Prattville Dragoons Place Battle Flags on Veterans' Graves for Confederate History and Heritage Month

In preparation for April as Confederate History and Heritage month, members of Camp 1524 Sons of Confederate Veterans placed Battle flags on the graves of the Confederate veterans whose final resting place is Oak Hill Cemetery in Prattville AL.  Camp Adjutant Sutherland brought flags and maps of the cemetery to be used for more quickly identifying the Confederate veterans' graves.  Also in attendance were 1st Lt Harold Grooms, Color Sgt John Dennis and his wife Mary Jane, compatriots Tyrone Crowley, Darrell Haywood, Larry Spears and Rob Schwarz.  Rob sent an email to the camp distribution following saying, "It was a beautiful morning (including) remembrance prayers...replaced the old flags and missing ones.  Looking over all the graves we marked really made me personally thing of their lives and what they fought for and why."  

Prattville Dragoons SCV Camp 1524 Chaplain's Column for March 2021 - Confederate Chaplain Dr. Moses Drury Hoge

 

“And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.” Jeremiah 3:15

   In doing some research for this article and the role of chaplains in the war, I came across an article about a man named Dr. Moses Drury Hoge. It was an article written a few years ago by a Mr. Charles Denning. And it is instructive on how we must be servants of God and defenders of our beloved Southern Heritage.

   Dr. Hoge was born in Virginia in 1818 and was raised a strict Presbyterian. He had a deep love for his state and for the South and viewed the North with derision. He had no love for the Unitarianism and radical abolitionism of those “other people.”

   So it was that when the War began he and many other southerners viewed it more of a “religious crusade” than a mere conflict of arms.

   Denning writes, “Early on, Dr. Hoge was intensely interested in ministerial work among the soldiers in the Confederate Army. Governor John Letcher soon appointed him to the Council for Chaplains. He became a regular preacher at the Camp of Instruction in Richmond and preached to over 100,000 men during the course of the war.”

   It was said that he was such a great orator and passionate servant of Christ that none other than “Stonewall” Jackson himself would be seen sitting on a log and listening to hours- long sermons by Mr. Hoge.  

   He further states that Dr.. Hoge was so dedicated to the cause and the soldiers of the Confederacy that he returned to the Secretary of War $300.00 which was the amount of his pay as chaplain for six months. In addition to his other duties, Dr. Hoge served as "honorary chaplain" of the Confederate Congress at the request of Vice President Alexander H. Stephens. He opened the sessions of the Congress with prayer forty-four times, far exceeding any other minister.”  

   Dr. Hoge so be believed in Christ and the Confederate cause that he, more than once, participated in blockade running expeditions to England and the West Indies to obtains thousands of Bibles and tracts to distribute to the common soldier. His final such trip was in 1863, where he escaped enemy gunboat to arrive safely in North Carolina.

   He served faithfully for the duration of the war died in 1899 and is buried in the famous Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

   May we all endeavor to emulate Dr. Hoge’s faithful service to God and country!

(Source Material: http://historyaddict.com/cschaplain1.html)

 

May God continue to watch over you and your families and protect you all.  And may God save the South!

Prattville Dragoons SCV Camp 1524 March 2021 Meeting

The Dragoons held their monthly camp meeting on Thursday March 11th at the Masonic Lodge in downtown Prattville.  There were approximately two dozen members and guests in attendance.  Chaplain Brantley opened the meeting with an Invocation followed by Color Sgt Dennis leading everyone in the pledge to the US flag and salutes to the Alabama state and Confederate flags.  Commander Waldo read the SCV Charge and then provided announcements and upcoming events.  Col. Jayson Altieri was the speaker and presented a very professional and fascinating discussion of medical treatment and the ambulance services during the War Between the States. The meeting closed with the recitation of the SCV Closing and a Benediction by the Chaplain.

