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.
Here is a good web site
for Confederate flag types:
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.
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.
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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) |
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