached Richmond not long before the evacuation of the city, April 3, 1865. It was of silver, and in diameter measured nearly four inches. At the evacuation it was overlooked by the Confederate authorities, and subsequently fell into the possession of the late genial and accomplished Colonel John T. Pickett, of Washington, D.C., who, after having a number of electrotype copies in copper, silver and gold plating made from it, presented the original to Colonel William E. Earle, of Washington, D.C. This last gentleman, on December 27th, 1888, formally presented it to the State of South Carolina. The announcement of the gift elicited from the Picayune, in its issue of January 6, 1889, the interesting report of an interview, by one of its representatives, held with Hon. Thomas J. Semmes, of New Orleans, which follows:
"Mr. Semmes said it always afforded him pleasure to converse on the events of the war, particularly the transactions of the Confederate Senate. He was attorney-general of Louisiana in 1861. When it became necessary to elect to the Confederate Senate, organized under the new constitution, Mr. Semmes and General Edward T. Sparrow were chosen senators from this State. In drawing for terms he drew that for four years, while General Sparrow drew that for six years. This was at Richmond, Va., in February, 1862.
"In speaking of his services in the Senate, Mr. Semmes said he was appointed a member of the finance committee in conjunction with Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, and Hon. Robert Barnwell, of South Carolina and a member of the judiciary committee, of which Hon. B. H. Hill was chairman. He was also chairman of the joint committee on the flag and seal of the Confederate States. He drafted, under the direction of Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, the 'tax in kind' bill, which practically supported the Confederacy during the last two years of the war.
"As member of the finance committee, he advocated the sealing and calling in of the outstanding Confederate currency, on the ground that the purchasing power of the new currency to be issued in exchange would be greater than the total amount of the outstanding currency in its then depreciated condition. He made a report from the judiciary committee adverse to martial law.
"Upon being questioned as to the seal which he had designed, Mr. Semmes said it was a device representing an equestrian portrait of Washington (after the statue which surmounts his monument in the capitol square at Richmond), surrounded with a wreath, composed of the principal agricultural products of the Confederacy, and having around its margin the words: 'Confederate States of America, 22d February, 1862,' with the motto, 'Deo vindice.'
"In the latter part of April, 1864, quite an interesting debate was had on the adoption of the motto. The House resolutions fixing the motto as 'Deo Duce Vincemus' being considered, Mr. Semmes moved to substitute ' Deo vindice majores aemulamur.' The motto had been suggested by Professor Alexander Dimitry. Mr. Semmes thought 'Deo vindice' sufficient and preferred it. He was finally triumphant."
In this connection it is appropriate and interesting to reproduce the speech made by Mr. Semmes on that occasion. It was as follows:
"MR. PRESIDENT--I am instructed by the committee to move to strike out the words "duce vincemus" in the motto and insert in lieu thereof the words "Vindice majores aemulamur," "Under the guidance and protection of God we endeavor to equal and even excel our ancestors." Before discussing the proposed change in the motto, I will submit to the Senate a few remarks as to the device on the seal.
"The committee has been greatly exercised on this subject, and it has been extremely difficult to come to any satisfactory conclusion. This is a difficulty, however, incident to the subject, and all that we have to do is to avoid what Visconti calls 'an absurdity in bronze.'
"The equestrian statue of Washington has been selected in deference to the current popular sentiment. The equestrian figure impressed on our seal will be regarded by those skilled in glyptics as to a certain extent indicative of our origin. It is a most remarkable fact that an equestrian figure constituted the seal of Great Britain from the time of Edward the Confessor down to the reign of George III, except during the short interval of the protectorate of Cromwell, when the trial of the King was substituted for the man on horseback. Even Cromwell retained the equestrian figure on the seal of Scotland, but he characteristically mounted himself on the horse. In the reign of William and Mary the seal bore the impress of the king and queen both mounted on horseback.
"Washington has been selected as the emblem for our shield, as a type of our ancestors, in his character of princeps majorum. In addition to this, the equestrian figure is consecrated in the hearts of our own people by the local circumstance that on the gloomy and stormy 22d of February, 1862, our permanent government was set in motion by the inauguration of President Davis under the shadow of the statue of Washington.
"The committee are dissatisfied with the motto on the seal proposed by the House resolution. The motto proposed is as follows: 'Deo Duce Vincemus'--(Under the leadership of God we will conquer).
"The word ' duce' is too pagan in its signification, and is degrading to God, because it reduces him to the leader of an army; for scarcely does the word 'duce' escape the lips before the imagination suggests 'exercitus,' an army for a leader to command. It degrades the Christian God to the level of pagan gods, goddesses and heroes, as is manifest from the following quotation; 'Nil desperandum Tenero duce.' This word duce is particularly objectionable because of its connection with the word 'vincemus'--(we will conquer). This connection makes God the leader of a physical army, by means of which we will conquer, or must conquer. If God be our leader we must conquer, or he would not be the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, nor the God of the Christian. This very doubt implied in the word 'vincemus' so qualifies the omnipotence of the God who is to be our 'leader,' that it imparts a degrading signification to the word 'duce' in its relations to the attributes of the Deity.
"The word 'vincemus' is equally objectionable because it implies that war is to be our normal state; besides, it is in the future tense --' we will conquer.' The future is always uncertain, and ,therefore, it implies doubt. What becomes of our motto when we shall have conquered? The future becomes an accomplished fact, and our motto thus loses its significance.
"In addition to this there are only two languages in which the words will and shall are to be found--the English and the German--and in those they are used to qualify a positive condition of the mind and render it uncertain; they are repugnant to repose, quiet, absolute and positive existence.
"As to the motto proposed by us, we concur with the House in accepting the word 'Deo'--God. We do so in conformity to the expressed wishes of the framers of our Constitution, and the sentiments of the people and of the army.
"The preamble of the Provisional Constitution declares that 'We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States of South Carolina, etc., invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain,' etc.
"In this respect both our Constitutions have deviated in the most emphatic manner from the spirit that presided over the construction of the Constitution of the United States, which is silent on the subject of the Deity.
"Having discarded the word 'duce,' the committee endeavored to select in lieu of it a word more in consonance with the attributes of the Deity, and therefore more imposing and significant. They think success has crowned their efforts in the selection of the word 'vindex,' which signifies an assenter, a defender, protector, deliverer, liberator, a mediator and a ruler or guardian. 'Vindex' also means an avenger or punisher.
"No word appeared more grand, more expressive or significant than this. Under God as the asserter of our rights, the defender of our liberties, our protector against danger, our mediator, our ruler and guardian, and, as the avenger of our wrongs and the punisher of our crimes, we endeavor to equal or even excel our ancestors. What word can be suggested of more power, and so replete with sentiments and thoughts consonant with our idea of the omnipotence and justice of God?
"At this point the committee hesitated whether it were necessary to add anything further to the motto 'Deo Vindice.' These words alone were sufficient and impressive, and, in the spirit of the lapidary style of composition, were elliptical and left much to the play of the imagination. Reflection, however, induced us to add the words 'majores aemulamur,' because without them there would be nothing in the motto referring to the equestrian figure of Washington. It was thought better to insert something elucidative or adaptive of the idea to be conveyed by that figure. Having determined on this point, the committee submitted to the judgment of the Senate the words ' majores aemulamur,' as best adapted to express the ideas of 'our ancestors.' 'Patres' was first suggested, but abandoned because 'majores' signifies ancestors absolutely, and is also more suggestive than 'patres.' The latter is a term applied to our immediate progenitors who may be alive, whereas ' majores' conveys the idea of a more remote generation that has passed away.
"That being disposed of, the question arose as to the proper signification of the word 'aemulamur.' Honorable emulation is the primary signification of the word; in its secondary sense it is true it includes the idea of improper rivalry, or jealousy. But it is used in its primary and honorable sense by the most approved authors.
"The secondary and improper sense of the aemulari is excluded in the proposed motto by the relation it bears to 'Deo vindice.' This relation excludes the idea of envy or jealousy, because God, as the asserter of what is right, justifies the emulation, and as a punisher of what is wrong checks excess in case the emulation runs into improper envy or jealousy. In adopting the equestrian figure of Washington, the committee desires distinctly to disavow any recognition of the embodiment of the idea of the 'cavalier.' We have no admiration for the character of the cavalier of 1640 any more than for his opponent, the Puritan. We turn with disgust from the violent and licentious cavalier, and we abhor the acerb, morose and fanatic Puritan, of whom Oliver Cromwell was the type. In speaking of Cromwell and his character, Guizot says that ' he possessed the faculty of lying at need with an inexhaustible and unhesitating hardihood which struck even his enemies with surprise and embarrassment.'
"This characteristic seems to have been transmitted to the descendants of the pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts Bay to enjoy the liberty of persecution. If the cavalier is to carry us back to days earlier than the American Revolution, I prefer to be transported in imagination to the field of Runnymede, when the barons extorted Magna Charta from the unwilling John. But I discard all reference to the cavalier of old, because it implies a division of society into two orders, an idea inconsistent with confederate institutions."
Mr. Semmes moved to amend by substituting "vindice" for "duce," and it was agreed to.
In taking his leave, the reporter was informed by Mr. Semmes that he did not know the seal was in existence and was glad to learn that it had been presented to the State of South Carolina, the first State which seceded from the Union.
Source: Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XVI. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1888.
This Page last updated 06/01/02
The Great Seal of the Confederacy
Deo Vindice
"God Will Vindicate"
The Great Seal of the Confederate States of America was engraved in 1864, by the late Joseph S. Wyon, of London, England, predecessor of Messrs J. S. and A. B. Wyon, chief engravers of Her British Majesty's seals, etc., and reached Richmond not long before the evacuation of the city, April 3, 1865. It was of silver, and in diameter measured nearly four inches. At the evacuation it was overlooked by the Confederate authorities, and subsequently fell into the possession of the late genial and accomplished Colonel John T. Pickett, of Washington, D.C., who, after having a number of electrotype copies in copper, silver and gold plating made from it, presented the original to Colonel William E. Earle, of Washington, D.C. This last gentleman, on December 27th, 1888, formally presented it to the State of South Carolina. The announcement of the gift elicited from the Picayune, in its issue of January 6, 1889, the interesting report of an interview, by one of its representatives, held with Hon. Thomas J. Semmes, of New Orleans, which follows:
"Mr. Semmes said it always afforded him pleasure to converse on the events of the war, particularly the transactions of the Confederate Senate. He was attorney-general of Louisiana in 1861. When it became necessary to elect to the Confederate Senate, organized under the new constitution, Mr. Semmes and General Edward T. Sparrow were chosen senators from this State. In drawing for terms he drew that for four years, while General Sparrow drew that for six years. This was at Richmond, Va., in February, 1862.
"In speaking of his services in the Senate, Mr. Semmes said he was appointed a member of the finance committee in conjunction with Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, and Hon. Robert Barnwell, of South Carolina and a member of the judiciary committee, of which Hon. B. H. Hill was chairman. He was also chairman of the joint committee on the flag and seal of the Confederate States. He drafted, under the direction of Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, the 'tax in kind' bill, which practically supported the Confederacy during the last two years of the war.
"As member of the finance committee, he advocated the sealing and calling in of the outstanding Confederate currency, on the ground that the purchasing power of the new currency to be issued in exchange would be greater than the total amount of the outstanding currency in its then depreciated condition. He made a report from the judiciary committee adverse to martial law.
"Upon being questioned as to the seal which he had designed, Mr. Semmes said it was a device representing an equestrian portrait of Washington (after the statue which surmounts his monument in the capitol square at Richmond), surrounded with a wreath, composed of the principal agricultural products of the Confederacy, and having around its margin the words: 'Confederate States of America, 22d February, 1862,' with the motto, 'Deo vindice.'
"In the latter part of April, 1864, quite an interesting debate was had on the adoption of the motto. The House resolutions fixing the motto as 'Deo Duce Vincemus' being considered, Mr. Semmes moved to substitute ' Deo vindice majores aemulamur.' The motto had been suggested by Professor Alexander Dimitry. Mr. Semmes thought 'Deo vindice' sufficient and preferred it. He was finally triumphant."
In this connection it is appropriate and interesting to reproduce the speech made by Mr. Semmes on that occasion. It was as follows:
"MR. PRESIDENT--I am instructed by the committee to move to strike out the words "duce vincemus" in the motto and insert in lieu thereof the words "Vindice majores aemulamur," "Under the guidance and protection of God we endeavor to equal and even excel our ancestors." Before discussing the proposed change in the motto, I will submit to the Senate a few remarks as to the device on the seal.
"The committee has been greatly exercised on this subject, and it has been extremely difficult to come to any satisfactory conclusion. This is a difficulty, however, incident to the subject, and all that we have to do is to avoid what Visconti calls 'an absurdity in bronze.'
"The equestrian statue of Washington has been selected in deference to the current popular sentiment. The equestrian figure impressed on our seal will be regarded by those skilled in glyptics as to a certain extent indicative of our origin. It is a most remarkable fact that an equestrian figure constituted the seal of Great Britain from the time of Edward the Confessor down to the reign of George III, except during the short interval of the protectorate of Cromwell, when the trial of the King was substituted for the man on horseback. Even Cromwell retained the equestrian figure on the seal of Scotland, but he characteristically mounted himself on the horse. In the reign of William and Mary the seal bore the impress of the king and queen both mounted on horseback.
"Washington has been selected as the emblem for our shield, as a type of our ancestors, in his character of princeps majorum. In addition to this, the equestrian figure is consecrated in the hearts of our own people by the local circumstance that on the gloomy and stormy 22d of February, 1862, our permanent government was set in motion by the inauguration of President Davis under the shadow of the statue of Washington.
"The committee are dissatisfied with the motto on the seal proposed by the House resolution. The motto proposed is as follows: 'Deo Duce Vincemus'--(Under the leadership of God we will conquer).
"The word ' duce' is too pagan in its signification, and is degrading to God, because it reduces him to the leader of an army; for scarcely does the word 'duce' escape the lips before the imagination suggests 'exercitus,' an army for a leader to command. It degrades the Christian God to the level of pagan gods, goddesses and heroes, as is manifest from the following quotation; 'Nil desperandum Tenero duce.' This word duce is particularly objectionable because of its connection with the word 'vincemus'--(we will conquer). This connection makes God the leader of a physical army, by means of which we will conquer, or must conquer. If God be our leader we must conquer, or he would not be the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, nor the God of the Christian. This very doubt implied in the word 'vincemus' so qualifies the omnipotence of the God who is to be our 'leader,' that it imparts a degrading signification to the word 'duce' in its relations to the attributes of the Deity.
"The word 'vincemus' is equally objectionable because it implies that war is to be our normal state; besides, it is in the future tense --' we will conquer.' The future is always uncertain, and ,therefore, it implies doubt. What becomes of our motto when we shall have conquered? The future becomes an accomplished fact, and our motto thus loses its significance.
"In addition to this there are only two languages in which the words will and shall are to be found--the English and the German--and in those they are used to qualify a positive condition of the mind and render it uncertain; they are repugnant to repose, quiet, absolute and positive existence.
"As to the motto proposed by us, we concur with the House in accepting the word 'Deo'--God. We do so in conformity to the expressed wishes of the framers of our Constitution, and the sentiments of the people and of the army.
"The preamble of the Provisional Constitution declares that 'We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States of South Carolina, etc., invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain,' etc.
"In this respect both our Constitutions have deviated in the most emphatic manner from the spirit that presided over the construction of the Constitution of the United States, which is silent on the subject of the Deity.
