General News

We’re now moving into my busy season. I have six upcoming events in the next ninety days, and I figured I would share information about them here in case anyone has any interest in attending any of them.

June 6-7: J. D., Mike Nugent and I have a bunch of book signings (something close to 6) scheduled in Gettysburg that weekend. The annual spring muster of the Gettysburg Discussion Group is also that weekend. Once our final schedule is pinned down, I will post it here.

June 13-15: This is the weekend of my 25th reunion at my alma mater, Dickinson College. Normally, I wouldn’t even mention this, but the College is having me do a book signing from 9:00-10:30 on the morning of Saturday, June 14, in the College Store, located on the lower level of the Holland Union Building.

June 19-22: With J.D.’s help, I’m leading a program titled “The Clash of Cavalry in Virginia” for the Civil War Education Association. The program is based in Culpeper, and will feature tours of the Kelly’s Ford, Brandy Station, and Trevilian Station battlefields, as well as a visit to downtown Culpeper and its National Cemetery. The link provides the weekend’s schedule as well as information on how to sign up.*

June 26-29: I’m the primary tour guide for this year’s summer seminar for the Shepherd University George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War. The program focuses on the retreat from Gettysburg. While Kent Masterson Brown will be the scholar-in-residence, I’m in charge of leading the tours. There will be a half-day tour of the route of the Wagon Train of Wounded, and a full day’s tour of the fighting that took place during the retreat from Gettysburg and the pursuit of Lee’s army. The link provides the schedule and information about signing up.

July 16-19: The annual conference for The Little Big Horn Associates will be held at the Four Points by Sheraton Hagerstown hotel. This year’s conference focuses on George Armstrong Custer’s role in the 1862 Maryland Campaign. The link provides a registration form and the schedule of events. I’m no expert on the Maryland Campaign, but I will be giving a talk at the conference.

July 23-27: It’s back to Chambersburg for another of Ted Alexander’s events. This one is called “The Gettysburg Experience,” and features four very packed days of lectures and touring. The schedule for this weekend has not yet been pinned down, as Ted is still working on it. However, he asked if J. D. and I would lead a full-day tour of spots on Stuart’s Ride for him, and he’s also asked me to lead a tour of Farnsworth’s Charge, Merritt’s Fight on South Cavalry Field, and the Battle of Fairfield for him for half a day. He also asked me if I would give a talk and participate in a panel discussion or two, and I agreed. Check back for the schedule and for information on how to register.

* Some of you have probably seen the advertisement in this month’s Civil War News indicating that I wold be participating in the annual spring conference/battlefield tour for the Shenandoah Civil War Associates. Here’s a link to the program’s schedule. I actually was really looking forward to being part of this program, since I have never visited some of the battlefields being covered, and was looking forward to touring them with Chris Calkins. However, when Bob Maher, the director of the Civil War Education Association, scheduled the cavalry program for Culpeper, he didn’t check dates with me, and I found myself with an irreconcilable scheduling conflict. The CWEA program cannot proceed without me, whereas I am dispensable in the Shenandoah Civil War Associates event. Consequently, it left me with no choice but to back out of the Shenandoah Civil War Associates program. I regret the scheduling conflict, and I regret having to back out of the event more than I can describe, as I always enjoy that program as well as the interactions with the regulars who attend it each year. I apologize if anyone intended to attend the event based on my participation in it.

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For nearly as long as I’ve been fascinated by the Civil War, I’ve likewise held a fascination for the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic. Today is the 96th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic. The following article appeared in today’s issue of the New York Times. If true, it explains why she sunk so quickly and finally solves the ultimate riddle associated with the sinking of the great Cunard Line ship.

In Weak Rivets, a Possible Key to Titanic’s Doom

By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: April 15, 2008

For a decade, metallurgists studying the hulk of the Titanic have argued that the storied liner went
down fast after hitting the iceberg because the ship’s builder used substandard rivets that popped their heads and let tons of icy seawater rush in. More than 1,500 people died.

Now, a team of scientists has moved into deeper waters, uncovering evidence in the builder’s own archives of a deadly mix of great ambition and low quality iron that doomed the ship, which sank 96 years ago Tuesday. Historians say the riddle of the disaster has finally been solved.

