July 4th Food for Thought: Confederates? Patriots?
From: siegels1@mindspring.com
Our chapter participates in many area parades, especially the July 4th parades. A question came up this year: “What do Confederates have to do with July 4th?”.
As a UDC member this caused me to think about the ‘traitor” label applied to Pres. Jefferson Davis, sadly even now including Gen. Lee, and thus by association all our Confederate ancestors.
Here are my observations:
* George Washington is on the Great Seal of the Confederacy,
* The 1st National Flag of the CSA was chosen by the Confederate Congress because of its resemblance to the 13 star flag used by Gen. George Washington and his Continental Army (attributed to Betsy Ross),
* Many of the Confederacy’s leaders were descendants of the founding fathers, one notable example Henry “Light-Horse” Lee, father of Robert E. Lee http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2452, but there are thousands of others,
* Southern Continental Veterans were instrumental in winning the war for Independence from King George, i.e. Yorktown (VA), King’s Mountain (SC),
* The Declaration of Independence was largely based on Virginia’s “Declaration of Rights”.
I’ve heard it said that it was the Northern states that swerved away from the path our founding fathers, the Patriots and founders of our Nation, laid out for us.
So, my takeaway: Independence Day IS OUR DAY!
Lunelle Siegel
