John Care and Rick Gebo believe you have been lied to. There is a conspiracy afoot and the politically correct media and America's Northern-dominated educational system are in on it. So forget everything you know about America, the North, the South and the Civil War. Abe Lincoln was a tyrant. The slaves were treated well. The South was not fighting for slavery. An independent Confederacy would have freed the slaves within 20 years anyway. These are the real facts, they say, and like a screaming wave of rebel soldiers, they cannot be repressed. Care and Gebo are only spreading the gospel. And in Philadelphia, they're not alone.
There are over 10,000 graves dug into Laurel Hill Cemetery in Fairmount Park, but Care, the Commander of Philadelphia's Sons of Confederate Veterans outpost, knows precisely the way to the tomb of rebel General John C. Pemberton. A school bus driver by trade, the 59-year-old expertly weaves through the solemn maze of crosses and monuments, eventually parking his maroon Honda sedan by the crest of a hill and tromping a few hundred feet over to where the old General lies, six feet deep in enemy territory. In a cemetery dominated by hulking mausoleums and soaring obelisks, Pemberton's rounded headstone is startlingly humble. It lists only his name and vital dates, but Care and his friend Gebo, who's along for the ride, revere the small plot.
A man of average height but exceptional width, Care labors to bend down and clear the dead leaves off Pemberton's grave marker while the more-fit, 53-year-old Gebo stoops to shake clean the wreath propped against the tomb's side. They're not re-enactors, and barring the small Sons of Confederate Veterans pin on Gebo's plain khaki hat, nothing they wear references the South. But as Gebo bends, the keys hanging out of his blue jeans' back pocket jingle, drawing attention to his keychain. It's a plastic rebel flag design, surrounded by a simple warning: "DON'T MESS WITH DIXIE."
Philadelphia's Sons of Confederate Veterans J.E.B. Stuart Camp 1506 holds monthly meetings, attends flag rallies - even some down in Virgina - and loves to hand out pamphlets. Since Care took command of the group seven years ago, membership has doubled to about 50. Their mission is relatively simple: to reeducate the masses, defend the rebel flag, and above all, vindicate the South. There are a few transplanted Southerners in the camp, but most of the members are actually converted Northerners, just like Confederate General John Clifford Pemberton.
He was treated with suspicion by Confederates for his Northern roots and despised by Yankees for his Southern sympathies, so it's no wonder Pemberton ended up with such an unremarkable grave. Despite his Philadelphia birth, the General's Virginian wife swayed him to enlist in Jefferson Davis's rebellious army, in which he served adequately throughout the war. His lasting legacy turned out to be the ignominious - and crucial --- surrender of Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant, but standing over his grave, Care and Gebo insist he did the best he could in a bad situation. "I look at him as a great individual," Care says. "I look at anybody from the North that's willing to take a stand for the Southern cause and to speak about it and to try and get the word out about exactly what the Southern soldiers were fighting for."
Like Pemberton, Care is Yankee by birth, but rebel by soul. He grew up in Philly, but says the South and the Civil War have always had some inexplicable pull on him. During the war's centennial years of 1961-1965, a young Care followed the commemorations and events closely, and says he couldn't help but feel drawn to the exploits and character of the Southern soldiers and generals. His fondness for the Southern way of life grew in the 1970s and '80s when he worked as a publisher in Baltimore, and it didn't abate when he returned to Philly in the '90s.
Not long after he had moved back north, he saw an editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer arguing that the Confederate flag should not be flown. "That just irritated me," he says. "It's certainly wrong when people don't have the freedom to express their feelings and they're not hurting anybody." Care was elated, though, when somebody sent in a rebuttal and the paper printed it. Enthused, he managed to get in touch with the rebuttal's writer, who invited him to attend some Sons of Confederate meetings in Jenkintown. The wheels were set in motion from there. Care joined the group as an associate in 1995 and after discovering in '98 that his ancestral cousin, Ritter Care, had served with the "Richmond Howitzers" artillery unit in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia ("somewhat surprising" for a Northerner, Care admits), he was allowed to become a full-fledged member. By the next year, Care was heading the group.
Gebo, on the other hand, comes from old Virginia stock. He moved north 16 years ago and, and in search of Southern companionship, joined the camp eight years ago. Despite his long tenure here, Gebo - who works as a supervisor in an industrial radiator supply plant - still feels out of place in Philadelphia. A few years back he almost convinced his Northern wife to move back to Virginia, but, alas, like General Pemberton before him, he bowed to the heritage of his better half and decided to stay. It's just as well though - passionate and outgoing, Gebo complements the more reserved, thoughtful Care well.
While Care mostly stands with his head bowed, arms crossed and eyes fixed on Pemberton's tomb, Gebo gesticulates broadly and his eyes swell wide when he makes his arguments. At one point, he asserts that whipping a slave could not be considered a cruel and unusual punishment because, well, it was usual. Stumbling onto the topic of Northern efforts to demonize the rebel flag, he blusters, "It's just something that the hatemongers want to keep throwing out and throwing out. It's like Hitler. Hitler would say the same lie over and over and over. Well, these people have control of the news media, they have control of the education system. So they're going to keep saying the same lie over and over and over to their benefit, where they're going to be able to convince the masses that it's a hate symbol, but it's not. Now is the swastika a hate symbol to the people of India?"
There's no shortage of rebels to memorialize in Philadelphia. 184 known and 224 unknown Confederate dead are buried in the Philadelphia National Cemetery and in fact, several Confederate soldiers hailed from Philadelphia. Pemberton was the highest ranking of the Philadelphia rebels, though, and holds a special significance for Camp 1506. So while Care and Gebo stand alone at Pemberton's grave today, every July 13 they are joined by at least 15-20 of their fellow believers to commemorate Pemberton's death. Most of them will respectfully wear a dress shirt or maybe short sleeves if it's hot out, although a few brave the summer heat to don their authentic wool rebel grays. Jerry Fine even brings his Civil War edition rifle.
