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The Pathetic Truth About Lincoln Scholarship

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Just as an overview, though, real historiography starts with the evidence and then logically derives conclusions. But professional Lincoln Studiers work backwards. They start with a few standard assertions — Lincoln Was A Hardy Pioneer Youth, Lincoln Saved The Union, Lincoln Freed The Slaves, Lincoln Was The Greatest President, that sort of thing. Of course there’s not a shred of evidence confirming any of those conclusions — no, there really isn’t — that’s the point — and every shred that we have left to us confirms just the opposite.

Kevin Orlin Johnson,
from the article below

The Pathetic Truth About Lincoln Scholarship:
"Lincoln Studies and a Stacked Deck"
by Kevin Orlin Johnson
"Lincoln Sells His Slaves"
by Clyde Wilson
Front cover of Kevin Orlin Johnson's 680 page 2023 book, The Lincolns in the White House, Slanders, Scandals, and Lincoln's Slave Trading Revealed.
Front cover of Kevin Orlin Johnson's 680 page 2023 book, The Lincolns in the White House, Slanders, Scandals, and Lincoln's Slave Trading Revealed.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - The two articles, below, by distinguished scholars of the Abbeville Institute, shine a great deal of light on the Lincoln fabrication, which is what so much of Lincoln scholarship is.

Kevin Orlin Johnson's 680 page 2023 book, The Lincolns in the White House, Slanders, Scandals, and Lincoln's Slave Trading Revealed (nominated for the Lincoln Prize) is based on irrefutable primary sources and is powerfully written by a distinguished scholar.

Johnson's "Lincoln Studies and a Stacked Deck" is a blistering assessment of Lincoln scholarship and why much of it is a fraud, a myth.

Clyde Wilson's review of Johnson's The Lincolns in the White House - "Lincoln Sells His Slaves" - follows and concludes that Johnson's book is "a stellar contribution to the growing body of sound scholarship about the real Lincoln."

Johnson's The Lincolns in the White House is not to be confused with a book of the same name by Jerrold M. Packard. Packard's book is on Amazon but Johnson's is not.

Go to the publisher, Pangaeus, to order Kevin Orlin Johnson's book: https://www.pangaeus.com/the-lincolns-in-the-white-house.

An appeal of the decision that led to the removal of the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery has been filed. The removal of that 109 year old world class monument to peace and patriotism has desecrated Arlington National Cemetery, which will remain desecrated and dishonored until the Confederate Memorial is restored. For an update go to www.DefendArlington.org and please contribute.]

 

Lincoln Studies and a Stacked Deck
By Kevin Orlin Johnson
(Published March 26, 2024 on the Abbeville Institute blog)

BACK IN 1949, two researchers, J. S. Bruner and Leo Postman, wanted to sort out the relationship between what we see and how we interpret what we see. They did a proper study of it — “On the Perception of Incongruity: A Paradigm”, Journal of Personality, 18:206 ff. (1949), if you want to look it up.

Bruner and Postman asked people to identify playing cards flashed before them for a fraction of a second. But they’d put in a few trick cards — a red six of spades, for instance, or a black four of hearts. The idea was that the trick cards would delay the response time as the subjects paused to figure them out.

It didn’t work. The subjects went at it knowing for a fact that a deck of cards has four and only four descriptive classifications — red hearts, red diamonds, black spades and black clubs. That presumption overcame observation, and the subjects immediately described the cards as they expected cards to be, not as those particular cards really were.

Bruner and Postman let the test subjects look longer and even asked leading questions, but still none of them could see the reality right there in front of their eyes. If forced to think about it, they became visibly confused and uncomfortable. “Oh, I don’t know what it is!” one shouted. “Take it away!”

And so it is, Bruner and Postman concluded, “either a very sick organism, an overly motivated one, or one deprived of the opportunity to ‘try-and-check,’ which will not give up an expectancy in the face of a contradictory environment. It would be our contention, nonetheless, that for as long as possible and by whatever means available, the organism will ward off the perception of the unexpected, those things which do not fit his prevailing set.”

That is, people honestly cannot perceive anything that doesn’t fit their expectation. That affects any investigation at least a little, but Lincoln Studies rather depends upon it.

Recently a few studies have pointed that out. In 2002 Thomas DiLorenzo published his The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, which he followed in 2006 with his Lincoln Umasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe.

In 2009 John Avery Emison gave us Lincoln Über Alles: Dictatorship Comes to America. Now there’s my own little effort, The Lincolns in the White House: Slanders, Scandals, and Lincoln’s Slave Trading Revealed. It has plenty of details and documentation of how Lincoln Studies goes wrong, a whole chapter on their method, in fact. And there’s lots more to come.

Just as an overview, though, real historiography starts with the evidence and then logically derives conclusions. But professional Lincoln Studiers work backwards. They start with a few standard assertions — Lincoln Was A Hardy Pioneer Youth, Lincoln Saved The Union, Lincoln Freed The Slaves, Lincoln Was The Greatest President, that sort of thing. Of course there’s not a shred of evidence confirming any of those conclusions — no, there really isn’t — that’s the point — and every shred that we have left to us confirms just the opposite. So for the past 150 years or so Lincoln Studiers have trimmed and tucked those shreds to fit those categories because those are the only categories possible, as far as they can see.

Sometimes they just paraphrase the document into its reverse, which is understandable as an honest report of what the Lincoln Studier got out of reading it. Bruner and Postman might have had more to say about it when the interpretation flatly contradicts the original document quoted right there on the same page.

They might be hard pressed to explain how documents get lifted from their context and set into another series of events altogether. It’s like forcing a puzzle piece into the wrong place because you know for certain that the picture is supposed to be different from the one on the box, the one into which all of the other pieces fit perfectly.

Sometimes professors of Lincoln Studies have to cut out significant passages to make a document fit, so sometimes what’s left makes no more grammatical than historical sense. But in fact altering original documents to fit those preconceptions is so normal in the field that it’s difficult to get to real evidence about Lincoln.

Sometimes even the most prominent Lincoln Studiers edit a document just a little to say what its author must have actually meant, because nobody could actually mean what that author wrote about Lincoln. That’s why, as you read along, you might be puzzled by an added “not” or a missing one. One recent prize winner inserted “[Mrs.]” in front of Lincoln’s name to deflect an insult from The Emancipator to Mary Todd, whom he frankly despises — you always have to check the originals.

That’s another problem, though. The violence to the originals is often so astonishing in its scope that it can’t be accidental. For example, the son of Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles thoroughly re-wrote his father’s diaries before publishing them with the promise that “the text of the diary has been in no way mutilated or revised… No other evidence can be more sacred than a diary.”

The official editions of Lincoln’s own writings, even Roy P. Basler’s Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Rutgers 1955) — eight volumes, index, supplement and all — silently correct Lincoln’s habitual misspellings and his constant grammatical solecisms, but that way it all fits into the picture better.

Still, rewriting documents can only go so far. So from the beginning the giants in the field have simply gathered up and burned any documents within their grasp that said otherwise — and it all said otherwise. Notably, Henry Horner, Vice President of the Abraham Lincoln Association and Governor of Illinois; Oliver R. Barrett, President of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library and greatest Lincoln collector of them all; and of course Robert Todd Lincoln himself are all on record as ordering some of the greatest collections of primary Lincoln documents ever known consigned to the flames. Or just burning them, themselves.

That’s why you’ll notice in the Lincoln literature that no new evidence is brought forward, no new information is added to our understanding. Generations of Lincoln Studiers haven’t had any choice but to play the cards that they’re dealt, and shuffle them over and over again.

Kevin Orlin Johnson

Kevin Orlin Johnson holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in the History of Architecture, a Master’s degree in Art History, and a Bachelor’s degree in Art History; he has also fulfilled the requirements for a Bachelor’s degree in History. His publications in his principal field, on topics as varied as Louis XIV’s first designs for Versailles or the design of the Chapel of the Most Holy Shroud in Turin, are considered definitive by many scholars here and abroad. He is the author of The Lincolns in the White House (Pangaeus Press, 2022).

 

Lincoln Sells His Slaves
By Clyde Wilson
(Published on the Abbeville Institute blog February 14, 2024)

“The literature on Abraham Lincoln is vast, but it isn’t very good.”  You have to love a book with a first sentence like that!  The book is Kevin Orlin Johnson’s The Lincolns in the White House. While he has some interesting history of the Executive Mansion (the White House) the author is not limited to that one place and short time period, as indicated by the subtitle: Slanders, Scandals, and Lincoln’s Slave Trading Revealed. He presents a fresh and highly original social and political portrayal of the whole Lincoln era.

Probably people will find most interesting Lincoln’s direct order in 1850 to SELL the slaves of his father-in-law’s estate.  It is plainly there in the documents, which somehow the host of Lincoln scholars have previously failed to notice. Not surprising, since other Northern heroes, Steven Douglas and U.S. Grant, also got slaves from the wife’s families and like Lincoln considered it a routine matter.

Johnson is eloquent, precise, and definitive in his exposure of the large and well rewarded class of “historians” he calls the Lincolnolators.  In chapter and verse he shows how they have misinterpreted documents and suppressed others and counted undocumented third person gossip long after the fact as if it were conclusive evidence. Johnson contributes a needed revelation about the state of American historianship these days.

Lincoln was not personally corrupt in the White House but he apparently enjoyed considerable “honest graft” from gifts and insider information.  When he died there were found in his office uncashed cheques and bonds worth more the $1.5 million in today’s money.  He was certainly the first President to leave the White House richer than he entered it.

But that was routine in administration built on corruption. Most of Lincoln’ major appointments became millionaires—an interesting sidelight on the holy cause of Union. To Johnson this meant the permanent establishment of what he calls “the Party,” the exploitation of the taxpayers by the combination of capitalists and party politicians that has been the American regime from Lincoln to this day.

I am happy to see the evidence that corrects two erroneous assumptions that I had gathered from the literature:

1) Lincoln was not really a highly successful lawyer. He certainly was not nobly defending the humble. He was best-known for diverting juries by tricks and irrelevant story telling. During the Springfield years the house was bought and living expenses were paid out of Mary Todd Lincoln’s inheritance. What he earned (nothing in the last two years before his election) he spent on himself and politicking.

2) Mary Todd Lincoln was not a bad woman. She is pervasively portrayed in the literature as a shrewish spendthrift who embezzled government funds and became insane. Just another burden that St. Abraham patiently bore. In fact, as a Southern lady she was a first-rate hands-on housekeeper even with the extreme demands on a President’s lady dealing with irregular and inadequate support. Unlike most of those around her, she never did anything illegal. She was committed to an asylum, it is true. Her son Robert, truly an evil man, through greed had two thugs physically rob her of the bonds that were her main property and thrust her into an institution where she was heavily drugged, causing suffering for the rest of her life.

Dr. Johnson adds to his merit by a sprightly style and touches of satire.  This is a stellar contribution to  the growing body of sound scholarship about the real Lincoln, something America badly needs.

Clyde Wilson

Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina where he was the editor of the multivolume The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He is the M.E. Bradford Distinguished Chair at the Abbeville Institute. He is the author or editor of over thirty books and published over 600 articles, essays and reviews and is co-publisher of www.shotwellpublishing.com, a source  for unreconstructed Southern books.

The Use and Misuse of History by Dr. Clyde Wilson

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The Use and Misuse of History
by Dr. Clyde Wilson
Google Epitomizes the Misuse of History, Suffers $90 Billion Stock Selloff Thanks to Its Woke Gemini AI
Racist Google's deliberate falsification of history from its Gemini AI February, 2024.
Racist Google's deliberate falsification of history from its Gemini AI February, 2024.
More Google Gemini AI obliteration of truth and history, February, 2024.
More Google Gemini AI obliteration of truth and history, February, 2024.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Google's Gemini accidentally pulled back the curtain and revealed a hideous, racist, grotesque Google standing there naked for all the world to laugh at and NOBODY to ever trust again.

Google and other cheats have interfered in elections by manipulating search results so Woke leftists get top billing while people with far more talent and honesty are never found.

Google has just confirmed that AI is nothing but a way to magnify leftist politics by a trillion and put it everywhere on the planet so truth can never be found. "Truth" is now what Google reveals in every search on everybody's computer from now to kingdom come.

Nathan Leamer in "Disastrous Gemini Rollout Exposes Leftist Rot Permeating All of Google" writes:

The recent rollout of Google's Gemini AI was an absolute disaster by any measure. Over the course of several hours, users across the internet quickly realized the large language model developed by Google had erased white people. The AI model wasn't just prejudiced based on skin color, but would only give far-left ideological answers to various questions. For example, Gemini refused to acknowledge the shortcomings of communism when prompted. It was able to articulate, however, a diatribe about the folly of capitalism.1

Leamer writes that the people behind Google's AI "fueled the large learning model with nothing but their liberal tears. A cursory look at the team behind Gemini shows a crew of individuals who have quite a bit of angst against white people, merit, or the capitalist society that made them uber-rich Silicon Valley tycoons paid to build a racist internet tool."

One good thing noted by Leamer as a result of the disastrous Gemini rollout:

Consumers are hungry for products not informed by the extreme ideology on display at Google, but one that fosters free thought and encourages open discourse. There is clearly a market for this, as described by the near-universal backlash to Gemini. This would greatly contrast with Google, OpenAI, and others trying to lock in the regulatory regime to bolster their supremacy - as Marc Andreessen describes, "a cartel of government-blessed AI vendors protected from new startup and open source competition."

This is EXACTLY why the government wants to be the one to decide what is misinformation and disinformation. They want to push their authoritarian tyranny on the public and obliterate every other idea.

How about do as Thomas Jefferson said and let a true free press and free speech reign supreme and let the people decide what is B_ll Sh_t and what is not. That's why our white founders, who Google hates, put all those protections in the First Amendment to the greatest document every written, the United States Constitution.

It might be time, now that Google has been exposed as Claudine Gay was, that it gets the same treatment as she did.

A NOTICE OF APPEAL has been filed with regard to the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. The magnificent 109 year old world class memorial was removed last December because of the Woke naming commission's historically fraudulent report. See my articles on www.CharlestonAthenaeumPress.com including "Naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial is a historical FRAUD":

https://www.charlestonathenaeumpress.com/naming-commissions-report-on-the-confederate-memorial-is-a-historical-fraud/

We are hoping a successful Appeal will order the monument to be restored to all its glory in our nation's most sacred burial ground.

Other things are in the works too such as our many allies in Congress adding an amendment to the 2024 NDAA requiring the Confederate Memorial to be reconstructed.

The removal of the monument desecrated 500 graves in concentric circles emanating out from where the monument once stood.

Those Confederate graves of soldiers and family members are, by law, the same as the graves of any other American soldier. Laws were passed in the early 1900s out of patriotism and love as our great country came back together after the bloody War Between the States, which was fought by the South for independence and the right of sovereign states to govern themselves as our Founding Fathers intended.

It was fought by the North for economic control of a country that promised to be the greatest in history.

Please go to my Donation Page to make a donation today. We can not allow Arlington National Cemetery to remain as desecrated as all the other places where Woke mobs destroyed ancient monuments to valor and patriotism:

https://www.memberplanet.com/campaign/sshfl/defendarlington/GeneKizerJr2

Dr. Clyde Wilson is one of the most consequential and accomplished historians of the past century.

His article, below, was published on the Abbeville Institute Blog February 28, 2024. Please visit and join the Abbeville Institute: www.AbbevilleInstitute.org.]

 

The Use and Misuse of History
by Dr. Clyde Wilson
February 28, 2024

“I am heir to  the greatest civilization the world has ever known. I’d like to defend it but I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.” –Alice Teller

“By 2050—earlier probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared.  The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed….shall exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be.”–Orwell, 1984

Taught these days to IBM employees: “Greeks came to Africa as students to discover what Africans already knew. Writing, science, medicine, and spirituality were already a part of African civilizations.” Accompanied by a picture of a sub-Saharan black instructing Greeks.

This is being taught in your schools and colleges today. There are two very large lies here. 1) That the classical Greeks who initiated Western Civilisation got their knowledge from Egyptians, and 2) that Egyptians were black Africans. This distorts the history of the human race, not only destroying knowledge but contaminating all public discourse in our own time.

There is now a large grievance literature, apparently widely believed, that Europeans not only stole civilisation from blacks but they maliciously and deceitfully suppressed giving credit where it was due.

The simple truth (which many scholars are lavishly funded to disguise) is that black, sub-Saharan Africa was outside the European/Asian sphere of civilisations, existing in a most primitive state. Except for a few encountered by Egyptians, quickly enslaved, black people were nearly unknown and marginal to the civilized world until daring and skilled Portuguese sailors touched the west and east coasts of Southern Africa in the 1500s, while Arabs begin to extend Islam and the slave trade to East Africa.

For the classical world “Africa” meant the Southern shores of the Mediterranean inhabited by white Egyptians and Phoenicians, and from Alexander’s time on heavily inhabited by Greeks and Romans. We now have everything that is called “African” ascribed to the sub-Saharan black tribes who had little relation to North Africa.

The mass media and “educational” establishment are now busy destroying Western civilization–destroying you and me and our descendants.  We now have regular portrayals of the Egyptians (including Cleopatra) and the Phoenicians as black, as well as a Viking Queen, a Persian emperor, and Roman centurions. And according to some, Socrates drew all his wisdom at the feet of African geniuses.

The Renaissance does not escape. The great Queen Elizabeth I is now black, as are some Scottish nobles. One of the Three Musketeers is black and another is in love with a black woman.

Later on, Audubon is portrayed as black artist and scientist because he was called a ‘Creole,” the word for a white Frenchman born in the colonies. Slaves not born in Africa were called “Creole Blacks.” Blacks now inhabit portrayals of Jane Austen’s country gentry.

It seems to have entirely escaped consciousness that the African slave trade depended entirely on Africans enslaving and selling other Africans. A number of significant colonial instances in which blacks helped defeat slave revolts have been ignored.

More recent times do not escape distortions. Portrayals have black combat leaders in the then  segregated U.S. army. Very recently I saw a show in which a black ship commander with a mostly black crew was in combat with German ships. There are similar treatments of Vietnam.

I have the memoir of a World War II combat captain from Michigan. He was in action from Normandy to Germany. He writes that the worst time he had in the war was dealing with the black support soldiers encountered while he was in port waiting for return home.

In a recent film, “12 Strong”, the first Special Forces men into Afghanistan are portrayed. One is a black soldier sympathetically and prominently displayed with more attention than anyone except the team leader. Such a man does not exist.

In every European television series, even including Iceland, superior and sympathetic blacks are portrayed, whether they fit in or not–not to mention a president of Finland and Yorkshire farmers.

There are doubtless people who think they are doing good deeds with these lies perpetrated on a historically ignorant people. In other cases it may be malicious ignorance. But telling lies is never a good thing. This denies rightful credit to other people.

History in the proper sense is a Western achievement–the rational review and understanding of evidence and meaning in the past life of humanity. There will always be disagreement in interpretations, which is a good thing, but does not vindicate fabrication. Despite oppression by whites, Africans are major beneficiaries of Western civilisation.

Like so much else History as an intellectual discipline begins with the Greeks. Advanced China and Japan did not have this phase of intellect. To seek the truth of the past, as best we can, does not require disrespect or lack of sympathy and charity for any of our fellow creatures. Rather it recognises the diversity of our Creator’s work. Lying is almost never a good thing. To deliberately falsify the facts is a blow against civilisation itself. It thwarts our efforts to understand fully the history of our mysterious human species.

Clyde Wilson

Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina where he was the editor of the multivolume The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He is the M.E. Bradford Distinguished Chair at the Abbeville Institute. He is the author or editor of over thirty books and published over 600 articles, essays and reviews and is co-publisher of www.shotwellpublishing.com, a source  for unreconstructed Southern books.

1 Nathan Leamer, "Disastrous Gemini Rollout Exposes Leftist Rot Permeating All of Google," The Federalist, February 28, 2024. https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/28/disastrous-gemini-roll-out-exposes-leftist-rot-permeating-all-of-google/. Accessed 2-29-24. The article states that: Leamer is CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies and Executive Director of the Digital First Project. He previously worked as a Policy Advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide.

Robert E. Lee and the DOD by Dr. Joe Haines – REVIEW of Tyrus Seidule’s Robert E. Lee and Me

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Robert E. Lee and the DOD
by Dr. Joe Haines
A review of James Tyrus Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me
More than anybody else, Seidule, vice chair of the naming commission, is responsible for the desecration of Arlington National Cemetery
Coming Soon: Nikki "Birdbrain" Haley, the Elizabeth Warren of South Carolina
Woke authoritarian Tyrus Seidule, in his book Robert E. Lee and Me, expressed his hatred for the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Under Seidule, the naming commission submitted an historically fraudulent report on the Confederate Memorial leaving out its primary history and leading to its being removed just before Christmas, 2023. For over a century, American presidents including Barack Obama sent annual memorial wreaths to the Confederate Memorial commemorating patriotism and the reconciliation of North and South after the War Between the States. The destruction of the Confederate Memorial has desecrated Arlington National Cemetery and is an ongoing national disgrace contributing to our military recruiting crisis.
Woke authoritarian Tyrus Seidule, in his book Robert E. Lee and Me, expressed his hatred for the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Under Seidule, the naming commission submitted an historically fraudulent report on the Confederate Memorial leaving out its primary history and leading to its being removed just before Christmas, 2023. For over a century, American presidents including Barack Obama sent annual memorial wreaths to the Confederate Memorial commemorating patriotism and the reconciliation of North and South after the War Between the States. The destruction of the Confederate Memorial has desecrated Arlington National Cemetery and is an ongoing national disgrace contributing to our military recruiting crisis.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - My friend, Dr. Joe Haines, a medical doctor in North Carolina, has written an outstanding review of Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me. The review was published January 5, 2024 on the Abbeville Institute Blog.

The naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial was leftist politics at its worse and not history.

See my article "Naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial is a historical FRAUD," August 29, 2023.

Traditionally, 44% of our military was recruited in the South because military service was once revered in the South.

