Discovering Jackson

 

Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson (2014) by S.C. Gwynne.

A braver man God never made.
– Richmond Dispatch, 3-28-1862 (page 226)

Gwynne’s biography of Stonewall Jackson is simply one of the best biographies I have ever read. Many biographies plod along a “cradle-to-grave” timeline that starts out something like “our hero’s father started out as a child…” and relates those supposedly telling events of childhood that shaped the man, indulging in armchair psychoanalysis along the way. Some, in the absence of words recorded by principals, just whip up dialog out of thin air – and here I’m thinking of Michael Shaara in The Killer Angels, half of which consists of invented chatter.

Instead, Gwynne takes known dialog from the letters of principals, and he adapts the timeline to what the biography needs to emphasize. For example, the opening scene is a portrayal of what he later (page 336) calls “one of the most thrilling moments of the war” – when Jackson had catapulted to fame after routing three Union armies in the Shenandoah valley and had been summoned east to save Richmond, on June 19, 1862.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

The Governor’s Coffin

The occupation troops of Northern General Ambrose Burnside at New Bern in mid-1862 not only loaded their empty transports with furniture, carpets and jewelry for the return trip North, but also found New Bern cemeteries full of coffins to appropriate.  Even Lincoln’s hand-picked proconsul, Edward Stanly, who was appointed “governor” of North Carolina, resigned in disgust after observing the looting by Northern soldiers.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com  
The Great American Political Divide

The Governor’s Coffin

Richard Dobbs Spaight (1796-1850), son of a Revolutionary War veteran who was also a member of the North Carolina Legislature, United States Congressman and delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, served as governor of The Old North State from 1835 to 1837.

He was born in New Bern, and prior to being governor, he served in the State Legislature from 1819 to 1822, and again from 1825 to 1834. Spaight was the last governor to be elected by the legislature, and was a member of the 1837 Constitutional Convention which transferred the gubernatorial election to popular vote. During the War Between the States, Northern occupation troops used the Stevenson House (corner Pollock & George Streets) in New Bern as a hospital for wounded soldiers.

In a truly unbelievable act of barbarism, “the body of Governor Spaight was dug up by Northern soldiers, the skull placed on a gate post, and the metal coffin used to send the body of a federal soldier back North.”

(A New Geography of North Carolina, Bill Sharpe, Sharpe’s Publishing Company 1961, page 1232)

Military Times: Obama’s personal approval rating an eye-catching 15%

Via Mike

If it weren’t for the large sample size, you would think that the results of the Military Times survey of troop morale couldn’t possibly have been accurate. Released last December, the numbers were brutal. In response to the statement, “The senior military leadership has my best interests at heart,” only 27% agreed, down from 53% in a previous survey conducted in 2009. As for, “Overall officers in the military are good or excellent,” only 49% agreed, down from 78% in the 2009 survey. Agreement with, “Overall my quality of life is good or excellent,” dropped from 91% agreement in 2009 to 56% in 2014, and President Obama’s personal approval rating was an eye-catching 15%.

By anyone’s standard, these numbers should have constituted an alarm for senior defense policymakers, suggesting that whatever they were doing, they should probably try the opposite. So it is disheartening, and even a little stunning, to see the news confirmed in recent days that the president is nominating Eric Fanning, a Washington insider and defense bureaucrat who has never spent a single day in uniform, to be the next secretary of the Army.

More @ The Washington Free Beacon

Just Wonderful: Citizen Faulkner: “What We Did, In Those Old Days”

 

William Faulkner is of course a giant of 20th century literature. Study of his works of fiction is an immense and world-wide scholarly industry. Most of the vast published commentary is academic effluvia without much usefulness in understanding who Faulkner was and what he really thought about the 20th century America that he lived in.

Conventionally, Faulkner has been described as a Southern liberal. To the liberal academic, it is inconceivable that so great a mind could be anything else. But then there are a few examples of liberal “scholars” whose work consists of a breathless discovery that Faulkner, alas, was not a liberal, and therefore not as smart or as noble in character as themselves.

We should be clear that the essential and important thing about a great artist is his vision, not his opinions. A great artist sees in ways far more fundamentally true and meaningful than mere opinion. Faulkner’s political and social views are secondary to his vision. In twelve major works, more than half of them masterpieces, he has presented a panorama of American experience in the 19th and 20th centuries in relation to nature, God, and history that will last as long as Western Civilization. Such an artist is inspired, and inspiration in its root meaning is something that comes from the gods. Even so, to understand Faulkner’s opinions as a man when he is speaking for himself and not though a character is one clue to understanding his works.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Longstreet Finds Adversaries Lacking Honor

 

Southern commanders like James Longstreet expected their Northern counterparts to embrace the conviction that enemies no less than comrades merited honorable treatment, from officers down to enlisted men. To encourage a Southern soldier to desert was unthinkable; A letter from a Southern woman in 1862 stated that “the black title of tory and deserter will cling to them, disgracing their children’s children.”
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com  
The Great American Political Divide

Longstreet Finds Adversaries Lacking Honor

Letter from General Longstreet to General [J.G.] Foster:

“Headquarters, Confederate Forces, East Tennessee, Jan. 3, 1864:
To the Commanding General, United States Forces, East Tennessee –

Sir –

I find the proclamation of President Lincoln, of the 8th of December last, in circulation in handbills among our soldiers. The immediate object of this proclamation seems to be to induce our soldiers to quit our ranks and take the oath of allegiance to the United States government.

