These fucking idiots:
A few hundred armed militia group members, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Ku Klux Klaners, supporters of President Donald Trump, and other self-described patriots descended upon the Gettysburg battlefield Saturday to defend the site’s Confederate symbols from phantom activists with the violent far-left group Antifa.
Some carried semi-automatic rifles ― permitted in Pennsylvania ― as they peered out across the battlefield with binoculars, on the lookout for the black-clad, face-masked anti-fascists, anarchists and socialists they said they had heard were traveling to the national park to dishonor Confederate graves, monuments and flags.
Although many came expecting violence ― even after Antifa made it clear its adherents never planned to show up ― the only bloodshed came when a lone militia group member accidentally shot himself in the leg.
I suppose there are worse things than having a bunch of amped up fascist gun nuts self-quarantined in a battlefield where literally the only harm they can do is to themselves and the graves of confederate filth who have been dead for 200 years. I suppose it is worth noting that these lost cause losers were defending the graves from nonexistent threats incurred in a battle that was the beginning of the end of the Confederacy, so that makes this idiocy just a touch bit tastier for this Yankee scum.
lollipopguild
I hate that our country has become a third rate made for cable movie.
Bostondreams
Perfect perfect shade in that linked piece:
bystander
“Idiocracy” surpasses HG Wells in the accuracy of its predictions. Nostradumbass, indeed.
Baud
I hope they at least they earned their Wolverines badge.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@lollipopguild:
I’m thinking that it is an episode of “My Name is Earl”.
Baud
Never heard of them.
BC in Illinois
The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitors, up with the stars;
While we rally round the flag, boys, we rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
Though he was not at the battle, my great-grandfather was a member of the Michigan 24th Volunteer Infantry Regiment. At Gettysburg, they “went into action with 496 officers and men. Killed & mortally wounded: 89; Otherwise wounded: 218; Captured: 56; Total casualties: 363. Five color bearers were killed and all the color guard killed or wounded.” Those might be the people in the graves behind the yahoos pictured above.
No confederate grave markers? Well, no.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
This is how these assclowns choose to spend their time. It’s just sad that anybody’s life could end up like this.
Baud
BTW
Haha. That was Antifa’s plan all along!
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Don’t forget these guys are the “superior” race.
gbear
I wonder how close they came to shooting at each other when the guy shot himself.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bostondreams: Excellent shade.
And these twatwaffles are bone stupid about their own supposed “heritage”. Every single seceding state mentioned slavery and white supremacy as the reason for their actions. After their asses had been kicked, the revisionism began.
Sherman did not go far enough.
Immanentize
@Baud: Really? Antifa stands for anti-fascist and these are the black bedecked folks who go to KKK and winger meet ups to mix it up a bit. They are the modern version of the guys who would attack Nazi punks and skin heads in clubs in the ’80s. They really are somewhat lefty and don’t mind a little scrum. Mostly, like their name implies, anti-fascist. So Nazi Punks Fuck Off.
Bostondreams
@Villago Delenda Est:
I spent ten years teaching American history in a small rural town in Florida. As BettyCracker and other Floridians that post here could probably agree, the further north you get in Florida, the further south you are. It was a struggle to get this through to my students, but I found that having the kids actually READ the Declarations of Secession and the Cornerstone Speech and Confederate Constitution had a significant impact on even those kids with parents in the Klan (not kidding about that).
Immanentize
@Villago Delenda Est: One of my favorite details about the Confederate Constitution is that it is the first such document to explicitly ban the importation of slaves.
Virginia required that clause because they had a surplus slave problem through births and didn’t want the market undercut by imports. Very Trumpian! MCGA!
MaxUtil
@Immanentize: I assumed Baud was keying off the “violent” description to feign his ignorance. The right is so desperate for there to be a left wing equivalent of violent militia types and gun humpers that they are really trying hard to make the antifa and black bloc groups out to be violent revolutionaries that are some kind of threat to social order.
Baud
@Immanentize: Nope. First I’ve heard of them. I know about the people on the West coast who always disrupt protests, but I thought they were anarchists.
