VTDS-Day

One hundred and fifty years ago today the longest sustained episode of treason against the United States came to an end.

I'm gonna go all out here; I think it's high time to actually win that battle.

As an aside, my mother taught elementary school in Virginia in the nineteen fifties. It was just her luck that she - a native Floridian but a national traveler in a time when very few people moved from their birthplace and someone who really thought of herself as a Yankee from New York State - had to teach the War of the Rebellion to her sixth grade class. Her memory is that it was eight weeks of Southern leaders, Southern heroes, and Southern victories with a couple of days at the end where the unpleasant defeat and occupation were breezed through. She says she completely understood her students who were shocked to find out that their state had lost.

Now I'm not going to go all Brian Beutner on you and suggest that this day be designated a national holiday. That seems a trifle past-the-sell-by-date and unlikely to succeed given the current GOP tongue-bathing of the ideals of the old Confederacy and the Articles of Confederation theory of governance.

But.

I'm all in with him about the idea of renaming the goddamn military posts named after people who fought and killed American soldiers.

And there's a pantsload of 'em. Bobby Lee? Braxton Bragg? John Bell Hood? George Pickett? George Gordon? All those treasonous sonsofbitches have an Army post named after them.

The argument you'd probably hear is that "They were fighting for what they believed in!" to which I'd say; "The fuck. So were fucking Erich von fucking Manstein and Isoroku fucking Yamamoto and you aren't suggesting we name an Army post or a Navy base after them, are you?"

After which you'd probably hear "But they were great leaders!" To which I'd say "A. P. Fucking Hill."

Historical Note: A.P. Hill, one of Bobby Lee's sorriest corps commanders, was an overpromoted cockup who couldn't figure out how to work battlefield tactics if he had been handed a goddamn large-print field manual and a copy of his enemy's situation maps. He did well arriving to help prevent disaster at Antietam but screwed the pooch at Fredricksburg and at the first day at Gettysburg, again at Bristoe Station and again in the Wilderness. Later in the war he was usually too sick to command but still managed to step on his poncho from time to time. He also got the clap at West Point, which I'm not sure to credit him with as some sort of bizarre achievement or add to his long string of fuckups. He was such an ardent traitor that he committed the Civil War version of "suicide-by-cop" on the first day of April, 1865, riding into the Union lines so as to ensure a picket blew him away and thus ensuring that he couldn't screw up anything in the remaining nine days of war. Anyway, if anyone tells you that the Southern forts are named for "great leaders"...there he is.

So let's clean the slavery traitors out of the Army's house; let's rename Fort Bragg after the Rock of Chickamauga and Fort Gordon after Bill Sherman (since the one in Panama is now called Coco Quako or something...).

And why the hell don't we have an Army post named after George Marshall?

Anyway, Happy Victory over Treason In Defense of Slavery Day!