What Drew You?

[damYankee]

Like many other forum members I grew up in the 50's and even though I lived in Calif. I felt a strong attraction to the history of the Civil War. My great grandfather Charles Davis came to live with us for a few months when I was six. He was born in 1870, his father had served in the Iowa 24th Cav. and was wounded twice, his last engagement was at Cedar Creek. I still remember listening to grandpa Davis telling me about growing up, how his father dealt with health problems from wounds and how 25 years after the war he moved to Shenandoah Valley to live in a veteran home. Grandpa Davis was himself a veteran of the Spanish American War, he was working in Columbia managing a banana plantation for United Fruit Company when the war started. After that war he became a journalist, he was hired by Hubert Howe Bancroft.
If you never heard of Bancroft, here is a link;
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/bancroft.html
Grandpa Davis worked for him for ten years studying Western American history, the Indian tribes of the Pacific Coast and Mexico. He went on to be a reporter for many news agencies, reported from the front lines (and more then a few Paris night clubs) of WWI. He was in Russia when the Revolution started. Later assigned to New York City, then to South America where he worked during WWII. His collecting of books number in the thousands and most were willed to the Bancroft Collection upon his death in 1969. He once was laughed out of town for writing a story claiming man would "walk on the moon in our life time..He had the last laugh on that one.
In 1991 my grandmother passed, I found letter he had written to her over the last 20 years of his life trying to reconnect with his only child who he had abandoned to report on WWI.
That is who and what sparked it in me.

 

[East Tennessee Roots]

I'm a child of the 50's ( born in1948 ) My widowed paternal grandmother was born in 1894 and lived with us. My maternal grandparents were born in 1901 and 1911. All three could remember stories about and in some cases actually had contact with grandfathers who served in the war grandmothers widowed by the war, great-uncles, cousins, in-laws, and outlaws who fought on one side or the other and in some cases switched sides. There were probably times when they wondered about their little grandson and wondered how he could be interested in something they probably tired of hearing about when they were kids. They would patiently tell me the same stories over and over and I would listen like it was the first time . The first book I remember checking out of the library in elementary school was a child' history of the Civil War with great art work ! On the cover was a drawing of a yank and rebel locked in mortal combat with their bayonets crossed much like my avatar. On my eleventh birthday I received a set of " Photographic History of the Civil War " I quickly learned to appreciate the service and sacrifice of both sides, being from eastern Tennessee ! My home county of Sullivan, sent countless men across Clinch Mountain to Camp Nelson Kentucky and the Union Army at the same time Sullivan was known to east Tennessee Unionists as " Little Confederacy." On the flip side my paternal 2 x great-grandfather was one of many of Lee's Tar-Heels from Wilkes County NC. To western North Carolina Confederate folk Wilkes County was called " the old Union. " My interest had really lessened a great deal until seeing the PBS series. I can remember watching the old reunion films that had just been discovered at that time ( at least I'd never seen them ) and thinking those old men were the same ones I saw all those years in my mind as I read of what hey did ! I was actually moved to tears ! Not missed a beat since ! Thanks for a great question !

 

[Blessmag]

Being born in the only town named Lincoln before he became famous; christened the town with a watermelon
Being dragged to Lincoln's New Salem
Seeing the tomb and the Lincoln home
Reading Bruce Catton

But what really got me was seeing in the family photos a copy of my gr.gr grandfather's discharge papers

Then doing research on the internet for 126th Ill Inf. and seeing a link of DWMack's about the 126th I got hooked on this site (in spite of the Texans-)

 

[Linda Duff]

Watching the "The Blue and The Gray" in 1982 and seeing that Bruce Catton had written it. I read all his books, then progressed to Ken Burn's "The Civil War" in 1990 and I've never looked back.

 

[Glorybound]

Saw 'Gone With The Wind' in 1964 at the theater, heard my mom talk about Lincoln all the time when I was growing up (she was born and raised in Spencer Co. Indiana, where Lincoln spent his boyhood). The final hook was hearing about 'The Killer Angels' on an NPR broadcast while driving to Bloomington in 1982, which prompted me to buy the book shortly afterwards, read it and...that's all she wrote!

 

[littledoug]

As a young child in Virginia it was just sort of always in the background. Then about 4th grade I picked up The Day Lincoln Was Shot from my Grandfather's attic (which had more books than many small town lending libraries) and devoured it in one long day. We lived not far from Appomatox and kept pestering my parents to visit. Then they started getting me books related to the topic, such as volumes by Catton, photography. etc. We would stop (briefly only) at monuments when going through places like Winchester. Then when I was ten the centennial rolled around and there was ever more hoopla. Later I became more interested in math and science and moved north so the topic was less 'in your face,' but the compulsion to know more has always been lurking. Have too many competing distractions to be as focused as many here seem to be, but love the availability of reasoned opinions and information both mundane and arcane.