by Daryl Coleman, 1st Lt. Cmdr & Newsletter Editor

Editing a camp newsletter is something I deeply believe to be both an honor and a responsibility. As an editor, I get to judge the content and the style of our camp’s newsletter, and I get to do something I really enjoy doing. In light of the fact that I have and will have the honor of presenting a short newsletter class at some of the Leadership Training Conferences we are holding around the Texas Division, I would like to share some thoughts on the content aspect of this. You might call this Coleman’s Suggested Content Rules for Camp Newsletters.

Rule 1

When writing a camp newsletter, remember first and foremost that you are representing The Sons of Confederate Veterans. This means that you, the editor, are editing your camp’s newsletter under the name and logo of the organization, and as such you have the responsibility to faithfully represent the organization in a good light by displaying honor and honesty to the very best of your ability.

Rule 2

Never use the camp newsletter to forward a personal agenda. In other words, don’t use the newsletter to advance a personal cause which lies outside of the stated purposes or goals of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. If you need clarification on this, read the SCV Purpose Statement, which can be found on our national website and near the end of this newsletter. This would include waging a war of words upon a fellow SCV member (especially by name) in good standing. By way of example, I saw this very thing occur while I was in my first camp in the SCV a number of years ago, where the newsletter editor literally waged a verbal assault upon the man who at that time was the Commander-in-Chief of the SCV (a man who was voted into that position by the membership). Yes, I know full well they had differences (the editor was himself a past CINC of the organization), but he used the camp newsletter to wage this war, and I happen to think he was wrong to use it for that purpose. Our editor at that time had forgotten that the newsletter belonged to the camp and not to him personally.

Rule 3

Never use the camp newsletter to advance personal arguments against current political leaders. This is NOT to say that we cannot advocate for a position on aheritage violation or something like that. For example, I believe it entirely appropriate to advocate against the recent actions of the leadership at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, or against the Chancellor at Ole Miss for his recently announced plans to do away with the nickname of ‘Ole Miss’ at the University of Mississippi, or against the city leaders for their renaming of parks in Memphis, Tennessee. Rather, I am suggesting that ragging on a fellow camp member due to his personal faith views, or sexual orientation, or political affiliations in the camp newsletter should be viewed as entirely inappropriate. Personally, I have deep differences with some fellow SCV members over faith issues, political affiliations and personal/social issues, but it is not my right or responsibility to use the camp newsletter to advance or air out those issues. It is my opinion that should an editor ever choose to step over this line, the camp should have him step down from that responsibility, or at least seek to come to an understanding about it.

Rule 4

Know your potential audience. The camp newsletter, while primarily for the benefit of your camp members, will most likely also be read by SCV members outside your own camp, as well as by prospective future SCV members. Also, there is a strong possibility that your newsletter will be read by members of the press and by those who would love nothing more than to be given ammunition which could and would be used against us. Please do not forget this… there are folks out there who are deeply opposed to our seeking to vindicate the cause of our Confederate Soldier ancestors. They are prowling around seeking to devour us for the things we stand for. Therefore, we should seek to be always on guard.

These are my personal rules I try to work by, and only ask that you consider why they might be helpful suggestions.

A Southerner’s Perspective

Atlanta fell to Sherman’s Army in early September 1864. He devoted the next few weeks to chasing Confederate troops through northern Georgia in a vain attempt to lure them into a decisive fight. The Confederate’s evasive tactics doomed Sherman’s plan to achieve victory on the battlefield so he developed an alternative strategy: destroy the South by laying waste to its economic and transportation infrastructure.

“Sherman’s Sentinels” Only the chimneys stand after
a visit by Sherman’s Army

Sherman’s “scorched earth” campaign began on November 15th when he cut the last telegraph wire that linked him to his superiors in the North. He left Atlanta in flames and pointed his army south. No word would be heard from him for the next five weeks. Unbeknownst to his enemy, Sherman’s objective was the port of Savannah. His army of 65,000 cut a broad swath as it lumbered towards its destination. Plantations were burned, crops destroyed and stores of food pillaged. In the wake of his progress to the sea he left numerous “Sherman sentinels” (the chimneys of burnt out houses) and “Sherman neckties” (railroad rails that had been heated and wrapped around trees.).

Along the way, his army was joined by thousands of former slaves who brought up the rear of the march because they had no other place to go. Sherman’s army reached Savannah on December 22. Two days later, Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln with the message “I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah…”

It was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Sherman stayed in Savannah until the end of January and then continued his scorched earth campaign through the Carolinas. On April 26, Confederate troops under General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina; seventeen days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.
“Oh God, the time of trial has come!”

Dolly Sumner Lunt was born in Maine in 1817. She moved to Georgia as a young woman to join her married sister. She became a school teacher in Covington, Ga. where she met and married Thomas Burge, a plantation owner. When her husband died in 1858, Dolly was left alone to manage the plantation and its slaves. Dolly kept a diary of her experiences and we join her story as Sherman’s army approaches her home:

November 19, 1864

Slept in my clothes last night, as I heard that the Yankees went to neighbor Montgomery’s on Thursday night at one o’clock, searched his house, drank his wine, and took his money and valuables. As we were not disturbed, I walked after breakfast, with Sadai [the narrator's 9-year-old daughter], up to Mr. Joe Perry’s, my nearest neighbor, where the Yankees were yesterday.

