Sunday, December 11, 2016

Review of "Inventing Loreta Velazquez" by William C. Davis

Published by Southern Illinois University Press in October 2016, William C. "Jack" Davis' book, Inventing Loreta Velazquez:  Confederate Soldier Impersonator, Media Celebrity, & Con Artist, discusses the controversial woman who claimed service in the Confederate army


Saturday, December 3, 2016

Searching for Sophrona: Sophrona Smith Hunt, 29th Iowa Infantry

Satronia is how her name appeared in her obituary that was carried by newspapers from across the country.  Though she died in August 1928, she just received a headstone on Veterans Day, 2016.  She had lain in an unmarked grave for over 80 years.   Click (HERE) to read more.



Sophronia's marker with her husband's in the background

Monday, November 7, 2016

Casting Their Lots

The women's suffrage movement began in 1848 when the initial women's rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York.  The right to vote was still a long time coming.  But that didn't deter some women.  In 1852, one appeared at the polls in New York disguised as a man.  However, her smooth face betrayed her and her ruse was discovered.

New Orleans Times Picayune, November 13th, 1852

Sunday, October 16, 2016

My Talk at Beauvoir, 10-15-16

Well, my enjoyment of a flawless presentation experience appears to have been relegated to a singular event.  Unlike at the Pascagoula Public Library, the haints possessed my equipment once again for my talk at the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library located on the grounds of Beauvoir.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Talk at the Pascagoula Public Library-10/4/16

Here's a bit of trivia.  Ninty-five percent of Pascagoula was under water after Katrina.  Almost all of my friends and family who live there lost everything.  I'm very glad to say that they have all rebuilt and doing extremely well today.

Another bit of trivia.  Pascagoula was also the location where a squirrel went berserk per the Ray Stevens song.

Well, I can't believe it finally happened.  I can honestly report that nothing crazy happened at my presentation last night at the Pascagoula Public Library.

Monday, September 26, 2016

My Talk at the Manship House, 9/24/16

My talks are always an adventure.  Whether it's challenges that arise in getting to the site or dealing with haunted equipment, you can pretty much bank on something crazy happening. 

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Rising Tides and Fallen Heroines at Alton

What was to become the military prison at Alton, Illinois began as a state penitentiary in 1833.  However, Dorthea Dix declared the facility unfit to house inmates due to its dirt floors and unsanitary conditions.  It closed in 1860, and the prisoners were then transferred to a new facility located in Joliet outside Chicago. It reopened two years later as a military prison with the first Confederate prisoners arriving by steamer from the overcrowded Gratiot Street Military Prison in St. Louis, a little over 20 miles south of Alton.

http://madison.illinoisgenweb.org/prison.html


Monday, August 22, 2016

Women Civil War Soldiers: Digging up the Evidence

Fellow blogger, Ann Marie Ackermann, recently asked me to compose a guest post for her.  Since her writings center around historical true crime, I thought I'd write about the detective work behind researching women soldiers. 

Click (HERE) for the post.  

Please check out other content on her blog.  She's got some interesting information! 

I am eagerly awaiting the release of her book, Death of an Assassin:  The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee to be released in 2017!  Sounds fascinating!  You can read a little more about her project by clicking (HERE).  You can also sign up to receive updates.

Until next formation....rest.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Dora



 No, not the explorer.

Dora of the Cumberland; although, she did some exploring  as a Union spy, sometimes in male clothing, sometimes in female garb.  Her prowess led some to compare her to Pauline Cushman.  And, like Cushman, Dora was born a Southerner.  While the former woman was born in New Orleans, the latter was born in Tennessee, east Tennessee to be precise. And, like many in that area, harbored Union sympathies.   

Sunday, June 5, 2016

My Indiana Talks, 6/13 and 6/14/16

Everything was going as planned.  I got home from church, ate a quick sandwich, loaded everything in the car, and headed west to the train station.  I left the same time I always leave, which means I would arrive the same time I always arrive, typically 30-45 minutes prior to boarding.  And then came the congestion on I-12.  Traffic is always heavy in places on the interstate, but I had never just come to a complete stop before.  And it happened in two different areas....both due to wrecks.  One involved five vehicles.

Brave as a Lion:Alfred J. Luther....Or Someone Else?

