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LTC Bob Batemen's EXCELLENT series on Gettysburg in Esquire

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  • LTC Bob Batemen's EXCELLENT series on Gettysburg in Esquire

    LTC Bob Batemen is a well respected US Army Infantry officer who has written much over the last decade plus while at war.

    He always came to the fore when using American history to make a point...little wonder as he was an Assitant Professor of History at West Point.

    He wrote an outstanding series of essays for the online edition of Esquire.

    I should have mentioned these earlier.

    He writes well and from a soldiers perspective. He also freely admitted in an e-mail exchange with me he didn't edit his posts...which accounts for soem of the grammatical issues.

    Enjoy anyway.

    They are powerful and come from a Soldier's heart and mind.

    The stories of the Iron Brigade are stupendous....and all true.

    Daily Politics Blog - Charles P. Pierce - Political Blogging - Esquire
    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
    Mark Twain

  • #2
    Shek alerted me to this article in Esquire from the ALWAYS excellent Bob Bateman.

    He sums up my beliefs PERFECTLY, about my oath, about Lee and especially about Thomas.

    Esquire Civil War Reenactment: Robert E. Lee and What an Oath Means - Esquire


    The Meaning of Oaths and a Forgotten Man
    By Lt. Col. Robert Bateman at 10:15AM

    Getty Images

    General George Thomas, 1863



    It is interesting to note that the “Welcome Center” to the State of Virginia is located just south of the Rappahannock River, in the town of Fredericksburg. This town sits about sixty miles south of the state border with Maryland and Washington, DC. The impression this gives is that Virginians do not consider areas north of the Rappahannock as part of the state. One need only scan 1862–1864 to understand why.

    North of that river, which I have mentioned before, the United States dominated the terrain during the War of the Rebellion. It was only to the south of the Rappahannock that rebel armies held sway on a consistent basis, almost to the end. So it seems natural that recidivist state politicians of the past half-century would pander to those voters who were most vocal about the “glory and honor of the Old South.” One means of doing so was by making sure that the Welcome Center coming into their state from the “North” was nearly 60 miles south of the actual border, which rests on the south bank of the Potomac River.

    In other words, they placed their “Welcome” center at what they consider the boundaries of the limits of the United States of America, versus where they think they live. Indeed, if you look at the map which the State of Virginia provides, it is almost comical how its “Welcome" centers parallel the de facto front lines of the period of rebellion, when they were fighting against the United States. Seriously, look at this map provided by Virginia and see the locations of “Welcome” centers #1, #12, and #2. Yep, now look again at all the others. Everywhere they have contact with the old states who fought against the United States, the “Welcome” center is right there at the border… but not towards the north.

    Actually, strike that. It would be “almost comical,” as I just said, were it not simultaneously so sad. In general, I have observed that the attitudes towards loyalty to the United States vs. the Mythical Nation of Slavery still track pretty closely with those "Welcome" centers.

    A little more than a decade ago I was going through a divorce. It was pretty ugly, and emotionally, it left me distracted and out of sorts. The Ex had decided on a course of action with another fellow, and I really could not stand by for that. Allegiances and oaths and vows sort of mean a lot to somebody like me, and this being the second time, that was the end of things. Somehow, however, it was I who ended up moving out of our nice home.

    What followed was stereotypical for a divorce of this sort. I spent a lot of time after work going to local bars. All of them within walking distance from my apartment on a hillside known as Marye’s Heights, in the town where I lived. This was 2002.

    Being disinclined to sociability at the time, when prompted by a fellow barfly into a conversation I did not feel like having, I would assess my interrogator. If he fit the profile (and so many did), I would counter-present a statement as a way of starting a “conversation.” That “profile” had nothing to do with socio-economic status, but it did have a hell of a lot to do with race, and the bugaboo of “heritage.” At least “heritage” as it is interpreted in rural Virginia anyway. Regardless of the topic he was trying to engage me on, I would parry. Then I would start a new conversation. My entree was, “I think that Robert E. Lee, as a traitor and betrayer of his solemn oath before God and the Constitution, was a much greater terrorist than Osama Bin Ladin… after all, Lee killed many more Americans than Bin Ladin, and almost destroyed the United States. What do you think?”

    Yeah, I flunked “Subtle 101” in High School. Oh well. Like I said, I was not in a good place.

    But the fact is that there was nothing that any of these men, and they were all men, could say in honest denial to my assertion. They sputtered and growled, spouted and shouted, but not once did it end well for them on any level. You see, if they were “unreconstructed rebels,” well then I was something almost none of them had ever experienced, an “unreconstructed Yankee.” What is more, at the intellectual level I was not playing fair.

