Sons of Confederate Veterans

Real Son James Brown Sr. Passes Away

2012-01-29T12:36:00.002-05:00

James Brown Sr., one of last real sons of Confederate veterans, dies at 99
By Lance Coleman
January 28, 2012

James Brown Sr., 99, of Tellico Village, one of the last real sons of a Confederate veteran, died Thursday afternoon in a Farragut nursing home, his son, James Brown, said Saturday afternoon.

James Brown Sr.'s father, James H.H. Brown, served in the 8th Georgia Infantry's Company K and fought throughout the Civil War.

Mr. Brown would've turned 100 on Valentines's Day.

Norman Shaw, founder of the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable, recalled meeting Mr. Brown.

"It is definitely a direct connection to the past when you can say this gentleman's father fought in the Civil War," he said. "We call them real sons and real daughters of Confederate veterans."

James Brown said his grandfather was 71 when his father, James Brown Sr., was born in 1912.

"My Dad and I are so lucky to be alive," James Brown recalled.

James H.H. Brown joined the Confederate army at the beginning of the Civil War and fought in 19 major battles, including Manassas, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Campbell Station and Fort Sanders.

"He made it to the end at Appomattox with the surrender of Lee and then he walked back home," James Brown said. "He was wounded twice and, back then with the medical situation, he could've had a leg lopped off and bled to death."

James Brown said his father was 11 when James H.H. Brown died. He said his grandfather wasn't bitter with former Union soldiers.

"I always remember about my grandfather telling my dad he had nothing against Yankees," James Brown said. "They were good men and he was a good man. It was just something they had to do."

Brown Sr. also had a daughter by a second wife. Mr. Brown lived in Tucson, Ariz., for 19 years and was close to his daughter's family, his son said.

Mr. Brown had lung cancer two years ago and had treatment. His son said Mr. Brown's health began to deteriorate quickly in the past few weeks.

"At 100, everything starts to wear out. He went very quietly. He went in peace, comfortable without pain," his son said. "He had a ton of friends who came down to see him the last couple days. He was a popular man, a real country gentleman. He enjoyed people and they enjoyed him."

A memorial service is set for 11 a.m. Feb. 14 at Tellico Village Community Church. Click Funeral Home in Lenoir City is in charge of arrangements.

http://m.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jan/28/james-brown-sr-one-of-last-real-sons-of-veterans/?partner=RSS

President Tyler's Grandchildren Alive ;

2012-01-25T17:46:00.001-05:00

Former President John Tyler’s (1790-1862) grandchildren still alive
By Eric Pfeiffer

Former President John Tyler, born 221 years ago, still has two living grandchildren. The one-term president isn't a well-known historical figure; he's probably best remembered for helping to push through the annexation of Texas in 1845, shortly before leaving office.

So, how is it possible that a former president who died 150 years ago would still have direct descendents alive today? As it turns out, the Tyler men were known for fathering children late in life. And that math is pretty outstanding when added up:

John Tyler was born in 1790. He became the 10th president of the United States in 1841 after William Henry Harrison died in office. Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853, at age 63. Then, at the age of 71, Lyon Gardiner Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. in 1924 and four years later at age 75, Harrison Ruffin Tyler. Both men are still alive today.

That means just three generations of the Tyler family are spread out over more than 200 years. President Tyler was also a prolific father, having 15 children (8 boys and 7 girls) with two wives.

He even allegedly fathered a child, John Dunjee, with one of his slaves.

Some context on Tyler's progeny: Jane Garfield (granddaughter of James Garfield) is 99, making her the oldest living grandchild of a former president, even though Garfield took office 40 years after Tyler.

Former Ambassador John Eisenhower is the oldest living presidential child, turning 89this past August.

A few other Tyler tidbits:

He joined the South's secession efforts shortly before his death and was even elected to the Confederate House of Representatives.
Because of his Confederate ties, Tyler's is the only presidential death not officially mourned.

Tyler ascended to the presidency in 1841. Other things that happened that year: Canada became a nation; the United States Senate has its first filibuster, lasting nearly a month; the city of Dallas, Texas was founded.

Tyler was the first person to ascend to the presidency through succession as vice president.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/former-president-john-tyler-1790-1862-grandchildren-still-191230189.html

Time To Vote

2012-01-17T21:28:00.000-05:00

Please vote in the Rockbridge Weekly polls .This poll runs till Feb. 17th and asks if the SCV is a racist organization. There are three unrelated questions to answer as well.

http://www.rockbridgeweekly.com/ppoll.php

Bearss on Forrest

2012-01-16T17:56:00.001-05:00

Forrest Gets The Bulge On Sooy Smith
January 16, 2012
by Edwin C. Bearss

The following article first appeared in Morningside Bookshop’s Catalog 18, issued in September 1985.

In early February 1864 Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman marched 20,000 soldiers eastward from Vicksburg to Meridian, Mississippi, driving Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk’s little army into Alabama. Sherman’s army remained at Meridian from the 14th to the 20th anxiously awaiting the arrival from Memphis of 7,000 cavalry led by Maj. Gen. W. Sooy Smith. Not hearing anything from Smith, Sherman led his columns back to Vicksburg.

Sooy Smith and his powerful mounted corps on their foray deep into Mississippi were fated to meet Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and his 2,500 “critter” cavalrymen. Although the Yanks outnumbered the Rebs almost three to one, Forrest, one of the great combat leaders of American history, evened the odds. Forrest, a physically powerful man, knew that war meant fighting and fighting meant killing, a philosophy that made him a terrible enemy. In the running engagement, known as the battle of Okolona, Forrest demonstrated these qualities of leadership as he and his men put the “skeer on Sooy Smith and his corps.”

Smith’s 7,000 horsemen had left Memphis on February 11, ten days late. When they took the field, their march was slowed by muddy roads and it was the 16th before they crossed the Tallahatchie at New Abany. Riding down the Pontotoc Ridge, the bluecoats struck the Mobile & Ohio Railroad at Okolona on February 18. Two days later, one mile north of West Point, Sooy Smith’s troops encountered and drove one of Forrest’s brigades through the town. Smith now lost his nerve. Satisfied that Sherman was already en route back to Vicksburg from Meridian and that Forrest had been reinforced, Smith, on the 21st, retired from West Point to Okolona.

Forrest and his men resumed that pursuit at first light on the 22d. By mid-morning the Confederates had advanced some 14 miles overtaking the Yankees as they neared Okolona. Forrest’s efforts to cut off and destroy the enemy rear guard as it passed through the town were frustrated by the usual problems in coordinating converging columns, and the enemy retreated northwestward up the Pontotoc road. The chase continued, Forrest leading his escort.
At Ivey’s Hill, some six miles beyond Okolona, the Federals came to a stand. Dismounting they occupied a timber-covered ridge and threw up fence rail barricades across the road. Col. Jeffrey Forrest, the general’s youngest and favorite brother, led the attack on the Yankee roadblock.

In the ensuing desperate fighting, Jeffrey was shot through the neck and fell mortally wounded, within 300 yards of the enemy strongpoint. His men faltered as they saw their leader fall, and, dismounting, they prepared to hold the ground gained. General Forrest, informed that his brother had been shot, galloped to the site and dismounted. Jeffrey died as Nathan Bedford cradled him in his arms and called out “Jeffrey, Jeffrey” in a voice choked with emotion. Satisfied that Jeffrey was dead, Forrest kissed him on the forehead, laid him down, and called for Maj. John P. Strange, and, with tears in his eyes, asked him to take care of his brother’s body.

In the immediate vicinity, battle-hardened Confederates had ceased fire, but to the right and left the dismounted Rebels exchanged shots with the bluecoats on the ridge. As reinforcements came into view, Forrest remounted and brandishing his saber ordered his bugler to sound the charge, as he shouted for his men to follow him. With his escort hard on his horse’s heels, Forrest galloped toward the enemy, and to some of his people his actions seemed “so rash as to savor madness.” The Federal troopers defending the roadblock “broke to the rear and retreated at great speed.” Forrest, closely trailed by some 120 of his men, pursued. About a mile up the road, some 500 Yanks were encountered. Forrest, undaunted by the odds, assailed the roadblock. One of the war’s most furious hand-to-hand fights occurred, in which the general killed three of the enemy horse soldiers. Just as it seemed that Forrest and his small force was about to be overwhelmed, Col. “Black Bob” McCulloch, wounded earlier in the day’s fighting, led his brigade to his general’s rescue, brandishing his bloodstained bandaged hand above his head as a flag.

The Federals gave way before the Rebel reinforcements, pulled back about a mile, and rallied on a plantation house, its outbuildings, and fences. Forrest’s horse, as he led his men toward the stronghold, was killed. One of the escort surrendered his steed to the general, as the Federals soon abandoned this position in favor of another roadblock, while General Smith and their officers sought to buy time. Here there was another short, sharp fight, in which Forrest’s second horse was shot down. His favorite charger “King Philip” was brought up, and Forrest rode him until nightfall, closing the day’s fighting, though “King Philip” received a slight neck wound.

The day’s last battle took place halfway between Okolona and Pontotoc, when the Yanks “made a last and final effort to check pursuit.” There were charges and countercharges before the Federals disengaged abandoning a cannon. Dusk was at hand and Forrest, seeing that his men and his mounts were fagged out by two days of marching and fighting which had brought them nearly 50 miles—from the crossing to the Sakatonchee to within ten miles of Pontotoc—called a halt.

Discouraged and beaten, Sooy Smith’s once proud corps hurried on to Memphis, where they arrived on February 27. A Union brigade commander best summed up Forrest’s accomplishments:

The retreat to Memphis was a weary, disheartening, and almost panic-stricken flight, in the greatest disorder and confusion, and through a most difficult country. The First Brigade reached its camping-ground five days after the engagement, with the loss of all its heart and spirit, and nearly fifteen hundred fine cavalry horses. The expedition filled every man connected with it with burning shame, and it gave Forrest the most glorious achievement of his career.

http://www.gatehouse-press.com/?p=389

Rally Planned At Lexington City Council Meeting

2012-01-16T13:11:00.001-05:00

Tonight: Lexington weighs limits on Confederate flag;

Protest rally planned [poll]
The Sons of Confederate Veterans rally is set to begin at 6 p.m. Lexington City Council's public hearing is scheduled for 8 p.m.

LEXINGTON -- Officials in this city where Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson are buried are considering limits on downtown flag-flying, including the Confederate flag, angering defenders of the divisive Southern symbol.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans organized a rally ahead of a scheduled public hearing Thursday night and an expected vote. Organizers of the "Save our Flags" rally are offering free hot dogs and music, have lined up speakers and distributed a flyer with a drawing of Lee, a tear rolling down his cheek.

"We're prepared for 300," said Brandon Dorsey, commander of Camp 1296 of the Stonewall Brigade of the Confederate Veterans. "We could have more, we could have less."

Officials in this college town of 7,000 insist the flag limits are not aimed at the Confederate flag. The proposal would limit the use of downtown poles to the flying of the U.S., Virginia and Lexington flags. It would not restrict the display of the Confederate flag elsewhere in the city.

"They can carry their flags anywhere they want," City Manager T. Jon Ellestad. The city received hundreds of complaints the last time Confederate flags were planted in holders on lights poles, in January to mark Lee-Jackson Day, a state holiday.

People complained "that displaying the Confederate flag is very hurtful to groups of people," Ellestad said. "In their mind, it stands for the defense of slavery."

The complaints convinced city leaders they should have clear guidelines governing the flying of flags and banners on light poles, Ellestad said.

Heritage groups such as Sons of Confederate Veterans said the restrictions on the flying of the Confederate flag in Lexington are especially painful because of the two military leaders' strong ties here.

A Virginia NAACP representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

The NAACP launched an economic boycott of South Carolina in 1999 about the Confederate flag that flew atop the Statehouse dome and in the chambers of the House and Senate. A compromise in 2000 moved the flag to a monument outside the Statehouse. The group's president says the flag is a symbol of slavery and segregation.

Jackson taught at Virginia Military Institute before the Civil War, where he became widely known as "Stonewall" after the first Battle of Manassas; he died in 1863 from wounds suffered at Chancellorsville along with pneumonia, and is buried in Lexington, according to the website for the Stonewall Jackson House. Lee, who led Confederate forces during the Civil War before finally surrendering at Appomattox in 1865, became president of what is now Washington and Lee University, where he is buried.

"By all means they should be honored in their hometown," Dorsey said. "I look at the flag as honoring the veterans."

This is not the first time Lexington, is at the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley, has clashed with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The city attempted nearly 20 years ago to ban the display of the Confederate flag during a parade honoring Jackson. The American Civil Liberties Union, which successfully defended the group's bid to carry the flag, is closely watching this dispute from afar.

"City council could live to regret this ordinance, as it imposes unusually restrictive limits on the use of the light poles," said Kent Willis, the ACLU's executive director in Virginia. "Sometime in the future when city officials want to use those light poles to promote a special event they may find themselves handcuffed by their own lawmaking."

http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/297524

SCV Displays Flag in Lexington

2012-01-15T13:28:00.001-05:00

WSLS-TV Staff Reports
Published: January 13, 2012

LEXINGTON, VA --

Confederate flags were in the air Friday in Lexington. It was all part of a display organized by the national chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Members drove in from several states, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

"Although we can't put it in the pole, we got two men at each pole, so now we have twice as many flags out there," said Billy Starnes, who drove from North Carolina.

Members say they are here to support the flag's history and the local chapter of the group, just one day after a lawsuit was filed against the city for it's flag ordinance.

"We just want to make a statement, and be here to support the importance of this flag," said Starnes.

----

12:30 p.m.

From Erin Barnett, WSLS reporter in the field

Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans fulfilled a pledge they made last week, to hold up Confederate flags in Lexington today (Friday), in honor of Lee-Jackson Day.

The display comes one day after the group filed a federal lawsuit against the city, for not allowing the flying of non-government flags on city flagpoles.

Go to this Link to see the video news coverage of the Lee-Jackons Event:

http://www2.wsls.com/news/2012/jan/13/1/sons-confederate-veterans-display-flags-lexington-ar-1609365/?referer=None&shorturl=http://bit.ly/xGEUW7

VA Governor Declares Lee-Jackson Day

2012-01-15T09:59:00.001-05:00

Lee-Jackson Day

WHEREAS, Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson are native Virginians, having served our great nation and Commonwealth as educators, leaders, and military strategists; and

WHEREAS, Lee served in the United States Army for more than three decades until he left his position to serve as Commander in Chief of Virginia’s military forces and as Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia; and

WHEREAS, Jackson taught philosophy and military tactics as a professor at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington for nearly a decade before serving briefly in the United States Army and later joining the Confederate Army to fight for his native Virginia; and

WHEREAS, Lee dedicated his life after the Civil War to reforming higher education in the South by serving as President of Washington College, now Washington & Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, where he helped to greatly increase the school’s funding and expand the curriculum to create an atmosphere most conducive to learning for young men of both Southern and Northern heritage; and

WHEREAS, Jackson’s leadership and bravery enabled him to rally his troops to several improbable victories against numerically superior forces, and Jackson’s inspired “Stonewall Brigade” fought alongside General Lee’s troops in another victory, even after their leader was fatally wounded on the second day of the Battle of Chancellorsville; and

WHEREAS, it is fitting to recognize Generals Lee and Jackson as two of our nation’s most notable military strategists, as beloved leaders among their troops, as pioneers in the field of higher education, and as faithful and dedicated Virginians;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert F. McDonnell, do hereby recognize January 13, 2012 as LEE-JACKSON DAY in our COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of our citizens.

http://www.governor.virginia.gov/OurCommonwealth/Proclamations/2012/LeeJackson.cfm

U S Grant - Slave Owner

2012-01-14T20:01:00.000-05:00

Surprising our stereotypes: So who was the last slaveowner to be US president?
Ulysses Simpson Grant.

We quote William S. McFeely’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography:

In 1858 he [Grant] hired two slaves from their owners and borrowed one, William Jones, from his father-in-law. Jones, whom he subsequently bought, was about thirty-five years old and five feet seven inches tall, resembling Grant in both age and build, and they worked closely together.[1]
Not surprisingly, when readers learn of this for the first time, their reactions can range from indignant disbelief and ad hominum attacks on the message bearer to a grinning, head-nodding “I told you so.” Yet both responses betray their own anchored stereotypes.

The true student of the past recognizes that every generation tends to interpret history in the light of their own experiences. Indeed, learning from the lessons of the past … bettering our lives by avoiding the errors of our predecessors … and passing along that acquired wisdom to our children is what advances civilization. Yet know that belief and bias share a number of common borders, often blurring those boundaries when convenience, motive, or personal gain influence our judgment.

For those who would vilify the 18th President, consider, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story:

On one occasion Grant was reported to have stopped the whipping of a slave by a farmer neighbor, and in 1859, when he was leaving the farm to go into business in St. Louis and was severely pressed financially, he did not sell William Jones but instead set him free.[2]
Our comfortable stereotypes are indeed, subject to ambush.

And yes, a number of you remembered that VMI Professor Thomas J. Jackson of Lexington, Virginia, organized a Sunday school class for blacks, teaching them to read the Bible and write their names in a society that often did more than frown on those who sought to make slaves literate. Fewer readers knew that Sgt. Richard Kirkland, a South Carolinian, is the only enlisted soldier, North or South, who has a statue to his battlefield heroics in the South … and the North.

Of course hours after this is posted, some of you will remind the rest that Grant’s opponent, Robert E. Lee, had likewise fulfilled the manumission clause in his father-in-law’s will freeing the slaves at Arlington House, days after his stunning victory at Fredericksburg in December of 1862.

It’s all out there waiting to be discovered. We just have to get beyond our biases … our expectations … and those stereotypes.

And we can start with this one: beyond defeat, subjugation, and poverty, the South was left with something else after Appomattox. You see, even today, many Americans perceive racism as a purely Southern problem. Back then, the fact that most blacks lived in the South gave the charge a measure of credence. Yet why blacks remained in the old Confederates states afterwards is a fact often, if not conveniently, overlooked.

To be sure, after the war, blacks did migrate to that “promised land of opportunity” only to find that the North offered no forty acres and a mule, or anything else beyond a legal declaration of freedom. The long range effects exploded decades later as race riots in Chicago, Tulsa, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Harlem, Boston and a dozen other metropolitan areas, graphically debunking this long held stereotype because racism in America has no sectional boundaries; it is a nationwide sickness.

Yet, as Jackson biographer James I. Robertson notes, “it is the South that has remained the target for accusations of racial injustice. One might say, with unconcealed cynicism, that the South has had to bear the brunt of a national guilty conscience”…far after the fighting stopped

http://www.examiner.com/civil-war-heritage-in-washington-dc/surprising-our-stereotypes-so-who-was-the-last-slaveowner-to-be-us-president

Lee-Jackson Day in Lexington, VA

2012-01-12T22:08:00.003-05:00

Compatriots,

On Friday and Saturday Lee-Jackson Day will be held in Lexington, VA. This year it is especially important to be there for for this event due to the ban on the display of Confederate flags by the City of Lexington.

Below you will find the website about the event and the full schedule of events to be held. If you are within driving distance of Lexington, VA the place to be on Saturday is Lexington, VA.

http://leejacksonday.webs.com/

Chuck Rand
Adjucant In Chief

Study of The Hunley Continues

2012-01-12T22:04:00.000-05:00

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — The world has a clearer view of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley for the first time in nearly 150 years.

Truss shrouding Confederate submarine removed

Crews at a North Charleston conservation lab on Thursday lifted a more than eight-ton truss that has shrouded the hand-cranked sub for the last dozen years.

The operation took about 15 minutes as the truss was slowly lifted and moved laterally over the tank.

The endeavor allows conservation of the sub to begin. Scientists hope that getting a close look at the entire hull will finally yield clues as to why the Hunley sank in 1864 with its crew of eight.

The Hunley sent the federal blockade ship Housatonic to the bottom, becoming the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship before sinking, too.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20120112/NATION/120112035/Truss-shrouding-Confederate-submarine-removed-?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFrontpage

SCV Sues Lexington, VA

2012-01-12T21:56:00.000-05:00

Sons of Confederate Veterans Sues City of Lexington
Posted: Jan 12, 2012

Lexington, VA - The battle over the Confederate flag in Lexington entered a new phase when attorneys representing the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed a civil rights lawsuit in Roanoke federal court against the city of Lexington Thursday afternoon.

It was an expected move after the city banned all flag displays on city property except for national, state or city flags.

While it is a new development, much of the legal action is simply asking for a 19-year old court decision to be upheld that would once again allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans to fly the Confederate flag on Lee-Jackson Day.

Beneath the watchful eye of General Stonewall Jackson himself, in a cemetery where 342 confederate soldiers lay buried, a generation working to preserve those sacrifices gets set to once again make their point.

"Ever since the city adopted the ordinance, we've come out once a week on Thursdays usually at lunch time and just walk through town carrying some flags," said Brandon Dorsey, part of Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The message is simple.

"We told city council if they didn't want to see flags once a year, we'd let them see them once a week," said Dorsey.

And they do. They also told city council that if they go back on the 1993 court sanctioned promise not to interfere with the presentation of the confederate flag in Lexington, they would sue them again. And they did.

"This is a first amendment issue. This is a constitutional issue. This is a freedom of speech issue and we have to be ever vigilant when those rights are trespassed," said Tom Strelka, SCV attorney.

The two count lawsuit asks for the court to find the City of Lexington in contempt of that 1993 order plus a new charge for violating the groups' civil rights once again.

And because the Sons feel they can prove the city acted solely because of the confederate flag, even though the ordinance bans almost all flags, they are confident that they will once again prevail.

"I think it's pretty clear that the reason they took this vote was to silence what we were doing," said Dorsey.

Although Lexington City Manager Jon Ellistad deferred all comments to the city attorney, he did say that the city had anticipated the lawsuit.

The City Attorney, Laurence Mann, did not return phone calls Thursday about the lawsuit.

Awards Nomination Deadline

2012-01-11T22:52:00.002-05:00

2012 Award Nomination Deadline and Forms

2012 Award Nomination Form for awards to be presented at the 2012 National Convention in Murfreesboro, TN can be found on the SCV web site at the addresses below.

The Awards Manual can be found at the following Address:

http://www.scv.org/pdf/AwardsHandbook2012.pdf

Please consult the manual when considering what award would be most appropriate to nominate a compatriot for.

Send one copy of the completed nomination form to SCV Chief of Staff Spike Speicher at colspike@hotmail.com and one copy to Membership Coordinator Bryan Sharp at membership@scv.org.

Deadline for submission of forms is Thursday May 17, 2012

Form addresses:

http://www.scv.org/pdf/awardnominationform12.doc

http://www.scv.org/pdf/awardnominationform12.pdf

Funding Request Deadline

2012-01-11T18:28:00.001-05:00

Repost of Funding Request Deadline Information

Friday, July 8, 2011
Funding Request Deadlines
Compatriots,

The Budget and Finance Committee will review request for grants from General Headquarters before the Fall and Spring GEC meetings. The deadline to submit a request for consideration at the Fall 2011 GEC meeting is September 1, 2011.

The deadline for requests to be received for consideration at the Spring 2012 GEC meeting is January 15, 2012.

Those requesting funds should read the Funding Proposal Guidelines found on the Forms and Documents page of scv.org at:
http://www.scv.org/pdf/FundingProposalGuidelines.pdf

The form to be used to make a request for a grant is also on the Forms and Documents page at: http://www.scv.org/pdf/SCVFundRequests.pdf

Submission of the form is the minimum level of information that must be provided to make a funding request. Those making requests are encouraged to provide supplemental information describing their project.

If you have any questions regarding the guidelines, form or process please contact me.

Chuck Rand
Adjutant In Chief
chuckrand3@gmail.com
318-387-3791

Special Offer From Ancestry.com for the SCV

2012-01-08T22:49:00.001-05:00

Compatriots,

Here is a special offer from Ancestry.com that generates money for the SCV. This source of records is an asset for every camp to have access to in order to help potential members with their genealogy.

SCV Member Offer From Ancestry.com

We are pleased to announce a special opportunity to SCV members. The SCV would like to introduce you to Ancestry.com, a great online resource for researching your family tree. Ancestry.com currently offers access to numberous genealogy records.

SCV members can now get membership to Ancestry.com by going to SCV.org and scroll down to the Ancestry.com link or go to http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-5451196-10467607
In addition, for every purchase of a Ancestry.com membership the SCV will earn a commission.

Deo Vindice!
Charles Kelly Barrow
Lt.Commander-in-Chief
Sons of Confederate Veterans
1800mysouth.com www.barrowscv.net

S. D. Lee Institute Feb 3 and 4 - Savannah, Georgia

2012-01-08T21:34:00.001-05:00

The 2012 Stephen Dill Lee Institute
Feb 3-4 in Savannah, Georgia

THE COSTS OF LINCOLN'S WAR

The Stephen D. Lee Institute has named the Francis S. Bartow Camp #93 of Savannah to host the Friday Meet the Speakers Reception. Speaking that evening will be prominent Georgia historian David A. Dickey. Mr. Dickey's topic will be "The Devil Comes to Georgia: William Tecumsah Sherman".

The Institute would also like to remind all attendees that the reduced hotel rate will not last much longer so please get your registrations and reservations taken care of.

SPEAKERS FOR SATURDAY

Jonathan White "Calculating the Value of the Union: Physical costs of the War to Prevent Southern Independence"

Ronald Kennedy "Liberty: The Price of Federal Supremacy"

David Aiken "Lincoln's Blood Money and the financial impact of the war"

Donald Livingston "How Lincoln's War derailed Constitutional Liberty"

Douglas Bostick "Colored Troops for Work": The Union Army's Assessment and Use of Black Troops

Michael Scruggs "Advent of the Federal financial system"

Anyone who has ever attended a Stephen Dill Lee Institute meeting has come away with a newfound understanding of American history. Please mark your calendar for February 3-4. 2012, and join us in Savannah.

If you have a question please contact Brag Bowling at 804-389-3620.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT A LIMITED AMOUNT OF SCHOLARSHIPS FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ARE PRESENTLY AVAILABLE.

Confederate Martyr Remembered in Arkansas

2012-01-08T21:32:00.000-05:00

Arkansas Civil War buffs remember Confederate boy hero
Sat, Jan 07
LITTLE ROCK, Ark (Reuters)

David O. Dodd is known as Arkansas' boy martyr of the Confederacy.

On Saturday, about 100 people gathered in the historic Mount Holly Cemetery to remember Dodd, who was 17 when the Union Army hanged him as a spy. Civil War re-enactors and history buffs have been holding the annual event for decades.

"We honor and respect him as an individual who had principles," said Danny Honnoll of Jonesboro, Ark., a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "How many of us have principles that we are willing to die for?"

Dodd is an Arkansas legend. His story has inspired poems, a 1915 silent Hollywood movie, monuments and more recently, a play and an in-the-works documentary. An elementary school in Little Rock is named in his memory.

For Ron Kelley, a history teacher and re-enactor from Watson Chapel, Ark., Dodd represents a romantic hero in a great American tragedy.

"He was steadfast in his belief and love," Kelley told Reuters. "This isn't so much about the Confederacy as it is about Arkansas history."

According to Civil War documents, Dodd, who knew Morse code, left Camden, Ark., and traveled by mule to Little Rock on business for his father on Christmas Eve in 1863. He had a pass from a Confederate general that would allow him to travel in Union territory.

On his way back to Camden, Union sentries took his pass as he was expected not to return. He stopped in southwest Little Rock to spend the night with his uncle. Resuming his journey, Dodd found himself behind Union lines.

Union soldiers asked for identification. Dodd showed a small leather notebook that contained his birth certificate and a page filled with Morse code dots and dashes.

A Union officer translated the code that contained information about Union strength in Little Rock. Dodd was arrested, convicted of being a spy and sentenced to execution by hanging. He could have been released if he had revealed the name of his informant. But Dodd refused.

He was buried in a plot donated by a Little Rock resident, with no music or words to mark the burial.

That was not the case at Saturday's service.

Re-enactors in period attire began their journey at the site of Dodd's hanging in downtown Little Rock. They marched one mile to the cemetery where spectators gathered to watch the ceremony.

A bagpipe player marched in front of the soldiers to the site of Dodd's grave, where women in hooped dresses held red roses.

After an invocation, Brent Carr, a member of a division of Sons of Confederate Veterans that is named for Dodd, told the story of the boy hero.

Carr said Dodd represented "faith, hope and ambition" that still rings true 147 years later.

Bobbie Barnett, clad head to toe in 1860s mourning dress with a veil covering her face, and her husband, Dale, also in Confederate attire, placed a bouquet on Dodd's grave.

Five other women followed them before a gun salute by the re-enactors. A bagpiper played "Amazing Grace." The soldiers led the crowd in a sing-along to "Dixie."

Barnett, a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, has been attending the Dodd annual event since 1994. She said that events like Saturday's do more than preserve Southern history.

"It encourages people to research their family tree," said Barnett, of Ravenden, Ark.

"Even if their family didn't fight in the war, someone in their family experienced hardship because of it."

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE8060MF20120107?irpc=932

Reunion Bid Deadline

2012-01-03T10:06:00.001-05:00

Reunion Bid Deadlines for Hosting 2015 Reunion
(Reposted from the Veteran )

Bid packages for those wishing to host the 2015 reunion are due by January 15, 2012. They should be sent to Chairman Joe Ringhoffer at 1211 Government St. Mobile, AL 36604 or emailed to ringhje@aol.com.

Bidders should include in their proposals information such as the cost of guest rooms at the hotel(s), any parking fees, host hotel flag display policy, meeting facility layout, and projected registration cost. This information is needed in addition to the bidders plans for tours and events and information about attractions in the area.

The Guidelines for hosting a convention can be obtained from Joe Ringhoffer at the email address above.

The place and date of the meeting of the Time and Place Committee where bidders will make their formal presentations will be announced after receipt of the bids.

For more information contact Chairman Ringhoffer at: 251-402-7593

Amendment Deadline Reposted

2012-01-02T17:43:00.001-05:00

Re-Post from September, 2011

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Amendment Deadline Given

Compatriots, The Deadline for those wishing to submit proposed amendments to the SCV Constitution or the Standing Orders to be considered at the Reunion in Murfreesboro, TN in July 2012 is February 8, 2012.

Amendments should be submitted to Executive Director Ben Sewell at General Headquarters. They can be sent either by email to exedir@scv.org or by US Mail to: Sons of Confederate Veterans, P.O. Box 59, Columbia, TN 38402. Email submissions must be sent on or before February 8, 2012 and those send by US Mail must be postmarked by February 8, 2012. Those submitting proposed amendments should include their name, camp number and contact information - phone number and email address is available.

Please also send a brief statement as to the purpose of the amendment and the reasons it should be adopted. This will better help camps understand the purpose and advantages of the proposed amendment.

Executive Director Sewell will acknowledge receipt of the amendments. However, it is the responsibility of the sender to confirm with Director Sewell that any amendment submitted was received at General Heatquarters. Please contact me or Executive Director Sewell if you have any questions.

Chuck Rand
Adjutant In Chief
chuckrand3@gmail.com

Cemetery for Alabama Troops Found in Virginia

2011-12-30T17:48:00.002-05:00

Tenth Alabama Regiment cemetery in Virginia uncovered 150 years later
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Mary Orndorff -- The Birmingham News

Brian Smith, right, and his son Dane consult as volunteers help clean up part of a Civil War camp site where soldiers from Alabama are buried. The work is part of the project Dane Smith embarked upon to earn Eagle Scout status. (The Birmingham News/Mary Orndorff)

BRISTOW, Va. -- About an hour west of Washington, D.C., on a scrubby plot of land overrun by pricker bushes and in the shadow of dense modern townhouse developments, an Alabama cemetery was born.

Civil War preservationists with no personal links to Alabama admit to muttering a "Roll Tide" or two as they walked across the newly cleared land, the final resting place of between 75 and 90 soldiers with the Tenth Alabama Infantry Regiment.

Historical documents and archeological study pinpointed the burial grounds, a desperate place in the late summer of 1861, when rampant disease claimed up to five or six Confederate soldiers a day at what was known as Camp Jones.

There are other signs. The area is devoid of stones, except for five large rocks dug deeply into the dirt, each cut on at least one side by a man-made tool. And the area is pockmarked by man-sized depressions, not in rows, but haphazardly, as if soldiers were buried right where they died.
That level of detail, however, was unknown until Dec. 3, when a crew of about 40 volunteers, led by a 16-year-old Eagle Scout candidate, descended with chain saws and strong arms and gave sunlight and a defined boundary to the cemetery.

"It's one of the better Eagle Scout projects I've seen," said Rob Orrison, site manager with the Prince William County Department of Public Works Historic Preservation Division. "I was blown away by the number of people that came out."

The Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park is a new, lesser-known addition to an area rich with Civil War historical sites; Manassas National Battlefield Park is about three miles away as the crow flies.

The Bristoe Station park opened in 2007 after a developer, Prince William County officials and the Civil War Preservation Trust reached a compromise. The massive farm property is to be developed for residential and office space, save for a 133-acre passive park marking the Battle of Kettle Run in 1862 and the Battle of Bristoe Station in 1863.

The private owner who sold the land to the developer had farmed for decades around the unmarked cemetery, indicating he knew its historic value. But it was overgrown and inaccessible. So when Dane Smith of nearby Nokesville called up looking for an Eagle Scout project, park officials recommended clearing the cemetery.

Smith's father, Brian, recalls hearing the details about the project. "When I heard it was an Alabama regiment, I was like, 'Great, I work for an Alabama bank,'" Brian Smith said on his second straight chilly December Saturday at the site. He is the lead Washington lobbyist for Regions Financial Corp.

The volunteers, under Dane Smith's direction, cleared the underbrush, cut down trees, put up a split-rail fence and built a bridge over a creek. Their work was approved by Orrison, who told them which trees to remove and how not to disturb the ground. Tree stumps were left intact. The stone grave markers -- three of which Orrison knew were there plus two others uncovered during the work -- were marked with bright pink tape. The park had earlier used radar to detect the disturbed dirt of the gravesites so they could estimate a cemetery boundary.
Soldiers marching by a nearby road in 1862 wrote of the row of cedar trees leading toward a clearing with wooden grave markers engraved with the names of the dead. Several years later, someone else wrote that the markers were in stone. "Who knows when they were changed?" Orrison said.

