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Sons Of Confederate Veterans Post office Box 2355Don’t forget your La Plata, MD 20646 membership Dues!!

September 2013

Why do people still fly the Confederate flag?

By Tom Geoghegan Editor: Brian Piaquadio BBC News, Washington

2013 Officers A row has erupted in Virginia over a proposal to fly a huge Confederate flag outside the state capital, Bob Parker—Commander Richmond. One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, the flag can still be seen flying from homes Jim Dunbar– 1st Lieutenant and cars in the South. Why?

Commander / Adjutant For millions of young Britons growing up in the early 1980s, one particular image of the Confederate Jack Brown- Chaplin & flag was beamed into living rooms across the UK every Saturday evening.

Judge Advocate The flag emblazoned the roof of the , becoming a blur of white stars on a blue cross when Acting Treasurer Rick Hunt at breathtaking speed, the Dodge Charger took the two heroes, Bo and Luke Duke, out of the clutches of the hapless police in . Quartermaster - Dennis Spears Thousands of miles from the fictional county of Hazzard in , it seemed like an innocent motif but in the US, the flag taken into battle by the Confederate states in the Civil War is politically charged - not a week goes by without its appearance sparking upset. This Issue

Why fly the Recently, there’s been a row in over car licence plates bearing the flag, a man arrested after Confederate Flag? shouting abuse while waving it at a country music concert, and the ongoing fallout from flying the flag in front of the State House. Good Bye Mrs. Jones “If you’re going to be offended by a flag, why not the Union Jack?” Barry Isenhour Virginia Flaggers

SCV Award Now plans by a heritage group, the Virginia Flaggers, to erect a large Confederate flag on a major road outside Richmond has drawn considerable fire from critics who say it’s a symbol of hate. Continued on Page 3

SCV CHARGE

“To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, We submit the vindication of the cause for which we fought; to your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier’s good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles he loved and which made him glorious and which you also cherish. Remember it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations.”

1 From the Editor

Well Howdy All!,

So here we are fast approaching the end of our memorial event season and we welcome fall with less than a week of actual high temperatures. It really has been a pleasant summer.

I missed the meeting on August 20th, so I don’t have any updates for you. My appologies as I had a death in my family and had to be out of state for the funeral. This is the first meeting I have missed since joining the Bowling Camp. Imagine that?

I do know that it has to be getting close to dues time again.

Update - So since last month I can pleasantly say that I have received a few emails concerning my comments and I am pleased. Lets just hope those who contacted me come to the meetings and bring up their ideas to the rest of the camp so we can share, vote and plan on any approved ideas.

So let me share with you a person who was closer in my youth than in my latter years but who played a pivitol role in my growing up. It’s funny how time flies and we all get [email protected] so busy in our little worlds. Homage to Mrs. Jones

My real grandmother on my mother’s side died before I was born and due to divorce I never saw my father or his mother. In steps the Jones’s.

When my mother lost her’s the Jones were eager to take her in. They had 5 boys and no daughters so my mother was a welcomed addition to the family. Although my mother says she got tired of ironing shirts.

Dick and Gladdis Jones married young and started a family, although I am unsure which came first. It is hard starting out as we all know and the Jones were no different.

As my uncle Bruce said during the wake, “We never had much, but Mom and Dad gave us all we ever needed.”

I don’t remember a whole lot before the age of 10 but I do remember the huge 4th of July picnics. You see Mr and Mrs. Jones were the only grandparents we ever knew growing up.

Ham, Turkey with all the fixins and Grandpop Jones’s homemade baked beans (with Lima beans Ewww I never ate those as a kid) would line the tables. The older folks would drink beer and eat oysters, While the 12 grandchildren played with lawn darts or climbed the forbidden rocks, which are native to that area in Pennsylvania. Whenever we got caught on those rocks, however or something worse there was never any attempt to find out who the perpetrators were...

We were all equally guilty and punishment was doled out in that way. We would be lined up in the kitchen and the dredded wooden paddle with the holes in it was brought out from it’s resting place on the wall....and we each got our just and not so just rewards.

I remember my mother’s purple Dodge and her racing my uncle Barry in his 68 Mustang in front of the Jone’s house. I can remember Mrs Jones screaming at them to stop. They didn’t of course well, not until after they swapped cars and Barry’s exhaust felll off his car.

