Stonewall Jackson Area Council Changes Name

[TAHAWK]

General Thomas Jackson regarding Union soldiers, December, 1962: "Kill them.  Kill them all."  Shelby Foote.

[TAHAWK]

On 11/28/2019 at 11:46 AM, JoeBob said:

Or never killed an Indian. 

Depends on who is a "Founding Father."  Richard B. Morris in 1973 identified the following seven figures as key Founding Fathers: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.  Which killed an Indian? 

Jefferson by early advocacy of "removal" to the far West? 

Washington in the French and Indian War when most Indians allied with the French? An a field-grade officer, GW would not have carried a firearm, only a sword - primarily to point.  But he directed soldiers to fire at Indians in battles and as C-in-C of the rebel armies he ordered attacks on Indian villages (British allies encouraged to attack the rebels on the frontier by the lawful government in London)  during the Revolution.

Hamilton ended up a Major General, but I find no mention of his commanding troops fighting Indians.

[ParkMan]

On 11/28/2019 at 2:45 PM, Rick_in_CA said:

I am fine with renaming a council that was named after a traitor to our republic that was fighting to preserve slavery. (That should get things rolling... ).

Given how hurtful the memory of slavery is to so many in our country, I have no problem that this council has decided to choose a name that is not associated with the Confederacy.  

As I read the comments, I realized how little I knew of General Jackson.  I did a quick scan of his bio on wikipedia.  Looks like he was a West Point graduate who was born and lived in West Virginia.  I'm going to infer that his role in the confederacy had more to do with a duty to his home state than to anything else.  But, once he joined that army, he did his duty as a soldier and fought for that army.  I have a hunch that were he living further north we'd be hearing about him as a well respected Union general.  

[Navybone]

22 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

I'm going to infer that his role in the confederacy had more to do with a duty to his home state than to anything else.  But, once he joined that army, he did his duty as a soldier and fought for that army.  I have a hunch that were he living further north we'd be hearing about him as a well respected Union general.  

But he did not fight for his nation, but put his state first.  And since he lost, he is, in fact, a traitor to his nation.  Hence part of the reason not to name a council after him.  Does not stand up to the test of being loyal. 

[Navybone]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

And just to be clear, I find slavery reprehensible, I am not a Southern apologist or whatever the word would be, I just don't agree with this current fad of trying to erase history. 

I do not think it is about erasing history, but not celebrating the history of this ideals, actions, or men of beliefs that have been found not worthy of emulation or celebration. 

[yknot]

Navybone, it is completely about erasing history. Or, if you prefer, editing it. Lee made war  upon "armed men" only. Sherman burned to the ground and made war on women and children -- his helpless countrymen who were victims of where they were born or what side their menfolk chose.  Lee lost the war. Sherman won. Sherman did reprehensible things, but his cause was just. Lee was a gentleman, but fighting for a horrific cause. Under your litmus test,  there are few American historical figures worthy of emulation or celebration because they were all products of their time and all did things today we would consider abhorrent. And I'll leave you with this. Baden Powell was an acknowledged racist. Should we strike his name from scout history?  

 

[Sentinel947]

22 minutes ago, yknot said:

Navybone, it is completely about erasing history. Or, if you prefer, editing it. Lee made war  upon "armed men" only. Sherman burned to the ground and made war on women and children -- his helpless countrymen who were victims of where they were born or what side their menfolk chose.  Lee lost the war. Sherman won. Sherman did reprehensible things, but his cause was just. Lee was a gentleman, but fighting for a horrific cause. Under your litmus test,  there are few American historical figures worthy of emulation or celebration because they were all products of their time and all did things today we would consider abhorrent. And I'll leave you with this. Baden Powell was an acknowledged racist. Should we strike his name from scout history?  

 

Why in the United States of America do we have statues and name things after traitors who waged and lost a war against our country? 

[mds3d]

25 minutes ago, yknot said:

Navybone, it is completely about erasing history. Or, if you prefer, editing it. Lee made war  upon "armed men" only. Sherman burned to the ground and made war on women and children -- his helpless countrymen who were victims of where they were born or what side their menfolk chose.  Lee lost the war. Sherman won. Sherman did reprehensible things, but his cause was just. Lee was a gentleman, but fighting for a horrific cause. Under your litmus test,  there are few American historical figures worthy of emulation or celebration because they were all products of their time and all did things today we would consider abhorrent. And I'll leave you with this. Baden Powell was an acknowledged racist. Should we strike his name from scout history?  

