Army War College may remove Confederate images
Rowan Scarborough at the Washington Times writes that someone had a bright idea to remove images of Confederate Generals like Lee and Jackson from the Army War College,and the idea may spread to other military institutions;
“I do know at least one person has questioned why we would honor individuals who were enemies of the United States Army,” Ms. Kerr said. “There will be a dialogue when we develop the idea of what do we want the hallway to represent.”
She said one faculty member took down the portraits of Gen. Lee and Gen. Jackson, and put them on the floor as part of the inventory process. That gave rise to rumors that the paintings had been removed.
“This person was struck by the fact we have quite a few Confederate images,” she said, adding that the pictures were put back on a 3rd floor hallway.
“He [Gen. Lee] was certainly not good for the nation. This is the guy we faced on the battlefield whose entire purpose in life was to destroy the nation as it was then conceived…This is all part of an informed discussion.”
It is the kind of historical cleansing that could spark a debate Army-wide. Gen. Lee’s portrait adorns the walls of other military installations and government buildings.
Yeah, well, apart from the discussion we could have about the politics that led to the Civil War, we could talk about the things they should be talking about at a place called “The War College” namely “war”. Lee and Jackson knew a little bit about war and rewrote the book on maneuver and the use of artillery, the lessons they taught us are still taught today. Taking down their portraits and tearing down their statues, we might as well erase them from the books, too.
I guess they could replace the pictures and statues of Jackson and Lee with some Union generals like George MacClellan who only provides lessons in regards to what not to do when it comes to modern warfare.
Category: Big Army
Generals Lee and Jackson and several Confederate Generals were expert at engaging and fighting an enemy. Leaving all politics aside. It is about fighting a war, taught at “The War College” for goodness sakes. There were German Generals who were great tacticians and gave the US a fit in WWI and WWII. Hell if we are going to redact every person from history at the College we can learn from because of a “side” they were on and over their politics then we may as well close the War College. The Union’s General George MacClellan as General of the North was, much like today’s Generals in the Pentagon, a classic hand wringer and do nothing. He couldn’t make his mind up to shit, fight or go blind! He was relieved for just that behavior of constant indecision. We learn from our successes and also our mistakes on the battlefield. Especially our mistakes. This is just more history rewriting at its best.
General Lee and General Jackson both fought for what they believed in. That war was brother against brother — I had family on both sides of the line. It is wrong to demonize any of the men from either side, because it was American blood that was spilled on BOTH sides.
This nation better never flinch away from the truth of her history or she will be doomed to repeat it. And if there are politicians out there who don’t think we could ever end up with heaps of bodies on battlefields here again, they will find themselves very sorrowfully mistaken. And that spilled blood will be on THEIR hands.
Could also replace Gens Lee and Jackson with images/statues of Sheila Jackson Lee. A twofer for onefer that the current domestic enemy would find worthy.
Sparks:
We might as well close that “college” now, since it’s become obvious that our nation has no interest in actually winning wars anymore.
Guess we’re gonna rename Ft Lee, Hood, Bragg, Jackson, Gordon, Rucker, A.P. Hill, Polk, Sam Houston…..?
Lemme see Hood will become Ft Tupac, Jackson will be Fort Jesse, Bragg to Fayettenam ;), Rucker to Ft Dan Choi
Un-fucking-believable
“There will be a dialogue…”. Translation: they’ll do whatever they want, most likely whatever they think is most bedwetter-PC, damn the consequences or what anyone else thinks.
I guess next we should stop studying the tactics of Rommel and the VC and anyone else that was our enemy because they were bad?
The statement, “[Gen. Lee] is the guy we faced on the battlefield whose entire purpose in life was to destroy the nation as it was then conceived…” shows an incredible ignorance of even the most basic American history. This is a person in a position of authority at the War College? Scary.
@10
They are talking about Stonewall Jackson not Andrew
The Confederate Army has recognized Campaign Credit, recipients of the MOH and are buried in ANC.
Give me a break.