Baud
@MaxUtil: Fuck you. My ignorance is genuine.
Immanentize
@Baud: They are that too! I actually had a moment when I was sure you were pulling my leg. Then I had a second moment where I realized that Baud is probably to the Antifa what Sub-Commander Marcos was to the Zapatistas….
SFAW
Too lazy, didn’t read the article.
But, what I want to know is: suppose members of Antifa HAD been there, unarmed. And what if Antifa had started spray-painting or otherwise vandalizing the Graves of the Traitorous? What would these jack-offs have done? Shot the Antiferos? (Antifettes? Antifanians?) Or just looked at them in a threatening manner?
Not that those assholes would have thought that far ahead, but it would be interesting to see how they try to apply SYG to vandals who are not threatening them with bodily harm. [Note: I’m assuming that the Antiferos are white. Of course, if they were black, then it’s open season on ’em, and who could blame those brave gunslingers? Although if the Antiferos wore black masks, I guess the Sons of the Traitorous could blame that.]
Spanky
Sorry, but my great-grandpa was in the Federal Artillery 1962-1865, and was at Gettysburg. I had no idea these shitheads were going to be there, but if I’d decided to take the day to drive up and had accidentally encountered them, I might well have started something, because I’m Irish and not too
brightconcerned with consequences these days.I’m happy no other tourists (of which there are usually thousands) did something rash.
MattF
@BC in Illinois: So, it’s even stupider than it looks. Did they find a child porn pizza parlor benind any of the gravestones?
And, I guess one should add that these are mass graves of men who died for the Union, the headstones are just a decorative frill.
MJS
“I suppose there are worse things than having a bunch of amped up fascist gun nuts self-quarantined in a battlefield where literally the only harm they can do is to themselves and the graves of confederate filth who have been dead for 200 years.”
Well, in addition to themselves and grave markers, there are thousands of tourists in Gettysburg in early July to commemorate the anniversary of the battle. So, while no one other than a fucking idiot was injured this time, there is plenty of opportunity for harm to be done to others. While the fascist gun nuts may have been self-quarantined in a section of the battlefield, the bullets they have do not recognize that quarantine.
Baud
@Immanentize: There are these various random gaps in my knowledge base.
SFAW
@Baud:
First bumper sticker of your 2020 campaign? I like it.
Schlemazel
It is a desecration of sacred ground for these assclown to go parading around as pretend soldiers. They do not honor the men who gave their lives to to save the nation or even those who gave theirs to save human bondage for their lilly white bosses.
On this day the traitors broke through the center of the US line and the only reserves available were 282 members of the 1st MN infantry. They were ordered to take the battle flag of the lead traitor unit so they fixed bayonets and charged into 1600 of the bastards & drove them off the field! They held on til dark but 215 of the 282 were killed or wounded in the effort.
Piss on those assclowns
Jeffro
@gbear:
I was thinking the exact same thing. One firecracker, one motorcycle starting up, one loud snap of a bubble gum bubble, and we’re talking Reservoir Dogs in a really, really good way…
Schlemazel
@Baud:
I see the campaign slogan for BAUD 2020!!!
aw crap, @SFAW: got there first
Jeffro
@MattF:
I thought the kids were moved to Mars? Or did Alex Jones lie to me again?
Another Scott
@gbear: At least they didn’t try to take backpacks into the Visitor Center. Can’t have that – it’s too dangerous!!!1
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Ol'Froth
There’s only a handful of confederate graves at Gettysburg, ones that were accidentally buried in the National Cemetery. Most of the confederate dead were interred in unmarked trenches.
