The Civil War Trust has been in the ongoing process of compiling a to-do list for the 150th anniversary. It’s overwhelmingly massive already, but apparently there will be 1400 items on it by the end of the sesquicentennial (one for each day!). There’s a print out version, which is still frighteningly long, but at 400 items it seems a bit more manageable. I’m not sure how they separated these 400 from the leftover 1000, but I imagine there might have been some logic to it. Maybe.
Anyway, the best thing about the printable version is that it’s actually a checklist! Meaning, crazy people like me can use it to keep score of their 150th experiences. It’s very useful.
In an effort to be more organized and also to seem like an interesting, normal person who doesn’t just sit in her bedroom with her Lee and Grant finger puppets and cry over books about Lincoln, I’ve decided I might start blogging about my efforts to tackle the Essential To-Do List. You know, to prove to you all that I do go outside, even if outside consists of staring at pieces of land where soldiers once fought.
Boyfriend and I made plans for Memorial Day weekend. We’re going to Gettysburg. I got so excited looking at the tourism website I felt like throwing up.
Hidden agendas: inscriptions on the inside of Abraham Lincolns watch.
He never knew it was there…
Wait, what?
Yep – Lincoln bought this watch in Springfield, back in the 50’s when he was starting to have some real success as a lawyer.
He brought it all the way to Washington in 1861 and, shortly after arriving, handed it to Jonathan Dillon who was working at M.W. Galt and Co. jewelers, for maintenance work.
Many years later, Dillon remembered that during the repair work, he received the news that shots were fired on Fort Sumter…the event that started the Civil War.
Spontaneously, he inscribed a message to the part of the watch that the owner most likely would never open himself.
The message reads: “Jonathan Dillon April 13-1861 Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels on the above date J Dillon April 13-1861 Washington thank God we have a government Jonth Dillon.”
And so, for the next four years, Abraham Lincoln carried with him a strong message of support…without ever knowing it.
Here is another picture and one where you can see Lincoln wearing it:
Also, another watchmaker apparently had the same idea some years later – but his inscription wasn’t as favorable.
Item from General Records of the Department of Justice. (1870 -)
John Wilkes Booth wrote to his mother, Mary Anna Holmes Booth in the days before he assassinated President Lincoln. In the letter Booth apologizes to his mother for the potential loss of his life in the service of the South.
So I’m not the biggest hockey fan out there, unless you count the fact that I was obsessed with Mighty Ducks as a kid (well, let’s be honest, I’m STILL obsessed with that movie). Anyway, the NHL playoffs are going on and I have been rooting for the Columbus Blue Jackets, and here’s why:
1. “Blue Jackets” is actually a Civil War reference! (And doesn’t actually have anything to do with bees like I initially thought.) I mean, what other professional sports team has a Civil War-themed name?
So badass.
2. While playoff beards are a phenomena in many sports, hockey players are particularly notorious for them.
And that is the Badass Civil War Beards connection.
…of this blog (indeed, of all my blogs), but I was recently looking through pictures in Southern Living and thought that I should update. So here I am, updating! Celebrating my doughface roots!
I’d like to get back to checking things off the Essential To-Do List, if not for tumblr’s enjoyment then for my own personal record keeping. It should be easier now that the weather is getting nicer and I won’t feel like I’m drowning under mountains of snow. I actually almost went to a Civil War 3-day festival today that I thought was in Maryland, but it ended up being in the middle of Tennessee, which… is a bit far from NY. Alas.
Anyway, so this isn’t a complete waste of a blog post, here’s a fun article that merges many of my interests (children, southern culture and Will and Kate, my adopted royal relatives):
As a Northern baby, I feel slightly shunned, but as a doughface I am proud to have appropriated this fine, souther culture along with Prince George. We are all doughfaces at heart. <3
Possibly the earliest known photograph of a turtle, outside the studio where the image was produced in Gettysburg, PA, c. 1864. (If you’d like to learn the story behind this photo let me know.)
When ‘Death and the Civil War’ came out last week, I was ready and waiting. Then it was so good and heartbreaking that it made me cry, much to the confusion of my housemates.
“Is she crying because of that documentary thing she’s watching?”
