The lure of Gettysburg

          I’m not sure what it is that draws so many people to the Gettysburg National Military Park every year. The history of the place is enough for me, you understand, but there is probably more to it than that.

          Well, maybe.

          The National Parks Service does a tremendous job of keeping the place looking wonderful, so any visit is a treat for the eyes. The place is well mapped, so finding locations is reasonably easy. I have found that there is an easy camaraderie among park visitors, so you meet plenty of friendly people.

          The Visitors Center is a pleasurable experience in itself. For one thing, the air conditioning is very nice. The Rangers are friendly and knowledgeable, so they are helpful. The museum is terrific (there’s that history thing again) and the Cyclorama painting of the battle is unlike any painting you’ll ever see.

          You have to pay to see the Cyclorama, $12.50 I think. Worth the price.

          The town itself is very nice. A lot of the big name stores are there, so shopping is fairly easy. There are plenty of neat restaurants and there is an outlet mall. Mrs. Leeway and I like to eat at the Garry Owen Pub and at Hoss’s Steak and Sea House. Hoss’s is part of a large chain, Garry Owen is not.

We’ve always stayed at the same hotel when in Gettysburg so any reader here looking for a hotel might find a better deal than at the place we stay. You will need to plan far in advance if you want to stay in town during the early summer months, particularly in late June and early July.

Gettysburg College hosts summer sports camps, which helps load up the hotels, and the college hosts the Civil War Institute conference every year. Your loyal blogger is a regular at the CWI.

          All of the above being said, what is it that draws us to Gettysburg every year? Think about it: There are lots of nice towns and cities in southern Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, the state capitol, is a short distance away and Mechanicsburg, home of the legendary Williams Grove Speedway, is right up the road. When we go to Williams Grove, we stay in Gettysburg.

          So why Gettysburg? Why not visit someplace else in the area?

          Obviously, it’s the history.

          When I go to a battlefield, unless I am part of a CWI tour, I find the time to sit quietly and just listen. Nature is usually pretty loud at such places and, well, you can hear a lot of other stuff, too.

          Your loyal blogger was sitting on a rock at Little Round Top last week listening to the Park guys trimming whatever they were working on with their weed whackers a few hundred yards away, when a married couple came by. They were obviously looking for something. When they came by a second time, I asked what they were looking for. As best I can recall now, the conversation went something like this:

 

          Them: “Isn’t this Little Round Top?”

          YLB: “Yes it is.”

          Them: “Wasn’t Chamberlain here?”

          YLB: “Yes, but not right on this spot.”

(Blogger note: We were within a few yards of the statue of General Warren.)

Them: “I thought for sure there would be a monument for him and the 20^th Maine.”

YLB: “There is one.” (Gestures, gives directions to a sign on the other side of the roadway.)

Them: “Did you ever read ‘Killer Angels?’”

YLB: “Yes I did. I don’t normally read Civil War fiction, but I read that one.”

Them: “I read that book and now I have to see where Chamberlain was.”

 

You meet lots of people at Gettysburg and other Civil War battlefield parks, usually very nice people. You meet veterans of many, many visits and you meet first-timers.

We all come under the spell of the location and that goes back to the history. There is a feel you get along Cemetery Ridge and up on Culp’s Hill that is different from other places in the world.

If you ever get to Gettysburg, try walking from the Virginia Memorial to the spot where General Armistead was wounded. As you traverse that span of ground, look to your right and see Little Round Top in the distance. Turn left and look at the rooftops of the town. You’ll have a hard time spotting the Union line ahead of you until you get close, so look for the Copse of trees or the trees that mark the Bloody Angle.

If you don’t mind cheating, look for some of the taller monuments that dot the location of the Union line. Think about what those monuments mean.

Your loyal blogger once stood in the Sherfy Peach Orchard and asked out loud, “Exactly what the (heck) was Dan Sickles thinking?”

