The Revenge of the Confederacy Part 1

The following article was forwarded by Dragoon Tyrone Crowley.  This article was published in "Chronicles, A Magazine of American Culture" on December 12, 2014, authored by Chilton Williamson Jr.

The Revenge of the Confederacy

THE AMERICAN POLITICAL DIVIDE is no longer between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, religionists and secularists. It is between roughly two halves of the country, each of which would be perfectly happy to see the other wiped, by violence if necessary, from the face of the earth.

That was not how the North and the South felt about each other when President Lincoln ordered the
invasion of Virginia by Union troops in 1861, and perhaps not four years later when Lee surrendered his sword to Grant at Appomattox. Politics in America is no longer political, or even ideological. It is
existential, the existence of one side having become a moral and personal affront to the other. Each
can no longer tolerate the sight, sound, smell, or thought of the other.

Civil war would certainly occur today, should the lines of political opposition correspond more or less with the nation’s internal boundaries, as they did in 1861 when pro-Confederates and pro-Unionists had the benefit of geographical representation. The American nation was “polarized” then as it is today, but in a way that was plainly and simply manageable by unilateral secession, or by amicable agreement between the two regions of the country. If the United States were ever to separate, then was the logical moment. And indeed they did separate and remain separated for four torturous years, following which they were forcibly reunited by the victors led by a determinedly ideological commander in chief for whom the concept, more even than the fact, of union prevailed over history, the Constitution, and social and political common sense. Abraham Lincoln compelled American unity where there was no unity by forcing two fundamentally dissimilar and incompatible civilizations together again, while making one effectively subservient to the other “in perpetuity.” His was an error characteristic of a lawyer with a bat in his stovepipe hat, an error no careful and imaginative historian could ever have made, and one whose consequences America has been suffering these past 150 years.

The peculiar institution, as Lincoln well knew, was merely an aspect of the far broader institution that
was Southern civilization. The South was of a traditional mind; the North of a revolutionary one. The
South was deferential; the North egalitarian. The South was pious; the North transcendentalist, or
nothing. The South was agricultural; the North industrial. Finally, the South, politically speaking, was
strictly constitutionalist; the North latitudinarian and expansionist. These differences had existed from the beginning, but they had grown much wider between 1789 and 1861, as honest men over that period had observed. With or without slavery, the South did not wish to live in the future as the North
contemplated it, while the North was determined to drag the South along, as a distinctly junior partner, with it into that future. Northern politicians, men of business, and public men generally saw in victory no more than the chance to convert the South to its way of thinking, as a foolish person contemplating marriage expects confidently to bend the prospective spouse into someone more conformable to his own way of thinking. It never occurred to them to recognize a God-given opportunity to ditch the unsuitable partner by legally sanctioned divorce and go their own way unburdened by backwardness, superstition, and sloth. An aristocratic lady, a close friend of my parents, often expressed regret that the South had lost the war, since, had it won, “Southerners would need visas to come North.” Mrs. Potter, who in many respects was a very wise woman despite being an enthusiastic supporter of the United Nations and a liberal, in retrospect imagined an opportunity that never occurred to the besotted Lincoln, his admiring contemporaries, and his subsequent apologists.

History has proved the insistence of the North in reuniting the South to itself in 1865 to have been an
unanticipated disaster for America north of the Mason-Dixon Line as well as America south of it, in two decisive ways. The first is that the reconstituted United States deprived herself of a safety valve for internal discontent by assuring herself the advantage of a neighboring territory that could have served her in precisely the same way that the Americas had historically served the Old World: as a magnet and a dumping ground for social and political revolutionaries, general troublemakers, religious dissenters, and intellectual eccentrics. The second is that by vanquishing a traditional society whose values to some degree still survived in the North and rededicating itself to progressivism, materialism, industrialism, and Wall Street finance, it developed in a manner that left no possibility for the survival on its native ground of other interests, viewpoints, activities, and values, and therefore no social and political space in which traditionalists and other dissenters might take a stand.

The Revenge of the Confederacy - Part 2

The following article was forwarded by Dragoon Tyrone Crowley.  This article was published in "Chronicles, A Magazine of American Culture" on December 12, 2014, authored by Chilton Williamson Jr.