MaxUtil
@Baud: I apologize for accusing you of subtle humor…
The Antifa are actually linked to the anarchists (whoever they are). They’re really more of thing in Europe, especially Germany where they take their fascists a little more seriously than we do. I think the identification spread into the US as part of the anti-globalization actions. Probably too some kids are just usurping the branding as the name “Antifa” seems to strike fear in the hearts of reactionaries. The Germans are really pretty hardcore and definitely not afraid to punch a Nazi. But they generally are fighting for radical agendas like taking control away from corporations and the trans-national elite, gentrification and racism. You know… your typical radical left-wing violent goals.
d58826
(sigh) A little higher and at least he would have improved the gene pool a bit
drylake
Speaking of dumb-ass whitery, opened the FTFNYT this morning for my Monday Krugman, only to find on the front page the bigliest headline entitled “California’s Far North Deplores [get it?] ‘Tyranny’ of Urban Majority.” Now, those of you with any knowledge of CA history might recall the movement to secede from CA and Oregon by the Northernmost and Southernmost counties, respectively, of those two states to set up the state of “Jefferson,” with the very same complaints, that began in the late 1930s. Now why would a news editor regard as “news” something that has been continuously the case for nigh on 80 years. Not to mention that the “urban majority” is the sole constituency of the rag. Or is any resort to yet another story about white resentment justification enough? Didn’t read the story, and no link; no need to waste more pixels.
Immanentize
@Baud: Antifa will be the perfect private security forces for Baud 2020!
Villago Delenda Est
@Immanentize: Goes back even farther. German communists formed “Red fighters” who brawled with the SA in the streets of Germany.
stinger
Armed, untrained, paranoid ignoramuses like these will keep me away from places they congregate. Why don’t you want my tourist dollars, Pennsylvania?
d58826
Treason alert in Charlotte – Team USA plays Team Cuba on the 4th.
Big Ole Hound
Remember that the last flag of the Confederacy was the WHITE flag of surrender.
Keith P.
Those two look like they should be trying to play their chest plates like washboards in a jug band.
BC in Illinois
@d58826:
I appreciate the fact that when PennLive, the local news source, described the man who shot himself by resting his flagpole on his holster, the headline says:
“Patriot” in quotes. The article goes on to describe other “self-described patriots.” Well played, by Christine Vendel, reporter.
The other detail, is that:
His life was saved by officials of the United States government.
You’re welcome, asshole.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Stand Your Ground has been ruled unconstitutional by a Miami-Dade circuit judge.
Jeffro
@Big Ole Hound: Great t-shirt idea!
Top: “If You’re Hellbent on Flying the Confederate Flag…
Middle: (white rectangle)
Bottom: “…Fly Its Last One”
Only works on a black t-shirt, though. ;)
Schlemazel
@Villago Delenda Est:
and look how well that turned out
Villago Delenda Est
@Immanentize: The Multnomah County (Oregon) GOP is arranging for “Oath Keepers” and “Three Percenters” to provide “security” for their meetings.
They’re going to get someone killed.
Schlemazel
@Big Ole Hound:
their first flag was mostly white also and it caused the deaths of a lot of Union soldiers who saw it & assumed the traitors were surrendering. It was part of the problem at 1st Bull Run
Mike Furlan
There are very few Southern dead still buried at Gettysburg. The cemetery was for Union dead. All known, at that time, Southern bodies were removed to the South after the War. Some were missed, and some were misidentified at Union dead, but there are almost no Confederate dead buried at the Gettysburg battleground.
http://www.gettysburgfoundation.org/277/going-home-the-exhumation-and-re-burial-of-the-gettysburg-confederate-dead
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemazel: The Union troops were behaving honorably, Naturally, the rebels did not.
NCSteve
@Schlemazel: It’s a desecration of sacred ground that they let the Daughters of the Confederacy cover the battlefield with Memorials to Southern Valor throughout the first several decades of the 20th Century.
Hungry Joe
@Villago Delenda Est: Getting someone killed is pretty much what they’re hoping for — even if it’s one of them (as each one mumbles, ” ‘s long as it ain’t me”), for martyr purposes.
No telling where all this is headed. Could turn real violent, real fast, or could be just a tiresome miniseries in which asshats show up here and there to strut around with their big-boy toys. I’m thinking it’ll be the latter, but I’m not covering any bets.
LosGatosCA
@lollipopguild:
No – direct to video
Ian G.
