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Martin Van Buren Bates was a normal baby born to normal parents in Letcher County, Kentucky, in 1837. But he was not destined to be “normal” for long. At the age seven he started a tremendous growth spurt. By the time he was thirteen, he had grown to a height of over 6 feet, and weighed in 300 pounds.

His parents were so astonished by his amazing growth that they would not let him do any chores, fearing that his body would be too fragile to handle the activity. And he kept on growing. It is said that he reached the height 7 feet 11 inches  and weighed over 470 pounds.

He wrote later in an autobiography,

“My growth was gradual and it is probable, that owing to that fact each portion of my body developed equal and symmetrically… When I was fifteen I stood six feet in height and was to all appearances a man. At that time the war between the States was commenced.”

When the Civil War began in 1861, Bates left his school teaching position and joined the Confederate Army as a private in the 5th Kentucky Infantry. His imposing size and ferocity in battle earned him a promotion to rank of Captain very quickly. His incredibly large size made him a legend among Union soldiers. They told tales of a “Confederate giant who’s as big as five men and fights like 50.”

He was severely wounded in a battle around the Cumberland Gap area and also captured, but he later managed to escape.

After the War, he did not return to Kentucky because of violent feuding going on between the Union supporters and Confederate supporters. He said,

“I’ve seen enough bloodshed; I didn’t want any more.”

Instead, he traveled to Ohio, and joined the circus, exhibiting his enormous stature to curious onlookers in the “cabinet of curiosities.”  People said his boots were so so large “it took a bushel of corn to fill one boot.”

While on tour in Canada, he met Anna Swan, who stood 7 feet and 5 and a half inches tall.

The curious couple later married in London and became the “The Tallest Man and Wife That Ever Existed.” Thousands of people were drawn to them, not only by their uncommon size, but also by their exceedingly good and charming nature. Queen Victoria herself gave them two extra-large diamond-studded gold watches as wedding presents.

Martin and Anna Bates

Martin and Anna eventually returned to Ohio, settling into a life of farming in Seville, and were lovingly known at “the Giants of Seville.’

Bates is one of the most famous Kentuckians to have ever lived. His struggles and triumphs, during the Civil War and civilian life demonstrate to us the pursuit of a passionate life well-lived – even as a “Giant.”

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No other Confederate officer had the mystique of John Singleton Mosby, a talented and heroic cavalry officer. He was an unlikely hero. As a sickly child Mosby was often bullied, but he learned to fight back at an early age.

When the Civil War began, Mosby opposed secession, but decided to leave his law practice to join the Confederate army as a private, serving in the “Virginia Volunteers.” This was a company of mounted infantry, that fought at the first Battle of Bull  Run (First Manassas).

Mosby’s exceptional skill at intelligence gathering caught the eye of J.E.B. Stuart. He was promoted to First Lieutenant and assigned to Stuart’s cavalry scouts, and later on gained command of the 43rd Virginia Cavalry, as a Major.

He and his “Mosby’s Rangers” started a campaign of lightning raids on Federal supply lines and harassing their couriers. His ability to appear and disappear at will, blending in with local farmers and townsmen, earned him the name “The Gray Ghost.” With with each success, his fame grew.

Mosby’s Rangers

March of 1863,  at Fairfax County Courthouse, he managed to capture Union Brigadier General Edwin H. Stoughton. When Mosby found Stoughton asleep in bed, he woke him up with a slap on the rear, and asked,

“Do you know Mosby, General?”

The General replied,

“Yes! Have you got the rascal?”

“No,” said Mosby. “He’s got you!”

Mosby with his 29 Rebels captured the Union general, two captains, 30 enlisted men, and 58 horses without firing a shot.

The area of northern central Virginia where Mosby conducted his raids was known during the war and ever since as “Mosby’s Confederacy.”

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Animals of all kinds were part of the Civil War and very valuable in their working roles and on the battlefield. Horses, mules, donkeys, and even camels accompanied the troops during campaigns.

In modern warfare, dogs are often seen on duty, helping their human comrades in and around the battlefield. It was not uncommon for soldiers the Civil War to have dogs with them, but as companions.  There was nothing like having man’s best friend with you for comfort during harsh and hard times of war.

Here is a touching tale of one loyal dog who saved his master’s life, a wounded Rebel Soldier, from an excerpt of a book written six years after the war ended: “After the battle of Fredericksburg, it fell to my duty to search a given district for any dead or wounded soldiers there might be left, and to bring relief. Near an old brick dwelling I discovered a soldier in gray who seemed to be dead. Lying by his side was a noble dog, with his head flat upon his master’s neck.

