Black Civil War soldiers to get long-delayed honors on Cumberland County memorial

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2. Just Because You're In A "Northern" State

Doesn't mean you're immune from prejudice. PA was a Democratic state during the Civil War. James Buchanan, the President before the Civil War, was referred to as a doughface, or southern sympathizer. He was a contributor to the Dred Scott decision, which he thought would settle the slavery question once and for all, but only wound up only inflaming the "free" states.

Lynchings were not confined to the south. There was one in Coatesville, PA in 1911. The victim was Zachariah Walker. I grew up the next town over and never heard of the event. I drove by the history marker on time going to college and made a point to stop the next time I passed it (because I was a history buff). Shocking to say the least.

One only has to drive through Gettysburg and see Dixie up. When others point out that flying and selling that flag is in poor taste, the locals push back and say that's part of their history. I'll note that the battlefield itself was kept up by Union Army veterans until they became too few and too old to maintain it. When the Union soldiers were asked at some point to allow Confederate veterans to join them and place markers on the field the overwhelming answer was "hell no". Most of the Confederate markers and memorials were placed by the US Park Service after 1900 when American attitudes had changed (and most Union soldiers had died).

If you look for the caption on Timothy O'Sullivan's Harvest of Death, he makes it clear in no uncertain terms how northern folks felt about the Confederate invaders:



"[A]round is scattered the litter of the battle-field, accountraments, ammunition, rags, cups and canteens, crackers, haversacks &c, and letters that may tell the name of the owner, although the majority will surely be buried unknown by strangers, and in a strange land. Killed in the frantic efforts to break the steady lines of an an army of patriots, whose heroism only excelled theirs in motive, they paid with life their price for treason, and when the wicked strife was finished, found nameless graves, far from home and kindred."

We have a long way to go, but name changes are a good start.