FORWARD THE COLORS By Leon Puissegur

FORWARD THE COLORS

By Leon Puissegur

Price:  $16.95
http://amzn.to/RDNRtN

Starting with the Confederate Battle Flag the book delves into the flag's beginning and abuses. It next goes into the history of slavery and how it was first legalized and why it continued. It covers the attempts at the 13th Amendment from the Crittenden Compromise to the 13th Amendment of 1865. It covers Abraham Lincoln exposing his ideas about the blacks and what he really felt about them along with exposing the "Emancipation Proclamation" as the lie it was. It covers the real reasons for the War for Southern Independence, also called the War Between the States, and Civil War. It covers the parts played by the NAACP and the KKK in relation to the Confederate Battle Flag. In the last chapter, it covers facts seldom if ever shown in school or textbooks.

The Elements of Academic Success treats the South fairly

Merry Christmas! I am proud to announce three things: The publication of the most powerful academic self-help book this year - The Elements of Academic Success, How to Graduate Magna Cum Laude from College - and it is PRO-South, which really means pro-truth. Parents and grandparents of college and high school students, click on the cover, below, and see it on Amazon. The first 10% is available as a sample. Further down in this e-mail is another sample demonstrating how NOT-politically-correct it is. It is 232 pages of academic dynamite and student empowerment, and it can be given as a gift. Just click the "Give as Gift" button on the right side of the page on Amazon. There will be a softcover printed edition out by the end of December. The second thing is LOTS of Christmas Specials on www.BonnieBluePublishing.com! Almost every Southern History and Literature DVD is substantially discounted for the holidays including a Buy-One-Get-One-FREE on the two-DVD set on black Confederates featuring Professor Edward C. Smith. The third thing: Holiday Specials on www.WorldHistory101-102.com. Here's a sample DVD. Click it to go to website where the complete set of all 80 World History 101 and 102 DVDs was $498 but is now, $388! Also want to offer my services for eBook formatting and production. I can take your manuscript and turn it into a beautiful eBook in NO time, on Amazon for worldwide sales. My charge is usually somewhere between $195 and $395. Please see www.CharlestonAthenaeumPress.com for details. If any camp or chapter has something they want to make available for sale on Amazon as an eBook, let me know and I'll do the best I can on a price! Sample from The Elements of Academic Success. There are 10 chapters and 351 enumerated topic sections. Here are #256 through #264 from Chapter VIII, "Papers and Writing" 256. Be aware of the scourge of political correctness on scholarship and free speech. Since the rise of political correctness, many events of the past are interpreted according to the latest political fashion instead of the standards that existed at the time. This is kin to another scourge, advocacy journalism, in which some "journalists" apply their morals, or lack thereof, to the news, and report on it that way rather than giving us the impartial facts. This is another reason why Americans hold the press in such low esteem these days. Political correctness makes history little more than propaganda, just as advocacy journalism turns the front page into the editorial page. 257. You can not possibly understand history by using today's standards to judge the past. You HAVE to look at the past the way the people who lived in the past looked at it. That's how you understand the past. 258. Political correctness is ignorance and leads to a total lack of historical understanding. You can't define the past by snippets of acceptable history here and there. For example, the South gets beat up all the time for slavery but most slave traders were New Englanders who made huge fortunes in the process. An argument can be made that the entire infrastructure of the Old North was built on profits from slave traders such as Boston's Peter Faneuil of Faneuil Hall fame. That's why most Northerners had NO problem with slavery. Less than 5% were abolitionists, and ironically, many abolitionists didn't like slavery because they didn't like blacks and did not want to associate with them. One such person was Rep. David Wilmot, Democrat from Pennsylvania. Wilmot sponsored the Wilmot Proviso to keep slavery out of the West, though his real goal was to keep blacks out of the West, and he admitted it. Abraham Lincoln also said, in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, that he wanted the West reserved for white people from all over the earth. No blacks allowed. While many say that slavery was the cause of the War Between the States, Abraham Lincoln said it was not. Before the war, Lincoln favored the first 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would have left black people in slavery FOREVER, even beyond the reach of Congress. That Amendment passed in the Northern Congress after Southerners seceded, and was ratified by some Northern States before the war began and made it moot. There are breaths of fresh air here and there such as the 2005 book Complicity, How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery, by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank of The Hartford Courant (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005). History is always more complex than the self-moralizing, politically correct want you to believe. 259. Southern history as it is taught today is a "cultural and political atrocity," and students are being CHEATED. Esteemed historian, Eugene D. Genovese, who passed away September 26, 2012, was disgusted with the way Southern history is taught today. He writes: To speak positively about any part of this Southern tradition is to invite charges of being a racist and an apologist for slavery and segregation. We are witnessing a cultural and political atrocity---an increasingly successful campaign by the media and an academic elite to strip young white Southerners, and arguably black Southerners as well, of their heritage, and therefor, their identity. They are being taught to forget their forebears or to remember them with shame. (my emphasis). Eugene D. Genovese, The Southern Tradition, The Achievement and Limitations of an American Conservatism (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1994), xi-xii. A perfect example is William Gilmore Simms. According to Edgar Allan Poe, Simms was the greatest American writer of the 19th century. Simms wrote 82 book-length works including 20 that are very important in American history and literature. He understood the publishing industry of that era better than anybody and wrote about it. He chronicled American westward expansion when Alabama was the edge of the West; and his Revolutionary War novels, set in and around Charleston, are exciting, vivid history as it happened. Simms was a nationally recognized expert on the Revolution. He wrote dramatic, historically accurate scenes of when the British conquered Charleston and marched in, and when they lost the war and marched out, and everything in between. Simms also knew the local Indians extremely well and much of what is known about them is in his work, including their languages. There is a bust of William Gilmore Simms in White Point Gardens at The Battery in Charleston, high up on a beautiful pedestal. But Simms is not studied because he was a slaveholder. 