What Was Your " Where's Buster? ", Before We Were Geeks- Cough It Up, CWT

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
pigs wings.jpg

I'm still attracted to flying pigs, not as impossibilities, as examples of things you'd love to believe. NYPL

You know the " Where's Buster's Grave? " question? It's actually a fair question considering Killer Angels made it into popular culture. A ton of folks previously uninterested in history much less our Civil War got sucked in and are now as geeky as the rest of us. AND try to forget they ever showed up at Gettysburg to ask that question.

What was YOUR " Where's Buster's Grave? ", or less obviously silly, much regretted take on the war? Myths you were forced to let go, fondly held, erroneous impressions? Players in the conflict you kinda liked before discovering say, Sickeles wasn't Sickles. I deeply suspect several of our members never had one, most of us did. It's a little too easy poking fun at the " Where's Buster? " population, haven't we all been part of the census at some point? Obvious disclaimer, please no " Well THEY say the war was over slavery ' opportunistic stuff?

Cough it up. One of mine would be having to figure out where JPK's brother, Sam Huson, 14th Iliinois died, Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing? Took awhile...
 
Never heard that question before “Where’s Buster’s Grave”? IMO Maybe this is referring to a grave of a lost person that one may never know or find! Have no clue...
Sgt Buster Kilrain was a very popular, but entirely fictional, character in the book Killer Angels, and the movie "Gettysburg." Many people, knowing little if anything of the battle beyond that book/movie took him to be a historical figure, often amused guides, etc, by inquiring after Buster's gravesite.

He was a wonderfully entertaining and revealing character (though some sourpusses claim to scorn him), and the only fictional personage in The Killer Angels.
See: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/the-killer-angels/buster-kilrain
 
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Never heard that question before “Where’s Buster’s Grave”? IMO Maybe this is referring to a grave of a lost person that one may never know or find! Have no clue...
Referring to the fictional character Buster of the 20th Maine in the movie Gettysburg and tourists going to Gettysburg searching for his grave.
 
I can't think of a specific moment off the top of my head but being a reenactor I still come across facts that go against some of the "reenactorisms" that have been pounded into my head over the years which make you feel kind of dumb. But that's all part of learning and the rewarding part of putting in the time to do your homework and hope that never ends.
 
Dont worry @Seduzal I didn't know what Where is Buster's grave meant either. But I do have a story to go with @JPK Huson 1863 's question. Back in 2015, I was pretty much a newbie. I had run across this great 1892 newspaper article where someone - cant recall who- was critiquing US Grant and others' horsemanship. It was a great article and since someone had already been taking about Grant being an excellent horseman, I thought Id post it up in the Forum. So off I go looking for a picture of Grant on horseback to go with it.....I post up the thread with a nice picture of Grant aboard a nice looking horse. Not knowing much about Grant at all, I had no idea that particular image had been debunked years ago. Turns out to be a montage compilation or "Photoshop" image all pasted together. I had no idea! until some kind member kindly pointed it out to me.:bounce:
 
Thank you for your reply’s @John Hartwell @captaindrew But I have no clue.. never was interested in reading the book “Killer Angels”. Sorry!
Buster was the voice of the common man, an old soldier, and Irish immigrant to boot. His character sounds a down-to-earth counterpoint to all the high-falutin' officers the book focuses on.

Speaking, as always, to Chamberlain:

"The point is that we have a country here where the past cannot keep a good man in chains, and that's the nature of the war. It's the aristocracy I'm after. All that lovely, plumed, stinking chivalry. The people who look at you like a piece of filth, a cockroach, ... ah!
"Equality? Christ in Heaven. What I'm fighting for is the right to prove I'm a better man than many. There's many a man worse than me, and some better. But I don't think race or country matters a d*mn. What matters is justice. 'Tis why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain, and I d*mn all gentlemen. I don't know who me father was and I don't give a d*mn. There's only one aristocracy, and that's right here—"[he tapped his white skull with a thick finger] — "and you, Colonel laddie, are a member of it and don't even know it."
 
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Oh, I have a pile of Buster's graves stacked out back! With Forrest as my little niche specialty, the legend quite often becomes the truth...and it's literally generations before reality comes out. Strangely, with him, the truth is wearing a loud chartreuse shirt and banana yellow slacks while the legend is wearing a potato sack. Not too often it works in reverse!
 