Neither here nor there, but the fact that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a college professor always makes me smile. The forefathers of these illiterate mooks (who would piss themselves in terror if they ever had to walk through a black neighborhood alone) were beaten by an elitist librul snowflake’s bayonet charge.
VOR
The First Minnesota captured the battle flag of the 28th Virginia Infantry at Gettysburg. Private Sherman, who captured the flag, received the Congressional Medal of Honor. A few years ago Virginia asked for the return of the flag and Governor Dayton (D) said “Well, it was taken in a battle at the cost of the blood of all these Minnesotans,” Dayton said today. “And I think it would be a sacrilege to return it to them. It was something that was earned through the incredible courage and valor men who gave their lives and risked their lived to obtain it. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s a closed subject.”
Schlemazel
@Villago Delenda Est:
Lincoln was right and wrong. He was right when he said “green and green alike” to convince his generals to attack but he was wrong to think that all that green would produce a predictable outcome. Because of shortages & the newness of the efforts some traitor units wore blue. The whole thing was a freaking mees & the over cautious Union staff took the wrong message from the outcome and got worse.
Brachiator
Hot diggity! It’s der Fort of Joo-lie, when Robert E Lee and the Rough Riders fought Prince Albert in a Can to libertize Amurrica!
Wolverine!
MomSense
Will we ever reach peak dip-shit?
germy
@lollipopguild:
Direct To Video.
Schlemazel
@NCSteve:
I understand that relatives should be allowed to morn the loss but they should never have been allowed to present it as anything other than what it was – treason in defense of human bondage
Chris
Don’t beat yourself up, son! You’re far from the first Confederate to make a poor life decision at Gettysburg!
Boatboy_srq
@bystander: The current generation of Morlocks are outraged that the Eloi aren’t slaving away at some menial job before they’re hauled away for dinner.
MomSense
@Ian G.:
I recently went to the Joshua Chamberlain museum with my son to do some research on a paper he wrote about him. He has been on my mind a lot lately. If you ever visit Maine, it’s worth a stop at the museum.
Interestingly, Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in the same town. It is said that when Lincoln met her he said ‘so you are the little lady who caused all this trouble’.
Schlemazel
@VOR:
I was not a Dayton fan when he ran. He screwed up the Senate seat with his antics & I thought he would be an unreliable governor who would give the GOP an easy target. I was wrong. Other than the hash he made out of the budget shut down he has done an admirable job and the flag thing shows he has a better grasp than I expected.
There was a real push a few years ago for the return of all the captured battle flags and many did get returned. I am please that one did not
Boatboy_srq
@Mike Furlan: IOW the ammosexual racists are stomping all over all those Northern Aggressors just to show them who really won.
Wankers.
Chris
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
“Why is it that the greatest champions of the white race always turn out to be the worst examples of it? YOU! Where the fuck is your chin?”
MattF
@MomSense: Apocryphal.
Mike Furlan
@BC in Illinois: Good comment BC, I missed it the first time through. Confederate dead were left in shallow graves, unmarked. Very few were ever identified by name.
Frankensteinbeck
@Hungry Joe:
Definitely the latter. They’ve had their keystone events that would finally issue the call to glorious race war dozens of times. The entire movement, much less their even more chickenshit sympathizer, always stay in their lounge chairs and let the other guy do the fighting. It’s the increase in hate crimes because they know the DoJ doesn’t care that worry me, but that is a different problem.
Chris
@Ian G.:
I know! Same here. And a New England college professor, to boot. The South’s finest Officer-Gentlemen bested by a New England college professor. God, that must be so embarrassing.
Schlemazel
@Ian G.:
The Parks people are attempting to return the battle field to the condition it was in 1863. Because it was used for grazing there was not a lot of underbrush around the trees. You can see places they have done this & places it has not happened. One of the cleared sites is the area on the Union left. There are still a lot of trees though and a charge through that was a hell of a thing. There were close calls all day all across the line. Troops on the right were in very similar condition, no ammo, hot, tired. But the underbrush there was thicker so neither side could make headway. Eventually the traitors were short and tired also so the withdrew. It was a close thing with a lot of casualties but never gets attention.
