Confederate Memorials Dishonored in Selma--Contributed by Susan Friese Hathaway

City of Selma, Alabama

Dear Mayor Evans and City Council Members,

I recently visited Selma, while in your area for a speaking engagement.

I had heard of the beauty of your city, and knew it was steeped in rich history, especially in regards to the War Between the States.  I have Confederate ancestors, a keen interest in the war, and like many Southerners, enjoy visiting sites and locations across the South. I was anxious to explore the history of the Battle of Selma, and its defense by the Confederate General, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

I was, to say the least, VERY disappointed in what I found, which was a town almost completely void of ANY vestiges of the events which took place there, and apparently ashamed of its rich Confederate history.  The only traces were found in the Smitherton House/Museum, which had excellent and informative displays inside and a wonderful guide who was very knowledgeable and helpful. 

Anxious to see the Confederate monument in Old Live Oak Cemetery, imagine my shock and dismay when I arrived to find the once picturesque cemetery now decaying from neglect.  I have seen neglected cemeteries before, but never imagined I would find this one, under the care of the city, in such poor condition.  In searching for the final resting place of General William Hardee, I came across slabs that had tire tracks on them.  It seems that cemetery employees actually run their tractors RIGHT OVER the tombstones!!!



The Confederate monument in the cemetery is breathtaking, and should be a showcase for the city.  Instead, I found that efforts by private citizens to make improvements to the monument, including adding handicapped access, had actually been BLOCKED by City Council when their building permit was revoked after attacks from local Civil Rights leaders.  Instead of being a focal point for the city, the Confederate section stands in disarray, with construction halted, caution tape surrounding the area, and the memory of our Confederate dead desecrated by the same City they fought so gallantly to defend.



I find it ironic that a city that wants so much to present itself as the jewel of the civil rights movement, now openly discriminates against those of us with Confederate heritage.  I felt completely unwelcomed and unwanted in your city.  Perhaps that is the goal of the administration, but when I drive through the city, carefully avoiding the traffic cones that mark the spots where man hole covers have been stolen, and sadly view the boarded up mansions and decaying properties, I wonder why Selma has chosen to disenfranchise a large group of people, who otherwise might visit, bringing much needed revenue into the city?

This is especially poignant as we are commemorating the Sesquicentennial of the War Between the States.  A renewed interest has increased tourism and revenue in many Southern cities.  Sadly, if the situation does not change, Selma will not be one of them.  I most certainly would NOT recommend Selma as a destination location for those interested in Southern history and heritage. 

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Susan Hathaway
Richmond, VA

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Virginia Flaggers In The News--Contributed by Susan Friese Hathaway

GA/VA Flagger Billy Bearden has recently had several guest appearances on the radio talk show "What's Up in West Georgia?" on WGMI 1440 in Carrollton, Georgia.  The host is a black man, born and raised in New York, who was intrigued after talking with Billy at a local event about the 56 Georgia flag he was carrying.  After more discussions, and some investigating, Dr. Jerry has become an enthusiastic supporter of Southern Heritage and the Confederate Cause.  Billy's appearances up to this point have been to discuss the SCV, heritage defense, the 56' flag issue, and most recently, the restoration of the Confederate Monument in Carrollton...
"Carroll County, Georgia, Confederate Monument Restored! Missing in Action for over 50 years, this past week saw the replacement of the 4 decorative 'cannonballs' on the Confederate Statue in Carrollton.

It all started back in 2007, when I read a book on Georgia Confederate Memorials loaned to me by Camp #1239 member Tony Gonzales. I discovered the Carroll County Monument would turn 100 in May of 2010. Initial suggestions were proposed, and plans were implemented with the enthusiastic assistance of Ga Div Historian Ernie Blevins of SCV camp #1239. A parade down historic Dixie Street, Guest Speaker Bill Chappell, Chairman of Carroll County Board of Commissioners, Newspaper and Radio coverage, and the creation and release of this great documentary by Mr Blevins were the result:

Always Looking North
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAx9pPdRkF8

During the research, it was discovered that the original 4 balls were missing for quite some time. Additionally, it was learned that 2 of the 4 balls had been stolen by Carrollton City workers to use as a decorative topping to 2 brick and mortar pillars at the entrance to the Carrollton Cemetery. 
Since that time, Ernie and I sought funding to restore the 4 balls. After the funding was available, we managed to enlist the local monument company to make and install the replacements.