The scientists found that the ship’s builder, Harland & Wolff, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, struggled for years to obtain adequate supplies of rivets and riveters to build the world’s three biggest ships at once — the Titanic and two sisters, Olympic and Britannic.

Each required three million rivets, and shortages peaked during Titanic’s construction.

“The board was in crisis mode,” Jennifer Hooper McCarty, a team member who studied the archive, said in an interview. “It was constant stress. Every meeting it was, ‘There’s problems with the rivets and we need to hire more people.’ ”

The team collected other clues from 48 Titanic rivets, modern tests, computer simulations, comparisons to century-old metals as well as careful documentation of what engineers and shipbuilders of that era considered state of the art.

The scientists say the troubles all began when the colossal plans forced Harland & Wolff to reach beyond its usual suppliers of rivet iron and include smaller forges, as disclosed in company and British government papers. Small forges tended to have less skill and experience.

Adding to the threat, the company, in buying iron for Titanic’s rivets, ordered No. 3 bar, known as “best” — not No. 4, known as “best-best,” the scientists found. They also discovered that shipbuilders of the day typically used No. 4 iron for anchors, chains and rivets.

So the liner, whose name was meant to be synonymous with opulence, in at least one instance relied on cheap materials.

The scientists studied 48 rivets that divers recovered over two decades from the Titanic’s resting place — two miles down in the North Atlantic — and found many riddled with high concentrations of slag. A glassy residue of smelting, slag can make rivets brittle and prone to fracture.

“Some material the company bought was not rivet quality,” said Timothy Foecke, a team member at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency in Gaithersburg, Md.

The company also faced shortages of skilled riveters, according to archive papers. Dr. McCarty said that for a half year, from late 1911 to April 1912, when Titanic set sail, the company’s board addressed the shortfalls at every meeting.

For instance, on October 28, 1911, Lord William Pirrie, the company’s chairman, expressed concern over the lack of riveters and called for new hiring efforts.

In their research, the scientists found that good riveting took great skill. The iron had to be heated to a precise cherry red color and beaten by the right combination of hammer blows. Mediocre work could hide problems.

“Hand riveting was tricky,” said Dr. McCarty, whose doctoral thesis at Johns Hopkins University analyzed Titanic’s rivets.

Steel beckoned as a solution. Shipbuilders of the day were moving from iron to steel rivets, which were stronger. And machines could install them, improving workmanship and avoiding labor problems.

The rival Cunard line, the scientists found, had switched to steel rivets years before, using them, for instance, throughout the Lusitania.

The scientists discovered that Harland & Wolff also used steel rivets — but only on Titanic’s central hull, where stresses were expected to be greatest. Iron rivets were chosen for the ship’s stern and bow.

And the bow, as fate would have it, is where the iceberg struck. Studies of the wreck show that six seams opened up in the ship’s bow plates. And the damage, Dr. Foecke noted, “ends close to where the rivets transition from iron to steel.”

The scientists argue that better rivets would have probably kept the Titanic afloat long enough for rescuers to have arrived before the icy plunge, saving hundreds of lives.

The two metallurgists make their case, and detail their archive findings, in “What Really Sank the Titanic,” a new book by Citadel Press.

Reactions run from anger to admiration. James Alexander Carlisle, whose grandfather was a Titanic riveter, has bluntly denounced the rivet theory on his Web site. “NO WAY!”

For its part, Harland & Wolff, after long silence, now rejects the charge. “There was nothing wrong with the materials,” Joris Minne, a company spokesman, said last week. He noted that Olympic sailed without incident for 24 years, until retirement.

David Livingstone, a former Harland & Wolff official, called the book’s main points misleading. He said big shipyards often had to scramble. On a recent job, he noted, Harland & Wolff had to look to Romania to find welders.

And Mr. Livingstone called the slag evidence painfully circumstantial, saying no real proof linked the hull opening to bad rivets. “It’s only waffle,” he said of the team’s arguments.

But a naval historian praised the book as solving a mystery that has baffled investigators for nearly a century.

