Christianizing the Victims of New England Slavers

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

Reverend Dr. Charles Colcock Jones (1804-1863) was the son of a Georgia merchant and planter, born at Liberty Hall in Liberty County. While studying for the ministry in Pennsylvania, he agonized over the Africans brought to these shores by New England slavers and dedicated his life to caring for the slaves spiritual welfare.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Christianizing the Victims of New England Slavers

"In the county of Liberty, in Georgia, a Presbyterian minister has been for many years employed exclusively in laboring for the moral enlightenment of the slaves, being engaged and paid for this especial duty by their owners. From this circumstance, almost unparalleled as it is, it may be inferred that the planters of the county are as a body remarkably intelligent, liberal, and thoughtful for the moral welfare of the childlike wards Providence has placed in their care and tutorship.

I have heard them referred to with admiration of their reputation in this particular even as far away as Virginia and Kentucky. I believe that in no other district has there been displayed as general and long-continued an interest in the spiritual well-being of the Negroes. It must be supposed that nowhere else are their circumstances more happy and favorable to Christian nurture."

In promoting the spiritual welfare of the Negro population of Liberty County and throughout the South no man was more active or zealous than the Rev. Dr. Charles Colcock Jones, "Apostle to the Blacks," a lifelong member of Midway Church, who now lies buried in the historic graveyard directly across the way. This extraordinary man . . . was a rich planter, a gentleman of liberal education, and a Presbyterian clergyman of radiant Christian character, aptly described by his son in law as "one of the noblest men God ever made."

In May 1831 he was called to the First Presbyterian Church of Savannah, where he labored earnestly and successfully for eighteen months. But the cry of the Negroes of his native county was too urgent for him to resist; to their needy spiritual state he had been drawn while a student at Princeton, and he now felt constrained to devote himself to their evangelization as well as to their moral and social uplift.

His brother in law, the Rev. John Jones, later recalled his missionary efforts in some detail . . . :

"As a good brother, in allusion to his work among the colored people, once said, he seems to be the apostle to that portion of the gentiles. And he succeeded to a remarkable extent in awakening an interest in this neglected people . . . and annual reports of his labors he under God did more than any other man in arousing the whole church of this country to a new interest in the spiritual welfare of the Africans in our midst.

And the general results of his labors were seen in other communities and regions beyond; a decided attention to the physical as well as the moral condition of the race; the erection of neighborhood and plantation chapels; the multiplying of family and plantation schools in which Jones's catechism was taught; a greater devotion of time to the Negroes by pastors and churches; and an emphatic awakening throughout the South to the duty of systematic religious instruction to the blacks."

(The Children of Pride, A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War, Robert Manson Myers, Yale University Press, 1972, pp. 11-16)

THE BEST DEAL FOR APPOMATTOX TOUR

You may have noticed that other tours to Appomattox in April are priced $100 more per person that our Both Sides Tour on April 25 (Saturday) and 26 (Sunday). We expect prices, particularly for lodging, to go up as April nears. We're OK, as we locked in last fall! We have a few more spots available before we reach our reservation total at the motel. At some point soon, we will have to increase the price for latecomers. So, we suggest you sign up now and lock in the best deal in town for a tour that follows both armies to the surrender site at Appomattox. We'll start at City Point (Hopewell) on the James River and follow the armies to Petersburg, Five Forks, Sailor's Creek and then Appomattox. There will be lots of information along the way.  If you already have signed up, your seat on the bus, lodging and meals are all set!  Disregard this email if you have already sent in your money!

Don Hakenson
Carl Sell
Ben Trittipoe


BOTH SIDES TOUR XIV
Two Days on the Road to Appomattox Sesquicentennial Event
Saturday-Sunday, April 25-26, 2015
City Point, Five Forks and Sailor's Creek On Saturday, Appomattox on Sunday  

The Both Sides Tour will follow the armies to the surrender site at Appomattox in an ambitious two-day tour that will start with the Union supply depot on the James River on Saturday and end at the Museum of the Confederacy and the room where Lee and Grant signed the surrender documents on Sunday. After visiting City Point, we'll stop for an all-you-can eat lunch in Colonial Heights and then continue on to Five Forks where the Union broke the Confederate line on the Southside Railroad in what became the beginning of the end. We'll visit Sailor's Creek, site of the last major battle of the final campaign and then spend the night in Farmville. Dinner will be provided at the motel. After a motel breakfast on Saturday morning, we'll head for Appomattox for a three-hour visit to the Museum and the nearby McLean house. There will be a snack stop in Appomattox and early all-you-can eat dinner in Charlottesville on the way home.

The Price is $225 per person with double occupancy at the Motel. Single Occupancy is $275. Find a tripmate and save $50!

Reserve your spot with a $100 fee by January 1, 2015. Final payments must be made by March 1, 2015. We must have a final number for the Motel by March 25. Latecomers will be subject to an increased room rate, if available. Sign up early and save.

As usual, we will meet at the Franconia Museum at 8 a.m. for coffee and donuts on Saturday, April 24, 2015. We'll board a comfortable, restroom equipped motor coach for the ride through Virginia. The price includes all meals with tips, lodging, bus and entrance fees at the Museum of the Confederacy.

We will eat lunch on Saturday at the Golden Corral in Colonial Heights. Dinner will consist of pasta and salad at the Days Inn in Farmville. Breakfast will be available at the Motel on Sunday. We'll stop at McDonald's for a snack after leaving Appomattox and eat the early dinner at the Wood Grille in Charlottesville.

BUS LEAVES AT 8:15 A.M. SHARP                      

Sponsored by the Franconia Museum

Both Sides Tour April 25-26, 2015 Registration Form

Contact Don Hakenson at 703-971-4984 or dhakenson@cox.net
Carl Sell at 703-971-4716 or sellcarl@aol.com
Ben Trittipoe at 571-274-2467 or btritt1@gmail.com


Name..….………………………………………………


Address……………………………………………………


………………………………………………………………


Phone……………………………………………………


E-Mail…………………………………………………


Cost: $225.00double occupancy. $275 single occupancy Cost includes bus, lunch, and a fast-food value card on the way home. Entrance fees to the historic sites and a contribution to the Franconia Museum. Bottled water will be provided on the bus. No cancellations after March 1, 2015. Tour will be Held Rain or Shine.  Leave from Franconia Museum at Franconia Governmental Center, 6121 Franconia Road.


Make checks payable to Don Hakenson.

Mail to:

Both Sides Tour
4708 Lillian Drive
Alexandria, VA  22310

Use your resources to support Pro Confederate business!!! Shop REX MILLER & Company

From: johnyreb43@yahoo.com

I had the great pleasure of stopping at this facility on my last trip through Virginia, just a couple of months ago.  This is a first class retail operation that ONLY SELLS Confederate goods!  This store is beautiful, inside a very lovely market.

I have had the great privilege to speak with Rex several times on the phone.  He is UNRECONSTRUCTED...  It is a real pleasure to talk with Rex and to see his dedication to the Cause and the South manifested in the high quality of goods he has for sale.

I have recently - just today - sent a joint email to Jed Marum, a rising Confederate composer and musician and Rex so that Jed's Folk Album of the Year "Crossing Over the River" might be offered through Rex.

I strongly encourage all travelers through the Shenandoah of the Southern persuasion to put on your agenda a visit to Rex's store.  While you are there, ask for Jed's albums!

Folks, I am not being paid by anyone for this promotion...and I don't want to be.  Both of these men have their hearts in the South and the Cause, and both of these men deserve our financial support where possible.  Jed is promoting the South and our history and heritage in places it has never been before.  And Rex is standing by his devotion to South by refusing to stock goods that reflect Yankee values and symbols, even though that could bring more sales into his store!

I have believed for a long time that the power of money and investment must be corralled and used by people with a Southern heart.  I hope you share my belief.

God Bless the South,

Mark Vogl

The CROSSROADS COUNTRY STORE is inside the Shenandoah Heritage Market at 121 Carpenter Lane, Harrisonburg, Va.  This story is owned by Rex Miller.  His website is Confederate Shop http://confederateshop.com/

Canny Theorist in the White House

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

Author Simkins observed that the South's leaders "had committed a crime against the dominant patriotism of the nineteenth century" by "preaching national disintegration" – Lincoln the nationalist responded with "You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect and defend it." He would not recognize the right of Americans in the South to create a more perfect union.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Canny Theorist in the White House

"Southerners were convinced that what they lacked in military and naval equipment would be outweighed by their superior intelligence, bravery and hardihood. Had not the American colonies, who were weaker than the South, defeated England, a nation stronger than the North? The Confederacy need only stand on the defensive, win a few victories, and the unheroic Yankees would quickly withdraw from the hornets' nest. Jefferson Davis and other thoughtful leaders, however, did not share such popular fallacies; they believed there would be a long war against a merciless foe.

