Sons of Mars, Camp 1632, Sons of Confederate Veterans

Confederate veterans attended the 1938 Gettysburg reunion. General S.S. Simmons 95 of Los Angeles, CA fought alongside the 8th VA. Cavalry is wielding a sword (left). J.S.L. Wright, 91, of Conway, Arkansas, served in the 14th North Carolina Cavalry (middle). James T. Flowers, 90, of Antonio, Texas, served in the "Wheeler's Georgia Cavalry" (right). An extremely rare original photograph from the Gettysburg Museum of History archives.

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Turner Ashby, the Black Knight of the Confederacy, martyred in the Cause of Southern Independence, this day, June 6th 1862 in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The justice of history does not permit his name to be forgotten.

“This gallant and brave officer has already won for himself a name that will ever be remembered with grateful pleasure by the people of the [Shenandoah] Valley of Virginia. He has probably done more active and dangerous and valuable service than any other man engaged in the war. From the time the first blow was struck up to this hour he has been one of the most resolute, active, and daring soldiers the Confederacy has had in her service. He has become a perfect terror to the invading foe, and his presence is hailed with joy by those whose homes are threatened by the despoiler. He is modest and unpretending, as he is chivalrous and brave. He sits quietly upon his horse, watching the foe with the eye of an eagle, and is always ready to come down upon him an occasion demands. He has annoyed and harassed the enemy at all points, and is constantly interposing every conceivable barrier to his advance. If there is a soldier in the service who deserves the earliest and highest promotion, that man is Col. Turner Ashby”
- The Rockingham Virginia Register, April 1862

Deo Vindice

Abraham Lincoln once asked General Winfield Scott this question: "Why is it that you were once able to take Mexico City in three months with five thousand men, and we have been unable to take Richmond with one hundred thousand men?"

"I will tell you," said General Scott. "The men who took us into Mexico City are the same men who are keeping us out of Richmond."

December 20, 1860 - South Carolina became the first state to secede from the union as all 169 delegates to a special convention in Charleston voted in favor of separation.

Ronnie Gibson became the newest member of The Sons of Mars Camp 1632, Laurel Hill, NC on Thursday, October 26, 2023. His ancestor he joined under was Private George Washington Bundy, 21st SC, who perished in Elmira Prison Camp.

The Sons of Mars Camp 1632 is pleased to welcome Jesse Benoist as the newest member! Pictured in both are (L-R) Gary Freeman, Camp Commander; Jesse Benoist; Michael Nobles, Adjutant.

Pay attention, class. Here's a history lesson they didn't teach you in school (unless you went to school WAY BACK YONDER).... Today in 1861, The Confederate States of America adopted 'The Stars and Bars' as its official flag. It would add on stars as states seceded and joined the Confederacy and would make two more major changes by the end of the war. Many people confuse the battle flag (St. Andrews Cross with 13 stars on a red background) with the 'Stars and Bars', mainly due to the media's ignorance of historical facts. The Salute to the Confederate Flag goes as follows: "I salute the Confederate Flag with affection, reverence and undying devotion to the cause for which it stands." Here ends our history lesson for today, boys and girls.

Happy Birthday, Gen. Lee (Jan 19, 1807 - Oct 12, 1870)
“Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret.”

Help support the Masonic Home For Children and our other charities!

It’s that time of year again! Your donation will go to not only to the Masonic Home For Children at Oxford, but also local charities including scholarships. Contact any member of Laurinburg Lodge #305 A.F. & A.M.

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Congratulations to Gary Odom on being the newest members of Camp 1632, Sons of Mars! Pictured left to right: Adjutant Michael Nobles, Gary Odom, Camp Commander Gary Freeman

Thursday, June 23, 2022, Sons of Mars Camp 1632 was treated to an evening with Richmond County’s own Isaac ‘David Crockett’ White. This young make really gets into character in his portrayal of the famous frontiersman, statesman and hero.