The Revenge of the Confederacy

Today, Americans display a tendency to segregate themselves according to their political, social,

economic, and racial and ethnic differences, as indeed they have always done but now more

consciously and deliberately. So we have the Blue Northeast and the Blue West Coast, the Red South

and the Red Mountain West. But not only are these color-correspondent regions separated from one

another by wide distances and geographic obstacles, they are also subdivided by in-holdings of

intruding colors, often in complicated patterns. People who consciously wish to live and work with

people who look, think, and vote like them increasingly accommodate their lives to segregationist

purposes, but national residential patterns have not yet arranged themselves to the degree that the

majority are able to realize their aspirations. Hence they may find themselves living in a Red Ward in a Blue City in a Red State, or a Blue Township in a Red County in a Blue State. They have no means of combining geographically into broader, territorially adjacent areas in order to leverage their social and political power, a situation they quite naturally find frustrating and a provocative cause for discontent, resentment, and anger. Futurists have speculated in recent years on the possibility that the United States may split into separate republics defined by regional geography—Northwest, Mountain West, Northeast, Southwest, etc.—but self-segregation is very far from having proceeded enough to make these regions sufficiently homogenous to allow such partitions to function successfully. If, on the other hand, the Confederates States of America still flourished south of the Union, Union citizens who preferred to live in a traditional culture would be free to move there, while Confederates longing for a liberal society could move north. South of the border, Confederate citizens would enjoy their republican freedoms, together with the satisfactions of a traditional, religious, and deferential society, from which the gods of commercialism and progressivism had been banished. In these circumstances, the sole losers would be imperially minded politicians deprived of a chance at the vast power that rule over a continental nation, as compared to half a continental one, confers. Yet their loss, being more than compensated for by the absolute ideological control they would exercise over their contentedly blue subjects, happy and at ease at last in their chosen people’s republic, would be illusory. 

Unfortunately for Americans of every persuasion, the possibilities for this scenario were forfeited—perhaps forever—a century and a half ago by the forebears of modern American politicians, who failed to seize the opportunity when it was extended to them and thereby condemned their distant successors to frustration, gridlock, seething impotence, and a deep-seated hatred of the other half of the citizenry— precisely what Barack Obama is feeling now.

So the Unionists in 1865 deprived their country of the opportunity to rid itself forever of that geographic half of it that bitterly resisted its character and its agenda. But they did something else as well. They made certain that Northern society would continue to develop in the materialist direction in which it had been moving for decades, unchallenged by a vision of an alternate civilization grounded in nature and tradition, and by effective dissent on behalf of these things. The result a century later was a country so culturally and politically grotesque that the New Left that developed subsequently in the vacuum created by the defeated traditionalist party was able to attack the United States from the left and establish itself as the sole effective opposition to the American political and cultural establishment that the unconditional surrender of 1865 had ensured. The rise of the New Left made the traditionalist critique of modern American society more irrelevant than ever, but it also challenged the settled arrangement between industrial business, the national political establishment, and American liberalism that Washington and Wall Street together had managed since Reconstruction. So the victorious North has been reduced to a shadow of its former self since the 60’s by the people Obama and his friends refer to in private as “the ones we’ve been waiting for”—which is “we.”

The self-co-opted radicals run the show today, and they have adopted as their allies the scores of

millions of angry and resentful foreigners, and the descendants of foreigners, admitted to the United

States under the irresponsible immigration policies institutionalized by Congress at the behest of

Northern industrialists in the second half of the 19th century and maintained ever since (save for a

decade or so following World War I) by a powerful combination comprising ruthless entrepreneurs, the soft-minded churches and the charities, and the more or less vicious ethnic lobbies. The vast majority of immigrants, after 1965 especially, have come to this country from strictly economic motives or because, as Mencken said in another context, there is a warrant out for them somewhere else. They have no other interest in American civilization, such as it exists today, than a job and the pleasures of life in an affluent society, and they have no intention of renouncing their previous identities and allegiances.

