Via Market Ticker
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Graves of Confederate brothers dug up in Raleigh
By News & Observer of Raleigh
RALEIGH -- They marched into the woods carrying shovels, axes, hatchets and a Sawzall, tools for digging a pair of Confederate brothers out of the red clay.
When they reached the spot, they brushed the leaves off a pair of cracked tombstones until they could see a soldier chiseled on one of them and a stack of cannonballs.
They ran a metal detector over each slab, but before they turned the first spade of dirt, they stopped to pray.
"We know these young men have left their earthly shell," said Donald Scott, head bowed. "We want to respect and honor these remains, even though we know their souls are with you. They were Tar Heels. We don't want them lost."
With the traffic buzzing past on Trinity Road Saturday, two dozen volunteers worked to pull Joseph and Joel Holleman from their graves, grown less peaceful after a century and a half.
Nothing specific threatens their rest, but Interstate 40 passes near enough to hear traffic, and across the road, an advertisement for single-family homes describes this corner of west Raleigh as "the intersection of tradition and tomorrow."
To the diggers in these woods, the Hollemans belong in Oakwood Cemetery, led there by honor guard, laid alongside men who fell at Gettysburg.
"My heart says this is the right thing," said Scott, who represents the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the 26th N.C. re-enactment unit. "These boys have been here 150 years. Their blood is our blood."
Joseph Holleman was a private with the 26th N.C. Regiment, just 22 when he died of pneumonia near Morehead City.
His brother Joel was older, 28, and nobody knows for sure how he died. He was a teacher, not a soldier, and a secretary with the Masons in Cary. But he had connections to the state Fairgrounds Hospital in Raleigh, and the federal government still lists him as a "Confederate collaborator."
In 1862, they were buried on quiet farmland, side by side.
"My kids played here all the time," said Marilyn Hicks Geisler, whose family owns the land. "We played hide and seek. We had a basketball hoop, and when the ball would come over here, the kids would look at each other like, 'Who is going to get it?' We knew it was a graveyard."
Her daughter Anna, 27, recalls being fond of the brothers' company.
"We grew up with them," she said. "It's going to be strange not having them around anymore."
The diggers worked in shifts, three to a grave. They pried up the stones and carted them away in pieces, moving slowly and carefully.
One foot down, they hit thick roots, chopping them with axes and tearing them with a Sawzall.
Two feet down, the roots got thicker.
Three feet down, someone found a golf ball.
At the edges of the graves, a pair of pine caskets waited to collect the brothers' remains.
"What we'll likely find is discolored soil in the shape of a human torso," Scott said. "You may find a row of buttons where his shell jacket would have been. Belt buckle, as well."
After hours of digging, six pieces of coffin appeared in Joseph's grave, along with eight buttons in a row. He had a small, antique bottle with him, possibly containing spices.
In Joel's grave, the diggers found more buttons, another bottle, pieces of what appeared to be suspenders and a pair of cufflinks.
Nothing else.
They collected these remnants, exposed to daylight for the first time in 150 years, and loaded them in the pine boxes. Now, neither kudzu nor concrete will cover Joseph and Joel Holleman.
They will rest as brothers, two more men in the long row of white markers.
RALEIGH -- They marched into the woods carrying shovels, axes, hatchets and a Sawzall, tools for digging a pair of Confederate brothers out of the red clay.
When they reached the spot, they brushed the leaves off a pair of cracked tombstones until they could see a soldier chiseled on one of them and a stack of cannonballs.
They ran a metal detector over each slab, but before they turned the first spade of dirt, they stopped to pray.
"We know these young men have left their earthly shell," said Donald Scott, head bowed. "We want to respect and honor these remains, even though we know their souls are with you. They were Tar Heels. We don't want them lost."
With the traffic buzzing past on Trinity Road Saturday, two dozen volunteers worked to pull Joseph and Joel Holleman from their graves, grown less peaceful after a century and a half.
