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And as a history teacher, I recognize that a discussion on this or any topic is not dependent on a monument or memorial. Germans don't need statues of Erwin Rommel or Fritz Christen to remember the importance of WWII/the NSDAP, or to have discussions on its (or their) significance.
Wow, I hope this was not a quiz question in one of your classes, or you better start regrading papers.
Germans have tons of memorials to individual soldiers and units, EXACTLY along the lines of the memorial to individual students who died fighting for their state. The memorial at UNC is not memorializing slavery, but the lives of young men lost in battle.
I grew up in NJ where they call The War Between The States the Civil War. If I was born and raised south of the MD Line I would be pissed they defaced or removed anything that honored heroes from that war.
Hogwash. And the UNC statue is representative of students who died in the war. It doesn't memorialize the confederate leadership.
There are many monuments and memorials to everyday WW2 German soldiers throughout that country.
Real history includes ALL of it...not just the part you're comfortable with.
Then lets put up some statues of Hideki Tojo at the Pearl Harbor memorial. Maybe a statue of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. If your assertion that monuments are an instructional tool, why is it that they are constructed with the intent of glorification? These statues are not sentinels of our history, they are clear exhibitions of Southern exceptionalism, glories, and sacrifice.
Let me be clear in this: I am very much opposed to the rampant celebration of the Confederacy in the South, but I am not completely against these monuments. If they are so much a means of preserving history, let's try to be a little bit more forthright.
Let's replace: TO THE SONS OF THE UNIVERSITY / WHO ENTERED THE WAR OF 1861 – 65 / IN ANSWER TO THE CALL OF THEIR / COUNTRY AND WHOSE LIVES / TAUGHT THE LESSON OF / THEIR GREAT COMMANDER THAT / DUTY IS THE SUBLIMEST WORD / IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TO THE SONS OF THE UNIVERSITY / WHO ENTERED THE FAILED REBELLION OF 1861-1865 / IN ANSWER TO THE CALL OF THE FEW/ AND WHO REGRETTABLY FOUGHT IN FAVOR OF/ THE DISSOLUTION OF THIS GREAT UNION
I somehow doubt most would support this.
More importantly, tell me: How many statues and monuments are there of Heinz Guderian? Göring? Goebbels?
Now how many statues are there of Lee? Jackson? Jefferson Davis? Jubal Early?
As I am going to state below, the memorials to German soldiers are just that, memorials. Not monuments to their glory. The above quote is a fairly clear indicator that "Silent Sam" is not simply a memorial. And I am more than a little disappointed that more Southerners don't take issue with the "Call of their country" bit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by southbound_295
Germans most certainly have monuments to the WWII dead, both the civilians & those who were forced into the military & never returned. I've seen them.
What is the difference between a wall or several walls with names or a single generic soldier who represents those names?
You're absolutely right, and I too have seen many of the memorials to the fallen of both World War I and World War II. My father is from Kronach in Bavaria and my mother from Ravensburg in Württemberg. You are, however, leaving out a couple of things:
First, unlike Silent Sam, many of those memorials do not have inscriptions beyond "In memory of the fallen of ______" or a listing of local sons and daughters who died, and are often placed in inconspicuous areas. That is because they are not trying to evokevsome sort of lost cause nonsense.
Second, they are rarely visited by actual Germans, and many places are currently fighting to have some of the more disapproved removed. Many Germans look on these memorials with regret and shame, not two adjectives typically associated with the discussion we are having now.
Regardless, the issue at hand is that these statues are necessary for the preservation of our history, which is clearly not true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LLN
Wow, I hope this was not a quiz question in one of your classes, or you better start regrading papers.
Germans have tons of memorials to individual soldiers and units, EXACTLY along the lines of the memorial to individual students who died fighting for their state. The memorial at UNC is not memorializing slavery, but the lives of young men lost in battle.
As a teacher, you should be familiar with Blooms taxonomy. If not, get familiar, and in any event, move off concrete thought.
When you have done that, Google German War Memorials, you will be surprised!
Yet again, monuments do not equal memorials, at least in the context of this discussion, nor did I ever say they did not have them. Simply that they did not need them to know their history. Notice Erwin's modest plaque is not at all a monument. Furthermore, I recommend you take the time to translate what is on that plaque. You might be surprised.
For anyone who doesn't want to take the time:
"At this point Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was forced to commit suicide on October 14th, 1944. He took the cup of poison and sacrificed himself, to save the lives of his family from Hitler's henchmen."
But you're right, that is every bit the same as Silent Sam :/
And if we want to get really deep into the issue we could discuss why the German government has taken resounding measures to frame conversation on both World Wars.