Saw Mrs. Laura [Perry] in the road surrounded by her children, seeming to be looking for some one. She said she was looking for her husband, that old Mrs. Perry had just sent her word that the Yankees went to James Perry’s the night before, plundered his house, and drove off all his stock, and that she must drive hers into the old fields. Before we were done talking, up came Joe and Jim Perry from their hiding-place. Jim was very much excited. Happening to turn and look behind, as we stood there, I saw some blue-coats coming down the hill. Jim immediately raised his gun, swearing he would kill them anyhow.

‘No, don’t!’ said I, and ran home as fast as I could, with Sadai.

I could hear them cry, ‘Halt! Halt!’ and their guns went off in quick succession. Oh God, the time of trial has come!

A man passed on his way to Covington. I halloed to him, asking him if he did not know the Yankees were coming.

‘No – are they?’

‘Yes,’ said I; ‘they are not three hundred yards from here.’

‘Sure enough,’ said he. ‘Well, I’ll not go. I don’t want them to get my horse.’ And although within hearing of their guns, he would stop and look for them. Blissful ignorance! Not knowing, not hearing, he has not suffered the suspense, the fear, that I have for the past forty-eight hours. I walked to the gate. There they came filing up.

I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they rush in! My yards are full.

To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds – both in vinegar and brine – wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard.

‘I cannot help you, Madam; it is orders.’

…Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they were forcing my boys [slaves] from home at the point of the bayonet. One, Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor, – a lame boy he was, – but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. Mid, poor Mid! The last I saw of him, a man had him going around the garden, looking, as I thought, for my sheep, as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said:

‘Stay in my room.’

But a man followed in, cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield.

A family flees the approach of Sherman’s Army

… Sherman himself and a greater portion of his army passed my house that day. All day, as the sad moments rolled on, were they passing not only in front of my house, but from behind; they tore down my garden palings, made a road through my back-yard and lot field, driving their stock and riding through, tearing down my fences and desolating my home – wantonly doing it when there was no necessity for it.

…As night drew its sable curtains around us, the heavens from every point were lit up with flames from burning buildings. Dinnerless and supperless as we were, it was nothing in comparison with the fear of being driven out homeless to the dreary woods. Nothing to eat! I could give my guard no supper, so he left us.

My Heavenly Father alone saved me from the destructive fire. My carriage-house had in it eight bales of cotton, with my carriage, buggy, and harness. On top of the cotton were some carded cotton rolls, a hundred pounds or more. These were thrown out of the blanket in which they were, and a large twist of the rolls taken and set on fire, and thrown into the boat of my carriage, which was close up to the cotton bales. Thanks to my God, the cotton only burned over, and then went out. Shall I ever forget the deliverance?

November 20, 1864.

About ten o’clock they had all passed save one, who came in and wanted coffee made, which was done, and he, too, went on. A few minutes elapsed, and two couriers riding rapidly passed back. Then, presently, more soldiers came by, and this ended the passing of Sherman’s army by my place, leaving me poorer by thirty thousand dollars than I was yesterday morning. And a much stronger Rebel!”

References: This eyewitness account appears in Lunt, Dolly Sumner, A Woman’s Wartime Journal, An Account of the Passage Over a Georgia Plantation of Sherman’s Army on the March to the Sea, as Recorded in the Diary of Dolly Sumner Lunt (1918); Buel, Clarence, and Robert U. Johnson (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol.IV (originally published in Century Magazine, 1888; reprint ed., 1982); Miers, Earl Schenck, The General Who Marched Into Hell (1951).

How To Cite This Article: “Sherman’s March to the Sea, 1864″ EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2006).

By Clyde Wilson, 23 May, 2014

Few actors in history have been hallowed in as many points of the political compass as Abraham Lincoln. During the 1930s, portraits of Lincoln appeared at New York City rallies of American fascists and in the publications of American Communists. He was also the favorite of the most reactionary industrialists and the most advanced liberals of the time. “Getting Right with Lincoln,” as the historian David Donald has described it, has been requisite for all political elements in the United States.1

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is widely regarded as the definitive description and rationale of American nationhood and is the cornerstone of his fame. It has been memorized and declaimed by generations of schoolchildren. Its cadenced phrases are part of the American vernacular and have moved millions around the world.

One might wonder why this short and rather abstract composition, hardly remarked upon at the time it was given at Gettysburg a few months after the great battle there, has achieved such importance. Part of the answer is surely Lincoln’s great rhetorical skill. In the Gettysburg Address (and other orations) he performs successfully the difficult feat of having it both ways. He appears in the famous brief oration as both the conservator of the sacred old Union and the herald of “a new birth of freedom.” Rhetorically, he encompasses right and left, the revered past and the longed-for ideal future.

Santification of the Address has not gone entirely unchallenged in America, however. The iconoclastic Henry Louis Mencken, writing in 1920, described Lincoln as “the American solar myth, the chief butt of American credulity and sentimentality.” Of the Gettysburg Address, Mencken wrote:

It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.2

Edgar Lee Masters, a poet who immortalized his and Lincoln’s home region of Illinois in Spoon River Anthology, was so troubled by the Lincoln legacy that he devoted an entire book to it (1931), of the Address, Masters wrote:

Lincoln carefully avoided one half of the American story. […] The Gettysburg oration, therefore, remains a prose poem, but in the inferior sense that one must not inquire into its truth. […] One must read it apart from the facts. […] Lincoln dared not face the facts at Gettysburg. […] He was unable to deal realistically with the history of his country, even if the occasion had been one where the truth was acceptable to the audience. Thus we have in the Gettysburg Address that refusal of the truth which is written all over the American character and its expressions. The war then being waged was not glorious, it was brutal and hateful and mean minded. 3