Nothing specific threatens their rest, but Interstate 40 passes near enough to hear traffic, and across the road, an advertisement for single-family homes describes this corner of west Raleigh as "the intersection of tradition and tomorrow."
To the diggers in these woods, the Hollemans belong in Oakwood Cemetery, led there by honor guard, laid alongside men who fell at Gettysburg.
"My heart says this is the right thing," said Scott, who represents the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the 26th N.C. re-enactment unit. "These boys have been here 150 years. Their blood is our blood."
Joseph Holleman was a private with the 26th N.C. Regiment, just 22 when he died of pneumonia near Morehead City.
His brother Joel was older, 28, and nobody knows for sure how he died. He was a teacher, not a soldier, and a secretary with the Masons in Cary. But he had connections to the state Fairgrounds Hospital in Raleigh, and the federal government still lists him as a "Confederate collaborator."
In 1862, they were buried on quiet farmland, side by side.
"My kids played here all the time," said Marilyn Hicks Geisler, whose family owns the land. "We played hide and seek. We had a basketball hoop, and when the ball would come over here, the kids would look at each other like, 'Who is going to get it?' We knew it was a graveyard."
Her daughter Anna, 27, recalls being fond of the brothers' company.
"We grew up with them," she said. "It's going to be strange not having them around anymore."
The diggers worked in shifts, three to a grave. They pried up the stones and carted them away in pieces, moving slowly and carefully.
One foot down, they hit thick roots, chopping them with axes and tearing them with a Sawzall.
Two feet down, the roots got thicker.
Three feet down, someone found a golf ball.
At the edges of the graves, a pair of pine caskets waited to collect the brothers' remains.
"What we'll likely find is discolored soil in the shape of a human torso," Scott said. "You may find a row of buttons where his shell jacket would have been. Belt buckle, as well."
After hours of digging, six pieces of coffin appeared in Joseph's grave, along with eight buttons in a row. He had a small, antique bottle with him, possibly containing spices.
In Joel's grave, the diggers found more buttons, another bottle, pieces of what appeared to be suspenders and a pair of cufflinks.
Nothing else.
They collected these remnants, exposed to daylight for the first time in 150 years, and loaded them in the pine boxes. Now, neither kudzu nor concrete will cover Joseph and Joel Holleman.
They will rest as brothers, two more men in the long row of white markers.
Graves of Confederate brothers dug up in Raleigh
Benjamin Hill on Andersonville
On January 10, 1876 in the US Senate, Georgia Senator Benjamin H. Hill confronted bloody-shirt waving James Blaine of Maine.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Benjamin Hill on Andersonville:
“In 1876, eleven years after the South surrendered, Mr. James G. Blaine of Maine, stood up in Congress and poured out “a lot of hate-born lies as malignant as human tongue ever uttered or human brain ever concocted:”
“Mr. [Jefferson] Davis,” cried Mr. Blaine, “was the author, knowingly, deliberately, guiltily, and willfully, of the gigantic murders and crimes at Andersonville. And I here before God, measuring my words, knowing their full intent and import, declare that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva in the Low Country, nor the massacre of St. Bartholomew, nor the thumb screws, and the other engines of torture of the Inquisition, begin to compare in atrocity with the hideous crimes of Andersonville.”
Mr. Hill’s reply: “If nine percent of the [Northern] men in Southern prisons were starved to death by Mr. Jefferson Davis, who tortured to death the twelve percent of the Southern men in Northern prisons?” (See Secretary Stanton’s statistics.)
(Truths of History, Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Southern Lion Books, 1998, pp. 100)
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Benjamin Hill on Andersonville:
“In 1876, eleven years after the South surrendered, Mr. James G. Blaine of Maine, stood up in Congress and poured out “a lot of hate-born lies as malignant as human tongue ever uttered or human brain ever concocted:”
“Mr. [Jefferson] Davis,” cried Mr. Blaine, “was the author, knowingly, deliberately, guiltily, and willfully, of the gigantic murders and crimes at Andersonville. And I here before God, measuring my words, knowing their full intent and import, declare that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva in the Low Country, nor the massacre of St. Bartholomew, nor the thumb screws, and the other engines of torture of the Inquisition, begin to compare in atrocity with the hideous crimes of Andersonville.”