260. Young students of History and literature should examine everything. Don't assume the War Between the States was about slavery when the economy of the North collapsed into near-anarchy as the Southern States seceded. The Northern economy was dependent on manufacturing and selling to its captive Southern market, and without the South, Northern factories stood idle. The South, on the other hand, seceded and was ecstatic at finally having control of its own economy. Southerners had always wanted free trade and immediately wrote into their constitution a prohibition on protective tariffs. The North, at the same time, passed the astronomical Morrill Tariff, which made goods entering the North 40% to 70% higher. This was aimed at Southerners, as all the antebellum tariffs had been, so European goods would be too costly for Southerners to afford and they would have to buy from the North at higher prices. But with the South out of the Union, Southerners were no longer obligated to pay Northern tariffs, and suddenly, much-sought-after Europeans goods were far less expensive for Southerners than Northern goods. 261. Those historians with a vested interest in maintaining that slavery caused the war, are not telling you the truth, and they are cheating you out of understanding much of American history. Economic factors were HUGE in 1861 just as they are today. The collapse of the Northern economy, alone, was enough for Abraham Lincoln to want war. Just look at our own era. We have been quite willing to go to war to maintain the free flow of oil from the Middle East because a disruption of the oil supply means economic hardship, even collapse. Gas prices would soar and cause the price of everything else to jump off the scale. Business would grind to a halt. People would lose their jobs and not have money to feed their families. They would be angry and in the street. You can imagine what would happen if supplies of oil to the United States were cut off abruptly and completely! Fortunately, that would never happen because we would go to war to prevent it. We have. But, "abruptly" and "completely" is exactly what happened to the North when the South seceded and the Northern Congress passed the Morrill Tariff. Instantly, it would cost the rest of the world 40% to 70% more to do business with the North, so NOBODY wanted to. The rest of the world was beating a path to the South, where protective tariffs were unconstitutional and where there was a huge market for goods, and that market was wealthy because it controlled King Cotton, which had been 60% of U.S. exports alone in 1861. The North had shot itself in the leg with the Morrill Tariff - actually, it had shot itself in the head. Northern greed and mismanagement made the economic destruction of the North inevitable, and Northern leaders were in a panic. Don't take my word for it. Read the words of ALL Northern newspaper editors after January, 1861, when it became apparent that the North needed the South, but the South did not need the North. Northern editors were not thinking about slavery. They were thinking about their own wealth and economy, and they were all petrified. War was preferable for them just as the disruption of oil made war preferable for us. An excellent two-volume book makes Northern newspaper editors easy to study: Northern Editorials on Secession, a 1964 reprint edited by Dr. Howard Cecil Perkins, Volumes I and II, published by Peter Smith, Gloucester, Massachusetts. Northern Editorials on Secession was originally published in 1942 by the American Historical Association. 262. Another major issue was unfair taxation - British taxes were a huge issue in 1776 but were MINUSCULE compared to what the South was paying in 1861. For Southerners, 1861 was 1776 all over. Southerners were paying 3/4ths of the Federal Government's taxes, but 3/4ths of the tax money was being spent in the North. Robert Toombs famously called it a suction pump sucking wealth out of the South and depositing it in the North. The level of "taxation without representation" that led to the Revolutionary War was miniscule compared to what the South was suffering prior to seceding. The point is that politically correct historians who tell you that it is cut and dried that slavery caused the War Between the States, are being dishonest and many are lazy because they have not been required, by vigorous academic debate, to look into other issues - especially economics. Many don't understand economics, and why should they bother. It is too easy for them to play up slavery and call anyone who disagrees a racist. However, we have fought two Gulf Wars in our own times to guarantee the free flow of oil because a disruption would cause an economic meltdown and untold problems. No government is willing to risk that, because history has shown us that an economic collapse will get out of control and lead to a collapse of the government itself, and anarchy. War is preferable. It's true today and it was true in 1861. So, look deeply into the entire picture and assume nothing. 263. Be a scholar. Read primary sources. Read the words of the people of the past, their speeches, newspapers, diaries, laws and documents. Pay attention to secondary sources from historians you trust, and give no credence to those you don't. That's fair and responsible. In your writing, debunk the scholars you disagree with, and tell why they are wrong. 264. Write what you want. Don't let political correctness chill free speech and intimidate you into not writing on a topic that interests you. Talk to your professor. The best professors will encourage you. And if one discourages you, find a way around him/her by approaching the topic from a different angle. If he/she brings up some historian who goes against your conclusions, then YOU bring up two who support them. History should always be a vigorous debate. Do exhaustive research and a thoughtful analysis and document everything properly. Argue with power, vigor, confidence, clearly and persuasively. Do NOT use today's standards, or lack thereof, to judge the people of the past. Understand how the people of the past viewed their lives and times, and what their standards were, and why. That's what real scholarship is about. Thank You! Magna est veritas et praevalebit (Great is truth and it will prevail) Gene Kizer, Jr., Publisher Charleston Athenaeum Press www.BonnieBluePublishing.com P.O. Box 13012 Charleston, SC 29422-3012 If you do not want to receive any other e-mails, please reply back with "Remove" in the subject line and I will remove you promptly. Thanks.

