Defend Arlington v. Austin, et al 23-CV-441, ENTIRE COMPLAINT; A lawsuit to stop the destruction of the 109 year old Confederate “Reconciliation Memorial” in Arlington National Cemetery

Posted on February 22, 2023February 23, 2023 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | 8 Comments

Defend Arlington v. Austin, et al 23-CV-441

A lawsuit to stop the destruction of the 109 year old Confederate "Reconciliation Memorial" in Arlington National Cemetery

Scroll down to read the entire 25 page complaint

Congress should defund the "legally flawed" recommendations of the Woke naming commission

Those recommendations will cost taxpayers $100 million dollars and tear at the fabric of our country

You can already see it with the military recruiting crisis

Woke Ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery

Scroll down past the lawsuit for several important links and to donate

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.

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.

Case 1:23-cv-00441 Document 1 Filed 02/16/23 Page 1 of 25

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

DEFEND ARLINGTON,

C/O SAVE SOUTHERN HERITAGE FLORIDA,

6720 East Fowler Ave # 1861

Tampa, FL 33617

AND

SAVE SOUTHERN HERITAGE FLORIDA,

6720 East Fowler Ave # 1861

Tampa, FL 33617

AND

FRIENDS OF JUDAH P. BENJAMIN CAMP

OF THE SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS,

Cmdr. David McCallister PO Box 7343

Wesley Chapel, FL 33545

AND

HAROLD K. EDGERTON,

71 Buffalo Street

Ashville, NC 28806

AND

EDWIN L. KENNEDY, JR.,

148 Golden Harvest Drive

New Market, AL 35761

AND

RICHARD A. MOOMAW,

69 Old Kiln Lane

Mt. Jackson, VA 22842

AND

TERESA E. ROANE,

7302 Boulder Lake Drive, Apt 1104

North Chesterfield, VA 23225

Plaintiffs,

CIVIL ACTION NO. 23-CV-441

COMPLAINT

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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE,

1000 Defense Pentagon

Washington, D.C. 20301-1000

AND

LLOYD AUSTIN, in his official capacity as Secretary of Defense of the United States, Department of Defense

1000 Defense Pentagon

Washington, D.C. 20301-1000

AND

WILLIAM LAPLANTE, in his official capacity as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment,

3010 Defense Pentagon

Washington, D.C. 20301-3010

AND

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY,

101 Army Pentagon

Washington, D.C. 20310-0101

AND

CHRISTINE WORMUTH, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Army,

101 Army Pentagon

Washington, D.C. 20310-0101

Defendants.

COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

Plaintiffs, for their claims against the Defendants assert and allege as follows:

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I. NATURE OF THE ACTION

1. Plaintiffs bring this action pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 551 et seq., the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq., the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), 54 U.S.C. § 300101 et seq., and the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (FACA), Public Law 92-463 § 1 et seq. for review of a final agency action taken by Defendant, the United States Department of Defense, et al. (“DOD”) that directed implementation of recommendations of the Naming Commission.¹ This action, taken on January 5, 2023, directs the immediate removal of the Confederate Memorial (“Memorial”) from Arlington National Cemetery (“ANC”).² The Memorial was originally named “New South” by its creator, Moses Ezekiel, and is viewed as a tribute to the spirit of reconciliation and healing it represents. The Memorial is oftentimes referred to as the “Reconciliation Memorial.”

2. Plaintiffs challenge the DOD’s action because it failed to comply with Congressional mandates pursuant to the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) § 370, requiring consideration of local sensitivities and exempting grave markers from the Commission’s responsibility. The DOD’s directive to immediately implement the removal of the Memorial, at great expense, without consideration of local sensitivities and whether the

¹ The Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense (“Naming Commission”) was established by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 for the purpose of renaming or removing the names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America or those that voluntarily served.

² See U.S. Dept. of Defense, DOD Begins Implementation of Naming Commission Recommendations (January 5, 2023) (https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3259966/dod-begins-implementation- of-naming-commission-recommendations/); Secretary of Defense, Memorandum For Senior Pentagon Leadership Defense Agency and DOD Field Activity Directors (Oct. 6, 2022), (https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/06/2003092544/-1/-1/1/IMPLEMENTATION-OF-THE- NAMING-COMMISSIONS-RECOMMENDATIONS.PDF).

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Memorial became the grave marker for the Memorial’s creator and three other soldiers upon their internment at ANC, goes beyond the DOD’s authority under NDAA § 370 and violates APA § 706 because its issuance is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of the DOD’s discretion; it exceeds the DOD’s statutory authority and is otherwise not in accordance with law.

3. Plaintiffs seek an order declaring that the DOD has no authority under the NDAA to require implementation of the Naming Commission’s recommendation to remove the Memorial in ANC; declaring that the DOD’s directive is invalid; and enjoining the DOD from implementing or enforcing the Naming Commission’s recommendation.

II. PARTIES

4. Plaintiff Defend Arlington is an unincorporated association of individuals and groups that include those named individual Plaintiffs, dedicated to the preservation of Southern- American heritage and Confederate and Jewish Veterans.

5. Independent of this lawsuit, Defend Arlington has expended significant resources developing and preparing educational materials, articles, White Papers, speaking and attending conferences in furtherance of increasing understanding of the civil war, southern heritage, and artistic and historic significance of the Reconciliation Memorial. The removal of the Memorial frustrates the sole mission of Defend Arlington’s organization by redirecting resources that would be used for educational materials and advocacy associated with their respective groups to confront the imminent threat of destruction of a significant part of American and Southern history in ANC.

6. At the direction of its associates, Plaintiff Defend Arlington’s organizational resources have been diverted and diminished to combat this agency action due to irreversible damage that would result.

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7. Plaintiff Defend Arlington, through its associates, participated in the November 7- 8, 2022 Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery (FACANC) meeting but all were denied permission to address the Committee during the public comment period.

8. Plaintiff Save Southern Heritage Florida (SSHF) is an unincorporated association of individuals whose purpose is to preserve the history of the South for future generations. SSHF focuses efforts on the State of Florida.

9. SSHF has a particular interest in the ANC as the State of Florida is recognized on the Memorial through its coat of arms on the Memorial itself and in that three Floridians are buried in the Florida section in the concentric circles surrounding the Cenotaph.

10. SSHF has diverted volunteer and financial resources away from its intrastate focus to address the imminent threat to Florida’s Southern history and heritage at ANC.

11. Plaintiff Friends of the Judah P. Benjamin Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is an unincorporated association of members of the Judah P. Benjamin Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans established to assist the Camp in its mission.

12. The Judah P. Benjamin Camp was formed as a subdivision of the Sons of Confederate Veterans whose mission is to defend the good name of the Confederate Veteran and preserve their history into future generations. The Camp’s particular mission is to recognize the diversity of the Confederate States of America and did so initially by adopting as its namesake Jewish Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin. The Camp has an interest in and diverted resources to the efforts to preserve the Reconciliation Memorial at ANC not only because of its historical significance in American history and the history of the Confederate Veteran, but also because the artist was himself, Jewish, like the Camp’s namesake, and represents not only its sculptor, but also in the diverse images on the Memorial, the ethnic and geographic diversity of

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the South.

13. Plaintiff Harold K. Edgerton is an individual residing in North Carolina. Plaintiff Edgerton is a Confederate Southern American of African ancestry. As an active and vocal defender of Southern culture and history and the honor of the Confederate soldier both black and white, Plaintiff Edgerton is often invited to speak on these issues in front of the Memorial, including the upcoming June 4 memorial service at ANC. He identifies with the African- American images on the Memorial and believes that its removal erases his black family’s participation in the Confederate struggle for independence from America’s most prominent military history museum.

14. Plaintiff Richard A. Moomaw is an individual residing in Virginia. Plaintiff Moomaw has ancestors buried in Section 16 of the ANC. Plaintiff Moomaw travels to Arlington with his family to honor those familial descendants that honorably served in our military. The Memorial represents the reunification of the North and South and the commemoration of all fallen military. Removal of the Reconciliation Memorial, as it is commonly known by, attributes a stigma of dishonor and disgrace to those soldiers, including Plaintiff’s descendants causing grave harm.

15. In addition, Plaintiff Moomaw (and the other Plaintiffs) will be harmed by agency action challenged herein because the deconstruction and removal of the Memorial, through the use of heavy equipment, jackhammers, digging, sawing, and throngs of workers tramping through the area may cause damage to existing headstones and graves and the serene surrounds of Section 16.

16. Plaintiff Edwin L. Kennedy, Jr. is an individual residing in Alabama. Plaintiff Kennedy has ancestors buried in unknown graves across the South and believes that the

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Memorial commemorates and marks the graves of his ancestors, in a manner similar to the Tomb of the Unknown Solder. Removal of the Memorial will cause him grave harm.

17. Plaintiff Teresa E. Roane is an individual residing in Virginia. Plaintiff Roane is a past Archivist for the Museum of the Confederacy and has given speeches in front of the Memorial. Plaintiff Roane has been invited to speak at the Memorial on June 4, 2023. Removal will negatively impact Plaintiff Roane’s economic opportunities associated with historic and civil war tour guide opportunities.

18. The harm and injuries to Plaintiffs outlined herein will be redressed by this Court’s order granting the injunctive relief demanded, enjoining the Defendants from further action and declaring that the Defendants have no authority to remove or cause the removal of the Memorial.

19. Defendant Lloyd Austin is the United States Secretary of Defense. Defendant Lloyd Austin is sued in his official capacity as the Secretary of Defense. In that capacity, Lloyd Austin is responsible for the entire United States Department of Defense, including the United States Army. Upon information and belief, Defendant Austin performs a significant amount of his official duties within this judicial district at 1000 Defense Pentagon Washington, D.C. 20301- 1000.

20. Defendant William LaPlante is the United States Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. In that capacity, William LaPlante, issued the January 5, 2023 directive to begin full implementation of the Naming Commission recommendations. Upon information and belief, Defendant LaPlante performs a significant amount of his official duties within this judicial district at 3010 Defense Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 20301-3010.

21. Defendant Christie Wormuth is the Secretary of the Army. In that capacity,

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Christie Wormuth is responsible for the entire United States Army. Upon information and belief, Defendant Wormuth performs a significant amount of her official duties within this judicial district at 101 Army Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 20310-0101.

^22.Defendant United States Army is a branch of the Department of Defense. The Army has jurisdiction over ANC.³

III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

23. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 because this case raises federal questions under the APA. 5 U.S.C. § 551 et seq.

24. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201-2202 and Fed. R. Civ. P. 57 authorize the declaratory relief requested. Injunctive relief is authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 2202.

25. Judicial review of this final agency action is authorized by §§ 10(a), 10(c), and 10(e) of the APA, 5 U.S.C. §§ 702, 704, and 706.

26. Venue in this Court is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e)(1) as the Defendants reside in this judicial district. Venue is also proper under 5 U.S.C. § 703 because this is a Court of competent jurisdiction.

IV. INTRODUCTION

27. This is an action to prevent the Defendants from violating Congressional mandates and their obligations under the APA, NEPA, NHPA, and FACA by way of their illegal, arbitrary and capricious decision to tear down and remove, and thereby desecrate, damage, and likely destroy the Memorial longstanding at ANC as a grave marker and symbol of reconciliation.

³ See About Arlington National Cemetery (https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/about (last visited Feb. 13, 2023).

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28. The Memorial, and the surrounding grounds on which it stands, is a priceless monument, accepted by President Wilson on behalf of the American People with extraordinary significance to American history and cultural heritage. Erected in the early 1900s during the post-reconstruction era, it represents a symbol of reconciliation aimed at healing a country divided during a brutal sectional war and reconstruction. Nearly every U.S. president in the modern era, including Barrack Obama, has laid a wreath of flowers at the Memorial as a tribute to the spirit of reconciliation and healing it represents.

29. The Memorial stands watch over a specially designated area of ANC (Section 16) holding the reinterred remains of approximately 500 confederate soldiers and widows. The Memorial, itself, is a grave marker and at its base are the interred remains of the Jewish veteran artist who designed the statue and three confederate soldiers.

^30.The Commission recommended in Part III of its Final Report to Congress in September 2022 that the Department of Defense tear down and relocate the Memorial using the most cost-effective method available.⁴ On October 6, 2022, Defendant Secretary of Defense Austin approved and adopted the Naming Commission’s recommendations and directed the use of existing resources to implement all recommendations. On January 5, 2023, Defendant Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment LaPlante directed all Department of Defense organizations to use existing military resources to begin full implementation of the Naming Commission’s recommendations, to include tearing down and removal of the Memorial.⁵

⁴ See The Naming Commission, Final Report to Congress Part III: Remaining Department of Defense Assets, p. 15 (September 2022) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/17hGFylLlQU52W8JHXXqMo3eEDsf781Ra/view)

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31. Defendants’ actions are Final Agency Actions. There is no further agency action, opportunity for public comment, discussion, or debate on the issue of whether the Memorial will be torn down and removed. That administrative die has been cast. The only public comment that may be solicited by the Army will focus on disposition the monument after removal.

32. 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.

33. Defendants have violated and continue to violate this statute through their actions which will tear down, remove, and desecrate a historical grave marker and the sacred graves that it overlooks.

34. That is not the only illegal action condoned and undertaken by the Defendants. In drafting and adopting the Naming Commission’s report and recommendations to tear down the Memorial, they did not follow Congressional mandates and directives to seek and incorporate local sensitivities to renaming and removal recommendations.

35. In addition, Defendants violated NEPA by failing to consider the environmental impacts and alternatives associated with removing such an immense, historic structure within the beautiful and sacred grounds of the Nation’s military cemetery.

36. Defendants also violated the NHPA by failing to consider the impacts on historic and cultural resources, particularly the fact that the Memorial itself is significant in our Nation’s history and a contributing element in the Arlington National Cemetery Historic District. Defendants also violated the NHPA by failing to provide the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation an opportunity to comment on the removal directive.

37. Defendant Department of the Army also violated FACA by foreclosing

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preparation of an advisory report by the Arlington National Cemetery Advisory Council (“ANCAC”) by instructing that the decision on removal had already been made and that there was no need for an advisory report from the ANCAC.

38. In addition, Defendants violated FACA by refusing to allow interested, registered members of the public, including associates of Defend Arlington, Plaintiffs Edgerton, Kennedy, Siegel, Friends of the Judah P. Benjamin Camp and members of SSHF, to address the ANCAC about the Naming Commission’s recommendations and to appeal for the Committee to perform its duty in making an Advisory Opinion to the Secretary of the Army, and thus preventing these comments from being included in the ANCAC meeting record.

39. As set forth below, the Defendants’ actions are illegal, arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the APA and the underlying statutes. Accordingly, this Court should immediately enjoin the Defendants from taking any further actions to tear down or move the Memorial, or take any other action that will irreparably damage the Memorial and the sacred graves that it marks and oversees.

V. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A. History of The Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery

40. Arlington National Cemetery, the Nation’s military cemetery, is on the National Register of Historic Places⁶ and 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

⁶ 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.)

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women of the United States Armed Forces in the name of our country.⁷

41. 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, 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.

42. Section 16 of ANC contains an area that has been specially set aside and designated by Congress to reinter the remains of approximately 260 confederate soldiers who died in prisoner of war camps and in hospitals and battlefields near Arlington. 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. The Memorial is itself a grave marker holding the remains of four persons.⁸ Section 16 is now the site of nearly 500 interments.

^43.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.⁹

^44.In 1900, Congress authorized the re-internment of all Confederate soldier remains at ANC, and acted to reinter 262 confederate soldiers.¹⁰

⁷ See Nat’l Park Service, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington (https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/virginia/arlington_national_cemetery.html).

⁸ See Arlington National Cemetery, Confederate Memorial, Section 16 (https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explore/Monuments-and-Memorials/Confederate- Memorial).

⁹ Id.

¹⁰ Id.

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B. The Memorial is a Grave Marker for Moses Ezekiel and Three Other Soldiers

45. 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.

46. Ezekiel originally named the Memorial the New South Memorial. It is also commonly referred to as the Reconciliation Memorial.

47. Ezekiel was buried at the base of his creation in 1921.¹¹ 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.

48. Three other Confederate soldiers lie inches from the base of the Memorial are: Lt. Harry C. Marmaduke, Capt. John M. Hickey and Brig. Gen. Marcus J. Wright.

49. The graves of the approximately 500 southern service personnel and their spouses are arranged in concentric circles around the Memorial and the four graves.

C. The Memorial has Great Historical Significance

50. As the ANC website states, “The history of the Confederate Memorial embodies the complex and contested legacy of the Civil War at Arlington National Cemetery, and in American culture generally.”

51. As the ANC further explained:

The Confederate Memorial offers an opportunity for visitors to reflect on the history and meanings of the Civil War, slavery, and the relationship between military service, citizenship and race in America. This memorial, along with the segregated United States Colored Troops graves in Section 27, invites us to understand how politics and culture have historically shaped how Americans have buried and commemorated the dead. Memorialization at a national cemetery

¹¹ Id.

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became an important marker of citizenship — which, in the post-Reconstruction era, was granted to white Civil War veterans, Confederate or Union, but not to African American soldiers who had served their country. In such ways, the history of Arlington National Cemetery allows us to better understand the complex history of the United States.¹²

52. Traditionally, most Presidents from Wilson onwards have laid a wreath of flowers at the Memorial on Veterans’ Day, carrying forward the tradition of reconciliation represented by Section 16 and the Memorial.

53. As outlined further below, there is great civic opposition, among constituents of varying backgrounds, races, social and political affiliations, for any removal or destruction of the Memorial based on these and other historical justifications.

D. Important Public Input was Not Heard

54. Associates of Plaintiffs SSHF and Defend Arlington were prepared to present such comments to the Defendant’s FACANC chartered under the FACA,¹³ but were denied the opportunity.

55. More than 320 written comments opposing removal were submitted.

56. Among the written comments were those submitted by Plaintiff’s associates.

57. Plaintiff’s associates also registered to provide verbal comment at the November 7-8 FACANC meeting, but were denied this opportunity in violation of DOD’s regulations at 41 C.F.R. 102-3.140(d) that provide “any member of the public may speak, if an agency’s guidelines so permit.”

58. Defendants foreclosed such opportunities by refusing to allow Plaintiff SSHF and

¹² Id.

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).

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Defend Arlington and their associates to address the ANCFAC in violation of Defendants’ regulations implementing the FACA.¹⁴

59. Defendants also opted not to hear from its own advisory committee, responding to FACANC members’ concerns by asserting that the decision to remove the Memorial had already been made and that there was no opportunity for FACANC’s input.

60. Defendants further prohibited public comments by violating Congressional mandates to seek local sensitivities with renaming or removal under the NDAA, and for failing to comply with public comment requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) and the National Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”).

E. Defendants Exceeded Their Authority Under the NDAA

61. NDAA § 370 authorized the Department of Defense (“DOD”) to establish a Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense for the purpose of removing and renaming DOD assets that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who voluntarily served with the Confederacy. § 370(b).

62. NDAA § 370(g)(4) requires the Naming Commission to include its methods of collecting and incorporating local sensitivities associated with the removal or renaming of DOD assets in its briefing and written report to the Committees on Armed Services.

63. NDAA § 370(j) explicitly exempts grave markers from the Naming Commission’s consideration for renaming or removal.

64. NDAA § 370(j) requires the Naming Commission to define what constitutes a

¹⁴ See Charter, Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, at 6 (https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Portals/0/Docs/ACANC/2022-2024-ACANC-Charter- Renewal-Final.pdf (last visited February 14, 2023) (The Department of Defense (DoD), through the Department of the Army “ensures compliance with the requirements of the FACA, the Government in the Sunshine Act of 1976 (5 U.S.C. § 552b) governing Federal statutes and regulations, and DoD policies and procedures.”)

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grave marker.

^65.On August 8, 2022, the Naming Commission submitted its Final Report to Congress, Part I, which detailed its efforts to collect and incorporate local sensitivities regarding only the renaming of DOD assets.¹⁵

66. The Naming Commission’s efforts did not include collecting or incorporating local sensitivities regarding the removal of DOD assets.

67. On September 19, 2022, the Naming Commission submitted its Final Report to Congress, Part III, containing further recommendations which included the recommendation to remove the Memorial.

68. The Naming Commission’s Final Report to Congress, Part III, did not include any evidence that the Commission made any effort to collect and incorporate local sensitivities regarding its recommendation to remove the Memorial in Section 16 of ANC.

69. 38 U.S.C. § 2306 defines “grave markers” as headstones, markers, and burial receptacles.

70. In the Naming Commission’s Final Report to Congress, it defined ‘grave markers’ as “[m]arkers 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.”

71. The Final Report recognized that “Confederate-named grave markers located on any Department of Defense installation are not in the Naming Commission’s remit and are exempt.”

¹⁵ See The Naming Commission, Final Report to Congress Part I: United States Army Bases, p. 9-10 (2022).

