Although I did not watch the #SHEAR2020 plenary live, my Twitter feed alerted me to a vibrant discussion about it.
I did watch parts of it until it was taken down.
There are a lot of questions to be answered. Let me raise a few that haven't been so extensively discussed.
Whether or not one wants to classify Andrew Jackson as a military hero, there is little doubt that his exploits in uniform against Native Americans, the British at New Orleans, and his invasion of Florida gave him a high profile.
There were other military notables: Winfield Scott and Oliver Hazard Perry ... and Old Tippicanoe himself, William Henry Harrison and ichard M. Johnson. In the case of Jackson, Harrison, and Johnson, a large part of that reputation was made fighting indigenous peoples.
So it's interesting to think about what made someone a "hero" at this time.
Dan Feller (the "hero" of the hour, according to much commentary about #SHEAR2020), strenuously objected to the use of the word "slaughtered" regarding the Battle of New Orleans. He seemed to think it implied some sort of war crime, whereas Jackson was just doing his job.
I remember thinking that this seemed to make a great deal out of very little and was perhaps a little too defensive, but that Feller was showing us that he was well aware of the implications of words people used.
In light of other events at the plenary, that was ironic.
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It's often asserted the as president Ulysses S. Grant destroyed the Ku Klux Klan.
The reality is not nearly as satisfying or uplifting to those who deplore white supremacist paramilitary terrorism as conducted primarily by veterans of the Confederate war effort.
The KKK became a shorthand descriptor for the many forms of white supremacist terrorism that slowly took organized form in the late 1860s. There were other massacres (Memphis) and attacks (New Orleans) against blacks and their white allies in the Reconstructing South.
By 1867 and 1868, when Black men in large numbers exercised the right to vote for the first time, white supremacist terrorism, often defined as KKK activity, targeted Black voters and Republican officeholders.
Visual portrayals of what happened in Wilmer McLean's parlor on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House are worth some study.
Here's a simple early version: two generals, one table.
The table is a curious effort to bring together elements of the two tables involved in the event. Grant said at a brown wood oval table; Lee sat at a squarish marble table. Grant's chair was a swivel desk chair backed in leather, while Lee sat in a high-backed chair.
Yet it took a while for artists to include those four pieces of furniture, let alone to assign them to the general who used them.
As true Americans commemorate the anniversary of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox, let's recall that the events of April 9 marked an end to one of the most successful pursuits in military history ... one that is often underappreciated.
In some sixteen days the US forces under Grant's command repulsed a breakout attempt, severed Confederate supply lines and railroads, forced the evacuation of Petersburg and the the Confederate capital at Richmond.
That's for starters.
They then outmarched a foe determined to escape, blocked any chance of the enemy combining forces in North Carolina, then headed the insurgents off before they could reach the protection of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
In the process the foe suffered nearly 50% losses.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.
Most of us recall the generous terms Grant offered Lee, which stood in contrast to his reputation as "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.
But what about Lee?
After all, on April 6, at the battle of Sailor's Creek, Lee watched as his army crumbled under US attacks. "My God, has the army dissolved?" Lee declared in desperation.
Lee was in dire straits.
Gone was any chance of uniting with Confederate forces under Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina.
Gone also was the chance of dealing any sort of significant blow against his foe.
All that was left was to continue westward to the protection of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
A few notes on Ulysses S. Grant's personal involvement with the institution of slavery prior to the American Civil War for those who might be interested ...
Grant grew up in an antislavery home. As a boy his father had worked in a tannery owned by Owen Brown, who had a son named John. I bet you've heard of him.
As a boy Grant attended a preparatory school in Ripley, Ohio, run by Reverend John Rankin.
What else did Rankin run? A stop on the Underground Railroad.
Recall Eliza's fording the Ohio in *Uncle Tom's Cabin*?
The real life event took place in this vicinity. The Eliza in question was Eliza Harris.