GEORGE MEADE, THE VIETS AND ME

By Jimmie von Tungeln

Prologue

      It takes a Vietnam veteran to understand the lack of appreciation America has paid the victor of the country's most famous battle. That would be the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on the first three days of July 1863. The general would be Maj. Gen. George Gordon Mead. If you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry, most Americans haven’t. A majority of those who do are ones who never forgave him for his monumental act of temerity. His army won the battle, if an army can ever “win” a battle. And he was to blame for it.

      Who was he to defeat the undefeatable Robert E. Lee? Lee was then the rebellion’s darling, later to become an American favorite, second only to George Washington. How could he have been bested by someone named Meade, days before only an unknown Corps commander in the U.S. Army? Americans don’t easily forgive those who fail to live up to their mythical dogmas. Nor do they embrace those who destroy their most cherished fantasies.

      General Meade paid dearly for his transgressions. A later generation would suffer in kind. The difference? Meade earned his historical displeasure for a victory. Veterans of the police action in Southeast Asia earned theirs for a defeat. In both cases unpopular figures shattered myths. We don’t like that. We don’t allow it. We stop it when we can with whatever means are available.

      Meade paid with historical neglect, ridicule, and outright prevarication. Vietnam veterans, we’ll call them “Viets,” paid with the forfeiture of their valor, of which there was more than the public at large would admit. In both cases, the damage proved irresolute.

      Victims fell under the spell of stubborn myths. The so-called “Lost Cause Myth,” some now call it the “Loser Cause Myth,” not only destroyed reputations, it destroyed the lives of fellow Americans for more than a century. It even clings to its evil purposes in modern times. Malicious, but talented, artists, like D.W. Griffith and Margaret Mitchell, helped shunt generations of African-Americans into ghettos, substandard schools, and labor that barely provided sustenance. Powerful leaders like Woodrow Wilson stood by, sometimes idly and sometimes not. Myths feed on it all: adherence, acceptance, and indifference.

      Viets also fell under the grinding spell of myths. Drug-crazed, spoiled brats in no way deserved the war flags of “The Greatest Generation.” Yes, that’s the one that forced its brothers of color to come home after the war to ghettos, substandard schools, and labor that barely provided sustenance. More recently, the Viets are enjoying some relief from the myth of “They could have won if the leaders had allowed them to,” a laughable tenant were it not so poetically alluring. Myths feed on it all: absolution, neatly packaged explanations, and ignorance.

      All this swirled about in my mind for years. Personally, I knew the Viets suffered from a bad rap. I had been there. After I decided to study the Gettysburg battle, I began to suspect that George G. Meade deserved more respect than Americans had given him. All he did was take a badly demoralized and undersupplied army, filled with political intrigue and, after only two days in command, defeat the immortal Robert E. Lee. The latter, I began to suspect, deserved less respect than America had given him. Myths feed on it all: selective facts, well-crafted falsehoods, and propagation.

      After beginning my study of the battle, intrigue led me to the National Parks service. The service maintains a web site on the battle of Gettysburg. I went there to find out more about this man Meade. If any site should direct my study, this one should.

      At that time, the effort met with failure and surprise. The National Park Website on the Gettysburg Battlefield Park did not mention General George G. Meade whatsoever. Instead, it concentrated on, as might be expected, Robert E. Lee. It also featured prominently a rebel division commander, George E. Pickett. The latter’s division was present for only one day of the battle. Being a fresh unit, it took part, with two other divisions, in the most spectacular failure of the battle. More on that later. Having enjoyed a 100-year publicity campaign by historical revisionists, that rebel general now represents America’s most famous, yet beloved, loser.

