To celebrate Confederate heritage

CharlesRay · Veteran Member

Jan. 19 is Confederate Heroes Day

CharlesRay · Veteran Member

Fourth of July

CharlesRay · Veteran Member

Memorial Day

CharlesRay · Veteran Member

April is Confederate Heritage Month

CharlesRay · Veteran Member

Confederate Heroes Day

Date: Sun May 18 7:27 AM, 2008

Excellent School Day

Date: Sun Apr 6 2:17 PM, 2008

RE: To celebrate Confederate heritage

CharlesRay · Veteran Member

April is Confederate Heritage Month, a time to remember our ancestors who fought to defend liberty and self-governance. The Second American Revolution was much the same as the First American rEvolution, only that the Americans lost the Second war.
This is a timely and interesting topic. Southeast Texas played a big role in the War, from supplying men for the Army to supplying the Army with clothing, food and equipment.
There are several Civil War re-enactments in the area. There will be one at Niblett's Bluff the weekend of April 19-20. Come and see!

-- Edited by CharlesRay at 22:57, 2008-04-04

Date: Sun Feb 10 11:18 AM, 2008

A recent article about Union blacks who died at the Battle of Sabine Pass was a good article. The Union conscripted blacks to do the cooking, cleaning, manual labor, etc. and paid them about half of what the regular soldiers were paid. Several black regiments were formed, and they were mostly sent into a battle first, many were killed. The Union didn't bother caring for the black wounded, they left them behind and the Confederates took care of them.
By contrast, in the Confederate Army, between 65,000 and 95,000 free blacks served as regular soldiers in the army and were paid the same as all the other soldiers. Many races fought for the South and all were considered equal. When the Union soldiers saw Confederate armed blacks in battle they were shocked and scared.
lincoln and his cronies had plans to send all blacks to another country after the war. The South had plans to educate and free all the slaves. And the so-called 'emancipation proclamation' did not free anyone, it was just a propaganda effort. What really freed the slaves was the constitutional amendment that went into effect in December 1865, meaning there was slavery in the North for eight months after the War ended. General Grant had to be forced to give up his slaves in December 1865; he said 'good help is hard to find'.
The article is right about the need for more history of the contributions of blacks during the War Between The States. A good source of information would be Mr. H.K. Edgerton, a former President of the North Carolina NAACP. He has been working to promote education about the role of blacks in the War for many years. His excellent informative website can be found at http://www.southernheritage411.com/index.shtml
There is a wealth of information in there about the true history of blacks in the Confederacy; it should all be taught in schools today.

Date: Fri Oct 12 4:04 PM, 2007

RE: Sabine Pass Park

Date: Mon Sep 3 10:15 AM, 2007

RE: Sabine Pass reenactment

Date: Fri Aug 31 4:32 PM, 2007

RE: To celebrate Confederate heritage

Date: Fri Jun 22 5:30 PM, 2007

I'm wondering why the "Juneteenth" observance is still being held. It was supposedly the day some union soldiers brought word of Union President Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" to Galveston in 1865. The fact is that the so-called' Emancipation Proclamation" freed not a single person under Lincoln's legal jurisdiction and specifically kept those who were under his jurisdiction enslaved. It reads as follows:

"Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free...

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia), and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued."

The documental historical fact is that the "Emancipation Proclamation" precisely and specifically EXCLUDED every slave in the Union or Union-controlled territory (including the whole Confederate state of Tennessee) that Lincoln could have actually affected. Slavery continued as a legal and Federally-protected fact in those Confederate states and areas defined as well as the Union states of Kansas, Missouri, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware.

While slavery ended in the areas INCLUDED in the "Emancipation Proclamation" in April, 1865, when the Confederacy ceased to exist, slavery continued LEGALLY and under protection of Federal law in the states and areas listed above until December, 1865. The United States remained a slave nation for eight months AFTER the Confederacy ceased to exist...and the only two states to refuse to ratify the 13th Amendment were Texas and the Union state of Delaware.

