Remembrances for April - 2026

 

Dear friends, if you have time, please pray for these members of the Southern family on the day they reposed.  Many thanks.

But one may ask:  ‘What good does it do to pray for the departed?’  An answer is offered here:  https://orthochristian.com/130608.html

Along with prayers and hymns for the departed:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6je5axPodI

April 1^st

Ellis Marsalis, Jr

One of New Orleans’s great jazz musicians.

https://selu.libguides.com/BlackHistorySELA/marsalis

April 2^nd

Gen A. P. (Ambrose Powell) Hill

Amongst the best generals serving under Lee.  Both Jackson and Lee called upon him as they stepped into the life beyond death.

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hill-a-p-1825-1865/

April 3^rd

Richard Weaver

Perhaps the greatest defender of Southern ways to be born in Dixie.

https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/weaver-richard-malcolm-jr

April 6^th

Gen Albert Sidney Johnston

One of Dixie’s leaders during the War, killed at the Battle of Shiloh.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/albert-sidney-johnston

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4334/albert-sidney-johnston

April 7^th

Judge Jackson

He helped the Southern folk-art of shape-note singing to blossom.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-colored-sacred-harp/

April 9^th

Appomattox Day

If you have time, please pray for the South on April 9^th, Appomattox Day, the beginning of our sojourn in captivity.  Do some fasting as well if you can:  The Holy Fathers tell us and show us over and over again that humility attracts the Grace of God.

April 11^th

Caroline Gordon

One of the South’s best writers of novels and short stories.

https://www.visitclarksvilletn.com/plan/clarksville-connections/literature-and-journalism/caroline-gordon/

April 11^th

Gen Wade Hampton III

A fine calvary officer in the War; he was chosen to succeed JEB Stuart as the leader of that department after he was killed in battle.  After the war he served his State of South Carolina in political office.  A more dedicated man to the cause of Southern independence would be hard to find.

https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/wade-hampton-iii-1818-1902/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/439/wade-hampton/photo

April 12^th

Gen Richard Taylor

He lived and fought in Louisiana before and during the turbulent War years and was buried there after he died.

http://www.la-cemeteries.com/Notables/Civil%20War/Taylor,%20Richard/Taylor,Richard.shtml

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fta31

April 13^th

Gen Joseph Kershaw, one of the best officers of the Army of Northern Virginia.

https://theconfederatemuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Joseph-Brevard-Kershaw-SC.pdf

https://longstreetmuseum.com/museum/general-kershaw/

April 13^th

Col Edmund Rucker

A leader under General Forrest in the War; lost his left arm at the Battle of Nashville.  After the war, he led the industrial development of Birmingham, Al.

https://www.geni.com/people/Col-Edmund-W-Rucker-CSA/6000000017376848156

April 18^th

Grady McWhiney

Writer of one of the seminal works of Southern culture – Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/statesman/name/grady-mcwhiney-obituary?id=26939345

April 22^nd

Gov Henry Allen

One of Louisiana’s most productive governors, and unfortunately one of the shortest-serving.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/louisianas-warrior-governor/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10815/henry_watkins-allen

April 22^nd

Fr Abram Ryan

An eloquent poet and priest beloved of people across the South.

https://catholicism.org/priest-poet-patriot-father-abram-j-ryan.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7494769/abram-joseph-ryan

https://www.docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/ryan/ryan.html

April 22^nd

Alabama Confederate Memorial Day

April 25^th

Donald Davidson

Another outstanding 20^th century defender of the South and an excellent writer of poems, non-fiction prose, and ballads.

https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/donald-davidson/

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/06/philosopher-poet-donald-davidson-agrarian-south.html

April 26^th

Don Andrés Almonaster

A wealthy Spanish civil servant who lived in New Orleans during Spanish rule of Louisiana.  He gave very generously to rebuild the city after the Great Fire of 1788.  Two of his notable benefactions are what would become Charity Hospital and the St Louis Cathedral in which he is buried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andres_Almonaster_y_Rojas

April 26^th

Florida Confederate Memorial Day

April 28^th

Jack Hinson

A family man in Tennessee trying to stay neutral in the War.  When Yankees murdered two of his sons in cold blood and mutilated their corpses, he became one of their deadliest enemies as a sniper.

