Daniel Boyd Sept. 21, 1864 – Our Brigade is getting very small

Posted on September 21, 2014 by

Daniel Boyd wrote his father from Rapidan Station, Virginia Sept. 21, 1864. The 7th South Carolina had left Winchester, Virginia on Sept. 15th, four days before the Battle of 3rd Winchester. He gives his opinion of their new brigade commander, Gen. James Connor of Charleston. Connor had been the District Attorney for the state of South Carolina who had prosecuted the captain of The Wanderer – long believed to be the last ship to disobey the law banning the importation of African slaves. Daniel said that Connor was the hardest of all the generals they had served under.

Daniel tells about a skirmish they 8th South Carolina experienced on Sept. 13th and says they were nearly all taken prisoner. This skirmish was at Winchester and he says that Colonel John W. Hennigan and 104 of the men of the 8th were captured. He says in regards of the attrition of the army: “Our Bregaid is getting very small.“

He talks of being tired of war and expresses a dim view of their chances believing they will soon be starved out. He says of the Yankees, “They burn everything wher they go.”

Boys of Diamond Hill

Boys of Diamond Hill

The Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for History 2012.

To read the entries thus far in the Sesquicentennial series for The Boys of Diamond Hill click here.

To learn more click on the “Diamond Hill” link at the top. To buy the book you may go to any major online retailer such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or you may buy it directly from McFarland Publishers. “The Boys of Diamond Hill” is also available for the Kindle.

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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South by Clint Johnson

Posted on September 14, 2014 by

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South
By Clint Johnson
Regnery Publishing
Reviewed by J. Keith Jones

This book usually garners a knee jerk reaction. The politically correct and the anti-Southern factions often will reflexively tense up and shake their fingers saying, “how dare Johnson write a book like this.” Well that is unfortunate because this is a book that should be read by all that wish to understand the South and those with real Southern roots. Johnson begins the book with an apropos quote, the famous one from Faulkner about the past not being dead in the South. I won’t reproduce it here since I have read that the Faulkner estate has been known to sue people for using it without permission. This review is hardly worth paying a licensing fee, but the quote clearly fits with this book.

I jokingly have stated that this book should be required reading for any northerner before being granted a visa or green-card to live or work in the South. This is only half joking, since it would prosper anyone greatly who wants to understand the Southern mind and the Southern way of life. You see, the more the media establishment attempts to eradicate Southern heritage and the Southern way of life, the more those with Southern blood dig their heels in. Johnson does the non-Southerner a favor by taking you into the Southern mind and giving you a good old tour and by the end, you will thank him. Upon finishing this book, the reader will better understand what Southerners are trying to hold onto and why they are so determined to do so. In fact, you just might understand so well that not only will you not want to destroy all things Southern, you just might want to become a Southerner yourself.

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Daniel Boyd, Sept. 9, 1864 – Battle of Berryville, We took them without any trouble

Posted on September 9, 2014 by

On Sept. 9, 1864, Daniel Boyd wrote his two sisters. Mary Jane Hall, whose husband Fenton was lost in action at Willtown Bluff about forty miles from Charleston, South Carolina and Sarah “Sally” Boyd.

He related to them about the part the 7th South Carolina played in the Battle of Berryville, Virginia six days earlier on the third of September.

We had three bregaids of our division engaged in fight. It lasted about one hour. Our bregaid had to charg the yanks breast works. We took them with out eney trouble. Our loss in our regment was very light.

We lost 5 or 6 wounded in the regment one in my company. Rastes olliver was wounded and died the next day. He was the only one that was kild in regemnt. Jeneral Humphrey of Mississippi was wounded. His bregaid suffered severly. We drove the yanks about half a mile.

