Heritage Not Hate? Defining The True Meaning Of Southern Heritage & Confederate Identity

Defining The True Meaning Of Southern Heritage & Confederate Identity 

By C.W. Roden

"It’s about 'heritage, not hate,' I hear. This is sometimes naive, sometimes disingenuous, sometimes downright ignorant and sometimes a mingling of all three. I’m all for remembering history. I’m all for celebrating heritage. I’m all for celebrating the South. It has grits. It has Faulkner. It has barbecue. I’m just confused by the logic here. Why, if what you want to do is celebrate the South -- but not the racist, ugly parts of the South -- would you choose to do so by waving a symbol literally used by the Confederacy? This just seems like the least efficient possible route of achieving what you say you want to achieve."

That quote comes from some anonymous Social "Just Us" regressive and anti-Confederate heritage reactionary, and it sums up perfectly just how far behind many of them truly are when it relates to the idea of both Southern and Confederate heritage as a whole. 

It seems like these days those of us who honor Confederate heritage hear this argument -- or more likely some far less well spoken and more profanity-laden version of this talking point -- from those who remain largely ignorant of exactly what it is defenders of that heritage actually honor. 

Sadly many of the most ignorant and uninformed are themselves Southerners of Confederate descent that believe in their hearts based on some personal experience, or a great deal of misinformation, that there can be nothing behind the display of the Dixie Cross banner, or the many Confederate monuments throughout the Southland other than some vaguely defined attempt to promote fear and bigotry. 

Once upon a time back in my youth, this blogger once felt as these people did and understand where they come from. 

Now obviously if y'all have spent more than half an hour reading this blog then y'all know that I have long since grew past my ignorance on the subject of Southern heritage and Confederate identity long ago. This didn't happen overnight, not did it come from any one source.

It came from a couple of years of critical thinking and from taking the time and trouble to not only visit Confederate memorial services, but to talk with those who attended them and see them as free-thinking individuals rather than group-think caricatures and stereotypes. I did not allow myself to be indoctrinated in "Lost Cause" nostalgia, nor did I close my mind to new experiences as far too many of today's youth appear to be fond of doing. 

I watched these men, women and children dressed up in replica Confederate uniforms and 19th century clothes. I watched as "widows" in black gowns laid wreaths of flowers on graves and monuments for the dead. I watched children and adults alike kneel down to place flags on soldiers graves. I listened to they prayers, to the roll call of the dead, of stories of individual lives and who they were to the people telling them. I did not hear glorification of war, or hatred for anyone -- not even the Union soldier. All I saw were people who cared about the dead in the graves, the men honored on those monuments, and the connection through blood and family they have with the living today.

I learned from observation and keeping an open mind that these were not closed-minded people who saw everything in "Moonlight and Magnolias" terms. Nor were they folks who longed for the days of sitting on a porch while African-Americans and other minorities toiled in the fields and did their yard work. 

In fact I found that not all of them were in fact Anglo-Celtic at all! There were people from all walks of life, from all racial and ethnic identities there to honor the life of Johnny Reb and the men who led them -- many of them also direct descendants. 

What I found was simply a group of fellow Southerners who shared my love for history and personal identity. People whom, for the most part, simply do not look at the world entirely in terms of racial identity politics. White, black, Hispanics, Native, Jewish, Christians, and others -- a virtual tapestry of Southern cultural identity. All equal brothers and sisters who shared one important thing in common: they were all Southern and descendants of the Confederate dead.  

I saw the simple message in all of those memorial services and small acts of honor, especially to those laying in unmarked graves with Unknown Soldier as their own legacy: We remember you, soldier -- and we still care.

The more I learned and the more I came to understand that, these same people welcomed me into their small but interesting family. I was a son of Dixie that came home. A few years later I joined the Sons of Confederate Veterans and since then I have never failed to attend a year observance of Confederate Memorial Day, never failed to help clean the graves of the dead when called upon, or place the flags on their graves, or light luminaries at the monuments in the evenings.  

More so, I have never failed since that time to stand up and speak out whenever someone denigrates my fellow Confederate descendants, my brothers and sisters of Dixie, whenever someone says a cross word about them, or abuses the symbols of the heritage we share in one form or another.

Defining Southern Heritage

Now unfortunately there are still Southerners today who remain ignorant of the true meaning of their own heritage, or reject the idea of what they wrongly believe that heritage is in favor of presenting themselves favorably to modern-day political correct ideologies. For them, and many others who live outside of Dixie, terms like Southern heritage and Heritage Not Hatred mean very little, or are likely viewed as meaningless slogans. 

Perhaps the most amusing example of this comes from one of these regressive lost Southerners I witnessed only a year ago who showed up to protest the yearly reunion of the South Carolina Division Sons of Confederate Veterans, a somewhat middle-aged white woman standing around holding a sign that read: Y'all Means All. 

Ironically, in spire of her abysmal ignorance of the people she came to protest, or to virtue signal against in favor of gaining the approval of her assorted nuts -- oops, I mean peers -- this woman's slogan actually came far closer to the truth than I am certain she realizes -- Maybe not grammatically, but in the overall spirit of its meaning. 

