Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog

Here is GNMP Ranger Bill Hewitt discussing the 26th North Carolina Infantry on the third day at Gettysburg. A Confederate Battle Flag believed to be that of the 26th North Carolina, designated “No. 62” by the U.S. War Department, will be the first original flag exhibited at the Lee Chapel Museum at Washington and Lee University under the plan announced earlier this week.

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Small stories that don’t warrant full posts:

• CW buffs who use Google Earth may have noticed that Richmond was recently upgraded with LIDAR data (above), that includes individually-textured buildings, trees and even some road vehicles.
• The USS Monitor Center’s wet lab reopened in May, based on a verbal agreement by all parties. The contracts still need to be sorted out.
• As part of the previously-announced plan for establishment of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, the Museum of the Confederacy will begin transferring stewardship (but not ownership) of its archival materials to the Virginia Historical Society, where they will be scanned, indexed and made available to the public digitally.
• Saturday was the 213th birthday of David Glasgow Farragut.
• Robert M. Browning’s long-awaited volume on the Union blockade in the Gulf of Mexico, Lincoln’s Trident, will be released on January 15. It ain’t cheap, so start looking for loose change in the couch cushions now.
• The History Detectives had a show on the other day about the Sultana Disaster. Kinda interesting, but it’s almost all ground covered by Jerry Potter years ago.
• A tip for summer — after a long day at the beach, be sure to empty the hot coals out of your barbecue grill before loading it in the pickup for the drive home.
• Keith Harris has some observations about Shelby Foote as a storyteller, and as an historian. Hint: they’re not the same thing.
• And last, congratulations to my former Denbigh Project colleague Eric VanVelzen, who was recently promoted to Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard. Van is a former Marine and a Desert Storm veteran.

Got anything else? Put it in the comments below.

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I see from Brooks’ blog that Billy Bearden, who not long ago said he would “hope and pray” for the gang rape of a federal judge whose decision he disagreed with, is at it once again. Then we have Carl “Amanda Buncle” Roden, Josephine “Shoot Up Your Kid’s School” Bass — all active voices in the Confederate Heritage™ movement whose violent fantasies bubble up to the surface every now and then.

Also, mark your calendars, it’s just 25 more days before James Montgomery-Ryan says he’s going to make sure “that the yankees [sic.] will be wiped from the earth,” through exile (to where, exactly?) or by firing squad.

It’s easy to point and laugh at silly people like John Hall, who a few months ago worked up the courage to stand for “Dixy” by stabbing a sheet of paper when no one else was around, but underneath it all runs a culture that rewards angry rhetoric and fosters a pathology of violent fantasy, actively abetted by their friends who ignore, defend or explain it away.

These are the Defenders of Southron Honour. Know them for who they are.

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It’s an old saw that the citizenry of Vicksburg, Mississippi, did not celebrate the Fourth of July until well into the 20th century. While it’s certainly true that the anniversary of the fall of that city to Grant in 1863 continued to resonate with Vicksburg residents down through the years, in fact the date was observed by plenty of local residents, white and black, even if the celebration was unofficial and somewhat more muted there than elsewhere. And they were celebrating it even when the war itself was a recent memory. From the Vicksburg Daily Commercial, July 3, 1877:

To-morrow being the anniversary of our Nations independence, all patriotic citizens of this great Republic are expected to observe it as a holiday. We desire to be reckoned among this class of patriotic citizens, consequently no paper will be issued from this office to-morrow. The glorious Fourth happens to come in hot weather this year, and we are glad to be able to observe it ‘neath the shade of country forests.

And a follow-up, on July 5:

The people of Vicksburg came nearer celebrating the glorious Fourth yesterday than they have done for several years. True, there was no general suspension of business, as indicated by closed doors, but so far as the profits of trade were concerned doors might as well have been closed, for the salesrooms were deserted almost entirely. Everybody was out of town, apparently, enjoying the holiday in some way. Several hundred people attended the Hibernian picnic at Newman’s Grove, and not withstanding the extreme heat, all seemed to enjoy the festivities of the day. The colored population turned out in large force, fully one thousand men of them going down the river on excursion boats to picnic-grounds, yet there were enough of them left in the city to form a very respectable procession of colored Masons, and a very large audience to listen to the oration of Judge J. S. Morris, and to assist in laying the corner-stone of King Solomon’s Church. There was no prolific display of fire-works on the streets, but occasional reports from fire-crackers and large torpedoes could be heard, accompanied now and then by a patriotic cry, “rah for the Fourth of July!” We do not wonder at the lack of patriotic enthusiasm displayed on our streets. No amount of patriotism could have induced any sane man to exert himself very considerably on such a day when the thermometer registered very nearly 100° Farenheit [sic.] in the shade. However, the observance of Independence Day yesterday, slight as some may have thought it, was yet sufficient to indicate the prevalence of a broader National sentiment and a determination to at least partially forget the past which renders the Fourth of July especially distasteful to Vicksburgers, and make it in future “The Day We Celebrate” as much as any other National holiday.

To be sure, the Fourth of July remained a bitter date for many Vicksburg citizens, for a long time. Undoubtedly there are some who still reject the date as one for celebration. But in this, as in so much else about the legacy of the war, the reality is more complex than some would have us believe.

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A version of this post originally appeared here on July 4, 2011.

Great old song, performed here by Ed Miller. The audio isn’t great, but he adds some lines I’d never heard before.

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Via my colleague Craig Swain, a Louisiana historical marker at the site of a Confederate Navy shipyard has gone missing:

It’s not entirely clear whether this was an intentional act of vandalism, or if maybe someone knocked it down and hauled off the evidence before he could get caught. Here’s hoping it turns up or gets replaced soon.

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Via user Barrycdog at CW Talk, comes news that the Civil War Preservation Trust will purchase the property where Robert E. Lee made his headquarters during the Battle of Gettysburg, 151 years ago this week.