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In my initial article entitled The Lie About Lee, I aimed to thoroughly address and debunk the factual inaccuracies presented by Mrs. Pryor in her portrayal of Robert E. Lee (stated above). There are numerous distortions throughout her account, including the alleged whipping of Mary Norris, the so-called escape of Wesley Norris, the fabricated existence of a whipping post, and the unfounded accusations that Mrs. Pryor claims Lee never responded to. These elements, when closely examined, reveal a story filled with inconsistencies that do not align with historical records.

In recent correspondence with a fellow compatriot, he commented on my earlier essay, The Lie About Lee, saying,

“That was a real nice demonstration of the flaws in Pryor’s arguments. But you know there are two ways to lie. Tell an outright falsehood or cover up and suppress exonerating evidence, something Pryor also did. So let me call your two cents and raise you three more.”

He proceeded to elucidate the truth of the matter to the further detriment of Pryor’s carefully constructed narrative.

To begin, the first Norris to accuse Lee was not Wesley, but his father Leonard (pictured below).1 In 1863, a Union soldier wrote of a conversation with this Norris, in which Leonard made fiery claims about Robert E. Lee. In Leonard’s version of events, “all the slaves were assembled to see the flogging.” But what they allegedly saw was completely different from the Wesley Norris account. In his version of the story, five were whipped, not three. Also, the reason for the whipping was totally different as well—supposedly, the starving slaves were out fishing at night so that they could feed themselves after “a hard day’s work in the rain,” rather than an attempted escape from the plantation at Arlington. In addition to that, who whipped the woman was in question; Pryor’s account claims the overseer was the one giving the lashes, while Leonard Norris claims it was Lee himself.23 The story was then spread by newspapers throughout the North.4

Additionally, it didn’t help the strength of his testimony that he made other false claims, like that he had seven children (The Raftsman Journal; May 27, 1863 claims he had “a score” or 20 by our modern usage)—which he alleged were taken in the middle of the night and sold South (Arlington records show he factually had four). One can only conclude that Pryor deliberately chose to cover up this eyewitness account because if it ever came under scrutiny, it would reveal her lie about Lee.

So, what motivated Wesley Norris, seven years after the fact, to abruptly make his accusation? Pryor doesn’t want you to know. Other historians have noted that his assertion came “at the very moment when the fate of the Civil Rights bill hung in the balance.”5 Since Lee was not fully on board, he needed to be discredited. They couldn’t use Leonard’s fabrication-filled account, so they enlisted a writer to give a more believable version from Wesley. For the Norris family, this development was most opportune. At the time, they and other Arlington slave families were petitioning Congress for land at Arlington.6 The possible sympathy generated could definitely help their prospects. So, the collaborators moved ahead. (Note, just over a month later, a bill was introduced in Congress to award the Syphax slave family acreage at Arlington. It was passed and signed into law shortly thereafter. The other slave families were not so lucky).7

Since all the slaves were assembled to see the flogging, there were some fifty eyewitnesses to confirm Wesley’s account. Many of these former slaves were living at the Freedmen’s Village not a mile away. Verification should have been simple. Yet no one came forward or was found to substantiate the claims.8 Things may have stayed that way, but decades later, the Arlington House planned a major renovation. As part of this plan, they sought out former slaves to tell of their experiences and remembrances. For our purposes, they could not have chosen better. They were the four nieces of the alleged whipping victim, Mary Norris. Additionally, at this time, a local newspaper interviewed James Parks, the brother of the third “runaway” who was allegedly whipped. So, what did they say of this troubling and possibly haunting event?

Nothing…

Instead, they said the Lees were good to them and especially to their mother, Selina Norris Gray, the sister of the infamous Wesley and Mary Norris of Pryor’s narrative.9 James Parks stated “he had always been well treated and knew nothing to the contrary with respect to the other slaves.”10 True to form, Pryor mentions none of this.

It is also worth mentioning that the National Parks Service directly states, regarding the relationship that the Lees had with Mrs. Gray: “Selina was the personal maid of Mrs. Robert E. Lee. In 1861, under the threat of Union occupation, the Lee family evacuated Arlington, and Mrs. Lee entrusted the household keys, symbolizing that the responsibility of the family’s material possessions was left to Selina Gray.”11 Clearly, the Lee family held Mrs. Gray in high regard. They could have left those keys with any White man who was a loyal friend of the family, yet they chose her. Would Mrs. Gray have been so loyal to the Lee family if two of her siblings had really been brutally beaten as the NPS and Pryor claim? If so, then it would follow that she was a traitor to her family, but a reading of her history implies nothing of the sort, probably because there never was an event like that for competing loyalties in her life.

In fact, when the United States Army seized the Arlington Estate in May of 1861 and Federal officers occupied the house, Mrs. Gray discovered that some of the family’s treasures had been stolen. She confronted the bluecoats and ordered them "not to touch any of Mrs. Lee's things." The NPS article goes on to say, “Gray alerted General Irvin McDowell, commander of the United States troops, to the importance of the Washington heirlooms. The remaining pieces were sent to the Patent Office for safekeeping.”12 This is not the behavior of a vindictive woman who one would assume would use the opportunity of Union occupation to get some kind of revenge on the family that allegedly abused her own.

As far as I am concerned, that about settles it. The more one delves into the factual evidence, the more it becomes painfully obvious that Mrs. Pryor’s narrative contains several significant holes that affect the credibility of her claims. What is particularly troubling is the fact that, despite these clear discrepancies, the National Park Service (NPS) continues to uphold and disseminate these misrepresentations as part of their official stance on Robert E. Lee—our Marble Man. This speaks volumes about the broader institutional commitment to promoting certain narratives, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rather than prioritize the truth, as they are supposed to do, there seems to be a preference toward information that supports a preconceived agenda.

The sooner these facts come to light, the faster the lie about Lee will die. A special thanks to Andrew Johnson and J.R. Dunmore for providing this historical information.

The problem with this Abraham Lincoln is that he never existed. At least not in reality. We know for a fact that Lincoln wanted to send the blacks back to Africa—even four days prior to his death.12 We also know he handled lawsuits involving runaway slaves in order to return them to their masters, just as we understand that his emancipation proclamation did not free a single slave in northern occupied territories, or states that still remained within the Union.34 Finally, we know that he signed letters to all of the Slaveholding States where he vowed to support the Northern-proposed 13th amendment, The Corwin Amendment which would make slavery a Constitutional right. Many Lincoln apologists say that this was only an attempt to keep the South in the Union, but historical realists see that there was no reason for the South to secede if by their staying in the Union, slavery would be protected by the Constitution!5

What else could it take to blow the lid off the never-ending Lincoln myth? Or should we say, the myth of the kindly President Lincoln?

Perhaps a recently uncovered document has proven without a doubt that Abraham Lincoln, was more like the men the court-historians, BLM mobs, and blue-haired activists hate. A document that proves he himself owned and had slaves sold on his behalf. The following document is in the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago, entitled “Lincoln's Order to sell his slaves, answer to RE Edwards, etc.,” Oldham Todd & Co., 1850.

Kevin Orlin Johnson, the author of The Lincolns in the White House found this piece of history in a dusty box at the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago, unsurprisingly uncatalogued since it was bequeathed to the library in 1930. The affidavit was written in 1850 by the Lincoln family attorneys Kinkead and Breckinridge. It’s Lincoln’s answer to a Bill in Chancery filed in Fayette County about the disposition of property that the couple had inherited from Robert Todd (Abraham Lincoln's father-in-law). It certifies that Lincoln and his wife “are willing that the slaves mentioned in the Bill shall be sold on such terms as the Court may think advisable.”

We knew that when Lincoln married Mary Todd he inherited the slaves from her father’s estate, but up until recently we only assumed he sold them. It's a fact, that Mr. Lincoln inherited slaves and did not free them, as so many would assume a righteous egalitarian such as himself would, but profited by having them sold back into slavery.

Now, to the naysayers and Lincoln-worshippers who currently have a candle lit by his effigy, you might say, this was 1850—Lincoln was a changed man by the time of the Civil War. Was he though? As I previously stated, up until his death he was in favor of repatriating the blacks back to Africa. We also know that after the first states seceded in 1861, Lincoln sent letters to the state governors, telling them he supported the Corwin Amendment, a Northern proposed measure that would have permanently protected slavery within the U.S. Constitution.6

You may be wondering, why is it that I should care about dismantling a leftist idol?

I have a simple answer.

Most of the modern American attitudes toward “diversity,” racial relations, and the current demographic shift that is underway in the United States are defined by the pseudo-sacrosanct so-called Civil Rights Era, and that episode in American history is predicated on the false claim that America of old fought a Civil War for the sake of egalitarianism and racial equality. When we pull down the mask that our enemies placed on the despot Lincoln and the Union of the 1860s as a whole, we see not flawed egalitarians as so many Lincolnites attempt to claim as reality, but rather a hypocritical imperialist who realized they had to shift the focus of a war that they were losing support for to that of a moral crusade against their enemies, the allegedly evil, racist, and demonic South, and his anti-Southern henchmen in blue carrying out the whims of the empire. (However, that is not to say that all Union soldiers were aware of the darkness being conceived in Washington under Lincoln and the Radical Republicans.)

