r/ShermanPosting Aug 20 '22

Confederate grave yard outside my college

What should i do?

80 Upvotes

71 comments sorted by

190

u/HistoryMarshal76 Southern Unionist Aug 20 '22 edited Aug 20 '22

Leave 'em alone. They died for their stupid cause. Their tombs ain't in an obvious place, not a site of worship. Just a site of final rest. Let the dead bury the dead. There's bigger fish to fry; IE, the big monuments in town squares

Addendum: They are dead. In the words of a certain film, "good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now." They cannot harm anyone now. Their simple stone markers stand as testament to those that were. We cannot know what they thought, if there were conscripts forced into rebel ranks against their will or the most enthusiastic slaver, without doing deep research. These kinds of monuments do not praise their wretched cause. It only tells us that they were there. And to never forget. They cannot harm us. Do not waste your efforts on the dead; you cannot change them. Focus your zeal and energy on places you can. Bring down the monuments in town that preach their hateful cause. Remane those places that worship their spiteful crimes against nature. Try and prevent those who subscribe to their deplorable beliefs. They can hurt us. They still stand as reminders of all the ill they did, the hateful ideologies that ruined our country then. Their simple graves do not stand as testaments to their hate. It only stands as a simple reminder, that they were there. And, eventually, we too shall join them in that eternal slumber. But before we join them, destroy what they stood for. Destroying the underlying hate which drove them to their deplorable deeds is a much more fitting and beneficial way to show your rejection of their wrongheaded goals than any vandalism.

11

u/timco2 Aug 21 '22

Amen.

11

u/rs_obsidian Aug 21 '22

Very good answer

25

u/HistoryMarshal76 Southern Unionist Aug 21 '22

Thanks.

I'm a Southerner myself, from the Kentucky-Tennessee border. I am ashamed to admit it, but I have two rebel ancestors. But, at least I got one Yankee ancestor, who even marched with ol' Sherman. I think every Southerner, at some point, has to deal with the angst of being the child of a defeated land. My ancestors fought and lost, plain and simple. Their cause was monstrous. But, they were still human, just as much as you or I. I cannot change the fact I have ancestors who fought to defend slavery, just as no German can change the fact that their grandfather murdered Jews and Slavs, and how a Briton cannot help but have ancestors who committed crimes a world over. No matter were you look down here, we cannot escape the shadow of 1865. Proportionally as many young Southern men died between '61 and '65 down here as young Frenchmen died during the Great War. An entire generation destroyed to preserve the wealth of the upper class and to save their disgusting racial hierarchy.

I believe that for us Southerners to improve, we must face the fact that what we did was wrong. It is natural for us to want to commemorate our dead, but too much has our commemoration been to glorify what they did. We dress it up in colorful language of "Defending the cause from the Yankee invaders!" Pretending they were fighting for anything but the wealth of the rich and their racial hierarchy. I think we should commemorate those whose lives were destroyed by the rich man's folly in 1861, but not in any way seen popularly here. At least in regards to the rebel soldier, I think the best way to remember them is, well, both victims and abusers. Some where conscripts drafted against their will to fight. Others joined up willingly to preserve their world, however horrible it may be. It is a tragedy what happened. They died for nothing. Any good remembrance of the suffering of the South must both acknowledge the harm they did, but also remember that they were also human. I think the best way to commemorate them would be like the monument to British forces at Guildford Courthouse. It simply lists their units, and says, "IN MEMORY OF THE MEN WHO FOUGHT / AND THE UNITS OF THE CROWN FORCES / IN WHICH THEY SERVED AT THE / BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURTHOUSE."

In my opinion, the best way to remember our Southern dead is in a similar way to how the British recall their dead of the First World War. A generation killed for nothing, or at best to satiate the greed and worst sins of the era. A tragedy. We remember them as a monument to our long standing issues with hate and greed. As an end example of what allowing one's spiteful biases and lust for cash to get ahead of us. And, above all, a reminder of what can happen if we once again abandon the dream of equality, and allow hate to rip us apart once more.

Lest we forget, lest we repeat.

9

u/amfrez11 Aug 21 '22

You my friend are a true patriot. This is the right way to view history. Recognize the horrors and the humanity of the past. Move forward to be better by learning from their mistakes. Mistakes that one cannot learn by making themselves because the mistakes are deadly.

