CALCASIEU GREYS - NOVEMBER 2013

NEXT MEETING

      Then next meeting of Captain James W. Bryan Camp 1390 will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 12, at Hollier’s Cajun Kitchen in Sulphur. Tommy Curtis will present our program for the meeting. We’ll also be having camp elections and voting on a camp flag design.

CAMP MEETING SCHEDULE FOR 2013

          Please see the list below for meeting dates and places for 2013. The restaurants have been contacted and their calendars marked accordingly. Meetings last from 6 p.m.-8 p.m.

           Hollier Cajun Kitchen (Sulphur) -  November 12 (elect officers).

           The camp Christmas party date would be December 10 with the location to be determined.        

 SPEAKERS NEEDED

      Kelly Thomas, the Activities Director at the Stonebridge Assisted Living Center in Sulphur is very interested in having a monthly speaker from the SCV. If interested in presenting a program to the Stonebridge residents on the War Between the States or the South, please call Kelly at 527-4433 to schedule a date. Dr. Andy Buckley, Judge Advocate spoke in September and reports the program was attended by sixteen senior adults who enthusiastically received the program. This represents another opportunity to present our cause to an attentive and interested audience in the community.

CAMP NEWS

 CAMP BALLOT:

Below is the official camp ballot for our 2013 officers who will be voted on at the November meeting. Nominations were taken at the October meeting.

  

CAMP TO PARTICIPATE IN  VETERANS DAY PARADE

      Capt. J.W. Bryan Camp 1390 voted at the last meeting to take part in the Veterans Day Parade at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 9, in Sulphur, Louisiana. Please contact Cmdr. Archie Toombs for information on when and where to meet for the line up of the parade. His email is  fxe74@hotmail.com or call him at 337-528-2218.

CAMP FLAG CONTEST

     Captain James W. Bryan Camp 1390 is announcing a contest for a camp flag. All Camp 1390 members in good standing may submit entries on a 8-inch  by 11 1/2-inch piece of paper. The flag design should have lettering with the camp’s name, number and Lake Charles, La. Entries may be submitted at the September, October and November meetings. A vote will be taken at the November meeting. The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate for our Quartermaster Store. Here are a couple of examples that were on display at the Vicksburg National Reunion.           Please feel free to submit other historic Confederate flag-types as the basis of your design, such as the First National, Richard Taylor-style, Van Dorn-style, etc.

Here is a good web site for Confederate flag types:

http://txscv.tripod.com/csa.htm

Here is a good book on the subject of Confederate flags.

The Flags of the Confederacy: An Illustrated History.

By Devereaux Cannon Jr. (Pelican Publishing, 1994)

128 pages; illustrations.

Heritage Violation

          Recently, a controversy has arisen regarding the appropriateness of the name of a professional sports team. While this is a matter for others to sort out and one which the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) has no reason to comment upon, we do feel compelled to speak to a peripheral issue that has occurred. In attempting to offer his opinion and enter into the debate, New York Daily News cartoonist Tom Stiglich has taken the opportunity to depict the logo of the team with a Nazi flag and the Confederate Battle Flag.

          Again, the primary debate is one that we have no interest in entering, but the implied similarity of the two flags is ridiculous and unconscionable. The outrageous social ideologies of Hitler and the well-known horrors of the Nazi regime, mass exterminations of ethnic groups and human eugenics, are completely incompatible with the foundations of the Confederacy and the South of 1861-1865.

            This is not the first time this contorted comparison has been offered, but it needs to be the last. Men of goodwill can often disagree and have healthy debates, but to simply superimpose "Nazi" and everything that goes with it over someone, some group or some philosophy with which you disagree is childish and beneath the dignity of Americans.

            The Confederacy did not practice "ethnic cleansing"; in fact, it attempted to practice political cleansing by reestablishing a Constitutional Republic. Judah P. Benjamin served as Secretary of War and then as Secretary of State. It would be almost a half-century until a US President would appoint a Jewish Cabinet member, when, in 1906 Theodore Roosevelt appointed Oscar S. Straus to the post of Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Additionally, untold numbers of blacks, many of them free, served in Confederate units. Also worthy of note is the record of General Stand Watie of the Cherokee Braves; he was the last Confederate general to surrender his troops. Mr. Stiglich owes the myriad Confederate descendants an apology. Shame on him and "Hail to the Cherokee Braves."

