J.D.R. Hawkins

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

Archive for the tag “Orange County”

Great Honor Ends in Sadness

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Beginning in the early twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first, the Confederate Memorial Association in California established more than a dozen monuments and place-names to the Confederacy. They dedicated highways to Jefferson Davis, named schools for Robert E. Lee, and erected large memorials to the common Confederate soldier.

While one would not ordinarily associate California, far removed from the major military theaters of The War, with anything Confederate when The War erupted between North and South in 1861, a wave of secessionist scares swept across the West. Los Angeles County was the epicenter of California disunionism. Hundreds of Southern-sympathizing Angelenos fled east to join Confederate armies, while an even larger number remained to menace federal control over the region. They openly bullied and brawled with Union soldiers, joined secessionist secret societies, hurrahed Jefferson Davis and his generals, and voted into office the avowed enemies of the Lincoln administration. The threat became so dire that Union authorities constructed a large military garrison outside Los Angeles, and arrested a number of local secessionists, to prevent the region from joining the Confederacy.

The War was lost in 1865, but California’s leaders continued to nurture a nostalgia for the Old South. The editor of the leading Democratic newspaper in the state unapologetically lamented the South’s loss. California refused to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, California was the only “free” state to reject both amendments during the Reconstruction era. In a belated, token gesture, the state “ratified” them in 1959 and 1962, respectively.

Attracted by California’s climate and its reactionary political orientation, thousands of Southerners migrated west in the decades after The War. There, they continued to honor the memory of their ancestors. Through hereditary organizations, reunions, and eventually the landscape itself, some hoped that the Old South would rise again in California.

Some of the most active memorial associations could be found in Los Angeles County. In 1925, the UDC erected the first major monument in the West, a six-foot stone tribute in what is now Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The monument saluted the wartime service of some 30 Confederate veterans, who migrated to Southern California after The War and took their final rest in the surrounding cemetery plot.

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Many of those veterans had passed their last days in Dixie Manor, a Confederate rest home in San Gabriel, just outside L.A. Five hundred people gathered for the dedication of the home in April 1929. Until 1936, when the last of the residents died, the caretakers of Dixie Manor housed and fed these veterans, hosted reunions, and bestowed new medals for old service. It was the only such facility beyond the former Confederacy itself.

The UDC followed its Hollywood memorial with several smaller monuments to Jefferson Davis scattered across the state. Those tributes marked portions of the Jefferson Davis Highway, a transcontinental road system named for the former chieftain, stretching from Virginia to the Pacific coast. The Daughters erected the first of the tributes in San Diego in 1926. They even placed a large obelisk to Davis directly opposite the Ulysses S. Grant Hotel. Although opposition from Union army veterans resulted in the removal of the monument that same year, a plaque to Davis was restored to the San Diego plaza in 1956.

Several place-names literally put the Confederacy on the map in California. The town of Confederate Corners (née Springtown) was christened by a group of Southerners who settled in the area after The War. In San Diego and Long Beach, the name of Robert E. Lee graced two schools, while a school in East Los Angeles was named for filmmaker D.W. Griffith. Although not a Confederate veteran himself, Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation did more than any other production to rekindle the Confederate fire among a new generation of Americans.

Several giant sequoias were named for Robert E. Lee, including the fifth-largest tree in the world, located in Kings Canyon National Park. Jefferson Davis and Confederate general George E. Pickett each had a peak named in their honor in Alpine County.

Most of these memorialization efforts took place when The War was still a living memory. But California chapters of the UDC and Sons of Confederate Veterans remain active today. A recent register of the UDC listed 18 chapters in California-more than five times as many as could be found in any other “free state,” and even more than some former Southern states, including Missouri, Kentucky, and Arkansas.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans were erecting major memorials in California as recently as 2004. That’s when the newly-removed Orange County pillar went up, amid much fanfare from its patrons and supporters, proudly clad in Confederate attire for the occasion. Inscribed on the pedestal: “to honor the sacred memory of the pioneers who built Orange County after their valiant effort to defend the Cause of Southern Independence.”

Earlier this month, that monument, the last one standing in California, was taken down.

(Article courtesy of Dixie Heritage Newsletter, August 30, 2019 ed.)

Another Example of Stupidity

It seems some are still hell bent on twisting historical accuracy, and making everything Southern, especially in regard to the Civil War, racist. This is beyond ridiculous. Now the inaccurate perception of the Confederacy has spread to California. It is unbelievably sad to me that people can’t respect our ancestors and honor their graves. We have no concept of what life was like when they were alive, so it’s wrong to classify their beliefs by today’s standards.