https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/the-story-of-civil-war-sniper-jack-hinson-and-his-rifle/247860

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/jack-hinsons-one-man-war/

April 29^th

Mississippi Confederate Memorial Day

Also, to celebrate some of the saints of April from the South’s Christian inheritance of various lands, follow these links on over:

https://southernorthodox.org/orthodox-saints-for-dixie-april/

https://confiterijournal.blogspot.com/2020/05/happy-feast-for-saints-of-april.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘Springtime of Renewal in Serbia, but What of Dixie?’

 

The European Christian country of Serbia may be considered something of a sister of Dixie’s.  Both peoples have followed similar paths:  After attaining a solid Christian identity and unity, both faced an horrible cataclysm:  The Serbs were conquered by the Muslim Turks in the 14^th century and remained their vassals until the 19^th century; the South was subjugated to the Yankees in the 19^th century and remain under their yoke to this day.  Some of the figures of both countries are also strikingly similar, such as Prince Lazar the Great-Martyr of Serbia and General Stonewall Jackson of Virginia – about all of which we have written in more detail elsewhere.

Given this special kinship between the two peoples, we see something hopeful developing.  There is a renewed appreciation and embrace of the past being kindled in the souls of the Serbs.  They are pouring into Kosovo, the primordial cultural/spiritual heartland of Serbia, despite the fact that Kosovo is under threat from various foes.

There is a profound yearning to be rejoined to their roots.  A student at the University of Belgrade described this yearning in his own words:

‘As soon as you turn west towards Kosovo from the highway connecting Belgrade and Thessaloniki, you begin to realize that you are entering another reality, a completely different dimension. You arrive in Visoki Dečani and you feel that you time-travelled several centuries back—time runs differently there. Or take Prizren—sure, it has practically no Serbs living there anymore, but you have this gut feeling that the town is still ours, it is Orthodox, it is Serbian! You cannot describe this feeling with words—I think you can only experience it once you are in Kosovo and Metohija. On the one hand, I feel ashamed, but on the other hand, it is also surprising and brings joy. It is only when I’m here that I realize I am a Serb and an Orthodox Christian. I go back to my people and I begin to understand what the Church, its priesthood, and monasticism mean to me. The genuine, heartfelt hospitality, the embraces, the joyful gratitude that we still remember, the stories about life of the recent past and what is going on there now… I am convinced that every Serb, if he thinks of himself as such, simply must visit Dečani, the Patriarchate of Pec, and Gračanica—at least once! And experience has shown that if you have ever visited Kosovo and Metohija once, you will always long to return to our holy places’ (Maria Vasic, ‘How Pilgrims Bring Back Hope: Notes from Kosovo and Metohija,’ orthochristian.com).

Hospitality?  Embraces?  Again, quite Southern.

There is anecdotal evidence that Dixie is seeing some resurgence of interest in her old ways:  increased attendance at (misnamed) Civil War reenactments, for instance.  But our people still seem too beguiled by the flashy materialism of Yankee America and the pseudo-sacred Philadelphia charter of 1787 to reclaim in full our patrimony.  We have become, to say it differently, too enamored with comfort.  Richard Weaver and some of the other Southern Agrarians (see, e. g., ‘The Life and Death of Cousin Lucius’ by John Donald Wade in I’ll Take My Stand) tried to remind us that the poverty of our forefathers was a shield protecting us from spiritual and cultural enervation.  We have failed to listen.  For the Serbs in Kosovo, however, suffering and struggle remain everyday realities, and it is enlivening them as it once did us:

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/springtime-of-renewal-in-serbia-but-what-of-dixie/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘More Solar and Wind Power Brings Increased Risk of Blackouts’

 

On Monday, 28 April [2025], Spain and Portugal suffered a crippling blackout.  What was the cause?

A maniacal, bare-chested Vladimir Putin, swimming underwater with a knife between his teeth, cutting ocean floor power cables?  No, it was not.

The psychotic pair of Donald Trump and J. D. Vance tossing anti-NATO hand grenades onto the power grid from a prototype F-47?  No, it was not.

