There is an ancient Indian saying that something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it.
My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth.
Beware of these men for they are dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth." -Floyd Westerman ( X-Files -Blessing Way)
About 12,000 American Indians served in the army of the Confederacy, most of the Indians who served were members of the Five Civilized Tribes living outside of the Indian Territory.
CSS TALLAHASSEE MAKES A DARING EXCAPE...
During her first voyage the Confederate cruiser Tallahassee panics northern ship owners and Atlantic costal residents then...Makes Her Escape. This has to be one of the most thrilling stories of the War for Southern Independence.
During a brilliant 19 day raid, from her home port of Wilmington, North Carolina, and return, the Tallahassee created absolute havoc with Union commerce along the Atlantic seaboard. In this short period, she destroyed 26 vessels and captured 7 others that were bonded or released. The 13 knot, twin-screw, man of war, with a complement of 120 officers and men, had sailed in early August to engage in this mission of destruction.
The cruiser's Master was Captain John Taylor Wood, a grandson of Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States. Captain Wood appears to have been well connected, because he was also a nephew of Jefferson Davis.
Captain Wood had sailed the Tallahassee into Halifax Harbor to take on bunker coal and water. Two Federal war ships, the Nansemond and Huron, had chased her north. They now dropped anchor in the main shipping channel at the mouth of the harbor thus blocking her escape.
Under the terms of Queen Victoria's proclamation affecting Civil War belligerents using British ports, the Tallahassee had 48 hours to complete the bunkering process, and then she had to leave. The two Union ships, aware of these terms, patiently waited for her fully expecting to engage the cruiser and blast her out of the water. However, it was not to be.
Local papers of the day were reporting these events on a daily basis. And the citizenry were excited at the prospects of watching a naval battle on their own doorstep. Many of them either walked or rode their horses out to a good vantage point to witness what they fully expected would be the end of the Tallahassee.
Captain Wood agonized over the route he should take to attempt an escape. Providence now began to play a part. After looking at marine charts, he made a bold decision to make his getaway through the seldom used eastern passage on the far side of McNab's Island.
Late at night on August 20, 1864, Captain Wood took on a local harbour pilot by the name of Jock Flemming. He was from Eastern Passage, a community and body of water that's comprised of several small islands, and he knew these waters well.
From the diaries of Captain Wood, we know that a mild argument took place. The skipper was concerned about the depth of the water, and the rocks, whereas the pilot was uneasy about the length of the cruiser, as they would have to make many turns in the narrow crooked channel.
Captain Wood said to the pilot, "you just find me the water, and with the twin-screws I have, I can turn her like a ruler."
Somewhat reassured, Flemming replied to John Taylor Wood, "Captain, I'll find you the water where the only thing you'll feel under the keel is eel grass."
And so over the next hour, Wood and Flemming began their harrowing task. The lights were extinguished on the Tallahassee, and Wood sent a crew member ahead in a small boat with a hand light to signal when turns were required.
Flemming guided the Tallahassee carefully through the crooked channel where at high tide there would only be a few feet of water under the keel. Painstakingly they eased past Lawlor's Island, twisting and turning, and then Devil's Island to where the ship would be in open water. At this point, the Captain and the pilot bade their farewells, and Flemming got into his rowboat and started to pull towards shore.
As he began to steer a course south, John Taylor Wood looked back across the water, and in the distance he could see the lights of the two unsuspecting Union ships as they lay in wait for him. And as they say, "the rest is history."
At dawn the next day, the Union vessels were still sitting at the mouth of the harbour long after their elusive enemy had vanished.
148 years ago today… Colonel John M. Chivington's 3rd Colorado Volunteers massacre Black Kettles' camp of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek, Colo.
Sure you can trust the government, just ask an Indian…Same thing was happening in the South at this time at the hands of Sherman, Sheridan, Hunter and others.
The Sand Creek Massacre, where 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were killed before dawn on November 29, 1864; more than 700 soldiers, mostly volunteer Colorado state militia, attacked an Indian encampment on Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado, killing old men, women, children, and babies, while most of the men of the village were away hunting. Leading the attack was Colonel John M. Chivington, a former Methodist preacher known as the "Fighting Parson." Chivington was already on record as saying his mission in life was "to kill Indians."
At Sand Creek, he ignored peace signals, an American flag and a white flag hanging from the lodge of Black Kettle, chief of the Southern Cheyenne. Black Kettle, among those who survived, died four years later in another attack, by troops under Lt. Col. George A. Custer at the Washita River in Oklahoma.
In 1902 W. H. Councill, a colored Alabama teacher of an industrial school near Huntsville, writes to J. M. Falkner, the chief benefactor of the Confederate Home for Alabama, in which he makes a generous offer and some remarkable statements. The letter is as follows:
Dear Sir: In writing to you the other day in reference to the philanthropic work at Mountain Creek for the Confederate Veterans, I neglected to say that we should be proud to assist you in your laudable enterprise if you should desire us.
We can furnish you at any time ten or fifteen carpenters, painters, blacksmiths, and others who might be useful in building up your soldiers' home. We should be glad to work a week or ten days without money and without price. Our shoe department will be glad to furnish you with at least a dozen pairs of shoes a year for those grand old men who followed Lee's tattered banners down to Appomattox, leaving their bloody footprints over the snow covered hills of Virginia.