Reckon if they’z a settin’ the baccer yet.
Wonder if they’z a planted the beans.
Soon to be time to plant the cotton.
Hope that ole mule ain’t as mean.
Reckon Ma’s still goin’ to church on Sunday and Sister to the dance Sa’rdy night.
Sure hope Ma don’t catch her a reelin’, you see them Baptist sez dancin’ ain’t right.
Pa’s at home overseein’ the farm.
He’ll work ‘til there’s blood on his hands.
Me and my brothers is off to the war. Hear tell one’s a prisoner in Maryland.
Me, now I’ve seen ‘nough blood, bones and the like to last me the rest of my years.
Pa needs us boys back on the farm.
He’s tarred o’ seein’ Ma shed s’many tears.
Wish I was back there with all of mah kin. This here Chancellorsville’s so far away. Wisht I was back on the ole Black River, here this first week of May.
Ole Jackson’s a sight a ridin’ Lil Sorrell.
That Stonewall’s a mighty fine man.
He don’t like us fightin’ on Sunday, but when it’s tight, he’ll sure make a stand.
Sun’s a goin’ down, it’s gittin’ dark outside and there goes Gen’rl Jackson out agin.
We hear tell them Yankees is all in the woods. I’ve just got a bad feelin’ within.
I wish’t ole Stonewall wouldn’t ride out so late. I wish’t he’d tell me to go. Sure hope nuthin’ don’t happen to him Lord, what’d we do without.
Reckon now I’ll get me a little somethin’ t’ eat and write another letter to my kin. Get a mouthful of salt pork and beans…. Aw he’ll, they’z a shootin’ agin…..
Dedicated to Pvts Archibald Benjamin Rooks & William Henry Barnhill, Co. E 18th NC, my great grandfather and great great grandfather, respectively..

“Boy Hero of the Confederacy” Sam Davis was born on his family’s farm near Smyrna Tn. on October 6, 1842, A frail child, Davis grew up playing on the land around his home and learned the landscape of Middle Tennessee, knowledge that later aided his activities as a Confederate scout.
At age nineteen the quiet and refined Davis left home to attend the Military Academy in Nashville. Strict military life suited the idealistic Davis, and at the academy he made the acquaintance of Bushrod Rust Johnson, headmaster of the school and later a Confederate general.
When war fever swept the South, young Davis joined the “Rutherford Rifles,” a local militia group mustered into active service as Company I, First Tennessee Infantry. Davis followed his regiment to Cheat Mountain, in what is now West Virginia, and fought under the command of Robert E. Lee .
In 1862, after his initial enlistment, Davis returned home. That autumn, he joined a company of cavalry known as “Coleman’s Scouts,” commanded by Henry B. Shaw, one of Davis’s former teachers. Numbering around one hundred, the Coleman Scouts operated around Nashville, Franklin, Murfreesboro, and Columbia, gathering information about Yankee troop movements. Although considered spies by the Union army, the Scouts usually wore their uniforms and seldom used disguises ...
In the fall of 1863 Davis and five others were assigned to gather information about Federal forces in Tennessee. They spent much of their time learning the movements of General Granville Dodge’s division as it passed from northeast Mississippi through Middle Tennessee on its way to Chattanooga. Dodge ordered his men to wipe out the Scouts, if possible.
Moving behind enemy lines and risking capture, Davis returned home to Smyrna in early November 1863. After a brief visit with his family, he left to rejoin the Scouts. On November 19, 1863, while scouting near Pulaski, Davis accepted a letter written to the Provost Marshal of the Army of Tennessee and several newspapers from Captain Shaw to be delivered to army headquarters. The next day, Yankee soldiers captured Davis in Giles County, charged him with spying and carrying mails to persons in arms against the United States, and brought him before General Dodge.
Davis pleaded not guilty to charge of spying, but entered a guilty plea to the second charge. The court-martial appointed to try Davis found him guilty on both counts and sentenced him to be hanged ...
One week after his capture the sentence was carried out.
Standing before the noose, he was offered his freedom if he would reveal the name of the person who gave him the papers.
His answer, “I would rather die a thousand deaths than betray a friend or be false to duty,” which became a touchstone of the Confederacy in the postwar South.
Monuments to his bravery were erected on the grounds of the State Capitol and on the square in Pulaski. Later, in the 1920s, his family home in Smyrna became a historic house museum and a shrine to Davis, who is buried there in the family cemetery. Pulaski also has a small museum in his honor, dedicated in the 1960s, which stands near the spot of his hanging in the town’s Sam Davis Avenue historic district.

