Almost Famous? Not really.
Tonight I received an email from a friend who I haven't communicated with since high school. We both recently joined a MySpace group made up of members of our graduating class (1990). He was apparently surfing around the 'net and came to our hometown's page on Wikipedia. It seems that I am listed along with the great Ron Paul, Zachary Quinto from the TV show 'Heroes,' and bassist Mike Mizia as noteworthy people who were born there. I guess I'm a celebrity now. Too bad no one will know who the heck I am!

Boo!

Please let me preface this post by stating that I’m not much of a ‘ghost believer.’ That said, I do love Mark Nesbitt’s books on the subject of battlefield haunting and I did experience a clear and distinct whisper of my name in my ear at Gettysburg a few years back that left an indelible impression on me regardless if it was my imagination or not.

A month ago my two oldest children and I went out for a nice relaxing cruise and decided to take a detour through the Fredericksburg Battlefield 'cut-through.' My teenage son graduates from the Blue & Gray Driving School this Friday but at the time, he was fine-tuning his night-driving skills in anticipation of starting the course.

I was riding shotgun with the windows down and was preparing to take a shot of my son grinning behind the wheel. He slowed to almost a stop and that is when we heard something moving in the woods to our right. A few deer had passed us by further up the road, but there were no orange-eyes this time. I leaned as far out of the Jeep as I could and blindly pointed my camera in the direction of the rustling.

The flash was blinding, the noise stopped, and we could not tell if I had photographed anything. Well, I finally got around to downloading the files last night.

Here is what I captured. It looks like two floating ‘orbs’ in the center near the fencing. We can’t figure out what would reflect that imagery as it was pitch black and there was nothing metallic or reflective in the woods. Some may say its dust. Others will say its some kind of paranormal shape. (I don't have a clue either way. I'm just glad that it wasn't Bigfoot.)

CLICK HERE for a full-size photo and judge for yourself. It may be nothing or…

National Civil War Life Museum and Research Center - remember that name.

This afternoon I experienced one of the proudest and most promising interviews of my entire career. The meeting took place at the Civil War Soldier’s Life Museum here in Fredericksburg and was in reference to a budding project called the ‘National Civil War Life Museum and Research Center,’ which is slated to be constructed as a three-story, period-appropriate brick building near the Spotsylvania Courthouse Battlefield.

The goal of this enterprise is to create a highly original and interactive exhibit hall that intentionally presents a broad perspective of Civil War history, mainly from the common soldiers’ and civilians’ point of view. The focus of the museum’s presentation will encompass whites, blacks, men, women, children, military, civilian, secessionist, unionist, confederate, federal, free and slave. ‘Life’ is the key word for this museum’s vision and its mission statement encompasses so much more than just the war. In fact, the military aspect of the struggle is just a small portion of a much bigger picture.

Of course there will be exhibits on the four local battles, but the majority of the proposed media and collection will specifically showcase the differing experiences off the field, politically, socially, racially and religiously. Unlike other facilities such as the MOC, there is absolutely no nitch or agenda, nor any specific target-demographic. That is the entire point. In addition to the museum’s three floor exhibit hall, there will be a computer-based research center and library.

The goal is to get visitors interested enough in the War Between the States, or perhaps an ancestor that fought in it, to examine their own heritage utilizing database technology and the Internet. This database however will not only provide information on soldiers. Rare information (as available) on the slave population will make this cyber-center both well-rounded and appealing. Young people are also a major concern in this venture and through the use of special school programs and tours, we hope to introduce our youth to their community’s legacy. This is especially important as we are losing an entire generation of 'future' historians to the iPod.

It is a hefty goal to say the least, but the people involved with this project are all more than qualified to pull it off. My interview was with Mr. Terry Thomann, owner/curator of the Civil War Soldier’s Life Museum, and Ret. Col. Horace McKaskill, the vice chair of the museum’s foundation and a very active NAACP member here in Fredericksburg. We spoke for 40 minutes on a variety of topics and all of the memory critics would be ecstatic with this group’s vision.

