Headlines
Letter to the Editor: The Truth About the Confederate Monument
By Starke Miller
coach1159@aol.com
This is all taken from my 29 years of research on the University of Mississippi in the Civil War and from my forthcoming book on the monument. I have given this information to UM history professor Dr. John Neff, along with the majority of the sources. UM history professors General James Cook and Dr. David Sansing told me, and other people, many times that I am the expert on the University of Mississippi in the Civil War. I hope their opinion on me is good enough for you to believe me.
1. The monument was dedicated to the Confederate Civil War dead of Lafayette County in 1906, not to the glory of the Confederacy or to any Confederate General. It was not placed for any racist purpose. If you do not believe this, all you have to do is read the monument itself. All the primary sources show it was only done to remember the boys who died in the War and for no other reason.
2. Lafayette County lost at least 432 men killed in the War. That is 25% of all the men sent from this county to fight for the CSA. I am sure the numbers are higher, but I cannot prove that due to incomplete Confederate service records. Imagine what we would do, if in four years time from today, if 25% of the young males in Lafayette County, including University students, from age 18 to 35, were killed. We would probably put up several monuments to them. This is what those boys’ Mamma’s, sisters, daughters, nieces, and other family members, and the University family did, in 1906.
3. Generally, if you sent a family member to the war, he died of disease—or he was killed— and you did not get his body back. Most Confederate soldiers after battles were buried in unmarked graves, were not buried at all, or they were placed in burial trenches like the largest one at Shiloh being over 700 Confederates stacked up to seven deep on top of each other. Union Soldiers nationally were removed individually to nice national cemeteries with federal tax money. Confederates were left to rot. Southern families generally knew these facts. That monument on campus is the only marker many of the 432-plus Lafayette County dead ever got.
4. There were 10 University Greys from Lafayette County who died in the War and who are represented by that monument.
5. There were 10 University students or alumni from Lafayette County who died in the war who are represented by that monument.
6. The monument was placed on campus to be between two cemeteries – St. Peter’s in Oxford and the University Hospital Confederate Cemetery on campus. St. Peter’s Oxford Cemetery included two University Greys and several UM alumni, all from Lafayette County, who died during the war. The University Hospital Cemetery on campus contains over 700 Southerners, including one University Grey and two UM Alumni who died at their University after the battle of Shiloh. All the University Hospital dead died within sight of the monument’s location. The primary source material clearly explains the placement of the monument on campus.
7. The monument was envisioned by a UM Professor of Chemistry, R. W. Jones in 1892, and the funds were raised by a group of 45 Lafayette County women including University wives, UM trustees wives, Delta Gammas, and Lafayette County women, most of whom had lost one or more family members in the war. There were never more than 32 of these women present and working in any one of the 14 years it took to fund the monument.
8. In the group of 45 women who got the monument done were:
a. Nine UM professors wives (including Vice-Chancellor Hume’s wife and the law school dean G. D. Shand’s wife)
b. One female teacher of stenography at UM, who was herself a member of the group.
c. Three UM trustees wives: Falkner, Price, and Porter
d. At least eight Delta Gamma women
e. William Faulkner’s grandmother and aunt
f. An Oxford mayor’s wife, Mrs. John F. Brown
g. Two of the women were married to UM Alumni and two others had sons at the University.
h. 12 of the 45 women were between age 7, and 21, with 10 of them living in Oxford and two living in Lafayette County at the time the war ended. Most of those 12 would have cut bedsheets into bandages, scraped lint to pack wounds, and/or helped to cook food for the University Hospital, or they would have nursed at the Hospital. When they erected that monument they could not forget the University Hospital dead who they had tried so hard to keep alive.
9. Two UM professors helped with the wording on the monument – Professor R. W. Jones and Law School Dead Garvin D. Shands.
10. From 1866 to 1906 there were at least eight attempts to raise some kind of monument to the University Greys, the University Hospital dead, or the Lafayette County dead. Only two of those attempts were successful. One was the University Greys Memorial window in the new Library building, placed in 1890, and the other was a cast-iron fence placed around the campus Confederate Cemetery in 1899.
The University Confederate Monument was not put up for any racist purpose. The primary source material bears that out. It was put up to remember the over 432 dead from the County including University Greys and UM students and alumni. It also provided a bit of comfort and closure to family and friends who had lived through an era of loss that it is not possible for modern Americans to fully understand. The University community, including two UM Professors, constituted over half the people who got that monument done. May God bless them for that.
I am sorry nobody ever told you any of this before now. I am sorry no one ever told you the truth about this monument. Current and former Ole Miss faculty, administration and Alumni have neglected the University’s history. The truth got lost over the years. It now needs to be widely told and known.
| Sat, Aug 31 |  | vs Furman | W, 76-0 |
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Lorraine Wagster
September 16, 2019 at 1:20 pm
Thank you for the calm, rational explanation of the memorial to those who served and died from our county.. I hope that this helps keep the memorial in place.
NB Forrest
September 16, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Facts do not matter to liberal snowflake like some of the nutty professors on at OM.