Who is the culprit, then?

It is in fact the green energy promoting, climate saving crusaders of Spain.  Their replacement of electricity generation from hydrocarbon and nuclear plants with solar and wind generation has made the electricity grid unstable:

‘The inability of Spain’s electricity grid to manage an unusually high supply of solar power was a key factor in Monday’s catastrophic blackout, former regulators and experts have said.

‘About 55 per cent of Spain’s supply was from solar sources when 15GW of electricity generation disconnected from the grid within just five seconds on Monday afternoon, triggering a wide-ranging shutdown of power systems in Spain and Portugal.

‘Several European experts said that Spain appeared to lack enough firm power — readily available, reliable energy supply from sources such as fossil fuels or nuclear that can be reduced or raised — to kick in when the grid’s frequency dropped sharply at 12.33pm on Monday. Frequency, the rate at which electrical current alternates, must be kept stable for the grid to function.

‘ . . . André Merlin, the founder and former chief executive of France’s grid operator RTE, told the Financial Times: “Two-thirds of [Spain’s electricity] production was made up of non-controllable resources. These non-controllable resources . . . don’t contribute to the stability of the internal electrical system.”

‘ . . . Grid operators must constantly balance supply and demand of electricity to keep the frequency of the grid stable, and avoid damaging equipment or outages. This stability is easier to achieve with turbines powered by fossil fuels, hydroelectric or nuclear energy than with renewable technologies such as solar. Spain’s grid frequency dropped sharply below the optimal 50Hz rate at 12.33pm on Monday.

‘The reliance on solar energy at the time of the outage has led to criticisms of Red Eléctrica. Normally about a fifth of the country’s supply comes from solar power.

‘Sanz, a former adviser on the energy transition to the Spanish government, said that there was “poor management” of the grid, by not having enough nuclear, hydroelectric or fossil fuel energy scheduled to balance the system. Of the scheduled 26GW of electricity supply on Monday, just 5GW came from non-intermittent sources.

‘The Brussels-based adviser pointed to Red Eléctrica’s own 2024 annual report, which said that disconnections caused by “high renewable penetration” without enough “necessary technical capabilities for an adequate response to disturbances” was a risk to the system’ (Alice Hancock, Ian Johnston, Financial Times, ‘Spain and Portugal blackout blamed on solar power dependency,’ archive.is).

Like all fervent ideologues, however, the Spanish greens are loathe to admit that their faith is false:

‘Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica has said that it still does not know the exact cause of the outage. Chief executive Beatriz Corredor denied that renewables “made the system more vulnerable” in an interview with El País on Wednesday.

‘ . . . But she [Corredor] launched a stern defence of Spain’s renewable systems and pointed to unreliability of other energy sources, including nuclear. “[Renewables] are not insecure technologies. The proof is that the system operates with renewables every day . . . It’s not true that higher penetration of renewables has made the system more vulnerable” (Ibid.).

With such a stark warning staring us squarely in the face, surely Louisiana and her neighbors in Dixie would refuse to build massive solar and wind farms to generate electricity for homes, churches, businesses, etc., . . . right?

Wrong.

Morehouse Parish in Louisiana is running headlong into that ditch:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/05/garlington-more-solar-and-wind-power-brings-increased-risk-of-blackouts/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘New Voyages of Saint Brendan the Navigator’

 

As a fervent preacher of the Gospel of Christ,

You in your little oxhide ship sailed to many lands,

Near and far, known and unknown, seen and hidden,

Adorning them with the beauty of God’s Grace

And receiving for yourself blessèd visions

And other delights – a foretaste of Paradise.

 

Passing to the next life, you entered

That Primordial Garden of the world

At the behest of God.  He has granted you now

A wider sea to sail, the whole expanse of the heavens,

In a dazzling hollow half-sphere pearl trimmed with gossamer gold

And carried through the air by four radiant angels –

 

High above the ancient peaks of the mountains

And the twisting crowns of the eldest trees,

Through the clouds of many hues, rose, bronze, and milky white,

Through the fields of brightly shining stars

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/new-voyages-of-saint-brendan-the-navigator/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!