Because of Woke hatemongers like Seidule for whom political hatred knows no bounds, recruiting is way down across the board. It is past being a national security threat.

The healthy pipelines of recruits from the most patriotic places like the South have now been damaged by Woke ideology like DEI and Seidule's monument hatred.

We now have the smallest military since World War II yet are facing wars all over the globe, but Seidule hated the Confederate Memorial and his hatred is the most important thing to him and his career. The country be damned.

Seidule wrote in Robert E. Lee and Me on Page 162:

Of the thousands of monuments around the country to the Confederacy, the one in Arlington National Cemetery angers me the most. Every year, the commander in chief sends a wreath, ensuring the Confederate monument receives all the prestige of the U.S. government. That's why it riles me so much. . . .i

Seidule then admits that the Confederate Memorial stands for reconciliation, and he, himself, regrets that:

I know both political parties and white citizens in the North and South brought the country back together after the tremendous bloodletting and destruction of the Civil War. The posts named for Confederate officers during World War I also served to knit white America back together as it fought a common foe. And it worked, but we must recognize that reconciliation came at a steep and horrifying cost. African Americans paid the price with lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the loss of the franchise. The price for white reconciliation remains far too high. (Bold emphasis added.)ii

About Nikki Haley, I am from Charleston, South Carolina and lived through Haley's reign of terror down here. I can tell you she is a RHINO who was enthusiastically supported by leftists in New Hampshire recently though she still got trounced by Trump.

Haley is EXACTLY the same as fake Indian Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Both are desecrators of the history of people who are better than they could ever be.

When Haley stands in front of a mirror, Elizabeth Warren looks back.]

 

Robert E. Lee and the DOD
by Dr. Joe Haines

Published on the Abbeville Institute Blog, January 5, 2024

 

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, I read a book that is so flawed, biased and outright wrong that I can hardly finish it. Such is the case with “Robert E. Lee and Me” by Tyrus Seidule. I have always sought to give those who disagree me a fair hearing. Occasionally I may even learn something. But in Mr. Seidule’s case, his book is nothing more than a vile anti-Southern rant.

What is even more odd, is that Mr. Seidule was raised in Virginia by a good Southern family. As a boy and young man he naturally and rightfully revered Robert E. Lee, who along with George Washington, are considered to be the two greatest men in American history.

Perhaps because Mr. Seidule was once a Southerner (he now resides with the Yankees in New York), he exhibits what psychoanalysts call a reaction formation against the South, particularly most white Southerners, who are little more than irredeemable racists in his assessment.

This book is little more than an exercise in virtue signaling. Certainly as an Army officer he was subject to the usual Defense Department “woke” ideology, and it appears that Seidule took the bait. Wokeness, along with virtue signaling and shutting up and following orders summarizes current DoD policy.

I have a particularly good understanding of the current mentality across all branches of the service. Unlike Seidule, I have served in every branch of the armed forces except for the Coast Guard. I was most impressed with the Marine Corps, who were definitely a cut above the rest. Seidule’s experience was limited to the Army.

At times, Seidule’s hate for the South practically leaps off the pages of his book. For someone who claims to be a historian, his arguments are extremely one-sided. He makes no attempt to present a rational and unbiased presentation. Mr. Seidule believes he was betrayed in his youth regarding his Southern heritage. His historical analysis is reduced to the simplistic believe that slavery is bad and the South had slaves, and slavery caused the war and thus the South is evil.

Of course, this is a completely false belief, as the North also had slaves and Yankee fortunes were made in the slave trade. The federal government made millions of dollars taxing slaves as property. During the excavation of a site in Manhattan, approximately 400 graves of slaves were discovered. Many of the skeletons showed evidence of severe abuse. Northern states, like Abe Lincoln’s Illinois, passed laws forbidding the entry of slaves into their state. Seidule’s belief that the Yankees were somehow the defender of the slaves is totally inaccurate.

Speaking of Lincoln, when he was a lawyer in Illinois, he represented a slave owner in a custody case to return his escaped slave. Lincoln also famously told Horace Greeley that if he could free all the slaves to save the Union, he would do so, or keep all slaves in bondage to save the Union he would do so. Lincoln’s ultimate “solution” to the slave problem was to deport the slaves. There’s compassion for you. Of course, Lincoln’s top general U.S. Grant kept slaves during the war. When ask why he didn’t free them, he allegedly replied, “Good help is so hard to come by these days!”

The northern history books are so biased that the fact of Lincoln being America’s greatest executioner is little known. If you dig deep enough, you’ll find that on December 26, 1862, Lincoln ordered the execution of 38 Sioux Indians in Minnesota. After “trials” lasting as little as five minutes and no legal representation, the 38 men were found guilty and hanged. This execution easily surpassed any lynchings in the South. Originally, the plan was to hang 303, but Lincoln feared disapproval from potential European allies.

Lincoln also famously told Frederick Douglass that whites and blacks could never live together as equals. He apparently was unaware that in the South whites and blacks lived and worked side by side. Many slaves were alarmed at the prospect of losing their homes and the care provided for them if the North won the war. Their fears were justified, as nearly one million slaves died in the years following the war due to starvation, disease and neglect. The incompetent federal government was entirely unprepared to care for the massive number of homeless slaves.

As most honest scholars believe, the cause of the War for Southern Independence (it was not a civil war, as the South was not seeking to overthrow the U.S. government, but rather peacefully withdraw from the Union) cannot simply be reduced to slavery, as Seidule believes. Like all wars, it was about power and greed on one side (Union) and fear and self-preservation on the other side (South).

Mr. Seidule makes a big point of the lynching in the South, certainly a great evil. But it is curious that he omits the lynchings in New York City during the NYC Draft Riots of 1863. Over 5 days at least 11 black men were lynched. Some estimates say that 1200 people were killed, many of them black. The riots were started by Irish-Americans, who resented being drafted for what they perceived was a war to free the slaves. So, lynchings were not exclusive to the South.

If they were not fighting for slavery, then what were Southerners fighting for? My ancestors were farmers in Tennessee who, like the majority of Southerners, did not own slaves. They fought in the Confederate Army in response to the Yankees invading their homeland. Resisting invaders is a perfectly honorable response. A true man cannot stand by while an army from another country invades his home. To do otherwise would be dishonorable. It is never treason to defend one’s home from invaders.

Volumes have been written about Union General Sherman’s war crimes against the Southern people, including the slaves. Sherman’s men raped and murdered many slaves on his forced march to the sea. When one of Sherman’s staff officers, Capt. Poe remarked to Sherman about all the dead women and children in the streets of Atlanta, Sherman remarked that it was a “beautiful sight.” Of the 400 buildings in Atlanta before Sherman’s arrival, only 40 were left standing. Robert E. Lee and his officers strictly avoided warfare against Yankee civilians. In contrast, if the South had won the war, Sherman and Lincoln would be rightly executed as war criminals.

Seidule fails to appreciate that you cannot fairly judge the past by modern-day standards. By today’s standards, all whites in the 1860’s, North and South, were racists; even Saint Abraham. We must look to the past and learn from it, not judge it. We never have all the information. Of course, for the “Wokester” who is merely virtue signaling, facts are not particularly important. So many lies have been told about the War that the facts are often obscured.

Seidule criticized the South’s secession as an “armed rebellion.” Of course that’s exactly what the colonies did when fighting the British Empire. The United States was born from armed rebellion, so it was nothing new in 1861. A fundamental disagreement between Yankee sympathizers like Seidule and true Southerners was expressed by President Jefferson Davis, who said, “We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence …”

Several times Seidule makes a point of saying that “Lee and his comrades killed more U.S. Army soldiers than any other enemy, ever.” But he fails to mention that Lincoln and Grant killed more Confederate States of America soldiers than any other enemy, ever.

Seidule also insists numerous times that Lee committed treason. This simplistic statement is of course totally false. At this time in American history, a man’s first loyalty was to his state; in Lee’s case Virginia. Loyalty to the United States was purely secondary. No true Virginian could be expected to raise his hand against his home state and his family.

It was not until Lincoln’s time that the states were permanently diminished and the all-powerful federal government that we labor under today came into existence. The author appears angry that while the North won the war, the South has won the peace. Yankees by the millions have escaped the cold, inhospitable North to enjoy the warm, friendly South.

Seidule doesn’t seem to understand that each of the 13 states entered into an agreement to form an alliance, the United States of America. There was never an understanding that this was a perpetual union. A state could leave the union as easily as it entered. In fact, several New England states threatened to leave the Union in the early 1800’s and even refused to support the War of 1812. So were these New England states plotting treason? Of course not! The South has never had any problem with Yankee states leaving the Union, especially since they such disagreeable people.

There is no surprise that Washington and Lee University gave Seidule a standing ovation for his speech dishonoring Robert E. Lee and the South. University faculties have succumbed to Wokeism, weak minded liberalism, virtue signaling and white guilt. There is a move to rename Washington and Lee, which Seidule heartily supports. My suggestion is “Woke University.” Southerners should no longer consider attending a school that despises its heritage.

While our country is far from perfect, it is certainly true that African Americans fare much better than their African brothers in countries like Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Ghana, to name a few. This is a simple fact of life that has nothing to do with racism. Today’s African Americans owe much to the sacrifices of their slave ancestors. America has made great strides toward racial equality. We are not perfect and never will be.

Mr. Seidule recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal (Aug 26-27, 2023) attempting to further his cause, even resorting to the use of exclamation marks. He also proudly refers to his appointment as vice chair of the “naming commission,” which was tasked by the Department of Defense to remove all references to the Confederacy at DoD installations. The main outcome of this so-called commission’s actions was to insult and inflame Southerners. But this is of course typical of Yankees, who excel at telling others how they should think.

Seidule and I will never agree, and that’s fine. Unlike Yankees, I have no compulsion to force my beliefs upon other people. As for me, I will soon have raised five sons and a daughter who have been taught to honor their Southern heritage, and especially the great American hero, Robert E. Lee. My children will teach their sons and daughters and so on down the line. Millions of Southerners feel as I do, so Mr. Seidule, your cause and your misguided book are doomed to failure.

i Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me, A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lst Cause (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2020), 162.

ii Ibid.

We will lose the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial this week without a legal injunction

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We will lose the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial this week without a legal injunction
Demolition will begin December 18 and take four days
That will absolutely destroy Arlington National Cemetery as our nation's most sacred burial ground
It will desecrate the graves of almost 500 Confederate soldiers and family surrounding the memorial in concentric circles who, by 1901 law, are American soldiers entitled to the same respect and dignity as any American soldier who has ever lived
President William McKinley said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor"
Those 500 "tributes to American valor" will now surround a mangled shaft and be targets of hate and derision for eternity
The Nazis started this way against the Jews
If ever you wanted to strike a blow against Woke hatred and iconoclasm, help us defend Arlington National Cemetery and its most magnificent historic memorial
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - The DoD must respond today, Tuesday, December 5, 2023 to a judge's order that they explain why they think they are above the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act and can go ahead with their demolition of the world class Confederate Reconciliation Memorial, the greatest achievement of internationally acclaimed Jewish sculptor Sir Moses Ezekiel, a VMI Confederate soldier.

Two days later, by Thursday, December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, Defend Arlington will respond.

After that, the fate of the Confederate Memorial is in a DC judge's hands though we will certainly take additional action and fight to the bitter end.

This litigation is expensive and we desperately need to put money in our War Chest so PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY AND IMMEDIATELY.

I have set up a fundraising page by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Charleston Athenaeum Press, under Defend Arlington's main fundraising website. It is safe, easy to use, and acknowledgements and receipts are emailed to your instantly. Here and below are links to it:

https://www.memberplanet.com/campaign/sshfl/defendarlington/GeneKizerJr

Last Friday, December 2, I submitted a 15 page Comment on DoD's Environmental Assessment (EA), which, apparently, they are doing in order to skirt the strict requirements of the National Environment Policy Act for a formal Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The kind of historical examination required by an EIS and required by the National Historic Preservation Act's Section 106 Process, with public input, can take four years but DoD is doing it in four weeks.

DoD, in its rush to implement Elizabeth Warren's history-destroying legislation and demolish the Confederate Memorial by January 1, 2024, is blind to the unintended consequences that will be forced on Arlington National Cemetery and our country.

The demolition of Ezekiel's magnificent Reconciliation Memorial surrounded by 500 Confederate graves in concentric circles out from the monument, will utterly, completely and absolutely destroy Arlington National Cemetery as our nation's most sacred burial ground.

What would be special about Arlington National Cemetery if it is forced to become a destroyer of historic monuments and desecrator of American soldier graves?

Warren's legislation gave us the Woke political naming commission with its extremely biased vice chair, Ty Seidule, who has written extensively about his hatred of the Confederate Memorial and who appears to regret that our nation came back together after the War Between the States.

Seidule's naming commission issued a historically fraudulent report that left out the primary history of the Confederate Memorial, which he knew well to be the reconciliation of our country.

The report falsely stated that the Confederate Memorial is in the naming commission's remit.

It is not.

A monument to the reconciliation of the United States of America after our bloodiest war does not commemorate the Confederacy. It commemorates the goodness and genius of the United States of America back then, certainly not today.

As I say in my Comment, the destruction of the Confederate Memorial will also dishonor and devalue the OCEANS of Southern blood gladly spilled by descendants of Confederate veterans in all of our nation's wars since traditionally 44% of our military has been recruited in the South.

It is no wonder the Army can't recruit following extremist Woke legislation from liars like fake Indian Elizabeth Warren, who could have been stopped by Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe when Republicans had control of the Senate in 2020. The despicable Inhofe promised President Trump he would stop Warren's hate legislation but Inhofe is as big a liar as Warren. Our nation deserves so much better.

Just click HERE and look at the Army's 28 stunning photographs of the Confederate Memorial with its beauty, incredible detail and symbolism.

It is the most historic and magnificent memorial in Arlington National Cemetery and it's slated for destruction on what will become one of the darkest days in American history, December 18, 2023, when Arlington National Cemetery ceases being our nation's most sacred burial ground.

You expect grave desecration from Hamas and ISIS but not from the United States Department of Defense and Arlington National Cemetery, itself.

Please go to my Donation Page and donate to Defend Arlington for our crack legal team because it is the last hope for the Confederate Memorial.

At my Donation Page you can also create your own Defend Arlington sub-donation-page with your name or organization's name, and donations will go straight to Defend Arlington. Just click on "Support this campaign" and follow the instructions. You might have to wrestle with it but you can get it.

Also scroll down, past my Comment, to donate in other ways and for other valuable information.

Thank You.]

 

COMMENT on the

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT (EA) OF THE REMOVAL OF THE CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL FROM ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA dated November, 2023.

By:

Gene Kizer, Jr.
Charleston Athenaeum Press
Invited Consulting Party
December 2, 2023

 

This EA contains so many subjective statements that are NOT TRUE, at some point an investigation should occur and hold people accountable.

Alleged violations of rules and regulations required by the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in this entire process are legion and have required multiple law suits.

The Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery should all resign in protest as should Ms. Karen Durham-Aguilera, Elecutive Director, Office of Army Cemeteries, because the action proposed in this EA will utterly, completely and absolutely DESTROY ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY as our nation's most sacred shrine.

The action proposed in this EA reverses Arlington National Cemetery's "Our Mission" which states:

Arlington National Cemetery represents the American people for past, present and future generations by laying to rest those few who have served our nation with dignity and honor, while immersing guests in the cemetery's living history.

The FONSI in which the Army issues a Finding Of No Significant Impact from the destruction of the Confederate Memorial is obviously false and created to check boxes in a process that should take years if done properly and by the law but instead will be done in four weeks.

This EA destroys a significant part of the organic history, past and present, of the American nation that was built by veterans, North and South, and presidents for a century, but most importantly, it dishonors and devalues the oceans of Southern blood spilled by the descendants of Confederate soldiers in all of our wars since traditionally, 44% of our military has been recruited in the South. No wonder the Army can't recruit.

The message is, if your politics is not Woke enough, your life and family do not matter. That is the same message the Nazis sent to the Jews in the 1930s.

The Confederate Memorial is surrounded by the graves of 500 or so Confederate soldiers and family who, by laws passed in FY1901, are American soldiers deserving the same honor and respect as all others.

Destroying the Confederate Memorial, as the Army has already stated will occur if the 109 year old bronze elements are removed, will leave those 500 graves in concentric circles around a mangled shaft, out in the open with no context, like freaks to spit on and laugh at, which will make the United States Army and Arlington National Cemetery desecrators of American soldier graves.

But back to the statements that are not true in this EA.

The first is one that ANC and the Army are hiding behind, which is that Congress in the FY2021 NDAA is making them remove the Confederate Memorial.

That is NOT TRUE.

Congress in the FY2021 NDAA does not mention the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Here's one of many of ANC's not true statements:

As required by Congress and implemented by the Secretary of Defense, Army National Military Cemeteries (ANMC) is required to remove the Confederate Memorial in Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery (ANC). (https://anmc-confederatememorialpubliccomments.com/)

The FY2021 NDAA authorized a "Commission on the Naming of Items of the DoD that Commemorate the Confederate States of America" and that so-called naming commission has resulted in multiple law suits because of its allegedly illegal processes and unquestionably politicized and INCORRECT HISTORICAL ASSESSMENTS such as concerning the Ranger Memorial at former Fort Benning, Georgia.

Retired United States Army Brigadier General Joseph S. Stringham, Chairman of the National Ranger Memorial Foundation, confirms that the naming commission's report is "without verification" and mistakes have been made that have required legal action that is ongoing. BG Stringham wrote to his Rangers last spring:

Implementation of dramatic/radical edicts and shifts in policy at issue here are frequently accompanied by inaccuracies, (stupid) interpretations, injustices to survivors and a strong political slant offensive to substantial sectors of society. The deceased named in this directive, the Mosby family and the Bowen family in particular, are victims of woefully targeted legislation enacted by the Pelosi, WOKE, 117th Congress. Interpretations of this legislation have received the slavish obedience by both civilian and military management at the national level as passed down, apparently without verification, to our installations. For example, and wrongly identified with the Confederacy, Gen Morgan was a BG in the Continental Army under Gen Washington and the hero of the Battle of Cowpens against the British. Gen. Morgan had passed away 57 years before the start of the Civil War. The injustice to the name of John S Mosby and his descendants is extraordinary and thoughtless. Notwithstanding his extraordinary combat record, Ambassador Mosby, a staunch anti-slavery activist, was appointed by President Grant as US Ambassador to China later in his distinguished service to our nation. (Emphasis added)

The same is true, but it is worse, with the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial. The Confederate Memorial is NOT in the naming commission's remit as they falsely claimed.

Secretary Austin made his decision on the Confederate Memorial based on the naming commission's HISTORICALLY FRAUDULENT REPORT that left out the Memorial's primary history, which is the reconciliation of the United States of America after our bloodiest war.

The reconciliation theme is irrefutable, thoroughly documented, and beyond the shadow of a doubt. Presidents of the United States for over 100 years sent annual memorial wreaths to the Confederate Memorial including Barack Obama.

Obama was not commemorating the Confederacy. He, along with the others, was commemorating peace, patriotism and the reconciliation of the United States of America, which is a GREAT thing for a nation after a bloody war that occurred largely because of different regional interests and interpretations of our Constitution.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, had a picture of Gen. Robert E. Lee on his White House wall the entire time he was president. He explained the causes of the War Between the States and importance of Gen. Lee's efforts to bind up the nation's wounds, in simpler, clearer terms than anyone I have ever read.

Eisenhower said the issues of States Rights versus supreme federal power, the right of secession, etc. were not settled before the War Between the States and good men and women, North and South, had legitimate disagreement. Eisenhower's letter in its entirety is below.

If Secretary Austin had been given a truthful report from the naming commission and told about the reconciliation theme and symbolism of the Confederate Memorial, it is NOT CONCEIVABLE that he would have ordered it demolished.

The naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial was driven by politics and personal prejudice, not history, and certainly not historical truth.

Naming commission vice chair Ty Seidule hates the Confederate Memorial. He wrote in his book, Robert E. Lee and Me, on page 162:

Of the thousands of monuments around the country to the Confederacy, the one in Arlington National Cemetery angers me the most. Every year, the commander in chief sends a wreath, ensuring the Confederate monument receives all the prestige of the U.S. government. That's why it riles me so much. . . .

Seidule then admits that the Confederate Memorial stands for the reconciliation of the United States of America, but he, himself, regrets that reconciliation:

I know both political parties and white citizens in the North and South brought the country back together after the tremendous bloodletting and destruction of the Civil War. THE POSTS NAMED FOR CONFEDERATE OFFICERS DURING WORLD WAR I ALSO SERVED TO KNIT WHITE AMERICA BACK TOGETHER as it fought a common foe. And it worked, but we must recognize that RECONCILIATION came at a steep and horrifying cost. African Americans paid the price with lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the loss of the franchise. The price for white RECONCILIATION remains far too high. (Emphasis added.)

Truth is, none of the Army base names should have been changed, because, as Seidule himself admits, they were named after Confederates as part of the reconciliation of the United States of America, not to commemorate the Confederacy, and they were part of the organic history of our country.

Selective use of history is incredibly dishonest.

For example, Northerners, New Englanders especially, were virtually 100% of America's slave traders. They carried on an illegal slave trade the entire antebellum period.

Even during the War Between the States, in 1862, Boston and New York were the slave trading capitals of the world according to W. E. B. Du Bois in his famous book, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870.

Jim Crow started in the North, not the South. The South was an integrated society out of necessity.

Six slave states fought for the North the entire war including Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland, represented on the Confederate Memorial. They are on the Confederate memorial because substantial numbers of the citizens of Missouri and Kentucky fought for the South and an organized group in each state issued an Ordinance of Secession though the state did not actually secede.

All you have to do is read the words of Maryland's state song until just recently, Maryland, My Maryland, to know how they felt.

All three had full representation in the Confederate Congress, which is why they are on the Confederate Memorial as they should be.

The other Northern slave states were Delaware, West Virginia and New Jersey. West Virginia came into the Union as a slave state just weeks AFTER the Emancipation Proclamation took effect.

