"I am not one of those who, clinging to the old superstitions that the Will of Heaven is revealed in the immediate results of trial by combat, fancy that right must be on the side of might and speak of Appomattox as a judgment of God…instead of accepting the defeat of the South as a divine verdict against her. I regard it as but another instance of truth on the scaffold and wrong on the throne." Robert C. Cave

Robert Catlett Cave of Orange County, Virginia promised his dying father that he would serve Virginia as long as she might need his services. He joined the Montpelier Guard, Company A, Thirteenth Virginia Infantry Regiment, Army of Northern Virginia, C.S.A. This unit participated in more than seventy engagements during its career—from Manassas to Appomattox.

IF…is a big word but...

If the Confederate States had succeeded in winning their independence slavery would for all intents and purposes have ended rather quickly. Jefferson Davis said himself that, “secession would mean the end of slavery,” mechanization was on the accent; while slavery was extremely expensive and high maintenance. (Which is why so few Southerners owned them and the North was the first to give them up).

Independence could have been achieved without the loss of 750,000 dead soldiers, 100,000 Southern civilians and millions of mutilated survivors. Scores of Southern towns would have been spared the torch and women of all races spared the indignities forced on them by the lusts of Union troops. 

According to Lincoln a peaceful end would have resulted in slavery being dragged out until the turn of the century and deportation of thousands of blacks back to Africa, both of which he presented before Congress. 

There is also little doubt that in a Confederate States of America:

Prayer would not be banned in schools.

There wouldn’t be an issue of offending people by saying 
Merry Christmas or Happy Easter.

We wouldn’t be trying to redefine marriage.

The borders would more than likely be secure saving the country billions. 

There would be no Central Bank AKA Federal Reserve, which the South was against.

The CSA wouldn’t be trying to ban guns and disarm its citizens. 

We wouldn’t have corporate welfare (bailouts), which was forbidden in the CS Constitution. 

There wouldn’t be a threat of being killed by drones sent by your own government. 

Racism would not be the problem it is today (brought on by Reconstruction). 

We wouldn’t have a gargantuan insatiable DC government (states rights would prevail).

National health care (Obamacare) would be impossible without state approval.

I doubt the CSA would be meddling in the business of other Nations across the globe. 

I doubt the CSA would be giving foreign aid to our enemies.

In the CSA you wouldn’t find monuments to war criminals or have them elected to office. 

In the CSA there was also a tremendous amount of racial tolerance in the South as well (blacks, Jews, 
Asians, Hispanics and Native Americans all fought in Southern Armies). 

The CSA would not have engaged in the genocide of Native Americans, they were represented in the CS Congress. 

That’s my short list…

General Sedgwick fell at the beginning of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, on May 9, 1864. His corps was probing skirmish lines ahead of the left flank of Confederate defenses and he was directing artillery placements. Confederate sharpshooters were about 1,000 yards (900 m) away and their shots caused members of his staff and artillerymen to duck for cover. 

Sedgwick strode around in the open and was quoted as saying, "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Although ashamed, his men continued to flinch and he repeated, "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Just seconds later he fell forward with a bullet hole below his left eye. 

Sedgwick was the highest ranking Union casualty in the War. Although James B. McPherson was in command of an army at the time of his death and Sedgwick of a corps, Sedgwick had the most senior rank by date of all major generals killed. Upon hearing of his death, Grant, flabbergasted by the news, repeatedly asked, "Is he really dead?"

In 1870 as General Lee and many other former Confederates were
meeting together, Union General Rosecrans asked Lee to say a few words on behalf of the Southern people proclaiming how happy they were to be back in the Union. Lee refused…

Rosecrans asked each of the ex-Confederates the same question until he got to Fletcher S. Stockdale, former governor of Texas…here was his reply:

The people of Texas will remain quiet and not again resort to forceful resistance against the Federal Government, whatever may be the measures of that government. But, General Rosecrans, candor requires me to explain the attitude of my people. 

The people to Texas have made up their minds to remain quiet under all aggressions and to have peace; but they have none of the spaniel in their composition. No sir, they are not in the least like the dog that seeks to lick the hand of the man that kicked him; but it is because they are a very sensible, practical, common-sense people and understand their position. They know that they resisted the Federal Government as long as any means of resistance was left and that any attempt at resistance now must be in vain and they have no means and would make bad worse. This is the view of the matter which is going to keep Texas quiet.

At this point General Lee rose from his chair and General Rosecrans took the hint that the meeting was over…”The South Was Right” by the Kennedy Brothers. 

NO MENTION OF INCIDENTS LIKE THIS IN SCHOOL HISTORY BOOKS...It doesn't fit their agenda.

“ Attack on Our Soldiers by Armed Negroes ! A member of the Indiana Twentieth Regiment, now encamped near Fortress Monroe, writes to the Indianapolis Journal on the 23rd. 

Yesterday morning General Mansfield with Drake de Kay, Aide-DE-Camp in command of seven companies of the 20th New York, German Riffles, left Newport News on a reconnaissance. Just after passing New Market Bridge, seven miles from camp, they detached one company as an advance, and soon after their advance was attacked by 600 of the enemy’s cavalry. 

The company formed to receive cavalry, but the cavalry advancing deployed to the right and left when within musket range and unmasked a body of seven hundred NEGRO INFANTRY, all armed with muskets, who opened fire on our men, wounding two lieutenants and two privates, and rushing forward surrounded the company of Germans who cut their way through killing six of the Negroes and wounding several more. The main body, hearing the firing, advanced at a double-quick in time to recover their wounded, and drive the enemy back, but did not succeed in taking any prisoners. 

