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Here are images of the marker dedication ceremonies at Charleston this past weekend commemorating the life and legacy of escaped slave – turned Union Civil War hero – Robert Smalls.
Photos courtesy: Michael Boulware Moore
The once former Confederate ironclad – CSS Georgia – will be recovered from the bottom of the Savannah River in Georgia according to an AP report. The CSS Georgia was sunk by Confederates in December 1864 to prevent it from being captured by Sherman’s Union forces. Ironically, the reason its being recovered is because the state wants to widen the busy seaport in Savannah but the CSA ironclad blocks the path. The AP reports that it will costs taxpayers roughly $14 million for the recovery project. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to salvage the wreckage which has been under water for almost 150 years.
The Confederate Secretary of the Navy – Stephen R. Mallory – wanted to have 34 ironclad vessels built and used by the Confederacy. Only 21 such vessels were ever used by the Confederacy though, largely because Confederate iron was so hard to come by during the Civil War, and the Confederacy lacked the railroad system and logistics to ship it.
Most Confederate ironclads were modeled after the CSS Virginia, a former captured Union vessel known as the USS Merrimack.
What will the engineers find when they raise the ship?
Underwater surveys show two large chunks of the ship’s iron-armored siding have survived, the largest being 68 feet (21 meters) long and 24 feet (7.3 meters) tall. Raising them intact will be a priority. Researchers also spotted three cannons on the riverbed, an intact propeller and other pieces of the warship’s steam engines. And there’s smaller debris scattered across the site that could yield unexpected treasures, requiring careful sifting beneath 40 feet (12 meters) of water.
The AP story states:
Once the remains of the Georgia are removed from the river and preserved by experts, the Army Corps will have to decide who gets the spoils. Morgan said ultimately the plan is to put the warship’s artifacts on public display. But which museum or agency will get custody of them has yet to be determined.
Right now the Confederate shipwreck legally belongs to the U.S. Navy. More than 150 years after the Civil War began, the CSS Georgia is still officially classified as a captured enemy vessel.
The following text is taken from the Friends of the Hunley web site in its entirety (4/19/12):
A lantern that helped give birth to one of the greatest maritime legends of the 19th century has finally finished a complicated, multi-year conservation process. The small tinplate artifact was found inside the Hunley’s crew compartment. The last time it looked in such good shape was during the waning days of the Civil War when it may have been used to give the Hunley captain’s last communication to land – the famous blue light signal – before he and his crew vanished
into the depths of the sea…
A blue light has long been a central event in the unsolved mystery of the Hunley’s disappearance. Historical records indicate the experimental submarine’s crew was to signal to shore with a blue light if they achieved their mission to take down one of the Union ships blockading Charleston harbor. Confederates on land would then light a fire to help guide the Hunley safely back to shore.
The evening of February 17th, 1864, the Hunley hit her target and became the first successful combat submarine in world history by sinking the USS Housatonic. Both Union and Confederate historical records outline a blue light being seen on the water after the attack.
The signal has confounded those working to discover and chronicle the events of that night. A popular theory to explain the Hunley’s demise is that the explosion that sank the Housatonic also fatally damaged the submarine. If the Hunley crew displayed the light, that means they did not die immediately and survived the actual attack.
This small lantern found near the Captain’s station was likely used to display the famous Hunley signal of maritime history, except there is one problem: scientists aren’t quite sure how it would have emitted a blue light.
The lantern’s glass lens, which is completely intact, appears to be completely white and scientists have found no evidence of blue tinting. It is possible whatever helped the lantern display a blue-hued light was lost to corrosion during the submarine’s 136-year stay of the ocean floor.
This amazing artifact — and the lingering questions surrounding its use — adds another element to the Hunley saga. With your continued help, more artifacts like these will be saved and available for future generations.
If you have not yet checked out the animated map of the Battle of Shiloh you’re in for a real treat. It raises the bar for animated battle maps.
Richmond, VA (December 15, 2011) – The Virginia Tourism office has announced a new Web site for the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War and Emancipation that tells unexpected stories of real people who did extraordinary things during the Civil War. These compelling stories, found at www.WalkinTheirFootsteps.com, will engage online visitors in personal and lesser known historical happenings of men, women, slaves, soldiers and others who lived through one of the most turbulent times in American history. Visitors to the web site will discover the sites where they can encounter those stories and “walk in their footsteps” 150 years later on a visit to Virginia.
“We believe that visitors will be drawn to these stories of everyday people who not only endured but in some cases made a dramatic difference for others in the midst of war,” said Alisa Bailey, president and CEO of VTC. “We know about the larger-than-life figures of our history books, but the people featured in this web site have something important to tell us as well.”
Read the full press release
The newly released “The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War” by Little-Brown is instantly the best resource of its kind on the market, and well it should be. The senior writer and editor in the Publishing Office has led an effort to produce a first-rate reference book. Every public library should have this book and even the casual Civil War enthusiast will thoroughly enjoy perusing its pages.
It’s a typical over-sized reference book ( 13 x 9 3.4), but thin enough – with just 240 pages – to stand alongside one’s existing Civil War atlases. The layout is consistent, pleasing, and chalked full of interesting quotes and with more than 350 color illustrations.
The illustrations are not just eye-candy for the reader either, although many of the images used in the book are very rare. A few I have to admit I’ve never seen before. One will find
manuscripts in Lincoln’s own hand, onsite drawings made by a Civil War combat artist, maps, color lithographs, political cartoons, posters, [and] period photographs.
Margaret E. Wagner is no stranger to Civil War reference books either. She is the co-author and co-editor of “The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference” and “The Library of Congress World War II Companion.” She is also the author of “The American Civil War: 365 Days,” “World War II: 365 Days,” and “Maxfield Parrish and the Illustrators of the Golden Age.”
