#confederate states of america

[kornwulf]

If you know me, you know one of my favorite things is low stakes historical mysteries. The one I'm currently enamoured with is this thing

It's referred to as the Bayou St. John Submarine. We know it was found by a dredge deepening Bayou St. John outside of New Orleans in 1878, and then dragged out of the water... And that's pretty much it. For about a century it was thought to be a different submarine named the Pioneer, which was a prototype for the infamous, ill fated Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.

However, it's features do not square in the slightest with the surviving documentation we have on the Pioneer, which, when combined with period newspaper reports that the Pioneer was scrapped in 1868, means it's now widely held that it's an *entirely different* Confederate submarine *also* built in New Orleans during the civil war, which as far as anyone can find doesn't appear in the historical record anywhere prior to its (re?)discovery in 1878.

So what we're left with is an intriguing shipwreck, with absolutely no knowledge as to how, when, and why it was built, or by whom.

[victusinveritas]

Happy Confederate Surrender Day to all who celebrate!!!

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[kingoftheu]

The one thing about Annabeth's casting is that they ARE gonna gave to rewrite the Confederate Zombies scene in Sea of Monsters but OTOH they do have a golden opportunity to have Annabeth Chase murder a bunch of Confederates.

[deadpresidents]

I adore Tobias Menzies and loved watching Manhunt. The last episode prompted a discussion between my coworker and I…

Was Johnson involved?

Andrew Johnson was a lot of terrible things and you won't find me defending him for pretty much any reason, but he wasn't involved in Lincoln's assassination. It was easy to raise questions about him because he was a Southerner and a slaveowner, but he was loyal to the Union throughout the Civil War -- the only Senator from a state that joined the Confederacy who remained loyal -- and one of the last things he would have done was join in a conspiracy with the Southern aristocracy that he hated with a passion during his entire political career. The fact that he had extremely adversarial relationships with Stanton and General Grant also didn't help his cause when some folks started pointing fingers at him after Lincoln's assassination.

But if John Wilkes Booth's conspiracy had been carried out as intended on the night of April 14, 1865, then-Vice President Johnson would have been assassinated the same night that Lincoln was killed and Secretary of State Seward very nearly was. Right around the time that Lincoln was shot by Booth and Seward was viciously attacked in his home by Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt was supposed to kill Johnson at the hotel where Johnson was living after his inauguration as Vice President a month earlier. Atzerodt, however, lost his nerve and ended up getting drunk instead -- but was still executed for his role in the conspiracy.

By the way, I also don't think Confederate President Jefferson Davis had any sort of role in planning or ordering Lincoln's assassination. Davis and the Confederate government had already abandoned Richmond when Lincoln was killed, and it was clear that the war was basically over. Davis -- who also hated (and was hated by) Andrew Johnson -- recognized that President Lincoln was going to be the South's best bet for a Reconstruction that would help rebuild the former Confederacy without extreme punitive measures. There were definitely Confederate sympathizers and Confederate secret service operatives who were in contact with Booth over the years, and many of them were Northern business leaders with longstanding connections in the Southern states or who were angry over the abolition of slavery and its economic impact. But killing Lincoln -- especially at that point -- was far worse for the South because it led to Andrew Johnson as President, and Johnson really was probably the last person in America who Jefferson Davis would have wanted to be President of the United States. Operationally, it would not have made sense for Davis to order Lincoln's assassination, particularly at that time.

In his post-war book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (BOOK | KINDLE), published in 1881, Davis wrote about learning of Lincoln's assassination and realizing what Andrew Johnson's succession meant:

"For an enemy so relentless in the war for our subjugation, we could not be expected to mourn [Lincoln's death]; yet, in view of its political consequences, it could not be regarded otherwise than as a great misfortune to the South. [Lincoln] had power over the Northern people, and was without personal malignity toward the people of the South; his successor [Andrew Johnson] was without power in the North, and the embodiment of malignity toward the Southern people, perhaps the more so because he had betrayed and deserted them in the hour of their need... Lincoln had been assassinated, and a vindictive policy had been substituted for his, which avowedly was to procure a speedy surrender of the army upon any terms. His [Lincoln's] evident wish was to stop the further shedding of blood; that of his successors [Andrew Johnson]...was to extract all which it was possible to obtain...it is clearly to be inferred that, but for the untimely death of Lincoln, the...wounds inflicted on civil liberty by the 'reconstruction' measures might not have left their shameful scar on the United States."

[leftistfeminista]

How Southern slavery fulfilled the White Male’s fantasy of owning white women as sex slaves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slave_propaganda

While owning and abusing humans of any race or look is equally wrong, it is revealing how sick and hypocritical race-based Southern slavery was even within the logic of its own twisted white supremacist ideology and morality. 

Because of the 1-drop rule it didn’t matter how white, “African” slaves became in phenotype or even genotype after generations of rape. 1/8th or 1/16th or 1/32. And this was by design. This was a feature not a bug. The intention was to breed white female sex slaves, who were African under the law. Thomas Jefferson owned as property a 3/4th white 14 year old girl, who had the same father as his dead wife, and looked like her twin. 

Sadly, human empathy wasn’t very developed in the 1800s USA, and the only way to get Northern whites to feel sympathy was to illustrate these cases of “white slavery”. The famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin features Eliza, who is to all appearances white. This is the sickness and perversion romanticized in the Old South and Confederate flag. 

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/07/01/white-slave-propaganda-images-light-skinned-former-slaves-elicit-sympathy-northern-wealthy-donors-1860s/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slave_propaganda

[rabbitcruiser]

The state of Virginia's secession convention voted to secede from the United States, later becoming the eighth state to join the Confederate States of America, on April 17, 1861.

[tomorrowusa]

A new Florida classic about slavery: "Uncle Ron's Cabin"

An additional tie-in to the Confederacy: the DeSantis campaign is becoming the lost cause of 2023.

[musings-of-a-baguette]

Anyone who argues for Confederate statues because they “are a part of history and you can’t change history” is fucking stupid. Tell me, when was the last time you learned history from a statue?? Never?? Yeah, that’s because we learn history from websites and books.

Statues don’t help us remember history. They help us glorify it.

[vath-and-such-vinluv-s-stuff]

Lime King,Ice Cream Countess,and Jefferson Davis.

[victusinveritas]

Thomas Nast ~ 'Why He Can' t Sleep' from Harper's Weekly

(July 7, 1866)

"The image shows a sleepless Jefferson Davis being haunted by the ghosts of Union soldiers. One points to an apparent bullet hole in his skeletal skull, while still another points to a gallows outside."

I have a lot of issues with some of Nast's work, but sometimes he was perfectly on point.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[trilobiter]

People like to dunk on those who fly the Confederate flag and babble about their "heritage" by reminding them how hilariously brief and unsuccessful the existence of the CSA was. But I think they're not giving them credit for all the heritage the Confederate flag represents.

After all, it also represents over a century and a half of brutal racist terrorism and a reactionary apartheid culture. That's a lot of heritage!

[discrepancybot]

In the unlikely event that I ever decided to visit a supermarket in tighty whities, I'd at least wear ones that fit.

[nando161mando]