Editor, Gazette-Journal:
This is in response to M.A. Truscott’s letter to the editor (“Honor, not welcome,” May 17 Readers Write). I open with the caveat that I am the proud great-grandson of a Confederate veteran who served with T.J. Jackson in the 11th Virginia Cavalry. My great-grandfather was captured, spent three years in a northern prison and came home to a devastated farm. He owned no slaves, and had to rebuild his farm with only his sons and wife to help. I am not in denial nor ashamed of this part of my heritage.
The nondescript Dutch trading ship that unloaded its cargo of African slaves at Jamestown in 1619 started a flourishing industry of human bondage, and set the stage for a brutal war almost 250 years later that nearly destroyed our young nation.
The huge Confederate battle flag on the highway into Mathews County reminds some of us of our heritage, and others of the oppression of the enslaved that propelled the South into prosperity from that day in 16...