And for probably the third or fourth time a thread on this or a similar issue has devolved into insults. Beautiful
Last edited by MaxtheRoadWarrior; 07-06-2015 at 03:06 PM..
More importantly, tell me: How many statues and monuments are there of Heinz Guderian? Göring? Goebbels?
Now how many statues are there of Lee? Jackson? Jefferson Davis? Jubal Early?
And I am more than a little disappointed that more Southerners don't take issue with the "Call of their country" bit. And for probably the third or fourth time a thread on this or a similar issue has devolved into insults.
There's one big difference. Goring and Goebbels were war criminals. Lee, Davis, etc. weren't.
You can be as disappointed as you wish. The CSA was the country of the student soldiers memorialized on the statue. Thats who's army they joined.
And comparing the confederacy to nazis is the biggest insult put forth on this thread, imo.
There's one big difference. Goring and Goebbels were war criminals. Lee, Davis, etc. weren't.
You can be as disappointed as you wish. The CSA was the country of the student soldiers memorialized on the statue. Thats who's army they joined.
And comparing the confederacy to nazis is the biggest insult put forth on this thread, imo.
Understand that I am condemning the Confederacy and not Southerners. The Confederacy was a government established to preserve the institution of slavery. I cannot accept that a condemnation of such a government is in the least bit insulting. There are thousands of heart-wrenching stories regarding everyday Southerner's participation in the war, and it is not them I criticize.
As for the big difference: Then what is the argument for Guderian? Who, like Lee and Jackson, was a military commander first and foremost. To my knowledge there are no monuments to von Manstein (Very much a German Jubal Early), Brauchitsch, or von Bock, all of whom were extremely accomplished military commanders, whose acts were not altogether different from their contemporaries, and some of whom openly resisted Hitler.
To practice those Bloom's skills that I am apparently deficient in, I will say that my comparison of the Nazis to the Confederacy is not one of concrete acts but of conceptually being on the wrong side of history.
We were taught in school that the WBTS was fought over slavery. Then I grew up.
The war was not fought over slavery but was caused by the Southern interest in preserving slavery.
Yeah, I guess all of those lines in the Ordinances of Secession regarding how they were specifically breaking away over the issue of slavery were just added in at the end right?
Like this one from the Mississippi Ordinance:
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."
Or this little diddy from South Carolina's Declaration of Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify South Carolina's Secession:
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.
What was it about? Tariffs? The Tariff of 1857, authored by Southerners, was the acting tariff at the time of secession, and had lowered tariffs to levels not seen for almost two decades.
Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Act, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Brooks Sumner Affair, Raid on Harper's Ferry. What do they all have in common, I wonder?
The Civil War is every bit the consequence of the Mexican-American War and a failure to resolve the question of slavery in the West.
I think it worthy of the debate going on here to include the text of the speech Julian Carr (UNC graduate, Confederate veteran, businessman, and for whom Carrboro is named) gave while dedicating the "Silent Sam" statue in 1915. This is a transcription as it appears in the collection of Carr's papers maintained by UNC's archives. I take no further part in this thread aside from providing it so that it may further fuel debate
Quote:
There are no words that I have been able to find in the vocabulary of the English language that fittingly express my feelings in this presence on this occasion. But you know and I know, that thought I might speak with the tongue of men and of angels, neither song nor story could fittingly honor this glorious event. The whole Southland is sanctified by the precious blood of the student Confederate soldier. Their sublime courage has thrown upon the sky of Dixie a picture so bright and beautiful that neither defeat, nor disaster, nor oppression, nor smoke, nor fire, nor devastation, nor desolation, dire and calamitous, and I might with truth add, the world, the flesh nor the Devil has been able to mar or blemish it. The tragedy of history fails to record anywhere upon its sublime pages anything comparable to it. All time will be the millenium of their glory.
The canopy of the South is studded with stars which shall grow brighter and brighter as the ages in their endless procession succeed each other.
No nobler young men ever lived; no braver soldiers ever answered the bugle call nor marched under a battle flag.
They fought, not for conquest, not for coercion, but from a high and holy sense of duty. They were like the Knights of the Holy Grail, they served for the reward of serving, they suffered for the reward of suffering, they endured for the reward of enduring, they fought for the reward of duty done. They served, they suffered, they endured, they fought, for their childhood homes, their firesides, the honor of their ancestors, their loved ones, their own native land.