Bye Bye, Miss American Empire: Crusades to Redraw America's Political Map By Bill Kauffman

Bye Bye, Miss American Empire:
Crusades to Redraw America's Political Map
By Bill Kauffman
List Price:  $17.95
SHNV/SWR Price:  $11.90  


http://amzn.to/YASbPD

It's been almost a century and a half since a critical mass of Americans believed that secession was an American birthright. But breakaway movements large and small are rising up across the nation. From Vermont to Alaska, activists driven by all manner of motives want to form new states-and even new nations.

So, just what's happening out there? The American Empire is dying, says Bill Kauffman in this incisive, eye-opening investigation into modern-day secession-the next radical idea poised to enter mainstream discourse. And those rising up to topple that empire are a surprising mix of conservatives, liberals, regionalists, and independents who-from movement to movement-may share few political beliefs but who have one thing in common: a sense that our nation has grown too large, and too powerfully centralized, to stay true to its founding principles.

Bye Bye, Miss American Empire traces the historical roots of the secessionist spirit, and introduces us to the often radical, sometimes quixotic, and highly charged movements that want to decentralize and re-localize power.

Civil War Roster of Davie County, North Carolina: Biographies of 1,147 Men Before, During and After the Conflict By Mary Alice M. Hasty

Civil War Roster of Davie County, North Carolina: Biographies of 1,147 Men Before, During and After the Conflict

By Mary Alice M. Hasty

Price:  $55.00

http://amzn.to/SE3moX


It could be said that Davie County, North Carolina, entered the Civil War only reluctantly. As late as February of 1861, a statewide ballot calling for a convention on secession had been defeated by a relatively small margin of votes. In Davie County, however, some 754 people voted against the convention, with only 263 in favor. Yet despite the initial opposition, an enormous number of Davie County men signed up to fight. Out of a population of 6,000, more than 1,200 men served in the Confederate forces, three-fourths of them volunteers. This book seeks to identify every man who either served in a Davie County company or who left Davie County to enlist in another county and to provide as much information as possible concerning each man's military and genealogical history.

Sisters pen book on Civil War history

SLAVERY AND LINCOLN'S Unnecessary, Unconstitutional, Uncivil WAR and Aftermath By Spencer Gantt

SLAVERY AND LINCOLN'S Unnecessary, Unconstitutional, Uncivil WAR and Aftermath
By Spencer Gantt
Price:  $14.95 
http://amzn.to/Wjtt98

What if they both turned out to be unnecessary, unconstitutional and uncivil?

Most Americans have been programmed into a tunnel vision about American slavery and the Civil War. There are facts about each that many of us have not read, have not been taught, and have not even imagined. Think about it. How many of us believe, for example, that the South started the war in order to retain slavery? Yet ninety-four percent of the southern population did not own slaves. Nor did they want slaves.

Slavery and Lincoln's War will take you on the same enlightening journey author Spencer Gantt traveled after reading two seminal works: The Redneck Manifesto and The South Was Right! He presents you here with all of the facts, all equally weighed, so that you can make your own decisions as to what really is the truth about the North, the South, slavery and Abraham Lincoln.

Find out who trafficked slaves to the North American shores. Learn how the Union Army conducted a war against civilians. This book will shed new light on the complicity of many who have claimed to be "pure and without sin" when it comes to these two American evils, slavery and Lincoln's war.

Slavery and Lincoln's War also contains a thoroughly researched and extensive bibliography for further reading in this subject.

