Tomb of CSA Captain Thomas Jefferson Page restored in Rome, Italy
Yearly tens of thousands of visitors flock to the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome, Italy to see the final resting places of British Poets John Keats and Percy Shelley, 19th Century American author of Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana and others.
But one magnificent, but lesser-known grave honors someone very different.
Captain Thomas Jefferson Page (1808-1899) was a major American naval figure. After a long and distinguished career as a U.S. Navy Officer, during the WBTS Page served the South as a Confederate States Navy Officer: he built Confederate ships in Europe and challenged and faced down U.S. Navy ships. But by the time he could get his French-built ironclad ram CSS Stonewall to America waters, the war was over.
After the War, Page went to Argentina and eventually moved to Rome, Italy. He died there in 1899, full of years, an important, much-loved member of the American community there.
Captain Page’s impressive tomb, now over one hundred years old, badly needed renovation.
In 2010, the SCV’s Europe Camp led an international effort, which, with donations from Europe and the United States, as well as the SCV national organization, enabled the Cemetery to fully restore the tomb of this important America naval figure.
On Saturday, 8 September 2012, the tomb was rededicated in a ceremony hosted by Europe Camp. Guests came from Europe, Australia and the United States. More than a hundred years after the Captain was laid to rest, his final resting place is again a shining, unique American presence in the Eternal City.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
David O. Dodd, Confederate Hero, Honored in Arkansas
Long after death, Confederate spy honored in Ark.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The story of David O. Dodd is relatively unknown outside of Arkansas, but the teenage spy who chose to hang rather than betray the Confederate cause is a folk hero to many in his home state.
Street signs and an elementary in the state capital have long borne Dodd's name, and admirers gather at his grave each year to pay tribute to Dodd's life and death.
"Everyone wants to remember everything else about the Civil War that was bad," said one of them, W. Danny Honnoll. "We want to remember a man that stood for what he believed in and would not tell on his friends."
A state commission's decision, though, to grant approval for yet another tribute to Dodd has revived an age-old question: Should states still look for ways to commemorate historical figures who fought to defend unjust institutions?
"(Dodd) already has a school. I don't know why anything else would have to be done to honor him," James Lucas Sr., a school bus driver, said near the state Capitol in downtown Little Rock.
Arkansas' complicated history of race relations plays out on the Capitol grounds. A stone and metal monument that's stood for over a century pays tribute to the Arkansas men and boys who fought for the Confederacy and the right to own slaves. Not far away, nine bronze statues honor the black children who, in 1957, needed an Army escort to enter what had been an all-white school.
The newest nod to Dodd would mark a site across town where he was detained after Union soldiers found encoded notes on him about their troop locations. Dodd was convicted of spying and sentenced to death, and legend has it he refused an offer to walk free in exchange for the name of the person who gave him the information.
"He was barely 17 years old when the Yankees hung him" on Jan. 8, 1864, Honnoll said. "Yeah, he was spying, but there (were) other people that spied that they didn't hang."
Dodd is certainly not the only teenager to die in the war or even the lone young martyr, said Carl Moneyhon, a University of Arkansas at Little Rock history professor.
"If you start talking about the 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds who were killed in battle, the number is infinite," Moneyhon said. "There are tens of thousands of them. They become unremarkable."
So it seems all the more curious that some have come to portray Dodd as Arkansas' boy martyr.
"It's part of the romanticizing of the Civil War that began in the 1880s and the 1890s, that looks for ... what could be called heroic behavior to celebrate in a war filled with real horrors," Moneyhon said.
And it's caught on, though many question why.
"It's a very sad story, but at the end of the day, Dodd was spying for the Confederacy, which was fighting a war to defend the institution of slavery," said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Sharon Donovan — who lives on West David O. Dodd Road (there's an East David O. Dodd Road, too) — said she wouldn't mind another Dodd namesake in her neighborhood.
"The fact that we live in the South, I could understand why he would want to do it because he was actually working for us in a way. ... For that era, I think it was probably a noble thing to do," Donovan said.