When the 13th Amendment is seen in light of this, you begin to realize it was nothing more than the Northern weaponization of the newly freed black vote to keep the South firmly under the heel of the rapidly centralizing Federal government. As the great American Civil War historian Shelby Foote once said,

In other words, a false Lincoln created by modern propagandists is used to evangelize Heritage America to accept demographic replacement, scorn their history, and ultimately hate themselves in service of an ideal that is as foreign to them as the flood of third-world immigrants drowning their country.

They hide behind the hand he had to play in preserving the Union and use that as their claim to American tradition. When in reality, they use this false image for the promotion of civic-nationalism and deracination which seem to be the only things they desire for all of us.

The Lincolnites, just like Lincoln are nothing but America-hating hypocrites. For, it was the sword of ole’ Abe that destroyed the Federal Union as it was conceived by the founders and replaced it with a despotic regime that continues to damage the soul of America.

As seen above, there has always been a Bolshevik love for Lincoln. This is really a devotion that goes back to the very beginning of Marxism itself—with the man himself, Karl Marx. Although I do not believe Lincoln was a card-carrying communist, it’s clear that the Communist’s of his day believed him to be carrying forth the banner of their international revolution. Marx, who followed the American Civil War, and was a pen pal of sorts to Lincoln stated, “Lincoln is the singled-minded son of the working class, who has led his country to the matchless struggle for the rescue of the communist revolution and the reconstruction of the social orders.” (1) Unbeknownst to many today, Marx was not a proponent of the righteous-cause myth, or that the cause of the conflict was entirely because of slavery. Like many European observers, Marx saw through the political and pretextual veil of causes. He stated, “The war between the North and South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principles, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the northern lust for sovereignty.” (2) It was this Northern lust of sovereignty that gave birth to the circumvention of Constitutional law, with Lincoln running roughshod over it. With this power, he shut down the press, imprison his opposition, confiscate property, and declare war without Congressional consent. Certainly, these acts would be something any Marxist revolutionary would admire—Karl Marx did.

Yet, President Lincoln was not alone in his efforts. The communist push into America had a significant amount of assistance from European revolutionaries. Just prior to the War for Southern Independence, America had a flood of Europeans—German socialists, who mainly settled in the northern united States. Friedrich Engles, Marx’s close friend and associate stated, “Had it not been the experienced soldiers who entered American after the European revolution, especially from Germanies, the organization of the Union army would have taken longer than it did.” These revolutionaries were not just privates, history tells us that they made up a disproportionately large percentage of the high command and became an integral part of the Union army.  A few well-known European socialists in high command include Schurz, Schenck, Blenker, Sigel, Osterhaus, Weydemeyer, and a personal friend of Karl Marx Himself, Charles A. Dana. Dana was “the eyes of the administration,” as Lincoln stated. The fact is, there is quite an extensive list of Marxist-socialists within the original Republican party, and what’s even more dreadful is that some of these men eventually became governors of states and held prominent cabinet positions within the post war administrations. For a deeper study into the integral connections of the original Republican party and the Marxists, please get the book Lincoln, Marx, and the GOP by Walter D. Kennedy and Al Benson, available for purchase here.

These revolutionary foreigners were beneficial to the Union cause for a variety of reasons. Generally speaking, they were divorced from the American political system and patriotism which lingered with the native-born Americans, whose fathers or grandfathers established our Constitutional Republic. They were also prepared to fight a war which Lincoln and his party needed to fight, a war against the civilian population—a total war. There is no better example of this than that of United States General John Turchin and his heinous acts towards the people of Athens, Alabama. Turchin was born Ivan Turchaninov, a veteran of the Hungarian revolution, and commander of the Nineteenth Illinois Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. Upon the Nineteenth’s occupation of Athens on May 2, 1862, Turchin ordered his men to stack arms in the middled of town and stated, “I shut my eyes for two hours…I see nothing.” (3) His troops proceeded to ransack the town. The business district was hit first—soldiers taking off with prized civilian possessions and store goods, harassing civilians, vandalizing, and pillaging. One account tells of R.C. David’s store where the Yankees “destroyed a stock of books, among which was a lot of fine Bibles and Testaments, which were torn, defaced, and kicked about the floor and trampled underfoot.” (4) Residential areas were not spared. The home of Milly Ann Clayton was vandalized and pillaged—the troops “looking for weapons” threatening Miss Clayton after she told them she had none. They called her “a God damned liar” and “bitch,” then attempted to rape her servant girl. The Hollingsworth residence was hit—Mrs. Hollingsworth who was pregnant, suffered a barrage of profane threats to burn down her home, the poor woman was so terrified that she lost her child soon after, and then died herself. Among the plantations that the troops hit was John Malones plantation, where a blue-belly gang occupied the slave quarters and raped a slave girl. The assaults, rapes, and pillaging lasted for days. (5) Fortunately, there were a few men of virtue in the Union army and Turchin was court martialed, but the story doesn’t end there. Upon Turchins testimony he defended his actions by saying, “the more lenient we are…the bolder they [Southerners] become…Until the rebels are made to feel that rebellion is a crime with the government will punish…there’s no hope of destroying [the South].” Thereafter, Lincoln, along with the Republican Senate, reinstated Turchin and promoted him to Brigadier GeneralIt’s also important to note that Lincoln himself frequented the War Department and was aware of the atrocities committed by his Federal forces against Southern civilians. This information, along with countless other tales of horror are documented in the book War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Brian Cisco.

Much like today, Southern society was resistant to the cultural changes that were quickly spreading throughout Western nations. Dixie, and Southern culture itself, dammed the flood of ideas seeping in from the European gutters. Values which could not coexist within the fiercely independent, agrarian, Christian South. To the Marxist, liberty is license, it’s something the government grants, but to our founders, Southern agrarian men like Washington, Madison, Henry, and Jefferson, Liberty is an inherent and sacred gift from almighty God. Lincoln’s Marxists were the ideologs who desired to usher in a new world order by upheaving the existing social order, as Marx himself said—centered around a more centralized government, where States were no longer free to self-determine their future.

I saw a Tucker Carlson interview recently where the interviewee was asked when the Republics decline began. He didn’t have concise answer, but I do. Since 1865, we’ve seen the establishment of the Public School indoctrination system; Christian morality banned in public spaces; the establishment of the privately owned Federal reserve banking system; Liberty replaced with license; social programs that you are forced to participate in; and a government riddled with bureaucrats seeking corporate gain and war. Please, if you aren’t convinced, search for “the 45 communist goals to destroy America,” and decide for yourself if nearly all of them have been met. All this began with Lincoln and his quest for big government—precisely what the Marxists envisioned. Again, was Lincoln a Marxist—probably not, but he set their plan into motion. History is clear on that.

References

1. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm#b

2. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Civil War in the United States (1861; reprint, New York, 1961). 58.

3. The Sack of Athens, Roy Morris, Jr., Civil War Times Illustrated 24, no. 10 (February 1986) pp.

4. Official Records (O.R.), ser. 1, vol. 16, pt. 2, 274-75

5. Official Records (O.R.), ser. 1, vol. 16. 2, 273-75; Chicoine, Turchin, 91-92, 99-100

In fact, only four of the thirteen Southern States mentioned the issue of slavery directly within their secession documents. (1) Not all the states declared the slavery issue. Take Virginia for example. Virginia—the Mother of States and Statesmen—the home of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and George Washington, the land of our very own beloved Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. When the waves of secession first broke out, the Old Dominion did not immediately join the secession movement as some may assume. Under the legal referendums held, she chose to remain within the Union. It wasn’t until Lincoln called for Virginia to provide troops to invade the Southern states, overthrow their elected state governments, and replace them with appointed military governors that she chose to stand with the Confederacy. (2) Did Virginia secede because of slavery?

When slavery is mentioned within these Southern documents, what is expressed is outrage toward the abolitionist crusade. You see, the abolitionists were not your typical anti-slavery movement. Simply put, they were radicals. Largely, they were crude amalgams of ideologies taken from the anti-hierarchical European revolutions, and animated by their same fervor for destruction. Their aim in ending American slavery was not a practical one—neither economically, nor social—no, their idea for its demise was that of race war and murder. This is documented in their newspaper articles and leaflets and was explicitly showcased in the John Brown fiasco of the 1850’s.

On the night of May 24, 1856, Captain John Brown and his small band of Yankee abolitionist-equipped men descended on a settlement of Southerners at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. They carried with them newly sharpened swords – a prominent symbol in Mrs. Howe’s song, the Battle Hymn of the Republic (You can read more about that here). There they proceeded, under cover of darkness, to split the skulls and hack to death five innocent people. The first three of their victims, James P. Doyle and his sons, twenty-two-year-old William and twenty-year-old Drury—Catholics from Tennessee. They were never slave owners and when later asked why her husband and sons had been so brutally murdered, Mrs. Doyle replied, “Just we were southern people, I reckon.” Drury had made an attempt to flee, which resulted in particularly gruesome hacking, and his body, left limbless, appeared more as viscera. The other victims were Allen Wilkinson, hacked to death while his wife and children watched in horror, and William Sherman, whose mutilated body was found floating in the creek with his left hand hanging by a strand of skin, his skull split open and some of his brains washed away. (3) When Julia Ward Howe, the famed abolitionist, received word of the massacre, her own words revealed that she was perversely thrilled and inspired by this grisly crime. Like Mr. Brown, Mrs. Howe both remain symbols of the abolitionist movement, and both today are portrayed as heroes in modern textbooks.

