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In recent years, there has been an explosion of neurological disorders among children, the most serious of which is the crippling syndrome knows as autism.

The dramatic increase in the incidence of autism has accompanied the more than tripling of the childhood vaccination schedule, and many parents have described how their perfectly normal, alert, intelligent, healthy infants suddenly regressed into an autistic state after receiving vaccination shots.

Pediatricians and health officials have long ridiculed the claims of parents of thousands of autistic children, that vaccines appear to have played a role in their children’s regression. But these claims have been corroborated by the recent admission of medical experts at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who conceded, in a case before a secretive special court, that childhood vaccinations contributed to causing Hannah Poling, a child from Athens, Georgia to, in effect, become autistic (contract a brain disorder "with features of autism spectrum disorder").

What has been largely overlooked in this debate is the well known and extreme toxicity of mercury, a preservative used in most childhood vaccines and flu shots, known for hundreds of years to be toxic to nerve cells, and especially harmful to the minds of developing children.

The routine flu vaccination now being recommended for almost all Americans, including kids as young as six months and pregnant women, contains about 25 micrograms of mercury, perhaps the most toxic non-radioactive compound on earth. Thimerosal, a preservative, is about half mercury, and was largely though not completely removed from children’s vaccines several years ago because of fears about its toxicity.

Federal health authorities routinely tell reporters, falsely, that mercury was eliminated from childhood vaccines manufactured after 2001, yet autism continued to increase. This misinformation has been widely reported and repeatedly cited by the medical industry as evidence that mercury is not linked to the ever-rising rate of autism.

However, some mercury is still present in the vaccines — except for the MMR shot (measles, mumps, rubella) — at reduced levels that no one can precisely quantify. Moreover, since the earlier vaccines were never recalled, they probably remained in use for years after 2001.

Defenders of vaccines also repeatedly claim that scientific studies have failed to establish a link between vaccines and autism. But dozens of studies showing a link and going back decades can be found on such websites as generationrescue.org, nationalautismassociation.org, and in David Kirby’s extensively documented, best-selling book, Evidence of Harm. Two new studies show that Japanese children developed autism in direct proportion to the numbers vaccinated; and vaccinated baby monkeys developed autism-like neurological abnormalities.

It is baffling that mercury is still allowed to be injected into the bodies of youngsters and women carrying fetuses. The federal Environmental Protection Agency and most state governments warn against eating many types of fish contaminated with tiny traces of this deadly metal, especially pregnant women and nursing mothers.

Indeed, mercury has been known for hundreds of years to be deadly — a compound that severely damages the brains of humans. The famous Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland was made insane by breathing vapors of mercury used in making hats, a common occurrence in the 19th century.

In the 1st century A.D., Roman prisoners received death sentences by being forced to work in cinnabar mines, thus exposing them to fatal levels of mercury. In Minamata Bay, Japan, over ten thousand people in the fishing village were poisoned (and some two thousand killed, plus numerous dogs and cats) by fish and shellfish contaminated with mercury waste dumped into the bay in the 1950′s and ’60′s. In Iraq in 1971—72, up to 1,000 people were killed and as many as 60,000 gravely poisoned by imported U.S. grain treated with a mercury-based pesticide banned for use in America.

Yet today, we inject mercury into millions of infants and pregnant women while medical officials deny there is a risk of causing such neurological disorders as autism, and ADD/ADHD.

Interestingly, the current autism epidemic coincides with the dramatic increase of childhood vaccination shots, from ten in the 1980′s to some 36 today, perhaps overburdening the immune systems of some children. In the 1970′s, the autism rate among kids was one in 10,000. Today, it averages one in 150, and one in 94 for boys.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), FDA, and many pediatricians and scientists who defend vaccines are not disinterested parties, because, for decades, they have been responsible for permitting, promoting and administering the vaccines containing thimerosal. The prestigious Institute of Medicine, a leading defender of vaccines, has even opposed conducting research into their dangers, concluding that efforts to find a link between vaccines and autism “must be balanced against the broader benefit of the current vaccine program for all children.”

Of course, if a link were conclusively established, the medical community fears it would find itself accused of being responsible (and perhaps financially liable) for poisoning and crippling the minds of tens of thousands of children.

Now, the medical community’s unrelenting defense of vaccines seems to be crumbling. Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the National Institutes of Health and later the American Red Cross, writes of the Hannah Poling case, "… the decision was a vindication for families who have been battling with the vaccine community, arguing that some poorly understood reaction to components of vaccines or their mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, could cause brain injury."

Even CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding, who has led the campaign to defend vaccines, reassure the public, and belittle parents’ concerns, recently admitted during a CNN interview that vaccines can trigger autism in a certain vulnerable subset of children.

Vaccines have done much good in preventing many dread diseases, and most children suffer no apparent ill effects from them. But we cannot ignore the possibility that vaccines, particularly the mercury component, may be a factor in the current epidemic among children of neurological disorders, perhaps exacerbated by a genetic or other underlying disposition in some youngsters.

So what is to be done? To begin, federal health officials should conduct the long-called-for comprehensive studies comparing vaccinated children with unvaccinated ones, such as in the Amish community, where the incidence of autism is said to be almost non-existent.

At the very least, why not remove mercury and other toxic substances like aluminum, anti-freeze, and formaldehyde as preservatives from vaccinations; space out the schedule of shots, instead of giving so many at once; and delay giving some of the riskiest of them until infants are somewhat older?

These would be good first steps in maintaining public confidence in vaccines, and so much less trouble than providing lifetime care for children with autism.

Lewis Regenstein [send him mail] is an Atlanta environmental writer and author of America the Poisoned: How Deadly Chemicals Are Poisoning our Environment, our Wildlife — and Ourselves.

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One hundred and forty-three years ago today, on 9 April, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant, marking the effective end of the South’s struggle for independence.

It was a fateful day for the South, and in particular for my great grandfather and his four elder brothers, all of whom were fighting for the Confederacy.

On that day, the eldest brother Joshua Lazarus Moses was killed a few hours after Lee, unbeknownst to the troops elsewhere, had surrendered. Josh was commanding an artillery battalion (Culpepper’s Battery or Culpepper’s Light Artillery) that was firing the last shots in defense of Mobile, before being overrun by a Union force outnumbering his 13 to one. In this battle, Fort Blakeley, one of his brothers, Horace, was captured, and another, Perry, was wounded.

Joshua had also been in the thick of the fighting in the War’s opening battle, when Fort Sumter was attacked in April, 1861. Josh was the last Confederate Jew to fall in battle. His first cousin, Albert Moses Luria, was the first, killed at age 19 at the Battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks) in Virginia on 31 May, 1862.

While Lee was surrendering at Appomattox, a 2,500-man unit attached to Sherman’s army, known as Potter’s Raiders, was heading towards my family’s hometown of Sumter, South Carolina. Sherman had just burned nearby Columbia, and it was feared that his troops were headed to Sumter to do the same.

My then 16-year-old great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Moses, rode out to defend his hometown, along with some 157 other teenagers, invalids, old men, and the wounded from the local hospital. It was a mission as hopeless as it was valiant, but Sumter’s rag-tag defenders did manage to hold off Potter’s battle-seasoned veterans for over an hour before being overwhelmed by this vastly superior force, outnumbering theirs by some 15 to one.

Jack got away with a price on his head, and Sumter was not burned after all. But some buildings were, and there are documented instances of murder, rape, and arson by the Yankees.

The fifth bother, Isaac Harby Moses, having served with distinction in combat in Wade Hampton’s cavalry, later rode home from North Carolina after the Battle of Bentonville (North Carolina), the War’s last major battle, where he commanded his company, all of the officers having been killed or wounded. He never surrendered to anyone, his Mother proudly observed in her memoirs.

Earlier, as a member of a company of Citadel Cadets, he had his horse shot out from under him, and was attacked by a Union soldier wielding a sword. He was among those who fired the very first shots of the conflict, when his cadet company opened up on the Union ship, Star of the West, which was attempting to resupply the besieged Fort Sumter in January, 1861, three months before the War officially began.

Over two dozen members of the extended Moses family fought in the War, serving and working closely with such legendary generals as Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, and Wade Hampton, and firing some of the first and last shots of the War in its opening and closing battles. They fought on horseback and on ships, in the trenches and in the infantry. They built fortifications, led their men in charges, and one had responsibility for provisioning an entire army corps of some 50,000 men. The extended family sacrificed at least nine of its sons for The Cause.

Like their comrades-in-arms, the Moses’ were fighting for their homeland — not for slavery, as is so often said, but for their families, homes, and country. Put simply, most Confederate soldiers felt they were fighting because an invading army from the North was trying to kill them, burn their homes, and destroy their cities.

The hard-pressed Confederates were usually heavily outnumbered, outgunned, and out-supplied, but rarely outfought, showing amazing courage, skill, and valor.

The best known of the Moses family Confederates was Major Raphael Moses, General Longstreet’s chief commissary officer, whose three sons also fought for the South. Moses ended up attending the last meeting and carrying out the Last Order of the Confederate government.

He was ordered to deliver the last of the Confederate treasury, $40,000 in gold and silver bullion, to help feed and supply the defeated Confederate soldiers in nearby hospitals, and straggling home after the War — weary, hungry, often sick, shoeless and in tattered uniforms. With the help of a small group of determined armed guards, Moses successfully carried out the order from President Jefferson Davis, despite repeated attempts by mobs to forcibly take the bullion.

The anniversary of this fateful day should serve to remind us what the brave and beleaguered Southern soldiers and civilians were up against. Perhaps it will help people understand why, in this day when the South is so often vilified, native Southerners still revere their ancestors’ courage, and continue rightfully to take much pride in this heritage.

Lewis Regenstein [send him mail], a Native Atlantan, is a writer and author.

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It was just over 142 years ago that General William Tecumseh Sherman burned Columbia, South Carolina and sent a battle-hardened military unit towards nearby Sumter, presumably to do the same. My then 16 year old great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Moses, rode out to defend his hometown, along with some other teenagers, invalids, old men, and the disabled and wounded from the local hospital.

Jack kept running away from school to join the Confederate army, so they finally let him join up and act as a courier on horseback. His final mission was as hopeless as it was valiant, but the rag-tag group of volunteers did manage to hold off the tough and experienced "Potter's Raiders" for over an hour before being overwhelmed by this vastly superior force, outnumbering theirs by seventeen to one.

The date of this skirmish at Dingle's Mill was 9 April, 1865 — the same day that General Robert E. Lee surrendered, and that Jack's eldest brother, Joshua Lazarus Moses, was killed in the War's last big engagement.

Josh died at Fort Blakeley, Alabama, commanding the artillery firing the last guns in defense of Mobile. He was shot down a few hours after Lee surrendered, his unit outnumbered 12 to one, in this battle in which one brother was wounded and another captured.

Until the History Channel's 22 April, two hour, repeatedly-run documentary, "Sherman's March," I never realized that my ancestors were fighting, not to protect their families, homes and cities, but to acquire slaves and land.

And I did not fully appreciate what a decent and wise man, deep down, was General Sherman, nor did I know that the Ohio-born pillager of the South spoke with a gentle Southern accent.

Sherman: Decent and Wise

"Uncle Billy," as he is called in the program and was affectionately known to his devoted men, waged war against innocent, helpless civilians, burning homes and cities, but it was all in a good cause, the program assures us.

And yes, he had a few minor flaws — such a dislike for "inferior" blacks, and such a disregard for the fate of the freed slaves following his legions that he repeatedly tried to turn them back lest they interfere with his progress.

But all in all, one gets the impression that Sherman did what he had to do to win this war of good verses evil, and he should be respected for this. His statement that "War is cruelty…The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over," is cited seemingly with approval. Such a rationale, of course, could be used to excuse virtually any historic massacres of civilians, including Hitler in Poland and Russia, the SS at Malmedy and Oradour-sur-Glane, the Japanese in Nanking and Manila, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (though no comparison of any of these events to Sherman's actions is here intended).

While one becomes accustomed to seeing The War Between the States constantly misrepresented in the media and Southern soldiers slandered as racists and traitors, one is nevertheless astonished by the sheer audacity of THC in presenting such a blatantly biased and demonstrably untrue version of the War.

