Applauding museum’s closing
Re: “Texas Civil War Museum to close — Showcase of artifacts from Union, Confederacy will be open through Oct. 31,” Sept. 13 Metro & Business story.
Your report on the closing of the Texas Civil War Museum caused me to reflect on my own family’s experience with slavery and the Civil War. I am a sixth generation Texan. I had two great-great-grandfathers and one great-grandfather who fought in the war for Texas independence in 1836. My great uncle, William Depriest Sutherland, died at the Alamo. He was 18 years old. His younger brother, Thomas Shelton Sutherland, 16 in 1836, was my great-grandfather.
Though I grew up in Texas and took Texas history courses in school, I never realized that slavery was the cause for my ancestors to fight for independence from Mexico. I later learned that my great-grandfather, Samuel C.A. Rogers, had two sons who died fighting for the confederacy at Shiloh.
Through DNA I have learned that my great-grandfather, Thomas Shelton Sutherland, fathered a daughter with one of his slaves in 1850. My cousin, Christy Carpenter, daughter of Liz Sutherland Carpenter, and I, have reached out to the descendants of my great-grandfather’s slave, but there is a reluctance on their part to forge a family relationship with us.
This is, in my view, a case of the sins of the grandparents being passed down to the grandchildren. We want to welcome our cousins into our very large family.
The brutality and the inhumanity of slavery are egregious and wrong. There is no reason to honor any part of it, including those who participated in it.
For that reason, I am happy to see the Texas Civil War Museum shut down.
Richard Sutherland, San Angelo
We can’t lose history
I was saddened to see this headline about the closing of the Texas Civil War Museum. I took several teens there a few years ago and was glad I did. The small museum is a gem of artifacts regarding not only the Texas Civil War, but about personal lives, particularly the lives of women.
Those displays had nothing to do with the war and everything to do with how people lived. We didn’t know that women’s hats had real embalmed birds on them or the reason that the women in photos of the time were always standing behind seated men was that they couldn’t sit down in the hoop skirts and bustles.
I’d hate to be forced to stand all day because of fashion! The saddest part of this is that most of the artifacts will be sold rather than preserved in another museum. This underscores once again the lack of appreciation of history in Texas.
We saw it with Old City Park and we’ll probably see it again. When those items are gone, they are gone.
Carol Stephenson, Mesquite
Welcoming all viewpoints
The Texas Civil War Museum should have been allowed to exhibit its Civil War relics unhampered and consistent with our freedom of speech rights. The museum’s goal was to exhibit Civil War relics, not to debate and discuss the many causes of the Civil War.
Slavery was a major cause of the war but it wasn’t the only cause. High tariffs the South had to pay were a cause as well as the money made by the South that was used primarily for internal improvements in the North. For background, check out the book Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War and the book, The Causes of the Civil War, which lists 47 causes of the war.
The problem today with Civil War history is that political groups and some newspapers have biased Civil War-related agendas and ignore anything that is contrary to their biases.
One of the standards of the American Historical Association is to provide more than one viewpoint of a historical event and also not to practice presentism in regard to history. Both of these standards are routinely ignored in regard to the Civil War.
Bruce Bayless, Plano
Museum is inaccurate
Re: “Good Riddance, Texas Civil War Museum — Exhibits didn’t honestly depict role of slavery,” Sept.11 editorial.
I drove the 100 miles round trip from Oak Cliff to witness for the last time another twisted relic of Southern history ignoring the true horror of slavery while claiming to tell Civil War history.
Visiting the Texas Civil War Museum was worth the 100-mile round trip from Dallas. The museum is truly as inaccurate as presented. Your editorial is accurate.
Thank you for covering this painful, private exercise in attempting to mislead us about Southern history.
Bill R. Betzen, Dallas
Editorial missed
The only thing you didn’t do in this editorial was grovel for forgiveness for being a nation at all.
Jacqueline Meyers, Splendora
Spewing leftist ideology
In this editorial about closing the Texas Civil War Museum, the writer states that the reason for the Civil War was slavery.
Late in the war, Abraham Lincoln did decide that slaves would be freed. However, I learned that the reason for the war was states’ rights. This was the reason the Southern states chose to leave the Union. Spewing leftist ideology does not make it true.
Stephen Martin, South Dallas
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