Bushwhacker Days - history is alive!

Most of the Bushwhacker celebration is over, but the finale is worth sticking around for. Saturday, as the final day of Bushwhackers each year, is the day to be on the Nevada Square.

Booths offering crafts, food, games artwork and other creations are operated by local clubs and organizations, as well as vendors from around the four-state area.

Most citizens of Vernon County can tell you that Bushwhacker Days tells of the county and city history concerning the Civil War times. The word “Bushwhacker” indicates a guerilla fighter but locally it is used to describe the local lads who served in the Civil War — many on the Confederate side — who had to take time off from the war to come back to their farms to plant a crop, harvest the crops and pay taxes to keep the farm going until the war was over.

Women, wives, mothers and children had to tend to the animals and pretty much fend for themselves when their husbands and sons were in the military. Often, passing soldiers of either side would stop and demand food, horses, livestock and even clothing, shoes and coats. Sons in their mid-teens were conscripted on the spot by whichever military group happened upon them and made to serve.

It was more than a difficult time. The war dragged on for years when most thought it wouldn’t take but a few months to settle the arguments for a balance of power in Congress. You see, the war wasn’t so much about anti-slavery vs slavery, but was more about new states being added to the nation as either slave states or free states.

Each time a territory, such as Kansas, decided to apply for statehood, its citizens had to vote to be counted as either a free state or a slave state.

Not only were individuals and companies paying good money to help people that would vote as they wanted, (for Kansas to be a free state) even paying transportation and expenses to get trains (steam and horse or ox drawn) full of them from back East to settle in Kansas. Once they claimed land, they could vote.

Of course, since there was no census and proof of where one lived, especially newcomers with no one to vouch for them being legal land owners, it was easy for people of the opposite inclination to come to the voting booths and vote for Kansas to be a slave state. It was even told that some of these independent voting folks wandered west from Missouri on voting days.

Just as our government continues to find today, it seems we can’t have more of “red” or “blue” states and still keep Congress balanced. Keeping Congress “balanced” seems as unlikely as keeping its members civil when debating any and all issues.

Let’s hope another “civil” war doesn’t break out; and if it does, let’s hope Missouri and Vernon County don’t become the tightly stretched rubber band this area was during “the” war.

As far as the slavery issue goes, a news program on television a few weeks ago was covering the issue of modern day slavery where women, young girls and young boys are kidnapped and/or purchased to be sold as slaves around the globe. It is estimated that there are more slaves today than ever before!

This isn’t just in the United States; but the United States has women and children missing every day. Slavery these days goes by the name human trafficking and is an international problem.

Of course, slavery has historically affected every race. When there was a war in past eras, conquered peoples were taken as slaves, or remained on their land to work as slaves for their new owners. Slavery is not a racial issue. Most races have enslaved people of their own race following a war or simple raids or hit and run battles.

It’s important to remember during this celebration of the survivors of a past civil war between Americans that humans are not commodities. It is imperative to understand that all men, women and children have the desire to be free and to recognize that not all governments guarantee them that right. Keeping Americans free means knowing our history and accepting our responsibility to do what is needed to ensure today’s and tomorrow’s generations remain free; whether we do that with a ballot or a letter to our government representatives, or by joining search parties to find missing citizens.