J.D.R. Hawkins

One bullet can make a man a hero… or a casualty.

Archive for the tag “North Carolina”

The Irony of It All

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If these two articles are any indication, most Americans are against removing monuments and historical artifacts. And yet, it still keeps happening against the majority’s wishes. Why is this happening? Nikki Haley recently remarked how the Confederate monuments and the Southern Cross were symbols of heritage and history until some nimrod, who will remain un-named as to not give him the notoriety he so desperately craves, came along and committed an unfathomable atrocity.
NORTH CAROLINA DESTROYS ANOTHER MONUMENT
A large crowd gathered Wednesday to watch as the 27-foot-high 112-year-old Confederate statue outside the historic Chatham County courthouse was taken down and dismantles by workers despite a State law protecting it.
The pieces were then taken away with the help of a crane. The cost to the taxpayers was at least $44,000.
A RECENT POLL SHOWS
A strong majority of North Carolina residents say Confederate statues and monuments should remain in place, according to a statewide survey released Wednesday morning.
The Elon University Poll found that 65% of respondents think Confederate monuments should remain on public, government-owned property, while only 35% think they should be removed.
A quarter of those surveyed said removing monuments helps race relations in the state, 36% said it hurts race relations and 40% said the removal doesn’t make a difference
(Articles courtesy of Dixie Heritage Newsletter, November. 22, 2019 ed.)

And It’s Offensive Because Why?

I’m having difficulty grasping what is happening in this country, specifically in the South. I just read how some group was protesting the annual UCD convention and requesting that the venue deny their gathering. Unbelievable! Thankfully, the venue ignored their request. But what’s to happen next year? I shudder to think. Here is more bizarre news about the destruction of our history because it is supposedly, suddenly, inexplicably “offensive.”

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TWO RALLYS – NO BLOODSHED
Supporters and opponents of Confederate monuments gathered in downtown Pittsboro, North Carolina on Saturday afternoon to hold opposing rallies.

Police closely monitored both rallies.
As we reported last month, the Chatham County Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to move the Confederate monument in front of the courthouse, which has been in place since 1907. This gives until October 1st for the local chapter of the UDC to come up with a plan for the statue.
The reality is the United Daughters of the Confederacy gifted the statue — which would make it public property and as a public monument the 2015 law which limits removal and alteration of monuments on public grounds would apply. That is why the city, over a hundred years later has “repudiated” the gift. If the courts allow this repudiation, which we suspect they will, it will set a dangerous precedent erasing the monument protection laws in most states.
ALSO IN NORTH CAROLINA
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A student is climing to have found the remains of the Silent Sam monument. While the Charlotte Observer has reported the discovery they have not confirmed it. So far, The University of North Carolina will not comment on the matter.
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(Articles courtesy of Dixie Heritage Newsletter, Sept. 20, 2019 ed.)

The Facts Are Alarming

I just read an article written by a former Southern governor, stating that all Confederate monuments were erected to celebrate white supremacy. This is so offensive and off base that I wanted to post the following list in order to show how wrong this attitude is. The fact is, most Southern soldiers fought to protect their homes and ward off the advancing enemy. Let me know what your thoughts are on the subject. Thanks again so much for reading my blog!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

TOWNS BURNED BY THE CONFEDERATE ARMY

1. Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, July 30, 1864

Chambersburg

TOWNS BURNED BY THE UNION ARMY

(from the Official Records):

1. Osceola, Missouri, burned to the ground, September 24, 1861

(The town of 3,000 people was plundered and burned to the ground, 200 slaves were freed and nine local citizens were executed.) *

2. * Platte City, Mo – December 16, 1861 – (“ColonelW. James Morgan marches from St. Joseph to Platte City. Once there, Morgan burns the city and takes three prisoners — all furloughed or discharged Confederate soldiers. Morgan leads the prisoners to Bee Creek, where one is shot and a second is bayonetted, while thethird is released. ”)

3. Dayton, Missouri, burned, January 1 to 3, 1862

4. Frenchburg, Virginia (later West Virginia), burned, January 5, 1862

5. Columbus, Missouri, burned, reported on January 13, 1862

6. Bentonville, Arkansas, partly burned, February 23, 1862

(a Federal search party set fire to the town after finding a dead Union soldier, burning most of it to the ground)*

7. Winton, North Carolina, burned, February 20, 1862

8. Bluffton, South Carolina, burned, reported June 6, 1863

(Union troops, about 1,000 strong, crossed Calibogue Sound and eased up the May River in the pre-dawn fog,

surprising ineffective pickets and having their way in an unoccupied village. Rebel troops put up a bit of a fight, but gunboats blasted away as two-thirds of the town was burned in less than four hours. After the Yankees looted furniture and left, about two-thirds of the town’s 60 homes were destroyed.”)*

9. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, burned, August 5 & 21, 1862

10. Donaldsonville, Louisiana, partly burned, August 10, 1862

11. Athens, Alabama, partly burned, August 30, 1862

12. Prentiss, Mississippi, burned, September 14, 1862

13. Randolph, Tennessee, burned, September 26, 1862

14. Elm Grove and Hopefield, Arkansas, burned, October 18, 1862

15. Bledsoe’s Landing, Arkansas, burned, October 21, 1862

16. Hamblin’s, Arkansas, burned, October 21, 1862

17. Napoleon, Arkansas, partly burned, January 17, 1863

18. Mound City, Arkansas, partly burned, January 13, 1863

19. Clifton, Tennessee, burned, February 20, 1863 20. Hopefield, Arkansas, burned, February 21, 1863

(“Captain Lemon allowed residents one hour to removepersonal items, and the men then burned every house inthe village.”)*

21. Celina, Tennessee, burned, April 19, 1863

22. Hernando, Mississippi, partly burned, April 21, 1863

23. Greenville, Mississippi, burned, May 6, 1863

24. Jackson, Mississippi, mostly burned, May 15, 1863

25. Austin, Mississippi, burned, May 23, 1863

(“On May 24, a detachment of Union marines landednear Austin. They quickly marched to the town, ordered all of the town people out and burned down the

26. Darien, Georgia, burned, June 11, 1863

27. Eunice, Arkansas, burned, June 14, 1863

28. Gaines Landing, Arkansas, burned, June 15, 1863

29. Richmond, Louisiana, burned, June 15, 1863

30. Sibley, Missouri, burned June 28, 1863

31. Donaldsonville, Louisiana, destroyed and burned, June 28, 1863

 

32. Columbus, Tennessee, burned, reported February 10, 1864

33. Meridian, Mississippi, destroyed, February 3 to March 6, 1864

34. Campti, Louisiuana, burned, April 16, 1864

35. Washington, North Carolina, sacked and burned, April 20, 1864

36. Grand Ecore, Louisiana, burned, April 21, 1864

37. Cloutierville, Louisiana, burned, April 25, 1864

38. Bolivar, Mississippi, burned, May 5, 1864

39. Alexandria, Louisiana, burned, May 13, 1864

40. Hallowell’s Landing, Alabama, burned, reported May 14, 1864

41. Newtown, Virginia, ordered to be burned, ordered May 30, 1864

42. Ripley, Mississippi, burned, July 8, 1864

43. Harrisburg, Mississippi, burned, July 14, 1864

Oxford

44. Oxford, Mississippi, burned, August 22, 1864

45. Rome, Georgia, partly burned, November 11, 1864

(“Union soldiers were told to burn buildings theConfederacy could use in its war effort: railroad depots, storehouses, mills, foundries, factories and bridges. Despite orders to respect private property, some soldiers had their own idea. They ran through the city bearing firebrands, setting fire to what George M.Battey Jr. called harmless places.”)*

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46. Atlanta, Georgia, burned, November 15, 1864

47. Camden Point, Missouri, burned, July 14, 1864

48. Kendal’s Grist-Mill, Arkansas, burned, September 3, 1864

49. Shenandoah Valley, devastated, reported October 1, 1864 by Sheridan

(Washington College was sacked and burned during this campaign)*

50. Griswoldville, Georgia, burned, November 21, 1864

51. Guntersville, Alabama, burned January 15, 1865

52. Somerville, Alabama, burned, January 17, 1865

53. McPhersonville, South Carolina, burned, January 30, 1865

54. Lawtonville, South Carolina, burned, February 7, 1865

55. Barnwell, South Carolina, burned, reported February 9, 1865

56. Orangeburg, South Carolina, burned, February 12, 1865

57. Columbia, South Carolina, burned, reported February 17, 1865

58. Winnsborough, South Carolina, pillaged and partly burned, February 21, 1865

59. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, burned, April 4, 1865

Thanks to Jim Huffman with The Gainesville Volunteers, Picayune for the above places, dates and actions.

