September 2013 Confederate Web viewThe South clung tenaciously to the Word of God. James Henley Thornwell, ... Adjutant Gary Ayres - 2 Lt. Commander nd. ... Company “H” C.S.A.

September 2013 Confederate Informant

The Official Newsletter of the Major James Morgan Utz Camp # 1815 SCV

And the BG Francis Cockrell Chapter # 84 MOSB

Founded April, 30 1998

Commander’s Corner;

Our next meeting will be held on Saturday 21 st 2 PM at the St. Peters Lion’s Den.

We have quite a bit of important information to go over at this meeting so I hope everyone will make an effort to attend. We will also have an informative program on the ancestry and Confederate service of our namesake, Major James Morgan Utz.

Our Camp Handbook is nearing completion and should available sometime this fall. This has been a monumental effort and will continue to be an ongoing project as more updates become available.

The Camp Officers met with Hazelwood Historical Commission on August 26th and the results of that meeting will discussed at our September Camp meeting. Our plaque commemorating Major Utz’s contribution to the Confederate cause will be prominently displayed in the foyer of the Utz home in Hazelwood, and we are working on the final details for a kiosk in front of the home.

I hope that everyone was able to take advantage of the various Missouri Division events that were made available to them because of their membership in the Utz Camp this summer. I hope you will also be able to participate in our upcoming fall events. Details will be discussed at the Camp meeting.

We now have a variety of Southern Flags available for sale through the Camp. We have in stock: Missouri Battle Flags, 13 star First National Confederate Flags, 3rd National Confederate Flags, Bonnie Blue Flags and Confederate Battle Flags….all for only $5 each! If you want to keep them flying, here you chance. Each of these flags will be flying at our Danville, Missouri flag plaza soon.

Gene Dressel

Commander, Camp # 1815

Chaplain's Corner:

A Christian Prospective on the War Between the States.

The South has historically been known as the Bible Belt. Why? Because it was the North that forsook Christianity and went into transcendentalism, rationalism and Unitarianism. The South clung tenaciously to the Word of God.James Henley Thornwell, a Presbyterian pastor, theologian and author wrote, "The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders as they would have you believe in the North. They are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans and Jacobins on one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. Christianity and atheism are the combatants, and the progress of humanity is at stake."The North used Reconstruction to not only try to reconstruct cities and the countryside, but also the Southern culture, theology and thinking. One only has to look at the North and Washington D.C. today to see the war on Southern culture continues.By Chaplain Duane Mayer

150 Years Ago

September 1863 At least 16 skirmishes and battles take place in Missouri.September 3, 1863 Confederate agent Robert Louden arrested in St. Louis. He's tried and convicted in December on charges of spying, mail carrying, and boat-burning (Steamer Ruth & others), and sentenced to death.September 4, 1863Guerrilla raid on Quincy leaves 4 union men and one civilian dead.September 6, 1863Kansas troops murder six men about to leave Lone Jack per Order No. 11. September 6, 1863.  Confederate attack on a Union supply train from Fort Scott, Kansas, to Carthage, Missouri.  Although it occurred in Jasper County, this attack involved Union troops frequently found in Newton County (the 8th Missouri State Militia Cavalry) and illustrates the problem of supplying Missouri's western border from Fort Scott. September 13, 1863Confederate's fail to capture Salem.

Steamers Imperial, Jesse K. Bell, Hiawatha, Post Boy, and a barge loaded with freight, burn in St. Louis at the foot of Market St.September 18, 1863yankees kill 6 Southern men in Pemiscot County. September 19–20

Confederates under General Braxton Bragg win a great tactical victory at Chickamauga, Georgia.September 22 to October 26, 1863.  Shelby's Raid.  In the fall of 1863, Joseph Shelby led a month-long raid which passed throughNeosho and reached as far north as Marshall, Missouri

September 28, 1863jayhawkers rob farms in West Platte County.Butler MO. burned again as part of Order Number 11.

Anderson   Camp   Picnic -

    All Division members invited.    DIRT TRACK RACE NIGHT Anderson Camp Picnic, Sat.  Sept. 14th 2013 3:00 to 6:00 pm at Neil Block Home    400 North Main, Huntsville, Missouri.      Bring covered dish and lawn chairs. Camp will furnish pulled pork, plates, utensils and drinks. Will need a head count.  R.S.V.P. by 9/7 if you would please. Neil Block Phone # 660-777-3111 email [email protected].

Everyone needs to bring along their Wives and Friends to the meeting September 21 2013. Bobbie Lang will be there to talking about organizing our Order of Confederate Rose Chapter.

The Walk Back in Time Saturday September 28 2013 in Mexico Missouri. We need a few Volunteers who can dress out in Civil War period clothing. We could also use a few people that can’t dress out for the recruiting table.

Duane Mayer still can’t get a hold of anyone for the Troy Gun show on 27, 28, 29 2013.