P. Erastus Oliver was one of the original members of Captain Samuel Hester’s Company D, having enlisted at its formation on the McCaws Farm near Diamond Hill in Abbeville District on April 15, 1861 along with Daniel and Presley Boyd and their best friend James H. Alewine.  He had been wounded in the left foot at the Battle of Sharpsburg on Sept. 17, 1862.  James Alewine was also wounded at Sharpsburg.  Unlike Alewine, Oliver was left behind as a prisoner.  He was paroled from Fort McHenry, Maryland on Oct. 13, 1862 and sent to Fort Monroe, Virginia for exchange.  From there, he spent a number of months in hospitals in Richmond (Chimborazo) and in Columbia, S.C. then at home recovering.  Records seem to indicate that he did not return to the war until late May of 1864. That was his second stint in a Confederate hospital.  The year before on Aug. 22 until Sept. 16, 1861, Oliver had battled the measles in the General Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. Then, as Daniel’s letter indicates, he passed away on September 4, 1864 from his wounds received at Berryville and was buried in the Stonewall Cemetery in Winchester, Virginia.

Daniel also told them that the Northern army was burning all the wheat and everything ahead of them in an attempt to starve the army. He also expressed that the soldiers were no longer able to buy anything using Confederate money, “They wont hav eney thing but yankee money.”

Boys of Diamond Hill

Boys of Diamond Hill

The Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for History 2012.

To read the entries thus far in the Sesquicentennial series for The Boys of Diamond Hill click here.

To learn more click on the “Diamond Hill” link at the top. To buy the book you may go to any major online retailer such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or you may buy it directly from McFarland Publishers. “The Boys of Diamond Hill” is also available for the Kindle.

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Daniel Boyd, we got the worst of it – Aug. 28-Sept. 1, 1864

Posted on September 6, 2014 by

On August 28, 1864 Daniel Boyd wrote his father from Charlestown in Western Virginia — or modern day West Virgina. He gives more details about his participation in Jubal Early‘s Shenandoah Valley Campaign. He tells of going through Winchester and along the Shenandoah River. They — the 7th South Carolina — were sent as skirmishers ahead of the army with the 2nd and 15th South Carolina Regiments in pursuit of the retreating Yankee army. He says that Hiram Cowan of his company was wounded in this action. Hiram F. Cowan recovered from this wound and was in the surrender with Johnston at Durham, NC. Records become sketchy for Cowan in late 1864 and there is no indication of this wound. So, this letter may be the only available source indicating that Cowan was wounded in the line of duty.

Daniel relates that the Yankees were burning all of the wheat ahead of them as they retreated through the Valley. He tells his father about the resignation of Lt. James C. Carlisle. Records indicate that Carlisle resigned on Aug. 11, 1864. With this resignation Daniel says “We ar out of officers in our company [D].”

He also writes that he and W. Lawrence Clinkscales and John B. Allen explored a cave. He said: “We went to the end of it distance of three hundred yards. It was dark as knight. It was the grandest site I ever saw. It had rooms and steirs like a bar room. It is as cauld a place as I ever saw for the season.”

On Sept. 1, 1864, Daniel wrote his father again, this time from Winchester, Virginia. In this letter he tells his father about his role in the Battle of Halltown near Harpers Ferry on Aug. 26.

“We got the worst of it. The 7th, 2nd and 15 regments was out on picket. The Yankees saw our line was weak and they massed their force in a peace of woods and charged our lines with cavalry and infantry. The cavalry charged the 15th regment and broke their lines and captured about 75 of them.

We had to do som of our best running. I tell you it was a rite close place. We lost about 25 men in our regment 2 kild and 20 wounded. Ther was too of my company wounded on the 25th. They was going after water when they was wounded. Their naims Warren Cochren and Curren Jones.”

Like with Cowan, Cochren’s wounds are not documented in his service record.  Curren (C. E.) Jones was admitted to General Hospital Number 9 in Richmond on Sept. 17, 1864.  He was a replacement soldier having enlisted on January 15, 1864.  He recovered from his wound and returned to the 7th.  There are no other records until his parole with General Joseph E. Johnston’s forces in Durham, NC at the Bennett Place.

He says he will be sending the papers Mr. Boyd will need to file the claim for Andrew‘s final pay with W. Harrison Campbell (Co. H of Anderson, S.C.) who will be going on furlough.