“It’s fascinating,” said Tim Trower, who reviews books for the Titanic Historical Society, a private group in Indian Orchard, Mass. “This puts in the final nail in the arguments and explains why the incident was so dramatically bad.”

The new disclosures, he added, cast Harland & Wolff as “responsible for the severity of the damage.”

Titanic had every conceivable luxury: cafes, squash courts, a swimming pool, Turkish baths, a barbershop and three libraries.

The lavish air extended to safety. The White Star Line, in a brochure, described the ship as “designed to be unsinkable.”

During her inaugural voyage, on the night of April 14, 1912, the ship hit the iceberg around 11:40 p.m. and sank in a little more than two and a half hours. Most everyone assumed the iceberg had torn a huge gash in the ship’s starboard hull.

The discovery in 1985 of Titanic’s resting place began many new inquiries. In 1996, an expedition found, beneath obscuring mud, not a large gash but six narrow slits where bow plates appeared to have parted.

Naval experts suspected that rivets had popped along the seams, letting seawater rush in under high pressure.

A specialist in metal fracture, Dr. Foecke got involved in 1997, analyzing two salvaged rivets. He was astonished to find about three times more slag than occurs in modern wrought iron.

In early 1998, he and a team of marine forensic experts announced their rivet findings, calling them tentative.

Dr. Foecke, in addition to working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, also taught and lectured part time at Johns Hopkins. There he met Dr. McCarty, who got hooked on the riddle, as did her thesis advisor.

The team acquired many rivets from salvors who pulled up hundreds of artifacts from the sunken liner. The two scientists also collected old iron of the era — including some from the Brooklyn Bridge — to make comparisons. The new work seemed to only bolster the bad-rivet theory.

In 2003, after graduating from Johns Hopkins, Dr. McCarty traveled to England and located the Harland & Wolff archives at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, in Belfast.

She also explored the archives of the British Board of Trade, which regulated shipping and set material standards, and of Lloyd’s of London, which set shipbuilding standards. And she worked at Oxford University and obtained access to its libraries.

What emerged was a picture of a company stretched to the limit as it struggled to build the world’s three biggest ships simultaneously. She also found complacency. For instance, the Board of Trade gave up testing iron for shipbuilding in 1901 because it saw iron metallurgy as a mature field, unlike the burgeoning world of steel.

Dr. McCarty said she enjoyed telling middle and high school students about the decade of rivet forensics, as well as the revelations from the British archives.

“They get really excited,” she said. “That’s why I love the story. People see it and get mesmerized.”

Looks like another book on the “to buy” list….

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The following press release was issued by the Ohio Historical Society today:

OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY RESTRUCTURES FOR THE FUTURE
Plan Positions Organization for Strong Statewide Services

(Columbus, Ohio, April 11, 2008) – The Ohio Historical Society today announced a restructuring to strengthen the organization and position the private nonprofit for the delivery of strong statewide services.

Facing a $2 million budget deficit resulting from the softening Ohio economy, decreased state funding and increasing inflationary expenses, the OHS Board of Trustees has approved a balanced budget of $20.9 million to support the Society’s activities in the 2009 fiscal year. These include managing a network of 59 historic sites and museums and preserving historic resources for Ohio. The approved budget represents a 3-percent decrease from 2008. The Society also will expend $4.4 million in state capital funds for various projects around Ohio.

Beginning July 1, the Society will focus its investments in priority areas of educational/interpretive programs, collections and outreach. The Board’s goal is to increase its ability to provide services to the people of Ohio, according to Richard D. Ruppert, M.D., president of the OHS Board of Trustees.

“Telling Ohio’s history and preserving our collections for all Ohioans to enjoy and learn from are our main responsibilities,” Ruppert said. “We are confident this strategic approach to restructuring will position the Ohio Historical Society for the future and to be more effective and efficient at providing statewide services.”

OHS Executive Director William K. Laidlaw Jr. added, “Since 2004 the Society has been less reliant on state support by generating income through grants and other private sources. We will continue our efforts to diversify our revenue and involve Ohio citizens.”