This noble gift of the United Daughters of the Confederacy touches deeply and tenderly the heart of every man who has the privilege of claiming the University of North Carolina as his Alma Mater. It is in harmony with the eternal fitness of things that the Old North State's daughters of to-day should commemorate the heroism of the men and youths whom the mothers and sisters, the wives and sweethearts of half a century ago sent forth to battle for the South. As Niobe wept over her sons slain by Apollo, so the tears of our women were shed over the consumated sacrifice of their loved ones. And as the gods transformed Niobe into a marble statue, and set this upon a high mountain, so our native goddesses erect this monument of bronze to honor the valor of all those who fought and died for the Sacred Cause, as well as for the living sons of this grand old University.
The years of the future will laurel the story,
How often the tender, the brave and the true,
Stood fast on the fields of their merited glory,
A thin line of gray 'gainst the legions of blue.
O! what if half fell in the battle infernal?
Aye, what if they lost at the end of the fray?
Love gives them a wreath that is fadeless, eternal,
And glory investeth the thin line of gray.
They broke it, the thousands, the might of a nation,
Hurled back the weak line in its pitiful plight;
The deeds that had challenged a world's admiration,
Went down 'neath the pall of a pitiless night.
The war between the states was fought, really, by the women who stayed at home. Had they uttered a cry, had they complained, the morale of Lee's army would have been dissipated in a day.
The Women of the Sixties of our dear Southland, like Penelope, were glad to wave and spin that their husbands and sons and sweethearts might, like Ulyses, fight the battles in defense of Southern liberty and Southern honor.
How many mothers were there in those days of stress and storm like her of that touching interlude of Tennyson's?
"Home they brought her warrior dead,
She nor swooned nor uttered cry;
Al her maidens watching, said,
She must weep or she must die.
Then they praised him soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe,
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to her warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face,
Yet she neither moved, nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set her child upon her knee,
Like summer tempest came her tears,
'Sweet my child, I live for thee.'"
And how she lived for him, that patient widowed mother of the South; what a man she made of him; how she has kept true in his breast the best traditions of his race; how she has fed him, clothed him, brought him up through poverty to wealth, from weakness to strength, to the high honor of hard work, through the indomitable example that she set! She has made of the sturdy manhood of the South the highest product which a Christian race has yet attained.
God bless the noble women of my dear Southland, who are to-day as thoroughly convinced of the justice of that cause. They are the guardians of the sacred honor the the departed; they will protect the memory of the hero's spirit no less than preserve from desecration the sacred dust of his body.
Nothing in all the marvelous record can equal the fortitude, the constancy, the devotion of the women of the South. Whatever history has written of Andromache or Penelope, of Virginia or Lucretia, of the Carthagenian maids whose hair supplied bow-strings of battle: of Boadecia or Helen of Troy, of Elizabeth of Joan of Arc; it was for the women of the Confederacy, our dear old mothers, our wives and our sweethearts, God bless them every one, to show forth again in such resplendent guise, that neither history nor romance can approach its everlasting glory.
The educational institutions of the South bore a conspicuous part in respect to the number of students who represented them in the ranks of the army of the Confederacy. Nowhere in all the South was the approaching conflict more keenly scented than in the universities and colleges, and the gallant boys, then pursuing their studies, lost no time in preparing themselves for the hour when the call should come. Long before the show on Sumpter, which was heard around the world, was fired, companies of students were drilling on the campus. Within a week or two after that fateful April day, there were on the march to the front. On every battlefield they gave good account of themselves, and with their life-blood they sealed the compact of patriot and hero.
In the foremost rank of the schools whose students rallied 'round the Stars and Bars stands our own beloved University. One only is ahead of us in the list, the University of Virginia, of whose students, 2,481 served in the Confederate Army and Navy, and 488 of whom gave up their lives. Washington College -- now Washington and Lee University -- sent out a company, early in 1861, under the name of the Liberty Hall Volunteers. It numbered 76 on its muster roll, and of these, 13 were killed, 26 wounded and 9 died in the service. All in all, Washington College gave 450 men to the Confederacy.
Even the great Northern universities -- Harvard, Yale and Princeton -- furnished quotas of soldiers for the Confederate ranks. From Harvard came 247, of whom 52 were killed in battle and 12 died in the service, and in this large list appear 8 brigadier-generals and 5 major-generals. Of the graduates and students of Yale, 48 entered the Confederate service, and of these 8 were killed in battle or succumbed to disease. At Princeton 55 men left the University, early in 1861, to enter the Confederate service, and from the somewhat incomplete records of that University it appears that a considerable percentage of these young men were killed in battle, or died from disease.
At William and Mary College, 44 enlisted in the Confederate service, of whom 6 were killed.