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72. On October 6, 2022, Secretary Austin approved the Naming Commission’s recommendations directing the use of existing resources to implement them.

73. On January 5, 2023, Under Secretary LaPlante directed the DOD organizations to begin full implementation, using existing resources, of the Naming Commission’s recommendations.

74. In a February 9, 2023 email, a representative of the Defendants confirmed that the January 5, 2023 directive is a final agency action. There is no more opportunity left for public debate or comment on this issue, and the Army is preparing to tear down and remove the memorial forthwith: “[The Secretary of Defense] has accepted the findings of the Commission and as such directed the Army to remove the monument so all public comment being solicited by the Army will be focused on disposition the monument after removal.”

75. The Department of the Army has jurisdiction over the ANC and is responsible for implementing the Naming Commission’s recommendations. Defendants have no authority to order removal of the Memorial without first seeking local sensitivities, and even then, the Memorial is a grave marker and Congress provided no authority to remove it.

76. Defendants acted arbitrarily and capriciously when failing to consider the environmental impacts, impacts on historic and cultural resources and foreclosing public comment prior to ordering removal.

F. Defendants Violated Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)

77. The Secretary of Defense, pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 7723 and in accordance with FACA, established the FACANC to provide independent advice and recommendations on matters relating to ANC, including the erection of memorials in ANC.

78. The Department of Defense, through the Department of the Army, ensures compliance with the requirements of the FACA and governing regulations.

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79. Defendants acted arbitrarily and capriciously when on November 8, 2022, after FACANC 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 FACANC’s input to the Secretary.

80. Defendants acted in violation of its FACA regulations when on November 8, 2022 Department of the Army legal counsel failed to ensure compliance with FACA when the FACANC denied members of the public an opportunity to address the FACANC to express opposition to removal.

G. Defendants Violated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

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

82. Moreover, 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).

83. Defendants’ actions constitute a major Federal action because their adoption of the Naming Committee’s plan is entirely financed, conducted, regulated, and approved by federal agencies. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.1(q)(2).

84. Defendants’ actions will significantly affect Section 16 and ANC, an historic district listed on the National Register.

85. Defendants have neither evaluated the environmental consequences of implementation of the Commission’s recommendation to remove the Memorial from ANC, nor have they considered any alternatives to the proposed action as required by NEPA.

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86. As such, Defendants have violated NEPA §102 by failing to consider environmental impacts of the removal recommendation prior to Final Agency Action.

87. By failing to consider alternatives to the recommendation to remove, Defendants have not used all practicable means to preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage as required by 42 U.S.C. § 4331(b)(4).

H. Defendants Violated National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA)

88. NHPA § 106 requires Federal agencies with jurisdiction over Federal undertakings, prior to the approval of the expenditure of any Federal funds, shall take into account 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.

89. Defendants’ decision and directive to implement the Commission’s removal recommendation is a Federal undertaking. 36 CFR 800.16(y).

90. Any site that is included in the National Register is considered historic property. 54 U.S.C. § 300308.

91. The Arlington National Cemetery is listed on April 11, 2014 on the National Register of Historic Places.

92. 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.

93. The Memorial is listed as a contributing resource to the historic significance of ANC.

94. Defendants failed to comply with NHPA § 106 because they have failed to consider the adverse effects that removal of the Memorial will have on the integrity and

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significance of the Arlington National Cemetery as our nation’s military cemetery.

VI. CLAIMS

COUNT I

Violation of The Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)

95. Plaintiffs hereby incorporate by reference the allegations set forth in the paragraphs above, as if fully set forth herein.

96. Plaintiffs will be aggrieved by Defendants’ action and, as such, are entitled to judicial review. 5 U.S.C. § 702.

97. Defendants’ actions are subject to judicial review as a final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy. 5 U.S.C. § 704.

98. Defendants’ approval and directive to implement the Commission’s recommendations is a final agency action because it consummates the DOD’s decision-making process in regard to the renaming and removal of DOD assets and imposes an obligation upon DOD organizations to use existing funds to implement the Commission’s recommendations.

99. Defendants’ actions are not subject to further agency review, making it a final agency action.

100. Under the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), this Court is required to hold unlawful and set aside a final agency action that is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence, or otherwise not in accordance with law.

101. The Defendants’ approval and directive to implement the Commission’s recommendations was arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with law.

102. Defendants’ actions are arbitrary and capricious as they are not in accordance with NDAA §§ 370(g) and (j) because they (i) failed to incorporate local sensitivities; (ii) and

Case 1:23-cv-00441 Document 1 Filed 02/16/23 Page 21 of 25

approved the removal of a grave marker which is explicitly excluded from removal.

103. Defendants’ actions are arbitrary and capricious because they have entirely failed to consider (1) the environmental impacts and alternative actions, including no action, as required by NEPA § 102; and (2) the impact that removal will have on historic and cultural resources as required by NHPA § 106.

104. Moreover, Defendant’s actions are arbitrary and capricious because they denied the opportunity to receive independent advice and recommendations from a FACANC and denied interested parties an opportunity to address the FACANC in violation of FACA regulations.

105. This Court must set aside Defendants’ actions under APA, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).

COUNT II

Violation of The Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(C)

106. Plaintiffs hereby incorporate by reference the allegations set forth in the paragraphs above, as if fully set forth herein.

107. Under the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(C), this Court is required to hold unlawful and set aside a final agency action found to be in excess of statutory jurisdiction authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right.

108. The Defendants’ exceeded their authority under NDAA § 370 when they approved and directed implementation of the Commission’s legally flawed recommendations.

109. The authority granted to Defendants by NDAA § 370 expressly required the consideration of local sensitivities when recommending removal of DOD assets, § 370(g).

110. The Commission did not consider local sensitivities associated with its recommendation to remove the Memorial.

Case 1:23-cv-00441 Document 1 Filed 02/16/23 Page 22 of 25

111. The authority granted to Defendants by NDAA § 370 expressly exempted grave markers from the scope of those DOD assets, § 370(j).

112. The Memorial marks the graves of Confederate soldiers interred in Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery.

113. The Memorial is the grave marker and headstone for Moses Ezekiel, the Jewish Confederate soldier and artist, as well as three other confederate soldiers.

114. The Commission failed to comply with the express requirement of subsections (g) or (j) when making its recommendations.

115. Thus, Defendants’ approval and directive to implement these flawed recommendations exceeded its authority.

116. Moreover, Defendants exceeded the limitations imposed on federal agencies by

(1) NEPA § 102 which required them to evaluate the environmental consequences and alternatives to the removal of the Memorial; and (2) NHPA § 106 which required consideration of the impact that removal will have on historic and cultural resources.

117. This Court must set aside Defendants’ actions under APA, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(C).

COUNT III

Violation of The National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321, et seq.

118. Plaintiffs hereby incorporate by reference the allegations set forth in the paragraphs above, as if fully set forth herein.

119. Defendants’ actions constitute a major Federal action because their adoption of the Naming Committee’s plan is entirely financed, conducted, regulated, and approved by federal agencies. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.1(q)(2).

120. Defendants’ actions will significantly affect Section 16 and ANC, an historic

Case 1:23-cv-00441 Document 1 Filed 02/16/23 Page 23 of 25

district listed on the National Register.

121. Defendants have neither evaluated the environmental consequences of implementation of the Commission’s recommendation to remove the Memorial from ANC, nor have they considered any alternatives to the proposed action as required by NEPA.

122. As such, Defendants have violated NEPA § 102 by failing to consider environmental impacts of the removal recommendation prior to Final Agency Action.

123. By failing to consider alternatives to the recommendation to remove, Defendants have not used all practicable means to preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage as required by 42 U.S.C. § 4331(b)(4).

COUNT IV

Violation of The National Historic Preservation Act, 54 U.S.C. § 300101, et seq.

124. Plaintiff hereby incorporates by reference the allegations set forth in the paragraphs above, as if fully set forth herein.

125. Defendants’ decision and directive to implement the removal recommendation is a Federal undertaking. 36 CFR 800.16(y).

126. Any site that is included in the National Register is considered a historic property. 54 U.S.C. § 300308.

127. The Arlington National Cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Arlington National Cemetery Historic District (“ANCHD”) as of April 11, 2014.

128. “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.”

129. The Memorial is listed as a contributing resource of the historic nature of

Case 1:23-cv-00441 Document 1 Filed 02/16/23 Page 24 of 25

ANCHD.

130. Defendants failed to comply with NHPA § 106 because they have failed to consider the adverse effects that removal of the Memorial will have on the integrity and significance of the Arlington National Cemetery as our nation’s military cemetery prior to Final Agency Action.

131. Defendants failed to comply with NHPA § 106 because they failed to consult with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in violation of the NHPA prior to Final Administrative Action. 54 U.S.C. § 306108.

REQUESTED RELIEF

Defendants Actions are Arbitrary and Capricious, Contrary to Law, and/or in Excess of Statutory Jurisdiction or Authority

Plaintiff incorporates by reference, as if fully set forth here, each and every allegation set forth in the above paragraphs:

Defendants acted contrary to law and exceeded its statutory jurisdiction in ordering removal of the Confederate Memorial, by:

a. unlawfully disregarding Congressional direction to seek local sensitivities.

b. unlawfully directing removal of a grave marker, an area where it has no jurisdiction; and

c. acting in violation of NEPA, NHPA and FACA.

For these and other reasons, Defendants actions are not in accordance with law or are in excess of the DOD’s statutory jurisdiction or authority in violation of the APA § 706.

Case 1:23-cv-00441 Document 1 Filed 02/16/23 Page 25 of 25

Complaint Page 25--Prayer for Relief--NO DATE AT TOP

Links to Important Resources

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 Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND

Please Donate Money -- THANK YOU!

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 on the naming commission. 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

Take action TODAY!

Federal lawsuit filed to block demolition of 109 year old Confederate “Reconciliation Memorial” in Arlington National Cemetery

Posted on February 18, 2023February 18, 2023 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | 3 Comments

Federal lawsuit filed to block demolition of 109 year old Confederate "Reconciliation Memorial" in Arlington National Cemetery

Additional suit to follow

Numerous alleged violations of law and overreach by DOD

Monument demolition and other recommendations of the political naming commission will cost taxpayers over $100 million dollars and do permanent damage to our military

You can already see it in the recruiting crisis

Please scroll down to contribute to the Arlington National Cemetery Memorial Litigation Defense Fund and the Southern Legal Resource Center

Make Woke ignorance DIE at Arlington National Cemetery

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Below is a press release from Defend Arlington about their federal lawsuit filed February 16, 2023 in Washington, DC to prevent the demolition of the magnificent 109 year old Confederate "Reconciliation Memorial" in Arlington National Cemetery.

A video press conference will be held Monday, February 19, 2023 at 9 a.m. that will be recorded and made available on YouTube. I will send out information and the link as soon as it is available Monday.

Below are two exciting press releases, one by Defend Arlington, and the other by the Southern Legal Resource Center. Scroll down past both for several important links including Defend Arlington's 385 page flip-book PDF of outstanding scholarly white papers. You can also download them individually.

If you are fed up with the destruction of century old monuments and the falsification of history then stand up and fight. Contribute to our legal defense fund and WE WILL WIN in Arlington National Cemetery.

This is the hill to die on.]

From Defend Arlington

(FOR SOCIAL MEDIA)

ARLINGTON LAWSUIT FILED

16 FEB 2023

Washington, DC – A federal lawsuit was filed today in a Washington DC District Court to block removal and/or demolition of the Confederate "Reconciliation Memorial” in Arlington National Cemetery.

The suit alleges numerous claims of overreach by the Department of Defense in its implementation of the 2021 Armed Services Appropriation Act, particularly as it relates to the Naming Commission’s recommendation to remove the Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Plaintiffs include Defend Arlington, HK Edgerton and others who were injured by the Department of Defense’s adoption of the Naming Commission’s recommendations.

A video press conference will be held on Monday, February 19th at 9 am Eastern for members of the Media where copies of the complaint will be provided, statements will be made by counsel, and plaintiffs and questions will be answered.

Media members who wish to receive details can send an email to defendarlington@gmail.com.

From Southern Legal Resource Center

Arlington Lawsuit Filed

16 FEB - Citing numerous statutory violations Save Southern Heritage Florida and Defend Arlington have filed a federal lawsuit in a Washington DC District Court today to block removal or demolition of the Confederate "Reconciliation Monument" in Arlington National Cemetery.

The culmination of months of lobbying, historical & legal research and planning, the lawsuit names the DoD, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and 2 other federal officials illegally with attempting to remove or demolish the Confederate "Reconciliation" Monument in Arlington National Cemetery based on NOV 2022 recommendations made by the Congressional "Naming" Commission.

The lawsuit charges the federal officials with violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act for decision making that was arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law.

The lawsuit was filed by Attorney Karen C. Bennett of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP of Washington DC.

Individual Plaintiffs include Archivist Teresa Roane, HK Edgerton, Richard Moomaw (whose G-G-G-Uncle is buried in the Confederate section of Arlington) and retired US Army Historian Lt Col Edwin Kennedy (USA-ret).

The SLRC has been assisting with legal research and litigation efforts for the last 5 months, last week spent interviewing witnesses and assisting with and finalizing affidavits for the lawsuit.

A 2nd lawsuit, to be filed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, is expected soon.

Your immediate help to the SLRC will allow us to continue to actively assist in the Arlington lawsuit! . . .

Now That We Have Filed

Now that we have filed, the tendency of GOP elected officials will be to slack off "and let the legal process takes its course."

NO!

We need to redouble our efforts to call our congressmen and members of the House Armed Services Committee to demand that not one penny of tax money go to implementing the Naming Commission's odious recommendations, especially the removal of the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery. The lawsuit is the lawyers' job, the political side is our supporters' job.

If one of these House Armed Services Committee members (below) is your congressman - CONTACT THEM ASAP - Demand that they deny funding to the Naming Commission plans, esp the removal of the Confederate "Reconciliation" Monument in Arlington National Cemetery! Please Share.

If your congressman is not listed, contact your representative and tell them to contact HASC Chairman Mike Rogers of Alabama and demand Naming Commission Recommendations be DEFUNDED!

US Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Most importantly, don't forget us! We need your support now more than ever! We are running the car at 80 mph and the tank is almost empty! We can win this! Send your most generous donation TODAY!

Southern GOP Members of the House Armed Services Committee:

Mike Rogers, Chairman (R-AL)

SOUTHERN GOP Subcommittee Chairmen for the 118th Congress:

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS), Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL)

Southern GOP members of the House Armed Services Committee for the 118th Congress:

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL)

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC)

Rep. Dale Strong (R-AL)

Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX)

Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA)

Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO)

Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL)

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA)

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC)

Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA)

Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO)

Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN)

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL)

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA)

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX)

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX)

[Other information on the Southern Legal Resource Center including address and donation link, below.]

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

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

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND

Please Donate Money -- THANK YOU!

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

The Arlington Confederate Monument

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

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

Take action TODAY!

Confederate Emancipation for European Support . . .

Posted on February 10, 2023February 10, 2023 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | No Comments

"The question is, why was Lincoln so intent on stopping the two CS ambassadors [James Mason and John Slidell] that he would break the law and risk war with Britain? Evidence strongly suggests Lincoln feared they might be offering emancipation to gain European allies. During the time of the CS ambassadors captivity [November-December, 1861], word was circulating that the CS might emancipate its slaves. That could open the door for Britain and France to ally with the CSA." --- from the article below

Confederate Emancipation for European Support . . .

James Murray Mason was a grandson of George Mason who is the Father of the United States Bill of Rights. James Mason was a Democratic Congressman from Virginia, 1837-1839; Senator, 1847-1861; and Confederate Minister to England who was kidnapped off the British ship RMS Trent by a Union warship most likely acting under direct orders from Abraham Lincoln.

John Slidell was a United States Senator from Louisiana from 1853 to 1861. Before that he was a U.S. House member from Louisiana, a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and U.S. Minister to Mexico (1845-1846). He was sent by President James K. Polk to negotiate the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas, and the purchase of California. In late 1861, he ran the Union blockade out of Charleston, SC with James Mason en route to Cuba then Great Britain and France on the RMS Trent.

The USS San Jacinto (right) stops the British packet steamer RMS Trent and illegally removes Confederate Minister to England James M. Mason, and Confederate Minister to France, John Slidell. There is strong evidence that Abraham Lincoln ordered the kidnapping but when incensed Britain threatened war, cowardly Lincoln backed down and blamed the San Jacinto's captain.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. -- Here is an outstanding article by Rod O'Barr published February 8, 2023 on the Abbeville Institute Blog with title "Lincoln and Coincidence?". It is published here with permission.

Rod is an astute historian from Tennessee with advanced degrees in Philosophy and Theology.

Efforts are going strong to DEFEAT the Woke naming commission's recommendation to demolish the 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South in Arlington National Cemetery. Please scroll to the end of this article for several important links and to donate so we can pay our excellent legal team and pollsters.

Please join the fight because WE DEFINITELY CAN WIN THIS ONE!

Every SCV Camp, UDC Chapter and American who cares about historical truth and honor, especially veterans North and South, should pull out all the stops right now!

This is the hill to die on. Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

To join Defend Arlington's email list for regular updates please email me or go to DefendArlington.org.]

From the Abbeville Institute Blog
(AbbevilleInstitute.org)

Lincoln and Coincidence?

By Rod O'Barr
February 8, 2023

OCTOBER 12, 1861, Confederate ambassadors James Mason and John Slidell set sail for England, Mason to be Minister to England and Slidell Minister to France. They were bound for England via Cuba where they boarded a British packet ship the RMS Trent.

Was it mere coincidence that a Union warship, the San Jacinto, was notified by the US Consul in Cuba of the Trent’s departure for England, and that the Union ship’s Captain decided to break Maritime Law, intercept the British ship, and take the two Confederate diplomats captive?

The two prize captives were taken to Massachusetts November 2, 1861 where rousing cheers and accolades from the Lincoln administration greeted the Union Captain. At least up until the British Government’s Prince Albert sent a “sharp response” to Lincoln’s government demanding an apology and the release of the commissioners within 7 days. Otherwise, war would be declared, and the Confederacy would be immediately diplomatically recognized. British Lord Palmerston convened a special cabinet committee to prepare for war with the U.S. and ordered reinforcements to Canada and the British Atlantic fleet.

Back peddling cowardly like a child caught with hand in the cookie jar, “Honest Abe” proclaimed to the world that the Union Captain had “acted on his own” in stopping that British ship and taking the two diplomats in violation of law. The Union Captain, previously rewarded, was then made the scapegoat and punished for his actions.

British records reveal that Lincoln was lying about the Union Captain acting on his own. In a letter from Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria, November 29, 1861, the following is written:

…. General Scott, who has recently arrived in France, has said to Americans in Paris that he has come not on an excursion of pleasure, but on diplomatic business; that the seizure of these envoys was discussed in a Cabinet meeting in Washington, he being present, and was deliberately determined upon and ordered…

It was no coincidence that the Union Captain just happened to act on his own and stopped a British ship which just happened to have on board two CS ambassadors. It was all ordered by Lincoln!

Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated with the British to a compromise, and the Confederate Ambassadors were released on January 1st, 1862. A British Government steamer was sent to Massachusetts to receive the CS dignitaries, sailing to England arriving the last week in January 1862.

The question is why was Lincoln so intent on stopping the two CS ambassadors that he would break the law and risk war with Britain?

Evidence strongly suggests Lincoln feared they might be offering emancipation to gain European allies. During the time of the CS Ambassadors captivity, word was circulating that the CS might emancipate its slaves. That could open the door for Britain and France to ally with the CSA. On November 12, 1861 a newspaper titled “The Express” published the following:

The secessionists of Maryland are openly reviving a speech of General Toombs, an authority as high as Jefferson Davis himself, in which he reminded Congress, two years ago, that the South always held in her own hands the power of emancipation as an ultimate recourse…. It is at present declared by secessionists that it will be the policy of the Confederates to abolish slavery rather than yield to the North the opportunity of doing it.

On November 30, 1861 a British paper called “Once A Week,” provides an early indication of Southern willingness to emancipate stating, “the Confederate authorities are already saying publicly that the power of emancipation is one which rests in their hands; and that they will use it in the last resort.” Obviously, a lot of Confederate emancipation rumors were stirring.

Could it be that an offer to end slavery in exchange for European alliances was being carried by the CS ambassadors? There is good evidence that was the case, which would explain Lincoln’s desperation to prevent the CS diplomats from reaching England.

Was it mere coincidence that the same week the CS ambassadors Mason and Slidell arrived in England, a pertinent article broke in a British newspaper called “The Spectator.” It spelled out, in the kind of detail that belies rumor, what it called “that indirect but accurate way in which great facts get abroad;” certainly a description of communications carried by ambassadors. The following secretive treaty offer had been leaked to the press:

the Confederacy have offered England and France a price for active support. It is nothing less than a treaty securing free trade in its broadest sense for fifty years, the complete suppression of the import of slaves, and the emancipation of every negro born after the date of the signature of the treaty….

