Juneteenth

Juneteenth celebrates Emancipation Day in Texas and other parts of the former Confederacy. On June 18-19, 1865, Union forces landed in Galveston, Texas and declared universal enforcement of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Though Lincoln was dead and the American Civil War officially ended, some Texan salveholders had been recalcitrant enough to require federal boots on the ground to ensure compliance.

Sam France, one of my paternal great great grandfathers, served with the Union 31st Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment and was mustered out at Victoria, Texas, in December 1865.  Up until about June 17, 1865, elements of his regiment were posted at Chalmette, Louisiana, and at other locations around New Orleans, until sent to Texas, presumably by steamship.  Whether Sam France arrived in Texas on or after Juneteenth, I'm not sure yet, but do know the regiment helped bring Texas back into line with the laws of the USA, maintained order, and probably worked on infrastructure projects like repairing or building railroad and telegraph lines.  













Part of Ralph Ellison's second* novel, edited by John F. Callahan, was published by Random House as Juneteenth in 1999; Three Days Before the Shooting, another version of the same novel, edited by Callahn and Adam Bradley, was released by Random House earlier this year.

*His much-lauded first novel: Invisible Man (1952).

Today's Rune: Defense.

This Little Mecca: Greensboro, USA

The layers and dimensions of Greensboro, North Carolina, must startle any keen observer. A city now of about 260,000 people, its palimpsestic history layers back to Native America and forward to Latinos, Montagnards and, also in the area, Palestinians. Think Frank Lucas, main true life character in Ridley Scott's American Gangster (2007), or Joe Dudley (both were born in eastern North Carolina but relocated to this little mecca) of Dudley Products, featured in Chris Rock's Good Hair (2009). Think Civil Rights, the sit-ins, Vicks Chemical Company, O. Henry (William S. Porter), General Nathanael Greene (the city's namesake). Think last capital of the Confederacy (after Appomattox), General Joseph E. Johnston, Orson Scott Card, Dolley Madison, Quakers, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, the neary Regulators and Battle of Alamance, Guilford College, Greensboro College, UNC-Greensboro, North Carolina A & T. And more. How about Edward R. Murrow?

I'll return to my earlier theme of Greensboro as American microcosm, well-worth exploring, contemplating, knowing. But tonight, off to Chapel Hill to the Cat's Cradle to see a trio of bands that I'll report on tomorrow, God willing and the Haw River don't rise.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

History Teach-in: Men in High Castles

One of the inherent limitations of teaching history from a single national perspective is that most nuance is lost in a largely fictionalized nationalist narrative. That's why teaching history is so much more interesting from an ethnic, gender or transnational perspective. Textbooks of the status quo bore students with tedious rehashes that lose sight of the bigger picture, or of other vantage points. One tree without others, let alone vast forests (or deforestations) of difference.

Look at one example -- the American Revolution. Consider that conflict from the perspective of: Loyalists, many of whose descendants now live in Canada and the West Indies; the tribes, now scattered from where they once lived or dwelling stationary on reservations; the Spanish, who with the French helped defeat the British in Florida and elsewhere (above picture: Spanish/French siege of and assault on Pensacola in 1781 -- missing from most school textbooks and completely unknown by most Americans, erased from history); and slaves and free blacks, the ones stuck in the USA and the ones freed by the British.


For purposes of this teach-in, here's my question: What might have happened differently if the British Empire had won the American War of Independence? Consider the impact on economic development, population growth, Indian policy, and Slavery in the history of North America. Instead of the American War of Independence, let's call it the American Rebellion of 1775 (like the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 in India) and go from there. . . 

An initial round of student responses turned up some real cool speculations, and really engaged them. Why?  Because they thought about what did happen, they thought about how things have been presented in textbooks as having happened, and they thought about what might have happened.

An inspiration for this kind of thinking came from Philip K. Dick's excellent alternate history novel, The Man in the High Castle (1962), postulating an Axis victory in WWII (maybe -- never understimate Dick's sly ways); Dick was in turn inspired by Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee (1953) in which the Confederate States of America wins the "War of Southron Independence."  Now especially, I recommend this approach in Arizona! Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. 

Today's Rune: Flow.  (Image source: US Army Center for Military History).

Cinco de Mayo (Reprise)

Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a nifty celebration of Mexican culture, eh? Seems like ever more so, even in the last twenty years, and I'm all for it. 