The wounded men testify positively that they were shot by Negroes, and that not less than seven hundred were present, armed with muskets. This is, indeed, a new feature in the war. We have heard of a regiment of Negroes at Manassas, and another at Memphis, and still another at New Orleans but did not believe it till it came so near home, and attacked our men. 

THERE IS NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT. The 20th German were actually attacked and fired on and wounded by Negroes. It is time that this thing was understood, and if they fight us with Negroes, why should not we fight them with Negroes too? We have disbelieved these reports too long, and now let us fight the devil with fire. The feeling is intense among the men. 

They want to know if they came here to fight Negroes, and if they did, they would like to know it. The wounded men swear they will kill any Negro they see, so excited are they at the dastardly act. It remains to be seen how long the Government will now hesitate, when they learn these facts. One of the Lieutenants was shot in the back part of the neck, and is not expected to live.”

In honor of the General's birthday today a couple of my favorite quotes spoken by him...

"I want you to try to teach to your children and to your children's children that ours was not a lost cause. I want you to tell them that we were fighting for the right ..." (Columbia, SC, 1900)

If we were wrong in our contest, then the Declaration of Independence of 1776 was a grave mistake and the revolution to which it led was a crime. If Washington was a patriot; Lee cannot have been a rebel.

Throughout his lifetime, Wade Hampton III held a number of important offices and positions: planter, plantation owner, businessman, legislator, community leader, soldier, governor and senator. Although he won national renown as a post-war governor and a leader of the movement to end Reconstruction in the South, it was his actions as a superb general officer in the Confederate Army that defines the essence of the man.

"The Rebel army is now the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac." Union General Joseph Hooker 

Spoken just shortly before he was soundly defeated by Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Chancellorsville, while Lee was outnumbered more that two to one…(pride comes before a fall) 

Hooker was not the first pompous braggart Lee defeated...however a lack of supplies and manpower eventually took it's toll...

DID THE SOUTH HAVE A RIGHT TO SECEDE...

"Each state, ratifying the Constitution, is considered a sovereign body, independent of others and only to be bound by its own voluntary act." James Madison Author of the Constitution – IT DOESN’T GET ANY CLEARER THAN THAT

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." - James Madison, Federalist 45 

“If Abraham Lincoln had his way you would not be here today…if Abraham Lincoln had his way there would be no black people in America at all, none. Lincoln was literally forced into an emancipation policy that he opposed all his life.” Lerone Bennett, Jr. author “Forced Into Glory Abraham Lincoln's White Dream”

December 1, 1862 in a message to congress Lincoln stated, “I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization (deportation).” 

In reality, Lincoln is no hero for the Black man. Ebony Magazine editor historian Lerone Bennett wrote a landmark 652-page book that really ends all debate in the matter and picks the myth apart, line upon line. The Hollywood elites, the Spielberg’s and O’Reilly’s of this world would have to hold their noses in reading the true history of Lincoln’s racial words and deeds. 

Bennett is no friend of the South but his book thoroughly documents the lies and myths of the Great Emancipator over the past 150 years even better than Thomas DiLorenzo IMHO.

If they continue to rely on government school ‘history” books then they will continue in blissful ignorance, as the writers of those “history” books intended that they should.

“Few people living today in Rhode Island realize that the slave trade was once a vital component of the Ocean State’s economy. ‘The numbers are astonishing’ says Ray Rickman, project director of an exhibit dealing with the slave trade in Rhode Island. In an 80-year period, people in Rhode Island got rich from the slave trade.”

… slavery was pretty widespread in Rhode Island. “Slaves worked on South County farms and in the mansions of Newport. But it was the slave trade that was the number one financial activity for Rhode Island from 1720 to 1807.”

Rhode Islanders were involved in the slave trade but Rhode Islanders today are poorly educated in school about slavery. Don’t you wonder why? In the War of Northern Aggression Rhode Island fought for the Union as part of “Massa Lincoln’s” massive army of emancipation (riddled with Marxists) and as the winners get to write the “history” books you can bet the farm that they wanted to portray themselves as looking good and the South as looking bad.

Read entire article: https://revisedhistory.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/slavery-in-rhode-island-who-woulda-thunk-it/

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals."

"No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established.

If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave." The Lysander Spooner Massachusetts libertarian abolitionist Reader (p. 49):

....When then Captain John B. Gordon first organized a company of Tennessee and North Georgia Mountain men he was trying to come up with a nick name for the Company. He decided on the name “Mountain Rifles.” When he announced the name to his company the men told him they had already named the company, “The Raccoon Roughs.” 

After leading the Raccoon Roughs at First Manassas in July 1861, Gordon was elected colonel of the 6th Alabama regiment in April 1862, just before the serious campaigning began on the Peninsula. At Seven Pines, he was thrust suddenly into brigade command when Brig. Gen. Robert Rodes was wounded. 

There he distinguished himself, leading the brigade in a charge through murderous fire. Every one of his field officers was killed. He alone survived, with bullet holes in his coat; his horse was killed under him. After the battle of Gaines' Mill a month later, Rodes, exhausted and still suffering from his Seven Pines wound, again surrendered brigade command to Gordon. Two days later Gordon led the costly charge at Malvern Hill, where he was temporarily blinded when dirt from an exploding shell hit him in the eyes. There, four hundred of his brigade were casualties.

Gordon was wounded 5 times in the "Bloody Lane" at Sharpsburg. 

"The Strangest Race" a unique engagement that took place along the Richmond-York Railroad on June 28, 1862, one of the most unusual skirmishes of the entire War.

Confederate cavalry commander Jeb Stuart received information that there were 5,000 Union soldiers guarding a nearby depot and decided to attack. As the sun rose the following day, Stuart’s troopers arrived at the location, only to find that the enemy had already departed.

