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
Not sure whether or not it has been said before on this thread but the term “Civil War” is a misnomer for what occurred 1861-1865. The southern states voted to succeed from the Union and create their own country (akin to that whole “duty, to throw off” thing covered in the Declaration of Independence). They did not enter armed conflict with the US until the US voted to militarily intercede in their desire to self govern. A Civil War is what is happening in Syria where two factions are fighting for control of one government. When all is said and done, both sides were Americans who trained together in these institutions of military education. Why is it damn near 149 years after Lincoln spoke his “malice towards none” quote i his second inauguration do we have uptight do-gooders d-bags trying to refight the war and solve problems that do not exist. And this is coming from someone (me) who doesn’t even self identify as a southerner.
I think a lot of this debate has been veered off target. The aforementioned soldiers’ adversaries were fellow classmates from West Point. To remove the pics would do disservice, not for what they did or stood for, but for a historical perspective. Isn’t that what the War College is about? Educating our senior officers? Ethics, morality, duty to country is all called into question…tossing away the pictures tosses away an important and sad chapter of our country’s history. This chapter must be remembered, discussed and never allowed to happen again!
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their ‘constitutional’ right of amending it or their ‘revolutionary’ right to dismember or overthrow it.”
A. Lincoln, Inaugural Address March 1861
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Robert E. Lee? Jefferson Davis? Hell no. That was Lincoln too.,
smoke-check: you’re technically correct; the US Civil War was actually more rebellion than a factional war for control of the entire nation. However, “Civil War” is the generally accepted term for the conflict.
I would, however, take issue with the statement, “They did not enter into armed conflict with the US until . . . .” As I recall, the first shots of the war were fired at Fort Sumter by the Confederacy after the garrison there refused a demand to surrender. That occurred on the night of April 12-13, 1861 – well before the first call for Union volunteers on April 15. I know of no Congressional authorization or offer of violence from the Union side before that point.
@72 You are missing a very important distinction here. Genghis Khan or Erwin Rommel were not graduates of the very institutions we are talking about here. Lee and Stonewall etc. were. They were respected members of the US military community. If you fight with you sibling does your parents take your pictures off the wall and send you to live with grandma? Why do contemporary US citizens like you, and the unnamed handwringer, from the article have such a markedly greater level of animosity towards these men than the people whole lived through these unfortunate events and actually fought against them in the bloodiest conflict in American history? The war will still turned out the way it did with these pictures hanging on the wall. Why should we forget fellow Americans simply because they fought for a cause that you find uncomfortable through the prism of 2013?
smoke-check: frankly, if the Army War College (or any other service school) wanted to hang a portrait/photo of Frederick the Great, Hannibal, Alexander, Rommel, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Yamamoto, or any other renowned foreign military leader in some “great generals/admirals of history” gallery, I’d have no problem with that. As I said earlier: recognizing (and studying) a great military leader to learn how they did what they did does not automatically imply approval of either cause or individual.
And if they want to hang a photo of Saddam Hussein in their “greatest military idiots in history” wing, I’m OK with that, too. (smile)
Hondo @105 I can see both sides. South Carolina succeeded in December 1860 about four months prior to the beginning of hostilities. From their point of view they had a foreign military garrison on their soil. The Union of course did not recognize the Confederacy so they saw the situation as rebel force threatening the legitimately of US Military garrison within US territory. Only imagine what could have been had cooler heads prevailed during the parlay that day. But I still stand by my “They did not enter armed conflict…” statement because I can see how having a military force within South Carolina would be considered interference with the South’s goals of self governance. Much the same way I can sympathize with Native Tribes opposition to US military garrisons in what they considered their lands. And if I remember correctly, there was some hubbub 20 or 30 years prior to the CW about whether the War Department or the state/territory had legitimate ownership of these types of installations. Ultimately it was adjudicated that the WD did hold legitimate titles. Probably one of them many, albeit lesser, factors that contributed to the war.
@107 You are correct “does not automatically imply approval (their) cause” is the key here. And frankly I remain unconvinced that there are not portraits of military leaders the like of which you mentioned hanging somewhere in the War College. Which makes this even more of a non-issue.
@99-The key word in the sentence I wrote about how Lincoln never did anything illegal or said he would before the South seceded and the war began is the word “before.” You are correct that Lincoln did many things illegal or least dubious during the war. My point was as to how Lincoln did nothing illegal before the war, nor did Congress, that would have justified the South’s response; the conditional aspect of the right of the people to overthrow a tyrannical government is that the government has to be clearly abusing its power in excess of the Constitution, and in such a way that no other means of recourse is possible. These conditions were not met; ergo, the South had no right to rebel.
