" Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late. We can give but a faint idea when we say it means the loss of all we now hold most sacred ... personal property, lands, homesteads, liberty, justice, safety, pride, manhood. It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War, will be impressed by all influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit objects for their derision, it means the crushing of Southern manhood ... to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties." Gen. Pat Cleburne C.S.A. ... 2 Jan 1864
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Secession may have been wrong in the abstract, and has been tried and settled by the arbitrament of the sword and bayonet, but I am as firm in my convictions today of the right of secession as I was in 1861. The South is our country; the North is the country of those who live there. We are an agricultural people; they are a manufacturing people. They are the descendants of the good old Puritan Plymouth Rock stock, and we of the South from the proud and aristocratic stock of Cavaliers. We believe in the doctrine of State rights, they in the doctrine of centralization.
Private Sam R. Watkins First Tennessee Regiment, Company H, Confederate Army
· THE SECOND TEXAS INFANTRY, BAYLAND GUARDS
· LETTERS OF F.M. "FRANK" FITZGERALD, JR. 2nd TEXAS CO. C
· BAYLAND ORPHAN'S HOME FOR CHILDREN OF CONFEDERATE VERTERANS
· JOHN BELL HOOD'S FIFTH TEXAS COMPANY F
· LETTER OF JAMES TAYLOR BOOTH, 5TH TEXAS
· DeBRAY'S 26th CAVALRY TEXAS TROOPS COMPANY F
· TERRY'S TEXAS RANGERS 8TH TEXAS CAVALRY K
· LETTER WRITTEN BY ROBERT LEANDER DUNMAN, TERRY'S TX RANGERS
· GIBSON CLAY DAVIS - MOSBY'S RANGERS
· WILLIAM McNEIR - J.E.B. STUART
· CHAMBERS COUNTY CONFEDERATE PENSIONS
· CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS INDEX
I Am The South. I am millions of living souls, and ghosts of thousands who died for me. I am the Farmer-made soldier who did not turn his back during Pickett's Charge. I am the Rebel Yell that was heard across many of my rolling fields, protecting our homeland. I am Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson: I stood at Fort Sumter and fired the shot heard through our young nation. I am Longstreet, Hood and Patrick R. Cleburne. I am General's Johnson, Beauregard and President Jefferson Davis. I remember how we fought in Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, Vicksburg, and Atlanta. When duty called I answered and stayed until it was over. I left my heroic dead in Chickamauga, in the fields of Shiloh, on the bloody hills of Mannassas and the mountains of Kennesaw.
I Am The South. I am the Mississippi River, and the cotton fields of Alabama and the piney woods of the Carolinas and Texas. I am the coal fields of Virginia and Kentucky, the Florida coast and the Louisiana bayou. I am Richmond, the Capitol of the Confederacy. I am the forest, field, mountain, and rivers. I am the quiet villages and the cities that never sleep. I am the Heritage that's been forgotten, the dying memory of a way of life that is being still. You see me in the twilight and hear me in Dixie, as the past continues to fade away each year.
Yes, I Am The South, and these are the things I represent. I was conceived by force, and God willing, I'll spend the rest of my days remembering my birth. May I always possess the integrity and the courage, and the strength to keep my Heritage alive, to remain a Loyal Southerner and stand tall and proud to the rest of the world. Do not forget: who we are; what we are and where we came from.... This is my goal, my hope, my prayer.
(Written by Louise Weeks of Hampton, Georgia and modified for this page.)