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SSSSouthern outhern outhern outhern SSSSentinelentinelentinelentinel

March 2013 Vol. X #3 www. scv1642.com Col. Hiram Parks Bell Camp # 1642 Sons of Confederate Veterans

A Southern Heritage and Historical Society

OFFICERS FOR 201OFFICERS FOR 201OFFICERS FOR 201OFFICERS FOR 2013333 CMDR:CMDR:CMDR:CMDR: CLIFF ROBERTS

770 656 5585

LT. CMDR: LT. CMDR: LT. CMDR: LT. CMDR: BRANDON

HEMBREE

404-372-3270

ADJ. ADJ. ADJ. ADJ. DAN BENNETT

770 888 2800

CHAPLAINCHAPLAINCHAPLAINCHAPLAIN: : : : JOEL

ANDERSON

770 218 7785

OUR NEXT MEETINGOUR NEXT MEETINGOUR NEXT MEETINGOUR NEXT MEETING Monday, February 25th

At 7:00 PM Social time starts early around

6:30PM

Bell Research CenterBell Research CenterBell Research CenterBell Research Center

101 School St. Cumming GA101 School St. Cumming GA101 School St. Cumming GA101 School St. Cumming GA

678678678678----455455455455----7216721672167216 Everyone is Welcome! Call for

Directions

COMMANDER’S TENTCOMMANDER’S TENTCOMMANDER’S TENTCOMMANDER’S TENT Fellow Compatriots,

We are off to a good year. A generous contribution

from the Brady Foundation will keep the Bell Center

fully operational in 2013. The Georgia Reunion will be

held in Statesboro on Saturday, June 8th. Let me know

if you are interested in attending.

Please check out our camp website at

www.scv1642.com. She has received her first upgrade

in a few years and is looking good. The Bell Center

Facebook page set up by Brandon Hembree is also

steadily building “friends.”

April is an important month for us as we honor

our local Confederates by marking their graves. Our

Confederate Memorial at Shady Grove on April 21

should be an outstanding affair.

Deo Vindice! Cliff Roberts

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UPCOMING UPCOMING UPCOMING UPCOMING CAMP CAMP CAMP CAMP EEEEVENTS:VENTS:VENTS:VENTS:

March 25 – March Meeting – Ron Skellie, author of Lest We Forget; the Immortal Seventh Mississippi, will speak.

April 21 – H.P. Bell Camp #1642 Confederate Memorial Day Ceremony at

Shady Grove Church, McGinnis Ferry Road at 3 PM.

April 22 – April Meeting – Attorney Martin K. O’Toole on "Lee’s Genius

Revealed at Gettysburg." Lee and the Confederate soldier vindicated at

Gettysburg.

April 28 – SCV Gainesville 27th Regiment, Camp 1404 Memorial Day

Service, Redwine United Methodist (Located off Popular Springs Road in

Hall County), at 2:00 P.M.

May 20 – May Meeting (One Week Early) Stephen Davis, author of What the Yankees Did to Us, will speak about Sherman’s March to the Sea.

June 7,8,9 – 2013 Convention & Reunion of the Georgia Division, Georgia

Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia

June 24 – June Meeting

June 27, 28, 29, 30 - Blue Gray Alliance 150th Gettysburg Reenactment.

July 18, 19, 20 – National SCV Reunion – Vicksburg, Mississippi

July 20 – Camp Field Trip - Preservationist David Yoakley Mitchell of the

Mitchell Foundation will lead our members & guests on a private tour of the

Civil War collection of the Hargrett Rare Books Collections in the new

Richard B. Russell Special Collections Building on the campus of the

University of Georgia. After the tour, we will do an early dinner in

downtown Athens.

August 26 – August Camp Meeting – Historian Bill Potter

Sept 23 – September Camp Meeting – Dr. William H. Bragg is the past

recipient of the Georgia Historical Society’s E. Merton Coulter Award for

Excellence in the Writing of Georgia History. Bill recently retired as

director of the Center for Georgia Studies at Georgia College and State

University in Milledgeville, Georgia. He will be speaking on "How Stands

the South?", a review of recent Confederate/Southern heritage wins and

losses. Bill Bragg is a prolific writer and the author of Griswoldville and

Joe Brown's Pets: The Georgia Militia, 1861-1865.

Oct 28 – October Camp Meeting – Robert Jenkins will be speaking about

his new book The Battle of Peach Tree Creek; Hood’s First Sortie.

Nov 25 – November Camp Meeting – Jack E. Marlar, SCV Field

Representative One, will give a spirited talk on “How Confederates

Celebrated Christmas.”

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Camp HardtackCamp HardtackCamp HardtackCamp Hardtack

April is Confederate Heritage Month. Jerold Sanders, head of our graves committee, has just

issued our cemetery list by e-mail. Last year camp members placed 356 flags by the graves of

Confederate veterans buried in Forsyth County cemeteries. Jerold will have flags at the March meeting

and will be e-mailing members a list of veteran names by cemetery. Please volunteer to be a part of

this year’s “flaggin” and let Jerry know that you will be responsible for a few cemeteries near your

home.

(right) Confederate Monument at Westview Cemetery, Atlanta,

Georgia. (below) Confederate Row in Greenwood Cemetery near

downtown Dallas, Texas.

SCV members Brett Martin, Jerry Gunn, Mike Couch, and Terry Grizzell spend Friday, March 8th

doing living history presentations to the 500 members of the 8th grade at River Trail Middle School in

Fulton County. The students learned a great deal about the life of a soldier in the War Between the

States. Thank you, gentlemen!

