“Liberty Ought to be the Direct End of Your Government”

 

One of the greatest American statesmen, Patrick Henry, was born on this day (May 29) in 1736. Jefferson once said that Henry single-handedly delivered Virginia to the cause of independence. He also said that Henry was the laziest reader he knew, and modern critics consider Henry to have been nothing more than a sliver-tongued, hayseed demagogue. Certainly, he did not have a stellar education, and his acumen as a merchant and farmer were suspect at best. But Henry had a gift for oratory and he maximized his talent, first as an attorney, then as a young firebrand member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and later as a leader in Virginia politics, both during and after the American War for Independence. Jefferson was, in fact, jealous of Henry’s gift of public persuasion.

Most were. Henry did not always win the debate, and he often took great risks to protect Virginians from all types of schemes, particularly those which originated in government. He called his stand against power manly. We should, too.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Seward Declares the War Not Fought Over Slavery

 

Observers in Europe saw the North’s war upon the South as nothing more than conquest from the beginning, and especially as the Republican Party expressed its intention of only saving the Union. When Lincoln announced his proclamation regarding slavery in 1863, it was seen as simply a newer version of Lord Dunmore’s proclamation in November 1775, and Sir Alexander Cochrane’s in 1814 – all desperate actions with the intention of inciting race war in the South.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Seward Declares the War Not Fought  Over Slavery

“For years the Old South had been close to Great Britain in both business and society, and it was easy to see in the Southern planters an equivalent of the English gentry. British aristocrats like the Marquis of Lothian, the Marquis of Bath, Lord Robert Cecil, and Lord Wharncliffe thought that the success of the Confederacy would give a much-needed check to democracy, both in America and in Europe.

More liberal Englishmen, too, could favor the South, supposing its desire to escape Northern “tyranny” was something comparable to the fulfillment of Italian and German national aspirations. The character of the leaders of the Southern Confederacy inspired respect abroad, and the chivalric bearing of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson enlisted the Englishman’s deepest admiration.

At first it seemed that the North muffed every opportunity to enlist British support. Already fearful of Northern economic competition, which threatened the supremacy of the British merchant marine and challenged the pre-eminence of British manufactures, the English middle classes were alienated when the Republicans adopted the Morrill tariff of 1861.

Northern appeals to British idealism were undercut when [Secretary of State William] Seward, early in the war, explicitly declared that the conflict was not being waged over slavery and would not disturb the South’s peculiar institution.

Even a staunch friend of the Union like the Duke of Argyll was obliged to conclude “that the North is not entitled to claim all the sympathy which belongs to a cause which they do not avow; and which is promoted only as an indirect consequence of a contest which (on their side at least) is waged for other objects, and on other grounds.”

(The Civil War and Reconstruction, James G. Randall, D.C. Heath and Company, 1969, excerpts, pp. 356-357)

The War Against North Carolina Civilians

 

 Following the Battle of Averasboro, March fifteenth and sixteenth, 1865, eighteen-year-old Janie Smith (July 26, 1846 - August 15, 1882) penned on scraps of wallpaper a letter to her friend Janie Robeson in Bladen County. (Janie Wright Robeson married Edwin T. MacKethan, of Fayetteville, NC.)  Janie, a daughter of Farquhard and Sarah Slocumb Grady Smith, lived at the family plantation house named "Lebanon." She had nine brothers and five sisters who lived to maturity.  One sister died a decade before Gettysburg and one brother died in Texas in 1860. Eight of her brothers served with the Confederate forces. 
 

Janie attended a female seminary at Charlotte, NC, for a period of time, and later became the second wife of Dr. R. R. Robeson, already her brother-in-law.  They lived near what is now Godwin, NC, at a place called Kyle's Landing.  Both are buried in Old Bluff Cemetery.

This letter, which is featured here at the Averasboro Battlefield Museum provides a remarkable glimpse into Janie Smith's chaotic world in March and April, 1865.  The original letter is in the Mrs. Thomas H. Webb Collection at the North Carolina State Department of Archives and History in Raleigh. 

The Farquhard Smith's wartime home stands today still occupied by Smith descendants.  This house was a hospital during the battle, where mostly Confederate wounded were treated.  It is said that amputated arms and legs were piled outside after being tossed out windows by surgeons, and blood covered the floor-boards.  After the battle, Union general Henry Slocum made  Lebanon his headquarters.

The two other Smith plantation houses, "Oak Grove" and "The William T. Smith House", also  were used as field hospitals and still stand on the battlefield.  Chicora Civil War Cemetery located on the battlefield is the gravesite of fifty-six Confederate casualties of the battle.

 *************************

After Sherman’s 65,000-man army entered North Carolina in early March, 1865, eighteen-year-old Janie Smith wrote friend Janie Robeson of nearby Bladen County and described the invasion of her home in Lebanon, North Carolina. This was near the battle of Averasboro, where Lt. Gen. William Hardee’s 10,000 man army former garrison troops stopped the battle-hardened veterans of Sherman’s left wing. All of Janie’s brothers were in Confederate service.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

The War Against North Carolina Civilians

“Where home used to be. April 12, 1865:

Your precious letter, my dear Janie, was received night before last, and the pleasure that it afforded me, and indeed the whole family, I leave for you to imagine, [and I am thankful] when I hear that my friends are left with the necessities of life, and unpolluted by the touch of Sherman’s Hell-hounds.

My experience since we parted has indeed been sad . . . Our own army came first and enjoyed the cream of the country and left but little for the enemy . . . [and] such an army of patriots fighting for their hearthstones is not to be conquered by such fiends incarnate as fill the ranks of Sherman’s army. Our political sky does seem darkened with a fearful cloud, but when compared with the situation of our fore-fathers, I can but take courage.

