Georgia: Petition Seeks to Remove Confederate Monument from Stone Mountain

ATLANTA — Aunt Pittypat, don’t faint. A metro Atlanta resident has created an online petition calling for the removal of the Confederate monument from the face of Stone Mountain.

Pittypat, as film buffs and reading enthusiasts know, was Scarlett O’Hara’s easily agitated aunt in “Gone with the Wind.” At the mention of yankees, she’d sway on her feet.

She’d probably hit the floor if she heard about McCartney Forde.

Forde, who lives in DeKalb County, recently created the petition, which asks that the carved images of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson be removed from the mountain. In their place should be a carving honoring veterans who were killed, wounded or taken prisoner in all U.S. wars since World War I, the petition says.

The petition also asks that Memorial Hall, which faces the monument across the park’s sprawling lawn, be remodeled to commemorate America’s war dead since 1900.

The “three men embossed on the face of arguably the most famous landmark in the great state of Georgia represent the root cause for what is widely considered the darkest period in our nation’s history,” reads the petition, addressed to Gov. Nathan Deal, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and a handful of metro-area Georgia lawmakers. “…Some might argue that this monument honors so-called heroes of the Civil War, but in reality it is a monument that perpetuates the perception of Georgia as an icon of racism, slavery and oppression.”

Forde could not be reached for comment Tuesday. On Monday, he told WXIA 11Alive that the monument, 90 feet tall, 190 feet long and stretching across nearly two acres of rock, needs to go.

“It’s almost like a black eye or an embarrassing smudge on our culture,” he said.

Jack Bridwell begged to differ. The Moultrie resident, commander of the Georgia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, learned of the petition Monday night when a fellow SCV member called him.

“When I got over laughing about it, I got a little mad,” said Bridwell, a retired educator who traces his Confederate roots to Zion Bridwell, an Atlanta newspaperman who gave up printing for soldiering in the 1861-1865 war. “The only reason this fellow (Forde) is doing this is to get his name in the news, in the newspapers.”

Bill Stephens was more diplomatic. He’s CEO of Stone Mountain Memorial Association, the state authority that oversees the park.

“I think people have the right to express their opinions,” said Stephens.

The monument is a park “showpiece,” Stephens said. He’s confident the three gentlemen, whose likenesses took decades to complete, will remain on the mountain, looking away, looking away.

Jayland and Diane Arp hope so. Residents of Vancouver, Wash., they came to Georgia to sample its attractions. In six days, they’d visited Savannah, Tybee Island and Cleveland. On their last full day in the state, they came to Stone Mountain.

They aimed cameras at the monument, a quarter mile away, and marveled. The Arps also snorted when the learned of Forde’s petition.

“It is a part of our history, and it’s art,” said Diane Arp. “If you don’t like it, don’t come look at it.”

Her husband nodded. “It’s a great part of our history,” he said. “I hope they keep it.”

Odds are good that Georgia will. As of Tuesday evening, the petition had 131 signatures.

Pittypat, relax.

–Mark Davis, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Mississippi: Confederate Soldiers Memorialized

MERIDIAN, Miss. —  The relative silence in downtown Meridian Monday was pierced by the sounds of rifle fire, Rebel yells and the lyrics of “Dixie” at the Lauderdale County Court House for Confederate Memorial Day.

Members of the Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest 1649, Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Robert E. Lee 2561, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and W. D. Cameron 1221, Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Jones County Rosin Heels 227, Sons of Confederate Veterans, gathered on the west side of the court house to remember those men who left their homes to fight for their government.

Elliott Poole, of the W. D. Cameron Camp 1221, SCV, said it was important to keep the memories of the men who fought for the South.

“We are here today to remember those who fought and died for what they believed,” Poole said.

Confederate Memorial Day is a state holiday in some states in the United States. It gives people a chance to honor and remember the Confederate soldiers who died or were wounded during the American Civil War during the 1860s.

Confederate Memorial Day is a state holiday in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia on the fourth Monday in April. In Mississippi it is observed on the last Monday in April. In South Carolina and North Carolina it falls on May 10.

During the years in which the actual war started on April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter in South Carolina until the last cease-fire was signed at Fort Towson, Okla., on June 23, 1865, it is estimated that more than 600,000 soldiers died. About 260,000 of those were Confederates.

Rev. Chris Gully said the Civil War was a time in which tens of thousands of men felt compelled to seek comfort in the Christian beliefs in which they were raised. Gully said it is no wonder that in the decades following the war, the South was termed the Bible Belt based on the staunch Christian foundations that came from the conflict.

“The Southern army was the first to employ chaplains because the leaders, such as Gen. Lee, saw the importance of giving his men the opportunity to worship God,” Gully said. “Many viewed the Southern soldier as a bunch of Godless, backwoods men but actually they were almost all raised in churches.”

The role of chaplains in America’s military branches today can be traced to the South’s insistence in giving their soldiers exposure to religion.

