Category: Civil War

The Prince of Darkness

The Prince of Darkness

BR Chitwood

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‘The Madness Monster’, or, some might call ‘The Prince of Darkness’, has arrived to lead our ‘Land of the Free’ and ‘Home of the Brave’ closer to its ‘Final Breaths of Freedom’. The Bible – particularly, The New Testament, and a Scottish Professor predicted a sad and lonely demise of our great Democracy, and there are some clear signs that our country is well underway to collapse around us. At least, early stages appear evident.

Our United States Constitution began to form when a group of people arrived on our shores from England and other latitudes, people who envisioned a country that would be a Democratic Republic where Freedom and the crude idea that everyone was created equal by their Maker, that laws and documents could be devised to protect those who lived by the dictates of those laws and documents.

So, a group of very special Patriots fought relentlessly to protect the gains from their labor, to untie the tight bonds from their former unwieldy ‘Monarchal Rule’.

The Great Experiment (Democracy) began and would last for years amid Political Chicanery, Slavery Struggles, questionable leaders, and wars.

I love our country, its majesty and territorial options – oceans, mountains, prairies, deserts, and I understand that all our citizens are not in ‘lock-step’ with many political views and mandates. Still, I worry about our choices of leadership, particularly those who have reached levels of senility, corruption, and questionable choices.

There are times when my mind takes me to the gray areas of thought. Can we all think so differently that we exchange a leadership that has positive momentum, logical criteria for options of healthy growth, solutions to pressing problems, positive avenues of further innovation and hope and promise for our people.

My mind also recognizes that we are ‘where we are’ and we must live within the framework of some illogical conditions. My mind also reminds me that there is so much I do not know about the dark shadows which our government puts before us.

In short, our founding fathers gave us golden words of suggestion on how to create a ‘perfect union’. What my mind unfortunately perceives is that our lovely America has fallen to greed and unprincipled actors in our government, more interested in their own personal gains than in staying true to the principles of our finely-tuned ‘Constitution of the United States’.

There is no need for me to dwell on ‘The Prince of Darkness’ – (our good people are not so blind as not to see of whom I write) – the clarity of all I would write here is seen daily in those journals who print the truth and the Cable News Networks who tell us the unvarnished truths that mock us each day.

I have nothing but my words to utter…useless though they might be.

Hope, however, still dwells within this aging body that somehow, some day soon, we will awaken to the principles that can never fail us – that is, ‘Truth’ in Action and Deeds as revealed in our revered documents which were forged in the struggles and blood of our heroes during the most noble battles that forged the ‘Constitution of the United States’!

BR Chitwood – January 30, 2022

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Can We Talk?

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Can We Talk?

By BR Chitwood

“Can we talk? Of course, we can talk. You asked. I answered, and that was five minutes ago. So, what’s on your mind, BR? You knock on the door, nod a greeting, and want to talk. We’re sipping beers, and you have not said two words. Your brow’s all wrinkled. You’re fidgety and nervous as I’ve never seen you. What’s eating you up, buddy?”

“Sorry, Luke, I’m not handling too well all that’s happening in our orbiting craft these days. It may all be above my ‘savvy classification’ and my ‘retirement pay grade’, but what is happening in this only world we know? The ‘World Pandemic’? ‘Corona Virus’? Masks? Family Separation and Isolation? Riots in our cities? Looting? Deaths? Restaurants and Bars closed? Sports cancelled? Political chaos and anarchical acts? Geez, I have no idea what Armageddon looks like, but, if this is it, I’m scared.”

  “You have a lot of company, BR. The anxiety levels of people are visceral, me, included. I can’t remember a period in our history when such anger, riots, killings, total disregard by so many of our laws and fundamental law enforcement is no longer viable…

“So, my friend, we have many people feeling the same emotions, the same doubts, about solutions and a return to some semblance of normalcy… I’m hearing ‘doubts’ seeping into conversations – doubts about Covid-19 and possible episodes with some extreme edging, like…

“Is there more to this Pandemic than what we’re being told by our leaders?

“Are there ‘Hate Groups’ backed with lots of money to stir National unrest to the point of making Socialism a reality? Think about it, groups working toward defunding our police departments, hoping to make it a more ‘peoples police force’ to serve their socialistic desires.

“We are all feeling our own pressing doubts about where we’re going with these actions we are witnessing. We can, I believe, no longer doubt that there are ‘interests’ being served by these current actions than by what our founding fathers had in mind.”

“God, Lucas, are you trying to cheer me up?”

 Short snicker.

“I’m kidding, your thoughts are my thoughts as well… I, too, feel there is more to the Pandemic than what we are being told…is it worse than we think? Is it better than we are led to believe?