More photos here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200274014031290.1073741825.1181542610&type=1

The 4 decorative balls that had been missing for over 70 years finally were replaced, just in time for Confederate Heritage and History Month!"
- Billy Bearden

THIS Monday, April 1st at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, Billy will once again be a guest, but this will be a very special show.  Dr. Jerry plans on having a friend from New York (who does NOT agree with his favorable view of the Confederate Battle Flag) call in and discuss the issue with Billy.



This should be a great show and we encourage everyone to please tune in, or listen online...  www.1440thetrain.com

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Va Flagger Cecil "Tommy" Thomas was featured in this great article recently:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/breaking/dp-honoring-the-confederate-dead-at-historic-st-johns-church-20130319,0,284220.story
"Cecil W. Thomas III has spent much of his free time scraping off the rust and restoring every one of the 166 crosses that honor the Confederate dead at St. John's Church in Hampton. Thomas has brushed off, primed and repainted 400 crosses over the past four years in cemeteries from St. John's to his old family burial ground at Mill Swamp Cemetery in Isle of Wight County."

We are proud to have Tommy has a Flagger and a friend.  His dedication and commitment to honoring our Confederate Ancestors is exceptional and we congratulate him on this well deserved recognition!



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And last, but certainly not least, our friend and Flagger, Sgt. Cliff Troutman was featured in Richmond's "Style Weekly" Magazine's "Pictures of the Year" for 2012, when he was photographed participating with the Va Flaggers in the 2012 Heritage Rally in Richmond. 

 

 

"Conflicted Confederacy: Published Feb. 28. Retired U.S. Marine Sgt. Cliff Troutman, who served in Vietnam, attends a Sons of Confederate Veterans rally at the Robert E. Lee monument on Monument Avenue.

Photographer's note: This guy just looked tough. He was the real deal in a crowd of people dressed as re-enactors. When he turned and stared down at me with piercing blue eyes and the cigarette clenched between his teeth, all the elements of a good image came together. The monument and flag help set the scene, but his face tells the story."

http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/2012-photos-of-the-year/Content?oid=1794893


Sarge is one of our most dedicated Flaggers, rarely missing a scheduled flagging and a staunch supporter on and off the sidewalk.  He is also a member of the Lee-Jackson Camp #1, SCV, a national officer for Wreaths across America and an advocate for Veterans through membership and leadership in many other Veterans' organizations.
 
In Vietnam, he was part of the 1st Battalion, 9th Regiment Marine Corp.  They had 800 marines and Navy hospital corpsmen.  747 were KILLED! 2 MIAs ....the unit was in 37 engagements(battles) from June '65 to July '69, when the unit was DE-commissioned due to combat casualties.  Ho Chi Minh told them that he was going to kill them all...so just consider themselves dead walking!  So they called themselves "The Walking Dead" and Troutman stills carries that name with pride.  Sergeant Troutman's job was radio communications, he was attached to the unit from 3rd Division HQ.  He was assigned a jeep loaded with weapons & radio repair parts, which he drove in the field.  He was the soldier who responded to the combat call: "Radio Out", so he would go to that broken radio and repair it during combat!  He and the Navy Corpsmen were the soldiers who responded to other soldiers' needs during combat.  He says, "A  few times, THEY almost got me too!"  He is truly one of a kind.  He & his unit did carry into battle & Fly the  Confederate Battle Flag, he says so that the Viet Cong would know it was the 1st Battalion, 9th Marine( The Walking Dead) they were fighting. Semper Fi!
 

"THE SOUTHERN NATIONAL COVENANT

~ The undersigned men and women of the South to our fellow Southerners and on their behalf. ~

Our fore fathers’ worst nightmare has now come upon us. They created a free government, limited in its powers and a servant to the people. But today the United States has become an empire, fast decaying into tyranny; and we their children have become strangers and subjects in the land our fathers won. Instead of a free and just social and political order, today we are threatened by a Godless national culture and a corrupt, despotic Federal government that knows no limits to its power.

Our political leaders, setting themselves above the law, have forged an unholy alliance with large corporations and the international money cartel. These elites have purchased the lawmakers who are sworn to serve the People, enabling them to expropriate our wealth in the greatest act of plunder in human history. Through threat of force, government seizes half of all we make for taxes, yet it is still not enough to satisfy the vaulting greed of our rulers. Thus government spends staggering sums above its revenues, saddling our People with debt so colossal that it cannot be repaid to the fifth generation. To service this debt, the government banking alliance has stolen our Constitutional and God-ordained right to sound money and has given the power to create money out of nothing to corrupt, private banking interests. Federal law forces us to use only this bank-created money; and because it must be borrowed into existence, our once free people have become enslaved to debt. The burden of confiscatory taxation, combined with runaway Federal spending and a currency manipulated to benefit the ruling elites, has brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy and economic collapse, with all the political and social turmoil that must inevitably follow.