      As for the forgotten General Meade, Allen C. Guelzo summoned it well in a 2013 essay republished in 2017:

      “And yet the mention of Meade has always been met with a certain degree of pause—surprise that an officer with such modest credentials could manage to pull off such a mammoth victory as Gettysburg, and then chirping criticism that, having triumphed as he did, Meade failed to do more, failed to stop Lee from escaping back into Virginia and thus end the Civil War right there and then. Although both of those reactions are unfair, they are also accurate. And together, they have come to define George Gordon Meade’s long-term reputation.”[i]

      At the time of this writing, the NPS website on the battlefield treats Meade with more deference, a sign of a growing but grudging acceptance of the man’s remarkable performance. That it has taken a century and a half for such redemption seems regrettable, but is welcome, nonetheless.

      Age has resulted in the most beneficial catalyst for the Viets. At this time, they have become too “long in the tooth” to play ubiquitous crazed psychopaths, lost souls, or deranged superheroes—sometimes a bit of each. Those are roles they filled for years in film, TV, and modern literature. Oh, they stand in on occasion as the most despicable in a clan of despicables, usually southerners or actors attempting to portray southerners. These days they mostly appear as old men with funny caps who wander the streets dreaming of lost love and “lid bags.”

      As Scott Cooper expressed in it a piece for the Modern War Institute at West Point in 2021:

      “In Vietnam the troops lost their noble and heroic image. To others, they were baby killers and suckers. The stereotype of the US soldiers in the war were the goons who perpetrated the atrocities of My Lai, or the blue-collared Boston Southies who didn’t have the connections to get out of the draft. And the result is a generation of combat veterans perceived as products of a single mold, one that gave us James Webb and John Rambo—that of the aggrieved warrior.”[ii]

      All parties, General Meade and the Viets, wander through history with their images drawn to whatever viewpoint correlates highly with an individual viewpoint. Like the nautical Flying Dutchman, their true legacy has never found a safe harbor.

      I can’t provide one. What I can do is recite my path toward understanding how the stories are entwined. No doubt there are other unappreciated individuals or groups who have endured the misfortunes of history’s spotted chronicles. England’s Alan Turing comes to mind as do the men and women of color and same-sex orientation who served our country through its wars to face discrimination and prejudice at home. I can’t speak for them. But I can speak for the Viets with some degree of authority. And I will try to provide some solace to the neglected personage of George Meade. The damage we do to one another doesn’t flow from a single, or even recognizable source.

      Take the Viets, for example. Few people in the 1960s or 1970s would have publicly condemned them. That would have required a reason, an explanation, or even a verifiable fact. In my personal experience the enmity was personal and multifaceted. It included:

-          The band of protesters who met our plane at the San Bernadino, California airport upon our arrival home from the war.

-          The airline representative who told me, with distaste in his demeanor, that the baggage (seabags) of “you people” wasn’t processed with those of normal people but was shuttled to a fenced bin three flights of stars below the main course.

-          The veterans’ associations that didn’t want “losers” as members.

-          The personnel officer on the ship to which I was assigned on my return who bragged, “I always give those Vietnam vets the shittiest assignment we have in order to put them in their place.”

-          The job interviewer who suggested I might omit my military service from my application.

-          The myriad Americans who accepted the stereotype of my brothers and sisters as drug-crazed sociopaths.

-          The book, film, and TV producers, even including some Viets, who clung to the stereotype of misfits who could not function in or after stressful actions.

      In fairness, both General Meade and the Viets generated some of this animosity. I’ll cover that in a later section. For now, may we just say that all had a right to expect better treatment?

THE SLAVEHOLDER REVOLT

For some reason I have these weird flights of thought. Oh yes. I know you do too, but I have this horrible habit of writing them down and posting them. For example: At my age one thinks a lot about heart attacks. I take it to extremes.

Consider this. If Ulysses S. Grant had succumbed to a heart attack on November 6, 1860, one could find his name on the West Point class of 1843. With effort one might find mention of First Lieutenant, then Brevet Captain Grant’s performance in the Mexican American War. That’s about it. Maybe an obscure obituary in some Missouri or Illinois newspaper might appear. Then no mention of him in the files of either of the Americas.

Had, on the other hand, Robert E. Lee succumbed likewise on that date, he would rate mention as an ideal army officer and West Point Superintendent—overall the very picture of a modern Regular Army Colonel. Writing a glowing biography would be a simple task.

