Loot Was The Name of the Game
 
It is commonly understood that North Carolina was spared the hardships of war, though the northeastern section of the State was under northern rule since Burnside's Expedition. Edward Stanly was a former North Carolinian who was appointed governor by Lincoln and sent to occupied Morehead City to hold court, but even he lost hope of restoring the Tarheel State to the Union after watching shiploads of loot heading northward. 
 
Bernhard Thuersam, Executive Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
Post Office Box 328
Wilmington, NC 28402
www.CFHI.net
Bernhard1848@att.net
 
Loot Was The Name of the Game:
 
""Most of eastern North Carolina lay open to the Union troops," wrote J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton, "and by degrees they stripped the entire region of everything of value that was moveable. Whole shiploads of booty were sent north. Edward Stanly said, "Had the war in North Carolina been conducted by soldiers who were Christians and gentlemen, the State would have long ago rebelled against rebellion."
 
But instead of that, what was done? Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of property were conveyed North. Libraries, pianos, carpets, mirrors, family portraits, everything in short, that could be removed, was stolen by men abusing flagitious slave holders and preaching liberty, justice and civilisation. I was informed that one regiment of abolitionists had conveyed North more than $40,000 worth of property. They literally robbed the cradle and the grave. Family burial vaults were broken open for robbery; and in one instance (the fact was published in a Boston newspaper and admitted to me by an officer of high position in the army) a vault was entered, a metallic coffin removed, and the remains cast out that those of a dead (northern) soldier might be put in the place.
 
All the blood of the American Revolution of 1776 was shed to establish the right of self government. The Revolution had no other end, meaning that if it did not establish that right, then it was a sanguinary farce; and yet because we (in the South) chose to exercise that right, we were declared "rebels" and numerous herds of mercenaries, collected from all quarters of the globe, were hurled against us. Four years of terrible barbarous warfare, of cruelty of the most savage, and wickedness of the most wanton followed."
 
(Excerpt from The Richmond Whig, January 20, 1865)

Florida SCVer's have raised the bar.....
 
From: pamba1@aol.com
 
Pam:
 
I for one am glad that the Florida SCVers are getting "ruthless"! Sure beats being "toothless" like a few of the camps are in this area. The Good Lord willing, I'm going to try to start an SCV camp here in far southwest Houston, hopefully in the spring or early summer, and believe me, we will be "ruthless" too! Please send my kindest regards to the Florida Division SCVers; they have raised the bar for all of us. Y'all go get 'em, and take no prisoners!
 
Confederately,
 
Chris.

Harriet Beecher Stowe
 
From: Cpprhd10@aol.com
 
I noted the comments about Harriet Beecher Stowe's almost total lack of experience with the South and the slavery question during the time before the War of Northern Aggression.
 
Many may not realise it, but Harriet Beecher Stowe was quite a devotee of spiritualism before the War. I did an article for my blogspot http://thecopperhead.blogspot.com  back in September of 2005 dealing with Mrs. Stowe and her spiritualist tendencies.
 
Many have believed that those who sought to contact the dead (and still do) really do end up contacting something, quite possibly something demonic, that influences what they do afterward. I have often wondered if Stowe was into her spiritualism thing when she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, and if so, what effect did whatever she made contact with have on what she wrote in that incindiety volume?
 
Al Benson Jr.

Harriet Beecher Stowe
 
From: kbachand@juno.com
 
I would like to second what Jimmy Shirley said about the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. 
 
I majored in history back in the '50s at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.  That's just west of Daytona Beach and, of course, south of Mandarin, where Stowe "wintered" after the war.
 
My focus was on the History of the Old South, and my professor--Dr. John E. Johns, late president of Furman University--said that Stowe spent her later years "basking on the shores of the St. Johns River near Green Cove Springs.”   That's just across the river from Mandarin, so perhaps she spent time at both places.
 
Another thing he said, as I recall, was that at the time she wrote her famous novel, she had been only as far south as Cincinnati, Ohio, where she got the impetus for her story from interviews with runaway slaves.  Of course runaways often had good reason to run, so if what Dr. Johns said is true, then we can understand why the story runs as it does.
 
And I also  agree with what Jimmy said about checking what we write when we’re trying to correct our detractors.  Some of them are educated enough to be offended by sloppy, careless writing and unfairly judge the content and the sender by the condition of the package.
 
We don’t have to be grammar experts to take time to spell-check our responses.  And as for our punctuation errors, I have yet to read anything from any of those who hate us that didn’t have enough grammar errors to exclude them from criticizing us in that regard.
 
But let me add weight to this by saying that I am a published author and a manuscript editor, and I often get pains in my gut when I read some of the well-intentioned but agonizingly crude rebuttals some of my compatriots write in response to some journalist or professor who spews his venom at us.  Some of them surely must grin with satisfaction when they read some of our criticisms.
 
I’m not saying not to write.  By all means do so, but please take a little time to get your words right.  That’s why spell-checkers were invented.
 
Yours for truth and honor,
 
Ken Bachand
Hendersonville, NC

Reply to John McCormick - Detroit News
 
From: Mshcsa@aol.com
To: john.mccormick@detnews.com
 
Sir,
 
Your point was read and taken with absolutely no seriousness except to say we don't care how they do it up North.
 
For the past 140 years we have been infiltrated by the Northern species and with them they brought an arrogance and determination to change our way of life. That has happened to a certain extent if you include crime, pollution, secular beliefs, higher taxes and a desire to rid this region of their proud history.
 
As a union member I hope Detroit can recover but not thru bailouts , rather a chapter 11 plan which will reel in the big spenders which dominate the industry.
 
You have ruined your Northern landscape and way of doing business and now you want to teach us how to live.  HELL NO.
 
We should have armed the borders decades ago with return North visas.
 
Happy New Year and God Save the South!
Michael Herring
Son of the South
Brandon, Florida

Recipient - Confederate Medal of Honour
 
From: btzoumas@bellsouth.net
 
Y'all,
 
Below is the story of William T. Overby, Private 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry, one of Mosby's men. As this is from the book Valor In Gray, about the recipients of the Confederate Medal of Honor and their stories, I think it important to share these stories with all Southern partisans. From what I have read from this and other pro-Southern forums, I believe there are a lot of our people who do not really know WHY we ought to have pride in our heritage and history. There are many stories of men who were given a choice of whether to live, or to die. Think about that a moment. Captured by the enemy, you are presented with a choice. One is that you can live, you can grow old, have children and grandchildren, live a somewhat comfortable life, maybe into your eighties. You can enjoy life. All you have to do is tell where someone is, or tell who someone is. Or, if you do not cooperate, you WILL DIE. And right now. Simple as that. Sometimes, though as in this case, you believe that no matter what you do, you will still die. You believe your enemy is lying, that they are NOT honourable.
  
Sam Davis could have lived. Henry Wirz could have lived. Many others were given the choice to betray and live, or not and die. They chose death, with honour, than life and dishonour. Such is the legacy we inherited. Are we worthy of such a legacy? Have we done enough to deserve their nod of approval? Each individual only can answer this in truth.
 
Sincerely,
Jimmy L. Shirley Jr.
 
--------------------
 
Visitors to the court house lawn in Newnan, Georgia, can hardly miss the imposing stone. Measuring seven feet tall by four feet wide, it stands not just as another Southern county's turn-of-the-century tribute to the Confederate veteran, but also as a bold sentinel to the memory of one particular soldier. To the citizens of Coweta County, this man they remember, dubbed by them "The Nathan Hale of the Confederacy" went off to war and became a hero. If pressed for details, they will mention that he was executed...shot or hanged somewhere in Virginia...some kind of retaliation by the Yankees. And if asked, they will reply that, "Yes, his descendants still reside in the county, good folks justly proud of the sacrifice of one of their own."
     
The visit does not have to end here, however. Nine miles east of Newnan on Highway 34, the motorist reaches the McCollum-Sharpsburg Road at Thomas Cross Roads. Here, those interested in the curious story revealed by the court house stone are instructed to bear right and drive south for three and one half miles. At this point the highway intersects the Lower Fayetteville Road. Turning left and driving another mile and a half brings one to Cokes Chapel Methodist Church.
 
Founded in 1833, the church stands as a continuing testament to the faith of those who lived and are buried here. A walk through the churchyard reveals names on century-old stones that match those just passed on rural mailboxes.
     
And here, the traveler is informed, is the second stone to the memory of the young man who is so prominently honored on the court house lawn. A gentle walk through the cemetery passes row seven where-it is pointed out-his maternal grandparents are buried. His own marker is farther along, back in row eleven. But when found, it is a disappointment, a small stone situated modestly between the monument over his father's grave and a second marking the grave of his step-mother. His stone reveals only his name and dates.. .and the small notation at he is really buried near Markham, Virginia.
     
Virginia... Tombstones to both father and maternal grandparents reveal that the families had come to Georgia from Brunswick County, Virginia, decades before the war. Indeed, the blood of the Old Dominion flowed in the veins of this young man.. .for he too had been born in Brunswick. But Markham is a small village in the northern part of the state, nowhere near Brunswick County. What then of the circumstances that had cost him his life?  (2)
     
His service record states only that he had enlisted in Atlanta as a private in Company A of the 7th Georgia Volunteers on 31 May 1861. There is evidence that he was wounded at Second Manassas and that during his recovery in the army hospital at Warrenton, Virginia, he suffered with rheumatism. He continued on as a nurse...at 25 cents per day: The record also shows that he was soon quietly "dropped from the rolls" of his regiment. (3)
     
Here, the trail narrows but does not end. More inquiry-this time in northern Virginia-reveals the existence of another stone, a third monument bearing his name. "It's in Front Royal," locals say, "in the town's main cemetery: It's so tall it cannot be missed!" 
     
A visit to this small, picturesque town situated at the northern entrance of Virginia's Shenandoah National Park proves to be a treat. Front Royal is a community whose heritage is matched only by its residents' pride to proclaim it. Prospect Hill Cemetery is quickly pointed out, a prominent hill on the south side of town. The stone this time-the third one-is easily found, an imposing granite obelisk 25 feet high flanked by two ancient cannon. Here again is the name of the young man from Coweta County. But this is also a monument to six others, and their names are here too...seven men in all, each executed by the enemy near Front Royal during the war-ravaged autumn of 1864.  (4)
     
Certainly there were many who lost their lives in the war. And there were dozens of grim executions. Thus, visitors to this quiet knoll might rightly ask what extraordinary circumstances merited so imposing a monument to the memory of seven executed Confederates?
     