Thus, the “Melting Pot” the North boasted of a century ago has come to resemble the brew being busily stirred by the witches Macbeth encountered on the heath, a writhing stew of snakes, toads, and eels, many of them poisonous and most of them an ecological threat to the native American habitat into which they have been thoughtlessly—and sometimes malevolently—introduced.

America as she exists in 2015 is the creation of the Union states that won the Civil War, a country the

former Confederacy has had virtually no hand in making. The descendants of the former Unionists need to remind themselves of this fact as they, along with a majority of Americans, deplore what their country has since become. For people whose hearts pump Confederate blood, a certain smugness is

understandable, and even pardonable. Though their ancestors failed 150 years ago, Goliath has

succeeded in destroying himself.

Wow, What an Event - the AL Division Robert E. Lee Commemorative Program

The Alabama Division Sons of Confederate Veterans held their annual Robert E. Lee Day birthday commemorative program on Saturday January 24th at the Alabama State Archives in downtown Montgomery. It was a fabulous program, called perhaps the best ever by past Prattville Dragoons camp Commander Larry Spears.   The program was held mostly indoors, inside the Archives, but the beautiful clear crisp January morning apparently brought out a great crowd.  The formal program was conducted in the Archives auditorium and it was standing room only, filled by a crowd numbering probably 300.  An adjacent overspill room was set up which provided a closed circuit audio video display of the program on a large movie screen where another 50-60 people watched the program.  The Dragoons were well represented with eight members in attendance including Brigade Commander David Brantley, Commander Stuart Waldo, Communications Officer Larry Spears, 1st Lt Harold Grooms, Chaplain Tom Snowden, Quartermaster Bill Myrick, Danny Smyth and Jeff Jones.

The event was kicked off with songs by the Tallassee Camp 1921 String Band.  The colors were posted by a reenactment unit and Dr. Charles Baker, Division Chaplain provided an invocation.  AL Division Commander Gary Carlyle welcomed everyone including the Presidents of the Alabama United Daughters of the Confederacy, Order of the Confederate Rose and Children of the Confederacy.  Dr. John Killian of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars gave a rousing short speech proclaiming the superior moral foundation our Southern heritage imparts to us, our laudable Confederate forebears and the relevance today of these fundamental beliefs and ideals.  Commander Carlyle made a presentation of a check for $5200 from the SCV to Bob Bradley, Chief Curator of the Archives for the historical flag conservation.

Virginia Davis gave an incredible reenactment of Mrs. Mary Custis Lee, wife of R.E. Lee including a recollection of his upbringing and early military career.  She posed her address as of the year 1871 so she included an account of Lee's decision to resign his US Army commission and assume command of the Army of Northern Virginia but, as she spent most of the War in Richmond, she couldn't provide much insight into Lee's campaigns and life in the camps of the ANV. After the War, Lee assumed the Presidency of Washington College and expanded the university's curriculum and implemented the same tradition he had as Commander at West Point, inviting each student to his residence so that he and Mary could get to know each student.

After the performance of Mrs. Mary Custis Lee, the Camp 1921 String Band led everyone in Dixie and Dr. Baker closed the program with a Benediction.  Following, many walked across the state capitol grounds to the Confederate monument where reenactors gave a musket salute and others followed Bob Bradley on a tour of the flag conservation room.  Bob gave amazing details on the methods of flag preservation and the history of the many flags in the Archives.  A thoroughly enjoyable morning commemorating one of the great Americans in our history and honoring our Southern ancestors and heritage with fellow compatriots.

Dragoons at the Alabama State Archives for the Robert E. Lee Day Program

Danny Smyth, Bill Myrick, and Jeff Jones (L-R)

Commander Carlyle with Bob Bradley

Lt Jimmy Hill Listens to Bob Bradley in the Flag Conservation Room

Virginia Davis as Mrs. Mary Custis Lee

Dr, Killian of the MOSB

Attendees Watch the Program from the Overflow Room

Posting of the Colors in the Auditorium

Commemorating Robert E. Lee's Birthday, Address to the Army of Northern Virginia

The following was offered by Dragoon's Communication Larry Spears on Lee's Birthday, January 19th.