Budget priorities include increasing Web access, maintaining access to the Archives/Library at the Ohio Historical Center, continuing improvements in state and local government archival services, retaining most curatorial functions, providing services to local historical societies and operating the Ohio Historic Preservation Office. The Society also will continue its emphasis on museum exhibitions, public events and educational programs, such as school tours at OHS sites, National History Day in Ohio and teacher training.

In addition, the reorganization will position seven OHS sites as regional centers to provide stronger statewide history services and promote economic development through partnerships with local stakeholders, such as historical societies and chambers of commerce. These historic sites include: Adena Mansion & Gardens in Chillicothe and Fort Ancient near Oregonia for southwest Ohio; Campus Martius in Marietta for southeast Ohio; Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Fort Meigs in Perrysburg and Piqua Historical Area in Piqua for northwest Ohio; and Zoar Village in Zoar for northeast Ohio. All will retain their current hours of operation.

Although schedules have been reduced at other OHS sites, most will be open during periods of highest attendance. School and group tours will remain available. Sites with changes in hours include the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, Paul Lawrence Dunbar House in Dayton, Flint Ridge near Brownsville, Harding Home in Marion, National Road/Zane Grey Museum near Norwich, Serpent Mound near Peebles, Youngstown Historical Center in Youngstown, Fort Laurens near Bolivar, Ohio River Museum in Marietta, Schoenbrunn Village in New Philadelphia and Wahkeena Nature Preserve near Lancaster. For Serpent Mound and Flint Ridge park access will be emphasized with limited access to buildings.

To help defray increasing operating costs, the Society will implement a $1 fee increase for adult ($8), senior ($7) and child ($4) admissions as of April 25 at all locations. School tour fees will remain $3 per person. The last fee increase occurred in 2004.

The Society will work with other groups to operate four sites under management agreements. These include Cedar Bog Nature Preserve near Urbana, Museum of Ceramics in East Liverpool, Ohio Statehouse Education & Visitors Center in Columbus and Tallmadge Church in Tallmadge.

As a part of the restructuring 47 full and part-time positions will be eliminated, including 21 coming from unfilled job vacancies. Of the 26 employees affected by job elimination, 18 worked at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus and the remainder worked at other OHS sites. In addition, 49 employees were notified of changes in their hours. The annualized savings of these position eliminations after restructuring is $1.8 million.

“The Society regrets that a number of dedicated, knowledgeable employees will lose their jobs as we restructure,” Laidlaw said. “We extend our most sincere thanks for their contributions. These are difficult decisions in a difficult economy. Our board is confident that the changes being made are necessary for the Society to help people connect with Ohio’s past in order to understand and create a better future.”

Over the last decade, the Ohio Historical Society has had to retrench its operations as state funding declined from a staffing level of more than 400 full-time equivalent staff members in the 2001 fiscal year to 270 full-time equivalents in the 2009 fiscal year.

Employees notified today of job losses will receive a severance package, full pay of eligible leave balances and outplacement counseling. They also are welcome to apply for the Society’s position vacancies. All employment categories, from professional and managerial to part-time and support positions, were affected among the total number of positions eliminated.

Other cost-cutting measures to be taken include deferred equipment purchases and staff travel restrictions.

Once more, the Ohio Historical Society ends up being the whipping boy for the legislature’s unwillingness to do anything constructive. Once more, state funding has been slashed from the OHS budget, leaving it to flounder on its own. At this point, there’s not much left to cut other than to shut the OHS down. I guess that comes next.

It’s tragic. Apparently, nobody gives a damn.

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Major, major hat tip to Harry Smeltzer for bringing this to my attention.

In a comment to yesterday’s post, Harry made me aware of a very useful resource, the Historical Marker Database, of which I was not previously aware.

It is a veritable fountain of useful information, including photos of the markers and directions to them, as well as the text on each marker, for each one in the database. It is an incredibly useful tool and one that I will inevitably make extensive use of over the years.

Craig Swain mentioned in another comment that he is a regular contributor to the database–thanks for your good work, Craig. Each one you add is a real addition to the body of knowledge. Keep up the good work.