Karl Burkhalter
September 16, 2019 at 1:54 pm
J F Harris a Black Mississippi Legislator, spoke to State Legislature supporting Confederate Monuments and Hiram Rhodes Revels who served as a chaplain in the A.M.E. Church in Baltimore before the War in 1861. He helped organize two all black units for the United States Army and then settled in Mississippi at the War’s conclusion. The Republican controlled Mississippi legislature sent him to the United States Senate in 1870, making him the first African-American to serve in the United States Congress. After the conclusion of his term in 1871, he was appointed president of what is now Alcorn State University. Revels, however, grew disgusted with the corruption of the Republican regime in Mississippi and refused to support the carpetbag governor Adelbert Ames for re-election in 1874. Ames removed him from Alcorn, and Revels then wrote a stinging letter to President Grant outlining his opposition to the Republican Party in Mississippi. Generally, Revels believed that blacks in Mississippi had been used as political pawns to advance the career of several carpetbagers and scalawags, and he also railed against the disinformation circulating about Southern whites in the Northern press. After the Republicans lost control of the State in 1876, Revels was reappointed to Alcorn where he served as president until his death in 1882. He and Harris knew about Devil’s Punchbowl and the Contraband policy that killed a third of Freedmen in Louisiana and Mississippi, I wish we could supena them from the grave to testify to the reality that the North invaded for cotton and tariffs not to do Blacks any favors.
Frankly, my dear, who gives a damn.
September 16, 2019 at 2:25 pm
They died for another country…the confederacy of states. They are honoring men who fought to preserve slavery. That is a racist act in and of itself. The people today have just as much right to choose what we wish to honor in that space as do those people who supported the confederacy. Sorry, your article changes nothing. Move the statute to a more appropriate space. Such as the cemetery.
Rick
September 16, 2019 at 2:46 pm
Racism is used primarily as a defensive posturing tactic when there is no substance to ones argument! Racism now is used freely by those who have exhausted their claim that their position on subject matters have been on many occasions created falsely or even making issues controversial that have been concocted up by their lack of historical facts….. such as removing a statue that clearly was never intended to inflict harm to anyones personal feelings..a big thank you to those who’s efforts recognized these young men who lost their lives… the statue simply pays tribute to the fallen!! How does anyone find that racist?
Lee Joyner
September 16, 2019 at 2:51 pm
God Bless You Sir for your honest assessment of the monument’s placement and purpose.
Bob Raymond
September 16, 2019 at 3:16 pm
thanks for this information!
Eric Lantrip
September 16, 2019 at 3:18 pm
Well said Mr. Miller!
Bobby Mitchell
September 16, 2019 at 3:55 pm
Your comments about Sen. Hiram Revels are mostly correct. He was a member of the Mississippi State Senate from whence he was elected by his fellow state senators to the US Senate. He resigned his position of US Senator from Mississippi to accept the appointed as Pres. of the then Alcorn A & M College. He took leave from the Presidency of Alcorn A & M to accept the interim position of Mississippi Secretary of State. When he resumed the presidency of A & M, as you said, he was fired from that office by the Gov. and subsequently reappointed President of the school when administrations changed. He did not die in 1882, he moved with his family in 1882 to Holly Springs where he preached and taught at Shaw College (now Rust). While living in Holly Springs he attended a Methodist Church Conference in Aberdeen, was suddenly taken ill and died there January 16, 1901. His body was returned to Holly Springs where it was interred at Hill Crest Cemetery, the city’s public burial grounds. A few years ago he was selected for membership in the Mississippi Hall of Fame in Jackson.
Holice
September 16, 2019 at 4:38 pm
Thank you Mr. Miller for your honest and detailed information concerning the Confederate Monument on Campus. The Confederate monument has nothing to do with racism, those who want to move the monument have no facts to support any true complaint concerning the monument. (Their reasons are political) The monument was dedicated to Confederate war dead from Lafayette County. All the primary sources support Mr. Miller’s statements. This monument should remain exactly where the 45 ladies who raised the money, placed it over a Century ago.
Ben Ceranowski
September 16, 2019 at 4:45 pm
School over monument. Anything that prevents a section of the population from LOVING Ole Miss needs to go. This monument makes some ashamed, angry, and hurt for good reason and dimishes their affection for this great university. These people are our fellow UM family. For the love of our living UM family, remove it.
Jerry Allhands
September 16, 2019 at 5:27 pm
Thank you Mr. Miller for a well written and informative article. As a military veteran myself I am very sensitive and appreciative of the monuments memorializing the men and women who died in the service of their country. Regardless of which war or time period they were still human beings who were loved by someone and should be and deserve to be remembered and honored. Anything less demeans us all.
Loretta
September 16, 2019 at 5:34 pm
Where are the campus monuments to the Ole Miss students who died in wars fighting FOR the United States of America?
James Binner
September 16, 2019 at 5:51 pm
How could it be that the monument “was not placed for any racist purpose,” yet it honors soldiers who fought to protect racial chattel slavery? Mississippi was very clear in its declaration of causes for Secession and in the communication between its Secession Commissioners and other states that slavery was their preeminent cause. Starke Miller claims “all the primary sources” agree but it sounds like he is simply ignoring those sources that don’t agree with his theory. This is hardly honorable behavior from someone who calls himself a historian.
Robert Hopkins
September 16, 2019 at 5:53 pm
They fought for states rights, most of the men that fought in the civil war never owned slaves. But then why would that matter to someone who could care less.
Tunick
September 16, 2019 at 6:03 pm
It seems like you are wrong, they were soldiers of the Confederacy, their country at the time, and they are considered veterans by the United States government, apparently you have no idea what you are talking about. If you want to discuss it further I’d be more than happy to. Have a good day and welcome to hell.
MG
September 16, 2019 at 6:06 pm
Great information, and it’s always good to contextualize things like this so we understand why it was put there in the first place. As stated above, moving this statue closer to the cemetery where it can be a more prominent monument to celebrate the lives of the soldiers buried on our campus is the best option.
America was torn apart by the Civil War, and because of our great love of freedom, people are still allowed to honor their dead despite them being on the losing side. How many other countries can boast that? Time to move forward, and not forget the past, but learn from it.