Boys of Diamond Hill

Boys of Diamond Hill

The Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for History 2012.

To read the entries thus far in the Sesquicentennial series for The Boys of Diamond Hill click here.

To learn more click on the “Diamond Hill” link at the top. To buy the book you may go to any major online retailer such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or you may buy it directly from McFarland Publishers. “The Boys of Diamond Hill” is also available for the Kindle.

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Longmire and The Death of Drama

Posted on September 1, 2014 by

Death of Modern Drama

What has happened to modern story telling? Fewer people read. The printed short story is barely alive. Thankfully it has seen a bit of a revival through online venues. This has become possible because of the relatively low cost of such efforts. The editors, publishers and writers are largely unpaid, doing it more for the passion of storytelling. Funny thing also is the modern attitude that writers are somehow running a charity. That for some reason their labors should go unpaid.

Even movies have become little more than 90 minutes of crash and burn action. Most of the mainstream network television has been reduced to bathroom humor, talent shows and agenda driven propaganda. The true storytelling on film has moved to the formerly upstart cable networks. In the last decade or so, great dramas have found a home on channels such as USA, TNT with even American Movie Classics (AMC) getting into the act in great ways.

One player that was showing great promise was Arts and Entertainment TV, (A&E). Recently A&E has decided to descend into the reality TV sewer inhabited by networks like the E “Entertainment” channel and those channels which once aired music videos. These are cheap to make and appeal to the prurient interest in all things celebrity or the hidden lives of others like them.

From a dollar store, buy it cheap aspect, this can be understood. However, once you develop a dollar store reputation, it is hard to groom an audience seeking anything better. A couple of recent cases illustrate this point. On July 11, 2010, A&E premiered a show called “The Glades.” The Glades was about a smart alack former Chicago detective who took a job as a detective in the Everglades of Florida. It quickly gained a loyal following and its lowest rated episode had 2.26 million viewers and ranging to over three and a half million. Not too shabby for cable TV. Season four ended on a major cliff-hanger with the lead character’s survival in question. The viewers were eager to find out the fate of Detective Jim Longworth and completely flabbergasted when it was cancelled.

Often when a popular show is cancelled unexpectedly like this, I suspect there is a hidden story that the network is unwilling to share. I figured that was the case with The Glades. Now A&E has done it again. In Longmire, based on the popular novels by Craig Johnson, it had an even more popular show. Longmire’s numbers ranged reliably from three to nearly five million viewers. Once again, not shabby at all, but that didn’t stop A&E from cancelling it and like with The Glades, on a major cliff-hanger threatening the survival of a major character. One has to wonder, what is going on at the “Arts” and Entertainment network. Are they angling to become just another cheap reality TV network that is a shell of its original mission, like MTV or VH1?

Funny thing about loyal viewers… they are indeed loyal. They were livid over The Glades, but they are apoplectic over Longmire. Their Twitter campaign #LongLiveLongmire has caught fire as they shop and lobby for a new network for Longmire and bash A&E. One has to wonder what damage A&E has done to its image among those truly interested in the “Arts.”

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Daniel Boyd Aug. 20, 1864 – We have paid them for blowing up our line – The Crater

Posted on August 21, 2014 by

On Aug. 20, 1864, Daniel Boyd wrote his father from their camp on the former Cedar Run battlefield.  He is very relieved to be out of the Petersburg Siege line.  The 7th South Carolina had been transferred to Early’s Corps for Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Valley Campaign.  In this letter he speaks about the battle of the Crater in Petersburg and particularly about a friend who was killed by the explosion.

“J W Calaham was kild by the blowing up of our breast works. He was buried with the dirt. When they found him he was standing strait up the ditches.”

He writes of the negative turnabout for the northern army:

“There was one hundred kild and buried with the explosion. They had six drums of powder under our works. They got so badly whipped at their own tricks I dont think they try it eney more.”

Boys of Diamond Hill

Boys of Diamond Hill

The Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for History 2012.

To read the entries thus far in the Sesquicentennial series for The Boys of Diamond Hill click here.