“The Spectator,” even though an anti-South newspaper, affirmed the reality of the CS offer to free the slaves. Would an anti-South newspaper have ever broke such a story favoring the South in the eyes of British readers were it not convinced of its credibility? It says the offer originates from “the Mississippian,” an obvious reference to CS President Jefferson Davis.

A February 17, 1862 entry in the diary of Lincoln’s ambassador to England, Charles Francis Adams, says the following:

A visit from Bishop McIlvaine, who came to tell me the result of a conversation he had held at breakfast with Sir Culling Eardley this morning, that gentlemen had apprised him of the existence of rumors that Mr Mason had brought with him authority to make large offers towards emancipation if Great Britain would come to the aid of the confederates. He even specified their nature, as for example, the establishment of the marriage relation, the restoration of the right of manumission, and the emancipation of all born after a certain time to be designated.

Adam’s diary entry also says that the offer “needed to be energetically treated both here and at home.”

Allowing for the eight or so days needed for Adams to communicate across the Atlantic, and a few days to put together a plan, is it mere coincidence that on March 7, 1862 Lincoln sends a resolution to Congress offering something he had up to then resolutely resisted doing. Lincoln had long resisted a general offer of compensated emancipation because of his fear, and the fear of his constituents in the North, that freed blacks might migrate North. But now it appears, to head off the rumored CS offer to end slavery, Lincoln offers all the slave States compensated emancipation, even without a colonization plan in place. He certainly had to be greatly concerned to do that!

But from the slave States he gets no response. Meanwhile the CS offer to end slavery is hitting newsstands around the world.

So, on July 12, 1862 Lincoln calls a meeting with the border slave State legislators trying to convince them to accept his offer. They vote down his offer 20-8. Seven of the eight who voted for his offer to emancipate explain why:

We are the more emboldened to assume this position from the fact, now become history, that the leaders of the Southern rebellion have offered to abolish slavery amongst them as a condition to foreign intervention in favor of their independence as a nation. If they can give up slavery to destroy the Union; We can surely ask our people to consider the question of Emancipation to save the Union.

These border slave State legislators, who called the CS offer a “fact, now become history,” were in a position to confirm the secretive CS offer as “fact” given they were in continuous communication with the leadership of those seceded sister slave States who were trying to get them to join the Confederacy. Would these Union loyal legislators have ever told their President during a time of war, that a matter of such strategic importance was a “fact” if they had not confirmed it?

They at least convinced Lincoln it was a fact. For it is not mere coincidence that the very next day after meeting with those seven legislators, July 13, 1862, Lincoln sat down and drafted his “Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.”

No wonder Lincoln called it a “war measure” intended to keep Britain and France out of the war. Once again, he was attempting to preempt the Confederate offer of emancipation, but this time believing it to be a “fact” instead of mere “rumor,” Lincoln had upped the ante of his compensated emancipation “offer” to a mandatory “proclamation” of uncompensated emancipation freeing the slaves under Confederate control.

[Publisher's Note: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation supposedly freed the slaves in Confederate territory where he had no control. It actually freed no slaves or very few. Secretary of State William H. Seward made fun of Lincoln and said: "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation deliberately did not touch the slaves in the five Union slave states of Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky and New Jersey, nor in West Virginia, that ironically came into the Union in early 1863 as the sixth Union slave state. West Virginia was admitted to the Union as a slave state just weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.

The EP also did not free any slaves in already captured Confederate territory. It carefully listed the states, counties and captured Confederate territory where blacks would remain in slavery.

Three Union slave states, Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia, ended slavery close to the end of the war.

Three others, New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, had slavery eight-and-a-half months after the war. Slavery in those states was not ended until the Thirteenth Amendment kicked in, in December, 1865.]

One thing can be certainly deduced from all these too “coincidental” actions of Lincoln. His desire to emancipate was a reaction to the Confederate offer made January 1862, and in no manner was he motivated by a genuine concern for the slaves.

Another certain deduction from the Confederate offer to emancipate is that the Confederacy did not secede and fight to perpetuate the institution of slavery.

Rod O'Barr

Rod O’Barr is retired and lives in Tennessee with his wife of 45 years, Kathy. He has advanced degrees in Philosophy and Theology, and a lifelong interest in history. He is the webmaster of a WWII website and a member of both the Abbeville Institute and the SCV. When not enjoying time with his children he enjoys doing living history at local schools.

Please forward and share this email

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Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

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

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND

Please Donate Money -- THANK YOU!

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

The Arlington Confederate Monument

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

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

Take action TODAY!

Military Times reports “trust and confidence” in our military dropped from 70% in 2018 to 48% in 2022–Politicization cited as number one problem

Posted on January 31, 2023February 1, 2023 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | 3 Comments

Military Times reports "trust and confidence" in our military dropped from 70% in 2018 to 48% in 2022

Politicization cited as number one problem

Woke policies in the military are worse than politicization

Recruiting crisis is wakeup call but serious damage has already been done

USS Chancellorsville, named after Gen. Robert E. Lee's "perfect battle" when Lee was outnumbered by Joseph Hooker 133,868 to 60,298 but won a huge Confederate victory over six days of fierce fighting April 30 to May 6, 1863. It was recommended by Elizabeth Warren's naming commission to have the USS Chancellorsville's name scrubbed this year.

USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship named for the Father of Modern Oceanography, Matthew Fontaine Maury, because, after 36 years in the U.S. Navy, he would not go against his home state of Virginia and his family. He joined the Confederacy and for that, the Woke naming commission has recommended the USNS Maury's name be scrubbed. How can you have a better name for an oceanographic survey ship than one named after the Father of Modern Oceanography?

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Our military used to be the greatest colorblind meritocracy in the history of the world but increasing numbers of articles in publications like Military Times and Army Times are warning that politics and Wokeness are seriously degrading our military. The current recruiting crisis is an obvious result and the only solutions being offered are recruiting gimmicks like ribbons, and drastically lowering standards.

In an article entitled "Politicization contributing to Americans' low trust in the military," Military Times Pentagon bureau chief Meghann Myers writes that 62% of the respondents to the 2021 Reagan National Defense Survey believe the reason for decreased confidence in the U.S. military is because of "Military Leadership Becoming Overly Politicized."¹

Elizabeth Warren's naming commission is a perfect example of politicization and Wokeness hurting our military. Its mandate, to change or destroy all DOD assets that pay tribute to Southern valor, includes the barbaric act of demolishing the 109 year old, internationally acclaimed Confederate monument to the reconciliation of North and South in Arlington National Cemetery.

That monument was sculpted in Rome, Italy and is the grave marker for its Jewish creator, Moses Jacob Ezekiel, who was a VMI Confederate soldier and is buried, with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor, around its base.

There are over 500 other graves of Confederate military personnel with some family arranged beautifully as befitting our nation's most sacred burial ground, in concentric circles emanating out from the monument.

The monument itself was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, after Southerners fought alongside Northerners in the Spanish American war.

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 gave a rousing speech at the UDC ceremony the evening the cornerstone was laid.

President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first floral arrangement "beginning a tradition continued by nearly every U.S. president" including Barack Obama.

President Woodrow Wilson gave the dedication address June 4, 1914, and veterans, North and South, spoke lovingly about the reconciliation of our country.

But the political naming commission has slated this magnificent work of art for demolition and Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has signed off on it.

This kind of extreme divisiveness is causing permanent damage to our military and country.

How can it not?

Over 44% of the United States military is recruited in the South, where military service is revered.²

Oceans of Southern blood have been spilled for our great country but thanks to Elizabeth Warren and Republicans led by Jim Inhofe on the Senate Armed Services Committee when they had control, Southerners must now accept insult and disrespect to their ancestors and the South, or they are persona non grata in the U.S. military.

It is a sick, unhealthy situation because Southerners such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest and Raphael Semmes are among the greatest, most honorable warriors in the history of the world yet are also persona non grata in the Woke military. West Point removing its many tributes to Robert E. Lee makes clear its commitment to Wokeness, not military values. The naming commission's recommendations to remove Lee from West Point degrade and dishonor West Point.

This is unprecedented divisiveness that has no benefit whatsoever except to allow a characterless, ignorant individual like Elizabeth Warren to pretend she has "superior" virtue.

Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state under President Trump, talks about Woke policies in the military that force service personnel to accept that America is horribly racist, but the same applies to Southerners who now go from revering military service because their ancestors were great American warriors, to being forced to accept the lie that their ancestors were vile traitors:

'How can we ask young men and women who have decided to risk their lives for America, even die for America, to affirm that our country is inherently racist?' . . . 'How can we ask them to view their brothers and sisters in arms through the narrow prisms of race or gender? The clear and obvious answer is that we cannot - not without putting their lives at risk on the battlefield. A woke military is a weak military.'³

Pompeo also said in a Fox New article last summer:

Under the Biden administration, warfighting doctrines are being replaced - even at the training level - with doctrines of diversity, equity and inclusion.⁴

In fairness to the naming commission, it came about because of Warren's legislation. It did not organically arise.

But the naming commission is 100% Woke and political. Its standards of history are not scholarly, peer-reviewed, openly debated history. They are Presentist and based on the goofy leftist cultural standards of today. That is not how you understand the truths of history. That is how you insert filthy politics into history and the military, and use the military for leftist political advantage.

There is not a single thing in the naming commission's final report to Congress that can not be challenged and easily refuted. The federal government has no business falsifying history for the political advantage of the party in power. Our military should be apolitical as it was when we won two World Wars and were the greatest colorblind meritocracy in history.

The $100 million dollars it will cost to implement the naming commission's recommendations are a MASSIVE waste of money.

For example, they want to change the name of the USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship, because Matthew Fontaine Maury fought for the South after serving 36 years in the U.S. Navy. Like Robert E. Lee, Maury wasn't going to fight against Virginia and his own family.

Matthew F. Maury was a brilliant man known today as the "Father of Modern Oceanography" and also the "Scientist of the Seas." He had a large body of work and "revolutionized our understanding of oceanography, meteorology, and marine navigation."⁵

How can you have a better name for an oceanographic survey ship than one named after the Father of Modern Oceanography? No name can be better than the current USNS Maury.⁶

Same with the USS Chancellorsville, named after a brilliant Confederate victory when Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia with 60,298 men defeated Joseph Hooker and the Army of the Potomac with 133,868. Chancellorsville represents a bold military commander dividing his army at times and maneuvering against enormous odds to win during fierce fighting from April 30 to May 6, 1863.

What better name for a great ship than the USS Chancellorsville!

As President McKinley said, all of this is a tribute to American valor just like all the graves from our "unfortunate civil war" symbolize American valor. Both sides had great respect for each other at the end of the war. It is only small people like Elizabeth Warren who use the honor and blood of better people for her own selfish political advantage.

Veterans are disgusted with this Wokeness, and Congress better start listening.

Many veterans will no longer encourage anybody, much less sons and daughters, to join the military:

When Marine Corps Reserve Col. Matthew F. Amidon, director of veterans and military families at the George W. Bush Institute, wrote a commentary urging veterans to help during the recruiting crisis by recommending military service to their kids and other young people, Military Times was inundated with hundreds of emails from veterans saying they would do no such thing.
Their reasons varied, but most said wokeness is to blame. They accused the military of becoming so "political," or such a "social experiment," that even proud veterans wouldn't recommend service.
'I'll be blunt. I wouldn't encourage anyone to join today's armed forces and I discouraged both of my sons from considering serving,' wrote Peter Demas, who described himself as a third-generation veteran. 'America's military leaders have sold out the Services for their own advancement and reflect all the poorest qualities of civilian 'leadership' from whom they accepted thirty pieces of silver; instead of being the nation's repository of integrity and moral courage, they have become more political than the political animals they grovel before.'⁷

The very fabric of our nation and military is being torn apart by this racist Woke garbage such as the falsification of Southern history by a political naming commission using Presentist standards, which are a total fraud.

Elizabeth Warren knows nothing about Southern history.

She is like those legions of liberals in academia who look down on the military and think Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and all the others who are willing to die for our country, are not as good as they are, and certainly not as smart.

'With a woke military, whose most senior officer is concerned about 'white rage,' searching for a tattle tale process to discover and discharge white 'extremists,' blaming it on toxic masculinity, discharging real warriors for not getting vaccinated, having a two-day standdown to discuss white extremism, the promotion and expansion of women in combat, lowering physical fitness standards to accommodate naturally weaker women, recruiting with social justice and diversity ads, stating we need more female and minority pilots, promotions based on the color of one's skin or genitalia, lowering recruiting standards, blaming the military for 247 years of institutional racism, is not the military I was in for 26 years,' wrote Dale Papworth, who said he was a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel.⁸

Myers writes: "Reader feedback suggests that a military and veteran population that has traditionally leaned conservative is no longer supportive of an institution they find unrecognizable."

'My 19-year-old has expressed in no uncertain terms that he does not want to serve in the U.S. military in any capacity,' wrote Adam, who asked to be identified by his first name only. 'The politicization of our [government] institutions is creeping into the services now, and that is also having an effect. They may as well put out a sign that conservative or right of center Americans are not welcome. They just keep making it worse with their messaging. Boys want to be challenged and go on adventures, not be schooled on pronouns or the sins of their skin color. Girls want to beat boys and prove themselves.'⁹

The Washington Times reports that "50% of Americans cite 'woke practices' as a key reason for their decreased confidence in the military."¹⁰ Woke policies such as "the teaching of critical race theory, a disproportionate focus on diversity and inclusivity training, gender identity, even the Pentagon's recent fight to demand mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for all those in the ranks" are huge problems.¹¹

Republicans cited:

a host of examples, ranging from the teaching of critical race theory at some military institutions to last spring's military-wide "stand-down" during which all service members were ordered to spend a day discussing hateful ideologies, bigotry, discrimination and related issues.

Sen. Rick Scott, Republican from Florida, said "our military has become the woke military, not the lethal military." Scott is a Navy veteran.¹²

Austin's campaign to root out extremism undoubtedly caused more harm than good.

It "turned up just a minuscule number of cases, and critics say the focus on social issues takes away from the overriding priority of molding an effective fighting force to defend the country."¹³

Also:

Beyond the specifics of critical race theory, or American taxpayers paying for gender-reassignment surgeries for service members, critics say the Biden administration has implemented a top-down agenda that emphasizes diversity over virtually everything else, including lethality.¹⁴

In another Military Times article, "Is the military too 'woke' to recruit?", more disgust:

One possibility that is increasingly resonating with veterans is that the military is too "woke." Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., for example, is among a group of Republican senators who have repeatedly blamed recruiting problems on the Biden administration for trying to build a "woke Army."¹⁵

Thomas Spoehr, director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation, writes that wokeness is the "chief worry of grizzled American veterans today."¹⁶

'The largest threat they see by far to our current military is the weakening of its fabric by radical progressive (or 'woke') policies being imposed, not by a rising generation of slackers, but by the very leaders charged with ensuring their readiness,' he wrote. 'Wokeness in the military is being imposed by elected and appointed leaders in the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon who have little understanding of the purpose, character, traditions, and requirements of the institution they are trying to change.'

The Military Times article quotes Spoehr:

'Is anyone surprised that potential recruits - many of whom come from rural or poor areas of the country - don't want to spend their time being lectured about white privilege?'¹⁷

Myers writes:

In reality, service members spend hundreds of hours a year on mandatory training, covering everything from operational safety to financial responsibility and suicide and sexual assault prevention, with a tiny fraction of that focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion education.
But what seems to incense people is that the issue of racial disparity is discussed at all, not that it's truly cutting into time spent on training.¹⁸ (bold emphasis added)

Austin's standdown impugning the honor of military personnel as he looks for extremism that does not exist proves his unfitness to lead. Anybody who would sign off on destroying a 109 year old monument surrounded by 500 graves in Arlington National Cemetery - a monument symbolizing the reunification of the United States of America - is dangerously out of touch.

Myers goes on:

'Instead of training and preparing for combat, today's military is too busy worrying about teaching proper pronouns, how to incorporate men who think they're women and women who think they're men into the barracks and showers,' wrote Ron Eslick, describing himself as a 1970s-era Navy submariner. [Joint Chiefs Chairman] General Milley and Sec Def Austin are a disgrace to the uniform I once wore. They are nothing less than lap dogs to the current administration. What a shame that our country has now become a second rate threat in today's world.'¹⁹

Republicans better step up because Biden, Warren and their ilk are tearing apart the very fabric of our country and now our military. No wonder we are so divided.

We are a great country with equal opportunity for all. That's where the emphasis should always be, on opportunity and merit, not special privileges for democrat voters.

The only thing that can work in a multicultural democracy is an unwavering colorblind standard based on merit, a colorblind meritocracy, and equal opportunity for all.

Republicans should defund all of the divisive, extremist recommendations of the naming commission immediately. They don't have to state that they are supporting the Confederacy. All they have to say is that they are disgusted by the idea of destroying historic monuments in Arlington National Cemetery for idiotic woke reasons, and wasting $100 million dollars we don't have changing street names and patches since we are in a multi-trillion-dollar budget deficit.

An article in The Federalist "Reduce Federal Spending by Cutting Back Anywhere and Everywhere: A Guide for Bladder Shy, Financially Illiterate Republicans" states:

the only way to get started on reducing spending, let alone balancing the budget, is to get started on reducing spending. Start somewhere. Anywhere. Take Sen. Rand Paul's actual government waste audit and spin the wheel. Wherever the arrow lands, whether it's the nearly $2 billion for 'maintaining 77,000 empty Federal buildings,' or the $200,000 for the Pentagon's 'Starbucks espresso machines,' get a 10 percent cut. Or 5 percent. Anything.²⁰

I have a better idea.

Start cutting wasteful spending with the $100 million dollars it will take to implement the worthless Woke recommendations of the naming commission.

You will improve military recruiting at the same time and help stop the ruination of our military.

Southerners, inspired by the unmatched valor of their Confederate ancestors when outnumbered four to one and outgunned 200 to one, will make up the recruiting shortfall and give you better troops in the process, like Audie Murphy, Alvin York and so many others in our country's history.

Scroll down for several important links.

If you are descended from any of the Confederate heroes buried in Arlington National Cemetery, please contact us.

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE to our Arlington National Cemetery Memorial Litigation Defense Fund so we can make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.]

Please forward and share this email with as many people as you can!

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

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

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND

Please Donate Money -- THANK YOU!

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

The Arlington Confederate Monument

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

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

Take action TODAY!

¹ Meghann Myers, "Politicization contributing to Americans' low trust in the military," Military Times, December 1, 2022, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/12/01/politicization-contributing-to-americans-low-trust-in-the-military/, accessed 12-2-22.

² Sean Braswell, "Why the U.S. Military Is So Southern," Nov. 20, 2016, https://www.ozy.com/news-and-politics/why-the-u-s-military-is-so-southern/72100/, accessed 1-30-23; "Who's Joining the Military: Myth vs. Fact," 2023, https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/whos-joining-military-myth-vs-fact.html, accessed 1-29-23.

³ Mike Pompeo in Meghann Myers, "Is the military too 'woke' to recruit?", October 13, 2022, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/13/is-the-military-too-woke-to-recruit/, accessed 1-24-23.

⁴ Quoted from the Reagan Institute Defense Survey in Ben Wolfgang article, "The war over 'woke': Republicans gear up to take aim at controversial Pentagon social policies, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/dec/27/war-over-woke-republicans-gear-take-aim-controvers, accessed 12-27-22.

⁵ Tim St. Onge, "Scientist of the Seas: The Legacy of Matthew Fontaine Maury," July 25, 2018, https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2018/07/scientist-of-the-seas-the-legacy-of-matthew-fontaine-maury/, accessed 1-30-23.

⁶ Matthew Maury did not own slaves or believe in slavery. Around 93% of white Southerners did not own slaves. Over 70% of Southern families did not own slaves. Blacks owned slaves too. One of the largest slaveowners in South Carolina was the famous cotton gin maker, William Ellison, a black man in Sumter County who owned over 60 slaves.

⁷ Meghann Myers, "Is the military too 'woke' to recruit?", October 13, 2022, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/13/is-the-military-too-woke-to-recruit/, accessed 1-24-23.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Quoted from the Reagan Institute Defense Survey in Ben Wolfgang article, "The war over 'woke': Republicans gear up to take aim at controversial Pentagon social policies, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/dec/27/war-over-woke-republicans-gear-take-aim-controvers, accessed 12-27-22.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Meghann Myers, "Is the military too 'woke' to recruit?", October 13, 2022, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/13/is-the-military-too-woke-to-recruit/, accessed 1-24-23.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Meghann Myers, "Is the military too 'woke' to recruit?", October 13, 2022, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/13/is-the-military-too-woke-to-recruit/, accessed 1-24-23.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ The Federalist, Eddie Scarry, January 25, 2023, "Reduce Federal Spending by Cutting Back Anywhere and Everywhere: A Guide for Bladder Shy, Financially Illiterate Republicans" states", https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/25/reduce-federal-spending-by-cutting-back-anywhere-and-everywhere-a-guide-for-bladder-shy-financially-illiterate-republicans, accessed 1-26-23.

