Marjorie Taylor Greene's Confederacy Remark Trashed by Civil War Historians
BY JAMES BICKERTON ON 10/21/22 AT 5:56 PM EDT
00:38
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been savaged by Civil War historians after tweeting two photographs of herself at a monument to Union troops which she incorrectly claimed "honored the Confederate soldiers."
Speaking to Newsweek, experts in the field branded her tweet "stunning and entirely inappropriate" and "embarrassing," while one historian said she "dishonored U.S. veterans."
Greene, who represents Georgia's 14th Congressional District in the U.S. House, posted the images on Tuesday.
She wrote: "Tonight, I stopped at the Wilder Monument in Chickamauga, GA, which honors the Confederate soldiers of the Wilder Brigade. I will always defend our nation's history!"
However, the Wilder Brigade, also known as the Lightning Brigade, in fact fought on the Union side at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. Chickamauga was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, leaving 35,000 men dead, injured, missing or captured, according to the National Park Service.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks during former President Donald Trump's Save America rally at Macomb County Community College Sports and Expo Center in Warren, Michigan, on October 1. Greene has come under fire from historians after tweeting about visiting a Civil War monument.JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/GETTY
After other social media users pointed out the error, Greene deleted her tweet.
Professor James Marten, a Marquette University historian who has written multiple books on the Civil War, criticized Greene over her historical knowledge and for speaking "glowingly" about the Confederacy.
Addressing Newsweek, he said: "I'd like our leaders to actually understand the history they're trying to use; her mistake, or her staff's mistake, simply confirms the superficial grasp too many politicians have on the history they are trying to exploit to make political points with their base.
"It's stunning and entirely inappropriate whenever an elected representative to our federal government speaks glowingly of a movement designed to undermine that government by force of arms and in defense of the enslavement of millions of humans. But it resonates with a narrow segment of the voting population, as it has for many generations.
"Similar defenses of the values represented by the Confederacy emerged in their extreme forms with the 'rebirth' of the KKK in the 1910s in the face of the immigration of millions of Catholics and Jews and in the Klan's third incarnation in the 1950s, when the Brown decision gave the modern civil rights movement a major victory."
Professor Gregory P. Downs, a Civil War and Reconstruction specialist at the University of California, Davis, accused Greene of dishonoring both Union and Confederate troops.
Downs commented: "Congresswoman Taylor Greene revealed that her interest in the historical Confederacy is just as fake as her facts. She dishonored U.S. veterans by mistaking them for people who fought to destroy the country, and even dishonors the Confederate dead by revealing that she sees them as props."
Greene also came under fire from Professor Stephen Engle, a Florida Atlantic University academic and author of a number of books, including Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln and the Union's War Governors.
Speaking to Newsweek, he said: "I saw Marjorie Taylor Greene's comments and thought to myself, what another embarrassing, disappointing, though not surprising moment, not just for her but for those Americans who subscribe to a rather superficial knowledge about the past, especially the American Civil War. These days, people believe what they believe and that's all that matters regardless of the facts, largely because it sells to their constituents.
"Her comments remind me that our modern-day politicians, elected by the people, for the people, to lead the people, need to bone up on their history, or else be silent, an axiom we would all do to observe these days. Frankly, the misrepresentation of the past simply exemplifies more of the Trumpian fact denial and belief preservation world that sallies forth in her generation's collective memory, believing is all that matters."
Earlier this week, Greene suggested there could be an American "national divorce" in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voting to continue recommending COVID-19 vaccines for adults and children.
According to the recent book Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind, Greene is hoping to be appointed to the Oversight Committee and Judiciary Committee if Republicans take control of the House next month.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been contacted for comment.
newsweek.com |
