October 2015 - Alamo City Guards

October 2015
Alamo City
Guards Camp
#1325
FROM HEADQUARTERS, Russ Lane
Our 2LT Commander, Bob James, has suffered a stroke and is beginning the long process of healing from
the surgery and rehab. Please keep Bob and his family in your thoughts and prayers. Our Chaplain will visit
him as soon as the family tells us it is OK for him to have visitors. Once we get an address from the family we
will let everyone know so that cards can be sent to Bob.
Compatriot Dave Kunz has been appointed to complete Bob’s term of office. Please support Dave while he
learns and performs his new duties. He may be reached at [email protected].
The influx of new members has slowed somewhat. We are in the membership renewal period right now. The
camp leadership has been working on those who have not yet renewed their membership. As of this writing,
it appears we will lose at least 6 members for failure to pay dues. We are still working another 11 men. If you
are one of the 11, please submit your dues immediately. We don’t want to lose any of you. One of the most
important things we can do right now is to renew our membership. If we can retain ALL of you, we can then
concentrate on recruiting new members and continuing the Defense of the Confederate Soldier’s Good
Name. Write your check for $47 and mail to the Adjutant, Jim Evetts, 803 Stoneway Drive, San Antonio, TX
78258.
Our camp membership has grown to 157, an all-time high for our camp. Let’s all keep working to help the
SCV continue to grow. We are in a new recruiting year. Recruiters get credit for new members, new Cadets,
new Friends, reinstating members and transfers. Consider giving a membership as a gift to your eligible family members who are not already members. Current recruiting results are on page 6.
Our speaker in October will be Professor Jeff Addicott who will speak on “Lies, Damn Lies and Damn Yankee
Lies.” In November we will have author Ed Cotham from Galveston who will speak on “The Battle on the
Bay.” Let Raymond Reeves, [email protected] know if you can make a presentation or recommend
someone for future meetings.
Remember to submit any changes or corrections to your contact information to the Adjutant, Jim Evetts, at
[email protected]. He will ensure that the Texas Division and national HQ are informed so that you continue to receive the Confederate Veteran magazine and other information.
We have a large number of items at reasonable prices on our EBay site, http://www.ebay.com/usr/
alamocityguardscamp1325. Bring any items you want to donate to our meetings. Contact Compatriot Gene
Carnicom at [email protected] to coordinate if you are unable to deliver the items. He will let you know
how you can get the items to him.
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October 2015
Passing the Torch of Truth
[Originally published by the Waxahachie Daily Light, 5.03.2015]
Reunion at Waxahachie, Aug. 1, 1894.
On Jan. 2, 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne wrote prophetically “Every man
should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late. It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern
school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by
all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision.”
In mid-1865, the defeated soldiers in gray returned home to Texas, broken and dejected to
rebuild their lives under the heavy heel of Federal reconstruction. As the subjugation eased, former
Confederate soldiers began to meet together to remember their war exploits and to assist each other
to assimilate into the new Union. As the years passed, the aging veterans began to record for their
children the truth of the war from the Confederate perspective.
On June 10, 1889, veterans from across the south gathered together in New Orleans where
the United Confederate Veteran (UCV) was officially formed. According to the UCV constitution, the
purpose of the organization was strictly social, literary, historical, and benevolent. One of their specific objectives was to gather authentic data for an impartial history of the War Between the States.
By 1904, 1,523 camps existed nationally with 314 camps in Texas. Not all members of Texas camps
were native Texans or served in a Texas unit, but each proudly wore the gray to fight for the Cause.
In January 1893 Sumner A. Cunningham began monthly publication at Nashville, Tennessee
of the Confederate Veteran, which became the unofficial organ of the UCV and other Confederate
societies until its demise in December 1932. The men of Ellis County had organized a cavalry regiment in August 1861 which later was known as the Twelfth Texas Cavalry, Parsons’ Brigade. Their
first reunion was held on July 4, 1878 at Waxahachie, Texas.