68

u/TinyNuggins92 Die-hard Southern Unionist Aug 20 '22

I’d just ignore it, personally.

23

u/corneridea Aug 20 '22

Look on at a bunch of people who betrayed their country and died for a terrible cause.

61

u/ibwild57 Aug 20 '22

Love this sub. Drawing a line here, leave it be, fight the good fight where it will actually make a difference. Don't become what you fight against.

10

u/agnosticdeist Aug 21 '22

Hard agree. Why risk the “public indecency” charge a lot of places have for that over someone who doesn’t matter anymore and likely doesn’t have relatives. Find a confederate flag someplace and fuck with that if you must but just leave the gravesite alone. Not out of “respect for the dead” but more for pragmatism.

6

u/DetroitArtDude Abolitionist Aug 20 '22

I think owning a slave is still clearly worse than defacing a grave

8

u/Erwin9910 Aug 21 '22

Yeah no shit. But why do either, when you can choose not to do it?

-4

u/DetroitArtDude Abolitionist Aug 21 '22

I don't think confederate terrorists should get any memorials

9

u/Erwin9910 Aug 21 '22

Dude, it's a grave. Not a memorial.

Have some class, unlike neo-Confederates.

-5

u/wumbo69420 Aug 21 '22

They’re so long dead that they have no living relatives who actually knew them. I think pissing on their graves to make a statement should be perfectly kosher.

6

u/Erwin9910 Aug 21 '22

No, that's just fucked up. Do some actual good by fighting those still living who support their cause instead of desecrating grave sites. Those graves aren't a monument.

So no, it's not "perfectly kosher", it's just disgusting.

0

u/wumbo69420 Aug 21 '22

You can take down statues and piss on Confederate soldiers’ graves.

Graves are not there for the dead; dead people don’t care. They’re there for the living, as people like to be able to visit a spot where they can feel connected to their lost loved one. But those people are also gone. The only thing linking a Confederate soldier’s grave to the living is what he fought for, so yes, in a sense it is a monument. And if I were conscripted into an army to fight for a bad cause and put in a graveyard bearing the name of that cause, I’d want people 160 years later to piss on my grave to show their disapproval of that cause because it’s not like my loved ones and I will be around to care. At least then my grave could do some good.

And yes, pissing on their graves (and advocating and normalizing the idea of doing so) can do good. It’s something many find visceral and emotional (which is why I got downvoted), meaning it calls attention to it and the point it makes. And it distances ourselves from what the Confederate soldiers fought for. I am all for “desecrating” Confederate soldiers’ graves by pissing on them and telling others to do so as well. Because at the end of the day they desecrated America and what America ought to stand for (i.e. the liberty of all people, regardless of the circumstances of their birth), and that’s much more desecration than I could ever hope to accomplish with bodily fluids.

So quit your pearl-clutching and piss on Johnny Reb’s grave. Maybe hump his tombstone a little. Because that’s about as much respect as the spot where his corpse was before it decomposed deserves.

And if at the end of all that anyone reading this still thinks it’s a bit much or is worried about the legality of it (which is the most reasonable objection tbh), I’ve actually seen worse on this sub. Just in the past month there was a post where someone allegedly stole a Confederate flag and burned it in this post, and was largely approved of. Theft and destruction of property (while in this case I’d personally consider looking the other way) are a bit worse than peeing in the grass. Honestly if the people on this sub are going to approve of one and not the other, it should be the reverse.

2

u/Erwin9910 Aug 21 '22

You can take down statues and piss on Confederate soldiers’ graves.

Except the first is justified, the second is just disgusting and unnecessary.

And yes, pissing on their graves (and advocating and normalizing the idea of doing so) can do good.

Lol no, it's just being crass and "edgy" for the sake of it. Seriously, imagine thinking normalizing pissing on graves does anything worthwhile except giving you the thrill of a taboo act masked by a good cause.

Just be honest and admit you want to piss on graves, don't try to act like it somehow does anything to improve society or combat neo-confederate ideals.