Old pictures indicate that some of the stones were engraved, but they are missing.
Eventually, mulch will be placed on the path to the cemetery, and Orrison wants to raise the money to pay for a memorial plaque at the entrance, listing names of the 40 or so soldiers known to be buried there. He's hoping to have that work done in time for a September dedication ceremony. The gravesites will be mapped and the site open to tourists.
Park officials hope that by registering the cemetery, genealogists and historians will help them fill in the blanks of who else might be buried there, and descendants will visit their ancestors.
"It is a little sad that we won't be able to tell them exactly where they are," Orrison said.
The Tenth Alabama Infantry Regiment included companies from Jefferson, Shelby, Calhoun, Talladega, St. Clair, Calhoun, DeKalb and Talladega counties, according to the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

A second overgrown plot across the pasture is believed to be where Mississippi soldiers are buried.

http://blog.al.com/sweethome/2011/12/tenth_alabama_regiment_cemeter.html#incart_hbx

Texas Division Files Suit over Plates

2011-12-09T12:57:00.001-05:00

Texas Sons of Confederate Veterans sues over license plates
December 8, 2011

A group that campaigned unsuccessfully for Texas to issue a specialty license plate featuring a Confederate flag is suing the state's Department of Motor Vehicles board in federal court.
The Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a 30,000-member group based in Columbia, Tenn., released a statement Thursday after filing the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Austin arguing that the DMV infringed on its right to free speech by refusing the license plate design.

"The 1st Amendment clearly protects controversial speech," the group said in a statement sent to The Times, noting that the same day the eight-member DMV board voted unanimously to reject the Confederate plate last month it approved a plate that "is offensive to Native Americans" because it honors the Buffalo Soldiers, an all-black cavalry that helped fight Native Americans in the 1800s.

"The board seeks to bar the Texas SCV from expressing their viewpoint while allowing all other groups to express their viewpoint. This type of restriction is exactly the type which the 1st Amendment is designed to erase," the statement said.

Texas officials turned down a Sons of Confederate Veterans' request for a specialty plate three years ago, citing rules that banned political or controversial plates. The rules changed two years ago, and the board has since approved all 89 proposed specialty designs.

"We said if we don't get the plates we're going to sue them," Marshall Davis, a spokesman for the group in Austin, told The Times. "There are other organizations that have had to sue their states to get their 1st Amendment rights, and this is the same thing."

Davis said his group was optimistic it would prevail because "a precedent has been set" in other states. Nine other states have approved Sons of Confederate Veterans' specialty plates, but Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina only did so after the group sued. A similar suit is pending in Florida.

Davis said the design, which features a Confederate flag as part of the Sons of Confederate Veterans' logo, honors veterans. He said the group planned to use proceeds from plate sales, a portion of which return to the sponsoring group, to educate the public about Civil War history.
Opponents called the flag a symbol of bigotry. The NAACP gathered more than 22,000 petition signatures and a letter from at least 19 state legislators opposing the plates.

Before the DMV vote, Gov. Rick Perry had said he opposed the Confederate license plate proposal during a campaign appearance in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
DMV officials told the Associated Press they had not seen the lawsuit late Thursday.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/texas-sons-of-confederate-veterans-sue-over-license-plates.html

Texas SCV Files Suit for Tag

2011-12-09T07:00:00.002-05:00

Texas Sons Of Confederate Veterans

PRESS RELEASE TEXAS DIVISION SCV

Today, December 8th, 2011 a complaint is being filed in pursuant of 42 U.S.C. §1983 to vindicate the rights secured to the “Texas Division Sons of Confederate Veterans” by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

The Texas SCV is a non-profit organization that works diligently to preserve the memory and reputation of the Confederate soldiers, emphasizing the virtues of their fight for the preservation of liberty and freedom. Like many other non-profit organizations in Texas, the Texas SCV sought from the State of Texas, through the Department Motor Vehicles Board, approval of a specialty license plate, both to raise awareness of their endeavors and to raise additional money to fund their activities.

This action is in regards to the recent denial by the of the specialty license application presented to the Department of Motor Vehicles Board by the Texas Division Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Currently, the SCV has specialty automobile license plates available to vehicle drivers in Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Maryland, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

The Texas SCV initially applied for a specialty license plate in Texas with the Department of Transportation, the proper agency at the time, in August 2009. That application was denied by the Department of Transportation. In 2009, the Texas Legislature amended the Transportation Code to provide that the Department of Motor Vehicles, rather than the Department of Transportation, was charged with issuing specialty license plates. The license plate function moved to the new Department of Motor Vehicles on November 1, 2009. At the time the Texas SCV reapplied with the new governing department, to hopefully have a specialty plate in advance of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, April 12, 2011.

The official public comments were heavily in favor of the Texas SCV’s application for a specialty plate. Following commentary by both proponents and opponents, the Board rejected the SCV plate at the hearing by an 8-0 vote without any discussion. At the same hearing, the Buffalo Soldiers plate, without any discussion, was approved by a 5-3 vote.

Since the Department of Motor Vehicle Board has been charged with issuing specialty license plates, the Sons of the Confederate Veterans plate is the first, and only, to be rejected.Through the members of the Department of Motor Vehicles Board, the State of Texas has discriminated against the Texas SCV based on the ideas and message that the Texas SCV supports, in clear violation of the First Amendment.

The Board seeks to bar the Texas SCV from expressing their viewpoint while allowing all other groups to express their viewpoint: this type of restriction is exactly the type which the First Amendment is designed to erase. The only guideline that the Transportation Code has to offer, which the Board referenced as its reason for rejecting the plate, is that the Board can reject a plate “if the design might be offensive to any member of the public…” This, however, cannot be the standard. It is vague and indeterminable. Essentially, it is no standard at all to say that the Board can discriminate based upon a viewpoint if such speech is offensive to anyone.

The First Amendment clearly protects controversial speech. Additionally, even if simply being “offensive to any member of the public” was sufficient to allow for rejection, the State has approved numerous plates that are “offensive to any member of the public.” In fact, the plate approved the very same day as the Texas SCV plate was rejected – the Buffalo Soldier plate – is offensive to Native Americans because the all-black cavalry helped fight Native Americans in the Indian Wars from 1867-1888. Accordingly, the Texas SCV seeks appropriate injunctive relief, requiring the State of Texas to approve the Texas SCV’s application and implement the specialty plate.

Granvel J. Block
Commander Texas Division
Sons of Confederate Veterans

Flag Posted in Dorm Window

2011-12-05T21:39:00.001-05:00

Student Sparks Debate With Dorm Room Confederate Flag

December 01, 2011
Associated Press

Byron Thomas, 19, a student at USCB holds a Confederate battle flag in his dormitory room on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011 in Okatie, S.C. Byron Thomas says a class research project made him realize the flag's real meaning has been hijacked.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina – A black U.S. college student who drew complaints for displaying a Confederate flag in his dorm room window said he sees the banner as a symbol of pride and not racism.

Byron Thomas, 19, said university officials asked him in late November to take the down the banner associated with pro-slavery secessionist forces during the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War after students and parents complained. They have since told him he can put it back up.

"When I look at this flag, I don't see racism. I see respect, Southern pride," he said. "This flag was seen as a communication symbol" during the Civil War, he said.

That history is debatable. The orange flag with a blue St. Andrew's Cross and white stars is a relatively modern rectangular variant on banners carried into battle by the secessionists, also resembling a rebel naval jack. The variant banner, confused by many with the markedly different Confederate national flag, was adopted as a symbol of pride generations after the South surrendered and slavery was abolished.

Controversy has surrounded the use of the symbol since -- some associating it with regional pride and others a legacy of the enslavement of Africans and their descendants and the ensuing century of often violent racial segregation. Several states incorporated its design into their official flags; South Carolina raised it over its state capitol for the war's 1961 centennial, where it continued to fly until widening opposition to the symbol brought it back down in 2000, nearly 40 years later.

Byron, a student at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, took the flag down at the university's request, but he said he's considering putting it back up after the officials relented. Thomas has drawn nearly 70,000 views since he posted a video online in which he acknowledges: "I know it's kind of weird because I'm black."

In a telephone interview Thursday, Thomas said a class research project made him come to the belief that the flag's real meaning has been hijacked. He said he wants people to thoughtfully consider issues of race and not just knee-jerk reactions to such symbols.

The freshman from North Augusta said his generation can eliminate the flag's negative power by adopting the banner as a symbol of Southern pride.

"I've been getting a lot of support from people. My generation is interested in freedom of speech," Thomas said.

But Thomas says his parents don't like the flag and he's concerned about their point of view, particularly since they pay his bills.

"I don't want to make my parents mad," he said. "I may wait until Monday to put it up."

Thomas' roommate Blane Reed, who identifies as white, said in a separate telephone interview that he never heard any complaints after Thomas put the flag up shortly after Labor Day. Each student has a separate bedroom and share living space with three others, he said.

Thomas posted a video on a CNN-run website that has logged more than 69,000 viewing and an article in a local newspaper brought more attention.

University spokeswoman Candace Brasseur said Thursday in an email that about two-dozen students had raised the issue of the flag with the housing office or with a resident adviser. On Thursday, she forwarded an email the school had sent to its students and staff, informing them that officials had asked Thomas to remove the flag "out of respect for his fellow students' concerns."

However, the email added, because of "the University cannot and will not prohibit these flags or other symbols that our students choose to display." It cited the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits laws abridging the freedom of speech.

Thomas is free to return it to his window if he wishes, Brasseur said.

USC Beaufort is one of eight campuses in the University of South Carolina system and has about 1,750 students, of which about 16.5 percent identify as African American, according to the school web site.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/01/student-sparks-debate-with-dorm-room-confederate-flag/#ixzz1fibTsdmI

GEC Meeting Condensed Account

2011-12-05T21:27:00.003-05:00

Condensed Account of the October 15, 2011 Fall GEC Meeting
Held at Columbia, Tennessee

1. Meeting called to order at 8:30 am and opened with prayer, pledge of allegiance, salute to the Confederate flag and reading of The Charge.

2. Quorum was present with 15 of 16 members present.

3. Minutes of the pre and post Montgomery Convention were approved as well as were the minutes of the GEC teleconference of October 11, 2011.

4. Executive Director Sewell gave his report covering membership, status of SCV endowment funds and the mailing of the Christmas merchandise catalogue.

5. Past CIC McMichael gave an update on the February 25, 2012 Sesquicentennial Event to be held in Richmond, VA and stated that the 2013 event will be held at Beauvoir.

6. Indiana Division Commander Gordon Flick presented Executive Director Sewell the Dr. Pits Meritorious Service Award.

7. Lt. Commander In Chief Barrow reported on the recent Leadership Conference held in Burlington, North Carolina and the upcoming conference to be held on February 11, 2012 in Monroe, Louisiana. He also noted the SCV ad to appear in American History Magazine.

8. Heritage Defense Chief Hiter addressed several recent incidents including misstatements by Glen Beck concerning the South’s reason for fighting for independence and the situation in Reidsville, North Carolina regarding the Confederate monument there.

9. The GEC approved a new bumper sticker design with a sticker to be inserted in an upcoming issue of the Confederate Veteran.

10. CIC Givens made comments regarding several of the many meetings and events he has recently attended. He highlighted the Leadership Conference held in Burlington, North Carolina and the “Sunny South Guards” flag presentation reenactment held by the SCV and UDC in Tampa, Florida.

11. GEC reviewed a draft of the proposed Sam Davis Youth Camps Operating Agreement and voted to approve a board of directors for the camps.

12. GEC approved a submission by the Disciplinary Committee of a guide to “Understanding the SCV Disciplinary Procedure”. The guide addresses the process and information that those contemplating filing charges need to understand as well as the rights of those against whom charges are filed. The GEC suggested more information be included on some specific topics. This information will be added to the guide.

13. The GEC heard a report on the upcoming reenactment of the Battle of Shiloh to be held in the spring of 2012 and presented by the Armies of Tennessee. The GEC voted a resolution of endorsement for the reenactment.

14. Past Virginia Division Commander Dorsey updated the GEC on the situation in Lexington, Virginia regarding the city’s restrictions on display of Confederate flags and plans for dealing with the situation.

15. The Budget and Finance Committee reported on three grant requests. The only grant approved by the GEC was for renovations to the S.D. Lee home in Columbus, Mississippi. The grant will qualify the home for extensive matching funds.

The other requests for grant funds were not approved due to the amount of funds already approved at previous meetings being very close to the total amount of funding currently budgeted.

Chuck Rand
AIC

ABBEVILLE INSTITUTE SCHOLARS’ CONFERENCE

2011-12-05T21:13:00.002-05:00

TENTH ANNUAL ABBEVILLE INSTITUTE SCHOLARS’ CONFERENCE

“THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES: OTHER VOICES, OTHER VIEWS"
Stone Mountain, Georgia
February, 23-26, 2012

TOPIC: Nationalist historians for 150 years have protected Americans from confronting the stark immorality of prosecuting what French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel called, “a war such as Europe had never yet seen” to force eleven States into a federation from which their people had voted to secede. Should eleven American States secede today and form a federation of their own, such a war would be judged criminal.

Northern opposition to the war was more extensive, complex and had more respectable adherents than the mainline account allows, e.g., Governor Seymour of New York, 1861: “Indeed, Can we so entirely forget the past history of our country, that we can stand upon the point of pride against states whose citizens battled with our fathers and poured out their blood upon the soil of our state. Upon whom are we to wage war? Our own countrymen….”

Lincoln and his party often acted as an embattled minority in the North. The Sesquicentennial offers an opportunity to explore the view point of the most neglected and misrepresented segment of American opinion on the great conflict at the center of our history.

Learn about the resistance of President Franklin Pierce and New York Governor Horatio Seymour. Midwestern “Copperheads.” Christian reaction to the bloodthirsty rhetoric of pro-war Republican preachers. Pro-Union opposition to the Republican Party. Resistance in the border States. Gradations and conflicts in Northern opinion, especially among ethnic groups. Treatment of black soldiers by the Union army during and after the war. And much more.

SPEAKERS. Douglas Bostick, Kent Masterson Brown , Richard Gamble, Marshall Derosa, Donald Livingston, Brion McClanahan, Allen Mendenhall, Joseph Stromberg, Richard Valentine, Jonathan White, Clyde Wilson,

PLACE. Beautiful Stone Mountain Park, built to commemorate the Confederacy. Visit the memorial to Lee, Jackson, and Davis which is the largest stone carving in the world. Much to see and do, so bring the family.

COST. Rooms: very special rate of $106 a day, single or double (rate ends February 1). Conference fee is $225 for Abbeville members and $275 for others. Make checks payable to Abbeville Institute, P.O.Box 10, McClellanville, S.C. 2945 (fee includes tuition, park entrance fee, reception, breakfast, continuous snacks and refreshments). Make room reservations at Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort 770-879-9900. SCHOLARSHIPS. A few scholarships are available for college and graduate students who are encouraged to apply.

INQUIRIES: contactus@abbevilleinstitute.org or 843-323-0690. For lecture titles and schedule see abbevilleinstitute.org.

Schedule:

Thursday, Feb. 23
4:30-6:00 Registration and Conviviality (Rotunda Room)
6:00-7:00 Supper Buffet (Waterside Restaurant)
7:00-8:00 “The War to Prevent Southern Independence: My Myth or Yours,” Clyde Wilson

Friday, Feb. 24
8:00-9:00 Breakfast (Rotunda Room)
9:00-10:00 “’To Maintain the Constitution as it is, and to Restore the Union as it Was,’” Doug Bostick
10:15-11:15 “The Civil War: Kentucky’s Mercurial Political Course,” Kent Masterson Brown
11:30-12:30 “The Midwestern ‘Copperheads,’” Jonathan White

12:30-4:30 Free time (lunch on your own)

4:30-5:30 “Behind Enemy Lines with President Pierce: Principles Over Politics,” Marshall Derosa
5:45-6:45 “‘Get Down you Damm Fool?’: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. on Lincoln, the Union, and the War,” Allen Mendenhall
6:45-7:45 Supper Buffet (Waterside Restaurant)
8:00-9:00 Round Table Discussion with Audience

Saturday, Feb. 25
8:00-9:00 Breakfast (Rotunda Room)
9:00-10:00 “The Avenger Without Mercy: Delaware Under the Federal Heel,” Brion McClanahan
10:15-11:15 “Yankees & Yonkers: Opposition to Lincoln’s Policies in Westchester County, New York and the Greater Hudson Valley,” Robert Valentine
11:30-12:30 “’Colored Troops for Work’: The Union Army’s Use and Treatment of Black Troops,” Doug Bostick

12:30-4:30 (Free time)

4:30-5:30 “Northern Clergymen, the Kingdom of God on Earth, and the Abolition of the South,” Joseph Stromberg
5:45-6:45 “Between God and Caesar: Northern Clergy and the Problem of a Politicized Pulpit,” Richard Gamble

7:00-8:00 Supper Buffet (Waterside Restaurant)
8:00-9:00 Round Table Discussion with Audience

Sunday, Feb. 26 (Departure)

Flag Stolen From Tennessee Cemetery

2011-11-27T14:58:00.000-05:00

Confederate flag at center of debate stolen By Robert Sorrell

A Confederate flag placed at historic Green Hill Cemetery this October, which became the center of controversy, has been reported stolen.

Ptl. Justin Pearce of the Elizabethton Police Department reported on the theft Sunday. Pearce said he was dispatched to Green Hill Cemetery, which is located next to the Tractor Supply Company in Elizabethton. He spoke to William Hicks, who said he observed the Confederate flag, which he placed in October, had been stolen.

Hicks said he last saw the flag about 7 p.m. Saturday and noticed it was missing around 8 a.m. Sunday.

According to a police report, Cpl. Curtis Bullock attempted to lift latent prints from the 30-foot flag pole but did not recover any evidence. There were no suspects at the time of Pearce’s report.

On Monday, Investigator David Peters was assigned the case. Peters said he has read the initial report and began the investigation but has no leads or suspects. He added that there is not any video surveillance at the cemetery, or any video of the cemetery from the adjacent Tractor Supply.

Peters also investigated the theft of an iron Southern Cross of Honor from the grave of a Confederate soldier in Highland Cemetery. The theft was reported in early October by a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Peters said he received a tip in the iron cross case, but it led to a dead-end.

The Confederate flag at Green Hill Cemetery was raised in October by the SCV in commemoration of four Confederate soldiers buried on the property, including 1st Lt. Robert J. Tipton.

On Oct. 22, Hicks said the Third National flag, a Confederate flag, was placed on the pole during the ceremony, which featured several guest speakers, costumed re-enactors and entertainment. After Hicks discovered the flag was missing on Sunday, he replaced it with the Naval Jack, or “Battle Flag.” He explained to the STAR that this flag was used by commands to direct units in battle.

The raising of the flag was the center of some controversy in October, after the SCV announced it would be placed at the historic cemetery. The Watauga Historical Association, which has preserved the property since the 1980s, has voiced its disapproval of the Confederate flag’s placement, primarily citing that Green Hill Cemetery is not a military cemetery.

In addition to the new Naval Jack flag, there are also a few smaller Confederate flags, as well as American flags, at the cemetery.

http://www.starhq.com/2011/11/22/confederate-flag-at-center-of-debate-stolen/

Florida Monument Needs Repair

2011-11-26T19:57:00.000-05:00

By ANGEL McCURDY/Florida Freedom Newspapers
11/14/2011

DeFUNIAK SPRINGS — The 140-year-old white marble monument that sits in front of the Walton County Courthouse attracts little attention.

The memorial dedicated to the confederate dead from the Civil War has been there since 1927, yet it is missing pieces and goes mostly unnoticed by passers-by.

The monument has been designated by historians as the first one erected in Florida to pay tribute to confederates killed in the war. However, many details about the memorial come from folk tales rather than documentation.

“For me, (the monument) is just there. It’s not anything that catches people’s attention,” said Diane Merkel, president of the Walton County Heritage Museum. “I’m sure there are records somewhere, but no one has dug that deep yet.”

The monument was sculpted shortly after the Civil War. A group then called Ladies’ Memorial Association raised $250 to have it erected.

“I would guess in this area, in the South in general, it was a lot of money,” Merkel said. “Those people had been through a terrible time.”

A New Orleans sculptor named A. Barret is credited with the work, according to “Walton Wanderings: A Swing and a Miss at History” written by James E. Moore in 1996.

The monument stands 12 feet high and has a base of 28 inches.

The top, which once featured a hand pointing skyward, disappeared about six years ago, presumably taken by vandals.

“There’s really little maintenance that’s done with it. It’s just a part of our community,” said Dede Hinote, the county’s administrative services coordinator.

Hinote said officials have been considering ways to replace the missing hand for the last two years.

“Funding hasn’t been available the past few years and the person who was trying to get this going retired, but we’re still looking into it,” Hinote said.

Inscribed on the monument is the date it was made — 1871 — and “To the Memory of the Confederate Dead of Walton Co. Florida.”

The sides are inscribed with the names of two captains, four lieutenants and 85 enlisted men from the 1st, 6th and 7th Florida volunteers — 91 names in all.

“It was a good amount of people (killed),” Merkel said. Based on a census from 1860, the population of Walton County was 3,037 — 2,584 white men and women and 441 slaves.

The Ladies’ Memorial Association originally decided to place the monument at Euchee Valley Presbyterian Church, but others disagreed and the group placed the statue in the front lawn of the early court-house in Eucheeanna.

At some point, John Morrison, a state delegate, his brother Murdoch Morrison and some of their employees loaded the monument onto a wagon and brought it to Euchee Valley Presbyterian Church.

According to Moore’s book, the brothers threatened violence against anyone who tried to stop them.

The president of the women’s group, Jeannett J. McCullom — McKinnon on the statue — filed a complaint with the First Judicial Court. The case was dismissed.

McCullom appealed to the Supreme Court of Florida. In January 1874 the court found for McCullom and the monument was moved back to the Eucheeanna courthouse.

In September 1927, the statue was moved a final time to its present location in DeFuniak Springs when the city became the county seat.

The monument with a confederate flag flying beside it has stirred up little debate over the years. Merkel credited it to being “heritage, not hatred.”

Hinote agreed that few problems have arisen in about statue or the flag.

“It’s important to this area because it’s a part of our history,” Hinote said. “It’s all pretty basic. There’s been no controversy to speak of.”

While nothing has stirred about removing the historic marker, little is known about the monument.

“Most of our history is verbal, which makes it really hard to get back to the primary sources information,” said Merkel, who has been trying to gather information. “I want to use primary sources if at all possible, but there are not a whole lot of things around.”

The now–defunct Florida Board of Parks and Historical Monuments declared the memorial a historic marker in 1967.

Since then, few photos have been shot.

“I wish we had enough photographs of it to pinpoint the years. (The hand has) been gone for a long time,” Merkel said. “I wish there were more available. Maybe someone will be inspired to start digging.”

http://m.newsherald.com/news/memorial-98360-attracts-springs.html?pic=1

New Jersey Teen Suspended for Flag Shirt

2011-11-26T19:55:00.000-05:00

East Windsor teen suspended over Confederate flag shirt, mom says school is wrong
Monday, November 14, 2011
Lisa Coryell/For The Times The Times, Trenton

Torri Albrecht, 14, an eighth grade student at East Windsor's Kreps Middle School, was suspended on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, for wearing a Confederate flag sweatshirt to school, according to her mother, Jane West. (Photo courtesy of the West family.)
EAST WINDSOR — A Kreps Middle School parent who says her daughter was suspended for wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the image of the confederate flag says the school overstepped its boundaries and violated her daughter’s right to free speech.

Jane West says she’s thinking about withdrawing her daughter, Torri Albrecht, from the school even as district officials insist that the flag — viewed by many as a racially charged symbol — was not the reason the girl was suspended.

“They’re saying that now because they know they really went too far this time,” West said. “If there wasn’t a problem with the sweatshirt, why did the vice principal call at 10 after 8 on Monday to demand that I bring a change of clothes for my daughter?”

“He told me he had a bunch of students and a bunch of teachers come into his office to say they were disturbed by it,” she said.

West said she told the assistant principal, Jermaine Blount, he was crazy if he thought she was coming out with a change of clothes for the eighth-grader.

“The Indian kids wear their turbans. The Jewish kids wear their yarmulkes. That’s their birthright,” she said. “I told him that Torri was born in Virginia. That flag is her heritage and I’m not telling her to take it off. He said ‘I guess she’ll have to suffer the consequences.’”

West said before heading to the school she called her daughter’s cell phone to tell her not to follow any orders to turn the sweatshirt inside out.

When she got to the school she was told that her daughter had been given a one-day suspension, she said.

No stranger to run-ins with school administrators at Kreps over issues involving her daughter, West said she’d had enough. She told her daughter to clean out her locker because she wasn’t coming back to school.

District Superintendent Edward Forsthoffer III disputed West’s account.

“No student was suspended for wearing an inappropriate shirt,” he said. He declined to say why Albrecht was suspended, citing student confidentiality policies.

Speaking in generalities, he said the district has a dress code that bans any clothing that causes a substantial disturbance in school.

“We’d rather be proactive than reactive,” he said. “Ninety-nine times out of 100, when asked, students say ‘OK, I’ll change.’ Some want to make an issue of it for ulterior motives. If there’s defiance involved, if there’s profanity involved (in the refusal to change clothing), certainly we’d have to respond appropriately.”

The battle flag of Confederate forces in the Civil War is widely regarded as one of the most controversial symbols from American history. Many see it as a symbol of racism while others consider it a part of familial and cultural heritage.

West says she and her daughter are in the latter group.

“We are so far from prejudiced,” she said. “My older daughter is biracial. For Torri this was about expressing herself. It was about saying ‘I’m from the South and I’m proud of it.’ She didn’t do it to cause hurt feelings.”

Furthermore, she said, the sweatshirt could not have caused a disturbance in the 10 minutes Albrecht wore it before being escorted to the office at the start of the school day. Albrecht herself said no one commented on the shirt.

Courts have upheld the right of schools to prohibit the display of Confederate flags on school property, but both Forsthoffer and West agree that the East Windsor district is pushing that issue.

The superintendent said no ban was ever issued. West says Kreps Principal Lori Stein called her the day after the suspension to say the school had changed its stance.

“She said that after careful consideration she decided that if Torri wears the sweatshirt, it might not be liked but that (Stein) would look the other way and allow her to wear it,” West said.

She’s not sure she’ll accept that solution, she said.

West said she plans to send Albrecht to Virginia to live with her sister in December but doesn’t know what to do in the meantime, since Kreps is the only middle school in the district. She said she’s considering home-schooling the girl until she can make the move south.

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/11/east_windsor_teen_suspended_ov.html

Battle Flag Commentary - Why the Hate Toward It?

2011-11-26T19:45:00.000-05:00

Why do so many of the ruling elite despise the Confederate battle flag?
by Mark Vogl
Monday, March 7, 2011

One of these days you may be driving along an interstate highway and be surprised to see a huge garrison sized Confederate battle flag flying proudly. These flags are part of the Sons of Confederate Veterans Flags Across the South program.

The crimson battle flag with a blue cross and thirteen white stars is the most recognized symbol of the South, and the Civil War in America, and across the globe. In fact, if you think for a moment, does any other region in the United States have a symbol? Does the powerful northeast? Does the West Coast? How bout the Heartland? The answer is no.

Only the South has a regioal symbol, and even a quasi-national anthem, Dixie.

Three decades ago these symbols flew at NASCAR race tracks, at many college and high school football games, and Dixie was played as a fight song for many schools.

But somewhere in the 80's the ruling elite decided that these symbols of Southern regionalism and pride had to be erased. The excuse, that they offended black Americans. They made every effort to associate the Confederate battle flag with raciest organizations. Slavery was embraced as the sole PC subject connected with the American Civil War.

Why?

Any real historian will tell you that the only American slave ships which brought slaves to America flew the American flag! The slave trade was condemned as illegal in the Confederate Constitution.

And, once the US was created as nation, the US flag flew over the harbors, north and South, where slaves were brought to the United States. There was no Confederacy in those days, and there was no crimson battle flag.

So why is there so much hatred spewed against the battle flag of the Confederate Armed Forces? Why is the most recognized symbol of the South condemned?

Before I answer, let me ask another question. Do you know what the Stars and Bars looks like? No not the crimson battle flag, the Stars and Bars? This was the first national flag of the Confederate States of America. The Stars and Bars kinda looks like the US flag. It has a red, white and red bar, with a blue field in the upper corner. Usually, it is seen with seven stars in a circle. Yep, that's the Stars and Bars. The Confederacy had two other national flags, one was a white sheet with a crimson battle flag in one corner, the third was a white sheet with a crimson battle flag in the corner, and red bar running from top to bottom on the other end.

Ok, so lets talk about why the Confederate flag is so hated?

The Confederate battle flag is a very attractive, recognizable flag. It is the most recognized symbol of the South. Across the globe, many oppressed people fly this flag as a symbol of resistance. It flew in Berlin when the Wall fell. It flew in Afghanistan when the Afghani’s drove out the Soviets.

The Confederate battle flag makes Americans think about secession. It leads to discussions and questions about the principle of the "consent of the governed," and how that principle was completely ignored when Lincoln invaded the South. Before 1861 the legitimacy of the United States government rested on the sovereignty of the people and the fact that the states, as the representatives or agents of the people joined the union voluntarily. But, that ended with secession. For whatever reason, thirteen southern states chose to leave the Union. They left through democratic process and system. The people of the state, either through referendum, or through election of delegates to attend secession conventions chose to leave the Union.

And, when seven of those states joined together, they held a constitutional convention in Montgomery Alabama and drafted a new Constitution with many important changes. In effect, the South created a new system for American governance.

The ultimate right of the people was asserted. The people of a state, if they did not wish to remain in the Union could leave. If they did not want Obama care, they could leave. If they did not support a war, they could leave. If they opposed Roe v. Wade, or Gay Marriage, they could leave the union.

It was this ability to secede peacefully which acted as the single most effective restraint to the federal government over reaching itself.

The ruling elite despise the Confederate battle flag because of what it truly stands for, the original intent of the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia.

Take an opportunity during the Sesquicentennial to learn about America. Visit a local Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp and learn about American history. We encourage people to read primary sources concerning the creation of the US Constitution, and the actual events of secession in each of the Southern states. If you armed with the facts of what really occurred you might finally understand why there is such hatred towards the Crimson battle flag

http://www.nolanchart.com/article8433-why-is-there-so-much-hatred-towards-the-confederate-battle-flag.html

Baloon Launching Point to be Preserved

2011-11-26T16:31:00.000-05:00

Nonprofit aims to save Civil War's 'Kitty Hawk'

Story posted 2011.11.26
By STEVE SZKOTAK
The Associated Press

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — It was the Civil War's "Kitty Hawk moment," and it happened here when balloons manned by Confederate and Union aeronauts floated above a field of battle — the first time warring armies sent their air ships aloft simultaneously over U.S. soil.

The historic encounter in the skies occurred on June 27, 1862, when two Union balloons — the Intrepid and the Washington — rose aloft only miles west of Richmond while their Southern counterpart, Gazelle, floated over the capital of the Confederacy. These balloons were the unarmed drones of war, collecting intelligence on rival troop movements from a vantage of 1,000 feet above the earth.

"You had the Confederate balloon up and the Union balloons up, all trying to exploit the advantages of being above and over the battlefield and providing tactical information to their respective generals," says Mike Boehme, director of the Virginia Aviation Museum. "This was the first time that opposing air forces were facing each other."

Today a multimillion-dollar preservation effort by the nonprofit group The Civil War Trust is seeking to save the ground where the Union launched its balloons here. Little of the original battlefield has been preserved. But the 285-acre slice of the Gaines' Mill battlefield includes a ravine that shielded the North's balloons from Confederate troops while they were launched.

Gaines' Mill was the stage for the one of the biggest and bloodiest battles of the Civil War and the battleground where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee recorded his first victory. The June 27, 1862, battle repulsed Union forces and their Peninsula Campaign, a disastrous attempt starting in March 1862 to occupy Richmond by way of the peninsula between the York and James rivers. The battle involved nearly 100,000 troops and left more than 15,000 dead or wounded.

The trust's Rob Shenk was attending a presentation on Civil War ballooning in June at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum when he made the aeronautic connection.

"I realized, God, that looks like one of the tracts we're about to save," said Shenk, the trust's director of Internet strategy and development. "How amazing it would be if we were saving a piece of battlefield land that had great aeronautical history."

Until the Civil War, balloons were fairgrounds attractions, taking the curious aloft for a few dollars.

A New Englander, Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, changed all that. The father of military aerial reconnaissance, he had planned a trans-Atlantic balloon crossing until he was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as chief aeronaut of the Union's balloon corps. He dazzled the president by taking a balloon over the White House and telegraphing Lincoln a message in June 1861.That was the beginning of the Union's earliest "air force" and balloons would later be sent aloft on several occasions to spy on enemy lines — but not at the same time by rival forces until Gaines' Mill.

Intrigued by the intersection of Civil War and aeronautic history, Boehme and two experts in aviation history trekked to Gaines' Mill one crisp fall day. They carried historic photos of ballooning from Gaines' Mill, comparing the present-day contours of the spare landscape with the aging images.

All agreed, this was the home of Civil War ballooning's heyday.

"Military ballooning spreads from here, really, to around the world," said Tom D. Crouch, senior curator of aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

"The high ground. It is the ultimate high ground," said James L. Green, chief of planetary science at NASA and one of the three who viewed the site of the Union balloon camp.

With Richmond about 6 miles due east and the faint sound of traffic on Interstate 295 in the distance, it now seems an unlikely setting for aeronautic history. A closer look, however, connects all the dots.

Today the Union balloon camp is found beyond a field of grazing beef cattle and in a ravine studded with decaying logs and a thicket of boot-snagging grasses. In this trough, Union aeronauts hauled in wagons to inflate the balloons.

The Gazelle, which was stitched together using silk common to dressmaking, was launched from a rail track close to Richmond.

While Confederate forces had balloons, the North had the technological and financial edge to assemble a balloon corps. Still, even the Union's use of balloons was limited to a couple of years. Military leaders weren't quite sure how to effectively deploy this novelty.

The balloons were tethered as aeronauts relayed observations by telegraph, the communication wire dangling to the ground. Residents in Richmond could see the Union inflatables. It was probably a terrifying sight.

"If I was in Richmond and I saw the balloons, which they did quite frequently, I would be scared that the Union army is just over the hill," Green said.

The Union balloons were made of thick silk with a coat of varnish enveloped by a netting of Italian flax thread. The basket was made of willow and cane and had an armored floor.

The three modern-day pilgrims stood near the banks of a small, clear brook, talking excitedly about what occurred here 149 years ago and how balloons could be inflated in the ravine by Union forces without being detected by Confederate forces. The hydrogen was concocted in inflation wagons using dilute sulfuric acid and iron filings.