None of the Northern slave states were required by the Lincoln administration to abolish slavery. In fact, some of the Northern slave states had slavery well after the war, even after slavery had ended in the South. Those Northern slave states were the last to end slavery and it took the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution in December, 1865, to do it.

No monument to Union soldiers states that they fought to end slavery. They all talk about their honored dead, patriotism or preservation of the Union.

The massive amount of the history of the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial left out of the naming commission's report is documented below.

I have been part of the fight to keep the Confederate Memorial right where it is, where it should stay forever, for a year-and-a-half or more. I have attended every meeting of the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery and subcommittees, and all meetings related to the Section 106 Process of the NHPA, NEPA, and I have made detailed comments at all of them by Zoom testimony and/or written statements. I wrote a white paper entitled "The Reconciliation of North and South After the War Between the States as Symbolized by the Confederate Memorial 'New South' in Arlington National Cemetery" on the reconciliation theme that is part of Defend Arlington's book: Arguments Against Naming Commission Recommendation, RE: Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial.

The numerous politicized or historically incorrect statements in this EA, and the false FONSI cause me, as an invited Consulting Party, to distrust all the statistical analysis of this EA as stated in Section 1.4 Public Participation, Tribal Consultation, and Agency Coordination.

The public has not been able to see the actual figures and comments and how the Army analyzed them, and based on the Army trying to do in four weeks what usually takes four years, makes me know that politics is behind this EA, not adherence to historical truth or our historical preservation laws.

Every meeting at which the public could testify by Zoom, 100% of those testifying strongly supported the Confederate Memorial. Even the Advisory Committee of Arlington National Cemetery has expressed distain about destroying the Confederate Memorial and has asked why they could not just interpret it themselves as they did before the creation of the naming commission, and as they do with all other monuments in Arlington National Cemetery.

The Confederate Memorial with its reconciliation theme and 500 graves is arguable the most significant, as well as magnificent memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, and one of the most magnificent on earth.

The unhistorical, politicized interpretations of history throughout this EA can easily be proven false through scholarly argument but let me provide one glaring example.

In Section 1.2.2.2 Description of the Memorial, the EA states:

. . . As the naming commission concluded, the monument offers a highly inaccurate representation of slavery. The commission stated: 'Two of these figures are portrayed as African American: an enslaved woman depicted as a "Mammy," holding the infant child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war.'

Labeling those African Americans on the Confederate Memorial as slaves is false. There is no statement from the sculptor that they are slaves. Tens of thousands of blacks fought for the South, both free and slave. Historian Samuel W. Mitcham estimates 80,000 to 100,000 blacks fought for the South.

Free blacks enthusiastically signed up and their stories are throughout the primary record. They were men too who bled and died as they saw fit for their homes in the South when the South was invaded. They marched alongside white Confederate soldiers and were not segregated in the back of the line as were black Union soldiers, who, by the way, were all commanded by white officers (USCT).

See the first hand observation of Union officer Lewis H. Steiner, M.D., inspector of the Sanitary Commission as stated in his diary in September, 1862 when he observed thousands of black Confederates, armed and dressed the same as the whites and all marching together "mixed up with all the rebel horde" as he stated.

One of the most esteemed scholars of Union and Confederate monuments, Ernest E. Blevins, in his white paper "Headstone of the Confederate States: Moses Ezekiel's Arlington Confederate Monument, Symbolism, Meaning, National Register Eligibility, and Potential Adverse Effects to Alternations or Removal" states that there is NO EVIDENCE for the naming commission's claim that the blacks on the Confederate Memorial are slaves:

The naming commission's statement includes interpretative errors - fallacies, in fact. The first is in citing that black figures are slaves. There is no documentation on the enslaved or free status of the two images; therefore, one must not assume their condition. Of the two, the soldier could be free or slave; in either case, he could be volunteering or going by choice to war. Research by archivist and historian Teresa Roane of Chesterfield, Virginia, regularly demonstrates in her research which is rooted in primary records, frequently posting copies of the records on Facebook of many free blacks who joined the Confederate cause in a variety of significant positions . . .

What is most concerning about this EA is stated in 1.0 Purpose and Need, 1.1 Introduction:

. . . Removal of the Memorial is required by law, and the Army does not have authority to take environmental factors into consideration in determining whether to take the proposed action.

That is stated in numerous places and makes this EA and entire process dishonest and a politicized sham.

The biggest sham, though, is the naming commission's claim that a monument that commemorates the reconciliation of the United States of America as participated in by presidents for 100 years including Barack Obama, who sent his annual memorial wreath, actually commemorates the Confederacy therefore is in its remit.

That is false. The Confederate Memorial is not in the naming commission's remit and their report on the Confederate Memorial, which leaves out its primary history, is a complete historical fraud.

ANC's "Section 106 Process Submission: Revised Area of Potential Effect (APE) and Assessment of Adverse Effects (November 2, 2023)" contains, among other things:

Confederate Memorial: Assessment of Potential Effect

Arlington National Cemetery Historic District: Assessment of Potential Effect

In both, ANC admits serious "adverse effects on the characteristics that qualify the Confederate Memorial [and ANC Historic District] for individual listing in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)".

ANC also states that the 109 year old Confederate Memorial if removed would likely not survive deconstruction and the "materials, design, and workmanship (which are qualifying characteristics of the historic property)" would be damaged or destroyed.

The Confederate Memorial is one of the most magnificent memorials on earth. It was the great Jewish artist and VMI Confederate soldier, Moses Ezekiel's, finest creation.

Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that ". . . no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is and of itself, a work of art."

Destroying that would be an egregious crime against history and art, especially based on a historically fraudulent report from the political naming commission.

Just look at the Army's own pictures of the Confederate Memorial. It is clearly stunning in its artistry as well as symbolism. Destroying it would put Arlington National Cemetery in the same class with other monument destroyers such as Hamas, ISIS and the Taliban, and it may well be illegal.

Over 70% of the American public do NOT want our historic monuments destroyed.

As stated, if ANC removes the Confederate Memorial it will leave 500 Southern graves in concentric circles around a mangled shaft, out in the open with no context, like freaks to spit on and laugh at.

Those 500 Confederate graves are American soldier graves, by law, which BG Stringham pointed out in his May 23, 2023 letter to then-US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Hon. Mike Rogers, Chairman, House Armed Services Committee.

Stringham writes:

. . . we draw your attention to President McKinley's address at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which he urged reconciliation based on the outstanding service of Southerners during the U.S. war with Spain. Congress's response to this plea was magnanimous and resulted in the Appropriation Act of FY 1901, in which Confederate soldiers were recognized as fellow countrymen deserving of the respect and honor accorded to U.S. soldiers. These laws are still in full force and effect to this day . . . .

It would not only be 500 Confederate graves that Arlington National Cemetery would be desecrating, it would be an enormous dishonor to the descendants of Confederate soldiers who have been the proudest and most patriotic Americans and have spilled OCEANS of Southern blood enthusiastically for our great nation.

Audie Murphy, Alvin York and millions of others who are and were proud of their Confederate ancestors - and indeed drew great inspiration and bravery from them - would be dishonored by the United States Army and Arlington National Cemetery itself.

Does Arlington National Cemetery really want to insult our military by sending the message that only some American veterans are worthy of respect while others can go to the devil as the Woke political winds blow? Will our Vietnam veterans be dishonored one day or our dead from the wars on terror?

If the Confederate Memorial is demolished, then 500 graves in Section 16 and all their descendants and fellow Southerners, some 80 million Americans, will be dishonored for all time. Once Humpty Dumpty is shattered into a million pieces, you can not put him back together again.

Eighteen states from where those 500 burials come will also be dishonored.

The reconciliation that makes our country so unique and exceptional will be repealed by hateful Woke politics, and all the presidents who created the Confederate Memorial, and the veterans North and South who celebrated it, will be dishonored.

ANC's logo states that it is "Our Most Sacred Shrine" but ANC ITSELF will become a desecrator of soldier graves that President McKinley said were all tributes to American valor.

Arlington National Cemetery would no longer be worthy of respect but would be just another place that filthy Woke politics can degrade.

ANC should always be above politics, a place for all of us to cherish and be proud of and not one that promotes hatred and ignorance of history among our own people.

Again, all ANC Advisory Committee members and Executive Director Karen Durham-Aguilera should resign before allowing the desecration of Arlington National Cemetery due to the potentially illegal processes and the false statement by the naming commission that the Confederate Memorial, symbolizing the reconciliation of the United States of America, is in its remit.

Here is some of the massive amount of history the naming commission left out of its report:

The Confederate Memorial was the idea of Union soldier and later president, William McKinley, after enthusiastic Southern participation in the Spanish-American War and it was approved by Congress.

McKinley said:

. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.

President William Howard Taft spoke and was warmly received at the UDC ceremony the evening the cornerstone was laid.

President Woodrow Wilson gave the dedication speech June 4, 1914.

President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first memorial wreath that started an annual tradition observed by all presidents including Barack Obama.

President Warren G. Harding sent a message of condolence that was read at the funeral of the Confederate Memorial's sculptor, Moses Ezekiel. Harding's words are beautiful, inspiring, and definitive. Here is some of his message from The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, March 30, 1921:

Ezekiel will be remembered,' the President wrote, 'as one who knew how to translate the glories of his own time and people into that language of art which is common to all peoples and all times. He served his state in the conflict that threatened to divide and that at last served to unify our country. He accepted the verdict of the civil war's arbitrament with all the fine generosity that has been characteristic of both the north and south; and the splendid product of his art, that here testifies to our nation's reunion, will stand from this day forth as guardian over his ashes.

Every line and curve and expression carries the plea for a truly united nation that may be equal to the burdens of these exacting times. It speaks to us the ardent wish, the untiring purpose, to help make our people one people, secure in independence, dedicated to freedom, and ever ready to lend the hand of confident strength in aid of the oppressed and needy. Its long-drawn shadows of earliest morn and latest evening will always fall on sacred soil. The genius that produced, the love that gave, the devotion that will cherish it will forever be numbered among our ennobling possessions.

[H]e wrought them into works which compelled the recognition of the chief art schools and won the honors of nations and cities that boasted of being the homes of sculpture's best traditions. Crowned with these honors, he turned his thoughts to his own country, and as the final and finest product of his talents gave to us the monument that from this day will mark his resting place. It is the memorial of reunited America the testimony to the tradition of indissoluble union, the shrine to which we are gathered today, and will gather through the years to come, those who would dedicate themselves to the ideal of unselfish, enlightened, upstanding Americanism as a force for our country's maintenance and all humanity's betterment.

Clearly, the Confederate Memorial represents RECONCILIATION, peace, love and patriotism, all things the naming commission left out of its historically fraudulent, unverified report.

Veterans North and South, with love and enthusiasm for our reunited nation, supported the Confederate Memorial and spoke at its ceremonies.

Esteemed British art critic and historian, Alexander Adams, writes in his "Testimony regarding Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial, submitted to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery Open Session," 7-8 November, 2022:

Having viewed a large amount of public statuary from the beaux-arts era (1850-1914), it is my professional opinion that the Memorial is a serious, iconographically complex and technically accomplished piece of art. In my view, it is a handsome sculpture and an entirely appropriate funerary monument. I consider it an internationally significant piece of art of its type and era. Any nation should be proud to host such a magnanimous and dignified monument.

The inscription “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” provides a Biblical guidance to turning from war to peace. This is echoed by the personification of the South, which holds the wreath of glory and touches the plough of peaceful prosperity. The frieze below depicts the contributions of those who supported the war effort.

The Area of Potential Effect (APE) is all of Arlington National Cemetery and the entire United States of America, indeed, the world.

Millions of good Americans will lose respect for Arlington National Cemetery if it commits the horrendous act of destroying a world class historic monument on what is supposed to be sacred ground.

The United States House of Representatives passed an amendment that is included in its version of the FY2024 NDAA prohibiting spending any money for the removal of the Confederate Memorial in ANC. That bill is now in the Senate and may well end up law.

ANC cannot disregard the will of Congress today after the smoke of the George Floyd riots has disappeared and minds are much more clear.

With our country indirectly involved in two wars, we do not need to desecrate our most sacred military cemetery with Woke iconoclasm that disgusts 70% of the country.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1st Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, in World War II, later president of the United States for eight years, had a picture of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on his wall in the White House his entire time there.

Like President John F. Kennedy, Eisenhower had great respect for Gen. Lee and his men and cause and he appreciated Lee's efforts to bind up the nation's wounds after our bloodiest war.

On August 1, 1960, a New York dentist, Dr. Leon W. Scott, wrote an angry letter to President Eisenhower excoriating him for having that picture of Lee in his White House office.

Scott wrote:

I do not understand  how any American can include Robert E. Lee as a person to be emulated, and why the President of the United States of America should do so is certainly beyond me. / The most outstanding thing that Robert E. Lee did, was to devote his best efforts to the destruction of the United States Government, and I am sure that you do not say that a person who tries to destroy our Government is worthy of being held as one of our heroes.

President Eisenhower wrote back on August 9th:

Dear Dr. Scott:

Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War between the States the issue of secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.

General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.

From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee's caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation's wounds once the bitter struggle was over, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.

Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.

Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower

The good people at Arlington National Cemetery and in the United States Army need to get through to Secretary Austin that the naming commission erred when they said the Confederate Memorial is in their remit.

It is NOT.

Removing it will divide our country FOREVER. It will dishonor millions of Southerners who have served and are serving, and devalue the oceans of Southern blood spent in defense of our country. It will desecrate 500 graves in Arlington National Cemetery in Section 16 and make the United States Army and Arlington National Cemetery, itself, desecrators of American soldier graves.

The Confederate Memorial must stay right where it is forever. As President Harding said in his message read at Moses Ezekiel's funeral:

Every line and curve and expression carries the plea for a truly united nation that may be equal to the burdens of these exacting times. It speaks to us the ardent wish, the untiring purpose, to help make our people one people, secure in independence, dedicated to freedom, and ever ready to lend the hand of confident strength in aid of the oppressed and needy. Its long-drawn shadows of earliest morn and latest evening will always fall on sacred soil. . . .

Gene Kizer, Jr.
Charleston Athenaeum Press
December 2, 2023

(Slightly revised December 4, 2023)

 

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel's MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

Shop Now

Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND. You can also pay with Zelle. Send to

DefendArlington@gmail.com.

Please Donate Now -- THANK YOU!

Click Here to Donate AND Share on Facebook, et al.

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

 

The Desecration of Arlington National Cemetery by the naming commission

Posted on by | 2 Comments
The Desecration of Arlington National Cemetery by the naming commission:
My Public Comment as an Invited Consulting Party
The Public Can Submit Comments Online Until Nov. 3 (11:59 p.m.)
In Honor of Moses Ezekiel, by H.K. Edgerton
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
Fearless advocate for the truth of Southern history, HK Edgerton at Park Square in Boston, MA, former site of Lincoln statue 4-29-22.
Fearless advocate for the truth of Southern history, HK Edgerton at Park Square in Boston, MA, former site of Lincoln statue 4-29-22.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Click HERE to make a Comment to Arlington National Cemetery about their proposed removal of the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial that came about because of extremist leftist fake Indian Elizabeth Warren's amendment in the FY2021 NDAA, and the subsequent naming commission's historically fraudulent report.

The naming commission left out the primary history of the Confederate Memorial, which is the reconciliation of the United States of America after our bloodiest war. There is no question about this because numerous presidents helped create the Confederate Memorial and all presidents including Barack Obama sent annual memorial wreaths to the Confederate Memorial.

As part of the Section 106 Process required by the National Historic Preservation Act, ANC is looking for two things: Assessment of Effects, and Mitigation Measures.

There is information on their website but the bottom line is this:

The Assessment of Effects that demolishing the world class 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial surrounded by 500 Confederate graves in concentric circles out from the Memorial, is that those 500 graves will become freaks and objects of hate and derision, which makes Arlington National Cemetery ITSELF a desecrator of American soldier graves. By law that was passed in FY 1901, Confederate soldiers are American soldiers entitled to the same respect and protection as all American soldier graves. That law and others are still in effect.

The naming commission KNEW about the irrefutable reconciliation theme but in their Woke dishonest political report, left it out.

Following my Comment is a short powerful article from our good friend, fearless compatriot and tireless fighter for our Cause of historical truth, H. K. Edgerton. It is entitled "In Honor of Moses Ezekiel." There are links to HK's substack writings under "HK Edgerton's Reports & Letters" and ways to get on his blog list.

Following HK are links to valuable information and how to donate to Defend Arlington for our crack legal team.

We will win or lose the Confederate Memorial in the next few weeks.

Click HERE to view the Army's 28 Breathtaking High Resolution Photographs of Ezekiel's world class monument then click HERE to write your Comment of DISGUST at the proposed act of demolishing such a magnificent work of history and art surrounded by 500 graves in our nation's most sacred burial ground.

The shredding of the fabric of our nation must stop in Arlington National Cemetery.

PLEASE DONATE as much as you can!

Thank you and God Bless!]

 

ASSESSMENT OF EFFECTS, AND MITIGATION MEASURES

Confederate Memorial Removal

COMMENT by:

Gene Kizer, Jr.
Charleston Athenaeum Press
Invited Consulting Party

November 1, 2023

Section 106 Process of the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act regarding the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

PREAMBLE TO COMMENT

In all of Arlington National Cemetery's public documents regarding the Confederate Memorial, ANC makes an INCORRECT statement to characterize what they are doing such as this one under heading "Arlington National Cemetery: Confederate Memorial Removal Public Comments" (https://anmc-confederatememorialpubliccomments.com/):

"As required by Congress and implemented by the Secretary of Defense, Army National Military Cemeteries (ANMC) is required to remove the Confederate Memorial in Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery (ANC)."

That statement is not true and is a gross mischaracterization.

Congress in the FY2021 NDAA does not mention the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

The FY2021 NDAA authorized a "Commission on the Naming of Items of the DoD that Commemorate the Confederate States of America" and that so-called naming commission has resulted in multiple law suits because of its allegedly illegal processes, and unquestionably incorrect historical assessments such as concerning the Ranger Memorial at former Fort Benning, Georgia.

Retired United States Army Brigadier General Joseph S. Stringham, Chairman of the National Ranger Memorial Foundation, confirms that the naming commission's report is "without verification" and mistakes have been made that have required legal action that is ongoing. BG Stringham wrote to his Rangers last spring:

Implementation of dramatic/radical edicts and shifts in policy at issue here are frequently accompanied by inaccuracies, (stupid) interpretations, injustices to survivors and a strong political slant offensive to substantial sectors of society. The deceased named in this directive, the Mosby family and the Bowen family in particular, are victims of woefully targeted legislation enacted by the Pelosi, WOKE, 117th Congress. Interpretations of this legislation have received the slavish obedience by both civilian and military management at the national level as passed down, apparently without verification, to our installations. For example, and wrongly identified with the Confederacy, Gen Morgan was a BG in the Continental Army under Gen Washington and the hero of the Battle of Cowpens against the British. Gen. Morgan had passed away 57 years before the start of the Civil War. The injustice to the name of John S Mosby and his descendants is extraordinary and thoughtless. Notwithstanding his extraordinary combat record, Ambassador Mosby, a staunch anti-slavery activist, was appointed by President Grant as US Ambassador to China later in his distinguished service to our nation.

The same is true, but it is worse, with the 109 year old Confederate Memorial. The Confederate Memorial is not in the naming commission's remit as they falsely claimed.

Secretary Austin made his decision on the Confederate Memorial based on the naming commission's historically fraudulent report that left out the Memorial's primary history, which is the reconciliation of the United States of America after our bloodiest war.

The reconciliation theme is irrefutable, thoroughly documented, and beyond the shadow of a doubt.

If Austin had been told about the reconciliation theme and symbolism of the Confederate Memorial, it is not conceivable that he would have ordered it demolished. We are in a military recruiting crisis and traditionally, 44% of our military has been recruited in the South.

The naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial was driven by politics and prejudice, not history.

The massive amount of history left out of the naming commission's report follows my Assessment of Effects, and Mitigation Measures.

ASSESSMENT OF EFFECTS, AND MITIGATION MEASURES

ANC's "Section 106 Process Submission: Revised Area of Potential Effect (APE) and Assessment of Adverse Effects (Oct. 3, 2023)" contains, among other things:

Confederate Memorial: Assessment of Potential Effect

Arlington National Cemetery Historic District: Assessment of Potential Effect

In both, ANC admits serious "adverse effects on the characteristics that qualify the Confederate Memorial [and ANC Historic District] for individual listing in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)".

ANC also states that the 109 year old Confederate Memorial if removed would likely not survive deconstruction and the "materials, design, and workmanship (which are qualifying characteristics of the historic property)" would be damaged or destroyed.

The Confederate Memorial is one of the most magnificent memorials on earth. It was the great Jewish artist and VMI Confederate soldier, Moses Ezekiel's, finest creation.

Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that ". . . no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is and of itself, a work of art."

Destroying that would be an egregious crime against history and art, especially based on a historically fraudulent report from the political naming commission. It would put Arlington National Cemetery in the same class with other monument destroyers such as ISIS, Hamas and the Taliban, and it may well be illegal.

Over 70% of the American public do NOT want our historic monuments destroyed.

There are currently multiple court cases pending that need to be decided including any appeal before anything should happen with the Confederate Memorial.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING under "Confederate Memorial: Assessment of Potential Effect" is ANC's statement that "the proposed undertaking should have no adverse effect on the graves in Section 16 . . .".
That is UTTERLY FALSE.

There are over 500 Confederate graves in concentric circles emanating out from Ezekiel's magnificent monument, and there are four graves, including Ezekiel himself, at the monument's base, making the Confederate Monument a grave marker. Grave markers are specifically exempt from the naming commission's remit.

If ANC removes the Confederate Memorial it will leave those 500 graves in concentric circles around a mangled shaft, out in the open with no context, like freaks to spit on and laugh at.

Those 500 Confederate graves are AMERICAN soldier graves, by law, which BG Stringham pointed out in his May 23, 2023 letter to then-US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Hon. Mike Rogers, Chairman, House Armed Services Committee.

