Confederate Colonel
The New Life of The Old South™
Confederate Colonel is an online community of those striving to live the life of the Southern Gentleman or Southern Lady in today's world. It is Chivalry with a Southern accent. It is the New Life of The Old South. It is a rich heritage waiting to be claimed by those who strive to live life with the quiet dignity that once exemplified life in the South. It is gracious Southern living at its best.
What is it that makes the South so beautiful, so gracious, so culturally rich, and so uniquely appealing? Part of the answer might be found here at Confederate Colonel. We hope you enjoy your visit, and we hope it helps you live the dreams of a new Southern nation that our ancestors once had. Those dreams are now carried on by those of us who cherish the sweet smell of Confederate jasmine, the sound of a breeze gently blowing through moss-draped oak trees, the taste of cool lemonade poured into a tall glass while sitting on a porch swing, and the splendor of the sun setting through tall Ponderosa pines.
The photo shown here is of William Pelham McGehee and his wife, Sarah - they are the inspiration for Confederate Colonel. William served in the Confederate States Army in the Washington Artillery. He was captured at the battle of Petersburg and held in the federal prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. After the war, he returned home to his farm in Alabama.
Confederate Colonel Objectives
Our objectives are to promote and encourage:
• the code of the Southern Gentleman and Southern Lady as guidelines for daily living
• the customs and traditions of The Old South in our homes and in our daily lives
• the tradition of Southern hospitality and gracious living.
We recognize that the code of the Southern Gentleman is best exemplified in the life of Robert E. Lee and other great leaders of the Confederate States of America.
We define Southern Culture as being the best of the antebellum period of The South.
A Southern Gentleman is usually also a Christian Gentleman. Christianity can shape and mold a man into a Southern Gentleman, or a woman into a Southern Lady. Confederate Colonel is a Christian web site.
What you'll find here - and why
There are many faces of The South. The popular media image of a Southerner is some combination of NASCAR, "professional wrestling", ball caps advertising Redman chewing tobacco, and pickup trucks flying a "rebel flag". In other words - "redneck". That is a stereotype promoted by the media; unfortunately, many Southerners have adopted that stereotype as their own. That is not what we are about. Here at Confederate Colonel, we take our inspiration from the original Southern Gentleman - Robert E. Lee.
Although the War is clearly the defining moment in the history of The South, it is still only a few short years in what really makes up The South. Here at Confederate Colonel, we don't focus on the War for Southern Independence, but rather on the broader issues of Southern culture during the Antebellum period - the Golden Era of The South - and how it still relates to Southerners today.
Living life as a Southern Gentleman is really more of a journey than a destination. It is something we strive for in our daily living, but it is a goal that we never truly attain. Even Robert E. Lee surely had days when he must have shaken his head and wondered how he could have acted so badly. No one is a Gentleman all the time, no matter how hard we try. Southern Gentleman is a title that must be conferred by others and not by oneself. Like true nobility, being a Southern Gentleman is determined by actions - not by birth.
While the emphasis may appear to be on the Southern Gentleman, the Southern Lady is of equal significance at Confederate Colonel. References to "Gentleman," in most cases, also apply to "Lady" - we will not play linguistic political correctness games in order to appear "inclusive". That is understood by any Gentleman or Lady.
That which makes The South such a beautiful culture is sadly missing in today's "politically correct," multi-cultural world. It takes a conscious effort to recover that lost culture and way of life. Confederate Colonel is where you'll find Southern Gentlemen and Ladies who live life with the quiet dignity that the title Gentleman or Lady calls for. The goal of Confederate Colonel is to remind you and those around you that The Lost Cause was an ideal worth fighting for - and certainly worth making a part of our lives today.
A Brief Tour of Confederate Colonel
Home Page
This is where you are now. It describes our objectives, the forum rules, and has other information that is not suited to a forum format.
Articles
You will find the links to articles that were written by forum members. These are better presented as a web page rather than being a forum post. Some articles started life as a forum post and were converted into article format.
