VIRGINIANS, FOR YOUR LANDS, FOR YOUR HOMES, FOR YOUR SWEETHEARTS, FOR YOUR WIVES!

Wednesday, August 28, 2013



THE GUY FROM NEW YORK SAID WHAT?

“If South Carolina ever decides to dishonor the memory of so many of its men who died in what might well be termed the Second American Revolution and if Mississippi ever yields to similar pressure to remove the Confederate battle flag from its state flag, can we imagine the next demands of the frequently incredible NAACP (which remains tongue-tied at the scandalous racial segregation now practiced by the Congressional Black Caucus)?

Think of the possibility that the NAACP might demand the name of the capital city of Washington be changed because the father of our country was a slave owner.
Think of the NAACP demanding that the Washington Monument be renamed – in honor of John Brown. And further demanding that the name of our nation's capital be changed from Washington to Nat Turner City, and the state of Washington to the state of Malcolm X.

There would, of course, also be a need to remove the name and photograph of Gen. and President Ulysses Grant from our currency, for he too was a slave owner, as was Mrs. Grant, who, with her two slaves, was very nearly captured by Confederate cavalry.
There's nothing more sacred in the country than the First Amendment. If someone wants to raise that flag then they have the First Amendment right to do so.”  Richard Roth of the Roth Law Firm in New York City.


August 28-30 1862 Second Manassas-Jackson's troops resort to throwing rocks at attacking Yankees after they have exhausted all their ammunition.

Union Gen. John Pope arrived with a reputation freshly won in the war’s western theater and Lee gambling that McClellan would cause no further trouble around Richmond sent Stonewall Jackson’s corps northward to suppress Pope. 

Pope, was stung by the attack on his supply base on August 25th by Jackson and abandoned the line of the Rappahannock and headed towards Manassas to “bag” Jackson. Lee was moving northward with Longstreet’s corps to reunite his army. On the afternoon of August 28, to prevent the Federal commander’s efforts to concentrate at Centreville and bring Pope to battle, Jackson ordered his troops to attack a Union column as it marched past on the Warrenton Turnpike. This savage fight at Brawner’s Farm lasted until dark.

Convinced that Jackson was isolated, Pope ordered his columns to converge on Groveton. He was sure that he could destroy Jackson before Lee and Longstreet could intervene. On the 29th Pope’s army found Jackson’s men posted along an unfinished railroad grade, north of the turnpike. All afternoon, in a series of uncoordinated attacks, Pope hurled his men against the Confederate position. In several places the northerners momentarily breached Jackson’s line, but each time were forced back. During the afternoon, Longstreet’s troops arrived on the battlefield and, unknown to Pope, deployed on Jackson’s right, overlapping the exposed Union left. Lee urged Longstreet to attack, but “Old Pete” demurred. The time was just not right, he said.

The morning of August 30 passed quietly. Just before noon, erroneously concluding the Confederates were retreating, Pope ordered his army forward in “pursuit. The pursuit, however, was short-lived. Pope found that Lee had gone nowhere. Amazingly, Pope ordered yet another attack against Jackson’s line. Fitz-John Porter’s corps, along with part of McDowell’s, struck Starke’s division at the unfinished railroad’s “Deep Cut.” The Southerners held firm, and Porter’s column was hurled back in a bloody repulse.

Seeing the Union lines in disarray, Longstreet pushed his massive columns forward and staggered the Union left. Pope’s army was faced with annihilation. Only a stand by northern troops, first on Chinn Ridge and then once again on Henry Hill, bought time for Pope’s hard-pressed Union forces. Finally, under cover of darkness the defeated Union army withdrew across Bull Run towards the defenses of Washington. 

Friday, August 23, 2013



Southern Chivalry at Gettysburg

When the fighting began at Gettysburg on the morning of July 1, Wade Hampton was with Jeb Stuart’s raiding division in Dover, Pennsylvania, 23 miles northeast of the battlefield. All were numb with lack of sleep after three solid days in the saddle since crossing the Potomac, but after a short rest in Dover, the division pushed on toward Carlisle in search of provisions, with Hampton's tired troopers at the rear of the column.

