James M. Redwine

Civil War

Positive or Negative

by Leave a Comment

Equal Justice Initiative National Memorial Montgomery, Alabama

 

There is no memorial on the Posey County, Indiana courthouse lawn to the seven Negroes murdered by a white mob on October 12, 1878. There is a modest stele naming those soldiers with Posey County connections who served in   the Revolutionary War and an impressive statue honoring all who served in the Civil War. There are bronze plaques on the lobby walls of the Posey County Coliseum commemorating many of those who served. The Coliseum houses one of Posey County’s two courts and the other court is located in the courthouse.

Because I was the elected Posey Circuit Court Judge and because our son, James David Redwine, was a West Point graduate who would later earn a Bronze Star for Service on the front lines of both the Gulf War 1990-1991 and the Iraq War of 2003-2011 I was asked to speak at both the War Memorial Re-Dedication on Sunday, October 21, 1990 and Re-Dedication of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on July 23, 2008. I was honored to do so and wrote the following poems for the occasions. The poems appeared in several newspapers after each commemoration:

 

WAR MEMORIAL RE-DEDICATION
(Sunday, October 21, 1990)

SUNDAY MORNING CHIMES

How dear it is to be alive:
To hear the peal of morning chimes;
To feel the invigorating sting of this autumn day;
To taste the rich and biting air;
To smell the acrid smoke of burning leaves;
To see the glory of Nature’s third act.

How satisfying to still be a player:
To know a child’s trust;
A family’s support;
A friend’s companionship; or
A lover’s caress.

How thrilling it is to learn,
To plan,
To strive
To serve,
To live!

These wondrous things:  These sensations;
These desires;
These dreams;
These visions.  This life,
Is what these heroes have sacrificed for us.

RE-DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MONUMENT
(Wednesday, July 23, 2008)

WELL DONE!

At Lexington and Concord, the young blood began to flow.
At the Battle of New Orleans, muskets killed our cousins and our foes.

At the Alamo and Buena Vista, we stood to the last man.
At Shiloh, Chickamauga and Gettysburg, brothers’ blood soaked the sand.

At San Juan Hill and when the Maine went down, our soldiers never flinched.
At Verdun and by the Marne, a million men died in the trench.

At D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, after Hiroshima’s mushroom clouds,
At Incheon Landing the forgotten war brought many more funeral shrouds.

At Khe Sanh and during Tet, we held our own and more.
At the Battle of Medina Ridge, our Gulf War warriors upheld the Corps.

At Sinjar, Mosul, and places with strange names,
Our Iraqi War veterans now earn their fame.

In uniforms, our citizens have served well everyone.
Today, we here proclaim to them our solemn praise:  Well done!

 

It is fitting and proper that we honor those who serve and that we are permanently reminded of the horrors of war. Society needs to be constantly on guard and eternally grateful. Of course, the reasons that call for memorials about wars are much the same as why we need memorials to our collective evil done to some citizens by other citizens.

Since I first discovered, by accident, in 1990 the legal system’s long covered up murders of Daniel Harrison, Sr., Daniel Harrison, Jr., John Harrison, James Good, Ed Warner, William Chambers and Jeff Hopkins by, as the Mt. Vernon, Indiana Western Star Newspaper said on October 17, 1878, “two to three hundred of the county’s best white citizens” right on the Posey County, Indiana courthouse campus, I have called for accountability and a memorial to the victims. Society owes this atonement to the victims and we as a society need it for ourselves.

What the sign says. Pictures by Peg Redwine

On JPeg Osage Ranch

by Leave a Comment

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) sought wisdom in living simply on Walden Pond outside Concord, Massachusetts just twenty-five miles from Boston. Thoreau spent two years there in a hut he built himself. Part of the wisdom he imparted then that speaks to our COVID 19 society now was the observation that government is best that governs least and less can be more in many aspects of life.

Since March 5, 2020 Peg and I have discovered that as long as the computers keep turning out our Social Security checks and Medicare continues to cover us a great deal of government is superfluous, at least for us. We used to dine out regularly and occasionally engage in person with friends and family. If the UPS driver is excluded, we are now as though on an unknown archipelago where armadillos play the role of giant sea turtles, coyotes stand in for killer orca whales, rattlesnakes imitate Komodo dragons and mooing cattle provide cacophonous concerts. We no longer commune in coffee shops and cafes but find ourselves quietly hiking up the rocky tor we call JPeg Peak or around the cloudy pond down from our cabin. Our interaction that once was among friends, family and general society is now almost solely between us. And while I have never considered myself misanthropic, I find solace in the absence of unlimited casual connections. Also, after lifetimes of sowing and sometimes reaping crops of worldly goods we are less compelled to further heed those siren calls. Our satisfaction is now found among non-speaking species and sweat producing projects where the rewards are temporary fatigue and long-term practicality. Netflix is our new opiate along with the rest of the socially distanced masses and George Orwell’s Newspeak dominates public discourse through the TV.

