VIRGINIA: 150th Anniversary Drives Visitors to Lynchburg
LYNCHBURG, Va. — While giving a tour Sunday at Historic Sandusky, Stannard Preston looked toward the parlor’s front window and spoke of the “ocean of blue uniforms” that Ada, the 16-year-old daughter of the Hutter family that owned the home, gazed at when Union forces under Maj. Gen. David Hunter arrived 150 years ago.
Bryan Beard, a Civil War re-enactor with the 45th Virginia Infantry re-enactment group, checks his gear.
With Hunter’s reputation for ordering houses burnt, Preston said, the sight of Northern troops overtaking the home must have been unsettling. A direct descendant of the Hutter family that lived in the home from 1841 to 1952, Preston said she sees the Battle of Lynchburg through Ada’s eyes.
“It couldn’t have been anything but terrifying, especially for a young girl,” Preston said.
A series of commemorative events marking the 150-year anniversary of the Battle of Lynchburg this week pulled in steady streams of visitors to Historic Sandusky on Saturday and Sunday.
Director Greg Starbuck said the overall event, likely the largest Historic Sandusky has held to date, hopefully will serve as a springboard for visitors to pursue learning about the Civil War.
“The goal of this event was to present a variety of aspects of the Civil War, North and South, that might appeal to different folks of all ages,” Starbuck said. “It’s a starting point.”
Hunter took the Sandusky House as Union headquarters during the battle June 17 to 18, 1864, in his hopes to overtake Lynchburg and its transportation and hospital facilities. His forces were driven back by Confederate soldiers led by Gen. Jubal Early.
Preston estimated about 400 people came through the home Saturday. She said it is gratifying to know folks are interested in the site’s history and called the sesquicentennial moment “our time in the sun.”
“I can’t imagine a more exciting time,” she said of making the community aware of the extensive work that has gone into the home, built in 1808. After months of research and work, the home’s restored parlor was unveiled to the public over the weekend.
As a few Union soldier re-enactors chatted under a tree just outside the parlor and notes from a flute carried in a musical period piece, Preston spoke of how Hunter and his men used the room to plot Lynchburg’s destruction.
George Hutter, who owned the house during the battle, had three sons who were off fighting in the war when Hunter’s forces took over the home and cut a hole in the roof to view the battle’s progress. The sons survived the war, Preston said.
The handful of families that lived in the grand home for nearly two centuries did not live there to show off but because they liked “a good, old, solid Lynchburg house and found it here,” she said.
Most of the furniture in the parlor was present during the Civil War, she said.
“What we have done is as close to 1864 as we’re going to get,” Preston said of the restoration effort.
Her grandmother sold the home in 1952, shortly before she was born, so Preston has heard about the home and its rich history for a lifetime.
She described in detail aspects of the “fancy room” parlor that entertained guests and items such as the French candle holders and hand-weaved carpet and fabric on the window drapes.
Visitors on the grounds of Historic Sandusky also had the opportunity to walk through The Virginia Civil War 150 HistoryMobile, a 53-foot-long trailer that travels throughout the state to showcase exhibits about the war and the lives it impacted.
“Our main goal is to tell about everyday Virginians,” said Noelle Baker, a tour manager. “We’re just trying to tell backstories of people you may not have heard about.”
The trailer has visited many schools and fits in with the Standards of Learning, Baker said.
“A lot of people say it’s very educational,” Baker said. “The kids definitely enjoy it.”
The HistoryMobile will be at Sandusky today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Archaeology digs also will continue on the grounds during the same hours, as will house tours and showings of the “Battle of Lynchburg” movie.
Mark Day of Taylor-Wilson Camp No. 10, part of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, said the group plans in the future to place a statue memorial on the site of a Union Prisoner of War Camp in Lynchburg. He said he hoped the weekend’s festivities would shine a spotlight on the Battle of Lynchburg, a unique story he feels a great number of Hill City residents still don’t know much about.
“We’re standing on the battlefield,” said Day, clothed in Union dress in the parking lot of the church, stretching his arms out. “They died where we are standing.”
-roanoke.com
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VIRGINIA: Arlington Cemetery Rooted in Civil War
ARLINGTON, Va. — Arlington National Cemetery’s hallowed ground honors American soldiers from many different wars. But as Arlington marks its 150th anniversary this year with tours and events, historians note that its roots are firmly planted in the Civil War.
It was June 15, 1864, as the war dragged into its fourth year, when War Secretary Edwin Stanton ordered the land turned into a military cemetery for the increasing numbers of dead soldiers.
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The location for the cemetery just happened to be the former estate of Robert E. Lee, who took command of the Confederate Army when Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861. The Union Army immediately seized and fortified the estate, then known as Arlington Heights.
But Stephen Carney, the cemetery’s command historian, said it’s misleading to suggest that the cemetery was established merely as a way to spite Lee.
The seizure of the estate was a military necessity, no matter who owned the property, Carney said. From the highest points of Arlington National Cemetery, it’s easy to see why the Union Army wanted it: To this day it offers a nearly unrivaled view of the capital in Washington, D.C., just a few miles away.
