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April 26th is Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia
Canada Free Press ^ | April 23, 2013 | Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.

Posted on 04/23/2013 3:28:30 PM PDT by BigReb555

Did you know Black Confederate soldiers are buried on the grounds of Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a 4 year historically Black college, located on the highest ground where the Battle of Atlanta was fought?

(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: heritage; southern
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April 26th is Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia

Do you remember when Confederate Memorial Day was observed in public schools?

It was a special time when businesses and schools closed in observance of Confederate Memorial Day. It was a day when many thousands of people would congregate at the Confederate cemetery for the day's events that included: a parade, memorial speeches, military salute and children laying flowers on the soldiers' graves. The band played "Dixie" and the soldier played taps.

April is Confederate History and Heritage Month throughout the Southern USA and it’s also the month that many States of Old Dixie still celebrate Confederate Memorial Day! The State of Georgia will celebrate it this Friday.

Confederate Memorial Day has been a legal holiday in Georgia since 1874 by an act of the Georgia General Assembly and bill signed by then Governor James Smith, who also served as Confederate Colonel, Lawyer and Congressman.

Efforts to mark Confederate graves, erect monuments, hold memorial services and get Confederate Memorial Day recognized as an official holiday was the idea of Lizzie Rutherford and Mrs. Charles J. Williams of the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus, Georgia.

April is a great time to take your family lately to Stone Mountain Memorial Park located near Atlanta, Georgia. The larger than life Southern Memorial carving there of American heroes Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee is awesome to behold and a great educational experience for young and old, Black and White, Northerner and Southerner and people from around God’s good earth.

Did you know Black Confederate soldiers are buried on the grounds of Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a 4 year historically Black college, located on the highest ground where the Battle of Atlanta was fought?...And, not far from here is Marietta’s Confederate Cemetery which is the final resting place of Black Confederate Drummer Bill Yopp and 3,000 of his fellow comrades.

Tennessee Senator Edward Ward Carmack said it best in 1903; quote “The Confederate Soldiers were our kinfolk and our heroes. We testify to the country our enduring fidelity to their memory. We commemorate their valor and devotion. There were some things that were not surrendered at Appomattox. We did not surrender our rights and history; nor was it one of the conditions of surrender that unfriendly lips should be suffered to tell the story of that war or that unfriendly hands should write the epitaphs of the Confederate dead. We have the right to teach our children the true history of the war, the causes that led up to it and the principles involved.” unquote

Black History Month, Jewish History Month, Hispanic History Month and Women’s History Month is a time set aside to remember the best contributions of a people and the word “controversial” is never used to describe these Americans.

Why then do people including some in the news media refer to remembering our family on Confederate Memorial Day as controversial? The fact is that men and women of European, African, Hispanic, American Indian, Jewish and even Chinese took their stand in defense of the South “Dixie” during the War Between the States, 1861-1865.

The Constitution of the Confederates States of America will be exhibited from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm at the University of Georgia on “Confederate Memorial Day” Friday, April, 26, 2013, Special Collections Library, 300 South Hull St – Athens, Georgia.

See complete details at: http://www.libs.uga.edu/blog/?event=confederate-constitution-on-display

Today, those of little knowledge about those men of gray attack the Confederate flag that was bravely carried in many battles...And they want the Confederate flag removed from many places including the Confederate statue at the State Capitol in Columbia, South Carolina. When the soldiers of Blue and Gray walked the earth, few criticized these men.

April is Confederate History and Heritage Month. Read more on face book at: https://www.facebook.com/ConfederateHeritageMonth

1 posted on 04/23/2013 3:28:30 PM PDT by BigReb555
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To: BigReb555

Save your confederate money boys! The south will rise again!

From my childhood in the old south.

2 posted on 04/23/2013 3:43:20 PM PDT by mc5cents
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To: BigReb555

There was a cover-up of the Civil War going way back, and records of the cover-up still exist today.

Because Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, estimated that after the war there were going to be enormous numbers of lawsuits, he ordered extraordinary levels of records retention. And when the Union Army captured Confederate records, their records were added to the mix. Today this provides an incredible snapshot into the people of the time.

From 1891, many Confederate soldiers applied to receive their pensions from the former Confederate states. So when the southern states decided to pay pensions, they had extensive enlistment rosters to work from, from the archive.

However, when black veterans applied for their pensions, and when asked, replied they had been soldiers, if their names were annotated in the Confederate records as “soldier”, it was lined through, and an alternative occupation, usually “servant” was handwritten next to it.

Even before the turn of the century, the official story was dictated that no blacks had served in the Confederate army as soldiers. And that official story remains today, and is vehemently defended as the truth in most histories.

