I learned another reason for being disgusted by the old South tonight

[kcwayne]

My sister uncovered information about my grandfather's uncle who was a survivor of the Battle of Centralia (Missouri). This "battle" came about when a group of guerrilla fighters stopped a train in Centralia, robbed the passengers, and executed 23 unarmed Union soldiers they found on the train who were on furlough. They also murdered a civilian who was trying to protect a woman they were harassing, and a German who was wearing a military uniform, and could not speak English to tell them he was a civilian.

The massacre precipitated the dispatching of Federal Troops to Centralia who went out to capture the guerrillas. My relative was among those troops. They thought they were chasing a small band of bandits, and wound up getting ambushed. The guerrillas routed the Union troops and 120 more were killed. My grandfather's uncle was one of 15 to survive.

Frank and Jesse James were among the guerrillas.

Brutality and stupidity have been with us for a long time.

[solinvictus]

1. Ummmm...

at that stage in the Civil War, I can't judge their actions. If you'd seen Union soldiers burning your homes with abandon, you may well have killed any and every one of them that fell into your hands.

[kcwayne]

4. Fortunately not everyone engaged in a war becomes a war criminal

[Ripley]

14. Yet most Duers defend Iraqi's who are killing the invading Americans

who destroy their homes.

So which is it? Okay to kill those who destroy your home and family or is that reserved for everyone except white southerners?

[Modem Butterfly]

20. Those people wouldn't have had their homes invaded...

...if they hadn't attempted to destroy America in order to continue owning other human beings.

[Modem Butterfly]

6. Yeah, especially if you were the kind of person...

...who fought to destroy your nation when denied the "right" to own another human being.

:eyes:

[jdj]

10. do you really think plantation owners fought that war?

naw, baby, poor white trash (not to mention some black regiments too) fought that war.

[Modem Butterfly]

13. No. It was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight...

... to preserve a way of life built on slavery. Not something I'd be in a hurry to defend.

[Eloriel]

29. ALL wars are rich men's wars.

NO wars can be defended.

However, please don't sink to quite such a level of simplistic "black and white" rhetoric for the actions of those who participated in the war.

As with all wars, there were war crimes on both sides (and WERE these war crimes then?). As with all wars, there were good reasons and bad reasons FOR THOSE ON BOTH SIDES to fight and be part of the war.

OF COURSE it was a war to protect and defend the indefensible (slavery); OF COURSE it was a war of Northern Aggression.

As with all wars, OF COURSE people had valid and noble reasons for fighting on both sides. As with all wars, OF COURSE people were propagandized and misled on both sides.

Perhaps this one in particular is extremely dangerous to judge without an almost visceral understanding of the times.

I am not defending either side, I'm calling for a cessation of judgment for those who fought on both sides. It was a CIVIL war -- brother against brother, father against son; family against family; there was right, and wrong, on both sides.

[enigami]

30. Well Said n/t

[Modem Butterfly]

33. War of Northern Agression? Hardly

The South seceeded, fired the first shots, and pretty much sent the North an engraved invitation to war. They got their clock cleaned and handed bac to them on a silver platter. Almost immediately afterwards, they began to re-write history, casting themselves as the victims. Well, that's just bullshit.

No one on the South had a good and noble reason for fighting this war. Fighting to protect your way of life when that way of life is dependant on owning another human being is in no way good or noble. Most on the North didn't have good or noble reasons for the fight, either, but the larger cause was noble: that of preserving the Union. The only good and noble people in the Civil War are the slaves, the ex-slaves, and their defenders, the abolitionists. For the South to call the North villains for winning the war is like a rapist being mad that a theif stabbed him in the back while raping someone.

The great and glorious cause of slavery and secession is dead. Let's stop defending it and calling it what it was: treason.

[enigami]

28. I think it was more like they were being denied the right to breath

that they were concerned with at the time.

[Modem Butterfly]

36. I guess they didn't like the shoe being on the other foot, eh?

;)

[enigami]

38. Well

Like I said I'm sure there were enough atrocities on both sides

[Modem Butterfly]

40. But none greater than the atrocities of slavery.

[enigami]

41. I think we can all agree

that the institution of slavery was wrong and evil. My point is that in a war normal people fight and kill for very personal and immediate reasons, not noble ones.

[illflem]

2. Watch the movie Mississippi Burning

some time if you really want to get disgusted.
Those people are brain dead.

[enigami]

26. watch the movie "Mississippi Burning " ?

wtf does that have to do with Missouri 1863? watch the movie "Ride with the Devil" or "Josey Wells", if you form your view of history from movies

[amazona]

3. missouri is not the "old south"

It is the midwest. That said, yes, Centralia is a very distressing story.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[enigami]

27. You are right.But!

Missouri WAS the old south THEN

[Jacobin]

5. Yes. The Noble North waged only good and clean war

"in order to free the slaves" (guffaw)

Please read a little more about the war and its causes before pontificating.

[kcwayne]

7. How would you possibly know how much I have read about the Civil War

based on my 2 paragraph post? From your ridiculing of slavery as a core issue, you obviously haven't read much. The Abolistionist movement was a very strong motivational and organizational force in political and moral thinking at that time. Wars are never fought over a single reason obviously, but denying something as important to the rationale to the Civil war as slavery is foolish.

[ultraist]

9. The Civil War started BEFORE ending slavery entered the equation

It was NOT the primary reason for the Civil war and it came about in order to recruit more soldiers. NOBLE it is was not.

Using a battle that occured in the MIDWEST to support your reason to hate the South is weak.

[Modem Butterfly]

15. Not according to South Carolina's Secession Declaration

But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

SNIP

Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/decl-sc.htm

The government of South Carolina considered slavery to be absoltely essential to their way of life, so essential that when the abolitionist candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected, it was time to leave the Union. The better to protect their "right" to OWN OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.

