Thanks to Craig Swain for bringing these two new blogs to my attention. I’ve added them to the blogroll. I’ve also deleted a couple of defunct ones.
I’ve added Richard McCormick’s Civil War Obsession to the list. Richard’s blog explores a variety of aspects of the Civil War, including book reviews and other interesting bits and pieces. Check it out.
Those of you who know me are aware that I have long harbored an interest in the Eleventh Corps, which I often refer to affectionately as The Bad Moon Boys (due to their crescent moon corps badge). Hence, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there is a blog dedicated to the Eleventh Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Please check our Richard J. Bell’s fine The Eleventh Corps of the Army of the Potomac. While Bell only appears to post once a week, the content of the posts is excellent, and the blog is well worth reading. Until Craig’s post today, I had no idea that this blog existed, so I was pleased to find it.
Welcome aboard.
I’m pleased and proud to announce that Woodbury Historical Tours has become one of the sponsors of this blog. David Woodbury runs small, unique battlefield tours, and he does a terrific job with them. Please join me in welcoming Woodbury Historical Tours as a sponsor of this blog.
The following article appears in the current issue of Civil War News. It tells some, but not all, of the Lake Troilo story:
Agreement Reached On Restoration Of Hill At Brandy Station
By Scott C. Boyd
(January 2012 Civil War News)EDITOR’S NOTE: The resignation of nine Brandy Station Foundation directors over concerns with the leadership was featured on the July issue front page and in that issue’s Preservation News column by G. Michael Green. One of the issues was the board’s lack of response to the construction of the illegal pond discussed in the following story.
BRANDY STATION, Va. — A memorandum of agreement (MOA) removes an illegally-dug pond, restores the land and conserves 3.1 acres on private property on Fleetwood Hill at the Brandy Station Battlefield in Culpeper County. The pond construction violated state and federal law, according to the MOA.
The document, signed by the parties from August through October, resolves an issue that arose in May when landowner Tony Troilo Jr. “conducted earthmoving activities by bulldozer in and adjacent to approximately 666 linear feet of a perennial stream known as Flat Run in order to construct a private pond on his approximately 60-acre property.”
Troilo dammed the free-flowing stream to create a new pond, “an unmitigated disaster” for battlefield preservation, according to Clark B. “Bud” Hall, the former Brandy Station Foundation (BSF) president. He notified the Piedmont Environmental Council which then notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of Troilo’s activities.
Flat Run is a Rappahannock River tributary protected by the federal Clean Water Act. Corps permission must be obtained prior to altering such a body of water.
Additionally, the work was done in an area eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Properties. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act requires that the Corps consult with the Virginia State Historic Preservation Office before issuing a permit in such circumstances.
Troilo did not notify the Corps prior to beginning construction of the pond, according to the memorandum. However, the Corps “found no evidence of deliberate intent to circumvent the Section 106 process.”
Troilo told Civil War News he was surprised by the trouble he got into, “after going to the county and having a permit and permission to do it all, and trying to improve the property.”
Culpeper County Director of Development John Egertson said he did not speak with Troilo about the pond and was not aware that Troilo spoke with anyone in his office about the matter.
Hal Wiggins, with the Fredericksburg office of the Army Corps of Engineers, said that Troilo voluntarily agreed to remove the pond and restore the stream “and more importantly, worked with the Brandy Station Foundation and Virginia Department of Historic Resources to develop the memorandum of agreement where he donates 3.1 acres of land to the Foundation.”
“We put a lot of emphasis on voluntary compliance,” Wiggins said. “This way there are no fines if Mr. Troilo works with us on the final restoration plan.”
Wiggins said he was very confident that it will be resolved in a satisfactory manner given Troilo’s track record since he was informed that he was in violation of the Clean Water Act.
The 3.1 acres Troilo is donating is land where fill dirt was deposited from the pond construction and is adjacent to Brandy Station Foundation land.
The MOA also notes that Troilo deposited fill dirt on two small pieces of the BSF’s 18.9 acres on Fleetwood Hill along the banks of Flat Run. The parcels total less than one-third of an acre.