(*) information taken from: https://seekingliberty.org/2018/10/01/ the-benchmark-set-by- union-army-1861-1865/

(Article courtesy of The Southern Comfort, Private Samuel A. Hughey Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 1452, President Jefferson Davis Chapter Military Order of the Stars and Bars newsletter, vol. 43, issue 9, September 2019)

 

Women of the Confederacy (Pt. 12)

Rose O’Neal Greenhow  

“Wild Rose” 

rose-72  Rose and kid

Rose O’Neal Greenhow was the perfect example of a Southern martyr. She was born in Montgomery County, Maryland in 1817, and acquired her nickname at an early age. Rose’s father was murdered by his slaves the same year she was born, so her mother was forced to raise four daughters and take care of the family farm. When Mrs. O’Neal died, Rose and her younger sister were sent to Washington D.C. to live with an aunt, who ran a fashionable boardinghouse at what would later become the Old Capitol Prison. Now a teenager, Rose learned the art of social etiquette. Considered to be educated, refined, loyal, and beautiful, with olive skin and a rosy complexion, she was the epitome of high society, and cultivated relationships with politicians and military officers, including Daniel Webster and James Buchanan. Her closest confidant, however, was John C. Calhoun, the powerful statesman from South Carolina who served as senator, secretary of state, and vice president.  

“I am a Southern woman,” Rose wrote, “born with revolutionary blood in my veins, and my first crude ideas on State and Federal matters received consistency and shape from the best and wisest man of this century.” When Calhoun succumbed to his final illness at the Old Capitol, Rose was in constant attendance.  

In 1835, she wed wealthy Virginian Dr. Robert Greenhow with the blessing of famed society matron Dolly Madison. Rose was 26, and Greenhow was 43. The couple had eight children. In 1850, the family moved to Mexico City with the promise of greater financial gains, and then to San Francisco. Dr. Greenhow died from an injury in 1854, so Rose and her children moved back to Washington D.C., where she resumed the role of popular socialite. 

When the War Between the States broke out in April, 1861, she was 44 years old. Staunchly pro-slavery, Rose immediately set to work contacting Confederate friends with information she obtained from pro-Union contacts. She and a close associate, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Jordan, formed an extensive spy ring that included both men and women. 

 In July, Rose obtained one important piece of information that she sent to General P.G.T. Beauregard prior to the Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run). Written in secret script, she sent the ten-word message via her assistant, Betty Duvall, who carried the note wrapped in silk and tied up in the bun of her hair. The note stated that the enemy, 55,000 strong, would commence from Arlington and Alexandria to Manassas. Because of this vital information, Beauregard and General Johnston were able to deflect the Union army’s advance and win the battle. Afterward, Jefferson Davis commended her achievement. 

Rose’s activities raised the suspicions of Allan Pinkerton, head of the newly organized federal government’s Secret Service. After he spied into the windows of her home on 16th Street NW, and thought he had enough sufficient evidence, Pinkerton placed Rose on house arrest in August. Union soldiers showed her no dignity as they ransacked through her belongings, discovering maps, letters, notes, ciphered messages, and papers that she had attempted to burn. Rose didn’t hesitate to let everyone know about her plight by writing to Mary Chesnut and Secretary of State William Seward, whose letter was leaked to a Richmond newspaper. Defiantly, she still continued her spying activities, so Pinkerton sent her and her youngest daughter, 8-year-old “Little Rose,” to Old Capitol Prison in January. Rose reportedly wrapped the Confederate flag around her torso as she was being led to prison. Ironically, she and her daughter were contained in the same room where she spent hours with John C. Calhoun while he was dying. Needless to say, Confederate propaganda mills were given ammunition about the “brutal Yankees who would imprison a mother and child.” 

While she was in prison, “The Rebel Rose” waved the Confederate flag from her window nearly every day, and continued her espionage. After a judge decided in March 1862 that it was too volatile to put her on trial, Rose was exiled to Richmond in June, once again draping herself with the Confederate flag upon her exit from Washington. She was greeted by cheering crowds as a heroine. In August 1863, President Davis appointed her to a diplomatic mission in France and England, and while there, she penned her memoirs, My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington in an effort to gain European support for the Southern cause. The book immediately became a best seller. She was received by Queen Victoria and Napoleon III, was granted an audience with the Emperor at the Tuileries, and became engaged to the Second Earl of Granville. 

Rose missed her home, however, so in September, 1864, she decided to return to America with classified information for the Confederacy. Sailing aboard the blockade runner Condor, she and her traveling companions attracted the attention of a Union ship on October 1. In an attempt to outrun it, the Condor ran aground on a sandbar at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Afraid that she would be captured, Rose convinced the captain to let her take a lifeboat. Regardless of the stormy weather, he relented, and she set off with two others and $2,000 in gold sovereigns that she had earned from book royalties. Tragically, the tiny rowboat capsized, and the three people aboard were drowned.  