True Southern heritage as a living heritage is about all of us.

To define Southern heritage as a whole the way a Confederate heritage supporter defines it, one would have to imagine that heritage as an large, old patchwork quilt with each square representing different cultural aspects from various origins that go back well before the modern-day Southern culture to pre-European colonial days: Cajuns, Creoles, Scots-Irish, English, Gullah-Geechee, African, Appalachian, Cherokee, ect. 
  
Now imagine that all of these differing cultural groups representing these squares are woven together on the same patchwork quilt by strings of history and shared cultural experiences that inter-connect them into the larger whole. In the end creating a beautiful old quilt. 

This old quilt called Southern heritage has its torn places certainly, its burn marks and old stains representing some of the less attractive parts of our shared identity as a Southern people; yet overall even with those old scars this big beautiful quilt is still held dear by everyone who defines themselves as a proudly Southern person. 

Everyone who has ever lived in what we call The South -- the New South or the Old South, really makes no difference -- and everyone who lives in it today is a part of that old patchwork quilt of Southern heritage.
 
Confederate heritage is only one of those patches in the quilt interwoven with the others. A frayed and worn one to be sure, but one that is as precious at the whole quilt itself, and also deeply connected to the other various multi-cultural patches mentioned. 

For those of us who honor Southern-Confederate historical heritage, we do not so much honor the War Between the States itself -- the destruction and the loss of human life, nor necessarily the Confederate government or its ideals -- although there are people who include the more positive of those in terms of representative government as opposed to the negatives which include, unfortunately slavery. That is not to say some people don't, although they represent only a fraction of the Confederate heritage movement. 

Rather when we honor this aspect of our living Southern heritage, we honor the courage of the Confederate soldier himself -- soldiers many recognize as American veterans (the old Union soldiers who fought against him accepted him as a fellow American soldier after the War ended) and his legacy in terms of the martial spirit he gave to his ancestors -- Southern men who served in the US military and fought with the descendants of his former Union opponents to defeat the enemies of America. That too is also a part of American heritage as a whole. 

For us the Confederate soldier wasn't just some nameless footnote in history, he was our ancestors. People who shared our last names, our family. Our blood. A piece of us. It is just about wanting to honor one's own sense of personal identity and the heritage given through blood and a sense of personal honor. 

Nothing more and never anything less than that.

Finally, because Confederate heritage is so interwoven into Southern identity as much as any other aspect of Southern cultural identity, it is a living heritage that represents not just one group of Southerners, but all Southerners everywhere of all colors and creeds worldwide. That heritage belongs to us all, even if one does not feel like honoring it while another does. It belongs more to the descendants of Confederate soldiers -- also men and boys of all races and religions -- who fought under the battle flag; yet that heritage is a gift to all Southern born people everywhere.

Now what happens when one tries to remove a square from a quilt folks? Obviously there is a large hole in the quilt, but more so the strings that hold the quilt together to other squares begin to come loose and unravel because those same strings bind that one square to others and in turn those other squares to others still. When you choose to reject one square, the entire quilt becomes useless or worse, falls apart.

To deny any of that, or to claim that you can pick and choose which aspects of that living heritage defines you is the worst sort of folly. Certainly one or more squares can personally represent your individual cultural identity directly, but overall the rest of those squares are also a part of you and other Southerners as a whole.

Our shared Southern heritage is all a part of us. Appalachian history is Southern history. Black history is Southern history. Scots-Irish history is Southern history. Cherokee history is Southern history. Hispanic history is Southern history. And yes Confederate history is Southern history. We are all bound together and a part of that same patchwork quilt that is Southern heritage.

   
So yeah, in that respect: Y'all does in fact mean All.

 

Debunking The Myth That General Robert E. Lee Opposed Confederate Monuments

A strawman argument can best be described as a type of logical fallacy committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.

Over the last few years, anti-Confederate heritage regressives have enjoyed propping up just such a straw man argument against the display of Confederate monuments and flags on public property -- or anywhere else for that matter.  

Employing their usual tactic of taking someone's words selectively and adding their own unique interpretation to them, social regressives and certain agenda-minded "historians" make the argument that, based upon his own written correspondence, General Robert E. Lee himself opposed the idea of erecting and displaying monuments to the Confederate soldier.

This argument has been employed, ad nauseam, by the regressive Left, their media allies, and other assorted lapdogs (namely the previously mentioned hysterians....I mean, "historians") to attempt to justify their removal of Confederate monuments for whatever stated reasons they have.

But to what end employ this particular argument though? Obviously the cultural vandals care nothing for the actual words of General Lee "the traitor" on any profound level. 

The point of using this particular straw man argument is to demoralize those defenders of Confederate heritage and proud Confederate descendants who would continue to speak out against the destruction of these monuments and removal of flags. Who oppose the continued attempts to damn the memory of the Confederate citizen soldier. 