Which reminds me of how interesting it would be to consider and absorb North American history as a seamless web, giving more serious weight to developments in Canada and Mexico, which would include much more about Mexican and French as well as Spanish and British influence on politics and culture.*

Back to Cinco de Mayo. Besides being fun, the date commemorates the 1862 Battle of Puebla, a Mexican victory over French invaders. Probably less known in the USA is the French capture of Mexico City afterwards, and the installment of Maximilian, a young Hapsburg, as Emperor, during the American Civil War. And how about a dose of the French Foreign Legion -- in Mexico?

Not to mention the withdrawal of French forces, followed by the defeat of Maximillian's own loyalists by Mexican republican forces under Benito Juárez and others. While in charge in 1865, Max had ordered the summary execution of republican prisoners, so it was no accident that when he himself was captured by republican enemies, he was executed, too. The practice of shooting prisoners was an old one. (Painting by Édouard Manet, 1868).

If we go beyond the basis for Cinco de Mayo, we'd also take a closer look at the Mexican-American War, since the French had basically followed the American (and earlier Spanish) route to Mexico City. And then we'd come across how the entire area of California and present-day Southwestern US** was sheared off from Mexico. And then what would we do with that knowledge? That's a complication with history: the more you look, the more there is to consider.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Earlier related posts: http://eriklerouge.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-war-another-celebration.html

http://eriklerouge.blogspot.com/2006/05/el-cinco-de-mayoback-in-late-1861.html

http://eriklerouge.blogspot.com/2006/04/smoke-and-mirrorsamerican-society-has.html

Today's Rune: Wholeness.   *A year after this was originally posted, I'm now teaching American history in exactly this way, within the larger framework.

**Including, yes, Arizona.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 177 Minutes

Finally watched the full-length "restored" English-language version of Sergio Leone's Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966/1967/2002/2004). All you fans out there, if you haven't seen it, you will dig! I loved every minute of it . . . fills in a few gaps and really adds up to an even stronger epic film.  And hey, it's only 177 minutes long -- i.e., three minutes shy of three full hours. . .

Today's Rune: Flow.

Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate . . . we can not consecrate . . . we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863. There's never been a greater US president, and they're have been few American speeches quite as memorable -- nor as short and to the point.

Today's Rune: Growth.  p.s. Gore Vidal's Lincoln (1984) is a good novel version of Lincoln's Civil War years.  RIP to Ed Nebel (1964-2010), former colleague at Macomb Community College.

Auburn, New York: The Seward House

William H. Seward (1801-1872) was a man of his time and a man ahead of his time. He was an abolitionist before the American Civil War, a leader of the new Republican Party, and a key player on Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. The fanatics who plotted to assassinate Lincoln also tried to kill Seward; he survived multiple stabbings from a Bowie knife a month before his 64th birthday. Afterward, his crowning achievement, the Alaska Purchase.









I visited Seward's home in the summer of 1998, travelling from Detroit to the beautiful Finger Lakes Region of New York to attend the 150th anniversary celebration of the Seneca Falls Declaration (1848).  While in the area, checked out Auburn, including the Harriet Tubman Home (more on the remarkable Tubman at some point): http://www.harriethouse.org/   The initial drive via the Ontario strip was only about seven hours -- Michiganders miss out if they think "Up North" is the only direction to travel, it occurred to me then.  There's so much to see around the Finger Lakes.









Drawing Room of Seward House. Victorian decor. Photo by Bruce Walter.









North Library. Pre-electricity setup. Photo by Bruce Walter.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

The March

E.L. Doctorow, The March (Random House, 2005, 2006).

Ingredients: Take Gore Vidal, John Steinbeck, Walt Whitman, and Toni Morrison. Add freedmen and women, common soldiers (some of them deserters and some of them prisoners), a clinical doctor and his assistants, a photographer and his assistant, an English journalist, plantation owners, some colorful generals, and Abe Lincoln. Blend. Pour into a narrative flow.

Follow Sherman's March from Atlanta to the Sea, through Milledgeville to Savannah (November and December 1864), into South Carolina (February 1865), through Aiken and Columbia and on into North Carolina (March and April 1865) , through Monroe's Crossroads and Fayetteville, Averasboro and Bentonville, Goldsboro and Smithfield, and finally to Raleigh and Durham. Absorb and digest.

