President Joe Biden on Wednesday awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry to two Union soldiers who stole a locomotive deep in Confederate territory during the Civil War and drove it north for 87 miles (140 kilometers) as they destroyed railroad tracks and telegraph lines.
Cool cool, but don’t we have more important things to do right now, like preserving democracy?
Oh my sweet summer child…
We saw a last vestiges of that 30 years ago
that’s on you dummy! you go out there and vote. i am busy dealing with matters from my younger days 700 years ago.
Oh, that’s already gone. Preserving the duopoly is all you have.
This is a great historical story. The raid was conceived by a civilian who wanted to steal a train behind confederate lines and then ride it while destroying the tracks behind in order to disrupt confederate logistics. The raid turned into a chase as the conductor of the stolen train chased the raiders on a series of handcarts and trains, while the raiders attempted to disrupt telegraph wires and tracks. Eventually the raiders had to abandon their stolen train and were captured, with some escaping, some being executed, and some being held as POWs. I actually made a post about the man who conceived of the raid a while back in the American Civil War community here.
The other soldiers in the raid were awarded the newly created MOH during the war. These two soldiers were retroactively awarded the MOH by Congress in 2008, so I am not sure why it took so long for the award to be presented.
I need a movie!
There’s also Buster Keaton’s The General (1926). They switched it up though and had the confederates doing the raiding and the union doing the chasing.
What is the point of this? Who is he scoring points with? They must have made a couple extra medals by accident.
Tbf they were his childhood friends
Trump’s friends got pretty mad that they messed up their train
I would make the same joke about trump, but we all know he didn’t have any childhood friends.
And we also know that none of his acquaintances fought for the union.
And that’s more of a fact than a joke… I read too much is never enough. He was a very delusional child and so much of that was the fault of his father. Not that that is any excuse for him as an adult to do the shit he does. It just explains it
I agree, this is important to emphasise. I don’t want to ever slip into the mindset of dehumanising Trump in the same way that him and his allies dehumanise people like me, because I think that drive to so thoroughly otherize political opponents is a key driver of fascistic thinking. Having empathy for people like Trump (and those that follow him) doesn’t excuse their actions or beliefs, but I think it’s important
one day we will have the time for the people in the here and now
Pardon Snowden?
Read it, don’t understand how this is relevant to Snowden.
Instead of giving medals of Honor to a bunch of dead people he could actually be doing something serious by pardoning whistleblowers that were targeted by the Obama administration
Pep was drunk. that’s it. you’re trying to defend and give meaning to a mistaken drunk post.
I agree with it, as usually they are performative instead of substantive
Pay more attention to the comment threading, your reply is not relevant to what I’m talking about.
Pardon Snowden?
That’s how this thread started, how exactly would my reply not be relevant to the thread?
Tell me you didn’t actually go back and recheck the conversation without telling me.
Because in reply to “pardon Snowden” someone posted an irrelevant link about Trump pardons and that link is what I replied to. If you actually read the conversation you’ll see they were drunk and don’t know why they posted it either.
So it sounds like the only thing irrelevant in this entire thread was the post comment you replied to. My remarks on Snowden are relevant to the thread because the thread started as a topic about Snowden.
I’m genuinely confused on what this is supposed to mean
Hmm. Me too. Pretty sure I had a point but I was a bit drunk and couldn’t articulate it. I don’t think I meant to post it. Oops.
Drunk posting is best posting
Maybe they were also the ones who stole his trains of thought.
Swing and a miss
Shouldve given them a gold plated dung pile
These were union soldiers who stole a confederate train.
OIC. Well in that case praise them to the highest mountain top
Fighting against slavers is something that should be celebrated. It’s like punching a Nazi, there’s just no situation where it isn’t the right thing to do.
You might want to put an edit in your original comment clarifying your stance.
This is a pretty amazing story. Dope pick actually.
For those that would like the story told with a little stylized flair:
https://nebula.tv/videos/extrahistory-civil-war-train-heist-the-first-medals-of-honor-us-history/
Is this also the plot of Buster Keaton’s The General?
According to the video link above, yes
Grand Theft Loco: Civil War
The story leaves out they were school mates
