Putting Down American Veterans

On March 31, 2015, I attended the Stockbridge City Council Work meeting. I was on the agenda to request that on the April Council meeting they have a proclamation
to honor Confederate History and Heritage Month. I explained in my presentation that the Georgia General Assembly approved Senate Bill No. 27 and signed by the Governor Sonny Perdue.
This bill officially designating April permanently as Confederate History and Heritage Month. I provided some history of local people that were in the war. I and Dr. Mike Moon provided information on a Hospital that had 4 Union Veterans as well was limbs and still born children were laid to rest.

Near the end of the meeting citizens are allowed 3 min to speak. One person that got up to speak called himself Mr. Alexander, he has a FaceBook page called Because we care Henry County Atlanta South. He spoke about not liking the idea of honoring the Confederate Veterans because of the bad feelings that could be felt. He was concerned that in 2015 we still want to honor these people. He asked the City Council to think about it before they issue the Proclamation I had requested. I feel for poor Mr. Alexander, because he has failed to learn the true history of the Civil War and what led up to it. But what is more concerning to me is he is saying he does not support American Veterans. A man that does not want to support American Veterans that sits on the Zoning Advisory Board for Stockbridge. This is something I think Stockbridge needs to look in to. Normally I would ask is he that ignorant but I will not this time. I will ask is he that uneducated or does he just not care about public law?            

U.S. Public Law 810, Approved by 17th Congress 26 February 1929

(45 Stat 1307 – Currently on the books as 38 U.S. Code, Sec. 2306)

This law, passed by the U.S. Congress, authorized the “Secretary of War to erect headstones over the graves of soldiers who served in the Confederate Army and to direct him to preserve in the records of the War Department the names and places of burial of all soldiers for whom such headstones shall have been erected.”


U.S. Public Law 85-425: Sec. 410 Approved 23 May 1958



(US Statutes at Large Volume 72, Part 1, Page 133-134)

The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have been applicable to such person under the laws in effect on December 31, 1957, if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval forces of the United States.


Remarks: While this was only a gesture since the last Confederate veteran died in 1958, it is meaningful in that only forty-five years ago (from 2003), the Congress of the United States saw fit to consider Confederate soldiers as equivalent to U.S. soldiers for service benefits. This final act of reconciliation was made almost one hundred years after the beginning of the war and was meant as symbolism more than substantive reward.

Additional Note by the Critical History: Under current U.S. Federal Code, Confederate Veterans are equivalent to Union Veterans.

U.S. Code Title 38 – Veterans’ Benefits, Part II – General Benefits, Chapter 15 – Pension for Non-Service-Connected Disability or Death or for Service, Subchapter I – General, § 1501. Definitions: (3) The term “Civil War veteran” includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term “active military or naval service” includes active service in those forces.
Researched by: Tim Renick, Combined Arms Library Staff, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Alfred Britt

Senior Researcher at the CRG Dr. Mike Moon will comment below.

It seemed that there was at least one person in the room at the Stockbridge City Council Work Session that was not listening.  He said that I said that 36,000 blacks died for the Confederacy.  I did not say that.  I said that over 180,000 black soldiers served in the Union Army and that over 36,000 of them gave their lives for the Union.  The Union was the United States Army not the Confederate.  Either he was not listening or he is trying to start trouble.  History is history and we cannot change what happened.  It cannot just be rewritten or forgotten just because some want it that way.  When this starts we go down a path of repeating what had come before.

Dr. Mike Moon