James M. Redwine

War

A New World Resolution

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A new year is rapidly approaching. Hope for a better world is evidenced by universal blame placing, always onto someone else. Perhaps Jeffrey Epstein, or Donald Trump or Lane Kiffin or the idiot driving slowly in the passing lane. Or as Jimmy Buffett finally admitted in Margaritaville, “It was his own fault”.

One thing each of us believes is it is never our fault. Yet, in a republic, the United States for example, it is the fault of all citizens since we either choose or allow to remain in office our representatives. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth may have ordered Admiral Frank Bradley to carry out Commander in Chief Donald Trump’s order to kill the people on the alleged drug boat on September 02, 2025, but in America the President represents all of us. In the court of world opinion, each American violated our Constitution’s Bill of Rights and Due Process clauses as contained within the New World Resolutions of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

Our Founders were well aware of the irony contained within those famous New World Resolutions, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”. They knew that thousands of years of human history belied such a reality. What real truth they knew to be self-evident was that power does not corrupt humans, it enables them to be corrupt. The words were aspirational, not factual. The Constitution of the United States designed a framework for a system of government in which the natural inclination of humans to abuse power is sublimated to the competing powers of the majority who would abide by Due Process of Law.

If the eighty-one people we have killed in the Venezuelan boats were drug runners, there are well established procedures for determining those facts and for dealing with each situation. The U.S.A. has the most powerful military on earth. Even if the Venezuelan government was sponsoring those boats, its military is impotent against ours.

Our aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers and aircraft can and do monitor every craft that comes within our United States territorial waters. We have the ability and authority to force any such drug boat or fishing boat, to stand down and be searched without danger to American personnel or equipment.

We could safely and thoroughly search such boats and vet their sailors as to drugs or other illegal contents. If such criminal intent against America were to be evidenced, the occupants could be arrested and taken before a court in the United States or a world authorized legal body. Any drugs could be confiscated, used as evidence and later destroyed and the drug runners imprisoned.

Such a procedure is what our Founders would have demanded from King George III. It is called Due Process. As the folk singer Phil Ochs sang in his song, Is There Anybody Here:

♫Is there anybody here
Who thinks that following the orders takes away the blame?
Is there anybody here
Who wouldn’t mind to murder by another name?♫

We Americans who claim to be a light to the world should shout STOP! when our representatives justify killing others without affording them the rights we demand for ourselves. America was born in 1776 and should not lose its aspirational soul after only 249 years. For as Phil Ochs also said in his song, ♫This country is too young to die♫. America today can re-pledge our “Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor” to the hopes our Founders knew had not yet been made possible but that they and we should resolve to make reality. Due process should be our talisman, not just our hope.

 

Join or Die

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The Haudenosaunee, the democratic confederation of the Six Nations of Native Americans, had existed for centuries before Canasatego, their spokesperson, suggested the 13 colonies should form a similar arrangement. In 1754 Benjamin Franklin adopted the idea and even designed a flag with a snake cut into several pieces with the motto “Join or Die”. Eventually Canasatego’s advice was followed and Native Americans lost their lands. “Be careful what you wish for” or “No good deed goes unpunished”; either adage might apply.

These thoughts led the first of Ken Burns’ six-part PBS documentary of the American Revolution. Gentle Reader, if you did not watch it last week, I recommend you could not find a better use of twelve hours of your valuable time than pulling it up now on the PBS streaming app. My realization was how little I knew about the unlikely birth of the United States of America. Until last week my thought was, we Americans had had only one Civil War. I was ignorant of the animus among the colonies and our revered Founders. The revelations that the people who sacrificed so much and endured such hardships were actually people, much as people of today, was difficult to incorporate with my formal education and years of social experience and hearsay analysis.

I have spent many years sanguine with the core of America’s birth being a struggle for freedom by oppressed colonists against a repressive British monarchy. It was a clean, straight forward story requiring little nuance. I liked it and was comfortable in my beliefs; honor was the hallmark of the American Revolution.

After all, what words are more American than “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”? Honor was the standard and such things as speculation in Indian lands as a motivation for revolution by such speculators as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were beyond the pale. However, in Ken Burns’ treatise, the historian Philip Deloria states, “I think the American Revolution was all about land”. And in support of this premise he cited the 1763 British Royal Proclamation that declared all the land west of the Appalachian Mountains off limits to white people for either settlement or speculation. This infuriated the colonists who cited Manifest Destiny and who came from a culture in which 2% of Britain’s population owned 66% of the land. Many colonists believed their only hope of ever owning land was to take it from the Native Americans west of the Appalachians.