The following day, Rose’s body washed up on shore. A Confederate soldier discovered it and took the gold, then pushed the body back into the sea. It washed up again, however, and was recovered and identified this time. (The soldier was so wrought with guilt that he returned the gold.) Rose’s body was taken to Wilmington, North Carolina, where it was laid out in state in a hospital chapel with a Confederate flag for a shroud. She was given a full military funeral, and her coffin was also draped with the Confederate flag. The marble cross marking her grave bears the epitaph, “Mrs. Rose O’N. Greenhow, a Bearer of Dispatchs to the Confederate Government.” 

Rose’s diary, dated August 5, 1863 to August 10, 1864, and describing her mission in detail, is held in the North Carolina State Archives in Raleigh. The National Archives has digitalized and made available in the Archival Research Catalog 175 documents that the U.S. Intelligence Service seized from Rose’s home in August 1861.

(The photograph of Rose and “Little Rose” was taken during their incarceration at Old Capitol Prison by Matthew Brady Studio.) 

 

 

 

 

Women of the Confederacy (Pt. 11)

Nancy Hart

Nancy Hart

“The Rebel in the Family” 

The life of Confederate spy Nancy Hart is shrouded in mystery. Old documents refer to her with a mixture of fact and folklore. It is believed that she was born in Raleigh, North Carolina to John and Rebecca Hart in 1846. Her mother was a first cousin of Andrew Johnson, who later became president when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The Harts were devout Christians, and her father frequently held family worship services. While Nancy was still an infant, they moved to Tazwell, Virginia. 

Nancy was tall, lithe, and black-eyed. She was a middle child who had six, or possibly twelve, siblings. In 1853, she went to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Mary and William Clay Price, in Roane County, Virginia, which became West Virginia in 1863. The family lived in the wilderness, so Nancy learned how to be an accomplished hunter and rider, but she never learned how to read and write. When the Civil War began, the Roane County held divided loyalties. Friends, neighbors, and families were separated by opposing beliefs. William was not a Confederate soldier, but he did his part by assisting them. After drawing suspicion, Union soldiers confronted him at his farm and ordered him to go to nearby Spencer to take the oath of allegiance. He departed with the Yankees, but never made it to Spencer. His body was discovered three days later. He had been shot in the back and left in the road. 

The murder of William spawned Nancy’s loathing for the Federals. She revered the Southern Cause, even though two of her brothers went to fight for the North. In early 1861, her neighbors, the Kelly’s, held a going away party for their two sons who had joined the Confederate Army. While the party was commencing, Union officers marched past the house in the moonlight. Nancy hollered, “Hurrah for Jeff Davis!” Four rifle shots rang out in response, and four minie balls struck the front stoop, one of which lodged in the door. Three days later, Nancy joined the Moccasin Rangers, who were pro-Southern guerrillas, and rode with their leader, Perry Conley (or Connolly) at the head of the column, leading the Rangers while working as a spy, scout, and guide to the local region. She travelled alone at night to deliver messages between Confederate armies, and slept during the day. She also saved the lives of many wounded Rebel soldiers by hiding them with Southern sympathizers and nursing them back to health. Posing as a farm girl, she peddled eggs and vegetables to Union detachments to obtain information, and scouted isolated Federal outposts to report their strength, population, and vulnerability to General Stonewall Jackson. She even led Jackson’s cavalry on several raids. In the fall of 1861, Conley narrowly escaped the Federals, but Nancy was captured. Deciding she didn’t know anything, they released her, which was a big mistake, because she reported back to Conley with valuable information about the Yankees. 

Nancy married one of the Moccasin Rangers, Joshua Douglas. Conley was mortally wounded in an engagement with Ohio Infantry in early summer, 1862. He fought off his attackers until he ran out of ammunition, and then the Yankees clubbed him to death. Afterward, the Rangers disbanded. Nancy’s husband joined up with the 19th Virginia Cavalry, and she moved into the mountains of Nicholas County, where she continued her work as a messenger. A reward for her capture was issued, and it wasn’t long until Union Lieutenant Colonel Starr recognized “Peggy,” as Nancy was known by both armies. She and a female friend were discovered in a log cabin, crushing corn. They were taken prisoner, and confined to the second-story of an old, dilapidated house in Summersville.  Soldiers were quartered downstairs, and a sentry was posted to guard them in their room.  

While there, 20-year-old Nancy was allowed to roam the jail grounds of her own free will. She gained the attention of several soldiers, including telegrapher Marion H. Kerner, who convinced Starr to transfer the young women to the Summersville jail, and supplied them with sewing materials and illustrated papers. When an itinerant photographer showed up to hone his trade, Kerner persuaded Nancy to pose for a picture, although she said that she didn’t have clothes “fittin’ to be pictured in.” Kerner requested clothing from some Union women, and fashioned a Yankee officer’s hat by folding the bill and inserting a plume. The resulting photograph is the only one in existence of Nancy Hart, who, according to legend, refused to smile because she had to wear Yankee attire.  

