The Bad Guys? Part 1

 

The scene is one of the most iconic in film history. The Battle of Atlanta near the middle of Gone With The Wind depicts the carnage of war. As Scarlett O’Hara searches for Dr. Meade among several wounded and dying Confederate soldiers, the camera pulls back to reveal dozens more, then hundreds of bodies, 1,600 in all. It was at this point of watching the film when my daughter asked if Joshua Chamberlain (her namesake) was there.

“No,” I told her. “He was a Union officer. But remember earlier, when they were reading the dispatches from Gettysburg? He was in that battle.”

The nine-year-old absorbed this, then followed up her question. “So these are the bad guys?”

“It’s complex,” I said.

And it is.

The civil war was fought for many reasons by many different kinds of people. Poor and working-class white Southerners typically cared nothing for the slave-owning plantation class; they fought from other motivations. Several of the Confederacy’s best generals argued for emancipation on tactical grounds, and sometimes moral ones, too.

Were Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, or James Longstreet bad guys? Certainly not. Nonetheless, they fought to preserve the newly formed Confederate States of America, whose foundational purpose was to maintain a society based on slavery. None of them owned slaves, there’s no evidence they agreed with slavery, but they enabled it all the same.

I love history. I come at the Civil War from a Yankee perspective. One of my fondest childhood memories was of the morning my dad and uncle liberated me from my third-grade classroom to take a jaunt up to Gettysburg. I always got a souvenir plastic saber with which to make war on the shrubbery. I wore a Union cap.

But the Confederates weren’t my bad guys; Russians, stormtroopers, or Cobra Command held that distinction. The Confederate soldiers, I was raised to respect.

After the Confederates, the villain du jour was the American Indian. They were the bad guys for an entire genre of movies. But I was taught to respect them too, because their story is also complex. For a while, Germans were the bad guys, but there were plenty of good, honorable German soldiers serving frustrated under history’s most notorious madman, and of all the people American GI’s encountered as they liberated Europe, it was the Germans they most related with.

Again, we see, it’s complex.

There is a major difference between a plantation overseer and a Confederate soldier, or a Sioux raiding party and their entire nation, or an SS platoon and German regulars, or the Taliban and an Afghan. History teaches there are vast motivations. The good guys aren’t always evident, and there’s rarely a clear formula about who the bad guys are. Sometimes they’re within the same ranks.

A better question is this: What are they fighting for?

People fight for many reasons, but mostly out of a desire to preserve something: a way of life, their homes, lives. If they’re not fighting to preserve something, they’re probably fighting to attain something, like freedom, resources, or a personal right. All of these are good reasons to fight. The problem lies in the reality that any of these motivations can be rooted in evil. Slavery is evil; so is Sharia Law, segregation, and a variety of personal “rights” we’ve come to condemn over the centuries.

There are good people who fight for horrible things. I don’t automatically condemn them unless they know full well what they are supporting. I believe the majority of them usually don’t.

A peasant farmer may take up arms with an evil regime out of a desire to protect his village. A child may be conscripted into an army he knows nothing about. A person may take up a passionate defense of an abstract right they have no first-hand experience with, but sounds important.

It takes time to understand the complexities of certain issues. Who has time to carefully weigh both sides of a conflict to determine which is right, and which is wrong? I contend most people take their most immediate impression, and in the absence of firm moral principles, run with whatever seems right at the time.

And this leads us to the real problem when ascribing the moniker of bad guys. Many people defend evil practices because they don’t understand them. The true bad guys choose evil things because they embrace them. Discerning the difference takes moral clarity, which is hard to achieve if one doesn’t accept moral absolutes.

Some of us are slow learners, and some of us aren’t interested in learning at all. That’s fine, but if we’re going to take a stand on an issue, we’d better know it inside and out. History will not be kind to those who choose sides arbitrarily.

I love history, because history knows there is such a thing as right and wrong. And it isn’t shy about showing the difference.

And innocent lives are always on the line.

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  1. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra: Were Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, or James Longstreet bad guys? Certainly not.

    After Lee’s surrender, Longstreet arrived in the McLean House in Appomattox, where Grant happily greeted him. He offered Longstreet a cigar and invited him to play a card game. “Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?…  His whole greeting and conduct towards us was as though nothing had ever happened to mar our pleasant relations.”

