The Maple Leaf at the Museum of Science and History

[MelMel]

Hi everyone,

The fact error in the first paragraph has been edited.  Thanks for pointing it out!

There's much more to this story displayed at the museum, I highly recommend a visit to anyone who's interested in finding it out.  The Currents of Time exhibit holds so much overlooked information on Jacksonville's history.  Definitely one of my favorite exhibits there.

[Coolyfett]

Ummm civil war debate aside, I have dumb question...Where is the boat exactly? Where was it moved to? Can anyone pinpoint it on google earth or map quest?

[Tacachale]

^It wasn't moved, its remains are still at the bottom of the river. What's on display at MOSH are the many significant artifacts that have been recovered from the wreck over the years and displays about the ship.

[Ocklawaha]

I would be most happy to read more about General Asboth. The closest I can find regarding his views on slavery is his upholding the orders of the army, in the days before emancipation became part of the national platform, not to allow fugitive slaves into Union camps in Missouri, but rather allow civil authorities to determine what to do with them. While Asboth was willing to accept this order, he sent to his superior a letter from one of his men expressing serious concerns with it, as the army had no way of telling who was free and who was a slave, and allowing a free person to be enslaved was unacceptable (his superior agreed). After emancipation, of course, Asboth did accept and recruit fugitive slaves - or rather, naturally free men and women who had been unnaturally enslaved.

For his own part, Asboth didn't think much of the Confederates he faced in Florida, who were willing to assault and even murder Unionists and defectors trying to reach him in the Panhandle. His accounts speak of one woman and her children who were brutally murdered by Confederates for refusing to give up the whereabouts of her Unionist husband. (from Tracy Revels' Grander In Her Daughters, p. 80).

I'll see if I can find the chapter and verse where I read this. I'm pretty certain that it was in the 'Official Records of The War of Rebellion,' Army or Naval records I don't really recall. Now that you've peaked my curiosity I'll have to look it up. I can tell you when I read the stuff, it was pretty shocking even for that time.

As for murder and war atrocities, we could easily trade tit for tat. Every history book speaks of the South as so weak industrially that defeat was almost certain, according to this line of thought the well fed and clothed North held all of the advantages. Modern historians tilted toward the Northern view can easily explain the starvation at Andersonville Prison as atrocious, but they can't explain the incredible numbers of Southern soldiers starved to death in Northern prisons (Including 60 members of my family in a single Chicago prison). Martial law was invoked and the South divided into five military districts at wars end. As a conquered people, the South had to endure long years of lawless behavior by occupying Federal Troops.

So you would side with Lincoln's claim that the South never left the Union?

Yes, that's what I think. Philosophically, I don't think the Southern states had any legal right to leave the United States after they had accepted the Constitution as the law of the land. More practically, I believe the Confederate government were basically a rebelling force which was ultimately stopped before ever being recognized by any other country.

There is a problem with Lincoln's argument. If as you both have claimed the South never left then the requirements for readmission to the Union were illegal. The various Southern states would have to rewrite their constitutions to disqualify former Confederate officials from office and guarantee black males the right to vote. Additionally, they had to ratify the 14th Amendment. The registration of voters was to be overseen by the military governors. The catch here is exactly what the high court said they would have argued, you cannot be readmitted to a union that you never left.

So either the Lincoln argument is correct and the South never left, thus making all of the 'conditions of readmission' bogus and rendering the 14Th amendment null, or the South really did leave the union, in which case the war becomes 'The War of Yankee Aggression.'

Lincoln and the U.S government were well within their duty to use state and federal troops and resources to protect United States law and property. There were multiple precedents for such actions, which were in fact necessitated in this case when insurrectionists began attacking Fort Sumter.

I don't believe they were, fact is they had moved troops onto Southern soil prior to Fort Sumpter. They also had a large flotilla of ships ready to sail for either Fort Sumpter, or it was believed Fort Pickens. (Pensacola for you by-standers) The claims that the South started the fight at Fort Sumpter is an American Myth, almost as large as 'Lincoln The Great Emancipator.'

