General musings

As promised, here are some of the the pictures from my whirlwind tour of New Orleans and Austin. This first batch is from Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.

The flag marks the grave of Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, which is in a mausoleum that houses veterans of the Army of Tennessee. Atop this mausoleum is a handsome equestrian monument to Albert Sidney Johnston. Sadly, I screwed up my attempt to take a photo of it.

This is the mausoleum of Gen. John Bell Hood and his family, all of whom died of disease in an epidemic.

This is the grave of Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor, the son of President Zachary Taylor, and his family.

This is a cenotaph to the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, one of the finest artillery units of the American Civil War. Note the upright concrete cannon barrels being used to hold the chains surrounding the monument.

This is a gilt monument to Joan of Arc that sits in the heart of the French Quarter. It was a gift to the people of New Orleans from French President Charles de Gaulle.

The next batch of photos is from the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.

This is the grave of Confederate Maj. Gen. John A. Wharton, who was killed by a Confederate cavalry officer in Houston on April 6, 1865.

This is the grave of Brig. Gen. Adam Rankin “Stovepipe” Johnson, the fine Confederate partisan and cavalry commander. Johnson and his brigade made the trip to Ohio with John Hunt Morgan in the summer of 1863.

This is the grave of Confederate Brig. Gen. Benjamin McCulloch, killed in action at the March 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge. McCulloch was a veteran of the Texas War of Independence, the Mexican War, and Texas politics.

Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston is also buried in this cemetery. He was briefly interred in New Orleans and later moved to Austin after he died in action at the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to figure out how to get a decent photo of his grave, which is topped by a sculpture of the deceased Johnston lying in repose in his Confederate general’s uniform.

There was a Confederate old soldier’s home in Austin after the war, and many of those old Rebels are buried in a specific section of the Texas State Cemetery. Here’s a panoramic view of some of their graves.

This is the grave of Stephen P. Austin, the father of the Texas Republic.

This is the grave of former Texas governor and Secretary of the Treasury John Connally and his wife. When Connally died, apparently, the FBI wanted to see about recovering bullet fragments from the Kennedy assassination from his body.

This is a monument to the victims of 9/11. The girders are from the Twin Towers. The Texas state flag you can see in the distance is flying at half staff in honor of the victims of the mass killing at Virginia Tech.

This is the State Capitol of Texas. The dome of this building is higher in elevation than the dome atop the U. S. Capitol.

This monument pays tribute to Texas’ contributions to the Confederate cause. Jefferson Davis stands atop it, along with an infantryman, a cavalryman, an artillerist, and a sailor. There are some statistics included, and a list of every engagement where Texas soldiers participated.

This is a monument to Terry’s Texas Rangers, also known as the 8th Texas Cavalry.

This is a monument to the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia, one of the hardest-fighting units of all of the Confederacy.

This is a monument to the defenders of the Alamo. It’s a handsome monument with a beautiful bas relief of the Battle of the Alamo on its face.

This is my host, Dan Laney, the president of the Austin CWRT. Dan is standing alongside one of two brass Napoleon guns outside the Texas State Capitol. They date from the spring of 1865, after the surrender of the Confederacy.

There are a few more photos, but these are the best of the lot. It was quite a trip.

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The whirlwind trip is over. Here’s a recap. Susan will post my photos over the weekend.

I left on Wednesday morning. My flight out was at 6:00 AM, meaning that the alarm clock went off at 4:15, an obscene hour. I can remember times in my youth when I wasn’t finished throwing up at that time of the night, but those days are LONG gone. Now, the thought of getting up at that hour is enough to make me tired just to think about it. I flew to Atlanta and changed planes, arriving in New Orleans a few minutes before 10:00 local time.

Charles Nunez, my host, took me straight to Metairie Cemetery. PGT Beauregard, John Bell Hood, and Richard Taylor are all buried there. Jefferson Davis rested there for a couple of years before being moved to Richmond, and so did Sidney Johnston. There’s a handsome equestrian monument to Sidney Johnston in the cemetery. Baseball Hall of Famer Mel Ott is buried in that cemetery, and so is Louis Prima of “Just a Gigolo” fame. I’d seen photos of New Orleans cemeteries, but had never been in one before, and it was just as interesting as I expected it to be. There is a monuemnt to the men of the Army of Northern Virginia in the middle of the cemetery, and one to the Army of Tennessee where the monument to Johnston stands and where Beauregard is buried.

