I understand. Study.

Good luck on your exams! Talk to you when you can talk!

Regards,

S

Yes, you are right–the Confederate flag is a controversial symbol. I again thank you for adding my view on this subject.

I knew that the idea of retiring the flag was unrealistic when I proposed it. Yet, I hoped that by proposing the impossible that perhaps a different conversation would start to take place.

There are those men and women for whom the display of the Confederate flag causes much distress. I will not reiterate what I have already stated above. It is the gentlemanly thing to do to consider that distress as real and meaningful and not to dismiss it, however, and you have done that very carefully and thoughtfully in this and other posts. I thank you–and I compliment you as well–for your attempts to present all sides of this issue.

My mother’s friend who was pregnant with twins and almost lost them when she was refused admittance to the white hospital is old now and not well. She may live to see the first African American President elected. She HAS lived to see the first African American nominated to run for President–something that was not even dared to be dreamed in the 1960s, as you know. She has also lived to see the Confederate flag brought back into public spaces again, too, however. The flag is not a symbol that brings happiness to her.

I do not know what the answer to this dilemma is. I just know that the men and women who suffered the abuses of Jim Crow have the right to have a say in how and where the Confederate flag is displayed. Whether we like it or not, the flag was used as a symbol of race hatred by many. To ignore that dishonors the men and women who suffered on all sides of this issue, including the Confederate soldier.

Thank you for your thoughtful commentary, Robert.

I do believe that you are right on target on this issue.

As far as terminology goes when it comes to Indigenous men and women–you are right about that, too. Most men and women with whom I sit in sweat lodges or dance at pow wows prefer the term “Native” to “Native American”. I used the latter term for the sake of clarity for your readers. In all actuality, “Native” is not even preferred, but the nation to which a man or woman belongs–ie. Cherokee, Ojibway, Cree, Creek, Nez Perces, Arapaho, Seminole–to name a few

Sherree

In a quick comment to your latest comment… yes, essentially, humans are brutal to each other and the track record, whether it be the manner in which blacks were treated, the manner in which Native people have been treated (fyi, I have been told that “Native people” is preferred over “Native Americans”), and even how Africans treated Africans in the peak years of the West African slave trade.

However, I think we need to focus on realistic education in the way that we tell the story of the Civil War. We also have to be realistic in our expectations. To say that you want to see descendants of Confederate Veterans retire the Confederate flag isn’t realistic and, in fact, would probably invoke more anger and resistance. I even cringed a bit at the suggestion.

The problem with the Confederate flag is that is has historical “layers.” One of those layers, as it represents a group of people for their courage and bravery in battle and their resistance as a people, is the one that I would prefer would remain intact. The problem is… all of the other layers. Also, another problem is that, as a symbol, there are too many different “perspectives” that rally around one common symbol; the problem really being that there is way too much baggage in this rally around one common symbol and it ends up tainting the whole.

Thanks again, Robert, for adding my voice to this conversation.

Sherree

You are right. Education is the key, and education in which one group is not either mythologized as more courageous, more moral, and of superior character to another group, or pitted against another group. I see this happening on all sides. None of us is superior to the other–Southerner, Northerner, white, or black–not now, and not then. To my Native American friends, the American flag is a symbol of racial massacres and white supremacy. To my First Nations’ friends of Canada, it is the Canadian flag that represents oppression. The soldiers who went West after the Civil War, and who were both Union and Confederate veterans, committed horrible atrocities against the Lakota, the Cheyenne, and other Indigenous Nations. One of the commanders of those troops, Colonel Chivington, had been a staunch opponent of slavery. Yet, he ordered the massacre of innocent women and children at Sand Creek as an American flag was flown by the Cheyenne to show that the group was friendly to the US government –a massacre that included the mutilation of the bodies of the victims. General Sherman, who went West, too, helped to set the policy of indiscriminate killing of the buffalo, which helped starve Indigenous men and women to death. In some ways I think that it was so easy for Northern white men and women to reconcile with Southern white men and women and bury the hopes of black men and women for centuries, because, at heart, they were brothers and sisters, and at heart, it was the white race that mattered.

We, as a society, have a chance to change this now, and we have changed it quite a bit over the past forty years, following the lead of courageous black men and women, and courageous men and women of all races. For me the Confederate Flag represents Bull Connor clubbing innocent women and children and the nation’s soul to death, and it shoudl be retired by white Southerners. I just want to add the voice of this descendant of Confederate veterans to the conversation. I am positive that there are thousands of white Southerners like me, who have no idea what is going on while we are out trying to make a living. To read about that ugly demonstration over the Lincoln statue in Richmond, brought back some very bad memories for everyone. As I stated on Kevin’s blog, my moral compass is my late mother’s best friend, who is black and who almost lost twins she was carrying in the Jim Crow era until a white doctor made the white hospital admit her. I visited her this summer and she said that the continued display of the Confederate flag “troubled” her. That means it troubles me. That woman is the heart and soul of America, as are women and men like her and like my late mother. Retire the flag. It is the only gentlemanly thing to do.