The Federal regime has loosed upon us floods of immigrants, strangers to our laws and language embodying cultures and values contrary to those upon which our nation was founded, who are displacing us on the soil our fathers won with their sweat and blood. Fomenting hostility between the races and regions, our rulers have destroyed hope and spread despair. Injustice, tyranny, corruption, and deceit are the hallmarks of their governing. They call good evil and evil good, the recompense for which is divine judgement. Accelerated by dishonesty and corruption at every level of society and swept along by daily torrent of official lies, America is plunging toward the abyss. We watch transfixed with horror at the destruction of a once free and prosperous country and are forced to acknowledge the American political and economic system is no longer sustainable. It has become a long train of abuses, evidencing a design to reduce us under absolute despotism. Thus it cannot be salvaged or redeemed, only replaced.

We Southerners proclaim our right to be free of these evils our ancestors warned against and shed their blood to prevent. The seeds of our deliverance remain alive within our faith, culture, and historic principles of governance of individual liberty, rule of law, and impartial justice. Southern culture is founded on the enduring and permanent: trust in God, family, tradition, manners, property, community, loyalty, courage, and honour. We know that free and just government cannot derive from laws, regulations, bureaucracies, and ideologies. It springs only from the soil of faith and love, watered by struggle and sacrifice, and the harvest of which is liberty, justice, prosperity, and peace.

Before all the nations of the earth we affirm that we are a separate and distinct People, with an honourable heritage worthy of the respect of all mankind. Bound together by a shared history, faith, and blood, we have endured hardship and tragedy but have also enjoyed the fruits of Christian civilization built by God’s grace and the works of our hands. Under heaven, we possess the right to govern ourselves in our own land under our own laws, customs, and religion.

With more sadness than anger we recognize that the country our forebears bequeathed to us no longer exists. By depending on the central government’s increasingly worthless currency, its loans, subsidies, and payments, its putrescent schools, and its false promises of security, we have forged our own chains. But if we have forged our chains, we can also sever them.

We are left with no recourse but to look to our own counsel to secure our welfare. We must “abjure the realm,” withdrawing our support from the tyrannical government and corporate institutions created for our enslavement. Then we must work to restore the power of our States, the first bulwark of freedom, self-government, and Southern identity. As our forefathers did, we must establish a new foundation for law and government by all honourable means.

Therefore, with humble trust in the Sovereign Lord of Nations, and in the name of the Southern Nation and People whom we serve, we the Delegates of the fourteen Southern States, in Congress assembled 12 September 2009 in Delta, Alabama, make and publish this Covenant, to which we invite all Southerners who yearn for liberty and justice to join us in subscribing.

By this Covenant we corporately pledge ourselves to the protection of our Southern cultural heritage and to the defense of liberty and justice for the Southern People and States. We bind and oblige ourselves, as we are by God and nature tied, with our lives, fortunes, and sacred honour to stand in defense of our native soil and People, contrary to this perverse and infamous regime now arrayed against the South. We swear that we will be ever ready to use all our best endeavors for her preservation, and that we will not cravenly and shamefully bow the knee to tyrants. By this bond, each of us faithfully promises to assist one another as the need demands. All of which before God we most solemnly vow and promise to adhere to and never to turn from, all the days of our lives

In mutual support of one another as Christian Southerners, we covenant together:

• To renounce the evils of corrupt government that our forebears warned against, and to resist by all honourable means acts of Federal tyranny, as our circumstances permit and as the Lord leads.

• To seek to revive our local economies, working together to promote every man’s prosperity as our own and toward freeing ourselves from the snare of the Empire’s worthless money and perpetual debt which are the lifeblood of tyranny, and seeking a return to honest public money in daily use—gold and silver coin or currency backed by gold and silver.

• To support every measure which restores the sovereignty of our State and local governments, and the sovereignty of the Southern people.

• To resist any Federal statute or Presidential directive that threatens our fundamental freedoms of speech, press, assembly, exercise of religion, and petition for redress, freedom from illegal search and seizure, and the right of due process under law.

• Never to allow ourselves willingly to be disarmed nor submit to the confiscation of our means of lawful self defense; nor comply with any firearms registration scheme, which is the certain precursor to confiscation.