Eh, EX-PH, this is Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson…not “Old Hickory” Andrew Jackson 😉
I think they are talking about Thomas J. Jackson, late a Lieutenant General of the Army of Northern Virginia. And I believe that the Staff of the War College should spend a little time acquainting themselves with the contents of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address in which he commits the nation to moving forward “With malice toward none.”
Another really stupid idea. But, if dishonoring all who walked through the doors of the War College is what they have I mind, this is a grand way of doing it.
On behalf of several generations of Army folks who attended the War College, I object to this nonsense.
Displaying the portraits of prominent military leaders at a place like the War College is appropriate. However, as a dang Yankee upon reporting to Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas (Y’all) whose family came to these shores after the war of attrition but whose wife had kin who fought on the losing side, I was offended by the number of paintings hung all over the place but primarily in the Legal Office and my club, showing Southern superiority in battle. I had those within my control relocated to a smaller room because folks, however misguided, are entitled to be proud of their heritage. When I asked my wife why I got in trouble for saying the same things Jeff Foxworthy said, she replied, “Because he’s one of us.” Nuff said.
O-4E, Devtun, I know – my bad. Jumped that fence too soon.
Still, I find it disgusting that anyone thinks history should rewritten to suit someone’s need to sanitize things. These PC people are beginning to make me wonder WTF is wrong with them.
Who the fu*ks running the military. ..oh wait! !
Can someone please remind the above idiots that the good southern generals were all (generally) edjumicated at the same institution … WEST POINT and that although a tragic piece of US history the Civil War did happen and it was important episode in our nations rise. The symbols of the time must be preserved.
BREAKING NEWS – NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND
Not to be out flanked by the ARMY, the Naval War College will remove “all items, artifacts, nautical thingies, representations, references, documents, history, and notions” of anything related to water. Ensign Theopolis Jud esDumbfuckski, III the PAO for the Naval War College said, “water is so 2000, we have the internet now, imagine a world without water, we can run CAT-5 everywhere … We are better off.”
### END ###
More lapdogs in the military sucking up to the current administration. There are always those who will trade their soul for a star. The Confederacy scares the hell out the big government controlling types because they stood up for states making their own decisions, vice being dominated by the wants of the Feds. They have always used the excuse of slavery for attacking the South, however the abolition of slavery was a result of the war, not one of the war aims.
Jackson, Lee and others served the US faithfully up until the time that they thought that the Federal Government overstepped its bounds. Our Federal Government has started abusing it’s power to the point that secession and rebellion is a real possibility. Keeping the images of rebel officers off the walls is one way of squashing independent thought.
Jackson’s Shenandoah Campaign has been described as one of the finest examples of maneuver warfare ever. Lee’s battle at Chancellorsville is called his perfect battle.
Like Winters Brécourt Manor Assault at Normandy and Rommel’s tank warfare in North Africa and Guderian’s blitzkreig and Giap’s war in Vietnam and Zhukov and Napoleon and the Greeks and the Romans and Mosby and Forrest and JEB Stuart’s march around the Union Army and dozens of others.
One studies war’s best practitioners because they have the most to teach. Suppose that an American force is overwhelmed and captured on December 26th by a foreign force who crosses a river in bad weather. The foreign force was not noticed because no guard was posted in the bad weather. After someone notices that this is exactly how Washington won the battle of Trenton and captured the Hessian force of 1,500 and 6 guns with almost no friendly casualties will it be acceptable to say, “Well that happened two hundred years ago so it doesn’t matter” or “Well he crossed in a rowboat, how could we have guessed that might happen again?”
Do we not study Sterling because we don’t respect the British MOD? As a matter of fact, the SAS was not a complete failure during WW2 or has performed pretty well since then.
Do take down statues of Caesar because he was not Christian?
What madness is this?
My great-grandfather and his brother found in the 26th Ohio Infantry for the whole war — discharged in Texas. The great grandfather was a corporal, dunno about his brother. There is an unproved assertion that the great-grandfather was directly related to Thomas Jonathan Jackson who fought on the southern side. There was honor on both sides. And, as noted above, “with malice toward none.”