"Having discarded the word 'duce,' the committee endeavored to select in lieu of it a word more in consonance with the attributes of the Deity, and therefore more imposing and significant. They think success has crowned their efforts in the selection of the word 'vindex,' which signifies an assenter, a defender, protector, deliverer, liberator, a mediator and a ruler or guardian. 'Vindex' also means an avenger or punisher.
"No word appeared more grand, more expressive or significant than this. Under God as the asserter of our rights, the defender of our liberties, our protector against danger, our mediator, our ruler and guardian, and, as the avenger of our wrongs and the punisher of our crimes, we endeavor to equal or even excel our ancestors. What word can be suggested of more power, and so replete with sentiments and thoughts consonant with our idea of the omnipotence and justice of God?
"At this point the committee hesitated whether it were necessary to add anything further to the motto 'Deo Vindice.' These words alone were sufficient and impressive, and, in the spirit of the lapidary style of composition, were elliptical and left much to the play of the imagination. Reflection, however, induced us to add the words 'majores aemulamur,' because without them there would be nothing in the motto referring to the equestrian figure of Washington. It was thought better to insert something elucidative or adaptive of the idea to be conveyed by that figure. Having determined on this point, the committee submitted to the judgment of the Senate the words ' majores aemulamur,' as best adapted to express the ideas of 'our ancestors.' 'Patres' was first suggested, but abandoned because 'majores' signifies ancestors absolutely, and is also more suggestive than 'patres.' The latter is a term applied to our immediate progenitors who may be alive, whereas ' majores' conveys the idea of a more remote generation that has passed away.
"That being disposed of, the question arose as to the proper signification of the word 'aemulamur.' Honorable emulation is the primary signification of the word; in its secondary sense it is true it includes the idea of improper rivalry, or jealousy. But it is used in its primary and honorable sense by the most approved authors.
"The secondary and improper sense of the aemulari is excluded in the proposed motto by the relation it bears to 'Deo vindice.' This relation excludes the idea of envy or jealousy, because God, as the asserter of what is right, justifies the emulation, and as a punisher of what is wrong checks excess in case the emulation runs into improper envy or jealousy. In adopting the equestrian figure of Washington, the committee desires distinctly to disavow any recognition of the embodiment of the idea of the 'cavalier.' We have no admiration for the character of the cavalier of 1640 any more than for his opponent, the Puritan. We turn with disgust from the violent and licentious cavalier, and we abhor the acerb, morose and fanatic Puritan, of whom Oliver Cromwell was the type. In speaking of Cromwell and his character, Guizot says that ' he possessed the faculty of lying at need with an inexhaustible and unhesitating hardihood which struck even his enemies with surprise and embarrassment.'
"This characteristic seems to have been transmitted to the descendants of the pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts Bay to enjoy the liberty of persecution. If the cavalier is to carry us back to days earlier than the American Revolution, I prefer to be transported in imagination to the field of Runnymede, when the barons extorted Magna Charta from the unwilling John. But I discard all reference to the cavalier of old, because it implies a division of society into two orders, an idea inconsistent with confederate institutions."
Mr. Semmes moved to amend by substituting "vindice" for "duce," and it was agreed to.
In taking his leave, the reporter was informed by Mr. Semmes that he did not know the seal was in existence and was glad to learn that it had been presented to the State of South Carolina, the first State which seceded from the Union.
Source: Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XVI. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1888.
This Page last updated 06/01/02
Sunday, March 20, 2011
ATM Sunday Message
From the Arkansas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans:
Army of
Trans
Mississippi
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Information for the Army on the Move !!!
Brothers and fellow Compatriots:
Below is my message for Sunday, March 20th. As always, please feel free to forward or reply. Your comments are most welcome. It may also be used as a Chaplain's article for your camp or other newsletter.
To those who forward this message to other people or groups, I thank you. It is very much appreciated.
May our Lord bless you all in His service and in service to our most worthy Confederation.
Bro. Len Patterson, Th.D.
Chaplain, Army of Trans-Mississippi
Member, Chaplain's Corps Committee
Sons of Confederate Veterans
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Work In Progress.
This morning, as I walked around outside, coffee in hand, trying to think of a subject for this morning's Sunday Message, a neighbor came by walking her dog. I made a nice comment about her dog (I never met a dog I didn't like), and we exchanged a few brief pleasantries. She then said, "You have a nice house." I couldn't help but wonder, Compared to what? I thanked her, and replied to her very kind remark, "It's a work in Progress."
When my wife and I bought this house I knew there was some work to be done which I felt could be accomplished before we moved in, and for the most part it was. However, as the work was being done, I began to realize there was much more needed to improve the efficiency and appearance of our new home. So now, seven years later it's still a work in progress.
This applies to people as well as houses. No one knows more about life than a sixteen-year-old who has never had the responsibility of providing a loaf of bread for a family. No one knows more about the Bible than someone who has read a few verses and went to Sunday School a time or two. No one knows more about what's going on in a church than someone who never attends. And of course, no one knows more about the Sons of Confederate Veterans than someone who doesn't know a thing about who we are or what we do. We sometimes call them "Armchair quarterbacks" or "Jailhouse lawyers."
It seems the less someone knows about something, the more they think they know, and unfortunately, the more willing they are to express their ideas. As someone once said, "I little knowledge is a dangerous thing." We learn about life when we begin to live it. Then we realize how much more difficult it is than our parents made it seem. Again, it's been said, "The older I get, the smarter my father becomes." We gain knowledge about the Bible when we begin to study it. Then we learn that it's deeper and much more complex than we imagined. The more we learn, the more we know, and the more we know, the more we understand, and the more we understand, the more we realize we don't know, and the more we realize we don't know, the more we study and learn. It's a work in progress.
It's called growth. Through experience and study we are all growing in life, and in knowledge. But, we should also be growing spiritually. The best explanation for spiritual growth I know of was spoken by John the Baptist, when He said, "He (meaning Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3: 30) As our Lord becomes more and more important and central in our life, and we become less and less, we grow . . . and that's a work in progress.
Bro. Len Patterson, Th.D
Chaplain, Army of Trans-Mississippi
Army of
Trans
Mississippi
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Information for the Army on the Move !!!
Brothers and fellow Compatriots:
Below is my message for Sunday, March 20th. As always, please feel free to forward or reply. Your comments are most welcome. It may also be used as a Chaplain's article for your camp or other newsletter.
To those who forward this message to other people or groups, I thank you. It is very much appreciated.
May our Lord bless you all in His service and in service to our most worthy Confederation.
Bro. Len Patterson, Th.D.
Chaplain, Army of Trans-Mississippi
Member, Chaplain's Corps Committee
Sons of Confederate Veterans
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Work In Progress.
This morning, as I walked around outside, coffee in hand, trying to think of a subject for this morning's Sunday Message, a neighbor came by walking her dog. I made a nice comment about her dog (I never met a dog I didn't like), and we exchanged a few brief pleasantries. She then said, "You have a nice house." I couldn't help but wonder, Compared to what? I thanked her, and replied to her very kind remark, "It's a work in Progress."
When my wife and I bought this house I knew there was some work to be done which I felt could be accomplished before we moved in, and for the most part it was. However, as the work was being done, I began to realize there was much more needed to improve the efficiency and appearance of our new home. So now, seven years later it's still a work in progress.
This applies to people as well as houses. No one knows more about life than a sixteen-year-old who has never had the responsibility of providing a loaf of bread for a family. No one knows more about the Bible than someone who has read a few verses and went to Sunday School a time or two. No one knows more about what's going on in a church than someone who never attends. And of course, no one knows more about the Sons of Confederate Veterans than someone who doesn't know a thing about who we are or what we do. We sometimes call them "Armchair quarterbacks" or "Jailhouse lawyers."
It seems the less someone knows about something, the more they think they know, and unfortunately, the more willing they are to express their ideas. As someone once said, "I little knowledge is a dangerous thing." We learn about life when we begin to live it. Then we realize how much more difficult it is than our parents made it seem. Again, it's been said, "The older I get, the smarter my father becomes." We gain knowledge about the Bible when we begin to study it. Then we learn that it's deeper and much more complex than we imagined. The more we learn, the more we know, and the more we know, the more we understand, and the more we understand, the more we realize we don't know, and the more we realize we don't know, the more we study and learn. It's a work in progress.
It's called growth. Through experience and study we are all growing in life, and in knowledge. But, we should also be growing spiritually. The best explanation for spiritual growth I know of was spoken by John the Baptist, when He said, "He (meaning Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3: 30) As our Lord becomes more and more important and central in our life, and we become less and less, we grow . . . and that's a work in progress.
Bro. Len Patterson, Th.D
Chaplain, Army of Trans-Mississippi
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Historian Has New Take On Civil War [sic}
From Rebellion:
Historian has new take on Civil Warfrom feed/http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/atom.xml by Old RebelI'm no fan of historian David Goldfield, but his latest book is clearly better than his past efforts. Instead of toeing the party line that the WBTS was a glorious war of liberation, he portrays it as the nation's greatest failure. He has a point, though he still misses the heart of the matter:
In his new book, "America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation" (Bloomsbury; $35), Goldfield describes the war not as a triumph of freedom but as America's biggest failure - a conflict that cost 620,000 American lives, the equivalent in today's population of 10 million people.
"The question I want readers to ask is, 'Was this necessary?'" Goldfield says. ...
"We've grown up thinking the war saved the Union and liberated 4 million human beings and it was good. I'm saying the results weren't as clear cut and there may have been a better way to achieve those results."
Publishers Weekly says that Goldfield "courts controversy by shifting more responsibility for the conflict to the activist North and away from intransigent slaveholders." Still, the review says, "he presents a superb, stylishly written historical synthesis that insightfully foregrounds ideology, faith and public mood."
The War of Northern Aggression was just another instance of the centralizing trend of the late nineteenth century. Prussia fought three wars to forge the German Empire, Piedmont-Sardinia waged war on its Italian neighbors to form the Kingdom of Italy, and Japan centralized power around the emperor. Lincoln managed to centralize the former Republic of Republics under the domination of New England industrialists and the central government. The WBTS, like all wars, was about power, not liberation.
Historian has new take on Civil Warfrom feed/http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/atom.xml by Old RebelI'm no fan of historian David Goldfield, but his latest book is clearly better than his past efforts. Instead of toeing the party line that the WBTS was a glorious war of liberation, he portrays it as the nation's greatest failure. He has a point, though he still misses the heart of the matter:
In his new book, "America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation" (Bloomsbury; $35), Goldfield describes the war not as a triumph of freedom but as America's biggest failure - a conflict that cost 620,000 American lives, the equivalent in today's population of 10 million people.
"The question I want readers to ask is, 'Was this necessary?'" Goldfield says. ...
"We've grown up thinking the war saved the Union and liberated 4 million human beings and it was good. I'm saying the results weren't as clear cut and there may have been a better way to achieve those results."
Publishers Weekly says that Goldfield "courts controversy by shifting more responsibility for the conflict to the activist North and away from intransigent slaveholders." Still, the review says, "he presents a superb, stylishly written historical synthesis that insightfully foregrounds ideology, faith and public mood."
The War of Northern Aggression was just another instance of the centralizing trend of the late nineteenth century. Prussia fought three wars to forge the German Empire, Piedmont-Sardinia waged war on its Italian neighbors to form the Kingdom of Italy, and Japan centralized power around the emperor. Lincoln managed to centralize the former Republic of Republics under the domination of New England industrialists and the central government. The WBTS, like all wars, was about power, not liberation.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The Lincoln Mythology Is Born
From The Southern National Congress:
Lincoln Mythology is Born
Commentary by Steve Scroggins
March 4th, 2011 marks the 150th Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration as President of the United States. Lincoln idolators and court ‘historians’ are certain to gush forth with fluff and flowery prose about how Lincoln “saved the Union” and “freed the slaves” when history shows that he did neither -- in fact, he did just the opposite, as we'll show below.
1. Lincoln the Great Emancipator: He reluctantly inaugurated war to abolish slavery
2. Lincoln "Saved the Union" from those who would "destroy the Union"
3. Lincoln had to respond to Fort Sumter to put down treasonous secession
4. Lincoln the Humanitarian
5. Lincoln the champion of personal liberty and defender of the Constitution
1. Lincoln the Great Emancipator: He reluctantly inaugurated war to abolish slavery
First of all, war was NOT required to end slavery. No other country in the world required war to end it; neither did America. Chattel slavery was doomed by the 1850s and on its way to extinction everywhere in the western Christian world. Brazil, a former Portuguese colony, was the last to abolish slavery in the western hemisphere in 1888. It is a lingering fallacy that it took war to end slavery in America.
Lincoln stated in his first inaugural address that he had no intention, no inclination and no legal authority to abolish slavery where it existed. He stated this in writing on numerous occasions. In the same address, Lincoln stated his support for the Corwin Amendment - otherwise known as the "Slavery Forever Amendment" -- which would constitutionally enshrine slavery permanently beyond the jurisdiction of the Congress.
The Republican party platform opposed the expansion of slavery to the western territories for economic and social reasons. The Republicans didn't want any blacks or Indians living anywhere near them. Illinois, it should be noted, had passed law to prohibit the settling or residence of blacks in Illinois. The Lincoln Dream was for a lilly-white America with no blacks or Indians. His soldiers, trained in the art of making war on southern civilians, did a fair job of genocide against the plains Indians after the war.
"[T]he Union ... will constitutionally defend and maintain itself... In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." --Abraham Lincoln, from inaugural address, March 4, 1861.
In his inaugural address, Lincoln promised not to invade or start a war EXCEPT to enforce the tariff law and hold federal forts for the purpose of tariff collection. His object was to quell the secession movement and force the recently departed states to return to the union, or at least to pay the tariffs as if they were still part of the Union. Lincoln claimed in the address that states did not have the authority to secede or leave the union. This is, of course, a 180 degree about-face from his stated opinion just 14 years earlier.
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, --a most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world." --Abraham Lincoln, from the Congressional Record, Jan. 12, 1847.
Lincoln's 1861 argument was logically ridiculous. Lincoln claimed that somehow the union came before the states which formed the union by ratifying the Constitution. That's like saying that a marriage came before the two people who were joined in the marriage.
Lincoln argued in his 1861 Inaugural address that "Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments." Note that the Framers specifically avoided the use of the words "national" and "perpetual" and struck them from proposed documents. James Madison made it clear that the people, their liberties and their "safety and happiness" were more important than any form of government when he said, "The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions must be sacrificed."
Lincoln was inaugurated March 4th. After Lincoln's secretary of state promised to evacuate and surrender Fort Sumter for weeks, Lincoln dispatched an armada to reinforce and resupply Fort Sumter in early April, an act of war. Lincoln let the Confederates know it was coming. To miminize the loss of life, the Confederates decided to bombard the Fort into submission before warships arrived. Fort Sumter was surrendered April 12th. It should be noted that there was no loss of life in the attack and the federal garrison was permitted to leave peacefully after the surrender. Lincoln had provoked the South into firing the first shots. Again, there was no person killed or injured at Fort Sumter, but it fired a war fever in the north.
On April 15th Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers with which to invade the South and enforce the tariff laws. He ordered a naval blockade of southern ports, raised an army, gathered war materiel and committed other acts of war without the Constitutionally required Declaration of War from Congress.
When the Congress finally convened in July 1861, they rubber stamped his aggressive military actions since April 15th. They also confirmed his motive and objectives. The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution dated July 25, 1861 stated explicitly that the purpose of the war was to "preserve the union" and "not to interfere in the established institutions of the states" nor to limit their rights and freedoms in any other way.
