What happens when there is no clear “right answer?” What happens when one can be “sort of” right (or wrong)? What is the redress demanded when a strongly declared viewpoint is not nearly as correct as first believed? In other words, what does one do when reality is not so “cut and dried” as one first believed, and one has formed an opinion and point of view based upon less than perfect information or a somewhat confused judgment? And does a certain amount of “backtracking” on a long held – and promoted – viewpoint render null and void one’s value to the discussion? It is a difficult matter to contemplate, never mind publicly express. In my case, I can only do what my own personal hero, Col. John Singleton Mosby did when he had to “backtrack” on a position he had once considered – and expressed – as proper. Mosby, a former Confederate partisan leader, despised the federal government’s “Reconstruction” policies and did all he could within the law to end that sad period in his state of Virginia. Now, at one point Virginia had “developed” a new constitution that would have permitted it to rejoin the Union but that Constitution was anything but acceptable to the state’s citizens including John Mosby! And so, as did most other Virginians, he rejected it by refusing to register. But upon further consideration of the matter, Mosby realized that as long as the new constitution was rejected by the voters, these worthies disfranchised themselves and thus could not end Reconstruction. And so, after some personal angst, he campaigned for the voters to accept the new constitution. Many of his fellow Virginians were shocked and angered by his new position. In an article in The Fairfield Herald of June 30, 1869, a correspondent from the Richmond Dispatch wrote: I was gratified to notice Col. J. S. Mosby moving from group to group on the court green and urging the people to vote for Walker and the expurgated constitution as the only means of escaping the evils which now threaten us. A gentleman remarked, “Why Colonel, a year ago you talked differently. Mosby: “Yes; I swore I wouldn’t register, but (now I) think differently, and (I) had rather be right than consistent. Then we had our own judges, our own county officers, and no one of them was required to take the iron-clad oath!” Citizen: “You think we ought to vote for the expurgated constitution with negro suffrage and the county organization clause?” Mosby: “Certainly negro suffrage cannot possibly impose upon us a worse man than Wells, and by voting down the constitution (you) disfranchise yourselves, and keep the State under the rule of carpet-baggers.” Citizen: “How is that?” Mosby: “Why, the concurrent resolutions passed by the two Houses of Congress last winter prohibits anybody from holding even the most trivial office who cannot swallow the iron-clad oath. This gives all the offices to carpet-baggers, and how can you get them (the offices – vp) out of their clutches, and have them filled by capable and honest citizens until the State is reconstructed; and how can you reconstruct it except by the adoption of the expurgated constitution, which I admit, deserves all the abuse it has received? For my own part, I cannot see any sense in voting for Walker and against the expurgated constitution, because if you defeat the latter, you keep Wells and his party in office. A vote against the amended constitution is a vote for Wells.” It seems that in order to be inconsistently right rather than consistently wrong it is time to rethink or perhaps rephrase my own particular opinion on the consequences of America’s Constitution with regard to certain historical events. Formerly, I had looked askance at the “convention to fix the Articles of Confederation” that resulted in an entirely new document, a document that led – seemingly not intentionally at least as many involved understood the matter! – to a “federal” (central) government more powerful than intended by at least most of the Founders, the consequences of which have now come into existence and, if not prevented, will end in an Orwellian rather than a Jeffersonian government. And, indeed, at the time many patriots foresaw that eventual result. Men such as Patrick Henry warned that the new Constitution would eventually lead to our present situation. And with the gift of hindsight, I too, proclaimed the innocence of the States and the guilt of those who wished to impose upon the new nation another if different version of that type of government from which we had sprung. But here I must plead my abysmal ignorance of the matter as it stood at the time. Worse, I fear that I was willing to overlook my ignorance because so many other people who held the same point of view, I believed were not ignorant. And so, where did I go and find – if not exactly seek out! – the information that has changed my viewpoint in this matter? I confess to having again fallen in love – as I have with other figures of the past including John Mosby, William Wallace, John Marshall, John Churchill and Henry “Hotspur” Percy – America’s own true hero, George Washington and I did so in a book about Washington entitled The Return of George Washington: Uniting the Nation 1783-1789 by Edward J. Larson. Now, first, let’s get out of the way any contention that Washington’s actions were predicated upon his desire for a monarchy or an empire or any kind of all-powerful central government in which he could take or be given power! His own actions in first walking away from his command of the army in order to return home to Mount Vernon in retirement and second, by refusing Hamilton’s offer to make of him a king or to remain on as “President for Life” when he took that office after the ratification of the Constitution should be sufficient proof for any sane person that Washington’s entire concern was the welfare of his country, period. This book on Washington opened my eyes to the behavior of both the Congress and the States during the Revolutionary War to the point at which I am amazed that the war was actually won! Talk about Divine Intervention!!! I also read a book on Benedict Arnold and determined that between the idiots in Congress, the actions of the various States regarding the man – a celebrated hero! – and civilian Tories and “Patriots” taken together with Arnold’s problems with the jealousies and attacks of his own fellow officers, I had to wonder why it took the man so long to become a traitor! He was either very forgiving or very slow! In any event, the Washington book made clear that the whole mess that was the colonial attempts to do anything – including to escape England – was a miracle of the order of the parting of the Red Sea. But as for the States, there were better ones and worse. The worst at least in most instances was Rhode Island. It was this State that was last to ratify the Constitution and only did so under threat of economic retaliation by the other twelve! But Pennsylvania was a brute as Washington learned at Valley Forge when that State disassociated itself from his suffering troops so as to avoid any “excess expenditures.” Connecticut seemed reasonable but New York was so difficult as to lead to the founding of Vermont that became necessary in order for the folks up there to escape the older state’s grasp! States taxed the “imports” from other states, ignored the judicial rulings of those states and in general made even ordinary peaceful and productive interaction all but impossible. In other words, the thirteen “colonies” only cooperated when there was either an overarching governmental structure as happened under British rule or became so desperate as to demand cooperation to avoid destruction! The Articles had some power but that power could only be exercised if the individual states permitted it. And as for money. . . . well! The whole thing almost came to smash over money owed to the troops and the debts accrued from the purchase of military needs and the repayment of loans taken out to meet those needs! But Washington’s greatest worry was that this “governmental chaos” would lead to and/or permit an influx of large populations of people from areas west of the colonies brought to America by the Spanish and the French and others; people who would debase the very foundation of what was the so-called confederation of the original thirteen colonies. These people would have no connection in law or custom with the people of those colonies and so the vision held by them would be of no interest to the interlopers. Washington found out about this possibility because he held property in the West and after he retired (the first time), he went west to see how that property was faring. In one instance he found a whole “colony” of squatters who had simply taken his land. He tried to make them pay “rent” but they offered instead to purchase what they already considered their own because they had settled and built on it. In the end, the courts decided in favor of Washington as he could prove his title, but he knew that if the new “country” could not be made viable through laws and borders, the people of those former colonies might soon be overwhelmed by foreigners who had no “history” with their struggle or even with their racial and geographic origins! We see this same concern in today’s border crisis! This threat was forever in Washington’s mind as well as in his communications with other men involved in the matters of the new “nation.” This was the concern that caused Washington and the other “Founding Fathers” to understand that a new constitution had to be created that would address all of the many – and very serious! – problems that obtained before, during and after the Revolution, problems that arose from the mindset of many whose concerns were limited to the wellbeing of their individual states or, more precisely, themselves individually! There needed to be an overarching central authority that could make this geopolitical “stew” work and not collapse at the first threat at home or abroad. This did not mean that there was anything wrong with being faithful to Pennsylvania or Virginia or Massachusetts or to champion their needs and desires, but it simply wasn’t enough if those who had fought so hard and long for liberty wanted that liberty to exist into the next century and not be overwhelmed by hordes who had no cultural or political affinity with the people of the “United” States! Or, indeed, to avoid simply being consumed by some European Empire such as Spain or France or even Great Britain itself! Naked under the Articles, the thirteen small, helpless States could not survive, period! And so, my friends, I no longer look at the Constitutional Convention as a direct contributor to the situation in the antebellum South or even the present problems arising from a Constitution that has been amended to death for remember, even with the Constitution relatively unamended, the problems faced by the South were the result of the demands and desires of the other States! They did not arise directly from that government formed by the Constitution! But sadly, that same government through the misuse of that Constitution, gave to those states who wished to despoil the states of the South the legal and eventually the military means to do so. The problem was not men like Washington who wished only the best for his country, but that we as men are fallen; that is, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Little by little and year by year, we fouled our own nest. Most – perhaps all – of our Founders wished only the best for the country they brought into being with their wealth and their health and their lives. That eventually our ancestors and we ourselves made a hash of their well-considered efforts is hardly their fault. After all, they could only do their best! Even Benedict Arnold thought he was acting in the best interests of those whom he considered to be Sons of England, having come to see the revolution as a civil war and wishing only to reconcile brothers – or at least so he said and wrote! Of course, I am far less likely to take Arnold at his word than Washington at his! At this point, the best I can do is be very sure not to be so very sure in the future and that I make damned sure that I know what I’m talking about! I usually try to do that, but in this case, I failed just as have so many others who perhaps did not know what I have since learned! Rights only work when we use them both intelligently and sparingly!