It was true that in Abraham Lincoln the Confederacy had an implacable enemy. Behind the white face and black beard of a St. John the Baptist was the statesmen willing to use the methods by which great leaders of modern times have built or maintained empires. This meant nothing less than imposing forcibly the will of the strong upon the weak. With Lincoln the word was "charity to all men," the reality "blood and iron."

The President's objective was clear: the complete destruction of the Confederate government, and the restoration of its constituent States to the Union. In his opinion the contest was not a war, but an attempt to put              down domestic insurrection which had become too formidable for ordinary officers of the law.

The withdrawal of the Southern States and their subsequent organization into a new nation was declared illegal. To come to terms with the new Confederacy necessitated a great war, but the canny theorist in the White House called it an endeavor to re-establish constitutional authority. Accordingly the President mobilized armies and inaugurated a military struggle without asking Congress for a declaration of war.

He launched an invasion against powerful armies without extending to them the formal belligerent rights customary among civilized warmakers. The Confederacy was blockaded to deprive it of basic necessities. The Federal armies moved forward not to come to terms with a legal enemy, but to possess militarily and politically the territory of outlawed rebels. When the policies of blockade and invasion were not immediately successful, novel methods of warfare were employed.

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued after Lee's advance into the North had been stopped at [Sharpsburg], at least by implication, was designed to demoralize Southern Society and to give the war the character of a crusade in which righteousness was buttressed by vengeance. Provinces were devastated to break their will to resist.

When victory and the cessation of hostilities came, there was no armistice or peace treaty with [a] humbled foe, but surrender by an adversary who had been cut to pieces. The Confederacy was dissolved and its constituent parts re-incorporated into the United States."

(The South Old and New, A History, 1820–1947, Francis Butler Simkins, Albert A. Knopf, 1947, pp. 140-141)

Forrest Captures a Future General

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

While Nathan Bedford Forrest captured a future American commander in Cuba, Sherman was accompanied by a young Spanish officer who would also serve in Cuba. Military attaché and observer Valeriano Weyler admired Sherman and as a Spanish general 30 years later in Cuba, he adopted scorched-earth tactics to starve rebellious Cubans and established concentration camps for women and children.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Forrest Captures a Future General

"The two other regiments which [Nathan Bedford] Forrest had on the field – Biffle's Ninth Tennessee and Cox's Tenth – he had sent on a wide swing to the right. Coming in from that flank, they cut across the turnpike in [Northern Colonel John] Coburn's rear, deployed, dismounted . . . and drove home the charge which . . . "decided the fate of the day."

When the charging line was within twenty feet of the Union troops, Forrest reported, they "threw down their arms and surrendered."

Among the losses of the day was the death of Captain Montgomery Little . . . [a] planter and Memphis businessman of middle age . . . a Union man in sentiment before the outbreak of the war.

The bag of Union prisoners at Thompson's Station numbered 1,221, including seventy-eight officers, among them Colonel Coburn himself and Major William R. Shafter, the same who thirty-five years later was to command the American forces before Santiago de Cuba."

(First With the Most, Forrest, Robert Selph Henry, Mallard Press, 1991, pp. 130-131)

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial

"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage, and Devotion to Liberty"

Patriots of '61:  Lt. George McNeill Rose of Cumberland County

"High-Minded and Honorable Confederate Officer"

An old and honored name in the annals of Cumberland County is that of George McNeill Rose, and particularly distinguished at Fayetteville, the family home for a period reaching back to its early development and covering historic events of State and national importance.

George McNeill Rose was born in Fayetteville on 5 June 1846, the son of John M. and Jane Strange (McNeill) Rose, the older ancestral line undoubtedly reaching to Scotland and early settlement in America. In 1860 he became a student in Davidson College and despite the excitements of public movements and the confusion and discomforts that came about following the declaration of the war between the States he remained through his freshman and sophomore years at Davidson, completing his latter year with honors when sixteen years old.

In 1863 he became a student at the Virginia Military Institute, it being his father's desire to have his brilliant son complete his education, and as a member of the Cadet Corps of that institution, took part in the battle of New Market on 15 May 1864, the courage and valor of these schoolboys being perpetuated in the records of the State's military history.

In 1864 Cadet Rose enlisted in the Confederate army and was commissioned first lieutenant, subsequently appointed adjutant of the Sixty-sixth North Carolina regiment, Kirkland's Brigade, of Gen. Robert F. Hoke's Division, Army of Northern Virginia, on 29 October 1864.

Near Christmas of 1864 Adjutant Rose's Sixty-sixth Regiment was detached from Lee's defenses at Petersburg and sent via rail to Wilmington, North Carolina, to assist in the defense of Fort Fisher at the mouth of the Cape Fear River.  This regiment of 436 officers and men was engaged in the fighting through both enemy landings and remained entrenched after the fall of the fort.

Regarding the morale of his regiment after the fort's capitulation, Rose wrote that "living amidst sand and dirt and on un-sifted corn meal and spoiled Nassau bacon until life became almost unendurable, but the spirit of the troops never flagged; they were always willing to do their full duty, and always glad to see the enemy in their front.

The enemy placed segregated black troops in front of Hoke's position while their white troops assaulted the fort.  Rose wrote further that "Almost every day there would be fighting along upon the skirmish line [and on 11February] an attack of considerable force was made upon us by a [Negro] regiment . . . the fact of seeing those negro troops in front of us exasperated the men and they fought with great gallantry and easily repulsed the attack . . . "  

Lieutenant Rose was with Hoke's division through the later battle of Forks Road below Wilmington, during the withdrawal to Duplin Roads, the movement to Kinston to fight at Southwest Creek, and on to ambush enemy troops at Bentonville.  He was paroled near Durham Station with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army in mid-April.

After the war, Mr. Rose entered the University of North Carolina where he studied law and maintained his exemplary scholastic reputation by being selected salutatorian of the class of 1867.

Upon graduation he established his law practice in the city of Fayetteville and as a trial lawyer was considered to have no equal in the State. During the last thirty-five years of his practice he devoted great attention to railroad corporation work, being the representative of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and division counsel over ten counties.

Active all his life in the councils of the Democratic party, Mr. Rose was frequently honored by this political organization, and was three-times elected to represent Cumberland County in the North Carolina General Assembly, 1877-78, 1881-82, and 1883-84, serving as speaker pro tem of the House of Representatives in the 1881-82 session, and as speaker in the session 1883-84.

In public life he proved high-minded and honorable as in his profession, and it is certain that few men of his time and public consciousness ever commanded more respect or enjoyed more public esteem. He was a trustee of the University of North Carolina, a trustee of the First Presbyterian Church of Fayetteville, major and commander of Camp No. 852, United Confederate Veterans at Fayetteville, and at the time of his death, 15 June 1924, was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Confederate Veterans Widows' Home at Fayetteville.

Rose authored the History of his Sixty-sixth North Carolina Regiment in Judge Walter Clark's "Histories of the North Carolina Regiments," published in 1901.

For more than fifty years he was a member of the Order of Odd Fellows, and it was, perhaps, one of the most pleasurable occasions of his closing years when he was presented with the Veterans Jewel, and emblem testifying to his half-century membership.

On 16 December 1869 he wed Augusta Jane Steele and their union was blessed with eight children, one of whom, Charles G. Rose, is his eminent father's successor as a leader of the Fayetteville bar.

Son Charles G. was a graduated from the University of North Carolina Law School and joined his father in practice in the style of Rose & Rose, which continued to his father's death in 1924. He later formed a partnership with Terry A. Lyon, and continued in his father's work as Atlantic Coast Line Railroad legal counsel.

Sources:
North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865, Volume XV
North Carolina, Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth,  Volume III, American Historical Society, 1928, pp. 64-65

Remembering Fort Fisher's Black Confederate Soldiers

One-hundred fifty years ago an enemy invasion fleet landed troops at Fort Fisher after a fierce bombardment, beginning a military campaign which would end North Carolina's second bid for political independence.  This fort began existence as Battery Bolles in early 1861 and steadily grew into a mammoth   earthen fortification under the direction of Col. William Lamb and Gen. W.H.C. Whiting.  The garrison troops, black and white, were assisted in daily construction activity by African slaves hired out by area plantations – all were responsible for the impressive work that defended the Cape Fear River and Wilmington.

