Constantine Chapter Memorial Monument - The Saga of Sigma Chi's

The Saga of Sigma Chi's

Constantine Chapter
         and
Memorial Monument

Cover Illustration
The Fraternity is indebted to a truly 5 ignif­   badge. This image invades the living rooms
icant Sig for the striking art reproduced on     of fraternity houses as rushees arrive.
the cover. This poignant re-creation of the         Honored as both a Significant Sig and a
organization of Sigma Chi)s Constantine          member of the Order of Constantine, Milton
Chapter is the work of Milton Caniff, Alpha      works to communicate and to contribute,
Gamma (Ohio State) )30 .                         not to gain recognition. The recognition
   Milton)s widely-syndicated comic strip,       seeks him, however-from the United States
Steve Canyon, is read all over the world. It     Government, from his Alma Mater, from
is especially appreciated by his Sigma Chi       his Fraternity, from his newspaper readers
brothers when ((Brother Canyon)) appears         worldwide. Past, present, and future, Milton
right at rush each year wearing his Sig          speaks significantly to us all.
                                                   FRED F. YODER,   Editor 1he Magazine of Sigma Chi

Foreword
    Do you really know the full story of the Constantine Chapter of Sigma Chi?
         '}fere it is in the compelling prose of one of Sigma Chi's greatest writers,
        the late Ralph YWcyill, Alpha Psi (Vanderbilt) '21, Pulitzer Prize winner,
     internationally known columnist and editor of "1he Atlanta Constitution".
rwritten in 1939 for the dedication of the Constantine Chapter YWemorial YWonument,
              .it is a fascinating story, one that is important to every Sigma Chi.

"- that Sigma Chi should not perish . . ."

                  " ... was an enduring hope that
                        all members of their fraternity,
                        North and South, would again
                        become united."

Birth ofSigma Chi's Constantine Chapter
              A true story of an event which took place in the
        Army of the Confederate States of America at a time and place
           made famous by the novel" yone 'With 1he 'Wind "

                               by   RALPH MCGILL

1   WAS Spring in Georgia.
   And it was the Spring of 1864. The
                                            out at the little towns and their most
                                            curious names. Lost Mountain, New
dogwood bloomed, splashing the hills        Hope Church, Ezra Church - and
with its whiteness.                         finally Calhoun and Cartersville and
   But the sweating, swearing teamsters     Marietta and Kennesaw Mountain.
on the muddy clay roads did not see it,     The land rises sharply on the right
except perhaps briefly and with a nos­      going South.
talgic wistfulness.                            And then - in 1864
   And the tired, marching men did not         It was a dark mass of hill and tree
see it. It rained much that spring. And     and rock. And the white dogwood that
the rifles were heavy.                      had bloomed there in the early Spring
   In Chattanooga William Tecumseh          was gone. And there was to be red on
Sherman, grimlipped and disliking the       the hills soon, staining the leaves and
whole business very much, said "For­        rocks.
ward."                                         Joe Johnston and his men were there
   From that day onward, though M.one       - on Kennesaw.
of the weary men knew it, every road           The Generals in Blue who opposed
led toward Appomattox. But the long         him said they never felt so worried as
agony and the long dying was ahead.         when Joe Johnston was in front of
   There was feverish activity in the       them.
South. The trains rolled out of Atlanta.       And they never felt so alarmed as
And the roads were choked with teams        when they had him retreating. He was a
and men and guns.                           stubborn man to fight. In retreat he was
   There was one muddy road used            a running wolf.
more than any other. And today ...             But there he was on Kennesaw. His
   Today they call it the Dixie High­       men were behind breastworks of logs
way. You may ride it for a thousand         and rocks. He had retreated slowly,
miles or more. The tourist cars use it in   taking a heavy toll. And they never dis­
annual parade down and up. Sitting          lodged him until their flanks (they al­
back in the upholstery one may glance       most doubled him in numbers) were