"This spot is incredibly historic for people who really enjoy aeronautics and the birth of flight," Boehme said. "For me, personally, this is like going down to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers."

The Civil War wasn't the first time balloons were used in a wartime environment. More than a half century before the start of the Civil War, France created the Corp d'Aerostiers in 1794. They too were used for military reconnaissance.

Lowe, whom Crouch described as a showman, designed balloons that were sturdier than the fairground versions, with some able to carry five people aloft. One of the largest, the Intrepid, had a portrait on the balloon depicting Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, who led the Union's Peninsula campaign. The portrait was suspended from an eagle's beak.

The Union's balloon corps, which included seven inflatables, were sent aloft during the Peninsula campaign at Yorktown and at the Union-held Fortress Monroe in Hampton, Va. There was even an early forerunner of an aircraft carrier: two balloons and their gas generators were loaded onto a converted coal barge for observations over water. expanded

Despite the Union's dominance of the skies, Lee's troops had a rare edge in numbers at Gaines' Mill and the Southern forces were able to drive back the Army of the Potomac and save the Confederate capital.

The Civil War Trust is using state and federal funds to preserve the 285 acres of the battlefield, but a capital campaign is needed to raise an additional $1.2 million to close the deal. The land ultimately could be transferred to the National Park Service.

At the 150th anniversary of the Gaines' Mill battle next June, Shenk is hopeful a replica of the Intrepid can be launched from the same site.

"The fact that we could fly and see what's going on over the hill has absolutely shaped the course of world history," Crouch said. "And all of it starts here."

___

Steve Szkotak can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sszkotakap.

___

Online:

The Civil War Trust: http://www.civilwar.org/

Virginia Aviation Museum: http://www.vam.smv.org/

History of the Southern Cross

2011-11-25T13:35:00.001-05:00

The history of the Southern Cross
Nov. 24, 2011

Editor's Note: Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. To mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, a series of articles by Dr. Jones about the war will be published in The News-Star. Dr. Jones is also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This is the eighth article in the series.

Louisiana in the Civil War

On November 27, 1861, Louisiana General P.G.T. Beauregard hosted a dinner party for his officers. Beauregard was the South's first hero, having captured Fort Sumter in April and then defeated the Yankees at the First Battle of Bull Run in July. Now, he commanded the Confederate army stationed in Northern Virginia to block any enemy advance out of Washington, D.C.
During the evening, Beauregard told his guests how the fog of war had caused him to nearly throw away the victory at Bull Run by ordering a headlong retreat. The fighting had raged since daylight on July 21, 1861, after General Irwin McDowell's Union army attacked Beauregard from across the small Virginia stream known as Bull Run. The battle seesawed back and forth throughout the day, but fresh troops rushed in from the Shenandoah Valley had finally given Beauregard the advantage. Then, just as victory seemed certain, he spied a heavy column of troops more than a mile away maneuvering on his flank.

Beauregard explained, "At their head waved a flag which I could not distinguish. Even by a strong glass I was unable to determine whether it was the United States flag or the Confederate flag. At this moment I received a dispatch from Capt. (Porter) Alexander, in charge of the signal station, warning me to look out for the left; that a large column was approaching in that direction, and that it was supposed to be Gen. (Robert) Patterson's command coming to reinforce McDowell. At this moment, I must confess, my heart failed me."

Beauregard knew his exhausted men could not withstand a determined flank attack. "I came, reluctantly, to the conclusion that after all our efforts, we should at last be compelled to yield to the enemy the hard fought and bloody field." Beauregard turned to an officer and instructed him to go to the rear and tell General Joseph E. Johnston to prepare the reserves to support the retreat he was about to order. As the officer began to leave, Beauregard had second thoughts and told him to wait a minute to make sure that it actually was Yankees bearing down upon them. It proved to be a fortuitous decision. "I took the glass and again examined the flag. "A sudden gust of wind shook out its folds, and I recognized the stars and bars of the Confederate banner."

The mysterious flag turned out to be the Confederacy's First National Flag, which resembled the United States flag in both color and design. It was carried at the head of Colonel Harry T. Hays' 7th Louisiana Volunteers, the lead regiment in Colonel Jubal Early's brigade that was attacking the Union flank. Early's bold move helped win the day, and the First Battle of Bull Run ended in a complete Confederate victory. Few people knew how close Beauregard had come to throwing away that victory simply because he could not identify a flag on the battlefield.

Determined to avoid similar mistakes in the future, Beauregard decided the Confederates needed a distinctive battle flag. Collaborating with Joseph E. Johnston and others, he settled on a design that South Carolina Congressman William Porcher Miles had submitted earlier for consideration as the First National Flag. Miles' submission was a blue St. Andrew's Cross on a red background, with white stars representing the Southern states.

After telling his tale, Beauregard had the new flag brought out to show his officers. A reporter for the Richmond Daily Dispatch was impressed and wrote, "The flag itself is a beautiful banner, which, I am sure, before this campaign is over, will be consecrated forever in the affections of the people of the Confederate States." Shortly the dinner, Beauregard was transferred to the western Confederacy and the new battle flag took root there, as well.

The Louisiana-inspired battle flag became known as the Southern Cross, and it was adopted by the other armies when General Beauregard was transferred to the western theater of war. However, it was never an official flag of the Confederate government and it was never flown over public buildings despite what Hollywood might have one believe. The Southern Cross was simply a military banner that troops carried in the field. Nonetheless, it became the iconic symbol of the Rebel cause, and it was later incorporated into the Confederacy's Second and Third National Flags.

Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and has published six books on the American Civil War.

http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20111125/LIFESTYLE/111250322/The-history-Southern-Cross?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

Thanksgiving Proclamation By President Davis

2011-11-25T13:29:00.001-05:00

1862 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation by CSA President Jefferson Davis

President Jefferson Davis, Confederate States of America, made the following Thanksgiving Day proclamation in 1862. His first such proclamation, "a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer," had been issued in 1861. It was not until two years later that the infidel Abraham Lincoln copied Davis and announced the first official Thanksgiving day in the North.

To the People of the Confederate States:

Once more upon the plains of Manassas have our armies been blessed by the Lord of Hosts with a triumph over our enemies. It is my privilege to invite you once more to His footstool, not now in the garb of fasting and sorrow, but with joy and gladness, to render thanks for the great mercies received at His hand. A few months since, and our enemies poured forth their invading legions upon our soil. They laid waste our fields, polluted our altars and violated the sanctity of our homes. Around our capital they gathered their forces, and with boastful threats, claimed it as already their prize. The brave troops which rallied to its defense have extinguished these vain hopes, and, under the guidance of the same almighty hand, have scattered our enemies and driven them back in dismay.

Uniting these defeated forces and the various armies which had been ravaging our coasts with the army of invasion in Northern Virginia, our enemies have renewed their attempt to subjugate us at the very place where their first effort was defeated, and the vengeance of retributive justice has overtaken the entire host in a second and complete overthrow.To this signal success accorded to our arms in the East has been graciously added another equally brilliant in the West.

On the very day on which our forces were led to victory on the Plains of Manassas, in Virginia, the same Almighty arm assisted us to overcome our enemies at Richmond, in Kentucky. Thus, at one and the same time, have two great hostile armies been stricken down, and the wicked designs of their armies been set at naught.

In such circumstances, it is meet and right that, as a people, we should bow down in adoring thankfulness to that gracious God who has been our bulwark and defense, and to offer unto him the tribute of thanksgiving and praise. In his hand is the issue of all events, and to him should we, in an especial manner, ascribe the honor of this great deliverance.

Now, therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, do issue this, my proclamation, setting apart Thursday, the 18th day of September inst., as a day of prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the great mercies vouchsafed to our people, and more especially for the triumph of our arms at Richmond and Manassas;

and I do hereby invite the people of the Confederate States to meet on that day at their respective places of public worship, and to unite in rendering thanks and praise to God for these great mercies, and to implore Him to conduct our country safely through the perils which surround us, to the final attainment of the blessings of peace and security.

Given under my hand and the seal of the Confederate States, at Richmond, this fourth day of

September, A.D.1862.

JEFFERSON DAVISPr

Confederate Grave Marked in Iowa

2011-11-22T13:24:00.002-05:00

Divided by War, Joined in Death

The newly found Des Moines grave of a Civil War soldier brings together opposing sides.
In the end, they were all veterans.

Colleen Peterson of the Order of the Confederate Rose lays a rose on the grave of Mississippi soldier E.J. Goode at Woodland Cemetery Friday.

Written by
MIKE KILEN
The Register

The commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Bruce Peterson, shakes hands with Sgt. Mike Rowley, right, with the 49th Iowa Volunteer Infantry near the grave of a Confederate soldier named E.J. Goode at Woodland Cemetery during a short ceremony Friday. The Mike Rowley wore the uniform of the Union, while Bruce Peterson donned the wool of the Confederate.

They stood on opposite ends of a newly found grave in Woodland Cemetery in Des Moines on a sunny, brisk Veterans Day morning.

Between them, E.J. Goode was buried here in 1901. He was a Confederate soldier from Mississippi whose grave was unmarked, just dirt and 150 years of a nation’s scars covering him.
Rowley’s ancestors fought in the Civil War, fighting for the Union. Peterson’s ancestors fought for the Confederates.

They joined company this day at a gravesite ceremony, where a new stone marked a long-dead soldier.

“One of the great strengths of Americans is that we are able to have conflicts, find solutions, come together and move forward,” said Rowley, a historian from Clive who specializes in finding and marking graves of military veterans.

Rowley received an email from Wilson Farnham of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Lawrence County, Mississippi. He too researched veterans’ history and gravesites and noted that every Memorial Day he places a flag on the lone Union veteran buried in a local church cemetery.

“I know this is a strange request,” he added, “but I thought you might consider helping me.”
A volunteer from his group had traveled to Iowa and found the grave in Woodland simply marked “Eddie.” They thought it might be Goode. Rowley gladly helped. He researched the records and found it was E.J. Goode’s son, Eddie, buried there. But in an unmarked plot right next to him, according to cemetery records, was E.J. A new gravestone was ordered with the Southern Cross.

Though the Civil War was said to be the most divisive conflict any nation has endured, with 600,000 casualties, including more than 13,000 Iowans, many Confederate soldiers and their families chose Iowa as a place to start over, Rowley said. Back then, cemeteries were segregated for many things — race, religion, or social status — but which uniform they wore in the Civil War may have topped them all.

“A lot of Confederate graves were not marked,” said Peterson, of Earlham. “They came here to get away from the divisions.”

E.J. Goode is only the second Confederate grave to be marked at Woodland. Only 207 Confederate graves have been located in Iowa. E.J. Goode was a lawyer in Mississippi who first formed a company called Goode Rifles, and then became a colonel in the 7th Mississippi Infantry. His fortune shattered by a lost war, Goode moved to Des Moines to start over. He continued to practice law and also owned the Des Moines State Leader newspaper.
But until this year his grave was never marked with the honor of a veteran.

Around us, Rowley said, are veterans who were born free or born into slavery, governors and the poor, prisoners of war and battlefield poets. “In the end, they were all Iowans,” he said.
Peterson threw dirt from Mississippi on the grave. Men wearing Confederate uniforms fired their rifles.

All apparently was forgiven, regardless of battlefield allegiance or nativity, though Rowley did hear grumbles from a couple members of Sons of Union Veterans about honoring a Confederate. Peterson remarked during the ceremony that Goode was known in Des Moines for a polite manner “that only a southerner can bestow on an enemy.” In the end, they were all veterans.

So they lowered their rifles, got in their cars and drove to Glenwood Cemetery, where another grave was recently found, the headstone arriving coincidentally the same day as Goode’s. It was to mark the grave of Newton Curtley, an African-American veteran of the Spanish-American War.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20111112/NEWS/311120028/Divided-by-war-joined-in-death

Whistler's Brother in the CSA

2011-11-22T13:20:00.001-05:00

Whistler’s Brother
By RONALD S. CODDINGTON

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.

Shortly after the Civil War broke out, Dr. William McNeill Whistler, scion of a storied Anglo-American military family and brother of the artist James McNeill Whistler, arrived in Richmond, Va., to lobby Confederate leaders for a medical officer’s commission. Described as a genial, refined man with a soft and pleasant voice, the 25-year-old, Massachusetts-born Whistler was firmly determined to put his medical training to use.

William A. Turner collection: William McNeill Whistler donned his Confederate uniform for this postwar portrait taken circa 1866 in France by the studio of Paris photographer Étienne Carjat.
Even after he gave up on the medical staff itself and applied for a clerk’s position instead, he wrote in his application, “Being a physician by profession, I felt that the only true position for me was on the medical staff, as the want of any military education disqualified me for any other office.” By war’s end, though, he would find himself following more closely in his family’s footsteps than he could have imagined.

Dr. Whistler’s grandfather, John Whistler, had served in the British Army during the Revolution. He later immigrated to America, became a United States Army officer, and fought the British in the War of 1812. Dr. Whistler’s father, George Washington Whistler, graduated from West Point and become a well-respected civil engineer during the early years of the railroad boom. He died unexpectedly in 1849 while overseeing the planning and construction of a Russian railroad, after which his widowed wife (and future world-famous portrait subject), Anna, and children, including 12-year-old William Whistler, returned to America. Even William’s older brother, the acclaimed artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler, attended West Point (though he didn’t graduate).

William Whistler, however, broke from the West Point tradition, earning a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1860. Later that year he married the Georgia-born Florida Bayard King — affectionately known as Ida — later that year. Dr. Whistler’s mother, who hailed from North Carolina, embraced “precious Ida” with love and affection. She noted a few months after the Civil War began that the newlyweds “seem perfectly well and happy. Ida has made Willie a thorough secessionist thus verifying the saying ‘A man forsakes all, for his wife.’”
The couple settled in Richmond, where Whistler failed to find a medical officer’s commission and they ran into money problems. A year passed before his luck finally changed: in the fall of 1862, Confederate authorities commissioned Dr. Whistler as assistant surgeon and assigned him to duty in the Richmond area. But while his career prospects rose, Ida’s health declined. Dr. Whistler’s mother traveled to Richmond to care for her, but after an early and encouraging rally, Ida died in March 1863.

The loss devastated mother and son. Months later, a bereaved Mrs. Whistler wrote of Ida to a friend, “Each day I feel more sensibly what Willie & I have lost, she was such a rare combination of brightness & gentleness, so loving so confiding, just like one of my own little ones.”
Whistler remained on duty in the vicinity of Richmond until April 1864, when he received a field assignment as an assistant surgeon in the veteran First South Carolina Rifles. The hard-fighting regiment was also known as Orr’s Rifles after its original commander, Col. James Orr, a onetime speaker of the House of Representatives who resigned from the Army to serve in the Confederate Congress. Whistler served with Orr’s Rifles on the front lines in Virginia as the Union Army of the Potomac advanced on Richmond in April 1864. “He was a total stranger to us,” wrote Sgt. Maj. Robert Hemphill in a postwar memorial to Dr. Whistler. “The veterans of three years looked with discerning eyes upon the new assistant surgeon to see of what mettle he was made.”

Library of CongressThe Bloody Angle, labeled on this circa 1865 map as the West Angle, is part of the Mule Shoe Salient on the Spotsylvania battlefield.
Dr. Whistler proved himself the following month during the Battle of Spotsylvania and the intense fighting in an area that came to be known as the Bloody Angle, some of the worst combat of the war. Driven, perhaps, to fill the void left by the death of his wife, Dr. Whistler proved fearless on the battlefield, even in the face of unrelenting enemy fire. “When the artillery opened,” recalled Major Hemphill,

Dr. Whistler ordered his servant to take his horse to the rear and out of danger, while he remained with the line of battle until it entered the Bloody Angle, and he was detained to look after such as had fallen in the charge. He thus established himself in the hearts of his comrades, and made a reputation for cool courage and fidelity to duty.

During the rest of the campaign, according to Major Hemphill, “Dr. Whistler was constantly on the line, sharing the hardships, dangers, and scant rations of the men. The humblest private received the same professional attention from him as did the highest officer.” Major Hemphill included an anecdote that illustrated Dr. Whistler’s compassion for the men in the ranks. During a raid outside Petersburg in December 1864, “The roads were covered with snow and ice, and the suffering of the men was great, for many were without shoes, and the broken ice lacerated their feet most painfully. Dr. Whistler gave up his horse to one of these wretched men, and marched on foot with the line. He walked for miles by the side of the writer.” Whistler entertained his companions with stories of his boyhood adventures in Russia and other experiences. “In bivouac and camp he was a most agreeable comrade, his conversation being full of reminiscence, anecdote and philosophy,” Major Hemphill added.

But the rigors of campaigning eventually compromised Dr. Whistler’s health. He received a leave of absence in February 1865 and traveled to Richmond. He left soon after to join his mother, who had since departed for London to visit her artist son, James. Not letting an opportunity overseas go to waste, the Confederate government entrusted Dr. Whistler to deliver “certain dispatches of importance” to England. Dr. Whistler set out for South Carolina with the intention of crossing the Atlantic on a blockade-runner out of Charleston. He ran into elements of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s federal army, and changed course to Wilmington, N.C. There, the presence of Union forces foiled his plans again. He next traveled to the North under an assumed name and dressed in civilian clothes; he made his way through Philadelphia to New York, from where he sailed for England. He arrived in Liverpool and delivered the dispatches, then joined his family. One week later, Dr. Whistler learned that Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia.

Dr. Whistler never returned to America. He wandered through Europe for about a year, and worked for a time in Paris, where he most likely posed for his carte de visite photograph wearing his Confederate uniform, perhaps for the last time. He eventually settled in London and rose to prominence as a physician and academic. In 1876 he married a Greek citizen, Helen Euphrosyne Ionides. She survived her husband after he died of influenza at age 63 in 1900.

Follow Disunion at twitter.com/NYTcivilwar or join us on Facebook.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/whistlers-brother/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Michigan School Violates Civil Rights of Students

2011-11-22T13:07:00.001-05:00

Students in Michigan Told They Can Not Display Confederate Flag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9eXYY4S_qo&feature=player_embedded

CIC Recommends Seeing "The Conspirator"

2011-11-20T16:11:00.002-05:00

Compatriots,

The Conspirator is a fantastic film - The story nearly parallels the heinous and cruel propaganda killing of Major Henry Wirz. Kudos to Robert Redford for doing the right thing in showing the truth in the Conspirator.

But on to the next concern: Spielberg is deep into production of his Lincoln film. I hope, but do not trust, that Spielberg will not be interested in telling the same old, worn-out story but will tell the truth. I am nervous. Film is a very tough weapon and in the hands of a director as popular as Spielberg and with a huge budget it can cause the Cause of Truth a great deal of lasting harm.

Ready yourselves.

Michael Givens
CiC, SCV

Monument Decicated in North Carolina

2011-11-20T15:58:00.000-05:00

New Confederate monument dedicated
Published Sunday, November 13, 2011

The Tom Smith Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Suffolk chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy came together to dedicate a new Confederate monument in Cedar Hill Cemetery on Saturday, in honor of Veterans Day.

The granite slab, which once served as a footer for a column in a Richmond theater, will eventually hold a bronze plaque with the names of units that mustered from Suffolk and Nansemond County to fight in the Civil War.

Because the plaque was not ready in time for the ceremony, a plastic replica took its place on Saturday. But it was no less meaningful to those present.

“This monument is dedicated to the over 1,500 men and boys who left their homes in Suffolk and Nansemond County to fight for Virginia,” said Mike Pullen, commander of the Tom Smith Camp. The monument ensures their service “will never be tarnished by revisions of history,” he said.

The plaque will bear the names of 21 companies and their places of enlistment across the old county, from Chuckatuck to Cypress Chapel and from Pig Point to South Quay.

The granite stone has a unique Civil War history all its own.

The stone once served as a footer in the Marshall/Richmond Theater in Richmond. It was placed in 1818 when the building was constructed and was visible in basement dressing rooms.

The likes of 19th-century performers such as Jenny Lind, Sally Partington and Elizabeth Poe, the mother of author Edgar Allan Poe, at one time graced the stage of the theater. The infamous Booth family — father Junius Brutus Booth and sons Edwin and John — also performed there. The younger brother, future assassin of Civil War-era President Abraham Lincoln, even served as the stage manager at the theater for a time.

When the building at the corner of Seventh and Broad streets in Richmond was being demolished in 2005, Sons of Confederate Veterans members rescued the eight granite footings, which had been destined to be chipped into gravel.

“We are very fortunate to have this piece of granite,” Tom Smith Camp member Lee Hart said. “This stone was there. It saw some hardships, and it saw some joys.”

Some of the other stones now are parts of monuments in Richmond, Fauquier County, North Carolina and Tennessee.

The members of the two organizations said it was especially appropriate to dedicate the monument on Veterans Day during the sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War.

“We are here for the soldiers,” said Susan Carraway of the Suffolk United Daughters of the Confederacy. “It is their right and our duty to protect our Southern heritage.”

Hart said it was fitting that the new monument will stand within feet of the column marking the burial spot of Dr. William Brock Wellons, who was a chaplain in the Confederate army.

“He had the opportunity to bring many of them to Christ,” Hart said.

http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/2011/11/13/new-confederate-monument-dedicated/

SCV Members Win Fight for Cemetery With Georgia Power

2011-11-20T15:57:00.000-05:00

Brothers win -- for now --fight over cemetery at Georgia Power's Plant Wansley
Flag removal highlights long-standing dispute with Georgia Power

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia Power Co. had its lawyers and a public relations office. The Rev. Wayne Webb and his brother, Walter, were armed only with determination when they challenged the utility -- again -- over ownership of a two-acre church cemetery in the middle of the massive Plant Wansley property.

Enlarge photo Johnny Crawford, Jcrawford@ajc.com Billy Bearden pushes a confederate flag in the ground at the Yellow Dirt Baptist Church grave yard on Wednesday, Nov 3,2011.

The Webbs won on Wednesday -- at least for now -- when Georgia Power acknowledged that the Yellow Dirt Baptist Church, and the Webbs as trustees, owned the cemetery that was established just after the Civil War. Indeed, it was a question of Confederate flags that highlighted the dispute this time.

The dispute over the property that is far off a main road in Heard County has continued off and on almost since the land for the coal power plant was bought in 1971. There would be an agreement but then management would change at the plant and the Webbs would again argue over the ownership of the two acres of graves and hardwood trees.

It became news in recent weeks when plant security officers removed flags placed on the graves of seven Civil War veterans. The Sons of Confederate Veterans protested. That attention only helped the brothers with their decades-long fight, said Wayne Webb.

“It’s not just a Confederate issue. It was ownership of the cemetery,” said Wayne Webb, whose great-grandparents and several aunts, uncles and cousins are buried in the cemetery.

The brothers and plant officials met Wednesday in the old Yellow Dirt Baptist Church building a few yards from the cemetery, and the utility again conceded that the graveyard was not part of the sale.

“It will not be 100 percent concluded until we get that documentation,” Wayne Webb said.

The Webbs were given a copy of a report on the title search. They also has asked for a survey and a statement on letterhead of the Southern Co., Georgia Power’s parent, stating that “Yellow Dirt church and the trustees own that property and they would never try to claim that two-acre cemetery again.”

Walter Webb also asked for an apology to the families of those in the cemetery, especially for removing the flags.

“If we get that survey and that statement from the Southern Co.... that would resolve the cemetery issue,” Wayne Webb said

The Webb brothers say this may or may not be the last time they have to fight the utility over ownership.

“This thing has been settled on two different occasions,” said Walter Webb, 66. “But every so often, they change management or security and something always comes up...”

According to court records, Georgia Power bought the land for $22,000 in 1971 as it gathered up 2,500 acres in Heard and Carroll Counties for Plant Wansley. The special stipulations were that the congregation could remove the piano, pews and chairs from inside the white clapboard Yellow Dirt Baptist Church, built in 1872, and the congregation would maintain ownership of two acres, including the cemetery. The deed said visitors to the graveyard were to have access.

The first problem was in 1972 when a fence to protect the graveyard from constructions crews and equipment was erected around only one of the two acres. Six days later the Webbs’ father, R.J. Webb, wrote the utility’s superintendent of land and acquisitions, and got a response that the entire two acres would be fenced.

The next year, however, Georgia Power locked the fence. Wayne Webb, now 60, has a picture of his father using a ladder to climb inside.

At the end of 1990, Walter Webb was confronted on the two acres while cutting wood. The Webbs and Georgia Power had another discussion about ownership. It was eventually determined that Georgia Power did not own those two acres.

In September, members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans placed flags on six graves, one of them at the tombstone of the Webb brothers’ great-grandfather, J.P. Shelnutt.

Georgia Power had an employee remove them, the utility and the Webbs said.

“I do understand that Georgia Power has a rule of no Confederate flags are allowed on the property, however it is public knowledge that Georgia Power does not own my grandfather nor any of the other deceased in the Old Yellow Dirt Cemetery,” Walter Webb wrote in a letter to an area newspaper.

Less than a decade ago, the utility was defending itself against allegations of racial discrimination and complaints that nooses, a potent symbol of racism, were found in Georgia Power job sites.

“We have a company policy that prohibits the display of certain materials that may be offensive to people,” said Georgia Power spokesman Mark Williams. He said the flags were removed by people who thought the cemetery was utility property. After talks with Georgia Power, Confederate flags were put back on the six graves.

“We left on Oct. 8 thinking everything was back the way it used to be,” said William “Billy” Bearden, a member of the SCV. “We found out on Oct. 12 the flags had been pulled again. At that point it was war... They have been alerted to the fact you can’t just go around snatching veterans graves willy-nilly.”

After more negotiations with the Webbs, Georgia Power allowed flags to be put on the graves yet again, contingent on the company’s lawyers’ check of court records.

In the meanwhile, the Sons of Confederate Veterans staged protests. On Tuesday they were outside a plant entrance, wearing uniforms and holding flags.

On Wednesday the brothers got a call that Georgia Power’s title search was done.

They met with the plant manager -- but no lawyers -- for about an hour. It was friendly, according to Wayne Webb.

“Maybe I can get some sleep now,” Wayne Webb said.

http://www.ajc.com/news/brothers-win-for-now-1225320.html#.TsI1PcYwWx0.email

Virginia Art Musuem Destroys History

2011-11-20T15:47:00.000-05:00

The VMFA’s Confederate Flag Problem

When driving down Boulevard, the last thing you might expect to see in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is a group of people waving Confederate flags (okay, maybe not the LAST thing… this is Richmond after all). But at the VMFA? My question–along with many of my friends and Richmond’s Twitterati–was what’s going on here? Knowing the history of the location, I first assumed it was the anniversary of some of event, like how you can usually find Confederate reenactors guarding Robert E. Lee’s statue on his birthday.

Well, it turns out that I was wrong and we were actually witnessing a Confederate Flag protest. You gotta ask yourself: what’s the fun of living in a Southern city without a good old fashioned Confederate flag scandal? So, apologies while I spend today’s column in the present day rather than the usual 1861.

First, let’s establish some historical context here. The land on which the VMFA sits was once a camp for Confederate veterans, known as Robert E. Lee Camp No. 1, also known as the “Old Soldiers’ Home.” The camp was formed in 1884 as a home for needy, wounded, and infirm Confederate veterans after the war. It was purchased and maintained by donations from their fellow veterans, both Union and Confederate. The camp covered roughly 36 acres and housed hundreds of veterans over the years. When the last resident veteran passed away in 1941, the land was deeded to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Over the years, the land would be used for two of Richmond’s best known landmarks on Boulevard: the VMFA and the Virginia Historical Society. The only surviving buildings from the original camp are the headquarters of the camp, known as the Robinson House, and the Confederate War Memorial Chapel (also known as the Pelham Chapel).

In 1993, an agreement was made between the Commonwealth, the VMFA, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization to allow them to lease the chapel. According to the VMFA, the Confederate battle flag began flying at the chapel after the Sons of Confederate Veterans became the lessee. When the lease was renewed in June of 2010, the board of trustees at the VMFA made the decision to ask that the flag be removed from the chapel.

The only piece of the puzzle that I can’t seem to put together is why it took so long for the protests to start? It looks like the momentum for protests really didn’t kick into gear until October of this year. The protesters, identifying themselves as “flaggers,” are part of a larger grassroots effort organized via blogs and social media to call attention to instances where the Confederate flag has been removed or is being considered for removal. Somehow the VMFA’s action drew the attention of the group and they’ve been organizing regular weekly protests ever since.

As a Civil War buff, I struggle with this issue of the Confederate flag. When I’ve heard about Confederate flags flying over city hall buildings or government buildings in the past, it always seemed like a no-brainer to me that the flag shouldn’t be there. But for an actual Confederate historical landmark, it seems a little heavy-handed to remove the flag since it’s a place that was built to commemorate those who died fighting for the Confederacy. They may have been the losing side, but the flag represents the honor of those who fought and died, and it seems appropriate to me that it should be there.

Of course, it’s not that simple. Any person living in the South knows the context of the Confederate flag has changed over the past 150 years. The flag has been perverted over the years and sadly, is recognized more today as a symbol of backwards thinking, racism, and hate. Are there people who fly the flag out of respect for their Southern heritage and eschew its other meanings? Absolutely. In our society, however, it’s a difficult thing to wave a flag and expect people to parse your specific meaning.

Because of this, I totally understand why the VMFA would want to distance themselves from the flag. Here we have the newly-renovated museum, a shining example of a city moving forward and upward, truly establishing us as a place of culture and art and bringing us out of the shadow of our bigger city neighbors. So when a tourist in Richmond for the first time sees this amazing museum and then rounds the corner to see a Confederate flag waving, the juxtaposition is harsh, and I can see why the museum wouldn’t be wild about that mixed perception.

The VMFA hasn’t come out and said any of this, but it’s fairly easy to see the predicament they’re in. That being said, the Museum has made a really strong effort to honor the past of the Old Soldiers’ Home, placing several new illustrated signs explaining the history of the camp, along with providing information on their website and during public tours about the history of their location. In addition, the VMFA claims to have done research indicating that Confederate flags weren’t actually on display at the chapel during the days of the camp, which they cite as a reason for asking for their removal.

When I first set out to write this article, I leaned toward allowing the Confederate flag to fly outside the Pelham Chapel, but after doing more research and thinking about the issue, I’m more conflicted about it than when I started. It’s a tough issue with no clear answer. Recognizing our Civil War past and reconciling that with what we want Richmond to become is something we’re going to continue to struggle with for another 150 years. It’s something that defines our city and will continue to do so.

I respect the VMFA for acknowledging and helping to preserve the chapel and its unique part in the history of the city. I also have respect for the people who are waving Confederate flags because they’re concerned that we’re going to forget an important part of our city’s past. It’s hard to say what will happen next with the protests, but I welcome any opportunity for us to reflect on our city’s history and our vision for it moving forward.

http://rvanews.com/features/the-vmfa%E2%80%99s-confederate-flag-problem/52991

Confederate Ship's Bell Returns Home

2011-11-20T15:45:00.000-05:00

Bell from Confederate ship is back home in N.C.

The Virginian-Pilot
November 17, 2011
PLYMOUTH, N.C.

One history buff from the North and another from the South maneuvered a heavy Confederate ship's bell into the Port O' Plymouth Museum on Wednesday.

Speaking instructions to each other in their distinct accents, Daniel McAuliffe of Worcester, Mass., and Jimmy Hardison of this northeastern North Carolina town pushed a dolly holding the bell, packed in a wooden box, through narrow passageways to the museum's rear display room and hefted it onto a table.

"I reckon that'll do it," Hardison said.

Placement of the bell was a friendly effort between North and South, unlike the circumstances back in October 1864. That's when Union Lt. William Cushing used a small boat to shove a torpedo into the bow of the CSS Albemarle, blowing out a hole big enough to drive a wagon through. The ship sank into the Roanoke River muck, ending its successful six-month campaign against the Union blockade in the Albemarle Sound.

The bell, which has gone back and forth between Worcester and Plymouth in recent years, is back on loan to the local museum for 10 years. McAuliffe acknowledged that interest in the war is much greater in the South, where the battles largely were fought and where many descendents of Confederate soldiers still live in the same county.

On the ironclad Albemarle, the bell sounded when to go forward or backward and marked watch changes, among other things. Life on the Albemarle was lived by the bell, said Harry Thompson, curator of the privately funded museum. This bell came from a church and was about three times larger than the typical ship's bell of the time, he said.

Schoolchildren from throughout the region and many others come to the museum, housed in an old train station, to see wall-to-wall artifacts from the 1864 Battle of Plymouth. Most of them are on loan from Hardison, who has spent his adult life searching the region for Civil War relics.

Gilbert Elliott was a 19-year-old lieutenant from Elizabeth City when he built the Albemarle in a cornfield just up the Roanoke River from Plymouth. During several battles, hundreds of cannonballs from Union ships bounced off the Albemarle's armor, and its ironclad strength allowed the Confederates to retake Plymouth and control the Roanoke River. In one battle, the USS Miami fired a round at close range, only to have the shell bounce off the Albemarle back onto the Miami, killing its commanding officer.

"She was feared by the Union," McAuliffe said.

The Union retook Plymouth a few days after the ship's sinking.

The Grand Army of the Republic Memorial of Worcester got the bell from the widow of Horace James, a Union chaplain from Worcester who supervised the Freedman's Colony of Roanoke Island.

Tom Harrison, a board member of the Washington County Historical Society, tried but failed to get the bell about 20 years ago. In 2001, he discovered it had been moved from the Grand Army museum to the Worcester Historical Museum, which was willing to make a loan.

Harrison drove 14 hours there to get it. It remained in Plymouth until this past April, when the bell went back to Worcester for the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. Its return Wednesday begins a new chapter.

The CSS Albemarle was raised and brought to Norfolk, where it was eventually sold as scrap for $1,600.16, Thompson said. Only three known artifacts survive: the bell, a cannon stored at a naval facility in Norfolk and the smokestack on display at the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City.

http://hamptonroads.com/2011/11/bell-confederate-ship-back-home-nc

Marker Placed to Honor Ohio Born Confederate General

2011-11-20T15:41:00.001-05:00

Bicentennial marker dedicated to Confederate general
Mount Vernon News
November 17, 2011

Members of Co. B of the 5th Kentucky Infantry, led by Capt. Jeff Steiner,fire off a musket salute to Gen. Daniel Harris Reynolds during a dedication ceremony Nov. 12 in Centerburg, Ohio. An Ohio Historical Society marker honoring the Centerburg native was dedicated at the village park.

Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Roswell S. Ripley Camp 1535, the group that sponsored the marker, were joined by members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Civil War re-enactors, and many members of the community. Also present were several members of the Reynolds family.

