GEORGIA: Civil War Photo Exhibit Opens
WALESKA, Ga. — A unique photo exhibit centering on the Civil War is on display now through Feb. 1 at Reinhardt University in Waleska.
The ‘Images of the Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea’ exhibit is on display at Reinhardt University through Feb. 1.
Special to the MDJ
Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – Reinhardt University has Civil War exhibit through Feb 1.
“Images of the Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea,” from the private collection of Canton resident Gordon Rich Elwell, will be featured in Reinhardt’s Hill Freeman Library and Spruill Learning Center for the next two months.
The exhibit is free and open to the public during normal library operating hours.
The images depicted in the exhibit include battle scenes from Chickamauga to the fall of Atlanta, the everyday camp life for the soldiers and the effects of the war on civilians.
Some of the works were sketched by eyewitnesses, some were created in the immediate post-war years, and some are modern depictions. Many of the images are from rare publications.
“During this sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of these events, we hope that this exhibit will encourage you to explore in more depth the events, the impact and the legacy that the Atlanta Campaign had on northwest Georgia,” said Joel Langford, director of the library. “We are grateful to Canton resident Gordon Rich Elwell for sharing these images from his collection. We also acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Kenneth Wheeler, Reinhardt professor of history, and Jamie Thomas, library assistant, in the selection of the images.”
History highlighted by exhibit
After the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, Union forces moved back into Tennessee and settled in Chattanooga. With Confederate forces holding the heights around Chattanooga, the two armies were in a stalemate until Union forces began an offensive in November 1863. The Confederate forces were pushed back into Georgia, and both armies remained in their respective positions throughout the winter.
Under the leadership of Major General William T. Sherman, the Union army began a series of flanking movements in May 1864 in an effort to move south and capture Atlanta. The Confederates, first under the command of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and later under Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood, attempted to thwart the Union army’s advance by engaging in a series of battles in northwest Georgia.
After a long summer of fighting and a siege of the city, Atlanta was abandoned by the Confederates and fell to Sherman on Sept. 2, 1864. After a two-month occupation of the city, Sherman’s forces divided into two columns and headed toward Savannah. The path of destruction left by the Union troops was an effort to destroy material and moral support for the Confederate cause.
In December 1864, Savannah surrendered to Sherman without a fight. Union victories in the Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea were instrumental in the re-election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States and to the downfall of the Confederacy.
For more information about the exhibit, visit library.reinhardt.edu/ or www.reinhardt.edu
-mdjonline.com
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VIRGINIA: Civil War Diary Has Deep Ties to Region
WYTHEVILLE, Va. – The daughter of Joseph Henry, one of America’s most renowned scientists, Mary Henry was 21 years old when her family moved into the only castle in Washington, D.C.: the Smithsonian Institution building.
A prolific writer and astute observer, Mary began recording a diary in 1858, including a daily log of her personal reflections, events at the Smithsonian and conversations she had shared with many of the most influential leaders in America.
These writings of 155 years ago, only recently discovered and restored, are what inspired Jeremy T.K. Farley of Wytheville to write “The Civil War Out My Window: The Diary of Mary Henry.”
It would have been impossible for the youthful Mary Henry – filled with juvenile yearnings and wanderlust – to have imagined the unspeakable horrors that would soon fill the pages of her blank diary as she penned her first entry in November 1858. Mary’s entries soon included personal conversations with Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant, common citizens and captured southern troops.
A staunch unionist and American patriot, the young woman’s diary reveals the incredible dilemma held by millions of Americans throughout the War Between the States, as she often sympathized with the southern plight, mourned Confederate causalities and criticized the Lincoln administration’s every move.
For nearly a century and a half, Mary’s diary sat upon the dusty shelves of her sacred home, the Smithsonian Institution, waiting to be read and shared.
In summer 2014, a team of volunteers – carefully handling the stiff and cracking pages of her life’s most enduring work – set out to transcribe her every word. Their work was long, difficult and uneasy, as years of aging had rendered many of the diary’s pages nearly unreadable. But by July, their work was completed.
Upon reading the transcripts of her diary, Farley, a Wythe County government employee, set out to make her diary accessible to the American public.
A student of the Civil War, Farley devoted countless hours to formatting, diligently translating and clarifying the entries of her diary, so that they could be presented to readers in a hard copy format that was both easy to read and accurate to her original text.
In addition to reformatting her words, Farley also added footnotes in order to explain important individuals and events mentioned in Mary’s entries.
“After I got done reading her diary, I felt like I had lived through the Civil War and found an intimate friend in Mary Henry,” Farley says. “It is my hope that everyone who reads her diary will feel the same way.”
Farley says that although her writings provide one of the greatest insights into the Civil War in the past quarter-century, Mary’s diary is far more than a collection of random thoughts on matters of science and politics. Her diary is a story of both a young woman and a struggling nation coming of age in the latter half of the 19th century.
An added treat to readers from Southwest Virginia is found in the May 1867 entries, when Mary Henry, passes through the region for the first time following the war.
“Her tour of Southwestern Virginia begins in a hotel along the side of a steep hill in Lynchburg and continues – by rail – to Christiansburg, into Pulaski County and then to Wytheville, where she spends the night,” Farley says. “It was really cool hearing her talk about all of these places I have grown up around.”
From Wytheville, Mary Henry rides the rails to Mount Airy, N.C., then to what is present-day Rural Retreat, and on to Saltville, a place she describes in the following terms: “The salt works which have supplied nearly the whole south with salt are situated in a lovely valley surrounded with picturesque hills.”
“The Civil War Out My Window: The Diary of Mary Henry” is available through national book retailers and online.
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TEXAS: Beaumont Paper Slams Confederate Flag License Plate Proposal
If you want to wear a T-shirt that supports the Confederacy, go for it. You have the right to express yourself, even if some disagree with the thought you express. But not every thought expressed by an individual should be sanctioned by the government, and a good example would be license plates that feature the Confederate battle flag.
A state motor vehicle board rejected a proposal for this plate design, and now the U.S. Supreme Court will decide if state governments can pick and choose among the political messages it approves for specialty plates.
In this case, at least, the state’s position should be upheld. It’s reasonable, and Texas has not approved any license plate that criticizes the Confederacy.
Granted, this is a tricky task for the Supreme Court. Most specialty license plates are non-controversial, such as those that express support for Mothers Against Drunk Driving or a particular university. But some pro-choice advocates might object to “Choose Life” plates, or an atheist might not like “God Bless Texas.”
If the court decides that it’s too difficult to decide which semi-political messages should be acceptable, Texas should prohibit all of them. The reality is many Texans would be offended by a symbol on license plates that reminds them of secession and slavery.
Yet we hope the justices give the states some latitude on this issue. Free speech still has limits. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater or say falsely that your neighbor is a child molester.
You may like the Confederacy, but that doesn’t mean the state has to sanction a license plate that does too. You can put a Confederate bumper sticker on your car instead.
-Beaumontenterprise.com
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