Confederate guerilla fighter William Quantrill (1837-1865)
This year, I could almost do a whole month's worth of posts just piggy-backing off Kevin Levin's excellent blog Civil War Memory.
In this post, Kevin looks at the way cable TV has tried to handle the Viginia controversy over "Confederate History Month": Mainstream Media Tackles Confederate History Month = Fail Civil War Memory 04/12/10. Kevin writes of the Establishment media coverage of the neo-Confederate controversy touched off by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's proclamation of Confederate History Month:
I ended up watching more of the “debate” on the major news channels than I care to admit. It was downright painful to watch. The most disappointing aspect of it all was the almost complete absence of any professional historians. You would think that the major networks could have mustered up at least one legitimate historian. The closest I saw was a half-way decent interview that Rachel Maddow conducted with Patricia Harris-Lacewell, who teaches politics and African American Studies at Princeton. Unfortunately, the professor’s distinction between two southern pasts didn’t quite address all of the salient issues involved.Apparently this is the essay of Martin's to which Kevin is referring: Confederates, Al-Qaida are the Same: Terrorists Roland S. Martin Blog 04/09/10. His argument certainly is frivolous. He's using "terrorist" as a vague synonym for "bad" and his whole argument is puffery.
More often than not the audience was treated to the same talking heads who clearly do not understand the relevant history. CNN’s Roland Martin had a field day with this issue, which included a lively debate with Brag Bowling. No surprise that Bowling was at times inarticulate, but Martin’s comparison of Confederate soldiers with Nazis and suggestion that they were “domestic terrorists” shut the door on any chance of rational debate. You can read Martin’s recent essay comparing Confederates with terrorists on the CNN site. It is one of the most incoherent arguments that I’ve seen in a long time; I would love for someone to explain it to me. Finally, check out Martin in this little clip with Republican adviser Mary Matalin, who retreats to the old saw that most white southerners were not slaveowners and that most northerners were not abolitionists. [my emphasis]
Terrorism in wartime is one tactic that armies use. "Terror" in the political sense in the first two-thirds of the 19th was understood more as state repression, as in the Terror during the French Revolution. Guerrilla warfare was certainly used; the word "guerilla" first became attached to such warfare during the Spanish War of Indepedence of 1808-14 against Napoleonic France. They employed small-unit ambushes, assassinations, destruction of property and retaliation against collaborators as tactics. And the Confederacy did make limited use of guerrilla warfare, most famously (or rather infamously) with Quantrill's Raiders, of which the young Jesse James was one.
This Harper's Weekly article of 08/27/1862 (see also the illustration; scroll down on both pages; illustration included below) describes one of Quantrell's raids as follows:
About one o'clock Sunday morning, the 7th inst., Quantrell, with two hundred and thirty men, dashed into and took possession of Olathe, the county seat of Johnson County, Kansas. From that time until he left, at an early hour in the morning, he and his men were engaged in the work of murder, plunder, and devastation.
Mr. Skinner and Mr. Wiggins, both recruits, were killed for making resistance. Mr. Blanchard, of Spring Hill, was also killed. They took fifty horses and mules, attached them to the best wagons they could find, and loaded them with goods seized from the stores. Private houses were entered, furniture broken, blankets stolen, and doors and windows beaten down. A Union flag suspended over the recruiting-office of Captain Hayes was torn to shreds and trampled in the dust by these mad assailants.
Quantrell said when he left that he was going to Paola, and that he should not rest until he had laid the border in ruin.
But Martin's silly article is not about the small guerrilla aspect of the Confederate war effort. It's just a polemic generalization that, as Kevin rightly says, "shut the door on any chance of rational debate". Or even historically literate discussion.
Here's video of Martin's on-air version:
Tags: confederate heritage month 2010, slavery, us south
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