Mr. Hill’s reply: “If nine percent of the [Northern] men in Southern prisons were starved to death by Mr. Jefferson Davis, who tortured to death the twelve percent of the Southern men in Northern prisons?” (See Secretary Stanton’s statistics.)
(Truths of History, Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Southern Lion Books, 1998, pp. 100)
Benjamin Hill on Andersonville
MASS FLAGGING OF THE GRAND OPENING OF THE MUSEUM OF THE CONFEDERACY - APPOMATTOX, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Via SHNV
On Saturday, March 31st, the Museum of the Confederacy will open its new site in Appomattox to much fanfare, pomp, and circumstance. There will be re-enactors, vendors, music, and a flag raising ceremony that includes the United States flag, and flags representing the states that sent troops to fight for the Confederacy. There is one thing, however, that will be missing from the grounds of the Museum. Incredibly, there will be NO Confederate flag flying. As descendants of Confederate soldiers who fought and died under her, we find that to be a direct insult to their honor and memory and will not sit idly by and allow this policy to go unchallenged.
The Virginia Flaggers will gather at the Museum, with flags, to stand in peaceful, yet forceful protest of this discriminatory action taken by the Museum of the Confederacy.
We invite all who are willing, to join us. Bring a sack lunch, rain gear, a lawn chair if needed, a Confederate flag, and a heart for standing up for those who can no longer do so.
Join the FaceBook Event Page for more information:
http://www.facebook.com/events/342189895832757/
For more information, contact: vaflagger@comcast.net
On Saturday, March 31st, the Museum of the Confederacy will open its new site in Appomattox to much fanfare, pomp, and circumstance. There will be re-enactors, vendors, music, and a flag raising ceremony that includes the United States flag, and flags representing the states that sent troops to fight for the Confederacy. There is one thing, however, that will be missing from the grounds of the Museum. Incredibly, there will be NO Confederate flag flying. As descendants of Confederate soldiers who fought and died under her, we find that to be a direct insult to their honor and memory and will not sit idly by and allow this policy to go unchallenged.
The Virginia Flaggers will gather at the Museum, with flags, to stand in peaceful, yet forceful protest of this discriminatory action taken by the Museum of the Confederacy.
We invite all who are willing, to join us. Bring a sack lunch, rain gear, a lawn chair if needed, a Confederate flag, and a heart for standing up for those who can no longer do so.
Join the FaceBook Event Page for more information:
http://www.facebook.com/events/342189895832757/
For more information, contact: vaflagger@comcast.net
Vernon Robinson Machine Gun Social
Vernon Robinson, candidate for Congress in the North Carolina 8th district, will be holding a Machine Gun Social fund raiser this Thursday, March 29 at 6:30 pm at Eagle guns indoor shooting range in Concord, North Carolina. Eagle guns is located at: 3789 Roberta Church Rd. in Concord.
Rob Peetz of Repent Arms is going to bring various sub machine guns, including an AR-15, AK-47, UZI, MP5, and a Tommy gun. The price is $50. This includes shooting one full magazine through any of the aforementioned guns. It also affords people the opportunity to win a door prize from Eagle guns of a brand-new AR-15.
More @ GRNC
Thoughts for Consideration
Here are some thoughts of mine. They will offend some people. That is not my concern; I cannot control others' reactions to what I say. I hope people are able/willing to look through offense, and my clumsy words that cause it, in order to see what I am saying here. Here goes-
It has been said that the Constitution would only work in a moral society.
I think there's a little more to it than that, but let's assume that the statement is true at face value, and look at some things.
It has been said that the Constitution would only work in a moral society.
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion ...Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams
Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Independence - "[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
" Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society." - Washington
I think there's a little more to it than that, but let's assume that the statement is true at face value, and look at some things.
More @ The Arctic Patriot
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