jeff davis 150 years ago put forth some resolutions to the us senate on the political and constitutional aspects of slavery-that slavery is legal in state and territories-fugitive slaves shall be returned-leave it alone-dont tread on my slave-jeff davis will someday grow up to be president of the confederacy-did slavery issues start the civil war?

Dear friends

You will find below an absent soldier father’s wartime Christmas letter to his young daughter. The power and simple eloquence of these words and the writer’s ability to say so much in so few lines are to me simply astounding. In this short letter he manages to convey the real causes of the war he was fighting, he places the role of material wealth in its proper prospective and he expresses the warmest love and devotion for his daughter.

Not only these things,  though he is quite frank about the unjust suffering that has been thrust upon his Country and his family by an unprincipled enemy, he is able to instruct his daughter how she as a true Christian should conduct herself amidst such oppression and adversity.

I doubt that you will find more truth and wisdom in fewer words short of the Psalms, the Proverbs or the Sermon on the Mount. I would that your humble correspondent could say one tenth that really matters with twice the ink.

Please accept his letter as a gift from a Christmas Past. These words should hold great relevance for all Americans in the present. May we endeavor to do as this great Christian did and as he instructed his daughter. Let us “pray for a better spirit and that the hearts of our enemies may be changed”.

A very merry Christmas to you and yours.

May the Old Master hold you in the palm of his hand in the coming year.

God save The South.

“My Dear Daughter,

 
Having distributed such poor Christmas gifts as I had to those around me, I have been looking for something for you. Trifles even are hard to get these war-times, and you must not therefore expect more. I have sent you what I thought most useful in your separation from me, and hope it will be of some service. Though stigmatized as ‘vile dross,’ it has never been a drug with me. That you may never want of it, restrict your wants to your necessities.

Yet how little will it purchase! To compensate for such ‘trash’ I send you some sweet violets, that I gathered for you this morning while covered with dense white frost, whose crystals glittered in the bright sun like diamonds, and formed a brooch of rare beauty and sweetness, which could not be fabricated by the expenditure of a world of money.

May God guard and preserve you for me my dear daughter. Among the calamities of war, the hardest to bear perhaps, is the separation of families and friends. Yet all must be endured to accomplish our independence and maintain our self-government. In my absence from you I have thought of you very often and regretted I could do nothing for your comfort. Your old home, if not destroyed by our enemies, has been so desecrated that I cannot bear to think of it. I should have preferred it to have been wiped from the earth, it’s beautiful hill sunk, and it’s sacred trees buried rather than to have been degraded by the presence of those who revel in the ill they do for their own selfish purposes.

I pray for a better spirit and that the hearts of our enemies may be changed. In your homeless condition I hope you make yourself contented and useful. Occupy yourself in aiding those more helpless than you. Think of your father always.”

R.E. Lee
December 25, 1863

last week i attended the naacp ceremony in charlestown wva marking the 150th anniversary of hanging john brown. i got there early enough to mingle with reenactors portraying citizens and soldiers-i have to say they were in us uniforms it might have been better to have virginia militia uniforns. anyway the wagon wasnt the same but they did have a coffin in back. they proceeded from the back of the courtouse where the trial was held to the front where 200 or so people waited in the street.behind a microphone set up a man read the verdict and then dick gregory spoke saying the implications pf what happened here would not be understood for another 150 years,i thought at first what?but he actually was probally right. they had an actor portraying j.b he came out the front door of the c.h.his wife [played by his real life wife]says goodbye and surrounded on both sides he was escorted to the wagon,sits down on the coffin and away they went to the hanging site a few blocks away,once fields now a nice neihborhood where people had erected a scaffold- alittle smaller but otherwise exact. i have to say i was shocked at this but very interesting. once there more speeches,john brown spoke his words,and then the trap door came down. i was wondering if they would do some acting on the gallows but brown/actor never went up the steps,anyway it all ended with people singing the battle hymn of the republic and a lone trumpeter playing a dirge. the press was there and browns great=great-great grand daughter spoke,i talked to her and two of the raiders decendant-the coppac’s- very nice ladies. i went for the event, for i believe it was a step towards disunion and once again i was suprised at how many people think he was a hero.all the speeches talked glowingly of brown and sidestepped any issues of his killings.anyway i plan to be at all the events of the 150th anniver. which were turning points in the war-next is lincolns cooper union speech nxt febuary,the speech that helped make him president.  kevin a kearns

once again the casino at gettysburg idea has come up again,the site this time might be on emmittsburg road south of town at the eisenhower complex which used to be the international village and close to boyds bears. that road is two laned and would i assume have to be widen if it all comes together. i dont care if they need to have a casino,maybe just somewhere not so close to the battlefield-but i do say that property owners should be able to do with their property what they wish according to each areas zoning laws. i hope they can find a location that everyone can agree with[if they really need one that bad]

wow someone email more on the ex-gettysburg park chief-they told me it was over 30,000 porn images on his work computer 3,400 just being really hard-core. plus he used funds from the gettysburg foundation to build a fence for his wifes horses-all this from the washington post over a month ago anyway i just thought id add this on to the blog posts,i wonder if he gets a computer to work with in frederick? gettysburg is my shrine since i was a little boy and thats why i put this out there.  kevin a kearns