Unsung Scots in American History #1

[Lachlan09]

If I remember correctly, today, April 17 is the day on which Virginia seceded.

Interestingly, let’s recall that parts of certain seceding states were split as to their loyalties. Most famously, were the Western counties of Virginia, which decided to stay with the Unites States and instead seceded from the secession ! Also, states like Tennessee, North Carolina and Alabama also had areas unwilling to secede and in time would furnish troops for the Union.

We all remember the observation of Knoxville, Tennessee in the early weeks of the secession, where there was a Confederate recruiting stand with uniformed officers, nco’s and flags attracting would-be recruits at one end of the main street and a Union army recruiting stand doing similarly for Honest Abe at the other end.

[macwilkin]

If I remember correctly, today, April 17 is the day on which Virginia seceded.

Interestingly, let’s recall that parts of certain seceding states were split as to their loyalties. Most famously, were the Western counties of Virginia, which decided to stay with the Unites States and instead seceded from the secession ! Also, states like Tennessee, North Carolina and Alabama also had areas unwilling to secede and in time would furnish troops for the Union.

We all remember the observation of Knoxville, Tennessee in the early weeks of the secession, where there was a Confederate recruiting stand with uniformed officers, nco’s and flags attracting would-be recruits at one end of the main street and a Union army recruiting stand doing similarly for Honest Abe at the other end.

Northwest Arkansas raised six regiments of "Mountain Feds" for the Union.

T.

[Mael Coluim]

If I remember correctly, today, April 17 is the day on which Virginia seceded.

Interestingly, let’s recall that parts of certain seceding states were split as to their loyalties. Most famously, were the Western counties of Virginia, which decided to stay with the Unites States and instead seceded from the secession !

The western counties of Virginia felt they always got the short shrift from Richmond which was heavily controlled by the plantation owners in the Tidewater section of the state. They saw Virginia secession as an excellent opportunity to go their own way forming West Virginia.

[Hothir Ethelnor]

Interesting thread.

I have enjoyed the bit of discussion going on and hope no one will make it too political.

On my fathers side of the family my ancestors were northerners who supported the south.

Our family has always been southern sympathizers. One of my great great (not sure how many greats) uncles was an officer on Lee's staff.

My mom's side of the family came over shortly before WW1 so not too much American history there.

Of course as a Southern sympathizer I think that slavery is portrayed extremely out of proportion. (I believe that the racist slavery of the black people was an intolerable evil and we suffered for it.) But I can't see from research that slavery was worth the attention given to it now.

[Brian K]

Interesting thread.

I have enjoyed the bit of discussion going on and hope no one will make it too political.

On my fathers side of the family my ancestors were northerners who supported the south.

Our family has always been southern sympathizers. One of my great great (not sure how many greats) uncles was an officer on Lee's staff.

My mom's side of the family came over shortly before WW1 so not too much American history there.

Of course as a Southern sympathizer I think that slavery is portrayed extremely out of proportion. (I believe that the racist slavery of the black people was an intolerable evil and we suffered for it.) But I can't see from research that slavery was worth the attention given to it now.

Hmm, I'm not sure you can say slavery has been portrayed out of proportion when the backbone of the Southern economy was slavery. Had slavery been eliminated legislatively in as short a period as it took to fight the war it would still have devastated the South. The economic freedom argument that is frequently cited as the "real" cause of the war had more to do with the fact that the labor intensive, free labor dependent Southern economy was unable to match/compete with the pace of industrialization of the North. Indeed, the lack of industrialization in the South may have been the principal cause of the defeat of the South. (My grandfather used to say they just got worn out winning ) They simply could not match the North for the flow of essential war waging materiel.

Col. John Mosby - a Southern hero if there ever was one - wrote after the war that of course the war was fought over slavery, but after the war many on the losing side felt it was necessary to come up with prettier reasons to justify their treason. Jeff Davis talked about slavery as a cause of the war during the conflict, but after the war he wrote many books about it and apparently advised others writing about to use economic and states rights reasons to justify the revolt.

I have known Southerners who went to university in the deep South who studied history and had come to the conclusion that the principal and the proximate cause of the war was slavery, so not even all Southerners are "Southern sympathizers.'

I'll stop here because if I go any further I am likely to start getting political.



Regards,

Brian

[Deil the Yin]

Edmund Ruffin (Ruthven) 1796-1865 who gained fame as a farmer and agronomist. He is also credited, by some, as having fired the first shot against Ft. Sumter on April 12th, 1861, 149 years ago today.

I never realised Ruffin was a Scot! Excellent thread, thanks! It's a bit of an Epiphany (or a V8 moment at the very least) to tie in Confederate history month with Tartan Day/Culloden/etc. Excellent well!

There's a little flag company in Washington, Georgia named after him...just by-the-bye.

Not hijack Rathdown's thread, but you really need to read Life in the Confederate Army by William Watson, a Scot who served with the 3rd Louisiana Infantry in 1861 and 62...
T.

Oh! Oh! I want one! I want one!

Our local newspaper, The Free Lance Star carried this column 'The New Intolerance' in its Saturday's Editorial section.

