Atlanta Journal-Constitution

10 February 2003

A legacy that stirs pride

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A fort between Peachtree Street and the Chattanooga Railroad is part of Confederate fortifications in Atlanta in 1864. Official Union policy called not only for defeating but utterly destroying the South, in violation of rules of warfare.

By LEWIS REGENSTEIN

The controversy over the Confederate battle flag and what it symbolizes continues to rage. But it is rarely if ever explained why many decent people of good will are so proud of their Confederate ancestry.

Basically, it is because our ancestors showed amazing courage, honor and valor, enduring incredible hardships against overwhelming and often hopeless odds, in fighting for their homeland -- not for slavery, as is so often said, but for their families, homes and country.

Put simply, most Confederate soldiers felt they were fighting because an invading army from the North was trying to kill them, burn their homes and destroy their cities. And anyone with family who fought to defend the South, as mine did, cannot help but appreciate the dire circumstances our ancestors encountered.

Near the end of the War Between the States, my great-grandfather, Andrew Jackson Moses, who ran away from school to become a Confederate scout, at 16 rode out to defend his hometown of Sumter, S.C., as part of a hastily formed local militia. Approaching rapidly was a unit of Gen. William T. Sherman's army, which had just burned Columbia and most everything else in its path, and Sumter expected similar treatment.

Along with a few other teenagers, old men, invalids and wounded from the local hospital, Sumter's ragtag defenders amazingly were able to hold off these battle-seasoned veterans, Potter's Raiders, for an hour and a half, at the cost of several lives.

(Jack got away with a price on his head, and Sumter was not burned after all. But some buildings were, and there were documented instances of murder, rape and arson by the Yankees, including the torching of our family's 196 bales of cotton.)

Meanwhile, Jack's eldest brother, Lt. Joshua Lazarus Moses, who was wounded in the war's first real battle, First Manassas (Bull Run), was defending Mobile in the last major battle of the war. His forces being outnumbered 12-to-1, Josh was commanding an artillery battalion that, before being overrun, fired the last shots in defense of Mobile. Refusing to lay down his arms, he was killed on the day Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered. One of his brothers, Perry, was wounded, and another brother, Horace, was captured while laying land mines.

The fifth brother, Isaac Harby Moses, who served with distinction in combat in Wade Hampton's cavalry, rode home from North Carolina after the Battle of Bentonville, where he commanded his company, all of the officers having been killed or wounded. He never surrendered to anyone, his mother proudly observed in her memoirs.

The Moses brothers' distinguished uncle, Maj. Raphael J. Moses from Columbus, was Gen. James Longstreet's chief commissary officer and was responsible for supplying and feeding some 40,000 men. Their commander, Lee, had forbidden Moses from entering private homes in search of supplies in raids into Union territory, even when food and other provisions were in painfully short supply. And he always paid for what he did take from farms and businesses, albeit in Confederate tender, often enduring, in good humor, harsh verbal abuse from the local women.

One cannot help but respect the dignity and gentlemanly policies of Lee and Moses, and the courage of the greatly outnumbered, out-supplied but rarely outfought Confederate soldiers.

In stark contrast, Union generals U.S. Grant, Philip Sheridan and Sherman and their troops burned and looted homes, farms, courthouses, libraries, businesses and entire cities full of only defenseless civilians (including Atlanta) as part of official Union policy not only to defeat but utterly destroy the South, in violation of the then-prevailing rules of warfare.

There are countless stories of valor by soldiers on both sides of this tragic conflict, and their descendants can take justifiable pride in this heritage. This is especially true of the brave and beleaguered Confederates who risked all and sacrificed much in the service of their country against a formidable, implacable and often cruel foe. A lost cause, yes, but an honorable one, which should not be forgotten.

Lewis Regenstein, a native Atlantan, is a writer and author.