volume xxxvi, issue 9 september, 2016fightingjoewheelercamp.org/assets/dispatch-sept-2016.pdf ·...
TRANSCRIPT
Volume XXXVI, Issue 9 September, 2016
Camp Officers:
Commander: David Rawls
1st Lt. Commander: David Fisher
2nd Lt. Commander: Hank
Arnold
Adjutant/ Treasurer: Pat Acton
Chaplain: Jeff Young
Color Sergeant: Bill Haas
Quartermaster: Tristan Dunn
Sergeant At Arms: Sam Nelson
Camp Surgeon: Dr. Rick Price
Dispatch Editor: Jim Darden
Commander Emeritus: Dr. Ira
West
Chaplain Emeritus: Dr. Charles
Baker
Fighting Joe Wheeler Camp 1372,
Inc. C/O Adjutant
P.O. Box 43362
Vestavia Hills, AL 35243
Please send articles or other
information for inclusion in
“The Dispatch” to
Jim Darden – Editor
645 South Sanders Road
Hoover, Alabama 35226
Or e-mail [email protected]
Alabama: We Dare Defend Our Rights “The principal for which we contended is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.” - Jefferson Davis, May 1865
The Next Camp Meeting will be at 7:00 pm, Tuesday September 13.
Dr. John Killian present a program on the Bill of Rights.
SCV Calendar
September10, 1838 ……………………Fighting Joe Wheeler’s birthday
September 13…..Camp Meeting – The Bill of Rights...Dr. John Killien
October 11……..Camp Meeting –Ft Delaware……………..Jim Darden
November 8 ……………………………………………….Election Day
December 13……….Camp Meeting – Program TBD
http://www.fightingjoewheeler.org
SCV Fighting Joe Wheeler Camp 1372
Page 2
Commander’s Report September 2016
Compatriots:
And just when I think things could not get any worse, I am proven wrong
again. True sanity appears to have gone out the window and it appears to be so much easier
to throw up our collective hands and surrender to the madness. Unfortunately for me, I was
raised better and cannot bring myself to contribute to our ultimate destruction. Let us all be
willing to do what is right before it is too late!
Last Friday I had the misfortune of enduring another egregious example of
this incredible heritage assault as I flipped my television, encountering a program on the
History (ha!) Channel that thoroughly took me off guard. As I was passing by, I noticed a
picture of Abraham Lincoln and stopped, curious as to how our Southern heritage would be
attacked yet again. It turned out to be far worse than I expected: the program turned out to
be “Ancient Aliens” (I am still trying to figure out why this program is shown by the
History Channel). Anyway, I was shocked . . . shocked I tell you . . . to learn that the
United States was founded by men influenced by aliens (or perhaps even the aliens
themselves!) as part of an “experiment” in freedom. Then our hard-headed Southern
ancestors tried to ruin everything by revolting against the aliens’ hand-picked leaders. As a
result, the aliens were forced to come back to Earth and influence men such as Lincoln,
Grant, Sherman, et al., so that the experiment “could be saved.” Really? Really? I mean
outside alien influence could explain a few things but I find myself absolutely stunned at the
idea that the War of Yankee Imperialist Aggression was determined by the actions of “e.t.”s.
So, it seems our ancestors were fighting aliens as well as Yankees; no wonder the South did
not have a chance.
But it seems that there is some hope for sanity. This past week a federal
judge in Mississippi dismissed a civil suit regarding the state flag, noting that the individual
who filed the case failed to show that he had personally suffered any injury from the
Mississippi state flag. As an attorney myself, I have been wondering for some time now
when a court would bring up this particular issue.
Now to get off my soapbox and deal with other matters. I would like to
remind everyone that the November meeting has been cancelled due to the fact that New
Merkle is used as a polling place during the election.
I look forward to the next Camp Meeting on the 13th of September. As usual
we have a wonderful speaker lined up. I ask that not only everyone come and participate but
invite any and all to come and enjoy. Our ancestors fought for a just cause and they deserve
far more honor and respect for what they did. Let us always honor their memory!
