Posted January 17, 2009
Compatriots:
2009 is upon us, and that can only mean that Confederate History Month is rapidly approaching. April, as usual, has been so designated, and we need to start right now getting County and City governments to sign proclamations recognizing our celebration of it. There’s a sample proclamation located here on the website. Use it, or make your own, but get one signed! Most County Judges (and city Mayors) want to type it themselves, so they can “fancy” it up a little. That’s fine, but make sure you get the original. Make sure, too, to start asking a couple of weeks early, so that they will have some time to get it done.
Who has a contact in the Governor’s office? We need one done at state level, too. Georgia has already gotten one from Mr. Perdue. Let’s be the second.
Be sure to invite the media to the signing ceremony, and be sure to take pictures and forward them to me, along with copies of the signed proclamation. I’ll send them along to National HQ. Make good use of the Confederate History Month stickers, too. Gentlemen, this is our “big month”. Let’s use it.
posted 18 April 2008
Compatriots:
Ordinarily, this time of year you’d be getting a copy of the Division newsletter, The Lost Cause. In this copy you’d find a registration form for the Division reunion. That’s not going to happen this year. Since we’re not going to be able to get a high-quality newsletter in your hands in time for you to register for the June reunion, we’re doing this special registration mailing instead. You’ll find a registration form and all the other documents you need in order to register contained herein. This is a terribly important reunion. As you’ll recall, this is the bicentennial of the birth of our president, Jefferson Davis. The occasion of President Davis’s birth will be celebrated by the Commonwealth contemporary with our reunion, and at the same location: Fairview, the president’s birthplace. This is the only event Kentucky will stage in commemoration of President Davis’s bicentennial. About 20 times the time, money and effort will be expended in support of another Kentuckian’s bicentennial. We need to turn out in numbers that surpass all expectations to show the world that regardless of certain political and politically correct protestations to the contrary, Kentucky is deeply proud of Jefferson Davis. The SCV needs to be at the forefront of this demonstration. The way to do that is to be in Fairview, come 6 June, 2008.
Of course, we have Division business to conduct, too, and we need you there in order to do it. There’ll be ample opportunity to socialize, to exchange news and views, and to learn more about our heritage and our history. On Sunday, we’ll have an opportunity to worship in the Church that President Davis endowed at his actual birthplace. We’ll be able to see and admire the Communion set that he gave them with his own hands. So: Please plan to be there, and please fill our and return the registration form ASAP. Please consider buying an ad in the Program in honor of your ancestor and/or your Camp. Let’s make this the biggest Davis-related event in this Year of Davis. There’ll be a number of national officers and other dignitaries there. Let’s show them what Kentuckians think of “our” President and our Division.
Deo Vindice
Thomas Y. Hiter Ph.D
Commanding
The Kentucky Division
17 December, 07
Well, it’s December, and as we all know, come December, everyone’s thoughts turn to…, GIFTS, of course! Well, not really, all our thoughts ought to turn, this time of year, to the birth of the savior without whom none of us would stand any chance at all, but we do spend a certain amount of time thinking about giving, this time of year, and the Kentucky Division in particular needs your help in that regard. I ask for your consideration.
As you may know, the SCV at both national and Division level has been engaged for some time in an effort to purchase the home of Confederate General Lloyd Tilghman, in Paducah. It has long been the “home” of the Tilghman Camp No. 1495 of the SCV. Now, there’s a chance that it can become the permanent “home” of the Kentucky Division. There is a strong likelihood that the SCV will be able to purchase the home next Spring. We already own the adjacent parking lot. In order to make the purchase, the Division needs to come up with about $8,000.00 for a down payment. We also need to demonstrate an ability to keep the operating costs within reason. In short, we need, as a Division, to collect several thousand dollars in the next couple of months.
The Tilghman Camp, itself, already has $4500.00. At the December meeting of the Col Alfred Johnston Camp, $1,000.00 was raised and donated to the fund. The Fort Heiman Camp donated all the receipts from its October Ghostwalk, and several members chipped in too, raising over $300.00. The A.J. May Camp held an auction at its Seccession Day dinner, and raised more than $213.00, which they’ve donated to the cause. This is the kind of “gift” I like to see at this or any time of year! Sincere thanks to the Camps that are already on board, and I hope others will be able to contribute, as well.
Fundraising is going to be somewhat of a challenge for a while. The IRS ban on raffles has hurt us, and it’s put a real crimp in our plans for raising money for the mega flagpoles we’ve been trying to put up. We’ll overcome it, of course, and we’ll get it all done. You’ve shown that, already. Let’s keep it up! By the way, any individual who wishes to contribute to the Tilghman House project can send a check to me, or directly to the Tilghman Camp. Just make sure to put “Tilghman House Purchase” on the memo line of the check so we’ll know to put it in that fund.
So: I wish you a Merry Christmas in every sense of that fine greeting. May the gift of salvation that Jesus gave each of us more than 2000 years ago remain always at the front of each of our minds and hearts. I wish you each a happy and prosperous New Year. And, I hope you donate some of that prosperity to the Tilghman House.