List of the 518 Confederate Burials in Arlington National Cemetery–Concentric circles of graves extend out from the magnificent Confederate Monument–If any of these folks are your ancestors, please contact us IMMEDIATELY

Posted on January 18, 2023January 20, 2023 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | 2 Comments

List of the 518 Confederate Burials
in Arlington National Cemetery

Concentric circles of graves extend out
from the magnificent Confederate Monument

If any of these folks are your ancestors,
please contact us IMMEDIATELY

List includes all the burials in ANC Section 16,
mostly men, some women

Most have their home state listed; some also have unit
name, number, letter or whether cavalry, infantry
or artillery

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - The names, below, are a few of the 375,000 Confederate soldiers about whom Union soldier and president of the United States, William 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.

It was President McKinley's idea to construct the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery because the brave always honor the brave.

But the political naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin have slated the 109 year old Confederate Memorial for demolition.

It appears Austin and company are breaking federal rules and regulations in their haste to destroy the monument before serious public disgust sets in. Every veteran in America should be outraged because this is exactly what could happen to their memory in the future by politicians just as characterless as Elizabeth Warren. Remember what liberals did to our Vietnam veterans after the Vietnam War. Our military should always be above filthy politics.

You don't have to love the South or the Confederacy to know that destroying a 109 year old monument in our nation's most sacred burial ground as symbolic as the Confederate Memorial, after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed, is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG and is the most dishonorable thing fake Indian Elizabeth Warren has ever done.

Perhaps a hundred million Americans alive today are descended from Confederate soldiers and the women and families who supported the South's great war for independence.

Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America noted that race relations were better in the South than anywhere in the country despite slavery. He said they were worst in New England.

During the antebellum era, five Northern states had laws forbidding blacks from even visiting for more than a few days much less living there including Lincoln's Illinois.

New England had brought all the slaves here chained to decks in the bowels of their stinking hot slave ships where there was no ventilation, suffering for months in urine, feces, vomit and death so Elizabeth Warren's New Englanders could make money.

Historian Bernard Bailyn stated that New England's economic success was unquestionably due to the slave trade.

W. E. B. Du Bois in his famous book The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, states that Boston and New York were still the largest slave trading ports on the planet in 1862, a year into the War Between the States and 54 years after the slave trade was outlawed by the U.S. Constitution.

Perhaps Elizabeth Warren and the naming commission should begin demolishing New England monuments and changing the name of Faneuil Hall in Boston because Peter Faneuil traded in black flesh, or Brown University because its founder was a slave trader who said there was no more crime in carrying off a cargo of slaves than a cargo of jackasses.

Six slave states fought for the Union the entire war and it took the 13th Amendment in December, 1865, to fully end slavery in the Union slave states.

Southerners would have ended slavery in a much better way than a war that killed 750,000 men and maimed over a million. We lost 400,000 in World War II. It was in the bi-racial South's best interest to end slavery with goodwill and opportunity for all.

Maybe the better question is why didn't the federal government suggest buying freedom for all the slaves in the South out of the federal treasury if they were so worried about slavery? Because Yankees were not worried enough to spend their hard-earned sweatshop money to free the slaves in the South who would then go North and be job competition. Besides, the six slave states that fought for the North would have seceded immediately over federal overreach and fought for the South just as Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas did. Those four Southern states at first rejected secession and only seceded when Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South.

Also, and importantly, the Northern economy would have collapsed because it was based mostly on manufacturing for the South and shipping Southern cotton around the world. The North needed the South but the South did not need the North.

Congress can rectify its error and put an end to Elizabeth Warren's crime against art and history by defunding ALL of the recommendations of the Woke naming commission, which will cost perhaps a hundred million dollars before its all over. We are in a huge budget deficit and don't have a hundred million dollars laying around to throw away on changing things that have a glorious record of victory such as Fort Benning and Fort Bragg and all the others. It is idiotic to be spending money changing street names on military bases and removing monuments and changing uniform patches and such.

We are also in a military recruiting crisis and it is about as stupid as you can get to insult the South, from where 44% of the United States military is recruited.

Here is a quote from last week's blog article entitled "WE WILL SAVE the Magnificent Arlington Confederate Memorial--Woke Ignorance DIES at Arlington":

The naming commission is so inept it does not even mention the reconciliation theme and symbolism of the Confederate Memorial though Arlington National Cemetery itself, does. ANC's own description in its National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Historic District received by the National Park Service February 24, 2014 states over and over that the Confederate Memorial symbolizes the reconciliation and reunification of our great country after our country's bloodiest war.¹
How could the naming commission ignore that?
The Confederate Memorial was conceived by Union soldier and President William McKinley after enthusiastic Southern participation in the Spanish-American War. President William Howard Taft spoke at the UDC ceremony the evening the cornerstone was laid giving an inspiring well-received speech. President Woodrow Wilson spoke at the dedication June 4, 1914 as did Union and Confederate Veterans. Remember, these were the days of the 50th and 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the famous handshakes across the wall by the old Union and Confederate gentlemen.
How could the naming commission not care about all that?
The Confederate Memorial is about reconciliation therefore it is not in the Woke naming commission's remit. The Confederate Memorial does not commemorate the Confederacy. It commemorates the reunification of the United States of America after a bloody war. See my 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" on Defend Arlington's website, 28 pages on the theme of reconciliation.
The 109 year old Confederate Memorial was created in the city of Rome, Italy by internationally acclaimed Jewish sculptor Moses Ezekiel but the naming commission wants to tear it apart in the cheapest way possible and leave a mangled shaft sticking up in Arlington National Cemetery.
The white paper by Ernest E. Blevins, who is the foremost national authority on Union and Confederate monuments, is entitled: "Headstone of the Confederate States: Moses Ezekiel's Arlington Confederate Monument, Symbolism, Meaning, National Register Eligibility, and Potential Adverse Effects to Alternations or Removal." It is 49 pages, detailed, documented and irrefutable.
Blevins discusses the "monument symbology" that "depicts the South's mourning and the war's losses" and he includes a comment from Michael Robert Patterson:
"But 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.²"
That comment again points out the crime against history and art committed by the Woke naming commission in its desire to destroy the monument as cheaply as possible and leave a mangled shaft in its place in Arlington National Cemetery surrounded by 500 graves of Southern soldiers in concentric circles.

If you are descended from any of the Confederate heroes buried in Arlington National Cemetery, please contact us.

There is more information in the burial database but for conciseness, here are the names, ranks, death dates and states for most of the burials. I will soon have the full database available to download as a .cvs or .xlsx or .html file.

There are several valuable links after the burial list.

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE to our Arlington National Cemetery Memorial Litigation Defense Fund so we can make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.]

