Some of this month’s article will pretty much be a repeat of last month’s. Camp members have less than two months remaining to pay their annual membership dues for the 2006 - 2007 SCV Membership Year. Dues can be paid at the September and October meetings, or mailed to Camp #158’s Post Office box address on page 3. Dues mailed to SCV National Headquarters and the Georgia Division SCV by our Adjutant must be postmarked no later than November 1st. Please don’t postpone payment of dues. Make it a priority to get your dues paid to keep your membership current.

Another item of significant importance is our fund raising raffle. If you have tickets and/or money that have not been turned in, please do this at the September 14th meeting. The drawing to give away the Winchester Model 70 Rifle and the 2nd & 3rd place prizes of $200.00 and $100.00 respectively is on October 7th, and that deadline is quickly approaching. We need to sell all remaining raffle tickets before the date of the drawing next month.

With summer ending and fall upon us, the festival season is around the corner. Camp #158 will participate and be involved with a number of festivals and activities during the next couple of months. There’ll be lots of enjoyable events to attend for camp members and their families.

There’s going to be a decrease in the frequency of workdays needed to maintain our Confederate sections at Magnolia Cemetery during the fall and winter months. Starting in October, having a workday about every 4 to 6 weeks will probably be sufficient. Camp #158 took over maintenance of the Confederate sections from the city of Augusta in 2003, so we have now been officially maintaining these sections for three years, something for which we can be very proud.

We are very fortunate once again to have as our program speaker Dr. Russell K. Brown for this Thursday’s meeting. He’ll speak on Brigadier General W.H.T. Walker who was born in Augusta in 1816. He attended Augusta schools and entered West Point in 1832. In April 1861 he was appointed major general of the First Division of Georgia Volunteers. In May of the same year he was promoted to brigadier general and commanded a division under General Joseph E. Johnston. After Vicksburg he took part in the Battle of Chickamauga. On July 22, 1864, during a charge on the Union left at Atlanta, he was killed. His body was left behind Union lines but was later recovered. He was buried in the Walker family cemetery, which is now located on the campus of Augusta State University. The title of Dr. Brown’s talk is "W.H.T. Walker: A Sympathetic View." I look forward to seeing all of you this Thursday night at Sconyers for an enjoyable and entertaining evening of Old South fellowship!

■ Cosby Ford Smith applied and was accepted for membership through his great grandfather Pvt. Mahlon Biddle Potts of Co. K, 53rd Georgia Infantry.

Thursday, August 17 – The Old Men’s Crew had a workday at Magnolia Cemetery. The grass was cut and leaves raked in the Confederate sections, at all the generals’ gravesites and at Mary Hall’s grave.

Saturday, August 19th – Camp members traveled to Brooklet, Georgia, with some of the wives and children also going along, to attended the 17th Annual Brooklet Peanut Festival. Camp #158 re-enactors marched in the parade.

Saturday, August 26th – Camp #158 members setup a booth at the Barnyard Flea Market of Augusta and sold camp store items and raffle tickets.

Saturday, September 2nd – Magnolia Cemetery Workday from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Grass was cut and all Confederate sections along with the seven generals’ and Mary Hall’s gravesites were cleaned up.

Saturday, September 9th – Adopt-A-Highway Litter Pickup: Members met at 9:00 a.m. to clean up litter along the Augusta West Parkway, which is located between Wheeler and Wrightsboro Roads.

Sunday, September 10th – Camp #158 members and their families attended the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the Edgefield United Daughters of the Confederacy Chapter #1018. The ceremony was held at Oakley Park, a house museum and former home of Confederate General Martin Witherspoon Gary, located in historic Edgefield, South Carolina.

Thursday, September 14th – The next Brigadier General E. Porter Alexander Camp #158 Meeting will be held at Sconyers Bar-B-Que Restaurant at 7:00 p.m. Our program speaker is Dr. Russell K. Brown. He’ll speak on "W.H.T. Walker: A Sympathetic View."

