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This page has archives. Sections older than 20 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 1 section is present.

I noticed many monuments to Northern troops on my tour of the battleground at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Dan Ryan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danryan55 ( talk • contribs) 13:23, 18 February 2015 (UTC) reply

User:Danryan55 is right. The flat statement in the article that it is the only monument to the Union on Confederate soil is just wrong. Perhaps the source says something different, has some qualification? Or this is the kind of assertion made in good faith which a person cannot actually know to be a fact, which has happened for many assertions of "this is the oldest building surviving" of some type. I just modified the article to say "It has been asserted that it is the only Union monument on Confederate soil" and to add a footnote giving some exceptions. -- do ncr am 00:44, 11 September 2016 (UTC) reply

doncram I am the one who wrote the article and sourced it on February 2, 2011, 5 years ago. At this point, I'm not sure which sources made this claim. And my access to research sources has expanded since then. Please note the first source below, which was published a year after this article was created. If you do not have Jstor access, author Frank Wilson Kiel goes into 11 pages of detail to debunk the claim of it being the only Union monument on Confederate soil. The others listed below are just a few that make this claim, so we can see how this myth has become so prevalent. — Maile ( talk) 14:55, 11 September 2016 (UTC) reply

• Kiel, Frank Wilson (January 2012). "Treue der Union: Myths, Misrepresentations, and Misinterpretations". The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 115 (3). Texas State Historical Association: 282–292. doi: 10.1353/swh.2012.0004. JSTOR  41617001.

• "NUECES, BATTLE OF THE". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. 2010-08-31. Retrieved September 11, 2016.

The dedication of the Treue der Union monument occurred on August 10, 1866. To commemorate the 130th anniversary of the memorial, the monument was rededicated on August 10, 1996. It is the only German-language monument to the Union in the South where the remains of those killed in battle are buried, and where an 1866 thirty-six star American flag flies at half-staff.

• Mendoza, Alexander; Grear, Charles David (2012). Texans and War: New Interpretations of the State's Military History. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press – via  Questia (subscription required) . p. 140. ISBN  978-1-60344-124-7.

... on August 20, 1865, Hill Country Germans erected the Treue der Union monument in Comfort, the only shrine to the Union erected by inhabitants on former Confederate soil.

• Civil War Preservation Trust (2008). Civil War Sites: The Official Guide to the Civil War Discovery Trail. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press. p. 310. ISBN  9780762744350.

The Treue der Union Monument is the only memorial to the Union (outside national cemeteries) in Confederate territory, and only one of six places in the nation permitted by Congress to fly the flag at half-staff in perpetuity (and the only one of these to fly the flag with thirty-six stars).

• Kamphoefner, Walter D.; Helbich, Wolfgang; Vogel, Susan Carter (2006). Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press  – via  Questia (subscription required) . p. 437. ISBN  978-0-8078-3044-4.

The bleached bones of Simon and Cramer’s nineteen comrades were gathered in 1865 and brought back to Comfort, where they were laid to rest with honor: the main speech was delivered by Edward Degener. The residents of Comfort erected a commemorative obelisk inscribed with “Treue der Union” (“Loyalty to the Union”), the only monument of its kind in the South.

Thank you, Maile, for your very substantial comment here, and for your edits to the article (long ago, and just now). I just adapted your comments here to make mainspace statements in the article. Especially as I have not consulted the sources, would you please check what I wrote and revise as necessary? Note that I include the more limited claims that you list above, without commenting whether they are true or false; I don't know what Frank Wilson Kiel has to say about the claims I repeat. Of course claims of uniqueness may sometimes be disproved, but it is hard to prove that they are true. E.g., it is hard for anyone to know if the monument is the only German-language monument to the North in the South, although it could be noted that "no claims to the contrary are known to have been expressed by Kiel or others" if that is the case. It would be great if you could conclude the section by adding some summary from your sources what qualified claims of uniqueness have been supported (or at least not contradicted) by consensus of scholars. -- do ncr am 19:01, 12 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Doncram I'm fine with the rewrite as far as you took it. But it's really interesting what's in the Frank Wilson Kiel article. Kiel is a physician and military veteran who is (or was in 2012) in advisory positions at Fort Sam Houston Museum, a university in San Antonio, some international advisory capacities. Below is a recap of what is in that article. It's mostly verbatim from the article, so if you later decide to use any of it, reword it appropriately. As for me, I might try some incorporating the below into the article. I'll see what I can do. — Maile ( talk) 20:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC) reply

p 282

• Image of the monument

p 283

• Establishment of the monument

p 284

• 1981 Kendall County Commissioners Court awarded Lot 122 on which the monument sits to the Comfort Heritage Foundation for $10 for 99 years, and they maintain it.
• General commentary on all the myths and representations about the monument, and author's findings from visiting other like monuments

