gplawhorn Loc: Norfolk, Nebraska

I'm getting back into photography after a couple of years away. I was going through my catalog of images, and found a few from Gettysburg that hit me in a fresh way. If we destroy every remembrance of what we fought for and why, we are at a far greater risk of having to fight again.

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Old Grey Beard Loc: Salt Lake City, Utah

Seems as though there are many who wish to erase history. Nice shots

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Is someone trying to destroy Gettysburg?

Joe

Old Grey Beard Loc: Salt Lake City, Utah

Oh No, just history in general. Remove the confederate statues, there was no holocaust, etc.

ejones0310 Loc: Tulsa, OK

Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. Where are we headed today?

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

I think we're headed to a better place. Folks are learning their history. For example folks are learning that so many of those Confederate monuments were installed in the early 20th century 50 to 60 years after the war and are in fact Klan monuments. The Klan couldn't get away with installing a statue of a couple guys in sheets and pointy hoods torching a cross so they put up a monument to the next best thing -- eg. Lt. general Forrest. You can still go back to the town/city records and trace the money that paid to put up the statue and find the Klan connections. The plaque on the monument may credit something like the Daughters of the Confederacy but you can trace the money -- we know who paid.

Folks are learning that the person memorialized more than any other across this country in those monuments was a war criminal whose racial hatred was so virulent that he burned innocent children to death. Once they know that, folks recognize the obscenity the monuments represent.

Personally I think they should be left standing but with a big brass plaque attached that tells the real history of each one. List the family names behind the money that put up the statue and identify the Klan connections. And then tell the historical truth about who the monument idolizes -- make sure we get burned children to death on there in big letters where appropriate. I'm sure all the Confederate history buffs would endorse getting the history right and presenting it for future generations to learn from.

Old Grey Beard Loc: Salt Lake City, Utah

"they should be left standing but with a big brass plaque attached"
I fully agree with that.

SonyBug

Sure, why not. And while we're at it, let's put a name on the child burner, or is it just a nebulous made up sick accusation?

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

I shall not comment on this one for the expected wrath of the revisionists, other than to say that I like the photos and that those who try to rewrite history are fools.

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

Ysarex wrote, "Personally I think they should be left standing but with a big brass plaque attached that tells the real history of each one. (...) I'm sure all the Confederate history buffs would endorse getting the history right and presenting it for future generations to learn from."

I somewhat agree with the "Don't try to erase history" crowd who advocate leaving Confederate statues in place for historical reasons. On the other hand, how would the world feel if the Germans erected statues of Hitler, Goring, Himmler and Goebels because "they're part of our history?" Ysarex comes up with the best solution; leave the statues but make sure they're historically correct so we can (hopefully) learn a lesson and not repeat the errors of the past.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Sure, I did mention him. Inexplicably there are more confederate monuments that feature the cavalry officer Nathan B. Forrest than any other individual. You'd expect other more prominent confederate heroes like Jefferson Davis or Robert Lee to fare at least as well but Forrest eclipses them all. So you investigate why and you find the Klan connection. Forrest was one of the founding fathers of the Klan and that's why he features more frequently than anyone else.

Forrest was a virulent racist. During the war the one thing he hated the most was to see freed slaves in Union uniforms. Forrest commanded the troops who successfully overran Fort Pillow just north of Memphis. Fort Pillow was manned by a Union garrison made up of freed slaves. When the battle was over rather than customarily take prisoners and release the civilians in the fort Forrest ordered the slaughter of all including the civilian occupants. Women and children were herded into buildings and burned alive, the surviving troops were murdered.

Forrest's war crimes at Fort Pillow have been denied and covered up over the decades but a scholarly investigation (not an internet search) reveals sufficient first had accounts in the form of letters written home by Forrest's own troops to connect the dots.

bodiebill

Better place by destroying History?---remember the Taliban!

rightofattila

Pure BS. Nearly all the Confederate statues were put in place by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, not the Klan. Civilized beings build . . barbarians destroy.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Pure BS. The United Daughters of the Confederacy were a front for Klan money when it came to installing Klan monuments. The money trails still exist and can be followed. Read James W. Loewen's Lies Across America. Read Elliot Jaspin's Buried in the Bitter Waters.

lhardister Loc: Brownsville, TN

I have read a great deal about the Civil War and all the biographies that I know of about Gen. Forrest. My great-grandfather of Haywood County, Tennessee was a member of Forrest's 12th Tenn. Cavalry and left us specific anecdotes about the great raid on Memphis and his being captured at Nashville. I am justifiably proud of his heroism and sacrifice. Gen. Forrest was necessarily harsh and hard-driving, but his impact and effect upon the course of the war, if nothing else, justifies his remembrance in history. In fact, he may very well have been the greatest cavalry commander of all time.

Forrest was not consumed by racial hatred--if he had been, we would have been left with mass executions of the type and scale committed by Hitler and his Nazi cohorts. He had the means and ability to do it if he had been so inclined. Therein lies a major difference between memorials to Hitler vis-à-vis memorials to Forrest.

Immediately after the war, the South was crushed--her men dead, her economy in shambles, her government in the hands of carpet baggers, scalawags, and Union reconstruction forces. She had no means to erect memorials until sometime later, after there had been some recovery. Then, when the passing of many who had lived thru the war was imminent, the urgent need for memorials was recognized, and monuments were erected.

Ysarex and his rabid, left-wing, pseudo politically correct cohorts have their own agenda to support by demonizing Confederate monuments and Gen. Forrest. That agenda is sufficiently palpable to all who wish to examine their positions that it is unnecessary to restate it here. In his spurious rant, he claims that Confederate monuments are the work of the "Klan" (whatever that is/was), and that Gen. Forrest was a virulent race-hating "child burner". There is absolutely no credible evidence to support such patently ridiculous assertions and urge all fellow "hoggers" to dismiss from your consideration such false and repulsive claims.