Lexington Ghost Tour

[MauEvig]

We're going to be going here for our anniversary this year. I'm super excited! This looks so awesome!

http://www.lexingtonvaghosttour.com/index.html

Here's some information on it. I'll keep y'all posted on it after we go to see what we thought of it.

[Murfreesboro]

Oh, neat! That whole part of Virginia is totally haunted. Soooo many ghost stories up there.

[witchy]

Sounds wonderful, I wish my anniversary was in Oct., but no my hubby had to get married in March, what was I thinking!!

[Murfreesboro]

I do actually have an October anniversary, the 24th. Oddly, I wasn't thinking at all about Halloween when we picked it. He was in the Army, and that was when he could get off. But I have always been happy we got married at this time of year, my favorite month.

[MauEvig]

Just wanted to say the Ghost tour was great! A lot of it was enriched with a lot of local history, and I learned quite a bit of it.

It seems you all were right, this is one of the most haunted places in America! I also dare say this might have been the first time I was in a Cemetary at night. Really spooky!

Some of the stories were sad though.

I'd definitely do the tour again for sure. We had a very good tour guide. The tour started around 8:30 at night and we got done about 10:00.

It's not really spooky, it's more educational than anything, but it's still fun. I definitely enjoyed learning more about the local lore and how it relates to historical events. The stories even included famous historical figures like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. I never knew that the man who surrendered and ended the American Civil War actually wanted to make peace between the two sides after the fact and try to make the world a better place. It's a shame he suffered a stroke later on. He also felt a lot of regret for the lives of the Union soldiers he took. It really shows something about the character of an individual, something we'd never known about. He didn't seem like a bad guy, especially when he wanted to establish a school where boys from both the North and the South could come together in peace and learn. I'm not going to nit pick about the women's rights issue, I think he had the right idea and back then I know most girls didn't really continue their higher education.

We also got to see the most haunted House on the East coast. Supposedly 8 different ghosts live there in that house.

I also enjoyed walking about the streets at night. It almost felt like trick or treating again and reliving such a fond childhood memory of such. Almost...

So...if you're looking to learn about local lore and enjoy some good ghost stories and see the sights where these things have happened...I highly recommend it...some of the stories are tragic though...and you learn more than just the history behind it...it makes you actually think about life itself...there are morals to the lessons in these ghosts stories...that's what i think made this thing truly amazing...

[Murfreesboro]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Mau. Several years ago, one of the ghost-storytellers up in Nashville was interviewed on TV, and he said, much as you did, that he regards ghost stories as a way to convey history. He said that one of the most important things about a ghost story is the setting, and these stories almost always come from a past era, so you have to convey that.

I was amused to read your comments on Robert E. Lee ("he didn't seem like a bad guy"). I can certainly tell that you were raised in the North! In the South, R.E. Lee is a demi-god. His birthday is a state holiday in Mississippi, or was when I was growing up there. My husband, whose education was military, has told me many times that Robert E. Lee is still regarded as the most beloved general in American history, North or South, including all wars.

As a Southerner, I have had to struggle throughout my adult life to be generous and give their due to men like Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. Especially Sherman. He didn't just burn down Georgia. He burned down Jackson, MS, too (my hometown). The Civil War was a Greek tragedy.

[Kolchak]

Wow Mau!! Sounds like you had a "Monster" of a great time. Wish I could have gone! maybe someday.

Don't worry about Sherman Murph. He's sitting next to bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin and Mao down there in Hades!

[Murfreesboro]

Well, maybe not. He was complicated. He was one of only a very few who understood from the beginning that the war was going to be long and bloody. They thought he was crazy up North for saying that.

I guess his concept was that he could end the war faster by making it "total" war. He was hated in the South because he made war on the civilians as well. However, he did have an aesthetic sense. For example, he saved three buildings in Jackson when he burned it. One was the Old Capitol, which he was using as a hospital. One was the City Hall, because the Masons (and their higher order, the Shriners), met in an upper story, and Sherman was a Mason, maybe a Shriner. And one was the Governor's Mansion, where he himself was headquartered. When he was in the Mississippi Governor's Mansion, he wrote home to his mother that he was spending the night in the most beautiful building he had ever seen.

