Choices

The Colonel worries another American Civil War is brewing. 

More seems to divide Americans today than unites us.  Our passions rule us -- driven by our selfishness and pride.  Constitutional protections of the rights of individuals be damned if they conflict with our feelings or convenience.

Pick your positional poison -- there's two diametrically opposed sides to the argument fueled less by critical analysis and rational thought and more by uncompromising self-interest and political power accumulation.

Each side easily points out the glaring inconsistencies and  inherent hypocrisies in the other's argument, all the while masking their own with mockery, misdirection, and more volume.

It's enough to make this old centurion cry "a pox on both your houses," and hide away on the social frontier to ride out the coming storm.   

Except... not choosing a side rarely works out.  One side or the other will eventually find you out and demand your loyalty or make you suffer their wrath.  History is replete with examples the Colonel could, but won't, parade across your screen.  If you haven't had the time to educate yourself on a bit of history to this point, it's doubtful the Colonel's efforts to do so will bear any fruit at this late date.

Suffice it to say -- you are going to have to pick a side. 

Pick carefully.  The winners will write the next chapters of our civilization's history; the losers will be written off and out.  

So, how to pick?  How to know which side is right?

Newsflash:  Neither side is right.

There is no such thing as the "right side of history."  There is only the "might" side of human history. 

Whichever side you choose will require, if you truly commit to that side's cause, that you compromise your principles, your faith, or your core values in one way or another.

Only God gets to adhere to absolutes.  Humans are inherently predisposed to shades of gray.  It's what makes us human.  We each carry our own identifying imperfections, else we would be robotic angels incapable of exercising the gift of self-determination and self-expression that makes each one of us distinguishable from the rest. 

So, you have a choice before you.  The same sort of choice that faced Americans in 1775.  You actually have three choices, just as they did.  And, remember, only the winners get to write history and proclaim which side was "right."

Like the American in 1775, you can stay loyal to an overbearing government, accepting more security in exchange for less liberty.

Or, like the American in 1775, you can choose to demand the freedom of limited self-government with far less guarantee of security from external threats. 

Or, you can choose what nearly a third of Americans did in 1775 -- attempt to ride the fence, hiding out on the frontier.

The Colonel's great (x 7) grandfather, Thomas Bry Gregory, attempted just that as the American revolution began.  He was content to sit out the fight started by those crazy Bostonions -- his home on the Southern frontier (Western North Carolina) was almost completely out of the reach of any government.  So much so that he probably didn't consider himself to be of any nationality whatsoever.  The strategy worked well for the first few years of the war, but wars have a habit of disregarding the best laid plans.

Perhaps the greatest British strategic mistake of the war was Cornwallis' campaign in the Southern colonies.  Failing to destroy Washington's army in the Northern colonies in the first few years of the war, British strategists began to see New England as a lost cause (at least in the short term) and turned their attention to shoring up the Loyalist cause in the far more valuable agricultural south.  The outbreak of revolution in New England had sparked a civil war in the south -- with British authority in the coastal enclaves replaced by revolutionary governments, bitter internecine score-settling raged across the southern interior.  Cornwallis was sent to pacify the southern colonies -- his actions (more accurately the actions of firebrand subordinates Tarleton and Ferguson) had the opposite effect.

Cornwallis captured Charleston, South Carolina in May of 1780 and pushed inland with a strategy of raising loyalist militias and restoring them to authority.   At Charlotte, Cornwallis dispatched Major Patrick Ferguson to raise loyalist militia in upstate South Carolina and thereby protect the western flank of the British main force in the South.  

Enter the Overmountain Men.

West of the Appalachians, American frontiersmen had settled lands almost completely separated from any governmental control -- British or revolutionary.  They proudly referred to themselves as the Overmountain Men.  In fact, they had established their own form of government -- a compact called the Watauga Association.   When the Revolution started, the Overmountain Men of the Watauga Association sided with the revolutionaries, formed militia companies, and began to raid loyalist settlements.  

After one particularly destructive raid, Major Ferguson and his loyalist battalion closely pursued but couldn't catch the Overmountain Men before they retreated safely back across the mountains.  Ferguson sent the following message to the Overmountain Men:  "Lay down your arms and swear allegiance to the Crown, or I will lay waste to your country with fire and sword."  

This didn't sit well with the Overmountain Men.

Not only did the Overmountain Men take up Ferguson's challenge, but they called on all of the patriots in the region to join with them in facing Ferguson.  

Enter Thomas Bry Gregory. 

The Colonel's great (x 7) grandfather had evidently had enough.  The civil war in the south had actually been much more damaging than the war in New England.  Whole towns and settlements had been been destroyed in the bitter back and forth between revolutionaries and loyalists.  Gregory threw in his lot with the revolutionaries.  His son, Harden Harley Gregory (the Colonel's great (x 6) grandfather), also joined the cause.

As word of the size of the force gathering to confront Ferguson reached his ears, he led his battalion back toward the safety of the region held by Cornwallis' main body.  They didn't make it.

The Colonel's great (x 6 and 7) grandfathers and 900 of their closest revolutionary comrades caught up to Ferguson and his 1100 loyalist militia at a piece of high ground called Kings Mountain.  Ferguson and his men had bivouacked on the crest and had no idea that they were surrounded until the shooting and hollering started.  Ferguson (the only non-American in the battle) was killed and his entire force killed or taken prisoner after a brutal hour of close-quarter battle.

The battle of Kings Mountain was a (if not the) turning point in the American Revolution.  The revolutionary militia success convinced Washington to send General Nathanael Greene and a wing of the Continental Army south to bolster the revolutionary cause and harry Cornwallis.  Cornwallis chased Greene and his subordinates across the Carolinas until, exhausted, he and his force fell back on Yorktown for reinforcement and replenishment.

The rest is history... if you care to study it.  

The Colonel expects, when the time for choosing comes, that he will side with the revolutionaries -- those choosing less security in exchange for more freedom -- like his great granddads.

The Colonel is a Rebel, afterall.