Robert Edward Lee was born on this date in 1807. I do not need to tell you of his strength of character, his strong Christian beliefs, his devotion to duty, his love for his family and the South, nor his military accomplishments. You know them as well as any other good Southerner who appreciates the Confederacy and the South. However I do recommend his biography by Douglas Southall Freeman, simply entitled “LEE”, which is in 4 volumes but there is an abridged version in 1 volume that is available (follow this link http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/932370.Lee ).

One of his outstanding quotes, made to one of his sons, is, "Duty is the sublimest word in the English language. Do your duty in all things. You can never do more; you should never wish to do less.”  A good guide for our young men of today.

After meeting General Grant at Appomattox (which he said he would rather die a thousand deaths than do), he returned to his men and with his staff wrote General Order # 9. Read these words as if you were a soldier in the Army of Northern Virginia, gentlemen, and notice that he said “compelled to yield”. He did not say “surrender”. 

After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.

I need not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles who have remained steadfast to the last that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them; but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and remain until exchanged.

You may take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection. With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell.

God Bless the South and thank you God for Robert Edward Lee.

Lee-Jackson Banquet in Montgomery

The Prattville Dragoons, SCV Camp 1524, was well represented Friday night, January 16 at the Henry Semple Camp’s Lee/ Jackson Banquet held at the Dalraida Methodist Church.  Attendees included Chaplain Tom Snowden, Communications Officer Larry Spears, 1st Lt Harold Grooms, Color Sgt Brent Jenks and his father George, Treasurer Billy Leverette, Karl Wade, and Tyrone Crowley.  Compatriot Crowley read the poem “Lee at Jacksonville" which he had previously presented to at the Dragoon's January camp meeting, Mrs Anne Tidmore, Regent of the First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery made a presentation about the First White House leading up to Lee's Birthday celebration there on the 18th. Good food including a steak dinner and wonderful Confederate fellowship were in abundant supply. 

Mrs. Tidmore of the First White House of the Confederacy

Dragoons at the Lee-Jackson Banquet

Indian Hills Cemetery Clean-up Day for January 2015

The Prattville Dragoons renewed their efforts of the continuing clean up of Indian Hills cemetery on Saturday January 10th. A very special thanks to all who contributed their time and efforts for this worthy project and furthering the Cause including Benny Harris who is leading the project for the camp, Stuart Waldo, Harold Grooms,Bill Branch, Allen Herrod, Tom Crowley, Tyrone Crowley, Skip Ward and Paul Whaley.  Benny wanted to concentrate on the southwest corner of the cemetery and great progress was made clearing the scrub and underbrush on this corner which fronts Autauga County Road 86.  The day was cold with highs only in the mid-40s and the morning temperature was in the 20s.  But the sun shone bright, the wind stayed down and Benny started a nice brush/debris fire which warmed everyone up. The plans call for three more workdays before a rededication the last of April.  Much work has been done but much work remains on this great camp and community initiative. 

Skip and Allen After a Good Day's Work

Part of the Crew for the Indian Hills Cemetery Workday

Paul Whaley Deep in the Underbrush

Stalwarts - Harold Foreground, Tom and Benny at the Fire

First White House in Montgomery Celebrates Robert E. Lee's Birthday

Ms Anne Tidmore, Regent of the First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery AL sent the following invitation to all Confederate compatriots.

You are cordially invited to attend

The First White House of the Confederacy Annual

Robert E. Lee Birthday Party

Monday, January 19, at 11:00 at the First White House

Guest speaker will be  Judge Mark Anderson

Please join us as we honor gallant Confederate General and Statesman,   General Robert E. Lee.

Birthday cake will be served.

The public is invited.

Please note:

The First White House is now OPEN ON SATURDAYS FROM 9-4 & weekdays from 8-4:30.

KEEP UP WITH CURRENT NEWS AND EVENTS

ON FACEBOOK, OUR BLOG AND OUR WEBSITE

@ The First White House Of The Confederacy

@ http://firstconfederatewhitehousereport.blogspot.com

website: www.firstwhitehouse.org

Prattville Dragoons Camp Meeting for January 2014

Camp 1524 held their regularly scheduled  monthly meeting on Thursday January 8th at the Shoneys on Cobbs Ford Road.  Our speaker, Henry Howard, was ill and undergoing treatment and could not make his anticipated presentation on Civil War Medicine and the Dragoons wish Henry a full and speedy recovery and hope to schedule him at a later date.