Michael Givens, SCV cmdr.-in-chief

   A CONFEDERATE CATECHISM

[The following was excerpted from A Confederate Catechism by Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Third Edition, Nov. 21, 1929.]

16. Were the Southerners “rebels” in seceding from the Union?

The term “rebel” had no application to the Southern people, however much it applied to the American colonists. The latter called themselves “Patriots” not rebels. Both Southerners in 1861 and Americans in 1776 acted under the authority of their state governments. But while the colonies were mere departments of the British Union, the American States were creators of the Federal Union. The Federal government was the agent of the states for the purposes expressed in the Constitution, and it is absurd to say that the principal can rebel against the agent. President Jackson threatened war with South Carolina in 1833, but admitted that in such an event South Carolinians taken prisoners would not be “rebels” but prisoners of war. The Freesoilers in Kansas and John Brown at Harpers Ferry were undoubtedly “rebels” for they acted without any lawful authority whatever in using force against the Federal Government, and Lincoln and the Republican Party, in approving a platform which sympathized with the Freesoilers and bitterly denounced the Federal Government, were rebels and traitors at heart.

17. Did the South, as alleged by Lincoln in his messages and in his Gettysburg address, fight to destroy popular government throughout the world?

No. This charge was absurd. Had the South succeeded, the United States would still have enjoyed all its liberties, and so would Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and all other peoples. The danger to popular government came from Lincoln himself. In conducting the war, Lincoln talked about “democracy” and “the plain people,” but adopted the rules of despotism and autocracy, and under the fiction of “war powers” virtually abrogated the Constitution, which he had sworn to support.

 150-years-ago

THE BATTLE OF BUZZARD’S PRAIRIE

By Mike Jones

           The Battle of Buzzard's Prairie occurred on October 15, 1863 on the grounds  of Chretien Point Plantation near modern day Sunset, Louisiana. It was part of the Great Texas Overland Expedition in the fall of that year when the occupying Federal Army in New Orleans was trying to invade Texas across the Cajun prairies and bayous of Southwest Louisiana.

The Battle of Buzzard's Prairie, La. Oct. 15, 1863

(Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper)

that year when the occupying Federal Army in New Orleans was trying to invade Texas across the Cajun prairies and bayous of Southwest Louisiana.

          The expedition force in this battle was made up of part of Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Bank's Army of the Gulf and led in the field by Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin. Opposing the invaders was the Confederate cavalry division of Brig. Gen. Thomas Green.         

           Green's Cavalry Division included the 1st Cavalry Brigade of Col. Arthur P. Bagby, including the 4th, 5th and 7th Texas Cavalry regiments; 2nd Cavalry Regiment (Arizona brigade); 13th Texas "Horse" Battalion; 2nd Louisiana Cavalry and the Valverde Battery. Also in the division was the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of Col. John P. Major, made up of the  1st Regiment (Lane's) Partisan Rangers; 3rd Regiment (Arizona brigade) Partisan Rangers; 6th Regiment (Stone's) Partisan Rangers; and Capt. Oliver Semmes' 1st Confederate Battery.

         The battlefield was an open prairie in front of the Chretien plantation, near Bayou Bourbeau, and the road from Opelousas to Vermilionville (modern day Lafayette). The Federals had been camped the previous night, stretched across the road and along Bayou Carencro. Green had moved up the previous day and camped his division behind Bayou Bourbeau and along the plantation road. Early in the morning of the 15th of October, Green advanced the 4th, 5th and 7th Texas cavalry regiments to a plantation fence bordering the prairie. He placed Semmes' Battery on the left and the Valverde Battery on the right. Col. William Polk "Gotch" Hardeman of the 4th Texas, led a contingent of skirmisher, made up of one company from each regiment, out onto the prairie to lure the Federals into attacking the strong Confederate position. General Franklin took the bait and ordered out Weitzel's Division to attack across the open prairie, supported by artillery batteries.
           Advancing in full battle order with flags flying, the Federals crossed the prairie and easily pushed the Confederate skirmishers back to the fence line.
       The horse soldiers of the 4th, 5th and 7th Texas cavalry regiments then made a wild dash with full-throated "Rebel Yell" on the right of Weitzel's line.  The soldiers from New York and Massachusetts became panic-stricken and the  Yankee right collapsed. Coming to the rescue for the Federals was Lt. William Marland of Nim's Battery who stopped the rout and drove the Confederates back with grape and cannister, as well as exploding an ammunition chest of Semmes' Battery.
       The battle then settled into an exchange of musket and cannon fire that lasted several hours. While the Federals had overwhelming numbers, Franklin didn't order another full strength attack until about 10 o'clock that morning, led by the Mid-Westerners of Burbridge's Brigade. The Confederates withdrew behind Bayou Bourbeau while Hardeman had the 7th Texas Cavalry slow down the Yankees from concealed positions, around the Chretien Plantation. The 7th then withdrew across the bayou and the 4th and 5th Texas began skirmishing with the Mid-Westerners to slow their advance. Green's men were driven off, but he accomplished his goal of taking the measure of the Federal Army's strength.
 