We declare before God and men that we earnestly desire to restore a Godly order in our respective States by peaceful means. We seek only that which may turn to the honour of God and the increase of peace and justice in our States and communities. Yet the growing evils of the time may not grant us the choice of peaceful means of redress. In such a pass, when criminal violence may be directed against one of us by the state, our fortunes shall be as their fortunes, their wives or husbands as our wives and husbands, their children as our children, their losses as our losses, and injuries done them as injuries to our own persons; and we shall not rest till they be delivered.

In witness thereof to the God of our Fathers, to all Southern People, to all powers, nations, and states, and to all humankind, we affix our names to this Covenant, beseeching the favour of Almighty God on a just cause. May God bless our Covenant and keep us faithful to perform all we have covenanted together to do.

Subscribed by the undersigned Citizens of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia."

Thanks to:
Sister Eileen Parker Zoellner
Tennessee Confederate Flagger

Here is proof that since the end of the WBTS, history has been revised.

Wednesday, March 31, 1897
MONTGOMERY’S HISTORY.
-----------
Some Glaring Falsifications in a Book used in some Schools in the State
[From the Abbeville Medium.]

On account of absence from home we temporarily discontinued our observations upon Montgomery’s Leading Facts of American History: a book which has been used for several years in our city schools by and with the consent of our board of trustees, who certainly never examined the book before its introduction.

The book is strictly partisan, and the author’s errors are not confined to the period of the war between the States. He has the puritancan view on almost every subject. Speaking of Aaron Burr and his duel with Hamilton, he characterizes the killing of Hamilton as “an act hardly differing from downright murder.” In our view Hamilton was as guilty as Burr. His being killed did not change the moral quality of his act in going on the field. Some appologist for Hamilton say that he was opposed to the Code, but this seems to be a mistake, for if he was opposed to the Code he would not have consented to meet Burr on the field of honor. When Hamilton met his deserved fate the hypocrites of New England began the cry against Burr and Montgomery is keeping it up.

Montgomery misrepresents the attitude of Napoleon towards the United States during the administration of Madison.

Montgomery says that Charles Sumner was brutally assaulted by Preston S. Brooks and so severely beaten over the head with a heavy cane that he gave up his seat in Congress for four years, while there can be no doubt that Sumner magnified his injuries to help along the anti-slavery crusade and posed before Europe as a martyr to liberty.
Montgomery says that when the war began the South was better prepared for it than the North “by having got possession of arms and ammunition.” This was an old story manufactured at the beginning of the war against Floyd, Secretary of War, for political purposes, but no intelligent man of this day puts any confidence in any such a yarn. It is well known that the Southern men who held office under the United States at the time of secession turned over all public property to the Government, including war vessels and all kinds of military supplies.

Montgomery says that in the beginning of the war the cry at the South was “On to Washington.” This is pure fiction, for the idea at the South was only to resist invasion and there was no design against Washington.

Speaking of Chancellorsville Montgomery says that while the Yankees were badly beaten, Hooker might possibly have gained the victory, but “at a critical moment he was stunned by a cannon ball and lay senseless for many hours.” Hooker’s injuries have been magnified by Montgomery in order to excuse his overwhelming defeat. He was only slightly hurt and was not out of his head for anything like “many hours.” It was not the cannon ball that rattled Hooker so much as the charge made by “Lee’s incomparable infantry,” as described by Draper, a Northern historian, who is not so prejudiced as Montgomery.

It is not necessary to give any more examples of the mistakes made by Montgomery in his Leading Facts of American History. This book has been used by teachers and these errors perpetuated among our children, and none of our teachers have protested against the use of this partisan volume.

It is any wonder why people do not know their history.
Zak

Thanks to:
John Zakrzewski (Zak)
Dixie's Living Historians

"Can Southern Culture Survive?"

By Franklin Sanders

In the early fall, a member of our vast editorial staff took a vacation on South Carolina’s coast, on one of the sea islands near Beaufort. Travelling to gracious Savannah, then surveying the ruins of Sheldon Church in South Carolina that was burned first by the British and then by the Yankees, walking down Meeting Street surrounded by sumptuous, elegant Charleston’s magnificent churches and mansions, hiking the battlefields at Kings Mountain and Cowpens where Southern men (mostly Tennesseans) won the Revolution, passing through the Museum of Early Southern Design Art at Old Salem, North Carolina, and driving through the countryside of Virginia, the astonishing grace and accomplishment of Southern culture surrounded him, but left a hushed question behind.