On April 6th, 1863, while stationed at Lake Providence, Louisiana with the 1st Minnesota Light Artillery, Fred L. Haywood wrote to his sister, Loesa,
"One of the members of the 1st Kansas Reg't died in the Hospital yesterday after a very short illness.  After death the somewhat startling discovery was made by those preparing the body for burial, that their companion, beside whom they had marched and fought for nearly two years was a woman.  You can imagine their astonishment.  The Reg't is camped near us and I went to the Hospital and saw her.  She was of pretty good size for a woman with rather masculine features.  She must have been very shrewd to keep her secret for so long when she was surrounded by several hundred men.  The 1st Kansas was one of the first Regiments that entered the service two years ago.  This girl enlisted when they went to Missouri, so they knew nothing of her early history.  She doubtless served under an assumed name.  Poor girl!  Who knows what trouble, grief, or persecution drove her to embrace the hardships of a soldier's life.  She had always sustained an excellent reputation in the Regiment.  She was brave as a Lion in battle and never flinched from the severest fatigues or the hardest duties.  She had been in more than a dozen battles and skirmishes.  She was a Sergeant when she died.  The men in the company all speak of her in terms of respect and affection  She would have been promoted to a Lieutenancy in a few days if she had lived."

Friday, May 27, 2016

Remembering the Forgotten on Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a day of remembrance.   We pay homage to all of those who served and made the ultimate sacrifice throughout our history.  As you visit their final resting places, you may be surprised to learn that the grave you are gazing upon is that of a Civil War woman soldier.  Many of them took their secrets to their graves.  Because these women were forbidden to serve, they had to remain hidden within the ranks as disguised men.  And because they were hidden, they've largely been forgotten, along with their sacrifices.  These women are resting right next to their male counterparts with whom they stood shoulder to shoulder upon the bloody battlefields of the Civil War.

So this weekend, honor them, so that they will not be forgotten.

I have added a tab at the top of my blog that lists the cemeteries where these women warriors lie.  Click [HERE] for direct access to the list.

I've just started with National Cemeteries and will add more later.  It is a work in progress.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Oxford, MS Talk-5/21/16

I met Ms. Reba Greer in April 2015, when I spoke at the Delta Kappa Gamma state convention in Olive Branch, Mississippi.  After that, she worked tirelessly to set up something where I could come speak in Oxford where she lives and volunteers.  I wish I had as much energy as she has!  So after locating a venue at the Burns-Belfrey Museum and Multicultural Center, the group of sponsors, which included the Oxford Newcomers Club, Cedar Oaks Guild, and the Oxford-Lafayette County Retiree Attraction Program, set out to promote my presentation.  And they did a fabulous job!  They advertised by newspaper, social media, radio, and this very nice poster!  



Friday, May 13, 2016

He Ain't a Unionist; He's My Brother

My apologies to the Hollies.....


When researching, I will often come across non-woman soldier references that I find rather unique, odd, and/or humorous.   This one is courtesy of the St. Louis provost.  Basically, G.G. Ebert was employed by the Union to carry dispatches for Rosecrans in Virginia during the winter of 1861.  When he returned to St. Louis the following year, he paid a visit to his brother, E.B. Ebert, who called him a



Monday, April 18, 2016

Women Soldiers of the 95th Illinois at Camp Fuller

Camp Fuller was established at Rockford, Illinois in 1862, following Lincoln's call for volunteers to serve the Union.  Soldiers began arriving in August.  In all, four regiments trained at the camp before being sent to the front.   One was the 95th Illinois Infantry which was mustered into service there on September 4th and began making preparations for war.  Camp Fuller "...became busy with the hum and tramp..." of "Squad drills, company and battalion drills, [and] dress parades...."   The 95th remained there until November 4th, 1862, when it was ordered initially to Cairo, Illinois, and thence to the front.    When the unit left Rockford, there were at least two, possibly three, women in the ranks.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

South Mississippi Genealogical and Historical Society Talk AAR, 4/5/16

When I have a talk approaching, I create an event for it on Facebook in order to help spread the word for those who are interested in attending.  At one point, I was able to embed one of those events into a blog post so I could share it here, too.  But alas, it hasn't worked since.  I keep getting an error about privacy settings and some such.  But my event announcements are set to public, so I don't get it.  Grrr.....