More so, it is a false argument designed to convince average American citizens still on the fence regarding symbols of Confederate heritage and its symbols that perhaps the greatest example of the Confederate soldier -- the so-called "Marble Man" Ole Marse Robert himself -- opposed honoring the Confederate soldiers that he led and who died under him in defense of their homes and families. 

This false narrative is not only an insult to the average intelligence and common sense of the Southern and American people, it is an insult to the memory of perhaps one of the most well remembered and well respected leaders in American history -- and despite media narratives to the contrary, General Lee still is.

This straw man narrative is based on the selective interpretation of a letter written by Lee himself in response to a request by another former Confederate General Thomas L. Rosser for help in erecting a suitable Confederate monument. 

This is the letter in full: 

(Courtesy of the Lee Family Archives website)

Nearly all regressive outlets and agenda-based "historians" who promote the straw man argument that Lee opposed the construction of Confederate monuments after the war points to the first sentence of the second paragraph alone without appropriate context -- that is when they even cite this letter at all. Most regressives tend to simply throw out the talking point and repeat it until even they believe it themselves.

So let us examine the meaning of Lee's first sentence without the context of the second for a moment:

"As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated; my conviction is, that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt in the present condition of the Country, would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating its accomplishments; & of continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour." 
 
Lee accepted the defeat of the Confederacy and Southern independence and resigned himself to make the best of rebuilding the South and reuniting the country. His choice of careers in accepting the leadership of Washington College in Lexington (now Washington-Lee College) reflects strongly on this. He encouraged other former Confederate veterans and young Southern men to be good American citizens.

But did that aspect of Lee's character mean that he opposed the erection of Confederate monuments, or honoring the Confederate dead? 

Not exactly.

At the end of 1866, when Lee wrote his words, the South was still struggling financially from the devastating effects of the War and money was scarce for many starving families of Confederate veterans and those who had lost loved ones in the fighting. What little money there was needed to be used to buy the tools for farming and the means to grow food, or to rebuild ruined cities and communities.

One of the main reasons most Confederate monuments at the time were not built between 1880 - 1920 was the severe economic hardships the defeated Southern States endured for decades after the War, and largely did not end until the end of the Great Depression of the 1930s and early 40s.

The desire to honor the fallen men and boys of the Confederate military was still there. This is reflected in the second sentence of the second paragraph of Lee's letter:

"All I think that can now be done, is to aid our noble & generous women in their efforts to protect the graves & mark the last resting places of those who have fallen, & wait for better times."

So in the context of those details, the second sentence explains Lee's polite refusal to support the building of a Confederate monument. The second sentence, referring no doubt to the Confederate widows and Southern ladies of Soldier's Aid Societies being formed across Dixie, and the first efforts at establishing a remembrance day for the honored dead, clearly shows that nowhere in his heart did General Lee forget those men and boys who fell under his command in the campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia. Any former military officer in any army who'd ever had to write letters of condolence to families of fallen soldiers will tell you no commander would, nor could, ever do that.

So obviously Lee was not opposed to memorializing the honored dead of the Confederate army.

It would be here that the Opposition throws up another straw man for our consideration: There were no Confederate flags or Confederate uniforms at Lee's funeral in 1870.

Which is true, there were no Confederate symbols of any type at Lee's funeral. Neither was Lee himself laid to rest in his gray military uniform -- or any uniform at all.

In 1870, the State of Virginia was under US military occupation and martial law during the Reconstruction Era. One of the occupation laws was that the display of Confederate flags and wearing of Confederate uniforms was forbidden. In fact, under martial law gatherings of more than a few people -- including funerals -- were overseen by squads of uniformed soldiers, as Lee's funeral, one of the largest in the state's history at the time, undoubtedly was. Nobody could have brought out a Confederate flag, or worn a gray or butternut uniform without being summarily arrested and fined.

Newspaper article from the Rome (Georgia) Courier dated
Jan. 31, 1867 detailing an account of former Confederate
soldiers arrested for the public display of a Confederate flag
during Reconstruction in violation of occupation law.
(Courtesy of Mr. Eddie Inman)

So yeah, that little straw man catches on fire and quickly burns to a cinder.

Oh but the regressive aren't done with their straw men just yet: "Lee never wanted a huge statue of himself anywhere."

Also true, but always to a point when it comes to these arguments.

Based on his writings, which detail who he was more than any modern-day interpretation could, Robert Edward Lee was a humble, devoutly Christian man who opposed any attempt at self-glorification. He probably would have opposed any attempt to build a grand monument of himself while he was still alive.

However, before you regressive haters jump up and down and give yourselves high-fives for coming up with a "brilliant" counter-argument, keep in mind something about human nature, and show you just how ridiculous this line of thinking is.

Unless a person is a complete egomaniac, nobody would support having such a grand monument built to them while they still live.

Do you think Abraham Lincoln would approve of the Lincoln Memorial being built while he was still alive? Or George Washington would have applauded the Washington Monument? Do you think that Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson would approve of Mount Rushmore being carved out while either of them were still breathing?