Our government that only a few months ago considered itself so essential to most aspects of our lives that it always took our tax tribute and sometimes rewarded us with services now declares its services suspendible until further notice but still collects the tribute. One might wonder if we could not permanently forego many of these costly bureaucracies whose only purpose may appear as “noisy gongs or clanging cymbals”, (1 Corinthians 13). When our government buildings lock us out for months at a time we may find there is no need to completely reopen them. Perhaps the trillions of treasure our government borrows from countries such as China could be reduced to levels that our grandchildren can afford to repay long after we have matriculated.

Neither Thoreau nor I call for a complete lack of government or society but instead better versions of both. As we gradually and carefully emerge from our individual Waldens perhaps we should take this opportunity to reevaluate what parts of our government and our general culture actually serve us. After all, what some may find to be the bitter medicine of isolation we are forced to take may not have just negative side effects if we properly apply the lessons taught by history.

It is not only our various tiers of governments, local to federal, that have exposed much of their avoirdupois by doing us the favor of shutting us out. Many businesses and other organizations have been forcefully confronted with the reality that much of what they do can be done better with less expense and fewer people or need not be done at all.

As we face the possibility that COVID 19 may give us few choices and all of those bad, perhaps we can salvage some good from our situation. Just as President Lincoln used the horror of the four years of the Civil War as the means to end slavery when he had not been able to persuade America to do so earlier, maybe we can take the harsh punishment of the Coronavirus and emerge with a more productive and more egalitarian society. Some experts estimate it will take up to four years to develop an effective, safe and universally deliverable vaccine. The most hopeful estimate is twelve months from January 2020.

When it comes to treatment we have a shorter estimated timeline but still will have several more months to go. Of course, any treatment has to be deliverable on a wide basis. If we soberly consider the scientific opinions, we probably have to conclude that our most reasonable currently available option is to institute and maintain social distancing for several more months and maybe for up to four years. Of course we can decide that approach is of more harm to us than the virus is. In that event we might concentrate on categorizing different at-risk groups and then apply different procedures to each one.

For example, Peg and I are in our seventies and our children, grandchildren and great grandchild are not. Maybe Peg and I should take the responsibility for our own health and proceed accordingly. If we were at war folks such as Peg and I would be the draftee soldiers and the rest of the country would support us with supplies and care as the non-soldiers, the less vulnerable members of society, carry on with their lives. As a country we have generally accepted that we are at war with this enemy. Perhaps we should address this fight as we would have in World War II. Peg and I have already volunteered by isolating since the beginning of March and believe it is our obligation to continue to do so until it is safe for us not to.

As the generation who benefitted most from the great sacrifices of the World War II generation, the Greatest Generation, we see it as fitting that we take our turn. And, frankly, a Walden Pond, or JPeg Osage Ranch, lifestyle is a lovely respite. We look forward to once again joining the rest of the less vulnerable society when science shows us the way. In the meantime we express our best wishes to those who can more safely join into all those social activities that Peg and I have already enjoyed for many years. That is, if that is their choice and they can safely do so.

Choices And Consequences

by Leave a Comment

Should you have read last week’s column you may remember the specific topic was the Electoral College and the general topic was our Constitution’s guarantee of our right to matter or free choice. Free choice, that is what separates humans from animals and America from many other countries. Our Founders designed a government where the ideal was: All matter, but none too much. Of course, as with most ideals, America’s vaunted guarantees of freedom of choice and equality for everyone remain as goals not yet attained. On the other hand, it is no small thing that America not only proclaimed these ideals but set them forth in writing at our founding. And we have struggled mightily since our Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787 to live up to our ideals which were declared on July 04, 1776 to be: “That all men are endowed with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Although the term “all” was advisory only.

To me these ideals come under the general category of a right to make our own choices but with an understanding our choices have consequences. These Civics lessons were burned into my psyche in a most graphic manner one day in Junior High School by one of my teachers who was straight forward, stern and strict; I liked and respected him. As he was also my Junior High football coach I always called him Coach even in the classroom probably because football was a lot more important to me than Civics. Coach’s successful coaching techniques relied heavily on those previously mentioned traits coupled with a no-nonsense attitude that victory came only through sweat. In the Pawhuska, Oklahoma school system of the 1950’s such was the general credo of the entire staff. And remembering my student days I confess such a system was necessary to force an education into me as my personal credo tended more toward the laissez-faire when it came to school work. Alas, the same was also true for some of my classmates including my friends Abby and Jack whom you will meet soon.