Here is where the story differs. One version states that, later that night, Nancy tricked a naive soldier. After talking to him extensively, she convinced him to show her his pistol. The young, enamored Yankee willingly obliged. She promptly fired into his heart, killing him instantly. Nancy jumped headlong out of a second-story window into a clump of tall jimson weeds, and escaped bareback on Lieutenant Colonel Starr’s horse.  

A week later, on July 25, she returned with 200 Confederate cavalrymen. She was still riding Lieutenant Colonel Starr’s horse. At 4:00 a.m., the Rebels burned three buildings, including the commissary storehouse. They also destroyed two wagons, and captured eight mules and twelve horses. In all, only ten shots were fired, and two soldiers were wounded. The Confederates easily arrested the slumbering Yankees, including Starr, who was shipped off to Libby Prison with his officers. Marion Kerner was also captured, but Nancy convinced the Confederate officers to release him because of the kind treatment he had shown her. He was immediately arrested, however, after attempting to send a telegraph to Union forces. 

Nancy faded out of the picture as an active partisan, no doubt knowing that, if she were to be captured again, a rope would be waiting for her. After the War Between the States ended, her husband returned, and they lived in Greenbrier County, raising two sons. Nancy’s last public appearance was in 1902, when she testified at the Courthouse in Lewisburg on behalf of her son, Kennos, who was charged with killing a man at a dance. Nancy died in either 1902 or 1913.  

The other version of her story isn’t nearly as colorful, and is much sadder. According to Hart family legend, Nancy was born to rebel, and paid with her life after she was arrested and confined in Summersville. Because Union troops didn’t want the locals to know, her hanging on Cold Knob Mountain was kept a secret. Nancy remained calm, but once allowed to speak, she hollered out the Rebel yell, as well as “Wahoo! Whoop! Hurrah!” and “Yay for the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis!” However, there is little or no evidence suggesting that Nancy was executed by hanging. On the other hand, there is little or no evidence stating that she ever married, either, and no official record of her killing a Union soldier. Census records are sketchy at best, as are family records. 

She is buried at Mannings Knob Cemetery in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, near Richwood, where the Mannings family buried their slaves. The cemetery is also known as Nancy Hart Cemetery. She was originally buried with only a pile of stones to mark her grave. Years later, Jim Comstock, a publisher and Civil War buff, decided that she deserved a proper marker, so he and Nancy’s granddaughter found the top of Mannings Knob, but the area had been bulldozed to make room for a beacon tower. Her grave was never located. However, a marker was erected in the cemetery in her honor. 

Hart Grave 

Marion H. Kerner, the Union officer who convinced Nancy to pose for a photograph, said that the last glimpse he caught of her was shortly after the Summersville raid, and he never “heard of her since. She may be dead.”  He later wrote about her, making her story famous in Leslie’s Weekly Magazine. The article was published in 1910. A large rock, known as “Nancy’s Dancing Rock,” still exists on the West Fork of the Little Kanawha River, near the place where Nancy grew up. 

An Amazing Perspective

 

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I am so impressed by this man! He doesn’t stand down, but instead, flies the Rebel flag proudly as he makes his way across the South in his Confederate uniform to talk to people about the truth. Let me know what you think of this article.

