Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tried to make a show of herself standing up for Confederate soldiers and “our nation’s history” on Tuesday night but failed spectacularly and instead revealed her own confusion about the Civil War. The MAGA representative visited the Wilder Brigade Monument in Georgia to claim that the memorial recognizes “Confederate soldiers.”
But despite Greene’s apparent rush to pay her respects to what she believed was a Confederate monument, the monument actually pays tribute to Union troops that battled the Confederates. The Union Army’s John T. Wilder unit — later nicknamed the Lightning Brigade— took the fight to Confederate troops during the Civil War.
A Greene spokesperson didn’t return The Daily Beast’s request for comment. The MAGA-loving lawmaker, beloved within Trumpworld, later edited the Truth Social post, which originally read: “Tonight, I stopped at the Wilder monument in Chickamauga, GA, which honors the Confederate soldiers of the Wilder Brigade. … I will always defend our nation’s history!”
The Lightning Brigade, also known as “Wilder’s Brigade” or the “Hatchet Brigade” was a mounted infantry brigade that fought in the Union Army during the Civil War. Led by Colonel John T. Wilder, the brigade was known for its use of Spencer Rifles and hard, fast fighting.
The Spencer repeating rifles and carbines were early American lever-action firearms invented by Christopher Spencer. The Spencer was the world’s first military metallic-cartridge repeating rifle.