Is it clean gone forever? Has Southern culture, even the unique folkways and customs of Southerners high and low, disappeared? Or does Southern culture yet live?

Much of it has been replaced with bogus government culture. In every hamlet and county, the Yankee empire has planted “Arts Councils,” which have as much to do with cultivating art as those high-school condom giveaways have to do with cultivating chastity. Government money always decapitalizes the recipient; government help always achieves a result opposite to the one claimed. Government “help” for agriculture has driven farmers off the land, decimated rural culture, and is even now driving the last of the tobacco farmers off the land. In the same way, government art subsidies do not build but destroy Southern culture, replacing our native culture with something shallow and alien. They work exactly as their purveyors intend them to work.

Southerners tend to think of their culture as distinguished primarily by manners, the gracious way we (are supposed to) behave toward each other. But history shows that Southerners have from the very beginning been a people who did all things well, even elegantly.

For the South, the word “culture” brings first to mind Southern literature, from William Gilmore Simms to William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. Next music springs to mind. Yet an automobile trip through the South will not be long stretched out before the eyes discover astonishing architectural treasures, and I don’t mean those hideous metastasized warehouse-churches foisted by crazed architects on tasteless church deacons. Dig further and you will find Southern painters, silversmiths, cabinetmakers, quiltmakers, and artisans of every breed and calling. For instance, how many silversmiths were in Tennessee before the War? Dozens, several in every large city. How many are there today? I don’t know of one, but that’s all right. Silversmiths alone don’t make a culture – an appreciative audience is necessary first. Build the audience, and the silversmiths will come.

That’s my great concern: is the cultural audience still in the South? Does Southern culture yet live? Have we given up treading water, fighting to keep Southern culture alive, and resigned ourselves to drowning in the tide of American mediocrity?

Ahh, I can’t speak for the whole South, but I can speak for my little plot in Tennessee. Where these Southerners stand, the South lives and will live, and Southern culture will survive.

Southern culture doesn’t live in the jails of museums, opera halls, ballet stages, or art galleries. It’s too delicate for that. It can only survive in the hearts and minds and daily acts of the Southern people. To imprison it in those alien places would kill it forever.

Maybe your artistry only shows up with a dog and a gun in a canebrake, or maybe it blossoms in your holy kitchen. Maybe it appears in the infinitesimal stitches of the quilts you made for your grandchildren. Or in the hoof rasps you hammered into tomahawks over a smoking forge. Maybe Southern culture still lives in the perfect jar of pickles, or in a ham the likes of which this world has never thrown a tongue over, or in a garden where the rows are so straight that a weed wouldn’t have the nerve to take root, or in the mysterious dance of pointer and quail and Tennessee walker.

Maybe Southern art is in that magical run on banjo, guitar, or piano, in a child’s first crayon drawings, in the stories that pour out of old men like springs out of caves.

Living well is not only the best revenge, it also mothers the best art. When our everyday and necessary tasks arise deliberately from praise and thanksgiving, we offer back to God a dance of joy that not even angels can share.

And that is culture indeed.

~ Franklin Sanders, The Free Magnolia ~"

Thanks to:
Sister Eileen Parker Zoellner
Tennessee Confederate Flagger

Selma Confederate Monuments Disrespected--Contributed by Susan Friese Hathaway

City of Selma, Alabama

Dear Mayor Evans and City Council Members,

I recently visited Selma, while in your area for a speaking engagement.

I had heard of the beauty of your city, and knew it was steeped in rich history, especially in regards to the War Between the States.  I have Confederate ancestors, a keen interest in the war, and like many Southerners, enjoy visiting sites and locations across the South. I was anxious to explore the history of the Battle of Selma, and its defense by the Confederate General, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

I was, to say the least, VERY disappointed in what I found, which was a town almost completely void of ANY vestiges of the events which took place there, and apparently ashamed of its rich Confederate history.  The only traces were found in the Smitherton House/Museum, which had excellent and informative displays inside and a wonderful guide who was very knowledgeable and helpful. 

Anxious to see the Confederate monument in Old Live Oak Cemetery, imagine my shock and dismay when I arrived to find the once picturesque cemetery now decaying from neglect.  I have seen neglected cemeteries before, but never imagined I would find this one, under the care of the city, in such poor condition.  In searching for the final resting place of General William Hardee, I came across slabs that had tire tracks on them.  It seems that cemetery employees actually run their tractors RIGHT OVER the tombstones!!!



