2025 LATEST NEWS of the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization Inc.
The Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization was founded in 1983 by our late Co-Founder Katherine M. Wolford who died in 1995 and is buried at Rest Lawn Memorial Cemetery, LaVale, Md. and current President Edward W. Taylor Jr.
The CHCO purpose is to protect and preserve the sacred and historic burial sites of all American Patriots. The CHCO protects and preserves our nation, the United States of Americas, history and heritage. The CHCO is a patriotic organization of the U.S.A. The CHCO prays for the Holy Souls.
The CHCO erects and restores monuments through our designated and protected gravesite program, from the American Revolutionary War era to current day. The CHCO is a charter member of the Coalition to Protect MD. Burial Sites Inc. May God bless and have mercy on the Holy Souls and the United States of America. Amen.
Cumberland Times-News January 17, 2025
Cemetery organization honors all veterans
I am writing in response to the letter titled “Reader questions claim of patriotic organization” published in the Dec. 30 Cumberland Times-News.
According to the National Archives and Records Administration Public Law 85-425, sections 432-433, which passed in 1958: (3) Section 432 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection: “(e) For this section, and section 433, the term ‘veteran’ includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term ‘active, military or naval service’ includes active service in such forces.”
Alan Septoff calls Americans who fought for the Confederate States of America traitors. With no facts, he claims the founding documents made abundantly clear the Confederate States of America was dedicated to the dissolution of the United States of America to preserve chattel slavery.
Mr. Septoff claims the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization is not a “patriotic organization” because it displays a Confederate flag on its headquarters and displays it on its website.
Mr. Septoff, the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization honors veterans of all American wars.
Leo Rowan III
Ridgeley, W.Va.
Cumberland Times-News January 15, 2025
Not a single Confederate convicted of treason
A recent letter to the editor maligns the patriotism of the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization by questioning one of several historical flags flown at the organization’s headquarters in an inferior position to the United States flag, which is properly displayed in the position of honor.
The writer falsely asserts that the Confederacy’s actions were traitorous, and that secession was dedicated to the dissolution of the United States for the express purpose of preserving chattel slavery. Such an assertion belies the inconvenient truth that chattel slavery was sanctioned by the United States Constitution from its ratification on June 21, 1788, until the ratification of the 13th Amendment on Dec. 6, 1865, far longer than the four years the Confederacy existed.
Moreover, President Abraham Lincoln, in his inaugural address of March 4, 1861, advanced his support for a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited Congress from ever abolishing or interfering with chattel slavery.
The seceding states never sought dissolution of the United States but rather wished to exercise their reserved right to peacefully exit the voluntary compact they entered.
Not a single Confederate, including Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee, was convicted of treason, in large part due to the unsettled constitutional questions as to whether one’s citizenship and loyalty was to one’s native state or to a monolithic Union. Trying Jefferson Davis for treason would have raised questions about the legality of secession and the constitutionality of the war.
One merely needs to consider the untold constitutional violations that Marylanders suffered at the hands of the Lincoln administration, which included the suspension of habeas corpus, the arrest of state and local officials, including Maryland’s U.S. Congressman Henry May, the imprisonment of newspaper editors, and election interference, to comprehend the states’ rights concerns of the seceding states and occupied Maryland.
Terry Klima
Perry Hall