Southern Civil War Museums Shouldn't Reflect Northern Bias

To the editors:

While I was heartened to see that Adam A. Sofen decided to share the insights he learned during his visits with the hopelessly backward people of the Mississippi Delta (Opinion, July 9), I feel I must challenge a few of his assertions.

For some reason, Sofen seems genuinely shocked that the museum he visited in Mississippi didn't echo the anti-South bias he had been taught in history class.

Unlike Sofen, I find nothing alarming about the fact that the museum contained a "special room" for Jefferson Davis or "still-polished Confederate weapons." Sofen complains that these artifacts made the New South he'd read so much about in magazines "seem worlds away."

It's certainly his privilege to argue points of historical interpretation in Southern history, but what I found frightening was his belief that the history shouldn't be there at all. Sofen's message is loud and clear: Erase history in the name of "progress and racial harmony."

I also disagreed with Sofen's assertion that the museum presented revisionist, upside-down "Alice in Wonderland" history. As proof of the museum's inaccuracies, Sofen points to a placard which claims the Emancipation Proclamation allowed Lincoln's in-laws in Kentucky to "legally keep their slaves."

The museum was right. Of course they kept their slaves, and so did the entire state of Kentucky. Kentucky never joined the Confederacy and Lincoln's proclamation only applied to states in rebellion. So, in essence, Lincoln freed slaves he had no immediate power to free and kept enslaved those who he did indeed have the opportunity to free.

Since I've never been to the museum, I can't argue with Sofen's claim that they treat the Ku Klux Klan flippantly. I only hope it wasn't as flippantly as Sofen laughs off the Union army's wartime atrocities. The most infamous case involved Union Gen. John B. Turchin who looted, plundered, raped and ravaged Athens, Ala., during the war. When he was court-martialled, he received a presidential pardon and was then promoted by Lincoln, sending a clear message that atrocities were not only acceptable, but encouraged.

I grew up in the North and only moved South a few years ago. I view the Civil War as a conflict which claimed too many lives of brave men on both sides.

I will never challenge Sofen's right to interpret the Civil War as he wishes. But I think everyone who cares about history should contest Sofen's argument that we must alter history because it makes him feel uncomfortable.

Evan C. Woodberry

Tuscaloosa, Ala., July 14

The writer is a student at the University of Alabama.

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Liberal Hogwash

To the editors:

I find it hilarious that Harvard, the supposed academic mecca of the United States, has failed to teach Sofen what a museum is. A museum puts history on display. Thus, the museums of the South should tell us about the people who once lived in the South, and not about the people who live there presently. Sofen, on the other hand, thinks that museums should give us a picture of what the world is like today.

Sofen also thinks that this "New South," as he calls it, is so much better off just because there are black mayors in many of the cities and towns. Like most of the country today, Sofen measures progress by percentages of racial minorities in prominent positions. He looks at black men and women as numbers and not people.

Instead of inferring that race relations are better because there are black mayors, Sofen should infer that the men occupying the mayor's office must have had ideas which the citizens of the city favored. By immediately drawing racial conclusions from his observation, Sofen puts the spotlight back on the unfruitful discussion of race.

I encourage Sofen not to tarnish the image of almighty Harvard any further with his liberal hogwash.

S. Calvin Thigpen

University, Miss., July 12

The writer is a student at the University of Mississippi.