For that matter do you think the citizen soldiers of the Confederate army, or for that matter the soldiers of the Union army, who fell in the battles of the War Between The States would have wanted statues and large monuments built to them while they were still breathing? No, I am fairly certain they would have preferred to have come home alive and been with their families. Do you think ANY gravestone or marker in any cemetery in the world, no matter how grandiose, is there because the person in the grave wants it there, or rest till Judgment Day under it?

Monuments to soldiers and great men are never built while they are still around. They are built by those who came after them, and by those who still remember them, so that future generations do not forget them and the lessons they imparted.

With that the last straw man turns to dust and blows away. 

In the end, by his own words, General Lee was not opposed to future generations in "better times" honoring the Confederate dead, or remembering him; though he probably would have found many conclusions about who he was from those who promote both the "Lost Cause" and "Righteous Cause" mythological narratives -- to be widely wrong on all counts. 

Almost certainly he would never support the misuse of the Confederate flag his soldiers fought and suffered under, nor the monuments to their memories, misused as tools for modern political division and the fomenting of racial hatred in America, and would speak out vehemently against those alt-Right reactionaries and alt-Left anarchists who today seek to divide this nation.

IMPORTANT BLOGGER'S NOTE (08-20-17): Oops! In offering my summary on this post, I accidentally mislabeled a personality on Mouth Rushmore. I wrote John Adams instead of Thomas Jefferson. I have since corrected the mistake and would love to offer appropriate credit to the individual who pointed out the discrepancy, however "Anonymous" poster isn't a real name I can use. All the same I would like to thank the diligent individual who pointed out the mistake. ~C. Roden (blogger and writer)

Anti-Confederate Heritage Reactionary Tries To Link Charlottesville Tragedy To Southern Heritage -- And Gets Soundly Pwned By Yours Truly

This morning, I took the time to look through the news online before making breakfast. 

The tragic events in Charlottesville were still in my mind since learning of them late last night, and I wanted to see what further information had come to light. 

Not that I trust the mainstream US media to report anything closely resembling the truth mind you. I know all too well that the story will be used in the future to justify continued attacks on Confederate monuments and calls for their removal. I can easily predict that some line connecting this incident will be attached to every journalistic hit-piece against the display of any Confederate symbol in the near future, much like the continued references to the Left's favorite white supremacist continues to be two years after the Charleston tragedy. 

Still curiosity got the best of me, and wouldn't you know it, I found a story written just last night by another Southern-born regressive from Virginia, who attempted to link the slogan "Heritage Not Hate" to the actions of those white nationalists. 

I am hopeful that many people reading this blog are aware that true defenders of Southern-Confederate historical heritage are largely honorable Southern people made up of many people, including a number of non-whites and non-Christians, who reject white supremacist ideology, as documented here on this blog on many occasions. 

To make the broad claim that everyone who displays a Confederate flag, or stands at a Confederate monument is on the same side, or share the same thoughts and mentality toward those who think or look differently is of course simplistic and asinine. Then again regressive alt-Leftism isn't largely made up of mental giants who possess the ability to see distinctions in people. I personally know the difference between a person who is a classical Liberal and a modern-day regressive Social "Just-Us" Warrior. Because I know the difference, I choose not to classify all liberals in the same light. That being said, not everyone takes the time to look closely at distinctions between people and not lump them all together in group-think mentalities. 

Which brings us to today's example of the subspecies regressive cuckus, Mr. Tyler Coates of Virginia and his hit-piece in esquire.com attempting to link Confederate heritage and the slogan "Heritage Not Hate" to those white nationalist throwbacks in Charlottesville yesterday. Since the site does not allow for comments, your blogger will once again dissect the arguments here, pointing out their obvious flaws in Confederate Red.

Enjoy.

 

It's No Longer About Southern Heritage. In Fact, It Never Was. 

Your opinion -- such as it is -- is duly noted, snowflake.

 

By (regressive cuck) Tyler Coates Aug 12, 2017 (and corrected by C.W. Roden ~ The Man Deniers Fear The Most)

It's time Southerners recognize the lies we've been telling ourselves for over a century.

I wonder if I can make you recognize the lie you are telling yourself right now dude?

"It's about heritage, not hate." And if you had the first clue as to what that phrase truly means, you would agree. Sadly many modern-day regressives clearly do not. Sometime soon I am going to have to write a detailed post on the subject.

As a kid growing up in Virginia, that's the answer I always received when I questioned a Confederate flag hanging on the side of a shed or the statues of Confederate generals lining Monument Avenue in Richmond, our state capital. These weren't symbols of intolerance, racism, or white supremacy. No, these were to honor the lives lost in a lost cause: a war that divided our country in two, a series of battles in which the Southern man bravely defended his homeland and tragically lost. The monuments were built by grieving families who lost their loved ones: sons, brothers, husbands, and significant others. Killed in an ugly, useless war (as all wars ultimately are) and built as a means of closure for many who never learned the ultimate fate of their lost loved ones. The flags are displayed to honor the courage of those men and as part of our shared Southern historical and cultural identity. For 98% of us who honor them properly, they mean nothing more than that, and never have.