The various states outside of the original 13 Colonies created the 'Union,' as such it was a Union of choice and the Federal Government thus became the agent of the states, with the states remaining as the principals. This didn't end with the Articles of Confederation, and as a principal it makes little sense that the states could rebel against their agent. The South followed the intent if not the letter of the law. Charges were dropped against the Southern leadership after the war when it became known that the Supreme Court would find in favor of the South.

That was the Confederate line, but it's not particularly convincing. In signing the Constitution, the states had already submitted themselves to a power sharing compact in which they accepted federal authority and law. In fact, that's really what they were afraid of - that Lincoln would legally restrict the expansion of slavery, which would ultimately result in its demise. Turns out that he did more than that.

I think the decades of telling students that the war was all about Southern whites wanting to enslave blacks has done as much harm to our national fabric as any other justification they could have cooked up. It completely ignores at best, the scores of loyal free black men in the south who volunteered their fortunes and services to the South, and at worst it paints them as traitors to the black races. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that TWO slave owning societies (Yes folks, BOTH sides had slave states) went to war, one in a holy crusade to 'liberate slaves,' while owning slaves themselves and the other to die in order to hold someone in bondage. While it is the common line, and it is what is taught, I suspect it is partly if not completely a fabrication.

Getting back to local history for a spell, I'm happy to say that many Jaxons and other East Floridians, including many prominent citizens, were among the brave Southern Unionists opposing the insurrection, and that the city was held by Union forces for much of the war.

True enough, and for their loyalty, the city was sacked and burned several times.

And many people were freed. Indeed, after the final *liberation* of Jacksonville by Union troops, the city became an outright haven for Unionists, white and black. To this day we have one of the largest and most vibrant African American communities of any city in the state.

Sure it was, the concept being created in Washington that Duval, Nassau and northern St. Johns Counties could be called part of 'LOYAL' Florida. Lincoln was losing the election and straining at any idea to salvage his presidency. The 'LOYAL' Florida vote would count as all of Florida's vote. It was a plan that was very nearly ruined by the Federal Brigadier General Truman Seymour, when he disobeyed orders and marched west towards a bloodbath at Olustee. (OLUSTEE: Each side had about 5,000 men present. Union casualties were 203 killed, 1,152 wounded, and 506 missing, a total of 1,861. Confederate losses were 93 killed, 847 wounded, and 6 missing, a total of 946).

I'm curious if you have ever read the accounts of the Confederates at Olustee in the Official Records? In several places, more then a few Confederate commanders mentioned that Seymour shoved his 'US Colored Troops' ahead of his line and that his own men shot any that turned to run from the battle. In light of today's retelling of history, it's interesting to hear the shock in the tone of the Southern reports as they describe the hopeless position Seymour placed his Colored Troop in.

DEO VINDICE! 

Down with the traitor, up with the Star!

Sic semper tyrannis!

OCKLAWAHA,
And as you no doubt suspected, S.C.V .
Wm Mann, Co E, 5Th AR Inf. CSA

[Ocklawaha]

Ummm civil war debate aside, I have dumb question...Where is the boat exactly? Where was it moved to? Can anyone pinpoint it on google earth or map quest?

Off of Point Mandarin, along with the:

USS General Hunter
USS Harriet Weed


Near the north approach to Acosta Bridge:
CSS Gunboat, name unknown
CSS Gunboat, probably named the St. Johns


Off Yellow Bluff
USS Alice Price


Off Bluff Landing
CSS St. Marys


In Dunn's Creek (Crescent Lake area)
CSS America (famed racing yacht-sunk-raised)


Off Horse Landing
USS Columbine

Land battles or skirmishes were fought at:

Mc Coy's Creek
Brick Church
Camp Milton
Yellow Bluff
St. Johns Bluff
Baldwin
Macclenny
Glen St. Marys
Camp Cooper (Yulee area)
Middleburg
Palatka
Picolata
St. Augustine (north at Fairbanks)
Olustee
Gainesville
Braddock's Farm

I'm sure I've left a few off, but this should get anyone interested started on their quest.