[ultraist]

21. I said the NORTH did not start the war to end slavery

IF some southern state used that as propaganda to recruit more soldiers, that does not mean that it was the cause of the Civil War.

Glamorize the North's reasons if you wish. There were slaves in the North but they were not as important because they did not have as many plantations and farms. Therefore, economically, it was not a big deal to the North to end slavery.

[Modem Butterfly]

25. The North didn't start the war at all

Unless you, like South Carolina, consider the abolition movement to be an attack on the South.

You don't believe that, do you?

The Civil War started with the attack on Fort Sumter by Confederate forces.

[ultraist]

35. The North wanted the Union and to limit the power of States

The South didn't. There's no reason to get snotty. I happen to be Northern by birth and simply want to look at all of the facts.

I'm not interested in reviving a Civil War hatred. How absurd. I also think it's foolish to simply believe that the North was moral and the South was immoral. There is more to the story than that.

The fact is, most Americans (in the N & S) could have given a flying fuck about slavery at the time. A few legislators were the ones talking about it.

[Modem Butterfly]

39. The power of the state to own slaves.

The fact is, most Americans (in the N & S) could have given a flying fuck about slavery at the time.

Well, that's not true. The entire impetus for secession and attacking the North was to protect slavery. Certainly giving your life is more than giving a flying fuck, don't you think?

[Clark2008]

18. Thank you, Jacobin.

My father is a Civil War historian.
I also know a little more about the war and its causes - and the poor whites weren't fighting for slavery.

[ultraist]

32. Most white southerners didn't own slaves

They couldn't afford them. Wealthy Southern plantation owners did however and some Northerners did as well. Slavery began in the North.

Most Americans were not all that concerned about slavery at the time. Lincoln wanted slavery to die a slow death. Northern legislators were split on this.

The loss of power of the states to a union was a big issue as were economic factors. Limited States Power was a major factor.

It's nice and cozy to think that certain Americans were so noble that they fought the Civil War to end an immoral institution, but that's just not the case. Revisionist history tends to glorify things.

I'm not discounting that following the Civil War, segregation was more severe than in the South. But, today, racism seems to be just as bad, if not worse in Northern states. I have not looked at all Northern states, but I did look at the socio-economic factors in NY and Al. NY has bigger gaps in edu and income between blacks and whites and a higher percentage of hate crimes. I'm not so sure that the South is still more racist.

It's also important to consider that the South produced the greatest Civil Rights leaders, such as MKL, Jr. as well as the majority of historically black colleges.

I'm not suggesting that anyone hold onto hate, but to consider all of the implications of the Civil War and look at was happening today.

BTW, I'm a Northerner by birth and my family is originally from New England.

[Stirk]

8. Biggest traitors ever. And the right idolizes them.

I've never understood that shit.

[Grey Ranks]

11. Missouri is in the South?

Why are you saying you are disgusted with the old south because of actions by people in Missouri?

[Modem Butterfly]

16. They were Confederate soldiers

[Grey Ranks]

17. He didn't say that

nor does it say that they were acting on order, on policy, or with the consent, implicit or explicit, of any Confederate authority.

[Modem Butterfly]

19. Go back and re-read the post

This "battle" came about when a group of guerrilla fighters stopped a train in Centralia, robbed the passengers, and executed 23 unarmed Union soldiers they found on the train who were on furlough.

[Spirochete]

22. I think they were

Quantrill's raiders. They weren't in the confederate army. The army didn't claim them - they probably referred to them as "those terrible renegades (wink,wink)"

[enigami]

31. Thank You

Yes, They were Confederate Soldiers, and Damn Proud of it!

[William Bloode]

12. The South has no patent on brutality, and greed.

The United States it'self has alot to answer for. If i followed your screwed logic i would be disgusted with every white man in this country for the crime of genocide against my people. Personally i don't let it bother me. There are good and bad people of all colors and all regions. You cannot let the actions of those in the past reflect in you views of the present.

[stillcool]

24. You must let the actions of those in the past reflect in your views...

of the present! I think thats called wisdom.

[enigami]

23. Well as long as we a re-fighting this ugly

little chapter in Missouri history, lets clear some things up.

Yes Missouri circa 1860 was largely populated by southern families, mostly from Tennessee and Kentucky. Many of those families owned slaves. Most did not.

The most heavily populated counties at that time where those all along the Missouri River and are still referred to as "Little Dixie".

The guerrilla fighters referred to in your post were composed of men who had seen there farms and homes burnt to the ground, and their family members raped, robbed and killed by Kansas militias for years before the war, the federal government later made these "pro union" militias legitimate during the war.

Without belaboring the subject, I think we can all agree that atrocities were common on both sides of the war this most bloody region.

I am glad your grandfathers uncle survived that engagement. I am glad my ancestor did also.

If you are interested in history, the Civil War history of Missouri is incredibly interesting, and sobering. the state is literally littered with such stories, and graves, especially here in the Burnt Over District"

[Hardrada]

34. Bleeding Kansas

The pro-slavery forces sent the Border Ruffians into Kansas to force out the free state forces. The Boston aristocrats sent money to buy rifles and ammunition for the abolitionist forces such as some of those led by old John Brown of Ossowatomie. I haven't seen John Brown referred to yet on DU but he was the "meteor of the war." Men like John Brown show up when societies reach a certain point of deterioration and tension. There were some excellent biographies of him in recent years.

[enigami]

37. You ever notice how much he looked like Osama?

[The Magistrate]

42. Locking

This sort of provocation only invites hostile response and promotes bad feelings among members of out community