The marker honoring Reynolds is the fourth sponsored by the local SCV group and the third to honor one of the six Ohio-born generals that served the Southern cause during the Civil War, or as is known in the South, “The War for Southern Independence.” Other markers sponsored by the group include one marking the escape of Gen. John Hunt Morgan from the Ohio Penitentiary, located in Columbus’ arena district; one honoring Gen. Roswell S. Ripley, located in Worthington; and in Malta, a marker honors Gen. Otho Strahl, who was also a close friend of Gen. Reynolds.

Following an invocation by Bob Croye of the SCV, Don Reynolds, representing the Reynolds family, spoke of how as a child he played on the foundation stones of the old log cabin that Gen. Reynolds grew up in. Other speakers included Centerburg Mayor Diana Stockmaster, Jeffrey Yoest of the SCV, who expressed his sincere appreciation of the support from the Centerburg community, and John Morgan, the local project coordinator for the marker. Kristina Kuehling of the Ohio Historical Society noted that the Reynolds marker was the 10th historical marker to be erected in Knox County. Kuehling also read a proclamation from Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Following the unveiling by Morgan and Yoest, a musket salute was fired by Company B of the 5th Kentucky Infantry and “Dixie,” the “anthem” of the Confederacy, which was written by another Knox County native, Dan Emmett, was played to end the ceremony.

Gen. Reynolds was born near Centerburg in 1832. As a young man, he taught school to students barely younger than himself. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, where he met and became close friends with Otho Strahl, another Ohioan who would also serve the Confederacy as a general. Moving to Iowa, Reynolds resumed schoolteaching and studied law. He then moved to Tennessee where he was admitted to the bar in 1858. Soon thereafter he moved to Chicot County, Ark., where he set up a law practice.

Reynolds chose to serve his adopted state of Arkansas when the Civil War began in 1861, forming a cavalry company, known as the “Chicot Rangers.” His first taste of battle was at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek in August 1861, the first major battle in the Western theater. Reynolds was a respected soldier and leader, receiving steady promotions within the Confederate Army. He participated in many major battles spanning the entire war including Pea Ridge, Chickamauga and the Atlanta Campaign, just to name of few.

Reynolds suffered a wound at the Battle of Bentonville, N.C., the last major battle of the war, which required the amputation of his leg. After the war he re-established his law practice and served a term in the Arkansas state legislature. He died in 1902 and is buried in Lake Village, Ark.

According to the Ohio Historical Society’s website, www.remarkableohio.com, the purpose of the historical marker program is to “identify, commemorate and honor the important people, places and events that have contributed to the state’s rich history. The Ohio Historical Markers Program, administered by the Ohio Historical Society, is a vital educational tool, informing residents and visitors about significant aspects of Ohio’s past.” Gen. Reynolds’ unique story and commendable record illustrates the service and sacrifices rendered by so many Americans in the Civil War.

Read more: Bicentennial marker dedicated to Confederate general / Mount Vernon News http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/11/11/17/bicentennial-marker-dedicated-to-confederate-general#ixzz1eHVVKNn5

Confederate Submarines Could be in Shreveport Bayou

2011-11-20T15:36:00.001-05:00

Confederate submarines could be under casino site, historian says
Written by
Michele Marcotte

Four Confederate submarines built in Shreveport to protect the Red River from Union advances may be beneath the proposed site of the Margaritaville casino, a local historian says.

But developers of the 400-room resort-casino planned north of the Louisiana Boardwalk disagree, saying they're 100 percent confident the submarines are not on the land. Examinations of the property, which included digging 100-foot deep holes all over the parcel, did not yield any historic relics, they say.
"We did not find any Confederate submarines," said William Trotter, co-manager of Bossier Casino Venture, the company developing Margaritaville. Trotter said if the company had seen any evidence of an artifact, they would have pursued retrieving it.
But local Civil War historian Gary Joiner questions the company's analysis, saying the methodology may have been flawed.

"How do they know there is nothing there?" Joiner asked.

It's not the first time the submarines have piqued the curiosity of local historians and added to the area's Civil War legacy. Unsuccessful searches for the boats were commissioned in 1999 and 2006 at Cross Bayou. And a similar search for other historical artifacts before the Boardwalk was built also yielded no results.
Joiner, who has accompanied a marine archaeologist in prior searches for the boats, said war records indicate five 40-foot submarines were built in the early 1860s at a naval shipyard on Cross Bayou. One boat was dismantled and sent to Galveston Bay, while the others remained here through the end of the war.

"It's likely the submarines were scuttled in case the South chose to renew its campaign" , Joiner said.

At the time, the proposed casino site was an isolated area upstream from the Grand Duke, a surface gunboat berthed in a slough north of the naval boatyard. The proximity to the Grand Duke, which burned in 1863, is one of many factors contributing to Joiner's theory.

"That is the most logical place to hide four submarines, side-by-side, tied together," he said. "The Red River transports a lot of silt and sand and they would have been covered up and underground.

Joiner isn't the first historian to show interest in the missing submarines.

In 1999 and 2006, American author Clive Cussler sent famed marine archaeologist and diver Ralph Wilbanks, who Joiner worked with, to look for them. Wilbanks was the diver who found the lost Confederate submarine CSS Hunley in 1995. Shreveport historian Eric Brock has also written about them.

In a 1999 newspaper column, Brock wrote that shortly after the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi surrendered in June 1865, a Federal naval force came up the Red River to demand the surrender of the ironclad CSS Missouri.

"To prevent them falling into Union hands along with the Missouri, the builders of the four submarines sank them in the muddy waters where Cross Bayou and the Red River meet," Brock wrote. "There they remain, buried in the river's mud and silt, to this very day."

Joiner said he would like Bossier City and Bossier Parish to "take the lead" in examining the land. A cultural resource survey was conducted prior to the development of the Louisiana Boardwalk, and the same should occur for the casino site, he said.

Joiner, who worked on the Boardwalk survey, said the study looked for archeological assets around the site, which could have included the submarines.

Boardwalk developers paid for the cultural resource survey, and if one was to be conducted on the casino site, its developers would have to fund it, Bossier City spokesman Mark Natale said. Bossier Parish administrator Bill Altimus referred comments on a potential survey to the city.

Joiner said while there is a lot of evidence pointing to the casino site, the submarines could also be within a set of ravines on Cross Bayou. The bayou has been searched many times, but nothing was discovered to show the submarines are there, Joiner said.

Even if the submarines are not located at the casino site, a proper survey of the land is still valuable because of the land's historical significance., he said.
"Early Bossier City extended that far up," he said. "We could find things about our history and our culture that we just don't know. If we find nothing, we find nothing. If we find something, it's for the public good."

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20111114/NEWS01/111140302/Confederate-submarines-could-under-casino-site-historian-says?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Memorial For Capt. Wirz To Be Held

2011-11-13T16:39:00.000-05:00

Wirz memorial planned
By Carlton Fletcher
carlton.fletcher@albanyherald.com
Saturday, October 29, 2011

Capt. Henry Wirz, who is held responsible by many historians for the atrocities at Andersonville’s Prison Site, will be memorialized at the Site on Nov. 6.

ANDERSONVILLE — Capt. Henry Wirz, one of only two Confederate soldiers tried, convicted and executed for war crimes in the aftermath of this country’s Civil War, is a polarizing figure.

The commandant of the Confederate prisoner of war Camp Sumner at Andersonville, Wirz is held responsible by many historians for the atrocities at the camp, where more than 13,000 Union prisoners died of starvation, disease and exposure to the elements.

Wirz supporters, including members of his family and Southern heritage organizations like the Sons of Confederate Veterans, say the Swiss native was a scapegoat who was convicted at a trial that was little more than a farce. Col. Heinrich Wirz, Henry Wirz’s great grand-nephew who lives in Bern, Switzerland, has spent years of his life and a large sum of money seeking a pardon for his ancestor, who is memorialized with a statue at the present-day historic site of the Andersonville camp.

The SCV’s Alexander H. Stephens Camp 78 in Americus honors Wirz each year with a memorial service at the prison site. This year’s service will be held at Andersonville on Nov. 6.

“The Sons of Confederate Veterans organization in Americus joined with the United Daughters of the Confederacy to host the first memorial service for Capt. Wirz in 1976,” James Gaston, chairman of Camp 78’s Wirz Committee, said. “He was awarded the organization’s Medal of Honor and recognized as a Confederate hero and martyr.

“Capt. Wirz was hanged on Nov. 10, and we always try to hold the memorial service near that date.”

Confederate groups have long decried the trial and execution of Wirz, noting the primary witness against the prison commandant gave a false name and falsely claimed to have witnessed atrocities at Andersonville. Newspaper reports say the witness, who claimed to be Felix de la Baume, a descendent of LaFayette, testified he witnessed Wirz’s direct involvement in the murder of a Union prisoner.

Eleven days after Wirz’s trial, though, de la Baume was discovered to actually be Felix Oeser, a deserter of the 7th New York Volunteers.

“Here’s the kind of man Capt. Wirz was,” Gaston said. “He was offered a pardon the night before his execution if he would make a statement implicating Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders on charges of conspiracy. Even though he could have saved his own life, Capt. Wirz refused to do so.

“Then, after he was executed, barbaric Yankees cut off his head and other body parts and displayed them around various sites up North. It was four years before Capt. Wirz’s attorney was able to force the government to order Wirz’s body parts returned to his family so he could have a proper Christian burial at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington.”

The Sunday afternoon Wirz Memorial service will start at 3 p.m. near the Wirz monument. SCV Commander-in-Chief Michael Givens of Beaufort, S.C., will be the guest speaker. Others expected to attend the service are Military Order of the Stars and Bars Commander Gen. Max Waldrop of Tennessee and SCV Lt. Commander-in-Chief Kelly Barrow of Georgia.

In the event of inclement weather, the service will be held at nearby Andersonville Methodist Church.

http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2011/oct/29/wirz-memorial-planned/#

Georgia Power Descreates Graves

2011-11-13T16:34:00.002-05:00

Heritage Violation in Georiga.

See video link below for Flagging outsise Wansley Power Plant.

http://vimeo.com/31763997

Special Offer from Fold3!

2011-11-13T16:29:00.003-05:00

Compatriots,

Here is a money saving offer from Fold3(formally Footnote.com) that will help generate money for the National SCV or Oakwood Cemetery Project. This is an asset for every camp to have access to in order to help potential members with their genealogy

We are pleased to announce a special opportunity to SCV Members. The SCV would like to introduce you to Fold3, a great online resource for researching your Confederate ancestors. Fold3 currently offers access to millions of Confederate records. SCV Members can now get an All-Access Annual Membership to Fold3 for only $49.95 (that is $30 off the regular price).
In addition, for every purchase of a Fold3 membership the SCV will also earn up to $19 in commissions.

Use http://fnote.it/ghq to Start Today and the commission will go to SCV GHQ
OR
Use http://fnote.it/ocp to Start Today and the commission will go to the Oakwood Cemetery Project

Fold3 provides convenient access to US military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served.

Fold3 has:
· Over 78 million images and adding more every month

· Confederate Records: Service Records, Casualty Reports, Citizens Files, Amnesty Papers adn Navy Subject Files

· Revolutionary War Pensions Files & Service records, enlistment, draft cards, war rolls, maps, photos, and more

· Established unique content partnerships with the National Archives and other institutions

· Nearly 2 million registered Fold3 members

Deo Vindice!
Charles Kelly Barrow
Lt.Commander-in-Chief
Sons of Confederate Veterans
1800mysouth.com www.barrowscv.net

Texas DMV Insults Veterans

2011-11-13T14:21:00.001-05:00

Confederate License Plates
By Cory Perrin
11/11/2011

Confederate License Plates – The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has put the brakes on a proposal by the Sons of Confederate Veterans to offer drivers in the Lone Star State a specialty state license plate that would feature the Confederate flag.

The department’s board of directors voted 8-0 Thursday against the Sons of Confederate Veterans proposal.

“We are pleased the Texas DMV unanimously voted to reject the Confederate flag license plate … ,” says Matt Glazer, executive director of Progress Texas, a nonprofit communications organization. “We extend our gratitude to all the elected officials and citizens of Texas who spoke out against this racist relic, especially the nearly 30,000 Texans who signed our petition against the Confederate flag plate.”

However, this may not be over.

“The Sons of Confederate Veterans have already said they are preparing to file a lawsuit, which means our members will continue the fight to ensure the state of Texas does not allow (the Confederate flag) to appear on our license plates.”

“We are very disappointed,” says Michael Givens, commander and chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, about the outcome of the board vote. “The Confederate flag represents people who fought in battle.”

Givens says his organization plans to file a lawsuit in an effort to get the specialty plate design approved for Texas motorists. He adds that the Sons of Confederate Veterans has filed and won similar lawsuits in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, believes Texas DMV board members made the right call. In fact, she says it’s “unfortunate” that the board had to vote on the issue at all — especially on the eve of Veterans Day.

W. Scott Bailey covers health care, tourism, sports business, economic development; he also plans and edits some special reports.

http://www.newsoxy.com/politics/confederate-license-plates-36926.html

Texas Turns Back on History

2011-11-13T14:05:00.001-05:00

Ft. Worth Star Telegram

Texas board rejects Confederate license plates
Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011
BY WILL WEISSERT AND APRIL CASTRO
Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas drivers won't be able to put Confederate license plates on their vehicles after a state board unanimously rejected the proposed design Thursday.
The Department of Motor Vehicles board, appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, voted against offering the plates after hearing hours of emotional testimony.
Perry, who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, has previously defended the historical value of Confederacy symbols but said he opposed the license plates. When asked about the proposal last month, he said "we don't need to be opening old wounds."

"Again, he wasn't in favor of the plates," Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said after Thursday's vote.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans sponsored the plate proposal and plans to file a lawsuit over its rejection. The design featured the group's logo, which is derived from the battle flag flown by southern states during the Civil War.
The group has successfully sued to have the plates issued in three of the nine states where they are currently offered.

"It's very disheartening when people are swayed by emotional issues rather than looking at things historically and correctly," said Michael Givens, Commander in Chief of Sons of Confederate Veterans. "Now, because of their actions, they're going to cause the state of Texas to have to foot the bill for a lawsuit and the taxpayers will have to pay for that and it's completely unnecessary."

Givens said members of the Tennessee-headquartered group reject racism and seek only to honor the events of the Civil War from the southern perspective. The organization's Texas Division hoped to use proceeds from the sale of the license plates for efforts such as erecting monuments to Confederate war heroes.
Dozens of opponents, including three members of Congress, crowded Thursday's board meeting to urge that the plates be rejected.

"The state of Texas should not sanction what's become a symbol of hatred and racism," Democratic state Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston wrote in a letter read to the board before the vote. "The Confederate battle flag has become a symbol of violence, repression, not heritage."

The floor of the Texas Capitol's rotunda still bears the seal of the Confederacy, and statues on the grounds memorialize Robert E. Lee and Confederate soldiers. But civil rights organizations consider the battle flag the most objectionable symbol.
"Clearly, a flag that's been adopted by hate groups is not a flag that's about protecting the Southern heritage alone," said Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Nine other states have approved similar license plates, but Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina only did so after the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed successful lawsuits, Givens said. A legal battle over a plate for the group in Florida continues.

Perry's opposition to the plates in Texas is a departure from his ultimately unsuccessful opposition to NAACP-led efforts to remove two plaques with Confederate symbols from the Texas Supreme Court building more than a decade years ago.
Then-lieutenant governor Perry wrote to the Sons of Confederate Veterans in a March 2000 letter obtained by The Associated Press that, "although this is an emotional issue, I want you to know that I oppose efforts to remove Confederate monuments, plaques, and memorials from public property."

Texas has approved 276 specialty plates, including a series promoting the American Quarter Horse Association and one celebrating the red grapefruit as the state fruit. It also turned down a Sons of Confederate Veterans request for a specialty plate in December 2009, because criteria at the time called for denying plates considered political or controversial in nature.

O'Reilley Book on Lincoln Full of Errors - Banded by Park Service

2011-11-13T14:02:00.001-05:00

Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Lincoln’ book banned from Ford’s Theatre because of ‘mistakes’
By Steven Levingston, November 12, 2011

Of all the places you’d expect to find Bill O’Reilly’s new history “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever,” Ford’s Theatre — the site of the dreadful act — should rank right at the top. But you’d do better to search for the bestseller on Amazon because it has been banned from the theater’s store.

The crime? O’Reilly and his co-author Martin Dugard have displayed a serial disregard for historical fact.

For a purported history of the assassination — an “unsanitized and uncompromising ... no spin American story,” as the authors put it, “Killing Lincoln” is sloppy with the facts and slim on documentation, according to a study conducted by Rae Emerson, the deputy superintendent of Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, which is a unit of the National Park Service.
Other Lincoln experts also have sounded off. In a review published in the November issue of “North & South — The Official Magazine of the Civil War Society,” historian Edward Steers Jr. cites many instances where the book strays from documented history, then asks, “If the authors made mistakes in names, places, and events, what else did they get wrong? How can the reader rely on anything that appears in ‘Killing Lincoln’”?

By taking on Lincoln, O’Reilly and Dugard have set themselves up for avid scrutiny. Few presidents, indeed few subjects, are as voluminously researched and fought over as Lincoln, and have as many amateur and professional specialists eager to display their startling command of minutiae. Steers notes that more than 16,000 books and articles have been written about Lincoln, with more than 125 volumes on the assassination. Oddly, he adds, only eight of the assassination books have been written by professional historians, leaving the field, in his view, to be trampled on by amateurs like Reilly and Dugard.

Eric Foner, a history professor at Columbia who has written about the Civil War, Lincoln and the South for 40 years and whose latest book, “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery” was showered with awards -- the Pulitzer Prize, Bancroft Prize, and Lincoln Prize -- said he had not read the book in question. But he noted in an e-mail, “I would not be surprised if there were historical errors as [O’Reilly] is better known as a TV polemicist than as a scholar. Of course many people outside the academy have written about Lincoln and the assassination, but all sorts of unproven theories about it abound and one would hope that any writer would make use of all the relevant sources (and avoid historical errors) in writing about the subject.”

“Killing Lincoln” has no footnotes. An afterword on sources lists “books, websites, and other archived information” the authors consulted. But to Steers, the list is inadequate, leaving out important primary documents. “The authors have chosen to write a story based . . . [on] a few dozen secondary books that range from excellent to positively dreadful . . . [with] no vetting . . . treating them as equal,” Steers writes. Among the criteria that earn a book a place in the Ford’s Theatre store are that it is “historically accurate . . . has relevant citations [and uses] primary resources with documentation,” Emerson notes in her report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/bill-oreillys-lincoln-book-banned-from-fords-theatre-because-of-mistakes/2011/11/11/gIQAhJpyFN_story.html

Montgomery Historic Locations Poorly Marked

2011-11-06T19:04:00.001-05:00

Alabama Voices: City Civil War sites poorly marked
Oct. 24, 2011

By E. Terry Brown
Several years ago I lamented in this newspaper the lack of identification of many Montgomery historical sites associated with the Civil War. Alas, though we are now in the first year of the four-year sesquicentennial of the war, a visitor to Montgomery who wishes to see where seminal events in that struggle occurred is not going to find any beyond a state brochure which mentions only the state Capitol and the First White House. Those two sites are our tourism crown jewels, to be sure, but so much more is here to be exploited so that tourists linger and enjoy our hospitality and amenities longer.

There are a few sites which are appropriately marked: the Teague Mansion on South Perry, where the surrender of Montgomery occurred; the Winter Building on Dexter, where the Fort Sumter telegraph originated; the Montgomery Theater across from the Montgomery City Hall, where Dixie's Land (Dixie) was first performed; and Government House on Commerce, where the executive departments toiled, though a tourist to Montgomery will only know of them if they happen upon them by chance.

Incredibly, though, downtown Montgomery, the most historic square mile in the South, possesses numerous Civil War sites which are not currently marked in any way including:
The site of the Exchange Hotel on Commerce Street where most of the delegates to the Confederate Congress lived and worked while in Montgomery.

Notably, from its balcony just about where the faux balcony is now on the old Colonial Bank building, Jefferson Davis was introduced to Montgomery and a huge crowd of onlookers with the famous words, "The man and the hour have met."

The site of Montgomery Hall on Dexter Avenue where some of the Confederate Congress and cabinet officers lived and where Mary Chestnut, the famous Civil War diarist, wrote of the stirring events she witnessed during the months that Montgomery led a new republic.
The original site of the First White House at the southwest corner of Bibb and Washington, a block away from the Government House and the Exchange Hotel.

The site of Mrs. Elizabeth Cleveland's boarding house, at the corner of Catoma and Montgomery streets, where Vice President Alexander Stephens, ironically a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, enjoyed a private room in crowded Confederate Montgomery.

The Confederate Post Office on the northeast corner of S. Perry and Washington, which actually served as the offices of the Postmaster General John H. Regan. The Confederate Post Office Department holds the distinction of being the only postal service on this continent ever to pay its own way.

While there are additional sites that deserve recognition and a place on a self-guided walking tour, there is one existing site that we may be about to lose to short-sightedness.
That site, the little known Estelle Hall, should be saved and developed by the city, not as condominiums or loft apartments, but as a tourist attraction.

Stretching across the second floor of buildings on the northern corner of Dexter and Perry, Estelle Hall was, on the evening of Feb. 18, 1861, the location for the inaugural levee of President Jefferson Davis.

Neither the city nor the Alabama Historical Commission has marked any of the sites enumerated above but their failure to do so for what is the third-most important existing Confederate site in Montgomery is not simply negligent -- it is tragic. It deserves to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

I urge the city of Montgomery, the local chamber of commerce and Alabama tourism officials to appropriately survey and mark all of the Civil War sites in Montgomery and develop for our city a self-guided walking trail of these historic sites available to any tourist. It is astonishing that despite the minimal costs this has not been done.

This year we enter the 150th anniversary of the historic events which made Montgomery for a brief time the focus of the world. We owe it to ourselves, our children, and our tourism guests to commemorate the events of the Civil War, especially those which occurred here. The educational and economic benefits from tourism would be tremendous.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201110250400/OPINION0101/110250302

Leadership Workshop Feb 11, 2011

2011-11-06T18:59:00.001-05:00

SCV National Leadership Workshop

As we process through the challenging years of the Sesquicentennial, leadership training has become even more important to the defense of our Southern heritage. In an effort to insure that our members better understand the challenges of leadership roles and to aid our leaders in acquiring the knowledge to better perform their duties, the SCV has scheduled a 2012 National Leadership Workshop.

This year's event will be held February 11, 2012 at the Clarion Inn & Suites and Conference Center, located at 1051 Highway 165, Monroe, LA 71203. It will be hosted by the Captain Thomas O. Benton Camp 1444.

A tentative schedule for the day is posted below along with registration and lodging information.Please note that this event will include relevant presentations and individual workshops for more specialized training for Commanders and Adjutants; however, ALL members are invited to attend!

8:00 - 8:15 Welcome & SCV Protocol Cmdr. Thomas Taylor, Camp 1444
8:15 - 8:30 Introductions & Overview Lt. CIC Charles Kelly Barrow
8:30 - 9:15 Commanders & Command CIC R. Michael Givens
9:15 - 9:30 BREAK
9:30 - 10:15 Adjutants & Administration AIC Chuck Rand
10:15 - 10:30 BREAK
10:30 - 11:15 Recruiting & Retention Lt. CIC Charles Kelly Barrow
11:15 - 12:15 DINNER
12:15 - 1:00 Heritage Defense Chief of Heritage Defense Dr Tom Hiter
1:00 - 1:15 BREAK
1:15 - 2:00 Commander's & Adjutant's Workshops CIC, Lt. CIC & AI
C2:00 - 2:15 BREAK
2:15 - 2:30 Concluding Remarks & Discussion Lt. CIC Charles Kelly Barrow

Registration, which includes lunch, is only $14 each and will be handled through our General Headquarters at Elm Springs. You may mail a reservation with a check or call 1 (800) 380-1896 ext 209 (Cindy) or email accounting@scv.org with credit card information (MC, VISA or AMEX)___________________________________ Clarion Inn & Suites and Conference Center1051 Highway 165, Monroe, LA, US, 71203www.clarionhotel.com/hotel-monroe-louisiana-LA254 SCV Rate $69 plus tax (DBL)

Registration Sheet
Name________________________ Address____________________________________________ _____________________________ Email address_______________________________________ Camp number_________________ Check enclosed ( ) or Credit Card (MC, VISA, or AMEX) Number __________________________ Expires _________

Confederate Descendents Care for Flag

2011-11-06T18:57:00.000-05:00

Confederate flag removed from Caddo Courthouse overnight
Posted:
Nov 04, 2011

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) -
The Confederate Flag that flew for six decades in front of the Caddo Parish Courthouse is gone.
Originally, the plan called for the flag to be removed by 4:00 p.m. Friday, however it was gone from the flagpole and replaced with an American Flag just hours after the Caddo Parish Commission voted 11 to 1 to remove the pole.

Lynda Gramling, President, Shreveport Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy confirms the flag was taken down overnight because she says they "wanted it to be honored and not turned into a media circus." Grambling says they replaced it with an American flag, but that flag was also taken down, because it was flying below the Louisiana state flag.

Caddo Parish District 9 Commissioner Mike Thibodeaux had suggested moving the Confederate flag to the Greenwood Cemetery, where a number Confederate soldiers are buried. Gramling says that will not happen, however, because there are already enough Confederate flags flying there already.

Gramling says the flag will be stored in the possession of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
The Confederate monument on which the flag flew for 60 years remains, featuring a Confederate soldier and the busts of Generals Lee and Jackson, Beauregard and Allen.

http://www.ksla.com/story/15959929/2011/11/04/confederate-flag-already-gone-from-caddo-courthouse

Patterson Speaks for SCV Texas Plate

2011-10-28T14:18:00.000-04:00

Patterson: Confederate plates honor Texas history
Posted: 10/27/2011

"I'll not willingly offend, Nor be easily offended; What's amiss I'll strive to mend, And endure what can't be mended."

— Isaac Watts
Are quests by the Sons of Confederate Veterans to honor their forefathers' service with a Texas license plate is a simple fundraising effort by a historical association with a long history of civic involvement.

Race-baiting and presidential politics, however, seem to play more of a role in the coverage of this issue than the actual facts. An upcoming vote by the governing board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has drawn political grandstanding and a petition drive. And that's too bad, because this issue would be well-served with more examination and less inflammation.

To begin, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a private nonprofit established in 1896, is requesting to pay for a license plate displaying its logo and name. The plate would be primarily for members of the organization, but it would be open to all Texans. The logo contains the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, commonly known as the Confederate battle flag. If the plate is approved, the Sons of Confederate Veterans would pay the State of Texas $8,000 for the right to have a plate, then recoup costs with each plate sold.

I am proudly a member of the group; my great grandfather James Monroe Cole served in the Louisiana Infantry during the Civil War, died in the Texas Confederate Veterans Home and is buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.

As a statewide elected official, I sponsored the plate because of my personal heritage and my commitment to Texas history — even the history that others might find offensive. It's the same reason I sponsored a license plate to honor the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, another private nonprofit organization interested in marketing its heritage with a license plate that displays its logo and name.

Both plates represent private organizations proud of their history. Both are symbols for service to the state of Texas. But political correctness has warped perception of those ideas. I am proud to support the Buffalo Soldiers license plate because these black troops deployed to the western frontier after the Civil War served with great distinction in Texas, including many early black recipients of the Medal of Honor.

But an examination of the Buffalo Soldiers' actions could easily offend anyone familiar with history. They were sent to Texas to implement a national policy of subjugation and enslavement of the Native American population, which is exactly what they did. Their fierce determination in the implementation of a national policy forced Indians on to reservations to live essentially as prisoners of war held by the U.S. government.

Is this a history of which we should be proud? Should these soldiers be commemorated on a license plate?

Of course they should. The Buffalo Soldier license plate, just like the Confederate plate, is intended to honor soldiers who served with pride and dignity in defense of Texas. That's all.
Viewed through our 21st century lens of political correctness, both the Buffalo and Confederate soldiers could be considered by some as having fought for a cause that fell short of the high moral ground. If you're looking to be offended, offensive behavior can be found throughout history.

There is no statutory protection against being offended. Actually, it's the privilege of every American to be offended.

And for those who believe every Confederate soldier was fighting to perpetuate slavery, I'll end with the quote of one of the greatest Americans of all time.

"There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil ... we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers," Robert E. Lee, while stationed in Texas before the Civil War in 1856, wrote.

http://m.statesman.com/statesman/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=5OLNzlbE&full=true#display
Patterson is the Texas land commissioner.

Dues Renewal Deadline

2011-10-27T18:24:00.002-04:00

DUES RENEWAL TIME

The November December 2011 edition of the Confederate Veteran magazine is now in the nonprofit bulk mail system and should arrive at each member’s mailbox in the next week to ten days. This is the last copy of this fine periodical current members will receive if they do not pay their national dues for the period August 1, 2011 through July 31, 2012.

The cutoff date for timely submission of dues is a postmark date of Tuesday November 1, 2011 or earlier. It is not necessary for camps to waste their time and money to use overnight delivery, registered/certified, or even priority mail. First class mail postmarked November 1, 2011 will preclude SCV camps having to pay a $5.00 late fee for reinstating a current member.

As the Confederation discussed at the Montgomery Reuntion, the SCV has a goal of reaching active membership of 50,000 men by the time of the 2016 annual General Reunion is held. Now is the time to begin to make this goal a reality. The SCV needs to renew at least 90 % of its total membership this year by renewing every man who can possibly continue.

Perry Turns Tail; Suffers from Presidential Disease

2011-10-26T19:08:00.000-04:00

Perry says he opposes Confederate license plate
By Jason Embry | Wednesday, October 26, 2011,

Gov. Rick Perry told a Florida television station today that he opposes the creation of a Confederate license plate in Texas.

“We don’t need to be scraping old wounds,” Perry told Bay News 9 in Tampa.

The plate has been proposed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an ancestral history group involved in previous dust-ups over displays of the flag in state buildings and on state monuments.

The state Department of Motor Vehicles is considering the plate. A vote could come next month after one in April ended in a 4-4 tie, officials said.

The members of the DMV board are Perry appointees.

Opponents of the flag, led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the liberal group Progress Texas, presented the DMV with 22,000 petition signatures earlier this month.

The license-plate proposal put Perry in a tough spot. While many oppose the plate, a similar plate has already been approved in South Carolina, site of a key Republican presidential primary in January.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2011/10/26/perry_says_he_opposes_confeder.html?cxtype=rss_news

Texas SCV Plate Effort Continues

2011-10-24T18:15:00.002-04:00

Confederate license plate bid in Texas: How should Rick Perry respond?

The controversy over Perry's views about race and Confederate history — and what it says more broadly about attitudes in the South — goes far beyond license plates. The places where the flag controversy has been the loudest — Georgia, South Carolina and Texas — are also the three states that fought hardest against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, in 2006.

Pressure is rising on Gov. Rick Perry (R) of Texas to address a state agency's looming vote over whether to allow vanity license plates that feature the Confederate flag.

The proposed plates feature the SCV logo, which depicts the controversial battle flag flown by the Confederate Army – a flag Ms. Jackson Lee calls "a symbol of fear and intimidation."

The row comes only a few weeks after national media reported on the West Texas hunting camp Mr. Perry once leased with his father that included a racial epithet in its name. And is raising questions about Perry's views on race at a time when the pace of the 2012 GOP campaign has quickened and become more heated.

Perry is now running third in most GOP primary polls behind businessman Herman Cain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Perry led the pack briefly in September.

"People are trying to draw a line to get people to say something to embarrass themselves and cause a ruckus," says Michael Givens, the commander in chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which is based in Columbia, Tenn. "Now, Rick Perry is up there and they want to embarrass him."

The SCV has successfully introduced similar vanity plates in nine states but has had to win several lawsuits to do so. In April, a Texas Department of Motor Vehicle board voted 4-4 on the SCV plate, setting the stage for a Nov. 10 vote when a previously missing member will cast the deciding vote.

Perry has yet to weigh in on the license plate issue, and he may well try to steer clear, says Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas.

"This is part of a series of issues that have raised the race card, and it provides a peg for people to raise questions," says Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas, in Austin. "The best sense I have of Perry is that he is not a racist, that he's really quite emphatic in his belief in equality. But he also knows that a lot of people in his natural constituency are not necessarily racist, but are prone to be in favor of things like the symbolism associated with this flag. So while he'd like to keep his fingerprints off it, he's not going to lead a charge against it."

In his book, "Fed Up," Perry criticizes the motives of Southerners in the Civil War, saying that judging people on the basis of race is wrong. But he also makes another point: Using race to drive policy on any level is unacceptable.

"I think the Confederate battle flag would be an issue even if Rick Perry were not running for president, but it might not be so visible, given that other questions about his handling of matters of race are on the table," says Mr. Jillson at SMU.

"No matter what argument is made about the sort of history and respect for our ancestors behind the flag, there's also a very strong political sense in the South that these restrictions based on mistrust of southern politicians and treatment of minorities are due to expire, and are no longer necessary — and the Supreme Court may well agree with that soon," says Mr. Jillson.

Given those stakes, Mr. Givens, the SCV commander, draws a parallel to the decision by the NAACP in 1999 to have its boycott of South Carolina coincide with the South Carolina primary, where Republican presidential candidates were forced to contend with the question of whether the Confederate flag should fly on top of the Capitol building.

"What it boils down to isn't whether you like the Confederate flag or not, it's a freedom of speech issue," says Givens. "It's a matter of whether a group of people can limit other people's freedom of speech while Occupy Wall Street should be able to do whatever the heck it wants. We're all Americans, and it's simply expressing a viewpoint of a certain part of the American heritage that some people want to stifle."

Created in 1865 to help separate troops on the battle field, the battle flag became part of the SCV's logo when the group was founded in 1896. During the civil rights era, the Klu Klux Klan used the flag and wielded it alongside the US flag at rallies. In the 1960s, some southern governors used the flag as a symbol of intransigence against national civil rights legislation, which gave rise to much of the emotional antipathy against it today.

Jerry Patterson, the Texas land commissioner who sponsored the SCV license plate proposal, says that criticism of the plate is nothing more than presidential politics and grandstanding.

But more than 22,000 people have signed a NAACP petition opposing the plates. The Wall Street Journal quoted senior NAACP vice president Hilary Shelton as calling the Confederate flag "one of the most commonly recognized symbols of racism not only in the US but throughout the world."

Meanwhile, in a recent op-ed, Matt Glazer, executive director of Progress Texas, pushed back. "Our actions on this issue began long before Gov. Rick Perry announced his presidential bid," Mr. Glazer wrote. "The public opposition to the license plate … shows that the opposition to this racist relic has nothing to do with politics."

