If respect for the Confederate soldier is still your primary reason for being in the SCV, please consider the following: In July,1862, Albert G. Thompson, age 32, had three small children and a pregnant wife. That month, two weeks after the baby was born, Thompson enlisted in the 62nd North Carolina Troops (see North Carolina Troops: A Roster 1861-1865, vol. XV, page 98). Like several hundred thousand other Southern men, Thompson knew that he was about to be drafted into the army. Two weeks after that, he and others who had enlisted in the 62nd at about the same time were removed from that unit by Confederate Adjutant & Inspector General’s Special Order No.188, paragraph XII, and transferred to an infantry unit known as Colonel Peter Mallett’s North Carolina battalion. (Special Order No.188 was issued because the Confederate government was converting its manpower supply method from a voluntary enlistment system to compulsory military service.) In other words, under the law, these men were covered by the first conscription act (April, 1862) and were ineligible for voluntary enlistments.

During the next two years, Private Thompson served his battalion, his state and his nation faithfully. He spent most of that time chasing deserters in western North Carolina. He fought in the battles at Kinston and Goldsboro, North Carolina in December, 1862. He was never AWOL. One of his children died while he was away. Given that he went where the army sent him and did what his officers told him to do, Thompson was typical of Confederate soldiers whether they were volunteers or conscripts.

As a result of the Confederate Conscription Act of February, 1864, Colonel Mallett’s battalion was disbanded. Private Thompson was transferred to Company A, 39th North Carolina Troops. Shortly after he reported to the 39th at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, Thompson was wounded during a Union artillery bombardment of his regiment’s picket position. His left foot was amputated "just above the ankle" as he stated in a letter to his wife, Cate.

Gentlemen, this is the man that your compatriots publicly call "coward." They call him coward, not because it is true, but because it is politically expedient. They don’t like one of Mr. Thompson’s great-great grandsons: me.

Private Thompson’s war service was sufficiently honorable for the SCV to accept me as a member on two occasions, once in 1965 and again in 2000.

Your fellow compatriots, Terry Crayton (Adjutant, SCV NC Division), Eddie "Grooch" McRae (James-Younger motorcycle gang NC SCV camp), Mike Tuggle (League of the South & NC SCV member), Robert "Tubby" Howlett (John Wilkes Booth SCV "chapter" founder), and Michael "Possom" Long (NC SCV & John Wilkes Booth SCV faction associate), find it perfectly acceptable to call an honorably wounded Confederate soldier a coward on the Internet, from the witness stand, and in front of me, the public, and other reenactors. They do this not because of anything Private Thompson did or didn’t do in the 1860s, but because of what I am doing to the SCV in the 21st century.

Publicly maligning the good name and service of a Confederate soldier is in clear violation of section 13.1 of the SCV Constitution, but members who malign this particular Confederate soldier will never be disciplined for it by your SCV leadership. After all, in political matters, the end justifies the means. This proves what I have said all along: The new SCV and some of its factions are using the Confederate soldier to pursue their political agenda, both internally and externally.