General Robert E. Lee’s Last Days

 

 Wonderful book.

“The end was now drawing near, yet the General uttered no complaint. He was meeting the last enemy as he had met Grant at Appomattox, without parade or ostentation.  

An incident of these last days should be preserved. It was related by Mrs. Tabb Bolling Lee. This former Petersburg belle had been in the habit of rising at a late hour, anywhere perhaps from ten to noon.  Now, on her first visit to her husband’s people, she was horrified to learn that breakfast would be ready at seven o’clock and each member of the household was expected at family prayers promptly at 6:45. The first morning, the new arrival jumped into her clothes and hastened down to the parlor to find that the General had finished the “lesson” and was well into the “prayers.”  As she slipped in and knelt by his side she felt his arm about her. Without interruption the prayer went on and was concluded. 

Next morning the new daughter did not get down to prayers at all, but did manage to be on hand at breakfast. After the meal the General approached and quietly remarked that no day should be lived unless it was begun with a prayer of thankfulness and an intercession for guidance.  “And now, my child,” he softly concluded, “unless you get down to morning prayers your old father will give you no more kisses.” The punishment was adequate. Thereafter the new daughter was on time for prayers.

The evening of September 28 was raw, damp and unseasonably cold. At that unpropitious hour the vestry of Grace Church met in the unheated building.  After presiding at an extended session the General walked up the hill to his home. Tea awaited him. Slowly moving to his pace at the head of the table, he stood, as was his custom, to ask the blessing. His tongue failed to function. The summons had come. From the couch, in the recess window of the dining room, where they laid him, he did not again move. 

The physicians treated him for venous congestion of the brain, and, at first, held out hope for recovery. The symptoms were favorable. He was not paralyzed and could move his arms, legs and body, though with pain. He was entirely conscious. Sometimes he spoke. He answered questions, but in monosyllables. His mind was clear and seemed independent of his body. One day the doctor, seeking to cheer him, referred to Traveler. The General must make haste and get well; Traveler was lonely and was looking for him. The sick man shook his head and closed his eyes.

During the final days there was no death-bed scene, no posing, no sadness of farewell. Silence filled the sorrowing chamber. Toward the end chilliness set in. Powerful restoratives were then administered. The intellect was dimmed. The poise and self-restraint of a life-time vanished. The dying man was on the battle field again, astride his war-horse. “Strike the tent!” he exclaimed, as a great storm swept the valley. “Tell Hill he must come up!” 

At nine o’clock on the morning of October 12 the heart ceased to beat, and a great gentleman, please God, was dead.” 

(Robert E. Lee, A Biography, Robert W. Winston, William Morrow & Company, 1934, pp. 411-413)

Two from Wrench

Excellent: On Anniversary of Che Killing, CIA's Felix Rodriguez Remembers

 

Former CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who participated in the historic manhunt to capture Ernesto "Che" Guevara, says the Marxist revolutionary was little more than a criminal and devoted killer who deserves to be demystified.

"I believe that eventually people will see what he really was. He was an assassin," said Rodriguez, who spoke to Newsmax about Guevara in advance of the 46th anniversary of his death on Oct. 9, 1967, at age 39. "He was an individual with very little regard for life. He enjoyed killing people."

In the interview with Newsmax, Rodriguez gives a detailed first-hand account of the capture and execution of the man whose image is still being appropriated as a counterculture fashion statement. 

More with video @ Newsmax

Girl raped after judge sends her to sex offender's home

 

Charges are being considered against a Texas judge who sent a minor back into the home of a guardian who was living with a sex offender who later murdered the guardian and raped the juvenile, according to a lawsuit.

Also, three Texas teachers were indicted for failing to tell authorities about the student’s report of threats from the sex offender, the suit notes.

The consequences of the judge’s decision and the actions by the teachers were severe: The student was tied up and raped by the sex offender, who also murdered her guardian in front of the student, according to the lawsuit in Caldwell, Texas.

The Texas Center for Defense of Life late Tuesday filed the action on behalf of the juvenile, identified only with the initials S.R.L. The case seeks a court ruling that the teachers and judge “breached their duty” to the juvenile and compensation.