On the Road to Glory, A Western Quest Series Novel By Stephen L. Turner

On the Road to Glory, A Western Quest Series Novel
By Stephen L. Turner
List Price:  $19.95
SHNV/SWR Price:  $15.56 

http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/0865347948

On the Road to Glory, the fifth volume in the Western Quest Series, follows Aaron Lloyd Turner, his brothers David and Noah, and their brother-in-law, Pinckney Hawkins, through the greatest tragedy in American history, the Civil War. Aaron's father had died when he was only a toddler. He was raised by his mother, Nancy, and his brothers and sister. As the drum beat of war sounded, Aaron's brothers decided to enlist. Not to be left behind, Aaron lied about his age and enlisted as a big for his age twelve year old. Aaron thought he was departing for the adventure of a lifetime as they rode proudly out of Texas with the Fifteenth Regiment. He was captured at the fall of Fort Hindman, Arkansas and spent time in the notorious Camp Stephen Douglas. He fought at Chickamauga, where he killed his first man. He knew victories and defeats at Chattanooga, the Atlanta and Tennessee Campaigns. He fought under the great leaders of the war in the west, Braxton Bragg, Joseph Johnston, and John Bell Hood. He found that what had appeared to be the road to glory was the highway to hell. He struggles to survive and return home to Texas a world weary fifteen year old, a changed young man.

Gone: A Photographic Plea For Preservation By Nell Dickerson, Shelby Foote, Robert Hicks

Gone: A Photographic Plea For Preservation
By Nell Dickerson, Shelby Foote, Robert Hicks
List Price:  $29.95
SHNV/SWR Price:  $19.57 
http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/1611940036

GONE is a powerfully moving volume that will change how you see the forgotten buildings that hide in obscurity across the Southern landscape.

The Civil War (SIC) had been over for exactly ninety years in 1954, when my cousin, Shelby Foote, published--PILLAR OF FIRE--as part of his novel, Jordan County: A Landscape in Narrative. The book's stories painted a vivid picture of a fictitious Mississippi county steeped in Southern culture.

PILLAR OF FIRE took readers into a heartbreaking and commonplace scene late in the Civil War, when Union troops moved through the civilian South destroying not only plantations but also ordinary homes and cabins. Those troops, battle-hardened and bitter from the loss of their own brethren, shared the tragic effects of war.

In PILLAR OF FIRE, they take no joy in burning a home in front of its dying, elderly owner and his frail servants. The cruelty of the circumstances is as much a given for them as the dying man's grief over all the memories that burn with his house.

Now, on the eve of the Civil War's 150th commemoration, my mission is to draw attention not only to the architectural heritage devastated by the war but also the heritage we've lost since then: to neglect, to poverty, and to shame, as the war's infamy colored the attitudes of later generations and tainted the homes those generations inherited. What the war didn't take, time and apathy did. And yet those grand old homes whether mansion or cabin deserve our reverence and protection.

   ******************

General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse

General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse
By Joseph Glatthaar
List Price:  $18.95
SHNV/SWR Price:  $12.14 
http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/1416596976

You would be surprised to see what men we have in the ranks," Virginia cavalryman Thomas Rowland informed his mother in May 1861, just after joining the Army of Northern Virginia. His army -- General Robert E. Lee's army -- was a surprise to almost everyone: With daring early victories and an invasion into the North, they nearly managed to convince the North to give up the fight. Even in 1865, facing certain defeat after the loss of 30,000 men, a Louisiana private fighting in Lee's army still had hope. "I must not despair," he scribbled in his diary. "Lee will bring order out of chaos, and with the help of our Heavenly Father, all will be well."

Astonishingly, after 150 years of scholarship, there are still some major surprises about the Army of Northern Virginia. In General Lee's Army, renowned historian Joseph T. Glatthaar draws on an impressive range of sources assembled over two decades -- from letters and diaries, to official war records, to a new, definitive database of statistics -- to rewrite the history of the Civil War's most important army and, indeed, of the war itself. Glatthaar takes readers from the home front to the heart of the most famous battles of the war: Manassas, the Peninsula campaign, Antietam, Gettysburg, all the way to the final surrender at Appomattox. General Lee's Army penetrates headquarters tents and winter shanties, eliciting the officers' plans, wishes, and prayers; it portrays a world of life, death, healing, and hardship; it investigates the South's commitment to the war and its gradual erosion; and it depicts and analyzes Lee's men in triumph and defeat.

The history of Lee's army is a powerful lens on the entire war. The fate of Lee's army explains why the South almost won -- and why it lost. The story of his men -- their reasons for fighting, their cohesion, mounting casualties, diseases, supply problems, and discipline problems -- tells it all.

Glatthaar's definitive account settles many historical arguments. The Rebels were fighting above all to defend slavery. More than half of Lee's men were killed, wounded, or captured -- a staggering statistic. Their leader, Robert E. Lee, though far from perfect, held an exalted place in his men's eyes despite a number of mistakes and despite a range of problems among some of his key lieutenants.

General Lee's Army is a masterpiece of scholarship and vivid storytelling, narrated as much as possible in the words of the enlisted men and their officers.

