Remembrances for September – 2025

 

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

4 September

General John Hunt Morgan, a very effective Kentucky cavalry leader in the War, doing much to disrupt Yankee supply lines and making an incursion deep into Northern territory.  Killed in battle in 1864.

http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3531

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4433/john-hunt-morgan/photo

4 Sept.

Judge Spencer Roane, one of the best judges of his day, and an unsung hero for local authority.

http://roanefamilytree.com/Judge_Spencer_Roane.html

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/mcculloch-v-maryland/

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/spencer-roane-the-forgotten-founder/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18472831

9 Sept.

Bill Monroe, one of the pioneers of the Bluegrass genre of music.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/what-makes-this-musician-great-bill-monroe/

9 Sept.

Stand Watie, a Cherokee leader who became a general in the Confederate Army.  He was one of the last to surrender to the Yankees in the War.

https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=WA040

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4506/stand-watie

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/they-came-from-the-east/

10 Sept.

Gov Huey Long, a true champion of the lower classes in Louisiana, unfortunately tainted with corruption and other problems.  He was mortally wounded in 1935 on 8 Sept., the birthday of the Theotokos.

https://texasjohnslaughter.substack.com/p/lessons-in-southern-populism-the

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2025/09/08/102541-the-nativity-of-our-most-holy-lady-the-mother-of-god-and-ever-vi

15 Sept.

Archibald Rutledge, a Poet Laureate of South Carolina, writer of 90 books of poetry and prose.  Descended from South Carolina’s nobility.

https://www.reckonin.com/clyde-wilson/archibald-rutledge-carolina-bard

http://www.theofficialschalloffame.com/directlink.html?id=72

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13954774/archibald_hamilton-rutledge

15 Sept.

Robert Penn Warren, ‘at home in all the major genres–poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism–though poetry was his dominant mode. Warren was awarded three Pulitzer Prizes, a number unmatched by any other writer: one for his novel All The King’s Men (1947) and two for the poetry collections Promises (1958) and Now and Then (1978). He also received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters awarded him its Gold Medal for Poetry in 1985. In 1986 he was named poet laureate, the first in the United States to be given that title.’

https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/robert-penn-warren/

https://www.robertpennwarren.com/

16 Sept.

James Oliver Rigney, Jr (aka Robert Jordan), the writer of a renowned series of fantasy books, The Wheel of Time, amongst other works.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/let-the-south-ride-again-on-the-winds-of-time/

17 Sept.

Gov Pedro Menendez, the first Spanish governor of Florida who founded the first permanent European settlement in the South (the city of St Augustine).  A good military commander (though a little too quick to shed blood), he negotiated with the Native Americans to trade peacefully and worked to evangelize them as well.

https://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/menendz/menendz1.htm

20 Sept.

Richard Rowland Kirkland, the famous ‘Angel of Marye’s Heights’, he tended to the Yankee wounded after the Battle of Fredericksburg.

https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/kirkland-richard-rowland/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4063/richard-rowland-kirkland

23 Sept.

Major Richard Dowling, the son of recent Irish immigrants, he turned back a large Yankee invasion force in Sabine Pass in 1863 with a comparatively much smaller force.  Many places in southeast Texas were named in honor of him.

https://easttexashistory.org/items/show/164

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6813103/richard-william-dowling

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/dowling-richard-william

24 Sept.

William ‘Singing Billy’ Walker, he helped popularize shape note/Sacred Harp singing in the South.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/not-just-whistling-dixie/

http://originalsacredharp.com/2013/12/31/william-walker-carolina-contributor-to-american-music/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/32607297/william-walker/photo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(composer)#/media/File:Grave_of_William_Walker_(composer).jpg

27 Sept.

Gen. Braxton Bragg, a gifted commander in certain ways, but his ornery personality usually wound up antagonizing those around him.

https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/bragg-braxton

28 Sept.

Sen. Thomas Bayard, Sr, a staunch defender of the South against Radical Reconstructionists.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/thomas-f-bayard-sr/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6653371/thomas-francis-bayard

Also, to celebrate some of the saints of September from the South’s Christian inheritance of various lands, use these links:

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

https://confiterijournal.blogspot.com/2020/10/happy-feast-for-saints-of-september.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!

