Year of Glory by Monte Akers: An Excellent Book

Major General J.E.B. Stuart

       I just finished reading the book Year of Glory by Monte Akers. The book deals with Jeb Stuart's military career from June 1862 to June 1863. I'll be the first to admit that I've never been a very big Jeb Stuart fan, but Monte's book has since changed my mind. I couldn't put the book down. I even read several parts of the book to my wife and she said, "He was your clone."

       Working on the railroad I earned the nickname "Instigator" because of pulling pranks and jokes on people and enjoying a good laugh. Jeb was much the same way. This book is full of funny stories about some of Jeb's funnier moments. I'd always read how Jeb was seeking personal attention when he left Lee's Army blind in Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg Campaign. Monte Akers helps explain how and why things occurred the way they did. He doesn't do like most biographers and attempt to make his subject sinless, but points out that Stuart was human and prone to make mistakes. The book is a great read and I highly recommend it. I could hardly put it down and there is a part two to this book that I'm already in the process of purchasing. Book two covers from Gettysburg until Stuart's death and if it's half as good as this book, it will be a great book. 

       There are several interesting stories and many are commical, especially the story of a Prussian staff officer sitting on a wet painting, but there was one story that particularly interested me. In the chapter on Chancellorsville, Stuart and his staff camped beside a barn that served as a field hospital for Federal soldiers. The Prussian volunteer staff officer named Scheibert made a note of the difference in wounded Confederate soldiers and wounded Federal soldiers. According to Scheibert, Confederate soldiers considered it a disgrace to groan aloud when they were wounded, but suffered stoically in silence. He said a person could tell if the hospital was Federal or Confederate by the sounds. Scheibert mentioned meeting a captain walking to the rear during a battle with his hat covering one hand. Scheibert asked the captain if he was severely wounded, there being a great deal of blood on the officer's uniform. The captain replied, "No, only the hand is gone." Scheibert went on to mention other instances to back his claims that Southern soldiers took wounds with little complaint while the Federal soldiers groaned and cried aloud. 

       I'm not trying to say Southerner's are tougher or stronger than Federal soldiers. It was the Southern ideal of honor and bravery that made them act in such a manner even when they understood their wound was mortal. According to the book Attack and Die by Grady McWhiney and Perry Jamieson all of this was a direct result of Southerner's ancestry. The descendants of the Celtic people mostly settled in the South. The Celt's were a warring people. Take that and have part of the population intermarrying Native American's and you have yourself a perfect fighting machine. 

       Again, I highly recommend Year of Glory by Monte Akers. I have come away with a completely different view of Major General Jeb Stuart and now I must have the next book.

       

Who Cries For The Children?

The above cartoon represents industry devouring children

       My last blog saw me going into a diatribe about how horrible Southerners were to own slaves and how terrible it is to have memorials to Southern soldiers (even the ones that owned no slaves). I thought I would touch base on a few facts about the Holier Than Thou Northerners during the War Between the States. If you who don't want to know the truth about America's history you'd better stop reading here. You will of course be offended or pretend none of this is true. 

       For some reason, everyone is so offended by slavery, yet ignore the fact that northern industries relied on child labor (slavery) during the war. How much did they rely on children? Most numbers suggest up to fifty-five percent. You heard me right, fifty-five percent of the Union's industrial force was made up of children. Who cares, right? After all, those children were mostly poor Irish immigrants and not of a darker complexion. 

       Now I can hear the northern apologists and liberals crying out that these children weren't owned, but in fact they are wrong. When you make a nickel a day, working seven days a week, and learn at the end of the week you owed the company twice the money you've made since they fed you during one of these sixteen to twenty hour shifts, you may wish you were a Southern slave. 

Does the above cartoon remind you of an Auction Block?

       The cartoon above is a demonstration of Northern capitalist during the Civil War bidding on children to work in their factory's for little to no pay. Poor children like these were kidnapped off the streets and forced to work. Not only are children required a certain amount of rest for their growing bodies, they are also in dire need of a good diet. In these northern factories, they received little of either. Why would these business owners want children to work for them? That answer is easy. Children are easier to control, just take a leather strap to them if they slack off working, and there is no danger of them going on strike. Plus, it was basically slavery under a different name, but like I said before, who cares about them, they are too light complected. White lives don't matter, remember?

       Now you may think they weren't that rough on these children, but you'd be wrong. They were forced to mine for coal, tend to furnaces, and do all types of jobs that are considered dangerous to grown men. 

       Worse than slavery, child labor has been in existence in this country far before 1776 and did not end when African slavery was abolished in 1865. No, child labor carried on sixty plus years following the Civil War, but it's alright because it was mostly a northern factory thing. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Greed, same problem we have in this country today. If you haven't heard of the northern sweatshops during the Civil War, you've been hiding your head in the sand. Nobody ever mentions any of this today, it's all about the African slave. 

