By Doug Vair | Sons of Confederate Veterans

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), along with the Alamo City Guards Camp 1325, is interested in identifying black Confederate veterans and locating their gravesites so that these men may be honored for their service to the South. SCV recently discovered one black Confederate veteran named Holt Collier. They would like to find more like him.

Holt Collier was born a slave in Mississippi in 1846. When war came, he joined the Confederate army, along with his masters, at age 14. Later, he was a sniper in Company I, 9th Texas Cavalry Regiment and sometimes served as a spy. After the war, he worked in Texas as a cowboy for some time before returning to Mississippi. There he became a well-known and very successful bear hunter. He served as a guide for Theodore Roosevelt on a hunt in 1902 and was involved in the incident that resulted in the creation of the “Teddy Bear” toy.

The Alamo City Guards Camp 1325 is part of the Texas Division of the SCV. The SCV is a century-old organization of men whose ancestors served in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps of the Confederate States of America during the War for Southern Independence and is the largest and most influential such organization around the world. Much of the work of heritage defense and defense of the Confederate veterans’ good name is done by local camps such as the Alamo City Guards Camp 1325 in San Antonio, TX.

For additional information about the SCV, or to provide details concerning black Confederate veterans and their gravesites, see the camp website at http://www.alamocityguards.com/ or send an email to the Camp Commander at alamocamp(at)yahoo(dot)com.

About the organization:
The Sons of Confederate Veterans are the direct heirs of the United Confederate Veterans, and the oldest hereditary organization for male descendants of Confederate soldiers. Organized at Richmond, Virginia in 1896, the SCV continues to serve as a historical, patriotic and non-political organization, dedicated to insuring that a true history of the 1861-1865 period is preserved.

Membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans is open to all male descendants of any veteran who served honorably in the Confederate Armed Forces. Membership can be obtained through either direct or collateral family lines, and kinship to a veteran must be documented genealogically. The minimum age for full membership is 12, but there is no minimum for cadet membership

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