White Privilege
Brock over at Free North Carolina and I were exchanging emails last night and I shared a photo of one of my Confederate GG-Granddaddys with him. He suggested I post this picture. The man in the photo is George Washington Denton. The photo was taken about 1883. He lived in the area of what is now Marietta, GA as war was looming on the horizon. He joined the 1st Georgia Cavalry CSA and fought the duration of the war. At the wars end when he walked up to his farm in May of 1865, his wife and children were in the yard. Not one recognized him. He was so vermin ridden that his wife stripped off his ragged clothes and burned them. They washed him in a pot in the yard in lye soap. He had been a modest farmer before the war, but Sherman's bummers had stolen or destroyed everything of value except for his house. While he was gone to fight the raiders stole everything that was edible and all the quilts from the home leaving his wife and children to go hungry and cold. He moved to Sand Mountain, Alabama about 1883. A few years later they moved to Winston County where land was cheap. He lived a good long life (88 years old) dying in 1925. He is buried with my mother's other people about 4 miles from where I was raised. I thought he looked like a wealthy planter from Gone With the Wind. Maybe it is just the way the light is hitting the picture. I really doubt this man could have given a tinker's damn about keeping any other man in bondage.
It is so unbelievable to me that people still believe the Civil War was about slavery! If every poor SOB had one, then yeah. But since only the very wealthy landowners (plantation owners) had them, it is very doubtful.
ReplyDeleteI was in 7th grade when they began teaching that in "Social Studies." My uncle set me straight - fewer than 10% of the south could afford slaves, and few mistreated them because they were so valuable. The War of Secession was about economic inequality.
DeleteAdjusted for inflation a healthy worker with a skill could cost $60K or more in 2021 dollars, and the slave ownere were rightly upset that the government wanted to free the slaves without reimbursement.
You might read Alexander Stephens', VP CSA, Cornerstone speech. He has a different point of view.
DeleteThe Civil War was about the protective tariff. When I was a kid (late 50s), we were taught about it. The North imposed prohibitive tariffs on imported goods, which were cheaper than Northern goods. This is was almost the sole source of revenue for the Union. The South objected, then took advantage of their right to secede.
DeleteLincoln could have avoided the war, but wasn't interested. This is why in some quarters he is known as the first statist President.
And, according to Joe Johnston, 10% of the Confederate Army owned 90% of the slaves. The average poor white trash fought because they had been invaded.
If the war was about slavery, why was the Emancipation Proclamation (Sept 1862) issued 17 months after the war started (April 12, 1861)? The rich people in New England wanted Lincoln to force the south to sell their raw materials cheap to them instead of shipping it to England where they could get more money - hence the reason for the shipping blockade at Fort Sumter. This was the very beginning of the industrial revolution. Lincoln introduced the slavery issue as an emotional ploy to get the poor Northerners to join the fight.
Deletetaxes, tariffs, STATES RIGHTS is HOW the CIVIL WAR began, Yankees thought they could do anything they wanted to the south, IT DIDN'T work. Slavery was in lincoln's & other abolitionist b.s. thoughts. My great-great Grandfather fought with His regiment out of N.c. state. Came out of just south of Burlington, Graham area.
DeleteSlavery had been an issue for a long time, if we're truthful, but, as far as the Civil War was concerned, it was the excuse, not the reason.
DeleteAnd lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation (full version Jan '63) because he was out of money because his unconstitutional income tax (you really don't make war on the people who provide your revenue) and emancipation was the Abolitionists price for opening their pocketbooks.
It was about economic inequality, but saying that it wasn't about slavery at all is over-simplifying the situation. EVERY state mentioned slavery as a cause of secession, and Texas actually mentioned it 21 times.
DeleteSerious question: why did the southern states secede before Lincoln even took office? He hadn’t done anything yet.
DeleteMy Mothers side of the family was full of these people.
ReplyDeleteMy Uncle has traced that side back to the Revolutionary war, all the way past that and back to William The Conqueror.
I have a very long line full of people that don't take any shit, BFYTW.
I would say we have much in common Jeffery.
I had ancestors here over a hundred years before the Revolution and had one or more relatives from every line on my mother's side and daddy's side that fought in it.
DeleteLove that picture and thank you for that, Jeffery! The nice lady could be the spittin' image of my granny except her location would have been the mountains of SW VA (Lebanon area).
ReplyDeleteHave friends in NW AL and I'm not all that far from Winston Co. myself, would be good to meet up sometime.
Sounds good EH. I believe the small child on the ladies knee is my Great Grandmother. She was born in 1880. The photo was taken about 1883. The child is almost a deadringer for my 4 year old granddaughter. How did you meet up with some "mossbacks" from Winston EH? Sure, we could meet up sometime.
DeleteJust wanted to be left alone.
ReplyDeleteFamily heritage is a great thing. Glad you have that picture.
ReplyDeleteDad wrote 2 books on family history. One local with all the anecdotes of his youth born on the prairie grew up cowboy, good stuff.
The other started in 1702 when two irish brothers settled on the Maryland Delaware border. Family eventually made there way through Mississippi marrying into the Choctaw tribe and eventually to my home state. Some of my native american ancestors were royalty including my Mimi. Some were very wealthy and ate on silver servings.