Deo Vindice,
David L. Rawls
Commander
Commander’s
Report
July, 2016
Camp,
I send this out with a heavy heart. As most of you know my Mom
passed and was buried 2 weeks ago. I thank all that called or came to the service.
It was a celebration of Mom’s life as it should have been. Mom was a true
Southern woman. She taught me a lot and imparted thoughts and ways of me I
shall always carry, you might call it my "good side".
Growing up we celebrated family values. Being together, singing
in the car, picnic lunches, and family reunions. At the reunions I was the one that
walked the cemetery looking for Confederate solders. I was asking the "old
folks", now I am one, about the war and the old days. I found out that Mom had 2
great uncles buried at Franklin. Her great-grandfather was buried in a forgotten
grave in Pike county. He was in the 57th Ala. and fought in the Atlanta campaign,
Hood's Tennessee campaign , and was wounded at Bentonville. He came back
from the war and farmed and traded for a living. It was this hard existence that
helped mold the Southern people into what we are today. Proud of our heritage,
protective of what rights we have left, family people that fight to keep what is
ours. I am proud to be a Southerner, my mothers son, and the Son of a
Confederate veteran. Please remember to conduct yourselves in a way that will
make our ancestors proud. They are watching from above.
Hank Arnold
2nd Lt Cdr.
FJW 1372
2nd LT Commander’s
Report
Stand Watie (1806-1871) – Also known as Standhope Oowatie, Degataga, and Isaac
S. Watie, he was a leader of the Cherokee Nation and a brigadier general of the Confederate States
Army during the Civil War. He was born in Oothcaloga, Cherokee Nation (Calhoun, Georgia) on
December 12, 1806, to David Uwatie, a Cherokee, and Susanna Reese, who was of Cherokee and
European heritage, and first called Isaac Uwatie. Later, when he grew up, he preferred the English
translation of his Cherokee name, Degataga, meaning "Stand Firm," and the "U" was dropped from
"Uwatie."
Watie was educated at the Moravian Mission School in Spring Place, Cherokee Nation
(now Georgia) and by the time he grew up, his father had become a wealthy slave-owning planter. He
would later write for the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, which led him into the dispute over the
Georgia Anti-Indian laws. When gold was discovered on Cherokee lands in northern Georgia in 1828,
thousands of white settlers encroached on Indian lands. In spite of federal treaties that protected them
from actions of individual states, Georgia confiscated most of the Cherokee land and the Georgia
militia destroyed the Cherokee Phoenix in 1832. The Federal Government soon stepped in,
encouraging the Cherokee to move to Indian Territory and the Treaty of New Echota was signed in
January, 1836, which established terms under which the entire Cherokee Nation was expected to move
west to the Indian Territory. Although it was signed by a minority Cherokee political faction and not
approved by the Cherokee National Council, it was ratified by the U.S. Senate and became the legal
basis for the forcible removal known as the Trail of Tears.
The Watie brothers stood in favor of the removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma and
were members of the group that signed the Treaty of New Echota. The Anti-Removal National Party
following John Ross refused to ratify the treaty, putting him at odds with the Waties. The family,
along with many other Cherokee soon emigrated to the West, where Stand Watie, a slave holder,
started a successful plantation on Spavinaw Creek in Indian Territory. Those Cherokee following John
Ross remained on their tribal lands for two years until they were forcibly removed by the U.S.
government in 1838 in a journey known as the "Trail of Tears," during which thousands died.
The following year, many of the members who had signed the treaty were targeted for
execution and in June, 1839 Stand’s brother Elias Boudinot was murdered outside his home. His
cousin and uncle, John and Major Ridge, fell to Cherokee assassins on the same day. In 1842 Watie
encountered James Foreman, one of his uncle's assassins and shot him dead. He was tried for murder
in Arkansas and acquitted as acting in self defense, even though Foreman was unarmed. Stand Watie's
brother Thomas Watie was also murdered by Ross partisans in 1845. At least 34 politically related
murders were committed among the Cherokee in 1845 and 1846. From 1845, Stand Watie served on
the Cherokee Council, part of that time as speaker.