    Longstreet joined or allied himself with the Republican Party during the Reconstruction era.  He endorsed Grant for president in the election of 1868 and attended his inauguration ceremonies.  He was appointed by Grant as surveyor of customs in New Orleans.  The Republican governor of Louisiana appointed Longstreet the adjutant general of the state militia and by 1872 he became a major general in command of all militia and state police forces within the city of New Orleans.  After Republican William Pitt Kellogg was declared the winner of a close and heavily-disputed gubernatorial election, Longstreet commanded a force of 3,600 Metropolitan Police, city policemen, and African-American militia troops, armed with two Gatling guns and a battery of artillery. He rode to meet the protesters but was pulled from his horse, shot by a spent bullet, and taken prisoner. The White League charged, causing many of Longstreet’s men to flee or surrender. Longstreet’s use of armed black troops during the disturbances increased the denunciations by anti-Reconstructionist and former Southern Confederates. In 1880, President Hayes appointed Longstreet as his ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He served as a U.S. Marshal from 1881 to 1884 and from 1897 to 1904, under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, as U.S. Commissioner of Railroads.

    In March 1877, on one of his frequent return trips to New Orleans on business, Longstreet converted to Catholicism and was a devout believer until his death. His second wife died 1962.

    Longstreet’s former subordinate Colonel John S. Mosby, the “Gray Ghost”, a partisan ranger noted for lightning-quick raids and an ability to elude Union Army pursuers later became a Republican and Grant’s campaign manager in Virginia. Mosby had been a lawyer and had actually spoke out against secession before the war, but he joined the Confederate army as a private at the outbreak. Mosby also had Catholics in his family with his sister converting to become a nun.

    • #31
  2. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Lois Lane (View Comment):
    In Jackson and Longstreet’s cases, the numbers were small, but they existed none-the-less.

    This is news to me. I’ve asked around for a recommendation for a good book on Jackson and was referred to Lee’s Lieutenants by Douglass Freeman, but it’s massive and I haven’t started it yet. Thank you.

    I’d highly suggest Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S. C. Gwynne. It’s a very quick read and will tell you a lot about Stonewall. Gwynne was once a journalist in Texas, and he lives in Austin. He’s been shortlisted for a Pulitzer. He draws a sympathetic portrait of Jackson, though he is not hagiographic. It’s good history that’s easy to digest. You understand why this VMI professor was so revered by the Confederates, but you also understand how crazy-strange the dude was.

    I will get a copy. Thanks. 

    • #32
  3. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):
    Longstreet joined or allied himself with the Republican Party during the Reconstruction era.

    This is one of the reasons that the wholesale destruction of all Confederate everything is stupid. 

    The stories of the Confederate generals after the war–and before and during–provide many insights into the larger American story.  They have to be taken in context, and they are each individuals with very unique stories. 

    How do we take, for example, P. G. T. Beauregard who pushed for black emancipation and whose statue was removed from New Orleans with everyone else’s?  Did these men not become American citizens again?  Even Lee tried to do so, though Andrew Johnson “lost” the papers….  

    My focus is not the Civil War, so I don’t want to pretend I know more than I do.  However, my opinion has always been the South needed to lose because slavery was an abomination.  But it would be great if we could hold two thoughts in our minds at once, which would lead us to greater understanding and more nuanced thinking about our history in general.  Perhaps we’d better understand our present?

    • #33
  4. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    On the way home from seeing the grandkids in Florida, we impulsively decided to go to Harper’s Ferry, in West Virginia, where John Brown and 21 men attempted a raid on an armory of 100,000 guns on October 16, 1859, 18 months before the start of the Civil War.

    It was a strange experience that I think everyone in the country should have. Why ? Because, before you go to Harper’s Ferry, you might think the Southern States left the Union to maintain a way of life living off the work of slaves. But after you’ve seen the place, after you’ve found out how famous it was, at the time, for mass production of guns and realized that means the whole country, at the time, heard about the raid that was—-by luck—-unsuccessful, and after you’ve seen one of the vicious looking pikes (someone with the last name of Blair, in Connecticut, made at least 300 of them that John Brown intended to hand out as weapons to slaves who joined him) you find yourself wondering if the Southern States didn’t really secede out of fear of well armed, well funded abolitionists leading waves of  slave uprisings that Southerners thought would be much worse than any of the ones the South had already experienced.