When your young you don’t realize the importance of family get togethers and how they shape who we are. I was bored when I was at the Jone’s house. I hated going there as a teen cause there was nothing to do. Now I would give almost anything for another 4th of July picnic like that.

Mrs. Jones was one of kind, a small woman thin with a laugh that reminded me of the Witch on the wizard of Oz... That being said I would’nt call her a loving woman. Instead most discribe her as a real “firecracker.” She never had a problem telling you like it was and well if you didn’t like it she would tell you “tough sh_t, then!” Definately one of a kind.

I was glad that I got to see her a few more times before she passed. My grandfather died back around 2003 and she kept his urn on his chair in the living room along with his drivers license and she talked to him like he was still there.

She may not have been blood but she was the only grandmother I ever knew and she will be missed.

Thank you all and God Bless Dixie! Brian Piaquadio Don’t forget your membership Dues!!

2 Continued from Page 1 That’s not true, says Barry Isenhour, a member of the group, who says it’s really about honouring the Confederate soldiers who gave their lives. For him, the war was not primarily about slavery but standing up to being over-taxed, and he says many southerners abhorred slavery.

“They fought for the family and fought for the state. We are tired of people saying they did • The first national flag of the Confed- something wrong. They were freedom-loving Americans who stood up to the tyranny of the eracy was the Stars and Bars (left) in North. They seceded from the US government not from the American idea.” 1861, but it caused confusion on the battlefield and rancour off it He displays a flag on his car but lives in a street where the flying of any flags is not permitted. They are a dwindling sight these days, he thinks, because people are less inclined to fly them • “Everybody wants a new Confederate in the face of hostility - monuments honouring southern Civil War generals are, he says, flag,” wrote George Bagby, Southern regularly vandalised. Literary Messenger editor. “The present one is universally hated. It resembles Denouncing the “hateful” groups like the Ku Klux Klan who he says have dishonoured the flag, the Yankee flag and that is enough to he adds that people should be just as offended by the Union Jack, the Dutch flag or the Stars make it unutterably detestable.” and Stripes, because they all flew for nations practising slavery. • Its replacement was nicknamed Annie Chambers Caddell explains why she hangs the flag from her porch the Stainless Banner (centre) and it Others strongly disagree with his analysis. African Americans, especially older ones, are incorporated General Lee’s battle flag, traumatised when they see the flag, says Salim Khalfani, who has lived in Richmond for nearly designed by William Porcher Mills 40 years and thinks it risks making the city look like a “hick” backwater that is still fighting the Civil War. • A third national flag, nicknamed the Bloodstained Banner (right) was “If it’s really about heritage then keep the flag on your private property or in museums but adopted in 1865 but was not widely don’t mess it up for municipalities and states who are trying to bring tourists here because this manufactured will have the opposite effect.” • After the war, the battle flag, not any “All symbols are liable to multiple interpretations but this is unique in its power” of the national ones, lived on John Coski Museum of the Confederacy Editor’s Notes: African-American author Clenora Hudson-Weens saw people waving the flags on the street in Memphis a few weeks ago. “I just said to them ‘This is 2013’ and they just smiled. I personally There is so much wrong with this article believe in some traditions but this is a tradition that is so oppressive to blacks. I wouldn’t be but I wanted to share because there are proud waving a flag that has an ambience of racism and negativity.” some positive things mentioned.

Many Americans will be familiar with the arguments on either side but perhaps not with the I personally don’t like the attacks on our convoluted origins of the flag itself. heritage but I surround my defense of the The flag seen today on houses, bumper stickers and T-shirts - sometimes accompanied by the soldiers flag. The battle flag my ancestors words “If this shirt offends you, you need a history lesson” - is not, and never was, the official fought under. national flag of the Confederacy.

The design by William Porcher Miles, who chaired the flag committee, was rejected as the national flag in 1861, overlooked in favour of the Stars and Bars.

It was instead adopted as a square battle flag by the Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee, the greatest military force of the Confederacy. It fast became such a potent symbol of Confederate nationalism that in 1863 it was incorporated into the next design of the national flag, which replaced the hated Stars and Bars.

The saltire - or diagonal cross - on the battle flag is believed to have been inspired by its heraldic connections, not any Scottish ones.