Anyway.....

Monday, I pulled up my schedule of talks in order to get the address of the location where I would be speaking Saturday so could add it to the event I was creating.  What I saw absolutely scared me to death.  I probably resembled a cartoon character whose eyes were bugging out of the head.  With a tingly feeling rushing through my body in a wave of panic, I quickly pulled up the other two copies of my schedule I have posted elsewhere.  They only confirmed what I feared.  My talk was the very next day, not Saturday!

Friday, April 1, 2016

Fool Me Once...

The two nurses moved about the steamship headed south, the vessel carrying them and the soldiers toward their fate.  The women wondered how many of these boys would not make the return trip home.  They knew the blue-clad warriors were pondering the same possibility, and so the ladies began to hand out handkerchiefs to them in hopes the pieces of cloth would perhaps remind them of the home they just left behind and help ease their mind in the turbulent times to come.

Friday, March 11, 2016

My Central Louisiana Talks, 3/4 and 3/5

About five years ago, I posed a question on a message board regarding a flag. Richard Holloway responded. And we went from talking about flags to women soldiers. Of course. Unbeknownst to me, he was (and is) the president of the Civil War Round Table of Central Louisiana based in the Alexandria/Pineville area. The next thing I knew, he invited me to speak at a meeting. The last time I taught anything history related was in the spring of 1997 when I did my student teaching. Since then, it's been all math. So yeah, I was hesitant. But then I began to welcome the challenge of putting together a power point presentation on women soldiers. It was exciting. But boy was I nervous when I spoke for the first time at that meeting in March, 2010. I enjoyed the experience and gradually started giving more presentations on women soldiers.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

The Woman Soldier and the Golden Circle

If you watched the last two episodes of Mercy Street, you saw the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) make an appearance.  This secret organization was formed before the war and sought to extend a slave-based empire to territories that stretched around the Gulf of Mexico, down past Mexico and Central America to parts of South America, hence the circle.  Its membership reached to every state in the Union and purportedly included the likes of Sam Houston, John Wilkes Booth, Jesse James, and William Quantrill.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Rosetta's Real Life "Mercy Street" in New Orleans

http://thecivilwarparlor.tumblr.com/
Continuing with the theme of women soldiers and their hospital experiences, this blog post details that of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, whose story has been highly publicized in books, articles, and blogs since Lauren Cook introduced us to the woman warrior in 1994 through her wartime letters in An Uncommon Soldier.

The 5'0" tall, blue-eyed farm girl was financially driven to enlist in the 153rd New York Infantry on August 30th, 1862.  As a "man," she would make more money than she ever would as a woman.  Rosetta sent a portion of her soldier's pay home to Afton, New York in order to help alleviate the debt her family had accrued.  (Uncommon Soldier, p. 9)

In February, 1864, the 153rd was transferred from Washington D.C to Louisiana where they would participate in Major General Nathanial Banks' Red River Campaign.   During the ill-fated venture, Federal troops experienced bad water, bad food and fatigue from hundreds of miles of hard marching in the burning heat and suffocating humidity of Louisiana's subtropical climate.  The stress of dealing with all of these hardships took its toll as soldiers began to succumb to a variety of diseases.  Private Wakeman was one of them.

Monday, January 18, 2016

"Mercy Street" and Women Soldiers: "I Would Rather Have Been Shot Dead"

Did you watch the premier of Mercy Street last night?  This is PBS's new Civil War medical drama.  Of course, I couldn't help but to think about women soldiers and their experiences.  A trip to the "saw bones" typically meant the end of their stint in the military.  They were aware of this and sometimes attempted to evade a trip to the hospital.  After her case of malaria worsened and a furlough to seek treatment was denied, Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias "Franklin Thompson," deserted the 2nd Michigan Infantry rather than risk discovery. Her story would not come to light until she herself came forward with details of her service, which were confirmed by male comrades.

Friday, January 15, 2016

My Talk for Delta Kappa Gamma, 1/14/16

Last April, I spoke at the Delta Kappa Gamma state convention in Olive Branch, Mississippi, which you can read about (HERE).    In attendance was Stacy who then invited me to speak at a meeting for her Sigma Chapter of DKG, which is a professional society of women educators.   I was honored to have been asked.