Chaplain Snowden opened the meeting with an invocation and closed the meeting with a benediction which included a prayer for Henry specifically.  Color Sgt Brent Jenks led everyone assembled in pledges to the US, Alabama state and Confederate Battle flags.  Commander Waldo read the SCV Charge and closing at the end of the meeting and also provided the upcoming events (which you can find on another blogpost here) and news.  

Waldo and Snowden also administered the swearing in of our newest  member, Tom Crowley, brother of Tyrone, former camp communication officer. Tom has been a stalwart worker on the Indian Hills Cemetery project and will be a fine addition to our camp.

During the portion regarding upcoming events, Benny Harris provided the latest information about the cleanup and renovation work at Indian Hills including plans to repair the broken headstones and plans for a rededication in April.  

Tyrone Crowley filled in most capably for our scheduled speaker reciting a poem written in 2007 about Robert E. Lee on the bicentennial of his birth recounting a visit Lee made to the town of Jacksonville FL after the War for Southern Independence in the last years of his life.  Lee took the trip south in the hopes of improving his health but he was met by admiring throngs everywhere he went, crowds of all ages hoping to catch a glimpse of this legend in grey.  Lee took the steamer Nick King from Savannah to Jacksonville and greeted well wishers in the salon of the ship.  But he was asked to go out on the deck to recognize the crowds lining the the banks of the port and when he did, the crowd fell into a reverent silence. The poem recalls this scene.  Tyrone did a masterful job with the poem as usual.  

Commander Waldo Presenting SCV Certificate to New Member Tom Crowley

Tyrone Crowley Presenting Poem of Robert E. Lee

The Union Army Wages a Brutal Campaign of Total War on the Southern Populace

An article received from Tommy Rhodes of the Ft. Blakeley Camp 1864, an article "The Hard Hand of War" by Kirkpatrick Sale of the Abbeville Institute dated 1/5/2015.  The Abbeville Institute provides an on-line resource of a wealth of information regarding the Confederacy and her struggle for independence.

The “Hard Hand of War”

The kind of military onslaught that Union Gen. William Sherman unleashed on the South, beginning with his infamous conquest of Atlanta and subsequent “March to the Sea,” followed by his capture of Savannah 150 years ago this month, came to be called, in the 20th century, “total war.”

That meant a war waged with full military mobilization not only against the enemy army but upon civilians in enemy territory and their property, stores and factories, with murder, looting, arson and assault from which neither women, children, the elderly or infirm were spared. It had never been seen before in the history of civilization, and it set a precedent for the all-out slaughters of the two world wars of the next century.

It didn’t happen by accident. Its germs were sown as early as March 1863, just three months after the Emancipation Proclamation, as the reason for the war for the first time gradually became the elimination of slavery and the military command, just as much as the troops on the ground, began to adopt a certain moral fervor, some of them with an outright John-Brown-like zealotry. In a letter to Gen. Ulysses Grant on March 31, General-in-Chief Henry Halleck said:

“The character of the war has very much changed. … There is now no possible hope of reconciliation with the rebels. … There can be no peace but that which is forced by the sword. We must conquer the rebels.”
>Grant replied: “Rebellion has assumed that shape now that it can only terminate by the complete subjugation of the South. It is our duty to weaken the enemy, by destroying their means of subsistence, withdrawing their means of cultivating the fields, and in every other way possible.”

Total war. Something very like what is now known as genocide.

Thus it was for Grant in Vicksburg, Sheridan in Virginia, and Sherman in Jackson (“The land is devastated for 30 miles around”) and Meridian (“no longer exists”). Then, in August, into Georgia (“I can make Georgia howl,” Sherman wrote), and finally Atlanta. He defeated a small Confederate force there, ordered the evacuation of the city, and burned most of it to the ground, leaving only 400 of some 4,000 private residences standing.