Once Lincoln started the war by attempting to reinforce Fort Sumter by force, he repeatedly stated that his intent was to "save the Union" and his war effort had nothing to do with slavery. A year and a half after hostilities commenced, in his August 1862 correspondence with Horace Greeley (New York Tribune), he emphatically stated that slavery was irrelevant to the war -- it was only about restoring (preserving) the Union. This was just a month before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
"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, and 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." --Abraham Lincoln, from letter to Horace Greeley, Aug. 22, 1862
Regardless of any sophistry or distortions to the contrary, the historical record shows incontrovertably that Lincoln and the U.S. Congress started and prosecuted the war for the purpose of preventing southern secession and independence and to enforce the tariff collections, to "preserve the union" as they called it. Though slavery (especially expansion) was a source of regional conflict, it was NOT the purpose of the war.
And what did the participants in the war think? General John B. Gordon gives us an assessment:
"But slavery was far from being the sole cause of the prolonged conflict. Neither its destruction on the one hand, nor its defence on the other, was the energizing force that held the contending armies to four years of bloody work. I apprehend that if all living Union soldiers were summoned to the witness-stand, every one of them would testify that it was the preservation of the American Union and not the destruction of Southern slavery that induced him to volunteer at the call of his country. As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty percent of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union." --General John B. Gordon, from Reminiscences of the Civil War, page 19
But what about the Emancipation Proclamation, you ask? It was strictly a war measure aimed at weakening the South by creating chaos or inciting slave insurrection. Another obvious purpose was to keep Britain and the European powers out of the war -- many of those nations wanted to trade with the South for cotton. Here's a sample of how the British press saw the Proclamation:
"The Union government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States." --London Spectator, 1862
"The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states." --Charles Dickens, 1862
As the secession "crisis" started in December 1860 and continued into January 1861, the initial reaction of most people in the North was "let them go in peace." They acknowledged that the principles of the Declaration of Independence, including the 'consent of the governed', prohibited coercion of the southern states to remain in the union by force. But by February and March, the northern industrialists and shipping interests had leaned on the northern editors and made them aware of the financial losses southern independence would bring the northern states. Northern editorials changed from "let them go" to "heck, no, we'll go broke." See a selection of Northern editorials for the flavor of the thought and note the change.
As the saying goes, "follow the money." The real power and wealth wanted war to protect their financial interests and to keep the southern states on the taxpaying plantation to pay for their subsidized infrastructure and favored special interests. It should be noted that the Republican party platform included raising protectionist tariffs (paid mostly by the southern states)... and the Congress passed the Morrill Tariff which doubled the tax rates, and President Buchanan signed it into law just two days before Lincoln was inaugurated.
From this it appears that Charles Dickens summed up the yankee motivation best, a "desire for economic control of the Southern states."
2. Lincoln "Saved the Union" from those who would "destroy the Union"
Lincoln didn't save anything, just the opposite. We started the war with a Constitutional Republic and ended with a consolidated empire, ruled from a central capitol with the States neutered. The Southern states didn't seek to "destroy" anything. All they wanted was peaceful separation. There would have been no war if Lincoln hadn't raised the troops and launched an invasion and blockade. Remember, not one person had been killed or injured in the taking of Fort Sumter. The Southern states tried repeatedly to open negotiations to pay for the federal properties in their territory, their share of the national debt (infinitely smaller than today), and so on. Lincoln would not even discuss it. A man with his considerable political skills could have resolved the issues without war. No, the party that elected Lincoln was determined to keep the southern states as economic colonies -- even if they had to exterminate all southerners to do it.
"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history... The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves." --H.L. Mencken [emphasis added]
"[T]he consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those [republics] that have preceded it." --Robert E. Lee, letter to Lord Acton, 1866
The purpose of the war was to finally realize the Hamiltonian dream of a consolidated, monopolistic government that would pursue what Hamilton himself called 'national greatness' and 'imperial glory.' The purpose of the war, in other words, was a New Birth of Empire, one that would hopefully rival the Europeans in the exploitation of their own citizens in the name of the glory of the state." --Thomas DiLorenzo, from Malice Toward All, Charity Toward None: The Foundations of the American State
3. Lincoln had to respond to Fort Sumter to put down treasonous secession
As noted above, no person was killed in the taking of Fort Sumter.
Secession cannot be reasonably considered treason. Most Americans celebrate that secession document called the Declaration of Independence every July 4th. We don't call it "Treason Day."
The states of New York, Rhode Island and Virginia in their ratification documents explicitly reserved the right to leave the union whenever in their opinion it was best for the security, happiness and liberty of their people. The other states reserved these rights implicitly. It was the understanding of all the Framers and those who ratified the Constitution in their respective states that the states "retain every power not expressly relinquished" in the Constitution. Since secession was not mentioned, that right is retained. This understanding is underscored by the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution. If any thought for a moment they were bound in perpetuity, almost no states, and certainly not the requisite nine states would have ratified. They knew they didn't have the right to bind their posterity, but that they could choose for themselves their form of government.
The cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point studied the Constitution using an 1829 text written by William Rawle, a Philadelphia attorney, who was the U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania under the Washington Administration, one who prosecuted the rebels of the Whisky Rebellion. Chapter 32, entitled On the Permanance of the Union, contains the following text:
The Union is an association of the people of republics; its preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those republics. The people of each pledge themselves to preserve that form of government in all. Thus each becomes responsible to the rest, that no other form of government shall prevail in it, and all are bound to preserve it in every one. ...If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth to subdue it.
Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union...
It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed. [emphasis added]
--William Rawle, Chapter 32, A VIEW of the CONSTITUTION of the United States of America
Charles Adams, in his book entitled When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, obliterates the weak and faulty arguments that secession is not a right of the states.
Jefferson Davis was held without trial in military prison at Fortress Monroe for two years after the war. The yankee prosecutors realized they could not win a conviction of Davis in open court for treason. Davis wanted nothing more than his day in court, but it was denied when the indictment for treason was dismissed. On that same date, treason indictments on 19 other Confederate officers were dismissed.
The Constitution defines treason against the United States to consist only in "levying War against them or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort." Under that definition, it's Lincoln who could be convicted of treason since he organized and ordered that war be levied against the Southern states. When the Constitution uses the word "them" it refers to the States. Davis, on the other hand, hoped that the southern states could leave peacefully. Defending against an armed invasion is not treason. There was never any intent to interfere with the government of the United States nor to occupy any territory of the remaining states in the U.S. Thus, the term 'civil war' is a ridiculous misnomer.
4. Lincoln the Humanitarian
It should be remembered that Lincoln launched an unnecessary war for economic reasons that cost the lives of over 620,000 American soldiers, an estimated 50,000 civilians and left probably over a million horribly maimed and wounded. Standardized for today's population, that would be the equivalant of six million Americans dying in four years. Such unnecessary bloodshed earns Lincoln a place in the pantheon of 20th century killers such as Stalin, Pol Pot, and Adolph Hitler.
Sheridan and Sherman both noticed that Lincoln always asked to be regaled with stories of civilian suffering as the yankee armies practiced their raping, looting and vandalism. What kind of human being wants to hear such horror stories? See Walter Brian Cisco's War Crimes Against Southern Civilians Some of it is detailed in Thomas DiLorenzo's essay entitled, Malice Toward All, Charity Toward None: The Foundations of the American State
Lincoln actively advocated for "colonization" (deportation) of all blacks from North America. As noted earlier, Lincoln's Dream was an all-white America. He actively planned and lobbied for support to round up all blacks who were emancipated by any means and send to them outside the United States (to South America, the Caribbean or back to Africa). This part of the historical record is irrefutable, yet the Court Historians seems to omit such details while painting Lincoln as an angel.
5. Lincoln the champion of personal liberty and defender of the Constitution
This one is real howler. Lincoln crushed the Constitution while his rhetoric professed to revere it.
Lincoln illegally suspended Habeas Corpus. He imprisoned tens of thousands of Northern citizens without trial for expressing views contrary to his, or for criticizing the war effort. Lincoln shut down over 300 opposition newspapers in the North. One such editor/citizen imprisoned was mayor of Baltimore, the grandson of Frances Scott Key (author of the Star Spangled Banner). He arrested much of the Maryland legislature to prevent them from discussing secession. When Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus was unconstitutional, Lincoln issued as arrest warrant for Taney. Though the arrest was never made, the intimidating threat was made.
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel in his book entitled Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men makes the case eloquently that while the 13th Amendment ended chattel slavery in America, the result of the war was to enslave all Americans at tax slaves. The growth of the Empire was enabled once the States had been neutered and the Constitution crushed in practice.
Conclusion
This has ran much longer than originally intended. And we covered only the top five Lincoln Myths. Lincoln didn't "save the Union," he destroyed the decentralized and voluntary Republic as defined in the Constitution. He didn't "free the slaves," he enslaved all Americans to their government. The name Lincoln shouldn't pass any American's lips unless followed by a contemptuous expectoration.
"It is a testament to the effectiveness of 140 years of government propaganda that a 308 page book filled with true facts about Lincoln could be entitled "The Lincoln No One Knows." It is not a matter of a poorly-performing government education system but quite the opposite: The government schools have performed superbly in indoctrinating generations of American school children with a pack of lies, myths, omissions, and falsehoods about Lincoln and his war of conquest. As Richard Bensel wrote in Yankee Leviathan, any study of the American state should begin in 1865. The power of any state ultimately rests upon a series of government-sponsored myths, and there is none more prominent than the Lincoln Myth." --Thomas DiLorenzo, from The Unknown Lincoln
Gordon on the War
"Prior to actual secession there was even at the South more or less division of sentiment--not as to principle, but as to policy. Scarcely a man could be found in all the Southern States who doubted the constitutional right of a State to withdraw from the Union; but many of its foremost men thought that such movement was ill-advised or should be delayed. Among these were Robert E. Lee, who became the commander-in-chief of all the Confederate armies; Alexander Hamilton Stephens, who became the Confederate Vice-President; Benjamin H. Hill, who was a Confederate senator and one of the Confederate administration's most ardent and perhaps its most eloquent supporter; and even Jefferson Davis himself is said to have shed tears when, at his seat in the United States Senate, he received the telegram announcing that Mississippi had actually passed the ordinance of secession."
"He agreed, however, with an overwhelming majority of the Southern people, in the opinion that both honor and security, as well as permanent peace, demanded separation. Referring to the denial of the right of Southerners to carry their property in slaves into the common Territories, he said: 'Your votes refuse to recognize our domestic institutions, which preëxisted the formation of the Union--our property, which was guarded by the Constitution. You refuse us that equality without which we should be degraded if we remained in the Union. . . . Is there a senator on the other side who, to-day, will agree that we shall have equal enjoyment of the Territories of the United States? Is there one who will deny that we have equally paid in their purchases and equally bled in their acquisition in war? . . . Whose is the fault, then, if the Union be dissolved? . . . If you desire, at this last moment, to avert civil war, so be it; it is better so. If you will but allow us to separate from you peaceably, since we cannot live peaceably together, to leave with the rights we had before we were united, since we cannot enjoy them in the Union, then there are many relations, drawn from the associations of our (common) struggles from the Revolutionary period to the present day, which may be beneficial to you as well as to us.'" --General John B. Gordon, from Reminiscences of the Civil War, page 14-15
Lincoln Mythology is Born
Commentary by Steve Scroggins
March 4th, 2011 marks the 150th Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration as President of the United States. Lincoln idolators and court ‘historians’ are certain to gush forth with fluff and flowery prose about how Lincoln “saved the Union” and “freed the slaves” when history shows that he did neither -- in fact, he did just the opposite, as we'll show below.
1. Lincoln the Great Emancipator: He reluctantly inaugurated war to abolish slavery
2. Lincoln "Saved the Union" from those who would "destroy the Union"
3. Lincoln had to respond to Fort Sumter to put down treasonous secession
4. Lincoln the Humanitarian
5. Lincoln the champion of personal liberty and defender of the Constitution
1. Lincoln the Great Emancipator: He reluctantly inaugurated war to abolish slavery
First of all, war was NOT required to end slavery. No other country in the world required war to end it; neither did America. Chattel slavery was doomed by the 1850s and on its way to extinction everywhere in the western Christian world. Brazil, a former Portuguese colony, was the last to abolish slavery in the western hemisphere in 1888. It is a lingering fallacy that it took war to end slavery in America.
Lincoln stated in his first inaugural address that he had no intention, no inclination and no legal authority to abolish slavery where it existed. He stated this in writing on numerous occasions. In the same address, Lincoln stated his support for the Corwin Amendment - otherwise known as the "Slavery Forever Amendment" -- which would constitutionally enshrine slavery permanently beyond the jurisdiction of the Congress.
The Republican party platform opposed the expansion of slavery to the western territories for economic and social reasons. The Republicans didn't want any blacks or Indians living anywhere near them. Illinois, it should be noted, had passed law to prohibit the settling or residence of blacks in Illinois. The Lincoln Dream was for a lilly-white America with no blacks or Indians. His soldiers, trained in the art of making war on southern civilians, did a fair job of genocide against the plains Indians after the war.
"[T]he Union ... will constitutionally defend and maintain itself... In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." --Abraham Lincoln, from inaugural address, March 4, 1861.
In his inaugural address, Lincoln promised not to invade or start a war EXCEPT to enforce the tariff law and hold federal forts for the purpose of tariff collection. His object was to quell the secession movement and force the recently departed states to return to the union, or at least to pay the tariffs as if they were still part of the Union. Lincoln claimed in the address that states did not have the authority to secede or leave the union. This is, of course, a 180 degree about-face from his stated opinion just 14 years earlier.
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, --a most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world." --Abraham Lincoln, from the Congressional Record, Jan. 12, 1847.
Lincoln's 1861 argument was logically ridiculous. Lincoln claimed that somehow the union came before the states which formed the union by ratifying the Constitution. That's like saying that a marriage came before the two people who were joined in the marriage.
Lincoln argued in his 1861 Inaugural address that "Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments." Note that the Framers specifically avoided the use of the words "national" and "perpetual" and struck them from proposed documents. James Madison made it clear that the people, their liberties and their "safety and happiness" were more important than any form of government when he said, "The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions must be sacrificed."
Lincoln was inaugurated March 4th. After Lincoln's secretary of state promised to evacuate and surrender Fort Sumter for weeks, Lincoln dispatched an armada to reinforce and resupply Fort Sumter in early April, an act of war. Lincoln let the Confederates know it was coming. To miminize the loss of life, the Confederates decided to bombard the Fort into submission before warships arrived. Fort Sumter was surrendered April 12th. It should be noted that there was no loss of life in the attack and the federal garrison was permitted to leave peacefully after the surrender. Lincoln had provoked the South into firing the first shots. Again, there was no person killed or injured at Fort Sumter, but it fired a war fever in the north.
On April 15th Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers with which to invade the South and enforce the tariff laws. He ordered a naval blockade of southern ports, raised an army, gathered war materiel and committed other acts of war without the Constitutionally required Declaration of War from Congress.
When the Congress finally convened in July 1861, they rubber stamped his aggressive military actions since April 15th. They also confirmed his motive and objectives. The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution dated July 25, 1861 stated explicitly that the purpose of the war was to "preserve the union" and "not to interfere in the established institutions of the states" nor to limit their rights and freedoms in any other way.