GREAT editorial! Really well written, too, I thought. Thanks for the link.

In a modern context, when I moved with my family to work in Indonesia in 1995, we were expected to hire local women as maids. For me, the whole concept of a live-in house-maid was alien to me. We had always done chores, cooking etc ourselves and having a maid seemed indulgent, even decadent and only for toffs. We could do things for ourselves. We didn’t want a maid. However, the local nonyas (well-off Indonesian matrons) and expat wives told us that we must have a maid, it was expected. Not to have one was considered really odd and even unhelpful, as having a house-maid provided local employment. Having conceded that, when I found out how pathetically little maids were paid (the pay being pathetically little, not the maids who were at least 5 feet tall ) , I was shocked and wanted to pay a prospective maid much more, a fair wage. When I suggested this, I was pulled down by nonyas and expats alike and told that to pay too much would cause a mini-riot and completely upset the status quo, as word would get out and maids everywhere would demand more. That would make me highly unpopular with all the expats.

I've been trying to come up with a way to compare Slavery in the 1800's with what it would be like in a modern context, and I think this is VERY poignant... Thanks for posting.

I usually agree with Mr. Meacham and do so here, despite the fact that my on my mother's side I am descended from landed people in Asheville, NC. When she was a little girl, Mom thrilled my grandfather by telling him she'd name her first born (me - yikes!) Jefferson Davis Stonewall Jackson Lee. I'm glad she came to her senses.

Helluva name to live up to, that's for sure.

I find discussion of the War of Northern Aggression to be fascinating. Every time I have it out with a Yankee sympathiser opponent, I always find my secessionist sentiments a bit bolder. With all the propaganda from both sides I sincerely believe that it is a debate that will never be, nor can be, resolved definitively. Which may be why there was all the fighting back then... Of course with the way I feel about Yankees living in the South today, in 1865 I probably would've jumped at the chance to go shoot at some! Nothing personal, they just drive me crazy when the move down here...

Trust in God and Davis, but keep your powder dry!

Cheers yall.

[macwilkin]

I find discussion of the War of Northern Aggression to be fascinating. Every time I have it out with a Yankee sympathiser opponent, I always find my secessionist sentiments a bit bolder. With all the propaganda from both sides I sincerely believe that it is a debate that will never be, nor can be, resolved definitively. Which may be why there was all the fighting back then... Of course with the way I feel about Yankees living in the South today, in 1865 I probably would've jumped at the chance to go shoot at some! Nothing personal, they just drive me crazy when the move down here...

Trust in God and Davis, but keep your powder dry!

As the proud descendant of Western Federal soldiers, I find this last remark just a tad bit much. I have no problem with Southerners being proud of their history, but in order to get respect, you have to give it. There's a great scene in the movie The Rough Riders where the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry are passing through the South from San Antonio to Tampa before departing for Cuba in 1898. As the train rolls through Mississippi, Confederate veterans turn out to salute the troops. One young boy standing with his grandfather, a Confederate officer, says:

"But they are Yankees, grandpa! They're wearing blue!"

The grandfather (played by the fellow who played John Bell Hood in Gettysburg) replies:

"No, they're AMERICANS (emphasis mine)."

The War of the Rebellion ended in 1865. I've met some obnoxious Southerners in my time, some who were down right mean, but to use another movie quote, "Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit." That wasn't directed at Wesley personally, but it needed to be said. I don't hold a whole section of the nation responsible for a few numpties.

A proud Western Mudsill*,

Todd

*Yankees are from New England.

[McMurdo]

Of all of the things I hate about the Civil War is the portrayal that it was all about slavery and it was not all about slavery. Slavery was nothing more than a piece of propaganda. If slavery had been an issue, why did it take Lincoln until 1862 to do something about it? By that point the war had been going on for 2 years. Would you go to war so that some rich plantation owner could keep their slaves instead of working the cotton fields yourself? And while Abraham Lincoln gets all of these accolades for freeing the slaves... in truth he was a hypocrite. This is what he thought about it.

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that ... See Morethere is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. - September 18, 1858 - Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas
at Charleston, Illinois

Now you could say that it was before the Civil War and that sometimes a man has a different view and can be turned around to see the ugly awful truth.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, ... See Moreand the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. - August 22, 1862 - Letter to Horace Greeley

In the end the Civil War was about State Rights versus Union Rights and the seed was the very thing that spurned the American Revolutionary War. Taxation against Representation. The South was being deliberately kept in a poor state. The industrialized North needed the products that the South produced but there were multiple tariffs (taxes) put on the products so the farmer got almost nothing in the end, but the North got rich by selling their goods.

There is a little more to it than just that but that is the best summary of it.

[macwilkin]

Post deleted.

T.

[Arlen]

O.K. Folks. This is your one and only warning. We've had a rash of these threads lately and it has been a full time job trying to monitor them all, close what needs closed and deal with the commenters breaking rules.

This thread needs to get back on topic or, like the others, it will be closed down.
There have been so, so many warnings about these types of threads and comments in the last few days so you should all know better.