There we have it.

From failure to savior.

From paragon to traitor.

Isn’t it remarkable what the effects of a couple of bouts of good health will have upon a country? Is it fate that is granting us longevity?

Certified Non-AI generated

LONG MAY SHE WAVE

DEFEAT FASCISM

 We concern ourselves, perhaps irrationally, with causes and reasons. Given some four billion years in forming a life-force and a few million in forming the branches that led to our current species, there may be causes and reasons we’ll never uncover.

But we try. Let's give it a shot.

The best guide presently to America’s current darkness is the one that overshadowed Germany in the 1930s. So far, analysis indicates a predictable path, with some modern tweaks.

-         Fictionalize the reasons for a defeat in a war. Modern tweak: We won. This press just didn't report it that way.

-          Capitalize on any unfair resolution to a war, including a civil one, and use national catastrophes as a tool for spreading hate. Modern tweak: when there is no catastrophe use the modern advances in thought control, i.e. “social media” to convince the weak-minded that there is one.

-          Publish plans so the public can see progress.

-          Use hate to gain power.

-          Use power to defuse constitutional safeguards. Modern tweak: Infiltrate the apex of constitutional justice.

-          Demonstrate invincibility to reduce resistance.

Let’s stop here for today.

How does the power elite stop and consolidate gains? The Nazis used Kristallnacht. That’s when: “Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes.” (Holocaust Encyclopedia)

The current regime used what would have normally been an unimaginable attack on the most prestigious and sacred seat of American government, the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The message gained further power when the perpetrators were pardoned for any demonstrated participation and may now even serve in the American version of the SS.

Why is this step important?

Simple. It delivers the message that “We are in power now. We can do anything we wish. You are powerless to resist us.”

That message sinks and rots the very roots of the tree of justice upon which America depends.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 Presidents Day. America has benefited from some great presidents. She has suffered, and now suffers, from some stinkers.

We attribute great events to great individuals such as presidents. Some thinkers, however, like Leo Tolstoy, didn’t subscribe to what was known in his day as, “The Great Man Theory.” Rather than the actions of one person shaping history, he attributed events to the combined action of hundreds of thousands of individuals.

Let’s look at perhaps our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. During his term of involvement, the union was saved and slavery, one of the darkest spots in America, ended. He receives much of the credit. But what else happened that may have influenced, at least to some degree, these admirable things?

-          An obscure woman wrote a book called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

-          Another obscure woman taught us the value of freedom by her work in the Underground Railroad.

-          A group of elderly men sitting on the United States Supreme Court ruled that American people of African descent enjoyed no benefits of citizenship.

-          Thousands of property owners in the American South performed such mendacious deeds on fellow human beings as to arouse the indignation of the righteous.

-          Over two million American men, for that many different reasons, donned the uniform of the United States of America to defeat insurrection and save the Union.

-          Thousands of leaders in Europe and elsewhere declined to support a group of rebels waging war against their mother country in order to preserve the institution of slavery.

And so it goes. Where does greatness lie?

Within each of us, that’s where.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 The point of America’s greatness is a personal one. Some moments that stand out to me may not stir the emotions of others. For example:

I think America was headed toward greatness when the troops of Generals George Meade and Ulysses S. Grant’s army had fought their way through The Wilderness, having suffered great losses, learned, that instead of retreating back to Washington as lesser leaders would have commended, Grant ordered them to head toward the insurrectionist army to restore our Union and end slavery.

I think America was on the verge of greatness when Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address.

I think America saw greatness during the first 100 days of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.

I think America was great the day that, after allied troops that had landed in Normandy during the year before, America’s 79^th Infantry Division troops, my future father-in-law among them, crossed the Rhine River and became among the first Allied troops to enter Nazi Germany.

I think America was great the day that Joseph Welch initiated the end of the hateful and destructive career of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy with the words, “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”

I think America turned toward greatness the day that nine of the bravest young Americans who ever blessed this country entered Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, my home state.

And I think America became great the day that Barack Obama took the oath of office as her president.

