The Drone of Conquest
There has been considerable discussion lately about the federal government’s potential use of the U.S. Army against American citizen civilians. It might be worth a moment to pause and remember February 17, 1865. On that winter day, the U.S. Army, with malice aforethought, robbed, raped, and burned out the white and black people of the beautiful city of Columbia, South Carolina. Although the city was undefended, had already been surrendered, and was of no military significance. Besides many homes, businesses, beautiful gardens, warehouses, and churches, deliberately set fires consumed, after looting, an Ursuline convent school, a Christian art collection, printing presses, a scientific museum, documents and relics of the American Revolution, and the means of subsistence of thousands of women and children. And the U.S. Army long denied responsibility, although everyone knew that was a lie.
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Thanks for reminding readers about the atrocities in Columbia but let me ask why you spent so long on the public dole. Too many good men work for and with the US Army in or around Columbia. I am also wondering why so many good men could study or work for a university in Columbia that is floated by Pell, Montgomery GI, and other federal programs.
I think of General Lee at Gettysburg. Longstreet led the I Corps. Ewell led the II Corps. AP Hill led the III Corps. General Clyde Wilson led the Title IV Corps--Confederates who rely on federal monies for their paychecks and pensions.
I would think that the use of a myriad of immigrants by Lincoln in order to subdue the South, the furtherance of the idea of "a nation of immigrants" and "the melting pot" have eventuated today in the increasingly meaningless and dilute descriptor, "American". The many "Americans" who are now heirs and beneficiaries of the "Yankee problem" will have no hesitation, therefore, in "trampling out our grapes of wrath" once again, as I believe you observed elsewhere, Dr. Wilson. I am cautiously optomistic and encouraged that there remains a significant but committed minority (not necessarily in numbers but in a late-dawning and increased understanding of the Founders' intent) within the military who understand their oath to the Constitution and will not go along with any of this.
Thank you, Dr. WIlson for the sad and sober historical lesson of this tragedy; one certainly won't see this disgraceful act of government misbehavior mentioned in any other media outlets on "President's Day." Instead we'll get more encomiums of how wonderful the perpetrator of the Columbia atrocity - the Great Saint Abraham - truly was.
I wish I shared Mr. Smith's cautious optimism about our current situation; sadly I think the use of these weapons against US civilians will proceed -cheered on by the same "citizens" who celebrate the work officials like Obama and Bloomberg.
Perhaps a work of book length can only be refuted by another book of equal length, but if it can be done briefly, what would you say were some of the specific errors in The Burning of Columbia by Marion B. Lucas?
Mr. Kabala,
Refutation does not rest on equal length. It rests on substance, truth and fact; on the wise practice that witnesses of known character who are closer to the event are more likely to be accurate, although not always, than those over one hundred years away from the event, particularly when the latter write in the context of the Zeitgeist dominating a later age; and on a teachable spirit of the reader. I am sure that you are familiar with William Gilmore Simms' work "Sack and Destruction of Columbia" and the newspaper which quite literally rose from the ashes of Columbia "The Columbia Phoenix." If you are not, as I assume, familiar with them, the full texts or long excerpts from both can be easily found on line. I am sure that Dr. Wilson and other scholars can assist you much better than I in your quest for refutation of Mr. Lucas' book.
Drone warfare is the logical outcome of a decayed society that cannot draft a military or win any war requiring an army. At times now I'm sure our selected enemies fear us; but they do not respect us.
Mr. Kabala, Dr. Peters provides a good answer to your question. It has been many years since I looked at Lucas. As I recall it was a typical anti-South nonbook. The idea is to take some understanding traditionally accepted by Southerners and "prove" it to be false. Usually relying on presenting old propaganda as fact and on the academic reflex that assumes automatically that anything said and believed by Southerners is false. Numerous "distinguished" and highly rewarded careers have been made out of this procedure. As I recall he dwells on the claim that the fire was started from cotton ignited by the retreating Confederates. This was a claim made by Sherman at the time, although years later he admitted the truth in his memoirs. It is ridiculous to excuse the U.S. army on those grounds since they had already burned and depopulated Atlanta and had been looting and burning towns all through the state before reaching Columbia and declared in advance their intentions. Just the testimony of Northern soldiers will prove the deliberate sack and destruction of the surrendered, undefended city, without calling on a single Southern source. Not to mention that they deliberately destroyed the city fire-fighting equipment. Some years after the war, some decent New Yorkers contributed to re-establish the fire department, and after 9/11 we returned the favour. In his memoirs, Ambrose Bierce, who was a hard fighting Union soldier, reports how his division under William Hazen refused to take part in the orgy and the next day, without orders, went across the river and helped put out the fires.