SPEAKING FOR SILENT SAM
     by H. K. Edgerton

H. K. Edgerton is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A former president of the NAACP, he is on the board of the Southern Legal Resource Center.
On the morning of August 21, 2018, don in the uniform of the Southern soldier, with the Southern Cross in hand, I would enter the grounds of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
The first to greet me would be a campus policeman of whom alongside several other policemen would watch over me for my entire stay on campus. I salute them!
As I made my way to the base of the Confederate Cenotaph where Silent Sam once stood, a middle age white man who identified himself as an instructor, would pull alongside me and ask of me;  HK why are you here?  Silent Sam is truly silent today.  You may as well turn around and go home.
I told him “fat chance of that, because on this day, the base of Silent Sam will be a Meeting House (a place of worship), and I shall speak for all to hear of those brave babies he represents very loudly.”
Those babies who sat in their class rooms studying when word reached them of Lincoln’s army armed with General Order 200 issued by him to take the theater of war to the front door of the defenseless old men, women and children of the South.  Sherman would, after leaving Lincoln, gather his men around and tell them that he had orders from the Commanding Chief to burn, rape, plunder, and murder at will and that there would never be an accounting for what they do.   And they did!
These babies left their place of study to defend Southern home places from this immoral carnage.  And I might add, there were others just like them in other schools across the South …the Mississippi Greys of Ole Miss., the babies of the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina…
And to have these thugs who descended upon the campus, taking the law into their hands and illegally Pull Silent Sam down; and to add insult to injury hurl false accusations that that it was somehow a “racist” Cenotaph leads me to believe that perhaps they forgot it was a Confederate soldier’s cenotaph, that of an integrated military, unlike Lincoln’s racist and segregated military.
One Yankee student would tell me and those gathered around, that he was “proud of” what Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman did in carrying out the total warfare orders, because it secured the North a win over the South.  And furthermore for me to “get off his campus.”
I told him that this campus belonged to the citizens of the Great State of North Carolina, and that he and his Yankee friends who applauded his rhetoric were there because of those citizens. And, furthermore, that if they did not like or approve of my presence, then they could leave.
I was so very proud of a black professor, Omar King, I believe, was his name.  He had a handle on the criminal act of the thugs who illegally pulled Silent Sam down, and their disgraceful actions afterwards.
It was a very intense day, and I shall always remember the respect I received from so many of my Southern family.  And most importantly the decision by the Historic Commission, and the University Board of Governors, that Silent Sam must be put back in 90 days, and those responsible for the act be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I hope to be presence at the restoration event!
God bless you!

Your brother,
HK

(Article courtesy of Dixie Heritage Newsletter, Aug. 31, 2018 ed.)

The Silent Sam Controversy

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It seems the incident earlier this week has sparked considerable outrage. Protesting is one thing, but destruction of property is quite another, and should be treated as a crime. Why is it okay to destroy monuments that have been standing for over 100 years? It’s baffling, to say the least.

Condoning Crimes of Genocide
To: UNC President Margaret Spellings president@northcarolina.edu | 919-962-6983
103 South Building, Campus Box 9100, UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC,27599
President Spellings,
The total destruction of the statue of Silent Sam by students of your university is inexcusable, and what is even worse is that the police were ordered to stand down while this crime was being committed. It is your duty to pursue the arrests and convictions of these criminals. Silence will only embolden other historically ignorant people to do the same thing in other areas. If these criminals are not made an example of, then we can be assured of seeing this same offense repeated many times. This statue was erected to honor the students who left their studies to fight in the defense of the Confederacy. No, they were not fighting to preserve slavery, but to repel Lincoln’s illegal invasion of rapists, looters, murderers of civilians, and arsonists. The fact that we have had 150+ years of Marxist rewritten history shoved down our throats is the very reason all this cultural genocide is taking place. If the high schools and universities in this country would teach the truth about the War of Northern Aggression, instead of the fabricated lies which are so prevalent, we would not be seeing all this senseless destruction of property, or names being changed on our schools, streets, and parks. Ignorance is the disease. Truth is the cure. These lies which have been force fed for decades are easily refuted and dispelled with facts. The Corwin Amendment, the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, thousands of letters from Confederate soldiers, as well as Lincoln’s own words, prove that the War was not fought for the purpose of ending or perpetuating slavery. Statues erected to honor our Confederate dead should not be targets of defacement and destruction. These soldiers fought with valor, dignity, and honor, unlike their counterparts dressed in blue. President Spellings, you have a duty to perform here and those of us who know the truth of our history and honor our Confederate dead hope that you will take steps to see that the criminals who are guilty of this horrid deed will be brought to justice, and that no such crime is ever repeated on your campus.
Jeff Paulk
Tulsa, OK
Dear Progressives/Homegrown Commies,

Confederate Statues, Memorials, Plaques, ect. were not erected out of bigotry, racism or hatred of blacks. Right or wrong, slavery was solely about economic gain by the 5% of Southerners who owned slaves, nothing more & nothing less. What about the 95% who did not own slaves? You are not endearing them to yourselves or your Cause.

Those Confederate Statues, etc. are WAR MEMORIALS to those who fought for the South during that war. Just as every war America has fought in has WAR MEMORIALS to the service members of their respective war.

For you to claim in 2018 that they are anything else is making the issue about YOU, not them, for your own political gain at the expense of true history. In my opinion you are nothing more than Marist perpetuating a grand scheme to not only erase & rewrite Southern history but, all of America`s history.

You seek to tell any lie & commit any crime to destroy this whole country & rebuild it into the communist fantasy (nightmare) you think it should be. You are disgusting, repulsive reprobates who cannot receive the justice you so richly deserve & have earned, soon enough.

The Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves over your attacks on everything they stood for!

Billy E. Price
Ashville Alabama
(Courtesy of Southern Heritage News and Views, August 23, 2018 ed.)

