Several months ago, while visiting our daughters in North Carolina, we joined our daughters and grandchildren at the Greensboro Historical Museum. While perusing the various exhibits there, I, being a history buff especially of the War Between the States and old guns, was naturally drawn to examine an exhibit of guns of the Civil War era. A piece of ephemera along one wing of the exhibit immediately caught my attention. It was a membership certificate in an organization with which I had only recently become acquainted. (I know nothing of the individuals named in the document, but they are all somehow connected to Greensboro history.)
On August 30, 1938, a small group of men gathered in Columbia, South Carolina. Most of them were veterans of the War Between the States, and their conversations revealed that each of them had something else in common: they had all been officers in the Confederate service. Although there was already an organization of veterans of any and all ranks of veterans, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, these men thought there should be one specifically for those who had been officers in that army.
The progressive conversation among those former Confederate officers led to the formation of a group that became known as the Order of the Stars and Bars. The name was later revised to the Military Order of the Stars and Bars. Although membership originally was restricted to those who had actually been officers in the Confederate Army, that generation, like the World War II generation today, was slowly passing away. So membership eligibility was expanded to include descendants of Confederate officers.
The original membership comprised 15 former Confederate officers, 26 sons of Confederate officers, and 21 grandsons of Confederate officers. Later, sons or grandsons of another 13 general Confederate officers also joined the organization. At first, membership was restricted to lineal descendants of qualified Confederate officers. Later, those having "collateral relationships to Confederate officers or governmental officials" were allowed to join.
The purpose of the organization was and continues to be the honoring of "the courage, devotion and endurance of those who dedicated their lives and services during four years of devastating war, and who, throughout the dreadful decade of reconstruction, labored heroically for the restoration of self-government as the most precious heritage of the American Revolution."
Today, the organization is a "non-profit 501(c)3, non-political, educational, historical, patriotic, and heritage group" dedicated to preserving "Southern history." The Order awards student scholarships and recognizes outstanding teachers and authors who write about the Southern heritage.
The Douglas Southall Freeman History Award is given for "the best published book of high merit in the field of Southern history." It is named in honor of the famed Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the Richmond News Leader and author of both a four-volume biography of Robert E. Lee and a six-volume biography of George Washington as well as the three-volume Lee's Lieutenants.
The Order gives the General Basil W. Duke Literary Award "to encourage the reissuance of out-of-print books that accurately present the history of the War for Southern Independence."
And the Order presents the John Esten Cooke Fiction Award "to encourage writers of fiction to portray characters and events dealing with the War Between the States, Confederate heritage, or Southern history in a historically accurate fashion."
Although I cannot trace my ancestry to any Confederate officers or governmental officials, I have been privileged to address the local chapter of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars three times. My first address was about my book Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies. The second address was about my book Legislating for the Confederacy: The Confederate Congress. And most recently I addressed the members about "Confederate Medicine: Medical Care and Those Who Rendered It during the War."
In every instance when I have addressed this group, I have been warmly received though not a little intimidated by the members' great knowledge of the War and their ancestors' role in it.