I have once again embarked upon a topic of historical research. Over the years, a particular individual having caught my attention results in an almost monomaniacal concentration upon the chosen object of study. My present interest arose after watching a replay of the old TV drama, The Crossing, a well done though moderately fictionalized version of George Washington’s attack on Trenton launched on Christmas night, 1776 in which Washington and his ragged, starving army crossed the Delaware River to launch a strike against the Hessian mercenaries encamped in that town. The story was of particular interest to myself as it involved a man whom my grandmother once assured me was one of my ancestors, Continental Colonel John Glover. Glover’s New England fisherman ferried Washington and his army together with his artillery, supplies and horses, across the ice-choked river in a howling nor’easter, an act of incredible difficulty and supreme courage that resulted in the relatively small but essential victory that was shown to have been the first step in turning the tide of the then failing American Revolution! Of course, this was not the first time that Glover and his sailors had saved both the Continental Army and the Revolution! He and his men carried out the evacuation of Washington’s nine thousand plus soldiers as well as artillery and horses from Brooklyn Heights to Manhattan across the East River during the battle of Long Island, a miracle later followed by his successful efforts during the escape of what remained of that army from British forces led by General Cornwallis as they were pursued across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania! But this movie kindled in myself an interest not in Glover, but in Washington, a man often portrayed as marble-like and a somewhat dull figurehead even if he did carry a sword and ride a magnificent horse. But I will testify that my initial studies clearly demonstrate how very wrong is that assessment, for even in such a brief time, I have now come to know Washington as a truly remarkable – indeed, indispensable – man without whom we, as a nation, would never have come into being! He was indeed, a Virginia hero! As well as having obtained dozens of (mostly used) books on Washington and his era, I have also acquired on-line articles and relevant videos and watched a host of You Tube presentations including two full TV productions and a FOX history series narrated by Kelsey Grammar. I mention all of this to validate my claim of having discovered a profound issue that continually appears in the majority of these extremely varied forms of information – or at least the more modern ones. Worse, the matter is exceptionally negative with reference not only to Washington but to the rest of the Founders – as well as being ubiquitous; that is, it is found in almost all the available information I have encountered save for the very old tomes. Now such a strong negative issue this prevalent in any study must influence those seeking knowledge on that subject. How could it not? Thus, the consequences arising from the proclaimed importance of this matter cannot be discounted when considering its effect upon today’s view of Washington and his era including the founding of the United States of America. The issue so apparently crucial today to any understanding of history is, of course, slavery, a matter we’re told is of paramount importance in any judgment made about that history. Thus, the issue must be “properly” understood and that understanding admitted to before any historical evaluation will be accepted by today’s “scholars!” For black slavery is the unforgivable sin of the new millennium. The fact that most people have little to no knowledge or understanding of the complexities of the issue and must depend upon the narrative presented by often biased ideologues means nothing! All that is required – nay, demanded! – is that the individual being morally crucified as a consequence of participating in this “unforgivable sin” must be white! That many blacks also owned slaves is without interest to the inquisitors. In fact, that the entire slave “industry” arose in Africa and was run by Africans never seems to influence the discussion! Finally, that black slavery continues to exist has no bearing whatsoever on the condemnation of those whites who owned slaves in our nation’s past – and especially those “Founding Fathers” who, year by year, continue to slip lower in the esteem of Americans who have so greatly benefited from their lives. It would seem one of our greatest sins as a people is our total lack of knowledge about or gratitude to those whose sacrifices gave to us what we otherwise would never have received! As to Washington in particular, virtually every book and article about the man if not limited to some individual battle of the war or particular political action – and sometimes not even then – involves speculations about his role as a slave owner. In one article it was charged that he was “more cruel than any other slave owning Founder,” a charge later refuted in a report that having discovered one of his slaves deathly ill, Washington had the man moved to Mount Vernon by carriage and cared for by his own physician in a spare bedroom of his home! Such an act validates claims about Washington’s concern for “his people,” and should put to rest any charges of mistreatment. He did, however, dispose of a particularly obnoxious and unreliable slave by selling the man to the Indies with warnings to any who purchased him regarding his unacceptable behavior. And he did seek to recover several slaves including one favorite belonging to his wife who had run off. But that was the existing system of the day and Washington, though he grew to hate slavery as an institution, was a part of that system by accident of birth, not choice. Therefore, to expect the man to have behaved as would a WOKE partisan of the 21st Century is unrealistic, unreasonable and altogether unjust. Indeed, Washington alone among all the slave owning Founders – including Thomas Jefferson who had openly denounced the institution – emancipated his slaves at the time of his death, although the matter could not be completed until the death of his wife some two years later for not all the slaves at Mount Vernon belonged to him personally and both “groups” had by that time intermarried and could not therefore be separated as Washington refused to break up families! But he didn’t just “emancipate” those who had come to depend upon Mount Vernon for their lives. He made arrangements for the lifetime care of the ill and the elderly and the instruction of the young so that “his people” would not simply be abandoned to a “freedom” that might result in their suffering. And, again, with regard to “his people:” several of the literally hundreds of books about the man either directly address his involvement with slavery as an institution or with one or more of his slaves. Such matters include a claim that he fathered a child by a slave though research into that claim indicates that the individual named as his son was not credible given the circumstances involved. And, of course, this does not address the well-known fact that Washington was unable to father a child probably as the result of a bout of smallpox when he was an adolescent. Given the continuing interest in (and condemnation of) Thomas Jefferson for his “relationship” with the slave Sally Hemings, the fact that there is no strong interest in continuing to clothe Washington in that particular hairshirt, should lead us to consider invalid all attempts to put George into the bed of a female slave with or without issue. Of course, with this tasty moral morsel no longer available, the writers return to the fact that Washington owned and used slaves as if, in that day and age, the matter itself was condemnatory upon its face. As well, it is equally unreasonable to believe that Washington, who chose what kind of man he wanted to be when he was still very young – something of which there is overwhelming proof! – and worked assiduously and successfully toward that end, was promiscuous with women of any race. But what is most obvious is that as Washington became even before the end of his life a truly mythic figure – not only in America but in the world at large – any hint of scandalous, inappropriate or promiscuous behavior would have been passed down to us today along with all the needful proofs of those claims! That his reputation remains spotless in a world addicted to scandal should be sufficient proof that no such scandal exists else it would have been trumpeted from the house tops! Now, it is fair to say that physically, George Washington was, in the modern vernacular, a “stud” – though it is difficult for modern Americans to envision him in that light. And it was certainly well known at the time that he was both attractive to and attracted by the ladies, in proof of which he bore the nickname “the Stallion of the Potomac!” But despite his physical and social allure and the apparent universal favor he found with the fair sex – including Abigail Adams! – his relationships were morally and socially proper at all times! Though George enjoyed dancing, parties, good food, strong drink, card playing, the theatre and other such worldly diversions that frequently formed the foundation of a dissolute life, he did not live that way. Yes, he did “have an eye” for the ladies and openly appreciated their many gifts including their worship! And again, as I have not yet had the opportunity to read the books about Washington that deal directly with the issue of slavery I do not know if or how deeply they go into claims that he bedded any female slave or, if indeed, the matter is even raised. However, in keeping with the thrust of this article it is enough to know that the authors involved believed this issue of sufficient importance despite Washington’s accomplishments and sacrifices to bring it before the public for judgment. That in and of itself indicates the direction in which these opinions trend – and it isn’t favorable to Washington. And again, with regard to the thrust of this article, that is, the use of the issue of slavery in any judgments being made of our ancestors including the Founding Fathers, there were a good many things done in Washington’s day that we do not do today. There were penalties for breaking the law that included hanging for many different and often seemingly lesser offenses and for those legally defined as lesser infractions there was the public exercise of corporal punishment including the stocks, branding, ear and nose cropping and flogging, the latter being especially prevalent in the military. That’s how it was done and any judgments must be made in relationship to the standards of the time rather than by those of today. Washington, a firm believer in discipline in the army was not averse to the lash. He was obviously not a cruel man, but he did not believe in sparing the rod when the rod was essential to the safety of his soldiers as well as ultimate victory. But, in fact, the whole point in rejecting the slavery issue as it is presently presented is that the behavior of men like Washington is being framed against the backdrop of present moral and legal standards and not against the standards – moral or legal! – of the time of the person being so judged! This deprives the individual involved of the protection afforded to him under the law during that period in which he lived and as a result he lacks any competent means of defense! In any era, that would be seen as unjust! Therefore, if because of slavery we are going to diminish or even abandon our appreciation of George Washington, and perhaps even condemn him, by so doing we prove our lack of understanding of and appreciation for what the man was willing to risk to save the American dream of liberty! For one cannot understand the risks of the game if one neither knows nor understands the consequences of losing that game! Of course, the greatest risk is death but there are different kinds of death – and that matters! Washington’s fate, had he been captured alive by the British (an effort that was ongoing throughout the war!) would have found him being taken to London and convicted of the crime of high treason. The penalty for that greatest of crimes has been considered the worst and most cruel form of execution ever performed by any nation; that is, to be “hanged, drawn and quartered,” a penalty that remained on the books in Britain until the 1870s! This was the fate suffered by Scottish hero Sir William Wallace after he was betrayed to King Edward by his own people! George Washington knew this would be his fate and yet he willingly embraced that possibility when he accepted the commission given to him by the Continental Congress to wage a war that was not only exceptionally onerous, but – according to most of the “experts” of the day – impossible for him to win! And this is not speculation! The matter is recognized to this day! Both the FOX history series and at least one internet presentation clearly declares that to be Washington’s fate had matters ended differently. Indeed, in one You Tube video addressing the treason of Benedict Arnold, the historian-narrator pointed out – and with some emotion! – that, had the British won, “ . . . Arnold would have been Duke Arnold and Washington would have been hanged, drawn and quartered.” This is not a small matter, especially when considering any overall judgment of a man and his actions! Everything must be weighed together; that is, a great and deliberate sacrifice against actions that were nothing more than the ordinary behavior of the times! These are not equable in value much less the ordinary being considered of more importance than the extraordinary! Thus, to suggest that George Washington’s actions become somehow less noble and his life less worthy because he owned slaves in an era of slavery is not simply unjust but strongly testifies to a different motive behind this condemnation! For those making such “judgements” do not address or even acknowledge the fact that blacks not whites created that particular institution of slavery and that blacks could be born and/or become free in the colonies in Washington’s time – in other words, not all blacks were slaves! – and neither do they bother to point out that the first black legally owned as a slave for life* in those same colonies had as his master a black former slave named Anthony Johnson! Therefore, “the slavery blame game” used against the Founders in general and George Washington in particular is more than just inaccurate, it is demonstrably unjust, and I think clearly indicates an effort to destroy the reputations of our Founding Fathers and by so doing, the history of our nation – a matter far more sinister than most Americans realize. No, this particular “Virginia hero” has no apologies to make for his life on this earth and those who condemn him for matters beyond his control are to be themselves condemned by all good and reasonable men. (*The slave sued Johnson in court saying that he was enslaved for a definite but limited period. The judge’s ruling found otherwise, thus making of him the first black chattel slave for life as determined by a colonial court.)