Mencken and Masters were reflecting, in part, revulsion at the American entry into World War I, which had been blessed by Lincolnian rhetoric as a crusade “to save the world for democracy.” 4

“Difficult to imagine anything more untrue.” “Refusal of the truth.” These are strong charges. Coming from a poet and a cultural critic, rather than from patriotic orators, political advocates, or nationalist historians, they deserve consideration. One would think that the Address should be considered less important and less definitive than the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. These were, after all, not just the words of one man, but solemn acts of the whole American people. Indeed important events in world history. But, in fact, the Declaration has come to be perceived and valued in American public discourse wholly through the interpretation that Lincoln put upon it at Gettysburg. The Declaration has been absorbed into the Address. The Declaration itself is seldom read beyond the first sentences and Americans are often surprised to see what it actually says and to have pointed out what it actually signaled in historical events. “Four score and seven years ago,” a “new nation” was “brought forth” (note Lincoln’s biblical and almost mystical language). This new nation, “conceived in liberty,” had been dedicated to a “proposition” of equality. By this formulation,since the new nation was “brought forth” in 1776, the Constitution adopted in 1787-1789 is merely an unfolding of the “proposition” in the Declaration. The Declaration and the Constitution are now conflated. The Constitution is merely the implementation of the Declaration – subservient to the proposition to which the new nation had already been dedicated.5

The two documents actually do not depend on or convey any dedication of a people to equality, either in text or context. They reflect, for the most part, the language and spirit of Anglo-American legal and parliamentary traditions. The Declaration created no new nation. It was an agreed-upon statement of why the thirteen united colonies “are and of right ought to be, free and independent states.” Its operative premise is not the equality of all men but that governments should rest upon “the consent of the governed.” It was a Declaration of Independence, not a Declaration of the Rights of Man, having more in common with Magna Carta than with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. What the Constitution established might in some sense be called a nation, but it was customarily referred to before Lincoln (and even in Lincoln’s earlier public documents) as a “Union.”

Something had happened to the Declaration between the American founding and Lincoln at Gettysburg – the French Revolution. The transition was perfectly illustrated by Karl Marx, who in January 1865 wrote an address in praise of Lincoln for an “International Conference of Workers”. Marx described the American war as a contest between “the labor of the emigrant” and the aggression of “the slave driver” and lamented that an evil rebellion had sprung up in the “one great democratic republic whence the first Declaration of the Rights of Man was issued.” 6 (A different European reaction to the American war occurred in the same month that Lincoln gave his Address. Father John B. Bannon, chaplain in the Confederate Army, had a series of audiences with Pius IX. Father Bannon emphasized the justice and conservatism of the Southern cause, the religious devotion of the Southern people, and their friendly reception of Catholics in contrast to the bitterly hostile Protestant North. His efforts resulted in a kindly papal letter to President Jefferson Davis and a mission to Ireland to preach against Northern recruiting of cannon fodder there, something which is glimpsed in the recent film Gangs of New York).7

Lincoln begins the Address with language that is directly patterned on the King James Bible so familiar to his audience. “Four score and seven years” rather than “eighty-seven”; “brought forth” rather than “established”. Thus he invokes the ancient and sacred: the American Union as a special manifestation of God’s plan for the improvement of humanity. The first Puritan settlers of Massachusetts had named themselves “a City upon a Hill” and “a beacon to all mankind.”

As historians have shown abundantly in recent decades, this theme, projected rhetorically to an ideal America, was already well-developed in the post-Puritan culture of the North, especially in New England and New Englander settled areas of the West.8 It is amply displayed in such highbrow places as the writings of Emerson and in such lowbrow places as The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The notion of the special role of the United States in history has become a powerful and lasting motivation and rationalization. It has appeared in countless sermons down to the present day and in the rhetoric of President George W. Bush in the 21st century.

Lincoln thus, in practical terms, rhetorically nailed down one of the two most important and dedicated of his constituencies and one of the two most forceful ideological elements of the North. The second, like the first, disdained the Jeffersonian limited government ideals of the Confederacy and of Lincoln’s Northern opponents. The second group, which Lincoln must capture and merge with the first to make a success of the Address, is made up of Marx’s “emigrants.”

Historians have long noted the influence of German refugees from the revolutions of 1848 in the founding of the Republican Party and in Lincoln’s election, but usually without allowing its true weight. Between 1840 and 1860 the total free American population increased by one-third from immigrants alone – including at least a million and a half Germans. These settled mainly in Lincoln’s Midwest and in 1860 made up from 8 percent to 17 per cent of the population of the Midwestern states.9

Lincoln recognized this constituency early on by secretly purchasing a German language newspaper and subsidizing others. German delegates were prominent in the convention that nominated Lincoln and in the campaign orators who stimulated the grassroots on his behalf. It appears that these immigrants tipped the balance, swinging the traditionally Democratic Midwest into the Republican column and making Lincoln’s election possible.

The German revolutionaries brought with them an aggressive drive to realize in America the goals that had been defeated in their homeland. Their drive was toward “revolution and national unification” in the words of the Party of the Left at the Frankfurt Convention. The most prominent among them, Carl Schurz, expressed disappointment at the non-ideological nature of American politics and vowed to change that.10

The Germans brought into to the American regional conflict and into Republican rhetoric a diagnosis of class conflict (crusade to overthrow the “slave drivers”) and a revolutionary élan. They also contributed out of proportion to the Northern military effort. Freidrich Engels remarked: “Had it not been for the experienced soldiers who had entered America after the European revolution, especially from Germany, the organization of the Union army would have taken still longer than it did.” 11

Thus Lincoln consolidated his base, justified and sanctified the Northern cause and victory both as preservation of the hallowed old and a birth of the new. He created an image of the United States that has had and continues to have incalculable effects on American public life and, indeed, on the world.

