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There are more such sites than you might think. The furthest off the beaten track I have been to see one was in Keszthely, Hungary. The house at No.5, Szabadsag utca, was the birthplace of Sandor Asboth, who commanded a Union Division at Pea Ridge.It has a plaque on the wall commemorating him. And I see from the internet that one of the town's schools was named after him in 2001.
Here is a link to an article about the monument in Edinburgh, Scotland, dedicated to those Scots who died for the Union:
The war was fought in a thousand places across the American continent and, of course, on the oceans. And a tiny little bit of it was fought, with fists, in a seedy Southampton music hall. Francis W. Dawson, a promising young London playwright who took it into his head to fight for the South, and who consequently enlisted as a seaman on the C.S.S. Nashville in early 1862, when that ship was docked in Southampton, takes up the story.
“The men went ashore as often as they could obtain leave, or steal off unobserved, and the [U.S.S.] Tuscarora’s men did the same. There was a Music Hall at Southampton in those days, known as the “Rainbow” or the “Wheat Sheaf”, which, being cheap and warm, was a favorite resort with us. The entertainment was not of a high order, but it answered the purpose. The sympathies of the Southampton people were unquestionably with the Confederates, and the Tuscarora’s men were thought very little of. They had a hard time of it. When they went to the “Rainbow”, any of the Nashville’s men who happened to be there was sure to call out for the “Bonnie Blue Flag” or “Dixie” which was instantly played with the full force of the small orchestra, amid the hurrahs of the audience. But if the Tuscarora’s men ventured to suggest “Yankee Doodle” or “Hail Columbia”, they were hooted down incontinently. Consequently, fights were frequent, and, as the newspapers were friendly to us, the “Yankees” were always the aggressors, and were always the unfortunates to be locked up for the night, and lectured and fined by the magistrate in the morning. I must admit that we generally brought on the row ourselves, but, when it was over, and the wrong men had been put in the station house, we had the satisfaction of going down to the Nashville, singing lustily and giving cheer after cheer for the Southern Confederacy and Jeff Davis.”
For an article which describes the “Nashville Affair” in greater detail – including a description of a punch-up in a Southampton pub which almost led to shots being fired, see http://www.americancivilwar.org.uk/a...lle_affair.htm
I have tons of this stuff, and intend to pile it on until I have all of you drinking tea and proper beer, neglecting your teeth and understanding irony.
A case in point being...
CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL, LONDON
In this hospital is a plaque to the memory of one of its members of staff, David Herbert Llewellyn, who served as the surgeon of the C.S.S. Alabama and drowned off Cherbourg.
The Times reported his death on 24th June:
“David Herbert Llewellyn, who perished in the noble performance of his duty in the late action off Cherbourg, was the son of the Rev. David Llewellyn, perpetual curate of Enston Royal, Wilts. He was educated at Marlborough College, was an articled pupil of Dr. Hassall, of Richmond, and subsequently studied his profession at Charing-cross Hospital, from 1856 to 1859. He was Silver Medalist in Surgery and Chemistry.
He was with the Alabama throughout the whole of her eventful career, and was much respected by all on board. We are enabled to give a copy of the last letter which we believe he ever wrote. It was addressed to Mr. Travers, the resident medical officer of Charing-cross Hospital, and is as follows:-
‘Cherbourg, June 14, 1864. Dear Travers, Here we are. I send this by a gentleman coming to London. An enemy is outside. If she only stays long enough, we go out and fight her. If I live, expect to see me in London shortly. If I die, give my best love to all who know me. If Monsieur A. de Caillet should call on you, please show him every attention. I remain, dear Travers, ever yours, D.H. LLEWELLYN.’
How poor Llewellyn did his duty as a man and a surgeon may be judged by the following touching episode which was seen to occur during the late battle:- The whaleboat and dingy, the only two boats uninjured, were lowered, and the wounded men placed in them, Mr. Fulham being sent in charge of them to the Kearsarge. When the boats were full, a man who was unwounded endeavoured to enter one, but was held back by the surgeon of the ship – Mr. Llewellyn. ‘See,’ he said, ‘I want to save my life as much as you do; but let the wounded men be saved first.’ ‘Doctor,’ said the officer in the boat, ‘we can make room for you.’ ‘I will not peril the wounded men,’ was his reply. He remained behind, and sank with the ship – a loss much deplored by all the officers and men.