The Confederate monument in the cemetery is breathtaking, and should be a showcase for the city.  Instead, I found that efforts by private citizens to make improvements to the monument, including adding handicapped access, had actually been BLOCKED by City Council when their building permit was revoked after attacks from local Civil Rights leaders.  Instead of being a focal point for the city, the Confederate section stands in disarray, with construction halted, caution tape surrounding the area, and the memory of our Confederate dead desecrated by the same City they fought so gallantly to defend.



I find it ironic that a city that wants so much to present itself as the jewel of the civil rights movement, now openly discriminates against those of us with Confederate heritage.  I felt completely unwelcomed and unwanted in your city.  Perhaps that is the goal of the administration, but when I drive through the city, carefully avoiding the traffic cones that mark the spots where man hole covers have been stolen, and sadly view the boarded up mansions and decaying properties, I wonder why Selma has chosen to disenfranchise a large group of people, who otherwise might visit, bringing much needed revenue into the city?

This is especially poignant as we are commemorating the Sesquicentennial of the War Between the States.  A renewed interest has increased tourism and revenue in many Southern cities.  Sadly, if the situation does not change, Selma will not be one of them.  I most certainly would NOT recommend Selma as a destination location for those interested in Southern history and heritage. 

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Susan Hathaway
Richmond, VA

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Call To Flagging ! 4/13/2013

Call To Flagging ! 4/13/2013

Green Hill Cemetery, Elizabethton, Tennessee

Ok folks here goes. The next Flagging at Green Hill Cemetery will be April 13th, 12:00p.m. - 4:00p.m. The weather should be improving the next few weeks so hopefully there'll be more of you there. I know some of you are thinking , why are we Flagging Green Hill every month. Well the answer is simple, the Wautauga Hysterical Assc. hasn't addressed any of the issues that are in question. The gates still chained & locked, making access to the cemetery unsafe to get into. The elderly and the handicapped don't have safe access period.I can testify to that. Also in past years the WHA has mowed the cemetery , leaving the Confederate gravesites untouched. Chances are that will be the case this mowing season. The disrespect for the Confederate Soldiers buried there is an atrocity. We've had some that have showed up to almost every Flagging & have been well recieved by the general public.

A lot of valuable information has been passed out that these folks may have never known or heard about. My hero, Susan Hathaway , has flagged or spoken to people all over the South about our Southron cause. We need to be doing to same. The more we stand there on the line, the more people will learn. Oh, by the way one soldiers grave was left outside the perimeter of the cemetery by WHA, so that should tell you want they think of our ancestors. Folks be proud of you ancestors and Flag for the Southron way of life & for our ancestors & our History ,before we lose it all together.

Tennesee Flagging Co-Ordinator
Colonel Mike Shaffer (Doc)
400 Shelby St. Apt. 413
Bristol, Tenn. 37620
http://www.facebook.com/bigmikeshff
bigmikeshff@yahoo.com

"DEO VINDICE"


Call To Flagging ! 4/13/2013

We must forevermore do honour to our heroic dead

“…We must forevermore do honor to our heroic dead. We must forevermore cherish the sacred memories of those four terrible but glorious years of unequal strife. We must forevermore consecrate in our hearts our old battle flag of the Southern Cross – not now as a political symbol, but as the consecrated emblem of an heroic epoch. The people that forgets its heroic dead is already dying at the heart, and we believe we shall be truer and better citizens of the United States if we are true to our past.” ~ Confederate Veteran Rev. Randolph Harrison McKim ~

Thanks to:
Sister Eileen Parker Zoellner
Tennessee Confederate Flagger

The honour these dead Confederates were denied in life, they found in death.

The photo is of Confederate dead soldiers in the Wheatfield Near Emmittsburg Road - Gettysburg PA, July 1863

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln dedicated the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with those immortal words: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation...."

Those words, which will probably last as long as this Nation lasts, were spoken to dedicate a cemetery for the Union soldiers who gave their "last full measure of devotion" on Gettysburg's bloody battlefield. But what honor was accorded the Confederate dead? Where were they laid to rest?

Following the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate dead were buried along the roads, shoved into trenches, or consigned to common graves. The Southerners were seen as traitorous invaders and their bodies were not accorded the respect afforded the men in blue. One newspaper reporter wrote: "The poor Confederate dead were left in the fields as outcasts and criminals that did not merit decent sepulture." President Lincoln's immortal words were not spoken over their unattended, and unmarked, graves.

