The most important event recently was the 109th Georgia Division Reunion in Gainesville on Saturday, June 17th. Our camp attended the business session with the nine voting delegates we were allowed, plus one non-voting delegate.

As far as other activities and events going on during the summer, things are pretty quiet. We have the ongoing work at Magnolia Cemetery to maintain the Confederate sections, and the camp is setting up a booth at the flea market occasionally on the weekends. The weather has been just too hot to do any outside activities, but the fall festivals will startup again after Labor Day and there’ll be something going on every weekend through December.

We’ll be back at Sconyers BBQ Restaurant for our August 10th meeting. Our program speaker will be Mr. Wayne Damron, owner of Clein’s Rare Coins on Telfair Street in Augusta. He’ll speak on the topic of "Confederate Currency." He will bring some Confederate bills to pass around to the group during his presentation. For those of us who aren’t knowledgeable about the intricacies of the designs and symbols on Confederate currency, this should be a very educational presentation by Mr. Damron, who is extremely knowledgeable about all types of currency.

■ Carson Jake Smith applied for membership through his 2nd great grandfather Pvt. Mahlon Biddle Potts of Co. K, 53rd Georgia Infantry.

■ Kenneth Frederick Turner applied for membership through his 4th great uncle Sgt. William Garrett Matthews of Co. D, 19th SC Infantry.

■ Wilbert Nicholas Posey applied for membership through his great grandfather Pvt. Martin Friday Posey of Rump’s Regiment – a South Carolina home guard unit.

Saturday, June 17th – Eleven camp members attended the 109th Georgia Division Reunion in Gainesville. Nine of the eleven were delegates at the business session.

Saturday, June 24th – Two of our members attended the annual Hampton Watermelon Festival in Hampton, SC. Our members marched as re-enactors in the parade in support of River’s Bridge SCV Camp # 842, which located in Fairfax, SC.

Tuesday, June 27 – Two of Camp #158s re-enactors gave living history presentations to Columbia County elementary school children at Patriot’s Park Summer Camp.

Saturday, July 1st – Workday at Magnolia Cemetery cutting grass and cleaning up the Confederate Dead section, the Confederate Survivor’s section, the generals’ memorial, Mary Hall’s gravesite, and the individual graves of the seven Confederate Generals buried throughout Magnolia Cemetery in family plots.

Saturday, July 8th – Camp #158 members setup a booth at the Barnyard Flea Market of Augusta to sell Confederate memorabilia and raffle tickets.

  The SCV will not have a "clearance sale" and reduce membership dues.  They will not become any cheaper as the drop-dead date of November 1st draws closer.  Why wait?

■ Saturday, August 5th – Camp #158 members will setup one booth at the Barnyard Flea Market of Augusta to sell camp store and raffle tickets.

■ Thursday, August 10th – Brigadier General E. Porter Alexander Camp #158 Meeting, Sconyers Bar-B-Que Restaurant, 7:00 p.m. Our program speaker will be Mr. Wayne Damron, owner of Clein’s Rare Coins in Augusta. He’ll speak on "Confederate Currency."

For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish. — Psalms 1:6

Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. — Psalms 100: 3

For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. — Psalms 100: 5

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. — Proverbs 3:5-7

And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. — Revelation 22:12, 13

This was our hour of intense humiliation. So long as we carried our guns we felt something of the dignity of soldiers; but when we tramped away leaving these behind, we felt like hoboes stranded on an alien shore. — Alexander Campbell Jones (1830-1923) – A member of the 3rd Arkansas Infantry, on the surrender at Appomattox

The sole enthusiasm of my life was born, lived, and perished in the eventful four years of the Confederacy. — Augusta Jane Austin (1835-1909)

Here, then, we have the essential, the distinctive spirit of the Southern volunteer. As he hastened to the front in the spring of ’61, he felt: "With me is Right, before me is Duty, behind me is home." — Robert Stiles (1836-1905) – Excerpt from his book Four Years Under Marse Robert, published in 1904

It is self-evident from the foregoing writings in these sketches that if the writer were asked to fix the responsibility of the Civil War he would say, without hesitation, Abraham Lincoln, his ill advisors and coadjutors were responsible for all the bloodshed, the deaths, the horrors and devastation of that war. — James Knox Polk Blackburn (1837-1923) – Excerpt from Reminiscences of the Terry Rangers, published in 1918 in the Southwest Historical Quarterly

''To me, the campaign by certain groups to remove all the symbols and memorials to our Southern past amounts to the same thing...a desecration of graves. Every flag or monument that is removed, every plaque taken down, every school or street or bridge that is renamed, is no different from a broken tombstone. It is wanton and hateful violence directed at the dead who can no longer defend themselves.'' — John Field Pankow

"They (the South) know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest.... These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They (the North) are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it." —Excerpt from an article that appeared in the New Orleans Daily Crescent newspaper in 1861

• Bill Quattlebaum - Thanked the camp for the sympathy card and flowers for his mother-in-law who had recently passed away
• Bill Storrs - CD of Enterprise Mills Heritage Day event pictures is available
• Ron Udell - Barnyard Flea Market booth on July 8th
• Lee Herron - Subscribe to emails from the Georgia Division website
• Greg Coots - Has key chain flashlights for everyone in celebration of his wife's graduation
• Announcements were made for Civil War relics show at Savannah Civic Center
• Sgt Berry Benson Camp# 1672 meeting June 15th at North Augusta American Legion
• Ogeechee Rifles Camp #941 meeting June 15th in Statesboro

-- President Jefferson Davis