As I approached, the dog raised his eyes to me good-naturedly, and began wagging his tail; but he did not change his position. The fact that the animal did not growl, that he did not move, but, more than all, the intelligent, joyful expression of his face, convinced me that the man was only wounded, which proved to be the case.

A bullet had pierced his throat, and faint from the loss of blood, he had fallen down where he lay. His dog had actually stopped the bleeding from the wound by laying his head across it! Whether this was casual or not, I cannot say. But the shaggy coat of the faithful creature was completely matted with his master’s blood.”

Heroes can come in many forms.

Now if that isn’t a man’s best friend, then I don’t know what else is.

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 No battle of the war saw more troops on the field than the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Although greatly outnumbered, Lee’s army was ready for the fight.  Union artillery pounded Fredericksburg for over two hours, the first time a commander ordered a large-scale city bombardment during the war. Fires broke out, buildings fell to the ground, and Union troops entered the town. A soldier from Pennsylvania later wrote:

“The town was all ransacked. Books, chairs and every kind of furniture was lying on the streets.” But General Barksdale’s Mississippians emerged from the rubble and met the Yankees in house-to-house fighting. Meanwhile, in another area of the fighting, Marye’s Heights, the Rebels had made themselves nearly impregnable. Confederate Lt. Colonel Alexander detailed the preparations to General Longstreet this way:    “General, we cover that ground now so well that we will comb it as with a fine-tooth comb. A chicken could not live on that field when we open on it.” But the Federals assailed the Heights with courage and vigor, wave after wave of men.  It was while watching his men beat back one attack after another that Robert E. Lee made the famous statement:

“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” Lee later congratulated his men on their victory,  and worked to raise donations from his men to help the citizens recover from the assault.

Battle of Fredericksburg – From Hanover Street to Marye’s Heights

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A question to those who have called for the ban on this historic flag:

Is your revulsion to this flag well founded?

Here are three questions and answers that may challenge what you think you know.

If you believe you have a well formed, rational reason for despising the Confederate flag with its red white and blue design, then I challenge you to keep reading.

Question 1: Ask yourself, “Do I know the real history of the Confederate flag?”

Many people wrongly think that the Confederate flag purely represents racism and is only flown by folks who believe in white supremacy. That idea couldn’t be further from the truth, and those who continue to spread that myth are either content in their ignorance or so anti-American that they don’t even bother to learn their own country’s history.

Why People Believe the Myths

In fairness, it’s not hard to understand why so many people hold wrong beliefs about the Confederate flag. It was, after all, flown by those in the Confederacy, and the Confederacy did, of course, support slavery. But connecting those few dots and assuming the flag is a racist symbol to everyone who flies it is shortsighted.

The Truth about the Confederate Flag

The truth is, what we now call the “Confederate Flag” wasn’t actually the national flag of the Confederacy but instead was its battle flag — and only one of many. Back in the 1860’s before the days of mass media and the internet, sharing information and getting any group unified was no easy feat. Consequently, it took a while for all the different factions of the Confederacy to settle on a single flag to represent their whole “nation.” It wasn’t unusual for different bands of the army to fly their own version of a Confederate flag, which represented the unique culture of their own micro-group.

The Southern Cross became one of the most memorable of all the various Confederate flags and is the source of today’s controversy. However, it wasn’t designed as a symbol of hate but was meant to represent the culture of many of the Southern citizens.

For instance, the flag features the cross of St. Andrew (the apostle who was martyred by crucifixion on an X-shaped cross), which is why the flag is commonly referred to as the “Southern Cross.” Many Southerners were of Scottish and Scotch-Irish descent and strongly related to St. Andrew, as he was the patron saint of Scotland. Also on the flag are stars to represent each state in the Confederacy as well as Kentucky and Missouri.

Thus, those who designed the flag did so with the intent to represent their shared history, culture, and unity. It was never meant as a symbol of hate. Similarly, most people who fly it today do so to honor their ancestral past and Southern pride — not out of nostalgia for the “slave days.”

Question 2: Do you recognize that flying this flag (and others)  represents our shared American rights?

There is arguably nothing more American than having freedom of speech and allowing people the right to express their own opinions. Trying to ban the Confederate flag or forcing viewpoints about it onto others is about as un-American as it gets. The fact of the matter is, people have different feelings and opinions about the flag — and that’s okay!

Even if we disagree with someone’s stance, we should all just be proud that, as Americans, everyone has the right to their own beliefs. Trying to put undue social pressure on people to conform to certain opinions or attempting to ban a flag goes against everything this country stands for.

As Former US Democratic congressman and actor from the Dukes of Hazard, Ben Jones — who, by the way, is not too happy about Dukes being taken off the air due to that idiot shooting out a church and using the Confederate flag as his symbol-of-choice — said:

“This is like the book burning in Nazi Germany or something. This sweeping cultural cleansing that they’re doing. It’s got to stop.”

Seeing the Flag from Other People’s Perspective

In addition to respecting people’s rights to their own opinions, if you really want to go out on a limb, you might try putting forth an effort to understand why some people have positive feelings about the Confederate flag.

As mentioned above, for many the flag represents honor and respect for their ancestral past, but the sentiment often goes much deeper. One of the best explanations for why Confederate symbols still have meaning is attached to a Confederate monument at the South Carolina Statehouse.  (As well as other Confederate monuments now under attack in other states.)

It reads:

“This monument perpetuates the memory, of those who true to the instincts of their birth, faithful to the teachings of their fathers, constant in their love for the state, died in the performance of their duty: who have glorified a fallen cause by the simple manhood of their lives, the patient endurance of suffering, and the heroism of death, and who, in the dark hours of imprisonment, in the hopelessness of the hospital, in the short sharp agony of the field, found support and consolation in the belief that at home they would not be forgotten.”

Flying the Southern Cross doesn’t signify a wish to bring back slavery or support for some of the atrocious actions of the Confederacy. As the quote above explains, it’s about remembering those who fought and died for what they thought was right — and surely that’s something we can all respect.

Question 3: Are you secretly uncertain in your beliefs?

It takes courage to grant another freedom to express beliefs and options that counter your own.  The less certain you are in your own beliefs, the more sensitive you are to expressions by others  that challenge them.

If you’ve read through this whole post, you shouldn’t be completely ignorant, since you should now have a little better understanding of the history of the flag and why people choose to fly it.

If you’re still unwilling to explore our country’s multifaceted Civil War history, and if you still can’t honor people’s rights to their own beliefs and opinions (even if that means flying a flag to which you’re opposed) then you factually misunderstand freedom  OR you are not well founded in your own beliefs.  If your first urge is to shout down all opposition, then you should look at this personally.

Those who ignore their history and blatantly try to deny citizens their basic rights, need to reevaluate how far they’ve veered from the tenets that our founding fathers set up as the foundation of our great country.

It was 1863. Union gunboats were a threat to the Texas interior because of rivers that emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. A fort built was at one of these vulnerable points:  Sabine Pass, where two rivers meet the Gulf.  

A Texas artillery unit was sent to man the fort.   It was not long before four Union gunboats appeared, escorting troop transports up the river – a total of 5,000 Federals. The Texans numbered 42. The situation appeared hopeless, so top command ordered the Guards to destroy the fort and retreat.  

The Texans talked it over and decided to fight.  After all, it was just a few thousand Yankees.

The gunboats started firing, the fort taking hits.  The Texans blasted two of the gunboats, two other vessels got grounded, and the whole thing was a mess for the invaders.   Most of the Union force withdrew, two boats surrendered, all with no casualties to the Rebels. But the surrender was a problem: the Texans didn’t need hundreds of prisoners marching up to the fort, only to discover a few dozen men.  So the Texan commander waded out into the river to accept the Union surrender and arrange for their custody without risk to the fort.  

An overwhelming force had been defeated, perhaps the most lopsided victory of the war.  And an invasion stopped in its tracks.

Forty-two Texans can sure make a statement.

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In an earlier post we got a 10 year old girl’s view of the war as Sherman started his destructive march through Georgia.(Click here to read.) Here are more details.

Needless to say that there will never be a statue like the one above honoring Union General Sherman in Georgia. And here’s the reason why.

Sherman’s  Special Field Orders No. 120 authorized a new kind of warfare. Part of it reads:

“…should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless, according to the measure of such hostility.”In case you doubt how severe he meant this to be, this will clarify Sherman’s intentions, from one of his telegrams to Ulysses S. Grant:

“Until we can repopulate Georgia it is useless to occupy it, but utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources. … I can make the march and make Georgia howl.”One of Sherman’s officers, John Acheson, wrote these words:

“…scores of poor families have I seen, who had had no hand in bringing the present trouble upon the country, left without a mouthful to eat, and not knowing where to turn to get it, or what in the world to do to relive their distress.”While Texas General Hood was negotiating with Sherman on the treatment of civilians in Atlanta, Hood wrote to Sherman:

“And now, sir, permit me to say that the unprecedented measure you propose transcends, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war.”

His scathing messages to Sherman reveal a lot. In one of them he wrote:  

“…there are a hundred thousand witnesses that you fired into the habitations of women and children for weeks, firing far above and miles beyond my line of defense.”Sherman achieved the status of war hero after the war, but not in the lands where he “slashed and burned.”

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