…The cause in which the real hero of the late naval duel perished is not one which can be acknowledged by any national testimonial; but we are glad to hear that his fellow students contemplate the creation of a tablet to his memory in the hospital in which he so greatly distinguished himself, and in which his kindly and generous spirit had gained for him the greatest esteem and affection. It would be a fitting monument to his memory, and we trust it will be placed in so appropriate a place.”
Brazil has a fairly rich tradition from the war between the states. Southerners migrated there after the war and founded the city of Americana among others. They have annual “Confederados” celebrations and I believe have chapters of both the UDC and the SCV. President Jimmy Carter visited the Confederate graveyards in Brazil because his wife’s great uncle is buried there. I hear they even speak Portugese with a Southern drawl in some areas. No kidding. Estimates of 200,000 Brazilians that are direct descendants of the Confederate refugees.
Regarding tea, I've had tea in England and it was so bitter I thought I was drinking medicine. Little wonder cream & sugar are added. My "drink" is boiled water (or "white tea" as some poor or cheap Chinese folks jokingly call it). As for warm beer, I'm a teetotaler and don't touch alcohol (not trying to be pious but it's just that I'm allergic to alcohol - but hey, I can cook & bake with it).
Not cream! Never cream in tea! It has to be cold milk, otherwise it will taste awful.
Actually, I'm more of a coffee fan myself. In fact, I'll drink anything other than fizzy, sticky soft drinks [Coke, Pepsi etc.]...I wouldn't touch them with a barge-pole. Oh, I also draw the line at American beer, which is really closer to lemonade than anything a European would recognise as the fruit of the hop.
Thank you for the correction. Milk, not cream. Regarding coffee, I'll drink it only if I need to wire myself up to stay awake. That stuff (coffee) real taste nasty to me and I need the cream & sugar to make it bearable. Only when I traveled did I understand why coffee is better than water. First, it's boiled so all the wigglers are dead. Second, the flavor of coffee masks the awful taste of the water. Go to Los Angeles and you'll know what I'm talking about.
Castletown House was the residence of M.P. Thomas Conolly [1823-1876]. Conolly was, in his youth, a perfect sybarite: when he wasn’t riding to the hounds in County Kildare he was busy picking up prostitutes in London parks. The latter activity was indicated in his diary by the use of “x”. So a typical entry for a day in 1857 read: “Up late & debauched – down to house [ie the House of Commons] late for Division. Dawdle the day thro! & ‘x’ again evening. This sort of thing must come to an end.”
His connection with the American conflict came through his involvement in blockade running and the vessel Emily: “In brief, Conolly and a group of associates purchased and outfitted a steamship, the Emily, which they intended to sail to Wilmington, where they hoped to exchange the cargo at great profit for rebel cotton. Unfortunately for these merchant adventurers, the ship was damaged on the first leg of the voyage and had to turn back at Madeira. Conolly, however, pressed on as a passenger on another blockade runner in hopes that the Emily would follow after being repaired. He reached the South, met Jefferson Davis, dined with Robert E. Lee, saw Richmond fall, fled northward, and returned home to tell his tale.”
His diary of his adventure has been published as “An Irishman In Dixie”. Its chief merit lies in the late period in the history of the Confederacy which it covers, since he landed there in late February 1865. He must, in truth, have been one of the very last foreign visitors to the C.S.A.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the brightest of men and didn’t always record the information which the reader would have liked. For example, his account of the dinner which Robert E. Lee and his staff laid on in his honour on 16th March actually concentrates on describing the food rather than the conversation.
As his editor says, “the value of his diary doesn’t lie in any perceptive analyses, certainly. His observations were often naïve, as when he blithely expresses faith in ultimate Confederate victory while all around him the southern armies were melting away, and his appetite for dinner parties and picnic tours of the front lines admitted little room for introspection. Perhaps it is just as well that Conolly was not a refined man of letters but a somewhat eccentric and superficial sporting country gentleman given to assiduous notetaking. A more serious pro-Confederate diarist might have ruminated more in abstractions about the collapse of ‘southern civilization’ and noted fewer details than appear in Conolly’s vivid descriptions of people and places in those last hectic days – descriptions that give us insight into the momentous events to which Conolly was witness even if he did not fully comprehend them himself.”
Castletown House is commonly described as the finest Palladian country house in Ireland. There is plenty of information about it at http://www.archeire.com/castletown/
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