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From today’s USA Today:

Civil war soldiers’ bodies secretly exhumed

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Working in secret, federal archaeologists have dug up the remains of dozens of soldiers and children near a Civil War-era fort after an informant tipped them off about widespread grave-looting.

The exhumations, conducted from August to October, removed 67 skeletons from the parched desert soil around Fort Craig — 39 men, two women and 26 infants and children, according to two federal archaeologists who helped with the dig.

They also found scores of empty graves and determined 20 had been looted.

The government kept its exhumation of the unmarked cemetery near the historic New Mexico fort out of the public’s eye for months to prevent more thefts.

The investigation began with a tip about an amateur historian who had displayed the mummified remains of a black soldier, draped in a Civil War-era uniform, in his house.

Investigators say the historian, Dee Brecheisen, may have been a prolific looter who spotted historical sites from his plane. Brecheisen died in 2004 and although it was not clear whether the looting continued after his death, authorities exhumed the unprotected site to prevent future thefts.

“As an archaeologist, you want to leave a site in place for preservation … but we couldn’t do that because it could be looted again,” Jeffery Hanson, of the Bureau of Reclamation, told The Associated Press.

The remains are being studied by Bureau of Reclamation scientists, who are piecing together information on their identities. They will eventually be reburied at other national cemeteries.

Most of the men are believed to have been soldiers — Fort Craig protected settlers in the West from American Indian raids and played a role in the Civil War. Union troops stationed there fought the Confederacy as it moved into New Mexico from Texas in 1862.

The children buried there may have been local residents treated by doctors at the former frontier outpost, officials said.

Federal officials learned of the looting in November 2004, when Don Alberts, a retired historian for Kirtland Air Force Base, tipped them off about a macabre possession he’d seen at Brecheisen’s home about 30 years earlier.

Alberts described seeing the mummified remains of a black soldier with patches of brown flesh clinging to facial bones and curly hair on top of its skull. Alberts said the body had come from Fort Craig.

“The first thing we did was laughed because who would believe such a story,” Hanson said. “But then we quickly decided we better go down and check it out.”

Weeks later, Hanson and fellow archaeologist Mark Hungerford surveyed the cemetery site and found numerous holes — evidence of unauthorized digging.

While records show the cemetery had been disinterred twice by the Army in the late 1800s, it wasn’t known how many bodies remained. Hanson said ground-penetrating radar revealed the Army left behind about one-third of the bodies.

A lack of funding and various federal procedures delayed the excavation until last summer.

Brecheisen’s son told authorities where the mummified remains from his father’s home were, and a person who hasn’t been publicly identified handed over a more-than-century-old skull packaged in a brown paper bag. Alberts said that skull, which still had hair attached, was the one he’d seen years earlier.

Authorities also found some Civil War and American Indian artifacts in Brecheisen’s home, but the display rooms that showcased Brecheisen’s collections had already been emptied out and auctioned off by his family after his death, Hanson said.

Investigators believe Brecheisen did most of his looting alone, but they also know he dug with close friends and family at the Fort Craig site. Some who accompanied him led authorities to the grave sites, Hanson said.

Brecheisen was a decorated Vietnam veteran and flew for the Air National Guard during a 26-year military career. His family described him as “one of the state’s foremost preservationists of historical facts and sites” in his obituary.

Those close to Brecheisen said his looting may have been motivated by anger toward the Bureau of Land Management, but no further details were available. Alberts described him as a collector; it wasn’t clear whether Brecheisen sold any of the items.

Investigators believe he also dug up grave sites in Fort Thorn and Fort Conrad in southern New Mexico as well as prehistoric American Indian burial sites in the Four Corners region.

Hungerford said they also believe he may have taken the Fort Craig burial plot map, which is missing from the National Archives.

The criminal case against Brecheisen was closed upon his death and there are no plans to investigate his family members, assistant U.S. Attorney Mary McCulloch said.

Alberts said he asked Brecheisen to come clean.

“I had urged him to simply return the remains, about 10, 15 years before he got ill. I offered to act as an honest broker to the deal and see that they were returned, but I didn’t get a response,” Alberts said. “I didn’t want to get a friend in trouble.”