Halting in Dillsburg with the captured wagons and prisoners from the raid, Hampton received word from Stuart before daybreak on July 2 that the army had been found at Gettysburg, and he headed south that morning. By 2:00 P.M., the brigade had halted a few miles northeast of Gettysburg with the tail of the column a mile south of Hunterstown. Waiting on his horse beside the road, Hampton came under fire from a Yankee cavalryman about 200 yards away. Charging the rifleman alone, Hampton with his pistol became involved in a strange duel with the blue trooper at close range. Hampton's chest was grazed by a bullet, and at one point, Hampton chivalrously stopped to let the Yankee clean his gun before resuming the fight. Hampton at last wounded his assailant in the wrist, but just then another enemy soldier wielding a sword rushed forward and blind-sided Hampton with a saber cut to the back of the head before making his escape. The general's hat and thick hair saved him from a deathwound. He returned to his brigade with a bloody four-inch gash on his scalp as well as a shallow chest wound. Later that afternoon, Hampton's men turned back to Hunterstown and thwarted a drive on the Confederate rear by Kilpatrick's Union cavalrymen. Hampton held the ground until the next morning.

On the morning of July 3, Hampton and his men rode 2_ miles out of Gettysburg on the York Pike, then turned south with Stuart's other cavalry brigades. Their goal was to get in the rear of the Union army when the end of the cannonade at Gettysburg signaled the beginning the main Confederate effort against Cemetery Ridge. The cavalry fighting began about 3 o'clock that afternoon. In the swirling, hand-to-hand melee with the Union cavalrymen which had met their approach, Hampton received two more saber cuts to the front of his head, one of which cut through the table of his skull. The indomitable South Carolinian continued fighting until he was hit by a piece of shrapnel in the right hip, which finally put him out of action. He was carried back to Virginia in the same ambulance with Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood.

Monday, August 19, 2013

17th VIRGINIA CAV. NIGHTHAWK RANGERS...



Once Lincoln was inaugurated in March, many in Virginia felt that the Union had become unbearable, especially after hearing his inaugural address in which he declared, "The power confided to me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts" from the South. 

One editorial from The Richmond Dispatch stressed the gravity of Lincoln's inaugural: "The Inaugural Address of Lincoln inaugurates civil war, as we have predicted it would from the beginning." Only the Border States could stop Lincoln from undertaking his policy and that, therefore, "…every Border State ought to go out of the Union within twenty-four hours." A final example of this fear of Lincoln in Virginia is demonstrated by another editorial:

“Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Address is before our readers - couched in the cool, unimpassioned, deliberate language of the fanatic, with the purpose of pursuing the promptings of fanaticism even to the dismemberment of the Government with the horrors of civil war. Virginia…has the denial of all hope of peace. Civil war must now come. Sectional war, declared by Mr. Lincoln, awaits only the signal gun from the insulted Southern Confederacy to light its horrid fires all along the borders of Virginia. No action of our Convention can now maintain the peace. She must fight!” 

Photo: This is the flag carried by Company F of the 17th Virginia Cavalry the Nighthawk Rangers

THE RAPE OF ATHENS, ALABAMA





In the middle of April 1862, the 18th Ohio under Turchin's command occupied Athens, Alabama, a prosperous town of about 1200 population. On May 1, however, they were driven out by a combined regular and partisan Confederate cavalry force of only 112 men and retreated back to Huntsville. The Confederate cavalry was greeted with cheers and waving handkerchiefs by the citizens in the streets. Reports indicate that some Athens civilians may have fired on the Union troops from their homes as they left. The Confederate forces, however, quickly pulled out of town. 

The next morning Turchin marched into Athens unopposed with at least three regiments of his brigade. 
The townspeople, including the ladies, turned their backs to him as he rode into town. Turchin was furious with this gesture of impertinence and told his troops he would close his eyes for a few hours while they took their pleasure in looting the town and terrorizing its citizens. He then left them to their depredations for the rest of the day. At least some of Turchin's troops stayed a few weeks. 

Later testimony indicated that numerous homes, offices, and stores were pillaged. Money, jewelry, dishware, silver, watches, clothes, shoes, medical supplies, medical instruments, and anything else of value were stolen. Furniture, carpets, artwork, and fixtures were destroyed. Books and especially bibles were viciously destroyed. Numerous testimonies indicated that the soldiers' language to women was rude, insulting, threatening, and vulgar. One white woman, the pregnant wife of a Confederate cavalryman, was singled out and gang-raped, shortly thereafter dying from a miscarriage. Several black servant girls were raped, and several more had to fend off attempted rapes. The commander made his headquarters in the home of a prominent citizen and refused to let his sick daughter receive any medical treatment. She subsequently died. Shots were fired into homes and terror reigned. Some of the troops billeted themselves in the slave quarters on a nearby plantation for weeks, debauching the females. They roamed with the males over the surrounding country, plundering and pillaging. 