Sadly, the people who rule my America today would have me arrested and punished for expressing these thoughts. Feel free to share your own.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 CIVIL WAR

Was rereading parts of the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant last evening concerning the Battle of Missionary Ridge. In the midst of describing preparations for this great American victory, Grant suddenly stops and delivers this reflection:

"There was no time during the rebellion when I did not think, and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the territory to make a great and prosperous nation. The former was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance, and enervated the governing class.

With the outside world at war with this institution, they could not have extended their territory. The labor of the country was not skilled, nor allowed to become so. The whites could not toil without becoming degraded, and those who did were denominated "poor white trash." The system of labor would have soon exhausted the soil and left the people poor. The non-slaveholders would have left the country, and the small slaveholder must have sold out to his more fortunate neighbor. Soon the slaves would have outnumbered the masters, and, not being in sympathy with them, would have risen in their might and exterminated them. The war was expensive to the South as well as to the North, both in blood and treasure, but it was worth all it cost. The enemy was surprised"

What an interesting concept. He would go on from there to defeat Robert E. Lee and help restore our country. It is gratifying to note that his reputation has enjoyed a major refurbishing in recent years. I recommend, for those wanted to know him better, the reading of the memoirs, considered one of the best personal reflections of war ever penned.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 HONOR

In the final assault at the Battle of Gettysburg, the extreme left of the rebel force comprised men of North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi who had been heavily engaged in the first day’s fighting. They made it to the farm and barn of a family named Brian. The image below features their house as it stands today. (For some reason, the sign features an alternative spelling of the family name.)

Abraham Brian, his wife Elizabeth, and their five children were not living in the house at the time of the battle. The family fled the Gettysburg area upon news of the Confederate invasion.

Why? Well, you see, they were members of the local African American community. Yes, as free as you or I are today. The trouble was that Robert E. Lee’s army, as it marched north into Maryland and Pennsylvania, captured free black American families and transported them south to be sold as slaves.

In most of my adult life, which I have spent in Arkansas, a statewide newspaper ran an editorial each year on Lee’s birthday (a state holiday) dedicated to the proposition that he was the embodiment of honor and decency, the most model American figure to emerge from the Civil War, save the one who removed the shackles of slavery from the families that Lee’s army captured.

Odd that the editorials never mentioned Abraham Brian or the collateral damage done to free Americans by the Confederate insurrectionist on their way to Gettysburg.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 TRAUMA

This week I realized that being called a “fenderhead” by a Master Chief Bosun’s Mate won’t qualify me for a handicapped parking sticker. I’ll learn to live with it.

What it does qualify me for is pot, weed, Mary Jane, herb, grass, … you know, marijuana. Isn’t that something?

It works this way. They have this modern miracle called “medical marijuana.” If a doc prescribes it, you can get it, and plenty of it. Legal? What you talking about? Just check out the traffic jam down at the dispensary.

Then they have this thing called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is a serious disorder and deserves serious consideration. It appears frequently in veterans. In the Civil War, it was called “soldier’s heart.” In WWI, “shell shock.” In WW II, “battle fatigue.” All those terms signify participation in combat. Now they just call it “PTSD.”

As I say, it deserves recognition and those suffering from it deserve solace, succor, and treatment. Ultra-woke and don’t feel safe with my talking about it? Bite me.

Here’s the catch. It’s a self-diagnosed ailment. It applies equally to the grunts who survived the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley and the airmen who spent their enlistment an Homestead Air Force Base in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Wonder what ailment qualifies you for the legal enhancement?

All I would have to do is say I have it. “Gee Doc, I wake up in a sweat with “Fenderhead” pounding in my brain.”

Bingo. The only problem is that I think smoking pot is the silliest thing since disco music.

I could get it but don’t think I should sell it. I could barter it for things like lawn mowing, but I’ve seen the result of work done by kids that probably had a toke or two.

Maybe I should just continue to overcome my anxieties by keeping up with the daily news.

Uh, don’t think so. I might really get it.