BE A MUSEUM FOUNDER

          The truth about the South's struggle to form a new nation is under attack as never before. The National Battlefield Parks have been taken over by the “it's all about slavery” provocateurs. Museums have changed their collections and interpretations to present what they call the cultural history of the War for Southern Independence. In reality this new perspective is nothing more than South bashing. The forces of political correctness have gone into high gear. They attempt to ban any and all things Confederate through their ideological fascism. Even what was once a highly respected museum now claims proudly they are not a museum for the Confederacy, merely about it. There needs to be at least one place where the people of the South and others can go to learn an accurate account of why so many struggled so long in their attempt to reassert government by the consent of the governed in America! The General Executive Council of the Sons of Confederate Veterans  made the commitment in October of 2008 to start the process to erect a new building that will have two purposes. One of the uses of this new building will be to give us office space and return Elm Springs to its original grandeur. However the main function is to house The Confederate Museum. We are planning a museum that will tell the truth about what motivated the Southern people to struggle for many years to form a new nation.  At the SCV Reunion in July of 2009 the GEC set up a building fund for this purpose. One of the goals is to provide an accurate portrayal of the common Confederate soldier, something that is currently absent in most museums and in the media. You are invited to make your stand for the future by contributing to this fund.

Send checks to: Sons of Confederate Veterans

c/o TCM Building Fund

P.O. Box 59

Columbia, TN 38402

Or you can call 1-800-MY-DIXIE to pay by credit card.

CONFEDERATE OF THE MONTH

Pvt. Albert Martin
3rd Company, Washington Artillery of
New Orleans. (Liljenquist Family Collection,
Library of Congress)

CALCASIEU GREYS / OCTOBER 2013

NEXT MEETING

      Then next meeting of Captain James W. Bryan Camp 1390 will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8, at Logan’s Roadhouse Restaurant, (see story in Camp News Column).

        

CAMP MEETING SCHEDULE FOR 2013

          Please see the list below for meeting dates and places for 2013. The restaurants have been contacted and their calendars marked accordingly. Meetings last from 6 p.m.-8 p.m.

         Logan’s Road House (Lake Charles) October 8 (Nomination of officers).

           Hollier Cajun Kitchen (Sulphur) -  November 12 (elect officers).

           The camp Christmas party date would be December 10 with the location to be determined.

CAMP NEWS        

Dwayne Clemens on 150 Gettysburg Anniversary and the Nominations for 2014 Officers

Capt. J. W. Bryan Camp 1390, Sons of the Confederate Veterans, will meet at Logan’s Road House, HWY 14 Lake Charles at 6 p.m. Tuesday, October 8. Dwayne Clemens, a Social Studies History teacher at Episcopal Day School, SCV member, and War Between the States Re-enactor, will present the program on the 150th anniversary and re-enactment of Gettysburg. Dwayne and his wife actually participated in the Gettysburg re-enactment.

At our last meeting our membership provided the following feed-back regarding our experience at Logan’s (August 13th) Dr. Andy Buckley, our Judge Advocate met with Logan’s manager Daniel on September 18th and personally addressed the concerns of the membership.

1. The air conditioning was not turned on until members began to arrive at 5:45 and therefore the room was too hot, especially for those sitting against the west windows. The room should be cool when we arrive at 5:45.

2. The orders were all delivered at the same time, between 7:20-7:30 pm, with most of our members waiting 1 hour and 15 minutes. It is imperative the food be delivered before the business meeting begins at 7:00 pm. The Camp requests orders be taken and processed as member arrive and several waiters be assigned the meeting.

