Next up for Research Month: CWI at Gettysburg

          The next event in our 30-day observation of Speedyleeway Research Month is the June 20-24 Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.

          This is one of the crowning events on the Speedylee calendar every year.

          The Civil War Institute is a five-day gathering of those of us interested in the history of the terrible war that cost hundreds of thousands of families untold pain and suffering. It also ended slavery on the North American continent and, in the approximate words of Shelby Foote, changed our nation from those United States of America to the United States of America.

          The CWI annually gathers the leading scholars on the subject together with like-minded enthusiasts. The event includes addresses in large halls and meetings in classrooms for lectures and discussions. New to the CWI last year was the dine-in concept whereupon individual professors/authors eat dinner with small, assigned groups to discuss a specific topic about the war. There are two nights of dine-ins this year.

          All-day tours to various battlefields are offered as a part of the package as are half day tours of the Gettysburg battlefield.

          Your loyal blogger has never left the CWI without feeling energized and excited. The single problem with leaving the CWI is the idea that the next Gettysburg conference is 360 days into the future. That’s a long wait. Not as bad as waiting two years until the next Pro Football Researchers Association meeting, but still a long wait.

          Some of the classroom sessions, which the CWI terms ‘Breakout Sessions,’ are assigned and others are open to selection by attendees. These sessions are usually very interesting and because the size of the gathering is small enough, there is plenty of interaction with the speaker.

          Yours truly takes notes during every session, including the walking tours, and I ask a lot of questions. A lot of questions.

          The CWI offers scholarship deals for high school students interested in attending and lots of teachers attend also.

It’s too late for 2014, obviously, but you can find the CWI at www.gettysburg.edu/cwi/. The info about the next year usually starts showing up soon after the completion of the last one.

 

          Thanks for reading and happy Research Month!

Research Month opens with Pro Football Researchers Association meeting

          June is Research Month here at Speedyleeway. We observe Research Month every year by attending conferences dedicated to, you guessed it, research. Sometimes, we get so fired up we even do some research.

          First up is the Pro Football Researchers Association meeting this weekend in the Cleveland area. The PFRA meets every other year and this year’s event will include several presentations covering the Cleveland Browns’ NFL championships in 1954 and 1964. Members of those squads are scheduled to meet with PFRA members and several researchers and authors will speak as well.

          The meetings will be held at two locations. Friday we’ll be at the Browns’ practice facility and Saturday we’ll meet at the stadium.

          The PFRA is a registered charitable organization. It publishes a newsletter named The Coffin Corner. Several members have published books about the history of the game and believe me when I say that it is exciting to walk into a room full of people who know more about the history of professional football than I do.

          This year’s meeting, like every PFRA function I have attended, is an outstanding chance to learn something about the game America loves.

          It is easy to learn more about the PFRA. Just go to www.profootballresearchers.org. Information about how to join up – the dues are very reasonable – and all things PFRA are available on the site. You’ll even find a forum where non-members are welcome to contribute.

          What could be better for a football fan?

          Among the players expected to attend the meeting this weekend is Bob Gain, who played on the 1954 Browns title team and played his college ball at Kentucky. That means Gain played for Bear Bryant in college and for Paul Brown in the pros, two legendary coaches. Gain will be an interesting man to hear speak.

          Next week this blog will address the second half of June’s research doubleheader.

          Thanks for reading and happy Research Month.

Rooting for Kurt Busch

          Kurt Busch will try something this weekend that sounds impossible.

          He is scheduled to drive in the Indianapolis 500 Sunday morning and afternoon, then drive in the Coca Cola 600 in the late afternoon and evening. That’s one race in Indianapolis, Indiana and another in Concord, North Carolina, all in one day.

          If he completes both races, that’s 1,100 miles of competition.

          Three drivers have attempted the double in previous years and one has actually completed the entire distance. Any rain delay or spate of caution flags at Indy could ruin the entire effort.

          I wish Busch well and I want to tell you why.

          Kurt Busch raced in NASCAR’s Southwest Tour in 1998 and 1999, winning the Rookie of the Year in his first full season and the championship a year later. Before he was done with the awards banquet following his championship season with the Tour, Busch had signed a contract to race in NASCAR’s Truck Series. His talent was pretty obvious.