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October 2015
A letter from Colonel William Henry Parsons was read to members of his command. He said,
in part, “To have been participants in common peril is a remembrance that naturally binds the survivors in common sympathy. To have participated in common triumphs intensifies the feeling of fellowship. ... When I have been in charge in the long days ordeal of death or the skirmish line, or when
conflict over, we discharged the farewell shots over the graves when our heroes we buried — these
are treasured memories.” Their first reunion was considered a great success.
“Extensive preparations had been made and the spacious grounds at West End Park presented a lovely retreat. It is reckoned that 5,000 people took part in the reunion. The old, the halt, the
blind and the lame were there, and younger generations were present to lend buoyancy to the occasion. Long may the old soldiers live to remind coming generations of the hardships to which our forefathers were subject in defense of home and country.”
Parsons’ Brigade held a joint reunion with Camp Winnie Davis, UCV, in 1894 in Waxahachie.
“The stage was appropriately decorated with battle flags and war relics. President Getzendaner introduced an ex-union soldier who made a few appropriate remarks and read a short poem of fraternal greeting to the blue and the gray. The memorial service in honor and memory of fallen comrades
were impressive and with it closed the Fourteenth Annual Reunion of Parsons’ Brigade.”
Only 47 veterans were able to attend the 1915 reunion in Midlothian, Texas. In 1923, the Atlanta Constitution reported, “For the last time in history veterans of Colonel Parsons’ Texas Cavalry
Brigade, who followed their leader through four bitter years of war in 1861-1865, have met in a reunion to recount the experiences that befell them while wearing the gray of a Southern soldier. Time
has thinned the ranks and today scarcely more than half a dozen remain. ... At the forty-eighth annual reunion of the military organization in Ennis recently only three answered the roll. Realizing that
they could no longer carry on, the trio elected lifetime officers and adjourned sine die.”
Locally, the first known meeting of Camp Winnie Davis, UCV, was held in the Ellis County
courthouse in January 1890. The initiation fee was 50 cents with monthly dues of a dime. This resolution was passed at a meeting in March, 1914. “Whereas, ‘Sims Watson Chapter UDC’ of Waxahachie … erect upon the court house square in Waxahachie, at a cost of Twenty-five Hundred Dollars,
of Texas granite, a Monument of the Memory of Ellis County Soldiers who wore the Gray, dead or
living… Therefore, Be it Resolved: That Camp Winnie Davis No. 108, UCV (among whose membership are representatives of every state of the south, and of every great division of the Confederate
army, many of whom participated in the great battles of the war) tender to all the Daughters of Sims
Watson Chapter their most sincere thanks for this lasting expression of their love and esteem for all
brave Confederate soldiers who faltered not, wavered not, but stood heroically beneath the ‘stars
and bars’ until the Matchless Lee said, ‘It is finished’”
In a newspaper article circa 1929 entitled “The Passing of Camp Winnie Davis” the final meeting was reported. “Taps will sound Saturday afternoon marking the end of regular meetings of Camp
Winnie Davis 108. As the ranks have steadily thinned, those few left are now too old and feeble to
continue. For more than half a century, these veterans have done well — in business, politics, education and spiritual fields. … They have built the Old South into the New and their work stands as a
living testimonial.”
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October 2015
“Today there are only a very few heroes of ‘61, less than a squad of gray-clad figures who
marched off in the prime of young manhood to uphold the Cause. There are six active members:
John Gilbert, 94, president of the camp; L. O. Wilson, 89; B. F. Marchbanks, 88; T. B. Jackson, 85;
John Claunch, 82, and W. R. Norman, 82. For 62 years these stalwart sons of the Old South have
carried on. Though they fought for the Lost Cause, they came back not in bitterness, not with rankling spirit, but despite ravages of war, they built anew. They worked for a united nation and gave
their sons in later wars for the glory of the United States.”
“Camp Winnie Davis has been in Waxahachie for many long years and the news of its closing
was received with regret.” The Confederate Veterans of the Texas Division met at Waxahachie in
their twenty-sixth annual reunion on Oct. 5 and 6, 1917 and had royal entertainment in that city of
some 10,000 people. About 600 veterans attended. The last Texas Convention for Confederates
was held in 1937 at the Commercial Hotel in Corsicana, Texas. The remaining six Confederate soldiers were present.