We Southerners have a strong sense of pride for our history and culture. We're very good at lying to ourselves to fit the narrative we want to believe. Your first sentence was well written, though you had to follow it up with what I am pretty sure will end up being regressive BS. Let's see if I am correct, shall we?

I grew up in Montross, Virginia, a tiny little town about an hour from Richmond. There's not much to say about it, but our bragging rights come from the fact that Montross is the seat of Westmoreland County, where two of America's most famous generals were born: George Washington and Robert E. Lee. Both of them moved away when they were children, but the symbolism is still there: Two men who played major roles in fundamental moments of our nation's history had their origins in our tiny part of the world.

Robert E. Lee, I'll admit, always cast a darker shadow over that part of Virginia than his Revolutionary War counterpart. I grew up being fed the tall tales of his devotion to his home state, his compassion and integrity; he sided not with the South, but with Virginia, and that is why he led the Confederate army against a tyrannical Union. I would have said an illegal and unconstitutional Union invasion, but oh well. It's bullshit, of course, but again: Southerners like their legends, and we like to present beautiful odes to our heroes even when the acts they committed were hardly heroic—but were, in fact, treasonous. Technically secession was never declared "treason" until a US Supreme Court decision (White Vs. Texas 1869) Four years AFTER the War Between The States ended in 1865. Now obviously you are aware (at least I hope so) that in a Constitutional Republic, or any democracy for that matter, a person cannot be convicted of an alleged crime when one is not legally declared a crime. Since there was no consensus on the legality of secession prior to that court decision, neither Lee, nor any other Confederate leader committed a legal crime. That isn't bullshit dude, it's legal fact. Own it!

I have never looked up to the men whose effigies stand tall in various parts of the South. I never thought they were heroes, simply because of the fact that they were fighting for a destructive, evil cause. Defending one's home from an illegal and unconstitutional invasion and destruction is an "evil cause"? Wow, guess all those European countries who fought in vain against the Axis Powers and the Soviet invasions during WW2 and after were clearly in the wrong, eh? We can have an endless debate over "states' rights" as the root of the Civil War; I find it pointless, because it is nothing more than a convenient narrative to avoid the truth. These men were fighting against the notion that all men and women—not just the white men in power, and the women who stood beside them—deserve the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for which our forefathers fought in the late 18th century. And naturally like all Leftist regressives, you are using that wonderful superpower y'all have where you can look into the hearts and minds of people and tell for certain you know what each and every individual thinks, thought, or feels. What a wonderful ability that is! Does it come with the educational lobotomy y'all get? They wanted to continue the practice of enslaving black men and women, of protecting whiteness. I will never see a Confederate flag or monument and separate it from a history of white supremacy, no matter how often I was instructed by our biased history lessons to ignore it. If you truly knew anything about those who actually honor the term "Heritage Not Hatred" or made an honest effort in your life to try and understand those who do, then you would know that a good many of us do not look past the negatives in Confederate heritage either. We simply do not believe they define the whole, nor negate the positive aspects as you seem to; but neither do we look past the wrongs committed by our ancestors either.

Last night in Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacists descended upon the town—and upon the grounds of the University of Virginia—to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park. (Emancipation Park, to be exact; Southerners often turn a blind eye to irony.) Brandishing tiki torches, racist and homophobic slogans, and Nazi salutes, the group began to clash with Black Lives Matter activists and other groups protesting the planned "Unite the Right" rally. Those clashes continued on Saturday morning, when Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency. Allow me to point out a couple of ironies YOU seem to be overlooking fella. For one thing the gathering was largely condemned by honorable Confederate heritage groups opposed to the display of the flag and co-opting of Confederate symbols by white supremacists. Another thing, Emancipation Park was named in far more recent history, long after the statue of Lee was placed there. I know those details don't fit your narrative, but if you truly wish to lecture about honesty and not lying to oneself, you might wanna practice what you are trying to preach. 

To my fellow Virginians and Southerners who have stood so steadfast in their refusal to see our Confederate monuments for what they are, I ask you: What does this say about our heritage? It says that the enemies of our shared and living Confederate heritage are not just groups like the NAACP and radical Leftist regressives, they include those alt-right white nationalists who seek to wrongly co-opt symbols they have no moral claim to -- a detail that honorable Southern heritage groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans have known for two decades and have actively spoken out against. A detail that I pointed out on this blog HERE. These men and women are not protesting the elimination of Southern culture and history, but rather reacting to their own deluded notions that white people are losing control of our country. Exactly, they are not actual Confederate heritage supporters. Thank you for at least pointing out the distinction. When a group of men and women shout out "Jew will not replace us" in front of a statue of Robert E. Lee, what does that say about your symbol of Southern heritage? It says that a good many white people like you and those self same men and women require a history lesson about the 10,000 Jewish Confederates who fought in the War. When these people brandish Nazi symbols and scream "fuck you faggots" in front of your idol, (a historical statue honoring a community leader) what does it say about a historical figure who supposedly stood up against a tyrannical government to protect his land? The question should be: what does it say about the moronic, non-Confederate heritage supporting people doing so? Your question is just stupid.
Imagine if I asked: When people claiming to represent BLM chants What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? NOW! (a chant they are known for) in front of a statue of, oh say....W.E.B. Dubois, what does that say about said historical figure? Obviously it wouldn't say jack about Dubois, or his personal history at all. The people chanting would still be dumbasses with a hateful agenda, but said historical figure would have no actual part in this. 