In the book, The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown, by Edward J. Renehan, he states “…very few know the story of how a circle of Northern aristocrats covertly aided Brown in his quest to ignite a nationwide slave revolt. These influential men, who called themselves the “Secret Six,” included the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, a world-famous physician, a Unitarian minister whose rhetoric helped shape Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, an educator and close friend of Emerson and Thoreau, and two prominent philanthropists…these pillars of Northern society came to believe that armed conflict was necessary to purge the United States of a government-sanctioned evil… the messianic Brown enlisted their support, and they sought to cover up their association with him – even perjuring themselves before a congressional investigation – after his bloody debacle.”

I too would be outraged if a group of people, hundreds of miles away, were not only lying about my culture but attempting to foment its upheaval in the most gruesome way possible. These were the radicals who admired John Brown’s efforts and those who made up the newly formed Republican Party, whose highly unpopular presidential candidate won the 1861 presidency. The Southern outrage about slavery which is expressed in a handful of secession documents was directed at a specific radical group that aimed to destroy the Union as it was on behalf of their own moral crusade.

The Republican party today is known as the “conservative” party. This was not the case in 1860. This was the party of Lincoln—the radical German socialists—the unitarians who denied the deity of Christ—and those who wanted a powerful centralized government. I am generalizing, but these were the kind of people who made up the Republican Party of 1860.

Another important factor to consider is that if the threat to Southern slavery had been the singular issue pushing the South toward secession, all the states would have needed to do was return to the Union. The Federal government attempted to entice them back using the Corwin Amendment—the first proposed 13th Amendment: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” This would have permanently protected slavery within the U.S. Constitution. (4) It was passed by the House and Senate and supported by many Northern States. Why didn’t these states rejoin the Union if their aim was simply to defend slavery?

Once you can put the slavery issue into its proper historical perspective, you can more easily understand the other issues that Southerners were contending with. purveyors of the modern narrative will quickly give you historical texts concerning slavery without further context, but rarely will they talk about other founding Confederate documents and their economic implications pertaining to the war.

Here's another secession document, mentioning a major issue that Southerners were contending with:

Ahh, they must be talking about the North perpetuating this despotism because they hated slavery, right? Read on…

The primary political aim of the Republican Party’s platform, upon the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln, was that tariffs were non-negotiable. The party and the Federal government had a vested interest in one another. Whilst the powers in Washington were protecting domestic manufacturing for the Republican party’s key supporters, they collected most of their revenue from these import tariffs. Lincoln stated in his inaugural address that any state that did not collect its fair share of tariff revenues would be met with military intervention by his administration. (5) When Lincoln was asked why he would not allow the South to be let go in peace he stated, “What about the revenue? What would I do about the collection of duties?" (7) The Charleston Mercury summarized the issue well early on in its publication on December 23, 1860—right before the Fort Sumter incident, “The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the government of the United States, and in the revolution the north has effected in this government from a confederated republic to a national sectional despotism.” (8) R.L. Dabney, theologian and philosopher, and Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff, speaks in greater detail of Lincoln’s Republican party and its economic aim in perpetuating war, entitled The Real Cause of the War: Over Lincoln's Tariff? (we sell this booklet on ConfederateShop.com)

Slavery, tariffs, sectional differences, Constitutional violations—it’s a heap of issues. Simply put, if the war wasn’t all about slavery, what was it over? Why did the South secede? The Southern states established their independence in order to exercise self-government, just like their forefathers in 1776. They desired to establish a government “instituted among men…deriving their just powers from [their] consent.” (8) You hear the term “states-rights” thrown around by our side, what should be emphasized is the South’s desire for self-determined government—the right of a body of people, who hold legal referendums and elections, to decide what is best for themselves and their posterity: economically, socially, and culturally.

References

1. Virginia General Assembly voted in January 14^th, 1861 to hold an election on whether to hold a state convention, and if a convention was held, to elect delegates to that convention. That election occurred on February 4, 1861. The Convention met on February 13, 1861.

2. In fact, George W, Summers of Kanawha County said that the best way to protect slavery was to remain in the Union and that secession would be bad for slavery. He said, “We are to become to use a homely phrase, the outside row of the cornfield,” meaning secession would move the Canadian border, in effect, down to the Ohop River. A slave escaping into Canada could not be retrieved. After secession, a slave escaping across the Ohio could not be retrieved. George H. Reese (ed.), Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention of 1861 (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1965), vpl. 1, pg. 618.John Brown: The Making of a Martyr, Robert Penn Warren, 1929, pp. 161-166.

3. https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/artifact/hj-res-80-proposing-amend-constitution-united-states-corwin-amendment-february-28-1861

4. William Livingstone, Livingstone’s History of the Republican Party, (Detroit: Wm. Livingstone, 1900),  I:122.

5. Rhett, R., An Address of the People of South Carolina. In Journal of the Convention of the People of South Carolina, held in 1860, 61, 62 (pp. 467-476) Columbia: R.W. Gibbes, printer to the Convention.

6. Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, 579 ff., esp. 583

7. Testimonial of Delegate Col. John Baldwin of the Virginia secession convention, April 4, 1861, private interview with Lincoln. Sourced from valley.lib.virginia.edu

8. Delay,” Charleston Mercury, December 3, 1860, p. 1, col. 2.

9. Declaration of Independence, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

With their objection to the despotic regime in Washington D.C. being known by the cruel name eventually turned badge of honor that was given to them by the Radical Republicans, that would be the title of “Copperhead”. This moniker was originally a slight in the form of comparing the Peace Democrats, Confederate sympathizers, and other political dissidents to the venomous Copperhead snake found in eastern North America, the Unionist sentiments toward them laid bare in the pamphlet “Ye Book Of Copperheads” that circulated in 1863.[6] The Copperhead is known for being well camouflaged on the forest floor, hiding in plain sight and waiting for a moment to strike, likewise the Lincoln regime saw those who wanted to stop the bloodshed and return to a more traditional interpretation of the union as such. While it is unknown how the name “Copperhead” was chosen for enemies of the regime in the North, one possible origin of the name comes from the New York Times April 10, 1861 edition:

To me this story seems a bit far-fetched, evoking a similar air of sensationalism as other “Yellow Journalism” from the same period, as well as clearly being aimed at a pro-Union audience. However, the truth tends to have little bearing on angry sentiments, convinced minds, and roused emotions. Whether true or not, this designation was eventually accepted through an inversion of the meaning of their nickname, the “Copperheads” would adopt the Liberty Head Large Cent as the symbol of their movement.  The Liberty Head Large Cent was an American Penny with the “American goddess” Liberty upon the face of the coin, wearing a headband with her name thereupon. It was from these pennies that “Liberty” would be cut from the cent and made into a pin.[8][9][10]

It should also be noted that some Copperhead pins were constructed from whole cents, others wore the butternut pin, or possibly a version of the original pin constructed from an Indian Head penny.[9][11]

With this new symbolism behind their title, the “Copper-heads” continued to go forward in their mission of preserving the Union as it was made by the founders. Many of these men would go on to frustrate the regime in and out of the political arena. Official actions in the forms of open letters in the newspapers, pamphlets, speeches, direct political action, and public calls to stop conscription.[12] In addition to these “public works” came a great deal of covert subterfuge in aid of the Confederacy, such as, persuading Union soldiers to desert the army, creating conspiracies (such as the KGC, the Order Of American Knights, and the Sons Of Liberty) to disrupt Union aims, and even making plans to create a Confederacy of Northwestern Territories/States.[8][13]

Why would Northerners go to such great lengths to aid the South in its battle for independence? Wouldn’t helping Confederate aims make them traitors to the United States? The answer is simple, these brave men believed that the constitution as it was understood by the founders, and the Union that came out of that very same document should be preserved as the founders made it and animated by the very same spirit it possessed at the time of the nation's conception. In other words, if a sovereign state decided to enter the Union of its own accord without coercion, a sovereign state should be allowed to leave the Union of its own accord without coercion. A strong belief in the founding principles of the nation was and is one of the great drivers of the Copperhead movement. They were not committing treason as they viewed the Radical Republican regime as an illegitimate despotism attempting to usurp the legacy of the United States and prop up a bastardized government on the corpse of a once great nation. This conviction is proudly displayed on one of the Copperhead flags from the era. This flag is believed to have belonged to Congressman Clement L. Vallandingham himself. As you can see, the flag has the sentence “The Union As Our Fathers Made It” sewn into the fabric of the banner.[14] These men didn’t view their actions as treason, they saw their actions as necessary to preserve the Union of the founding.

