Shadows Of Times Past: The Truth About The Civil War, The South and Slavery

UPDATE: SINCE WRITING THIS POST I HAVE BEEN UNFRIENDED AND HARASSED BY MANY AND SO i UNPUBLISHED IT. PEOPLE ARE JUST GOING CRAZY WITH THE RACE AND SLAVERY ISSUE AND CANNOT OR WILL NOT ACCEPT THE TRUTH. I THINK IT IS TIME TO RE-POST THIS BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE WANT TO CHANGE HISTORY AND TAKE DOWN MANY MEMORIALS TO THOSE THEY SAY LOST. WHEN THAT HAPPENS EVERYONE LOSES.
SO I AM RE-PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE IN FULL TODAY, AUGUST 3, 2017

This article starts with my rant that I posted on my Face Book Timeline.

My Rant on prejudice and History and .....This USA is going crazy. Now because someone shoots down a couple of people in a church, they now come to the conclusion that a Confederate Flag is the cause of it and that it should be taken off of any government articles. Now they are saying that the flag means some kind of racial thing. Do people realize that they are the ones that are racist for wanting history changed and some deleted altogether? They are going to change more than just the flag. There was a culture in society in the south and it was not all about loyalties. The rich may have been, but there were lots more to the south than that. There were regular people that lived day to day and were not famous for anything. Will you also consider or deflame those who did help with the cause and their livelihood that were black too and how about any of the whites that were in history for the same cause and I mean for both sides and cross overs? Do you all THINK about what you are doing? Isn't the destroying of a part of our nation the same thing that ISIS is doing and those leaders of Islam that don't care for us? Where is all this HATE coming from and is HATE really logical in this world today? I am seeing, and really despise that, a mob mentality, not a single one has any reality going for them.

http://www.sodahead.com/

It really has become a them and us type of mob mentality spread by mis-information and hatred brought on by something that did not even start with the Confederate flag at all.

It really comes to Dylann Roof's shooting people in a church, in the south. The "SOUTH" has been a part of these states and people and culture for the last 200+ years. All the media is doing is wiping mud and coloring all the good things that the south has given us. This article is going to bring up some of those things and perhaps people will get some education here because they sure as heck are not getting it in their "PUBLIC" school system. How can we learn from the past if we keep shoving it under peoples noses and then turn around and call everything that we ever learned a total lie? How can we shove, into a pit, a part of our history that made us into these "UNITED" States of America?

Have we forgotten all those Northerners AND Southerners that contributed to both side of the free the slave issues? People that died because of their beliefs about people not being slaves on both side of the coin. Slavery wasn't the whole issue and not every had slaves. Some of the people in the south were people just like you and me just living day to day. Only the rich could afford a slave and politics was also heavily into the Civil War. It was not everyone who believe in one side or the other. Some didn't even care, just as it is today and people are just trying to get by and have families and so on and so forth.

In the comments on my face book post there was one that constantly let or told everyone that they thought that the flag was evil and stood for slavery and the Civil War was fought on that only. They got really upset and said that they were going to leave the conversation when they found out that whites were holding up that this flag and it's (their) meaning. The mis-information floors me at times.

First Union Battle Flag of the Civil War
http://galleryhip.com/union-army-flag.html

Many events that may have started The Civil War was started included the need for Civil Rights for all and not for the elite, John Brown's Raid, economics and power and greed. It was not totally about slavery. The South was already in the process of releasing their slaves because they were following Russia's slave freeing at the time and that was just before the Civil War started. The first group that spoke out about the slaves and how they did not like the idea was from the North, by the Quaker religion. Funny that they were the ones that came to this country wanting to be and do as they pleased and not be persecuted for it. The come here and do that persecuting to someone else. The Civil War was started and was about taxation and economics and State rights (to own slaves or not). Northerners also had slaves too, though they weren't called that. The differences was that the South was more of an agriculture hub (cotton), while the North was more about Industrial growth. It is easy to see the complications here and it is also just as easy to see that they were intertwined with each other. The North made machinery that the south needed and the South were feeding and clothing the nation at the time. The slavery issue came long before the Civil War and according to Wikipedia it was more about social norms of a differing kind of people:

"Arguments that slavery was undesirable for the nation had long existed, and early in U.S. history were made even by some prominent Southerners. After 1840, abolitionists denounced slavery as not only a social evil but a moral wrong. Many Northerners, especially leaders of the new Republican Party, considered slavery a great national evil and believed that a small number of Southern owners of large plantations controlled the national government with the goal of spreading that evil. Southern defenders of slavery, for their part, increasingly came to contend that blacks actually benefited from slavery, an assertion that alienated Northerners even further."