Although I came up from the other side of the flood and drank of the dregs of the cup of slavery, still I honor those gray haired veterans, and I feel that, when they pass away and when their old slaves have passed away, in a measure the power of the balance wheel of Southern society will be gone.
The propriety of this offer on my part may be called into question by those who do not measure slavery as I do. I feel that the slaves got more out of slavery than did their masters, in that the slaves were helped from the lowest state of barbarism to Christian citizenship of the greatest government the world ever knew.
Today, the grounds of Confederate Memorial Park serve as a fitting memorial to the old
soldiers and widows of soldiers who once lived there.
THERE WAS NO IMMEDIATE OR IMMINENT THREAT TO SLAVERY IN 1861...
If the South would NOT have seceded, Lincoln would NOT have invaded the South to free slaves. That was never his motive.
Slavery was protected by the US Constitution. Several states that remained in the Union continued slavery and even the Lincoln administration was using slave labor to complete construction of the Capitol building.
West Virginia was admitted into the Union in June of 1863 as a slave state 6 months after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.
Alexander Stephens VP of the Confederate States said that slavery was "safer in the Union than out of it."
The fugitive-slave clause which Lincoln supported, protected slavery even in free states: If a slave escaped to a free state, his status remained that of a slave. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law even required the capture and return of runaway slaves by citizens of the North.
Logic would suggest that there must be another reason for invading the South....
When asked the question, "What race of people do you believe make the best soldiers?" His reply: "The Scots who came to this country by way of Ireland. Because they have all the dash of the Irish in taking up a position and all the stubborness of the Scots in holding it." (Gen. Robert E. Lee)
Photo: 10th Tennessee Infantry Regiment of Volunteers (Irish) Known as the "Bloody Tinth", it was one of only two Irish Catholic regiments in the Confederate Army, although their elected officers were mostly Ulster-Scots Protestants.
They built Forts Henry and Donelson and then were captured and held in Camp Douglas Prison. Reconstituted, the 10th were deployed as sharpshooters through the tough campaigns at Chickamauga, Chattanooga and Atlanta.
The Regimental flag originally belonged to Company 'D' of the Tennessee Home Guards (State Militia). It was outlined in Kelly Green on a light green background. A gold harp, maroon trim with white lettering; above the harp, "Sons of Erin"; below the harp "Where glory await you".
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God"
~~ Benjamin Franklin ~~
"When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy,
with all the fire of your faith." --Abraham Kuyper
“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” Union Navy Admiral Farragut
Southern Ingenuity…the first WMDs
November 27 1864 Virginia…The US Transport ship Greyhound is sunk by a Confederate torpedo in the James River…
Photo: Confederate Navy 'torpedo' (that's what they called mines, during the period). The one in this picture is located in the Civil War Navy Museum in Columbus, Georgia.
The torpedoes were constructed from available wooden barrels, then filled with gun powder and fitted with a contact detonator. Streamlines ends were added to lessen the effects of tides and currents. They were then anchored in the James River, Charleston Harbor and the mouth of the Mississippi River etc. to keep out Union ships. The Union Navy lost more than 40 ships to these torpedoes.
Union Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes (future Supreme Court justice) upon seeing a tall civilian expose himself to bullets during an attack by Jubal Early’s men on Fort Stevens in Washington said: “Get down you fool.”
The tall civilian was later identified as Abe Lincoln when a bullet wounded a soldier standing next to the president. Lincoln was the only sitting US president ever to come under enemy fire.
“We want three things: powder, ball and brandy; and we have three things to sell: men, women and children." African Chief
“but the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw was: my people had sold me…..My own people had exterminated whole nations and torn families apart for a profit before the strangers got their chance for a cut. It was a sobering thought." Zora Neale Hurston - considered one of the pre-eminent writers of twentieth-century African-American literature.
The British diplomat Wilmot, explained to King Gelele: "England has been doing her utmost to stop the slave trade in this country. Much money has been spent, and many lives sacrificed to obtain this desirable end, but hitherto without success. I have come to ask you to put an end to this traffic and to enter into some treaty with me."
Gelele refused: "If white men came to buy, why should I not sell?" Wilmot asked how much money he needed. "No money will induce me...I am not like the kings of Lagos and Benin. There are only two kings in Africa, Ashanti and Dahomey: I am King of all the Blacks. Nothing will compensate me for the loss of the slave trade." Gelele also told Burton, "If I cannot sell my captives taken in war, I must kill them, and surely the English would not like that. King Gelele of Africa
Glele, despite the formal end of the slave trade and its interdiction by the Europeans and New World powers, continued slavery as a domestic institution: his fields were primarily cared for by slaves, and slaves became a major source of 'messengers to the ancestors', in other words, sacrificial victims in ceremonies.
This image was taken by E.A. Baldwin June 5 1863. This is John Noland. Gus Myers spoke highly of this black man in notes in his journal. He is wearing a Confederate raider hat. He was Quantrill’s personal scout and spy. He later attended many of the Quantrill Reunions and was very highly respected.
All of his pall bearers were former Quantrill guerrillas, white men who loved him. Harry Truman may have known this man as he himself attended many Quantrill reunions.
The revival of 63' - 64' was not limited to enlisted men. It is well known that Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson were both pious, devout men, but during this time many Confederate officers were baptized, including A.P. Hill on the battlefield of Second Manassas, and Dorsey Pender.
By the end of the war, it is estimated that 100,000 Confederate soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia alone surrendered to the Lord.
