Volume XXXVII, Issue 11 November, The Camp website is back up thanks to 1 ST LT Commander David Fisher. See the URL below.

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1 Volume XXXVII, Issue 11 November, 2017 Camp Officers: Commander: David Rawls 1 st Lt. Commander: David Fisher 2 nd Lt. Commander: Hank Arnold The Next Camp Meeting will be at 7:00 pm, Tuesday November 14 at The New Merkle House 3278 Cahaba Heights Rd, Birmingham, Ala. SCV CALENDAR November 14 Camp Meeting New Merkle House Tim Steadman Captain Cummings Lay Adjutant/ Treasurer: Pat Acton Chaplain: Jeff Young Color Sergeant: Bill Haas Quartermaster: Tristan Dunn Sergeant At Arms: Sam Nelson Camp Surgeon: Dr. Fred Moss Dispatch Editor: Jim Darden Commander Emeritus: Dr. Ira West Chaplain Emeritus: Dr. Charles Baker SCV ANNOUNCEMENTS The Camp website is back up thanks to 1 ST LT Commander David Fisher. See the URL below. Remember the SCV relief fund for SCV hurricane victims. Your donation is tax deductible. Please make gifts through PayPal (accounting@scv.org), our website at or send a check to: Sons of Confederate Veterans c/o SCV Relief Fund P.O. Box 59 Columbia, Tennessee Fighting Joe Wheeler Camp 1372, Inc. C/O Adjutant P.O. Box Vestavia Hills, AL SCV Fighting Joe Wheeler Camp 1372 Please send articles or other information for inclusion in The Dispatch to Jim Darden Editor 645 South Sanders Road Hoover, Alabama Or km4qr@bellsouth.net FJWCamp1372@yahoogroups.com Alabama: We Dare Defend Our Rights The principal for which we contended is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form. - Jefferson Davis, May 1865

2 Commander s Report November, 2017 Compatriots: It is at this point of the year in which we as a nation choose to celebrate all those who had/have the courage and will to sacrifice so that all who are blessed to be Americans can remain free. To such wonderful people who made that decision I personally would like to give my thanks and a heartfelt salute for without you our God given rights and freedoms would be nothing but a memory. Despite the efforts of those to constantly rewrite history, your sacrifice and bravery shall not be forgotten. And such a salute should go to our ancestors as well who chose to serve for the Confederacy. While obnoxious liberals get in our collective faces chanting that our ancestors who fought and died as Confederates were traitors to the United States deserving far worse than they suffered, I submit nothing could be further from the truth. Southern men (and sometimes boys) at that time were not simply a bunch of amoral racists determined to have slaves or overly gullible fools willing to fight and die so that less than 7-8% of the population could buy and sell other human beings. No. Our brave ancestors were determined to drive back those they saw as invaders trying to force a foreign way of life upon them (and ultimately us as well). Were they perfect? No, I wish I could say they were, but being human they could never be so. But at least they, like all veterans, were willing to lay themselves down for what they thought was right. And while our Confederate ancestors may not have achieved total military victory in a conventional sense, I shudder to think what our country might be like today had they failed or completely refused to do what they did. Now to get off my soapbox and deal with other matters. Coming up at the Camp Meeting on November 14 th Tim Steadman will be delivering a presentation on Captain Cummings Lay that should be both entertaining and informative. On behalf of the Camp I would like to invite all who can to attend and learn something about this fascinating historical period as well as be entertained. Our ancestors fought for a just cause and they deserve far more honor and respect for what they did. Let us always honor their memory! Deo Vindice, David Rawls Commander FJW Camp 1372 Page 2

3 Camp, I hope all are enjoying the late fall and football season. I would like take this opportunity to acknowledge one of our camp members that I have a special respect for. This would be Bill Haas. Bill and I struck up a friendship when he joined the camp some 10 years ago. He has always helped at camp events, particularly taking care of Elmwood and supporting the camp by taking the flags to and from camp meetings. Also showing up dressed as a Confederate at meetings, Gun shows and ceremonies. Of course my personal respect for Bill is the fact that he played football at Auburn. That was back in the day when the squad played offense and defense, Bill played on the teams following the 1957 National Championship Team. What a thrill to be able to make the team and wear that jersey on the Auburn field. I would encourage all to talk with Bill about his life and history. Remember to always speak to our partners about their past. We learn from those that have lived the life, don't we all wish we could have listened to our Confederate Veterans? You have that opportunity by sharing with fellow members of the SCV. My favorite meeting is coming up in December when we talk about our ancestors and their service. War Eagle Bill!! You are just as good a Confederate as you are an Auburn Man!! God Bless the SOUTH!! Hank Arnold 2nd Lt. Cmdr. FJW 1372 A Few Exploits of George A. Ellsworth The star wiretapper of the whole Civil War was a gay and guileful rebel named George A. Ellsworth, a telegrapher of Canadian birth, who accompanied General John Hunt Morgan on his raids into Kentucky. Ellsworth and Morgan met in Mobile, Ala. Ellsworth was mustered into the 2 nd Kentucky Cavalry and was with Morgan on his July, 1862 raid. The Confederates travelled 1000 miles in less than a month, captured and paroled 1200 prisoners. A large part of this success was due to Ellsworth s shameless telegraphic fabrications, sent to various Union stations. Befuddled by these adroit fictions, the Federals rarely knew where Morgan was and never knew what he was going to do next. Ellsworth s waggish wires served two vital military purposes. The messages he sent caused alarm, confusion, or delay among the Yankees. The messages he picked up by wire tapping warned Morgan well in advance of what the enemy was doing or was going to do.