[Bativac]

It does flow north, but the old myth that only the St. Johns and the Nile flow north just isn't true. Rivers flow northward into the sea on virtually every continent.

Well done! It goes to show how a little time and editing can go a long way. I should've stressed the issue was not the fact that it flowed north, but rather the assertion that it was one of only a few rivers in North America or the USA to do so.

There are many rivers in North America and the USA that flow northward. Ock responded in kind.

Thanks for keeping me honest 

OHHH okay. That makes sense, I knew there were several other rivers that flow north. For a minute there, my world was turned upside down. Rivers were flowing in the wrong direction, the Jaguars were winning games... Mass hysteria!!

[Tacachale]

I would be most happy to read more about General Asboth. The closest I can find regarding his views on slavery is his upholding the orders of the army, in the days before emancipation became part of the national platform, not to allow fugitive slaves into Union camps in Missouri, but rather allow civil authorities to determine what to do with them. While Asboth was willing to accept this order, he sent to his superior a letter from one of his men expressing serious concerns with it, as the army had no way of telling who was free and who was a slave, and allowing a free person to be enslaved was unacceptable (his superior agreed). After emancipation, of course, Asboth did accept and recruit fugitive slaves - or rather, naturally free men and women who had been unnaturally enslaved.

For his own part, Asboth didn't think much of the Confederates he faced in Florida, who were willing to assault and even murder Unionists and defectors trying to reach him in the Panhandle. His accounts speak of one woman and her children who were brutally murdered by Confederates for refusing to give up the whereabouts of her Unionist husband. (from Tracy Revels' Grander In Her Daughters, p. 80).

I'll see if I can find the chapter and verse where I read this. I'm pretty certain that it was in the 'Official Records of The War of Rebellion,' Army or Naval records I don't really recall. Now that you've peaked my curiosity I'll have to look it up. I can tell you when I read the stuff, it was pretty shocking even for that time.

As for murder and war atrocities, we could easily trade tit for tat. Every history book speaks of the South as so weak industrially that defeat was almost certain, according to this line of thought the well fed and clothed North held all of the advantages. Modern historians tilted toward the Northern view can easily explain the starvation at Andersonville Prison as atrocious, but they can't explain the incredible numbers of Southern soldiers starved to death in Northern prisons (Including 60 members of my family in a single Chicago prison). Martial law was invoked and the South divided into five military districts at wars end. As a conquered people, the South had to endure long years of lawless behavior by occupying Federal Troops.

So you would side with Lincoln's claim that the South never left the Union?

Yes, that's what I think. Philosophically, I don't think the Southern states had any legal right to leave the United States after they had accepted the Constitution as the law of the land. More practically, I believe the Confederate government were basically a rebelling force which was ultimately stopped before ever being recognized by any other country.

There is a problem with Lincoln's argument. If as you both have claimed the South never left then the requirements for readmission to the Union were illegal. The various Southern states would have to rewrite their constitutions to disqualify former Confederate officials from office and guarantee black males the right to vote. Additionally, they had to ratify the 14th Amendment. The registration of voters was to be overseen by the military governors. The catch here is exactly what the high court said they would have argued, you cannot be readmitted to a union that you never left.

So either the Lincoln argument is correct and the South never left, thus making all of the 'conditions of readmission' bogus and rendering the 14Th amendment null, or the South really did leave the union, in which case the war becomes 'The War of Yankee Aggression.'

Lincoln and the U.S government were well within their duty to use state and federal troops and resources to protect United States law and property. There were multiple precedents for such actions, which were in fact necessitated in this case when insurrectionists began attacking Fort Sumter.