 

For not being a southern apologist, you sure talk like one. I was born and raised in the south.  The problem is why most of these things are even there. Most of these named things came in the 1920s to 1970s, long after the Civil War was fought.  All that did come in an era of Jim Crow laws, the KKK, and the Civil Rights movement.  We can acknowledge these men in ways that don't involve building them statues. We can learn from the things they did right without putting their names on buildings. 

Sherman is hated by many in the south, but naming a school in the north after him (PS 87 in NYC), doesn't have the same effect as things like Nathan Bedford Forrest High School in the south.  How do you think African American scouts and parents felt about having a confederate general's name on their son's scout shirt?

General Lee fought to keep people as property. No amount of gentlemanly tactics makes up for that. 

[Navybone]

3 hours ago, yknot said:

Lee was a gentleman, but fighting for a horrific cause. ....And I'll leave you with this. Baden Powell was an acknowledged racist. Should we strike his name from scout history?  

 

At least I agree with the second half of your sentence on Lee.  The civil war was fought at a level of brutality unseen at the time and only surprised by WW1. 

History is not statues glorifying a false narrative of Southern sons fighting for states rights.  History is being willing to accept both sides of the story based on actual accounts and sources.  

and interesting comment about B-P.  Never knew that.

 

[TAHAWK]

3 hours ago, yknot said:

Navybone, it is completely about erasing history. Or, if you prefer, editing it. Lee made war  upon "armed men" only. Sherman burned to the ground and made war on women and children -- his helpless countrymen who were victims of where they were born or what side their menfolk chose.  Lee lost the war. Sherman won. Sherman did reprehensible things, but his cause was just. Lee was a gentleman, but fighting for a horrific cause. Under your litmus test,  there are few American historical figures worthy of emulation or celebration because they were all products of their time and all did things today we would consider abhorrent. And I'll leave you with this. Baden Powell was an acknowledged racist. Should we strike his name from scout history?  

 

I had ancestors from Massachusetts and southern Kentucky soldering on both sides during the Rebellion. 

Lee waged war against the United States - the Constitutional definition of "treason."  Fortunately, for the Rebel leadership and for the nation, Stonewall types were not in charge on the U.S. side when it all ended in 1865.   Even Jefferson Davis was spared, perhaps in gratitude for his management of the war.

As for your "just" "cause,"  the citizens of Maryland and Pennsylvania whose property was looted in 1863 and 1864 in return, at best, for worthless rebel script would disagree that war was only waged on "armed men," as would the prisoners in Andersonville, the free Blacks enslaved and sent south by rebel armies,  and the Black  soldiers massacred at Ft. Pillow by Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest, later a founder of the terrorist  KKK.

And we have the burning of Chambersburg:  "Rampaging through the town [of Chambersburg, PA], Confederate soldiers broke into houses and evicted residents, smashed furniture, heaped the pieces into piles, and then set them on fire. By eight a. m. the city was in flames. As the city burned, renegade soldiers robbed citizens, looted stores, and drank whatever liquor they could find. Some demanded ransom money to spare a home, then torched it anyway after the ransom was paid.

Not all Confederates participated in the sacking of Chambersburg. The Masonic Temple was spared when an officer who was also a Mason posted guards to prevent its burning. When the colonel of the 21st Virginia Cavalry refused to obey the burning order, he was arrested and his entire unit sent out of town.

Other Confederates tried to help frantic citizens retrieve household goods before their homes were burned. In the end, perhaps 550 buildings went up in flames. In spite of the widespread arson and looting, the Rebels killed only one civilian, an elderly African American. Angry citizens killed at least five Confederates by the time the raiders had withdrawn."

War is brutality and violence.  Blood begets blood.  Neither side is due a white wash in the "Civil" War. Lists of U.S. misconduct can be compiled, but such list is needed (yet) as no one has posted here asserting that the U.S. "fought only armed men."  Given Sherman's deliberate goal of breaking the will of the Rebel civilian population, that would be as feckless as asserting the myth that only "armed men" were targeted by the rebels.

The "Glorious Cause" was the preservation of chattel slavery.  Never have men fought more bravely, including my ancestors of the "Orphan Brigade,"  for a more odious cause, unless it was the Waffen-SS.

