And still more from SC

This is from the museum:

We wanted to share a brief update with you this morning. The SC Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum has no plans to close in the very near future. We are working with the Budget and Control Board to come up with a short term solution until our elected leaders can solve our budget problem.

In the meantime, the broad outpouring of support has been outstanding and the one bright spot in this whole situation! We really appreciate it and will keep you posted! Thank you!!

More on SC Woes

From The State newspaper, July 17, 2010:

"Confederate Relic Room. The $765,000 needed to fund the third oldest museum in the state was struck from the budget when the House upheld Sanford’s veto of the state Budget and Control Board’s budget. The museum focuses on South Carolina’s military history from the Revolutionary War to the present."

Woes in South Carolina

Yesterday Governor Sanford vetoed the Board’s entire $25.2 million General Fund appropriation for the Budget and Control Board for next year. This section of the budget includes the entire General Fund operating budget for the S.C. Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. If this veto is not overridden, the museum will have to cease operations. In his veto message to the General Assembly, the Governor stated that he was taking this action because the “Board has sufficient carry-forward and other funds to maintain its operations in this fiscal year.” This is not correct. There are not sufficient funds to make up the $25.2 General Fund cut to the Board, which includes $765,000 for the museum. This veto represents the greatest threat the museum has faced in our 114 years of existence. If this veto is not overridden we will no longer be able to preserve South Carolina’s proud military legacy.The General Fund pays for our entire operating costs such as staff salaries and utilities. We’ve already endured five budget cuts in recent years and operate frugally. Ticket and gift shop revenues are modest and will not sustain our operations. While we have just launched a new membership program, these efforts take many years to bear fruit. Almost every museum and cultural institution in the country relies on public funds to keep its doors open.If this veto is sustained, we don’t know what would happen to our artifact and archival collection valued in the tens of millions of dollars. I do know it would be a grave concern to the thousands of families who entrusted their irreplaceable artifacts to the museum and the State of South Carolina. It will require a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate to override the Governor’s veto. Please share this message with anyone you know who is interested in preserving our state’s rich heritage.Fast facts about the museum:· 1896 - Founded ·
2004 – Nationally accredited by the Association of American Museums·
2006 - A national award for Write from the Front that collects photographs & emails from SC servicemen and women serving in the War on Terror. ·
2007 - Museum expanded, opening a large, second gallery and major exhibit, Forgotten Stories: South Carolina Fights the Great War·
2008 - Awarded the South Carolina Council for the Social Studies’ Program of Excellence award. 2002 – 2009 Seven straight years of increasing attendance with April 2010 a record month!

Attendance has doubled since 2004 and will grow again in 2010W. Allen Roberson, DirectorSC Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum301 Gervais StreetColumbia, SC 29201bwww.crr.sc.govarobers@crr.sc.govw: 803 737-8096c: 803 315-4472fax: 803 737-8099

Breckinridge and Brown

Just a hat tip to a blog that I was recently refered to, randomthoughtsonhistory.blogspot.com/, by Tim Talbott. Tim has been blogging a lot about the reaction to John Brown's raid, and in his latest post is quite interesting concerning then, Vice President John Cabell Breckenridge, and John Brown. So enjoy and add Tim to your blogroll.

The Truth About...

One interesting footnote about the Battle of Chickamauga is the story of the Archibald Gracies, both father and son. General Gracie is an interesting story alone, New Yorker who sides with the Confederacy, in many ways the Anti-Thomas of the battle. Less known is his son, Archibald Gracie IV. Gracie IV was born in Mobile, Ala in 1858 and was only five when his father was killed outside of Richmond in 1864. He would then mirror his fathers life in many ways, attending West Point, being involved in the State militia, rising to the rank of Colonel in the famed 7th New York Militia, and being a sucessful business man.

In the 1890s Gracie would visit the Chickamauga battlefield and see the area of Snodgrass Hill where his father's brigade fought and leave with many questions, questions that he began to research and ultimately lead to him spending seven years writing a book that would be published as The Truth About Chickamauga, more of a study of Snodgrass Hill with some hefty errors in it. Gracie rightfully challenged the placement of certain monuments on Snodgrass Hill, he accomplished this by his own research and heavy correspondents with many of the Union commanders. Gracie intended for the Truth to be a two part study and was working on a Confederate companion when he decided he needed a break.

Seven years of work on Chickamauga had seen the publication of Truth in December of 1911, and Gracie deciding that he need a break before starting on Part II. This leads Gracie to travel to Europe alone, leaving New York in early 1912 aboard the famed liner, The Oceanic. Gracie then booked his return trip to be the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Gracie, staying in First Class spent a great deal of his time with Isodor Strauss, the famed co-owner of Macy's Department Store. Strauss had been involved in Confederate blockade running during the war when he lived in Georgia. Gracie gave Strauss a copy of his book and the two discussed it. On April 14th Strauss finished the book. That night the Titanic would strike an ice berg and sink in the early AM hours of April 15th. Copies of the Truth About Chickamauga going down with the ship. Gracie would be one of the survivors of the sinking, his friend Isodor Strauss would not.