    Not only did I have the historical facts on my side, but I was also deliberately playing upon two southern biases which are nearly independent of politics: Reverence for military service, and reverence of the concept of “honor” and “oaths.” I am a military officer, Airborne and Ranger qualified. I swore an oath, almost exactly the same as the one Robert E. Lee had, to the United States. Most of those I confronted over barstools and tables in Fredericksburg eventually just asked to be let out of the argument, because I would not let go. I was alone, and angry, and historically versed, and my own G-G-G-Grandfather had actually fought there, not 300 yards from where my crappy apartment was, in 1862. And they were stunned, at the outset, that I was saying something that defied their understanding.

    See, I really do think Robert E. Lee was a traitor who should have been executed. Polite people, nice folks in Fredericksburg and other southern places where I have been on a rip, are not used to hearing such a virulent assault upon “Marse Robert.” But when I feel like being left alone I am neither polite, nor Southern, and so when I am annoyed, I have in the past let loose upon the traitor. And he was that.

    He had a choice. Lee chose to betray the United States. Some of his peers, Virginians through-and-through, with more reason than him to want to keep “slaves in their place,” decided not to betray our nation. These were men who decided to keep true to their oaths. These were men who believed in the nation. One, in particular, matters to this campaign we are talking about in Tennessee. His name was George Thomas.

    Now we have a little time, in our narrative of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War. It will be a few weeks before the ever-cautious Rosecrans gets off his duff and figures out how to flummox Braxton Bragg again. (SPOILER: He succeeds, and take Chattanooga.) So for now, let us look at the real central character. Of course, history demands context, so let us begin at the beginning.

    George Thomas was fifteen years old in August 1831. His family was not mega-rich, but they were pretty well off. Remember at the time that there was damned little, north or south, that could be called a “middle class.” That whole construct really doesn’t come until after WWII. But if you were going to place his family, you would put them in “lower upper class.”

    His family had a plantation in what is now known as the “Tidewater” region of Virginia, not too far from Yorktown. They owned slaves. Estimates range from 12-15, depending upon the year. His father had died three years earlier, in 1828, so George was stepped up. Young George had played with the slaves as a child, and as a teen, had illicitly and secretly been teaching some of them to read. Do not assume that he was an abolitionist from this. Only acknowledge his developing appreciation of humanity. But that year something would happen that would shake his entire world, and which should have made him into the most racist-slave-owning radical extant. In that year, a slave named Nat Turner initiated a revolt, very close to the Thomas plantation. And by very close, I am talking thousands of yards.

    When word of the slave revolt hit his own family plantation, young George drove the horses as the family and many of their own slaves tried to escape the circle of violence. They did not run fast enough, the pursuit was gaining and in a desperate measure the teenaged George led the family off the road and into the swamps for succor. Eight days later, with some sixty of his white neighbors now slaughtered, he led the family back. Probably more than 200 African-Americans, slaves and non-slaves were dead as well, without justice or question. But the terror that Nat Turner’s rebellion brought to the slave-holding south cannot be underestimated. Yet George Thomas did not succumb.

    In 1836, he went to West Point, to become an Army officer. He graduated, twelfth in his class in 1840. The oath he swore went like this: "I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States."

    The oath I, and all modern officers swear, runs this way: "I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

    Not a whole lot of difference, at least in the swearing to the United States bit, eh? Hence my annoyance with those who defend Lee. Of course, almost none of them know about the loyal officer, Thomas.

    After his commissioning from West Point he served in the Seminole Wars and the Mexican-American War, and fought well in both cases. Between the wars he developed as an officer of the United States, until the crisis appeared.

    Thomas was in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, when the word of the fall of Fort Sumter arrived in the Spring of 1861. He, unlike his fellow Virginian, the betrayer Robert E. Lee, knew where his duty rested. There was an oath, he had sworn to it, and that was the end of things. He immediately wrote to his wife. In that letter he summed up the difference between himself and those who sought to destroy the United States of America.

    “Whichever way I turned the matter over in my mind,” he wrote, “my oath of allegiance to the Federal government always came uppermost.”

    Then, this Virginian, no, this American, officer, went to a federal magistrate there in Carlisle and renewed his oath to the United States of America. Three days later Virginia stated that it was in rebellion against the United States. In his family home in Tidewater Virginia, nearly six-hundred miles away, his sisters took George Thomas’s picture off the wall and effectively disowned him.

    I acknowledge that the whole idea of an “oath” actually meaning something in the “modern” age may not resonate with everyone. I do not really know how to bring this into the present for most of you. The social/intellectual/emotional concept of individual honor has sort of changed a lot in the past 150 years. Unfortunately sometimes I really do not understand those of you who do not feel deeply about honor.

