It is the late summer of 1863, the Northern Army of the Cumberland, under the command of Major general William S. Rosecrans, is poised to invade the Southern heartland. Opposing him is the Confederate Army of Tennessee, under the command of General Braxton Bragg. These two great armies would ultimately clash just east of Chattanooga, Tennessee in the vicinity of Chickamauga Creek (later to be referred to as the 'River of death'). Following heartbreak setbacks, the South could not bear another defeat, especially one that would unlock the heart of the Confederacy. At this time, ominously, the morale of the Army of Tennessee was in shambles. Terms of enlistment throughout the army were about to expire. There was great concern in the Southern command as to what the soldiers would do when their terms of enlistment expired. Reports and letters from home described the dire need of their families. When combined with the gloom resulting from the recent Southern losses in the field, it was feared that a mass exodus in the ranks was imminent.
About this time a number of officers came to the headquarters of Lt. General Leonidas Polk stating the urgent necessity of taking some immediate action to foster military brotherhood and patriotic sentiment within the Southern forces. General Polk asked one of his staff members, Doctor and Chaplain Charles Todd Quintard, to represent him at a meeting to be held later that evening to discuss the subject further.
This meeting was held at Tyne's (Tyner's) Station, about 9 miles northwest of Chattanooga. Present at the meeting with Dr. Quintard were, among others, Major general Patrick R. Cleburne, Brigadier General John C. Brown, Brigadier General St. John R. Liddell, and Colonel Scott Anderson. Cleburne. realizing the seriousness of the situation, proposed the creation of an Order to be called 'The Order of the Comrades of the Southern Cross'. Cleburne believed such an Order would bring about a unity of purpose and oneness of action among the member soldiers.
A committee headed by Cleburne was appointed to draft a Constitution. This committee met daily for about a week thereafter to write the document. On August 28, 1863, the committee met with the other organizers and several additional officers to adopt the Constitution and plan the expansion of the Order throughout the Army. This meeting was held at Gray's Mill, near Graysville, Georgia, a town located some 12 miles south of Chattanooga on the railroad to Atlanta. Dr. Quintard read the Constitution aloud, after which it was adopted unanimously.
A small pamphlet, measuring three by five inches in size and containing twenty-five pages, was printed by the press of Burke, Boykin, and Co. of Macon, Georgia. This pamphlet, entitled "Constitution of the Comrades of the Southern Cross", was adopted August 28, 1863. This pocket sized pamphlet contained the Constitution, covering twelve pages, along with ten additional pages of prayers and hymns. A copy of this pamphlet still exist and is on file in the archives of the Order.
Among other things, the Constitution provided that any Southern army commissioned officer, in good standing, was qualified for membership. Members assumed the obligation to remain in the Army for life, if necessary. Initiation fees were Twenty-five dollars for general officers, fifteen dollars for field officers, ten dollars for captains, five dollars for lieutenants, and two dollars for privates. In addition there were monthly dues.
The Constitution also provided for a charity fund to which members were required to contribute one-half of one month's pay annually for two years. This fund would be used for the relief of members who lost their lives in military service of the Confederate States. This Charity fund obviously was designed to relieve the soldiers' anxieties as to the suffering of their families and to allow them to focus their attention once again to the great battle which loomed on the horizon.
A time was set to present the Order and it's objectives to the army and to urge it's adoption by all officers and enlisted men. However, word of Cleburne's proposal spread rapidly through the ranks. Beginning the evening of the next day after the adoption meeting, and before any formal presentation of the Order could be made, regiment after regiment and battery after battery of the army competed to re-enlist for life until the entire Army of Tennessee had re-enlisted!
Several Chapters were at once organized, and but for the unfavorable course of events the Order would no doubt have spread throughout the Armies of the Confederacy. The Battle of Chickamauga Creek, taking place soon after, along with the occupation of Chattanooga which followed, prevented the expansion of the Order as planned.
The additional reinforcements of General Longstreet who arrived with his troops on the night of September 19, 1863 put the Confederate Army on par with the Union Army in terms of numbers engaged. The battle was one of the bloodiest of the war with both sides losing thirty-five thousand men in two days of fighting. Longstreet later wrote that this was the South's most complete victory of the war. In terms of guns, ammunition, and other material taken, this the greatest victory ever by either side on a single field of battle. From the Northern standpoint, this battle was as fatal a name as Bull Run. It was considered at the time, as well as since, that this was a battle not of generals, but of soldiers. The outcome resulted from the valor of the individual soldiers rather than from outstanding leadership, or special tactics by the officers. Cleburne attributed the valor of his troops mainly to the effectiveness of the Order.
The Battle of Chickamauga Creek followed the founding of the Order of the Comrades of the Southern Cross by scarcely three weeks. The enlistment crisis had been averted, and the Army of the Cumberland had not only been defeated, but had been thrown into disarray retreating in panic to Chattanooga. Cleburne was reported to have remarked that "had this Order been disseminated throughout the Southern Army, they could march to the Ohio River with out a check".
Against Longstreet's wishes, the Army of Tennessee did not press it's immediate advantage, and soon the tide of war turned once again against the South. There is little doubt that the Order would have spread throughout the armies of the Confederacy. However, the exigencies of the following campaigns left no opportunity for enlarging the Order. The deaths of two of it's founders, Polk at the battle of Pine Mountain and Cleburne at the battle of Franklin, in the fifteen months after it's founding, and the decline of the Confederate Armies, doomed it's survival. The Order of the Comrades of the Southern Cross faded into the twilight of "the Lost Cause".
Over one hundred years later, in 1979, the Order was revived by three Mississippians, Colonel Newton W. Carr, Jr., David A Harris, and James West Thompson, all Compatriots of the SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS. The original Confederate Order was brought back to aid a cause as sacred as the original cause that breathed life into the Army of Tennessee at it's time of dire crisis.
Today the cause lives again in the Society of the Order of The Southern Cross. The society emulates the spirit of those old soldiers, who in time of desperate need, bonded together to go forward, rededicating themselves to the struggle for their rights and the protection of the Southern homeland.
"To Remember Our Fallen Heroes and the Great Cause for Which They Fought"