From Our Past

Fun Facts from my research, This Week in History, etc.

Civil War Home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis

/ sandramervillehart

Confederate President Jefferson Davis moved his family to the former  home of Dr. John Brockenbrough in Richmond, Virginia. This home served as the executive mansion from August, 1861, until April 2, 1865.

The capital of Virginia became the Confederate capital. The once quiet city changed into a transportation hub. Military headquarters, hospitals center for wounded soldiers, and a prison for captured Union soldiers increased the city’s population. Richmond also boasted of industries such as the Tredegar Iron Works.

Citizens grew accustomed to changes the war brought to their city though they didn’t enjoy knowing the Union army saw Richmond as a target.

Davis held important meetings with his generals at the executive mansion. Richmond citizens and military leaders often gathered in Davis’s parlor, where Varina, his wife, participated in war discussions.

Meticulous with details, Davis had a difficult time delegating. His family lay tucked in bed long after he still worked. His dignified demeanor coupled with his military and political career made him popular in the beginning. His impatience with folks who didn’t see eye-to-eye with him soon chipped away at his popularity.

His family also suffered personal tragedy while living at the White House of the Confederacy. His five-year-old son, Joseph, fell and died in 1864.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Biography: Jefferson Davis,” Civil War Trust, 2017/10/29

https://www.civilwar.org/learn/biographies/jefferson-davis.

“Jefferson Davis,” Wikipedia, 2017/10/29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis.

“The White House and Museum of the Confederacy,” American Civil War Museum, 2017/10/29 https://acwm.org/about-us/our-story/museum-white-house-confederacy.

Civil War Confederate President Jefferson Davis

/ sandramervillehart / 2 Comments

Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his family lived in the home of Dr. John Brockenbrough in Richmond, Virginia. This home served as the executive mansion from August, 1861, to April 2, 1865.

Davis had suffered from many personal losses before he stepped into the foyer of the impressive Federal style mansion in Richmond.

He fell in love with Zachary Taylor’s daughter, Sarah, while the future President Taylor was still a Colonel. Recognizing the difficulties of frontier army life, Taylor refused to allow Sarah to become a military wife.

His reasons swayed Davis to resign from his post. The couple married on June 17, 1835. Two months later, the newlyweds traveled to his sister’s home in Louisiana. Sadly, they both fell ill with malaria. Sarah died. Davis’s family feared that malaria would also take Jefferson’s life, but he slowly recovered.

He lived on his Mississippi cotton plantation for about eight years before meeting Varina Howell, a guest at his brother’s home. He proposed and married the eighteen-year-old in 1845.

Samuel Emory, their oldest son, was born in 1852 and died a month shy of his second birthday. Margaret Howell was born in 1855—Davis’s only child who married. Jefferson Davis, Jr., was born in 1857. A third son, Joseph,  was two when the Davis family moved to Richmond.

Varina was pregnant with William Howell in August of 1861.

When Davis crossed the threshold into his new home, he didn’t know that his son, Joseph, would fall to his death at age five in 1864. Or that Varina Anne “Winnie” would be born two months after Joseph’s death. Winnie, born during the war, became known as the Daughter of the Confederacy.

In addition to his personal sorrows, Davis suffered from old battle wounds, recurring bouts of malaria, a chronic eye infection, and trigeminal neuralgia, a painful nerve disorder.

Davis was selected as President for a six-year term, a job he didn’t want. With his training at West Point and his army experience, he preferred a military command. As President, he had little patience for folks who disagreed with him.

No, Davis could not know all the difficulties that awaited him as he stepped into the mansion in Richmond. His courage might have failed had he been able to see into the future.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Biography: Jefferson Davis,” Civil War Trust, 2017/10/29

https://www.civilwar.org/learn/biographies/jefferson-davis.

“Jefferson Davis,” Wikipedia, 2017/10/29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis.

“The White House and Museum of the Confederacy,” American Civil War Museum, 2017/10/29 https://acwm.org/about-us/our-story/museum-white-house-confederacy.

“White House of the Confederacy,” NPS.gov, 2017/10/29 https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/richmond/WhiteHouse_of_theConfederacy.html.

 

Civil War President Lincoln’s Summer Home

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George Riggs, a wealthy banker, sold his 256-acre summer retreat known as “Corn Rigs” in 1851 to the U.S. government. The Gothic Revival country cottage was used as a Soldiers’ Home.

Retired soldiers moved to a larger building. President Buchanan, after receiving an invitation from the Old Soldiers’ Home, used the location three miles from the White House as a summer home.

President Lincoln and his family lived in a cottage on the property from June to November from 1862-64. The family enjoyed the peaceful beauty away from the populated capital.

