The Fort Brooke Record

Burial of Hunley crew members delayed

By DEBRA LESTER
Staff Writer, goupstate.com

The burial of the remains of the crew of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley will be delayed until 2003, in part because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America.

Dr. Doug Owsley and Rebecca Kardash with the Smithsonian Institute's forensic department are part of the excavation team responsible for the analysis and identification of the crew members. They now are helping to identify victims in the terrorist attacks.

Hunley project manager Dr. Robert Neyland said it will have an impact on the excavation schedule and forensic research such as facial reconstruction and DNA analysis.

The next phase of the excavation will resume Monday. There are three areas left to excavate in the central compartment of the sub, which was recovered from the ocean bottom off Sullivan's Island on Aug. 8, 2000.

Sediment and corrosion in the area are expected to make removing artifacts difficult.

Forensic scientists have confirmed the remains of eight men, but a ninth may be forward of the front conning tower.

Tours of the Hunley have resumed on a weekend-only basis, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Tickets are $10 and can be bought at (866) 866-9938 or via the Internet at www.etix.com.

CHAPLAIN'S COLUMN

The Spirit Within...

 It says in the bible in John 17:20 that "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one."

For those who are Christians we know that since God is a Spirit and if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Saviour his Spirit dwells within us. I've seen the radiance of the Spirit upon people at times while in a good old fashioned Holy Ghost filled service. Their faces just seem to glow, it's as if you can see the love of God on their faces.

It is with that in mind that I now tell you that the spirit of the old South still dwells within those lucky people that are the descendents of the citizens of the Confederate States of America. We are located all over the USA, from FL to Maine to Wash., down to CA up to Alaska over to Hawaii. You see, we Southerners don't just live here in the South. Sometimes jobs take us elsewhere. And the peoples of those other places can tell that we are different ( Praise the Lord!! ) , because we still say "yes Sir or Yes Mame. We men still hold the door open for a lady and we take our hats off when we go inside a building. We say howdy or hi, how ya doin, as we are walking and pass by a stranger, for who knows they may become a friend. For we know that the best way to make a friend is to be a friend. And the people of the South have always been known for our friendliness, "Southern Hospitality". Those Southerners that are in the other states are helping to show what we Southerners are and that helps to make for a better community where ever we are. I mean after all we can still have southern fried chicken even if we are in Alaska. And for goodness sakes let's help to show those Northerners how to make breakfast accompanied with GRITS, and biscuits and gravy.

Yes folks I am the South and so are all of you SCV'ers and UDC'ers. We still hold up the spirit of the Old South with reverence and undying devotion. We are Southern Gentlemen and Southern Ladies and "Belles" too. We still fly "our flag" alongside the US flag in these times of patriotism ( which is good ), I fly that flag too, for after all I was in the U.S. Air Force from 64 to 68. And when any foe treads upon any parts of this USA we people of the Southern part of the states have always done our part in defending these states. So if called upon, I for one will stand up for my country. Yes, I may be getting old and don't run as fast as I used to, but folks, I can still pull a trigger.

Let me say this to you in closing. As Christians we know that if the lord be on our side who can stand against us. Not even the demons of Hell and old Satan himself have a chance when we have God on our side. Praise God for whom all blessings flow, and may He truly bless the SCV and the UDC.

Yours in His service and the service of the SCV

Rev Calvin T. Martin, Chaplain

Belle Boyd Speaks

When responding to her Federal Captors in 1864, Confederate Spy Belle Boyd stated...

  "If it is a crime to love the South, its cause and its President, then I am a criminal.  
I would rather lie down in this prison and die than leave it owing allegiance 
to a government such as yours."

Compatriots,
This is heroism.  God bless the South and its heroes and heroines!  Deo Vindice!

HERITAGE REPORT

Plans for Confederate monument stir debate

By Susan Jacobson | Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 26, 2001

KISSIMMEE -- A planned Confederate memorial in the city-owned Rose Hill Cemetery has raised a few eyebrows in the black community, for whom the Confederacy and its symbols are a painful reminder of slavery.
City commissioners unanimously approved the project without discussion Tuesday night.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, Jacob Summerlin Camp No. 1516 in Kissimmee, say they just want to honor their ancestors who fought in the Civil War.