p 285

• Image of Greene County, Tennessee monument on the courthouse grounds

p 286

• Myths about the exclusivity of Treue der Union monument date back at least to 1938
• "In the application for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the Comfort Task Force claimed it 'the only community monument within a participant Civil War state to honor the other side and it has often been referred to as the only Union monument south of the Mason-Dixon line.'" (footnote dates the application as 1978)
• Additional myth perpetuation is mentioned, and specifically the Civil War Discovery Trail, the Handbook of Texas Online and Wikipedia.
• Footnote at the bottom lists a whole slew of books and newspapers that erroneously repeated myths about the monument

p 287

• Author lists several other monuments to the Union on Southern soil. Greeneville, Tennessee; Cleveland, Tennessee; Denison, Texas; New Braunfels, Texas; Dallas, Texas.
• Author says claims Treue der Union is the oldest such moment is false. Hazen Brigade Monument in Stones River National Battlefield in Tennessee, erected in 1863 while the Civil War was still ongoing (restoration and repairs to it in 1985)

p 288

• August Bloedner Monument in Kentucky built in 1861

p 289

• Inaccurate claims about "has been designated by Congress" permissions to fly the flag. Not exactly. A personal letter to the president of the foundation from Congressman Lamar S. Smith in 1991 "it is appropriate and fitting that the 36 star flag be flown at half-mast for perpetuity in remembrance of the 36 souls who perished in this tragic episode of our country's history."
• One of the monument's benefactors, Marshall Steves, in 1996 saw a flag at half mast in perpetuity over a mass grave at Fort Mackinac State Historic Park. He asked Congressman Smith if it would also be appropriate to do the same at Treue der Union. Smith replied it would be, and Steves believes Smith obtained "certification" for it.

p 290

• Federal authorization would be a presidential proclamation, or a law
• The others "usually mentioned as flying the flag constantly at half-staff" - USS Arizona, Little Bighorn, Fort Mackinac, Arlington and Gettysburg - don't necessarily fly at half mast every day, and never 24 hours a day. None know of a protocol, law or congressional authorization to do so.
• Flag code provisions do not apply to individuals or organizations (The Comfort Heritage Foundation)
• The 36 stars on the Treue der Union flag are how many stars the flag had in 1866 when the monument was dedicated. During the Civil War, the flag only had 33 stars.

p 290-291

• Undated memo at the Comfort Heritage Foundation states the 36 star flag was chosen because it was the flag being flown when the monument was dedicated. The memo further states that it's a mere coincidence that 36 is the number of the dead honored.

p 291

• Comfort claims to be the only site flying a period flag. Not true. Flag House & Star-Spangled Banner Museum, Fort McHenry, Fort Sumter. They're not even the only ones in Texas: Fort Davis, Fort Concho.
• Claims that the monument shows support for the Union, not true. The dead include civilians not associated with the military, nine Confederate States Army soldiers and two union deserters.

p 292 Recap of all the false claims about the monument

Wow, that's a lot of misconceptions. You're on a roll. I see you have revised the article, but please do add more of this to the article. The NRHP nomination document, if it were available from the National Park Service online would have been at "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: or Registration: Treue der Union Monument". National Park Service. with photos. If it were available online from Texas Historical Commission it would have been listed here, but I don't see it in that directory or plausible subdirectories. Searching on "treue" at http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/ yields database entries on its historical marker and its National Register listing which aren't much help. The NRHP document should be available by email request, though. I am putting in a request right now (per instructions at wp:NRHPhelp) and might get an e-document in a week or a paper document in several weeks. -- do ncr am 04:14, 13 September 2016 (UTC) reply

It does give a person pause when we consider what we believe we know about any history, because it's what we've always been told or because that's what's in all the books. Thank you for trying to get a copy of the NRHP application. I can understand how the misinformation has built over the last 150 years. A little rural community honoring its dead in the era before electronic communications, in a time and place where history was all oral. But as oral history gets repeated, one little thing after another gets misheard or misstated. Or someone in that chain makes an erroneous assumption. And nobody has any reason to check the records. Later on, the mass media tend to accept that local historical organizations have everything exactly correct. — Maile ( talk) 12:51, 13 September 2016 (UTC) reply

I've been working on the section, and will continue to do so for a little while, I think. size-wise, it's all about balance. We don't need this section to have as much space as any other section, and certainly not more than the others do. But I think there should be a way to incorporate all these findings to a limited paragraph or two. I'll work on it. — Maile ( talk) 15:26, 13 September 2016 (UTC) reply

I can date the misinformation to two years earlier than Kiel, to 1936, which would have been the Texas Centennial year.

"Only Monument in South to Union Troops is in Texas". Pampa, Texas: Pampa Daily News. June 4, 1936. p. 3. Retrieved September 13, 2016 – via Newspaperarchives.com. {{ cite news}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) ( help)

No source is identified in the article, but it says it came from Comfort, Texas. The first paragraph is about the monument. The rest is a brief recap of the Battle of Nueces. Must have been a press release from somewhere. Not only are the title and details of the monument and the Nueces massacre repeated verbatim from one newspaper to the next that come up in search results dated 1936-1937, but it is also repeated almost verbatim in more current sourcing. I think the flag lore didn't originate until the 1990s. — Maile ( talk) 21:23, 13 September 2016 (UTC) reply