Stringham writes:

. . . we draw your attention to President McKinley's address at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which he urged reconciliation based on the outstanding service of Southerners during the U.S. war with Spain. Congress's response to this plea was magnanimous and resulted in the Appropriation Act of FY 1901, in which Confederate soldiers were recognized as fellow countrymen deserving of the respect and honor accorded to U.S. soldiers. These laws are still in full force and effect to this day . . . .

It would not only be 500 Confederate graves that Arlington National Cemetery would be desecrating, it would be an enormous dishonor to the descendants of Confederate soldiers who have spilled OCEANS of Southern blood enthusiastically for our great nation from the Spanish-American War, on.

Audie Murphy, Alvin York and millions of others who are and were proud of their Confederate ancestors - and indeed drew great inspiration and bravery from them - would be dishonored by Arlington National Cemetery itself.

Does Arlington National Cemetery really want to weaken our military by sending a message that only some American veterans are worthy of respect while others can go to the devil as the Woke political winds blow? Will our Vietnam veterans be dishonored one day or our dead from the wars on terror?

If the Confederate Memorial is demolished, then 500 graves in Section 16 and all their descendants and fellow Southerners, some 80 million Americans, will be dishonored for all time.

Eighteen states from where those 500 burials come will also be dishonored.

The reconciliation that makes our country so unique and exceptional will be repealed by hateful Woke politics, and all the presidents who created the Confederate Memorial, and the veterans, North and South who celebrated it, will be dishonored.

MITIGATION MEASURES

There is no Mitigation for the degradation that demolishing the Confederate Memorial will have on not just the Arlington National Cemetery Historic District, but on Arlington National Cemetery itself.

ANC's logo states that it is "Our Most Sacred Shrine" but ANC ITSELF will become a desecrator of soldier graves that President McKinley said were all tributes to American valor.

Arlington National Cemetery would no longer be worthy of respect but would be just another place that filthy Woke politics can degrade.

ANC should always be above politics, a place for all of us to cherish and be proud of, and not one that helps shred the fabric of our country.

All ANC Advisory Committee members should resign before allowing the desecration of Arlington National Cemetery due to the potentially illegal processes of the Woke political naming commission.

As stated, the Confederate Memorial is not in the naming commission's remit. It does not commemorate the Confederacy. It commemorates the reconciliation of North and South and the reunification of the United States of America into the great nation we are today.

The report submitted by the naming commission on the Confederate Memorial is a historical fraud.

Here is some of the massive amount of history the naming commission left out of its report:

The monument was the idea of Union soldier and later president, William McKinley, after enthusiastic Southern participation in the Spanish-American War and it was approved by Congress.

McKinley said:

. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.

President William Howard Taft spoke and was warmly received at the UDC ceremony the evening the cornerstone was laid.

President Woodrow Wilson gave the dedication speech June 4, 1914.

President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first memorial wreath that started an annual tradition observed by all presidents including Barack Obama.

President Warren G. Harding sent a message of condolence that was read at the funeral of Moses Ezekiel. Harding's words are beautiful, inspiring, and definitive. Here is some of his message from The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, March 30, 1921:

'Ezekiel will be remembered,' the President wrote, 'as one who knew how to translate the glories of his own time and people into that language of art which is common to all peoples and all times. He served his state in the conflict that threatened to divide and that at last served to unify our country. He accepted the verdict of the civil war's arbitrament with all the fine generosity that has been characteristic of both the north and south; and the splendid product of his art, that here testifies to our nation's reunion, will stand from this day forth as guardian over his ashes.

'Every line and curve and expression carries the plea for a truly united nation that may be equal to the burdens of these exacting times. It speaks to us the ardent wish, the untiring purpose, to help make our people one people, secure in independence, dedicated to freedom, and ever ready to lend the hand of confident strength in aid of the oppressed and needy. Its long-drawn shadows of earliest morn and latest evening will always fall on sacred soil. The genius that produced, the love that gave, the devotion that will cherish it will forever be numbered among our ennobling possessions.

'[H]e wrought them into works which compelled the recognition of the chief art schools and won the honors of nations and cities that boasted of being the homes of sculpture's best traditions. Crowned with these honors, he turned his thoughts to his own country, and as the final and finest product of his talents gave to us the monument that from this day will mark his resting place. It is the memorial of reunited America the testimony to the tradition of indissoluble union, the shrine to which we are gathered today, and will gather through the years to come, those who would dedicate themselves to the ideal of unselfish, enlightened, upstanding Americanism as a force for our country's maintenance and all humanity's betterment.'

Clearly, the Confederate Memorial represents RECONCILIATION, peace, love and patriotism, all things the naming commission left out of its historically fraudulent, unverified report.

Veterans North and South, with love and enthusiasm for our reunited nation, supported the Confederate Memorial and spoke at its ceremonies.

Esteemed British art critic and historian, Alexander Adams, writes in his "Testimony regarding Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial submitted to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery Open Session," 7-8 November, 2022:

Having viewed a large amount of public statuary from the beaux-arts era (1850-1914), it is my professional opinion that the Memorial is a serious, iconographically complex and technically accomplished piece of art. In my view, it is a handsome sculpture and an entirely appropriate funerary monument. I consider it an internationally significant piece of art of its type and era. Any nation should be proud to host such a magnanimous and dignified monument.

The inscription “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” provides a Biblical guidance to turning from war to peace. This is echoed by the personification of the South, which holds the wreath of glory and touches the plough of peaceful prosperity. The frieze below depicts the contributions of those who supported the war effort.

The Area of Potential Effect (APE) is all of Arlington National Cemetery and the entire United States of America, indeed, the world.

Millions of good Americans will lose respect for Arlington National Cemetery if it commits the barbaric act of destroying a world class historic monument on what is supposed to be sacred ground.

The United States House of Representatives passed an amendment that is included in its version of the FY2024 NDAA prohibiting spending any money for the removal of the Confederate Memorial in ANC. That bill is now in the Senate and may well end up law.

ANC cannot disregard the will of Congress today after the smoke of the George Floyd riots has disappeared and minds are much more clear.

With our country indirectly involved in two wars, we do not need to desecrate our most sacred military cemetery with Woke iconoclasm that disgusts 70% of the country.

The Confederate Memorial must stay right where it is forever. As President Harding said in his message read at Moses Ezekiel's funeral:

Every line and curve and expression carries the plea for a truly united nation that may be equal to the burdens of these exacting times. It speaks to us the ardent wish, the untiring purpose, to help make our people one people, secure in independence, dedicated to freedom, and ever ready to lend the hand of confident strength in aid of the oppressed and needy. Its long-drawn shadows of earliest morn and latest evening will always fall on sacred soil. . . .

Gene Kizer, Jr.
Charleston Athenaeum Press
November 1, 2023

In Honor of Moses Ezekiel
by H. K. Edgerton

First published on HK Edgerton's Reports & Letters, October 29, 2023

HK-Heading
Sir Moses Jacob Ezekiel, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian.
Sir Moses Jacob Ezekiel, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian.

Dear Ms. Lunelle,

While I could not secure the funds to travel to Arlington National Cemetery on October 28, 2023 to celebrate the 179th birthday of the Honorable Moses Ezekiel, I would don the uniform of the Southern Soldier and post the Southern Cross at the base of what is left of the Honorable Governor Zebulon Baird Vance's Cenotaph that was illegally removed at the direction of disgraced Mayor Ester Manheimer.

I would soon find myself surrounded by two Northern couples who would ask why a Black man would be standing beside a Monument base wearing a Confederate soldier’s uniform with the Confederate Battle flag?

“In celebration of the Honorable Moses Ezekiel's birthday,” I would reply.

“Who is Moses Ezekiel they would ask?”

He was a famous and world-renowned Jewish Sculptor and a Confederate Veteran who was given the Charge by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to build a Monument in Memorial to the Confederate Veterans buried at Arlington National Cemetery at the request of President McKinley who had watched and read the reports of how those former Confederate soldiers and their sons had so distinguished themselves on the field of battle during the Spanish American War displaying unprecedented valor. It would not be a Memorial depicting the legality of secession or the battles fought. It was to be a shrine depicting the hour of reconciliation between the North and South.

Arlington Estate was made holy and given the grace of the Almighty God when the women of the United Daughters of the Confederacy finally relented to the pleas of President McKinley to accept the burials of the Confederate soldiers and to build a Memorial that would be a symbol of reconciliation forever between the peoples of the North and South.

Yet here in the 21st century, the Anti-Semitic Army would go beyond their charge of the United States Congress to enact the recommendation of an appointed “so-called” Naming Commission under the direction of an Anti- Semitic, Southern hating, criminal Senator….one Elizabeth Warren… to remove this Holy Shrine fought so hard to have built by President McKinley and applauded by sitting Presidents ever since it's unveiling.

Of this spectacular shrine, Mr. Ezekiel would describe it as his greatest work. He would capture the honor and dignity of the Blacks of the South in such detail that a man of my age feels strong enough to stand up and fight with the people of Jesus (the Jewish people) in Israel today. And not to forget at the passing of Mr. Ezekiel, he would be buried at the base of the Reconciliation Memorial.

And this Anti-Semitic Army that proposes to tear down this Shrine is not playing on the same playing field of morality as President McKinley, President Taft, President Roosevelt, and a host of other Commander In Chiefs to include President Obama who would lay a wreath at its base on Confederate Memorial Day.

Instead of removing the Reconciliation Cenotaph, perhaps the Anti-Semitic Army ought to get politically correct and remove the signage that depicts the Black Union soldiers as “Colored”. Instead of removing the Reconciliation Cenotaph, the only integrated entity in this Cemetery (the Reconciliation Memorial), perhaps at the asking of the Black Union soldiers in two petitions to Congress and was denied on both occasions; the right to be buried alongside the Union soldiers they fought beside.

In today's time, Hamas wants to rid the world of Christians. My dad was a Baptist Minister and a Christian, and along with my mother, taught their children to be the same. How could I not support the people of Jesus Christ, the Jews of Israel?

God Bless you,

HK

  • Chairman Board of Advisors Emeritus Southern Legal Resource Center
  • Member Save Southern Heritage Florida
  • Honorary Life Member Zebulon Baird Vance Camp 15 Sons of Confederate Veterans
  • Honorary Life Member Jackson Rangers Camp 1917 Sons of Confederate Veterans
  • Member Judah P Benjamin Camp 2210 Sons of Confederate Veterans
  • Honorary Associate Member Abner Baker Chapter 14 United Daughters of the Confederacy
  • Honorary Life Member North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia Orders of the Confederate Rose
  • President Southern Heritage 411
Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel's MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

Shop Now

Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND. You can also pay with Zelle. Send to

DefendArlington@gmail.com.

Please Donate Now -- THANK YOU!

Click Here to Donate AND Share on Facebook, et al.

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

The fight for the Arlington Confederate Memorial intensifies

Posted on by | 3 Comments
The fight for the Arlington Confederate Memorial intensifies
Video of Arlington National Cemetery Consulting Party Meeting October 18 shows supporters DOMINATE; only one detractor, a college professor, of course
Testimony often emotional, always well-stated, hard-hitting
Five descendants of Moses Ezekiel strongly support the Confederate Memorial and want to join the Defend Arlington lawsuit
List of all Invited Consulting Parties, which you should JOIN!
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 approximately 45 Invited Consulting Parties to Arlington National Cemetery's Section 106 Process required by the National Historic Preservation Act, gave three hours of Zoom testimony with regard to historical Adverse Effects and Mitigation if the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial is removed.

The overwhelming majority strongly supported the Confederate Memorial and the tone was outrage at removing it.

There was only one detractor favoring removal though there were several parties who supposedly care about history but seemed neutral or weak. Many were SHPOs (State Historic Preservation Offices) who were probably afraid of being called names by leftists rather than preserving American history.

At least the SHPOs were not detractors, but anybody purporting to care about history should be outraged at the planned destruction of a 109 year old world class work of art in our nation's most sacred burial ground, and they should speak up loud and clear -- Americans do not destroy century old monuments to war dead in cemeteries.

You can find your State Historic Preservation Office easily with a Google search. Send them a nice email or call and tell them that destroying the Confederate Memorial will destroy Arlington National Cemetery and make IT a desecrator of 500 soldier graves that President William McKinley said were all tributes to American valor.

The Confederate Memorial is one of the most magnificent memorials on earth. Just look at the Army's 28 High Resolution Photographs, and Video.

There are approximately 18 states represented in the 500 graves that surround the Confederate Memorial in concentric circles. Those graves are an integral part of the memorial and were lovingly placed into our nation's most sacred soil to symbolize that the United States of America is one country, reconciled, patriotic and united after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed.

About those 500 graves, President McKinley, who was a Union soldier in the War Between the States and who conceived the idea for a Confederate Memorial in Arlington said:

. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.

The "sons and grandsons of those heroic dead" and their descendants have spilled oceans of Southern blood around the world in all our nation's wars, and, until just recently, made up 44% of our military.

Racist Woke policies including the planned destruction of the Confederate Memorial have caused a military recruiting crisis that is now a national security threat.

As one party stated Wednesday, the destruction of Confederate monuments has not resulted in larger numbers of minorities joining our military but it has resulted in fewer Southerners than the traditional 44% of the recent past.

Click HERE to view the powerful testimony at the three hour Zoom meeting October 18th.

The whole process by DOD and the Army is a sham because it should have taken place months ago as required by the NHPA and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin relied on the naming commission's historically fraudulent report on the Confederate Memorial, which, for political reasons, left out the Memorial's primary history: The reconciliation of the United States of America after the War Between the States.

The Confederate Memorial was not in the naming commission's remit, as they falsely claimed, thus removing it is not only immoral but illegal.

Multiple law suits have been filed and are still pending.

I doubt if Secretary Austin would have signed off on the demolition of the most historic monument in Arlington National Cemetery if he had been given a truthful report instead of one based on the leftist extremist politics of naming commission vice chair, Ty Seidule. See my blog article "Naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial is a historical FRAUD" August 29, 2023.

The reconciliation theme is irrefutable and beyond the shadow of a doubt. Arlington National Cemetery itself states it over and over in their documents and history, and to make a long story short, several presidents and Congress participated in the creation of the Confederate Memorial along with veterans North and South. All presidents since Teddy Roosevelt, including Barack Obama, sent an annual memorial wreath to the Confederate Memorial.

Paul Ezekiel, who can prove that he is descended from Sir Moses Ezekiel, testified Wednesday and strongly supports the Confederate Memorial.

He and four other descendants of Moses Ezekiel want to join the Defend Arlington lawsuit.

Paul challenged another Ezekiel, a woman who was the ONLY party to want the monument down.

That woman said she is a college professor claiming to represent 42 others descended from Moses Ezekiel. She has gotten much national coverage from the Washington Post and other leftist media.

However, Paul Ezekiel said he does not know her and has never seen her at any family reunion. He believes she may be descended from a different branch of the Ezekiel family and is no kin to Moses.

Paul's testimony was powerful and sincere. He has agreed to do an interview, possibly in the next few days, that we will make available.

Later in Wednesday's meeting, the Ezekiel detractor said something to the effect that she wanted the monument down because it added to the myth of black Confederates.

When I heard that I typed into the meeting's chat that thousands of blacks, both free and slave, fought for the South and marched alongside their Confederate brothers. They were not segregated and in the back of line like Union blacks.

I included this 1862 account from Union officer Lewis H. Steiner, M.D. citing his report entitled Diary Kept During the Rebel Occupation of Frederick, MD when he was with the U.S. Sanitary Commission.

On Wednesday, September 10, 1862, Steiner wrote:

At four o'clock this morning the rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson's force taking the advance. The movement continued until eight o'clock P.M., occupying sixteen hours. The most liberal calculations could not give them more than 64,000 men. Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number. These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in the rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde. . . .

Frankly, I am sick of racist attacks on black Confederates such as the black soldier on the Confederate Monument. There is no proof that that man was a slave. Thousands of free blacks and slaves fought enthusiastically for the South, and, as Steiner proves, whether free or slave, blacks were armed to the teeth and dressed in clothing "not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in the rebel ranks."

This is what I love. Steiner confirms that Southern blacks:

were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde. . . .

Here is the list of interested parties under title "ANC Confederate Memorial Removal: Invited Consulted Parties". You can become a Consulting Party by signing up HERE, and/or you can make written comments (get on Defend Arlington's email list for constant updates - write them at DefendArlington@gmail.com. You can also donate via Zelle with that email address).

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP)
American Alliance of Museums
American Battlefield Trust
American Institute for Conservation (AIC)
American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)
Americans for the Arts Public Arts Network
Anti-Defamation League
Arlington County Department of Environmental Services
Arlington County Government, Historic Preservation
Arlington Historical Society
Arlington House Family Circle
Association for Preservation Technology International (APTI)
Catawba Indian Nation (aka Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina)
Center for Jewish History
Chickahominy Indian Tribe - Eastern Division
Commission of Fine Arts (CFA)
Defend Arlington
Defend Arlington; Veterans Defending America; Heritage Protection of North Alabama
Delaware Nation, Oklahoma
Division of Arkansas Heritage, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program
Environmental Protection Agency, Region 3
Florida Division of Historical Resources
Guardians of American History
Heritage Protection of North Alabama
Jewish War Veterans of the USA
Kentucky Heritage Council
Louisiana State Historic Preservation Office
Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
Missouri State Historic Preservation Office
Monument Lab
Monumental Task Committee (MTC)
Mr. Ernest Blevins
Mr. Gene Kizer Jr - Charleston Athenaeum Press
Mr. Ted Ehmann
Nansemond Indian Nation
National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC)
National Museum of American Jewish Military History
National Park Service - George Washington Memorial Parkway
National Park Service National Historic Landmark Program
National Trust for Historic Preservation
New Jersey Flaggers [Publisher's Note: This group is GREAT!]
Pamunkey Indian Tribe
Preservation Virginia
Relatives of Moses Ezekiel
Save Southern Heritage
Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History
Society for History in the Federal Government
Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV)
SCV, Beaufort Plowboys, SCV Camp No. 2128
SCV, Maryland Division
SCV, N.B. Forrest Camp No. 3
SCV, Tennessee Division
SCV, Virginia Division
South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office
Southern Legal Resource Center, Inc.
Southern Poverty Law Center
Tennessee Historical Commission
Texan Historical Commission
The American Historical Association
The American Jewish Historical Society
The Black Heritage Museum of Arlington
The National Association for Interpretation
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Arlington Branch
The National Council on Public History
The Organization of American Historians
The Society for the Preservation of Jewish Civil War History
The Virginia Council
U.S. Army Center for Military History (CMH)
United Daughters of the Confederacy
Upper Mattaponi Tribe
Veterans Defending Arlington
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
Virginia Department of Historic Resources
Virginia Military Institute
Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Virginia Historical Society
Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History

My public testimony, below, comes in three parts:

1) Comment on Section 106 Adverse Effects
2) Comment on Section 106 Mitigations
3) President Warren G. Harding's patriotic message that was read at Moses Ezekiel's funeral.

Since we were only given one minute, twice, and two minutes, once, I had to leave out and skip around for maximum effect. The caps are for my own use to know what to emphasize when speaking.

Scroll down past my testimony for links to important resources.

We are at a CRITICAL STAGE in this fight. We are going to win or lose in the next 10 weeks.

We can WIN this fight and make Woke ignorance DIE at Arlington National Cemetery.

Stand up and FIGHT!

We need money for our crack legal team. Please scroll down and donate generously to Defend Arlington.

Thank you SO much and God Bless!]

Gene Kizer, Jr.
Charleston Athenaeum Press 
Comment on Section 106 Adverse Effects

Good afternoon. I'm Gene Kizer, historian, publisher, spokesman for Charleston Athenaeum Press. I applied months ago to be a Consulting Party and have attended and spoken at every meeting related to the Confederate Memorial in over a year. I have also submitted several detailed comments and a white paper that is part of Defend Arlington's book entitled Arguments Against Naming Commission Recommendation RE: Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial.

I know we are discussing the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial but we HAVE to consider the Adverse Effects destroying the Confederate Memorial will have on Arlington National Cemetery ITSELF.

Right now, Arlington National Cemetery is our nation's most sacred burial ground and a place dear to all Americans.

If you destroy Ezekiel's monument that several presidents helped construct, and all sent annual memorial wreaths to, including Barack Obama, then you DESECRATE Arlington National Cemetery itself.

Arlington National Cemetery will become a desecrator of 500 soldier graves who will be out in the open surrounding a mangled shaft, like freaks to laugh at.

This whole process is illegal because a memorial to the reconciliation of the United States of America after our bloodiest war is NOT in the naming commission's remit. It does not commemorate the Confederacy unless you think Barack Obama was commemorating the Confederacy when he sent his wreath to the Confederate Memorial.

This process does not yet include a DOCKET OF COMMENTS, nor the TIME for interested parties to analyze, consult and write up helpful analyses.

The naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial is a historical fraud. It does not even mention reconciliation, which is the Memorial's primary history. The reconciliation theme is in all of ANC's own documentation REPEATEDLY and is IRREFUTABLE and beyond the shadow of a doubt.

The APE [Area of Potential Effects] you list is WAY too small because the actual APE is the entire United States of America, and, really, the entire world.

Americans do not remove memorials to war dead from cemeteries. Hamas, ISIS and the Taliban do, but not Americans. Please don't let Arlington National Cemetery be the first.

The Confederate Memorial should stay right where it is, forever.

Comment on Section 106 Mitigations

You can not mitigate the destruction of a world class memorial surrounded by 500 graves that are part of the memorial.

You can not mitigate illegally removing the grave marker of Moses Ezekiel and the three others buried with him at the base of his monument.

You can not mitigate the destruction of the reputation of Arlington National Cemetery itself, which becomes a desecrator of the graves of 500 war dead.

The naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial is a historical fraud because, for political reasons, it left out the primary history of the Confederate Memorial, which is the reconciliation of the United States of America after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed.

The Confederate Memorial was NOT in the naming commission's remit.

