OT: Chickamauga Soujourn

[Canoerebel]

Gents (and Lady),

Spent most of the day at Chcikamauga National Battlefield Park escorting an elderly lady, who happens to be a very gifted poet, who wanted to visit the places where Brigadier General (USA) William Lytle was mortally wounded and where Lieutenant (CSA) Richard Kirkland was killed in action.

Our tour included the Wilder Tower, which honors Brigadier General John Wilder, who used his own funds to purchase Spencer repeating rifles to arm his "Lighting Brigade." AFter the war, the Yankee Wilder moved south to Chattanooga, where he served as the city's mayor.

The Wilder Tower is a beautiful white marble strucutre. Today, at the top, somebody had raised the Confederate battle flag. While I am a proud southerner, posting that flag on a monument to a Union general and the men he led seemed wholly inappropriate. I tried to remove the flag, but it was well above my reach even when I climbed on the railing which seemed far too rickety for a man of my size (shhh, please don't tell Poultry Lad - he thinks I am svelte).

Just wanted you folks to know that we southerners aren't all unreconstructed.

Canoe "Rebel, but not that rebellious" Rebel

[Canoerebel]

Wilder Tower

[Canoerebel]

Wilder Tower (top, detail)

[DD696]

It's a shame someone would do something like that, but longtime forum members know from experience that there are those who will do anything to deface and show disrespect to others or things that should be beyond defilement.

Chickamauga is one of the few remaining major Civil War battlefields that I have yet to pay my respects to and it is really not that far away - maybe an hour and a half if I could drive the Corvette Z06 at full speed to get there. Maybe it is time that I stopped thinking about visiting and did it.

I'm from Idaho originally but always had a bit of a soft spot for the Rebs and have spent about five years in Georgia, yet I'm a great admirer of W. T. Sherman. When I paid a visit to Robert E. Lee's tomb and got to spend a few minutes alone with him I rendered him my best "rusty" Marine Corps salute and had a teary eye when I sat in the place he always used to sit during church sermons.

You have always appeared as someone whom anyone would be proud to know.

[cplprice]

Too bad I didn't know you were coming to town. I live about a half mile from the battlefield on the Wilder tower side. Did you find where Lt. Kirkland (The Angel of Marye's Heights, from Fredricksburg) was killed? It's near a draw close to the South Carolina monument. BTW, the Chickamauga/Chattanooga National Military Park is the oldest and the largest of America's National Military Parks.
Don't feel too bad about the rebel flag thing. Trust me, I'm at the battlefield several times a week and there are as many ignorant northerners as southerners, neither group has a corner on the idiot market. I was at the visitors center one day when some northern guy came out, accompanied by three friends, hollering at the people in the parking lot, "yeah you redneck, rebel moth** ****ers, this is where us yankees kicked your rebel as**s! There were a lot of old people and kids around and it kind really went all over me. I walked up to him and told him in a low voice so as not to attract more attention. "Read your history as* hole, the south won here, in fact it was a pretty bad as* kicking. And history is about to repeat itself if you don't shut your ignorant mouth." He shut up and left.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Just wanted you folks to know that we southerners aren't all unreconstructed.

Canoe "Rebel, but not that rebellious" Rebel

Slightly OT on the OT, but your comment reminded me of an interesting article i saw recently....regarding the 30 year anniversary of "Deliverence"

Apparantly even after 30 years some folks down in 'dem parts are still pretty ticked off at how Southerners from Georgia were portrayed.

[John 3rd]

That is a beautiful tower! How tall is it Dan?

[Prydwen]

I've visited that battlefield but I'd forgotten about the Wilder monument. As I recall it's quite a view from up there! I'd recommend that battlefield as a very good one to vist. Antietam is another that I remember enjoying. I even participated at an Antietam reenactment several years ago. Fighting in the cornfield at 530 am, now that was fun!

Joe

[Q-Ball]

I visited Wilder Tower, once more I did it in full Union Uniform. I was a Civil War Re-enactor at one point (my first love: ACW), and a group of us visited the battlefield before heading to a reenactment in Resaca. Lots of fun touring in Civil War uniforms, we got a few double-takes, that's for sure!