For example, the documentary takes the constantly reiterated canard that the War was fought over slavery, and inflates it into a smear against the average Confederate draftee, who fought on despite being hungry, exhausted, sick, shoeless, and short on most everything but courage. As recorded by Major Henry Hitchcock, when Uncle Billy asked an old slave, "Why do these poor white people that don't own slaves fight us ?", the man responded, "because the rich white people have promised them land and slaves if they whip the Yankees."

The slave's statement is uncontradicted and stands as the only reason cited by the program for why the Confederates, whose homes and cities were being burned, kept fighting till the bitter end.

Brutality Downplayed

"Sherman's March" begin and ends with the basic facts of the campaign: After burning Atlanta (but just a mere 30 percent of it, we are reassured), Sherman and his men set out on 15 November, 1864 headed east towards Savannah. It was captured it on 21 December, and Sherman turned north into South Carolina, "marching 650 miles through the heart of enemy territory in less than 100 marching days… losing just 600 men out of 60,000."

I initially had some hope that the program might manifest some shred of objectivity, since it noted accurately and early on that Sherman had been "a failed businessman…considered crazy" by some, and that Union commander Ulysses S. Grant was u2018a drunk."

The program does note that Sherman "plundered a year's harvest," and shows some scenes of theft and terrorizing of civilians and stealing and shooting of livestock (such as happened to Dolly Burge, a widow running a plantation); the use of Confederate prisoners to clear land mines ("torpedoes"); and the execution of an innocent POW. All these would be considered, then and today, to be war crimes.

Sherman is also shown ordering that freed slaves following his army be turned back. In one scene, many ex-slaves drowned after one of Sherman's men (ironically named Jefferson C. Davis!) had the pontoon bridge over Ebenezer Creek pulled up, stranding some 600 of them between the "deep waters" and the evil Confederates.

But the program hardly touches the surface in conveying the extent of suffering caused to Southern civilians, the starving, homeless families left in Sherman's wake, and the cruelty of the invading army towards unresisting civilians, black and white alike.

As summarized by Brian Cisco, author of the new book "War Crimes against Southern Civilians":

Women and children, black and white, were robbed, brutalized, and left homeless in Sherman’s infamous raid through Georgia. Torture and rape were not uncommon. In South Carolina, homes, farms, churches, and whole towns disappeared in flames. Civilians received no mercy at the hands of the Union invaders. Earrings were ripped from bleeding ears, graves were robbed, and towns were pillaged. Wherever Federal troops encountered Southern Blacks, whether free or slave, they were robbed, brutalized, belittled, kidnapped, threatened, tortured, and sometimes raped or killed by their blue-clad “liberators."

Occupation of Sumter

Some of this I know for sure from the memoirs of my great great grandmother Octavia Moses, who had five sons fighting with the Confederate forces. My family's home in Sumter was taken over by Sherman's troops, and here is Octavia's account of that terrible time:

On Sunday, April 9, 1865, Potter’s Raiders occupied Sumter…

They entered many houses and took what they wanted…They looted the stores and burned the jail and Court house. After my husband was nearly killed by negro soldiers who demanded liquor…we asked for protection and took some officers in our house in order to insure it. We were afraid to undress our children at night, as we did not know when the torch might be applied; we had them dressed in several suits of clothing and had provisions and weapons hidden away…

The Moses family survived the Yankee occupation of Sumter, but some of their most valuable possessions did not:

On Tuesday, April 11, Potter’s raiders departed, but not before burning many buildings and 196 bales of our cotton… As soon as the Northerners had left, all the people of the town went around to each other to find out who were suffering and how to relieve their needs.

But other families fared much worse, as Octavia notes:

We found poor old Mr. Bee (a refugee from Charleston) had been murdered by drunken soldiers. Mr. Harmon DeLeon, of Charleston, and my husband saw to his burial. My husband also went out to the battle field where, assisted by Augustus Solomons, they together cared for the dead.

Joe Wilder and others tell of the Yankees' zealous plundering in search of alcohol, and he says that "The black troops murdered old Mr. Bee while they were here on account of some wine, and if it had not been for a guard coming in, white troops would have killed Jackson Moses, thinking he had liquor concealed."

The murder of Robert Bee is considered one of the real tragedies of the occupation. According to Anne King Gregorie's "History of Sumter County," he "was found hanging from the rafters of his attic, tortured and murdered by drunken soldiers, who were said to have raped his daughter" named Julia. In Julia's "Account" of the incident, she tells how on "Sunday afternoon, the troops came in the village destroying everything on the way":

…The homes were ransacked — every vestige of food was taken — in the home was my father, sister, and four little children…the home was filled with Yankee hordes — My father was forced to leave the room — and not until several days afterwards did we know where he had been taken — our faithful servant who was looked upon as one of our household — dear faithful Hannah found in looking in the upper rooms, exclaimed as she entered the room — "My God, here is my dear Master" murdered by the Yankees. Everything had been ransacked…

[One wonders, was the War shortened by one day, or even one minute by the murder of Mr. Bee and the apparent rape of his daughter, which seems to have occurred after the surrender of Lee..]

Cleansing the Atrocities

But no such horrors appear in "Sherman's March."

We must also learn a new vocabulary, as Sherman's vandalism, arson, theft of food vitally needed by women and children, and his other atrocities are blandly called "foraging operations." Sherman brags that he is proud of the "skill and success of his men….I was amused at their tactics," and he fondly, and fairly, calls his teen age soldiers "my little devils."

Nor is there any mention, not a word, about some of the worst atrocities: the well-documented rapes and murders, of blacks and whites, painstakingly described

in numerous contemporaneous accounts of the March. The closest we come to that is the observation that South Carolina took the brunt of the destruction, since it was the object of vengeance by the Union soldiers, who considered it "the cradle of the rebellion," the place "where the treason began, and … where it will end".

The viewer waits in vain for any discussion of the mass murder in the West of the Native Americans, that historians euphemistically call "the Indian Wars," going on while the March was taking place, and carried out later under Sherman and other Union generals. One hears nothing of Sherman's genocidal views of the Indians, such as writing in 1866, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to the extermination, men, women, and children."

Nor is there a single word about the virulent hatred of Jews unashamedly demonstrated by Sherman and other Union officers, well known at the time, and culminating in America's worst official act of anti-Semitism in the nation's history. On 17 December, 1862, Union general Ulysses S. Grant issued his infamous "General Order # 11," expelling all Jews "as a class" from his conquered territories within 24 hours.

A few months earlier, on 11 August, Sherman had warned in a letter to the Adjutant General of the Union Army that "the country will swarm with dishonest Jews" if continued trade in cotton is encouraged. [ (Sherman, in a letter written in 1858, had described Jews as "...without pity, soul, heart, or bowels of compassion...")..]

While these instances of Nazi-like behavior might not bear directly on Sherman's March, they certainly reveal much about the character and mentality of the man, a central issue of the program, and are essential to gaining any real understanding of Sherman.

Confederate Gallantry

But the valor of the hopelessly outnumbered Confederates does come through at times. One of the most poignant moments of the show is the Battle of Griswoldville, ten miles east of Macon, Georgia, a day after the Federals had burned Griswoldville on 21 November, 1864. A local militia was formed, from what little manpower remained in the area, largely old men and boys, to try to slow the Union advance. It was the only significant attack on Sherman during his March to the Sea.

In this skirmish, the Union troops, occupying the high ground, and firing repeating rifles and cannon, suffered just 62 to 92 casualties, to the militia's 473 to over 600, according to varying accounts. The program quotes a Union soldier as writing home about finding a 14 year old boy, with a broken arm and leg. Next to him, "cold in death, lay his father, two brothers, and an uncle."

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that almost three dozen members of my Mother's extended family, the Moses' of South Carolina and Georgia, fought for the Confederacy, something that has given me some direct insight into how and why the war was waged by the South.

So while I am far from an expert on the War, I do authoritatively know from their letters, memoirs, and diaries that they and their comrades in arms were not fighting for slavery, as is so often alleged. They were trying to defend themselves and their comrades, their families, homes, and country from an often cruel invading army that was trying, with great success, to kill them, burn their homes and cities, and destroy everything they had.

Literally millions of descendants of Confederate veterans could recount similar stories, but such incidents are largely dismissed in "Sherman's March" as myths or exaggerations.

The Confederates' Honorable Behavior

The Confederates were operating under somewhat different orders, honorable and compassionate rules of engagement that, compared to the brutal policies of the North, now seem almost quaint.

My ancestor Major Raphael Moses is a good example of how the Confederates fought the War and obtained food and other supplies they desperately needed.

As General James Longstreet’s chief commissary officer, Moses participated in many of the major battles in the East, and was responsible for supplying and feeding up to 54,000 troops, porters, and other non-combatants. General Robert E. Lee had strictly forbidden him from entering private homes in search of supplies in raids into Union territory (such as the incursions into Pennsylvania), even when food and other provisions were in painfully short supply.

Moses always paid for what he took from farms and businesses, albeit in Confederate tender. Often while seizing supplies, Moses encountered considerable hostility and abuse from the local women, which he always endured in good humor, and it became a source of much teasing from his fellow officers.

Moses always acted as a gentleman. Once, when a distraught woman approached Moses and pleaded for the return of her pet heifer that had been caught up in a cattle seizure, he graciously acceded.

[For his part, Moses noted that while the women initially spurned his efforts to pay for the goods, and "refused his Confederate u2018trash' with great scorn," they eventually were careful to demand the precise amount owed to them, "...being very particular about the odd cents." ]

Lincoln’s Reaction to the Atrocities

In President Lincoln's brief appearance in the documentary, he is predictably portrayed, as always, as wise, decent, kindly and compassionate. But Lincoln's approving and even amused reaction to Sherman's atrocities is not revealed.

In his “Memoirs of General William T. Sherman”, the general tells of visiting Lincoln with General Grant (whose family still owned slaves at the time) near War's end aboard the president’s ship docked in City Point, Virginia.

"Sherman's March" quotes part of the general's assessment of Lincoln,

…..Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other.”

But the program does not mention Lincoln's little known reaction to Sherman's depredations, as recounted by Sherman:

We walked down the wharf, went on board, and found Mr. Lincoln alone in the after-cabin. He remembered me perfectly and at once engaged in a most interesting conversation. He was full of curiosity about the many incidents of our great march, which had reached him officially and through the newspapers, and seems to enjoy very much the more ludocrous [sic] parts — about the ‘bummers’ and their devices to collect food and forage when the outside world supposed us to be starving…

This report is confirmed by “Admiral Porter’s Account of the Interview with Mr. Lincoln”, written in 1866 at the US Naval Academy, mailed to Gen Sherman, and included in his book:

The day of General Sherman’s arrival at City Point (I think the 27th of March, 1865), I accompanied him and General Grant on board the president’s flag ship, the Queen, where the president received us in the upper saloon …

The conversation soon turned on the events of Sherman’s campaign through the South, with every

movement of which the president seemed familiar.

He laughed over some of the stories Sherman told of his ‘bummers’ and told others in return,

[The interview between the two generals and the president lasted about an hour and a half, and, as it was a remarkable one, I jotted down what I remembered of the conversation...]

In the unlikely case that after almost two hours (minus ads for Ford) the viewer has not gotten the point, Sherman is shown in retirement being visited by those of his former troops who are in need, "the bummers," receiving monetary gifts from their kindly commander: "the poor old soldiers who show up regularly at his door…They are his family. He will always be their u2018Uncle Billy'."

Correcting the "Myths" about Sherman

"Sherman's March" was written and directed by Rick King for documentary maker JWM productions in Washington, D.C. It was well reviewed by the mainstream media and will doubtlessly win some journalism awards, because it follows the Party Line, if not to the letter, closely enough.

In the very city burned by Sherman, here is what Jim Auchmutey wrote in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the various "myths" corrected by the program:

Sherman raises a tumbler of whiskey with his lieutenants and offers a toast as they watch Atlanta burn. The light from the flames plays off his red hair and strawberry complexion, making him look like a 19th-century Satan.

Despite the imagery, the man behind the show says he believes Sherman was no devil, even if he did pioneer the concept of “total war.”

“Sherman’s March is one of the great myths of American history,” says Rick King, a native of the Washington suburbs who wrote and directed the program. “The myth is that he was a brute, that he raped and pillaged his way across Georgia and the Carolinas, that he hated the South and was merciless and cruel.”