The rest of the town he burned to the ground. Jackson was called "Chimneyville" for twenty years afterward, because the only thing left of it was the brick chimneys.

Confederate General Joe Johnston attended his funeral in 1891 and refused to wear his hat, despite inclement weather. When bystanders encouraged the old gent to put his hat on, he said something like, "If I were the one on the bier and General Sherman were standing here, he would remove his hat for me." Johnston caught his death of cold at that funeral and died two weeks later.

That's why I say the Civil War was a Greek tragedy. These people knew and respected each other. In some cases, I believe they really loved each other.

[MauEvig]

I had an entire thing typed out, but alas I got kicked and had to log back in and lost the entire thing.

I will say this much though, you are right that I grew up in the North and thus grew up with Northern ideologies. We saw guys like Lincoln and Grant as heroes (although I'm not sure about Sherman, I didn't even really know about Sherman but I guess I should have paid a little more attention in history class haha!) I think the Northerners like to "teach" that the Confederates were the "bad guys." Now that I'm older, and hopefully a bit wiser, I try to look a little more critically at the situation at hand, and I've come to realize there were both heroes and villains on both sides.
I suppose the main thing the North tries to impose is that the Southerners were bad because they had slavery. Yet the amount of destruction the North did to the South and their treatment of the Native Americans cannot be condoned either.
Like Kolchak said before in another thread, there really weren't any "right sides" to this war.
In fact, a Civil War is said to be the most destructive kind of war.
Now that I do live in the South, I can see the Southern side of things and gain a new perspective on the entire conflict. Even before moving down here, I think there is part of me that actually sympathizes with the southern side. Like I said, I disagree with slavery and the ill treatment of any human being for their skin color (or gender) or national background, but that said I have to wonder if the South might have been better off, or not had they won the war. I think if the South were more offensive instead of defensive (since from my understanding, the North marched down to declare war on the South, I'm sure the South would have preferred to peacefully split from the Union rather than go to war...but I could be wrong about that...my understanding is that the Southerners would only fight if forced to in defense, which the North did.) There are different ways this entire thing could have been approached if the South won, but I do think economic pressures and trade with Europe would have forced the South to give up slavery anyway. Would the South have had tensions with the North still? Hard to say. I also have to wonder if we'd still be called "yankees" or not. Personally I don't really like the word as I find it somewhat derogatory. I've seen entire write ups about how the South would have been like if they won the war, there might have been tensions over the West and who controlled it, but there are other factors as well. Would WWI still have happened? With two countries in America, both the South and the North, would they have become involved? Would the South have sided with Germany, or perhaps united with the States and joined the allies? Who knows. There are so many variables.
An interesting channel on Youtube I found deals with alternate histories. One different event in history can have an impact on the entire world. One extensive one that was really interesting was what if the Roman Empire never fell? For one thing, the world would be completely different.

[Kolchak]

Well, maybe not. He was complicated. He was one of only a very few who understood from the beginning that the war was going to be long and bloody. They thought he was crazy up North for saying that.

I guess his concept was that he could end the war faster by making it "total" war. He was hated in the South because he made war on the civilians as well. However, he did have an aesthetic sense. For example, he saved three buildings in Jackson when he burned it. One was the Old Capitol, which he was using as a hospital. One was the City Hall, because the Masons (and their higher order, the Shriners), met in an upper story, and Sherman was a Mason, maybe a Shriner. And one was the Governor's Mansion, where he himself was headquartered. When he was in the Mississippi Governor's Mansion, he wrote home to his mother that he was spending the night in the most beautiful building he had ever seen.

The rest of the town he burned to the ground. Jackson was called "Chimneyville" for twenty years afterward, because the only thing left of it was the brick chimneys.

Confederate General Joe Johnston attended his funeral in 1891 and refused to wear his hat, despite inclement weather. When bystanders encouraged the old gent to put his hat on, he said something like, "If I were the one on the bier and General Sherman were standing here, he would remove his hat for me." Johnston caught his death of cold at that funeral and died two weeks later.