Everybody at Arlington National Cemetery should appeal to Secretary Austin to leave the Confederate Memorial right where it is FOREVER.

If you don't, you will be violating your own oaths to make sure that ANC is always our most sacred burial ground and place that ALL Americans think of for love, patriotism and inspiration.

Woke politics does not belong in Arlington National Cemetery.

Final Comment

President Warren G. Harding sent a message of condolence that was read at the funeral of Moses Ezekiel. Here are some of Harding's comments from The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, March 30, 1921:

Ezekiel will be remembered as one who knew how to translate the glories of his own time and people into that language of art which is common to all peoples and all times. He served his state in the conflict and accepted the verdict of the civil war's arbitrament with all the fine generosity that has been characteristic of both the north and south; and the splendid product of his art, that here testifies to our nation's reunion, will stand from this day forth as guardian over his ashes.

Every line and curve and expression carries the plea for a truly united nation that may be equal to the burdens of these exacting times. . . . It speaks to us the ardent wish, the untiring purpose, to help make our people one people, secure in independence, dedicated to freedom . . . . Its long-drawn shadows of earliest morn and latest evening will always fall on sacred soil.

[Ezekiel created] works which compelled the recognition of the chief art schools and won the honors of nations and cities that boasted of being the homes of sculpture's best traditions. Crowned with these honors, he turned his thoughts to his own country, and as the final and finest product of his talents, gave to us the monument, that from this day will mark his resting place. It is the memorial of reunited America the testimony to the tradition of indissoluble union The shrine to which we are gathered today will gather through the years to come, those who would dedicate themselves to the ideal of unselfish, enlightened, upstanding Americanism as a force for our country's maintenance and all humanity's betterment.

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel's MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

Shop Now

Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND. You can also pay with Zelle. Send to

DefendArlington@gmail.com.

Please Donate Now -- THANK YOU!

Click Here to Donate AND Share on Facebook, et al.

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

 

Defend Arlington’s Official Regulatory Response

Posted on by | 1 Comment

The Army’s proposal to remove the Reconciliation Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery violates Congressional mandates in Section 370 of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and procedural requirements of both NEPA and the NHPA. The Army’s after-the-fact attempt at compliance with NEPA and NHPA is meaningless as that process will not address the important question the Secretary seeks to avoid, of whether the Memorial should be removed. As discussed in these comments, the Army has neglected to consider the impacts on important historic and cultural resources in its politically charged rush to complete an EIS and complete removal by year’s end. These illegal actions have been challenged in court and the Army must not take any further actions until the validity of these actions is decided.

Part of Defend Arlington's 16 page Regulatory Response

Defend Arlington's Official Regulatory Response
The most awesome thing I have ever read
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Prepare to experience a HUGE surge of adrenalin and gratification as you read the official 16 page regulatory response filed Friday September 2nd by Defend Arlington. It was largely written by their brilliant attorney.

We can and must win this fight because it is not only the magnificent 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial we are fighting for but the honor and dignity of Arlington National Cemetery itself.

There is no way ANC escapes desecration from Elizabeth Warren and the naming commission's historically fraudulent report if ANC itself becomes a desecrator of American soldier graves, which is EXACTLY what destruction of the Confederate Memorial would make them.

How could it not?

Destruction of the Confederate Memorial would leave 500 graves in concentric circles around Ezekiel's monument, graves that Union soldier and later president, William McKinley, said were ALL tributes to American valor, in the open as freaks to hate and deride.

Imagine Arlington National Cemetery and the U.S. Army doing that to graves in what is supposed to be our nation's most sacred burial ground. The thought is shocking but is more of the Marxist shredding of the fabric of our country that comes from Woke virture-signaling extremists like Elizabeth Warren and the naming commission she spawned with its historically fraudulent report that is politics, not history.

That is an especially stupid thing to do since 44% of our military has traditionally been recruited in the patriotic South, and we are in the middle of a recruiting crisis that is now a national security threat.

Nothing is sacred to Woke extremists like Warren and her naming commission except their leftist politics.

HERE is a PDF of my 13 page regulatory comment submitted last week. It has VALUABLE PDF LINKS such as President Eisenhower's letter on White House letterhead defending Gen. Robert E. Lee, the picture of the handshake across the wall by the old Union and Confederate veterans at Gettysburg's 50th Anniversary, testimony of professional art critics and historians, speeches and pictures from the monument dedication, etc.

More battles are coming but Defend Arlington's brilliant regulatory response makes it clear that we can win this fight, and MUST. Please share it, print it, save it, forward it and use it any way you can.

Make Woke hatred DIE at Arlington National Cemetery.

PLEASE DONATE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN for our crack legal team. Scroll down for donation links.]

Defend Arlington Letterhead Logo

September 2, 2023

Ms. Renea Yates
Director, Office of Army Cemeteries
1 Memorial Avenue
Arlington, VA 22211

Via electronic submission:

Anc-commemorative-works@army.mil

https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/About/Confederate-Memorial-Removal

Re: Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement and Initiate Section 106 Public Consultation Regarding Removal of the Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery 88 Fed. Reg. 51786 (August 4, 2023)

Dear Director Yates:

On behalf of Defend Arlington and the undersigned organizations, we write in strong opposition to the Army’s intent to remove the Confederate Memorial (“Reconciliation Memorial” and “Memorial”) from Arlington National Cemetery (“ANC”). The Army’s proposed actions violate Congressional mandates in Section 370 of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and should not be finalized.

Comment Summary

Secretary of Defense Austin’s (“Secretary”), designation of the use of federal military resources occurred on January 4, 2023, when he ordered Army Secretary Wormuth to implement the Naming Commission Recommendations relating to the Memorial constituted final agency action; and that final agency action required review under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) and the National Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”) Section 106.1 The Secretary seeks to avoid these important procedures by focusing its review on how the removal will occur rather than on whether it should occur at all. If the Secretary had complied with NEPA and NHPA, he would have received important information from his federal advisory committee, members of the military, state historic preservation officers, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (“ACHP”), local governments, historians, academics, and the public about the significance of the Memorial, both historically and culturally, and he would have used that information to inform his decision about whether to implement the recommendation. Importantly, the Secretary would have considered that the recommendation failed to comply with the underlying statutory requirements at 370(g) and (j). Had the Secretary complied with NEPA and NHPA prior to expending federal funds and prior to directing the implementation of the Naming Commission’s recommendations, as required by law, he would have concluded that removal of the Memorial in ANC exceeds his authority, as that recommendation failed to comply with Congressional directives at §370(g) and (j). For these reasons, we believe the Army must not take additional actions to remove the Memorial until the following important legal and procedural requirements are met:

1. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issues a decision in pending litigation,2 including any appeal of that decision.

2. The Army extends the public comment period for the proposed EIS, including conducting an additional public scoping meeting, to ensure the purpose and intent of NEPA and the NHPA are met.

3. The Army’s consideration of the Report to the Secretary of the Army from the Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, and also submission of the Report to the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees and House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

4. The Army revises the scope of its EIS and NHPA Section 106 reviews to consider the effects of the Secretary’s order to use federal military resources to remove the Memorial, including the connected actions of determining how and where deconstruction and removal would occur as required by NEPA and NHPA.

Statement of Interest

Defend Arlington3 is an unincorporated association of individuals and groups that include those dedicated to the preservation of the integrity of Arlington National Cemetery as a National Register Historic Site, particularly as it relates to the planned Orwellian destruction of one of the Cemetery’s most iconic memorials. Defend Arlington members develop resources and educational materials, articles, White Papers, attending and speaking at conferences and other events in furtherance of increasing understanding of the American Military History, and the cultural, artistic and military historic significance of the Reconciliation Memorial.

Defend Arlington is a consulting party in the NHPA Section 106 review. Defend Arlington has requested to be a consulting party in the NHPA Section 106 review.

The Virginia Council, an affiliate of the Common Sense Society, is a citizen's initiative whose mission is the preservation of Virginia History, civil discourse, and the rule of law. We are signatory to this letter because Moses Ezekiel was a preeminent internationally recognized Virginia artist.

Heritage Protection of North Alabama is a citizen’s initiative whose is to prevent destruction and/or relocation of all historical monuments; inform the public about heritage issues; assist in restoration / maintenance of historic sites / monuments / memorials and defend our Southern heritage by challenging those who seek to destroy it. HPNA is a grass-roots organization of concerned citizens across the five counties of the Tennessee Valley in north Alabama. HPNA is particularly concerned about the ANC Reconciliation Memorial because of the extensive connection between the State of Alabama and the Memorial. This not only includes the incorporation of the Alabama Coat of Arms on the Memorial, as well as the numerous Alabamians whose final resting place the Memorial marks, but also the significance of Alabama Senator and 33rd US. Secretary of the Navy, Hilary A. Herbert, who recommended Sir Moses Ezekiel as the sculptor for the Memorial, and who served in leadership for the Memorial’s erection. HPNA has requested to be a consulting party in the NHPA Section 106 review.

Save Southern Heritage Florida Chapter (SSHFL) is an unincorporated association of individuals whose purpose is to preserve the history of the South for future generations. SSHFL focuses efforts on Florida history. SSHFL has a particular interest in the ANC as the State of Florida is recognized on the Memorial as its coat of arms is incorporated on the Memorial itself, and also in that three Floridians are buried in the Florida section in the concentric circles surrounding the Cenotaph.

SSHFL has requested to be a consulting party in the NHPA Section 106 review.

Military Order of the Stars and Bars, James I Waddell Chapter 32, Raleigh NC – like our namesake, James Iredell Wadell, the last to lower the Stars and Bars, we will be the last to surrender in the battle to honor our American ancestors by preserving the Reconciliation Memorial in its rightful place in America’s outdoor museum of Military History.

Society for the Preservation of Jewish Civil War History (SPJCWH) is an unincorporated group of individuals whose mission is to educate the public on the history of the Jewish people in the War of 1861-1865. The interest in the Reconciliation Memorial is due to the ethnicity of the Jewish artist, Sir Moses Ezekiel, and because of the anti-semitism removal from a United States government cemetery would ignite world-wide. SPJCWH has requested to be a consulting party in the NHPA Section 106 review due to the immense impact on the safety and security of Jews worldwide.

Military Order of the Stars and Bars, North Carolina Chapter – an association dedicated to being First, Foremost, and Farthest in the fight to save the Arlington Reconciliation Memorial just as our ancestors were in battle. The North Carolina coat of arms is represented on the Memorial and 47 known North Carolinian graves are marked by the Memorial.

R.E. Lee Monumental Association - a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to cleaning, restoring, repairing, and managing all monuments in the New Orleans area and south Louisiana since 1989 and is interested in saving the Reconciliation Memorial because all memorials and monuments to American veterans should be honored, respected and preserved. These memorials serve to honor those who gave all, and to educate future generations about important events in American history and Louisiana’s contribution to it, especially the maintenance of the emblem of the State of Louisiana displayed on the Memorial.

Military Order of the Stars and Bars, Major General W H C Whiting Chapter 305, Wilmington NC – is a non-profit entity dedicated to preserving the heritage of its gallant ancestors who fought only for self-determination and continued that fight for America through every war after the War of Northern Conquest. The subject Arlington Memorial is a symbol of reconciliation, a grave marker. and a precious work of art that must be preserved for succeeding generations for its historic importance.

Friends of Judah P. Benjamin (“Friends”) – an unincorporated group of individuals who seek to educate and inform the public about the immense contribution of Jewish Americans in the history of our Nation and particularly in the American South where both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews alike were feely accepted into Southern society and valued as part of a multi-cultural, diverse society for their unique contributions. Judah P. Benjamin, himself, was the first Jewish member of a Presidential Cabinet, for Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and the first admitted Jew to serve as US Senator when he took office from the State of Louisiana in 1853. The Friends view the planned removal of the Memorial as an attack on Jewish-American history.

Hoods Texas Brigade Association (“HTBA”) – a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation charted under the laws of the State of Texas whose members encourage and foster among the public an understanding of the history of Hood's Texas Brigade and its soldiers; advance historical appreciation for the part that the Brigade played in Texas and Confederate history; organize and sponsor educational activities such as seminars and symposiums about the Brigade. HTBA’s interest in the Memorial is the Texans whose final resting place is marked by the Reconciliation Memorial and the emblem of the State of Texas enshrined in the Memorial.

Guardians of American History, Inc. (GAH) is a non-profit whose mission is to preserve our American History including historical assets pertaining to America and the United States. The mission will be undertaken through education and direct preservation efforts and in collaboration with others with a common purpose to fight back against cancel culture. GAH has requested to be a consulting party in the NHPA Section 106 review.

Detailed Comments

The Proposed Removal Actions Exceed the Secretary’s Authority and Should Not Be Finalized

The Army’s proposed actions violate Congressional mandates in Section 370 of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”). The NDAA required consideration of local sensitivities4 and exempted grave markers from consideration for removal.5 The Secretary exceeded his authority when he directed the use of existing military resources to initiate the removal action without complying with these clear statutory directives. The Secretary also violated NEPA by failing to consider the environmental impacts and alternatives associated with the decision to deconstruct and remove the Memorial.6 Similarly, the Secretary violated the NHPA by failing to consider the impacts on historic and cultural resources prior to directing deconstruction and removal and by failing to provide the ACHP an opportunity to comment on the removal directive.7 The Army cannot change the fact that compliance with both NEPA and NHPA must occur prior to a Federal Agency decision and the approval of the expenditure of any Federal funds.8 The Army’s after-the-fact attempt at compliance with NEPA and NHPA, announced on August 4, 2023,9 is meaningless as that process will not address the triggering federal action. The triggering action was the Secretary’s decision to order the implementation of the Naming Commission’s recommendations which included the removal of the Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery, including the designation of federal funds to undertake the removal action. The Army’s illegal actions and invalid NEPA and NHPA processes have been challenged in litigation pending before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.10 The Army should not expend any additional military resources until the court determines the validity of the Secretary’s actions.

The Army’s NEPA Process is Fatally Flawed

Even assuming the Army’s NEPA and NHPA actions are legitimate, but they are not. The process is rushed and deliberately designed to limit or completely exclude important voices. First, the Army announced an aggressive schedule for completing preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement under NEPA.11 The Army intends to prepare a draft Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) within less than thirty days and a final EIS and Record of Decision before the end of 2023, completing the entire process within just a few months. The proposed timeline is unrealistic for such a significant undertaking. By comparison, preparation of an EIS for disposition of historical airport hangars within the Fort Wainright, Alaska, National Landmark, and historical district took three years.12 The Army’s rushed schedule must be reconsidered and extended to provide sufficient time to ensure an informed agency decision, particularly, where the proposed destruction and removal action would be both expensive and irreversible.

Next, the Army has made significant decisions about Arlington National Cemetery without seeking input of the Congressionally chartered federal advisory committee established for providing advice regarding ANC.13 10 U.S.C. 4723(a) directs “the Secretary of the Army shall establish an advisory committee” and (b) “shall advise and consult with the advisory committee regarding the administration, erection of memorials and master planning of ANC.” The Secretary violated these important mandates by failing to establish an advisory committee for the period of February 2020 to November 2022 and once the committee was established, discouraging it from developing an advisory report regarding the removal. Indeed, on November 8, 2022, after advisory committee members raised concerns with the decision to remove the Memorial. The Department of the Army responded that the decision to remove the Memorial had already been made and that there was no opportunity for the committee’s input to the Secretary.14 However, we understand that notwithstanding the Army’s discouragement, the Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery (“FACANC”) is preparing a report to the Secretary of the Army.15 No further action to remove the Memorial should be taken until such time as the findings of the FACANC are considered. In addition, 10 U.S.C. 7723(d) requires that, within 90 days after the report is received, the Secretary of the Army shall submit the report, and any comments or recommendations, to the Committees on Veterans’ Affairs of the Senate and House. The Army must comply with these mandates prior to conducting any removal actions in ANC.

Likewise, at the November 8, 2022, FACANC meeting, the Army abruptly determined, without explanation, that members of the public who had registered to speak would no longer be afforded the opportunity. Public input was similarly silenced when several people who had registered to present their views at the Army’s August 23, 2023, virtual public hearing experienced technical problems or were simply not called on to speak. The Army must address these procedural deficiencies prior to taking any further removal actions.

The Draft EIS Must Consider the Following:

1.  NEPA § 101(b)(4) states that the Federal Government must use all practicable means to “preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage.” 42 U.S.C. § 4331(b)(4). ANC is the nation’s premier military cemetery and Section 16 and the Memorial play an important role in conveying important aspects of our historic, cultural, and national heritage.16 The Army must describe the steps it has taken to comply with 42 U.S.C. § 4331(b)(4).

2. NEPA § 102(2)(C) requires federal agencies to evaluate the environmental consequences of their actions and consider any alternatives to proposals for all major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. The Army’s proposed actions will significantly affect the Memorial, Section 16, ANC and its collection and confluence of memorials to fallen American service personnel as ANC developed over time to become a historic district listed on the National Register. The Army must evaluate the environmental consequences of the Secretary’s order to remove the Memorial from ANC and consider any alternatives to the proposed action as required by NEPA. The Army’s NEPA analysis should first focus on the triggering action which was the Secretary’s order directing the use of federal military resources to remove the Memorial.

3. The Army’s EIS scope must include consideration of connected actions. NEPA requires that any connected actions, actions that are closely related to interdependent parts of the larger actions and would not occur without the other actions, must be considered in the same EIS. Decisions about “how and where” the destruction and removal would occur are connected actions under NEPA and must be analyzed as such in the same EIS. 40 CFR 1508.25(a)(1) (i-iii).

4. The Army must conduct a cumulative impact analysis to include a comprehensive review of the remaining cultural resources within ANC that may be threatened for removal on similar grounds, and the impact of potential additional future removal actions on Section 16 and ANC, including any impact on the ability of ANC to retain its listing on the NR as a historic district. 40 CFR 1508.25(a)(2).

5. The Army must conduct an air quality analysis, particularly PM 2.5 and airshed analysis to assess the impact on air quality and increases in criterion pollutants from the operation of heavy equipment, and construction vehicles.

6. The Army must conduct an analysis of the environmental impacts on environmental justice communities, including air, dust, noise, traffic, vibration, and congestion caused by the removal; and a cumulative impact analysis considering existing environmental burden.

7. A work plan must be developed, in coordination with fence line communities, the public, and ANC, taking into consideration impacts on the peace and serenity experience in Section 16 and ANC, interference with burial ceremonies from increased noise, interference with traffic patterns, and increased dust and air emissions during construction.

8. The Army must prepare a detailed budget, including assurances that the work will be conducted by appropriately licensed and trained contractors.

9. A study must be conducted to show that the graves will not incur damage. Verbal assurances are insufficient. The study must, at a minimum, comply with accepted scientific methodology and be cognizant of social and cultural cemetery practices.

10. Viewshed modeling must be conducted to assess the impact of removal on the ANC historic district and the Monument Corridor Viewshed.

11. The Army should consult with each State represented on the Memorial, and whose service personnel will be de-marked by the planned removal.

12. The Army should provide an earnest attempt to contact all the living descendants of those buried in Section 16 and consider the opinions about and the effect of de-marking them.17

The Proposed Scope of the EIS and NHPA Section 106 Review Must be Revised to Include the Following:

1.  The Memorial is Eligible for Listing on the National Register of Historic Places

The Memorial is an extraordinary historic and cultural resource eligible for listing on the National Register. The Army National Military Cemeteries Phase II Intensive level survey evaluated the Memorial and determined it is potentially eligible to be included in the National Register of Historic Places.18 The survey found the Memorial potentially eligible “because it constitutes a significant physical example of the contested national effort to commemorate the Civil War, and specifically the Confederacy, as part of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century efforts at reconciliation.”19 In addition, the survey found the Memorial potentially eligible “for its design by sculptor Moses Ezekiel, a master sculptor whose distinctive work stands out from other Confederate memorials constructed during the same period of significance. It merits listing in the NRHP due to its status as a unique historical artifact that embodies, in monumental form, the discourse surrounding the memorialization of the Civil War.”20 The Memorial is also significant in our nation’s military and cultural history and remains relevant today as a symbol of how America healed its wounds from our own Civil War as described by Jim Webb, U.S. Senator, Navy Secretary and Marine infantry officer in Vietnam.21 As such, under NHPA regulations, the Army must identify and evaluate the historic significance of this historic property and determine its eligibility prior to proceeding with removal. 36 CFR 800.4(c).

2.  The Memorial as a Contributing Resource to the Arlington National Cemetery Historic District

Arlington National Cemetery, the Nation’s military cemetery, is on the National Register of Historic Places and the Memorial is listed as a contributing resource to the historic significance of ANC.22 ANC is the final resting place for more than 300,000 veterans of every American conflict, from the Revolutionary War to Iraq and Afghanistan. Since its founding in 1864, ANC has provided a solemn place to reflect upon the sacrifices made by the men and women of the United States Armed Forces in the name of our country.23 The Civil War makes up a critical and defining conflict in our nation’s history, and soldiers who perished on Civil War battlefields are rightly recognized and buried at ANC. Indeed, the ANC was created and founded as a direct result of the Civil War – built on grounds previously owned by and resided on by Mary Custis Lee, her husband General Robert E. Lee, and their family.