Jayson provided somber statistics from the WBTS where Union soldiers had a 15% chance of dying if involved in battles and Confederates soldiers had a 12% chance of dying.  These fatality figures were worse for soldiers injured on the battlefield and the best case was for soldiers to have a friend by their side in battle who could be trusted to provide care should they fall including evacuating wounded from the battlefield.   There were also many casualties due to disease outside of wounds incurred in skirmishes.  Jayson provided an accounting of Confederate Sgt. Richard Kirkland, the Angel of Marye's Heights, who provided water to injured Yankee and Confederate soldiers on the battlefield at Fredericksburg.  

At the Battle of Malvern Hill in 1862 where Gen. Robert E. Lee led his Confederate forces against the Union Army of the Potomac under Gen. George B. McClellan, injured soldiers had to walk twenty miles back to Richmond and Washington DC to hospitals, the sight of which led to a public outcry for better care for the wounded. The 45 cal bullets used in the WBTS utilized soft lead and would expand on entry into the body, causing extensive injury, destroying flesh and bones and carrying filthy cloth from the uniform into the wound exacerbating the risk of infection.  These lead bullets were subsequently outlawed by international convention due to the severity of the injuries but, cannon balls and shrapnel and grape shot caused severe injuries for soldiers also.  Amputations were somewhat common and actually enhanced the chance of survival from these severe injuries.  

The Federal blockade of Southern ports kept medicines from reaching Confederate troops including for example quinine used for preventing malaria.  Substitutes using herbs and alternate ingredients were employed such as lard mixed with honey mixed with herbs as a wound salve providing restorative antibodies.  Jayson provided an 18th century reference book as an example of these herbal remedies used in the colonies and frontier and the WBTS, "Everyman His Own Physician Being a Complete Collection of Efficacious and Approved Remedies for Every Disease Incident to the Human Body with Plain Instructions for Their Common Use". 

The Battles of Manassas and Malvern Hill and the public observation of the wounded streaming from the battlefields led to a demand for assistance for the casualties, The formation of ambulance corps incorporating best practices from the battlefield medicine innovated by French Baron Dominique Jean Larrey resulted.  The Lieber Code dictated that non-combatants would not be harmed as they cared for the wounded on the battlefield.  Red arm bands were used to designate those in the ambulance and medical corps.  Two and four wheeled wagons were used as ambulances to transport litters of 4-6 soldiers or more ambulatory injured.  Confederate ambulances were copied or captured examples of Federal wagons.  Another development from the WBTS regarding medical care was the organization of a Sanitary Commission to ensure cleanliness of hospitals.  

Prattville Dragoons SCV Canp 1524 Commander's Column for March 2021 - Whole Truth in an Analysis of our Nation’s History and the War Between the States

Conservative activists and thinktanks claim to support truth in history but it is a selective presentation.  “One of the last things outgoing-President Trump did was to sign an executive order on the 1776 Commission. It's geared toward teaching American school children about America's true source of greatness.  Yet one of the first things incoming-President Biden did was to sign an executive order nullifying Trump's 1776 initiative.  The 1776 Commission responded with a joint statement from its chairman, Dr. Larry P. Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College; prominent conservative African-American scholar Dr. Carol Swain, retired professor of Vanderbilt Law School; and Dr. Matthew Spalding, the vice president and dean of the graduate school of government of Hillsdale's D.C. campus.  They wrote, ''The 1776 Report calls for a return to the unifying ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence. It quotes the greatest Americans, black and white, men and women, in devotion to these ideals. The Commission may be abolished, but these principles and our history cannot be. We will all continue to work together to teach and to defend them.''  In effect, our Founders declared their independence from England and their dependence upon God. As JFK put it, our founders declared, ''The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.''  I am of the persuasion that God did something unique in politics and world governance in the creation of the United States. Yes, slavery and mistreatment of the Native Americans were there almost from the beginning. But these were in violation of the promise of America.  They happened despite the promise of America, not because of it. And it was that promise that leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to in abolishing those injustices.”  (https://www.newsmax.com/jerrynewcombe/commission-project-slavery/2021/01/27/id/1007511/)

