Help save land at Bentonville

As many of you know, there are several key events during the war which are connected with North Carolina, i.e., the 26th North Carolina Troops at the battle of Gettysburg. Another of those key events is the last large battle of the war: Bentonville. Yesterday, I received an email from the Civil War Preservation Trust (you might have also received this email), announcing a new effort to save land at Bentonville. The email, and subsequent press release, read in part:

Today, we are announcing a new campaign to save 240 acres of this remarkable Civil War battlefield – the opening effort of a larger campaign to save 455 battlefield acres in North Carolina. These 240 acres, in four different parcels, will bring the total saved by CWPT at Bentonville to 1,142 acres! Even better, CWPT has secured a tremendous matching that will double the giving power of every dollar you donate to this campaign.

You can learn more (and donate) by checking out this web page here. The Civil War Preservation Trust has even put up a gallery of flags used by the soldiers (Gray and Blue) at the battle of Bentonville. You can check that out here. Part of the page includes the image of the flag of the 40th North Carolina Troops (I’ve never figured out how they got an Army of Tennessee flag – oh well, another blog post).

I hope that you can help the CWPT with their goals. Part of the property they are trying to preserve was actually used by North Carolinians (like Hardy’s brigade) during the battle.

Rare photograph?

There seems to be a lot of stir in the news media about a recent photograph of “slaves” found in an attic in Charlotte. As the story goes, the photograph was made by famed photographer Matthew Brady of two slave boys in the early 1860s. I found 89 mentions of this article in various newspapers across the nation. Most of these are reprints of the Associated Press piece that you can read here.

However, the purchase has come with some controversy. An additional article from the Associated Press states that “critics have located other similar images of the two children in ragged clothes on eBay and at a digital archive of the New York Public Library.” You can read this whole article here.

In a recent article from Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell (University of New Orleans), the photograph has come under close scrutiny. The gist of Dr. Mitchell’s interesting article can be found in these two paragraphs:

The basic story about the discovery and subsequent dispute over the photograph’s provenance, is as follows. A collector named Keya Morgan recently purchased the album containing the photograph, found in an attic in North Carolina, for $30,000. He also purchased, at the same sale, for $20,000, a deed of sale for a slave named John, valued at $1,150 in 1854. The deed seems to have been represented to Morgan as the sale document for one of the boys in the photograph, but this link seems unlikely. The price is awfully high for an infant in that period, which is what either boy in the photograph would have been at the time of sale if the picture had been taken in the 1860s. Subsequent digging by the AP and others found what seems to be the original petition for the sale in the Digital Archive of Slavery, which suggests that the slave John, mentioned in the deed, was twenty-seven or twenty-eight in 1854.

Bringing further attention to the photograph was the initial attribution of the image to someone in Matthew Brady’s photographic studio (the caption beneath Morgan’s photograph reads simply “Brady”). If a link to the famous Civil War photographer could be confirmed, perhaps it could justify the high sale price. Web searches by a blogger named Kate Marcus and a collector named Sherry Howard, however, found other copies of this image in stereoscope format (meant to be seen through a 3-D like viewfinder popular from the mid- to late nineteenth century). One copy recently sold on eBay for $163, and another is in the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. Both are attributed to J.N. Wilson, a photographer active in Savannah, Georgia in the 1870s and 1880s, and seem to have been part of a series of “Plantation Scenes.” The caption in the NYPL catalog (which presumably appears on card’s verso) reads: “Plantation Scene; Happy Little Nigs.”

Want more? A piece by Kate Marcus, that was on Before It’s News (strangely, it has been removed), disproved much of the provenience of the piece. You can catch pieces of Marcus’s article in this article from USA Today.

It does appears that New York collector Keya Morgan got taken for a sum of $50,000. Sure wish he would have sent the money to CWPT instead.

News and notes

Time again for what has turned into a bi-monthly look across North Carolina for headlines that deal with the Old North State and the War.

Recently, a new web page/blog was launched that focuses on North Eastern North Carolina and the Civil War – check it out here.

Information regarding a soldier in the 51st North Carolina Troops, from Robeson County, can be found in the Sun News, which you can read here.

There are several stories (I saw one on the news from Charlotte) about what is called the Juneteenth celebration. You can learn more here.

