Re: An Open Letter & Open Report / National Day Of Morals



From:
Date: Oct 25, 2016
Subject: Re: An Open Letter & Open Reports / NATIONAL DAY of Morals
To: “HK Edgerton”

Well done, H.K.!

It never ceases to amaze me that you can pretty well tell a person’s political affiliation based on how quickly they sink to personal insult, obscenity
and vituperation, when faced with facts they don’t like or agree with. The young lady (and I use the word advisedly) is a leftist, for sure, and the young
people around you are basically pretty conservative, unless I miss my guess. Christian, home-loving and easy to get along with. You may note that I made no
mention of race on either side. It is meaningless. And, I suspect YOU would say “that’s the way it was in 1861, as well”. And, you’d be right.

Whenever you use examples of what it was really all about during the War, feel free to use the name of John Hiter. As I may have shared with you before,
John was a slave of my family, and went off to war as “bodyguard” to my G-grandfather, in the 1st Kentucky Cavalry. His main job was to keep the two shotguns
and two pistols loaded. Obviously, he was mounted. When My G-grandfather, during Morgan’s Ohio-Indiana Raid, in 1863, captured a repeating rifle, he sent John
home, to the Kentucky-Tennessee border, with the shotguns. So: here’s John, north of the Ohio River, in Union territory, with a horse and two shotguns. He
could have turned himself in to any town or Union Army outpost and been a hero. Instead, he crossed the river and rode all the way across Kentucky, to return
the guns. He was still a slave, legally, but he was going home, and he was carrying a trust. Now, as a matter of fact, my G-G-grandfather freed him for the
act, but he didn’t know that was coming. He did his family duty. Later, a free man, he went to Virginia and enlisted in a regiment there (I don’t know
which one, I’m sorry to say), and was killed fighting for the South, in the bloodbath of 1865. John was not the only Hiter man to die fighting for the south,
and he may not have even been the only black man, but he is a hero to my family, and always has been. I like to think he would have been as patient with
the young lady in Dahlonega as you were, but I can’t bet on it. Hang in there, H.K.

Tom Hiter