There is that whole thing about Lee being offered command of the Armies of Northern Aggression. You know before the war became full blown.
OK, Green Thumb – educate me. What CSA soldiers received the Medal of Honor?
Not the Confederate equivalent, the Southern Cross of Honor. The Medal of Honor.
I don’t know of any, but I could be wrong about that.
richard: if you’re talking about JEB Stuart’s ride around the Union Army during the Gettysburg campaign – the Union benefited greatly for that. Stuart may well have cost the Confederacy its independence with that bit of grandstanding.
Had Stuart been doing his job vice joyriding, Lee almost certainly would never have been surprised at Gettysburg.
@5 Sam Houston was pro Union and was ousted from office as Governor of Texas for refusing to swear allegiance to the Confederacy after Texas voted to secede.
Your point about McClellan is a good one. I guess the Army is more concerned with emulating political smooth talkers (McClellan) than fighters (Jackson and Lee).
True story: I’m getting ready for the Maneuver Captain’s Career Course (MCCC) and someone from my unit told me that the MCCC’s purpose is to train hard charging young 1LTs and CPTs to not be like Patton and Sherman. I guess our job isn’t to kill people and break things anymore?
No, CAs6, your job is to UNDERSTAND your enemy’s needs and wants, and to be nice to your enemy. Wanting to kill people is SO 1968.
@24—Personally, I’m not too sure about that, Hondo. I kind of agree with the school of thought that says that while Lee was brilliant tactically, he was a mediocre strategic general. Lee’s problem was that he never had any reserves (he never even equalled the number of Union men in the field with his army), unlike the Union, and thus could not occupy any Union territory for an extensive period of time. The Union had such reserves and could occupy Confederate territory. This would have been difficult to overcome to begin with, but as a practical matter Lee made the situation worse by his Napoleonic strategy of trying to take enemy cities like Harrisburg, or just be there to win a victory on Union territory and maybe get lucky and destroy the AOP. Stonewall Jackson had proposed the winning strategy when the war began—go North, but instead of trying to occupy, burn everything, farms, railroads, factories, etc. This, of course, was the same strategy we eventually used to break the South’s will to fight and deplete their resources with Sherman’s March To The Sea. Frankly, by 1863, barring something absolutely catastrophic like the complete destruction of the Army of the Potomac (good luck with that), I don’t personally think the Confederacy had a chance. Cut in two down the Mississippi Valley, losing the war in the Southern Appalachia due to Bragg’s bungling, the blockade in full force—I can’t see them having pulled it off. Even if Lee had “won” at Gettysburg, he still would have held a bunch of Pennsylvania cornfields, Washington still would have been too well-defended to take even if he had used a brilliant turning movement to place himself between AOP and Washington, or something like that, and he didn’t have the logistical train to take a city like Baltimore or Harrisburg and occupy it for any extensive period. Just my humble opinion of history, that never-ending argument.
Shit … here we again!
@20—Old Dog, this is an argument that has raged forever, but I personally wouldn’t buy the argument that all the Confederacy was after was state’s rights or free trade. Their actions were not consistent with that IMHO. Look at Sam Houston—he bootstrapped Texas, but he was for staying with the Union. The Confederate authorities ended up locking him up on trumped-up charges to shut him up. That isn’t real consistent with the argument that the Confederacy was all about personal freedom and states’ rights. Also, although many say this is ignorant of history, I would say the war was primarily about slavery. Looking at literally every single event that pushed the Union and the Confederacy further apart, they are all about slavery. The Caning of Sumner, Bleeding Kansas and the subsequent Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Ostend Manifesto, the Dred Scott Affair, John Brown’s Raid—you name it. The Confederate States only began to secede after Lincoln was elected—following an election against Stephen Douglas that focused on slavery and pretty much nothing else. Lincoln, in both the electoral college and the popular vote, was elected by a majority of Americans. The South’s claims that the election was somehow “skewed” have no real merit other than the fact that their horse lost. And finally, you have the Confederates in their own words. Even Robert E. Lee didn’t believe secession was legal, and most legal scholars then didn’t, either. He disliked Lincoln strongly and loved his home state, but had this to say: “The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it were intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will.” At best, the Confederates were justified by wrongs against them that rose above the Constitution. Personally I don’t believe that, but eh, everybody’s entitled to their opinion. Also, when the Confederates seceded, they sure did talk about slavery a lot for it not being their primary motivation. South Carolina’s “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South… Read more »
Yeah, that war between the states was a mess, let’s erase anything to do with it, and maybe someday it’ll be all forgotten.
