Volume XXXVI, Issue 9 September, 2016

Camp Officers:

Commander: David Rawls

1st Lt. Commander: David Fisher

2nd Lt. Commander: Hank

Arnold

Adjutant/ Treasurer: Pat Acton

Chaplain: Jeff Young

Color Sergeant: Bill Haas

Quartermaster: Tristan Dunn

Sergeant At Arms: Sam Nelson

Camp Surgeon: Dr. Rick Price

Dispatch Editor: Jim Darden

Commander Emeritus: Dr. Ira

West

Chaplain Emeritus: Dr. Charles

Baker

Fighting Joe Wheeler Camp 1372,

Inc. C/O Adjutant

P.O. Box 43362

Vestavia Hills, AL 35243

Please send articles or other

information for inclusion in

“The Dispatch” to

Jim Darden – Editor

645 South Sanders Road

Hoover, Alabama 35226

Or e-mail km4qr@bellsouth.net

Alabama: We Dare Defend Our Rights “The principal for which we contended is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.” - Jefferson Davis, May 1865

The Next Camp Meeting will be at 7:00 pm, Tuesday September 13.

Dr. John Killian present a program on the Bill of Rights.

SCV Calendar

September10, 1838 ……………………Fighting Joe Wheeler’s birthday

September 13…..Camp Meeting – The Bill of Rights...Dr. John Killien

October 11……..Camp Meeting –Ft Delaware……………..Jim Darden

November 8 ……………………………………………….Election Day

December 13……….Camp Meeting – Program TBD

http://www.fightingjoewheeler.org

SCV Fighting Joe Wheeler Camp 1372

FJWCamp1372@yahoogroups.com

Page 2

Commander’s Report September 2016

Compatriots:

And just when I think things could not get any worse, I am proven wrong

again. True sanity appears to have gone out the window and it appears to be so much easier

to throw up our collective hands and surrender to the madness. Unfortunately for me, I was

raised better and cannot bring myself to contribute to our ultimate destruction. Let us all be

willing to do what is right before it is too late!

Last Friday I had the misfortune of enduring another egregious example of

this incredible heritage assault as I flipped my television, encountering a program on the

History (ha!) Channel that thoroughly took me off guard. As I was passing by, I noticed a

picture of Abraham Lincoln and stopped, curious as to how our Southern heritage would be

attacked yet again. It turned out to be far worse than I expected: the program turned out to

be “Ancient Aliens” (I am still trying to figure out why this program is shown by the

History Channel). Anyway, I was shocked . . . shocked I tell you . . . to learn that the

United States was founded by men influenced by aliens (or perhaps even the aliens

themselves!) as part of an “experiment” in freedom. Then our hard-headed Southern

ancestors tried to ruin everything by revolting against the aliens’ hand-picked leaders. As a

result, the aliens were forced to come back to Earth and influence men such as Lincoln,

Grant, Sherman, et al., so that the experiment “could be saved.” Really? Really? I mean

outside alien influence could explain a few things but I find myself absolutely stunned at the

idea that the War of Yankee Imperialist Aggression was determined by the actions of “e.t.”s.

So, it seems our ancestors were fighting aliens as well as Yankees; no wonder the South did

not have a chance.

But it seems that there is some hope for sanity. This past week a federal

judge in Mississippi dismissed a civil suit regarding the state flag, noting that the individual

who filed the case failed to show that he had personally suffered any injury from the

Mississippi state flag. As an attorney myself, I have been wondering for some time now

when a court would bring up this particular issue.

Now to get off my soapbox and deal with other matters. I would like to

remind everyone that the November meeting has been cancelled due to the fact that New

Merkle is used as a polling place during the election.

I look forward to the next Camp Meeting on the 13th of September. As usual

we have a wonderful speaker lined up. I ask that not only everyone come and participate but

invite any and all to come and enjoy. Our ancestors fought for a just cause and they deserve

far more honor and respect for what they did. Let us always honor their memory!