An example of how Coach’s attitude helped instill American history in me occurred during our Civics class section on the Civil War. Coach was one of those teachers who did not allow Political Correctness to cloud the facts. When it came to the reasons why the South seceded he taught that the immorality of slavery was a choice supported within our Constitution and the Civil War was about that choice. States Rights to determine whether to allow slavery, not slavery itself, was the gravamen of “The Cause” at the beginning of the war for the South and preservation of the Union, not the elimination of slavery, was the cause for the North. It was these competing choices and their consequences that brought about the Civil War that eventually both ended slavery and preserved the Union.

I probably would have remembered no more of these Junior High Civics lessons about States Rights and slavery than the other lessons I daydreamed through in school had Coach not given that particular lecture right after grabbing my attention with a long, thin paddle. That otherwise hazy school day began with Coach being called away from class for a brief meeting. When he left his discipline left with him and some of us fell immediately back into our natural educational state of benign ignorance.

My friend Abby who sat in the front row got up to talk to a girl two aisles over. When she did my friend Jack saw fit to sneak behind her and remove a thumbtack from the bulletin board then place it, business end up, on the seat of Abby’s desk. Somehow Abby sensed Coach was returning so she turned and hurried back to her seat. Abby sat down on the tack just as Coach entered the classroom and observed and heard Abby react appropriately.

The Coach affixed his terrifying stare on each of us individually and when he got to Jack, Jack folded like a pair of dirty socks. Coach called Jack up to the front of the class and ordered him to bend over and grab his ankles. From an assortment of paddles he kept hanging from the chalk rail Coach chose a thin paddle about two feet long and pushed a thumbtack through it. After the Coach vigorously applied paddle to posterior while Jack manly gritted his teeth in silence, we had our Civics lesson on choices and consequences concerning the Constitution, slavery, States Rights, the Union and the Civil War. I remember them well. And if any of my classmates from that day read this article I bet they do too.

Every Month Has A Fourth

by Leave a Comment

America’s court system has several purposes but, in general, they all amount to resolving controversies. Citizens need some place to help them settle their differences with other citizens so everyone can get on with their lives. And one of the most important thing judges can do to start the resolution of a court case is to encourage the competing parties to find common ground. If the competing parties recognize they have similar needs and if all parties can at least consider the possibility that an outcome that benefits their adversary may also benefit themselves, a path leading to a reasonable compromise may appear.

Our country has often struggled with competing strongly held beliefs even going so far as resulting in the Civil War. But short of actual armed conflict we have suffered through numerous periods where political issues at first appeared to be intractable but were assuaged by the parties finding common ground. Our current public debate over such issues as immigration or war with Iran or several other significant matters may feel as if the only solutions are pistols at ten paces. However, when Americans are reminded we have more and better reasons to agree than disagree, we can begin to accommodate, and even celebrate, our differences. Such is the beauty of our national birthday party. Perhaps we should consider having similar periods of healing every month.

Peg and I participated in one such Fourth of July celebration in New Harmony, Indiana last week. Because New Harmony is a small town we personally knew where many of the people attending and involved in the party stand on volatile issues such as immigration, global warming, military involvement, the Me Too Movement, Black Lives Matter and, especially, partisan politics. Many of our friends and family are well informed and passionate on these and other matters. Conversations have often seemed more like a contact sport than reasoned debate.

But for several hours on the Fourth of July we all found common ground in the Declaration of Independence, songs of praise and a First Amendment type respect for our hard won honorable common heritage. In our culture we have numerous monthly events that each of us enjoys and respect such as club and association gatherings, sporting events, birthdays and anniversaries. Maybe we should set aside some time every month to renew our common faith in America.

The Redwines at Maclure Park, New Harmony, Indiana
Photo by Lois Mittino Gray

Two Auspicious Days

by Leave a Comment

The seven day period beginning April 08 and ending April 15 has two important days, one joyous and one sad. April 08 is Peg’s birthday. Please wish her happiness and strength as she deals with having me home a lot more now. As to the other significant anniversary, Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865. As if paying our taxes on April 15 was not already sad enough.

Of course, there is a certain historic connection between federal income taxes and President Lincoln. He helped institute the first federal income tax to pay for the Civil War, which was fought to preserve the Union. However, after the Civil War ended the income tax was also ended until 1916 when it was made permanent by the 16th Amendment to the Constitution.

Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois claim Lincoln for our own but hardly anyone lays claim to the income tax. As Peg and I will wait until 11:59 p.m. on April 15 to pay ours we assume we will have a lot of fellow travelers. It is widely accepted that the major need for America to impose taxes on itself is to pay for wars or the preparation for potential wars. Oh, we expend a lot for various other things too such as salaries and expense accounts for Congress people, Executive Branch workers and judges, health care and the clean up after celebrations such as inaugurations and ticker-tape parades to honor sports teams. I am assured by those involved in these endeavors our hard earned money is well spent.