About a half-mile away, a banner outside an elementary school proclaims, "David O. Dodd Committed to Excellence." A doormat bearing Dodd's name shows a black boy smiling next to a few white ones. About half of the school's 298 students last year were black and only 27 were white.
Jerry Hooker, who graduated from Central High School years after the desegregation standoff over the Little Rock Nine, lives at the site where he says Dodd was detained almost a century and a half ago. The Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission approved his application and agreed to chip in $1,000 for the marker noting the spot's historical significance.
Hooker, 59, said the move to commemorate Dodd is not about honoring slavery, but about remembering the past.
"I don't think it has a thing to do with race whatsoever," Hooker said. "He was a 17-year-old kid with a coded message in his boot that had enough of whatever it is in him that he didn't squeal on his sources."
Still, in a city that stripped "Confederate Blvd." from its interstate highway signs shortly before dignitaries arrived in town for the opening of Bill Clinton's presidential library, the question remains: Should Dodd's name be etched into another piece of stone or metal for posterity's sake?
"There are currently more monuments to David O. Dodd than any other war hero in Arkansas," Potok said. "You would think that at some point it would be enough."
http://news.yahoo.com/long-death-confederate-spy-honored-ark-171804641.html
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The story of David O. Dodd is relatively unknown outside of Arkansas, but the teenage spy who chose to hang rather than betray the Confederate cause is a folk hero to many in his home state.
Street signs and an elementary in the state capital have long borne Dodd's name, and admirers gather at his grave each year to pay tribute to Dodd's life and death.
"Everyone wants to remember everything else about the Civil War that was bad," said one of them, W. Danny Honnoll. "We want to remember a man that stood for what he believed in and would not tell on his friends."
A state commission's decision, though, to grant approval for yet another tribute to Dodd has revived an age-old question: Should states still look for ways to commemorate historical figures who fought to defend unjust institutions?
"(Dodd) already has a school. I don't know why anything else would have to be done to honor him," James Lucas Sr., a school bus driver, said near the state Capitol in downtown Little Rock.
Arkansas' complicated history of race relations plays out on the Capitol grounds. A stone and metal monument that's stood for over a century pays tribute to the Arkansas men and boys who fought for the Confederacy and the right to own slaves. Not far away, nine bronze statues honor the black children who, in 1957, needed an Army escort to enter what had been an all-white school.
The newest nod to Dodd would mark a site across town where he was detained after Union soldiers found encoded notes on him about their troop locations. Dodd was convicted of spying and sentenced to death, and legend has it he refused an offer to walk free in exchange for the name of the person who gave him the information.
"He was barely 17 years old when the Yankees hung him" on Jan. 8, 1864, Honnoll said. "Yeah, he was spying, but there (were) other people that spied that they didn't hang."
Dodd is certainly not the only teenager to die in the war or even the lone young martyr, said Carl Moneyhon, a University of Arkansas at Little Rock history professor.
"If you start talking about the 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds who were killed in battle, the number is infinite," Moneyhon said. "There are tens of thousands of them. They become unremarkable."
So it seems all the more curious that some have come to portray Dodd as Arkansas' boy martyr.
"It's part of the romanticizing of the Civil War that began in the 1880s and the 1890s, that looks for ... what could be called heroic behavior to celebrate in a war filled with real horrors," Moneyhon said.
And it's caught on, though many question why.
"It's a very sad story, but at the end of the day, Dodd was spying for the Confederacy, which was fighting a war to defend the institution of slavery," said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Sharon Donovan — who lives on West David O. Dodd Road (there's an East David O. Dodd Road, too) — said she wouldn't mind another Dodd namesake in her neighborhood.
"The fact that we live in the South, I could understand why he would want to do it because he was actually working for us in a way. ... For that era, I think it was probably a noble thing to do," Donovan said.
About a half-mile away, a banner outside an elementary school proclaims, "David O. Dodd Committed to Excellence." A doormat bearing Dodd's name shows a black boy smiling next to a few white ones. About half of the school's 298 students last year were black and only 27 were white.
Jerry Hooker, who graduated from Central High School years after the desegregation standoff over the Little Rock Nine, lives at the site where he says Dodd was detained almost a century and a half ago. The Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission approved his application and agreed to chip in $1,000 for the marker noting the spot's historical significance.