And the revival was by no means limited to the army in the East. There were signs of this revival in the Army of Tennessee even before Longstreet’s Corps joined it for the Chattanooga campaign, but the Spirit of revival surely came with Longstreet’s men. Estimates are that another 50,000 men from the Western armies were baptized. General Braxton Bragg had been baptized in mid-1863.
After the Battle of Missionary Ridge, the Army of Tennessee moved to Dalton Georgia for winter quarters. The soldiers built many churches while there. During that time, General Leonidas Polk baptized Generals J. E. Johnston, William J. Hardee, and John Bell Hood. Hood, unable to kneel due to his amputated leg, supported himself on a crutch and bowed his head.
So what was the effect of the great revival? Literally thousands of new churches were founded throughout the South after the war, creating the “Bible Belt”. By 1870, the number of churches and church membership had more than doubled from their number in 1860. I have read that there are more existing churches in the South that were founded from 1860 to 1870, than there are that were not founded during that period.
The newly found faith of the Southern people helped them through the horrible post-war period which included much of the population having died in the war, many thousands of men who were invalid or amputees due to wounds, not to mention the complete lawlessness of Radical Reconstruction.
For those of you that believe, my answer to his question was: surely God’s purpose for the Great Revival was to prepare the Southern people for what was to come to them for the next 17 years. Actually the next one hundred years.
At a dinner party during the war, a gentleman asked General Forrest, Why is it that your hair has turned gray and yet your beard has remained dark.” To which Forrest replied,
“Probably because I tend to work my brains more than my jaws.”
Unlike his Counterpart, Jefferson Davis didn't just use Christian rhetoric for political expediency...he really was a Christian.
Below is a Thanksgiving Proclamation by an American president, actually delivered on 4 September, 1862.
To the People of the Confederate States of America:
“Once more upon the plains of Manassas have our armies been blessed by the Lord of Hosts with a triumph over our enemies. It is my privilege to invite you once more to His footstool, not now in the garb of fasting and sorrow, but with joy and gladness, to render thanks for the great mercies received at His hand. A few months since, and our enemies poured forth their invading legions upon our soil. They laid waste our fields, polluted our altars and violated the sanctity of our homes. Around our capital they gathered their forces, and with boastful threats, claimed it as already their prize.
The brave troops which rallied to its defense have extinguished these vain hopes, and, under the guidance of the same almighty hand, have scattered our enemies and driven them back in dismay. Uniting these defeated forces and the various armies which had been ravaging our coasts with the army of invasion in Northern Virginia, our enemies have renewed their attempt to subjugate us at the very place where their first effort was defeated, and the vengeance of retributive justice has overtaken the entire host in a second and complete overthrow.
To this signal success accorded to our arms in the East has been graciously added another equally brilliant in the West. On the very day on which our forces were led to victory on the Plains of Manassas, in Virginia, the same Almighty arm assisted us to overcome our enemies at Richmond, in Kentucky. Thus, at one and the same time, have two great hostile armies been stricken down, and the wicked designs of their armies been set at naught.
In such circumstances, it is meet and right that, as a people, we should bow down in adoring thankfulness to that gracious God who has been our bulwark and defense, and to offer unto him the tribute of thanksgiving and praise. In his hand is the issue of all events, and to him should we, in an especial manner, ascribe the honor of this great deliverance.
Now, therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, do issue this, my proclamation, setting apart Thursday, the 18th day of September inst., as a day of prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the great mercies vouchsafed to our people, and more especially for the triumph of our arms at Richmond and Manassas; and I do hereby invite the people of the Confederate States to meet on that day at their respective places of public worship, and to unite in rendering thanks and praise to God for these great mercies, and to implore Him to conduct our country safely through the perils which surround us, to the final attainment of the blessings of peace and security.
Given under my hand and the seal of the Confederate States, at Richmond, this fourth day of September, A.D.1862.”
JEFFERSON DAVIS
Just a few things I'm sure Spielburg didn't mention in his movie...
Lincoln’s law partner states that, "Mr. Lincoln coveted honor and was eager for power. He was impatient of any interference that delayed or obstructed his progress.
He stood in direct conflict to the ideas of the founding fathers; they would not have supported Lincoln's economic policies of protectionism and the idea of a stronger central government. They would have choked at the idea of invading the southern states to "save" the union.
The war itself was fought over economic issues. Lincoln did not care about slavery and said repeatedly that it was not the cause of the war. This was confirmed by congress through the Crittenden Johnson resolution of July 1861. The war was actually caused by the invasion of 11 States that sought the same rights as their forefathers, to governed by something that had the consent of the people…
Lincoln said in his inaugural speech that there would be no invasions accept to collect taxes. American Heritage magazine in 1996 said that tariffs were a prime cause of the Civil War. Two weeks after Sumter Lincoln ordered a blockade of the South claiming tariff collection as his only motive.
There was no income tax in 1860, the government was funded by tariffs. The South being an agricultural society conservatively accounted for about 70% of the nation’s imports and therefore paid at least 70% of the nation’s taxes, yet the South only represented about 33% of the nation’s population. To add insult, most of the taxes collected in the South were spent in the North on roads, bridges, canals and railroads.
Lincoln was a sectional candidate, his New Republican Party was the only political party that was exclusively Northern in its affiliation and had virtually no Southern support. Elected by less than 40% of the popular vote, he did not even carry Philadelphia and New York two of the North’s largest cities. In the North he became an aloof dictator, shutting down over 200 newspapers that questioned his policies, he imprisoned Maryland legislators on suspicion of Southern sympathies, he deported his most vocal opponent in Congress, and violated the 2nd Amendment by disarming the border states.
