Years ago, I worked with the American Battlefield Trust to create an augmented reality app. It’s a free download on the app store. We returned to Gettysburg on Saturday, and while Graham ran ten miles, the rest of us hiked Pickett’s Charge. Before we started, we assembled at the step-off point of the Virginians justContinue reading “Walking Pickett’s Charge and Catching Pokemons, but not Fish”
Category Archives: Civil War
Benjamin Franklin Carter, Henry Johnson, and the Stories We Tell
I like to spend Sundays doing historical and family history research. I made a kind of big find this past Sunday, so that is the thrust of this post. It’s longer than most and off topic of mildly humorous family incidents. But it is family—Benjamin Franklin Carter is a distant cousin, as is his wife.Continue reading “Benjamin Franklin Carter, Henry Johnson, and the Stories We Tell”
Among the Dead I Have Known
This is a series of life sketches and is not part of the daily short stories I have been posting. Lewis McSpadden was born into slavery in a year he could not recall, on a Tennessee farm he didn’t remember to a mother he would not know long. She was from Virginia; the documents sayContinue reading “Among the Dead I Have Known”
Say Hi, Robert
They were back in Southern territory, and word was that the enemy was on the other side of these woods. It was spring, and the day had started cool but ended warm. Will was coated in sweat in the late afternoon when orders came to halt their march and set up camp for the night.Continue reading “Say Hi, Robert”
The Friendship Quilt
This is a deceptively simple fictional rendering of a story in my family history. It’s meant to be coupled with the “The Littlest Nurse,” and then for further perspectives, you can learn far more at my page on Sadie Bushman. You might wish to read the actual primary sources, as well. It’s worthwhile to thinkContinue reading “The Friendship Quilt”
The Littlest Nurse of Gettysburg
This is a deceptively simple fictional rendering of a story in my family history. It’s meant to be coupled with the “The Friendship Quilt,” and then for further perspectives, you can learn far more at my page on Sadie Bushman. You might wish to read the actual primary sources, as well. The Rebels came throughContinue reading “The Littlest Nurse of Gettysburg”
April Is the Cruelest Month
He was raised in the home of Master Baker Boswell DeGraffenried and only knew himself as Hank. His mother was a housemaid to Mrs. DeGraffenried, and she went by Ginnie. It wasn’t until he was nearly ten that he heard a field hand call her “Virginia,” and he said, “Why does he call you that,Continue reading “April Is the Cruelest Month”
Petty Slights and Indignities
Huldah, bless her soul, was the first to let Mrs. Lewis know about the new arrivals. She didn’t mean it that way, but she gave them up nonetheless. Sergeant Lewis sent his wife to the other wing to collect more bandages, and when she reached the laundry, Huldah was pulling linens out of the boilingContinue reading “Petty Slights and Indignities”
An Inside Joke by Me for Myself
The first time I saw the boy, he had soiled his pants, and I says to him, I says, “Boy, you done soiled your pants” and he says to me, “I ain’t the only one that done that–they was others who did it under fire at Perryville cuz we was all green,” and I says,Continue reading “An Inside Joke by Me for Myself”
The Ballad of Johnny Mather Sloan
[Sing to the tune of the “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”] Young Johnny Mather Sloan Lived on the Texas range. Stole a horse when six years old; His brother thought him strange. Y’all never heard the tale of the boy soldier from the heart of Texas. Damn shame. That boy and his story are asContinue reading “The Ballad of Johnny Mather Sloan”
His Smile Lit Up a Room and Other Things to Say at My Funeral 