The South lost. The war is over. Move the statue near the cemetery to honor those men. It doesn’t have to be on the Circle.
Starke Miller
September 16, 2019 at 6:15 pm
Nobody knows, because almost nobody knows their University history worth a darn. Can you go do that research overnight? They DO exist, but almost no one cares. I will come answer this tomorrow if no one can answer it.
Starke Miller
September 16, 2019 at 6:17 pm
Thanks! Right at a third of Southerners were either draftees, or were forced to join because of the Draft. Some of those men are represented by that monument.
Starke Miller
September 16, 2019 at 6:40 pm
It was placed by women who lost family members. Easily a third of those men were drafted or driven in by the draft. As for the causes of the War, the Liberal Professors I have known only cite slavery. The Conservative Professors I have known all cite half a dozen reasons for the War. My research has been good enough for Doc Sansing, and General Cook. I have sat twice in the last year with Dr. Neff and passed photocopied sources on this monument, and the campus Cemetery, across the table to him for an hour each time. I showed him all kinds of things he did not know. Three members of the Contextualization Committee asked me several times for material on University history. The Chancellors office, the UM Archives, and individual UM History Professors have sent people to me, who asked questions about University history, that they could not answer. BUT, my knowledge on this is not good enough for you. I understand.
Loretta
September 16, 2019 at 6:43 pm
Thank you. I am aware of buildings named after individuals who fought in wars for the United States of America, but I am unaware of memorials that commemorations are more general and generational, i.e., “the brave men who gave their lives”. I look forward to learning about them, tomorrow, and seeing if any are given prominence on campus.
Dan
September 16, 2019 at 7:41 pm
Friend, I suggest that you move to a place that is more in line with your thinking. I wish you God speed.
Clara
September 16, 2019 at 9:56 pm
Starke Miller is a sad clown with no professional historical training or expertise. He’s a hobbyist who peddles his BS to old farts who want to be lied to about the heroism of their traitorous ancestors.
The rest of us on campus are ready to move boldly…into the 21st century. Let’s leave Starke and his blue-haired pals behind to stew in their outdated fantasies.
Tracy Lynn
September 16, 2019 at 11:39 pm
Thank you for providing a simplified, truthful explanation of a memorial that should be left in place.
Judi spencer
September 17, 2019 at 12:27 am
And there areUM alumni who will loose their love of the university if they move it. You are a part of the “me only” generation. You think everything needs about what you want.
William Reynolds
September 17, 2019 at 12:56 am
Both my great-grandfather and his brother were raised in Neshoba County and fought in the War between the States. One fought for the South and the other for the North. They both survived and returned to Mississippi as hero’s to our family. Each risked their life to fight for what they thought was the right cause. I’m a retired Army veteran myself. Every soldier in every war that was killed in combat made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their precious life defending what they believed at that time to be a just cause. Every single one deserves to be remembered. Thank you Mr Miller.
Starke Miller
September 17, 2019 at 1:29 am
Thanks Clara, Please call me some more names and use more four letter words. I am really impressed. Somehow, I know more University history, than all the “trained, professional, historians” on campus. How in the world is that possible? When the 11th Mississippi Memorial Committee placed $250,000 worth of monuments, and a statue at Gettysburg and Sharpsburg, my research was good enough for the National Park Service to allow placement. I guess this “sad clown, hobbyist” fooled them. 🙂 As for “traitorous”, please, tell us how many people after the Civil War got legally charged with being a traitor, and who got convicted of that? As for heroism, please tell us what your wartime service was, or why you get to judge what is heroism. I am pretty sure all my wartime Veteran friends would get a laugh out of that. You are very BOLD!
Rod Clark, BPA ‘76
September 17, 2019 at 3:48 am
Thank you for a well reasoned review that I hope can/will be used in the decision-making process. Do you think the University Greys Memorial Windows in Ventress Hall are fundamentally different from the Confederate statue because they memorialize specific UM students? I would be interested in seeing more information on the Windows, too.
Dennis
September 17, 2019 at 5:29 am
All my life I have watched black folks complain about civil rights. We sw enormous progress until the installation of the socialist communist homosexual so called african american barry soretoro. He ruined race relations and idiots are trying to blame PRESIDENT DONALD J TRUMP. TRUMP IS NOT THE BLAME. TRUMP IS THE RESULT OF THE BIGOTRY BY barry. MSM IS 100% AGAINST TRUMP & STILL HE IS THE GREATEST PRESIDENT IN HUMAN HISTORY. KEEP ALL MONUMENTS!
Mick Collums
September 17, 2019 at 6:08 am
I would like to thank you for putting this out there for all of these out of state snowflakes that has ruined or tried to take everything away that Ole Miss has ever been or stood for. They remove Colonel Reb, the MS state flag, and any monument that represents any history. I’m a born and raised native of a neighboring county and it all has been an absolute disgrace. Leave the monument! Bring back the Colonel! Represent and respect the state!
James Binner
September 17, 2019 at 6:17 am
Many of those women were members of the UDC, an openly white supremacist organization that raised money for monuments across the South by selling a book about the KKK that valorized them as heroes. Their textbook committees actively sought to erase history that didn’t conform to their belief that the southern cause was just and noble, and that slavery was a benign institution. It’s a monument that makes no mention of the men forced to enlist against their will, nor the enslaved who accompanied every southern military unit. No one is denying that the war had multiple causes, the point is that slavery was by far the first among them. Conservative professors will tie themselves in knots to avoid confronting Confederates’ own words about their national obsession with protecting slavery from northern abolitionists and domestic rebellion.