Once Lincoln started the war by attempting to reinforce Fort Sumter by force, he repeatedly stated that his intent was to "save the Union" and his war effort had nothing to do with slavery. A year and a half after hostilities commenced, in his August 1862 correspondence with Horace Greeley (New York Tribune), he emphatically stated that slavery was irrelevant to the war -- it was only about restoring (preserving) the Union. This was just a month before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
"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, and 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." --Abraham Lincoln, from letter to Horace Greeley, Aug. 22, 1862
Regardless of any sophistry or distortions to the contrary, the historical record shows incontrovertably that Lincoln and the U.S. Congress started and prosecuted the war for the purpose of preventing southern secession and independence and to enforce the tariff collections, to "preserve the union" as they called it. Though slavery (especially expansion) was a source of regional conflict, it was NOT the purpose of the war.
And what did the participants in the war think? General John B. Gordon gives us an assessment:
"But slavery was far from being the sole cause of the prolonged conflict. Neither its destruction on the one hand, nor its defence on the other, was the energizing force that held the contending armies to four years of bloody work. I apprehend that if all living Union soldiers were summoned to the witness-stand, every one of them would testify that it was the preservation of the American Union and not the destruction of Southern slavery that induced him to volunteer at the call of his country. As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty percent of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union." --General John B. Gordon, from Reminiscences of the Civil War, page 19
But what about the Emancipation Proclamation, you ask? It was strictly a war measure aimed at weakening the South by creating chaos or inciting slave insurrection. Another obvious purpose was to keep Britain and the European powers out of the war -- many of those nations wanted to trade with the South for cotton. Here's a sample of how the British press saw the Proclamation:
"The Union government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States." --London Spectator, 1862
"The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states." --Charles Dickens, 1862
As the secession "crisis" started in December 1860 and continued into January 1861, the initial reaction of most people in the North was "let them go in peace." They acknowledged that the principles of the Declaration of Independence, including the 'consent of the governed', prohibited coercion of the southern states to remain in the union by force. But by February and March, the northern industrialists and shipping interests had leaned on the northern editors and made them aware of the financial losses southern independence would bring the northern states. Northern editorials changed from "let them go" to "heck, no, we'll go broke." See a selection of Northern editorials for the flavor of the thought and note the change.
As the saying goes, "follow the money." The real power and wealth wanted war to protect their financial interests and to keep the southern states on the taxpaying plantation to pay for their subsidized infrastructure and favored special interests. It should be noted that the Republican party platform included raising protectionist tariffs (paid mostly by the southern states)... and the Congress passed the Morrill Tariff which doubled the tax rates, and President Buchanan signed it into law just two days before Lincoln was inaugurated.
From this it appears that Charles Dickens summed up the yankee motivation best, a "desire for economic control of the Southern states."
2. Lincoln "Saved the Union" from those who would "destroy the Union"
Lincoln didn't save anything, just the opposite. We started the war with a Constitutional Republic and ended with a consolidated empire, ruled from a central capitol with the States neutered. The Southern states didn't seek to "destroy" anything. All they wanted was peaceful separation. There would have been no war if Lincoln hadn't raised the troops and launched an invasion and blockade. Remember, not one person had been killed or injured in the taking of Fort Sumter. The Southern states tried repeatedly to open negotiations to pay for the federal properties in their territory, their share of the national debt (infinitely smaller than today), and so on. Lincoln would not even discuss it. A man with his considerable political skills could have resolved the issues without war. No, the party that elected Lincoln was determined to keep the southern states as economic colonies -- even if they had to exterminate all southerners to do it.
"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history... The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves." --H.L. Mencken [emphasis added]
"[T]he consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those [republics] that have preceded it." --Robert E. Lee, letter to Lord Acton, 1866
The purpose of the war was to finally realize the Hamiltonian dream of a consolidated, monopolistic government that would pursue what Hamilton himself called 'national greatness' and 'imperial glory.' The purpose of the war, in other words, was a New Birth of Empire, one that would hopefully rival the Europeans in the exploitation of their own citizens in the name of the glory of the state." --Thomas DiLorenzo, from Malice Toward All, Charity Toward None: The Foundations of the American State
3. Lincoln had to respond to Fort Sumter to put down treasonous secession
As noted above, no person was killed in the taking of Fort Sumter.
Secession cannot be reasonably considered treason. Most Americans celebrate that secession document called the Declaration of Independence every July 4th. We don't call it "Treason Day."
The states of New York, Rhode Island and Virginia in their ratification documents explicitly reserved the right to leave the union whenever in their opinion it was best for the security, happiness and liberty of their people. The other states reserved these rights implicitly. It was the understanding of all the Framers and those who ratified the Constitution in their respective states that the states "retain every power not expressly relinquished" in the Constitution. Since secession was not mentioned, that right is retained. This understanding is underscored by the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution. If any thought for a moment they were bound in perpetuity, almost no states, and certainly not the requisite nine states would have ratified. They knew they didn't have the right to bind their posterity, but that they could choose for themselves their form of government.
The cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point studied the Constitution using an 1829 text written by William Rawle, a Philadelphia attorney, who was the U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania under the Washington Administration, one who prosecuted the rebels of the Whisky Rebellion. Chapter 32, entitled On the Permanance of the Union, contains the following text:
The Union is an association of the people of republics; its preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those republics. The people of each pledge themselves to preserve that form of government in all. Thus each becomes responsible to the rest, that no other form of government shall prevail in it, and all are bound to preserve it in every one. ...If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth to subdue it.
Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union...
It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed. [emphasis added]
--William Rawle, Chapter 32, A VIEW of the CONSTITUTION of the United States of America
Charles Adams, in his book entitled When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, obliterates the weak and faulty arguments that secession is not a right of the states.
Jefferson Davis was held without trial in military prison at Fortress Monroe for two years after the war. The yankee prosecutors realized they could not win a conviction of Davis in open court for treason. Davis wanted nothing more than his day in court, but it was denied when the indictment for treason was dismissed. On that same date, treason indictments on 19 other Confederate officers were dismissed.
The Constitution defines treason against the United States to consist only in "levying War against them or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort." Under that definition, it's Lincoln who could be convicted of treason since he organized and ordered that war be levied against the Southern states. When the Constitution uses the word "them" it refers to the States. Davis, on the other hand, hoped that the southern states could leave peacefully. Defending against an armed invasion is not treason. There was never any intent to interfere with the government of the United States nor to occupy any territory of the remaining states in the U.S. Thus, the term 'civil war' is a ridiculous misnomer.
4. Lincoln the Humanitarian
It should be remembered that Lincoln launched an unnecessary war for economic reasons that cost the lives of over 620,000 American soldiers, an estimated 50,000 civilians and left probably over a million horribly maimed and wounded. Standardized for today's population, that would be the equivalant of six million Americans dying in four years. Such unnecessary bloodshed earns Lincoln a place in the pantheon of 20th century killers such as Stalin, Pol Pot, and Adolph Hitler.
Sheridan and Sherman both noticed that Lincoln always asked to be regaled with stories of civilian suffering as the yankee armies practiced their raping, looting and vandalism. What kind of human being wants to hear such horror stories? See Walter Brian Cisco's War Crimes Against Southern Civilians Some of it is detailed in Thomas DiLorenzo's essay entitled, Malice Toward All, Charity Toward None: The Foundations of the American State
Lincoln actively advocated for "colonization" (deportation) of all blacks from North America. As noted earlier, Lincoln's Dream was an all-white America. He actively planned and lobbied for support to round up all blacks who were emancipated by any means and send to them outside the United States (to South America, the Caribbean or back to Africa). This part of the historical record is irrefutable, yet the Court Historians seems to omit such details while painting Lincoln as an angel.
5. Lincoln the champion of personal liberty and defender of the Constitution
This one is real howler. Lincoln crushed the Constitution while his rhetoric professed to revere it.
Lincoln illegally suspended Habeas Corpus. He imprisoned tens of thousands of Northern citizens without trial for expressing views contrary to his, or for criticizing the war effort. Lincoln shut down over 300 opposition newspapers in the North. One such editor/citizen imprisoned was mayor of Baltimore, the grandson of Frances Scott Key (author of the Star Spangled Banner). He arrested much of the Maryland legislature to prevent them from discussing secession. When Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus was unconstitutional, Lincoln issued as arrest warrant for Taney. Though the arrest was never made, the intimidating threat was made.
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel in his book entitled Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men makes the case eloquently that while the 13th Amendment ended chattel slavery in America, the result of the war was to enslave all Americans at tax slaves. The growth of the Empire was enabled once the States had been neutered and the Constitution crushed in practice.
Conclusion
This has ran much longer than originally intended. And we covered only the top five Lincoln Myths. Lincoln didn't "save the Union," he destroyed the decentralized and voluntary Republic as defined in the Constitution. He didn't "free the slaves," he enslaved all Americans to their government. The name Lincoln shouldn't pass any American's lips unless followed by a contemptuous expectoration.
"It is a testament to the effectiveness of 140 years of government propaganda that a 308 page book filled with true facts about Lincoln could be entitled "The Lincoln No One Knows." It is not a matter of a poorly-performing government education system but quite the opposite: The government schools have performed superbly in indoctrinating generations of American school children with a pack of lies, myths, omissions, and falsehoods about Lincoln and his war of conquest. As Richard Bensel wrote in Yankee Leviathan, any study of the American state should begin in 1865. The power of any state ultimately rests upon a series of government-sponsored myths, and there is none more prominent than the Lincoln Myth." --Thomas DiLorenzo, from The Unknown Lincoln
Gordon on the War
"Prior to actual secession there was even at the South more or less division of sentiment--not as to principle, but as to policy. Scarcely a man could be found in all the Southern States who doubted the constitutional right of a State to withdraw from the Union; but many of its foremost men thought that such movement was ill-advised or should be delayed. Among these were Robert E. Lee, who became the commander-in-chief of all the Confederate armies; Alexander Hamilton Stephens, who became the Confederate Vice-President; Benjamin H. Hill, who was a Confederate senator and one of the Confederate administration's most ardent and perhaps its most eloquent supporter; and even Jefferson Davis himself is said to have shed tears when, at his seat in the United States Senate, he received the telegram announcing that Mississippi had actually passed the ordinance of secession."
"He agreed, however, with an overwhelming majority of the Southern people, in the opinion that both honor and security, as well as permanent peace, demanded separation. Referring to the denial of the right of Southerners to carry their property in slaves into the common Territories, he said: 'Your votes refuse to recognize our domestic institutions, which preëxisted the formation of the Union--our property, which was guarded by the Constitution. You refuse us that equality without which we should be degraded if we remained in the Union. . . . Is there a senator on the other side who, to-day, will agree that we shall have equal enjoyment of the Territories of the United States? Is there one who will deny that we have equally paid in their purchases and equally bled in their acquisition in war? . . . Whose is the fault, then, if the Union be dissolved? . . . If you desire, at this last moment, to avert civil war, so be it; it is better so. If you will but allow us to separate from you peaceably, since we cannot live peaceably together, to leave with the rights we had before we were united, since we cannot enjoy them in the Union, then there are many relations, drawn from the associations of our (common) struggles from the Revolutionary period to the present day, which may be beneficial to you as well as to us.'" --General John B. Gordon, from Reminiscences of the Civil War, page 14-15
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The Criminal General
From Confederate Legion:
William Tecumseh Sherman
"That the Southern people literally were put to the torture is vaguely understood, but even historians have shrunk from the unhappy task of showing us the torture chambers." --- Claude G. Bowers
The concept that the United States was fighting a just war, cannot stand up in the light of historical truth or of the unalienable rights of the Southern People to have seceded, then formed their own government and nation. Abraham Lincoln knowing South Carolina and the Confederacy would defend its own territorial sovereignty, instigated the firing on Fort Sumter, as a means of justifying the opening of the war.
.
The slaves would have been freed, even had the South been allowed to depart in peace, but would have entered society as an educated people, prepared to take on the responsibility of freedom. In any case the subject of slavery did not emerge as a justification until the mid-point in the war and Abraham Lincoln by his own admission would have fought the war, whether or not the slave were to be freed as a consequence..
Additionally, Lincoln knew the slaves could have been freed at a fraction the cost of the war, simply by claiming the right imminent domain and paying a far market price for each slave. Neither the abolitionists or the bankers and merchants of the north, which had supported the Lincoln Administration, wished to admit their own involvement in transporting and selling Negroes into slavery, thereby putting all the blame on the buyers, rather then the slave merchants of the North.
General William Tecumseh Sherman
to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.” --- General W.T. Sherman
The victor in this case has effectively revised history and regretfully that revision has been accepted as factual by a larger percentage of the population, while men such as William Tecumseh Sherman are lifted up as patriots and heroes of their cause. When if the truth were revealed, he was less of a General and more of a criminal, who should have been put on trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
We the Confederate and Southern People, above all others, should understand what happen! Unless we are prepared to look into the face of the horror and finish the work of our forefathers, we cannot rightfully claim Confederate history, heritage, culture and nationhood as our own. This page is dedicated to presenting, if only a small fraction, the criminality, heaped upon a rightfully free and independent people and nation.
"Modern abolitionists, known in our time as liberals, stand in judgment over the South due to their having owned slaves, when they themselves are responsible for the murder of approximately 52 million innocent and unborn babies. We hesitate to consider this an atrocity, because there are no memorials or marked mass graves, but when measured against the approximately 50 million who died as a result of Second World War, the abortionists are indeed mass murderers. These same mass murders now sit in the judgment seat over the Confederacy and the South." --- Sheldon Sullivan
Brief Description
The combined numbers that died on both sides added up to more than those, which died in all the other wars United States, have fought throughout its history.
* * * * * * *
The Confederate Legion has a greater purpose in presenting this page of William Tecumseh Sherman, since there is precious little incentive for tolerating the image of the Criminal General, let alone a reminder as to the atrocities he committed against the good people of the City of Atlanta and of Georgia. It has long been proposed that a movie reenactment be produced, accept that in this version Sherman is captured and his army forced to surrender at some point in his campaign through Georgia. He is escorted back to Atlanta in shackles and placed on trial as a criminal; however, the court scene should be as authentic as possible. There should be a Judge, Jury, Prosecuting as well as Defense Attorneys.
Collectively our people have the talent as well as the equipment necessary, and there is little doubt as to our ability to tell this story. Such a movie would provoke endless criticism and receive terrible press coverage, however it would result in many millions seeing the movie and coming to the realization ‘the real criminal elements was that of the Abraham Lincoln and his cohorts.’ One need only compare the difference between Union Forces and those of the Confederacy by noting the wonton rape, robbery and pillaging which took place in their path of destruction.
Confederate Armies invading the north respected women, children and private property; this was not the case with Union Armies in their invasion, occupation and subjugation of the Confederacy. 'Those people' conducted themselves as barbarians and criminals, no just and honorable judge and jury could come to any other conclusion. We as Confederates and Southerners should ensure the world is told the truth!
There are those who will simply say ‘you are just embittered by the South having lost the war’ and to that idocy let us consider a scenario which will make the point clear, even for our skeptics. Those of you having, let us say two teenage daughters, let us imagine for a moment that by some strange coincident of nature you and your family manage to accidentally slip through a worm hole or an electronic fog and are thrown backward in time.
Your dress, speech accident and mannerisms are strange to both Northerners as well as Southerners of the ‘Civil War’ period. You realize you won’t be believed and will be taken prisoner of war by either the Confederates or Yankees; now which army would you rather entrust your lovely young wife and teenage daughters? Suddenly the reputation of honor, integrity and just plain ‘good Southern morality and manners’ then held by Confederates, will become the most critical item in your decision making!