"We're not an organization that promotes hate, not at all, or I wouldn't belong to it," said Vince Bronson, 50, the group's historian. "It's a historical group. A bunch of history nuts. Southern history nuts."

Some blacks, however, fear the monument will divide the community along racial lines. That would be a mistake, they say, particularly in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

"Now it's time for togetherness," said the Rev. Aurelius Brown of Kissimmee Church of God in Christ, which is in a primarily black neighborhood. "We don't need more separation. We need to be united."

The Sons of Confederate Veterans say many founders of Kissimmee were Confederate soldiers, and they ought to be memorialized. The first Osceola County government records, in fact, were kept at the home of a former Confederate major, J.H. Allen. The area was called Allendale after him until voters in 1883 approved the name Kissimmee for the newly incorporated city.

First Confederate memorial
Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans point out that Rose Hill is home to a Spanish-American veterans' memorial while Mount Peace Cemetery, owned by the city of St. Cloud, has a memorial to Union soldiers. This would be the first known monument to Confederate soldiers in Osceola.

"This memorial is to the Confederate Americans that fought for what they believed in," said Kirby Back, 47, a second lieutenant commander for Jacob Summerlin Camp. "This is nothing but a historical and heritage issue."

Maybe, some say. But black people are unlikely to want to be buried near the new monument, said Anna Pinellas, chairwoman of the board and founder of Osceola Visionaries Inc., which plans an annual Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration and programs for Black History Month.

The monument, which will stand in the shade of an oak tree, will bear a small Confederate flag at the top with the legend, "Let us pass over the river and rest under the shade of trees." Those were the last words of Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, Back said. The other side will feature a six-pointed star like the ones Confederate soldiers wore in battle and the words, "Strike the Tent!" said to be Gen. Robert E. Lee's dying statement.

Earlier plans for benches and a flagpole flying the Confederate flag were scrapped, Bronson said, because some members were concerned that the flag might become a target for protestors. The Sons of Confederate veterans have been placing small Confederate flags on graves at Rose Hill for some time without incident. They plan to dedicate the monument April 26 the next Confederate Memorial Day.

Flag causes controversy
The Confederate flag recently has been a lightning rod for controversy in several Southern states. South Carolina removed the flag from its statehouse last year after a boycott by civil-rights groups. Georgia lawmakers in January agreed to downsize the Confederate emblem on their state flag. Mississippi voters in April, however, decided to keep their flag, which incorporates the Confederate design.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in February ordered the "Stainless Banner," a battle flag featuring the Confederate emblem, removed from the state Capitol to head off similar objections. The Sons of Confederate Veterans marched in protest.

"To me it is a symbol of bigotry because of what it stood for at the time that was so prevalent in this country," Pinellas said. "I don't like it, but what can I do about it? It's part of the country's history."

At the same time, she said she respects the Sons of Confederate Veterans' right to erect the monument.

"If we start protesting things that have significance to one person that have negative connotations to others, then we destroy rights," she said. "As long as it does not cause undue stress, harm, defamation of character."

The polished gray granite marker, 4 feet tall at its peak and 9 feet wide at the base, will be engraved on both sides with the names of at least 75 Confederate veterans buried in Osceola County. Not all are at Rose Hill. Many pioneer family names, such as Bass, Bronson, Partin, Whaley and Yates, will appear. Their descendants have a continued presence in the county.

Kissimmee's parks and recreation advisory board Sept. 5 recommended approval of the conceptual drawing for the memorial which will be paid for and maintained by the veterans organization.

Our board is 100 percent behind it," said Bobbi Gant, parks and recreation board chairwoman. "It's like preserving history as far as I'm concerned."

Anyone who wants more information can call the Sons of Confederate Veterans at 407-931-7003.

Historian relates how blacks served with Confederates

By Steve Fry
The Capital-Journal, Topeka, KS

Before William Clarke Quantrill and hundreds of his Missouri guerrillas raided Lawrence in 1863, John Noland rode ahead to scout out the town.