He was the consummate politician who spoke out of both sides of his mouth, saying one thing to one audience and the opposite to another. His Emancipation Proclamation was the most hypocritical document ever written: it freed few if any slaves; it only applied to slaves in states that were in rebellion. Lincoln had no control over the states in rebellion, he couldn’t buy a newspaper in Charleston SC, let alone free slaves there. However, slaves in states where he did have control, those he did not free. For them it was as if no proclamation had ever been written. He himself admitted that the proclamation had No legal or Constitutional Justification.
He was adamantly opposed to racial equality, actually using the words "superior and inferior" to describe the "appropriate" relation between the white and black races. See his campaign speech in Charleston Illinois in 1858.
He opposed giving blacks the right to vote, to serve on juries, or to intermarry with whites. He supported the legal rights of slave owners and the Fugitive Slave Act. He pledged his support of a constitutional amendment (Corwin Amendment) that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. He was a railroad industry lobbyist who championed corporate welfare.
He once represented a slave owner in a case in which he sought to recover his runaway slaves. Lincoln lost the case and the slaves gained their freedom. He advocated sending all blacks back to Africa, Central America, or Haiti – anywhere but the U.S.
He opposed the extension of slavery into the territories so that "free white people" would not have to compete with blacks for jobs. He opposed black citizenship in Illinois and supported the state’s constitution, which prohibited the emigration of black people into the state.
He was the head of the Illinois Colonization Society, which advocated the use of state tax dollars to deport the small number of free blacks that resided within the state.
He sent troops to New York City to put down a draft riot by shooting hundreds of them in the streets. He was an enemy of free-market capitalism.
He started a war over tax collection that ended up killing 800,000 Americans and wounding and maiming hundreds of thousands more.
He promoted the lie that no such thing as state sovereignty ever existed to "justify" his invasion and conquest of the Southern states. He refused to meet with Confederate peace commissioners before the war to work out a peaceful compromise. The South was willing to pay it’s portion of the national debt and pay for all property confiscated by the South. He provoked Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee to secede by launching a military invasion of their sister states. All four of these states had previously voted not to secede but now reversed themselves.
Although he used religious rhetoric in his speeches when it was politically expedient, Lincoln almost certainly was not a Christian. Lincoln struggled with severe depression.
Lincoln admirer Carl Marx sent him a congratulatory letter after his reelection in 1864; in which he stationed armed guards at polling places to intimidate voters.
On giving blacks the rights to full citizenship Lincoln stated on September 18 1858, “If the State of Illinois had that power, I should be against the exercise of it. That is all I have to say about it.”
Finally, by his own words Lincoln incriminates himself, in his first inauguration speech when he says; "We denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as the gravest of crimes.”
We find the definition of treason in Article III section 3 of the Constitution where it states that “Treason against the United States shall consist only, in levying war against them...”
Lincoln was never president of more than half the country and no matter how you slice it, Union soldiers were not fighting to free slaves and Confederates were not fighting to keep them. There is nothing in the Constitution saying secession is illegal. Therefore, logic tells us there must be another reason.
Lincoln said his sole purpose for invading the South was to preserve the Union. Why force states to remain in the Union that did not want to be there? Why not just let the South go? Taxes that’s why. “Let the South go!” he said “where then shall we get our revenue?” (Bledsoe Treatise is J. Davis a traitor?)
Famed abolitionist Fredrick Douglas gave a scathing indictment of Lincoln’s racial policies in an April 14th 1876 speech, at which President Grant was in attendance. “He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the coloured people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country.”
Hardly seems the description of a Great Emancipator.
The early months of the War saw the assembly of armies that consisted of thousands of young men that had never before been away from home. Army chaplains complained that “seductive influences of sin” and “legions of devils” infested the camps. Among the sins were “spirituous liquors,” card playing, gambling, and profanity. Early in the war, one Confederate soldier said “if the South is overthrown, the epitaph should be ‘died of whiskey.’”
Though there were provisions made for chaplains in the Confederate Army, their pay was lower than that of other Confederate officers, and that of chaplains in the Union Army. There were a lot of issues in the attempts to form a legitimate chaplain’s corps in the Confederate Army. It is not known how many unpaid missionaries accompanied the army, and many pastors served as part-time missionaries. Conditions and provisions for chaplains improved when General Robert E. Lee took command in June 1862.
The beginning of the Great Revival appears to have started in the winter of 1862-1863 in Fredericksburg and the rest of the Lower Valley, and Chancellorsville, though its roots were earlier in the war. Some have narrowed it down to the first service performed at the Williams Street Methodist Church in Fredericksburg by the chaplain of the 17th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, of Barksdale’s Brigade, Rev. William B. Owen. He was soon joined by privates Clairborne McDonald and Thomas West of the 13th Mississippi, and they appeared to be filling the fairly large church seven nights a week. It was written in a letter by private William H. Hill of Company H, 13th Mississippi, that: “From 40 to 50 soldiers are at the mourner’s bench every night” waiting to be “saved” from their sins.
J. William Jones, Confederate chaplain and author of “Christ in the Camp”, notes that about the same time, similar occurrences were taking place in Trimble’s Brigade, in the 12th and 44th Georgia Regiments, after the army’s return from the Maryland Campaign.
To be continued...
HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT FELT THIS WAY?
"The suspension of the habeas corpus was for the purpose that men may be arrested and held in prison who cannot be proved guilty of any defined crime."
"Arrests are not made so much for what has been done as for what might be done. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is
discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by arrest, imprisonment, or death) he is sure to help the enemy."
"Much more, if a man talks ambiguously, talks with 'buts' and 'ifs' and 'ands' he cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by imprisonment or death)
this man will actively commit treason. Arbitrary arrests are not made for the treason defined in the Constitution, but to prevent treason."
All Lincoln quotes…Under Lincoln's definition silence became an act of treason.
Photo: The 4 Morris Brothers--All Confederate Veterans from Barnwell County, South Carolina.
Part II According to Rhodes, in his "History of the United States," Vol. IV.
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.
Mobs surged through the streets, burned buildings, and destroyed the drum from which the names of 1,200 New Yorkers had been drawn for military service. There were no soldiers to check the violence, due to the concentration of all available troops at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, so
policemen and militia units had to face the rioters alone.
The angry mob burned fine homes, business buildings, the draft office, a Methodist church, a Negro orphanage, and many other buildings. A Negro was hung, then burned as people danced around the burning body. More than thirty Negroes were killed - shot, hung, or trampled to death. It had been reported that Negroes were hung from the lamp posts along the streets. The mobs grew to an estimated strength of between 50,000 and 70,000.
For three days they swarmed through the streets, setting up barricades on First, Second, and Eighth Avenues, where sometimes a force of only 300 policemen would have to
face 10,000 attackers at a time. Some troops filtered into town, and the crowds took to alleys and rooftops where they killed soldiers with bricks and guns. The gangs caught the colonel of a militia unit, stomping and beating him to death. After dragging him to his home, men, women, and
children danced around his body. Eventually, enough troops arrived to put an end to the rioting. Casualties were heavy -nearly 2,000 people were dead from the melee.
Chaotic conditions in the North were in sharp contrast to those in the beleaguered Southland where one might have expected that the exigencies of war would necessitate curtailment of basic privileges, yet never was the
writ of habeas corpus suspended during the lifetime of the Confederate States of America. Many 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.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a product of his times yet, in some ways, was way ahead of them. His tactics on the battlefield are still studied by military academies today.
The great German General Erwin Rommel, George Patton and even Norman Schwarzkopf all studied this famous man’s tactics.
Nathan Bedford Forrest defended his homeland and never asked his men to do anything he was not willing to do himself. Controversial? Only by those who don’t take the time to study the man, his life and his time. Nathan Bedford Forrest was An American Warrior.
Part I - According to Rhodes, in his "History of the United States," Vol. IV., page 344, he says; "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was not issued from a humane standpoint. Lincoln hoped it would incite the Negroes to rise against the women and children."
"His Emancipation Proclamation was intended only as a punishment for the seceding states. It was with no thought of freeing the slaves of more than 300,000 slaveholders then in the Northern army."
"His Emancipation Proclamation was issued for a fourfold purpose and it was issued with fear and trepidation lest he should offend his Northern constituents.
He did it: "First: Because of an oath - that if Lee should be driven from Maryland he would free the slaves."
"Second: The time of enlistment had expired for many men in the army and he hoped this would encourage their re-enlistment."
"Third: Trusting that Southern men would be forced to return home to protect their wives and children from Negro insurrection."
"Fourth: Above all he issued it to prevent foreign nations from recognizing the Confederacy."
Lincoln admitted that he thought that the issuing of the Emancipation 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. (see part II later tonight).
"The Framers had a deathly fear of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as a protection. That's why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments. They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington tyranny." Walter Williams
"History has well substantiated the fact that, under
the right conditions, fallen and foolish man has
always given up independence and freedom, for even the
illusion of peace and security.
If society's great international architects can manufacture the precise conditions as in their adventures in Europe, all vestiges of freedom will fall in America".
- Samuel L. Webster, 1935
"He said his father had lived so far up in the North Carolina mountains, HE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT SLAVERY when he joined the Confederate Army."
LAST SON OF A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER IN TEXAS DIES...
Posted: November 13, 2012 - 8:59am
Beilue: Last one in Texas and one of 32 in US
By Matthew Hutchison
matthew.hutchison@amarillo.com
A former ASARCO worker and one of the last links to the American Civil War died Sunday in Amarillo.
Marion Wilson, 99, was the youngest of 16 children fathered by Confederate soldier Hamilton “Ham” Wilson, a young private from the Smoky Mountains who served in the 29th North Carolina Infantry, according to a news release from the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The brigade comprised four Texas Regiments and two regiments from North Carolina and was led by Gen. Matt Ector, an attorney and judge from Texas. The brigade fought in the battle of Chickamauga, Ga., and was part of the Atlanta and Nashville campaigns.
Ham Wilson was a farmer and served as a justice of the peace in eastern Oklahoma. He had eight children with his first wife. After she died, he remarried at age 44 and fathered eight more children. He spent his twilight years in Rose, Okla., and died in 1938.
Marion Wilson was born in Oklahoma on Feb. 8, 1913, and moved to Amarillo in 1929. He worked at the ASARCO plant refining copper and other metals and was ordered to stay there when he tried to join the Army after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1944. He was a founder and 40-year deacon at Cliffside Baptist Church in Amarillo and was most recently a member and deacon at South Georgia Baptist Church. His wife of 67 years, Virginia Lee Henard, died in 2005.