Judging the conduct of past generations by today's standards is risky business and does not lead to understanding of the past, as opposed to "virtue signaling."  Lee famously had misgivings about the rebellions and slavery.  Most rebel leaders did not.

 

 

 

[TAHAWK]

42 minutes ago, Navybone said:

At least I agree with the second half of your sentence on Lee.  The civil war was fought at a level of brutality unseen at the time and only surprised by WW1. 

History is not statues glorifying a false narrative of Southern sons fighting for states rights.  History is being willing to accept both sides of the story based on actual accounts and sources.  

and interesting comment about B-P.  Never knew that.

 

WW II is generally thought to have been significantly more brutal than WW I. Germany invaded the Soviet Union with a goal of "eliminating"  many millions of its citizens and did so,  including the planned and effectuated murder of millions of Soviet prisoners of war by starvation - behavior mirrored to a lesser degree on the Allied side in 1945.  Both sides engaged in deliberate mass bombing of civilians contrary to the "laws of war," and the "good guys" did it to far greater effect.  The Axis used prisoners for monstrous "medical" experiments when not murdering them out-of-hand.  Japan used biological warfare on civilians in China. 

 

B-P was an aristocrat born in 1857.  Had he possessed "modern" views on "diversity," it would have been a minor miracle.  

[yknot]

Baden Powell was also an avowed fascist. He admired Hitler's youth movement and called Mein Kampf  a "wonderful book". Winston Churchill hated Hindus and Palestinians and wanted to use poison gas against rebellious native indigenous populations. His stalwart defense of Britain helped stem the tide of WWII, but it was based on his vision of the preservation of the British empire. FDR opposed anti lynching bills and put Japanese Americans in concentration camps. LBJ is credited with language so racist and disgusting that it's hard to read modern day despite the fact that's he's credited with some of the greatest Civil Rights advancements of our time. Although he's credited with changing his stripes, Harry Truman was remarkably racist. So, too, Woodrow Wilson, the founder of the League of Nations, the progenitor of the United Nations. McClellan, a Union general, fought for the Union but supported slavery and opposed abolition. Former president Jimmy Carter praised a lifelong segregationist, Lester Maddox. Charles de Gaulle.  Ronald Reagan. Eisenhower. All guilty of racist comments based on modern day standards. I am not trying to argue fine points of history, my argument is that people are a product of their time, and we  need to look at them through that lens. Scrubbing monuments and parks and streets and buildings of names that give some indication of that relevant history is just "feel good" PC activism and is totally anti-intellectual and anti history.

[yknot]

And sorry, I forgot to wrap up: It is also not scout like. We look a thing in the eye, and call it for what it is. 

[mds3d]

15 minutes ago, yknot said:

Baden Powell was also an avowed fascist. He admired Hitler's youth movement and called Mein Kampf  a "wonderful book". Winston Churchill hated Hindus and Palestinians and wanted to use poison gas against rebellious native indigenous populations. His stalwart defense of Britain helped stem the tide of WWII, but it was based on his vision of the preservation of the British empire. FDR opposed anti lynching bills and put Japanese Americans in concentration camps. LBJ is credited with language so racist and disgusting that it's hard to read modern day despite the fact that's he's credited with some of the greatest Civil Rights advancements of our time. Although he's credited with changing his stripes, Harry Truman was remarkably racist. So, too, Woodrow Wilson, the founder of the League of Nations, the progenitor of the United Nations. McClellan, a Union general, fought for the Union but supported slavery and opposed abolition. Former president Jimmy Carter praised a lifelong segregationist, Lester Maddox. Charles de Gaulle.  Ronald Reagan. Eisenhower. All guilty of racist comments based on modern day standards. I am not trying to argue fine points of history, my argument is that people are a product of their time, and we  need to look at them through that lens. Scrubbing monuments and parks and streets and buildings of names that give some indication of that relevant history is just "feel good" PC activism and is totally anti-intellectual and anti history.

You still haven't given any reason that these people deserved to have monuments, parks, or buildings named after them in the first place.  We look past many of the negative things about the people you mentioned because of their positive legacy.  Lee and Jackson and Forrest didn't leave positive legacies.  They left a legacy of rebelling against their country in favor of defending the practice of slavery. 

[yknot]

That's fair. However, without flawed people like Washington, who led atrocities in the French and Indian War, or Jefferson, who owned slaves, or Lincoln, who was not the color blind leader we all like to paint him as, our country would not exist. If we did not exist, what would we be?