Jay P. Greene's Blog

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

As the prospect of civil war loomed in 1860, southern partisans in the U.S. Army began shuffling commands around, to put all the southern-born officers together. That way, they could work and train together, forming relationships, cohesion and teamwork that they could take with them together in the event of secession. And when the break did come, half those southern-born officers did in fact leave together.

Among those who did not was the man with three first names: George Henry Thomas.

Here’s a Civil War story you don’t know and need to: Over 100,000 white southerners, known as Southern Unionists or Southern Loyalists (as well as Yankees, Scalawags and Tories among their detractors, alongside less printable names) served in the Union army during the Civil War. Every southern state except South Carolina contributed at least a full battalion to the Union. Tennessee alone produced 42,000 loyal men to fight for the Stars and Stripes.

If there is ever going to be healing for the still-festering wounds of the Civil War, it will come when we who hail from the South are ready to admit that the Cause was wrong. That will be a hard pill to swallow; clearly we are not yet ready to swallow it. One thing that will make it much easier will be if we learn to tell the stories of the many thousands of southerners who knew better than to be taken in by the Cause.

If you asked the Southern Unionists why they were fighting for the North, they’d have told you they weren’t fighting for the North. They were fighting for the Union.

Among that roll of honor, Major General George Henry Thomas – son of Virginia – stands head and shoulders above the rest. “Old George H. Thomas is in command of the cavalry of the enemy,” wrote J.E.B. Stuart to his wife. “I would like to hang, hang him as a traitor to his native state.” The two had studied together at West Point.

Why does Thomas deserve The Al? Let me count the ways:

1. Thomas brought the Union’s disastrous early losing streak to a close by winning its first strategically significant victory, at Mill Springs, Ky. on January 18, 1862. He was in a position to do so because his prowess and natural leadership (his men identified with him as a fellow “soldier’s soldier” yet also looked up to him as “Pap Thomas”) were so much in evidence that between April and August of 1861 he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel, then colonel, then brigadier general. At Mill Springs, he broke the Confederate hold on Kentucky, and – probably even more important in the long run – delivered a much-needed morale boost. It’s hard to overstate how shocking the loss at First Bull Run and the series of subsequent defeats were for the Union. It became an open question whether the Union might make terms and quit. Mill Springs shored up political support to see the war through.

2. At the Battle of Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863, commanding Union general William Rosecrans – whose commission had been backdated so he could fake seniority and get promoted to that command ahead of Thomas – committed a major tactical blunder, and Union lines collapsed. Confederate troops charged in, and the defeat threatened to turn into a rout from which the campaign might not recover. Thomas held his ground, inspiring his troops to stay and bear the brunt of the attack, in order to provide cover for the rest of the Union forces at Chickamauga to organize a retreat. A message runner (future U.S. President James Garfield) informed Rosecrans that Thomas was “standing like a rock.” The Army of the Cumberland was saved, and Rosecrans was removed from command in favor of Thomas. He led the Cumberland to a dramatic reversal of fortunes, culminating in a decisive Union victory in November in the Chattanooga Campaign. (Ironically, the climactic battle was won in part by dumb luck.) The Union gained permanent control of Tennessee and strategic dominance of the entire western theater, as well as the staging point from which Sherman’s Atlanta campaign would be launched and supported the next year. Thomas was known forever after as The Rock of Chickamauga.

3. After the Chattanooga Campaign, a chaplain asked Thomas if the Confederate dead should be buried separately by state. “No, mix ’em up,” said Thomas. “I’m tired of states’ rights.”

Special $5 Treasury note honoring Thomas, 1890

4. When John Hood found he could not directly stop Sherman’s march to Atlanta, he turned around what was left of his Army of Tennessee and tried to cut off Sherman’s lines of communication to the Union stronghold in Chattanooga, hoping to draw Sherman off to fight him. But when Hood got to Tennessee, he found The Rock of Chickamauga – who was once his teacher at West Point – waiting for him. Thomas smashed the Army of Tennessee so hard that it ceased to exist; its few remaining men dispersed and joined themselves to other Confederate forces. Thomas earned yet another nickname, The Sledge of Nashville, and a very-long-overdue promotion to major general. (“I suppose it is better late than never,” he commented. “I earned this at Chickamauga.”)

5. After the war, with much of the South in desperate, starvation-level poverty, Thomas sent generous financial assistance to his two sisters living there. They sent the money back, declaring that it must have been sent to them by mistake, as they had no brother.

6. One of the main reasons the wounds of the war have not healed is the vast superiority of southerners as storytellers. Our national memory of the war has been disproportionately shaped by the way the South has told its own story, for the simple reason that northerners, in general, can’t tell a story worth a nickel. Thomas saw what was happening early on; he sounded the alarm in 1868:

The greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property—justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war and of nations—through the magnanimity of the government and people was not exacted from them.

Alas, that was one battle with the Confederacy he was destined to lose.