Richard Fleck
September 17, 2019 at 7:27 am
None of this negates the fact that the only reason these people died was in a treasonous insurrection against the legitimate government of the United States of America to support a racist cause. These dead do not deserve to be commerated.
George Gillespie
September 17, 2019 at 8:37 am
Your version of history is a perversion, my good man. Your post is as empty of accuracy, as the place for your name on your comment.
Thoughts and Prayers
September 17, 2019 at 9:17 am
You are kind of an asshole, aren’t you, Mr. Miller? You sure love to toot your own horn. Just know, we will move it.
Take your advice and ...
September 17, 2019 at 9:24 am
Were not friends, Dan.
LOL
September 17, 2019 at 9:25 am
Welcome to hell? What a drama queen. Lol.
Pen Dragon
September 17, 2019 at 9:29 am
When people like you die, truly, it will be a day to rejoice. Until then, the disgusting stain on this country, which I served, will forever haunt us.
Darren Remington
September 17, 2019 at 9:54 am
You people really need to do your research. According to the “Cornerstone Speech” by the Vice President of the Confederate States, the cornerstone upon which the Confederacy was founded was slavery of the inferior African race. According to the Declaration of Secession issued by the State of Mississippi, the first and primary cause for seceding was the preservation of slavery. It wasn’t about “States’ Rights” because the Confederate Constitution took away the rights of the individual states regarding slavery.
The men and women who took up arms against the duly elected government of the United States and/or gave material support to same were guilty of TREASON according to the US Constitution.
So then, that statue stands not only as a memorial to racism, it stands as a memorial to treason.
If it truly stands as a marker for the otherwise unknown dead, then move it to a cemetery where such markers belong.
It is time to stop venerating the false narrative of the supposedly noble “lost cause”. There is nothing noble about the treason perpetrated by the self-admitted “rebels”.
J.C.
September 17, 2019 at 10:42 am
Well said, you will have ignorant people who want to make more ignorant people. Ignore the people who set their little mind with dumb opinions. It’s when we remove historical monuments, we lower our knowledge, they didnt go out and hurt anyone, monuments are as exactly stated as a memorial to the young dead men.where will the madness stop, next Jefferson monuments, Buffalo Soldiers monuments, they killed innocent Native American women and children. The war wasn’t over slavery maybe a partial reason, it was over cotton tariffs, States Rights, money is the root of many evils. Leave the history alone, or it may repeat itself.
Starke Miller
September 17, 2019 at 11:41 am
When you have the facts, argue the facts. When you don’t have the facts, call people names. As far as tooting my own horn, I was challenged on my knowledge, and I gave some of my qualifications on how I know all this. Are you triggered? Moderator: Don’t some of these comments on this University sponsored site violate the University Creed? What about a Bias Incident Response Team????? 🙂
18square
September 17, 2019 at 11:44 am
Every time you encounter a liberal socialist Democrat this type of retard bullshit occurs.
Grow up you pathetic little pukes or the decent people of this country will remove you.
Have a nice day.
Starke Miller
September 17, 2019 at 11:56 am
Are there ANY Conservative Professors at the University of Mississippi? What about diversity? Are you maybe only getting half the the truth? Racist UDC? I have read those books. Have you EVER met a UDC member? Have you ever been to a UDC meeting? My Mother and both grandmothers were UDC. Are you for going into cemeteries and taking down Confederates grave stones? Have you ever read the Union Soldier letters and diaries in response to Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation? Those letters and diaries are as racist as anything I have ever read.
Starke Miller
September 17, 2019 at 12:21 pm
The old Alumni building on Grove Loop IS a War Memorial building dedicated to the University dead of 3 Wars: Civil War and WW One and WW Two. There are 3 large bronze plaques inside with the names of the University students who died in each of those wars. The Civil War plaque has been moved in the last 10 years to a back hallway where an always open door hides it. I am sure that was some kind of accident. Sam, Gerard and Baxter Dorms were named for 3 consecutive Student Government Presidents who were killed in WW Two. There are no Korea, Vietnam or Gulf War monuments on campus that I know of. Perhaps YOU could be the individual to fix that? The Civil War is such a big deal on campus because of the scale of death that affected the University. One Third of the University Greys died in the War, 50 out of 150 dead in 4 years. Out of the student body of 1860-1861, 27% of those boys died. 30% of the Class of 1861 died in the War. At least 11% of all alumni, from 1848 to 1860, died in 4 years time. (I don’t have total numbers on that yet) Fortunately you and I have never seen anything even remotely like the scale of that death, in our lifetimes. World War Two was not even close. And don’t forget all the wounded who were maimed for life, and at least 45 burned Mississippi towns during the War, including Oxford. Thanks for your civility on this. You must have had good parents. There are others on this site who could learn from you. 🙂
Starke Miller
September 17, 2019 at 12:45 pm
Treason? Words mean things. Who was tried for treason after the Civil War? Who was convicted of treason after the War? Bell I. Wiley, and James Mcpherson read thousands of Southern Soldier letters and Diaries from the Civil War, for books that they wrote. The Soldiers wrote about why they fought. An overwhelming majority wrote that they fought because the South was invaded. Slavery was rarely mentioned. As evil as it was, slavery was legal. I see it as kind of like abortion today, truly horrible, morally repugnant, as wrong as anything could be, but legal. Should we have a shooting war over abortion?
Ov
September 17, 2019 at 12:54 pm
Funny how all of these far left perpetually offended individuals cite “racism” whilst saying things like “treason against the united states” you can easily tell the brainwashed sheeple.
All me to paint a picture of your glorious united states and its flag. Its monuments.