The national UCV organization was active well into the 1940s. Some of the national reunions
attracted thousands of former veterans. Dallas hosted a General UCV reunion in 1902 with 12,000
veterans attending and crowds estimated at 100,000.
At the 1906 National UCV Reunion in New Orleans, General Stephen Dill Lee, UCV Commander General, charged sons and grandsons of Confederate veterans to take this charge to heart.
“To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we
fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier’s good name, the
guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he
loved and which you love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish. Remember, it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations.”
The present-day Sons of Confederate Veterans is the direct heir of the United Confederate
Veterans, and the oldest hereditary organization for male descendants of Confederate soldiers. Organized at Richmond, Virginia in 1896, the SCV continues to serve as a historical, patriotic, and nonpolitical organization dedicated to ensuring that a true history of the 1861- 1865 era is preserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Editor’s Note:
While this article is local to Waxahachie, Texas, it gives us a great insight into the creation of
Confederate memorials and the founding of the SCV - both of which are under the attack from political correctness. It is important to remember the spirit that led these men to remember what they accomplished. It was a spirit of brotherhood formed in the fire of adversity, but not hate.
Do you have correspondence from your ancestor like that of Colonel William Henry Parsons?
Has a memento or relic been passed through your family? Share with us and honor your Confederate soldier or family member.
Page 5
October 2015
Two views of H.L. Hunley drawn from a description by
Charles Hasker, a survivor of an early sinking.
Sketch and portrait obtained from Undersea Warfare: The
Official Magazine of the U.S. Submarine Force
Horace Lawson (H.L.)
Hunley, inventor and
builder of the Hunley.
Hunley Award
Compatriot Ted Walker served as the Camp Hunley Award Program Coordinator
last year and did an excellent job. We presented 13 awards to deserving JROTC
cadets at 13 high schools; more than many entire states present. Unfortunately
he will unable to perform those duties again this year. We need a volunteer
to assume the responsibilities of this position.
I am sure Compatriot Walker would be happy to communicate with you should you
need additional information about the duties, responsibilities and processes used
in conducting the program. You may contact him at [email protected].
School is in session and we need a volunteer right away. Please let me know if
are able to assume this important position. If we have no very coordinator
soon, we will not participate in the program this year.
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October 2015
"To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we submit the vindication of the Cause for
which we fought; to your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles he loved and which made him glorious and which you also cherish.”
 Lt. General Stephen Dill Lee, Commander General, United Confederate Veterans, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1906
Camp Officers
Commander— Russ Lane, [email protected]
1Lt Commander— Raymond Reeves, [email protected]
2Lt Commander— Dave Kunz, [email protected]
Adjutant— Jim Evetts, [email protected]
Past Commander— Rudy Krisch III, [email protected]
Genealogist– Vacant
Judge Advocate— Dick Evins, [email protected]
Chaplain— John Carleton, [email protected]
Color Sergeant— Scott Davis, [email protected]
Web Master— Michael Climo, [email protected]
Communications Officer— Russ Lane, [email protected]
Newsletter Editor— Scott Woodard, [email protected]
RECRUITER OF THE YEAR STATUS
Total recruited since 1 August 2015
(New, Reinstated, Cadets, Transfers and Friends): 19
Communications Officer (Not eligible for the award): 10
Jim Evetts
Marc Mabrito
Dave Kunz
2
2
2
Rudy Krisch
Ron Rakun
2
1
Upcoming Events
1 October, Camp Meeting, Professor Jeff Addicott, “Lies, Damn Lies and Damn Yankee Lies”
5 November, Camp Meeting, Ed Cotham, “”Battle on the Bay”
3 December, Camp Meeting, Jerry Patterson, Topic to be Determined
Meetings are on the first Thursday of the month at Grady’s Bar-B-Q, 6510 San Pedro at JacksonKeller. Visitors are always welcome. We meet to eat and visit at 6:00 pm; meetings start at 7:00
pm. Bring a family member, a friend or another potential recruit.
Remember, the Confederate Battle Flag is the internationally recognized
symbol of resistance to tyranny. Fly it proudly and defend it!