Category: Confederate Flags Heritage

No town was more fought over during the Civil War than Winchester, Virginia. It changed hands so many times that we don’t have a decent count. Some say over 100.Winchester was about 70 miles east of Washington, DC, in the Shenandoah Valley. It was surrounded on all sides by hills, so an approaching army was hard to detect, and it was just about impossible to defend.The town and area was largely composed of German and Scottish descendants who worked the land and had no slaves. They didn’t want secession, but when it came, they acted to defend their land against invasion.But the real story here is something else. Lincoln’s Secretary of State Seward visited the town in 1862 and reported,

“…the men are all in the army, and the women are the devils.”The women of Winchester did not take kindly to any Union occupiers. A soldier in the 7th Ohio Infantry wrote that

“Charleston, South Carolina could not furnish a female and juvenile population imbued with more bitter sentiments towards the North and her soldiers than this city.”Women would cross the street or step off sidewalks into the mud to avoid being near near Federal soldiers, or walking under a U.S. flag.One of their tactics was to wear what they called “Jeff Davis bonnets,” hiding their eyes from those of the Federals. But under those bonnets were some angry ladies. Another Federal soldier reported that when he remarked on the beauty of the town’s young women to an elderly Winchester lady, she replied,

“Honey, they could just cut your hearts out.”Right after the war these women organized to collect and bury the remains of Confederates scattered around the region. Their Stonewall Jackson Cemetery holds 2,489 Confederate soldiers.

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Texan John Bell Hood was not one to back down, on or off the battlefield.At the end of the Second Battle of Manassas 1862, Hood’s men captured some Union ambulances, and he allowed the men to keep them for the brigade’s personal use. General N. G. Evans ordered him to turn them over. But Hood refused, because he “did not consider it just” to yield the ambulances “to another brigade of the division, which was in no manner entitled to them.”

So Evans had Hood  arrested.This did not go over well with the Texans. An angry shockwave went over the Texas brigade. Rev. Nicholas Davis wrote:”The men were not willing to go into an engagement without him, and many had positively declared they they would stack arms.”

They cried “Give us Hood!” and “If there is any fighting to be done by the Texas Brigade, Hood must lead it!”

Robert E. Lee had to get involved, telling Hood:“…here I am just on upon the eve of entering into battle, and with one of my best officers under arrest. If you will merely say that you regret this occurrence, I will release you and restore you to the command of your division.”But Hood was having none of it:“I am unable to do so, since I cannot admit or see the justice of General Evans’ demand for ambulances my men have captured.”Lee needed Hood, so he suspended the arrest until the upcoming battle was over.

This news made the troops very happy. As Hood rode to the front of the army after his release, “he was cheered long and loud by each regiment of the division.”

Hood and his Texans joined in and victory was had. In fact, Stonewall Jackson wrote to Lee, saying Hood acted “with such ability and zeal as to command my admiration… I regard him as one of the most promising officers in the army.”Lee had seen what Hood had accomplished. So instead of reinstating the arrest, Lee promoted Hood to Major General.

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Reading about the Civil War would certainly be a lot less interesting without the firsthand accounts of our Confederate friend, Sam Watkins of Company H, 1st Tennessee.

Here is his story of how one day he applied for a furlough. You probably already have an idea of how this is going to go. He writes:“Now, reader, here commenced a series of red tapeism…. It had to go through every officer’s hands, from corporal up.”“Well, after getting the corporal’s consent and approval, it goes up to the sergeant. It ain’t right! Some informality, perhaps, in the wording and spelling. Then the lieutenants had to have a say in it, and when it got to the captain, it had to be read and reread, to see that every ‘i’ was dotted and ‘t’ crossed, but returned because there was one word that he couldn’t make out.”“Then it was forwarded to the colonel. He would snatch it out of your hand, grit his teeth, and simply write ‘app.’ for approved. This would also be returned, with instructions that the colonel must write ‘approved’ in a plain hand, and with pen and ink.”“Then it went to the brigadier-general. After reading carefully the furlough, he says,’Well, sir, you have failed to get the adjutant’s name to it. You ought to have the colonel and adjutant, and you must go back and get their signatures.’”“After this, you go to the major-general, who never smiles, and tries to look as sour as vinegar. He looks at the furlough, and looks down at the ground, and then says, ‘Well, sir, this is all informal,’ and hands it back to you.”“You take it, feeling all the while that you wished you had not applied for a furlough, and by summoning all the fortitude that you possess, you say in a husky and choking voice, ‘Well, general (you say the ‘general’ in a sort of gulp and dry swallow), what’s the matter with the furlough?’ He-takes the furlough and glances over it, and tells his adjutant to sign the furlough.”“You feel relieved. You feel that the anaconda’s coil had been suddenly relaxed.”“Then you start out to the lieutenant-general; you find him. He is in a very learned and dignified conversation about the war in Chili. Well, you get very anxious for the war in Chili to get to an end. The general pulls his side-whiskers, looks wise, and tells his adjutant to look over it, and, if correct, sign it. He takes hold of the document, and writes the lieutenant-general’s name.”“Now, reader, the above is a pretty true picture of how I got my furlough.”

