The U.S. Army’s removal of the Reconciliation Monument from Arlington, with the approval of your Congress, is nothing less than an attempt to remove the Southern people from American history.
The lead instigator in this atrocity seems to have been a general with a funny name, not a West Pointer and not a soldier but a bureaucrat. One of many non-soldiers in the high bureaucratic ranks of our bloated and incompetent military.
This fellow wrote a book called Robert E. Lee and Me, which would be more appropriately titled Robert E. Lee and Nobody. You would think that a general charged with the defense of the country would have better things to do than write petty self-reverential opinion pieces. We might say that the monument was removed because of the short-sighted, shallow mind of this scribbler. His government machine defeated the wishes of an apparent majority of patriotic Americans including the descendants of Northern soldiers.
The Confederate leaders—Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Forrest—and the individual Confederate soldier are intrinsically attractive. These are great AMERICAN soldiers. You would think they deserve the respect of any real AMERICAN soldier, even if on the other side. This has been the case until quite recently.
They have the respect of decent people around the world who value courage, skill, and honourable conduct against superior forces. And people are born into every generation who will discover this. This atrocity and the other jihadist actions against Confederate memorials will fail in the long run. Monument destruction is nearly always a sign of barbarianism.
Besides, to remove the South from American history is a stupid ideological project. It can’t be done without lying. If these people abolish the Southern people from U.S. history what remains will be a truncated, false account of imaginary virtue that never existed. This is supposedly done for the benefit of African Americans. But the real beneficiaries are like our scribbling general, advertising the virtue and wisdom that their unelected power gives them. They are falsifying American history to suit themselves.
In 1966 Congress passed the National Historical Preservation Act. After application and vetting, a place could be named a National Historic Site with an eye toward preservation. The now destroyed Monument Avenue in Richmond was one of these sites. In recent years college history departments have been giving doctorates in Public History, presumably for the identification, preservation, and public presentation of history. Some of these worthies have been “contextualizing” historic places—that is surrounding them with false Woke history. The more activist of them have been sneaking around making lists of Confederate monuments to be destroyed!
The Reconciliation Monument symbolised a very real and important part of American history. In exchange for a little respect, Confederates pledged loyal service to the U.S. ever after for themselves and their descendants. They have fulfilled this promise a hundredfold in U.S. wars.
Imagine World War II without such “unreconciled” Confederate descendants as Patton, Nimitz, Chesty Puller, Audie Murphy, and countless others. The installations named for Confederate soldiers that have now been renamed were mostly creations of the World War II era. It is said that Brits referred to the U.S. air arm as “the Royal Texas Airforce,” and Japs yelled insults to Roy Acuff. The “soldiers” now in charge seem to be unaware of this part of their own history.
Then there is Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest III of the U.S. Army Air Force, grandson of the Confederate general. He was KIA in Germany in 1943 and buried at Arlington by his own request. And Major General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., actual son of a Confederate general, KIA on Okinawa in 1945.
How’s this for reconciliation? Confederate general Joe Johnston was a pallbearer for General Sherman. Confederate general Longstreet was a pallbearer for President Grant. Former Confederate congressman and officer L.Q. C. Lamar was a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Confederate soldier Edward D. White was Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court into the early 20th century. Confederate general Joe Wheeler was a U.S. Army general in the Spanish American War and after. See the film “Rough Riders.” These are only a few of the many former Confederates who played significant roles in America after Reconstruction.
There are two actual Confederate generals buried at Arlington and doubtless many other former Confederates. These two were honoured for contributions to the U.S. in the Late 19th and early 20th centuries. I won’t identify them. To do so would doubtless energise the jihadists to even more preening destruction.
They hate and fear the South. This is Jacobinism come to America, and anything predating Year One in their calendar must go. Wiping out even the memory of the hated enemy is essential to the powers that be. They need people to be rootless because a rootless people is easier to control. I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’s novel, Prince Caspian, in which the conquering Telmarines have worked ceaselessly to destroy the memory of Old Narnia and of Narnians. As you say, such projects cannot succeed – mere children can see through them, when given the freedom to ask questions. Prince Caspian does as much in the novel:
“If there was no one in Narnia, them who did my great-great-grandcestors conquer? Why is Caspian I called Caspian the Conqueror if there was no one to conquer?”
His tutor replies:
“Whom, your majesty, not ‘who.’ And I said there were very few men in Narnia in those days.”