There are two reasons, both answered in stone. The first is a straightforward accusation of war crimes by the enemy, for this monument was erected to the
MEMORY OF SEVEN COMRADES EXECUTED WHILE PRISONERS OF WAR NEAR THIS SPOT.
     
The second reason is boldly carved into the obelisk's massive base. Just two words confront the visitor. Yet to the citizens of Front Royal and indeed to Virginians across the region, this is enough, for these seven martyrs had been MOSBY'S MEN.
     
"When any of them are caught with nothing to designate what they are," Uysses S. Grant had ordered, "hang them without trial." Ruthless words from another time, but such had been the nature of that war. And such had been the fate for these seven who rode with the famed "Gray Ghost."
 
But for the citizens who witnessed the events of that terrible Friday; the brave~ indeed the defiance of one of the sacrificed became the stuff of legend.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     
What an inviting target! From the wooded heights above Front Royal, Capt. Sam Chapman watched silently as an enemy ambulance train neared the town. The escort appeared to number about 200 cavalry; But given the element of surprise and the experience of his own hundred or so rangers, Chapman felt that the odds were on his side. (5)
     
Quickly he divided his command. Capt. Walter Frankland would take 45 men and hit the front of the wagon train while he, with the balance, would attack the rear. It was just as the Colonel himself would have done!
     
But John Mosby was absent, down with a serious wound suffered the week before. This would be Chapman's fight.
     
The two columns separated, working their way under cover and into position for the attack. Suddenly, Chapman spotted more blue riders, hundreds following at a discreet distance behind the wagons! It was a trap! If Frankland charged into this brigade of cavalry, he and his men would be annihilated! He must be stopped!
     
But gunfire erupted before Chapman could deliver his warning. Desperately he yelled to Frankland, "Call off your men; you are attacking a brigade!"
     
Walter Frankland stared for an instant, mystified. "Why, Sam, we've whipped them." But it took only moments for Chapman's warning to ring true. (6)
     
Heavy return fire and masses of Yankee cavalry quickly converged on the attackers from three sides. Frantically Sam Chapman sought to disengage, alternately fighting then retreating to better ground. This was Mosby's style, sudden, impetuous attacks always with an out. Now his rangers sought that escape, splitting into small parties and vanishing into the woods, using their knowledge of the land to distance themselves from their foe.
     
In the first moments of the attack, Thomas Moss had blazed away at the blue riders. The surprise seemed complete. Suddenly a hand grabbed him on the shoulder. "For God's sake, come out from here!" It was Frankland and as Moss took note of his surroundings, he realized that "there was not another one of our comrades in view."
     
Racing through a neck of woods to escape the massive sweep of Union cavalry, Moss emerged in open ground. "I saw the main column of our boys passing through a gap in the fence." Jumping this fence, he and three others "formed" on a nearby elevation, but the woods and fields were filled with blue riders. Moments later, Moss remembered, a regiment of cavalry "came in between us and our main body; " To tarry longer meant certain capture!
     
But as the foursome abandoned their hill, they spied some 20 blue soldiers guarding rangers already taken. Prisoners! It was never too late for an attack to free a friend!
     
Tom Moss and his comrades rushed the guards, pistols blazing. At point blank range, they emptied their revolvers, then used them as clubs. The prisoners scrambled
in the melee, grabbing dropped weapons, then lending a hand to the scrap while others ran for the woods. But hearing the gunfire in their rear, Federal cavalry converged on the fight and smothered it with overwhelming numbers. Yet most of Mosby's men got away, melting into the wooded hills to fight another day.
     
Not so for Pvt. William Overby. In the thick of the fight, Tom Moss had flung him the reins to a captured horse, but before he could mount the animal and
make good his escape, he was recaptured.  (7)
     
As the firing died away, the Federals collected their forces and reformed. Smarting from the brazen insult of the rangers' attack as well as from actual casualties, the Yankees herded Overby and four others at gunpoint into the dusty column and continued toward Front Royal.
     
Then came the news about Lt. Charles McMaster!
     
Up the road from the main fight, away from town and near Chester Gap, McMaster had led his squadron in an attempt to block the main retreat of Chapman's men over the mountain. Confronted by McMaster's force astride his escape route, a desperate Chapman held back nothing and ordered his men to shoot their way through.
     
And the men did exactly that! More than a dozen Federals were cut down. McMaster himself, having first had his horse shot from under him, bravely stood his ground only to be riddled with bullets and then trampled by Confederate horsemen charging to reach freedom. As he lay mortally wounded in the dust of the road, he indicated he had been shot after surrendering, gunned down in cold blood!
     
Now as the five prisoners marched toward Front Royal, ugly shouts for retribution and revenge taunted them. Calls for vengeance degenerated into curses, then spit... and finally kicks and slaps. Officers along the column said nothing or looked the other way.
     
News of McMaster's wounding spread quickly; each retelling colored and embellished. By the time the outraged procession entered Front Royal, it was little more than an armed mob. Knots of angry soldiers met them, gathering at street intersections, loudly demanding revenge. Nearby, a regimental band struck up the "Dead March."
     
In all of this, fear seized the townspeople; window shades dropped and doors closed as the sinister crowd of soldiers snarled through the streets. The loud shouts grew uglier; in the midst of the blue-coated mob, two prisoners came into view, pushed and kicked along by raging men calling for blood. Reaching a fevered pitch, the Federals suddenly swirled off the street...and then through the yells and curses came the climatic shots. Their hatred vented, the angry crowd dispersed, and two of John Mosby's men, Lucien Love and David L. Jones, lay dead in a church yard.
     
But nearby, more maddened Unionists sought revenge on a third prisoner, Thomas Anderson, shooting him down in a fusillade of gunfire beneath an elm tree. Of the five captives, only Overby and Carter remained alive.
     
Shoved and prodded by their captors, the two were led to Petty's wagon yard. But now instead of a swift execution, the Yankee mob's urgent lust for revenge tempered itself to other considerations. Where was Mosby; they demanded? Tell us how we can find him and the rest of his band and we'll let you live!
     
Carter, paralyzed with fear at the horrors just witnessed, could only weep at the black fate that confronted him. Three of his comrades had just been slaughtered; regardless of what he did, he knew death also awaited him.
     
William Overby knew it too. Yet the grim acts perpetrated by these criminals brought only a stony silence. He would give them nothing!
     
From a distance, an acquaintance watched as the two men stood before their captors...enduring their taunts...and temptations. Yet it was the tall Georgian that attracted his attention. "I recollect the appearance of Overby; he was standing with his hat and coat off, his wavy black hair floating in the breeze. 1 never saw a
finer specimen of manhood.. .he looked like a knight of old.  (8)
     
But events were moving swiftly: As if pushed by an evil wind, the riotous crowd of soldiers suddenly tired of their patience and, grabbing their captives, hustled them toward the north end of town. Nearby, the band commenced a dirge- "Love Not, the One You Love May Die"-and played it over and over. "Well do I remember the picture," one woman wrote later of that black Friday, "Overby, with head erect, defiant, and Carter overcome and weeping.  (9)
     
The mob halted under a walnut tree on a hill halfway between the town and the rolling Shenandoah River. Ropes appeared and determined men scrambled to secure them to the stately limbs above. With rough nooses around their necks, these rebels would talk now!  (10)
     
Where was Mosby? When and where were his men to meet again? Tell us and live!
     
William Thomas Overby eyed them coldly and shook his head. "We cannot tell that."
     
But again came the questions.. .and the tendered promise. With defiance and contempt, Overby just glared.
     
Enough then! Tightly binding their prisoners' hands behind their backs, the captors manhandled Overby and Carter onto horses. The skittish animals lurched, tightening the noose into a burn around each man's neck. Carter choked a plea that he might pray and bowed his head. Overby remained transfixed, grimly armed now only with an iron conviction against those who would destroy him.
     
Once more...tell us where Mosby is...and live!
     
"Mobil hang ten of you for everyone of us!" came the sharp reply...and an instant later, the whips cracked.  (11)
     
But the killers were not finished. Yet a sixth member of Mosby's command- 17 -year-old Henry C. Rhodes-perished at the hands of the Union cavalry that day. Brought into Front Royal after the first five, Rhodes was lashed with ropes between two horses, and dragged in plain sight of his agonized relatives, to the open field north of our town, where one man volunteered to do the killing, and ordered the helpless, dazed prisoner to stand up in front of him while he emptied his pistol upon him.  (12)
     
From a distance Sue Richardson watched in horror.
     
"We could see the crowd assembled around him, then we had the pain of seeing the stock passing around him before his body could be removed. His poor mother is almost crazy."  (13)
     
Their frenzy of death finished, the enemy abandoned Front Royal, but not before leaving a dire warning to those who still would ride with the notorious Gray Ghost. Scrawled on a placard hanging from the swollen, dark corpse of William Thomas Overby was the following message: "Such is the fate of all of Mosby's gang.  (14)
     
As if to emphasize this warning, in October, A. C. Willis was captured and hanged in Rappahannock County; bringing to seven the number of Mosby's men executed by the Federals.
     
John Mosby received the black news from Front Royal with regret but grim resolve. If this was the way the war was to be conducted, then let there be no mistake. Biding his time, he retaliated on 6 November by executing members of Gen. George Custer's cavalry. To Sheridan, he sent the following warning.
    
"Since the murder of my men not less than 700 prisoners, including many officers of high rank, captured from your army by this command, have been forwarded to Richmond, but the execution of my purpose of retaliation was deferred in order, as far as possible, to confine its operation to the men of Custer and Powell. Accordingly on the 6th instant seven of your men were, by my order, executed.. ..Hereafter any prisoners falling into my hands will be treated with the kindness due to their condition, unless some new act of barbarity shall compel me reluctantly to adopt a course of policy repulsive to humanity.  (15)
     
With his last breath, the loyal Overby had warned his executioners of Mosby's wrath. He and those with him that day in Front Royal had died hard. But never
would he betray the Colonel! Now, an eye had been taken for an eye. Was that not enough? If the war continued down this desperate road, Overby's dire prediction still held...Mosby and his men, he knew in his last moments, could and would assuredly "adopt a course of policy repulsive to humanity." And in the end, Philip Sheridan knew it, too.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     
There is a fourth stone. It is by far the most obscure but for the visitor to Markham, Virginia, in search of William Overby, the most poignant. For this is no enormous boulder erected by his countrymen lauding him with a nom de guerre. This is no memorial in granite flanked by cannon, nor is it a mark of fond remembrance amidst the dust of his kinsmen.
     