He added: “But you look back and think you would have done everything differently if you would have known everything was going to disappear.”

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

There just aren’t a lot of things lower than grave robbing. Kudos to the folks showing respect for these poor, departed souls.

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I’m home after a long and exhausting weekend. I will post details about it tomorrow evening, after I’ve had a chance to rest a bit.

As to anyone who was disappointed by my having to back out of the program at Liberty University, I want to apologize. Unfortunately, the decision to back out of the program was the result of an irreconcilable scheduling conflict. Over a year ago, I agreed to do a program on Custer in the Civil War for Ted Alexander’s Chambersburg Civil War Seminars series. I told Ted sure, and knew that he was planning on doing the program this year, but didn’t know when. Then came the invitation to speak at Liberty, which I accepted. And then, after I accepted the invitation from Liberty, I learned that Ted’s Custer program was to be the same weekend. I tried hard to find some way to do both programs, but it couldn’t be done.

Because I’ve done Ted’s programs for years, because it was the engagement accepted first, and because I didn’t feel that I could pass up the opportunity to lead tours with Ed Bearss, I elected to keep my commitment to Ted and to back out of the Liberty program. I deeply regretted doing so, but it could not be helped. I’ve since had a discussion with Ted about being quite certain that I am provided with the dates of programs as soon as they are selected, so as to avoid a problem like this from arising again.

So, to anyone who was disappointed by my not being there, I apologize and hope that I may be forgiven. Ethan Rafuse, I was especially looking forward to meeting you, since I’m the reason why you were invited to be part of the Liberty program. We will find another opportunity, and I hope that the program went well.

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I am at an event in Chambersburg, PA. More tomorrow.

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Michael has put up a page about our baseball project, YOU STINK! Major League Baseball’s Terrible Teams and Pathetic Players. Be sure to have a look. We think it’s going to be great fun.

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The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (“MOLLUS”), a veteran’s organization for Union officers of the Civil War, established its museum and headquarters in a building on Pine Street in one of the oldest parts of Philadelphia. The museum is presently located at 1805 Pine Street. When I was a child, my aunt and uncle lived at 2021 Pine Street, just over a block away, and I never knew that the place existed. I only discovered it in the 1990’s. The place has an interesting collection: a very impressive library, including all of the MOLLUS publications, the stuffed and mounted head of George Meade’s war horse, Old Baldy (which is actually kind of creepy, if the truth be told), weaponry, including an original lance carried by a trooper of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and lots of other interesting ephemera. A few years back, the name was changed to the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum.

Unfortunately, the building where the museum is housed in crappy condition and the place is dead broke, and has been for some time. Consequently, everything is being moved. The following was posted on the Gettysburg Discussion Group today by old friend Paula Gidjunis:

The Civil War and Underground Railroad museum, at 1805 Pine St in Philadelphia will be closing at the end of July, 08 for about 2 years in preparation of their move. The museum will be moving to the former 1st National Bank of the United States at 3rd and Walnut which will provide more room for their holdings. If you plan on seeing the museum and haven’t done so, you should do it by July or you will have to wait until 2010. This is the website, however, I must tell you that it hasn’t been updated in awhile, but the basic info is correct. http://www.cwurmuseum.org/pages/PhilaCivilWar.htm

Also, the home page wasn’t working this AM, the other pages were. The CW and UGRR museum is the home of Meade’s horse, Old Baldy’s head and it contains the saddle that John Reynolds was on when he was killed. Other items of note, items belonging to Meade, Grant, Lincoln and a large collection of military escutcheons.

If you have the opportunity to visit the museum before it closes in July, do yourself a favor and do so. It’s well worth the visit, and you really should get the ambience of seeing it in its crummy old run-down surroundings.

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J. D, and I were approached by Randy Drais, the proprietor of a new website on the Battle of Gettysburg several weeks ago. He asked us to review a draft of the site and give him some feedback, which we gladly did. Randy’s been banging away at it since then, and he’s now formally launched the site. For those interested in the Battle of Gettysburg, his site is definitely worth a visit. Check it out.

I’ve added a link.

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