Notable among the fort's heroic defenders, who all fought with a grim determination though outnumbered by an enemy nearly ten times their number, were black soldiers of the Thirty-sixth and Fortieth Regiments, North Carolina Troops (NCT).  At the final capitulation of the fort, Charles and Henry Dempsey, both privates in Company F, Thirty-sixth Regiment, NCT; Privates Arthur and Miles Reed of Company D, Fortieth Regiment, NCT; Private J. Doyle of Company E; Private Everett Hayes of Company F, Tenth Regiment, NCT; and regimental cook Daniel Herring.

A total of nine black soldiers surrender to the enemy at Fort Fisher, and this does not include those who escaped capture by crossing the river to Fort Anderson.

Most if not all the black soldiers captured were imprisoned at Point Lookout, Maryland along with their white fellow soldiers. Unlike the segregated black Northern units that landed with white enemy troops, Southern black men fought alongside their comrades in integrated companies with little if any distinction of skin color.  The Dempsey brothers served with other men from Halifax, Edgecombe, Nash, Pitt and Wayne counties; the Reed brothers did the same with their white neighbors from Craven, Wilson, Wayne and Lenoir counties.

These patriotic black soldiers, who were paid with virtually worthless money, fought bravely alongside fellow North Carolinians in defense of their homes, families, neighbors, State and country.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Remembering What Fort Fisher's Patriotic Defenders Fought to Prevent

As we observe the Sesquicentennial of the final defense of Fort Fisher and Wilmington in 1865, we should deeply reflect upon the "what and why" of these historic events and view them all in a proper light.

Like the North Carolina patriots of the Revolution who resisted British invasion of the Cape Fear as they fought for independence, Wilmington's Committee of Safety in 1861 quickly took control of area defenses to protect their homes, families and country. Wilmington's patriots of '61 fought for independence as well and would construct the ironclads CSS North Carolina and Raleigh for the same reasons their Revolutionary fathers built the brigs George Washington and Eclipse -- to defend the Cape Fear River from invasion.

The Northern troops aboard the immense fleet in 1865 were there for the sole purpose of overpowering defenses designed to protect the Cape Fear and North Carolina.  Once ashore and in control of the forts, enemy intentions were to capture and subjugate Wilmington and place the city under martial law.  Afterward, the enemy army would move inland to seize transportation and industrial facilities, deny North Carolinians the ability to defend themselves, plus loot farms and homes at will.  They would then capture and occupy the State capital of Raleigh, overthrow the government of North Carolina and imprison its elected governor.

And this sad result was followed by 10 years of political corruption, despotism and racial turmoil incited by Northern political adventurers and carpetbaggers. This is what Fort Fisher's patriotic garrison of North Carolinians fought to prevent.

And a word about Fort Fisher's defenders.

We often hear that "Confederates" garrisoned Fort Fisher, though it should be trumpeted loudly that these were men from New Hanover, Brunswick, Bladen, Edgecombe, Carteret, Columbus, Sampson, Cumberland, Wayne, Duplin, Wake, Green, Beaufort, Lenoir and Craven Counties.  More than just "Confederates," these were North Carolina patriots defending their homes and country.

Some of the unit names were Sutton's Battery, Bladen Stars, Powell's Artillery, the Clarendon Guards, Brunswick Artillery, Bladen Artillery Guards, Lenoir Braves, Northampton Artillery, Cape Fear River Guards, Scotch Greys, Braddy's Battery, Edenton Bell Battery, Southerland's Battery and Capt. Abner Moseley's Sampson Artillery.  Clark's Artillery was led by Wilmington businessman, Maj. Robert G. Rankin, a man whose body would be pierced by eight enemy minie balls at Bentonville.

These and other North Carolina patriots garrisoned Forts Holmes, Caswell, Johnston, Campbell, Fisher and Anderson – all there for the protection of the Cape Fear from enemy invasion. At Wilmington were stationed Companies A through G of the Fayetteville Armory Guards under Col. Frederick L. Childs.  They were there to help repel the enemy.

Though not battle-hardened veterans, Fort Fisher's garrison fought a desperate battle from traverse to traverse and forced the enemy to pay very dearly for what they conquered. Both the fort commander Col. William Lamb and Gen. W.H.C. Whiting were severely wounded, only Lamb survived. This is a testament to the bravery of men who performed their duty heroically, and with their families and homes at their backs -- no finer patriots and soldiers could be found.

Remember too, the worried families of those within the forts, watching from the western bank of the Cape Fear with trepidation as enemy projectiles exploded within the forts their loved ones were defending. Think of what these women and children experienced that winter of 1864-65 – food scarcity, and a humiliating occupation by enemy troops should the defenders of the Cape Fear be overwhelmed.  And worse, would they ever see their brothers, fathers and sons again – dead or sent into captivity.

These should be our foremost thoughts during this Fort Fisher Sesquicentennial Observance. Let us keep in mind what was lost, what those North Carolinians were defending against, and how we today might honor and emulate their legacy of duty.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

The true purpose of the Sons of Confederate Veterans ...

From: johnyreb43@yahoo.com

The Sons of Confederate Veterans was NOT created to be a Civil War Round Table that leaned towards the Southern perspective of history.  It was created by the Veterans of the War to carry on the fight, to vindicate the Cause.

Each and every meeting of the S.C.V. includes "the Charge."  The words spoken here are an oath to defend the Cause.  These are solemn words.  They were written by the living veterans of the war.  They were not calling on generations to make sure that the grass was cut at the local cemetery.

Robert E. Lee was not known as a man of passion, or one without judgment and depth of intellect.  And even this great American saw what was coming:

"Privately, Lee was an angry man who was very unhappy about how things had turned out. Writing his cousin Annette Carter in 1868 he had this to say about the current government. He wrote of "this grand scheme of centralization of power in the hands of one branch of the Govt. to the ruin of all others and the annihilation of the constitution, the liberty of the people and of the country."4 Continuing, Lee said: "I grieve for posterity, for American principles and American liberty. Our boasted self-government is fast becoming the jeer and laughing stock of the world." In 1870, he spoke to William Preston Johnston (Albert Sidney Johnston's son and a colonel in the Confederate army who had been captured with Jefferson Davis in 1865) of the "vindictiveness and malignity of the Yankees, of which he had no conception before the war." 5
"Governor, If I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse: no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand."
Gen. Robert E. Lee to Gov. Stockdale of Texas.

We are in today's America because of what happened in 1861 - 1865.  We are here because of the true reasons behind Northern aggression.  In part, that aggression was about destroying the Christian fabric of America.  This American nation was constructed by God for a purpose.  His Purpose.  I am not wise enough to know that purpose.  But I have enough common sense to know that the Founders saw Christianity as the lynchpin for this nation.  And they saw States Rights and the republic as the best form of government to facilitate the Providence of God.

We are headed in the wrong direction today.  And in part, the S.C.V. is responsible because it refuses to do its job - vindicate the Cause.

I know that many who belong to the S.C.V. don't see it this way.  They see their duty as one of education of history, of telling the story of the Southern soldier, or keeping the Colors flying.  And these are good ...and should be done.  But not to the exclusion of the heavy work ...the vindication of the Cause.

We are losing America, in small part, because America's patriots are distracted, or ...simply don't see it as their duty to participate in American politics and bring the Cause to its truest battleground...to its modern battleground.

There are so many good people spread across the camps of the South.  I only wish you could see what I see.  I see the South as the Guardian of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.  I see it as the Guardian of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  I see the Bible as the foundation of all that is supposed to be America.

Many have warned that bad things happen when good men do nothing.

For me, that's real purpose of the Sons of Confederate Veterans - an alliance of good men, Christians, to vindicate the Cause and stand vigil over what God created.

Mark Vogl
Rebel Mountain, Texas

Today North Carolina Recognizes the Birth Date of General Robert E. Lee -- 19 January 1807

A Legal Holiday in the State Since 1894

President Dwight Eisenhower said of Lee in 1960:

"General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause . . . was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his belief in God.

Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history. From deep conviction I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee's caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul."

British General Viscount Garnet Wolseley said of Lee:

"I believe he will be regarded not only as the most prominent figure of the Confederacy, but as the Great American of the nineteenth century, whose statue is well worthy to stand on an equal pedestal with that of Washington, and whose memory is equally worthy to be enshrined in the hearts of all his countrymen. This estimate is based upon a criticism of his character as a man, a soldier, and a Christian citizen. As a thinker and man of intellectual powers little has been said of him, and yet, intellectual power, associated with moral purity, are the true spring of greatness."

At the annual observance of Lee's birth date in 1892, Richmond's Mayor Ellyson said:

[Today we] honor to the memory of one of Virginia's noble sons. Robert E. Lee is forever enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen, and as we contemplate his virtues and heroism we are made better and purer men, [and] whose noblest aspiration in life found its [most complete] realization in the doing of his duty to his God, and his fellow man.