Old Cross Creek Cemetery, in Fayetteville, home of the oldest Confederate monument in the state, was recently vandalized. You can learn more here.

You can find some information here on a new exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History on people of Jewish descendent here in North Carolina. I’ve not seen the exhibit, but there are some mentions of Tar Heel Confederates in the article.

There are a couple of mentions of Civil War related sites in this post, about the Wilmington area.

The political side....

Lately, I’ve been exploring the topic of war-time politicians from North Carolina. Probably not surprising is the lack of biographical material on these leaders of the Old North State. What I want to do is to create a list and see if I am missing anything (or anybody).

There are numerous books about Zebulon Baird Vance. They include:

(1897) Dowd – Life of Zebulon B. Vance.
(1937) Yates - Zebulon B. Vance as War Governor of North Carolina, 1862-1865.
(1941) Adler – Zebulon B. Vance and the “Scattered Nation”
(1958) Yates – The Confederacy and Zeb Vance.
(1961) Camp – Governor Vance: A Life for Young People.
(1963) Shirley – Zebulon Vance, Tar Heel Spokesman.
(1966) Tucker - Zeb Vance: champion of Personal Freedom.
(1980) Szittya – Man to Match the Mountains: the Childhood of Zebulon Baird Vance.
(1985) Cooper – Zeb Vance: a Leader in War and Peace.
(1995) Weinstein – Zebulon B. Vance and “The Scattered Nation.”
(1971) Vance – My Beloved Zebulon: the Correspondence of Zebulon Baird Vance and Harriett N. Espy.
(2004) McKinney – Zeb Vance, North Carolina’s Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader.
(2005) Mobley – “War Governor of the South” : North Carolina’s Zeb Vance and the Confederacy.

And then there are two volumes of letters covering through 1863, one dissertation (Shirley 1959), and one bachelor’s thesis (Centon 1912). I must admit that I do not own all of these – and I am confused by the Adler (1941) and Weinstein (1995) titles of the same name. Maybe someone who has seen both can help. But I do own the majority.

I think Zeb is pretty well covered, historiography speaking. Let me also propose this question: has any other War-time governor been the subject of more books? I could only find five books on Georgia’s Joe Brown; I found no biographies on Florida’s John Milton, nor on Alabama’s John G. Shorter. Do I need to look further?

Moving on. What about North Carolina’s other war-time governors? John G. Ellis has no biography. Henry Toole Clark has one, and recently published (2009). North Carolina’s post-war governor, William Woods Holden, has one (1987). Then of course, there is Edward Stanly. He is North Carolina’s other war-time governor, appointed by Lincoln, who did not serve a full year. Stanly was the subject of a biography released in 1974.

To my knowledge, the only other Tar Heel to receive a book-length biographical study is Thomas L. Clingman, in a book by Thomas E. Jeffrey released by the University of Georgia Press in 1998. Of course, Clingman is not really a war-time politician. He did serve as a US Senator prior to the war, and largely North Carolina’s equivalent of Rhett or Yancey or Yulee. Clingman became a Confederate general.

So there is my list. Anyone know of any more book-length treatments of North Carolina Civil War politicians?

There need to be more. William W. Avery, who helped spilt the Democratic party, needs a biography. So does James T. Leach, a Confederate Congressman who advocated peace and largely led North Carolina’s Peace Party. How about our other Confederate leaders in the senate: George Davis, William T. Dortch, Edwin G. Reade, or William A. Graham? At the end of the war, Davis was serving as the Confederate Attorney General. And I don’t think any of the members of the House have a biography.

Well, there is my overview. What do you think? What have I missed?

Dysentery, Death and the Life of a Civil War Surgeon Featured at Bennett Place

DURHAM – More than 625,000 lives were lost in the Civil War, more than half due to sickness, not combat. Diseases were spread through infested military camps, and dysentery, typhoid, apoplexy, gangrene, and other horrible illnesses took the lives of fighters from both sides.

Bennett Place State Historic Site will recreate a Confederate field hospital on June 26-27, to share the experience of the surgeon, nurses and stewards who worked to save lives. Medical demonstrations will show the removal of a bullet and amputation procedures. The Saturday schedule is 10 a.m.-4p.m.; Sunday is 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Admission is free, and donations are accepted.

