Prattville Dragoons Dixie Butt Fundraiser

Camp 1524's annual Dixie Butt distribution was a busy morning on Saturday August 15th.  One hundred and sixty five butts were bagged and handed out to those arriving to pick up their purchased smoked butt or taken by those who had multiple deliveries.  It is always a pleasure to see some of the members who support the Dragoons so well but who we are not able to see on a regular basis.  A tent and some chairs were set up to provide some shade and Adjutant Sutherland managed the checklist of sales against those butts distributed.  We had a great turnout of folks to help work the distribution including Commander Waldo, 1st Lt Grooms, 2nd Lt George Jenks, Adjutant Sutherland, Chaplain Snowden, Comm Ofc Larry Spears, Quartermaster Myrick, Jeff Potts, Don Drasheff, Tyrone Crowley who brought Mollie, the unofficial Dragoon mascot, and many other Dragoons and friends.  Thanks to all who purchased and sold a Dixie butt as part of the Dragoons annual fundraiser.

Upcoming Events for Confederate Compatriots

From the Prattville Dragoons Camp Dispatch for September 2015:

Upcoming Events

Flagging of the Confederate Monument at the Alabama State Capitol – ongoing afternoons

Indian Hill Cemetry Workday – Saturday September 12^th, 8am – til; Bill Branch recently retrieved the remaining materials from Glenda Harris which were purchased by Benny for the cemetery renovations

General Joe Wheeler’s 179^th Birthday – Saturday Sept 12, 10am-3pm, Courtland AL http://generaljoewheelerhome.com/home.html

Stone Mountain Park Confederate Lectures – Abbeville Institute, Saturday, October 17^th,  9 am - 5 pm, https://abbevilleinstitute.typeform.com/to/yW444d

Dragoons Christmas Social – Friday December 11^th, 7pm, Buena Vista, Prattville AL

General Joe Wheeler's 179th Birthday Party

Sons of Confederate Veterans Members, Associates and guests are cordially invited to attend 

General Joe Wheeler's 179th Birthday Party at his home in Courtland, Alabama,

Saturday, September 12, 10 AM until 3 PM. 

 Music, food, reenactors, tours of the home, a great way to spend a Saturday!

 Details on the website.

 http://generaljoewheelerhome.com/home.html

Prattville Dragoons August 2015 Camp Meeting

Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 1524 held their monthly meeting on Thursday, August 13 at the Shoney's on Cobbs Ford Road in Prattville and it was a very exciting one and exceptionally well attended. Fifty-four camp members, potential members, new members and guests turned out to hear a compelling presentation from Dr. Cecil Williamson, pastor of Crescent Hill Presbyterian and City Councilman in Selma. Dr. Williamson delivered a passionate, well documented and truthful program about the true causes of The War and the way political correctness has altered the truth about these facts since 1960, challenging Confederate compatriots to continue the fight, just as our ancestors did, against tyranny and oppression by a heavy handed central government. In his conclusion, he stated that “God will vindicate” our Cause and the “pagans” will end up where they ought to when all is said and done.  This was an address given by Cecil at the Alabama Division United Daughters of the Confederacy Confederate Memorial Day Celebration in Montgomery, Alabama April 27, 2015 and the speech is available in the July Alabama Division Confederate Veteran magazine of July 2015, pages 22-24 - http://aladivscv.com/July%202015%20Alabama%20Confederate.pdf .

The program began with an invocation by Chaplain Snowden and then Color Sgt Brent Jenks led everyone in the pledges to the U.S., Alabama, and Confederate Battle flags.  Following Dr. Williamson, Commander Waldo delivered the SCV Charge.  As part of the announcements, newly appointed 2nd Lt. Commander George Jenks was sworn in; George who will handle recruiting and assist potential and new members for the camp. George has held other leadership positions in the SCV at other camps. A special thanks was extended to Adjutant Wayne Sutherland and Larry Spears for their hard work on the camp's Dixie butt fundraiser which culminated in the butt distribution on Saturday August 15th.  Adjutant Sutherland provided a report of the successful fundraiser and also announced the SCV membership renewals deadline in October. Available Confederate Battle flags and DVDs of recent SCV and camp events were offered. A great meeting of the Prattville Dragoons.

Dr. Cecil Williamson

Alabama Monument Protection Bill - Lobbying Legislators and Prayer Vigil

On Monday August 3rd, the Alabama state Senate and House convened in a special session called by Governor Bentley to work on a budget.  But this was also an opportunity to present the Monument Protection Bill and attempt to get it passed through the legislature to help protect and preserve memorials to the brave soldiers who fought for Alabama and for our country throughout its history. Alabama Division Sons of Confederate Veterans Commander Gary Carlyle and Division Adjutant Mike Williams worked extremely hard to get this bill drafted and put before the legislature and were present in the committee room when the vote was taken. The Monument Protection Bill (SB12) passed the Senate committee which would be followed by a vote on the Senate floor and then through the House and ultimately to the governor for his signature.  The legislature went into recess though before it went any further so we need to continue to contact our senators and representatives to support this bill as we move into the special session scheduled for September and continue to work until we get this bill to be law in Alabama.  Dragoons including Commander Waldo, Larry Spears, Tyrone Crowley and Cody Simon lobbied the Legislature starting around 3pm on Monday, August 3rd and then some attended the special session called for 4pm following in the Senate chamber as others flagged the monument across Union Street.  Following dismissal, a prayer vigil was held at the Confederate monument on the state capitol grounds to pray for our Southern heritage and leaders both in this cause and our state.  Mike Williams organized the event, tireless as always, and Henry Howard of the Montgomery SCV Semple Camp led everyone in prayer.  Continue to support the Monument Protection Bill and contact your legislators.