When looking to discover the true nature of the self-avowed racist, white supremacist Lincoln, read "Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream," a book written by respected Black author and Executive Editor of EBONY magazine, Lerone Bennett, Jr., and published by the Johnson Publishing Company. It has the uncomfortable position of dealing with the facts of Lincoln's words and deeds, not the fantasies assigned him by fawning admirers. You can find it at http://www.ebony.com/glory.html

The United States flag flew over a slave nation from 1776 until December, 1865, some eight months _after_ the Confederacy and slavery in the South had ceased to exist. During the four years of the War and afterwards the states of Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, West Virginia, and Delaware were Union slaveholding states and slavery was legal under Federal law. In 1863, after the "Emancipation Proclamation," Free Men of Color were arrested, fined, and sold into slavery in Illinois for the "high misdemeanor" of staying in the state longer than ten days. Union General U.S. Grant expelled all Jews from his Army in December, 1862, and expelled Jewish citizens "as a class" from their homes "within 24 hours" - Grant freed his slaves only when compelled to do so by the 13th Amendment.

Black Southerners fought alongside white, Hispanic, Native American, Jewish, and thousands of foreign-born Southerners. They fought in mixed units and they fought in all-Black units as documented in Tennessee by _Union_ sources. Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805 records: "There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day." The 85th Indiana Volunteer Infantry reported to the Indianapolis Daily Evening Gazette that on 5 March 1863: "During the fight the [artillery] battery in charge of the 85th Indiana [Volunteer Infantry] was attacked by [*in italics*] two rebel negro regiments. [*end italics*]."

Union soldiers robbed, raped and murdered Free Black and slave Southerners they had come to "emancipate." Union "recruiters" hunted, kidnapped and tortured Black Southerners to compel them to serve in the Union Army. At the Battle of the Crater white Union soldiers bayoneted retreating Black Union soldiers and the 54th Massachusetts was fired upon by Maine troops while assaulting Battery Wagner in South Carolina. The Federal Official Records and memoirs of the USCT document of all these war crimes.

It's time to do away with "Juneteenth" and start celebrating the passage of the 13th Amendment.

Hip Housewife · Newbie

Back to the topic at hand... I think we should celebrate our Conferderate heritage. I personally don't associate it with racism. I know that when one talks about The Old South, it's enevitable that slavery will come up, but I don't condone slavery, and myself have never had one, so that doesn't really have anything to do with me. I have no problem with Black people. I did get my tires slashed once for having a rebel flag on my car when I was in college, though. But whatever. I don't see why the Confederacy has to be synonymous with rampant racism. Even if it were, there's a Black history month, isn't there? There's little chance I'd put a rebel flag on my vehicle now, but I'd like to think I wouldn't get dirty looks if I did.

-- Edited by BeaumontEnterprise.com at 10:23, 2007-05-24

Date: Wed May 16 5:44 PM, 2007

I'm proud of my family forefathers. We go way back in this area. Our people stood up for the right to be free, to abide by the original Constitution, to not be taxed to death by a federal government run amuck, and mostly they fought to keep the yankees from killing and burning everything like that devil Sherman did in Georgia. He even killed women and children and dogs. Typical yankee.
We have a great Southern land here, thanks to our ancestors and their legacy. Our Confederate heritage is something to be really proud of.

Date: Sun Apr 29 1:30 PM, 2007

April is each year is Confederate Heritage month, since the War of Southern Independence began and ended in April. All across the South, the memory of those who fought in that war are honored with cemetery ceremonies, musket salutes, cannon salutes, speeches, proclamations, roses and flags are placed on graves, and there are moments of silence. Go to http://www.confederateheritagemonth.com for more information about this month of remembrance. And this isn't just for the gray-clad soldiers, the boys in Blue who are buried in the South are honored too.
God bless all our men in gray.