about to pinch behind him.                 from Eta CU. of Miss), had talked
    And while he held, Nathan Bedford      things over.
Forrest Cyet there the fustest with the        It was curious to them. They didn't
mostest men, was his formula for vic­      hate the men on the other side. They
tory) slashed at the Blue flanks and       knew there must be Sigma Chis there.
raided outposts. He didn't have the        But it was curious to see the old flag,
mostest men. Not then.                     the stars and stripes, flying over men
    The Twenty Eighth Mississippi Vol­     who invaded their states. It was some­
unteer Cavalry was there with the          thing to puzzle about. But they reck­
Army of Tennessee.                         oned that every man who did his duty
    And with them rode a young man in      as he saw it was right-no matter if he
 a faded uniform. On it gleamed a cu­      wore blue or gray. Meanwhile there
 rious badge. A silver dollar had been     was the fighting.
 carved and hammered into the shape of         There was a long try at Kennesaw.
a white cross.                             The blue lines charged many times there
    His name was Harry St. John Dixon.     and fell back, cursing and grim, leaving
 He was 20. Behind him were three          their dead to carpet the hill side. The
years of war. The University of Vir­       hail of lead from the barricades was too
ginia and his chapter of the Sigma Chi     much.
Fraternity seemed farther back than            And so, at last, William Tecumseh
just three years. There was a growing      Sherman shook his head and muttered
something in the air, the rush of bra­     something about Joe Johnston. And he
zen, invisible hoofs and somehow,          gave orders.
though it was hot that summer, there           From the mountain Joe Johnston
was a chill now and then.                  watched. He knew what it meant. He
    You may see his picture. His eyes      saw the troops move out. And next day
 look out from a face that is young. But   his scouts brought the information he
even in the old picture there is some­     knew was coming. Sherman was open­
thing about the eyes which says they       ing his pincers again. The blue jaws
have seen men die and live. And they       were opening wide. And the nut they
have seen defeat and victory. And they     would surround and crack would be
have gone back to the job when it was      Kennesaw. So, the next morning the
all over.                                  Federal truops inspected the deserted
    But that day before Kennesaw he        ditches on the mountain. Joe Johnston
was thinking. A few days before he         was gone.
 had seen another Sigma Chi. He hadn't         The boy of 20 was at Ezra Church.
 time to get his name. There was a deal    He was there with the silver cross on
 of fighting. And there was a hurry,       his breast on July 28. They were
They had clasped hands at Cassville        holding a hill with a thin line. Both
 and he wondered what had become of         flanks were turned and a terrible in­
 him. He and Hal Yerger, a Sigma Chi        filade of fire was turned on them. But

they clung there. They poured their          would form a chapter in their regiment.
ammunition on the ground and so did          Writing of it, after the war, he said:
not have to reach for their pouches to           "The death of many comrades, and
load. They were relieved at last. And        the constant danger of being taken
he wrote in his diary:                       prisoner, a fate we thought worse
    "Which brigade relieved us I never       than death, ripened an idea long in my
knew; but I can never forget how it          mind. We felt cut off from all com­
acted. I never saw a body of men more        munication with the rest of the world,
precise on dress parade. They came at        hemmed in and fighting for life. Every
double quick from our rear and at that       college in the South was closed. In the
step and by regiments formed, cast           ruin at hand my sentiment was to pre­
away their blankets as they moved into       serve the White Cross. There was no
line, under fire that seemed like fury       means of outer communication. There
from Hell to us, and went on to the          was no central place to rally. I knew I
carnival of death beyond­                    had no authority to establish a chapter
     (He was 20 years old. And he wrote      of Sigma Chi outside a college, or at
like that. And reading it, and the rest he   all; but, isolated as we were, all of us
wrote, one may understand why Sigma          in the army doubtless of Southern
Chi endured in the South.)                   blood, I thought to raise the standard
    Joe Johnston was gone. Atlanta was       and fix a rallying point, which would
gone. Hood was in command. And the           preserve the existence of the order,
troops, wishing for Joe Johnston, were       whether we failed or not in our struggle
near Jonesboro, some 20 miles south          for independence, as an institution in
of Atlanta. The last chapter of Sher­        which we as Southern soldiers had par­
man's march to the sea was about to          ticipated, in order not only to subserve
be written.                                  private benefit, but in order to have
    The tired armies rested, like tired      means of communicating with our
 prizefighters on their stools in their      brethren of the north, all of them, no
 corners between rounds of a long, hard      doubt, in arms against us."
 fight.                                          (Remember - he was a boy of 20.)
    And that night Yerger and Dixon              On the night of September 17, 1864,
 talked.                                     they met.
    They felt, somehow, the end was              They found an old log cabin. Dixon
 inevitable. There were many more            writes that it was in a fearful state of
 months of the long agony, but they           dilapidation. There were cobwebs and
 wanted to do something. The colleges         dirt, but he wrote, "the spirit was there
 were closed. There was no telling what       and shone brightly."
 might happen if they met defeat. Sigma          There was not much time. They
 Chis had been killed. The Fraternity in     slipped away from camp without per­
 the South must be kept alive. There was      mISSIon.
 no authority to which to turn. They             And there, with the light of one

