Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1899-01-19
RANSOM TO KNAUSS.
Letter of a Confederate Sol
der to a Former Foe.


We are at liberty to publish the fol.
lowing reply of our local camp OF Con-
federates to communication receiv-
ed from an old Federal soldier in refer
ence to its recent resolutions. 1t was
not considered proper to give his let
ter to the press, as he stated that it
was intended for the camp, not the
public:
Staunton, Va, Jan. 10th, 1913
Mr.. VIM. II. Knauss,
Columbus, Ohio.
Friend Knauss:-I am instructed by
Stonewall Jackson Camp, Confederate
Veterans, No. 25, of Staunton, Virgin
ia, at meeting last night, to reply in
their name to your letter of the 9th in
slant.
At first, we would express the hope
that the new year may be one of health
and happiness and prosperity to you,
whose kindly deeds we will remember,
and to all who worthily wore the blue,
and who laid enmity aside with the
uniform.
The membership of this Camp, as
you probably understand, is confined
to soldiers of the war of 1S61-65, with
q proven record of honorable service
in the Army or Navy of the COnfede
rate States. Most of them volunteers
in the Virginia Regiments enlisted by
the State when hostllities began, and
in consequence of locality participated
in the important battles and in the
numberless minor engagements of the
Army of Northern Virginia. A large
ajority of them have suffered from
wounds as you have done, and under
gone the privations and degradations
of military prisons. Any further sea-
soning they may have needed, they
got in the subsequent days of Recon
structiop,n of which the less said the
better.
But writing in all frankness, as you
have done, l say that they cherish no
resentments against the veterans of
the Federal armies, and welcome with
honest appreciation all expressions of
respect and good will coming from
that source. Brave men may respect
opponents of similar mettle, even while
war is on. 1t should not take the
years of generation to find each 9TH
er out, after the war in ended.
You ard many other of our old OPP
ponents of the North, residing in the
neighborhOod of your former prison
camps, had been giving us practical
proof of your magnanimity and gene
rosity of feeling and purpose in re-
spect to the memory of our dead com
rades, for some years, in your case for
about seven, before President McKin-
ley's deliverance to the Legislature of
Georgia.
The occasion for example, when the
noble work which you had carried out
at the old Camp Chase cemetery cul
minated in that imposing demonstra-
tion of June 1887, had passed into his
tory, to your everlasting honor, and
that of your comrades who assisted
you.
Now it is evident from your letter
that you have been disappointed and
hurt by extracts which have reached
you from certain resolutions adopted
| by this Camp few days since, and
you inquire if it is to be construed as
the sense of the organization that we
do not want Federals to take care of
dead soldiers graves. .-.-.-s
Our position can best be judged by
the full text of the resolutions, which
| now enclose, with an article which
appeared few days later in one of.our
city dailies, giving the views of some
of the active members of the Camp
upon the subject. What is said there
| by ex-COmmander Tim berlake express
es in nutshell the prevailing senti-
ment amongst US.
We should be churls and ingrates
indeed not to feel willing and glad to
have the veterans of the blue, who
feel as you do about it, and their wives
and children as at Columbus, continue
their kindly offices at the cemeteries
of our men who died as prisoners of
war, and at points too remote for us
to do them even the annual tribute of
flowers. But in the Southern States
the like conditions do not exist, and
the care takers are whole communi
ties.
The comments introducing the in
terviews referred to are merely edito-
rial. More consequence than belonged
to it has been attributed to the Presi-
dents utterance. True, some of us
think he and his administration would
do better to give more attention to
their own housekeeping and less to
the Philippine islanders. But we do
not carry the camps into politics
Their purpose is to keep up the spirit
of comradeship, to look after old com
rades in want, to keep green and beau
tful the graves of our dead, and to
indicate the truth Of history
There was day since the war, when
braggarts and demagogues made great
capital of parading the Confederate |
idea. After the circus packs up and |