#1. Slavery. Here’s a little known fact. Last state to actually have slaves was not in Dixie. Try a bit further north and it did not end until a constitutional amendment was put in place.
#2 let’s talk about the crimes committed under old glory
Sherman’s acts of barbarism against the southern people
The Chinese exclusion act of 1885
The interriment of Asian Americans in WW2
The massacre of the American Indians
The use of atomic weapons
Wow and yet no one says a word about the candy cane rag or the monuments of the federal empire.
Lincoln’s own words clearly demonstrate he did not go to war to free slaves. A little know fact thr far left leave out in ther marxists campaign.
No, the south was right in 1860. #OperationVindice
Bless your heart
September 17, 2019 at 1:44 pm
LOL. You’re the one that seems triggered? If you pat yourself on the back much more you may bulge a disk.
Robert
September 17, 2019 at 2:51 pm
As a Mississipian, a Bulldog (that other school), and great-great grandson of a Shiloh veteran and survivor….I tip my hat in sincere thanks for shining the brilliant light of truth on the ignorance and stupidity of revisionist idiots.
Angela
September 17, 2019 at 4:23 pm
If it were your dead family members , that offends my that you would honor such evil people like your grandfather or uncle. I want there head stones and grave markers forever removed. They were bad , evil men .
Truly , I couldn’t care less about your family or your love for them .
I don’t like to look at it so we all know I’m more important and so is my twisted thinking.
This is how you are behaving you spiteful , souless , vile woman. God have mercy on you
Angela
September 17, 2019 at 4:26 pm
I just left a reply to Frankly My Dear. …
Lee
September 17, 2019 at 4:32 pm
The War of Northern Aggression was fought because Lincoln felt the North needed the South for the economy. To say the Southerner’s fought to maintain slavery, you would have to say the Yankee’s fought to free the slaves. Very few Yankee’s fought to free slaves and very few Rebels fought to save slavery. Why else would slavery be legal in the North until 1866. Over 4 years after the North invaded South Carolina.
Loretta
September 17, 2019 at 4:44 pm
Thank you for continuing our conversation. I have read your history of The University Greys.
Still, what drives the passion about Civil War monuments, while, using your words, “almost no one cares” about the monuments to other wars?
How is this emotional gulf explained?
Thank you, again.
Joe Bob Jones
September 17, 2019 at 4:53 pm
You have an @aol email. You do know that anything you have to say is not taken seriously.
John H
September 17, 2019 at 6:03 pm
The anti everything that is not about me and my ideas have never studied the American Civil War. All they know is what other “not me and my ideas” people have told them. They have never studied history.
John H
September 17, 2019 at 6:29 pm
Freed slaves were still treated as subhuman by the Yankees in the north after the American Civil War. Blacks actually had more privileges and rights in the south because of Reconstruction. The Confederacy did not want any northern land. If they did they would have marched on Washington DC after the battle of First Manasses and won the war. They just wanted a country that followed the constitution. England and France sympathized with the South during the war just like most northerners who supported the raw materials from the south. Lincoln was not interested in ending slavery until it became politically correct after Gettysburg. I wish the “me and only my beliefs people” would study their history!
Joel Fetner
September 17, 2019 at 7:45 pm
People throw the word ” traitor” around a lot when talking about Southerners. They obviously have no idea what it means.
John H
September 17, 2019 at 10:10 pm
If Sherman did today what he did on his “march to the sea” when he burned every city, farm and plantation and he and his men murdered and raped everyone they could he and Lincoln would be tried for war crimes. The “me and only my belief people” don’t understand the feelings of the south and why we can’t forget. Study your history.
Starke Miller
September 18, 2019 at 12:18 am
“Old People have old things” 🙂
Starke Miller
September 18, 2019 at 12:29 am
The passion on the Civil War is explained by the sheer numbers of the loss of life. Look at my statistics again. 27% of the UM student body of 1860-1861 died in the War. If we bring that percentage forward to today, with 20,000 in Oxford today, that would mean over 5 thousand of those students would die. It is very common for 2 brothers to die in the War, it is not uncommon for 3 brothers to die, and I know of several sets of 4 brothers killed and one set of 5 brothers who die in the War. (one of those 5 brothers was a UM alumni)
Murrel amerson
September 18, 2019 at 4:07 am
Ok first of all,y’all ignorant trouble making b*****s need to know before you run your moutH.origanally the stuff about the the Confederate army is not about racism.yall keep making it about racism.grow up,respect our heroes who put up one hell of a fight( for a group of backwood farmers) against a country that was backed by the governmentThe best general ever,(Robert e Lee) and his commanders kicked ass.yall keep racism going with y’all’s bull sh**t like this.dr.kings dream was for All men to be able to sit in peace together.yall are really screwing that one up for him.next y’all will be fussing cause chalkboards are black,chalk is white.or book pages are white and words are black.general Lee’s thoughts and views run deep in this Georgia white boy and always will.now find something else to be little b****es about.murrelamerson@gmail.com
Rob Austin
September 18, 2019 at 7:36 am
I doubt this comment will be viewed. The truth is the liberals are still crying about Trump winning the election. You can’t erase history. Where does this end? Should the constitution be burned it was written by a slave owner and signed by slave owners? Why stop there tear down the Pantheon Coliseum, pyramids etc.
Rob Austin
September 18, 2019 at 7:48 am
Thank you for your reply very well written and informative. If the north wanted to end slavery peacefully they would have done what England did. The English paid the slave owners but we all know bullets are cheaper. I believe slavery is evil but it was legal back then. It is also evil to pay workers a wage lower than poverty. Instead of trying to erase history they should be trying to keep jobs in this country.