Lincoln didn’t shirk his presidential duties. Cavalry troops with drawn swords accompanied his daily rides to and from the White House. This commute took him past hospitals. Past camps for former slaves. Past cemeteries. No, Lincoln could not forget his duty.

Lincoln’s family was evacuated back to the White House from the Old Soldiers’ Home in July of 1864 when Confederate General Jubal Early attacked Fort Stevens. The battle was about a mile from the Old Soldiers’ Home. President Lincoln went out to observe the battle on July 12th, a risky decision. He is the only sitting president to come under hostile fire.

Even his daily commute to his summer residence placed him in danger when a sniper tried to shoot him.

President Hayes and President Arthur also stayed at the cottage while in office.

The Soldiers’ Home is now the Washington Unit of the Armed Forces Retirement Home. President Lincoln’s Cottage is open for tours, but buy tickets in advance to reserve a spot.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home,” NPS.gov, 2017/07/04  https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/presidents/lincoln_cottage.html.

“The Soldiers’ Home,” President Lincoln’s Cottage, 2017/07/04 http://www.lincolncottage.org/the-soldiers-home/.

 

Civil War Kansas Soldiers’ Home

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Both individuals and organizations became concerned over the needs of disabled and elderly Civil War veterans in the years following the war. One in Connecticut, Fitch’s Home for Soldiers and Their Orphans, opened in 1864—before the war ended.

A soldiers’ home in Georgetown, Kentucky, was the first Confederate home that opened. A few states operated separate homes for Union and Confederate soldiers. No federal funds were given to Confederate veterans.

At least one facility, Kansas Soldiers’ Home in Fort Dodge, welcomed both Union and Confederate soldiers.

Fort Dodge, built in 1865, was about 5 miles from Dodge City. It was a fort before becoming the Kansas State Soldiers’ Home that opened in 1890. The home used many of the old buildings.

Times were rocky in those early years for veterans. Quarreling and drunkenness got some folks dismissed. The home had to collect and remove croquet sets when some residents used mallets during quarrels.

July 4, 1890 proved to be a special celebration at the home. Dodge City citizens visited the event recognizing both Union and Confederate veterans.

Soldiers who had fought in the Mexican War and Indian battles lived in the home and, later, black veterans were also welcomed.

Visitors are invited to tour several buildings at Fort Dodge Soldiers Home.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Fort Dodge,” Kansastravel.org, 2017/07/07 http://www.kansastravel.org/fortdodge.htm.

“Kansas Soldiers’ Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Soldiers%27_Home.

“Old Soldiers’ Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_soldiers%27_home.

 

Civil War Federal Soldiers’ Homes

/ sandramervillehart

The first U.S. home for disabled veterans and orphans of soldiers was founded by Benjamin Fitch of Darien, Connecticut. He paid for almost all the expenses of the home built while the Civil War still raged in 1864. The facility was renamed “Fitch’s Home for Soldiers” when control was handed over the state in 1887.

The U.S. government bought the Togus Springs Hotel in 1866. The Maine hotel became the Eastern Branch of the National Asylum For Disabled Volunteer Veterans. Read more about this home here.

A building was erected in Minneapolis to provide a soldiers’ home in 1888. One cottage for women and five cottages for men were on the Minnesota Soldiers’ Home property near Minnehaha Falls by 1911.

The beautiful Minnesota land was meant to be a peaceful place. Soldiers didn’t receive medical care at the facility. World War I changed that policy, but didn’t make it a priority.

Colonel George Washington Steele introduced legislation in 1888. He hoped to establish a national home in Grant County, Indiana. Despite Steele’s worry that it wouldn’t pass, Congress approved it that year. Indiana citizens in Marion celebrated the passing of the bill on July 30, 1888, the city’s largest crowd ever.

The National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Marion Branch, opened in 1890. The facility, also known as Marion National Home, enrolled 586 veterans that year. They built a hospital to treat patients there, hiring Cincinnati female nurses as part of the staff.

The facility grew beyond capacity with veterans sleeping on the floor in 1892. New buildings were erected. The need heightened with World War I veterans and about 60 new structures had been added by 1919. Among these were additional living quarters, warehouses, supply buildings, greenhouses, a fire station, and memorials.

White veterans and United States Colored Troops were welcomed into the homes.

Federal soldiers’ homes did not allow Confederate veterans.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“A Home for Volunteers: Togus and the National Soldiers’ Homes,” The Gettysburg Compiler, 2017/07/04 https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2017/05/29/a-home-for-volunteers-togus-and-the-national-soldiers-homes/.

“History of Darien, Connecticut,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Darien,_Connecticut.

“Minnesota Veterans Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Veterans_Home.