@107-This is, in a nutshell, the root of my differing opinion. In a purely academic sense, i.e., studying what made them great warriors and leaders and how they can apply that and/or honoring them in a hall to great generals is fine. However, honoring them as US heroes in a hall of fame, which is the the intention of the gallery, is inappropriate IMO for the for stated reasons. That’s my piece.
@106-even on a comparative level, what the CSA generals listed in the gallery did is far, far more serious than sibling warfare. That could be comparable to say, resigning your commission because you felt you could not serve Lincoln, or even openly undermining him in uniform (hey, McClellan did it). Actively leading an armed rebellion that ruined half the country and cost tens of thousands of lives primarily to preserve slavery as an institution is a pretty big black mark against your name. For whatever it may be worth, I wouldn’t say that they were terrorists since they did not intentionally target civilians or use fear as a primary weapon, and they wore uniforms. I also think executing them or trying them after the war like VOV advocates for would be a very wrong course of action; it might have ruined any chance we had to reconcile with the south. However, they do not deserve to be remembered in a gallery of honor for US military heroes, even if we certainly should study their tactics in military education.
BAD: I am getting a brain bleed reading all of this.
GOOD: Boning up on opinions and history.
Carry on.
While you’re arguing a pointless point, you’ve veered off-topic on this thread, which was that the Washington Times made false assumptions on this removal of portraits of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, just as I did regarding the name Jackson, thinking it was Andrew Jackson.
What really happened is explained here: http://www.carlisle.army.mil/banner/article.cfm?id=3289
per the post @ #78. Why you went off in pursuit of Lincoln and the various generals is beyond me, but you also conveniently ignored the fact that the Navy ran a blockade of the entire Atlantic seaboard (as I posted above) from Hampton Roads, VA to the Texas coastline, which succeeded effectively in blocking commercial traffic into and out of Southern ports, including Louisiana and Florida. Not only did that blockade block shipping exports to Europe and England, it also blocked imports from the UK and Europe as well as drastically reducing a cashflow that allowed the South to replenish its army.
Thank you EX-PH2!
@113-yeah, and we might have ended the war a lot earlier than we did if Britain hadn’t propped them up by letting the Confederate Navy headquarter themselves in Liverpool, resupplying their blockade runners in their Caribbean territories, and constructing ships for them, both warships and blockade runners. A lot of my Brit friends have told me at one point or another that Britain has been on the cutting edge throughout history; establishing democracy, ending slavery, etc. Always fun to see them squirm when I bring up the logical response to that second one, though 🙂
@111 I have reread the article and I am not sure where you are getting that these pictures are hung in any kind of hall of fame gallery “honoring them as US heroes… which is the intention of the gallery” as you say in comment #110. The article do not say that anywhere. They decorate common halls of the school. Would you have us remove any and all images of any soldiers who fought against the US? I guess we could air brush them out or cover them in some way. We could replace their implements of war with flowers and rainbows while we are at it. Would that make you happy?
Anyway I have done some additional research and uncovered MG Cucolo’s response that story. Sounds rumors run amok (we all know what that’s like in the Military) that blown out of proportion with the help of a reporter who seems to share your wishful thinking. Alas the General is a little less reactionary than you and doesn’t have his undies in a bunch:
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/banner/article.cfm?id=3289
The brain bleed has receded!
Leave it to a woman to restrict the testicular fortitude!
Well played EX-PH2 … Well played.
@115, as I said in my first naval blockade post, the Navy disrupted the flow of cash to the tune of some $35 millions into Southern coffers, despite the successes of some of their blockade runners.
@113 ah you beat me to it EX.
Here to serve, Master Chief.
“Yeah” is what you say when a hot dog vendor asks you if want mustard.
Know the company you keep!
Very well, MCPO.
@116-I think this argument has about run its course. I just feel putting up their pictures in a way that honors them as Americans is improper. You feel it is useful and right to have them there. Very well. It was a long time ago-as long as nobody follows their example (not what this is about), I’m happy as a clam.
I think that in today’s dollars, the $35 millions in lost revenue from cotton and sugar cane sales to Europe and the UK would be comparable to somewhere between $25 billion and $38 billion, but not sure about the conversion factor on this.
Whatever, it buys a lot of guns and ammo.
The purpose of the Civil War was to break the back of the South’s economy and disrupt the aristocracy-ridden social structure. If that were not the case, entire plantations wouldn’t have been destroyed, nor would people have been driven from their homes during the war, and carpet-baggers and other vultures wouldn’t have been sent in by the North after Lee’s surrender. It was a classic operation of divide, disrupt, destroy and conquer. The same thing was done by Agamemnon at Ilium (Troy), Alexander on his march to wherever he thought he was going, Julius Caesar’s invasions of Gallia (Europa) and Britania, running roughshod over the various tribes and clans of Europa, and Genghis Khan with his Horde. There is no essential difference in any of these instances, nor anything new. They all follow the same pattern.