The March is divided into three parts: Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. The swiftness of the campaign, with refueling rests, is remarkable. Confederate resistance in the first two parts is haphazard until North Carolina, when Sherman's columns are challenged by "the regrouped Rebel forces under General Joe Johnston, the one capable general they had." Doctorow's depiction of "Old Joe" Johnston is glowing. I enjoyed that, because he's the main focus of my doctoral dissertation. William Tecumseh Sherman comes off as a man tortured not so much by the war as by life. He spares Savannah, but is not particularly upset when Columbia, South Carolina burns (because South Carolina started the war). He goes out of his way to protect Raleigh, North Carolina, in the wake of Lincoln's assassination. Historically sound assessments and Doctorow deftly emphasizes them. Overall, The March describes tumult well, the madness and also the magnifying lenses of war, specifically the American Civil War, with its enduring social and cultural legacies.

As an aside, Union Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, head of Sherman's cavalry, plays a ready made rogue in the novel, to some comic relief. He also happens to be journalist Anderson Cooper's great-great-grandfather.

Homer & Langley: A Novel (Random House, 2009), Doctorow's latest, just came out recently. It revolves around the Collyer brothers, who in "real life" died in 1947 as a direct result of their disposophobic hoarding.

A Follow-up with Charles Allen Gramlich

As a sequel to the previous post on Writing with Fire: Thoughts on the Craft of Writing, here's a little more information about the author, Charles Allen Gramlich. He responded to my query with the following details, and has graciously given permission to quote the bulk of his response verbatim:

Gramlich is German, and means Grief and Sorrow. I always thought that was kind of cool. There are a lot of Gramlich's in southern Germany. My mom's side of the family are the Wilhelm's, which is also German, and we have relatives with family names like Verkamp, Schmidt, and Stek, also all German.

My ancestors appear to have settled originally in the St Louis area. Our direct family ancestor fought for the North in the Civil War and ended up being in battles in Arkansas. He loved the countryside so much that after the war he settled there. They were always Catholic as far as I know, and there is a pretty big German Catholic area in Central/Northwest Arkansas, at places like Subiaco and Stuttgart, although that small pool is surrounded on all sides by numerous Protestant groups. By the time I was growing up the prejudice against Catholics had diminished quite a bit but there was still some.

I started undergraduate school largely as a biology major but most of the biology faculty at Arkansas Tech University were interested in invertebrates. The only guy who was interested in the brain was in psychology so that's how I got into that area. He was also a very good teacher and that swayed me as well. I always kept a focus on biological aspects of psychology, but I certainly enjoy the breadth of the field and it is one of the most enjoyable disciplines to teach.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Greensboro as Microcosm

It was a big deal to see Barack Obama and Joe Biden holding a political rally in Greensboro last year. The North Carolina city and environs is a sort of microcosm of the American Upper South with a storied history, fraught with social significance. From colonial days, American Revolution, a civil war zone fought between Loyalists and Rebels, a railroad hub, headquarters of Confederate forces in the waning days of the American Civil War, manufacturing center, and battleground for civil rights. I can personally remember the Greensboro Massacre of 1979, when five protestors were killed by members of the KKK and Neo-Nazi groups during a "Death to the Klan" march.

The 1960 Woolworth's sit-ins, the colleges and universities, the concerts and art, Obama's electoral victory in North Carolina and nationally, they're part of Greensboro, too.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Flag Over Sumter

Before dawn one day about one score and seven years ago, a National Park Service ranger took me and my father out to Fort Sumter in a small boat in time to see the United States flag raised. I'm not a morning person, but out in Charleston harbor in the light of the rising sun, this was a spectacular sight.

In the meantime, Hurricane Hugo blew threw (in 1989) and damaged a lot of the area, but nearly twenty years later the flag is still there.

April 12, 1861: the American Civil War began when Confederate forces fired on the Union garrisoned fort. In the words of southern historian Bell Irvin Wiley, this was the turning point of the war. With this opening gambit and having refused to accept the fact of the election of President Abraham Lincoln, the Confederacy lost the whole shebang. It only took four more years, the abolition of slavery and the untimely death of tens of thousands to fully sink in. If there's a lesson for today, your guess is as good as mine.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Nullification: Time Keeps on Slippin' Slippin' Slippin' Into the Future

South Carolina has a long history of dingbat politicians, the kind that have sought to arbitrarily nullify federal power (1828-1833; anti-civil rights) and the kind who led the Secession movement kindling the American Civil War; so it's no wonder its current governor (Mark Sanford) is trying to play similarly incendiary games in 2009. Other clowns in the arena are the governors of Texas (Rick Perry), Louisiana (Piyush "Bobby" Jindal), and of Jefferson Davis' Mississippi (Haley Barbour). These people are so transparently angling for power yet also so equally stupid, I hope they all run for president in 2012. Compare their nullification stance with the governor of California's approach:

Fresh off a grueling budget battle in his state, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Saturday that if fellow Republican governors threatening to turn down stimulus funds follow through on their pledge, he'd be happy to have their share. (Source: Andy Barr, "Arnold: I'll take govs' money," 2/21-22/2009, http://www.politico.com/)


Time may keep on slippin,' slippin,' slippin' into the future, but what goes around comes around -- over and over again, with a twist. See, for example, Howard Fineman, The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates that Define and Inspire Our Country [i.e. the USA] (2009).