4 When Morgan s men reached Cave City, Kentucky, about dusk, Morgan led a party of men toward the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, a vital Union supply line. About a mile and a half from Horse Cave which is near the railroad, Morgan halted his men while Ellsworth cut into the Louisville to Bowling Green telegraph line so carefully that the Louisville operator, who at that moment happened to be sending a message, never noticed. After listening to the wire for a bit Ellsworth realized that General Jeremiah T. Boyle, Union commander at Louisville, was telegraphing orders to Colonel Sanders D. Bruce, at Bowling Green, for the pursuit and capture of Kentucky s rebel invaders. Bruce was to support a certain Colonel Houghton. He wanted Bruce and Haughton to combine forces and move along the line of the L&N, intercepting Morgan there if he tried to move farther north to wreck the railroad. Unhappily for General Boyle s tactical plans, Colonel Bruce never received the message. Nor did any other Federal operators south of Horse Cave receive further messages that followed, including a great many messages for Federal troops in Nashville. With Morgan s personal assistance, Ellsworth concocted replies to delude the Federals in Louisville into believing that Bruce, Houghton, and the Nashville operators were receiving all messages as usual. During this adventure, Ellsworth acquired the nickname, Lightning, which clung to him for the rest of the war. A thunderstorm broke not long after he had tapped the wire, and he sat at his instrument in the darkness with electricity playing around him! Sitting through two hours or more of a rainy night, with water up to his knees, Ellsworth listened to messages from Louisville, Nashville, and other towns none of which went beyond the point where he had cut the wire. Having thus collected a great deal of information and having spread a great deal of false information, the cavalry jogged on. Morgan entered Lebanon, Kentucky about 2:00-3:00am on July 12. They proceeded to the telegraph office where all was quiet. Within a few minutes of their arrival, some office signing Z began to call B. Ellsworth did not know where either office was, but gave the usual answer I.I. indicating an operator ready to receive. Immediately Z asked, What of the marauders now? Lebanon was the office that would naturally receive such a question and Ellsworth assumed (correctly) that B was Lebanon. He replied briefly that we are holding them at bay, whereupon Z volunteered the information, There are 800 troops here coming to your aid. This was of great interest to Morgan, who might have to fight them. But where were the 800? Few Federal messages were going through at that hour in the morning, and the key was silent. Eventually, Z, who turned out to be W. H. Drake, night operator at Lebanon Junction, sent another query: What news? Any more skirmishes after your last message? We drove what little cavalry there was away, replied Ellsworth. Z now inquired whether the train had yet arrived. Ellsworth said no, it hadn t, and, by the way, how many troops aboard it? Z replied that there were th Indiana, Colonel Owens commanding. This was useful information, but the Confederates still did not know

5 where Z was. Morgan wanted to ask the question outright, but Ellsworth reminded him that the real Lebanon operator would have known that information and that such a question would give the whole Confederate game away. Finally, Ellsworth invented an imaginary gentleman here in the office who bets me the cigars that Z could not spell the name of the town where his station was located. Z, or Drake, took the bait at once, L-E-B-A-N-O-N J-U-N-C-T-I-O-N he clicked,... How did you think I would spell it? He thought you would put two B s in Lebanon. Ha! ha! ha! He s a green one. Yes, that s so, agreed Ellsworth, who, having now learned Z s location, could afford to be agreeable. A little later, Ellsworth tapped that the key would be silent for awhile, he was going to take a nap. This was the perfect cover to explain why the key was silent as the Confederates moved on toward Versailles. Morgan s men entered Midway on July 15, Ellsworth and Pvt Cabel Maddox had gone on ahead and captured the telegraph before operator J. W. Woolums could send any messages that the Confederates were there. Ellsworth soon discovered that all military messages were passing through a wire that ran directly from Lexington to Frankfort. He cut off the Franklin side and began talking to Lexington, posing as the Frankfort operator. Soon a telegram arrived from a conductor in Lexington asking whether it was safe for his train to enter Midway. Seeing a chance to bring a whole train into Morgan s grasp, Ellsworth at once replied, All right, come on. No sign of rebels here. This kind of thing could not go on forever without being detected. General Boyle, the Union Commander in Louisville, who had been growing suspicious, wired the War Department: the rebels undoubtedly have control of telegraph all around us a message he probably sent north to Ohio and over an eastward line there, to keep it out of Confederate hands. It did, however, reach Midway, where Ellsworth heard it, doubtless with a chuckle. Ellsworth wired General William T. Ward in Lexington, that the Confederates had left Midway and were moving on Frankfort. General Ward immediately recalled the Union garrison that had been ordered from Frankfort to Midway, that the Confederates were moving on them with a force of 1000 men. Ellsworth wired Louisville as if he were in Frankfort: tell General Ward that our pickets are just driven in. Great excitement. Pickets say the enemy must be After that, ominous silence from Frankfort. In fact, a state of beatific peace reigned in Frankfort. But, with the wire secretly cut, Ward had no chance of learning that. And the Frankfort operator, on the other side of Ellsworth and receiving immediate replies from him, supposed the usual military telegraph circuit remained wholly undisturbed. There were many other instances of Lightning exploiting the Union telegraph for the benefit of the South. Even a few practical jokes were played on the Federals. As he closed down operations at the end of this raid, Ellsworth sent one last message promoting himself to a very high but entirely imaginary office, in a telegraph order of his own: Such instances of carelessness as were exhibited on the part of the operators at Lebanon, Midaay, and Georgetown, will be severely dealt with. By order of G. A. Ellsworth, Gen l Military Sup. C. S. Teleg. Dep mt. Excerpts from: Bakeless, John. Spies of the Confederacy. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications (pp )