Rest in Peace

The situation at Okolona Confederate Cemetery...



has been handled.



After talkin' with the right people...it was clear that nobody knew who had done it or why.

There was some speculation that the VFW may have planted them on Memorial Day but, I doubt that. Of all people...certainly veterans would know better. Besides the only foreigners involved in the War were the invading yankees.

These boys gave their lives, their very identity, but there's one sacred thing they took to their anonymous graves...they died citizens of a free and independent Dixie. It should be obvious to anyone, with a cat's ability to empathize...no matter how they feel about the conquest of The South, the Confederacy, and on...that this was a bad gesture.

I have a theory...and I reckon it's as good as any other.

Yesterday mornin' I left Tupelo and headed up to Brice's Crossroads near Baldwyn.




On June 10, 1864, there was a pretty serious scrap there. The place may not come immediately to mind when thinking of the War...the way Gettysburg or Vicksburg might. Two reasons for that...one, in the overall picture of the war...there was no strategic gain for the victors. Secondly, and more to the point the invaders got their asssssses kicked at Brice's Crossroads by Nathan Bedford Forrest.*

The yankees had a 3 to 1 advantage in numbers but...Forrest was a Jedi. He back-flipped into the middle of those bitches and scattered 'em like quail..or, maintaining the simile, like those fruity robots in the bad Star Wars movies. He took 1,500 hundred prisoners there...the rest ran in a panic back to Memphis.

It was so bad that there's a special "Rationalizing the Defeat" section on the Wikipedia page. The locals were uncooperative and it was really hot...ha.

No victory comes without sacrifice...



These graves have not been molested by anything other than the restless soil in that part of the state.



Unknown markers are moving...but a spot like this has its own profound sense. You can read the names...Bean, Stuart, McMorris, Jones, Davis, Harper, Spencer, Barham...they've all got the same date, June 10, 1864.

I left the cemetery and headed toward Baldwyn. There's a visitors center and museum there. I was hoping to find some flags that would be more "appropriate" for the cemetery in Okolona.**

I was greeted by a tiny old lady with a kinda chirpy Southern accent that was beginning to creak a little bit under the weight of decades. She asked where I was from....I found what I was lookin' for. As I was diggin' in my wallet to pay I heard the question again...

"Whur yeeeh frome suurh?"

It was a round fella...transparent coloured, sorta featureless really. It was obvious he weren't from around here...

"Shuh-Kaaago, Ill-annoy."

A tourist...there's lots of 'em...thousands of 'em. Understandably I reckon, many people in America are almost obsessively fascinated with the War. This fella's people might not have been on this continent in the 19th century...but the subject draws all types of folks from everywhere in the US like a magnet.

Maybe it was one of these tourists...a misguided fella, from a place where empathy isn't known to be a natural characteristic, from a place that never doubts itself,...maybe this was a magnanimous gesture on their part. To show there was no hard feelings.

Gee thanks.

I don't know...at any rate...it's fixed.



*On the off chance that any of you would...don't start on Forrest here...please. I don't ask very often but, we can have that discussion on another thread.

** This place has its own serious flag issues.