Markham, situated on an interchange beside the bustle and blur of Interstate 66, remains much the rural village it was during the last century. With good directions and a keen determination, those interested will park in front of an older, well-kept farmhouse, seek the courtesy of permission, then cross a side yard to a two-rail fence. Climbing a small hill, the way leads back several hundred feet to a broken-down iron fence. Thick brush and vines obscure most of the forgotten stones, many of which are tilted or broken.
     
The name "Anderson" predominates here, but if the searcher is careful and patiently clears the undergrowth with a careful eye for poison ivy and snakes, the discovery of this fourth stone is the reward. The inscription is brief:
                                                                       W.T. OVERBY
                                                            MOSBY'S COMMAND, CO. C
                                                              KILLED FRONT ROYAL, VA.
                                                                      SEPT. 23, 1864
     
It is the gravestone of a hero, for William Thomas Overby went to his death refusing to divulge vital information to his enemy...information that might have
saved his life but which would certainly have compromised and possibly destroyed his battalion. Even after witnessing the cold-blooded murder of three of his
comrades, Pvt. Overby remained steadfast, leaving an extraordinary example of personal bravery and defiance.  (16)
     
For his ultimate sacrifice on behalf of his country, Pvt. William Thomas Overby was posthumously awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor. This decoration is displayed in Carnegie House, Headquarters of the Newnan-Coweta County Historical Society, Newnan, Georgia.

(1)-Overby's date of birth is derived from records in the International Genealogical Index, LDS Genealogical Library, Kensington, Maryland. For decades after the war, citizens of Front Royal remembered 23 September 1864 as "Black Friday." Overby's nom de gue"e is cited from the Laura Virginia Hale papers on deposit at the Warren Heritage Society, Front Royal, Virginia.
 
(2)-Newnan-Coweta Historical Society, History of Coweta County. Georgia, (Newnan, Georgia, 1988), Overby family genealogy, p. 325.
 
(3)-CSR-7th Georgia Volunteers.
 
(4)-This monument was unveiled on 23 September 1899. SHSP, Vol. 27. pp. 250-87. The names on the monument are Carter, Overby, Love, Jones, Willis, Rhodes, and Anderson. Willis was executed several weeks after the first six.
 
(5)-Estimates of Confederate strength vary from 80 to 120 men.
 
(6)-Williamson, James J., Mosby's Rangers, (New York, 1895), pp. 239-40. Cited herein as Williamson.
 
(7)-Moss' account is reprinted in Ibid., pp. 241-2.
 
(8)-This is Dr. R. C. Buck's recollection as reprinted in Ibid., p. 242; the reference to a 'knight of old' is from his article in SHSP, Vol. 25, p. 240.
 
(9)-This is the account of Mrs. Davis-Roy as reported in Williamson, p. 240.
 
(1O)-Sue Richardson diary, entry for 23 September 1864, wrote that Carter and Overby "...were hung in the Mountain field on a large walnut tree..." Typescript copy courtesy Special Collections, Robert W Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Cited herein as Richardson.
 
(ll)-This final scene is from the eyewitness account of Sgt. S. C. Willis, 1st Rhode Island Cavalry in a letter to Front Royal Postmaster, H. L. Cook, dated 27 March 1902, and cited in v: C. Jones' Ranger Mosby, (Chapel Hill, 1944), p. 211. Rev. Frederic Denison differs with this account, writing in Sabres and Spurs: The First Rhode Island Cavalry, (Central Falls, 1876), p. 392, that after "their hands [were] fastened behind them, [and] the halters finally adjusted, the bodies were pulled up"...indicating that Carter and Overby were strangled. H. P. Moyer witnessed the executions and identified Companies E and L, 17th Pennsylvania Cavalry and Lt. McMaster's troop of the 2nd US Cavalry as the soldiers who did the hanging on orders from Gen. Torbert. Writing nearly a half century after the execution, Moyer acknowledged the pair "met their cruel fate bravely." Moyer, H. P., compiler, History of the Seventeenth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, (Lebanon, 1911), pp. 217-8.
 
(12)-SHSP, Vol. 24, p. 109.
 
(13)-Richardson, entry for 23 September 1864.
 
(14) There are several versions of what was written on the placard. Mosby obviously paraphrased the wording in his written warning of 11 November 1864 to Gen. Philip Sheridan, i.e., "this would be the fate of Mosby and all his men." OR, Vol. 43, pt. 2, p. 920. The version cited is from Williamson, p. 241.
 
(15)-OR, Vol. 43, pt. 2, p. 920; Mosby was unaware at the time he wrote to Sheridan on 11 November 1864, that two of his captives had escaped into the dark. Of the remaining five, three were hanged and two shot. Mosby's men, possibly out of repugnance for the ordered retaliation, failed to "finish off" the two gunshot prisoners and both men survived, albeit as cripples, thus bringing to but three the number actually executed.
 
(16)-Pvt. Thomas E. Anderson is buried nearby On 5 January 1997, the mortal remains of William Thomas Overby; having been exhumed from his grave in Markham, Virginia, were interred with full military honors at Oak Hill Cemetery in Newnan, Georgia.

Stowe reconsidered?
 
From: torpenhow@charter.net
 
The following is from my Dixie Diary column in the April 04 Nationalist Times newspaper about Uncle Tom's Cabin and its authoress:
 
<<<PHOTO CAPTION: Harriet Beecher Stowe -- racist 9/11-linked anti-Semite Neo-Nazi of the month? (See Feb. 20)
 
[Mr. Gale] Jarvis's “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” column............
 
http://www.lewrockwell.com/jarvis/jarvis54.html
 
liberates yet another subject on which the “common knowledge” is dead wrong -- Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel, and her respectable agenda in writing it. In a postscript to the book, she praised Southerners’ “purity of character” and declared of the institution of slavery, “Do you say that the people of the free states have nothing to do with it? The people of the free states have defended, encouraged, and participated; and are more guilty for it, before God, than the South. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily owned, and sold again, by merchants in Northern cities; and shall the whole guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on the South? Northern men, Northern mothers, Northern Christians, have something more to do than denounce their brethren at the South; they have to look to the evil among themselves”!>>>
 
I haven't read the book myself -- it would be interesting if anyone who has can comment on the book's real thrust. Maybe it's the exact opposite of what's publicly believed? Stranger things have happened.... you know, like the world thinking Lincoln was anti-slavery and anti-racist all those years when he was actually a white supremacist bent on stampeding the entire population onto the federal plantation?
 
Comments, please!
 
Thank you! /\/.\/\/.

From: HK Edgerton [mailto:hk@csaweb.org]
Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008

I was asked to pose holding a Vanity flag that bore the picture of President-elect Obama and emblazoned beside it was the Confederate Battle flag.  My first inclination was to say no because it might offend many people within the black community.  However the more I thought about the message of hope that this man contends to aspire to, and the rhetoric he espouses about Lincoln, the more I looked at that flag and wondered if that message of hope included those of us in the South who look for a President who has the guts to give our people the hope that we wish for in the telling of truth about the epic that led to the separation of this nation, about the hope that our people can honor our ancestors and their symbols without bearing an unwarranted shame placed upon us by revisionist historians, hope that he would have read the letter that I addressed to him to allow a Confederate Honor Guard at his Inauguration and an Ambassador to the South who would lead an effort to end the sectional hostilities that continue as our Northern brothers continue the modus operandi aimed at breaking the spirit of their Brothers with their attacks upon our Flag and our noble ancestors who fought under it , hope that since he so claims to admire Lincoln, that he would provide the South with the Marshall Plan that Lincoln promised that never transpired.
 
I have seen many, many vanity flags, yet I wonder just why so many would read into this one the things that they have.  I am not pleased with the one sold on the Eastern Band Cherokee Reservation that bears the image of the Cherokee Indian on it because I don’t believe they have stepped forward like their ancestors did in the defense of our Southland, and I certainly am not happy with the Eastern band who have turned their backs on the Blacks they enslaved, married, sired and have now banned their ancestors from participating in their gaming revenues.  I don’t find them worthy of the honor of a vanity flag that bears the Southern Cross.
 
I didn’t create the flag, nor did I intend or perceive any disrespect in its interpreted meaning.  However, I do appreciate the opportunity of dialogue that it has generated.  I have no intentions of letting the new President or the old one who now prepares to leave office to forget the injustices that the people of my homeland, the Southland of America, continue to suffer as they are not granted the same opportunity to express their 1st Amendment Rights as other citizens of this nation as they are forced to remember their ancestors in shame and the honorable symbols they carried in the defense of their homeland that had been invaded.  Nor do I intend to stand idle as the same kind of bigots who lumped the loyal Blacks in with those who would taint that honor earned as done in the period of so called Reconstruction.  Hollywood won’t tell the story, nor will the Federal public school system about the place of honor, dignity, and heroism displayed by so many.  And I have come too far to let those who continue to feel and practice the symptoms of hatred toward me and my black family rule the day.
 
I would caution any censorship of vanity flags, shirts or material that are not vulgar.  However, if the picture of me standing holding the one that has inspired so much negative dialogue warrants a disciplinary action from the Sons of Confederate Veterans and it’s Commander in Chief of whom I love and respect, then I am man enough to accept it.

