As I’ve been following posts about what’s happening, I keep encountering comments about a looming civil war. I think there are some crazy bastards out there that really want to see it happen. There may be as much disagreement politically as there was in 1860 – but it may be time to look at what occurred in the war between the states.
It didn’t start in Charleston – the political violence started in Kansas. Sure, Robet E. Lee took John Brown out in Virginia – but the man began his career in Kansas. The fictional opening scenes from Eastwood’s “Josey Wales” provide a more realistic example than the courteous actual history at Charleston. The war between the states started in Kansas, and, as Eastwood showed, quickly spread to Missouri, then to most of the nation.
By and large, the craziness didn’t make it to Montana. In 1863, our predecessors had better things to do – Union or Confederate, they had moved to Montana and left that war behind them. Definitely not cowards, the founding Montanans left a war they found unnecessary behind them and created a new state.
Colorado almost did as well until a Methodist minister named Chivington took a group of volunteers to New Mexico, showed up at the wrong place, and for lack of anything worthwhile to do tackled a Confederate supply column, and became a hero for it. He got a star for his blunder, and his next action is known as the Sand Creek Massacre. A murderer in blue uniform that time. As the nation built up to the war between the states (and during that war) there was a similar emphasis on soft targets. We still remember William Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson as murderous Confederates. Our historians are a bit more inclined to remember John Brown for his anti-slavery stance than for the Pottawatomie Massacre – but crazies on both sides of the issue selected soft targets. We forget that George Hoyt, the lawyer who defended John Brown after the Harpers Ferry raid was also a captain in the Red Legs. On both sides, generally awful people who chose to kill those who disagreed with them, and sought out soft targets.
As I write this, I’m thinking of the shooting at an LDS church and the North Carolina shooting, and the various school shootings – we’re seeing crazies attacking soft targets. And I read folks predicting a civil war – right against left, liberal against conservative. And somehow, it looks to me as if our nation’s whackos will claim the moral high ground as they endorse politics as their grounds for murder. I’ve seen news of one young man using his grandfather’s re-barreled Mauser to kill another – then the next whacko left cartridges that appeared to be 303 Brit (developed in 1888) when he shot at ICE and killed some poor mojado who ha been brought in for deportation.
Montana’s early settlers chose to ignore the path of the crazies, leave the war between the states to those who either wanted it or couldn’t get out of it, and proceed to an area where, Unionist or Confederate, they could work together to build better lives, first in the mines, then in ranches. It’s still a good technique.
Trego's Mountain Ear 