Deo Vindice,

David L. Rawls

Commander

Commander’s

Report

July, 2016

Camp,

I send this out with a heavy heart. As most of you know my Mom

passed and was buried 2 weeks ago. I thank all that called or came to the service.

It was a celebration of Mom’s life as it should have been. Mom was a true

Southern woman. She taught me a lot and imparted thoughts and ways of me I

shall always carry, you might call it my "good side".

Growing up we celebrated family values. Being together, singing

in the car, picnic lunches, and family reunions. At the reunions I was the one that

walked the cemetery looking for Confederate solders. I was asking the "old

folks", now I am one, about the war and the old days. I found out that Mom had 2

great uncles buried at Franklin. Her great-grandfather was buried in a forgotten

grave in Pike county. He was in the 57th Ala. and fought in the Atlanta campaign,

Hood's Tennessee campaign , and was wounded at Bentonville. He came back

from the war and farmed and traded for a living. It was this hard existence that

helped mold the Southern people into what we are today. Proud of our heritage,

protective of what rights we have left, family people that fight to keep what is

ours. I am proud to be a Southerner, my mothers son, and the Son of a

Confederate veteran. Please remember to conduct yourselves in a way that will

make our ancestors proud. They are watching from above.

Hank Arnold

2nd Lt Cdr.

FJW 1372

2nd LT Commander’s

Report

Stand Watie (1806-1871) – Also known as Standhope Oowatie, Degataga, and Isaac

S. Watie, he was a leader of the Cherokee Nation and a brigadier general of the Confederate States

Army during the Civil War. He was born in Oothcaloga, Cherokee Nation (Calhoun, Georgia) on

December 12, 1806, to David Uwatie, a Cherokee, and Susanna Reese, who was of Cherokee and

European heritage, and first called Isaac Uwatie. Later, when he grew up, he preferred the English

translation of his Cherokee name, Degataga, meaning "Stand Firm," and the "U" was dropped from

"Uwatie."

Watie was educated at the Moravian Mission School in Spring Place, Cherokee Nation

(now Georgia) and by the time he grew up, his father had become a wealthy slave-owning planter. He

would later write for the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, which led him into the dispute over the

Georgia Anti-Indian laws. When gold was discovered on Cherokee lands in northern Georgia in 1828,

thousands of white settlers encroached on Indian lands. In spite of federal treaties that protected them

from actions of individual states, Georgia confiscated most of the Cherokee land and the Georgia

militia destroyed the Cherokee Phoenix in 1832. The Federal Government soon stepped in,

encouraging the Cherokee to move to Indian Territory and the Treaty of New Echota was signed in

January, 1836, which established terms under which the entire Cherokee Nation was expected to move

west to the Indian Territory. Although it was signed by a minority Cherokee political faction and not

approved by the Cherokee National Council, it was ratified by the U.S. Senate and became the legal

basis for the forcible removal known as the Trail of Tears.

The Watie brothers stood in favor of the removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma and

were members of the group that signed the Treaty of New Echota. The Anti-Removal National Party

following John Ross refused to ratify the treaty, putting him at odds with the Waties. The family,

along with many other Cherokee soon emigrated to the West, where Stand Watie, a slave holder,

started a successful plantation on Spavinaw Creek in Indian Territory. Those Cherokee following John

Ross remained on their tribal lands for two years until they were forcibly removed by the U.S.

government in 1838 in a journey known as the "Trail of Tears," during which thousands died.

The following year, many of the members who had signed the treaty were targeted for

execution and in June, 1839 Stand’s brother Elias Boudinot was murdered outside his home. His

cousin and uncle, John and Major Ridge, fell to Cherokee assassins on the same day. In 1842 Watie

encountered James Foreman, one of his uncle's assassins and shot him dead. He was tried for murder

in Arkansas and acquitted as acting in self defense, even though Foreman was unarmed. Stand Watie's

brother Thomas Watie was also murdered by Ross partisans in 1845. At least 34 politically related

murders were committed among the Cherokee in 1845 and 1846. From 1845, Stand Watie served on

the Cherokee Council, part of that time as speaker.