3.  Section 16 of ANC as Potentially Eligible for Listing on the NRHP and Must be Evaluated.

The Army has failed to include any mention of Section 16 of ANC in conducting the required identification efforts. The Army must make a reasonable and good-faith effort to identify historic resources within the project’s area of potential effects.24 Section 16 contains an area that has been specifically set aside and designated by Congress to re-inter the remains of approximately 260 Confederate soldiers who died in prisoner-of-war camps and in hospitals and battlefields near Arlington.25 After Section 16 was established, the Memorial was erected. Section 16 would continue to be an active burial site for Southern veterans and their spouses into the 1960s. Section 16 has its roots in the early 1900s and came about as an effort by President McKinley, himself a veteran of the Union in the War, and a symbol of reconciliation between the North and South in the post-reconstruction era, and in the post-Spanish American War era. Section 16 was promoted by President McKinley, who also led the effort to re-inter at ANC American service personnel from Cuba who perished on the USS Maine in the lead-up to the Spanish-American War. The mast of the Maine was eventually placed as the focal point of that circular burial site, marking the sailors who perished in the Maine’s sinking. McKinley similarly promoted the establishment of Section 16, which, likewise, originated with re-internments and was later marked with a central marking memorial. These two neighboring twin memorials stand together in the history of ANC and launched a plan to commemorate casualties of significant American sacrifices that continues to today. As such, the Army must evaluate Section 16 under criteria set forth in National Park Service regulations at 36 CFR Part 60, (a)-(d). At a minimum, the Army should evaluate the degree to which Section 16 meets criteria (a) that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; and (b) that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. We believe Section 16 is individually eligible under these criteria for listing on the NRHP. The Army may not move forward with the removal of the Memorial until these important eligibility decisions are made. In addition, eligible or not, the Army must consider the impacts, both direct and indirect, of the removal of the Memorial on the integrity of Section 16.

4.  The Memorial as a Contributing Resource to a Broader Monument Core

This memorial is part of the Washington Monumental Corridor Master Plan.26 The Monumental Corridor was part of the “American Renaissance” and North-South linkage promoted by renowned architects McMillan and Olmstead. They envisioned a “city beautiful” plan for Washington, DC that extended over the Potomac River into Virginia to Arlington House and the Cemetery. The bridge was to become a symbolic link between North and South from DC to Arlington and the addition of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, punctuated with monuments and memorials evidenced this American Renaissance, and to demonstrate to the world American unification. This beaux-arts style memorial is the most significant monumental artwork at Arlington, and part of the American Renaissance which ignited a movement to build monumental art around the country. The entire Monumental Corridor, the Viewshed from Mount Vernon through to the Capitol, must be included in the EIS study area and the NHPA Area of Potential Effects (“APE”), as they are part of the master plan and significant in the north-south reunification and the American Renaissance. The APE must be expanded to include the entire Viewshed of the Washington Monumental core.

5.  The Memorial Site as Eligible for Consideration as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site

The Memorial is significant to Canada and other nations and is potentially eligible to be a UNSECO World Heritage Site. One of the graves in the plot marked by the Memorial is of a Canadian citizen, Jerry Cronan, who was killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania. There were many more citizens of other nations who perished in service to one of the states represented on the Memorial. These other nations need to be identified and consulted as they are being impacted as well. Because of its significance in American history, Arlington House and the Arlington National Cemetery are eligible for listing as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

6.  The Memorial as Significant to the Descendants of the Buried

There are over 500 soldiers and widows whose remains are interred in concentric circles at the Memorial, which marks the site of their burials. Some of the remains were relocated in Section 16 from other sections of Arlington, others from POW camps nearby before the Memorial was erected. However, after the Memorial was erected, others chose to be buried there, undoubtedly because of the new Memorial. The Army must make a sincere effort to contact the descendants of the buried dead and seek their views.

7.  The Memorial as a Grave Marker

The Memorial is a grave marker for Moses Ezekiel. Unveiled in 1914 and dedicated by President Woodrow Wilson, the Memorial was designed by noted American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of Virginia Military Institute, to mark Section 16. Ezekiel originally named the Memorial the New South Memorial. It is also commonly referred to as the Reconciliation Memorial. Ezekiel was buried at the base of his creation in 1921. It was Ezekiel’s request to be buried at the base of the Memorial in Section 16 of Arlington—laid to rest inches from the base of his Memorial without the traditional approved white marble headstone authorized for use in Arlington. Three other service personnel and spouses are interred inches from the base of the Memorial: Lt. Harry C. Marmaduke, Capt. John M. Hickey, and Brig. Gen. Marcus J. Wright. The graves of the approximately 500 Southern service personnel and their spouses are arranged in concentric circles around the Memorial and its abutting graves. The fact that the Memorial is a grave marker precludes its removal. In NDAA § 370(j), Congress explicitly exempted grave markers from the Naming Commission’s consideration for renaming or removal. Congress delegated to the Naming Commission the definition of Grave Marker, i.e. “Markers located at the remains of the fallen”. As the Memorial is inches not only from Ezekiel’s grave, but also marks the entire plot of graves, the Memorial meets the Naming Commission’s definition of a Grave Marker, and so this removal is outside the scope of the NDAA and the Naming Commission’s remit.27

The NHPA Section 106 Review Must Consider the Following:

NHPA § 106 requires Federal agencies with jurisdiction over Federal undertakings, prior to the approval of the expenditure of any Federal funds, shall consider the effect of the undertaking on any historic property and provide the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation an opportunity to comment.28 The Secretary’s directive to implement the Commission’s removal recommendation is a Federal undertaking.29 Any site that is included in the National Register is considered historic property.30 The Arlington National Cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The entirety of the cemetery is counted as one contributing site, and every resource except the small-scale features within the boundaries is contributing to the ANC Historic District. The Memorial is listed as a contributing resource to the historic significance of ANC. The Army must consider the adverse effects that removal of the Memorial will have on the integrity of the Arlington National Cemetery as our nation’s military cemetery. In addition, as stated previously, the Memorial itself and Section 16 are potentially individually eligible for listing and must be evaluated under the National Park Service criteria prior to any removal actions.

NHPA compliance requires the agency to proceed through specific steps in consultation with SHPOs, consulting parties and the public to first identify historic properties potentially affected by the removal, assess the effects, and seek ways to minimize or mitigate any unavoidable adverse effects. Failure to proceed consistent with these regulatory requirements is a violation of the statute.31

The Advisory Council’s NHPA implementation guidance recommends that each step of the Section 106 process must be completed prior to moving to the next step.32

As stated previously, the Army has not completed a reasonable, good-faith effort to identify important historic and cultural resources, including whether the Memorial and Section 16 are individually eligible. The Army has also neglected to include the Washington Monument Core district in the scope of review.

Furthermore, The Army is violating the NHPA by seeking public input on mitigation measures prior to completing the following regulatory requirements:

  • Identifying the proper scope of review (36 CFR 800.4),
  • Identifying historic properties (36 CFR 800.4(b)),
  • Evaluating historic significance under the National Register criteria (36 CFR Part 63),
  • Determining whether a property is eligible for listing on the National Register (36 CFR 800.4(c)(2)),
  • Notifying consulting parties that there are historic properties that may be affected by the undertaking and invite their views (36 CFR 800.4(d)(2)),
  • Applying criteria of adverse effect (36 CFR 800.5)(d)(2)).

Only after completing all these steps in consultation with SHPOs and other consulting parties, is it appropriate for the Army to seek input on resolving adverse effects, including modifications or alternatives to avoid, minimize or mitigate.33 Without completing this important information gathering and consultation requirements, the Army has not provided the public with the information necessary to engage in a meaningful discussion of mitigation.

Recommendations:

Scope of Review

  • The Army must determine an appropriate scope of review, defined as the Area of Potential Effects (APE).
  • The APE must include the entire Viewshed, as the Memorial is an important contributing element in the ANC historic district and the Washington Monumental Core that extends from the Washington Monument across the Memorial Bridge to ANC, including Section 16 and the Memorial around which Section 16 was built.
  • Aerial and visual impact modeling must be completed to analyze impacts.

Identification of Adverse Effects

The Army must develop information on the direct, indirect, and cumulative adverse effects of the removal action, including the following:

  • Physical destruction of the Memorial from removal and relocation or destruction of the bronze elements - a study must be conducted.
  • Change in character of Section 16 caused by the removal action.
  • Transfer out of federal control without adequate preservation restrictions.
  • The cultural impact of removal on those States that are represented in the Memorial and whose service personnel are marked by the Memorial or who were citizens of such State.
  • The cultural and emotional impact of removal on the descendants of those interred in Section 16.
  • Viewshed impacts.
  • Impact on ANC historic district from removal of the Memorial, a known contributing element to the district’s significance.

Resolving Adverse Effects

The Army must consider alternatives for avoidance, minimization, and mitigation of adverse effects:

There is no adequate mitigation:

o   The Memorial represents a significant historic work of art.

o   The Memorial was commissioned; and designed by the artist for; display at the designated site, marking the graves in Section 16.

o   No alternative location is suitable. ANC is the Nation’s Most Sacred Shrine and a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. The Memorial has been determined to be a contributing element to the historic district. Removal would have a devastating impact on Section 16 and the district.

o   The Reconciliation Memorial is a focal point for the graves interred in Section 16. The mortal remains of American service personnel and wives, including the Memorial’s creator, are located under the Memorial. The FY21 NDAA clearly stated the Naming Commission’s objectives were to preclude grave markers; yet the Reconciliation Memorial is central to the design of Section 16, and removal will leave over 400 gravestones facing an empty slab without interpretation.

o   Arlington National Cemetery, as a National Register Historic District, is an outdoor museum dedicated to American military sacrifice and a display of the respect that Americans show for that sacrifice. Removal of the Memorial will extricate and suppress from Arlington the complete historical timeline and story told through the sequence of memorial monuments at Arlington and will diminish the respect and significance of this important historic site.

o   Any proposal to move the Memorial must be codified, after providing for public notice and comment, in an enforceable Memorandum of Agreement with the consulting parties prior to taking any actions that would adversely affect the Memorial or the ANC historic district in which it is located.

Attachments

In addition to this document, we submit the following that address the inability to mitigate the removal of the Memorial, as well as the Area of Potential Effect, and the environmental and cultural impacts of removal:

   “Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington”, Wall Street Journal August 18, 2023, by Senator Jim Webb and

   Arguments Against Naming Commission Recommendation Re: Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial: A collection of White Papers, articles, testimony, and the Presidential Monument dedication speech.

 

Conclusion

The Army’s proposal to remove the Reconciliation Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery violates Congressional mandates in Section 370 of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and procedural requirements of both NEPA and the NHPA. The Army’s after-the-fact attempt at compliance with NEPA and NHPA is meaningless as that process will not address the important question the Secretary seeks to avoid, of whether the Memorial should be removed. As discussed in these comments, the Army has neglected to consider the impacts on important historic and cultural resources in its politically charged rush to complete an EIS and complete removal by year’s end. These illegal actions have been challenged in court and the Army must not take any further actions until the validity of these actions is decided.

Respectfully submitted,

s/Vincent Balducci
Defend Arlington

s/Dr. Ann McLean
The Virginia Council, an affiliate of the Common Sense Society

s/Lt. Col. Edwin Kennedy, US Army, Retired
Heritage Protection of North Alabama

s/James Shillinglaw, US Navy, Retired
Save Southern Heritage Florida Chapter

s/Commander
Military Order of the Stars and Bars, James I. Waddell Chapter

s/ Lunelle Siegel
Society for the Preservation of Jewish Civil History

s/Howard Talley, III
Military Order of the Stars and Bars, North Carolina Society

s/Geary Mason
RE Lee Monumental Association

s/H.K. Edgerton
Veterans Defending Arlington

s/Commander
Military Order of the Stars and Bars, Major General W.H.C. Whiting Chapter 305

s/Glenn Carroll, President
Hood’s Texas Brigade Association

s/David R. McCallister
Friends of Judah P. Benjamin

s/MJ Stephens
Guardians of American History, Inc.

 

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel's MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

Shop Now

 

Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

 

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND. You can also pay with Zelle. Send to

DefendArlington@gmail.com.

Please Donate Now -- THANK YOU!

Click Here to Donate AND Share on Facebook, et al.

 

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

 

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

 

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

 

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

 

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

 

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

 

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

 

NOTES:

1 42 U.S.C. § 4332 (2)(C) and 54 U.S.C. § 306108.

2 See Hudson, et al. v. United States Dep’t of Defense, USDC DC; Case No:1:23-cv-02094;

Defend Arlington c/o Save Southern Heritage Florida, et al. v. United States Dep’t of Defense et al., USDC DC, Case No. 1:23-CV-00441.

3 Signatories Defend Arlington and Save Southern Heritage Florida and their members are Plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed February 16, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, CV No. 23-CV-441 challenging the Secretary of Defense’s, and the Secretary of the Army’s illegal actions under the Administrative Procedures Act, NEPA and NHPA.

4 Pub. L. No. 116-283, §370(g).

5 Id. at §370(j).

6 NEPA § 102(2) requires federal agencies to evaluate the environmental consequences of their actions and consider any alternatives to proposals for all major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. 42 U.S.C. § 4332 (2)(C).

7 NHPA § 106 requires Federal agencies with jurisdiction over Federal undertakings, prior to the approval of the expenditure of any Federal funds, shall consider the effect of the undertaking on any historic property and provide the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation an opportunity to comment. 54 U.S.C. § 306108.

8 See Lee v. Thornburgh, 877 F.2d 1053, 1056 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (NHPA applies prior to approving the expenditure of funds).

9 88 Fed. Reg. 51786 (Aug. 4, 2023).

10 Hudson, et al. v. United States Dep’t of Defense, USDC DC; Case No:1:23-cv-02094; Defend Arlington c/o Save Southern Heritage Florida, et al. v. United States Dep’t of Defense et al., USDC DC, Case No. 1:23-CV-00441

11 See Arlington National Cemetery - Home (arlingtoncemetery.mil)(announcing August 23, 2023 Public Meeting announcing a draft EIS would be completed in September, just shortly after the September 2, 2023 close of the scoping public comment period to discuss mitigation of adverse impacts of removal of Confederate Memorial).

12 Disposition_of_Hangars_2_and_3_FinalEIS.pdf

13 Established pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 4723, and in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (5 U.S.C., Appendix, as amended) and 41 C.F.R. Section 102-3.50(a).

14 Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, Nov. 7-8, 2023, meeting minutes available at: ACANC Meetings (arlingtoncemetery.mil).

15 Meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, August 11, 2023.

16 See Senator Jim Webb, Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington, Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2023.

17 40 CFR §1508.25(a)(2).

18 See Phase II Intensive-Level Survey of the Confederate Memorial (000-1235) SHR File No. 2022-0201, March 20, 2023 available at: ConfederateMemorial-Phase II Survey Report- 230803-DHR 2022-0201_1.pdf (arlingtoncemetery.mil).

19 Id. at pg. 1.

20 Id.

21 See Webb, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 18, 2023.

22 Id. (In 2014, the Confederate Memorial had been listed as a contributing resource to the Arlington National Cemetery Historic District (000-0042).

23 See U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Register of Historic Places (https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/000-

0042_ArlingtonNationalCemetery_2014_NRHP_nomination_FINAL_complete.pdf.)

24 36 CFR §800.4(b)(1).

25 See Nat’l Park Service, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington

(https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/virginia/arlington_national_cemetery.h tml).

26 See FrameworkPlan1_Intro.pdf (ncpc.gov).

27 The Naming Commission Final Report to Congress; Part III: Renaming Department of Defense Assets.

28 54 U.S.C. § 306108.

29 36 CFR §800.16(y).

30 54 U.S.C. § 300308.

31 See 36 CFR Part 800 procedures for how Federal agencies meet these statutory responsibilities.

32 See CitizenGuideSmallSizeFinal4Web.indd (achp.gov).

33 36 CFR §800.6

Naming commission’s report on the Confederate Memorial is a historical FRAUD

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Ezekiel . . . accepted the verdict of the civil war's arbitrament with all the fine generosity that has been characteristic of both the north and south; and the splendid product of his art, that here testifies to our nation's reunion, will stand from this day forth as guardian over his ashes. . . . Every line and curve and expression carries the plea for a truly united nation that may be equal to the burdens of these exacting times. It speaks to us the ardent wish, the untiring purpose, to help make our people one people . . . It is the memorial of reunited America, the testimony to the tradition of indissoluble union, the shrine to which we are gathered today, and will gather through the years to come . . .

Excerpts from President Warren G. Harding's message read at the funeral of Moses Ezekiel, sculptor of the Arlington Confederate Memorial

Naming commission's report on the Confederate Memorial is a historical FRAUD
It is Woke extremist politics that began with Elizabeth Warren during the George Floyd riots
As Brigadier General Joseph S. Stringham (ret) said, the naming commission's report is WITHOUT VERIFICATION
The Confederate Memorial is NOT in the naming commission's remit as they falsely claim
THE PUBLIC CAN MAKE COMMENTS until September 2, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. EST (there is a link below to the comment page); KEY POINTS from Defend Arlington are below and available as PDF
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - As stated earlier, before Elizabeth Warren and her Woke naming commission can desecrate Arlington National Cemetery by demolishing the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial, they must follow the Section 106 process required by the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to leave comments before the September 2, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. EST deadline for this round, and it is easy to do so.

Just click HERE and start writing though I would advise reviewing the points and articles below and outlining your argument beforehand. You can also email your comments to: anc-commemorative-works@army.mil. Click HERE for PDF of Defend Arlington Key Points, or scroll down.

Click HERE to see the video of the August 23, 2023 public Zoom meeting of Arlington National Cemetery in which approximately 100 people supported the Confederate Memorial versus one who wanted it down. Supporters' commentary is powerful and often emotional. You can skip forward past the introduction and go straight to public comments.

Click HERE to view 28 official United States Army photographs of the magnificent Confederate Memorial. Looking at these stunning photographs for one second shows you clearly that destruction of this monument is a barbaric, uncivilized act that only an extremist like leftist vice chair of the naming commission, Ty Seidule, could be in favor of.

Seidule hates the Confederate Memorial, and the reconciliation of North and South after the bloody war, and said so in his screed, Robert E. Lee and Me (below).

The Confederate Memorial is NOT in the naming commission's remit, as they falsely claim, nor did Congress specifically mandate its removal.

The naming commission's unverified report deliberately leaves out the reconciliation theme, though that theme is IRREFUTABLE and stated repeatedly in Arlington National Cemetery's own application for its Historic District to be on the National Register of Historic Places. (download my PDF white paper "The Reconciliation of North and South After the War Between the States as Symbolized by the Confederate Memorial 'New South' in Arlington National Cemetery")

The Confederate Memorial symbolizes peace, patriotism and the reunification of the United States of America. It does not commemorate the Confederacy.

The Confederate Memorial is one of the most significant monuments on earth, not only for its symbolism of reconciliation after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed, but because of its magnificence. Again, look at the Army Photographs and ask yourself what kind of person would want to destroy a monument like that?

Click HERE to view a United States Army video of the Confederate Memorial.

Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that:

. . . no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art.

Esteemed British art critic and historian, Alexander Adams, writes in his "Testimony regarding Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial submitted to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery Open Session," 7-8 November, 2022 (download PDF):

Having viewed a large amount of public statuary from the beaux-arts era (1850-1914), it is my professional opinion that the Memorial is a serious, iconographically complex and technically accomplished piece of art. In my view, it is a handsome sculpture and an entirely appropriate funerary monument. I consider it an internationally significant piece of art of its type and era. Any nation should be proud to host such a magnanimous and dignified monument.

The inscription “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” provides a Biblical guidance to turning from war to peace. This is echoed by the personification of the South, which holds the wreath of glory and touches the plough of peaceful prosperity. The frieze below depicts the contributions of those who supported the war effort.

Here is some of the massive amount of history that the naming commission left out of their fraudulent report:

The monument was the idea of Union soldier and later president, William McKinley, after enthusiastic Southern participation in the Spanish-American War, and it was approved by Congress.

McKinley said:

. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.

President William Howard Taft spoke and was warmly received at the UDC ceremony the evening the cornerstone was laid.

President Woodrow Wilson (download PDF photograph) gave the dedication speech June 4, 1914 (download Wilson's address).

President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first memorial wreath that started an annual tradition observed by all presidents including Barack Obama.

President Warren G. Harding sent a message of condolence (download PDF here) that was read at the funeral of the monument's acclaimed Jewish sculptor, Moses Ezekiel, who was a VMI Confederate soldier. Here are some of Harding's comments from The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, March 30, 1921:

'Ezekiel will be remembered,' the President wrote, 'as one who knew how to translate the glories of his own time and people into that language of art which is common to all peoples and all times. He served his state in the conflict that threatened to divide and that at last served to unify our country. He accepted the verdict of the civil war's arbitrament with all the fine generosity that has been characteristic of both the north and south; and the splendid product of his art, that here testifies to our nation's reunion, will stand from this day forth as guardian over his ashes.

'Every line and curve and expression carries the plea for a truly united nation that may be equal to the burdens of these exacting times. It speaks to us the ardent wish, the untiring purpose, to help make our people one people, secure in independence, dedicated to freedom, and ever ready to lend the hand of confident strength in aid of the oppressed and needy. Its long-drawn shadows of earliest morn and latest evening will always fall on sacred soil. The genius that produced, the love that gave, the devotion that will cherish it will forever be numbered among our ennobling possessions.

'[H]e wrought them into works which compelled the recognition of the chief art schools and won the honors of nations and cities that boasted of being the homes of sculpture's best traditions. Crowned with these honors, he turned his thoughts to his own country, and as the final and finest product of his talents gave to us the monument that from this day will mark his resting place. It is the memorial of reunited America the testimony to the tradition of indissoluble union, the shrine to which we are gathered today, and will gather through the years to come, those who would dedicate themselves to the ideal of unselfish, enlightened, upstanding Americanism as a force for our country's maintenance and all humanity's betterment.'

You can not read President Harding's message without knowing that the Confederate Memorial represents RECONCILIATION, peace, love and patriotism, all things the naming commission left out of its fraudulent, unverified report.

Ezekiel created the Confederate Memorial in the City of Rome, Italy and is buried next to his monument along with two other Confederate soldiers and a Confederate sailor, which makes the monument their grave marker as President Harding stated in his funeral message.

Grave markers are prohibited, in Warren's legislation, from being destroyed. Destruction of the Confederate Memorial is ILLEGAL.

Veterans North and South, with love and enthusiasm for our reunited nation, supported the Confederate Memorial and spoke at its ceremonies. (See PDF photo of Gen. Bennett H. Young, commander, United Confederate Veterans, and PDF photo of Gen. Washington Gardner, commander, Grand Army of the Republic).

