Owl 69/70/75
Just an old rugby coach
Posts: 80,655
Joined: Sep 2005
Reputation: 3192
I Root For: RiceBathChelsea
Location: Montgomery, TX
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RE: Memorial Day
(05-28-2019 11:01 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (05-28-2019 10:48 AM)Rice93 Wrote: (05-28-2019 10:42 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (05-28-2019 10:27 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (05-28-2019 09:08 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: Here is what struck me about those 13 facts:
"One of the first occurred in Columbus, Mississippi, on April 25, 1866 (not quite a year after the end of the Civil War), when a group of women visiting a cemetery to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers placed flowers upon the bare graves of Union soldiers, as well, in the spirit of national unity."
"... at the Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868. Various Washington officials, including General Ulysses S. Grant, presided over the ceremonies. After speeches, children from the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphan Home, among others, made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers, and singing hymns."
So a group of Confederate widows, as well as Washington officials including U. S. grant, saw fit to honor the dead of sides.
How refreshing that they could see that valor was not confined to one side.
A nice contrast to today's view, which holds that any honor given to Confereates, including statues and monuments, need to be wiped from the face of the Earth, and anybody who does not agree is a racist slavery-lover.
from a liberal in Huffpost
There is no place for statues memorializing and honoring generals and leaders of the Confederates - remember, those people led an open rebellion against the country.
Museums and historical markers are places for those sorts of remeberances. Memorials honoring the dead and the atrocities of that bloody war make perfect sense and should not be removed (I haven't seen any issues being brought up with those).
But many statues were not erected to honor and memorialize those lost in senseless violence. Many were erected to celebrate the Confederacy, such as the Jefferson Davis monument in New Orleans, which was dedicated in 1911 (during a "whites only" ceremony, no less) on the 50th anniversary of his inauguration. A far cry from laying flowers on graves of soldiers.
We should follow Germany's lead in memorializing our Civil War - focusing only on those who lost in the war or historically important events, and not on the leaders of the side fighting for a great injustice.
Why should we honor and memorialize the leaders of an open rebellion against our country?
So you, 150 years later, know more about what should and should not be done than did contemporaries on both sides who lived through it?
I must say that I am impressed with your ominipotence. Or is it your arrogance?
A lot of those statues (as Lad alluded to) were erected in the early 1900's as an open FU to black people working towards equal rights. So probably neither omnipotence nor arrogance.
Owl#s must have obviously been using his own omnipotence to get inside my head about something I didn't discuss, since 1911+150 = 2061, and I don't think we're quite there yet.
I can use my critical thinking skills I developed at Rice and clearly see that a monument erected of a leader of the Confederacy, erected nearly 50 years after the end of the war, and erected on the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the president of the Confederacy was not, in fact, erected to commemorate those killed during the Civil War.
No, I was using the dates in OO's post, which do refer to events over 150 years old. As far as that goes, 1911 is over 100 years ago, I doubt that 100 versus 150 really makes much difference. I don't think anybody involved in any of those is still alive.
I think it's appropriate to have memorials at battlefields and in places of birth, death, or residence. Robert E. Lee in New Orleans does not meet any of those, so far as I know. I suggested Claire Chennault, who was born in Texas but is closely associated with Louisiana (airport and former air base in Lake Charles is Chennault Field) and died in New Orleans as someone who would be more appropriately memorialized in New Orleans.
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