That Lincoln’s accomplishment was a revolution and not a “preservation of the Union” (whether one finds the revolution pleasing or troubling) is beautifully illustrated by an incident in Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War, the Civil War memoir of Confederate General Richard Taylor. Taylor was a learned man acquainted in the highest circles, an able though not a professional soldier. He also possessed an active sense of humour. In May 1865, after the surrender of the main Confederate armies and the capture of his brother-in-law Jefferson Davis, Taylor found himself in command of a small army in Alabama. He opened surrender negotiations with the nearest Union commander, General Canby. With one staff officer Taylor went to meet Canby in a hand-driven railroad sled under a flag of truce. The formalities of capitulation completed, courteous federal officers invited the hungry Confederates to join them at dinner. Taylor relates what happened next:

There was, as ever, a skeleton at the feast, in the person of a general officer who had recently left Germany to become a citizen and soldier of the United States. This person, with the strong accent and idioms of the Fatherland, comforted me by assurances that we of the South would speedily recognize our ignorance and errors […] and rejoice in the results of the war. […] I apologized meekly for my ignorance, on the ground that my ancestors had come from England to Virginia in 1608, and, in the short intervening period of two hundred and fifty-odd years, had found no time to transmit to me correct ideas of the duties of American citizenship. Moreover, my grandfather, commanding the 9th Virginia regiment in our Revolutionary army, had assisted in the defeat and capture of the Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, and I lamented that he had not, by association with these worthies, enlightened his understanding. My friend smiled blandly, and assured me of his willingness to instruct me.12

Modestly, Taylor did not mention that his father had been President of the United States.

NOTES 1 DAVID H. DONALD, Lincoln Reconsidered. New York: Knopf, 1956. 2 The Vintage Mencken. New York: Vintage Books, 1958, pp. 79-80. 3 EDGAR LEE MASTERS. Lincoln: The Man. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931, pp. 478-479. This book was recently republished by Foundation for American Education Press. 4 See RICHARD M. GAMBLE, The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003. 5I am drawing here on the brilliant analyses of Lincoln’s rhetoric by the late Professor M.E. Bradford. Bradford’s half-dozen ground-breaking Lincoln essays are scattered through almost as many of his books. See especially MELVIN E. BRADFORD, A Better Guide Than Reason. Lasalle, Ill.: Sherwood Sugden, 1979, pp. 29-57 and 85-203; and Remembering Who We Are. Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press, 1985, pp. 143-156. On the dissolvable nature of the Union see ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America. New York: Vintage Books, vol. 1, pp. 143-156. 6 The manifesto is printed in PHILIP S. FONER, ed., Abraham Lincoln: Selections from His Writings. New York: International Press, 1944, pp. 93-94. International Press was an organ of the U.S. Communist Party. 7PHILLIP THOMAS TUCKER, The Confederacy’s Fighting Chaplain: Father John B. Bannon. Tuscaloosa, AL and London: University of Alabama Press, pp. 157-178.

8 In general American historians have paid relatively little attention to the antebellum North, implicitly postulating it as the American norm, and the South as an un-American anomaly to be explained. However, recently attention has been paid to Northern society, showing an aggressive economic and cultural agenda that was something new. Among other things, these works have demonstrated the power of Northern forces desperate to prevent a free trade South and by emphasizing the racism of the politicians and soldiers of the Union, have cast new light on the supposed benevolence of the campaign against slavery. See ANNE NORTON, Alternative America’s; ERNEST L. TUVESON, Redeemer Nation; HARLOW SHEIDLEY, Massachusetts Conservative Leaders and the Transformation of America; RICHARD F. BENSEL, Yankee Leviathan; SUSAN-MARY GRANT, North Over South; JOAN P. MELISH, Disowning Slavery; CHARLES ADAMS. When in the Course of Human Events; THOMAS DILORENZO, The Real Lincoln. 9 CHARLOTTE L. BRANCAFORTE, ed., The German Forty-Eighters in The United States. New York, Peter Lang, 1989; A.E. ZUCKER, ed., The Forty-Eighters; Political Refugees of the German Revolution of 1848. New York: Columbia University Press, 1950; American Historical Review, 16: 774ff, and 47:51ff.; Journal of American History, 19:192ff. and 29:55ff. 10 HANS L. TREFOUSSE, Carl Schurz: A Biography. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982. 11 Engels quoted in the Lincoln pamphlet cited in footnote 6. 12 Richard Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Reminiscences of the Late War. Nashville, TN: Sanders Southern Reprints, 1998. Originally published 1879

About Clyde Wilson

Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina where he was the editor of the multivolume The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He is the M.E. Bradford Distinguished Chair at the Abbeville Institute. He is the author or editor of over twenty books and has contributed to dozens of scholarly and popular publications.

by Al Benson, Jr.

On several occasions I can remember my pastor at church saying that if you are not making someone mad then you aren’t doing anything. He has a valid point. If you are at peace with “the world” and no one has any gripe with anything you do or say, then you are a friend of the world and, biblically speaking, that is an unenviable position to be in.

Christians make people mad because they have the temerity to tell people the truth and all people do not relish truth. Some would rather live with lies and giving them the truth ticks them off. So I reckon this article will tick some folks off.