Dan Sickles at Gettysburg: Two

Spending Quarantime: The Battle of Gettysburg and Dan Sickles continued.

So MG Dan Sickles disobeyed orders by moving his Third Corps out of its assigned position along Cemetery Ridge on the second day of he battle.

So his corps suffered over 40 percent casualties.

So the entire battle plan nearly collapsed and the Union line was breached temporarily.

So he was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle, although 34 years and much politicking later .

How? Why?

Perhaps, for one thing, Americans take orders, military or otherwise, like the “pirates’ code”, as guidelines on occasion. And sometimes they reap great rewards for it.

Arthur MacArthur Jr. disobeyed orders to stay put at the base of Missionary Ridge, grabbed the unit flag instead, and led the Union troops on a successful charge over the summit. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for it.

Years later, his son Douglas supposedly disobeyed some order, not sure which, and, for reasons not well understood or documented, was awarded the Medal of Honor.

In more recent popular culture, the most successful war movie in decades tells the story of a unit of Army rangers sent to rescue a buck private who refuses an order from a Ranger captain (yeah, right), gets pretty much the entire squad killed, and ends as the plot's surviving hero.

So Dan Sickles maybe figured the odds and got away with it.

In recent years, some have attempted to polish the reputation of Dan Sickles and explain how, tactically, his corps landed in a poor spot terrain-wise. A tragic turn of events at Chancellorsville had taught him the danger of defending an indefensible spot. Others say his action disrupted Longstreet and Lee’s battle plan enough to save the day despite the heavy losses suffered. Others take the attitude of the character from Peter Gent’s 1973 best seller North Texas Forty, who admitted, “What could have happened did happen.”

That is a point not accepted by Virginians or, easily by many other southerners. It is a feeling most famously expressed by William Faulkner in his 1948 novel, Intruder In The Dust:

“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.”

Yes, what could have happened did happen and, oh yes, Dan Sickles lost a leg during the battle and the bones rest on display at Army Medical College in Washington, D.C. Historians regard his actions on Day Two as the awful results of orders not followed. There is no monument to  him on the battlefield. He spent much of his after-war life trying to destroy the reputation of General George Mead who does have a monument there, in the most prominent spot.

On the plus side of his history, Dan Sickles was most instrumental in saving the Gettysburg Battlefield as a national park. On being reminded that the preservation efforts resulted in no monument to him, he is reported to have said, "The whole damn battlefield is my monument."

Barksdale's Brigade nearly crushes Third Corps.

Morning Thoughts: April 6, 2018

When we don't know anything about a subject, we tend not to worry about its destruction. Our thought is "If I ain't involved, I vote to dissolve."

I fear that this attitude is why so many Americans think it is "cute" for a sitting president to act like a damn fool on camera as he goes about destroying the basic structure of an America that helped defeat Nazism, then was instrumental in the rebuilding of much of Europe, ended polio, sent someone to the moon, and did so many other wonderful things.

If I ain't involved, I vote to dissolve.

An example: I once asked a very bright group of my students, (senior level Intro to Public Administration) to take a moment and consider whether local sales taxes should apply to internet sales.

They thought, discussed, and gave a unanimous, "NO."

If I ain't involved, I vote to dissolve.

Okay then. How would you describe the concept of "reasonable expectations."

They did a pretty fair job, so I followed.

Do you think a person driving a delivery truck to bring an internet purchase to you has a reasonable expectation that a passable street allows the delivery to your house?

- That a police force is there to see that thugs don't empty the van before it reaches you?

- That firefighters are available to come in case the van with your purchase catches fire?

- That an ambulance is available should a drunken person slam into the delivery van?

- That medical aid is available in case someone sprays poison on your package?

Well yes, they decided, those expectations are reasonable.

Would it cost anything to provide services to meet those expect ions?

Yes. If it involves me, it can't be free.

Would it be fair for the city or county where you live to charge the delivery companies a delivery charge for each package delivered to your house? The brick and mortar companies pay a tax to allow you to come and pick things up yourself.

