In a direct confirmation of the “slippery slope” theory, opponents of history are not content with the removal of the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia from the public’s eye. No, removing the Confederate flag from retailers, video games, television, and state capitals isn’t nearly enough historical revisionism for the radical left. In true Orwellian fashion, they are now going after monuments and actual buried remains of Confederate soldiers.
Liberty News Now previously reported on the hysteria over the flag and the movement to raze monuments. Efforts have escalated since then, and last week the Memphis City Council voted not only to take down a monument to Confederate hero Nathan Bedford Forrest, but to actually exhume his remains (and his wife’s) and get them out of the city.
Like so many other censorious movements in recent times, this hysteria is driven by the left god of PC. “It is no longer politically correct to glorify someone who was a slave trader, someone who was a racist on public property,” said City Council member Myron Lowery, who sponsored the resolution.
Forrest had an interesting military career, becoming the only soldier in the Civil War to enlist as a private and be promoted to the rank of general, a rapid rise that took him a mere 12 months. He proved to be a gifted tactician, so much so that his tactics are still taught at West Point today. Union generals Sherman and Grant both opined that Forrest was underutilized by the Confederacy.
After the war, Forrest reportedly joined the fledgling Ku Klux Klan, and this affiliation is what raises PC hackles. Forrest himself, though, denied involvement with the KKK in an 1868 newspaper interview and again in 1871 testimony before congress.
Until recently, Tennessee was proud of Forrest’s success, and in fact state law marks July 13 as Nathan Bedford Forrest Day. There are dozens of statues, monuments, and museums to the man around the state. The fact that Forrest is so embedded in the state’s history makes the resolution problematic to many locals.
“Memphis history should not be distorted, taken down or covered up,” said Lee Millar of the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. “It’s very disturbing to want to dig up the graves of one of our military veterans and his wife.”
Lowery admits the resolution was spurred by the Charleston shooting carried out by Dylann Roof, an exploitation that Millar described “disgusting” and “misguided.” Another city councilman, Edmund Ford, Jr., asked maybe the most pertinent question: “Even when all the flags have been taken down and when all the artifacts have been moved, what do we do next as a people?”
Forrest himself provided the outline in his farewell address to his troops.
“Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings towards those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities, and private differences should be blotted out; and, when you return home, a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect of your enemies. Whatever your responsibilities may be to Government, to society, or to individuals meet them like men.”
Such words of conciliation are lost on today’s radical left, which continues to seek the destruction of everything deemed offensive. Fortunately, the forces of sanity are fighting back, and they will not allow our history to be erased.