I don't believe they were, fact is they had moved troops onto Southern soil prior to Fort Sumpter. They also had a large flotilla of ships ready to sail for either Fort Sumpter, or it was believed Fort Pickens. (Pensacola for you by-standers) The claims that the South started the fight at Fort Sumpter is an American Myth, almost as large as 'Lincoln The Great Emancipator.'

The various states outside of the original 13 Colonies created the 'Union,' as such it was a Union of choice and the Federal Government thus became the agent of the states, with the states remaining as the principals. This didn't end with the Articles of Confederation, and as a principal it makes little sense that the states could rebel against their agent. The South followed the intent if not the letter of the law. Charges were dropped against the Southern leadership after the war when it became known that the Supreme Court would find in favor of the South.

That was the Confederate line, but it's not particularly convincing. In signing the Constitution, the states had already submitted themselves to a power sharing compact in which they accepted federal authority and law. In fact, that's really what they were afraid of - that Lincoln would legally restrict the expansion of slavery, which would ultimately result in its demise. Turns out that he did more than that.

I think the decades of telling students that the war was all about Southern whites wanting to enslave blacks has done as much harm to our national fabric as any other justification they could have cooked up. It completely ignores at best, the scores of loyal free black men in the south who volunteered their fortunes and services to the South, and at worst it paints them as traitors to the black races. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that TWO slave owning societies (Yes folks, BOTH sides had slave states) went to war, one in a holy crusade to 'liberate slaves,' while owning slaves themselves and the other to die in order to hold someone in bondage. While it is the common line, and it is what is taught, I suspect it is partly if not completely a fabrication.

Getting back to local history for a spell, I'm happy to say that many Jaxons and other East Floridians, including many prominent citizens, were among the brave Southern Unionists opposing the insurrection, and that the city was held by Union forces for much of the war.

True enough, and for their loyalty, the city was sacked and burned several times.

And many people were freed. Indeed, after the final *liberation* of Jacksonville by Union troops, the city became an outright haven for Unionists, white and black. To this day we have one of the largest and most vibrant African American communities of any city in the state.

Sure it was, the concept being created in Washington that Duval, Nassau and northern St. Johns Counties could be called part of 'LOYAL' Florida. Lincoln was losing the election and straining at any idea to salvage his presidency. The 'LOYAL' Florida vote would count as all of Florida's vote. It was a plan that was very nearly ruined by the Federal Brigadier General Truman Seymour, when he disobeyed orders and marched west towards a bloodbath at Olustee. (OLUSTEE: Each side had about 5,000 men present. Union casualties were 203 killed, 1,152 wounded, and 506 missing, a total of 1,861. Confederate losses were 93 killed, 847 wounded, and 6 missing, a total of 946).

I'm curious if you have ever read the accounts of the Confederates at Olustee in the Official Records? In several places, more then a few Confederate commanders mentioned that Seymour shoved his 'US Colored Troops' ahead of his line and that his own men shot any that turned to run from the battle. In light of today's retelling of history, it's interesting to hear the shock in the tone of the Southern reports as they describe the hopeless position Seymour placed his Colored Troop in.

DEO VINDICE! 

Down with the traitor, up with the Star!

Sic semper tyrannis!

OCKLAWAHA,
And as you no doubt suspected, S.C.V .
Wm Mann, Co E, 5Th AR Inf. CSA

There's no problem with Lincoln's argument. Having accepted the constitutional government through the democratic process of the time, the states did not "secede". After the war, as the state governments had been taken over by secessionists, they had to be reconstructed (hence Reconstruction) before they could resume representing their people (more of them this time).

We certainly could go tit for tat about wartime atrocities; such things always happen on either side of a conflict, the hope is that they aren't representative. I have indeed read the accounts of Olustee, and as such I find it perplexing that you'd offer this as an example of Union mistreatment of black soldiers. Seymour may have been too cavalier with his force, but that could just as easily be due to his naivete and ineffectiveness as a commander. On the other hand, Confederate troops straight up murdered wounded and captured black troops - Americans - in a way that would easily be considered a war crime today.