Seems like some things don’t change much –  even after 150 years!

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Time for another tale of Private Sam Watkins of the First Tennessee Infantry.It was 1863. Sam was in Chattanooga, preparing for the arrival of Grant’s army. That included fortifying Lookout Mountain (see photo above). Sam tells us:“About this time my father paid me a visit. Rations were mighty scarce. I was mighty glad to see him, but ashamed to let him know how poorly off for something to eat we were. We were living on parched corn.”Parched corn is a lot like those partly popped kernels in your popcorn, only a lot more tender. It’s easy to make: just take dried corn kernels and roast them over a fire. Oh, and corn was a lot better in those days.Anyway, Sam wanted to give his father a good dinner, so he took him over to the colonels’ tent:“Colonel Field, I desire to introduce you to my father, and as rations are a little short in my mess, I thought you might have a little better, and could give him a good dinner.““’Yes,” says Colonel Field, ‘I am glad to make the acquaintance of your father, and will be glad to divide my rations with him. Also, I would like you to stay and take dinner with me,” which I assure you, O kind reader, I gladly accepted.”So there they were in the Confederate Colonel Field’s tent, Sam eager for a good meal. Then Whit, the orderly, arrived:  “Whit came in with a frying-pan of parched corn and dumped it on an old oil cloth, and said, ‘Dinner is ready.’ That was all he had. He was living like ourselves—on parched corn!”

Ah, dinner with the Colonel!

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Last month we posted a spine-tingling and amazing story about the Ghosts of Gettysburg that just might make believers out of anyone.  If you missed it, check it out here:

Since then, we’ve collected a few other first hand, up close and personal stories from some of you out there. We’d like to share a few of them with you today:

Here is one from Mike:“We went to Gettysburg a few years back. While at the Devil’s Den taking pictures I took 2 in quick succession of the same place. Maybe 10 seconds apart. “When we got back home a few days later we looked at the pictures. The first was normal. The second had smoke as from a campfire rising from behind the rocks?????”As you may know, the Devil’s Den is known for its numerous large rocks. Jerry sent this one:“Dave Shuffet, used to host Kentucky Life, a weekly show about life in every county and city in the Bluegrass.”“Dave is a very nice, humble, and very believable man.”“He went to the Octagon house in Franklin Kentucky. He filmed a ladle by the fire place start rocking by itself. Flashlights turn on and off when twisted firmly in place to off.”Dave came out of there, very shaken.Octagon Hall is shown during the Civil War is pictured above. It was the home of Andrew Caldwell, a supporter of the Confederacy. In 1862, the famous “Orphan Brigade” camped there, and later the Union Army spent time at Octagon. Confederate soldiers knew they could get shelter and medical care and be hidden from Union forces.

But today it is known as one of the most haunted spots in the South.

Visit it someday soon – if you dare!

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Through the harsh winter of 1865, General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia suffered a steady stream of  desertions. At its worst, hundreds of men chose to put the war behind them. Execution waited for those caught in the act, but Lee’s greatest hope was to slow it down at best, and even try to stop it.

After the Hampton Roads peace conference failed, it became clear to many Southerners that the Federals were more than willing to fight to the bitter end. The North would accept only their full and unconditional surrender. As far as their new country was concerned, there was nothing left to lose.

It seemed to the men was that the differences between North and South were irreconcilable, with no hope of peace as one country. But if they fought and held out long enough, just as their grandfathers before them had done against England, they would emerge victorious. They could not accept the idea of surrendering to Northerners.

Soon entire regiments were resolving to pledge themselves again to the cause, and desertions declined. Their greatest hope and prayer was that the Yankees would be defeated with the summer campaign. Despite setbacks, they felt God was still on their side.

On February 28th, the Richmond Daily Dispatch published these words of renewal – a proclamation of the South’s determination to conquer or die:

“The resolutions which have been passed by the various regiments of the Confederate army, and which they have published to the world, ring like inspiring trumpet tones on the air.”

“Wherever else the paralyzing suggestions of despondency and doubt are heard, they cannot affect the iron nerves of those heroes who have borne the brunt of this war; who have endured the winter’s frosts and the summer’s heart; who have slept on the bare ground, have lived on the coarsest food, marched weary miles in bare feet, poured out their blood like summer rain, and stood like a living wall between their country and its enemies.”