          I saw each of Kurt’s SWT races because I was the PR guy for the series back then. I came to know him a little bit and I liked him. Never had the first moment of trouble with Kurt Busch when we were both with the Tour and I still haven’t.

          Busch tried his hand a drag racing a few years ago, twice racing in the NHRA’s Pro Stock category at the Gatornationals. I worked both those events and every time I saw him, Kurt stopped, said hello and we shook hands. Same thing has happened when I’ve worked at a few NASCAR Cup races since he joined that Series.

 

           Kurt Busch gets along with people, in my experience. When I read about how Kurt has changed since he had trouble with the media and had to leave Roger Penske’s organization, how he has now repaired his image, I think back to the guy I worked with for two years.  

 

           Wow, can Kurt Busch drive a racecar. In the 15 years since we were both with the Southwest Tour, he has only gotten better. Remember when he won his Cup title on the final day of the season? A wheel broke off of his car during the race and he somehow managed to get that three-wheeled thing onto pit road without damaging the car, then got back out there and won the championship. Drivers don’t just do that.

          Kurt Busch is a combination of other-worldly talent and tremendous competitive spirit. That drive to win pushes him to the edge of his car’s potential, which is what happens with the great ones. And when a driver hangs it out that way on every lap, it isn’t easy to turn off all the internal mechanisms and become cool, calm and collected immediately after climbing out of the race car, even if things went well. It’s really hard to be cool and calm after a wreck or some kind of trouble on the track.

          Kurt Busch is a heckuva race car driver. I hope he does well this weekend. And I’ll be happy as hell to shake his hand the next time I see him.

 

          Thanks for reading.

Walking and reading without chewing gum

          The Horseshoe Ridge area of the Chickamauga National Military Park is a hilly location. It is a historically important piece of ground that was among the bloodiest positions in the entire American Civil War.

          Yours truly has devoted a large part of the last five years trying to understand

The view from near the top of
Hill 1 of Horseshoe Ridge
toward the Snodgrass buildings.

fully what happened along that pretty ridgeline on September 20, 1863 and on the sides of the hills which approach the ridge. Professional Civil War historians, no doubt, know a better way to do this. There is probably some slick academic method, some logical process the big-name pros use to study battlefield history and determine who did what, where they did it and when. You have to learn how sooner or later, too.

          These professional researchers know where to read about all the information they need for a given project. Many of these professionals are professors and they have assistants (read that students) who produce the needed information. These assistants, in turn, learn all the fancy research methods. The cool tricks.

          Yours truly does not know the fancy tricks, the ins and outs of academia, the time-saving procedures.

          I have to do it the hard way. First, I make copies of the material pertinent to the mysteries I want to solve. I insert each sheet into a plastic page protector and put the covers in a small notebook. I carry the notebook in the field and I read as I walk.

          I don’t try to chew gum at the same time.

          This week found your loyal blogger at Horseshoe Ridge, walking up and down the hills, notebook in hand. It is instructive to read the post-battle reports and letters from soldiers while walking the grounds.

The gap between Hill 1 (to the right) and Hill 2 (left). Notice the low spot between them.

          For example, if you want to determine approximately where a specific battalion went up the hill, you compare all the reports. Did an officer describe the ground his battalion fought over in the regimental report? Did a soldier describe the ground in a letter home to his family?

          If so, try to match the description of the topography in the report to what you see. Maybe one report describes a gentle slope while another describes and steep climb. Photograph what you see for future comparisons.

          The hillsides of Horseshoe Ridge are not smooth and easily traversed. There are undulations and draws that can make it difficult to go up hill in a straight line. The only consistent thing is change.

For that reason, a 106-year-old letter from a veteran of the fighting to the son of another veteran is valuable to a modern day researcher because it describes the ground covered by the writer’s battalion and names the commanding officer of the battalion to his right.

So I read the letter over and over while walking the various pathways repeatedly. Once in a while I figure something out and, in an uncertain world, THAT is a blessed event.

          Reading that letter as you walk the Ridge makes you feel as though you have company on that hillside. You can almost hear the voice of the writer and it feels as though the boys are with you.

          It is a unique experience. I highly recommend it.

 

          Thanks for reading.

This is a just for fun image. The images available from here are interesting.

A few notes on life...

          A few notes from your loyal blogger:

          It turns out that I was wrong. Pop Tarts are not the equivalent to the military’s MREs.

