The Chattooga Dispatch Rider
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Commanders Comments April 2009
Commanders Comments. Well, another month has gone by and with it all the work Camp 507 has put into honoring our ancestors has been seen by many, and praised by more than a few. I have gotten e-mails from Rome and LaFayette both as well as casual compliments from people right here in Chattooga County thanking us for our efforts. As I told Stan after the Atlanta trip, I don't do anything. It's you guys who are to be congratulated for your hard work and dedication. Thanks for all you do. Well, our Atlanta trip was a success. I like to think of it as a cake (of course I'm a diabetic, I'm going to think of sweets). The trip to the Capitol was the layers of the cake.. meeting the Governor, installing new members in the John B. Gordon room, and the tour of the flag collection. Then the trip down to Riverdale and the erection of the memorial to private John Kyle Willingham complete with a very moving few remarks by Dale Willingham as well as hopefully repairing some damage done by a previous camp in the eyes of the group that oversees the cemetery........ that was the icing on the cake. And finally, the impromptu side trip to Allatoona Pass was like the cherry on top of the whole thing.
I want to thank everybody for coming out on April 4th to help put flags on the graves of Confederate Soldiers in the Summerville cemetery, Subligna Methodist Church cemetery, and all the others we did that day. Pretty much all the major cemeteries are completed now with only a few of the smaller, more remote sites left to mark.
Also those who helped in March to place the new headstones in the Old Trion cemetery and Howell cemetery. More kudos from too many people to list.
Don't forget we are planning a living history in conjunction with the spring meeting of the Chattooga County Historical Society on Sunday, April 19th at 12:00. The meeting is at 2:00, I believe. Their topic for the meeting?... The Battle of Trion Factory!!!
Our next regularly scheduled meeting is for Thursday, April 30th at 7:00 at the Trion Community Center . Don't forget the First Brigade Confederate Memorial Service that's held the last Sunday in April every year at the Georgia Monument at Chickamauga Park. This year it happens to fall on Confederate Memorial Day, proper and will be conducted at 2:00 p.m. A reception will be held afterward at the Lee and Gordon Mill for SCV members and their families only. Hotdogs, hamburgers and (non-alcoholic) 'cold drinks' will be served. Lets try and have a big turn out from Camp 507 this year.
On Friday, April 3rd 2009, Chattooga County Commissioner Jason Winters signed a proclamation designating April to be Confederate History and Heritage month in Chattooga County , and April 26th as Confederate Memorial Day in the county. Stan and myself were on hand for the signing.
Commissioner Winters has expressed an interest in our organization and requested a membership application, also.
Lets remember to welcome our new members and help them integrate into the camp. Also encourage delinquent members to join and invite new prospects to come out.
The Chattooga County Memorial Home has once again graciously agreed to allow us to use their horseshoe pits for our annual fundraiser. The date is May 30th.
The Rome United Daughters of the Confederacy has invited us to the rededication of the Gen. N. B. Forrest monument at the end of Broad Street at Myrtle Hill cemetery on April 18th. I'll let you know what time as soon as I find out.
I'll be checking to see if it will be possible to hold a small Confederate Memorial Service at Willow Springs in Summerville on April 19th after the Historical Society meeting.I'll let you know when I know.
As they say in the "Confederate Veteran" magazine, "Forward The Colors" and Recruit, Recruit, Recruit!!!!
Dale
Chaplains Corner
THIS MAN SURE HAS A GOOD VIEW OF WHAT'S HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY!
'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor' s possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!'
Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, 'The Rest of the Story,' and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired. With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called 'One nation under God.'
Billy Graham’s prayer for our nation
The Confederate States of America
There had been many woeful misunderstandings between North and South in the years that led up to the Civil War, but the most tragic misunderstanding of all was that neither side realized, until it was too late, that the other side was desperately in earnest. Not until the war had actually begun would men see that their rivals really meant to fight. By that time it was too late to do anything but go on fighting.
Southerners had been talking secession for many years, and most people in the North had come to look on such talk as a counter in the game of politics. You wanted something, and you threatened that dire things would happen if you did not get what you wanted; but you didn't necessarily mean to do what you were threatening to do, and there was no sense in taking brash words at their face value. America as a nation of poker players understood all about the business of calling bluffs. Not until the guns began to go off would the North realize that when men like Jefferson Davis talked about seceding from the Union they meant every word of it.
The same was true, in reverse, in the South. It seemed incomprehensible there that the Federal Union meant so much in the North that millions of people would be ready to make war to preserve it. The North seemed to dislike both slavery and slave owners; to the average Southerner, it stood to reason that the North would be happy to get rid of both.
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"Whether in the United States the citizen owed allegiance to the Federal Government as against his State Government was a question upon which men had divided since the birth of the Republic. The men of the North responded to the call of the sovereign to whose allegiance they acknowledged fealty--the men of the South did the same. It was a battle between rival conceptions of sovereignty rather than one between a sovereign and its acknowledged citizens."
Henry Carter Stuart, Governor of Virginia ,
Dedication of the Virginia Memorial at Gettysburg , Friday, June 8, 1917
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Not for fame or reward,
Not for place or for rank,
Not lured by ambition,
Or goaded by necessity,
But in Simple
Obedience to Duty
As they understood it,
These men suffered all,
Sacrificed all,
Dared all--and died.
(Inscription on the monument to the dead of the Confederate States Army, Arlington National Cemetery , Washington , D.C.)
This month in history
Fort Sumter Attacked
April 12, 1861 - At 4:30 a.m. Confederates under Gen.Pierre Beauregard open fire with 50 cannons upon Fort Sumter in Charleston , South Carolina . The Civil War begins.
Fort Sumter after its capture, showing damage from the Rebel bombardment of over 3000 shells and now flying the Rebel "Stars and Bars" - April 14, 1861.
April 15, 1861 - President Lincoln issues a Proclamation calling for 75,000 militiamen, and summoning a special session of Congress for July 4.
Robert E. Lee, son of a Revolutionary War hero, and a 25 year distinguished veteran of the United States Army and former Superintendent of West Point, is offered command of the Union Army. Lee declines.
April 17, 1861 - Virginia secedes from the Union, followed within five weeks by Arkansas , Tennessee , and North Carolina , thus forming an eleven state Confederacy with a population of 9 million, including nearly 4 million slaves. The Union will soon have 21 states and a population of over 20 million.
Map of Allegiances of the States - 1861.
April 19, 1861 - President Lincoln issues a Proclamation of Blockade against Southern ports. For the duration of the war the blockade limits the ability of the rural South to stay well supplied in its war against the industrialized North.
April 20, 1861 - Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army. "I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children." Lee then goes to Richmond , Virginia , is offered command of the military and naval forces of Virginia , and accepts.
"To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we submit the vindication of the Cause for which we fought; to your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles he loved and which made him glorious and which you also cherish. Remember it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations."
Credit: John A. Griffin GASCV __.
Next Meeting
Our next meeting will be at 7pm,Thursday April 30,2009 at the Trion Rec center.
News Letter Editor : Roger Cothran