Confederate Memorial Service Speech

April 9, 2011

By James W. King

It is entirely fitting, proper, and appropriate that we should gather here today to pay tribute to the Confederate veterans and to the Civilian population of the South who also contributed and sacrificed so much during the years of 1861-1865 and in the Reconstruction years that followed.

Let us especially remember the women of the Old South who kept the home fires burning, the plantations and farms producing, and who cared for the children.

Let us not only remember the great Southern leaders and heroes like Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest, but let us remember the lesser known officers and enlisted men who formed the backbone of the Army in Gray.

Let us remember on this Confederate Memorial day the Unknown Confederate Soldiers who sleep in lonely soldiers’ graves. Forgotten men who fought and died for the Flag that waved across our Southern land. Even though we know not their names and remember not their faces let us remember their deeds and their fight for Southern Rights.

Let us remember the places where they fought for Constitutional Government, and Southern Independence. Places with names like Manassas, Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Cold Harbor, The Wilderness, Sharpsburg, Murfreesboro, and Gettysburg.

The South has long suffered the stigma placed upon us by revisionist writers and orators. Today some school books, movies, television programs and newspaper articles falsely portray Southerners as rebels and traitors who fought to preserve slavery, misleading our children and millions of Americans who are ignorant in history. As Southerners, we should consider it our duty to our Confederate ancestors to defend their honor and remember the sacrifices made by the men and women of the Confederacy in their attempt to preserve the freedoms provided by the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights, which were written primarily by Southern gentlemen from Virginia.

Political lessons, however, are only one benefit of historical memory. History recalls deep and intimate sentiments of family, community and generations past. It calls forth the shared experiences of a people and reminds them of their traditions and customs. History instructs a people of their failings and discourages false pride but also reminds them of their finer moments, and encourages a proper self respect. Any people with contempt for their heritage have lost faith in themselves and no nation can long survive without pride in its traditions.

The Confederate Flag and the memory of the Confederate men and women and children who carried it is a fitting symbol and reminder that sacrifice and blood are often the price a people must pay to preserve limited government and self rule. Today, the Confederate flag and the memory of the sacrifices made by our Confederate ancestors speaks a certain healthy defiance against the constraining regimens of corporate life and the bureaucratic state. No constitutional guarantee will preserve liberty if the people lack the spirit of independence.

The issue of centralized power versus States Rights was at the heart of the conflict, now referred to as "The War Between the States” or “War For Southern Independence”.

Northern radicals, fanatics, zealots, and socialists poured torrents of verbal and written abuse and slander upon Southerners and this, coupled with an unfair and unjust Northern tariff, froze Southern attitudes into rigid defiance against Northern aggression and tyranny. By 1861 Southerners had concluded that only two choices were available to them.

1. Accept northern tyranny and its suppression of States Rights.

2. Declare independence and dissolve Southern ties to the Union.

What followed was an epic struggle in which Southerners outnumbered 3 to 1 fought with a heroism and a devotion rarely if ever matched in the chronicles of warfare.
The Confederate States of America fell battling under the banner of States Rights, but grand and glorious even in defeat. Duty, Honor and Patriotism called the Confederate Veteran to defend, as best he could, his home and fireside, his family, his native land, the sacred Southern soil, against the invading armies of an aggressor nation.

The Confederate veteran died the death of a hero and we the people of the South, who love those brave and noble heroes, should forever cherish the memory of Southern men who fought and died for Constitutional Government, the Supremacy of our Laws over Centralization, and our rights as guaranteed to us by the blood of our forefathers on the battlefields of the American Revolution.

The bones of our brave Southern boys lie scattered over our beloved Southland, and some, still in far off Northern graves. They fought for their country and gave their lives for the cause of Southern Independence. They chose death before dishonor.
The Confederate Soldier fought hard battles against overwhelming numbers and endured many hardships while trying to protect their homes, families, their property, and their constitution and laws. They fought for the belief that each State is a separate Sovereign Government.

The brave and gallant men who marched to the drum and fife playing Dixie and Bonnie Blue Flag have all passed away. During this month of April which is Confederate History and Heritage Month we have placed the beloved Confederate Flag on local Confederate graves and we may shed a tear in their memory; we live after them, we love their memory. We are forever grateful of the sacrifices they made.

We need never make any apologies for our brave noble Southern Heroes who fought against Northern Aggression, but we mourn the loss of so many gallant men who perished, with honor, on the field of battle.

Let us, their descendants, make them proud of us as they look down upon us from the Valhalla of Confederate Warriors.

The history and heritage of the Confederacy is like a flickering flame which must be guarded and protected. We must encourage our young people to pick up the torch and carry it forward into the future. We cannot allow prejudice and misinformation to engulf this flame. We must preserve our history and heritage for future generations.

As long as Southern Patriots live, the story of the honor, bravery and valor of the Confederate Soldier must be passed from generation to generation.

Let us always pay tribute to the Confederate Veteran. Long Live their Memory- Long Live the South- May we Never Forget.

James W. King
Commander-Sons of Confederate Veterans
Camp 141 Lt. Col. Thomas M. Nelson
Albany, Georgia

Fauquier Heritage Institute presents "The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission"

WARRENTON, VA - The 2012 edition of the annual Fauquier Heritage Institute Lectures in American History features distinguished local historians and nationally acclaimed scholars to address a variety of topics of regional and national significance.

On Saturday, 31 March 2012, with special cooperation by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, the Institute will host Dr. Robert F. Turner, Chairman of the independent Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission, which strongly challenges the modern-era view that President Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by an enslaved African-American woman named Sally Hemings. The lecture will be held at 3:00 PM in the John Barton Payne Building, located at 2 Courthouse Square, on Main Street, in Old Town Warrenton, Virginia. Admission is free to the public. A question-and-answer session and book signing for The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission will be held following the lecture.

The Report of the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings controversy documents the results of a year-long, independent panel inquiry by thirteen distinguished academics from across the nation. Working without compensation at the request of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, the scholars were unanimous in their conclusion that "the allegation is by no means proven," and with but a single mild dissent their views "ranged from serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly untrue." Each argument in the debate is examined in careful detail in the comprehensive 412-page volume, with more than 1,400 footnotes documenting their analysis.

Many of the commonly accepted premises behind the story were found to be false, according to the panel of scholars. Dr. Turner relates on September 1, 1802, one of the most disreputable scandalmongers in American history, James Thomson Callender (who once called George Washington a “traitor” and a “thief”), published an article in the Richmond, Virginia Recorder alleging that while in Paris, Thomas Jefferson had begun a sexual relationship with his servant Sally Hemings- and a son named “Tom” was born of that relationship shortly after they returned to Virginia at the end of 1789 and his “features are said to bear a striking resemblance to those of the President himself.” The report documents Callender was a self-confessed “liar,” who claimed the lies he wrote about President John Adams had made Jefferson President. Subsequently Turner describes Callender as having demanded “payment” in the form of an appointment as Postmaster of Richmond, threatening to turn his pen on Jefferson if the appointment was not forthcoming. When Jefferson refused, Callender vowed a “ten thousand fold vengeance” upon Jefferson. Dr. Turner notes the “Black Sal” allegation was rejected even by Jefferson’s political enemies Alexander Hamilton and John Adams (Adams previously and subsequently was a great Jefferson friend, but at the time his enemy because Adams blamed Jefferson for Callender’s lies during the incredibly nasty political campaign of 1800). The American people also apparently found no credibility in the allegations, re-electing President Jefferson by an overwhelming margin in 1804.

The explanation why Thomas Jefferson never publically denied such calumny was provided by Jefferson himself. In one example, in a May 26, 1800 letter to James Monroe (prior to the vicious Callender smear), Jefferson explained, "It has been so impossible to contradict all their lies, that I have determined to contradict none; for while I should be engaged with one, they would publish twenty new ones. Thirty years of public life have enabled most of those who read newspapers to judge of one for themselves." Dr. Turner recounts in May, 1805, the "Black Sal" story was raised again along with a number of other accusations in the Boston Repertory. Shortly thereafter, in a letter to one of his most trusted advisors, Navy Secretary Robert Smith, President Jefferson enclosed a copy of another letter (whereabouts unknown) and commented, "You will perceive that I plead guilty to one of their [Federalist] charges, that when young and single I offered love to a handsome lady [Elizabeth Walker]. I acknolege (sic) its incorrectness. [I]t is the only one founded in truth among all their allegations against me." Here in this passage, Thomas Jefferson clearly denied the Callender charge to one of his closest friends and confidants.

Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that such a relationship could have begun in Paris, as claimed, as Sally Hemings was the fourteen-year-old servant to Jefferson's daughters Martha and Mary, who lived in a boarding school across town from their famous father and the school had quarters for servants. Years after returning to Monticello, Martha received letters from classmates asking to be remembered to Sally. Dr. Turner recounts Jefferson, after learning his two year old daughter had died of whooping cough, had requested that Mary be sent to him immediately in the care of a trusted older slave named Isabel Hern. Unbeknownst to Jefferson, Isabel was suffering complications from recent childbirth, so his in-laws sent fourteen-year-old Sally Hemings to accompany Mary on the trans-Atlantic voyage. The Scholars Commission Report reveals the only credible surviving descriptions of Sally Hemings’ talents or abilities are found in two 1787 letters from Abigail Adams, wife of U.S. Minister to Great Britain John Adams, who kept the fourteen-year-old Sally and Jefferson’s eight-year-old daughter for two weeks when they arrived from Virginia on the way to joining Jefferson in Paris. She described Sally as being “quite a child,” and said that she “wants more care than the child [Jefferson’s eight-year-old daughter], and is wholly incapable of looking properly after her, without some superiour to direct her.”

According to Dr. Turner, very little else is known about Sally Hemings in the historic record, as Jefferson made passing references to her in only four of his more than 20,000 letters; and only eleven brief entries in his memorandum books, most of them lists of servants and only a single listing after she returned from Paris. Furthermore, years later, while President Jefferson brought a number of servants from Monticello to work at the White House, Sally Hemings was not among them and remained at Monticello. In an undated note to one of his Monticello overseers prior to departing for Washington, D.C., Jefferson instructed that his daughter Martha and her husband were to receive “everything the plantation will furnish,” and added, “They are to have also the use of the house-servants, to wit, Ursula, Critta, Sally, Bet, Wormeley and Joe. So also of Betty Hemings, should her services be necessary.” According to Dr. Turner, if Sally Hemings had filled the role of his de facto wife or mistress, surely her name would have been listed with that of her mother, Betty Hemings, for special treatment; and surely he would have taken her with him among the dozen slaves he regularly took to Washington- but he never did. Compiling verbatim all listings and descriptions of Sally Hemings contained in the historic documents, Dr. Turner notes everything known about Sally Hemings fit onto one side of a standard index card. Quite clearly the report observes, with the almost total absence of information pertaining to Sally Hemings, she appears to have been a very minor figure in Thomas Jefferson’s life.

Today, many mistakenly believe Jefferson's paternity was established by 1998 DNA testing reported in the journal Nature, but those tests did not even involve DNA from Thomas Jefferson, and merely established that Sally's youngest child, Eston, was likely fathered by one of more than two-dozen Jefferson men living in Virginia at the time- of whom at least seven are thought to have been at Monticello when he was conceived. At the time of Eston’s conception, the elderly President Thomas Jefferson, age 64, was documented as suffering a host of medical and physical maladies including debilitating rheumatism clearly documented in the firsthand accounts; and intense migraine headaches which often lasted for weeks at a time.

By far the strongest family traditions (stories passed down from one generation to the next) suggesting President Jefferson's paternity of a Hemings child was told by descendents of Thomas Woodson, long thought to have been the slave "Tom" upon whom the original 1802 story was founded. However, six different tests of descendents of three of Woodson's sons proved beyond any doubt he could not have been fathered by Thomas Jefferson. And for many generations, descendents of Eston Hemings passed down the story that he was not President Jefferson's son, but rather the son of an "uncle." The report explains who that uncle might have been.

Furthermore, the scholars conclude that neither Sally Hemings nor her children received "extraordinary privileges" at Monticello, and her children were not all given their freedom at the age of 21 as is often claimed. It is true that Sally's sons Madison and Eston were freed in Jefferson's will, but so were all but two of the sons and grandsons of Sally's mother Betty Hemings who still belonged to Thomas Jefferson at the time of his death. Sally's sons received by far the least favorable treatment of those freed in Thomas Jefferson's will.

Other evidence contained in the historic record invites the question, “Would Thomas Jefferson have entrusted his reputation to the discretion of Sally Hemings?” Dr. Turner observes that shortly before Thomas Jefferson left for Paris, he wrote his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia, which included one of the most eloquent denunciations of human bondage in history, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever… The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.” Dr. Turner specifically notes Jefferson went on to denounce the sexual exploitation of slave women by their ‘masters:’ “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal… If a parent could find no motive in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present.”

The Scholars Commission Report notes the only accounts we have of Sally Hemings as she traveled to Paris as being exceptionally immature and lacking the judgment of an eight-year-old child, and “As the servant to Jefferson’s daughters, she was presumably in their presence for hours at a time, day after day. Again, the issue is not whether Thomas Jefferson would have believed that such a child might be able to preserve his confidences, but whether he would be certain that he could entrust his cherished reputation to her discretion.” Significantly, period French Intelligence reports reveal no scandalous activities observed and recorded during his time in Paris, which would have served the French Government for the purpose of compromising Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Turner adds, we are asked to believe that Jefferson “took as his ‘concubine’ the young and immature Sally Hemings, the ladies’ maid to his beloved daughters, and apparently entrusted his reputation and their love and respect for him to her discretion. Such behavior would be totally inconsistent with everything we know about Thomas Jefferson.”

Still another dimension emerges from the historic record that Thomas Jefferson was a devoted husband, father and grandfather throughout his life who surrounded himself with family whenever he returned to Monticello. Jefferson's granddaughter, Ellen Randolph Coolidge, eloquently noted in a 1858 letter to her husband, "No female domestic ever entered his chambers except at hours when he was known not to be there and none could have entered without being exposed to the public gaze," and she continued, "[I]s it likely that so fond, so anxious a father, whose letters to his daughters are replete with tenderness and with good counsels for their conduct, should (when there were so many other objects upon whom to fix his illicit attentions) have selected the female attendant of his own pure children to become his paramour? The thing will not bear telling. There are such things, after all, as moral impossibilities." Monticello overseer Edmund Bacon recalled "Mr. Jefferson was perfectly devoted to his grandchildren, and they to him." The Scholars Commission Report notes all of the evidence supports that conclusion. The Report goes on to note that perhaps Thomas Jefferson could have counted on his daughter Martha to respect his privacy in a house with rather small rooms and no privacy whatsoever- with an average of some 50-60 visitors and guests staying at any given time at Monticello. However, such thoughts of family members not venturing into certain parts of the house and knocking before entering were nearly impossible for a home filled at times with nearly two dozen family relatives, children and busy grandchildren whenever Thomas Jefferson returned there in later life. Indeed, the Report notes, it makes no sense at all for men engaged in an illicit relationship to make special efforts to voluntarily fill their home with inquisitive children- if one believes the Callender allegations.

Most significantly, it was the Monticello overseer, Edmund Bacon, who worked for Thomas Jefferson during most of his presidency until shortly before his death, that he knew Jefferson was not the father of Sally Hemings' daughter Harriett, "She was not his daughter, she was ____'s daughter. I know that. I have seen him come out of her mother's room many a morning when I went up to Monticello very early." Dr. Turner notes, "Sadly, the publisher deleted the actual name and substituted the blank line. When this interview occurred Bacon was a wealthy man living far from Monticello without any apparent connection to the Jefferson family or any visible reason not to tell the truth. And he provides the only credible eyewitness testimony about Sally Hemings' apparent sexual life."