Anyway, we lost the re-enacted battle of Resaca, unlike the real war. Gotta throw the Rebs a bone every once in a while

[Canoerebel]

I know the general area where Lieutenant (I believe that was his rank at Chickamauga, though he was a sergeant at Fredricksburg) fell, but not the precise location.  I don't think there's a monument marking the spot, but I could be wrong.

I live about 45 miles south of Chickamauga.  I am fairly knowledgeable about the battle.  Should any group of intrepid historians enjoy spending a day a the park in the company of a guide who can tell some of the intersting stories of the battle, I'd be most honored to oblige.

Chickamauga is just a beautiful location.  And Chattanooga, just 15 miles up the road, is a great city to enjoy.  So come on down, y'all, and I'll be glad too meet ya.  But watch out if you bring Poultry Lad, Bullwinkle, or Q-Ball, because I am nearly certain that they are Yankee sympathizers.

[John 3rd]

As a Dixie Sympathizer I do believe we already have this as a 'to do' date with CR, Michael, myself, and Wolfpack. Would be great to have a large group get together and enjoy good spirit(s) and tour the battlefield.

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball


Anyway, we lost the re-enacted battle of Resaca, unlike the real war. Gotta throw the Rebs a bone every once in a while

Thanks! [:D][&o]

[janh]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Gents (and Lady),

Spent most of the day at Chcikamauga National Battlefield Park escorting an elderly lady, who happens to be a very gifted poet, who wanted to visit the places where Brigadier General (USA) William Lytle was mortally wounded and where Lieutenant (CSA) Richard Kirkland was killed in action.

Our tour included the Wilder Tower, which honors Brigadier General John Wilder, who used his own funds to purchase Spencer repeating rifles to arm his "Lighting Brigade." AFter the war, the Yankee Wilder moved south to Chattanooga, where he served as the city's mayor.

The Wilder Tower is a beautiful white marble strucutre. Today, at the top, somebody had raised the Confederate battle flag. While I am a proud southerner, posting that flag on a monument to a Union general and the men he led seemed wholly inappropriate. I tried to remove the flag, but it was well above my reach even when I climbed on the railing which seemed far too rickety for a man of my size (shhh, please don't tell Poultry Lad - he thinks I am svelte).

Just wanted you folks to know that we southerners aren't all unreconstructed.

Canoe "Rebel, but not that rebellious" Rebel

Nice, since my childhood I have a fascination with Chickamauga that cannot be explained. You wouldn't happen to have so more photos of the battlefield? Brock Field perhaps?

How much of the battlefield is protected today? When in the US, I noticed that quite a few of these historic sites are not protected at all, some are already destroyed by settlements. The issue with the supermarket at Chancellorsville comes to mind... Really bad, they should honor those sites a lot more.

[Reg]

.
You might like to check out this site!!

Full of photos of the site and a really good walk through of the battle in 15 minute steps.

Civil War Virtual Tours!

[adsoul64]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Gents (and Lady),

Spent most of the day at Chcikamauga National Battlefield Park escorting an elderly lady, who happens to be a very gifted poet, who wanted to visit the places where Brigadier General (USA) William Lytle was mortally wounded and where Lieutenant (CSA) Richard Kirkland was killed in action.

Our tour included the Wilder Tower, which honors Brigadier General John Wilder, who used his own funds to purchase Spencer repeating rifles to arm his "Lighting Brigade." AFter the war, the Yankee Wilder moved south to Chattanooga, where he served as the city's mayor.

The Wilder Tower is a beautiful white marble strucutre. Today, at the top, somebody had raised the Confederate battle flag. While I am a proud southerner, posting that flag on a monument to a Union general and the men he led seemed wholly inappropriate. I tried to remove the flag, but it was well above my reach even when I climbed on the railing which seemed far too rickety for a man of my size (shhh, please don't tell Poultry Lad - he thinks I am svelte).

Just wanted you folks to know that we southerners aren't all unreconstructed.

