Albany SCV camp to host annual Confederate Memorial service

ALBANY — Bo Slack, the camp commander of the Sylvester Yancey Independents Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp, will give the keynote address Saturday at the annual Southwest Georgia Confederate Memorial service.

The event will be held at the Confederate States of America Memorial Park on Philema Road.

Slack will base his comments Saturday on the July 13, 1894 speech of Confederate Gen. Joseph Wheeler to the U.S. House of Representatives on the causes of the war. That speech was printed in the Richmond (Virginia) Dispatch on July 31, 1894.

The day’s memorial service, hosted by Albany SCV Camp 141 — the Lt. Col. Thomas M. Nelson Rangers — starts at 9 a.m. with music by the Leesburg band A Joyful Noise. The Albany camp’s commander, James King, said the service pays homage to the “noble efforts” of Southern ancestors.

“The annual Southwest Georgia Confederate Memorial service serves to remind and educate the people of Southwest Georgia of the extreme hardships their Confederate ancestors endured in their honorable and noble effort to gain independence and form a new Southern nation free of Northern tyranny, despotism, dictatorship, and aggression and restore government of, for and by the Southern people,” King said. “The infamous Socialist Karl Marx is quoted as saying ‘People separated from their heritage are easily persuaded.’ That should serve as a reminder to Southerners, and in fact all Americans, that America was founded as a Christian republic.

“Even the Northern historian James McPherson, who is certainly no friend to Confederate history, had to admit that Confederate soldiers considered themselves to be fighting for freedom from Northern tyranny, despotism, dictatorship, and aggression and not to keep slavery. He arrived at this conclusion after reading about 30,000 letters written by Confederate soldiers during the war.”

SCV certificates of appreciation will be presented during the memorial to eighth-grader Emma Lynn of Sylvester for her first-place school project “The Truth Concerning the Confederate Flag,” which discusses black Southerners’ willingness to fight for the Confederacy, and to Lee County resident and bookstore owner Henry Crain for his contributions to the Lee County newspaper.

A proclamation will be read declaring April Confederate History and Heritage Month, and the poem “A Georgia Volunteer” will be read. The names of each Confederate state, as well as border states and territories that supported the Confederacy, will be called in order of secession or CSA affiliation and a flower laid at the base of the park’s Confederate memorial in their honor.

Confederate re-enactors from Moultrie, who will serve as honor guards, will fire three volleys as a salute to Confederate veterans, and the playing of Taps will end the service. The singing of the hymn “Amazing Grace” will serve as a benediction.

The annual Confederate Memorial service is free and open to the public. All SCV members or others interested in Southern and American history are urged to attend. Vendors will be on hand selling Confederate flags and other paraphernalia.

For additional information, contact King at (229) 854-1944 or at [email protected].