The Fort Brooke Record

CHAPLAIN'S COLUMN

Last weekend I was watching a special on PBS about the Southern Plantations of Louisiana and they were showing some of the most beautiful homes you'd ever seen. I was very intrigued when they told of this one plantation that after the war was over the owner knew that he was really going to have a problem running things now that his slaves were set free. So he offered to pay them to stay and work on the plantation. Now in our 21st century way of thinking you'd suspect that these people, who had been slaves to this master would want to get as far away from him as they could, at least that is what the politically correct crowd wants today’s people to think. But to my surprise, and it really shouldn’t have been, they all stayed with the plantation owner and he did pay them and the plantation did prosper and the people that were once slaves to this man were now his willing workers.

     From what I've read in the many volumes from W.Va. to Tenn. and here in Fla. this was not an uncommon practice. I am like a lot of you, in that I am getting a little fed-up with the "politically correct crowd" filling the minds of uneducated people with so much lies about what really happened in the South and it seems like all they want to do is stereotype us Southerners as a bunch of racists. Well, from what I've seen and read about the NAACP they are the ones who are the racists.

     I know that it is easy to hate our enemies but our Lord said in His word that we should pray for them. I know that it is hard for you to hear that but we are Christians and if we are going to be like our Lord and Savior we must do like He has told us.

     I think that we should be encouraged because throughout the South and probably even in other parts of the nation there are a majority of people who are sympathetic to the Cause, but they are just to bashful or just don't want to get involved. You can tell that by the reaction we get at all of the parades and reenactments of the many who stand and wave with their approval of our great Confederate Battle Flag (and long may she ever wave!!). In Luke 9:26 it says, "For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed." As a Christian I am not ashamed to proclaim that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Master, and likewise I am not ashamed to say that I am Son of a Confederate Veteran, and proud to say that I'm a born and bred Southerner. So hold your heads up high you Southern Gentlemen and stand tall and proud you Southern Belles, and don't be afraid of the storms of hatred that will surely come your way by the very ones who want to eradicate you. For by the grace of God we shall prevail. Just as Scotland of Great Britain has prevailed in that along with the Union Jack flies the flag of Scotland. Yes Scotland is in Great Britain but she is very proud of her heritage and she has prevailed in that her people consider themselves Scots first and British subjects second. And that is the way I feel, I'm a Southerner and Confederate first and then an American. It’s kind of like we Christians are to be in this world but not part of this world. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Sometimes it's hard to get across what I'm thinking. I hope I've done a good enough job that you at least think about what I've said.

     My parting words to you this month is to get the "truth of the way things really happened in the CSA" out to the rest of the USA before they are brainwashed by the "PC" crowd.

May God bless you and keep you

    I am yours in His service and the service of the SCV.

  Your Chaplain, Rev. Calvin T. Martin

Charles Dickens on the Causes of the War

“So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many many other evils...the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.”

-Charles Dickens, as editor of All the Year Round, a British periodical in 1862

England’s Confederate Heritage Trail

Good day to you from England. Two of my friends in Liverpool, Bob Joners and Dave Tollerton, are trying to persuade the City Council to set up a "Civil War heritage Trail"

This would include such sites as: The Confederate Embassy in Rumford Place Dock Number 4 at Lairds, where the Alabama was fitted out. Perch Rock Museum. Birkenhead town hall 6 Abercromby Square, where there is a Palmetto Tree painted on the ceiling. The various houses occupied by James Dunwoody Bulloch. The Bulloch graves in Toxteth Cemetery. The Alabama crew buried in St. James’s cemetery. More than 20 sites are included.

In these turbulent times for Confederate history, when all and sundry are trying to tear down the walls of your history, here is a chance to light a beacon in the collected gloom. The next meeting is on Monday 23 July, what Bob and Dave need are e-mails and personal letters of support. We need to demonstrate that such a project would be well supported, both in England, The United States, and the world at large.

Bob's e-mail is

Dave’s is

I beg you, please support this wonderful venture that is such an important part of Confederate history.