There was a dead silence, broken only by a collective whisper of "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind that tree."

But, they reconsidered, did some cipherin', took another vote, and chose the sales tax.

We look for reasons why Americans did such a foolishly destructive thing as electing a man like Donald Trump as president.

"Oh," you say, "it's because so many of us think it is funny to see government run as a professional wrestling show."

Maybe. Maybe the trouble began when we quit teaching civics in our high schools.

Ever hear the story about the father
who was able to indulge his son's
interest in computers because that
father received an education through
the GI Bill, a tax-supported benefit?

Morning Thoughts: November 1, 2017

A state doesn’t have to boast an Alamo, or a Gettysburg Battlefield to have an interesting history. Micro-events can intrigue and inform the curious, as can postage-stamp places. I realized that this week as a friend and I took a trip east from Little Rock to West Memphis. Since driving the Interstate has become almost as insufferable as flying, we chose to proceed via the old two-lane highway, U.S. 70.

I call it the “Highway of Dreams” because of the countless peoples who have traveled it seeking fame and fortune. There was probably no famous popular musician from the eastern half of the country that didn’t travel this byway prior to the opening of Interstate 40, now known as “America’s Main Street,” famous more for “truck chains” and frustration than anything.

Oh, but the history of “Old 70.” There’s the abandoned 11/70 Club at eastern edge of Hazen. There is no telling how many famous and not-yet famous musicians performed there. Someone claimed that Bob Dylan stopped in there one night to see his friends in The Band. I don’t know. Rumor also has it that it was the model for the famous “redneck” bar scene in the Blues Brothers movie. It is for sure that the club featured legendary Arkansas bands such as The Pacers and Tuesday Blues.

Farther outside Hazen somewhere, (I’ve found no one willing to spot the exact location) is the site of a legendary “shoot and stab” club known only as “Bunker Hill.” Before they all passed on, old-timers would speak of it with the kind of awe attributed to the site of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago.

I know a faint bit about the history of the highway, nothing like the knowledge that a true Arkansas historian like Mark K. Christ maintains. But I was able to amaze my traveling companion with a few details. There’s a strip of abandoned railroad right-of-way that contains a replication of the original prairie vegetation that covered “The Grand Prairie.” Unfortunately, most of it had burned, either by accident or on purpose. We can hope it will grow back next spring.

Then there was the farm where, after crops are finished, they convert a large farm building to an eating place on weekends, drawing a large local crowd.

It competes with the “new” Murray’s Catfish and the story of the original Murray’s in DeVall’s Bluff, at one time the best catfish place in America, would require its own story.

Ah, DeVall’s Bluff. Now just a bend in the highway and home to Lena’s, the best pie place in America, and Craig’s the best barbeque place in America. It housed thousands of federal troops during the Civil War. The legendary Confederate guerilla, “Doc” Rayburn once dressed as a woman and attended an officers’ ball there, danced with some of the officers, and escaped on one of their horses. (An aside: federal troops later accused the owner of our farm in Lonoke County of harboring Rayburn and wreaked appropriate vengeance, including confiscating his slaves).

Find more about these places and people at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

I’ve included a phot below of the landing at DeVall’s Bluff showing how it looked in the town’s past. Credit goes to the site Civil War Talk. Don’t know the date, but it must have been during the Civil War era. There’s a marvelous little museum in DeVall’s Bluff if you ever get the chance.

Well, we’ve just started and we’ve run out of space. I was just thinking, though, how neat it would be for some genius to design an “app” that could be loaded onto a cell phone and linked to a database that could contain tidbits of info on sites that could be identified by markers along these old highways. As the interstates become less and less passable, traffic will pick up and travel become more enjoyable. Maybe it could help us slow down and chill out.

Just a thought. As for now, we seem more intent on keeping our state’s treasures hidden from public knowledge.

DeVall's Bluff, sometime during the past.

Growing Up Southern August 17, 2017

I remember his picture hanging in my grandmother’s house, actually her second husband’s house. Her first had died when Mother was three.