‘The Sovietization of Federal Elections’

 

Traditional community life is nearly non-existent in the modern United States, the natural effect of the venomous ideologies that have been imbibed in copious quantities over the decades by both Left and Right, progressives and conservatives.  Voting days are one of the few remaining vestiges of those earlier times, one of the few communal gatherings left to us – when folks at the polling places might run into old neighbors or friends and catch up with one another, or meet new people and strike up a conversation while waiting in line to vote.

It was with pleasant thoughts like these that I set out to the polling station to cast my ballot during Louisiana’s early voting season.  The building in which the polling station itself is located is rather new, a health clinic surrounded by some nice greenery and built in an architectural style that is reminiscent of Dixie’s antebellum Greco-Roman designs, thankfully eschewing the ugly brutalism of many modern buildings.  But the dark clouds would soon overshadow all this sunniness.

In 2020, early voting was a madhouse.  It took the better part of an hour to be able to reach the actual voting machine.  This year there was no line.  So I happily stepped into the room prepared for the election occasion.  Things quickly went downhill.  There were at least three big burly police officers in the room, all decked out in formidable gear.  I tried to greet the one who approached me with a smile and a ‘How are you doin’?’, but he cut me off, giving me a gruff order to move on up to the table.

This I did.  Once again, I tried to engage the person I was directed toward, a rotund, graying woman, with pleasantries.

‘Driver’s license?’, I asked with a smile – which was met with a sour scowl and a nod.

She handed me back my license, and, wasting no time at all, the Amazonian police woman to my left (who thankfully had retained some of her natural femininity despite her very unfeminine career choice) asked me to move down to the next woman seated at the table, who kept the book we had to sign to verify our identity and to show that we had voted.  It is worth noting that there was only one other woman behind me at the time in the line, and there were two other workers at the other end of the table who were available to tend to her and any others.  There was no reason for this sort of hurried hustling of us along.

Ah well, at the least the lady with the book, a wiry, older, Oriental woman wearing a face mask, exuded some joyfulness when I approached to sign.

With the key card in hand given me by the scowling woman, which was necessary to activate the voting machine, another big barking police man directed me in how to use the voting machine.  The deed done, I was swept toward the exit by the same fellow, to whom I gave the precious card.

What a travesty.  No warmth.  No pauses for conversations.  Just a cold, efficient, businesslike transaction.  Very Yankee.

Traditionally, elections in the South were festive, mirthful occasions.  Southern folklore is full of colorful stories about them.  Local and State elections still retain some of this flavor, but it is all but gone in federal elections.  The latter are now mostly grim, angry, loveless affairs.

And worse still, with the militarized police presence, very Soviet/Stalinist.  ‘Well done comrade.  You have executed your most important duty as a citizen.  With your vote, you have strengthened the People’s Republic of America.’

. . .

The rest is at https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/the-sovietization-of-federal-elections/.

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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!

‘Voices to Heed on Israel’

 

Christians outside the Dispensationalist echo chamber of the [u]nited States tend to view the nation-state of Israel and her wars in a different light than those here in the States.

In England Father Andrew Phillips writes, ‘As for Israel, it is bankrupt, its economy is in tatters and hundreds of thousands of Israelis are fleeing, especially to Cyprus, Greece and the USA. Who wants to live in Israel now?’

The synod of bishops of the Albanian Orthodox Church recently issued a terse statement condemning the war in Gaza:

 

The atrocities in Gaza, with tens of thousands of victims, mostly innocent civilians, children, the elderly, the sick, are causing deep suffering. There is a need to achieve an immediate ceasefire. The parties involved must show prudence and reasoning, prioritizing the value of each human being and peaceful coexistence over continued violence with incalculable consequences. Repeated retaliation does not solve the problem. All major powers must contribute to the way out of this catastrophic human and ecological tragedy.