Another Monument Falls

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Last night, angry protesters pulled another Confederate statue from its pedestal. This time, is was Silent Sam, which had stood on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 1913. This comes one year after the destruction of a Confederate monument in Durham, North Carolina.

Silent Sam was paid for by University Alumni and the UDC. It was erected as a memorial to the Confederate alumni who died in the War Between the States, and to all the students who joined the CSA.

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The statue has been the topic of controversy for nearly a year. Recently, UNC decided to leave the statue alone for now. But irate protesters took matters into their own hands and confronted police, who were told to stand down after smoke canisters were hurled at them by the mob.

UNC issued a statement today, saying that “mob rule” will not be tolerated. UNC’s Board of Governors said they conferred with UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt, and promised that a full investigation would be conducted. Chancellor Folt, however, has expressed her disdain for the monument in the past.

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“Campus leadership is in collaboration with campus police, who are pulling together a timeline of the events, reviewing video evidence, and conducting interviews that will inform a full criminal investigation,” the Board of Governors said.

Don’t expect much to come of it. Charges against the perpetrators of last year’s event in Durham were eventually dropped.

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The Durham City-County Committe on Confederate Monuments and Memorials is hosting public meetings until October to decide if that monument will be replaced, or if something else will be put in its place. The committee will hold a meeting this Thursday at the City Council chambers at 7 p.m., so if you can, show your support in returning the original statue.

https://whnt.com/2018/08/21/video-shows-silent-sam-statue-being-brought-down-in-unc-chapel-hill-protest/

Something bizaare is going on in North Carolina, that much is certain. College kids are not learning their history, or they wouldn’t spew things like the Silent Sam statue “has hurt so many people.” Nor would this incident have occurred. A student of UNC, Maya Little, faces expulsion and criminal charges after dousing a Confederate statue on campus with red paint and her own blood. Seriously? That’s out of control.

Let me know what you think on the subject. Do these students have the right to take down public monuments? Do you think this is an act of socialism or Marxism? And do you think the students involved should be expelled, and their parents fined?

https://bigleaguepolitics.com/watch-granddaughter-of-former-unc-chancellor-admits-to-tearing-down-silent-sam-statue/

 

 

In Honor of His Ancestor

I absolutely love this story. It seems the tide against everything Confederate is finally starting to wane, and thankfully so. Those who think they are offended by the Southern Cross, Confederate monuments, streets and schools named after Confederate officers, etc. are nothing less than ignorant, in my opinion, and need to learn their history.

Back in the Saddle Again!
Retired Wall Street banker Edwin Payne, of upstate New York, recently partnered with the American Battlefield Trust to place a monument to his Confederate ancestor on the Brandy Station Battlefield in Culpeper County.

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“I want to be on the right side of this,” said Payne, who grew up in North Carolina. “I am interested in history and the preservation of history and knowing our history so we don’t repeat it. There are a great many lessons to be learned from studying history. We don’t want this kind of thing to happen again, but it doesn’t mean you can erase it.”
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His ancestor to whom the monument was placed was Gen. William Henry Fitzhugh Payne, founder of the famed Black Horse Cavalry. A Fauquier County lawyer and gentleman farmer, he joined the Confederacy at war’s outset and earned promotions based on his leadership, battlefield valor and meritorious service, according to the monument recently dedicated to mark the 155th anniversary of the Battle of Brandy Station, fought June 9, 1863.

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Gen. Payne was wounded and captured three times during the war while at Brandy Station – the largest cavalry battle in North America. He took over command of a North Carolina regiment after its commanding officer, Col. Solomon Williams, was killed a mile from where the monument was placed, down a gravel road near the intersection of Beverly Ford Road and St James Church Road. He subsequently led the regiment at Gettysburg and later served in the state legislature.

Jim Campi, with the American Battlefield Trust, said it is very rare for the preservation organization to allow placement of monuments on battlefield land it owns. “Each monument has to go through a rigorous process, and we turn down far more than we accept,” he said Monday. “In this instance, we thought it appropriate to facilitate construction of the monument to W.H.F. Payne … by one of his descendants.”
Read about the Battle of Brandy Station in my novel, A Beckoning Hellfire.
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(Article courtesy of Dixie Heritage Newsletter, July 20, 2018 ed.)

State of the Union

Tonight was President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address. I was really hoping he would say something about all the destruction happening to Confederate monuments, as well as many other monuments. He did mention monuments of WWII vets, Lincoln, MLK, and others. Perhaps he will afford protection to all our monuments in the future.

Not only are Confederate monuments being attacked, but recently, a monument to our country’s national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, was attacked. It just keeps getting worse.

