In the end however, I chose not to attend, for a number of reasons. There was already going to be quite a large crowd in attendance with limited space available, and since I don't live in the city limits proper I didn't think it was going to be fair. Citizen journalist though I am, I'm also a citizen who's already publicly stated that the monument should be restored. There were a number of associates who had more reason to be there than I, and I greatly appreciate the reports that they have sent to me.
The biggest reason why I didn't go however, is that in my mind, at this time there is no "controversy" about the monument. It was damaged in an accident, the driver's insurance will certainly pay to have it repaired (as happens countless times across the country each and every day). Did I have a reason to be there as an independent journalist of some repute (hopefully good)?
It began dawning on me yesterday evening that I should just steer clear of this meeting, to not "dignify" a non-issue with attention, and be content to give Mayor James Festerman and the city council the benefit of the doubt and trust them to do the right thing. As of this writing, I'm still counting on them to do that by letting the monument be repaired. Besides, I know that at least one of the Reidsville City Council members is a regular reader of this blog, so my thoughts and observances are going to be considered even if they aren't in the official record.
I'm thankful for those who came to speak in favor of the monument. And I think that I did the right thing in being an absent presence of publick reporterage on this occasion. But based on what I'm hearing this afternoon, I'm gonna keep a really hairy eyeball on this... and if Mayor Festerman and council doesn't do right, I'm gonna be on them like white on rice!
You want to know what that's a monument to?
It is a monument to nearly two thousand men of Rockingham County - more than most other counties in the state which sent the most soldiers to serve in the Confederate army - who arose to the task of defending their families and their communities in a conflict that certainly not one of them had wanted to see in their lifetime or the lifetime of their children.
It is a monument to men who lived in unenviable times and had to cope with those times per an all too natural wisdom that it can not be said a century and a half later has appreciably deepened in clarity... by any of us under the sun.
It is a monument to men who went to fight in a war that was clearly unfortunate... but only the most ignorant or the most foolish would call it a war with any side that was clearly evil.
It is a monument to men who were only doing what they knew best to do in this fallen world, not out of hate but out of love.
It is a monument to men who did what they did, out of duty to God as best that they understood that duty.
Who are we, who are any of us, to presume that we know better or that we would have done otherwise?
Because as far as this writer is concerned, the men who went out from their farms in Rockingham County, were fighting as much for the freedom that we have today... including the freedom to never have to make the choices that they were forced to make... as they were fighting for their own families and friends and communities.
Nearly two thousand men in Rockingham County served in the army of the Confederate States of America. More than six hundred never came home. That too, is a higher percentage than this county's fair share of participation in the Civil War. Either across the state or across the states of the Confederacy.
If none of that is worth remembering, honoring and even celebrating, then... I honestly don't know what would be.
3 comments:
Amen brother, Amen
I find this offensive on a number of counts - but primarily, historical.
If you knew the history of these monuments, and why they were erected in the first place, you would realize that their purpose was two-fold: to justify the Confederacy, and to remind African Americans of their subservient position.
My full response here:
http://www.necurmudgeon.com/2011/06/evil-causes-and-people-who-fight-for.html
The New England Curmudgeon:
I have found that it is usually the most ignorant who are quickest to be offended at anything.
So are we to presume that you are accusing all of the soldiers of the Confederacy to have been fighting for an evil cause... including the more than SIXTY-FIVE THOUSAND MEN OF AFRICAN DESCENT WHO SERVED IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY?
Are you saying that those 65,000 men, many of whom were regarded by their Caucasian brethren as some of the most capable soldiers on the field, were all serving and striving and fighting and dying for "evil"?
By the way, soldiers of all ethnicities served and camped and even tented together in the Confederate army. Only the Union segregated soldiers along racial lines. Indeed, many historians now agree that racial segregation was a product of northern opportunists who came south during Reconstruction.
I would tell you that slavery was a losing economic model and that everyone in the south knew it, and that within ten or fifteen years it would have been entirely prohibited voluntarily and that there was in fact serious discussion about doing as much... but I have to wonder if that might impinge too painfully upon your woefully mal-informed perspective of real history.
It is said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Your grasp of Civil War history is downright lethal.
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