Caspian replies: “Then you mean all the old stories about centaurs and fauns and nyads and dryads and giants and talking beasts and Aslan are true?”
The tutor says: “Certainly it’s true. But no more of such talk, not here. Don’t you know your old nurse was sent away for telling you those stories? If we were overheard, you’d be whipped and I should have my head cut off.”
The powers that be are terrified because even children can see through their lies.
The controllers of the narrative have had monopoly on the message since the dawn of human history. They are panicked because we can now push back. Every person here who states fact against them, weakens their control. I love talking to black people about how small black business never thrived anywhere or anytime as it did in the segregated South. Every town had black teachers, preachers, lawyers, nurses, accountants…small black business supported the black family…when segregation ended, it ended because the communist movement wanted us all in chains…and the easiest place for communism to gain a foothold in the middle class was in the black movement of the 1950s. Blacks threw away BT Washington’s bootstraps and replaced their standard with mlk’s lies. This destroyed the black family…and replaced government as head of black households.
Covid19scam is not the first lie your government has told you…it’s just the latest.
…”PLACED government as head of black households.”
“This fellow wrote a book called Robert E. Lee and Me, which would be more appropriately titled Robert E. Lee and Nobody.”
Dr. Wilson,
This “fellow” is a soldier by the same measure that Lyndon Johnson was a sailor. Both of these “Southerners” have cried for attention from their cowardly lair where they have written tales for their sissy friends and Yankee liars. I cannot think of enough to say badly of them. Well—I guess I could, but I don’t want to fill the comment space with thousands of truthful insults. I’ll just close out with the time-honored insult from a former USMC, and a SCV:
They can go to hell!
Among the many, many name’s given to men since the beginning of time, the name Paul, is by far, by far, the second most important name ever a man had. There’s a booklet called, “Why Paul?” It originates from an office in a building in Rolling Meadows, IL. The state of IL might annoy a lot of us, but the man who wrote “Why Paul?” is from Alabama and grew up there. If the office was contacted, they’d probably send the booklet free of charge. The office is on Hicks Rd. “Why Paul?” is an important question. Very many folks need to ponder it. You have a great name. An important one.
Statues are not monuments. Courageous people are monuments.
Start living with courage. The fight has just begun for freedom. Freedom must be fought for in every generation. It was never won. It is an ongoing struggle.
Fight with right thinking and the better ideals and ideas. We have God on our side. The enemy of truth has nothing. It is nothing. It is a house of cards.
As much as I like, favor, and appreciate the South and its history, God, though, is not on any side except the side of the believer(s) in His Son. Since Paul, the believer’s realm, or country if we like, is in, and will be, in the heaven’s, not on earth. When God concerns Himself with earth and with nations once again, the one nation He will be most concerned with, far above all other’s, is Israel.
All that has been undone…there are no chosen people. Everyone has a place who love God and love their neighbor as they love themselves.
“What saith the scripture?” Deuteronomy 14:2 “For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.” So, we see God did choose Israel. He did set them aside TEMPORARILY in the book of Acts. However, God will resume His relationship with Israel: Romans 11:25-27 KJV
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” God’s plan for Israel is not “undone.”
The genetic strain of people currently occupying Israel are not those who lived there in the past. You can pretend they are, but they are not.
“The genetic strain of people currently occupying Israel are not those who lived there in the past. You can pretend they are, but they are not.”
Who said the Israelites in Israel today, are those who lived there in the past? No one. And who is pretending they are? No one. However, when God concludes this dispensation of grace, He will resume His program with Israel. He knows who are the faithful seed of Abraham and He will regather them to their land and fulfill the Abrahamic covenant to them. The Israel of that time will be the “head and not the tail.” And all nation’s, including the U.S. if it’s even still here, will submit to Israel. If the Confederacy were reformed again somehow, in that future time it, too, would be required to submit to Israel (if they survived Daniel’s 70th week and helped the Jew, Matt. 25).
Romans 11:25 says one should not be “ignorant” of the fact that God will resume His program with Israel. Trusting that was noted.
I have affection for the South, the Confederacy, and its history; I think the South “was right,” as the Kennedy twins so wonderfully articulated in their book. Nevertheless, the Bible stands, above everything else, and it behooves all of us to receive the grace God is dispensing today. Robert E. Lee I think, would offer the same advice. No one wants to find themselves in Daniel’s 70th week if it comes in our lifetime. And it could come in our lifetime.