We left there, briefly visited a couple of other cemeteries, and then headed downtown, passing through the 17th Ward to get there. I couldn’t see much from the freeway, but Charles tells me that half of the local population has never returned after Katrina. There’s plenty of wreckage and debris from the storm left to be seen, and it’s really kind of shocking to consider just how much destruction occurred. I did get a good look at the infamous convention center and the rehabilitated Super Dome, both of which played major roles in the Katrina tragedy. We then went to lunch, and after lunch, we had a driving tour, passing the D-Day museum and the Confederate Memorial Hall, which are across the street from each other.

I had REALLY wanted to visit the War of 1812 battlefield just outside New Orleans, but the battlefield was under 12 feet of water during Katrina. The visitor’s center was pretty much completely destroyed, as were replica earthworks, etc. The place is still in pretty bad shape, and Charles suggested saving it for another visit, as hopefully, things will be more like normal and the visitor’s center will be re-opened. I was disappointed, as seeing the battlefield was one of the things I was really looking forward to doing on this trip.

Charles then took me to my hotel, the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, as I had some work to do for a client. I got the stuff done and then had about three hours to wander and explore the French Quarter, which I did. It’s quite a place. I made a point of walking the eight block length of Bourbon Street, but it was mid-afternoon on a weekday, and it was pretty tame. Having said that, I’ve never seen so many strip joints in one place as I saw there.

Charles then showed me more of New Orleans, including Anne Rice’s house and the home where Jefferson Davis died, which is just down the same block from Anne Rice’s home. We went to Tulane, where I did my talk. It was a good crowd and a good evening, but it’s the first time that I’ve ever spoken to an out-of-town roundtable and ws not fed dinner. After walking three or four miles, I was starving.

Afterward, a member of the group wanted to show me his personal museum. His father was a colonel in the horse cavalry, and he’s had a life-long fascination with cavalry. He owns a number of artifacts from the Little Big Horn battlefield, a hand-drawn map by George Custer, and some of the coolest cavalry artifacts I’ve ever seen. For a cavalry guy, it was heaven on earth. After a stop at a Wendy’s drive-through, it was back to the hotel.

The next morning, Charles picked me up far too early (6:45) and we went to a place in Metairie called The Morning Call for beignets, the sugary donuts that Jimmy Buffett sang about in his song “The Wino and I Know”. Fabulous. And then to the airport for the next two flights….

I flew to Austin by way of Dallas/Fort Worth. Dan Laney of the Austin Civil War Roundtable picked me up and we went to lunch, as it was 12:15. After a lunch of excellent Texas barbequed brisket, we went to the Texas State Cemetery. I visited Albert Sidney Johnston’s grave, the graves of John Wharton, Adam Rankin “Stovepipe” Johnson, Benjamin McCullough, and several other Confederate generals. We wandered the Confederate burial field and visited the other notables, including the graves of Stephen Austin, Barbara Jordan, and John Connally.

We left there and Dan showed me the home on the University of Texas campus where George and Libbie Custer stayed in 1867, and then on to the state capitol building, which is an incredibly impressive structure. There are handsome monuments to Terry’s Texas Rangers, Hood’s Texas Brigade, and the Alamo outside. We then went to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum for a VERY quick visit. From there, it was to my hotel to check in and grab a shower. The place is called The Mansion at Judges Hill, which is a very plush hotel and restaurant in an old house that was used as a drug and alcohol rehab place. It’s one of the nicest hotel rooms I’ve ever seen.

Then it was off to Dan’s lovely country club for the meeting. Regular reader Lanny Tanton made a point of introducing himself to me, and we had a nice visit. After a yummy dinner of fajitas, I gave my talk. At the end, Dan presented me with a Florida Gators hat, which I guess is appropriate for someone from Columbus, as a gag gift. My real gift was a certificate signed by the Governor of Texas making me an honorary Texan, which prompted me to say that I guessed I had better stop referring to Texas as “Baja Oklahoma”, which broke up the entire room. One member of the group brought nine of my books with him for me to sign, and he indicated that he owns about 4,000 Civil War books, of which half are signed by the authors. Dan, another member of the Roundtable, and I had a drink and a nice talk, and then it was off to bed, as I had another very early morning.