The Virginia Board of Historic Resources holds a historic preservation easement on the BSF land. “The easement specifically states that material changes to the easement property must be subject to prior review and written approval of the Board,” according to the MOA.
The memorandum says the fill was deposited without authorization and “therefore may constitute a violation of the terms of the easement.”
The MOA stipulates that Troilo undertake a stream banks restoration project, as approved by the Corps of Engineers, with an archeologist present during the fill dirt reclamation process “to ensure that the original grass root mat in the reclamation area remains undisturbed.”
Within 60 days of stream banks restoration completion, Troilo is to convey the 3.1 acres to the BSF. Troilo said completion depends on the weather. It recently has been too wet to do much work.
The impact of Troilo’s pond construction on the battlefield is uncertain. Wiggins said the excavated area was “obliterated,” therefore what of archeological significance might have been lost can never be known.
The memorandum of agreement quotes a disturbance assessment prepared by the James River Institute for Archeology as determining that “the pond construction likely had an adverse effect on prehistoric Native American and Civil War era archeological resources.”
Here are a few observations regarding this article, in no particular order:
1. Despite Appeaser in Chief Joseph McKinney’s ridiculous and indefensible claims that the damage caused by the construction of Lake Troilo could somehow be “reversed”, as he has claimed numerous times, it is abundantly clear that the area where this pond was created–critical core battlefield land that was heavily fought over–was devastated. That Hal Wiggins used as strong a word as “obliterated” to describe the harm done amply demonstrates just how wrong-headed and ill-advised the policy of appeasement pursued by McKinney and his board of appeasers truly is.
2. According to Craig Swain, Joseph McKinney admitted to Craig that he knew that Troilo was going to build this illegal pond prior to the beginning of the excavation work, and he did NOTHING about it. McKinney evidently did nothing to verify whether a permit to devastate a critical portion of the battlefield had actually been issued; had he done so, John Egertson of Culpeper County would have told him that no permit had been issued. He did nothing to notify the Civil War Trust that this core battlefield land was being obliterated. McKinney evidently did not do anything to notify the board of the BSF until after the boat began being rocked by Bud Hall. As Craig Swain points out, “McKinney advised foundation members (including me) not to make the construction an issue.” Shockingly, McKinney was not outraged that there were bulldozers tearing up critical battlefield land, which astonishes me. For someone who is supposed to be the head of a battlefield preservation advocacy organization, McKinney’s lack leadership and apparent lack of concern about a crisis is shocking, sickening, and sad, all at the same time.
In short, instead of leading the way in fighting this outrage, Joseph McKinney completely and totally abrogated his duty to protect this battlefield. In so doing, he has trivialized and made the BSF irrelevant. One can only hope that the damage he and his board of appeasers have caused can be undone.
3. Tony Troilo flagrantly lied about getting permission from Culpeper County, as noted in the article. That he continues to lie flagrantly about it demonstrates quite clearly that he was well aware of what he was doing.
I strongly encourage all of you to read Craig Swain’s recent post on this situation, and I also encourage you to read Mike Block’s very brave and principled explanation of why he resigned from the board of the BSF, which can be found here.
Once again, I call on Joseph McKinney and the Board of Appeasers to do the right thing and resign. NOW.
To all of my readers, I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. I hope that 2012 is a better year for all of us.
On December 16, 1863, the United States Army lost its best cavalry commander, Maj. Gen. John Buford, who died of typhoid fever in the rented house of his fellow horse soldier, Maj. Gen. George Stoneman, in Washington, D.C. Buford’s dear friend Maj. Gen. John Gibbon once said that “John Buford was the finest cavalryman I ever saw.” He died in the arms of his staff officer and surrogate son, Capt. Myles W. Keogh (who later died with Custer at the Little Big Horn). The Union’s loss was enormous, almost unimaginable.
Buford was promoted to major general–a long overdue promotion that had long been sought on his behalf–on his deathbed the day he died. In a moment of lucidity, he said, “too late.” And sadly, it was. His final words, as befit the finest cavalryman in the army, were “Put guard on all the roads, and don’t let the men run back to the rear.”