Thanks for the picture and great story. The will to do the things he did and accomplished, along with surviving is deep. There is so much good in our history, I wonder if they actually taught that in schools we would not be in the deep shit we are now in. And thanks to all the comments on your own histories...
ReplyDeleteThat "wealthy planter" look he has is simply the look of an honest man. In that respect, he was wealthy, indeed. I've recently begun some genealogical research and traced one side back to the 1200's, back to a little battle where a document of some sort was involved at a place called Runnymead. Seems my ancestors have been scrapping with somebody for the last thousand years or so.
ReplyDeleteHaven't forgotten about the cheesebuger; life has a way of delaying some things.....
Mine have been scraping a long time too. I had two ancestors that fought in the Battle of Towton (1461).
DeleteConfident the second CW will go the other way that's why they are scared shitless and trying to gaslight more and more. Karma is a bitch but the final tree of liberty will be the oldest in history.
DeleteYup, that is our white privilege. To be dirt poor, and shit on from royalty and feudal lords to our present day esteemed and ethically challenged overseer civic and military servants... My Irish ancestor from my moms side were here from convict ships in the early 1700s and were treated with a lot of homegrown white privilege. Irish and Scots are the most vicious, efficient, berserker warriors ever encountered on any battlefield.
ReplyDeleteYour berserker remark is accurate, but might include Norsemen. The Irish problem is they will fight against anyone, but not for themselves. Same with Scots.
DeleteThe term is Scotch-Irish, Presbyterian Scotsmen settled in Ireland by the British government to dilute the defiance of the Catholic Micks. It didn't take and, after a century, they moved to America.
DeleteA lot of Scottish & Irish moved south after immigrating in the 1700s, first down the Schukyll, then on to Georgia. "The History of the Scotch-Irish" (that the Catlick church denies existence of) is a dry reference book, by Dr. Thomas Sowell describes the history and culture of my own ancestors almost perfectly in the 1st chapter of "Black Rednecks and White Liberals."
ReplyDeleteMy ancestors in GA were dirt poor subsistence farmers, and when a Union squad came through they demanded my great-great grandfather's mule. He explained that the mule was the only animal they had to plow the fields and that they'd starve without it. The commanding officer told him he could keep the mule, then shot it dead and left.
Love the photo. Might have been taken in a log home he built himself.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of photos of my Great-grandfather: one as young lieutenant in the 27th Volunteer Illinois Infantry (he fought in a dozen major Civil War battles), and another as a peaceful-looking old man sitting in a rocking chair in front a stove with a cat at his feet.
I have the original glass plate negative of the latter.
Sir!
ReplyDeleteThanks to share that.
My parents were born and raised on Sand Mtn.
I grew up just south of Huntsville.
I believe I very well understand of all you speak and don’t speak of.
I am here daily, and do so appreciate all that you guys do.
I pray for you both.
That G-d will protect, preserve and prosper
You and yours.
(Even though country folks can survive, we still need the Lord.)
Indeed Steve.
DeleteI guess it is logical if one was from that time, but most early pioneers/settlers of Scotch and Irish descent (some English and some German pockets did too, but were absorbed into the 80 percentile of the Irish and Scottish immigrants) followed the migratory pattern down from VA through the Carolinas, into GA, to Sand Mtn. and then to points westward. Of course some ventured through the Cumberland Gap into Kaintuck, and Tennysee. This is very different from the Puritan/Quaker0 stock that settled in PA, OH, and moved westward through IN, IL, etc. Then the second waves came of Norwegian, Scandinavian, and Germanic peoples who settled the "frozen north" parts of the U.S.
Mr. Townsend is an amazing man. He has taught me the real history of the South. So sad children today will never know the truth.
ReplyDeleteMr. Denton was ssoooo privileged he forgot his shoes or maybe he's wearing moccasins. That pic and the accompanying story is a nice little piece of history.
ReplyDeleteNemo
Jeff - when you create the outside link in copy, always make sure to have it open in a new tab.
ReplyDeleteJuss' sayin'...
Joe
https://theviewfromladylake.blogspot.com/
I had a conversation ( if you want to call it that) with a twenty something female. She had started with the taking down of General Lee’s statue in Richland being a symbol of white oppression and slavery yada yada. I read from Lincoln’s first inaugural address where he says you can’t secede and I’m going to collect those taxes. Long heated discussion. Claimed she’s not going to listen to some article from the internet. I explained it was the inaugural speech and she says she doesn’t care, doesn’t want to hear it. That there lies the problem. They don’t want to know the truth
ReplyDeleteWe have no idea, as a people, what those folks a hundred years before us went through.
ReplyDeletePeriod.
Today, our problems seem like mountains. But they are nothing compared to folks like these.
Listening to the complaints of today's youth, one is led to believe we have done a poor job parenting. But that excludes the influence of radical leftist teachers.
History is only of great benefit, if we learn from it and avoid repeating the same mistakes. Then again, I suppose the fact that we don't, explains why we are in the shape we are, hundreds of millions of years in.......