Years ago, when I was in the John Birch Society there were folks that said we had three enemies—liberalism, socialism, and communism. Or to put it more succinctly liberalism=socialism=communism. One is merely a progression to the next. The John Birch Society was anathema to the religious and political left. They detested it with unexcelled passion. They still do. Why? It’s because the JBS tells people the truth about them and they don’t want the American public as a whole to know that truth—yet they can’t dispute it, so what do they do? They smear the JBS with a lot of unfounded accusations which they hope will take people’s minds off the real truth and refocus them on the spurious accusations. Thisis an old Communist tactic—condemn others and elevate yourself. It often works, but not quite as much as it used to. Thanks to the Internet, lots of people have had the chance to see “other options” when it comes to news and commentary and they have picked up a certain amount of discernment regarding what I laughingly refer to as the “news” media.

About twenty years after my initial involvement with the JBS I started to become involved with the Southern Heritage and Confederate Movements. You may think the two are mutually exclusive, and I didn’t make any real connection until I found that those who hated the Southern Movement were, guess who? Liberals, socialists, and communists. So why did the religious and political left hate the Southern Movement? Same reason they hated the JBS. The Southern Movement told the truth about the real reasons for the War of Northern Aggression and about Abraham Lincoln, who was and is a major icon of the left. To find out why, read Lincoln’s Marxists which is available on Amazon.com The truth about Lincoln and the War rattled the left’s cage. The public has, for generations now, been “educated” to believe the War was all about slavery and nothing else. This has been the establishment line for decades now (and I include the establishment as part of the liberal/socialist coterie). To state that such a line is balderdash is only repeating myself.

The liberal/socialist/communist triad absolutely loathes the South, its real history and heritage. All you have to do to prove this is to check out the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center. This will give you a thumbnail sketch of where the left is really coming from in regard to the South and its history. The SPLC is big on hate groups—a “hate group” being anyone that disagrees with their leftist slant on anything. Their take on Southern history is strictly barf-bag material but you’d be surprised at how many “journalists” quote them as a “reliable” source on Southern bigotry or prejudice or whatever other sins the South happens to share with the rest of the country.

All these liberal/left groups use every opportunity to trash the South and its people and they absolutely detest Southern history and Confederate symbols. But if you look at where they are coming from, the reason becomes obvious. The South has been more Christian in its worldview than most of the rest of the country since well before the War of Northern Aggression and the left hates Christianity. They always have, and the reason is that they are in rebellion against God and His law, which they seek to replace with their own “god” (the state) and their “law” (Marx’s “ten commandments” as found in the Communist Manifesto).

The leftists reserve some of the bitterest of their vehemence for Confederate symbols and flags. These, we are dutifully informed, are all symbols of “racism” (a Trotskyite term), prejudice, bigotry, and you name it. Southern whites, we are told, are responsible for every ill in the world from sunspots to the blind staggers. It’s all “whitey’s fault” (all the better to get reparations out of you, my dear) and Southern whites are supposed to feel guilty for, literally, all the sins of mankind, which others committed only because white folks forced them into it. And to absolve ourselves from these heinous sins we have only to cross their palms with silver—again and again and again.

So what are these horrible Confederate symbols that need to be taken down and relegated to the attic or trash heap? Well, there is the well-known Confederate battle flag, which is a Christian symbol, the Cross of St. Andrew. We have to get rid of that because the KKK has used it. If that’s the case, then lets get rid of the United States flag also, because it is a known fact, for those that have done the homework, that the KKK used the United States flag extensively in parades and assemblies. So it would seem apparent that if one is “racist” because it is used by the KKK, then shouldn’t the other be also? There are several other Confederate flags that must be “racist” simply because they are Confederate. There is Polks Battle flag for the First Corps of the Army of Tennessee. It has a St. George’s Cross on it—another Christian symbol. Then there is the battle flag for Confederate troops from Missouri, which is a blue flag, with a red border, with a white Christian Cross on it. Then the 3rdKentucky (Confederate) Infantry flag has a Christian Cross with 13 stars in it, and Major General Dabney Maury’s Headquarters Flag is yet another one with a Christian Cross on it. There are others I could mention, not as well known, but yet still containing Christian symbols. All these flags, supposedly “racist” reflect, to some extent, the worldview of the Confederate States.

I submit that this is really what the leftists want to get rid of—any Southern flag or symbol that reflects the South’s Christian heritage. That’s what they really hate—any kind of Christian symbolism, especially Southern Christian symbolism. Anyone who has read anything about the liberal/socialist/communist cadre realizes that they regard Christianity as one of their main foes, to be either neutralized or gotten rid of any way possible. The left really has no problem with racial prejudice or bigotry. They practice it just as much as anyone else does, only they don’t want to be perceived as being guilty of it so they point the accusing finger at others who may not even be as guilty of it as they are. After all, it was Karl Marx who, condescendingly referred to Jewish people as “Jewish Niggers.” That was Marx’s term, not mine and I have seen him quoted more than once using that term. No, the leftist’s real problem isn’t with racial prejudice—it’s with Jesus Christ and the Christian faith, because they realize that even a sleeping Christian church has the potential of becoming their biggest adversary should something awaken it in the future. And Southern Christians could end up being the biggest adversary of all because even with their faith having been tampered with and watered down, they are still the people in the part of the country where the Christian worldview remains the strongest.

You have to give the liberal/socialist/communist group credit. They at least recognize their Main Enemy. The question is—will the Church wake up and recognize one of hers?

