Confederate heritage group to host annual banquet
Group to honor Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee, ‘Stonewall’ Jackson
By Carlton Fletcher
carlton.fletcher@albanyherald.com
Monday, February 3, 2014
ALBANY — The annual 9th Brigade Sons of Confederate Veterans Lee-Jackson banquet, held to pay tribute to Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathon “Stonewall” Jackson, will be held Saturday at the Albany American Legion Post 30 hall.
Doors at the 2916 Gillionville Road venue will open at 4 p.m., and the Leesburg band A Joyful Noise will play Civil War-era and Southern gospel music starting at 5 p.m. A banquet catered by Southern Elegance will begin at 6 p.m., and Pastor John Weaver of Fitzgerald will deliver the keynote address following the meal.
“On Jan. 19 and 21, many of us remember the birthdays of Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathon ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, respectively,” Albany SCV Camp Commander James King said in a news release. “In honor of their memory, I raise atop my flagpole an infantry-sized Army of Northern Virginia battle flag as tribute to two great sons of the South.
“They were the epitome of leadership by example by which many of us pattern our lives. This includes presidents and pastors, along with folks of various walks of life, both here and abroad. (Lee’s and Jackson’s) lives and careers left a legacy of selfless devotion to duty and honor unmatched in western civilization. Their brilliant accomplishments on the battlefield were outshone in victory and defeat by the nobility of their moral wisdom and stainless integrity.”
Weaver, who has served as “chaplain-n-chief” of the SCV organization, has been preaching for more than four decades. He currently serves as pastor of Freedom Baptist Ministries in Fitzgerald and also brings weekly messages in Waycross and Live Oak, Fla. He has been a panelist at a number of Civil War-era roundtables nationally.
A Joyful Noise — bassist/keyboardist Martin Mosteller, guitarist Jimmy Wills, banjo/mandelin player Ed Eschmann, 12-string/banjo player Mike Hall and singers Lu Hall, Mary Price, Faye West and June Pierce — are regular performers at SCV events.
“All of the guys in the band are members of the organization, so we’re proud to be a part of events like the Lee-Jackson banquet and other important heritage group events during the year,” Mosteller said. “We play mostly Southern and country gospel, but back before we were very well-known we were invited to play at SCV events. We learned a number of the war-era songs just for those events.
“We don’t really write any new songs, but we do our own arrangements of the songs we perform. Lu Hall will generally come up with the lyrical arrangements, and I do most of the musical arrangement.”
Tickets for Saturday’s event are $20 for adults and $15 for anyone under age 21. Checks should be made payable to SCV Camp 141. Mail payments with contact information to camp adjutant-treasurer Bob Logan at 170 Midway St., Leesburg 31763. Additional information is available by contacting King at (229) 854-1944.
The event is open to the public, but those who are not SCV 9th Brigade (in Southwest Georgia) or local SCV and United Daughters of the Confederacy members are required to make advance reservations.
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