Although the naming commission falsely claimed "contextualization was not an appropriate option," a hundred page book of all the participants, speeches and history was published in 1914 by the UDC and is available on Amazon today. The title is: History of the Arlington Confederate Monument, by Hilary A. Herbert, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Arlington Confederate Monument Association. It is available in hardback or softcover. Click HERE for PDF.

The Confederate Memorial could easily be contextualized, which is why the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery itself asked in a meeting earlier this year, why their own people could not just give the history of the monument rather than destroy it.

The Confederate Memorial was constructed during the days of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the famous handshakes across the wall (click for PDF photo) by the old Union and Confederate veterans.

The naming commission is a Woke political commission. They are not interested in historical truth. They are interested in extremist leftist politics, which is why this legislation was put forth in the first place by Elizabeth Warren, America's most famous fake Indian.

Naming commission vice chair, Ty Seidule, who hates the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, himself admits the reconciliation theme and wrote about it in his book, Robert E. Lee and Me, though he left that out of the naming commission's report.

I doubt if Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin would have approved demolishing a magnificent 109 year old monument to peace and reconciliation in our nation's most sacred burial ground if he had been given the complete history.

On page 162 of Robert E. Lee and Me, Seidule writes:

Of the thousands of monuments around the country to the Confederacy, the one in Arlington National Cemetery angers me the most. Every year, the commander in chief sends a wreath, ensuring the Confederate monument receives all the prestige of the U.S. government. That's why it riles me so much. . . .1

Seidule then admits that the Confederate Memorial stands for reconciliation, and he, himself, regrets that:

I know both political parties and white citizens in the North and South brought the country back together after the tremendous bloodletting and destruction of the Civil War. The posts named for Confederate officers during World War I also served to knit white America back together as it fought a common foe. And it worked, but we must recognize that reconciliation came at a steep and horrifying cost. African Americans paid the price with lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the loss of the franchise. The price for white reconciliation remains far too high. (Bold emphasis added.)2

Truth is, none of the Army base names should have been changed, because, as Seidule himself admits, they were named after Confederates as part of the reconciliation of the United States of America, not to commemorate the Confederacy.

Seidule and Elizabeth Warren have aptly shown us how history can be falsified and destroyed for political purposes as George Orwell warned about when he said: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."

Seidule is incredibly ignorant of history. The "Jim Crow segregation" he mentioned, started in the North and was there a long time before moving South, according to C. Vann Woodward in The Strange Career of Jim Crow.

The Old South was an integrated society unlike the Old North, which was a white supremacist, rigidly segregated society. Several Northern states including Lincoln's Illinois had laws forbidding blacks from even visiting, must less living there. Blacks visiting more than a few days in Illinois could be whipped and jailed.

Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America said race prejudice was strongest in New England and places that had never known blacks except as cargo.

New Englanders brought all the slaves here for profit and they did not want blacks near them in the North or West.

So, the naming commission and its vice chair definitely knew the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery symbolized reconciliation and the reunification of the United States of America but they did not say a word about it.

That glaring omission makes their report, with respect to the Confederate Memorial, a lie and a complete historical fraud.3

Another HUGE thing to bring out in comments is the desecration of the 518 Confederate graves that are in concentric circles around the Confederate Monument. Those graves, that President William McKinley said are all tributes to American valor, are an INTEGRAL part of the Confederate Memorial. With no monument, those graves will surround a mangled shaft and be the objects of hate and derision, like freaks, in our nation's most sacred burial ground.

The message, as Seidule said in Robert E. Lee and Me, is that reconciliation was a mistake, but thanks to him, reconciliation is now over. No wonder the Army can't recruit.

Seidule says all the time that Southerners are descended from traitors but see the PDF of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's letter on presidential letterhead defending the picture of Robert E. Lee he kept on his White House wall the whole time he was president.

Eisenhower says it well, that the issues of States Rights versus supreme federal power, the right of secession, etc. were not settled before the War Between the States, and good men and women, North and South, had legitimate disagreement.

An ocean of Southern blood has been shed across the globe in defense of our great nation since reconciliation because 44% of our military has traditionally come from the South.

Yet, today, our military can't recruit because of Seidule and Warren's type of Woke politics.

Demolishing the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial would make Arlington National Cemetery a purveyor of hate and division, and a desecrator of soldier graves in what is supposed to be our country's most sacred burial ground.

We can not allow that to happen.

HERE (PDF) and below is a list of key points put out by Defend Arlington to consider in your comments.

HERE is a PDF of Defend Arlington's comprehensive white paper book with 17 articles from distinguished individuals and scholars. It is entitled Arguments Against Naming Commission Recommendation, RE: Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial, A collection of white papers, articles, testimony, and the Presidential Monument dedication speech.

HERE is a PDF of former Virginia senator and Navy secretary, Jim Webb's, commanding Wall Street Journal article, "Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington," published Saturday, August 19, 2023. Webb was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam and is a distinguished fellow at Notre Dame's International Security Center. Here are some excerpts:

Having spent four years as a full committee counsel in the House and six years as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I cannot imagine that the removal of this memorial, conceived and built with the sole purpose of healing the wounds of the Civil War and restoring national harmony, could be within the intent of a sweeping sentence placed inside a nearly trillion-dollar piece of legislation.

The larger and ultimate question reaches further into America’s atrophied understanding of the Civil War itself. What was it that Union Army veteran McKinley [who was later president and conceived the idea for the Confederate Memorial in Arlington] understood about the Confederate soldiers who opposed his infantry units on the battlefield that eludes today’s monument smashers and ad hominem destroyers of historical reputations?

McKinley’s fellow soldiers understood that during the Civil War, four slave states remained in the Union—Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky—and none of them were required to give up slavery during the entire war. And that in every major battle of the Civil War, slave owners in the Union Army fought against non-slave-owners in the Confederate Army. They understood that President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in those states or in the areas of the South that had already been conquered. The proclamation freed only slaves in the areas taken after it was issued. And in the eyes of a Confederate soldier, if Lincoln had not freed slaves in the union, why should the soldier be vilified for supposedly fighting on behalf of slavery?

Many soldiers in the North, and many more in the South, would have understood what John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), America’s most esteemed black historian, pointed out: In 1860 only 5% of whites in the South owned slaves, and less than 25% of whites benefited economically from slavery. An estimated 258,000 Confederate soldiers died in the war, about a third of all those who fought for the South. Few owned slaves. So why did they fight?

The soldier who wrote the inscription on the Confederate Memorial knew. And so did President McKinley and most veterans who have fought in America’s wars.

Click HERE for a PDF of the "Consulting Party Response Form for the Section 106 Review Process" that will allow you to be kept informed and to be given opportunities to input your thoughts over the next two months.

Southern valor in the War Between the States is unmatched in the history of the world. Historian James McPherson writes:

the overall mortality rate for the South exceeded that of any country in World War I and that of all but the region between the Rhine and the Volga in World War II.4

The funerary urns on the Confederate Memorial represent those losses from each year of the war.

The descendants of those good Americans, encouraged by men like Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest and so many others, rejoined our great nation with enthusiasm and have been the best Americans ever since.

We can not allow an extremist political commission with a historically fraudulent report to destroy a magnificent memorial unique in the history of the world in our nation's most sacred burial ground.

Stand up and FIGHT!

Please COMMENT and donate money (scroll down).]

 

Defend Arlington KEY POINTS in the fight to save the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery

1.   REMOVAL ILLEGAL / UNCONSTITUTIONAL

a)  Removing the Memorial is illegal because it is a grave marker - the enabling Legislation excluded grave markers

The Secretary of Defense exceeded his authority by adopting a recommendation that is specifically prohibited in the 2021 NDAA that prohibits inclusion of grave markers (Section 370 (j).  The Memorial marks the grave of Jewish artist and American veteran Sir Moses Ezekiel.  This cenotaph  even meets the Naming Commission’s own definition of a grave marker.   The 3rd report to congress states “Markers located at the remains of the fallen. A marker, headstone, foot stone, niche cover, or flat marker containing inscriptions commemorating one or more decedents interred at that location.” This definition aligns with 38 U.S. Code § 2306 – Headstones, markers, and burial receptacles”  US President Warren G. Harding sent a letter to be read at Ezekiel's funeral at Arlington. The Evening Star (Washington D.C.) published a full quotation on March 30th, 1921. Here is a small part of it:

. . . he turned his thoughts to his own country, and as the final and finest product of his talents gave to us the monument that from this day will mark his resting place. It is a memorial of a reunited America, the testimony to the tradition of an indissoluble union, the shrine to which are gathered today.

This removal is illegal.

b)  Removing the Memorial is illegal  - The Army ignored the enabling Legislation that required it  to consider local sensitivities.

The Secretary of Defense exceeded his authority by adopting a recommendation that did not meet the requirements of the 2021 NDAA section 370(g)(4) that required that local sensitivities be considered.  The 8 person naming commission did not ask the opinion of anyone, not even the Congressionally mandated (10 U.S.C. § 7723) Oversight Committee, the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery. This is a grave site and an international tourist destination and our nation’s sacred shrine.  No local sensitivities were considered. This whole thing is illegal.

c)   The military (government) is putting the Cart Before the Horse - The Public Scoping Meeting of August 23, 2023 should have occurred BEFORE Secretary Austin decided to accept this recommendation.  The Army is violating the 40 Code of Federal Relations Part 1500 Section 1500.1 (a) because they did not consider relevant environment information BEFORE the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army ordered removal of the Memorial. The military is trying to fix the legal mess it has made. This whole thing is illegal.

d)  Fire, ready aim. The military/government broke the law whey they jumped the gun by holding the August 23, 2023 scoping meeting on mitigation before checking all the required regulatory boxes.

The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) 36 CFR 800.6 requires the Army to complete 6 steps PRIOR to seeking input from the consulting parties and the State Historic Preservation Offices on resolving adverse effects, including modifications or alternatives to avoid, minimize or mitigate a planned action.  The Army did not complete all the steps and are trying to fix things now, but they didn’t follow the law and that can’t be fixed.  The Army has not identified all the adverse effects. This whole thing is illegal.

e)  Removal of the Reconciliation Memorial is Unconstitutional and an attack on the historical Diversity of American Culture.  When the humanists wanted to take down a monument in Maryland the Bladensburg Cross, in its 2019 decision, the US Supreme Court said “Where monuments, symbols, and practices with a longstanding history follow in the tradition of the First Congress in respecting and tolerating different views, endeavoring to achieve inclusivity and nondiscrimination, and recognizing the important role religion plays in the lives of many Americans, they are likewise constitutional.“  This memorial cenotaph is a long-standing historical monument and it is unconstitutional after over 100 years, to up and decide that this is offensive and has to go.  In fact, just the opposite is true, this memorial is inclusive.  It shows various minority groups, and in fact, it was sculpted by a gay Jewish man.  Taking down this memorial is Unconstitutional.

f)   Removal of the Reconciliation Memorial is Unconstitutional and an attack on America’s  Judeo Christian Heritage Ezekiel’s memorial contains is the only memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that includes a scripture verse Isaiah 2:4, “and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.”.  It is featured in the Museum of the Bible’s Washington Revolution’s flyover.  When the humanists wanted to take down a monument in Maryland, the Bladensburg Cross, in its 2019 decision, the US Supreme Court said citing the French Revolution “... A government that roams the land, tearing down monuments with religious symbolism and scrubbing away any reference to the divine will strike many as aggressively hostile to religion. Militantly secular regimes have carried out such projects in the past and for those with a knowledge of history, the image of monuments being taken down will be evocative, disturbing, and divisive.”   Taking down this memorial is Unconstitutional.

g)  The enabling legislation is Unconstitutional as it represents a Bill of Attainder.  Article 1 Section 9, clause 3 of the US Constitution says “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.  Bills of attainder are acts of the legislature that inflict punishments on a person supposedly guilty of high offenses.  When Senator Elizabeth Warren called Confederate soldiers ‘traitors’ on the Senate Floor - a charge that was NEVER brought by the government after the war against any Confederate - and the 2021 NDAA was passed on that basis, Congress passed a bill of Attainder.  As such, the whole thing is Unconstitutional. The right of secession was reserved by Virginia, New York and Rhode Island before those states joined the United States Constitution. All the other states accepted the right of secession of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island thus they had it too because all states entered the Union as exact equals.

OTHER IMPORTANT COMMENTS

2. MITIGATION

Background/Importance:  As part of the regulatory review process, a property owner must look to mitigate any impacts to the environment or historic resources.  This generally relates to replacing windows on historic buildings, etc.  As noted above, in this case, the government is asking for input on mitigation even before they have identified the adverse effects to the Area of Potential Effect.  Culture is a key word as it relates to mitigation.

a)  Removal of the Reconciliation Memorial cannot be mitigated.

1.   How do you mitigate removal of a memorial to American ‘reconciliation’?  This memorial was erected as part of the reconciliation movement in America ignited by the victory in the Spanish-American war.  This memorial stands unique in world history when a conquering nation honored the dead of its vanquished.  When President Woodrow Wilson accepted the Memorial on behalf of the reunited and reconciled American people saying “nothing of this sort could have occurred in anything but a democracy…our solemn duty is to see that each one of us is in his own consciousness and in his own conduct a replica of this great reunited people”.  There is no mitigation for de-reconciliation. The military is drastically short on recruiting - how will re-opening sectional differences help that?  Over 44% of our military has traditionally been recruited in the South. The cultural impacts are unmitigatable.

2.   Removing this Monument encourages division of our nation.  Not everyone agrees with every monument in our country.  Are we going to tear down the Washington Monument next because George Washington owned slaves?  Are we going to tear down the Arlington House adjacent to the cemetery next because Robert E. Lee lived there?  This is a slippery slope - there is no acceptable ‘mitigation' for the removal of this Memorial and even discussing it sets a dangerous precedent for any American monument anywhere and just encourages division and revolutionary iconoclasm.  You can’t even discuss mitigation before you consider all the adverse affects including the cultural divide it will create - you’re putting the cart before the horse.

3.   This monument is being weaponized against America in an asymmetrical war. There is an asymmetrical war going on against America, our unity, our heritage and our culture and this monument has been weaponized against us just like the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were.  When the antisemitic Council of American Islamic Relations, with linkages to Hamas, came out for removing this Memorial, the Secretary of Defense should have considered that maybe, just maybe, he should re-look at this recommendation. But he decided first and listened later.  This is like a kangaroo court where the execution is first and the judgment later.  It is foolish to even consider mitigation before you have considered the multiple immense impacts of using our own history in the war against us, or even that there is a war going on against America.

4.   Removal is a slippery slope and sets a dangerous precedent at not only Arlington but every National Military Cemetery.  By accepting the fallacy of presentism which subjects all the monuments and memorials at Arlington to a bar that few historical sites will be able to withstand.  After all, the US Army was not integrated until 1948.  Some people are already saying that all monuments before civil rights should be removed.   Using present standards to evaluate culture history, or “presentism” fails to take into account that, at the time in which historical events occurred, those involved did not enjoy the benefit of hindsight that has informed our present views.  Will we take down the monuments to the Maine?  How about the McClellan gate?  The US Army during the Civil war under  didn’t allow black soldiers to be buried with white soldiers.    How about the Rough Riders monument?  The Sheridan Memorial. Constantly re-looking out our past through the lens of the future is suicidal.  You cannot mitigate the cultural effects that the precedent of removing this memorial sets.

5.   Removal is an attack on America’s religious heritage.  Of all the monuments and memorials in Arlington National Cemetery, Ezekiel’s memorial contains is the only memorial that includes a scripture verse (Isaiah 2:4, “and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.”).  Proverbs 22:28 commands us  “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” The impact on our nationwide cultural heritage would be irreparably harmed and is unmitigatable.

6.   Removal is an antisemitic attack on the deceased artist. This memorial is the only one sculpted by Jewish-American artist, Sir Moses Ezekiel. Despite being an ethnic minority, his artistic skill and his participation in the Civil War resulted in his award of this important project, which he designed specifically for the site to mark the graves of Southern civil war veterans. After his death, he was also buried at the base of the memorial, and the memorial became his grave marker. This is arguably the most important work of a Jewish sculptor in the world.  Americans in the early 20th century showed their acceptance of Jewish artists at that time by selecting him to design this work. This attack on not only Ezekiel’s art but also his grave site will signal that antisemitism is alive and well at America’s most important military cemetery -  Arlington National Cemetery - but would also telegraph to the world that American is now in lockstep with the radical elements in the middle east who want to see the extermination of the Jewish people. That cannot be mitigated.

7.   Removal is an attack on America’s art heritage. Of all the monuments and memorials in Arlington National Cemetery, none are of the artistic quality of the Reconciliation memorial.  The 30’ bronze  was sculpted by world-renowned Jewish-American artist, Sir Moses Ezekiel.  Ezekiel became the first non-German to win the Royal School of Art in Berlin’s prestigious art competition. Americans in the early 20th century showed  in  Despite being an ethnic minority,  his artistic skill and his participation in the Civil War resulted in his award of this important project and it became his opus work, with over 30 life figures portraying life as he saw it as a young man in the American south.  The figures portray various scenes including a young soldier receiving a minister’s blessing, a young woman tying a sash around the waist of her beloved and a scene of men marking in the ranks including a man with African features.  Nowhere in America will this quality and diversity of sculptural art exist in an American military cemetery if it is removed.  It is also the only beaux arts style memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Art Historian Catesby Leigh calls the removal “the ultimate win for cancel culture” and as such cannot be mitigated.

8.   Removal is politically motivated and the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) must consider this. Democrat US Senator Elizabeth Warren opportunistically offered the amendment to the 2021 NDAA in the aftermath of the highly politicized police-involved death of George Floyd.  Then Republican President Trump vetoed the 2021 NDAA on December 23, 2020, after the contested 2020 presidential election because it “includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military's history”. The Naming Commission finished its work and submitted it during the highly contested 2022 Congressional elections and the ensuing contest for Republican Speaker of the House.  During the Biden administration, the oversight committee for Arlington National Cemetery was suspended from the period of February 2020 until November 2022, and the ACANC was not able to conduct its oversight responsibilities, providing input to the Secretary of the Army as required by law ( 10 USC 7723).  These partisan politics and national tensions which led to the removal recommendation and Austin decision to adopt it without ensuring compliance with historical and environmental protection laws and regulations and outside of the remit of the Naming Commission must be considered as part of the EIS.

3. AREA OF POTENTIAL EFFECT (APE)

Background/Importance:  The Army’s proposed “Area of Potential Affect is limited to a circular area that is limited to the boundaries of Arlington National Cemetery, and even excludes the Arlington House itself. 

This is a huge issue because the actual Area of Potential Effect is the entire country, indeed, the entire world.

The Area of Potential Effect is too small because:

a)  This Reconciliation Memorial is a part of the culture not only of America but the world.  To say that the effect is limited to a small part of a cemetery is disingenuous.  This Memorial is eligible to be a contributing object of its own historical significance in Arlington National Cemetery, which is a National Register Historic District, which is the only National Military Cemetery with that designation.  Former Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb’s recent Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal shows how the memorial is a testament to how to re-unify a nation after a civil war.  He used it with officials in Vietnam.  If America cannot accept its own reconciliation, how can we promote it to other war torn cultures.  The APE, as proposed, is just a small area inside the cemetery. This ignores the importance of the reconciliation message that America set by example for the world after our own bloody fratricidal war.

b)  This memorial is part of the Washington Monumental Corridor Master Plan.  The Monumental Corridor was part of the “American Renaissance” and North-South linkage promoted by renowned architects McMillan and Olmstead.  They envisioned a “city beautiful” plan for Washington, DC that extended over the Potomac River into Virginia to Arlington House and the Cemetery.  The bridge was to become a symbolic link between North and South from DC to Arlington and the addition of George Washington Memorial Parkway, punctuated with monuments and memorial evidenced this American Renaissance and to demonstrate to the world American unification.  This beaux arts style memorial, is the most significant monumental artwork at Arlington is part of the American Renaissance which ignited in monumental art around the country., and as such is individually eligible for inclusion on the National Register.  The entire Monumental Corridor, the Viewshed from Mount Vernon through to the Capitol must be included in the APE as they are part of the master plan and significant in the north-south reunification and the American Renaissance. The entire viewshed of the Washington Monumental core Master Plan should be included.

c)   The Memorial Site has significance to Canada and other nations, and is eligible to be a UNSECO World Heritage Site.  One of the graves in the plot marked by the memorial is of a Canadian citizen Jerry Cronan who was killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania.  There were many more citizens of other nations who perished in service to one of the states represented on the Memorial.  These other nations need to be identified and consulted as they are being impacted as well. Because of its significance in American history, Arlington House and the Arlington National Cemetery are eligible for listing as a UNESCO World Heritage site.  I wonder why this has not been done.  But listed or not, the impact on the world and peoples of the world must be considered.

d)  The Memorial site has significance to those buried at it. There are over 500 soldiers and widows buried at the memorial.  Some were relocated there from other sections of Arlington, others from POW camps nearby before the Memorial was erected.  However, others chose to be buried there, undoubtedly because of the new Memorial.  Who is speaking for them?  How can the government determine views of the dead.  No impact study on this can ever be complete as the voices of the people who chose to be interred around the memorial cannot be heard.  We shouldn’t be messing with these peoples graves.

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel's MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

Shop Now

Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND. You can also pay with Zelle. Send to

DefendArlington@gmail.com.

Please Donate Now -- THANK YOU!

Click Here to Donate AND Share on Facebook, et al.

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

1 Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me, A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2020), 162.

2 Ibid.

3 Law Insider defines LYING as "the misrepresentation of one or more facts in order to gain a benefit or harm another person, where the actor knows or should know that the misrepresentation will be relied upon by another person." https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/lying, accessed 8-1-23. If a person lies about one thing they will lie about many things.

4 James McPherson, quoted in Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering, Death and the American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), xii.

Commanding Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Supports Arlington Confederate Memorial

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. . . during the Civil War, four slave states remained in the Union—Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky—and none of them were required to give up slavery during the entire war. And that in every major battle of the Civil War, slave owners in the Union Army fought against non-slave-owners in the Confederate Army. . . . in the eyes of a Confederate soldier, if Lincoln had not freed slaves in the Union, why should the soldier be vilified for supposedly fighting on behalf of slavery?