Hooker, 59, said the move to commemorate Dodd is not about honoring slavery, but about remembering the past.
"I don't think it has a thing to do with race whatsoever," Hooker said. "He was a 17-year-old kid with a coded message in his boot that had enough of whatever it is in him that he didn't squeal on his sources."
Still, in a city that stripped "Confederate Blvd." from its interstate highway signs shortly before dignitaries arrived in town for the opening of Bill Clinton's presidential library, the question remains: Should Dodd's name be etched into another piece of stone or metal for posterity's sake?
"There are currently more monuments to David O. Dodd than any other war hero in Arkansas," Potok said. "You would think that at some point it would be enough."
http://news.yahoo.com/long-death-confederate-spy-honored-ark-171804641.html
Friday, October 12, 2012
SCV Calls for Investigation of Carter House Association
Press Release from the Sons of Confederate Veterans
For Immediate Release
Contact: Allen Sullivant
Email: allensullivant@bellsouth.net
Phone: 615-971-7484
Website: http://scv.org/
Sons of Confederate Veterans Request Investigation of Battle of Franklin Trust by State Officials
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) announced today that an attorney retained to investigate allegations of mismanagement and improper conduct by members of the Boards of Directors of both The Carter House in Franklin, Tennessee, and its management group, of The Battle of Franklin Trust (BOFT), has uncovered numerous instances of apparent disregard for the legal requirements for operating non-profit corporations, conflicts of interest on the parts of several members of both boards, and a possible misuse of state funds. As a result of this investigation, the SCV has requested the Tennessee Historical Commission to undertake its own investigation, and to involve other state offices such as those of the Attorney General and State Comptroller as they see fit. The Carter House is a state-owned historic site, under the stewardship of the Tennessee Historical Commission, and is one of Tennessee's premier tourist destinations.
Managed under the auspices of the Carter House Association since the 1950s, practically all control of the Carter House was signed away to the Battle of Franklin Trust three years ago in what some are calling a political maneuver, one which may be costing the taxpayers of Tennessee. Now, the Battle of Franklin Trust is requesting the Tennessee Historical Commission to deed related state property to them. Surprisingly, two of the people making the request have strong ties to the state, one being a state commissioner, and the other being the wife of a state commissioner.
"We were troubled to discover that state funds were possibly being used to make payments on an existing mortgage against Carnton Plantation, a privately owned historic site which is also managed by the Battle of Franklin Trust" said William Speck, Heritage Chairman for the Tennessee Division of the SCV. The mortgage in question was initiated by Marianne Schroer, wife of TDOT Commissioner John Schroer, when she was chairman of the board of directors of the Carnton property. She now holds the same position on the board of the Battle of Franklin Trust. Marianne Schroer and another state commissioner, Tourism Department head Susan Whitaker, who is also a board member for the BOFT, have spear-headed the BOFT's effort to obtain title to taxpayer-owned property.
Mr. Speck added, "The Carter House property belongs to the people of Tennessee and no portion of it should be given away to any group whose financial situation is questionable and whose grasp of proper management practices is apparently deficient. Therefore, the SCV retained the services of attorney Randy Lucas, and his investigation has confirmed that the problems with the Battle of Franklin Trust rise above mere carelessness. Mr. Lucas has outlined a number of deficiencies and conflicts of interest among board officers, and has now forwarded his findings to the Tennessee Historical Commission."