A Confederate postmaster will display the always important mail system. Visitors also can tour the Visitor Center and gallery to view the newly commissioned painting The First Meeting by Dan Nance. An exclusive exhibit of Bennett family personal effects will be displayed through Sept. 15. The Dawn of Peace will be shown in the auditorium on the half hour. Civil War and Bennett Place souvenirs and collectibles sold in the gift shop help support preservation of Bennett Place State Historic Site.

The farm of James and Nancy Bennett became site of negotiations of the largest surrender of the Civil War when Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the armies of the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia to Union Gen. William T. Sherman. The mission of Bennett Place State Historic Site is to preserve and interpret the largest Civil War surrender and the lives of 19th-century yeomen farmers such as the Bennetts.

Bennett Place is located in western Durham at 4409 Bennett Memorial Road , Durham , NC 27705 . For more info rmation call (919) 383-4345, e-mail Bennett@ncdcr.gov, or visit www.bennettplace.nchistoricsites.org.

Administered by the Division of State Historic Sites, Bennett Place is part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency with the mission to enrich lives and communities, and the vision to harness the state’s cultural resources to build North Carolina ’s social, cultural and economic future. Information on Cultural Resources is available 24/7 at www.ncculture.com.

North Carolina Military Institute

Home again – I had a great time visiting with the Central Ohio Civil War Round Table and especially with Mike Peters. If you live in the area, you should really consider joining. I was honored to be one of their guests, and their folks were really great, asking loads of super questions. My talk was on the battle of Hanover Court House (have I done this program for your group?).

One of the members of the COCWRT raised this question: Virginia has the Virginia Military Academy, and South Carolina has the Citadel. What did North Carolina have? The answer would be the North Carolina Military Institute. The school was founded in 1858 by local Charlotte businessmen and Dr. Charles J. Fox. The school was located in Charlotte. This school is not to be confused with the North Carolina Military Academy (also called the North Carolina Military and Polytechnic Academy or the Hillsborough Military Academy) founded in 1858 in Hillsborough by Charles C. Tew.

We don’t know a great deal about the school itself, except it was very popular. By April 1861, the school had 150 students. Not long after the start of the war, Governor Ellis ordered the cadets to Raleigh to serve as drill masters. The school closed during the war, and at times, the buildings were used as a Confederate hospital. The building stood at East Morehead and South Boulevard.

West Point-trained-Daniel Harvey Hill was serving as superintendent of the school at the start of the war. He was elected colonel of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers and, later in the war, briefly attained the rank of lieutenant general. Hill survived the war.

South Carolina-born and also West Point-trained Charles C. Lee was also teaching at the school at the start of the war. Lee was lieutenant colonel of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers (and later colonel after Hill’s promotion). Later, Lee served as colonel of the 37th North Carolina Troops. He was killed at Frayser’s Farm and is interred in Charlotte.

VMI-educated James H. Lane was also teaching at the North Carolina Military Institute. Lane, a Virginia native, was elected major, and then lieutenant colonel of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers before being elected colonel of the 28th North Carolina Troops.

There are probably a lot of other company and regimental level officers in North Carolina regiments who attended the institute, but to find them would probably require several days of searching. Anyone know of any more from your own research?

I found this in a issue of the Charlotte Observer from 1889:
As at first organized, the session lasted, without intermission, throughout the year, the months of August and September being spent campaigning in the mountains of North Carolina. At the end of the second year cadets received a furlough of months.
There were a scientific and a primary department. In the former the West Point curriculum was closely followed, and the students were required to board in the buildings and to be under military discipline.
There was a primary department, which aimed to prepare students for any college. Such of these students as boarded in the buildings were likewise under military discipline.
The institute provide board, lodging, fuel, lights, washing, arms, equipment, medical attendance, uniforms and all clothing, except underclothes, for $200 per annum. No extra charges.

Another issue of the Charlotte Observer (1915) wrote that the “first Confederate flag raised in the city was hosted there when Fort Sumter fell, by the students of the North Carolina Institute.”

After the war, there was talk of D. H. Hill (along with Wade Hampton), re-opening the Military School, but nothing became of Hill’s proposals. Later, the building was used as a girl’s school, and from 1873 until 1882, as the Charlotte Military Academy. Later, it was used by the Charlotte Public School system, until it was torn down in 1954.