Less than a mile away, the rebel cavalry discovered the Union gunship U.S.S. Marblehead, anchored on the nearby Pamunkey River, close to the shoreline. Stuart immediately ordered a detachment of his men to attack the ship and prevent its escape. As they neared, Federal troops disembarked and began firing on the horsemen.

Major John Pelham positioned his horse-drawn artillery along the shoreline and was able to fire several shots that exploded above the Union ship. What followed was a highly unique melee in which cavalry, naval and artillery units engaged one another.

As the gunboat gathered steam, its defenders were called back on board and the ship quickly withdrew downstream. Pelham’s men continued to follow it along the water’s edge, firing at the retreating vessel for as long as their horses could keep pace with it, but the ship escaped to fight another day.

Sgt Oliver Hardy of Columbia County Georgia Enlisted July 25th 1861 and served in Co K, 16th Georgia Infantry Regiment, wounded at Sharpsburg MD. September 17 1862. 

His son Oliver N. Hardy was an actor and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. 

On August 7, 1957, actor Oliver Hardy died. He was born on January 18, 1892 in Harlem, Georgia. He was best known as one half of the famous comic duo of Laurel and Hardy. Whixh began in silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955. In 1910, a movie theater opened in Hardy’s home town in Georgia, and he became the projectionist, ticket taker, janitor and manager. He soon became obsessed with the new motion picture industry, and became convinced that he could do a better job than the actors he saw on the screen. A friend suggested that he move to Florida, where some films were being made. In 1913, he did just that, where he worked as a cabaret and vaudeville singer at night. The next year he made his first movie, Outwitting Dad, for the Lubin studio. 

His size placed limitations on the roles he could play. He was most often cast as “the heavy” or the villain. He also frequently had roles in comedy shorts, his size complementing the character. In 1917, Oliver Hardy moved to Los Angeles, working freelance for several Hollywood studios. Later that year, he appeared in the movie The Lucky Dog, which starred a young British comedian named Stan Laurel. Between 1918 and 1923, Oliver Hardy made more than forty films for Vitagraph, mostly playing the heavy. In 1924, Hardy began working at Hal Roach Studios working with the Our Gang films.

Some of Quantrill’s Reunions were attended by Harry Truman, this one is from Independence, Mo. Harry's home town.

The first reunion of the men who rode with William Clarke Quantrill was held in September 1898 at Blue Springs, Missouri. They continued to hold annual reunions for thirty-two years, until 1929. The reunions were held in various locations, including Wallace Grove (the home of Mr. and Mrs. J.D. Wallace) in Independence, Mo.

This 1906 reunion photo was taken in Independence. Among the attendees was John Noland, first from right on the third row. Born a slave in 1844, he served as Quantrill’s hostler during the war and was used by the guerrilla commander as a scout and spy. Noland died in 1908.

Hiram J. George, second from right on the third row, was born in 1834. He fought as both a guerrilla and a regular Confederate soldier, serving at the battles of Independence and Lone Jack, in the raid on Lawrence, and at Baxter Springs. He died in 1911.

William W. “Buck” Fields, sixth from left on the first row, was born in 1844. He served with with the Missouri State Guard and with Quantrill. Fields participated in the siege of Lexington, the battles of Independence, Lone Jack, Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, and Westport, and in the raid on Lawrence. He died in 1937.

William H. Gregg, fifth from right on the first row, was born in 1838. He served as a lieutenant in Quantrill’s command, and fought at Independence, Prairie Grove, and Springfield. He also participated in the raid on Lawrence and in the destruction of General James Blunt’s command at Baxter Springs. Later in the war, Gregg left Quantrill and joined the regular Confederate army. He died in 1916.

John Hicks George, fourth from right on the first row, was born in 1838. He fought with Quantrill at Independence, Lone Jack, Prairie Grove, Lawrence and Baxter Springs. Later in the war he joined the regular Confederate forces and was captured by the Federals in 1864. He died in 1926

I had an ancestor in the 34th Arkansas at Prairie Grove, like many of his fellow soldiers he died on the horrendous march back to Little Rock after the battle.  

The guerrilla warfare in Missouri was more bitter and merciless than in any other State; but as far as Southern men who took part in it were concerned, it was strictly a war of retaliation. 

In September, 1861, Jim Lane with a body of Kansas jayhawkers took and wantonly burned the town of Osceola in St. Clair county. Later in the fall of that year the butcher, McNeil, had ten prisoners, many of them non-combatants, shot because one Andrew Allsman, of whom they knew nothing, had disappeared from his home and could not be found. 

Colonel John McNeil, was later known as the "Butcher of Palmyra" and shortly after this incident he was promoted by Lincoln. He left the army in 1865, after receiving the customary promotion to brevet rank of Major General of Volunteers in recognition of his faithful service to the Union.

In November, 1861, Col. C. B. Jennison, of the First Kansas cavalry, issued a proclamation to the people of the border counties of Missouri, in which he said: "All who shall disregard these propositions (to surrender their arms and sign deeds of forfeiture of their property) shall be treated as traitors and slain wherever found. Their property shall be confiscated and their houses burned; and in no case will any one be spared, either in person or property, who refuses to accept these propositions." 

Indeed, the Federals boasted of their barbarity. On December 27th, 1861, the St. Louis Democart stated that "Lieutenant Mack, sent out to Vienna with twenty Kansas rangers, returned yesterday. He brought no prisoners, that being a useless operation about played out." The Rolla Express of the same date said: "A scouting party of rangers, which left this place last week for Maries county, has returned. The boys bring no prisoners--it isn't their style."