[At] about four o’clock the Yankees came charging, yelling and howling. They just knocked down all such like mad cattle. Right into the house, breaking open bureau drawers of all kinds faster than I could unlock. They cursed us for having hid everything and made bold threats if certain things were not brought to light, but all to no effect. They took Pa’s hat and stuck him pretty badly with a bayonet to make him disclose something . . . The Negroes are bitterly prejudiced to his minions. They were treated, if possible, worse than the white people, all their provisions taken and their clothes destroyed and some carried off.

They left no living thing in Smithville but the people. One old hen played sick and thus saved her neck, but lost all of her children. The Yankees would run all over the yard to catch the little things to squeeze to death.

Every nook and corner of the premises was searched and the things that they didn’t use were burned or torn into strings. No house but the blacksmith shop was burned, but into the flames they threw every tool, plow, etc., that was on the place. The battlefield does not compare with [the Yankees] in point of stench.

I don’t believe they have been washed since the day they were born. I was too angry to eat or sleep . . . Gen. Slocum with two other hyenas of his rank, rode up with his body-guard and introduced themselves with great pomp, but I never noticed them at all.

Sis Susan was sick in bed and they searched the very pillows that she was lying on, and keeping up such a noise, tearing up and breaking to pieces, that the Generals couldn’t hear themselves talk, but not a time did they try to prevent it. They got all of my stockings and some of our collars and handkerchiefs. If I ever see a Yankee woman, I intend to whip her and take the clothes off her very back.”

(Janie Smith’s Letter (excerpts), Mrs. Thomas H. Webb Collection, NC Division of Archives & History)

Black Ship’s Carpenter Edward Walsh

 

While many black men served in support roles in the Confederate military during the war, recognized authority Nelson Winbush placed black combatants in Southern units at 50 to 90 thousand — Winbush was the grandson of Louis N. Nelson, a black Confederate cavalryman who fought with Nathan Bedford Forrest. Also, Dr. Edward Smith, Dean of American Studies at American University, estimated that by February 1865, at least 1150 black men had served in the CS Navy – about 20 percent of this branch of service.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Black Ship’s Carpenter Edward Walsh

“One noteworthy crewmember of Wilmington blockade runners was black ship’s carpenter Edward Walsh from St. Georges, Bermuda. He signed on the runner Eugenie in August 1863, then the Flora, and next on the Index, the latter forcing the blockader USS Peterhoff to run aground off Wilmington, its guns then recovered and installed in nearby Fort Fisher.

Once on the runner Elsie in August 1864, Walsh’s success ran out as the ship was sunk by the USS Niphon and he was captured and sent to a Baltimore prison. When released from captivity, he went north to Halifax, Nova Scotia and signed on the runner Constance, which was making a run to Charleston where it struck a wreck and was sunk. Walsh then joined the crew of the runner Annie heading for Wilmington, where the ship ran into the middle of the blockading fleet’s fire and was forced to surrender.

Taken as a prisoner aboard the USS Niphon, the captain recognized Walsh from the Elsie capture and remarked, “Carpenter, you can’t say this is the first I have had you.” “No sir,” Walsh replied, “but it’s the last time. This business is getting too hot for comfort.”

(Rogues & Runners, Bermuda and the American Civil War, Catherine L. Diechmann, 2003, Bermuda National Trust, excerpts, pp. 50-52)

Now Moonbats Want to Banish Sam Houston Statues From Houston

Via David

Liberal fascists must be running out of Confederate generals to banish to the memory hole. Now they are going after heroes of the Texas Revolution, starting at the top:

The Sam Houston statue has been at Hermann Park since 1925, but a group that calls itself Texas Antifa has started a campaign to take down this and any other landmark that bears the name Sam Houston. …

[Last] Thursday, the group posted on its Facebook page saying, “Texans agree the disgusting idols of America’s dark days of slavery must be removed to bring internal peace to our country.”

The group also suggested Mayor Sylvester Turner should back the removal of the statue, because of his ethnicity and political affiliation.

Turner is a black Democrat.

More @ Moonbattery

"Armor piercing ammo is necessary, you just can't penetrate their skulls without it."

Via David

 

Title  from the comments,  classic!:)

Representative Rob Bishop (R., Utah) introduced a bill last Wednesday that would prohibit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from unilaterally reclassifying ammunition.

The Lawful Purpose and Self-Defense Act would remove the ATF's discretion in classifying certain ammunition as "armor piercing." Instead of relying on the ATF or attorney general's judgment on which "armor piercing" rounds should be given a "sporting purpose" exception, the bill would rely on the manufacturer's design and intent. Rep. Bishop said his intention is to prevent gray areas in the law from being used to push new gun control.

Exactly

.More @ Daily Timewaster

London terrorist had twice been referred to police over his extremist views

Via Billy

One of the three jihadists who murdered revellers in central London on Saturday had been reported to the anti-terror police on at least two occasions, it has been claimed.

A former friend of the terrorist, who was shot dead by police along with two accomplices, claimed he had been radicalised while watching YouTube videos and said he contacted the authorities ­after becoming concerned over his friend’s extremist views.

A neighbour also claimed she had contacted police in Barking, east London, after the suspect tried to convert her children to Islam and radicalise them. The man is not being named at the request of the police.

The former friend claimed he contacted police after comments the man made about other previous attacks. But he said the authorities had failed to act and take action despite evidence of increasingly extremist views.

 

More @ The Telegraph