Celebrating Confederate History Month

Let's start with Andersonville.

 

We think of the concentration camp as a 20th century phenomenon, but the Confederates were early innovators (not that the Union camps were much better).  Andersonville had many of the features of later Soviet and Nazi camps: guard towers overlooking a 'dead zone', deliberate malnutrition, overcrowding, and, as a special bonus, a fetid swamp in the center.  13,000 Union prisoners - about a third of those who were incarcerated - died there.

By all means, let's remember this. 


"...Confederacy and slavery are inextricably and forever linked.  That has not, however, stopped Lost Causers who supported Mr. McDonnell’s proclamation from trying to recast the war in more respectable terms. They would like what Lincoln called our “fiery trial” to be seen in a political, not a moral, light. If the slaves are erased from the picture, then what took place between Sumter and Appomattox is not about the fate of human chattel, or a battle between good and evil. It is, instead, more of an ancestral skirmish in the Reagan revolution, a contest between big and small government. We cannot allow the story of the emancipation of a people and the expiation of America’s original sin to become fodder for conservative politicians playing to their right-wing base."


'Southern discomfort' - Jon Meacham, New York Times


"If a Confederate soldier was merely doing his job in defending his homeland, honor and heritage, what are we to say about young Muslim radicals who say the exact same thing as their rationale for strapping bombs on their bodies and blowing up cafes and buildings?"

'Were Confederate soldiers terrorists?' - Roland Martin, CNN