Diversity isn’t just a catch phrase either, the foundation’s board and advisor teams are intentionally made up of a wide-range of contributors that are young and older, male and female, white and black, military and civilian, local and transplant. This ensures a wide-angle view for all aspects of the project and guarantees a broad perspective from the top down. I am very proud to say that I have been asked to join both the board and advisor team and will be providing a wide-variety of skills from media promotions, press release writing and material/website design, to advisement on the museum’s religion and recreation sections.

Needless to say this is quite a blessing for me and I am still smiling from ear to ear. I will be formally announced and introduced at the next foundation meeting and I will keep you in the loop as this exciting venture progresses. This is the type of project that one could hang their entire professional legacy on and I am both honored and privileged to be asked to take part in it. I promise to use the wisdom that I have learned from my NPS friends and so many of you as I strive to help make the dream of a truly diversified Civil War museum here in Spotsylvania a reality.

(On a side-note I am finalizing the Battle of Waynesboro booklet for the Waynesboro Heritage Museum this week and will post the PDF as soon as I get an approval from Richard Williams and the good folks at their foundation.)

My two-cents on Black Confederates

For those of you unaware, there is an excellent discussion going on over at Civil War Memory on the controversial subject of Black Confederates. It’s no secret that I don’t get along with the owner of that blog, but our good friend Richard Williams was invited to join in the discussion by Peter Carmichael and has contributed some thought-provoking posts on the topic. Actually, the entire group has shared a broad range of quality perspectives. Like Richard, I too am a proud member of the SCV, but can’t help but be disappointed at times with the ‘spin’ on the subject of Black Confederates that some members feel are required in order to justify their existence. This is completely unnecessary. Reality however, is.

Jim Lewis (a REAL Black Confederate) was certainly valued by his employer Thomas Jackson, but was he ever looked at as an equal? Of course not. He was a black man, a cook and manservant, who was treated better than a ‘common’ slave, but by no means thought of in the same stature as a white subordinate. All you have to do is look at his bed (or cot) in the upper attic-room at the Stonewall Jackson Shrine. It would barely fit an adolescent child comfortably, yet that is where Jim rested. That 'visual' (as I interpret it) tells the tale: Lewis was important enough to be there with Jackson’s family and closest staff members during his last days, but not worthy of the same comfortable sleeping arrangements. His bedding is symbolic to me. On the flip-side, Lewis put up with that and in turn valued Jackson enough to remain there at his side until the end. There was a fondness between these two men that is undeniable. But don’t call Jim a soldier. He was a 'black confederate,' but NOT a 'black combatant' as some would like to count him as.

That is an example of the paternalistic relationship that co-existed between a Confederate commander and his negro-servant. There was a racial bias no doubt, but beyond that grew an affection. Inflating and/or embellishing the quantities and servitude of Black Confederates is bothersome and adds nothing intelligent to their legacy. It actually tarnishes and depreciates their memory. Admitting that there were thousands of African-Americans who "served the" Confederate Army - NOT "served in" the Confederate Army is a more honest interpretation and makes their service just as worthy of our praise. Why not simply celebrate that?

Honor the South's black soldiers and servants (many, or few), but don't inflate their numbers or skew their social standing. Jim Lewis and all of his brothers deserve an honest memory. Let’s give it to them.

A tad 'geeky' but worth sharing...

Today’s post may sound more like an article from a science journal, but I promise there is a Civil War connection. Those of you who are familiar with the details surrounding the Battle of Fredericksburg will most likely recall the strange phenomenon that took place 'above' the field on the evening of the fourteenth. According to local NPS Historian Donald C. Pfanz, “On the night of December 14th, 1862, an unearthly ribbon of light illuminated the sky above Fredericksburg: an aurora borealis. Although it lasted just 30 minutes, this rare spectacle was seen by the Confederates as an omen of triumph, as if ‘the heavens were hanging out banners and streamers and setting off fireworks in honor of our victory.’”

A Confederate veteran with the Mississippi Jasper Grays recalled in his memoirs that, “One morning as the roll call beat, we fell into lines, answered the call, cooked and ate breakfast, and were hustling around the camp generally, when some of the officers looked at their watches and found it to be only 2 o'clock. In the east there was no sign of daylight coming, but everything was bright as day. Finally, someone said that it was an Aurora Borealis. It was a grand sight.”

In an Associated Press article that was released today scientists announced exposing some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky.

