Some Minor Disturbance Over What Stephen Dill Lee Really Said

by Al Benson Jr.

It seems that my most recent article about Stephen Dill Lee's Charge to the Sons of Confederate Veterans stirred up a minor tempest in the proverbial teapot. Within 24 hours of its being posted, replies came from several sources that said that "Remember it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations" was not a part of Lee's original address. Some friends of mine did some checking and it appears they may be correct on that one point, though I took the quote from an SCV web site. So if I got it wrong so did they. It seems that this particular portion of his Charge had the wording changed to this in 1906 and it reflected something other that what Lt. General Lee said, sort of a compromise in semantics, if you will, a slight toning down of the original wording.

At any rate, as I quoted from what was apparently  the 1906 version rather than the original, I stand corrected.

There seems to be, even today, a bit of a fuss over how this terminology was parsed out and what was really said. There are those who will argue for historical correctness, and that's okay. I strive for that myself, even though I don't always get it perfect. However, what we often end up with in disagreements like this is a situation where those who have gotten a particular quote, or whatever, correct will never go any further than their historical argument, and it's usually an armchair argument rather than an active one.

I've followed SCV "politics" like I have the politics of many groups over the years and I know enough to realize that there are factions within the SCV that argue about what the organization should be doing. Some want it to be merely an organization that puts flowers and flags on Confederate graves and keeps the lawns at Confederate cemeteries mowed, with little or nothing beyond that. Others want the SCV to take a much more activist role in presenting historical truth and contending for that truth. I guess, were I able to officially belong to the SCV, I would belong to the latter group rather than the former.

Over the years some have felt I was a bit too much of an activist, and often they were not hesitant to let me know that. Maybe that's why I never quit being one. Seems to me if you believe in something and feel it is worth defending or fighting for then its worth doing at actively as long as you can. My wife and I have supported and acted in behalf of several causes over the years of our married life, and always felt they were connected at the theological level even though the connection might not be apparent at other levels to most people. We can no longer do this as actively as we once did. Age and medical conditions slow one down, but on the other hand we are not ready to lie down and concede defeat either. Helping to prepare another generation to take up the fight is also important. After all, as Christians, we have a multi-generational worldview and where we have, by God's grace sown some seed, others will, also by God's grace, come along to water.

So, in a sense, arguing over Lt. General Lee's exact wording in his Charge over 100 years ago, while it is important to get it right, really begs the question. And the question still is, What should the SCV be doing? 
What was the original intent of the organization? If it was only to decorate graves, then I guess we could paraphrase Scripture and ask "Do not even the Yankee/Marxists do the same?" And some of them don't really have to do anymore, because their grandfathers wrote the "history" books didn't they? Yet they are not content to just let it lie, but rather they turn out a continuous  stream of political correct invective that relentlessly attacks all things Southern and Confederate.

If the Confederate Battle Flag was only a flag for grave tenders then why did the NAACP so vehemently attack it several years ago and stir up a firestorm over it? Of course many of us realize the NAACP membership was flagging and they needed a whipping boy to drum up support for the politically correct shock troops and to enrich the coffers, but was that the only reason? Why do the politically correct Marxists (and they are Marxists) continue to attack the flag and Southern heritage even today? It seems to me that the SCV, as well as other Southern and Confederate groups, has an adversary that is determined to stamp out everything they ever stood for. And if that's the case, then just tending your ancestors' graves isn't enough. If that is, indeed, the case, then you better learn how to rise up from tending the graves of your honored dead and learn how to fight back. If you are willing to just sit back and let the Cultural Genocide crowd run all over you while you are trying to be "nice" then you are--well, I can't say what you are--it would probably get my blog tossed off the Internet.

It seems that the SCV, like other groups, has to decide which was it's going to go. Personally, I was never in favor of letting my adversaries stomp all over me if they were Marxists. With other Christians, and other well-meaning folks you can often agree to disagree and let it go at that. You can't do that with Marxists, or with any of the leftist crowd. There is no peaceful co-existence with them except on their terms and anyone with an ounce of sense won't play that game.

All you need to is to check out the political persuasions of those who practice Cultural Genocide on the South and you will see what I mean--all the way from the political left, to the educational left, to the Evangelical left--they are all leftists, and as such, your destruction, culturally and otherwise, is their goal.

So whatever Lt. General Lee's Charge did or didn't say, the SCV has to consider the question of what they are going to do to deal with their Cultural Marxist adversaries. That is the ultimate question for all the various groups that would defend the South, Southern tradition and history, including the Confederate States, or the Southern way of life.

Start by learning who your enemies are. Learn how to expose them.  Then learn how to oppose them, because just tending the graves of your ancestors, as important as that is (and I don't discourage that) is not going to cut the mustard in the days to come and any organization that proposes to do that and nothing else, has got major problems.

Thoughts On Lt. General Stephen Dill Lee's Charge to the Sons of Confederate Veterans

by Al Benson Jr.

Let me start off by saying that I am not a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I have no Confederate ancestors of which I am aware.  The closest I can come is being a member of the Friends of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which group I joined a couple years back when I was finally able to get information about it.