To learn more click on the “Diamond Hill” link at the top. To buy the book you may go to any major online retailer such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or you may buy it directly from McFarland Publishers. “The Boys of Diamond Hill” is also available for the Kindle.

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A Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan

Posted on August 10, 2014 by

A Confederate General from Big Sur
By Richard Brautigan
Reviewed by J. Keith Jones

This little book is as strange as it is interesting. I did not know about Richard Brautigan until recently. When suddenly I heard about him from three different sources in the same week of having first heard the name, I decided that I had best check his work out. This long dead author was very much a product of the 1960s and this book written in 1964 strongly reflects it. Brautigan’s work is worth reading if only to drink in the creative metaphors he employs. His use of language is something to behold.

This book follows the narrator – a man named Jesse – in his friendship with a man named Lee Mellon. Lee Mellon is a drifter and con artist who is descended from a Confederate soldier named Augustus Mellon, who Lee Mellon swears was a general. However, as is often the case, many privates with over a century to work with end up in their family’s legends with significantly higher command and commiserate rank. Such is the case with Augustus Mellon, whose real story serves as a sub-text to the modern story of his ne’er-do-well descendent. We also discover that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree several generations later.

This book is a relatively short work and is a quick read. It makes an excellent choice for a weekend spent at the beach or in a mountain cabin.

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The Boys of Diamond Hill – Capt. Robert Chatham

Posted on July 24, 2014 by

It occurred to me recently that I had missed a significant date in The Boys of Diamond Hill that occurred May 29, 1864, this past May 29 marked the 150th anniversary of the combat death of Captain Robert Chatham — commander of Company G, 19th South Carolina Volunteers. Capt. Chatham was significant to the story of the Boyd family because he had been Thomas Boyd’s commanding officer. Chatham had written two letters to Thomas’s father, Robert Boyd. The first providing notification about his death and the second advising Mr. Boyd on how to claim Thomas’s final pay from the Confederate government.

Capt. Hugh R. Garden

Robert Chatham had graduated from South Carolina College (now University of South Carolina) in 1860. He was a classmate of fellow Abbeville officer Col. Alexander Cheeves Haskell future commander of the 7th South Carolina Cavalry and later S.C. Supreme Court justice;  and Capt. Hugh Richardson Garden — future commander of Garden’s Artillery which distinguished itself at Gettysburg (covered in detail in the upcoming “South Carolina Remembers Gettysburg”) among other battles.

One year and one day after writing the last letter to Robert Boyd on May 28, 1863, Capt. Robert Chatham received a mortal wound at New Hope Church in Paulding County, Georgia. It was generally believed that this resulted from an accidental discharge within the Confederate lines. John Abney Chapman of Company D disagreed. Chapman had been shot through the foot and ankle by the very shot that ended up striking the fatal wound to Chatham’s abdomen. In Chapman’s book, “History of Edgefield County…” he related a conversation he had in 1867 with Col. Shaw of Newberry. They both agreed that the angle of the shot indicated that it had come from their front and would have almost certainly been from hostile forces.

At the time of Capt. Chatham’s wounding, Rev. John Gardiner Richards — Chaplain of the 19th and the 10th South Carolina Volunteers Regiments and father of future S.C. Governor John G. Richards, Jr. — rushed to his side. Richards stayed with Chatham in the hospital until his death the next day and related the details of his final hours in a letter to Chatham’s younger brother, James Cobb. Chatham’s father had passed away when Robert Chatham was a boy and his mother had remarried to Edmund Cobb. The Cobbs had both died during the first year of the war leaving Chatham as the sole guardian for James. Richards told James Cobb that Capt. Chatham had these words for him:

“Tell him I have no fears of death. I am sorry to leave him without a protector, but I leave him in the hands of our merciful, heavenly Father. Tell him to prepare for eternity; to live a sober, righteous, and godly life; to meet me in heaven; to remember my instructions, and our mother’s dying request.”