I presume, however, that the great object and end in view is to hasten the day of peace. I respectfully suggest, for your consideration, the propriety of communicating any views that your government may have upon this subject through me, rather than by handbills circulated amongst our soldiers.

The few men who may desert under the promise held out in the proclamation, cannot be men of character or standing. If they desert their cause, they disgrace themselves in the eyes of God and man. They can do your cause no good, nor can they injure ours.

As a great nation, you can accept none but an honorable peace. As a noble people, you could have us accept nothing less.

I submit, therefore, whether the mode that I suggest would not be more likely to lead to an honorable end than such a circulation of a partial promise of pardon.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,

J. Longstreet, Lieutenant-General, Commanding

*********************************

Headquarters, Confederate Forces, East Tennessee, Jan. 11, 1864:

“Sir – I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 7th of January, with its inclosures, etc.

The disingenuous manner in which you have misconstrued my letter of the 3d, has disappointed me. Let me remind you, too, that the spirit and tone of my letter were to meet honorable sentiments.

I have read your order announcing the favorable terms on which deserters will be received. Step by step you have gone on in violation of the laws of honorable warfare. Our farms have been destroyed, our women and children have been robbed, and our houses have been pillaged and burnt. You have laid your plans and worked diligently to produce wholesale murder by servile insurrection. And now, the most ignoble of all, you propose to degrade the human race by inducing soldiers to dishonor and forswear themselves.

Soldiers who have met your own on so many honorable fields, who have breasted the storm of battle in defence of their honor, their families, and their homes, for three long years, have a right to expect more of honor, even in their adversaries. I beg leave to return the copies of the proclamation, and your order.

I have the honor to renew to you the assurance of great respect, your obedient servant,

J. Longstreet, Lieutenant-General, Commanding.”

(Lee and His Generals, Profiles of Robert E. Lee and Seventeen other Generals of the Confederacy, Captain William P. Snow, Gramercy Books, 1867/1996, pp. 333-334)

From the Saddle

 

John Rutledge of South Carolina is one of the most important men of the founding generation, but he has been lost to mainstream history. He is politically incorrect (most in the founding generation are) and his positions on the nature of federal power do not comport with modern nationalist interpretations of government.

At 25, Rutledge was sent by South Carolina as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765. Later, he would be one of the more vocal advocates for independence in the South. He and his younger brother, Edward, served in the First and Second Continental Congresses, and contrary to their portrayal in the HBO miniseries John Adams, neither were the effeminate, sullen, waffling fools shown on film. Edward Rutledge would rot in the British prison ship during the War.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

TOLERANCE

Via Skynet

Jiggs McDonald, NHL Hall of Fame broadcaster speaking in Ontario, says:

“I am truly perplexed that so many of my friends are against another mosque being built in Toronto. I think it should be the goal of every Canadian to be tolerant regardless of their religious beliefs. Thus the mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance.”

“That is why I also propose that two nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque; thereby promoting tolerance from within the mosque. We could call one of the clubs, which would be gay, “The Turban Cowboy,” and the other, a topless bikini bar, to be called, “You Mecca Me Hot.”

More @ The Burning Platform

Life In The Old Land Yet

 

There is life in the old land of Dixie yet. There seems to be no end of talent and knowledge coming forth in our defense against the South-hating jihadists who seem to dominate the American scene these days.   Valiant and wise people continue the daunting task of educating our fellow citizens about the truth of American history.

The end of August saw the appearance of two extremely important contributions to the battle: the film Searching for Lincoln and a reader entitled Understanding the War Between the States.

Searching for Lincoln cannot be praised too highly.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Black Lives Matter & F*** Yo Flag Activist Arrested for Video Threats to Kill White People, Police

Via Billy

 Spacecase

A Black woman who goes by “Eye Empress Sekhmet” was arrested in Clayton County, Georgia on Thursday for making video-taped threats to kill white people and police, reported WSB-TV. WSB reported she also called for activists to ‘take over’ police stations.

More with videos @ The Gateway Pundit

Ol' Remus's notebook for 25 September 2015

Via Terry

About movies - Personally, I think the worst thing is giving the audience what they want to see, because in a way it’s almost disrespectful. These people are here to give you their precious time. You should really take them on an odyssey, and the best way to do that is to give them what they don’t expect.
Nicolas Refn at wired.com

 

A group of students and faculty members at Wesleyan University are petitioning to defund the Connecticut campus’s newspaper, The Wesleyan Argus, because “it neglects to provide a safe space for the voices of students of color” ... The controversy was apparently sparked by an opinion article in the Argus last week that criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, suggesting that it may have sparked violence toward police officers.

Orban mobilizes Hungary's troops, prisoners, jobless to fence out migrants - Hungary took matters into its own hands, shutting off the route with a new fence along its entire 110 mile border with Serbia, topped with razor wire and guarded by helmeted riot police... The government says it put the military in charge of the construction so that it could act more quickly.

More @ Yer Ol' Woodpile Report