“Mrs. Jackson arrived today, and nursed him faithfully to the end. . . . The general’s joy at the presence of his wife and child was very great, and for him unusually demonstrative.” After recovering from the effects of chloroform, General Jackson asked Lieutenant Smith whether he said anything when under its power, and he continued : “I have always thought it wrong to administer chloroform where there is a probability of immediate death. But it was, I think, the most delightful physical sensation I ever enjoyed. I had enough consciousness to know what was doing; and at one time thought I heard the most delightful music that ever greeted my ears. I believe it was the sawing of the bone. But I should dislike, above all things, to enter eternity in such a condition.”

He afterwards said to other friends,” What an inestimable blessing is chloroform to the sufferer!” After the operation, when Mr. Lacy was admitted to the tent, he exclaimed with deep feeling, “Oh, general, what a calamity!” General Jackson, with his accustomed politeness, first thanked him for his sympathy, and then said : “You see me severely wounded, but not depressed; not unhappy. I believe it has been done according to God’s holy will, and I acquiesce entirely in it. You may think it strange; but you never saw me more perfectly contented than I am today; for I am sure that my Heavenly Father designs this affliction for my good. I am perfectly satisfied that, either in this life, or in that which is to come, I shall discover that what is now regarded as a calamity is a blessing. And if it appears a great calamity, as it surely will be a great inconvenience, to be deprived of my arm, it will result in a great blessing. I can wait until God, in His own time, shall make known to me the object He has in thus afflicting me. But why should I not rather rejoice in it as a blessing, and not look on it as a calamity at all? If it were in my power to replace my arm, I would not dare to do it, unless I could know it was the will of my Heavenly Father.”

In the course of this conversation he stated that, when he fell from the litter, he thought he should die upon the field, and gave himself up into the hands of God, without a fear, and in the possession of perfect peace.” It has been,” he said, “a precious experience to me, that I was brought face to face with death, and found all was well. I then learned an important lesson, that one who has been the subject of converting grace, and is the child of God, can, in the midst of the severest sufferings, fix the thoughts upon God and heavenly things, and derive great comfort and peace; but that one who had never made his peace with God would be unable to control his mind, under such sufferings, so as to understand properly the way of salvation, and repent and believe on Christ. I felt that if I had neglected the salvation of my soul before, it would have been too late then.” Life of General Thomas J Jackson 1891

Private W.E. Berry of the fourth Texas, John Bell Hood’s Brigade, was captured on September 17, at Sharpsburg in the cornfield. While he was waiting to be sent to the rear he wrote of an incident that happened and of the attachment to the Confederate Flag, even though it was not the flag of his regiment. “While standing there I saw coming up the road from the battlefield some colors, with an escort. When they arrived the Major asked the Yankee with the colors where he got them. He said the cornfield. He turned to me and inquired if I knew the colors. I told him they belonged to the First Texas Regiment, remarking at the time that where he got the flag there was many a dead Texan there. He said there were thirteen dead men lying on or around it when he found it. I asked him to hand it to me a moment, which he did. I took it in my hand, kissed it, and handed it back to him, tears blinding my eyes.” This is a photo of that flag. The flag of the 1st Texas, captured at Sharpsburg.

by Daryl K. Coleman, Commander, Rockwall Cavalry Camp # 2203

A topic of great interest to me is how we, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, are to defend our charge and our cause. Let me state up front that I am no expert… I’m just a compatriot with an opinion.

In my 12 years in the SCV, I’ve heard some very good arguments and also some very poor arguments relating to the Second American Revolution, or the War for Southern Independence. Following are some thoughts I have which may help you when you have the opportunity to argue our case, either to someone on the street, or even to someone in the media.

First, never tell someone that the so-called Civil War had nothing to do with the institution of slavery. Why? Because it is not true. The institution of slavery, ugly and wrong as it was, was a factor in the equation. It is mentioned rather prominently in most of the ordinances of secession documents of the states who seceded from the United States. That being said, at the outset is was a rather minor issue, at least with the Lincoln Administration. Evidence for this? Look at the Lincoln quotes from before the start of hostilities and lasting at least through 1862. Lincoln was very clear about this, and you should be also. This leads to the next thought…

On the other hand, when you hear someone say that slavery was the only or paramount issue of the war, this is when you must refuse to concede that point also. Why? Because this is not true, either. There were a number of issues, and slavery was but one of those. In addition, in the early part of the conflict, slavery was not really even a major issue… it only became so later as northern apologists sought to make their war waged upon the southern states appear more palatable to those who were skeptical, especially Great Britain and France. In addition, it should always be remembered that slavery was still legal in a number of northern states, right up until passage of the 13th Amendment.

About the statement “Lincoln freed the slaves.” I heard it in school growing up, my kids still hear it in school (well, one does, the other is now home schooled), and we even hear it on popular TV shows, not to mention in the news media. It simply and demonstrably is not true. Slavery existed under the US flag for 80+ years, until passage of the 13th Amendment, and Lincoln was willing to live with it in order to preserve the Union.

Future installments of Defending Our Cause will follow in future issues.

Dear Sir: Obviously, you are not a stupid man but sadly, your intellect seems non-existent when it comes to your judgment about American leaders. You have stood foursquare against the current socialist trends in the federal government. You have condemned the excesses of Congress and the Administration and the ever growing centralization of power in Washington as well as the trashing of the Constitution. You have mentioned time and again that such excesses are diametric to the founding principles of the nation, flying in the face of that same document-and I have applauded you for your public defense of those republican (with a lower-case “r”) principles and the men (and women) who have championed them.