(Tennessee Encyclopedia)

"I have broken all ties that bind me to the (U.S.) Army, not suddenly, impulsively, but conscientiously and after due deliberation, I sacrifice more to my principles than any other officer in the Army can do. I would rather carry a musket in the cause of the South than be a Commander - in - chief under Mr. Lincoln.".. Edmund Kirby Smith ...

Smith was born n in St Augustine, Florida, on 16th May, 1824. He studied at the U.S. Military Academy .. was nicknamed "Seminole" at the academy, and upon his graduation from West Point, was sent to Mexico for the Mexican War. Here he served in the infantry and won two brevets ...
In 1855 he was transferred to the cavalry and served until he resigned as a major in the 2nd Cavalry in April of 1861.
During the time between the end of the Mexican War and his resignation, he had been teaching mathematics at West Point and was wounded in 1859 fighting Indians in Texas ...

On the outbreak of the War for Southern Independence Kirby Smith joined the Confederate Army and by June had reached the rank of brigadier general.
In July 1861, Lincoln sent Major General Irvin McDowell to invade Virginia and take Richmond, the new base for the Confederate States government.
On 21st July McDowell engaged the Confederate Army at Manassas. The Confederate troops led by Joseph E. Johnson, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, James Jeb Stuart, Jubal Early, Braxton Bragg and P.G.T. Beauregard, and Kirby Smith easily defeated the inexperienced Yankee Army.
Gen. Kirby Smith was briefly taken out of service to the Confederacy after receiving a bullet in the chest at the 1st Battle of Manassas.
Heralded as a hero and promoted to major general, Kirby Smith was not enthusiastic about his new assignment to a small western department ..Though presumably defending Chattanooga with Gen. Braxton Bragg during the summer of 1862 .. The eager 38 year old Kirby Smith had presumably made his own plans to enter Kentucky..
In his rout of Union troops in Richmond, KY, on August 30, 1862, Smith captured 4,000 soldiers, 10,000 arms, and a wagon train of much-needed supplies. His forces then moved freely to Lexington and Frankfort. As a result of his success in Kentucky, he was made a lieutenant general and in February 1863 given command of the Trans-Mississippi Department.
With Kentucky a success, General Smith was appointed to the rank of lieutenant general.
Early in 1863, he was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi, where he would remain for much of the war. Due to the Fed blockade and then capture of the Mississippi River, Smith was virtually cut off from Richmond and was forced to deal with matters of how to get food and supplies for his troops. Smith had to keep the blockade-running route to Mexico open. He also kept western Louisiana and Texas in Confederate hands through well-planned defensive campaigns.

In July, 1863 Grant captured Vicksburg. The western Confederacy was now completely isolated from the eastern Confederacy and the Yanker Army had total control of the Mississippi River. In the spring of 1864, Smith defeated Banks and then sent troops forward to defeat Steele's troops in Arkansas. Smith then attempted to send troops east of the Mississippi River, but this proved to be fruitless because of the Feds naval control of the river. Smith surrendered his army on May 26, 1865, the last major Rebel army to surrender...
Smith fled to Mexico and Cuba, but returned to the U.S. to become president of a telegraph company, then president of the Western Military Academy in Nashville, TN. He served as chancellor of the University of Nashville from 1870 to 1875 and then taught mathematics at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN until he died on March 28, 1893

On this date in 1861

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of North Carolina and the other States united with her, under the compact of government entitled "The Constitution of the United States."

We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the convention of 1789, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated.

We do further declare and ordain, That the union now subsisting between the State of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

Done in convention at the city of Raleigh, this the 20th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of said State.

Past Sons of Mars Camp 1632 Commander Edward Snyder received a plaque of appreciation from present Camp Commander Gary Freeman at the February 2022 meeting at Stanton’s BBQ.

“I worked night and day for twelve years to prevent the war, but I could not. The North was mad and blind, would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came.” President Jefferson Davis, Confederate States of America, 1861-1865

Tickets are still available!!!

All proceeds go to our charities, including The Masonic Home for Children at Oxford, NC. One of the charter founders of the home was Worshipful Master Capt. William Hugh McLaurin, 18th NC! ‘Captain Billy’ was WM 9 times of Laurinburg Lodge 305.