King points out that Sherman had lived in the South before the war and loved it. Furthermore, he argues, the burning of Atlanta and the March to the Sea have been exaggerated in popular memory and were undertaken for a humanitarian reason: to shorten the war by destroying the South’s will to fight.

Interestingly, the actor who plays Sherman, Bill Oberst, Jr., is a 42-year-old South Carolinian from Pawley's Island who grew up hearing stories about the War. His great-grandfather came from Scotland and became known as "shorty" after losing a leg while while serving in the Confederate Army . "I'm just dripping with this stuff, like most Southern guys of my generation," Oberst told Auchmutey. “From a military perspective, I can understand what Sherman did. Those are the stories that have been handed down. So, yeah, I hated him.”

Oberst has played not only Jesus, Mark Twain and John F. Kennedy, but even starred in his own one-man show depicting, of all people, the late humor writer Lewis Grizzard, who truly loved the South. “I thought if someone was going to play Sherman, it ought to be one of us,” Auchmutey says of Oberst, "He chomps his cigar and confers with Ulysses S. Grant. He pauses in the piney woods to talk with a group of emancipated slaves. He rides among his troops, who affectionately call him u2018Uncle Billy'.”

Unfortunately, the AJC does not ask Oberst if he thinks his great granddad "Shorty" is spinning in his grave after his descendant's performance.

Producer-director Rick King was kind enough to allow me to interview him at length, and he seemed like a pretty nice guy. He knows how to make a documentary film, and I think he sincerely believes what he produced was truthful. But — with all due respect — I cannot help but be appalled by what comes across to me as ignorance and bias concerning our nation's transforming event.

I asked him why the program did not show or mention a single rape or murder of civilians, despite numerous eyewitness accounts of such by families and neighbors. He said that he could not find any historians, or documentation in the dozens of books he consulted, to confirm these atrocity stories that have been handed down for generations.

He said that while there was lots of plunder and destruction, he believed that the number of murders was u2018very minimal", and that only a total of "two or three rapes" occurred. (Not believing what I heard, I asked him to repeat that.) And outside of South Carolina, King says, he could find very little wanton destruction of homes, mainly of those with owners who were involved in the war effort.

I asked him if he truly believed that the Southern conscriptees were fighting to get land and slaves, as the ex-slave stated; "That was his opinion," he replied, but would not say why no other "opinions" were offered.

[But King did make one point that makes some sense out of Sherman's tactics. By waging war against civilians instead of attacking the Confederate Army, he argues, Sherman saved many lives on both sides, and his destruction of much of the South's economy shortened the war.]

King says he blames the wealthy slave and plantation owners for the war, not the common soldier. "It was a rich man's war, and a poor man's fight." Not the first time we have heard the Marxist version of the War.

A Revisionist History

[They say history is written by the victors. In the case of the War Between the States, what is taking place is more of a re-writing, a cleansing of the harsh, indisputed facts about the Union victory, substituting a more acceptable Revisionist version for the real thing. The Revisionist account, indeed, has become mainstream: the War was all about slavery, Sherman's brutality is largely a myth, Lincoln was kind and compassionate and our greatest president ever. To take issue with any of this dogma invites being considered a racist and/or a nut.]

Although the producers of the program claim to have consulted 30 to 40 books, it hardly seems possible that they could have done any real research at all, and failed to find overwhelming evidence and numerous credible accounts of senseless atrocities by Sherman's army against civilians.

The program may not have the facts on its side, but it does have its academics. Sherman biographer and retired Mississippi State University professor John Marszalek dismisses such accounts of depradations in a way that has the subtle effect of suggesting that many or all such victims of Sherman are lying or mistaken in telling about their experiences:

People will come up to me and will say, "oh, you wrote that book on Sherman. Well, you know, that's nice but he was a terrible guy. Why, he burned my great, great, great, great grandfather’s barn.” And I’ll say, “well where was your great, great, great, grandfather's barn?” And they'll tell me and Sherman was not within a hundred miles of that area.

The shame is not that the documentary is so blatantly pro-Union and anti-Southern. We are used to that, and do not expect fair treatment. The problem is that the program goes a bridge too far, adding insult to injury, in its gratuitous abjuring of Sherman's brutal violence towards civilians.

The fearless chronicler and defender of the South, history professor Clyde Wilson, was not amused. Here is what he said in his review of "Sherman's March" for LewRockwell.com:

A whole team of third-string, half-baked carpetbagger "historians" of the type that now staff all Southern universities are presented to make the best possible case for the glory…But…it is a bad cause that has to be defended by lies. And it can only be defended by lies, then and now.

Simply and bluntly put, perhaps a little harsh. But in the end, there is no question that "Sherman's March" makes a hero of a war criminal, and rewrites history under the guise of shattering myths.

But like the teenagers and old men at Griswoldville, there will always be a few loyal Southerners honest and brave and dedicated enough to keep fighting, against hopeless odds, to honor their ancestors, remember their valor, recognize their sacrifices, defend their heritage, and insist that The Truth be known. But you won't be seeing them on The History Channel's version of Sherman's March.

[bracketed portions can be deleted]

Lewis Regenstein [send him mail], a native Atlantan, is descended on his Mother's side from the Moses family of Georgia and South Carolina, whose patriarch, Myer Moses, participated in the American Revolution. Almost three-dozen members of the extended family fought for the Confederacy, and participated in most of the major battles and campaigns of the War. At least nine of them, largely teenagers, died in defense of their homeland, and included the first and last Confederate Jews to fall in battle.

DIGG THIS

The following
is a speech given to the Washington, Georgia Civil War Roundtable
on February 26, 2007.

I am deeply
honored to be here today in this wonderful town of Washington,
and I thank you for the chance to speak before such a distinguished
group of people. Claibourne has warned me that some of you all
are extremely knowledgeable about the War Between the States,
and to be careful not to make any mistakes because I will surely
get caught and be called on it. So please go easy on me.

Before I
begin I'd like to emphasize that while I am very proud of my ancestors,
I'm not bragging about anything. I can claim no personal distinction
for their heroism, which reflects what was common among the hopelessly
outnumbered, outsupplied but not outfought Confederate troops,
something in which we all take much pride.

Our ancestors
often ran low on food, ammunition, and other supplies, but never
on courage.

I write
and talk about all this because I am proud of our heritage and
committed to helping keep its memory alive and honored, amidst
the ongoing campaign to rewrite history and discredit the valor
and honor of the Confederate soldiers and their Cause. I know
that no one here today needs educating on this issue.

Here in Washington,
some very historic events have taken place, one of them involving
one of my ancestors, and I'd like to talk a little about that
today.

I
am very proud that my great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Moses,
Jr., of Sumter, S.C., and his four brothers fought for the Confederacy,
and Major Raphael Jacob Moses was their uncle, [having married
Eliza Moses, the sister of the Moses brothers' father, Andrew
Jackson Moses, Sr.]

We know firsthand,
from their letters, diaries, and memoirs, that they and their
compatriots were not fighting for slavery, as is so often alleged.
They were trying to defend themselves and their comrades, their
families, homes, and country from an often cruel invading army
that was trying to kill them, burn their homes and cities, and
destroy everything they had.

Raphael Moses
was a fifth-generation South Carolinian who in 1849 moved to Columbus,
Georgia, where he was a lawyer, planter, and owner of a plantation
he named "Esquiline." Moses' English ancestors came
to America during colonial days, one of them being his great,
great grandfather Dr. Samuel Nunez, fleeing the Inquisition. He
is credited with saving the newly-established, mosquito-infested
colony of Savannah, Georgia from being wiped out in 1733 by a
"fever," then thought to be yellow fever but which was
probably malaria.

Before the
War, Moses pioneered the commercial growing of peaches and plums
in Georgia, so it could thus be said that he is a major reason
Georgia is called The Peach State. Moses is reputed to have been
the first planter to ship and sell peaches outside of the South,
in 1851, before there was any through connection by railroad.
James C. Bonner's A
History of Georgia Agriculture, 1732–1860, credits Moses
with being the first to succeed in preserving the flavor of shipped
peaches, by packing them in champagne baskets instead of pulverized
charcoal.

Moses knew
well and wrote in his memoirs about General Robert E. Lee (whom
he was with at Gettysburg) and other major Confederate figures.
The renowned Douglas Southall Freeman, in his authoritative work
Lee’s
Lieutenants called Moses “…the best commissary officer
of like rank in the Confederate service.”

As General
James Longstreet’s chief commissary officer, Moses participated
in many of the major battles in the East, and was responsible
for supplying and feeding up to 54,000 troops, porters, and other
non-combatants. General Lee had forbidden him from entering private
homes in search of supplies in raids into Union territory (such
as the incursions into Pennsylvania), even when food and other
provisions were in painfully short supply.

Moses always
paid for what he took from farms and businesses, albeit in Confederate
tender.

Often while
seizing supplies, Moses encountered considerable hostility and
abuse from the local women, which he always endured in good humor,
and it became a source of much teasing from his fellow officers.

Moses always
acted honorably, compassionately, and as a gentleman. Once, when
a distraught woman approached Moses and pleaded for the return
of her pet heifer that had been caught up in a cattle seizure,
he graciously acceded.

The contrast
is striking between the humane Confederate policies and those
of the North. Union generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan regularly
burned and looted homes, farms, courthouses, churches, libraries,
and entire cities full of civilians, such as Atlanta and Columbia,
South Carolina, and most everything of value in between, later
engaging in the mass slaughtering of Native Americans in the West,
largely old men, women, and children in their villages, in what
we euphemistically call "The Indian Wars."

Moses' memoirs
contain some very interesting observations on the Battle of Gettysburg.
"…We lost the battle," laments Moses, "and then
came the retreat; the rain poured down in floods that night !
I laid down in a fence corner and near by on the bare earth in
an India rubber [tarp] lay General Lee biding the pelting storm."

In his memoirs,
Moses reveals that "General Longstreet did not wish to fight
the Battle of Gettysburg. He wanted to go around the hill, but
Lee objected on account of our long wagon and artillery trains."
Longstreet, as historian Ed Bearss notes, "knew what muskets
in the hands of determined troops could do," and felt that
the Union forces, holding the high ground, would have the same
advantage over his forces that the Confederates had over the Federals
at Fredericksburg. If his advice had been taken, it could have
changed the course of the War.

But Lee rejected
Longstreet's recommendation to swing his troops around the heights,
and instead ordered the attack on the center of the Union forces
at Cemetery Hill, saying of the Yankees, "I will whip them
here, or they will whip me." Honorable as always, after the
battle Lee took responsibility for the disaster, saying "All
this has been my fault." Longstreet, feeling that the ground
fought over had no military value, called that day "the saddest
of my life." Shelby Foote calls Lee's decision "The
mistake of all mistakes."

Interestingly,
the entire battle might have been avoided and the course of the
war changed if Longstreet's forces had not been forced to wait
for their reinforcements to arrive. Moses says that if the Confederates
had not been delayed near Cash Town for over a day waiting for
General Richard Stoddert Ewell's wagon train of supplies, "…I
do know that we could have marched easily from Chambersburg to
Gettysburg, in a day, and been there before the Union troops."

Moses’ three
sons also fought for the South, and one was killed at Seven Pines
in May, 1862 after performing acts of amazing valor — Lt. Albert
Moses Luria, the first Jewish Confederate to fall in battle.

He was killed
at age nineteen after courageously throwing a live Union artillery
shell out of his fortification before it exploded, thereby saving
the lives of many of his compatriots.

(The last
Confederate Jew to be killed was Major Moses’ nephew, Joshua Lazarus
Moses, of Sumter, South Carolina, the brother of my great grandfather.
Josh was killed in the battle of Fort Blakeley, Alabama, a few
hours after Lee surrendered, commanding the guns firing the last
shots in defense of Mobile. In this battle, Josh’s brothers Perry
and Horace were respectively wounded and captured.)

RUNNING
OUT OF FOOD

Prior to
Virginia's Battle of the Wilderness in May, 1864, Moses was having
more and more difficulty obtaining supplies, since farmers were
refusing to sell their crops because of increasing speculation
over prices. Moses decided to travel to Georgia, his major source
of supplies, to talk to the farmers: ["It occurred to me,
that if I could go to Georgia and speak to the people who had
sons, brothers, relatives and friends suffering for food, that
I could get supplies." Moses asked General Lee for a furlough
to go there and loosen up the pipeline, and Lee replied, "Major,
I would approve it but really we can't spare you, you know."
But when Moses explained his plans, Lee responded, "Well,
Major, if you think you can do anything for my poor boys, go and
may God crown you effort with success."]