The SCV is requesting the Tennessee Historical Commission to vote against any concept of transferring property to the Battle of Franklin Trust. Further, the SCV is requesting that the Tennessee Historical Commission immediately open an investigation into the BOFT and the legal issues and financial questions brought forward by their attorney, involving any state agencies they feel necessary. Finally, the SCV requests a decision as to whether the contract between Carter House and the BOFT is legally binding, because of the "perpetual" control given over a state-owned property, and because the Carter House board president who solely approved the contract is an officer on both boards, which appears to be a classic conflict of interest.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans is an international organization of descendants of Confederate soldiers and the nation's largest military history and genealogy society. Formed in 1896, the SCV owns, operates, and manages many historic properties, including Winstead Hill Memorial Park in Franklin, the General N.B. Forrest Home in Chapel Hill, and Beauvoir - the last home of Jefferson Davis, in Biloxi, Mississippi. Its headquarters are in Columbia, Tennessee, at historic Elm Springs.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Allen Sullivant
Email: allensullivant@bellsouth.net
Phone: 615-971-7484
Website: http://scv.org/
Sons of Confederate Veterans Request Investigation of Battle of Franklin Trust by State Officials
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) announced today that an attorney retained to investigate allegations of mismanagement and improper conduct by members of the Boards of Directors of both The Carter House in Franklin, Tennessee, and its management group, of The Battle of Franklin Trust (BOFT), has uncovered numerous instances of apparent disregard for the legal requirements for operating non-profit corporations, conflicts of interest on the parts of several members of both boards, and a possible misuse of state funds. As a result of this investigation, the SCV has requested the Tennessee Historical Commission to undertake its own investigation, and to involve other state offices such as those of the Attorney General and State Comptroller as they see fit. The Carter House is a state-owned historic site, under the stewardship of the Tennessee Historical Commission, and is one of Tennessee's premier tourist destinations.
Managed under the auspices of the Carter House Association since the 1950s, practically all control of the Carter House was signed away to the Battle of Franklin Trust three years ago in what some are calling a political maneuver, one which may be costing the taxpayers of Tennessee. Now, the Battle of Franklin Trust is requesting the Tennessee Historical Commission to deed related state property to them. Surprisingly, two of the people making the request have strong ties to the state, one being a state commissioner, and the other being the wife of a state commissioner.
"We were troubled to discover that state funds were possibly being used to make payments on an existing mortgage against Carnton Plantation, a privately owned historic site which is also managed by the Battle of Franklin Trust" said William Speck, Heritage Chairman for the Tennessee Division of the SCV. The mortgage in question was initiated by Marianne Schroer, wife of TDOT Commissioner John Schroer, when she was chairman of the board of directors of the Carnton property. She now holds the same position on the board of the Battle of Franklin Trust. Marianne Schroer and another state commissioner, Tourism Department head Susan Whitaker, who is also a board member for the BOFT, have spear-headed the BOFT's effort to obtain title to taxpayer-owned property.
Mr. Speck added, "The Carter House property belongs to the people of Tennessee and no portion of it should be given away to any group whose financial situation is questionable and whose grasp of proper management practices is apparently deficient. Therefore, the SCV retained the services of attorney Randy Lucas, and his investigation has confirmed that the problems with the Battle of Franklin Trust rise above mere carelessness. Mr. Lucas has outlined a number of deficiencies and conflicts of interest among board officers, and has now forwarded his findings to the Tennessee Historical Commission."
The SCV is requesting the Tennessee Historical Commission to vote against any concept of transferring property to the Battle of Franklin Trust. Further, the SCV is requesting that the Tennessee Historical Commission immediately open an investigation into the BOFT and the legal issues and financial questions brought forward by their attorney, involving any state agencies they feel necessary. Finally, the SCV requests a decision as to whether the contract between Carter House and the BOFT is legally binding, because of the "perpetual" control given over a state-owned property, and because the Carter House board president who solely approved the contract is an officer on both boards, which appears to be a classic conflict of interest.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans is an international organization of descendants of Confederate soldiers and the nation's largest military history and genealogy society. Formed in 1896, the SCV owns, operates, and manages many historic properties, including Winstead Hill Memorial Park in Franklin, the General N.B. Forrest Home in Chapel Hill, and Beauvoir - the last home of Jefferson Davis, in Biloxi, Mississippi. Its headquarters are in Columbia, Tennessee, at historic Elm Springs.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Point Lookout Maryland Monument Vandalized
Confederate POW memorial vandalized
Security surveillance under review
By Jason Babcock, Staff writer
The Confederate Memorial Park near Point Lookout was vandalized last week with a spray-painted swastika on the base of a statue of a Confederate prisoner of war. A noose was placed around the statue’s neck and there was also a racial epithet spray-painted on another section of the memorial.