Marion Wilson was one of two sons of confederate soldiers to attend a reunion in 2009 in Hot Springs, Ark. He said his father had lived so far up in the North Carolina mountains, he knew nothing about slavery when he joined the Confederate Army.
Marion Wilson’s grandfather, Paul Wilson, also served in the Confederate Army. He fought with the 14th North Carolina Calvary and served 10 months in the Rock Island Prisoner of War Camp in Illinois. He returned home to a devastated farm and moved his family to Wester Arkansas.
Marion Wilson is survived by his daughter, Sandra Kinser of Amarillo, a son, Larry Wilson and wife Sue of Denton, five grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter.
A memorial service is scheduled at 2:30 p.m. Thursday at South Georgia Baptist Church, 5209 S. Georgia St. He will be buried at Memorial Park Cemetery, 6969 E. Interstate 40. A uniformed honor guard of Confederate re-enactors will fire a 21-gun salute at the cemetery in Marion Wilson’s honor.
When presidents still had some common sense and integrity…
Confederate veterans were afforded status equal to that of United States veterans by an act approved by the Congress of the United States of America on May 23, 1958, and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in accordance with Public Law 85-425, thereby amending the Veterans' Benefit Act of 1957
US Law that defines status of Confederate Veterans
Public Law 85-425 adopted May 23, 1958 as H.R. 358
To increase the monthly rates of pension payable to widows and former widows of deceased veterans of the Spanish-American War, Civil War, Indian War, and Mexican War, and provide pensions to widows of veterans who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War...
CONFEDERATE FORCES VETERANS
Sec. 410. The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have been applicable to such... if such forces had been service in the military or naval service of the United States.
Sec. 2. This act shall be effective from the first day of the second calendar month following its enactment.
"Fingal" brings in a big haul for the cause...
On 2nd September 1861, along with another Confederate agent in Liverpool, Edward G. Anderson of the Confederate States Army, it was decided to buy a vessel to transport arms, munitions and supplies to the Confederacy. By 11th September CSN Agent James Bulloch had secured the 800-ton steamer Fingal, an ironhulled screw steamer, to run the blockade.
The cargo on board had a value of $250,000, and clandestine measures were taken to obscure the Fingal's true ownership, mission and cargo. Loaded with more than 11,000 rifles, as well as pistols swords, sabres, ammunition, four cannon, seven tons of shell, leather, medicines and clothing, blankets and more.
Civilian second officer on the Fingal was Bulloch`s trusted friend and assistant John Low. Bulloch sailed with the Fingal.
The Fingal reached the Bermuda on November 2nd, and took on the Savannah pilot, Mr. Macon, fresh from the CSS Nashville. It was not until the ship left Bermuda on November 7 that her crew were informed of their destination, gamely they agreed to defend the ship, if necessary against blockaders.
Favoured by a thick fog that helped to hide her, she crept towards her destination. As the fog lifted, with Confederate flag flying high, she made a dash for Savannah, only to wind up on an oyster bank. With help from some Georgia vessels, she was soon clear, and in Savannah harbour on November 12 1861.
The ship's arrival gave the Fingal the distinction of having brought into the Confederacy the largest, single- trip delivery composed entirely of naval and military material.
Ulysses S. Grant was fightin to end slavery…Do tell?
U.S. Grant was the last American president to have owned slaves. Grant freed his personal slave in 1859…
…However, the slaves his wife inherited from her father were not freed until after the war. When Richmond fell to the Union army, only one person was allowed to be escorted through the streets of Richmond by a servant. That person was Julia Dent Grant and she openly flaunted that fact.
Do you suppose those are Grant's kin folk in the background?
63'-64' Revivals in the Southern Armies...
In 1864 a "precious revival" at Dalton, Ga., 107 conversions in Brown's Brigade. One Chaplin described a log camp chapel soldiers built. The chaplains thought it would be large enough, "but when the great revival began," soldiers so crowded it that chaplains doubled its size. Still it was not large enough.
Revivals in other brigades, including several of Alabama. The general of Lowry's Brigade of Alabama and Mississippi baptized a dozen of his own soldiers. Fifty or so were converted in General Deans' Alabama Brigade.
"The wonderful work of grace is spreading all over the army," in April 1864 that 1,000 soldiers had publicly sought salvation.
A soldier stationed near Montevallo wrote in 1864 of 100 conversions to Christ through a Bible class and an association for soldiers. Among the 35th Alabama Regiment, "almost all our boys are religious," an officer told a chaplain who helped lead services in 1863.
An 1863 letter to an editor told of the Rev. W.H. Carroll of Alabama preaching to Law's Alabama Brigade at camp near Fredricksburg, Va.,
"How many parents' heart will be gladdened when the glorious news of a revival in our camp reaches them!" the writer said.
A chaplain for the 10th Alabama Regiment, the Rev. J.J.D. Renfroe, wrote of a "splendid protracted meeting" in the brigade. A co-worker said that hundreds professed faith. As he put it, "The shock of battle has been sanctified to the saving of souls."
Methodist evangelist the Rev. John B. McFerrin, baptized at Cambridge Campground in Limestone County, said he never saw more displays of God's power than in 1863-64 meetings.
Church historian Gardiner Shattuck Jr. wrote in Christian History magazine that 100,000 or more Confederate soldiers converted. The impact of revivals "surely was tremendous," he said.