This country has been savaged by the lies of those who believe that they should rule us. These lies cover every part of our culture from politics to medicine to religion to life itself. We are inundated by lies and people who tell lies without fear or favor. But this is nothing new. Below is a series of communications between myself and an internet site regarding a matter posted on that site involving the misnamed "Civil War." You will see here ~ injustice one historical instance ~ how lies are the foundation of what was, what is and probably what will be, that is if they are not acknowledged and corrected: The fictitious “history” of the great conflict between the two sections of the (formerly) “united” States (a/k/a the “Civil War”) has been ongoing for a long, long time. The present narrative, however, has been changed greatly since the end of the last century. Older folks such as myself remember that the whole conflict was “summed up” in what became known as The Grand Bargain, a narrative that was “accepted” beginning in the late 19th and sustained through the middle of the 20th century until the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s. The Grand Bargain was an attempt at a reconciliation between the combatants that was to be brought about through an understanding that the South fought bravely and nobly and her heroes were great “Americans” but that, in the end, it was better for all concerned that the “Union” (the government) won and that we went on to become a “great world power” etc. etc. At least that is certainly what I believed almost into the 21st Century. But as I became more interested in – and knowledgeable about – Confederate hero and partisan Col. John Singleton Mosby, I began to research into his life and the matters that surrounded his service to the South. In this research I discovered a great many “facts” that had been deliberately hidden from the public because they contradicted the narrative produced by The Grand Bargain. And, of course, the more I learned, the more I wanted to know until I could no longer pretend that what had been presented as “history” was not only false, but a deliberate lie! And that, indeed, the cost to the people of the South in accepting the Grand Bargain was far more than the cost to the people of the North! Of course, the Grand Bargain ended with the rise of the Civil Rights movement because it became necessary at that point to make the people of the South into heartless villains in defense of the goals and aims of that movement. As the new Millennia approached, it soon became obvious to Southern historians – or rather, honest historians – that very soon what little defense offered to the South under the Grand Bargain was to be completely nullified and the mindset demanded of most Americans would once again make of the South the worst of traitors and evil slaveholders. Of course, as efforts to inflict this evil fiction upon the people grew, I did my best to respond to it when possible. One such instance presented itself in the review of a book put out by a group called H-NET in May of 2008. The book being reviewed was entitled: Diehard Rebels: The Confederate Culture of Invincibility, written by Jason Phillips and the review was by Susannah Ural Bruce of the Department of History, Sam Houston State University, hardly a “Yankee” institution! In her review, Ms. Bruce made the following statement under the heading: Why They Fought On: New Interpretations of Confederate Soldier Ideology. In chapter 2, Phillips contends that the Confederate dehumanization of federal forces and Northerners in general also sustained their fighting spirit. While this tool is not unique to Southern soldiers, Phillips still proves its effectiveness for Confederate troops, and argues that their images of the enemy may have been more extravagant than most. After reading the review, I determined to respond to the reviewer’s belief that the soldiers of the “Union army” had been unfairly “dehumanized” according to the book’s author: “The author's point about Confederates ‘dehumanizing’ Union soldiers and the North is hardly difficult to understand. Almost from the beginning, Union armies stole whatever wasn't nailed down including personal effects from civilians as well as what might be considered (in the broadest of senses) materials necessary to wage war. And this propensity for thieving grew worse and finally became "total war" that included the burning, violence and killing of Southern civilians - male and female, young and old, black and white (Sheridan and Hunter in the Shenandoah, Sherman wherever he went) and a studied mistreatment of Confederate prisoners in such hell-holes as Ft. Douglas and Elmira ("Hell"mira) - see among other works, Dr. Brian Cisco's "War Crimes Against Southern Civilians." These atrocities are well documented, but hardly well reported. Indeed, the only prison camp known by the public is Andersonville in the South where even the inmates admitted that the commander, Henry Wirtz, made efforts to alleviate suffering but was unable to make much headway because of the shortages of food, clothing and medicine suffered by the South. As well, Ulysses Grant's declaration of an end to prisoner exchange condemned Union soldiers held in camps and prisons to remain there despite the desire by the South to exchange them. On the other hand, no such "shortages" accounted for the atrocious death rate in Elmira where the commander boasted that he had killed as many Confederate soldiers as most Union generals! No, I would say the ‘dehumanization’ of the North by the South was well and truly earned and is STILL a well-guarded "secret" by ‘orthodox historians.’” Now, I must speak well of the H-NET responder. Ordinarily – especially these days – such things are ignored by the establishment. The gentleman involved here responded and very quickly to my comment and for that I commend him. There is no sin in ignorance unless one chooses to remain in it. Below is his comment to me: Dear Ms. Protopapas; Given that the American Civil War still arouses strong feeling, I am going to have to ask that you try to "de-fang" the tone of your post a bit as well provide some citation for allegations of widespread Union atrocities; this should allow the ensuing discussion to stay scholarly in nature. All the best, Scott N. Hendrix, Ph.D. H-War List Editor Now, though I was appreciative of his response – better than nothing, I agree! – still I did not consider my comment to be other than “scholarly in nature” and responded accordingly: “Defang? Since when do truth and facts have ‘fangs?’ “Perhaps you mean that as most people have never heard about these atrocities – or at least heard of them as atrocities rather than simply (as at least one Union apologist has called them) ‘the hard hand of war,’ that I should present these facts (yes, facts) as ‘blandly’ as possible so as not to ‘offend’ the sensibilities of those who have been raised on ‘orthodox history.’ (And, by the way, I did cite Dr. Cisco's book on atrocities committed against Southern civilians which is a scholarly work well researched and sourced.) “The problem is, so many people don't want to hear about this. When Lincoln or Sheridan or Sherman are quoted, the actual words of these men are censored or criticized or disbelieved or excused or explained or dismissed out of hand as if they are being misquoted. If that is going to be the attitude, how is it possible to have a ‘scholarly discussion?’ For instance, I'm sure there are those who will dismiss Dr. Cisco's book immediately because he doesn't fall into the accepted group of ‘historical scholars’ whatever his credentials. It doesn't matter how much research or proof Dr. Cisco has produced, the problem is that his conclusion is neither satisfactory nor desired and it is therefore rejected. That is not ‘scholarship;’ that is censorship. “The author who has been critiqued has made a point that Confederates ‘dehumanized’ Union soldiers and the people of the North and I would assume that that is a statement which is meant to be taken as that ‘dehumanization’ was fallacious, mendacious and wicked. I simply pointed out that the behavior of the Union army under men like Hunter (a Virginian), Sheridan and Sherman (a true genocide), provided all the evidence that any reasonable person would need that their viewpoint about the Union and the army it sent against them was quite correct. The South didn't dehumanize the North, the North acted in such a way that even the governments of Europe called them beasts and lamented that the United States had turned its back on all attempts to wage ‘humane war.’ Indeed, when Hitler's generals were asked where they learned their scorched earth strategy, they proudly pointed to William T. Sherman! I cannot give you chapter and verse in all of this because with other projects, I have not taken the time to list every source. However, below I present some of the words of at least Sherman and perhaps others if I can find them. I don't ask that you post them, I merely present them to you as what should be sufficient evidence that my point is well taken. Indeed, I would say unequivocally that it would be about as easy to ‘defang’ reports of fascist and communist atrocities as it would be those committed in the name of restoring the Union and freeing the slaves! I know that my point of view will not be accepted because it doesn't fit the accepted version of what passes for ‘history’ - that is, history written by the winner. And, of course, if you believe that the other members will be unable to come to grips with a dissenting opinion, feel free not to post it. I know from past experience just how dismissive, angry and upset supposed ‘scholars’ can be when their nice, settled little world is challenged! Thank you for your courteous attention.” Below are the list of “Quotes and Facts” I presented to Mr. Hendrix for his own edification and, I had hoped, the edification of anyone else interested in what happened rather than what we are told happened along with the source(s) of the information: Sherman's Locust Strategy This excerpt from the German-language magazine "Signal" from WW2 illustrates a concern that American "Yankee" troops in Europe might imitate the habits of the legendary war criminal Sherman. It is ironic though that the German Midwesterners of Sherman's locusts were reportedly responsible for the worst of his pacification techniques. Nonetheless, Europeans viewed Sherman and his war crimes with horror though Spain sent General Valeriano Weyler to Cuba in 1896 to brutally subdue the native freedom fighters – Weyler as a young officer had been military attache' at the US Spanish legation during the War Between the States and served as an observer during Sherman's march through Georgia, absorbing his tactics and the bummers daily routines. He knew quite well how to apply the same "war is hell" antidote to the Cuban independence movement. "I begin to regard the death and mangling of a couple of thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash. (Hitler's Wartime Picture Magazine, S.L. Mayer, "Our method of warfare is different from that in Europe. We are not fighting against enemy armies but against an enemy people; both young and old, rich and poor must feel the iron hand of war in the same way as the organized armies. In this respect my march through Georgia was a wonderful success." General Sherman to General Grant, End of January, 1865. Both the date and the author of this letter must appear extraordinary to every European. How could an American general write such a monstrous thing just at that particular time? The most