Return Artifacts Looted from the South - Commentary by Frank Gillispie

Return Artifacts Looted from the South – Commentary by Frank Gillispie

A priceless artifact was returned to the state of North Carolina last week, ending a 140 year effort to recover a looted piece of American history.

When General Sherman's marauding Yankee army entered the North Carolina capital building in Raleigh an unknown soldier raided a display case and stole one of the thirteen original copies of the Bill of Rights.

On May 10, 1897, a Mr. Shotwell of Indianapolis bought the stolen document for $5.00. He offered to sell it back to North Carolina that year, and again in 1925. But the state refused to pay out cash for a stolen document.

In the 1990's two 'Connecticut Yankees' bought the document for $200,000.00 One of them is a regular appraiser on the Antique Road Show.

In 2003 the two, through lawyers, approached the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia about selling the Bill of Rights. Pennsylvania Governor Rendell called North Carolina Governor Easley to see if they might jointly buy it. Instead, Easley's lawyers set up a sting operation. When the Yankee's lawyer produced the document for what he thought was a sale, the FBI seized the treasure. A federal district court ordered the document returned to North Carolina. It was delivered to Governor Easley and is now back in the North Carolina archives.

Now I find this story to be a victory for States Rights and Southern Culture. And it leads me to wonder how many other items stolen from Southerners during the War of Northern Aggression are out there and can be identified and reclaimed.

As the Union armies, Sherman's in particular, swept across the south they looted, robbed, and vandalized public and private property in vast quantities. Jewelry, fine china, rare books, clothing and historic documents were hauled away and sent back home. Thousands of northern women showed up in church wearing fine dresses and valuable jewelry stolen from Southern homes, just before the buildings were torched.

Sherman's forces stripped bare a wide swath of Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah. Sheridan's men did the same in the Shenandoah valley.

The looting did not stop after the war. The so called 'reconstruction' saw millions of acres of farms ripped away from the legal owners by excessive property taxes and the money seized by the imposed carpetbagger governments.

Now, we hear a lot now about reparations. People who believe they are owed something because their distant ancestors were slaves. During the so called reconstruction several organizations such as the Freedman's Bureau were formed to do just that. They were supposed to provide freed slaves with land and equipment and teach them to provide for themselves and their families. The fact that most of these funds were also stolen away by the looters simply puts the former slaves in the same severe poverty as everyone else.

If reparations are due, they are due to the descendents of those Southerners, black and white, who were victimized by the union army and the union bureaucrats. Those northern states and individuals who still hold Confederate battle flags should return them immediately. Every college, museum, and private collector should be required to inventory their holdings to see how many of them were stolen from the south and immediate measures taken to return them.

Then, those families, like mine, who were reduced from independent farmers to share croppers should be extended an apology and given a chance to obtain federal assistance in recovering some of the wealth stolen from them by Yankee marauders.

The invasion of the South led to an orgy of theft, looting and destruction that left the region in dire poverty. Some areas of the South still rank among the most poverty stricken areas of the nation.

It is good that the rare stolen document was returned to North Carolina. It should set the example for other artifacts looted from the South.