“Are there people actively at work trying to erase our history? We already know that the Universities are hell-bent on shaping the minds of our youth.

“It is sad to think that so many people wish to erase and void the history of our Democracy, the wars fought, the lives lost, in building this greatest of all nations – spending huge amounts of money to buy malcontents and corrupters of freedom, defacing, tearing down our heroes and monuments. It is not only sad. It is an egregious affront to our pioneers, our trail-blazers, our historic greatness, all the lives lost in preserving our union.”

“Well said, BR. Is our little ‘beer and pep session’ helping?”

“Well, Lucas, you got me talking, mostly repeating everything you said…and, you know, I do feel better after our short chat here…guess that’s why you make the big bucks. {Chuckle}. The good people of this country, I have to believe, are not going to ‘cave in’ to the negative elements of Globalists, Socialists, and Rabble-rousers. This great nation could not have come this far without the great will of our people…and, guess what? The ancestors are ‘locked and loaded’!”

BR Chitwood – July 4, 2020

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Blood and Bones

perryville

Blood and Bones

Our Sunday drive took my wife and me to Perryville, Kentucky to travel over the hills and valleys where an early Civil War battle was fought, where thousands of young people lost their lives fighting for some idea of where they wished their country to be…you all know enough about the Civil War, so I won’t embellish on its causes, its generals, and the aftermath which still lingers with some of us to this day. In fact, there are some people who refer to our fractured political process, those and them, and feel as though we’re approaching another such battle, one that is currently being waged with acrimonious insults, pushing, shoving, with a hatred hard to believe, the blessing of some of those in elements of our political power elites… I won’t talk about that either!

It was a most gorgeous Sunday afternoon as we left our home (pictured above) where in 1862 an older relic of this one stood amid tobacco fields, where confederate soldiers more than likely marched up the road on which our home sits. We believe the rebel troops came up from Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee through Lebanon, KY and on down Lebanon Road (where our house sets). Of course, the original house still stands and was added onto a number of times, most recently in 2008. My wife is a history buff and will add her section after my finish here, but our place is beautiful and built like a fortress – and, we believe those rebel troops likely passed by or certainly were close to our home at that moment in history.

But, back to the Perryville battle site, some fifteen plus or minus miles from us, our visit to the civil war site was at just about the time the battle was waged in 1862. The day, filled with sunshine and silence, a somberness that gave us pause to look out across the valleys where beneath its earth lies the long rusted weaponry and the blood and bones of those who died. This land we passed over seemed, nay, was, sacred and, if tender of heart, one could almost hear ‘taps’ playing softly over the verdant dips and rises. My wife and I were quiet for most of the moments we travelled over that land, each of us thinking thoughts of then and now.

We eventually passed by the canon (pictured above) and left the hallowed ground, still silent, still in some remote part of our minds thinking our thoughts…

Mine spoke to me of humankind, the sometime gaping abysses we must navigate to get to a place of mutual understanding – if we ever do. Mine spoke to me of life and death, how some few men and women can be so power hungry to lead their fellows to chaos. In that Sunday solitude my heart bled for all who must come to save us from ourselves from time to time…and, finally, there were my tears. 

Now, I turn to my good wife, Julie Anne, to perhaps leave the philosophical depths and render a more ethereal synopsis of that lovely Sunday… [BRC]

[Julie Anne]
Today we ventured out to the Battle of Perryville. Drove around rather than walked. Basically had almost all of the battlefield to ourselves. Didn’t run into any of its ghosts. In between re-enactments but could visualize. Guessing about as warm today (high 80s) as it was in 1862 – but no drought to contend with. Remembered when Craig led Cindy (our kids were visiting) had us all over the fields and longing for water – how terrible it had to be for those fighting – after long marches and no water and the sun beating down on them. Some of the Rebs would have marched up the old Lebanon Road, right by here. I wonder if some got off the road hoping to find well water and possible shade. Did some sit under our old Sugar Maple for a bit before rejoining the march north and then east? Did Finley (freshly married) bring them cool well water, not caring which side, just that they were boys who were tired, thirsty and scared? And where did she hide the family silver? The big house wasn’t built yet but they were living here, growing tobacco. If I crawled around the old, low hanging, dirt part of the basement could I find something? Or was the old house in a completely different area at that point? The big house was built in 1871.
All the homes in the whole area took in wounded. Robert and Finley in 1862, the owners of our property, would have as well I’m sure (they were from some of the founding families and predominant in the area). Are there bodies buried here from the battle – where they didn’t survive their wounds?
My mind drifts back to what it was like those early October days in 1862. Our Sugar Maple probably remembers.
Billy Ray and Julie Anne Chitwood – Oct. – 2018
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