Yankees and Confederates

[W. Gray]

Just got my Elk County newspaper and thoroughly enjoyed Rudy's editorial on Davy Crockett and Davy Crockett hats during his school days in the mid fifties. Davy Crockett was an icon to many school kids. He was so popular, Walt Disney Studios had to come up with some more episodes after he died fighting at the Alamo (that appears to no longer be true.) The studio came up with Mike Fink as a heavy. Fink was a real person but none of the movies about him and Davy were true.

Sometime around 1948, or so, there was a Civil War craze. Why or how this craze came about is a mystery to me. The only thing I can think of was perhaps a re-release of Gone With the Wind. Dime stores sold both Yankee and Confederate soldier hats but at 98 cents, we could not afford one. As a second grader, I had no clue as to what a Yankee or a Confederate was but I chose sides rather quickly.

In my Independence, Missouri school, we had roving gangs of boys during playtime. These were older third grade boys and were not bad kids and were not gangs in the sense we know now. They were more of a playground association rather than anything else. However, some could be mean. A gang of about five stopped me one day on the playground and asked if I were a confederate or a Yankee. I did not know what either was (don't think the gang did either) and said the first thing that came to my mind, Confederate. I received flying fists from these kids and can yet  remember the pain. However, I did not complain to anyone but resolved from then on to be a Yankee because it was safer.

Missouri was a slave state but stayed in the Union, along with three other slave states plus West Virginia which seceded from Virginia.

In later years, I found out my father's side of the family fought for the Confederacy.

[Diane Amberg]

  Rudy is the same age I am. I had my coonskin hat for many years, until one of my younger sister's friends gave it a hair cut.

[Leonardcrl]

Waldo:

I assume that you know this already but I just found out a couple of months ago.   
I'm into trivia and one of the items that comes up occasionally is how many stars does the Confederate Battle Flag (the Stars & Bars) have? 

The answer is 13 -but- two of the stars represented Missouri and Kentucky.  Both of which never officially succeeded from the union although
secessionist factions from both states joined the confederacy in late 1861. 

Regards
-=crl=-

[W. Gray]

Thanks, I did not know that.

I grew up thinking that slavery was something that occurred in the south far away.

Then I learned that a slave market once stood on Main Street in Independence right across from the fire department. (The old fire house now serves as a place to purchase tickets for a bus taking tourists to tour the inside of the Truman home.)

Many times, I have tried to imagine myself being taken to that central market, paraded before prospective buyers, placed on a stage, and auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Then, leaving with the new owner to work for him from sunup to sundown six days a week without pay for the rest of my natural life.

[Wilma]

Oh, to be a slave owner and Waldo is on the auction block.

[frawin]

Waldo, that would probably be 7 days a week in many if not most cases. It is hard for me to comprehend how anyone could have been pro-slavery. The part that seems so bad to me is taking the children from the parents and selling them. Many slaves never saw their children again, as a parent that had to be heartbreaking.
Frank

[W. Gray]

There is a tourist attraction on the Arkansas River in southern Colorado called Bents Fort. Bents Fort was once at the end of the United States. Across the river was Mexico. This was essentially a private operation although the federal government took it over during the Mexican-American War.

The fort had two slaves, a married couple. He was the blacksmith and she the cook. He was boss of the blacksmith shop and she the boss of the kitchen. The fort owner charged for their services.

If he had no blacksmith work, he was free to help his wife.

Their bed was in the kitchen. She had to cook three times a day for fort personnel and visitors. Sometimes if people came in to the fort at night, she had to get up and cook for them and still maintain her daytime schedule.

[Diane Amberg]

 My Mom's Mormon grandparents met as young adults, while sneaking runaway slaves across the Missouri River to go to Canada. They were Scots and hated slavery.

[frawin]

Waldo, wasn't Prudence Crandall of Elk Falls known for her work in the underground Railroad, helping slaves escape to Free Territory?
Frank

[W. Gray]

That I could not say. I don't know that much about her other than she was brought up as a Quaker and I think she was a late comer to Elk Falls perhaps living there 15 years or so. What she did between 1832 and when she came to Elk Falls would be interesting.

I think she might not have had any other place to go so she moved to Elk Falls from Illinois (?) after her husband died and lived with her brother. It seems to me there is a sign in front of a home in Elk Falls which was the site of where she lived.

Below is what I could find in my notes. The 1820 date might not be correct since she was only 17 at the time.

Elk Falls also has a Prudence Crandall memorial on U.S. 160. Miss Crandall made her name in Connecticut where she advocated the education of blacks. She admitted a black girl to a girls' school she founded in 1820. White parents withdrew their girls so she started an all Black girls' school. The state of Connecticut jailed her in 1832 for doing so. She lived the last several years of her life in Elk Falls passing away in 1890.