Yet, the other evening, I heard you-yet again-claim that the “gold standard” of American leadership was none other than President Abraham Lincoln. I actually became so enraged I turned off the TV! I could not bear to listen any longer. All that we currently endure we do so because of Abraham Lincoln! It was Lincoln who embraced the movement of power away from the Sovereign States and the People as envisioned by the Founders. It was Lincoln who adopted the socialist/communist ideologies brought into the United States from Europe with the arrival of the so-called “48ers,” the mostly German followers of Marx fleeing their failed revolutions in Europe. However, it is also true that Lincoln had adopted those same policies independently before he was influenced by Europe’s socialist upheaval. Did you know that Marx adored Lincoln for the very reason that he worked to centralize power in the federal government? And did you know that Lincoln’s government and military was filled with Marxists and socialists? It was Lincoln who abandoned all constitutionally imposed restrictions on the federal government and the presidency when he planned and initiated war against states performing an act guaranteed to them in the Constitution-that of secession from a union that was no longer in the best interest of their people. It was Lincoln who deliberately and with malice brought that war to fruition-a war that cost over a million lives both military and civilian and destroyed an entire section of what had been the united (lower-case “u”) States for a century or more. And the list goes on and on. There is no more infamous lie in the annals of American history than Lincoln’s analysis of the causes of the so-called “Civil War”-” … and war came.” War didn’t “come,” Lincoln brought it into existence in what proved to be a successful attempt to prevent the loss of eleven Southern states and the 75% of the federal revenues paid by those States. Indeed, the South, by Lincoln’s time, had become nothing more than a politically impotent economic colony supplying endless revenues to the rest of the Union while being driven ever deeper into poverty.

It was Lincoln who embraced-and profited from-Hamilton’s “American System,” which today we call “crony capitalism” and which is really nothing other than the enemy of free enterprise, fascism. Lincoln was supported for the presidency by the economic interests of states such as Pennsylvania to which he promised a high tariff to protect their manufactured goods and a continuation of the flow of capital from the South to the North. Lincoln had been a lawyer with one of the railroads supported by such tax-funded largesse and was so successful that he was allowed to choose the eastern terminus for the contemplated trans-continental railroad. It is interesting-and revealing-to note that the property he chose for that site just happened to be owned by him! Lincoln’s sobriquet at that time-Honest Abe-was bestowed by his contemporaries for the same reason that the sobriquet “Little John” was bestowed upon Robin Hood’s very large lieutenant. In other words, it was a reference to behavior diametric to the appellation and therefore not a complement.

Finally, if you think that we had election fraud in 2008, Lincoln made use of the military to assure his re-election, something that was by no means guaranteed in November of 1864. General Benjamin (Beast) Butler was sent to New York from which he triumphantly informed Lincoln that no Democrats had been permitted to vote. The same happened in other states such as Ohio where both Lincoln and Lincoln’s war were not popular. Soldiers were permitted to vote in areas in which they did not live to assure his re-election. Meanwhile, their presence at the polls was a warning to those who might vote Democrat. In fact, in many instances the ballots were color-coded so that the party chosen by the voter was immediately obvious to those partisan “poll watchers” and many Americas were “discouraged” from voting if a wrong color ballot was observed.

There is so much more on Lincoln’s illegal, unconstitutional and immoral actions that is a part of the public record and yet, he continues to be revered, even worshipped, by people who despise and reject the things for which he stood and on which he acted. Even the popular belief that Lincoln “freed the slaves” or, in fact, had any feeling for them individually or as a group is nonsense, proven over and over by his own words and actions. He cared nothing for slavery and even less for “the African” and was willing to put slavery into the Constitution in the original 13th Amendment (Corwin) if it would keep the Southern states compliant.

Even the claim so often made that he fought the war to “preserve the union” is a lie though many Northerners were deceived and indeed fought for that stated purpose. First, a union is by its nature voluntary. Coercion at the point of a bayonet is nothing but conquest and occupation, not “union.” Then, Lincoln, his government and all of the states who fought ostensibly to preserve the Union were traitors according to Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution. Indeed, the only act defined as treason in that document is the waging of war against any of the signatory states and aiding and abetting in that war. If there was ever an act more worthy of the taint of treason and the openly guilty parties more exposed to public view, it has to be America’s “Civil War” in which the federal government-or should I say, the President-declared war on seven (later eleven) signatory states and initiated total war against them. Of course, all of those who supported or permitted this war were themselves traitors to a greater or lesser degree. It is ironic that the taint of treason was spread so liberally-and so successfully-on states that had acted constitutionally in attempting to remove themselves from a hostile and eventually murderous “union” while the actual traitors have been lauded to the skies historically as heroes and “true Americans.”

No, Mr. O’Reilly, your “stand” against those attempting to make of what remains of this nation another “Peoples’ Republic” cannot be believed so long as you refuse to acknowledge where America started to leave the path of Aristotle, Locke and the Founding Fathers and embrace the governing theories and actions of Hobbes and Marx. Actually, you have only two choices: understand and admit that “the nation’s greatest president” was a traitor and a murderer (over a million dead) and repudiate his “vision” for the nation-a federal tyranny-or cling to delusion, deception and myth and, by doing so, render your own message null and void and yourself foolish at best and dishonest at worst. You cannot have Lincoln and liberty.