Talks and Books

Just a few quick notes – I’ll be speaking tomorrow (Wednesday, June 9) at the monthly meeting of the Central Ohio Civil War Round Table in Columbus, Ohio. You can learn more here.

Eric Lindblade announced yesterday that his study of the Battle of Newport Barracks, North Carolina, will be available later this month. You can follow progress on the book’s facebook page. The title of the book is ­Fight as Long as Possible: The Battle of Newport Barracks, North Carolina, February 2, 1864.

John Fox has a new book out entitled The Confederate Alamo: Bloodbath at Petersburg’s Fort Gregg, April 2, 1865. You can see a video promo of the book here.

And, lastly, my book on the 58th North Carolina Troops should be available by the first of September 2010. I’m really looking forward to it.

Why don’t they get it?

For the past few weeks, I’ve been researching memory and the War. Yes, I know, it’s been the topic of the academics for some time now, and I’ve written about memory in a few different projects in the past. Recently, I was reading an essay by Dr. James H. Madison entitled “Civil War Memories and ‘Pardenership Forgittin,’ 1865-1913”(Indiana Magazine of History, XCIX [September 2003]). Madison seems to be troubled that the monuments that the soldiers from Indiana erected after the war don’t pay homage to why academic historians think (and write) that soldiers fought. On a trip to Shiloh, “What I saw… was silence. I could find no Indiana monument to the bravery and sacrifice that had freed the slaves. There was only one sermon carved on those monuments: Indiana’s heroes had helped save the Union,” Madison writes. He, and probably a host of others, believe that there was some great conspiracy, with an effort aimed at reconciliation North and South, to take the emancipation of the slaves out of the pictures. Madison later continues with, “This way of remembering the war, conflating it with union and nation, requiring veterans to do some forgetting.” Well, I think that the reason that Indiana, and the nation, chose not to commemorate the emancipation of the slaves in its many monuments and memorials is, frankly, that it was not all that important to those who actually fought the war.

Gary Gallagher brings this up in a recent piece in Civil War Times. He talks about four different interpretations of the war: the Emancipation Cause, the Lost Cause, the Reconciliation Cause, and the Union Cause. Gallagher writes that “the Union Cause is the least appreciated of the four great traditions. It is dismissed as unworthy, of great sacrifice by many historians and is virtually absent in the popular understanding of the war.” Gallagher goes on to remind us of Ken Burns’ PBS Series The Civil War­, and Dr. Barbara J. Field saying that the preservation of the Union was “A goal too shallow to be worth the sacrifice of a single life.” Yet in the grand scope of world history, just the opposite is true. Barbara J. Field was wrong. While the emancipation of the slaves was, of course, a good thing for the United States, it pales in comparison to the preservation of the Union as a cause.

Thomas A. Desjardin, in his book, These Honored Dead, makes a good case as to why emancipation is, while important, secondary to the preservation of the Union. He writes in his introduction that a Southern victory would have “Balkanized” the country, much more than just a “North and South.” With this multiple splitting of the country, “On what path would World War I have taken us without, first, American industrial might, and, later, military involvement? How would Europe and Russia alone have stopped Hitler’s blitzkrieg? What if the coal in Kentucky and West Virginia had been separated by national boundaries and tariffs from Pennsylvania steel and factories in the East? How quickly would technology have advanced without the combined drive and intellect of a whole United States? No atom bomb, no space program, slower moves toward automobiles, airplanes, computers.”

So, I guess my answer to Dr. Madison’s question, “what sermon those Hoosier veterans were preaching to me?” would be this: the emancipation of the slaves was just not all that important to the boys in blue, certainly not compared with keeping the United States intact. They fought to preserve the Union. If emancipation was what the soldiers themselves saw as paramount, would it not have appeared on their monuments?

16th North Carolina State Troops

Our friends in the 26th North Carolina Troops Reactivated are hard at work on their next preservation project. They are currently raising funds to preserve the flag of the 16th North Carolina State Troops, a flag captured at Gettysburg. Visit this link to learn more and consider donating today.

News and Notes

Let’s see what is going on around the Tar Heel state.

