A day at the Virginia Historical Society

[gary]

On Thursday, March 5, I visited the Virginia Historical Society. They have a special exhibit on Lee & Grant. It showed their respective backgrounds, rise to power during the war and a brief summary of their '64-'65 campaigns in Virginia. Lee's jacket was displayed along with one of Grant's major-general jacket. Lee's sword, which we all know, was not offered to Grant at Appomattox, was also displayed. The chair Lee used when he wrote resignation from the US Army was also there. One of Lee's portable writing desk was also exhibited. The VHS also borrowed the Charles Wilson Peale painting of George Washington as a young man on display there. It had been borrowed from the Lee Chapel at Washington & Lee University (Lexington, VA).

I'm not sure why, but George Thomas's sword was also displayed. It was a sword presented to him before the war. When he decided to remain loyal to the Union, his sisters refused to send the sword to him and they kept it until their death.

At noon, I attended Christopher Einolf's talk on General George Thomas. Einolf wrote a book, George Thomas: Virginian for the Union, as was there giving an author's talk. Einfolf basically said that Thomas as a youth was taught to do what he always thought was honorable. As an aristocratic Virginian, he had a paternalistic attitude towards slaves. Einolf briefly went over Thomas's West Point experience where he was an excellent student (but not good enough to be selected as an engineer when he graduated) who graduated 12 out of 46. Commissioned in the artillery, he served against the Seminoles for several years before being appointed to teach at West Point. He served in the West where he became familiar with several Indian tribes. At war's outbreak, Thomas was an officer in the 2nd US Cavalry in Texas. Said regiment was surrendered to Texas and Thomas led the loyal soldiers north for refitting.

Einolf spoke a bit on how Thomas declined engaging in politics for his own interest and how it hurt him somewhat as it delayed his being given an independent command. Thomas became one of the four top Union generals after the war but isn't well remembered today. Einolf explains that Thomas never penned his memoirs and instructed that his papers be destroyed after his death. Those who knew him respected his request for privacy and refrained from releasing too much personal details.

What Einolf feels Thomas should be remembered for is for being a protagonist of civil rights. As you recall, Thomas was a southern aristocrat who had a paternalistic attitude towards blacks. He didn't want colored troops and when he had them, he used them as laborers. At Nashville, the officers of the colored troops offered to join the attack with intent of distracting the Confederates from the main Union thrust. Thomas agreed. As he toured the battlefield, he noticed dead blacks and whites. As he got closer to the Confederate defenses, he noticed there were more blacks than whites. When he got to the Confederate defensive works, he saw piles of dead black soldiers. To see so many proved to Thomas that the colored troops were capable of manly acts of bravery and the equal of the white soldier. He felt that if they could behave so well on the battlefield, that they could be capable of other manly behavior and should enjoy the full rights of citizenship including the right to vote.

After the war, Thomas championed civil rights but sickness claimed him early and he passed away in 1870.

BTW, I had Einolf autograph my copy of the book. The VHS practically sold out all their copies of his book that they had out that day.

If you don't belong to the VHS, you might want to join. They tape all the author interviews and talks and you can access the on their website if you're a member.

The next two days were spent attending the Annual Conference of the Honourable Company of Horners. Sunday was spent with a local who works at Colonial Williamsburg who led me to several Confederate redoubts and Fort Magruder. Mon-Tue were spent at the National Archives and the Library of Congress.

[hoosier]

Thanks for the report on the Virginal Historical Society exhibit and on Mr. Einolf's talk about Gen. Thomas.

I am curious about the Honourable Company of Horners. (Incidentally, in the default font used for posts on this website, when a lower-case r is followed immediately by a lower-case n, the result looks an awful lot like a lower-case m. After copying the name over to Word and experimenting with several different fonts, I was finally able to figure out that the word was HORNERS, rather than HOMERS.)

What in goodness' name is a HORNER?

[larry_cockerham]

Excellent report, Gary. Yes, please tell us more if you're so inclined. I'm curious about the horners also. Bugle?

[gary]

The Honourable Company of Horners are folks who study and make objects out of cow or buffalo horn. Most of us concentrate on powder horns including replicating of ornately carved French & Indian War map horns (you had the map placed the horn to illustrate where you're going to be at or to show where you've been-the latter mostly served as a souvenier). Other folks use horn to make spoons, drinking cups, bowls, fans, combs, dice, etc.

One fellow had a horn he picked up in New Mexico. It was relief carved with a picture of a man dancing with a senorita. The words were in Espanol (Spanish) and he hoped to get it translated one day. I pulled out the cell phone, spoke with the receptionist at my work place and she translated it. It said something like, "I hope you catch all my contents, and fill me with moscatel, brandy and bourbon, and keep me with you always Tom Mc Nut." It was a horn for carrying booze!

We even had a telephone interview with an author who wrote a book on the use of horns in 18-19th Century England. It was a book she didn't want to write but her husband and then a curator pressured her.

We had a talk on blowing horns too (music horns). Before the telephones, many folks in the Appalacians called their neighbors by horn signals. Each horn had a peculiar sound that distinguished it from one another and everyone knew everyone else's horn. Each family had certain horns for certain reasons. One could be used to call in the cattle (as they do in Chihuahua, Mexico today) or to call everyone in for supper (Ma's horn). No one touched Pa's hunting horn as it was used by Pa to summon his hunting buddies for coon hunt (or some sort of critter kill). The subject of blowing horns is largely unexplored and our speaker is leading the research into that area.

Powder horns weren't really used by the Civil War soldier unless he was a civilian scout or bushwhacker. It is possible for a sharpshooter with a target rifle to have a horn, but it is more likely that anyone with the money for a target rifle would carry his powder in a flask (which were handier if they had a spring loaded spout).

BTW, I got involved into horns as I became more involved in the blackpowder sharpshooting and riflebuilding.

Here's a link to the Honourable Company of Horners.

http://hornguild.org/ I've only heard one joke about the "horn ny" folks once during the conference.

[larry_cockerham]

This sounds like a pretty ***** group. Very interesting. Thank you! [That was a good word, too. The little censor knows his stuff.]

[Jamieva]

The Lee and Grant display I think ends next week.