Dont worry @Seduzal I didn't know what Where is Buster's grave meant either. But I do have a story to go with @JPK Huson 1863 's question. Back in 2015, I was pretty much a newbie. I had run across this great 1892 newspaper article where someone - cant recall who- was critiquing US Grant and others' horsemanship. It was a great article and since someone had already been taking about Grant being an excellent horseman, I thought Id post it up in the Forum. So off I go looking for a picture of Grant on horseback to go with it.....I post up the thread with a nice picture of Grant aboard a nice looking horse. Not knowing much about Grant at all, I had no idea that particular image had been debunked years ago. Turns out to be a montage compilation or "Photoshop" image all pasted together. I had no idea! until some kind member kindly pointed it out to me.:bounce:


That's the kind of thing- I've done the same thing a dozen times! Too funny. The photo you used actually has a write-up on LoC. I guess Brady's son was left in charge of his father's work after Matthew died, tried to drum up more business with a little photo-shopping! Photos are a GREAT example. It only takes being bitten once to go out of your way to make sure it never happens again!

So sorry, @Seduzal , in my head everyone on the planet has read " Killer Angels ". In the REAL world, of course they haven't!

Funny thing occurred to me....once while visiting the 20th Me. marker, someone had placed a nice white cross with R.I.P. Buster Kilrain


THAT is hysterical!! Guessing the guides were obligated to take it down eventually, also guessing they wished they could leave it there.

Oh, I have a pile of Buster's graves stacked out back!


THAT'S where he is, at your house? Diane, put up a sign, charge admission. We could come up with a GREAT story why he's buried all the way out there.
 
As literal-minded as I am, I immediately wondered where the dead of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg would be-- in the national cemetery on site? Sent the bodies back to Maine? Something else?

As has been noted by others, Buster is Michael Shaara's own voice in the book. The great thing about historical fiction is being able to project yourself right back into the middle of things...

To address the OP question, though, once upon a time I thought that the Monitor's turret guns were pointed in opposite directions, 180 degrees from each other. (To be fair, I was a kid, and a few inaccurate period illustrations actually showed it that way...)
 
Hmm, before I was a geek? Who shot Roger Rabbit was the last example I never solved, and the first was; who shot J. R. in the Television show 'Dallas', which was supposed to be a cliff hanger. After hearing he was still live to my amazed disbelief, I never went back to the cliff to know it personally. Just as Sherlock Holmes returns after his terrible mishap with Moriarty, I investigated the possibilities of his story, and came to the conclusion it was true. He lived on. And to this day we have reports of Elvis, Butch Cassidy, but Sundance is still that 'shot in the dark' that gives us a moment to pause and know better than to get too close.
Lubliner.
 
I kinda like the ' He's still alive ' theories, seeing complete and utter optimists at the root of them, not deluded ninnies. Bigfoot, too. ONLY an optimist could hang out in the woods at night howling. World's a mess, we need our optimists.

Son somehow grew up with the notion Grant was wandering around Gettysburg in July 1863. Don't ask me how, he'd been there.
 
Where is D.B. Cooper and that $200,000?
Mystified a whole generation of us. I let it go, forgot about it after Entebbe; or maybe the 1972 Olympic Terrorist attack. I don't remember which came first; chicken or the egg affair. This new generation has a new hero, as much as the older generation refuses to allow it. It mystified me when a sixteen year old juvenile learned to fly when there was no way, and crossed the country and landed in the Bahamas. Without getting squelched by the officials to acknowledge the likeness of "The Barefoot Bandit", capturing the imaginative wanderlust in every youthful heart, there is a definite precedent of accomplishment in what he choose to do. But don't let'em know the admiration you keep under the tongue and close to the heart, if you do.
Lubliner.
 
One myth I had for years I have been able to bury in Buster's Grave is the one that Lincoln first perpetuated in July 1863 when he claimed to everyone that Meade had Lee right in his grasp for the taking, but let him slip away. The retreat from Gettysburg is still very misunderstood because of Lincolns impassioned declaration that Meade was slow and deliberate, allowing Lee's army to escape back to Virginia. Coddington, Brown & Whittenberg, et. al. have set the record straight---Meade did just about all he could, Lee's army was far from defeated as it made its retreat, and had the armies seriously engaged at Falling Waters, a major Confederate victory may very well have been the final act of the Gettysburg campaign.
 
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