~FINIS~

End White Folk Guilt
Speech delivered by HK Edgerton April 28, 2013 in Marion, Alabama

Under the mellowing influence of time and occasional demonstrations at the North of a desire for the restoration of peace and good will, the Southern people have forgotten much— have forgiven much of the wrongs they and their ancestors bore. If it be less so ( and it is) among their invader and their siblings , it is but another example of the rule that the wrong doer is less able to forgive than he who has suffered causeless wrong. There was no surrender at Appomattox, and no withdrawal from the theater of war which committed our people and their children to a heritage of shame and dishonor. No cowardice on any battlefield could be as base and shameful as the silent acquiescence in the scheme which continues relentlessly teaching our children in homes and schools that the economic institution of slavery was the cause for the War for Southern Independence, that the prisoners of war held in the South were starved and treated with a barbarous inhumanity, that the Honorable Presi-dent Jefferson Davis and the Honorable General Robert E. Lee were traitors to their country and false to their oaths , that the young men who left everything to resist the illegal invasion of their homeland, and climbed the slopes at Gettysburg and died willingly on a hundred fields were rebels against a righteous government.
Monstrous violations by the Union army were not attempted to be palliated by them, or even covered by pretext. These were open, avowed and notorious; the general sacking of private houses- the pillaging of money, plate, jewels and other light articles of value, with the destruc-tion of books, works of art, paintings, pictures, private manuscripts and family relics, the hos-tile acts directly against property of all kinds, as well as outrages upon non- combatants (Black & White) to the laying waste of whole sections of country; the attempted annihilation of all necessaries of life; to the wanton killing of farm stock and domestic animals; the burning of mills, factories, and barns, with their contents of grain and forage, not sparing orchards or growing crops, or the implements of husbandry; the mutilation of county and municipal records of great value, the extraordinary efforts made to stir up servile insurrec-tions, involving the wide spread slaughter old men, women and children, the impious profana-tion of temples of worship, and even the brutish desecration of the sanctuaries of the dead.

All these enormities of a savage character against the very existence of civilized society, and so revolting to the natural sentiments of mankind, in open violation of modern usages of mankind in putting down the so called rebellion ( Texas v.White ) , The War Between the States. The ancestors of those Northern invaders here in the 21st century just as their kin, come South seeking injury to the peoples of the South and their own profit, with a motivation to convince all man, especially our Southern babies that the South was made up of tactless people given to acting without deliberation or caution, and deluded by bad men, who attempted in an illegal and wicked manner to overthrow the Union. And that the Southern soldier however brave, was aroused by no higher motive than the desire to retain the economic institution of slavery. And truly believed that once the world was convinced of this, they would hold the South degraded rather than worthy of honor, and that our children instead of revering their ancestors, would be openly ashamed.

They now seek to carry out this facade not by the aid of armed soldiers, but through the ac-tive employ poverty pimps, public schools, the judiciary, politicians, Southern scalawags and their organizations. The whole force of journalists, poets, orators, and writers of all sorts are employed in their unholy cause, especially Northern history makers whose books are now in the hands of Southern children. The history of the human race furnishes no like example of men who by their own action have so exposed their children; to men who unconstrained have dishonored the graves and memories of their dead. Our own people have aided and are still aiding with all the insistence of damned and daily school-room iteration in the work of teaching these malignant falsehoods to Southern children, in the work of so representing a brave people to the world of today and the ages to come. The details of horror heaped upon the region of the South and its civilian non-combatants by Sherman and Grant, and sanctioned by Lincoln are so depraved and no less in weight than those of the day that Jesus drug the Cross through the streets of Jerusalem to Golgotha, and generally one is so apprehensive in accounting them for fear of inciting sectional hostilities, the likes of not seen in nearly 150 years.

Northern soldier writing for the Detroit Frees Pres gives the following graphic account de-scribing the burning of Marietta, Georgia: ”Soldiers rode from house to house, entered without ceremony, and kindled fires in garrets and closets and stood by to see that they were not extinguished. Had one been able to climb to such a height at Atlanta as to enable him to see forty miles around the day Sherman marched out, he would have appalled at the destruction. Hundreds of houses had been burned, every rod of fence destroyed , with orders from Sherman giving them to become vandals. No house escaped fire. And on to Atlanta where he gave orders to burn it to the ground, driving out from the city its whole population of all ages, sexes, and conditions in the fields of a desolated country to starve and die. On Page 108 Volume I, Colonel G.F.R. Hendersen of the British Staff College, Camberley, England posted this letter written by the Honorable General Robert E. Lee: ” There are few, I believe, but will acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is useless to talk at length on its disadvantages. I think its a greater evil to the White man than to the Colored race, and while my feelings are strongly interested in the latter, my sympathies are deeply engaged for the former. The Blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa– morally, socially, and physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their instruction as a race, and I hope will prepare them for better things.

How long their subjection may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influence of Christianity than from the storms and contest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Savior have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small part of the human race, and even among Christians nations what gross errors still exist. While we see the course of the final abolition of slavery still is onward, and we give it the aid of our prayers and all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the results in his hands who sees the end and who chooses to work by slow things , and with whom a thousand years are but a single day. The Abolitionist must know this, and must see that he has neither the right nor the power of operating except by moral means an suasion; if he means well to the slaves, he must not ap-prove of the mode by which it pleases Providence to accomplish its purposes, the results will nevertheless be the same; and the reasons he gives for interference in what he has no concern holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbors when we disapprove of their conduct. We of the South are today all that may be honorably meant by the expression ” loyal Ameri-can citizens, But, we are also loyal to the memory of our glorious dead, and we should defend them in our way from false and foul aspersions of Northern historians and Southern scalawags as long as brain can think or tongue and pen can do their office. Mutual respect is needful for the common interest , is essential to a friendly Union, and when slander is promulgated from high places, the public welfare demands that truth should strip falsehood of its power for evil.

(The Honorable President Jefferson Davis)
The author of this powerful speech,
HK Edgerton is pictured right.