Sherman's March to the Sea, 1864
A Southerner's Perspective
Atlanta fell to Sherman's Army in early September 1864. He devoted the next few weeks to chasing Confederate troops through northern Georgia in a vain attempt to lure them into a decisive fight. The Confederate's evasive tactics doomed Sherman's plan to achieve victory on the battlefield so he developed an alternative strategy: destroy the South by laying waste to its economic and transportation infrastructure.
Sherman's "scorched earth" campaign began on November 15th when he cut the last telegraph wire that linked him to his superiors in the North. He left Atlanta in flames and pointed his army south. No word would be heard from him for the next five weeks. Unbeknownst to his enemy, Sherman's objective was the port of Savannah. His army of 65,000 cut a broad swath as it lumbered towards its destination. Plantations were burned, crops destroyed and stores of food pillaged. In the wake of his progress to the sea he left numerous "Sherman sentinels" (the chimneys of burnt out houses) and "Sherman neckties" (railroad rails that had been heated and wrapped around trees.).
Along the way, his army was joined by thousands of former slaves who brought up the rear of the march because they had no other place to go. Sherman's army reached Savannah on December 22. Two days later, Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln with the message "I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah..."
It was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Sherman stayed in Savannah until the end of January and then continued his scorched earth campaign through the Carolinas. On April 26, Confederate troops under General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina; seventeen days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.
"Oh God, the time of trial has come!"
Dolly Sumner Lunt was born in Maine in 1817. She moved to Georgia as a young woman to join her married sister. She became a school teacher in Covington, Ga. where she met and married Thomas Burge, a plantation owner. When her husband died in 1858, Dolly was left alone to manage the plantation and its slaves. Dolly kept a diary of her experiences and we join her story as Sherman's army approaches her home:
November 19, 1864
Slept in my clothes last night, as I heard that the Yankees went to neighbor Montgomery's on Thursday night at one o'clock, searched his house, drank his wine, and took his money and valuables. As we were not disturbed, I walked after breakfast, with Sadai [the narrator's 9-year-old daughter], up to Mr. Joe Perry's, my nearest neighbor, where the Yankees were yesterday.
Saw Mrs. Laura [Perry] in the road surrounded by her children, seeming to be looking for some one. She said she was looking for her husband, that old Mrs. Perry had just sent her word that the Yankees went to James Perry's the night before, plundered his house, and drove off all his stock, and that she must drive hers into the old fields. Before we were done talking, up came Joe and Jim Perry from their hiding-place. Jim was very much excited. Happening to turn and look behind, as we stood there, I saw some blue-coats coming down the hill. Jim immediately raised his gun, swearing he would kill them anyhow.
'No, don't!' said I, and ran home as fast as I could, with Sadai.
I could hear them cry, 'Halt! Halt!' and their guns went off in quick succession. Oh God, the time of trial has come!
A man passed on his way to Covington. I halloed to him, asking him if he did not know the Yankees were coming.
'No - are they?'
'Yes,' said I; 'they are not three hundred yards from here.'
'Sure enough,' said he. 'Well, I'll not go. I don't want them to get my horse.' And although within hearing of their guns, he would stop and look for them. Blissful ignorance! Not knowing, not hearing, he has not suffered the suspense, the fear, that I have for the past forty-eight hours. I walked to the gate. There they came filing up.
I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they rush in! My yards are full.
To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds - both in vinegar and brine - wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard.
'I cannot help you, Madam; it is orders.'
...Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they were forcing my boys [slaves] from home at the point of the bayonet. One, Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor, - a lame boy he was, - but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. Mid, poor Mid! The last I saw of him, a man had him going around the garden, looking, as I thought, for my sheep, as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said:
'Stay in my room.'But a man followed in, cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield.
...Sherman himself and a greater portion of his army passed my house that day. All day, as the sad moments rolled on, were they passing not only in front of my house, but from behind; they tore down my garden palings, made a road through my back-yard and lot field, driving their stock and riding through, tearing down my fences and desolating my home - wantonly doing it when there was no necessity for it.
...As night drew its sable curtains around us, the heavens from every point were lit up with flames from burning buildings. Dinnerless and supperless as we were, it was nothing in comparison with the fear of being driven out homeless to the dreary woods. Nothing to eat! I could give my guard no supper, so he left us.
My Heavenly Father alone saved me from the destructive fire. My carriage-house had in it eight bales of cotton, with my carriage, buggy, and harness. On top of the cotton were some carded cotton rolls, a hundred pounds or more. These were thrown out of the blanket in which they were, and a large twist of the rolls taken and set on fire, and thrown into the boat of my carriage, which was close up to the cotton bales. Thanks to my God, the cotton only burned over, and then went out. Shall I ever forget the deliverance?
November 20, 1864.
About ten o'clock they had all passed save one, who came in and wanted coffee made, which was done, and he, too, went on. A few minutes elapsed, and two couriers riding rapidly passed back. Then, presently, more soldiers came by, and this ended the passing of Sherman's army by my place, leaving me poorer by thirty thousand dollars than I was yesterday morning. And a much stronger Rebel!"
William Tecumseh Sherman
"That the Southern people literally were put to the torture is vaguely understood, but even historians have shrunk from the unhappy task of showing us the torture chambers." --- Claude G. Bowers
The concept that the United States was fighting a just war, cannot stand up in the light of historical truth or of the unalienable rights of the Southern People to have seceded, then formed their own government and nation. Abraham Lincoln knowing South Carolina and the Confederacy would defend its own territorial sovereignty, instigated the firing on Fort Sumter, as a means of justifying the opening of the war.
.
The slaves would have been freed, even had the South been allowed to depart in peace, but would have entered society as an educated people, prepared to take on the responsibility of freedom. In any case the subject of slavery did not emerge as a justification until the mid-point in the war and Abraham Lincoln by his own admission would have fought the war, whether or not the slave were to be freed as a consequence..
Additionally, Lincoln knew the slaves could have been freed at a fraction the cost of the war, simply by claiming the right imminent domain and paying a far market price for each slave. Neither the abolitionists or the bankers and merchants of the north, which had supported the Lincoln Administration, wished to admit their own involvement in transporting and selling Negroes into slavery, thereby putting all the blame on the buyers, rather then the slave merchants of the North.
General William Tecumseh Sherman
to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.” --- General W.T. Sherman
The victor in this case has effectively revised history and regretfully that revision has been accepted as factual by a larger percentage of the population, while men such as William Tecumseh Sherman are lifted up as patriots and heroes of their cause. When if the truth were revealed, he was less of a General and more of a criminal, who should have been put on trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
We the Confederate and Southern People, above all others, should understand what happen! Unless we are prepared to look into the face of the horror and finish the work of our forefathers, we cannot rightfully claim Confederate history, heritage, culture and nationhood as our own. This page is dedicated to presenting, if only a small fraction, the criminality, heaped upon a rightfully free and independent people and nation.
"Modern abolitionists, known in our time as liberals, stand in judgment over the South due to their having owned slaves, when they themselves are responsible for the murder of approximately 52 million innocent and unborn babies. We hesitate to consider this an atrocity, because there are no memorials or marked mass graves, but when measured against the approximately 50 million who died as a result of Second World War, the abortionists are indeed mass murderers. These same mass murders now sit in the judgment seat over the Confederacy and the South." --- Sheldon Sullivan
Brief Description
The combined numbers that died on both sides added up to more than those, which died in all the other wars United States, have fought throughout its history.
* * * * * * *
The Confederate Legion has a greater purpose in presenting this page of William Tecumseh Sherman, since there is precious little incentive for tolerating the image of the Criminal General, let alone a reminder as to the atrocities he committed against the good people of the City of Atlanta and of Georgia. It has long been proposed that a movie reenactment be produced, accept that in this version Sherman is captured and his army forced to surrender at some point in his campaign through Georgia. He is escorted back to Atlanta in shackles and placed on trial as a criminal; however, the court scene should be as authentic as possible. There should be a Judge, Jury, Prosecuting as well as Defense Attorneys.
Collectively our people have the talent as well as the equipment necessary, and there is little doubt as to our ability to tell this story. Such a movie would provoke endless criticism and receive terrible press coverage, however it would result in many millions seeing the movie and coming to the realization ‘the real criminal elements was that of the Abraham Lincoln and his cohorts.’ One need only compare the difference between Union Forces and those of the Confederacy by noting the wonton rape, robbery and pillaging which took place in their path of destruction.
Confederate Armies invading the north respected women, children and private property; this was not the case with Union Armies in their invasion, occupation and subjugation of the Confederacy. 'Those people' conducted themselves as barbarians and criminals, no just and honorable judge and jury could come to any other conclusion. We as Confederates and Southerners should ensure the world is told the truth!
There are those who will simply say ‘you are just embittered by the South having lost the war’ and to that idocy let us consider a scenario which will make the point clear, even for our skeptics. Those of you having, let us say two teenage daughters, let us imagine for a moment that by some strange coincident of nature you and your family manage to accidentally slip through a worm hole or an electronic fog and are thrown backward in time.
Your dress, speech accident and mannerisms are strange to both Northerners as well as Southerners of the ‘Civil War’ period. You realize you won’t be believed and will be taken prisoner of war by either the Confederates or Yankees; now which army would you rather entrust your lovely young wife and teenage daughters? Suddenly the reputation of honor, integrity and just plain ‘good Southern morality and manners’ then held by Confederates, will become the most critical item in your decision making!
Sherman's March to the Sea, 1864
A Southerner's Perspective
Atlanta fell to Sherman's Army in early September 1864. He devoted the next few weeks to chasing Confederate troops through northern Georgia in a vain attempt to lure them into a decisive fight. The Confederate's evasive tactics doomed Sherman's plan to achieve victory on the battlefield so he developed an alternative strategy: destroy the South by laying waste to its economic and transportation infrastructure.
Sherman's "scorched earth" campaign began on November 15th when he cut the last telegraph wire that linked him to his superiors in the North. He left Atlanta in flames and pointed his army south. No word would be heard from him for the next five weeks. Unbeknownst to his enemy, Sherman's objective was the port of Savannah. His army of 65,000 cut a broad swath as it lumbered towards its destination. Plantations were burned, crops destroyed and stores of food pillaged. In the wake of his progress to the sea he left numerous "Sherman sentinels" (the chimneys of burnt out houses) and "Sherman neckties" (railroad rails that had been heated and wrapped around trees.).
Along the way, his army was joined by thousands of former slaves who brought up the rear of the march because they had no other place to go. Sherman's army reached Savannah on December 22. Two days later, Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln with the message "I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah..."
It was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Sherman stayed in Savannah until the end of January and then continued his scorched earth campaign through the Carolinas. On April 26, Confederate troops under General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina; seventeen days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.
"Oh God, the time of trial has come!"
Dolly Sumner Lunt was born in Maine in 1817. She moved to Georgia as a young woman to join her married sister. She became a school teacher in Covington, Ga. where she met and married Thomas Burge, a plantation owner. When her husband died in 1858, Dolly was left alone to manage the plantation and its slaves. Dolly kept a diary of her experiences and we join her story as Sherman's army approaches her home:
November 19, 1864
Slept in my clothes last night, as I heard that the Yankees went to neighbor Montgomery's on Thursday night at one o'clock, searched his house, drank his wine, and took his money and valuables. As we were not disturbed, I walked after breakfast, with Sadai [the narrator's 9-year-old daughter], up to Mr. Joe Perry's, my nearest neighbor, where the Yankees were yesterday.
Saw Mrs. Laura [Perry] in the road surrounded by her children, seeming to be looking for some one. She said she was looking for her husband, that old Mrs. Perry had just sent her word that the Yankees went to James Perry's the night before, plundered his house, and drove off all his stock, and that she must drive hers into the old fields. Before we were done talking, up came Joe and Jim Perry from their hiding-place. Jim was very much excited. Happening to turn and look behind, as we stood there, I saw some blue-coats coming down the hill. Jim immediately raised his gun, swearing he would kill them anyhow.
'No, don't!' said I, and ran home as fast as I could, with Sadai.
I could hear them cry, 'Halt! Halt!' and their guns went off in quick succession. Oh God, the time of trial has come!
A man passed on his way to Covington. I halloed to him, asking him if he did not know the Yankees were coming.
'No - are they?'
'Yes,' said I; 'they are not three hundred yards from here.'
'Sure enough,' said he. 'Well, I'll not go. I don't want them to get my horse.' And although within hearing of their guns, he would stop and look for them. Blissful ignorance! Not knowing, not hearing, he has not suffered the suspense, the fear, that I have for the past forty-eight hours. I walked to the gate. There they came filing up.
I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they rush in! My yards are full.
To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds - both in vinegar and brine - wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard.
'I cannot help you, Madam; it is orders.'
...Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they were forcing my boys [slaves] from home at the point of the bayonet. One, Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor, - a lame boy he was, - but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. Mid, poor Mid! The last I saw of him, a man had him going around the garden, looking, as I thought, for my sheep, as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said:
'Stay in my room.'But a man followed in, cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield.
...Sherman himself and a greater portion of his army passed my house that day. All day, as the sad moments rolled on, were they passing not only in front of my house, but from behind; they tore down my garden palings, made a road through my back-yard and lot field, driving their stock and riding through, tearing down my fences and desolating my home - wantonly doing it when there was no necessity for it.
...As night drew its sable curtains around us, the heavens from every point were lit up with flames from burning buildings. Dinnerless and supperless as we were, it was nothing in comparison with the fear of being driven out homeless to the dreary woods. Nothing to eat! I could give my guard no supper, so he left us.
My Heavenly Father alone saved me from the destructive fire. My carriage-house had in it eight bales of cotton, with my carriage, buggy, and harness. On top of the cotton were some carded cotton rolls, a hundred pounds or more. These were thrown out of the blanket in which they were, and a large twist of the rolls taken and set on fire, and thrown into the boat of my carriage, which was close up to the cotton bales. Thanks to my God, the cotton only burned over, and then went out. Shall I ever forget the deliverance?
November 20, 1864.
About ten o'clock they had all passed save one, who came in and wanted coffee made, which was done, and he, too, went on. A few minutes elapsed, and two couriers riding rapidly passed back. Then, presently, more soldiers came by, and this ended the passing of Sherman's army by my place, leaving me poorer by thirty thousand dollars than I was yesterday morning. And a much stronger Rebel!"
William T. Sherman: Mad General, Mass Murderer
From Now Public:
William T. Sherman: Mad General - Mass Murderer
Share: by J. Stephen Conn
December 5, 2009 at 03:20 pm
1112 views
2 Recommendations
6 comments
Photos
William T. Sherman: Mad General - Mass Murderer
see larger image
The kindest thing that could possibly be said about General William T. Sherman is that he was stark, raving mad. If he was insane - as many contemporary newspapers alleged and as he actually once claimed to be - then it might offer the only lame defense for the dastardly deeds of the United States’ most infamous war criminal.
Commanding General of the United States Army during the War Between the States, William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Lancaster, Ohio, and this statue to him stands in Zane Square Park, in downtown Lancaster. According to Lancaster's official travel guide "Due to strong southern sentiment, more than 100 years passed before a Sherman statue was unveiled on July 2, 2000 during Lancaster's bicentennial celebration."
Sherman, with the blessing and enthusiastic approval of General Ulysses S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln waged "Total War" against defenseless civilians throughout the Confederate States of America, 1861 - 1865. It was truly a "War of Northern Aggression" against a people who only wanted to be left alone.