Photo: Quantrill’s Raider George Maddox- Main Scout Survived the War

ANY QUESTION AS TO WHY RESENTMENT HAS LASTED 150 YEARS…

"Once Northern troops entered the abandoned Fort Anderson, they were drawn to the historic graveyard and ruins of nearby St. Philips Church where they “dug up the remains of the coffins, broke open the tombs and scattered the bones, looking for jewelry and silver coffin plates; at which time many of the gravestones were destroyed”

Before departing the fort for their advance on Wilmington, Northern troops defaced the Church and removed its cornerstone.

Author James Laurence Sprunt wrote that patriot and Judge
Parker Quince's "tomb though battered by Northern shellfire
and marred by vandals, [it] still remains as one of the most
imposing there..." Another Northern cannonball "struck and demolished a simple tombstone bearing the epitaph:

"Here lies the body of Benjamin Smith, one time Governor of North Carolina. "When only 21 years old, Smith served as an aide to General Washington in the retreat from Long Island in August 1779, and performed his duty gallantly at Fort Moultrie that same year while driving the British from South Carolina.

IN LAWS OR OUT LAWS, we report you decide…

Ulysses S. Grants father in law was Colonel Frederick Dent, an unreconstructed Confederate, a St. Louis businessman and slaveholder who, when his daughter Julia went to the Executive Mansion early in 1869 relocated there as well.

When his daughter received guests, he sat in a chair just behind her, offering anyone within earshot unsolicited advice. Political and business figures alike got a dose of the Colonel's mind as they waited to meet with President Grant whose own father was constantly at odds with the Colonel Dent. 

Gen. Philip St. George Cooke was the father of Flora Cooke Stuart the Wife of General Jeb Stuart the legendary Confederate Cavalry commander. For the Peninsula Campaign, he was selected by McClellan to command the Cavalry Reserve.

When Confederate forces evacuated Yorktown, Cooke was sent along with Major General George Stoneman in pursuit and his cavalry was roughed up in an assault ordered by Stoneman against Fort Magruder.

After the Peninsula Campaign Cooke left active field service. One reason was the embarrassment he suffered when his son-in-law Jeb, whom he was pursuing, humiliated the Union cavalry by completely encircling the Army of the Potomac in his celebrated raid. 

Stuart, was so insenced that his father in law stayed with the Union, he renamed his and Flora's months'-old son, Philip St. George Cooke Stuart, after himself, James Ewell Brown Stuart Jr. Jeb was mortally wounded in 1864 at Yellow Tavern.

Cooke died in 1895, at the age of 84; Miss Flora, after Jeb's death, donned mourning garb and wore it for the remaining fifty-nine years of her life, dying in 1923.

Robert Smith Todd, Lincoln’s father in law was a banker and his family were slaveholders; Mary Todd Lincoln was raised in comfort and refinement. Five of Lincoln’s brothers in law served in the Confederate army and one, General Benjamin Hardin Helm (Husband of Mary Todd Lincoln’s half sister) was killed at Chickamauga…  

UNION GENERAL GETS AN EARFUL FROM GENERAL D.H.HILL

SIR: Two communications have been referred to me as the successor of General French. The prisoners from Swindell’s company and the Seventh North Carolina are true prisoners of war and if not paroled I will retaliate five-fold. In regard to your first communication touching the burning of Plymouth you seem to have forgotten two things. You forget, sir, that you are a Yankee and that Plymouth is a Southern town. It is no business of yours if we choose to burn one of our own towns. A meddling Yankee troubles himself about everybody’s matters except his own and repents of everybody’s sins except his own. 

We are a different people. Should the Yankees burn a Union village in Connecticut or a cod-fish town in Massachusetts we would not meddle with them but rather bid them God-speed in their work of purifying the atmosphere. Your second act of forgetfulness consists in your not remembering that you are the most atrocious house-burner as yet unsung in the wide universe. Let me remind you of the fact that you have made two raids when you were weary of debauching in your negro harem and when you knew that your forces outnumbered the Confederates five to one. Your whole line of march has been marked by burning churches, school-houses, private residences, barns, stables, gin-houses, negro cabins, fences in the row, &c. Your men have plundered the country of all that it contained and wantonly destroyed what they could not carry off. 

Before you started on your free booting expedition toward Tarborough you addressed your soldiers in the town of Washington and told them that you were going to take them to a rich country full of plunder. With such a hint to your thieves it is not wonderful that your raid was characterized by rapine, pillage, arson and murder. Learning last December that there was but a single weak brigade on this line you tore yourself from the arms of sable beauty and moved out with 15,000 men on a grand marauding foray.

You partially burned Kinston and entirely destroyed the village of White Hall. The elegant mansion of the planter and the hut of the poor farmer and fisherman were alike consumed by your brigands. How matchless is the impudence which in view of this wholesale arson can complain of the burning of Plymouth in the heat of action! But there is another species of effrontery which New England itself cannot excel. 

When you return to your harem from one of these Union-restoring excursions you write to your Government the deliberate lie that you have discovered a large and increasing Union sentiment in this State. No one knows better than yourself that there is not a respectable man in North Carolina in any condition of life who is not utterly and irrevocably opposed to union with your hated and hateful people. 

A few wealthy men have meanly and falsely professed Union sentiments to save their property and a few ignorant fishermen have joined your ranks but to betray you when the opportunity offers. No one knows better than yourself that our people are true as steel and that our poorer classes have excelled the wealthy in their devotion to our cause. You knowingly and willfully lie when you speak of a Union sentiment in this brave, noble and patriotic State. Wherever the trained and disciplined soldiers of North Carolina have met the Federal forces you have been scattered as leaves before t he hurricane. 

In conclusion let me inform you that I will receive no more white flags from you except the one which covers your surrender of the scene of your lust, your debauchery and your crimes. No one dislikes New England more cordially than I do, but there are thousands of honorable men even there who abhor your career fully as much as I do. 