The title is insulting and, therefore, the content would be presumed to be as obtuse as the conceit with which it was written. In addition, after declining the command offer from Lincoln of the Union army, Robert E. Lee resigned his commission, fought for freedom from oppressive federal taxes/tariffs, self-determination of a people, and his home State of Virginia. Excuse me, the same reasons we fought England, to secede from an oppressive empire. This author would not be worthy to shine Robert E. Lee’s boots, nor shovel Traveler’s dung.
I’m a book collector (and SCV member) laser-focused on collecting pro-South, pro-Confederate books. In shopping at a used book store recently I came upon the book you’re discussing here. At first I was attracted to it because of the title. After looking it over I soon realized that the alleged “Southern” author was yet another Southern turncoat trying to make a name for himself by bashing the South. There are way too many publishers cranking out reams of this kind of tired pro-Union, pro-Lincoln junk. Why are they so opposed of publishing the truth? I’m happy to see that the Abbeville Institute and their corps of pro-Southern intellectuals are working hard to set the record straight on many key issues of importance to true Southerners. May God bless your efforts; keep up the good work!
May I start by offering my heartfelt concern for your well being, and hope that you are feeling well. I want to express my appreciation of all the work you have done to preserve the south.
The book and it’s writer deserve never to be mentioned in any discussion of the south or its people, this man should be struck from the record as a traitor, and hanged.
The removal of the memorials and monuments is a betrayal by the United States, it is the braking of a bargain, and a accusation against those who live today who’s ancestors are buried all across the south. It makes me sick to my stomach!
This is what happens when you make peace with scallywags.
Deo Vindice.
It’s very difficult if not impossible for me to sympathize with these Southern heritage people who really think we should be proud of our participation in WW1 and WW2, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
People are using these examples to point to Southern “reconciliation” with the North and somehow the Arlington Monument being removed meant that we were no longer reconciled. This sort of narrative is being used by people I greatly respect.
First of all we were not reconciled but conquered and people had no choice but to move forward grabbing whatever pride in life they could along the way including in the conquering empire. Unfortunately, some Confederate Veterans went so far as to join Yankee missions and the posterity of the whole of the South went on to become 20th Century Yankees. Southern love for Yankee blue and its military benefits seemed second to none.
Second why are our ablest writers and historians proclaiming these Southern men as contributors to something beautiful we should be proud of rather than minions used for the oppressive government and those who own it?
im not exactly sure what type of European desparation -wearing 48er masks- made it here and then willingly took up sectional white-centric notions to better themselves while demonising the south…some I expect. the more I read it seems to me that reconciliation begins with ‘allowing a state to secede if it wishe’s and possibly nullification brought back into play. gut the central and all the bureaucrats can then go back to their respective states and conduct all the fuedal cultural and economic battles they want in that fashion…with streaming video now, even other state level news is fun to watch.
In 2007 in my youngest son’s senior year during spring break we traveled from our home and San Diego to the east coast to visit the battlefields of the Civil War and a couple of prospective universities. we also went to Arlington National Cemetery where several of my family are buried. my third cousin three times removed General John Archer Lejeune former commandant of the Marine Corps is buried in Arlington. during his time he was called the greatest leatherneck of them all. like the other aforementioned descendants of Confederate Veterans buried there at Arlington General Lejeune was the son of a Confederate officer captain Ovid Lejeune CSA Louisiana.
My son ended up attending Washington and Lee University where he graduated with honors. Washington and Lee and my family are firmly connected and I have had many relatives and ancestors who attended or graduated from the University over the last hundred years and more,Including a distant cousin John Letcher who was the governor of Virginia at the time of the Civil War. Of all the calumnies Thrown by the left at The Confederacy the most egregious is associating Confederate Veterans with Nazis. The cemeteries of the United States and overseas are full of descendants of Confederate Veterans who fought and died fighting the Nazis and no doubt If the axis had prevailed many of those slandering the memory of the southerners who died in those conflicts would not be alive as they would be exterminated. In fact the National D-Day Memorial is a war memorial located in Bedford, Virginia in effect the monument also to their ancestors their grandfathers and great-grandfathers the vast majority of which were Confederate Veterans.
So no matter what our sacrifice it means nothing to political hacks more to clipboard generals who never gotten close to “seeing the elephant”. As for politicians well is Mark Twain that said you would know more look to the Congress for honesty then you would look for chastity in a whorehouse.