Hundreds attend Mo. Confederate ceremony

[Jon8503]

DAVID A. LIEB
Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - About 400 people turned out for a Confederate memorial service held Sunday under the rebel battle flag, singing "Dixie" and laying roses at a Confederate monument. Miles to the west, meanwhile, protesters demonstrated their disapproval by marching outside the Missouri Governor's Mansion. Officials with the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsville said the turnout there - four times larger than expected - could be attributed to the return of the Confederate flag. Republican Gov. Matt Blunt ordered a one-day flying of the flag at the historic site to coincide with the memorial service, saying he was acting on the request of a state lawmaker who represents the Higginsville area.

The attention "over that issue caused more people to be aware of the event," site administrator Greta Marshall said after the ceremony. Those attending the memorial service saluted various Confederate flags and lay roses at a monument to fallen Confederate soldiers. As the service was going on in Higginsville, about 20 demonstrators carrying small American flags marched up and down the sidewalks outside the mansion in Jefferson City, about 90 miles to the east.

Sunday marked the first time the Confederate flag had flown over state property since January 2003, when Democratic Gov. Bob Holden's administration ordered it to come down from the Higginsville site and the Fort Davidson State Historic Site in Pilot Knob. Leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said they had no problem with the memorial service, just with Blunt's decision to fly the Confederate flag.

"We recognize citizens have a right to honor their ancestors and heroes," said Harold Crumpton, president of the St. Louis branch of the NAACP. "But they don't have the right to use state funds and property to pass on the venom of their symbols of hatred." About 800 people are buried at the 192-acre Confederate historic site in Higginsville, which formerly served as a state-run Confederate Veterans Home. The annual memorial service is scheduled near the June 3 birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Missouri never joined the Confederacy but was a divided state during the Civil War, with some residents fighting for the Union and others for the Confederacy.

ON THE NET

Confederate Historic Site: http://www.mostateparks.com/confedmem.htm



© 2005 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.twincities.com

[Inland]

1. Too bad they needed killing.

That's the way I feel about it. I'm not a pacifist, but neither am I a person who feels that a brave fight for the wrong side calls for honor. All I can say is...too bad. Too bad they put themselves in the position that they needed killing.

[enigami]

2. Your sympathy for my fallen ancestors is touching

[Inland]

3. Thanks. It must be a burden on you, having ancestors that needed killing.

Glad to say as much as one can say about someone in that position.

[enigami]

4. Actually My ancestors all survived the war

They did their share of killing. I don't know if the ones they killed "needed" it, but then they did come here asking for it.

It was a terrible war. I am sure given a chance they would all take a do over. It must be a terrible burden on you having to decide who needs killing and who doesn't.

[Inland]

5. It is a burden of deciding.

But there's nothing like the old civil war to make the decision as easy as possible.

If it comes down to a choice between allowing a secession that would destroy the greatest hope for liberty and democracy in the world for the purpose of the perpetuation of slavery, and killing those that would make it happen by force of arms, the choice is pretty easy. If the war was won without your ancestors having to be killed, that's great. As long as the war was won.

By the way, if your ancestors were Missourians fighting for the CSA, they weren't necessarily killing those "who came here asking for it". Not only were they killing their fellow Americans, but they were probably killing fellow Missourians from down the road. That was their choice on who lived or died, and I like the way I came out better.

[enigami]

6. We have the privilege of 140 years of hind sight

I am also glad that things turned out the way they did and that the union was preserved. However; As a historian I like to put things in historical reference.

People of the civil war era had no idea that America would become "the greatest hope for liberty and democracy in the world".

And as far as the way my ancestors felt about the Missourians from down the road. To them some Yankee from St.Louis was just another Yankee. But around here they had their hands full with Kansas red legs and Colorado Calvary. I doubt that my ancestors were fighting to preserve slavery per say (they didn't own any, most people didn't)Mostly I think they were just fighting what they perceived as an invasion of their home and liberty. They didn't march off to far away glory, they stayed right here and fought for their homes.

But as you say You won. And you hold the moral high ground. Is it really to much to allow people to honor their ancestors memory without having to re fight the whole war.

[Inland]

9. We have that privilege, so let's us it.

I don't have any problem using whatever hindsight comes from knowing just how bad slavery was, or the promise of America. After all, the memorial was just a couple days ago.