Sincerely and truly, your enemy,

D. H. HILL,

Major-General, C. S. Army

OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 2, vol 5, Part 1 (Prisoners of War) p. 389-390 
GOLDSBOROUGH, N. C., March 24, 1863.
Major General J. G. FOSTER, Federal Army.

I keep hearing people erroneously suggest that Lincoln changed his motive for waging war on the South as the war progressed, from restoring the Union, to freeing the slaves. Nonsense, in his last speech, just four days before his death he said:

“We all agree that the seceded states, so called, are out of their proper practical relation with the union and that the “SOLE” object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those states, is to again get them into that proper practical relation.” 

I think it’s abundantly clear from that statement that there was never any new motivation for prosecuting the war and no moral high ground for the invaders to claim. It was always about conquest so Caesar would have his taxes or destroy the South in the process; so it could not compete with Northern industry…He got both.

“The Southern States now stand exactly in the same position toward the Northern States that our ancestors in the colonies did toward Great Britain. 

The Northern States having the majority in Congress claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British Parliament.  The “general welfare” is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress as in the British Parliament are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation this “general welfare” requires. 

 Thus the government of the United States are compelled to meet the very despotism their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.”  Robert Barnwell Rhett

WE CAN EXPLAIN IT TO EM, BUT WE CAN’T UNDERSTAND IT FOR EM…

“Secession by the Southern states and the formation of the new nation, the Confederate States of America was a noble effort to separate from Yankee dictatorship, despotism, and tyranny. The Confederate cause was to gain INDEPENDENCE just as the American colonies seceded in 1776 from England for the same reasons.

In case you are not aware, England offered the blacks freedom from slavery if they would fight against the American colonies. Therefore the Revolutionary War could be viewed as a war to preserve slavery just as the War for Southern Independence is by those ignorant of true history.”

CONSPIRACY TO REWRITE HISTORY…why won’t (Gov.) schools teach the truth about Black Confederates?  Because it doesn’t fit their agenda (a war to free slaves) NONSENSE…!

Elgin (Illinois) Daily Courier-News, Monday, April 12, 1948 - "Robert (Uncle Bob) Wilson, Negro veteran of the Confederate army who observed his 112th birthday last January 13, died early yesterday morning in the veterans' hospital at the Elgin State hospital...He enlisted as a private in Company H of the 16th regiment of Virginia Infantry on Oct. 9, 1862 and discharged May 31, 1863."

There were many recorded instances of combat service of Black Confederates which can be found in the Federal Official Records, Northern and Southern newspapers and the letters and diaries of soldiers from both sides. In addition there are recorded instances of Black Southerners serving as regularly-enlisted combat soldiers before the Union allowed enlistment of Blacks.

For most of the war the Confederate Government prohibited the enlistment of African Americans as armed soldiers in the “national army,” but the states and individual units often varied from or ignored outright such prohibitions since there were actually very few "national army" regiments at any time during the war with most military units still under state command on loan to the Confederate government.

The keywords in discussing "official Confederate policy" regarding Black soldiers are "national army." States still controlled their military policies within the Confederate command structure but, unlike the Union, did not surrender total control of their forces as part of a "national army."

It is a fact that Confederate service records were altered by the Feds after the war changing descriptions of black soldiers to slaves or body servants….

Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was bitterly contested: all the Southern state legislatures, with the exception of Tennessee, refused to ratify the amendment. This refusal led to the passage of the Reconstruction Acts. Ignoring the existing state governments, military government was imposed until new civil governments were established and the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. 

This amendment, since the 1950s, has been manipulated by the Supreme Court to affect a vast transfer of power from the states to the central government, making it virtually impossible for the states to maintain those independent substantial moral communities protected by the powers reserved in the Tenth Amendment. 

It is fitting that this amendment, which had a corrupt and illegal origin in Congress, was never ratified by the states, and is, thus, not a part of the Constitution! It was simply declared by Congress to have been enacted, something Congress had no authority to do. This shows just how far some Americans had wandered from the original conception of self-government. Forrest McDonald, “Was the Fourteenth Amendment Constitutionally Adopted?” The Georgia Journal of Southern Legal History 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1991): 1–20. Donald Livingston  

THE PROBLEMS THAT LED TO THE WAR are the same problems today—big, intrusive government. The reason we don’t face the specter of another Civil War is because today’s Americans don’t have yesteryear’s spirit of liberty and constitutional respect, and political statesmanship is in short supply.

Actually, the war of 1861 was not a civil war. A civil war is a conflict between two or more factions trying to take over a government. In 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was no more interested in taking over Washington than George Washington was interested in taking over England in 1776. Like Washington, Davis was seeking independence. Therefore, the war of 1861 should be called "The War Between the States" or the "War for Southern Independence." The more bitter southerner might call it the "War of Northern Aggression."

History books have misled today’s Americans to believe the war was fought to free slaves. Walter Williams (well known syndicated columnist and economist.)

OLE TIMES THERE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN…

“The anniversary of the birth of Robert Edward Lee was again observed throughout Virginia on January 19th, 1892. In many of the cities and towns there were military parades, and the banks and public offices in all were closed. The Confederate Veterans Corps of the city of New York, and the Confederate Army and Navy Association of Baltimore, Maryland, each commemorated the occasion by a banquet with reverential exercises. The day is now by statute, a legal holiday in the States of North Carolina and Georgia as well as Virginia, and the day was observed in Raleigh and Atlanta, and doubtless in other Southern cities…

Business in the Richmond city offices was at a standstill yesterday and matters at the Capitol yesterday were dull. Many wholesale houses closed their establishments at noon and the freight depots of the railroads were also closed after that hour. The scholars of the public schools had half holiday, and the banks were closed throughout the day. Although the intensely discomforting weather materially interfered with the proposed open air demonstration, it could not dampen the ardent regard in which the memory of the glorious leader is held.