Another typical historian's trick is to argue and equality between Southern and Northern atrocities in the war, citing Stonewall Jackson. But Jackson advocated ruthless war against invading soldiers, not attacks on women and children, and his policy was not implemented. And Sherman's campaign is still cited by some U.S. military as a great military acheivement. In fact, he was nearly unopposed except by a slight cavalry force. Every time he was met by a scratch force of home guards he was thrown back, and when he reached North Carolina he was defeated by the depleted remnants of the Army of Tennessee under Joe Johnston. One must make pause in evaluating people who regard a war against civilians as a great military feat.
There has been considerable discussion lately about the federal government’s potential use of the U.S. Army against American citizen civilians. It might be worth a moment to pause and remember February 17, 1865.
Why go back that far? Why not go back to February/March/April 1993 to a place called Waco, known to me as the town in which my mother grew up and formerly known to the public as the birthplace of Dr. Pepper?
No, nothing quite so beautiful as colonial Charlestown was destroyed that day, but so what? The principle remains.
"Rob" at No. 1. What is your real name? What have you ever accomplished that entitles you to make nasty, anonymous, personal, and irrelevant comments about the way I've made my living? You remind me of the bitter and malevolent old. town gossip. Inferior people think in terms of personalities, superior ones about principles.
I didn't mean to make anyone angry; I was genuinely trying to look for more information. Interestingly, Lucas's book began as a University of South Carolina dissertation, although if my dates are correct, it would have been before you were on the faculty.
Rob's comment is not only rude but almost incoherent. What happened to the rule instituted here a while back that everyone was supposed to provide a full name?
I second Mr Kabala. For the last several years there has been someone who calls himself 'Rob' who drops in occasionally to hurl insults, usually at Dr Wilson, but also, if memory serves, at Dr Fleming and a couple others.
Mr Moses, I also haven't forgotten how the small handful of survivors out of roughly one hundred people were hatefully insulted, brow beaten, slandered to their faces, all but called liars by certain DC scumbags during the hearings that were held to whitewash the burning embers of that mass murder with the driven snow of government 'purity'.
There are historians(History channel hacks) who claim Lee's Pennsylvania Campaign inflicted more property damage than Sherman's march through the Cotton States. Steve Woodworth of TCU being the most prominent. I have actually met some of his former students who believe and teach this tripe in their history classes.
When I set up my profile I failed to include my last name. I cannot change it but I do not want to be associated with people who make felacious comments from behind a fence. When I comment I will end with my full name--Bryan Fox
Every time I hear someone complain in conversation about drones and how they can be used to hunt down and kill American citizens, I am always a little perturbed by their incredulity, their expressions of astonishment that the government or it's liberal politicos would actually do something like that. 'Well', I am always tempted to say, 'clear your head of propaganda about the 'greatness' of America and crack open a real book. Learn about what was done to the South, then you'll expect things like this, and not be astonished at all.'
I don't wish to stir up a hornet's nest, but we don't even have to be politically politically correct and talk of Indians or other favourite liberal topics to prove the point. Dixie, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Serbia. It makes no difference whether your enemies are justified or not, if they are evil or not, innocent and helpless or not, the supposed greatness and justice of your cause always disappears amid the flames of burning cities, homes, and churches. Murder is murder, and the U.S. government has a long history.
Drones? Why, that's just chump change! I predict the use of the U.S army against American civilians in America within the next ten years at most.
Mr. Fox, you provide another excellent example of the type of "historical" work I was describing. Such lies can only flourish because everyone starts with the unacknowledged assumptions that Southerners are evil people who must be put down. So whatever we say is prejudged as false and our behaviour is always worse than the noble "Americans."
Mr. Kabala, I dont think you made anyone angry. You just gave opportunity for some comments.
Good article, but I have an OT question.
Where has Tom Fleming been lately? I wanted to ask him something about his newest Chronicles column that I believe he was unfair on.