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CONFEDERATE MONUMENT DEFACED LAST MONTH HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM SANTA ANA CEMETERY

Alicia Robinson, August 1, 2019

A monument to Confederate soldiers who settled in and helped establish Orange County after the Civil War no longer stands at the Santa Ana Cemetery.

Erected in 2004 by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the 9-foot-tall granite structure – which had been vandalized with red paint and the word “racists” last month – was removed early Thursday, Aug. 1, Orange County Cemetery.

District General Manager Tim Deutsch said in a news release. The district operates three public cemeteries, including Santa Ana.

Hundreds of Civil War veterans are buried in Orange County, most of whom fought for the Union. A monument dedicated to “the unknown dead of the Civil War ”was previously installed at the Santa Ana Cemetery by the Daughters of Union Veterans.

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The Confederate monument removed Thursday may be the last one in Orange County and among only a few that were left in California. A February survey by the Southern Poverty Law Center listed a monument in Bakersfield and a highway marker in Siskiyou County, both honoring Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis, as the state’s two remaining memorials.

Public attention settled on the Santa Ana monument in 2017, after a confrontation between groups of white supremacists and protesters ended in a woman’s death in Charlottesville, Va. Cemetery district officials realized they couldn’t find records to prove who owned the burial plots where the monument stands or that it was approved by the district’s board, according to letters from Deutsch and an attorney for the district.

The district contacted the Orange County chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to discuss altering the monument per an agreement the two parties had apparently reached. But Deutsch said last month the Confederate group had not followed through

and had stopped responding to his inquiries, so the district’s board ordered the monument removed.

Robert Williams, who leads the Orange County chapter and statewide division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, disputes the district’s account of the monument saga.

Reached Thursday, Williams said district officials are motivated by “the most absurd kind of political correctness” and that there are plenty of records and people who were involved in putting up the monument. Cemetery district leaders at the time chose the monument’s location, he said.

“Nobody put it there in the middle of the night – there was a huge public ceremony,” Williams said.

The purpose of the monument was not political or for “extolling war, Confederate victories or Confederate generals,” he added. He said the monument recognizes founding fathers prominent in establishing Orange County who had come to the area after fighting for the South.

The monument names 10 men and also commemorates “C.S.A,” the Confederate States of America. Two panels are etched with the names of Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee.

In the news release, Deutsch said the district wanted the monument out quickly because there’s a shortage of burial plots, and it became “an unsightly public nuisance” after the vandalism. It’s costing an estimated $15,000 to remove and store the granite pillar (a 100-foot crane was required because it weights several tons), so Williams’ group would have to reimburse the district to get the monument back, the release said.

Williams said he believes the district’s actions, seizing and removing private property, were illegal.

“We went out of our way to placate what sensitivities some may have about the Civil War,” he said. “The county’s going to have to answer, because they don’t own that.”

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https://www.ocregister.com/2019/08/01/confederate- monument-defaced-last-month-has-been-removed- from-santa-ana-cemetery/

How disgusting. Santa Ana spits on it’s own History. Last Friday was the 130th Anniversary of the founding of Orange County, and the Santa Ana Cemetery removed the Founders Monument in the middle of the night. Why you ask? Because the men were ex-Confederate Soldiers who traded swords for plows, and came out west looking for a better life than Reconstruction Era in Dixie offered. These men were all duly elected officials for the County of Los Angeles who formed OC by seceding the southern sections they represented from LA. These men worked with their Union Veteran counterparts to create what is now Orange County.

If you’d like to contact the Orange County Cemetery District and express your displeasure, they can be reached at 949-951-9102. Be respectful and no foul language!!!

Honor your Ancestors’ good memory.

Deo Vindice.

#SCV #DixieWest #SantaAnaCemetery #OrangeCounty

(Article courtesy of The Southern Comfort, Private Samuel A. Hughey Camp 1452, Sons of Confederate Veterans Newsletter, Volume 43, Issue No. 8, August 2019 ed.)

 

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

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It seems that the state of Mississippi is getting an enormous amount of pressure to change the state flag from people who are not Mississippians. Even though a few celebrities (past and present Mississippians) recently jumped on the PC bandwagon and signed a petition to have the state flag changed, now some politicians are getting into the act as well.

Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn, who is from South Carolina and is black, predicts that Mississippi will remove the Confederate battle flag from its emblem. “There’s nothing historical about that (Confederate) flag but defiance,” he said. “I really believe that the state of Mississippi is going to change its flag.”

Clyburn and members of the Congressional Black Caucus plan to discuss the flag issue at their annual conference in Washington D.C. on September 16. They also intend to push the issue of having Mississippi’s state flag removed from the House side of the U.S. Capitol. It seems like they are going out of their way to force Mississippi to change the flag, even though state residents don’t want this. What’s next, Mr. Clyburn? Texas’ flag looks like the Stars and Bars. Are you going after that one next? What about Alabama’s state flag? It looks very similar to the Confederate battle flag. Will that be your next target?

The controversy surrounding the flag comes from the fact that the state flag includes the Confederate battle flag as part of its design. It is the only Southern state left to feature the Confederate battle flag, and so it has recently come under attack. Mississippians have overwhelmingly voted to keep the flag, and Governor Bryant has stated that he will not hold a special session to discuss the matter. He has not responded to groups such as South Forward, who insists on moving forward, even though they keep dredging up the past. The governor has remained silent on the fact that political pressure is mounting.

The flag has already been removed from the courthouse in Orange County, California, where all other state flags of the U.S. are on display. Representative Bennie Thompson, D-Miss, and Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have proposed resolutions removing any items from the U.S. House that feature the Confederate battle flag, including the Mississippi state flag.

“You’ve got to understand Mississippi,” said Clyburn. “There’s a victim mentality. The more Mississippi is singled out and ridiculed nationally, as it is, the more you get a lot of white Mississippians who get their dander up.”

If that isn’t a racist statement, Mr. Clyburn, I don’t know what is. The flag represents heritage to most Mississippians, regardless of their color, and they are proud of it. This forced issue is reminiscent of Marxism. Whatever happened to freedom of expression and free speech?

Mississippi State Flag Banned

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Last week, The Los Angeles Times ran a story about a group of attorneys, who announced that they are calling for the removal of the Mississippi state flag from the display at Santa Ana’s Civic Center in Orange County, California. They say that the flag with the “Confederate design symbolizes racism and hatred.” In a statement, the Newport Beach-based Orange County Bar Association remarked that the flag, featuring the Confederate Southern Cross, is a symbol “inextricably linked to a legacy of racism, exclusion, oppression and violence.”

The association passed a resolution to remove the flag from Santa Ana’s Plaza of the Flags, which now features flags from all fifty states. “I am proud of the board of directors for passing this important resolution on the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address,” Orange County Bar Association President Wayne Gross said in a statement. According to Gross, the Mississippi flag “has no place in or around courthouses.”

The association tried in 1997 to ban flags, specifically those of Mississippi and Georgia, but were unsuccessful. Since then, Georgia has changed its state flag. Mississippi is the only state left which features the Southern Cross in its design.

For Orange County to take such a step, whether they realize it or not, is discrimination. In 2001, the state of Mississippi voted to keep the design. In fact, two-thirds of the state’s residents chose to keep the Southern Cross. If it doesn’t offend Mississippi voters, who are primarily black, what is the problem with Orange County?

With so many problems surfacing in California over the past decade, why is this even an issue? Don’t they have more important things to worry about? This is similar to the problem that the City of Memphis has been dealing with over the past year. It seems that both cities need to get their priorities straight.

To me, this is yet another blatant example of ignorance on the part of lawmakers and politicians. If they studied their history, they would know that the Confederate flag DOES NOT represent “racism, hatred, exclusion, oppression, and violence.” The Confederate flag represents Southern heritage and pride. One hate group, the Ku Klux Klan, decided to claim the Confederate flag as their own, without permission from such honorable groups as the Sons of Confederate Veterans or the Military Order of the Stars and Bars. It is shameful to associate the KKK with the Confederacy as a whole. The KKK has also used the American flag, which flew over numerous slave ships. Should this, too, be banned?

There comes a point when political correctness has gone too far. This is just another example. If one state’s flag is denied, then various reasons will eventually surface to ban other state’s flags as well. We must not allow this kind of narrow-mindedness to prevail.

(And BTW Mr. Gross, the 150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address was last November.)

For more information, please visit:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mississippi-flag-orange-county-civic-center-20131231,0,6800466.story#axzz2pk6g4GWO

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