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/1024/Confederate-license-plate-bid-in-Texas-How-should-Rick-Perry-respond

Struggle for Reidsville Monument Continues

2011-10-23T16:17:00.000-04:00

State responds to HPAC's allegations
By: Danielle Battaglia
Published: October 23, 2011

People picketed outside of Reidsville City Hall on Wednesday and Thursday to let the city know they want the Reidsville Confederate Monument to go back in the intersection of Scales and Morehead streets.

Picketers held signs declaring they had no voice in the decision regarding what was to be done with the monument after the May 23 single-car accident which knocked over the monument, shattering it to pieces.

The picketers got off to a slow start Wednesday morning, but as the hours went on, more people gathered, despite the rain and cooler temperatures. The same was true Thursday, even with the better weather.

Shortly after 3 p.m. on Wednesday, at least 12 Reidsville police officers gathered on the sidewalk outside of The Vault due to an argument, which broke out on the corner between a man and a woman.

The woman, Sandy Simmons, was picketing City Hall and the man took great offense to it.

“The gentleman came up and said we were racist and it was all about slavery,” Simmons said.

Simmons tried to explain she was standing there for her great-grandfather. After hearing stories of her great-grandfather and how he was forced to serve by the southern army but did not own slaves, Simmons became very interested in the history of the Confederacy.

A man and a woman were dragging the man off as the officers warned the man to calm down.

As the man was being pushed down the road, he continued yelling at the officers “This isn’t 1963.” The women were able to get him away from the scene, but he left with the warning, “I’m coming back with my black friends.”

City Manager Michael Pearce said he knows picketers outside City Hall can be unsettling to some, but he applauds the picketers for using their First Amendment rights and, he added, being able to do what HPAC is doing is what so many people fought hard for.

The city’s 30-day limit to respond to a letter from HPAC expired this past week. The letter claimed the state actually owns the road and by taking down the remnants of the monument, the city broke laws. The end of the letter suggested if the monument was not replaced, a lawsuit might be filed.

On Wednesday, HPAC spokesman Ira Tilley remained mum about what would happen next if the city didn’t respond to the letter.

“I can’t tell you when it’s going to be filed or if it’s going to be filed,” Tilley said of the lawsuit.

Tilley said members of HPAC have been negotiating with the state to step in, and HPAC has proven countless times the state owns the road.

Tilley said state officials agreed it is a state-owned road, but they don’t want to step on the toes of the city.

However, after speaking with several members of the Department of Transportation, Division Engineer for Rockingham County Mike Mills said due to a maintenance agreement, the city has absolute jurisdiction over the road, including what to do with the monument, and the state wouldn’t have any say in what happens with the monument. The maintenance agreement, according to Mills, gives the city the right to make such decisions.

City Manager Michael Pearce said he did respond to HPAC’s letter with his own letter, addressed to HPAC president Chuck Hoard.

Pearce said he and City Attorney William McLeod Jr. continue to look at HPAC’s allegations but stand by their prior belief that the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) owns the monument and, therefore, the UDC ultimately gets to make the decision over what happens with the monument.

In a press release issued by Tilley, he said city officials sent a letter to HPAC and said they would continue to look into the situation and will let HPAC know what they find in the future.

http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2011/oct/23/state-responds-hpacs-allegations-ar-1402495/?referer=http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgodanriver.com%2Far%2F1402495%2F%3Ffb_comment_id%3Dfbc_10150363473468926_19621170_10150363483128926&h=qAQGO5nj4AQHSqVawGq7DsnKpGNtwcY8Npsrfz-4rOpjtlw&shorturl=http://bit.ly/pvRx5T

Vandals Damage Monument in Missouri

2011-10-18T21:55:00.002-04:00

Civil War Confederate shrine at Cape Girardeau courthouse vandalized
Wednesday, October 12, 2011

By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian

A Civil War monument on the grounds of the Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau was struck by vandals who spray-painted both sides of the shrine with apparent pro-Union sentiments, nearly 150 years after the last shot was fired.

A two-man crew scrubbed black paint off the monument Tuesday morning. The men, from Marble Hill, Mo.-based Liley Monuments, said they hoped it would be graffiti-free by Tuesday afternoon.

But the message could still be read early Tuesday afternoon. "Go south" was written on the front of the shrine that sits along Lorimier Street near the fountain. That apparently was a request that the marker be moved, not a pro-South message. "We are in the union," read the words on the back. "Obscene. Remove to [illegible] cemetary (sic) in the south."

The workers from Liley said Tuesday afternoon they had tried industrial solvent and paint thinner, and the words were faded but still visible. One of the workers said getting the paint completely off Tuesday didn't "look favorable," but they would continue working through the afternoon. By 3 p.m., a blue tarp had been wrapped around the monument and the workers were gone.

Cape Girardeau County public works director Don McQuay makes a phone call to Liley Monument Works Tuesday morning after vandals spray painted graffiti on the Civil War monument in the courtyard of the Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau. The removal of the graffiti will cost between four and six hundred dollars.

Two officers with the Cape Girardeau Police Department responded to a 7:30 a.m. call from employees of the nearby Southeast Missourian who first noticed the graffiti. Two officers looked over the property shortly before 9 a.m., checking trash receptacles for paint cans.

Cape Girardeau police spokesman Darin Hickey said no suspects were in custody Tuesday afternoon. Police are investigating the matter, he said, talking to residents of the nearby neighborhoods and checking for any exterior cameras.

When asked how likely it was that the culprits would ever be caught, Hickey said: "We're going to try. But it's going to be pretty tough."

Meanwhile, some with interest in history were miffed.

"All vandalism is bad, but as a Civil War buff, I'm pretty disturbed," said Scott House, a member of the Civil War Roundtable and a re-enactor. "The war has been over for almost 150 years. People should get over their hate issues on whatever side they have. It's hard to tell why somebody would do something like that."

The 14 1/2-foot-tall monument was first erected in the city in 1931 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to commemorate the one Confederate unit gathered from Cape Girardeau during the Civil War. The hand-carved monument, which weighs 12 1/2 tons, was moved from its original spot on Morgan Oak Street to the courthouse grounds in 1995 by the Civil War Roundtable.

One side of the monument reads "C.S.A.," standing for the Confederate States of America. Below the letters, the Confederate flag has been chiseled into the marble. The east side of the marker says, "In Memorium Confederate Soldiers of South East Missouri."

Passers-by expressed distaste at the graffiti, regardless of the message's content. A family that was celebrating the official adoption of a 2-year-old South Korean child moved around the courtyard so that the vandalism wasn't in photos that were being taken.

"It's awful," said James Slinkard of Jackson, the grandfather of the newly adopted baby. "We were shocked. You hate to see that happen. If they're not caught, you can probably expect more of it."

Cape Girardeau County public works director Don McQuay was noticeably peeved as he surveyed the damage. He said it would cost the county between $400 and $600 to pay Liley to use an industrial-grade solvent to remove the paint.

"That's taxpayer money," McQuay said. "I don't understand why somebody would want to tear up public property. It's their property. They're destroying their own property."

When asked what he would say to those responsible if he had the chance, he said: "You don't want to know."

http://www.semissourian.com/story/1772540.html?response=no

Hate Groups Petition to Stop SCV Plate In Texas

2011-10-18T21:51:00.001-04:00

Groups opposing Confederate license plates present petitions to DMV board Haraz N. Ghanbari/ ASSOCIATED PRESS

Opponents of a proposed Confederate flag license plate in Texas presented petitions containing 22,000 signatures Wednesday to a state board that could vote on the politically charged issue as soon as next month.

The petitions were presented by representatives of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the self-styled progressive organization Progress Texas, who urged the state Department of Motor Vehicles' governing board not to approve a vanity plate that contains the Confederate battle flag.

The plate has been proposed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an ancestral history group involved in previous dust-ups over displays of the flag in state buildings and on state monuments.

A vote on the plate could come next month after one in April ended in a 4-4 tie, officials said.

Such a vote could pose a new political problem for Gov. Rick Perry, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, because all the board members are his appointees.

Perry has faced criticism recently over a sign at a hunting camp that his family once leased that contained an offensive racial slur. Perry said his family had the sign, which was painted on a rock marking a camp entrance, painted over.

"This particular flag never flew over Texas; it has been adopted by hate groups to intimidate or do wrong against people" of color, Gary Bledsoe, president of the state NAACP conference, told the board. "It is every bit as offensive as the swastika. It creates psychological harm, creates fear and intimidation, and is likely to lead to breaches of the peace. It is a fighting flag."

Echoed Yannis Banks, the NAACP's legislative liaison: "It represents slavery, hate and injustice to African Americans. It looks like the state is supporting what is behind that flag."

Supporters of the plate say it would honor their ancestors on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Texas was a Confederate state.

To reject the plate, the supporters have said, would infringe on their First Amendment right to free speech.

The national Sons of Confederate Veterans' group already has offered Confederate-

inspired tags in nine other states: Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia . Proposals are pending in Florida and Kentucky, along with Texas.

Citing opposition from legislative leaders in both parties — including U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Houston, and state Sens. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, Royce West, D-Dallas, and John Carona, R-Dallas — Bledsoe asked the board on Wednesday not to bring the proposed plate up for another vote.

Board members had no comment, and the board's newest member, El Paso car dealer Raymond Palacios Jr., didn't indicate how he might vote.

Despite the possible vote next month, both sides acknowledge that the issue could end up in court, as it has in other states. Sons of Confederate Veterans members, who use revenue from the specialty plates for historic preservation projects, have won those cases, according to officials with the organization.

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a member of the veterans group who is sponsoring the proposal for the plate, said the plate is "probably too hot to be approved at this time. It's presidential politics, political correctness run amok."

Ironically, he said, the agency will likely approve a vanity plate, one he is also sponsoring, to honor Buffalo Soldiers, black U.S. soldiers who were used in some campaigns against Indian tribes after the Civil War. "In the spirit of political correctness, why is it OK to honor soldiers who were sent to war against Native Americans and not Confederate soldiers who were fighting for their country?"

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/groups-opposing-confederate-license-plates-present-petitions-to-1910714.html#.TpehaZANzwE.email

Gen. Longstreet Museum Dedicated

2011-10-18T21:47:00.000-04:00

RUSSELLVILLE — Clark Thornton of Baldwin, Ga., says his great-great grandfather, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet, became the scapegoat for the Lost Cause after the end of the Civil War when a cabal of officers worked to undermine "Old Pete's" reputation.

Thornton, who researched his illustrious ancestor's family and military history for 15 years, was the featured speaker Thursday morning at the dedication of the Gen. Longstreet Museum in Russellville on East Andrew Johnson Highway.

The museum was a house owned by the Nenney family during Longstreet's occupation of Morristown and Russellville in the winter of 1864. The home was built in 1820.

Five years ago, the home was about to be destroyed when a group of concerned citizens formed a non-profit association to save it. It has since been restored and is getting ready to open to the public.

Thornton, who has written a genealogy of his family, said he wanted to help straighten out some "misconstrued aspects of my noted ancestor's career."

He dismissed Longstreet's critics who faulted the general for not showing enough support for Gen. Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

"Longstreet's reputation declined precipitously after the war owing to the efforts of an underhanded effort of a cadre of Southern officers, termed by historians as a 'Lee' cult," Thornton said.

Longstreet's criticism of Lee in newspaper accounts after the war also worked against Old Pete's reputation. He also joined the Republican Party and that "made him a convenient scapegoat for the South's defeat," Thornton said.

The two-story home in Russellville was saved by the Lakeway Civil War Preservation Association, which bought the property from a private owner.

Volunteers and the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, a statewide program administered by the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University, have helped with the restoration.

The museum dedication drew state, federal and local political officials including Carroll Van West, director of the MTSU preservation center, and Susan Whitaker, commissioner of the state Department of Tourist Development.

About 100 people huddled inside two tents due to rain and another 30 or so stood outside in the drizzle. West and Whitaker praised the museum, which they said is one of a kind for the state.

West said the development of the Longstreet Museum is important in telling the story of the Civil War in Tennessee because Longstreet's role in East Tennessee has been overlooked. The general died in 1904 and is buried in Gainesville, Ga.

Whitaker said that the museum is the only one in the state that served as a Civil War general's headquarters.

She said the museum would now be placed on Tennessee's Civil War Trails, part of a five-state trails system to help in the exploration of the Civil War's 150th anniversary that began in April of this year.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/oct/14/longstreet-museum-dedicated-with-confederate-kin/

NAACP's Abuse of George Washington Halted by South Carolina

2011-10-18T21:42:00.000-04:00

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A state agency is clamping down nine months after complaints about the NAACP boxing in a statue of George Washington at its annual King Day at the Dome rally on the Statehouse steps.

People requesting to use the Statehouse for events now have to read and acknowledge state Budget and Control Board rules that say they can't obscure visibility or access to any part of the Statehouse grounds or its monuments.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People erected a three-panel backdrop around the Washington statue on the Statehouse steps. The civil rights group said at the time it was there only as a backdrop and not intended as an affront to Washington. Its annual Statehouse rallies are part of a decade-long protest of the Confederate flag that flies there.

The state has more compelling issues to be worried about, said Dwight James, the state NAACP's executive director. He said the barrier protected the statue and has been used for several years.

The state's response, James said, is "an example of extravagant preoccupation with a non-issue at a time when the energies of the General Assembly would be better spent concerning itself with the polarized economic and racial climate of the state and why the State continues to allow the most obvious symbol of racism, the Confederate stars and bars, to occupy the most prominent position on the statehouse grounds."

The State House Committee was briefed on the changes at a meeting earlier this week.

Sen. Harvey Peeler, the panel's chairman, said the NAACP backdrop "brought the situation to a head." The state "needed some agreement with people using the Statehouse grounds that they would not obscure, damage or deface the monuments," the Gaffney Republican said.

Republican State Sen. John Courson of Columbia said the rules needed to be clearer. "I can't imagine any organization wanting to intentionally for any reason impede a view of George Washington," said Courson.

Courson has overseen the erection of monuments to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, the military and African-American history. He said the monuments need to be visible at all times. "I think those are important monuments to our heritage and it's important for people to see them without the view being interrupted in any way," Courson said.

Meanwhile, Budget and Control Executive Director Marcia Adams told Peeler's committee that a long mothballed Capitol complex security system will be put to work as early as January.

The system was installed in 2008 and briefly put into service before then-Gov. Mark Sanford ordered the state police to stop manning posts that supported its operation. Sanford said there was little threat of a terror attack at the Statehouse, a gate could be easily circumvented and the money needed to be spent elsewhere.

It turned into a political spat between Sanford and some Statehouse leaders. With Sanford gone, the system is being turned back on — but at a cost.

The $6 million system relied on a type of access card with batteries that interacted with sensors to raise guard arms to enter a sprawling garage beneath the Capitol complex.

Without the cards, barriers would rise from the roadway to block access. Adams said the batteries didn't last as long as expected and that the system had technical glitches. So the state will have to spend about $32,500 to issue new cards to enter the garage and buildings.

"If it's there, we need to make it operational or take it down," Peeler said.

Rep. Rita Allison, a Lyman Republican, said it's "a shame to have that much money invested in a system that is sitting there and working for the people here."

http://www.therepublic.com/mobile/view/story/30a16b2fc2e7442b865327048ca605f7/

Marker to be Dedicated in Georgia

2011-10-18T21:40:00.000-04:00

Confederate soldier's grave to be marked at Bethel Methodist
From Staff Reports
Saturday, October 15, 2011

The Civil War Confederate marker for Marcellus E. Washington will be dedicated Oct. 22 at Bethel United Methodist Church near Senoia.

The program will start at 2 p.m. The marker will honor Washington's service in the Confederate Army. The marker will be unveiled at Bethel United Methodist Church.

The soldier was the son of Rufus Washington and the father of Pink and Grady Washington. Organizers are asking descendants to pass the word to other relatives about the service.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy will be taking part in the service. Refreshments will be served.

http://www.times-herald.com/Religion/Confederate-soldier-s-grave-to-be-marked-at-Bethel-Methodist--1885865

GEC and Vision Meeting to Be Held October 15 and 16

2011-10-06T12:28:00.002-04:00

Gentlemen of the Confederation:

The General Executive Committee and the Division Commanders or their designaged representatives will meet at Elm Springs Saturday and Sunday, October 15 and 16. The schedule calls for the GEC to meet on Saturday. This meeting is open to all members.

Saturday evening and Sunday Commander-in-Chief Michael Givens will discuss the “SCV Vision 2016” and receive input from the GEC and the Division Commanders. The Conference Room can accomodate approximately ten additional chairs. C-I-C Givens invites any interested members of the Confederation to attend and participate in this meeting and provide input for the “SCV Vision 2016”.

The seats will be filled on a first come-first served basis. If are interested in attending and participating in this important meeting, and helping chart the course for the SCV for the next five years, contact Chief-of-Staff Spike Speicher at colspike@hotmail.com.

Respectfully,

Spike Speicher
Chief-of-Staff

Stolen Battleflag Returns To Louisiana

2011-10-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

Stolen Civil War flag heading back to LA museum
The Associated Press
October 5, 2011
RICHMOND, VA

A stolen Civil War battle flag recovered by the FBI is heading back home to a Louisiana museum.

The FBI says agents from the Richmond division recovered the stolen 14th Louisiana Infantry Regiment Confederate Battle Flag in late September.

Officials say the flag was stolen in the 1980s by a former volunteer at the Confederate Memorial Hall Museum in New Orleans. An investigation found that a collector purchased the item in 2004 without knowledge of it being stolen and voluntarily turned the item over to the FBI.

It was presented to board members from the Confederate Memorial Hall in Louisiana at a ceremony Wednesday at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.

http://hamptonroads.com/2011/10/stolen-civil-war-flag-heading-back-la-museum

Statue in Georgia Returns

2011-10-04T21:30:00.001-04:00

Posted: Saturday, October 1, 2011
'Johnny Reb' is back
By Jerry Gunn

JEFFERSON - The Square in downtown Jefferson filled with an audience Saturday that came to witness the unveiling of Jefferson’s new Civil War icon, a bronze likeness of a Johnny Reb infantryman from Jackson County. The original was accidentally torn down 71 years ago in 1940.

Jackson County Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 94 members launched the funding campaign that raised the money for the statue according to Chapter Commander Steve Satterfield.

“We just felt like the statue was the best thing we could give to the city and to honor the men who served,” Satterfield said. “We just wanted our statue back.”

According to Satterfield the new bronze image, standing 5’ 8” tall on its concrete pedestal, resembles the original. Pieces of that original were on display in the Crawford Long Museum.

Authentic details on the statue, made in Marietta, came from Civil War re-enactors including the uniform buttons, the belt buckle and the soldier’s rifle.

Several of those re-enactors were present for the ceremony, providing the color guard and the honor guard firing musket salutes. Members from Company ‘F’, 43rd Georgia from Hall County, the 18th Georgia from Jackson County, the 63rd Georgia, and SCV Camp 96 Honor Guard participated.

Featured speaker Christopher Sullivan from Greenville, South Carolina said his Confederate ancestor was from Jackson County.

“We’ve got a lot to be proud of,” Sullivan said. “It’s important to remember our history and the men who served, and perpetuate their values.”

Satterfield said the statue had the full support of the city and county and is actually part of Jefferson’s Streetscape project.

“They redid the whole downtown,” Satterfield said. “They created green space, they redid the parking lots and the sidewalks and they’re trying to get the businesses to come back to downtown Jefferson.”

Jefferson’s new bronze Johnny Reb might even pick up a nickname, like Gainesville’s ‘Old Joe’ guarding the downtown square for just over a hundred years.

“We haven’t quite got one yet but we’re thinking of a few,” Satterfield said.

http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=242410

Mailing Notice about the Confederate Veteran

2011-10-04T18:14:00.003-04:00

Gentlemen,

To ensure that your Confederate Veteran magazine is correctly delivered in a timely manner, please visit this link below to check if GHQ has your correct mailing address on file:

http://www.scv.org/checkData.php.

To check your data at this link, you will need your SCV ID Number. You will find it printed above your name on the mailing label of the Confederate Veteran magazine.

Changes of address can be made on this link, reported by emailing Bryan Sharp at membership@scv.org, or by calling GHQ at 1-800-380-1896 ext. 201.

The Confederate Veteran magazine is mailed under a nonprofit organization bulk mail rate which costs the SCV about $0.50 per magazine in postage. The post office will normally not forward mail under this class and they discard the magazines that are undeliverable. If you move and do not inform GHQ of your new address, you will not receive your magazine as it will not be forwarded by the post office.

In addition to the issue of delayed or non-delivery, when GHQ sends a replacement magazine to those that call and enquire as to why they did not receive their Confederate Veteran, it requires that an additional magazine to be printed and costs Headquarters an additional $2.28 in first class postage.

Please report all changes of address to GHQ as soon as possible.

Your cooperation is appreciated and will greatly reduce GHQ mail expense.

Confederately,

Bryan A. Sharp
National Membership Coordinator
SCV HQ / Elm Springs
1-800-380-1896 ext. 201

Louisiana Tigers

2011-10-04T18:03:00.001-04:00

Editor's Note: Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. To mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, a series of articles by Dr. Jones about the war will be published in The News-Star. This is the sixth article in the series.

Louisiana in the Civil War

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Choiseul ("shwah-zool") was not a happy man in September 1861. A well educated French Creole, he had been ordered to take temporary command of Major Roberdeau Wheat's 1st Special Battalion while Wheat recovered from a serious wound. This battalion was one of the most unruly units in the Virginia army and few people wanted to associate with it.

Wheat's men were a potpourri of high society lawyers, merchants and planters' sons, and low life pickpockets, gamblers, and thieves. One company, the Tiger Rifles, adopted the colorful Zouave uniform and was said to have been recruited from New Orleans' jails.

Several Louisiana regiments made headlines for drunkenness and rioting, but Wheat's Battalion became the most notorious. It created so much mayhem in Virginia that it soon became known as the Tiger Battalion, probably in reference to the Tiger Rifles company.

Civilians and soldiers alike came to fear the battalion. One Alabaman wrote that the men were "adventurers, wharf-rats, cutthroats, and bad characters generally." Another soldier admitted, "I was actually afraid of them, afraid I would meet them somewhere and that they would do me like they did Tom Lane of my company; knock me down and stamp me half to death."

Within six months after arriving in Virginia, the battalion's misdeeds included a drunken street brawl in Lynchburg, a rock-throwing fight with a Kentucky regiment, and a nasty incident in which ten members of the Tiger Rifles took on an entire company of Georgians when the Georgians ran off with their whiskey bottle.

Although the vast majority of Louisiana's soldiers sent to Virginia were decent men, there were enough criminals mixed in to give all a bad reputation. The good were lumped in with the bad and, because Wheat's Tiger Battalion was so infamous, all of the state's 12,000 soldiers serving in Virginia became known as the Louisiana Tigers.

Not long after Colonel de Choiseul assumed command of Wheat's Battalion trouble began when, as he said, "the whole set got royally drunk." An inebriated soldier tried to shoot the colonel's orderly and another beat and robbed one of the battalion's washerwomen. That night several men tried to free some of the prisoners de Choiseul had placed in the guard house and a wild free-for-all led to several more men being placed under arrest.

The next day the situation exploded. When de Choiseul ordered a sergeant to his quarters for impudence, a comrade walked up and began defending the sergeant. De Choiseul ordered him to the guard house, but the man refused to go. Furious, the colonel knocked him to the ground twice but he still refused to leave.

By then, a menacing crowd had gathered around de Choiseul, who was mounted on his horse. The colonel fingered his pistol and warned he would shoot the first man who "raised a finger." De Choiseul wrote that a "big double fisted ugly looking fellow came at me & said 'God damn you, shoot me.'" De Choiseul drew his pistol and shot him point blank in the face. "He turned as I fired & [I] hit him in the cheek, knocking out one upper jaw tooth & two lower ones on the other side & cutting his tongue." The others quickly retreated from the obviously dangerous colonel, and De Choiseul never had any more problems with the men.

Although often ill-behaved in camp, the 12,000 Louisiana Tigers proved to be among the best fighters in the Virginia army. When their ammunition ran out at Second Bull Run they refused to retreat and began throwing rocks at the Yankees; they were the only Confederates to break the Union line at Gettysburg; and the Tigers possibly saved Robert E. Lee's army from destruction at Spotsylvania by holding their position after the enemy overran other Confederate units. The Louisianians fought in every major battle in the Virginia theater and suffered appalling casualties. When Lee surrendered at Appomattox after four years of war there were only 373 Tigers still on duty.

Today, the Tigers' name lives on. In the early 1900s, Louisiana State University's Dr. Charles E. Coates was trying to decide on a name for the football team. After being told that the Louisiana Tigers were the toughest set of men who ever lived, he chose them as his mascot. Contrary to popular belief, the LSU Tigers are not named for a ferocious feline but for Louisiana's most famous Civil War soldiers.

Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and has published six books on the American Civil War. Dr. Jones is also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Gov. Perry and Confederate History

2011-10-04T17:59:00.001-04:00

Perry once defended Confederate symbols
By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Eleven years ago, when the NAACP stepped up a campaign to remove the Confederate battle flag from statehouses and other government buildings across the South, it found an opponent in Rick Perry.

Texas had a pair of bronze plaques with symbols of the Confederacy displayed in its state Supreme Court building. Perry, then lieutenant governor, said they should stay put, arguing that Texans "should never forget our history."

It's a position Perry has taken consistently when the legacy of the Civil War has been raised, as have officials in many of the other former Confederate states. But while defense of Confederate symbols and Southern institutions can still be good politics below the Mason-Dixon line, the subject can appear in a different light when officials seek national office.

For Perry, now Texas governor for 11 years and in the top tier of Republican presidential candidates, a racial issue is already dogging him.

He took criticism over the weekend for a rock outside the Texas hunting camp his family once leased that had the name Niggerhead painted on it. Perry's campaign says the governor's father painted over the rock to cover the name soon after he began leasing the site in the early 1980s and says the Perry family never controlled, owned or managed the property. But rival Herman Cain, the only black Republican in the race, says the rock symbolizes Perry's insensitivity to race.

A related issue may rise this fall when Texas decides whether to allow specialty license plates featuring the Confederate flag. The plates have been requested by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a nonprofit organization Perry has supported over the years. A state board he appointed will decide.

The NAACP says its initiative against "glorification" of slave-state symbols remains ongoing. "The romanticism around the Old South," said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington Bureau. "It's a view of history that ignores how racism became a tool to maintain a system of supremacy and dominance."

Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner did not return messages seeking comment on the matter. But Granvel Block, the Texas Division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the organization appreciated Perry's position on such issues.

"I would give him high praise for saying it," Block said. "Honoring your ancestors, it's something that the Bible teaches."

The Confederate battle flag has been chief target for the NAACP. The organization called for a boycott of South Carolina in 2000 for flying the banner over its statehouse. The state moved the flag to a capitol memorial. In 2003, Georgia replaced its state flag, which included the Confederate battle standard, with one that combined other elements from previous state flags. Other institutions have scaled back their displays of Confederate heritage. The University of Mississippi retired Colonel Rebel as its on-field mascot.

In January 2000 the NAACP asked Texas to remove the Confederate battle flag from plaques in the entryway of a building housing the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, saying it undermined the notion of judicial equality. One of the 11-inch by 20-inch bronze plaques featured the seal of the Confederacy and the other the image of the battle flag and quotations from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Perry wrote to the Sons of Confederate Veterans in March 2000 that, "although this is an emotional issue, I want you to know that I oppose efforts to remove Confederate monuments, plaques and memorials from public property."

"I also believe that communities should decide whether statues or other memorials are appropriate for their community," Perry wrote in the letter, one of several obtained by The Associated Press under a public information request. "I believe that Texans should remember the past and learn from it."

He added, "We should never forget our history, but dwelling on the 19th century takes needed attention away from our future in the 21st century."

Perry elaborated publically on the issue, saying, "I think you've got a slippery slope when you start saying we're going to start taking down every plaque or monument."

He wasn't the only prominent Texan defending the plaques. Then-Gov. George W. Bush, himself running for president, initially said they should remain but then reversed himself and authorized the state's General Services Commission to replace the plaques with new ones saying equal justice is available to all Texans "regardless of race, creed or color."

The floor of the Texas Capitol's rotunda still bears the seal of the Confederacy, and statues on the grounds memorialize Lee and Confederate soldiers. But civil rights organizations consider the battle flag the most objectionable symbol.

Public officials in Texas, as well as in the other Southern states, are called upon periodically to honor Confederate causes because related organizations observe its anniversaries. Block said the Sons of Confederate Veterans was founded in 1896 and has 2,500 members statewide. Also active is the Texas Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

In a 2005 letter, Perry welcomed attendees of a benefit hosted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "By learning about the past," he wrote, "we honor our ancestors' memories and contributions, and appreciate the people and events that preceded the present." Perry's great-great-grandfather David H. Hamilton fought at Gettysburg with the First Texas Infantry.

Two years later, Perry issued a "Message from the Governor" honoring Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross on what would have been his 169th birthday. He noted Ross' service as a Confederate brigadier general, two-time Texas governor and president of what became Texas A&M University, calling him "one of the greats on whose shoulders our modern day Texas rests." The Sons of Confederate Veterans maintains a college scholarship fund in Ross' honor — despite accusations that Ross was behind the murder of black prisoners of war in Mississippi.

Today, Block's organization wants to use the Confederate flag license plate to raise money to pay for markers on Confederate soldiers' graves. "I know that to some people it's an issue," he said. "But our purpose is to honor our ancestors and to educate the public on the true cause of the war."

The state Department of Motor Vehicles board tied 4-4 in an April vote because one of its members, Ramsay Gillman of Houston, was absent. Gillman then died and Perry chose a new appointee, Raymond Palacios Jr. of El Paso.

Palacios declined to comment on the issue. Members won't vote on the plate until at least Nov. 9. A similar request from the Sons of Confederate Veterans was denied two years ago, but the criteria have been expanded, opening the door for approval this time. Texas has approved 276 specialty plates.

Perry hasn't commented. "This is a matter before the board," said Lucy Nashed, a governor's office spokeswoman.

Matt Glazer, executive director of Progress, Texas, a left-leaning advocacy group, said of Block's organization: "If they want to put a sticker on their car, or fly the Confederate flag at their home or business, that's up to them. But the state itself should not associate itself with this racist relic."

http://news.yahoo.com/perry-once-defended-confederate-symbols-070535630.html

Flag Still Flies

2011-09-27T22:35:00.001-04:00

Rebel flag still flying in black SC neighborhood
By BRUCE SMITH - Associated Press | AP
Sept. 8, 2011

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (AP) — A year ago, dozens marched to protest the Confederate flag a white woman flew from her porch in a historically black Southern neighborhood. After someone threw a rock at her porch, she put up a wooden lattice. That was just the start of the building.

Earlier this year, two solid 8-foot high wooden fences were built on either side of Annie Chambers Caddell's modest brick house to shield the Southern banner from view.

Late this summer, Caddell raised a flagpole higher than the fences to display the flag. Then a similar pole with an American flag was placed across the fence in the yard of neighbor Patterson James, who is black.

One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began about 20 miles away in Charleston Harbor, fights continue over the meaning of the Confederate flag. Some see it as a symbol of slavery and racism; others like Caddell say it's part of their Southern heritage.

"I'm here to stay. I didn't back down and because I didn't cower the neighbors say I'm the lady who loves her flag and loves her heritage," said the 51-year old Caddell who moved into the historically black Brownsville neighborhood in the summer of 2010. Her ancestors fought for the Confederacy.

Last October, about 70 people marched in the street and sang civil rights songs to protest the flag, while about 30 others stood in Caddell's yard waving the Confederate flag.

Opponents of the flag earlier gathered 200 names on a protest petition and took their case to a town council meeting where Caddell tearfully testified that she's not a racist. Local officials have said she has the right to fly the flag, while her neighbors have the right to protest. And build fences.

"Things seemed to quiet down and then the fences started," Caddell said. "I didn't know anything about it until they were putting down the postholes and threw it together in less than a day."

Aaron Brown, the town councilman whose district includes Brownsville, said neighbors raised money for the fences.

"The community met and talked about the situation," he said. "Somebody suggested that what we should do is just go ahead and put the fences up and that way somebody would have to stand directly in front of the house to see the flag and that would mediate the flag's influence."

Caddell isn't bothered by the fences and said they even seem to draw more attention to her house.

"People driving by here because of the privacy fences, they tend to slow down," she said. "If the objective was to block my house from view, they didn't succeed very well."

The Confederate flag remains a sensitive issue in South Carolina.

The battle emblem of the Confederacy had flown on the dome of the Statehouse in Columbia since the Civil War centennial in the 1960s when state lawmakers voted in 2000 to move it to a Confederate monument in front of the building. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has waged a tourism boycott on the state since then as it seeks to have the flag removed from the Statehouse grounds.

Caddell, Brown and James all say things have been quiet in Brownsville in recent months.

"She's got a right to do what she wants to do," James said. "That's all I really have to say. She can do what she wants to do in her yard, but I don't share her beliefs."

http://news.yahoo.com/rebel-flag-still-flying-black-sc-neighborhood-075154630.html

SCV Donates Manassas Battlefield

2011-09-25T17:18:00.003-04:00

Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Formation of Manassas National Battlefield Park
by Brag Bowling on Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The recent activities surrounding the Sesquicentennial of the 1st Battle of Manassas harkens back to the formation of the national park in Manassas and the role of the SCV in making it a reality. In a time when the old Confederate veterans were still alive, members of the SCV realized that the Confederate South had yet to memorialize a single battlefield. Battlefield Parks were the domain of state park systems or the Department of the Interior through the agency of the National Park Service. The SCV viewed the important historical land as “particularly neglected” since the battle.

The initial plan began with the obtaining of an option in 1920 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to purchase the Henry Farm, a 130 acre tract of land where the most famous aspects of the battle had occurred. One year later, the Manassas Battlefield Confederate Park, Inc., an SCV auxiliary, was created to raise the necessary $25,000 option purchase price.

It was the purpose of the SCV to have the park stand as a Southern battlefield memorial to the Confederate soldier. At the time, other historical projects seemed to often omit Southern soldiers, valor and their achievements. For example, much ado was made when the amphitheatre in Arlington National Cemetery omitted the Southern soldier. Education and history would be its hallmark but in no way would the Northern soldier be ignored. Monuments and memorials would be encouraged from both warring sides. Even so, the corporation had a great deal of infighting with one faction forming which wanted the word “confederate” removed from the corporate title (much like the problems today’s Museum of the Confederacy faces). There was also internal litigation over control of the property.