No mention that of Lincoln’s racist views as demonstrated by his own personal statements such as during the debates with Stephen Douglas just two years before his election as US President, “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.”  Previously, in an 1847 lawsuit, Lincoln defended a slaveholder’s rights to his property when relocating from Kentucky to Illinois.  He defended and reenforced his past positions and statements in his inaugural address in March of 1861, “Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that-- I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.  Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them.”  He further reiterated his position that he would enforce the laws Constitutionally guaranteeing the return of fugitive slaves to their owners.  Then still referencing the Constitution, Lincoln in this address states that the Union exists in “perpetuity” although no such basis could be found in our nation’s founding documents.  Lincoln of course went on, per his own assertion that the “Union (was) unbroken” to unconstitutionally use the federal army to invade the Southern states and violate the Constitution (and his inaugural promises) further by attempting to free the slaves in the South with his Emancipation Proclamation (when in fact it was little more than a war measure and resolution to garner international support.   Further, his unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in the first month of the War and suppression of the press critical of his militant actions in violation of the 1st Amendment.  The use of martial law extensively throughout the Northern states.  Military trials and evictions of private citizens such as in Union held Missouri.  The champion of emancipation sought throughout his presidency to facilitate the resettling and colonization of freed blacks to Africa and central America even allocating federal funds for colonies in Liberia.   Not to mention the fallacies of neo-con infatuation with and mischaracterization of the plagiarist philandering MLK. 

But the 1776 Commission did seek to “enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.' This requires a restoration of American education, which can only be grounded on a history of those principles that is 'accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.'''  This in contrast to the 1619 Project espoused by liberal activists and school boards from New York to Chicago to California. “The 1619 Project of The New York Times postulates that America's real birth date was 1619 when the first African slaves came to these shores. Sadly, the 1619 Project is now being disseminated in many of our schools, thus, leading more young Americans to disparage our nation's history.”  As Newsmax correctly highlights, slavery was not unique to the founding of America (although the author again erroneously infers that the War for Southern Independence was fought to abolish slavery).  Slavery existed and fueled the worldwide trade and economy throughout the 16th into the mid-19th centuries in Dutch, Spanish, French and of course, British colonies.  Slavery has existed since the Old Testament times.  But peculiar that only in America was slavery supposedly eliminated thru the expenditure of 600,000 fatalities or these neo-con historians would have you believe.  To come to grips with the truth of our American history, we will need to revise the textbooks so long perpetuating the false narrative decried by Confederate General Patrick Cleburne, “That the history of this heroic struggle (for Southern Independence) will be written by the enemy, that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; learn from Northern school books THEIR version of the war, and taught to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects of derision."   Jarrett Stepman of the Heritage Foundation, cited in the Newsmax article stated, “''We're not a perfect country, as human beings are certainly not perfect.  But this country has done a lot of great things. ... a lot of people in academia and higher education, want to change that, want to make Americans feel like their country is built on something terrible.''  Unfortunately, telling the truth (especially in regards to the true impetus for the War Between the States as Lincoln’s quest for tariff monies to fund his industrialist complex and imperialist ambitions) may tarnish that image of the heroic faultless US federal government.  But it may go a long way to explain why the federal government is today so oppressive and that we find ourselves in a critical juncture today with our Republic in the face of progressive socialists as Lee warned, “The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.”

Upcoming Events for Confederate Compatriots

 From the Prattville Dragoons SCV Camp 1524 Dispatch newsletter:

Cemetery Workday – Saturday March 6th, 8am Asbury Cemetery, Autaugaville

AL Division Flag Day – Saturday March 6th

Prattville Dragoons March Camp Meeting – Thursday March 11^th at 6:45pm at the Prattville Masonic Lodge

Prattville Dragoons Confederate Veterans Flag Placement – Prattville Oak Hill Cemetery, Saturday March 27th, 8am

Army of Tennessee Workshop – Saturday March 27th, 9am - 3pm, Guntersville Hampton Inn

AL Division Reunion – Friday-Saturday June 4-5th, Prattville AL hosted by the Dragoons SCV Camp 1524

SCV National Reunion – Wednesday-Saturday July 21-24th, Metairie-Kenner, LA hosted by the Beauregard Camp 130

Bicentennial Forrest Birthday – Saturday July 31st, 3pm til, hosted by Butch and Pat Godwin at Ft.Dixie