Dan picked me up at 6:30, and it was off to the airport. I flew from Austin to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to Columbus, arriving here at 1:30 or so. I had to put in a couple of hours at the office to get some stuff out, and that was it for me.

Six flights. Three days. Three VERY early mornings. I’m beat.

Pictures will follow tomorrow. First, I need some rest…..

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As I was looking at my blog earlier today, I realized that the last two posts were the result of random violence leading to multiple gunshot deaths committed by mentally ill individuals. Unfortunately, mental illnesses remain highly stigmatized in this country, and people like the perpetrators of these two crimes did not get the mental health care they obviously needed. It’s clear that something needs to change, and change soon, or else these types of nightmarish scenarioes will continue to play out.

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While working away at my desk this morning, I learned of the senseless tragedy at Virginia Tech University. Nearly 25 years ago, when I was still an undergrad, I spent a weekend at Virginia Tech that was one of the most fun weekends of my life. Consequently, I’ve always had very fond memories of the place. Today’s news was shocking, to say the very least. That this sort of thing continues to happen is nearly incomprehensible to me. My friend Tom Perry is a Virginia Tech alum, as is fellow blogger and regular reader Ken Noe. I can’t imagine what they must be feeling tonight knowing that something like this happened at their alma mater.

Susan and I have an old friend named Melissa Delcour. Some of you may know Melissa. She is a high school teacher in Virginia who has worked as a staff historian at the Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania battlefield park. This evening, we got an e-mail from Melissa indicating that one of her former students, a lovely young woman named Emily, who graduated from high school last spring and was wrapping up her freshman year at Virginia Tech, was one of the casualties today, struck down in the flower of youth. Hearing that–being able to put a human face on this senseless tragedy–makes it all the more real and all the more personal.

My heart goes out to Emily, her family, the rest of the victims, their families, and everyone else whose life was touched by today’s events. We can only hope that nothing like this will ever happen again, although I fear it will.

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One thing that I particularly enjoy is meeting other writers. I especially enjoy meeting other writers from other disciplines, because I learn from comparing their research and writing methodologies with how I do my work.

On December 8, 2004, the 24th anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon, a tragedy occurred here in Columbus. A mentally ill gunman rushed the stage at a local venue called the Alrosa Villa, shot and killed a prominent thrash metal guitar player named Darrell Abbott, and was going to go after other members of his band, called Damageplan. One of the band’s roadies, a patron, and a member of the Alrosa security team rushed the gunman and tried to take him down and were all killed for their trouble. A special duty Columbus police officer killed the gunman with a single blast of his shotgun, saving countless lives. It was a terrible tragedy, and put the Alrosa Villa and Columbus on the national radar screen, and definitely NOT in a good way.

A fellow from Dayton named Chris Armold spent fourteen months researching and writing a book on this event, titled A Vulgar Display of Power: Courage and Carnage at the Alrosa Villa(the title of the book comes from the title of an album by a metal band called Pantera; Darrell Abbott was one of the founders of Pantera). Chris is a free-lance writer who mainly focuses on heavy metal rock and roll, but this episode obviously intrigued him enough to tackle a major project on it. I saw a piece on the news about the book and decided that I wanted to read it. We stopped by a local Borders yesterday and I was surprised to find that Chris was conducting a booksigning there when we got there.

I had looked the book up on Amazon and saw that Chris had been a master sergeant in the Air Force who’s written a couple of books on military history, and we ended up having a rather lengthy and delightful conversation comparing the differences between true crime writing and military history writing, and also about how different it is being able to speak to witnesses and participants instead of having to rely upon 140 year old documents as I so often have to do. He pointed out that while it’s nice to be able to speak to people first-hand, the downside of that is that there are lots of people who will criticize and pick on any tiny little error. Fortunately, I don’t have that to contend with, but everyone is a critic who will criticize almost anything, so I understand that.