My reason for this short introduction to the Copperheads was thus; I wish to make it clear that there are many friends of the Confederacy outside of the South if one would only look for them. Many Northern Copperheads have had the “Yankee” reputation foisted upon them by us Southerners, even when they didn’t deserve it. This also leaves us with the question; “What is to be done with Northerners who have made a home in the South in the years since the War Between The States?” While I don’t have a good answer for this conundrum, I myself am not a proponent of large hordes of Northern migrants coming into the South, even if they are Confederophilic. However, that being said, if we are to outright reject all of our Northern brothers who have ended up in the South throughout the past 160 years over the question of geography or ancestry, we would lose at the absolute least some of our own cherished Southern tradition. Few remember the contributions of men like Hudson Strode, the professor of creative writing at the University Of Alabama from 1916-1963. Who himself was born in Cairo, Illinois and brought to Alabama as a child where he grew up to appreciate the culture and cause of the South, ultimately leading to his authoring of the most definitive three-volume biography of Jefferson Davis written to date.[15]

This leads me to another question to consider, “What do we do with the Southern ‘Scalawags’ of today who have betrayed their home and people?” Shall we continue to assume that they are one of us just because we share ancestry and geography? What would you prefer, a neighbor whose parents came South thirty years ago that has the same reverence for the Confederacy as you do, and who has immersed and adopted the culture of the South much like a Hudson Strode, or would you prefer a neighbor who while having family in the South back to 1607 has totally thrown in their lot with the likes of BLM, cultural Marxist, and the modern American empire, men who are openly hostile, not only to Confederate history but also Southern culture and the people from whom that culture emanates? I realize these questions are general and idealized, however, I believe that it is instructive to at least attempt to tackle these issues conceptually.

While I firmly believe that we can not take a group of transplanted Northerners and turn them into good ole’ Southern boys. I know the future of the “New True South” lies in looking back to the legacy of the “Old South”, I also know that the future will have to look different from the past, for no other reason than today is not then. I realize that I am putting myself out there for some form of retaliation from more traditional Southerners in writing this, but I feel that this should be said. Unlike the 1860s we live in an era where the cultural divides in America are not geographical, the “war” ahead of us isn’t for the Shenandoah Valley or the farmland surrounding Gettysburg, it is for the culture and preservation of our history and unique cultural identity. There is so much more to be said about this, but I digress.

All of those who put their hands to the work of a truly free nation should not be derided for the things outside of their control. I believe it is high time that the Copperheads of yesterday and today are acknowledged for their contributions to the great project of the Confederate States Of America. If it weren't for their actions, who knows what kind of hell the South would have had to face. Even as I write these words I know that there are still Copperheads out there willing to do what must be done, linking arm in arm with today's Confederates as we march toward the future of the True South, otherwise known as the last best hope for the American experiment as it was envisioned by the founders. This “war” isn’t over, and any man willing to aid our cause is a brother to me. Deo Vindice. - SM

References

1. Klement, Frank L., The Copperheads in the Middle West.

2. Long, Alexander, (1864) The present condition and future prospects of the country: speech of Hon. Alexander Long, of Ohio, delivered in the House of Representatives, April 8, 1864

3. Congressional Globe, Thirty-Seventh Congress, Third Session (1862–63), pp. 1435–1438, 1459–1477.

4. Vallandigham, Clement Laird (1863a). The Trial Hon. Clement L. Vallandigham, by a Military Commission: and the Proceedings Under His Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio. Cincinnati: Rickey and Carroll.

5. Asp, David, Free Speech Center, “Civil War, U.S. - the Free Speech Center,” The Free Speech Center, February 19, 2024, https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/civil-war-u-s/.

6. Leypoldt, Fredrick, Freidel, Frank, “Pamphlet 38. Charles Godfrey Leland and Henry P. Leland, Ye Book of Copperheads. Philadelphia, 1863,” in Harvard University Press eBooks, 2014, https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674337244.c16.

7. THE IMPENDING WAR.; The Steamship Baltic Sent to Provision Fort Sumpter. The Authorities at Charleston Notified. Extenisve Preparations for Resistance. Eighteen Thousand Additional Volunteers Called for by Jeff. Davis.INTENDED OPERATIONS AGAINST THE NORTH.Further Explanation of Government Movements. FORT SUMPTER TO BE SUPPLIED. PROGRAMME OF NAVAL OPERATIONS. AN UNMANLY WARFARE. THE CALIFORNIA APPOINTMENTS. OTHER APPOINTMENTS. DISPATCH TO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. New York Times, 10 April 1861, pg. 1

8. Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln: A Biography (1952) p. 377.

9. Dayton Daily Empire. (Dayton [Ohio]), 23 April 1863 https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85026002/1863-04-23/ed-1/seq-2/

10. Hosmer, James Kendall, Outcome of the Civil War, 1863-1865, Volume 21, pg. 4

11. Unknown Author, Old Copperheads And New, Wisconsin Historical Magazine, 1917, pg. 203

12. Weber, Jennifer L. (2008). Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534124-9.

13. William A. Tidwell, April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War. Kent State University Press. 1995. pp. 155–20.

14. https://civilwarantique.com/13-09/

15. https://apps.lib.ua.edu/blogs/this-goodly-land/author/?AuthorID=126#:~:text=Biographical%20Information,family%20moved%20to%20Demopolis%2C%20Ala.

For too long we Southerners have allowed the attacks on our heroes to go on unanswered. Even when the attackers are reprimanded it is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. No longer will this be the case. While I am not a writer by profession, I have taken it upon myself to defend the life and legacy of perhaps our greatest hero here in writing. The fact is that many, if not all, major academics and mainstream historians of the past ten to fifteen years have attempted to dismantle history as it has been understood up until that point. Whether it was done for ideological reasons, personal vendettas against a false image of their perceived enemy, or to impress their peers with their glowing virtue in their willingness to destroy the memory of the “barbaric racist Southerners,” these people have fabricated awful tales and revived statements of attempted character assassination from as long ago as the 1860s.

I have the luxury of being an autodidact and therefore have not been compromised by “Righteous Cause” propaganda or peer pressure from these captured institutions. In my research, I’ve come across a claim that many modern academics make—something that has more and more recently been cited as truth—that Robert E. Lee was a cruel slave whipper. I’ve seen this declared in the Washington Post, referenced by the NPS, and taught as “fact” in so-called “respected academic circles.” It’s widely used to tar the reputation of one of America’s greatest Generals, Robert E. Lee, and seems to be the only allegedly “solid” claim to mar the reputation of the man. But is it true?

I am under the impression that the story itself caught much of its momentum in the early 2000s, particularly from Elizabeth Pryor’s 2007 book Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters. Pryor devotes an entire chapter—chapter 16— to this supposed occurrence. That being, Lee ordered and witnessed the brutal whipping of one of the Custis estate slaves named Mary Norris. She bases this on four pieces of evidence if you can call it that. Four newspaper pieces—two 1859 letters to the editor, an 1866 New York Tribune “statement from the lips of Norris” and an 1866 Cincinnati newspaper story (which could be classified as inadmissible hearsay). Three of those four pieces of evidence are even from anonymous sources.

I’ll say this. Anyone willing to bash the reputation of General Robert E. Lee better have their story straight, with concrete evidence to back up their claims. This is not intended to belittle a particular historian—I am simply referencing Elizabeth Pryor’s work because it’s the often-cited source of the lie about Lee. I entirely believe her position to be incorrect. She, like many other academics, has a narrative to uphold—and what better way to trash the South than by attacking our greatest hero?

The tall tale of Lee whipping his slaves is not factual and should never be considered as such. So, here are the six errors that are blatantly unanswered for in Reading the Man.

1. Pryor begins chapter 16 with a critical error. Her paramount piece of evidence, The Wesley Norris statement (Wesley was the brother of Mary Norris who supposedly gave the story), Pryor claims the account originated and was first given to an antislavery newspaper in 1866. This is incorrect. It was first published by the New York Tribune in March of 1866 (1) and thereafter spread through an anti-slavery paper called The National Anti-Slavery Standard newspaper which published the statement on April 16, 1866.

2. Mary is supposedly whipped. But studying deeper into the family, you learn there was an intricate relationship between her and her sister—and her sister and the Lees. Her sister, Selina, is a personal housekeeper of Mary Lee, Robert E. Lee’s wife. It’s objectively ridiculous that Selina and Mary Lee would be warm companions thereafter, especially if Mary Lee’s husband, Robert E. Lee had her sister brutally whipped. A trained researcher, such as Mrs. Pryor, should have at least mentioned a piece of the mountain of evidence that can be found on the intersecting relationships—factoring in greatly to the overall story

3. Pryor makes a huge blunder when she says “from the lips of [Wesley] Norris” that he “escaped” from Richmond to the Union lines, this is false. (2) Norris was free by Lee’s deed of manumission filed in Henrico Co. Courthouse on January 2, 1863, in which he then worked as a free man on the York River Railroad until September, when finally, Lee’s son Custis, gave him a pass which allowed him to ride through the Union lines. This is fact, as Maj. Gen. Meade’s correspondence confirms. (3)

4. Pryor claims in one of her footnotes that witnesses describe a whipping post at Arlington. This source comes from a 1975 publication sourcing an account of a Union soldier seeing a post on the property. (4) Furthermore, even if it did exist, it was not for the purpose of whipping Mary Norris—because her story goes that “Lee ordered [Norris] inside the barn, where they were tied firmly to posts,” as the “evidence” says.