Of the students and alumni of the University of North Carolina, about 1800 entered the Confederate army, of whom 842 belonged to the generation of 1850-1862. The University had in the service 1 lieutenant-general, 4 major-generals, 13 brigadier-generals, 71 colonels, 30 lieutenant-colonels, 65 majors, 46 adjutants, 71 surgeons, 254 captains, 161 lieutenants, 38 non-commissioned officers and about 1000 privates. Of these 1800 men something like five or six hundred were killed in battle or died from disease in the service.
I regard it as eminently appropriate to refer briefly at this point to the magnificent showing made by our state in the military service of the Confederacy. North Carolina furnished 84 regiments, 16 battallions and 13 unattached companies, besides the companies and individuals serving in commands from other states, and 9 regiments of Home Guards. out of a total enrollment of 600,000, North Carolina, it appears, furnished more than 120,000, including Home Guards. Losses on the battlefield and by disease indicate that her contribution to the Confederate army was somewhat more than 1 to 5, while her military population stood in the proportion of 1 to 9. The entire Confederate loss on the battlefield was 74,524, of which North Carolina's share was 19,673, or more than one-fourth; 59,297 died of disease, and of these, 20,602 were North Carolinians.
And I dare to affirm this day, that if every State of the South had done what North Carolina did without a murmer, always faithful to its duty whatever the groans of the victims, there never would have been an Appomatox; Grant would have followed Meade and Pope, Burnside, Hooker, McDowell, and McClellan, and the political geography of America would have been re-written.
It is not for us to question the decrees of Providence. Let us be grateful that our struggle, keeping alive the grand principle of local self-government and State sovereignty has thus far held the American people from that consolidated despotism whose name, whether Republic or Empire, is of but little importance as compared with its rule.
This beautiful memorial is unique in one aspect. I have participated at the unveiling of several Confederate monuments, and have intimate knowledge of several Confederate monuments, and have intimate knowledge of a great many more, but this is the first and only one in which the living survivors have been distinctly mentioned and remembered, and in this distinguished presence I desire to thank the Daughters of the Confederacy, in the name of the living Confederate students, for their beautiful and timely thoughtfulness.
The duty due to our dear Southland, and the conspiuous services rendered, did not end at Appomatox. The four years immediately following the four years of bloody carnage, brought their responsibilities hardly of less consequence than those for which the South laid upon the altar of her country 74,524 killed dead upon the field of battle, besides 59,297 of her brave and loyal sons dead from disease, a grand total of 133,821.
It is true that the snows of winter which never melt, crown our temples, and we realize that we are living in the twilight zone; that it requires no unusual strain to hear the sounds of the tides as they roll and break upon the other shore, "The watch-dog's bark his deep bay mouth welcome as we draw near home", breaks upon our ears -- makes it doubly sweet to know that we have been remembered in the erection of this beautiful memorial. The present generation, I am persuaded, scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon race during the four years immediately succeeding the war, when the facts are, that their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South -- When "the bottom rail was on top" all over the Southern states, and to-day, as a consequence, the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States -- Praise God.
I trust I may be pardoned for one allusion, howbeit it is rather personal. One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomatox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shred, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterwards slept with a double-barrel shot gun under my head.
With pardonable pride I look upon the great record of my Alma Mater, near whose confines I first beheld the light; in whose classic halls three of my sons have graduated and a fourth is now a student, and where my brother and three of his sons also matriculated. The glorious record of this eat of learning is embalmed in the affections of our family.
A brave soldier, a devoted son of the South, an honor graduate of this grand old University, led the brave phalanxes of the South fartherest to the front, up the bloody, slipper heights at Gettysburg, along the crest where death in full panoply with exultant glee held high carnival -- I bow my head while I mention the name of the chivalrous J. Johnston Pettigrew - the Marshall Ney of Lee's Army.
Permit me to refer at this point to a pleasing incident in which that distinguished son of the South, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, had the leading part. A year or two ago diplomas were given by our University to all the students who had interrupted their studies to enter the military service of the Confederacy. Mr. Wilson, then President of Princeton University, delivered these diplomas. One man only of the Class that matriculated in 1862 wearing the Confederate uniform, came forward to receive that highly prized token. It was the humble individual who now addresses you. At the dinner, later in the day, Professor Wilson greeted me with the remark that in many years nothing had so much touched and warmed his heart as the sight of that Confederate uniform.
