THE SOUTH'S DEFENDERS MEMORIAL MONUMENT: LAKE CHARLES CITY COUNCIL'S WEAK RESOLUTION

I attended the Lake Charles City Council meeting July 28, 2020 and it was about as I expected. The monument-haters just spewed their usual venomous, racially inflammatory rhetoric that had no connection whatever to either Calcasieu Parish or The South's Defenders Memorial Monument. It was also obvious that if successful, the monument-haters will just move on to other grievances to advance their radical political agenda. The monument supporters gave very good presentations on the true meaning of the monument, which is an honorable war memorial to fallen soldiers and veterans. I also spoke and gave them actual historical facts about the monument and the history of the war in Calcasieu Parish. I also told them about my great-great-grandfather who died in the war, served in a unit that fought in the Battle of Calcasieu Pass, and the hardships the war imposed on my family. My impression of the mayor and city councilmen, except the two Council ladies who were pushing the issue, is that they just wanted to get rid of an embarrassing issue and political hot potato and foist it on the police jury. It was a weak, irresolute resolution that satisfied no one. It showed the meeting was an exercise in futility that just stirred up more hard feelings in everybody and was an uncalled-for intrusion into the authority of the police jury. My hope is the police jury, which has already had productive meetings with various interested groups, will ignore the irresponsible city council resolution and now move on to the real issues and get the parish back on a positive track for the good of everybody. Thank you.

CALLING ALL MONUMENT SUPPORTERS

The South's Defenders Memorial Monument
LONG MAY IT STAND!
(Photo by M.D. Jones)

There will be a special meeting of the Lake Charles City Council at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, in City Council chambers on the first floor of City Hall in the Pioneer Building in Lake Charles, La. to consider a resolution to the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury to remove The South's Defender's Memorial Monument in Lake Charles. The city council has no authority to remove the monument and it has no business telling Calcasieu Parish Police Jurors what to do. Hopefully the majority of the city council will see this is a divisive and wrong-headed resolution and will reject it. All monument supporters are encouraged to attend the meeting to let their opinions be heard.
     The South's Defenders Memorial Monument was put up in a spirit of reconciliation, peace and unity as all the speeches, records, and documents show. The monument has always stood for honoring fallen soldiers and veterans and nothing else. It has never stood for slavery, racism, white supremacy, etc. -- that is all misinterpretation and misinformation. In addition, many local families are descendants of the soldiers who shed their blood and some lost their lives defending Calcasieu Parish and their ancestors deserve recognition as much as veterans of other wars. In addition, many Southern soldiers, black and white, have defended this parish, state and nation and it would be a terrible precedent to tear down any war memorial honoring veterans. This honorable war memorial has been part of the Lake Charles landscape for 105-years. It is in exactly the right place.
     In addition, the local Confederate company raised here in Lake Charles by Captain James W. Bryan --  who became the first mayor of Lake Charles -- was nicknamed the Calcasieu Tigers and was Company I of the 28th (29th) Louisiana Infantry Regiment. Captain Bryan personally enlisted a free black man into the company, Pvt. Jean Baptiste Pierre Auguste, who  served honorably throughout the war, was wounded in action at the Siege of Vicksburg, and after the war received a Confederate pension from the state of Louisiana. That fact is well documented and The South's Defender Memorial Monument represents veterans of all races.
      The monument is in the right place, stands for the right things, and should be left right where it is. Long may it stand!
      If you'd like to express your support for the monument, please call the Mayor's Action Line at 337 491-1346. LONG MAY THE SOUTH'S DEFENDERS MEMORIAL MONUMENT STAND!

Pro-Monument Letters

There are some outstanding letters to the editor defending The South's Defenders Memorial Monument in today's, July 19, edition of the Lake Charles, La. American Press edition. I counted 7 pro-monument letters to just two anti-monument. We are also approaching 6,000 visits to our monument defense web site since June, and well over 6,000 to my personal blog, The South's Defenders, which incidentally has over 262,000 visits over the entire history of the blog. I think these numbers indicate the Public of Calcasieu Parish has rallied to the defense of the monument. In addition, there is a great feature article in today's American a life-member of Capt. J.W. Bryan Camp 1390, SCV, in Lake Charles, Dr. Elwi n Cavin, M.D., noting his 100th birthday on July 28. The article concentrates on his outstanding World War II record in combat in the Pacific theater. He is the camp's very last World War II veteran. The article says anyone wishing to send him a 100th birthday card can mail them to 3142 St. Andrews Drive, Lake Charles, La. 70605.

Here are two of the Pro-Monument letters to the newspaper, both outstanding:

Toppling Confederate statues now a mob sport

Immense was the Confederate warrior’s sacrifice. About 300,000 died when the region’s population was only nine million. If today The United States were to suffer proportional casualties, losses would total 11 million — 26 times greater than in World War II.

