#14: States Rights and Wrongs

Today is the 147th anniversary of South Carolina's Declaration of Secession from the United States, so I want to point out a few things about the Civil War, a.k.a. The War Between the States or War of Northern Aggression.
In Post #13 I discussed the supposedly 'unlucky' nature of the number 13. If you look carefully at the Confederate Battle Flag, also known as the Southern Cross, it has THIRTEEN stars on the cross arms; which is odd since there were only ELEVEN seceded States in the Confederacy. Maybe someone should have checked this out before they sewed them thar battle flags up!Hmmm...Could the South have 'jinxed' itself from the presumption that Kentucky and Missouri were going to join The Cause?!!
It seems odd that the Southern folks who insist on calling the War something other than the Civil War are in complete disagreement with their chief icon, Robert E. Lee. As I point out in my yet-to-be-published book, God Caused the Civil War, "Robert E. Lee, Jr. writes in his Recollections of General Robert Edward Lee, 'In a letter to my sister Mary, one month later, from "Camp near Fredericksburg" [General Lee wrote]: ‘I have always counted, if God should spare me a few days after this Civil War was ended, that I should have her with me, but year after year my hopes go out, and I must be resigned...’”(1) Hmmm...apparently 'nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee' (from the old commercial), but plenty of folks disagree with Bobby Lee!
If America was such a 'Christian nation' at the time, as many assert, howcome 112 of 409 battles were fought on Sunday? The next highest number is 60 on Fridays. Oh, and statistically speaking, attacking on Sundays was not such a bright idea. 66% of the time the attacks failed. On Saturday, they succeeded 66.7% of the time and Mondays 60.5% of the time. Hmmm... Maybe when the generals on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line said they lost becaused they broke the Christian Sabbath, they had the right idea!
I've noticed that here in eastern Pennsylvania, whenever we get rain or snow storms from the South, they're ALWAYS worse than from any other direction. Gee, get over Gettysburg already, wouldja?!! Hmmmm..Or maybe the Lord who 'sends rain on one city and witholds it from another' according to Amos 4:7 aint too happy with us Northerners and our unrighteous Roe v. Wade based laws?!!
And lastly, let's hear it for General Stonewall Jackson, the Presbyterian deacon who said at Bull Run (a Northern attack on Sunday, by the way) when he ordered a bayonet charge, "Give them the bayonet and scream like the Furies!!" thus initiating the blood curdling Rebel Yell that, to some Northern soldiers, sounded like it came from Hell. Hmmm...I wonder if Deacon Tom thought of that during a church session meeting?!!
Oh, yeah, having 13 stars in the first American flag, now that I think about it, might be something we should think about, given the direction our land has gone over time.
Got Amazing Grace?

(1)Robert E. Lee, Jr. Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1904, p.80.