A month to recoup, then the march from Atlanta (“smoldering and in ruins,” Sherman said) across Georgia to Savannah. A march of plunder and pillage, 60,000 Union soldiers on a rampage for two months, looting and burning homes, shops and warehouses, setting fires across the plantations that grew to 60 miles wide at some points, confiscating all foodstuffs for Union use, leaving white and black near starvation. Sherman estimated that his army did $100 million worth of damage to the countryside (more than $1.5 billion today), destroying 300 miles of railroad, capturing or killing livestock, and leaving most of the state’s population of a million, black and white, destitute. “We are not only fighting armies,” Sherman said, “but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”

Savannah fell in December, practically without resistance: “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift,” Sherman wired Lincoln, “the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.” Instead of burning down his gift, he boarded his men for about a month and resupplied them from the Union ships that had blockaded the Savannah harbor and from empty plantations in the area. Sherman wrote to Halleck: “The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreck vengeance upon South Carolina,” because of course it was the lead secessionist state.

The Carolina campaign, the march from the sea, was even fiercer than the Georgia one. A reporter for a Northern newspaper wrote: “As for wholesale burning, pillage, devastation, committed in South Carolina, magnify all I have said of Georgia fifty-fold, and then throw in an occasional murder.” There was little resistance, and the ruination was total: “The destruction of houses, barns, mills, etc. was almost universal,” a Union captain wrote, and a Sherman aide testified that “a majority of the Cities, towns, villages, and country houses have been burnt to the ground.” A Union major concluded, “Aside from the destruction of military things, there were destructions overwhelming … Day by day our legions of armed men surged over the land, over a region forty miles wide, burning everything we could not take away.”

After this fierce force swept through South Carolina, annihilating the hated center of Columbia in mid-February along the way (soldiers “infuriated, cursing, screaming, exulting in their work …the whole town was wrapped in one huge blaze”), it moved on to Florence on March 3 on its way north. A Union officer wrote, “The sufferings which the people here will have to undergo will be most intense. We have left on the wide strip of country we have passed over no provisions which will go any distance in supporting the people.”

On that same day, 350 miles north, Abraham Lincoln addressed a crowd from the steps of the Capitol after his second inauguration. He promised to continue the war “with malice toward none; with charity for all.”

With malice toward none.

Prattville Dragoons News from January 2015 Camp Dispatch Newsletter

Camp News

Dragoons Receive Matching-Funds Check from GE Foundation - Commander Stuart Waldo has again this year been able to get a matching-funds check for $600, to add to the Dragoon Treasury.  This bonus to our treasury is a benefit of a program offered by Commander Waldo's employer, General Electric, for donations to 501.c.3. organizations and we thank GE for their generosity in helping the Dragoons further their efforts for community education and projects to advance the Charge. 

Friends of the Sons of Confederate Veterans – Following the example of Brigade Commander David Brantley who signed his father up as a Friend of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Commander Waldo made this a Christmas gift for his father, Whitson Waldo.  Friends receive a commemorative certificate, lapel pin and a year’s subscription to the “Confederate Veteran” magazine.  This is an excellent way to introduce friends and family to the SCV. Whitson was born in Detroit and raised in New York from whence his family hailed but he loves the South and saw fit to name one of his sons after Generals Stuart and Forrest and one daughter after Lee.

Communications Officer and Newsletter Editor - Many thanks to past-Commander Larry Spears for volunteering to serve in the role of camp Communications Officer – you will receive this newsletter, information and communication distributions from Larry going forward.  Commander Waldo will attempt to compile our monthly Camp Dispatch newsletter going forward.  Together, hopefully these two men will be able to fill Tyrone Crowley’s shoes who served so well in these capacities for so long.  If anyone feels led to volunteer to help with either of these duties please contact Larry or Stuart.

Prattville Dragoons Chaplains Column for January 2015

From the Camp Dispatch newsletter.

Chaplain’s Column:  God’s Peace to Overcome Daily Stress

            Key Scripture: Romans 8:1-6

     According to a report this year, more than 63 percent of Americans are battling stress, and a significant number describe their stress as “great.” A report I read suggested that some of us have become addicted to stress. Many of us have become so conditioned to stress we don’t know what to do with ourselves. The study suggested that we must stay busy as a way of distracting ourselves from how unsatisfied we inwardly feel with life.