“These are the men who send forth words of hope and cheer and high resolve, and whose heroic souls, like the Aeolian harp, give forth stronger strains as the tempest increases.”

These men were determined that their labors, and suffering will not be for nothing. Voices of their fallen comrades will not cry out vain from the ground. They are heroes of the Confederacy and noble men, unlike anything the world had ever seen.

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Private Sam Watkins’ Company H of the 1st Tennessee was camped on the Duck River, at a moment when there were no battles to win. The thing is, a soldier needs stuff to do or he gets bored and up to trouble. As the  Bible says, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”  Or at least it can cause him to get into some sort of mischief. It seems that Sam’s sweetheart was living in Colombia, Tennessee, just down the river from his camp. Well, the Duck River at the time was high. As Sam put it, it “had on its Sunday clothes.” Sam got an idea to “slip off and go down the river in a canoe.” It was a great idea except for one problem: the boat leaked and soon sank. So Sam put his “sand paddles to work and landed in Columbia that night.”  A Rebel knew how to march, and It was a matter of “damn the consequences.”

Sam put it this way: “Some poet has said that love laughs at grates, bars, locksmiths.” Sam was laughing, but he did think ahead. He asked his sweetheart to pray for him “because I thought the prayers of a pretty woman would go a great deal further ‘up yonder’ than mine would.” When Sam got back to camp, his superiors were waiting for him. He was sentenced to thirty days’ fatigue duty that’s (digging trenches, fetching water, and other labor intensive duties.) On top of that, the worst of it was he had to forfeit four months’ pay at eleven dollars per month – that’s $44. His sweetheart’s prayers must have worked, though, because General Leonidas Polk “issued an order that very day promising pardon to all soldiers absent without leave if they would return.” So, Polk ordered Sam’s release, but unfortunately never didn’t say anything about the fine. So, in Sam’s words,

“The Confederate States of America were richer by forty-four dollars.”

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John Baxley shares the economic reasons for the civil war. High schools and politicians have changed history to make this war solely about slavery, but that issue was not the main reason for the war. The struggle was about unfair taxation, at least according to the author. The background is examined in more detail in the story.

Key Takeaways:

• The unfair 40-percent tariff on cotton was paid by the five Deep South cotton states, which financed 80 percent of the U.S. Treasury.
• The South felt the only way it could change this unfair arrangement would be to legally secede and form its own country.
• my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery.

“With all this hate and economic warfare against the South, the folks in Dixie had no choice but to leave the Union or face economic ruin. Truly a sad choice, as that is what happened to the South in the end despite their heroic attempt to form their own nation.”

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The Confederate monuments honor the sacrifice that many people made. There are many people that descended from war veterans of the Civil War, and they are upset at the recent removal of monuments that they care a lot about. Confederate history and heritage has been under attack lately and many people are upset by this.

Key Takeaways:

• a closer reading of the orations given at the countless dedicatory ceremonies, of the newspaper articles that accompanied those events, and of correspondence surrounding that history, reveal that by far the underlying sentiment was to honor the veterans and others who suffered, fought and died decades earlier.
• forty years after Vietnam—an excellent example, among many, being the recent erection of the monument to Vietnam veterans on the Capitol Square in Raleigh, North Carolina.
• Indeed, instead of taking monuments down or hiding them, we should be putting more monuments up. That is the true spirit of North Carolina and the spirit that, I would suggest, mirrors the overwhelming sentiment of the citizens of this state.

“Throughout our history, usually forty or fifty years after the conclusion of each war or conflict, there are efforts to honor the old veterans who are quickly passing away.”

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There is a side of the Civil War that many don’t know about, or just ignore.  It was not so unusual for troops from opposite sides to mingle, talk and share or trade items, and generally act friendly when not engaged in fighting each other.

Here is a portion of a letter sent from a Confederate soldier in North Georgia to his sister. July 15th, 1864“Dear Sister,  

Pickets don’t fire at each other now. We go down to the edge of the river on our side and the Yankees come down on their side and talk to each other. The men on picket opposite are from Ohio, and seem very tired of the war. They say that their term of enlistment will be out in three months and most of them say that when it is out they are going home.

Gen. Johnson has issued an order that there shall be no more communication between with them, and I think it is well that he has done so because they were getting too intimate. Some men don’t know what should be concealed. The Yankees are very much in want of tobacco, and our Government gives it to us, and we used to trade tobacco with them for knives and canteens.

