Originally posted by alfa6foxtrot:
I’ve been reading a lot about American History lately because my oldest grandson has taken an interest in it (and grabbing books off my bookshelf) I usually don’t have my head stuck in the 18th (or 19th) century but I see similarities between their situation and ours. A power hungry elite can always find people to pay, to impose their will on the general populace (by brute force). I remember reading ( a long while ago) about an incident in (or around) Paoli, Pennsylvania during the American Revolution. I think it was called “Baylor’s Massacre” or something like that. Some of the Pa. Militia (there may have been regulars there too) had taken up quarters in a farmer’s barn to catch some z’s around 2- 4 a.m. British soldiers came in and bayoneted them while they slept. The Farmer said that some of them cried our for “quarter” while being stabbed, but it was denied.
[Imagine that, sneaking into someone’s sleeping quarters in the middle of the night and killing them while they sleep......I’m glad we’re more civilized than that today.]
Any way, I guess the British didn’t realize at the time that there would eventually be consequences for this type of brutality. It was later discovered that several members of the Pa. Militia were wearing socks (leggings) made from the skin of British soldiers. I kid you not! I read this 25 years ago (and I can’t remember the name of the book). Maybe there’s a history buff out there who can fill in the missing parts.
Wow, they were a different breed of men back then. But hey, what do you expect, back then if you insulted a man’s integrity, you would find yourself out in the woods having a duel.
Compare that to today where the free and the brave put up with all sorts of shit.
I wonder if they had to tan the human skin or just dry it out before using it. I wonder what the insulating qualities were. It seems so thin that you wouldn’t get much from it, but I guess they thought it was better than nothing.
During the un-civil war my area was fiercely divided. Brutal guerilla war was the norm.
The Feds took civilian hostages. Held them under brutal conditions until their Confederate soldier husbands turned themselves in. Numerous other attrocities were perpetrated against the rebel citizens.
Sooo...
Some of the Confederate guerillas began scalping any fed they captured, some even started collecting ears, some fed prisoners were soaked with turpentine and set on fire.
If you were stupid enough to collaborate with the feds; your house would be burned, your children shot, and your wife raped and hung from a tree in the front yard. This message awaited many unionist soldiers when they returned home.
This continued for years after the war...just because some folks had been "on the wrong side". I know because I had family that participated in it. Many of the grandchildren of these Confederate guerillas still remember the stories handed down and still hate the feds with a seething rage.
And, One day we will collect ears again.