That's why I say the Civil War was a Greek tragedy. These people knew and respected each other. In some cases, I believe they really loved each other.

He wasn't just hated in the South. I'm not too sure he was that big on saving places for proper reasons. He hated Catholics as well and was kept from burning several Catholic churches by being told that by doing so would bring about a mutiny by Catholic troops in his command who were not too happy to be fighting in a war in the first place.

You have to wonder if he was willing to kill fellow Americans with such brutal effectiveness what he would do with people he wasn't related too?

Well he did just that. It was Sherman who ordered the genocide of the American bison, which he knew would result in the genocide of the American Plains Indian. His hatred of the Indian was well documented and his quote of the only good Indian is a dead Indian, is as famous as his quote about not fighting the civil war over slavery. He said it was about preserving the Union and if it were about slavery then he would offer his sword to the other side.

Hitler loved what Sherman did to the Indians and spoke it about as a model for the final solution to the Jewish problem.

Johnston was not my favorite Confederate General. Lets just say he and Bragg had perfected snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

[MauEvig]

Wow that's pretty sad...so Sherman was the American equivalent to Hitler?

Like I said, I can't condone what many of those on the Northern side did to the Native Americans. Rather hypocritical of them if you ask me.

[Kolchak]

Wow that's pretty sad...so Sherman was the American equivalent to Hitler?

Like I said, I can't condone what many of those on the Northern side did to the Native Americans. Rather hypocritical of them if you ask me.

I'm not going to compare Sherman to Hitler, but it is clear that bigotry and hatred of other races was not something endemic to the South. Hitler liked Sherman for the efficiency and total resolve he put into "solving his problems"

[Kolchak]

You know Mau I guess I'm going to have to retract my previous statement. I guess Sherman being an American, and we're all Americans, I was trying to go easy on him. However; more than a few historians, anthroplogists and psychologists have said that if Sherman had been on the losing side of the war and had been put on trial for war crimes against humanity, there is a very good chance he would have been convicted.

After the war he and Phil Sheridan were the chief architects of destroying the Plains Indian, and Sherman is on record for wanting them all dead or removed. The removed part reminded me of Hitler wanting to move the Jews to a place where they couldn't hurt anybody. Of course that doesn't address the issue of someone hurting them.

You pose an interesting question as to if the South would have supported Germany had the civil war gone the other way. That question has been asked but it you have to look to where the large German populations in this country are, and they are in the midwest and northeast. The only southern state with a
large German population is Texas. During WWI the pro German public sentiment was quite high in the
midwest and parts of the northeast. It wasn't until the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine and the revelation that German spies and agents were trying to get Mexico to attack the US, did public sentiment shift.

It is generally believed that if the south had gained independence, it would have become closely aligned with Britain. France and Holland would have also been big in influencing southern strategy. All three of those countries were pro southern with Britain being the strongest supporter for the southern cause. The problem was that slavery was looked upon as an anethma and as long as the south had it, the longer Britain would hold off supporting the south with military and large scale economic help. That is why I am of the opinion that had there been a southern victory, slavery would have ended within 10-15 years without all the bloodshed and emotional baggage we carry into the 21st century.

You won't find more vocal critics to the evil of slavery and the manumission of our fellow humans than you will here in the deepest of the deep south. The period of 1861-1865 saw horror that this country has never seen before and will hopefully never see again. Both sides and all sides were the bad guys. The only thing that was positve about that time was the ending of slavery.

But as long as there are those that want to put the blame solely on southern shoulders and either deny or cover up that there was plenty of blame and shame and culpabillity to go around, and as long as this racist activity known as political correctness is allowed to run amuck and attempt the genocide of an entire segment of the US population, the problem of race relations and just plain human relations is going to be a big problem here.

Unless of course we do have a second civil war.

[Murfreesboro]

I didn't know about Sherman's bigotry toward Catholics and Plains Indians. I didn't realize that quotation "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" came from him. But it is no surprise to me at all that many Northerners were racially prejudiced. Southerners have always known this.

