One confused Texan?

Robert Moore (a.k.a Cenantua) had two recent posts (here and here) regarding motivations for men fighting on both sides of the Civil War. He often writes, on several of the blogs he maintains, about Confederates who changed their minds about secession sometime after the shooting stated.

I located an article related to one particular Texan who also changed his mind, but he happened to be more well-known than others. The problem is, I’ve taken Texas history three times, studied the war all those times and now teach Texas history and have only heard his named mentioned as a prominent planter and businessman who supported the Confederacy…until now.

The article, “Today in Texas history: Controversial Civil War era figure Henry Ware,” was published on the Houston Chroncile blog “Texas on the Potomac: Washington News with a Texas accent” on July 9, 2008, to mark the 110th anniversary of Ware’s death. “Texas on the Potomac” focuses on issues in politics related to Texas, but it also does history features, most of a political nature like this one on Ware.

A life-long Democrat, Ware became a large plantation owner with many slaves and owned a large textile mill, as well as a tan yard and shoe factory, all in Harrison County, Texas. He initially supported secession and the Confederacy, but by 1864 was calling for the Confederacy to sue for peace, probably because he was losing his shirt regardless of the slave question. He helped organize a meeting in Houston to discuss this, but the group went unheard as the Confederacy struggled to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

At the close of the war, Ware ran as a delegate to the convention that tried to put Texas back into the Union with the Constitution of 1866. Ware advocated for progressive reforms like educating blacks and eventually allowing them to vote. He also said secession had been wrong. His opponent, John Burke, labeled him “a traitor to the white man.”

Ware lost that election, moved to New Orleans where he ran a sugar plantation, and remained active in Democratic politics until his death in 1898. Near the end of his life, he worked with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and became a prohibitionist, even getting an anti-liquor plank into the Democratic Party platform in 1888.

That is most of the article, but it took me a year later to find it. What is really sad to me is that we, in Texas, never hear about his activities after the war, probably because he moved away and had such progressive ideas regarding race, especially for a former slave owner. But, it goes to show even prominent people faced a dilema when it came to supporting the Confederacy.

Why all the acidity in comments?

I don’t expect everyone to agree with what I say on this blog all the time, but I do wish people to be respectful when they visit. Case in point: an exchange I recently had with the “Old Virginian” Richard G. Williams, Jr. Mr. Williams was as gracious as the Southern gentleman he portrays himself to be through our entire exchange. I only hope Mr. Willams believes I was as gracious in my comments as well.

That being said, I follow quite a few CW history blogs, most of which are on my blog roll. I have linked to other CW blogs throughout my posts and I comment on most regularly. I don’t know if I’m losing something in the written interpretation of comments because I’m not actually hearing and seeing verbal and nonverbal cues, but some folks seem to have a great deal of acrimony in their comments.

Sure, people are going to disagree, people have a right to their opinions, people have a right to argue passionately for what they believe in. People should, however, come to the table armed with the facts, even if it is with a slanted view of the facts, before they go off half-cocked.

Have I been guilty of commenting this way in the past? Sure. I’ve also, in most cases, apologized for doing that and try to refrain from posting in that manner in future visits to the site. I’m a guest on the site, I need to keep that in mind as I approach reading and commenting on a site. If I don’t agree with something that is written or the way I have been treated, I don’t have to comment. If I believe I have been personally attacked, I don’t have to go back. I have my own blog on which to sulk, if I wish.

I, personally, no longer identify with the Confederate cause. I, like many, see myself as a native of my state, then an American. I do not, however, see that one heritage is any more important than the other. There are some who agree with me in identification with a sectional cause in the country. My opinion is that we cannot continue to let neo-sectionalism define us anywhere but at a sporting event. We are all Americans, regardless of state or section from which we hail. While what we choose to study historically may be influenced by where we come from, our study should be in light of how these issues affect us in the larger sense as Americans. I study Texas history, and teach it, not from the perspective that we are better than the other 49 states, but to better understand, and inform my students, how we fit into the nation as a whole.