The blog North Carolina Miscellany reports that Lewis Leary, a free-black man that hailed from Fayetteville and died fighting with John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, will be honor with a state historical marker. See the complete list here.

A good description of North Carolina’s largest Memorial Day parade can be found here, in the Winston-Salem Journal. By the way, Thomasville is the site of the parade.

Information about Alamance County’s inclusion on the North Carolina Civil War Trail map can be found here.

The Charlotte Post has an article about efforts of people in Union County to have a monument placed on the courthouse grounds honoring black Confederates. You can read more here.

There is a interesting post on John Everette Page, who fought in the 51st North Carolina, on this blog.

Another Tour

We had a chance this past Saturday to get out into the field once again. Our local SCV camp tries to take a field trip every year. This year, we visited a few of the sites in Knoxville, Tennessee. We started off our tour at the McClung Museum in Knoxville. The museum has a half-hour-long movie on the battle of Fort Sanders that was not half bad. The only thing I would complain about was that the movie said Burnside moved into east Tennessee and forced the Confederates out of the area. Actually, the Confederates in east Tennessee (save Frazier’s brigade at Cumberland Gap), were withdrawn to General Bragg in north Georgia, thus allowing Burnside to take east Tennessee. Much of the downstairs area is full of original artifacts pertaining to the war. I really enjoyed the original case of canister shot. There were also artifacts excavated from the construction site where a sorority house has now been built by UT. Next, we visited the Mabry-Hazen House, built in 1858 and full of original furnishings. Then we were off to Bethel Cemetery, a couple of blocks away. This cemetery contains the graves of 1,600 Confederate soldiers, including numerous Tar Heels from the 29th, 39th, 58th, 60th, and 64th NCT regiments. Finally, we headed over to the south side of town and visited the entrenchments at Fort Dickerson. As General Wheeler attacked from the south, Federal troops fell back into this earthen fort and stopped this portion of the Confederate advance. We tried to find neighboring Fort Stevens, but did not have much luck. We also drove over a portion of the Fort Sanders battlefield, and saw the two 15-inch Rodmans on the courthouse grounds. Overall, it was a great day, and I look forward to Camp 1946’s next outing.

Picture: three-inch rifle at Fort Dickerson.

Summer Living History Series: “A Day in the Life of a Civil War Soldier”

From our friends in Raleigh…



FOUR OAKS − Grab a camera, bring a sketchbook and pack a picnic, and head out to the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site’s free Summer Living History program, “A Day in the Life of a Civil War Soldier,” on Saturday, June 5, from 10 a.m.− 4 p.m. Period-costumed living historians from the 18th NC/53rd PA and 1st NC/11th NC will demonstrate how soldiers made meals, maintained their weapons and uniforms, and trained for battle.

A highlight will be musket demonstrations at 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. Artillery firings of a three-inch ordnance rifle, a typical Civil War cannon, will be held at 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

“Visitors can discover how Civil War soldiers lived in camp and what role the enlisted man played in battle,” said Bentonville Battlefield Program Coordinator Megan Phillips.

According to one historical account, the artillery fire during the Bentonville battle was so heavy that it “literally barked the trees, cutting off limbs as if by hand.” Though outgunned by Union troops, Confederate artillerymen used fortified positions to halt the Union advance for several hours.

The Battle of Bentonville, fought March 19-21, 1865, involved 80,000 troops and was the last Confederate offensive against Union Gen. William T. Sherman. Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site interprets the battle and the Harper House hospital, where many Confederates were left in the aftermath. The site is located at 5466 Harper House Road , Four Oaks, NC 27524. It is three miles north of Newton Grove on S.R. 1008. For more info rmation, visit www.nchistoricsites.org/bentonvi/bentonvi.htm or call (910) 594-0789.

Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site is part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency with the mission to enrich lives and communities, and the vision to harness the state’s cultural resources to build North Carolina ’s social, cultural and economic future. Information on Cultural Resources is available 24/7 at www.ncculture.com.

Sgt. Matthew Goodson

While on our grand tour a week ago, we took a drive through Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg. We’ve been cemetery junkies for a long time and never pass up a chance to stroll through another. I actually teach a class on gravestone art, and I’m always looking to expand my collection of images that I use.