noble minds and hearts in Europe were then making every effort to humanize warfare as far as possible. On the other hand, a 45-year old man in Ohio, America, the son of a lawyer of Puritan descent, General William Tecumseh Sherman had invented a new warfare that was directed against the enemy people, against the civilian population. Sherman was the inventor of locust strategy. His doctrine was: Where I have been the war has ceased because all forms of life no longer exist. It involves nothing more than the suppression of humane warfare. The cruelties of the Marquis de Sade and the atrocities perpetrated by Jack the Ripper have never led to mass suggestion. Sherman's strategy however, has been acclaimed as classical. After carrying out his acts of cruelty as a general, Sherman was appointed commander in chief of the (army of the) United States of America. His method has become the ideal. It first infected the Anglo-Saxon world; the great von Moltke ominously predicted at the end of the century that in future wars armies would not fight against one another but peoples. Sherman's strategy is the art of war employed by the unsuccessful. It is necessary to bear this in mind when considering Sherman's methods. He was unsuccessful but by no means untalented. It was his fate always to fight against enemies better than himself. He never won a success against an enemy of equal strength. We are discussing what is known as the War of Secession. "Secession" was what the ancient Romans used to call the effort to achieve independence. Superficially, this was being fought on the question of the abolition of slavery. Temperament and religious fanaticism converted it into one of the bloodiest massacres in history. In his book "Der Krieg ohne Gnade" (War Without Quarter), the Swiss historian Bircher says that force of arms alone could not decide the war. It was not until Sherman employed his locust strategy that the Northern States won the victory. Sherman said it was foolish to continue the war in the manner of a usual campaign as had been the case so far. The way the war was being fought meant that you were continually dependent on the enemy. Whether you advanced or retreated, you always had to reckon with the enemy. The war could only be brought to a close by surprise operations, and such surprise operations could only be carried out if the enemy was prevented from sticking at your heels. Sherman said it was his intention to disappear without the enemy being in a position to follow him. It was necessary for him to destroy his supply base. "I will sow economic ruin throughout the country so that no soldier coming after me will find anything to eat." (Sheridan voiced that same strategy during the burning of the Shenandoah in 1864 when he said that any crow flying over the desolated area would have to carry his own food! vp) Sherman consequently wrote to Grant as follows: "Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to defend it, but the complete destruction of its roads, its buildings, its population and its military resources is essential. The attempt to defend its roads costs us a thousand men every month and brings us no advantages. I can carry out the march and make Georgia howl." The truth is that Sherman wished to act on the offensive but not against the enemy's army. He wished to make the land of Georgia howl, not the army of Georgia of which he was afraid. He was planning a bold crime and covertly (in a letter to Grant) indicated his intention in the words "This operation is not purely military and strategic." He had become a violent criminal who wished to confer victory on his country's politics whatever it cost the enemy. He had converted war from being an act of violence against an enemy army to an act of violence against an enemy people. He went even further and made it an act of total violence. Even violence has limits imposed on it by morality. When he reappeared, Savannah fell and the world regarded this as a sign of Sherman's bravery and of his military genius. During the time he spent in Georgia, Sherman enriched the history of tactics by only one feature, but that alone should have sufficed to exclude him from the company of gentlemen. He had prisoners of war put on carts which had to drive along in front of his own troops. If they were blown up, Sherman knew that a minefield lay ahead. He answered all protests against his cruel treatment of defenseless people with the icy coldness characteristic of all his writings." Sherman, as general-in-chief of the army, had much to do with post-war Indian campaigns. This is covered in Michael Fellman's book, CITIZEN SHERMAN (Random House, 1995). Sherman wrote in 1866, "It is one of those irreconcilable conflicts that will end only in one way, one or the other must be exterminated ..." And again, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to the extermination, men, women and children." [p. 264] Sherman became Sheridan's superior, and biographer Fellman has this to say [p. 271]: "Although Sherman had not ordered an extermination campaign in so many words, he had given Sheridan prior authorization to slaughter as many women and children as well as men Sheridan or his subordinates felt was necessary when they attacked Indian villages. However many they killed, Sherman would cover the political and media front. They were freed to do anything. At the same time, Sherman maintained personal deniability – he could assert in any public forum that he had not ordered any atrocities that might occur." “To the petulant and persistent secessionists, why death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. Satan and the rebellious saints of Heaven were allowed a continuous existence in hell merely to swell their punishment. To such as would rebel against a Government so mild and just as ours was in peace, a punishment equal would not be unjustified.” Gen. William T. Sherman Prof. Harry Stout of Yale University Divinity School recently acknowledged, "Sherman's religion was America, and America's God was a jealous God of law and order, such as all those who resisted were reprobates who deserved death." Below are the first two paragraphs of a letter written by Gen. Sherman to Major Sawyer dated January 31, 1864, in which Sherman writes from Vicksburg to the AAG Army of the Tenn., Huntsville, Alabama. Major Sawyer was with Sherman until the close of the war, by which time he has the rank of Colonel. Dear Sawyer, In my former letters I have answered all your questions save one, and that relates to the treatment of inhabitants known or suspected to be hostile or "Secesh." This is in truth the most difficult business of our Army as it advances & occupies the Southern Country. It is almost impossible to lay down Rules and I invariably leave this whole subject to the local commander, but am willing to give them the benefit of my acquired knowledge and experience. In Europe whence we derive our principles of war Wars are between Kings or Rulers through hired Armies and not between Peoples. These remain as it were neutral and sell their produce to whatever Army is in possession. Napoleon when at War with Prussia, Austria and Russia bought forage & provisions of the Inhabitants and consequently had an interest to protect the farms and factories which ministered to his wants. In lake manner the Allied Armies in France could buy of the French Habitants, whatever they needed, the produce of the soil or manufactures of the Country. Therefore the General Rule was & is that War is confined to the Armies engaged, and should not visit the houses of families or private interests. But in other examples a different Rule obtained the Sanction of Historical Authority. I will only instance one when in the reign of William and Mary the English Army occupied Ireland then in a state of revolt. The inhabitants were actually driven into foreign lands and were dispossessed of their property and a new population introduced. To this day a large part of the North of Ireland is held by the descendants of the Scotch emigrants sent thereby by Williams order & an Act of Parliament. The War which now prevails in our land is essentially a war of Races. The Southern People entered into a clear Compact of Government with us of the North, but still maintained through State organizations a species of separate existence with separate interests, history and prejudices. These latter became stronger and stronger till at last they have led to war, and have developed the fruits of the bitterest kind. We of the North are beyond all question right in our cause but we are not bound to ignore the fact that the people of the South have prejudices which form a part of their nature, and which they cannon throw off without an effort of reason, or by the slower process of natural change. The question then arises Should we treat as absolute enemies all in the South who differ from us in opinion or prejudice, kill or banish them, or should we give them time to think and gradually change their conduct, so as to conform to the new order of things which is slowly & gradually creeping into their country? "Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources….I can make the march, and make Georgia howl." "I have deemed it to the interest of the United States that the citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove, those who prefer it to go South and the rest North.” "The Government of the United States has in North Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war – to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything, because they cannot deny that war does exist there, and war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact." Enemies must be killed or transported to some other country. "The United States has the right, and ... the ... power, to penetrate to every part of the national domain…. We will remove and destroy every obstacle - if need be, take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper." Writing to his wife in 1862, Sherman said, "We are in our enemy's country, and I act accordingly...the war will soon assume a turn to extermination not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people." On August 4, 1863, W. T. Sherman in Camp on Big Black River, Mississippi, wrote to Grant at Vicksburg, "The amount of burning, stealing and plundering done by our army makes me ashamed of it. I would rather quit the service if I could, because I fear that we are drifting to the worst sort of vandalism....You and I and every commander must go through the war, justly charged with crimes at which we blush." Federal Official Records ( O.R.) vol. XXIV, pt. III 574 "In his memoirs Sherman wrote that when he met with Lincoln after his March to the Sea was completed, Lincoln was eager to hear the stories of how thousands of Southern civilians, mostly women, children, and old men, were plundered, sometimes murdered, and rendered homeless. Lincoln, according to Sherman, laughed almost uncontrollably at the stories. Even Sherman biographer Lee Kennett, who writes very favorably of the general, concluded that had the Confederates won the war, they would have been 'justified in stringing up President Lincoln and the entire Union high command for violation of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants.'" ~ Dr. Thomas J. DiLorenzo Sadly, I never heard back from Mr. Hendrix nor do I know if any of the above information was made available to the H-NET viewers. It is too bad if it was not because a great deal of what far too many people believe today was proved false within it. Again, it is no crime to be ignorant, but it is criminal to choose to remain so.