The defendants in the case are teachers Bliss Bednar, Vance Skidmore and Bradley Vestal as well as the Caldwell Independent School District and a retired judge, Terry Flenniken.

“There is no excuse for Judge Flenniken’s poor decision,” said TCDL attorney Greg Terra. “He knew exactly what the minor was dealing with in her home situation and that she lived with Edward Clinton Lee, a registered sex offender, and yet still sent her back to live with him and her guardian instead of granting the petition to release her to her biological mother.”

More @ WND

Lee In The Mountains, By Donald Davidson

 Re-post NamSouth 2008

I thought of my friend Bazz and decided to post  again.  I sent it to him once and he replied that every time he read this, tears would come.  Gone way too young.

 Basil Dwayne "Bazz" Childress R.I.P.

Bazz, his wife Rachel and Dixie at General Pender's grave at Calvary Episcopal church in Tarboro when they were our house guests some years ago.

 

 **************************************

 

Walking into the shadows, walking alone
Where the sun falls through the ruined boughs of locust
Up to the president's office. . . .Hearing the voices
Whisper, Hush, it is General Lee! And strangely
Hearing my own voice say, Good morning, boys.
(Don't get up. You are early. It is long
Before the bell. You will have long to wait
On these cold steps. . . .)
The young have time to wait

But soldiers' faces under their tossing flags
Lift no more by any road or field,
And I am spent with old wars and new sorrow.
Walking the rocky path, where steps decay
And the paint cracks and grass eats on the stone.
It is not General Lee, young men. . .
It is Robert Lee in a dark civilian suit who walks,
An outlaw fumbling for the latch, a voice
Commanding in a dream where no flag flies.

My father's house is taken and his hearth
Left to the candle-drippings where the ashes
Whirl at a chimney-breath on the cold stone.
I can hardly remember my father's look, I cannot
Answer his voice as he calls farewell in the misty
Mounting where riders gather at gates.
He was old then--I was a child--his hand
Held out for mine, some daybreak snatched away,
And he rode out, a broken man. Now let
His lone grave keep, surer than cypress roots,
The vow I made beside him. God too late
Unseals to certain eyes the drift
Of time and the hopes of men and a sacred cause.
The fortune of the Lees goes with the land
Whose sons will keep it still. My mother
Told me much. She sat among the candles,
Fingering the Memoirs, now so long unread.
And as my pen moves on across the page
Her voice comes back, a murmuring distillation
Of old Virginia times now faint and gone,
The hurt of all that was and cannot be.

Why did my father write? I know he saw
History clutched as a wraith out of blowing mist
Where tongues are loud, and a glut of little souls
Laps at the too much blood and the burning house.
He would have his say, but I shall not have mine.

What I do is only a son's devoir
To a lost father. Let him only speak.
The rest must pass to men who never knew
(But on a written page) the strike of armies,
And never heard the long Confederate cry
Charge through the muzzling smoke or saw the bright
Eyes of the beardless boys go up to death.
It is Robert Lee who writes with his father's hand--
The rest must go unsaid and the lips be locked.

If all were told, as it cannot be told--
If all the dread opinion of the heart
Now could speak, now in the shame and torment
Lashing the bound and trampled States--

If a word were said, as it cannot be said--
I see clear waters run in Virginia's Valley
And in the house the weeping of young women
Rises no more. The waves of grain begin.
The Shenandoah is golden with a new grain.
The Blue Ridge, crowned with a haze of light,
Thunders no more. The horse is at plough. The rifle
Returns to the chimney crotch and the hunter's hand.
And nothing else than this? Was it for this
That on an April day we stacked our arms
Obedient to a soldier's trust? To lie
Ground by heels of little men,

Forever maimed, defeated, lost, impugned?
And was I then betrayed? Did I betray?
If it were said, as it still might be said--
If it were said, and a word should run like fire,
Like living fire into the roots of grass,
The sunken flag would kindle on wild hills,
The brooding hearts would waken, and the dream
Stir like a crippled phantom under the pines,
And this torn earth would quicken into shouting
Beneath the feet of the ragged bands—

The pen
Turns to the waiting page, the sword
Bows to the rust that cankers and the silence.