I really enjoyed talking with Chris, particularly when I learned that he had an ancestor who served in the 45th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry of the Ninth Corps who was wounded in action at both Antietam and at tthe Wilderness. Chris has a real interest in the Civil War, and he is knowledgeable about the Civil War. He even expressed an interest in one of my books, which was very flattering. We left it that we would stay in touch, and I hope that happens.

You never know who you’re going to meet at a bookstore….

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My regular readers know that I am a hockey nut. Susan and I made it to nearly half of the home games of our local NHL team this year. Watching NHL hockey is one of my favorite things to do in the world, and I just love watching it live.

Last night marked the end of the sixth season for the Columbus Blue Jackets. When the Jackets entered the league for the 2000-2001 season, they entered with another new team, the Minnesota Wild. Two years earlier, the Nashville Predators and the Atlanta Thrashers entered the NHL as expansion teams.

This year, the Wild finished 48-26-8, for 104 points and a playoff slot. The Predators finished 51-23-8, for 110 points and a second place finish in their division (which happens to be the same division as the Blue Jackets). The Thrashers finished 43-28-11 for 97 points, but they won their division. Not bad for three teams less than ten years old.

Our Blue Jackets, by comparison, finished 33-42-7, for 73 points. They finished fourth in a five team division, a scant two points ahead of the Chicago Blackhawks. They set an NHL single-season record for futility by being shut out 16 times. They had two players with twenty or more goals; the Anaheim Ducks (last night’s opponent) had five, including Teemu Salanne, who netted 48 goals this year and two last night. Last year, the Blue Jackets won 35 games and put up 74 points, meaning that they actually backslid this year instead of moving forward. They are the ONLY team in the NHL to have never made the Stanley Cup playoffs. Columnist Michael Arace’s piece in today’s issue of the Columbus Dispatch made the following point:

The Blue Jackets were 104-173-51 over their first four seasons. Then came the lockout. When it was over, there was a glorious opportunity to reform the team, create a winner and seize upon a new wave of support. The support was there; the victories were not. The Jackets were 35-43-4 last season.

They have built through the draft, signed veterans in an effort to win immediately and have rebuilt. They have done everything and hence nothing. They’ve steered themselves down the middle into mediocrity, or worse, rather than defining a clear course and sticking to it.

Pretty pathetic. The blame for this mess properly sits on the shoulders of one person, the team’s president and general manager, Doug MacLean. And it’s time for MacLean to go. The successes of the other expansion teams in a short period of time demonstrate that it can be done. There’s only one reason why it hasn’t happened here: atrocious management at the top. MacLean needs to go. If he doesn’t go, I will not attend a single game next year in protest.

And so it goes. The Philadelphia Flyers, for the first time in the 41 year history of the franchise, had the worst record in the NHL. This means that my two favorite teams are done for the season. It means that I have nobody to root for in the playoffs, so this year’s choice, in spite of Sidney Crosby’s incessant whining, will be the Pittsburgh Penguins. I hope they go far into the playoffs to help restore support for hockey in Pittsburgh, which has been a difficult relationship at best, and also to demonstrate just how far a team can go in just two years; two years ago, before drafting Crosby and Evgeny Malkin, the Pens were dead last in their division.

If a team with the oldest and worst arena in the game can do it, the Blue Jackets can, too. However, it will require dramatic changes in the top management of the company for it to happen. Let’s hope that team owner John H. McConnell does the right thing and drops the ax on MacLean quickly and hires someone to right this floundering franchise before it dies.

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Yesterday, I finalized a deal for office space. It’s not going to be a permanent thing, but it will do for now. It gives me a place to work and resources–conference room facilities, copier, fax, etc. The space is nice, and it will certainly do for now.

In August, I will have been in the practice of law for twenty years. The truth is that I have never particularly enjoyed it. When I was younger, it was a reasonably good outlet for my competitiveness, but I find that as I age, I am much less competitive than in my younger days. I simply don’t need that outlet any more. This whole situation has prompted me to reassess where I see myself headed, and I have come to the conclusion that I’m about done with being a lawyer. I just don’t have it in me any more, and I don’t find it rewarding any more.

