March - Colonel Hiram Parks Bell Camp #1642

Southern Sentinel
March 2013 Vol. X #3
www. scv1642.com
Col. Hiram Parks Bell Camp # 1642
Sons of Confederate Veterans
A Southern Heritage and Historical Society
OFFICERS FOR 2013
2013
OUR NEXT MEETING
CMDR: CLIFF ROBERTS
Monday, February 25th
At 7:00 PM
Social time starts early around
6:30PM
Bell Research Center
101 School St. Cumming GA
678678-455455-7216
Everyone is Welcome! Call for
Directions
770 656 5585
LT. CMDR: BRANDON
HEMBREE
404-372-3270
ADJ. DAN BENNETT
770 888 2800
CHAPLAIN: JOEL
ANDERSON
770 218 7785
COMMANDER’S TENT
Fellow Compatriots,
We are off to a good year. A generous contribution
from the Brady Foundation will keep the Bell Center
fully operational in 2013. The Georgia Reunion will be
held in Statesboro on Saturday, June 8th. Let me know
if you are interested in attending.
Please check out our camp website at
www.scv1642.com. She has received her first upgrade
in a few years and is looking good. The Bell Center
Facebook page set up by Brandon Hembree is also
steadily building “friends.”
April is an important month for us as we honor
our local Confederates by marking their graves. Our
Confederate Memorial at Shady Grove on April 21
should be an outstanding affair.
Deo Vindice!
Cliff Roberts
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UPCOMING CAMP EVENTS:
March 25 – March Meeting – Ron Skellie, author of Lest We Forget; the
Immortal Seventh Mississippi, will speak.
April 21 – H.P. Bell Camp #1642 Confederate Memorial Day Ceremony at
Shady Grove Church, McGinnis Ferry Road at 3 PM.
April 22 – April Meeting – Attorney Martin K. O’Toole on "Lee’s Genius
Revealed at Gettysburg." Lee and the Confederate soldier vindicated at
Gettysburg.
April 28 – SCV Gainesville 27th Regiment, Camp 1404 Memorial Day
Service, Redwine United Methodist (Located off Popular Springs Road in
Hall County), at 2:00 P.M.
May 20 – May Meeting (One Week Early) Stephen Davis, author of What
the Yankees Did to Us, will speak about Sherman’s March to the Sea.
June 7,8,9 – 2013 Convention & Reunion of the Georgia Division, Georgia
Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia
June 24 – June Meeting
June 27, 28, 29, 30 - Blue Gray Alliance 150th Gettysburg Reenactment.
July 18, 19, 20 – National SCV Reunion – Vicksburg, Mississippi
July 20 – Camp Field Trip - Preservationist David Yoakley Mitchell of the
Mitchell Foundation will lead our members & guests on a private tour of the
Civil War collection of the Hargrett Rare Books Collections in the new
Richard B. Russell Special Collections Building on the campus of the
University of Georgia. After the tour, we will do an early dinner in
downtown Athens.
August 26 – August Camp Meeting – Historian Bill Potter
Sept 23 – September Camp Meeting – Dr. William H. Bragg is the past
recipient of the Georgia Historical Society’s E. Merton Coulter Award for
Excellence in the Writing of Georgia History. Bill recently retired as
director of the Center for Georgia Studies at Georgia College and State
University in Milledgeville, Georgia. He will be speaking on "How Stands
the South?", a review of recent Confederate/Southern heritage wins and
losses. Bill Bragg is a prolific writer and the author of Griswoldville and
Joe Brown's Pets: The Georgia Militia, 1861-1865.
Oct 28 – October Camp Meeting – Robert Jenkins will be speaking about
his new book The Battle of Peach Tree Creek; Hood’s First Sortie.
Nov 25 – November Camp Meeting – Jack E. Marlar, SCV Field
Representative One, will give a spirited talk on “How Confederates
Celebrated Christmas.”
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Camp Hardtack
April is Confederate Heritage Month. Jerold Sanders, head of our graves committee, has just
issued our cemetery list by e-mail. Last year camp members placed 356 flags by the graves of
Confederate veterans buried in Forsyth County cemeteries. Jerold will have flags at the March meeting
and will be e-mailing members a list of veteran names by cemetery. Please volunteer to be a part of
this year’s “flaggin” and let Jerry know that you will be responsible for a few cemeteries near your
home.
(right) Confederate Monument at Westview Cemetery, Atlanta,
Georgia.
(below) Confederate Row in Greenwood Cemetery near
downtown Dallas, Texas.
SCV members Brett Martin, Jerry Gunn, Mike Couch, and Terry Grizzell spend Friday, March 8th
doing living history presentations to the 500 members of the 8th grade at River Trail Middle School in
Fulton County. The students learned a great deal about the life of a soldier in the War Between the
States. Thank you, gentlemen!
Welcome Richard Van Sant. Our camp now has 54
members in good standing.
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Our Confederate Memorial Commemoration will be held at 3:00 PM, on Sunday, April 21st at
Shady Grove Baptist Chuch at the corner of McGinnis Ferry Road and Boyd Road. Enjoy these
photographs from past camp commemorations.