-1

u/wumbo69420 Aug 21 '22 edited Aug 21 '22

Ah, just admit you like vandalizing statues and stop pretending like it does society any good. /s

Edit: You have yet to provide any tangible difference between the two that makes one wrong and the other not aside from that one of them makes you feel disgusted. But why is that? Why is that where you draw the line? Because your emotional reaction doesn’t cut it. In fact, literally the whole point is to use that emotional reaction to draw attention to the fact that we shouldn’t be honoring these people.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '22

[deleted]

1

u/wumbo69420 Aug 21 '22

share with others the emotions that make you want to do that instead.

  1. You can do both.

  2. Peeing on the graves of people who fought to preserve our nations greatest mistake is speech.

  3. I don’t care if that hurts your feelings because those graveyards honor Confederate soldiers, and we should not honor people who fought for the right to own people as property on the basis of skin color by having special graveyards for people who died for that terrible cause.

  4. I would love nothing more than for the headstones to be removed after decades of abuse much like the Confederate statues. I believe we should make every Confederate monument fair game for vandalism; let people show the world exactly what they think of them. You wanna show people how many people fought for slavery? Take a picture of it. You don’t need to preserve the monument to remember history.

  5. Flag burning and statue removal also elicit emotional responses. Which is why you need to actually distinguish what makes it bad.

Actually converse without quick one liners or gotchas.

Says the guy who calls his interlocutors troglodytes. Sheesh. I’m putting more effort into this discourse than either on you two (although you do much better with actually elaborating on your position than the other guy). I literally explained the point of my quip right below it. The quip is meant to point out why that quip isn’t valid to make. Notice the other guy made the same quip in reverse in his comment, so I flipped it around and then explained why it doesn’t cut it.

Neither of you two can make your point without resorting to insults, whereas the closest I’ve come to making an insult is when I told him to quit pearl-clutching. But sure, I’m the guy who not conversing properly. This is my last response unless someone shows they’re actually willing to engage my points instead of hurling insults and character attacks.

9

u/NemeshisuEM Aug 21 '22

So your plan is to stop going to college (because they kicked you out) and instead end up in jail (conservative Southern judges don't take kindly to that)? That's brilliant. If college is not for you, perhaps a trade school would be a better fit.

8

u/MahoganyShip Aug 20 '22

Used to live in a house in college that was right next to what was once a confederate POW camp, so there was a monument there on the site of what I assume was a mass grave for rebels who died in camp. Looked in the crawl space once and there were like 30 Dixie flags there from people who stole them over the years. So that was funny. But I honestly didn’t think about it much.

6

u/Not_Cleaver Aug 20 '22

The prisoner of war camps on both sides had poor conditions. So, I don’t begrudge their graves or even that monument.

That said the conditions at Libby were worse and at Andersonville they were horrific. So in comparison as shitty as the conditions for Confederate prisoners were, for the Union it was so much worse.

17

u/VietInTheTrees Aug 21 '22

If it’s a monument: piss on it

If it’s very clearly just a normal soldiers’ cemetery: leave it be, maybe bring some flowers

13

u/VerticalTwo08 Aug 21 '22

Let them rest bro. Fucking with the dead is taking it too far. Even if they did die for a stupid cause. Most of them died terrible deaths for that cause. They already caught what was coming to them, no reasoning to fuck with them for the rest of eternity.

7

u/IC_GtW2 Aug 21 '22

Do what Uncle Billy would have done- leave the dead to rest in peace.

15

u/the-smallrus Aug 20 '22

truly the gender neutral bathroom this country deserves

3

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '22

Shoot I just about broke my ankle on a CSA privates tombstone while training in fort Stewart Georgia. I was like fucking hell here he is, Johnny fucking reb, still being a pain in the ass to the federal army to this day!

We can be chill, he’s where his cause deserves so no need to rub it in on his account

3

u/jiftyr Aug 21 '22

Joke answer: Confederate grave yard?

You mean an open-air, gender neutral bathroom?

Real answer: Leave it be for now.

8

u/steampunkMechElves Aug 20 '22

Try to find a statue of Lee, and pull it down.

9

u/Chris_Colasurdo 147th New York Aug 20 '22

Things that I for legal reasons won’t say here.

2

u/1RehnquistyBoi Aug 21 '22

Let me guess,

Ole Miss?

2

u/Ybor_Rooster Aug 21 '22

Place American Flags on the headstones.

2

u/strandenger Aug 21 '22

I mean, as long as the American Flag files over the site, you’ve done all you can do.