And in 1864, the need for a burial ground was pressing. Wounded soldiers sent back to Washington were dying in unsanitary hospitals at an increasing rate. The high casualties were partly due to a change in strategy: Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had assumed control of the Union Army, and was more willing than his predecessors to fight in Confederate territory.
That said, animosity toward Lee played a role in the cemetery’s location, said Matt Penrod, park ranger at Arlington House, a National Park Service site within the cemetery that includes the Lee family mansion.
Initially gravediggers buried the dead on the estate’s fringes. But Union quartermaster Gen. Montgomery Meigs, a native Georgian, did not respect Lee’s decision to lead the Confederate troops. Meigs ordered that graves surround the mansion, ensuring that the Lees would never want to return.
“It’s the dead themselves that get the ultimate revenge against Lee,” Penrod said, adding that the loss of the home “definitely bothered the Lee family a great deal.”
Today the cemetery draws nearly 4 million visitors a year. Most are tourists visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Eternal Flame at President John F. Kennedy’s tomb. But Arlington is also a working and busy cemetery, hosting roughly 30 burials a day.
Tourists and mourners share the cemetery in a unique way. School children who are talking and laughing as they tour the cemetery typically go quiet and maintain a respectful distance when they encounter a funeral procession.
The military funerals can be emotionally overwhelming to behold. While some are for older veterans, they also include young service members recently killed in action.
“You’re seeing lives cut short. That grief is very raw,” said cemetery spokeswoman Jennifer Lynch, who attends numerous services.
The cemetery serves a resting place for service members from every conflict in U.S. history, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers from the American Revolution were reinterred at Arlington after their gravesites were displaced by a development project in Georgetown.
In addition to U.S. presidents, others buried here include Supreme Court justices, astronauts, war heroes, sports figures and celebrities, including baseball inventor Abner Doubleday, boxer Joe Louis and actor Lee Marvin. All three were veterans.
“There are 400,000 individuals with all these incredible stories,” Carney said. “If you want to play historical sleuth, you can just pick a name on a headstone, and everyone has an incredible story.”
A variety of events are planned to mark the 150th anniversary, including tours on topics such as World War I. Events culminate with a first-of-its-kind, free nighttime concert in the cemetery’s amphitheater on June 13, and a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
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FLORIDA: Telling the Civil War Story
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — At work, Jon Cook wears hospital scrubs. At play, he often can be seen in reproduction military uniforms.
For the past 20 years, Cook, who lives in Jacksonville, has been having fun re-enacting military conflicts from the Civil War to World War II.
Greg Olson | Journal-CourierJon Cook of Jacksonville, who has been a Civil War re-enactor for 20 years, poses in his Civil War cavalry jacket.
“On the second Grierson Days, an old friend, Jim Phillips, put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘You’re drafted. Show up here at 7 o’clock in the morning,’” Cook recalled, adding that Phillips had been trying to convince him to do military re-enactments for about eight years. “I finally gave in to his peer pressure. I thought I would give it a try.”
After some safety training, Cook said, he participated in his first Civil War re-enactment battle.
“We marched out in file,” he said. “Commander Phillips hollered, ‘belly down,’ because artillery was getting ready to fire. The cannons went off and the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I was hooked. After that, I spent most of my Passavant Hospital paycheck on a uniform and basic equipment.”
Since then, Cook has added four complete replica Union and Confederate uniforms to his re-enactment wardrobe.
To go along with the uniforms, he has purchased a cavalry saber, two musketoons [a type of rifle], a Henry rifle, two Remington revolvers, a Colt Navy revolver and a single-shot derringer.
“I’m always trying to add to my collection with both original and reproduction gear for re-enactments,” Cook said.
He estimates he has participated in about 300 Civil War re-enactments in the past two decades.
“When fuel was cheaper and I was younger, I used to go to re-enactments every other weekend around the Midwest,” Cook said. Included in those 300 re-enactments have been trips to four national Civil War re-enactments, including Shiloh, Tennessee, and Wilson’s Creek, Missouri.
“What I enjoy most about re-enacting is teaching the history of the Civil War,” he said. “One of the biggest things I like to do is explain how soldiers lived.”
During re-enactments, Cook said, he has fielded some hilarious questions.
“One of the funniest things an adult ever asked me at a re-enactment was, ‘How do you all not shoot one another?’ My response was, ‘We’re really good shots,’ which I said with a straight face.”
At Grierson Days in 2010, Cook married Sue Sorrells, both of whom were appropriately decked out in Civil War-period attire.
“Sue had gotten interested in re-enacting a few years earlier,” Cook said. “Her stepmother made her several period dresses.”
Now, Civil War re-enacting has become a Cook family affair, even extending to Jon and Sue Cook’s 6-month-old son, David, who recently attended his first re-enactment, in Pittsfield.
“When the cannons fired, he jumped a little and then giggled,” Jon Cook said.
This weekend, Cook and his family will be at Grierson Days in Community Park, helping again to tell the story of the Civil War.
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