Friday, August 30, 2013
Friday, August 9, 2013
Save the Dates! S. D. Lee Institute Comes to Chatanooga, TN - February 2014
The Sons of Confederate Veterans is proud to present the 2014 Stephen Dill Lee Institute to be held in Chatanooga, Tennessee, on February 7-8, 2014, at the Hilton Doubletree Hotel.
Registrations and hotel reservations can be made now.
Please review our website at www.StephenDLeeInstitute.com for information about the event and hotel. More details will be forthcoming.
THE SOUTH EXPERIENCES THE FIRST MODERN TOTAL WAR
Speakers will include---
Donald Livingston Total War and the Creation of American Nationalism
Muriel Joslyn The Effects of Total War on Prisoner Policy
Kirkpatrick Sale Violating the Leiber Code: The March to the Sea
David Aiken Monsters of Virtuous Pretensions
James Russell My Family's Personal History and the Devastation of our South Carolina Plantation
Douglas Bostick To be announced
Please mark your calendars for February 7-8. This will be the best Stephen D. Lee Institute yet. More news will be forthcoming.
Brag Bowling
Director
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
MOC Merger Put on Hold?
Museum merger stopped for now
Published 11:34pm Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Email Comments
A letter-writing campaign led by a Suffolk man has succeeded in getting three Richmond museums to put off discussions of a merger.
Leadership at the Museum of the Confederacy had been considering a plan to distribute its collection among other groups and sell its building, according to a blog post on the Sons of Confederate Veterans website signed by Commander in Chief Michael Givens. The Virginia Historical Society and the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, among others, would have taken parts of the collection, according to the plan.
As Virginia Division commander of the group of veterans’ descendents, Suffolk resident Mike Pullen helped lead the charge to put a stop to the plan he says would have put artifacts and documents in the hands of groups that are not “Confederate-friendly.”
“What we’re trying to do is just ensure that American history is protected and saved,” he said. “We want to make sure that all American history is saved for future generations.”
If the building were sold, the White House of the Confederacy would be “isolated in an urban canyon” and lost to tourist traffic, according to the blog post. “To think that it will be (able) to sustain itself financially in that condition is difficult to imagine.”
The blog post called upon folks to express their opinion to the museum’s leadership, and emails from Pullen to his contacts did the same.
Pullen said museum officials seem to have backed off their plan, for now, and are talking only of collaboration, rather than a merger.
“We want to make sure it doesn’t go back to merging and doing away with the Museum of the Confederacy,” he said. “Right now, it’s kind of a wait-and-see type thing, and be vigilant and watch.”
Pullen said the Confederate Literacy Society collected many of the artifacts and documents in the collection immediately after the war ended, and the collection soon evolved into the Museum of the Confederacy. In the 150 years since, the collection has expanded many times over, thanks to donations from individuals giving family heirlooms and other treasures.
Pullen said he has visited the other museums and believes they’re not “Confederate-friendly,” from his own experiences.
“I’ve been there, and I’ve seen it,” he said. “It says the cause of the Civil War was slavery. That’s not the case. It wasn’t even a civil war. In a civil war, you’re trying to take over another government; the South wanted to be left alone and secede from the government.”
Pullen said the main goal of the letter-writing campaign he helped lead is to preserve history for future generations and honor the veterans.
“They’re all American veterans,” he said. “They’re not traitors to the country. They were fighting for a just cause during that time period. We want to take care of the history, the good and the bad. We need to have that out there for future generations.”
http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/2013/08/06/museum-merger-stopped-for-now/
Published 11:34pm Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Email Comments
A letter-writing campaign led by a Suffolk man has succeeded in getting three Richmond museums to put off discussions of a merger.
Leadership at the Museum of the Confederacy had been considering a plan to distribute its collection among other groups and sell its building, according to a blog post on the Sons of Confederate Veterans website signed by Commander in Chief Michael Givens. The Virginia Historical Society and the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, among others, would have taken parts of the collection, according to the plan.
As Virginia Division commander of the group of veterans’ descendents, Suffolk resident Mike Pullen helped lead the charge to put a stop to the plan he says would have put artifacts and documents in the hands of groups that are not “Confederate-friendly.”
“What we’re trying to do is just ensure that American history is protected and saved,” he said. “We want to make sure that all American history is saved for future generations.”
If the building were sold, the White House of the Confederacy would be “isolated in an urban canyon” and lost to tourist traffic, according to the blog post. “To think that it will be (able) to sustain itself financially in that condition is difficult to imagine.”
The blog post called upon folks to express their opinion to the museum’s leadership, and emails from Pullen to his contacts did the same.
Pullen said museum officials seem to have backed off their plan, for now, and are talking only of collaboration, rather than a merger.
“We want to make sure it doesn’t go back to merging and doing away with the Museum of the Confederacy,” he said. “Right now, it’s kind of a wait-and-see type thing, and be vigilant and watch.”
Pullen said the Confederate Literacy Society collected many of the artifacts and documents in the collection immediately after the war ended, and the collection soon evolved into the Museum of the Confederacy. In the 150 years since, the collection has expanded many times over, thanks to donations from individuals giving family heirlooms and other treasures.
