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General Stephen D.Lee
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The mission of the SCV is best said with the Charge to the Sons of Confederate Veterans given by Lt. General Stephen Dill Lee, CSA, Commander General, United Confederate Veterans, 1906:
"To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we submit the vindication of the Cause for which we fought; to your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles he loved and which made him glorious and which you also cherish. Are you also ready to die for your country? Is your life worthy to be remembered along with theirs? Do you choose for yourself this greatness of soul? Not in the clamour of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves are triumph and defeat.
Remember it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations"
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General Finegan
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General Joseph Finegan (November 17, 1814 – October 29, 1885) was an attorney, politician, and railroad builder in Florida, but is more famously known as the general who commanded the Confederate States Army in its victory at the Battle of Olustee.
Finegan was born November 17, 1814 at Clones in County Monaghan, Ireland. He came to Florida in the 1830s, first establishing a sawmill at Jacksonville and later a law practice at Fernandina. At the latter place, he became the business partner of David Levy Yulee and began construction of the Florida Railroad to speed transportation of goods and people from the new state's east coast to the Gulf of Mexico.
Finegan's successes are perhaps attributable to his first marriage on July 28, 1842, to the widow Rebecca Smith Travers. Her sister Mary Martha Smith was the wife of Florida's territorial governor Robert Raymond Reid, an appointee of President Martin Van Buren.
At a courthouse auction in 1849, Finegan paid just forty dollars ($40) for five miles of shoreline along Lake Monroe.
By the outbreak of the War for Southern Independence, Finegan had built his family a forty-room mansion in Fernandina, bounded by 11th and 12th Streets and Broome and Calhoun Avenues, now the site of the modern Atlantic Elementary School. His family included his three stepdaughters Maria, Margaret, and Martha Travers; and children Rutledge, Agnes, Josephine, and Yulee Finegan.
At Florida's secession convention, Finegan represented Nassau County alongside James G. Cooper.
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I salute the Confederate flag,
with affection, reverence, and undying devotion
to the Cause for which it stands.
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