There is a rock near the middle of the river to which they would swim and trade. After a while they got so well acquainted that some of our men would swim clear across and land among the Yankees. The Yankees were not so bold for a long time, but a few days ago they got to coming across also. That has been broken up now and if any trading is carried on, it is done contrary to orders

I took some tobacco down with me the other day but I found out when I got there communication had been stopped. As I was sitting on the banks, one of the Yankees from the other side called to me to know if I had any tobacco. I told him I had. He said that he had a good knife to trade for it. I told him that trading was prohibited. He said ‘Your officers won’t see you, come over, I want a chew of tobacco very bad.’ I asked some of them who they were going to vote for President. One of them said ‘Old Abe’ but most of them said they were for McLellan.

…One of the Yankee Lieutenants promised to mail some letters for one of our officers and I wrote to Aunt Martha expecting to send it at the same time but Gen. Johnson stopped the proceeding so I did not send it. There is a force of Yankees on this side of the river and have been there for some time. Why Gen. Johnson don’t drive them back I don’t know he must have some object in view.Write to me soon.. Yours truly,(s)O.D. Chester”

The last paragraph of the letter talks about the coming election in November, a very important issue to the South.  They figured that that McLellan as the peace candidate so they supported him. So, if most of the Yankee soldiers said they would vote for McLellan, as indicated above, wouldn’t that make some of those Yankees who wanted peace, too, see maybe just a little bit pro-South?  

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Some may wonder why the South remembers the Civil War as it does. After all, the losses were horrific to both North and South. Most of the war was fought on Southern soil. Small towns and countryside were trampled, occupied and battered for years. Major urban centers were ripped to pieces. The burning of Atlanta by Sherman is pretty well known, but what about Fredericksburg? When Union troops began to pour through the city, discipline broke down. Artillery shells had blown open many buildings, revealing their contents. For nearly 24 hours the city was sacked. When Rebel soldiers retook the city a few days later they were astonished at the destruction. During the siege of Vicksburg, 22,000 shells rained down. Cities like Charleston, Petersburg, Richmond saw vast destruction from siege. Shot and shell plunged down through roofs into parlors and bedrooms.   There were 50,000 civilian deaths during the Civil War. Food problems existed on both sides, but were far worse for Confederate soldiers and civilians. Union corn production was 400 million bushels, compared to the 250 million in Southern states. Union wheat production was 100 million bushels; Southern, 35 million bushels. And with soldiers marching back and forth across the South, you can imagine how much pillaging took place. One in five men of military age died in the war. Of course memorials sprang up across the South. Political, economic and social factors aside, losing 20% of the adult male population was a hard memory to erase.

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A biographer has called him the “Tejano Tiger.” His name is Col. Santos Benavides.  He was the highest-ranking Hispanic in the Confederacy. Over 10,000 Tejanos, the Mexican-American inhabitants of southern Texas, fought in the Civil War in South Texas in over 100 significant battles.  Here is his inspirational story.

Before serving with the Confederacy, Benavides had a reputation as an Indian fighter. He gained commission as captain in the 33rd Thirty-third Texas Cavalry (or Benavides’ Regiment) and went to serve the Rio Grande Military District. His his reputation as a fighter continued. He drove Juan Cortina back into Mexico in the battle of Carrizo in May 1861, and ended other local revolts against Confederate authority.

Benavides was offered a Union generalship, but turned it down to protect his homeland of Texas. He and his brothers, Santos, Refugio and Cristobal were a formidable fighting force, making up a significant part of the corps of Confederate officers in Texas.

In November 1863 Benavides was promoted to colonel and authorized to raise his own regiment of “Partisan Rangers,” including remnants of the Texas 33rd.

According to sources,

“His greatest military triumph was his defense of Laredo on March 19, 1864, with forty-two troops against 200 soldiers of the Union First Texas Cavalry, commanded by Col. Edmund J. Davis, who had, ironically, offered Benavides a Union generalship earlier.”

Wagon trains full of cargos of cotton, “white gold,”  came across the Río Grande and were loaded on Mexican flagships for safe passage past Union warships. The Union Army wanted to  stop these shipments that were funding the Confederate Army.

It was on March 18, 1864, when Union Major Alfred Holt led a force of 200 men from Brownsville. Their mission was to destroy 5,000 bales of cotton stacked at the San Agustín Plaza in Laredo.  

But Benavides was a Union mission spoiler.  After three Union attacks he and  just 42 men forced the Yankee invaders back down the Río Grande. These Confederates saved the town and the cotton trade into Mexico.

Colonel Benavides and his troops were said to be:

“the peer of any soldier or officer in the Confederate armies” and received a citation from the Confederate Texas Legislature for “vigilance, energy, and gallantry.”

Well done, “Tejano Tiger.”

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