Those who know me also know that my sympathies are and have been with the South and the Old Confederacy. If that makes me a "racist" (a Trotskyite term) in the eyes of some folks, well, I guess that's tough. "Those people" have a right to be offended by my views just as much as I have a right to be offended by theirs, which I am.

Any student of history realizes that the Old South was not perfect (which its detractors seem to think it should have been) anymore than the Old North was. But I have noticed over the decades that the defenders of the North rather seem to gloss over their own sins (which in many cases were the same as those of the South) while denigrating the South for what they, themselves, have also done. Let's be honest and admit that all men, North, South, or anywhere else, are sinners, in need of the grace of Jesus Christ to make us forgiven sinners. Many in the South recognize this, while many in the North seem intent upon dethroning God and replacing Him with themselves. Just for the record, I was born in the North, so I am not referring to all Northern folks when I say this. There are lots of good Northern folks in the country who detest the direction we have gone in and are still going in just like Southerners, in fact, some have the same mindset as Southerners--and, unfortunately, I have run across some Southerners who are ashamed of being Southerners and try to wrap themselves in Abe Lincoln and his bloodstained banner.

Where we live there are several SCV camps in the area. My wife and I have gone to meetings at several of them and I have even been invited to speak at some of them. I can tell them things about Lincoln and his Marxist buddies they never learned in public school, nor will their kids ever learn there.

I have read Stephen Dill Lee's Charge to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and some things have sort of jumped out at me. Lt. General Lee started off with: To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the Cause for which we fought.  There are other worthwhile goals mentioned, but it seems to me that this is one of the most important. The SCV (as should all Southerners, along with some of us Copperheads) is to vindicate the Cause for which their fathers fought. That cause is under attack today as never before. The Marxist originators of Cultural Genocide and Political Correctness have worked overtime for decades now to convince Southerners that their cause is tainted by the stain of slavery and that's really all they seceded for and sought to preserve. It hardly needs to be said that such Political Correctness is a crock full of some excremental material I will not mention. All you have to do regarding the slavery question is to read Donnie Kennedy's book Myths of American Slavery to find out how involved the North was in the slave trade. Check out how many of the original 13 colonies had slavery at some point. That's not what your average Southerner fought for, and even some Yankees had to admit that they fought for what they considered to be "preserving the Union" and they had no interest in slavery one way or the other. Little did they realize that their leaders were destroying the Union they thought they were preserving--and using them to do it.

I've noted some things the SCV has done over the years, preserving and marking the graves of Confederate soldiers and putting flags on them in commemoration. That's a good thing--but it's not enough--and that seems to be all that some are willing to do. It seems to me that a lot more needs to be done to vindicate the Cause for which the Confederates fought. Some SCV camps do try to do more. From what I have heard, some don't. Decorating Confederate graves, important as that is, doesn't seem to me to be enough of a vindication.

I've gone to SCV meetings where the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag is recited during the meeting. I don't doubt for a minute the sincerity of these folks, and maybe it's just my Copperhead sentiments, but I have a hard time with the Pledge of Allegiance. I have not said it for years at any meeting of any kind that I go to where they recite it. Given that this Pledge was written by a Northern Socialist who was asked to leave the church he preached in because of his overt socialism, and who doted on the "one nation indivisible" bit, I don't think this Pledge  really belongs in an SCV meeting. I've even gone to churches where it was recited as part of the service, and I don't think it belongs there either. If you want to offer some kind of salute to the Christian flag that's fine. But the Christian flag and the US flag are antithetical  one to the other.

It just seems to me, and this is only my opinion, for the SCV to vindicate the cause for which Confederate soldiers fought, there needs to be some sort of educational agenda or process at work by the SCV noting those ideas and values for which the South fought, and taking note of what they fought against. In some places such is true and SCV camps do try to educate people, beginning with their own, as to what the War was really fought over. It seems to me that this educational effort needs to be a part of the SCV's overall program. It may be so and I am just not aware, but having some sort of brief lesson plan for new members as to what the War was fought over might be helpful.

The last sentence of the Charge is just as important as the first. It says: Remember, it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations.  I wonder how many Southerners, even in the SCV, realize how terribly important that is. The true history of the South is almost never presented anymore, especially not in most schools, and, at the university level--forget it! Many colleges today are way too busy teaching their students how to feel guilty over being white, or for having Southern accents. Real, accurate Southern history only gets in the way of the Marxist agenda. A question we might ask, and I have asked, is "why do you still send your kids to these schools?" I have yet to get a satisfactory answer.

From all that I can discern, Lt. General Lee's Charge is, or should be, extremely important, not only to the SCV, but to all concerned Southern folks. It's important to me and I wasn't born here, but I live here now and the South is home.  If we don't take the time to vindicate the Cause for which the South fought and make sure the kids here get the right history instead of the Marxist propaganda that's out there, then our Cause (it's mine, too) will be lost and it may be centuries before it is retrieved.

A Really Big Confederate Flag In Lexington, Virginia

by Al Benson Jr.

The parochial city of Lexington, Virginia has a new Confederate Battle Flag, on private property, on Route 60, which is just outside of the city limits of Lexington. Thank Heaven for private property, because if the city of Lexington owned all the property then they would be able to drop a large part of their history and heritage right down the memory hole.