And the Patriarchate of Antioch, practically in the backyard of Israel, also minces no words in its opposition to Israeli brutality:

 

At the invitation of Patriarch JOHN X, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, and in the presence of the Antiochian Metropolitans of the Archdioceses in Lebanon, a meeting of the Orthodox Ministers and Members of Parliament was held to discuss the dire circumstances that Lebanon and the Middle East are going through.

 

The participants condemned the war waged by Israelagainst Lebanon and its citizens, accompanied by assassinations, killing of innocent citizens, destruction, forced migration, and displacement. They called on decision-makers in the world to work for stopping the on-going killing that has claimed the lives of thousands of innocent civilians.

 

 . . . The participants called for an immediate ceasefire, and to work for a just peace, respect the sovereignty and unity of the Lebanese territories, observe and implement the international resolutions by all parties.

 

The participants appealed to the international community to hasten and stop the massacre of the Lebanese people and to extend a helping hand to the Lebanese government in order to promote stability in the country and provide relief to the afflicted people at the beginning of winter.

 

 . . . The participants launched an appeal to the world to stop fueling the criminality that affects the Lebanese people by drying up the flow of weapons that kill Lebanese citizens.

 

The participants reiterated their commitment to work towards establishing peace in Lebanon and providing all the requirements for a decent life for its people, who deserve a secure and prosperous life.

False teachings in the uS, Israel, and other Western countries cause spiritual blindness, discernment is lost, and wrongdoers are lionized as heroes as a result.  Dr Michael Hoffman explains a bit:

 

The conflation of Zionism with Judaism is the real act of intimidation. Atrocities perpetrated against Palestinians and Lebanese are being committed in the name of “the Jewish state of Israel,” a phrase that is a disingenuous linguistic trap.

 

The Zionist entity in the Middle East violates Talmudic injunctions by its very existence; it is not theologically Judaic from the point of the view of Judaism’s holiest text, the Talmud Bavli. In Ketubot 111a one encounters the “Three Oaths” taken when the Jews went into exile after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.

 

They are: “One, that Israel not ascend the wall; another, that the Holy One adjured Israel not to rebel against the nations of the world; and another, that the Holy One adjured the gentiles not to oppress Israel too much.”

 

These Talmudic halachos forbade Jews from engaging in collective political organizing and the use of military force. For 1300 years an overwhelming majority of all rabbinic authorities upheld these prohibitions. It was only when the Zionist ideology came to the fore in the early 20th century that they were abandoned, or subjected to a reinterpretation that nullified them.

 

Moreover, as authentic followers of Jesus know, Christians are the true Israel, the genuine descendants of Abraham, and the inheritors of the Bible’s covenant promises (1 Peter 2:9, Gal. 6:16, Romans 9:6) to be a blessing unto humanity (Gal. 3:8).

A little reading through Church history would help Christians understand that the Jewish people ain’t their best buds in Middle East.  Some examples from the Lives of the Saints:

 

-Holy Apostle James, the Brother of the Lord

 

When the Savior began to proclaim the Kingdom of God, Saint James believed in Christ and became His Apostle. Later, he was chosen as the first Bishop of Jerusalem.

 

Saint James presided over the Council of Jerusalem and his word was decisive (Acts 15). In his thirty years as bishop, Saint James converted many Jews to Christianity. Angered by this, the Pharisees and the Scribes plotted together to kill the holy bishop. They led him up on the pinnacle of the Jerusalem Temple and asked him what he thought of Jesus. The holy Apostle bore witness that Christ is the Messiah, which was not the response the Pharisees were expecting. Enraged, the Jewish leaders threw him off the roof. He did not die at once, but gathering his final strength, he prayed to the Lord for his enemies while they were stoning him. Saint James’ martyrdom occurred about 63 A.D.

 

-Hieromartyr Judas, another Bishop of Jerusalem:

 

THE APOSTLE St. James and his brother St. Simeon were the two first bishops of Jerusalem; thirteen bishops who succeeded them were of the Jewish nation; the last, called Judas, seems to have been crowned with martyrdom among the Christians whom Barchokebas massacred in 134.

 

 . . .

The rest is at https://web.archive.org/web/20241101114400/https://identitydixie.com/2024/10/27/voices-to-heed-on-israel/.

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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!