Tag: civil war

Love Thy Neighbor

Aaron Miller
Aaron Miller
22 12
 

It is when we have the most cause to hate and reject our neighbors that we most need to remember the command to love them. Yes, my fellow Christians, it is a command and not merely an invitation. Though no challenge could be so difficult to fulfill, it is the foundation rather than the pinnacle of Christian love. It is a challenge not reserved only for the holiest saints but rather put to every one of us. Our Lord and Creator doesn’t even stop there. “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

A philosophy professor and friend once caught me off guard by claiming that the Golden Rule is nothing special. Any person raised in a good home knows not to mistreat others as oneself doesn’t want to be abused.

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Ammo.com
Ammo.com
0 0
 

The Civil War (1861-1865) was nothing less than a revolutionary reorganization of American government, society, and economics. It claimed almost as many lives as every other U.S. conflict combined and, by war’s bloody logic, forged the nation which the Founding Fathers could not by settling once and for all lingering national questions about state sovereignty and slavery. The postwar period, […]
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Ontheleftcoast
Ontheleftcoast
14 9
 

Paraphrasing Dan Bongino, conservatives think Leftists are people with bad ideas, Leftists think that conservatives are bad people because the conservatives have bad ideas. Conservatives are beginning to return the favor. Many people are describing what’s going on in America as the rise of a new civic religion, and one which aggressively proselytizes at that. […]
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Ontheleftcoast
Ontheleftcoast
6 6
 

I’ve previously had a post censored on the grounds “conspiracy theorist” for quoting Matt Bracken but he is absolutely correct on this: Antifa and BLM have roots in the Revolutionary Communist Party, (which is why Bracken refers to them together as “ABR”.) He’s reporting an escalation in ABR tactics. He provides an excellent analysis of […]
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The Debate Question You’ll Never Hear

Judge Mental
Judge Mental
44 25
 

Moderator: “This question is for whichever of you have the guts to answer: The last time a Democrat nominee for president graciously accepted a losing result — that is, without claiming that they were cheated, that votes were stolen or suppressed, that Diebold rigged the outcome, or claimed that the process itself was unfair — was Michael Dukakis in 1988. If you are the Dems’ nominee and then lose the general election, will you:

  1. Concede graciously and immediately
  2. Issue a call to all Democrats for national unity, and to work with the duly elected president
  3. And condemn any and all continued activities by The Resistance.

“And if your answer is no, and you should in fact win the general election, explain why all the same tactics used against Donald Trump should not be applied to your new presidency.”

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Such Was the Fidelity of a Dog: Mousel, the Mascot of the 8th Illinois Infantry

Jeff Giambrone
Jeff Giambrone
1 6
 
Civil War Period Illustration of a Soldier with his dog. (Peterson’s Magazine, October 1863)

Civil War soldiers faced the dangers of the battlefield with great valor, but they also had to come to terms with the boredom and loneliness that was part and parcel of army life. To help cope with the stresses of military service, many soldiers adopted pets or mascots that traveled with their owners on the march and in battle. One of the most famous Civil War mascots was “Old Abe,” the eagle mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry, but all manner of creatures served as mascots. Probably the most common mascot was the dog, and they came in a wonderful variety of breeds and sizes. The importance of these canine companions to the soldiers they followed should not be underestimated; the following story, published in the Vicksburg Daily Herald, on July 21, 1864, illustrates this fact.

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Quote of the Day: Abraham Lincoln and his Religiosity

Susan Quinn
Susan Quinn
43 11
 

Lincoln grew into an intensely religious man, although we rarely hear him described in those terms nowadays. His religious faith became fundamental to his thinking and decision-making during the Civil War; we rarely hear that either. When he assumed the enormous burden of the presidency with war approaching, his faith grew deeper. When his beloved young son Willie died in early 1862, it deepened again—and seemed to continue growing deeper until his death. In the end Lincoln should almost certainly be remembered as the most important religious figure America has ever produced. I don’t mean he was a theologian. But Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah weren’t theologians either.

– David Gelernter, The Fourth Great Western Religion

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Angel of the Battlefield: An Unexpected Gift

Susan Quinn
Susan Quinn
15 9
 

As a child, I was addicted to a series of biographies written for children. They were undersized volumes, with a textured blue cover and the name of the featured person written in a kind of script. One of those books told the story of Clara Barton. Her courage, determination, and devotion to the soldiers of the Civil War have stayed with me all these years.

Clara Barton, 1905
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But How Will You Pay For It?

HankRhody Freelance Philosopher
HankRhody Freelance Philosopher
52 21
 

This post stems out of a conversation at the work lunch table. Someone brought up that Brooklyn Bug-Eye’s economic illiteracy. “We’ve chased Amazon away! That’s three billion in tax incentives that we can spend elsewhere!” Not quite how that works. The discussion moved on to banning cow farts and air travel and so forth. I’ll spare you the details, you’ve heard ’em all before. The problem is that by the time you get to how you’re going to pay for such a thing you’ve already lost the argument.

