Where Is The Most Haunted Place You Have Been To???

[Murfreesboro]

I'd never heard about that Confederate POW camp, Mike. Perversely, I'm sort of glad to know that Andersonville (the Confederate prison for Union POWs) wasn't the only bad place of that type during the war. We Southerners are always getting bashed over conditions at Andersonville--as if we weren't mostly starving ourselves by that time.

All my family fought for the South, except perhaps for one ancestor of my father's mother, who was raised in NE Kentucky and went Union. The other strands of my family were in Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas at that time.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Murf, in ALL WARS, there are attrocities comminted by both sides against POWs and various other victims. World War II, for instance. You allways hear about what horible things the Germans did to the concentration camp victims and to various POWs in their custody. You don't hear much about what Stalin's troops did to all the German prisoners of war at the war's end. Thousands upon thousands of war weary German soldiers were marched from Berlin to Siberia to spend the rest of their lives in Gulogs. There were also attrocities committed by American and British soldiers, too. The reason why you hear more about German brutalities then British, American or Russian attrocities is because we (the allies) won the war. It's the same deal with the civil war. Both the Union and the Confederate armies committed unspeakable attrocities against POWs. In fact, though my family was pure Union through and through, I think the Union was in may ways even worse then the Confederates, BUT, History has recorded the Confederates as "traitors," and "pro slavery." That's not necessarily true, but that, never the less, is how they were portrayed by History.

I also think that the Confederacy had better military leadership, but lost the war becaude they didn't have the industrial infrastructure to manfacture all the weapons and war supplies needed. They had to depend on England, and the Union Navy was easily able to blockade any and all ships from getting into any Confederate harbors.

Don't get me wrong. I very much believe in the United States of America, and am goad the Union was kept together, but I have A LOT of respect for the Confederate soldiers and am as appalled by attrocities committed against them as I am by the attrocities that were committed against Union soldiers at Andersonville.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

Yes, my 8th grade history teacher (in Jackson, MS) told us that the Union won the war because of the "Three M's"-more Men, more Money, & more Material. It wasn't because of better leadership or greater heart.

I think Southerners today are intensely patriotic, pro-American, whether or not they have Confederate ancestry. And it's certainly hard to imagine how the wars of the 20th century would have gone if the Union hadn't won, and America had continued to be divided.

I started to read seriously about the Civil War only a couple of years ago, around the time of the Lincoln bicentennial, actually. I decided that it was time I learn something about Lincoln (who was not a childhood hero of mine, given where I'd grown up). I read an intellectual biography of him (Redeemer President) and then a newish one about his wife; then I continued into a rather scholarly two-volume set called The Road to Secession. I learned what a complex era it was, and how we tend to flatten out the causes of the war into the single one of slavery. It was about that, but it was about other things, too--like, for instance, the disagreement over the route of the trans-continental railroad. The sectional rivalry was so intense, and the South believed--not without cause--that the North was getting the better of it economically. Also, there was a lot of racism in the North, too. Riots in NYC by people who emphatically did not want to go to war to free the slaves, whom they saw as competition in the labor market. Very, very complicated times.

I imagine that the average Southerner of that day probably fought just because the Yankees were down here, in his backyard, rather than because of some ideology. But the Constitutional issue--whether the states have a right to secede once they have entered the Union--was not a frivolous one. I can't believe that the original states would have ratified the Constitution if they had believed they could never get out of it. (Sort of like agreeing to a marriage without the possibility of divorce, ever, for any reason.) And there's nothing explicit in the Constitution that says the states couldn't "resign."

Anyway, water under the bridge now. Shelby Foote's point (as stated in the Ken Burns documentary) is an interesting one--he says that, prior to the Civil War, the phrase "the United States" was always construed as a plural--"The United States are." Afterward, it became a singular collective noun, as it is today--"The United States is." Very interesting point. The Civil War somehow made us one nation.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Some interesting observations, and you are quite correct. Many people think in terms of the one issue of slavery when they think of the Civil War, but it was a lot more complicated then that.

