James M. Redwine

Civil War

You Say You Want A Revolution

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Photo by Peg Redwine

The Beatles sang:

♪ You say you want a revolution
…
You say you’ll change the Constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You’d better free your mind instead ♪

I do not know why those British songsters were singing about changing America’s Constitution during the Viet Nam War. Perhaps they were just selling a song or perhaps they felt it was a return to 1776. Regardless, today in the United States it seems a lot of Americans seek to remake America in their own image and the quickest way is a revolution. Of course, not much thought may have gone into what a revolution would truly mean in 2025 et. seq.

On the other hand, James Madison of the small body and the gigantic brain gave the written word to the revolution he had just participated in and the possible future ones he wanted to prevent by designing a United States Constitution based on a theory that all humans seek to expand their power as much as they are allowed. Therefore, for a democracy to continue existing, the bedrock of our country had to be a government made up of separate functions controlled by competing separate and equal powers. As a people we have had a history of teetering from side to side with only occasionally tipping completely over to any one branch gaining too much power.

The Civil War broke out because all three branches chose conflict over compromise on the issues of slavery and the human rights of African Americans. On other visceral issues, such as Native American rights, Women’s right to vote, use of alcohol or marijuana or wars such as World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, we have managed to let the struggling of the separate governmental powers find a way to come out in an acceptable equilibrium.

We have had countless opportunities to lose our democracy but have eventually stepped back from the brink. The United States Supreme Court has taken more than one foray into excessive power, such as Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). During Chief Justice Earl Warren’s reign (1953-1969) the Court’s ultra-liberal rulings had much of the public up in arms. There were even billboards on the highways calling for Warren’s impeachment.

And the Legislative Branch has had its attempts at being the conscience of America also. For example, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy set himself up to be the ultimate determiner of what a “true American” was. During the era of “McCarthyism” in the 1940’s and 1950’s the American public generally bought into his “Red Scare” tactics until the facts overcame his allegations.

But it has usually been the Executive Branch where the abuse of power has been the most obvious. The most salient example was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was president from 1933 until his death during his fourth term in 1945. Even though a great majority of both Congress and the American people objected to American involvement in WWII, Roosevelt manipulated the United States into the war. Of course, he had the aggression of Japan to help his argument.

It was Roosevelt’s long-term in office and some of his unpopular policies that brought about the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that forbids anyone from serving more than two terms as President. Although some supporters of President Donald Trump have advanced the possibility of an exception to this amendment for President Trump. Such moves on behalf of Donald Trump and the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court are raising concerns among anti-Trumpers. There exists the possibility that neither the Supreme Court nor the Legislature may provide a proper balance for our democracy as both may be biased in favor of President Trump, especially as about one-half of the electorate has supported him and his policies.

While a revolution may be extremely unlikely, so have been numerous other shifts in power in America throughout our history. There is no need yet to call for extraordinary action by any branch nor from the news media or the public. However, it is the fabric of our democracy that may be being tested once again. There is no harm in remaining true to the wisdom of our nation’s charter and there could be harm from failing to reference it.

Photo by Peg Redwine

A Teetering Balance

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Our federal democracy is seen as having three equal branches that keep our democracy by equally asserting restraints on one another. The Legislative Branch plays its part by having 435 representatives elected for 2-year terms by citizens throughout the country along with 100 senators elected for 6-year terms. These just over 500 individuals have many functions but they really have only one power, providing or restricting funds to themselves and to the other two branches of government, the Executive and Judicial Branches.

 The Executive Branch has thousands of functionaries but its most powerful executive is the President who directly and indirectly heads the military and countless other divisions of that diverse branch. Each of those often nameless bureaucracies has untold, often nameless, functionaries whose functions may hold the key to whether our government functions.

The Judicial Branch is easy to generally designate but much more difficult for the populace and the other two branches to corral as the Judicial Branch has generally defined itself since Marbury v. Madison in 1803. In fact, the Judicial Branch jealously and vigorously spends much of its time struggling to make sure the other two branches do not infringe on its powers, the chief of which is to define what the law allows the other two branches to do.

