Dylan

= William H. Compton =

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Favorite quotes: “ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” ======

About Me:
 I was in one of the bloodiest, wait make that THE bloodiest war to hit the United States. It claimed about six hundred thousand, plus American soldiers. I was luckily, and unluckily one of the survivors. I fought for the Confederacy team. I represented my home state of Illinois. My name is William H. Compton. My first battle was at Baton Rouge Parish on August 15, 1862. The confederates and I were attempting to win back Baton Rouge Parish. We formed two divisions and then drove back all of the union units we ran into. The gunboats in the river began shelling us, so we had to get quick cover. We had a gunboat for our team but her engines failed and we could not use it. Eventually, when the battled dwelled down, we had lost our chance to regain the capital and we were forced to retreat after our gunboats engine failed again and it was destroyed. My second battle was Fort De Russy. It was at Avoyelles Parish. The union had launched a multi-purpose expedition into one of our headquarters in Louisiana. They had destroyed our traps and barricades in the river, and they were coming to steal Fort De Russy it was an earthen fortification that had an iron-plated battery designed to resist the fire of the Union’s ironclads. But in the end we had failed and lost the fort. My last battle was at Stirlings Plantation in 1863. We had won that battle and then one day on my way to wherever I was going I stopped at a house and my life changed… but that is a whole other story.

Status Updates:
 William H. Compton: " The U.S. population just increased 23.2 million. and .5 million of the three million that have just got here are not slaves but the rest are. Wow America is getting crazy."- 1850 William H. Compton: " Just got my self a copy of Sara Payton Willis Parton's new book Fern leaves from fanny's portfolio." -1853 William H. Compton: " The kansas and Nebraska act was just passed. Wow. They are really allowing them to decide the status of slavery in the territories?"-1854 William H. Compton: " what in gods name is the know-nothing party? this is creeping me out. i think this is a crazy year."-1854 William H. Compton: " so i just found out about this thing known as bleeding kansas. aparrently some pro and anti slavery guys decided to fight. i think war is on its way for all of us."-1855 William H. Compton: " oh yes oh yes people out there. James Buchanan and John Breckenridge got elected president and vice."-1856 William H. Compton: " How many people agree with the Dred Scott decision? I mean it makes sense that if they are not free but they have residence in a free territory that they are still considered slaves. Am i right? I hope I am."-1857 William H. Compton: " Abe Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin are the president and vice president. These are shadowy times."-1860 William H. Compton: " The U.S. population is now 31 million and half of them are on the other side of the mountains. There are now 4 million blacks enslaved."- 1860 William H. Compton: " South Carolina has just seceded from the union. this is not going to be good. War is now at our doorstep."-1860

Photo Album:
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[[image:this_man_helped_lead_my_troop_at_baton_rouge.jpg width="288" height="360" caption="This man was one of our leading officers at Baton Rouge, which was indeed my first battle."]]
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Notes:
__What is slavery?__  Slavery to me is the ensnarement of others and forcing them to do labor for no pay simply because you find them inferior to yourself. Like my people down south found the blacks inferior. Slavery exists simply because there are people that don’t understand that we are all different and unique. The people who start things like slavery are scared of things different from themselves whether they’re political, or religious disagreements and even differences in appearance. I will admit when the blacks first came I was very scared of them. They were so different. I had no clue what was wrong with them and they would always chant in weird tongues and they would talk weird all the time. Many people have died for and thanks to slavery. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Slavery is now looked on as this dark horrible thing. The problem is I don’t get it. Why is it such a problem now? I guess it is because of the hardships it has put upon us and the people that it haI guess slavery was this bad thing after all. It has made a huge dent in our social environment. The worst part is there is nothing we can do about it. What can we do? If there were a thing it would have been done. It is gone of course but it has scarred America as a whole. Slavery is this horrible thing that we have brought down onto us this horrible thing that has destroyed us, scarred us, and made us stronger. Yes! I have told you how horrible it is and that is true, but! It has made us what we are today. I mean we are now stronger and trying to lead out of the crisis we have hit recently. What do you call that? Not horrible not a scar, but triumph, learning from our mistakes. That is something good. Slavery is a band of tape holding America together. It has destroyed us and made us fight each other, but it was what led us to realizing our mistakes and now America is back on track. Racism will never disappear some people will always be raised that way but we can still hope to block it out and stay strong slavery exists because we had let it but it no longer does here in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Because we have overcome it!! And we have made ourselves strong again. Slavery exists because we decided it did, but now we have decided it does not. We will become a whole if we just work together no matter what our race or sexuality, no matter what our social, political and religious views are. We can become what we so desperately want to become. All because of the horrible things that slavery has done. Now is that the hardest thing to comprehend? It is for me. I will however, still fight to help us all become what we know that we can. We are American and we are strong and we can fight to overcome this whole slavery dilemma. Now I ask you what is slavery? Is it a simple definition or is it an elaborate triumph and loss that has hit America and caused this war and put us into a brand new way to think and look at things? That is the question that we should be asking everyone. __Three cases I have heard about resistance__ One case I have heard about resistance to slavery was when the Egyptians had enslaved the Jews. I like talking about this because this is one that did not involve America enslaving some random country and me myself I am Jewish. In this the Jews were used to build thing like large statues and pyramids for the Egyptian pharaohs. It was hard and full of pain. There were many fighting retaliations and run away slaves during this time. There were also other forms of resistance such as simply refusing to do things. Even though it was resistance they were either, beaten and tortured until they got back to work or until they died. It was horrible and I cannot imagine having to witness it. These people were treated with udder disrespect and it is surprising that they had the audacity to resist at all. Some how they managed to keep the courage and strength to resist as much as possible. Things like that well at least to me make me feel just like proud to be human because only humans could ever really have the strength to keep on going and going. And if I ever experience anything that terrible I will make sure that I always resist with all my life because if I just give up on that then what is the point. I don’t want people to walk all over me like that so I will show them how resistant I can be. Another case of resistance I have heard about is when the Europeans first came to America and met up with the Indians or as they are known now the Native Americans. They were soon enslaved for not only being different but also the Europeans wanted to take the land for themselves so they could “expand themselves”. They were slaves for a long time and they were look down at and discriminated against. Soon they started to slowly resist, as they grew more and more tired of the horrible treatment and the hard labor that they were forced to do. They began do have small battles. And resist by not doing work. Of course like always with resistance they were beaten or slaughtered. Soon it formed into a brutal all out war. Many men died and the Native Americans were almost lead to total extinction. The slavery was just as horrible as any other and the resistance was there as it is with all slavery. I think resistance is important because without it we get nowhere and we would probably be stuck in slavery forever. Never learning from our mistakes that we have made. My final case of slavery and resistance is the most obvious of them all and one of the most famous and important ones in America. When Americans enslaved the Africans. It was a huge problem that brought up tons of runaways and fighters. There were fights, battles, and even a huge war. There were runaways that joined in the Underground Railroad and got away to the northern states. Then people fought to get away from plantations and people refused to do work as well. People became abolitionists and tried everything to stop slavery. Soon there was a huge war between the northern union and the southern confederacy. The nation was divided completely by resistance. Not simply the reisistance of slaves but the word resistance as a whole. It was two sides resisting one another. The confederacy wanted to resist and have slavery and the union wanted to resist and not have slavery. So they continued to resist each other until America was literally split in two and total chaos erupted. The war was horrible but it helped us avoid what could have grown to become something much worse. There is a lot of resistance in the war right now and before it and now I feel like there will be more and more to come even after the war.