General Sherman was personally responsible for the pillaging, plundering and burning of countless undefended cities, towns and homes. He and his barbaric Union troops brought wrought total destruction on farms, livestock and civilian food supplies. They turned thousands of women and children out into the winter cold, leaving them to fend for themselves with no food and no shelter. He and his troops hauled thousands of wagon loads of stolen Southern goods back to the North. They gang raped both black and white women and slaughtered thousands of innocent Americans, including old men, women, and children of all races.
Sherman had no shame. Here are some of his own words that illustrate his maniacal lust for blood. In a letter to his wife he said of the southern secessionists: “why death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better . . . . Until we can repopulate Georgia it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources"
In an order to one of his generals, Thomas Ewing (Order #11) Sherman said “There is a class of people (in the South), men women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.”
And again to his wife he wrote from north Georgia, “I begin to regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash.”
Sherman once declared, "The Government of the United States has in North Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war – to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything . . . . war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact.... We will . . . take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper,"
Sherman's own words condemn him.
Some of the people who were exterminated by Sherman's army in both Georgia and Alabama were my own kin, including my great, great grandfather and two of his brothers, uncles on both sides of my family, plus several cousins. Not a one of them was a slave owner. They were poor farmers whose only crime was that they were defending their homes and families from a hostile, invading, foreign army.
It is beyond my comprehension to understand why some people today think of Sherman as a great war hero when to me was the personification of evil - a shameful dark stain on the history of the United States.
The people of Lancaster, Ohio honor this mad man with a historical marker that spins the memory of Sherman’s despicable deeds by calling him: “a four star military genius … a brilliant commander and grand strategist who revolutionized war by incorporating psychological and economic warfare into his military tactics.”
After his atrocities against the people of the Confederate States, Sherman continued his maniacal murders by overseeing the genocide of the Native American population in the West in Indian Wars. Of the Plains Indians he said, "It is one of those irreconcilable conflicts that will end only in one way, one or the other must be exterminated . . . . We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to the extermination, men, women and children" ... "The more Indians we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed next year," wrote Sherman. "They all have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers."
William T. Sherman wrote his own epitaph - “Faithful and Honorable.” A more fitting epitaph would be “Insane and Conscienceless.”
As a current resident of the state of Ohio I can only hang my head in shame.
Continue reading at NowPublic.com: William T. Sherman: Mad General - Mass Murderer
NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/world/william-t-sherman-mad-general-mass-murderer#ixzz1GBER0eJs
William T. Sherman: Mad General - Mass Murderer
Share: by J. Stephen Conn
December 5, 2009 at 03:20 pm
1112 views
2 Recommendations
6 comments
Photos
William T. Sherman: Mad General - Mass Murderer
see larger image
The kindest thing that could possibly be said about General William T. Sherman is that he was stark, raving mad. If he was insane - as many contemporary newspapers alleged and as he actually once claimed to be - then it might offer the only lame defense for the dastardly deeds of the United States’ most infamous war criminal.
Commanding General of the United States Army during the War Between the States, William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Lancaster, Ohio, and this statue to him stands in Zane Square Park, in downtown Lancaster. According to Lancaster's official travel guide "Due to strong southern sentiment, more than 100 years passed before a Sherman statue was unveiled on July 2, 2000 during Lancaster's bicentennial celebration."
Sherman, with the blessing and enthusiastic approval of General Ulysses S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln waged "Total War" against defenseless civilians throughout the Confederate States of America, 1861 - 1865. It was truly a "War of Northern Aggression" against a people who only wanted to be left alone.
General Sherman was personally responsible for the pillaging, plundering and burning of countless undefended cities, towns and homes. He and his barbaric Union troops brought wrought total destruction on farms, livestock and civilian food supplies. They turned thousands of women and children out into the winter cold, leaving them to fend for themselves with no food and no shelter. He and his troops hauled thousands of wagon loads of stolen Southern goods back to the North. They gang raped both black and white women and slaughtered thousands of innocent Americans, including old men, women, and children of all races.
Sherman had no shame. Here are some of his own words that illustrate his maniacal lust for blood. In a letter to his wife he said of the southern secessionists: “why death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better . . . . Until we can repopulate Georgia it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources"
In an order to one of his generals, Thomas Ewing (Order #11) Sherman said “There is a class of people (in the South), men women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.”
And again to his wife he wrote from north Georgia, “I begin to regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash.”
Sherman once declared, "The Government of the United States has in North Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war – to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything . . . . war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact.... We will . . . take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper,"
Sherman's own words condemn him.
Some of the people who were exterminated by Sherman's army in both Georgia and Alabama were my own kin, including my great, great grandfather and two of his brothers, uncles on both sides of my family, plus several cousins. Not a one of them was a slave owner. They were poor farmers whose only crime was that they were defending their homes and families from a hostile, invading, foreign army.
It is beyond my comprehension to understand why some people today think of Sherman as a great war hero when to me was the personification of evil - a shameful dark stain on the history of the United States.
The people of Lancaster, Ohio honor this mad man with a historical marker that spins the memory of Sherman’s despicable deeds by calling him: “a four star military genius … a brilliant commander and grand strategist who revolutionized war by incorporating psychological and economic warfare into his military tactics.”
After his atrocities against the people of the Confederate States, Sherman continued his maniacal murders by overseeing the genocide of the Native American population in the West in Indian Wars. Of the Plains Indians he said, "It is one of those irreconcilable conflicts that will end only in one way, one or the other must be exterminated . . . . We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to the extermination, men, women and children" ... "The more Indians we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed next year," wrote Sherman. "They all have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers."
William T. Sherman wrote his own epitaph - “Faithful and Honorable.” A more fitting epitaph would be “Insane and Conscienceless.”
As a current resident of the state of Ohio I can only hang my head in shame.
Continue reading at NowPublic.com: William T. Sherman: Mad General - Mass Murderer
NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/world/william-t-sherman-mad-general-mass-murderer#ixzz1GBER0eJs
Quotes From Generals William T.Sherman And Phil Sheridan
From Descendants Of Point Lookout POW Organization:
Quotes from Generals William T. Sherman
& Phil Sheridan
The young bloods of the South; sons of planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard players and sportsmen, men who never did any work and never will. War suits them. They are splendid riders, first rate shots and utterly reckless. These men must all be killed or employed by us before we can hope for peace....Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
The more Indians we can kill this year the fewer we will need to kill the next, because the more I see of the Indians the more convinced I become that they must either all be killed or be maintained as a species of pauper. Their attempts at civilization is ridiculous... Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Look to the South and you who went with us through that land can best say if they have not been fearfully punished. Mourning is in every household, desolation written in broad characters across the whole face of their country, cities in ashes and fields laid waste, their commerce gone, their system of labor annihilated and destroyed. Ruin and poverty and distress everywhere, and now pestilence adding to the very cap sheaf of their stack of misery...Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, the man who left a 60 mile wide, 300 mile long path of death and desolation across GA and up through SC.
I have destroyed over 2,000 barns filled with wheat, hay and farming implements; over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat, and have driven in front of the Army over 4,000 head of stock and have killed and issued to the troops not less than 3,000 sheep. Tomorrow I will continue the destruction down to Fisher’s Mill. When this is completed, the Valley from Winchester to Staunton, 92 miles, will have but little in it for man or beast.....from an Oct. 7, 1864 report to Gen. Grant from Gen. Sheridan.
During the War Between the States, Lincoln, was waging war on women and children on two fronts. Old Abe's thugs were raping, pillaging and murdering in the West as well as the South.. Lincoln's generals Sheridan and Sherman committed war crimes. Sherman, famous for his "march to the sea," had made a habit of waging war on civilians from early on. Dr. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, economics professor at Loyola College in Baltimore and historian and writer, tells us that Sherman once wrote to his wife that his purpose was the "extermination, not of soldiers alone...but of the people" of the South. Sherman often ordered his soldiers, many of whom were street criminals from Northern as well as European cities, to shoot civilians at random. He ordered his men to burn entire towns in Tennessee and Mississippi and of course Georgia. And the thousands of letters and diaries that survived the war attest to the rape of both black and white women by Sherman's men.
Another of Lincoln's generals Phil Sheridan is known for the horrors he inflicted on civilians in the Shennandoah Valley during the war. In the autumn of 1864, with the winter closing in, Dr. DiLorenzo tells us Sheridan's troops burned crops and killed thousands upon thousands of cattle and sheep and turned women and children out in the cold.
While Sheridan was destroying crops, killing livestock and starving women and children, a Yankee colonel named J. M. Chivington was slaughtering, scalping and mutilating Arapahos and Cheyenne camped at a place called Sand Creek in Colorado. The Indians in the camp had decided to live in peace with the white man because they had come to trust Major Edward W. Wynkoop who was the commander of Fort Lyon located forty miles from Sand Creek. Major Wynkoop was a rare man in the Union army in that he was honorable and kept his word. He did not believe in waging war on civilians either and that was to be his ultimate undoing. Known to the Indians as Tall Chief Wynkoop, he was eventually to resign in protest over Phil Sheridan's policies toward the Indians in the West.
Wynkoop was removed from his post at Fort Lyon because of his kindness to the Indians and was replaced with a cruel man named Major Scott J. Anthony who lied to the Indians and who, under the command of Colonel Chivington, raided the encampment at Sand Creek where they slaughtered men, women and children. Some of the Indians huddled together under a large American flag which belonged to the chief Black Kettle, but the Yankee soldiers killed them anyway. One little girl, Dee Brown tells us in the book "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" met the soldiers waving a white flag, and they still shot her down in cold blood.
St. Mary's Today, Dispatches from Little Dixie: Real Americans by "The Rebel Yell" un-reconstructed journalist Joyce Bennett. Oct. 2, 2001
"The government of the U.S. has any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war - to take their lives, their homes, their land, their everything...war is simply unrestrained by the Constitution...to the persistent secessionist, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better...Mjr. Gen. W. T. Sherman, Jan. 31, 1864.
This war on citizens was not simply restrained to be applied against men and women but also children. Gen. Sherman in a June 21, 1864, letter to Lincoln's Sec. of War, Edwin Station wrote, "There is a class of people men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order." Stanton replied, "Your letter of the 21st of June has just reached me and meets my approval." While the war on civilians started much earlier than 1864, the above is simply proof that the war on children was part of that scheme!
In MO, if care packages of food or clothing was sent to sons of the Confederate Army, they were arrested for "care and comfort of the enemy!" Many of MO civilians were thrown into Gratiot Street Prison, including pregnant women.
" It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. Every man released on parole or otherwise becomes an active soldier against us at once, either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated." .....Gen. Grant, August 18, 1864 in a dispatch to Gen. Butler.
Quotes from Generals William T. Sherman
& Phil Sheridan
The young bloods of the South; sons of planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard players and sportsmen, men who never did any work and never will. War suits them. They are splendid riders, first rate shots and utterly reckless. These men must all be killed or employed by us before we can hope for peace....Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
The more Indians we can kill this year the fewer we will need to kill the next, because the more I see of the Indians the more convinced I become that they must either all be killed or be maintained as a species of pauper. Their attempts at civilization is ridiculous... Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Look to the South and you who went with us through that land can best say if they have not been fearfully punished. Mourning is in every household, desolation written in broad characters across the whole face of their country, cities in ashes and fields laid waste, their commerce gone, their system of labor annihilated and destroyed. Ruin and poverty and distress everywhere, and now pestilence adding to the very cap sheaf of their stack of misery...Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, the man who left a 60 mile wide, 300 mile long path of death and desolation across GA and up through SC.
I have destroyed over 2,000 barns filled with wheat, hay and farming implements; over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat, and have driven in front of the Army over 4,000 head of stock and have killed and issued to the troops not less than 3,000 sheep. Tomorrow I will continue the destruction down to Fisher’s Mill. When this is completed, the Valley from Winchester to Staunton, 92 miles, will have but little in it for man or beast.....from an Oct. 7, 1864 report to Gen. Grant from Gen. Sheridan.
During the War Between the States, Lincoln, was waging war on women and children on two fronts. Old Abe's thugs were raping, pillaging and murdering in the West as well as the South.. Lincoln's generals Sheridan and Sherman committed war crimes. Sherman, famous for his "march to the sea," had made a habit of waging war on civilians from early on. Dr. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, economics professor at Loyola College in Baltimore and historian and writer, tells us that Sherman once wrote to his wife that his purpose was the "extermination, not of soldiers alone...but of the people" of the South. Sherman often ordered his soldiers, many of whom were street criminals from Northern as well as European cities, to shoot civilians at random. He ordered his men to burn entire towns in Tennessee and Mississippi and of course Georgia. And the thousands of letters and diaries that survived the war attest to the rape of both black and white women by Sherman's men.
Another of Lincoln's generals Phil Sheridan is known for the horrors he inflicted on civilians in the Shennandoah Valley during the war. In the autumn of 1864, with the winter closing in, Dr. DiLorenzo tells us Sheridan's troops burned crops and killed thousands upon thousands of cattle and sheep and turned women and children out in the cold.
While Sheridan was destroying crops, killing livestock and starving women and children, a Yankee colonel named J. M. Chivington was slaughtering, scalping and mutilating Arapahos and Cheyenne camped at a place called Sand Creek in Colorado. The Indians in the camp had decided to live in peace with the white man because they had come to trust Major Edward W. Wynkoop who was the commander of Fort Lyon located forty miles from Sand Creek. Major Wynkoop was a rare man in the Union army in that he was honorable and kept his word. He did not believe in waging war on civilians either and that was to be his ultimate undoing. Known to the Indians as Tall Chief Wynkoop, he was eventually to resign in protest over Phil Sheridan's policies toward the Indians in the West.
Wynkoop was removed from his post at Fort Lyon because of his kindness to the Indians and was replaced with a cruel man named Major Scott J. Anthony who lied to the Indians and who, under the command of Colonel Chivington, raided the encampment at Sand Creek where they slaughtered men, women and children. Some of the Indians huddled together under a large American flag which belonged to the chief Black Kettle, but the Yankee soldiers killed them anyway. One little girl, Dee Brown tells us in the book "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" met the soldiers waving a white flag, and they still shot her down in cold blood.
St. Mary's Today, Dispatches from Little Dixie: Real Americans by "The Rebel Yell" un-reconstructed journalist Joyce Bennett. Oct. 2, 2001
"The government of the U.S. has any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war - to take their lives, their homes, their land, their everything...war is simply unrestrained by the Constitution...to the persistent secessionist, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better...Mjr. Gen. W. T. Sherman, Jan. 31, 1864.
This war on citizens was not simply restrained to be applied against men and women but also children. Gen. Sherman in a June 21, 1864, letter to Lincoln's Sec. of War, Edwin Station wrote, "There is a class of people men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order." Stanton replied, "Your letter of the 21st of June has just reached me and meets my approval." While the war on civilians started much earlier than 1864, the above is simply proof that the war on children was part of that scheme!
In MO, if care packages of food or clothing was sent to sons of the Confederate Army, they were arrested for "care and comfort of the enemy!" Many of MO civilians were thrown into Gratiot Street Prison, including pregnant women.
" It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. Every man released on parole or otherwise becomes an active soldier against us at once, either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated." .....Gen. Grant, August 18, 1864 in a dispatch to Gen. Butler.