The SCV soon found (as did many other organizations) that raising the money to execute the deal would be difficult. Not only was the South still prostrate financially from the War Between the States, the entire nation was mired in the Great Depression. Today, the SCV has over 30,000 members. In 1939, the organization had 1753 members with a treasury of only a few thousand dollars. Also, projects such as Stone Mountain in Georgia were competing for limited Southern resources. Despite financial issues, the SCV was meeting its financial obligations and an accounting of the organization’s finances in 1938 showed they were fiscally sound (but not wealthy). Still, it seemed a nearly impossible task to reach the original goals of the Park. In 1933, conversations began with the National Park Service. The possible transfer caused a great deal of apprehension in the South who was leery of federal ownership and federal park interpretation and management.

To make a long story short, the $25,000 was raised and in 1939, an agreement was worked out with the federal government for the SCV to donate the Henry Farm to the National Park Service for the purpose of establishing a national military park.

Herein lies the rub. Despite the severe financial problems the SCV had at the time, the organization seemed equally concerned with the way the tract would be interpreted should the National Park Service obtain the Henry Farm. In the conveyance deed, the SCV stipulated that “strictest accuracy and fairness” be demanded in the erection of monuments and markers and opposed anything which would in anyway detract from the glory due to the Confederate soldier. Care was to be taken to preserve the battlefield without prejudice to either the North or South. These clauses in the deed became covenants running with the land, enforceable by a court of law.

At the time, many were concerned that The Grand Bargain struck between Union and Confederate veterans was falling apart. This unwritten truce allowed the country to heal from the war and reconcile without finger pointing or recrimination. Today, The Grand Bargain is a relic of the past. It is open season on the interpretation of Confederate history and the causes of the war. In many ways, the America of 2011 still is divided on a sectional basis. The old veterans seemed to be able to co-exist while today, the government, academia and the media are re-opening many old wounds, often demonizing the Confederate soldier and the cause for which he fought.

On February 16, 1940, the Department of the Interior accepted the deed. The Park Service remained leery of the restrictive covenants and internal memorandums and letters at the time urged caution in their interpretation lest they bring a court challenge. For $1, the Sons of Confederate Veterans generously donated the critical piece of the Manassas Battlefield, the Henry Farm and Henry House Hill where the battle was decided and where the immortal Jackson earned the most famous sobriquet in military history – “Stonewall”. Manassas was supremely important to the people of the South. Two decisive Confederate victories occurred on the plains of Manassas.

Today, the Manassas Battlefield is a wonderful attraction luring thousands of tourists every year. A bronze plaque denoting the SCV gift is exhibited prominently in the Manassas Visitors Center. The SCV surrendered much in their donation. The potential revenue of running their own Manassas Park (potentially millions) was considered at the time. Internal SCV memos were already noticing the visitation at other national parks. The Henry Farm donation would be similar to donating the Burnside Bridge at Sharpsburg, Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg, or Little Round Top at Gettysburg. The generous donation was a true act of both patriotism and national reconciliation on the part of the South and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Published in The Richmond Times Dispatch

New Legal Action in Reidsville, North Carolina

2011-09-22T08:47:00.001-04:00

Activists say statue must be replaced

Thursday, September 22, 2011 (Updated 3:02 am)
By J. Brian Ewing

REIDSVILLE — A new group is threatening legal action against the city of Reidsville if a controversial Confederate monument isn’t returned to the city’s center.

A group calling itself the Historical Political Action Committee delivered a letter to Reidsville on Tuesday alleging that the state owns the monument and the land it sat on.

The century-old monument , which sat on a massive marble base in the traffic circle of Morehead and Scales streets, was damaged in May when it was hit by a van.

The city determined that the state association of the United Daughters of the Confederacy owns the statue. That group decided not to erect a replacement in the city center. However, the local chapter disagrees with its state leadership, according to members.

The statue has been a point of controversy in the city, acting as a reminder of slavery for some and a symbol of Southern pride for others. The state UDC president cited that controversy when announcing the decision not to replace the monument.

There has been discussion of erecting a replica in a city-owned cemetery that has a section for Confederate soldiers.

Citing articles in the local newspaper from 1910, when the monument was installed, the committee argues that the UDC gave the statue to the city but the state has owned it for decades because the traffic circle is part of the state road system.

The group gave the city 30 days to respond. Rodney Hord , committee president , said the city took possession of both the statue and its base after the wreck.

Hord said the letter was also delivered to the N.C. Department of Transportation and the N.C. Historical Commission. He took issue with the state UDC’s claim that the statue is damaged beyond repair.

He said the group wants to see a historic and misunderstood monument returned to its rightful place.

“It’s not a racist thing,” Hord said. “It’s to the dead soldiers of the Confederacy.”

City Manager Michael Pearce said the city attorney is reviewing the letter.

“They raised some new points that hadn’t been considered before,” Pearce said. “My initial reaction is to disagree with the public right-of-way versus land ownership claim.”

The group plans to hold a news conference downtown at 10 a.m. today .

http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/09/21/article/activists_say_statue_must_be_replaced#nrcAnc_Middle2_Jump

Amendment Deadline Given

2011-09-20T22:35:00.000-04:00

Compatriots,

The Deadline for those wishing to submit proposed amendments to the SCV Constitution or the Standing Orders to be considered at the Reunion in Murfreesboro, TN in July 2012 is February 8, 2012.

Amendments should be submitted to Executive Director Ben Sewell at General Headquarters. They can be sent either by email to exedir@scv.org or by US Mail to: Sons of Confederate Veterans, P.O. Box 59, Columbia, TN 38402. Email submissions must be sent on or before February 8, 2012 and those send by US Mail must be postmarked by February 8, 2012.

Those submitting proposed amendments should include their name, camp number and contact information - phone number and email address is available. Please also send a brief statement as to the purpose of the amendment and the reasons it should be adopted. This will better help camps understand the purpose and advantages of the proposed amendment.

Executive Director Sewell will acknowledge receipt of the amendments. However, it is the responsibility of the sender to confirm with Director Sewell that any amendment submitted was received at General Heatquarters.

Please contact me or Executive Director Sewell if you have any questions.

Chuck Rand
Adjutant In Chief
chuckrand3@gmail.com

Confederate History Remembered in Tampa

2011-09-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

Tampa's rebel roots explored
CHRIS COYNER/STAFF
The Tampa Tribune
September 18, 2011

TAMPA

There were the Finley brothers, Thomas and John, ages 18 and 16, respectively. Thomas died at the Civil War prison in Rock Island, Ill. John died, too. No one knows how or where.

And there was Hiram Archibald McLeod, who helped Judah B. Benjamin, then secretary of state for the Confederacy, escape after Richmond fell. McLeod had been wounded twice by then and had only one leg.

The Finleys and McLeod were among 86 Tampa Bay area men remembered Saturday afternoon at the William F. Poe Plaza in downtown Tampa as part of a historical re-enactment organized by the Tampa Bay Sesquicentennial Commission.

Re-enactors brought to life a ceremony that took place 150 years ago, at which area women wearing white dresses and blue sashes presented a flag to the 86 men before they went off to fight for the South.

The 86 later were joined by another 14 men, reaching the required 100 for a company, and were organized in Jacksonville into Company K of the Fourth Florida regiment. They were known as the Sunny South Guards.

In Poe Plaza, as a small brass band played, nearly a dozen young women stood in a line, each representing a southern state. Then the men marched in, with cap-and-ball rifles or muskets in their hands and cartridge box slings draped over their shoulders.

There were 24 stand-ins, not 86. "That was as many bodies as we could snatch," said John Mitchell, a drug counselor who served as one of the recruits.

As part of the re-enactment, the soldiers heard from their commander, Capt. John T. Lesley, who was played by Bryan Gilmore, a Mosaic phosphate plant employee. Robert E. Lee was on hand, too, played by Tom Jessee — even though Lee wasn't at the long-ago flag presentation.

"We of the South vow anew that we stand united in a glorious cause," Gilmore told the soldiers, "and we, its defenders, beseech of a divine Providence, guidance for a triumphal victory under this beautiful banner the hands of Tampa's finest have bestowed on us this day."

The actual flag presentation in 1861 occurred some distance from what's now Poe Plaza. But organizers couldn't arrange a re-enactment at that location because it is now a busy intersection in the shadow of the Selmon Crosstown Expressway.

http://www2.tbo.com/news/education-news/2011/sep/18/menewso13-tampas-rebel-roots-explored-ar-258609/

Genealogy: Having Blood in the Game

2011-09-18T18:52:00.001-04:00

Genealogy: Having Blood In the Game
This isn’t your father’s genealogy: The Internet and information technology make genealogy accessible and feasible for a much wider audience

By Steve Scroggins … featuring Hu Daughtry

As part of our Sesquicentennial series, we wanted to put together an informative piece on genealogy to inspire others to start their own family roots search. This first effort in the genealogy series includes some tips and advice on how to get started to document your own family tree.

As a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), I have some experience with my own genealogical search. Though always happy to share and advise, I knew I could do better service to readers by seeking out the insights of a more active and experienced genealogist.

As you’ll read below, Hu Daughtry reveals it’s not rocket science and it’s much easier to get started today that it was for our parents’ generation.

I thought that I had been fortunate to find five direct ancestors (four great-great grandfathers and one great-great-great) who were Confederate veterans (and many more gg-uncles).

As it happens, the counties where my parents’ families settled in recent generations were in counties (AL and GA) that happened to have active genealogical groups and online bulletin boards. I found a lot of the information online, with help from friendly searchers, without having to travel outside my home.

It all started with a photograph. My maternal grandmother’s sister gave me a photo from 1915 of the Theus family of Taylor County Georgia. That photo included my grandmother as a young toddler on her mother’s lap. My grandmother’s grandfather, Thomas B. Theus, is the gray-bearded elder seated in the center of the photo.

Armed with that knowledge, a trip to the local library found Joseph Crute’s Units of the Confederate States Army (for Georgia). I did a lookup of the units that originated in Taylor County and there in the muster roll for Company C of the 59th Georgia Infantry (the Arthur Greys of Taylor County) was a listing of seven Theus men. Were they brothers or cousins or what? I soon learned, with help from online resources, that they were all brothers. Of the seven Theus brothers who went to war, only three survived.

Do You Know Who Your Ancestors Are?

As southern families go, they were luckier than many. I read of five brothers in a neighboring county, all of whom died in the war. Given the local nature of company units for that war, it was very common to have multiple brothers and relatives in the same unit.

The author of the fictional WWII story of Saving Private Ryan was inspired by a monument to four New Hampshire brothers who died in the War to Prevent Southern Independence.

The second man from the left seated on the first row is my great-grandfather, Tom Barfield. His father, Jesse Bud Barfield, was also a Confederate veteran. Tom’s grandfather, Jesse M. Barfield, was a veteran of the Mexican war. Seated to Tom’s right is my great-grandmother Dora Theus Barfield with my grandmother in her lap.

They had been married ten years at the time of this photo and their fifth child would be born four years later. In 2005, the centennial anniversary of their marriage, I wrote an essay exploring some of the historical events at that time in history (1904-05).

In my experience, as well as Hu Daughtry and many others, finding that one has blood relatives who were directly involved in an historical event, such as a war, just naturally fires one’s interest in that time period and in history in general. If only more people had such interest and invested time seeking the truths of history.

“If you don’t know history, you don’t know anything. You’re a leaf that doesn’t know it’s part of a tree.” —-Michael Crichton

“A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know where it is today…” –Gen. Robert E. Lee

As economist Ludwig von Mises wrote, “Historical knowledge is indispensable for those who want to build a better world.”

I think most readers would agree that a greater knowledge and understanding of history is essential to understanding what is happening in the world today.

Lacking interest in and awareness of History allows demagogues and manipulators traction and persuasion ability they shouldn’t have. It’s an acknowledged fact that the most recent generations see the subject of history as “boring” and not truly relevant in their lives.

Contrast them with Americans of generations before, most of whom considered history a favorite school subject. The question is, why the change? I attempted to answer that question in a March 2010 essay entitled Poisoning History: Guilt-tripping to Utopia.

“Seen in the light of anti-American self-loathing as promulgated and promoted by revisionists (e.g., James Loewen, Howard Zinn, et al), is it any wonder that several generations of Americans hold a more negative view of their country and its founders? Is it any wonder that many of these younger Americans view history as less relevant to their modern lives? Is it any wonder that many Americans are ignorant of the U.S. Constitution and the Founding Principles? If that widespread ignorance of our Constitution and Founding Principles doesn’t terrify you, it should.” —Steve Scroggins, from Poisoning History: Guilt-tripping to Utopia.

Clearly, genealogy or historical knowledge is not an end-all panacea. But ignorance of history, as the old saw goes, dooms us to repeat the mistakes that echo through human history.

Looking at a narrow band of time, American history for example, it becomes clear that one cannot fully understand a certain period without understanding the events in the decades immediately preceding that period… and on and on it goes until the beginning. History, like genealogy, is a lifelong pursuit. Greater understanding requires ongoing effort.

If you make the effort to get a good start, I’m willing to bet that you’ll be hooked. You might suspend your search during busy periods, but you’ll always be looking to fill in gaps and break through “brick walls” that are found in most family trees.

There are many online genealogy services (Daughtry mentions some below) and many versions of software to help with the search and the cataloging, organizing and sharing of data.

There are thousands of local genealogy websites with bulletin boards and query/discussion boards for certain counties. Odds are that some distant relative has already captured some of the information you’ll be looking for.

Whether you are looking for ancestors in the south, the north or elsewhere in America, the principles of Hu Daughtry’s advice below remains the same. For professionals who specialize in various countries of origin, you can find a directory of them at http://genealogypro.com/ As noted above, there’s a lot of satisfaction in doing the search yourself.

You Never Know Who You Might Find

Upcoming in the genealogy series, we’ll explore utilization of advanced technologies such as DNA testing for genealogical purposes. Now, to our guest contributor.

I met Hu Daughtry a few years ago when he was a program speaker at my local Camp meeting of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

He was an informative and entertaining speaker and what I remember most was his collection of family photographs. He had a phenomenal number of old photographs of many of his ancestors and knew all their names and stories.

Daughtry is the author of the book, CONFEDERATE TALES OF CANDLER & CONNECTED COUNTIES. He resides in rural Candler County, Georgia and he is the commander of The Dixie Guards, Camp # 1942, Sons of Confederate Veterans based in Metter, Georgia.

He also serves as one of three recruiting and genealogy officers for the Georgia division of SCV who assists potential or interested members to locate a Confederate ancestor. Whether your ancestors were Confederate, or otherwise, the principles of starting the search remain the same (in the U.S.).

“FINDING YOUR CONFEDERATE ANCESTOR”

by Hu Daughtry
My maternal grandfather is largely responsible for my seemly-endless passion for history and genealogy; quite succinctly, he possessed the uncanny ability (it was definitely a gift from God) to bring the dead back to life—with the mere use of spoken words. For the privilege of sharing the first 26 years of my life with him, I shall always be more than grateful.

Gen. N.B. Forrest
Although he never actually knew either of them, both of his grandfathers fought valiantly in That Unsuccessful Struggle For Southern Independence; one nearly lost a leg at a place called Second Manassas, while the other rode with Bedford Forrest at Chickamauga and actually made it to Joe Johnston’s late April surrender near Greensboro.

Hence, my interest in That Uncivil War of The 1860’s was quite unavoidable and was destined to overtake and devour me – sooner or later……

As I became older, I began to wonder and ponder more and more about my ancestors; who exactly were those dead relatives of mine who were directly responsible for my very existence on God’s Earth?

Before too much time had lapsed, it became blatantly obvious that the discipline of genealogy was much more addictive than any drug which I ever sold during my more than twenty years as a practicing pharmacist; that much, I am sure of…….

Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, III
Approximately four years ago, I researched and wrote a book entitled: CONFEDERATE TALES OF CANDLER & CONNECTED COUNTIES; while working on this non-fictional literary endeavor, I began to learn the basic principles and skills of genealogical / historical research.

Looking back, it is readily apparent that this marked the beginning of my avocation as “a genealogist.”

Just months following the publication of my book, I began receiving calls and e-mails from individuals seeking to hire me to perform genealogy work; at the time of this writing, I spend between 25 and 30 hours per week “conducting genealogical and historical research for private clients.”

A couple of years ago, in a magnanimous effort to increase the membership of The Georgia Division of The Sons of Confederate Veterans, Georgia Division Adjutant Timothy Pilgrim created the appointed position(s) of “Genealogy / Recruiting Officers.” In short, I was appointed to fill one of these three positions and since that time, have identified Confederate Ancestors for more than 300 potential members.

Old Confederate Veterans
Locating a “Confederate Ancestor” for a potential SCV (Sons of Confederate Veterans) compatriot is actually a simplistic process; I usually obtain some basic familial data from the interested party, then I begin the quest to “unearth at least one of his Rebel Relatives.”

As alluded to earlier, the first duty of a genealogy / recruiting officer is to locate a Confederate Ancestor for a male (twelve years of age or older) who wishes to enlist in this noble organization; once a suitable ancestor has been found, the next step is to place the future compatriot in the camp of his choosing.

In most cases, as common sense would certainly dictate, this is usually a camp which lies in close proximity to the potential member’s residence.

To Get Started...
Quite laconically, whenever I am contacted by an individual who is interested in joining a camp in The Georgia Division of The Sons of Confederate Veterans, I make a conscious and obvious effort to perform the majority of the work – myself.

Unfortunately, the plethora of paperwork often associated with locating one’s Confederate Relative(s) is often perceived as overwhelming and even intimidating to a novice / neophyte genealogist; therefore, many potential members simply shy away from this largely-unfamiliar process and fail to enlist in The Sons of Confederate Veterans.

One of the primary objectives of a genealogy / recruiting officer is to prevent this aforementioned worst-case scenario from occurring.

Generally speaking, when contacted by an interested party, I simply ask this individual to supply me with the names of at least two direct ancestors (mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, etc.) who were alive in 1930; additionally, it is imperative that I learn the exact familial relationship of this ancestor to the interested party.

Furthermore, it is also advantageous to know the approximate year of birth of the relative, and the county / state in which he / she resided in 1930. The rationale behind the annum ‘1930’ is such that this represents the most current Federal Census Enumeration which is currently available to the public.

Sgt. Alvin York - MoH - WWI - Confederate Descendant
Once I have identified an ancestor or two whose names appear on The 1930 Census Report, I am able “to take it from there.” Summarily, I merely “back track to 1860 and begin the hunt for a potential Confederate Soldier.” Ancestry.com is a great on-line source for accessing Federal Census Records.

In The South, especially in Georgia, white males from 16 to 60 were called upon to defend their homeland against The Forces of Northern Aggression; hence, the adage “from the cradle to the grave” was certainly no exaggeration.

In a genealogical sense, the significance of this “well-documented assertion” simply means that if an individual possesses a white male antecedent who was between the ages of 16 and 60 (from 1861 — 1865), there is a distinct possibility that this particular ancestor served in The Conventional Confederate Army, A State Unit, or perhaps even a Home Guard Outfit. Fold3.com (formerly Footnote.com) contains the majority of The Compiled Military Service Records for most Confederate Units.

In addition to The Confederate Compiled Military Service Records, there are also Confederate Pension Applications which can be found on-line; for example, those for Georgia and Alabama are readily accessible on Ancestry.Com.

As mentioned previously, I am also available to do genealogy work for the general public;” during the course of my practice, I have assisted several clients in their successful quests to join The Daughters of The American Revolution, The Sons of The American Revolution, as well as The United Daughters of The Confederacy.

On the other hand, there are those who have joined The Sons of Confederate Veterans who wish to learn more of their family history; for example, I prepared a report for one client which contained definitive proof that he actually possessed 36 Civil War Ancestors (a couple wore Union Blue). In addition to “Confederate-Oriented

Who's Lurking in Your Family Tree?
Research,” I have also done work for clients who descended not only from Union Soldiers, but from former slaves who served in The United States Colored Troops.

In recapitulation, it seems that more and more members of our 21st Century Society are rapidly developing an interest in their genealogical roots.

Fortunately, with the advent of modern technology, “tracing one’s family history” is much simpler today than it was in the days of our fathers and grandfathers; I, for one, feel that those of us who wish to learn as much as humanly possible of the lives and times of our progenitors, should make a tenacious effort to do so.

I have seen, on more than one occasion, individuals who find the subject of history to be “incredibly boring, literally transformed into “genealogy junkies” — practically overnight.

For clandestine, inexplicable reasons, the pages of history seem to suddenly “come alive” – when one learns that several members of his blood kindred were actively involved in a famous (or perhaps infamous) event such as a specific battle, conflict, war, etc.

Finally, in closing, I should like to challenge each and every reader of this article to make an effort to learn as much as possible about those who lurk silently within the hidden confines of the nooks and crannies of your family tree; the information that you find just might be “more than priceless……”

Hu Daughtry can be contacted by email at: sidada11@yahoo.com or by snailmail at — Hu Daughtry; Post Office Box 406; Metter,Georgia 30439

Note: As mentioned above, Hu Daughtry in one of three genealogy officers for the Georgia Division of SCV. The SCV.org website has a directory of genealogy officers for many other Divisions of the SCV as well as other genealogy resources: http://www.scv.org/genealogy.php

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/16/genealogy-having-blood-in-the-game/

Kansas "Jawhawk" Mascot Condemed as Terrorist Name

2011-09-17T21:15:00.001-04:00

Osceola Resolution

City of Osceola, Missouri Condemns “Jayhawk” Mascott

Recently the City of Osceola, Missouri passed a resolution condemning KU’s “Jayhawk” mascot. The resolution reads as follows:

RESOLUTION

On this date, the City of Osceola, after hearing all of the evidence, and for good cause shown, finds the following:

1.

That on September 21 – 23, 1861, a group of domestic terrorist, referred to as “the jayhawkers,” sacked the city of Osceola, St. Clair County, Missouri and burned all but four or five of the city’s buildings to the ground.

2.

That on or around that date, twelve citizens of Osceola, St. Clair County, Missouri, were executed by said terrorist group.

3.

That the above-mentioned occurrence eventually led to William Clark Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, kansas, as Missourians had no choice but to defend themselves from the murderous attacks perpetrated by the jayhawkers, led by Jim Lane and James Montgomery.

4.

That when the University of kansas fielded its football team in 1890, it referred to the team as “the jayhawkers,” an obvious celebration of the above-named terrorist group. This term was eventually shortened to “jayhawks,” a name which has since been officially adopted by the University of kansas as the mascot for all its sports teams.

5.

That the present-day “jayhawks,” kU alumni, citizens of the state of kansas, et al,, have willfully, wantonly and recklessly disregarded the above-mentioned occurrence when discussing the roots of the “Border War” which currently existed between the University of Missouri Tigers and the University of kansas jayhawks.

6.

Whereas, the Civil War Trust, Summer 2011 issue of “Hallowed Ground” published by the National Park Services does hereby acknowledge that partisan forces led by Jim Lane raided and sacked the town of Osceola, Missouri, executing nine men after a hastily arranged court martial.

IT IS THEREFORE RESOLVED that the City of Osceola, Missouri, by and through its citizens, officially CONDEMNS the celebration of this murderous gang of terrorists by an institution of “higher education,” in such a brazen and malicious manner.

IT IS FURTHER RESOLVED that citizens of the City of Osceola, Missouri requests the University of Missouri to educate the above-named Defendants on the FULL historical origins of the “Border War.”

IT IS FURTHER RESOLVED that no citizen of the City of Osceola or the alumni of the University of Missouri shall ever capitalize the “k” in “kansas” or “kU,” as neither is a proper name or a proper place.

_______________________

Larry Hutsler, Mayor

School Attacks Student's Heritage

2011-09-14T18:05:00.000-04:00

LAWRENCE COUNTY, AL (WAFF) - Three students are suspended two days each for waving a rebel flag during Lawrence County High School's homecoming parade.

James Sharpley, standing in front of what once was his segregated high school in Moulton, a segregated school, said he and others in the African-American community are deeply offended.

"That's fine if they want to have a confederate flag, but when you started putting it in parades, that's a different thing," said Sharpley.

Superintendent Heath Grimes said the students hid the flags and pulled them out once their truck left school property.

"I wish somebody had stopped them to begin with," Grimes said. "These flags would have never been approved to show during the parade," he added.

"Don't hate me because I'm black. I won't hate you because you're white. We ought to be able to get along and that is digging in old wounds, making people upset," said African-American Moulton resident Barry Brackins.

The superintendent said he wants all students to know why the confederate flag represents pain for African-Americans.

"I hope that in the future we can help them understand what this means and use this as a learning experience, that this is not just a flag. That it is hurtful to some of those around them," Grimes said.

He added that, from now on, Lawrence County Schools will keep staff along school parade routes to prevent something like this incident from happening again

http://www.waff.com/story/15455398/lawrence-co-high-students-suspended-for-waving-confederate-flag#

Louisiana Tigers

2011-09-14T17:41:00.002-04:00

The Terrifying Tigers
By TERRY L. JONES

Lt. Col. Charles de Choiseul was not a happy man. It was September 1861, and de Choiseul, a well-educated French Creole, had been ordered to take temporary command of Maj. Chatham Roberdeau Wheat’s First Special Battalion of Louisiana Infantry while Wheat recovered from a serious wound suffered at the First Battle of Bull Run. It was no routine assignment: a Virginia officer had been given the position previously, but he was unable to control the rowdy men and quit after only a few days. Now it was de Choiseul’s turn to try to rein in what was known as the Tiger Battalion. He wrote a friend, “I am a victim of circumstances, not of my own will. … Whether the Tigers will devour me, or whether I will succeed in taming them, remains to be seen.”

Few people wanted to associate with the battalion raised by Rob Wheat, a six-foot-four, 275-lb. giant. Wheat had served as an officer in the Mexican War and fought on American filibustering expeditions to Cuba, Mexico and Nicaragua. A man with a taste for adventure, he was serving with Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Red Shirts in Italy when the Civil War began. He immediately came home to New Orleans and organized a battalion of five companies.

Wheat’s men were a potpourri of high-society lawyers, merchants and planters’ sons, combined with low-life pickpockets, gamblers and thieves. One company, the Tiger Rifles, adopted the Zouave uniform and was said to have been partly recruited from New Orleans’ jails. Like other units raised in New Orleans, many of Wheat’s men were of foreign birth. While the soldiers from north Louisiana were English-speaking, Scots-Irish Protestants like other Confederates, those from New Orleans and south Louisiana were unique in the army. Louisiana was the only Southern state that was predominantly Catholic, and it had the highest number of newly arrived immigrants. In fact, when the Civil War began nearly one half of New Orleans residents had been born outside the United States.

Out of this multicultural population, men from at least 24 different nationalities volunteered for military service; many of them ended up serving under Wheat. It was a rough bunch. Many of the city’s foreign-born worked at the most menial of jobs on docks, wharves, levees and steamboats, where drinking, fighting and thievery were seen as necessary for survival. They naturally brought those same values to the army.
Before de Choiseul took command of Wheat’s Battalion, several Louisiana units had already become well known for such misconduct. Coppens’s Zouaves had hijacked their troop train on the way to Virginia and looted Montgomery, Ala., while drunken members of the 14th Louisiana rioted and attacked their officers on the way to the Old Dominion. In the latter incident, the regiment’s officers had to kill several of the men to regain control. Nonetheless, Wheat’s Battalion became the most notorious of all, creating so much mayhem in Virginia that Gen. Richard Taylor claimed “every commander desired to be rid of it.” Still, the unit performed bravely at Bull Run, and it was soon nicknamed the Tiger Battalion.

Civilians and soldiers alike came to fear the Tiger Battalion. One Alabaman described the men as “adventurers, wharf-rats, cutthroats, and bad characters generally.” Another soldier admitted, “I was actually afraid of them, afraid I would meet them somewhere and that they would do me like they did Tom Lane of my company; knock me down and stamp me half to death.”

Within six months after arriving in Virginia, members of Wheat’s Battalion engaged in a drunken street brawl in Lynchburg, fought the First Kentucky with rocks in camp, and lit into the 21st Georgia when the Georgians ran off with the Louisianians’ whiskey bottle. In the latter incident, 10 members of the Tiger Rifles took on an entire company of Georgians and were badly beaten. The Georgians’ captain apologized for his men’s theft but warned the bloodied Tigers they could have been killed if had not intervened. While walking away, one defiant Tiger called over his shoulder, “We are much obliged, sor, but Wheat’s Battalion kin clean up the whole damn Twenty-first Georgia any time.”

The Tigers were just a small subset of the 12,000 Louisiana soldiers in Virginia in 1861. Most were decent, God-fearing men who served their state honorably. But there were enough criminals and drunkards mixed in to give the entire state’s contribution a bad reputation. The good were lumped together with the bad, and because Wheat’s Tiger Battalion was the most infamous, all became known as the Louisiana Tigers.
Library of CongressThe Louisiana Tigers, left, charge a Union battery at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Trouble began anew not long after Colonel de Choiseul assumed command of Wheat’s Battalion, when, as he said, “the whole set got royally drunk.” That day an inebriated soldier twice snapped his loaded musket at the colonel’s orderly outside his tent, but the gun failed to discharge and the man was subdued. Later in the day unknown Tigers succeeded in “knocking down & badly beating & robbing … a washerwoman of the battalion in a thicket not a hundred yards from the guard house.” That night a free-for-all at the guard tent woke the colonel. With pistol in hand, he found the guards battling seven or eight Tigers who were trying to free some of their comrades. De Choiseul slugged one man who charged at him and finally restored order “with seven or eight beauties bucked & gagged in the guard tent.”

The next day the tension between the colonel and his men exploded. When two Tigers casually walked out of camp, de Choiseul mounted his horse and rode over to investigate. The men told him that the orderly sergeant had given them permission, but the colonel was suspicious of their story. He rode over to question the sergeant but ended up arresting him when the sergeant gave “an impudent answer” to his questions. De Choiseul ordered the man to his quarters and he skulked off uttering oaths under his breath. No sooner had he left than another Tiger strolled over and began defending the sergeant. Out of patience, de Choiseul ordered him to the guard house, but the man refused to go. Furious, de Choiseul grabbed him by his collar and threw him to the ground. The soldier picked himself up but still refused to obey the order, so the colonel knocked him down a second time.

By then a threatening crowd of Tigers was forming around de Choiseul. The colonel fingered his pistol and warned he would shoot the first man who “raised a finger.” Immediately, as de Choiseul recalled, a “big double fisted ugly looking fellow came at me & said ‘God damn you, shoot me.’” De Choiseul drew his pistol and shot him point blank in the face. “He turned as I fired & [I] hit him in the cheek, knocking out one upper jaw tooth & two lower ones on the other side & cutting his tongue.” The others quickly retreated and, according to de Choiseul, “that quelled the riot.”
After de Choiseul demonstrated his willingness to shoot a disobedient man, the Tigers quickly accepted him as their commander. De Choiseul later recalled that after Wheat recovered and he returned to his own regiment, he met a Tiger on the road who cried and kissed his hand goodbye (the colonel admitted that the man was drunk at the time).

De Choiseul had proven his meddle to the notorious Tiger Battalion, but a few months later he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Port Republic, Va. Major Wheat was killed while leading his battalion at Gaines’ Mill in June 1862. But tales of the Tigers continued. Gen. John Bankhead Magruder once wrote his wife that during the 12 hours that the 10th Louisiana was camped on Jamestown Island, its members “eat up every living thing on the Island but two horses and their own species.”

Library of CongressSome of the 126 Tigers killed at the Battle of Antietam
Later, when the army captured a large quantity of whiskey, the officers dumped it in the ditch to keep it away from the men. One soldier reported the Louisiana Tigers got down on their hands and knees 100 yards down the road and lapped the whiskey up like dogs as it ran by. So terrible was the Tigers’ reputation that one poor Pennsylvania woman fainted from fright when the Rebel who was politely asking her for something to eat made the mistake of telling her he was from Louisiana.

On the other hand, the 12,000 Louisiana Tigers would prove to be among the best fighters in the Army of Northern Virginia. When their ammunition expired at the Second Battle of Bull Run, they refused to retreat and began throwing rocks at the Yankees. They were the only Confederates to break the Union line at Gettysburg, and they quite possibly saved Robert E. Lee’s army from destruction at Spotsylvania by holding their position after the enemy overran other Confederate units at the Bloody Angle. The Louisianians fought in every major battle in the Virginia theater and they suffered appalling casualties. When Lee surrendered at Appomattox after four years of war, only 373 Tigers remained on duty.

The Tigers’ name lives on today. Contrary to popular belief, the Louisiana State University Tigers are not named for a ferocious feline but for Louisiana’s most famous Civil War soldiers. In the early 1900s, Dr. Charles E. Coates of Louisiana State University was trying to decide on a name for the football team. When he was told that the Louisiana Tigers were the toughest set of men who ever lived, he chose them as his mascot.

Sources: Terry L. Jones, “Lee’s Tigers: The Louisiana Infantry in the Army of Northern Virginia”; Charles L. Dufour, “Gentle Tiger: The Gallant Life of Roberdeau Wheat”; John D. Winters, “The Civil War in Louisiana.”

Dr. Jones is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/

Confederate Flying Machine

2011-09-14T17:37:00.002-04:00

Plans for Confederate flying machine are up for sale
One man's vision caught Jefferson Davis' attention, but never could get funded
9/12/2011

The papers of R. Finley Hunt, a dentist with a passion for flight, describe scenarios where flying machines bombed Federal troops across Civil War battlefields.By Jeremy Hsu

While Rebel and Union soldiers still fought it out with bayonets and cannons, a Confederate designer had the foresight to imagine flying machines attacking Northern armies. He couldn't implement his vision during the war, and the plans disappeared into history, until resurfacing at a rare book dealer's shop 150 years later.

Now those rediscovered designs have found their way to the auction block, providing a glimpse at how Victorian-era technology could have beaten the Wright Brothers to the punch.

The papers of R. Finley Hunt, a dentist with a passion for flight, describe scenarios where flying machines bombed Federal troops across Civil War battlefields. Hunt's papers are set to go up for sale at the Space and Aviation Artifacts auction during the week of Sept. 15-22, giving one lucky collector a chance to own a piece of an alternate technological history that never came to pass.

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"It's incredible for someone who loves early aviation, because it poses the great question of 'What if?'" said Bobby Livingston, vice president of sales and marketing with RR Auction. "What if planes had appeared above the wilderness when (Union Gen. Ulysses S.) Grant began his campaign in the Shenandoah Valley?"

