Confederate General Appears in Durant, Mississippi

True enough! I was helping to lay irrigation pipe when I was a teen. The guy I was helping just stopped, walked to the pickup grabbed a shovel and walked towards me then jabbed between my feet. I had no idea what he was doing! I looked down and I was standing on a young rattler who was striking my steel-toed boot. I had no idea I was even standing on the little guy. Pretty sure I set a standing long jump record that day once I found out I was standing on a rattlesnake! I only seen about 10 rattlers that I know of. But our bull snakes look quite a bit similar from a distance and I don't care to get close enough to see the difference.
Oh, man....that's pretty scary. I don't recall ever having seen a rattler in the wild here in central Missouri. I DO recall walking along the edge of a soybean field one time and hearing one start buzzing his tail at me from some undetermined place just under the shade of the soy beans. That'll make your urine run cold! It'll make it run, too! In my area, we don't have diamond backs, but we've got timber rattlers and they can get to be pretty big. I've seen a number of copperheads in the wild. They are much smaller as a rule. I can at least stand back and admire their beauty if I happen to spot them first.
 
Thank you 7th Mississippi! Always enjoy taking this walk via video.
Thanks.

The little town of Durant was devastated by a tornado yesterday. So far they've had at least one confirmed fatality.

I haven't heard anything about the old structure yet, but I hope it and the cemetery escaped serious damage. Until then, I'm hoping no one else was injured or killed by the tornado.

The weather was very bad down here yesterday.
 
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Thanks.

The little town of Durant was devastated by a tornado yesterday. So far they've had at least one confirmed fatality.

I haven't heard anything about the old structure yet, but I hope it and the cemetery escaped serious damage. Until then, I'm hoping no one else was injured or killed by the tornado.

The weather was very bad down here yesterday.
I am very sad to hear about Durant. I hope the structure escaped damage and feel for all the people affected. I hope you and your family are safe.
 
I am very sad to hear about Durant. I hope the structure escaped damage and feel for all the people affected. I hope you and your family are safe.
Thanks ! we're miles away from Durant so our area wasn't affected during that particular tornado outbreak.

I still haven't heard any news about the old hotel/school & the cemetery. After three plus weeks, the town remains in bad shape. Yesterday, FEMA finally announced the town had met their criteria for Federal Disaster Assistance.
 
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I'm still at a loss finding anything about a Confederate General Officer passing away at this hospital.
I'm starting to think this "General" may have been a Major or Lieutenant Colonel.

Stars on the collar & such.

The Confederate Officer Corps insignia was much different than their Union counterparts.

It's become somewhat of a mission of mine to try to determine what officers may have died at this Durant, Mississippi Hospital.
 
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Oddly enough the first Timber rattler I ever saw was near Columbia, Mo. Plenty of the Diamondback variety here, as well as Cottonmouths. We have had an epidemic of the darn things the last few years. I have seen several of both. The state record Copperhead was killed in town, actually the second largest was killed here too.
 
I'm still at a loss finding anything about a Confederate General Officer passing away at this hospital.
I'm starting to think this "General" may have been a Major or Lieutenant Colonel.

Stars on the collar & such.

The Confederate Officer Corps insignia was much different than their Union counterparts.

It's become somewhat of a mission of mine to try to determine what officers may have died at this Durant, Mississippi Hospital.


Can't remember if the conversation from earlier stated no records were kept? I'm only butting in here because boy does Hathitrust have a ton of random, unexpected, Confederate records or what? Crazy amounts of army and government documents, briefs, letters and I guess announcements? It would make sense if, somewhere in the collection, someone made a note or sent an official letter from the hospital?
 
Oddly enough the first Timber rattler I ever saw was near Columbia, Mo. Plenty of the Diamondback variety here, as well as Cottonmouths. We have had an epidemic of the darn things the last few years. I have seen several of both. The state record Copperhead was killed in town, actually the second largest was killed here too.


Interesting! Always seemed pretty safe from Copperheads in our neck of the woods despite being right where they love- timber, rocks, isolation. Large population of black snakes, which they hate and it's mutual. We have all the snakes- none bother me, well, better not or you couldn't move 3 feet out here. After all these years the dogs flushed the first Copperhead we ever saw this summer ( which was both tubby and long, and left as quickly as I got the dogs the opposite way ). Two days later our neighbor killed one, 50 feet from the house. Crazy stuff.
 