The lincoln War Crimes Trial: A History Lesson
From Lew Rockwell.com:
The Lincoln War Crimes Trial: A History Lesson
by Clyde Wilson
In the previous chapter we discussed the early stages of the North American War of Secession of 1861-63 as the minority Lincoln government attempted to suppress the legal secession of the Southern United States by military invasion. In this chapter we will discuss the conclusion of the war and some of its consequences.
In the spring of 1863 General R.E. Lee’s Confederate army crossed the Potomac for the second time in the hope of relieving devastated areas of the Confederacy and bringing the war to a successful conclusion.
For several weeks he maneuvered freely in Pennsylvania without encountering United States forces, which were under strict orders to protect the Lincoln government in Washington. The Confederates observed the rules of civilized warfare, despite the systematic atrocities that had already been visited upon civilians in the South by the Lincoln forces. Pennsylvanians worked peacefully in their fields as the ragged but confident Confederates marched by.
About the first of July, Lee found the US forces entrenched at Gettysburg, a town in Southern Pennsylvania. Though having superior numbers, "Honest Abe’s" armies were unable to initiate any forward movement. ("Honest Abe" was a name given to Lincoln by his early associates and later political enemies, for the same reason that the biggest boy in a class is called "Tiny.") Union morale was low. While there were many good men in the ranks who had volunteered to fight for the preservation of the American Union, there were also many unwilling conscripts and large numbers of foreigners who had been lured into the army by bounties and who were ignorant of the issues of the war and of American principles of liberty and self-government.
Among the better US soldiers there was much discontent over the recent illegal "Emancipation Proclamation," which in their view had changed the nature of the war, and over the dismissal of the popular General McClellan. Historians have often noted that, generally speaking, the best generals and soldiers in the "Union" armies were not supporters of the Republican Party or the Lincoln administration. Republicans and especially abolitionists tended to avoid military service in the war they had initiated.
After several days of probing attacks by Lee, the decisive breakthrough came on July 3, the eve of a day revered by lovers of liberty and self-government throughout the world. Pickett’s fresh division and Pettigrew’s seasoned veterans broke through the center of the Union line, its weakest point in terms of terrain. Military historians have noted the striking similarity between this attack and the French breaking of the Austrian center at the Battle of Solferino just four years before.
There were heavy casualties on both sides, but the ever-vigilant General Longstreet exploited the breakthrough and rolled up one wing of the union army. The other wing began retreating toward Washington to defend the government there. The noted Confederate cavalryman Stuart arrived at last and began to dog the retreat, which was made miserable by torrential rains and blistering heat.
Some US troops fought bravely, especially General Hancock, a Pennsylvanian, later President of the US, and Col. Joshua Chamberlain of Maine, later US ambassador to the Confederate States. But when the Democratic governors of New York and Illinois ordered their regiments to suspend fighting and return home, the remaining "Union" forces retreated to the inner defenses of the capital, ironically named for a great Virginian who was a relative of General Lee.
On Independence Day following the battle, former President Franklin Pierce addressed a cheering crowd at the capitol in Concord, New Hampshire. Pierce had never wavered in his support for the Constitution despite threats from the Lincoln government. The tide has turned, Pierce told the audience, and the Constitution and liberty of the Fathers would soon be restored in peace. (It should be pointed out that relatively new telegraph lines made communication almost instantaneous by 1863.)
Lincoln had always been careful to stay away from fighting, visiting his forces only in quiet periods, in contrast to President Davis who was often on the battlefield. Immediately upon receiving the news of Gettysburg, Lincoln wired General Grant, an undistinguished officer who had been trying unsuccessfully for months, with a large force, to capture the small Confederate garrison at Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. Grant was ordered to retreat at once into Tennessee and bring his army by rail to the defense of Washington. For reasons that have long been disputed by historians, Grant refused to carry out his order.
Grant was replaced by General Rosecrans, who attempted to carry out Lincoln’s orders. He found, unfortunately, Confederate General Forrest had got in his rear and destroyed his immense supply bases along the Tennessee River. His hands were further tied by an uprising across central and western Kentucky. Rosecrans finally came to rest near Columbus, Ohio, where he could subsist his army.
Taking advantage of Rosecrans withdrawal, Confederate General Dick Taylor, son of a former President of the US, moved down the Mississippi to liberate New Orleans. The "Union" commanders there, General "Beast" Butler and Admiral Porter, who were unsavory characters even by the standards of the Lincoln party, absconded from New Orleans with $2 million in cotton for their personal profit. They were later heard of in South America, where Butler tried unsuccessfully to make himself President of Uruguay. President Davis was able to declare to the world that now, after two years of obstruction, "the Mississippi flowed unvexed to the sea."
The rejoicing of the people of New Orleans, white and black, at freedom from military occupation, was riotous. It was truly laissez le bon temps roulez. More importantly, ships began to make their way through the dissolving (and illegal) naval blockage and enter New Orleans and other Southern ports, bringing much needed munitions and medicines. Among the ships were a number from the Northern States looking for cotton and ready to pay gold rather than the rapidly depreciating US greenbacks. A number of Lincoln’s strongest New England supporters were involved in the trade, which was illegal to them by Lincoln’s order.
A small force left behind in Mississippi by Rosecrans was captured by Forrest. The commander of this force was one General Sherman. Among papers found with Sherman were plans from the Lincoln government for a war of terrorism to be waged systematically against women and children in the South. These included detailed instructions, with illustrations for the soldiers. Houses were to be pillaged and then burned, along with all farm buildings and tools and standing crops. Livestock was to be killed or carried away and food confiscated or destroyed.
Particular emphasis was laid on destructions of family heirlooms – pictures of dead loved ones, Bibles, wedding dresses, and pianos. There were also directions as to how to persuade, or coerce if persuasion failed, black servants into divulging the whereabouts of hidden valuables.
The revelation of these papers shocked the world and played a significant part in the later war crimes trail of Lincoln. Sherman had issued additional orders, urging his soldiers to "make the damned traitorous rebel women and children howl." At his trial later, Sherman defended himself. His actions had been called for, he said, because Americans had too much freedom and needed to be brought under obedience to government like Europeans. The trial of the United States vs. Sherman resulted in a famous precedent-setting verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Meanwhile, Lee waited outside Washington without attacking and the Confederate government renewed the offer made in 1861 and never answered, to negotiate all issues with the US in good faith, on principles of justice and equity. Many of the remaining Union soldiers slipped quietly away, consoling themselves with a popular song in the New York music halls, which went, "I ain’t gonna fight for Ole Abe no more, no more!"
There then occurred one of the extraordinary unexpected historical events, which brought about a dramatic shift in the situation. Lincoln attempted to escape Washington, as he entered, in disguise. He was taken prisoner by Colonel Mosby, a Confederate partisan who operated freely in northern Virginia. Very shortly after, Mosby’s men intercepted a band of assassins intent on killing Lincoln. It was soon revealed that Booth, a double agent, had been hired by the "Union" Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and certain Radical Republican leaders in Congress, to remove "Honest Abe" and make way for a military dictatorship under a reliable Republican.
Subsequently indicted by the US for his part in the attempted assassination, Stanton hanged himself in his prison cell, shouting, "Now I belong to the ages!" Vice President Hannibal Hamlin fled to Boston and then to Canada where he issued a statement that he bore no responsibility for the illegal acts and aggressions committed by the administration.
Relieved of military pressure, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri convened conventions of the people in free elections, seceded from the Union, and asked to join the Confederate States. With some opposition they were admitted to the Confederate Union. Meanwhile, California and Oregon declared their independence and formed a new Confederacy of the Pacific. The CSA was the first to recognize this new union.
Needless to say, the successful establishment of independence by the seceding States had far-reaching consequences, not only in North America, but throughout the world. The great American principle that governments rest upon the consent of the governed had been conspicuously vindicated.
With the capture of Lincoln, the flight of Hamlin, and discrediting of the would-be assassins in Congress, the North was without a head. An unprecedented agreement among governors, later vindicated by constitutional amendment, advanced the 1864 elections to the fall of 1863. Vallandigham of Ohio and Seymour of New York, both strong opponents of Lincoln’s usurpations, were elected President and Vice-President, with a Democratic Congress. Outside of New England and industrial centers dominated by pro-tariff forces, the Republican Party fell away in strength, though the pompous Senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, and the fanatical Stevens of Pennsylvania led a bitter minority in Congress.
Immediately upon his inauguration, President Vallandigham accepted the Confederate offer of negotiation. In a moving address to the country he expressed his wish that the real Union, the one established by the Fathers for all Americans, could be reunited. But he feared the scars of war had made this impossible. All could take comfort in the fact that there were now two great free confederacies favoring the world with examples of liberty and self-government.
The Confederate States waived demands for reparations. The resulting treaty of peace and friendship had two main provisions. As to territory, the Confederacy was recognized as ruler of the Indian territories and the southern portion of New Mexico (later Arizona) and Union-seized western Virginia was returned to the Old Dominion.
The other important provision provided for a lasting cancellation of all tariff barriers between the two Unions. This establishment of the principle of free trade over the Continent (it had been preceded by the repeal of the British Corn Laws) must be given credit for the flourishing prosperity of the two confederacies that followed, as well as their immunity from the imperial wars that have wracked Europe and Asia. It is noteworthy that the Republican tariff industrialists, who fought free trade tooth and nail, found that their profits were not lost, as they had feared, but increased.
President Vallandigham and the Democratic Congress of the US returned to Jeffersonian principles not only on the tariff but across the board. The debacle of the Lincoln administration and its corruption had provided all the evidence needed of the abuses and danger of centralized government. War contracting had showed up tremendous graft for political favorites. Expenditures were curtailed, corruption prosecuted (it was said at one point that every other Lincoln appointee was in jail or under indictment), and the national banking fraud dismantled. The corrupt and brutal Indian policy of Lincoln was terminated in favor of a return to the moderate Jeffersonian policy. To this is attributed the subsequent relative freedom of the US from Indian wars.
There remained one vexing problem. What to do with Lincoln, in comfortable confinement in Richmond, receiving every courtesy from his captors. Doubtless the failed President’s disappointment and sorrow were deepened when his son Robert, who had spent the war at Harvard, denounced Lincoln as a fraud and a failure and attempted to launch his own political career, and Mrs. Lincoln had to be confined to a mental asylum. (The indictment of Mrs. Lincoln for unauthorized expenditures from the White House accounts was quietly dropped.)
The fate of Lincoln became the subject of international interest. Count Bismarck of Prussia and the Czar of Russia called an international conference in support of Lincoln, which justified his actions on the grounds that legitimate governments must have the power to suppress rebellious subjects and provinces. Britain, France, and many of the smaller states of Europe countered with a declaration upholding the American doctrine that governments rest on the consent of the governed.
An idea that gained attention at the time was put forward by the Rev. Mr. Joseph Wilson, a Presbyterian minister in Augusta, Georgia. The peace-loving nations should establish a world government to punish aggressions such as those Lincoln had committed. After all, such offences were against all humanity and not just invaded peoples. The press soon reported that the idea had really come from the Rev. Wilson’s twelve-year old son, Woodrow. (Woodrow, who became a college president, was later noted for his fruitless lectures in favor of world government.)
Who did have jurisdiction over the numerous crimes? True, Lincoln had made unscrupulous war upon the Southern people in an attempt to suppress their freedom. But he had also, in so doing, violated the Constitution of the United States and caused great suffering to the citizens of the US. After mature consideration, Lincoln was turned over to the authorities of the US to be prosecuted in their courts. Ironically, the Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens, an old friend of Lincoln, volunteered for his defense team.
The list of indictments was long:
Violation of the Constitution and his oath of office by invading and waging war against states that had legally and democratically withdrawn their consent from his government, inaugurating one of the cruelest wars in recent history.
Subverting the duly constituted governments of states that had not left the Union, thereby subverting their constitution right to "republican form of government."
Raising troops without the approval of Congress and expending funds without appropriation.
Suspending the writ of habeas corpus and interfering with the press without due process, imprisoning thousands of citizens without charge or trial, and closing courts by military force where no hostilities were occurring.
Corrupting the currency by manipulations and paper swindles unheard of in previous UShistory.
Fraud and corruption by appointees and contractors with his knowledge and connivance.
Continuing the war by raising ever-larger bodies of troops by conscription and hiring of foreign mercenaries and refusing to negotiate in good faith for an end to hostilities.
Confiscation of millions of dollars of property by his agents in the South, especially cotton, without legal proceedings.
Waging war against women and children and civilian property as the matter of policy (rather than as unavoidably incident to combat). (General Sherman and others were called to testify as to their operations and the source of their orders.)
Two questions widely discussed at the time could not be formulated into systematic charges against Lincoln. One was the huge number of deaths among the black population in the South as a result of forcible dislocation by "Union" forces. No accurate account was ever achieved, but the numbers ran into several hundred thousand persons who had died of disease, starvation, and exposure on the roads or in the army camps.
The second unpursued charge had to do with the deliberate starvation and murder of Confederate prisoners. When Lincoln was captured, the guards fled the camps where these prisoners had been confined. Many Northern citizens were willing to testify to the terrible conditions in the camps – exposure and starvation where food and medicine were readily available. One of the strongest impulses for the restoration of good feelings between the former compatriots of the North and South was the Christian aid and comfort given by many Northerners for the relief of these prisoners.
These atrocities could not be directly charged to Lincoln, though they were pursued against a number of lesser officers. Lincoln was charged with contributing to numerous deaths by being the first civilized authority to declare medicine a contraband of war and refusing the Confederate offer to allow Northern doctors to attend the Union prisoners in their hands.
The trial, long and complex, was held in the new US capital, Chicago. Eminent lawyers were engaged on both sides. A number of Radical Republican politicians, hoping to revive political careers, were eager to take the stand against their former president.
The impression that most observers had of Lincoln at the trial was that of a wily corporate lawyer and astute political animal and of a powerful but somewhat warped personality. His employment of specious arguments and false dilemmas, semantic maneuvers, and homely and sometimes bawdy anecdotes to divert attention from the prosecution’s points, became increasingly transparent as the weeks of the trial wore on.
The high point of the trial came when Lincoln, on the stand, avowed that though he now regretted much that had happened, everything had been according to God’s inscrutable will and he had acted only so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people should not perish from the earth. The courtroom erupted in guffaws, whistles, and howls of derision that went on for an hour.
Found guilty, the former leader’s sentence was suspended on condition that he never enter the territory of the United States again. His subsequent wanderings became the subject of a famous story and play, "The Man Without a Country," and were most notable for his collaboration with Karl Marx, whom he met in the British Museum Library, in the early Communist movement that was to have so great an impact on European history.
About the time the war crimes trial ended, General Lee was inaugurated as the second President of the Confederate States. Speaking by the statue of Washington on the capitol grounds at Richmond, he described the first recommendations he would send to Congress. The Southern people had been deeply moved by the loyalty and shared suffering of most of their black servant population during the war. It was time to fulfill the hopes of the Southern Founders of American liberty. He called for a plan that would provide freedom, at the age of maturity, along with land or training in a skilled trade, for all slaves born after a date to be set. The plan had already been approved by the clergy of all denominations in the Confederate States and by many other leading citizens. (It is to Lee’s farseeing wisdom that peaceful relations between white and black in the CSA have not been disrupted by the strife that has characterized other countries of the New World.)
In closing, Lee advised the people of the free Confederacy to put aside all malice and resentment, look forward to the future, and give thanks to the Almighty for his infinite mercy in vindicating to the world the great American principle that governments rest on the consent of the governed.
February 21, 2001
Dr. Wilson is professor of history at the University of South Carolina and editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun.