As for the United States being Plural vs Singular, I think, has more to do with the two historical concepts at odds with each other during the Civil War era. You had Federalism, which is loyalty to the United States of America as a whole. The federalist was loyal to the nation, and considered himself a U S citizen as a whole first and to hos home state 2nd. He was the one who refered to "The United States Is." The Confederalist was loyal to his home state first, and to the United States 2nd. His first loyalty was to Virginia, or Tenesee, or Alabama. He referd to "The United States Are," because it was the confederalist attitude that his home state was actualy a country, and that all the "united states" was a coalition of nations, rather then a number of states banded together as one nation.

Of course the concept of federalism won out when Robert E Lee surendered to Ulyses S Grant at the end of the Civil War. And that is why, to this day, we refer to the United States as a singular nation, and say "The United Stages is..."

If the Confederates had won the Civil War, there would be no United states. The situation here would be the same as you see in South and Central america, with all the various states each being a seperate nation. Illinois would actualy be a country, Colorado would be a country, Alabama would be a countery, and so on and so on and so on, and the standard of living we enjoy today would be non existant. AND, just like South and Central America, you would have different kinds of governments ruling each of those smaller nation-states. For instance, Illinois might be a Communist Republic, and Arizona might be a Military Dictator Ship. Perhaps some of the original English Colonies wold have retained some ghost of a Democracy.

As for the World Wars and what was accomplished in the 20th century, I won't even begin to speculate. With no United States, however, who knows what the Nazies would have done.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

It's spooky to imagine what our country would have been like if that war had ended differently, isn't it?

Your distinction between "federalism " and "confederalism" is a good one, I think. There had already been one confederation, right after the Revolution, and it hadn't worked well. There's little reason to imagine that a second Confederacy would ultimately have worked any better.

I think, too, it was probably more natural to think of one's state as one's country back before travel and communications were what they are today. I think it may also have been Shelby Foote who pointed out that, during the Civil War, men from different parts of the country actually saw each other's homes for the first time. Being in those distant states made them real to people for whom they had formerly just been words, or abstract places on a map. In the long run, that may have helped draw the nation together, too.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Goog point, Murf. Also, the Unites States was founded by Europeans, who's concept was a continent broken up into small nation-states. For instance the land mass of Europe is not much larger then the land mass of America, yet you have France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc. Each having their own culture, their own language, their own quisene, and their own identity as a people. What the framers of our constitution had in mind was a coalition of states joined together as one nation. They were thinking in terms that the culture, language, etc of Virginia or Alabama, would be radicaly different from that of Indiana or Maryland, so that's why they had a clause in the Federal Constitution about states rights. BUT, while there are some differences in various state cultures, there are a lot more simularities. For instance, some one from Alabama might speak English with s Southern Drawl, while a mug like me from Chicago may have a more 'through-the-nose' style of speaking. Yet some from New York may substitute the sound "er" for "oi" and vice versa. For instance they might say "in the foist place" instead of "in the first place," or "I have to go to the terlit" instead of "I have to go to the toilet." BUT, no matter where you're from, you can still understand what they are saying.

Civil War Soldiers, and this is confirmed by the letters and memoars of both Union and Confederate soldiers were AMAZED by the SIMULARITIES, not the differences, between their enemies on the battle field. And that, IMHO, also had a lot to do with what kept the United States together as a nation. There were no major cultural differences other then differing political beliefs. We all spoke the same language, we all liked simular foods, we all, for the most part, practiced some denomination of Christianity, (mainly Protestantism) and we all embraced the same value system of "God, Country & Family."

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

I love that story, also from the Ken Burns documentary (and probably told by Shelby Foote), about the reunion of the old soldiers on the Gettysburg Battlefield decades later. They started to re-enact Pickett's charge (the one where so many Confederates died). As the elderly veterans advanced toward each other, they broke into a run, met in the middle, embraced, and wept together. It makes me tear up just thinking about it.

It's also moving to consider how many of the military leaders on both sides actually knew each other, either from West Point, or the Mexican War, or both. The friendships that existed between commanders who faced each other in battle were very poignant. The film Gettysburg brings that out, too.