RE: Harriet Beecher Stowe
 
From: davyandjim@sprintmail.com
 
The point, I think, is that Uncle Tom's Cabin was written in 1852, and, before then, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) never lived in the South.  While living in Cincinnati, Ohio (1832-1850), she did visit a Kentucky plantation.  "Using stereotypical descriptions, she described exactly what slaves, slavery and Southerners were about. However, she knew little if anything about these subjects from first-hand experience, but rather from abolitionist movements, combined with her own imagination."   http://www.aboutfamouspeople.com/article1013.html
 
"Many readers criticized Harriet because she had never visited the South. However, she had heard, from people she knew personally, first hand stories of conditions among the enslaved people.  Uncle Tom's Cabin 'humanized slavery' by telling the story of individuals and families. Harriet portrayed the physical, sexual, and emotional 'abuse' endured by enslaved people."    http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/life/
 
"Slave owners' treatment of slaves varied. People like Simon Legree were unusual. But most slaves did fear being sold to a master like Simon Legree."  http://www.bukisa.com/articles/8187_uncle-toms-cabin-by-harriet-beecher-stowe
 
"Many of the characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin mirrored real-life individuals such as Josiah Henson, a fugitive slave who escaped from Kentucky to Canada via the Underground Railroad with his wife and two children." http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/underground/oh1.htm    This brings out an interesting point, i.e., that Josiah Henson escaped "to Canada."  "Only a small minority of people in the North worked on -- and even supported -- the Underground Railroad. In fact, many did not welcome fugitives into their states. In 1804, Ohio passed a law prohibiting runaway slaves from entering the state."   http://teacher.scholastic.com/ACTIVITIES/bhistory/underground_railroad/myths.htm
 
Jim Denison

SCVers getting Ruthless
 
From: torpenhow@charter.net
 
RE: Johnny Rebs blame/thank Dan Ruth for the giant Confederate flag
Creative Loafing Tampa, FL

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/politicalwhore/2008/12/29/johnny-rebs-blamethank-dan-ruth-for-the-giant-confederate-flag/
 
I sincerely hope every reader recognizes efforts like this as historic -- and the FL SCV's MO impeccable. The flag, the sign, the park amount to prime dialectics and deluxe First Amendment maintenance. A normal reaction to this kind of news is to feel like a 6-year-old kid on Christmas morning -- that life is miraculously good!
 
That's how it makes me feel -- seeing people meet dialectic challenges with such CREATIVITY and APLOMB amidst such CLASS AND DIGNITY is like a Christmas stocking full of great gewgaws. (You who were brought up right without the Santa Claus lie, you just can't imagine it!) The system attempts to tear off another chunk of our heritage (as with the removal of key emblems by various state governments)........ but the people's response is to raise bigger, far more prominent and permanent C-flags where they'll virtually define those states all over again!
 
Really, the politicians should have read the story of the Tar Baby little closer instead of throwing Uncle Remus out with Song of the South and Carry me Back to Old Virginny. But of course they would never have gotten the message in a million years -- it's literally against their religion. The icing of the cake is that liberals always unwittingly make their own tar babies out of other people's stuff!
 
This flag project and the classically Southern spirit it evidences are not mere politics or culture war. They're deeply meaningful and spiritual. It's polite and reasonable but smashing defiance to all who would disenfranchise and deracinate us. My only hope is that it means as much to our own ranks as to our enemies..... and to them, of course, it's like their main cultural offensive of the last ten years going up in smoke. They'll fight on with their usual rigor mortis, but they know they're only trying to impress themselves and each other anymore.

Thank you for the fine article
 
From: regenstein@mindspring.com
To: CMcWhirter@ajc.com
 
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/stories/2008/12/28/cleburne.html
 
Dear Mr. McWhirter:
 
Thank you for the excellent article on Gen. Cleburne.
 
It is rare these days to see an article about the Confederacy that does not paint its soldiers as racists & traitors, instead of the brave men they were, fighting against hopeless odds to defend their comrades, their families, their cities, and themselves from invaders from the North intent on killing them and destroying everything in the path of the Union Army.
 
Thanks so much for the great article. Please keep up the good work.
 
Sincerely yours,
 
Lewis Regenstein
Descendant of over two dozen Confederate soldiers (The Moses family of GA & SC)

Who is "Tim Wise"
 
From: wildbill4dixie@yahoo.com
 
Who or What is a Tim Wise?
 
I knew the name sounded familiar when I saw it in the last SHNV newsletter.
 
http://www.amazon.com/review/R7DVBA11IA493/ref=cm_cd_pg_next?%5Fencoding=UTF8&cdPage=2
 
For those not in the know, "Tim Wise" is the author of several books, one of which seems to take a title of an old 50s movie, "Black Like Me", and turn it around so that it now reads, "White Like Me". I could say that Wise is a discredit to his race. (He's Jewish), but it goes far beyond that. He's a discredit to the human race. His book holds that being white gives one an unfair advantage and that those of us who are white should feel werry werry bad about it. As I said in my review of that book, his thesis is pure "poison".
 
It's hard for me to envision how an honest, non-white person with a 3 digit IQ could have any regard for this bozo at all. How can you trust someone who indulges in such self-hatred? The way I see it, when you try to "Love your neighbor as YOURSELF", you can't do a very good job of loving that neighbor if you don't have any self respect and if you regularly indulge in orgies of self-loathing. Either Mr. Wise thinks he's not really "white", or, he has become completely consumed with self-deprecation. In either case, he's decided to bottle it and try to sell it to the rest of us. Unfortunately, judging from a large number of the reviews I see on Amazon.com, some idiots are buying it.
 
Bill Vallante
Commack NY

Rebels without a clue?
 
From: johan.f.temmerman@telenet.be
To: timjwise@msn.com
 
Sir,
 
I have read your article on http://www.counterpunch.org  attacking the Confederacy and its heritage attentively. It is an impressive 3,000-word walk on the well-trodden path that leads to the conclusion that the 'Civil War' in 1860s America (a misnomer since the conflict was not a struggle by factions for control of the same government) was fought solely for the preservation and perpetuation of slavery. Nothing could be further from the truth. The political issue, against the backdrop of the underlying socio-cultural and economic division of the country in two parts, the industrializing North and the cotton and rice plantation-economy South, was the expansion of slavery westward and its implications for the balance of power in Congress. The economic issue was the threat posed by the Confederacy's probable declaration of a free-trade zone, which would have wreaked havoc on the Federal revenue. Financially, taxes were mainly paid by the Cotton South but predominantly spent on 'internal improvements' in the North. Socially, abolitionism, radical and vocal far beyond the numbers of those advancing it, was neither in the mainstream of public opinion nor a particularly popular opinion in the North, despite being perceived as such in the South. The existence of slavery - in the North as well as in the South, I might add -  was not an issue at the outset of war, nor a cause of it. Its expansion westward and the implications for the balance of power between the two halves of the Union was. The immediate cause - the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back - was the election, by the North only, of the Radical Republican party's candidate, Mr. Lincoln. That is plain in the historical record, which anyone who can read English can consult. 
 
However, let us respect your article's focus on slavery and tackle that issue. I am more than willing to conduct the little experiment you mention at the start of your article. You've picked a white person, let me confess that from the start. You and most of your fellow educators have made sure that everyone 'knows' that persons of pallor - and only persons of pallor - can possibly be racist in thought, conviction or attitude, so this validates me as a fit subject for your experiment. Your stopwatch will keep on ticking, however, for this here whitie is no apologist for racial oppression, and I would never even consider denying that 19th century slavery, even in the relatively mild form in which it was practiced in the American South - read The Slave Narratives, a U.S. Government document - was a terrible wrong to inflict on black people, as indeed on any people. I am, however, an admirer of the Confederacy.
 
May I prevail on you to climb down from the curtains upon learning this, and invite you to a civilized discussion of the issue of the Confederate flag and its perceived relationship to racism and its perceived effect on black people today, whom you victimize so easily and naturally. 
 
With the suavity and smugness so typical of progressive educators - and I trust I am not wrong in calling you progressive, just as you would not be wrong in calling me a conservative - you lay the terrible, 19th century wrong of slavery on the conscience not only of those who fought for the Confederacy in time past, but also on those who today dare to defy the prevailing climate of political correctness by honoring their ancestors who fought its battles, and now offend your delicate racial sensibilities by displaying a historical flag which you say 'stands for racism'. Does it, though?
 
It may be subtle enough to escape those who benefit from being educated by you, but it's pretty glaring to me that your article lies by omission - and I'm not even an American, although I am guilty of studying American history in the days before the force-feeding of opinion took the place of transmitting facts. You studiously avoid mentioning that slavery in 1860 was prevalent in both North and South, that the slave trade was exclusively in the hands of Northerners, that race relations before, during and after the war were much worse in the North than in the South (as, by the way, they still are). You do not note that mid-19th century abolitionism had an extremely limited appeal; Harriet Beecher Stowe's unfortunate husband publicly disavowed his wife's fictional propaganda work (she never set foot in the South in her entire life). You omit the race riots in New York during the war, for instance. You remain silent on the fact that the Underground Railroad ran all the way to Canada because nearly all Union states restricted or forbade residence by blacks, on pain of whipping and deportation.
 
Above all, you anxiously avoid mentioning that the Great Emancipator himself was, by modern standards, not by those of his own time, a racial supremacist: he repeatedly expressed himself in favor of racial separation, of deporting blacks to Africa at the federal government's expense, and of winning the war to preserve the Union, if need be without liberating even a single slave. Lincoln's Emancipation Declaration was, at best, a crafty attempt at both pre-empting European recognition of the Confederacy and creating social havoc behind Confederate lines. At worst, it was an early attempt at provoking ethnic cleansing. It did succeed in its foreign policy purpose, but backfired totally in its military objective: no slave uprising ever occurred in the South. European leaders and intellectuals, Charles Dickens foremost among them, recognised the document, which at the time it was issued did not liberate a single slave, for what it was: a clever, cynical ruse, and denounced it as such.
 
Why do you so carefully avoid mentioning that slavery was an accepted part of the American order and culture of that period, in both North and South? That the war had other, at least as significant causes? Yes, the Confederacy had a white supremacist culture in the mid-19th century. So did the Union and the European powers at the time, for all their high-minded abolition of slavery. England and France could afford to do so without repercussions at home; the effects were limited to their despised colonials. Your selective use of the historical record is appalling, though hardly an isolated case.
 
You also make a fatal error in linking Confederate emblems to white supremacism prevalent almost one and a half centuries ago. Ancient Rome practiced a hard version of slavery, and sex with young boys was very common among the aristocracy, yet merely considered a rather amusing little vice at the time. Today we judge those practices very differently, and for very good reasons. My point is, do you refer to the 'Ancient Roman Racist and Pedophile Empire?' You don't, because cultural and moral patterns have shifted much since ancient Rome, as have politics and economics, and it would be a mistake to judge Rome by the standards prevailing 15 to 20 centuries later. There is no need to condemn the Romans' cultural attitudes in 20th and 21st century terms, only a need to understand their failures and achievements in terms of their own period. Yet you judge the Confederacy in your own, late 20th, early 21st century terms of racial equality, now a widely accepted precept.
 