Reacting to the lack of proper burial for these Southern soldiers left at Gettysburg, the Southern states launched efforts to return the bodies of their sons to their native states following the end of the War Between the States. In Richmond, the Hollywood Memorial Association started a fund drive to secure the money to bring the Confederate dead from Gettysburg to Richmond for reburial in Hollywood Cemetery.

Their efforts proved successful. On June 15, 1872, a steamship docked at the wharf at Rocketts on the James River with boxes containing the Confederate dead. The soldiers who left Virginia to fight for the cause they thought was just, had come home. No one will ever know for sure, but in one of the precious boxes were probably the unidentified remains of Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett, who was killed while leading his men in what history has labeled "Pickett's Charge."

Pickett's Charge, which took place in the afternoon of July 3, 1863, started when General George E. Pickett ordered his men forward yelling, "Charge the enemy and remember old Virginia!" Over 13,000 Confederates emerged from the woods on Seminary Ridge and headed toward the waiting Union forces on Cemetery Ridge, which was nearly a mile away.

It was described by a Union soldier as Confederates charging forward "with the step of men who believed they were invincible." Union shot and shell tore into the marchers, but still they came. It was recorded that the battle noise was "strange and terrible, a sound that came from thousands of human throats...like a vast mournful roar." With muskets firing, flags waving, bayonets fixed and swords pointing forward, the flower of Southern manhood moved forward, ever forward. The fighting was bitter as the Confederates flung themselves across a stone wall which separated the two armies. The battle was awesome, the human casualties appalling; and the Union's fate hung on the outcome. It was, however, the Confederacy that died on that stone wall as the men in gray were repulsed by the Union forces.

Their charge had failed. General Garnett, who was ill on the day of the charge, led his men into what was described as a mission to "hell or glory." As he plunged with his men through a hail storm of lead, Garnett was ripped apart by grape shot and his body was left unidentified on Gettysburg's field.

The honor these dead Confederates were denied in life, they found in death. On June 20, 1872, fifteen wagons were assembled at Rocketts to carry the boxes containing the remains of the Confederate dead. Each wagon was draped in mourning and was escorted by two former Confederate soldiers with their muskets reversed.

The funeral procession, which included both political as well as military leaders of the recently defeated Confederate nation, wound its way up Main Street as it moved toward Hollywood Cemetery. The buildings along the route were draped in black, and they echoed to the plaintive sound of the funeral march.

As the wagons passed slowly by, "many eyes were filled with tears and many a soldier's widow and orphan turned away from the scene to hide emotion." When the procession reached the cemetery, the boxes were unloaded and buried in a section known as Gettysburg Hill. The soldiers who had escorted the bodies were ordered to "rest arms" as their comrades were laid to rest in Virginia's soil.

There was nothing comparable to the Gettysburg Address for these soldiers. There were no memorable orations; only a prayer by The Rev. Dr. Moses Hoge of Richmond's Second Presbyterian Church was spoken. The prayer contained these lines: "We thank Thee that we have been permitted to bring back from their graves among strangers all that is mortal of our sons and brothers." Dr. Hoge prayed for those who had survived the war and then intoned, "Engrave upon the hearts of...all the young men of our Common- wealth the remembrance of the patriotic valor, the loyalty to truth, to duty, and to God, which characterized the heroes around whose remains we weep, and who surrendered only to the last enemy...death."

Following the prayer, three musket volleys were fired in a final tribute to those whose bodies were laid to rest for all eternity on Hollywood's sacred hill. The sounds of the muskets echoed across the cemetery, across the River James, and they still echo today across the pages of history.

Thanks to:
Sister Eileen Parker Zoellner
Tennessee Confederate Flagger

Why Do I Fight / An Open Letter

From: HK Edgerton hk.edgerton@gmail.com>Date: Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 2:22 PMSubject: Why Do I Fight / An Open LetterTo: siegels1 siegels1@mindspring.com>

 