Nothing I say on here should be taken personally. I’m not attacking a person as being a bad person. I may attack a bad idea as a bad idea or bad research as bad research, but I do not believe I am attacking the person. After all, even bad ideas and bad research took someone’s effort to reach. Just because I don’t agree with his/her conclusion doesn’t mean his/her effort should be diminished. It took years of research to get where we are in historiography today, some of it accurate, some of it not.

As far as my actual interaction with others I have “met” in this virtual world, I would like to think that, should I run into Mr. Williams, he and I could sit down with a Dr. Pepper and have a nice conversation on everything from the Civil War (or War Between the States) to our latest fishing trip. I would like to think Kevin Levin or Robert Moore would feel right at home watching the Boston Red Sox beat the Texas Rangers at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington as they would seeing it in Fenway. I would like to think I could run into any of the people I have responded to, here or on other sites, and have a nice dinner and conversation. I believe we are Americans; we have that common bond. This, I believe, is the bond we need to focus our attention on rather than taking it personal when we disagree.

(Guys, I wanted to post this after seeing some of the comments recently posted on some of your blogs.)

Texas-sized “Thank you”

It’s been several days since I posted something on my own, but things have been kind of crazy here. Hopefully, that is about to change and I can get back on track and post more regularly.

I must say “thank you” to a few people for recent additions to my own teaching of the Civil War and its memory.

Recently, I approached my principal, Michael Tull, about the possibility of teaching a special topics in history local elective. The class will include a semester-long study of the US Constitution (fall) and the Civil War (spring). I presented a written proposal, which he then presented to the secondary curriculum director, Gail McDaniel, and superintendent, Michael French. That proposal was accepted and I will begin teaching the course in the 2009-2010 school year. It’s not often that a teacher in his third year in the profession and second year in the district can make this sort of proposal and it be accepted. Thank you Mr. Tull, Ms. McDaniel and Mr. French.

I have to say thanks to my mom, Tracy Rowe, for her recent visit to my World Events class to speak about growing up in a small East Texas town known for racial unrest. She grew up there during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and she offered students insight into how one grows up in a town like that, but does not let small-minded behavior take root. Over the last several months, we have conducted an in-depth study of racism in American history and the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. This was, in my opinion, a great addition to our study.

At about 9:30 yesterday morning, officers of the Quinlan ISD Educational Foundation, a local charity in the school district where I teach, presented $649.75 for materials to teach my Special Topics in US History course next year. The foundation’s goal is to assist teachers with classroom expenses that might otherwise be beyond the reach of the school district’s budget. While the amount of my award might not seem like much, it was part of aprroximately $25,000 awarded to teachers throughout the district. Thanks go to Dr. William Claxton and the officers and district liasons who made this award. A special thank you goes to the many donors and contributors who, because of their generosity, make this possible.

Finally, Kevin Levin from Civil War Memory, who I recently added as an author on this site, was kind enough to cross post here. Kevin’s post and response to student comments is greatly appreciated. He took comments and questions from 16 middle schoolers with the same grace and style he continually exhibits on his own blog. Thank you Kevin for being patient with these students and with me as I develop a way to teach these guys the topics of Civil War and its memory in an engaging way.

I’m still a new hand at this teaching profession, but the experiences I’ve had this year alone make it worth the time, money and effort I put into getting here. Thanks to everone who has helped me get here and make this the profession I’ll retire from.

“…war…is all hell!”

William T. Sherman, 1880

(Hat-Tip to Fred Ray over at TOCWOC)

As a teacher, I’m concerned about school violence as much as the next person, but most school policy decisions made in the name of “zero-tolerance” go a little to far for me.

It seems an elementary school in Appleton, WI, has decided to axe the battle reenactment the fifth grade students do as part of a day-long activity to offer students a perspective of the war for the vantage point of a soldier.

