Getting It Right In Charles Town W.V

Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not are slaves.

Lord Byron – 1813

In Charles Town W.V on the front of the Jefferson County Courthouse is a plaque dedicated to the confederate soldiers who served during the “War Between the States.” It was dedicated by the United Daughters Of The Confederacy. They were established in 1894 in Nashville, Tennessee by Caroline Meriwether Goodlett and Anna Davenport Raines. Their stated intention was to “tell of the glorious fight against the greatest odds a nation ever faced, that their hallowed memory should never die.” This plaque is no different from any of the other monuments they have erected to confederate rebels. It is there to tell about the “glorious fight” and “honor” those that died in its cause. There is no ambiguity here, nothing to figure out, the founders of the United Daughters Of The Confederacy state that clearly in their mission statement and it is repeated on this plaque.

What was the glorious fight about? It was about the Confederate States wanting to keep other humans as slaves, working and breeding them like animals for profit. Now lets talk about whom’s “hollowed memory should never die.” Do you think they are talking about the 25,000 Union soldiers West Virginia sent to fight in the the Civil War or are they talking about the men that tried to kill them? The title ‘Jefferson County Courthouse,” implies the building is there to house the people who preserve and protect the laws of West Virginia and the United States. It is not there to tell the story of the glorious fight and honor the men responsible for the blood soaked fields of the fallen sons of West Virginia. That’s not our story. That’s the story of the men who killed them.

Do black West Virginians want that plaque removed? Absolutely. Our blood is on them fields too. In June 1864, the 45th U.S. Colored Infantry began their basic training at Camp William Penn. According to the “Civil War Librarian,” A lot of the men appear to be escaped slaves or freedmen who were living in Virginia or what was then the new state of West Virginia. The discharge formation at Camp Cadwalader ended an 18-month tour of duty that took the men of the 45th from trenches facing the Confederate capital of Richmond to the Mexican frontier. Fourteen soldiers were killed or wounded in battle, and another 50 died of disease — many of them in lonely Texas border towns, months after the war ended. Among the regiment’s recruits, according to Army records, were 212 “colored men mustered into the service of the United States to the credit of West Virginia.The regiment was one of 170 African-American military units organized near the end of the Civil War, when the Union Army hierarchy finally recognized the value of the black fighting man.”

The black faces you saw at the Jefferson County Commission meeting are your friends and neighbors, some might even be family. The protest is not only a protest against racism, it is a protest in defense of right versus wrong and good versus evil. At the very least, it is about an organization rooted in the antebellum deep south and transplanted to West Virginia to sow hate and mistrust among its citizens. At the beginning of this article I quoted Lord Byron, “Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not are slaves.” Who do you think the real slaves are?

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