“I’m highly upset about it,” said Michael Daras, who lives nearby. His son, John, noticed the swastika on Thursday, but did not notice the noose until Friday when he visited the site.
“It shouldn’t be desecrated that way,” Michael Daras said, who was born in England and raised in Washington, D.C.
The memorial park was dedicated on Sept. 6, 2008, and cost more than $250,000 along with $100,000 worth of materials, said Jim Dunbar, chairman of the Confederate Memorial Park.
Dunbar called the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office and they are investigating the vandalism.
There was a beer bottle at the top of the stockade under the statue and a security camera there was removed, Dunbar said. However, another security camera at the site was recording and that video is under review, he said.
“I think it was probably a couple of kids,” he said.
It is the first time that the memorial has been vandalized, he said.
The next lot over contains the state and federal monument to those Confederates who died at Point Lookout when it was a prisoner of war camp during the Civil War. Those monuments were not vandalized.
Placards at the private memorial park say that 52,264 documented Confederates were held there at Camp Hoffman while it was open from September 1863 to June 1865.
The swastika was originally an ancient religious symbol that the German Nazi Party adopted as its symbol for the Third Reich, which went on to kill 6 million Jews during World War II.
A rope fashioned into a noose usually symbolizes the lynching of blacks in America.
“We couldn’t figure it out,” Dunbar said. “It’s just ignorance on their part. It wasn’t the prisoners who were Nazi-like. It was their captors,” he said, because the Union supplied very little food, medicine or shelter.
Michael Daras and his son have different theories on who vandalized the site, but both agreed the vandalism doesn’t make any sense.
The Confederate Memorial Park group is going to put up at least a $500 reward for the conviction of whoever vandalized the site.
“That would be a hate crime with a noose and swastikas,” Dunbar said. “It’s a black mark on their soul.”
“I would sure like to see something done about,” Michael Daras said.
Another placard at the park said, “The vast majority of Confederate Soldiers, more than 90 percent, did not own slaves or large tracts of land, and would not say that the preservation of slavery was their reason for volunteering to serve in the Confederate army.”
http://www.somdnews.com/article/20120919/NEWS/709199587/1074/confederate-pow-memorial-vandalized&template=southernMaryland
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Gen. Forrest Statue Petition
Compatriots,
Please go to the link below to sign the petition in support of the Gen. Forrest statue in Selma. There is a competing petition opposing the staute.
Copy this link and message to your division and other lists to get a wide distribution of the petition so we can see to it that the history of Gen. Forrest and Selma is preserved.
http://www.change.org/petitions/selma-al-city-council-continue-work-on-the-forrest-monument-use-it-as-an-educational-opportunity
Chuck Rand
Chief of Staff
Please go to the link below to sign the petition in support of the Gen. Forrest statue in Selma. There is a competing petition opposing the staute.
Copy this link and message to your division and other lists to get a wide distribution of the petition so we can see to it that the history of Gen. Forrest and Selma is preserved.
http://www.change.org/petitions/selma-al-city-council-continue-work-on-the-forrest-monument-use-it-as-an-educational-opportunity
Chuck Rand
Chief of Staff
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Battleflags in Time Square
Confederate Flags in Times Square?
Originally published by Civil War Times magazine
Published Online: May 22, 2012
In New York City, on the walls of the sprawling subway station beneath Times Square, small mosaics bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Confederate battle flag form part of a decorative border. Can it be that the Southern Cross, an icon that still stirs controversy 150 years after the war, is prominently displayed at one of the world's busiest intersections? According to the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, the emblem—a blue X edged in white and set against a red background—stands for nothing more than the convergence of subway lines. But my research suggests a more interesting ancestry. Distinctive symbols are featured in stations throughout the system. For example, the Astor Place station is decorated with beavers, a reference to fur trader John Jacob Astor; the Grand Central Station has locomotives on its walls. So what can be inferred from the Times Square decor? ° Designed by architect Squire J. Vickers, the mosaic was installed in the station below the former New York Times building in 1917. In a 1919 Architectural Record article Vickers, a somewhat eccentric figure, explained how designing with tile placed him in a position "conceived in strength and power, standing forth like a prophet of old, proclaiming calmly from a lofty height great and universal truths." He recognized the power of symbols, and his mosaics were loaded with them, many speaking to New York's history. ° Several notable Confederates are part of that past. Four Rebel generals are buried in the Bronx's Woodlawn Cemetery, including Archibald Gracie III, whose home, Gracie Mansion, now serves as the official mayoral residence. Both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson lived in Brooklyn as young U.S. Army officers, and Stonewall was baptized in the city and spent his honeymoon there. Varina Howell Davis lived on Central Park West for the last 16 years of her life, working for the New York World.