Commander’s Notes
October 30, 2007
I deeply regret that the Superintendent at Vicksburg Battlefield called yesterday to cancel our dedication ceremony on the 17th of November. I apologize to those of you who already had made travel plans. We WILL reschedule!
The truth be known, though, things were not going as well as we had wished, anyway. the bronze flag that drapes the top of the monument was not going to be finished in time, and there were even some doubts as to whether the monument, itself, would be ready. Certainly, the landscaping, etc., would not have been as nice as we would have wanted. Also, some very important people would not have been able to be there, so perhaps it’s all for the best. In any case, we’ll do it in the Spring sometime, and it’ll be better. Thank you of your continued faith in this fine effort.
On an entirely different front, I’d like to commend the efforts of the Fort Heiman Camp, out in Calloway County. We keep talking (and working towards) locating sites for mega-battle flags along our interstate highways. That’s a “must do”, and the division is pursuing it. Calloway County, though, doesn’t have an interstate. What they do have is flat country and tall grain bins/silos. Enter a member of the Camp, Compatriot Mike Burchett, who farms some 1700 acres of that flat land, and has some very tall grain bins as part of his operation. Well, to make a long story short, The Camp bought a large Battle Flag and Mike put up a flagpole on top of his bins…, some 100 feet in the air! The Camp held a formal dedication ceremony, and now you can see the flag for miles.
You don’t have to have a 40 foot flag along an interstate. You don’t have to have a detailed plan sent down form National or Division. With a little imagination and some good old southern initiative, you can have an impact. Congratulations to the Purchase Brigade guys for showing us that, once again.
Deo Vindice
Thomas Y. Hiter Ph.D
Commanding
The Kentucky Division
&nbps;
Commander’s Notes
31 July 07
The Year of Davis!
At the recent national reunion in Mobile, the SCV voted to proclaim 2008 “The Yeart of Davis”, referring, of course, to the bicentennial of our beloved President, Jefferson Davis. The Kentucky Division will appropriately engage in the national events, but we will do much more, as well.
In the first place, we have already scheduled our 2008 Division Reunion for 6-8 June at Fairview: the site of the President’s birth and of the State Park that honors him. The good folks at Bethel Baptist Church, which is built on the grounds where the Davis homestead stood, have invited us to use their facilities and we intend to do so. While we were in Mobile, I spoke with Dr. Michael Bradley, Commander of the Tennessee Division. They’re interested in joining us in Fairview during the same period.
The Commonwealth, while devoting billions more to the Lincoln bicentennial than to Davis, will be pulling out the stops for their annual event that same weekend. This gives us the opportunity to make President Davis’s birth bicentennial a far bigger event than it otherwise would have been. I invite you all to join me in making plans right now to publicize the event in your local media, to get local proclamations from government entities, naming 2008 “The Year of Davis”, and to attend the reunion in Fairview, next June.
In other news from Mobile, a good number of Kentuckians received honors from the national organization. Especially noteworthy were Richard P’Pool, who received the Graves Award, and the Helm Camp, for its outstanding newsletter. The Division as a whole received the A.P. Hill award, for chartering the most new Camps. Outstanding work, Kentuckians! Keep it up.
Commander’s Notes
7 June, 2006
At the Division Reunion, in Prestonsburg (a wonderful event, by the way, and a real accomplishment for the men of the Eastern Brigade), reports from our Camps and Brigades made a couple of things clear: First, that we’re growing, and second that we’re becoming more active. Both are good news.
We’ve increased the number of Camps, and we’ve increased the number of active camps. No, the number isn’t what I’d like to see, but it’s an increase. We’re going in the right direction. We’ve also increased out total membership. We’re still a long ways from the 5,000 men that we’re looking for, but again, it’s a start. We can be at 5,000 in a few years, and we can be over 1,000 before the national reunion, if we will all just get one new recruit. It’s “doable”, and we’re doing it. You get the credit.
The second major area of improvement noted in Prestonsburg has to do with Camp activity. Here, too, we’re getting better, and again, I want to thank you. This is how we will eventually meet our growth goals. Active Camps are growing Camps. Period. I know of no Camp that has been involved in public activities that hasn’t grown. There’s a message there.
We’ve been marching in parades, building and dedicating monuments, handing out Confederate History Month stickers, getting proclamations signed, and, of course, locating, cleaning, and marking Confederate graves. We’ve all supported the Duty case, and we’ve spoken to schools who thought they wanted to create a heritage violation. We’ve been active from the Mississippi River to Pound Gap. Our Camps have met their Charge from the Cincinnati suburbs to the Tennessee border. We’ve done well. Now, let’s do better.