When the Civil War broke out, a majority of the Cherokee Nation voted to support the
Confederacy and Watie organized a regiment of cavalry. In October 1861, he was commissioned as
colonel in the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles. In December, 1861, he was engaged in a battle with
some hostile Indians in the Battle of Chusto-Talasah in present day Tulsa County, Oklahoma.
Later, he would participate in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas in March, 1862, after
which General Albert Pike, in his report of this battle, said: "My whole command consisted of about
1,000 men, all Indians except one squadron. The enemy opened fire into the woods where we were, the
fence in front of us was thrown down, and the Indians charged full in front through the woods and into
the open grounds with loud yells, took the battery, fired upon and pursued the enemy retreating through
the fenced field on our right, and held the battery, which I afterward had drawn by the Cherokee into the
woods."
Though the Battle of Pea Ridge was a Union victory, Watie's command of his troops
was well noted and there was considerable fear by the Union that Indian Territory would be entirely lost
to the Confederacy. The same year, though he was serving in the Confederate Army, Watie was elected
principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Though former Chief John Ross had fled to Washington D.C.,
his supporters, who by this time were in the minority, refused to recognize Watie’s election and open
warfare broke out between the "Union Cherokee" and the "Southern Cherokee.“ Confederate General
William Steele, in his report of the operations in the Indian Territory, in 1863, said of Colonel Watie
that he found him to be a gallant and daring officer. On April 1, 1863, Watie was authorized to raise a
large brigade. In May, 1864 Colonel Watie was commissioned a brigadier-general, the only Native
American to achieve that rank in the Civil War. In June, he captured the federal steamboat J.R.
Williams with 150 barrels of flour and 16,000 pounds of bacon, which Watie would later say was
actually a disadvantage to the command, because a great portion of the Creek and Seminole soldiers
immediately broke off to carry their booty home. In September, 1864 he attacked and captured a
Federal train of 250 wagons on Cabin Creek and repulsed an attempt to retake it.
At the end of the year 1864 General Watie's brigade of cavalry consisted of the First
Cherokee regiment, a Cherokee battalion, First and Second Creek regiments, a squadron of Creeks, First
Osage battalion, and First Seminole battalion. To the end of the War, General Watie stood by his
colors, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down. When the leaders of the
Confederate Indians learned that the government in Richmond, Virginia had fallen and the Eastern
armies had been surrendered, most began making plans for surrender. The chiefs convened the Grand
Council June 15, 1865 and passed resolutions calling for Indian commanders to lay down their arms.
However, Stand Watie refused until June 23, 1865, a full 75 days after Lee's surrender in the East.
Finally accepting the futility of continued resistance, he surrendered his battalion
of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Osage Indians to Lieutenant Colonel Asa C. Matthews
at Doaksville.
After the Civil War ended the "Union Cherokee" and the "Southern Cherokee" sent
delegations to Washington D.C., where Watie pushed for recognition of a separate "Southern Cherokee
Nation." Watie was refused; however, and the government negotiated a treaty with the “Union
Cherokee” in 1866, declaring John Ross as the rightful Principal Chief. It seemed that open hostilities
would break out again in the Cherokee Nation, but, when John Ross died in August, 1866, hostilities
calmed down. In the election in 1867, full-blood Cherokee, Lewis Downing, was elected Principal
Chief and was able bring about peaceful reunification, though tensions lingered under the surface into
the 20th century. In the meantime, Watie had returned from the Civil War to find his home burned to
the ground by Federal soldiers. In financial ruin, he spent his final years farming and trying to restore
his once-beautiful Grand River bottomland.
All three of Watie’s sons preceded him in death and in his last years he watched as
colossal tracts of land legally deeded to the Cherokee were taken from them as punishment for their
support of the Confederacy and given to other tribes. Many believe that Stand Watie died of a broken
heart. In one of his last letters to his daughter, he would say “You can’t imagine how lonely I am up
here at our old place without any of my dear children being with me.” He died on September 9, 1871
and was buried in the Polson Cemetery in Delaware County, Oklahoma.
From http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-standwatie.html