    After seeing Harper’s Ferry, I’m sure that if I had been a farmer in Alabama or Mississippi in 1860—I mean even one who didn’t hold slaves or approve of slave holding—-I would have thought John Brown proved that the Union government in Washington wouldn’t, and maybe even couldn’t, protect me and my family from what people like him intended to do. I would have joined or supported the Confederacy. That doesn’t mean I don’t think slavery is evil or that I’m not grateful the Confederacy lost the war.

    • #34
  5. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    a

    Private John Wesley Culp(1839-1863), born and raised in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, killed at Gettysburg July 3, 1863-fighting for the Confederacy- on Culp’s Hill, the site of his uncle’s home. His brother fought for the Union. Complex can also be quite tragic.

    Three of my four uncles who fought in WWII were of German ancestry and two native speakers of the language. For them fighting in that war was like shooting at their cousins, it was for that side of my family’s (maternal side) much like the Civil War for my father’s family.  My paternal ancestor there had fought on the Union side and after the war, his Confederate neighbors had put a price on his head “20 Dollars for the man who kills Martin” as a traitor to the South. He left.  

    • #35
  6. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

     history is complex. People are complex. We all are good and evil. Denial of that is a hallmark of the left. The left wants to imagine they can shun the evil people. 

    • #36
  7. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    history is complex. People are complex. We all are good and evil. Denial of that is a hallmark of the left. The left wants to imagine they can shun the evil people.

    Correction: there are no evil people, in their book.

    • #37
  8. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: # 37

    Leftists are people incapable of doubting that they’re qualified to discern and impose the best thing for all of us on the rest of us.

    • #38
  9. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    history is complex. People are complex. We all are good and evil. Denial of that is a hallmark of the left. The left wants to imagine they can shun the evil people.

    Correction: there are no evil people, in their book.

    That is not true. I am evil for supporting Trump. Racists are evil. Conservatives are evil. They are engaged in a clear attempt to rid the world of evil people so they can usher in utopia. It is just how the Communists did it. 

    • #39
  10. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    history is complex. People are complex. We all are good and evil. Denial of that is a hallmark of the left. The left wants to imagine they can shun the evil people.

    Correction: there are no evil people, in their book.

    That is not true. I am evil for supporting Trump. Racists are evil. Conservatives are evil. They are engaged in a clear attempt to rid the world of evil people so they can usher in utopia. It is just how the Communists did it.

    You are correct. I keep forgetting that they can speak out of both sides of their mouths. What was I thinking?! ;-)

    • #40
  11. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re comment # 32

    I heard the name, Stonewall Jackson, at Harper’s Ferry. Didn’t he take it from the Union soldier’s during the Civil War ? 

    • #41
  12. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    Re comment # 32

    I heard the name, Stonewall Jackson, at Harper’s Ferry. Didn’t he take it from the Union soldier’s during the Civil War ?

    Thomas Jackson gets his nickname at First Bull Run.  However, he was at the execution of John Brown with his VMI students.  He was horrified by how the people of the North treated Brown like a martyr even though Brown was trying to cause a bloody uprising that was illegal and would have resulted in the deaths of many if successful.  It was this reaction of the North that led him to join the Confederacy, even though this meant that he and his sister would never talk again.  (She was a staunch unionist.)   

    Think about it like this.  IF half the country showed up to venerate a man who had murdered an abortion doctor–wrote poems about him, sang about his bravery, lobbied for his release–some people who were pro-life might actually decide to go the other way in the case of war.  

    (Jackson owned slaves, but he was not a huge slaver.  He was from the section of Virginia that broke away to become West Virginia because support for the war was so low in the region.  Slavery was not a big part of the economy.)

    • #42
  13. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    People today forget how pervasive slavery was throughout human history. We look back on that period with today anachronistic morals and judge them.

    Rest assured, 150 years from now, people will look back on several widely held beliefs of today with the same level of disdain that we ascribe to slavery today

    And we are right to judge them. The prevalence of slavery may explain why so many people practiced it and why they thought it normal (because it was in a very strict sense). But the arguments about the propriety of slavery or impropriety are quite old too especially in the christian tradition. The oldest arguments for it could be characterized as utilitarian, but these arguments came from pagan cultures without a Christian ethic of human value. To square slavery with Christian philosophy about human dignity and worth required Southerners to create an especially pernicious racial doctrine, that still wrecks havoc to this day in our society. So I judge them according to the consequences of their actions.

    And future generations will be right to judge you.

    This assumes I’m wrong about something, which clearly I can’t be since I am practically perfect in every way. But yes they will be right to judge me and everyone else. 