LAST NAME	FIRST NAME	Rank	DEATH DATE	UNIT
ABNEY	JOHN			GA
AKERS	ALBERT J	CAPT	01/14/1914	TENN
AMISS	FRANCES		09/27/1949	VA
AMISS	GEORGE W		08/14/1913	VA
AMOS	W D		09/02/1865	GA
ANDERSON	E W		2/9/1915
ANDERSON	JOHN	SGT	05/29/1864	GA
ANGELO	FRANCIS M		10/15/1928	VA
ANGELO	SARAH V		05/27/1937	VA
ARMSWORTHY	JOHN W		01/15/1864	NC
ASHBY	JOHN J		11/03/1864	CIVILIAN
ASHTON	CHARLES H		03/26/1935	VA
ASHTON	IDA B		12/19/1940	VA
AUTRY	FRANCIS M		07/17/1864	GA
AYLOR	HENRY L		11/4/1922	VA
AYRES	WILLIAM S		09/15/1932	VA
BAILEY	JOSEPH B		06/13/1926	MD
BAILEY	RICE W	2D LIEUT	8/4/1915	VA
BAILEY	SUSAN A	2D LIEUT		VA
BALLOWE	J D		06/20/1865
BARBEE	ROBERT S	SGT	4/1/1918	VA
BARBER	H A		05/25/1862	SC
BARHAM	BENJAMIN F		11/18/1919	VA
BARKLEY	JOHN W		04/16/1865	ALA
BARNES	JACOB		02/11/1864	NC
BARNETT	HARVEY		05/26/1864	MISS
BASS	MARCELLUS C		12/7/1918	VA
BATES	NATHANIEL S		09/10/1864	GA
BAYLESS	A J	SGT	04/29/1865	TENN
BEACHMAN	ROBERT		09/17/1867
BEAL	WILLIAM M		01/19/1864	NC
BEALL	CHATTIE A		10/7/1927	MISS
BEALL	FRED		01/30/1929	MISS
BEAVER	TOBIAS		03/27/1864	NC
BECK	JAMES		05/27/1862	ARTY
BEDINGFIELD	JOHN Y	CAPT	04/05/1864	GA
BENNETT	JAMES A	SGT	05/20/1864	GA
BERNARD	W P		07/23/1864	GA
BERRY	D W		11/11/1863	NC
BETHUNE	ANDREW J		10/22/1863	NC
BETHUNE	NARCISSA G	SGT	6/12/1929	GA
BIBB	ROBERT		04/07/1864	VA
BOOTH	JAMES		11/03/1863	MISS
BORWN or BROWN	J A	2 LIUET	01/27/1929	22 VA INF
BOSTIAN	A A	CORP	11/14/1863	NC
BOUNDS	J D		04/20/1864	NC
BOYCE	S J	SGT	11/11/1863	NC
BOYLE	PATRICK		09/14/1864	GA
BRAND	WARREN H			GA
BROWER	LEON		08/24/1864	ALA
BROWN	BENJAMIN	CAPT	05/30/1920	VA
BROWN	FRANCES E		2/5/1917	VA
BROWN	GEORGE W	CAPT	03/22/1927	VA
BROWN	JOHN		01/22/1862
BROWN	MERIDA		04/27/1865	GA
BROWN	MINNIE R	2 LIUET	4/12/1942	22 VA INF
BROWN	SARAH P	CAPT	2/11/1923	VA
BROWN	WILLIAM		06/03/1862	NC
BROWN	WILLIAM H		5/4/1913	VA
BROWN	WILLIAM L		07/17/1864	GA
BROXTON	HOMER			GA
BRYANT	NEEDHAM B		05/27/1862	MISS
BURDICK	B B		08/21/1865	GA
BURKE	MARY E		06/28/1922	43 BN VA CAV
BURKE	THOMAS T		10/26/1916	43 BN VA CAV
BURNS	JOHN		06/16/1862	NC
BURROWS	FRANCIS M	MUS	8/10/1922	VA
BUTLER	JOHN F		06/28/1865	GA
BYASSEE	THOMAS W			VA INF
CAIN	WILLIAM B		06/12/1862	ALA
CALLAGHAN	JOHN T		02/21/1918	VA
CANNON	C M			GA
CANNON	H W		09/02/1862	GA
CANNON	J C			ALA
CAPPS	EDWARD W	CAPT	02/23/1864	VA
CARLTON	T R		07/14/1862	NC
CARROLL	D L		05/14/1863	ALA
CHEW	MARGARET H	M CHEW	07/19/1940	MISS
CHEW	MONROE G	M CHEW		MISS
CHISELDINE	WILLIAM C			MD
CHISM	J R		06/21/1862	VA
CHRISTOPHER	T C		05/24/1862	SG
CLAGETT	EDWARD L	SGT	4/10/1930	MD
CLEMENTS	FRANCIS J		8/2/1923	MD
CLEMENTS	JEANNETTE F		03/17/1921	MD
COLE	WILLIAM H		05/24/1862	VA
COLEMAN	DANIEL G		05/26/1863	NC
COLEMAN	E R			MISS
COLQUITT	W H		01/08/1863	GA
CONAGHAN	JAMES		06/15/1864	GA
CONLEY	DAN		03/25/1863
CONNER	ALFRED		05/12/1844
COOK	ELIAS M	LIEUT	05/25/1862	ALA
COOK	ENOCH		11/14/1910	VA
COOPER	ANDREW J			VA
CORDER	ALEXANDER		12/25/1862	VA
COWAN	THOMAS	LT	10/05/1862	NC
COX	J W		12/28/1863	NC
CRAFT	N L		01/11/1864	NC
CRANDALL	LEE	COLONEL	09/13/1926	47 ARK CAV
CRANFORD	ELIZABETH	SGT	1/8/1926	GA
CRANFORD	HORACE L	SEPG	12/21/1918	GA
CRAWFORD	WILLIAM			GA
CRONAN	JERRY		06/02/1864	GA
CRONE	H W			VA
CROSS	CHARLES N		02/19/1908
CROUCH	CHARLES C		09/29/1919	MO
CROUCH	JENNIE P		7/7/1916	MO
CURRY	JOHN A		08/11/1864	GA
DAVIDSON	MARTHA E		6/2/1939	MD
DAVIDSON	WILLIAM		11/7/1924	MD
DAVIS	JOSHUA		01/23/1915	ARTY
DAVIS	WELDON E	CAPTAIN	11/22/1863	30 NC IN
DAWSON	ROBERTA C		02/23/1935	VA
DAYMOND	GEORGE
DE SHIELDS	GEORGE D	SGT	11/27/1918
DEAN	J F		01/02/1864	NV
DEARING	WILLIAM R
DELEON	PERRY M		09/17/1922	ASST
DONOHOO	JAMES		05/26/1862	ALA
DRAKE	GERSHAM		6/12/1921	VA
DREW	JOHN	CAPT	07/31/1917	VA
DUFFEY	JEFFERSON W		10/11/1929	VA
DUFFEY	NANNIE T		07/29/1941	VA
DUNNINGTON	CHARLES A		02/28/1921	VA
DYESS	WILLIAM H	CORP	12/28/1864	GA
EARLEY	ALLEN H		04/11/1865	GA
EDMONSTON	GABRIEL		05/16/1918	41 VA INF
EDMONSTON	ROBERTA	b. 2-12-1871	03/18/1954	41 VA INF
ELAM	HENRY T		05/29/1862	VA
ELLEN	JAMES B	SGT	12/09/1863	NC
EMBREY	CHARLES O		2/12/1925	VA
EMBRY	SAMANTHA E		06/24/1922	VA
EMMART	ESTHER N		05/13/1935
EMORY	JAMES		11/16/1867
EPPS	J L		04/28/1865
ESTERS	WILLIAM		06/18/1862	SC
ESTES	DAVID N	2LT	5/12/1925	TENN
ESTES	ELDRA J	2LT	3/1/1939
EVANS	FRANK D		1/1/1918	VA
EVANS	JANE		7/6/1937	VA
EZEKIEL	MOSES J		03/27/1917
FAIRFAX	HENRY M		02/14/1928	VA
FARMER	NOAH		05/25/1862	VA
FARRELL	THOMAS W	CAPT	09/28/1864	MISS
FEAST	LOUDON	CO C	6/11/1912	MD INF
FEAST	MARY		01/18/1934	MD INF
FERNEYHOUGH	JENNIE A		12/4/1943	VA
FERRELL	EPHRIAM		10/8/1928
FERRELL	MARY E		05/20/1931	VA
FIELD	ELIJAH K		05/18/1865	GA
FIELD	GEORGE W		8/5/1918	VA
FINCH	JOHN		11/26/1863	NC
FINDLEY	THOMAS		9/6/1914	VA
FINNEY	MARY E		07/20/1922	VA
FINNEY	THOMAS		02/26/1915	VA
FINNEY	MARY E		07/20/1922	VA
FINNEY	THOMAS		02/26/1915	VA
FLANNERY	PHIL H		05/23/1862	ALA
FOLLIN	JOHN M			4TH VA CAV
FONES	HENRY R		01/27/1863	VA
FOREMAN	JAMES		04/01/1865	ALA
FURR	FRANK N		05/29/1862	ALA
GARRISON	ANN E	SGT	12/13/1922	VA
GENRARD	JOSEPH		06/28/1865	GA
GEUSS	L G		09/26/1863	MISS
GLEASE	LEWIS
GOLDSMITH	THEODOCIA H		10/19/1932	ASST SURG
GOLDSMITH	WILLIAM T		2/5/1918	ASST SURG
GOODENER	JOHN		06/08/1862	VA
GRADY	POWELL C	CAPT	4/12/1922
GRADY	SUSAN A	CAPT	12/17/1928	ASST
GRAVES	I T			GA
GRAY	W J
GRAYSON	S M		2/1/1919	MD
GREEN	ROBERT R		9/3/1920	VA
GREENE	J C		11/17/1867	GA
GRIGSBY	LOVINA	SGT	11/4/1921	VA
GRIGSBY	W S	SGT	06/28/1932	VA
GROVER	ALBERT S		02/24/1913	VA
GUNNELL	HENRY L	2LT	04/19/1917	VA
GUSSTON	W H			NC
HAGANS	JOSIAH H			GA
HALL	G W		09/19/1867	GA
HARDY	JAMES T	SGT	04/05/1865	GA
HARRIS	JOHN		09/12/1862	NC
HARRIS	REUBEN T		07/17/1864	ALA
HARROVER	HIRAM C	IST SGT	01/14/1912	VA
HARROVER	ROBERT M		06/26/1917	VA
HASKINS	ELIZABETH V	MUS	11/12/1929	VA
HASKINS	JOHN R	MUS	8/1/1928	VA
HAWKINS	MARCUS		11/19/1923	VA
HAWLEY	GEORGE W		7/11/1919	TEX
HEAVENER	W A
HEISTON	THORNTON B	CAPT	3/7/1916
HENDERSON	ANDREW		03/16/1930	SC SS
HENNESSEY	D		08/27/1862	ALA
HEROD	WILLIAM		04/14/1865	ALA
HERRELL	HENRY A		07/22/1913	VA
HICKEY	FANNIE B	CAPT	01/14/1933	6 MO INF
HICKEY	JOHN M	CAPT	1/10/1927	6 MO INF
HICKMAN	BENJAMIN H		02/08/1862	GA
HICKMAN	THOMAS H		08/08/1864	GA
HILL	SAMUEL		12/20/1863	NC
HODGKINS	W		06/07/1862	VA
HOGAN	LAFAYETTE		01/01/1863	TENN
HOLDER	WILLIAM		05/31/1862	VA
HOLMES	GEORGE J		06/08/1864	GA
HOLT	G L		11/09/1893
HOWARD	HARMAN		07/23/1864	ALA
HOWELL	FRANCIS A		02/15/1919	VA
HUBBARD	GEORGE W		06/16/1862	VA
HUBBARD	JOHN D		01/22/1863	FLA
HUDDLESON	JOHN	CAPT	3/11/1922	VA
HUDDLESON	MARY E	CAPT	01/16/1922	VA
HUDSON	T H		06/06/1864	VA
HUFFMAN	JAMES	b. 1-31-1840	04/14/1922	VA
HUGHES	BIRTIE K		2/11/1921	VA LT ARTY
HUGHES	RYLAND B		12/6/1916	VA LT ARTY
HUGHES	SAMUEL		07/08/1865	VA
HUNGERFORD	THOMAS W		3/9/1923	GA
HUNTER	ALEXANDER		06/30/1914	VA
HUNTER	FILAH A		8/1/1915	VA
HUTCHINSON	PHILIP AUGUSTUS		2/11/1925	VA
HUTCHINSON	SUSIE L		11/5/1928	VA
IMBODEN	ELIZABETH S	SCT MAJ	11/11/1919	CAV
IMBODEN	JAMES A	SCT MAJ	2/4/1928	CAV
INKFIELD	WILLIAM		11/15/1867
JACKSON	JOHN A			GA
JACKSON	WYATT		07/06/1862	FLA
JARVIS	ROBERTA E		5/8/1931	VA
JARVIS	WILLIAM		5/4/1916	VA
JENKINS	HORATIO N	CAPT	03/29/1915	LA
JENKINS	SARAH	CAPT	10/24/1927	LA
JENKINS	W N			MISS
JENKINS	WILLIAM E		12/31/1863	SC
JESSUP	S			GA
JOHNSON	GEORGE		05/21/1863	MISS
JOHNSON	OLIVER P		10/13/1908	VA
JOHNSON	RICHARD		12/16/1924	VA
ARMES	J T			SC
JOHNSON	ROBERT		08/25/1863	NC
JOHNSTON	FANNY		11/29/1922
JOHNSTON	GEORGE S		6/2/1928	MARINE CORPS
JONES	CHARLES M		05/19/1862	MISS
JONES	WILLIAM B		11/15/1865	GA
JORDAN	FLEMMING		08/02/1864
JORDAN	JOHN F	CAPT	08/29/1862	VA
JOYCE	G		08/07/1863	VA
KENNEMAN	WILLIS		06/05/1864	ALA
KEPHART	JOHN A		11/18/1929	VA
KEPHART	MARY E		2/4/1940	VA
KEY	JOHN F		4/10/1904	FORREST SCO
KEY	MINTER P		05/16/1916	TENN
KEYES	WILLIAM		01/24/1864
KIMPLE	FRITZ		08/31/1864	MISS
KING	A		02/02/1864	55 NC INF
KING	J F	LT COL	8/5/1915	VA
KING	THOMAS D	SGT	01/09/1864	LA
KING	WILLIAM G		05/19/1862	VA
KINKIN	G			NC
KIRBY	BENJAMIN F	SGT	01/12/1864	VA
KIRK	JOHN		05/21/1862	VA
KIRK	Rollin H		7/7/1922	SC
KIRKLAND	JOSHUA			GA
KNOWLES	B		01/03/1863	GA
KRICKLAND	JOSHUA			GA
L	T J		12/20/1862	CSA
LASH	ADA	SGT	09/17/1939	GRMIS PRTY
LASH	GEORGE W	SGT	10/11/1908	GRMIS PRTY
LAWHORNE	HENRY E			VA
LAY	THELDRED S		04/22/1865	GA
LEACOCK	JOHN
LEWIS	SAMUEL E	CAPT	11/17/1917	ASST SURG
LITTLEPAGE	BETTIE H		06/17/1937	VA
LITTLEPAGE	J C		10/27/1933	VA
LLOYD	G F		06/09/1864	GA
LOCKER	JACOB M		03/19/1934	VLA LT ARTY
LOONEY	T J		05/23/1862	LA
LOOP	GEORGE W		05/19/1862
LOOP	NOT CAPTURED		05/23/1862	VA
LOVELESS	WILLIAM
LOVING	PIERCE		04/24/1932	VA
LOWRANCE	C E		11/07/1863	57 NC INF
LYDDANE	JAMES		08/17/1913	VA
LYDDANE	MARY		10/15/1940	VA
LYNN	JAMES		11/22/1864	MISS
MANY	ROBERT P	CORP
MARCHANT	HENRY M	CAPT	02/24/1907
MARMADUKE	HENRY H	IST LT	11/15/1924	PRO NAVY
MARSHALL	JESSE E		06/12/1862	NC
MATHEWS	JOHN W		1/12/1909	VA
MCALLISTER	ALBERT L		02/13/1931	VA
MCALLISTER	ANDREW		07/03/1862	MISS
MCCLAIN	W L		05/16/1863	GA
MCCLENDON	JAMES			GA
MCCORD	JAMES	SGT	06/09/1864	GA
MCCULLEN	JAMES		06/25/1863
MCCUMMINGS	AMANDA		11/29/1920	MD
MCDONALL	J			ALA
MCELVEEN	ELIAS		08/16/1864	GA
MCFARLAND	ELLEN		11/15/1931	VA
MCFARLAND	HENRY D		1/10/1918	VA
MCGEE	THOMAS			ALA
MCLENDON	W J		06/15/1862	GA
MCMEEKIN	THOMAS		05/20/1864
MEAD	JOHN		05/13/1863	ALA
MEARS	WILLIAM S		10/8/1938	CO B 19 BN VA HVY ARTY
MEEKS	MARTHA A		10/7/1935	VA
MERCHANT	EMMA		6/3/1934	VA
MERCHANT	ISAAC N		10/19/1933	VA
MEREDITH	WINSTON	CORP		JONE'S PRTY
MEULIN	M		03/25/1863
MILLER	FRED W		10/7/1916	VA
MILLER	JOHN S		05/15/1921	VA
MILLER	MINNIE I		04/30/1936	VA
MILSTEAD	JOSEPH H		1/6/1924	MD
MOHLER	D J	PVT	1/6/1924	43RD VA CAV
MOHLER	LAURA	PVT	7/6/1925	43RD VA CAV
MONROE	G		01/14/1864
MOOMAW	SAMUEL		09/18/1863	VA
MOORE	JULIAN G	CAPT	02/28/1929	NC
MOORE	WILLIAM E		11/27/1920	NC
MORGAN	TIMOTHY F		04/06/1865	ALA
MORRIS	AARON		06/13/1864	GA
VIRGINIA	VIRGINIA		01/16/1916	VA
MOSS	PETER		05/30/1862	VA
MULLINS	JAMES R			MISS
MURPHY	JOHN A		06/20/1862	VA
MUSE	JOHN A		08/31/1843	VA CAV
MUSE	ROSE LEE	b. 4-27-1871	03/15/1934	VA CAV
MUSTAIN	ANDREW J		05/11/1863	21 VA INF
NAIL	JAMES		04/10/1864	GA
NAUCK	JOHN D		2/2/1925	VA
NAUCK	MARTHA A		04/22/1927	VA
NEILL	ISAAC		04/19/1865	MISS
NEWCOMB	JOHN J		04/16/1916	56 VA INF
NEWCOMB	MARGARET A		11/18/1925	56 VA INF
NICHOLS	WILLIAM H	CAPT	05/18/1925	TEX
NICKENS	JONATHAN		05/21/1862	NC
NICKS	W L		07/19/1864	ALA
NORTON	ROSA B		08/28/1939	MISS
NORWOOD	JAMES W			ALA
NOWELL	ARTHUR F	PVT	05/29/1864	31 GA INF
ORCHARD	FRANCES B	CROP	05/25/1920	SC
OVERCASH	H W		12/10/1863	NC
OWENS	ALFRED		7/12/1918	SC
PAGE	JOHN M		09/17/1864	GA
PAGE	WILLIAM		4/4/1914	CO B 2 MD INF
PALMER	HEZEKIAH S		10/10/1863	MISS
PANNILL	JOHN B		2/4/1929	VA
PARRY	ELLA H		5/2/1931	COD 53 VA INE
PARRY	RICHARD L	SGT	03/22/1914	CO D 53 VA INE
PARSONS	W G
PAXTON	JOSEPH M	CORP	08/16/1921	VA
PAYNE	AMOS P		5/1/1929	VA
PENDLETON	C M		02/19/1919	VA
PERKINS	W J		06/29/1864	CAV
PERRY	JESSE M		06/13/1864	GA
PERSONS	BENJAMIN F		07/03/1864	GA
PETTY	HENRY S		08/17/1918	VA
PETTY	JAMES T		3/5/1929	VA
PFAFF	ANDREW		12/29/1862	NC
PHILLIPS	WILLIAM A		07/25/1864	GA
PLUM	HENRY L		2/4/1921	ALA
PLUM	MARGARET		4/8/1937	ALA
POER	JOHN A		08/23/1863	GA
POLLARD	W O		05/19/1863	NC
POOL	MILES		06/05/1864	GA
POWELL	JAMES P		07/16/1911	3 CO A HOWITZWRS
POWELL	LAURA W		01/24/1953	3 CO A HOWITZERS
PRICE	IDA		11/18/1942	VA
PRICE	JAMES B		04/28/1920	VA
PRICE	LUCY A	I LIEUT	06/16/1925	VA
PRICE	MARTIN L	I LIEUT	04/17/1921	VA
PROTHIS	PINCKNEY		08/03/1863	GA
PURSE	J W		05/29/1864
QUINN	MICHAEL		05/18/1864	MISS
RALPH	J B		06/14/1862	NC
RANEY	J S		02/15/1864	ALA
RASH	URIAH		12/29/1863	NC
RAYNER	GEORGE W		05/07/1865	ALA
REA	A T		05/22/1862	VA
REEP	OBED		02/02/1864	NC
REESE	MARTIN		08/11/1863	MISS
REHILL	ANNIE		11/15/1914	VA
REHILL	EDWARD		09/25/1914	VA
REID	JULIA C		08/30/1918	VA
REID	SAMUEL D		11/7/1914	VA
RENFRAL	WILLIAM S	LIEUT	08/12/1864	GA
REYNOLDS	W F			LA
RICE	GEORGE W		06/28/1862	VA
RIEL	G W	CROP	11/14/1863	NC
RILEY	J L		06/03/1865	MISS
ROBERTS	H H		09/05/1865	MISS
ROBERTS	JOHN			CO D 15 ALA INF
RODGERS	THOMAS			GA
ROGERS	JOHN H		04/18/1865	GA
ROGERS	N A		12/07/1863	NC
ROY	EMILY H		11/2/1932	VA
ROY	RICHARD B		01/31/1921	VA
ROYSTON	C B			ALA
RUDD	J E		05/18/1917	ALA
RUSSELL	J S		05/05/1865	ALA
RUSSELL	JAMES			GA
SANDLIN	JAMES		09/19/1867	ALA
SAXON	JAMES M		12/04/1863	CO D 9 LA INF
SAYLES	GREEN	CORP	12/01/1863	LA
SCAGGS	EDWARD O		04/27/1933	MD
SCAGGS	MARION F		12/20/1937	MD
SCAGGS	ROBERT		8/5/1931	MD
SCALES	JAMES		04/25/1865	ALA
SCOTT	W A	2 LT	12/27/1914	GA
SCROGGIN	PEYTON R		06/23/1862	VA
SEAY	RICHARD B		7/2/1937	VA
SHAW	HENRY M		06/10/1865	ALA
SHILBY	MARY V	b. 12-25-1878	05/18/1963	CO C 21 REGT VA INF
SHOLLETTE	C B		06/14/1863	WHITE'S BTRY
SINCLAIR	ARTHUR G		1/8/1916	CO R 17 RFGT VA INF
SINCLAIR	CARRIE L		05/14/1916	CO K 17 REGT VA INF
SINCLAIR	WALLACE W		06/25/1917	VA
SINK	W A		02/19/1864	CO F 15 NO INF
SIZER	LUCIEN D	CORP	02/23/1918	VA
SIZER	MARY E	CORP	9/4/1923	VA
SMITH	CATHARINE M		4/3/1924	VA
SMITH	CROMONIO		02/29/1920	VA
SMITH	EDWARD T		7/8/1918	VA
SMITH	GEORGE H			ALA
SMITH	J A			GA
SMITH	MARGARET M	CAPT	1/3/1917	VA
SMITH	NATHANIEL J	CAPT	12/13/1912	VA
SMITH	ORLANDO F		01/16/1916	VA
SNYDER	CHARLES A		09/20/1915	VA
SNYDER	WILLIAM		08/31/1865	GA
SOMMERS	MARGARET M		01/29/1923
SOMMERS	SIMON L		11/13/1913
SPANN	HENRY		10/06/1864	FLA
SPRY	JAMES		12/2/1924	NC
SPRY	MARY I		04/14/1921	NC
STANLEY	E B		07/18/1864	GA
STEEVER	WEST	LT COL	09/14/1907	LA
STONE	WILLIAM		01/17/1863	SC
STONEBURNER	MARTHA V	SGT	1/5/1940	CO I S VA INF
STONEBURNER	SAMUEL G	SGT	11/16/1919	CO I S VA INF
STRAYHORNE	WILLIAM		01/20/1864	NC
SUMRALL	JOSEPH G		12/29/1862	MISS
SWANSON	SIMEON	CORP	01/12/1864	NC
TAYLOR	C W	CORP	12/28/1862	GA
TAYLOR	DAVID L		06/25/1864	GA
TAYLOR	WILSON		04/22/1865	ALA
TENNENT	JOHN C	ASST ENGR	11/7/1913
THOMAS	J P		02/06/1864
THOMPSON	GEORGE C	MUS	02/21/1920	VA
THOMPSON	GEORGE E		6/12/1921	VA
THOMPSON	LOUISA		02/21/1920	VA
THOMPSON	MARY T		8/11/1915	WIFE OF PVT M S THOMPSON
THOMPSON	T B			ALA
THOMPSON	WILLIAM T	CAPT	03/30/1920	MO
THRELKELD	FRANCIS M		10/01/1864	GA
THRIFT	BENJAMIN		03/27/1921	VA
TODD	SOPHIA		6/7/1935	IA
TODD	WILHAM E		05/25/1925	IA
TRIPP	WILLIAM C		06/25/1865	TENN
TUCKER	W		05/21/1863	CO C 34 NO INF
TURNER	THOMAS C	CORP		GA
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN			06/01/1862
UTTERBACK	JOHN		4/2/1929	VA
WALDRIP	ANDREW J		06/09/1864	GA
WALKER	ALEXANDER		1/11/1914	VA
WALKER	CORA H		12/24/1918	VA
WALLACE	J H		09/25/1865	GA
WALLACE	MICHAEL		04/27/1920	VA
WALLER	ELIZABETH D		02/22/1933	CO K 20 TENN CAV
WALSH	ALICE M		9/1/1911	FAYETTE ARTY
WALSH	JOHN H		2/12/1918	FAYETTE ARTY
WALSTON	RUFUS		06/10/1862	NC
WATERS	HUGH		11/3/1927	VA
WEST	JAMES
WEST	WILLIAM C		05/04/1865	ALA
WHALEY	GEORGE
WILKERSON	COLUMBIA T		08/27/1884	VA
WILKERSON	FANNIE M		03/03/1882	VA
WILKERSON	THOS J		10/22/1899	VA
WILKERSON	W L		07/25/1934	VA
WILKERSON	WILLIAM		08/11/1865	ALA
WILLIAMS	ASA	CORP	02/20/1864	NC
WILLIAMS	JAMES B	SGT	04/19/1927	VA
WILLIAMS	JAMES H	I LIEUT	05/16/1909	GA
WILSON	J W		01/09/1864	NC
WILSON	ROBERT		02/27/1939	CO D I MD CAV
WOLFE	THURSTON		09/26/1918	VA
WOLFE	VIRGINIA ASHBY		09/25/1925	VA
WOOD	ROBERT		07/05/1862	VA
WOODSON	CECELIA A		6/9/1940	VA
WOODSON	WALTER N		01/21/1920	VA
WOODWARD	COLUMBUS O		02/23/1920	MD
WOODWARD	DANIEL		3/10/1930	VA
WOODWARD	EMMET	SURG	05/14/1909
WOODWARD	EMMETT	SURG	05/14/1909
WOODWARD	LAURA VIRGINIA		01/27/1938	MD
WORLEY	WILLIAM			DAV VILLE BTRY
WORTHAM	JAMES A		04/21/1913	VA
WORTHAM	SARAH F		10/3/1925	VA
WRIGHT	MARCUS J	BRIG GEN	12/26/1922	GHEATHAM S DIVISION
WYATT	JOHN W		12/5/1924	VA
YEATMAN	CHARLOTTE E		4/4/1939	VA
YONT	PETER		11/10/1863	NC

¹ That registration was approved for the property's entry onto the National Register of Historic Places April 11, 2014.

² Patterson, https://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/history-of-the-csa-memorial-at-anc-1914.htm.

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We WILL Save the Magnificent Arlington Confederate Memorial–Woke Ignorance DIES at Arlington–Letter from Our Attorney to Secretary of Defense Austin and Others–Several “serious regulatory violations” by the Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery

Posted on January 11, 2023January 11, 2023 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | No Comments

We WILL Save the Magnificent Arlington Confederate Memorial

Woke Ignorance DIES at Arlington

Letter from Our Attorney to Secretary of Defense Austin and Others

Several "serious regulatory violations" by the Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - We will not allow the Woke naming commission to desecrate Arlington National Cemetery. We all love ANC. It belongs to all Americans.

The naming commission came about because of Elizabeth Warren's legislation mandating destruction of Southern history in our military - as she interprets it - from the Confederate era. This is not peer-reviewed history that is openly debated by both sides but filthy politics. This is EXACTLY what Orwell warned about in his great novel 1984 when he wrote:

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

In fairness to Warren, Republican Jim Inhofe was head of the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time and Republicans had a majority. He could have stopped Warren as President Trump wanted but Inhofe is as characterless as Warren. He promised President Trump he would stop Warren's hate legislation but he lied. It is UNBELIEVABLY frustrating when Republicans prove they are the Stupid Party and go against their own voters to give the likes of Elizabeth Warren a political victory.

Without a doubt, this wokeness and Woke naming commission has made our military weaker and more divided for no reason. Changing base names and the names of streets, patches, destroying monuments, etc. is a waste of millions of dollars of taxpayer money at a time when we are running huge budget deficits. The changes do nothing but divide us just like Austin's standdown and search for extremists in the military who don't exist, and his promotion of Critical Race Theory and other racist fads.

The Woke naming commission sends a clear message to Southerners that they can bleed and die but they are not welcome unless they denounce their own families as traitors, which is not true. New England threatened to secede multiple times in the antebellum days such as in the War of 1812 and with the admission of Texas. Anything that reduced New England political power caused them to threaten secession, the right of which nobody questioned at the time. West Point made it clear and taught the right of secession in the antebellum days. Our country was founded on secession from the British Empire. Our Declaration of Independence is the greatest ordinance of secession ever written.

Southerners were correct with everything they did. They were fed up with Yankees sending terrorists into the South to murder them and their families so they called conventions, such as the Founding Fathers established with the Constitutional Convention and state ratification conventions, they debated the issue of secession then voted on it. It was pure democracy such as the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Southerners expected to live in peace but the North with four times the white population of the South and perhaps 200 times the arms decided they were not going to allow a free trade nation with warm water ports and 100% control of the most demanded commodity on the planet, cotton, to rise up on their Southern border.

Lincoln knew that the moment Southerners signed trade and military treaties with Great Britain and other Europeans powers, the North would not be able to beat the South in a war, so he sent five military missions into the South in March and April, 1861 to get one started as quickly as he could. He announced his blockade before the smoke cleared from the bombardment of Fort Sumter, which was his purpose all along. He knew that would chill European support for the South and make Europe take a wait-and-see attitude.

Lincoln made it crystal clear through 1) the War Aims Resolution, 2) his support for the Corwin Amendment that left black people in slavery forever where slavery already existed, 3) the fact that six slave states fought for the Union the entire war, 4) etc. etc., that the North did not go to war to end slavery. They went to war to continue the economic domination of the country and eliminate a powerful Southern competitor.

That's why Abraham Lincoln said over and over that the war was fought for the preservation of the Union, which guaranteed the North's political domination due to its much larger population. Still, in 1860, 61% of the country voted against Abraham Lincoln.

Republicans in Congress should immediately defund all the worthless recommendations of the Woke naming commission.

I am not against some of the names suggested for military bases but put them on new bases and new weapons and such. Do not destroy the old. It is not necessary to destroy the old. We are supposed to be inclusionary. Remember the "inclusion" part of diversity, equity and inclusion? Destroying the old using the idiotic, goofy standards of today tears at the fabric of our country. It is false history, it costs enormous amounts of money and divides us for no reason other than to allow Elizabeth Warren to signal her "virtue"¹ and for the benefit of evil politicians who think hate and anarchy will somehow benefit them.

Our military in the not too distant past looked up to Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee because they were brilliant military leaders. We had nuclear submarines named for Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson during the nuclear standoff of the Cold War. President Dwight D. Eisenhower kept a picture of Lee in his White House office the whole time he was president. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of World War II, when important bases in the South like Fort Bragg and Fort Benning trained our men and women to go fight and win and if need be, die, certainly knew more than Elizabeth Warren and the Woke political naming commission.

Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and all other presidents until the rise of the Communist-style division of today, admired Gen. Lee, not just as a military leader but as a man of great character who worked hard to reconcile North and South and bring our great nation back together after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed. In World War II we lost 400,000 out of a population nearly five times larger.

The naming commission is so inept it does not even mention the reconciliation theme and symbolism of the Confederate Memorial though Arlington National Cemetery itself, does. ANC's own description in its National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Historic District received by the National Park Service February 24, 2014 states over and over that the Confederate Memorial symbolizes the reconciliation and reunification of our great country after our country's bloodiest war.²

How could the naming commission ignore that?

The Confederate Memorial was conceived by Union soldier and President William McKinley after enthusiastic Southern participation in the Spanish-American War. President William Howard Taft spoke at the UDC ceremony the evening the cornerstone was laid giving an inspiring well-received speech. President Woodrow Wilson spoke at the dedication June 4, 1914 as did Union and Confederate Veterans. Remember, these were the days of the 50th and 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the famous handshakes across the wall by the old Union and Confederate gentlemen.

How could the naming commission not care about all that?

It proves that the Confederate Memorial is about reconciliation therefore it is not in the Woke naming commission's remit. The Confederate Memorial does not commemorate the Confederacy. It commemorates the reunification of the United States of America after a bloody war. See my 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 on Defend Arlington's website, 28 pages on the theme of reconciliation.

The 109 year old Confederate Memorial was created in the city of Rome, Italy by internationally acclaimed Jewish sculptor Moses Ezekiel but the naming commission wants to tear it apart in the cheapest way possible and leave a mangled shaft sticking up in Arlington National Cemetery.