The South lost the war. Over a century later, we're still fighting one—but it has nothing to do with states' rights or Southern pride. It is about racism, intolerance, and hatred. And at the center of it all are symbols that, despite the well-intended Southern narratives that have failed to reframe them as anything else, are the strongest representation of racism in our country's history. They are only to white supremacists....and ironically to regressive Leftists like you. To everyone else though they mean far more than just one narrow, limited view of their identity that ignores their full history. 

It is time the Confederate monuments come down for good, as they are now forever linked with an intolerance that extends beyond the borders of the Southern states. Only in your mind, dude. Others seem to disagree HERE. It's not about Southern heritage anymore, but rather America's heritage of propagating white supremacy as we comfort ourselves with slogans that suggest otherwise. You are correct that this isn't really about Southern heritage, it is about groups of haters misusing symbols they have no legitimate claim to in order to promote their own sordid agendas. Real defenders of those symbols -- people of all races and religious creeds -- frequently speak out against those who misuse them wrongly as symbols of hatred, or seek their removal from public display. Such people were not evident in Charlottesville on August 12th, only true enemies of our Confederate heritage (in one form or another) were. 

Well there you have it folks, a lesson in intellectual honesty and in the ability to define distinctions. I hope y'all enjoyed it as much as I did getting this off my chest.

Common Sense On Honoring Southern Unionists

Common Sense On Honoring Southern Unionists 

 Do They Deserve To Be Honored?

By C. W. Roden

This blog post is dedicated to those men from the South who choose to remain loyal to the Union, or who - like their fellow Pro-Confederate Southerners - simply wanted to be left alone. It is to their memory and those of their descendants and the descendants of their fellow Southerners loyal to Dixie and our shared Southern Heritage.

Earlier this month there was a somewhat interesting exchange of thoughts online about Southern heritage and how some view remembering certain individuals from the parts of the American Southland who served in the War Between The States (1861- 1865).

This debate was not about those who wore the hallowed gray and butternut of the Confederate soldier - at least not directly - rather it was about the little-told story of Southern-born men and boys who wore the Union blue uniform of the United States and fought against their "rebellious" neighbors -- and in many cases their own family.

The debate began with THIS article dated March 28th. 

The article titled: Romance of the Confederacy written by one Josh Gelernter, starts out with the odious tagline: It's time the South dropped it in favor of a batter part of its heritage. 

Mr. Gelernter starts out by discussing a court case concerning license plates in Texas and then pointing out his own Confederate ancestry and pedigree as justification for his case against the Dixie Cross banner. Not the first Southern-born supporter of the Righteous Cause Myth to do such a thing by and means, and sadly he won't likely be the last, but I digress.

Moving on to the second paragraph of the article, Mr. Gelerner is quoted:

"That war killed about three-quarters of a million Americans, and the Stars and Bars are the symbol of the men responsible — regardless of its having also been a symbol of men who were just trying to defend their homes."

Let's begin with the obvious mistake here. He uses the term "Stars and Bars" to identify the Confederate flag -- a fact which belies his claims of understanding and education since it has been noted that informed people know that the Stars and Bars is not the Dixie Cross banner. I pointed that fact out myself several times on this blog. As for the first part, where he mentioned the war killed three-quarters of a million Americans....Um, I think he overlooked the fact that of those numbered about forty percent of those Americans were in fact the same men who carried the Confederate battle flag into battle.

I take it you folks are beginning to see the obvious here?

After that -- while attempting to sound reasonable rather than condescending, which he fails at miserably - Mr. Gelerner proceeds to talk about how over 110,000 Southern men fought for the Union. Or as he puts it, how one in ten Southerners fought against slavery rather than for it.

Then Mr. Gelerner makes the suggestion directly to Southerners who honor their Confederate ancestry (again as he claims to continue doing so). He points out that he understands the inclination of Confederate soldier's great-great-grandchildren to glorify their great-great-grandfathers -- and yes folks, he thinks folks actually accept that statement at face value. 

The magnanimous bastard even goes on to concede an obvious point: that Confederate soldiers were not Nazis. Uh....duh! That face is pretty much obvious to anyone else with even a rudimentary understanding of history who isn't a complete Leftist ideologue, or an utter brain-numbed moron.

Mr. Gelerner -- after offering up some brief details on the service of Southern Unionists -- conclude his piece with:

"But every few years, when a battle breaks out over the Confederate flag, I can’t help thinking that it’s time that the South, en bloc, abandoned the Confederacy and embraced the heritage of southern Unionists. Your average adult southerner today has between 128 and 256 ancestors who were alive during the Civil War. Statistically, it’s very likely that some of those ancestors were...." 