Richards related that Chatham had these instructions for his men “to put their trust in God, and never desert the glorious cause in which they are battling, until God, in His goodness and mercy, shall give us the victory. As they are noble soldiers in their country’s cause, so let them be true soldiers of the cross, and if it is permitted, I will watch over them as a guardian angel.”

At this point Chatham instructed the doctor to loosen his bandages so he may die more peacefully. Both Richards and Chapman related the impression given in his letters, that Robert Chatham was an officer who was loved by his men and admired by his fellow officers. His death was a great loss to the Confederate army and to the future of South Carolina.

Boys of Diamond Hill

Boys of Diamond Hill

The Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for History 2012.

To read the entries thus far in the Sesquicentennial series for The Boys of Diamond Hill click here.

To learn more click on the “Diamond Hill” link at the top. To buy the book you may go to any major online retailer such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or you may buy it directly from McFarland Publishers. “The Boys of Diamond Hill” is also available for the Kindle.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald – A Very Curious Short Story about Benjamin Button

Posted on July 16, 2014 by

For some reason I tend to be very interested in the short story behind a movie. Many movies are made about books, but a number are also made from short stories. I am a big fan of the short form as you can see from my reviews of the site, Short Story America or in my Interview of its creator, Tim Johnston, so I am often interested in seeing the original story behind a movie.

When a book is made into a movie, the film maker has his work cut out for him. There is so much material to stuff into 120 minutes of movie that cutting of material and consolidation of characters is inevitable. This often leads to dissatisfaction among diehards of the book. When a movie is made from a short story, things are different. In fact it often requires expanding the material. In the case of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” you see an updating of the original story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In the process most of the major facts of his life are changed.

In the original, Benjamin Button is born in 1860 in Baltimore. In the movie he is born in 1918. In the story his mother lives and, although embarrassed, his father sticks around. In the movie his mother dies in childbirth and his father abandons him. The facts of his strange malady of being born old and growing young are the same and many of the incidents are similar. In the story Benjamin is in the Spanish American War as an infantry officer, the movie depicts him as being in the navy in an auxiliary function in World War II. The romance is similar and different all at the same time. In the story he woos a woman who is seemingly half his age, when in fact they are both in their early twenties, but to the world Benjamin seems to be about fifty. They have a son and Benjamin loses interest in his wife when she becomes “too old” for him. The movie’s treatment of the romance is much sweeter – much like Forrest Gump – than the short story. Benjamin leaves after they have a daughter. He does this for altruistic reasons knowing that watching him regress will be unfair to the child and that his woman – Daisy – will need someone to grow old with. Nonetheless, Benjamin carries the torch for her until the end and after her husband dies and Benjamin reaches point he can no longer fend for himself, Daisy takes over his care. Truthfully this is a much more satisfying ending than Fitzgerald’s where Benjamin lives with a son who is as embarrassed by a toddler and eventually infant father as Benjamin’s own father was by a geriatric newborn.

I think that a film maker is freer to take such liberties with older stories – both short form or book – than they are with new blockbuster sensations where the fans are around to excoriate him at every plot twist. There are many other popular movies you should explore the short stories behind. Also on this list is the one behind the Total Recall movies, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Phillip K. Dick. It is fun to Monday Morning Quarterback the film maker and imagine what you might have done with the story.

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Another Man’s Moccasins by Craig Johnson

Posted on July 9, 2014 by

Another Man’s Moccasins
By Craig Johnson
Reviewed by J. Keith Jones

In “Another Man’s Moccasins,” Craig Johnson begins giving you some of the “secret origins” of Walt Longmire the lawman. Things that have been mentioned in previous books are now explored in great depth. Triggered by the murder of a young Vietnamese woman passing through his county, Walt is forced to revisit his time in the war. Adding to this, the prime suspect is another veteran of the war, a seven foot tall native Crow. Walt also discovers that he has a personal connection to the woman, but must track down just what that link is. This link is to a drug case Walt worked on a base in Vietnam.

Like the previous books, “Another Man’s Moccasins” provides a satisfying story with great characters and wonderful settings. Read it.

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