    • #43
  14. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: # 42

    ”Think about this. If half the country showed up to venerate a man who had murdered an abortion doctor—-wrote poems about him, sang about his bravery, lobbied for his release—-some people who were pro-life might actually decide to go the other way in the case of war.”

    Yes. I think that’s true. Under the perceived threat of violence, people support the side they think is most likely to protect peace and safety for themselves and their loved ones.

    By the way, it’s interesting to find out Andrew Johnson had 2 or 3 slaves.

    • #44
  15. A-Squared Inactive
    A-Squared
    @ASquared

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    This assumes I’m wrong about something, which clearly I can’t be since I am practically perfect in every way. But yes they will be right to judge me and everyone else. 

    Well, at least you are humble. 

    • #45
  16. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    Re: # 42

    ”Think about this. If half the country showed up to venerate a man who had murdered an abortion doctor—-wrote poems about him, sang about his bravery, lobbied for his release—-some people who were pro-life might actually decide to go the other way in the case of war.”

    Yes. I think that’s true. Under the perceived threat of violence, people support the side they think is most likely to protect peace and safety for themselves and their loved ones.

    By the way, it’s interesting to find out Andrew Johnson had 2 or 3 slaves.

    Andrew Johnson cared nothing at all about freeing the slaves.  He cared a great deal about the Union.  He is a perfect example of why people who reduce that conflict to slavery alone are ignoring a great many issues.  Slavery was the root cause.  Abolition was not, though that was a good outcome. 

    It’s complicated.  

    • #46
  17. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: #44 and 46

    I think the seeming contradictions of the Civil War aren’t so much complicated as they are subjects we’re afraid of offending others by exploring and discussing. Our silence is encouraging the  foot soldier type yahoos of Anti-fa, and the Leftists who incite and exploit their ignorance, resentment, and racial and cultural hatred, to continue vandalizing statues and working to get them taken down.

    I think the only reason the root cause of that war can be called slavery is that slavery usually creates what was, more specifically, the root cause: the awareness and fear the South had of the possibility that slave uprisings would be made more savage, effective and frequent by the incitement and aid of people outside the slave states. (I’m thinking, judging by other historical occurrences, waves of abolitionist incited and led slave mobs would have been smaller than Sherman’s March. But the mobs  would have ended up butchering anyone in their path, even slaves who didn’t join them; Certainly children.)

    You say “Andrew Johnson cared nothing at all about freeing slaves. He cared a great deal about the Union.” Well, I couldn’t resist getting the book Coolidge and Vince Guerre mention in comments 30 and 32, “Rebel Yell, by S.C. Gwynne. Gwynne tells us Stonewall Jackson was a firm Union supporter until Harper’s Ferry. He probably cared nothing about freeing or not freeing the six people who worked his farm as his slaves. As Johnson’s slaves did, they might have stayed had some change in the law made them  free. Even after Harper’s Ferry, Stonewall Jackson worked to get everyone literally praying to avoid war. (But a letter reveals he wanted a “take no prisoners” approach to the war if God didn’t grant his request. I think it’s only well founded fear that makes anyone as kind and decent as Jackson seems to have been cold-blooded enough to want captured men killed.)

    • #47
  18. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    Re: #44 and 46

    I think the seeming contradictions of the Civil War aren’t so much complicated as they are subjects we’re afraid of offending others by exploring and discussing. Our silence is encouraging the foot soldier type yahoos of Anti-fa, and the Leftists who incite and exploit their ignorance, resentment, and racial and cultural hatred, to continue vandalizing statues and working to get them taken down.

    I think the only reason the root cause of that war can be called slavery is that slavery usually creates what was, more specifically, the root cause: the awareness and fear the South had of the possibility that slave uprisings would be made more savage, effective and frequent by the incitement and aid of people outside the slave states. (I’m thinking, judging by other historical occurrences, waves of abolitionist incited and led slave mobs would have been smaller than Sherman’s March. But the mobs would have ended up butchering anyone in their path, even slaves who didn’t join them; Certainly children.)

    You say “Andrew Johnson cared nothing at all about freeing slaves. He cared a great deal about the Union.” Well, I couldn’t resist getting the book Coolidge and Vince Guerre mention in comments 30 and 32, “Rebel Yell, by S.C. Gwynne. Gwynne tells us Stonewall Jackson was a firm Union supporter until Harper’s Ferry. He probably cared nothing about freeing or not freeing the six people who worked his farm as his slaves. As Johnson’s slaves did, they might have stayed had some change in the law made them free. Even after Harper’s Ferry, Stonewall Jackson worked to get everyone literally praying to avoid war. (But a letter reveals he wanted a “take no prisoners” approach to the war if God didn’t grant his request. I think it’s only well founded fear that makes anyone as kind and decent as Jackson seems to have been cold-blooded enough to want captured men killed.)