The "old gray" always awakens sad and tender memories, glorified more and more by the receding years. Those of us who donned it and brought it back tattered and torn after the final battle had been fought, and our banner had been furled at fateful Appomatax, and who are yet here to recall those days that tried the souls of the men and women of the South, bow in profoundest gratitude before you, Daughters of the Confederacy, for this tribute of your love, for this token of your devotion to the spirit of the South, the spirit that animated all those who for four long years fought against overwhelming odds, and to whose unflinching valor their whilom adversaries bear fervent testimony to-day.
In our forums, in our halls, in our universities and colleges and schools they tell us, through tradition, song and story of the wonderful deeds of the ancient Greeks and Romans, Thermopylae, Marathon and Platea, of Caesar and his 10th Legion, which carried the Roman Eagle to the confines of the known world, of the chivalric knights of the Middle Ages, of Saratoga and Yorktown, of Cowpens and King's Mountain, of Lodi and Austerlitz, of Napoleon and the Old Guard, of Jefferson Davis and Buena Vista, and Monterey, but there is nothing recorded which surpasses the achievements of the Student Soldiers who wore the gray. For undaunted heroism, unyielding endurance, patient suffering, incessant fighting, and deathless valor, he is without parallel. He was the ancient Greek of modern times, led by the Miltiades of the 19th Century, the world's greatest hero, Robert E. Lee.
The Spartan lived again in the Confederate Student Uniform. When the flag of the Stars and Bars was unfurled, consecrated by woman's devotion, sanctified with woman's tears, with all the hopes that clustered around it, with all the mighty millions of forces arranged to crush it, Leonidas, clad in the Confederate Student Uniform, arose from the dead to fight under its folds again for his country.
O, they are not dead! If they are not here to-day, I know where they are, fellow comrades, I know where they are, -- just over the narrow river, camped in silken tents, on the green sward, under the shade of the trees, on the banks of the crystal stream of life.
They tell us, the foolish ones tell us, that when Stonewall Jackson, the world's greatest strategist and the great general and Christian soldier, was dying, he became delirious. But he was not delirious. It is true, the light of the world was fading before his vision, but as it faded, he caught a glimpse of this beautiful camp in which are so many of his own brave soldiers, and as the light of the world faded away, and the vision of that tented field rose before his closing eyes, he said:
"Let us pass over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees."
Ever and anon, through all the vicissitudes of life, we are prone to ask ourselves: "What am I? and whence did I come and whither do I go?" Are our lives like bubbles cast upon the ocean of eternity to float for a moment, then to sink into nothingness? or like the islands that slumber on the bosom of the sea of a day, and then go down beneath the waters? Or like the meteors which streak the heavens with their lines of light, and then go out forever? Is there no place where the soul can say, "This is my home?"
Why were these instincts of imortality implanted in our breast? Were they placed there to mock us in our desolation?
Why were the stars, in their unapproachable glory, set in the skies above us, if there is now hope? Why was the rainbow ever painted before our eyes, if there is no promise?
There must be, there IS a land that is fairer than day, where the rainbow never fades, where the stars never go down, where these longings of immortality shall leap like angels from the temple of our hearts, and bring us rest; where the good and true, who fall before us here like Autumn leaves, shall forever stay in our presence. There, there, fellow comrades, is the Confederate soldier's paradise, the Confederate soldier's heaven of eternal rest.
That for which they battled in memory of whom this monument is reared, as well as for the survivors of that bloody drama, was not achieved. But the cause for which they fought is not lost. It never can be, never will be lost while it is enshrined in the hearts of the people of the South, especially the hearts of the dear, loyal, patriotic women, who, like so many Vestal Virgins (God's name be praised), keep the fires lighted upon the Altars. Nay, as long as men anywhere pay tribute to the self-sacrificing spirit of a people's ideals.
Ah! never shall the land forget
How gushed the life-blood of her braves,
Gushed, warmed with hope and courage yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save.
Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
When they who helped thee flee in fear,
Die full of hope and manly trust,
Like those who fell in battle here.
In the knowledge of subsequent developments, the progress, peace and prosperity of our united, common country, victor and vanquished now alike believe that in the Providence of God it was right and well that the issue was determined as it was. And the people of all sections of our great Republic, moved by the impulse of sincere and zealous loyalty, of fervent and exalted patriotism, may say: "All is well that ends well."
Again, dear Daughters of the Confederacy, I thank you in the name of the eighteen hundred brave, loyal, patriotic, home-loving young student soldiers who went out from this grand old University to battle for Southern rights and Southern liberties, five hundred of whom never came back. God bless every one of you, and every Daughter of the Confederacy in our dear Southland.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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I hope that lengthy dedicaton speech wasn't given in the summer, or they'd probably be burying a few more.
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