There is no danger, comrades, that the men who wore the grey will ever prove recreant to the principles that actuated them in time of war, but there is danger that our children may, and so we wish on these recurring anniversaries to tell of the chivalrous deeds of such leaders as Lee, Jackson, Stuart and Pickett, and to teach coming generations that the soldiers of the Southern Confederacy were not rebels, but were Americans who loved liberty as something dearer than life itself."

Robert E. - Lee Role Model For Young Americans

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower believed that Confederate General Robert E. Lee should be a Role Model for American youth and they should emulate his qualities.
 
Robert Edward Lee was born January 19, 1807 to Revolutionary War hero Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III and Anne Carter Lee at Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County Virginia. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point where he graduated 2nd in the class of 1829 without a single demerit. Lee served in the U.S. Army for nearly 32 years.

At the beginning of the War Between the States (Civil War) he was offered command of the U.S. Army by Abraham Lincoln. He knew that Lincoln's invasion of the Southern States was unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, and criminal. He had to make a choice to either defend the Constitution or the Union. He made the correct decision to defend the Constitution.

Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on June 1,1862 and the command of all 3 Confederate Armies in early 1865. After the collapse of the nation Confederate States of America he told his soldiers "Go Home And Be Good Americans". He accepted the position of President of Washington College in Lexington Virginia. At a time when he desperately needed money a Northern Insurance Company offered him $50,000 for the use of his name. He declined saying "my name and heritage is about all I have left and it is not for sale". Robert Edward Lee died on October 12, 1870.
 
No finer example of a Southern gentleman and leader exists whose positive impact was so great during and after the war. His superb character as a Christian gentleman stood out in his life as a man, husband, father, citizen, soldier, and a leader. These qualities greatly impressed many notable men.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stated that "Lee was one of the noblest Americans that ever lived and that his noble presence and gentle kindly manner were sustained by Christian faith and an exalted character.   U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt described General Robert E. Lee as "the very greatest of all the great captains that the English speaking peoples have brought forth".

War-era Georgia Senator Benjamin Harvey Hill eloquently expressed a lasting Lee tribute: "He possessed every virtue of other great commanders without their vices. He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy and a man without guile. He was a Caesar without his ambition; Frederick without his tyranny; Napoleon without his selfishness; and Washington without his reward. He was obedient to authority as a servant, and loyal in authority as a true King. He was gentle as a woman in life; modest and pure as a virgin in thought; watchful as a Roman Vital in duty; submissive to law as Socrates; and grand in battle as Achilles"

On Aug.1,1960 Dr. Leon Scott of New York wrote U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower a letter stating " at the Republican Convention you said that you have the pictures of 4 great Americans on your office wall and one is Robert E. Lee. Please explain why you hold him in such high esteem. Eisenhower's response, written on White House letterhead on August 9, 1960 reads as follows: Dear Dr. Scott, Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War Between the States the issue of Secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our nation. He believed in the Constitutional validity of the Confederate cause. From deep conviction I simply say this "A nation of men of Lee's caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed to the degree that present day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, we in our own time of danger in a divided world will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained". Such are the reasons I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall. Sincerely, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Article Written 2011 by James W. King—Albany Georgia SCV Camp Commander

Britain's Inhumane Slave Trade

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

The transatlantic slave trade which populated the America's with Africans was chartered and encouraged by Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of York oversaw the Royal African Company, a slave trading concern. These British slavers were only surpassed in efficiency by the slavers of New England; Providence, Rhode Island became the slaving capital of North America by 1750.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Britain's Inhumane Slave Trade:

"On the 1st of April, 1772 the [Virginia] House of Burgesses addressed a hot petition to the crown, "imploring his Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity of a most alarming nature." It proceeds: "The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of inhumanity, and under its present encouragement we have too much reason to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's American dominions. We are sensible that some of your Majesty's subjects may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic…we most humbly beseech your Majesty to remove all those restraints on your Majesty's governors of the colony which inhibit their assenting to such House of Burgesses] laws as might check so very pernicious a traffic.

When the vote was taken in the Federal Congress on the resolution to postpone the prohibition of the [slave] trade to the year 1808, Virginia used all her influence to defeat the postponement, and it was carried by New   Hampshire, Massachusetts, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The final prohibition of the slave trade by act of Congress was brought about through the influence of President Jefferson and by the active efforts of Virginians.

And greatly to the labors of the representatives from Virginia was due the final extinction of the vile traffic [of England and New England] through the act of Congress declaring it to be piracy, five years before Great Britain took similar action with regard to her subjects. Such is the actual record of the much-vilified South relating to the African slave trade, taken from official records.

The gradual system of emancipation adopted at the North had undoubtedly led to many of the slaves being shipped off to the South and sold. When, therefore, after this "abolition," the movement, from being confined to the comparatively small band of liberators who were actuated by pure principle, extended to those who had been their persecutors, it aroused suspicion at the South which blinded it to a just judgment of the case.

The statutory laws relating to slavery at the South are held up as proof of the brutality with which they were treated even under the law. But these laws were not more cruel than the laws of England at the period they were enacted…and, at least, Southerners never tolerated wholesale burning at the stake as a legal punishment, as was done in New York as late as 1741, when fourteen Negroes were burnt at the stake on the flimsy testimony of a half-crazed servant girl; and as was done in Massachusetts as late as 1755, when a Negro was burnt for murder."

(The Old South, Essays Social and Political, Thomas Nelson Page, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896, pp. 29-32)

Lincoln's German Patriots

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

Keenly aware of German immigrant political power in Illinois, Lincoln secretly purchased the Springfield Staats-Zeitung in 1859 to help further his electoral chances. The influential "Forty-Eighter" element of the German immigrants were radical reformers and revolutionaries determined to remake the world, and bringing forth the millennium. This element proved useful in Lincoln's future need for troops, though few if any understood the American form of government.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Lincoln's German Patriots

"The Federal hosts were . . . not recruited from one continent alone. The speech of almost every European nation might have been heard in the camps of the Army of the Potomac. There were brigades of Irish and divisions of Germans. There were those who had fought with the Red Shirts of Garibaldi, and some who had followed Kossuth into rebellion . . . [and Canadians].

The call to war issued from Washington gathered under one flag a motley assemblage. Motivated . . . by honor, by a desire for emoluments, (including the promised bounties), or by sheer love of adventure, the soldiers came – patriot (whether native or foreign) and hireling, foreign prince, knight-errant, and soldier of fortune – to range themselves under the Stars and Stripes.

It was such a cosmopolitan assemblage, of Germans and Irishmen, of Frenchmen and Italians, of Poles and Scandinavians, of Hungarians and Dutchmen, as had ever been gathered together since the Thirty Years' War.

In New York City alone, thousands of Germans tendered their services at the firing of the first gun on Fort Sumter. During the war there went out from New York ten almost solidly German regiments: three regiments in which one-half or more were of that nationality, five German artillery batteries, and two cavalry regiments in which fully one-half the men were Germans.

The ten purely German regiments, with two others more than one-half German, were all organized in 1861, the first six under Lincoln's first call. In addition the Fifth New York Militia . . . was one of the first to leave New York under Colonel Christian Schwarzwalder for the defense of the capital.

All told, there were 1,046 men in the Eighth Regiment, known also as the First German Rifles, commanded by that picturesque semi-soldier of fortune, General Louis Blenker. Although the lieutenant color sergeant of the regiment was Hungarian, and several other nationalities were scantily represented in the ranks, this might be termed an "echt" (genuine) German regiment.

Few of the German regiments enlisted more attention that the De Kalb Regiment, or the Forty-first New York . . . [which] received material help from R.A. Witthaus, a patriotic and wealthy German citizen. About 700 of its 1,040 members, as well as its commander, had fought in the Prussian Army against the Danes in 1848-1849; and 23 of its 33 officers were veterans who had seen service in European campaigns."

(Foreigners in the Union Army and Navy, Ella Lonn, LSU Press, 1951, pp. 93-96)

Inciting Race War and Murder

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

To help suppress the American drive for independence in 1775, Lord Dunmore of Virginia incited a race war by encouraging African slaves the British had imported to massacre their plantation owners –men, women and children. The British repeated this strategy in 1814; wealthy New Englanders attempted it in 1859 through John Brown; Lincoln utilized it in 1863 to suppress another American drive for independence.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Inciting Race War and Murder:

"With the majority of her young men away at war, Beaufort County's greatest fear was for a British instigated slave uprising. At the beginning of the war, Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia . . . had threatened: "By the living God, if any insult is offered to me, or to those who have obeyed my orders, I will declare freedom to the slaves and pay the town (of Williamsburg) in ashes."

