Finley’s Brigade Camp 1614
Gadsden County Florida
September 2005
Important! There will be a change of the location for the September camp meeting due to the new summer hours at the Old South. At 7:00 PM on September 13, 2005 we will be meeting in the private room at OLE TIMES COUNTRY BUFFET located at 1701 North Monroe. That’s just North of Lake Ella at Tharpe Street. Come on out at 6:00 for the social hour and some good food. Let me ask that every member always speak to our guest, introduce yourself and make them feel welcome. It’s the Southern thing to do. Sometimes they seem to get ignored and I am sure they have no idea of what we are talking about sometimes. I know from experience.
What’s New: Rip O’Steen has added a good idea to our meetings. After the pledge, prayer and visitor introduction but before the business meeting we will allow ten minutes for a member to give a short history of his Confederate ancestor. Some of us have very little information of their ancestor while others could fill the evening. Whatever you have, get your thoughts together and be prepared to take the podium for ten minutes. Since this meeting will be the first time for this, we will start alphabetically with Hal Avery. If you would like to conduct a program, or have a suggestion for a program contact Rip. If you have something for this paper send it to the interim editor. I am sure both would be appreciated.
Thanks to Jim Darby we now have a phone number, 850-875-4949, and answering machine for prospective members to call for information. It will be listed in the next phone directory. This should be very beneficial to the camp as well as to Jim for his work as 3rd Brigade Commander. Since the “gray card” that we use for recruiting is not ready available to us, Jim is designing one with Finley’s Brigade information instead of national headquarters information. These two things should greatly reduce lag time for all concerned.
Second Saturday Work Day will be at the Havana flag site. We will be painting the chain, mowing and trimming trees. Time and labor permitting we will reset the lights on permanent mounts. The project will require the labor of four men to be able to finish by noon. Contact Marshall @ 545-6804 or [email protected] if you wish to help.
Birthdays of the month: Mark Rominger on the nineteenth and Jamie Creel on the twenty ninth. We wish you many more good ones.
Finley facts and stats: Finley’s Brigade Camp 1614 was chartered March 10, 1993 at Havana, Florida with seventeen members. Of those seventeen charter members, three remain on the camp roster. They are our compatriots Mr. Robert Gunn, Mr. Quinton Paul and Mr. William Smith. As of the end of 2004 the camp has had seventy one members with thirty dropping off the roster over the years. You might note that nearly half of those were charter members. It appears that our retention rate is about sixty five percent total and eighteen percent for the charter members. At present we have forty six members and four new applications. Two members will be transferring to the Wakulla Guards. Camp membership is nearly evenly divided between Gadsden and Leon County residents with seven members in neither. In the twelve years of camp history there have been two commanders, Paul Nicholson and Bill Beckham. Under Commander Beckham’s leadership the camp has grown from about twenty three members with a three hundred dollar bank account to where it stands today. It is believed that the camp charter burned in the Nicholson Farm House fire.
In 2004 Finley’s Brigade sponsored the formation of a local chapter of Order of Confederate Rose. Known as the Mary Ann Harvey Black chapter, they have proven to be an enthusiastic and valued asset to our camp.
Election of officers for Finley Brigade will be discussed at the September meeting with the election to be held in October. A nominating committee will be impaneled to make a recommendation of candidates to the membership. Nominations from the floor will be accepted. If you are interested in holding an office summit your name and qualifications for the office sought to Adjutant Hal Avery. Elections will be for Commander, Lt.Commander, Adjutant/Treasurer, Sgt. at Arms and Chaplin. We will need to add a Quartermaster.
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This month in history 1861: At a meeting of the United States Board of Ironclad Ships on the thirteenth, the North authorizes the construction of a one hundred seventy two foot ironclad vessel at Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Confederates have been working on the Merrimack for two months at Norfolk Navy Yard. The iron plates for the latter are being manufactured at Tredegar Iron Works* at Richmond.
*This site was recently desecrated with a statue of Lincoln.
Sounds of War: “The sound of a Parrott gun being fired is similar to the crack of a rifle. It is keener and shakes the ground more than a brass piece of large caliber. A 10 lb shell from a Parrott, passing through the air sounds like the planning of a board. The sound of a 20 lb shell is between a buzz and a groan. The ball from a smooth bore makes a hissing noise and the discharge of a brass piece sounds more like an explosion than that of a Parrott gun. The sound of canister passing through the air is very much like a windmill working but not so loud.” Unidentified Ohio Officer.
Union Captain Robert Parrott was the designer of the gun and shell that bares his name. The Parrott is very similar in performance and appearance to the British Whitworth gun that has a range of six miles. In 1863 a Whitworth gun hit its target 4.7 miles away.
Psalms 55:18 He hath delivered my soul from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me.
Just my opinion about boycotts and such.
Over the years there have been boycotts of every description. Some examples are our recent boycott of France and German products because of their failure to support us in Iraq, the U.S. boycott of South Africa some time back over apartheid, Kraft foods for sponsoring the Gay Games and even tuna because of the killing of porpoises by tuna nets. As Southerners and Confederates we have our own group that we wish not to deal with because of their anti-heritage stance. We have John Deere, DuPont and the FAA to name a few that bans our logo on their property. Then there are the financial supporters to remove the Georgia flag. A few of them are Coca Cola, Home Depot, and the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Knight-Ridder newspapers pledged all of their resources to the removal of the Battle Flag from the South Carolina State House.
It leaves one to wonder if any boycott of those huge corporations that hate our heritage could have a successful financial impact. While Coke sales are down and Pepsi is up and Home Depot has to tighten its belt, it is doubtful that it is because of boycotting since most boycotting is more of a personal satisfaction thing these days and most are not very well organized. The only organized boycott that I am presently aware of is against South Carolina tourism by the NAACP. That seems to have failed because South Carolina tourism has increased every year of the boycott. The NAACP had some local success in Mississippi during the 60’s voter drive. That was achieved by busing people to nearby towns to shop. That could only be maintained for a short time but it got national attention and there lies their success. Even a personal boycott is hard to maintain one hundred percent. Some things are easy to avoid. We can shop Lowes; there is always one near Home Depot. We can buy mowers and tractors from John Deere’s competitors. Commander Beckham and I refuse to patronize the local Country Kitchen because they do not want a SCV logo in their place. It is not as so easy with some of the others. What non Coke product can you order when you take the kids to McDonalds? Do you subscribe to the local newspaper? Since a French corporation owns most of the major tire brands they probably made money the last time you bought an “American car.” DuPont makes so many products that are embedded in our daily life that we could not do without, or even identify. A German pharmaceutical makes our granddaughters insulin so I would buy from them if they shot my wife’s dog.
What does work is bringing attention to a cause. The voter drive boycott in Mississippi did little to change minds of the locals but it won the supporters much Federal legislation. The big deal with the refusal of the US to buy South African products was chromium. South Africa was the only producer and we had to have it. To solve that problem we just bought it from our adversary at the time, Russia. Want to guess where they got it? The point is it helped bring world opinion to bear on South Africa. You may have also noticed that most tuna labels now carry a Porpoise/Dolphin safe message.
Our friends that show up with the battle flag every Thursday at the Dupont gate in Maryland have been a “thorn in the side” for Dupont management for months. Dupont may never change this particular company policy but they may be hesitant to make such decision in the future. With that thought in mind we should never let a heritage violation, regardless of how small, go unanswered. Public opinion and the courts are what shape our society. It has worked for other causes and it could work for us. The SCV needs to develop a plan to bring favorable public opinion to our cause. Lt. M .Carroll