Michelle
September 18, 2019 at 9:32 am
Racist old snowflake
Starke Miller
September 18, 2019 at 11:21 am
YOU caught me! All my facts are invalid now. I used the wrong Email. I am NOT one of the “cool” people. Is gmail cool and hip to use, still? If not, can you tell me which one is? Just asking for a friend.
John H
September 18, 2019 at 2:10 pm
After reading my posts you may think I’m for the south, Confederacy or Klan. I’m not. I’m for America. I’m glad we are one nation under God. But, I believe everyone should know the truth about what the American Civil War was about. The only way people will know is to study history, not “his story” but the real story. Name calling and belittling other people’s opinions is not accomplishing anything good. If everyone knew the true story we could accept the monuments for what they are. Monuments to human beings who just a few years earlier were our heroes in the Mexican American War. The generals on both sides were former classmates at WP and friends still while on the battlefield. They would be scratching their heads if they could see what divisive hatred we have for each other now over the monuments.
Clear Eyed
September 18, 2019 at 6:28 pm
What simplistic and uninformed, or misinformed drivel. The Confederate monument was placed during the Jim Crow era as a warning to African American citizens that the University of Mississippi was not a place for them. The monument was intended to glorify traitors to the United States and to intimidate former slaves and their descendants.
Any other self deceiving version of history is either a boldfaced lie or an attempt by white folks to feel better about awful history.
John H
September 18, 2019 at 10:24 pm
Clear Eyed, if you can, please attack the facts and not the people. Use your real name.
Mary Ann Wright
September 20, 2019 at 6:25 pm
Amen
James Binner
September 21, 2019 at 9:01 am
“What about diversity?” What on earth are you talking about? The UDC was plainly racist, the published minutes of their own meetings in the early 20th century document their interest in celebrating the Klan and their romanticization of “Anglo-Saxon” superiority, at the same time they were raising money for Confederate monuments.
James Binner
September 21, 2019 at 9:04 am
In 1860, one of every three southerners was an enslaved black person. That’s why they called them slave states.
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:17 pm
You are an old UDC queen who needs attention but should probably just shut up.
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:17 pm
Funny you don’t mention the slaves in your summation of victims.
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:20 pm
So it was okay at the time, and that’s your reason for wanting to continue holding up a monument to celebrate it? What color is the sky in your world? You arguments run in circles until they run slap into each other and fall down.
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:21 pm
Poor poon here is the snowflake defender of a lost war, wrapped in his stars-and-bars security blanket, unable to interact and co-exist with others.
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:21 pm
This guy: “Slavery wasn’t just ’round here, so we should still celebrate it!”
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:22 pm
“Lincoln was okay with slavery so let’s continue celebrating it!” Your logic is stellar.
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:23 pm
Being a pro-slavery dipshit is not cool.
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:24 pm
Whoa, the irony. This guy is a bundle of stupid. First, the slave-holders are the real victims, not slaves. Second, “me and only my belief” as he cries and wets his pants that his racist statue won’t be the centerpiece of campus.
Fargus
September 23, 2019 at 12:27 pm
The writer of this poop is a self-absorbed, narcissistic old hag who has contorted his own brain into believing what he says, ignoring all the facts. He is not a willing member of our actual society but rather insists on his little fantasy about his “heritage” to be the governing thought for all of us.
David Kuykendall
September 26, 2019 at 12:44 pm
You have no Idea what you are talking about. The civil did not start about slavery. The North had as many slaves as did the south. The war was started by the Norths Taxation
of the South. Also Abraham Lincoln was going to send all slaves back the Africa when the war was. It is a crying shame he was assassinated !!!
John H
September 27, 2019 at 8:05 am
When you lose the debate you attack the debater
Fargus
September 30, 2019 at 6:53 pm
When you lose the war you change your story.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 3:38 pm
No, Confederates were not traitors.
You have to owe allegiance to a country in order to commit treason against it. For example, Canadians could not commit treason against Mexico because the don’t owe allegiance to Mexico. If they fought against Mexico, they would be enemies of Mexico, not traitors to it. When the Southern states seceded, their citizens no longer owed allegiance to the US and the Constitution.Voila! No Treason!
And no, secession itself was not treason, per the U.S. Constitution.
The powers prohibited to the states are identified in Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution. Secession is not among them, so it is not prohibited.
The power to prohibit secession is not listed among the powers delegated to the United States.
The 10th Amendment states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.” Secession is a power reserved to the states and the people.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 4:05 pm
Darren Remington, Mississippi’s Declaractions of the Causes of Secession was for Mississippi, not all the seceding states, and even it mentioned other reasons for secession. Why are you ignoring them?
Confederates did not commit treason; you’re confusing them with the colonial patriots, who DID commit treason, and knew it, and said so. The difference is the type of government each group attempted to separate from. The crown legitimately owned the colonies; neither the feds nor the union owned the states.
Moreover, you have to owe allegiance to a country in order to commit treason against it. For example, Canadians could not commit treason against Mexico because the don’t owe allegiance to Mexico. If they fought against Mexico, they would be enemies of Mexico, not traitors to it. When the Southern states seceded, their citizens no longer owed allegiance to the US and the Constitution.Voila! No Treason!
And no, secession was not treason. It is, in fact, a power reserved to the states and the people via the 10th Amendment:
The powers prohibited to the states are identified in Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution. Secession is not among them, so it is not prohibited.
The power to prohibit secession is not listed among the powers delegated to the United States.
The 10th Amendment states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.” Secession is a power reserved to the states and the people.