So, I’m now in the process of figuring out what to do with the rest of my life. For six or seven years now, I’ve been toying with the idea of getting an MBA, and perhaps now is the time to do so. One way or the other, it’s time for me to develop a plan for making my escape from lawyering. I hope to be wrapping things up completely no more than 24 months from today.

Stay tuned. It’s going to be an interesting ride.

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Tomorrow is my 46th birthday. I can recall times that don’t seem all that long ago when the very concept of turning 46 was inconceivable; that was old age, for heaven’s sake. Evidently–hopefully–that’s not the case. Some days, I feel old as the hills but only slightly younger than dirt, but other days, I feel 18 again. It all depends.

What’s particularly interesting is that tomorrow is also my good friend and co-author, J. D. Petruzzi’s birthday. J. D. is four years younger than I am, but I find it really remarkable that we share the same birthday.

Perhaps our writing partnership was pre-ordained. 🙂

Happy birthday, J. D. You may be younger, but I still have more hair. 🙂

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I left yesterday afternoon at 1:30 and arrived in Gettysburg at 7:15. I met J.D. for dinner, and then we went and had a couple of beers at the Reliance Mine Saloon. I had a very interesting conversation with Bill Frassanito about lots of things, and we were all out of there by 11:00.

We were up at 6:00 AM today, got ready, loaded up the car and headed off to The Avenue restaurant for breakfast. We headed out for Westminster (which is almost an hour drive) for the conference. Our navigator was too busy obsessing over bicycles and didn’t tell me to turn in time and we went about 7 miles out of our way. We finally got to the site of the conference, and J. D. and I led off. We spent about half an hour being interviewed by a reporter who knew absolutely NOTHING about the Gettysburg Campaign, and then signed books for a couple of hours. We did have a chance to visit with old friend Dean Shultz and then headed back up to Gettysburg.

The weather was atrocious, and not conducive at all to battlefield stomping, so we limited ourselves to a lap around the battlefield, mainly to check out the latest round of tree cuttings. Seeing a large portion of Culp’s Hill cleared of trees is really remarkable, and really changes the appearance of the battlefield in a major way. I dropped JD and our host off and headed out for another lovely six hour drive, and got home at 8:30 or so.

I’m exhausted. It was a major banzai run. I was gone for 32 hours, and spent 12 of those 32 hours driving. I’m just glad it’s over.

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I’ve continued to explore the connection between Ulric Dahlgren and Davey Herold, which I first mentioned in this blog on February 27. My research indicates that it’s quite probable that Herold and Dahlgren knew each other, but it’s now clear that they didn’t attend Rittenhouse Academy at the same time; they missed each other by a couple of months.

Herold’s father was the clerk for the Washington Navy Yard, and the family lived in a large brick house right outside the gates of the Navy Yard on 8th Street. Davey Herold attended a private school as a boy and then attended Georgetown College from 1855 to 1858, where he studied pharmacy. He entered Rittenhouse Academy in January 1859. He then took a job in the pharmacy at the Navy Yard.

Ully Dalgren left Rittenhouse Academy in December 1858, meaning that they just misssed each other at school. However, I think it’s not only probable that the two young men knew each other, I think it’s quite likely. They were two months apart in age. They grew up in precisely the same environment, the Navy Yard. Given that Ulric’s father commanded the Navy Yard while Davey Herold worked there, there’s no question that the families knew each other. When Ully came home to his father’s house to recuperate after his July 1863 leg wound, Davey Herold may well have delivered medicine to Ully, and the two may have reminisced about their common childhoods.

Both died very young as a consequence of their participation in plots to assassinate a head of state, and I can’t help but wonder whether learning of Dahlgren’s participation in the plot to kidnap and assassinate Davis in any way influenced Davey Herold’s decision to join John Wilkes Booth’s assassination conspiracy.

This connection, which has never been explored by anyone (thanks again for bringing it to my attention, Pete Vermilyea), and it’s REALLY intriguing. I’ve proposed an article on it to Chris Lewis, the editor of Civil War Times Illustrated and hope he will take me up on it. It will be fascinating indeed to see how it plays out.

I will keep everyone posted as to the progress of this particular project.

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