The hardback collection includes pencil drawings of wings, propellers and a multicylinder steam engine. Hunt's designs drew inspiration from his love of studying any and all flying methods found in nature, despite his own lack of professional expertise.

But Hunt found it difficult to find an engineer willing to build the device, despite getting the help of Confederate President Jefferson Davis to have the proposal considered. Letters between Hunt and a Confederate review board show that other engineers had strong doubts about the "steam flying machine."

First, the engineers said Hunt had dramatically overestimated the engine's power and ability to keep the machine flying. They also described another error in Hunt's reasoning as being "so obvious on reflection that no discussion is required."

"When they turned him down, it was over the science of it," Livingston told "But they considered it, and considered it a lot."

Hunt refused to take no for an answer. The papers include another letter to Davis, wherein Hunt tries to defend his flying theories and asks for assistance from a machinist. In the end, the Confederates decided against spending money to fund the project.

Still, the Confederates did deploy several other innovative war machines. Their ironclad steamship, the CSS Virginia, fought against the USS Monitor in the world's first duel between ironclads. A Confederate submarine called the H.L. Hunley also made its mark in history as the first submarine to successfully sink an enemy ship.

Both the Union and Confederate sides also flew manned balloons to scout different battlefields.

As for Hunt, he went to Washington, D.C., and got a U.S. patent on his device after the Civil War ended in 1865. He also built several working models and was still attempting to get financing in 1872. Yet he never saw his vision take flight.

"It looks to me like he's 40 years before the Wright brothers with a rotary engine driving propellers, but I don't know how close he was," Livingston said. "He never got the money to do it."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44493804/ns/technology_and_science-science

National Geographic Explores the Mystery of the Hunley

2011-09-13T23:05:00.002-04:00

THE HUNLEY PROJECT
For more information contact:
Kellen Correia
843.743.4865, x.32
September 13th, 2011

National Geographic Channel Investigates the Disappearance of the Hunley

Submarine Secret Weapon of the Confederacy
Premieres Thursday, September 15, at 9PM ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel

Charleston, South Carolina – National Geographic Channel will debut a two-hour documentary about the Hunley, the world’s first successful combat submarine. Scheduled to premiere this Thursday, September 15th at 9 PM ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel, Secret Weapon of the Confederacy will delve into the possible theories to explain why the Hunley vanished after succeeding in her against-all-odds mission to sink the USS Housatonic. “The Hunley represents one of the world’s most intriguing maritime mysteries.

Using the latest discoveries emerging from the Project, we attempted to capture the fascination surrounding the submarine in a compelling documentary,” said Producer and Director Alan Martin. A popular – yet unproven – theory is that gunfire from the Housatonic crew damaged the Hunley’s conning tower, inflicting a deathly blow to the submarine. The documentary explores the plausibility of this scenario with a live action weapons test. A model of the Hunley, made with the same type iron as the actual 19th century submarine, is fired upon at different ranges with period weapons. The surprising results give new insights to archaeologists seeking to solve the mystery that led to the Hunley’s loss.

Beginning with the submarine’s conception and development in the dark days of the Civil War, Secret Weapon of the Confederacy will also cover the Hunley’s historical origins and the archaeological discovery process taking place today with the modern-day scientific methods being developed by the Project. The program also showcases state-of-the-art digital animation to recreate the legendary night bringing the viewer ever closer to unlocking the Hunley’s greatest secrets. “We will show how cutting-edge technology is being used to excavate history,” Martin said.For more information visit www.natgeotv.com.

On the evening of February 17, 1864, the H. L. Hunley became the world’s first successful combat submarine by sinking the USS Housatonic. After signaling to shore that the mission had been accomplished, the submarine and her crew of eight mysteriously vanished. Lost at sea for over a century, the Hunley was located in 1995by Clive Cussler’s National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA).

The innovative hand-cranked vessel was raised in 2000 and delivered to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center, where an international team of scientists are at work to conserve the submarine for future generations and piece together clues to solve the mystery of her disappearance. The Hunley Project is conducted through a partnership with the Clemson University Restoration Institute, South Carolina Hunley Commission, Naval Historical Center, and Friends of the Hunley.

Kellen Correia
Executive Director
Friends of the Hunley
1250 Supply St.Charleston, SC 29405
843-743-4865 ext.
32843-744-1480 - fax
Correia@hunley.org

Join us for the 7th Annual Friends of the Hunley Oyster Roast on Nov. 4th at the Visitor Center Bus Shed.
www.hunley.org

Leadership Workshop October 1

2011-09-13T22:41:00.003-04:00

SCV National Leadership Workshop

As we approach the challenging years of the Sesquicentennial, leadership training has become even more important to the defense of our Southern heritage. In an effort to insure that our members better understand the challenges of leadership roles and to aid our leaders in acquiring the knowledge to better perform their duties, the SCV has scheduled a 2011 National Leadership Summit.

This year’s event will be held October 1, 2011 at the Terrace Restaurant on the campus of Twin Lakes Retirement Center, located at 100 Wade Coble Drive, Burlington, NC 27215. It will be hosted by the Col. Charles F. Fisher Camp #813. A tentative schedule for the day is posted below along with registration and lodging information.

Please note that this event will include relevant presentations and individual workshops for more specialized training for Commanders and Adjutants; however, ALL members are invited to attend!
___________________________________

8:00 – 8:15 Welcome & SCV Protocol Cmdr. Mitch Flinchum, Camp 813

8:15 – 8:30 Introductions & Overview Lt. CIC Charles Kelly Barrow

8:30 – 9:15 Commanders & Command CIC R. Michael Givens

9:15 – 9:30 BREAK

9:30 – 10:15 Adjutants & Administration NC Div. Adjutant Doug Nash

10:15 – 10:30 BREAK

10:30 – 11:15 Camp Programs & Projects ANV Councilman Gene Hogan

11:15 – 12:15 DINNER

12:15 – 1:00 Camp Operations & Success Past Ga.Div Cmdr Scott K. Gilbert, Jr

1:00 – 1:15 BREAK

1:15 – 2:00 Commander’s & Adjutant’s Workshops CIC, Lt. CIC & NC Div. Adj

2:15 – 2:30 BREAK

2:30 – 3:15 Recruiting & Retention Lt. CIC Charles Kelly Barrow

3:15 – Concluding Remarks & Discussion Lt. CIC Charles Kelly Barrow

Benediction

Registration, which includes dinner, is only $12 each and will be handled through our General Headquarters at Elm Springs. After the 23rd, registration will be $6 with no meal. You may mail a reservation with a check or call 1 (800) 380-1896 ext 209 (Cindy) or email accounting@scv.org with credit card information (MC, VISA or AMEX)
_______________________________

Courtyard Mariott
3141 Wilson Drive
Burlington, NC 27215
(336) 585-1888

Corporate Suites
2912 Saconn Drive
Burlington, NC 27215
(336) 343-4000

Comfort Inn
2701 Kirkpatrick Road
Burlington NC
(336) 584-4447

Ramada Inn
2703 Ramada Road
Burlington NC 27215
(336) 227-5541

Registration Sheet

Name________________________

Address____________________________________________

Email address_______________________________________

Camp number_________________ Check enclosed ( ) or

Credit Card (MC, VISA, or AMEX) Number __________________________ Expires _________

Black Confederates Discussed at Harvard

2011-09-11T16:52:00.001-04:00

John Stauffer to Discuss Blacks in Confederacy

The Root Recommends: Harvard professor John Stauffer's discussion about the history and myth of black Confederates during the Civil War.
By: Joshua R. Weaver | Posted: August 29, 2011

While claims that black Confederates existed during the Civil War era tend to evoke contentious debate, the writings of many African Americans may prove that blacks did, indeed, fight for the South.

This Wednesday, Aug. 30, from 12 to 1:30 p.m. at the Harvard Faculty Club Library (20 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Mass.), Harvard professor John Stauffer will discuss the phenomenon of black Confederates in the South, their impact during the Civil War and its aftermath, as well as the diverse ideas of freedom among blacks during the time period. Stauffer's "Black Confederates in History and Myth" is open to the public, and food and refreshments will be served.

http://www.theroot.com/views/john-stauffer-discuss-blacks-confederacy?wpsrc=OB00000001&wpisrc=obnetwork

Lexington, Virginia Turns PC

2011-09-02T20:20:00.000-04:00

Virginia city limits Confederate flag-flying
Steve Szkotak, Associated Press / Sep 2, 2011

Officials in the rural Virginia city where Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall’’ Jackson are buried voted late Thursday to prohibit the flying of the Confederate flag on city-owned poles.

After a lively 2 ½-hour public hearing, the Lexington City Council voted 4-1 to allow only U.S., Virginia and city flags to be flown. Personal displays of the Confederate flag are not affected. The Sons of Confederate Veterans, whose members showed up in force after leading a rally that turned a downtown park into a sea of Confederate flags, vowed to challenge the ordinance in court.

Some speakers during the meeting said the ordinance was an affront to the men who fought in the Civil War in defense of the South. One speaker stayed silent during his allotted three minutes, in memory of the Civil War dead.

But many speakers complained that the flag was an offensive, divisive symbol of the South’s history of slavery and shouldn’t be endorsed by the city of 7,000 people.

“The Confederate flag is not something we want to see flying from our public property,’’ said city resident Marquita Dunn, who is black. “The flag is offensive to us.’’

Most residents who spoke, both blacks and whites, opposed the ordinance. But H.K. Edgerton, the former president of the NAACP chapter in Asheville, N.C., said he supported flying the Confederate flag because he wanted to honor black Confederate soldiers. Edgerton, who is black, wore a T-shirt emblazoned with images of those black soldiers.

“What you’re going to do in banning the Southern cross is wrong. May God bless Dixie,’’ he said, amid some gasps from the audience.

Before the rally, ordinance opponents rallied in the city park, then marched to the hearing under a parade of Confederate flags.

http://mobile.boston.com/art/25/news/nation/articles/2011/09/02/virginia_city_limits_confederate_flag_flying/

The Confederate of the Sierra Madre

2011-09-02T20:15:00.001-04:00

The Confederate of the Sierra Madre
By WILLIAM MOSS WILSON

José Quintero’s reputation was soaring upon his return to Richmond in mid-August 1861. He had travelled the width of the Confederacy to deliver the rarest of gifts for the Southern capital: much better than a fine box of cigars, the Cuban-born Southern special agent brought good news from Mexico.

Despite a frenzy of activity, Confederate diplomacy was not bearing its anticipated fruits in the nation’s first summer. King Cotton had failed to induce recognition from Britain or France, and Richmond had heard nothing from Mexico City, where ambassador John Pickett’s boorish antics and intercepted dispatches, laden with contempt and condescension for his hosts, confirmed the Juarez government’s worst suspicions of the Southern cause — namely, that it had less interest in diplomacy, per se, than it did in southward expansion.

Yet 600 miles to the north of the Mexican capital, Quintero achieved one of the Confederacy’s most stunning diplomatic successes. In his negotiations with Santiago Vidaurri, governor of the Mexican border states of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, the southern agent discovered a capable ally who offered more than his “great friendship”: Vidaurri promised border security, the supply of vital war material and an outlet for Southern cotton; most astonishingly, he proposed the outright annexation of his territories.

Adhering to the instructions from Richmond, Quintero had arrived in Vidaurri’s capital, Monterrey, with modest aims. He explained to Vidaurri during their meeting on June 23 that his chief concern was simply to establish cordial relations with Nuevo Leon and open discussions about security along the frontier.

José Quintero, ca. 1880 Vidaurri made it clear he did not have the authority to conduct foreign diplomacy — and then, in the same breath, offered to negotiate on behalf of his national government. Vidaurri stressed that border security was a high priority of his own, as he was actively in pursuit of Juan Cortina, the marauder who had sacked the border town of Brownsville, Tex., in 1859 and who was rumored to be gathering a force for additional raids across the Rio Grande. Furthermore, Vidaurri assured Quintero he would not allow Union troop movements through his territory and would do everything in his power to gather similar assurances from his fellow border-state governors.

The trading houses of Monterrey, Vidaurri told his guest, could provide the South with essential war supplies — not only lead, powder, saltpeter, copper and bronze, but also flour, cloth and shoes. Everything could be had in exchange for cash or cotton, and Vidaurri vowed to exercise his “moral influence” in Tamaulipas, the state bordering Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, to keep its port of Bagdad open to the Confederacy.

Vidaurri then divulged his greatest ambition to Quintero, something his enemies and allies alike had long suspected: that the governor was “anxious to establish the Republic of the Sierra Madre.” With the coming of the Civil War, Vidaurri suggested the time was ripe for his region to break with the central government in Mexico City and join the nascent Confederacy. Vidaurri stressed the similarities between his region and the Southern states: Mexico’s northern frontier was more geographically and commercially aligned with Texas than distant Mexico City, and annexation would further the process of Americanization that was already in progress.

Vidaurri’s states’ rights philosophy was well-suited for the Confederacy. The caudillo in Mexico City had ruled Nuevo Leon and Coahuila since 1855 under the Plan of Monterrey, a constitution that asserted state sovereignty and maintained a militia independent from federal control. Vidaurri exercised this autonomy, time and again putting his regional interests before the concerns of national politics; on several occasions he withdrew his troops from the liberal forces in the War of the Reform in order to consolidate his position in the north.

But there were also difficult incongruities between Vidaurri’s states and the Confederacy: Nuevo Leon’s constitution explicitly outlawed slavery, and the region had a proud history as a haven for runaway slaves, who with a year of gainful employment could even earn the right the vote. The backbone of his state revenues, moreover, depended on the customs receipts he would stand to lose once incorporated into the Confederate nation.

So why was Vidaurri so eager to align with the nascent Confederacy? Political survival. He had lost his best general and military strategist, Juan Zuazua, to assassination that winter. With the end of the Reform wars, President Benito Juarez was consolidating federal control and was sure to challenge Vidaurri’s virtual independence along the northern frontier. And if Juarez did not unseat the northern caudillo, a European power might — France and others were already making noise about invading Mexico over its debts.

Though highly impressed with Quintero’s mission, Jefferson Davis wisely refused Vidaurri’s offer of annexation. Southern Democrats, including Davis, had been advocates of expansion into Mexico throughout the 1850’s, but a primary motive for acquisition, maintaining the balance of power in Congress between slave states and free soil, no longer existed. Moreover, for an independent South, Manifest Destiny came with serious drawbacks. A formal union with Vidaurri’s realm would put northern Mexico’s ports within jurisdiction of the Union blockade, chocking a vital outlet for Southern exports. Additionally, annexation would draw the rest of Mexico into war against the South.

Potentially even more damaging, such a union would likely scuttle one of the Confederacy’s best hopes for European recognition. Davis believed Napoleon III’s anticipated intervention into Mexico would spark a war between the Union and France, opening the possibility of a Franco-Confederate alliance. Southern annexation might dampen this potential conflict, while surely antagonizing a potential ally.

Davis’s rejection of Vidaurri’s offer didn’t mean the end for Quintero, though. In reward for his efforts, he was assigned to a permanent post in Monterrey. But there his diplomatic reputation was immediately put to the test. On his way back to Nuevo Leon, he learned that Jose-Maria Carvajal, a Virginia-educated filibuster, was organizing a force outside Brownsville to invade northern Mexico. Quintero, worried about the implications for cross-border diplomatic relations, alerted the local commander, John Ford, and Texas Governor Francis Lubbock.

But to his dismay, neither acted; Ford was an old compatriot of Carvajal’s, while Lubbock had other concerns at hand. In March 1862 Carvajal attacked Matamoros, just across the border. Vidaurri was outraged, and told Quintero as much. Quintero immediately offered his resignation in a blistering report to Richmond:

The General Government of Mexico as you are well aware sympathizes with the Black Republicans. We have, however, succeeded in securing the friendship of the Governors of the frontier states and are now on the eve of incurring the their enmity, on account of the band of robbers who are permitted to abuse the Hospitality of Texas … I earnestly request the Department to appoint a person to succeed me who may have more influence … with the military at Brownsville.

In response to the raid, Vidaurri closed border and later added a 2 cent per pound levy on all cotton that crossed the Rio Grande. Quintero, who rescinded his resignation, soon managed to negotiate a reduction in the tariff, and his appeal to Richmond eventually led to Carvajal’s arrest. Tempers subsided; though similar border incursions would threaten commerce for the duration of the war, both sides had too much to gain for commerce not to continue.

Indeed, Quintero proved an integral tie between the two countries, and Vidaurri remained a staunch ally of the South. The governor refused a June 1862 request by the United States consul, C. B. H. Blood, for an official letter respecting Union commercial goods in his state. Later that same month, when President Juarez ordered the governor to “cease all intercourse with the Confederate States, under whatever circumstances,” Vidaurri refused, saying that he could not risk crippling the commerce in his region.

The alliance proved vital to the South: northern Mexico became a major outlet for its cotton, accounting for approximately 20 percent of wartime exports. Though the long wagon hauls through the rugged south Texas corridor ate up much of the value of the crop, the route proved competitive with the dangers of blockade running, as testified by the 125 ships at a time anchored off the coast near Matamoros.

But all good things come to an end. By 1864, the French invasion had pushed the Juarez government into northern Mexico, and Vidaurri was forced to choose between the central government and a foreign power. The master of self-preservation sought the winning side — and chose to back the French. When the French fell to Porfirio Díaz in 1867, he was arrested and executed.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/the-confederate-of-the-sierra-madre/

Monument in North Carolina Under Attack

2011-09-02T20:12:00.000-04:00

Students gathered Thursday to start a new discussion about the monument known as "Silent Sam."

The statue at UNC-Chapel Hill has been the subject of many debates in the nearly 100 years it has stood in the center of McCorkle Place.

For the passer-by or new student, the statue overlooking Franklin Street may appear to be of little significance, but some of those who know the statue's history say it is a misrepresentation of students and the community.

"For me personally, as a longtime resident of Chapel Hill and student of UNC, it's something that doesn't represent me, the town or the university," said Will McInerney, a senior and part of The Real Silent Sam movement.

The Real Silent Sam movement hopes to spark dialogue and provoke critical thought about the meanings behind the monuments and buildings of Chapel Hill. It hopes to provide the public with information that goes beyond standard narratives.

Silent Sam was erected in 1913 as a monument to the alumni and students who fought and died in the Confederate Army.

http://m.newsobserver.com/observer/db_97301/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=cSoVJjde&storycount=19&detailindex=3&pn=&ps=

GA Division Restores Polk Monument

2011-08-24T18:36:00.001-04:00

Heritage organization restoring Georgia's Confederate monuments
2011.08.24
By Janel Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has been restoring Confederate monuments around the state, including the Lt. General Leonidas Polk Monument at Pine Mountain near Kennesaw.

The Polk Monument consists of a marble shaft marking the spot Leonidas was killed in 1864 by forces under Union General William Sherman’s command. The monument was erected in 1902.

Over time, the monument had suffered from pollution and vandalism. Funds from the sales of Sons of Confederate Veterans specialty auto tag licenses paid for the restoration projects.

http://ww2.ajcmobile.com/autojuice/?targetUrl=http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/heritage-organization-restoring-georgias-1137956.html

Procedures for Regaining Tax-Exempt Status

2011-08-23T13:12:00.003-04:00

Compatriots,

Three years ago the IRS began requiring small non-profit organizations, and the local branches of larger non-profit organizations, to file an electronic tax return:

http://epostcard.form990.org.

The IRS rule established regarding these filings, which were publicized by General Headquarters in the Confederate Veteran magazine, on the SCV Telegraph and on the front page of scv.org, providing instructions on how to file the E Postcard, emphasized that these annual filings were mandatory and could only be accomplished on line.

In subsequent years the information regarding the filing was updated by an IRS pronouncement that any organization or local branch, under the Group Exemption Number of a national non-profit, that did not file at least once in the last three years would have its non-profit status revoked.

Now that the three years time frame has passed since the e-filing rule for Form 990 was enacted, camps that have not filed the required form are receiving letters from the IRS stating that their tax exempt status has been revoked.

SCV camps who receive this letter which would like to reinstate their tax exempt status will need to complete IRS Form 1023, which is essentially an application for recognition of Exemption under Section 501(c)(3). You may access this form at:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1023.pdf

This is a long form that requires patience to go through to complete the numerous entries required.

The form states that a $400 application fee is required; however, SCV Headquarters has been informed that this fee will be $100 for entities with less than $25,000 in annual revenue.

The only way for a camp which has been notified by the IRS that it has lost its tax exempt status to regain its tax exempt status is to file Form 1023. We regret that there is no way for General Headquarters to assist in this matter.

Chuck Rand
Adjutant In Chief

John Hunt Morgan Remembered

2011-08-22T13:18:00.000-04:00

100 years later, descendants to honor 'Thunderbolt of the Confederacy'
By Tom Eblen — Herald-Leader columnist

Posted: Aug 22, 2011

The John Hunt Morgan statue was dedicated in October 1911. TOM EBLENBuy Photo

Descendants of Gen. John Hunt Morgan's men and other Civil War buffs will gather Saturday outside the Lexington History Museum to mark the 100th anniversary of Morgan's heroic statue being placed there.

But it will be nothing like the spectacle that occurred at what was then the Fayette County Courthouse on Oct. 18, 1911. That day, 10,000 people packed the square, and hundreds more filled the windows and roofs of nearby buildings to honor the "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy."

It was quite a tribute, especially since many of those people might have once cursed the man whose troops stole their horses, looted their stores, burned their homes and robbed their banks. Nostalgia is a strange thing.

As two excellent books published last year explain, Morgan's statue marked the zenith of Kentucky's ironic transformation from Union to Confederate state. That's right; once the Lost Cause was truly lost, most white Kentuckians sided with the losers.

As America begins a four-year commemoration of the Civil War's 150th anniversary, this is a good time to reflect on John Hunt Morgan — one of Lexington's most colorful and controversial characters — and the role nostalgia has played in Kentucky's collective memory.

Morgan was born in Alabama in 1825, the maternal grandson of John Wesley Hunt, one of Lexington's founders and first millionaires. His family soon returned to Lexington, where Morgan attended Transylvania University for two years before being kicked out for dueling.

He joined the Army as a private in 1846 and emerged from the Mexican War as a battle-tested officer. Morgan returned to Lexington and went into the hemp business, but he missed the military life. He formed the Lexington Rifles in 1852 and drilled his militia in city parks.

Morgan, like most slave-owning Kentuckians, opposed Southern secession at first. But by 1862, he had raised a Confederate cavalry regiment and led his men through the Battle of Shiloh.

"He was the very image of the grand cavalier — a man who was romanticized, particularly by the women of the Confederacy," said James Klotter, Kentucky's state historian and a Georgetown College professor.

Morgan was a brilliant cavalry officer and tactician. His daring raids into Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio destroyed valuable federal property and supply lines, earning him the nickname "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy."

But he pushed his luck too far; Morgan and most of his men were captured during a raid on Ohio in 1863. He and a few others made a daring prison break and returned to Kentucky to form a new unit. But his fortune had changed.

Morgan's new men weren't nearly as good as those who sat out the rest of the war in prison. He especially missed Basil Duke, his brother-in-law and second in command, who enforced discipline among his troops. Kent Masterson Brown, a Lexington lawyer and historian, described Morgan's last unit as "a motley crew."

As the war dragged on, Kentucky life got leaner and meaner. Raiders increasingly turned to civilian targets as they sought supplies and military advantage. Morgan's men confiscated horses, robbed banks, looted trains and stores, and set several blocks of Cynthiana on fire.

When he was killed in Greeneville, Tenn., on Sept. 4, 1864, Morgan was ignoring a suspension order from superiors, who were investigating charges of thievery brought by his own officers, according to Rebel Raider, a biography written James Ramage, a Northern Kentucky University history professor.

Kentuckians might have been angry with Morgan's raiders, but they were even angrier with Union occupiers. Gen. Stephen Burbridge had turned Kentucky into a police state. Arbitrary executions earned him the nickname "Butcher Burbridge."

The war's end brought a new social order. Many white Kentuckians feared former slaves and were determined to keep blacks "in their place." Racism intensified, white-on-black violence grew rampant and Kentucky earned a national reputation for lawlessness.

Many white Kentuckians longed for the "good old days" and embraced Confederate identity, a phenomenon that Anne Marshall, a Lexington native and history professor at Mississippi State University, chronicled last year in her book, Creating a Confederate Kentucky.

In the book How Kentucky Became Southern, Maryjean Wall, a historian and former Herald-Leader turf writer, explained how Kentucky Thoroughbred breeders encouraged that Old South mythology to attract wealthy Northern horsemen.

By 1907, the United Daughters of the Confederacy was raising money to erect a monument to Morgan, the martyred cavalier. The result was Italian sculptor Pompeo Coppini's statue of Morgan mounted on a stallion — ironic, since his favorite horse was a mare. (Generations of college pranksters have spray-painted the inaccurate genitalia under cover of darkness.)

By the end of the Civil War, the reputation of Morgan's men was one of "murder and highway robbery," wrote Duke, his former second-in-command. But a few years later, thanks to white public nostalgia, "if you could claim that you rode with Morgan, you were a kind of nobility," Brown said.

The ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday will try to strike a historically accurate balance, said Sam Flora, president of the Morgan's Men Association, an old veterans' group resurrected in 1988 by soldiers' descendants and Civil War buffs.

"Our take on it is that we're proud of our history and heritage," Flora said.

We will hear many more such comments over the next four years, as Americans keep trying to understand the Civil War's complexities and the legacy of slavery.

"What we do is not a defense of slavery," Flora said. "Most of the men who served under Morgan were young and did not even own slaves. They were caught up in the war and the adventure of the war. Our ancestors are no different than anyone else's; they all had their warts. We just try to celebrate their memory."

http://www.kentucky.com/2011/08/22/1853127/tom-eblen-100-years-later-descendants.html

Texas SCV Plate Struggle Continues

2011-08-16T22:01:00.000-04:00

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO, Texas | Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:07pm EDT

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) -- A decision on whether Texas should issue a license plate commemorating the state's Confederate heritage has landed square in the lap of Governor Rick Perry -- just as he begins his run for the presidency.

Elected officials generally manage to insulate themselves from approving specialty plates, which can be a highly controversial topic with little gain for the politician.

But when the nine-member board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles met earlier this year to make a decision on whether to approve plates featuring the Confederate flag, one member was absent and the vote was a 4-4 tie, DMV spokeswoman Kim Sue Lia Perkes said.

Another ballot, set for June, was canceled when a member died unexpectedly.

With the member who was absent during the first ballot apparently keeping a lid on how he might vote, and public pressure mounting on the other members over their positions, the appointment of a replacement for the deceased member is especially weighty -- and fraught with political landmines for Perry.

The new appointee could wind up being a tie-breaker.

But even if not, the decision either way could provide fodder for Perry's political rivals as he attempts to win the Republican nomination for president and sidestep accusations of racism and censorship being lobbed by both sides of the issue.

Interested groups are urging Perry to appoint a ninth DMV board member who sees the issue their way.

"We just don't think that this sort of a racist relic should be licensed by the state, or should be used in any way by the state of Texas," said Mark Glazer, executive director of Progress Texas, a liberal activist organization.

He says his group got thousands of signatures for an on-line petition urging Perry to specifically appoint a DMV board member who will vow to defeat the license plate.

The Texas NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) also opposes the rebel plate.

"Many would view that, quite frankly, as treason," said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP Washington Bureau.

"The Confederates meant to destroy the existing governmental structure. But when we dig deeper, the issue becomes even more offensive to many African Americans and those who sought freedom for those of darker skin in our country."

Granvel Block, the Texas division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which requested the plate, said the purpose would not be to honor the Confederate government or its policies supporting slave-holding policies.

The plates would honor his ancestor and the other Texans who fought for the Confederacy, which he said included African Americans who joined the Confederate Army in the final months of the war. There are several black members of the SCV's Texas division, Block added.

"This is not about slavery. This is not about race," he said. "Our intention is to honor and acknowledge the pride that we have in our ancestors, and in our organization as well."

TRICKY TOPIC

It's a tricky topic for Perry, who at a Tea Party movement rally once spoke openly of Texas seceding from the United States.

If issued, the plate, which would mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, would join dozens of specialty plates pushing causes ranging from supporting the arts to preserving the horned toad.

Motorists would pay a fee to get the plate, which would go toward placing markers on the graves of Confederate soldiers.

The plate would feature the Sons of Confederate Veterans logo, which includes the familiar "Confederate Jack" red battle flag.

Block says Texas has recognized the service of Confederate soldiers for generations. He notes many of the buildings in Austin that now house government offices were constructed using money from the Confederate veterans pension funds.

Nine states have approved or are in the process of approving license plates honoring Confederate veterans.

The SCV is a federally recognized nonprofit organization, and Block called it "the gravest discrimination" for Texas to honor other nonprofits with specialty license plates and reject his organization's proposal.

"We would have the situation in Texas where you have hundreds and hundreds of similar organizations requesting license plates, and not one being denied, not one, until they get to ours," Block said.

The role of Texas in the Confederate States of America has always been a sensitive subject in the Lone Star State.

Pro-Confederate lawmakers had to depose Governor Sam Houston, the legendary hero of Texas Independence, to install a secession convention. After secession was approved, Houston argued that Texas should revert to its former status as an independent nation rather than join the Confederacy.

Even though some 70,000 Texans joined the rebel army, tens of thousands resisted secession.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/16/us-plates-perry-texas-idUSTRE77F70P20110816

SCV Stands Fast to Protect Veterans Memorial

2011-08-10T21:41:00.000-04:00

Protest over Confederate Flag at an Atlanta Cemetery
Wednesday, 10 Aug 2011,
Darryl Carver

ATLANTA - Some mourners at the funeral of SCLC Leader Howard Creecy noticed an image at his burial site which has them concerned. They believe a Confederate flag flying above a monument on the property just does not belong.

The Westview Cemetery is where some of the city's elite are buried. Everyone from former Mayor William Hartsfield to founders of Coca-Cola to notable Civil Rights Leaders have been laid to rest there. It also is home to a Confederate memorial to the 400 soldiers buried there.

Wednesday, protesters upset over the flag gathered at the cemetery to call for the removal of the flag.

"Many persons were upset and asked me to come and do something," said Rev. Benford Stellmacher.

Among those concerned are African-Americans who have loved ones buried here and want the flag to be removed.

"For me, it is just an affront to everything that has happened for civil rights and justice for all people that are concerned that this flag still hangs," said protester John H. Lewis.

Cemetery officials told FOX 5 they understand the sensitivities involved, but said they have sold the rights to a Confederate veterans group to erect and maintain the memorial of their choise a long time ago.

"I have no control over that, it is a memorial with over 4 hundred burials underneath it," said Westview Cemetery’s Charles Bowen, Jr.

"We're prepared to climb up there and take it down, put we want to do it in the spirit of cooperation and the spirit of Christ," said Rev. Stellmaker.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans told FOX 5 "Those flags have flown there for many years and will continue to fly there for many years honoring our Confederate heroes and Confederate dead. It is not a racial issue."

Still opponents said their fight is not over and will not be until the flag comes down.

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/local_news/protest-over-confederate-flag-at-an-atlanta-cemetery-20110810-tm

Daughter of Black Confederate Joins UDC

2011-08-07T20:14:00.000-04:00

After Years Of Research, Confederate Daughter Arises
by Jessica Jones

August 7, 2011

Mattie Clyburn Rice is the second black "Real Daughter" to be recognized by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization that was once exclusively for whites

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. It's of particular importance to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization for female descendants of Confederate soldiers.

The group includes 23 elderly women who are the last living daughters of those who served. One of them is black.

Mattie Clyburn Rice, 88, spent years searching through archives to prove her father was a black Confederate. As she leafs through a notebook filled with official-looking papers, Rice stops to read a faded photocopy with details of her father's military service.

"At Hilton Head while under fire of the enemy, he carried his master out of the field of fire on his shoulder, that he performed personal service for Robert E. Lee. That was his pension record," Rice says.

Rice's father, Weary Clyburn, applied for a Confederate pension in 1926, when he was about 85. Rice was 4 years old then, the daughter of a young mother and an elderly father who regaled her with stories of his time spent in South Carolina's 12th Volunteer Unit. But when Rice repeated those stories as an adult, she was accused of spreading tall tales.

"Nobody believed me. Nobody. Not even the children," she says. "They are just beginning to believe, 'cause now they see it in print."

Friends and family members doubted that Rice's father, who was born a slave, supported Confederates. Military leaders also didn't officially enlist blacks until the very tail end of the war.

But once Rice found her father's pension application in North Carolina's state archives, Civil War groups started calling. United Daughters of the Confederacy member Gail Crosby keeps track of soldiers' daughters — officially called "Real Daughters" — for the group. Crosby says she was thrilled to invite Rice to join.

"We're always so excited when we find any Real Daughter, and immediately I found a chapter in her area, let the chapter know that we had this lady," she says.

Rice is the second black Real Daughter to be recognized by an organization that was once exclusively for white women. Yet some progressive historians and Civil War buffs frown at her father's story. They say the very term "black Confederate" supports the notion that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. Even so, University of North Carolina history professor Fitz Brundage says the contributions of enslaved blacks to the war effort should be recognized.

"If Southern states in the early 20th century had given pensions to all the African-Americans who, as slaves, were conscripted to build trenches, work on railroads [and] do all manner of heavy labor for the Confederate war cause, there should've been tens of thousands of African-Americans who received pensions," he says.

But, Rice says, her father went to war willingly, though his story is complicated. He ran away with his best friend, who was white and the son of his master. Rice says no matter how historians view that narrative, she's glad she proved her father contributed to the Confederate cause.

"I wanted the world to know what he did," she says.

Rice says she never could have imagined joining the United Daughters of the Confederacy as a young woman growing up in the Jim Crow South. But she says times have changed: Not only is she a member, but two of her daughters are as well.

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/07/138587202/after-years-of-research-confederate-daughter-arises

IRS Filing Requirement

2011-08-03T11:20:00.001-04:00

2011 IRS Annual Electronic Notice Filing Requirement

SCV camps with gross receipts less than $25,000 a year are not required to file an IRS Form 990 tax return; however, beginning August 1, 2011, the day after the previous fiscal year ended, all camps are required to submit an annual electronic notice by December 15, 2011. Your cooperation is requested as it is imperative for each camp complete this simple task in order to maintain its tax exempt status. Shown below are some simple instructions to assist you in completing the IRS E Notice requirement:

1. Obtain your camp's tax ID number and copy it into your computer memory or have it written down and readily available. GHQ can provide this number to you if needed.

2. Go to this site and follow the instructions: http://epostcard.form990.org/

Important Notice: You must register first, and then be patient and wait for the IRS to immediately send you a return email with a link for you to log back on line to actually complete the E postcard. If you use zip plus four put a dash in between the first five and last four digits.