Reconcile: verb – 1st definition: restore friendly relations between; cause to coexist in harmony. Reconciliation: noun –1st definition: the restoration of friendly relations. For years, many beautiful Confederate monuments and sculptures have come under attack and been dismantled and possibly even destroyed. The one most recently in the WOKE culture’s cross-hairs was a monument erected in our “national cemetery” – otherwise known as the purloined property of General Robert Edward Lee – Arlington, in Virginia. That monument was known by the title Reconciliation and was, while it existed, found within the Jackson Circle in the cemetery. A booklet on the matter was published in 1914 by the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Arlington Confederate Monument Association under the auspices of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The opening statement of the work’s preface made clear what message the monument was intended to convey: When one considers what it is and what it stands for, there is no object in or near Washington City better worth a visit and a careful study than the Confederate Monument in the National Cemetery at Arlington. . . In its origin and in itself this memorial is entirely without a parallel in history. Its story has been here carefully told, and every effort has been made in the narrative to do justice to all the organizations that have co-operated patriotically in the production of the monument. For its full significance the writer relies much on the carefully prepared address of President Taft, welcoming the U. D. C. in 1912 to the National Capital . . . and that of President Wilson . . . It is interesting to note that President Taft, who welcomed the U.D.C. in 1912 to the “National Capital” and President Wilson who later responded to the presentation of the memorial in 1914 were members of the two political parties, Taft, a Republican and Wilson, a Democrat. Later in the booklet, mention is made of the feelings that brought about the monument’s creation under the heading “Reconciliation in America”: Within a single generation we in America have been able as among ourselves, “To reap the harvest of perpetual peace,” by this our bloody trial of sharp war. After our war, passion and prejudice also, but only for a time, ran riot. In 1867 the seceding States were subjected to the horrors of Congressional Reconstruction, but in a few years American manhood had triumphed; Anglo-Saxon civilization had been saved; local self-government under the Constitution had been restored; ex-Confederates were serving the National Government, and (were) true patriots. North and South, were addressing themselves to the noble task of restoring fraternal feeling between the sections. Within a generation after Congressional Reconstruction, American historians condemned it, as unqualifiedly as Carlyle, after a lapse of 175 years, did the treatment of Cromwell's memory. James Ford Rhodes has denominated Congressional Reconstruction as “a crime against civilization,” and public opinion seems to have approved the verdict. *Many causes had conduced to (help bring about) the fraternal relations that existed between the North and South when the war came on with Spain in 1898 — the exchange of visits between Union and Confederate organizations, the erection in 1895 of a Confederate monument in Chicago, the writings and speeches of broad-minded historians, editors, orators and statesmen, but more fundamental than all else had been two factors: One, the memory of the once much misunderstood Abraham Lincoln and his policies; the other, the Federal Constitution. These paragraphs are a reference to what became known as the “Grand Bargain,” an unwritten policy created in an effort to end the ongoing hostility between the sections that came into being during this period and remained pretty much intact until the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. This quasi-official but unstated narrative meant that the North agreed that the South had fought valiantly – if wrongly! – and that their heroes, symbols, monuments etc. were worthy of respect and even veneration. Meanwhile, the South was expected to glorify the war waged by the North as lawful and worthy of respect and that the defeat of the Confederacy was, in the end, the best possible outcome. As noted, this “bargain” ceased to exist with the rise of the Civil Rights movement while many historians who understood what actually did happen during the conflict and in both the ante- and post-bellum periods acknowledged that the South did all the “compromising” given what had actually taken place. The booklet claimed that the people of the South, having seen “the restoration of home-rule” were “flocking to defend the flag of the Union in the war with Spain.” There was then a great deal more regarding the claim that Southerners were once again Americans and therefore, “(T)he enthusiasm of the South for the flag in the war with Spain electrified the North when that war was over,” going on to claim: President McKinley, who had himself been a gallant Union soldier, made a speech at Atlanta, December 21, 1898, that touched the heart of the South as it never had been touched before. In it he said: “Sectional lines no longer mar the map of the United States, sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we bear each other. Fraternity is the National anthem, sung by a chorus of 45 States and our Territories at home and beyond the seas. The Union is once more the common altar of our love and loyalty, our devotion and sacrifice. The old flag once again waves over us in peace with new glories which your sons and ours have this year added to its “sacred folds. . . And the time has now come, in the evolution of public sentiment and feeling under the Providence of God, when in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of Confederate soldiers.” This thought was like a seed sown in rich, warm soil; it took root at once; then came the plant and its growth, and now we have, in this monument, the full flower, already fruiting into a generous harvest of fraternal feeling. On the same trip South at Macon, Georgia, an enthusiastic Southerner insisted on pinning a Confederate badge on the lapel of Mr. McKinley's coat. The President smilingly wore it. This booklet is a very interesting – if dated! – look at the mood of the country that brought about the monument that has now been removed and indeed, there can be no doubt that the destruction of a monument based upon the very concept of “reconciliation” will go very far indeed to damage and/or destroy the concept itself. It would seem that America is “back peddling” not just to the time of Reconstruction – and a worse word cannot be considered for the evils visited upon helpless Southern men, women and children by their “Northern brethren” – but to the period that led to that sanguine struggle in the first place! The first Confederate Memorial Day ceremonies were held in Arlington’s “Confederate section” on June 7th, 1903. Then President Theodore Roosevelt sent a floral arrangement establishing a tradition that was continued by every United States President until 2009 when President Barak Obama sent one arrangement to the Confederate Memorial and another to Washington D.C.’s African-American Civil War Memorial honoring United States black troops that fought in that war on the side of the Union. Though no one could claim that action as inappropriate, it did sound a warning that indicated that matters would not continue as they had from the time of the erection of the reconciliation monument including the continuation of the feelings that brought it into existence in the first place. The monument was unveiled in 1914 having been designed by noted American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. It was noted not only for its beauty but for the honor paid to the men who fought and died for the same freedoms for which their ancestors had fought and died in the Revolutionary War, almost a century earlier. But just as the time between the Revolution and the War of Secession – a more accurate definition of the most sanguine of America’s many wars! – changed many things in the entity that had become known as the “United” (capital “U”) States of America, even greater changes have taken place between 1914 and 2023. Indeed, so great are the changes that have occurred during that time, it is probable that the people who attended the monument’s dedication would not recognize – or understand! – what exists today. The question that must be asked, therefore, is what does exist today? An adjunct of that question must also be, what did exist in the past? What was cancelled or “forgotten” by the Grand Bargain that has returned to bring about what we now can understand as the cultural genocide not just of the history of the South, but of the history of the nation itself and what do we need to do to change or overcome the direction in which we are going as a culture and a nation – if indeed, that is even possible. And, finally, the most important question is this: do we want “reconciliation” on the basis of the narrative that produced it in the first place? So, let us take a hard look at what our nation’s above noted “reconciliation” was based upon; that is, what was the meaning of the Grand Bargain as noted earlier and the price paid by those who embraced it. In the end, it is fairly simple: the North acknowledged the heroism and worthiness of the South in its valiant (if misguided!) efforts at independence, an acknowledgement that permitted the symbols, heroes and history of that section to be viewed with acceptance and even reverence. Hence there could be Confederate flags and monuments and heroes and celebrations that could not be viewed as any kind of an “attack on” or “criticism of” the “restored Union.” For the South, there must be acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the war itself along with the noble behavior of the forces of the Union in carrying out that war together with the consignment of everything that happened before, during and after the conflict to oblivion – with the exception of the acknowledgement that the outcome had been “the best for all concerned.” Seems simple enough under the circumstances – simple, but oh, so very wrong! Why wrong? Because what the North acknowledged was only the truth – with the exception of the belief that the South did not have the constitutional right to leave the Union – while that which the South had to acknowledge was pure fiction from beginning to end! Let us look at what the South had to accept as truth in order to maintain the Grand Bargain: 1. That the section had no right to leave the Union and in doing so, instituted a “rebellion” against the legitimate government of the United States. Of course, this is nonsense. The constitutional legality of any state to leave the Union had been known, understood and accepted from the time of the ratification of that document. New England had exercised that right during the War of 1812 in the Hartford Convention at which time, those states voted to remain in the Union with the end of that war shortly after the Convention. But vote they did without threat of invasion from the federal government. As the disputes between the Sections became more intense as new territories and States were added to the original thirteen, efforts had been made to forbid secession in the Congress. Later, Justice John Marshall noted that efforts to circumscribe and/or end any power, clearly testified to the existence of that power; in other words, there is no need to prevent or end that which does not exist! 2. Many of the causes that brought the Cotton States to the point of secession were economic in nature as is the case in almost all wars. But in the end, these proved not to be the true cause of the breakup of the Union, a point that will be addressed later. As for the economic matters, more use was made of the emotional issue of black slavery – though that institution remained in the North! – than the infinitely more important matter of the need by the rest of the “Union” for the money arising from the production of the commodities of cotton, tobacco, resin, rice and sugar from the States of the South, an income that accounted for between 70 and 80% of the federal revenues. The contemplation of not only the loss of those revenues, but the further loss that would accompany a new nation’s presence on the North American continent – a nation with a 15% tariff compared to the 45% tariff about to be imposed by the ”United States” – was sufficient to assure that the much larger “nation” would not willingly permit the States of the South to form any newnation. However, as the morality of the issue of the South as an unwilling economic colony for the rest of the country was distinctly in favor of the people of the South, the need to use slavery as a moral indictment of that section became paramount to the point at which its use continues through today and for the same purpose. Of course, in the Grand Bargain, none of these matters were permitted to influence the narrative surrounding what came to be falsely identified as “The Rebellion.” 3. But most important of all was the requirement that the people of the South overlook the type of war waged by the North against them and the military occupation that continued long after that war was over! This was the matter that resulted in the most serious of the deliberate fictions contained in the Grand Bargain. For the war waged by the Federal Union against the South was unique to Western Civilization. Codes or rules of war had been taught in West Point for years before 1861 and these all included a proscription against war on non-combatants; that is, war waged with rules preventing outrages against the innocent victims of such conflicts. Lincoln replaced these codes with his own “code,” the so-called Lieber Code or General Order 100. This code included much of what had been proscribed by the other codes, but it also included a caveat in which “military necessity” permitted atrocities that had heretofore been banned among the armies of the Christian West. Lieber’s Code had in its 157 articles, exceptions frequently nullifying the very rules it promulgated. Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon denounced its duplicity, stating that “ . . . a commander under this code may pursue a line of conduct in accordance with principles of justice, faith, and honor, or he may justify conduct correspondent with the barbarous hordes who overran the Roman Empire . . . " and for all of its pretense of defining civilized conflict, the code openly endorsed the concept of "hard war." According to Lieber, war is defined as a struggle not limited to armies and navies. In Article 21, Lieber states: "The citizen … of a hostile country is thus an enemy . . . and as such is subjected to the hardships of war." And in Article 29, he further states, "The more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity." One has to wonder how Lieber defined both “better” and “humanity.” Finally, the code concludes, "The ultimate object of all modern war is a renewed state of peace." Unfortunately, the “state” of Lieber’s “peace” was often the grave and not just for the combatants. Much of this evil was either severely under reported or excused with the claim that the South had started the war by firing on the federal facility at Fort Sumter. However, Sumter was not being manned by the troops of the federal government at the time and there is a considerable claim that the fort had reverted to South Carolina because of a failure by the federal government to keep to the tenets of the lease! Only Fort Moultrie, a land-locked base used to collect tariffs was used (and manned) by federal forces. However, owing to the ease by which Sumter could be supplied by the federal government from the sea, that facility had been invaded and invested by Major Anderson and his troops on Christmas Eve, 1860 in violation of an agreement between then President Buchanan and the State of South Carolina. So even the excuse for the conflict was a lie and known to be such from the beginning. This was soon revealed to have been a plan by the newly elected Lincoln administration to provide an excuse for a war to prevent the formation of the Confederate States of America. Letters by Lincoln to others involved in the strategy make the matter beyond any claim to the contrary. The horrors committed by federal forces including the intentional murder of Confederate prisoners of war must be considered the greatest of the evils of the war that were silenced by The Grand Bargain. The proof of this ongoing and intentional desecration of what were considered “Christian” standards of behavior were well known at the time. In fact, even during the war, famous federal soldiers openly spoke out on the matter. Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the famous black regiment honored in the film Glory, was commanded by a superior officer to burn Darien, Georgia. Shaw later wrote to his wife: “ . . . for myself, I have gone through the war so far without dishonor, and I do not like to degenerate into a plunderer and robber—and the same applies to every officer in my regiment.” Union hero, Joshua Chamberlain, wrote to his sister on December 14th, 1864, after having burned the homes of women and children near Petersburg, Virginia at Grant’s order: “I am willing to fight men in arms, but not babes in arms.” Union General Don Carlos Buell actually resigned in protest, writing: “I believe that the policy and means with which the war was being prosecuted were discreditable to the nation and a stain on civilization.” Even Northern newspapers commented upon such atrocities. One New York paper, referring to Sherman’s “capture” and deportation of 400 young women with their children from Rosewell, Georgia cried: "...it is hardly conceivable that an officer bearing a United States commission of Major General should have so far forgotten the commonest dictates of decency and humanity . . . as to drive four hundred penniless girls hundreds of miles away from their homes and friends to seek their livelihood amid strange and hostile people. We repeat our earnest hope that further information may redeem the name of General Sherman and our own from this frightful disgrace." (Parenthetically, it did not.) Many of the women reported by the newspaper were raped by their soldier captors during their journey to Marietta after which they and their children were imprisoned, starved, mistreated and then sent North without subsistence. Many were “hired out” as servants to Northern citizens by their captors which doubtless amused those who saw the matter as retribution for black slavery. Of course, these women never owned slaves. Not one of these poor unfortunates ever returned home after the war, a matter that the Grand Bargain chose to ignore. Then there are the crimes committed against Southern prisoners of war. In 1903, Adj. Gen. F. C. Ainsworth estimated that more than 30,000 Union and 26,000 Confederate prisoners died in captivity (that is 12% died in the North and 15.5% died in the South). However, the numbers and the death rate of Confederateprisoners were vastly understated first, because many captives died without their deaths being recorded and secondly, the winners did not wish to admit to the hideous rate with which those at their mercy perished. Indeed, Rhodes admitted that there should have been a much greater disparity — even using his own numbers — in favor of survival for those imprisoned in the North, given the superior conditions existing that included physicians, hospitals, medicines, food, supplies and housing. But the simple fact is this: from the beginning of the War, the federal government intended to “make treason odious” by punishing captured Confederate soldiers as traitors and rebels rather than legitimate prisoners of war. Even the usually chivalrous George McClellan forced Confederate prisoners to clear mine fields after some of his men were killed despite the fact that such usage of prisoners was expressly forbidden by the Lieber Code in paragraph 75. Sherman added his own perverse twist to this practice when he used civilians as well as prisoners for this purpose. Prisoners were routinely tortured, mutilated and killed in, among other places, Jackson, Tennessee and several members of the town’s clergy were arrested and threatened with like treatment until General Nathan Bedford Forrest promised to execute five federal officers in retaliation; knowing that Forrest would be as good as his word, the ministers were released. Isn’t it odd how Forrest has come down to us today as a monster and a villain? Confederate officers were used as human shields in the famous instance of the Immortal 600 and the morality rate from torture, starvation, exposure and disease in Federal prison camps is astonishing to all who have studied the matter. Elmira prison in New York had a 24% death rate, higher than any other prison on either side including the infamous Andersonville. Col. Robert Ould, who had been in charge of exchanges since the beginning of the war, wrote about the situation in Andersonville to his Union counterpart Gen. Mulford. Ould recites the efforts made by the Confederate government to succor the federal prisoners even after prisoner exchange had ended: "My government instructs me to waive all formalities and what it considers some of the equities in this matter of exchange. I need not try to conceal from you that we cannot feed and provide for the prisoners in our hands. We cannot half feed or clothe them. You have closed our ports till we cannot get medical stores for them. You will not send us quinine and other needed medicines, even for their exclusive use. They are suffering greatly and the mortality is excessive. I tell you all this plainly, and still you refuse to exchange. What does your government demand? Name your own conditions and I will show you my authority to accept them. You are silent! Great God!, can it be that your people are monsters? If you will not exchange, I will give you your men for nothing. I will deliver ten thousand Union prisoners at Wilmington any day that you will receive them. I will deliver five thousand here on the same terms. Come and get them. If your government is so damnably dishonest to want them for nothing, you shall have them. You can at least feed them and we cannot. You can give us what you please in return for them." Was there a war crime at Andersonville? Yes! Upon the cessation of exchange, the Confederate government asked for medicine for the exclusive use of the imprisoned federal soldiers and were ignored! The anguish, frustration and bitterness of Ould are voiced in the sentence: “Great God! can it be that your people are monsters?!” The answer to that was, “yes!” Their own men were considered expendable in this campaign of genocide. Edward Wellington Boate was a soldier in the 42nd New York Infantry and a prisoner at Andersonville in 1864. He wrote of his experiences in the New York Times shortly after the war and commented on whom he held responsible for Andersonville’s legacy: "You rulers who make the charge that the rebels intentionally killed off our men, when I can honestly swear they were doing everything in their power to sustain us, do not lay this flattering unction to your souls. You abandoned your brave men in the hour of their cruelest need. They fought for the Union and you reached no hand out to save the old faithful, loyal and devoted servants of the country. You may try to shift the blame from your own shoulders, but posterity will saddle the responsibility where it justly belongs." When the worst of the Andersonville prisoners were returned to the North without exchange, these poor animated skeletons were taken, photographed and used to generate hatred in the North for the evil, wicked, brutal people of the South. Shortly after the photographs were released, the United States Senate passed the following: Preamble to House Resolution #97 ~ The Retaliatory Orders: "Rebel prisoners in our hands are to be subjected to a treatment finding its parallels only in the conduct of savage tribes and resulting in the death of multitudes by the slow but designed process of starvation and by mortal diseases occasioned by insufficient and unhealthy food and wanton exposure of their persons to the inclemency of the weather." . . . passed by both houses, January 1865. Of course, this very policy had been ongoing in most of the federal prisoner of war camps since the beginning of the war. The Andersonville photographs merely gave an excuse for a policy of long standing. And so it goes with virtually every “argument” used to validate the actions by the “Union” government against the States and people of the South. Furthermore, none of these matters – even when they were presented! – addressed the unlawful and unconstitutional mistreatment of the South that had been ongoing for many long years before the first shot was ever fired. But the villainies committed by the federal armies were known well after the war itself both during the time of the Grand Bargain and afterwards as we can see here: This excerpt from the German-language magazine "Signal" from WW2 illustrates a concern that American "Yankee" troops in Europe might imitate the habits of the legendary war criminal Sherman. It is ironic though that the German Midwesterners of Sherman's locusts were reportedly responsible for the worst of his pacification techniques. Nonetheless, Europeans viewed Sherman and his war crimes with horror though Spain sent General Valeriano Weyler to Cuba in 1896 to brutally subdue the native freedom fighters – Weyler as a young officer had been military attaché at the US Spanish legation during the War Between the States and served as an observer during Sherman's march through Georgia, absorbing his tactics and the bummers daily routines. He knew quite well how to apply the same "war is hell" antidote to the Cuban independence movement. Sherman’s own communications with General Grant were both well-known and well proliferated: "Our method of warfare is different from that in Europe. We are not fighting against enemy armies but against an enemy people; both young and old, rich and poor must feel the iron hand of war in the same way as the organized armies. In this respect my march through Georgia was a wonderful success." General Sherman to General Grant, End of January, 1865. And as for Sherman himself, a 45-year old man from Ohio, the son of a lawyer of Puritan descent, he had reinstituted a very old type of warfare directed against the civilian population as had been waged by the Mongols and the Vikings and the Vandals who had slaughtered their way across the world before the rising of Western Civilization with its Christian foundations. Indeed, in the person of Sherman can be seen the spectre of wickedness that eventually embraced not only that general and his armies, but his very cause, a spectre that is coming to full fruition in these perhaps last days of the nation he sought to succor. In the Civil War Sherman practiced “locust strategy.” His doctrine was: Where I have been the war has ceased because all forms of life no longer exist. It is a strategy involving the murder of innocents and the suppression of humane welfare. The cruelties of the Marquis de Sade and the atrocities perpetrated by Jack the Ripper have never led to such mass “strategies.” Sherman's strategy, however, has