I Used To Think...

[Stryker65]

Like my other whimsy-related thread, Funny Research Finds, this thread is mostly for fun, and would rely on audience (your) participation. I saw this in a YouTube video once, and I thought it could be applied here -- what is something you used to think when you were first starting out with research, and learned it was not so later on?

I used to think a "12-pounder" meant that the cannon weighed only twelve pounds. Embarrassing that I even considered it.

 

[WinterLeia]

The first time I saw a picture of Alexander Stephens I thought the Confederacy must have been really hard up for politicians if they elected a twelve-year-old boy as their Vice President.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Hollywood is worthless for presenting anything with historical accuracy.

I recall the age of "The Beverly Hillbillies and Gomer Pyle" so I hear what you are saying. The golden age of Hollywood in the last century was less than golden in the way they often characterized lots of people from various regions of our country. (Was everyone from Chicago a mobster?) Thankfully that isn't the money making formula it used to be, because bottom line, most people today have no interest in those kinds of movies.

As you point out, sharing beliefs with other people has absolutely nothing to do with what side of the Ohio River they live on. The Civil War is over — and has been for a long time.

I say this humorously, but let people think what they will think. On my Dad's side of the family we are "Southerners from Illinois."

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

I say this humorously, but let people think what they will think. On my Dad's side of the family we are "Southerners from Illinois."

My father never told me why my grandfather from Illinois moved to Georgia in about 19

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

I say this humorously, but let people think what they will think. On my Dad's side of the family we are "Southerners from Illinois."

My grandfather from Illinois moved with his wife to Georgia in about 1918, at age 37. My father never told me why his father moved to GA. He had served in the U.S. Cavalry in 1900-1903, and operated a cinnabar (mercury) mine in Arizona from about 1909-1912. There was no apparent, logical reason for him to move to GA. He became foreman of the Clapps Plantation in Peach County, GA prior to opening his own businesses (a fruit stand in Macon, GA and a hamburger stand, from which he retired). We will never know why my Yankee grandfather, whose own father fought in the 13th IL Cavalry, moved to Georgia.

 

[Stryker65]

The first time I saw a picture of Alexander Stephens I thought the Confederacy must have been really hard up for politicians if they elected a twelve-year-old boy as their Vice President.

His "official picture" that we see everywhere really makes him look like a kid. No offense, Mr. Stephens.

@Jenxiez

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

My grandfather from Illinois moved with his wife to Georgia in about 1918, at age 37. My father never told me why his father moved to GA. He had served in the U.S. Cavalry in 1900-1903, and operated a cinnabar (mercury) mine in Arizona from about 1909-1912. There was no apparent, logical reason for him to move to GA. He became foreman of the Clapps Plantation in Peach County, GA prior to opening his own businesses (a fruit stand in Macon, GA and a hamburger stand, from which he retired). We will never know why my Yankee grandfather, whose own father fought in the 13th IL Cavalry, moved to Georgia.

Are you sure it wasn't for the absolutely wonderful weather? A lot of actual Union soldiers settled in the South after the war for just that reason. Their diaries were full of wonder for the spring like weather they encountered during what would be times of harsh Northern winters.

Then of course, the children of Yankees fell in love with the children of Rebels and vise versa and life went on, as it always does.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Are you sure it wasn't for the absolutely wonderful weather? A lot of actual Union soldiers settled in the South after the war for just that reason. Their diaries were full of wonder for the spring like weather they encountered during what would be times of harsh Northern winters.

Then of course, the children of Yankees fell in love with the children of Rebels and vise versa and life went on, as it always does.

Don't know, but you have some good points!

 

[DixieRifles]

This post is from an "Anonymous Friend" who I've known since elementary school in the Mississippi Delta. He now lives in LA —— not Lower Alabama but Los Angeles

(1) l use to think the Battle of Gettysburg happened in far away Pennsylvania. I didn't
realize what a potential pivotal role Mississippi troops played there. It was so far away, why would Mississippi troops would go there to fight.
Never forget the glorious Barksdale Brigade at the Peach Orchard on Day 2! Onward the 13th, 17th, 18th regiments! And last but not least the 21st Mississippi under our own Col. Benjamin Humphreys, founder of dear ol' Itta Bena$, MS!

$ Itta Bena was the location of our high school we attended: Leflore County HS.

(2) I use to think Ulysses S. Grant was just another Yankee.
Name another soul in human history so magnanimous in victory than Lt. General U.S. Grant. It's no wonder his Presidential Library is kept by his former foes at Mississippi
State University. Go State! Go Dawgs!

This reminds me a conclusion I made.
But this was just the opposite. I found the grave of my Great-granduncle Robert E. Cole who died Dec 1, 1861. I said there was no battle that early in/near Mississippi so this man died too early to be a soldier.
Truth was he did enlist in 22 Mississippi and died of disease that first winter. And of course there WERE battles in nearby Tennessee — one against Colonel US Grant.

 

[Desolu64]

Still snares quite many people today. More than a few equate "casualty" to "killed".

The jacket of the home video version of "Gettysburg" doesn't exactly help when it claims that "50,000 men had paid the ultimate price" when the battle was over.

 

[Old Soldier]

I used to think ....

But I'm all right now!

 

[Louisiana Tiger]

Yes. I actually believed that. I asked adults what year the Earth changed to color.

That's an easy one: It was when Disney's wonderful world of color debuted on TV on Sunday nights!

 

[Lubliner]

Looking up "___'s (state) Battery" so often on Google was what taught me that "battery" was a crime of some sort.

I actually had no clue as to the meaning. I couldn't put 'masked' + 'battery' together and come up with an idea.
Lubliner.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

I actually had no clue as to the meaning. I couldn't put 'masked' + 'battery' together and come up with an idea.

I'm glad I never encountered the term "masked battery" until relatively recently. I would be left wondering about highway robbers armed with cannons, or cannon equipped with some kind of suppressor/silencer.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Are you sure it wasn't for the absolutely wonderful weather? A lot of actual Union soldiers settled in the South after the war for just that reason. Their diaries were full of wonder for the spring like weather they encountered during what would be times of harsh Northern winters.

Florida has been attractive to Northerners for a long time, and not just for the weather and its perceived benefits to their health issues.

Florida had a lot of land available via the Homestead Act.

People moved here to grow citrus or pineapples or tropical plants. They saw business opportunities running hotels, tourist camps, tourist attractions, or construction companies or dealing in real estate. They found work in the lumber, turpentine, or phosphate industries, or with the network of railroads.

Moving to another region of the country where one has never lived and has no family was not as common then as it has become now, but people saw opportunities and took them.