Without Our History, Our Future is in Peril - Part 1 – Commentary by Steve Scroggins

As I attended my son’s 8th grade basketball game Saturday, I was reminded of a precious resource that is rapidly disappearing in America. I’m talking about our World War II veterans.

My good friend, now confined to a wheelchair, was nevertheless there at the gym to watch his granddaughter, who is a cheerleader. Lamar S. Taylor (Commander, USN, retired) is a Georgia native who was for many years the commander of a submarine in the U.S. Navy and who is also a Pearl Harbor survivor. I met him over twenty years ago when I was just starting my work career and he was a senior executive. He remains active in community and civic clubs and a leader in a Pearl Harbor survivor’s group that holds reunions regularly. He was recently the Grand Marshal in the Macon Jaycee's 39th Annual Christmas Parade.

Most everyone recognizes World War II as an overwhelmingly significant event for world history, affecting everything that’s transpired since. WWII is easily the most significant world-wide event of the twentieth century which led us into a fifty year Cold War.

The veterans who fought and won WWII and the women who held things together on the home front have been called “the Greatest Generation.” Many people born after the war cannot fully appreciate the character and strength that was required to weather the peril our country faced. As happens too often in life, we won’t fully appreciate these veterans until they are gone and we’ve missed our opportunity to say “thank you” in a meaningful way.

A very similar and parallel situation was happening in America between 1890 and 1920. Then, it was veterans of the War for Southern Independence, typically called the “War of the Rebellion” by the Yankee veterans. That war, like WWII in the 20th Century, was the most significant event of America’s first century following its founding. A staggering percentage of the country’s population was killed or maimed in that conflict. The conflict established the federal government as the supreme power and relegated the States to subservient status as subdivisions of the central empire. It essentially turned the Constitution and the Framers’ vision on its ear and reversed the relative roles of the governments in America.

In the 1890s, “Reconstruction” and military occupation had been over for a decade and America had had time to reflect on the staggering loss that war inflicted. Southern ladies had held memorial services and remembrances since the close of the war. In fact, the concept for what’s now observed as national Memorial Day was borrowed from the Confederate Memorial Days held annually in April since the war’s conclusion.

As time passed into the 1890s, everyone began recognizing the mortality of the veterans who survived the war and realized that time was running out to thank them meaningfully before they passed away. Robert E. Lee had died in 1870 and Jefferson Davis died in 1889.

Monuments began popping up all across the country but especially at the battle sites, mostly in the South. In the south, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) erected monuments to local units and heroes in most counties between 1890 and 1915. More on this in Part Two.

The United Confederate Veterans and various local Confederate Veterans groups had formed years earlier and held conventions and reunions on a regular basis. It was at such meetings and reunions that Judge John Sammons Bell, as a young boy, came to hear the stories of the war as the veterans reminisced and Bell came to see how they still revered their Confederate Battle flags. Judge Bell was later the designer of the 1956 Georgia flag, designed to honor Georgia’s veterans.

Back to 1890. It was a time when Georgia had an honorable Governor and the Atlanta Constitution was not controlled by politically correct fiction writers. Governor John B. Gordon was a renowned Confederate General during the war, one who happened to be a native of Upson County and resident of Taylor County Georgia, where a number of my Confederate ancestors resided. Two of my great-great grandfathers, one from Taylor County and the other from Macon County would soon come to know each other as the daughter of the former married the son of the latter in December 1904.

The story below was published in The Atlanta Constitution on Thursday, July 31, 1890.

The Macon County Veterans Gather in Reunion and Listen to Governor Gordon and General Cook

Montezuma, Ga., July 30.---- [Special]----- This has been the biggest day in the history of Montezuma, the occasion being the reunion of the Macon County Confederate Veterans’ Association.

At an early hour this morning, people began coming in from every direction and before 10:30 o’clock the old veterans formed a line on Dooly Street that reached the grandstand prepared for the occasion in the alliance warehouse.

The association was called to order by President J.D. Frederick. A fervent prayer was offered by Rev. J.A.J. Kimball, chaplain. The address of welcome was delivered by Dr. R.O. Engram, mayor, and responded to my Major D.F. Booten, of Nashville. The roll was called by Captain F. F. Snead, secretary.

Colonel L.O. Niles then delivered a very appreciative address to his old comrades-in-arms. Major J.D. Frederick introduced Miss Willie Holt, who captured the vast audience in rendering that beautiful poem by Rev. Father Ryan, “The Men Who Wore the Grey.” Miss Holt is a splendid elocutionist, and many were the congratulations she received.

Eloquent and patriotic speeches were delivered by Colonel W. J. Grace, of Hawkinsville, a son of an ex-confederate, and Colonel B.H. Wilkerson.

After the speaking the veterans formed in line and marched to the railroad to meet Governor Gordon and General Phil Cook, who arrived at 12:30 o’clock.

When these old soldiers stepped from the train, the air was filled with such cheering as was never before heard in this section. People climbed up into trees and on top of the box cars to get a glimpse of the distinguished gentlemen. After a sumptuous repast, partaken of freely by the old veterans, Governor Gordon delivered one of his most pleasing speeches and General Cook followed in his characteristic way to make his old friends happy over the events of 1865. Governor Gordon and General Cook met many soldiers, some of them they had not seen since they parted at Appomattox.

General Gordon left at 3:30 o’clock for Atlanta. This will long be remembered as the greatest day in the history of Macon County.

Major J.D. Fredrerick (mentioned in the story above) was commander of Company A of the 10th Georgia Infantry Battalion which hailed from Macon County and in which my great-great grandfather Jesse Bud Barfield served. I have no documentation to prove it, but I believe that he was present for this 1890 reunion and probably many others held in the local area.

Jim Dean’s commentary, “What’s In a Flag?” hints at the point I’m trying to make. The patriotic feelings Southerners held for their veterans and their Cause for Independence remained strong decades after war. They knew they were right.

The Atlanta Constitution story above closes with a meaningful line, “This will long be remembered as the greatest day in the history of Macon County.” Unfortunately, there are many among us who want to forget and they want to make sure that everyone else forgets, too. They want to “just move on” to the great “New South” they envision. Everything, including the truth and the honorable values we should cherish, is expendable in their quest for the almighty dollar. They have sold their souls to the heritage haters who are bent on erasing all Confederate history for their own political and economic advantage. They want to keep Southerners on the guilt plantation so they can hold onto their power and privilege.

Fortunately, there are also many among us who will fight these attacks on American heritage. Part Two of this story will review the connection between these old veterans and heritage preservationists today.

If the heritage preservationists fail and the heritage haters prevail in erasing Confederate history, how long before they decide to revise or erase the history of our World War II veterans?

It won’t really matter in the long run because the fate of our remaining liberties will be sealed. Forsaking the heritage of our forefathers and failing to return to limited government, the history of numerous empires predicts our inevitable destruction. By forgetting our past, our future and the future of our descendants is in great peril.

"People separated from their history are easily persuaded." --Karl Marx

"Any society which suppresses the heritage of its conquered minorities, prevents their history, and denies them their symbols, has sewn the seed of its own destruction." -- Sir William Wallace, 1281 A. D.

Steve Scroggins is Adjutant of the Lt. James T. Woodward Camp 1399, Sons of Confederate Veterans, in Warner Robins, GA and a frequent GHC contributor of parody and political cartoons and graphics.