Seth Owen
@Schlemazel: The second flag was the mostly white one. The first flag looked too
much like the federal flag. In any case, most units carried the battle flag rather than the national colors, unlike union practice which was to carry the national flag and a regimental flag.
kindness
That armed neo-Confederates want to dress up and play army on a military cemetary does not scare me. But when the Republican party of one of Oregon’s most populated county hires III Percenters & Oath Keepers freepers to ‘guard’ their public assemblies, well that scares me. I mean, what could go wrong? See the hiring of the S. Cal Hell’s Angels to provide security at Altamont as an example.
trollhattan
Nice way to desecrate the very ground Lincoln called “consecrated” by the fallen. Way to be, morans.
ThresherK
I have it on the highest authority (RW listeners’ calls which were actually aired on NPR) that Antifa “allies itself with the left”, so they are the BothSides equivalent of having genuine NeoNazis in the White House.
cmorenc
The outcome of the battle of gettysberg hung on a razors edge the first couple of days (especially the first) and could easily have instead wound up as a key confederate victory had the confederates prevailed in some of the assaults where the feds barely held or where they out-raced confeds to key spots by a single-digit margin eg little round top. Had the rebels won these close skirmishes the entire union position on the ridge would have been out-flanked and the union army would have had to retreat to avoid getting ripped apart
We can also be grateful gen lee never could nring himself around to accepting that the rebels could succeed by a war of attrition rathet than outright victore-hence disastrous picketts charge
woodrowfan
“borrow one from the guy next to you. He has extras.”
Nina
We almost went to Gettysburg yesterday, ended up going to Harper’s Ferry instead because we remembered the battle anniversary just in time.
bemused
Some guy, 29 yrs old, shot himself in his buttocks while camping in the BWCA a couple of weeks ago. It happened when he was going to take an afternoon nap in his tent and attempted to remove a loaded 9mm pistol from holster near his lower back. His name was not disclosed.
Chris
@cmorenc:
Another part of the stakes at Gettysburg: IIRC, one of the things the Confederacy really wanted in the first couple years of the war was to have their equivalent of Saratoga – a decisive victory that would prove to sympathetic European powers that they were a serious player that was worth investing in (i.e. sending troops to help). Both Antietam and Gettysburg were attempted partly with that in mind, moving into Union territory and proving they could do more than just play defense. Unfortunately for them, neither worked out.
(I had to research this stuff in undergrad ten years ago. I need to read more about it, too – the foreign policy angle is one of the more interesting parts of the Civil War to me, and one that doesn’t tend to get much attention in textbooks since, obviously, no one ended up intervening).
geg6
@SFAW:
There are no graves of the traitors. It’s a Union only cemetery. You know, for those who lost their lives protecting the Union. Not the fucking traitors.
kd bart
This they believe. A child pornogaphy ring being led out of a Washington pizzeria they believe. A collusion between the Trump campaign & the Russians during the 16 campaign they don’t despite the mounting evidence. A brain is a terrible thing to waste
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
FWIW, most museums ban backpacks because backpacks are dangerous to the exhibits. You don’t want someone knocking over a vase or backing into a priceless oil painting because they forgot how big their backpack was.
I work at an archive and we also prohibit backpacks for the same art safety reason.
Chris
@kd bart:
And despite the fact that Trump himself asked the Russians on national television to hack his opponent for him.
What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.
Heidi Mom
@Ian G.: Love this! A fitting answer to any “elites are sissies” argument.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@BC in Illinois: Yeah, my first thought was “They’re setting up to guard Iverson’s Pits?”