At the end of the ceremony taps was played as a volley of gunfire from the Jones County Rosin Heels 227, SCV, reverberated among the buildings in the downtown area. A wreath commemorating the fallen was placed at the foot of the Confederate Soldier’s Statue on the court house grounds.

Local musician, Britt Gully, led the group with a rendering of “Dixie” that closed the memorial.

–Brian Livingston, The Meridian Star

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Florida: Daughters Remember Confederate Ancestors

TAMPA – This is the second in an occasional series on ancestral and linage societies with chapters in Tampa.

Dressed in white, a group of women recently remembered the past, honoring relatives who served in the Confederate States of America’s army, navy or civil service.

Members and guests of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Tampa Chapter 113, gathered on a recent Saturday morning for the Confederate Memorial Day Celebration.

Meeting around the Hillsborough County Confederate Monument, called Memoria In Aeterna, the women read names of ancestors from across the South. As the names were read, member Gail Crosby dropped rose petals on the steps of the Italian marble statue in front of the former Hillsborough County Courthouse.

As church bells downtown rang, the Rev. Robert Brookover, who gave the invocation, said: “We are reminded of when another church bell rang – when mothers and fathers committed to the life they shared throughout the South.”

The United Daughters of the Confederacy is a women’s lineage society and heritage association, founded in 1994, dedicated to honoring the memory of those who served in the military and died in service to the Confederate States of America.

Tampa Chapter 113 was chartered in June 1897 and meets monthly from September through May, with the next meeting May 11 at the Columbia Restaurant. The chapter has 46 members and is part of the Florida division of the national organization.

“We don’t want another battle between the states,” said June Bolen, chapter president. “But we do want to honor our ancestors.”

The organization also is involved with today’s veterans, said Gail Grosby, a past Florida division president.

“We are extremely busy with patriotic activities, giving hours and goods to the James A. Haley VA Hospital and much more,” Crosby said. “We work with students wishing to apply for various UDC scholarships.”

Crosby said the chapter sends cards and notes regularly to 15 “real daughters” whose fathers actually served in the Civil War.

“They were born between the early 1900s and 1930 to their father’s second or third wife,” she said.

Tampa Chapter 113 also sponsors Belles & Beaux Chapter 887, Children of the Confederacy.

The chapter’s members also maintain downtown’s historic monument, funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and unveiled Feb. 8, 1911. The Italian marble piece originally was at the southwest corner of Franklin and Lafayette streets and moved to its location at 419 Pierce St. in 1952.

The statue has a solider facing north – representing the warrior heading off to war in 1861 – and a soldier facing south as the battered and injured veteran returns home.

For information the organization, see www.hqudu.org. For information about the Tampa Chapter 113, contact Crosby at yayadahlin@hotmail.com.

–Lenora Lake, Tampa Tribune

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Louisiana: Event Demonstrates Civil War-era Cooking Methods

PORT ALLEN, La. — Hearth cooking instructor Gayle B. Smith scooped up a shovelful of hot, glowing red coals from the fireplace and told her cooking class audience, “This is your burner.”

Smith, along with West Baton Rouge Museum employees Linda Collins and Tracy Flickinger, were demonstrating what Southerners would have cooked during the United States’ Civil War of 1861-1865, what food stuffs would have been available and what recipes were used.

For a recent class on “A Battle for Food: Civil War Era Southern Recipe Books,” the three women donned costumes appropriate to the era and demonstrated how to cook on coals on the hearth in the museum’s kitchen, which is set up to reflect the 19th century. They prepared an apple pie (with no apples), potato soup, planked fish, squirrel stew, corn pone and collard greens. All the recipes came from Civil War-era cookbooks.

Smith, who said she has been cooking at the hearth for 18 years, learned the ancient art at Magnolia Mound Plantation in Baton Rouge. She has studied at open-hearth cooking schools in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, visited open-hearth kitchen programs in the South and in Canada, and been a guest cook at Oakley Plantation in St. Francisville and Hermann-Grima House in New Orleans,

Before the Civil War, wealthy Southern families enjoyed a variety of dishes which were usually prepared by slave cooks, who “were given only enough spices for that day’s cooking,” Smith said.

“Dinner, the big meal of the day, was eaten from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the afternoon pre-Civil War. Bowls went around the table. At night supper was leftovers. Breakfast could be salads, greens were not uncommon,” Smith said.

Collins pointed out that the kitchen was separate from the “big house” because of the danger of fire to avoid the smells and heat from the kitchen.

Slaves “might be given sweet potatoes to put in coals at night,” Smith said.

They also received regular allotments of molasses and of pork and corn or cornmeal, which were believed to give strength and muscle, she said.

“At the time of the Civil War, the slaves were gone. Who was cooking?” Smith asked her audience. “Some slaves were still around, but everyone in the South was on the same plane as far as cooking and eating. The small yeoman farmers and the people in the big house were all equal in eating, too.”

Families in the North did not suffer the severe food shortages that those in the South did, Smith noted. Since most of the war was fought on Southern soil, it was Southerners’ crops that were confiscated to feed troops.