When the Civil War broke out, a majority of the Cherokee Nation voted to support the

Confederacy and Watie organized a regiment of cavalry. In October 1861, he was commissioned as

colonel in the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles. In December, 1861, he was engaged in a battle with

some hostile Indians in the Battle of Chusto-Talasah in present day Tulsa County, Oklahoma.

Later, he would participate in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas in March, 1862, after

which General Albert Pike, in his report of this battle, said: "My whole command consisted of about

1,000 men, all Indians except one squadron. The enemy opened fire into the woods where we were, the

fence in front of us was thrown down, and the Indians charged full in front through the woods and into

the open grounds with loud yells, took the battery, fired upon and pursued the enemy retreating through

the fenced field on our right, and held the battery, which I afterward had drawn by the Cherokee into the

woods."

Though the Battle of Pea Ridge was a Union victory, Watie's command of his troops

was well noted and there was considerable fear by the Union that Indian Territory would be entirely lost

to the Confederacy. The same year, though he was serving in the Confederate Army, Watie was elected

principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Though former Chief John Ross had fled to Washington D.C.,

his supporters, who by this time were in the minority, refused to recognize Watie’s election and open

warfare broke out between the "Union Cherokee" and the "Southern Cherokee.“ Confederate General

William Steele, in his report of the operations in the Indian Territory, in 1863, said of Colonel Watie

that he found him to be a gallant and daring officer. On April 1, 1863, Watie was authorized to raise a

large brigade. In May, 1864 Colonel Watie was commissioned a brigadier-general, the only Native

American to achieve that rank in the Civil War. In June, he captured the federal steamboat J.R.

Williams with 150 barrels of flour and 16,000 pounds of bacon, which Watie would later say was

actually a disadvantage to the command, because a great portion of the Creek and Seminole soldiers

immediately broke off to carry their booty home. In September, 1864 he attacked and captured a

Federal train of 250 wagons on Cabin Creek and repulsed an attempt to retake it.

At the end of the year 1864 General Watie's brigade of cavalry consisted of the First

Cherokee regiment, a Cherokee battalion, First and Second Creek regiments, a squadron of Creeks, First

Osage battalion, and First Seminole battalion. To the end of the War, General Watie stood by his

colors, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down. When the leaders of the

Confederate Indians learned that the government in Richmond, Virginia had fallen and the Eastern

armies had been surrendered, most began making plans for surrender. The chiefs convened the Grand

Council June 15, 1865 and passed resolutions calling for Indian commanders to lay down their arms.

However, Stand Watie refused until June 23, 1865, a full 75 days after Lee's surrender in the East.

Finally accepting the futility of continued resistance, he surrendered his battalion

of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Osage Indians to Lieutenant Colonel Asa C. Matthews

at Doaksville.

After the Civil War ended the "Union Cherokee" and the "Southern Cherokee" sent

delegations to Washington D.C., where Watie pushed for recognition of a separate "Southern Cherokee

Nation." Watie was refused; however, and the government negotiated a treaty with the “Union

Cherokee” in 1866, declaring John Ross as the rightful Principal Chief. It seemed that open hostilities

would break out again in the Cherokee Nation, but, when John Ross died in August, 1866, hostilities

calmed down. In the election in 1867, full-blood Cherokee, Lewis Downing, was elected Principal

Chief and was able bring about peaceful reunification, though tensions lingered under the surface into

the 20th century. In the meantime, Watie had returned from the Civil War to find his home burned to

the ground by Federal soldiers. In financial ruin, he spent his final years farming and trying to restore

his once-beautiful Grand River bottomland.

All three of Watie’s sons preceded him in death and in his last years he watched as

colossal tracts of land legally deeded to the Cherokee were taken from them as punishment for their

support of the Confederacy and given to other tribes. Many believe that Stand Watie died of a broken

heart. In one of his last letters to his daughter, he would say “You can’t imagine how lonely I am up

here at our old place without any of my dear children being with me.” He died on September 9, 1871

and was buried in the Polson Cemetery in Delaware County, Oklahoma.

From http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-standwatie.html