Yet outside of calling New York home at some point in life—or death—those famous Rebels have no particular connection to Times Square. In fact, Times Square did not even exist prior to 1904; the neighborhood was then called Long Acre. For much of the 19th century, Long Acre Square was relatively undeveloped, known for its livery stables, grazing pastures and brothels. But in the early 20th century, the area between 7th Avenue and Broadway underwent a transformation, evolving into the "Crossroads of the World." Rather than Lee or Jackson, a more likely candidate for the Times Square Confederate is perhaps the man who catalyzed that transformation. If the mosaic represents a convergence of subway lines, Vickers also unmistakably references the symbol of the South to highlight the station's proximity to a publisher with strong ties to the South: New York Times owner Adolph S. Ochs.
Adolph S. Ochs, 1911. Library of Congress.In 1904 Ochs finished building his new headquarters at Long Acre Square, a skyscraper that would have its own subway station in its basement. To commemorate the new structure, the Board of Aldermen renamed the neighborhood Times Square. The Times building quickly became the cultural and artistic nucleus of Manhattan. Upscale hotels were built. New restaurants opened. And of course, there were the theaters. Times Square became the city's meeting place, where New Yorkers came to grab a late edition, and where the world unofficially entered the New Year. By the time Vickers began building the subway station in 1917, Times Square was on the cusp of its legendary heyday in the Roaring '20s. The Great White Way was born courtesy of Ochs and his "Old Gray Lady."
The Confederacy was a significant part of Adolph Ochs' family history, thanks to his mother. As a teenager in Bavaria, Bertha Levi Ochs was so outspoken in her sympathy for revolutionaries involved in the upheaval in 1848 that her family sent her to relatives in Mississippi. In America Bertha married Julius Ochs, also a German immigrant, and the couple soon moved to Ohio, where Adolph was born in 1858. When the Civil War broke out, Bertha decided that she couldn't bear the Union's despotism, and after her brother was commissioned a Rebel officer, she decided to go to Memphis. But her husband Julius remained loyal to the Union, and fought with an Ohio regiment.
This "house divided" stood just fine. Bertha helped the Confederates by smuggling spies and quinine across the lines. When she was caught, it was Julius, by that time a well-respected Union officer, who saved her from prison. In a 1930 speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier at Mount Hope Cemetery, George Ochs, Adolph's younger brother and the historian of the New York Chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, spoke of his parents, saying the "beautiful bonds of affection and devotion to each other had happily withstood the crucial strain of civil strife, [and they] returned to their home in Tennessee, yet to the day of their death, the convictions of each remained unaltered, and both gave unflattering devotion to the respective causes, which each had so firmly upheld." For Bertha this meant serving as a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. When she died, UDC members shrouded her coffin with the Confederate battle flag. In 1924 Adolph donated $1,000 to have his mother's name engraved on the founders' roll of the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial. Enclosed with his check was a letter in which he summed up his mother's views: "Robert E. Lee was her idol."