been acclaimed as classical. After carrying out his acts of cruelty as a general, Sherman was appointed commander in chief of the Army of the United States of America and his method has become the ideal. It first infected the Anglo-Saxon world; the great von Moltke ominously predicted at the end of the century that in future wars armies would not fight against one another but peoples. But Sherman's strategy is the art of war employed by the unsuccessful. And it is necessary to bear this in mind when considering Sherman's methods. He was unsuccessful in any type of acceptable war of the day, but he was by no means untalented. It was his fate always to fight against enemies better than himself. He never won a success against an enemy of equal strength but when he began his mission of civilian destruction, he became wildly successful. Of course, his fight was in what became known as the War of Secession, "secession" being the term the ancient Romans used to call any effort to achieve independence. Superficially, the war was being fought on the question of the abolition of slavery, but temperament and religious fanaticism converted it into one of the bloodiest massacres in history. In his book "Der Krieg ohne Gnade" (War Without Quarter), the Swiss historian Bircher says that force of arms alone could not decide that war. It was not until Sherman employed his locust strategy that the Northern States won the victory. Of course, such strategic military “success” does not end with one war and Sherman, as general-in-chief of the army, had much to do with post-war campaigns against the American Indians. Sherman wrote in 1866, "It is one of those irreconcilable conflicts that will end only in one way, one or the other must be exterminated . . ." And again, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to the extermination of men, women and children." With perfect moral appropriateness, Sherman became Sheridan's superior, and his biographer Michael Fellman wrote: "Although Sherman had not ordered an extermination campaign in so many words, he had given Sheridan prior authorization to slaughter as many women and children as well as men (that) Sheridan or his subordinates felt was necessary when they attacked Indian villages. However many they killed, Sherman would cover the political and media front. They were free to do anything. At the same time, Sherman maintained personal deniability – he could assert in any public forum that he had not ordered any atrocities that might occur." Prof. Harry Stout of Yale University Divinity School recently acknowledged, "Sherman's religion was America, and America's God was a jealous God of law and order, such as all those who resisted were reprobates who deserved death." This can be seen in his following statement: “To the petulant and persistent secessionists, why death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. Satan and the rebellious saints of Heaven were allowed a continuous existence in hell merely to swell their punishment. To such as would rebel against a Government so mild and just as ours was in peace, a punishment equal would not be unjustified.” Below are the first two paragraphs of a letter written by Gen. Sherman to Major Sawyer dated January 31, 1864, in which Sherman writes from Vicksburg to the AAG Army of the Tenn., Huntsville, Alabama. Major Sawyer was with Sherman until the close of the war, by which time he had achieved the rank of Colonel. Now, we must remember that all of General Sherman’s “opinions” and the acts that resulted from them were well known before the Grand Bargain and never refuted or rejected by the Government of the United States! To accept the Grand Bargain is to accept General William Sherman, warts and all: Dear Sawyer, In my former letters I have answered all your questions save one, and that relates to the treatment of inhabitants known or suspected to be hostile or "Secesh." This is in truth the most difficult business of our Army as it advances & occupies the Southern Country. It is almost impossible to lay down Rules and I invariably leave this whole subject to the local commander, but am willing to give them the benefit of my acquired Knowledge and experience. In Europe whence we derive our principles of war Wars are between Kings or Rulers through hired Armies and not between Peoples. These remain as it were neutral and sell their produce to whatever Army is in possession. Napoleon when at War with Prussia, Austria and Russia bought forage & provisions of the Inhabitants and consequently had an interest to protect the farms and factories which ministered to his wants. In lake manner the Allied Armies in France could buy of the French Habitants, whatever they needed, the produce of the soil or manufactures of the Country. Therefore the General Rule was & is that War is confined to the Armies engaged, and should not visit the houses of families or private interests. But in other examples a different Rule obtained the Sanction of Historical Authority. I will only instance one when in the reign of William and Mary the English Army occupied Ireland then in a state of revolt. The inhabitants were actually driven into foreign lands and were dispossessed of their property and a new population introduced. To this day a large part of the North of Ireland is held by the descendants of the Scotch emigrants sent thereby by Williams order & an Act of Parliament. The War which now prevails in our land is essentially a war of Races. The Southern People entered into a clear Compact of Government with us of the North, but still maintained through State organizations a species of separate existence with separate interests, history and prejudices. These latter became stronger and stronger till at last they have led to war, and have developed the fruits of the bitterest kind. We of the North are beyond all question right in our cause but we are not bound to ignore the fact that the people of the South have prejudices which form a part of their nature, and which they cannon throw off without an effort of reason, or by the slower process of natural change. The question then arises Should we treat as absolute enemies all in the South who differ from us in opinion or prejudice, kill or banish them, or should we give them time to think and gradually change their conduct, so as to conform to the new order of things which is slowly & gradually creeping into their country?** "The Government of the United States has in North Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war – to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything, because they cannot deny that war does exist there, and war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact.*" (*Or, it would seem Christian decency and civilized behavior.) Writing to his wife in 1862, Sherman said, "We are in our enemy's country, and I act accordingly . . . the war will soon assume a turn to extermination not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people." And now let us look at the real motive for the so-called Civil War. It certainly wasn’t slavery for the North offered the original 13th – named at the time the Corwin Amendment that placed that institution into the Constitution in perpetuity. If slavery had been the problem, the Cotton States could easily have returned with the knowledge that their “peculiar institution” had eternal protection within that document. Even the tariffs were a symptom of the disease but not the disease itself! In fact, this is the most difficult part of this treatise to write because it clearly supposes two things: first, efforts to save what remains of Confederate heritage is not just bloody impossible, but intrinsically wrong! That is, that any effort to restore the Arlington monument or save any other remaining work glorifying truly heroic men and women from America’s past becomes an acceptance of the reconciliation created by The Grand Bargain and is therefore unworthy of our efforts because it is founded on the lies heretofore revealed. On the other hand, given the situation as it presently exists – a situation that is only going to get worse! – it is not possible that these efforts can or will be crowned with at least permanent success. Indeed, the present situation is merely the final result of what Sherman wrote about years earlier, that is ,“**the new order of things which is slowly & gradually creeping into their country. . .” What Sherman speaks of here is the American Empire that has now pretty much come to pass as all can see. Therefore, what little is left today of what was once good and decent is clearly doomed in a world under the power of its acknowledged Prince, Lucifer. For the “civil war” was first and foremost a religious war! All of the other matters whether slavery or tariffs or sectional disputes and hatreds arose from two very different understandings not only of government, but of God Himself; that is, the "ultimate cause" of the war was two mutually exclusive understandings of human government. The South embraced the view of Aristotle and Locke: that is, that government was a natural outgrowth of communal man's inter-relationship and that being the case, was at its most efficient and least threatening when limited and local. This nation was more or less founded on that principle albeit, there was a need at that time for a functioning federal government to actually allow a nation to exist! The other view of government that came to be embraced as the nation grew in size and power, was that of Thomas Hobbes. Unlike Aristotle and Locke who believed that man was communal and that government was a natural part of his being, Hobbes believed that man was basically a solitary, a creature without ties to any of his kind and that therefore government was imposed upon him rather than being a natural outcome of communal development. Hobbes also believed that man was incapable of self-government and without government imposing the "common good," the result would be anarchy. This worldview mitigates against limited government because government has to be powerful enough to keep this mass of self-interested and amoral individuals in their place and directed (that is, forced) to do what was good for "the masses." Of course, what was good for the masses was also what was good for the government. Hobbes and his followers believed that because civilization was only possible through government coercion, therefore "bigger was better" and that there could be no limits to the power of government imposed by it upon those whom it ruled. Lincoln was a Hobbesian. He fought for "the Union" as a hedge against anarchy, something he greatly feared. Indeed, the entire concept of an "indivisible union" is of Hobbes, not Locke for they believed that when a people's culture became too diverse, the natural progression was for them to break apart and establish governments suited to each culture. This "dissolution" or "secession" when one or more cultural groups removed themselves from an existing union, did not usually end in war. War became the reality when the natural secession that should have occurred under the prevailing circumstances was unnaturally thwarted resulting in behavior that was bound to lead to conflict. But there was even more with regard to these two mutually exclusive mindsets as was reported by author Murray Rothbard in his essay “Just War:” “The North’s driving force, the ‘Yankees’—that ethnocultural group who either lived in New England or migrated from there to upstate New York, northern and eastern Ohio, northern Indiana, and northern Illinois—had been swept by . . . a fanatical and emotional neo-Puritanism driven by a fervent ‘postmillennialism’ which held that as a precondition of the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, man must set up a thousand-year-Kingdom of God on Earth. The Kingdom is to be a perfect society. In order to be perfect, of course, this Kingdom must be free of sin . . . . If you didn’t stamp out sin by force you yourself would not be saved. This is why the Northern war against slavery partook of a fanatical millennialist fervor, of a cheerful willingness to uproot institutions, to commit mayhem and mass murder, to plunder and loot and destroy, all in the name of high moral principle. They were ‘humanitarians with the guillotine, the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks of their era.’” By the middle of the 19th Century, Yankee philosophy had swept through most of the rest of the country with the exception of the South. Thus, as the majority of the States were rushing towards an American future defined by the values of New England, they found themselves continually stymied and frustrated by a people whom they considered profligate, sinful and slothful, that is, Southerners. Every issue that arose within the country found itself determined on the basis of two incompatible religious worldviews. The crux of the matter was eloquently summed up in a sermon by Pastor B. M. Palmer one week before his State (Louisiana) seceded from the Union: "Last of all . . . we defend the cause of God and religion. The abolition spirit . . . erected its throne upon the guillotine in the days of Robespierre . . . Among a people so . . . religious as the American, a disguise must be worn . . . the . . . old threadbare disguise of the advocacy of human rights . . . To the South the high position is assigned of defending . . . the cause of all religion and of all truth. . . We are resisting the power which wars against . . . the family, the State and the Church; . . . and rebukes the Most High for the errors of his administration; . . . if it cannot snatch the reign of empire from His grasp, will lay the universe in ruins at His feet." The atrocities committed against the People of the