When he arrived
in Georgia in mid-1864, Moses found few willing and able to help
out.[ In his memoirs, he recalled a meeting where he spoke at
Temperance Hall in Columbus:

There were
about thirty persons present...When I last spoke at this hall,
it was to urge the people of Columbus to send their sons and
brothers to confront the hazards of war to redress their country's
wrongs. The house was full from pit to gallery with patriotic
citizens ready for the sacrifices asked. Now I come from those
near and dear to the people here to appeal to them for bread,
for the starving Army, and I am confronted by empty benches...

Travelling
next to southwest Georgia, Moses was "met there with a very
different spirit and had a very successful trip."] But while
there, the Confederate Commissary for the state died, and Moses
was appointed to fill the post.

Still, the
pressures on Moses to obtain and distribute supplies of food remained
relentless, and towards the end of the War, the situation had
become desperate.

THE FINAL
DAYS

Moses' account
of those final, chaotic days after Lee's surrender is filled with
stories of heroism and heartbreak, humor and tragedy. (There are
many conflicting accounts of this era; what follows is from Moses'
recollections.)

With the
defeat of the Confederate forces, the capital of Richmond was
abandoned in April, 1865, and the senior government officials
and their staff headed south, avoiding Union forces, and ending
up in Georgia.

Moses tells
of Mrs. Jefferson Davis awaiting her husband in Washington, Georgia,
where he arrived accompanied by his cabinet and "a train
containing gold and silver bullion."

Moses writes,

shortly
before [General Joseph E.] Johnston's surrender, I was ordered
to Washington, Wilkes County. Soon after, Davis and his cabinet
arrived there. Mrs. Davis met her husband in Washington. A train
containing gold and silver bullion accompanied the cabinet.
It was brought from Richmond banks. I was staying with General
Toombs… I remember seeing General [ Braxton] Bragg waiting under
an oak tree to get his $20.00.

I received
an order from General Johnston to provide 250,000 rations at
Augusta for the returning soldiers…and there arrange as best
I could with general Mollyneux [Molineux] who then occupied
Augusta with Federal troops, to protect me in furnishing the
troops as they passed through Augusta and to provide for the
sick and wounded in hospitals.

One of Moses'
stories describes the close escape from arrest by the Yankees
of his close friend, and resident of this area, General Robert
A. Toombs, a leading Georgia planter who served as the South's
first Secretary of State.

Moses was
in Washington with his son Israel Moses Nunez, called "Major,"
when, he writes, "…a cavalry man rode up coming from [War
Secretary] Breckenbrige [sic] and threw over the fence a sack
containing $5,000 in gold for his [Toombs'] personal use":

He [Toombs]
handed it to Major and told him to buy corn and provisions with
it and distribute it among the returning soldiers as they passed
through Washington, and my son did so use it…

Shortly afterwards,
Moses continues, "the government came to arrest [Toombs],
and my son Major met the officer between the gate and the house,
while [Toombs] escaped out of the back way, mounted his horse,
donned blue spectacles and after many hair-breath escapes, fled
to foreign parts, where his wife followed, and he lived with her
some time in Paris."

THE LAST
ORDER OF THE LOST CAUSE

About three
weeks after the war's end, as chief commissary for Georgia, Moses
carried out what is reputed to have been the last order of the
Confederacy. It involved safeguarding and delivering the Confederate
treasury's last $40,000 of silver and/or gold bullion (perhaps
$750,000 today).

(Although
the accounts are contradictory and confusing, it appears that
Moses paid $10,000 to the Quartermaster-General in Washington
[according to Avery, p. 326], and carried $30,000 in bullion to
Augusta.)

Carrying
out the order was no easy task, amidst the anarchy of defeat,
orderly government and military discipline having collapsed, and
lawless mobs of unruly, sometimes drunken former soldiers searching
desperately for food and money.

[The
Memoirs of Jefferson Davis, written by his wife, contain
a letter written to Davis several years after the war by Acting
Secretary of Treasury, describing how he "directed him [an
acting treasurer] to turn the silver bullion over to Major Moses,
as it was too bulky and heavy to be managed by us in our then
condition; and I saw Moses putting it in a warehouse in Washington
[Georgia] before I left there. I also directed him to burn the
Confederate notes in the presence of General Breckinridge and
myself.]

The Acting
Treasurer, Captain M.H. Clark of Clarksville, Tennessee, described
the disposition of the Confederate bullion in a 13 January, 1882
interview with the Louisville Courier Journal:

Before
reaching town [Washington, Georgia], I was halted by Major R.J.
Moses, to turn over to him the specie [coins] which president
Davis, before he left, ordered to be placed at the disposal
of the Commissary Department, to feed the paroled soldiers and
stragglers passing through, to prevent their burdening a section
already stripped of supplies. I turned over to Major Moses the
wagons and silver bullion, and all of the escort except about
ten men.

The government's
final order was handed down at its last meeting, held in Washington,
Wilkes County, Georgia on 5 May, 1865, which according to Moses,
was attended, among others, by President Jefferson Davis, Secretary
of War John C. Breckinridge, and Major Moses. (It is unclear who
actually attended the meeting, with some accounts saying that
Breckinridge arrived after Davis departed.)

And then,
as "Confederate Veteran" observes, "…at last, in
the old Heard House in Washington, on Georgia soil, the Southern
Confederacy ceased to exist and passed into history."

That Last
order reads as follows:

Major R.J.
Moses, will pay $10,000, the amount of bullion appropriated
to Q.M. [quartermaster] Dept. by Sec. War to Maj. R.R. Wood.
By order of Q.M. Gen.

[signed]
W.F. Alexander, Maj. And Asst. to Q.M. Gen., 5 May, 1865, Washington

But the Confederacy
did not die a quiet death. "By early may, 1865, realizing
the war was lost, the major units of the Confederate Army had
surrendered," author Mel Young writes in Last
Order of the Lost Cause, the authoritative published account
for this historic event.

“Individual
Confederate soldiers, groups of soldiers, and small units were
trying to walk, ride, or move in groups back to their homes.
They were in tattered uniforms, hungry and mostly penniless.
Confederate General [Joseph E. ] Johnston, requested of President
Davis that 250,000 rations be obtained to be distributed to
these discharged soldiers.

In accepting
this responsibility, Moses, now 53 years old, showed the usual
courage and tenacity for which he was known. Facing down a turbulent
mob of former Confederates who intercepted and threatened to storm
his train in Barnett, Georgia, Moses successfully carried out
the order to deliver the remaining Confederate gold bullion to
help and provision the troops struggling to get back home,

In his classic
work, The
History of the State of Georgia, From 1850–1881, I.W.
Avery describes the situation thusly:

Major Moses
had a stirring time with his perilous treasure. It was, of course,
known immediately that he had it in his possession. The war
had unhinged men's ideas and principles. But still more demoralizing
of the public conscience was the desperate stress of the people,
coupled with the knowledge that the Confederate cause was dead,
and that this specie was ownerless and a probable treasure trove
and booty for the Federal soldiery. Maj. Moses, with punctilious
honor, was resolved to part with it only with his life and to
deliver it according to orders in fulfillment of its kindly
mission.

Moses biggest
problem was protecting the bullion in his charge from unruly soldiers:
"The town was full of stragglers, cavalry men who had just
been paid $20.00 each. They had arms but no consciences, and the
little taste they had of specie provoked their appetites…"

Moses writes
in his memoirs that General Robert Toombs gave me the names of
ten of the Washington Artillery, all gentlemen well known to him":

I agreed
to pay them $10.00 each in gold to guard it that night and go
with me to Augusta. I then took a squad of them and destroyed
all the liquor I could find in the shops. I then got part of
a keg of powder and put it in a wooden building that was unoccupied
and put the boxes of bullion in the same room, placed my guard
outside and around the building, and gave out that I had laid
a train of powder to the outside, and if the guard was forced,
the train would be fired.

The next
morning, Moses had the bullion loaded onto a train filled with
some 200 soldiers and "29 cavalry men," and when the
train was just outside of its destination of Barnett, the trouble
started:

…the conductor,
a nice old man, came to our car and said, "Major, from
the talk I reckon the boys are going to u2018charge' your car when
we reach Barnett." Charge meant to attack it and take the
specie and divide it among themselves….I held a council with
my guard, and I told them that if they would stand by me, keep
cool, fire (and reload) through an opening we would make in
the doors, I thought we could successfully defend the car, but
they were not ready to do this, we would be overcome.

They consulted
together, and I was afraid they would conclude "To join
the Cavalry," but they finally said, "We will stand
by you as long as there is a chance to save the specie."

Avery writes
that "These desperate men, a reckless mob, coolly demanded
the money, as being as much theirs as anyone's, and they were
armed to enforce the demand."

Showing
amazing courage, Moses then went out "among the men, who
were as thick as blackbirds," and told them that "every
dollar of the bullion would be devoted to feeding their fellow
soldiers, and caring for the wounded in the hospitals at Augusta…that
they might killed me and my guard, but they would be killing men
in the discharge of a duty in behalf of their comrades ! That
if they killed us, it would be murder, while if we killed any
of them in defending the bullion, which we certainly should endeavor
to do, we would be justified, because the killing would be in
self defense and in a discharge of a sacred duty."

When two
soldiers in the crowd spoke up and vouched for Moses, "the
crowd began to disperse," but unfortunately, the train he
was meeting was over an hour late. "…the billows of the seas
rise and fall when disturbed by the winds, and this restless crowd
at the depot would surge and press up against the door of my box[car]
trying to get in, and I would have to threaten them and appeal."

Avery writes,
in a page titled "Attempted Rape of the Bullion," that
"Major Moses remonstrated quietly and argumentatively with
the menacing men surrounding him, and appealed to their honor
and patriotism and stated his orders. At length it is seemed nothing
could avert the ravishment of this specie."

"At
last, the storm seemed to be subsiding," writes Moses, when
a fellow officer warned him that some men were about to charge
his boxcar, led by a young man from Tennessee with a wound on
his cheek. Again showing remarkable courage, Moses approached
the man and said to him, "You appear to be a gentleman and
bear an honorable wound":

I then
read my orders to him, explained my position, and how trying
it was to be forced perhaps to take life and lose my own in
the performance of a duty that I could not voluntarily avoid.
I told him I had a guard and some friends in the crowd, but
we would be outnumbered unless I could enlist men like himself
in our behalf. ..

I said,
"I appeal to you in the spirit of that honor that belongs
to all brave men, to assist me in the discharge of this trust."

He seemed
embarrassed, but said, "I don't think you will have any
further trouble," and I did not.

Finally,
Moses and his men were able to catch the train to Augusta and
deliver the goods, obtaining a receipt for the delivered bullion
from Major and Quartermaster R.R. Wood dated 5 May, 1865.

The Atlanta
Journal of 6 February, 1927, in an article entitled "Last
official Writing of the Southern Confederacy," reproduced
this receipt, calling it "…the last official writing ever
issued by the Confederate administration":

It is as
historic a curiosity as the world affords, this last

flicker
of a mammoth revolution. Such thoughts cluster around it as
would make a grand epic…the paper thus testifying to the honesty
and promptness of the disbursing officer of a great shattered
government — an administration gone down hopelessly in a grand
ruin.

[The complete
story is told in Mel Young's Last
Order of the Lost Cause, and Robert Rosen's authoritative,
The
Jewish Confederates, and originally in I.W. Avery's
History of the State of Georgia from 1850--1881.]

In his memoirs,
Moses wrote: "I have never turned my back on an enemy that
was attacking me, or failed to forgive one as soon as he cried
for quarter. I can also say that I never deserted a friend…"

And the
Atlanta Journal in 1928 summed up Moses' career thusly: "At
the beginning of the war, although overage, he hastened to the
defense of his beloved Southland, offering his fortune, his service,
his sons — everything save his honor — a willing sacrifice on
the altar of his country."

After the
war, Raphael Moses became an outspoken critic of the Reconstruction
government in Georgia, calling its members "spies, carpetbaggers,
a class of politicians, men without character who came from the
North in swarms seeking whom they might devour." He was elected
to the Georgia House of Representatives and was named chairman
of the Judiciary Committee.