A bit confused as to whether this thread is about Confederate general ghosts or snakes. :smile:
I have a kinda creepy snake story. Several years ago, a friend and I were visiting a small cemetery in northern Jefferson County, Ohio where two of General John Hunt Morgan's Confederate cavalrymen who were killed in a July, 1863 skirmish are buried. As we were looking at a few of the older stones, we noticed a large blacksnake which we thought was dead. When I walked closer, I learned that it definitely wasn't dead and it came at me really fast. The snake came at me and then turned and went down a hole by an old stone. After we calmed down, we couldn't help but wonder what was down in that hole the snake went into.
 
The latest press:

Mississippi Seen
Old spa hotel building a rare survivor of its kind
May_2015_Walt_Grayson.jpg

This old place has been a resort hotel, Civil War hospital, girls boarding school, missionary training grounds and more. And thankfully it is still standing so it can also be the subject of one of my stories. Photo: Walt Grayson

Over the years doing feature stories for television and writing these articles for Today in Mississippi, I have had people suggest stories about places that were once very important but are no longer here. I try to explain that it’s tough to shoot video of a building that vanished 50 or 100 years ago. And lots of these places would have made excellent stories too, if it weren’t for the fact that I need a photograph of something besides the pine trees that grew up where the building used to stand.

One category of things we used to have a bunch of in Mississippi but don’t have anymore are mineral spring resorts. There are at least a dozen of them listed in the 1938 WPA Guide to Mississippi. Many of them were built before the Civil War.

Any of them would make a great story. But the only one of the old mineral spring resort buildings that is still standing today that I am aware of is Castalian Springs, located in Holmes County west of Durant.

Castalian Springs evidently grew up around some type of artesian well. Someone built a large rambling hotel to take advantage of people wanting a cure for some ailment that they thought spring water would cure.

Entire article at:

http://www.todayinmississippi.com/mississippi_seen/article/4507


 
Castalian Springs, located in Holmes County west of Durant.
Dern. Just 2 weeks ago, I was near that area visiting my Great-Great-Grandparents home.
I did get to see the home of a “general”. James Z. George home is located in N Carrollton and was used in the movie “The Help”.
James Z. George was a colonel in the CS Army. However before that, Mississippi Governor Pettus appointed hime Adjutant General of Mississippi State Troops. So even after he resigned, he still call “general”.
 
Apparently the building that is there today (built after 1903) replaced the original structure that was used as a Confederate Hospital.

"The site’s history dates back to the discovery of deep wells with “healing” water in 1835. A girls’ boarding school opened there in 1854 and the original hotel served as a Confederate hospital after the Battle of Corinth in 1862. A Kentucky soldier left us diary entries of his time there: “April 23, 1862. The [Castalian] Springs are three miles from town [Durant] and the soldiers were brought out in carriages….I am in a room on the second floor, occupied by ‘Morgan’s men,’ the boys I came with, belonging to that ‘layout.’..The building is a two-story frame with ‘wings,’ ‘ells,’ etc. an is accomodating nearly three hundred sick and wounded….nearly all Kentuckians. The grounds are tastefully arranged about the springs, and the scenery in the vicinity is romantic. There was lately a female school kept in this place…..This evening had some pleasant conversation with ladies.”

Forty-three of the soldiers are buried not far from the existing hotel, which replaced the one described above, lost to fire in 1903." http://daughterofthedelta.com/2011/05/26/spooks-and-spring-water/

Here is the sales listing which includes LOTS of pictures and a layout of the property. http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/18084324/6786-Castalian-Springs-Road-Durant-MS/
Hey, only out-buildings were destroyed...

"The main hotel building was spared." :smile coffee:


castalian1.jpg
 
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Hey, only out-buildings were destroyed...

"The main hotel building was spared."


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Great find !

That does explain a lot.
Especially when it was used as a 1960's ... Girl's School .

This article actually corresponds with what many "old timers" said.
They are long gone in 2022, but they always said the main structure survived that fire.
Yeah, they were young children during those days, but we seem to forget how much kids remember.

No doubt the main structure was updated over the years, but this find is another piece in the jigsaw puzzle.
 
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My dad always insisted that there is no such thing as a harmless snake or a harmless spider. He insisted that any of them can make you hurt yourself.
Your Dad was right !

Venomous or harmless, I don't care.
I hate those things.
Most of the time we have to make a split-second decision ... to kill an unknown serpent or not.

Yeah, we know a Water Moccasin/Cottonmouth but the lesser snakes look too much alike.


However, any snake is more of a potential threat than a ghost.

:smile coffee:
 
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