Some Union officers of integrity among Turchin's troops, however, reported this to his Division Commander, Major General O. M. Mitchell. Mitchell immediately rebuked Turchin and notified General Buell and Secretary of War Stanton. After some delay on the part of Stanton, General Buell, a very effective officer of high integrity who was especially concerned that his soldiers conduct themselves with honor, stepped in and relieved Turchin of command, insisting on his court-martial. 

Most of the information in the previous paragraphs was taken from the court-martial proceedings of August 1862. Brigadier General James A. Garfield, a future President of the United States, presided over the court-martial. Turchin and one of his regimental commanders, Col. Gazlay, were found guilty and dismissed from the Army. Charges against several other officers were dropped on proof they were only acting on Turchin's orders. General Buell approved and signed the verdict. 

The proceedings of Turchin's court-martial received considerable national attention and became the focus of a debate on the prosecution and conduct of the war. The Chicago newspapers bitterly condemned Buell for Turchin's dismissal and court-martial. Their howl for harsh policies including devastation and plundering by Union armies was picked up by many other papers. The Radical Republicans in Congress were especially pushing for a more vigorous and punishing war policy. 

Turchin's wife, evidently a very formidable woman in many regards, personally went to see Lincoln and persuaded him that not only should Turchin be reinstated but that he should also be promoted to Brigadier General: Hearing of this, General Buell protested to Secretary of War Stanton that: 

"If as I hear, the promotion of Colonel Turchin is contemplated I feel it is my duty to inform you that he is entirely unfit for it. I placed him in the command of a brigade, and now find it necessary to relieve him from it in consequence of his utter failure to enforce discipline and render it efficient." 

But within a few days of the court- martial, President Lincoln reinstated Turchin and promoted him to the rank of Brigadier General. A few months later Lincoln would make a similar promotion. In November Lincoln promoted Col. John McNeil, one of the senior officers responsible for the October 1862 Palmyra Massacre in Missouri, to Brigadier General. It was obvious that Total War policy had many advocates in Washington. 

Brigadier General Turchin and his wife returned to their home in Chicago to cheering crowds. He was presented a sword, and a band played "Lo, the Conquering Hero Comes." On August 30, General Buell was informed that a large part of Athens, Alabama, had been burned by Union troops passing through the town.

Source: The Un-Civil War By Mike Scruggs
Truths Your Teacher Never Told You
Copyright 2007 by Universal Media, Inc.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Ex-Confederate invents Coke




Confederate Army Colonel John Pemberton was wounded in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia in April 1865. He became addicted to morphine during his recovery. He invented Coca-Cola while trying to create something that would counteract his morphine addiction.

In May, 1886, Coca Cola was invented by Pemberton a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia. John Pemberton concocted the Coca Cola formula in a three legged brass kettle in his backyard. The name was a suggestion given by John Pemberton's bookkeeper Frank Robinson.

The original Coca-Cola prototype was both alcoholic and coked-up with (cocaine). He first touted that version as “a most wonderful invigorator of sexual organs.” Cocaine was removed in 1903.

Dr. Pemberton never realized the potential of the beverage he created. He gradually sold portions of his business to various partners and, just prior to his death in 1888, sold his remaining interest in Coca-Cola to Asa G. Candler. An Atlantan with great business acumen, Mr. Candler proceeded to buy additional rights and acquire complete control.


http://thechive.com/2013/05/01/the-fascinating-origin-of-coca-cola-9-photos/

Wednesday, August 14, 2013



CSS Arkansas, an ironclad ram, was built at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1861-62. Incomplete when Union forces closed in on Memphis in May 1862, she was towed up the Yazoo River to Yazoo City, Mississippi, and finished as far as circumstances allowed. 

On 15 July 1862, her enterprising commanding officer, Lieutenant Isaac Newton Brown, CSN, took Arkansas down the Yazoo, where she encountered the U.S. gunboats Carondelet and Tyler and the ram Queen of the West, leaving the first two badly damaged. Continuing out into the Mississippi River, she boldly fought her way through the assembled Federal fleet and came to rest under the protection of the Confederate fortress at Vicksburg. 

