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The voice from the Sierra Madre Oriental and the entrance to our Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre
Monday 17 August 2020
Clear Thinking Rules - A Note from El Zorro
Wednesday 12 August 2020
Concerning the Legacy of Robert Edward Lee
The young Negro man declared that he would prefer to oversee both plantations since they were contiguous. That arrangement would last for for a score and a half of years. He supervised white blue-collar types who were very advanced in their trades, several high-skilled Negro men with families who had been manumitted and an overall work force of about 300 men and women.
Once closer to their old stomping grounds and among familiar people, and with the end of Reconstruction's outrages…the three Black men, backed by the Davis's and other "old White men" down in southern Mississippi, the three Black men from "days before", they became the three Black men of their "days of tomorrows". Their future secured and their families enjoying a wonderful future…things were good again and they contributed much to progress in Mississippi, the South, and America.
They even made linkage with another oft' misunderstood and maligned Southern General, Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had 42 Negro soldiers in his 1st unit. He gave them their Letters of Manumission early in 1864, instead of waiting until "after the War". It was pretty clear that the South stood to lose the War, and Forrest had guaranteed the men's Manumission. Incredibly enough, although facing direct fire and close combat in seven or eight major battles, and other contretemps, all those cavalry soldiers survived the War Between the States…always riding at or near the presence of their commander…a most dangerous position during battle. None ever renounced their position in Forrest's army, serving through the end of bellicosity.
Forrest also establish the first university level Law School in Memphis, Tennessee for Negroes in 1872…which long since was folded into the standard School of Law of the University of Tennessee.
Finally, the Davis brothers, like Forrest, were not fans of slavery. They sought manners to facilitate Manumission (freeman citizen status) successfully, and understood the obvious looming on the horizon. That looming was the reality of the future, and the inevitable mechanisation which would cause an industrial change requiring people with the technical ability and disposition to handle such matters. In other words, or simply being blunt, picking cotton by hand and baling it up for the mills in Birmingham, England would not suffice as a future livelihood and forceful trade commodity in the American and foreign markets.
The crowd can howl loudly forever, but the social and demographic characteristics of the South are not as easily described as to-day's analysts might think. Follow the thought processes of Abraham Lincoln, responding to
the question of manumission or some other form of release from slavery. Please note that the letter is dated well into the depths of the War. To wit:
on, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
General Lee opined differently. Before the War, he wrote….To wit:
There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence.
Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day.
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We shall leave these long forgotten passages and realities to flutter in the long forgotten winds of truth. One remembers the tale of Lincoln's wife, after learning her brother had been killed in action…that the kindly First Lady hurled a lamp at her servant (a Negro woman), while shrieking that she was the cause of her brother's demise. Yes, Virginia, Mrs. Lincoln, wife of the President and Commander in Chief of the entire Union Military, had a Southern Army son. Such was the nature of that hideous War.
The Negro woman continued in service to the Lincoln family. She was probably accustomed to Mrs. Lincoln's "coo-coo bongo brain condition". She would reincarnate twice in later times…once as the wife of Woodrow Wilson, and another time in the form of (Sir Edmund) Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Thanks to one and all for holding in with us. There is more to come.
EL GRINGO VIEJO
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Sunday 19 July 2020
Saturday 18 July 2020
El Zorro comments anew…Please read on!!
RE: "NOW COMES THE TIME FOR THE WEEDING…"
Great apologia!
(Left) Edelmiro Garza and (Right) Ismael Chavez. The two fallen officers with essentially impeccable records… They are gone, but never forgotten. _____________________ |
Thursday 9 July 2020
Generals Vazquez and Woll bedevil Texas - 1842…and the Vindication of Juan Sequin Zaragoza
But great and strange things were going on between the Rio Grande and San Antonio. In the Spring of 1842, General Vasquez rode up to San Antonio from Laredo, with between 700 and 900 effectives, almost all cavalry. General Vasquez took over the city, "taxed" the inhabitants for feed, fodder, shodding by smiths, and supplies for his animals and soldiers, and returned to Laredo with only the feeblest of resistance by the Texians.
Worse would come to the Texians later in the year. General Adrian Woll, a Belgian military type who had arrived in Mexico during the 1820s and quickly "made grade" arriving at Brigadier rank in time to conduct an Army of Cavalry, Infantry, and considerable cannon up to San Antonio. This was a late Summer event, and it occupied the Mexicans for about two weeks, before Woll gathered up his troops and returned to Matamoros.
Sam Houston ordered his buddy, General Somervell, to pursue Woll and engage him…but not too roughly. He wanted Woll, Vasquez, and scores of military officers from Monterrey to Matamoros, and Laredo to notice that the Somervell Expedition was not intended to be a punitive event.