In Richmond, Mayor Ellyson spoke:

"Ladies, Comrades, and Fellow-Citizens: We have met today under the auspices of Lee and Pickett Camps to do honor to the memory of one of Virginia's noble sons. Robert E. Lee is forever enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen, and as we contemplate his virtues and heroism we are made better and purer men, and I trust the time will never come when Virginians shall fail on this, his natal day, to recount the valor and patriotism of their greatest chieftain, whose noblest aspiration in life found its completest realization in the doing of his duty to his God, and his fellow man.

There is no danger, comrades, that the men who wore the grey will ever prove recreant to the principles that actuated them in time of war, but there is danger that our children may, and so we wish on these recurring anniversaries to tell of the chivalrous deeds of such leaders as Lee, Jackson, Stuart and Pickett, and to teach coming generations that the soldiers of the Southern Confederacy were not rebels, but were Americans who loved liberty as something dearer than life itself."   

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts wrote the following in 1899 in his biography of the great Daniel Webster:

When the Constitution was adopted by the votes of States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of States in popular conventions, it is safe to say there was no man in this country, from Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who regarded our system of Government, when first adopted, as anything but an experiment entered upon by the States, and from which each and every State had the right to peaceably withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised. (Henry Cabot Lodge, Daniel Webster, Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1899, p. 176)

There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits a state from peacefully and democratically separating from the Union. Indeed, the right of secession is implied in the Tenth Amendment, which reads, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

The Constitution does not give the federal government the power to force a state to remain in the Union against its will. President James Buchanan acknowledged this fact in a message to Congress shortly before Lincoln assumed office. Nor does the Constitution prohibit the citizens of a state from voting to repeal their state’s ratification of the Constitution. Therefore, by a plain reading of the Tenth Amendment, a state has the legal right to peacefully withdraw from the Union.

Future Confederate Generals severely wounded fighting for the US government before the WBTS….

Earl Van Dorn took an arrow to the chest at the Battle of the Wichita Village, both Kirby Smith gunshot to the thigh and Fitz Hugh Lee, arrow in the chest at Crooked Creek, Texas fighting Comanche’s. Fitz Hugh was not expected to survive. John Bell Hood took an arrow through the hand at Devil’s River, Texas also from Comanche’s. All were in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment.

Jeb Stuart of the 1st Cavalry Regiment was wounded by a Cheyenne at the Battle of Solomon’s Fork in Kansas. Stuart and several other officers, among them future Confederate general Lunsford Lomax, cornered a Cheyenne who had an Allen "pepperbox" pistol. As the Indian threatened one lieutenant, Lt. Stuart slashed at him with a saber. The Indian pointed the pepperbox at Stuart from no more than a few feet and fired.

The small ball, apparently fired with a light or old powder charge, lodged under Stuart's left nipple, not enough to kill him, but enough to embarrass him that he had allowed an enemy to shoot him first. It was here that he displayed the recklessness and joy in combat that would become his trademark. Had Stuart been killed, his service to the Confederacy just four years later would have never happened.

Robert E. Lee, William Hardee and Albert Sidney Johnston were also stationed in Texas as commanders of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, a unit organized by then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, along with the 1st Cavalry Regiment, authorized in 1855 and formed at Jefferson Barracks, MO.

...“The Choctaw and Cherokee Indians who were Confederate soldiers came the second day. We gave them something to eat; they only asked for bread and sat on the ground to eat it. They were riding their Indian ponies and had their hats ornamented with gray peafowl’s feathers, they were very quiet, yet the Negroes were afraid of them.” 

Virginia McCollum Stinson from her memoirs on the welcome relief of Confederate soldiers whose arrival forced the Yankee’s to abandon Camden Arkansas in April 1864

Period paper slip behind image with inscription Jim Iyl(?) killed Honey Springs July 1863 Col. Coopers Command. The Battle of Honey Springs, on July 13, 1863 was the most important Civil War engagement to take place in Indian Territory, and the most important engagement during the Civil War in which the majority of the combatants were not white. 

"Col." Cooper refers to Brigadier General Douglas H. Cooper, who commanded the combined forces of the First and Second Cherokee Mounted Rifles, the First and Second Creek Mounted Rifles, the First Choctaw and Chickasaw Regiment of Mounted rifles, and several units from Texas. The combined Confederate force -- estimated variously between 3400-5100 troops -- met 3000 Union troops from Kansas, Colorado and Wisconsin under the command of Brigadier General James Cabell.

The myth of war crimes at Andersonville & Yankee Justice

Comandant Wirz was charged with 13 allegations of murder, but not one single victim was named. How do you murder 13 people with several thousand witnesses and no one can name a victim?

Wirz was charged with conspiracy, who did he conspire with? Doesn’t it take more than one to make a conspiracy? No one other than Wirz was brought to trial. 

One of the victims was supposedly killed on February 1, 1864. Wirz did not arrive at Andersonville until March. 

Two victims Wirz supposedly killed in August 1864. Wirz was away on sick leave at the time. 

145 of 160 witnesses said they had no knowledge of Wirz ever killing or mistreating anyone. 

The dates given by the other witnesses didn’t match the dates on the charges against Wirz. So the court changed the dates. How convenient!
The Yankee court decided which witnesses could be called by the defense. 

Several key witnesses were not allowed to testify for the defense. 

One defense witness was arrested when he arrived to testify on Wirz’s behalf. 