You might be curious as to why I labeled Lexington as parochial. Look at it this way. Any city that consciously obliterates part of its history and denies part of its heritage is a city that will not long endure. At some point, its provincialism will become apparent to the point that it will cease to be a place of any importance, and it will eventually be swallowed up in that great nether world of political correctness and "diversity."

This month we celebrate the birthdays of Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson, probably two of the finest Christian patriots this country has ever produced. However, thanks to the perpetual whining of some disaffected minorities, their memories must now be erased in Lexington and their distinguished places in that city must be denied or at least denigrated. A place that denies the great among them is destined for the ash heap of history. To deny great men is to put emphasis on the mediocre and the pedestrian--and that is what Lexington has deemed is the only way to go. No Confederate flags in that august city--they might "offend" someone who does not want to understand their true history and therefore has an agenda for their demise without any opposition  from the local folks.

Ahh, but there IS opposition, darn it,  and those local rednecks just won't shut up and go home to watch their car races or football games, or whatever else the elite has designed to keep them occupied so they don't notice what is going on. They want to see the symbols of their history and heritage flying aloft without shame--and they have a right to that, contrary to the wishes of the offended minority. These minorities are not the only ones with rights, although they doubtless wish to have it so, as so they work to get ordinances passed that will remove the rights of others so they can exercise theirs with no opposition or competition. But it ain't quite working out in Lexington. Hence that big Confederate Battle Flag out on Route 60--long may it wave!

And we should not hesitate to honor Lee and Jackson, not only in Lexington, but all across the South. Fly your Confederate flags, put new bumper stickers with flags on your pickup trucks, and let people know you are thankful for your heritage--not proud and arrogant, but thankful.

Lee and Jackson were both humble Christian men who relied on Jesus Christ for their salvation, unlike many of those who have days or times commemorating them nowadays and who were the friends of communists and other various assorted leftists.

I wonder if, someday this week, over 1,000 people marched down the main street of Lexington carrying Confederate flags, would the City Council try to have them all arrested? I wonder if such an event would be considered the use of the Cloward/Piven strategy going in reverse. Interesting thought.

Reasons To Fly the Confederate Battle Flag

by Al Benson Jr.

A friend in Southwest Virginia recently sent me an article posted by The Virginia Flaggers back in December of last year. It listed 12 reasons to fly the Confederate Battle Flag. I can't list all of them here, but there were some pretty good ones among them so I'd like to comment a bit on them.

 They started off with: It is one of the oldest Christian symbols on Earth (The St. Andrews Cross) and silently but eloquently lets the world know that a Christian family resides at the residence where it is flown. Although many don't comment on it, this is one of the major reasons the Battle Flag is so hated among the communists, socialists, and various other bottom-feeding leftists around the country. The Battle Flag is, indeed, a Christian flag and the leftists hate it because they hate Jesus Christ. To them, He is competing for the Kingdom of God with them and they'd love to dethrone Him, as Satan wanted to do in Matthew 4 but was unable to. His disciples, however, have not given up yet and they still keep trying. Sorry guys, you're not going to make it. If you couldn't keep Him in the tomb on that first Easter morning you won't be able to remove Him from God's right hand now. But you have to keep trying, I guess. After all, when you're beaten you have to do something to keep others from knowing.

Another good reason: It, (the Battle Flag) is a universal symbol of resistance to tyranny, having been sighted flying in nearly every modern day conflict where people were, or are fighting an oppressive and despotic governance. And the leftists and ultra-liberals realize that, and since they are the Fathers of all tyranny in the world today they must automatically hate any symbol that represents resistance to tyranny.

Yet another good one: It is a reminder that Liberty is a God-given right, not a commodity to be controlled by greedy politicians, left-wing liberal teachers, and power-crazed activist judges. And it's also a reminder that Liberty is worth fighting for. You can bet the theological and political Left grits its collectivist teeth when reminded that it is God that bestows liberty, not some socialist regime that tells you that you are free when they toss you a few political crumbs. "If you like your health insurance then you can keep your health insurance." Even their "freedom" is built upon lies!

And another important reason: It lets those who would oppress us, and steal our Liberty know, they have not yet succeeded, and will not have succeeded, until they have killed every last one of us, and destroyed every last Battle Flag. This has seldom happened in any oppressed country throughout history and will not happen here, unless we fail to educate our children about the real meaning of the Flag. And here, we have our work cut out for us. We not only have to educate our children about the meaning of the Battle Flag, but we have to educate them as to what the War of Northern Aggression was really all about and how a Unitarian/socialist Northern government sought to destroy the Christian culture of the South both before and after the shooting was all over. "Reconstruction" was a Marxist program--the term even came from Marx. The hard truth is, unless we start giving our children a Christian education and start doing it seriously, we will lose not only our children but the country as well.

That's a somber thought, but we'd better begin to dwell on it and get those kids out of public  schools that are under the control of our adversaries. You are only one generation away from losing your Christian culture, your heritage and your liberty. What you do with your kids will determine your (and their) future.