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A monument commemorating “Star-Spangled Banner” author Francis Scott Key was vandalized in downtown Baltimore, officials said Wednesday. Photographs show the monument, at 1200 N. Eutaw St., covered with red paint and the words “racist anthem” written in black.

Anthony McCarthy, a spokesman for Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh (D), said police were investigating and determining the best way to remove the graffiti.

 

Remember that it was Mayor Pugh who secretly removed four Confederate monuments from downtown Baltimore this summer which has invited attacks on the city’s remaining monuments. The City’s statue of Christopher Columbus also being recently vandalized.
DA ENCOURAGES DISCONTENTS TO VANDALIZE MONUMENTS
Felony charges will be dropped against eight protesters accused of dismantling a Confederate statue in North Carolina last summer, Durham District Attorney Roger Echols said Thursday.

The prosecution has decided against pursuing felony charges against the defendants and will drop them in lieu of lesser counts, the district attorney told reporters. “I only plan to try them on the misdemeanors,” Mr. Echols told The Associated Press. He declined to comment further.
The eight defendants appeared before a judge Thursday and scheduled to face trial starting Feb. 19, the report said.

The case in Durham revolves around a monument of an anonymous Confederate soldier that had stood in front of the old county courthouse for nearly a century prior to being topped on August 14. , two days after a demonstration surrounding a different statue in Virginia turn
Prosecutors initially charged 12 people in connection with toppling the monument, but three of the accused were cleared in November, and a fourth entered a deferred prosecution agreement the following month.

Absent felony charges, the eight remaining defendants will only face misdemeanor counts of defacing a public building or monument, conspiracy to deface a public building or monument and injury to real property, Durham’s WRAL reported.
LAWSUIT FILED IN MEMPHIS
The family of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed a petition Wednesday seeking legal action against the city of Memphis for its role in taking down three Confederate statues last month.

The petition, filed with the Tennessee Historical Commission, accuses the City and nonprofit Memphis Greenspace Inc. of violating “numerous” state laws on Dec. 20, when Greenspace removed the Forrest statue from its pedestal atop his and his wife’s graves in Health Sciences Park, and statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and war correspondent and Capt. J. Harvey Mathes from Fourth Bluff Park.

The petition asks the commission to rule that the city and Greenspace violated the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act, which requires commission approval prior to removal of monuments from public property; laws against misconduct by elected officials; and laws prohibiting the desecration of gravesites.

“You can’t disturb graves,” said Sons’ attorney Doug Jones. “They knew that but conspired to rip it apart despite knowing state law. They ripped the top off the grave. They damaged that, and they can’t deny that.”

The city has maintained that the grave markers inscribed with the names of the Forrests remain at the base of the pedestal and that the statue wasn’t the headstone.

“The city has not been served with the lawsuit but I have reviewed it and remain confident all of our actions with regard to the sale of the parks and statues are legal,” said City Attorney Bruce McMullen.

City attorney Allan Wade didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment, and Mayor Jim Strickland’s communications team said he wasn’t available for an interview.

Separately, the Sons’ Nathan Bedford Forrest Camp 215 filed a lawsuit Thursday in Chancery Court in Davidson County seeking a temporary restraining order and an injunction to prevent the city or the nonprofit from selling or harming the stowed statues.

If granted, the restraining order and injunction would require court approval for any further actions related to the statues; their former homes, Health Sciences and Fourth Bluff parks; or the graves of the Forrests.

The petitioners included Forrest descendants listed in the petition were Walter Law Jr., Sidney Law, Brooks Bradley, Thoms Jesse Bradley III and Kevin Bradly, the “closest living relatives” of Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest.

The Sons also asked that the commission consider bringing official misconduct charges against city officials, who advised and assisted Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner as he created Greenspace and raised funds to buy and maintain the parks.

“They would like for this to be over,” Jones said. “But it’s not close to being over.”

LITIGATION ALSO PENDING IN ALABAMA
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Graffeo has scheduled a hearing for April 13 on a state lawsuit challenging the City of Birmingham’s decision to shroud the stone obelisk of a Confederate monument in plywood.
The judge’s decision comes after the state attorney general’s office and the city filed a document agreeing to certain facts about the case. That includes the history of the 113-year-old memorial and its location in a downtown park.

The city built a plywood structure to hide inscriptions on the base of the monument amid national protests over Confederate memorials. The state filed suit claiming the move violates a new state law that bars the removal or alteration of historic monuments.

The Judge has ruled that the plywood structure can remain until the hearing.

(Courtesy of Dixie Heritage Newsletter, Jan. 19, 2018 ed.)

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