@113 Ex-PH2 –
Thanks for the link. Tempest meet teapot.
@111 HS Sophomore, and others –
This has been an interesting discussion.
My own view is that it helps to put the Civil War in context if you look at it as an effort to resolve things that hadn’t been dealt with following the American Revolution. At the time the country was founded, nobody had ever done such a thing before, and getting all 13 colonies on board was like herding cats. To some degree, the issue of state’s rights became a powder keg with the sub-issue of slavery acting as a slow-burning fuse.
Were Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson traitors? That’s a difficult question, and it’s real easy to wander off into the semantic weeds. It seems to me that what label you place on them is less important than how they conducted themselves during the course of the conflict, and to what extent, or lack of extent, things were a matter of a power grab.
And who, without putting too fine a point on it, was doing the grabbing? Was it the southern states for trying to secede, or was it the federal government by trying to control something that wasn’t really its business?
To this day, the question still remains: Should all power, every single minute bit of it, reside with the federal government, or should some things at a local level be determined locally based on local conditions?
And for the record, you don’t say ‘Very well’ to a Master Chief Petty Officer of the US Navy, unless you’re at least 6 pay grades higher than he is.
“During an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.” – GEN William T. Sherman (you know, the guy who founded the War College), on tactics for dealing with the Sioux.
It is “Aye” or in today purple joint a “Rog All” will do just fine.
Thank you EX-PH2.
You know, IF anyone were to want to commit violent rebellion today, it would be relatively easy. It would take about 500-700 people with certain assignments that would effectively erase the government. Of course, if just one of the 500-700 gave up anything, it would fold like yesterday’s newspaper. But thinking off the top of my head, it could be done. Now, for the benefit of the NSA spooks and the FBI snoops, I am not advocating the overthrow of the government. I am merely pondering it romantically.
Standing down, Master Chief.
2/17AirCav, Margaret Atwood covered that prospect in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, which she had to self-publish because none of the hoity-toity big 6 publishers would touch it.
It’s true. At the last picnic I attended with the Master Chief, he was manning the grille. He asked, “How do you want your burger?” and I responded, “Very well.” SOB threw his beer at me.
@131. I just scanned a billion word “summary” of the book. It’s not exactly what I had in mind. Maybe I’ll write my own. What the heck.
@129—We’re veering wildly off topic, but I might as well ask. What exactly do you have in mind?
@126—Aye. ‘Aye’ it is.
At Air Cav … Do not answer the question in #129. You went far enough and made your point quite well.
I would caution everyone about any discussion regarding insurrection. The FEDS are always watching. Free speech or not, todays administration particularly DoJ have gone to great measures to skirt the law and they have made it clear that this administration will restrict liberties, with legistlate from the WH and will be ignore the Constitution.
Senior phofessors fron major institutions, including Georgetown, have critisized the current administration in terms of the blantant disregard for law.
So let’s not start the revolution here at TAH … It has started already in Main Street USA.
Blogging from BB sorry for errors.
Perhaps MCPO is right. We don’t want to be blacklisted or to have this used for ridicule or veteran stereotyping. I withdraw my query.
@132
SOB threw his beer at me.
Another sad case of a veteran abusing alcohol.
@83 I’m a Southern, from Georgia. As I said in a previous post, I had family that fought and died on both sides of the line in the Civil War. What you study as history is part of my family story. Both families were honorable and neither side was “reprehensible.” Think of a neighborhood family that gets into fight and kills each other. There is right and wrong, there is pain and grief, somebody goes to jail and somebody goes to the morgue. That’s what the Civil War was, on a national scale. Those were Americans killing each other. THAT was my point.
And since you decided to take a swipe at me, Junior, here’s one for you. I am nearly 40 years your senior. You’re nothing to me. I wouldn’t bother to engage you with what you term a “red herring” comment. You’re not worth the effort.
@140—Fair enough. But as far as I could see, you were comparing what the Confederates fought for to why we should safeguard against what Obama and his cronies would like to impose on us. My point was that the two are not one and the same. Quite simply, moral issues that led people to take sides aside, one is good and the other is bad (although I will concede that hindsight is 20/20). Using something we on TAH are pretty much unanimously united against and comparing it to a cause like the Confederates’ to advocate for them when the two bear little to no influence or similarity to each other (“I am sure, after the progressives in this country finally run over our Rights to form that most perfect of socialist workers Paradise, abolishing States’ rights in preference to the centralized power they so desperately want, taking away our freedom of speech and our right to bear arms along with any other rights they don’t like, with pictures of their Beloved Leader on every wall and their mantra sung and chanted at every gathering…they’ll say the same thing about YOU.”) is sort of the textbook definition of a red herring argument, at least as I understand it.