This theory of a three equal and separate foundation of our democracy works well as long as the powers of each branch remain truly separate and fairly balanced and each branch is composed of greatly dispersed functionaries. It is not a novel observation that our great democracy has remained democratic, mostly, because it remains diverse, dispersed and divided. When power becomes concentrated in a particular individual or individuals or branch, democracy suffers and internecine competitions may arise. Such theoretical and rhetorical battles can, as our Civil War proved, break out into real battles as one or two or even all three of the branches seek dominance.

Currently, we have members of each branch asserting efforts to imprint upon our whole country the vision of a few executives, followed by a few judges, both entities being subject to the status of financial hostages from a powerful few in the Legislative Branch. Now, some may analyze our current imbroglio as evidence our three-branch theory is simply working itself out in practice. That could be true. However, I hypothesize our Founding Fathers may have neglected the Fourth Branch of our social/governmental structure, the citizenry. Normally we have an electorate that, while unhappy perhaps, still finds a way to “soldier on”.

Our current social intercourse pits about one-half of America against the other half, sort of like the times of theDred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857 that led to the Civil War. Much as when a large portion of the United States agreed with the U.S. Supreme Court that African Americans were not citizens while another large portion disagreed. Many Americans today either agree or disagree with Birthright Citizenship and several other issues. One President and at least one federal judge come down on opposite sides of this citizenship issue and probably several others.

Such matters being seen diametrically opposite by each of two of our branches and both branches awaiting input from the Legislative and more importantly the public, creates a situation where our national soul may be at war with itself. What is called for is much more equal and reasonable input from each branch, especially that Fourth Branch, the populace.

The Briar Patch

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Joel Chandler Harris, AKA Joe Harris (1848-1908), was born in the state of Georgia before the Civil War and worked on a slave-holding plantation as a teenager. After the war he became an associate editor at The Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Harris had lived and worked around the evils of slavery and he had absorbed the folk wisdom of slaves who were prohibited by law from formal education. Harris created his fictional writings using Uncle Remus as a wise and shrewd observer of human nature hidden within animal behavior.

Harris intended his writings as compliments to the ability of Uncle Remus to explain human foibles by giving animals human failings such as arrogance. In the story of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox contained in Harris’ Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the meanness of the Fox is used by the Rabbit to escape by getting the Fox to “punish” the Rabbit by throwing him into a briar patch. Of course, that is exactly what the Rabbit really wanted.

Unfortunately, due to our current misguided wokeness in many areas, the slave dialect used by Harris now interferes with the appreciation of the literature of The Song of the South and a great number of those pro-African American folk tales are no longer read. However, for those of us whose time of birth helped us escape the ravages of the current misguided ignorance in the area of children’s literature, Uncle Remus is still imparting wisdom, such as enjoying a proverbial briar patch. Or in my case, Peg’s banishment of me to the solitude of our bunkhouse when I got COVID and Peg did not.

At first, I was offended when Peg handed me my toothbrush and a set of clean underwear and locked our cabin door behind me after she forcefully shut it. It was not that I wanted Peg to share in my experience of a sore throat, lethargy and endless amounts of crud being expelled from my body. It was more the feeling that a one-person leper colony was a rather lonely possibility, plus I really missed my favorite recliner and ready access to the refrigerator. Oh, and Peg too, of course.

Be that as it may, Peg sentenced me to two weeks of quarantine with the same lack of ceremony she would have exhibited if a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman had appeared with a sample case. You remember encyclopedias don’t you, Gentle Reader? You know, those things with pages, tables of contents and indexes that went the way of the dodo bird after Google came along. Well, that may call for a different column.

Anyway, here I am alone with the piles of books I never read, the piano I used to play and old photographs of friends and relatives I barely recognize. I have been rummaging through boxes and drawers filled with the most interesting stuff not seen by me since high school. What a strange looking dude I was with dark colored hair and a discernible jaw line. Who was that and who are those undecipherable young people around him wearing weird clothes?

Say, Peg, what is this thing that says Maytag on it? Is this where my clean clothes came from? It must be a miracle machine. How does it operate? By the way, there is no stove out here and after several days of eating the leftovers you sent with me, I am ready for some real food.

By the way, I have done my Paxlovid and am pretty sure I am not Typhoid Mary anymore. On the other hand, the bunkhouse refrigerator is stocked with leftover beer from our Fourth of July Family Reunion and the TV is constantly tuned to Gunsmoke reruns. The bunkhouse is the answer to every boy’s escape from his mother and every husband’s escape from constant inspection by his wife.