Today's Rune: Initiation.

Today's Rune:

Frost/Nixon: Threads to Infinity, Part II

James Reston, Jr., the most meticulous and strident member of David Frost's pit crew during the Nixon interviews, is a prolific writer with a wide array of interests. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and also taught creative writing there in the 1970s.

His play, Sherman, the Peacemaker (1979) is really good. I saw it performed in Chapel Hill and thoroughly enjoyed its wit and insight, and for its interesting treatment of Confederate General Joe Johnston, Sherman's key opponent in 1864 and 1865. Would love to see his play Jonestown Express (1984), which probably dovetails nicely with his Our Father Who Art in Hell, The Life and Death of Jim Jones (1981).

Other works by James Reston, Jr. include:

Sherman's March and Vietnam (1985).
Galileo: A Life (1994).
The Last Apocalypse: Europe in the Year 1000 A.D. (1998).
Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (2001).
Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors (2005).
The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews (2007).

For more, here's a link to his website:

http://restonbooks.com/index.htm















Today's Rune: Movement.

Lincoln at 200

Most historians who consider such things rank Abraham Lincoln at or near the top of American presidents, and so do I. At or near the bottom would be the nullities (the ones most people have long forgotten or cannot even recognize by name) and the actively bad, like Jefferson Davis (the one and only president of the anti-USA, i.e. the Confederate States of America) and George W. Bush, who helped run us into the ground; and lets not forget other inept presidents, such as Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan.

Barack Obama has identified all along with Lincoln, and man do we need him to be as great a president, only without the tragic ending.

Today's Rune: Joy. Happy birthday, President Lincoln.

Letter from an American Soldier, 1864

Especially because two or three of my maternal ancestors must be mentioned in it somewhere (and it includes rosters), here's a book I'd like to check out at some point -- Jeffrey L. Wood's Under Chamberlain's Flag: The Stories of the 198th Pennsylvania and the 185th New York Volunteers (2008).

And here's my transcript of a letter provided to me by my Mom for Christmas from the family archives. Said ancestors Alvin and Joshua Werkheiser (or Workheiser or, as they actually signed their last name, Werkiser) served during the American Civil War on the Union side and fought in Virginia late in the grinding conflict. Original spelling and grammar kept throughout:

Desember [sic] 5th 1864

My dear brother I sit down to write a few lines to you to let you no [know] that we are both well at present and hope these few lines will find you all the same, and I ges [guess] you thought I wasn’d a gonend to write annemore but I thought I would write to day and let you no that we are well but I can tell you we hain’t to [Philadelphia] anemore we are down front ware the Johneys are and don’t know what day we will get in a fight for there is a report this morning for some [regiments] to move but we don’t know wether we will move to day or not but if we do we will se [see] some hard times and there are some that have no guns yet we have none yet but we will soon have one if we get in a fight but the Johneys don’t like to fight very much for they run away and come in our lines and throw away their guns and skedaddle of [off] norther there are some comes in every night when we came here first some of our boyes would go and trade papers with them and trade coffee for to bacc' but they darsend do it no more and we live about half we get nine hard tacks a day and one lofe of bred the next day and one day we get pork and the next day we get fresh beaf and the pork we kep to fry the beaf and hard tack and we get plenty of coffee and sugar and we get some beans and a few onions and then we make a great soup.

[W]e didend enlist for this ridgement we enlisted for the to hundred and second were [where] the boyes are in Jeremiah Williams is in but they transferred us in this ridgement and so it was lone[ly] some in the first plase but now we are all right we no the boyes, and so no more to day write as soon as you get this letter and send to Washington DC

Alvin Werkiser
Joshua Werkiser

[Repeated:] write as soon as you get this letter

Derection
Company A., 198 Penna Vol.
1st Brig 1st Div. 5th Corps
City Point Va.