While at Vicksburg on 22 July, Arkansas was attacked by the Queen of the West and ironclad Essex, but was not severely damaged. Though badly in need of repairs, she was next ordered to steam down the river to assist Confederate forces in an attack on Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

While carrying out this mission on 6 August 1862, CSS Arkansas suffered a severe machinery breakdown during an engagement with the Essex, drifted ashore and was burned to prevent capture.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

PONDER THIS...




If you were a slave and lived your entire life under the rule of a cruel master, would you then adopt his spiritual beliefs and religion? 

Has anyone else ever wondered why the African American population in America is almost 100% Christian. Is it possible that blacks adopted the religion of brutal slave masters?

Could it be that slaves were well treated, like family in many cases and the adoption of the faith was a natural progression? I guess it is possible that slaves were forced to accept the religion of the masters but that hardly seems like a realistic way to evangelize an entire race of people…After all, the Jews did not accept the faith of their Egyptian rulers.

Photo: Look closely and you’ll see a white woman holding the hand of a black child at a stage coach stop. (a blow up in the second photo) This type of thing was unheard of in the North. 

Thursday, August 8, 2013



"I believe that the world never produced a body of men superior in courage, patriotism and endurance to the private soldiers of the Confederate Armies. 

I have repeatedly seen these soldiers submit with cheerfulness to privations and hardships which would appear to be almost incredible; and the wild cheers of our brave men (which was so different from the studied huzzahs of the Yankees) when their lines sent back opposing hosts of Federal troops, staggering, reeling and flying, have often thrilled every fiber of my heart.

 I have seen with my own eyes ragged, barefooted and hungry Confederate soldiers perform deed which if performed in days of yore by mailed warriors in glittering armor, would have inspired the harp of the minstrel and the pen of the poet."  Lt. Gen. Jubal Anderson Early 

Tuesday, August 6, 2013



Sure you can trust the Yankee government…just ask an Indian.  The list of broken promises and deceit are endless…

Champ Ferguson, a legendary Confederate partisan ranger and guerilla fighter who fought to control the Upper Cumberland Plateau region along the Tennessee and Kentucky borders. Nominally holding the rank of Captain in the Confederate Army, Ferguson led his own company of independent cavalry. 

Ferguson acted as a scout for Genl. John Hunt Morgan, and was for a time attached to the command of Genl. Joseph Wheeler. His company was under Wheeler's command when they took part in the Battle of Saltville (Virginia). 

At war's end, Ferguson and his men returned to their homes and on 23 May, 1865, they were INDUCED BY PROMISE of the same parole given to the officers and men of Lee's and Johnston's Confederate Armies to surrender themselves to federal military authorities. All except Ferguson were indeed released on Oath. Champ Ferguson himself was summarily arrested, and charged with over 50 counts of murder. Some of his purported victims remained nameless, and many of the other charges were wholly unsupported by either witnesses or documentation.

 In a trial at Nashville, lasting from 11 July through 26 September, 1865, a military tribunal called witness after unreliable witness against Ferguson, all the while denying his counsel every opportunity to present a competent case in his defense.

 On 10 October, General Orders affirming his conviction and sentencing him to death by hanging were issued. On Friday, 20 October, 1865, the Order of Execution was carried out while Ferguson's wife Martha and sixteen year old daughter Ann watched. Thus it came to be that Champ Ferguson joined Henry Wirz, Commandant of the Confederate prison at Camp Sumter (Andersonville) as the only two former Confederate's of any rank or position to be executed for SUPPOSED "war crimes."

~Robert~

Sunday, August 4, 2013



Lincoln admitted that he thought that the issuing of the 
Proclamation would "result in the massacre of women and children in the South." No mass insurrection ever took place. The violence that did occur as result of Lincoln's document took place in the North.

In New York, the most violent riot ever in the United States took place as citizens protested against Lincoln's political maneuver coupled with his initiation of the draft. On July 13, 1863, in New York City, a riot broke out and raged for 3 days in what historian Burke Davis called "the nearest approach to revolution" during the entire war.

Thousands of soldiers in the U.S. Army, especially in the Western theater, laid down their arms due to Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. They refused to fight after finding that the federal government had implied that the war was, from that point, to be fought over the issue of slavery.

Photo: I believe these are members of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans...