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From the
President's Desk
Hey Pards,
I'm very sorry I have not made it to any events since Point Lookout,
it's been an unusually busy and hectic spring for me. I'll be at
Cold Harbor, and I'm hoping things from then on will loosen up a bit
for me. I know there has been discussion about attendance, and
concerns over that issue. I want every event to be as well-attended
as possible, of course, but at the same time, I don't want members
to start beating up themselves or feeling guilty if they can't make
it to every event on the schedule. Things happen, life intrudes, and
this is a hobby after all.
We
are still, I think, putting the squeeze on ourselves by putting on
quite a few events every year. When January rolls around, we need to
remember that when we work up our schedule for 2005. Perhaps slicing
off an event or two would not hurt.
I think it is admirable that
the SG's attendance has been as good as it has been this year. Point
Lookout and Spotsy saw good turnouts. Some of other other events
were "light," but early registration indicates and several of our
upcoming events will no doubt benefit from large attendance. We do
need some more help at Cold Harbor, so, if possible, consider coming
to that.
No matter the size of our
turnouts, one thing that has remained consistent is the quality of
the participant and the program.
See you around the campfire,
-Dana
Shoaf
From the Editor
By
Christopher Daley
Fellas, Sorry for
the delay in getting a newsletter out to you. My work schedule, home
responsibilities, a new business venture, a hard drive crash and
mother nature have conspired to keep me away from getting one
finished. I appreciate your patience.
The above reasons have also kept me from working on the website and
directions to the issue shirts. I'll take care of both of those
responsibilities asap.
Also, please consider submitting some articles to our newsletter.
Please see this online plea for more details:
Authentic Campaigner SGLHA Forum
Some Resources we should know
about...
By
Ryan Weddle
Pards -
Since more and more most of our membership is spending time online
for research, I thought I would list here some great research links
for our usage. Many times they are searchable by keyword, title,
etc. Get reading!
The Historical New York Times Project:
http://www.nyt.ulib.org
I believe this is a true comprehensive
digital database of the NYT during the war years! Library of
Congress Prints & Photographs Division:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html
A great resource, which not only covers
Civil War military photos, but also all other lithographs, photos,
etc. from the 1860 period. Searchable by keyword. The Official
Records of the War of the Rebellion:
http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/browse.monographs/waro.html
This is the comprehensive, searchable online
version of the Official Records. Making of America (Cornell)
http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/
One of the best resources on the web devoted
to 19th culture. A searchable database of scores of period texts,
monographs, literary journals & periodicals. Including Scientific
American, Harpers Monthly, The Atlantic Monthly & The Living Age.
Making of America (UMich):
http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/
Contains more books and periodicals of the
period. Including Vanity Fair (very comical !), 1850 Ordnance
Manual, Scott's Military Dictionary, Hardees 1855 Rifle manual.
Valley of the Shadow:
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
A great digital resource focusing on wartime
Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
Vicki Bett's Newspaper Research, 1860-1865 :
http://www.uttyl.edu/vbetts/
A great lisitng of excerpts from wartime southern newspapers,
focusing on military/war effort in the southern home front.
Documenting the South (Univ of NC)
http://docsouth.unc.edu/
Diaries,
letters, and plenty of other southern based home front primary source
material.
Since 1995 researchers have read every
word and studied every illustration and cartoon in Harpers Weekly to
provide user-friendly indexes to this famous publication.
www.harpweek.com
Procurement Committee Announcement
The New SGLHA Vendor list is out.
By
Ryan Weddle
The Procurement Committee has labored all Winter and
Spring to research the latest reproduction items and
contact hobby related vendors. We are confident that the
new SGLHA vendor list will be a valuable aid in putting
together your impression. To see the vendor list, please
click here: SGLHA 2004
Vendor List
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Spotsylvania Living History AAR
By James Miller
For those that could not attend the recent
Spotsylvania LH, here is a rundown of the highlights. First of all,
I did not arrive to the site until around 7-8am, Saturday morning.
When I arrived Troy was bringing the company out for some drill,
whereupon I slowly got dressed and fell in with them just in time to
miss the drill. The park rangers showed up around the time I was
fully kitted out and since we did not have the 1st demonstration
till around 10am we had some time to get properly registered and
turn in ammunition. By the time all were done, it was getting close
to the time for the 1st demonstration.
The 1st demo lasted around close to two hours!
It was a bit long but the breeze that we were getting was cooling
things down for us and keeping everyone in high spirits. We
basically performed drill maneuvers for the public while the rangers
were giving a tour. Drill, at least I felt this way, went well
considering what little time we had and the differing backgrounds of
folks in our company. The first demo ended and so we had a couple
of hours to rest and get ready for the next one at 2 pm. Well, 2 pm
came soon enough and we were out in the fields performing for the
public once again. That demo also went well and soon we were done
and resting and getting ready for the torchlight tour.
The tour ended around 10 pm and many of our
friends who live points west decided to bid adieu and take their
leave of us. Sunday dawned relatively bright and early with
some still good weather for us.
However, the clouds moved in just in time for
our morning tour of the battlefield and it did rain a bit at least
for a few hours. I stayed behind and sat down under a tree during
the rains but I didn't get all that wet. A few more folks had to
leave and I said my goodbyes to them. The folks came back from the
tour and those that could stay (which was a good turnout) readied
themselves for the final event of the day. This was a small
ceremony put on by the park in honor of the soldiers that had fought
there.
We had time for a little go-over before the
ceremony and soon enough the event was starting. I was a
Confederate color bearer during the ceremony and while all of the
speeches were going on I couldn't help but think of all the
Confederate color bearers who had taken part in the battle and yet
were killed or wounded there, literally within yards of where I
stood. It didn't take long for me to get a lump in my throat the
size of a grapefruit and it didn't help matters to have Travis blow
taps like a man possessed! The event was over and now it came time
to say good-bye to those that took part and to the folks at the park
who hosted us. The event was great, most everything went off
without a hitch. And I for one am glad that we can now have an "in"
to yet another group of national parks. We must definitely plan for
events at Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, Wilderness, and
Chancellorsville for the next few years!
Other Procurement Committee News
By
Ryan Weddle
1)Hardee Hats: Are finished
and Chris Daley has them. He is sending the hats to Cold Harbor for
those attending the event. If you are not going to Cold Harbor you
must make alternative arrangements with him
tailor@cjdaley.com
2) Issue Shirts Kits: Chris Daley has had these for sometime
and hasn't shipped many of them because the shipping wasn't paid for
on some of them. He has shipped them out this week and if you get an
invoice for shipping inside the box, please make arrangements with
Chris to pay up. Chris still hasn't gotten the directions up as he's
been waiting for help on this project from the membership. If you
can help him, please e-mail him at
tailor@cjdaley.com
3) Hardee Hat Brass:
As
per an e-mail sent out by John Stillwagon:
"Several
people have contacted me about hat brass for Brawner Farm. Per the
image of the company we are portraying, hat cords, brass eagle pins,
infantry devices, regimental numbers and company letters are all
present in some combination. At the minimum, hats within the
company we are portraying have cords, horns and a letter or number.
For those interested, we have secured a special deal on complete
sets of all five pieces for only $10.00 (delivered at the event) or
$15.00 (shipped in July.)
If you want to get in on this deal, email me before COB
Thursday, May 27th at
jstillwagon@earthlink.net. The order is going in on Friday
morning.
I'm sorry for the short notice, but we just found out our supplier
is being deployed overseas. If you don't want to get in on this
deal, that's fine but you will be required to have the minimum
trimmings on your hat to participate in the event.
Please email me at
jstillwagon@earthlink.net if you have any questions or to
reserve your set. BTW, if you order a set, you are paying for a
set. I really don't want to go through the last minute wheeling and
dealing I had to do at Gaines Mill because some of you changed your
minds.
Thanks,
John"
SGLHA only Forums
By Christopher Daley
As outlined by John Stillwagon in our
March newsletter, the new SGLHA Forums
have been a great aid to our online membership. To view these
forums, please follow the directions John gave in the last
newsletter. In addition to event reviews, event information,
research on uniforms/equipment and just poking fun at each other,
there have been some great threads like the one Stillwagon started
on
Drill or Ivan's post on our overall
Fitness. Please check out these forums as the more members we
have join, the better the resource will be for all of us.
Book Review
A Legacy of Valor:
The Memoirs and Letters of Captain Henry Newton Comey, 2nd
Massachusetts Infantry, edited by Lyman Richard Comey
(University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 2004, $25.84)
By
Dana Shoaf
I had the pleasure of studying
under Dr. Frank Byrne at Kent State, and for the past several years,
under the direction of Dr. Byrne, now deceased, and his successor
Peter Carmichael, the University of Tennessee Press has produced the
high quality Voices of the Civil War series, a collection of memoirs
and reminiscences of soldiers. Originally, the volumes only focused
on Western theater battle and campaigns, but more recent books also
cover Eastern theater soldiers and event as well.
One of the latest to that
line is A Legacy of Valor: The Memoirs and Letters of Captain
Henry Newton Comey, 2nd Massachusetts Infantry. Comey served as an enlisted man before his
promotion, and in well-written letters and reminiscences he
describes his interesting and harrowing experiences in some of the
Eastern theater’s largest battles and the Atlanta campaign.
Many of us have seen pieces
of relic muskets, or sometimes even whole weapons, in museums that
have been struck and contorted by bullets or shell fragments, but I
had never actually read about something like that occurring. That
exact thing, however, happened to Comey at Cedar Mountain when he
was still a musket-toter and he did write about it in his memoirs.
The incident happened as Comey's regiment came under attack from
Virginia units: "The rebel's assault was met with our accurate heavy
fire, and so they did not advance closer than fifty yards of us.
Then the heaviest fire yet came down our right flank. If that kept
up we would have all perished. Our line wavered and backed away. The
brass eagle was shot from the staff which bore the colors of
our regiment, and the staff was shattered by a bullet, but the flag
was saved by Color Sergeant John F. George. Then, as I was aiming my
rifle for another shot, a shell fragment hit the lock and stock of
my rifle and cut the weapon into three parts. The lock went spinning
through the underbrush, the barrel disappeared from my sight, and
the butt remained in my hand, as I fell to the ground. At first I
thought I was shot in the neck; the blow was so hard, but my luck
held out, as I was only badly bruised and little bloody."