“National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Marion Branch,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Home_for_Disabled_Volunteer_Soldiers,_Marion_Branch.

“Togus, Maine,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togus,_Maine.

 

Civil War Federal Soldiers’ Home at Togus, Maine

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The U.S. government bought the Togus Springs Hotel in 1866. The Maine hotel became the Eastern Branch of the National Asylum For Disabled Volunteer Veterans.

The hotel already had a bathing house, large pool, bowling alley, race track, and a stable. New barracks, a chapel, and a hospital were being erected for the 200 veterans living there by the middle of 1867 with three dormitories and recreation building following in 1868.

When the asylum opened, only Union soldiers able to prove that their injury was connected with their service were allowed to stay. Then War of 1812 and Mexican War veterans were accepted if they didn’t fight for the Confederacy. The facility never opened its doors to Confederate soldiers.

Togus residents wore blue army uniforms available from a surplus. It operated much like the military with military discipline and guardhouse confinements. The veteran’s entire pension was signed over to the home in payment for their care.

The National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers constructed a bakery, brickyard, fire station, carpentry shop, sawmill, butcher shop, boot and shoe factory, blacksmith shop, soap works, store, library, harness shop, and an opera house theater. Residents earned money by working at the farm or shops if physically able.

The highest number of veterans living there was about 2,800 in 1904.

Civilians enjoyed the recreations at Togus. Large crowds flocked for military band concerts, baseball games, performances at the opera house, and even a zoo.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“A Home for Volunteers: Togus and the National Soldiers’ Homes,” The Gettysburg Compiler, 2017/07/04 https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2017/05/29/a-home-for-volunteers-togus-and-the-national-soldiers-homes/.

“Togus, Maine,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togus,_Maine.

 

Civil War Confederate Soldiers’ Homes

/ sandramervillehart

Soldiers’ Homes were established for Civil War veterans who could no longer care for themselves. A few states provided separate homes for Union and Confederate veterans. The federal government didn’t provide funds for the Confederate soldiers. This obligation fell on the states.

Confederate veteran Jefferson Manly Falkner founded what became known as the Alabama Confederate Soldiers Home in 1901. Falkner wanted to provide a home for veterans and their wives. Widows were allowed to live there after 1915.

Falkner donated 80 acres in the summer resort area of Mountain Creek where between 650 to 800 people found a home. The home’s last veteran died in 1934. Five widows remained until October of 1939 when the home closed.

Atlanta’s Confederate Soldiers’ Home, built in 1890, was also known as the Old Soldiers’ Home. Henry W. Grady raised funds for the home at 410 East Confederate Avenue through subscriptions until it finally opened in 1900. Fire destroyed the building in 1901, but it was rebuilt on the same location a year later. The home’s last veteran died in 1941.

The old Kentucky Confederate Home was the former Villa Ridge Inn just outside the Pewee Valley Confederate Cemetery. There was a hospital, entertainment, and religious services. There was housing for 350 veterans and a total of 700 former Confederate soldiers eventually called it home.

There were a few prerequisites to living at the Kentucky home. Besides being a former Confederate soldier, residents had to be mentally stable, a resident of the state for at least 6 months, and not an alcoholic.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Alabama Confederate Soldiers Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Confederate_Soldiers_Home.

“Confederate Soldiers’ Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Soldiers%27_Home.

“Old Soldiers’ Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_soldiers%27_home.

“Peewee Valley Confederate Cemetery,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewee_Valley_Confederate_Cemetery.

 

Civil War Post-War Home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis

/ sandramervillehart

Widow Sarah Dorsey invited former Confederate President Jefferson Davis to stay at Beauvoir, her 608-acre cotton plantation in Biloxi, Mississippi. She provided a cottage for Davis to live in with his wife, Varina, and their daughter, Winnie.

Sarah, a novelist and author of biography of Louisiana Governor Henry Watkins Allen, aided Davis in writing his memoir. She organized notes and took dictation. Davis’s book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, published in 1881, two years after Sarah died.

Sarah willed her plantation to Davis and his daughter, Winnie.

The Davis family moved into the main house after the inheritance, where Davis lived until his dead in 1889. Varina wrote Jefferson Davis: A Memoir (1890) and then moved to New York City with her daughter in 1891.

After Winnie died in 1898, Varina owned Beauvoir. She sold a large portion to the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It was to be a home for Confederate veterans and widows and then as a memorial to Davis.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans built a hospital, 12 barracks, and a chapel. About 2,500 veterans and their families lived there from 1903 to 1957.

Today this site is a Confederate Soldier Museum. Visitors will also see the former Confederate Veterans’ Home, cottage plantation home, the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum, historic Confederate cemetery with a Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Beauvoir (Biloxi, Mississippi,)” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauvoir_(Biloxi,_Mississippi).