(QUOTE:) The findings should help scientists better understand the more powerful but less common geomagnetic storms that can knock out satellites, harm astronauts in orbit and disrupt power and communications on Earth, scientists said. A fleet of five small satellites, called Themis, observed the beginning of a geomagnetic storm in February, while ground observatories in Canada and Alaska recorded the brightening of the northern lights. The southern lights — aurora australis — also brightened and darted across the sky at the same time. These auroral flare-ups occur every two or three days, on average.

A team led by University of California, Los Angeles, scientist Vassilis Angelopoulos confirmed that the observed storm about 80,000 miles from Earth was triggered by a phenomenon known as magnetic reconnection. Every so often, the Earth's magnetic field lines are stretched like rubber bands by solar energy, snap, are thrown back to Earth and reconnect, in effect creating a short circuit. It's this stored-up energy that powers the northern and southern lights or, in other words, causes them to dance, according to Angelopoulos.

An opposing theory has these geomagnetic events occurring much closer to Earth, about one-sixth of the way to the moon. More Themis observations are needed to resolve the debate, said David Sibeck, NASA's project scientist. "Finally, we have the right instruments in the right place at the right time, and it's allowed scientists to be able to make the necessary observations to settle this heated debate once and for all," said Nicola Fox, a Johns Hopkins University scientist who was not involved in the study.

At present, about 20 of these geomagnetic storms are being analyzed. Scientists hope to eventually learn, via this project, more about the bigger solar storms that occur about 10 times a year and can lead to far more expansive and prolonged northern and southern lights. The five Themis spacecraft — a NASA acronym standing for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interations during Substorms — were launched aboard a single rocket last year. (END)

The Hunley rises again at the 2008 SCV Reunion
This past week was the 2008 Sons of Confederate Veterans Reunion and Pride of the South show. Hosted by our brothers in the Jonas Cook Camp, the convention took place in Concord N.C. from July 16th to the 19th. Events and exhibitors included North Carolina wine tasting, Civil War relic dealers, vintage restored vehicles, the Confederate submarine Hunley exhibit, "Made in the South" food and gift vendors, book sellers, re-enactors conducting cannons and weapons demonstrations, and more. Educational lectures, period-music, a banquet, and good old fashioned southern hospitality made this year's event a success. One exhibit that stood out was the life-size model of the C.S.S. Hunley that was built by John Dangerfield, from Charleston, S.C. The cut-away submersible is technically accurate and demonstrates how the vessel was powered by hand cranks. Tribute plaques to the sailors who powered the Hunley and went down with it are mounted on the side. Dangerfield worked in the Charleston Navy shipyard, where his interest in the Civil War submarine grew. After the sunken sub was found in 2000, Dangerfield became involved with the Friends of the Hunley in preserving the original. Now he tours the model around the country.

Reviving the revival

Over the next 2 weeks I will be busy focusing on my lecture “The Great Revival: The Rise of Religion During the Civil War” which will be given as part of the Lunchtime Learning Series at Manassas Museum on August 25th. There is a lot of press for this particular event and I have been told that a bus tour and senior church group will also be in attendance. I have already procured some great references and a list of source materials from the NPS archives (courtesy of our friend John Hennessy). I'll most likely be up at Chatham next week going through the bound volumes and along with the material I used for “The Southern Cross,” I should be able to finish a nice 40 min. piece w/ PowerPoint-driven photos. A Q&A and book signing will follow. I have been looking forward to this talk since it was booked back in the spring as the Manassas Museum is a top-notch facility with a great staff. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy doing these speaking engagements and the people I get to meet are always a blessing to me. This is a topic near and dear to my heart and I hope this leads to a longer piece for the magazine or newspaper.

As the Civil War progressed, a movement referred to as "The Great Revival" took place in the South. Beginning in the fall of 1863, this event was in full progress throughout the Army of Northern Virginia. Before the revival was interrupted by Grant's attack in May 1864, approximately seven thousand soldiers-10 percent of Lee's force-were reportedly converted. Dr. Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr., author of "A Shield and Hiding Place: The Religious Life of the Civil War Armies," reports that "The best estimates of conversions in the Union forces place the figure between 100,000 and 200,000 men-about 5-10 percent of all individuals engaged in the conflict. In the smaller Confederate armies, at least 100,000 were converted. Since these numbers include only "conversions" and do not represent the number of soldiers actually swept up in the revivals-a yet more substantial figure-the impact of revivals during the Civil War surely was tremendous." My talk will speak to this event on a regional level and how it affected both the military and civilian populations.

