On Saturday, June 1st, I had the privilege of attending the Southern Cross of Honor Dedication and Wreath Presentation
in honor of Private Isham Johnson Booth, Company D, 1st Georgia Reserves, Elbert
County Georgia, father of last living Georgia real son H.V Booth in Dewey Rose,
GA.
The Georgia Society Order of Confederate Rose, Nancy Hart
Chapter No. 1 & Georgia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans, Lt. Dickson
L. Baker Camp 926 sponsored the event.
It was a beautiful, well attended ceremony, and I was honored
to represent the Va Flaggers and thrilled at the opportunity to meet Mr. Booth.
"ELBERTON, Ga. — For most descendants of Confederate
soldiers, their ancestor is maybe just a name in the family Bible, or a picture
in a faded photograph of someone perhaps their grandparents recalled meeting.
For Herbert Booth, however, his Confederate ancestor was the
man who bounced him on his knee and sent him to the fields to plow behind a
mule when Booth was barely grown up enough to reach the plow handles. He was
Booth’s father.
Booth did something Saturday that he is believed to be the
only remaining person in Georgia who could. He took part in a ceremony honoring
his father’s service in the Confederate Army.
The 94-year-old of Elberton was the guest of honor at a
ceremony at Antioch Baptist Church, in the Dewy Rose community, where the
Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Georgia Society
Order of the Confederate Rose made a Southern Cross of Honor presentation at Isham
Johnson Booth’s grave.
Isham Booth, the youngest of three brothers to serve in the
Confederate Army, joined at age 16, serving in Company D of the 1sr Georgia
Reserves. He was assigned as a guard to Camp Sumter, the Confederate camp for
Union prisoners at Andersonville, Ga.
The camp operated for from February 1864 to April 1865.
Built to hold about 25,000 prisoners, its population would eventually be about
34,000, and by the war’s end about 45,000 prisoners would pass through the
prison. Nearly a quarter of the prisoners would die, most from exposure and
disease aggravated by having little food, which was scarce for the
Confederates.
The younger Booth recalls that his father never really
talked much about the war. But Herbert Booth has a vivid recollection of his
father describing the Confederate prison camp as “the awfulest place he ever
saw.”
Isham Booth contracted yellow fever while at the camp and
was sent back to Elberton to recover. By the time the 17-year-old was well
enough to return, the war was over. He never returned to Andersonville and was
officially listed as a deserter, a situation he corrected in 1928, six years
before he died at age 87. It made him eligible for a pension of $25 a month.
Keith Jones, a descendant of Isham Booth and the author of
two books about Civil War history, said Saturday that guard duty was not combat
duty but neither was it without dangers.
“About 22 percent of the guards at Andersonville died doing
their duty,” Jones said.
Isham Booth married Herbert’s mother, a 38-year-old widow,
when he was a 77-year-old widower. Herbert was Isham’s 12th and last child,
born in 1918.”
“(Herbert Booth) is one of our last real connections with
those brave men who went off to fight in 1861, not for the enslavement of a
race but for basic human rights,” said Mike Mull, chief of staff of the Georgia
Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, on Saturday.
Those who seek to revise history, Mull said, especially the
history of the South and the Civil War, don’t always necessarily lie, “they
just don’t tell the whole truth.”
The ceremony Saturday, organized by the Lt. Dickson L. Baker
Camp 936 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, of Hartwell, Ga., drew about 100
people.
Susan Hathaway came all the way from Richmond, Va., for the
event, bringing her own Confederate battle flag.
A member of the Virginia Flaggers, a group dedicated to
defending the Confederate heritage, Hathaway said she was moved by the
ceremony.
“Keeping alive the memories of these (Confederate veterans)
is important to our history,” she said. “The chance to meet and talk to someone
who actually knew one of them is an opportunity almost gone, and we shouldn’t
miss that chance.”
-Ray Chandler, Independent Mail, Anderson, SC
http://www.independentmail.com/news/2013/jun/01/son-helps-honor-confederate-veteran/
Special thanks to Ms. Ronda Reno for issuing me the invitation. It was an honor to meet Ms. Ronda, and Ms. Amy Roberts
and witness the good work they are doing for the Cause.
On the drive to Dewey Rose, I passed a flag display and monument, in the town of Colbert.
It was right on a busy thoroughfare and was a BEAUTIFUL sight to
behold. On the way back, I stopped to admire it and took a few pics. Kudos to the Madison County
Grays, Camp 1526, Sons of Confederate Veterans for this magnificent display and
wonderful monument!
More photos here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151708801164274.1073741835.698334273&type=3
God bless Private Booth, and God Save the South!
Susan Hathaway
Va Flaggers
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