But then again, I don't think that all those things were unknowable to people at the time, either. It isn't like the evil of chattel slavery was hidden or inconcievable. Or the US's ideals of liberty hadn't ever been articulated. No, those were all ideas out there, floating around, available for anyone to pick up and adhere to. So wast the idea of preserving chattel slavery forever, even at the cost of the US union.

By the way, when your ancestors "fought for their homes," was there someone trying to expropriate their houses and take their land? No, "fought for their homes" is a metaphor for fighting for something else. Against "yankees"---from St. Louis, no less---coming to their town, and forcing them to......what? Live in a free state as part of the union. That's what they were fighting.

Nor do I have a problem with people honoring their ancestor's memory. But I do have a problem with the government joining in honoring the dishonorable aspects of their lives, such as the episode that made it necessary to kill them, or by which they killed their fellow Americans, for that cause that dare not speak its name. And anyone that wants to highlight it is going to get a comment, even a fairly innocuous one about fighting on the wrong side. Just saying.

[enigami]

13. You are woefully misinformed

Although I think we can ALL agree that slavery was an atrocious institution.

Yes they Were "fighting for their Homes".

Read this following report and realize this was routine in Missouri during the war.



MAY 3-11, 1863.--Scout in Cass and Bates Counties, Mo.
Report of Col. Edward Lynde, Ninth Kansas Cavalry


SIR: I have the honor to report that, on the 3d instant, I left camp with small detachments from Companies A, D, E, F, and K, of this regiment, for a scout in Cass and Bates Counties, Missouri. I scoured Cass County and found no enemy; then turned into Bates County, and when about 10 miles north of Butler received your letter of instructions, dated Fort Leavenworth, -- ,1863; also your letter dated Fort Leavenworth, May 5, directing Company D, Captain Coleman, to move his company from Rockville to Butler, Mo., which was immediately complied with. I moved on to the Osage, intending to cross to Hog Island, but found the river too high, and did not cross; then turned east, and on the morning of the 8th, on Double Branches, found a gang of bushwhackers, under Jackman and Marchbanks, Quantrill having left on the night of the 6th instant for Henry County, Missouri, with 40 men. We found Jackman and Marchbanks with about 20 men, who fled by ones and twos, and then escaped, except 7, who were reported killed by my soldiers. I found county rapidly filling up by bushwhackers' families, who are returning from the South under the impression that Price is coming up, and had again taken possession, with their stock. This stream, called the Double Branches, is their rendezvous, and has been since the outbreak of this rebellion; but four loyal families live on it, and they are doubtful. About fifty or sixty families inhabit that country bordering on that stream. I notified them to leave and go south of the Arkansas River. A great part of them positively refused. I burned eleven houses, inhabited by bushwhackers' families, and drove off all the stock except that belonging to the reported loyal persons. We broke up four camps of bushwhackers and pursued them to the eastern side of Bates County. I think for the present no danger need be apprehended from that quarter. I will keep a close watch, for I am satisfied they intend to organize a force somewhere in that country; I think in Henry County.

The stock we took consists of a few yoke of oxen, mares and colts, young horses one and two years old, cows and calves, and young cattle; in all about 350 head; also about 300 sheep. I believe it all to be property of bushwhackers and rebel sympathizers. In view of the fact that pasture is scarce at Kansas City and plenty here, and the stock the kind our Kansas farmers would like to buy, and some of it may be proved away, I most respectfully ask for an order that will authorize the sale of it at this place.

Permit me to ask the question, How am I to send the rebel sympathizers and female rebels, who are plentiful where I have been for the last ten days, south of the Arkansas River, particularly those who have no way to go and those who refuse to go? I can see no way except to gather them all up and send them in a Government train, and reimburse the Government by selling their stock.

Company C, Captain Stewart, has not yet reported at Olathe. Scouting parties are constantly moving from the different counties. Can I have your consent to go into the counties of Henry and Saline on our next scout, if I find no enemy in the border counties, or if they run into those counties?

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

E. LYNDE,

Colonel, Commanding.

Capt. H. G. LORING,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.


Note that they Burned homes, Killed men, confiscated stock and property. Yes my friend they were fighting for everything.

But I am sure they needed killing

[Inland]

16. Any non-combatants in the cemetary?

More bizarre logic--if non-combatants don't need killing, then the combatants also don't need killing. In fact the non-combatants don't need killing because they aren't combatants, and the combatants need killing because they are.