And of course, there was that soaring marvelous language, “All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. My formal schooling did not mention that the population “All men” did not include any women or non-white men nor did it mention the institution of slavery being practiced and jealously protected by many of the men who signed our glorious Declaration of Independence from the British crown.

So, was the American Revolution a straight forward story of good versus bad, of honor versus oppression, or was it vastly more complex? There was much to admire but, as with all human behavior, there are stains that should be acknowledged and learned from. Honor is not just a word; it is a cause. Honor encapsulates all vital human aspirations of honesty, integrity, generosity, humility, fairness, courage and self-sacrifice. The Founders certainly displayed much honorable behavior.

However, as we should know our history so we can learn from it, it should be the full story so the right lessons are applied in our country’s life in our times. Knowing our heroes were human does not denigrate their achievements. It does help us seek the harder right and eschew the easier wrong. I respectfully submit the story of the American Revolution is best celebrated with truth.

Dad’s Birthday

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Photo by Peg Redwine

 

Gentle Reader, it is possible you have heard or read some of this Civil War type story before. But Peg and I are going to spend this coming weekend at the re-enactment of the Civil War Battle of Honey Springs which was the largest Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River involving Caucasian, Black, and several Native American tribes in a desperate struggle for the control of Fort Gibson, the main installation that controlled the western supply route along the Texas Road. I do not know if my Grandfather Redwine fought in this battle which occurred July 17, 1863 near what is now Checotah, Oklahoma. If he did, it would have been as a teenager on the side of the Confederacy. However, as he eventually ended up in this particular area immediately after the Civil War, I choose to believe that scenario. Anyway, as with many families, our history wanders through numerous thickets of possibilities. In this regard I am returning to what I choose to believe may be a part of the Redwine lore. Should you have seen or read the story before, I hope you will indulge me.

My father was born in 1905 in Indian Territory, what later became Oklahoma in 1907. My grandfather Redwine was born in Georgia in 1848, 13 years before the Civil War began. After the war he moved to Indian Country, declared himself a minister and sought to save souls among non-United States citizens. At a makeshift church-camp meeting he was preaching from a wagon hitched to a team that bolted. Grandpa was thrown off the wagon, hit his head, died from the fall and was buried by his flock right where he fell. The location of his grave was slowly forgotten by all but a few of his family.

During the Viet Nam War the anti-war protestors raised so much Cain our government sought to ease the pressure by honoring deceased veterans from prior wars. As the great Woke Movement had not yet begun, sometimes “veteran” included Civil War soldiers from both sides. As my paternal grandfather was a Georgia teenager during the war years 1861-1865, he must have been counted as a war veteran. The details of his allegiance were not noted.

However, Gentle Reader, my maternal great, great grandfather who was born in La Grange, Indiana served with the Iron 44th of the Union forces. My family was rather ecumenical. Regardless, Grandfather Redwine was included in the whole class and was deemed entitled to a bronze marker for his grave only 100 or so years after his service.

Therefore, the War Department sent out a representative to Oklahoma but he could not locate Grandpa’s grave. So, he contacted my first Cousin, Pal Gene Redwine in Wilburton, Oklahoma to enlist his help. Pal Gene was an accommodating and friendly guy who had been to our grandfather’s grave. He agreed to help but suggested that our Uncle Henry might be even more knowledgeable and brewed excellent moonshine besides. They proceeded to Uncle Henry’s still.

Uncle Henry was as affable as Pal Gene. He insisted his latest vintage be taste-tested before they went to find Grandpa’s grave. The federal man and Pal Gene felt it impolite to refuse such hospitality so a few hours were spent trying to get directions to Grandpa’s rural resting site. Of course, such mental exercise required chemical assistance.

Eventually, Pal Gene and the Veteran’s Affairs official left Uncle Henry’s with Grandpa’s marker and sought the mysterious grave. They never found it but did manage to lose the marker somewhere along the search. Talk about honor in the breach, or, just desserts if one is not a Rebel.

Photo by Peg Redwine

 

Pro Bono Publico

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For the public good. We rarely take note of how much many people do for free. We just accept, and even expect, such civic minded persons as clergy people, medical personnel, fire and rescue workers and numerous other generous citizens to furnish our society with essential services. Who supports the schools, the religious institutions, civic organizations and countless, often nameless, beneficial causes? We know innumerable important services must get rendered but they are often given without fanfare and without recognition. What we do know is our lives are made better by a whole lot of people who owe us nothing and receive just that.