Thanks, Robert.

Thanks for your comments and remarks regarding my blog.

You raise a lot of interesting points. I’d like to spend more time a little later on responding to each one. In the meantime, however, I do want to address one item… in thinking that descendants of Confederate veterans retiring the flag is a reasonable solution (and of course, you admit that this is a bold statement).

Essentially, it returns to the reasons why “heritage defense” has become a real issue in, for example, the SCV. The very thought is more agitating than a method of healing wounds (at least for one line of thought). I think it is more feasible to really put forward the effort to educate, and not just in the “halls of the academy.” It may sound oversimplistic, but I think more attention needs to be given to the way in which the facts are put out to the general public. The question is… how? More on this later.

This is Sherree.

I have enjoyed your posts very much. Thank you for considering my comments.

I have a request.

Would you guys please knock it off?

I sincerely believe that everyone who has expressed an opinion here has a genuine interest in the Civil War, and that if we could all somehow get past our different perspectives we might reach some true understanding that might actually benefit the present.

Your books sound wonderful, Robert, and I will purchase one as soon as the next paycheck rolls around. I am particularly drawn to the story of your ancestors in the Shenandoah Valley. I am also very grateful to you for your years of research and your attempts to begin to help Southerners understand that our past has been distorted and that we must start anew. Your blog is brilliant.

Kevin, you already know how much I applaud your brilliance, your nerve, and your dedication. I will copy this comment to you, but not post it to your blog, because I feel that I have taken up too much time on your blog and that you have other readers whose interests need to be addressed.

Richard, I visited your blog and could relate deeply to a comment you posted beneath a picture that looked out over a field, in which you said, “This is what they were fighting for”. I have a deep connection to the land in Virginia as well, so I understand that.

Michael, I don’t know you, but you seem very genuine, and it is wonderful that you have adopted Virginia as your home.

It is time to get this right. There are anti Southern biases and there are anti Northern biases. There are rural vs urban biases and urban vs rural biases. There are men vs women biases, women vs men, women vs women, men vs men, etc etc etc. Enough.

Soon the Civil War will again be publicly commemorated. Are we, as a country, going to miss this chance to redress the grievances of the past? The war WAS about slavery. It was. It was. It was. Please, can we reach a consensus on this? It was also about defending land, family, home, and hearth. All of the players were human beings–flesh and blood–Union soldiers, Confederate soldiers, the wives of all, and the black men and women whose very bodies did not belong to them.

I was shocked that there was such controversy over putting a statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Museum of the Confederacy. I don’t understand that, and I am a Southerner with three ancestors who were in the Confederate army, two of whom died in battle. I consider the controversy an affront to my ancestors’ memory. The Union and Confederate soldiers who fought and died in the Civil War paid the price for all of us to live in the country we now live in, and when Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the war should have ended there. It is not up to subsequent generations to fight the war again. The Union was preserved. Abraham Lincoln is to be honored. So is Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S Grant. And so is Frederick Douglas.

What concerns me is that I see both sides in this debate inadvertently dehumanizing the other side. Black men and women were not happy to be slaves, just as “yeoman farmers” were not mechanical players in a gender based, race based, class oriented hierarchy, madly rushing off to defend slavery. These arguments are simply absurd at their worst, and not helpful at their best. I am fairly certain that no one will agree with me on that, so I will leave that statement as is, and note, that the statement is, of course, just my opinion.

I would like to close with a bold statement–an idea– maybe even a dream. Why not have the descendants of Confederate veterans voluntarily retire the Confederate flag at the commemoration of the Civil war in 2011 and embrace the black men and women for whom the war truly never did end? How about putting a statue of Frederick Douglas in the Museum of the Confederacy? How about honoring both Lee and Lincoln as great men? How about stopping this continual ridicule of “rednecks”? How about stopping this continual ridicule of “Yankees”? How about honoring all members of this great nation, without demeaning other members? How about it?

Thank you, Robert. Thank all of you.

I have 3 great-great grandfathers who were Confederate soldiers – Crutchfield, Coffey, and McGann. All 3 were wounded and 2 of the 3 spent time in yankee prisons. I also have a great-great grandfather – Williams (all four men were adults during the WBTS) who came to Virginia as a carpetbagger from Pennsylvania after the war, but who eventually served the Commonwealth with distinction and honor in other ways. I’m proud of all four of these ancestors’ sacrifice for Virginia.

I may post something on this tomorrow. By the way, these last few posts have been first-rate.