    This is not because I am a historian. It is because I swore essentially that same oath that George Thomas and Robert Lee swore, and I was taught to mean it when I swore an oath or make a pledge. But even so, even I do not think that my own emotional and psychological commitment to my oath is as deep as these things were in the early-mid 19th Century. So Lee’s treason, his betrayal of his oath as an officer of the United States Army, is sort of personal to me, and I am offended by his lying (if he never meant it when he swore the oath) or his two-faced nature, if he did. Snowden? Manning? Pshaw. They are nothing compared to a man who actually commanded forces that killed tens of thousands of American soldiers. I resent Lee's subsequent fame which stemmed solely from his ability to kill American soldiers. As an American soldier, that strikes me as wrong.

    What strikes me as even more unfair is that at the same time, George Thomas rejected the course of political and familial opportunism and stayed true to his oath. He won on the battlefield, over and over again, and defended the United States with his every action, and now he is largely forgotten.

    Ultimately Thomas would become, as judged by some of his peers and not a few historians, as the greatest general the United States had during the War of the Rebellion. Grant smashed his way to victory. You could argue that Sherman never won a battle all his own. But Thomas, distrusted by the Administration, held suspect at times by the American public, and detested by his own family for staying true to his oath, ultimately destroyed two entire rebel armies, and saved two American armies, by his own abilities, example, and skill.

    He was, in the end, the man true to his oath. As opposed to the others he fought.


    Read more: Esquire Civil War Reenactment: Robert E. Lee and What an Oath Means - Esquire
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    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
    Mark Twain

    Comment


    • #3
      As I read this, images of Yugoslavia came to mind. Families torn apart. Violence on brother. And when the war ends, you have to look your family in the eye. Right or wrong, can you ask for forgiveness and can you forgive?

      The price on Gen Thomas's soul to keep his Oath is something very few would think of, let alone try to understand.

      Comment


      • #4
        Stauffenberg also was a traitor,legally speaking.And whatever the LTC has sworn,there is no way to experience what Lee and the others in his position felt,until the federal gov. will send troops against some that want to secede.

        We know Lee had an inner fight.Likely every former US officer of the CSA had.It wasn't an easy decision.
        In '89 some mischiefs proclaimed places free of communism.Bloody traitors broke the laws of the socialist republic,were enemies of the revolutionary conquests of the people and opposed the best form of society mankind has ever designed.Do you shoot them or you don't?
        Those who know don't speak
        He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
          As I read this, images of Yugoslavia came to mind. Families torn apart. Violence on brother. And when the war ends, you have to look your family in the eye. Right or wrong, can you ask for forgiveness and can you forgive?

          The price on Gen Thomas's soul to keep his Oath is something very few would think of, let alone try to understand.
          Colonel,

          Thomas did pay a high price with his family. In fact he was disowned for life and never reconciled with his siblings. Part of that bitterness is reflected in when he tried to send his sisters money after the war when much of the South was poor and destitute they refused the funds saying they had no brother. And while he died in San Francisco he chose to be buried in his wife's family plot in Troy, NY, well upstate.


          He established the first National military cemetery in Chattanooga on 24 Dec. 63. When the chaplain of the Army of the Cumberland asked if the remains should be interred according to state origin: "Mix them up. I'm tired of states' rights."

          I have always said that Lee and his fellow officers who chose not to fight for the United States had the right to resign. If they had chosen to sit out the war I would have no argument. That they violated the same oath I took and took arms against their country is the act for which I can never forgive them.
          “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
          Mark Twain

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
            When the chaplain of the Army of the Cumberland asked if the remains should be interred according to state origin: "Mix them up. I'm tired of states' rights."
            1,030,000 dead and wounded...yeah, I imagine he was. I would've been a bit more profane about it but that was a chaplain asking after all.
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
              I have always said that Lee and his fellow officers who chose not to fight for the United States had the right to resign. If they had chosen to sit out the war I would have no argument. That they violated the same oath I took and took arms against their country is the act for which I can never forgive them.

              Sir,I don't think it's that simple.In a normal war,against a foreign foe,we can resign.There are times when an officer can't take responsability,when serious disagreement between him and the leadership exists.Plenty of cases of officers who asked to be sent elsewhere.Even as a private on the frontline.But sitting out is not an option.
              I don't know enough about the personal decisions of every ex-USA officer.But the US was sending armed forces against their families.Thomas paid the price.Others saw this as a break on the state's part of the oath.In either case,there is treason.You either betray the oath or you betray your people.
              Those who know don't speak
              He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

              Comment


              • #8
                AR, how many Boston militia officers, not to mention George Washington betrayed their oaths to King George?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by zraver View Post
                  AR, how many Boston militia officers, not to mention George Washington betrayed their oaths to King George?
                  Z, very few if any. There was no oath sworn to the King as a militia officer since the crown did not recognize militia service as other than armed inventured servitude. If they swore an oath (it differed by colony) it was to the governor of their colony. In Virginia militia officers were commissioned by the House of Burgesses.

