More Neoconfederate nonsense

As I mentioned in my last post, the Neo-confederates don't like my Civil War novel's negative portrayal of Bloody Bill Anderson, rapist and murderer of unarmed prisoners. Big surprise.

The admin over at the Missouri in the Civil War Message Board deleted the thread, saying,

"The message boards extend a courtesy to our "Contributing Authors" to promote their books, articles, speaking engagements, etc. In the case of a book or article posting, I must ask that any critique of an author's work be on the highest and most polite level. If you have an "historical" issue with the content of an author's work, please specifically address a statement from the book or article with page numbers, dates, the text in question and your documented response to the author's position. No personal or "petty" exchanges will be tolerated on the message board from authors or respondents. Thanks for your cooperation."

Yeah, I was partly guilty for the petty exchange, but as anyone who knows me knows, I have a zero-tolerance policy to assertive stupidity. Despite the admin's words, Bloody Bill's #1 fan Neil Block wrote again. This time he used a spell checker, sort of.

"One last time, if it remains here, I'll express an opinion. I hope it suits this board:

I find it unexceptable for anyone to make remarks or assumptions about the mental condition of anyone who has been involved in close quarters combat in any war. If you ain't been there, don't assume that you would be able to handle the stress in any given situation or the results of having war waged upon "your soil" and againest your friends and family. None of us can judge others or be for sure how many of us would regain their humanity after having cared so little for it to survive. For 150 years those have that demeaned Missourians to be less than perfect in their eyes have assumed that they are moral & intellectual superior to the rest of us. Promoting work that makes statements about real life soldiers should be based on works by those that actually knew the soldier and not statements made in judgement by his adversaries. I know there are soldiers and former soldiers that read this message board and if they have been CQC they may have known a few "Bill's", but they have also known some "John's"........John McCorkle suffered the same fate as Bill Anderson did, CQC, losing family in the same event, but John was able to return and make a life after the war. We don't know his ghosts but he was able to maintain his civility thru some pretty tough times...........Nobody Knows Who Will Return..............that is why soldiers make the best peace makers...........beating up on Bill Anderson has made quiet a few folks a little $$$......."Doing right ain't got no end" is the redleg way..........defending his victims is mine..........Neil Block"

To which I responded,

"And I find it unacceptable for anyone to make remarks or assumptions about a book they haven't even read.
I hope this thread does stay up because it points out the narrow pro-Confederate bias that is all too obvious among some in the community. The idea that one side was bloodthirsty and evil and the other side was perfect and honorable is contrary to the facts. Both sides did terrible things in that war, and both sides included honorable men.
Mr. Block says: "Promoting work that makes statements about real life soldiers should be based on works by those that actually knew the soldier and not statements made in judgement by his adversaries."
I'd like to see him apply that idea to Union soldiers and Redlegs as well Confederate soldiers and bushwhackers."

Will this end the debate? I doubt it, considering the Neoconfederates griping at me anonymously in the comments section. Those comments were all redirected to my blog from the same cc'ed message sent via Yahoo mail. Gee, I wonder who sent THAT? Blogger tells you some amazing things if you understand the system.