Southerners took up arms to defend their homes, families and territories from an invasion of barbarians swarming across their land. Yes, barbarians who shot pet dogs for fun, stole what food they could carry and destroyed the rest so the people would have no food, burned houses, barns, stored food, stored crops, crops in the field, even farming implements so no more food could be grown; they slit the throats of livestock, threw the carcasses in wells and streams to contaminate drinking water and cause disease in the civilian population at a time when there was no medicine because Lincoln, the great humanitarian, had BLOCKADED it; stabled horses in church sanctuaries and chopped up pews for firewood just for spite, and dug up corpses looking for valuables.
There may have been a people somewhere on the planet with the moral authority to make war on the Confederacy for slavery or any other reason, but it wasn’t the United States.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 5:24 pm
Frankly, buddy, there was no country named “the confederacy of states.” It was The Confederate States of America.
Saying that “they” — whoever they are — are honoring men who fought to preserve slavery is part of the effort, begun in the Victor Fables and continuing to this day, to define Southerners as something other than normal humans. It is saying they didn’t care about their wives, children, parents, loved ones who were threatened with the invading army of barbarians, all they REALLY cared about was their rich neighbor getting to keep his slaves.
This is the attitude born of long-standing hatred for white Southerners. It is part of the new leftist-era hatred of white people in general
It is wrong to remove a long-standing memorial and replace it. If you want to honor someone or something else, get a new location.
Move the memorial to a cemetery? Should the Vietnam Wall also be moved to a cemetery? The Arizona Memorial? Should the Liberty Memorial in Missouri be moved to a cemetery? This is a false solution, a ruse. The memorial is where it needs to be and needs to stay.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 5:31 pm
Actually, Robert Hopkins, they weren’t fighting for states’ rights. They were taking their states out of the nation that was trying to take their state’s rights. Ideologically, they were fighting for the independence of their new country. Practically, they were fighting to defend their wives, children, parents, and communities from an invasion of barbarians wearing military uniforms. Some states seceded over slavery but secession is not war, and the reasons for secession and the reasons for war are very different.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 5:55 pm
James Binner, the soldiers did not fight to protect racist chattel slavery. Mississippi’s declaration of the causes of secession is not a declaration of causes of WAR. War and secession are not remotely the same. Secession is a peaceful, political act — a withdrawal. War is military violence, and the causes of each are vastly different. That’s an error that has unfortunately become rock hard in our culture.
“Historians” who substitute the causes of secession for the causes of war are the ones who aren’t honorable. Especially because they have access to material that clearly defines the differences.
The reasons Southern soldiers fought was ideologically because they wanted independence for their new country, but practically because their land was invaded. Barbarians in blue swarmed across the land, burned hundreds of towns with no military presence or significance, made war on women and children. Ten thousand battles, from minor skirmishes to days-long heavy combat, and virtually ALL of them fought on Southern soil.
How many battlefields in the north? How many towns burned by rebel soldiers? The Roswell women, the horrific murder of Dewitt Jobe, the utter brutality of the damnyankee soldiers — THIS is why the Southern soldier fought.
Lonnie
October 14, 2019 at 6:05 pm
This bitch is stuck in permanent spin cycle. Poor, angry old bitch.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 6:11 pm
Clara, your language indicates extreme disrespect, if not outright hatred, for people who have done nothing to deserve it. Someone disagreeing with you, or seeing things differently than you, are not sufficient motive for fomenting hatred toward them. Just as moving boldly into the 21st Century doesn’t require erasing the past or lying about it, as so many of you “educated” leftists do. The fantasies are found in the Victor Fables which most of you leftists swallow without a peep.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 7:02 pm
Darren Remington, virtually all white people back then were racists who believed in black inferiority. Even abolitionists — they were actually virulently racist. And if you thing “abolitionism” meant they favored abolishing slavery, think again. One of their most eloquent spokespersons wrote this:
========
The earliest feature discernible was a group of tall cocoa-nut trees, with which
the island is bounteously feathered; — the second was a group of negroes in a
small boat, steering toward us with open-mouthed and white-toothed wonder.
Nothing makes its simple impression upon the mind sophisticated by education.
The negroes, as they came nearer, suggested only Christy’s Minstrals, of whom
they were a tolerably faithful immitation… There were many negroes, together
with whites of every grade; and some of our number, leaning over the side, saw
for the first time the raw material out of which Northern Humanitarians have
spun so fine a skein of compassion and sympathy.
Now we who write, and they for whom we write, are all orthodox upon this mighty
question. We have all made our confession of faith in private and public; we
all, on suitable occasions, walk up and apply the match to the keg of gunpowder
which is to blow up the Union, but which, somehow, at the critical moment, fails
to ignite. But you must allow us one heretical whisper, — very small and low.
The negro of the North is the ideal negro; it is the negro refined by white
culture, elevated by white blood, instructed even by white iniquity; — the
negro among negroes is a coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled creature,
ugly as Caliban, lazy as the laziest of brutes, chiefly ambitious to be of no
use to any in the world. View him as you will, his stock in trade is small; —
he has but the tangible of instincts of all creatures, — love of life, of ease
and of offspring. For all else, he must go to school to the white race, and his
discipline must be long and laborious. Nassau, and all that we saw of it,
suggested to us the unwelcome question whether compulsory labor be not better
than none….
——–
From “A Trip to Cuba” Published 1859-60 by Ticknor and Fields, Boston … Thus proving that it was the abolitionists who wanted to “blow up the Union” … and tried to.
===========
What kind of abolitionist believes in “long and laborious … compulsory labor”? What is compulsory labor if not slavery? Just what did these hypocrites want to abolish? Oh, and Stephens’ description of blacks was more respectful than hers.