The historic record also bears witness to the extraordinary love Thomas Jefferson had for his dear wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, who died at age 33 from lingering complications following child birth in 1782. In the saddest moment of Jefferson's life, he promised Martha as she lay dying that he would never marry again, a pledge made even more remarkable in an era when widowers frequently remarried. In a weakened condition, Martha copied some moving lines from a favorite book of Jefferson, Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," before being unable to finish the passage, "...the days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return..." Thomas Jefferson completed it for her in his own hand, "- and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which follows it, are preludes to the eternal separation which we are shortly to make." Upon Martha's death, Jefferson was observed to be inconsolable for weeks; having confined himself to reading the Bible; pacing back and forth in his private chambers; astride his horse meandering in the nearby mountain countryside; and seeing no one but his daughter Patsy, who was the lone witness to his outbursts of grief. Upon Jefferson's death in 1826, his daughter discovered the completed poem written on the scrap of paper, lovingly wrapped with a lock of Martha's hair, which had been carefully stored in his desk for the remainder of his life. Thomas Jefferson had also taken some of Martha's hair and placed it in a locket that he wore around his neck for the rest of his life, and which remained with him at his burial.

In a letter written just 50 days prior to his death to Henry Lee on May 15, 1826, Thomas Jefferson stated, "All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world."

A fable has been defined as “a fictitious narrative or statement,” usually of known origin. Proponents of the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings Fable are asking modern Americans to believe that Thomas Jefferson became obsessed with a immature, uneducated 14-year-old slave girl while in Paris, less two years after the passing of his beloved wife Martha; and that he proceeded to conduct an illicit, 38-year love affair with Sally Hemings for the remainder of his life fathering one, or more, or all of her children. Based on everything we know in the extensive historic record pertaining to Thomas Jefferson, such a fable is not only unthinkable, it is preposterous.

While the facts cited here are just a few examples of the significant evidence in the historic record to date which overwhelmingly vindicate Thomas Jefferson as a man of great character and moral rectitude; and as someone innocent of the charges of fathering slave children, Dr. Donald Livingston, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Emory University, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and President of the Abbeville Institute for the Study of Southern Culture notes there is a great deal of ideologically driven "advocacy scholarship" throughout academia (and the pop culture media) today, which is more interested in changing behavior than in truth. Solid scholarship and truth will eventually out those omissions of fact; intentional or unintentional errors in the transcriptions of historic documents; and other blatant falsehoods which contradict everything known about Thomas Jefferson contained in the historic record.

What is often lost in today's emotionally and politically charged discussion of the history of slavery on our American continent, is that the institution was a moral and political evil in both the northern and southern colonies. Dr. Livingston observes, “At the time of the signing of our U.S. Constitution, slavery had been an institution in New England for over 150 years; and the institution of slavery was not of Southern origin (the first colony to legalize the slave trade was Massachusetts in 1641; and for 160 years, New England grew wealthy by plying the international slave trade; and for 220 years, New England serviced the slave economies from the South to Brazil).” Americans today should not only recall the many thoughtful, educated Southerners and Northerners alike who agreed with Thomas Jefferson that slavery as an institution was a moral and political evil, but they should also seek to understand the history of slavery imported to our shores factually and truthfully as not merely a Southern problem, but as a national blight since the earliest days of the founding of our republic. The long struggle of how to assimilate a large North American population of Africans one, two or three generations removed from tribal existence, which Thomas Jefferson himself attempted to remedy early in our nation's founding, has been well documented in the historic record.

Thomas Jefferson's true views on the institution of slavery are revealed by his notable efforts in the Virginia legislature, where Dr. Turner observes Jefferson authored a number of measures which attempted to ban the importation of new slaves; permit slave-owners to free their slaves, and provide that children born to slaves after 1800 would be born free and "should be brought up, at the public expense, to tillage, arts or sciences according to their geniuses." Dr. Turner noted Thomas Jefferson included a powerful denunciation of slavery in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, only to see it removed after two states refused to sign if the language was included. Furthermore, Turner notes Thomas Paine characterized Thomas Jefferson as "the first American abolitionist," as a result of Jefferson's urging the Virginia Assembly to emancipate the slaves in the colony as early as 1769. Decades later, in 1864, the authors of the Thirteenth Amendment intentionally modeled the text around words Jefferson had written in 1784, "That after year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to have been personally guilty."

With the hope of promoting an informed public dialogue on the Jefferson-Hemings issue, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society has issued a public challenge for the most prominent scholars on the other side of the issue to engage in public debates. Dr. Turner’s recently televised appearance at a Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., which summarized the report findings, received high praise from scholars and historians alike; and was covered by national and international journalists.

There is a growing awakening across our land, a yearning by American citizens to recall and seek increased knowledge and understanding of the essential truths and guiding principles that represent our cultural, political and spiritual inheritance, much of it authored and championed by Thomas Jefferson. Ultimately, with the passage of time, works by revisionist historiographers fail to withstand critical thought and scrutiny, and their efforts disintegrate before the underlying presence of the truth- their works become scorned and discredited. The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission, remains faithful to the study of our American history as a never-ending search for the truth, as it masterfully examines, weighs and documents the facts contained in the historic record to date along with newer research.

Dr. Turner concludes, “It is my hope that our report will at minimum help to correct some of the mythology that has grown up around this issue in recent years. The ninety-two percent margin by which the members of the Scholars Commission concluded that the allegation is probably false should at least give those otherwise inclined to accept the charge reason to pause, as should the fact that the leading scholars who embraced the argument that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings prior to the release of our report have been unwilling to defend that position in public debate.”

Why does it matter today for Americans to study the immense character and ideals of Thomas Jefferson factually and truthfully?

Thomas Jefferson once reminded us a nation cannot remain ignorant and free. A 2009 survey of Oklahoma high school students indicated only 25% could identify George Washington as our nation's first President; only 14% could identify Thomas Jefferson as the Author of the Declaration of Independence; and only about 3% would have passed the basic Citizenship Test given to recent immigrant candidates for U.S. citizenship. Such ignorance does not bode well for the future of our republic- the federative polity bequeathed to us by our American Founders.

It matters greatly that current and future generations of Americans learn about the immense character, legacy, ideals and essential truths of Thomas Jefferson, not only as a great American Founder and Patriot worthy of our remembrance and memorialization for his many noble qualities and contributions, but also for his deep inspiration and enduring influence which comprise the very foundation of America. His is a legacy that current and future generations of Americans- and citizens around the world- would be well-served to learn, to honor and remember, and to keep dear in our hearts.

Robert F. Turner is a cofounder of the Center for National Security Law (1981) at the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Turner holds both professional and academic doctorates from the University of Virginia School of Law, and is a former Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College and a Distinguished Lecturer at West Point. He has taught both in Virginia's Department of Government and Foreign Affairs and the Law School, and is the author or editor of more than a dozen books. A former president of the congressionally-established U.S. Institute of Peace, he has had a strong professional interest in Jefferson for more than four decades.

The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (http://www.tjheritage.org/) is a Charlottesville, Virginia-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization which has a five-fold purpose: To further the honor and integrity of Thomas Jefferson, and to promote his vision and ideas, and their application in our times and in the future; to pursue truth in all matters that touch upon the legacy of Thomas Jefferson; to promote the principles of freedom, patriotism and truth, which were hallmarks of Thomas Jefferson's life; to sponsor and perform research in matters pertaining to the private and public life of Thomas Jefferson; and to stand always in opposition to those who would seek to undermine the integrity of Thomas Jefferson. Additional detailed facts documenting the work of the Scholars Commission can be referenced at the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society web site.

The Fauquier Heritage Institute was created to promote the study and love of Virginia and American history. To that end, the Institute hosts a yearly series of public lectures that seek to promote knowledge, understanding and appreciation of our local, regional and national history.

The Fauquier Heritage Institute welcomes and encourages all volunteers to aid our special events programs and lecture series in a variety of capacities. Contact Program Chair Mr. Gar Schulin at: gonearethedays@hughes.net

Resolution adopted unanimously by the GEC

These being the facts: The Museum of the Confederacy has long been on a path to downplay it's role in commemorating the Confederacy. It is opening a new facility in Appomattox where it refuses to display a Confederate flag on a pole outside the building.

