Union Gulags---Reeducation Camps

If the union had thrown the Confederate Leadership into Gulags, Lee would have died in some Western land buried some field without veneration as he was. Gulags are not good for ones health many famed Confederates would have died and buried in open fields without fanfare, just loneliness. If the union had thrown them all in reeducation camps, maybe today we would not venerating confederates icons as we do....

That would have worked as well as the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It would have made Reconstruction much worse than it was, and then made martyrs out of all the dead Confederates.
 
So Fish, Nate's post from yesterday...is that what happened? A coupla ya-hoos in a pickup truck with a CBF plate or decal on it, cut you off? Hey I lived in south Florida for two years, I know those guys are down there. Just be honest, what is causing you to stay on this theme of revenge on the defeated Confederates, "reeducation", and general vindictiveness? Lincoln didn't want it that way, did he?
 
So Fish, Nate's post from yesterday...is that what happened? A coupla ya-hoos in a pickup truck with a CBF plate or decal on it, cut you off? Hey I lived in south Florida for two years, I know those guys are down there. Just be honest, what is causing you to stay on this theme of revenge on the defeated Confederates, "reeducation", and general vindictiveness? Lincoln didn't want it that way, did he?

No Ya-hoos, It is for many reasons, one I want to remind us that many of these men we venerate today tried to end our nation as we know it. Two, I like to bring angst to the forum for angst bring out good debate. Third, I like to note when I joined this forum the "lost cause" members complained that this forum was too union too blue but after my recent threads I can safely say our forum is now pro "lost cause". too gray, too pro-Republican, far form its union roots. I am now in the minority for not one pro- union member ever raise a voice on my behalf, sad day for the union cause. Just like the Republican Party has become a bastion of Confederate political values our board is now a bastion of "lost cause" values. As the Republican Party once stand up against Confederate cause and now is one with them all but in name our forum once criticized the "lost cause" movement now is one with them.

I must do what I can to save the Republicans and this forum form themselves... The lone voice I am...

I am just waiting for that knock in the night on my door......to silence a lone voice...

Confederacy may have lost the war but won the hearts and minds of this forum...

Dam....those Confederate Secret Societies....
 
Better yet, maybe the union armies shoulda just killed everyone in the south and then repopulated. :tongue:

Don't think that some didn't think of that.

"It will be a physical impossibility to protect the roads, now that Hood, Forrest, Wheeler, and the whole batch of devils are turned loose without home or habitation. I think that Hood's movements indicate a diversion to the end of the Selma & Talledega road, at Blue Mountain, about 60 miles southwest of Rome, where he will threaten Kingston, Bridgeport, and Decatur,Alabama, I propose that we break up the railroad from Chattanooga forward, and that we strike out with our wagons for Midgeville, Millen, and Savannah. Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people, will cripple their military resources. By attempting to hold the roads, we will lose a thousand men each month, and we will gain no result. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl! We have on hand over 8 thousand head of cattle and three million rations of bread, but no corn. We can find plenty of forage in the interior of the state." -- William T. Sherman, October 1864.
 
Don't think that some didn't think of that.

"It will be a physical impossibility to protect the roads, now that Hood, Forrest, Wheeler, and the whole batch of devils are turned loose without home or habitation. I think that Hood's movements indicate a diversion to the end of the Selma & Talledega road, at Blue Mountain, about 60 miles southwest of Rome, where he will threaten Kingston, Bridgeport, and Decatur,Alabama, I propose that we break up the railroad from Chattanooga forward, and that we strike out with our wagons for Midgeville, Millen, and Savannah. Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people, will cripple their military resources. By attempting to hold the roads, we will lose a thousand men each month, and we will gain no result. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl! We have on hand over 8 thousand head of cattle and three million rations of bread, but no corn. We can find plenty of forage in the interior of the state." -- William T. Sherman, October 1864.

The union leadership should have kept this attitude after the war ended and made all of the Confederacy howl!!!
 
Where would we be if this policy was carried out. I'm not sure this is a good example but a main reason for Hitler becoming more radical and leading to World War ll was the way Germany was treated after losing World War l. Just like a criminal having to earn their way back into society the south gradually got their rights back. Trying to de-program them and other radical ideas may have festered and come back to haunt us.
 
I can at least look at my countries history and thank God there were no wannabe Stalins and their mass graves... at least I have that.

Sorry to spoil your warm and fuzzy moment but:
http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html

Thus, according to Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a"vast genocide . . . , the most sustained on record." By the end of the 19th century, writes David E. Stannard, a historian at the University of Hawaii, native Americans had undergone the"worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents non-stop for four centuries and consuming the lives of countless tens of millions of people." In the judgment of Lenore A. Stiffarm and Phil Lane, Jr.,"there can be no more monumental example of sustained genocide—certainly none involving a 'race' of people as broad and complex as this—anywhere in the annals of human history."
 