3. Many members complained of cold food and most did not even have their drinks refilled.

4. At our September meeting in Sulphur the overwhelming response of our membership was negative about further meetings at Logan’s after Tuesday, October 8th. We agreed to address these concerns with the management and requested they make every effort to deal with the

 issues listed above.

CAMP FLAG CONTEST

          Captain James W. Bryan Camp 1390 is announcing a contest for a camp flag. All Camp 1390 members in good standing may submit entries on a 8-inch  by 11 1/2-inch piece of paper. The flag design should have lettering with the camp’s name, number and Lake Charles, La. Entries may be submitted at the September, October and November meetings. A vote will be taken at the November meeting. The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate for our Quartermaster Store. Here are a couple of examples that were on display at the Vicksburg National Reunion.

           Please feel free to submit other historic Confederate flag-types as the basis of your design, such as the First National, Richard Taylor-style, Van Dorn-style, etc.

Here is a good web site for Confederate flag types:

http://txscv.tripod.com/csa.htm

            Here is a good book on the subject of Confederate flags.

The Flags of the Confederacy: An Illustrated History.

By Devereaux Cannon Jr. (Pelican Publishing, 1994)

128 pages; illustrations.

           Please feel free to submit other historic Confederate flag-types as the basis of your design, such as the First National, Richard Taylor-style, Van Dorn-style, etc.

Here is a good web site for Confederate flag types:

http://txscv.tripod.com/csa.htm

            Here is a good book on the subject of Confederate flags.

The Flags of the Confederacy: An Illustrated History.

By Devereaux Cannon Jr. (Pelican Publishing, 1994)

128 pages; illustrations.

150-years-ago

The Battle of Chickamauga, Ga.

[National Park Service]

Brig. Gen. Preston Smith

After the Tullahoma Campaign, Rosecrans renewed his offensive, aiming to force the Confederates out of Chattanooga. The three army corps comprising Rosecrans’ s army split and set out for Chattanooga by separate routes. In early September, Rosecrans consolidated his forces scattered in Tennessee and Georgia and forced Bragg’s army out of Chattanooga, heading south. The Union troops followed it and brushed with it at Davis’ Cross Roads. Bragg was determined to reoccupy Chattanooga and decided to meet a part of Rosecrans’s army, defeat them, and then move back into the city. On the 17th he headed north, intending to meet and beat the XXI Army Corps. As Bragg marched north on the 18th, his cavalry and infantry fought with Union cavalry and mounted infantry which were armed with Spencer repeating rifles. Fighting began in earnest on the morning of the 19th, and Bragg’s men hammered but did not break the Union line. The next day, Bragg continued his assault on the Union line on the left, and in late morning, Rosecrans was informed that he had a gap in his line. In moving units to shore up the supposed gap, Rosecrans created one, and James Longstreet’s men promptly exploited it, driving one-third of the Union army, including Rosecrans himself, from the field. George H. Thomas took over command and began consolidating forces on Horseshoe Ridge and Snodgrass Hill. Although the Rebels launched determined assaults on these forces, they held until after dark. Thomas then led these men from the field leaving it to the Confederates. The Union retired to Chattanooga while the Rebels occupied the surrounding heights.

A CONFEDERATE CATECHISM

[The following was excerpted from A Confederate Catechism by Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Third Edition, Nov. 21, 1929.]

13. Could Lincoln have “saved” the Union by some other method than war?

Yes. If he had given his influence to the resolutions offered in the Senate by John Jay Crittenden, the difficulties in 1861 would have been peaceably settled. These resolutions extended the line of the Missouri Compromise through the territories, but gave nothing to the South, save the abstract right to carry slaves to New Mexico. But New Mexico was too barren for agriculture, and not ten slaves had been carried there in ten years. The resolutions received the approval of the Southern Senators and, had they been submitted to the people, would have received their approval both North and South. Slavery in a short time would have met a peaceful and natural death with the development of machinery consequent upon Cyrus H. McCormick’s great invention of the reaper. The question in 1861 with the South as to the territories was one of wounded pride rather than any material advantage. It was the intemperate, arrogant and self righteous attitude of Lincoln and his party that made any peaceable constructive solution of the territorial question impossible. In rejecting the Crittenden resolutions, Lincoln, a minority president, and the Republicans, a minority party, placed themselves on record as virtually preferring the slaughter of 400,000 men of the flower of the land and the sacrifice of  billions of dollars of property to a compromise involving a mere abstraction, and they intrigued an unwilling North into the war. Some historians have actually boasted of the trickery.