Thus be it resolved: The General Executive Council of the Sons of Confederate Veterans does call upon the Museum of the Confederacy to display a Confederate Flag on a pole on the outside of the Appomattox facility. That such a display is both historically accurate and morally necessary.

Be it also resolved: The General Executive Council of the Sons of Confederate Veterans does strongly urge it's Compatriots not to be participants in the opening ceremony of said facility. To do so lends credence to the claims of those refusing to display the Confederate flag in its proper station.

Resolution adopted unanimously by the GEC

These being the facts: The Museum of the Confederacy has long been on a path to downplay it's role in commemorating the Confederacy. It is opening a new facility in Appomattox where it refuses to display a Confederate flag on a pole outside the building.

Thus be it resolved: The General Executive Council of the Sons of Confederate Veterans does call upon the Museum of the Confederacy to display a Confederate Flag on a pole on the outside of the Appomattox facility. That such a display is both historically accurate and morally necessary.

Be it also resolved: The General Executive Council of the Sons of Confederate Veterans does strongly urge it's Compatriots not to be participants in the opening ceremony of said facility. To do so lends credence to the claims of those refusing to display the Confederate flag in its proper station.

The CONFEDERATE ATTACK on ... WHERE?

By Bob Hurst

That great conflict between the North and the South from 1861 to 1865 (at least the military part was) is referred to by many names. Common titles applied to the struggle include the "Civil War" (although by definition this is incorrect), the "War Between the States" (Congress says this name is okay), the "War for Southern Independence" (favored by many in the South) and numerous other titles.

One title that seems to best describe the epic clash is the "War of Northern Aggression". Truly, any reasonable person studying the lead-up period prior to the conflict and the events (battles, etc.) of the four years of armed hostilities can only come to the conclusion that it was the North that was the aggressor - not the South.

When surveying the long list of land battles, engagements and skirmishes of the War, it becomes painfully evident that the conflict consisted of four years of northern armies attacking Southern sites. None of the Southern states was spared from this onslaught. From Allatoona, Georgia, to Wilmington, North Carolina; from Pea Ridge, Arkansas, to Olustee, Florida; from Mansfield, Louisiana, to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee; from Perryville, Kentucky, to Wilson's Creek, Missouri; from Galveston, Texas to Selma, Alabama; and from Champion's Hill, Mississippi, to Honey Hill, South Carolina, there were few communities in the South, either large or small, which were not subject to the horrors imposed by the Federal Army.

Virginia, of course, was a special case with so many military engagements taking place in the state that if you had a large box of pins to mark each site on a map you would soon run out of pins.

Additionally, there is the situation of Sherman in Georgia/South Carolina and Sheridan in the Shenandoah Vally of Virginia where northern troops attacked multitudes of civilian targets destroying everything in the vicinity and laying waste to huge areas of land while conducting their odious scheme of "total war".

By contrast, most of the North was completely separated (physically) from the horrors of war and the residents of the northern states had the luxury of relaxing on their porches or working in their gardens without having to worry about the invasion of Southern troops that would bring devastation to their homes and lives. With the exception of a few raids by General John Hunt Morgan, Jubal Early's action at Chambersburg, and the conflicts at Sharpsburg (Antietam) and Gettysburg, there was hardly any Confederate activity in the non-seceding states during the War.

Northerners cannot admonish the South for the burning of Cleveland because it never happened, but Atlanta was burned to the ground by federal forces. Northerners cannot lament the total destruction of Allentown, Pennsylvania, by Southern troops because that also never happened, but Southerners could certainly mourn the total destruction of Meridian, Mississippi, by northern troops under the command of the beast Sherman. There was no Southern attack on Michigan, or New Jersey, or Rhode Island, or Massachusetts , or Vermont, or....oops, I guess I can't include Vermont in this list because, as unlikely as it seems, there indeed was a Confederate attack on that yankee state bordering on Canada.

That Confederate attack on Vermont will be the subject of this story and it makes for an interesting subject because of the uniqueness of the encounter and the audacity of the young Confederate officer who conceived the attack and led the small band who launched the strike on St. Albans, Vermont, on October 19, 1864.

Bennett Henderson Young was a young Kentuckian who had been captured near Salineville, Ohio, while riding with Morgan's Raiders on July26, 1863. He was imprisoned at the infamous Camp Douglas in Chicago but was able to escape soon after his incarceration and make his way to Canada. He was anxious to return to the South and had traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he planned to board a sea-going vessel and run the blockade. While in Halifax he had a chance meeting with Clement C. Clay, a Confederate emissary who was in Canada to establish diplomatic operations in that country. Clay recognized that Young had some very special qualities and was impressed by both his devotion to the Confederate Cause and his ideas about some out-of-the-ordinary ways to help the war effort. Clement Clay gave to the young man a letter of introduction to Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon.

The cagy and intelligent young man made his way to Richmond and met with Secretary Seddon.The war secretary was so impressed with Young that he commissioned him a lieutenant in the Confederate Secret Service and granted him permission to organize a special group of irregulars who could undertake special missions "beyond the Confederate States".This new unit was designated as the "5th Confederate State Retributors". To make up this unit for special operations, Lieutenant Young recruited escaped Confederate prisoners living in Canada and some Canadians who were sympathetic to the South.

These Confederates and Confederate-sympathizers living in Canada had read reports of the atrocities being committed in Georgia, South Carolina and the Shenandoah Valley by Union troops under the command of William Sherman and Philip Sheridan as they engaged in "total war" against civilians in those areas. Bennett Young was especially incensed by these northern tactics being directed at Southern civilians and developed a plan for retaliation. Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved this plan which was to raid a number of New England towns along the Canadian border and rob the banks in these towns. This would help replenish the Confederate treasury and could possibly force the Union Army to pull troops from war zones in the South and ship them north to defend the Canadian border. Bennett Young also wanted these northerners to experience what it was like to have the military invade civilian targets so he also proposed burning these towns as had been done in many Southern areas. One of the towns included on this list of targets was the wealthy town of St. Albans, Vermont.

Young's unit of special forces consisted of only 21 total retributors so getting them into St. Albans without stirring up suspicion was certainly not the problem that a larger force would face. Young had his men, over a period of several days, enter St. Albans utilizing various modes of travel. Each man identified himself to the locals as either a businessman there on official business or as a sportsman there on vacation to get in some hunting. After several days of scouting the town, the plan was ready to be put into operation.

About mid-afternoon of October 19, the plan was put into action. Lieutenant Young took one group of Confederates and set up at the town park which would be the rendezvous point after the attack had been completed. The remaining forces were divided into three groups with one going to Franklin County Bank, one to St. Albans Bank and one to the First National Bank. While the forces assigned to each bank were going about their duties, those who had gone to the park with Lieutenant Young then started spreading through the town stealing horses from the various stables and from individuals who had left horses unattended. The horses were necessary for escape to Canada after completion of the mission.

Each of the Confederates had been given several containers of an incendiary preparation called "Greek Fire". This was a phosphorus preparation designed to burst into flame when the container was smashed against a solid surface. These were to be the means to torch the town.

The plan was for each group to work quickly in the bank removing as much money as they could while drawing as little attention as possible to the operation. They were instructed, however, to meet resistance with force. After the bank work was completed the groups were to withdraw quickly to the park, smashing bottles of the incendiary against building walls along the way. There they would mount the stolen horses and head for the Canadian border.

Although Bennett Young had selected the least busy time of day on the slowest day of the week for the banks, as always things can go wrong. One problem was that when they announced they were Confederates and were robbing the bank, many in the bank didn't take them seriously. After all, they were in Vermont, far away from any Confederates. Some in the banks, though, did realize what was happening and were able to slip out and spread the alarm among the townspeople. Despite facing sporadic gunfire on the way to the rendezvous at the park, there appeared to be no Confederate casualties. The group was unsuccessful in leaving the town in flames, however, as the "Greek Fire" failed to ignite when smashed against the wooden buildings wet from recent rain. Still, the mission was successful as the Confederates made off with more than $200,000 taken from the banks and the patrons.