5. Pryor claims all of this information on the whipping of Mary Norris is “corroborated by five witnesses” and is “substantiated by Lee’s own records.” Unsurprisingly, none of the witnesses are named. What she has are five supposed pieces of “evidence” to the episode. Digging deeper, two of the sources are anonymous letters to the editor of The New York Times published in June 1859. The third is not evidence, it's an unidentified person spoken of in the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper which simply says “[Lee] was the worst person I ever seen.” The fourth is an article from the Carroll County Democrat newspaper, published June 2, 1859—years before the Norris account even took place. The last could not be found in her footnotes.

This had me wondering if we could take all accounts as pieces of historical fact, like anonymous letters to the editor, I suppose Abraham Lincoln was really a homosexual? A shopkeeper named Joshua Fry Speed claims he shared a bed with Lincoln in 1837. So, based on this “evidence,” the universities can go ahead and begin teaching that Lincoln was a homosexual? (5) I digress…

6. Finally, Pryor makes the biggest blunder of the chapter, that “Lee never completely denounced the story.” Once again—a false claim. There exists a letter that Robert E. Lee signed on April 13, 1866, replying to George K Fox, Jr., of the Loudoun Country Circuit Court, who wrote him to ask whether the story published in the press was true. Lee replied in the letter “…The statement is not true.” Here’s that letter: (6)

and

In the 473 pages of Reading the Man, not once does it give the reader a quote from either; a letter, diary, or memoir written by any member of the Lee family claiming a slave woman was ever abused at Arlington. Furthermore, nothing exists that would suggest Lee was cruel to any slave whatsoever.

A blogger, Joe Ryan, tells clearly how Mrs. Pryor, an academic professional, should have written her story: “an unidentified newspapers employee says an unidentified person told him that the person either personally witnessed, or was told by someone who claims to have personally witnessed, a whipping of a woman named Mary Norris.”(7)

One of the most common Lee quotes can be found in his private correspondence from 1854, where he said, “Slavery as an institution is a moral & political evil in any Country.” I recently heard a YouTube “historian” refute Lee’s quote by saying “Actions speak louder than words.” He’s right, actions do speak louder than words. Folks, there are literally books dedicated to the virtuous deeds of Robert E. Lee. Accounts that are irrefutable—from taking communion with a black man at a church service (while no one else would)—to giving water and kindness to wounded Yankee soldiers on the battlefield. (8)(9) The only thing these academics do when they attempt to spoil the good name of Robert E. Lee is to make themselves look like fools even more than they are.

So I would say, God bless the South and the name of Robert E. Lee.

I would like to thank Joe Ryan, a blogger and writer, as much of the research for this article was compiled by him. You can find it and similar work over on his blog. You can find it here, but be aware it is considered an unsecured link by Google.

Sources

1. New York Tribune, Vol. XXV, No. 7,789, March 26, 1866

2. Reading the Man, Elizabeth Pryor, 2007, pp.272-274

3. George Meade, Headquarters Army of the Potomac, September 6, 1863, 4pm, to Maj. Gen. H.W. Halleck, (War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, volume 29, part 2, pp. 158–159, Meade to Halleck, September 6, 1863, 4 p.m.)

4. Symbol, Sword, and Shield, Cooling, 1975, pp. 488, 491

5. https://nypost.com/2019/04/20/new-book-explores-abraham-lincolns-life-as-a-gay-man/

6. This letter, and an earlier one written to E.J. Quirk of San Francisco, in March 1866, is not the original. It is found in a letter book in the possession of the Virginia Historical Society that does contain entries in Lee’s hand, but this one is written in the hand of an unidentified person, probably a clerk at Washington College who helped Lee with his record-keeping. What foundation exists for it beyond this is found in the fact it was published, in 1874, in a book of his letters titled Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee, by the Rev. J. William Jones, D.D., formerly Chaplain Army Northern Virginia and of Washington College Virginia. – In the words of Joe Ryan, blogger

7. https://joeryancivilwar.com/Civil-War-Subjects/General-Lee-Slaves/General-Lee-Slave-Whipper.html

8. The Richmond Times Dispatch, April 16, 1905, Page 5, Image 21.

9. A Civil War Treasury of Tales, Benjamin Albert Botkin, 2000; Lee and the Wounded Union Soldier, p. 266, account from A.L. Long and Marcus J. Wright

Staunton, Virginia, June 9, 1879

James Bumgardner served as a lieutenant in the West Augusta Guard before the war. He enlisted in the 5th Virginia Infantry in April 1861, serving as the regimental adjutant. He was then elected lieutenant in the 52nd Virginia Infantry, serving with that regiment as a company commander and then as regimental commander through the Wilderness and Bethesda Church. He was captured at 3rd Winchester and paroled when the fighting ended. After the war, he served as Commonwealth’s Attorney and judge, in addition to being active in the Confederate Veterans’ organization.

In this speech, he was speaking at the Memorial Day observances in Thornrose Cemetery in Staunton, Virginia. Because Staunton was surrounded by battles at McDowell, Cross Keys, Port Republic, and Piedmont and served as a hospital center for Confederate soldiers, Thornrose became the burial ground for some 1,500 Confederate soldiers, both known and unknown, from every state of the Confederacy. The Confederate monument was dedicated to honor them in 1888. In 1879, Captain Bumgardner spoke at the Memorial Day observances at the Confederate section of the cemetery. — D. Jonathan White

“The Memorial Day at Staunton”

Address of Captain James Bumgardner, Jr.

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Memorial Association, Ladies and Gentlemen: Whether it be Westminster Abbey, the chapel of Henry the Seventh, under the dome of the Invalides, a village churchyard, or a spot like this; whether the tenant be King, Black Prince or Emperor, hero or peasant, woman or child, a mysterious and reverential emotion in the bosom of living man attracts him to the silent home of the dead.

A nation’s monuments are the brief epitome of its history. They record at once the annals of the dead, and the character and faith of the living.

Whatsoever has been achieved of greatness, whatsoever in the character, spirit, and purpose of the dead that challenges the reverence and admiration of the living, is recorded on the tomb. Whatsoever is believed or hoped in regard to that life which is to come after death, is written in the epitaph. A brave, noble, patriotic, devoted, and wise people perpetuate in bronze and marble the memory of its heroes, patriots, saints, martyrs, and sages.

Hence the traveler in a strange land examines the cemetery with as much interest as the living city; for he sees there, at one view, all of a country’s past and all of its present.

If he learn then that the dead-brave are forgotten, he knows that the living are brave no longer. If he sees that the patriotic, the virtuous, and saintly of the past are not honored, he knows that patriotism, virtue, and faith have sought another clime. But where the graves of heroes are kept green, and where the foot of the pilgrim still seeks the shrine of the martyr, he knows that courage, truth, faith, and honor still abide in the hearts of the living.

By the monumental record which we make for the men who sleep here, who were of our country, of our kindred and blood, and who died as martyrs in our cause, will we, their survivors, the guardians of their name and fame, be known and judged as long as memory of their deeds live in the history of man.

It is said that we come here on this annual memorial day to do honor to the memory of the Confederate dead. Do we not rather come to perform a sacred duty to ourselves?

How dare we, as we are to be judged by future generations, omit to leave behind us. as the contemporaries, comrades, fathers, brothers, children of these men, imperishable evidence that we, who in life knew them face to face, who saw how nobly they lived, and how grandly they died, loved, honored, and reverenced them, whom history and song will ever proudly cherish as the brightest examples of faith, courage, and devotion that this world has ever seen; to whom aliens and strangers have erected monuments, to whom enemies have brought tributes of admiration, and for whom, from beyond the sea, have come chaplets and laurel wreaths, and praise in words like these:

Let us imagine that some three generations have past and that the survivors of the tremendous struggle in which these men fell have, like these, been laid each in his “narrow home”; and that some stranger comes in through yonder gate to learn the lessons that a spot like this will ever teach. We follow him as he passes slowly on, reading step by step the brief history of each tenant of the tomb.

On most of the monuments which will then crown the thickly peopled spot, he will read but “the short and simple annals of the poor”; a name, a date, a brief tribute of sorrow, gratitude or affection. He may pause here and there to note the vain pomp of wealth and pride, blazoned in florid inscriptions on costly mausoleum.

He will linger at the record of a life begun in high purpose, spent in noble acts, and closed in honor and reverence. And not long will it require for him to learn whether the living who there buried their dead out of their sight, held in honor most, the achievements prompted by selfish pride, grasping avarice, and earthly lusts, or those purer, better, nobler deeds, which find their reward in rest of saint, in martyr’s crown, or soldier’s grave.

And reaching the place where we now stand, though he see no column, shaft, or statue, and read no name graven on stone or bronze, he will see from shade and turf and flower, that the spot is a sepulchre and a shrine: that the cherished relics of a country’s noblest, best, and bravest are gathered here.

He will ask some bystander, “Who were these?” “Seventeen hundred Confederate soldiers.” “Went they forth to battle and to death from the city near?”

“No, they come from all over this Southern land, from the Potomac to the Gulf—from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande.”