Dear Ms.Lunelle, On this morning of March 25, 2013, as I sat trying to forge a letter and a mock brief to Dr. Neil Payne Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Southern Legal Resource Center in a request to file a negligence lawsuit suit against the Congress of the United States for its failure to curb the activities of the NAACP, a 501C3 non-profit organization and other organizations that come under its rule and regulation as they continue to desecrate the Congressional Venerated symbol known as the Confederate Battle Flag, and the monuments of the soldiers that carried it; I would be faced by one of my babies who would be denied to participate in a film asking for extras participating as Confederate soldiers because he was 13 years of age. Young Ewing Willis somewhat disappointed would follow his comrades to the film shooting to my total out rage because this was historically inaccurate as I was reminded by the Honorable Roger McCredie that the last surviving Confederate soldier, the Honorable Walter Williams of Texas like so many of his peers entered the war at the age of nine. I told my babies that Ewing should don the uniform of the Confederate soldier as they should all do, but only do so to protest the film, and not participate in it. However, I was told that the boys should go for the experience, and the $8.00 an hour that they would receive. Just like the many times I have had to bite my tongue and watch as Southerners support those who stick it to us ; the Boy Scouts of America, American Legion Post#2 in Knoxville, Tennessee, John McCain, Mitt Romney, James Carville, and now former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton who in an interview with John Stossel proclaim that it was right to kill thousands of Confederates and their families without due process; I again ask myself why do I put my life on the line every day if my Southern family won't civil rights fight, or at the very least support those of us who will. And then I would remind myself of the Honorable Paul McClaren of Mississippi, Ms. Emily McDonald of Tennessee, Justin Michael Williams of Missouri, the seven men of the Dupont company in Virginia, young Candice Yvonna Hardwick of Latta, South Carolina who I wrote a letter to the President asking for a Presidential Pardon, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Dixie Outfitters, young Caleb Abbott who wrote and gave an oral report about my work for my homeland during so called Black History Month, or the throngs of folks who champion my Stand in Dixieland with a great deal of love. While still unhappy and unable to find out the whereabouts of this film making so that I too could don my uniform with the Southern Cross in hand not to participate, but to protest this filming; I would continue on with my brief and letter to Dr.Payne and forward this letter to Ms.Juli Emmons ( thewmsextras@gmail.com ) who is in charge of the extras in the cast.God bless you. Your brother, HK DONATE TO HK AT:  www.southernheritage411.com

Carter County, TN Mayor Proclaims April Confederate History and Heritage Month

Mayor Leon Humphrey has proclaimed the month of April 2013 as Confederate History & Heritage Month in Carter County, TN.  He was earlier presented, in his office, a copy of the January/February 2013 issue of “Confederate Veteran”, the Confederate Third National Flag, an 8X10 photo of the Carter County Confederate Veterans Memorial, a CD titled “The Truth About the Confederate Battle Flag” and a DVD titled “Carter County Confederates”.

The Proclamation was presented by him at a meeting of Carter County Commission on March 18, 2013.  The Proclamation was accepted by the Lt. Robert J. Tipton Camp #2083 of Elizabethton.  A standing applause was given by Commission and the attendees to the meeting.  The Proclamation presentation can be viewed at http://www.cartercountytn.gov/videos/ .

 

              Confederate History and Heritage Proclamation

WHEREAS, April is the month in which the people of the Confederate States of America began and ended a four-year heroic struggle for states' rights, individual freedom, local government control and determined struggle for deeply held beliefs; and

WHEREAS, Carter County supplied citizen soldiers and officers who fought for their beliefs in this great struggle; and

WHEREAS, Carter County, Tennessee has long recognized her Confederate history, the officers and enlisted men of the Confederate States Army and the Navy and those at home who made sacrifices on behalf of their families, homes, communities, and country; and that it is just and right to do so; and

WHEREAS, the noble spirit and inspiring leadership of these great officers, leaders, and the ordinary men and women, free and not free, of the Confederate States is an integral part of the history of all of America; and

WHEREAS, it is important for all citizens of Carter County to reflect upon our past and to respect the devotion of her Confederate leaders, soldiers, and citizens to the cause of Southern liberty; and

WHEREAS, Carter County, Tennessee is proud to recognize and celebrate the devotion of her Confederate soldiers and all those from Carter County who fought and sacrificed in this great struggle that divided families, the nation, and our State; and

WHEREAS, the knowledge of the role of the Confederate States of America in the history of our nation and our State is vital to understanding who we are and what we are; and

WHEREAS, we honor our past and from it draw the courage, strength and wisdom to reconcile ourselves, and go forward into the future together as citizens of Carter County, Tennesseans and Americans;

NOW, THEREFORE, I Leon Humphrey, Mayor of Carter County, on this 18^th day of March 2013 do hereby recognize April 2013 as Confederate History and Heritage Month in CARTER COUNTY, TENNESSEE and urge all citizens of the county to engage in a historical study of the events of the years 1861 to 1865, inclusive, and to solemnly contemplate that time in our history and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.

_____________________ Leon Humphrey Carter County Mayor