Regards,

Roy Rawlinson

When Liverpool Was Dixie
http://www.csa-dixie.com/Liverpool_Dixie

The True Impact of the Emancipation Proclamation

On July 13, 1863, anti-draft violence erupted in New York City, resulting in four days of bloodshed, arson, looting, and mayhem.  The New York City Draft Riot, with an official (estimated very low) death toll of 119, remains the bloodiest outbreak of civil disorder in American history. 

The hot summer of 1863, New York City was a smoldering cauldron of racial, class, religious, and political resentments.  The incident sparking the rampage in mid-July was the implementation of a military conscription law passed by Congress on March 3, 1863.  The latter sentiment arose from President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. Many Northern whites concluded that the combined policies of emancipation and conscription meant that they would be forced to risk their lives in a war to free black slaves. In addition, that emancipation would allow the freedmen to move North to take their jobs and marry their daughters.

The rioters also began attacking blacks, shouting racial slurs, and torching homes of poor African Americans on the west side of 30th Street.  In one of the most infamous incidents, a mob burned the Colored Orphan Asylum on west 44th Street, although its 237 children escaped to safety.   The policy of racial extermination escalated during the night: a black man was lynched and set afire; while waterfront tenements, taverns, and other others buildings populated by black laborers were systematically burned.  At least 11 black men were brutally murdered during the riot. 

The draft riot caused many blacks to flee the metropolis, resulting in a 20% decline in New York City's African-American population during the War.

-excerpted from and article by Robert Kennedy

Draft Dodging in 1860 Washington

Son of a very famous person, seventeen in 1860, but quite healthy enough for service, applied to Harvard, failed, applied again, made it, was criticized by his home state, Illinois, needing men to satisfy the draft.

His Mom having influence persuaded Lincoln to ask Grant if some "safe" place could be had in Grant's Army. He was made a Captain on Grant's staff Feb. 11, 1865. He never came close to a battle or even a 1/2-hour in drill.

Nevertheless he became eligible as a veteran to join the GAR.

Who was this guy?? This ought to make you vets feel really good.

And the answer is…………………………………

Robert Todd Lincoln…

Earl Wilson

S R Mallory 1315

Interesting & sometimes Funny Facts
about the War...

*General Longstreet fought the Battle of Antietam in Carpet Slippers, due to an injured heel.
*The most contested town in the war was Winchester, Va., changing hands 76 times.
*When U.S Grant married in 1848, his best man was James Longstreet.
* The South only made 3% of all firearms produced in the USA in 1860.
* In 1861 there were almost 4,000 illnesses for every 1,000 men in the Union

* Both armies regularly passed the time by staging lice races.
* The oldest officer in the war was 83 when commissioned in 1862... Maj. General William Wilkens.
* The youngest officer in the war was made 2nd Lt. when he was 13 years old... E.G. Baxter of the 7th Kentucky (Confederate).
* Although 4000 shells were fired at Ft. Sumter (in 1861), not a single man was wounded or killed in the exchange.
* The only living person ever honored on an American Stamp was Jefferson Davis.
* The Record for most horses shot out from under a rider is 29 ... and that rider was Lt. General N.B. Forrest.