So far we have. Walk back in time. Troy Gun Show

Duane Mayer Duane Mayer

Gene Dressel Billy Bowden

Robert Graham Dave Roper

To all,The Maj. Gen. J.O. Shelby camp 191 will be having a Confederate Christmas gathering on December 14, 2013 time will be 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Warrensburg elks lodge. Everyone is welcome so put on your calendar and let the membership know. We will have more details soon but time and date is set stone.PaulCommander

Missouri Division

Sons of Confederate Veterans

Darrell L. Maples - Commander Larry W. Smith - 1 Lt. Commander st

Paul Lawrence - Adjutant Gary Ayres - 2 Lt. Commander nd

Keith Daleen - Chief-of-Staff Oliver E. Sappington - Chaplain

Gentlemen,

After a great deal of thought, conversation with other officers and members, and of course conversation

with my wife and family, I have decided to seek another term as your Commander of the Missouri Division at the Missouri Division Reunion in March of 2014. I wanted to let the Missouri Division membership know of this early in the process in an effort to give the membership time to consider all options. I also want the membership to know that I do not take this decision lightly. My Confederate ancestors were mostly Missourians, and the Missouri Division is something that is of the utmost importance to me. I truly believe we have made solid strides forward over the past year plus, but I also feel there is much work to do, particularly in the area of growing the Division. I cannot speak highly enough of not only our other Division officers, but all of the Camp Commanders, Adjutants and the Missouri Division membership as a whole. We are working together toward a common cause all the while honoring our Confederate ancestors – our reason for existence.

I have also taken a look at the Missouri Division Constitution to verify that I am eligible to run for another term. Some of you may recall that I served a single, two-year term back in the late 1990's. This current term will be my second term, and should I be elected again, it would be a third term. I was concerned that this might not be allowable, but after having taken a look at our Constitution, it appears that an elected officer can serve no more than two (2) consecutive terms. So as you can see, although I will have served two terms at the end of this term, they were not consecutive terms. I present this to you to make sure that everyone in the Division has a chance to also take a look at this and I have included the text of the appropriate section of our Constitution

ARTICLE VI - OFFICERSSection 6. Any elected officer shall be limited to two (2) consecutive terms in any given elective office. If the elected office is assumed due to a vacancy or by appointment then this period of time will constitute the first term of office.It is my goal to be very forthcoming with the Division, so I welcome your thoughts and comments regarding eligibility for the office.Finally, if it is agreed that eligibility is not an issue, I would ask for your support as I seek the office of Division Commander once again. I truly believe I have more to offer and I of course would look forward to continuing to work with you and for you. We are seeing successes, and I give the membership all the credit. We have chosen to work together and I am so proud to be a member of the Missouri Division. I still believe that Missourians are the South’s Finest, and look very forward to working for our Division in whatever capacity that might be.Deo Vindice,Darrell L. Maples - CommanderMissouri DivisionSons of Confederate Veterans

Gents,

 Passing this along.  LAURET FOR ATM COMMANDER - 2014Gentlemen of the Army of Trans-Mississippi,

With the recent exciting and very successful 118th National Reunion of our Grand O...rganization behind us, it was a pleasure and honor to serve you as your Councilman, to see old friends, to put faces to the names of many I have made email contact with during my first year as Councilman and meet and make new friends. I hope that those of you who attended left Vicksburg as excited and fired up as I did. Wonderful thing, those Reunions, they have a knack of getting the membership pumped up and allows us to see firsthand how our organization works and that there are many that share the common purpose to defend the memory and honor of our Confederate Ancestors with sincerity, grit and determination. All those things, and my desire to continually serve our organization, has led me to the desire to step up once again and serve you, the men of the ATM, as your Commander in 2014. I am proud to announce my candidacy for and am fervently seeking the position at the 119th Annual Reunion which will be held next year in North Charleston, South Carolina. 

As Councilman, I have been very involved on the General Executive Council with many issues affecting our organization. As many of you know, Vision 2016 has been on the front burner as we seek ways to increase our membership at a time where we seem to be slipping on both recruiting and more important, retention! I still see the Vision as a viable goal to not only increase our membership, but to strengthen in many differentways our organization and our quest to fulfill The Charge. It is my belief that, as we move forward through the Sesquicentennial of Our War for Southern Independence observance and with the Vision as a plan for development and success, the SCV requires its members to step up in ways we have never considered to serve the efforts and goals of the organization. I am prepared to continue to do that! I am also very excited at the prospect of “taking the offensive” as was proposed by CiC Givens and seemed to really fire up the membership at the Reunion! My first year on the General Executive Council as your Councilman has been enriching and opened my eyes to the many important things going on that affect our organization and require the attention of members ready and able to take on the task!