“Were they gathered from some tremendous field of carnage near and buried here?” “No, they died, it may be, on a hundred fields or in the cheerless hospital ward, after the long torture of lingering wounds, or the slow agony of consuming fever.” “Belonged they, then, to some immortal Band, Household Guard, or Legion of Honor picked from the veterans of a hundred fields, covered with honors, and glittering with orders and decorations, splendid with shining panoply, and reserved in pampered ease, to rush to the front in a desperate crisis to conquer a doubtful victory or cover disastrous defeat?” Alas, no, they knew nothing of the pride, pomp, and circumstances of glorious war; nothing of its prizes, honors, and rewards; to their share fell only its trials, toils, privations, dangers; but clad in rags, spent with march and watch, worn with famine, they stood in battle storm, firm as Roman Legions, or Macedonian Phalanx—died with the devotion of Immortal Band, and rushed into the deadly charge as freely as Household Guard. “What then, was their peculiar history?” “They had no peculiar history. Their history is the history of the Southern cause, and of the soldiers who upheld it.”

The Confederate soldier needs no eulogy; his devotion and deeds will speak for themselves in history. He was tried by every test that measures the courage, endurance, faith, and devotion of man, and was never found wanting—and he will be best understood and appreciated when placed in closest comparison with the most renowned soldiers of other countries and other ages.

There is one incident in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia, so similar in many respects to an incident in the history of the Army of Italy which occurred during that campaign, conceded to be the most successful and splendid of all the campaigns of Napoleon, which so strikingly illustrates the character and spirit of the Confederate soldier, that I cannot forbear repeating it here, though at the risk of telling a twice-told tale.

The success of the entire Italian campaign turned upon the successful passage of the Bridge of Lodi. The Austrian army with its artillery were massed upon the other side, and the narrow pass must be won in the face of the concentrated fire. The French column was formed and ordered to advance. They staggered under the withering fire and retreated; but failure was ruin—the pass must be won. They were rallied, brought back to the charge, but again retreated; yet the pass must be won; when Napoleon himself, and by his order, Massena, Berthier, Cervoni, Dalmayne, and Lannes, placed themselves at the head of the column—“Follow your Generals,” was the order. They followed their Generals, passed the bridge, pierced the Austrian centre, and won the victory.

In the earliest dawn of a misty morning—the morning of the memorable 12th of May, 1864—one of those tremendous massed columns, which from time to time during that frightful campaign, were hurled against the army of Northern Virginia, dashed against our line with the fury and force of a tornado, and burst it asunder; and, through the breach, poured line after line and column after column, as wave follows wave in ocean storm.

In that moment hung suspended the fate of the Army of Northern Virginia. In the instant, just on the spot that rushing, solid, ever-increasing mass must be met, stopped, hurled back, or all is lost. Nearly in rear of the breach were two brigades, lying along the line of their stacked arms. In a few seconds after the order to “fall in.” they were ready for action, and General Lee rode to their front. And the picture he made, as the grand old man sat there on his horse, with his noble head bare, and looked from right to left, as if to meet each eye that flashed along the line, can never be forgotten by a man that stood there.

And every soldier along that line knew what that look meant; that it meant—“Soldiers, follow your General”; knew that work so desperate was to be done, and that interests so tremendous hung upon its successful doing, that everything, even the life of our greatest chief himself, must be put to the dreadful hazard, if necessary, to secure the result. But those men needed no such order and no such example. They wanted no General or Field Marshal dismounted in their front to stimulate them to do and dare all in mortal power.

From three thousand lips at once burst the cry—“General Lee to the Rear”—and not a foot would stir until he was led back through a gap in the line; and then the word was given, and the line moved forward, without pause, or waver, or break, right on, up to the very face of the solid opposing mass; on, till sabres clashed and bayonets crossed; on till the first line was driven back in confusion upon the second, and the first and second upon the third; on, into the angle of the salient, where batteries, massed on right, and massed on left, poured in a storm of shot and shell upon either flank, and still on, pressing back the stubborn heavy mass, covering the earth in piles with the slain, till the enemy, his organization lost in confusion, retired from the dreadful carnage, yielded back the captured works, and the crisis passed, and the field was saved.

Of the French engaged in what Napoleon calls the terrible passage of the Bridge of Lodi, the loss was one in four. The proportion of loss in the force engaged in that charge on the 12th of May, I do not know; but in one regiment, the centre regiment of one of the brigades, and if more exposed than others I know it not and know not why, the loss was one in two.

The time has come, or is soon coming, when personal sorrow for the loss of these men will be consoled. The time will soon come when these dead men. and those who mourned them, will belong alike to the past.

Their record is made up, and in it is written the verdict that they were worthy of the cause for which they died—were worthy of any cause in which men ever died.

Some pages are yet to be added to our record, and let us endeavor so to fill them as to secure for ourselves the verdict that we were worthy the offering of such lives.

References

1. Staunton Spectator, June 10, 1879, p. 3, col. 1-2.

Of all the hymns that have found their way into our Christian hymnody, none is as poorly understood or as undeserving as Battle Hymn of the Republic. It is nothing more than a clever work of wartime abolitionist propaganda that has ever so slowly found its way into mainstream America. How sad that our citizens are so mal-educated (the prefix mal meaning defective or evil).

Of all the hymns that have found their way into our Christian hymnody, none is as poorly understood or as undeserving as Battle Hymn of the Republic. It is nothing more than a clever work of wartime abolitionist propaganda that has ever so slowly found its way into mainstream America. How sad that our citizens are so mal-educated (the prefix “mal” meaning defective or evil).

Julia married the reformer Samuel Gridley Howe when she was 21 years old. He had fought in the Greek War of Independence and had written of his experiences. He was a physician and had become director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts. He was a radical Unitarian who had moved far from the Calvinism of New England and was part of the circle known as the Transcendentalists. He carried his radical convictions into his work with the blind, the mentally ill, and with those in prison. He was also, out of his religious conviction, a virulent opponent of slavery. Julia became a Unitarian and as a religious radical did not see her belief as the only route to salvation; she had come to believe that religion was a matter of ‘deed’ not ‘creed.’ Samuel and Julia attended the church where Theodore Parker was minister. Parker too was a radical but unlike Samuel Howe was an early proponent of feminism.

It is important to remember that these radical factions were primarily sectional and that sectionalism and radical Yankee influence strained our Southern Founders and caused men like Patrick Henry and John C. Calhoun to predict the conflict we refer to as the War of Northern Aggression. Indeed, John Taylor of Carolina County, Virginia, in his excellent work Tyranny Unmasked, spends 268 pages discussing tyranny in general and central government tyranny in particular. That was published in 1822 as his response to central government Protecting–Tariff Policy. It is also important to remember that the Unitarian Church denies the divinity of Jesus Christ and the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that the Transcendentalists worshiped God in all creatures and things (animals, rocks, & trees). Finally, one must acknowledge that of the hundreds of references in our Holy Bible to slave, slaves, bondservant, maidservant, servant, & etc., never do the scriptures refer to that franchise as sin. Robert L. Dabney, D.D., of Virginia, late of the Confederate Army, states the crux of the slavery matter in his enlightening book published in 1867, A Defense of Virginia and the South. He says,

Which, by the way, resulted in the death by unspeakable means of the entire white population of Haiti which was over 20,000 men, women, and children. This scenario was repeated in most all the French Colonies in the Caribbean.

I quoted Dabney in order to introduce you to the fact that it was Jacobin egalitarianism of the French Revolution which infected Calvinist New England to the degree that Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, Feminism and radical Abolitionism was spawned and flourished. All of this duly impressed an English reporter covering the “Civil War” by the name of Karl Marx. Marx, always the astute observer, said of that war in 1861, “The war between the North and South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty.”

In his first book published in 1929, “John Brown: The Making of a Martyr”, Robert Penn Warren states, “Immediately after his arrival (in Boston) John Brown met Frank B. Sanborn. Sanborn, just out of Harvard, was a very young man, who had given up school teaching in order to follow God’s will and work for the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. He was an excessively earnest young man, confident of himself, and confident that he knew God’s will; beyond this he possessed to a considerable degree that tight special brand of New England romanticism which manifested itself in stealing Guinea niggers, making money, wrestling with conscience, hunting witches, building teaclippers, talking about Transcendentalism, or being an Abolitionist.” You see, John Brown had gone to Boston to seek favor from his wealthy radical Unitarian Abolitionist supporters. Again, from Warren’s book John Brown, “When John Brown ate a good Sunday dinner at the table of the wealthy George Luther Stearns, he recognized an opportunity to consolidate his position as the fighting hero of Kansas…Stearns was completely won to the support of John Brown, and he was not alone in his conviction. Theodore Parker, the radical clergyman, S. G. Howe… and Amos A. Lawrence… were among the number of converts to the support of John Brown.” These are but four of the men later known as the “Secret Six” who backed and prodded Brown. The other two were Gerrit Smith a New York Capitalist and Thomas Wentworth Higginson a Transcendental Clergyman. Together they were the forerunners of today’s Muslim fanatics intent on demonstrating to the rest of the world the righteousness of their cause. These are the type of folk who only want to help bring about God’s Heaven on earth and those who disagree are greeted with imprisonment, torture, or death. These were the men who frequented the home of Julia Ward Howe. Warren says, “Captain Brown talked of war and had a chance to repeat his favorite Bible text: ‘without the shedding of blood there is no remissions of sins.’ His present business in the east was to get $30,000, ostensibly to equip a company whose purpose, among other purposes, would be the shedding of blood.” He Succeeded.