Most pages are divided into two parts. The top half (about 40% of the page layout) contains the artfully chosen illustrations to supplement the text. My favorites are images of actual hand-drawn pictures from the period. The bottom 60% of the page contains the text based on a pertinent event for a given day of the month/year.
I was delighted to even find an entry for May 12-13th, 1862, for the escape of The Planter by Robert Smalls and his clandestine crew. The inclusion of this event shows the editor and her staff are well-informed as to an event that is normally overlooked by most resources of its kind.
The fine book retails for just $35.00 but can be purchased from Amazon for a mere $22.00 or so.
I bought my copy in Barnes and Noble. Review points below.
Here’s my initial impressions:
What I like?
- Paper quality
- Typography of headlines
- Use of period photos
- Serious use of end notes
- Original artwork on the cover
- Not seeing another Civil War painting on the cover
- Promise of a decent complimentary web site (we’ll see)
- An article from Jim Lighthizer of Civil War Trust
- The Primer section with nice pictures of Civil War headgear
What I don’t like so far?
- More pop culture over-exposure of Gettysburg (see pages 6-8)
- Starting out quarterly. Give us more.
- Emphasis on Eastern theater. The top headlines pub Bull Run and Gettysburg
What I hope I never see in this magazine?
- Another ad for a Robert E. Lee statue, knife or presentation plate
- Another glossy cover from a famous contemporary Civil War painter (don’t they all just look alike?)
- Really bad graphic design by a wanna-be Photoshop artist
- A ten page excerpt – read extended commercial – from the latest and greatest Civil War book from a top historian
Inside the first issue:
Features
- The Men & The Hour: Lincoln, Davis and the Struggle to Avert War, by Russell McClintock
- The Work That Remains: Even after the fighting stopped, women waged their own battles to bring the bodies of their loved ones home by Judith Giesberg
- Run Aground at Sailor’s Creek by Derek Smith
- Captive Memories: Union Ex-Prisoners and the Work of Remembrance by Brian Matthew Jordan
- “Babylon is Fallen”: The Northern Press Reports Sherman’s March to the Sea by Silvana R. Siddali
Not listed under features but in this issue:
- Casualties of War: Clara Harris Rathbone by Stephen Berry
- Battlefield Echoes: Blood-soaked Reality at Bull Run by Clay Mountcastle
Looks like we’ll see regular sections or columns like:
- Salvo
- Travels
- Voices
- Primer
- Preservation
- Figures
- In Focus
- Books & Authors
I’m compiling a list of all Confederate monuments throughout the United States that are located in the center of the towns or a nearby park, but NOT in cemeteries.
If you know of a Confederate monument not on this list, please leave a comment. Thanks
Confederate Monument, Franklin, TN
Alabama
Mobile, (Rafael Semmes)
Arkansas
Arkadelphia
Batesville
Bentonville
Camden
Clarksville
Conway
Dardanelle
El Dorado
Ft. Smith
Hot Springs
Lake Village
Little Rock
Lonoke
Monticello
Newport
Pine Bluff
Searcy
Van Buren
Washington
Arizona
Phoenix
Delaware
Georgetown
Georgia
Augusta
Forsyth Park
Griffin
McDonough
Kentucky
Augusta
Bardstown
Bowling Green
Cadiz
Crab Orchard
Cynthiana
Danville
Eminence
Frankfort
Georgetown
Glascow
Harrodsburg
Hopkinsville
Hopkinsville
Horse Cave
Jeffersontown
Lawrenceburg
Lexington
Louisville
Mayfield
Midway
Morganfield
Mt. Sterling
Murray
Owensboro
Owingsville
Paducah
Paris
Perryville
Russellville
Somerset
Versailles
Maryland
Rockville
Mississippi
Brandon
Corinth
Ellisville
Hattiesburg
Kosciusko
Quitman
Missouri
Cape Girardeau
North Carolina
Salisbury
Wilmington
Pennsylvania
Gettysburg
Tennessee
Bolivar – see photo
Franklin – Photo gallery
Union City – see photo
Texas
Austin – see photo
Dallas – see photo
Virginia
Alexandria
Portsmouth
Richmond
West Virginia
Romney
Hollywood icon Lee Majors narrates Heading Back Home: The Story of Franklin’s Unknown Soldier and the Five Bloodiest Hours of the Civil War. This amazing and profound documentary, produced by the husband-wife team of Brian Speciale and Jodi Jones-Speciale, chronicles the 2009 discovery of a Civil War soldier’s remains in Franklin, Tenn., and the historically overlooked Battle of Franklin, considered the bloodiest and most brutal five hours of the entire war. Heading Back Home isn’t just a lesson in history – it’s a lesson in life, and is sure to touch the emotions of all who see it. Heading Back Home is scheduled for release in the summer of 2010.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDNcMcD4OJk]
An Open Letter to Governor Bob McDonnell (VA)
Gov McDonnell
I personally believe that the great State of Virginia is missing an opportunity to lead our nation toward a balanced and reasonable commemoration of the upcoming 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.
By focusing on the Confederate-story exclusively in April, you ipso facto miss and exclude the story of the Virginia Unionists. One of the more significant Union Generals was from Virginia – George H. Thomas. His decision to fight for the Union split his own family terribly.
The appearance is that your decision to proclaim April in Virginia as “Confederate History Month” was a capitulation to the devisive neo-Confederate organization, the SCV.
You already wisely made one correction to your proclamation. Now make one more . . . change your proclamation for April to “Civil War History Month”. If the promotion of tourism is really a major objective with this proclamation, why would you exclude the Unionists and U.S. Colored Troops that fought for Virginia, but in Blue instead of Gray?