The people who chose not to take up arms aren't now morally and practically equivalent to those who did.

But funny, those non-combatants--those *victims* of war--aren't honored with the combatent dead. There aren't confederate battle flags flown at their graves and twenty one gun salutes in their direction. The honors go to those who fought in battle against their country and for the institutions created for the purpose of perpetuating slavery. The honors don't go to the peacemakers. You aren't arguing for pacifism.

The honors, in other words, go to those who figured the northerners needed killing and the blacks needed enslaving. And those yankees from St. Louis needed a little of that, too.

[enigami]

7. By the Way

How do you feel about the Native Americans. Did they "need killing" also?

After all they tried in vain to defeat and "destroy the greatest hope for liberty and democracy in the world" "by force of arms"

Just trying to put things in perspective.

[Inland]

10. Actually, they didn't.

Native Americans had treaties and lived by American law. Pretty simple, really.

How do you feel about the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor?

[enigami]

11. You have a very sanitary and narrow view of history my friend

"Native Americans had treaties and lived by American law. Pretty simple, really"

This would be a big surprise to a lot of Native Americans such as, oh I don't know, like Geronimo, Joseph, Red Cloud, and Crazy Horse just to name a few.


And then why did the "greatest hope for democracy and freedom on earth" find it necessary to kill so many of them?

Do you work for the Department of Homeland Security by chance?

[Inland]

15. Justifying the civil war rebels with the American Indian?

The fact that American Indians were killed doesn't change anything I said about who needed killing. They had treaties and lived by American law, and therefore *shouldn't* have been killed. Civil war rebels took up arms to perpetuate the institution of slavery and destroy the Union. Since it was them, not the American Indian, taht I said needed killing, you really should say something nice about secession, which was the cause for which they took up arms. For example:

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.



But I guess your point is that the US wasn't the greatest hope for freedom and democracy on earth. I wonder why, in arguing that, you didn't point out chattel slavery as the great stain on the nation. That would have been my first choice.

My only thought is that your goal is actually to find some sort of moral equivalence between the north and the south, and therefore you can't mention that 500pound gorilla in the room except a passing reference with the fact that nobody likes slavery TODAY. Well, fair enough. Nobody likes slavery TODAY. But back then, some liked it well enough to destroy the Union and to take up arms to defend it, it, and those are the people who, for some reason, you don't think needed killing. If the US had a flaw, then the civil war did as much to cure it as anything. But you think the flaw means that the flawed get to insist on the flaws.

It's the typical backflipping and amoral view that leads one to equate every cause with another, every combatant with another, and eventually every civilian with combatants. If the US did wrong by the American Indian, then any act against it is okay, even if it was to perpetuate a wrong against the American black man.

You work for Ward Churchill, by any chance?

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. I have ancestors who fought for the Rebs too

and I am hoping they deeply regret it.

[cornermouse]

8. I had some on both sides.

They all died. War is based on people believing, rightly or wrongly, that their beliefs are important enough to take the chance on dying.

And by the way, very few people in the entire world "need killing".

[enigami]

12. I am sorry for your loss

[Inland]

17. That's what brings war.....

People believing, rightly or wrongly, in the cause and deciding to take up arms.

And the south was wrong, even more wrong than the north was right.
They were wrong, they died, and they killed people for that wrong cause. If people want a memorial where that isn't brought up, they shouldn't have all the symbols of the cause attendent to a service for the combatants.

Just saying.

[cornermouse]

18. I am not in favor of flying the confederate flag.

That said, you don't have to drive far before seeing stickers on trucks and even flags flying in yards. That's the reality. I agree the flag represents a great wrong.

However, I take strong issue with your statement that "people need killing." That is just wrong and really negates the rest of your argument.

[Inland]

19. No, I think it says it pretty much right.

Someone who takes up arms and joins battle is either going to kill or be killed. I suppose one could hope for another alternative--that they surrender, or run away, or are wounded and taken out of battle, but those are all alternative that they themselves are going to have to chose or luck will have to provide.

If those contingencies aren't chosen or occur, they need to be killed. You can point out the ones who need to be killed: they are the ones with the guns pointed in your direction. I assume from the fact that these people are the war dead means that none of those other contingencies occured.

HOWEVER:

If it is true they didn't need to be killed--taking, for example, the perspective of the CSA looking across the bay at Fort Sumter---then there shouldn't have been a war in the first place.