One of the most thankless public service groups is attorneys who take on unpopular people or causes. John Adams set the bar for putting right above his and his family’s personal interest in 1770 when, as a prominent lawyer and leader of the Colonials’ cause against England, he represented the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. A crowd of Colonial protesters was fired upon resulting in five Americans being killed and six more wounded, the most famous of whom was Black citizen, Crispus Attucks, who is often referred to as the first martyr of the American Revolution. Of the eight British soldiers involved, six were found not guilty and two were convicted by a jury of manslaughter, not the original charge of murder.

Both John Adams, who became our second president, and his wife Abigail understood the Colonial public would revile Adams for representing the British. In fact, Adams claimed he lost half of his law practice due to his courageous actions. But it was a matter of doing the right thing and establishing that a fair trial was more important than succumbing to a mob mentality.

As Attorney Atticus Finch stood for in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, when he defended poor Black Tom Robinson, justice was more vital to our American democracy than an attorney’s comfort and popularity. When the power of the government comes down on the defenseless, attorneys are often called upon to forego ease and incur the slings and arrows of what might otherwise be governmental power and public opinion run amok. They become the thin, and often disliked, line between tyranny and due process.

I often reflect on what my brother told me was the main reason I should follow his service and enter the legal profession, “You can do more good for more people in law than anything else”. While these lessons of courage, self-sacrifice and altruism may seem unnecessary after so many instances of the harm done by the ravages wrought by the swollen tide of misguided public clamor, our legal profession today may need a reminder. In our current culture of universities, corporations, municipalities and vapid national media bowing to governmental threats and malicious actions, we need our lawyers to once again put duty before fear and courage before capitulation.

In a July 31, 2025 article published by Reuters, the alarm bell has been rung. In their Special Report: How Trump’s crackdown on law firms is undermining legal defenses for the vulnerable, authors Mike Spector, Brad Heath, Kristina Cooke, Joseph Tanfani and David Thomas point to some of America’s most elite law firms as abandoning their core principles under financial pressure from the Trump Administration.

As for me, I do not spend much time assigning blame to those who threaten and coerce. I do not expect altruistic or ethical behavior from them. I do call upon the attorneys to remain true to what lawyers from Adams to today have stood for, an America where when a person has nowhere else to go, an attorney will seek the right regardless of the cost to that attorney or his law firm. Such selfless actions may not be seen as heroic by a public that may generally agree with governmental power being abused against those who are unpopular. Attorneys should not take up legal arms seeking accolades. Their oaths call for them to choose the harder right simply because it is right. Duty often calls for sacrifice and often the old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished”, is the result.

However, if one’s only motivation to eschew the easier wrong is public acceptance, such attorneys might as well resign themselves to lives of comfort and self-contempt. Right for right’s sake in the face of corruption for corruption’s sake is the core principle of America’s legal conscience. The events of our time are once again calling for lawyers to remember why they became lawyers.

The Battle of Honey Springs

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In the Honey Springs Battlefield Gift Shop. Photo taken by Peg Redwine

Just as my public-school education failed to lead one to analogies involving America’s Manifest Destiny and slavery or the genocide of indigenous peoples, it often concentrated on the perceived benefits bestowed on both Negroes and first Americans by their white governors. Black and Indian contributions to our shared history were generally omitted or diminished. My knowledge of these significant influences on America’s unrelenting march from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico came mostly by coincidence. Such was the case when Peg and I heard about the Civil War Battle of Honey Springs.

Our first exposure to this most important Civil War conflict in Indian Territory came from a brief mention of it on PBS just this past spring. We researched it, on the Internet of course, and discovered it occurred July 17, 1863 near Checotah, Oklahoma which is only about an hour and a half from our home in Osage County, Oklahoma. It was readily apparent why this “Gettysburg of the West” is barely a blip in our nation’s consciousness. Although the battle determined whether the Union or Confederate forces would control the vital Texas Road that protected supply lines from Mexico to Kansas right through the heart of Indian Territory (Oklahoma), the soldiers who fought the desperate fight consisted of white, Black and several tribes of Native Americans who supported both sides.

Photo by Peg Redwine.

In fact, the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was instrumental in the battle for the Union and several Black soldiers fought alongside Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole and Chickasaw warriors who had divided loyalties for both the North and the South. The commander of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was the only white man for that brigade.