One of my commenter's also said that the flag that is in question was a battle flag of the South. Well there were battle flags of the North too throughout the Civil War. In battle, the purpose of a flag is to help identify who is who. Who is on your side, and who is on the other side. Nothing more but people think it is more.

There were three different battle flags the South used. I only found these two:

Battle Flag for the Army of Tennessee

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Confederate_Flag.htm

Confederate National Flag

In March of 1861, those who supported a flag similar to that of the United States prevailed,

and the "Stars and Bars"

became the official National flag of the Confederacy.

Now to the political players that fed into all this. As I looked them up there were more whites than blacks, but that is here nor there. The war and the flags were not about Racism and I cannot stress this enough. Each regiment in the war and on both sides had their own battle flag and they were all different and specific to their company. So to say that this one flag is about race is wrong, completely wrong.

Dividing Line of North and South

For some clarification: There were whites an black on both sides, not just the one side where most of the history you see floating around speaking of racism. It was not about race. For the sake of not writing a book about this, I am only going to list a few.

This map shows the division of North and South. It is also called the Mason Dixon Line.

"Through the first half of the 19th century the Mason-Dixon Line represented the line of freedom for tens of thousands of blacks escaping slavery in the south. The Underground Railroad provided food and temporary shelter at secret way-stations, and guided or sometimes transported northbound slaves across the Line. The spirituals sung by these slaves included coded references for escapees: the song "Follow the drinking gourd" referred to the Big Dipper from which runaways could sight the North Star; the River Jordan was the Mason-Dixon Line; Pennsylvania was the Promised Land. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed slave owners to pursue their escaped slaves into the north, the line of freedom became the Canadian border, "Canaan" in the spirituals, and abolitionists created Underground Railroad stops all the way to Canada. " ---A brief history of the Mason-Dixon Line, John Mackenzie, APEC/CANR, University of Delaware

Freed Slaves in The Union Army

July 17, 1862 was the first Colored Troop to fight in the Union Army. They thought that being those slaves that made it to freedom would have made a bigger impact on the morale's of the Confederacy. Martin Delaney and Frederick Douglass were the first two freed slaves in this troop. 200,000 African Americans served in the Union Army during the Civil War and more than 10,000 died in the Civil War serving in the Union.

The movie "Glory", trailer below, is about the first formal unit of the Union Army, made up of these African American freed slaves, during the American Civil War

Other Key Players In The Civil War

There were African American women who also served in the United States Colored Troop regiments. One was a nurse, laundress and school teacher, Suzy Baker. After the Civil War she went on to help build a branch of the Women's Relief Corps that served veterans.

Suzy Baker

White men who were confederates also helped free the slaves. One was Granville Hall. He was born in Harrison County Virginia, which is now part f West Virginia, His father was indicted for subscribing to an Antislavery newspaper.

Granville Hall

Hinton Helper

Henry Ruffner

A bit of proof that the Civil War was more than about civil rights and slavery. In 1847 Ruffner stated that slavery was taking jobs from white laborers. He also stated the the older free states were beginning to grow economically while those in the older slave states prosperity was beginning tp show signs of stagnating. Hinton Helper stated that the "Plain Folk of the Old South" were being oppressed by the rich slave owners. He believed that the abolitionists were the South's true friends.

Black Slave Owners As Well As White Ones

Whites were not the only ones who owned slave and they were not the only slave in the South. Northerner also had slaves. African Americans's also owned slave. The three most historical Black Slave Owners were: Willima Ellison, born April Ellison. She took the name of her former slave owner and bought slaves to work on her land in South Carolina. Marie Therese Matoyer freed slave and bought her husband and then they produces 6 children of that union in Louisiana. Anthony Johnson was the first black to come to the states and was the first slave in Virginia. There is lots to red about this and the beginning/roots of the slavery in America on this site: The Black Slave Owners

Women Spies

Belle Boyd

There was also a famous lady Confederate Spy and her name was Maria Isabella Boyd. She went by the name of "Belle" Boyd. She had deep southern roots as her well-to-do family lived there.She was young enough (18 years old) to not be noticed as much but she did have an arrest record. When a Union soldier came into their home and was drunk and talked rudely to her mother Belle took a gun and killed the man. She was only 17 years old. She was not arrested as the investigator deemed that she was in the right to kill him. That began her career as a Rebel Spy. She transported information and supplies to the Confederate Troops.

There was also a couple of other woman spies in the Civil War. One was Emma Edmonds and another Elizabeth Van Lew.

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew, a native of Richmond, VA who had attended a Philadelphia Quaker school, was an ardent opponent of slavery and pro-Union. “Crazy Bet” as she was known in Richmond because she used to sing and talk to herself while going down the street. She freed a slave before the war started and employed her as a house servant in the home of Jefferson Davis.