This was the obituary of Buford that ran in the New York Times the next day:
Major-Gen. JOHN BUFORD, who died at Washington yesterday, was a graduate of the West Point Military Academy, and in the Regular army held the rank of Major in the Inspector-General’s Department. He was appointed Brigadier-General of Volunteers on the 27th of July, 1862, and assigned to the command of a cavalry brigade under Gen. POPE, in his Virginia campaign of that year. When that army was merged with the Army of the Potomac, Gen. BUFORD was assigned to the command of the regular cavalry brigade, which he held until the formation of the cavalry corps into three divisions, when he was placed in command of the First division, and served throughout the severe campaigns of the past ten months with the most distinguished gallantry. He was considered the best field cavalry commander in the service, and was noted for his coolness and judgment under fire. He was about forty years of age, of full habit a man of generous nature and warm impulses. Before his death the President rewarded him with the commission of Major-General. The country has lost a noble spirit and a brave defender.
The great cavalryman was buried in the post cemetery at West Point, where he rests under a handsome monument paid for the by the men of his First Cavalry Division.
As some of you may recall, in January of this year, I commenced an experiment. I purchased a black and white Nook with the intention of using it to download public domain regimental histories and the like from Google Books for use in my various projects. A little over a week later, and on the recommendation of Steve Stanley, I exchanged it for a Nook Color. I then began to experiment with it in the hope that I could make it work the way that I hoped to use it. The experiment proved to be terribly frustrating.
I gave up on the experiment today. No matter what we tried, we were unable to make the thing work with the books being downloaded from Google Books. The things work great with Nook format books, but I could not get it to be usable in any fashion for the Google Books downloads. The one piece of adaptability software we could find took something like five hours to convert a single book, so it was not practical at all for any sort of volume usage. Even after being converted with this software, pages were distorted, or I couldn’t get the whole page on the screen, and I finally grew frustrated and declared the experiment to be a dismal failure.
Instead, I took the plunge tonight and invested in an iPad2. I bought the black one with 64GB of hard drive space and the 3G wireless capacity. As a long-time Mac user, I know that the iPad will work well with PDF’s and that I will be able to use thing precisely as I had hoped to use the Nook Color. And so, the great experiment was a miserable failure, replaced with a much more expensive but far more useful item. I think I will be far less frustrated and far more productive with the iPad than I ever was with the Nook. I will probably end up giving the Nook to my nephew, who likes gadgets and gizmos, and I have just inherited Susan’s used Kindle when she bought the Kindle Touch for her reading pleasure.
The other day, I received this e-mail through this blog:
I am serching for info on the 6th georgia calv. company K My 3 great grandfather Andrew Jackson Brigman from walker co georgia was inlisted as a private on the confedrate side. I can find no info on this company, but have found sevral publications on genalogy sites regarding this very company, I am wondering what he did and where he fought. the family folk lore was that he had his 3 fingers shot off, in the war at some point. and was left for dead by the union troops.Or he played dead one or the other. I am wondering how to find this info if it is true. and as well why soon after the war did he move from walker county georgia where he had a plantation and family to lousiville Ky and then to Paducah, was he shipped to paducah because of wounds, Paducah is known for the union hospital sites but not confedrate? Ahh !!! Im so confused I need help if you can steer me in the right direction, Or give me a creditable web site I would be so greatful.
I get at least one inquiry like this per week. While I am flattered that you think I know enough about the war to answer questions about your specific ancestor, the very substantial likelihood is that I don’t. More likely than not, your ancestor served in a unit that I know nothing about. The 6th Georgia Cavalry, being a Western Theater unit, is not one that I know anything about. And while I appreciate your confidence in me and in your taking the time to write, if I did the research to answer every one of these inquiries, I would have no time to do anything else. Consequently, I made the decision that, unless it’s something I can answer in ten minutes of less, I will not do so, and that I will not typically respond to those inquiries for the simple reason that doing so takes time that I don’t have to spare.