I didn’t think much about ancestors as a kid. How many do? When her husband died, my father built a house for “Mama Rogers.” She brought the photograph with her and lived next door to us until she died.

Nobody wanted the old photograph. They put in behind the sugar barrel in our grocery store, and it stayed there for 15 years ago. Nobody wanted it.

Then I got married to a woman who appreciated such things. We took the picture and still have it.

Great Grandpa is leaving the house today. It’s time. I’ve had him for nearly 40 years. I even became interested and researched his life as best I could.

His name was William Coats, Reverend William Coats, they called him in his obituary. He was born 28 May 1829 in Tennessee somewhere. He traveled from Shelby with his father Sanders Coats to what was then Bradley, now Cleveland County. He married Anna Elizabeth (Ryburn) on 27 May 1855. He died 18 September 1897 and is buried in Friendship Cemetery. He served the CSA in Co D., 26th Arkansas Infantry.

That unit marched around a lot. From Cleveland County, Arkansas the boys somehow got to Northwest, Arkansas and were held in reserve at the Battle of Prairie Grove. They saw action at a skirmish near Greenwood, at Devil’s Backbone. Then they came back and took part, as I understand it, at Jenkin’s Ferry.

His daughter married a man whose father served in a Union Cavalry regiment. When I asked my grandmother once if that wasn’t odd, she said, “Why no, Papa was a Democrat and Mr. Harris was a Republican.” I guess that explained it all. She also told me how Great-grandpa Coats had told her that the most danger he encountered was getting home after the war. Roving bands he called “graylegs” preyed on men traveling. Returning home after the war was hard. Some things never change.

He died suddenly of a heart attack. His obituary stated that he always wanted to be a preacher but couldn’t afford to because of the pressures of supporting a family. He had married, as noted earlier, Elizabeth Ryburn, now a well-respected name in the county.

His obit said further that he was well-respected in the community and “never took part in a neighborhood brawl.” Don’t ask. I sometime wonder if that was a sort of coded message referring to the KKK. As Hemingway said, “It’s pretty to think so.”

I finally contacted a distant cousin who still bears the Coats name. He seemed delighted to have the photograph and has sons to pass it on to. I’ll hand Great Grandpa Coats over to him today. I think he’ll like his new home.

Morning Thoughts: Gravity

Sitting in the living room at our farm, I’m watching the sunrise illuminate a spot I’ve only heard referred to as “The Grove.” It’s a quiet place. Ancient farm implements lie scattered around, of no use in the modern world save being used, on occasion, as lawn ornaments. It's fun to imagine what their users would have thought of that. Intrusive gum trees now compete here with the young oaks, adding a sort of tension to the peaceful setting.

History hangs over the spot like the morning fog that covers it this morning. Tax records of the late 1850s show the owners at that time owned eight slaves. Their hands may have made the ancient bricks just below the surface of the ground. Who knows?

They say the county Extension Service taught “canning classes” under the huge oaks that once shaded the ground here. They taught local women the skills of preserving food for their families, as well as preserving traditions. B’s grandpa made molasses in The Grove. Parts of his apparatus still linger as gateways to the past. They say he made stronger stuff here, a legend supported by the existence of a home-made still hidden away in the attic.

A branch of the “Trail of Tears” passed a quarter mile from The Grove. Did some of those unfortunates take a moment’s rest here? One can only speculate.

I’d had heard tales that Union Troops once camped in The Grove. I had dismissed them as rumors until I read about Doc Rayburn. He was a diminutive Rebel guerrilla who roamed this countryside. Legend has it, would dress as a woman and sneak into the parties held by Federal Officers. Supposedly, troops tracked him to this farm, having heard the owners were hiding him. In reprisal, cattle and mules were taken and slaves freed. Doc Rayburn’s grave has never been located.

The mighty oaks have died. One massive skeleton remains, leaning to the east as if waiting for The Second Coming. One can only guess the date on which gravity, or storms, will bring it down.

Someday, I’d like to clean the grove and make it into a park, if gravity doesn’t get me first. 