On 3 April,
1867, Robert E. Lee, then President of Washington and Lee University
in Lexington, Virginia, wrote to Moses asking him, and other prominent
men of the South, to help heal the wounds of a divided nation.

Moses remained
a loyal Confederate until the very end. When he died in 1893,
his calling card still read, "Major Raphael J. Moses, C.S.A."

Moses and
his fellow soldiers typified many of the brave, beleaguered Confederates
who honorably served their country, facing overwhelming, indeed
hopeless odds, with loyalty and valor. That terrible war ended
fourteen decades ago, but the memory of those soldiers should
never be forgotten.

Thank you
again for the opportunity to discuss and remember some of those
events here with you today.

March
9, 2007

Lewis
Regenstein [send him
mail], a native Atlantan, is descended on his
Mother's side from the Moses family of Georgia and South Carolina,
whose patriarch, Myer Moses, participated in the American Revolution.
Almost three-dozen members of the extended family fought for the
Confederacy, and participated in most of the major battles and campaigns
of the War. At least nine of them, largely teenagers, died in defense
of their homeland, and included the first and last Confederate Jews
to fall in battle.

DIGG THIS

December
17, 2006 is the 144th anniversary of the worst official act of
anti-Semitism in American history.

On that day
in 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, Union general Ulysses
S. Grant issued his infamous "General Order #11," expelling
all Jews "as a class" from his conquered territories
within 24 hours. Henry Halleck, the Union general-in-chief, wired
Grant in support of his action, saying that neither he nor President
Lincoln were opposed "to your expelling traitors and Jew
peddlers."

A few months
earlier, on 11 August, General William Tecumseh Sherman had warned
in a letter to the Adjutant General of the Union Army that "the
country will swarm with dishonest Jews" if continued trade
in cotton is encouraged. And Grant also issued orders in November
1862 banning travel in general, by "the Israelites especially,"
because they were "such an intolerable nuisance," and
railroad conductors were told that "no Jews are to be permitted
to travel on the railroad."

As a result
of Grant's expulsion order, Jewish families were forced out of
their homes in Paducah, Kentucky, Holly Springs and Oxford Mississippi,
and a few were sent to prison. When some Jewish victims protested
to President Lincoln, the Attorney General Edward Bates advised
the President that he was indifferent to such objections.

Nevertheless
Lincoln rescinded Grant's odious order, but not before Jewish
families in the area had been humiliated, terrified, and jailed,
and some stripped of their possessions.

Captain Philip
Trounstine of the Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, being unable in good
conscience to round up and expel his fellow Jews, resigned his
army commission, saying he could "no longer bear the Taunts
and malice of his fellow officers… brought on by … that order."

The officials
responsible for the United States government's most vicious anti-Jewish
actions ever were never dismissed, admonished or, apparently,
even officially criticized for the religious persecution they
inflicted on innocent citizens.

Hatred
of Jews in the Union

The exact
reason for Grant's decree remains uncertain. As author and military
historian Mel Young points out in his book "Where They Lie,"
Grant's own family was involved in cotton speculation (as well
as owning slaves!), so he perhaps considered Jewish traders as
competition. And the language spoken by the many Dutch and German-speaking
peddlers and merchants in the area was probably confused with
Yiddish and many were mistakenly taken to be Jewish.

But the underlying
reason for this Order was doubtlessly the prejudice against and
hatred of Jews so widely felt among the Union forces.

Such bigotry
is described in detail by Robert Rosen, in his authoritative work

The Jewish Confederates; by Bertram Korn in his classic

American Jewry and the Civil War; and by other historians
of the era. They recount how Jews in Union-occupied areas, such
as New Orleans and Memphis, were singled out by Union forces for
vicious abuse and vilification.

In New Orleans,
the ruling general, Benjamin "Beast" Butler, harshly
vilified Jews, and was quoted by a Jewish newspaper as saying
that he could "suck the blood of every Jew, and …will detain
every Jew as long as he can." An Associated Press reporter
from the North wrote that "The Jews in New Orleans and all
the South ought to be exterminated. ..They run the blockade, and
are always to be found at the bottom of every new villainy."

Of Memphis,
whose Mississippi River port was a center of illegal cotton trading,
The Chicago Tribune reported in July, 1862, "The Israelites
have come down upon the city like locusts…Every boat brings in
a load of the hooked-nose fraternity."

Rosen writes
at length about the blatant and widespread anti-Semitism throughout
the North, with even The New York Times castigating the anti-war
Democratic Party for having a chairman who was "the agent
of foreign jew bankers."

New Englanders
were especially hateful, and one leading abolitionist minister,
Theodore Parker, called Jews "lecherous," and said that
their intellects were "sadly pinched in those narrow foreheads"
and that they "did sometimes kill a Christian baby at the
Passover."

Jews
in the South Treated Well

Meanwhile,
in the South, Southern Jews were playing a prominent role in the
Confederate government and armed forces, and "were used to
being treated as equals," as Rosen puts it, an acceptance
they had enjoyed for a century-and-a-half.

Dale and
Theodore Rosengarten, in A
Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish
Life, observe that in 1800, Charleston had more Jews than
any city in North America, and many were respected citizens, office
holders, and successful entrepreneurs. Some referred to the city
as "our Jerusalem"; and Myer Moses, my maternal family
patriarch, in 1806 called his hometown "…this land of milk
and honey." And so it seemed.

Some 3,000
or more Jews fought for the South, practically every male of military
age. Many carried with them to the front the famous soldiers'
prayer, beginning with the sacred prayer the "Shema,"
written by Richmond Rabbi Max Michelbacher, who after secession,
had issued a widely-published benediction comparing Southerners
to "the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea."

Many Jewish
Confederates distinguished themselves by showing, along with their
Christian comrades, amazing courage, dedication, and valor — and
all enduring incredible hardships against overwhelming and often
hopeless odds.

The Confederacy's
Secretary of War and later State was Judah P. Benjamin, and the
top Confederate commander, General Robert E. Lee, was renowned
for the respect he showed his Jewish soldiers.

Some find
it peculiar that a people once held in slavery by the Egyptians,
and who celebrate their liberation every year at Passover, would
fight for a nation dedicated to maintaining that institution.
(The Israelites later owned their own slaves, rules
for the proper treatment of whom are set out in the Bible.)

But while
slavery is usually emphasized, falsely, as the cause of the War,
Confederate soldiers felt they were fighting for their homeland
and their families, against an invading army from the North that
was trying, with great success, to kill them and their comrades,
burn their homes, and destroy their cities.

And anyone
with family who fought to defend the South, as over two dozen
members of my extended family did, cannot help but appreciate
the dire circumstances our ancestors encountered.

The Moses
Family

Near the
end of the War Between the States, as I grew up hearing it called,
my great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Moses, participated in a
deadly dangerous mission as hopeless as it was valiant. The date
was April 9, 1865, the same day that Lee surrendered to Grant
at Appomattox. Having run away from school at sixteen to become
a Confederate scout, Jack rode out as part of a hastily formed
local militia to defend his hometown of Sumter, South Carolina.

Approaching
rapidly were the 2,700 men of Potter's Raiders, a unit attached
to Sherman’s army which had just burned Columbia and most everything
else in its path, and Sumter expected similar treatment.

Along with
a few other teenagers, old men, invalids, and wounded from the
local hospital, Sumter's 158 ragtag defenders amazingly were able
to hold off Potter's battle-seasoned veterans for over an hour
and a half at the cost of a dozen lives.

Joshua
Lazarus Moses
 

Jack got
away with a price on his head, and Sumter was not burned after
all. But some buildings were, and there are documented instances
of murder, rape, and arson by the Yankees, including the torching
of our family's 196 bales of cotton.

Meanwhile,
on that same day, Jack’s eldest brother, Lt. Joshua Lazarus Moses,
who was wounded in the War's first real battle, First Manassas
(Bull Run), was defending Mobile in the last infantry battle of
the War. With his forces were outnumbered 12 to one, Josh was
commanding an artillery battalion that, before being overrun,
fired the last shots in defense of Mobile.

Refusing
to lay down his arms, he was killed in a battle at Fort Blakely
a few hours after Lee, unbeknownst to them, surrendered — a battle
in which one of Josh's brothers, Perry, was wounded, and another
brother, Horace, was captured while laying land mines.

The fifth
brother, Isaac Harby Moses, having served with distinction in
combat in the legendary Wade Hampton’s cavalry, rode home from
North Carolina after the Battle of Bentonville — the last major
battle of the war — where he had commanded his company after all
of the officers had been killed or wounded. His Mother proudly
observed in her memoirs that he never surrendered to the enemy
forces.

He was among
those who fired the first shots of the War when his company of
Citadel cadets opened up on the Union ship, Star of the West,
which was attempting to resupply the besieged Fort Sumter in January
1861, three months before the War officially began.

Last
Order of the Lost Cause

The Moses
brothers' well-known uncle, Major Raphael J. Moses, from Columbus,
Georgia, is credited with being the father of Georgia's peach
industry. He was General James Longstreet’s chief commissary officer
and was responsible for supplying and feeding up to 50,000 men
(including porters and other non-combatants).

Their commander,
Robert E. Lee, had forbidden Moses from entering private homes
in search of supplies during raids into Union territory, even
when food and other provisions were in painfully short supply.
And he always paid for what he took from farms and businesses,
albeit in Confederate tender — often enduring, in good humor,
harsh verbal abuse from the local women.

Interestingly,
Moses ended up attending the last meeting and carrying out the
last order of the Confederate government, which was to deliver
the remnant of the Confederate treasury ($40,000 in gold and silver
bullion) to help feed, supply and provide medical help to the
defeated Confederate soldiers in hospitals and straggling home
after the War — weary, hungry, often sick or wounded, shoeless,
and in tattered uniforms. With the help of a small group of determined
armed guards, he successfully carried out the order from President
Jefferson Davis, despite repeated attempts by mobs to forcibly
take the bullion.

Major Moses’
three sons also served the Confederacy, one of whom, Albert Moses
Luria, was killed in 1862 at age nineteen after courageously throwing
a live Union artillery shell out of his fortification before it
exploded, thereby saving the lives of many of his compatriots.
He was the first Jewish Confederate killed in the War; his cousin
Josh, killed at Mobile, the last.

Moses'
Pride in Judaism

Moses had
always been intensely proud of his Jewish heritage, having named
one son "Luria" after an ancestor who was court physician
to Spain's Queen Isabella. Another son he named "Nunez",
after Dr. Samuel Nunez, the court physician in Lisbon who fled
religious persecution in Portugal and arrived from England in
July, 1733 with some 41 other Jews, on a tiny, storm tossed ship,
the William and Sarah. As one of the first Jews in Georgia, Nunez
is credited with having saved the colony in Savannah from perishing
from malaria or some other kind of tropical fever. [It is a tradition
in the Nunez family that it traces its ancestry back to the royal
House of David in Israel, from which it was expelled over two
millenia ago.

After the
war, Raphael Moses was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives
and was named chairman of the Judiciary Committee. One of his
best known writings, reproduced countless times in books and articles,
is a lengthy, open letter he wrote to a political opponent in
1878, who attacked him for being "a Jew." This was a
rare deviation from the general acceptance the South showed towards
its Jews, and Moses hit back hard.

"Had...your
overburdened heart sought relief in some exhibition of unmeasured
gratitude, had you a wealth of gifts and selected from your abundance
your richest offering to lay at my feet," wrote Moses, "you
could not have honored me more highly, nor distinguished me more
gratefully than by proclaiming me a Jew."

On another
occasion, he wrote to his grandson Stanford E. Moses, one of the
ten members of Moses' family to enter the U. S. Naval Academy,
advising him to take pride in his heritage, since "You can
point to your ancestry and show the wisdom of Solomon, the poetry
of David, the music of Miriam, and the courage of the Maccabees.
Who can excel you in your past, and let the question in the future
be, u2018Who shall excel you' ...?"

