Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War

Our policy with comments from the readers is simple, please comment.

I am normally happy to see comments as most of the time, it tends to bring a different perspective to the post. In our “About” paragraph, it even states

We encourage you to post your comments on our posts, especially if you disagree with us. Although we doubt you will change our minds, an honest discourse of the issue is always encouraged.

I have to admit that a recent comment actually pushed me a bit to reconsider this philosophy. I guess we should give some background to help you understand where I am coming from.

Recently Deanna Bernstein went to the Coastal Carolina fair outside of Charleston, SC. While walking the fairgrounds, she saw a shirt that offended her and complained to the management of the fair. The T-shirt in question shows two Confederate Battle Flags with the words “Confederately Correct Civil Rights for Southern Whites”



The management felt that nothing was wrong with it and told Deanna they would not force the vendor to stop selling the shirt. A friend bought one of the shirts and she proceeded to protest at the front gate. After being asked to leave on six separate occasions and refusing to leave, she was arrested and spent the night in jail.

She made the Charleston Post and Courier with an article which I posted about here. Donald then proceeded to survey his coworkers about their reactions to seeing the shirt which you can read here. The Post and Courier did a follow-up article based off of emails and letters that they received which I also posted about.

One e-mail from Bill White, who identified himself as commander of the American National Socialist Workers' Party, said, "The only tragedy in this case is that her count of trespassing doesn't carry a sentence of execution. Lynching her and burning her home in the manner of the Union armies she so loves would set a just example for the community."
White formed the party about two or three months ago as a fledgling neo-Nazi group, said Allen Kohlhepp with the Anti-Defamation League. The blog where the messages about Bernstein were posted is also known as a white supremacy network, Kohlhepp said.
Membership or affiliation with white supremacy groups is in the tens of thousands, Kohlhepp said.
However, Kohlhepp said Bernstein's courage in the face of serious threats is admirable.
"It may not be Bill White who shows up on someone's doorstep, but it may be someone who shares his ideology and who may be a lone wolf. They provoke or inspire the ones who actually commit the crimes. This woman has every right to be fearful."

Mr. White also decided to grace us with his presence, commenting on Donald’s post with the following –

Sounds like you don't have enough racists in your office. I stand by my comments -- lynch the Yankee, burn her home, and let her understand what the Tankees mean to Southern whites.

Instead of deleting Mr. White’s quote, I will publicize it and the person behind it, following my own advice in the post “How do we hate the hate groups.” I'll let you decide what to think of Mr. White and his comments but will leave you with Donald's response

Bill,
You're just overflowing with compassion for the entire human race. I wish I could say I feel and share your pain, but I don't. Herman Hesse once said that one person hates another because they recognize something in that person that they hate about themselves. Think about that for a while.

View -
His own site by clicking here
His blog by clicking here
His blog entry about his comments in the Post and Courier by clicking here
His bio on his site by clicking here
And finally, the entry about him on Wikipedia by clicking here

I’m back in Charleston and thought I would throw up some quick thoughts.

The weather in New York was miserable as was all the tourist stuff I did.

The book event was a totally different story.

It was amazing. Not only did Robert E Bonner, the author of THE SOLDIER’S PEN: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War spend an hour and a half going over the book, why he did it and how he went about doing it but it was enhanced by having some of the source material there for viewing.

One of the items he uses is a series of watercolors that document one soldiers life during the Civil War (two of which are used as the cover art of the book), throughout the book we get to view details of the art and all 9 are fully reproduced in color in the middle of the book. To see it in person though is a totally different experience and one I am so glad I was able to see.

I’ll have more up later on the event, the book, the author and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.



Apparently Donald was not the only one who thought to report on the reaction to Deanna Bernstein’s protest (read original post here and Donald’s survey post here). The Charleston paper, The Post and Courier did the same thing - click here for their version of the story. Luckily Donald posted his a full two days before they did and we can’t be accused of plagiarism (at least not for this article). Good for us!

Of course we may still be accused of giving reviews away for free books but I think Dimitri has an excellent post that shatters that view of thought.