Clothes are in a pile where I take them off. The bed never has to be made to drill sergeant standards and every door knob and chair back is a hanger. But the most serendipitous of all? Peg is afraid to step foot in my little slice of heaven. I may claim to be eternally toxic. Bring on that Briar Patch!

Raise a Parting Glass

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Old Baptist Cemetery, Wilburton, Oklahoma

The old Irish folk ballad, “The Parting Glass”, is a favorite Irish drinking song and is almost always sung, often a cappella, to help the dearly departed on their way. Military veterans are also frequently toasted to honor their service as glasses are raised and the ballad is sung. As you will see that tradition was carried from Ireland to America.

It is Veteran’s Day and as a veteran I have been thinking of all the service members, those who have served before and with me and those who are serving now. The United States Air Force was very good to me even though I gave little more than some of my time during a time my time was not otherwise of much value. While in the Air Force I was sent to Indiana University for one year to study a foreign language. Once honorably discharged I received four years of the G.I. Bill. I still receive VA health benefits. If a balance sheet were kept, I would be much more benefitted than contributing. Fortunately, no such accounting is made. So, thank you America.

And it is not just myself in my family who have been blessed to serve. Both of my brothers and my brother-in-law received honorable discharges and veteran’s benefits from the Army. Our father wanted to serve in World War II but a massive heart attack and his age caused Uncle Sam to say “no thanks.” In my immediate family our son, Jim, got his college education at West Point and now receives disability benefits due to physical health problems caused by his active-duty combat service on the front lines of both the Gulf War and the Iraq War. His son, Nick, our grandson, just graduated from Army Ranger School as Jim did about thirty years ago. Nick also got his college education via an R.O.T.C. scholarship thanks to the Army.

During WWII my mother’s three brothers and one of her sisters served as did my wife’s grandfather and two uncles. Each of these honorably serving family members received post-war benefits from a grateful nation. So, once again, thank you America.

Now going back another generation to my grandfather, Adolphus Cash Redwine, who was born in Georgia in 1848 before he moved to southeastern Oklahoma. With grandpa we find a murkier but perhaps more interesting veteran even if I am not sure which color uniform the Civil War era teenaged soldier wore. All I do know is that a few years ago my first cousin, Paul Redwine, who was the eldest son of one of my father’s numerous brothers living in the Wilburton, Oklahoma area told my sister, Janie, another of our uncles, Henry, received a letter of inquiry from the Veteran’s Administration in regard to our grandfather.

The letter stated grandfather’s military records indicated he was entitled to a military grave marker. Please remember this was at a time all service, Confederate or Yankee, was honored. The VA wanted someone to guide them to grandfather’s burial site. Paul said our Uncle Henry volunteered and the federal man showed up in Wilburton, Oklahoma with a bronze marker for grandpa’s grave.

Uncle Henry was one of the few people who knew the place where granddad was buried as grandfather was a Baptist minister who was preaching from the bed of a buckboard at a camp meeting in the remote hills of southeastern Oklahoma when something spooked the team of mules hitched to the buckboard. The mules took off and grandfather was thrown to the ground and killed. The congregation, at my grandmother’s request, buried grandpa right there with a board to mark the spot. That area grew into the tiny Bug Scuffle Cemetery outside Wilburton. Uncle Henry knew generally where the Bug Scuffle Cemetery was located among the sparsely populated hills. Unfortunately, Uncle Henry also happened to be a local source of moonshine. Uncle Henry made the gentlemanly suggestion that before he and the federal man placed the marker on grandfather’s grave, they should raise a toast in his honor using some of the family’s pride. The federal man, probably not wishing to offend, readily agreed.

My guess is grandfather’s military service, whatever it was, was still honorable even if his marker is not on his grave. For, as you see, Uncle Henry and the federal man raised so many parting Ball fruit jars to granddad’s service they never found his gravesite and lost the marker during their search. However, to grandfather and all veterans I am raising a metaphorical parting glass to say thank you and well done, and thank you to America for allowing us to serve.

Positive or Negative

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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

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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.