Canoe "Rebel, but not that rebellious" Rebel

CR (and all proud Southerner), I think it would be interesting (altough admittedly OT [:-]) for all non-US people if you could explain what does it mean TODAY to be a proud Southerner. I mean, everybody has read alot about Civil War, the reasons why South was looking for secession, different styles of life and so on... but today what are the differences? What Southerners think about Yankees and viceversa? When I've visited Texas and Louisiana I haven't got the feeling that people was different than Yankees of East Coast or Westerners, so what I've missed? I don't know if I've been able to let all of you understand what I mean, but I'd be really interested in your opinions and ideas. Thx everybody.

[castor troy]

Is it like Scots, Welsh and English?

[Canoerebel]

There are regional differences (and even differences within regions) in a country as large as the USA, of course. The people of the regions have reputations, and there is some truth to them, but perhpas mostly exaggeration.

New Englanders are supposedly taciturn; New Yorkers gruff, and southerners polite, independent, bigoted and not as well educated. There is some truth in this, but some is absolutely wrong.

Through the early 2000s, I had never left the "Confederate States" as an adult. For more than 30 years, life limited me to travel in the southern states. My family are southerners. My ancestors served in the southern army. We love the south and its heritage, even while cringing a bit at some of its excesses, suspecting that our flaws, naturally, are much less than those of others.

When I took my family north for the first time, on camping trips to Maryland and Pennsylvania in 2003, and then to New York and New England in 2004, we honestly expectted to encounter the gruff, taciturn, and sometimes even rude Yankees we'd always heard about. Instead, we found people who were exactly like us. They were polite and friendly and curious about us. We quickly learned that but for fate having us born in the South, had we been born in the North we would have been perfectly happy.

But what I had already known is that this feeling of "oneness" wasn't new to our geneeration. Somehow, this goes back many generations. In the aftermath of a truly monumental civil war, America very quickly reunited and become one people...and I'm not even sure they were really ever "more than one."

My father, the great grandson of a Confederate soldier who was a guard at Andersonville, served in the US Army in World War II. He is 89 years old today and an American first. He's always been an American first, rather than a southerner or a Floridian, though he is very proud to be a southerner.

And it didn't arise with his generation that came along in the 1920s. It started shortly after the Civil War, which has to be some kind of miracle of reunifcation. Confederate cavalry general Joseph Wheeler served as a major general in the United States Army in the Spanish American War in 1898, just 33 years after the Civil War ended. The highest ranking United States Army office killed in combat in World War II was Lt. General Simon Bolivar Buckner (Okinawa, 1945), whose father was a major general in the Confederate Army (and one of the big players in the Battle of Chickamauga). Archie Vandergrift, the commander of the US Marines at Guadalcanal, was a Virginian whose ancestors had served the South. The same went for Patton, a bunch of those famous naval officers in the Pacific, and all of the boys in the national guard from Bedford, Virginia, who were killed on the beaches at Normandy.

And about those "reputations" southerners have. The county (Floyd County, Georgia) where I live is about 90% white. The county government consists of five commissioners elected countwyide (not by district). One of those five commissioners is a black man. He's never been defeated in elections and usually doesn't face opposition. How is it possible that a black man is elected in a very conservative part of the South? Because he's a good man who represents the values of the people here.

With the exception of a few numbskulls, the people of the South are kind, tolerant, and unbigoted. We judge people by their character and not the color of their skin. We welcome them into our places of business, our churches and sometimes into our families.

We southerners are proud to be southerners, but we are even more fiercely American. But we don't tell our Yankee "brothers" that, because it's fun to tease them and "yank their chains." And on July 4, I jokingly tell my Yankee friends that we don't celebrate the day because its the anniversary of the fall of Vicksburg, but we do, and proudly.

Pardon my editorializing, but perhaps in some sense this conveys why proud southerners like to kid northerners, while actually giving thanks that we are one.

[adsoul64]

Your "editorial" makes me understand much better - or I hope so - what does it mean to feel himself "proud Southerner". Summarizing, it looks to me it's a matter of several things, roots, ancestors, habits, self-awareness and maybe joking as well. Thanks CR.

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

New Yorkers gruff

I'm assuming you're talking about people from New York City, right? If you're referring to the whole state, that's news to me.