He issued such an order for the defense of Norfolk, freeing all indentured servants and slaves "of the rebels, that are able and willing to bear arms." He added the proviso that they join the British troops. Some two or three hundred Negroes were freed, and joined in the defense of Norfolk as "Lord Dunmore's Ethiopians."

In Beaufort County and other eastern counties where there was a large Negro population, this threat of slave uprising was an ever-present cause for concern. In July of 1775, shortly after Dunmore had made his threat, a "Horrid, Tragic Plan" for such an uprising was discovered. A loyal Negro slave who belonged to Captain Thomas Respess revealed the plot [of a] Tory named Johnson, apparently of another county, [who] engineered the plan. A Bath Town slave named Merrick was the Negro leader through whom he worked.

On the night of 8 July 1775, the slaves on each plantation were to turn on their masters, and slay them and their families. They would then join with the slaves from other plantations. Armed with the weapons of their murdered masters, they were to go farm to farm of the neighboring non-slave holding farmers and surprise and murder them. Moving westward through the counties, they were to be met by an agent of the British government, who would supply them with more ammunition. As a reward, they would later be settled in a free government of their own.

Over one hundred mounted patrollers were promptly dispatched to warn all plantation owners and farmers, and were directed to apprehend all Negroes found off their plantations. Over forty Negroes suspected of being leaders in the plot were apprehended. One group of about two hundred and fifty Negroes was located.   When surrounded by two companies of Light Horse, they fled into the swamps.

Many of the captured Negroes confessed to their part in the plot. Records do not specify the punishment . . . [although] the law prescribed death for such an offense. Johnson, the instigator of the plot, escaped. Though the threat hung over the eastern counties for the remained of the war, no other attempt at an uprising was recorded."

(History of Beaufort County, C. Wingate Reed, Edwards & Broughton, 1962, pp. 120-121)

British and French Mediation Considered

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

Rarely mentioned as a decisive deterrent to Anglo-French recognition of Southern independence was the presence of Russian fleets in San Francisco and New York from September 1863 through March 1864. The British and French were both stood puzzled as the Czar and Lincoln emancipated serfs and slaves while at the same time crushing independence movements in Poland and the American South.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


British and French Mediation Considered

"Ultimately the South's hopes for independence marched with its armies, and indeed when the Army of Northern Virginia invaded Maryland in the fall of 1862, [British Lords] Palmerston and [John] Russell became convinced of the depth and potential of Southern separation.

On September 14, Palmerston wrote to Russell about Anglo-French mediation and "an arrangement upon the basis of separation." Russell responded, "I agree with you that the time has come for offering mediation to the United States Government, with a view of the recognition of the Independence of the Confederates – I agree further that in case of failure, we ought ourselves to recognize the Southern States, as an independent State."

In accord with these convictions, Russell informally approached his counterpart in Paris, Antoine Edouard Trouvenel, and discussed with Palmerston a date for a meeting of the cabinet to approve the mediation scheme. Russell was still firm in this policy on October 4, when he wrote Palmerston, "I think unless some miracle takes place this will be the very time for offering Mediation."

And on October 7, Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone let the cat out of the bag. Speaking at Newcastle, Gladstone affirmed, that, "Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made what is more than either, they have made a nation."

Then, just a quickly as the mediation enthusiasm had developed in England, it evaporated. [Though as important as the Sharpsburg battle and Lincoln's abolition proclamation] were, other considerations contributed to England's return to nonintervention. Mediation was attractive to free-traders who resented the Federal blockade, to liberals who supported self-determination, to conservatives who felt a kinship with landed aristocrats in the South, and to some varieties of nationalists who looked with favor upon the dissolution of the United States.

But these attractions were essentially abstract. In the end British statesmen had to face the hard reality of what might follow an unsuccessful offer of mediation and subsequent recognition of the confederacy: they had to ponder the consequences of a North American war. And if the British should be drawn into an American war, they wanted to support the winning side. In this regard, [Sharpsburg] and abolition] were indecisive; neither event broke the American impasse to reveal a victor."

(The Confederate Nation, 1861-1865, Emory M. Thomas, Henry Steele Commager & Richard B. Morris, editors, Harper & Row, 1979, pp. 179-180)

Convicts and Indentured Servants to America

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

The need for labor in its American colony stimulated not only the indentured servitude detailed below, but also slave trading by England's Royal African Company. This was formed in 1662 with the king's brother, the Duke of York, as president. It would have an outright monopoly on bringing enslaved Africans to the New World until 1697, when the British Crown permitted private traders to carry slaves to British colonies and paying a 10 percent duty.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Convicts and Indentured Servants to America

"A principal source of labor for the [American] plantations during the seventeenth century were the white indentured servants brought from England. In the mother country the farm hands and laboring classes received miserably low wages . . . [and] found it almost impossible to save [6 pounds], the average cost of passage to America. The only method by which they could transfer their labor from a cheap market in England to a dear market in America was the indenture system, really a credit, or installment system to pay the passage money of crossing the Atlantic. The servant signed a contract by which he sold his labor to a master for a period usually of four or five years.

Immigration into the colonies was vastly stimulated by the profitable business of securing servants for the American market. John Harrower, an indentured servant in Virginia, described in his diary which he kept from 1773-1776, a class of merchants called Soul Drivers, who met immigrant and convict ships at the docks to buy servants, whom they would drive through the colonies "like a parcel of Sheep" to sell to the highest bidder. Such servants were sold for prices ranging from [20 pounds] for the highest type, Scottish soldiers captured after the Jacobite revolt, to [4 pounds] for Irish vagrants.

Most of the indentured servants were young men and women under twenty-five years of age. Under some masters the indentured servitude approximated the conditions of slavery. The master had the right to punish his white servant by whipping, and the servant could not leave the plantation without permission. If a servant married without consent or if a maidservant had an illegitimate baby, the term of service was extended for one year. If a servant ran away and was arrested, he or she was punished by extending the term of service two days extra in Virginia and ten days in Maryland for every day of absence.

The labor shortage in America was so great that it led to the dark crime of kidnapping. There were professional agents in England known a "spirits" who kidnapped "drunks" in taverns and young persons on the streets to ship them to America for sale as servants. The British government used the Southern colonies as well as the islands of Jamaica and Barbados as a dumping ground for convicts.

(A History of the Old South, The Emergence of a Reluctant Nation, Clement Eaton, MacMillan Publishing, 1975, pp. 23-31)

Revolutionary Rule of the Industrialists

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

With conservative Southern statesmen of the past absent from the halls of the United States Congress, "fraud and trickery were the revolutionary devices resorted to by Northern industrialists to complete the job begun by Grant's cannon and bayonets." Presidents became the creation of the wealthy classes, with "a maze of frauds and trickeries . . . [extending] from the Civil War to the end of the century."

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Revolutionary Rule of the Industrialists

"Government has been the indispensable handmaiden of private wealth since the origin of society. And far from having embellished history with significant exception, the government of the United States, without the camouflage of custom or tradition, ritual or dogma, Church or Aristocracy, has actually done more to prove the truth of this generalization than have all the governments in Europe.

So perfect, so thorough, has been the collaboration of politics and private fortune since the founding of the American colonies that it is difficult to ascertain from the date of any given period where political intrigue on behalf of specific private interest has terminated.

The Constitution, written in the furtive atmosphere of a coup d'état during secret deliberations of a convention called merely to regulate commerce, was received with hostility by the populace, which forced the precipitate addition of the first ten amendments. The document provided for a government of ostensible checks and balances, (but really, as a wit has said, of all checks and no balances), and at the same time guaranteed the utmost freedom, unchecked and unbalanced, to propertied interests. "The result . . . is a modern government that is about five times as inflexible, and much less democratic, than the government of Great Britain."

Through the decades leading to the Civil War, the fuel of political strife was provided by the propertied classes . . . [and] when a series of political defeats at the hands of Northern industrialists and merchants eventually became ominously foreboding, the Southern planter faction did not hesitate to draw the sword. The Civil War began as a counter-revolution, but ended as a revolution.

The triumph of the North in the war, however, forever dislodging the landed gentry from political power, brought sweeping authority to the tariff-minded industrialists – authority that has since been seriously disputed . . . only by the Western agrarians under William Jennings Bryan . . . From 1865 to 1896 the essentially revolutionary rule of the industrialists was unbroken.