The white paper by Ernest E. Blevins, who is the foremost national expert on Union and Confederate monuments, is entitled: "Headstone of the Confederate States: Moses Ezekiel's Arlington Confederate Monument, Symbolism, Meaning, National Register Eligibility, and Potential Adverse Effects to Alternations or Removal." It is 49 pages, detailed, documented and irrefutable.

Blevins discusses the "monument symbology" that "depicts the South's mourning and the war's losses" and he includes a comment from Michael Robert Patterson:

But 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.³

That comment again points out the crime against history and art committed by the Woke naming commission in its desire to destroy the monument as cheaply as possible and leave a mangled shaft in its place in Arlington National Cemetery surrounded by 500 graves of Southern soldiers in concentric circles.

Esteemed British art critic and historian, Alexander Adams, writes that "four soldiers are buried at its base" and "include Civil War Soldier and sculptor Corporal Moses Ezekiel . . . " therefore "The Memorial is an actual grave marker, marking the burial site of dead soldiers, and is located in the National Cemetery, making it a functional or symbolic grave marker. It is therefore outside the remit of the Naming Commission."⁴

About its artistic significance, Adams writes:

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. It 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."⁵

Adams also notes that:

[I]t is rare for a nation to mark the sacrifices and loses of the losing side in a civil war. This makes the Memorial internationally significant, as an example of the exceptional history of the USA and the efforts to reconcile the sides after the Civil War. It shows black and white soldiers working together, overturning expectations and putting [on] the record the complexity of historical fact, which it is not our generation's place to suppress.⁶

The naming commission prefers a mangled shaft created in the cheapest way possible marking the graves of hundreds of Southerners, which would desecrate Arlington National Cemetery for eternity.

To allow a mangled shaft to mark Southern graves in our nation's most sacred burial ground dishonors every Southern state and all the Southerners who fought with great valor and died in defense of our country in every later war, many of whom are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

It is pretty stupid during a military recruiting crisis caused by Woke policies to insult the region from where 44% of our military is recruited.

But then, intelligence is not a Woke virtue.

Below, is a powerful letter from Defend Arlington's attorney and partner in her Washington, D.C. law firm, Karen C. Bennett. She is one of the best in the country on litigation involving historic properties and federal rules and regulations.

We can win this fight and save the magnificent Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery and strike a hard blow against Woke ignorance and iconoclasm once and for all but WE NEED MONEY and time is of the essence.

Below, there are links to where you can donate.

EVERY SCV CAMP and UDC CHAPTER and all organizations that care about American history must give NOW to the utmost. We are in a war that we can win but we must act now.

Below, are also links to all the PDF white papers gathered together by Defend Arlington including Karen Bennett's letter below. Send Bennett's letter to your Congressional representatives ASAP.

It is powerful to send a note with a PDF of Alexander Adams's testimonial since he is an international expert and his testimonial is just a few pages. Send it with Karen Bennett's letter.

Remember what President William McKinley, a former Union soldier who came up with the idea for the Confederate Memorial, said about those Southern graves surrounding the monument:

. . . 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.

If you are descended from any of the 500 people buried in the graves in the concentric circles around the monument please contact us. Please forward this email and encourage people to get on our mailing list. We have the names, ranks, units, etc. of the 500 Southerners buried in concentric circles around the monument. We have it in a data file but I will publish all of them in the next few days.]

Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP

Karen C. Bennett
2112 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20037

December 27, 2022

Lloyd J. Austin, III
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Christine E. Wormuth
Secretary of the Army
101 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-0101

Re: Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery

We write to express our concerns with serious regulatory violations occurring at the November 7-8, 2022, meeting of the Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery (FACANC). The Department of Defense, through the Department of the Army, is charged with ensuring the FACANC's compliance with the requirement of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.⁷ The Department of the Army, to whom the Committee reports, shall take steps to remedy these serious regulatory violations as set forth below.

Defend Arlington Cemetery is a coalition of stakeholders interested in the protection of the Reconciliation Memorial in the Arlington National Cemetery (ANC). Coalition members participated in the Nov. 7-8 FACANC meeting, submitted written comments, and obtained permission to address the Committee during the public comment period.

We write to express our concern with the Department of the Army's, Designated Federal Officer's interference with FACANC deliberations as the Department of Defense prepares to remove a significant historical Memorial from our nation's most sacred military cemetery. On November 7-8, 2022, the FACANC met to discuss, among other things, implementation of the Naming Commission's recommendations, specifically, the removal of the Memorial honoring the Confederate dead.⁸ The public meeting was announced on October 21, 2022, consistent with procedures under the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (5 U.S.C. 552b) (FACA).⁹ Members of Defenders of Arlington Cemetery provided written comments to the FACANC and other members registered, consistent with procedures outlined in the notice, to provide verbal comment at the open meeting.¹⁰ Notwithstanding over 320 pages objecting to removal ¹¹, the FACANC decided not to respond or provide any advice regarding the Naming Commission recommendation. Even worse, without any explanation, the FACANC refused to allow those members of the public that had properly registered to appear before the FACANC, denying them their right to speak and ensuring their opposition would not be included in the official meeting record. The FACANC's silence is disappointing and fails to meet congressional expectations under the FACANC's Charter. The FACANC's decision to prohibit public speech is a violation of the federal law that governs how Congressionally established advisory committees exercise their functions.¹² Congress charged the Department of Defense, through the Secretary of the Army, with ensuring the FACANC's actions are consistent with the FACA. The Secretary of the Army should reconvene the FACANC for the purpose of providing the public with an opportunity to address the Committee consistent with expectations established in the October 21, 2022 meeting announcement.

Congress established the FACANC to provide the Secretary of Defense with independent advice or recommendations on matters including the erection of memorials in ANC.¹³ The Secretary's approval of the Naming Commission recommendation to remove the Memorial honoring our national great reconciliation following the Civil War falls squarely within the FACANC's purpose. During the November 8 meeting, FACANC members raised concerns with the decision to remove the Memorial. The Designated Federal Officer (DFO) responded that the decision to remove the Memorial had already been made and that there was no opportunity for the FACANC's input to the Secretary. We were shocked to hear the DFO provide the Committee with such substantive direction. DoD regulations are clear that a DFO's responsibility is purely administrative, limited calling meeting, approving agendas, adjourning where the public interest requires and, if directed, assuming the role of Chair ¹⁴. We strongly believe that without the strong direction of the DFO that "this is already decided" the FACANC would have continued its deliberations and may very likely have decided an advisory report responding to the Secretary's approval of the Naming Commission's recommendation was warranted. The DFO's inappropriate actions shut down further discussion and influenced the outcome, causing the FACANC to erroneously conclude that there was no opportunity to perform its congressionally assigned advisory role.

The FACANC's decision not to allow properly registered members of the public speak at the meeting is a violation of DoD's regulations at 41 C.F.R. 102-3.140(d) that provide "any member of the public may speak, if an agency's guidelines so permit." In this case, procedures for registration to address the FACANC were provided in the Oct. 21, 2022 meeting announcement. Members of Defenders of Arlington Cemetery, among others, submitted and received confirmation of the request to speak. However, without explanation, Committee Co-Chairs, Peake and Edwards, decided not to allow any registrants to speak. Not only did the Committee act in violation of the governing regulations, but the public was denied its right to be heard and have its voice registered in the meeting record. Department of the Army legal counsel in attendance at the meeting failed to raise concerns that the Committee's decision violated the regulations governing FACA obligations.

The Department of the Army, to whom the Committee reports, shall take immediate steps to remedy the foregoing serious regulatory violations.

Sincerely,

/s/ Karen C. Bennett

Karen C. Bennett of
LEWIS BRISBOIS BISGAARD & SMITH LLP

cc:

Lt. General James Peake
Chair, Federal Advisory Committee on
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
1 Memorial Avenue
Arlington, VA 22211

Mr. Thomas Edwards
Chair, Federal Advisory Committee on
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
1 Memorial Avenue
Arlington, VA 22211

Mark Takano, Chairman (CA-D)
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs
364 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Mike Bost, Ranking Member (IL-R)
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs
364 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Jon Tester, Chairman (MT)
US Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs
412 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-6050

Jerry Moran, Ranking Member (IL)
US Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs
412 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-6050

Capt. Thomas Kelley
Arlington National Cemetery
1 Memorial Ave.
Arlington, Virginia 22211

Col. Gene E. Castagnetti
Arlington National Cemetery
1 Memorial Ave.
Arlington, Virginia 22211

Maj. Gen. Elizabeth A. Harrell
Arlington National Cemetery
1 Memorial Ave.
Arlington, Virginia 22211

Lt. Col. Gerald Torrence
Arlington National Cemetery
1 Memorial Ave.
Arlington, Virginia 22211

Vice Adm. Ann Rondeau
Arlington National Cemetery
1 Memorial Ave.
Arlington, Virginia 22211

Please forward and share this email with as many people as you can!

Links to Important Resources

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

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND

Please Donate Money -- THANK YOU!

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

The Arlington Confederate Monument

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video,

Take action TODAY!

¹ Elizabeth Warren has no virtue. She knows nothing about Southern history and perhaps even less about her own: ". . . Warren held herself out as Native American, allowing Harvard Law School to use her as cover for its impotent diversity efforts" and:

According to a much-cited investigation by the Boston Globe, Warren consistently checked "white" on personnel forms throughout her career, including in 1981, 1985, and 1998 while employed at the University of Texas. But in the 1986-1987 edition of the Association of American Law School's directory and eight subsequent editions, Warren listed herself as a minority. She began identifying as Native American on personnel forms three years into her post at the University of Pennsylvania. And while multiple professors have attested to the fact that Warren was considered white during the hiring process at Harvard University, in 1995 she self-identified as Native American, and the school's statistics were updated to reflect as much. Harvard recorded Warren as Native American from 1995 to 2004. [https://theintercept.com/2018/10/16/elizabeth-warren-dna-video-native-american-harvard/, accessed 12-3-22]

² That registration was approved for the property's entry onto the National Register of Historic Places April 11, 2014.

³ Patterson, https://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/history-of-the-csa-memorial-at-anc-1914.htm.

⁴ Alexander Adams, "Testimony regarding Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial submitted to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery Open Secession, 7-8 November 2022." Adams's source is Arlington National Cemetery's National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Historic District received by the National Park Service February 24, 2014, mentioned above. It was approved for the property's entry onto the National Register of Historic Places April 11, 2014.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Charter Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, 6, The Department of Defense (DoD), through the Department of the Army, . . . and will ensure compliance with the requirements of the FACA, the Government in the Sunshine Act of 1976 (5 U.S.C. Section 552b, as amended, "the Sunshine Act"), Federal statutes and regulations and DoD policies and procedures.

⁸ September 2022, The Naming Commission Final Report to the United States Congress Part III: Remaining Department of Defense Assets, p. 15.

⁹ 87 Federal Register 64019 (Oct. 21, 2022).

¹⁰ Id. at 64020.

¹¹ Written Statements to the ACANC Nov. 7-8, 2022 meeting.

¹² Charter Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, 6, The Department of Defense (DoD), through the Department of the Army, . . . and will ensure compliance with the requirements of the FACA, the Government in the Sunshine Act of 1976 (5. U.S.C. Section 552b, as amended, "the Sunshine Act"), government Federal statutes and regulations and DoD policies and procedures.

¹³ Charter, Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery available at:

Charter (arlingtoncemetery.mil).

¹⁴ 41 C.F.R. 102-3. 120.

Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial: Testimony of British Art Critic and Historian, Alexander Adams

Posted on January 3, 2023January 3, 2023 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | 1 Comment

Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial:

Testimony of British Art Critic and Historian,

Alexander Adams

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Alexander Adams is one of the finest art critics and historians alive today. His testimony, below, is also available as a PDF along with the many scholarly white papers written for Defend Arlington. There is a link, following this post, to PDFs of all the white papers and other materials including a recent strong letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and others.

Bennett points out numerous deliberate violations of federal regulations by the Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery in its haste to support the destruction of the 109 year old Confederate Memorial before the public and lawmakers can stop them.

When you read Adams's testimonial about the enormous artistic and historic value of the Confederate Memorial, you will realize how barbaric and UNAMERICAN the destruction of this magnificent memorial in our nation's most sacred burial ground really is.

This is the most symbolic monument in American history because it involves the central event in American history, our War Between the States. Before the war, states were sovereign and supreme over the federal government.

After the war, the federal government was supreme over the states.

To gaze on the Confederate monument is to contemplate battlefields drenched in blood and strewn with dead and dying men, who back home had grieving families, widows and children, parents who got the horrifying news that their young man, their little boy, was killed and buried in a place they will never know or be able to visit and grieve.

Around 750,000 died in the War Between the States and over a million were maimed out of a national population of 31 million. In World War II, we lost around 400,000 out of a national population of 132 million.

President William McKinley, a former Union soldier, came up with the idea for a Confederate memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. He said after the Spanish-American war in 1898:

. . . 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 memorial was enthusiastically endorsed by Congress and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. Taft gave an eloquent speech at the UDC ceremony the evening of the laying of the cornerstone. Wilson spoke at the June 4, 1914 dedication as did Union and Confederate veterans and others who all supported reconciliation, binding up the nation's wounds and moving forward. Other presidents including Barack Obama sent wreaths of commemoration or flowers each year.

But to the Woke naming commission and current commissioners on the Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, none of that matters.

Any commissioner who supports the destruction of a 109 year old monument symbolizing the reconciliation of our great country is unfit to walk the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery much less serve on its advisory board.

All of this came about so one of the most historically ignorant people in American history, Elizabeth Warren, could crow about her "virtue." Warren knows nothing about Southern history and even less about her own: ". . . Warren held herself out as Native American, allowing Harvard Law School to use her as cover for its impotent diversity efforts" and:

According to a much-cited investigation by the Boston Globe, Warren consistently checked "white" on personnel forms throughout her career, including in 1981, 1985, and 1998 while employed at the University of Texas. But in the 1986-1987 edition of the Association of American Law School's directory and eight subsequent editions, Warren listed herself as a minority. She began identifying as Native American on personnel forms three years into her post at the University of Pennsylvania. And while multiple professors have attested to the fact that Warren was considered white during the hiring process at Harvard University, in 1995 she self-identified as Native American, and the school's statistics were updated to reflect as much. Harvard recorded Warren as Native American from 1995 to 2004. [https://theintercept.com/2018/10/16/elizabeth-warren-dna-video-native-american-harvard/, accessed 12-3-22]

Warren was supported by Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee led by Jim Inhofe when Republicans controlled it. Inhofe told President Trump repeatedly that he would remove the part of the NDAA FY2021 that would change United States Army base names in the South, but he is a liar and his lies have now led to the imminent desecration of Arlington National Cemetery unless we stop it.

At a time when we are in a recruiting crisis in the United States Military, it is absurd to insult the region from where 44% of military personnel are recruited. Military service has always been revered in the South and part of that comes from admiration for the valor of our Confederate ancestors fighting for independence and defending their homes and families from an invasion 1861 to 1865.

We are damn proud of our Confederate ancestors and proud of their descendants like Medal of Honor winners and legends Audie Murphy of Texas and Alvin York of Tennessee.

We are damn proud of the Southerners who won the War of 1812 in New Orleans when Elizabeth Warren's slave-trading New Englanders were committing treason with the Hartford Convention.

It is important to write your Congressional representatives and tell them that the demolition of the 109 year old Confederate Memorial to reconciliation would be a stain on Arlington National Cemetery for all time and simply must be stopped now.

The Confederate Memorial is a grave marker as shown by the pictures above. It was designed and constructed by internationally renowned Jewish sculptor Moses Ezekiel, himself a Confederate veteran, a graduate of VMI. He is buried with three other Southerners at the base of his beautiful monument thus making it their headstone but also the grave marker for 462 other Confederate graves arranged in concentric circles around the monument and an integral part of the memorial as intended by Congress, several presidents and veterans North and South.

There are important links at the end of this outstanding testimonial by Alexander Adams.

Download the PDFs of Defend Arlington's white papers. You can download all of them with one click. Share them far and wide.

Send the PDF letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to your Congressional representatives. Email it or print it and mail it with a note.

Bureaucrats on the Federal Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery MUST be held accountable and forced to obey the law and federal regulations.]

Testimony regarding Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial submitted to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery Open Session

by Alexander Adams (British art critic, historian, author)

7-8 November 2022

Standing of submitter

I am a British cultural critic and art historian, who has written six books and over 1,000 articles over the course of a 20-year career. I have frequently written on the areas of free speech and historical preservation. In the course of researching my book Iconoclasm, Identity Politics and the Erasure of History (2020, Imprint Academic) I encountered many examples of politically motivated intolerance that manifested itself in the historical suppression of defeated groups. In that book, I extensively discussed and catalogued the recent destruction of Confederate heritage. Although I have not seen the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial in person – I am rarely able to visit Washington DC, sadly – I have seen photographs and read descriptions. I have often reviewed sculpture of the same period and style as this memorial.

General response to the Final Report of the Naming Commission

I was alarmed by the Naming Commission’s Final Report, particularly with regard to Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial (the Memorial). The Memorial marks a reconciliation of sorts between the sides, both the few living veterans and their descendants. Such serious and dignified memorial work, consecrated by the nation as a whole, is a tribute to American and Christian virtues of charity and hope. By removing such a symbol of reconciliation, the implication is that there can be no end to the Civil War, that the future must see that eradication of a historical legacy and that includes unending humiliation of the legatees of the defeated side.

When I consider the Naming Commission’s recommendations, I am reminded of the words of your President Lincoln: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” That is, it is the duty of the victors to extend charity and compassion to the defeated side’s veterans, widows and orphans – and their descendants – by allowing them to honour their dead as they see fit and (incidentally) as the Union victors saw fit to allow them.

Legal objections

On legal grounds, it seems that the Naming Commission has exceeded its authority by making a recommendation about the destruction of the Memorial, as it is a grave marker. According the page 4 of the Final Report (part III), one of the renaming criteria given to the commission (as stipulated in Section 370) is “Asset is not a grave marker.” According to the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (dated 24 February 2014, pp. 25-6) four soldiers are buried at its base. These include Civil War soldier and sculptor Corporal Moses Ezekiel, whose work the memorial is. The Memorial it is an actual grave marker, marking the burial site of dead soldiers, and is located in the National Cemetery, making it a functional or symbolic grave marker. It is therefore outside the remit of the Naming Commission.

Artistic significance

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.

It was made for its specific site with a specific purpose in mind by the artist and commissioners, so that relocating it would do its meaning great damage. Relocating it would remove a major part of the effect and distort its integrity as surely as cutting away a figure or effacing an inscription would.

Historical significance

It is worth noting that it is rare for a nation to mark the sacrifices and loses of the losing side in a civil war. This makes the Memorial internationally significant, as an example of the exceptional history of the USA and the efforts to reconcile the sides after the Civil War. It shows black and white soldiers working together, overturning expectations and putting the record the complexity of historical fact, which it is not our generation’s place to suppress.

The fact that Presidents McKinley, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson (of both Democrat and Republican Parties) supported the erection and dedication of the Memorial gives former presidential support a non-partisan character. On 4 June 1914, President Wilson dedicated the Memorial with these words: “And, now, it has fallen to my lot to accept in the name of the great Government which I am privileged for the time to represent this emblem of a reunited people. I am not so much happy as proud to participate in this capacity on such an occasion,—proud that I should represent such a people. Am I mistaken, ladies and gentlemen, in supposing that nothing of this sort could have occurred in anything but a democracy? The people of democracy are not related to their rulers as subjects are related to a government. They are themselves the sovereign authority, and as they are neighbors of each other, quickened by the same influences and moved by the same motives, they can understand each other. They are shot through with some of the deepest and profoundest instincts of human sympathy. They choose their governments; they select their rulers; they live their own life, and they will not have that life disturbed and discolored by fraternal misunderstandings.”

Wilson’s consideration of democracy healing wounds and allowing fractured populations to express fraternal sympathy is a lesson to those who seek to maintain democracy as an American civic value. When we look at other countries, we do not find similar generosity extended to the defeated. This makes the Memorial rare. Regardless of one’s own views on the Civil War, it is a duty to preserve monuments constructed by those who had direct first-hand experience of the war and its veterans.

Response of Jewish groups

The fact that commissioners chose a sculptor who was Jewish is significant, as it shows generosity towards a group considered marginal at the time. The artist recognised the seriousness of his task and considered it an honour, as witnessed by his letter of 11 February 1911 (Exhibit A). The destruction of the Memorial – which is what any removal would amount to – would be an insult to the artist and reduce the cultural breadth of the nation. A Jewish writer has explained his objects eloquently in a letter I received, submitted as Exhibit B. The author concludes, “We would urge you to leave the Arlington Confederate Memorial exactly as our forefathers intended it.”

Recommendation of submitter

My professional advice is that I strongly recommend that the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial remains unaltered, for reasons of historical and artistic integrity.

Alexander Adams

7/8 November 2022

Publisher's Note: Please download the PDF of Mr. Adams' Testimony, which includes his Exhibits A and B. They are not included here because it would make this post too long. They are well-worth reading. Just click the link below, or here: PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington.