In Last
Order of the Lost Cause, Mel Young recounts a proud family
story: the day Moses' heroic son Albert Moses Luria joined the
Columbus City Light Guards, of the 2nd Georgia Infantry Battalion.
He was called to duty in Columbus, five miles from home, on Saturday,
20 April, 1861 on just two hours' notice. After marching from
the armory to the depot, Albert writes, "we were met by an
immense concourse of citizens -- assembled to bid us u2018God Speed.'"
Among the crowd were several members of his family, whom Albert
wrote he was surprised to see, since observant Jews do not ride
or work their horses on the Sabbath, and so they had walked several
miles into town to bid him adieu.

Atrocities
Committed by the North

One cannot
help but respect the dignity and gentlemanly policies of Lee and
Moses, and the courage of the greatly outnumbered, out-supplied,
but rarely outfought Confederate soldiers. In stark contrast and
in violation of the then-prevailing rules of warfare, the troops
of Union generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan burned and looted
homes, farms, courthouses, libraries, businesses, and entire cities
full of defenseless civilians (including my hometown of Atlanta)
as part of official Union policy not only to defeat but to utterly
destroy the South.

And before,
during, and after the War, this Union army (led by many of the
same generals, including Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Custer)
used the same and even worse tactics to massacre Native Americans
in what we euphemistically call "The Indian Wars." It would be
more accurate to call it a mass murder -- a virtual genocide --
of Native Americans, including helpless old men, women, and children
in their villages.

The eradication
of the Plains Indians from1865 through 1866, for example, was
carried out to seize land for the western railroads. So the Union
army was hardly the forerunner of the civil rights movement, as
many would have us believe.

Why We
Revere Our Ancestors

The valor
of the Jewish Confederates and the other Southern soldiers, and
the blatant anti-Semitism so prevalent in the North, form a nearly
forgotten chapter of American history. Now it is seemingly an
embarrassment to many Jewish historians, and hardly Politically
Correct in this day of constantly reiterated demonization of the
Confederacy, and worshipful reverence for Lincoln, his brutal
generals, and his oppressive government.

But the anniversary
of Grant's little-remembered Nazi-like decree and his other atrocities
should serve to remind us what the brave and beleaguered Southern
soldiers and civilians were up against. Perhaps it will help people
understand why native Southerners, including many Jewish families,
revere their ancestors' courage, and still take much pride in
this heritage.

November
17, 2006

Lewis
Regenstein [send him
mail], a native Atlantan, is a writer and author. This article
originally appeared in the Jewish Press of New York City.

Before I
begin I'd like to emphasize that while I am very proud of my ancestors,
Iu2018m not bragging about anything. I can claim no personal distinction
for their heroism, which reflects what was common among the hopelessly
outnumbered, outsupplied but not outfought Confederate troops,
something in which we all take much pride.

Our ancestors
often ran low on food, ammunition, and other supplies, but never
on courage.

I write
and talk about all this because I am proud of our heritage and
committed to helping keep its memory alive and honored, amidst
the ongoing campaign to rewrite history and discredit the valor
and honor of the Confederate soldiers and their Cause. I know
that no one here today needs educating on this issue.

It's been
141 years since General Sherman burned Columbia, South Carolina
and sent a battle-hardened military unit towards nearby Sumter,
presumably to do the same. My then 16-year-old great grandfather,
Andrew Jackson Moses, rode out to defend his hometown, along with
some other teenagers, invalids, old men, and the disabled and
wounded from the local hospital.

Jack kept
running away from school to join the Confederate army, so they
finally let him join up and act as a courier on horseback. His
final mission was as hopeless as it was valiant, but the rag-tag
group of volunteers did manage to hold off the experienced "Potter's
Raiders" for over an hour before being overwhelmed by a vastly
superior force.

Shortly after
this engagement, Jack's eldest brother, Joshua Lazarus Moses,
was killed in the War's last big engagement. Josh had been in
the thick of the shooting when Fort Sumter was attacked at the
beginning of the War, and was wounded in the war's first major
battle (First Manassas or Bull Run). He was killed at Fort Blakeley,
Alabama, commanding the last guns firing in defense of Mobile.
Josh was shot down a few hours after Lee surrendered, his unit
outnumbered 12 to l, in a battle in which one brother was wounded
and another captured.

I am proud
to be a member of the Dixon-Lee-Moses SCV Camp in Mobile, named
in part after Josh.

The fifth
Moses bother, Isaac Harby Moses, who began the War as a Citadel
cadet, was fighting with Wade Hampton's cavalry, commanding his
company since all of the officers had been killed or wounded.
His Mother wrote very proudly that after the Battle of Bentonville,
North Carolina, he rode home from the War, never having surrendered
to anyone.

The five
Moses brothers were among the 3,000 or so Jewish Confederates,
part of an amazingly diverse army that also included Native Americans,
Hispanics, Scotch, Irish, Germans, Italians, even Blacks, all
fighting for a common purpose, to throw back the invasion from
the North.

These Confederates
showed incredible courage and valor in fighting not for slavery,
as is so often said, but for their country, their families, and
to save their own lives.

Indeed, slavery
and other political issues were probably the furthest thing from
their minds as they fought desperately against an invading army
that was trying, with great success, to kill them, burn their
homes, and destroy their society.

Yet, those
of us who take pride in our ancestors' bravery are constantly
portrayed in the press as ignorant and intolerant bigots, vilified
as defenders of slavery, and derided as living in a past that
never really existed.

I know this
first hand, because when the battle over Georgia's flag was raging
a few years ago, I wrote for the Atlanta Journal Constitution
a mild mannered article trying to explain why so many Georgians
take pride in their ancestors and the symbols & flags they
fought under.

I tried to
explain that we revere our ancestors because, against overwhelming
odds, they fought on, often hungry, cold, sick, wounded, or shoeless
to protect their homeland from an often cruel invader.

In response,
the newspaper published two letters to the editor:

One said
that my statements "were reminiscent of neo-Nazi apologists
denying the Holocaust." The other letter accused me of defending
slavery and "a treasonous movement" called the Confederacy.

My then 84-year-old
Mother asked me, "please wait until I die before you write
any more articles."

But none
of these things should be surprising… In a society where any form
of filth or pornography or violence is acceptable in movies and
TV, but any public mention of religion is almost unheard of and
the public display of it largely outlawed.

The amazing
thing is that the Atlanta newspapers published my article at all,
something for which I'll always be grateful.

Here in Gainesville,
not far from the home of General James Longstreet, under whom
my ancestor Major Raphael Jacob Moses served as chief commissary
officer, is a good place to talk about how that War really was
fought.

Major Moses
is known as "the father of Georgia's peach industry,"
and is most famous for having attended the Confederate Government's
last meeting, and carrying out its Last Order.

As General
James Longstreet’s chief commissary officer, Major Moses participated
in many of the major battles in the East, and was responsible
for supplying and feeding an army of up to 54,000 troops, including
porters and other non-combatants.

General
Lee had forbidden him from entering private homes in search of
supplies in raids into Union territory (such as the incursions
into Pennsylvania), even when food and other provisions were in
painfully short supply, and his soldiers were suffering greatly
from this lack of supplies.

Often while
seizing supplies, Moses encountered considerable hostility and
abuse from the local women, which he always endured in good humor,
and it became a source of much teasing from his fellow officers.

Moses always
acted honorably, compassionately, and as a gentleman. Once, when
a distraught woman approached Moses and pleaded for the return
of her pet heifer that had been caught up in a cattle seizure,
he graciously gave the cow back to her.

[Moses' three
sons also fought for the South, and one was killed at Seven Pines
in May, 1862 after performing acts of amazing valor -- Lt. Albert
Moses Luria, at age 19, the first Jewish Confederate to fall in
battle. His first cousin, Josh Moses, killed at mobile, was the
last.]

The contrast
is striking between the humane Confederate policies and those
of the North, wherein Union generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan
regularly burned and looted homes, farms, courthouses, churches,
libraries, and entire cities full of civilians, such as Atlanta
and Columbia, South Carolina, and most everything of value in
between. Some typical Union actions included:

• Ordering
  the destruction of an entire agricultural area to deny the enemy
  support (the Shenandoah Valley, 5 August, 1864).

• Overseeing
  the complete destruction of defenseless Southern cities, and
  conducting such warfare against unarmed women and children (e.g.,
  the razing of Meridien, and other cities in Mississippi, spring,
  1863).

And, most
terrible of all, was the mass murder, a virtual genocide, of Native
People, such as the Plains Indians in 1865–66. The victims
were mainly helpless old men, women, and children in their villages,
eliminated to make land available for the western railroads

What the
famous Civil War author and television producer, that little twerp
Ken Burns, and other eminent historians euphemistically call “the
Indian Wars,” was carried out by many of the same Union officers
who led the war against the South — Sherman, Grant, Sheridan,
Custer, and other leading commanders.

Some of the
most impressive stories of the War concern the role of Southern
women in these perilous and trying times.

One of my
ancestors of whom I'm most proud is my great great grandmother,
Octavia Harby Moses, who was a leader in Sumter, S.C. in supporting
the troops from the homefront, and I think she typifies many of
the Southern women who did so much to help the war effort.

Octavia lost
her Mother at age four, and married Andrew Jackson Moses, Sr.,
at age 16, bearing 17 children (three of whom died in infancy),
and outliving most of them. She was very active on the Homefront
in support of the Confederacy. As she put it, "When the War
broke out, …like every other Southern woman, I immediately began
work for the soldiers":

I organized
a sewing society, to cut and make garments for them. Many boxes
of clothes and provisions were sent off, not only to my own
sons, but to any others who needed them. I made it a point to
try and meet every train that brought soldiers through our town,
and, with others, frequently walked from my home, sometimes
at two o'clock in the morning, to take food to our men as they
passed through. We always greeted them with the wildest enthusiasm,
and no thought of defeat ever entered our minds.

During
all this time, I was working unceasingly for our soldiers —
getting up entertainments [meetings] to furnish means and, like
other women, I cut up my carpets and piano cover for them, sent
them blankets, etc… Whenever the boys were fortunate enough
to get home on short furloughs, they were the guests of the
town — everybody feted them and nothing was too much to do in
their honor.

Octavia's
daughter Rebecca adds that "For our own soldiers, she felt
that nothing she could do would be too much — they deserved all
that was possible":

With young
children clustering round her knees, with her home filled with
aged and helpless relatives who had refugeed there from Charleston
and other points, she yet found time to work unceasingly for
"the men behind the guns."

Octavia stressed
that, considering the widespread suffering so prevalent throughout
the South, she did not consider her sacrifices to be a hardship,
writing that "I have always said that I knew no privations
during the War."

"The
History of Sumter County" related how "The women of
Stateburg and Sumter formed themselves into the Soldier's Relief
Associations…":

They knitted
socks, ravelled lint for dressing wounds, rolled bandages, and
sent boxes of supplies to the larger centers of Charleston and
Columbia…At the depot in Sumter, the ladies set up a long table
beside the tracks, where in fair weather, hot food was served
to soldiers on the crowded troop trains passing through. In
bad weather, they used the dining-room of the Rev Noah Graham's
hotel. Later in the war, when hurrying soldiers did not have
time to stop, the ladies handed out packaged lunches, while
their little daughters filled the canteens with fresh water.
Even in the small hours after midnight, Mrs. Octavia Moses and
other devoted women would walk to the depot, taking food for
the soldiers.

With provisions
in short supply, "the busy women of Sumter," doing all
they could to support the war effort, "stitched by hand the
garments for their families as well as for the soldiers. They
made imitation coffee from okra seeds and parched peanuts, and
dim, evil-smelling candles from tallow and myrtle berries. They
devised hats from corn shucks, and new dresses from old window
curtains. They sent their silver to the Confederate government,
the church bells to the foundries to be cast into cannon, and
cut their carpets into blankets for the soldiers. They held fairs
and bazaars to raise money for the various war activities."

When hospitals
were established in Sumter, Octavia writes, "Our ladies,
of course, took immediate charge, and the soldiers were fed and
nursed with all the means of our command, and all the tenderness
of Southern women."

She also
showed compassion for the Union troops who had been taken prisoner:
"When I heard that the Northern prisoners would be brought
through our town and that they were nearly in a starving condition,
I immediately exerted myself to obtain a large quantity of provisions…to
give to them…"

After the
war, she devoted her life to memorializing “The Lost Cause,” and
in 1869 was elected president of the “Ladies Monumental Association."
Succeeding her in her crusade was her eldest daughter Rebecca,
who wrote that "Daughters and grand daughters were all taught
by her that this was a sacred duty."

