Not to Be Disturbed By Gene Stevens

 

ON APRIL 9, 1865, NEAR THE TOWN OF APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE VIRGINIA, CONFEDERATE GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE SURRENDERED HIS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA TO UNION GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. DAYS EARLIER, LEE HAD ABANDONED THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL OF RICHMOND AND THE CITY OF PETERSBURG;  HIS GOAL WAS TO RALLY THE REMNANTS OF HIS BELEAGUERED TROOPS, MEET CONFEDERATE REINFORCEMENTS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND RESUME FIGHTING. BUT THE RESULTING BATTLE OF APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE, WHICH LASTED ONLY A FEW HOURS, EFFECTIVELY BROUGHT THE FOUR-YEAR CIVIL WAR TO AN END. LEE AND GRANT, BOTH OF WHOM HELD THE HIGHEST RANK IN THEIR RESPECTIVE ARMIES, HAD KNOWN EACH OTHER SLIGHTLY DURING THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR (1846-48) AND BEGAN THEIR DIALOGUE BY EXCHANGING AWKWARD PERSONAL INQUIRIES. CHARACTERISTICALLY, GRANT HAD ARRIVED IN HIS MUD-SPLATTERED FIELD UNIFORM WHILE LEE HAD TURNED OUT IN FULL DRESS ATTIRE, COMPLETE WITH SASH AND SWORD.

ref https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/appomattox-court-house

THE TERMS OF SURRENDER;

From U.S. Grant To R.E. Lee

Appomattox Court-House, Virginia April 9, 1865.

General: In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th instant, I propose to receive the surrender of the army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the government of the United States until properly exchanged; and each company or regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.

U.S. Grant, Lieutenant-General. General R. E. Lee.

ref https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1865RELee-surrender.asp

On April 09th, 1865, the hostilities of the war between the states had been terminated. The over-all Commanders of the standing armies of the Confederacy and the United States had formally agreed in writing to terminate the war, and the south had agreed to surrender all arms and to cease all military activities. The agreement was officially ratified by all those involved, up to and including the sitting President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. 

Lincoln celebrated the surrender ... And even asked the band to play Dixie out of respect. 

The war between the states was fought and prosecuted by two standing, officially sanctioned armies. Employed, payed for, and equipped by each sides own respective governments, and authorized by proper governmental authority to enter into the field to conduct military operations. The south began by acting in defense of their territory. Up until July of 1863 when Lee's Army of Northern Virginia mounted a major offensive campaign when they entered Pennsylvania and engaged northern forces at the town of Gettysburg PA. 

It was at The Battle of Gettysburg, the high water mark of civil war history, that the Army of Northern Virginia began to falter, and would eventually be decimated by the Union army. Confederate forces, would in the end have no choice but to capitulate. 

The southern part of the country would be brutally forced back into the union. The reconstruction period of the civil war was anything but "constructive" as the union army and the U.S. Government would abandon the south and leave the people their on their own without financial support. The financial well being of the south would be shattered and would not begin to recover fully until after world war two. The federal treasury had been broken by Lincoln's administration, who wasted vast amounts of money bowing to special interests while executing the civil war. 

The country would in spirit, remain two separate countries as the former General of the entire union army, Ulysses S Grant would take over as President of the United States. It was under his administration that the  country would be launched in a deep financial depression,  a period from which the last phase of the indian wars would arise, resulting in the brutal forced removal of indians from their ancestral lands, all  while a faltering U.S. government sought gold in the Black Hills and all the west. For the next one hundred twenty years, the country would remain steadfastly two separate ideologies up to the civil rights period of the 1960's.

Enter the 21st Century; The Attack on U.S. Institutions

The 2016 Presidential election became the most divisive election in all of U.S. history since Lincoln's took the white house prior to the outbreak of the civil war. However, the late 20th and early 21st century ushered in drastically different political ideas, including the insurgence of socialism and leftist politics into American politics. 

The aftermath of the 2016 election was a bloody affair. In what appears to a planned and asymmetrical response to the loss of the election. Riots, protests and individual acts of violence erupted across the country. Police officers were killed in ambushes throughout the country, school walk outs were staged, the #metoo movement was created (a method to attack individuals who occupied powerful political and business decisions), And the forced and illegal removal of symbols of U.S. history and the republic itself was begun.

ATTACKS ON HISTORIC MOUMENTS

Additionally, the conflagration would move to the innocuous and non-threatening. Leftists would target many symbols of American history. Monuments which represented figures and events of U.S. History would be vandalized by hostile people, removed by left leaning city governments and smeared by mainstream media. No monument or grave marker has been safe since the election of 2016. Monuments representing Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington,  General Joseph Hooker and many Confederate monuments had been damaged, destroyed or removed.

OAKWOODS CEMETERY CHICAGO; 

On the south side of Chicago Illinois sits Oakwoods Cemetery. The grave yard contains a large grave marker that sits above a mass burial mound containing the remains of approximately five thousand dead soldiers, who perished at Camp Douglas in Chicago which was not far from this location. Military personnel who served with a sanctioned and legal government entity called the Confederate States of America (CSA) are interred here. 

