Stiles/Akin
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2016
- Location
- Atlanta, Georgia
LIGHTNING STRIKING TWICE
Years after the Civil war, Edward Porter Alexander told the story of his interaction with Wilmer McLean a family relative:
"When I first joined the Army of Northern Virginia in 1861, I found a connection of my family, Wilmer McLean, living on a fine farm through which ran Bull Run, with a nice farm-house about opposite the center of our line of battle along that stream. General Beauregard made his headquarters at this house during the first affair be...tween the armies—the so-called battle of Blackburn's Ford. . . .
"I had not seen or heard of McLean for years, when, the day after the surrender, I met him at Appomattox Court House, and asked with some surprise what he was doing there. He replied, with much indigation:
"What are you doing here? These armies tore my place on Bull Run all to pieces, and kept running over it backward and forward till no man could live there, so I just sold out and came here, two hundred miles away, hoping I should never see a soldier again. And now, just look around you! Not a fence-rail is left on the place, the last guns trampled down all my crops, and Lee surrenders to Grant in my house."
Years after the Civil war, Edward Porter Alexander told the story of his interaction with Wilmer McLean a family relative:
"When I first joined the Army of Northern Virginia in 1861, I found a connection of my family, Wilmer McLean, living on a fine farm through which ran Bull Run, with a nice farm-house about opposite the center of our line of battle along that stream. General Beauregard made his headquarters at this house during the first affair be...tween the armies—the so-called battle of Blackburn's Ford. . . .
"I had not seen or heard of McLean for years, when, the day after the surrender, I met him at Appomattox Court House, and asked with some surprise what he was doing there. He replied, with much indigation:
"What are you doing here? These armies tore my place on Bull Run all to pieces, and kept running over it backward and forward till no man could live there, so I just sold out and came here, two hundred miles away, hoping I should never see a soldier again. And now, just look around you! Not a fence-rail is left on the place, the last guns trampled down all my crops, and Lee surrenders to Grant in my house."
Bringing the