Marcus Alonzo Hanna, commissar extraordinary of John D. Rockefeller, became the political architect of the new era, whose unique characteristics have been a tremendous drive into foreign markets, unprecedented industrial consolidation, expansion of the mass-production industries to a staggering degree, and unexampled application of technology to production, and the fateful gravitation of the nation's producing resources as well as the political apparatus into the hands of bank capitalists.

Before Hanna the unconstitutional control by the industrialists had been furtive, half ashamed, and vehemently denied even in the face of the most damning evidence; under Hanna the control was for the first time brazenly admitted and, cynically or sincerely, justified on the pretense that it was in the national interest."

(America's Sixty Families, Ferdinand Lundberg, Halcyon House, 1937, pp. 50-53)

Africa's Long Heritage of Human Bondage

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

Prior to the British and New England transatlantic slave trade which brought Africans to the America's for labor, human bondage was a well-established institution in Africa. Though seen as a scramble for African colonies by European nations, the 1884-85 Berlin Conference also looked for an end to the slaving operations of Zanzibari/Swahili strongman Tippu Tip.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com


Africa's Long Heritage of Human Bondage

Nigerian history along the coast, like that of Sierra Leone and the Gambia, begins with the Portuguese. A Portuguese ship reached the Bight of Benin in 1472. Traders of other countries, including the British in particular, then began to reach this wild, forlorn, fragrant coast — they sought "pepper, Elephant's teeth, oyl of palm, cloth made of cotton wool very curiously woven, and cloth made of the barke of palme trees."

Soon came traffic much more lucrative, that in human beings. Indeed slavery dominates Nigerian history for almost three hundred years, with all its bizarre and burning horrors. We have already touched on slavery in East Africa; on the West Coast its history was different.

First: the origin of the Atlantic trade was the discovery of America and the consequent development of sugar plantations in the West Indies. When the American aborigines were killed off (by English, French and Spanish settlers), as they were promptly, a labor force had to be found somewhere, and slaves from Africa were a marvelously cheap (as valued by African tribes) and convenient device to this end. The trade brought fantastic profits.

In the Cameroons in the early days the purchase of a slave from African tribes was "two measures of Spanish wine" and he could be sold for a thousand ducats, the profit being 5,000 percent. As late as 1786, a slave could be bought from African tribes in Nigeria for 2 pounds and sold in America for 65 pounds. In that period, 100,000 slaves or more were shipped across the Atlantic each year.

Second: Aside from the British and Portuguese there were slave traders of several other nationalities, but Britain got a monopoly of the business by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1712.

Third: Africans were as much involved in the overseas slave traffic as the Europeans since the latter did not dare as rule penetrate inland from the sea — the interior was too dangerous.

Instead, they bought slaves from warlike African tribes — the Ashanti on the Gold Coast for instance — who seized and collected other Africans and marched them to the coast. As much barbarity accompanied these raids on Africans by Africans as accompanied the actual voyage across the ocean.

Fourth: Africans also sought and captured slaves for themselves. In Northern Nigeria for example, slavery was almost universal until most recent times; slavery did not become illegal in Nigeria till 1901, and a few domestic slaves are still alive who have never been emancipated. A case can be made for slavery and the slave trade. It is that tribal wars took place in the African interior without cessation, and that it was better for a man to be taken prisoner and made a domestic slave or even sold into slavery, than to be killed and perhaps eaten.

On a slave raid the object was to get the prisoner alive and with luck, he might survive the trip to America or Arabia. On balance, the slave trade (despite its inferno-like horrors) may have saved more lives than it cost. In any case it is the origin of a great many healthy, useful and progressive Negro communities in the Western world.

(Inside Africa, John Gunther, Harper & Brothers, 1955, excerpts)

Vandals Sack Jefferson Davis' Brierfield

From: bernhard1848@gmail.com

The Mississippi plantations of Joseph and Jefferson Davis, Brierfield and Hurricane, were models of kind treatment to the Africans in their care. James H. Jones, the colored body-servant of Mr. Davis at the end of the war, requested the honor of driving "the remains of my old master to their last resting place" after Davis' death in 1889. He did not want to be "deprived of the last opportunity of showing my lasting appreciation for my best friend."

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Vandals Sack Jefferson Davis' Brierfield

"When Union forces reached Grand Gulf and Davis Bend, a raiding party burned Hurricane on June 24, 1862. Although the raiders also prowled through Brierfield [plantation], for some strange reason they refrained from applying the torch to the house.

Grant initiated his thrust for Vicksburg from Memphis early in 1863. Farragut cooperated in this maneuver by renewing his surge upriver from the south. I May 1863, Brierfield was revisited by Federal troops. James W. Garner has written that "when Farragut's fleet steamed up the river in 1863, it stopped long enough to allow the marines to go ashore and destroy or carry away everything of value."

On June 1, 1863, a Vicksburg newspaper reported that Yankees had rifled Brierfield, destroyed all farming implements, as well as household and kitchen furniture, and badly defaced the premises. Pictures were probably then taken of "the House Jeff Built."

These events occurred during the prolonged siege when most Confederate soldiers in the area were bottled up in Vicksburg. After the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, the Union army took control of Brierfield and Hurricane . . . [consisting of] 1,000 acres, one mansion and ten quarters. It was reserved for the use of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands," known as the "Freedmen's Bureau."

Margaret Mitchell Bigelow has commented that "one of the most interesting experiments was the one of Jefferson Davis' plantation on Davis Bend. Here some seventy lessees, all Negroes, seemed to have been more successful than the Northern speculators.

The good showing of the Negroes at Davis Bend was due in part to the excellent training given by Joe and Jefferson Davis to their slaves before the war. This colony led by the [former slave Ben] Montgomery's eventually became the all-Negro colony of Mound Bayou."

Professor Bigelow also pointed out that in 1864 the "Jeff Davis Mansion" was headquarters for the Cincinnati Contraband Relief Commission of the Freedmen's Aid Society. On the entire 10,000 acre Davis Bend Colony, the home Farm in Mississippi, there were 1,750 freedmen at one time; and the project cleared $160,000 in 1865. The Brierfield part of the colony produced 234 bales of cotton for a profit of $25,000."

(Brierfield: Plantation Home of Jefferson Davis, Frank E. Everett, Jr., University and College Press of Mississippi, 1971, pp. 77-78)

Cabinet caught in gray area on Confederate vets

If you are outraged over this open & notorious discrimination  of great Florida Veterans being removed from consideration for induction into the Florida Veterans Hall of Fame, please drop the folks below a note (polite one please) of your opinion of the matter.

Please visit the link below to view the 1:36 minute news clip.

NBC News video: http://www.news4jax.com/news/cabinet-caught-in-gray-area-on-confederate-vets/31124058#comment-1839750090

Contact Governor Rick Scott                                  
http://www.flgov.com/contact-gov-scott/email-the-governor/

Attorney General  Pam Bondi                                
http://myfloridalegal.com/contact.nsf/contact?Open&Section=Attorney_General

Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnum        
http://app2.freshfromflorida.com/contact/?ID=1

Florida Veterans Hall of Fame   E-mail:            
FVHOF@FDVA.state.fl.us

Please title correspondence "LEAVE NO VETERAN BEHIND!" If you are a VFW member, please bring this to the attention of as many members as possible & encourage them to voice their opinion!

The bios of outstanding Florida Veterans EXCLUDED from CONSIDERATION from the Florida Veterans Hall of Fame:

Samuel Pasco  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pasco

Edward A. Perry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_A._Perry

David Lang   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lang_%28Civil_War%29


Please forward to your contacts if you find worthy. Silence is ACCEPTANCE.

Leave No Veteran Behind

Background:

Florida Division
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Heritage Defense Committee
David McCallister 813-778-1202
drmmystery1881@gmail.com

PRESS RELEASE

VETERANS DESCENDANCY GROUP CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION OF FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

February 4, 2015 – Tampa

The historical honor society, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, is calling for an investigation of the Florida Veterans Department Affairs headed by Mike Pendgergast.

Florida Statue 265.003 requires that he have brought forth the names of the nominees of the Florida Veterans Hall of Fame Council in ample time for the Florida Cabinet to act on the Council's nominees so they could be honored in a Veterans Day observance.  The Council nominated 8 nominees, however Pendergast's Department did not agenda the nominees with the Cabinet in 2014.

Furthermore, accounts are that he intends to violate the same Statue by excluding names of three nominees of the Florida Veterans Hall of Fame Council for discussion by the Florida Cabinet at its February 5, 2015 meeting.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is being asked to investigate the Department and their clear violation of            Florida Law.