SFAW
@MomSense:
We were at a ceremony in a few years ago, 2014 I think, when some of the Maine National Guard was mustering out to Afghanistan (or maybe Iraq? I’m forgetting so much these days) as part of the draw-down there. Mike Michaud spoke, maybe Angus as well, but either way, the non-LePage in attendance noted that a case could be made that Chamberlain saved us from speaking German. Specifically: if Chamberlain had not held Little Round Top, the Traitors might have ended up winning at Gettysburg. Had they done so, it was not unreasonable to think that the Union might not have defeated the Traitors after all, and the United States would cease to exist. This was extrapolated to the 1940s, and the idea presented was that without a United States (as it existed at the time), the US entry into WW2 might not have been as effective as it was, and so on and so forth.
The whole train of thought was a bit of a stretch, but I thought it was interesting. In any event, thanks to JLC and the state the gave him to us.
ETA: There are some Maine-haters out there who claim Culp’s Hill was more critical to the Union’s success at Gettysburg. Fie upon you, I say! Maine will not be denied it’s rightful place! (Now, if we could just get a better governor.)
tybee
@Big Ole Hound:
i thoroughly enjoy pointing that out to unrepentant klan members. they are not amused.
Heidi Mom
@Schlemazel: “They knew a forlorn hope when they became one” (from Stephen Sears’ excellent book Gettysburg) but they did their duty. It appalled me to read (at some point post-11/8/16) that Confederate flags were being flown by Minnesotans. The kindest thing to think is that those modern-day fools don’t know their history.
Betty
But I am wondering about the safety of the thousands who visit Gettysburg. Were they warned about these goofballs? I also think semi-automatic weapons should be banned in a national site like this. The crazy just never ends.
SFAW
@Heidi Mom:
That, and “You wingnuts are all about projection, you f-ing snowflakes.”
Chris
@SFAW:
As far as foreign policy goes, the immediate result of losing the Civil War would probably have been giving the British a bigger foothold in the Americas.
For context: British foreign policy, in Europe, for centuries relied on “balancing against” whoever the strongest power on the continent was. (Ally with the Prussians and Russians against the French in the Napoleonic Wars, with the French and Turks against the Russians in the Crimea, with the French and Russians against the Germans in World Wars One and Two, etc). Play the continental powers against each other ad infinitum to make sure none of them ever gets too big for its britches. They couldn’t do that in the Americas, because there was only really one major power worth speaking of. But if the country had broken in two, then the British could’ve played U.S. against C.S. and C.S. against U.S. over and over, which is one of the big reasons Whitehall took an interest in the war and was inclined to root for Confederate success.
I had no idea how that would’ve translated all the way into the twentieth century – the U.S. and C.S. would definitely have ended up on opposite sides of the world wars, but I can’t be positive who would’ve been on whose side. Things definitely would’ve looked a lot less rosy for the U.S, and European powers would almost certainly have had more influence on the continent one way or another.
SFAW
@geg6:
Understood. The excerpt indicated otherwise. Or, perhaps, the excerpt indicated that the morans THOUGHT there were graves there, but were f-ing worng, as usual.
SFAW
@Chris:
Killjoy
Chris
@SFAW:
You know, if Chamberlain didn’t save us from speaking German, but only saved us from all speaking like Lord John Marbury, that’s still a win in my book.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: It helps with stuff walking off from the gift shop, also too. I was mainly snarking. ;-)
I was looking around there to see what their gun regulations were. One page mentions that they’re not allowed in some building, but doesn’t mention the battlefield or cemetery themselves. I thought it was kinda weird that it was easy to find that backpacks aren’t allowed, but Col. Kurtz showing up with a bunch of poorly trained and delusional yahoos with machine guns apparently wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow….
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Chris: Adam Serwer’s June piece on Lee is a must-read for anyone still convinced that he was somehow an example to follow.
Satan really messed up in not hiring a better publicist…
Cheers,
Scott.
Stan
@Spanky: I’ll go with you next time, if there’s a next time. Fuck them.
Stan
@VOR:
Awesome. Also too, the phrase ‘cold dead hands’ comes to mind….
Eric U.
a sniper could cause no end of fun at a gathering like that. Not suggesting that they should hit anyone, just cause the gun humpers to loose their cool.