The Mexican Army officers would have liked nothing better than to destroy a Texian "punitive expedition". But such was not to be. Somervell proved to be an inept controller of untrained troops. Frankly, about half of them were vagabonds, adventurers, and slackers…not soldiers of any kind. Somervell was further held back by the stated preferences made by Samuel Houston that it would be preferable to not ignite a significant war-like atmosphere. It was the old "show, but do not attack" military tactic.
Actually, Col. Fisher and Col. Green took a path downriver from Laredo and Carrizales, and with 300 or so dubiously endowed "soldiers" went to a place named Mier…just a mile or so back from the Rio Bravo (Grande) and where the Rio Alamo makes conjunction with the Rio Bravo. Mier was known to be a little jewel community with nice, well built homes and numerous processing mills, smithing masters, and a massive sheeps' wool packing and forwarding business. Farming in the broadest banks of the Rio Alamo and Rio Bravo also provided a good source of produce and grains.
The Texians had already sequestered and detained the mayor of the town as a bargaining chip, and the fight was on. After twenty-four hours, though…the fight was over. The Texians had been badly beaten by superior numbers, better commanders, and better execution.
One of the Mexican Army's combatants at Mier handled reconnaissance at the beginning of hostilities. That combatant was a cavalry officer with experience in military matters, and who was somewhat familiar with the Texian methods of fighting. It was, of course, Juan Seguin Zaragoza…recently Mayor of San Antonio, Texas for two different terms, member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas after the expulsion of Santa Anna and other great accomplishments as a Texian hero.
We remember that it was Col. Seguin, as Charge d'Affairs (military) of San Antonio, immediately after his return from the Victory at San Jacinto, who gave the Eulogy over the remains of certain identified officers and persons of importance who died in defence of the Alamo on 6 March 1836. Further collections of remains were sought and found, there is considerable debate to this day about the whens and wheres…but we know that Seguin appealed to the Heavens thusly. To wit;
Commandant San Antonio, Bexar, Texas
Army of the Republic of Texas
The City of Seguin, Texas has placed a truly pleasant part on the north side of the near-downtown part of the town…not far from the famous rows of magnificent Victorian homes that provide another wondrous feature about Sequin as a community. The stop at the Juan Sequin park and the various other attractions in and around the community make a couple of hours or two or three days of poking around more than normal, more than worthwhile.
We leave these matters to your own discretion. We always like to hear from folks who take advantage of our recommendations, and you can easily reach us at privatouring@gmail.com.
EL GRINGO VIEJO
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Wednesday 1 July 2020
Proud of their own ignorance…they scheme to erase the past without knowing much about it….
When he left her to go to the West Point, his mother was heard to say; “How can I live without Robert? He is both son and daughter to me.”
Years after, when he came home from West Point, he found one of the chief actors of his childhood's drama-his mother's old coachman, “Nat”— ill, and threatened with consumption. He immediately took him to the milder climate of Georgia, nursed him with the tenderness of a son, and secured him the best medical advice.
But the spring-time saw the faithful old servant laid in the grave by the hands of his kind young master.
Before long, she was pushing the pretty little blond girl to play hoop and stick, kickball, football, and baseball with the boys…and beating them. She taught the blond girl how to pluck mulberries correctly, and how to make a pecan pie. My mother learned about Kosher this and Kosher that and a bit of Hebrew along the way. The two families were competitors in the general wares and wears stores on main street in Winchester in those days.
Still Residing in the South
HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF
REV. WM. MACK LEE, BODY SERVANT OF
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE
THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
1861 to 1865
Copyrighted - year 1918, by the Rev. Wm. Mack Lee
STILL LIVING UNDER THE PROTECTION
OF THE SOUTHERN STATES
- Gen. Stonewall Jackson
- Gen. Ewell
- Gen. Mosby
- Gen. Bragg
- Gen. Elwell
- Gen. Anderson
- Gen. Pickett
- Gen. Early
- Gen. Longstreet
- Gen. Jos. E. Johnston
- Gen. Sidney E. Johnston
- Gen. Morgan
- Gen. Forrest
- Gen. J. B. Hood
- Gen. Kirby Smith
- Gen. Chambers
- Gen. Van Dorn
- Gen. Buell
- Gen. J. E. B. Stuart
- Gen. A. P. Hill
- Gen. D. H. Hill
- Gen. Fitzhugh Lee
- Gen. J. B. Gordon
- Gen. Harrison
- Gen. Price
- Gen. Billy Mahone
- Gen. Jefferson Davis
- Gen. Wilcox
- Gen. Fremont
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE AND OTHER GENERALS
for whom Rev. William Mack Lee cooked four years during the Civil War, when he was servant to General Robert E. Lee--1861-1865
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