The battlefield at Gettysburg is a different place, for lots of reasons. Your loyal blogger highly recommends it.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

JWA Sanford

          His name was John William Augustine Sanford. He was Georgia-born, but he lived in Alabama and served that state most of his life. He was a soldier and a lawyer, but that’s a little like describing the RMS Titanic as a famous boat.

          There is more to the story.

          Sanford was born November 3, 1825 in Milledgeville, Georgia. He earned university degrees from Oglethorpe University (BA in 1844), Harvard University (BL, 1851) and the University of Alabama (LLD, 1878). Sanford was admitted to the bar in 1852.

          Sanford joined the 3^rd Alabama Infantry Regiment as a private at the start of the Civil War and was quickly promoted to assistant quartermaster. In 1862 he was authorized to raise a regiment and he eventually became a Lt. Colonel in the Third Battalion of Hilliard’s Legion. In 1863, after the Legion’s ranks were terribly thinned during the battle of Chickamauga, the four battalions of the Legion were reconstituted as the 23^rd Battalion Alabama Sharpshooters and the 59^th and 60^th Alabama Infantry Regiments. Sanford was promoted to full colonel and given command of the 60^th.

          Sanford surrendered on April 9, 1865, along with the remainder of the Army of Northern Virginia, at Appomattox Court House. At that point, he still had 36 years of service in front of him.

          Immediately after the war, Sanford was elected Alabama’s Attorney General. Three years later, General George Gordon Meade, the commander of the military district that governed Alabama at that time, removed Sanford and other state officers from their positions due to Reconstruction policies of the Federal government.

          Sanford responded the way most lawyers would: He sent Meade a letter. In the letter, Sanford asserted Alabama’s right to establish a government for herself and complained in very strong language about Reconstruction. It was a strongly-worded letter. It was written by a lawyer. Somehow, it fell into the hands of newspaper editors and Sanford became famous.

          He was re-elected as Attorney General three times before he became the Clerk of the Alabama Supreme Court in 1880. He resigned from that position November 5, 1892.

          But Sanford still wasn’t done. In 1896 he was an Elector to the State at large and on April 23, 1901, he was elected to be a delegate from Montgomery County to the Constitutional Convention.

          Sanford died August 7, 1913. As a soldier, he fought for a cause we find repellant today. As a politician, he railed against Reconstruction and became popular because of that.

          To understand the Civil War and Reconstruction, we need to study men like Sanford. He made a difference on battlefields and in courtrooms and that, my friends, is an interesting career.

          Thanks for reading.

E. F. Comegys: A career worth noting

            Edward Freeman (E.F.) Comegys was a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. He served in the 43^rd Alabama Infantry Regiment after enlisting as a Sergeant.

            Comegys had a unique career, both during and after the war. Born in Alabama in 1841, he passed away in Gainesville, Texas Jan 26, 1910. Comegys appears to have attended the University of Alabama, completing his college days in 1859.

            He enlisted in the 43^rd Alabama on May 13, 1862 and remained with that command until the final days of the war. The 43^rd played a key role in the Confederate victory at Chickamauga on September 20, 1863.

Comegys was promoted as the war went on, first to Lieutenant and then to Captain of his company. He was captured during the fight at Hatcher’s Run on March 25, 1865 and then released at Ft. Delaware, Delaware on June 17, 1865.

            The remainder of the 43^rd was a part of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and surrendered with that outfit at Appomatox a few weeks after Comegys was captured.

            After surviving his long service in a losing cause, Comegys returned home and started his post-war life. He didn’t spend much time at home in Alabama. He married the former Susan Harris and was working in Gainesville by 1876. The marriage produced six children.

            Comegys became the Superintendant of the Denton Public Schools in 1884 and held that position until 1890, when he took the same position with the school system in Gainesville.

            The former soldier was an active member of the United Confederate Veterans. Importantly for historians, Comegys attended a reunion of Confederate veterans in 1907 or 1908 and met researcher Archibald Gracie, the son of Confederate Brigadier General Archibald Gracie.