Date: Mon Apr 23 8:32 PM, 2007

Concering the letter to the editor from the man in Jasper who doesn't have his facts straight about the true history of the War between The States and was very insulting and hateful:
One of my concerns about our present climate of "political correctness" is
that some citizens (and non-citizens) have somehow come to believe that they have a "right" not to be offended. I have spent many years studying American history and the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of
Rights and I have somehow overlooked that "right".
I have ten direct ancestors who served their country in the American
Revolutionary War, 6 of these in South Carolina. Their grandsons who were of age all volunteered and served the Confederacy. All of the records that were
handed down in the family indicate that these grandsons fought, and many died and others lost limbs, for the same reasons that their ancestors fought in the Revolution. The Confederate Flag is the symbol of what they fought and died for and it certainly wasn't slavery. I am very proud of my heritage and, as I revere the "Betsy Ross Flag" and all of the others that my Revolutionary War
ancestors fought under; the Stars and Stripes that my father fought under
from North Africa into Sicily, Italy and finally Germany and that I served under
and I revere the Confederate Flag for the same reasons.
I am sorry that for some it is a symbol of slavery. It should and would not
be if they were properly educated as to the causes of the War for Southern
Independence. Anyone who studies the true causes of the Revolutionary War and the War for Southern Independence, if they are at all objective, will be
amazed at the parallels between the two. Have they given any thought to what would have been the consequences if we had lost the Revolutionary War? George Washington and many of our other heroes were already sentenced by the Crown as traitors to be drawn and quartered while alive. America had slavery then; England did not. Was that war about slavery? Thank goodness we won that one and my Revolutionary War veteran ancestors did not have to suffer under a "lost cause- -freedom" and gallant defeat followed by poverty, the terrible destruction of Sherman's March, reconstruction, and existing for almost a century as a "colony" of the north. as my Confederate veteran ancestors did.
I, like most, am offended by quite a few things; by "Black Panther"
T-shirts, by the divisiveness of "Black Power", the "Black Coaches Association", "Black Entertainment Television" and by the puerile self-serving rantings of
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, by the huge collective "guilty conscience" that
some would force upon us, by victimless crimes, by abortion on demand, etc., but I don't try to outlaw, abolish, eradicate or silence these offenders; I know
that I do not have the right not to be offended and while offended I try to
preserve my manners and my dignity.

I wish that others would make an effort to behave similarly.

Date: Thu Apr 19 11:05 AM, 2007

Thanks for your thoughtful and beautifully-written letter. You are 100% correct. However, your words will be ignored, since they are the truth and not inflamatory. (Silly you!) It is easier and more profitable to be angry, point fingers and hate. Hate sells and brings higher ratings, my friend. Especially in Southeast Texas!

Date: Sun Apr 15 1:26 PM, 2007

In response to the hateful, ignorant and intolerant writer in Sunday's Enterprise letters section who offended the pride and heritage of all Southerners:
I have a dream that one day we will all walk hand-in-hand as AMERICANS and the culture of all AMERICANS will be remembered and celebrated.

To this day the yankees still try to condemn the south for slavery when those same northern states allowed slavery until the north went through an industrial revolution and slaves were no longer needed. They were then sold to the southern states. It was much cheaper and easier to hire poor Irish immigrants for pennies a month than to provide for slaves their entire life.

Who shall we blame for slavery? Should we blame Eli Whitney for his invention of the cotton gin that made cotton profitable? Should we blame the northern ship owners who brought them here? Should we blame the people of Africa who sold their own people into slavery? Should we blame Abe Lincoln who freed the slaves in a country that he had no authority to govern while he did not free those in the nation that he did govern? Or should we just simply blame the people of the south, most of which did not own slaves?

The importation of slaves from other countries was banned by the Confederate constitution. In 1864, President Jefferson Davis approved a plan that proposed the emancipation of slaves, in return for the official recognition of the Confederacy by Britain and France. In 1865 blacks that joined the Confederate Army were given their freedom. The institution of slavery was on it's way to being abolished in the South. No matter which side won the war slavery would have come to an end.

Except for a few large plantation owners, slavery had little to do with the war. The war was fought over constitutional principle, sectional differences, religious diferences and economics. The purpose of the War Between the States for the Confederate States of America was to maintain their independent and sovereign nation. The secession of states was legal in those days, now it is not.

Many seem to have forgotten that over 65,000 Southern blacks were in the Confederate ranks and thousands more provided logistical support for the Confederate military. Horace King, a free black man and former slave, was a contractor to the Confederate Navy. He was also an engineer and became known as the "Bridge Builder of the Confederacy." It is a very long list of all the blacks that served their county and I salute them all. There were also thousands of Hispanics, Jews, Cajuns, etc. who fought for the Confederacy.

I challenge everyone to spend time researching the true history of this nation as I have and I believe that the majority will come to the same conclusion that I have which is evidenced in this writing. Do not blindly believe everything in the textbooks used in schools today; they were written by the Union. Go to the library and find the oldest books, also the Library of Congress and the National Archives and heritage groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans for the unadultered documented facts.
Deo Vindice