Lexington, Virginia, is the home of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a school that has produced an enormous number of skilled, courageous, loyal, and independence-loving U.S. military officers. It is now standing in the midst of the hate-America storm that the state’s governor, Ralph Northam, initiated to rid the Old Dominion of its history, especially its proud of record of fighting for independence in both the American Revolution and the American Civil War.
Northam, said to be a VMI graduate, and his party have pushed a law through the legislature giving power to local governments to remove statutes that honor heroic Confederate military leaders. The bill contained a crave-out that protected VMI from Northam’s campaign to erase Virginia’s glorious history. It seems that Virginia State Senator Tom Norment (R-Williamsburg) slipped the VMI exception into the Democratic bill. Very well done, Senator Norment. (1)
The odds are that Northam and his party will amend the bill to delete its only bit of sanity, and it appears that the America-haters who form much of Lexington’s population are ready to try to force VMI to remove or hide two statues now prominently placed on the school’s campus, one of Lt. General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, the other a statue of a grieving woman called “Virginia Mourning Her Dead”. There were VMI cadets and graduates among 32,000 Virginia war deaths between 1861 and 1865.
Lexington’s liberal grandees reportedly also are eager to rename the town’s cemetery because it is named after that extraordinary West Pointer, C.S.A. general officer, and VMI professor. Peculiar that a town named after the place where America’s fight for liberty began would now be so ardent in its desire to kill liberty. Given their hatred of liberty perhaps the town fathers should rename Lexington. They could call it Obamatown, after the mad and corrupt cur who seeks the destruction of American liberty.
It is too much to expect, I suppose, that Northam and his party of hate will recall that Jackson was educated at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Afterwards, Jackson served with great courage and distinction as an artillery officer in the small U.S. army – led by a Virginian, Lt. General Winfield Scott — that miraculously defeated a much larger Mexican Army, conquered Mexico, and won the U.S.-Mexico War. (1) With Jackson in Mexico were a number of other brave and highly effective West Point-trained officers, including, among others, Robert E. Lee; James Longstreet; George Pickett; Jefferson Davis, commanding a volunteer regiment of Mississippians; Isaac R. Trimble; Braxton Bragg, Jubal Early; Richard S. Ewell; Josiah Gorgas (a Pennsylvanian who joined the Confederacy); Daniel Harvey Hill; Lafayette Mclaws; A.P. Hill; and Henry Heth.
The valor of this group of West Pointers in the Mexican War — six are Virginians — was noted most frequently by brevet promotions to higher rank; several of the men won two or three brevets during the Mexican War. While the Congressional Medal of Honor was not awarded by the U.S. Army until 1861 and the U.S Navy/Marines until 1862, several of the above-named West Pointers probably would have won it Mexico. Had the medal been available, a sure bet for winning it for his actions during the Mexican campaign would have been that great Virginian (and American), Robert Edward Lee. Lee and all listed on the short list above also served with great courage, devotion, and distinction in the Civil War they fought to win Southern Independence.
Jackson and the other West Pointers who fought for their country and defeated Mexico (1846-1848), and then against it for Southern independence (1861-1865), are no different than those who fought for their country (Britain) against the French and their Indian allies (1756-1763) and then fought in a civil war against it to win the thirteen colonies’ independence from the British Empire (1775-1783). This is an irrefutable fact, and that it is never heard in public discussions of the civil war testifies to the idiocy of providing tax monies for public education while the Democrats and their teachers’ unions control it.
It is a commonplace to say that history is a messy business to participate in, to write about, and to understand, but to find black-faced politicians like Northam erasing any part of the Old Dominion’s history is to see a savage and tyrannical attack on the citizenry’s ability to understand and use the lessons of the history of their nation, state, and communities as they try to build a better republic for all.
It is time that all of us recognize that one or another part of the republic’s history is going to be found offensive by almost every citizen. Some will not like this, others will hate that, but the only proper, manly, and candid reaction to those demanding the erasure of parts of our history to soothe their hurt feelings and imagined grievances, and threatening violence if their half-wit demands are not met, is:
“Tough shit, that’s history and it must be known, memorialized, assessed, debated, and understood. Whether you like it, or are offended by it, makes not a bit of difference. Your views can surely be openly debated, but you will not erase history simply because your feelings are hurt by it. So stick your selfish, offended feelings, and your eraser, up your ass, get on with your sorry life, and leave it to those of us blessed with a bit of commonsense and empathetic appreciation for human imperfectability to maintain and strengthen both the republic and the understanding of all aspects of its history.”
Endnotes:
–1.) James A. Bacon, “Statues for Me But Not for Thee,” in Bacon’s Rebellion, 1 July 2020, at http://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/statutes-for-me-but-not-for-thee
–2.) The extraordinary performance of the U.S. Army in the Mexican war is brilliantly described and assessed in two books by Professor Timothy D. Johnson: Winfield Scott. The Quest for Military Glory. Lawrence, KN: University Press of Kansas, 1998, and A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign; Lawrence KN: University Press of Kansas, 2007. With Nathanial C. Hughes, Jr., Professor Johnson also edited, A Fighter from Way Back. The Mexican Diary of Lt. Daniel Harvey Hill, 4th Artillery, U.S.A. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2002.