Reading soldier accounts
really does bring home the fact that there were millions of Civil
Wars fought between 1861-1865; no two soldier's experiences were the
same, even if they were only yards apart during a fight. Reading
such material can only help us become better living historians, and
I'm sure you'll find this book beneficial, entertaining and a good
one for the bookshelf.
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Cold Harbor Event
June 11-13, 2004
By Don Barnett
Link:
Cold Harbor Event
We will be
portraying The Vermont Brigade for this event. This
event is our last Scheduled event until the end of the
August so please come out if you can.
For further info, please visit the webpage or
contact Don Barnett |
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I for one thought that there was almost
no interest for this event and was getting ready to pull the
plug on this one. However, it seems that there is some good
interest in the event so I will refrain from doing that!
It seems that we were not the only ones
planning a march to Cedar Creek as a fellow from the 10th
Va. was planning on doing almost the exact same thing as we
were. The fellow in question is Dan Morgan and I have
already been in contact with him and I believe we can do a
joint venture and make it a small march for preservation.
There is one rub though, and that is registration.
The cut-off for early registration is
June 11th. I would like, before that time comes, to know
just who is exactly planning on attending so that we can get
an early mass registration in before the June 11th
deadline. So, please e-mail me at
jamestmiller_brigadista@msn.com
and let me know that you are coming. I will then compile a
list and get it out before the 11th of June. Now should you
miss the June deadline you can still come along but please
let me know at your earliest convenience. PLEASE, don't be
lazy and let me know soon. Take care.
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General Orders
is the official newsletter of the
Southern Guard Living
History Association.
The deadline for the August Issue is July 20th, 2004.
Submissions may be made e-mail to our Newsletter
Editor:
Christopher Daley |
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Attn Newsletter
Subscribers: You can now renew your subscription to
General Orders online. To get your newsletter for
the 2004 season, click the button below.
$15.00
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Congratulations go to
Casey and Mariah Wohlfiel who got married last week.
Casey is going overseas for a while, but please keep
in touch at
caseyandmariah@yahoo.com
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Due to some
technical difficulties, the logins and passwords for the
SGLHA Members Only section have been deactivated, we are
working hard to fix this problem. |
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We are
trying to update our online roster and are requesting that
all newsletter subscribers and full-time members send their
address, phone number and e-mail addresses to John
Stillwagon at
jstillwagon@earthlink.net |
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This month's
quote comes from a member of the Vermont Brigade just after
the battle of Cold Habor:
Write me all
about the draft, who was drafted and all about it. If any of
our folks are drafted, tell them to pay if they can. All
that come now have got to fight. This fancy fighting is all
played out and so are those fancy Generals. It is old Grant
now. The Battle of the Wilderness was the hardest battle
ever known in the wourld. I suppoe you don't see over about
20 thousand in the papers do you? The loss was about the
same on both sides, just about. Shit ass and kiss my ass,
the rebs don't claim their loss there over about 8 thousand
Pvt. Warren
D. Mather
Near Cold Harbor Va.
June 12, 1864 |
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Fall Picket Post
Nov 13-14, 2004
By
Chris Daley
Link:
Fall Picket Post
This
November the WIG is planning on bringing a hand full of guys
(dozen or less) to the picket post to fall in with us as
Federals against Sweeney and the Critters. This would allow
us all to work together as a single company and get to know
each other a bit better in an intimate setting without the
distraction of public demos we normally have at living
histories.
Then in 2005, the WIG would put on a picket post in
Tennessee that the SGLHA would attend as an opposition
force.
This not only frees up our event contacts to only worry
about picket posts every other year, but offers us one great
road trip every Fall to support like minded folks.
In addition, Doug Cooper has enlisted several individuals
from out west to come to our event to experience life as a
Vermonter as interpreted by the SGLHA.
In any case, Pat, Doug and I are all excited about this and
I hope you are too. Take a look at the website again and let
me know if you have any ideas on how we can improve the
event!l |
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Comments on Clothing allowances |
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Submitted by
Ryan Weddle
The allowance
of clothing to our soldiers is much
greater than to soldiers in European armies. Our
troops get one uniform coat and two sack coats a
year, and a pair of trowsers every five months. In
the French army the allowance for three years is only
one tunic and three pairs of trowsers, while a
shell- jacket is given every two years. In the Sardinian
and Belgian armies, the great coat is expected to
last eight years; But the great durability of the clothing
of European armies is easily accounted for when we
consider the care which is taken to insure good materials.
Every yard of
cloth is subjected to very minute and distinct
examinations by boards of officers,
assisted by experts who weigh it, shrink it and
examine it inch by ‘inch, against a strong light. They
also apply
chemical tests to detect the quality of the dye, and the
manufactories are at all times open to inspectors, who
watch the fabrication at every stage.
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