The prosecutions key witness claimed he personally saw Wirz kill two prisoners. The court gave him the commendations for his “zealous testimony” and rewarded him with a government job. Eleven days after Wirz was hanged a Union veteran recognized him as a deserter for a New York Regiment. The deserter was fired from his new job and promptly admitted that he committed perjury during the trial but, it was too late for Wirz… 

Just one example of how Yankee wordsmiths have done a hackjob on the truth and use their monopoly of the media and education to enforce their myths. 
Here is what one yankee pow said after the war. Edward Wellington Boate; page 190, ANDERSONVILLE: THE SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE, edited by J.H. Segars, copyright 1995 – 

“A policy like this is the quintessence of inhumanity, a disgrace to the Administration which carried it out, and a blot upon the country. You rulers who make the charge that the rebels intentionally killed off our men, when I can honestly swear they were doing everything in their power to sustain us, do not lay this flattering unction to your souls. You abandoned your brave men in their hour of their cruelest need. They fought for the Union, and you reached no hand out to save the old faithful, loyal, and devoted servants of the country. You may try to shift the blame from your own shoulders, but posterity will saddle the responsibility where it justly belongs.”

Portions taken from “The South Was Right” by the Kennedy brothers. 

March 13th 1865 Jefferson Davis signs a bill (General Order 14) authorizing the enlistment of black troops into the Confederate “national army.”  Of course black troops had been serving on the State level since the very beginning of the war…

Richmond Sentinel, March 21, 1865 - "THE BATTALION from Camps Winder and Jackson, under the command of Dr. Chambliss, including the company of colored troops under Captain Grimes, will parade on the square on Wednesday evening, at 4* o’clock. This is the first company of negro troops raised in Virginia. It was organized about a month since, by Dr. Chambliss, from the employees of the hospitals, and served on the lines during the recent Sheridan raid. "

One of the units accompanied General Lee's retreat toward Appomattox and fought at the battle of Amelia, Virginia two days before Lee's surrender.

When the War Broke out, Turner Ashby was commissioned as a Captain, and he immediately returned with his cavalry company to Harper's Ferry to help seize the Federal property there. His command, known as the Ashby Rangers, became part of the Seventh Virginia Cavalry.

By June of 1861, he had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in command of ten companies. Young men from the best families of western Virginia rushed to join his command. He employed the first battery of horse artillery used in the war. In 1862, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. On May 23, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in command of the Ashby Brigade (later known as the Laurel Brigade).

A man of striking personal appearance, General Ashby was about 5' 10" tall, well-proportioned, graceful, and compact, with black hair and eyes, a black beard and a dark complexion. He was a calm, gentle man, not given to drinking or swearing. He often smiled, but rarely laughed, especially after the death of his brother Richard, who died as a result of being severely wounded in an encounter with a Union patrol near Harper's Ferry early in the war.

Ashby displayed great coolness and determination in battle. Galloping over the battlefield, alert and eager, on his black stallion or his favorite white horse (Tom Telegraph?), he reminded many who saw him of a medieval knight. General Thomas E. "Stonewall" Jackson, under whose command Ashby served, declared that he "...never knew [Ashby's] superior as a partisan leader." 

Ashby was killed in a skirmish on Chestnut Ridge near Harrisonburg, Virginia, on June 6, 1862, the eve of the climactic battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic. Ashby and his men were fighting a rear guard action against the Yankees in an attempt to buy time for General Richard Ewell to set his defenses. In a skirmish with Federal troops, Ashby's horse was shot out from under him. Undaunted, Ashby drew his pistol, called: "Charge, men. For God's sake, charge!" and proceeded to lead the cavalry charge on foot. After taking only a few steps, he was hit in the chest with a musket ball and died instantly. Turner Ashby was thirty-three years of age. 

The site of his death now bears a memorial marker. Following the skirmish, the body of General Turner Ashby was taken to the Frank Kemper House in Port Republic where General Jackson joined other mourners who came to pay respects to the "Knight of the Confederacy." In October, 1866, his body was moved to a cemetery in Winchester, Virginia, where he shares a grave site with his younger brother Richard Ashby.

http://www.rockingham.k12.va.us/TAHS/GENERAL_TURNER_ASHBY.html

The Missouri Brigade, and the 2nd Missouri Infantry wrote a blazing chapter of dedication, fierceness in battle, loyalty to their leaders and an undying admiration of soldiers from both sides, that led a Yankee General to write. "The Missouri Brigade are the best soldiers in the world, I only wish I had them".

After Vicksburg, the Second Missouri Infantry was combined with the Sixth Missouri and was known as the Second and the Sixth. This was duly noted on the battle flag. General Cockrell put the Missouri Battalion back together and continued to fight on. The Brigade and the 2-6 Missouri, saw action at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia and the Atlanta campaign, with particular heroism at the battle of Allatoona Pass in Georgia.

Finally, after many months of hard fighting, the 2-6 MO Infantry, drew up before a small town in Tennessee named Franklin...."A carnival of death........"

The history of the 2-6 Missouri comes to a terrible close with this battle. The charge against artillery shot, shell and Yankee repeating rifles almost closed the history of this famous unit along with the Missouri Brigade as the men fell like leaves before a terrible hurricane. Cockrell's famed Missouri Brigade lost 60.2% of its whole strength. Missouri lost 419 men officially, out of 696 men who made the charge. This was the first time in the history of the Missouri Brigade that it had made a charge upon the enemy and failed to drive it from its works. 

Other portions of the army had failed, but the Missouri Brigade, never! It was stated after, that Cockrell's Brigade had driven the farthest into the town of Franklin than any other commands, and the fame and heroism of this command constitutes the brightest chapter in the history of the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of Vicksburg. (St. Louis Star, 1904)

Although the men of the 2- 6 Missouri fought far from their homes, they were recognized for being some of the best disciplined and hardest fighters in the Southern Confederacy.