It is impossible for a Confederate Soldier who had served in the U S Army prewar to have won the US Medal of Honor because it did not exist.
There was a motion in Confederate Congress to create an award a “Cross of Honor” for acts of bravery but none were ever minted and they recognized bravery another way. Each regiment had a “roll of honor” that would publicly recognize soldiers from each battle that displayed exceptional courage. These names were also recorded in the after action reports. No medals were ever issued, but it was common for at least one man from each company to be mentioned though not every company commander would submit a name if one man did not stand out.
After the war Confederate Veterans, the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans DID mint and award “The Southern Cross of Honor”. The prerequisite was simply to have served honorably in any of the Confederates Forces.
There was an actual “Confederate Medal of Honor” that was fabricated by the SCV and awarded (posthumously of course)to a few dozen Confederate soldiers who were documented as being extremely brave.
There are also quite a few Confederates buried in Arlington, and even a huge statue erected in the Confederate Section. These men were almost exclusively POWs who died in nearby prison camps.
@High School Sophmore,
There is no doubt that slavery was the primary reason that the South decided to secede. It was not however the reason the North took military action. I challenge you to find any documented evidence that in 1861 the US government made the Emancipation of Slaves the primary, or even one of the war aims.
The genuine anti-slavery movement in the north was a very small percentage. The Emancipation Proclamation used slaves as a bargaining chip. A carrot and Stick dangled in front of the Confederacy . The carrot was if you stop the rebellion you keep your slaves. The stick was if you continue to rebel, your slaves will be free and the US Govt will enforce no laws to force them back on the plantation. As the war progressed the Union Soldiers began to look at emancipation as a way to punish the enemy by taking away property. Even the most bigoted Yankee soldier knew that freeing the slaves took away the labor pool for Confederate agriculture and defense industry. A slave freed and put in a blue uniform was like taking away two confederate soldiers. Many looked at freeing slaves the same way they thought of confiscating horses or mules. It was needed to shorten the war, not out of any wish to elevate blacks to an equal footing with whites.
In short if you were to take a time Machine back to 1862 and walk though a a camp in the Union Army saying that the aim of the war was to free slaves you would get monkey-stomped.
Just FYI for all interested parties: Ft. Jackson is named for Andrew not Stonewall.
Hondo-looks like Clay Beauford is one ANV veteran who later got the MOH http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Beauford. I didn’t click though all of those who got it in the Indian Wars, but there are doubtlessly others.
Why keep them up? Simple really.
They were American soldiers.
It seem to me that every time somebody gets all PC, it ends up taking away a piece of our history.
I’m not happy with the notion of repeating some of the mistakes we made.
@33—Sure, Lincoln’s primary goal throughout the war was to put down the rebellion and keep the Union together. My point is that when you say things like, “The Confederacy scares the hell out the big government controlling types because they stood up for states making their own decisions, vice being dominated by the wants of the Feds. They have always used the excuse of slavery for attacking the South, however the abolition of slavery was a result of the war, not one of the war aims,” that is half-true. Slavery was abolished because of the war, but the reason the South seceded and went to war in the first place because they could see that the end of slavery, which made the antebellum Southern lifestyle possible, was near with a Republican Congress and President and virtually every other country in the world having abolished it. The South essentially tried a gambit to prevent the inevitable, failed, and had the inevitable happen to it anyway. It was official government and Republican Party policy to try to work towards freeing the slaves. Even if the Confederacy had come back to the fold, slavery was going to end eventually. At least IMHO, the Confederacy did not secede as an act of defiance against overbearing federal authority. They kind of screwed themselves. I wouldn’t hold them up as a role model of what we tea partiers want.
