Stonewall Jackson is the latest historical figure who is getting the ax via removal of one of his memorial statues. This time, it’s a sculpture of the former US and Confederate general being removed from the Virginia Military Institute. As CBS new reports:
The Virginia Military Institute has removed the statue of Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from campus after allegations of racial injustice and discrimination rocked the campus this year.
Not surprisingly, the controversy over Jackson has focused almost entirely on Jackson’s military service for the Confederacy, which is interpreted as support for slavery on Jackson’s part.
It is interesting, however, that in these debates over Jackson’s place in history, no mention is ever made of Jackson’s involvement in the Mexican War, or of the fact that while participating in the US invasion of Mexico, Jackson committed a war crime by firing on Mexican civilians.
Specifically, as recounted by historian Ethan S. Rafuse in Stonewall Jackson: A Biography Jackson was perfectly willing to fire on civilians if it sped up Mexican compliance with American demands for surrender:
The next morning, after firing a few rounds to squelch a mob of civilians and give weight to Scott’s threat to shell the city if it did not surrender by a certain time, Jackson joined the rest of the American army in triumphantly taking possession of Mexico City.
Jackson’s defenders are likely to claim he was “just following orders,” but of course this is no defense, and the fact is Jackson willingly and enthusiastically participated in the invasion—an invasion that involved plenty of raping of women and burning of churches—of a foreign nation conducted for no reason other than rank conquest.
Given his support for killing foreigners who dared to defend their homelands from invaders, later claims that Jackson was a hero who harbored deeply held principles in favor of “states’ rights” and self-determination ring rather hollow. Jackson was clearly in favor of independence for himself and his friends. But for Mexicans? In that case, not so much.
Jackson’s case is reminiscent of that of Robert E. Lee, who at the time of the war was a far more significant figure than Jackson.
Like Jackson, Lee’s reputation now suffers exclusively from his association with the Confederacy while his participation in the wholesale death and dismemberment of foreigners is ignored.
As I noted at LewRockwell.com in 2017:
I find it a bit odd that so many conservatives are singing the praises of a man who spent his entire career as a government employee and who rose to prominence as a military officer who largely spent his time helping the US government murder Mexicans. These Mexicans’ only crime was attempting to defend their country from the American invasion of 1846–1848.
Lee is perhaps most notable in that war for helping the US Army get the upper hand at the battle of Cerro Gordo, where 1,000 Mexicans were killed for no good reason. But it did put a shiny medal on Robert E. Lee’s chest!
Morally speaking, Lee fares even worse than Jackson for his “service” in Mexico. Lee was already remarkably wealthy at the start of the war. He did not need to participate in the invasion and he could have resigned his commission without legal trouble—something that was not unheard of in the mid-nineteenth century.
But Lee waged a war of conquest against a foreign people who had never done him any harm.
So why is it that even Lee’s and Jackson’s modern-day enemies never seem to mention their role in a deplorable war of conquest?
This in part stems from the fact that opposition to grave human rights abuses are only important or worth mentioning if they help the narrative of modern-day egalitarianism. Condemning slavery by way of condemning Jackson and Lee is quite politically safe and only attacks the legitimacy of the now long-dead regime that was the Confederacy.
To condemn elective US wars of conquest, on the other hand, might call into question modern-day American policy and those who carry it out. After all, the current bipartisan consensus tells us that if we judge Lee’s and Jackson’s actions in Mexico by today’s standards, they were above reproach and they were only “doing their duty.” By extension, this also implies that were Lee and Jackson officers today, it would not be acceptable to criticize them for raining down death on Iraqi women and Afghani children. While it remains a grave crime against the prevailing political orthodoxy to express even qualified sympathy for those serving in the armed forces of the extinct Confederacy, it remains perfectly acceptable—or even laudable—to support blood-soaked invasions of foreign nations when perpetrated by the armed forces of the United States.
For example, the dominant media narrative informs us that Barack Obama as president was a true champion of racial equality, and certainly an enemy of slavery. Also as president, he ordered more than five hundred drone strikes, many of which resulted in the deaths of men, women, and children attending weddings, traveling, and otherwise minding their own business.
So, speaking up today for powerless, marginalized communities who were victims of an extinct regime from yesteryear is perfectly acceptable. Speaking up for powerless, marginalized victims of the American regime right now—i.e., starving Yemeni children, Afghani brides—is verboten.