Among these boys whose eyes lift up to mine
Within gray walls where droning wasps repeat
A hollow reveille, I still must face,
Day after day, the courier with his summons
Once more to surrender, now to surrender all.
Without arms or men I stand, but with knowledge only
I face what long I saw, before others knew,
When Pickett's men streamed back, and I heard the tangled
Cry of the Wilderness wounded, bloody with doom.

The mountains, once I said, in the little room
At Richmond, by the huddled fire, but still
The President shook his head. The mountains wait,

I said, in the long beat and rattle of siege
At cratered Petersburg. Too late
We sought the mountains and those people came.
And Lee is in the mountains now, beyond Appomatox,
Listening long for voices that will never speak
Again; hearing the hoofbeats that come and go and fade
Without a stop, without a brown hand lifting
The tent-flap, or a bugle call at dawn,
Or ever on the long white road the flag
Of Jackson's quick brigades. I am alone,
Trapped, consenting, taken at last in mountains.

It is not the bugle now, or the long roll beating.
The simple stroke of a chapel bell forbids
The hurtling dream, recalls the lonely mind.
Young men, the God of your fathers is a just
And merciful God Who in this blood once shed
On your green altars measures out all days,
And measures out the grace
Whereby alone we live;
And in His might He waits,
Brooding within the certitude of time,
To bring this lost forsaken valor
And the fierce faith undying
And the love quenchless
To flower among the hills to which we cleave,
To fruit upon the mountains whither we flee,
Never forsaking, never denying
His children and His children's children forever
Unto all generations of the faithful heart.

 Lee In The Mountains, By Donald Davidson

Shadow Government

Tommy Robinson: Sold the Brits out for 30 pieces of silver? Quits English Defence League to Work for Muslim Organization with Known Terrorist Ties

Extremely dangerous times and he better watch his back.

This is one of those times that I have an important story that many Americans will not understand or care about. A lot of people on this side of the Atlantic do not know who the English Defence League is, or simply do not care. But without a world view you can not look ahead. What is happening in Britain may as well be knocking on our door. Will we let it in?

A number of high profile figures have left the English Defence League citing that the organization has been taken over by far right factions including those who are anti-Semites, neo-Nazis and run of the mill racists. Frequent contributor Pamela Geller is one of those who has broken ties and had this to say yesterday on her blog, Atlas Shrugs:

More @ Freedom Outpost

Why I Am A Southerner

The Fugitives

    In the winter of 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson wrote,

"Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God …, in whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue."

In 1930, this Jeffersonian strategy was invoked for one last time by a group of twelve Southern Americans whose essays were compiled in a book entitled, "I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition." One of the book's contributors, Donald Davidson, said their work described, "the cause of civilized society against the new barbarism of science and technology controlled and directed by the modern power state." (Otherwise known as Yankees and other miscreants.

Of the twelve Southerners who wrote these essays, four had been members of a group of student and teacher poets at Vanderbilt University; Donald Davidson, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. They subsequently became known as "The Fugitives" through the magazine by that name which they published from 1922 to 1925. They espoused the principle that, "a society operating by agrarian standards was in every way superior to the industrial culture that prevailed in the United States."

As we look around us today; Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, is there any doubt?

More @ Freedom Outpost 

US Sends Marines to Italy as Libya Tensions Mount. US ambassador hauled in over al-Libi raid

 

The US' capture of Abu Anas al-Libi is turning into a full-blown diplomatic incident. Libya's government has summoned the US ambassador for questioning over what it terms the "kidnapping" of the alleged al-Qaeda operative, CNN reports. The US, meanwhile, sees the situation as perilous enough that it has moved 200 marines from Spain to Italy, so they'll be ready to respond should the US diplomatic mission in Libya come under fire.