Upon returning to New York, Graice would forgoe working on his second part to Chickamauga, instead penning The Truth About the Titanic. Gracie would not live to see it published though, he would die from complications from diabeties in December of 1912. He would be laid to rest near his father in Brooklyn's Woodlawn Cemetery. Today it is interesting that his Truth About Chickamauga is considered to be one of the most flawed books on the battle, yet his Truth About the Titanic is considered to be one of the best primary accounts of the Tragedy.

Symposium at Chickamauga Battlefield, April 24

The Face of Battle: The Secession Crisis

In commemoration of the pivotal events that occurred 150 years ago during the volatile year of 1860, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park will present a symposium about the critical events of 1860 and how they affected the Chattanooga area as the country slid toward civil war. The event will occur at the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center Theater on Saturday, April 24, 2010 beginning at 8:45 a.m.
Speakers will cover a variety of topics related to the Secession Crisis in the local area and the country as a whole. As we enter the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War, we look to the events that led to the firing on Fort Sumter in 1861. Who were the men that led the way to this event? What thoughts went through the people’s minds as their country began to tear itself apart? Why did they feel it was no longer possible for them to remain part of the United States? We will look at the men and the challenges that they faced during this critical time as the Union began to dissolve.
Speakers and their topics include:
8:45 a.m. Welcome
9:00 a.m. Dr. Daryl Black, “Christian Newspapers and their Coverage of the Secession Crisis”
9:45 a.m. Patrick Lewis, “High Private: How Sam Watkins’ Sideshow Obscured the Big Show of American History”
10:30 a.m. Dr. Keith Bohannon, “Secessionists, Cooperationists, and Unionists: North Georgians Debate the Creation of a Southern Republic, 1860-1861.”
11:15 a.m. Sam Davis Elliott, “Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris and the Coming of the Civil War”
12:00 p.m. Question and Answers with the speakers.

Reservations are required. Please contact the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center at (706) 866-9241 to reserve a space by the afternoon of April 23, 2010. For more information about programs at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, contact the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center at (706) 866-9241, the Lookout Mountain Battlefield Visitor Center at (423) 821-7786, or visit the park’s website at www.nps.gov/chch.

Resaca Again

Well this is looking like a ping pong match, but I think this is the best course.

The following from the Chattanooga Times Free Press

Resaca rebirth
by Andy Johns

Tuesday, March 23, 2010 RESACA, Ga. -- A few weeks ago, Ken Padgett was ready to sound the bugle and retreat from Resaca Battlefield.

After 20 years of fighting, he thought he'd lost the effort to create a park at the site, where about 150,000 Union and Confederate troops waged war in 1864.

"We thought everyone was going to walk away," Mr. Padgett said, standing where the entrance to the park would be off Resaca-LaFayette Road near the Interstate 75 interchange. "We feel if that were to happen, (the park) was never going to happen.

"But a letter drafted by the Gordon County Commission and sent to the state Department of Natural Resources has breathed new life into the project.

Last Tuesday, the Gordon County Commission agreed to ask the state to get started on the 540-acre site with plans to expand it when state revenues pick up.

Under the proposal, the Department of Natural Resources would use allotted funds to build a road, parking area and interpretive trails at the site, according to Gordon County Commission Chairman Alvin Long.

The county would be responsible for maintaining the property, and an area for a visitors' center would be left clear so the state could build it when funds become available, Mr. Long said.

Kim Hatcher, a spokeswoman for Georgia State Parks, said building the road, trails, outdoor exhibits and restrooms is possible, but nothing has been agreed upon.

"We look forward to continuing this discussion with Gordon County," Ms. Hatcher said in an e-mail Wednesday.

Mr. Padgett and other local residents began raising the flag for their cause in the early 1990s, and the site progressed as far as a groundbreaking, an announcement from the governor and a $5 million bond issue.

Mr. Long said the state originally allotted $5 million for the park but diverted funds to another project. State officials have said that $3.7 million always was the amount slated for the park.

About $400,000 has been spent on surveying, and about $3.2 million now is left, according to the state.In December, after the state said it couldn't handle the project in the current budget crisis, the county voted to take over the site as a county park.

But soon afterward, local leaders said $3.2 million is not enough for the project. They worried that if the county couldn't build it at that price, the state might reallocate the funds elsewhere.

On top of that, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required the county to reapply for permits to build in a flood plain, which the state already had granted. Getting new permits would have delayed the project at least six months, and officials want the park open for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War beginning in 2011.

"We've really been let down," Mr. Long said. "It's the best and only option we have right now."Mr. Long said he hopes the road and trails could be finished by the end of the year. There's no definite time frame for the visitor center.

The Department of Natural Resources "is skeletonized right now," Mr. Padgett said. "At least we have this."