Wow, very interesting posts to say the least. I just want to add this. Because I work every day in the Civil War arena (in Franklin, TN) I must say that part of the 150th anniversary of the war is to move beyond the old dogmas of the past (i.e. what was the war about??!!??) and talk about why it is important to our modern society. I think 5Fish brings up an interesting point. There is something distinctly American in how former Rebels were treated. They were actually given VERY generous and lenient treatment. All in all, how things actually played out greatly shaped our country. I'll leave it to y'all to debate the various issues, but let's try and talk more about WHY the war's ultimate outcome was important, and not just about the generals and the battles (although they remain fascinating). Please??
 
It's not my "warm fuzzy," I'm well aware of what was done to the Native American. Far more so than most, I've lived there. No one can seriously equate what happened South of the Mason Dixon to what happened to the Native American, any who try are either ****ed fools or unrepentent liars.

There were no mass graves for the majority of the Native American, white people generally didn't bother burrying them... As to Ward Churchill, I'm not much of a fan of his work.

Tieing the tragedy of the Native American to 5fishs trolling is pointless.

Sorry to spoil your warm and fuzzy moment but:
http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html

Thus, according to Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a"vast genocide . . . , the most sustained on record." By the end of the 19th century, writes David E. Stannard, a historian at the University of Hawaii, native Americans had undergone the"worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents non-stop for four centuries and consuming the lives of countless tens of millions of people." In the judgment of Lenore A. Stiffarm and Phil Lane, Jr.,"there can be no more monumental example of sustained genocide—certainly none involving a 'race' of people as broad and complex as this—anywhere in the annals of human history."
 
It's not my "warm fuzzy," I'm well aware of what was done to the Native American. Far more so than most, I've lived there. No one can seriously equate what happened South of the Mason Dixon to what happened to the Native American, any who try are either ****ed fools or unrepentent liars.

There were no mass graves for the majority of the Native American, white people generally didn't bother burrying them... As to Ward Churchill, I'm not much of a fan of his work.

Tieing the tragedy of the Native American to 5fishs trolling is pointless.

Shane, that was a friendly reminder. It was a sustained genocide. No need for mass graves except after the hanging of 38 in Minnesota. It was an atrocity all Americans should be ashamed of.

I wasn't attempting to equate anything regarding the treatment of Indians with the post ACW South. How you pulled that one out of the air, I'd like to know.

dvrmte
 
Wow, very interesting posts to say the least. I just want to add this. Because I work every day in the Civil War arena (in Franklin, TN) I must say that part of the 150th anniversary of the war is to move beyond the old dogmas of the past (i.e. what was the war about??!!??) and talk about why it is important to our modern society. I think 5Fish brings up an interesting point. There is something distinctly American in how former Rebels were treated. They were actually given VERY generous and lenient treatment. All in all, how things actually played out greatly shaped our country. I'll leave it to y'all to debate the various issues, but let's try and talk more about WHY the war's ultimate outcome was important, and not just about the generals and the battles (although they remain fascinating). Please??

I think if Lincoln would have lived that the treatment of the Rebels would have been even more lenient.
 
I think if Lincoln would have lived that the treatment of the Rebels would have been even more lenient.

I would tend to agree. Of all the many dumb things done in the name of secession and Southern independence, the murder of Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Seward were probably the stupidest. I can understand them as the flailing acts of a few men in a dying cause, but the harm they did the South far outweighed any fantasy of vengenance and retribution the plotters may have had.

I also agree that Reconstruction was fairly lenient by the standards of the day. The hundred years or so of history before that show plenty of examples far worse than Reconstruction ever was: "The Terror" of Robespierre and the French Revolution, the repression of uprisings in Spain and the Tyrol and La Vendee by Napoleon, the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1832 and 1848 in Europe, etc. -- if those aren't bad enough, we move on to the world outside mainstream Europe, to the Balkans and India after the Sepoy Mutiny and Russia and ...

If we imagine Lincoln presiding over those first 3 years instead of Adrew Johnson and the Radicals, then handing off to Grant and perhaps staying around to advise him, well ... things would certainly have been better for the South.

ADDED LATER: Imagine the chaos that would have arisen if they got Vice President Andrew Johnson as well. That would have made Lafayette S. Foster of Connecticut, President Pro Tempore of the Senate into the President in 1865.
Tim
 
Johnson was an incompetent fool who made war recovery horrible. He deserved to be impeached and it is too bad that he was not convicted in the senate.

That would have made Ben Wade president.
:jawdrop:
 
Johnson was an incompetent fool who made war recovery horrible. He deserved to be impeached and it is too bad that he was not convicted in the senate.

I doubt the rebels would have been happier with President Ben Wade.
Regardless of how incompetent Johnson was, seems to me that he was not less lenient, and maybe more so, than Lincoln.
 
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