In 1903,
at the age of 80, Octavia wrote a summary of her memoirs, describing
the family’s experiences during the war, concluding with the paragraph,
“the rest of the miserable story, through the days of Reconstruction,
need not be told. We suffered, as others did, and endured as best
we could.”

How can you
not take pride in people like that!

And how can
we not undertake the "sacred duty" to continue to speak
of our ancestors' sacrifices and valor?

And, you
know, Southerners have not changed much since then, especially
the women, who can still be as tough or tender as the situation
requires. They are amazing creatures.

I am very
proud to be a Southerner. I have great pride in our famous culture
of good manners, courtesy, patriotism, and especially our warm
hospitality. Stubbornness may also be part of that culture. And
if you're gonna be in this movement, you gotta be pretty stubborn.

We have many
colorful characters — perhaps an overabundance – we may even
have a few here today. And there are countless famous writers,
soldiers, and political leaders who could only have come out of
the South.

So what if
a lot of us think Elvis is still alive and spot him at 7/11's
from time to time?

But the South
is changing, not always for the better. And I give thanks that
there are a few Atlanta restaurants left, besides the Waffle House,
that still serve grits. And that there are people like you all
who will not let our ancestors be slandered or forgotten.

So as Faulkner
said of the South, the past is not dead, sometimes it's not even
past.

Yes, we are
stubborn, and so we will never give up on honoring our ancestors,
remembering their valor, recognizing their sacrifices, defending
our heritage, and insisting that The Truth be known.

It may have
been a Lost Cause, but it was an honorable one, and no matter
how hard and frustrating it is, we must never let that be forgotten.

Thank you
for all you all are doing to keep the flames of truth alive, and
for allowing me the honor of being with you today.

June
19, 2006

Lewis
Regenstein [send him
mail], a Native Atlantan, is descended on his Mother's side
from the Moses family of Georgia and South Carolina, whose patriarch,
Myer Moses, participated in the American Revolution. Almost three
dozen members of the extended family fought for the Confederacy,
and participated in most of the major battles and campaigns of the
War. A score of them, largely teenagers, died in defense of their
homeland, and included the first and last Confederate Jews to fall
in battle.

To the editor:

Peter
Kalajian’s article comparing the Confederacy to Nazi Germany
and its battle flag to the swastika is highly offensive, especially
to those of us who are Jewish, & shows he knows little about
either the Confederacy or the Nazis.

Some 3,500
to 5,000 Jews fought honorably and loyally for the Confederacy,
including its Secretary of War & later State, Judah Benjamin
(“See Robert Rosen’s The
Jewish Confederates and Mel Young’s Last
Order of the Lost Cause). My great grandfather also served,
as did his four brothers, their uncle, his three sons, and some
two-dozen other members of my Mother’s extended family (The Moses'
of South Carolina and Georgia). Half a dozen of them fell in battle,
largely teenagers, including the first and last Confederate Jews
to die in battle.

We
know first hand, from their letters, diaries, and memoirs, that
they were not fighting for slavery, but rather to defend themselves
and their comrades, their families, homes, and country from an
invading army that was trying to kill them, burn their homes and
cities, and destroy everything they had.

If you want
to talk about Nazi-like behavior, consider the actions of the
leading Union commander, General Ulysses S. Grant, whose war crimes
included the following actions:

• Ordering
  the expulsion on 24 hours notice of all Jews "as a class"
  from the territory under his control (General Order # 11, 17
  December, 1862), and forbidding Jews to travel on trains (November,
  1862);
• Ordering
  the destruction of an entire agricultural area to deny the enemy
  support (the Shenandoah Valley, 5 August, 1864).
• Leading
  the mass murder, a virtual genocide, of Native People, mainly
  helpless old men, women, and children in their villages, to
  make land available for the western railroads (the eradication
  of the Plains Indians, 1865–66). What we euphemistically
  call “the Indian Wars” was carried out by many of the same Union
  officers who led the war against the South – Sherman, Grant,
  Sheridan, Custer, and other leading commanders.
• Overseeing
  the complete destruction of defenseless Southern cities, and
  conducting such warfare against unarmed women and children (e.g.,
  the razing of Meridien, and other cities in Mississippi, spring,
  1863).

Contrast
these well-documented atrocities (and many others too numerous
to list) with the gentlemanly policies and behavior of the Confederate
forces. My ancestor Major Raphael Moses, General James Longstreet's
chief commissary officer, was forbidden by General Robert E. Lee
from even entering private homes in their raids into the North,
such as the famous incursion into Pennsylvania. Moses was forced
to obtain his supplies from businesses and farms, and he always
paid for what he requisitioned, albeit in Confederate tender.

Moses always
endured in good humor the harsh verbal abuse he received from
the local women, who, he noted, always insisted on receiving in
the end the exact amount owed.

Moses and
his Confederate colleagues never engaged in the type of warfare
waged by the Union forces, especially that of General William
T. Sherman on his infamous “March to the Sea” through Georgia
and the Carolinas, in which his troops routinely burned, looted,
and destroyed libraries, courthouses, churches, homes, and cities
full of defenseless civilians, including my hometown of Atlanta.

It was not
the South but rather our enemies that engaged in genocide. While
our ancestors may have lost the War, they never lost their honor,
or engaged in anything that could justify their being compared
to Nazi's. It was the other side that did that.

Sincerely
yours,
Lewis Regenstein
Atlanta, GA

October
15, 2004

Lewis
Regenstein [send him
mail], a Native Atlantan, is a writer and author.

Dear CNS News:

Julian Bond’s comparison of the Confederate flag or symbol to the swastika is highly offensive, especially to those of us who are Jewish, and shows he knows little about either the Confederacy or the Nazis.

Some 3,500 to 5,000 Jews fought honorably and loyally for the Confederacy, including its Secretary of War and later State, Judah Benjamin. My great grandfather also served, as did his four brothers, their uncle, his three sons, and some two dozen other members of my Mother’s extended family (the Moses' of South Carolina and Georgia). Half a dozen of them fell in battle, largely teenagers, including the first and last Confederate Jews to die in battle.

We know first hand, from their letters, diaries, and memoirs, that they were not fighting for slavery or bigotry, but rather to defend themselves and their comrades, their families, homes, and country from an invading army that was trying to kill them, burn their homes and cities, and destroy everything they had.

It was a Union General, Ulysses.S. Grant, who issued the infamous General Order # 11 expelling all Jews “as a class” from his conquered territories. It was this same Union Army (led by many of the same Civil War generals) that engaged in virtual genocide against the Native Americans in what we euphemistically call “the Indian Wars,” often massacring harmless, defenseless old men, women, and children in their villages.

It was not the South but rather our enemies that engaged in genocide. While our ancestors may have lost the War, they never lost their honor, or engaged in anything that could justify their being compared to Nazis. It was the other side that did that.

Sincerely yours, Lewis Regenstein Atlanta, Georgia

Lewis Regenstein [send him mail], a Native Atlantan, is a writer and author.

Your
"Political
Points" article in the 23 May Sunday New York Times,
reports that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is reading Grant,
the biography of the Civil War general, Ulysses S. Grant, as a
morale booster.

But if
Rumsfeld is going to adopt Grant as a role model or source of
inspiration, he (and you) should be aware that Grant's policies
and actions included the following:

• Ordering
  the expulsion on 24 hours notice of all Jews "as a class"
  from the territory under his control (General Order # 11, 17
  December, 1862), and forbidding Jews to travel on trains (November,
  1862);
• Ordering
  the destruction of an entire agricultural area to deny the enemy
  support (the Shenandoah Valley, 5 August, 1864).
• Leading
  the mass murder, a virtual genocide, of Native People, mainly
  helpless old men, women, and children in their villages, to
  make land available for the western railroads (the eradication
  of the Plains Indians, 1865–66).
• Overseeing
  the complete destruction of defenseless Southern cities, and
  conducting such warfare against unarmed women and children (e.g.,
  the razing of Meridien, and other cities in Mississippi, spring,
  1863).

Contrast
these well documented atrocities (and many others too numerous
to list) with the gentlemanly policies and behavior of the Confederate
forces. My ancestor Major Raphael Moses, General James Longstreet's
chief commissary officer, was forbidden by General Robert E. Lee
from even entering private homes in their raids into the North,
such as the famous incursion into Pennsylvania. Moses was forced
to obtain his supplies from businesses and farms, and he always
paid for what he requisitioned, albeit in Confederate tender.

Moses
always endured in good humor the harsh verbal abuse he received
from the local women, who, he noted, always insisted on receiving
in the end the exact amount owed.

Moses
and his Confederate colleagues never engaged in the type of warfare
waged by the Union forces, who routinely burned, looted, and destroyed
libraries, courthouses, churches, homes, and cities full of defenseless
civilians, including my hometown of Atlanta. My ancestors may
have lost the war, but they never lost their honor.

Perhaps
Rumsfeld should be reading the memoirs of General Lee or Major
Moses, instead of the bio of a war criminal like General Grant.

Sincerely
yours,
Lewis
Regenstein
Atlanta,
Georgia

May
27, 2004

Lewis
Regenstein [send him
mail], a Native Atlantan, is a writer and author.

1. Be Humane
   to civilians. After shelling cities, but before burning them,
   try to give the surviving women & children time to escape
   if this does not interfere with your schedule of advance.
   Allow them to take their most treasured possessions; this
   will facilitate subsequent requisitioning of valuables.

2. Do not
   be overly hasty in burning the homes of enemy civilians. Try
   to take time to first remove the silver, gold, jewelry and
   other transportable booty of war.

3. Any
   officer who permits or commits atrocities against civilians
   can expect to have his promotion to general held up until
   after his court martial is completed.

4. Show
   compassion when occupying enemy cities. When raping women,
   separate them from their children first; never rape a woman
   and her daughter in the same room.

5. If you
   have to shoot a father or husband trying to protect a woman
   with whom you are forcibly having sexual relations, try to
   refrain from openly laughing about it in her presence, as
   this might cause additional and unnecessary stress. However,
   afterwards, as a morale booster, you may want to prop up the
   dead body in a comical position for the amusement of your
   comrades.

6. Be kind
   to animals. Shooting enemy livestock, horses, & pets between
   the eyes provides the quickest & most humane death, unless
   you are short on ammunition. If you nail a pet dog to a family’s
   front door, first make sure the beast is dead, or at least
   dying. This display of a beloved pet could be considered gruesome
   by sensitive individuals, and may result in temporarily upsetting
   enemy civilians. But remember the importance of boosting the
   morale of your troops through whatever spontaneous recreational
   opportunities may arise.

7. Restrictions
   on the shooting of civilians and on firing indiscriminately
   into crowds of rowdy people do not apply to draft riots and
   other civil disturbances in cities in the United States of
   America, especially if they involve newly-arrived immigrants.

8. Reassure
   your religiously and morally observant soldiers not to be
   dismayed by the utter destruction we are inflicting on the
   South and its civilian population. After the War, we will
   institute a major "Reconstruction" program.

POLICY
ON INDIANS

9. If you
   have men under your command who are especially skilled at
   and delight in openly and wantonly killing women & children,
   immediately have them transferred to the West, where they
   are needed in our war against the Indians.

10. There
    are extra opportunities available for troops who have excelled
    at warfare against civilians and who are desirous of engaging
    in post-War genocide in the cause of Freedom and Union. They
    may be eligible to apply to generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan,
    or Custer for extensions of their tours of duty and eventual
    transfer to the Western Theater's Indian Wars, which these
    officers will be leading. Experience in killing helpless women
    and children preferred.

11. By using
    Colored Troops ("Buffalo Soldiers"), whenever possible,
    to wipe out the Indians, you can accomplish your objectives
    while avoiding the appearance of "racism" and "imperialism."

RESTRICTIONS
ON LOOTING

12. Anyone
    observing a Union soldier engaging secretly in the looting
    of valuables shall report to his superior officer the name
    and unit of the perpetrator and the types and number of valuables
    being taken. This will allow a proper distribution and sharing
    of the goods that are appropriated.

13. Be ethical
    when appropriating silver & other valuables from homes.
    Try to minimize the anguish of the family involved. For example,
    if silver service is being requisitioned, promise to return
    it after it is used for that evening's meal. Remember to treat
    these valuables with care and respect, and that they must
    be shared with your commander and other officers.