7. Thomas spent the postwar years overseeing the military government of various regions of the South under Reconstruction, and in particular suppressing the Klan. He set up military courts that would enforce labor contracts for black citizens who couldn’t get redress in civilian courts.

8. He retired to upstate New York and was buried there. None of his blood relatives attended his funeral.

For the honor of the Union and the South: The Rock of Chickamauga for The Al.

Image HTs – color, b/w, T-note

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Those of us interested in markets often use the childhood experience of running a lemonade stand to illustrate how business can be a school of virtue. In recent years, unfortunately, we have been more likely to point to the shutting down of lemonade stands as an example of how overbearing regulation is stifling the entrepreneurial spirit in our culture, destroying this and other traditional rites of passage like teenage summer jobs.

This summer, though, we got a delightful surprise. Under the leadership of Adam Butler, general manager of beverages and nuts for Kraft Heinz, Country Time Lemonade introduced the awesomeness of “Legal-Ade.” It’s a system of financial and legal support, covering permits and fines up to $300, to help kids like Autumn Thomasson keep their lemonade stands open over the summer. They also donated to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, which helps kids and families run lemonade stands to raise money for cancer research.

It’s also the rockingest advertisement I have seen in a long time. “TASTES LIKE JUSTICE!” Wish I knew that actor’s name, I’d add him to the nomination.

Is it even legal for corporations to get this creative and take a risk standing up to the regulatory state for their customers? Aren’t they required to run to the corner and cower in fear, promising to do whatever the state demands?

Because if they’re not . . . our big corporations are run by cowards.

And they’re probably leaving a lot of money on the table, too. You think this aid program paid for itself in increased sales for Country Time? I’d bet you more than a glass of lemonade it did.

Why do I think so? Here’s one reason. Adam Butler says: “Legal-Ade will be back next year, helping support kids’ rights to run lemonade stands! We look forward to kicking off year two of the program and helping more kids next year.”

Watch out, lemon protection rackets. Autumn has backup.

For bringing lemonade to the world, having a ton of fun mocking PLDD lemon thugs, and making an honest buck doing it all, I nominate Adam Butler and Autumn Thomasson for The Al.

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Since June 15, Eric Lundgren has been in prison. His crime: Downloading software onto computer disks for his customers instead of making them do it themselves – which many of them couldn’t do, leading to unnecessary abandonment of perfectly good computers (filled with delightful chemicals) into our landfills. His sentence: 15 months in prison.

In the spirit of honoring noble scofflaws like Al winner Wim Nottroth and UX (who played Valjean to Higgy winner Pascal Monnet’s Javert), I nominate Eric Lundgren for The Al.

This is not Lundgren’s first run-in with the powers. His first arrest was at age 14, when he panicked and fled from a police cruiser trying to pull him over for driving a not-entirely-street-legal go kart he had made with a lawn mower motor and a boombox.

Since then he’s put his ability to repurpose parts to more productive use. He became a millionaire tech entrepreneur finding a variety of ways to reuse electronic devices and components rather than let them rot. Some of these have been lucrative, some charitable, and some both at the same time. He launched the first “electronic hybrid recycling” facility in the United States, turning old cell phones and stuff back into useable devices. This serves the poor (who can get devices cheaper), saves the environment (chemicals in phone batteries are nothing to mess with) and, hey, put a buck into Lundgren’s pocket, too.

He once built an electronic car out of discarded parts that out-distanced Tesla’s car on a single charge. And don’t forget the troops – his company once donated 14,000 cell phones to military personnel deployed overseas, where I bet they were grateful to be able to make a call home.

His trouble with the law – this time – springs from his having manufactured a “restore disk” that you could use to restore your software after a crash. One thing he provided on the disk was a copy of Microsoft software to re-install. He found that many customers either were, or felt (which amounts to the same thing) unable to restore this software themselves, and perfectly restorable computers were being thrown out in favor of new purchases because customers couldn’t get their old ones to work.

Now, let’s be clear about four indisputable facts:

1. Lundgren was not authorized to download the software, so he did break the law – as he admitted by pleading guilty (though he appealed the jail sentence as excessive).
2. The disks could not be used on a computer that did not already have a paid-up license for the software, and anyone with a paid-up license is allowed to re-download the software for free, so Lundgren didn’t cost Microsoft a single thin dime that it was ethically entitled to.
3. Microsoft wanted this case prosecuted because they wanted to collect sales revenue by getting people to dump perfectly good computers in our landfills so they’d have to buy new computers with new software.
4. Only a coward or idiot of a prosecutor would charge a case like this.

There’s nothing wrong with making a buck as you do good for the world. But there is something wrong with making a buck by not doing good for the world. And there is a whole lot wrong with sending a man to jail for 15 months so a company can make a buck off actively harming its own customers.

I’m proud to nominate Eric Lundgren for The Al.

Image HT