       By 1820, forty percent of northern cotton factories were employed by children between the ages of eight and twelve. This percentage increased to fifty-five percent during the Civil War to keep pace with military needs. All of this is fine right, because the humanitarian Union Army was fighting to free the poor mistreated Africans. Once the war was over guess what those northern factories added to their employment lists? You guessed it, African children. Now I hear everyone beginning to protest, but somehow this has to be the South's fault. The north is sinless in all regards and get the free pass as usual. 

       Let's briefly take a look at what happened in the country of Cuba in the year 1912. The black race was being taken advantage of by big business owners in Cuba and the United States. The mistreated African's began what was labeled the "Negro Rebellion" against harsh working conditions. Now this same country that invaded the South over concerns for slavery sent 2,789 marines to force these blacks back to work and put down their rebellion for better living conditions. By the time it was all over somewhere between 3000 and 6000 African-Cubans had been killed. Why did the United States side with the Spanish against the Africans? The answer is simple. Follow the dollar in this country. Below I leave you with a few photographs of northern slave labor that lasted until the 1920's. 

Age's 7 and 9 in Massachusetts

Connecticut

Maine for 15 cents per day

Indiana

New Jersey

Pennsylvania

Vermont

Dawn Aberg: Another Expert on the War Between the States

The James Deshler Monument

       Boy did my proposal for a monument to James Deshler stir up a hornets nest around here. I never realized there were so many ignorant people in the world. This Dawn Aberg I'm mentioning in the title wrote a letter to our local newspaper about being offended herself about another "Confederate Monument." I guess she has trouble with reading and writing because we proposed a "Military Monument" to Brigadier General James Deshler. Of course like others, she must place her own spin on things. Never mind the truth, that would get in her way. 

       First let's review a few things she claimed in her letter. Her first twist comes with the fact that Deshler's father came to Tuscumbia, Alabama to cash in on the booming cotton trade to get rich off products provided by slave labor. David Deshler came to Tuscumbia in 1825. What did he move here to do? To build a railroad linking Tuscumbia to Decatur, Alabama. He served as director of that railroad. He was a strong advocate of building up Tuscumbia to become a major town at that time. So, where is the twist? Well Ms. Aberg says he made his money off slave products. That is quite a spin there. Because the man built a railroad means he made a fortune off slave products? Has this woman lost her ever loving mind. With that line of reasoning, we should shut the entire town of Tuscumbia down today because at the time it was making money off slave products. Let's not stop there, but shut down the entire South. That was one of her more remarkably stupid comments, but there's more. 

       Ms. Aberg claims the real reason James Deshler is famous today is because of his father's wealth. Where in the hell did she get this information? Let's look at the Deshler family that moved to Alabama. David Deshler and his wife moved here in 1825. They had three children, David, Charlotte, and James. Charlotte grew sick at age 13 and died. David went to West Point and while bathing in the Hudson River, he drowned. He rests in the National Cemetery there today. James Deshler then graduated high in his class at West Point. There were several notations by high ranking government officials about his intelligence. He served in the United States Army and was with Sidney Johnston during the Mormon Expedition. Now this is the part that only really educated people can understand, because you have to be capable of looking at history the way it was, not as you see it from today. Ms. Aberg, never can. 

       Ms. Aberg claims she has deep roots to Colbert County, Alabama (her mother grew up here), but has spent the majority of her life in Massachusetts, California, New York, Sweden, and France. Now someone with that much extensive travel surely knows what the definition of a state happens to be. A state is a country. When Hitler was rallying Germany what did he cry, "Das Gans." The State. Before the War Between the States, each state was it's on country first and attached to the Federal government second. So when the Southern States began to leave the Union, what did all the officer's from those states do? They left to join the military forces of their home state to defend it against an unconstitutional invasion. (By the way, it was constitutionally illegal for a state to invade another state until Lincoln took control). 

       James Deshler came home and fought giving his life for his native state (country) as I would hope anyone at that time should have done. Thus you have these idiots today that look at history through modern eyes. I have a few questions for Ms. Aberg that I would love for her to answer for me. 

       First, why is it just the Southerner's who are offensive? There were slaves in the North, but they get a free pass. I've never understood that. Why do the cities of Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and many more get a free pass when they all owned ships that raced back and forth between Africa and America selling slaves? They too get a free pass from being offensive. What about the thousands of Irish children snatched off the streets and sent to the Northern states to work in factories at ages as young as eight and forced to work 20 hours a day for a nickel per day, only to find that they'd owe the company more than they made at the end of the week by taking meals? They were worked until they were completely broken down and then discarded on the streets to fend for themselves. This of course doesn't bother Ms Aberg in the least. That is fine with her, she'll take all the Northern brainwashing she can get. 

       I hate to bring up race in all this, but several have taken this argument there, so I will answer one of the above questions for you. Why do we not care for those poor Irish children who were treated much worse than slaves? Because, they are the wrong color, they don't sit around and cry about they way their ancestors were treated, and they are mature enough to not cry every time something offends them. 