Honey Springs, the location of this battle involving several thousand soldiers for each side, was named for a gigantic beehive that was attached to a large oak tree near the running spring. As with much of military history the outcome of the battle hinged on the weather. The Southern forces were in that location because the commander of Southern Forces in the Indian Territory, Maj. Gen. William Steele, ordered the capture of fairly nearby Ft. Gibson. Steele dispatched troops under Brig. Gen. Douglas Cooper to meet up with other Confederate troops under the command of Gen. Cabell whose men were about 25 miles from Honey Springs. His soldiers did a forced march through rain, mud and swollen streams but arrived late to the battle between Cooper’s and Union Gen. James G. Blunt’s soldiers. The fight was already a Union victory and the Texas Road as well as Ft. Gibson remained in Union control throughout the remainder of the Civil War.

Photo by Peg Redwine.

History may normally be written by the victors but America’s history has usually been written by white people east of the Mississippi River. Such is the case of Honey Springs. Some Civil War analysts posit this battle crippled any chance the Confederacy could recover from U.S. Grant’s victorious siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi that caused Southern Gen. John Pemberton to surrender to Grant on July 04, 1863, two weeks before the Union victory at Honey Springs.

Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi River and the South’s loss at Honey Springs prevented the South from circumventing the Mississippi via the Texas Road. Gen. Cooper blamed the loss on inferior gunpowder that the South had to purchase from Mexico. Also, the rain made the inferior powder even more defective.

But what I suggest I and other Americans should have learned is the service of Black and First American conflicting loyalties and the reasons for them. Also, it should be noted that the “Gettysburg of the West” was and is deserving of a place in our country’s Volksgeist. If you are prone to Civil War reenactments, Gentle Reader, the Battle of Honey Springs reenactment will take place after the intense Oklahoma July heat is more kind to woolen uniforms on November 8, 2025. You can find more information about the battle and the reenactment weekend activities online at www.okhistory.org.

 

Photo by Peg Redwine.

All In The Family

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The Book of Ruth has four pages. One paragraph of one page is perhaps the Bible’s most often recited passage by brides and grooms: 

“Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you;
For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people, and your God my God;
Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.”

Ruth 1:16-17

These beautiful promises were made by Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi. The family and cultural inter-connections are closely intertwined. Ironically, Naomi, her husband, Elimelech, and their two sons, Mahlou and Chilion, were originally Ephrathites who lived in Bethlehem in Judah, what is now not only the birthplace of Jesus but also Palestine. A further historical irony is that just as today there is famine in Gaza, part of Palestine, in Naomi family’s time “the judges” (the government?) “ruled there was a famine in the land”. So, Naomi and her family left Bethlehem and “sojourned” to the country of Moab that was in what is now the country of Jordan.

Naomi’s sons both married Moabite women but then both sons and Elimelech died. Thereafter, times were hard for Naomi and her daughters-in-law when Naomi heard that, “the Lord had visited his people (in Bethlehem) and given them food”. So, Naomi, Ruth and Orpah decided to seek new lives in Bethlehem. While Orpah turned back to Moab, Naomi and Ruth ventured on to Bethlehem where Naomi’s husband still had a wealthy Israeli kinsman named Boaz. Ruth and Boaz eventually married and had a son named Obed. Obed fathered Jesse who fathered Israel’s most famous king, David. The genetics of the Israeli-Palestinian Naomi, the Moabite (Jordanian) Ruth, the Israeli-Palestinian Boaz and the Israeli King David are closely related. They are all of Semitic culture and history and are all deeply embedded in the general genealogy and geography of the area. In essence, they are all related, leading to possible fratricide or genocide if indiscriminate slaughter should occur.

Yet, according to many authorities that is exactly what the Zionists of Israel are doing today as a matter of government policy. As former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, recently stated in an interview on BBC, what Israel is doing in Gaza is, “very close to a war crime”. And more evidence of Israel’s intent comes from Israeli Cabinet Members, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have publicly called for the “conquest and depopulation of Gaza”.

More graphically, as recently reported in The Washington Post’s World View Newsletter by reporter Ishaan Tharoor, former Israeli Defense Force general and current head of the Democrats Party in Israel, Yair Golan, stated:

“Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state among nations if it doesn’t return to behaving like a sane country. A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set the expulsion of a population as a goal.” 

As for America, with the cooperation of Egypt and other allies, we should immediately force massive amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza through Egypt. America should also guarantee the accessibility and safety of impartial international journalists into Gaza so the world can witness the facts on the ground. And, the immediate cessation of America’s enablement of the killing and destruction by Israel in Gaza should be a priority.

Not only are the descendants of Ruth and Naomi responsible for and entitled to humane treatment, the United States, as part of the human family, must help assure such outcomes.