More @ Newser

The Myth of the “Otherwise Law-Abiding” Illegal Alien

Via Mike

 

For years advocates of amnesty and high levels of immigration have described the illegal alien population as one made up of "otherwise law-abiding" people who have committed no violation other than the simple act of crossing a border illegally or overstaying a visa.¹ Journalists routinely invoke this language when writing about amnesty, conspicuously avoiding any discussion of the various crimes the average working illegal alien commits. Many politicians have also embraced the myth of the otherwise law-abiding illegal alien in an effort to promote amnesty, arguing that illegal aliens are no threat to the United States.²

But the average illegal alien violates numerous statutes, often creating real victims.

This Backgrounder details the many statutes the average illegal alien who is simply "here to work" may be violating. The violations include laws involving the entry, presence, and travel of illegal aliens as well as laws related to employment such as perjury and identity theft. Examples of oft-violated but under-enforced laws include:

More @ Center For Immigration Studies

Shutdown Fallout: Obama Approval Rating Slides to 37 Percent

Via Jonathan

A senior White House official told the Wall Street Journal that the administration doesn't really care when the shutdown ends because they're "winning" the PR fight against the GOP. While it's true that Republicans are absorbing more blame than Democrats for the dysfunction, the gap isn't especially wide, especially compared to the 1995 rout. Plus, voters are heaping opprobrium upon all parties involved in the squabble; most people are insisting on compromise -- which isn't helpful to Obama's "no negotiations" stance.

The White House must ask itself if the presidentmay be"winning" in relative terms, but losing in absolute terms. A new Associated Press poll shows Congressional approval at five (!) percent, which is almost within the margin of error. The American people, needless to say, are disgusted by the spectacle playing out on Capitol Hill. Despite his efforts to play the role of an above-the-fray, frustrated bystander, Obama is also taking a hit from this mess. As well he should. Between his atrocious leadership on shutdown talks, which he's single-handedly blocked, and the ongoing Obamacare meltdown, Obama's overall job approval has sunk to 37 percent. For perspective, as he prepared to leave office in January of 2009, President Bush's approval rating was 34 percent.

This ain't pretty:

More @ Townhall

Saiga-12 vs Remington 870

Via grossfater_m

 

'Martial law' declared by Democrat in Congress Ratcheting up argument over federal shutdown

A Democratic congresswoman from Texas has declared “martial law” is the solution to the current partial shutdown of the federal government.

The comments from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, took some listeners by surprise, since a common understanding of “martial law” would be of an authority – a president or a military commander – using military force to impose its will on an uncooperative people.

Think tanks, machine guns and jail cells.

More @ WND

Eric Holder's 2014 Racial Politics. The Attorney General tries to reverse a Supreme Court ruling by the back door.

 

For Eric Holder, American racial history is frozen in the 1960s. The Supreme Court ruled in June that a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is no longer justified due to racial progress, but the U.S. Attorney General has launched a campaign to undo the decision state-by-state. His latest target is North Carolina, which he seems to think is run from the grave by the early version of George Wallace.]

The real current Governor, Republican Pat McCrory, signed a law in August that requires voters to present government-issued photo ID at the polling station, including a state driver's license or military ID. Voters who show up without one can still cast a provisional ballot pending their return with a photo ID. The law also shortens early voting to 10 days from 17 and ends a program that preregistered high school students before they were eligible to vote.

According to Mr. Holder, this amounts to a shocking return to the Jim Crow era. He describes these modest measures to secure the integrity of the ballot as "aggressive steps to curtail the voting rights of African Americans." And he is suing the state to bring it back under the federal supervision of the Voting Rights Act for all of its future voting-law changes.

The Supreme Court held in June that such federal "preclearance" under Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act had outlived its usefulness in states where black and white voter registration and participation rates are roughly equal. That should have been good news, but now Mr. Holder wants to haul North Carolina and Texas back into long-term federal supervision through a back door.

More @ WSJ

Will Obama Stop the Music This November?

