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I did not mean to imply you 'deserved' anything by the posting of my story.
I simply posted it to show, as you stated in your next post, that bad things happened on both sides and were usually done by civilians and fanatics. Other than the real soldiers of both sides who had grown to respect one another's courage and bravery.
Comments made by your visiting Yankee and Matthew's visiting Southerner simply show the ignorance of history by people from all over our country and shows a serious lack of respect for the sacrifice of the men and women of both sides during that troubled time.
Larry, not bad, not bad at all.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
In some cases they'd dig him up, chop him up and pitch his remains in the creek. In some cases they'd just toss the stone.
They must have thought something valuable was with the body. I can 'understand' the perverse pleasure of desecrating a headstone; its a relatively simple act of vandalism, but to exhume a body you have to put in a lot of labor, ostensibly you get nothing out of it, and obviously the added sadistic pleasure of taunting couldn't possibly apply to a body, plus of course you have the odors issue.
They must have thought something valuable was with the body. I can 'understand' the perverse pleasure of desecrating a headstone; its a relatively simple act of vandalism, but to exhume a body you have to put in a lot of labor, ostensibly you get nothing out of it, and obviously the added sadistic pleasure of taunting couldn't possibly apply to a body, plus of course you have the odors issue.
I think they were trying to rub out all traces of anything southern as well as harass / oppress / keep down / run off what few southern sympathizing folks remained in the area.
Most folks who study the American Civil War focus on the Eastern Theater. Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Grant and Mcclellan and the big fights in Virginia. Some get into the Western Theater and learn about Bragg, Johnston, Hood, Thomas and Sherman and places like Vicksburg, Chickamagua and Peachtree Creek. But very very few know anything at all about the Trans-Mississippi Theater and the very close very personal up front and in your face kind of civil war fought in Missouri. Brothers fighting brothers. Neighbors killing neighbors. Republicans oppressing Democrats and the like. The MO-KAN boarder war was a very serious business folks. It started long before shots were fired on Ft. Sumpter and it didn't stop with Appomattox by a long shot.
I grew up in Missouri where Quantrill, Anderson, Todd, Clements and the like were still referred to as "The Boys". I was regaled by the sacrifice that they and the rest went thru to save us from the Red legs and Jay hawkers, hearing how noble and good their acts were.........then I found books and research not remembrances overly romanticized and infused with a distaste of all things Yankee.
I still have a great deal of interest in the operations of the Missouri Raiders and the Jay-Hawkers but I have long past moved on from casting people like William Quantrill and Bill Anderson as plaster saints and shining knights defending Southern virtue. Despite the fact I had a distant cousin who rode with Todd.
Hard cold facts are the only way to debate this topic. You need to leave your tendency to associate with one side or the other at the door.
The facts are that atrocities committed by Raiders were just that atrocities. The killing of unarmed Federals at Centralia was murder not a great act on behalf of the CS.
Likewise the killing of Lil' Archie Clements as he rode in to surrender was murder on the part of the Federals.
Both sides committed them especially in Missouri it was a dirty bitter part of the war and it remains so.
I am reminded of something I heard on TV when I was growing up. All US kids knew the story was fiction, but we figured the Josey Wales character was based on a modicum of fact. I know Ten Bears did in fact exist.
Quote:
"It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... and death. It shall be life."
Hey unionblue! I thought of another little game they use to play out here on the Mo-Kan border. "Tain't in the Well".
Some southern minded man would turn up on a Union League list somewhere's and before long, he'd just up an dissapear. Wouldn't nobody know where he'd run off too and he'd never come back home.
Then about three or four weeks later, some other southern family'd find there well poisoned or if not poisioned, certainly not drinkable anymore. There'd be no reason why that water'd turn bad cept' for that first fella, "Tain't in the Well".
Last edited by Ozark Iron John; 08-05-2007 at 01:19 AM.
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