FYI: My blog posts may be less frequent over the next few weeks. I also have a family vacation coming up, a combined book review, and a book release party to plan for.

Welcome Home

Last night my oldest son returned from an 8-day mission trip to New Orleans. The experience has truly touched him and he can’t wait to get back there next year when our church’s Youth Group returns. The stories that he has shared with us so far are both heartwarming and heartbreaking. His team worked construction on a house (he did drywall) and helped move an elderly woman back into her duplex, which had been half-restored. The group stayed at the Trinity Christian Community Church and they worked in a neighborhood called “Hollygrove” (pictured left), which is a borough of the city located in the 17th Ward. They also drove through the 9th Ward en route and apparently there are still barges sitting in the middle of neighborhoods. The entire place was described to us as a war-zone and it appears that the only people still doing anything there are churches, charity organizations, and volunteer groups like Americorp. The U.S. Govt. has done little in these small communities and the FEMA trailers are now being removed.

There is a police presence; plain clothes cops with machine guns are guarding all the local businesses, but no one will deliver anything from mail, to papers, to pizzas in any of the surrounding areas. Even Home Depot is locked down and surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. Socially, there is a distinct separation of classes and most neighborhoods have become racially self-segregated. Over the course of 6 days spent in Hollygrove my son saw no other white people (minus their group), very few young adults (most were elderly), very few working cars (although shells of vehicles littered the streets everywhere), and ruin after ruin that used to be people’s houses covered in mold and bullet holes. (To be honest, I was not even aware of the dangerous and desperate state of their destination. They had to be inside a gated compound at night and could go nowhere without escorts. It’s hard to believe he was in the United States of America.)

You could tell the pride in his voice was tempered with frustration. He said the place is so bad that it is hard to believe it has been several years since Katrina. He also said it made him grateful for what he had as these poor people, who had little to begin with, lost everything through no fault of their own. He plans to return next year and is now looking at overseas opportunities for mission work. What a blessing this trip was indeed for both the residents and the volunteers.

We are so very proud and thank the Lord for his safe return. There will be a group photo-album of the experience posted in the coming days and I will share a link (or stills) when they are available.

I hesitate to even share this?

As an addition to my post below on Keith Moon and my previous life in which I worshipped him: Here is an atrocious video taken in 1986 (the year I started dating my wife and 6 months after I started playing the drums). This is my first gig, first solo, and the first time I performed in front of people.

I am 14 years old, with a baby mullet, and playing in a surf-rock band with some seniors from my high school. I was a freshman and we called ourselves "White Lightning." Everyone called me 'Mikie' (in tribute to 'Moonie') and you can hear girls in the audience yelling it. I ended up married to one of them.

The singer’s girlfriend used some kind of psychedelic filter for the video and the guy on stage with us is a drunken birthday boy. The bass player actually went on to play for The Ike McCoy Band. I went on to grow a longer mullet.

I cringe when I watch this, but you can see the moon I mentioned (below) hanging on my cymbal stand and how I played when I was just starting out. I apologize for the audio and the video, although it’s so bad, it may actually be good. Who am I kidding? It's terrible. ROCK HERE (It is a large Quicktime .mov file and may take a few minutes to load.)

"A Quick One"

I am going to post something this morning not remotely related to the Civil War, baseball, or even American history… Over the years, several of our blogging-brethren have shared their favorite musical tastes and concert experiences from Eric getting nostalgic with The Boss and The Police, to Ted igniting his son's interest in history through the wailing of Iron Maiden. I have shared my own hero-worship for Johnny Cash and today I wanted to take a moment to mention the only other musical act that holds my affections like that of the Man in Black. WHO you ask? YES is my answer.