Given such loss, the Confederate soldier’s surviving family members wanted to memorialize him. Federal occupation troops observed Southern women spreading flowers upon the graves of their husbands, sons and brothers. A year after the war the ladies of Columbus, Miss., strewed flowers on the graves of both the Confederate and Union dead in the town cemetery.

Their gesture started a movement that spread and May 30th was selected as National Memorial Day in 1868.

Impoverished by war, with no money, Southern ladies could only lay down flowers. Union veterans initially opposed Confederate memorials, but when the Sons of Confederate Veterans eagerly joined the U.S. Army to win the Spanish-American War, the aging Union soldiers saw their former rivals again as Americans, who deserved memorial recognition.

Thus, the 20 years from 1898 to 1918 witnessed the installation of 80 percent of the many signature courthouse square Confederate statues in Southern towns. During that period, the typical surviving Confederate soldiers aged from 58 to 78. Memorial placements — North and South — surged between

1911 and 1915 because it was the war’s semi-centennial and the old soldiers were fading away.

Removing, even toppling Confederate statues is now a mob sport, with impunity for the vandals. Such conduct, requiring the bravery of kicking a puppy, we may wonder what comes next.

Even statues of Columbus, Presidents Wilson and McKinley have been attacked. Anti-statue activists behave like the leaders of the former Soviet Union, where censorship and rewritten history was done to ensure that the correct political spin was put on their history.

George Orwell warned, “The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

Michael S. Fuselier, Ragley

Historical ignorance apparent concerning war

Julius Caesar said, “The winning side will write history,” and Napoleon said, “History is just a collection of myths and lies that men have agreed upon” — and so it is with the current historical ignorance concerning the War for Southern Independence. On June 14, 2020, Mr. Brandon Shoumaker cited two common, and completely baseless and false claims — one accusing the UDC and SCV of “white-washing” the causes of the war; the other claiming there were no Black Confederate soldiers.

Most of the “Revisionist History” has come from the North and Socialist Left to try and make their illegal and unjust war sound noble and/or heroic. The slavery issue was indeed one cause, but probably would be No. 4 or No. 5 out of the 10 main issues; and mainly concerned the expansion, enforcing fugitive laws, preventing Northern Abolitionists from inciting slave revolts, how to count them, etc., and not in freeing them.

Lincoln said several times “he had no authority to free the slaves, nor do I have any inclination to do so.” Four times he declared in the war proclamations and to Congress his sole reason for waging war was the “collection of taxes and revenues” that were lost when the 11 Southern states seceded. Never did he say the war was to end slavery. He more than once offered the states a guarantee on keeping the institution unfettered, if the states would just return to the Union; and, of course, “pay their back taxes and revenue due to the government.” The “war to end slavery” justification didn’t start to be pushed until nearly 20 years after the war.

Why do the very first to claim and believe the government lied to them about Vietnam, WMD in Iraq, 9/11, etc., refuse to even consider that they may have been lied to about the war?

As to being there “no Black Confederate soldiers,” don’t just take the SCV’s or my word for it, look to the writings of Dr. Leonard Haynes III, former president of Southern University, Grambling University and American College, and for many years now a prominent educator who has held high positions in the U.S. Department of Education under several presidents. Look to notable men of the day such as Frederick Douglas and Horace Greeley who both wrote and spoke on “Black soldiers in the ranks, with a rifle on their shoulder, and bullets in their pockets.” Check out the surviving local newspaper accounts as Lee’s army was marching through Maryland and Pennsylvania and people were aghast seeing “Black soldiers in uniform with muskets intermingled in the ranks.”

Better yet, do some research in “The Official Record of the War of the Rebellion” published by the federal government. Read the After Action Battle Reports from the Union officers in combat against both Black units and racially integrated ones. Yes, many were slaves, but many were not; and many were not in combat roles (as were many whites), but their service was just as important and necessary as the infantryman in conducting a war. Some studies have put the total at over 70,000, with some being from here in Southwest Louisiana.

If you want to know the truth, quit getting your history from Wikipedia or other biased liberal left websites that hide the truth because it doesn’t fit their narrative, or goal of destroying this great country.

The South’s Defenders Monument was erected for the 50th anniversary of the war’s end. It was erected to honor the sacrifices made by these men who answered the call to arms by their state and their parish; not as aggressors but as defenders. It was not erected to commemorate the CSA or slavery. The Confederate Battle Flag that has become so despised, was the one chosen by these old vets to be remembered for their deeds and sacrifices, not the flag of the Confederate States of America that was dead and gone. The Battle Flag flew over the first integrated army in our country, where Black soldiers received full and equal pay with their white comrades in arms, and weren’t being used as cannon fodder while receiving half-pay as they were in the segregated Union Army which existed until 1948.

Gordon D. Simmons, Lake Charles

2You and Kevin Adkins