What was left of the Missouri Brigade fought on for the remainder of the war finally surrendering at Fort Blakley, Alabama on April 9, 1865.

THEY WERE VIRGINIANS FIRST…

What would the great Virginians, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry, George Mason, John Randolph, John Taylor, and “Lighthorse” Harry Lee have done? They all supported the Union, believed the Constitution was a compact between the states, BUT THEY WERE VIRGINIANS FIRST. Just as the citizens of the South owed their loyalty to their respective states first …

So when the states of the deep South discussed secession, Virginia called a convention of the people to decide the question, and the convention voted firmly to stay in the Union. It was only after Lincoln had decided on war and called for troops that the convention reconvened and voted to secede. 

Madison had said in the Federalist that the central government COULD NOT COERCE A STATE. To be sure that the will of the people was expressed, the judgment of the convention was put to the people of Virginia, who supported secession by a margin of five to one. Tennessee was also pro-Union, but, in a referendum of the voters, decided to secede by a margin of two to one after Lincoln’s decision to wage war. The pro-Union states of North Carolina and Arkansas seceded for the same reason. Donald Livingston 


Photo: Alfred J. Lilliston Pvt. Co. F, 46th Virginia Infantry

Northern industrialists were fighting neither for Black freedom or White freedom, but for the freedom to exploit and develop the American market.

The freeing of the slaves was "only an incident in the violent clash of interests between the industrial North and the agricultural south—a conflict that was resolved in favor of the industrial North. In this struggle the Negro was an innocent pawn." Ralph J. Bunche 1950 Nobel Peace Prize winner.



PHOTO: John Josey was elected major of the 15th Arkansas Infantry (Cleburne’s-Polk’s-Josey’s) in April 1862, promoted to lieutenant colonel in November 1862, and to colonel the following April; the majority of the regiment’s service was in the Western Theater, including the battles of Stones River and Chickamauga. 

In the fall of 1863, Josey was detached on recruiting duty and ordered by the Confederate Secretary of War to report to General Edmund Kirby Smith. He was wounded and captured at the St. Francis River, Arkansas, on February 14, 1864, and spent most of the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war at Camp Chase, Ohio.

He died prematurely, possibly of yellow fever, in Osceola, Florida, in October 1866 and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, Tennessee.

LAURA BUSH IS NOT OFFENDED…

"The simple fact is, all symbols are offensive to some small minority somewhere, even symbols such as the U.S. flag, the Texas flag and the Christian cross, but this is no reason to reject our history or to spit on the graves of our ancestors.''

"The Confederate flag is not a symbol of racism. ... 
the flag does not offend me personally. I grew up in the South in Texas, that flag doesn't represent anything other than regional pride. It's a time of our history that we just can't erase." LAURA BUSH January 2000

OMG, common sense, quite rare these days...

http://web.caller.com/2000/january/22/today/texas_me/6564.html

Jacksonian Wisdom...

“Our God was my shield. His protecting care is an additional cause for gratitude.”

“Once you get them running, you stay right on top of them, and that way a small force can defeat a large one every time... Only thus can a weaker country cope with a stronger; it must make up in activity what it lacks in strength.”

“Who could conquer not with such troops as these?”

“My troops may fail to take a position, but are never driven from one!”

“Then, Sir, we will give them the bayonet!” (Stonewall Jackson's reply to Colonel B.E. Bee when he reported that the enemy was beating them back. At the first battle of Manassas, July 1861)

“You may be whatever you resolve to be” From Jackson's Personal Journal)

“I see from the number of physicians that you think my condition dangerous, but I thank God, if it is His will, that I am ready to go.” (General Jackson on his Death Bed)

“Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees . . .” Last words 

THE APPLE DON’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE II…

Nathan Bedford Forrest, III

Nathan Forrest graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1928. Brigadier General Forrest was the first American General Officer killed in combat against the Nazis during World War II.

Listed initially as missing in action, his body was later recovered. General Forrest was a 1928 graduate of West Point. He was the son of Memphians Nathan Bedford Forrest II and Mattie Patton Forrest, and great-grandson of Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest. In 1949 his body was returned from Germany and reburied in Arlington National Cemetery.


Now the city of Memphis is ashamed of its rich heritage and wants to disinter the body’s of his Grandfather and Grand mother from Forrest park (renamed Health Science park).

THE APPLE DON'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE...

General George Patton's grandparents were Colonel George Smith Patton and Susan Thornton Glassell. His grandfather, born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, graduated from Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Class of 1852, second in a class of 24. 

After graduation, George Smith Patton studied law and practiced in Charleston, Virginia (now West Virginia). When the WBTS broke out, he served in the 22nd Virginia Infantry of the Confederate States of America. 

Colonel George S. Patton was killed during the Battle of Opequon. The Confederate Congress had promoted Colonel Patton to brigadier general; however, at the time, he had already died of battle wounds, so that promotion was never official.


VMI is now ashamed of it's great heritage and will no longer let the band play Dixie...  

WHY DID THEY FIGHT...

" My commrades, you and I were companions of the men who fought under this banner, we marched by their side, we were familiar with their thoughts, and we know the principles that animated them in the course which they took in that great crisis of 1861. And therefore we are able to repudiate with authority the assertion that these our brothers fought in that great conflict for four years for the perpetuation of slavery.

No. A thousand times no! These men did not fight for the perpetuation of slavery, but for the preservation of liberty. When they saw, or thought they saw, that the right of self-government was in danger through the usurpations of power, they sprang to arms with the same spirit, with the same patriotism, and animated by the same love of liberty as the men who fought at Lexington, and at Monmouth, at the Cowpens and at Yorktown." Randolph McKim in a post-war speech at the return of a Maryland Confederate battle flag