Circular Letter to the Veterans.

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Headquarters Florida Division,
United Confederate Veterans,
Tallahassee, Fla., July 21, 1903

Comrades:

I do not know that I could select a
more appropriate day than this, the
forty-second anniversary of the Battle
of Manassa, to call your attention to
our organization and its objects and
advantages and to urge you to join it
if you are not already enrolled and to
ask that you use your influence to
build it up and to add to its power for
good, to strengthen its influence on
the future, to help it in its struggle
to blazen truth on the pages of history,
to preserve the traditions of our
Southland and the memories of our
heroic dead and to aid our suffering
comrades and make their cross a little
less heavy to bear. This is our work,
this is our duty and no true son of the
South ever yet shirked a duty or
avoided a danger when honor called
him, and honor calls you now. The
honor of your dead comrades, the honor
of your country, your own honor
and that of your children for unnumbered
generations all call you to do
your duty-to join the U.C. Vs.

Florida is the only state that gives
legal recognition to the United Confederate
Veterans. Paragraph 5, Section
1, Chapter 4894. Laws of Florida:
"To Provide Annuities for Disabled
Soldiers and Sailors, etc.," reads as
follows: "The applicants shall make
oath before the Clerk of the Circuit
Court of the county in which they reside,
stating company in which he enlisted
and date and cause of expiration
of service, the character and ex
tent of service, the character and extent
of his disability, citizenship and
rights to the benefits of this act, etc.
He shall furnish the affidavit of a
commissioned officer of his company,
or of any two soldiers of his regiment,
or the affidavit of the adjutantoft
ecampof united
confederate veterans
* * * showing That He is
A Member in good standing
of a camp of veterans, etc."
The Pension Board places implicit
faith in the "Affidavit of the Adjutant,"
while it closely scans the testimony
of citizens, comrades and commissioned
officers, because our Camps
are non-political and every member of
the organization is pledged by the
constitution and by the promise filed
in and with the application for membership
in the organization, to avoid
politics and to admit to our ranks none
save those, who by their honorable
service and discharge are entitled to
membership in our Camps.

It is not a difficult matter to establish
to the absolute satisfaction of any
community, the past record of any
man who has lived in the community
for any reasonable time. A thousand

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little things, inconsiderable trifles in
themselves, tell the story of the past
and prove the truth of a record, be
story good or bad, but, be the record
never so good, the friend of neighbor
cannot make the needed proof because
he has to swear that he knows of
his own knowledge that the applicant
for the pension rendered the service
and that he did not desert the
Confederate cause. If the applicant
is a "member in good standing" of a
Camp in good standing in the Division,
the Adjutant of that Camp can make
affidavit to the fact that the appli-
cant is a member in good standing, of
the Camp of which he is Adjutant,
and that affidavit is accepted as sufficient
evidence of honorable service
and discharge, because each Camp in
guarding its own honor protects the
State from fraud.

Every Confederate veteran should
belong to a Camp. He may never
need or ask for a pension for himself,
but perhaps, after he has gone to his
long rest, that devoted wife he left
behind may need the help the State
so freely offers. Then it may be, that
the records of some Camp will show
the only evidence of service that can
be obtained and the affidavit of the
Adjutant of that Camp that the husband
died "a member in good standing"
gives to her the greatly needed
aid.

Will you not join a camp? Will you
not urge other good and true soldiers
to join with you to organize and maintain
Camps, to encourage the formation
of Camps of Sons of Veterans and
Chapters of Daughters of the Confederacy?
The cost is nominal, less than
25 cents per member per year for all
dues to the State and general organizations.
Your Camp expenses you can
make greater or less, as you please,
but the dues should be enough to enable
each Camp to keep its worthy
but indigent comrades in good standing
at the State and General Headquarters.
One truth graven on the page of
history, one falsehood wiped out, one
comrade helped or one afflicted widow
relieved will pay to you a thousand
fold for years of membership. How
much greater then the individual
good if you and your should be the
beneficiaries.

Join a Camp, or, if there be none in
your county, organize one and see to
it that it is kept in good standing at
both State and General Headquarters,
for the camp that is not active and in
good standing is not only powerless to
aid its membership but is a blot
and a hinderance [sic] to the whole organization.

Very Respectfully Yours,
Fred L. Robertson.
Adjutant General and Chief-of-Staff
Florida Division, U.C.V.