 __My reflection on the civil war__ Now after I have been through it looking back it seems very stupid. We owned slaves and abolitionists tried to stop slavery. There was chaos and then Abraham Lincoln couldn’t stop the Civil War from commencing. We, and by we I mean the confederacy, were selfish and we were being blind to the fact that we shouldn’t fight our own because we want slaves. I still do not find blacks as an equal race because we will be more powerful for years to come in my opinion, but there is no reason to kill our own fellow Americans. I think that the Civil War was a huge event and it didn’t have to be. Sure it was important to our decision and now that the union won we are making most likely the wrong one but I mostly fought for my home not really as much for slavery. Now that it is 1865 the country is headed for a whole new change. I mean now slavery is gone. We have never lived with no slaves. Our ancestors in America even had them. So I am not sure what is going to happen to America now. We have had many battles that devastated us during this war and now we need to recuperate. We are headed towards very mysterious times now that the civil war has ended on april 9th 1865 and the last shot was fired in june 1865. The country has really went down into ruin. I hope this is something we are able to recuperate from. I really hope America can pull it self back together slavery or no slavery I just hope. I mean what would the world be like without America. We play an important role. I mean I find us superior. We are smart, resourceful and strong. So far it looks pretty good for us and I think we can manage to help ourselves and become what we need to be in order to survive. I just hop that it is not too late for that ever since the huge war. Most confederates would most likely rather see America fall if there is going to be no more slavery, but I personally don’t really care because I was mostly fighting for my home of Illinois. I would rather fight and protect my family then fight and kill just because I want people to work for me for no money and whip them as I please. I mean that isn’t a very good thing to fight for it has no strength behind it. Actually I find fighting for slavery very selfish and I would not be in this war if it weren’t for the fact that my family was no longer safe and they forced us into battle anyway. Just in my eyes how many people do we need to let die just to get some people to be our slaves? Well I guess the answer is well over 600,000 because we still didn’t even win slaves for America. That just proves this war was not worth fighting for if you were a confederate soldier. I am sorry to those who have given their life for the confederacy. We have failed you all. May you all rest in peace because you fought well and you fought for the most important thing in the world. What you believe in. you will always be remembered by those which you have fought for. I respect you all even if you were fighting for slavery. You still deserve respect. I mean it was brutal that the union had 110,000 killed in action, 360,000 was their total amount of dead soldiers and 275,200 were wounded. And the confederacy had 93,000 killed in action, 260,000 we there total of dead soldiers and 137,000 were wounded. I really don’t think that any of this was needed in the end.

Bibliography: National Humanities Center "Timeline: 1800-1860"
 * nationalhumanitiescenter**.org/pds/triumph**national**ism/**timeline**.pdf March 24th, 2010

The American Battlefield Protection Program "CWSAC Battle Summaries" www.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/bystate.htm no date