Surely you are aware of the dangers of looking at the past through the prism of our own time, our own convictions, our own cultural bias? I will not insult you by insinuating otherwise. Yet you ignore this. It follows that you are doing so deliberately. Regrettably, this is typical of the education establishment in America, which prefers to advance the progressive agenda over offering a meaningful education. Hence the third-world quality of many of its public schools, and the spectacle even its top universities make of themselves by their self-imposed role as incubators of leftist ideology, inviting tyrants to address the public from their forums, banishing the military behind whose protection they crouch from their campuses and suppressing any opinion that deviates from the increasingly hard left.
 
Let us return for a brief moment to the issue of slavery and its effects on America's black population. Let's be honest here. In reality, how much remains of the racism that once was? In my visits to America's Southland, from Florida to Arizona, I have never witnessed a single expression of it, in word or deed. What I have encountered, more than once, is extreme reluctance to discuss anything that could even remotely be construed as containing even the minutest degree of criticism of any minority or minority sensitivity whatsoever. When it comes to minorities, Americans walk a minefield. So much for your vaunted free speech. I might add that it's just as bad in Europe, when it come to Muslims or Islam.
 
Racism in America and indeed in the West, whether you admit it or not, is all but extinct. Now that America has elected a black President, from the ranks of a minority that is barely 13% of its population, the argument that racism continues to limit, oppress and disadvantage black people strikes me as utterly ridiculous. Apparently catching sight of a Confederate emblem on someone's purse hasn't flung Barack Obama into paroxysms of racial offense, nor has it held him back much.
 
But, truth be told, are whites the only people who love to live in the past, as you write? Any interested observer of America is perfectly able to see that race baiters do continue to flourish, as does the racial inequality industry, struggling as it does to continue to justify its existence in an increasingly un-racist America. The race baiters are fed by the media, academia and certain special-interest groups that fan the flames of perceived racism for their own ends. As a progressive educator, I count you among them.
 
Why this need to provide blacks with the alibi of racism to cover up group underachievement? There is no denying that American blacks, as a group, are less advanced by most standards, in statistical terms, than other ethnic groups. Who is to blame? The Confederate flag? No, sir - you are.
 
Public education in America is a shame, thanks to a leftist education establishment. The progressive agenda has done incalculable damage. Consider the root of the problem, black families, or rather the lack of them. Black families survived slavery, as best they could - and they did to a surprising extent, proof positive of their moral, intellectual and physical strength and stamina. Black families survived the Jim Crow laws in the postbellum South and enduring racial discrimination up to and including the Civil Rights period a century after the War Between The States. But black families did not survive the liberal agenda of economic dependency, cultural experimentation, laxity on crime, and the soft bigotry of positive discrimination, the 'need' to reserve for blacks and other minorities places in education, in government, in economic life, to the detriment of others and in violation of the merit principle. The results are plain to see.
 
And you call the Texas declaration of secession ‘putrid’! 
 
Well, sir, I call the liberal agenda putrid, and I can prove it. If I were a black American, I'd ask myself why no whites engage in White Studies, and why Asian-Americans don't have a rap culture that glorifies violence, rape, fornication and rioting. Why I would need a specially reserved slot anywhere. Why my intellectual or professional merit is held to be inferior to another's. Black people can, and will, lift themselves higher as a group, as soon as they break free from the liberal agenda, from your attempt to provide them with an alibi for underachievement by blaming Confederate emblems on a purse, a car sticker, a T-shirt or a flagpole.
 
Respectfully yours,

Johan Temmerman
Oudenaarde, Belgium

Revisionist History
 
From: acivilwarjunkie@yahoo.com
To: cscitizen@alltel.net

The winner of a war has always had the ability to change history to suit his purposes. 1984 is today and Winston Smith is alive and well in Washington D.C.

When you discuss how the Celtic peoples were humiliated by the bloody English,  I recall how Scots and Irish were subjugated and mistreated.
 
Truly, the South has suffered and is continually humiliated.  Southron people are portrayed as yokels and complete idiots.  TWBS is officially listed in the Library of Congress Archives as "the War of the Rebellion", although, as we know, TWBS was a war for Southern Independence.
 
I am of German Heritage and you'll recall that the treatment of Germany after WWI was overly harsh and its treasury depleted and economy ruined.  All this evil led to the Germans election of Adolph Hitler and finding out too late what he really was as their cities lie in ruin and thousands of Germans were killed when he ordered the subways flooded.  After WWII the nation was divided and occupied for about 60 years.
 
I wonder if the treatment of conquered peoples, even conquered Americans, is why God is no longer prospering the nation.
 
In the 1860's northern hypocrisy was supreme.  Northern workers were paid in scrip that could only be spent at the company store where grossly inflated prices kept them in bondage to the company until death.
 
Likewise those who signed indenture agreements for passage to America were gulled into a situation where they were in bondage. These practices created "wage slaves" and “indentured servants".
 
Yet New England, who still rules America, persecuted the South claiming slavery as the issue when the true issues were economics and power.
 
As a Confederate from Missouri, when Democrats and Republicans say they are making a better America with true equality I say "show me".  So far they have shown me nothing but hypocrisy.
 
Ron

Friday, January 2, 2009
Coming Soon: The Disunited States?

We've noted Dr. Igor Panarin's views previously, and agree with some, and disagree with others. But now, other pundits are taking notice of Panarin's conclusions that the United States is dissolving before our eyes, as Doug Bandow of the American Conservative Defense Alliance reports:

The Wall Street Journal summarized his views: "Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the US will break into six pieces – with Alaska reverting to Russian control."

How silly! When have mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation EVER led to the collapse of a government?

Well, ok, if you want to be nit-picky, they've caused ALL the oversized, multicult empires in world history to fall. But maybe the DC empire is immune to historical forces. Yeah.

Bandow sees many benefits from Panarin's predictions:

Thus, today disunion might prove to be a blessing. If the Midwest wants socialism, with government control of manufacturing, then it should be separate from the South, which holds to a stronger if not exactly pure ethos of self-reliance. If California wants to be in the forefront of cultural relativism and experimentation, then it also should be separate from the South, which retains much of its heritage as home of the Bible Belt. The western mountain states prefer more of a rough libertarianism in economic and cultural affairs. New England and the mid-Atlantic states have their own cultural peculiarities and economic assumptions. If we can't just leave each other alone, then maybe we should live separately.

And there are many other benefits to the return to human-scaled political systems. With its stranglehold on power and money, DC is forcing an artificial uniformity on over 300 million souls. Think of all the local expertise that's shackled by DC's one-size-fits-all mentality on the most vital issues, from education, to health care reform, to protecting jobs.

More important, the bomb-it and rebuild-it scam that fuels DC's command-and-control system, though lucrative for power brokers and politically connected industries, is a grossly wasteful and inherently bloody and immoral racket. The military-industrial complex is clearly the single biggest source of chaos the world has ever seen, and it can only survive by feeding off a vast population forced to live under one artificially overgrown political system. Think what that trillion dollars that's already dropped down the Middle East sinkhole in Bush's wars could have done for the people of this country.

Big government is inherently aggressive and autocratic. If we are to reclaim our political liberties, we must scale back DC's unnatural and unaccountable power. Local self-determination is the only answer.

On The Web:   http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/2009/01/coming-soon-disunited-states.html

Another View of the NAACP -- Part One

by Al Benson Jr.

As the United decrepit States of America slouch into the year 2009 we can be assured that with a new president, Barack Obama (according to author Alan Stang "aka Barry Sotero, aka Barry Obama, aka Barack Dunham)," etc. on and on ad nauseam, that the NAACP will� continue on in its usual path, calling for the destruction of anything remotely Southern or Confederate. With all the problems existing in the black community, all these people seem to be able to focus on is attacking Confederate symbols, flags, and statues, as if that would, somehow, magically alleviate all their problems. (Subtle hint here, folks--it won't).

But is the NAACP really any different now that it has always been?� This organization really has a checkered history which can be discovered for those willing to take the trouble to look.

The NAACP seemed to suddenly "emerge" back in 1909 as an organization supposedly promoting equality of rights among the races. Interestingly, the formation of this group was urged by the leading leftist radicals of that day, among whom were Jane Addams, public school "educator" and humanist John Dewey, Lincoln Steffens and Rabbi Stephen Wise.

The first president of the NAACP was, oddly enough, a white man, Moorfield Storey, a white lawyer from Boston. This trend continued. For around the first sixty years of its existence, the presidents of this supposed black organization were all white. In 1969, a white man named Kivie Kaplan was still the NAACP president, according to the Biographical Dictionary of the Left, which was published in 1969. Obviously, since then, some things have changed. It is interesting to note, though, how long the NAACP had white presidents, almost as if the leftist radicals somehow didn't trust the blacks to take the organization in the proper direction (to the left).

W. E. B. DuBois, who later joined the Communist Party, was the organization's first director of publicity and research, as well as the editor of the group's monthly publication The Osiris. This publication gave DuBois a convenient outlet from which to pour forth a continual screed of racial invectives against whites. DuBois was well noted for his leftism. He "hailed the Russian Revolution of 1917" and he made pilgrimages to the Soviet Union in 1926 and 1936. He especially liked "the racial attitudes of the Communists." That may be why he eventually became one.

In 1922 the NAACP started to receive grants from the Garland Fund, a big source for the funding of Communist Party projects. Officials of the Garland Fund included Communists William Z. Foster, Benjamim Gitlow, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Scott Nearing. Other rather prominent left-wing officials were Roger Baldwin, Sidney Hillman, and Harry F. Ward, who was the "Red Dean of religion in America."� The Garland Fund goodies continued to pour into NAACP coffers up until 1934. But even when the money stopped, the Communist connections continued. The Biographical Dictionary of the Left noted that "In 1938, the NAACP was represented at the World Youth Congress, a Communist enterprise. And, in the 1940s, the NAACP was affiliated with American Youth for a Free World, the American affiliate of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, a Communist clearing house."