Those of you with VH1 on their cable package are no doubt familiar with the “Rock Honors,” which celebrated The Who last night. In preparation, the music channel has also been showing multiple documentaries on the band, as well as their famous rock-opera “Tommy” every night for the last week and I watched every single one of them (with the exception of All-Star Game night). The star-studded event featured blistering tribute performances by groups like Foo Fighters, Incubus, Pearl Jam, and The Flaming Lips. Even though I didn’t know any of these bands (minus Pearl Jam), the cover versions of Who classics they played were excellent. The finale of course was the two surviving members, bringing the house down and showing the new generation what it meant to be from “My Generation.”

The Who are without a doubt, my favorite, all-time, most beloved, band in the land. I have everything they ever put out in one form or another (albums, cassettes, CDs). Full Moon: The Amazing Rock & Roll Life of Keith Moon Late of the Who by Dougal Butler is still one of my favorite books although I stupidly traded it for a bio on Gen. James Longstreet. In retrospect, I probably know more about the history of this group than I do of any Confederate commander or baseball franchise. There is no work in that genre though.

Even as I sit here I struggle to articulate what the band means to me and the legacy they forged amidst the madness that surrounded them. The Who, by my definition, are what a Jackson Pollack painting would sound like. Someone once referred to their music as a “beautiful mess,” and I have to agree. Formed in 1964, they were the pioneers of punk, and a violent, aggressive form of amphetamine-driven rock and roll that grabbed you by the throat and wouldn’t let go. Personally, I don’t believe that Pete Townshend’s windmill guitar licks, Roger Daltrey’s pipe-organ screams, John Entwistle’s ambidextrous slapping and of course Moonie’s brilliant bashing has been, or could ever be equaled. They are what the term “rock god” was coined for. Watch the film shot of them live at the Isle of White Festival and tell me I’m wrong. To this day, “Young Man’s Blues” is still the greatest drums and guitar exchange ever captured on vinyl.

The Who also invented the concept of smashing your gear and then blowing up whatever instruments survived. Who can forget the scenes from “The Kids Are Alright” with John Entwistle shooting Gold Records like skeet, or Keith Moon’s drum set exploding on the Smothers Brothers Show? The Who made destruction an art form.

How many classic songs did they record? Tons. You forget sometimes the catalog of masterpieces that came out of The Who’s studio. My only question on the band’s music that remains is how come “Who Are You” is the ONLY song in radio history that doesn’t have to bleep out the ‘F-word’ when it plays. That always puzzled me.

Growing up I played the drums obsessively for 8 years in a wide capacity of rock/blues bands, percussion ensembles and drum lines. I studied with people like Jeff Watts who was the original timekeeper for Jay Leno’s Tonight Show band. I performed at the Mellon Jazz Festival, on the field with the University of Pittsburgh, and was co-captain of our drum line in high school. We won 2nd Place in the National Drill Competition in Nashville and were told we were the “blackest-white-line” at the Veterans Day Parade in Pittsburgh. I was supposed to go to school for music, but took the visual communications route instead and put down my sticks forever. After I moved out, I sold my drums which I regret to this day. If you watch any of the videos of me (on VHS tape of course), you would always see a moon hanging on my drum kit in tribute to Keith. I miss my kit, and my moon, immensely.

Moon was the best-worst drummer in the history of rock and roll. With any other band he would most likely have sounded terrible, but with The Who he was Mozart on fire. I worshipped him and in my immature youth, I tried to be like him. The ‘Keith Moon’ and ‘crazy drummer’ references that people wrote in my yearbooks are embarrassing to say the least, and I am about as far from “that Michael” as possible today. Still, I never lost my love of the jester and his music. I got many of his fills down too, but I was never able to play ‘sloppy’ enough to really ‘get him’ down. No one can, and they don’t even try anymore. The man was a brilliant lunatic and he and John are both missed by all Who fans.

Fortunately The Who are still releasing music, still touring, and I just discovered the band’s official website (there wasn’t one forever) and will be adding its link over on my website links page. Anyway, enough nostalgia… I was very happy to see The Who honored last night and I thank them for the countless hours of musical anarchy that still leaves my ears ringing and for the powerful lyrics that still resonate with me today.

In closing I'd like to quote a verse from "The Real Me" that personifies my own personal spiritual journey from being lost to being found:

I ended up with the preacher,
Full of lies and hate,
I seemed to scare him a little
So he showed me to the golden gate.

And here I am.