A History of the 15th Missouri Cavalry Regiment, C.S.A Product Options

A History of the 15th Missouri Cavalry Regiment, C.S.A Product Options

$14.95

By Jerry Ponder

The 15th, seldom mentioned in Trans-Mississippi Civil War works, was brigade sized in strength and acted as the first line of defense for the Confederate Army over a wide area along the Missouri-Arkansas border. The book deals with the military records of this illustrious regiment and the social and political aspects within the region. Many gave their all and suffered great economic losses by their loyalty. Soft-cover, 169 pages, includes a very good accurate roster of these men. Great work!

http://www.burntdistrictpress.com/?p=468

True Tales - The Civil War In Missouri

True Tales - The Civil War In Missouri
$14.95

By Carolyn M. Bartels

It’s taken ten years, but, the ultimate reference to the Missouri State Guard has finally reached the printing stage! 500+ pages, over 1000 officers, 4000 notes and sources and it’s all indexed for ease in referencing •• Soft- cover.

http://www.burntdistrictpress.com/?p=647

Oxford in the Civil War (MS): Battle for a Vanquished Land

Oxford in the Civil War (MS): Battle for a Vanquished Land
By Stephen Enzweiler
List Price:  $19.99
SHNV/SWR Price:  $14.39 
http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/1596293187

Reviewed by Greg Stewart 

Oxford in the Civil War: Battle for a Vanquished Land is a unique view of Oxford and Ole Miss just as the land there was first settled by Europeans and during the War Years.  The author, Stephen Enzweiler, tells the story of the conflict through the lives of the people living there, an effective departure from simply describing battles, strategies, and troop movements in the area.

The story begins with the arrival of the 1st wave of pioneer citizens that come  mostly from the Carolinas:  the Thompson, Pegues, and Isom families.  They founded Oxford.  The second group arrived as the Cotton Boom of the 1940's and 1850's was in full tilt.  They include LQC Lamar, E.A.P Barnhard, Augustus Longstreet, and Dr. Henry Branham.  Finally, the last arrivals to Oxford, just before the War, were the students at the University , most of whom never made it back after the War.  None of the University Greys did, the storied unit mustered on campus at the start of the War.  One of them, Jeremiah Gage, purposefully stained his last letter home to his mother with blood from his mortal wound received just before the fateful charge of the Greys at Gettysburg. 

Enzweiler's skillful use of contemporary letters and correspondence is buttressed by his use of later documentation gathered by the WPA.  Former slaves from that time were interviewed (some being the same slaves owned by the masters that wrote or received the earlier letters).  Their recollections matched the owners and citizens description of an epic story of turbulent change and personal sacrifice.

The personal approach to the true story of the real people who lived through the times is a must read for any friend of Oxford, Ole Miss and history.

Oxford in the Civil War: Battle for a Vanquished Land is a unique view of Oxford and Ole Miss just as the land there was first settled by Europeans and during the War Years.  The author, Stephen Enzweiler, tells the story of the conflict through the lives of the people living there, an effective departure from simply describing battles, strategies, and troop movements in the area.

The story begins with the arrival of the 1st wave of pioneer citizens that come  mostly from the Carolinas:  the Thompson, Pegues, and Isom families.  They founded Oxford.  The second group arrived as the Cotton Boom of the 1940's and 1850's was in full tilt.  They include LQC Lamar, E.A.P Barnhard, Augustus Longstreet, and Dr. Henry Branham.  Finally, the last arrivals to Oxford, just before the War, were the students at the University , most of whom never made it back after the War.  None of the University Greys did, the storied unit mustered on campus at the start of the War.  One of them, Jeremiah Gage, purposefully stained his last letter home to his mother with blood from his mortal wound received just before the fateful charge of the Greys at Gettysburg. 

Enzweiler's skillful use of contemporary letters and correspondence is buttressed by his use of later documentation gathered by the WPA.  Former slaves from that time were interviewed (some being the same slaves owned by the masters that wrote or received the earlier letters).  Their recollections matched the owners and citizens description of an epic story of turbulent change and personal sacrifice.

The personal approach to the true story of the real people who lived through the times is a must read for any friend of Oxford, Ole Miss and history.

Lee, Last of the Cavaliers -- The Restoration of Arlington Mansion

Lee, Last of the Cavaliers

From: bernhard1848@att.net

In a postwar letter to British Lord Acton, Robert E. Lee noted that the South would have desired "any honorable compromise to the fratricidal war which has taken place," but that now the South had no choice but to submit to the results of the war.  Being an optimist despite the desolation around him, he concluded the letter with "I trust that the Constitution may undergo no change, but that it may be handed down to succeeding generations in the form we have received it from our forefathers."

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Lee, Last of the Cavaliers:

"People who are ignorant of history sometimes ask: "Was not Lee ungrateful to the United States that had educated him at West Point?"  The truth is, there might never have been any West Point but for Virginia, for Washington planned it, and Jefferson carried out his idea of a great military academy; while the Lees, as the colonial leaders in Virginia, had served the country as burgesses, governors and military leaders, and signers of the Declaration, so that when Robert E. Lee was appointed a cadet at West Point through the influence of Gen. Andrew Jackson, it was in due recognition of what American owed the Lees, liquidating a debt of patriotism.