Links to Important Resources

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

The Arlington Confederate Monument

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video,

Take action TODAY!

Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule, Part Two, Conclusion, of the Review, by Gene Kizer, Jr.-UPDATE 12-12-22

Posted on December 12, 2022December 13, 2022 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | 1 Comment

Part Two, Conclusion, of the Review of

Robert E. Lee and Me

A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
by Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point

By Gene Kizer, Jr.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Original post was March 25, 2021. Update December 12, 2022:

Many thanks to Col. Jerry D. Morelock who wrote Part One last week of this two-part review of Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me.

As stated last week, Seidule is on the naming commission, which came about because of Sen. Pocahontas Warren of Massachusetts who knows nothing about Southern history and perhaps even less about her own: ". . . Warren held herself out as Native American, allowing Harvard Law School to use her as cover for its impotent diversity efforts" and:

According to a much-cited investigation by the Boston Globe, Warren consistently checked "white" on personnel forms throughout her career, including in 1981, 1985, and 1998 while employed at the University of Texas. But in the 1986-1987 edition of the Association of American Law School's directory and eight subsequent editions, Warren listed herself as a minority. She began identifying as Native American on personnel forms three years into her post at the University of Pennsylvania. And while multiple professors have attested to the fact that Warren was considered white during the hiring process at Harvard University, in 1995 she self-identified as Native American, and the school's statistics were updated to reflect as much. Harvard recorded Warren as Native American from 1995 to 2004. [https://theintercept.com/2018/10/16/elizabeth-warren-dna-video-native-american-harvard/, accessed 12-3-22]

People such as Elizabeth Warren who have to remind you all the time how virtuous they are, have no virtue at all.

For example, Warren won't talk about her ancestors in Massachusetts and especially Boston who were America's slave traders. They sailed to Africa's west coast and chained poor Africans to decks inside the bowels of their scorching hot New England and New York slave ships. Poor slaves had to endure the stench of vomit, urine, feces and death cooked in oven-like heat with no ventilation for months through the Middle Passage so Elizabeth Warren's ancestors could make money.

Boston and New York were the largest slave trading ports on earth 54 years after the slave trade was outlawed by the U.S. Constitution. W. E. B. Du Bois in his famous book, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870, writes that Boston, New York and Portland, Maine were the largest slave trading ports on the planet in 1862, a year into the War Between the States. They had been slave trading illegally since 1808.

Elizabeth Warren wants to hold her money-grubbing, slave-trading New England ancestors above Southerners defending their homes and families from a barbaric, unconstitutional, immoral invasion.

Elizabeth Warren is not good enough to lick the sweat off the hind quarters of a Confederate cavalry horse.

Confederate soldiers, who were outnumbered four to one and outgunned 200 to one, wrote the book on American valor, then came back together into our great country and became the best Americans. That's why 44% of the United States Military today is recruited in the South.

This will continue unless Seidule's naming commission succeeds with its plan to demolish Moses Ezekiel's magnificent 108 year old Confederate Memorial to reconciliation in Arlington National Cemetery.

That memorial is an incredible work of art sculpted in Rome, Italy, by Ezekiel, who was a Confederate soldier and is buried with three others at the base of the monument.

The monument is in the center of 482 Confederate graves in concentric circles around it, that Congress and four presidents including President William McKinley, a Union soldier, who came up with the idea, wanted to honor in ANC to show the good feelings and true reunification of our country after Southerners flocked to the flag in the Spanish-American War.

President William Howard Taft spoke at a UDC reception the evening of the laying of the cornerstone with other dignitaries including Confederate and Union veterans.

President Woodrow Wilson spoke at the monument's dedication two years later, June 4, 1914, again, with Confederate and Union veterans and other dignitaries.

Scroll down for a link to an excellent video by Bode Lang entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery," which tears apart Seidule and the Prager University video he made.

Lang makes Seidule look foolish by showing one clip after another of Seidule's cherry-picked "history" then thoroughly refuting each with equal, and in most cases, better, sources.

Lang proves Seidule's dishonesty, presentism, politicization, and falsification of history.

Here is Part Two, by Gene Kizer, Jr., of the review of Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule.]

A number of good historians have written reviews recently of Ty Seidule's book, Robert E. Lee and Me, including historian Phil Leigh who produced the video, Robert E. Lee and (Woke General) Please Like Me.

All of these reviews note that the tone of Robert E. Lee and Me is a desperate plea by Seidule for academia to "please PLEASE like me!" Academia is Seidule's new home. He has gone from the United States Military Academy at West Point, to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.¹

For Seidule to write such an embarrassing screed on his way into academia is understandable. Most of academia looks down on the military and military personnel. One of my professors at the College of Charleston in 1999, when I was a middle-age student, was Dr. Clark G. Reynolds. We became close friends. He told me on several occasions about the condescension of other faculty members toward military historians and the military itself.

Dr. Reynolds would know because he was a very fine naval historian who had written several important books and served on the faculty of the United States Naval Academy, and as Chair of the Department of Humanities at the United States Merchant Marine Academy.²

Robert E. Lee and Me is a non-history book that is so historically irrelevant it doesn't even have an index.

It was written by a virtue-signaling narcissist whose obvious goal is to make sure academia knows that he is woke and correct on all the leftist political issues of today that resonate in academia. They are the focus of way too many history departments that have hired social justice warriors instead of historians.

It is extremely propagandistic. It is peppered with leftist talking points, references to white supremacy, fights over Confederate monuments, the Emanuel AME Church murders in Charleston, Charlottesville, George Floyd's death, and other current issues that Seiudule uses to tar Robert E. Lee and Southern history.

Seidule is going from the most successful colorblind meritocracy in all of history --- the United States Military --- into academia, much of which is a racist, non-diversified, America-hating, free-speech hating, Marxist-loving indoctrination mill.

Academia has also given us the racist identity politics of Critical Theory, and the anti-white hate and racism of Critical Race Theory that now pollutes much of the country.

The problem with academia is that it is 100% liberal and aggressively politically correct meaning there is no real debate on anything. I know the actual percentage of liberal professors and administrators is closer to only 90%, but the other 10 are not going to speak up. Even the professors who disagree with leftist dogma don't dare say anything and risk losing tenure or having the mob show up at their office. The whole environment is sick, but Seidue's book will fit him right in.

My apologies to the open-minded folks still in academia who are appalled by racist identity politics, Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, attacks on free speech and all the rest of it. I know there are some good people in academia, but you know I am right about my description of most of it.

On the very first page of Robert E. Lee and Me, Seidule talks about a PragerU video he did in 2015 entitled "Was the Civil War About Slavery?". He states that he answers that question in the first 30 seconds:

Many people don't want to believe that the citizens of the southern states were willing to fight and die to preserve the morally repugnant institution of slavery. There has to be another reason, we are told. Well, there isn't. The evidence is clear and overwhelming. Slavery was, by a wide margin, the single most important cause of the Civil War.³

No it wasn't.

In Seidule's entire book, he does not even mention, once, the economic interconnectedness of the North and South in 1860, yet that was the underlying factor in causing the war, not slavery.

Southerners seceded to govern themselves. They expected to live in peace, but Lincoln could not allow that and the reason was 100% economic.

If it wasn't, Northerners like The Chicago Times would not have said things like:

In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue,⁴ and these results would likely follow. If protection be wholly withdrawn from our labor, it could not compete, with all the prejudices against it, with the labor of Europe. We should be driven from the market, and millions of our people would be compelled to go out of employment.⁵ (Emphasis added.)

The Northern economy was largely based on manufacturing for the South and shipping Southern cotton. See Complicity, How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank of the Hartford Courant (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005).

Without the South, the North was dead economically.

Without the North, the South, with 100% control of King Cotton, would ascend to dominance in North America, and Lincoln knew it.

Southerners were already paying 85% of the taxes yet 75% of the tax money was being spent in the North. Secession meant turning all that money inward, back on the South.⁶

Southerners wanted desperately to manufacture for themselves to get out from under the North's inferior goods that were greatly overpriced because of tariffs. In the meantime Southerners could buy from Europe at much lower prices than they had been paying.

The Morrill Tariff, passed by greedy, economically ignorant Northerners in the U.S. Congress after the Cotton States seceded, raised the rate for entry into the North to as high as 60%, as compared to the South's low 10% tariff for the operation of a small federal government in a States Rights nation. This threatened to shift the entire Northern shipping industry into the South overnight as Northern ship captains beat a path to the South where free trade reigned and protective tariffs were unconstitutional.

The loss to the North of their captive Southern manufacturing market, together with the damage to their shipping industry by the Morrill Tariff, was a one-two punch they would not be able to recover from. That's before even considering the loss of the 85% of tax revenue the South had been paying.

But the biggest thing driving Lincoln was the threat of European military aid. It would be for the South like French aid in the American Revolution was to the Colonists. The North would not be able to beat the South in that situation and, again, Lincoln knew it.

He needed to get his war started as quickly as he could so he could set up his blockade and chill European recognition of the South, because, with European recognition of Southern independence, it was game over for Lincoln.

So, Lincoln sent his hostile navy into the South to start the war, five different missions in April, 1861, to Fort Sumter in Charleston and Fort Pickens in Pensacola.⁷ The Charlestonians tried up to the last minute to avoid war and get Major Anderson to evacuate Fort Sumter but he did not feel like he could. He did, however, realize what Lincoln was doing and he answered a letter to Secretary of War Cameron and Lincoln stating:

. . . a movement made now when the South has been erroneously informed that none such will be attempted, would produce most disastrous results throughout our country. . . . We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced. . . . (Emphasis added.)

Anderson sees that the war "is to be thus commenced" by Abraham Lincoln, who had to hurry up and get it started or soon the South with European trade and military alliances would be unbeatable.

Abraham Lincoln announced his blockade before the smoke had cleared from the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Just before the Fort Sumter drama, Lincoln had committed his act of war in Pensacola by secretly landing troops in Fort Pickens and breaking a long-time armistice with the Confederates down there.

Lincoln was determined to get his war started as noted by several Northern newspapers including the Providence (R.I.) Daily Post which wrote, April 13, 1861, the day after the commencement of the bombardment of Fort Sumter:

We are to have civil war, if at all, because Abraham Lincoln loves a party better than he loves his country. . . . Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor.
"WHY?"
Providence (R.I.) Daily Post
April 13, 1861

It is immoral that Seidule completely ignores this overwhelming evidence in pushing his propaganda but that is the tactic of the left: Do like Goebbels said and repeat the big lie over and over, while ignoring everything else.

With everything Southerners had to gain economically by independence, it is absurd to say they seceded to protect slavery. That takes a lot of nerve anyway, since there were nine slave states in the Union when the guns of Fort Sumter sounded, soon to be increased by one with the admission of West Virginia.

There were only seven in the Confederacy.

On page 9, Seidule writes:

Eleven southern states seceded to protect and expand an African American slave labor system.

Again, Seidule is dead wrong.

As stated, there were nine slave states in the Union when the war started and only seven in the Confederacy. Four of the Union slave states had rejected secession at first: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina. And in those four states lived 52.4% of white Southerners, a majority.

But those states immediately seceded when Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South, and their reason was obviously federal coercion, not slavery. They believed, and rightfully so, that Lincoln's call to invade peaceful fellow states was unconstitutional and unconscionable. There was nothing in the Constitution in 1861 that required or allowed Lincoln and the Federal Government to force a sovereign state to do anything much less stay in a union they did not want. The Federal Government had no right to invade an American state, kill its citizens, and destroy its property.

The most widely quoted phrase in the secession debate in the South in the year prior to states calling conventions and actually voting to secede came from the Declaration of Independence:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Of the seven Cotton States that first seceded and formed the Confederacy, only four issued declarations of causes for their secession. In fact, those four declarations of causes were the only four issued by any of the 13 states represented in the Confederate Government.

Missouri and Kentucky were represented in the Confederate Government though they did not officially secede. They remained as two of the six Union slave states the entire war; and Kentucky had slavery well after the war, until the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery kicked in, in December, 1865.

The four declarations of causes do mention slavery along with numerous other grievances including economic, constitutional, and the hatred used by the North to rally its votes in the election of 1860.

That hatred was the primary reason for Southern secession. Northerners had supported murder and terrorism against the South. They had financed John Brown and sent him into the South to murder Southerners. He had hacked pro-South settlers to death in front of their families in Kansas.

Lincoln's party also used Hinton Helper's The Impending Crisis as a campaign document. They had hundreds of thousands of them printed and distributed coast to coast. It called for slave insurrection and the throats of Southerners to be cut in the night.

Would you allow people who hated your guts and were already at war with you to rule over you? What kind of stupid, cowardly people would do that? Certainly not Southerners.

But the simplistic Seidule characterizes Southern secession like the fake news media characterizes those who have serious concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election. Seidule writes:

Unwilling to accept the results of a fair, democratic election, they illegally seized U. S. territory, violently.

The truth of the 2020 election will come out eventually but there are certainly an enormous number of legitimate concerns that call into account Seidule's description of a "fair, democratic election" in 2020. The Texas law suit which was joined by 20 other states, lays out legion legitimate issues of corruption and constitutional violations that have never been adjudicated by a court. The Navarro Report also goes into great detail. Anybody with a brain knows that when mail in voting jumps from 5% to 35% at the same time that signature verification standards are lowered or dropped, it is a formula for disaster.

For over a year, Southerners debated seceding from the Union. After all, five times in U.S. history Northerners had threatened to secede from the Union so nobody questioned the right of secession, not even Horace Greeley, until he realize Southern secession would affect his money. Then he wanted war like the rest of them. Before that, he believe "Let our erring sisters go" and he editorialized in favor of the right of secession.

Three states had formally reserved the right of secession before acceding to the Constitution. They were New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Because all the other states accepted the reserved right of secession of New York, Rhode Island and Virginia, those states had it too, because all the states entered the Union as equals with the exact same rights.

The Stetson Law Review, a publication of the Stetson University College of Law, did a good article on the right of secession entitled "The Foundations and Meaning of Secession" by H. Newcomb Morse. He writes that the War Between the States did not prove that secession was illegal because:

[M]any incidents both preceding and following the War support the proposition that the Southern States did have the right to secede from the Union. Instances of nullification prior to the War Between the States, contingencies under which certain states acceded to the Union, and the fact that the Southern States were made to surrender the right to secession all affirm the existence of a right to secede . . .⁸

He adds that the Constitution's "failure to forbid secession" and amendments dealing with secession that were proposed in Congress as Southern states were seceding strengthened his argument that:

[T]he Southern States had an absolute right to secede from the Union prior to the War Between the States.⁹

Of course they did.

How can you believe in the Declaration of Independence and governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed and not believe a people can leave a government that has become tyrannical and oppressive. That was the essence of the Revolutionary War and the foundation of our country.

Northern hate, not unlike the hate we have in America today, drove the South from the Union, that and supporting terrorists and murderers like John Brown and encouraging mass murder in the South like Republicans did with Hinton Helper's book.

The one thing about American history that you can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt is that the North did not go to war to end slavery. They went to war because they faced economic annihilation when the Southern States seceded and took their captive manufacturing market and their tariff revenue with them.

The Corwin Amendment which passed the Northern Congress and was ratified by several states would have left black people in slavery forever, even beyond the reach of Congress. That was the true feeling of the North and Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and it proves the North's motive was not to end slavery. And there is much much more irrefutable proof.

A near-unanimous resolution entitled the War Aims Resolution established early-on what the North was fighting for. It was passed by the Northern Congress in July, 1861, three months after the bombardment of Fort Sumter:

. . . That this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or institutions [slavery] of the States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution [which allowed and protected slavery], and to preserve the Union. . . .¹⁰

It is unquestionable and irrefutable that the North did not go to war to end slavery.

They went to war because they wanted to dominate the country economically. Northern wealth and power were all dependent on the Union. That's why Lincoln said over and over it was about preserving the Union, not ending slavery.

That puts Seidule's Union Army in a pretty bad light. Lincoln's troops were down here in the South. Southern troops were not up there in the North menacing any Northern city.

Why didn't Lincoln just remove his troops who were on sovereign South Carolina and Florida soil? If he had done that there would have been no war, no 750,000 deaths and over a million maimed.

The hateful Seidule argued against memorializing West Point graduates who fought for the Confederacy. He writes:

I believed we should exclude them. After all, they died fighting against the United States. I argued stridently that West Point should honor only those who fought for the Constitution we swear to support and defend. West Point's mottos of "Duty, Honor, Country" (especially country) would seem to argue forcefully for exclusion of those dedicated to the country's destruction.¹¹

Southerners were certainly not dedicated to the destruction of the Union. No Confederate EVER said any such absurdity. The United States could have easily continued into the future as a major power on this earth but with just a few less states.

Seidule talks about support of the Constitution but Northern violations of the Constitution are one of the many legitimate grievances Southerners had and so stated many times. Many Northerners believed there was a higher power than the U.S. Constitution they should adhere to (and it always just happened to increase their political power).

Other Northerners like William Lloyd Garrison believed the Constitution was a "covenant with death" and "an agreement with Hell."

William H. Seward, Sr., Lincoln's secretary of state, asserted in 1850 that “[…] there is a Higher Law than the Constitution.”

None of these self-righteous Northerners in the antebellum era ever proposed a plan to end slavery such as they had used in the North with compensated, gradual emancipation. That is how all nations ended slavery and it would have been easy to do but Northerners were not about to spend their hard-earned sweatshop money to free the slaves in the South who would then go North and be job competition.

Lincoln did talk about it time to time but Lincoln's primary idea for dealing with slavery was to send black people back to Africa or into a place where they could survive. This was Lincoln's plan his entire life. See Colonization after Emancipation, Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement by Phillip W. Magness and Sebastian N. Page (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2011).

In Chapter 7, page 238, Seidule writes:

Lee acknowledged defeat but felt neither he nor the white South had done anything wrong. In his famous General Orders No. 9, Lee bid his soldiers farewell. He stated his version of what the war meant and why it ended, initiating the Lost Cause myth. The Army of Northern Virginia "succumbed to overwhelming numbers and resources," a kind of code criticizing the immigrant army of the United States supported by unsavory businessmen and ruthless politicians.

To prove how utterly disingenuous Seidule is, below is Gen. Lee's General Orders, No. 9. Compare what Lee actually said with what Seidule wrote above. See if you can find "a kind of code criticizing the immigrant army of the United States supported by unsavory businessmen and ruthless politicians" in Gen. Lee's short, heartfelt address. This, alone, proves what a fraud Seidule's entire book is.

General Orders, No. 9
Robert E. Lee's Farewell Address to
The Army of Northern Virginia
Hd. Qrs. Army of N. Va.
General Orders
No. 9
After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.
I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them; but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that must have attended the continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen.
By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I earnestly pray that a Merciful God will extend to you His blessing and protection. With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your Country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell.
R.E. Lee, Genl.¹²

Lee was almost always outnumbered and outgunned.

Grant himself admitted this when he wrote Secretary of War Edwin Stanton July 22, 1865 to explain how he won the war:

The resources of the enemy, and his numerical strength, were far inferior to ours. . . I therefore determined . . . to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but . . . submission. . . "¹³

The numbers showing the Union advantage over Lee are startling. Here's one example. Phil Leigh writes:

Grant began his forty-day campaign with an approximate two-to-one numerical advantage. He had 124,000 troops compared to 66,000 for Lee. At the end, Grant had suffered 55,000 casualties, which was also about twice those of Lee. Losses for the two sides during the battles at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor correspond closely to the federal disasters at Second Bull Run, Chancellorsville, and Fredericksburg.¹⁴

The North had four times the white population of the South. While slaves helped the Southern economy, and many served as Confederate soldiers, they were not a big source of manpower.

The North had a functioning government, an army, navy, merchant marine, sound financial system. They had a pipeline to the retched refuse of the world who came here often with only the shirts on their backs to find the Union Army recruiter with bonuses in hand, food and clothing.

Over 25% of the Union Army was foreign born but as James McPherson points out, over 30% of the North was foreign born. The North was a wild busting-at-the-seams society. The scenes in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York are historically accurate.

Some speculate that because of the wildness caused by massive immigration during the 1850s that the North would have had a revolution if not for the western lands where they could send their surplus population. "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country!" said Horace Greeley.

So Lincoln starting a war knowing he had four times the white population of the South plus unlimited numbers of people verses the South's impossibility of adding more people because of the Union blockade, is despicable but understandable. The Republican Party was new, and what is better than a war to give it power, money and solidify it in the political life of a nation.

Lincoln certainly figured it would be a short war but he found otherwise, that a people fighting for independence will fight until there are oceans of blood covering their sacred soil, and until their society is completely destroyed.

The Northern manufacturing for armaments, ammunition, guns and uniforms was unlimited while it was non-existent in the South. Seidule's Union soldiers were always well-fed and had the latest weaponry but Confederates were always hungry, cold and often barefoot.

