Here is the email I sent to Rawls on 4/3/13 and his response was the same script as what everyone has received. --
Dear Mr. Rawls:
I am a member of the UDC and we were former members of MOC. My husband and I keep talking about a trip to see the battlefields in Virginia, Gettysburg, the MOC at Appomattox, and to visit Richmond to see the White House of the Confederacy, UDC headquarters, Hollywood Cemetery, MOC and the monuments to our Confederate generals. However, now we will leave the state of Virginia off of our itinerary. I find it utterly disgusting that the flags of the Confederacy were removed from the chapel at VMFA and that the flags of the Confederacy do not fly at Appomattox MOC. I hope this is not correct.
My great, great-grandfather and three of his brothers served under those flags in the Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee. These boys were from Mississippi, not Virginia. My great, great-grandfather and one brother wounded were captured at Gettysburg and sent to Point Lookout Maryland POW prison; the other two brothers managed to survive with the regiment at Gettysburg to fight another day. The youngest was wounded near Petersburg and sent home to recover on furlough where he died four months later and was buried in the family cemetery in Cockrum, MS. The brothers in prison were eventually exchanged at City Point, with the wounded brother spending the remaining days of the War in a hospital in Mississippi. The oldest survived to be one of only ten remaining soldiers of Co. I, 17th MS Infantry to be surrendered by General Lee at Appomattox.
My ancestors spent most of their years of the War fighting on Virginia soil. I can only imagine if they were alive today what they would think to hear that U.S. Grant, a.k.a. the Butcher, was selected at the MOC Symposium as "Person of the Year" for 1863. I pray this is incorrect; otherwise, the world is going stark-raving mad! Who will be next year's winner, that kind-hearted, sensitive guy who said, "There is a class of people (in the South), men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order." ...... W.T. Sherman? This disease of revisionist history, presentism, and cultural genocide is spreading from Virginia throughout the South and it will quickly destroy tourism for cities and states who foolishly choose to jump on the Cultural-Marxist Train.
You dishonor the Lee brothers from Cockrum, MS, my Confederate ancestors, and you should be ashamed!!
Becky & Ken Muska
Shelby Forest, TN.
Great, great-granddaughter of John J. Lee, descendant of William E. Lee, Josiah A. Lee & Giles A. Lee.