            The 43^rd was part of the elder Gracie’s brigade when it was part of the dramatic charge up the sides of Horseshoe Ridge at Chickamauga. That meeting at the reunion of Alabama Confederates began a series of communications with the younger Gracie and that eventually generated information that historians can pour over now, giving voice to witnesses of the closing hours of the fighting for control of the Ridge.

            Witnesses whose testimony is generally ignored. Most histories of the battle generally praise the 43^rd’s contribution to the Confederate attack on Horseshoe Ridge of Sept. 20, 1863 but few histories of that attack offer a full retelling of the 43^rd’s movements. The testimony of Comegys and others offers to complete the story.

            So Comegys’ career is valuable in a number of ways: He was an effective soldier (albeit for the wrong cause), an educator and an important contributor to fully understanding some battles during the Civil War.

            E.F. Comegys will probably never have a best-selling book written about his life. He was one of the faceless millions who survived the war, succeeded during Reconstruction and lived a long life.

 

            Thanks for reading.

Answers

          In a previous blog your loyal blogger asked five questions about the American Civil War and asked you readers to read the questions and consider your own answers.

          As previously stated, there are no right or wrong answers here. Your thoughts are as good as anyone’s. It said in the previous post that this blogger promised to post a set of replies and they are below, with the questions.

 

          QUESTION #1: If war had somehow been avoided, how long would the institute of slavery have remained legal in the United States of America?

          ANSWER #1: Given how difficult the struggle for civil rights was in the 1950s and 1960s as it was, it seems possible slavery might be legal in some form today had the Civil War never happened. It is instructive to recall that some states that remained loyal to the Union during the War left slavery legal until the war ended.

 

          QUESTION #2: How different would American society have been during the 20^th century had Abraham Lincoln lived through the completion of his second Presidential term and seen to the start of Reconstruction?

          ANSWER#2: Lincoln wanted to let the South up easy. Much of the punishment-oriented governance that dominated the years during and following Reconstruction would no doubt have been different with a living Abe Lincoln. Carry this thought forward. Using what we know about Lincoln’s ideas for Reconstruction as a baseline, it is very possible that much of the strife that has marked some periods of our history since the war could have at least been lessened.

 

          QUESTION #3: How would your life have been different if the Confederate states had secured their independence?

          ANSWER #3: Your loyal blogger would not have been born had the Confederate States of America won its separation from the Union.

 

          QUESTION #4: In terms of action on the battlefields, who was the single most important individual in the fighting? No fair choosing one per side and no fair choosing the individual foot soldier as answers.

          ANSWER #4: Ulysses Grant commanded the victorious army in the most important victories in both the Western and Eastern theaters of the war. This is an easy answer for your loyal blogger.

 

          QUESTION #5: No single event has had a bigger impact on United States history than the Civil War. Study of the War era and the War itself offer educational opportunities on many social and historic topics. Should the War be reemphasized in K-12 classrooms?

          ANSWER #5: Yes. Here is a partial list of topics that could be covered in different ways at different grade levels: Politically correct or not, the war happened, so a bit of study of the War itself; the struggle for racial equality during the century after the end of the War; the importance of addressing major issues in a timely manner (rather than kicking the can down the road, as Congress did regarding the elimination of slavery from the time the Constitution was written until the War started); the cost of the war in terms of money spent and lives lost (among other things, Southern states had to start providing pensions for former Confederate soldiers in the decades after the War); the impact of the war on the non-combatants; the impact of the war on America’s foreign relations and how far behind most of Europe the United States was with the elimination of slavery; the change in the way Americans conducted their politics following the War and whether that impacts us today.

 

       Thanks for reading and answering.

 

5 questions for your consideration

          If you study the Civil War or just enjoy reading about it, you have read about the controversies surrounding the big moments of the conflict. The ‘What if’ stuff.