At the Academy, Lee's high sense of duty made his course so honorable that he graduated without ever receiving a single demerit; and later, in the war with Mexico, fully repaid by his service all his obligations to his Alma Mater.   He also served as Superintendent of West Point, where the dignity of his life added prestige to the institution and forever blessed the memory of those who, as pupils and professors, were associated with him.  West Point today cherishes his name.

In 1902, when West Point celebrated the centenary of its usefulness, there was full recognition given to the Confederate roster, which numbered nearly one hundred and fifty distinguished generals, among whom were many Virginians – such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, Custis Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, Joseph R. Anderson, Joseph E. Johnston, Jubal A. Early, George E. Pickett, Richard S. Ewell, Ambrose Powell Hill – each of whom received special eulogy.

In the toast on Alumni Day to the "Confederate Veteran," the orator said: "How shall I speak to you of the great Lee, whom it was an education to know?  Never elated and never depressed, but always calm in reliance upon his troops and upon himself, whose soldiers relied upon him and loved him unto death!..."

When the twilight began to gather for the great silence, General Lee met his end as he had lived, Christ's faithful soldier and servant to life's end. His last act was to lift his hand in benediction, as he sought to ask a blessing for the evening meal; then, stricken, he sank into his chair.  The long years of usefulness, the heavy strain of responsibility, the great life work, were ended.  The chastening touch of time had melted his strength into a tender glory that blended with a radiant splendor like a sunset on the Alps.

The force of his example was the beacon light of the ruined South. Here he was even more splendid in defeat than he had ever been in battle; and he fell like a soldier on a shield that knew no stain, surrendering his soul to his Captain, Christ, under whose colors he had fought ever since the days back at Christ Church, Alexandria, when he joined the Church militant. In Christ Church, Alexandria, at prayer, he decided the momentous question of resigning from the Union Army; and there to-day, are two modest marble tablets – the one to George Washington, vestryman; the other to Robert E. Lee, the Christian, whose chivalry made him the last of the Cavaliers."

(The Restoration of Arlington Mansion, Mrs. William Lyne, Confederate Veteran, May, 1929, pp. 184-187)

Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse

Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse
By Kate Cumming, Richard Barksdale Harwell
List Price:  $21.95
SHNV/SWR Price: $14.93
http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/080712267X

A view of the War told from a different kind of battlefield. With no prior medical experience, Kate Cumming volunteered to become a nurse at the outbreak of the Civil War. Working in Confederate hospitals and units throughout the South, Cumming witnessed the ravages of war on a daily basis. When she found the time, she chronicled her experiences in her journal. A riveting account of war, Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse also presents a rare first-hand look at the medical practices, lifestyles, politics, and attitudes of the late 19th century.

Faces of the Confederacy: An Album of Southern Soldiers and Their Stories

Faces of the Confederacy: An Album of Southern Soldiers and Their Stories
By Ronald S. Codington
List Price:  $31.95
SHNV/SWR Price:  $23.32 
http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/0801890195

The history of the Civil War (sic) is the stories of its soldiers," writes Ronald S. Codington in the preface to Faces of the Confederacy. This book tells the stories of seventy-seven Southern soldiers -- young farm boys, wealthy plantation owners, intellectual elites, uneducated poor -- who posed for photographic portraits, carts de visited, to leave with family, friends, and sweethearts before going off to war. Codington, a passionate collector of Civil War--era photography, conducted a monumental search for these previously unpublished portrait cards, then unearthed the personal stories of their subjects, putting a human face on a war rife with inhuman atrocities.

The Civil War took the lives of 22 of every 100 men who served. Codington follows the exhausted survivors as they return home to occupied cities and towns, ravaged farmlands, a destabilized economy, and a social order in the midst of upheaval. This book is a haunting and moving tribute to those brave men.

Jo Shelby's Iron Brigade

Jo Shelby's Iron Brigade

$29.95

By Deryl P. Sellmeyer.

The toughest, most accomplished cavalry brigade west of the Mississippi River was Gen. Jo Shelby’s Iron Brigade. This factual, fully documented account traces the Confederate units history from it’s origin through the end of the Civil War. Free from romanticized exaggerations, this work is the most reliable historical source on the subject. Every march, camp, and battle that could be identified from source material is recorded in this story of leadership, brotherhood, and the American West. Deryl P. Sellmeyer spent two decades researching the true story of this illustrious military unit his great-great- grandfather served in as a private.331 pages plus 51 pages of notes, photos, and index. Hard-cover.

http://www.burntdistrictpress.com/?p=479

Elmira: Death Camp of the North

Elmira: Death Camp of the North
By Michael Horigan
List Price:  $19.95
SWR/SHNV Price:  $14.96 

http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/0811732762

The Civil War (sic) prison camp at Elmira, New York, had the highest death rate of any prison camp in the North: almost 25 percent. Comparatively, the overall death rate of all Northern prison camps was just over 11 percent; in the South, the death rate was just over 15 percent. Clearly, something went wrong in Elmira. The culmination of ten years of research, this book traces the story of what happened. Author Michael Horigan also places the prison in the context of the greater Elmira community by describing the town in 1864 and explaining its significance as a military depot and draft rendezvous.