If you are like me you put Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in a separate rarified class from other presidents. And while George Washington never visited Posey County, Indiana as did Abraham Lincoln (thanks to my friend and historian Jerry King for this information), I note Washington managed to birth our nation without a federal income tax. Anyway, I forgive Lincoln since he took the time to dedicate a bridge in Savah, Posey County, Indiana in 1844 when he was campaigning for Henry Clay (1777-1852); Clay lost. Maybe those early Hoosiers suspected Abraham Lincoln might someday start an income tax.

Well, income taxes and the Civil War aside, Abraham Lincoln still has much to teach us about humility, compromise, mercy, justice and just plain decency. And as for Peg’s birthday, I am going to celebrate it by thanking you Gentle Readers who have been kind enough to commiserate with her as she has often served as a foil in these articles over the many years!

Hoosiers and Slave Auctions

by Leave a Comment

Gentle Reader, you will, of course, remember the Gavel Gamut column of December 05, 2005 where one of Posey County, Indiana’s most infamous brawlers was mentioned. One Tom Miller was fond of drink and when drinking was fond of fighting. In the years just before the Civil War old Tom would get liquored up and lick whoever had the misfortune to run into him on the streets of Mt. Vernon, Indiana. As described by John Leffel in the Western Star newspaper Miller would, “Pace the streets of Mt. Vernon with his coat off, sleeves rolled up, his shaggy breast exposed and his suspenders about his waist.” According to the editor, Tom always bellowed the same challenge, “I’m a mean man, a bad man and I orter to be whipped, I know, but whar’s the man to do it?”

Tom Miller was only one small part of our Posey County and new state of Indiana’s reputation for tumultuous living. The sobriquet, “Hoop Pool Township”, was fairly earned by Posey County brawlers who drove visiting boatmen away. And as for frontier justice in Indiana, some experts assert our Hoosier nickname came about from the proclivity of Indiana rowdies to bite off ears and spit them out onto barroom floors.

I am indebted to columnist Erik Deckers who set forth this theory of the origin of the word “Hoosier” in his article contained in the publication Here and Wow, Indianapolis! Vol.1, No. 1, 2018. At page 22 Deckers attributed this possibility to Indiana’s poet laureate James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) of When the Frost is on the Pumpkin fame who claimed that early Indiana folks would frequently gouge out eyes or bite off body parts which would litter a barroom floor and when the next day someone would kick the removed piece of fleck they’d ask, “Whose ear?”

If I had not dealt with so many cases in court where the behavior of the combatants resembled such activity I might look askance on such a theory. However, I can see some merit to Riley’s analysis.

Well, onto another topic as discussed in last week’s column. You do remember last week’s column, right? Okay, it involved military service and concentrated on my Great Great Grandfather, John Giggy who was a stone mason and farmer from La Grange, Indiana who fought all four years (1861-1865) in Company H of the famed Iron 44thIndiana Volunteer Infantry.

Before being wounded at both Shiloh and Chickamauga and before he saw his first shot fired he and his outfit witnessed a sad spectacle in Henderson, Kentucky that helped them understand one of the main reasons they went to war. Kentucky did not secede, but it did have legal slavery until 1865. In fact, one reason Tom Lincoln, Abraham’s father, moved his family from Kentucky to Indiana was to avoid competing for work with slave labor. Slavery was part of the legal and social culture of Kentucky. The young Hoosier farm boys from northern Indiana who were used to doing their own labor had not had direct knowledge of The Peculiar Institution until they personally observed a slave auction in 1861 just across the Ohio River as they were making their way south:

“It was a strange pitiful sight that of women and little children standing upon the action block to be sold as human chattles. They came wringing their hands and with tears and sobs, lamenting their cruel fate. The soldiers stood near filled with pity and indignation but restrained by law and discipline. Slavery existed at this point in its mildest form. Here were a dozen or more large tobacco factories. The blacks were required as a daily task to strip 400 pounds under penalty of the rod. Children of ten years were given this task. Work hours extended from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. In each room was an overseer whose presence was a threat. Some negroes were well dressed, others ragged. Attendance at church was allowed and many were Christians. They regarded the coming of the soldiers as the precursor of their liberty.”

As to the name Hoosier, Posey County’s most famous citizen, Major General Alvin P. Hovey, while in command at Shiloh came across a Union sentry on a dark night who asked for the password. Hovey was just getting his men to that position and had no idea what password was being used. When the sentry asked, “Who goes there?”, Hovey improvised what he hoped would be an acceptable password and responded, “Hoosiers”. The sentry said, “Welcome Hoosiers.” Apparently, we Hoosiers have been welcomed as such for a long time.