 

 

Tuckaleechee Caverns

/ sandramervillehart / 2 Comments

Tuckaleechee Caverns earns its title of “The Greatest Sight Under the Smokies.” This treasure is found in Townsend, Tennessee, only a few miles from Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg in the Smokies.

My dad was from that area and I remembered him talking about Tuckaleechee Caverns. He said that it was a “whole different world down in the caves” and planned to take us but never made it. Remembering this, my husband and I took our daughter there and were very impressed.

With millions of formations seen throughout the tour, the cave also boasts of a Big Room which is greater than 400 feet long, 300 feet across, 150 feet deep. The highest ceilings in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, for comparison, are around 120 feet.

The cave also has a sparkling, clear stream running through it that leads to a double waterfall. Silver Falls is a beautiful surprise in this underground adventure. The falls has a 210-foot drop–the tallest subterranean waterfall in the Eastern United States.

Cherokee Indians, according to legend, knew of the caverns long before the white man discovered them in the mid-1800s.

Before local residents knew about the cave, they discovered breezes around a sink hole. Women toted their sewing and their children there during the heat of summer to enjoy the refreshing air.

The caves were found when sawmill workers watched water flow into the sink hole after heavy rains.

Two friends, W.E. “Bill” Vananda and Harry Myers, played in the caverns as boys. They pretended to be Tom Sawyer as they explored the cave carrying “homemade lamps—pop bottles filled with kerosene.”

While in college the men decided to open the cave as tourist attraction. It required hard work to prepare for tourists. The friends toted tons of cement, sand, and gravel to the cave so visitors would have steps and easy passageways to view the sights. Vananda and Myers opened the cave in 1953.

For those fearing that the wildfires of 2016 destroyed Tuckaleechee Caverns and the rest of the sights at Gatlinburg, put your fears to rest. Less than 10% of the park burned. My husband and I traveled there with family earlier this month. We filled a week with endless activity in the Smokies, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Tuckaleechee Caverns. We hated to leave! There is plenty to see and folks who need to rebuild are coming back even stronger.

The mountains are beautiful any time of the year but especially so in the summer and fall.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Tuckaleechee Caverns,” Tuckaleechee Caverns, 2017/09/16 http://www.tuckaleecheecaverns.com/.

 

The Making of Brooms

/ sandramervillehart / 15 Comments

Today’s post is written by fellow author, Sandra Ardoin. A broom factory figures prominently in her novel, A Reluctant Melody. Welcome, Sandra!

 We all use them, those handy brooms to sweep the dirt from our floors. They’ve been around in one form or another since the dawn of housecleaning. In the early days, it could have been something as simple as a branch or backyard brush—whatever was handy at the time.

Then in 1797 a New Englander by the name of Levi Dickenson decided to make a broom for his wife from sorghum tassels (minus the seeds). Today, we call it broom corn. Like all good inventions, it needed improvement after it fell apart too easily to suit Levi. Even so, his neighbors were impressed and insisted he make them one. This started an industry as he went on to invent a machine with a foot-treadle for ease in filling the orders he received.

In the mid-19th century, the Shakers, who were always an innovative lot, improved Levi’s process, using wire rather than heavy twine to bind the material to the handle. Brooms originally had a round form, but the Shakers employed a vise to flatten the broom and give it shoulders. Then they applied the stitching. They increased the function of their product by also creating the whisk broom.

As the 19th century wore on, small shops across the United States became broom factories and broom corn growth moved to the states we normally think of as being most agricultural. In the first quarter of the 1900s, broom factories began to close. By the end of the 20th century, most of the brooms available to Americans were made outside the U.S.

Though many of the brooms purchased today are made of synthetics, some people continue to craft them the old-fashioned way with the original types of materials—a wooden handle and broom corn—on machines over a hundred years old.

-Sandra Ardoin

BIO:

Sandra Ardoin writes inspirational historical romance. She’s the author of The Yuletide Angel and the award-winning A Reluctant Melody. A wife and mom, she’s also a reader, football fan, NASCAR watcher, garden planter, country music listener, and antique store prowler. Visit her at www.sandraardoin.com and on the Seriously Write blog. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads, and Pinterest. Join her email community to receive occasional updates and a free short story.

A Reluctant Melody

A pariah among her peers, Joanna Stewart is all too eager to sell her property and flee the rumors that she sent her late husband to an early grave. But she will let the gossips talk and the walls of her rundown property crumble around her before she’ll allow Kit Barnes back into her life. When a blackmailer threatens to reveal her long-held secret, she must choose between trusting Kit or seeing her best friend trapped in an abusive marriage.