As the Presidential election season starts, we are seeing some really radical ideas coming from the left. One of them is the idea of paying reparations to those we wronged long ago. Mostly, it's about paying off descendants of slavery. Judging from my Ancestry DNA test, I don't qualify. So if reparations are going to be paid, it looks like I and other Wonder-Bread skin colored people are going to be cut out of the deal.
Harrumph, say I. If there's gonna be free dough, I want some. And after considerable thought, I've figured out a convincing way to get some: If we're going to pay off millions of slave descendants, then we ought to pay off those that fought and died to free the slaves also. It's estimated 2% of the US population died fighting in the Civil War. In real numbers, that's said to be about 620,000 human beings. NY State had the highest number lost, and of the 51,000 lost at Gettysburg, my maternal grandfathers uncle was lost in the early hours of fighting on 1 July 1863.
Private William Cameron Fox enlisted in October, 1861 at Cortland, NY in Company A of the 76th NYS Volunteers. He was all of 19 years old at the time and Abraham Lincoln needed him, or so he was told. From his muster and payroll papers I've obtained from the National Archives, he spent time in NY City and moved down through Maryland. He was in the DC area for a while, but fate called him along with many others to the northwest corner of Gettysburg in June of 1863. Unfortunately for him, Robert E Lee descended upon Gettysburg in the early morning hours of July 1, 1863. Lee sent a massive force in from the west with a pincer movement from the north and by 10'o clock (or so) in the morning, Private Fox took a rebel bullet in the throat and died shortly after.
He was one of 51,000 casualties in the 3 days of fighting at Gettysburg. He was one of those 620,000 lost in the Civil War. The north won, the slaves were freed and generations did their thing which brings us to the present day.
Ah, reparations. I've already written about these in a previous blog. Yes, I don't take a liking to the idea of them. But if there's 1 cent doled out in the name of reparations, damn sure I want some.
Private William Cameron Fox was all of 21 years old when he was KIA. He never married, never had children and his future was robbed from him. In all reality, he probably forfeited 3/4 of his life.
What's worse? Being a slave or dying to end slavery? I don't know.
But I do know one thing: If the kooky and utterly insane idea of reparations ever really sees the light of day (and not as an election bait issue), it would be unfair to pay one group without paying the other. And in that light, where do I and all my sibling descendants of the Fox family sign up?
Yeah, I'm being sarcastic. In reality, I am still 100% against reparations. But again, if 1 cent is ever doled out for them, color me deserving of them also.
I scanned in all of William Foxes paperwork I got back from the National Archives. They make for good reading. Here's a few pages of them:
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