Although he spent the second half of his life in New York City, Adolph Ochs never forgot his Southern roots. Raised in Knoxville, Tenn., he had cut his teeth as a publisher of the Chattanooga Times, which he acquired when he was only 20 years old. It was not until 1896, following his purchase of the foundering New York Times, that he moved to New York. Years later, he would be honored by the New York Southern Society for a lifetime of "unusual achievements in the perpetuation of the history and traditions of the South" and for having "striven on the side of the angels for supporting with unique zeal and power the highest ideals and traditions of the Southern States." He donated to establish Confederate cemeteries in Tennessee; to fund the United Confederate Veterans' reunions; and to establish the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. He ran editorials and commemorative and pictorial editions dedicated to Confederate veterans' activities. But Ochs' reverence for the South is best captured in his response to a 1927 controversy. Falsely accused by a Georgia newspaper of trying to thwart Stone Mountain from acquiring adjacent parkland, Ochs protested in an editorial citing his longstanding dedication to Dixie: "I concede to no newspaper publisher in the South a more loyal, sincere, enthusiastic and industrious advocacy of the best interests, welfare and prosperity of the South than I have shown in the Chattanooga Times and The New York Times. I am confident that all to whom I am known will attest that the South, its interests and its welfare have been and are part of my religion and profession and hobby." When Ochs died in 1935, the UDC sent a pillow embroidered with the Confederate flag to be placed in his coffin.
In 1998, the Times Square subway station underwent a substantial renovation and expansion that included re-creations of Vickers' mosaic tribute to Adolph Ochs. Even today, throughout the station's cavernous, rumbling corridors, the Southern heritage of one of the city's most influential figures is hiding in plain sight.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Yorker Dr. David J. Jackowe, a lifelong student of the Civil War, writes about history, art and medicine.
http://www.historynet.com/confederate-flags-in-times-square.htm
Originally published by Civil War Times magazine
Published Online: May 22, 2012
In New York City, on the walls of the sprawling subway station beneath Times Square, small mosaics bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Confederate battle flag form part of a decorative border. Can it be that the Southern Cross, an icon that still stirs controversy 150 years after the war, is prominently displayed at one of the world's busiest intersections? According to the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, the emblem—a blue X edged in white and set against a red background—stands for nothing more than the convergence of subway lines. But my research suggests a more interesting ancestry. Distinctive symbols are featured in stations throughout the system. For example, the Astor Place station is decorated with beavers, a reference to fur trader John Jacob Astor; the Grand Central Station has locomotives on its walls. So what can be inferred from the Times Square decor? ° Designed by architect Squire J. Vickers, the mosaic was installed in the station below the former New York Times building in 1917. In a 1919 Architectural Record article Vickers, a somewhat eccentric figure, explained how designing with tile placed him in a position "conceived in strength and power, standing forth like a prophet of old, proclaiming calmly from a lofty height great and universal truths." He recognized the power of symbols, and his mosaics were loaded with them, many speaking to New York's history. ° Several notable Confederates are part of that past. Four Rebel generals are buried in the Bronx's Woodlawn Cemetery, including Archibald Gracie III, whose home, Gracie Mansion, now serves as the official mayoral residence. Both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson lived in Brooklyn as young U.S. Army officers, and Stonewall was baptized in the city and spent his honeymoon there. Varina Howell Davis lived on Central Park West for the last 16 years of her life, working for the New York World.
Yet outside of calling New York home at some point in life—or death—those famous Rebels have no particular connection to Times Square. In fact, Times Square did not even exist prior to 1904; the neighborhood was then called Long Acre. For much of the 19th century, Long Acre Square was relatively undeveloped, known for its livery stables, grazing pastures and brothels. But in the early 20th century, the area between 7th Avenue and Broadway underwent a transformation, evolving into the "Crossroads of the World." Rather than Lee or Jackson, a more likely candidate for the Times Square Confederate is perhaps the man who catalyzed that transformation. If the mosaic represents a convergence of subway lines, Vickers also unmistakably references the symbol of the South to highlight the station's proximity to a publisher with strong ties to the South: New York Times owner Adolph S. Ochs.
Adolph S. Ochs, 1911. Library of Congress.In 1904 Ochs finished building his new headquarters at Long Acre Square, a skyscraper that would have its own subway station in its basement. To commemorate the new structure, the Board of Aldermen renamed the neighborhood Times Square. The Times building quickly became the cultural and artistic nucleus of Manhattan. Upscale hotels were built. New restaurants opened. And of course, there were the theaters. Times Square became the city's meeting place, where New Yorkers came to grab a late edition, and where the world unofficially entered the New Year. By the time Vickers began building the subway station in 1917, Times Square was on the cusp of its legendary heyday in the Roaring '20s. The Great White Way was born courtesy of Ochs and his "Old Gray Lady."