* Cadet Lewis Armistead was expelled from West Point for breaking a dinner plate over the head of cadet Jubal Early.
* The first carrier task force of the US Navy, began operations on the Potomac River, when John La Mountain used the armed steamer "Fanny" to launch observeration ballons off fortress Monroe, at Hampton Roads Va.
*The first vessel dedicated to the launch and recovery, of ae- rial craft was the barge, George Washington Park Custis, a coal barge converted especially for this pu- rpose. These began operation in August of 1861!
*Of the 10 Union officers inside Fort Sumter, 6 became major generals, 3 were killed, one of those who went south, and one became a colonel.
*General Daniel Sickles of the Federal III Corps, was the first person in the United States to use the plea of "Temporary Insanity" in the case of murder. Sickles killed his wife's lover after catching them in the act.
*A footnote to the Sickles trivia is that the man he caught dallying with his wife was shot down in Lafayette Park in front of the White House and was the son of Francis Scott Key.
*Confederates belonging to Company B of the 43rd Mississippi Regiment, from an unknown source managed to secure a camel. In a forced march toward Iuka, Mississippi, just prior to the battle of Corinth, the camel blundered into the line of march and spooked horses so badly that there was a terrible stampede. To them, it seemed just as well when "the camel" was killed by a mini ball during the siege of Vicksburg.
*The first time Signalmen were used to gather battlefield reconnaissance was at First Manassas. There, Confederate Signalmen reported on an attempt by the Federals to move on the Rebel's flank. This prompted Beauregard to send re-enforcements. These re-enforcements, under the command of General T. J. Jackson, held the Federal advance in check and earned Jackson the name of "Stonewall." It is interesting to note that this was also the first time Signalmen were used in combat in North America!
*Abraham Lincoln died in a bed once occupied by John Wilkes Boothe.
*The 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers had a pet sheep named "Dick" in their regiment. The sheep would march in their lines and go into battle with them. It stayed mostly with their Colonel, Elisha Hunt Rhodes. When the regiment got to Washington from a long march, none of the officers had any money, and so poor Dick was sold to a butcher for $5.00.
*The word "deadline" came from the infamous Confederate POW camp at Andersonville, Ga. A small perimeter between the stockade and the Union soldiers all the way around the interior of the prison was a no-man's land. Anyone infringing in this area was subject to be summarily shot. That line of demarcation became known as "the dead line."
*The shortest man in the Union ranks was a private in the 192d Ohio measuring 3 feet 4 inches.
*In late 1862, due to severe inflation, 1 pound of tea cost $10 in the Confederate States.
*During a typical week in 1863-1865, 1,250 men deserted the Un ion forces.
*In response to the call to arms following Tennessee's secession, the Nashville Plow Works altered its manufactory and began beating their plowshares into swords!
*"Give me a lite Johnny! " came out of the War.
*In most written records, it was stated that Mosby's men had but one battle cry... "Give me your wallet and your horse!"
*The expression "I heard it through the grapevine" was coined during the war. At the time both armies were using the telegraph and by wars end hundreds of miles of telegraph wire had been strung. Soldier slang for these wires was "grape vines." Often when asked how someone came by some information the reply was usually, "I heard it through the grape vine!"
*Almost everyone knows Gen. Lee's favorite horse was named Traveler . But the General had a second horse like most other ranking officers . Lucy Long was her name and she was with the General from day one of the war.
*In 1864, Gen. Sedgwick, USA's famous last words were "Those boys can't hit an elephant from this distance"... (thud)!
*U. S. Grant never planned to command an army. In fact, after he graduated from West Point, he applied to teach mathematics at a girls' school in Ohio.
*During the War, in the union if the husband went into the military, the wife could get a divorce for that reason alone.
*Ex-president of the United States, and Virginian, John Tyler, died in 1862. His death was not officially mourned in Washington since he had voted for secession.
*On the top of Culps Hill, in Gettysburg, there was a small sign that forbid the discharging of firearms.
*Did you know that Robert E. Lee wore a boot size of 4 1/2 and was buried without his boots on because he could not fit in the casket with them on?
*During the battle of mobile bay a Confederate cannon ball was fired back at Fort Morgan with the words "Return to Sender, Postage paid" on it.

From the Adjutant’s Desk:

The John T. Lesley Camp 1282, SCV Membership Roster for July 2001 stands at 188 Compatriots and 27 Legionaires.

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

Mr. Franklin Gene Harden, his ancestor was Pvt. John Wesley Hawkins,
Co B 1st Bn FLA Special Cavalry.

Mr. Jeffrey Alan Hough, his ancestor was Cpl. Robert A. Mee, Co F 43rd TN Inf.

Walter Wishart Lane Jr., MD, his ancestor was Pvt. John Pinckney Wishart. 46th INF NC

Mr. Brandon B. Barszcz has signed up as a Lesley Camp Legionnaire.

1^st Lt. Commander Marion Lambert emailed me that Jerry Johnson had passed on in June.
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.

Dwight Tetrick, Adjutant

John T. Lesley Camp
19126 Amelia Circle

Lutz, FL 33558 phone (813) 949-4746