Tom’s post on Deanna Bernstein’s reaction to, protest of, and arrest for objecting to a slogan on a Tshirt got me to thinking. I had my opinion, which was supportive of Deanna’s action and expressed this through a comment to Tom’s post. At the same time I was puzzled by Dot Scott’s (Charleston branch of the NAACP) reaction, in which she essentially said the slogan was part and parcel of her experience of living in Charleston, and she had developed a “thick skin.” Not to put words in Dot’s mouth, but I interpreted that to mean that she and other blacks come face to face with racial bias on a regular basis and to the realization you have to choose your battles.

Since the newspaper story carried divergent opinions as to whether the Tshirt in question was offensive I decided to conduct my own survey, to learn what other people thought and felt. I printed out a picture of the Tshirt, took it to it to work and asked. I should add that this was not a scientific poll, but it did involve a random sampling of people, both black and white, who represented a wide range of ages. The results are not broken down by age, sex, or ethnicity.

I began with the statement, “I’m going to show you a picture of a Tshirt. There is no right or wrong answer, I’m simply asking for your reaction.” I then presented them with four options: A. They found the Tshirt objectionable; B. They did they not find the Tshirt objectionable; C. They had no opinion either way; D. They didn’t understand the meaning of the Tshirt. I then showed them the picture and waited for their response. For anyone who found the Tshirt objectionable, I then asked a follow-up question. If they saw someone selling or wearing the Tshirt, would they say anything to the seller or wearer?

Of the twenty people who were questioned:
3 found the Tshirt objectionable and would have confronted the seller or wearer.
13 found the Tshirt objectionable, but would not have said anything
2 had no opinion
2 did not understand the meaning of the Tshirt

The survey also opened up some meaningful dialogue. Barbara, who is white, would have done the same thing Deanna Bernstein did. She talked about her experience of being a Northerner and teaching at a Head Start program in a small rural town in Mississippi during the 1960’s. Ricky, who is black and grew up in the “deep South,” expressed an opinion similar to Dot Scott’s, saying he seen so many symbols like those on the Tshirt he was used to it. Yvonne, who is black, told a story about her son wearing a Tshirt with Malcom X’s picture to a recreation center and being told to remove it by a white person. Cheryl spoke of talking to a fifteen year old about a Tshirt he had designed, in which he listed what he hated most in life. The list included Whites, Jews, and Hispanics on the front and God on the back.

Lloyd expressed the opinion that young blacks lack appreciation for the struggles and advances achieved through the Civil Rights movement, a sentiment echoed by Carrie, who said her 22-year-old daughter, a recent college graduate, has told her repeatedly she doesn’t want to hear it whenever Carrie starts talking about events that occurred thirty and forty years ago.

Donald has a strong belief that there is something that is out there guiding us, helping us in our quest to document the history of the 18th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He can’t quite put his finger on it but has said on more than one occasion, that it might be due to the failure of the regiment to write a history back when they had a chance – they are not going to let it slip through their fingers again. By telling you this, I am not putting words in his mouth or telling any secret that he would not want me to say.

Too be honest, at one time I was not too sure about it but have slowly been coming around to his thinking more and more.

It seems that whenever we hit a roadblock of finding new information, when we feel we won’t be able to fill a gap in the information or we just get tired of it, something miraculously appears. You might ask why we would ever get tired, well combined; the three of us have been researching the unit for over 60 years, a unit that existed for only 3 years. Every now and then one just has to wonder if it is worth all the effort?

So many times we have found new information or new friends when we were just about to give up. Once I spent 5 nights at the Boston Public Library looking for newspaper articles from during the war. I found very little and although knew I would need to return, did not put it high on my list of things to do. Donald decided to visit Boston one day and on a lark, went to the library and looked up a different paper and hit a gold mine of information. The findings rejuvenated us and we had a massive spurt of research that filled many gaps.

It was like the men were telling us to keep looking, even in places we had before.

Recent events provide a perfect example of the opinion that it does not look like it is going to stop.

I’ve mentioned before that the website brings many people to us – it’s a magnet for those who are looking for it. This week we received an email from a descendant of several members of the unit who still has original documents and letters from his ancestor and offered copies to us. The same day we received an email from a Massachusetts Librarian that had been given a trunk that had uniform items, documents, letters and even a portrait of one of the soldiers. They made a huge display of it and wanted to know if we wanted copies of the information.

