Confederate Heritage Month! 
provided by the:
Georgia Division of The Sons of Confederate Veterans
Confederate History and Heritage Month Committee

Ormond Beach, Florida - Locals honor Confederate heritage

By LINDA TRIMBLE
Education Writer

ORMOND BEACH -- Tony Corn had heard stories for years about his great-great-grandfather fighting in the Civil War, but it wasn't until he started tracing his family's history a couple of years ago that he learned the details.

His ancestor, William Riley Godwin, was a Creek Indian who joined the 29th Georgia Volunteer Infantry in the Army of Tennessee and was captured at the Battle of Nashville in 1864. Held as a prisoner in Ohio, Godwin was paroled at the end of the war but died walking home to Georgia.

Corn, Ormond Beach, shared his pride in being the descendant of a Confederate soldier Sunday as the keynote speaker at a Confederate Memorial Day ceremony at Pilgrim's Rest Cemetery.

"I'm proud of the history," Corn said in an interview afterward. "All we're doing is trying to show the history of the soldier. There's no politics to it."

Confederate Memorial Day is traditionally celebrated on April 26, the date in 1865 when Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to General William Sherman in North Carolina, marking the end of the war for Georgia.

Local descendants of Confederate veterans usually celebrate on the Sunday closest to that date, said Ron Alcorn, commander of the James F. Hull Camp 1347, Sons of Confederate Veterans, which sponsored Sunday's ceremony.

Hull, one of seven Confederate veterans buried at Pilgrim's Rest, was a North Florida native who served in Company D, 8th Florida Infantry, and was at the surrender at Appomattox, Alcorn said.

Sixty-three Confederate veterans are buried in cemeteries throughout Volusia County. Volunteers placed Confederate flags on each of their graves for the memorial day observance and Alcorn read a list of the dead soldiers' names at Sunday's ceremony that attracted about 25 spectators.

"It's a beautiful day to honor our ancestors," Corn told the crowd as a warm breeze whipped the American and Confederate flags on display behind the tree-shaded podium. "These Confederate soldiers were first and foremost Americans -- Southern Americans."

Corn said the history of Confederate soldiers has been marred by "untruths" that branded them as traitors. "We don't need to apologize for our past," he said. "We need to bring the facts forward, truth upon truth."

He said Southern states that seceded from the union were only exercising the rights guaranteed to them in the Constitution and that the conflict, which he called the War Between the States, was not a true civil war.

Southerners wanted to preserve their way of life and set up their own country, Corn said, and never wanted to control the North, which would have been a necessary condition for a true civil war.

Some of those attending Sunday's ceremony dressed in Civil War uniforms and other clothing typical of the mid-1800s. The youngest was 11-year-old Jarred Van Fossen of Daytona Beach, who served as the "powder monkey," delivering charges to be loaded into a replica of a Civil War cannon that went off with a loud boom.

Jarred's grandfather, Gene Hendrickson, helped build the cannon and the boy often helps out at Civil War re-enactments.

"It's fun," he said. "I just like hearing a big boom."

linda.trimble@news-jrnl.com

Source: Daytona Beach News Journal