The Equestrian Statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest

The Equestrian Statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest

"In Forrest Park, Memphis, Tennessee, surrounded by fifteen thousand spectators, at 2:30PM on May 16 [1905] little Miss Kathleen Bradley pulled the cord that released the veil from the magnificent equestrian statue of her illustrious great- grandfather, Lieutenant-General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

There was momentary silence as the imposing grandeur of this colossal bronze figure of the great "Wizard of the Saddle" and his steed met the gaze of the expectant crowd, then a wild cheer broke from hundreds of his old surviving followers clustered around the base and was enthusiastically taken up by the vast multitude. 

The idea of erecting a monument to General Forrest was first projected in 1886, but it was not until 1891 that it took definite shape and a monument association was organized for this purpose.  On November 18, 1900, the design was accepted and the order was given to the sculptor, Charles H. Niehaus. The designer of the base was Mr. B.C. Alsup, and it is built of Tennessee marble. The statue, which was made in Europe, arrived in Memphis on April 16, and was placed on its base a day or two later.

The unveiling of the monument was attended with elaborate ceremonies. In the big parade were most of the surviving staff officers of General Forrest, his general officers, and many of his old veterans who rode with him from 1861 to 1865.

Judge J.P. Young, who was one of Forrest's old troopers, was master of ceremonies.  In the opening proceedings he said in part:

"No one who did not ride with Forrest can have so keen an appreciation of the personal qualities of the man as those who were actually under his direct command, and who, from daily, hourly observation, witnessed his fertility of resource, his vehemence in battle, and his soulful tenderness toward the stricken soldier, whether friend or foe.

But it was no holiday parade. It cost something to ride with Forrest. It meant days and nights of sleepless toil and motion. It meant countless miles under a burning sun in the choking dust. It meant limitless leagues across icy wastes, with a blanket of snow at night for a covering. It meant to run down and destroy miles of freighted supply trains, to burn depots of stores, to scale the parapets of redoubts, and to plunge, mounted, into the seeming vortex of hell, lighted with the fires of a myriad rifles and scores of belching guns.

It meant to meet death face to face like a drillmaster, to look into his dread eyes, to toy with the horrid trappings of his trade, to scorn the daily chill of his breath, and to turn away unscathed or sink into the oblivion of his eternal embrace."

Of the many eloquent tributes paid to the great soldier that day, one of the most significant was that spoken by Colonel C.A. Stanton, of the Third Iowa Cavalry, 1861-1865, who for two years was directly opposed to General Forrest.  He realized Forrest's methods of war at Brice's Cross Roads, Ripley. Harrisburg, Old Town Creek, Tallahatchie, and Hurricane Creek.

The spectacle of an officer who had fought in the Federal army delivering an address at the unveiling of a Confederate monument was an interesting one, and when Colonel Stanton was introduced the applause was most generous. Colonel Stanton said in part:

"General Forrest possessed the characteristic traits of the successful soldier;  his personal bravery was without limit; his resources seemed to be endless; and his decisions, like Napoleon's, were instantaneous; he was aggressive, masterful, resolute, and self-reliant in the most perilous emergency; he was comprehensive in his grasp of every situation, supremely confident in himself and his men, and inspired by his presence and example his soldiers fought as desperately as did Hannibal's fierce cavalry at Canne or the trained veterans of Caesar's Tenth Legion at Pharsalia.

I think the battle at Brice's Cross Roads in June, 1864, was one of the best illustrations of General Forrest's daring courage, his ability in a critical moment to decide swiftly, his relentless vigor of action, and his intuitive perception of the time and place to strike fierce, stunning blows which fell like thunderbolts upon his enemy and won for him in this battle an overwhelming victory over an opposing force which greatly outnumbered his command.

Impartial history has given General Forrest high rank as one of the greatest cavalry leaders of modern times. No American, North or South, now seeks to lessen the measure of his fame, and no one can speak of him without remembrance of the men who served with him and whose soldierly qualities made it possible for him to win his wonderful victories.

This monument is history in bronze; it illustrates an eventful era in our national history; it commemorates General Forrest's fame and it represents all the gallant soldiers of his command; it attests the splendid courage which won triumphant victories and did not fail when reverses came; it stands for heroic deeds which are now the proud heritage of all American citizens.

It is eminently fitting that this figure should stand here within the borders of the Volunteer States, whose soldiers have marched and fought "from valley's depth to mountain height and from inland rivers to the sea," in every war in the history of our republic, with a valor which has helped to make the name and fame of the American soldier immortal."