While driving through the cemetery, we happened upon the grave of a Tar Heel – Sgt. Matthew Goodson, Co. F, 52nd North Carolina Troops. Goodson and one other soldier (from Virginia I think), seemed to be the only Confederates buried in the cemetery. Evergreen is a very historic area, was part of the fight at Gettysburg, and has many historic graves, including members of the Getty family, John Burns, and Jenny Wade. If you are ever in the ‘burg, take a moment to drive by.

So, back to Goodson. A peek at his service record from the North Carolina Troop book series shows that he was a merchant in Cabarrus County prior to enlisting at the age of 34 in May 1862. He was mustered in as a private in Company A (not Company F, as his stone says), On March 1, 1863, Goodson was promoted to first (or orderly) sergeant of Company A. On July 3, 1863, during the battle of Gettysburg, he was wounded in the lungs and captured. Turning to a different source (Coco’s Wasted Valor), we learn that Goodson, after his capture, was taken to the Jacob Schwartz farm, which was being utilized as a hospital by the II Corps. Goodson lingered until July 12, 1863, when he perished. The sergeant was interred in a cornfield on the property of Schwartz, one of the three burial sites on the farm.

In January 1866, a local farmer wrote to Goodson’s widow, informing her that he had found the grave and was having it reinterred in Evergreen Cemetery, “where he would personally mark it well, care for it, and make sure it would never be lost.” Apparently, Evergreen Cemetery had voted to set aside a section of the cemetery for Confederate graves, just like the section it had for Union graves. In August 1867, the cemetery board decided to “move the Rebel dead buried in Ever Green Cemetery to a more secluded place…” As of 1990, that “seclude place,” according to Coco, had still not be found. Goodson’s grave has a Confederate marker from the Veterans Administration, along with an iron cross. I wonder, in the past twenty years, has his grave been found? Or is this just a memorial stone? Goodson has a cenotaph at the First Presbyterian Church in Concord, North Carolina.

Hang down your head…

Still not much free time around here. I did finish one major project on Monday, but wrote a proposal for a new book last night. Oh well, some people never learn.

Rob Neufeld takes a look at the story of Tom Dula (the Tom Dooley of Kingston Trio fame) in his current column in the Asheville Citizen. (You can read it here.) The Dula story is a pretty famous – Dula lives in Wilkes County before the war and has a fling with a local girl. He goes off to the war, survives, and returns home to find his girl married. Their fling continues, but on the side, Dula finds Laura Foster. At some point (maybe during the war), Dula contracts a venereal disease, and blames Foster. Someone (Dula? Ann Melton, his other girl?) kills Foster and Dula flees to Tennessee where he is captured. Neufeld’s article picks up here, with Zebulon Baird Vance defending Dula at trial. Dula loses the trial and is hanged for the murder of Foster.

So, a short summary of events. If you want to know more, check Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley by John Foster West.

However, what I want to take a few moments to examine is the service record of our Tom Dula.

According to the NPS web site, Soldiers and Sailors, there were five men by the name of Thomas Dula in Confederate service from North Carolina. These include Thomas J. Dula, from Wilkes County, who served in the 26th North Carolina Troops and as Lt. Col. Of the 58th North Carolina Troops. Some folks have tried to make this Thomas Dula, because of his service in Vance’s regiment, the Tom Dula of story and song, but he is not. Our Dula, Thomas C. Dula, served in Company K, 42nd North Carolina Troops. According to volume ten of the North Carolina Troop books published by the state department of cultural resources, our Dula resided in Wilkes County and was seventeen years old when he enlisted in April 1862. Company K was from Wilkes County, and there were two other Dulas serving in this regiment: William C. (age 20) and William L. (no age given). Tom Dula was promoted to Drummer in January – February 1864. He was captured during the battle of Wise’s Fork, North Carolina, on March 10, 1865, and sent to the prison at Point Lookout, Maryland. Dula took the oath and was released on June 11, 1865.


Next, we’ll look at Dula’s compiled service record. Dula was reported as being a patient in the Confederate States Hospital in Petersburg, Virginia, from November 1 to November 24, 1862, and was then reported as a patient at the Episcopal Church Hospital in Williamsburg , Virginia, from December 3 to December 25, 1862, with a complaint of Re. Febris. [fever]. In January and February 1863, he was back with his regiment, but was reported sick in his quarters. Dula seems to have been present until August 10, 1864, when he was reported sick in a hospital in Richmond (this was at the end of October).
Well, not much to go on. Maybe Dula contracted his VD while he was a soldier. That happened frequently . But there is not enough to go upon while looking at his record. Just a couple of prolonged trips to the hospital and one record of having a fever.