According to an article in The Post-Cresent newspaper of Appleton, parents objected to the activity not because their child might be injured in the mock donnybrook, but because it goes against school violence initiatives and the school system’s “zero-tolerance policy regarding weapons.” I suppose district officials fear the 20-minute sequence might influence some kid to go on a shooting rampage in the neighborhood with a muzzleloader!

One 17-year-old high school junior in the community who had participated in the program said it this way.

“I can see where they are coming from, but I don’t think they should be altering the lessons they are teaching because of school policies. The battle was like the climax of the whole day. It was what everyone was looking forward to. I guess (school leaders) are looking at how violent it was, but that’s how history was.”

I’m not sure I completely understand the policy statement by the school’s leadership because, apparently, students will still have the fake weapons in the camp area and will drill with them throughout the rest of the day, just not stage a mock battle.

The point here is school officials have every right to do away with any program they see as inappropriate or misaligned wih campus or district policies and objectives, but, please. We are supposed to teach our kids how to debate issues effectively, at least use the correct line of arguement! I can see the district’s fear that a battle sequence does not appropriately align with its stance on violence issues, but to allow the mock firearms on campus for demonstration and drills, yet not allow the battle reenactment because it violates the “zero-tolerance” policy regarding weapons on campus is talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Of course, I’m not certain I would want a couple hundred fifth graders running at each other with anything more than a padded pole, much less a non-operational Springfield replica, regardless of the school’s policy regarding violence and mock weapons. This has the potential for some actual bloodshed and that would definitely quell the excitement generated by a hands-on event of this type.

Safety concerns over the battle I can see. I can even understand that a battle reenactment crosses school policies regarding violence. But if “zero-tolerance” is the way they want it, doesn’t that mean it should apply to the whole day and the whole school system all school year? What happens when the senior play is “Romeo & Juliet?” Will the students be allowed a fake knife and an empty bottle representing deadly poison on stage or will some district official invoke “zero-tolerance” taking a great piece of literature out of the hands of our students and rob them of their dramatic interpretation of it?

Just a thought.

More from some middle schoolers

OK, so I haven’t posted in a couple of days, but when I do post, here lately, it is a doozy!

In my last post I shared some thoughts from my middle school students. Monday (3/9/2009), during my eighth period advanced history class, there was a track meet, so I had a very small class. Seven, to be exact. So rather than get too far ahead, we just sat around discussing some ideas about the war and its memory that these students had.

Thoughts turned to the Army of Northern Virginia battle flag. One young lady, who has had a rather unpleasant experience with a display of the flag (and she’s white), said she views the flag, as it is used by many today, as a racist symbol. I asked her for clarification on this point. I wanted to know what made her say this. All I did was ask the question. What follows is a summary of her explanation.

She responded that “the South” carried it into battle and that “the South” was fighting for its rights, including the right to own slaves. She stated she sees the flag as a symbol of “the South” and, therefore a symbol of slavery and its connection to racism. I reminded her of two things: 1) not all Southerners were Confederates and 2) we cannot apply our 21st century definition of racism to 19th century people, regardless of slavery being a moral wrong. She said she was not saying that people in the 1860’s  were racist by our definition, nor that all Southerners at the time agreed with slavery, but that, in her experience, most people who choose to fly the flag today are racist. I pointed out that some groups, like the SCV and UDC, see the flag as a symbol of Southern heritage. She remained adamant in her perception.

Another student raised the point that we should not view all slave owners as racist, by any standard, since “not all slave owners mistreated their slaves; they had more land than they could work by themselves.” Based on her limited knowledge of the era, this second student could not respond to the point raised by a third student that slavery, of itself, was mistreatment. Too bad class ended about this time!

It’s conversations in the classroom like these and the ones mentioned in my earlier post that make this so exciting for me. I can’t wait until next year as I begin to broaden and deepen the examination of these topics in the Civil War segment of my “Special Topics in US History” class. These kids seem genuinely interested in learning about the causes and consequences of the war and, while some have a few preconceived notions about certain aspects, the variety of opinions run the gambit, from very conservative to very liberal. This should be fun.