“It is stated in books and papers that Southern children read and study that all the blood shedding and destruction of property of that conflict was because the South rebelled without cause against the best government the world ever saw; that although Southern soldiers were heroes in the field, skillfully massed and led, they and their leaders were rebels and traitors who fought to overthrow the Union, and to preserve human slavery, and that their defeat was necessary for free government and the welfare of the human family.
As a Confederate soldier and as a citizen of Virginia, I deny the charge, and denounce it as a calumny. We were not rebels; we did not fight to perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under a government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes.”
Colonel Richard Henry Lee, C.S.A.
Richard Lee - Resided at Charles Town when he enlisted in the Confederate Army on April 18, 1861 as a Lieutenant. Wounded at Kernstown, Virginia bearing the Fallen Flag to the front. Recommended to service on a military court. Later became Judge Advocate and Colonel of 2nd Corps Army of Northern Virginia.
George Dance was in a picture that was made before 1914 at the Lynchburg, Moore County, Tennessee, courthouse. In it a number of elderly men were posing for a reunion for the area Confederate Veterans.
Other pictures from around 1900 taken from Gen’l N.B. Forrest’s Escort reunion, again reveal George Dance with his fellow Vets. For some people these pictures are a problem. For SCV members it is not! A check with a genealogical online service indicates George Dance was a Confederate Veteran.
He was obviously at a reunion with his veteran comrades. He had applied for a Confederate pension number C46 in Moore County, Tennessee, having served in the 8th TN Infantry, CSA. Oh yes, why is this a problem to some? George Dance is black. Was George a free black when the uncivil war broke out? Currently no information is available and more importantly, does it matter?
George Dance was born Jan 1, 1842 and died Nov. 12, 1924. This information was obtained from the photograph that also contained the dates of birth and death of the other men. Presently, very little is known about George Dance. The state of Tennessee census records of 1891, page 27, indicates he in District 1 as a registered male voter.
He, his wife America, and their three children are in the 1880 U.S. census of Moore County. He is listed as a farmer and she as keeping house. All are listed as being born in Tennessee. Next he was found in the 1910 U.S. census of Moore County as widowed, employed in a grist mill, and a survivor of the war. The census does indicate he said he was born in Alabama.
He is next found in the 1920 U.S. census of Moore County as widowed, not employed, and living with a son and family. A granddaughter is named America. Again it states he was born in Alabama.
In 1891 Tennessee established the Board of Pension Examiners to determine if Confederate veterans applying for pensions were eligible. Eligibility requirements included an inability to support oneself, honorable separation from the service, and residence in the state for one year prior to application.
Confederate veterans applied to the pension board of the state in which they resided at the time of application, even if this was not the state from which they served.
The application lists the veteran's place of enlistment, unit, period of service, battles participated in, and whether he was wounded or captured, as well as place of birth, number and gender of children, and value of personal and real property.
Singer Lionel Ritchie's ancestor was a recipient of one of these Tennessee Pensions.
Photo: Pension Board Members Standing: Gen. John P. Hickman,
Col. Harry Rene Lee. Sitting: Gen. R. C. Crouch, Col. N. L. McKay
48th Tennessee at Camp Douglas Chicago 1862 (part I)
The 48th was one of the first units ever to be incarcerated in hastily prepared Union prison camps. The Federals sent the field grade officers to Fort Warren, Massachusetts, the line officers to Camp Chase Ohio, and the enlisted men to Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois. (The officers were later transferred to Johnson's Island on Lake Erie.)
The defeated Tennesseans began their trip north shortly after the surrender on the evening of 16 February. Grant's troops herded their prisoners aboard the steamer Empress. The steamer departed on the seventeenth and arrived at Cairo, Illinois, that night. The trip up the Mississippi was both uncomfortable and unhealthy. Many of the soldiers crowded aboard the Empress were already sick from exposure, poor diet, and frostbite.
Sanitary conditions on the vessel were poor. The weather was cold, and the rations consisted of crackers and raw meat. Along the route, Union soldiers gathered to taunt the prisoners. In response, Andrew Campbell reported, "Our men never failed to cheer for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy." At two points along the river, unknown assailants fired shots at the vessel and several prisoners were wounded.
The Empress arrived at St. Louis on 20 February. The Confederates were surprised to find that the citizens of the city demonstrated pro-Southern sympathy by providing gifts of apples, cakes, tobacco, and money. The enlisted men boarded trains for Camp Douglas that evening, while the officers remained aboard other vessels for the next five days. Sympathizers risked insult and arrest to help the prisoners. One woman, who threw apples to the captives, was accosted by
a Union officer who shook his fist in her face.
To support her, one of the Confederate officers cut a button off his uniform and tossed it to the woman. When she attempted to retrieve the gift, a Federal guard stepped forward and "thrust his bayonet in front [of her] to push her back." Unimpressed, she simply pushed the bayonet out of the way and retrieved the button.
photo: Members of the 48th at Camp Douglas
Virginia was the only Southern State dismembered by the war. One third of her territory (the richest in many respects) and one third of her people were actually torn from her by the mailed hand of war not only without her consent but contrary to an express provision of the Federal Constitution. The true history of this “political rape” as it was termed by General Wise, is one of the blackest political crimes in the annals of history. “The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the WBTS”
West Virginia was allowed to secede from Virginia and was admitted into the Union as a “slave state” in June of 1863, 6 months after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect and in the second year of a war supposedly being fought to end slavery…
November 6 1865 CSS Shenandoah strikes her colors for the last time…
During 12½ months of 1864–1865 the ship undertook commerce raiding resulting in the capture and sinking or boarding of thirty-eight Union merchant vessels, mostly from New Bedford. This ship is notable for firing the last shot of the War, at a whaler in waters off the Aleutian Islands.
