Stolen Valor: Civil War Edition

Matt McKeon

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Civil War Monitor had an interesting article about a New Yorker who claimed to be a Confederate soldier. He made the claim as an elderly man in the 20th century. The article goes on to examine the cases of several elderly men who claimed Confederate service, enough so one reunion in North Carolina in the 1920s consisted entirely of imposters.

The articles tries to answer: why did they do this, and why were they taken at face value. Great photograph of a cold eyed Mosby, who found the practice distasteful.
 

jgoodguy

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Civil War Monitor had an interesting article about a New Yorker who claimed to be a Confederate soldier. He made the claim as an elderly man in the 20th century. The article goes on to examine the cases of several elderly men who claimed Confederate service, enough so one reunion in North Carolina in the 1920s consisted entirely of imposters.

The articles tries to answer: why did they do this, and why were they taken at face value. Great photograph of a cold eyed Mosby, who found the practice distasteful.
Very Interesting.
 

Matt McKeon

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Very Interesting.
For some guys they were trying to get a pension, which were selectively offered, so they lied. But their falsehoods were always pretty standard Lost Cause rhetoric, which went down well, and it did take them off local government resources. Others didn't apply for pension, and apparently were in it just for the positive reception they got.

J.S. Mosby is quoted as saying if he had all the elderly men who now were claiming to have served in his command, he could have won the war. He actually got some pushback, basically people, saying, yeah, they're exaggerating, but leave the old guys alone!
 

jgoodguy

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For some guys they were trying to get a pension, which were selectively offered, so they lied. But their falsehoods were always pretty standard Lost Cause rhetoric, which went down well, and it did take them off local government resources. Others didn't apply for pension, and apparently were in it just for the positive reception they got.

J.S. Mosby is quoted as saying if he had all the elderly men who now were claiming to have served in his command, he could have won the war. He actually got some pushback, basically people, saying, yeah, they're exaggerating, but leave the old guys alone!
I had read that the pensions were a form of welfare. All you had to do was lie and get some neighbors to agree. Off local resources is a good point. Eventually, they would make the survivors a US government responsibility.
 

byron ed

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For some guys they were trying to get a pension, which were selectively offered, so they lied. But their falsehoods were always pretty standard Lost Cause rhetoric...
And the latest iteration of all that is the "Black Confederates" fad, as often based on nothing more than the accounts of such pension-chasers. Confederate war records were and are quite bad. So easy to manipulate, or even create from scratch, a Confederate soldier record.

btw, the fakery extends to the Reenactor world. At 150th Gettysburg an African-American man set up a booth in the public area (where elephant ears, hot dogs and old-fashioned root beer is sold along side orange-tipped muskets and felt kepis) to sell his claimed heritage connection to a "Black Confederate" soldier. This "Black Confederate" booth was nothing less than a recruiting station for Lost Cause, and a shallow (if successful) grab for personal attention by someone who apparently had nothing else going on in his life. Sad. It was totally to capitalize off the relatively large attendance of Confederate apologists among the reenactor ranks (both Union and Confederate reenactors are prone to that) and their families.

Pure, unequivicated BS, which wouldn't have bothered me at all except for the impressionable school-age children attending the event. Anyone else here that heard that guy's line of BS at that event?
 
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jgoodguy

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And the latest iteration of all that is the "Black Confederates" fad, as often based on nothing more than the accounts of such pension-chasers. Confederate war records were and are quite bad. So easy to manipulate, or even create from scratch, a Confederate soldier record.

btw, the fakery extends to the Reenactor world. At 150th Gettysburg an African-American man set up a booth in the public area (where elephant ears, hot dogs and old-fashioned root beer is sold along side orange-tipped muskets and felt kepis) to sell his claimed heritage connection to a "Black Confederate" soldier. This "Black Confederate" booth was nothing less than a recruiting station for Lost Cause, and a shallow (if successful) grab for personal attention by someone who apparently had nothing else going on in his life. Sad. It was totally to capitalize off the relatively large attendance of Confederate apologists among the reenactor ranks (both Union and Confederate reenactors are prone to that) and their families.

Pure, unequivicated BS, which wouldn't have bothered me at all except for the impressionable school-age children attending the event. Anyone else here that heard that guy's line of BS at that event?
Somehow I think school-aged children will be impressed more by the eatables.
 

byron ed

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Somehow I think school-aged children will be impressed more by the eatables.
Yet I know from experience that pre-teens and teens -- though acting uninterested lest they be ridiculed by their peers at that age -- do leave with an impression in their heads. In year-over-year visits to our annual civil war education week these kids return with the idea, for instance, that women joining as soldiers was merely an option for young women at the time. That's our fault (as I've tried to point out to staff) for making far too big a deal out of women CW soldiers at that event. Our intent was good -- to make girls feel inclusive to CW history -- but it ended up just leaving them with a false history.

So too, this "Black Confederates" thing, as heard by a pre-teen or teen, will stick in the same way. The idea they come away with is that enlisting as a Confederate soldier was merely an option for black men, even slaves, at the time. Again, there is fault in instilling such a false history. As these kids come of age they are left a bit more gullible to some more serious white-centrist propaganda.

Witness those here and several on the "other site" who as adults, certainly due to the apologist history they gleaned as teens, are now essentially blind to the preponderance and significance of black CW history, choosing only the few nuggets which seems to support their heritage view (i.e. "the Civil War wasn't over slavery you know -- look how many black Confederate soldiers there were!"
 
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