          One of the causes of the dreaded shingles malady is stress. If you develop a case of shingles during the month of April, shouldn’t that be a tax dodge? I mean, what causes more stress than the tax season?

          I’ve seen a Dodge Ram. I’ve seen players from 31 different NFL teams dodge the Rams. I’ve even seen Chevys and Fords ram Dodges. And I have no idea what it all means.

          The NFL Network had a program ranking the quarterbacks of the 1970s. Fran Tarkenton, who never won the Super Bowl, was ranked above Terry Bradshaw, who won four in that decade. Huh?

          The NFL draft is about a week away. Newspapers and sports networks have devoted months to predicting what college players will be selected and football franchises have devoted thousands of man hours and millions of dollars preparing for their chance to select the next batch of stars. Keep in mind that these star college quarterbacks were drafted in past years: Giovanni Carmazzi, JaMarcus Russell and Ryan Leaf. These quarterbacks were not: Kurt Warner (won a Super Bowl, holds Super Bowl records) and Anthony Calvillo (professional football’s all-time passing yardage leader).

          No kidding, yours truly saw a product in the grocery store today named Joan of Arc Kidney Beans. You have to assume they were burned with the steak.

 

          Thanks for reading.

 

Best wishes for storm victims

          We all have our ups and downs. Sometimes it is fun to complain about day-to-day life and once in a while a witty comment is fun to write.

          There will be no complaints today, no attempts at humor. Instead, our best wishes to all Americans hit by heavy storms in the last few days.

          You are in our thoughts and prayers.

 

The military career of Reuben E. Davis

          His name was Reuben E. Davis and he was a Confederate soldier. His story is an interesting one which throws sand into the gears of the machinery that generates the idea that the Civil War was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight among Confederates.

          Davis was born in Georgia, not too far from the Alabama line. He enlisted in Montgomery, Alabama in July of 1862 and became a soldier in the First Battalion of Hilliard’s Legion. The First Battalion was an infantry unit.

          Reuben Davis was a successful farmer. The records show his property was valued at $2,500 and his personal property was worth better than $600. That was a lot of money in pre-war America. Cards on the table, I do not know how many slaves Davis owned, if he owned any at all.

          Davis was 44 when he enlisted. He was married and had a large family. It appears that one of his sons also served in the Confederate Army.

          Why Davis elected to serve in an Alabama unit is not known. The Legion had a few Georgians on the rolls, so he was not alone in that regard. There is one note that your loyal blogger has seen that indicates Davis was a substitute for another soldier and that could have played a role in Davis not serving in an outfit from his home state.

          The Legion did not see battlefield action until it played a pivotal part in winning the battle of Chickamauga. Serving in a brigade commanded by General Archibald Gracie, Davis’ First Battalion was the first group of Gracie’s men to plant its regimental flag in the informal Union breastworks near the edge of the top of Horseshoe Ridge in the final hours of the fighting. The First suffered severe losses going up that hill and Davis was among those injured. He was wounded in the hand.

          After Chickamauga, the Legion was split into three new units, the 23^rd Battalion Alabama Sharpshooters, the 59^th Alabama Infantry Regiment and the 60^th Alabama Infantry Regiment. The three served together through the end of the war, surrendering at Appomattox with the remainder of the Army of Northern Virginia.

          Davis recovered from his Chickamauga wound and spent the remainder of the war in the 60^th Regiment, displaying tremendous resilience. He returned to his comrades in time to fight at Knoxville, and then was wounded again at Bean’s Station. He was present at Drewry’s Bluff but was wounded in the leg during the siege of Petersburg.

          Davis is listed as a prisoner of war briefly in April of 1865 and was taken to a hospital in Fort Monroe, Virginia in May of that year. He took the oath of allegiance and was discharged from the hospital July 16, 1865, three years and seven days after enlisting in the Confederate Army.

          But Davis had used up his strength. He got home to Heard County, Georgia and then died of a fever on August 19, 1865. While your loyal blogger has seen no written evidence of it, the supposition here is Davis probably died of an infection stemming from his leg wound suffered in the trenches at Petersburg.

          Let’s face it, Davis fought for a cause we find unacceptable today. But he gave it his all and, in the end, that was all he had.

          Thanks for reading.