Southern Heritage Archives
The
Southern Heritage Archive is a project of the Confederate Colonel forum. Our objective is to serve as a permanent archive of the best writings of "non-published" writers on the Internet. Some of the best analysis of Southern issues is never formally published, but is found on web forums, email exchanges, and other virtual forums. These writings can easily be lost in a sea of other posts or as sites disappear for various reasons. Our objective is to save and catalog this material and make it available to those studying Southern issues and the War for Southern Independence. We encourage others to copy these articles to provide multiple backups throughout the web.
The Forum
This is the
discussion area. Think of it as a group of Southern Gentlemen and Ladies gathered together to discuss the issues important to the objectives of Confederate Colonel. Please see the
Membership section for more information.
Code of Confederate Flag Etiquette
This is a project of Confederate Colonel in which we have compiled a
code of etiquette describing how the Confederate flag should be used and displayed so that it is always done with the respect and honor that it is due.
Letters to Confederate Colonel
Non-registered members are encouraged to
send an email to the
Letters to Confederate Colonel forum to submit it for discussion. Be sure to read the
How this section works thread before using this feature.
Links Page
This is a listing of other web sites that we believe may be of interest to Southern Gentlemen and Ladies.
Becoming a Registered Member of the Confederate Colonel forum
Membership in the Confederate Colonel forum is by Invitation Only
After carefully reviewing other web forums, looking at our own goals, and analyzing what works and what doesn't work, we have set the following registration policy for the Confederate Colonel forum:
- One becomes a Registered Member by invitation from a Staff Member only. There are no exceptions to this policy. If a registration request is received without first having an invitation extended, the registration request will be rejected.
- Registered Members may recommend others to the Staff, but invitations are extended by Staff only.
- The Staff Members will consult with each other before extending an invitation, so in effect, an invitation to join comes after agreement by the entire Staff.
- While the archive section of the forum can only be read by registered members, everything else on this site is freely available for anyone to read.
- Only registered members can post to the forum. Non-registered members are encouraged to use the Letters to Confederate Colonel section of the forum for input.
Requesting an Invitation to Join
A person who has a verifiable history of posting on other web forums (or some other form of web presence) may request to be considered for an invitation by using the Contact Us link at the bottom of the page. Please include a link to any forums you post on, along with your User Name. You will be contacted by a Staff Member - usually within a day or two. If you have a history of stirring up trouble, using insulting or vulgar language, or other ungentlemanly behavior, or if you actively pursue an agenda that is counter to our objectives, please don't waste your time or ours - such persons will not be invited to join. Please note that writing ability is a factor in deciding whether an invitation is extended or not.
Why is registered membership "by invitation only"?
We have already had several people attempt to register who have a proven track record of being anti-Southern, including one who made the news attempting to have a Confederate monument removed in order to be "politically correct." It is safe to assume that those people tried to gain access to the forum for the sole purpose of causing trouble. We will not allow that to happen here. This is a private forum made up of Gentlemen and Ladies, and we have no interest in a "diversity of views". If you are not a solid supporter of The South and the code of the Southern Gentleman and Southern Lady, we are not interested in hearing your viewpoint. There are plenty of other forums available for that purpose.
Forum Objectives
Where most forums are designed primarily for the members to chat with each other on various topics, the Confederate Colonel forum is a bit different. This forum is more like a panel discussion or a roundtable forum in which the members write for the benefit of other non-participating readers as well as for themselves - it is aimed at an audience that is far larger than just those who post. The number of registered members is very small in number, but we end up with a much higher quality of writing in the posts. We hold to a higher standard for what is written than the typical forum. All "smilies" and "post icons" have been disabled, and proper punctuation, capitalization, and grammar is strongly encouraged. The forum has a spell-checker which should always be used.
Robert E. Lee's statement to his students is the one over-riding rule at Confederate Colonel. "We have only one rule here - to act like a gentleman at all times." We will close with Robert E. Lee's Definition of a Gentleman:
"The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly -- the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light. The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others."
Confederate Colonel is owned and operated by Stephen Clay McGehee.