What do you think?

End of the Grand Tour

We arrived back home Friday, and all agree, we had a really good trip. We spent Thursday morning at the visitor center (more on this in a minute), and then I met with Eric Lindblade of Ten Roads Publishing (more on this in a few days). After lunch, we hit several of the shops (some really good ones squeezed between the kitschy tourist stuff) and made a few more rounds on the battlefield, and then left town. In all we visited eight battlefields (can you count New Market? You drive through this one while traveling down the interstate). We explored the positions of quite a few Tar Heel regiments.

I was really good vis-a-vis book purchases: I only came home with three. They include Tom Clemens’s Volume 1 of Carman’s The Maryland Campaign; Johnson and Anderson’s Artillery Hell; and, a little book by Jayne E. Blair entitled Tragedy at Montpelier: The Untold Story of Ten Confederate Deserters from North Carolina. It appears that these ten men served in the 3rd NCST. I look forward to reading these as time permits.

This was my first trip to the new Gettysburg visitor center. I have read many mixed reviews about the new visitor center – some good and some bad. Some believe that the visitor center focuses too much on the causes of the war, and not enough about the actual battle of Gettysburg. Maybe, maybe not. I do wish they had focused a little more on why they (the Union soldiers) fought. There was just a slight mention throughout the displays of what Union soldiers fought for: preservation of the Union. Gary W. Gallagher had a really good piece on this neglected subject in a recent Civil War Times. The vast majority of Union soldiers did not enlist to fight for the abolition of slavery; they enlisted to preserve the Union. I agree with Gallagher that this story is almost a forgotten aspect of the war. I also watched the film “A New Birth of Freedom.” This is the second time in the past few weeks that I have seen this tidbit in a public place: that the advancement of slavery in the South was due to the demand of cotton by Northern and Great Britain industrialist and textile mill owners. The other place where this was brought up was on the History Channel’s America: The Story of Us. The History Channel special even went as far as to state that slavery was on the decline in Southern States until the industrial revolution happened in the North. This is not something that I’ve really looked into; what do you think? The History Channel cannot be wrong, can it?

There were precious few mentions of North Carolina in the visitor center. Maybe I just missed them with the thousands (tens of?) school kids milling about. They did have the flag of the 47th North Carolina Troops on display. Personally, I could do without the grand overview of the War that the Gettysburg Visitor Center presents. Is that not why we have the museums in Harrisburg, PA, or at Tredgar in Richmond? The Park proudly displays a small plaque stating that what is displayed is but a fraction of the collection it has. It seemed to me that much of the non-Gettysburg collection was on loan from somewhere else. Get rid of all of the other stuff and put more Gettysburg on display. The battle is why people come to Park anyway. Then maybe some of these other fine pieces can grace other museums and they can all be enjoyed and used to teach, rather than just locked away in a vault somewhere.

Speaking of those milling school kids, several of whom appeared to have been taught manners by chimpanzees, we were all distressed by the general rudeness and lack of decorum exhibited by many visitors. Yes, seventh-graders in large numbers will be loud even if they whisper, but we noted that at many other museums (the Smithsonian, the state museums in Raleigh), there are “suits” on hand who will quickly squash loud, disrespectful, or disruptive behavior. The docents were nice, but more scary guys in suits might have improved the atmosphere for those of us not interested in yelling across the galleries to our BFFs.

Once again, all had a really great time. I got some research for future projects finished, and I look forward to sharing more with you in the future.

Grand Tour, pt. 4

Another great day on the battlefield. We started early with a tour of Culp’s Hill, followed by Cemetery Ridge. We then met some friends and tromped McPherson’s Ridge, Seminary Ridge, Little Round Top, and another round of Cemetery Ridge. After parting company, I followed Reilly’s North Carolina battery around for a while, and little more driving on McPherson’s Ridge. After a short rest, we met more friends, walked to town, had dinner, walked around some more, and had ice cream. Great day. I’ve taken a little over 500 photographs so far on this trip. Tomorrow, we are planning to visit the visitor center, I have a meeting with a publisher, and then some shopping and a few more tours. Might start heading home tomorrow evening… might not either. No rain today, and the clouds broke this evening.