There were 19 marine engine factories in the North. There were zero in the South.

Northern society throughout the war barely noticed a difference in their day to day lives while Southerners suffered at the hands of Seidule's barbaric animals in the South raping, pillaging, murdering. All of that did go on and has been well-documented, as in every war. The great British historian, Antony Beevor, estimates that 2,000,000 German women were raped by the Russian army at the end of World War II as it conquered Germany. Union soldiers raping black women is especially documented in the Official Records.

Gen. Lee often could not do things on the battlefield because he did not have the resources. That was never a problem for the North.

The Federal ration of grain for their horses was ten pounds a day per horse. Lee wrote this to President Davis August 24, 1863:

Nothing prevents my advancing now [against Mead] but the fear of killing our artillery horses. They are a much reduced, and the hot weather and scarce forage keeps them so. The cavalry also suffer and I fear to set them at work. Some days we get a pound of corn per horse and some days more; some none. Our limit is five per day per horse. You can judge of our prospects. . . . Everything is being done by me that can be to recruit the horses. I have been obliged to diminish the number of guns in the artillery, and fear I shall have to lose more.¹⁵

The South faced the same problem with railroads. Of the 30,000-plus miles that existed nationwide in 1861, 70% was in the North. There were 21,300 miles of track in the North and Midwest with 45,000 miles of telegraph wire while in the South there was only 9,022 miles with 5,000 miles of telegraph wire. The South had a much larger territory to cover with much smaller resources.¹⁶

Ramsdell writes:

For more than a year before the end came the railroads were in such a wretched condition that a complete breakdown seemed always imminent. As the tracks wore out on the main lines they were replenished by despoiling the branch lines; but while the expedient of feeding the weak roads to the more important afforded the latter some temporary sustenance, it seriously weakened the armies, since it steadily reduced the area from which supplies could be drawn.¹⁷

So, again, Gen. Lee's "overwhelming resources" of the North is correct and Seidule is wrong. The Lost Cause Myth is not a myth. It is simply the Southern view of what happened, and it is both accurate and truthful.

On the other hand, the Righteous Cause Myth of the North is truly a myth --- no, not myth, LIE. Their "righteous cause" was their money, power, and the lust to rule the country.

Lysander Spooner, who was an abolitionist in Massachusetts, agreed:

On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate the slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage; and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could be thereby induced to stay in the Union.
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.¹⁸

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a West Point graduate and true American hero, is a much better representative of West Point and the United States Army than the virtue-signaling "please, academia, like me!" of Ty Seidule. Eisenhower is a much better judge of honor and character.

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

Eisenhower speaks with some of the 101st Airborne Division June 5, 1944, the day before the D-Day invasion.

Like President John F. Kennedy, Eisenhower had great respect for Gen. Lee and his 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."¹⁹

President Eisenhower wrote back on the 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. Eisenhower²⁰

Robert E. Lee, oil on canvas, by Edward Calledon Bruce, 1865.

Seidule favors the term "civil war" for our conflict of 1861 to '65. He writes:

When I hear 'the War of Northern Aggression' or 'the War Between the States,' I know a Confederate sympathizer or argument against equal rights will soon follow.

Gen. Eisenhower used "War Between the States" in his letter, above, and in that one letter is more truthful, accurate American history than in Seidule's entire book.

Seidule's book, as many who have reviewed it conclude, is nothing but a desperate supplication for academia to please like him.

Can you imagine Gen. Eisenhower or Gen. Lee lowering himself to the level needed to write such a book?

Seidule is a writer of woke, politically correct propaganda, which means he will fit into academia like a glove.

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video,
"The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for a short video by the Abbeville Institute on the
Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Here is the caption beneath Abbeville's video:

Nov 9, 2022

The Naming Commission has recommended the removal of the Arlington Confederate Monument. This would not only be a historical travesty and a barbaric leveling of art, it would lay waste to the very message the monument was intended to convey: fraternity, healing, and reconciliation. Tell your Representative you want to stop this heinous act of cultural destruction.

NOTES:

¹Hamilton College appears to be a charming, small liberal arts college founded in 1793 and named for Alexander Hamilton who was on the first Board of Trustees when it was Hamilton-Oneida Academy. Hamilton.edu, accessed 3-22-21.

² Dr. Reynolds also taught at the University of Maine, and was History Departmental Chair at the College of Charleston (SC). Among his books are Command of the Sea: The History and Strategy of Maritime Empires; Navies in History; History and the Sea; The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy; and On the Warpath in the Pacific: Admiral Jocko Clark and the Fast Carrier. His complete bio is at www.WorldHistory101-102.com. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_G._Reynolds.

³ 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), 1. Seidule did not capitalize "southern" in his quotation. I always capitalize it and Northern, as well as North and South, which are obviously proper names that should be capitalized.

⁴ See also Footnote #47 on page 44 of Gene Kizer, Jr., Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States, The Irrefutable Argument. (Charleston, SC: Charleston Athenaeum Press, 2014) for the difference between tariff for revenue and protective tariff. What is meant by "a tariff for revenue" is a small tariff to raise a small amount of revenue to pay for the operation of a small federal government such as the government of the Confederate States of America. Southerners had always wanted free trade with the world. They believed in as small a tariff as possible. Contrast a small tariff for revenue with the huge protective tariffs the North loved that were punitive and meant to deter free trade so that one would be forced to buy from the North at jacked-up rates that were not determined by market competition but were jacked-up to the level of the tariff. The tariff is the perfect thing to contrast the differences in North and South. The moment the South was out of the Union, they made protective tariffs unconstitutional while the North passed the astronomical Morrill Tariff. The Morrill Tariff prevented the recovery of the Northern economy and made war Abraham Lincoln's only choice to save the North from economic annihilation. Of course, Lincoln's choice resulted in 800,000 deaths and over a million wounded out of a population of approximately 31 million.

⁵ Daily Chicago Times, "The Value of the Union," December 10, 1860, in Perkins, ed., Northern Editorials on Secession, Vol. II, 573-574.

⁶ Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., It Wasn't About Slavery, Exposing the Great Lie of the Civil War (Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2020), 103.

⁷ Mitcham, It Wasn't About Slavery, 142.

⁸ Morse, "The Foundations and Meaning of Secession," 420.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ The War Aims Resolution is also known by the names of its sponsors, Representative John J. Crittenden of Kentucky and Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee: the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, or just the Crittenden Resolution. It passed the U.S. House of Representatives July 22, 1861, and the Senate July 25, 1861. There were only two dissenting votes in the House and five in the Senate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crittenden-Johnson_Resolution, accessed March 29, 2014.

¹¹ Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me, 4.

¹² Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography, 4 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), Vol. 4, 154-55.

¹³ Phil Leigh, Civil War Chat, "Ty Seidule's Falsehoods About Grant and Lee", https://civilwarchat.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/ty-seidules-falsehoods-about-grant-and-lee/, accessed 3-25-21.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Charles W. Ramsdell, "General Robert E. Lee's Horse Supply, 1862-1865" in Gene Kizer, Jr., compiler, Charles W. Ramsdell, Dean of Southern Historians (Charleston: Charleston Athenaeum Press, 2017), 250. The quotation is from the OR, ser. I, v XXIX, pt. 2, 664-665.

¹⁶ "Railroads In The Civil War: Facts and Statistics (North vs South)," https://www.american-rails.com/civil.html, accessed 3-23-21.

¹⁷ Charles W. Ramsdell, "The Confederate Government and the Railroads," in Gene Kizer, Jr., compiler, Charles W. Ramsdell, Dean of Southern Historians, 300.

¹⁸ Lysander Spooner, "No Treason. No. 1, Introductory," Boston, by "the Author, No. 14 Bromfield Street. 1867".

¹⁹ Dwight D. Eisenhower in Defense of Robert E. Lee, August 10, 2014, Mathew W. Lively, https://www.civilwarprofiles.com/dwight-d-eisenhower-in-defense-of-robert-e-lee/, accessed 5-3-20.

²⁰ Dwight D. Eisenhower letter, August 9, 1960, to Leon W. Scott, in "Dwight D. Eisenhower in Defense of Robert E. Lee," August 10, 2014, Mathew W. Lively, https://www.civilwarprofiles.com/dwight-d-eisenhower-in-defense-of-robert-e-lee/, accessed 5-3-20.

Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule, Part One of a Two-Part Review-UPDATE 12-5-22

Posted on December 5, 2022December 5, 2022 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | 3 Comments

Part One of a Two-Part Review of

Robert E. Lee and Me

A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Original post was March 17, 2021. Update December 5, 2022:

I am honored to present Col. Jerry D. Morelock's review, below, as Part One of a two-part review of Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me. Next week will be Part Two, by me.

Seidule is on the naming commission which came about because of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who introduced an amendment in 2021 to the FY2022 NDAA in the Senate Armed Services Committee to change the names of the military bases in the South named for Confederates. We won two World Wars from those bases, which are around a century old. They were named for Confederates as part of the reconciliation of our country and most, such as Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, are legendary.

Warren's legislation has morphed into the changing of over a thousand historically inspired names of streets, monuments, and patches making it an unbelievable waste of taxpayer money at a time when some of our servicemen and women are on foodstamps because they can't make ends meet.

Now, Seidule and the naming commission have concluded that they need to demolish the 108 year old Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, which symbolizes the reconciliation and reunification of North and South after the War Between the States.

The memorial, entitled "New South," was created by internationally renowned Jewish sculptor, Moses Ezekiel, who was a Confederate soldier and is buried at the base of his monument.

The idea for a Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery came from Union soldier and later president, William McKinley.

McKinley said that every grave, Union and Confederate, was a testament to American valor.

Congress and two other presidents, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, as well as veterans North and South supported the Confederate Memorial but what difference does history and tradition make to a Woke political commission out to erase history. Their standard is "presentism," the application of the goofy standards of today rather than peer-reviewed and debated scholarly history.

Scroll down for a link to an excellent video by Bode Lang entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery," which tears apart Seidule and the Prager University video he made.

Frankly, I have lost all respect for Prager University. They might present some aspects of American history well, but they are false and unhistorical to promote Seidule as a truthful expert on Southern history.

Lang makes Seidule look foolish by showing one clip after another of Seidule's cherry-picked "history" then thoroughly refuting each with equal, and in most cases, better, sources.

Lang proves Seidule's dishonesty, politicization and falsification of history.

Below, is Col. Morelock's bio followed by his excellent assessment of Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me.]

JERRY D. MORELOCK, PhD, Colonel, U.S. Army, ret., is a 1969 West Point graduate who served 36 years in uniform. A decorated Vietnam War combat veteran, his assignments included Pentagon tours on the Department of the Army staff and in the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate, Joint Chiefs of Staff. His final active duty assignment was head of the history department of the US Army Command & General Staff College. An award-winning author, he has published several books and hundreds of journal and magazine articles. His books include Generals of the Bulge: Leadership in the U.S. Army’s Greatest Battle (Stackpole, 2015) and (as a contributing author) Pershing’s Lieutenants: American Military Leadership in World War I edited by David Zabecki and Douglas Mastriano (Osprey, 2020).

After Army retirement, he was Executive Director of the Winston Churchill Memorial & Library at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri (2000-2004) and is adjunct faculty professor of history and political science at Westminster. He was Editor in Chief of Armchair General magazine (2004-2015), and currently is Senior Editor/Senior Historian for three military history magazines.

Don’t Be Fooled by Ty Seidule's "West Point Professor/Brigadier General" Misleading Credentials

by Jerry D. Morelock

Lest any potential buyer/reader of this book be swayed by the seemingly "impressive military credentials" of the author, please let me explain what those credentials really comprise and represent when the author acquired them by being a former 'permanent professor' and 'department head' in the academic department of the US Military Academy at West Point.

First of all, Ty Seidule did not earn his rank of 'Brigadier General' by being competitively selected by a Department of the Army promotion selection board from among his peers, but, per standard procedure for retiring USMA academic department heads, was merely given that general officer¹ rank upon his retirement from military service (that is, as he exited military service, he was 'awarded' that rank -- essentially like a long-serving corporate executive would get a 'gold watch' as he walked out the door).

Seidule never served on active duty as a 'general officer' commanding a tactical unit (apparently, based on his bio, he commanded a tank platoon – a Lieutenant’s command – and his highest unit command appears to be an armored battalion – a Lieutenant Colonel’s command); so some of the reviews on this book asking, "Was he a warrior general or was he not?" sadly miss the point because they are simply unaware of where Seidule's 'general' rank came from, and not their fault -- Seidule was never a general until he retired.

Second, Seidule's author bio emphasizes that he served on active duty for "36 years" (coincidentally, the same as I did) but also notes that he spent "two decades" teaching history at West Point – so, immediately, that means Seidule had, at most, 16 years of 'real' military service in the 'real' Army -- serving on the staff & faculty at West Point is hardly 'real' military service, as it is a completely artificial environment in every possible way (how do I know? my own 36 years of service included eight years at USMA, four as a cadet, graduating in 1969, and four more years later serving on the USMA staff & faculty).

Being a 'permanent professor/department head' at West Point means serving in the artificial, hermetically-sealed environment that exists at the Military Academy, completely separate and distinct from the day-to-day, rough and tumble 'real' Army.

The bottom line is that the title 'Brig. Gen.' given to a former USMA permanent professor/department head does NOT carry the same weight and prestige as an Army officer EARNING that rank on his own military merits -- it was merely given to Seidule for 'staying the course' for 20 years as a West Point professor.

And his claimed '36 years' of military service is really only, at best, 16 years in the REAL ARMY when his 20 years in an academic department at USMA is factored into his overall service.

I only present this information to alert readers that there is a profound difference between 'real' US Army brigadier generals and those who, like Seidule, are simply awarded that rank upon retirement; plus when his claimed 36 years of military service has the 20 years serving at West Point removed, Seidule's actual military service is about the same as that of an Army Major.

His book on Lee is nothing more than his revisionist 'sucking up' to his new civilian academic buddies, ingratiating himself into the camaraderie of his new 'Woke' buds and has nothing of any historical revelation to share in this so-called 'book.'

It's not a researched, thoughtful book based on new information or new evaluation of previous information. In fact, it ignores Lee’s significant post-Civil War efforts to bring the divided nation back together – which was Lee’s “finest hour” as, for only one example, historian Charles Bracelen Flood revealed in his book Lee: The Final Years.

Seidule's book seems merely to be his own 'Hey! I'm so, so WOKE now!' confessional, but disingenuously using his 'BG' rank, his misleading ’36 years’ service, and touting his 'so what?' West Point service to try to trick potential readers/buyers into spending actual money on his worthless book based on his misleading ‘military credentials.’

Don't waste your money.

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video,
"The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for a short video by the Abbeville Institute on the
Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Here is the caption beneath Abbeville's video:

Nov 9, 2022

Next Week:

Part Two of a Two-Part Review of

Robert E. Lee and Me, A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point

by Gene Kizer, Jr.

NOTES:

¹ The term “general officer” means an officer of the Army, Air Force, or Marine Corps serving in or having the grade of general, lieutenant general, major general, or brigadier general. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/101#b_4, Accessed 3-17-21.

Arlington National Cemetery’s 108 Year Old Confederate Memorial Is Slated for Demolition

Posted on November 26, 2022November 26, 2022 by Gene Kizer, Jr. | 2 Comments

We MUST NOT ALLOW the Desecration of

Arlington National Cemetery

The magnificent 108 year old Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery is slated for demolition thanks to Ty Seidule and the politicized Woke naming commission whose mission is to erase Southern history from the Confederate era.

The Confederate Memorial was enthusiastically promoted by Congress, three presidents and veterans North and South to signify the RECONCILIATION and REUNIFICATION of our great nation after the War Between the States.

Educate yourself on this abomination and take action! Time is short!

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

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Please link to this blog article and share it far and wide!

We can not allow our nation's most sacred burial ground to be dishonored and stained by a Woke political commission. Remember, the Confederate Memorial was the idea of Union veteran and President of the United States, William McKinley. It was enthusiastically approved by Congress. Another president, William Howard Taft, spoke at the laying of the cornerstone. A third president, Woodrow Wilson, spoke at the dedication ceremony June 4, 1914 as did Union and Confederate veterans.

In the War Between the States, 750,000 died and over a million were maimed.

The Confederate Memorial was designed and constructed by internationally renowned Jewish sculptor Moses Ezekiel, himself a Confederate veteran, a graduate of VMI. He is buried with three other Southerners at the base of his beautiful monument thus making it their headstone but also the grave markers for 462 other Confederate graves arranged in concentric circles around the monument and an intergral part of the memorial as was intended by Congress, three presidents, and veterans North and South.

Every American, no matter one's politics, should be OUTRAGED

Here are two good articles from Chronicles Magazine:

Monuments Matter

The Fate of Moses Jacob Ezekiel and His Memorial to the Confederate Dead

Take action TODAY!

Do not allow a Woke, political commission whose standard for historical interpretation is not truth but presentism, based on politics and the goofy woke standards of today.

Call and write your congressional representatives every week and tell them that the Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation and reunification of our great country after a war in which 750,000 Americans died and over a million were maimed, must stand in its magnificent beauty and symbolism for all time!

President William McKinley said after the Spanish-American war in 1898:

. . . 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.

Defend Arlington v. Austin, et al 23-CV-441

A lawsuit to stop the destruction of the 109 year old Confederate "Reconciliation Memorial" in Arlington National Cemetery

Scroll down to read the entire 25 page complaint

Congress should defund the "legally flawed" recommendations of the Woke naming commission

Those recommendations will cost taxpayers $100 million dollars and tear at the fabric of our country

You can already see it with the military recruiting crisis

Woke Ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery

Scroll down past the lawsuit for several important links and to donate

Case 1:23-cv-00441 Document 1 Filed 02/16/23 Page 1 of 25

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

CIVIL ACTION NO. 23-CV-441

COMPLAINT

Case 1:23-cv-00441 Document 1 Filed 02/16/23 Page 2 of 25

Federal lawsuit filed to block demolition of 109 year old Confederate "Reconciliation Memorial" in Arlington National Cemetery

Additional suit to follow

Numerous alleged violations of law and overreach by DOD

Monument demolition and other recommendations of the political naming commission will cost taxpayers over $100 million dollars and do permanent damage to our military

You can already see it in the recruiting crisis

Please scroll down to contribute to the Arlington National Cemetery Memorial Litigation Defense Fund and the Southern Legal Resource Center

Make Woke ignorance DIE at Arlington National Cemetery

From Defend Arlington

From Southern Legal Resource Center

Links to Important Resources

Take action TODAY!

Confederate Emancipation for European Support . . .

Lincoln and Coincidence?

Please forward and share this email

with as many people as you can!

Links to Important Resources

Take action TODAY!

Military Times reports "trust and confidence" in our military dropped from 70% in 2018 to 48% in 2022

Politicization cited as number one problem

Woke policies in the military are worse than politicization

Recruiting crisis is wakeup call but serious damage has already been done

List of the 518 Confederate Burials in Arlington National Cemetery

Concentric circles of graves extend out from the magnificent Confederate Monument

If any of these folks are your ancestors, please contact us IMMEDIATELY

List includes all the burials in ANC Section 16, mostly men, some women

Most have their home state listed; some also have unit name, number, letter or whether cavalry, infantry or artillery

How could the naming commission ignore that?

How could the naming commission not care about all that?

Please forward and share this email with as many people as you can!

Links to Important Resources

Take action TODAY!

Woke Ignorance DIES at Arlington

Republicans in Congress should immediately defund all the worthless recommendations of the Woke naming commission.

But then, intelligence is not a Woke virtue.

Please forward and share this email with as many people as you can!

Links to Important Resources

Take action TODAY!

Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial:

Testimony of British Art Critic and Historian,

Alexander Adams

Links to Important Resources

Take action TODAY!

Robert E. Lee and Me

Robert E. Lee and Me

A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point

Don’t Be Fooled by Ty Seidule's "West Point Professor/Brigadier General" Misleading Credentials

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video, "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for a short video by the Abbeville Institute on the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

We MUST NOT ALLOW the Desecration of

Arlington National Cemetery

Educate yourself on this abomination and take action! Time is short!

Please link to this blog article and share it far and wide!

Every American, no matter one's politics, should be OUTRAGED

Take action TODAY!

Do not allow a Woke, political commission whose standard for historical interpretation is not truth but presentism, based on politics and the goofy woke standards of today.

God Bless America

List of the 518 Confederate Burials
in Arlington National Cemetery

Concentric circles of graves extend out
from the magnificent Confederate Monument

If any of these folks are your ancestors,
please contact us IMMEDIATELY

List includes all the burials in ANC Section 16,
mostly men, some women

Most have their home state listed; some also have unit
name, number, letter or whether cavalry, infantry
or artillery

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video,
"The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for a short video by the Abbeville Institute on the
Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.