Via Peter

The current “shutdown” of 17% of the federal government has primed America for chaos with constant left-wing rhetoric and news media reports couched in apocalyptic terms such as crisis, brink, catastrophe, hostage, arsonist and terrorist. But a catastrophe is useful to a would-be tyrant only as long as it can be blamed on a hated enemy. In 1933 Hitler’s agents burned the Reichstag, not just to sow fear and confusion, but primarily in order to charge his Communist enemies with treason as an excuse to obliterate them. The German “mainstream media” dutifully parroted the Nazi Party line, without investigating the true source of the arson.

A similar pattern of scapegoating has been followed in the United States throughout the term of President Obama. For example, leading Democrats and their shills in the mainstream media have long been salivating at the prospect of a “Tea Party” conservative going on a violent rampage. We saw this in Tucson immediately after the Gabby Giffords shooting, after the Aurora, Colorado, theater attack, and after the recent Washington Navy Yard shooting, when Democrats and their media allies rushed to blame “Tea Party terrorists” in early reports based upon zero evidence. As far as we know, all of these attacks were carried out by deranged individuals following the orders of inner demons, but still the left hopes for a violent response by right-wing “bitter clingers,” so named by President Obama himself during a private fund raiser.

The current “government shutdown” seems to be designed to provoke a violent right-wing reaction.
 

More @ WRSA

Occupy America! Park Visitors Storm the Barrycades

 

Could this be the end of Monument Syndrome? Across the country, ordinary Americans are rising up in revolt against the old Washington tactic of closing public parks and memorials during selective government "shutdowns" to score political points. Tax-paying tourists are tossing off the orange traffic cones and "Barrycades." Enough is enough.

The movement started with waves of World War II veterans who flew to D.C. last week as part of the Honor Flight Network. (The nonprofit group brings our surviving heroes to visit the memorials that honor their service and sacrifice.) The vets and volunteers breached the fences last week, exposing the tone-deaf tactics of President Obama's Spite House. Honor Flight visits continue this week, and more vets vowed to defy the cynical closures.

They are not alone.

More @ Townhall

'Gestapo tactics' trap Americans at Yellowstone 'They looked like Hulk Hogans, armed. They told us you can't go outside'

 

Authorities used “Gestapo tactics” on senior citizens visiting Yellowstone National Park,   locking them inside their hotel under “armed guard” during the Obama administration’s government shutdown, according to a guide.

Officials even refused to allow the tourists to stop for bathroom breaks during the two-and-a-half hour drive out of the park, he said.

Gordon Hodgson spoke in a telephone interview with the Livinston, Mont., Enterprise about the 41 tourists he took into the nation’s first national park, in the northwest corner of Wyoming, on a trip scheduled before the shutdown.

Park officials told him they were allowed to stay their scheduled two nights at the historic Old Faithful Inn, but they could not do anything, Hodgson said.

More @ WND

Rick Warren tweets visit from radical Muslim Cat Stevens. Yusuf Islam endorsed call for Salman Rushdie's death

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren, who often has drawn criticism in the Christian community regarding his engagement with Islam, is stirring the pot again.

This time he’s tweeted about a visit from Yusuf Islam, who was Cat Stevens before he became a radical Muslim.

On his @RickWarren account, Warren said: “Legendary Cat Stevens came by to see me today as I worked at home on a sermon.” The tweet includes an image of the two.

The statement immediately drew a reaction from Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, who noted Stevens enthusiastically endorsed the Ayatollah Khomeini’s death fatwa against author Salman Rushdie in 1989 for insulting Islam.

“Who knew that Rick Warren and Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) were this close?” Spencer wrote. “Did they sing a few choruses of Cat’s nasheed that contains the lines, ‘I’m praying to Allah to give us victory over the kuffar?’”

Spencer said he was not surprised, however, noting Warren previously has addressed the convention of the Hamas- and Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Society of North America.

Warren, Spencer said, also “apologized to Muslims, but wasn’t sure what for” and now “he is palling around with Mr. Peace Train” in the name of “dialogue” and “interfaith outreach.”

More @ WND

Spread the Word

Via David

 

Print this out and post as you like at any federal park. 

David DeGerolamo

Patriot Plates

Via WiscoDave