A most literate apologist for the NAACP was the well-known Langston Hughes. Hughes was affiliated with Communist Party projects from the mid-1920s until he passed away in 1967. In fact, in 1962, Hughes wrote a book Fight for Freedom: The story of the NAACP. In this book he attempted to downplay the influence of Communists in the NAACP.

The Biographical Dictionary noted again: "From its inception to the present (1969) no matter the protestations of Langston Hughes or any other NAACP apologist, the organization's officials and its known members, collectively and individually, have represented the influential left, the leadership of Communist fronts and left wing political and pacifist groups, and the most effective of the anti-anti-Communist establishment."� With that kind of left wing tilt, do you wonder why they savage Confederate symbols every chance they get?

To be continued.

Copyright � 2006-2009 Al Benson, Jr.

On The Web:   http://www.albensonjr.com/naacp1.shtml

Friday, January 2, 2009
NAACP confronts the myth of the Emancipation Proclamation

Will wonders never cease? After years of writing letters to the editor, articles, books, blog posts, and radio interviews, the Southern Movement has finally smashed one of the core myths of the DC empire, that Lincoln freed the slaves -- and look who's finally facing the historical truth:

    What the 100 people who gathered for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's annual Emancipation Proclamation program Thursday got was a wake-up call and a history lesson.

    President Abraham Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation 146 years ago had less to do with freedom and more to do with a need to beef up Union forces during the Civil War, Lonnie Randolph said.

    "The Emancipation Proclamation really didn't do anything," the state NAACP president said from Rock Hill's Agape International Ministries. "We look at this as a day of freedom. It really didn't free anyone."

    "We celebrate for the wrong reason," Randolph said. "It was a military decision. Folks need to be told the true meaning of this event. This was strictly to free black men, those 250,000 who fought. It gave them the right to fight."

What's next? Will the NAACP now realize that La Raza's Open Borders agenda profoundly harms blacks? Will they denounce Al-Sharpton-style race baiting? And maybe even turn away from the entire leftist agenda?

Who knows? Now that this myth has been busted, the sky's the limit ...

On The Web:  http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/2009/01/naacp-copes-with-myth-of-emancipation.html

A Christmas Day Massacre in the Southeast Missouri Ozarks
Friday, December 26, 2008
Clint E. Lacy

One of the most controversial pieces of work that late author and historian Jerry Ponder wrote was his account of the Wilson Massacre in Ripley County, Missouri; which occurred on December 25th 1863. On December 23rd, 1863, members of the 15th Missouri Cavalry, CSA, attacked and captured nearly 100 Union prisoners at Centerville in Reynolds County, Missouri; burning the courthouse down before they left. Ponder wrote that:

"An unusual group assembled at the Pulliam farm in southwestern Ripley County, Missouri for Christmas in 1863. Nearly 150 officers and men of the Missouri State Guard's 15th Cavalry Regiment (Confederate); at least sixty civilians, many of them women and children; and 102 prisoners, officers and men of Company C, Missouri State Militia (Union).

The civilians were family members, friends, and neighbors. Confederate "hosts" and Union "guests" were all Missourians; but they were divided by perhaps the bitterest of all enmities-those of civil war.

The day's activity was to begin with religious services conducted by the Reverend Colonel Timothy Reeves, commanding officer of the 15th Cavalry and a Baptist preacher of Ripley County. Then would follow Christmas dinner in the afternoon. The group at Pulliam' s farm numbered above three hundred at the very least, if the figures on the record are to be believed. It was too many for a mere religious service and holiday dinner. Pulliam's was one of Reeves's regimental camps.

What began as a festive occasion ended in horror and tragedy. As the celebrants sat at dinner, their arms stacked, they were surprised by two companies of the Union Missouri State Militia, more than 200 mounted cavalrymen. Only those guarding the prisoners, about 35 men, were armed. The Militia attacked without warning, shooting into the crowd, attacking with sabers, and killing at least thirty of the Confederate men instantly and mortally wounding several more. According to local tradition, many-perhaps most-of the civilians were killed or wounded as well.

The immediate cause of the Wilson Massacre was a series of events at Centerville, Reynolds County. Centerville Courthouse was some sixty miles north of Doniphan and twenty-five southwest of Pilot Knob. Late in 1863, Centerville was captured by the Union 3rd Cavalry from Pilot Knob. Company C was left as garrison. On December 21, while engaged in building stables on the courthouse grounds, they were surprised and surrounded by Company N of Reeves's 15th Missouri Cavalry, under command of Captain Jesse Pratt, before the war the Baptist minister of Centerville. Company N was composed of farmers and merchants of Reynolds County. Probably Pratt and the Reeves brothers, also Baptist preachers, were long-time acquaintances. That Pratt was accorded the honor of recapturing his hometown was not accidental.

Captured were 102 Union men with their horses. Pratt took them south to Ripley County with a small group, leaving most of his men to garrison Centerville. He presented the prisoners to Reeves at Pulliam's on Christmas morning, and joined his fellows of the regiment for the day's festivities. One Union soldier had been allowed to escape at Centerville, doubtless to carry news of the event back to Pilot Knob. Reaction there was swift. Colonel R.G. Woodson, commander of the 3rd Missouri, ordered two mounted cavalry companies under Major James Wilson to pursue Pratt. They left Pilot Knob mid-morning on the twenty-third.

Wilson's force rode swiftly, rising in the darkness of the twenty-fifth to be on the road at 3:00 AM. They passed through Doniphan that morning, and continued west toward Ponder, capturing pickets as they went, and descended on Colonel Reeve's group and prisoners just as they were eating Christmas dinner" (1)

Mr. Ponder's research on this subject can be found in his book: "History of Ripley County Missouri" , "A History of the 15th Missouri Cavalry Regiment, CSA: 1862-1865″ , in an article published in Ozark Watch magazine (Vol.IV, No.4, Spring 1991) entitled, "Between Missourians: The Civil War in Ripley County", as well as "The Civil War in Ripley County Missouri" (published by the Doniphan-Prospect News in 1992) His research was also convincing enough that author Paulette Jiles used it in her novel "Enemy Women".

It was during this time, that the controversy arose concerning Ponder's research. Most of the criticism appears to have come from Ripley County Historian Ray Burson.

Mr. Burson contacted me several times and tried to convince me not to believe Mr. Ponder. He even sent me a packet of info that he has created to dissuade those who dare use Ponder's research in their writings. Among the papers that Mr. Burson included in his "packet" were pieces (that he put together) entitled: "Jerry Ponder's Sources for the Wilson Massacre and Other Tales" and "Jerry Ponder On Providing His Sources".

Mr. Burson has also seemingly convinced historian and author Kirby Ross that Ponder's account of the Wilson Massacre is fictitious. However, Ponder, shortly before his death in 2005 sent me two documents,

The two papers are:

"The Time of the War" By: Lindzy Dudley written in 1918. Dudley appears to have fought under Colonel Reeves. His name does not appear on the official records, however this is not uncommon. Many men "took to the brush" in order to defend their families from Yankee invasion. It is also my understanding that Confederate "Partisans" were not afforded the same pensions later in life as Union and regular Confederate troops were, therefore no pension records would exist to verify their service. In this piece Lindzy Dudley states (of the Wilson Massacre):

"Reeves was a Baptist preacher. He backed up every sermon with his pistol. Reeves men were mean. No quarter was given or asked. He had commanded a company till the end of 1863.

Colonel Righter was captured with General Thompson and Reeves was put in command of the 15th. In November a field hospital was attacked by colored cavalry and about 100 of Reeves' men were killed. Reeves collected revenge but he never got over the loss of sick and wounded not able to fight back. Just shot in their beds. He talked about that until he died. On Christmas, a month later, several companies were at the Pulliam farm for a service and feed with their families. This was on the old Tom Pulliam place northwest of Johnston's Chapel and close to Oregon County and the Arkansas line. There was a big spring there on the Mill Branch where folks in that part had picnics.  Reeves did a sermon and the group was ready to eat. The well known Major Wilson, the Yankee from Pilot Knob called "The Murderer", surrounded and attacked. The killed and the wounded were all over the field. Soldiers, their families, nearby families. All were killed.  Those that could get across the creek and up the bluff on the south side and into the timber there to hide or keep on running. It was not right to kill the families. Wilson lived up to his name. The loss of sick and wounded at the hospital and the loss of the men and families at Pulliams was pretty hard to take. We were ready to wipe out the blues all the way to St. Louis" (2)

It is interesting that Ray Burson of the Ripley County Historical Society, would question Dudley's credibility in his account of the Wilson Massacre, yet in the book "History and Families of Ripley County Missouri" the historical society (who along with the publisher holds the copyright to the book) finds Dudley credible enough to relate who the first European settler of Ripley County was:

"In an interview with historian HUME in 1900, Lindzy DUDLEY reported that the first European resident was a "Wees RILEY" who arrived in 1802 with a Delaware Indian wife who soon died in childbirth" (3)

The other document was entitled: "Doniphan- No Man's Land During the Civil War" By: T. L. Wright Jr. and was written in March ,1929. The paper appears to be one written for a High school assignment by T. L. Wright Jr.. On the copy that Mr. Ponder sent me "DONIPHAN PUBLIC LIBRARY" is stamped on the upper left hand corner of the page.

I was able to talk to Jerry Ponder over the phone, while he was in Texas (a few months before he died) and he told me that he found the documents after they had been discarded. During the time that he found the documents (1990-1991) the Doniphan Public Library and the Ripley County library were being consolidated.

In addition I contacted the Ripley County Library's Doniphan Missouri location on Friday July 29, 2006 and talked to two separate librarians, Mr. Allen Rife and Mrs. Rebecca Wilcox. Both told me it was possible that the documents could have been discarded during the consolidation. During a second phone interview conducted on August 7th, 2006 I talked to a third librarian Mrs. Patricia Robison, who told me that though she did not work at the library at the time of the consolidation, she is a life long resident of Ripley County it was "entirely possible" that documents were discarded during the consolidation of the two libraries in the early 1990's.

As a side note, I was also able to check out a book from the Doniphan-Ripley County Library entitled "Doniphan and Ripley County History". There is no copyright date, but the earliest entries appear to be from the early 1900's and the last entry appears to be in the early 1970's and upon examination of the library stamp on this book, and the document that Jerry Ponder sent me, they are the same and one can clearly ascertain that the library stamp on the document Jerry Ponder sent me is valid.