The Retributors made it safely to Canada and were able to send some of the money to the South. They were arrested in Canada, however, a few days after the attack and the Canadian authorities returned some $88,000 to Vermont (at least, by some accounts). What the Canadian authorities would not return to St. Albans or the State of Vermont were the captured Confederates. Despite repeated requests from the United States and Vermont, Canada refused to extradite the Confederates based on an argument that they were only obeying orders and eventually Bennett Young and his men were set free on a technicality. (Actually there had been no such orders but when Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin learned of the situation he quickly sent appropriate orders to the Canadian authorities.)

Even though the attack on St. Albans was only a small endeavor, it did create chaos across New England. Rumors spread throughout the region that many more raids were to come and that the Confederates had thousands of troops stationed along the Canadian border poised for attack. The NEW YORK POST newspaper even advised the Canadian government to consider the possibility of continuing Confederate attacks as a "grave international question". All this from a raid by a small band of Confederates far from home but led by a young man with the heart of a lion.

Bennett Young survived the War and eventually returned home to Kentucky. Even though he never led another raid for the Confederacy, he spent a spectacular lifetime doing things to help rebuild his beloved Southland. He became a renowned humanitarian, historian, attorney and community leader. Using primarily his own money, he organized a school for orphan girls. He served for many years as the President of the Kentucky School for the Blind. He also helped organize the Colored Orphan's Home in Louisville and was a chief fundraiser for the institution for many years. He somehow found the time to write a collection of childrens' stories (and tell them on countless occasions to young audiences) that were eventually published in both print and Braille.

Bennett Henderson Young lived for 54 years after the War ended. At an event in 1918 honoring him for his service and humanitarian efforts, he even received a cablegram from President Woodrow Wilson commending him for his many deeds. Bennett Young exemplified the very best in Southern manhood - another in a long line of magnificent Confederates.

Note: There is a marker in St. Albans, Vermont, commemorating the St. Albans Raid. It states that the Confederates "spread terror from the north, robbed three banks and shot up the town". Those yankees always sem to hyperbolize. Interestingly, there are several markers in northern states proclaiming those areas as the northernmost point attained by Confederate troops. One marker, erected by the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, stands on Pennsylvania Route 34 about a mile north of Carlisle Springs. There is a monument on the battlefield at Gettysburg that is entitled "Highwater Mark of the Rebellion". Just a few miles west of Salineville, Ohio, on Ohio Route 39 is a marker that indicates that the advance of General John Hunt Morgan into that area constituted the northernmost engagement of the Confederate Army and in Bloomfield (Davis County), Iowa, is a plaque observant of a Confederate raid on October 12, 1864. I guess it depends on whether it was a Confederate Army involved or just a small band of 21 Retributors, but I believe the St. Albans raid is definitely the farthest north of Confederate actions and especially the strangest. Job well done, fellas! Oh, by the way, Bennett Henderson Young was also a recipient of the Confederate Medal of Honer.

DEO VINDICE

Note 2: Articles from past years of CONFEDERATE JOURNAL are available in book form. Articles from 2005-2007 are in Volume 1 and can be ordered online at http://createspace.com/3540609 and articles from 2008-2009 are in Volume 2 and can be ordered at http://createspace.com/3543269.

Bob Hurst is a true Son of the South with special interests in the Confederacy and the antebellum architecture of the South. He is Commander of Col. David Lang Camp, Sons of Confederate Veterans, in Tallahassee and is 2nd Lt. Commander of the Florida Division, SCV. Contact him at confederatedad1@yahoo.com or 850-878-7010.

Confederate Battleflag at the MOC???

Now you see it...now you DON'T!

Susan Frise Hathaway

Links to Rough Riders Ybor City (Tampa) parade pictures.

http://augustajanesudc.shutterfly.com/

http://www.augustajanesudc.org/

St Patrick's Day 2012 Savannah, Georgia

These are a few of the photos taken of yesterday's St Patrick's Day parade in Savannah. What enthusiastic crowds as you mentioned earlier. Crowds were estimated at one million people and I am so happy of the favorable responses that we got from the public and news media.

Respectfully, Your
Obedient Servant

Ron Coats
Lieutenant Commander]
Savannah Militia Camp 1657

Photos HERE

Poll: Should the Confederate flag fly

Poll now closed.... We were 91%

Poll: Should the Confederate flag fly outside of the new Museum of the Confederacy-Appomattox when it opens later this month?

HERE

Fauquier Heritage Institute presents "The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission"

WARRENTON, VA - The 2012 edition of the annual Fauquier Heritage Institute Lectures in American History features distinguished local historians and nationally acclaimed scholars to address a variety of topics of regional and national significance.

On Saturday, 31 March 2012, with special cooperation by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, the Institute will host Dr. Robert F. Turner, Chairman of the independent Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission, which strongly challenges the modern-era view that President Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by an enslaved African-American woman named Sally Hemings. The lecture will be held at 3:00 PM in the John Barton Payne Building, located at 2 Courthouse Square, on Main Street, in Old Town Warrenton, Virginia. Admission is free to the public. A question-and-answer session and book signing for The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission will be held following the lecture.

The Report of the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings controversy documents the results of a year-long, independent panel inquiry by thirteen distinguished academics from across the nation. Working without compensation at the request of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, the scholars were unanimous in their conclusion that "the allegation is by no means proven," and with but a single mild dissent their views "ranged from serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly untrue." Each argument in the debate is examined in careful detail in the comprehensive 412-page volume, with more than 1,400 footnotes documenting their analysis.

Many of the commonly accepted premises behind the story were found to be false, according to the panel of scholars. Dr. Turner relates on September 1, 1802, one of the most disreputable scandalmongers in American history, James Thomson Callender (who once called George Washington a “traitor” and a “thief”), published an article in the Richmond, Virginia Recorder alleging that while in Paris, Thomas Jefferson had begun a sexual relationship with his servant Sally Hemings- and a son named “Tom” was born of that relationship shortly after they returned to Virginia at the end of 1789 and his “features are said to bear a striking resemblance to those of the President himself.” The report documents Callender was a self-confessed “liar,” who claimed the lies he wrote about President John Adams had made Jefferson President. Subsequently Turner describes Callender as having demanded “payment” in the form of an appointment as Postmaster of Richmond, threatening to turn his pen on Jefferson if the appointment was not forthcoming. When Jefferson refused, Callender vowed a “ten thousand fold vengeance” upon Jefferson. Dr. Turner notes the “Black Sal” allegation was rejected even by Jefferson’s political enemies Alexander Hamilton and John Adams (Adams previously and subsequently was a great Jefferson friend, but at the time his enemy because Adams blamed Jefferson for Callender’s lies during the incredibly nasty political campaign of 1800). The American people also apparently found no credibility in the allegations, re-electing President Jefferson by an overwhelming margin in 1804.

The explanation why Thomas Jefferson never publically denied such calumny was provided by Jefferson himself. In one example, in a May 26, 1800 letter to James Monroe (prior to the vicious Callender smear), Jefferson explained, "It has been so impossible to contradict all their lies, that I have determined to contradict none; for while I should be engaged with one, they would publish twenty new ones. Thirty years of public life have enabled most of those who read newspapers to judge of one for themselves." Dr. Turner recounts in May, 1805, the "Black Sal" story was raised again along with a number of other accusations in the Boston Repertory. Shortly thereafter, in a letter to one of his most trusted advisors, Navy Secretary Robert Smith, President Jefferson enclosed a copy of another letter (whereabouts unknown) and commented, "You will perceive that I plead guilty to one of their [Federalist] charges, that when young and single I offered love to a handsome lady [Elizabeth Walker]. I acknolege (sic) its incorrectness. [I]t is the only one founded in truth among all their allegations against me." Here in this passage, Thomas Jefferson clearly denied the Callender charge to one of his closest friends and confidants.

Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that such a relationship could have begun in Paris, as claimed, as Sally Hemings was the fourteen-year-old servant to Jefferson's daughters Martha and Mary, who lived in a boarding school across town from their famous father and the school had quarters for servants. Years after returning to Monticello, Martha received letters from classmates asking to be remembered to Sally. Dr. Turner recounts Jefferson, after learning his two year old daughter had died of whooping cough, had requested that Mary be sent to him immediately in the care of a trusted older slave named Isabel Hern. Unbeknownst to Jefferson, Isabel was suffering complications from recent childbirth, so his in-laws sent fourteen-year-old Sally Hemings to accompany Mary on the trans-Atlantic voyage. The Scholars Commission Report reveals the only credible surviving descriptions of Sally Hemings’ talents or abilities are found in two 1787 letters from Abigail Adams, wife of U.S. Minister to Great Britain John Adams, who kept the fourteen-year-old Sally and Jefferson’s eight-year-old daughter for two weeks when they arrived from Virginia on the way to joining Jefferson in Paris. She described Sally as being “quite a child,” and said that she “wants more care than the child [Jefferson’s eight-year-old daughter], and is wholly incapable of looking properly after her, without some superiour to direct her.”

According to Dr. Turner, very little else is known about Sally Hemings in the historic record, as Jefferson made passing references to her in only four of his more than 20,000 letters; and only eleven brief entries in his memorandum books, most of them lists of servants and only a single listing after she returned from Paris. Furthermore, years later, while President Jefferson brought a number of servants from Monticello to work at the White House, Sally Hemings was not among them and remained at Monticello. In an undated note to one of his Monticello overseers prior to departing for Washington, D.C., Jefferson instructed that his daughter Martha and her husband were to receive “everything the plantation will furnish,” and added, “They are to have also the use of the house-servants, to wit, Ursula, Critta, Sally, Bet, Wormeley and Joe. So also of Betty Hemings, should her services be necessary.” According to Dr. Turner, if Sally Hemings had filled the role of his de facto wife or mistress, surely her name would have been listed with that of her mother, Betty Hemings, for special treatment; and surely he would have taken her with him among the dozen slaves he regularly took to Washington- but he never did. Compiling verbatim all listings and descriptions of Sally Hemings contained in the historic documents, Dr. Turner notes everything known about Sally Hemings fit onto one side of a standard index card. Quite clearly the report observes, with the almost total absence of information pertaining to Sally Hemings, she appears to have been a very minor figure in Thomas Jefferson’s life.

Today, many mistakenly believe Jefferson's paternity was established by 1998 DNA testing reported in the journal Nature, but those tests did not even involve DNA from Thomas Jefferson, and merely established that Sally's youngest child, Eston, was likely fathered by one of more than two-dozen Jefferson men living in Virginia at the time- of whom at least seven are thought to have been at Monticello when he was conceived. At the time of Eston’s conception, the elderly President Thomas Jefferson, age 64, was documented as suffering a host of medical and physical maladies including debilitating rheumatism clearly documented in the firsthand accounts; and intense migraine headaches which often lasted for weeks at a time.

By far the strongest family traditions (stories passed down from one generation to the next) suggesting President Jefferson's paternity of a Hemings child was told by descendents of Thomas Woodson, long thought to have been the slave "Tom" upon whom the original 1802 story was founded. However, six different tests of descendents of three of Woodson's sons proved beyond any doubt he could not have been fathered by Thomas Jefferson. And for many generations, descendents of Eston Hemings passed down the story that he was not President Jefferson's son, but rather the son of an "uncle." The report explains who that uncle might have been.

Furthermore, the scholars conclude that neither Sally Hemings nor her children received "extraordinary privileges" at Monticello, and her children were not all given their freedom at the age of 21 as is often claimed. It is true that Sally's sons Madison and Eston were freed in Jefferson's will, but so were all but two of the sons and grandsons of Sally's mother Betty Hemings who still belonged to Thomas Jefferson at the time of his death. Sally's sons received by far the least favorable treatment of those freed in Thomas Jefferson's will.

Other evidence contained in the historic record invites the question, “Would Thomas Jefferson have entrusted his reputation to the discretion of Sally Hemings?” Dr. Turner observes that shortly before Thomas Jefferson left for Paris, he wrote his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia, which included one of the most eloquent denunciations of human bondage in history, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever… The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.” Dr. Turner specifically notes Jefferson went on to denounce the sexual exploitation of slave women by their ‘masters:’ “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal… If a parent could find no motive in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present.”

The Scholars Commission Report notes the only accounts we have of Sally Hemings as she traveled to Paris as being exceptionally immature and lacking the judgment of an eight-year-old child, and “As the servant to Jefferson’s daughters, she was presumably in their presence for hours at a time, day after day. Again, the issue is not whether Thomas Jefferson would have believed that such a child might be able to preserve his confidences, but whether he would be certain that he could entrust his cherished reputation to her discretion.” Significantly, period French Intelligence reports reveal no scandalous activities observed and recorded during his time in Paris, which would have served the French Government for the purpose of compromising Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Turner adds, we are asked to believe that Jefferson “took as his ‘concubine’ the young and immature Sally Hemings, the ladies’ maid to his beloved daughters, and apparently entrusted his reputation and their love and respect for him to her discretion. Such behavior would be totally inconsistent with everything we know about Thomas Jefferson.”

Still another dimension emerges from the historic record that Thomas Jefferson was a devoted husband, father and grandfather throughout his life who surrounded himself with family whenever he returned to Monticello. Jefferson's granddaughter, Ellen Randolph Coolidge, eloquently noted in a 1858 letter to her husband, "No female domestic ever entered his chambers except at hours when he was known not to be there and none could have entered without being exposed to the public gaze," and she continued, "[I]s it likely that so fond, so anxious a father, whose letters to his daughters are replete with tenderness and with good counsels for their conduct, should (when there were so many other objects upon whom to fix his illicit attentions) have selected the female attendant of his own pure children to become his paramour? The thing will not bear telling. There are such things, after all, as moral impossibilities." Monticello overseer Edmund Bacon recalled "Mr. Jefferson was perfectly devoted to his grandchildren, and they to him." The Scholars Commission Report notes all of the evidence supports that conclusion. The Report goes on to note that perhaps Thomas Jefferson could have counted on his daughter Martha to respect his privacy in a house with rather small rooms and no privacy whatsoever- with an average of some 50-60 visitors and guests staying at any given time at Monticello. However, such thoughts of family members not venturing into certain parts of the house and knocking before entering were nearly impossible for a home filled at times with nearly two dozen family relatives, children and busy grandchildren whenever Thomas Jefferson returned there in later life. Indeed, the Report notes, it makes no sense at all for men engaged in an illicit relationship to make special efforts to voluntarily fill their home with inquisitive children- if one believes the Callender allegations.

Most significantly, it was the Monticello overseer, Edmund Bacon, who worked for Thomas Jefferson during most of his presidency until shortly before his death, that he knew Jefferson was not the father of Sally Hemings' daughter Harriett, "She was not his daughter, she was ____'s daughter. I know that. I have seen him come out of her mother's room many a morning when I went up to Monticello very early." Dr. Turner notes, "Sadly, the publisher deleted the actual name and substituted the blank line. When this interview occurred Bacon was a wealthy man living far from Monticello without any apparent connection to the Jefferson family or any visible reason not to tell the truth. And he provides the only credible eyewitness testimony about Sally Hemings' apparent sexual life."

The historic record also bears witness to the extraordinary love Thomas Jefferson had for his dear wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, who died at age 33 from lingering complications following child birth in 1782. In the saddest moment of Jefferson's life, he promised Martha as she lay dying that he would never marry again, a pledge made even more remarkable in an era when widowers frequently remarried. In a weakened condition, Martha copied some moving lines from a favorite book of Jefferson, Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," before being unable to finish the passage, "...the days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return..." Thomas Jefferson completed it for her in his own hand, "- and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which follows it, are preludes to the eternal separation which we are shortly to make." Upon Martha's death, Jefferson was observed to be inconsolable for weeks; having confined himself to reading the Bible; pacing back and forth in his private chambers; astride his horse meandering in the nearby mountain countryside; and seeing no one but his daughter Patsy, who was the lone witness to his outbursts of grief. Upon Jefferson's death in 1826, his daughter discovered the completed poem written on the scrap of paper, lovingly wrapped with a lock of Martha's hair, which had been carefully stored in his desk for the remainder of his life. Thomas Jefferson had also taken some of Martha's hair and placed it in a locket that he wore around his neck for the rest of his life, and which remained with him at his burial.

