One hundred fifty years ago. Thus this is the last major day of the Civil War Sesquicentennial. Which lefty TNR thinks should be celebrated every year from now on. Heretical though that is, I tend to agree. Make it a subtext of Martin Luther King Day.
Nevertheless, while I despised racial and ethnic segregation when I was a teenager in the 1950s and understood it, not conceptually as so many do now, but by seeing it in action every day, and while I have no love at all for the Confederacy or its elites like Lee and his slave-owning, aristo cronies (including some of my own ancestors), I share kinship and deep sympathy with the defeated Rebel junior officers and common soldiers.
So I quite like the sentiment of the following old song which some of them sang after the war, if I do not agree with all of the words. They would understand the over-weaning, over-regulating, over-taxing and endlessly incompetent and corrupt federal government—and predominantly Democrat news media of today. They saw it coming.
Oh, I’m a good old rebel,
Now, that’s just what I am,
And for this Yankee nation,
I do not give a damn.
I’m glad I fought agin ‘er,
I only wish we won.
I ain’t askin’ any pardon for anything I’ve done.
I hate the Yankee nation and everything they do.
I hate the Declaration of Independence, too.
I hate the glorious union, t’is drippin’ with our blood.
I hate the stri-ped banner, and fit it all I could
I rode with Robert E. Lee,
For three years, thereabout.
Got wounded in four places,
And I starved at
Point Lookout.
I catched the rheumatism
Acampin’ in the snow.
But I killed a chance of Yankees
And I’d like to kill some more.
Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in southern dust.
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us
They died of Southern Fever
And Southern steel and shot
I wish there were three million
Instead of what we got.
I can’t pick up my musket
And fight ’em down no more
But I ain’t agonna love ’em
Now that is certain sure
And I don’t want no pardon
For what I was and am
I won’t be reconstructed
And I do not give a damn
Oh, I’m a good old rebel,
Now, that’s just what I am,
And for this Yankee nation,
I do not give a damn.
I’m glad I fought agin ‘er,
I only wish we won.
I aint askin’ any pardon for anything I’ve done.
I aint askin’ any pardon for anything I’ve done.
*****************************************
I went to the 125th surrender commemoration at Appomattox back in 1990. It was stirring, except for the play-acting reenactors whose gotch-gutted bellies and faultlessly-tailored uniforms made it a sham.
I expect the news media will write about the anniversary
today and, as they have ever since the first one in 1865, get most of the details wrong.
Via Mouth of the Brazos.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 