Mau, if you are interested at all in the American Civil War, a good read is the diary of Mary Chesnutt. It should be readily available in libraries, etc. Her husband was either in the cabinet or on the staff of Jefferson Davis, I've forgotten which, so she was at the nerve center of the Confederacy. Among other things, she deplored slavery and thought while the war was going on that it had been a huge mistake not to free the slaves at the very beginning of it. She saw the Civil War as a second war for American Independence. For her it was not about the slaves at all.

[MauEvig]

Murf I want to applaud your response there. I couldn't agree more. There were no "good guys" in the Civil War. I also never realized there was so much bigotry and hate in the North, and that there were some people in the South who did oppose slavery.

I think we do tend to take sides when it comes to wars and conflicts. For one thing, how many people thought of the British as heroes during the American Revolution? How many people side with the opposing country when it comes to war? Even if the Americans do wrong things, even if it's our fault the war is going on, we still applaud our own men and women on the front lines. I believe the word for it is Nationalism, having pride in and being loyal to our own country. Perhaps that's why you may be going easy on Sherman. If Sherman was say, from Spain, France, Britain, Germany or let's say China or Japan, we'd probably think less of him than we do now. That's saying something really.

It's sort of the same premises here. When it comes to a war one has to look at both sides of the story. Were the British really the bad guys? I don't think so, I just think they were loyal to their King. Even then, was the King a bad guy? Or was it Parliament? Was the King mad, and controlling, or simply trying to keep his country together? Whatever the case, regardless of the British intentions, we would have thought of them as the "bad guys."

You're probably right that Sherman probably would have been on trial for crimes against humanity had he been on the losing side and likely hung. From what I read, they wanted to execute Robert E. Lee, but i believe Lincoln gave him a full pardon.

Whatever Hitler's intentions were, his decisions were horrid to say the least. Now I myself am a descendent of a Jewish line, but my family escaped from Russia, not Germany. Of course my Great-Grandfather married a Gentile and became a Christian, the rest is history I suppose. Regardless, because I am of Jewish descent, so I can sympathize with the plight of the Jewish people during that time. I am curious of the psychology behind Hitler's decision though. What made him hate the Jews so much? Was his idea behind the concentration camps really to exterminate them, or just remove them from society? Either scenario is bad, but...why? Did he just view the Jews as evil? Inferior? Was Hitler just a sociopath, or was he just trying to help Germany in his own twisted way? I guess a lot of it is stuff I don't understand. There are some people who believe the Jews aren't human, but they are ignorant. All humans share a percentage of the same DNA and that includes the Jewish people. When I see Hitler I really see a face of evil. But villains aren't usually born, usually something triggers them to do bad things. Unless they are sociopathic. I am reading that he was bipolar, and might have been abused by his own father. I think there are a lot of factors that came into play that made him the way he was.

But I think what really causes bigotry and intolerance is the environment we grow up in. The morals and values we are raised with. Back in the day, the South probably didn't view slavery as evil, but now they do.

It would certainly be an interesting scenario if the South had won. Another theory is that the North and South would continue to have tensions toward each other with a neighboring enemy so to speak, and thus be too busy feuding with one another to even get involved in the first World War.

I personally do see that both sides are responsible for the war, and I certainly hope that another civil war never happens. Although the way things are going with the economy, and the essential politics of today, would it be that surprising? The problem is these days our weapons are way way more advanced than they were in the 1800s. We'd probably end up nuking ourselves. I only wish more people would see things like the way Lee saw them. In other wards, try to heal the rift between the North and South. Sadly, I feel like there's a lingering hatred left over from the war even to this day. It's not very obvious, but it's like the ripple effect in the water and somewhat spread out, but it's there deep down. Then again, I fear as long as humans exist, there will always be war regardless of where it comes from.

I'll check that book out sometime when I'm not as busy with school and such. The funny part is that I'm not even taking American history, but Western Civilization. It's still interesting stuff though.