Chattanooga to Atlanta, 1982

Rae Doole (Christina Ricci) considers the lingering effects of the American Civil War on the collective American psyche -- Black Snake Moan (2007).

[Picking up my sister Linda's notes, Chattanooga, Tennessee, September 1982:]

78 degrees heading out of the city to Lookout Mountain. "Let None Live in Fear" -- cop motto in Chattanooga. St. Elmo Ave. -- train. Up the piece of Scata[?] road. Craven House tour -- nice. "Sleep tight." Neat view, aids one in visualizing battle.


[Lookout Mountain at lower left. Missionary Ridge featured. Braxton Bragg's army routed from their positions, November 25, 1863.]

Chickamauga Battlefield tour -- great bookstore. 31st Indiana! Between tour stop 1 and 2! (A surprise) on right (beginningish Union lines, 2nd day of battle). 83 casualties [our great great grandfather Samuel France fought with Company E here.]

[Battle of Chickamauga, September 18 to September 20, 1863 -- over 35,000 casualties, about the same number as the entire US military suffered in Iraq during the Iraq War/Occupation's first five years, 2003-2008. It is now year six.]

[My friend Kenny Randall had an ancestor (William Link?) who fought in a US Regular Infantry unit at Chickamauga. He was captured and sent on to Andersonville Prison. I'm pretty sure his outfit was the first battalion of the 16th U.S. Infantry. In the words of James B. Ronan II (1999), at Chickamauga "the battalion was confronted by five regiments of screaming Mississippians who burst from the trees like wildfire . . . met the onslaught and was overwhelmed. Nearly 200 Regulars were captured."

Treatment of POWs on both sides during the American Civil War was horrendous (as it seems to be in most wars).]



. . . Left Fort Oglethorpe GA2 (83 degrees). Heading for the Big Peach . . . . .

Today's Rune: Warrior.

On the Trail of Sam France, 1982

[Only a few entries left from my sister Linda's notes, written during our trans-American tour, Summer 1982. September:]

Around Fort Donelson battlefield. Inn, batteries, and the best preserved trenches I've ever seen. Warm, sunny day. Screwy near French's [Confederate] battery position. On 49 toward Nashville.

Thickets, steep ravines, deep natural hole in middle of fort.

Saved a huge turtle at Bushrod Johnson's position.


[Our great great grandfather, Sam France, fought with the 31st Indiana Volunteers in Cruft's brigade, right side of the map in blue -- facing the attempted Confederate breakout, February 15, 1862.]

Bear Spring Furnace about five miles east of Fort Donelson [Originally built in 1830, destroyed by Union forces in 1862, another one built after the war]. Two standing "woods" on 49.

Flooding along the Cumberland, muddy red/brown river. Lucky stars we must have timed this one just right.

Erin, Tennessee. Furnace to south (two shots). [Another one, Cumberland Furnace, supplied the cannon shot for Andrew Jackson's artillery at the Battle of New Orleans/Chalmette in 1815].

Skirting Nashville [which I'd see in more detail years later], on to Murfreesboro.


Quick stop at a Burger King, $5 -- we had it our way and now "are caught in a living nightmare in Murfreesboro, Tennessee."

Stones River National Battlefield. Nicely kept, lots of graves, museum and tour. Off 41. [December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863. 24,000 casualties on both sides. Sam France, Company E, 31st Indiana, Cruft's brigade, Palmer's Division -- wounded three times (we've since gotten copies of the paperwork from the National Archives)].

Leaving. Strange excitements at the Exxon. James Dean (age 45) was fearful of the lightning that knocked out his pumps one hour prior to our arrival. Storm also caused big fire we passed.

Heading for Chattanooga. . .

Misty baby Idaho getting here, passed [into] Georgia like a ghost in the night for ten long minutes . . .

[To be continued . . .]

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

The Weirdness: Western Tennessee, 1982

[From my sister Linda's notes, September 1982. After Shiloh:]

On to gas, food, bank and Jackson, Tennessee (State #2/22/23 but Georgia will be number 22).

"1,300 happy people in Adamsville, biggest little town in Tennessee, home of Buford Pusser." [See Walking Tall (1973), starring Texas-born Joe Don Baker -- and compare with Death Wish (1974), starring Charles Bronson.]


Arrive in Selmer, 92 degrees, clear skies with intermittent clouds. First National Bank in Selmer, Tenn., on 45 to cash a $50.00 traveler's cheque. Nice old town -- typical East Stroudsburg style downtown.