Stonewall Under Attack from Uneducated

2011-08-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

Wednesday July 27, 2011
Stance of Stonewall Jackson statue stirs a fuss
by Paul Fallon
Daily Mail Staff
Charleston Daily Mail

CHARLESTON, W.Va.-- Howard Swint stirred a hornet's nest with opinion pieces published in local newspapers calling for the statue of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson on the Capitol grounds to be removed.

Swint, an associate broker of commercial real estate by trade, said he had been thinking about why the statue should be removed for many years.

He believes statues of Confederate soldiers should either be removed or have a sign depicting the horrors of slavery placed next to them. He also believes having memorials to Confederates around West Virginia goes against the premises of the state's creation.

"It just doesn't keep with the spirit of West Virginia's birth and its role in the Civil War," said Swint, 53, of Charleston.

Jackson was born in Clarksburg, in what was then Virginia, in 1824. His father died of typhoid fever when Jackson was 2. Jackson's mother then died of complications during childbirth a few years later.

Jackson and his sister were sent to live with their uncle, Cummins Jackson, who owned a grist mill in Jackson's Mill near Weston.

He took a teaching position at Virginia Military Institute and in 1859 was asked to lead a contingent of VMI cadets to Charles Town to provide military support for the hanging of John Brown.

As war broke out, Jackson went on to become one of the Confederacy's best-known generals after Robert E. Lee.

Jackson gained his 'Stonewall' nickname at the First Battle of Bull Run when, as Confederate lines started to crumble, Brig. Gen. Barnard Elliott Bee, Jr., exhorted his own troops to re-form by shouting, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Rally behind the Virginians!"

Confederate pickets accidentally shot Jackson at the Battle of Chancellorville on May 2, 1863. He survived the initial wound, although he had to have his arm amputated, but then he died of complications of pneumonia eight days later.

Jackson has remained a legendary, though controversial, figure.

West Virginia was born of the Civil War by those who wanted to separate from Virginia and its aristocratic, pro-slavery ways, Swint said. Therefore, to him it makes little sense to have memorials to those who fought for the opposite side.

Swint's views were molded back in the early 1970s. The Charleston native had a friend — a black teen from South Hills — who was denied service at a restaurant in Myrtle Beach. Swint was 13 years old when this occurred and it stuck with him over the years.

"From that point forward I saw things differently," he said.

He believes this type of behavior is a legacy of the antebellum South.

Swint cannot pinpoint the exact moment when he began thinking that the Jackson memorial on the Capitol grounds should be removed. Swint spent a lot of time on the Capitol grounds as an advisor to three different governors.

He was a member of the state's Economic Development Office for Govs. Jay Rockefeller, Arch Moore and Gaston Caperton.

http://www.dailymail.com/News/201107261058

CIC Speaks to the Irish Times

2011-07-30T16:03:00.000-04:00

The unrepentant South
LARA MARLOWE in Charleston, South Carolina

150 years after the American Civil War began and half a century after the civil-rights movement, old arguments still simmer between blacks and whites. A new series explores race, identity and history in today’s American South

THE AMERICAN Civil War started here, 150 years ago, when South Carolina’s militias opened fire on the Yankees, in Fort Sumter, on an island in the middle of Charleston Harbor. The cataclysmic war that followed killed 620,000 Americans, more than any other conflict in the nation’s history.

Over the next four years, a quarter of the South’s men would perish. Slavery would be abolished. And Abraham Lincoln would achieve his goal of forcibly reuniting the States.

But time has not healed all wounds. A century and a half later, the descendants of the protagonists still cannot agree who started the conflict and why.

For the North, South Carolina precipitated the war by withdrawing from the United States, because it wanted to preserve the institution of slavery. Many Southern whites claim the war was not about slavery but was started by Abraham Lincoln to safeguard income from the South’s cotton and tobacco exports for building northern infrastructure.

Today, horse-drawn carriages rattle through cobble-stone streets, past fine Georgian buildings nestled among magnolia and crepe myrtle trees. Charleston remains a monument to the wealth and charmed life of slave-owning planters and merchants in the antebellum South. For the tourists who flock here, it’s like turning to the opening pages of Gone with the Wind.

On that day, in 1861, from the columned verandas of their seafront mansions, the ladies and gents of Charleston cheered the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

Their heirs gathered on a recent morning, unbowed and unrepentant, to march on Carolina Day. Old codgers sported uniforms of the War of American Independence, or seersucker suits and Panama hats. Police dressed in kilts played bagpipes. The Daughters of the American Revolution wore period dress. In this jewel of the Old South, where roughly a third of the population is now black, there was not one African-American to be seen.

Charleston is steeped in its own history. The centuries blur in a loop of wealth, pride and victory, defeat and grievance.

Carolina Day commemorates a 1776 battle against the British during the American Revolution, but today it’s as if the 85 years between the Revolution and the Civil War have melted away.

“In the first War of Independence, we fought for the right to govern ourselves,” says Michael Givens, commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. “In the 1860s, we fought for the right to govern ourselves again. We lost that fight.”

For Givens and his cohort, the 1861-65 conflict was “the war of northern aggression”; slavery was “a legal labour system”. When Abraham Lincoln dispatched 75,000 Union soldiers to South Carolina, in April 1861, says Givens, he was like Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait. “The Declaration of Independence was built on the rights of the governed. We said we didn’t want to be part of the club any more, and Lincoln said, ‘Then we’ll kill you.’ ”

The neo-Confederates who Givens represents do not deny slavery, they just ignore it, preferring to emphasise the racism and hypocrisy of the North. But the legacy of slavery and the century of segregation that followed its abolition haunt this beautiful port city, much as the stink of horse urine permeates its otherwise pristine streets.

The Palmetto Guard, a state militia founded in the 1850s, participated in the 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter. Today they carry the Confederate Stars and Bars in the Carolina Day parade. “What that flag means is ‘no’,” Givens says. “No to the government telling you what to do.”

The Sons of Confederate Veterans, founded in 1896, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NACCP), established in 1909, are locked in a feud over the American Civil War, and nothing inflames their conflict more than the neo-Confederates’ determination to fly their flag.

Givens dreams of seeing it unfurled over Charleston Harbor again. “People say: ‘That flag reminds me of slavery.’ Well, it doesn’t remind me of slavery. Tens of thousands of South Carolinans died protecting themselves. Why can’t I remember those people without being maligned for it?” To mark the 150th anniversary of the civil war, the Sons of Confederate Veterans have sold 15,000 car licence plates bearing the Stars and Bars in nine southern states.

The NAACP has lost repeated lawsuits against this marketing of the Confederate flag. Mississippi’s plan to sell licence plates commemorating Nathan Bedford Forrest – “A brilliant general who terrified the Yankees,” says Givens – has created further controversy. Media reports say Forrest massacred black Union soldiers and was the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Givens disputes this.

Donald Livingston is a professor of philosophy at Emory University, in Georgia, and a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who marched with the Palmetto Guard in the Carolina Day parade. He has just written an essay entitled Why the War Was Not about Slavery.

Livingston believes the US would have been better off as an EU-style federation of states rather than the centralised nation Lincoln forged on the battlefields of the republic. He quotes the Confederate commander Robert E Lee, predicting that a federal state would become “tyrannical at home and aggressive abroad”.

When the US marked the centennial, in 1961, it papered over differences and recognised the sacrifice of both sides. In the South, the war was referred to as “the late unpleasantness”. Fifty years later, unity in the memory of mutually inflicted suffering has all but vanished, as old arguments about states’ rights and the power of the central government resurface.

Givens is furious that the federal government has shied away from commemorating the war. More Americans – 7,200 – were killed in the first half-hour of the Battle of Cold Harbour than in a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he writes.

“Men were seen on the frontline, pinning their addresses on to the back of their jackets so they’d know where to send their bodies. People in Washington, DC, should be ashamed of sweeping it under the carpet as if it never happened.”

“NOBODY WANTS to deal with this issue, because it’s a loser, a political hot potato,” says Robert Rosen, the president of the Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter Trust in Charleston, whose Jewish ancestors emigrated from eastern Europe. An attorney and the author of three books about the civil war, Rosen takes a neutral approach to the conflict. For him, the dispute between the black NAACP and the neo-Confederates, with its undertow of racial antagonism, is so last century.

The NAACP “just want to make trouble. They have nothing constructive to offer. They just want to protest,” says Rosen. The Sons of Confederate Veterans’ Secession Ball last December, celebrating South Carolina’s departure from the Union, was “very politically incorrect” and “counter-productive”.

The trust that Rosen heads held a concert at the Battery, from whence Fort Sumter was bombarded, in April. “We had black re-enactors and a black choir. It was something that everybody felt comfortable with,” he says. “We told the story from both sides. We said: ‘This happened. We are commemorating, but we are not celebrating.’ ”

Rosen grew up riding in the front, white section of buses and attending segregated schools. “In my lifetime, the South has changed completely,” he says.

The latest census shows that black people are reversing the great migration, returning to the South a century after they fled discriminatory 19th-century laws that separated blacks from whites and prevented blacks voting.

South Carolina has had a black chief justice of the state supreme court, several black federal judges and a black mayor in the state capital, Columbia. Half of the Charleston city council are black. The only black Republican in Congress is from South Carolina. Even the president of the United States is black.

“A young black child today who wants to succeed and has two parents who want to help can achieve anything,” says Rosen. Nonetheless, he says, “Black people have a lot of fears. I don’t understand their anxiety, but it’s there.”

On a hot summer evening, I sit with two ageing black men on the pavement outside the Charleston market. A lone white policeman stared at us from his squad car. “He’ll probably ask if you bought any drugs from me,” Alfred Fraser, a 59-year-old homeless basket-seller, says bitterly.

“There’s some good white people in this world. I love them because they feel the pain of us,” Fraser says. His story was that of millions of African-Americans. He dropped out of school to help his mother raise younger siblings, had difficulty finding employment. There was a broken marriage, followed by drug addiction, the deaths of two of his five children, one a casualty of a gang fight.

When I ask about the 1960s civil-rights movement, Fraser and the basket-weaver he calls his adoptive father begin singing, “Oh when the saints go marching in . . .” They shake their heads in amazement at the mention of Barack Obama’s election: “We thought that would never happen.”

Those who celebrate the Confederacy “are people who don’t want to forget”, says Fraser. “They want to change things back, but the Lord won’t let them. I don’t want to go back and slave. I hope we don’t never get back to that point.”

Fraser is one of the anxious blacks Rosen mentions. “It could happen by keeping us from getting jobs and having enough to eat and a place to sleep and putting us in jail,” he says.

“Go down in the ghetto and see what we got to do to survive: sell drugs. The drugs bought by white people: we can’t afford a shipload of drugs. We get blamed for it. We get time for it. That’s another form of slaving us.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0716/1224300811816.html

Marker Dedicated in Corpus Christi

2011-07-30T15:08:00.001-04:00

Ceremony dedicates marker noting city's Civil War battle
July 16, 2011 at 4:03 p.m.

CORPUS CHRISTI — THE HISTORY

Battle of Corpus Christi: On Aug. 16, 1862, five Union warships entered Corpus Christi Bay to destroy the piers and wharves.

Why: Corpus Christi was a prominent port for goods such as cotton and Confederate war materials.

The defense: Led by Confederate Maj. Alfred M. Hobby, 700 Corpus Christi defenders with a group of cannons.

The result: Union forces landed to destroy the cannons, but Confederate infantry pushed them back. The Union finally withdrew from Corpus Christi Bay, and the piers and wharves remained intact.

http://www.caller.com/news/2011/jul/16/ceremony-dedicates-marker-noting-citys-civil-war/

Flags of the Confederacy

2011-07-30T13:21:00.006-04:00

July 29, 2011, 8:30 pm
The Southern Cross
By TERRY L. JONES

Confederate Gen. G.T. Beauregard was worried. It was the afternoon of July 21, 1861, and fighting had raged since daylight after General Irwin McDowell’s Union army attacked Beauregard from across the small Virginia stream known as Bull Run. The battle seesawed throughout the day, but fresh troops rushed in from the Shenandoah Valley had finally given Beauregard the advantage. Now, just as victory seemed certain, he spied a heavy column of troops more than a mile away maneuvering on his flank.

Gen. G.T. BeauregardBeauregard later explained, “At their head waved a flag which I could not distinguish. Even by a strong glass I was unable to determine whether it was the United States flag or the Confederate flag. At this moment I received a dispatch from Capt. [Porter] Alexander, in charge of the signal station, warning me to look out for the left; that a large column was approaching in that direction, and that it was supposed to be Gen. [Robert] Patterson’s command coming to reinforce McDowell. At this moment, I must confess, my heart failed me.”

Beauregard knew his exhausted men could not withstand a determined flank attack. “I came, reluctantly, to the conclusion that after all our efforts, we should at last be compelled to yield to the enemy the hard fought and bloody field.” Beauregard turned to an officer and instructed him to go to the rear and tell Gen. Joseph E. Johnston to prepare the reserves to support the retreat he was about to order. As the officer began to leave, Beauregard had second thoughts and told him to wait a minute so they could make sure that it actually was Yankees bearing down upon them.

It proved to be a fortuitous decision. “I took the glass and again examined the flag. … A sudden gust of wind shook out its folds, and I recognized the stars and bars of the Confederate banner.”

The mysterious flag turned out to be the Confederacy’s First National Flag, which resembled the United States flag in both color and design. It was carried at the head of Col. Harry T. Hays’s Seventh Louisiana Volunteers, one of the lead regiments in Col. Jubal Early’s brigade that was launching an attack on the Union flank. Hays’s second-in-command, Lt. Col. Charles de Choiseul, wrote home after the battle that the regiment happened to carry the national colors that day instead of its blue regimental flag, but he did not explain why. Early’s bold attack helped turn the tide, and the First Battle of Bull Run ended in a complete Confederate victory. Few people knew how close Beauregard had come to throwing that victory away simply because he could not identify one of his own side’s flags.

As it turned out, Beauregard was not the first person to mistake the Seventh Louisiana for the enemy at Bull Run. In his memoirs, Early wrote that earlier in the day Confederate Gen. David R. Jones saw Hays’s regiment approaching his position and he, too, thought it might be the enemy. Early galloped over to confer with Jones and found him scrutinizing the Louisianians through his binoculars and preparing his men to fire on them. Fortunately, Early got there in time to clear up the confusion.

Early also experienced a moment of uncertainty when he prepared to make his flank attack that afternoon. An officer came up to warn him that a Virginia regiment was on the other side of the hill in his front and not to fire on it. Early was sure there were no friendly forces in that position, but he rode ahead to check and saw soldiers dressed in what appeared to be Confederate uniforms. They, too, carried a flag but it lay limp in the dead air, and Early could not tell whether the troops were friend or foe. It was not until Jeb Stuart’s horse artillery opened fire on the men and they retreated that Early saw it was a United States flag.

Determined to avoid such cases of mistaken identity on future battlefields, General Beauregard decided the Confederates needed a distinctive national flag. It just so happened that William Porcher Miles, a South Carolina congressman, was serving on Beauregard’s staff at the time, and Miles had considerable experience dealing with flag issues.

William Porcher Miles As chairman of the confederate Committee on the Flag and Seal, Miles had overseen the adoption of the First National Flag a few months earlier. During the committee’s deliberations, it became apparent that opinions were split between those who wanted a flag that was similar to the United States because of fond feelings for the old Union and those who wanted something completely different to mark a new beginning. Miles was among the latter, and he submitted a flag design containing a blue St. Andrew’s Cross on a red background, with white stars on the cross to represent the Confederate states.

Miles’s pattern was based on a South Carolina secession flag that displayed a traditional, or upright, St. George’s Cross. However, a Southern Jew objected to the cross and requested of Miles that such a specific religious symbol not be made into a national symbol. Miles agreed to change the design to a St. Andrew’s Cross: “It avoided the religious objection about the cross (from the Jews & many Protestant sects), because it did not stand out so conspicuously as if the cross had been placed upright thus.”

In the end, the committee rejected Miles’s entry and chose a design that was similar to the United States flag. The Confederates’ First National Flag would have red and white bars, rather than stripes, and in the upper corner seven white stars (representing the Confederate states at the time) on a blue background. The flag, which became known as the “Stars and Bars,” somewhat resembled the original United States flag used during the Revolutionary War.

When, after the Battle of Bull Run, Beauregard mentioned to Miles his desire for a distinctive national flag, Miles told him of his rejected design. Then, acting on behalf of Beauregard, Miles suggested to the Committee on the Flag and Seal that a new national flag be adopted in order to avoid confusion on the battlefield. When the committee refused by a vote of four to one, Beauregard decided there should be two flags.

Beauregard (who by then had embraced the St. Andrew’s cross) wrote Gen. Joseph E. Johnston that he had recommended to Miles “that we should have two flags — a peace or parade flag, and a war flag to be used only on the field of battle — but congress having adjourned no action will be taken on the matter — How would it do for us to address the War Dept. on the subject for a supply of Regimental or badge flags made of red with two blue bars crossing each other diagonally on which shall be introduced the stars. … We would then on the field of battle know our friends from our Enemies.”

Johnston agreed and suggested the battle flag be square instead of rectangular so as to be better proportioned. Beauregard introduced the new banner to his officers at a dinner party on Nov. 27, 1861. A reporter for the Richmond Daily Dispatch attended the event and wrote a detailed account for his readers. After telling the story of the confusion at First Bull Run, Beauregard brought the new flag out. The reporter was impressed and wrote, “The flag itself is a beautiful banner, which, I am sure, before this campaign is over, will be consecrated forever in the affections of the people of the Confederate States.”

The next day, the new flags were officially issued to the Virginia army with great ceremony. Shortly afterward, Beauregard was transferred to the Western Theater and the new battle flag took root there as well.

The Confederate battle flag. Eleven states officially seceded and joined the Confederacy, but the battle flag also included stars for the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri because they formed Confederate governments in exile.
The Southern Cross, as it is sometimes known, was never an official flag of the Confederate government, and it never flew over public buildings, despite what Hollywood might have one believe. Instead, it was simply a military banner that was carried by troops in the field. Nonetheless, it became more popular than the Stars and Bars and was incorporated into the Confederacy’s Second and Third National Flags. For 150 years, the Southern Cross has been the symbol of the Rebel cause.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/the-southern-cross/?partner=rss&emc=rss

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources: John M. Coski, “The Confederate Battle Flag: America’s Most Embattled Emblem”; Terry L. Jones, “The American Civil War”; Richmond Daily Dispatch, Nov. 27, 1861; Jubal A. Early, “Autobiographical Sketch and Narrative of the War Between the States”; Charles de Choiseul to Louisa Watson, Nov. 6, 1861, Historic New Orleans Collection, Tulane University.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry L. Jones is a professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. He has written a number of books on the Civil War, including “The American Civil War “and “Lee’s Tigers: The Louisiana Infantry in the Army of Northern Virginia.” Dr. Jones is a member of the Sons of Confederate Vetearns

Manassas Battlefield Donated by SCV

2011-07-28T21:58:00.001-04:00

Sons of Confederate Veterans
Historic Elm Springs, Columbia, TN
Immediate Release

WEEKEND REENACTMENT AT MANASSAS NEAR HISTORIC BATTLE SITE DONATED BY
CONFEDERATE SONS
July 23, 2011

Thousands of reenactors have descended on Manassas to recreate the first
major ground battle of the War Between the States.

The authentic reproduction marks the beginning of observances of the
Sesqui-Centennial of America's most devastating war. It will be followed
by hundreds of events during the next four and a half years.

Still at issue is the name of the battle which is known by Union standards
as the Battle of Bull Run. Confederates have always labeled it as First
Manassas. This ties into the contention that still remains between the
two sides. Northerners generally call the war the Civil War. Southerners
call it the War Between the States.

The reenactment is taking place on land near the hallowed ground where the
actual battle took place on July 2l, 1861. The actual battle ground was acquired
by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and donated to the U. S. Park Service
in 1938 as a gift to the American people in honor of the soldiers of both
armies that fought in the historic battle which was won by the
Confederates.

The donation of 130 acres include the Henry Farm and the site of the
Visitors Center. A plaque at the visitors Center describes the donation and land
transfer for thousands of visitors annually.

Included in the transfer agreement is the following: "the strictest
observance of the accuracy and fairness of the markers and monuments and
there will be no development or markers or inscriptions
which detract in any way from the glory due Confederate heroes."

In a special message to all members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans
Commander-in-Chief Michael Givens stated "Let us on this 150th anniversary
of the First Battle of Manassas observe it as a day of consecration."

Now 115 years old the Sons of Confederate Veterans continue its patriotic
mission of education, philanthropy. Its 30,000 members in the United
States and several other nations are dedicated to community service in the
localities where their camps are located.

END

Contact Information:
J. A. Davis, Chairman, Public Relations and Media
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Gainesville, GA
770 297-4788

Hate Group (NAACP) Attack South Carolina Heritage

2011-07-27T18:16:00.000-04:00

Haley shrugs off new flag criticism
By GINA SMITH

Gov. Nikki Haley is waving off renewed criticism of the Confederate battle flag aside the State House from the NAACP.

In a Monday speech at the NAACP’s annual convention in Los Angeles, NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous challenged Haley over the Confederate battle flag that continues to fly on the S.C. State House grounds.

“Perhaps one of the most perplexing examples of the contradictions of this moment in history is that Nikki Haley, South Carolina’s first governor of color, continues to fly the Confederate flag in front of her state’s capitol,” Jealous said, according to a press release put out by the NAACP.

Today's news video

“Given the similarities between our struggles to end slavery and segregation, and her ancestors’ struggle to end British colonialism and oppression in India, my question to Governor Haley is one that Dr. King often asked himself: What would Gandhi do?”

Haley’s spokesman, Rob Godfrey, said today that Haley is not focused on the decades-old flag controversy.

“More than a decade ago, under the leadership of a Democratic governor, South Carolinians --Republican and Democrat, black and white -- came to a compromise position on the Confederate flag,” Godfrey said. “Many people were uncomfortable with that compromise, but it addressed a sensitive subject in a way that South Carolina as a whole could accept. We don't expect people from outside of the state to understand that dynamic, but revisiting that issue is not part of the governor's agenda.”

The flag has flown on the north side of the State House, beyond a monument to Confederate soldiers, since 2000. The flag was moved to that location as part of a legislative compromise to remove it from atop the State House dome.

The NAACP has engaged in a boycott of the state since 1999, successfully convincing the National Collegiate Athletic Association not to bring post-season tournaments to the state.

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/07/26/1912172/haley-shrugs-off-new-flag-criticism.html#storylink=omni_popular#ixzz1TLbOJbU0

Shipwrecks to be Studied In Virginia

2011-07-26T23:18:00.001-04:00

Survey of Civil War shipwrecks continues in James River
Lauren King
The Virginian-Pilot
June 28, 2011
NEWPORT NEWS

A two-day research expedition began Monday to survey two sunken Civil War vessels in the James River.

The archaeological survey of the USS Cumberland and CSS Florida is being conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Navy, a news release from NOAA said. Researchers are using sonar technology to create three-dimensional maps of the two shipwrecks to analyze their current conditions and better understand the technological innovations of the time.

The Cumberland, a 1,726-ton wooden frigate, was lost on March 8, 1862, during the Battle of Hampton Roads, when the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia, formerly the USS Merrimack, rammed the Cumberland. It went down with more than 100 men. Nearby are the remains of the notorious Confederate commerce raider Florida. In late 1864, a Union warship seized the Florida at a harbor in Brazil and towed it to Hampton Roads, where it was rammed by a U.S. Navy troop ferry on Nov. 19, 1864, and sent to the bottom.

Both vessels are protected under the federal Sunken Military Craft Act of 2005, the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 and the Territorial Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the U.S. government exclusive rights to its own property.

The Cumberland was last surveyed in 2007. This is the first time the federal government is surveying the Florida.

http://hamptonroads.com/2011/06/survey-civil-war-shipwrecks-continues-james-river

Support for Veterans Help Historic Park

2011-07-26T23:13:00.001-04:00

Alabama still collecting tax for Confederate vets

By JAY REEVES - Associated Press
Wed, Jul 20, 2011

Confederate battle flags fly outside the museum at the Confederate Memorial Park
MOUNTAIN CREEK, Ala. (AP) — The last of the more than 60,000 Confederate veterans who came home to Alabama after the Civil War died generations ago, yet residents are still paying a tax that supported the neediest among them.

Despite fire-and-brimstone opposition to taxes among many in a state that still has "Heart of Dixie" on its license plates, officials never stopped collecting a property tax that once funded the Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home, which closed 72 years ago. The tax now pays for Confederate Memorial Park, which sits on the same 102-acre tract where elderly veterans used to stroll.

The tax once brought in millions for Confederate pensions, but lawmakers sliced up the levy and sent money elsewhere as the men and their wives died. No one has seriously challenged the continued use of the money for a memorial to the "Lost Cause," in part because few realize it exists; one long-serving black legislator who thought the tax had been done away with said he wants to eliminate state funding for the park.

These days, 150 years after the Civil War started, officials say the old tax typically brings in more than $400,000 annually for the park, where Confederate flags flapped on a recent steamy afternoon. That's not much compared to Alabama's total operating budget of $1.8 billion, but it's sufficient to give the park plenty of money to operate and even enough for investments, all at a time when other historic sites are struggling just to keep the grass cut for lack of state funding.

"It's a beautifully maintained park. It's one of the best because of the funding source," said Clara Nobles of the Alabama Historical Commission, which oversees Confederate Memorial Park.

Longtime park director Bill Rambo is more succinct.

"Everyone is jealous of us," he said.

Tax experts say they know of no other state that still collects a tax so directly connected to the Civil War, although some federal excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol first were enacted during the war to help fund the Union.

"Broadly speaking, almost all taxes have their start in a war of some sort," said Joseph J. Thorndike, director of a tax history project at Tax Analysts, a nonprofit organization that studies taxation.

Alabama's tax structure was enshrined in its 1901 Constitution, passed after Reconstruction at a time when historians say state legislators' main goal was to keep power in the hands of wealthy white landowners by disenfranchising blacks and poor whites.

The Constitution allowed a state property tax of up to 6.5 mills, which now amounts to $39 annually on a home worth $100,000. Of that tax, 3 mills went to schools; 2.5 mills went to the operating budget; and 1 mill went to pensions for Confederate veterans and widows.

The state used the pension tax to fund the veterans home once it assumed control of the operation in 1903. The last Confederate veteran living at the home died in 1934, and its hospital was converted into apartments for widows. It closed in 1939, and the five women who lived there were moved to Montgomery.

Legislators whittled away at the Confederate tax through the decades, and millions of dollars that once went to the home and pensions now go to fund veteran services, the state welfare agency and other needs. But the park still gets 1 percent of one mill, and its budget for this year came to $542,469, which includes money carried over from previous years plus certificates of deposit.

All that money has created a manicured, modern park that's the envy of other Alabama historic sites, which are funded primarily by grants, donations and friends groups. Legislators created the park in 1964 during a period that marked both the 100th anniversary of the Civil War and the height of the civil rights movement in the Deep South.

Nothing is left of the veterans home but a few foundations and two cemeteries with 313 graves, but a museum with Civil War artifacts and modern displays opened at the park in 2007. Rebel flags fly all around the historic site, which Rambo said draws more than 10,000 visitors annually despite being hidden in the country nine miles and three turns off Interstate 65 in the central part of the state.

While the park flourishes quietly, other historic attractions around the state are fighting for survival.

Workers at Helen Keller's privately run home in northwest Alabama fear losing letters written by the famed activist because of a lack of state funding for preservation of artifacts. On the Gulf Coast at Dauphin Island, preservationists say the state-owned Fort Gaines is in danger of being undermined by waves after nearly 160 years standing guard at the entry to Mobile Bay.

The old Confederate pension tax that funds the park has never been seriously threatened, Rambo said. Backers were upset this year when Gov. Robert Bentley's budget plan eliminated state funding for historic sites because of tight revenues, he said, but the park's earmarked funding survived.

"Once I informed the public what was going on the support just rose up," said Rambo, the director since 1989. Two heritage groups, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy, led the charge, but ordinary citizens complained too, he said.

"Some were people who don't belong to those organizations who really like the park and come out here for picnics and all and were really upset," he said.

State Rep. Alvin Holmes, a black Democrat who's been in the Legislature since 1974, said he thought funding for the park had been slashed.

"We should not be spending one nickel for that," said Holmes, of Montgomery. "I'm going to try to get rid of it."

Holmes may have a hard time gaining support with Republicans in control of Legislature and the governor's office.

In the meantime, a contractor recently measured the museum for a new paint job, and plans calls for using invested money to construct replicas of some of the 22 buildings that stood on the site when it was home to hundreds of Confederate veterans and their wives.

http://news.yahoo.com/alabama-still-collecting-tax-confederate-vets-095645624.html

Manassas Preserved

2011-07-26T23:06:00.001-04:00

Preservationists savor victory at Manassas
By Robert McCartney,
Published: July 20, 2011

Stand by the Stonewall Jackson statue at Manassas National Battlefield Park and it’s easy to summon a mental picture of the scene 150 years ago Thursday when North and South fought the first major battle of the Civil War.

Grassy hills and forest dominate the landscape, as they did in 1861. Apart from the low-standing Visitors Center, modernity does not intrude. No high-rise buildings or cellphone towers mar the horizon.

For this pastoral vista, we thank decades of preservation campaigns that repeatedly fought suburban sprawl around the park. This resistance — which defeated economic powerhouses like the Marriott and Disney corporations and Fairfax developer Til Hazel — attracted national attention and inspired others.

In fact, specialists view the efforts to protect Manassas (also known as Bull Run) as the cradle of the modern battlefield preservation movement in America.

“Our origins essentially go back to that fight to protect that property, which ultimately was protected,” said Jim Campi, policy and communications director of the Civil War Trust.

In its latest victory, announced Wednesday, the trust helped arrange for the addition of 54 acres to the federal park. Most of the land was donated by Service Corporation International, a Texas funeral services company that agreed to forgo expanding a cemetery it owns by the battlefield.

The preservation struggle is not complete, and probably never will be. As long as suburbia and congestion grow in Prince William County, the activists will be called to further action.

“There’s always going to be tremendous development pressures right outside the boundaries of the park. It’s how we address those pressures that will ultimately decide how the park looks 10, 20, 30 years from now,” Campi said.

The most obvious current problem is familiar. Even the heralded preservationists at Manassas haven’t been able to stave off Northern Virginia traffic.

For a glimpse of the challenge, just stroll a couple hundred yards from the Jackson statue to Henry House, another battlefield landmark.

From there, looking north, one sees cars and trucks waiting at the stoplight at the intersection of Lee Highway (Route 29) and Sudley Road (Route 234), smack in the middle of the park. At rush hour, the backups often extend more than two miles.

The vehicles are annoying, both because they’re eyesores and because they make it hard for visitors to get around. It’s especially a headache for anybody attempting the 18-mile driving tour to see the terrain of Second Manassas, fought on the same site 13 months after the first encounter.

“Hardly anybody finishes the thing, because you have to fight the traffic,” Park Superintendent Ed Clark said.

Clark and some preservationists would like to expand existing roads and build new ones outside the park to route traffic around the battlefield. A full bypass would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, however, and the state already lacks money for roads of higher priority.

Moreover, many people who’ve supported preservation at Manassas are not typically enthusiastic about building new highways. One such skeptic is Page Snyder, daughter of legendary Manassas preservationist Annie Snyder.

Until her death in 2002, “Stonewall Annie” Snyder was for three decades the driving force behind campaigns to defend the battlefield. To honor her mother’s memory, Page is allowing the reenactment of First Manassas on Saturday and Sunday to take place on the family’s 200-acre farm next to the park. (The Park Service won’t allow use of the actual site; it said “never again” after reenactors caused so much damage there at the 100th anniversary.)

Page said she understood the need to reduce traffic inside the park, but she worries that new highways would fuel unwanted development. “I do not trust our process to protect the rural crescent as it should be protected,” Snyder said.

Despite the traffic, the overall preservation story at Manassas is one of success.

“Manassas is rightfully proud that you can stand in certain portions of that battlefield and really feel that you are there,” said Joan Zenzen, a Rockville historian who’s finishing her fourth book on battlefield preservation.

Clark said business interests and politicians are more sympathetic to preservation than they were in the past — or at least more wary of tangling over the issue.

“Companies don’t want to have their names splattered around in negative tones,” Clark said. As for politicians, “Even if they don’t have the goodness of preservation in their hearts, they understand the value of tourism.”

That’s a legacy Annie Snyder’s political heirs will need to defend just as she protected that bucolic view from the Jackson statue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/preservationists-savor-victories-at-manassas/2011/07/20/gIQAeNCTQI_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

Victory in North Carolina Case

2011-07-25T22:58:00.000-04:00

Victory in Flag case in Concord, North Carolina

The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled today that a hotel may be liable
for malicious prosecution of a hotel guest, where the hotel had the guest
arrested after he refused to remove a Confederate flag from the window of
his hotel room. Read the complete opinion at
http://bit.ly/ConcordSCV

In Childress v. Concord Hospitality Associates, Inc., Basil Childress rented
a room at the Wingate Inn in Concord NC for the 2008 National Reunion of the
Sons of Confederate Veterans. The hotel demanded that Childress remove a
Confederate flag that Childress hung in the hotel window, and Childress
refused.

The hotel then called the Concord police department and had them arrest
Childress for trespassing. The Cabarrus County District Attorney later
dismissed criminal charges against Childress, prompting Childress to sue the
hotel for malicious prosecution.

In March 2010, a Superior Court judge in Cabarrus County dismissed
Childress' case, agreeing with the hotel that it could terminate Childress'
room rental contract for his failure to abide by the rules of the hotel.
However, the Court of Appeals ruled today that the Superior Court erred.

The Court of Appeals noted that the hotel had "no written policy in place
regarding the display of a flag in the window of a guest's room" and the
"room rental contract contained no language prohibiting" a flag in the
window. "If the demand to remove the flag was in violation of the terms and
conditions of the room rental contract," the Court continued, "then there
was no reasonable grounds" for the hotel to have Childress arrested.

The case now returns to the Superior Court to determine whether the hotel
did in fact breach its room rental contract by evicting Childress, and
whether having Childress arrested amounted to malicious prosecution.

Flag Petition for Lexington, VA

2011-07-25T22:56:00.001-04:00

Compatriots,

Go the the following address to sign the petition for flying our flags in Lexington, VA.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/24/petition-in-favor-of-flying-confederate-flags-in-lexington-va/