Captain Waddell and the crew knew returning to a US port would mean facing a Union court with a Northern perspective of the war. They correctly predicted the risk of being tried in a US court and hanged as pirates.
This later showed to be accurate. Commerce raiders were not included in the reconciliation and amnesty that Confederate soldiers were given. Captain Raphael Semmes ofCSS Alabama escaped charges of piracy by surrendering May 1, 1865 as a Ground General under Joseph E. Johnston. Semmes's former sailors surrendered as artillerymen.
The CSS Shenandoah was therefore surrendered by Captain Waddell to the Captain of HMS Donegal on November 6, 1865, after traveling 9,000 miles (14,500 km) to Liverpool to do so. This marked the last surrender of the War. She was then turned over to the United States government.
A world full of historically ignorant people is a dangerous place to be…Just look where we are today and why…
“The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter--it fell, and thus did more service than it otherwise could.” A. Lincoln
He orchestrated the rigging of Northern elections.
Introduced the slavery of conscription and income taxation.
Censored all telegraph communication.
Waged war on civilians by having his armies’ bomb Southern cities and destroy or steal crops, livestock and private property throughout the South.
Created an enormous political patronage system that survives today.
Allowed the unjust mass execution of Sioux Indians in Minnesota.
Destroyed the system of federalism and states’ rights that was created by the founding fathers, thereby destroying the voluntary union.
Promoted generals for their willingness to use troops as cannon fodder.
Created an internal revenue bureaucracy that has never diminished in size and power.
Lincoln's actions caused a violent war that changed the United States from a limited republic of free states into a single monolithic unit that has since 1865 slowly destroyed individual liberty in this country.
Some of this sounds all too familiar…
Photo: Confederate veterans at an old soldiers home...
Since 1861, the United States has had a government of special interests, by special interests, and for special interests, dedicated to the proposition that their power and profits "shall not perish from the earth."
Mr. Lincoln supported economic interventionism through protectionist tariffs, corporate welfare, and central banking that would plunder one section of the country (the South) for the benefit of his Northern political supporters.
He started a war without the consent of Congress; illegally declared martial law; illegally blockaded Southern ports; illegally suspended habeas corpus and arrested tens of thousands of political opponents; illegally orchestrated the secession of West Virginia; shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers and imprisoned their editors and owners; deported the most outspoken member of the Democratic Party opposition, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio; confiscated private property, including firearms; ignored the Ninth and Tenth Amendments; tolerated the arrest of ministers who refused to publicly pray for him; arrested duly elected members of the Maryland legislature as well as Congressman Henry May of Baltimore; and supported a law that indemnified federal officials from all of these illegal acts.
And lets not forget making all out war on the civilian population of the South…
From where springs the seeds of corruption...?
With the Northern administration came the wholesale corruption of the political system. In 1864, Edward Bates, Lincoln's attorney general, lamented that "the demoralizing effect of this civil war is plainly visible in every department of life. The abuse of official powers and thirst for dishonest gain are now so common that they cease to shock."
As Henry S. Olcott, special investigator for the U.S. War and Navy Departments, revealed in The War's Carnival of Fraud (1878), "at least twenty, if not twenty-five, percent of the entire expenditures of the government during the Rebellion, were tainted with fraud." Later estimates put the level of fraud involving Army contracts at 50 percent.
Such institutional corruption defines the post-constitutional America that Lincoln created. The destruction of the Old Republic ensured the entrenchment of a permanent kleptocracy. That is Lincoln's legacy.
SO TRUE…!
As the attorney and legal scholar, James Ostrowski commented…for Lincoln's actions and his creative interpretation of the Constitution to have actually been legal, the Constitution would have had to state that:
1) No state may ever secede from the Union for any reason.
2) If any State attempts to secede, the Federal Government shall invade such State with sufficient military force to suppress the attempted secession.
3) The federal government may coerce all states to provide militias to suppress the seceding state.
4) After suppressing said secession, the Federal Government shall rule said State by martial law until such time as said State shall accept permanent federal supremacy.
5) After suppressing said secession, the Federal Government shall force said State to ratify a new constitutional amendment which gives the Federal Government the right to police the states whenever it believes those states are violating the rights of their citizens.
6) The President may, of his own authority, suspend the operation of the Bill of Rights and the writ of habeas corpus, in a seceding or loyal state, if in his sole judgment such is necessary to preserve the Union.
Of course, if the Constitution actually said this, it would never have been approved by the legislatures of the sovereign States.
For further evidence by a Constitutional scholar see Andrew Napolitano’s video on youtube “Abraham Lincoln Tyrant”
"The struggle of today is on the one side for empire and on the other for independence." ~ Wigan Examiner (UK) May, 1861.
"The Southerners are admired for everything but their slavery and that their independence may be speedily acknowledged by France and England is, we are convinced, the strong desire of the vast majority, not only in England but throughout Europe." ~ Liverpool Daily Post, 11 March 1862.
Lincoln himself stated, as well as commentators at the time, taxation and secession were the issues, not slavery. And as many in the North and Europe realized, it was Lincoln who schemed to launch the most devastating war in American history.