(Historic Southern Monuments: Representative Memorials of the Heroic Dead of the Southern Confederacy, B. A.C. Emerson, The Neale Publishing Company, 1911, pp. 313-318)

Dixie After the War, An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South

Flocking to Lincoln's Army and Freedom

From: bernhard1848@att.net

Like the British before them in the Revolution and War of 1812, Northern promises of emancipation and freedom were intended to incite race war in the South, deny labor to Southern agriculture which fed its armies in the field, and defeat the struggle for political independence.  The freedmen found that their liberators cared little for them, Sherman expressed his disdain for black refugees following his army by burning bridges he had crossed.    

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Camp Followers of Lincoln's Army

"[Postwar] Letters teemed with experiences like this: "We went to sleep one night with a plantation full of Negroes, and woke to find not one of them on the place – every servant gone to Sherman in Atlanta.  Negroes are camped out all around the city. We had thought there was a strong bond of affection on their side as well as ours! 

We have ministered to them in sickness, infancy, and age.  But poor creatures!  They don't know what freedom is, and they are crazy. They think it an opening of the door of Heaven. Some put me in mind of birds born and raised in a cage and suddenly turned loose and helpless; others, of hawks, minks and weasels, released to do mischief.

We heard that there was much suffering in the [Negro] camps; presently our Negroes were all back, some ill from exposure. Maum Lucindy sent word for us to send for her, she was sick. Without a vehicle or team on the place, it looked like an impossible proposition, but my little boys patched up the relics of an old cart, borrowed the only steer in the neighborhood, and got Maum Lucindy back.

The [returned servant] raiders swept us clean of everything.  We are unable to feed ourselves. How we shall feed and clothe the Negroes when we cannot make them work, I do not know."

My cousin, Mrs. Meredith of Brunswick, Virginia, congratulated herself, when only one of her servants deserted her post to join Sheridan's trail of camp-followers. A week after Simeon's departure, she awoke one morning to discover that six women had decamped, one leaving two little children in her cabin from which came pitiful wails of "Mammy!"  Mammy!". 

Simeon had come in the night, and related [that at the nearby Northern garrison at Blackstone] coloured women were parading the streets with white soldiers for beaux.  My cousin, Mrs. White, said a whole wagon-load of Negro women passed her house going to Blackstone, and that one of them insisted upon presenting her with a four-year-old child, declaring it too much trouble.   It was not an unknown thing for Negro mothers to leave their children along the roadsides."

(Dixie After the War, An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South, During, Myrta Lockette Avary, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1906, pp. 190-191)

The Battle of Franklin (TN)

The Battle of Franklin (TN)
When the Devil had Full Possession of the Earth
By James R. Knight
List Price:  $19.99
SHNV/SWR Price:  $17.09 
http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/159629745X

In late November 1864, the last Southern army east of the Mississippi that was still free to maneuver started out from northern Alabama on the Confederacy's last offensive. John Bell Hood and his Army of Tennessee had dreams of capturing Nashville and marching on to the Ohio River, but a small Union force under Hood's old West Point roommate stood between him and the state capital. In a desperate attempt to smash John Schoeld's line at Franklin, Hood threw most of his men against the Union works, centered on the house of a family named Carter, and lost 30 percent of his attacking force in one afternoon, crippling his army and setting it up for a knockout blow at Nashville two weeks later. With firsthand accounts, letters and diary entries from the Carter House Archives, local historian James R. Knight paints a vivid picture of this gruesome conflict.

Burying the Dead but Not the Past: Ladies' Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause

Burying the Dead but Not the Past: Ladies' Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause
By Caroline E. Janney
List Price:  $37.50
SHNV/SWR Price:  $30.87
http://astore.amazon.com/souhernewvie-20/detail/080783176X

Immediately after the Civil War(sic) white women across the South organized to retrieve and rebury the remains of Confederate soldiers scattered throughout the region. In Virginia alone, these Ladies' Memorial Associations (LMAs) relocated and reinterred the remains of more than 72,000 soldiers, nearly 28 percent of the 260,000 Confederate soldiers who perished in the war. Challenging the notion that southern white women were peripheral to the Lost Cause movement until the 1890s, Caroline Janney restores these women's place in the historical narrative by exploring their role as the creators and purveyors of Confederate tradition between 1865 and 1915.

Although not considered "political" or "public actors," upper- and middle-class white women carried out deeply political acts by preparing elaborate burials and holding Memorial Days in a region still occupied by northern soldiers. Janney argues that in identifying themselves as mothers and daughters in mourning, LMA members crafted a sympathetic Confederate position that Republicans, northerners, and, in some cases, southern African Americans could find palatable. Long before national groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the United Daughters of the Confederacy were established, Janney shows, local LMAs were earning sympathy for lost Confederates. Janney's exploration introduces new ways in which gender played a vital role in shaping the politics, culture, and society of the late nineteenth-century South.