Kerhsaw’s Brigade of South Carolinians didn’t actually fight in the Fort Sanders attack. They were held in reserve.
But they provided plenty of sharpshooting (i.e. snipers) during the weeks-long runup to the battle. And there’s a dandy bio about them here.
“A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,700 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.”
Heh. Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Read it all here, and have a good 2012.
Knoxville’s Gay Street, fifty-one years after it was the scene of Rebel and Union recruiting, as recalled by the novel’s Parthenia Leila Ellis.
Via Instapundit.
The revolver which the historical Lt. Col. Alfred George Washington O’Brien pointed at the novel’s fictional Sergeant Timothy Chase’s nose was a curious one.
The LeMat,first made in New Orleans in 1856, had two barrels: the upper one was a smoothbore normally reserved for a .36 or .42 caliber ball, and the one below it was a 20-gauge shotgun.
Hence the popular Southern weapon’s apt nickname: The “grapeshot revolver.” O’Brien’s was a late-model .44 caliber. Cabela’s sells a nine shot, rifled .44 caliber working reproduction. And there are several videos of loading and firing the weapon here.
The day before President Lincoln issued his proclamation of thanksgiving for the Confederate defeat at Knoxville, Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside congratulated his troops on their steadfast performance:
“The Army of the Ohio has nobly guarded the loyal region it redeemed from its oppressors, and rendered the heroic defense of Knoxville memorable in the annals of War.”
The troops can’t have been pleased, however, when they discovered that while they were on reduced rations throughout the Rebel siege, Burnside and his fellow commanders were living high-on-the-hog at his Crozier House headquarters.
The novel’s fictional character Parthenia Leila Ellis, of course, wore full black mourning because she was a new widow. But her good friend, the historical figure Elisa Brownlow might have worn something like this pretty plum wheat dress with bell-shaped Pagoda sleeves. It was made by Civil War reenactor and dressmaker “sarahanne” of Virginia. Her Victorian Times blog features this dress and others of similar design and materials.
Bob Krick’s criticism of Longstreet better comports with the general’s work at Knoxville, where he was defeated after a cursory inspection following many days of dithering.
But, of course, there’s a positive side to Lee’s war horse as well. And historian Jeffry Wert is a good exponent of the man his troops after Chickamauga called The Bull of the Woods.
“He is a conservative, a very cautious general,” Wert says in this talk. Which really doesn’t explain his behavior at Fort Sanders, where he was anything but cautious. But hear Wert—author of General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier—tell it.
Via Crossroads.