Emma Edwards

Emma Edmonds dressed up as a man to to get into the Michigan Volunteer Company and then would go out and spy as a woman. Sneaky one wasn't she?

And finally, John Brown, who was the biggest push for the start of the Civil War, when he raided Harper's Ferry.

John Brown

He was a big part of the Underground Railroad in hiding slave and bringing them to their freedom. He had started his own army which he called the Provisional Army and had 21 followers. 5 of them were African Americans and 16 of them were white. They came from a variety of backgrounds.He was all over the territories and Virginia too. He killed 5 in the Kansas Territory before moving his followers to Maryland where they planned their ambush on Harper's Ferry. It was his goal to take the fort and he did tell Frederick Douglas of his plans to do so. Frederick Douglas told him that he would not get out of that alive. He was hoping that all the slaves of those men that were in Harper's Ferry would join up with his followers, but he was very disappointed when they did not. He killed many people and held many people hostage in that town. He also took over many of the buildings that included, Hall's Rifle Works and the armory and arsenal that was in Harper's Ferry. When he got there and started his raid, someone got word out of what he was doing and the US Marines came in to take control. It was Robert E. Lee that finally came in. John's fatal mistake was when he seized the B & O Railroad for 5 hours.

John Brown's Fort at Harper's Ferry National Park
in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia

He took hostages and held them in the fire engine house in Harper's Ferry. That is how it got the name of John Brown's Fort. General Lee asked them to stand down and drop their weapons and they refused. General Lee had his Marines storm the Fire House and a few were killed. John Brown was convicted of murder and reason against the Commonwealth of Virginia on December 2, 1869.
John Brown had hoped that he would be able to "free all the slaves in the South" with this maneuver. General Robert E. Lee thought that he was a madman.

Another devastating raid during the Civil War that you may want to read: StonewallJackson, The Roundhouse of Martinsburg, West Virginia & the Civil War

Anti-Establishment

The more and more that I read on this flag and what certain groups of people put into it I come to realize what it really means and why it has such a bad symbolism.

As history unfolds and we learn more and more and the events of today, the flag symbolizes rebellion. Rebellion of what? Rebellion of a way of life that the wealthy Southerners relished in. The rich had their plantations and had to work them to produce their crops and make money. The only way that they saw to do this was to have slaves. They didn't pay taxes on these slaves and they became their property. A slave owner owned the children of the women slaves. It was a profitable business. Many did not see it that way in the South and also in the North. After the Mexican/American War in 1850, 11 years prior to the onset of the Civil War, slavery became an issue to the new territories. Another compromise was the Missouri Compromise (1820), was a federal statute that regulated slavery in the western territories. That raised some issues and there was yet another compromise. In January 1854, it was repealed and the new compromise, the Kansas/Nebraska Act, which opened up the territory and allowed any white male to decide if he wanted slaves or not. That caused some issues as well and slavery states and territories became to be spotted through out the newly developing United States. That was problem that President Lincoln faced and had to deal with and find a solution for. Along with that he was also involved in making a new state, which at the time had some interesting issues about the Union and Confederate of their own. You can read "West Virginia's Battle To Become A New State" on this blog.

People don't like those who are rebellious and are Anti-Establishment. Other words for this are; anarchist, freedom fighter, heretic, nonconformist, resistance fighter and revolt, take as stand. It bucks the system that everyone "must" follow. The United States at the time just before the Civil War were wanting a complete Unity. With all these slavery issues and territories and the economics of the states, The North just wanted some peace and have the whole of the land be UNITED. That wasn't happening with the states that were seceding from that very Union. So they had to ruffle some feathers, so to speak, and it caused so much uproar to so many people's, but it had to be done. So this flag represents this strife and this anti-establishment and kind of like, dig your heals in, attitude. It causes people to become outraged with what they associate the symbol of that Confederate flag.

For a person to use it as a suggestive to be racist, like Dylann Roof did, is a powerful statement. Though he did use it and put that hatred into people's minds has nothing to do with the Civil War or that Flag perse'. The hatred and the anger should point to the person and not a material symbol. He said that he wanted to start a Civil War and instead of ignoring him we are starting a Civil War, just like he wants. That is crazy!

He used an old symbol to illicit hatred in these United States. Those in Charleston, South Carolina have said they don't feed hate. You could have fooled me! This is exactly what they are doing. Can't you see what the people who are calling Racism for this flag are doing? You are no better than Dylann Roof.

It has been a little over 200 years and we still have not learned a thing or even become a UNITED States. Not even close.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall. I don't think that we will ever be United because we put too much into symbols to stop and Love Our Neighbor.