Noland, Quantrill's primary scout, is just one of many blacks who served in Confederate units during the Civil War, said historian Ed Kennedy, who will speak at 6:30 p.m. today to the Civil War Roundtable of Eastern Kansas at the Koch Education Center at the Kansas History Center, 6425 S.W. 6th. Admission is free and the event is open to the public.

Noland joined Quantrill because his family in Missouri had been abused by Jayhawkers, Kansas guerrillas who raided Missouri and later were mustered into the Union forces, Kennedy said. Photographs of Quantrill's raiders as they attended reunions after the Civil War show Noland sitting prominently with white members of the group.

In the 1999 movie "Ride With the Devil," Noland is the basis for the character Daniel Holt, the freed black who along with his former owner rides with Quantrill's bushwhackers, Kennedy said.

It is difficult to determine how many blacks fought in the Confederate forces, in part because many Confederate records were destroyed. Kennedy estimates seven percent to eight percent of the Confederate forces might have been black.

Kennedy cites a number of sources, including diaries, letters, private publications, the "Official Records of the War of the Rebellion" and writings of black scholars.

For instance:
A Union sanitary commission officer saw 3,000 black armed combatants in the Confederate Army moving through Fredricksburg, Va., in 1862.

An 1862 letter from Frederick Douglass to President Abraham Lincoln in which Douglass writes that many blacks serve in the Confederate Army as "real soldiers having muskets on their shoulders and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government."

Pensions were paid to black Confederate soldiers.

And photographs showed black veterans, who "wore their veterans badges as proudly as any whites."

Blacks served in the Confederate Army "for the same reason they defended the United States colonies in the Revolutionary War," Kennedy said. "They were patriots," who thought their homes were being invaded by the Union. They felt like this was their home, that this was their country. They weren't fighting for slavery."

The black Confederates were a combination of free blacks and slaves who were house servants accompanying white masters, Kennedy said. Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest freed 44 of his slaves after they served Forrest's cavalry forces, Kennedy said. Unlike blacks in the Union Army who served in all-black regiments, blacks in the Confederate Army fought in mixed units, he said.

The topic of black Confederate soldiers is rarely talked about because "it's not politically correct," Kennedy said. Some people who hear about black soldiers fighting in the Confederate Army "just go ballistic," Kennedy said. He likens their reaction to people who didn't know blacks served in the Union Army before release of the 1989 movie "Glory," the film about the 54th Massachusetts, an all-black unit Union regiment. (The first black regiment to fight in the Civil War was the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry.)

  Forest extorted into surrender….

A rumor was widely circulated that Forrest would lead his men to Mexico and continue a guerrilla operation back into the states. The Union General George Thomas heard the rumor in Nashville and directed Brig. Gen. Edward Hatch, his source of the rumor, to send Forrest a "summons to surrender" under a flag of truce. Thomas said, "Inform him of the rumors which have reached you, and that if he attempts such a reckless and bloodthirsty

adventure he will be treated thereafter as an outlaw, and the states of Mississippi and Alabama will be so destroyed that they will not recover for fifty years."

Excerpt from the OR

From the Adjutant’s Desk:

The John T. Lesley Camp 1282, SCV Membership Roster for October 2001 stands at 189 Compatriots and 27 Legionnaires.

The Lesley Camp takes pleasure in announcing the membership of two new men into our midst.

Mr. John B. LittleEagle, his ancestor was;
Pvt. Samuel Rector Little
Co. “I” Clark's Missouri Inf. CSA

Mr. James E. Marshall, his ancestor was;
1st Lieutenant William Henry Braithwaite
Co. “F” 32nd VA Inf Regt. CSA

The 1841 Mississippi .54 CAL Rifle donation tickets are available from 1^st Lt. Commander Marion Lambert @ 813-839-5153.

If you have any questions concerning camp business or to process membership paperwork, please do not hesitate in contacting me.

See you at CMDR. Hayward’s house for the Fish Fry.

Dwight Tetrick, Adjutant

John T. Lesley Camp
19126 Amelia Circle

Lutz, FL 33558 phone (813) 949-4746