@Mnemosyne: Cletus carrying his AR around in a museum is just as likely to knock into something, and then knock over other somethings when he dives to the floor in panic.
Schlemazel
@SFAW:
The real truth is that the Union Victory was sealed on 7/4/63 several hundred miles to the West at Vicksburg. Yes, had we lost at Gettysburg things would have been tough but controlling the Mississippi cut the Confederacy in half & gave Sherman safety to his rear as he tore through Georgia. At that point it was only a matter of how much suffering the traitors wanted to endure before they agreed to the obvious.
Schlemazel
@Heidi Mom:
I have tried to educate some of my fellow Gophers about that but those folks are very dense and pretty much immune to history, reason or thoughtful reflection.
Chris
@Another Scott:
It’s a great read, and the best part of it was the Robert E. Lee quote right here –
Robert E. Lee showed 150 years’ worth of white people riddled with racial anxieties the proper way to “condemn slavery.” That is: vaguely, generically, as something that’s desirable but only in general terms in the distant future when it’s no longer your problem, with a very heavy helping of “won’t someone think of the white people?” and with an equally heavy helping of “really, in a lot of ways, slavery has been good for them!” No wonder they loved him so much.
ETA because my original post was responding to the wrong person.
Roger Moore
@cmorenc:
It’s not obvious that the Confederacy could have won a war of attrition. The Union blockade was pretty effective at cutting off access to military supplies from Europe, which made life very difficult, and the Union attack in the West succeeded in cutting the West off from the rest of the CSA at the same time as Gettysburg. When they went on the defensive in the East in 1862, McClellan was able to get to the outskirts of Richmond before they attacked and threw him back.
In the big picture, the South had borders that were simply too long to be defended effectively. Especially after gaining control of the Mississippi, the Union could simply attack from more places than the Confederacy could defend. The Confederacy’s best hope was to win a dramatic victory that would give them diplomatic recognition in Europe and lead to political victories by the Copperheads in the North, and that was always more plausible if the victory came on Northern soil.
efgoldman
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
i’m just glad that no park ranger or tour guide got shot as an agent of the oppressor state or some fucking thing.
I wonder whether the asshole who shot himself had Medicaid….
ninja3000
“Jed” is not a signifier for rural hayseed, thank you. There are loads of Jeds from New York City, and I am one. Go with Billy Joe if you must, but leave us Jeds out of it! Thank you.
J R in WV
@VOR:
A good story. But where you say:
You are in error, it is the Medal of Honor, and Congress is not part of the name at all. So I fixed that for you.
The Lodger
@ninja3000: Are you a native or did the kinfolk say, “Jed, move away from there?”
SFAW
@Chris:
I dunno, I kinda liked Lord John, even if he could never get
Gerald’sLeo’s name right.SFAW
@Schlemazel:
We could probably argue for days — which would be amusing, since I am no kind of scholar vis-a-vis the War of Northern Aggression — but the Traitors winning at Gettysburg might have allowed them to attain a stalemate of sorts, which might have kept the Union from a “quick” victory, leading to a permanent split. But I realize I may be full of shit on that point.
Bill
I prefer to think that some smaller percentage of the infantry at Gettysburg may have been somewhat ignorant or at least ill-informed as to their role as cannon fodder. My better self would rather find fault with the commanders, who sent their boys (and so many were just boys) into battle to be turned into hamburger, rather than to fault the soldiers individually. I have some history with the whole “believing what you are told because the person doing the telling is a person that you respect and admire’ thing. Some age and perspective has shown me the outer viewpoint, but it was difficult if not impossible to ascertain that view while young and impressionable.
Lurking Canadian
@SFAW: They didn’t have to win. Hanging on long enough that the North elected a Copperhead government would have been enough. Even as is, if the CSA had left Johnston where he was, they might have kept Sherman out of Atlanta past Election Day 1864. President McLellan (spits) was not going to prosecute the war very vigorously.
cleosmom
I expect to see a lot of poo flung for this, but IMO we have dozens of more important things going on at present than making war on monuments.