Grand Tour, pt. 3

Our day was a great success – very little rain, even though it was a tad bit cooler than we had anticipated. We wound up spending almost six hours at Antietam – walking the Sunken Road, and following Reilly’s Battery around the field. Of course we visited the sites associated with Branch’s Brigade. Had a great talk about the 37th NCT and Branch’s brigade with one of the rangers. More about this later. We skipped South Mountain and headed to Gettysburg, got checked into our room, and had dinner at O’Rorke’s. We then drove around the Little Round Top section of the battlefield. We have some friends coming down from Allentown to tromp the field with us tomorrow. They have never been to Gettysburg, and we are trying to determine where to take them in the few short hours we will have together. The Visitor Center is a must, and the Confederate and Federal positions in regard to the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble charge. Probably Little Round Top, and the 26th NCT’s position on Day 1. That’s probably all we’ll have time for.

Well, I think I’m off to bed. I am going to try and get over to Culp’s Hill early in the morning, before our friends arrive.

The Grand Tour, pt. 2

Day two of our “three hour” tour – it rained pretty much the entire time yesterday. We visited six different battlefields: Hanover Court House, North Anna, Spotsylvania, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Manassas. A spot at the Wilderness was our real destination, and thanks to the rangers at Chancellorsville for pointing us in the right direction. Manassas was not on our original itinerary, but traffic was so bad heading into Washington City, that we took a detour and wound up at Manassas. We did manage to tramp around the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania and walked to see the buff statue of General Jackson at Manassas. Today, we are in Maryland, and plan on touring Sharpsburg and South Mountain. I have my son Nathaniel, who is nine, along on this trip. While he has visited many of these sites before, this will be the trip he really remembers. Isabella, who is three, just wants to know who turned Jackson into a statue.

On the grand tour

I’m off on a grand tour of War related sites in the Eastern Theater. We’re spending the night in historic Ashland, not far from the Hanover Court House battlefield. I’ve stayed here many times. No, I don’t think we will be visiting any new battlefields on this trip, just reconnecting with some old sites. I’ve not tour Eastern Theater sites in several years – my work on the 58th NCT took me in the opposite direction. While we’re out and about, I will be researching/following two North Carolina organizations, one infantry and one artillery. More about this later. Well, as you can see by the time I posted this, it is kind of late. We have a full day tomorrow (probably in the rain), so I will sign off for now.

News and notes...

Still very busy here around the Hardy household. I did sneak a few moments and looked at some online newspapers, and found a few items of interest.

The news abounds with stories regarding Confederate Memorial Day, which was yesterday in North Carolina.

Jamie Funkhouser stood vigil at the Confederate Monument in Winston-Salem. You can learn more here.

Interesting article on ENC Today on how North Carolina “ignores” Confederate Memorial Day. Hmm, partial true, but not entirely. There are scores of events that take place to commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. Check out the article here.

Found an article in a paper from Waltham, Massachusetts, that outside of showcasing profound ignorance, I’m not sure the purpose of. The columnist writes: “There is no federal commission organizing the Civil War sesquicentennial commemoration, Richard Lewis of the Virginia Tourism Corporation told me, in part "because of the political minefield we just ran into" with McDonnell's proclamation. Some states, including North Carolina and South Carolina, are making no effort to mark the anniversary. Others, Pennsylvania included, are not using the term sesquicentennial because "no one can pronounce it, no one can spell it, and no one knows what it means." Um, maybe the writer needs to visit http://www.nccivilwar150.com/ or http://sc150civilwar.palmettohistory.org/ You can check out the article here.

On to other news

Information on the recent Salisbury Prison Tour can be found in this article in the Salisbury Post.

An article on Fort Johnston in Southport can he found here.

A good article on the battle of New Bern can be found here in the Sun Journal.

The ENC Today has an article on African-Americans serving as spies during the war. Check it out here.

and,

The Statesville Record and Landmark has an article on the home of Zeb Vance in Statesville. You can learn more here.