Blacks were a problem for both northerners and Southerners. The north’s answer was to get rid of them (colonization, abolishing slavery and selling rather than freeing the slaves, to keep their states’ black populations as small as possible, keeping slaves AND free blacks out of the new territories.The South’s was restrict their freedom and keep them constantly occupied with work.
So you want markers to war dead kept in cemeteries where they belong? Would that include The Wall in D.C. How about the Arizona Memorial in Honolulu?
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 7:03 pm
A Trip to Cuba was written by Julia Ward Howe.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 7:17 pm
Ben Ceranowski — School over monument? Why? Why not both?
It isn’t necessary for a section of the population, or for even one person, to LOVE Ole Miss. People develop that kind of attachment for institutions, but it isn’t necessary to their receiving what they come there for — an education.
I’m sick of the claims that monuments MAKE people ashamed, hurt and angry. I don’t believe that or they they fell that way for good reason. The monument doesn’t do that any more than it MAKES people feel pride, respectful or belongingness. These are emotions people foster in themselves based on their beliefs and knowledge. Sometimes the beliefs and knowledge are in error, and that causes the conflict.
Your post attempts to foster shame, anger, and hurt it people who favor keeping the monument. Is that love for your UM family?
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 7:41 pm
There may have been a people somewhere on the planet with the moral authority to make war on the Confederate States — for slavery or anything else. But it wasn’t the USA.
There was NO justification for the union army’s presence in the seceded states and no justification for a union soldier so much as kicking a Southern dog. Regardless of the efforts of Confederacy-bashing “historians” to santitize Grant, Sherman, et.al. and downplay the destruction wrought upon the South by the union army (that we can’t even conceptualize today), it was ALL too much because the union army should not have been down there to begin with.
Nothing — not secession, not “preserving the union,” not ending slavery, not anything — justified the union’s barbaric war on the Southern people.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 7:44 pm
When you shouldn’t have invaded and made brutal war to begin with, you concoct a story to justify your unjustifiable invasion and savagery. That is the Victor Fables, and they are still being revised, concocted and added to today.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 7:48 pm
James Binner
Slavery in CSA — 4 years
Slavery in USA — 89 years (and it didn’t officially end until AFTER the Confederacy ceased to exist).
Sins of the South/Confederacy:
~ Slavery.
Sins of the North/Union:
~ Slavery
~ TransAtlantic slave trade
~ Slave smuggling (after the trade was outlawed)
~ Shipping slave-grown cotton
~ Working slave grown cotton in textile mills
~ War and Reconstruction atrocities against the Southern people
~ Wage slavery
~ Child labor
~ Genocide of Native Americans
~ Imprisonment of Native Americans in concentration camps called reservations in conditions worse than plantation slavery
~ Internment of Japanese Americans in WWII
~ Hiroshima and Nagasaki
~ Project MK Ultra
~ CIA “observation” of (some say participation in) torture of civilians in central America
~ My Lai
~ Abu Ghraib
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 8:03 pm
Clear Eyed….”placed in the Jim Crow era as a warning to African Americans”? What hooey. That is an SPLC concoction of the late 20th century. They say that about all the monuments, although the documentation from the time the monuments were erected clearly disprove the claim. Minutes of the meetings of monument societies, news reports of fundraising efforts, programs distributed when monuments were dedicated, all prove that what you just posted is a hate-based LIE.
Confederates were not traitors to the United States; you can’t be a traitor to a country you do not owe allegiance to, and after secession, Southerners did not owe allegiance to the USA. Moreover, the United States Navy does not name its vessels after traitors, but two of its earliest Polaris nuclear subs were named the USS Robert E. Lee and the USS Stonewall Jackson, and both men were honored AS CONFEDERATES — the Lee’s launch program features an image of Lee in his full Confederate uniform, and the Jackson’s official badge shows an image of a hand holding a sword (the blade is depicted as a Polaris missile) and the wrist is cuffed with a sleeve of Confederate gray with the gold braid of an officer. I’ll bet you didn’t know that.
How does an inanimate object, a statue to DEAD soldiers, INTIMIDATE ANYONE. That is just ludicrous.
White folks’ history is no more awful than any other, including black folks’, and considerably better than some.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 9:00 pm
Fargus, he’s claiming slave-holders area the real victims? No, that’s your ignorant interpretation. ALL Southerners were victims. There were 5-6 million free Southerners, 3+ million slaves, and only 393,975 slaveholders. You talk big and smartaleck, which tells me you don’t care about truth (that’s why you spit on it). I know you don’t care about the truth because your insolence doesn’t help your argument, it hurts it.
Connie Chastain
October 14, 2019 at 9:00 pm
Binner they called them slave states because they permitted slavery. Sheesh.
Lonnie
October 15, 2019 at 5:55 pm
So, since most whites back then were racists, we should celebrate racism in 2019 with our state flag and statues. What stellar logic.
Frank Rooker
November 26, 2019 at 5:17 pm
Ms Starke as an alumni that had the honor of being in Dr. Samsung’s classes if your research is satisfactory to him it should satisfactory to any history student!
Cerph
August 20, 2020 at 12:51 pm
The only opinions that hold weight with me are those with a dog in the fight. First, families of ancestors of slaves from that jurisdiction and families of veterans in the same area. Everyone else is just an observer with an opinion. Put the families together without media and lawyers to hash out an agreement for the future of that particular memorial. Results are final.
edward
August 21, 2020 at 5:37 am
Facts.
History.
Who cares about any of that when we can be angry? Why not let Fearless Leader (whichever) tell us what to think? Much easier than seeking truth or closure. Much easier than understanding. No one won in 1865. No one.
Small wonder we are still fighting the same war today.