@5
Shouldn’t there be a Fort Kanye West and a Fort Tom Cruise, since making a buttload of money in music or film is just like being a soldier at the front?
Although, maybe Tom Cruise should be a naval station, in hone of his service in Top Gun and A Few Good Men.
Fucking stupid politically correct liberals.
@37,
The bullying nature of the federal government was established during the Civil War. After that the Federal Government became more and more involved in interfering with over-riding State and local Laws,Now its to the point where they are attempting to control individual rights by taking away firearms, over taxation and forcing a crappy health insurance down our throats.
@40—And suddenly we agree. All we disagree on is the civil war and its causes. Everything after that—I’m with you 100%. The Federal Government has gone way over its original parameters of providing for the common defense, regulating intra-state commerce, and arbitrating disputes between states. I’d love to see the entitlement programs handed back to the states and all of our gun control laws reformed to reflect the common sense they sorely lack. We’ll see—maybe 2016 will deliver us Ronald Reagan’s heir. We can hope.
The primary motivation of the industrial North was to break the independent and successful agricultural economy of the South.
If you think it was all about land battles and destructive marches through farmland, you’re fogetting the naval blockades the North ran against the South. The South’s primary product was cotton, for export to British cotton mills in Lancashire which were forced to close, and incoming manufactured goods becamse unavailable. The blockade ran from Hampton Roads, VA to the coast of Texas.
‘The success of this undertaking, so unprecedented both in its magnitude and difficulty, can best be judged by the results. The number of prizes brought in during the war was 1,149, of which 210 were steamers. There were also 355 vessels burned, sunk, driven on shore, or otherwise destroyed, of which 85 were steamers; making a total of 1,504 vessels of all classes. The value of these vessels and their cargoes, according to a low estimate, was thirty-one millions of dollars. In the War of 1812, which has always, and justly, been regarded as a successful naval war, the number of captures was 1,719. But the War of 1812 was waged against a commercial nation, and the number of vessels open to capture was therefore far greater. Of the property afloat, destroyed or captured during the Civil War, the larger part suffered in consequence of the blockade. Moreover, in the earlier war (1812), out of the whole number of captures, 1,428 were made by privateers, which were fitted out chiefly as a commercial adventure. In the Civil War the work was done wholly by the Navy; and it was done in the face of obstacles of which naval warfare before that time had presented no example or conception.’ – The Civil War Trust.
Link is here: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/navy-hub/navy-history/blockade.html
Without money coming from foreign entities, the South’s loss of income was enough to impact its ability to conuct the war, to the tune of some $31 millions.
@28: ah, the naivety of youth . . . . The object of Lee’s invasion of the North in 1863 was not to conquer territory and destroy facilities. In general, Confederate forces did neither during that campaign. Rather, the strategic intent was to destroy the Army of the Potomac and thus force a political settlement to the war. Lee came close to doing exactly this at Gettysburg, but failed. There are multiple reasons for that, but IMO Stuart’s second “joyride” campaign was largely to blame for putting Lee in the position of fighting an ill-advised battle at Gettysburg. Regarding Stuart and his performance: “The Army was much embarrassed by the absence of the cavalry.” That is a quote from Lee’s after-action-report regarding Gettysburg. Reportedly the first draft was much more critical of Stuart, but Lee removed the more critical language as he would otherwise have been (by the standards of his day) obligated to relieve Stuart of command. During combat, the primary missions of Cavalry are screening (preventing the enemy from ascertaining friendly dispositions and movements) and reconnaissance (determining enemy dispositions and movements, route conditions, etc . . . ). Although Lee’s orders to Stuart were somewhat ambiguous, they clearly indicated his expectation that Stuart would take a far more westerly route than he did. Further, Stuart knew full well that his duty as “eyes and ears” for the Army of Northern Virginia required him to take that western route (near the Blue Ridge mountains) vice the eastern route he actually took. Stuart was essentially “joyriding” for eight days, looking to gain glory and erase the “stain” and embarrassment of having been surprised (and effectively beaten) by Union cavalry at Brandy Station less than a month prior. Had he been doing his job instead, Lee would have known Union dispositions prior to Gettysburg – and the battle would almost certainly have been fought elsewhere, as a planned battle, vice as a haphazard meeting engagement. Because Stuart’s forces were elsewhere and out of touch until the evening of 2 July 1863, the Confederate forces during the Gettysburg Campaign were effectively blind.… Read more »
@5, Sean, Ft. Polk will be Ft. Sharpton,…
Let’s just cut to the chase and banish from textbooks and public view all traces of that which is politically incorrect or potentially so. We have learned much from the fascists, Nazis, and communists, haven’t we? So, let’s just set up a mega committee at the national level to purify our history, cleanse us of that which does not serve to advance the utopian agenda, and establish a purge list of people and things that would serve any philosophical and political master but progressivism and statism.