Jim Webb, Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2023

Commanding Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Supports Arlington Confederate Memorial
Former U.S. senator from Virginia and Navy secretary, writes an excellent piece that appeared August 19, 2023 entitled "Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington" (scroll down for a PDF)
IT IS CRUNCH TIME
We will save or lose the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in the next few weeks
Outstanding article by former Virginia senator and United States Navy secretay, Jim Webb, in the Wall Street Journal, Saturday, August 19, 2023.
Outstanding article by former Virginia senator and United States Navy secretay, Jim Webb, in the Wall Street Journal, Saturday, August 19, 2023.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Before Elizabeth Warren and her Woke naming commission can desecrate Arlington National Cemetery by demolishing the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial, they must follow the Section 106 process required by the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The public is encouraged to get involved.

This is your chance if you have been outraged at the politicization and falsification of American history in recent years by leftist academia and an ignorant news media that fewer than 20% of the public trusts.

Individuals can sign up to be apprised of everything going on, and they will be given opportunities to speak at Zoom meetings and/or post comments to NHPA and NEPA websites.

Click HERE for a PDF of the "Consulting Party Response Form for Section 106 Review Process" that will allow you to be kept informed and to be given opportunities to input your thoughts.

You can email the PDF (email address to send it to is included in the PDF) or print it and mail it.

Taking advantage of these opportunities is extremely important. The more speakers and writers we have the better. Every SCV camp and UDC chapter should have at least one person sign up and hopefully several. Newsletter editors especially should know what is going on so they can keep their members and allies informed.

We are fighting not only for the truth of American history but for the honor of Arlington National Cemetery itself.

There is no way that the Confederate Memorial, which is surrounded by 518 Southern graves in concentric circles emanating out from the magnificent monument, can be demolished without desecrating those graves forever and making them the target of hate and derision in what is supposed to be our nation's most sacred burial ground.

They would be 518 graves in concentric circles around a mangled shaft in Arlington National Cemetery.

That would dishonor each of the fifteen states represented by those graves and stain Arlington National Cemetery for all time. How can ANC be a sacred place if it dishonors and humiliates 518 soldier graves?

William McKinley, Union soldier and later president, said this about those 518 Confederate graves:

. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.

Below, is part of Jim Webb's op/ed, "Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington," published in the Wall Street Journal August 19, 2023. Click HERE for a PDF of the complete article. Following Webb's excerpt is my testimony August 11, 2023 by Zoom video before the Advisory Committee for Arlington National Cemetery.

Here is Webb's short bio from the article:

Mr. Webb was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, Navy secretary (1987-88) and a U.S. senator from Virginia (2007-13). He is the distinguished fellow at Notre Dame’s International Security Center.

Webb first notes enthusiastic Southern support for the Spanish-American War then talks about President William McKinley, who originated the idea for a Confederate reconciliation memorial in Arlington National Cemetery:

Four days after the Spanish-American war ended, McKinley proclaimed in Atlanta: “In the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of Confederate soldiers.” In that call for national unity the Confederate Memorial was born. It was designed by internationally respected sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, who asked to be buried at the memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. On one face of the memorial is the finest explanation of wartime service perhaps ever written, by a Confederate veteran who later became a Christian minister: “Not for fame or reward, not for place or for rank; not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity; but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it; these men suffered all, sacrificed all, dared all, and died.”

But now in this new world of woke, unless measures are taken very soon, by the end of this year the Confederate Memorial will be gone.

With surprising overbroadness, the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, passed in the midst of national racial and political upheaval, empowered a Naming Commission to “remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America . . . or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America from all assets of the Department of Defense.” As part of that provision, Arlington National Cemetery has been ordered by Defense Department officials to remove the memorial by the end of this year, though the order is reportedly under review.

Having spent four years as a full committee counsel in the House and six years as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I cannot imagine that the removal of this memorial, conceived and built with the sole purpose of healing the wounds of the Civil War and restoring national harmony, could be within the intent of a sweeping sentence placed inside a nearly trillion-dollar piece of legislation.

The larger and ultimate question reaches further into America’s atrophied understanding of the Civil War itself. What was it that Union Army veteran McKinley understood about the Confederate soldiers who opposed his infantry units on the battlefield that eludes today’s monument smashers and ad hominem destroyers of historical reputations?

McKinley’s fellow soldiers understood that during the Civil War, four slave states remained in the Union—Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky—and none of them were required to give up slavery during the entire war. And that in every major battle of the Civil War, slave owners in the Union Army fought against non-slave-owners in the Confederate Army. They understood that President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in those states or in the areas of the South that had already been conquered. The proclamation freed only slaves in the areas taken after it was issued. And in the eyes of a Confederate soldier, if Lincoln had not freed slaves in the union, why should the soldier be vilified for supposedly fighting on behalf of slavery?

Many soldiers in the North, and many more in the South, would have understood what John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), America’s most esteemed black historian, pointed out: In 1860 only 5% of whites in the South owned slaves, and less than 25% of whites benefited economically from slavery. An estimated 258,000 Confederate soldiers died in the war, about a third of all those who fought for the South. Few owned slaves. So why did they fight?

The soldier who wrote the inscription on the Confederate Memorial knew. And so did President McKinley and most veterans who have fought in America’s wars.

Video Testimony of Gene Kizer, Jr. to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, August 11, 2023 (emphasis was for my own use)

Good afternoon, and thank you for your service. I'm Gene Kizer, Jr. of Charleston Athenaeum Press.

When the Ranger Memorial in former Fort Benning was DESECRATED by the same legislation that threatens the 109 year old Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, Brigadier General Joseph S. Stringham (ret), chairman of the National Ranger Memorial Foundation, wrote to his Rangers and said:

The naming commission's recommendations are "WITHOUT VERIFICATION."

Implementation of dramatic / radical edicts and shifts in policy at issue here are frequently accompanied by inaccuracies, (stupid) interpretations, injustices to survivors and a strong political slant offensive to substantial sectors of society.

That is also the case with the Confederate Memorial.

The naming commission submitted a false report on the Confederate Memorial. The Confederate Memorial should not be in its remit.

The Confederate Memorial does not commemorate the Confederacy unless you think that is why Barack Obama sent his ANNUAL MEMORIAL WREATH to the Confederate Memorial.

Obama and all presidents since Teddy Roosevent were celebrating the reconciliation and reunification of the United States of America after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed.

The reconciliation theme is irrefutable and in ANC's own documents repeatedly.

Demolishing the world class Confederate Monument surrounded by 518 graves will desecrate those graves forever and DISHONOR every Southerner who has ever bled and died for our great nation. It will stain Arlington National Cemetery for all time.

The Army can't even recruit today and this will sure not help it since 44% of our military has traditionally been recruited in the South.

We are Americans. We should act like it and stop acting like the Taliban.

### END ###

There is a Section 106 Zoom meeting Wednesday, August 23, 2023 from 7 to 9 p.m. EST that you can sign up for right now, to speak or post a comment. Click HERE to sign up, then click HERE to let Defend Arlington know you have signed up so we will know our strength (the more the better!).]

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel's MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

Shop Now

Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND. You can also pay with Zelle. Send to

DefendArlington@gmail.com.

Please Donate Now -- THANK YOU!

Click Here to Donate AND Share on Facebook, et al.

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

Slavery in Fact and Fiction, Southern Slavery as It Really Was, Guest Post by Leonard M. “Mike” Scruggs

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Slavery in Fact and Fiction
Guest Post by Leonard M. "Mike" Scruggs
A Historical Perspective on American Slavery
Southern Slavery as It Really Was
FROM DESCRIPTION ON AMAZON: The view that slavery could best be described by those who had themselves experienced it personally has found expression in several thousand commentaries, autobiographies, narratives, and interviews with those who "endured." Although most of these accounts appeared before the Civil War, more than one-third are the result of the ambitious efforts of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to interview surviving ex-slaves during the 1930s. The result of these efforts was the Slave Narrative Collection, a group of autobiographical accounts of former slaves that today stands as one of the most enduring and noteworthy achievements of the WPA. Compiled in seventeen states during the years 1936-38, the collection consists of more than two thousand interviews with former slaves, most of them first-person accounts of slave life and the respondents' own reactions to bondage. The interviews afforded aged ex-slaves an unparalleled opportunity to give their personal accounts of life under the "peculiar institution," to describe in their own words what it felt like to be a slave in the United States. ―Norman R. Yetman, American Memory, Library of Congress This paperback edition of selected Mississippi narratives is reprinted in facsimile from the typewritten pages of the interviewers, just as they were originally typed.
FROM DESCRIPTION ON AMAZON: The view that slavery could best be described by those who had themselves experienced it personally has found expression in several thousand commentaries, autobiographies, narratives, and interviews with those who "endured." Although most of these accounts appeared before the Civil War, more than one-third are the result of the ambitious efforts of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to interview surviving ex-slaves during the 1930s. The result of these efforts was the Slave Narrative Collection, a group of autobiographical accounts of former slaves that today stands as one of the most enduring and noteworthy achievements of the WPA. Compiled in seventeen states during the years 1936-38, the collection consists of more than two thousand interviews with former slaves, most of them first-person accounts of slave life and the respondents' own reactions to bondage. The interviews afforded aged ex-slaves an unparalleled opportunity to give their personal accounts of life under the "peculiar institution," to describe in their own words what it felt like to be a slave in the United States. ―Norman R. Yetman, American Memory, Library of Congress This paperback edition of selected Mississippi narratives is reprinted in facsimile from the typewritten pages of the interviewers, just as they were originally typed.
Slave Narratives, Alabama.
Slave Narratives, Alabama.
Slave Narratives, Virginia.
Slave Narratives, Virginia.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Following Mike's bio and article are links to his website and to The Times Examiner where you can find his excellent columns.

Please support Defend Arlington and our efforts to save the magnificent 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, which is slated for demolition thanks to Elizabeth Warren and her naming commission and its FALSE report to Congress with respect to the Confederate Memorial.

Destroying a world class 109 year old monument to war dead that is surrounded by 518 Confederate graves in concentric circles emanating out from the monument would put a scab on Arlington National Cemetery for all time and dishonor everybody buried there.

We can not allow that.

The Confederate Memorial should not even be in the naming commission's remit. It does not commemorate the Confederacy as required by Warren's legislation for the naming commission to have any say.

It commemorates the reconciliation of North and South and the reuniting of the United States of America after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed.

Historian James McPherson wrote:

the overall mortality rate for the South exceeded that of any country in World War I and that of all but the region between the Rhine and the Volga in World War II."i

The reconciliation theme symbolized by the Confederate Memorial is irrefutable and stated clearly in numerous places by Arlington National Cemetery itself in its 2014 registration for its Historic District to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

The naming commission in its FALSE report to Congress on the Confederate Monument did not mention the reconciliation theme or any of the monument's important history though it was DEFINITELY known to them.

Elizabeth Warren's Woke naming commission, which has added to our military recruiting crisis by falsifying Southern history, left all of the following out:

The monument was the idea of Union soldier and later president, William McKinley, after enthusiastic Southern participation in the Spanish-American War, and it was approved by Congress.

McKinley said:

. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.

President William Howard Taft spoke and was warmly received at the UDC ceremony the evening the cornerstone was laid.

President Woodrow Wilson gave the dedication speech June 4, 1914.

President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first memorial wreath that started an annual tradition observed by all presidents including Barack Obama.

President Warren G. Harding sent a message of condolence to be read at the funeral of the monument's acclaimed Jewish sculptor, Moses Ezekiel, who was a VMI Confederate soldier.

Ezekiel created the Confederate Monument in the City of Rome, Italy and is buried next to his monument in Arlington National Cemetery along with two other Confederate soldiers and a Confederate sailor.

Veterans North and South, with love and enthusiasm for our reunited nation, supported the monument and spoke at its ceremonies.

A hundred page book of all the participants, speeches and history was published in 1914 by the UDC and is available on Amazon. The title is: History of the Arlington Confederate Monument, by Hilary A. Herbert, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Arlington Confederate Monument Association. It is available in hardback or softcover.

Remember, those were the days of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the famous handshakes across the wall by the old Union and Confederate veterans.

Naming commission vice chair, Ty Seidule, a leftist who hates the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, admits the reconciliation theme and wrote about it in his book, Robert E. Lee and Me, though he left that out of the naming commission's report to Congress.

I doubt if Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin would have approved demolishing a magnificent 109 year old monument to peace and reconciliation in our nation's most sacred burial ground if he had been given the complete history.

On page 162 of Robert E. Lee and Me, Seidule writes:

Of the thousands of monuments around the country to the Confederacy, the one in Arlington National Cemetery angers me the most. Every year, the commander in chief sends a wreath, ensuring the Confederate monument receives all the prestige of the U.S. government. That's why it riles me so much. . . .ii

Seidule then admits that the Confederate Memorial stands for reconciliation:

I know both political parties and white citizens in the North and South brought the country back together after the tremendous bloodletting and destruction of the Civil War. The posts named for Confederate officers during World War I also served to knit white America back together as it fought a common foe. And it worked, but we must recognize that reconciliation came at a steep and horrifying cost. African Americans paid the price with lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the loss of the franchise. The price for white reconciliation remains far too high. (Bold emphasis added.)iii

So, the naming commission and its vice chair definitely knew the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery symbolizes peace, patriotism and the reunification of the United States of America but they did not say a word about it, which makes their report, with respect to the Confederate Memorial, a LIE.iv

Esteemed British art critic and historian, Alexander Adams, writes in his "Testimony regarding Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial submitted to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery Open Session," 7-8 November, 2022:

Having viewed a large amount of public statuary from the beaux-arts era (1850-1914), it is my professional opinion that the Memorial is a serious, iconographically complex and technically accomplished piece of art. In my view, it is a handsome sculpture and an entirely appropriate funerary monument. I consider it an internationally significant piece of art of its type and era. Any nation should be proud to host such a magnanimous and dignified monument.

The inscription “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” provides a Biblical guidance to turning from war to peace. This is echoed by the personification of the South, which holds the wreath of glory and touches the plough of peaceful prosperity. The frieze below depicts the contributions of those who supported the war effort.

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Mike Scruggs is the author of two books - The Un-Civil War, Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War, Truths the Media Never Told You - and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East.

The abridged version of The Un-Civil War sold over 40,000 copies and won the prestigious D. T. Smithwick Award by the North Carolina Society of Historians, for excellence.

Mike holds a BS degree from the University of Georgia and an MBA from Stanford University. A former USAF intelligence officer and Air Commando, he is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War and holds the Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart, and Air Medal. He is a retired First Vice President for a major national financial services firm and former Chairman of the Board of a classical Christian school.

Slavery in Fact and Fiction

By Mike Scruggs
(First published in The Times Examiner, 24 July 2023)

A Historical Perspective on American Slavery

THE IMAGE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY in the minds of most people today is one of chains, bullwhips, cruelty, and arrogant human abuse. This was often true of the transportation of slaves associated with the slave trade but was largely untrue of the practice of slavery on American shores. Some inexcusable human abuses did occur under American slavery and should not be condoned, but such abuses were far less common than generally assumed.

Even Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, based principally on accounts of runaway slaves, Southern newspaper records of slave masters prosecuted by Southern state governments, and only very limited firsthand familiarity with the South, gives a more balanced picture of slavery than the common modern image.

The universal evidence of history indicates that the institution of slavery in various forms existed from the most ancient times in every recorded civilization.

Southern Slavery as It Really Was

The two richest sources on the actual conditions of slavery in the South prior to its Constitutional end are Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman’s formidable academic study entitled, Time on the Cross, published in 1974, and the Roosevelt Administration’s publication record of interviews of about 2,300 former slaves conducted from 1936 through 1938.

These systematically designed interviews were published by state in a multi-volume series usually called The Slave Narratives.  Because these two sources combined give both statistical data and thousands of eyewitness testimonies, they are a historical gold mine.

However, because they both present a historical account of Southern slavery generally contradictory to what is now fashionable or even mandatory in most academic, media, and government circles, they are now largely neglected. Although academic freedom is under attack in the U.S. and other Western countries, The Slave Narratives are presently available on the internet. More than a dozen of the state volumes are available in paperback from Amazon.

Despite the South’s largely agricultural economy, only about 26 percent of Southern families actually owned slaves.

Many people, including even prominent slave owners, saw slavery as extremely dangerous and inconsistent with their concept of liberty. Among these were Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Robert E. Lee, and John Randolph. Probably, a majority of Southerners would gladly have phased out slavery, but no one, North or South [including Abraham Lincoln before the war as he stated] could see how it could be done without causing extreme economic hardship on the country and harming the U.S. export trade.

According to Fogel and Engerman, the material conditions of Southern black slaves compared favorably to Northern industrial whites. Their caloric intake, for example, was ten percent greater than free whites.

The vitamin content of the slave diet far exceeded that of whites and the recommended daily levels established in 1964. The protein content was 110 percent greater and the iron content 230 percent greater than the minimum daily requirement.

According to testimonies in The Slave Narratives, it is very evident that slaves enjoyed abundant, varied, and much appreciated food. The reason the nutrient value of the slave diet exceeded that of whites so much was that the whites ate white potatoes, while the slaves enjoyed the much more nutritious sweet potatoes.  Most slave families were also allowed their own small gardens, most frequently planted with sweet potatoes.

While most slaves were field hands or household servants, there were significant numbers in other occupations.

Seven percent of slaves, almost all of them males, were essentially part of the plantation management staff. Such positions were foremen (or drivers), overseers, and even general managers. In fact, most field foremen were black slaves.

Another twelve percent were skilled craftsmen such as carpenters and blacksmiths. About seven percent were semi-skilled, which included teamsters and many household servants.

Housing standards for Southern slaves in 1860 compared favorably to free whites. There were 5.3 persons per white household and 5.2 persons per slave household.

Only rarely was there more than one family per slave cabin. Most slave cabins were about 360 square feet of ground space plus sleeping lofts for children and some porch space. This exceeded the average living space of New York City households in 1892 [27 years after the War Between the States].

Medical care for the average Southern slave was considerably better than for the white Northern factory worker. Most larger plantations maintained a substantial hospital. These were usually visited by the same doctor that treated the plantation owners and white employees. The largest plantations had full-time doctors.

The hospitals were usually staffed with one or more full-time slaves acting as nurses and midwives. They were typically elderly slaves who could no longer perform physical labor. Other slave-women specialized in caring for the children on the plantation.

The average slave lifespan was only 36 in 1850, comparable to Northern industrial workers and whites in France, Italy, and the Netherlands, but four years less than the average of all American whites.

The maternal death rate of slaves in childbearing was 167 per thousand births. While this is very high by modern standards, it was slightly less for slaves than whites.

The infant mortality rate for slaves was 183 per thousand, about three percent higher than white Southerners.

The slave suicide rate was only one in ten thousand per year, only one third that of whites.

The standard issue of slave clothing was quite adequate. The clothing was not fashionable, but very sturdy.  Slaves were generally issued two pairs of shoes per year,  made of high quality leather.

Contrary to popular belief, slave owners generally relied on motivational incentives rather than the whip to increase the work efficiency of slaves. Some typical incentives were cash payments, time off, team bonuses, and the opportunity to make money selling produce from their own gardens and small plots of land.

Many plantations worked on a task system. A slave was assigned tasks that could be easily accomplished in a day. They usually finished these tasks ahead of schedule and used the time to rest, visit, or work on their own accounts. Some were allowed to work off the plantation to earn additional money.

Another astonishing statistic derived from Fogel and Engerman’s data is that when the cost of food, housing, clothes, and healthcare, plus various kinds of cash incentive pay are added, the total compensation of the average slave was fifteen percent higher than the pay of comparable free agricultural workers in the South.

Fogel and Engerman also estimate that the owner share of slave production after expenses was only about 14 percent. Today almost all workers pay more than 14 percent of their income in various payroll taxes.

Slave maintenance costs were from cradle to grave. It took slightly more than 21 years from birth to breakeven. Slave labor could not therefore be said to be irresistibly profitable.

Slavery was probably a doomed economic system that could not have lasted another generation. Slavery was not the cause of the War and would have ended without the War, just as it did in all other countries.

Also contrary to popular opinion, the slave family was usually kept together and had strong patriarchal rather than matriarchal features. They had de facto ownership of homes and gardens and were allowed to keep incentive and other entrepreneurial earnings for themselves.

The unit of plantation distribution was the family. Marriage ceremonies were often performed, although many were de facto.

One moral defect of the slave system was that slave families could be broken up. On average, only one slave in 22 was sold in a year, but the cumulative effect could be destabilizing. At least a third of these were estate sale disbursements.  Most family separations occurred because of westward migration.

Roughly 80 percent of the Slave Narrative interviews indicate former slaves had a favorable opinion of their masters, many of them remarkable in their affection and praise.

About 5 percent demonstrate an unfavorable memory, some of them shameful.

Perhaps the most remarkable impression given by The Slave Narratives is the prevalence of Christian faith and affectionate bonds between master and slave in the South.

Those who have been led to see the relationship of master and slave in the South as one of cruel tyranny by masters and suppressed resentment on the part of slaves may be stunned to read so many interviews that demonstrate common respect and affection instead.

These positive and affectionate recollections are so numerous that they make a strong and immediate impression.  You may read some of these in my book, The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths, 2011.

i James McPherson, quoted in Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering, Death and the American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), xii.

ii Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me, A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2020), 162.

iii Ibid.

iv Law Insider defines LYING as "the misrepresentation of one or more facts in order to gain a benefit or harm another person, where the actor knows or should know that the misrepresentation will be relied upon by another person." https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/lying, accessed 8-1-23. If a person lies about one thing they will lie about many things.

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Link to The Times Examiner website: www.timesexaminer.com

Link to Mike Scruggs's columns at The Times Examiner: https://www.timesexaminer.com/mike-scruggs

Link to Mike's book website:

https://www.universalmediainc.org/books/. His books are also available on Amazon and other places.

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel's MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

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Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

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Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

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