14. Does any present or future prosperity of the South justify the War of 1861-1865?

No. No present or future prosperity can make a past wrong right, for the end can never justify the means. The war was a colossal crime, and the most astounding case of self stultification on the part of any government recorded in history.

15. Had the South gained its independence, would it have proved a failure?

No. General Grant has said in his Memoirs that it would have established “a real and respected nation.” The states of the South would have been bound together by fear of the great Northern Republic and by a similarity of economic conditions. They would have had laws suited to their own circumstances, and developed accordingly. They would not have lived under Northern laws and had to conform their policy to them, and they have been compelled to do. A low tariff would have attracted the trade of the world to the South, and its cities would have become great and important centers of commerce. A fear of this prosperity induced Lincoln to make war upon the South. The Southern Confederacy, instead of being a failure, would have been a great outstanding figure in the affairs of the world.

150-years-ago

Lt. R.W. Dowling

The Battle of Sabine Pass

           About 6:00 am on the morning of September 8, 1863, a Union flotilla of four gunboats and seven troop transports steamed into Sabine Pass and up the Sabine River with the intention of reducing Fort Griffin and landing troops to begin occupying Texas. As the gunboats approached Fort Griffin, they came under accurate fire from six cannons. The Confederate gunners at Fort Griffin had been sent there as a punishment. To break the day-to-day monotony, the gunners practiced firing artillery at range markers placed in the river. Their practice paid off. Fort Griffin’s small force of 44 men, under command of Lt. Richard W. Dowling, forced the Union flotilla to retire and captured the gunboat Clifton and about 200 prisoners. Further Union operations in the area ceased for about a month. The heroics at Fort Griffin—44 men stopping a Union expedition—inspired other Confederate soldiers.

[National Park Service]

Museum Closed, Reopens Oct. 15

NEW ORLEANS – Confederate Memorial Hall will be closed the entire month of September and part of October due to a major construction project. Aside from repairs to the building being completed, when it reopens in October, it will have several new exhibits. Website gift shop will remain open for online purchases. The museum is tentatively scheduled to reopen October 15, 2013. Memorial Hall exists solely through admissions and your generous contributions, receiving NO state or Federal funding. The Memorial Hall Foundation was founded in 1984 in order to create an endowment and help support Memorial Hall by making an annual contribution to the museum to help offset the costs of exhibit restoration, building repairs, preservation materials and operational expenses. Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. Please send donations  to Memorial Hall Foundation, 929 Camp St., New Orleans, La.  70130.

CONFEDERATE OF THE MONTH

  

                                                        2^nd Lt. Pryor L. Bryan, Co. F,

5^th Texas Infantry Regiment.

He was born in Calcasieu Parish

In 1832 and died May 28, 1862 in Virginia.

BE A MUSEUM FOUNDER

The truth about the South's struggle to form a new nation is under attack as never before. The National Battlefield Parks have been taken over by the “it's all about slavery” provocateurs. Museums have changed their collections and interpretations to present what they call the cultural history of the War for Southern Independence. In reality this new perspective is nothing more than South bashing. The forces of political correctness have gone into high gear. They attempt to ban any and all things Confederate through their ideological fascism. Even what was once a highly respected museum now claims proudly they are not a museum for the Confederacy, merely about it.

      There needs to be at least one place where the people of the South and others can go to learn an accurate account of why so many struggled so long in their attempt to reassert government by the consent of the governed in America!

       The General Executive Council of the Sons of Confederate Veterans  made the commitment in October of 2008 to start the process to erect a new building that will have two purposes. One of the uses of this new building will be to give us office space and return Elm Springs to its original grandeur. However the main function is to house The Confederate Museum. We are planning a museum that will tell the truth about what motivated the Southern people to struggle for many years to form a new nation.  At the SCV Reunion in July of 2009 the GEC set up a building fund for this purpose. One of the goals is to provide an accurate portrayal of the common Confederate soldier, something that is currently absent in most museums and in the media.

You are invited to make your stand for the future by contributing to this fund.

Send checks to:

Sons of Confederate Veterans

c/o TCM Building Fund

P.O. Box 59

Columbia, TN 38402

Or you can call 1-800-MY-DIXIE to pay by credit card.

Future generations will thank you for your efforts in erecting The Confederate Museum.