So has the flag historically been more about slavery or heritage? Continued on Page 5

3 Today in Confederate History September 1st 1862 Battle of Chantilly, VA

1st 1864 Battle of Jonesboro, GA (continues)

2nd 1864 Atlanta falls and is occupied by General Sherman the following day

4th 1862 CSS Oreto runs Federal blockade, makes port at Mobile, AL

4th 1864 General John Hunt Morgan killed at Greenville, TN

6th 1864 General Sherman orders evacuation of all citizens from Atlanta, GA 6th 1864 Charleston, SC under bombardment. 600 rounds fired against the Confederate defenders at Fort Sumter.

7th 1815 ’s birthday (CSA general, cabinet member and statesman)

7th 1838 Major John Pelham (promoted to Lieutenant Colonel after his death) birthday

8th 1863 Battle of Sabine Pass, TX

9th 1871 General Stand Waite died at Honey Creek, OK. Don’t forget your membership Dues!! 10th 1836 General Joseph “fighting Joe” Wheeler’s birthday

10th 1861 Battle of Carnifex Ferry, WV

11th -13th 1861 Battle of Cheat Mountain, WV

12th 1862 Colonel Joe Porter’s Confederate troops rode into occupied Palmyra, MO in an effort to free the town from it’s occupation.

13th 1861 Francis Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key, was arrested by order of U.S. General Banks, and taken to Fort McHenry as being an “active secessionist”. On that day forty-seven years before his grandfather wrote the Star Spangled Banner, a prisoner on a British War ship that was bombarding Fort McHenry.

14th 1862 Battles of South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, MD

15th 1862 General Jackson’s troops capture12,000 prisoners at Harper’s Ferry, VA

17th 1820 Genera Earl Van Dorn’s birthday

17th 1862 Battle of Sharpsburg, MD

18th 1818 General Marcellus Augustus Stovall’s birthday

18th 1862 Massacre at Palmyra, MO. Ten men were loaded onto wagons, seated on newly made coffins, and taken to the Palmyra fairgrounds where they were executed under order of Union General McNeil.

19th 1862 Battle of Iuka, MS

19th - 20th 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, GA

19th 1864 Third Battle of Winchester, VA

20th 1809 General Sterling Price’s birthday

22nd 1833 General Stephen D. Lee’s birthday (author of the SCV Charge)

22nd 1864 Battle of Fisher’s Hill, VA

24th 1862 Sherman orders his subordinates to destroy every house in Randolph, TN in retaliation for Confederate fire upon supply steamboats. 24th 1864 yankee armies begin to burn crops and civilian property in the Shenandoah Valley, VA

27th 1862 Sherman ordered that for every instance of firing onto a boat, near Randolph ten families should be expelled from Memphis, TN. Sherman begins placing Confederate prisoners on boats exposed to attack.

28th 1864 Fighting at Polk County and Caledonia, MO

29th - 30th 1864 Battle of Chaffin’s Farm, VA

30th-2nd 1864 Battle of Peeble’s Farm, VA Continued from page 3

You could say that both sides are correct if you look at how the flag has evolved, says David Goldfield, author of Still Fighting The Civil War.

When the Confederacy debated the adoption of a new flag in Richmond in 1862, it was clear this was to be a symbol of white supremacy and a slavery-dominated society, he says.

After the war, the flag was primarily used for commemorative purposes at graves, memorial services and soldier reunions, but from the perspective of African Americans, the history and heritage that they see is hate, suppression and white supremacy, says Goldfield, and the historical record supports that.

“On the other hand, there are white southerners who trace their ancestors back to the Civil War and want to fly the flag for their great-grandfather who fought under it and died under it.” And for them, it genuinely has nothing to do The flag is commonly seen at Nascar races with racism. However, he thinks they should respect the fact it does cause offence and not fly it in public.

The flag wasn’t a major symbol until the Civil Rights movement began to take shape in the 1950s, says Bill Ferris, founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of , It was a battle flag relegated to history but the Ku Klux Klan and others who resisted desegregation turned to the flag as a symbol.

He likens it to the swastika but others see it very differently. Indeed, the flag has been compared to a Rorschach blot because it means several things at all at once, depending on who is looking at it.

“All symbols are liable to multiple interpretations but this is unique in its power and ability to inflame passions on all sides, and the volume of interpretations and preconceptions about it make it unique in American history,” says John Coski, author of The Confederate Battle Flag: America’s Most Embattled Emblem. He has even seen it displayed in Europe, where it has become shorthand for “rebel”.

