Comments on: On wheels.

By: basset

basset — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:54:13 +0000

Nashville is a great place to pursue CW history – used to work with a guy who moved down here from Detroit because he was so into it, started researching a book on the CW army unit from his wife’s home town in East Tennessee, and found that not only had they participated in the Battle of Nashville, they’d camped right about where his house was.

letters… I would recommend “We All Must Dye Sooner or Later,” the collected letters of the Alford brothers from Daviess County:

http://civilwarindiana.com/books/books_other.html

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:20:25 +0000

Jeff – yes! And the author of “Affectionately Yours” was also a direct relative of Ovid Butler’s (great grand daughter, or some such) and she gave a lively talk on her book at the late Ft Wayne Lincoln Museum, so I have a signed copy on the shelf. Since then, we took the opportunity while in Indy to search out and visit the Butler home, which was walking distance to the university back in the day; it is in an ornate old neighborhood which is now hemmed in by elevated expressways.

LA Mary – that Slate slap-shot into Cokie Roberts’ grill was just no fair at all! (Funny! – but unfair!!)

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:19:10 +0000

For those still interested in this odd concept of children of Civil War vets still among us:

http://www.suvcw-wi.org/trueSons.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_20041003/ai_n11821059/

(sorry for the link slop, rushing out the door)

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:08:07 +0000

Brian — the book was the awkwardly named “Affectionately Yours” and the son’s name was Scot. Ovid was a leading light in the early days of my denomination, taking a much stronger anti-slavery/abolitionist stance than the founders would have, trying to keep the southern congregations in the fold (who later morphed into the non-instrumental/a capella Churches of Christ).

Great set of letters for reading, under whatever title.

My dad’s Civil War heritage society is currently on a kick of going around Indiana, now that they’ve re-registered most of the GAR monuments to protect the cannons and such from auctioneers and greedy township trustees, putting up markers for the “last Civil War soldier” in each area, since the GAR records are remarkably clear on that score. And they still place markers for unmarked graves of Civil War soldiers wherever possible, but the last thirty years they’ve pretty much gotten the job done, at least as far as knowable unmarked gravesites go.

http://www.suvcw.org

This is the group that also took care of the last three Civil War widows, all of whom died in the last few years (do the math; it’s an “ewwww,” but i’m told they were fascinating and feisty old ladies in their eighties and nineties), and always invite to their events “True Sons (and daughters, occasionally)” who are the elderly sons of Civil War vets — you’d be amazed how many there still are. And spry!

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:57:39 +0000

JeffB — liked the walkscore.com website in principle, but i did my house and most of my family, and the data misses quite a bit. We have a twenty year old bike path right across the street from our house that’s not listed, and a half mile down the road it links over a couple blocks to the county rail-trail network that’s twelve years old, giving us bike connection with a grocery store that’s thirty plus years old . . . none of which showed up on the map.

So i like the idea, but their database is more than a bit skewed.

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:35:26 +0000

Dex – it always used to amaze me that you could go to any of the big ACW battlefields, and see large “Indiana” memorials on the Union side of the field. I once read a melancholy little book about an Indiana regiment raised out of the Indianapolis area, written by a non-professional historian, and you could see that the author really did do the homework of painstakingly going over the muster records and so on; as was generally true, the arc of the story was that the regiment went east, went into camp, drilled and drilled, and lost about half their numbers to sickness before they ever went into a battle.

Another fine book is one about the son of the fellow who started Butler University (Ovid Butler’s son, whose first name escapes me); dad kept all the letters they exchanged, and it makes for fascinating reading. The kiddo ends up in the new Signal Corps and fights all through the west, including at Chickamauga, and comes home to live to old age, running the university in Indianapolis into the 20th century.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:07:07 +0000

Blagojevich ruled the state from his home, refusing to govern from either his Chicago offices or Springfield. His staff had to force him to leave home for mandatory appearances.
He was being urged by staff and loved ones to seek psychiatric help in the months before his fall. His brash narcissism was allegedly a cover up for helplessness and low self-esteem.
This was a report I heard on WBBM Newsradio 780, Chicago…..

By: Dexter

Dexter — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:29:28 +0000

crazycatlady: Be safe.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:27:04 +0000

brian: I posted this about a year ago but it has come full-circle, I guess…Fort Wayne men as well as DeKalb County men fought at Shiloh under Buell, and my great , great uncle Joshua Eberly is the same man mentioned in this story; he died at Chickamauga, September 19, 1863, age 24 years.

http://www.ingenweb.org/indekalb/soldiers/cw_30ivf.txt

By: CrazyCatLady

CrazyCatLady — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:08:52 +0000

We have lived in this house on the far east side of Detroit for over 20 years. This neighborhood at one time was walkable. There was a 7-11 and a Baskin Robbins within 4 blocks of our home. I took almost daily walks with my baby in her stroller. And there even was a cool bookstore too. Then, the name stores moved out and the bookstore was gone. I felt the hood changing and have felt less safe on the street to take walks anywhere around here. There have been break-ins here. Car thefts and roving groups of teenagers. My elderly neighbor next door was carjacked during broad daylight while I watched helplessly from my dining room. There are now,for the first time ever, boarded up homes on my block/street. I’m scared and my world seems to be shrinking. But I know we can’t go anywhere else. So we just muddle along and try to take care of ourselves. And be cautious.