Pullen said he has visited the other museums and believes they’re not “Confederate-friendly,” from his own experiences.
“I’ve been there, and I’ve seen it,” he said. “It says the cause of the Civil War was slavery. That’s not the case. It wasn’t even a civil war. In a civil war, you’re trying to take over another government; the South wanted to be left alone and secede from the government.”
Pullen said the main goal of the letter-writing campaign he helped lead is to preserve history for future generations and honor the veterans.
“They’re all American veterans,” he said. “They’re not traitors to the country. They were fighting for a just cause during that time period. We want to take care of the history, the good and the bad. We need to have that out there for future generations.”
http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/2013/08/06/museum-merger-stopped-for-now/
Richmond to have Battle Flag to Greet Visitors
15-Foot Confederate Flag to Be Installed on I-95
Posted: Aug 06, 2013 2:54 PM CDT Updated: Aug 06, 2013 6:46 PM CDT
Battle Flag to Fly Over I-95 Near Richmond
Virginia group buys land to fly Confederate battle flag over I-95
A group of Virginia residents say that they are purchasing a plot of land and intend to use it to fly a 15-foot Confederate battle flag in the view of motorists driving on Interstate 95 near Richmond.
In a message on the Free North Carolina website, Susan Hathaway explained that the group Virginia Flaggers would begin installing the flag next week.
“The Va Flaggers are THRILLED to announce that we have finalized a lease to acquire property adjacent to Interstate 95, just South of Richmond, and will be erecting a 50’ pole, on which a 10 x15 Confederate Battle Flag will fly 24/7, 365 days of the year,” Hathaway wrote. “The flag will serve to welcome visitors and commuters to Richmond, and remind them of our honorable Confederate history and heritage.”
She said that the group had received an “excellent deal on a pole” and would “complete this project at a cost of just under $3,000.”
Last year while protesting the Museum of the Confederacy’s decision not to fly the flag in front of the museum, Hathaway told The Richmond Times-Dispatch that groups likes the Ku Klux Klan had tarnished the reputation of the Confederacy.“It’s a symbol of my ancestors and what they fought for and what they gave their lives for in a lot of cases,” she explained. “We feel like it’s dishonoring them to put some kind of shame on the flag and make it something that has to be hidden.”
In 2008, the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa raised what they said was the world’s largest Confederate flag over one of the busiest highways in Florida.
Note: A great number of hate filled comments are on the webpage where this article appears.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/06/virginia-group-buys-land-to-fly-confederate-battle-flag-over-i-95/
Friday, August 2, 2013
SCV Member in Afghanisan Addresses Museum of the Confederacy
Subject: Urgent From Afghanistan - Museum of the Confederacy
Gentlemen,
I am writing from Afghanistan. I don’t have the time to do so, but this issue is so important to me that it requires that I place a portion of my time away from fighting our enemies to address one of my worst fears – the dissolution of the Museum of the Confederacy and its assets distributed across several other museums. I am a warrior and the descendent of many Confederate soldiers. The memory of their sacrifice is just as important as those my brothers, sisters, and I have made for our nation. The Museum of the Confederacy has been a depository of all things Confederate since its inception and THE place where their memory will remain for all times. Many Confederate soldiers and their families gave freely to the museum so that their sacrifices would be husbanded for the future. I, too, have considered what to do with all the uniforms, gear, letters, memorabilia, and items I have collected throughout my career and the 5 combat deployments I have made in defense of my nation. To give my personal treasure to a museum dedicated to the perpetual care and remembrance of my sacrifice is a sacred trust. Just as I will give my historical artifacts used in the defense of my nation to a museum, thousands of veterans and their families have also given their treasure to the Museum of the Confederacy for perpetual care and remembrance. To merge with other organizations, remove the name, and distribute the collective memories the Museum of the Confederacy is a mockery to their gifts and the purpose for which they gave them.
You have a duty to perform to the good of the institution you represent and I humbly ask for you to perform that duty for which you were chosen. You have a sacred duty to serve this institution for a term before giving it to my generation. The dissolution of it is not part of that duty. Just as I expect any institution to honor my gifts and honorably perpetuate the memory of my sacrifice, I humbly request that the Museum of the Confederacy continue in its current form for the sole purpose for which it was created. To do otherwise is to dishonor those whom the museum represents.
I ask as a warrior son who knows only so well that death is the least of our concerns. Just like my ancestors, I am more than willing to sacrifice my life and all my future memories and pleasures for my country – as long as that my life is not wasted and that my sacrifice is honored. The Museum of the Confederacy exists for the sole purpose of honoring these men and it needs to live in perpetuity for that purpose. If not, then it is the responsibility of the museum to return those artifacts to the families from which they came rather than send them to other institutions for which the original purpose was not designed.
I am more than willing to take any position on the museum staff to include the president of the museum. We must not let this memorial die.
Thank you for your time,
Semper Fidelis,
Mike Landree
LtCol, USMC
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
Colonel Landree received a very encouraging response from Mr. Carlton Moffatt Jr who has served on the MOC board for the past ten years including four years as the board chairman. Mr. Moffatt is also a military veteran who served in the Army during World War II in Italy as a member of the 1st Armored Division.