    I’m the person who suggested getting Rebel Yell.  :)  It’s a good monograph.

    How slavery was the root cause of the war is complicated as you say, but I think it had a great deal more to do with expansion west and concepts about free labor than the cause of abolition in the South, even if John Brown was a catalyst.  The threat of slave uprisings was nothing new and was underscored by Nat Turner some years before then.  The Haitian Revolution, actually, petrified slave owners, and that took place in the very early republic….

    • #48
  19. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: comment 30 and 32

    I have questions about S.C. Gwynne’s brief description in “Rebel Yell” of Brown and his men at Harper’s Ferry. If I understood our guide there correctly, Robert E. Lee just happened to be taking a few weeks at home in Arlington, Virginia when news of the October 16th attack finally reached him. Then, he was delayed getting to Harper’s Ferry, due to train trouble or something. Anyway, it was actually volunteers in the area who resisted Brown, killing 10 of his men. They had their own casualties, but they had Brown cornered in the small firehouse of the armory with some of his raiders, and  with the hostages the raiders had taken, by the time Lee arrived. If I understood the guide correctly, Brown’s raid wasn’t as predictably unsuccessful as Gwynne makes it out to be.

    I really like the way Gwynne writes, though.

    • #49
  20. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    Re: comment 30 and 32

    I have questions about S.C. Gwynne’s brief description in “Rebel Yell” of Brown and his men at Harper’s Ferry. If I understood our guide there correctly, Robert E. Lee just happened to be taking a few weeks at home in Arlington, Virginia when news of the October 16th attack finally reached him. Then, he was delayed getting to Harper’s Ferry, due to train trouble or something. Anyway, it was actually volunteers in the area who resisted Brown, killing 10 of his men. They had their own casualties, but they had Brown cornered in the small firehouse of the armory with some of his raiders, and with the hostages the raiders had taken, by the time Lee arrived. If I understood the guide correctly, Brown’s raid wasn’t as predictably unsuccessful as Gwynne makes it out to be.

    I really like the way Gwynne writes, though.

    To be honest, I can’t speak to all of that.  I mean, the Civil War is not my area of study, so I am not so versed that I can go to that level of detail with full confidence.  Perhaps someone else on the thread could speak to Lee’s role?  I thought he was simply ordered to put down the trouble.  I don’t think that Brown’s uprising had much of a chance for success though.  And I think it was the reaction of the North to the whole affair–the clear belief that it was a righteous act whatever the consequences might have been–that evoked such a strong reaction from men like Jackson.  

    • #50
  21. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Lee was ordered to put down the trouble. (He certainly did give Brown and his men a fair chance to surrender, by the way.) My point is he wasn’t able to get there quickly (not through any fault of his own). The area seems to have been pretty unprotected.

    I think you’re absolutely right about the effect of the reaction of the North.

    • #51
  22. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Lois Lane (View Comment):
    How slavery was the root cause of the war is complicated as you say, but I think it had a great deal more to do with expansion west and concepts about free labor than the cause of abolition in the South, even if John Brown was a catalyst. The threat of slave uprisings was nothing new and was underscored by Nat Turner some years before then. The Haitian Revolution, actually, petrified slave owners, and that took place in the very early republic….

    I’ve seen it argued that the core issue was that the continued stability of slavery was highly dependent on slaves having nowhere else to go.  If rebellion was hopeless and running away was hopeless, then control was much easier.  But if slaves had hopes of either overthrow or escape, then the entire system was in constant jeopardy (you see this same pattern with the Iron Curtain too, by the way, or North Korea today).  The repeated and flagrant violations of every single agreement to limit slavery’s spread into new territories and states by the Southern states bore this out.  So did the Runaway Slave Act and the Dredd Scott decision that gave it teeth.  The latter in particular was a clear sign for the slave states that even being a “free” state gave no protection for slaves.  

    This was also why Lincoln being president was so intolerable to the slave states – his mere presence in Washington threatened to destabilize the slave population, so secession was the natural next step – an enforced and militarized border was the only way to keep the slaves in.