The real truth is far less clear. In some southern states, there was a substantial population of black freemen, many of whom were entrepreneurs. And while in some states there was a strict prohibition against black enlistments, in other states there was far less so.

Likewise many officers of means did retain servants, black and white, and sometimes these servants were indeed enlisted men. And it would not be uncommon for them to be armed for their duties, such as guarding the officers goods and horse from thieves.


3 posted on 04/23/2013 4:30:15 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: BigReb555

15th Virginia Salute, Patrick Henry Rifles.

4 posted on 04/23/2013 4:34:54 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: BigReb555

State Government is closed on this day.


5 posted on 04/23/2013 6:44:23 PM PDT by autumnraine (America how long will you be so deaf and dumb to thoe tumbril wheels carrying you to the guillotine?)
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To: autumnraine

A monument should be erected honoring the Black Confederates—or a movie should be made of them who gave so much—hoping that, after the war their lot, and the lot of blacks in the south would improve. Records exist of their heroism under fire—writen by White Confederate offices—some even slave owners—of what they did. Records exist in Yankee files as well of these men. It is time to tell the story of these forgotten Rebels.


6 posted on 04/23/2013 9:28:42 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll)
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To: BigReb555

All those people who took up arms against the US in 1860-1865 were committing treason. In the main, they were deluded by the slave power which started the war. The survivors were, with one exception, given pardon by the generosity of the US government on the condition that they cease treason.


7 posted on 04/23/2013 9:42:11 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

North Carolina had a large proportion of freedmen, and these had, until 1835, been permitted to vote.

As antebellum slavery became more lucrative, freedmen’s rights were diminished, and limitations on them became greater.

The slave power continued to enforce slavery over a population that became increasingly white due to the frequent rape of slave women by white masters and overseers, so much so that some poor whites were captured by slave catchers, and sold into slavery, with paperwork forged as necessary. Mostly white female slaves sold at a premium into the brothels, and were very popular with the southern gentlemen.

After the war, to the extent possible, defeated southerners tried to reestablish the antebellum conditions via the KKK, or through black codes, literacy tests, harsh sentences to plantation-jails such as the infamous Angola prison. Mass murders of blacks occurred such as the Rosewood Massacre right after a KKK rally at Gainesville Florida in 1922. Southern Democrats were long able to use southern mythos to block federal laws to punish lynching. Blacks were routinely prevented from voting, serving on jury, or serving in civil service positions.


8 posted on 04/23/2013 9:54:11 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

One officer of means, a R.E. Lee had a servant who was both black and white. His cook, Mack Lee was his son by a slave woman.


9 posted on 04/23/2013 9:56:18 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: donmeaker

“All those people who took up arms against the US in 1860-1865 were committing treason. “

All those people who took up arms against Great Britain in 1775-1783 were committing treason. A comparison that you never can explain away in your monomaniacal hatred of the South.

BTW, donny, do you get a lot of your material from ‘The Rad Geek’s People’s Daily”? I think that you do.


10 posted on 04/23/2013 10:15:08 PM PDT by Pelham (Without Deportation you have De Facto Amnesty.)
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To: donmeaker
One officer of means, a R.E. Lee had a servant who was both black and white. His cook, Mack Lee was his son by a slave woman.

Mack Lee was a fraud. He had no connection with Lee during the war much less any blood relationship to him.

11 posted on 04/24/2013 3:42:21 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: Pelham
All those people who took up arms against Great Britain in 1775-1783 were committing treason. A comparison that you never can explain away in your monomaniacal hatred of the South.

That's true, and had they lost their rebellion then no doubt most of the American leadership would have been hung. But the difference is that they didn't lose their rebellion, did they?

12 posted on 04/24/2013 3:43:43 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: Forward the Light Brigade
A monument should be erected honoring the Black Confederates—or a movie should be made of them who gave so much—hoping that, after the war their lot, and the lot of blacks in the south would improve. Records exist of their heroism under fire—writen by White Confederate offices—some even slave owners—of what they did. Records exist in Yankee files as well of these men. It is time to tell the story of these forgotten Rebels.

Why not? I have no doubt that such a move would have all the historical accuracy of Speilberg's Lincoln.

13 posted on 04/24/2013 3:46:01 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: Pelham
Any comparison between the War for Independence and the Civil War is specious.

I understand why the secessionists wanted to make that comparison - it had great usefulness as propaganda. But it is still specious.

The cause of war in 1775 was the government refusing to allow Americans any representation in Parliament at all. They were barred from participating in any election and had no voice in their government.

The secessionists had no such grievance: their cause of war was - despite the fact that they were heavily overrepresented in Congress - that they had lost an election.

