Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog

Uncle Billy’s Got His Eyes on You. . . .

Posted in Memory by Andy Hall on July 23, 2014

UncleBilly

In Atlanta:

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Do not run for cover, good citizens. It’s only Sherman’s stern visage that has returned in “Apparitions,” artist Gregor Turk’s temporary public art installation commissioned by Atlanta Celebrates Photography and Art on the Beltline.
 
Sherman’s eyes stare down from five different billboards clustered together along the Atlanta Beltline adjacent to Piedmont Park (a quarter mile north of the intersection of 10th Street and Monroe Drive), and have since March.
 
This is actually the third phase of Turk’s project. In the first phase, which went up last fall, the billboards were covered with images of blank billboards, photographed in a previous Turk project and suggesting mischief to come. It arrived in the second phase when the billboards were plastered with life-size images of the very views they obscured.
 
Part three, titled “Look Away,” strikes a more serious and provocative note.
 
“The configuration of the encircling billboards could be construed as an inverted version of the Cyclorama featuring Sherman’s eyes rather than the battle he witnessed from nearby Copenhill,” Turk wrote in an email to the AJC, referencing the site of the current-day Carter Center.
 
The artist clarified that his intention was “to reflect on the city’s progress and shortcomings since its destruction 150 years ago through the intimidating gaze of Sherman.”

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Remarkably, not everyone seems happy about this public art installation. Imagine that.

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GeneralStarsGray

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Kerosene Billy in Fact and Fiction

Posted in Memory by Andy Hall on April 4, 2013
Great Falls Mill

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This image, posted recently at SHPG, caught my eye, particularly given its description:

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Cotton Mill burnt out shell… the work of Sherman’s troops moving through Richmond County NC, in March 1865.

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It’s a dramatic and potent symbol of the ravages of the war on the South. Or it would be, if it were true.

The ruins in question are those of the Great Falls Cotton Mill in Rockingham, built in 1869, that were destroyed in a fire in October 1972. It’s a well-known local landmark, and is even included in the Historic American Buildings Survey. As near as I can tell, Uncle Billy’s bummers were not suspected in the 1972 conflagration.

Now, there was a large mill on (or near) this site that was reportedly burned by Sherman’s troops, but this one ain’t it, and ninety seconds with “teh Google” would have made that clear. This misattribution is not a huge, hairy deal, but is it too much to ask for folks to expend a little effort — just a little — in getting this stuff right?

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GeneralStarsGray

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