The Lincoln War Crimes Trial: A History Lesson
by Clyde Wilson
In the previous chapter we discussed the early stages of the North American War of Secession of 1861-63 as the minority Lincoln government attempted to suppress the legal secession of the Southern United States by military invasion. In this chapter we will discuss the conclusion of the war and some of its consequences.
In the spring of 1863 General R.E. Lee’s Confederate army crossed the Potomac for the second time in the hope of relieving devastated areas of the Confederacy and bringing the war to a successful conclusion.
For several weeks he maneuvered freely in Pennsylvania without encountering United States forces, which were under strict orders to protect the Lincoln government in Washington. The Confederates observed the rules of civilized warfare, despite the systematic atrocities that had already been visited upon civilians in the South by the Lincoln forces. Pennsylvanians worked peacefully in their fields as the ragged but confident Confederates marched by.
About the first of July, Lee found the US forces entrenched at Gettysburg, a town in Southern Pennsylvania. Though having superior numbers, "Honest Abe’s" armies were unable to initiate any forward movement. ("Honest Abe" was a name given to Lincoln by his early associates and later political enemies, for the same reason that the biggest boy in a class is called "Tiny.") Union morale was low. While there were many good men in the ranks who had volunteered to fight for the preservation of the American Union, there were also many unwilling conscripts and large numbers of foreigners who had been lured into the army by bounties and who were ignorant of the issues of the war and of American principles of liberty and self-government.
Among the better US soldiers there was much discontent over the recent illegal "Emancipation Proclamation," which in their view had changed the nature of the war, and over the dismissal of the popular General McClellan. Historians have often noted that, generally speaking, the best generals and soldiers in the "Union" armies were not supporters of the Republican Party or the Lincoln administration. Republicans and especially abolitionists tended to avoid military service in the war they had initiated.
After several days of probing attacks by Lee, the decisive breakthrough came on July 3, the eve of a day revered by lovers of liberty and self-government throughout the world. Pickett’s fresh division and Pettigrew’s seasoned veterans broke through the center of the Union line, its weakest point in terms of terrain. Military historians have noted the striking similarity between this attack and the French breaking of the Austrian center at the Battle of Solferino just four years before.
There were heavy casualties on both sides, but the ever-vigilant General Longstreet exploited the breakthrough and rolled up one wing of the union army. The other wing began retreating toward Washington to defend the government there. The noted Confederate cavalryman Stuart arrived at last and began to dog the retreat, which was made miserable by torrential rains and blistering heat.
Some US troops fought bravely, especially General Hancock, a Pennsylvanian, later President of the US, and Col. Joshua Chamberlain of Maine, later US ambassador to the Confederate States. But when the Democratic governors of New York and Illinois ordered their regiments to suspend fighting and return home, the remaining "Union" forces retreated to the inner defenses of the capital, ironically named for a great Virginian who was a relative of General Lee.
On Independence Day following the battle, former President Franklin Pierce addressed a cheering crowd at the capitol in Concord, New Hampshire. Pierce had never wavered in his support for the Constitution despite threats from the Lincoln government. The tide has turned, Pierce told the audience, and the Constitution and liberty of the Fathers would soon be restored in peace. (It should be pointed out that relatively new telegraph lines made communication almost instantaneous by 1863.)
Lincoln had always been careful to stay away from fighting, visiting his forces only in quiet periods, in contrast to President Davis who was often on the battlefield. Immediately upon receiving the news of Gettysburg, Lincoln wired General Grant, an undistinguished officer who had been trying unsuccessfully for months, with a large force, to capture the small Confederate garrison at Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. Grant was ordered to retreat at once into Tennessee and bring his army by rail to the defense of Washington. For reasons that have long been disputed by historians, Grant refused to carry out his order.
Grant was replaced by General Rosecrans, who attempted to carry out Lincoln’s orders. He found, unfortunately, Confederate General Forrest had got in his rear and destroyed his immense supply bases along the Tennessee River. His hands were further tied by an uprising across central and western Kentucky. Rosecrans finally came to rest near Columbus, Ohio, where he could subsist his army.
Taking advantage of Rosecrans withdrawal, Confederate General Dick Taylor, son of a former President of the US, moved down the Mississippi to liberate New Orleans. The "Union" commanders there, General "Beast" Butler and Admiral Porter, who were unsavory characters even by the standards of the Lincoln party, absconded from New Orleans with $2 million in cotton for their personal profit. They were later heard of in South America, where Butler tried unsuccessfully to make himself President of Uruguay. President Davis was able to declare to the world that now, after two years of obstruction, "the Mississippi flowed unvexed to the sea."
The rejoicing of the people of New Orleans, white and black, at freedom from military occupation, was riotous. It was truly laissez le bon temps roulez. More importantly, ships began to make their way through the dissolving (and illegal) naval blockage and enter New Orleans and other Southern ports, bringing much needed munitions and medicines. Among the ships were a number from the Northern States looking for cotton and ready to pay gold rather than the rapidly depreciating US greenbacks. A number of Lincoln’s strongest New England supporters were involved in the trade, which was illegal to them by Lincoln’s order.
A small force left behind in Mississippi by Rosecrans was captured by Forrest. The commander of this force was one General Sherman. Among papers found with Sherman were plans from the Lincoln government for a war of terrorism to be waged systematically against women and children in the South. These included detailed instructions, with illustrations for the soldiers. Houses were to be pillaged and then burned, along with all farm buildings and tools and standing crops. Livestock was to be killed or carried away and food confiscated or destroyed.
Particular emphasis was laid on destructions of family heirlooms – pictures of dead loved ones, Bibles, wedding dresses, and pianos. There were also directions as to how to persuade, or coerce if persuasion failed, black servants into divulging the whereabouts of hidden valuables.
The revelation of these papers shocked the world and played a significant part in the later war crimes trail of Lincoln. Sherman had issued additional orders, urging his soldiers to "make the damned traitorous rebel women and children howl." At his trial later, Sherman defended himself. His actions had been called for, he said, because Americans had too much freedom and needed to be brought under obedience to government like Europeans. The trial of the United States vs. Sherman resulted in a famous precedent-setting verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Meanwhile, Lee waited outside Washington without attacking and the Confederate government renewed the offer made in 1861 and never answered, to negotiate all issues with the US in good faith, on principles of justice and equity. Many of the remaining Union soldiers slipped quietly away, consoling themselves with a popular song in the New York music halls, which went, "I ain’t gonna fight for Ole Abe no more, no more!"
There then occurred one of the extraordinary unexpected historical events, which brought about a dramatic shift in the situation. Lincoln attempted to escape Washington, as he entered, in disguise. He was taken prisoner by Colonel Mosby, a Confederate partisan who operated freely in northern Virginia. Very shortly after, Mosby’s men intercepted a band of assassins intent on killing Lincoln. It was soon revealed that Booth, a double agent, had been hired by the "Union" Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and certain Radical Republican leaders in Congress, to remove "Honest Abe" and make way for a military dictatorship under a reliable Republican.
Subsequently indicted by the US for his part in the attempted assassination, Stanton hanged himself in his prison cell, shouting, "Now I belong to the ages!" Vice President Hannibal Hamlin fled to Boston and then to Canada where he issued a statement that he bore no responsibility for the illegal acts and aggressions committed by the administration.
Relieved of military pressure, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri convened conventions of the people in free elections, seceded from the Union, and asked to join the Confederate States. With some opposition they were admitted to the Confederate Union. Meanwhile, California and Oregon declared their independence and formed a new Confederacy of the Pacific. The CSA was the first to recognize this new union.
Needless to say, the successful establishment of independence by the seceding States had far-reaching consequences, not only in North America, but throughout the world. The great American principle that governments rest upon the consent of the governed had been conspicuously vindicated.
With the capture of Lincoln, the flight of Hamlin, and discrediting of the would-be assassins in Congress, the North was without a head. An unprecedented agreement among governors, later vindicated by constitutional amendment, advanced the 1864 elections to the fall of 1863. Vallandigham of Ohio and Seymour of New York, both strong opponents of Lincoln’s usurpations, were elected President and Vice-President, with a Democratic Congress. Outside of New England and industrial centers dominated by pro-tariff forces, the Republican Party fell away in strength, though the pompous Senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, and the fanatical Stevens of Pennsylvania led a bitter minority in Congress.
Immediately upon his inauguration, President Vallandigham accepted the Confederate offer of negotiation. In a moving address to the country he expressed his wish that the real Union, the one established by the Fathers for all Americans, could be reunited. But he feared the scars of war had made this impossible. All could take comfort in the fact that there were now two great free confederacies favoring the world with examples of liberty and self-government.
The Confederate States waived demands for reparations. The resulting treaty of peace and friendship had two main provisions. As to territory, the Confederacy was recognized as ruler of the Indian territories and the southern portion of New Mexico (later Arizona) and Union-seized western Virginia was returned to the Old Dominion.
The other important provision provided for a lasting cancellation of all tariff barriers between the two Unions. This establishment of the principle of free trade over the Continent (it had been preceded by the repeal of the British Corn Laws) must be given credit for the flourishing prosperity of the two confederacies that followed, as well as their immunity from the imperial wars that have wracked Europe and Asia. It is noteworthy that the Republican tariff industrialists, who fought free trade tooth and nail, found that their profits were not lost, as they had feared, but increased.
President Vallandigham and the Democratic Congress of the US returned to Jeffersonian principles not only on the tariff but across the board. The debacle of the Lincoln administration and its corruption had provided all the evidence needed of the abuses and danger of centralized government. War contracting had showed up tremendous graft for political favorites. Expenditures were curtailed, corruption prosecuted (it was said at one point that every other Lincoln appointee was in jail or under indictment), and the national banking fraud dismantled. The corrupt and brutal Indian policy of Lincoln was terminated in favor of a return to the moderate Jeffersonian policy. To this is attributed the subsequent relative freedom of the US from Indian wars.
There remained one vexing problem. What to do with Lincoln, in comfortable confinement in Richmond, receiving every courtesy from his captors. Doubtless the failed President’s disappointment and sorrow were deepened when his son Robert, who had spent the war at Harvard, denounced Lincoln as a fraud and a failure and attempted to launch his own political career, and Mrs. Lincoln had to be confined to a mental asylum. (The indictment of Mrs. Lincoln for unauthorized expenditures from the White House accounts was quietly dropped.)
The fate of Lincoln became the subject of international interest. Count Bismarck of Prussia and the Czar of Russia called an international conference in support of Lincoln, which justified his actions on the grounds that legitimate governments must have the power to suppress rebellious subjects and provinces. Britain, France, and many of the smaller states of Europe countered with a declaration upholding the American doctrine that governments rest on the consent of the governed.
An idea that gained attention at the time was put forward by the Rev. Mr. Joseph Wilson, a Presbyterian minister in Augusta, Georgia. The peace-loving nations should establish a world government to punish aggressions such as those Lincoln had committed. After all, such offences were against all humanity and not just invaded peoples. The press soon reported that the idea had really come from the Rev. Wilson’s twelve-year old son, Woodrow. (Woodrow, who became a college president, was later noted for his fruitless lectures in favor of world government.)
Who did have jurisdiction over the numerous crimes? True, Lincoln had made unscrupulous war upon the Southern people in an attempt to suppress their freedom. But he had also, in so doing, violated the Constitution of the United States and caused great suffering to the citizens of the US. After mature consideration, Lincoln was turned over to the authorities of the US to be prosecuted in their courts. Ironically, the Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens, an old friend of Lincoln, volunteered for his defense team.
The list of indictments was long:
Violation of the Constitution and his oath of office by invading and waging war against states that had legally and democratically withdrawn their consent from his government, inaugurating one of the cruelest wars in recent history.
Subverting the duly constituted governments of states that had not left the Union, thereby subverting their constitution right to "republican form of government."
Raising troops without the approval of Congress and expending funds without appropriation.
Suspending the writ of habeas corpus and interfering with the press without due process, imprisoning thousands of citizens without charge or trial, and closing courts by military force where no hostilities were occurring.
Corrupting the currency by manipulations and paper swindles unheard of in previous UShistory.
Fraud and corruption by appointees and contractors with his knowledge and connivance.
Continuing the war by raising ever-larger bodies of troops by conscription and hiring of foreign mercenaries and refusing to negotiate in good faith for an end to hostilities.
Confiscation of millions of dollars of property by his agents in the South, especially cotton, without legal proceedings.
Waging war against women and children and civilian property as the matter of policy (rather than as unavoidably incident to combat). (General Sherman and others were called to testify as to their operations and the source of their orders.)
Two questions widely discussed at the time could not be formulated into systematic charges against Lincoln. One was the huge number of deaths among the black population in the South as a result of forcible dislocation by "Union" forces. No accurate account was ever achieved, but the numbers ran into several hundred thousand persons who had died of disease, starvation, and exposure on the roads or in the army camps.
The second unpursued charge had to do with the deliberate starvation and murder of Confederate prisoners. When Lincoln was captured, the guards fled the camps where these prisoners had been confined. Many Northern citizens were willing to testify to the terrible conditions in the camps – exposure and starvation where food and medicine were readily available. One of the strongest impulses for the restoration of good feelings between the former compatriots of the North and South was the Christian aid and comfort given by many Northerners for the relief of these prisoners.
These atrocities could not be directly charged to Lincoln, though they were pursued against a number of lesser officers. Lincoln was charged with contributing to numerous deaths by being the first civilized authority to declare medicine a contraband of war and refusing the Confederate offer to allow Northern doctors to attend the Union prisoners in their hands.
The trial, long and complex, was held in the new US capital, Chicago. Eminent lawyers were engaged on both sides. A number of Radical Republican politicians, hoping to revive political careers, were eager to take the stand against their former president.
The impression that most observers had of Lincoln at the trial was that of a wily corporate lawyer and astute political animal and of a powerful but somewhat warped personality. His employment of specious arguments and false dilemmas, semantic maneuvers, and homely and sometimes bawdy anecdotes to divert attention from the prosecution’s points, became increasingly transparent as the weeks of the trial wore on.
The high point of the trial came when Lincoln, on the stand, avowed that though he now regretted much that had happened, everything had been according to God’s inscrutable will and he had acted only so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people should not perish from the earth. The courtroom erupted in guffaws, whistles, and howls of derision that went on for an hour.
Found guilty, the former leader’s sentence was suspended on condition that he never enter the territory of the United States again. His subsequent wanderings became the subject of a famous story and play, "The Man Without a Country," and were most notable for his collaboration with Karl Marx, whom he met in the British Museum Library, in the early Communist movement that was to have so great an impact on European history.
About the time the war crimes trial ended, General Lee was inaugurated as the second President of the Confederate States. Speaking by the statue of Washington on the capitol grounds at Richmond, he described the first recommendations he would send to Congress. The Southern people had been deeply moved by the loyalty and shared suffering of most of their black servant population during the war. It was time to fulfill the hopes of the Southern Founders of American liberty. He called for a plan that would provide freedom, at the age of maturity, along with land or training in a skilled trade, for all slaves born after a date to be set. The plan had already been approved by the clergy of all denominations in the Confederate States and by many other leading citizens. (It is to Lee’s farseeing wisdom that peaceful relations between white and black in the CSA have not been disrupted by the strife that has characterized other countries of the New World.)
In closing, Lee advised the people of the free Confederacy to put aside all malice and resentment, look forward to the future, and give thanks to the Almighty for his infinite mercy in vindicating to the world the great American principle that governments rest on the consent of the governed.
February 21, 2001
Dr. Wilson is professor of history at the University of South Carolina and editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)