From the flyleaf of the book, “The Secret Six: the True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown”, by Edward J. Renehan, we have, “…very few know the story of how a circle of Northern aristocrats covertly aided Brown in his quest to ignite a nationwide slave revolt. These influential men, who called themselves the Secret Six, included the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, a world-famous physician, a Unitarian minister whose rhetoric helped shape Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, an educator and close friend of Emerson and Thoreau, and two prominent philanthropists. Renehan recounts how these pillars of Northern society came to believe that armed conflict was necessary to purge the United States of a government-sanctioned evil, how the messianic Brown enlisted their support, and how they sought to cover up their association with him – even perjuring themselves before a congressional investigation – after his bloody debacle.” Indeed, it was the esteemed Ralph Waldo Emerson who said of John Brown at the Tremont Temple in Boston, shortly after his capture by Colonel R.E. Lee and a contingent of US Marines, “The saint whose fate yet hangs in suspense but whose martyrdom, if it shall be perfected, will make the gallows as glorious as the cross!” Mrs. Howe parrots those same sentiments when she pens these words to her sister, “I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man (John Brown) may be, following right in the spirit and footsteps of the old martyrs, girding on his sword for the weak and oppressed. His death will be holy and glorious – the new saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer execution, will make the gallows glorious like the cross.”

Scriptures teach that ye shall know them by their fruits. What might be some of the fruits of Mr. Brown? On the night of May 24, 1856, Captain Brown and his small band of Yankee abolitionist, equipped men descended on a settlement of Southerners at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. They carried with them newly sharpened swords – a prominent symbol in Mrs. Howe’s song. There they proceeded, under cover of darkness, to split the skulls and hack to death five innocent people. The first three of their victims, James P. Doyle and his sons, twenty-two-year-old William and twenty-year-old Drury, were Catholics from Tennessee. They were never slave owners and when later asked why her husband and sons had been so brutally murdered, Mrs. Doyle replied, “just we were southern people, I reckon.” Drury had made an attempt to flee, which resulted in particularly gruesome hacking, and his body minus limbs appeared more as a pile of meat. The other victims were Allen Wilkinson, hacked to death while his wife and children watched in horror and William Sherman, whose mutilated body was found floating in the creek with his left hand hanging by a strand of skin and his skull split open and some of his brains washed away. When she received word of the massacre, Julia Ward Howe’s own words reveal her to have been perversely thrilled and inspired by this grisly crime. The “terrible swift sword” was terrible indeed but hardly reflecting Christian values. Did I mention that John Brown had in his company of murderers that night, his sons John Jr. and Jason? The later, John Jr., nearly lost his mind from the memory of the horrors of that night.

During the three years between his cowardly massacre and insane attack of Harpers Ferry, John Brown kept in regular correspondence with his northern benefactors. He made it clear to them and to his band of followers that, “God had created him to be the deliverer of the slaves, just as Moses was of the children of Israel.” In writing of the impending raid of Harpers Ferry, Warren says,

Speaking of one of Brown’s later visits to Boston and New England, Warren says, “Most of the people who sat about him in those parlors, and gave their earnest attention to his words, found something peculiarly congenial to their own prejudices and beliefs. Captain Brown was a ‘Higher Law Man.’ He was ‘Superior to any legal tradition’- just as most of these people felt themselves to be – and if he claimed to have a divine commission, they could understand what he meant, for they too were privy to God.” It is interesting to note that Julia’s husband fled to Canada after John Brown’s capture, returning only after given assurances from Massachusetts authorities that he would not be prosecuted.

But, you say, the abolitionists were well-meaning Christian folk, patriotic Americans who only wanted freedom for the slaves. Well, that is very nice sounding, but it is not true at all. First, I would not call them Christians. How can you refer to someone who denies that Jesus is the Son of God, denies the Tri-unity of God, and the inerrancy of Holy Scripture as a Christian? Secondly, these folk were about the destruction of the Constitutional Republic as intended by our Founders and the bloated monolithic Federal bureaucracy in Washington today is proof enough of their success. In Madison, Wisconsin in 1864, Stephen D. Carpenter published a rather lengthy book titled Logic of History and in that book he convincingly states, “Wendell Phillips is the most honest and outspoken of all the Northern Abolitionists. He does not hesitate to claim that this revolution began in the North, and that it had a purpose in view, and that purpose was dissolution – the means being the slavery agitation.” In the same book Carpenter quotes a speech by Boston Liberator Publisher and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who in 1856 said, “The Union is a lie. The American Union is an imposture, and a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell! I am for its overthrow.” Well, so much for patriotism.

It should be abundantly clear that these people were neither Christian nor patriots, so what were their thoughts concerning the soon-to-be-freed slaves? Julia Ward Howe in a letter wrote, “the ideal negro would be one refined by white culture, elevated by white blood…the negro among negroes is a coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled creature, ugly as Caliban, lazy as the laziest brutes, chiefly ambitious to be of no use to any in this world.” Need I say more?

Then you might ask, what was the purpose of the abolitionists? I’m not convinced the bulk of them had a purpose other than their personal, mystical crusade for the nebulous concept of liberty for some other fellow in some distant land of whom they knew nothing. Much like the abortion activists of today, so consumed with the concept of a woman’s right to choose that they overlook the permanent emotional damage they cause when they cajole a young girl to abort her unborn child and presume upon God. By and large, the abolitionists like the abortionists, were simply foolish folk, mystical, pantheistic, influenced by Jacobin egalitarianism and eastern religions and ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, yet absolutely convinced of their divine spirituality. They were perfectly suited for the task unknowingly assigned them by their Jacobin business and banking interests of Boston and New York. Wendell Phillips admitted as much!Then you might ask, what was the purpose of the abolitionists? I’m not convinced the bulk of them had a purpose other than their personal, mystical crusade for the nebulous concept of liberty for some other fellow in some distant land of whom they knew nothing. Much like the abortion activists of today, so consumed with the concept of a woman’s right to choose that they overlook the permanent emotional damage they cause when they cajole a young girl to abort her unborn child and presume upon God. By and large, the abolitionists like the abortionists, were simply foolish folk, mystical, pantheistic, influenced by Jacobin egalitarianism and eastern religions and ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, yet absolutely convinced of their divine spirituality. They were perfectly suited for the task unknowingly assigned them by their Jacobin business and banking interests of Boston and New York. Wendell Phillips admitted as much!

In November of 1861, Julia Ward Howe in the company of Unitarian Reverend James F. Clark and a multitude of wistful onlookers had traveled to Northern Virginia to participate in a review of northern troops. However, a sudden Confederate skirmish cancelled the review. Howe and Clark patiently awaited the return of the Union troops in the comfort of their buggy by the roadside. By and by the troops returned from the skirmish and while marching past were overheard merrily singing an obscene version of John Brown’s Body. Upon return to Washington, Reverend Clark asked Mrs. Howe if she could not pen a more dignified song to that tune. Thus, inspired by the memory of her late martyred hero John Brown and the skirmish that so rudely interrupted her review of the invading Northern Army, she wrote the words for that infamous anti-Southern anthem.

Julia Ward Howe in the words of John Brown was, “A defiant little woman, full of flash and fire.” Her diary indicates that the marriage was violent, Samuel controlled, resented and at times mismanaged the financial inheritance her father left her. Later she discovered that he had also been unfaithful. They considered divorce several times. Instead of divorce, she threw herself into her abolitionist crusade while studying transcendentalist philosophy and religion and writing poetry.

Julia Ward Howe said,

James T. Fields, the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, accepted her submission and suggested it be titled Battle Hymn of the Republic. It was subsequently published in the February 1862 issue.

Mr. Lincoln was experiencing great difficulty in his attempt to invade the South while simultaneously subduing rebellion on the part of the Northern citizenry and pressure to expedite on the part of New England banking and mercantile interests. He had already imprisoned most of the Maryland Legislature, several mayors, scores of newspaper editors, and various other northern community leaders who had dared to speak out against his unconstitutional grab for power. He even issued a warrant for the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who had the nerve to claim that what he was about was unconstitutional! Being a consummate politician, he seized upon the message of the song, shrouded in religious terms, as an anthem to rally the people of the North to become involved in his “Holy War” for a righteous cause. Eleven months later he issued his infamous “Emancipation Proclamation” which resulted in freeing not a single slave. Indeed, General U.S. Grant did not free his slaves in Washington, DC, until December of 1866.

Julia Ward Howe portrayed the Union Army as the “coming of the glory of the Lord.” When she states that “I have seen Him (God) in the watchfires of a hundred circling (Union) camps,” Lincoln’s 75,000 troops were the “Army of God” going forth to slaughter the evil resisters of social reform and progressive government. Her “burnished rows of steel” refer to the polished Union cannon that rained death and destruction on Confederate soldiers, but also Southern cities, towns, and innocents. Over 620,000 men and boys perished in that crusade and untold millions of Southern families were left ruined and forever changed. And for what purpose, greed?

The title of the song is especially repugnant. The Constitutional Republic, as intended by our Founders was erased in 1861 upon Mr. Lincoln’s invasion of Virginia. We no longer live in a Republic and our poor Constitution has been raped by generations of egalitarian judges who legislate with impunity. Our present condition is our Founders’ worst nightmare, just read John Taylor, Patrick Henry, or John C. Calhoun. Even George Washington warned of the present evils when he referred to democracy as mobocracy, and on more than one occasion.