I regret it if that offends the folks who make those inquiries, but I simply don’t have time. But I do thank you for your interest and for your faith that I might somehow be able to help. If I can, I will. If not, then the likelihood is that I will not respond.
This evening, I have added a link to my friend Steve Cunningham’s excellent West Virginia in the Civil War website under the “Civil War Sites” category. Take a few minutes and check out Steve’s site, which is chock-full of good and useful information. You won’t be disappointed.
On this Thanksgiving Day, when we all have to much to be thankful for, I want to share this, Brian Pohanka’s final interview, wherein he talks about the importance of battlefield preservation. It is haunting and bittersweet to see his image and to hear his voice again so many years after his untimely death, but it’s critical that we continue his work. I miss his wise counsel.
Here is a link to the interview.
And to all, a happy Thanksgiving. Be grateful for what you have. I know that I am. I am grateful to everyone who takes the time to visit this blog, and I am grateful to everyone who takes the time and spends their hard-earned money to read my books.
The following neo-Confederate hooey was posted on Facebook today:
The legacy of Captain Henry Wirz should be rewritten. This man was a hero for doing the best he could. And, on his final night before his execution, Stanton sent govt agents to Wirz`s cell offering a bribe to for liberty if he implicated President Davis for Andersonvilles problems. Wirz stood strong to his values with integrity and chose death before excepting a bribe against Davis, even though he was completely innocent himself…..This is just another example how evil and devious Stanton really was to try and bribe Capt Wirz into lying against President Davis….God bless Captain Wirz, you were a hero for that act alone!
This is, of course, a mainstay of neo-Confederate doctrine. As it goes, Wirz was a hero and martyr, and only the wardens of Elmira and the other Union POW camps were war criminals. The heroic Wirz, by contrast, maintained his heroic character by refusing to implicate Jefferson Davis. So, therefore, his war crimes weren’t so bad. Ummmm…no.
As I said, this is a mainstay of neo-Confederate doctrine. Try this one on for size, which appears on a prominent neo-Confederate website, that of the Georgia Heritage Council:
A Confederate History Minute (9) – by Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.
Captain Henry Wirz, Confederate Hero and Martyr
Captain Henry Wirz was born, Hartman Heinrich Wirz in November 1823, in Zurich, Switzerland where his father, Abraham Wirz was highly respected.
At the outbreak of the War Between the States, Wirz enlisted in the Fourth Louisiana infantry on June 16, 1861. He was promoted to sergeant a year later and was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines. He never recovered from the injury to his left wrist and it caused him great pain for the rest of his life.
Wirz was promoted to Captain on June 12, 1862 and was first detailed to General John Winder where he was given command of a Confederate military prison in Richmond, Virginia.
After serving a year as special emissary to President Jefferson Davis in Paris and Berlin, on March 27, 1864, he was installed as commandant of Andersonville Prison at Fort Sumter in Georgia. Wirz did the best he was able to do with many Union prisoners and the little food and medicine. It is written that the guards got the same food and medicine as the prisoners.
The Confederacy sent a distress message to Union President Abraham Lincoln and Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The South pleaded for an exchange of Confederate and Union prisoners. Lincoln and Grant, however, refused believing the Union prisoners might go home but the Confederate prisoners might go back to fight.
Captain Henry Wirz was unfairly charged of war crimes and it is written that no witnesses for the defense were allowed to testify. Among those who would have is a Union soldier who was a prisoner at the prison.
For over 30 years there have been efforts to exonerate the good name of Captain Henry Wirz. There is an annual memorial service to Wirz on the Sunday nearest November 10th each year in Andersonville, Georgia, at the monument to Wirz placed there by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (Georgia Division).
This sort of rewriting of history really is appalling. Wirz was hanged for a reason. He was neither a hero nor a martyr. He was a war criminal. Casting him in any other light is just plain wrong, and is something we need to remain constantly vigilant in battling. Call these neo-Confederate revisionists on their nonsensical hooey. Don’t let them get away with it.
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