The CSA had legally and constitutionally broke ties with the United States Government over political, legal and ideological differences. Many citizens of the newly formed CSA had proudly enlisted for military service at the beginning of the war. However the CSA later passed the conscription act and implemented a forced draft, in which many other were pressed into service under threat of punishment.  The union army also drafted soldiers. Therefore the war that occurred between 1861-1865 was in no way different  that other later wars including world war two and the war in Viet Nam.  

But there were other significant differences. For one, the civil war was an internal war, in which the populace made war upon itself. The other major difference was that no formal agreement or rules of war had existed for conduct between hostile armies. The army had the Articles of War which provided for internal military issues, but no documents existed for the housing, treatment and conduct where Prisoners of war were concerned.   

CAMP DOUGLAS; DEATH CAMP

Well, if he’s an angel, all right then… But he damn well must be a killer angel.

Sergeant ‘Buster’ Kilrain: Ref The Killer Angels (1974) is a historical novel by Michael Shaara

According to Theodore Karamanski,  Ref; a history professor at Loyola University in Chicago and the author of Civil War Chicago: Eyewitness to History.

Camp Douglas’s makeshift nature showed in its rickety wooden barracks and crude sewer system. Soon, though, the camp was taking on more and more prisoners and keeping them for longer and longer. But because neither side intended on taking large numbers of prisoners for extended periods of time, Camp Douglas — as well as most other Civil War prison camps — proved unprepared to handle them.

“That is when all the prison camps got a lot nastier,” Karamanski says.

The camp was meant for no more than 6,000 prisoners, and as its ranks grew to roughly 12,000 at its peak it became more dangerous than any battlefield. Overcrowding and poor sanitation spread diseases such as dysentery, smallpox, typhoid fever and tuberculosis. Illness became the camp’s leading cause of death, claiming roughly 4,500 Confederate soldiers, or 17 percent of the total number of men imprisoned at the camp during its nearly four years in operation, according to Karamanski’s estimate. In his book, Karamanski cites an 1862 report by the U.S. Sanitary Commission, wherein an agent admonished Camp Douglas for its “foul stinks,” “unventilated and crowded barracks,” and “soil reeking of with miasmic accretions” as “enough to drive a sanitarian to despair.” 


There were also very few rules of conduct for camp guards who were quick to puish prisoners for unfounded reasons. Or kill them for small infractions of the rules. One account tells us that a guard once shot a confederate prisoner because he urinated in the wrong place. Other accounts tell of the kill-line where prisoners would be shot down for coming to close to the camps perimeter. Other eye witness accounts tell of guards shooting indiscriminately into prisoners barracks resulting in the deaths and wounding of hundreds of prisoners. The conditions of Camp Douglas, would by modern standards be considered a death camp, and such offenses would be prosecuted as war crimes. No offenders would be tried for any crimes at Camp Douglas, and Lincoln's administration would be held up as heroic emancipators. Nothing could be further from the truth, war is war and human nature frequently sinks into dark places when humans are given the power of death over prisoners who have no one to turn too.

                                        A Chicago area Chapter of the Son's of Confederate Veterans

                                                    hold a memorial service at Oakwoods Cemetery

                                    Camp Douglas Memorial' Camp #516, SCV at Oakwoods Cemetery

On Sunday April 22nd, 2018, members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans held a ceremony to honor the soldiers who had died at Camp Douglas. The members are made up of historic reenactors and historic preservationists. The Reenactors were met by a group of approximately forty protestors. Even though both sides were peaceful and introspect. It was apparent by subsequent newspaper accounts that there was clearly some media bias, as local newspapers and TV outlets improperly labeled these SCV members as "Neo-Confederates" alluding to the members as being white supremacists. This was a seriously incorrect and divisive term. 

The following statement can be found on the "Son's of Confederate Veterans" Webpage;

                                               Charge to the Sons of Confederate Veterans

“To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier’s good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved and which you love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish.”

Lt. General Stephen Dill Lee, Commander General,
United Confederate Veterans,
New Orleans, Louisiana, April 25, 1906.

In the final analysis, civil war historians, members of the SCV and citizens of the southern U.S. kept the promise that Grant and Lee had made at Appomattox, to not disturb the other, AND to treat the defeated with respect and honor. The south never raised a hand or weapon in rebellion against the United States again. But now, the city governments where leftists have seized control have clearly violated the terms of surrender. In some countries, this blatant disrespect and disregard for military agreements could be considered an act of war. And in some peoples opinion, this is exactly what the disgruntled citizens of the U.S. are risking. The rekindling of the civil war is not within the scope of authority, or the concern of any local city government. It is the duty and responsibility of the federal government to execute war within, and outside of the borders of the United States. The state level governments and its subordinates have over stepped their authority and just as the confederacy was conquered by federal authority, these local government entities must be reined in.

"Not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside."

- Sergeant Shakes-Speare

Reference https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-cit y/chicagos-forgotten-civil-war-prison-camp/92844206-a9bc-4f62-8786-d5afef093379