What we have been investigating here is the classic clash of good and evil, the two diametrically opposed world-views. One is man centered and the other is God-centered. One is the “I am” of Exodus while the other is the “me” of the world.

It has been said that the Confederate Army was really a moving, fighting, revival tent meeting. Contemporary chaplains have estimated that over 100,000 men were genuinely converted to Christ. That is the origin of the term “Bible Belt” given to the South in scorn by the writer H.L. Menckin. The South was agrarian while the North was urban. You can see today, those troubles are still with us; the war has never really ended. It never will until Christ returns.

Ever since Mrs. Howe wrote the words to this song many sincere well-meaning Christians have unknowingly sung this song with religious zeal and fervor without understanding its original intent and meaning. So, should you choose to sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, do not take offense that I will not join in. You see, I know what it means.

After the war, units on both sides held reunions. During Reconstruction and shortly thereafter, these were sometimes bitter partisan affairs. (1) By the 1870s and 1880s, passions had cooled to the point that the veterans had begun to hold joint reunions. (2) Union and Confederate veterans came together under a gentlemen's agreement. Union veterans never admitted that they had done anything wrong. Confederate veterans downplayed slavery. Both sides would focus on the bravery of the men on both sides. Confederate veterans would admit that it was just as well that the Union had prevailed and that they were proud and happy to be part of a reunited country. In this way, the veterans of both sides who actually fought achieved sectional reconciliation.

Two examples of this reconciliation will suffice. Union veteran Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, whose division presided over the surrendering of arms by the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox, ordered his troops to salute the surrendering Confederates. Chamberlain described his feelings on the occasion this way:

Chamberlain concluded the passage with an anecdote demonstrating the benefit of his magnanimous approach. An unnamed (but allegedly well-known) Confederate officer said after the surrender ceremony, "Now that is my flag (pointing to the flag of the Union), and I will prove myself as worthy as any of you." (4)

President William McKinley, a Union army veteran, in a speech before the Georgia legislature in December 1898, said:

These Union veterans were more interested in solidifying the Union than casting aspersions. Today's critics of the Confederates, apparently more interested in self-righteousness than national unity, are attempting to be ideologically purer than the Union veterans themselves, by wielding the T-word where actual veterans did not.

A Short History Of Treason

In ancient Rome, traitors were thrown from the Tarpeian Rock. A Vestal Virgin named Tarpeia betrayed the Roman Republic to the Sabines by allowing them access to the citadel. Romans had reason to expect the usual loyalty from Tarpeia. As a Vestal Virgin, she held one of the most honorable offices a Roman woman could hold. Instead, she used her position not to defend Rome, but to betray Rome. The Sabines allegedly crushed her to death on the rock that would bear her name, and from that point onwards, traitors to Rome were thrown from the top of the Tarpeian Rock. (6)

In medieval England, Parliament defined treason. In 25 Edward Ill cap. 2 (1351), they declared "When a Man doth compass or imagine the Death of our Lord the King, or of our Lady his Queen or of their eldest Son and Heir... [that] ought to be judged treason." In the feudal relationships of Medieval England, the king owed the subject protection, and in exchange, the subject owed the king loyalty.

The Constitution of the United States, in turn, defined treason. In Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: "treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Levying war against the states is treason.

A Theory of Treason

This evolution established the relationship between the expectation of loyalty, and in exchange, protection. The Virginia Constitution of June 1776 announced Virginia’s secession from the British Empire, inter alia, for George III "declaring us out of his allegiance and protection." (7) Thus, when the sovereign denied protection to the citizen, the citizen could renounce his loyalty to the sovereign.

Using one's status as apparently loyal to gain an advantage is inappropriate as well. Perfidy in international law means appearing to be one thing in order to gain protections of that status while in fact being another thing. (8) Appearing to surrender in order to get enemy soldiers to come forward to search and process the prisoners and when suddenly the "surrendering soldiers" change status back to combatant is an example of perfidy. Benedict Arnold, the most famous traitor in American history, was not hated for changing sides. Most of the leaders of the Revolution had changed sides, but they had done so overtly, first collectively through the Declaration of Independence and personally by changing uniforms. Arnold was reviled not because he changed sides, but because he had changed sides while still appearing to be loyal to the Patriot cause, Arnold used his apparent loyalty to gain access to military secrets and subvert Patriot defensive positions.

In 1861, the peoples of the Confederate states openly declared themselves out of the Union, absolving them of any appearance of loyalty to the Union. Each state adopted and published its secession declaration. Jefferson Davis on leaving the Senate said this:

Each southern state declared to the world that she was surrendering the benefits of membership in the Union and assuming all the rights and burdens of independence.

The War to Prevent Southern Independence

If we proceed to the War to Prevent Southern Independence, some interesting observations come to light. No northerner would open himself to injury from perfidy by trusting a Confederate soldier in a cadet grey uniform. The Union soldiers knew the soldiers in grey had renounced their membership in the Union. Thus the Confederates never committed nor were ever charged with perfidy. The case was different on the other side, however.

The Union position in that war was that the southern states were still in the Union. Lincoln had argued that the seceded states were still in the Union and insisted in his declaration of April 1861 that it was merely that "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings" had taken power in seven of the states. Of course, this is ludicrous in terms of constitutional theory. The "combinations" Lincoln spoke of were the peoples of the several states, states Lincoln said were still in the Union. Thus, from the federal perspective, the seceded states were still in the Union, and their citizens entitled to the privileges and protections the federal government owed to its citizens.

Southern civilians had reason to expect protection of themselves and their private property from Union soldiers. Instead, Union soldiers seized (without payment) food, livestock, and other property from southern civilians. They wantonly destroyed, in violation of the Law of Armed Conflict, livestock and foodstuffs of civilians. (10) They stole private property of no military value from southern civilians whose loyalty they claimed and to whom the Union rightfully owed protection. (11)

Lest anyone doubt that the federal government and its northern allies were levying war against states in violation of the Constitution, the federal authorities during the war and after its conclusion, overthrew eleven state governments, denied the vote of the citizens of those states, denied (in a direct violation of Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution) their senators seats in the Senate, ordered them to draft new state constitutions, and informed them that they would be re-admitted to the Union only after they had ratified the XIV Amendment. All of these acts were unconstitutional. These acts amounted to waging war against the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas and the peoples thereof. In every case, the elected state governments were overthrown and they were replaced by appointed military governors in plain violation of Article IV, Section 2 of the United States Constitution. Levying war on a state that is still in the Union is the very definition of treason.

This is one of those problems that arise because Lincoln acted antidemocratically and unconstitutionally. Lincoln could have recognized the independence of the seceded states, but this would have diminished his power. Lincoln could have respected the limitation the Constitution placed on the federal government. Instead, Lincoln said, "You southern states are still in the Union and we are going to wage war on you." This was an antidemocratic unconstitutional act of violence. Those supporting that effort were committing treason.

At the end of conflict, the terms on the table were to stop fighting, give up on secession, accept the abolition of slavery, and resume civilian life. The post-reconstruction gentleman's agreement between combatants was as follows: acknowledge the results of the war (slavery was dead, and maybe secession as well), acknowledge the bravery of the both sides, and get on with being Americans. Southerners for a century lived by that agreement.

By the late nineteenth century, ex-Confederates declined to accuse their opponents of anything really evil in exchange for the same privilege in return. Then came the radical neo-abolitionists. They have introduced treason-word. If they wish to throw around the treason word, so be it. Union soldiers were the traitors in that conflict. They waged war against states they themselves said were "in the Union." Thus, the traitors in that conflict were the ones wearing blue. We would do well to remind today's cultural Taliban of that.

References

1. See for example Robert Lewis Dabney, "The Duty of the Hour," Land We Love, December 1868; John L. Girardeau, Confederate Memorial Day at Charleston, S. C., Re-interment of the Carolina Dead from Gettysburg, Address given by Rev. Dr. Girardeau, Odes, &c., Charleston, S. C.: William G. Mazyck, 1871.

2. For example, Blue and Gray Reunion, July 21, 1881, Luray, Virginia, Captain Colwell Post, GAR, ex-Confederates of Luray Valley, Virginia; Blue and Gray Reunion, 18-20 September 1895, Chattanooga, Tennessee,.

3. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies, (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1915), p. 260.

4. Chamberlain, Passing of the Armies, p. 266.

5. William McKinley, Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley, (New York: Doubleday & McClure Co. (1900), p. 158.

6. Henry A. Sanders, Roman Historical Sources and Institutions, (New York: MacMillan Co., 1904), 32-33.

7. W. W. Hening, Statutes at Large (Richmond: George Cochran, 1823), IX: 113.

8. The Geneva Convention now defines perfidy as "acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence: ihldatabases.icrc.org, accessed August 12, 2023.

9. The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 7, pp. 18-23. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2d Session, p. 487.

10. Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley and Sherman in South Carolina were two classic examples of wanton destruction of private property.

11. From Nathaniel Banks in the Red River Campaign to countless "bummer" foraging expeditions, the stories of the plunder of private property of no military value are legion.