14 posted on 04/24/2013 7:30:06 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: Forward the Light Brigade
In reality, blacks were not legally permitted to serve as Confederate soldiers until March 13th, 1865 and the order was not authorized until March 23rd, 1865.

According to Confederate records only 40 or 50 had been recruited and had yet to be deployed before the Confederacy dissolved on May 5th, 1865. So as far as the Confederate government was concerned, no black men fought for the Confederacy.

There are a number of anecdotal claims that black men were allowed to take up arms on an ad hoc basis in a number of engagements, but those remain anecdotal.

Certainly many blacks worked as camp servants, as mule drivers and as musicians in the Confederate forces and there were some units from Louisiana that never saw combat which were allowed a brief ceremonial existence by that state, but that really isn't the same.

On the other hand, the service of black men as Union volunteers and combat veterans is very well-documented both from direct personal accounts during and immediately after the war, as well as in official records including enlistment rolls, after-action reports, contemporary press accounts, and also in the memoirs of Union officers.

We have the names, ranks, and service records of large numbers of these men.

15 posted on 04/24/2013 7:54:29 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: donmeaker

“As antebellum slavery became more lucrative...”

This is an important point, because before the popularity of the cotton gin, slavery was pretty much dying as an institution. Slaves were limited to the upper classes, being relatively very expensive, and about half were domestic servants. Troublesome slaves were “sold down the river” (the origin of that expression), to do (very) hard labor on the delta sugar cane plantations.

But plantation economics were very different than imagined.

To start with, there were several periods of time when large amounts of field work was needed: planting, weeding, harvesting, then both transporting to market and processing for food storage, and brewing beer and distilling liquor, which was “rural currency” for excess crops, and for when potable water was not reliable.

And though itinerant work gangs would sell cords of wood for fuel, its use required a lot of wood chopping, hauling and fire stoking and cleaning. Likewise, recent archaeology has noted that main plantation buildings had water towers next to them, that must have taken a lot of water, and labor, to fill.

Likewise the slaves themselves needed cooked food, water, shelter, etc., that had to be provided for.

Everything that could not be fabricated had to be purchased, which meant either that the plantation had to be profitable, or would diminish the assets of the plantation owner, who likely had to have other business interests.

And these could be roller coasters. Leading up to the Panic of 1819, commodities prices became very inflated, so plantations would get a great inflow of cash. But with the panic, prices collapsed.

This was so onerous that by 1828, South Carolina created the “nullification crisis” against the “Tariff of Abominations”, the Tariff of 1828.

“The major goal of the tariff was to protect industries in the northern United States which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods by putting a tax on them. The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the US made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South.”

And thus slavery was dying, but facing a new resurgence, with the arrival of the cotton gin around 1830.

Times improved considerably until the Panic of 1837, the worst depression until the Great Depression, which crashed the price of cotton and likely wiped out many plantations, and yet it accomplished two things, consolidating southern agriculture from many crops to just a few, mostly cotton, with production expanding from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850.

But cotton was so profitable that slavery was no longer the domain of the wealthy, but was opened to middle class entrepreneurs, strictly interested in the bottom line. With just their own work in a single year, they could earn enough to buy a slave, which would double the land they could use to produce cotton. And with the profit from that, to double again. Soon they were wealthy.

And the demand for, and treatment of slaves became much, much worse.


16 posted on 04/24/2013 8:58:13 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: 0.E.O

“But the difference is that they didn’t lose their rebellion, did they?”

That doesn’t change the logical equivalence of the two one iota.


17 posted on 04/24/2013 11:47:29 AM PDT by Pelham (Without Deportation you have De Facto Amnesty.)
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To: Pelham
That doesn’t change the logical equivalence of the two one iota.

Winning changes everything. I think Tiger Woods said that in a Nike ad.

18 posted on 04/24/2013 11:49:01 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: 0.E.O

Yes, and we all know what a philosopher Tiger Woods is.

Using the ‘Winning changes everything’ premise the Red Army was ‘right’ as long as they managed to crush everyone trying to escape from the Iron Curtain.

But then the Brezhnev Doctrine did sound eerily similar to the demand for an unbreakable union that we have seen elsewhere, so go figure.


19 posted on 04/24/2013 12:06:44 PM PDT by Pelham (Without Deportation you have De Facto Amnesty.)
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To: Pelham
But then the Brezhnev Doctrine did sound eerily similar to the demand for an unbreakable union that we have seen elsewhere, so go figure.

Or a cause dedicated to keeping 3 million of its own people in perpetual bondage as property?

20 posted on 04/24/2013 12:10:50 PM PDT by 0.E.O
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