Cumming 1999
2001 Cumming Cemetery, Gov. Lester Maddox
and Joel Anderson, 1996 (right)
2001. H.K. Edgerton, 2006
Charles Lunsford, Frank Clark, 2001
From Joseph Glatthaar’s General Lee’s Army:
Fully one-third of all soldiers who ever served in the Army of Northern
Virginia joined the service in 1862. The initial rush of “minute men” in 1861
attracted many younger, single men. By 1862, recruitment cut much deeper
into traditional elements of Southern married society. Thrown into the war
with little preparation, the losses in the class of 1862 were astounding. It
was combat on a scale unprecedented in American history. Three of every
four soldiers were killed, wounded, taken prisoner, or died of disease. “’The
barefoot boys’ have done some terrible fighting,” a Georgian informed his
parents. “We are a dirty, ragged set mother, but courage & heroism find
many a true disciple among us.” He concluded accurately that “our
Revolutionary forefathers never suffered nor fought as the ‘Rebels’ of 61’ &
62’ have fought & suffered.”
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One of the highlights of this year’s Confederate Commeration at Shady Grove will be an
Iron Cross dedication for Sam Street.
Seven Confederate soldiers are buried at Shady Grove Baptist Church off McGinnis Ferry Road on
the south Forsyth border with Fulton County. Most of these were local men who had gone off to
fight in Virginia and Tennessee and had managed to return alive, and resume their lives as farmers.
There is one notable exception. 23-year-old Samuel A. Street was from Plum Grove near Houston,
Texas. He was a member of Company F, of the 8th Texas Cavalry, and he was killed in a skirmish
with Yankee cavalry on a nearby farm of John and Cynthia Lowe.
On the afternoon of July 30th, a squad of Yankee horsemen came riding down McGinnis Ferry
Road. They were on a foraging mission, but, to the local families, they were “raiders.” They pulled
up at the farm of John Lowe, a 50-year-old farmer, and his wife, Cynthia Rogers Lowe. The farm
was in the center of Sheltonville, with the family’s corn fields on both sides of the road. Mr. Lowe’s
house stood on the south side of the road, in what was then Milton County. About six to eight
Rebel cavalrymen were eating dinner at an old cotton ginhouse, some one
hundred yards behind his home. This small contingent of Rebel horsemen
were not just any group of cavalry soldiers. They were members of “Terry’s
Texas Rangers,” formally known as the 8th Texas Cavalry, perhaps the
most elite scouts in the western theater. Since coming east at the beginning
of the war, the 8th Texas Cavalry had fought in more than 200
engagements, including the major Battles of Shiloh, Perryville, and
Chickamauga. Equally adept at fighting from horseback or on foot, they
were praised by Confederate generals for their skill and willingness to fight.
A Union officer, whose misfortune it had been to cross swords with the
elite 8th Texas Cavalry, observed that “the Texas Rangers are as quick as
lightening. They ride like Arabs, shoot like archers at the mark, and fight
like devils.” By 1864, much of their uniform and equipment had been
procured from raids on Yankee supply bases deep behind enemy lines. They
would never fail, however, to wear the Texas Star on their belt buckle and
war hats.
The two adversaries immediately recognized each other and rifle shots rang out. Six-year-old Albert
Matthew Bell would later recall that he was playing under a large poplar tree directly between the
two groups of soldiers. He lay on the ground as minie balls flew over his head. The Texans were at
a disadvantage as they were outnumbered and their horses were grazing in a nearby field. The
Rebels made a run for their mounts, but two of their number were hit as they retreated. Sam
Street was struck in the head and died instantly. 32-year-old George Zimpelman, a German native,
was shot in the chest and fell to the ground severely wounded. According to the later recollections
of Mr. Bell, the remaining Confederates departed quickly.
Local residents buried Sam Street in the Shady Grove Cemetery and Mr. Lowe paid to have a
marker put on his grave. George Zimpelman, who had already been wounded eight times in
previous engagements, was taken to the home of Henry and Louisa Rogers, which was the original
home of the pioneer settler John Rogers and his Cherokee wife Sarah Cordery. After weeks of
constant care, Mr. Zimpelman managed to regain his strength. He would thank his Sheltonville
hosts, and start a long journey home to Austin, Texas. This brave cavalry scout did not make it far
as he was captured in Alpharetta and taken to Johnson’s Island, a prisoner-of-war camp in Ohio.
After the war, George Zimpelman did return to Austin where he served as sheriff of Travis County
for eight years. He later became a successful banker, father of five, and died in his home state in
1908. A statue in honor of Terry's Texas Rangers stands proudly next to the front entrance of the
Texas State Capitol.
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Camp #1642 Sons of Confederate Veterans
continuing series of programs on the Civil War
and the South
We are honored to have
Ron Skellie
discuss
The Immortal Seventh Mississippi
Regiment
Monday, March 25, 7:00 PM
at the Bell Research Center,
101 School St, Cumming
Ron Skellie has carefully gathered letters, diaries, war records, and photographs to tell the
story of the Mississippi “High Pressure Brigade” of the Army of Tennessee. His two-volume
Lest We Forget; The Immortal Seventh Mississippi was published in 2012.
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