          Your loyal blogger enjoys debating the ‘What if’ questions although generally speaking, all that really matters is what actually happened. Determining what actually happened is hard enough, even after all this time.

          The traditional what ifs include: What if all of JEB Stuart’s cavalry force stayed with the main body of the Army of Northern Virginia during the entire Gettysburg campaign? What if Robert E. Lee stayed with the Union army instead of following Virginia into the Confederacy? What if the Union army won at the first battle of Bull Run, as it should have?

          The reader is invited to determine on his/her own whether the following questions are traditional what iffers or not. Regardless of that determination, the reader is asked to consider the following questions and develop answers. Your local blogger will provide a set of replies at a future date.

          Before the questions for consideration, your loyal blogger reminds that there are no right or wrong answers here. There are only ideas.

 

          QUESTION #1: If war had somehow been avoided, how long would the institute of slavery have remained legal in the United States of America?

 

          QUESTION #2: How different would American society have been during the 20^th century had Abraham Lincoln lived through the completion of his second Presidential term and seen to the start of Reconstruction?

 

          QUESTION #3: How would your life have been different if the Confederate states had secured their independence?

 

          QUESTION #4: In terms of action on the battlefields, who was the single most important individual in the fighting? No fair choosing one per side and no fair choosing the individual foot soldier as answers.

 

          QUESTION #5: No single event has had a bigger impact on American history than the Civil War. Study of the War era and the War itself offer educational opportunities on many social and historic topics. Should the War be reemphasized in K-12 classrooms?

          Think these questions over and, as you do, we thank you for reading.

The name game

            P. Allen Motes was born in Alabama’s Pike County on September 14, 1832 and started along his way to success.

            Whatever his first name was.  

A farmer, Motes married Mary Alice Godwin on March 12, 1854 and life went along. Things changed when Alabama joined the Confederacy. Presly enlisted in 1862, becoming a member of the 4^th Battalion of Hilliard’s Legion. He originally enlisted in the 4^th Battalion’s Company A, but later transferred to Company D.

            The Legion did not see combat action until September 20, 1863 when the Legion played a central role in the Confederate victory in the battle of Chickamauga. Motes, who was six days beyond his 31^st birthday at the time, was wounded in his left leg. One report has Motes breaking his leg, another says Motes was “shot through,” his left leg.

            Motes’ military career ended with the injury. He returned to Alabama and resumed farming. But Mary Alice died of the measles on May 6, 1870, leaving Presly with four children. No slacker, Presly married again on February 19, 1871. His second bride was Mary Elizabeth Head and she eventually out-lived her husband, although Presly and Mary Elizabeth did manage to have a child together.

            The Motes holdings grew to include 395 acres (200 improved, 195 wooded) with a cash value of $2,000. They had farm equipment valued at $50 and livestock worth $400 (1 horse, 2 mules, 2 milch cows, 2 working oxen, 3 other cattle and 15 swine).

            Presly Motes died October 30, 1908 at age 76 in Crenshaw County, Alabama. He was probably unaware that his name would one day leave researchers confused.

            Motes’ military service cards list his first name as Presly, but a report from the Adjutant General’s office decades after the war mentions in passing that some muster rolls for the Legion also have Motes’ first name spelled ‘Prisly.’

            It appears neither spelling was accurate. His tombstone spells his name ‘Presley.’

            No matter how his name was properly spelled, you’d have to agree that P.A. Motes had a busy life. And just think: He did it all without the internet.

 

            Thanks for reading.

FOR HEADLINE, SEE BELOW

It is shocking to me to see what has happened to headline writers. Even today, where the web is without the space limitations we had back in the day when newspaper editors had to make things fit, headline writers still can't get things right.

Hurricane Fay brushed some islands and began weakening over the weekend. It was downgraded to a tropical storm and drifted away from land, its power lessening as it went. So the most obvious headline of the year sat waiting...and went unused.

The headline should have read:

FAY DONE, AWAY

Remember you saw it here first.