In a letter written just 50 days prior to his death to Henry Lee on May 15, 1826, Thomas Jefferson stated, "All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world."

A fable has been defined as “a fictitious narrative or statement,” usually of known origin. Proponents of the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings Fable are asking modern Americans to believe that Thomas Jefferson became obsessed with a immature, uneducated 14-year-old slave girl while in Paris, less two years after the passing of his beloved wife Martha; and that he proceeded to conduct an illicit, 38-year love affair with Sally Hemings for the remainder of his life fathering one, or more, or all of her children. Based on everything we know in the extensive historic record pertaining to Thomas Jefferson, such a fable is not only unthinkable, it is preposterous.

While the facts cited here are just a few examples of the significant evidence in the historic record to date which overwhelmingly vindicate Thomas Jefferson as a man of great character and moral rectitude; and as someone innocent of the charges of fathering slave children, Dr. Donald Livingston, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Emory University, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and President of the Abbeville Institute for the Study of Southern Culture notes there is a great deal of ideologically driven "advocacy scholarship" throughout academia (and the pop culture media) today, which is more interested in changing behavior than in truth. Solid scholarship and truth will eventually out those omissions of fact; intentional or unintentional errors in the transcriptions of historic documents; and other blatant falsehoods which contradict everything known about Thomas Jefferson contained in the historic record.

What is often lost in today's emotionally and politically charged discussion of the history of slavery on our American continent, is that the institution was a moral and political evil in both the northern and southern colonies. Dr. Livingston observes, “At the time of the signing of our U.S. Constitution, slavery had been an institution in New England for over 150 years; and the institution of slavery was not of Southern origin (the first colony to legalize the slave trade was Massachusetts in 1641; and for 160 years, New England grew wealthy by plying the international slave trade; and for 220 years, New England serviced the slave economies from the South to Brazil).” Americans today should not only recall the many thoughtful, educated Southerners and Northerners alike who agreed with Thomas Jefferson that slavery as an institution was a moral and political evil, but they should also seek to understand the history of slavery imported to our shores factually and truthfully as not merely a Southern problem, but as a national blight since the earliest days of the founding of our republic. The long struggle of how to assimilate a large North American population of Africans one, two or three generations removed from tribal existence, which Thomas Jefferson himself attempted to remedy early in our nation's founding, has been well documented in the historic record.

Thomas Jefferson's true views on the institution of slavery are revealed by his notable efforts in the Virginia legislature, where Dr. Turner observes Jefferson authored a number of measures which attempted to ban the importation of new slaves; permit slave-owners to free their slaves, and provide that children born to slaves after 1800 would be born free and "should be brought up, at the public expense, to tillage, arts or sciences according to their geniuses." Dr. Turner noted Thomas Jefferson included a powerful denunciation of slavery in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, only to see it removed after two states refused to sign if the language was included. Furthermore, Turner notes Thomas Paine characterized Thomas Jefferson as "the first American abolitionist," as a result of Jefferson's urging the Virginia Assembly to emancipate the slaves in the colony as early as 1769. Decades later, in 1864, the authors of the Thirteenth Amendment intentionally modeled the text around words Jefferson had written in 1784, "That after year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to have been personally guilty."

With the hope of promoting an informed public dialogue on the Jefferson-Hemings issue, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society has issued a public challenge for the most prominent scholars on the other side of the issue to engage in public debates. Dr. Turner’s recently televised appearance at a Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., which summarized the report findings, received high praise from scholars and historians alike; and was covered by national and international journalists.

There is a growing awakening across our land, a yearning by American citizens to recall and seek increased knowledge and understanding of the essential truths and guiding principles that represent our cultural, political and spiritual inheritance, much of it authored and championed by Thomas Jefferson. Ultimately, with the passage of time, works by revisionist historiographers fail to withstand critical thought and scrutiny, and their efforts disintegrate before the underlying presence of the truth- their works become scorned and discredited. The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission, remains faithful to the study of our American history as a never-ending search for the truth, as it masterfully examines, weighs and documents the facts contained in the historic record to date along with newer research.

Dr. Turner concludes, “It is my hope that our report will at minimum help to correct some of the mythology that has grown up around this issue in recent years. The ninety-two percent margin by which the members of the Scholars Commission concluded that the allegation is probably false should at least give those otherwise inclined to accept the charge reason to pause, as should the fact that the leading scholars who embraced the argument that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings prior to the release of our report have been unwilling to defend that position in public debate.”

Why does it matter today for Americans to study the immense character and ideals of Thomas Jefferson factually and truthfully?

Thomas Jefferson once reminded us a nation cannot remain ignorant and free. A 2009 survey of Oklahoma high school students indicated only 25% could identify George Washington as our nation's first President; only 14% could identify Thomas Jefferson as the Author of the Declaration of Independence; and only about 3% would have passed the basic Citizenship Test given to recent immigrant candidates for U.S. citizenship. Such ignorance does not bode well for the future of our republic- the federative polity bequeathed to us by our American Founders.

It matters greatly that current and future generations of Americans learn about the immense character, legacy, ideals and essential truths of Thomas Jefferson, not only as a great American Founder and Patriot worthy of our remembrance and memorialization for his many noble qualities and contributions, but also for his deep inspiration and enduring influence which comprise the very foundation of America. His is a legacy that current and future generations of Americans- and citizens around the world- would be well-served to learn, to honor and remember, and to keep dear in our hearts.

Robert F. Turner is a cofounder of the Center for National Security Law (1981) at the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Turner holds both professional and academic doctorates from the University of Virginia School of Law, and is a former Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College and a Distinguished Lecturer at West Point. He has taught both in Virginia's Department of Government and Foreign Affairs and the Law School, and is the author or editor of more than a dozen books. A former president of the congressionally-established U.S. Institute of Peace, he has had a strong professional interest in Jefferson for more than four decades.

The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (http://www.tjheritage.org/) is a Charlottesville, Virginia-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization which has a five-fold purpose: To further the honor and integrity of Thomas Jefferson, and to promote his vision and ideas, and their application in our times and in the future; to pursue truth in all matters that touch upon the legacy of Thomas Jefferson; to promote the principles of freedom, patriotism and truth, which were hallmarks of Thomas Jefferson's life; to sponsor and perform research in matters pertaining to the private and public life of Thomas Jefferson; and to stand always in opposition to those who would seek to undermine the integrity of Thomas Jefferson. Additional detailed facts documenting the work of the Scholars Commission can be referenced at the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society web site.

The Fauquier Heritage Institute was created to promote the study and love of Virginia and American history. To that end, the Institute hosts a yearly series of public lectures that seek to promote knowledge, understanding and appreciation of our local, regional and national history.

The Fauquier Heritage Institute welcomes and encourages all volunteers to aid our special events programs and lecture series in a variety of capacities. Contact Program Chair Mr. Gar Schulin at: gonearethedays@hughes.net

Gen. Patrick Cleburne--The Fighting Irishman

By Calvin E. Johnson, Jr., American--Historical Writer, Speaker, Author of book “When America Stood for God, Family and Country” and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. http://www.scv.org
cjohnson1861@bellsouth.net

Saturday, March 17, 2012, is Saint Patrick’s Day and the 184th birthday of Patrick Ronayne Cleburne.

Do you remember the 1961 weekly television series, entitled “The Americans?” This wonderful-educational show centered around two brothers who fought on opposite sides of the War Between the States—Confederate Corporal Jeff Canfield played by Richard Davalos and Union Corporal Ben Canfield played by Darryl Hickman. Their Father, Pa Canfield, was played by the late great John McIntire. The wonderful theme music was produced by Hugo Friedhofer and original music by Bernard Hermann. Why don’t they make shows like this anymore?