Welcome Richard Van Sant. Our camp now has 54

members in good standing.

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Our Confederate Memorial Commemoration will be held at 3:00 PM, on Sunday, April 21st at

Shady Grove Baptist Chuch at the corner of McGinnis Ferry Road and Boyd Road. Enjoy these

photographs from past camp commemorations.

2001 Cumming Cemetery, Gov. Lester Maddox

and Joel Anderson, 1996 (right)

Cumming 1999

2001. H.K. Edgerton, 2006

Charles Lunsford, Frank Clark, 2001

From Joseph Glatthaar’s General Lee’s Army:

Fully one-third of all soldiers who ever served in the Army of Northern

Virginia joined the service in 1862. The initial rush of “minute men” in 1861

attracted many younger, single men. By 1862, recruitment cut much deeper

into traditional elements of Southern married society. Thrown into the war

with little preparation, the losses in the class of 1862 were astounding. It

was combat on a scale unprecedented in American history. Three of every

four soldiers were killed, wounded, taken prisoner, or died of disease. “’The

barefoot boys’ have done some terrible fighting,” a Georgian informed his

parents. “We are a dirty, ragged set mother, but courage & heroism find

many a true disciple among us.” He concluded accurately that “our

Revolutionary forefathers never suffered nor fought as the ‘Rebels’ of 61’ &

62’ have fought & suffered.”

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One of the highlights of this year’s Confederate Commeration at Shady Grove will be an

Iron Cross dedication for Sam Street.

Seven Confederate soldiers are buried at Shady Grove Baptist Church off McGinnis Ferry Road on

the south Forsyth border with Fulton County. Most of these were local men who had gone off to

fight in Virginia and Tennessee and had managed to return alive, and resume their lives as farmers.

There is one notable exception. 23-year-old Samuel A. Street was from Plum Grove near Houston,

Texas. He was a member of Company F, of the 8th Texas Cavalry, and he was killed in a skirmish

with Yankee cavalry on a nearby farm of John and Cynthia Lowe.

On the afternoon of July 30th, a squad of Yankee horsemen came riding down McGinnis Ferry

Road. They were on a foraging mission, but, to the local families, they were “raiders.” They pulled

up at the farm of John Lowe, a 50-year-old farmer, and his wife, Cynthia Rogers Lowe. The farm

was in the center of Sheltonville, with the family’s corn fields on both sides of the road. Mr. Lowe’s

house stood on the south side of the road, in what was then Milton County. About six to eight

Rebel cavalrymen were eating dinner at an old cotton ginhouse, some one

hundred yards behind his home. This small contingent of Rebel horsemen

were not just any group of cavalry soldiers. They were members of “Terry’s

Texas Rangers,” formally known as the 8th Texas Cavalry, perhaps the

most elite scouts in the western theater. Since coming east at the beginning

of the war, the 8th Texas Cavalry had fought in more than 200

engagements, including the major Battles of Shiloh, Perryville, and

Chickamauga. Equally adept at fighting from horseback or on foot, they

were praised by Confederate generals for their skill and willingness to fight.

A Union officer, whose misfortune it had been to cross swords with the

elite 8th Texas Cavalry, observed that “the Texas Rangers are as quick as

lightening. They ride like Arabs, shoot like archers at the mark, and fight

like devils.” By 1864, much of their uniform and equipment had been

procured from raids on Yankee supply bases deep behind enemy lines. They

would never fail, however, to wear the Texas Star on their belt buckle and

war hats.

The two adversaries immediately recognized each other and rifle shots rang out. Six-year-old Albert

Matthew Bell would later recall that he was playing under a large poplar tree directly between the

two groups of soldiers. He lay on the ground as minie balls flew over his head. The Texans were at

a disadvantage as they were outnumbered and their horses were grazing in a nearby field. The

Rebels made a run for their mounts, but two of their number were hit as they retreated. Sam

Street was struck in the head and died instantly. 32-year-old George Zimpelman, a German native,

was shot in the chest and fell to the ground severely wounded. According to the later recollections

of Mr. Bell, the remaining Confederates departed quickly.

Local residents buried Sam Street in the Shady Grove Cemetery and Mr. Lowe paid to have a

marker put on his grave. George Zimpelman, who had already been wounded eight times in

previous engagements, was taken to the home of Henry and Louisa Rogers, which was the original

home of the pioneer settler John Rogers and his Cherokee wife Sarah Cordery. After weeks of

constant care, Mr. Zimpelman managed to regain his strength. He would thank his Sheltonville

hosts, and start a long journey home to Austin, Texas. This brave cavalry scout did not make it far

as he was captured in Alpharetta and taken to Johnson’s Island, a prisoner-of-war camp in Ohio.

After the war, George Zimpelman did return to Austin where he served as sheriff of Travis County

for eight years. He later became a successful banker, father of five, and died in his home state in

1908. A statue in honor of Terry's Texas Rangers stands proudly next to the front entrance of the

Texas State Capitol.

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Camp #1642 Sons of Confederate Veterans continuing series of programs on the Civil War

and the South

We are honored to have

Ron Skellie discuss

The Immortal Seventh Mississippi Regiment

Monday, March 25, 7:00 PM at the Bell Research Center,

101 School St, Cumming

Ron Skellie has carefully gathered letters, diaries, war records, and photographs to tell the

story of the Mississippi “High Pressure Brigade” of the Army of Tennessee. His two-volume

Lest We Forget; The Immortal Seventh Mississippi was published in 2012.

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