When this tree's companion fell,
I quit counting growth rings at 150.

To Serve

Near the Cleveland County, Arkansas community of Woodlawn, a small isolated cemetery contains two graves whose tombstones stand scarcely 50 feet apart. Both are military markers, erected sometime during the 20^th Century, identifying veterans of the American Civil War.

One identifies George W. Harris of the First Indiana Cavalry. A unit that occupied and defended my hometown of Pine Bluff from Confederate forces in 1863, and participated in the Battle of Helena, Arkansas on July 4 of that year.

The other tombstone identifies William M. Coats of the 26^th Arkansas Infantry. That unit was present but not used at the Battle of Prairie Grove, AR, and took part in the Battle of Jenkins Ferry and other actions of the ill-fated Camden Expedition by federal forces under General Steele.

These men were my maternal great-grandfathers. Neither owned slaves. Both farmed and raised families in the rolling land of that part of the state. I'm sure that provided only a minimal existence at the time.

Tombstone of
George Harris

Little is known of George Harris except that he served in the war, his first wife died young, and he re-married. It is said that his son, my maternal grandfather, didn’t get on well with the second wife.

 

William Coats

Of William Coats, a bit more information exists. My grandmother related to me once that her he had told her of the danger he faced, from roving bands of brigands he called “gray legs,” who preyed on former soldiers returning home. He termed it a particularly dangerous part of his experience as a soldier.

What made these men, from the same neighborhood and similar backgrounds, choose whom to serve? I asked my grandmother this once. Her answer? “Well,” she said, seeming to be surprised that I would ask, “Poppa was a Democrat, and Mr. Harris was a Republican." One can only hope that the differences never again become so extreme in our country.

His obituary stated that Great-Grandpa Coats died suddenly of a heart attack. It also stated that his dream was to be a minister, but the demands of raising a family confined that to a part-time endeavor. It stated that he was a well-respected man, and, in an odd bit of phrasing, “… never took part in any of the neighborhood brawls.”

Good for him, whatever that meant.

Road Trip: DeValls Bluff

            On a cold, rainy dreary day, what could we do but head out on a road trip, the ladies and I? We heard that there was a museum in nearby DeValls Bluff, Arkansas so off we went.

            Now if you study about the Civil War in Arkansas, you know what a pivotal location this place turned out to be. Armies heading west to Little Rock or east to Helena crossed the White River at DeValls Bluff. At one time there was something like 32,000 federal troops encamped there in three separate forts. Photographs depict a river clogged with steamboats ferrying troops and supplies. What a spot. I suspect my great-grandfather, George Washington Harris, crossed there with the First Indiana Cavalry.

            So we found the museum. It is in the old high school auditorium, abandoned due to consolidation and now serving as a community center. A gracious and hyper-enthusiastic lady named Debbie Cook gave us a “cook’s” tour, perhaps more precisely the “Cook” tour” She is one of those dedicated and selfless people found so often in our state.
            The Civil War section proved fascinating, but then we were treated to a unique piece of history. DeValls Bluff was, along with other sites on the White River, a location for the pearl button industry of years gone by. The museum houses one of two known remaining machines that punched buttons from mussel shells. They were harvested from the bottom of the river by braver souls than I. The machine still works and is proudly put into action for school groups.
            Then we learned of a “favorite son” from the town, RCA recording artist Jim Minor. He performed with them all and was inducted into Michigan's Country Music Hall of Fame. Later, when I looked up a recording of his on the internet, I found he was backed by the immortal guitarist Hank Garland. Oh my.
            The museum is a non-profit operation of the Bill and Sharon Arnold Foundation. They are a couple from the town who left, came back wealthy, and are spending a large part of their fortune to help their home town. More can be found at the annual festival website.



            If you don’t visit local museums, you are missing out on great treasures. In the case of DeValls Bluff, a trip could include lunch at Craig’s Barbecue and, on selected days, a piece of pie at Miss Lena’s. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

Curator Debbie Cook and the button machine.

"History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man." -  Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

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