Well folks, at this point he starts reciting campfire songs about justifications for the destruction and plunder of a wide stretch of Southern Georgia and the article ends on that low note.

Let me pause here to go empty my bowels.

Okay, I'm back. 

Now then, a few days after Mr. Gelerner's article about picking and choosing one aspect of Southern heritage in favor of some aspects over another came THIS article in response, dated March 31st.

This article, written by Thomas DiLorenzo, begins with a simple question: "Should the Polish people memorialize fellow Poles who collaborated with the Soviets?"  

The answer to which is plainly obvious -- at least to Mr. DiLorenzo.

The rest is a rather well-written rebuttal that pretty much destroys Mr. Gelerner's suggestions and points out their obvious failings. He also throws in some modern views of the War and some of his own personal political bends into the story. Regardless, it was well written.

Still, rather than let Mr. DiLorenzo completely off the hook, I would like to go back to his opening statement, an obvious comparison between Polish collaborators who sided with the invading Soviet who stayed long after liberating Poland from Nazi occupation and installed their own puppet government, and Southern Unionists. He argues against honoring Southern Unionists.

In this case, Mr. DiLorenzo is in error much like Mr. Gelerner was in his assertions that the heritage of Southern Unionists should replace Confederate heritage, but for entirely different reasons.

Allow me to explain why.

So Who Were These Pro-Southern Unionists?

Before the War Between The States broke out, before the Southern States actually seceded, the issues that divided America likewise divided the people of America, and not always along the Mason-Dixon Line.

Slavery certainly caused much of the problem, both morally and in terms of political power between the North and the South. That has been well documented in terms of several territorial acts after the War of 1812, US Supreme Court cases like: DredScott vs Sandford (1857), "Bleeding Kansas" and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859.

Also certainly the differences between the North and South were likewise caused over the issue of how both saw federal power and State sovereignty. Some believing that only local government can understand local issues. Some believing that the union itself was made up of sovereign and independent States and a federal government that was limited by the US Bill of Rights, no different than the original Articles of Confederation after the American Revolutionary War. Others believing that in order for the United States to maintain its place as a free and powerful nation it must have a strong government like other world powers.

Ultimately those two main causes fueled a fire that finally exploded on April 12, 1861 when the newly formed Confederate States exerted what it perceived its sovereign authority to drive away a foreign occupation of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The US government, which continued to see Fort Sumter as Federal property, retaliated by calling for 75,000 volunteers to put down a "rebellion" in the South.

Naturally views on how individual Americans saw duty, loyalty and honor were just as divided, and geography was not always a determining factor.

Even today, many people still believe the idea that people in the Northern and the Southern States both followed the loyalties of the side each State choose to support. This is far from the truth.

In the North, particularly in Southern Illinois and various places along the Ohio River Valley, many northern-born Americans actively supported the Confederate States, even joined Confederate military units in Kentucky and Tennessee. The States of Kentucky, Missouri, Western Virginia, Maryland and Delaware were all heavily divided, and sent soldiers to both Union and Confederate armies.

In several Southern States loyalties were very divided in the Appalachian regions of Western North Carolina, Eastern Tennessee, and some parts of Northern Alabama. Some of these people - particularly people German and some Scots-Irish descent - remained loyal to the US government, much like American Loyalists a generation earlier remained to the British Empire during the American Revolutionary War. 

One of the Union's most brilliant generals, Major General George Henry Thomas, was a Virginian who stayed with the Union because he supported the idea of a strong federal government - a decision that would ultimately lead to his family disowning him during and after the War ended. 

Certainly a large number of black Southerners joined the ranks of the Union army. An estimated 178,000 black Americans overall were a part of the United States Colored Troops (USCT). This fact is well documented today. 

Among white Southerners, the numbers of men who served in the Union military come close to around 100,000. These are the estimates of that number from each Confederate State: 

Alabama: 3,000

Arkansas: 10,000

Florida: 3,500

Georgia: 400

Louisiana: 7,000

Mississippi: 545

North Carolina: 25,000

Tennessee: 42,000 

Texas: 2,200

Virginia & West Virginia: 22,000 

What Motivated Pro-Union Southerners?

The question of loyalty to either cause depended on the mindsets of the time.

America was a vastly different place in the 1860s. People then were much like people today, but we must be careful not to attribute the same specific desires and attitudes of today.

In the American Southland, mostly small rural communities with negligible government interference and policing, they were often more responsible for their own security and safety. Based on their social structure, Southerners lived by a clear and simple moral code. Concepts like right, wrong, and kinship were certainly much stronger then than they are today in America.

Those who followed the Confederacy, for the most part, were fiercely independent minded individuals, who regarded loyalty and duty to home and close kin more strongly than duty to State, or government. To these men and boys they saw the North and the Union as literally a foreign entity very far away wanting to impose the will of the leaders on the people, while their personal code of honor would never accept that.