When I was growing up near Atlanta, Georgia young people could recite the words to the United States Constitution and knew the history of those who gave us our freedom. Politicians in their speeches proudly quoted from American Patriots like; George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee.

Who was Patrick R. Cleburne?

Patrick Ronayne Cleburne was born on March 17, 1828, in Ovens, County Cork, Ireland. He was an Anglo-Irish soldier who served in the 41st Regiment of Foot of the British Army. He is however best known for his service to the Confederates States of America during the War Between the States.

He was only eighteen months old when his Mother died and a young fifteen when his Father passed away. He tried to follow in his Father’s footsteps, Dr. Joseph Cleburne, in the field of medicine but failed his entrance exam to Trinity College of Medicine in 1848. He immigrated to America three years later with two brothers and a sister and made his home in Helena, Arkansas.

In 1860 Cleburne became a naturalized citizen, lawyer and was popular with the residents.

He sided with the Confederacy at the outbreak of the War Between the States and progressed from the rank of private of the local militia to major general.

Cleburne, like many Southerners, did not support the institution of slavery but chose to serve his adopted country out of love for the Southern folks and their quest for independence. In 1864, he advocated the emancipation of Black men to serve in the Confederate Armed Forces. In early 1865, his dream became a reality but it was then too late--the war was lost.

Cleburne participated in the Battles of Shiloh, Richmond, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Ringgold Gap and Franklin. He was killed at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee on November 30, 1864.

Due to his brilliant strategy on the battlefield Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne was nicknamed “Stonewall Jackson of the West.”

Cleburne said before his death at the Battle of Franklin: "If this cause, that is dear to my heart, is doomed to fail, I pray heaven may let me fall with it, my face is toward the enemy and my arm battling for that which I know is right.”

He was engaged to Susan Tarleton of Mobile, Alabama.

On March 17, 1979, Saint Patrick’s Day and Cleburne’s birthday, I organized the Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne Camp 1361 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Jonesboro, Georgia. The Confederate Cemetery in Jonesboro is also named Pat Cleburne Cemetery.

Gen. Cleburne is buried in Maple Hill Cemetery in Helena, Arkansas.

An excellent book “A Meteor Shining Brightly” Essays on Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne” --edited by Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, is a good source of information about Cleburne.

The War Between the States Sesquicentennial, 150th Anniversary, runs 2011 through 2015. The Georgia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans joins the nation in remembering this historic time in our nation’s history. See more information at: http://www.150wbts.org/

NO CONFEDERATE FLAG TO FLY ON THE GROUNDS OF THE MUSEUM OF THE CONFEDERACY - APPOMATTOX!

The Va Flaggers read with great interest the story in the Civil War News regarding the March 31st opening of the Satellite location in Appomattox. We were particularly drawn to the section that read… “After museum officials speak and noted Civil War historian James I. “Bud” Robertson delivers the keynote address, flags will be raised on the Reunification Promenade and the ribbon at the front doors will be cut.”

Interested in which flags would be raised, particularly after the battle flag was removed from the Museum façade last year, we did a quick search. The only thing we could find was the artist’s rendering in the museum’s magazine (attached), which showed a large U.S. Flag, and what appears to be state flags in a row behind it.

Correspondence with representatives of the museum confirmed that NO Confederate flag will be flown ANYWHERE on the grounds of the new facility. We then contacted Waite Rawls, Museum Director and asked him to reconsider. He has refused our request and insists that the plan to exclude a Confederate flag has the support of museum members, as well as members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Mr. Rawls' statement to us , "In the past three months, I have personally shown the final plans, including the flag promenade, which we have named the Reunification Promenade, to 7 different camps of the Sons of Confederate Veterans... and one chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy,... where they have met with uniform acclamation and no objection" has proven to be false and/or misleading, in the case of AT LEAST 4 of the 7 camps who have replied to our request for clarification.

We are, frankly, shocked that the Museum of the Confederacy would even consider operating a facility without a Confederate flag flying on its grounds. Is the Museum leadership ashamed of the flag under which over 260,000 Confederate soldiers died? Are they catering to the NAACP, who insists “that it (the Confederate Flag) is something that should be placed in a museum and stay there.”? I would suggest that this is the case and personally find it insulting to the memory of my four Great-Great-Grandfathers who served under her.

The Va Flaggers are calling on all Southerners to rise up and let your voice be heard. Call the Museum of the Confederacy and tell them how you feel. (804) 649-1861. We have set up an easy portal at www.vaflaggers.com, where you can send an email. We ask that you both call and email SEVERAL times a day, forward this post, and spread the word far and wide.

It is obvious to us that this most recent assault on our flag shows that the Museum has strayed far from its original spirit:
""The need of an organization to preserve a true and faithful record of the gallant struggle made by the soldiers of the South for independence being keenly felt, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society was chartered and organized under the laws of Virginia, its object being to teach all future generations the true history of the war and the principles for which these soldiers laid down their lives."
[From the first paragraph of the Introduction Page: Catalogue of the Confederate Museum of the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, 1905]

The Va Flaggers are ready to stand in opposition to this policy, the Museum of the Confederacy, and its leadership. We are asking for YOUR help.

Are you MAD enough yet?

Va Flaggers
vaflagger@comcast.net

NO CONFEDERATE FLAG TO FLY ON THE GROUNDS OF THE MUSEUM OF THE CONFEDERACY - APPOMATTOX!

The Va Flaggers read with great interest the story in the Civil War News regarding the March 31st opening of the Satellite location in Appomattox. We were particularly drawn to the section that read… “After museum officials speak and noted Civil War historian James I. “Bud” Robertson delivers the keynote address, flags will be raised on the Reunification Promenade and the ribbon at the front doors will be cut.”

Interested in which flags would be raised, particularly after the battle flag was removed from the Museum façade last year, we did a quick search. The only thing we could find was the artist’s rendering in the museum’s magazine (attached), which showed a large U.S. Flag, and what appears to be state flags in a row behind it.

Correspondence with representatives of the museum confirmed that NO Confederate flag will be flown ANYWHERE on the grounds of the new facility. We then contacted Waite Rawls, Museum Director and asked him to reconsider. He has refused our request and insists that the plan to exclude a Confederate flag has the support of museum members, as well as members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Mr. Rawls' statement to us , "In the past three months, I have personally shown the final plans, including the flag promenade, which we have named the Reunification Promenade, to 7 different camps of the Sons of Confederate Veterans... and one chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy,... where they have met with uniform acclamation and no objection" has proven to be false and/or misleading, in the case of AT LEAST 4 of the 7 camps who have replied to our request for clarification.

We are, frankly, shocked that the Museum of the Confederacy would even consider operating a facility without a Confederate flag flying on its grounds. Is the Museum leadership ashamed of the flag under which over 260,000 Confederate soldiers died? Are they catering to the NAACP, who insists “that it (the Confederate Flag) is something that should be placed in a museum and stay there.”? I would suggest that this is the case and personally find it insulting to the memory of my four Great-Great-Grandfathers who served under her.

The Va Flaggers are calling on all Southerners to rise up and let your voice be heard. Call the Museum of the Confederacy starting Monday morning and tell them how you feel. (804) 649-1861. We have set up an easy portal at www.vaflaggers.com, where you can send an email. We ask that you both call and email SEVERAL times a day next week, forward this post, and spread the word far and wide.

It is obvious to us that this most recent assault on our flag shows that the Museum has strayed far from its original spirit:
""The need of an organization to preserve a true and faithful record of the gallant struggle made by the soldiers of the South for independence being keenly felt, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society was chartered and organized under the laws of Virginia, its object being to teach all future generations the true history of the war and the principles for which these soldiers laid down their lives."
[From the first paragraph of the Introduction Page: Catalogue of the Confederate Museum of the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, 1905]

The Va Flaggers are ready to stand in opposition to this policy, the Museum of the Confederacy, and its leadership. We are asking for YOUR help.

Are you MAD enough yet?

Va Flaggers
vaflagger@comcast.net