Devastating Cost of Total War in the War for Southern Independence

The Abbeville Institute

The Cost of Total War in the South

By William Cawthon on Aug 28, 2015    

Chapter 29, on “Lives Lost,” in the newly released booklet, “Understanding the War Between the States,” reveals startlingly higher numbers of people who lost their lives as a result of the War for Southern Independence, especially among Southern soldiers, civilians, and blacks.   New scholarly works on these topics are the basis for these significantly higher figures.   I learned this in research for the writing of this chapter.

The traditional number of soldiers who died as a result of this epic War, 620,000 (360,000 Northern and 260,000 Southern) has been revised to 750,000 (400,000 Northern and 350,000 Southern).   An estimated 35,000 white Southern civilians died, numbers very seldom even considered in the costs of the War.

Perhaps most astonishing of all, because heretofore very little attention has been paid to the deaths of black people caused by the War, the number of blacks who died in the Confederate States from the War’s causes may well have reached 200,000, primarily a result of the North’s lack of a plan for immediate emancipation and other policies of the “Union” government both during the War and Reconstruction, including the severe hardships brought on the Southern People by the blockade.

The Southern loss of life was so great that the prominent historian James McPherson believes that the total mortality rate of the South from this war — without counting the huge number of blacks who died — was greater than that of any country during World War I, a war so devastating that the West has been in decline ever since.  In World War II, only the region between the Rhine and the Volga suffered greater total mortality than did the South during the War, and this region included the Nazi death camps.

Almost 30% of all Southern white men between the ages of 18 and 48 died fighting for Southern Independence.   This ratio of deaths in a war fought today by the United States would result in 21 million deaths, virtually incomprehensible to modern Americans.  This rate of mortality is 300 times that of the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 Americans died.  Even World War II saw “only” 405,000 American deaths, itself a huge number, though paling in comparison with the comparable Southern losses during the War.

You can download the entire booklet by going to www.southernhistorians.org and clicking on, in the fourth block in the center of the page: “Free Download of New Booklet on . . . .”, and, on the link, click on at the top of the page: “Free PDF copy” of the booklet, which in this version is in its final published form. Some of the chapters are not the final version if one clicks on the individual chapters.

Honouring Our Fathers

This was a speech given in 2014 in Columbia, South Carolina on Confederate Memorial Day, just one short year ago.
 Honouring Our Fathers - excerpts

By Paul C. Graham on May 12, 2014 - http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/honouring-our-fathers/ for complete text

 Anyone who is still confused about the meaning of this display (Capitol Confederate Monument, Columbia, South Carolina) is either ignorant, dishonest, or is willing to use falsehoods to further a political or social agenda. For some reason they believe their lives will be improved if the memory of our fathers and their struggle for independence is effaced from the earth. For some reason they have come to believe the worst of us, their neighbours, who harbour no ill will towards them.

It is not our minds that are Confederate, it is our hearts, our blood, and our bones that is Confederate although, sadly, there remain few who are willing to openly say so anymore. I am, however, neither ashamed nor afraid of who and what I am.

In this present tense, ideological world in which we live, it is easy to lose sight of this simple fact: that the men whom we memorialize today are not abstractions, ideas, or political brickbats; they are not flags, monuments, or songs—they are our fathers; quite literally our fathers. They were real men who faced real difficulties; men who reacted to their situation to the best of their ability and did so with honour and dignity. Their actions were motivated by sound principle and a deep and abiding love for their country—a country that was not merely defined by government, territorial integrity, or abstract propositions. Theirs was a real and tangible country; a country of kith and kin, blood and soil, headstones and homesteads—things worth defending, things worth dying for. As their children, we have ample reason to be proud, indeed, to celebrate, commemorate, and memorialize our sires. Not only them, but our Confederate mothers as well who sacrificed just as much, if not more in many cases, than did our fathers. The Biblical injunction is clear: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” (Exodus 20:12)

As early as January of 1864, General Patrick Cleburne, warned what would surely come to pass should the South fail to gain her independence: …the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision…

Edmund Burke, speaking in the 1780’s, wisely observed that Society is an open-ended partnership between generations. The dead and the unborn are as much members of society as the living. To dishonour the dead is to reject the relation on which society is built—a relation of obligation between generations. Those who have lost respect for the dead have ceased to be trustees of their inheritance. Inevitably, therefore, they lose their sense of obligation to future generations. The web of obligation shrinks to the present tense. We are now living in a society, indeed, a world, that views itself in the present tense—with no roots whatsoever—completely separated from historical context. In this condition they run headlong into the future, deaf, dumb, and blind.

By honouring and remembering our fathers, reclaiming their history—our history—we place ourselves in a position to take, just as they did, the long view. Grasping hands through the generations—one reaching back to our fathers and the other reaching forward to our children, we occupy the causal position that they once held. The dead can only teach and advise by their charter, conduct, and the effects of these that linger. Future generations will inherit, for better or for worse, what we leave behind. By memorializing our fathers, we realize that the call that they answered now rings in our ears— for the memory of our fathers, for the inheritance of our children, for the sake of duty itself. Next to our obligation to God, we have no higher duty than to our families—those who have passed, those who are with us now, and those that will follow us.