Then we received an invitation to attend an event in New York City that corresponded with the release of THE SOLDIER’S PEN: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War by Robert E. Bonner. Living in South Carolina and not having been to New York for almost 5 years, I politely declined. Then out of the blue an opportunity arose that would put me in the City the day after the event. A bit of fast work and now I’ll be there for the event. I have no idea if this will provide any groundbreaking work for the 18th but who knows what I might find that I would not have otherwise.



Could these all be coincidences of good luck and I am just a bit superstitious? Maybe but it sure feels better thinking that you have someone looking over your back making sure you do this right and getting the legwork done for you. A lot less work and stress that way too.

And to the question that we ask ourselves every now and then, is it worth it? We always come back with the same answer, of course it is. But like so much out there that has worth, it can be hard to get there.

I am confident that we’ll get there; we have guides that have proven that they won't let us lose our way.

As in all things in life, I guess it depends on the circumstances.

So, let’s start with the circumstances.

1. You are in South Carolina but from California
2. You are in Charleston – hotbed of the Confederacy
3. You are at a county fair
4. You have paid a fee to enter the fair and partake in the festivities
5. There are vendors everywhere selling all sorts of things
6. One vendor is selling a T-Shirt that you think is a bit racist
7. The T-shirt in question shows two Confederate Battle Flags with the words “Confederately Correct Civil Rights for Southern Whites”
8. You tell the director of the fair, who feels there is nothing wrong with selling the shirt
9. Your friend buys one and the two of you go to the entrance of the fair and start protesting in front of the crowds as they enter the fair - most ignore you
10. Staff of the fair ask that you stop or leave
11. You stay
12. The Charleston City Police ask that you stop or leave
13. You stay
14. You are asked a total of 6 times to stop or leave
15. You stay
16. You are arrested and spend the night in jail
17. The ACLU feels both the fair and you are in the right
18. The local NAACP branch won’t take a position on whether the shirt is in taste or not
19. You at least get your picture in the paper for taking a stand when no one else would



Find the original article here

Best quote of the article –
“"I probably have thick skin, because I am so used to seeing it.”
- Dot Scott, president of the Charleston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Well, Globe Trekker did not have a Civil War specific show this weekend, at least not in the South Carolina showing. I'll keep looking, who knows it might eventually show up when the listing tells me it's about snails in the Amazon.

My kids were all ready to watch it and since they didn’t show it,I was treated to an episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender on Nickelodeon. I thought it only fair to watch something they liked since they were going to subject themselves to a show for me.

Man, I wish cartoons had been that cool when I was growing up! :)

I also finished up Devotion by Julia Oliver, released by University of Georgia Press



My first impression was that it was one strange book, until I digested it a bit. The book is told from several different perspectives and Miss Oliver does a great job giving each voice a distinct tone and character. It threw me off at first that the beginning of the book seemed so haphazard until I realized that it was done on purpose, to hear Winnie Davis’ thoughts as she was suffering in the end.

Recently a story teller, Tim Lowry, came to my middle child’s school. He does a pretty neat program of telling stories and then having the kids
write newspaper articles about them. He comes back later and tells some more stories and has a newspaper with a collection of the stories that he sells and donates the money to charity.

I thought that I would let my son post his story on the blog.

Blogosphere, this is Stephen.

Stephen, this is the Blogosphere.

A.B. Young :Civil War Soldier
A.B. wanted so very badly to get married. He joined the army to impress his girlfriend’s dad. He thought Army life would be easy and the war would be over soon. Boy was he wrong. Young fought at the battle of Bull Run, that was a mistake.

He killed a child’s mom with a cannon, Well, sadly he died on the battlefield. He was charged by a Confederate soldier and shot in the chest, he fell to the ground in shame. Well, poor ol’ A.B. never saw his gal again ‘cause he was buried at Bull Run.

Tom back again.

I emailed Mr. Lowry for more information on Mr. Young but have yet to hear back. I did a quick search on artillerymen
with first name starting with an A and last name of Young – there were quite a few. So, I’ll spend some time looking to see if I can’t find more information out about Mr. Young and see if there is anything else out there about him.

Also, check out Mr. Lowry's site, he has some interesting things for sale with Civil War connections.