South, military and civilian, men and women, white and black, slave and free, young and old, well and ill, sound and wounded were on such a vast scale that they cannot be comprehended. There are books on the subject such as Dr. Brian Cisco’s War Crimes Against Southern Civilians, but there are also writings that strongly maintain that, in effect, the South had it coming. Given that the people of the South only wished to leave the Union without violence and not, as has been claimed, destroy the government of the United States! – and that the institution of slavery was not unique to the region, neither was the South involved in the slave trade — that was a Yankee enterprise — it would seem that such horrific treatment of a people whom Lincoln declared to be Americans, citizens of his “sacred Union” is inexplicable. But holy wars are vicious. The enemy is not a man or a woman or a child or a neighbor or a brother—but an apostate, a blasphemer, an infidel—and as such, is worthy of no less than death—and even annihilation! That is why Lincoln, his government and his military waged bloody jihad from April of 1861 to April of 1865. Had the war gone on longer, the people of the South might well have been reduced to the conditions of the Cheyenne, the Apache and the Lakota Sioux. Certainly, Generals Sherman and Sheridan and their leader Abraham Lincoln would have shed no tears for their plight for when the problems within a nation are based upon two completely incompatible views of God and Man and Man’s interaction with God, there can be no basis for compromise. One side must prevail and we can see this as the victory of the North in the Civil War is continues to play out in our current society. Finally, as noted, today we are coming to a slow conclusion to the war memorialized in the monuments good people have been trying to preserve and defend despite the relatively short lull occasioned by the well-meaning but intellectual and spiritual deceptions of the Grand Bargain. As he did in the conflict that lasted from 1861 to 1865, the Lord of this World has prevailed. Christianity and Western civilization and the race that took man from the cave to the stars are under attack and marked for extinction. Even mankind’s dabbling in paganism, begun in the 1970s with the relatively benign nonsense of the New Age Movement has now been transformed into open satanic worship throughout the cultures of the world. This horrific path was foreshadowed by author Keven Swanson in his book, Apostate: The Men Who Destroyed the Christian West. What began long before the Civil War – probably long before the events that led to the founding of this country! – that is, the events written about by Swanson, were already well along toward their eventual end: Man turns within himself, seeking to fill the “God-shaped” vacuum. However, he is always disappointed with the results. In the end, he is more hopeless and suicidal than the pagan who still seeks some kind of god outside of himself. Thus pure, undiluted humanism cannot last for long. Either societies must awaken to the true faith or sink into the chaos of paganism. After five or six generations of apostasy, humanist societies turn to deconstructed language, pluralism, relativism, polytheism, and competing truth systems. And thus today we find ourselves in a culture that embraces every evil and wages war against every good. Those who want only to “preserve” the past – or rather, the “good” of the past may be able to do so for a short time but even so, they will only prevail during that time by accepting the lies and deceptions of the Grand Bargain that permitted the very things we are now trying to save! Do we honor men like Lee and Davis and Jackson and Forrest by accepting falsehood as a means of keeping monuments of marble and bronze when what is actually worth saving are the characters and morals of those heroes? Perhaps we should pay attention to the words of one of those great men, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a great soldier, a great man and a great Christian when he spoke about the war in which he found himself: "Colonel Stuart, if I had my way we would show no quarter to the enemy. No more than the redskins showed your troopers. The black flag, sir. If the North triumphs, it is not alone the destruction of our property. It is the prelude to anarchy, infidelity . . . the loss of free and responsible government. It is the triumph of commerce. The banks, factories. . . We should meet the invader on the verge of just defense . . . and raise the black flag. No quarter to the violators of our homes and firesides. Our political leadership is too timid to face the reality of this coming war. They should look to the Bible. It is full of such wars. Only the black flag will bring the North to its senses and rapidly end the war." General Jackson was absolutely correct. I don’t know if his instructions had been followed if the War of Secession could have been won but certainly, we would never have attempted to revive “fraternal relations” with the enemies not just of the South, but of both God and Man. Indeed, we have learned in this, the third decade of the 21st century that you cannot “reconcile” the forces of good with the forces of evil. We know that God wins in the end, but it is up to us to continue that “war” until He comes with the final victory. Trying to achieve “reconciliation” in order to save monuments is to make of those monuments, memorials to a lie. Post Scriptum: As noted, the Conciliation Monument has been removed from Arlington. It now only remains for these vandals to dig up the Confederate dead unfortunate enough to have been “laid to rest” in that place. Big Brother: 1, America: 0.

The issue of black slavery has become the cause celeb these days as if it were a rare and unusual situation and limited to the Southern States of the United States from colonial times until, we are assured, “Lincoln freed the slaves” in 1865. But the history of slavery is as long as human history itself. It predates the records mankind began to keep with the rise of civilization. Virtually all races and peoples have been both enslaved and have held slaves and for most of history, slavery was considered a perfectly normal human condition. The practice probably began when human tribes engaged in warfare, discovered that killing the enemy was counterproductive when he (or she) could be used for the purposes of labor or, when circumstances demanded, to increase the numbers of the group for their protection and expansion. Though the condition of the slave was hardly a preferred status, there have been instances in which individuals and even groups have placed themselves into slavery when seeking the protection of a larger and stronger group in response to life-threatening situations. The widespread concept of slavery today—that is, of men and women used, abused and murdered out of hand for little or no reason, is hardly legitimate though doubtless, such circumstances have existed and do continue to exist. However, slaves were usually valued by their owners and some even held in high esteem if they provided an exceptional service. Consider Joseph in Egypt! In smaller groups, family slaves or servants were treated with considerable kindness and even respect. Remember, Sarai offered her husband Abram her bondsmaid Hagar to bear his child because she was barren! The Bible is filled with admonitions regarding a master’s treatment of his bondservant and that servant’s obligations to his master in that he must be a loving servant and not merely a time server. Israel survived in slavery for four hundred years in Egypt under difficult and cruel circumstances. During their captivity in Babylon, the situation was not as dire, but it was still slavery—and yet Israel survived. With the rise of Western Civilization, slavery in the West did not die out altogether but changed from the sort of bondage that existed in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the New World civilizations of Mezo-America. The peasant or serf was not a slave as we would recognize that term, but neither was he a free man to go and do as he wished. He was “chained to the land” and served a master though he could usually marry as he wished and might even rise above his status if he possessed useful skills or if he joined the Church. Christianity also bestowed upon the serf an identity that slaves in other places did not enjoy. After all, according to Mother Church, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Redeemer of Mankind died even for that serf and though this great gift did not exempt him from doing his earthly lord’s bidding, he was not “property” as were slaves under pagan kings. It might seem a matter of little consequence, but we must remember what Robert E. Lee said about black slaves who found themselves in the New World (and notjust the South!), that is, that they had been removed from their dark homeland and introduced to Christianity and Western (white) civilization, a fact that surely bettered both their worldly and eternal conditions! Nowhere, however, was slavery of such paramount importance than in sub-Saharan Africa (hereinafter Africa). Yes, slavery existed on every continent but Antarctica, however in the rest of the world, slavery served a limited purpose—that is as a fixed labor source, a negation of the threat of conquered peoples and, in the case of especially Mezo-America, to provide sacrificial offerings to their gods. In Africa, however, slavery was that continent’s economy, its money and its means of existence; that is, it was the method by which its peoples and their rulers existed and thrived—or, in the alternative, were defeated and enslaved. Though the continent was bursting with natural wealth, the natives did not mine, neither did they plant, fish and hunt save in limited circumstances. They did not build nor create any advanced “civilization.” Even their weapons were little different from those used by their stone-age ancestors. There was no sense of place or concept of nationhood; there was only the tribe—and those entities were constantly at war with one another. Most of the indigenous peoples of North America (hereinafter Indians) were similarly limited in their social and cultural development. Unlike the natives of Mexico and Central and South America—the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans—the development of the North American Indian was much more primitive. Many if not most were nomadic hunter-gatherers and therefore the use of slaves, at least in any great numbers, was unknown though by the time of the American “Civil War” there were Indian tribes that had black slaves. But nowhere in the world save in Africa was slavery the basis upon which all prosperity depended and as inter-tribal warfare was continual—and its captives always available for sale to the rest of the world—Africa’s “economy” eventually created a situation affecting the rest of humanity far from the Skeleton Coast. Oddly enough, however, when black slavery—and remember, all other racial groups have been enslaved at one time or another—became a great moral crisis in the West, few indeed were those who called to mind the foundation from which that crisis arose; that is, Africa! Rather, the narrative was then—and remains today—one of evil and greedy whites abducting and enslaving the helpless and noble inhabitants of some sort of pre-Edenic world! Such a scenario does not survive once it is admitted that while those in the West who bought black slaves may have been—if not in all cases—white, those who sold them were in all cases, black—thus making this scenario patent (and provable) nonsense! Yet these facts appear to make no difference to those who choose to embrace the myth of white culpability! Indeed, it is considered wicked in the extreme even to question it. Of course, the reason why this is the case is directly linked to the use to which this “moral crisis” is put; that is, as a direct attack upon Western (a/k/a “white”) Civilization! And, if one asks why attempt to destroy that movement of mankind that has brought the greatest benefits to all of our species, the answer is simply because the New World Order with its one-world government and atheistic—humanistic “religion,” cannot prevail against a strong and healthy white Christian West! Now there has never been any race of men altogether good or altogether bad. Aside from the small number of what today are termed “sociopaths,” even the worst of us have our good points and the best of us, our bad. And why should this matter? Because today, even though slavery still exists in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the “blame” for blackslavery is placed upon the (white) people of Europe and “the West” and, by extension, its foundation, Western Civilization. If one listens to the call for the extermination of white people either directly or through socially encouraged “inter-racial breeding,” one would think that every evil of the world arose in the West! This, of course, is nonsense! Have evils come out of the West? Certainly! But so has great good and no force of “good” has been more uplifting to all of humankind than Christianity—the foundation of Western Civilization! I find it interesting that non-Christians berate Christians for behavior that fails to rise to the standards set by Christ even when that failure produces behavior that is better than much of the rest of humanity! In other words, in the judgment of the world, there are two standards: one for white Christians and one for everybody else and those standards include, of course, the present narrative concerning the history of black slavery. Alas, this will remain the case as long as intelligent people – white and otherwise – believe and accept it.