    • #52
  23. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re # 52

    To keep slaves in and to keep out abolitionists and people  like Harriet Tubman ( who knew John Brown, by the way.)

    Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech indicates many people in the South simply didn’t believe the Republicans wanted nothing to do with abolitionists, and people like John Brown who were that and something else.

    I’ve never looked into what John Brown did in Kansas.

    • #53
  24. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    John Brown hacked people to death in Kansas as retribution in what was a mini-civil war.

    • #54
  25. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: 54

    So there’s another book I saw at the bookstore at Harper’s Ferry, “To Purge This Land With Blood” , by Stephen B. Oates. (Something about Nat Turner, written later I think, has a similar title.) Anyway, does anyone know if this book on John Brown is any good ?

    • #55
  26. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Speaking of John Brown, we also ought to remember that the tune we know today as Battle Hymn of the Republic was originally called… John Brown’s Body.

    ohn Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
    John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
    John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
    But his soul goes marching on.

    CHORUS: Glory, glory, hallelujah,
    Glory, glory, hallelujah,
    Glory, glory, hallelujah,
    His soul goes marching on.

     

    He’s gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,
    He’s gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,
    He’s gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,
    His soul goes marching on.–CHORUS

    John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back,
    John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back,
    John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back,
    His soul goes marching on.–CHORUS

    John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
    John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
    John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
    His soul goes marching on.–CHORUS

    The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down,
    The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down,
    The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down,
    His soul goes marching on.–CHORUS

    http://www.american-historama.org/1850-1860-secession-era/john-browns-body.htm

    • #56
  27. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: 56

    I didn’t know the John Brown version came first. That’s pretty fascinating.

    On our way back from Harper’s Ferry, after we had crossed into Connecticut, I noticed for the first time a sign for Harper’s Ferry Road.

    • #57
  28. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    DonG (View Comment):
    The only legal way out is to get permission from 3/4 of the states.

    Reference please.

    • #58
  29. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Speaking of John Brown, we also ought to remember that the tune we know today as Battle Hymn of the Republic was originally called… John Brown’s Body.

    ohn Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
    John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
    John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
    But his soul goes marching on.

    CHORUS: Glory, glory, hallelujah,
    Glory, glory, hallelujah,
    Glory, glory, hallelujah,
    His soul goes marching on.

     

    He’s gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,
    He’s gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,
    He’s gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,
    His soul goes marching on.–CHORUS

    John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back,
    John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back,
    John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back,
    His soul goes marching on.–CHORUS

    John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
    John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
    John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
    His soul goes marching on.–CHORUS

    The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down,
    The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down,
    The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down,
    His soul goes marching on.–CHORUS

    http://www.american-historama.org/1850-1860-secession-era/john-browns-body.htm

    I recently listened to this Bookmonger episode about A Fiery Gospel, a book about the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It sounds interesting and I added it to my reading list.

    • #59
  30. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    CJ (View Comment):

    DonG (View Comment):

    CJ (View Comment):
    I submit to you that they were both the “bad guys.” Two wrongs don’t make a right. Coercive unification is just slavery by another name.

    Nope. Unification is enforcement of the contract of the Constitution. Joining the USA was voluntary, but it is a commitment. The only legal way out is to get permission from 3/4 of the states.

    It is not a contract in any legal sense. No one then existing (at the time of the War of Northern Aggression) or now existing has ever signed the Constitution. Nobody has ever been asked to sign the Constitution because nobody would be foolish enough to do so. And in no sense can it said to be voluntary.

    Let’s suppose the Constitution was some kind of contract. What is a typical penalty for when one party is in breach of contract? Generally, it isn’t to murder hundreds of thousand of people.

    I am always horrified at the carnage that came about due to the US Civil War. Yet most people accept it as a “good war” – especially most people in the North.

    At the time of the opening shots fired  at Fort Sumner,  there were a tiny bit more than 2 million slaves in the USA. Yet over 600,000 soldiers died on account of the war. Perhaps four times that number were wounded, many severely. I have never read the grand total of civilians who died, but that must have been a rather large number as well.  Devastation of war activities that rained down on people, mostly the women and children left behind when farmers went off to war, had to have taken a toll. Sometimes the deaths came about after malnutrition or actual illnesses set in.

    Somehow the idea that a person could murder some people  for the good of freeing others seems disturbing. Is taking someone else’s life not reprehensible? And it is more than likely some 15 years down the road, slavery would have ended anyway.

    • #60
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