Friday, September 22nd – The Annual Stephen Dill Lee Banquet hosted by the Sergeant Berry G. Benson Camp #1672 will be held at the North Augusta Country Club at 6:00 p.m. The location is 2001 Gregory Lake Road in North Augusta, SC. The keynote speaker is Dr. Clyde Wilson, distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of South Carolina where he served from 1971 to 2006. Dr. Wilson is a member of the Colonel Olin M. Dantzler Camp #73 in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Tickets are $25.00 for adults and $15.00 for children under the age of 14. To purchase tickets contact Commander John Harris at 803-279-1402 and email address jharris353@comcast.net or Lt. Commander Jerry Pittman at 803-279-6121. Please RSVP by Friday, September 15th.

Saturday, September 23rd – Hephzibah’s September Fest: Re-enactors and members of the camp will march in the festival’s parade at 10:00 a.m. Members have also reserved a booth in order to sell camp store items and remaining raffle tickets. Festival hours will be from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., and the location is Windsor Spring Road & Georgia Highway 88 behind Wally’s Gas Station & Convenience Store.

Saturday, September 30th – Camp #158 members will have a booth at the Barnyard Flea Market of Augusta to sell camp store items and remaining raffle tickets before the October 7th drawing in Harlem.

Saturday, October 7th – The Oliver Hardy Festival is to be held in downtown Harlem. The camp has reserved a booth to sell camp store merchandise and the remaining raffle tickets before the drawing around 1:00 p.m. Festival hours are from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Thursday, October 12th – Brigadier General E. Porter Alexander Camp #158 Meeting will be held at Sconyers Bar-B-Que Restaurant at 7:00 p.m. Our program speaker will be Dr. John Griffin from Lancaster, SC. He’ll be speaking on his recently published book, "The Execution of Abraham Lincoln." A big thanks goes to camp member Jerry Grigsby for arranging to have Dr. Griffin speak to our group.

Camp #158 dues are $41.00 per year ($20.00 SCV National + $12.00 GA Division + $9.00 Camp #158 = $41.00)

■ If you’re a Life Member of SCV National your annual dues are $21.00 ($12.00 GA Division + $9.00 Camp #158 = $21.00)

■ If you’re a Life Member of the GA Division your annual dues are $29.00 ($20 SCV National + $9.00 Camp #158 = $29.00)

■ If you’re a Life Member of SCV National & the GA Division your annual dues are $9.00 (Camp #158 dues = $9.00)

Your annual dues can be paid at one of the next two camp meetings on 09/14 or 10/12, or mailed to the Camp’s Post Office Box at this address:

¦ Wednesday and Thursday and part of the day Friday were devoted primarily to discussion and debate over the new SCV Constitution and Standing Orders.

■ A new Constitution had to be adopted in order to file it with our application for non-profit corporation status under Texas law, OR retain the old Constitution and file it with the State of Texas, something that no one wanted to do because it would not solve any of the problems that necessitated a special convention in Concord, NC, back in April 2005.

■ Voting commenced Friday afternoon and the ballots were tabulated.  The new Constitution and By-Laws were approved by a 9-to-1 margin.

 ■ The new Constitution and By-Laws, as amended, will be published on the SCV National Website (www.scv.org) soon.

• Chris Sullivan of South Carolina is the new Commander-in-Chief
• Ron Casteel of Missouri is the new Lt. Commander-in-Chief
• Kelly Barrow of Georgia is the new Army of Tennessee Commander
• Ed Butler of Tennessee is the new Army of Tennessee Council Member

Congratulations to Dr. John B. Baxley III, a Camp #158 member, who was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Brooks Fund. The Brooks Fund was created for the furtherance of medical research through post-doctoral fellowships and/or research professorships at any accredited medical school. The grantee does not have to be in the SCV, but must be a Confederate descendant – male or female. The Confederate descendant must be doing post-doctoral work at an accredited school. The committee has to decide if the area of research has merit. The Brooks Fund is several years old, and has awarded only one grant to date, and that was this year for $90K. The fund has approximately $3.5M and it isn't widely known.

[1] Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. [2] Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

[19] Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

[27] The fear of the LORD prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.

[29] The way of the LORD is strength to the upright: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.