                  The crown refused to even award battle honors to militia forces for their service...one more reason why the colonists had a gripe.

                  Mihais, while I dont disagree with what you discuss there were too many officers who stayed loyal for there to be much wiggle room. BTW almost all USN officers stayed loyal.

                  And the Federal government did not send troops aginst their families. They sent justifiably constituted legal forces against groups in rebellion....something which had been done several times previously by the Federal government
                  “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                  Mark Twain

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                    Z, very few if any. There was no oath sworn to the King as a militia officer since the crown did not recognize militia service as other than armed inventured servitude. If they swore an oath (it differed by colony) it was to the governor of their colony. In Virginia militia officers were commissioned by the House of Burgesses.

                    The crown refused to even award battle honors to militia forces for their service...one more reason why the colonists had a gripe.
                    First I am no fan of Lee, I've learned enough here to not buy the hype about him.

                    My ultimate point was that the English tradition of rebellion we inherited, (in Robert E Lees case only 1 generation removed from such rebellion), clearly put oaths of loyalty to the sovereign be it king or constitution second to ones home and personal moral compass. To say Lee was a traitor given two critical facts- he resigned his commission and was thus no longer a soldier, and the widely held belief among many that the right of secession was in fact a legal right retained by the states is in my opinion harsh. He after all did not desert from the USAR and enlist with the CSAR, but was an officer with the state forces of Virginia. It was in the uniform of a Virginian, and after Virginia seceded that he mustered into confederate service.

                    There is no evidence he did so for personal gain the way say Jefferson Davis did. There is a man who should have been hung. I can even buy the colonels arguments towards any officer who abandoned his post in the USAR in favor of the CSA. But that does not apply to Lee.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      He walked away when his country specifically asked for his help. And as an officer your oath is for lifetime...even if you resign. I still hold myself to the oath I swore regarding the defense of the Constitution 34 years later...that is a very common trait shared by my fellow officers....going back almost 240 years.

                      As for Lee's pull towards rebellion....Thomas faced the EXACT same pressures yet made a point that his oath to the Constitution was paramount. If anything he had a greater dog in the secession hunt than Lee. He LIVED the Nat Turner Rebellion as LTC Bateman pointed out. Yet he maintained his loyalty to his grave.

                      On the argument regarding the Confederate leadership traitorous or not? There is no daylight between the good LTC Bateman and myself....2 unreconstructed Yankees.
                      “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                      Mark Twain

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Sir,I see such radicalism as fortunate for you.Your life is simple.The very fact you are so passionate about events 150 years ago in itself speaks volumes.You don't have to decide like these folks had:Anton Tus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Janko Bobetko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For all the differences,there are similarities between Confederate officers and other cases.I don't envy either.
                        Those who know don't speak
                        He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Mihais View Post
                          Sir,I see such radicalism as fortunate for you.Your life is simple.The very fact you are so passionate about events 150 years ago in itself speaks volumes.You don't have to decide like these folks had:Anton Tus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Janko Bobetko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For all the differences,there are similarities between Confederate officers and other cases.I don't envy either.
                          Mihais,

                          I do try to avoid historicism in this matter....which I find sorely lacking in the Neo-Confederate community.

                          But I know folks like myself and LTC Bateman stand on firm because a lot of men like George Thomas faced those hard choices and made the right and moral call.

                          And I want to be clear I am ONLY speaking of ACW not other countries. I have no depth to form an opinion there.
                          “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                          Mark Twain

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                            Mihais,

                            I do try to avoid historicism in this matter....which I find sorely lacking in the Neo-Confederate community.

                            But I know folks like myself and LTC Bateman stand on firm because a lot of men like George Thomas faced those hard choices and made the right and moral call.

                            And I want to be clear I am ONLY speaking of ACW not other countries. I have no depth to form an opinion there.
                            Sir,I'm OK with this.My point is that this aspect of ACW is not that unique.And you're lucky you only have ACW as a reference wrt right and moral calls.
                            Those who know don't speak
                            He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                              He walked away when his country specifically asked for his help. And as an officer your oath is for lifetime...even if you resign. I still hold myself to the oath I swore regarding the defense of the Constitution 34 years later...that is a very common trait shared by my fellow officers....going back almost 240 years.
                              So if the federal government asked you to shoot down your neighbors you would? That is what he felt he was being asked to do. He asked to be allowed to sit it out. We had garrisons along the Canadian and Indian borders. This request was refused and he resigned. This is not neo-confederacy its personal accountability. After all this is the US with its English and enlightenment traditions not a German Reich.

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