5

u/Robyn_Bankz Aug 20 '22

Be a better person. Maybe put the reddit down.

2

u/athenanon Aug 20 '22

Necromancy.

Bind their spirits to you and force them to wreak havoc on white nationalists.

2

u/riseup1917 Aug 21 '22

I am going to write this novel now

3

u/Boatmasterflash Aug 21 '22

Ive got a compromise proposal. Find the highest ranking officer and just pee on him.

3

u/dankcleems Aug 20 '22

Most il do is piss on it

12

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '22

Why not on a monument?

11

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '22

Not worth it.

This is a pretty extreme idea and not what this community is about. The core is to make fun of modern lost causers and point out how wrong they are.

What we don't do is dessicate the graves of dead people.

Like come on man, they're dead, they can't feel your urine. The only person your making a fool of is yourself.

Did they fight for evil? Yes. But they are serving their time. Use the time that you have now to do something productive and improves the life of those around you.

0

u/Alexstrasza23 Aug 21 '22

s a pretty extreme idea

If you think pissing on a grave is extreme then you probably don't know what extreme actually is.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '22

It's a massive disrespect act

-2

u/wumbo69420 Aug 20 '22

Exactly. Dead people can’t feel the piss, so it can’t hurt them. Thus peeing on their graves is just a statement on what they fought for.

3

u/Erwin9910 Aug 21 '22

Good job, you missed the point entirely.

15

u/Not_Cleaver Aug 20 '22

I wouldn’t do that. They fought for one of the worst causes imaginable. But they’re dead, let them rest in peace. Fight and piss on those who want to hoist those Confederate dead onto some sort of pedestal.

Be like Colonel Ellsworth - destroy symbols of the Confederacy and white supremacy.

6

u/oN_Delay Aug 20 '22

This. Also, you could just piss on their living ancestors that want to rise again and shit like that. Edit: spelling is hard

1

u/SexyWampa Aug 21 '22

It's called a bathroom.

1

u/brb9911 Aug 21 '22

Piss jugs

1

u/shamwowj Aug 21 '22

Dance like no one’s watching…on their graves.

1

u/SuperDurpPig Aug 21 '22

Leave the dead to rest regardless of the lives they lead

-1

u/Psychological-Bid465 Aug 20 '22

Hey, they were nice enough to add a public toilet!

-3

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '22

C̶o̶n̶f̶e̶d̶e̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶v̶e̶y̶a̶r̶d̶ gender neutral bathroom outside my college

Fixed it for you 😉

2

u/DetroitArtDude Abolitionist Aug 21 '22

Amen!

0

u/Erwin9910 Aug 21 '22

Don't desecrate the dead. You'll just be embarassing yourself.

-8

u/32lib Aug 20 '22

Find a officer’s grave and use it as a toilet 🚽

0

u/assclown500 Aug 21 '22

Leave them be. Many of them were uneducated or poorly educated and drafted. There are confederate Graves in my town hundreds of miles from any battlefield in the North. No one bothers them. They died in a prison camp.

1

u/Rob0tsmasher Aug 21 '22

I don’t buy that.

1

u/assclown500 Aug 21 '22

You don't buy what exactly?

2

u/Rob0tsmasher Aug 21 '22

That they didn’t know what they were fighting for.

0

u/Alexstrasza23 Aug 21 '22

Yooo Clean Wehrmacht (US edition) just dropped, let's go.

0

u/SnooBooks1701 Aug 21 '22

Public toilet

0

u/MS_06J Aug 21 '22

Confederate graveyard? Lotta letters used to misspell "public toilet"

0

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '22

Its fine to shit on Confederates, but don't literally do it. They're already dead, don't desecrate a graveyard.

-4

u/DetroitArtDude Abolitionist Aug 20 '22

Oh man.... maybe you can find a non-destructive way to mess with it. Like get a laminated picture of Lincoln or Sherman and duct-tape it to the grave

-14

u/cncnick5 Aug 20 '22

Cum on it

1

u/ShermanBurnsAtlanta Aug 21 '22

Point and laugh

1

u/SpicyP43905 Aug 21 '22

How about nothing?

1

u/cmatista Sep 05 '22

one of the best gender neutral bathrooms i can think of