Today in Confederate History (1)

Our recently elected toolbag of a Governor, Bob McDonnell, has decreed that April will be celebrated as Confederate History Month throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.  You see, Governor McDonnell has decided that celebrating the shameful outlaw pariah past of our Commonwealth will promote tourism and so forth.  He also stresses the point that Confederate History Month should be a time of learning about the history of the Confederacy.

Speaking to his first point, I happen to think that the Governor is wrong about the celebration of a failed seditious rebellion as being something that will draw a lot of tourism to our state... certainly not the sort of tourism that I think that most people would find desirable.  I confess that I might be wrong on this, as my part of our state is a bit different than some other parts, but I digress.  I just don't see a Confederate celebration as something that will draw people from all over the country on the same level as Colonial Williamsburg and the theme parks that are nearby; or Virginia Beach; or Luray Caverns; or the Yorktown Battlefield; or Jamestown; Skyline Drive; Mount Vernon; or the Shenandoah Valley; or any number of the myriad other things that people regularly come to Virginia for.  As I said, I could be wrong on this, but I don't think so.

OK, so maybe I don't understand… after all, my Confederate ancestors were all from South Carolina.

Now, as regards Virginia's history in the Confederacy, I confess that there could be some points of pride to be had from participation in that idiotic misadventure. Mainly because of a certain Virginian who happened to be the most able field commander that the southern states had throughout the war, a fellow by the name of Robert E. Lee. Another point of Virginia pride could be that the capitol city of the Confederacy was here in Richmond, although the Richmonders of the time may not have been too proud of that by the end of the war, considering what happened to their city. Another important thing in the short, painful life of the Confederacy was its conclusion. On April 9^th, 1865, Robert E. Lee, bandit-in-chief of the so-called Army of Northern Virginia, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant of the United States Army, and the civil war came to an effective end.

These things are all very fine in the general sense, my friends, so for the rest of Confederate history month, Life of a Modern Warrior is going to take a look at some of the daily specifics of things that happened in April during the crushing of the civil insurrection that some people call the American Civil War.