     That’s not how God wants us to live. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). Paul talked about “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Romans 8:6 says, “To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

     Peace with God is obtainable through faith in Jesus, and He wants to give you peace like a river (Isaiah 66:12). If you have not already, don’t wait any longer to give your life to Jesus. Do so today. Claim His peace and let Him bestow the inward satisfaction you seek. He isn’t the author of confusion, but of peace.

It is my prayer that each of you have a wonderful Happy New Year. May your lives become increasingly God centered and each of us will have a closer walk with Jesus. I think it would be good if each of us made an increased effort to share with others about our brave ancestors of the Confederacy and try hard to get others interested in joining the Dragoons.

     Please remember all those on our prayer list.

1.         John Durden

2.         David Brantley's parents - Dave and Mary Brantley.

3.         Jeromy Roberts's wife Mrs. Donna Roberts

4.         Stuart Waldo's mother Mrs. Myrtice Wheeler and father Whitson Waldo

6.         Bill Myrick's sister Elizabeth Tillery

7.         Steve Wallace's wife Martha Ann

    

Yours In Christ

Tom Snowden, Chaplain 

Upcoming Events for Confederate Compatriots

From the January Prattville Dragoons Camp Dispatch.

Upcoming Events

Work Day at Indian Hills Cemetery - Saturday January 10^th, 2015, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.  All Dragoons are encouraged to come and help, for any amount of time they choose. From the junction of Highways 82 and 14 in west Prattville, go north (toward Tuscaloosa) on Highway 82 for two miles.  Turn left onto County Road 86.  Go 1.6 miles and you'll see Indian Hills Cemetery on your left.

Virginia Flaggers - Friday, January 16th is the Virginia State Holiday for Lee-Jackson Day, and Saturday, January 17th is officially recognized as Lee-Jackson Day in Lexington. The Virginia Flaggers will flag the town of Lexington and Washington and Lee University on Friday starting at 10am and Saturday at 9am, meeting at the Stonewall Jackson Cemetery both mornings.

Lee-Jackson Dinner 16 January 2015, 6:30 p.m. - Dalraida Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, Montgomery.  Sponsored by Semple Camp SCV Camp 2002. For $26, you will enjoy a rib-eye steak dinner and a fine program. The Semple Camp supports our Christmas Social and we reciprocate by attending their Lee-Jackson Dinner the following month. Any questions contact Communications Officer Alan Parker, 271-1775 or alantparker@gmail.com

Robert E. Lee Day - Alabama Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans will be holding an event to honor Robert E. Lee with guest speaker Mrs. Mary Custis Lee on January 24th at 10am at the State Archives and History Building Auditorium; special flag tours available and cannon and gun salue following at the Confederate monument.

Autauga Genealogical Society has put together a display of valuable information about the Society and how to research your ancestors and family history at the Prattaugan Museum from January through February 2015 located at 102 East Main Street, just across from City Hall.  Hours are Tuesday - Friday 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. and Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

S D Lee Institute Lectures, 6-7 Feb 2015 in Dallas, Texas.  For information and to register, see www.stephendleeinstitute.com/events.html

Millbrook Mardi Gras Parade - 7 February 2015, noon; festival starts at 9am

Confederate Circle Dedication, 23 May 2015, Old Live Oak Cemetery, Selma - This will be the culmination of a couple of years of dedicated effort at this very historic site by the Friends of Forrest. 

Prattville Dragoons Announce Camp Meeting for January 2015

January Meeting

The January camp meeting will be held on Thursday January 8^th at 7pm at the Shoney’s on Cobbs Ford Road.  Come early to enjoy the Shoney’s buffet for dinner with fellow compatriots.

Henry Howard will be the guest speaker for the January camp meeting.  Henry is a member of the Montgomery Capt. Henry C. Semple Camp #2002 and volunteers at the First White House as a guide, welcoming visitors in period dress. Everyone who attended the Dragoons Christmas Social surely appreciated the performance Henry provided as Santa Claus at the event, reading “The Night Before Christmas”, confronting the Grinch who attempted to disrupt the festivities and, handing out doorprize gifts. 