"So the Southern people reached the eve of the Civil War one of the few religious peoples left in the Western World. Into the strange personnel of the Confederate Army, out of "regions that sat in darkness," poured fighting bishops and prayer-holding generals, and through it swept waves of intense religious enthusiasm long lost to history. It is on record that there were more than fifteen thousand conversions in the Army of Northern Virginia alone. And when that army went down in defeat, the last barrier to the secular spirit of science, materialism, and pragmatism was swept away." – From "The Older Religiousness in the South" written in 1943 by Richard Weaver (1910-1963)

"No other war (Civil War) started so many controversies and for no other do they flourish so vigorously.  Every step in the conflict, every major political decision, every campaign, almost every battle, has its own proud set of controversies, and of all the military figures only Lee stands above argument and debate.  Recent years, however, have seen a new kind of nastiness emerge in these disputes.  Even the venerable Robert E. Lee has taken some vicious hits, as dishonest or misinformed advocates among political interest groups and in academia attempt to twist yesterday’s America into a fantasy that might better serve the political issues of today.  The greatest disservice on this count has been the attempt by these revisionist politicians and academics to defame the entire Confederate Army in a move that can only be termed the Nazification of the Confederacy.  Often cloaked in the argument over the public display of the Confederate battle flag, the syllogism goes something like this: Slavery was evil.  The soldiers of the Confederacy fought for a system that wished to preserve it.  Therefore they were evil as well, and any attempt to honor their service is a veiled effort to glorify the cause of slavery.

This blatant use of the race card in order to inflame their political and academic constituencies is a tired, seemingly endless game that is itself perhaps the greatest legacy of the Civil War’s aftermath.  But in this case it dishonors hundreds of thousands of men who can defend themselves only through the voices of their descendants."

― James Webb – Capt USMC (ret), Vietnam Combat Veteran, Secretary of the Navy for Reagan during the 1980s (Born in Saint Joseph Missouri in February 1946)

"The Civil War was fought for thirty years before the mounting antagonisms between the sections exploded in the clash of arms. From Nullification in 1832 until Fort Sumter in 1861 constituted a long period of cold war, even by today’s standards. Men who opposed one another in the opening phases of the conflict had gone to their rewards when the shooting began, and the generation in the South, which was to die, had not been born when South Carolina first defied the Union. The quarrel was passed on, like a baton in a relay race, from generation to generation, until the men who settled it in the bloodiest violence had little notion of what had started it.” ― Excerpt from “The Land They Fought For" by Clifford Dowdey (1904-1979)

Respectfully submitted,

Conscripted Secretary

†Erected by Augusta Canal Authority ■ In Cooperation with National Park Service

Funding by Searle Augusta

Augusta and its canal played a prominent role in the War Between the States as the site of the Confederate Powder Works. The 168 foot high* ornate brick chimney was preserved in 1872¹ in memory of those who died in the war. The canal was an important factor in the selection of Augusta as the Powder Works site, as it offered waterpower and a means to transport materials. Railroad service to Augusta and the city’s inland location, protecting it from northern attack, were also siting factors.

In 1862, Colonel George Washington Rains was responsible for building the Powder Works, which was a complex of twenty-six buildings, widely spaced as a precaution against the danger of explosion, and extending two miles on both sides of the canal. Boatmen delivered charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur to the Powder Works by canal. In addition to producing almost three million pounds of gunpowder, other parts of the Augusta complex made a wide range of munitions for use in the war. Colonel Rains², justly proud of his accomplishments, boasted that no battle was lost for want of gunpowder.

The Sibley Mill³ stands adjacent to the Powder Works chimney. It remains a prominent symbol of the post-war industrial success of Augusta. Built in 1880, and incorporating architectural elements similar to those used in the Powder Works, it is one of the finest examples of eclectic 19th century industrial architecture.

The King Mill, named after one of the founders of the Augusta Canal, John Pendleton King, was built in 1882 to manufacture textiles. By 1900, 60,288 spindles and 1,812 looms were operated by hydropower from the canal.

Both Sibley and King Mills still use waterpower from the canal to generate electricity, producing cotton denim and textiles for hospital use, respectively.

Throughout the Harrisburg neighborhood are excellent examples of housing, which mills built for their workers. Most were single and double wooden houses in a simple vernacular style, although a few brick row houses were built, emulating styles more typically found in the North. Following the example of their New England counterparts, the mills also built churches, recreation halls, stores and kindergartens for their workers.

-- President Jefferson Davis