Those Southerners who followed the Union believed strongly in national identity, in a rule of law that was less a form of anarchy that their Confederate neighbors and family accepted. Or, in some cases, such as the Southern Unionists in the Appalachian regions, they were so fiercely independent that they saw the Confederate government as a closer and more intrusive threat to their individual liberties than the far-off Union government in Washington D.C. Many of these people simply declared their neutrality and remained so until the Confederate State governments imposed conscription.

Slavery was sometimes a factor, though a small number of pro-Union Southerners were themselves slaveowners, while a number of pro-Confederate Southerners from the same region were not. Many of these Southern Unionist's slaves continued to remain slaves until the end of the war because the Emancipation Proclamation did not specifically apply to their cases. Others were freed willingly by their owners only after the proclamation went into effect in 1863. Including many members of the United States Colored Troops, some of those same Unionist slaves served side-by-side with their Southern Unionist masters in the war, little different that the slaves and freemen who served in the Confederate army....a topic we will explore in detail at a later date.  

These Southerners who remained loyal to the Union often times suffered brutally at the hands of their Confederate neighbors for their allegiance. The best example of this being the infamous Shelton Laurel Massacre. This is not to say that these Southern Unionists were all angels of virtue either. Southern Unionists likewise committed their fair share of war crimes against their pro-Confederate brothers and sisters. Incidents such as the Wilson Massacre and the Huntsville Massacre are testament to the fact that during the War Between The States neither side walked away entirely as the pillars of honor and virtue. 

Indeed, many of y'all might recall from a previous blog post that several of my own family and Confederate ancestors were themselves murdered in cold blood by some of these Southern Unionist. 

Some of these Southern Unionists were in fact former Confederate soldiers who deserted for various reasons. Some of them simply to protect their own homes from what they began to see as a Confederate government that was more intrusive than the far away Union government, particularly in terms of conscription. Others because they were disgusted with the fact that the Confederate government exempted rich plantation owners and their families from service. It should be noted in their defense however that both sides had exemptions and "substitute policies" and that many Union soldiers likewise deserted the army because they were disgusted with such policies. The "rich man's war and poor man's fight" class warfare argument was universal throughout the conflict. 

Then there were those Confederate prisoners of war held in Northern prisons like Camp Douglass and Elmira Prison who swallowed the dog and took the Oath of Loyalty to the Union. These men were offered the choice of remaining in prison till the end of the war, or to join the Union army out west to fight the Native American populations and maintain the US outposts in the Dakotas and Wyoming. Many of these men did, becoming what are termed as "Galvanized Yankees" to escape the harsh and brutal conditions imposed on Confederate prisoners of war. Knowing what I know of those conditions, this blogger could not find fault with their decisions, not everyone can be a diehard rebel. 

A Common Sense Solution 

Following the end of the War Between The States and the Reconstruction Era, the memory of these Southern Unionists largely began to fade away, or were overlooked except in local folklore. In an ironic way, the memory of these Southern loyalists was little different than the memory of those Black Confederates who served in the War, until the last couple of decades. Although unlike some of these Black Confederates who actually remained honored and well respected by some of the former white Confederate Veterans in spite of the rise of Jim Crow racism in America, Southern Unionists found themselves completely edited out of the region's history, with few exceptions.

More than anyone else, I have a huge justification for wanting to hate the memory of those Southern Unionists given my family history.

Yet, I do not.

Largely because I do not believe in the "sins of the fathers" concept, nobody is their ancestor. I respect my own Confederate great-great-grandfather; but while I honor the person he was and those aspects of him that are a part of my genetic makeup, I am not him. I cannot personally claim any honor he earned for himself, or for any hypothetical crime he may have committed during his lifetime. As such I could never condemn, or hate the descendants of those Union soldiers and the Southern Unionists that fought against him either. 

I do not agree that these people should be edited out of Southern history anymore than I support calls for the removal of Confederate monuments and the condemning of Confederate symbols. If anything I see them as two sides of the same coin, and I am disgusted with the suggestion that either deserves their memory condemned. 

Southern Unionists are as much a part of out shared and diverse Southern heritage as Confederate soldiers, Scots-Irish Patriots of the American Revolutionary War, Nat Turner, grits, Coca-Cola, sweet iced tea, kudzu, ect. To ignore that is disingenuous.

One cannot omit any piece of Southern heritage -- either positive or negative -- and claim a love for it. This is the argument that those of us who honor the Confederate heritage part of that heritage promote. We condemn those who seek to destroy the memory of the Confederate soldier or erase his memory to promote an unsavory modern-day politically correct agenda. But in doing so, we cannot cherry pick Southern heritage as a whole and condemn the memories of others, even those who fought against our Confederate ancestors. 

I agree and support the idea that Southern Unionists should be honored, but only for the right reasons. At the same time I reject the idea that Confederate statues should be sacrificed in order to make room for monuments to others, simply to promote the national sin of political correctness. There is more than enough room on our city squares, courthouses, state capitols and other places for monuments, or plaques to Southern-born Union veterans without having to damn the memory of other honored Southern heroes and American veterans.