Flickinger held up a catfish tied to a plank, which had been propped on the side of the fireplace hearth to cook.

“In south Louisiana you can fish,” and that’s what people often did to put food on the table, Collins said.

The cook would take “a fresh fish with the look of life in its eyes and place it on hard wood which had been soaked overnight,” Smith said. “Planked fish is a big deal now in restaurants. Back in the day this was what you did to live.”

As Collins untied the fish from the plank, she commented, “I’m not sure about the fish. You can never be sure about fish,” if it has cooked enough to be save to eat.

People also ate collard greens, seasoning them with bacon, Smith said. “You might have pork from wild hogs and you ate anything from the garden the Union soldiers hadn’t stolen.”

They ate potato soup made with red potatoes and “if hungry, you’d go hunting,” which perhaps meant squirrel stew for dinner.

“Everyone talked about eating bad beef, which didn’t keep well,” Smith said. And, “you can put eggs in the ashes on the hearth and bake them. You put down a layer of ashes and lay the eggs on it. Then, another layer of ashes, then hot coals.

“I’ve learned from experience the egg blows up if the hot coals touch it,” she added.

The recipes the three women demonstrated were from “Civil War Recipes: Receipts from the Pages of Godey Lady’s Book” and “Confederate Receipt Book: A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts Adapted to the Times.”

INEXACT MEASUREMENTS

Recipes usually didn’t include measurements and those that offered some guidance were often vague.

For example, Smith asked, what is a measuring cup? She showed a variety of cups that might have been used by a cook in a mid-19th century kitchen. They ranged in size from a demitasse cup to a substantial tin cup.

Measuring spoons also present a similar problem for the modern cook trying to interpret the era’s recipes, Smith said.

Gourds were turned into useful kitchen tools, Smith said, holding up a ladle gourd. “You also could have used gourds as cups and bowls or as funnels.”

She also showed whisks made from broom corn and dogwood stems.

Various herbs and spices, some more valuable than others “because they came from far away,” were used for flavoring dishes, Smith said. For example, rabbit soup or squirrel stew might be flavored with nutmeg, pepper, sweet marjoram and mace.

CORNBREADS

Smith and Flickinger also prepared the flat, coarse cornmeal cakes known as corn pone. “It was also called hoecakes because slaves sometimes put it on the blade of a hoe to cook,” Smith said. “Pone was water and white cornmeal. At this time-frame white cornmeal was what was used. White corn was grown here.”

Corn pone, which comes from the Indian word “apone,” or “apan,” meaning baked, was also known as ash cakes because it was baked in ashes.

Another version went by the name Johnny or Johny cake, which some have suggested is a derivation of the word “journey,” according to “Around the Southern Table: Innovative Recipes Celebrating 300 Years of Eating and Drinking” by Sarah Belk (Galahad Books, 1991), Smith said.

“Each colony, each community, had its own versions and names, a tradition that faded as the iron kitchen range made all hearth cakes virtually obsolete .,” wrote Karen Hess in historical notes and commentaries in “The Virginia House-wife” by Mary Randolph, a facsimile of the first edition, 1824, along with additional material from the 1825 and 1828 editions, published in 1984 by the University of South Carolina Press.

MOCK APPLE PIE

Class participants liked the corn pone, which was served with molasses, better than the “apple pie without apples” that Smith and Flickinger prepared from a recipe from the “Confederate Receipt Book: A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times,” with an introduction by E. Merton Coulter (The University of Georgia Press, 1960, 1989 printing).

The recipe calls for using a small bowl of “beaten biscuits,” which were very hard, unsalted crackers.

“The recipe only says make sure the crackers aren’t hard and to soak them, but doesn’t say whether to use water or milk,” Smith said as she broke white unsalted crackers into little crumbs.

It also says to “sweeten to taste” so Smith added a half-cup of sugar.

“Sugar usually was in the form of a cone and you snipped off what you needed, but they could have used sugar — house sugar — which is not brown or white, but honey-colored.”

Collins added, “In Louisiana and Texas, people had plenty of sugar” even during the Civil War.

The recipe also says to add “some” butter so Smith decided to use about 2 tablespoons of melted butter. It was flavored with a “very little” nutmeg.

“It would have been baked in a tin in a preheated large Dutch oven with coals under and top of it so it was cooking as in an oven,” Smith said. “But, you only can control the heat temperature by practice.”

The consistency of the mock apple pie “looks like mush,” Smith said, adding “I had my husband taste it. He couldn’t tell what it was. It’s more interesting than delicious.”

Some class participants also liked the squirrel stew, which the three presenters made using an 1861 recipe for rabbit soup.

The original recipe from the pages of Godey’s Lady’s book says to strain the soup into a tureen and add the grated yolks of six hard-boiled eggs and some croutons.

“Usually presentation was a big deal” at the tables of pre-Civil War plantation homes, Smith said. “But at this time, the big house was probably not concerned about it, only in not starving.”

–Cheramie Sonnier, The Advocate

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