T. L. Wright Jr.'s 1929 paper also gives long time residents accounts of the Wilson Massacre.  Given the fact that this paper was written in 1929, it is possible that the accounts could have been eyewitness accounts. Certainly they could be accounts written by citizens who were living during the time of the "Wilson Massacre".

"On Christmas Day, 1863, Major James Wilson, later captured and executed by firing squad at Pilot Knob, and 200 Union troops from Fort Davidson at Pilot Knob, passed through Doniphan, traveling on a southeast course to Pulliam's Farm, 17 miles from Doniphan where Colonel Reeves and his cavalry were encamped. A vicious, surprise attack ensued and 35 rebels were killed and 112 taken prisoner when the fighting had ended. But worse, families and neighbors were present and, in the heat of battle, Wilson's soldiers killed over 50 civilians. Mrs. Betty Towell, Tom Pulliam and Ed Cline, long-time residents of the neighborhood, tell that the civilians killed, in camp for a Christmas visit, included women and children who were shot down the same as the rebel soldiers of Reeves' Regiment. That action attests to the cruelty of the war." (4)

According to historian Kirby Ross, T.L. Wright Jr. was born in 1912. That would have made T.L. Wright Jr. 17 years of age at the time he wrote this document (which appears to be a high school paper). One of the criticisms that Mr. Ross has made in his attempt to discredit Jerry Ponder was posted on an online forum on August 14th, 2005. In it Mr. Ross states (in reference to the document written by T.L.Wright Jr. in 1929) that:

"...do you realize that this version of the T.L. Wright article has a four year old boy conducting complex historical interviews?" (5)

Ross continues by stating:

"Now as to Mr. Ponder's fantabulous precocious four year old interviewer/historian, T. L. Wright, I refer you to Mr. Lacy's posting that says:

"A major set-back was experienced by the Confederate Army on August 24, 1863, when General Jeff Thompson, Colonel William Righter and most of their staffs were captured at the hotel in Pocahontas while holding a planning meeting. General Thompson was taken to a military prison in Ohio and held there for over a year before he was released. Colonel Righter was taken to St. Louis by a circuitous route around Ripley County. He agreed to sign an alliance to the Union and put up $1,000.00 bond as assurance that he would not fight again. The Colonel told me."

That last sentence bears repeating: "The Colonel told me."

Ponder is offering this to show that T.L. Wright personally interviewed Col. William H. Righter. This passage is so ridiculously bad that it is laugh out loud funny and begs to be repeated, for you see, T.L. Wright was born Feb. 15, 1912 and William Harmon Righter passed away on November 26, 1916." (6)

This criticism by Ross bears examination. First of all, as stated before, T.L. Wright Jr. was 17 years of age when he wrote his 1st version of "Doniphan: No Man's Land in the Civil War" in 1929 and the words "The Colonel told me" seems to be more of a recollection of a story that William Harmon Righter told him when he was a young boy. Nowhere has Jerry Ponder ever wrote that T.L.Wright Jr. was conducting "complex interviews" at 4 years of age. It is also important to note that T. L. Wright Jr.'s 1929 version of "Doniphan: No Man's Land During the Civil War", matches Lindzy Dudley's 1918 version of what occurred at Pulliam's Farm on December 25, 1863.

On the same online forum posted by Kirby Ross on Wednesday August 31st, 2005, Ross states:

"And with this published account of the document in question, if Jerry Ponder's version of "the Wilson Massacre" is to be accepted, one must also accept that Wright participated in part of the massive cover-up of the massacre that Jo Shelby and Jeff Thompson would have also been a part of." (7)

There is no way that Confederate General M. Jeff Thompson of the Missouri State guard could be involved in the Wilson Massacre or have known about it because he was captured on August 22, 1863. The Wilson Massacre occurred on December 25, 1863. General M. Jeff Thompson was in a Yankee prison in the North at the time that the "Wilson Massacre" occurred. (7)

It is possible that after General Thompson's release in 1864, that he had no doubt heard about the atrocities being committed in Ripley County and the surrounding areas, after he made his way back to Missouri just in time to participate in General Price's 1864 Missouri Expedition.

On the same August 31'st, 2005 online forum post Kirby Ross offers another version of T.L. Wright Jr.'s "Doniphan: No Man's Land in the Civil War" which he claims is the "real" T.L. Wright Jr. document and was published in Doniphan Prospect-News Doniphan, Missouri Thursday, April 2, 1970. Ross states:

"By the way, note that Wright doesn't refer to William H. Righter as being one of his sources in this article, or of having interviewed him when he was four years old." (8)

This is true, T.L. Wright Jr. does not make mention of Colonel William H. Righter as one of his sources in the 1970 Prospect-News newspaper article. However one must remember that there is a 51 year difference between the article written in 1970 , and the one written in 1929.Mr. Ross claims that the 1970 Doniphan Prospect News article is the "real" T.L. Wright Jr. article. Yet there is a third version of the T.L. Wright Jr. article that appeared in the Ripley County Library book, "Doniphan and Ripley County in the Civil War", there is no date on this piece, but it appears to be written around the same time period as the 1970 article. Like the 1970 article there is no mention of civilians killed or Colonel Righter. But there are areas in which the T.L. Wright Jr. article found in the book "Doniphan and Ripley County in the Civil War" differ from the version published in the Doniphan - Prospect news in 1970. Is it not legitimate as well?

It appears that in later years T.L. Wright Jr. decided to cite more official sources for his revised work, "Doniphan: No Man's Land in the Civil War" and his version of the Wilson Massacre seems to follow other versions in the "Doniphan and Ripley County in the Civil War" book found in the Ripley County Library. This does not make his original version any less valid. Remember the 1929 version quoted long time residents of Ripley County who lived in the area.

No one knows why T.L. Wright Jr chose not to include these sources in the two other versions of his paper in later years.

Mr. Burson's criticism seems to be centered around Colonel William H. Righter himself and whether or not he was a real Colonel. In a personal letter sent to me by Ray Burson entitled: "Jerry Ponder's Sources for the Wilson Massacre and other Tales" Burson writes:

"The tale: That William Harmon Righter was the founder and Colonel of the 15th Missouri Cavalry, CSA , captured at Pocahontas , AR with Gen. Jeff Thompson and then sat out the rest of the war in St. Louis. Righter is a prominent figure in Ponder's books on the 15th Missouri Cavalry, The Battle of Chalk Bluff and Maj. Gen. John S. Marmaduke.

Historians have not found any record of Righter's service in the CSA and there is not mention of it in his biographic sketches and three obituaries. He is not mentioned in the OR with the Capture of Thompson or elsewhere. He was merely a Southern sympathizer. Ponder got the VA {Veterans Administration} to provide a headstone which he had placed in the Doniphan City cemetery for Righter without providing Righter's service record" (9)

A "Post It" note was attached to the letter which reads:

"Mr. Lacy , Here's the real scope of Ponder's mischief. See IV- what does creating fake colonels add to the story of Southern valor during the Civil War? Regards, Ray Burson"

The fact that Burson has stated that no service record of Righter in the CSA has been found doesn't mean that Righter did not serve in some capacity. As stated at the beginning of this article, this was not uncommon, many men "took to the brush" and fought as informal companies of partisans. It is extremely doubtful that the Veterans Administration would have provide a headstone for Colonel Righter, free of charge, without some kind of documentation that Righter served in some capacity during the war.

In Jean Ponder's story "Doniphan During the Civil War", she states that:

"There is an amusing anecdote told about a group of southern sympathizers who lived in Doniphan. Living in the town at that time was a man by the name of W.H. Ryder, who claimed he was from Virginia. - 'A gentleman from Virginia - drunk or sober.' One day all of these southern sympathizers were gathered in the town. Suddenly, without any warning, a division of the Union Army marched into town. Caught unprepared, the Southerns had to 'take to the bushes' for their lives. As Ryder was the fastest runner of them all and got to safety first, the rest of them immediately made him their colonel." (10)

If these men were ordinary citizens, then why were they afraid, why did they run?  If they were nothing more than ordinary citizens, then why were they gathered in town? What was the intention of the gathering?

The fact that obituaries about Righter did not mention any military service is not proof positive that he did not fight. After all Colonel Timothy Reeves, after the war, was reluctant to discuss his war time experiences, stating that "he wished to be remembered as a good preacher, not a civil war hero", obituaries about him made no mention of his military experience. (11)

Jerry Ponder said in his research that Righter's commission came from Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson. Ponder's critics state that Thompson made no record of this. Is it possible that this could have happened? It is entirely possible. In his book "This is the War Experiences of Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson", Thompson himself writes that:

"About the 1st of July 1861, Cyrus Black and Miles Ponder of Ripley County, Missouri came down to Pocohontas {Arkansas} to inform me that the citizens of Ripley and Carter counties were meeting at Martins-burg to organize a Battalion and desired me to come up and take command" (12)

Thompson further states that he was elected to command the battalion and that Aden Lowe was not a candidate because of the strict discipline that he enforced before Thompson's arrival. One of Jeff Thompson's first acts as commander of the Ripley County Battalion, was to, start enlisting men as Partisan rangers. Thompson writes:

"I saw at this time the necessity of mounted troops even for my small command, and I authorized James F. White to raise as many men to act as Partizans and Flankers , as he could find with good horses: (13)

Sam Hildebrand, who later became known as a Missouri Bushwhacker, is another partisan that was given a commission by General M. Jeff Thompson. In his autobiography Hildebrand wrote:

"As soon as I could gain admission to the General's headquarters I did so, and he received me very kindly.  He listened very attentively to me as I proceeded to state my case to him - how my brother had been murdered, how I had barely escaped the same fate, and how I had finally been driven from the country.

General THOMPSON reflected a few moments, then seizing a pen he rapidly wrote off a few lines and handing it to me he said, "here, I give you a Major's commission; go where you please, take what men you can pick up, fight on your own hook, and report to me every six months." (14)

Even though Hildebrand received a Major's commission from Thompson, the act is not mentioned in "This is the War Experiences of Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson". Nor is it mentioned in "General M. Jeff Thompson's Letter Book July 1861-June1862″, written by Jim McGhee, therefore the fact that there is no record of Righter's commission, doesn't mean that he was not given one by Thompson.