Here, let’s have Rachael Carson tell it.

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Locke On
Locke On
8 10
 

In the spring of 2008, when the term was still new, I posted a survey regarding the notion of the Cold Civil War on a now-closed group blog, WindsofChange.Net. Its few questions were an attempted reality check on the sundering of personal, business, and political relationships that would presumably accompany any move towards “politics by […]
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Codevilla and Our Revolutionary Spiral

Locke On
Locke On
16 17
 

Angelo Codevilla isn’t as prolific as, say, Victor Davis Hanson, but when he drops one it’s time to pay attention. The latest is no exception: Our Revolution’s Logic.

His main thesis is that a spiral has begun, away from the American system of resolving political differences, and into a tit-for-tat of using power, fair and foul, not just to be left alone, but to force the other party to conform. Trump, the Resistance, and Kavanaugh all play starring roles. Read the whole thing.

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Susan Quinn
Susan Quinn
20 10
 

The overcast sky rested heavily on the landscape on the day we visited Valley Forge. Few people were there on that day, as if they were avoiding a reminder of the chilly autumn season that lay ahead and the brutal memories long past. An admirer of General George Washington during the Revolutionary War, I wanted […]
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Will of the Wisp

Seawriter
Seawriter
10 8
 

will-o’-the-wisp: noun

  1. (Also called: friar’s lantern, ignis fatuus, jack-o’-lantern) A pale flame or phosphorescence sometimes seen over marshy ground at night. It is believed to be due to the spontaneous combustion of methane or other hydrocarbons originating from decomposing organic matter
  2. A person or thing that is elusive or allures and misleads

There are probably few ship types surrounded by as much romance as the Civil War blockade runner. It was risky, but not illegal. It was not smuggling. Rather, it was an attempt to circumvent a wartime blockade – a blockade that was legal only in so far as it could stop neutrals from entering or exiting a port declared blockaded.

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Susan Quinn
Susan Quinn
21 9
 

Issued by General Gordon Granger “19th of June”, 1865 Galveston, TX, General Order #3 “The people are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection […]
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Quote of the Day: Savoring the Enemy’s Losses

Susan Quinn
Susan Quinn
46 14
 

“Grant had captured an army of at least 13,000 men, a record of the North American continent. He showed mercy toward the conquered force, giving them food and letting them keep their side arms. Avoiding any show of celebration, he refused to shame soldiers and vetoed any ceremony in which they marched. ‘Why should we go through with vain forms and mortify and injure the spirit of brave men, who, after all, are our own countrymen,’ he asked.” — from Grant, by Ron Chernow

“If your enemy falls, do not exult; if he trips, let your heart not rejoice, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and avert his wrath from him.” —Proverbs, 24: 17-18

For all his overindulgence with alcohol, Ulysses S. Grant was a brilliant general. Although he had some embarrassing losses, he was relentless, strategic and smart. Yet he agonized over those left dead on the battlefield, whether they were his own men or the men of the Confederate army. He was not only determined to lessen their misery, but tried to treat the wounded and dead on both sides, with dignity and compassion.

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A New Book to Be Read and Treasured

Paul A. Rahe
Paul A. Rahe
11 11
 

Twenty-five years ago, I published a massive tome, 1,200 pages in length, titled Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution. It sold out within 13 months. It was picked up by the History Book Club, then reprinted in 1994 in three paperback volumes; and it is still in print and was recently released on Kindle.

One of the arguments that I advanced in that work was that the chief cause of the American Revolution was regime difference. Put simply, after 1688, England went one direction, and America went another. On our side of the Atlantic, the government was in practice organized in accord with the principles advanced by the Radical Whigs. On the other side of the Atlantic, the government was organized on the basis of an agreement gradually worked out in the wake of the Glorious Revolution between the Tories who had sought James II’s ouster and those of the Whigs who were willing to settle for de facto parliamentary dominion.

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ShellGamer
ShellGamer
27 13
 

It seems to be my lot to point out flaws in Professor Epstein’s reasoning. In the 100th podcast of Law Talk, he repeated his contention that the Roman law of partnership should be viewed as the model for the relationship of the States to the Federal government. Under Roman law, and English and U.S. common […]
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Was Slavery the Cause of the Civil War?

Matty Van
Matty Van
144 24
 

The great American tragedy is raising its ugly head once more, as it does occasionally. People on both sides are viciously accused by people on opposite sides, sometimes justly, sometimes not, as America divides along fault lines remarkably similar to the one that ruptured in 1861. My contention is that the horrible war could only be justified by the victorious side by making it a moral war. Was it?

In GFHandle’s piece, “Should We Honor Lee?,” several of us discussed that question, i.e., whether slavery was the cause. I contend that, in fact, the American Civil War was a cultural war, a refight of the English Civil War of the 1630s. Members of each side fled England to escape the other during the seventeenth century, one side to Massachusetts to seed northern culture, the other to Virginia to seed southern culture — and maintained both their cultures and their animosities to such an extent that they would fight again in the 1860s.

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