Before the battle, the Confederate commander famously said he would "take no negro prisoners". Both Confederate and Union accounts say that after the battle, Confederate soldiers roamed the fields, executing blacks with guns, bayonets, and clubs. In the end, of course, some black prisoners were taken, but the abuse wasn't over for them, as they were subjected to even worse treatment and neglect than white soldiers. It wasn't just black troops who suffered, either; white officers of black regiments were also singled out for abuse.

No doubt there are a lot of false pro-union narratives kicking around, chief among them that ending slavery was the Union's first and primary goal. However, the corresponding nostalgic neo-Confederate flimflam is every bit as bad, if not worse. Any pro-Confederate argument is hamstrung by the need to mitigate or downplay the obscenity of slavery. The suggestion that it's somehow diminished because some of the proportionately small population of free blacks in the South owned slaves is particularly eye-rolling.  In the final analysis, the Confederates were fighting to preserve slavery, plain and simple.

"The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."

SCV eligible, but not claimed,
Caple Dell, Company C, 10th Georgia Infantry, CSA

[Ocklawaha]

You may have missed out on countless amazing documents and story's by not checking out both the SCV and GAR/SUVCW organizations. Both BTW, have huge stocks of archival materials.

I think we could probably stand touching noses for a year at a time and never see eye to eye. I find most of the modern teaching on the war to be an unbelievable mix, Lincoln-Messiah worship and ridiculous touchy-feely 'northern heroes-southern sinners,' revisionism.

See any movie, watch any TV show and you know before the plot is 4 minutes old that 'the Southerner,' did it. It's taught in schools, it's broadcast daily and its been revised in our parks and museums. A great example of this is the 'Confederate' Naval Museum in Columbus, GA. which actually has a couple of warships that were raised and reconstructed. When the current management took over a few years ago all mention of the engineer who designed the Confederate warships was quietly removed... Why? Because it doesn't fit our silly notions of correctness, to have had a Black engineer designing Confederate warships. Given another 20 years and someone will find a paper written typically by a 20Th century racist who will claim no Black man ever worked for the Confederacy. That will become the accepted line because anything else doesn't fit the pretty picture we've imagined to justify the current Union.

Our ancestors understood more then you and I that the Union was quite imperfect before the war, and it was/is a Union by force since the war.

Angry young people striking out either because they've been taught that 'Southern man' hates them, or because they accepted the role as Southern racists because they've been indoctrinated with such myths. So we have a new generation of White's hating Black's, and Black's hating whites, because it fits our national conscious.

These are the reasons why I believe many of the new versions of the war, are not only wrong, they are dangerous.

There's no problem with Lincoln's argument. Having accepted the constitutional government through the democratic process of the time, the states did not "secede". After the war, as the state governments had been taken over by secessionists, they had to be reconstructed (hence Reconstruction) before they could resume representing their people (more of them this time).

We certainly could go tit for tat about wartime atrocities; such things always happen on either side of a conflict, the hope is that they aren't representative. I have indeed read the accounts of Olustee, and as such I find it perplexing that you'd offer this as an example of Union mistreatment of black soldiers. Seymour may have been too cavalier with his force, but that could just as easily be due to his naivete and ineffectiveness as a commander. On the other hand, Confederate troops straight up murdered wounded and captured black troops - Americans - in a way that would easily be considered a war crime today.

Seymour wasn't only cavalier with his force, he was in direct violation of his orders to hold Jacksonville and 'illegally' count those votes for Lincoln.  His commanding officer wrote continuously to try and stop him from his insane excursion. Seymour was a great example of the North's 'political generals,' so bad in fact that when he was captured at the Wilderness he was exchanged because he did the south more good in a federal uniform then he did as a POW.

