CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS ARE AMERICAN VETERANS
Posted By : manager
Posted : January 30, 2024
CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS ARE AMERICAN VETERANS BY ACT OF CONGRESS By Gene Patrick
Most Americans know very little about the War of Northern Aggression. Despite the firsthand knowledge we get from the letters sent home by Confederate and Federal Soldiers and countless books written about the events that took place during those four years, much of the history has been suppressed and censored. Veterans today, especially the Sons of Confederate Veterans, are waking up to a new era of political correctness which is to denigrate Southern heritage. The ignorance of this is on a scale that we have never seen before. But where there is a door closed, the Lord in Heaven opens another door. This other opened door is the discovery of proclamations and laws that already exist within the United States. Most of us here tonight never knew that the Congress of the United States of America passed these laws concerning the Confederate Soldier. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a move in the North was made to reconcile with Southerners.
President McKinley was instrumental in this movement. When the Spanish-American War concluded successfully in December 1898, President McKinley used this as an opportunity to “mend the fences.” On 14 December 1898, he gave a speech in which he urged reconciliation based on the outstanding service of Southerners during the recent war with Spain. McKinley said: “…every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor… And the time has now come… when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers.”
The following are laws and proclamations honoring Confederate Soldiers and their service and which proclaim that they were equal in honor and worthiness to those who served the Federal cause.
Such official proclamations by the Government of the United States remove all claims against the Confederacy and those who served it and protect, defend, and honor their symbols, monuments, and heroes.
Congressional Act of 9 March 1906 ~ We Honor Our Fallen Ancestors (P.L. 38, 59th Congress, Chap. 631-34 Stat. 56) This act authorized the furnishing of headstones for the graves of Confederates who died, primarily in Union prison camps and were buried in Federal cemeteries. This act formally reaffirmed Confederate soldiers as military combatants with legal standing. It granted recognition to deceased Confederate soldiers equivalent to the status of deceased Union soldiers.
(U.S. Public Law 810, Approved by 17th Congress 26 February 1929) (45 Stat 1307 – Currently on the books as 38 U.S. Code, Sec. 2306) – This law, passed by the U.S. Congress, authorized the “Secretary of War to erect headstones over the graves of soldiers who served in the Confederate Army and to direct him to preserve in the records of the War Department the names and places of burial of all soldiers for whom such headstones shall have been erected.”
This act broadened the scope of recognition further for all Confederate soldiers to receive burial benefits equivalent to Union soldiers. It authorized the use of U.S. government (public) funds to mark Confederate graves and record their locations.
(U.S. Public Law 85-425: Sec. 410 Approved 23 May 1958) (Confederate Iron Cross) (US Stat-utes at Large Volume 72, Part 1, Page 133-134) – The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have applied to such person under the laws in effect on December 31, 1957, if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval forces of the United States.
While this was only a gesture since the last Confederate veteran died in 1958, it is meaningful in that only fifty-seven years ago, the Congress of the United States saw fit to consider Confederate soldiers as equivalent to U.S. soldiers for service benefits.
So as we meet here tonight to honor these brave men who died on the H.L. Hunley and the USS Housatonic, let us not forget that we are not only honoring Confederate and Federal Soldiers – we are honoring United States Veterans. The men who died on the H.L. Hunley have the same rights and
status as the men on the USS Housatonic.
This is what President McKinley had in mind when he said, “Mend Fences.” We are all now supposed to live in one accord. To live in one accord is Biblical. In the book of Philippians 2:2, says, “Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” When you play a chord on a guitar, it is made up of several individual notes. When these notes are played or blended, they make up a chord. The analogy is that Confederate Soldiers and Federal Soldiers are the individual notes that when joined together to live in these United States, they are in one accord. I pray that you go home and look up these laws and see for yourself that what I’m saying is the truth – for we all know that the truth will set you free.
When anyone comes against anything to do with the Confederacy, they are coming against all Veterans of the United States of America. May God richly Bless the United States of America and may He also Bless the South.