Kind of a sidebar: Several members of my family are alumni of Vanderbilt Univ. here in Nashville--my husband & I, and now, our older son, who just graduated last month. That university was endowed by Cornelius Vanderbilt, a New Yorker, in the early 1870s. But his wife was from Alabama, and she was the one who persuaded her husband to put the new univ. he wished to endow in a location that would draw young people from all parts of the country. It was her belief that if the youth of the nation went to school together, they would never fight each other again. So that's how Vanderbilt came to be in Nashville, TN.

[Morticia]

A pretty much abandoned old graveyard in Edinburgh Scotland where my husband woke up a ghost knocking on a sacofagous (sp).

[Spookymufu]

if the ghost was knocking on the sarcophagus how did your husband wake it?

[jadewik]

Love that American Civil War banter. Some great points there-- most notable the issue of slavery. The war was NOT about slavery. In fact, the Emancipation Proclamation didn't even ban slavery completely-- it released the slaves in the Confederate States, not in the Union States. Ask any historian what the war was about, it boils down to one thing-- States Rights.

I think the Andersonville concentration camp is so well known because of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the same titled book won in 1956. (I managed to get my hands on an old copy, which I haven't had the chance to read yet-- as it's +800 pages.) Yes, the North/Union did similar atrocities-- like W.T. Sherman's march. That man burned everything in sight and completely ripped up the railroads and supply lines, which made it that much harder for the southerners post-war.

I love history. It's so rich.

[Morticia]

if the ghost was knocking on the sarcophagus how did your husband wake it?

No HE was knocking on it saying "hello", then he heard footsteps following him out of the cemetery, and he is not the type to normally experience or believe those type of things, much less say anything about it, so I know he heard it.

[Murfreesboro]

Yes, the North/Union did similar atrocities-- like W.T. Sherman's march. That man burned everything in sight and completely ripped up the railroads and supply lines, which made it that much harder for the southerners post-war.

Most people don't know it, because they have heard only about Sherman's march through Georgia, but he also burned my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. It was known as "Chimneyville" for twenty years after the war, because that's all that was left there--the brick chimneys.

He did leave three buildings standing, which are still in use today, and which were very, very familiar to me in my childhood: the Old Capitol (now a museum), which he used as a hospital; the Governor's Mansion, because he was living in it himself; and the City Hall, because the Masons (or the Shriners, a higher level of Masons?) met (and still meet, as far as I know) on the second or third floor of the City Hall, and Sherman was a Mason.

When he was staying in the Mississippi Governor's Mansion, Sherman wrote a letter to his mother in which he said that "I am spending the night in the most beautiful home I have ever seen."

Sorry, OT, I know. I bet there are ghosts in Jackson, though. I bet there are some in those very buildings I mentioned.

[Pumpkin_Man]

That's an interesting story, Murf. I'll have to make a 'haunted road trip" down to Jackson Mississippi some day.

To get back on topic, I am planning on revisiting the Bartonville Insane Asylum over the weekend, weather permitting, and I am going to try to get some photos of the cemetery in that area, and may be see if it's possible to get inside the building. I doubt it, though. I also might venture to another abandoned insane asylum in Attowa Ill.

Mike

[jengraves86]

I'm going "cemetery strolling" tomorrow. I'm a stickler for cemeteries. There's this really big one I go to that has very unique architecture. My favorite is a big mausoleum that has matching statues of the Sphynx with breasts on either side of the steps. Once my husband and I get settled in our new home I'll post some pics of the place. It also has some neat tombstones written in German.

[Murfreesboro]

That sounds like a very unusual monument! I bet it is old.

My mother's family has been buried in a place called Bellwood Cemetery in southeast Arkansas for many generations. She is buried there herself now. But she told me that when she was a child, she used to picnic there along with a neighbor's family. I thought that was so strange--picnics in the cemetery. But I guess stuff like that was done, once upon a time. (This would have been in the 1920s, I guess.) Anyway, it is one of those old, picturesque cemeteries with statues and stuff, at least in the old section. Newer cemeteries don't allow the monuments that are difficult to mow around, or over.

The oldest cemetery here in Murfreesboro is kept locked. It isn't very big, but it is very close to the heart of town. I have often wished I could "stroll" in it and read the headstones. However, I suppose people are afraid of vandalism. The only time I know of that it has been opened in recent years was when a Boy Scout cleaned it up for an Eagle project.