14. Do not
    requisition or remove hard-to-transport valuables such as
    paintings, books, historical documents, family Bibles, furniture,
    or large antiques. These categories are generally not to be
    looted, but should be burned instead. In the case of bales
    of cotton, check with your quartermaster.

TREATMENT
OF PRISONERS

15. Treat
    your Confederate POW's with respect. After they surrender,
    shooting just a few prisners should suffice to intimidate
    the rest. It may not be necessary, in most circumstances,
    to shoot them all, even though they are guilty of the capital
    offense of treason. Such restraint will also aid in the conservation
    of ammunition.

16. POW's
    can be useful in maintaining the morale of your troops under
    difficult circumstances. Be creative in utilizing such entertainment
    for your men. Consider the fact that a large number of your
    Rebel POW's will be hungry, shoeless, and in tattered uniforms,
    and many will be young boys and old men. Calling attention
    to the plight of the Rebels in a scornful and derisive manner
    can elevate the self-esteem of your men. This may also provide
    important recreational opportunities for your troops, such
    as engaging in humiliation and derision of your prisoners
    and their quaint devotion to "honor" and u2018country."

17. Every
    prison administrator and guard should familiarize himself
    with and closely adhere to the rules governing the care and
    treatment of POW's, which should meet or exceed "Point
    Lookout" standards. For example, it is strictly required
    that one blanket be issued for every sixteen prisoners. No
    more than forty prisoners may be placed in Sibley tents designed
    to hold 16 men.

18. It is
    our duty to ensure that prisoner deaths from starvation, malnutrition,
    disease, and shootings not exceed 25%, and incidences of diarrhea
    and malaria be held to under 50%. If the prison is located
    on a swamp or shoreline, be alert for possibilities to supplement
    prisoners' diet with dead seagulls and rotting fish on the
    beach. And while infestations of lice and rodents may be considered
    by some to be a nuisance, it can also be an important source
    of protein when other nourishment is scarce or unavailable.
    .

19. Proceeds
    from the sale of food and clothing diverted from POW's must
    be properly accounted for and shared with superior officers.

20. Keep
    in mind that the high incidence of malnutrition and disease
    among POW's, while regrettable in some respects, serves to
    weaken the prisoners, lessen the chances of escape, and ultimately
    mean fewer mouths to feed.

21. The
    aforementioned rules on POW's do not apply to The Indian Wars,
    as we do not take Indians prisoner. Policy in this regard
    is governed by General Philip Sheridan's dictum, "A good
    Indian is a dead Indian."

MILITARY
TACTICS

22. When
    burning cities, libraries, courthouses, hospitals, churches,
    and other such institutions and structures in the South, always
    blame retreating Confederates.

23. Do not
    worry that burning crops & farms will deny food to Union
    POW’s held by the South; starving Union prisoners will provide
    us with good propaganda, and after the War, an excuse for
    war crimes trials. .

24. Do not
    be too eager to attack the enemy; remember that our manpower
    reserves are virtually unlimited. Wait for your reinforcements
    & until you outnumber the enemy 5 to 1, or even better,
    10 to 1. Consider having your units of Colored Troops lead
    the charge and take most of the casualties.

25. When
    shooting retreating US Colored Troops, try to place the blame
    on the Confederates for such "massacres."

POLICY
ON SLAVES AND SLAVERY

26. If you
    or some of your men, or your families, own slaves, do not
    be concerned about The Emancipation Proclamation, it does
    not apply to you, only to the States in Rebellion.

27. If your
    unit is being followed and bothered by liberated slaves, the
    best way to get rid of this nuisance is to cross a river and
    burn the bridge. Do not delay your advance by trying to save
    freed slaves who appear to be drowning while trying to cross
    the river. They may just be exuberantly enjoying a dip in
    the water. In any event, our mission is to free the Southern
    slaves, not feed and take care of them.

28. Do not
    worry about the temporary state of lawlessness and chaos among
    freed slaves. President Lincoln has promised to send most
    of them back to Africa ("Colonization": "Send
    them to Liberia, their own native land"), and has assured
    that those who remain will never be treated as the equal of
    Whites.

29. The
    lynching of uncooperative freed slaves is discouraged when
    done openly, except when helpful to morale or to set an example
    for others, or when a slave refuses to leave his home and
    remains loyal to his or her former owners.

30. In order
    to expedite our War being fought for Human Rights and against
    the oppression of the Negro, all military units are to be
    kept strictly segregated, and salaries for U.S. Colored Troops
    are to be calculated at approximately 50% those of whites.

MAINTAINING
MORALE OF THE TROOPS

31. Orders
    to "Live off the land" when conducting operations
    in enemy territory shall be liberally interpreted, as a virtually
    unlimited right to loot, pillage, burn, rape, and destroy.

32. Always
    remember, we are fighting for freedom and liberty. That is
    why it is necessary to close any Northern newspaper and jail
    anyone that opposes our cause; to shoot antiwar demonstrators
    in New York; to starve and burn the cities of enemy civilians;
    to expel "Jews as a class" from conquered territories;
    and to extirpate the Native Americans from their homelands.

33. Troop
    morale can often be improved by permitting limited and appropriate
    interaction with Rebel POW's. This can also benefit the prisoners
    by providing opportunities for exercise and play. Some recommended
    activities (which have been successfully employed at Point
    Lookout) include: having prisoners kneel and pray for President
    Lincoln, and carry prison guards around on their backs. However,
    care must be observed in such interactions as many if not
    most prisoners suffer from diarrhea, typhoid fever, malaria,
    and other diseases.

34. In some
    cases, it has been found that shooting prisoners randomly
    at night while they sleep has effectively raised morale among
    guards while providing increased discipline among the POW's.

35. Since
    our troops have been indoctrinated with the view that the
    enemy consists of evil racists and traitors fighting for slavery
    , be prepared for your men to become confused when they encounter
    among enemy soldiers large numbers of Native Americans, Jews,
    Hispanics, Asians, poor Irish and Italian immigrants, even
    black Confederates, and almost no owners of slaves –
    all of whom think they are fighting against an invasion from
    the North.

36. Respond
    to inquiries from your troops who wonder what they are doing
    in the South by repeatedly emphasizing that "the War
    is being fought to end slavery and free the slaves."
    If asked about the slaves owned by General Grant and other
    Northerners, deny they exist.

37. It is
    strictly forbidden to call The Commander in Chief, even jokingly,
    a "tyrant," a "dictator,' a "warmonger,"
    "mentally ill," or more commonly, "an ape."
    President Lincoln is rather to be referred to as "The
    Great Emancipator," "The Great Conciliator,"
    or in other such laudatory terms. He is unaware of and not
    responsible for any atrocities that have occurred (such as
    the burning of cities), even if he ordered them.

38. President
    Lincoln is to be portrayed in all writings as "wise",
    "kind," "compassionate," "a healer,"
    and pictured whenever possible with his arm around his young
    son, Tad. Southern leaders, including Robert E. Lee, are to
    be described as cruel and evil, and fighting to defend not
    their homeland but slavery, even if they oppose the institution.

IN CONCLUSION

To summarize,
the honor of the Union soldier and the vindication of our cause,
as reflected in this Code of Conduct, are of paramount concern
in our waging of this War. It is therefore of the utmost importance
that the story of this conflict be properly and accurately recorded.

That is why
any erroneous accounts – those that contradict our version of
events – should be eliminated or discredited, through the burning
or other destruction of cities, libraries, homes, courthouses,
and any other Confederate repositories of historical documents
and records.

History,
as we write it, will be our judge.

The Truth
— as we tell it — shall prevail.

July
12, 2003

Lewis
Regenstein [send him
mail], a Native Atlantan, is a writer and author.

The controversy over the Confederate battle flag and what it symbolizes continues to rage. But it is rarely if ever explained why many decent people of good will are so proud of their Confederate ancestry.

Basically, it is because our ancestors showed amazing courage, honor, and valor, enduring incredible hardships, against overwhelming and often hopeless odds, in fighting, for their homeland — not for slavery, as is so often said, but for their families, homes, and country.

Put simply, most Confederate soldiers felt they were fighting because an invading army from the North was trying to kill them, burn their homes, and destroy their cities. And anyone with family who fought to defend the South, as mine did, cannot help but appreciate the dire circumstances our ancestors encountered.

Near the end of the War Between the States, my great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Moses, who ran away from school to become a Confederate scout, at 16 rode out to defend his hometown of Sumter, South Carolina, as part of a hastily formed local militia. Approaching rapidly was a unit of Sherman’s army, which had just burned Columbia and most everything else in its path, and Sumter expected similar treatment.

Along with a few other teenagers, old men, invalids, and wounded from the local hospital, Sumter's rag-tag defenders amazingly were able to hold off these battle-seasoned veterans, Potter's Raiders, for an hour-and-a-half, at the cost of several lives. (Jack got away with a price on his head, and Sumter was not burned after all. But some buildings were, and there were documented instances of murder, rape, and arson by the Yankees, including the torching of our family's 196 bales of cotton.)

Meanwhile, Jack’s eldest brother, Lt. Joshua Lazarus Moses, who was wounded in the War's first real battle, First Manassas (Bull Run), was defending Mobile in the last major battle of the War. His forces being outnumbered 12 to one, Josh was commanding an artillery battalion that, before being overrun, fired the last shots in defense of Mobile. Refusing to lay down his arms, he was killed on the day Lee surrendered, in a battle, Fort Blakely, in which one of his brothers, Perry, was wounded, and another brother, Horace, captured while laying land mines.

The fifth bother, Isaac Harby Moses, having served with distinction in combat in Wade Hampton’s cavalry, rode home from North Carolina after the Battle of Bentonville where he commanded his company, all of the officers having been killed or wounded. He never surrendered to anyone, his Mother proudly observed in her memoirs. He was among those who fired the very first shots of the War, when his company of Citadel cadets opened up on the Union ship, Star of the West, which was attempting to resupply the besieged Fort Sumter in January, 1861, three months before the War officially began.

The Moses brothers' distinguished uncle, Major Raphael J. Moses, from Columbus, Georgia, was General James Longstreet’s chief commissary officer, and was responsible for supplying and feeding some 40,000 men. Their commander, General Robert E. Lee, had forbidden Moses from entering private homes in search of supplies in raids into Union territory, even when food and other provisions were in painfully short supply. And he always paid for what he did take from farms and businesses, albeit in Confederate tender, often enduring, in good humor, harsh verbal abuse from the local women.

Interestingly, he ended up carrying out the last order of the Confederacy, which was to deliver the last of the Confederate treasury, $40,000 in gold & silver bullion, to help feed and supply the defeated Confederate soldiers straggling home after the War — weary, hungry, often sick, shoeless and in tattered uniforms. With the help of a small group of determined armed guards, Moses successfully carried out the order from President Jefferson Davis, despite repeated attempts by mobs to forcibly take the bullion.

Major Moses’ three sons also served the Confederacy, one of whom, Albert Moses Luria, was killed at 19 after courageously throwing a live Union artillery shell out of his fortification before it exploded, thereby saving the lives of many of his compatriots.

One cannot help but respect the dignity and gentlemanly policies of Lee and Moses, and the courage of the greatly outnumbered, out-supplied but rarely outfought Confederate soldiers. In stark contrast, Union generals Sherman, Grant, and Sheridan and their troops burned and looted homes, farms, courthouses, libraries, businesses and entire cities full of only civilians (including Atlanta), as part of official Union policy to not only defeat but utterly destroy the South, in violation of the then-prevailing rules of warfare.

And before, during, and after the War, this same Union army (led by many of the same generals, including Sherman, Grant, and George Custer) used similar tactics, and worse, to massacre and nearly wipe out the Native Americans, in what we euphemistically call “The Indian Wars.” So the Union army was hardly the forerunner of the civil rights movement, as many would have us believe.

There are countless stories of valor by soldiers on both sides of this tragic conflict, and their descendants can take justifiable pride in this heritage. This is especially true of the brave and beleaguered Confederates who risked all and sacrificed much in the service of their country, against a formidable, implacable, and often cruel foe. A Lost Cause, yes, but an honorable one, which should not be forgotten.

Lewis Regenstein [send him mail], a Native Atlantan, is a writer and author.