If you want someone with the success of the SCV and the ATM in mind, someone with a proven track record of dedication to service on all levels and someone ever mindful that all we do is for the honor of our glorious Confederate Ancestors, I ask for your support in sending me to serve as your representative as ATM Commander on the General Executive Council in 2014. Semper Fidelis and God Bless our Confederation!

Your Obedient Servant,Charles LauretATM Councilman Membership

We now have 37 that belong to the Major Utz Camp. Here is a list of names we added in the last couple of months.

Robert Graham David Hazetine Alan Scott Christopher Scott

Jeff Snyder Rojer Snyder Clois Weaver

And we added I Friend of the SCV- Richard Freshwater.

Rojer Snyder is our new 2nd Lieutenant Commander he wanted to share this story of his Confederate Ancestor.

Thomas Jefferson Althiser By Rojer Snyder, Camp #1815

On 17 January 1861, 16 year old Thomas Jefferson Althiser, of Callaway County, Missouri joined the 3rdDivision Missouri State Guard, 2nd Infantry Regiment, Captain Carson’s Company. Travelling with “Old Pap” Price’s Army across Missouri, Private Althiser, (known as T.J.), first “saw the elephant” at the Battle of Oak Hills, just South of Springfield. That fall General Price and his Patriot Army also defeated the Lincolnites at Lexington, Missouri, where they captured the entire yankee garrison and recovered the Missouri State Seal that had been stolen by the invaders. With word that yankee General Fremont was approaching from the east and Kansas redlegs from the west, General Price decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and that it might be best to make a strategic withdrawal to Southwest Missouri.

After resting and reorganizing his army General Price moved his men to northwest Arkansas where they were joined by General McCulloch and his Texans and placed under the overall command of General Van Dorn. At the Battle of Elk Horn Tavern, Private Althiser was fully engaged with the rest of the Missourians as they swept the yankee line. Unfortunately the rest of Van Dorn’s army ran low on ammunition and were forced to withdraw from the field. General McCulloch was killed and the remnants of the Confederate army moved further South.

General Price’s Missourians continued on to Van Buren, Arkansas, where T.J. enlisted in Company “F”, 3rdInfantry Battalion Confederate States Army. The 3rd was later merged into the 6th Missouri Infantry, Company “H” C.S.A. on March 23rd, 1862.

The “Bloody 6th” saw action at Iuka and the Battle of Corinth, and T.J. was in the thick of both battles. Subsequent battle honors included: Hatchie Bridge, Grand Gulf, Fort Gibson, Bakers Creek, Big Black and Champion’s Hill. T.J. and the men of the “Bloody 6 th” stubbornly gave ground and fiercely resisted the yankee onslaught in and around Vicksburg, Mississippi.

After falling back into fortress Vicksburg, and enduring unbearable hardships and starvation for months on end, my great-grandfather and the other defenders of the “Gibraltar of the West” found themselves surrounded and cut off from any reasonable hope. Seeing the condition of his starving men, General Pemberton sent my great grandfather’s fellow Missourian, General John Stevens Bowen to negotiate surrender terms with Grant. General Bowen, who knew Grant from his time in St. Louis arranged generous terms whereby the men were to keep their arms and were allowed to move to a parole camp at Demopolis, Alabama. The Missourians were spared the horrors of a northern prison camp.

Following their parole, the Missourians made their way east and joined General Joseph E. Johnson’s army where they fought throughout the 1864 Georgia campaigns at Kennesaw

Mountain and Allatoona and then under Hood at the Battle of Atlanta. After the fall and evacuation of Atlanta, T.J. and his fellow Missourians traveled the fateful road to the bloody battle of Franklin, Tennessee where many of Missouri’s finest soldiers died needlessly after obeying General Hood’s frontal assault orders.

The Missourians were badly mauled at Franklin, and the battered remnants of their army as well as the wounded Colonel Elijah Gates, Brigadier General Francis Marion Cockrell and my great grandfather travelled to the defense of Ft. Blakely, Alabama. Again the ragged defenders were overwhelmed by superior yankee numbers and resources. Following the fall of Ft. Blakely, my great grandfather was able to escape, only to be captured near Citronella, Alabama on 4 May, 1865, and placed on Ship Island as a prisoner of war. T.J. was with the Missourians during the horrifying days under sadistic black prison guards. Their final parole didn’t come until 13 May 1865 at Jackson, Mississippi.

After the war T.J. traveled to Brown County, Illinois where he married his childhood sweetheart, Miss Susannah Rumple. The newlyweds eventually returned to their beloved Callaway County, Missouri. T.J. lived out the rest of his days there, and is buried in the Pioneer cemetery in Fulton. The Major Utz Camp#1815 is working to have a Confederate “Iron Cross” placed on his grave in the near future. A picture of Thomas Jefferson Althiser

Pictures from the July Gun Show in St. Charles Missouri

The upcoming meeting would be a good time to turn in your Money from the Raffle Tickets. And get more Tickets.

Editor Dave Roper

[email protected] 618-304-7758