Commander’s Notes
20 March 06
Confederate History and Heritage Month is celebrated across much of the South in April of each year. This year, the Kentucky Division has joined in, and I hope every Camp will participate with us. April is the most popular date for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that it is the month when the War both began and ended, for all practical purposes. In addition, several southern states celebrate Confederate Memorial Day in this month. The terrible, bloody, but free years in-between, of course, are what we really celebrate.
During those four years, our ancestors actually formed a free nation and installed a government. They conducted all of the affairs of a free people. For four years, the institutions of the South, indeed, the American institutions that their grandsires had fought for at Camden and King’s Mountain and Yorktown stood independently before God and man. They recruited, trained, supplied and employed an army and a navy, and they resisted what they saw as tyranny with more dedication, more grit, and per capita more blood than almost any such effort in the history of man. It is that that we celebrate.
Today, it is popular to compare the Battle Flag of the Confederacy to the Nazi swastika. It is even popular to compare the great leaders of the Confederacy with some of the great tyrants of the past: Hitler, Stalin, et. al. There is a movement afoot to destroy or denigrate every positive reference to the four-year long beacon of freedom decency that was the Confederate States of America. There are people, thousands of people who are determined to make the War and the Confederacy nothing but an attempt to defend and promote human slavery. No one stands between such utter destruction of Confederate heritage and the truth except you and me.
The only real weapon in our battle to defend the truth is communication. We must defend against every attack! We must resist every single slur on TV or radio news with a letter to the station or editor. We must resist every effort by every school to forbid the display of the Battle Flag. We must call every politician to account. We must defend against the forces arrayed against us, but defense is not enough. We must go on the offense. We must tell the truth.
Confederate History Month is one campaign in that offensive. We must enlist our political leadership in our struggle by capitalizing on their ability to generate positive news. We must gain official sanction of true Confederate History by obtaining official endorsement of it at every opportunity. Further, we must enlist as allies the very media outlets that are sometimes used most actively against us. Certainly every reader is aware of the calumny of Ken Burn’s “The Civil War”. Yet, we can fight that fire with fire. We can, eventually and with enough effort, run Southern documentaries on the War on the same channels, and shine the clear light of truth on Confederate history in every local newspaper in the South. Let’s do it! Let’s start now.
Commander's Notes
7 Feb 06
This is an exciting time of year. It's a time of beginnings. When I was a boy, this was the time of year when we started cutting wood for our plant beds. Tobacco wasn't yet so politically incorrect, and clearing and burning plant beds was the beginning of a long year's work. Things looked different than they did later, hoeing, topping, suckering, cutting, firing, and stripping. Burning plant beds was where it all started, though. Much the same is true in most of our Churches. This is the time of year when we get ready to start our liturgical year. Oh, it started with Advent, technically, but really, most of us think of Christmas as the end of the year. We start, in my Church, with Baptisms and Confirmations before Lent. Then we do Easter, followed by Pentecost, and the Trinity. The late-Winter/early Spring season really starts things off.
Why don't we make the same sort of "beginning" in our Division, this year? We just had a wonderful Camp and Division officer retreat. We came up with and discussed a number of new ideas for growing and spreading our organization all across the Commonwealth. Let's all look at the coming year the way we used to look at our "tobacco" year: Right now, we should be preparing the plant beds. Making plans. Raising money. Making contacts. Recruiting new members, and training them. Starting new Camps in adjoining counties. Let's be ready to plant seeds in April, during Confederate History Month. Let's have marches, sign proclamations, and generally make public noise in support of our ancestors.
Then, in May, we need to all plan to be in Prestonsburg for the Division Reunion. Let's have a couple of thousand people out there, wearing the grey and celebrating the South! In June, every Camp needs to have a big and newsworthy Confederate Memorial Day event. It's a legal holiday in Kentucky: let's see that everybody knows it.
In July, as many of us as possible need to be in New Orleans. Let's start putting our car pools together, now. Let's be the biggest Division there.
And so forth. You know the drill: grave markings, Veteran's Day parades, Christmas parades and parties. Finally, a year from now, when we get together for our Lee-Jackson dinners, we'll be able to look back on a good year: one in which the Division doubled in size, influence and effectiveness!
Commander’s Notes
06 January, 2006
Compatriots and fellow Kentuckians:
We are all members of an organization with a mission. Perhaps I ought to capitalize that word Mission. Our mission, indeed our whole reason for existing as an organization is contained in our Charge. Our job, our role, our mission is to defend the good name of the Confederate soldier and to tell our generation and those that follow about his heroic commitment to freedom and the American way.
We are the largest and most effective organization in the Commonwealth with this mission, but we are not large enough to do it effectively. I am committed to seeing a 1500 man Division, organized into 150 Camps by the close of the year 2010. To do this, we simply need each to recruit one new member each year, and for each Camp to start one new Camp every year until then.
I challenge each of you to start 2006 by recruiting one family member into your own Camp before the annual Reunion, in May. I challenge every Camp to start up a new Camp in an adjoining County before the National Reunion, in July.
Deo Vindice.
Thomas Y. Hiter
Commanding
Kentucky Division