December 2009

December 2009 Program

On Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 7:30 pm the SDCWRT will hold its 280th meeting at Palisades Presbyterian Church, 6301 Birchwood St. San Diego, Calif. 92120. This year we shall have a meeting in December for the first time in several years as Christmas is more than a week away. To honor Christmas and the holiday season, we are going to have a show and tell about Christmas. All members are encouraged to participate by bringing anything that relates to Christmas and the Civil War. This could include any memorabilia, books, stories, songs, etc. that are related to Christmas. For example, there can be anything about what the soldiers did to celebrate Christmas, what kind of presents were given, what songs were sung, or what a Christmas at the Lincoln White House was like. The only limit is your imagination.

November 2009 Meeting by Travis Fuqua

This month’s presentation was a show and tell and various members of the Civil War Round Table brought their Civil War artifacts, books, and stories. Below is a list and description of those who presented.

1. Phil Binks: Two Civil War-era revolvers. The first one was a .36 caliber Colt 1851 Navy Revolver. This was one of the most common guns of the time with about a quarter of a million being made between 1851 and 1873. The gun weighs only two pounds ten ounces. The cylinder features an engraving of two ships in battle. The .36 caliber of the gun became associated with the Navy. Mr. Bink’s particular gun was one of the forty thousand made in London. The other revolver was a Savage and North. This gun is rather unwieldy and heavy. It is of a more unique design in that there are two triggers—one to press the cylinder against the barrel and the second to fire. Since this gun was expensive (at $19), heavy, and slow to reload, there are not as many and fewer were produced. This gun was, however, was used in the West after the war. Both revolvers did not have fixed cartridges and thus required a cap, ball, and power to load. Mr. Bink’s also had holsters and other accessories.
2. Gene Armistead: A deed to land at the Gettysburg battlefield. Mr. Armistead acquired a deed to one square foot of land at the Gettysburg battle site when he was a young man in 1963 as part of a fund raising effort by the national park service for the centennial of the Battle of Gettysburg. In the deed, Mr. Armistead was only able to own the land for a set period of time and today, the land has since been returned to the Federal Government.
3. Curtis Dryer: Thirty-seven letters from a Civil War soldier by the name of Byron to his sister Sophia. Mr. Dryer read one of the letters in which this soldier went riding with some men to visit the church in which General Washington was supposedly married in 1759. This church was Falls Church in Virginia. There was also a reference to Issing Glass which was a kind of nineteenth century crude plastic. The letter was addressed from Miner’s Hill in Virginia and was dated November 5, 1862.
4. Al Haun: A book entitled “Eagles and Empire” by David Clary and copyrighted in 2009. This book is about the Mexican War and although its relation to the Civil War may seem dubious at first, it was in this war that several officers of the Civil War got their start, such as Generals Grant and Lee and even the future Confederate President Davis. In addition, the United States gained valuable experience in modern war with steamships and other nineteenth century inventions. Mr. Haun then read an excerpt about the colorful General Santa Anna who was leader of Mexico during the war and also during the Texan War of Independence. General Santa Anna was leader of Mexico on seven different occasions over twenty two years from 1833 to 1855.
5. Karen Hasman: Her great grandfather, George M. Bass, was a soldier in the Civil War. He was born in 1845 and enlisted at seventeen on August 14, 1862. He was a private in Company C of the 103 Regiment of Illinois. He later fought in General Sherman’s army in his March to the Sea. Private Bass fought at: Ritaches River, Miss. (1863); Jackson, Miss. (Jul. 6, 1863); Resaca, Ga. (May 13, 1864); Dallas, Ga. (May 23, 1864), New Hope Church, Ga. (Jun. 1, 1864); bayonet charges at Kennesaw Mountain, Ga. (Jun. 15^th and 25^th 1864), Battle of Atlanta (Jul. 22^nd and 28^th 1864); Jonesborough, Ga. (Aug. 31, 1864); and finally a bayonet charge at Lovejoy Station (Sep. 2, 1864). Sergeant Bass was later discharged June 21, 1865 and later died in 1918 at the age of 73.
6. Mike Schooling: He is a member of both the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Sons of Union Veterans. With the Sons of Confederate Veterans there is a Southern Legal Resource Center. The purpose of this center is to provide support for modern southerners who have had their rights violated. Mr. Schooling made a point that the right to display images and to believe in the Confederacy is a right that is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, regardless of how objectionable it may seem. He illustrated a point in which a southern girl wore a shirt with the Confederate flag to school and was punished heavily as a result. Another instance was when two schoolgirls had purses with the Confederate flag taken from them. This is contrary to the fact that other students are able to wear shirts and display images of figures such as Malcolm X whose actions destabilized the nation.
7. Father Dennis Mikulanis: Two Bibles from the Civil War era. Father Mikulanis had two pocket Bibles that were printed in the years preceding the Civil War and one was the entire Bible and the other was only the New Testament. The New Testament had writing in the front from a Civil War soldier from Massachusetts that indicated who it was from and a little history of the soldier’s history.
8. Mark Shapiro: A book by General Abner Doubleday entitled” Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie”. The book was published by Harper and Brothers in 1876. Dr. Shapiro was impressed by the book as it was a great example of early scholarship on the Civil war and was written by a man who was actually involved in the war. Dr. Shapiro added that such a connection was important as the book acts more like a primary source than many of the books that we read today by modern historians removed from the war by nearly a century and a half.
9. Dave Tooley: Several antique books related to the Civil War. The first two were a cartoon history of President Lincoln and reflected the contemporary and sometimes unfavorable view of Lincoln. The second book was the first volume of Francis Miller’s “Photographic History of the Civil War, in Ten Volumes” of 1911. This was an especially unique version as it was number 178 of 1000 in a special leather-bound edition. The next book was another of Francis Miller’s entitled “Portrait Life of Lincoln” from 1910. Mr. Tooley spent several years looking for this rare book. The last book Mr. Tooley brought was “The Century War Book” which is an 1894 book with a collection of grand lithographs that were later reproduced in many other books on the war.
10. Bill Cooper: A collection of artifacts relating to a relative who fought in the Civil War. The artifacts belonged to Mrs. Cooper’s great-great-grandfather Robert Horan of Illinois. There were also items relating to his brother John, but there is little about this relative as he died early in the war. Although the items belonged to Robert, there were, however, few pictures of him but many of John. One item was a campaign ribbon of President Lincoln and Vice President Hannibal Hamlin from 1860. The next item was a book entitled “Military Records of Robert Horan” and featured every campaign that Mr. Horan participated in. Another item was a book entitled “History of the 90^th Illinois” to which Mr. Horan contributed his diary to provide a realistic account of that unit from the soldiers’ perspective. There were also photographic albums with famous personalities such as Generals Sherman and Grant. Lastly there was a poster commemorating Mr. Horan’s induction into the Grand Army of the Republic. There were also artifacts that Mr. Horan actually used in the war. One such item was a leather cartridge bag which was preserved in all of its original magnificence. The top still opened and the leather was still flexible, almost as if as new. The other item was a cap box. The leather cap box was in excellent condition and as looked as if new. It still had almost every item in it that would have been present when Mr. Horan used it in battle 145 years ago. Another item was a canteen that still held its color and looked as new. Mr. Horan’s belt was also present with the buckle and the original leather belt was still wide and did not shrink greatly as leather tends to do over time. Lastly there was Mr. Horan’s rifle from the war. The rifle had been decorated sometime after the war, perhaps as a memento of Mr. Horan’s service, but also included the original bayonet. All of these items, especially the leather, were in museum quality condition and appeared as if they were a few decades old rather than a century and a half.