The Hysterical Channel – again! - Commentary by Bill Vallante

Bill Vallante

Bill Vallante, wildbill4dixie@yahoo.com, is an associate member of the Jeb Stuart Camp 1506, and Camp 3000, a reenactor in the 9th Va. Inf., Co. C, and is living "behind enemy lines" in Commack, N.Y.
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The Hysterical Channel – again! -- Commentary by Bill Vallante

Ok, I saw the Hysterical Channel's "Civil War Terror" program today. I've been trying to find something about it on the Channel's website but all I can find is the video for sale.

There were several historians featured, including William C. Davis, who, as usual, made excuses for the North's atrocities - GEE GUYS, IT'S ONLY WAR, WHADDYA EXPECT?!

Sherman's march, of course, was to instill terror – but was directed at property, not civilians. The Confederates on the other hand knew no bounds in their attempts to savage the northern civilians.....HUH?!

And, the Hysterical Channel rolled out a new Yankee historian, Jane Singer, who, pardon my language, acted and looked like a woman in dire need of a bitch slap. You can get a look here at her book "The Confederate Dirty War".

War is Hell, Union was within bounds, Confederates were out of bounds, Sherman's march ended the war and reduced the bloodshed - we've all heard this kind of tripe before.

BUT - I did not know that:

***The steamboat Sultana, which was carrying 2400 union soldiers and former prisoners and exploded on April 24th, 1865, MAY have been sabotaged by a southerner? HUH? From what I've always read, the over packed steamer's boilers simply exploded! This is a new one on me?!

***That the Confederate government, including Jefferson Davis, was trying to conduct chemical warfare on northern civilian populations? HUH?

***And you should have seen the Johnny rebs who crossed over from Canada and raided that little town in Vermont terrorizing the poor helpless Yankees! I guess the phrase "War is Hell" is not valid when practiced north of the Potomac?

***And there was the plot to blow up the White House along with Lincoln and half the union government, which, according to this program, would have ended the war in favor of the South. According to the Hysterical Channel, the "peace party" in the north would have taken over and let the south go in peace.... Oh, I forgot to mention..... the plot was scheduled for April 10, 1865.....HUH???? I smell something rotten and it's not three day old fish.

Anyone with a good degree of historical knowledge needs to take a look at this program in order to determine how much of this is fact and how much is fiction. I suspect that the History Channel has magnified certain truths, i.e., Southern terror, while minimizing others, i.e., Northern terror. Big surprise, HUH??

The program also makes a STRONG, yet disingenuous attempt to somehow connect Confederate conduct of the war with modern day terrorism. The only thing missing was Confederates wearing towels on their heads, toting AK-47s and screaming ALLAH IS GREAT! It's a perfect show for many of the low level morons who take the crap dished out by the History Channel as God's-honest truth - which, by the way, is a good chunk of the American viewing public.

Oh yes, I did notice that the term "Weapons of Mass Destruction" was used frequently - although, in the History Channel's view, 70,000 Yankee soldiers burning down three states, does NOT qualify as a WMD.

And nowhere in the program did I see anything resembling this little ditty, by Robert Garlick Hill Kean, who wrote "Inside the Confederate Government":

"The devilish malignity of that people passes belief and comprehension – from the driving a Negro broken out with smallpox to swim the Rappahannock in January, when he was rescued in a drowning condition by our pickets, to whom they called “there was a nigger worth $2000”…. [Page 89]

Big surprise, HUH?

Bill Vallante, wildbill4dixie@yahoo.com, is an associate member of the Jeb Stuart Camp 1506, and Camp 3000, a reenactor in the 9th Va. Inf., Co. C, and is living "behind enemy lines" in Commack, N.Y.

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