Before the battle, the Confederate commander famously said he would "take no negro prisoners". Both Confederate and Union accounts say that after the battle, Confederate soldiers roamed the fields, executing blacks with guns, bayonets, and clubs. In the end, of course, some black prisoners were taken, but the abuse wasn't over for them, as they were subjected to even worse treatment and neglect than white soldiers. It wasn't just black troops who suffered, either; white officers of black regiments were also singled out for abuse.

Interesting take on this on topic too, while the Confederate general did indeed claim he would take no Black prisoners, in the end they not only took them, but carried many to hospitals in Lake City. Federal officers mistreatment included being sent to hospital wards which were not racially segregated, a fact that the benevolent Yankee's vigorously protested.

There are also no shortages of Confederate troop reports of 'Yankee's marching their Negroes in front of their army at the point of a bayonet and shooting any who tried to retreat'. If you have read these accounts they are nothing short of horrendous and are laced with enough emotional sympathy that therein might be discovered the reason why they were not executed.

A federal inquiry was launched with regards to the 'atrocities' but found insufficient grounds with which to charge anyone with a crime. Apparently the fields at Olustee were abandoned by both sides rather quickly, after the war there are numerous accounts of skeletal remains scattered through the woods. We who walk there, walk on truly hallowed ground.

No doubt there are a lot of false pro-union narratives kicking around, chief among them that ending slavery was the Union's first and primary goal. However, the corresponding nostalgic neo-Confederate flimflam is every bit as bad, if not worse. Any pro-Confederate argument is hamstrung by the need to mitigate or downplay the obscenity of slavery. The suggestion that it's somehow diminished because some of the proportionately small population of free blacks in the South owned slaves is particularly eye-rolling.  In the final analysis, the Confederates were fighting to preserve slavery, plain and simple.

I have no problem talking about slavery in both the old south and in the north. My own family owned a plantation in Clarksville, TN. The slaves are as much my ancestors as the family who's name I carry. I have some of the documents and know most of the names. The family released them from bondage about 20-30 years before the war, however some stayed on the property which was parceled out to them.   

The only reason for a Southron to downplay slavery's role today is that modern teaching has thoroughly mixed racism and the 'Jim Crow' era, with slavery, when in reality they are two different things. Further, Lincoln himself offered to 'extend slavery' into every part of the country if it would 'save' the Union, had it been the all important issue of the Southron's on that day, this should have settled it. Slavery was practiced by both sides and not all slaves were Black.

The exercise of the right to self rule has been upheld by the U.S. Federal Government throughout the Americas. The Panamanian revolt of 1901-03 which was planned and executed by the United States Government, which claimed no foreknowledge of the event, but nevertheless found a way to dispatch warships to insure Panama's 'right' to "secede" from "the contemptible little creatures in Bogotá." This right applies to all of the America's except, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia etc...

It's a gross oversimplification if not pure whitewash to justify the war based on the 'illegality of secession.' If those governments as you claim were seized by secessionists, then those same secessionists who were in control completed the act. There is no other logical explanation for readmission to a Union which according to modern historians, the states never left. Likewise to deny citizenship rights to sovereign states based on ratification of Constitutional amendment's designed to add a moral right to an aggressor nation, is nothing short of blackmail. No wonder that the Supreme Court informed the Federal Government not to press charges against the Confederacy's leadership, because they knew the results would vindicate the South.

"The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."

SCV eligible, but not claimed,
Caple Dell, Company C, 10th Georgia Infantry, CSA

It wouldn't be politically correct would it?

“[Our situation] illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.”


Also eligible for SCV on the record of:
Uncle, Sanford Mann
Quantrill's Partisan Rangers

I remain respectfully Unreconstructed, Your Friend,
OCKLAWAHA

[coredumped]

For anyone interested, the Mandarin Museum has a lot of the Maple Leaf artifacts on display this month:
http://www.mandarinmuseum.net/visit/mandarin-museum
admission is free. While there I would suggest you check out the park, I had no idea Mandarin had such a rich history.