Confederate flags in tow, the minions huddle around the small, simple headstone, and Care starts the service by leading his motley crew of Philadelphians in dual pledges of allegiance - first to the United States flag, and then to the Southern banner. Just seconds after placing their hands on their hearts and affirming that the United States of America is "one nation, indivisible," they intone in unison: "I salute the Confederate Flag with affection reverence and undying devotion to the cause for which it stands."
Next, Care delivers a speech on Pemberton and other dearly departed rebel brothers, valor, patriotism and the Southland. The men lay wreaths at the foot of the grave and Care utters a prayer. Fine closes the meeting by firing his rifle. "He'll shoot off three volleys right here in the cemetery." Gebo says. "And he's Jewish!"
The mission of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Care and Gebo say, is to illuminate the truth about the Civil War. One of their favorite truths to point out is that many Jews fought on the Southern side. "Most Jewish people today look at a Southern flag as a hate symbol. Well it really isn't. Never ever has been to me," Gebo says.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans reeducation, he continues, allows people "to get a clear picture so they won't have all this hatred and dislike." Care and Gebo equally delight in pointing out the smattering of blacks who fought on the Confederate side - nearly all of whom were actually forced, according to Penn historian and Civil War expert Robert Engs. They also mention latter day ones who have expressed support for the Southern cause. H.K. Edgerton, Care says, is a black man who walked 1600 miles across the South in 2003 with a Confederate flag draped over his shoulder. These anecdotes, they believe, add up to a defense of the Southern cause. If the perpetually oppressed Jews and a black man like Edgerton supported the South, then how could Dixie have been wrong?
Easily, according to Engs. The highly respected Penn scholar says that not only are nearly all of Care and Gebo's arguments wrong, but they in fact blur the line between revisionist history and racism. For instance, arguing that the slaves were happy, Engs says, implies that they were not equal human beings. "Slaves were ill-treated, ill-fed, ill-housed, abused and denied education," he says, adding that no credible historian still actually believes that slavery was good for the slaves. It assumes that "they didn't need as much and they weren't capable of understanding what was happening to them," Engs says. Though it's impossible to predict hypothetical future histories, Engs seriously doubts that an independent South would have freed the slaves. "They went to war to save slavery," Engs points out incredulously. "And they tried to reinstate it in everything but form for another 100 years." The danger is, of course, that Care and Gebo's views will create an atmosphere too toxic for genuine, civil debate.
Nevertheless, a growing number of Philadelphians are coming to see Care and Gebo's point of view. Care insists that they don't force their message on anyone who doesn't want to hear it, but when the opportunity for "education" arises, they seize it. This new found education and word of mouth are primarily to thank for Camp 1506's recent growth, he says, claiming that America's ever widening red state/blue state rift has nothing to do with it. People are just becoming more interested in their heritage. At first blush, it's easy to believe him. Outside of defending the flag, the camp claims to have no political agenda and on the surface, Care and Gebo are kind, engaging and respectful. Just last month, Care traveled to Gettysburg to participate in an anti-Klan rally. It's all about "promoting heritage and not hate," he says.
But Care and Gebo's beliefs seem to confirm every one of Engs's concerns. They assert, for instance, that the slaves didn't have it all that bad. "They didn't harm them and treat them bad," Gebo says, "When you buy a new Cadillac are you going to take your key and scrape along the side of it and ruin your paint job?"
Gebo continues, referring to a photograph of a slave named Gordon that he has found to be particularly ubiquitous: "You always see this one slave, real skinny guy and his back is just full of scars, where he had been whipped so many times. They don't tell you what that slave did. He killed, which at the time was called, the Master Nigger [meaning a slave overseer]. He also killed one of his fellow workers in the field and he kept trying to escape. So he would be captured and punished."
Care tends to back away from his effusive friend's crass language, but he firmly believes not only that the slaves were treated well, but that the South would have freed the slaves in relatively short order. He and Gebo believe that, 140 years after the Civil War, the South is still today under constant attack. "We've been put on a defense mode. It's been forced," Gebo says, still standing over Pemberton's grave. Most under assault, he and Care agree, is that most sacred of symbols, the Confederate battle flag.
Care, Gebo and many like them love it. Others despise it. "It's just our heritage," Gebo says. "It just [angers] me that people could feel such hatred about something," Care says. At one point, he saw a small, note-card sized rebel flag lying in the grass a few yards away and walked over to carefully pick it up. Not too much later, he plucked from the ground the small rebel flag planted alongside Pemberton's grave, and gently stroked it like a small child. Without explanation, a few minutes later Gebo replaced it carefully alongside the tombstone. He's convinced that the South wasn't fighting for slavery, so he can't understand why people think ill of the symbol of his fathers. And it angers him. Eyes steely with resolve, Gebo says, "I will stand my ground. To the day I die I'm going to fight to save Southern heritage with every breath that's in my body."
After spending nearly two hours standing at the feet of General John C. Pemberton, Care and Gebo return to the maroon Honda, buckle up and leave Pemberton behind. Back behind the wheel, Care opines that all he wants is racial and social harmony. If people would just accept the truth about the South and the war, then they would understand that the flag is not a hateful symbol and then, well, that would be one step closer to everybody getting along. They are confident that eventually the lies will stop, their message will ultimately prevail, and the South will be vindicated. As Gebo said back at the grave, "History is history. You can't change history." Disdainfully, Care retorted, "People try to rewrite it"