@44 – 2/17AirCav, Not just ‘no’, but ‘f@#$@k no!’
Let’s remember that Hitler is NOT the only sociopathic slime on the planet who engaged in holocaust. Let’s see: in recent memory, we have Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Franco, Mao’s Red Chinese army v. the Buddhist monks and nuns in Tibet, the Turks in the Middle East (WWI), to name only a few.
I could include Robespierre’s rampage with the guillotine, but let’s remember he met the same fate he foisted on others when he pissed of his governing comrades. Flavius Josephus’s description of the Roman siege of Jerusalem is graphic.
And let’s not forget Juan de Torquemada and his little Spanish Inquisition (cue the Monty Python cast), but then, nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition.
Ain’t real history fun?
“He [Gen. Lee] was certainly not good for the nation. This is the guy we faced on the battlefield whose entire purpose in life was to destroy the nation as it was then conceived…This is all part of an informed discussion.”
I’m surprised after all these messages no one has said it yet…
If that’s the case, then when are they taking Obama’s picture off the wall? I’d add Reid and Pelosi along in there too, but do they even have Senator or Representative pictures up on the wall there?
Badumtish!
@43- Ft. Polk IS pretty damn ghetto. Ft. Sharpton would be fitting.
2/17 Air Cav: what, did you forget this was 2013 vice 1984? (smile)
Because the military and it’s civilian leaders have nothing else to focus on, getting rid of American historical figures that fought for a cause that was disagreeable is now the cause de jour amongst certain liberal brain donors.
I have been reading on this site and others how there is a movement afoot to make Confederate leaders on equal footing with Nazi’s. This is of course laughable to me until I think of how clueless and easily led the average young person in America is right now. Tell them something enough times and instead of finding out for themselves, they will just go along with it. So before you know it, our history is changed to whatever liberal spin is put on it. Scary to me. I guess the next step is to remove historical writing’s and biographies that don’t keep with this narrative.
God I hate liberals.
In a war college pictures of war-makers and war fighters should be expected. Enemies both foreign and domestic could be expected to adorn the walls of such a place in my estimation. There is a difference between saying, “General Lee was an enemy of the United States who carried the fight to the north with limited resources of men and equipment very successfully and we should teach our future leaders how he accomplished this” versus “General Lee deserves a place of honor among American generals, thus we are putting his picture up in these hallowed halls to honor his memory.”
At the end of the day General Lee and all the other southern generals were traitors to the Union they declared war against the very nation they swore to defend and bore arms against the United States, when the war ended they should have been shot as traitors or hung as war criminals like we did to the nazis and jap b4stards after WW2 or kept in limbo in Gitmo like we do to our enemies today. The southerners were not a foreign sovereign nation they were terrorists on our soil attempting to destroy the United States they should have been dealt with accordingly.
However, I suspect in the interest of the political correctness of their time they were left to live out their days in their homes as honored opponents after a period of ugliness in our history. Primarily to keep the peace and make that peace sustainable. Political correctness, or political expediency has been with mankind since politics became part of our existence as humans.