Since attempts by campaigners in the 1990s to remove the flags from public buildings, he thinks the issue has died down in the US. In 2001, Georgia changed the 45-year-old design of its state flag after pressure to remove the Confederate symbol.

Although the number of incidents is diminishing it’s not going away, he says, because it just takes a couple of well-publicised episodes to get it back on people’s radars, and feelings inflamed.

“We can all write the script ourselves - they will say this and they will say this.” It’s a predictable pattern, he adds.

“I think it will die out,” says Ferris, who thinks flag-wavers feel like an embattled minority. “The south is changing, with the growth of Hispanics and Asian and a growing black population, and you can be sure that the Confederate flag has no place in their world.”

The South, he says, needs a new emblem to reflect its changing character.

Don’t forget your membership Dues!!

5 News from Around the Confederacy

Virginia Flagger Receives the SCV’s Highest Award for 2013

by: Brian Piaquadio

The 2013 Stephen Dill Lee Award went to none other than Susan Hathaway of the Virginia Flaggers.

According to the SCV awards manual the Stephen Dill Lee Award is the highest award that can be bestowed upon a non- member by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Only one award can be given annually. Nominees must have made substantial contribution on a national level through their actions, effors and deeds to honor and defend the good name of Confederate soldiers, to perpetuate the high priciples with which they conducted themselves both on and off the field of battle, and to ensure the true history of the South is being presented to future generations.

Anyone who knows Susan knows that this is a well deserved award.

Susan is a member of the UDC and has forwarded the flag of our ancestors more than anyone I know.

She educates everyone she meets on the southern soldier and his flag. If your friends with her on social media you get all the updates and know that she has even gone to local cemetaries and taken photos of veterans tombstones for a far away relative.

She is a pleasant person but also a very passionate person when it comes to the Southern soldier. I am glad to have her in our corner.

The newest venture has been the Virginia flaggers promise of placing a large flag welcoming northbound travelers to Richmond. Of course there has been much in the news about it and if you haven’t heard about it then you must be under a rock somewhere.

If you see Susan make sure to say thank you and congratulations. She deserves this very much.

6 Upcoming Events September Events

09/02/2013 (Monday) Labor Day Parade (Gaithersburg, MD) A public parade so let’s all turn out! Come one and all to defend out 2011 first place showing!

Directions: Take 95 to 495 to 270 North. Take Exit 11 (124 North) Pass 355 right at the 4th light on Mid County Highway Make a right at the first light on Goshen Rd Make a left ion Girard Ave Don’t forget your Follow Giraard to the end and make a left on Diamond Ave Make your first left for our formation at number 63 yellow membership Dues!! Park at the bottom of the hill

September 12-15, 2013 Charles County Fair (Charles County Fairgrounds) We will once again have our living history display. If you are interested in helping out please contact us ASAP thank you

09/28/2013 (Saturday) Howard County Monument Ceremony Annual Ceremony to honor Howard County’s Confederate soldiers and sponsored by the Major General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble Camp #1836. Formation is at 10:30 for the 11:00 ceremony. We need a firing party for this event!

Camp Sutlery

Camp T-Shirts are still available in 2X.

The price is $15.00. They are well worth it and they look great.

Please remember that the shirts are for Private Wallace Bowling Camp Members only.

If you cannot make the meeting and want a T-Shirt please call Dennis Spears @ 301-751-9994 LIMITED EDITION BELT BUCKLES ARE HERE!

Great news compatriots. Belt buckles are back. The Camp just received our allotment of belt buckles.

We received approximately 20 belt buckles out of the 500 made. Each belt buckle is numbered with the botony cross Son’s of Confederate Veterans Maryland Division.

The buckles are $21 each and can be bought at our monthly meeting or you may contact the quartermaster Dennis Spears 301-751-9994.

You do not have to be an SCV member to purchase. Belt buckles are numbered and guaranteed against breakage. 7 REMINDER The next meeting is September 17th, 2013 At the Port Tobacco Court House Time 7:30pm

Don’t forget your membership Dues!!

Check us out on the web http://mdscv.org/camps/bowling

Pvt. Wallace Bowling Camp #1400 P.O. Box 2355 LaPlata, MD 20646

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