       Oh, and by the way, when David Deshler finally died, he left everything he owned to the city of Tuscumbia. I hope you don't shop in that racist town, Ms. Aberg. I also noticed Ms. Aberg is one of those who was moving to Sweden when Trump was elected president, but like the rest, she's still here. 

Sammie Lane and her world of Idiocracy

Brigadier General James Deshler

       As for those of you who do not know, our local SCV camp in Tuscumbia, Alabama have raised the money to erect a monument to the greatest man that ever came out of our county. The above mentioned Sammie Lane is some idiot girl on facebook that knows about as much about history as my dog. Miss Sammie Lane claims that Deshler died to defend his right to own slaves, however as was pointed out to her, he owned no slaves. But, don't let any of this stop Miss Sammie's image of the perfect North against the Evil South. She'll just jump to something else, another excuse perhaps and she does. 

       She claims she loves good research and then publishes a paragraph (repeatedly mind you) that explains how Deshler and his father and all Confederate's didn't feel the black race was equal to the white. This one always kills me, because looking back from today without any imagination about what life then was like is way over Miss Sammie's head. Everyone in that day and age believed the black race was inferior. One of the most racist men in the country was a politician named Abraham Lincoln, but don't tell Sammie. 

       This same Sammie then goes into this diatribe about how we should give the money we raised ourselves for the monument and give it to school teachers. I'd be happy to do just that if they would teach history correctly and not just from Sammie's point of view. How about the one billion dollars annually the Federal Government (according to wikianswers.com) gives to the NAACP yearly? How much of a raise would that give to those poor school teachers?

       Sammie says it took her just 30 minutes of research online to discover that the South was all evil and racist and the North was Holy, ad nauseam. The point is, if you do your research online (and we all know everything we read online is correct) in 30 minutes and use the same stupid paragraph over and over, Miss Sammie's not too bright. 

       I have a few questions I'd like Miss Sammie Lane to answer for me since she is such an expert on the War Between the States. Caution: This may take longer than 30 minutes for the airhead to accomplish and will take much longer for her if she has to put some sort of spin on it. 

       The war was all about slavery? Then please explain the Corwin Amendment to me? Please explain the Morrill Tariff? Perhaps, since the Holy North was right, Miss Sammie would feel fine paying 85% of the Federal taxes while everyone else only pays 15%. After all, we all know that war was about slavery, there's never been a war about money, ever. 

       Commissioner David Black stated that we must put something in place to limit which groups can place monuments on the courthouse lawn. So, what type group are we? Well, we respect men who were brave enough to fight for their homes and families against an unconstitutional invasion. These same idiots like Miss Sammie who call Confederate's traitors are the first to celebrate July 4th each year when the United States seceded from England. However, Miss Sammie can place some twist on that too I'm sure. By the way, when was the slave trade outlawed? Well, Sammie, the year was 1807 and when did the North begin forming abolitionist groups against the evil institution of slavery? Try 1808, and why then? Because they could no longer make money off of slavery, they were ready to be rid of it. Of course, I'm sure in her 30 minutes of researching an entire era, she missed the fact that ships owned by the cities of New York, Philadelphia, and even Chicago made tons of money travelling back and forth to Africa bringing slaves over to be sold to the South. 

        Now, back to the type of organization we happen to be. A black lady named Mary (a slave) had a tombstone crumbling to pieces about thirty miles south of where I live. My organization paid to replace the tombstone. How much money did the NAACP donate to this noble endeavor? You guessed it right if you guessed $0. How much in donations did we receive from African-Americans at all? You'd be right if you guessed $0 again. How many African-Americans attended the re-dedication of her monument? Again, not a single one. For a group of people that are so upset with the treatment of their ancestors, you'd think they would have given at least a dollar to such a noble cause, but you'd be wrong.

Sammie Lane's Great Emancipator

       Since Sammie Lane is such an expert on that war and the "great emancipator" surely she won't mind me quoting him here a bit. 

"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races … I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people..."

                                                                      In a debate with Stephen Douglas in 1858

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

                                                                     Lincoln's inaugural address

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess, the property, and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties, and imposts (Taxes!!!!!); but, beyond what is necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion---no using of force against, or among the people anywhere."

                                                                                Lincoln's inaugural address

"You and I are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other races. Whether it be right or wrong, I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living amongst us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated."

                                                                                  Lincoln speech to freed blacks, August 14, 1862

       Poor people like Sammie Lane can never admit to any of this or it would destroy her perfect world scenario she has placed before herself. Yet, she is more than willing to attack others having very little knowledge of what she is even speaking about. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the idiocracy that is today's Americans are spoon fed by the television what to believe or spend 30 minutes online to become experts on everything, thus Sammie Lane.