guttering candle, they gathered. On          standing there with the noise of battle
rude benches sat the candidates. Not         still in their ears, bringing men to Sigma
far away were the restless sounds of the    Chi that the great light in their lives
camp. Dixon sent out a man to see no        might be transmitted to other men­
one was near this cabin. It was on the      that Sigma Chi should not perish in the
edge of a lonely field with branches and     Southland.
vines half covering it. He came back            The shadows danced on the walls of
and shook his head.                          rough logs. The September wind in the
   Dixon was elected Consul. Yerger         vines and the pines behind them made
was Pro-Consul. They named their            a sound like surf afar off. And that
organization the Constantine Chapter.       candle light, flickering there in the
Reuben T. Pollard, of Mississippi, was      lonely cabin that night in the autumn
there. He was Eta )61. Ivan]. Shelby,       of 1864, comes down to us yet, stronger
Eta )62, had helped make Dixon a Sig­       and stronger through the years.
ma Chi at Virginia. William H. Bolton,          A white light - a white cross in the
of original Sigma, was there in the         Heavens - By this Sign Conquer ­
cabin. Thomas N. Fowler and A. B.               As nearly as is possible the site of the
Raffington, of Company D, were there        cabin has been located.
to be initiated. The latter did not live        It is perhaps significant and no mere
long in Sigma Chi. He fell in battle.       coincidence that it is located on land
Fowler survived. But that was later.        which has long been in the family of
   Before a crudely fashioned altar,        Sigma Chis and is today in their hands.
oaths were taken, the charge was im­            It is a great nursery, one of the na­
provised, the mysteries explained. They     tion)s greatest, and there bloom fields
clasped hands with the newly made           of flowers and evergreen shrubs and
brothers, fingers finding the grip and      things of beauty.
closing tightly. They put out the candle,       And it is there that land will be
the poor one of tallow. But they had lit    dedicated to Sigma Chi, and a great
new lights that would go on and light       White Cross shall be built to remain
more lights to make an immortal light       through eternity in memory of that one
in the lives of thousands of men.           candle that burned there near three
   That was the scene. The silent night     quarters of a century ago, in memory
and the lonely cabin, the solemn young      of Harry St. John Dixon, and his
men, dedicated to a great principle,        comrades of the Constantine Chapter.

                           So wrote Ralph JWcyill in1939.

The Creation of the
          Constantine Chapter Memorial
                              by WILLIAM H.        WILKERSON
                                     Beta Chi (Emory) )24
          Remarks at Dedication of Constantine Chapter Memorial Park, September 16, 1979

IN THE HEARTS of those Sigma Chis in               near Jonesboro, on the night of Sep­
Company D, 28th Volunteer Missis­                  tember 17, 1864.
sippi Cavalry, Army of the Confederate                Seventy-five years later, in memory
States of America, as they retreated               of those young men, Harry G. Has­
southward in 1864 following the fall of            tings, Delta (University of Georgia),
Atlanta, was an enduring hope that all             Class of 1887, and his three Sigma Chi
members of their fraternity, North and             sons, who owned land at or near the
South, would again become united.                  site, donated two and a half acres to
The two sections of the Union were                 Clayton County, Georgia, for a Me­
permanently separated, these boys pre­             morial Park, and an imposing monu­
sumed, but they would restore unity to             nlent was designed and erected through
their beloved Sigma Chi Fraternity. So,            gifts from Sigma Chis throughout the
they organized what they called the                world.
Constantine Chapter of Sigma Chi,                     Observing the monument, from the

highway or close-up, one marvels at its      ternity and Clayton County, working
magnificence. The pedestal, 11 feet tall,    together, created what is now a lovely
is of darkest Georgia Marble Mezzo­          park, complimenting the beautiful mon­
tint. The White Cross, 71/2 feet wide        ument. Located beside that once muddy
by 10 1/ 2 feet high, is of pure Cherokee     road, now four-lane Tara Boulevard,
Georgia Marble. Weight of monument,          the monument is approached via a 30­
100 tons.                                     foot wide entrance. Parking spaces for
    It was in 1939 that the land was given    ten cars are off the 20-foot circular
and the monument erected. And there           driveway which passes around the
things stood while years turned into          monument.
decades. County authorities lost sight           The Constantine Chapter Memorial
of the monument's purpose. Areas of           Pund, established in the Sigma Chi
weeds and red Georgia mud surrounded          Foundation, will generate income to
 the monument. For forty years the            provide perpetual care of the Park,
 dream of a memorial park remained            keeping it beautiful in lasting commem­
 only that.                                   oration of that which those young men
    Then, in 1979, the Sigma Chi Fra­         did thereabouts in 1864.

The Constantine Chapter Memorial Monument and Park
            are situated at 11001 Tara Boulevard, Jonesboro, Georgia,
                      approximately 20 miles south of Atlanta.

. LEFT: William B. Petry, Epsilon Zeta
(Florida State) )53, secretary-treasurer
of the Constantine Chapter Memorial
Committee, shown with S. Jack
McDuff, Beta Phi (University of
Arizona) )51, Grand Consul 1979-81,
during dedication ceremonies in
September, 1979, marking the 115th
anniversary of the Constantine
Chapter.

1his brochure was designed and produced by 'Kent B. 'Higgins, Beta Psi (yeorgia 1ech)   '25.
             Lithographed by Perry Communications, 7nc., Atlanta, June 1980

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