The Confederacy was a significant part of Adolph Ochs' family history, thanks to his mother. As a teenager in Bavaria, Bertha Levi Ochs was so outspoken in her sympathy for revolutionaries involved in the upheaval in 1848 that her family sent her to relatives in Mississippi. In America Bertha married Julius Ochs, also a German immigrant, and the couple soon moved to Ohio, where Adolph was born in 1858. When the Civil War broke out, Bertha decided that she couldn't bear the Union's despotism, and after her brother was commissioned a Rebel officer, she decided to go to Memphis. But her husband Julius remained loyal to the Union, and fought with an Ohio regiment.
This "house divided" stood just fine. Bertha helped the Confederates by smuggling spies and quinine across the lines. When she was caught, it was Julius, by that time a well-respected Union officer, who saved her from prison. In a 1930 speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier at Mount Hope Cemetery, George Ochs, Adolph's younger brother and the historian of the New York Chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, spoke of his parents, saying the "beautiful bonds of affection and devotion to each other had happily withstood the crucial strain of civil strife, [and they] returned to their home in Tennessee, yet to the day of their death, the convictions of each remained unaltered, and both gave unflattering devotion to the respective causes, which each had so firmly upheld." For Bertha this meant serving as a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. When she died, UDC members shrouded her coffin with the Confederate battle flag. In 1924 Adolph donated $1,000 to have his mother's name engraved on the founders' roll of the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial. Enclosed with his check was a letter in which he summed up his mother's views: "Robert E. Lee was her idol."
Although he spent the second half of his life in New York City, Adolph Ochs never forgot his Southern roots. Raised in Knoxville, Tenn., he had cut his teeth as a publisher of the Chattanooga Times, which he acquired when he was only 20 years old. It was not until 1896, following his purchase of the foundering New York Times, that he moved to New York. Years later, he would be honored by the New York Southern Society for a lifetime of "unusual achievements in the perpetuation of the history and traditions of the South" and for having "striven on the side of the angels for supporting with unique zeal and power the highest ideals and traditions of the Southern States." He donated to establish Confederate cemeteries in Tennessee; to fund the United Confederate Veterans' reunions; and to establish the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. He ran editorials and commemorative and pictorial editions dedicated to Confederate veterans' activities. But Ochs' reverence for the South is best captured in his response to a 1927 controversy. Falsely accused by a Georgia newspaper of trying to thwart Stone Mountain from acquiring adjacent parkland, Ochs protested in an editorial citing his longstanding dedication to Dixie: "I concede to no newspaper publisher in the South a more loyal, sincere, enthusiastic and industrious advocacy of the best interests, welfare and prosperity of the South than I have shown in the Chattanooga Times and The New York Times. I am confident that all to whom I am known will attest that the South, its interests and its welfare have been and are part of my religion and profession and hobby." When Ochs died in 1935, the UDC sent a pillow embroidered with the Confederate flag to be placed in his coffin.
In 1998, the Times Square subway station underwent a substantial renovation and expansion that included re-creations of Vickers' mosaic tribute to Adolph Ochs. Even today, throughout the station's cavernous, rumbling corridors, the Southern heritage of one of the city's most influential figures is hiding in plain sight.
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New Yorker Dr. David J. Jackowe, a lifelong student of the Civil War, writes about history, art and medicine.
http://www.historynet.com/confederate-flags-in-times-square.htm
Monday, September 3, 2012
Beauvoir Post Issac
Compatriots,
Headquarters has reports from Beauvoir that state the Home and Presidential Library fared well during the recent hurricane and no damage of note was done. We can all be grateful for this.
Remember that Beauvoir will be the site of the next Sesquicentennial Rally in March of 2013. Make your plans to attend!
Chuck Rand
Chief Of Staff
Headquarters has reports from Beauvoir that state the Home and Presidential Library fared well during the recent hurricane and no damage of note was done. We can all be grateful for this.
Remember that Beauvoir will be the site of the next Sesquicentennial Rally in March of 2013. Make your plans to attend!
Chuck Rand
Chief Of Staff
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