[Like Twin Peaks, actually. Buford Pusser spent a lot of time working the streets of Selmer, and the court rooms, back in the 1960s and early 1970s. More recently, Mary Carol Winkler shot to death her abusive preacher husband Matthew in 2006 (after experiencing three kids and ten years of marriage together). "I guess that's when my ugly came out," she quipped. . . . . A good rationale, apparently, since she only had to serve under a year in prison (and such) and is now a free woman again. Next, a drag race gone wrong in Selmer on June 15, 2007, resulted in the deaths of six people -- the driver's trial is scheduled for November 3, 2008. Stay tuned for more Western Tennessee weirdness!]


Pinson Mounds (Middle Woodland Period, ca. 1-500 A.D. or C.E.), 2.5 miles east of 45 in Magic Valley, Tenn. [For more, see: http://www.tennessee.gov/environment/parks/PinsonMounds/]


Casey Jones Museum in Jackson ["Casey Jones, you better watch your speed . . ."]. Exit 126, 641 North. Nathan Bedford Forrest Park at turnoff.

Sprinkling rain and sunshine alternates in our northward journey toward Fort Donelson and the land between the lakes.

Paris, Tennessee: "World's Biggest Fish Fry." Huge catfish emblem, N79.

Finally, on to Fort Donelson . . . . .

Today's Rune: Joy.

Shiloh and Other Stories

[September 1982: My sister Linda and I proceeded from Corinth, Mississippi, to Shiloh, Tennessee:]

Shiloh battlefield. Small Indian burial and temple mounds . . .

Steaming with sweat by 11 a.m. -- worked all of Samuel [France]'s lines [great great grandfather, Company E, 31st Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 1861-1865]. Saw white tailed deer in Hornet's Nest. Found 31st Indiana after circling it forty times on foot by different approaches.

[I recently mentioned Bobbie Ann Mason's Elvis Presley as a good read. Her story "Shiloh" is discussed in many writing classes, including at Macomb Community College. It's very accessible. Norma Jean and Leroy Moffit and Norma Jean's meddling Flannery O'Connorish mother Mabel Beasley existentially battle over marriage, gender issues, personal identity, and the stresses of modern life -- what's not to love? "Shiloh" first came out in The New Yorker (October 20, 1980) and again in 1982 -- about the same time Linda and I were hiking around the battlefield -- with Mason's collection, Shiloh and Other Stories.]

Today's Rune: Flow.

Tupelo

First visit to Tupelo, Mississippi, August, 1982:

[My sister Linda's notes are sparse here:]

Bynum Indian Mounds (700 A.D.), Natchez Trace. Small, almost conical mounds (proto-burial mounds).


Tupelo Fields -- neat small groovy park, site of Confederate attack [in 1864] . . . 2 miles from birthplace of Elvis Presley on Hwy 6. [One of the most helpful short biographies I've read since then is Bobbie Ann Mason's Elvis Presley, 2002, part of the Penguin Lives series now].


On to Brices Crossroads [American Civil War battle, 1864]. Stinky country (literally). Brices Crossroads a quiet spot like South Lowell [N.C.] -- old oak churchyard, dusk. Baldwin has a museum.


[Tupelo is featured in songs by John Lee Hooker ("Tupelo," 1960), Van Morrison ("Tupelo Honey," 1971), and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds ("Tupelo") Cave's version of the birth of Elvis in Tupelo (creepy and unsetlling) first came out in 1985.

Hooker's version is a variation on traditional blues takes recalling the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and Tupelo's horrific tornadic disaster of April 5-6, 1936. It goes in part like this:

The great flood of Tupelo, Mississippi

Did you read about the flood? It happened long time ago, in a little country town, way back in Mississippi

It rained and it rained, it rained both night and day

The people got worried, they began to cry, "Lord have mercy, where can we go now?"

There were women and there was children, screaming and crying, "Lord have mercy and a great disaster, who can we turn to now, but you?"

It happened one evenin', one Friday evenin', a long time ago, it rained and it started rainin'

The people of Tupelo, out on the farm gathering their harvest,

a dark cloud rolled, way back in Tupelo, Mississippi, hmm, hmm . . .].

[After we left Tupelo in 1982, we headed on down the line, aiming to reach Shiloh, Tennessee, by the next day.]

Booneville, Mississippi. Sad bebop, old generation, age 17.

Corinth, Mississippi at the Southern Hotel [Southern Motel] for $18.00 . . .

Today's Rune: Journey.