Additionally, the Cabinet, in adopting any nominees in acting on some nominees and not others would also be complicit in what appears to be an attempt by the Department of Veterans Affairs to exclude 3 of the Council's recommendations simply because their service to Florida was when the State was not in Union with the United States of America, despite subsequent U.S. Congressional Acts that bestowed upon these Florida            Veterans the same rights as USA Veterans.

A press conference on the matter will be held at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, February 5, 2015 prior to the Cabinet Meeting at the Orient Road entrance (Gate 4) of the Florida State Fairground in Tampa, Florida.


Why Are CSA Veterans USA Veterans?

First and most significant is the fact that by Public Law 85-425, May 23, 1958 (H.R. 358) 72 Statute 133 states – "(3) (e) for the purpose of this section, and section 433, the term 'veteran' includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term 'active, military or naval service' includes active service in such forces."

As a result of this law the last surviving Confederate Veteran received a U.S. Military pension until his death in 1959, and from that day until present, descendants of Confederate veterans have been able to receive military monuments to place on graves from the Veteran's Administration for their ancestors. A Confederate Veteran should therefore be treated with the same honor and dignity of any other American veteran.

At least four U.S. Navy Ships within the submarine force have been named in honor of Confederate heroes or individuals associated with the CSS Hunley (first successful submarine to sink another vessel in combat). They are:

§  USS Dixon (AS‐37) (http://www.navysite.de/ships/as37.htm) named after the submarine's commanding officer, Lieutenant George Dixon, who died that February night in 1864.

§  USS Hunley (AS‐31) (http://www.navysite.de/ships/as31.htm) named after the submarine's designer, Horace L. Hunley, who died on the second Hunley training accident.

§  USS Robert E. Lee (SSBN 601) (http://www.navysite.de/ssbn/ssbn601.htm) Commanding General of the Confederate States Army, graduate of West Point, and arguably one of the most gifted military strategists in American history.

§  USS Stonewall Jackson (SSBN 634) (http://www.navysite.de/ssbn/ssbn634.htm) named after General Thomas Jackson, considered General Lee's "right hand man", who died at Chancellorsville, which many say            led to the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg and ultimately the loss of the War.

There is not a single Army Veteran who can say he has not served aboard one of the U.S. Military installations named for a Confederate hero.

§  Fort Benning, Georgia – Major General Henry L. Benning, CSA

§  Fort Bragg, North Carolina – General Braxton Bragg, CSA

§  Fort Campbell, Kentucky – Brig. General William Bowen Campbell, CSA

Fort Gordon, Georgia – General John Brown Gordon, CSA
Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia – Lt. General Ambrose Powell Hill, CSA
Fort Hood, Texas – General John Bell Hood, CSA
Camp Lee, Virginia – General Robert E. Lee, CSA
Fort Polk, Louisiana – Lt. General Leonidas K. Polk, CSA
Fort Rucker, Alabama – Colonel Edmond W. Rucker, CSA

Congressional Support

Background

At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a move in the North was made to reconcile with Southerners.  President McKinley was instrumental in this movement.  When the Spanish-American War concluded successfully in December 1898, President McKinley used this as an opportunity to "mend the fences".  On 14 December 1898 he gave a speech in which he urged reconciliation based on the outstanding service of Southerners during the recent war with Spain.  Remember, as part of the conciliation, several former Confederate officers were commissioned as generals to include former Confederate cavalry general, Wheeler.  This is what McKinley said:  "…every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war            [sic] is a tribute to American valor [my emphasis]… And the time has now come… when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers…The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in the year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead."

The response from Congress to this plea was magnanimous and resulted in the Appropriations Act of FY 1901 (below).

Remarks: McKinley's address as the President is significant.  He clearly alludes to Confederates as "Americans".  While the semantics may appear minor, the impact is major.  Confederate soldiers were already Americans, however, the President acknowledged this fact officially.  They are not addressed as "U.S." soldiers, but "American" which carries the import of giving them equivalent, not equal, status to Federal soldiers.  It did not grant them the right to a U.S. pension, however, it did recognize them as fellow countrymen due the respect and honor accorded to U.S. soldiers.

Congressional Appropriations Act, FY 1901, signed 6 June 1900

Congress passed an act of appropriations for $2,500 that enabled the "Secretary of War to have reburied in some suitable spot in the national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia, and to place proper headstones at their graves, the bodies of about 128 Confederate soldiers now buried in the National Soldiers Home near Washington, D.C., and the bodies of about 136 Confederate soldiers now buried in the national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia."

Remarks: More important than the amount (worth substantially more in 1900 than in 2000) is the move to support reconciliation by Congressional act. In 1906, Confederate Battle flags were ordered to be returned to the states from whence they originated.  Some states refused to return the flags. Wisconsin still has at least one flag it refuses to return.

Congressional Act of 9 March 1906

(P.L. 38, 59th Congress, Chap. 631-34 Stat. 56)

Authorized the furnishing of headstones for the graves of Confederates who died, primarily in Union prison camps and were buried in Federal cemeteries.

Remarks: This act formally reaffirmed Confederate soldiers as military combatants with legal standing. It granted recognition to deceased Confederate soldiers commensurate with the status of deceased Union soldiers.

U.S. Public Law 810, Approved by 17th Congress 26 February 1929

(45 Stat 1307 - Currently on the books as 38 U.S. Code, Sec. 2306)

This law, passed by the U.S. Congress, authorized the "Secretary of War to erect headstones over the graves of soldiers who served in the Confederate Army and to direct him to preserve in the records of the War Department the names and places of burial of all soldiers for whom such headstones shall have been erected."

Remarks: This act broadened the scope of recognition further for all Confederate soldiers to receive burial benefits equivalent to Union soldiers.  It authorized the use of U.S. government (public) funds to mark Confederate graves and record their locations.

U.S. Public Law 85-425:  Sec. 410 Approved 23 May 1958

(US Statutes at Large Volume 72, Part 1, Page 133-134)

The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have been applicable to such person under the laws in effect on December 31, 1957, if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval forces of the United States.

Remarks: While this was only a gesture since the last Confederate veteran died in 1958, it is meaningful in that only forty-five years ago (from 2003), the Congress of the United States saw fit to consider Confederate soldiers as equivalent to U.S. soldiers for service benefits. This final act of reconciliation was made almost one hundred years after the beginning of the war and was meant as symbolism more than substantive reward.

Additional Note: Under current U.S. Federal Code, Confederate Veterans are equivalent to Union Veterans.

U.S. Code Title 38 - Veterans' Benefits, Part II - General Benefits, Chapter 15 - Pension for Non-Service-Connected Disability or Death or for Service, Subchapter I - General, § 1501. Definitions: (3) The term "Civil War veteran" includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term "active military or naval service" includes active service in those forces.

Capt. Phil Walters
GatorGuides.com
Dixie Gator Trappers
Sponsor: Capt. JJ Dickison (CS)  "Grey Ghost" 1971 AMC Javelin
1st Lt Commander J.P. Benjamin camp 2210 SCV
National Rifle Association-Life member
Safari Club International-Life member
Sons of Confederate Veterans--Life member

Documentation CSA Ancestor & Joining SCV

SHNV Compatriots,
 
After my recent post on SHNV concerning the requirements and procedures for documenting a Confederate ancestor and joining SCV, I have received several requests for assistance. The information posted below explains the procedure I use to document a Confederate Ancestor so that one may join SCV.


Documentation of Confederate Ancestor and Joining the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Organization

A male descendant age 12 or older can join the SCV (Sons of Confederate Veterans) organization upon documentation and proof of an ancestor who was a Confederate veteran. He may join under a direct line (example-great great grandfather) or a co-lateral line (example-a brother of your great great grandfather who was a great great great uncle) by documenting CSA (Confederate States of America) military service.
   
When I document a Confederate ancestor for a person to join SCV I get info. on their parents, grandparents or great grandparents (names, exact or approximate birth and death dates, places of residence etc.) in 1930.

Then I find these individuals on the 1930 Federal U.S. census (the latest available to the public) and trace back 10 years at a time to 1860. As you search backwards an ancestor (example-Great grandfather) may be an adult in 1930 and a child or younger person in 1900 who may be still at home with his parents. Then you take the parents name and go backwards until you find him or her listed as a child perhaps 1880 or 1870 and you get the names of his or her parents and find them on an 1850 or 1860 census. Be aware that spelling of names, age, etc. sometimes varies from census to census and census takers sometimes missed individuals or families who were moving to a different location etc.

Unfortunately the 1890 census burned and is not available. I check the names of all males that are of age to be CSA soldiers in 1850 and 1860 against the CSA records. Your number of ancestors doubles with every generation as you go backwards (example-2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents and on & on). So I usually find one or more CSA ancestors from both the father's and mother's several family lines.
 