Henry will make a presentation on Confederate Medicine.  Using period surgical instruments, he will demonstrate a field amputation. Henry is a Civil War Re-enactor who portrays a Confederate Surgeon and Medical Inspector with the rank of Colonel and is the Alabama Division State Surgeon.  Surely a fascinating meeting is promised.  

Prattville Dragoons Commander's Column for January 2015

Happy New Year, Last of the Sesquicentennial

            This year serves as the final year of the Sesquicentennial of the War Between the States.  One hundred and fifty years ago, our grandfathers faced very dire and trying times as the inevitability of defeat to the overwhelming Union forces must have been a painful and desperate reality which they continued to face with even more incredible bravery and dedication.  Defeats and the deaths of the last of these very best and bravest Southern men mounted until the Confederate  leadership in the field could endure the losses no longer.  Unfortunately, the cessation of armed conflict did not lead to the end of hostilities as the Union occupiers imposed a martial law and subjugation of the Southern populace which continued for over a decade more.   Reconstruction policies impoverished the former states and citizens of the Confederacy for many decades more to come and bred a division between North and South and between the races which endures even today.  And worse is the derogatory slanderous attitude Northerners and their sympathizing historians have exhibited for the past 150 years in rewriting the history of our brave and  noble ancestors struggle to preserve our framers original liberties and the concept of limited self-governance in an effort to justify and glorify Lincolns war for economic imperialism. 

We are fast losing ground to political correctness and complacency in our struggle today to defend the “true history of the South”.  I thought striking Commander-in-Chief Barrow’s citation of Historian General Rutherford’s 1912 address to the UDC (Confederate Veteran, November/December 2014) of the responsibility of historians and particularly defenders of the Cause to be intimately knowledgeable and truthful in the subject of our Confederate patriot forbears, to patiently but boldly, fearlessly and enthusiastically “vindicate  the Cause, defend the Confederate soldier's good name, jealously guard his history, emulate his virtues and perpetuate those principles which he loved and those ideals which made him glorious”.  The Sesquicentennial has afforded us an opportunity to highlight the significance of this period in our nation’s history and the relevance of the issues which fomented the secession of the Southern states and the truth behind the prosecution of the War. 

The holiday season provided numerous opportunities to participate in Confederate Christmas observances and fellowship starting with the Children of the Confederacy’s seasonal program at Confederate Memorial Park, the two parades in which the Dragoons fielded entries, and of course the Dragoons annual Social with General Lee eggnog at the Buena Vista mansion beautifully decorated with Christmas greenery.   The coming year will provide even more opportunities for each of us to take advantage of this final year of the Sesquicentennial to become better stewards of our Southern heritage and bold and enthusiastic Confederate historians.  Camp 1524 will participate in more community events like parades and festivals, complete the renovations and rededicate the Indian Hills cemetery, participate in school activities including class presentations and poster distribution and awarding JROTC Hunley commendations, donate to heritage preservation projects locally and regionally, and hold monthly educational camp meetings as well as our enjoyable social activities like the spring picnic and Social.  The Division will host a Robert E. Lee Day event on January 24th at the State Archives to begin the year as well as a Confederate Memorial Day event in April at the state capitol and a Sesquicentennial event at Ft. McDermott and the annual Reunion in Tallassee this year; another highlight will certainly be the Confederate Circle rededication in Selma on May 23rd.  Nationally, the annual Stephen Dill Lee Institute seminar will be held in Dallas TX February 6-7, the SCV Reunion will be held in Richmond VA and there will be another Heritage Rally in this final year of the Sesquicentennial.  

Many opportunities to participate and contribute and promote the Cause.  Make the most of this final year of the Sesquicentennial to make memories at these and many other events to share with your children and grandchildren, friends and family, to impress upon them the importance in preserving and honoring our Southern heritage and its glorious ideals.  Take the initiative to volunteer, contribute and lead in the SCV organization.  In this regard, many thanks to past-Commander Larry Spears for assuming the role of camp Communications Officer – you will receive this newsletter, information and communication distributions from Larry going forward.  I will attempt to compile our monthly Camp Dispatch going forward.  Together, Larry and I hope to be able to fill Tyrone Crowley’s shoes who so nobly served in these capacities for so long.  Wishing everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.

Stuart Waldo

Camp Commander