Canister!
A variety of small stories that don’t warrant posts of their own:
- Most people know Alcatraz for its time as an infamous island prison, but during the Civil War it was part of the primary defenses of San Fransisco Bay and, by extension, the California gold fields beyond. Now a team from Chico State University, along with a faculty member from Texas A&M, is trying to uncover part of that rock’s lost history.
- The Museum of Texas City, Texas is almost ready to debut its exhibit on U.S.S. Westfield and the Battle of Galveston. The article is mostly paywalled, but its first phase will feature the IX-inch Dalhgren recovered from the wreck in 2009. Boom!
- I hadn’t realized that back in early 2012, Matt Heimbach took time out from his, um, “white pride” activities at Towson University to come and stand foursquare with the Virginia Flaggers at one of their big events of the year, protesting the opening of the Museum of the Confederacy site at Appomattox. Looks like he marched with them, too. Quack!
- Long-lost papers of Union officer Luis F. Emilio (above, 1844-1918) will go on auction next month in Maine. Emilio was a company commander in the famous 54th Massachusetts Infantry, and took temporary command of the regiment after the bloody assault on Fort Wagner in July 1863, when all the officers senior to him had been killed or wounded. He was just eighteen years old at the time. Years later, he published the memoir A Brave Black Regiment, one of the first and best accounts of African American fighting troops in the war.
- The struggle against vandalization of Civil War monuments continues.The monument at Mountain View Cemetery in Longmont, Colorado is going to be replaced at a cost of $62,000. The monument, along with more than 100 other stones and memorials, was smashed by vandals last summer.
- I’ve never quite figured out what the recent Duck Dynasty flap was all about. Near as I can make it, the basic dynamic involved is that (1) A&E’s suspension of Phil Robertson because they feared a backlash from viewers and sponsors was tyrannical oppression of the First Amendment, and (2) A&E’s reinstatement of Phil Robertson because they feared a backlash from viewers and sponsors was ZOMG Freedomz! Do I have that right?
- On a related note, it’s worth mentioning that when Robertson was opining about being gay as the gateway to bestiality and all sorts of other bad things, and fondly reminiscing about “the blacks” being “happy,” “singing” in Jim Crow Louisiana he was a bonafide, deep-fried, Southron Heritage hero, but having more recently been quoted as rejecting the Confederate flag as a symbol of his DD-brand redneckitude, he’s now a “Traitor To Everything We Hold Dear!!!!!!” who has “has sold his soul.” Also, “he’s an ass clown.” How the mighty are fallen.
- Christy Coleman and Waite Rawls recently discussed plans for the new museum in Richmond with the Civil War News. In a separate interview, Rawls discussed his view that the new institution will enhance visitors’ understanding of the Confederacy. Despite considerable attention given to plans of preserving and caring for the collection, I don’t expect the interview will have any effect on folks who insist that the real intent is to “liquidate” the MoC’s collections.
- Finally, Michael Givens, Commnder-in-Chief of the SCV, gave the keynote talk at a Lee-Jackson Day Dinner on Friday evening. I don’t know what he said, but the picture accompanying the article is fabulous.
Got any more? Put ’em in the comments.
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Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog 
As always, an interesting round of Cannister! Thanks, Andy.
By the way, I clicked through to the link for the Alcatraz story, and a few sentences from its conclusion seemed worth highlighting:
“[A&M professor Everett] emphasized the role of the park service in preserving historic sites across the country. ‘They’re really heroes,’ he said. ‘They preserve historical fabric for the benefit of the general public. They have to do so on a budget that is not always certain, and they do a really good job.'”
I wish more of our fellow citizens would better appreciate and support the work of the NPS and related federal and state organizations.
The Duck Dynasty flap I think was mainly engineered to get those pseudo rednecks even more attention than they already have. I call them pseudo because prior to their TV show they were all short-haired clean-shaven preppie types. The media got suckered on that one. When you say inflammatory things about people who don’t ever watch your show in GQ Magazine, you know what the reaction will be. As P.T. Barnum used to say there’s a sucker born every minute. Now let’s all get back to arguing over the Civil War!
Yup.
Slightly off topic, a couple of technical comments.
(1) When I visit your blog on my iPhone (IOS 6.1.3), there’s no longer a link at the end of each post showing the number of comments received. I can read the comments if I click on the post’s headline, but there’s no way of telling from the “home” view whether or not a given post has comments. This is not a problem when I visit on my desktop machine; the clickable comment indication is visible. But IIRC, the comment indication used to appear on my iPhone as well.
(2) Something else is missing when I use a browser from my desktop machine, namely the “tagline” after the title of the blog. Used to be the “grey hair” comment, now a John Keegan quote. This shows up on my iPhone browser, but not from a desktop browser. (I checked both Firefox & Safari with the same result.) Again, ISTR that the tag line used to be visible on a desktop machine browser.
(3) Finally, a wee typo in the Keegan tagline. He was not a time traveler, and he died in 2012.
Cheers, and thanks for your fine blog.
chancery
Chancery, thanks for your notes. I’m not sure how to fix the issue with the comments, but the dates for Keegan, I can do something about!