If Upstate New Yorkers (basically anyone living outside of the Albany/NYC corridor) described themselves in a single word, it would probably be "provincial". We are very unconcerned about what is going on outside of our own little corner of the world. We live simply, keep to ourselves and have a "live and let live" philosophy - you do your thing, we'll do ours. In many ways, we are more like the stereotype of folks from Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine than the stereotypical resident of New York City.

As for your description of southerners as being polite, I couldn't agree with you more. I have a brother who lives in Virginia. Every time I visit him, I am impressed by how courteous and friendly everyone is down there. But maybe that's just because I'm used to all of these "gruff" New Yorkers I have for neighbors! [:D]

[Schanilec]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

There are regional differences (and even differences within regions) in a country as large as the USA, of course. The people of the regions have reputations, and there is some truth to them, but perhpas mostly exaggeration.

New Englanders are supposedly taciturn; New Yorkers gruff, and southerners polite, independent, bigoted and not as well educated. There is some truth in this, but some is absolutely wrong.

Through the early 2000s, I had never left the "Confederate States" as an adult. For more than 30 years, life limited me to travel in the southern states. My family are southerners. My ancestors served in the southern army. We love the south and its heritage, even while cringing a bit at some of its excesses, suspecting that our flaws, naturally, are much less than those of others.

When I took my family north for the first time, on camping trips to Maryland and Pennsylvania in 2003, and then to New York and New England in 2004, we honestly expectted to encounter the gruff, taciturn, and sometimes even rude Yankees we'd always heard about. Instead, we found people who were exactly like us. They were polite and friendly and curious about us. We quickly learned that but for fate having us born in the South, had we been born in the North we would have been perfectly happy.

But what I had already known is that this feeling of "oneness" wasn't new to our geneeration. Somehow, this goes back many generations. In the aftermath of a truly monumental civil war, America very quickly reunited and become one people...and I'm not even sure they were really ever "more than one."

My father, the great grandson of a Confederate soldier who was a guard at Andersonville, served in the US Army in World War II. He is 89 years old today and an American first. He's always been an American first, rather than a southerner or a Floridian, though he is very proud to be a southerner.

And it didn't arise with his generation that came along in the 1920s. It started shortly after the Civil War, which has to be some kind of miracle of reunifcation. Confederate cavalry general Joseph Wheeler served as a major general in the United States Army in the Spanish American War in 1898, just 33 years after the Civil War ended. The highest ranking United States Army office killed in combat in World War II was Lt. General Simon Bolivar Buckner (Okinawa, 1945), whose father was a major general in the Confederate Army (and one of the big players in the Battle of Chickamauga). Archie Vandergrift, the commander of the US Marines at Guadalcanal, was a Virginian whose ancestors had served the South. The same went for Patton, a bunch of those famous naval officers in the Pacific, and all of the boys in the national guard from Bedford, Virginia, who were killed on the beaches at Normandy.

And about those "reputations" southerners have. The county (Floyd County, Georgia) where I live is about 90% white. The county government consists of five commissioners elected countwyide (not by district). One of those five commissioners is a black man. He's never been defeated in elections and usually doesn't face opposition. How is it possible that a black man is elected in a very conservative part of the South? Because he's a good man who represents the values of the people here.

With the exception of a few numbskulls, the people of the South are kind, tolerant, and unbigoted. We judge people by their character and not the color of their skin. We welcome them into our places of business, our churches and sometimes into our families.

We southerners are proud to be southerners, but we are even more fiercely American. But we don't tell our Yankee "brothers" that, because it's fun to tease them and "yank their chains." And on July 4, I jokingly tell my Yankee friends that we don't celebrate the day because its the anniversary of the fall of Vicksburg, but we do, and proudly.

Pardon my editorializing, but perhaps in some sense this conveys why proud southerners like to kid northerners, while actually giving thanks that we are one.

Very good. Thank you CB.[&o]
Should help all understand our stance up here on the Fighting Sioux nickname issue. We are all one up here, Sioux and Ojibwa (Chippewa). Unfortunately others (mostly the NCAA) from outside the area figures we should knee to political correctness to heel thier guilt of the past.