You have to pay and join one of the genealogy sites like ancestry.com or archives.com (the lowest cost) to have access to the U.S. Federal Census records.
 
Basic Confederate records (name, Regiment, Company) by state can be accessed by anyone at no cost. Do a Google search on a computer--enter "Soldiers and Sailors System National Park Service". Then open that NPS site and click on soldiers. Select Confederate then enter a surname and you can select a state or view a listing by surname and first and middle names or initials for all CSA states. The names of CSA soldiers are listed alphabetically A thru Z. There is some duplication because soldiers sometimes changed regiments. This site has about 6 million total names (more than actually existed due to duplication) for CSA and Union soldiers. Also some soldiers had the same first or middle names and/or initials.  On common names like Smith etc. there are often many soldiers with the same or similar names so it is often impossible to tell which one was your CSA ancestor that you are searching for. Sometimes already knowing the state, county, city or town, your ancestor was from and the regiment an ancestor was in solves this dilemma.

Since CSA records involving discharge, parole, surrender etc. during the confusion at the time of surrender are often unavailable, inaccurate, or unknown, I deem the documentation of the CSA ancestor's name and regiment as sufficient proof to join SCV in my camp.

Some complete CSA military records for a soldier are available from other sources such as Fold3 and national and state archives. Also some post war CSA state pension applications can provide greater details of a soldier's service. The CSA infantry and artillery records are more complete than cavalry records.
 
SCV members receive the national magazine The Confederate Veteran" every 2 months. Members of the Georgia SCV Division also receive a newspaper "The Georgia Confederate" every 2 months. Most camps also send a camp newsletter to members every month. A member also receives a color SCV certificate suitable for framing that includes the members name and his ancestors name, regiment, and company with the SCV emblem at the top.
 
The 3 primary purposes of SCV is 1.-preserve the memory of CSA enlisted men and officers, 2.-preserve CSA graves, monuments, historical markers, battle sites, flags, artifacts, mementos, and place new monuments and markers, and 3.-present the history, heritage, and culture of the Old South, the Confederate war years, and post-war reconstruction accurately. Since the victor of a war writes the history that which is presented in American history is at best a highly biased New England perspective and at worst no more than Yankee lies and propaganda.
 
The National SCV, State SCV Divisions, and many local SCV camps host one or more of the following events--a yearly Lee-Jackson Banquet, a yearly CSA memorial service, Christmas Banquet, CSA balls, CSA grave headstone decorations, erections, dedications, placement of CSA flags, and other events and some SCV members participate in reenactments. The national SCV and many SCV state divisions have annual reunions.
 
Anyone who meets the requirements to join SCV may join their local camp, national headquarters camp, or my Albany Georgia camp. Those who have no Confederate ancestor may join my camp as an associate member with all benefits except voting rights. The SCV organization currently has approximately 30,000 members, the majority in Southern states with a limited number in Northern and Western states and Europe.

James W. King
SCV Camp Commander Albany Georgia
Col. Thomas M. Nelson-Nelson's Rangers Camp 141
jkingantiquearms@bellsouth.net

After 150 years, Confederate submarine's hull again revealed

http://news.yahoo.com/150-years-confederate-submarines-hull-again-revealed-155951557.html

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A century and a half after it sank and a decade and a half after it was raised, scientists are finally getting a look at the hull of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship.

What they find may finally solve the mystery of why the hand-cranked submarine sank during the Civil War.

"It's like unwrapping a Christmas gift after 15 years. We have been wanting to do this for many years now," said Paul Mardikian, senior conservator on the Hunley project.

The Hunley sank the Union blockade ship USS Housatonic off Charleston in February 1864 as the South tried to break the Union blockade strangling the Confederacy. But the sub and its eight-man crew never made it back to shore.

The Hunley was discovered off the South Carolina coast in 1995, raised in 2000 and brought to a conservation lab in North Charleston.

It was covered with a hardened gunk of encrusted sand, sediment and rust that scientists call concretion.

View gallery

Conservator Virginie Ternisien works at removing the encrustation from the hull of the Confederate s …

Last May, it was finally ready to be bathed in a solution of sodium hydroxide to loosen the encrustation. Then in August, scientists using small air-powered chisels and dental tools began the laborious job of removing the coating.

Now about 70 percent of the outside hull has been revealed.

Mardikian said the exposed hull indeed has revealed some things that may help solve the mystery of the sinking.

"I would have to lie to you if I said we had not, but it's too early to talk about it yet," he said. "We have a submarine that is encrypted. It's like an Enigma machine."

He said the clues will be studied closely as scientists try to piece together what happened to the 40-foot submarine that night in 1864.

The Hunley had a 16-foot spar tipped with a charge of black powder that was exploded, sinking the Housatonic. After close examination of the spar two years ago, scientists speculated the crew was knocked unconscious by the shock wave of the explosion.

When the Hunley was first raised, scientists speculated the crew may have run out of air before they could crank back to the coast.

After the Hunley was raised, the sand and the silt and the remains of the crew in the interior were removed.

In April 2004, thousands of men in Confederate gray and Union blue walked in a procession with the crew's coffins four miles from Charleston's waterfront Battery to Magnolia Cemetery in what has been called the last Confederate funeral.

SCV Telegraph- May This Be the Year

SCV  Telegraph This new year is the 150th anniversary of the end of the fighting between the armed forces of the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. May it also be the end of the ongoing mendacious attacks on the honored heritage and history of the men who carried that fight for the Southern cause. May this be the year when the national media recognizes that the War Between the States was about the cultural, political, economic and Constitutional differences that had evolved from the shared national experience and not about the single issue of slavery in the Southern region. May this be the year when the full truth about slavery as the "American Sin" and not the "Southern Sin", be fully understood. May Americans learn that slavery was financed in the North, controlled by the Northern slave traders, and that the profits from the trade and from the cotton went mainly to the North. May this be the year when the divisive demagoguery of "political correctness" is exposed as the idiocy that it is and becomes a thing of the past,remembered only as a sad and silly period when decisions were made by an odd and distorted view of relationships, sensibilities, and common sense. May it be the year when people go back to making decisions based on the admonitions of our great religious teachings, and not on appeals to victimhood or prejudice. May this be the year when we begin to judge people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. May this be the year when the 70 million American descendants of those who fought for the Confederacy proudly stand up and be counted. May our voices be heard in such numbers that it will turn the tide of hatred and ignorance that comes daily against us. May this be the year when those bigots who use the beloved symbols of our courageous ancestors to spread a gospel of racial hatred and superiority be exposed as the fools they are. May this be the year when the flags of our forefathers once again stand for that which is the best within us, rather than the worst. May this be the year when we counter-attack the demagogues who wish to destroy every vestige of our Confederate heritage. May this be the year when our statues, monuments and gravestones are not attacked by vandals of every stripe, and when our flags fly more than ever in places of deserved honor. May this be the year when every member of our brotherhood becomes more involved as spokesmen for the Cause, and when all of us do something of active service every day to carry a positive message about our ancestry. May this be the year when the national media stops portraying our ancestors as "traitors" and portraying us as "Nazis", "white supremacists" and "racists". May this be the year when they recognize their own sanctimonious posturing and when they realize the stupidity of anyone assuming a moral superiority in matters of the heart. May this be the year when our national leaders transcend the weary, mean-spirited and divisive politics of yesterday and break through to policies that bring Americans together in mutual respect and purpose. May this be the year when we Sons of Confederate Veterans lead a victorious struggle for an honest modern understanding of the extraordinary and exemplary courage of our honored and beloved ancestors. May this be the year when we stand fearlessly together against the orchestrated smear campaign of those who would "culturally cleanse" the nation of any positive thought of our forefathers. May this be the year when our membership puts aside our petty differences and our personal ambitions and solidly unite for a higher and more important cause. May this be the year when we Sons of Confederate Veterans restore the good name of Robert E. Lee and the million men who left home and hearth to follow him. May our nation realize that the men of the Confederacy were thoroughly American, and that they were of many ancestries and races and creeds, and that they did what they did in their time because their forefathers had done the same. And above all, may this be the year when a Loving Creator guides all of us in every moment as we face the challenges of protecting our heritage while building our future. May the Great Healer intervene in the hearts and souls of all of us, and bring to closure the ancient wounds of our Nation's past. Ben Jones Chief of Heritage Operations     OFFICIAL SCVNEWS POST SCVNews and SCV Telegraph are Copyrighted 1999-2014, Sons of Confederate Veterans. The SCV Telegraph Mailing List is for Official SCV Use ONLY. DO NOT reply to this message. SCV Telegraph mailing list http://scv.org/maillistSubscription.php