Yet there is another possibility in this story. If there was a record of Colonel Righter's or Sam Hildebrand's commissions given by M. Jeff Thompson, the records might have very well been destroyed at the time of M. Jeff Thompson's capture in Pocahontas, Arkansas, on August 22, 1863. In the book, "This is the War Experiences of Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson", Thompson writes:

"Kay spread out my maps to examine them and by -the -way I had the best set of maps that I saw during the war, for I had all kinds of military information on them, and the name and status of nearly every man in Southeast Missouri. I sat down in my shirt sleeves to copy some drawings, about 4 P.M.  We heard horses running. I did not look up, but Kay did and shouted ; "By George , here's the Feds."  I sprang to my feet, and sure enough they were within forty yards, with a string of them as far as the eye could reach, all coming at full speed. I gasped as if my heart would jump out of my mouth, but instantly sat down again, and said:, Kay, burn those maps." (15)

The only flaw in the Linzy Dudley, T.L Wright Jr.'s 1929 document, and Ponder's writings that I could find is the fact that Righter was not captured directly with Thompson. Again quoting "This is the War Experiences of Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson" Thompson writes of being brought to Doniphan , Missouri in route to Pilot Knob, Missouri that:

"There were only five military prisoners, being Kay, Train, McDonald , Miller and myself, but there were a large number of people , men and boys, brought into camp to prevent them from carrying the news". (16)

Righter could have very well have been in the latter group. Perhaps this is the reason that Lindzy Dudley told Charles Booker in 1918 that:

"Colonel Righter was captured with General Thompson" (17)

In the book "The Civil War in Ripley County , Missouri" it states that Colonel W.H. Righter following his capture was:

"...was taken to Gratiot Prison in St. Louis. There he agreed not to further take up arms and was paroled. He remained in St. Louis the remainder of the war, reading law. His wife, Anna Wright Righter, died there in February 1864. When the war ended, Colonel Righter returned to Ripley County and, in 1866, was elected as the state representative from Ripley County. Because of his Confederate service, the General Assembly refused to seat him and appointed a "stand -in" to represent the county...In 1867 Colonel Righter went to Mississippi and raised cotton, but he returned to Ripley County the same year and built the Bay City Mils on Current River" and that, "As soon as the Missouri constitution permitted former Confederates to practice law in the state Righter leased the mills and opened a law office in Doniphan. He was considered an excellent lawyer and had a large practice. He was elected prosecuting attorney for Ripley County in 1876″ (18)

The Thursday Sept. 2d, 1909 issue of "Twice a Month Magazine" confirms that Righter:

"returned to St. Louis October 1863, planted cotton in Mississippi in 1866-67 and returned to Ripley County in 1868″ (19)

"Twice a Month Magazine" also stated that :

"Colonel Righter is a typical Southern gentleman possessing nearly all their strongest characteristics. During the Reconstruction days of the late 60's and early 70's he had many "warm skirmishes" with the "carpet baggers" his county contained about 300 Democratic voters who were "slow to come under the ban". Leaving it in the hands of about 12 Republicans to handle its affairs". (20)

Righter was elected to the State Legislature in 1882, after Reconstruction, when former Confederates were once again allowed to hold office. (21)

Even without the discussion of what role Colonel William Harmon Righter played in the War Between the States, there is plenty of other evidence that proves the "Wilson Massacre" could have happened.  Yankee atrocities happened throughout the Missouri Ozarks during the war and fighting between warring factions was both personal and brutal.

On a U.S. Forestry Service website entitled, "History of the Irish Wilderness", a detailed description of Union policy toward Missouri Southerners living in the Southeast Missouri Ozarks is given.

The website cites the War of the Rebellions: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, one entry in particular shows proof that the women of the area were looked down upon and treated badly by the occupying Union soldiers. Captain Robert McElroy of the 3rd Missouri State Militia (Union) wrote that:

"I am of the opinion that the women in that region are even more daring and treacherous, and in fact, worse than the men, as we found in their possession a number of newly made rebel uniforms, etc. (22)

Jerry Ponder's critics cite eye-witness accounts of Union soldiers who were present at the Wilson Massacre and stated that all of the prisoners were well cared for. But reading through the U.S. Forestry Service's "The History of the Irish Wilderness" , which cites the official records of the War of the Rebellions, one will find that anyone who was even "suspected" of being a "Bushwhacker" was taken prisoner. In Captain Boyd's (who was a Union Scout) report he states that:

"...found fresh trail of horses, followed them on Jack's Fork to the residence of Miles Stephens and brother, Jack Stephens, whom' I'm satisfied were Bushwhackers. Burned the house." (23)

Anyone "suspected" of harboring or aiding a Bushwhacker had their property burned, furthermore, in Captain John Boyd's  report of the 6th Provisional Regiment EMM (Union)  one will find between November 4 - 9 , 1863 ,there were over 23 houses burned  , and 10 men killed, by these Union troops, the majority of which were prisoners who "tried to escape" and were shot. (24)

 All of this occurred little over a month before the "Wilson Massacre" and we are supposed to believe that the Union militia treated Reeves men and local civilians any better on December 25, 1863?

There are other pieces of evidence that suggest that the "Wilson Massacre" did happen. At the Stoddard County Civil War Cemetery in Bloomfield, Missouri, there are monuments erected in honor of Southern soldiers and civilians who were killed during the War Between the States. The monuments are unique due to the fact that they have detailed information about the individual on the front of the monument, name, rank unit, etc. and on the back of the monument a detailed description of where and how the individual died.

One states on the front of the monument:  "PVT. , Thomas McKinney, Co. A, 15th Mo. Reg. Cav. CSA. July 16, 1845 - Dec. 25, 1863." The back of the monument reads: "Killed in Action, Ripley County, Mo".

Another monument is more specific. The front reads: "In memory of , PVT. , Jacob Foster, Co. A, 15th Mo. Cav. , April 18, 1830- December 25, 1863."

The back of the monument reads: "Died of Wounds, Received At, Christmas Dinner, Doniphan Mo., "Wilson Massacre" (25)

If one looks at the events following the "Wilson Massacre" a clear picture begins to develop that something "very significant" happened on December 25, 1863 in Ripley County , Missouri. An event so drastic, that the effects of it would be felt throughout the rest of the War Between the States in Missouri, and even after the war had ended.

First of all something must have been weighing very heavily upon Major Wilson's mind for in March of 1864 he told his nephew, while he was on furlough:

"If you ever hear of me being taken prisoner by the guerilla Tim Reeves you may count me as dead.  I know I shall never get away from him alive.  I have broken up his recruiting operations three times." (26)

Was Wilson worried about his life because he had broken up Reeves' recruiting operations? Or did he fear retribution for something much worse, that he did not want his family to know about?

One must not discount the fact that that during the General Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864, at the Battle of Pilot Knob, Missouri:

"Maj. James Wilson, Third Cavalry Missouri State Militia, after being wounded was captured on Pilot Knob, and subsequently with six of his gallant men was brutally murdered by order of a rebel field officer of the day." (27)

In an article entitled: "No Heroes On Either Side" written by Ponder critic Ray Burson and published in the Prospect-News (Doniphan Missouri's local newspaper) and dated Wednesday, July 16,2003 , another Ponder critic Kirby Ross  attributes Major Wilson's death to the burning of Doniphan, Missouri.

"Ross , whose article on the burning of Doniphan will be in an upcoming issue of North - South magazine, linked Wilson's death to the destruction of Doniphan "which had taken place earlier, two weeks to the day." (28)

However,  in the "Report of Confederate General J.O. Shelby C. S. Army, Commanding Division. AUGUST 29-DECEMBER 2, 1864. Price's Missouri Expedition."

  It appears that General Shelby administered justice to the perpetrators who were responsible for the of burning Doniphan, almost as quickly as the act was committed. Shelby wrote that:

"On the 12th of September I moved camp from Sulphur Rock, Ark., toward Pocahontas in anticipation of the arrival of the army, and on the 19th, after having received my instructions, started for Missouri, and encamped in Doniphan. Before arriving there, however, couriers from Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson, of Marmaduke's command, brought information that 100 Federals were in the town and pressing him back. I immediately started forward sufficient re-enforcements, but the enemy fled before reaching them, burning the helpless and ill-fated town. That night I dispatched 150 men under Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson to pursue the vandals. They came upon them early the next morning [20th], attacked, scattered, and killed many of them. I pushed on then rapidly for Patterson, destroying on the way the bloody rendezvous of the notorious Leeper, and on the morning of the 22d I surrounded and charged in upon the town. Its garrison, hearing of my advance, retreated hastily, but not before many were captured and killed, and some supplies taken. All the Government portion of Patterson was destroyed, together with its strong and ugly fort." (29)

Confederate General M. Jeff Thompson offered another reason for the execution of  Major James Wilson. As mentioned earlier in this article, Thompson was in a Union prison at the time of the "Wilson Massacre", but he was exchanged in time to make his way back to Missouri to join Confederate General Sterling Price's 1864 Missouri Expedition.

In May of 1865 Thompson surrendered 10,000 men at Jacksonport , Arkansas. Out of those 10,000 men, only one was not paroled. Confederate Colonel, Timothy Reeves, Commander of the 15th Missouri Cavalry, CSA. Thompson wrote that:

" In a few days we finished all the paroles  , except that of Timothy C. Reeves, whom Col. Davis would not agree to parole , considering him outlawed for the shooting of Major Williams { Major Wilson, this was a misprint} and five men on the Price Raid; but I must state for Col. Reeves, that he was as good a man and soldier as any in the command , and his shooting of that party was entirely justifiable; only that it should have been by such an order and form that retaliation would have been avoided.

I solicited to have this party turned over to me, that I might have them shot in due form, and Reeves men refrained from killing them for three days in hopes that I would get them; but responsibilities of this kind were not to our commanders liking , and they were turned over to Reeves to guard, with a pretty full knowledge that they would be shot.

I knew Reeves men , nearly everyone of them, and the provocation was bitter, for I had seen the blackened ruins and lonely graves in Ripley county with my own eyes." (30)

Thomas Lowry in his book, "Confederate Heroines" confirms that the burning of Doniphan was only one of the reasons for Reeves’ execution of Wilson. In fact according to Lowry, Wilson’s burning of Doniphan was a reprisal for how quickly Reeves reformed his comm