The Killing Field Where Corporal Welborn Died
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| A period rendition of Racoon Ford on the Rapidan River, Harpers Weekly online. |
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| Interpretative marker at Payne's Farm battlefield. |
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| News clip from the High Point, N.C. Enterprise, 1953, telling of historic significance of the Bell-Welborn cemetery. |
Edge Of Obscurity: Tracking The Ailing Confederate
Go to main page for this latest blog posting. Copyright, B.J. Welborn
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| Today, row homes watch over the former site of Winder Hospital in Richmond, Va. Possibly nothing remains of the hospital after 150 years but a couple of renovated wards used as residences. Local historians, however, debate whether any trace of Winder has survived modern development. |
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| The Virginia Home, a long-term, residential care facility, rises above this community between Robert Byrd Park and Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. Nearly 5,000 sick soldiers were being treated on any given day during the Civil War in this area along the James River where Winder Hospital once stood. |
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This public specialty school represents everyday life today in the neighborhood Winder Hospital once occupied. Residents this writer interviewed during a recent visit were unaware that the Confederacy's largest hospital operated 150 years ago where they now live. Nothing officially marks the hospital site. |
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| Civil War hospital wards often were crowded and full of misery and boredom, as was Winder Hospital. My ancestor, William Welborn, was recuperating from an illness in December 1864, when he wrote a letter to his father in Randolph County, N.C. This photo was taken in April 1865 at a hospital near Alexandria, Va. Photo, courtesy Library of Congress. |
Finding Sherman Amidst The Lions And Tigers And Bears
Go to main page for this latest blog posting.
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| Another view of the ruins of the Columbia Cotton Mill along the Saluda River, Columbia, S.C. The 1834 textile factory turned out goods for the Confederate cause during the American Civil War. |
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| The Saluda River flows tranquilly under the pedestrian/tram bridge at the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden recently. The bluff where Sherman's troops encamped lies at the upper left. Evidence of 15,000 years of human habitation have been found in the Saluda River Valley. Photo looks northwest. |
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| This monument to Union General Sherman stands watch in New York City's Central Park. The bronze tribute is one of many across America, including one in Washington, D.C. Photo, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. |
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| The "General Sherman" towers over the other trees in Sequoia National Park in California. The giant sequoia is the largest known, living single-stem tree on Earth. The tree was named after Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in 1879 by the naturalist James Wolverton, who had served as a lieutenant in the 9th Indiana Cavalry under Sherman. Photo, National Park Service. |
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| "Sherman Sites" bus tour guide Tom Elmore tells Civil War enthusiasts about Sherman's Rock recently. The Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens near Columbia, S.C. now protects the granite ledge where the Union General might, or might not, have slept before descending on the S.C. capital in 1865. Photo, Barry Ahrendt. |
From Earlier Blogs:
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Second page of the autographs of surviving
WWII Tuskegee Airmen I collected in 2004while attending a vintage air show in Camden, S.C. See latest blog (Dec. 2012) for first page of signatures. |
Misty Battlefields And Myths of Lesser People
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| Aerial view of the Tuskegee Airfield, where the Tuskegee Airmen trained during World War II in rural Alabama, 1943. Photo, U.S. Army Airforces via Wikipedia. When I visited the now privately owned airfield several years ago, surviving buildings were falling into ruin amid eerie silence. |
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The memorial to Col. Robert Gould Shaw by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Shaw, of Boston, led the 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment, which suffered heavy
casualties during the Civil War. The story of the regiment's unsuccessful attack on Confederate-held
Fort Wagner near Charleston, S.C., is told in the movie, "Glory."
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| Booker T. Washington, a former slave and famous proponent of education for African Americans. Washington helped found the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, known today as Tuskegee University, in 1881. When the memorial to Col. Robert Shaw, who led the 54th Massachuetts Colored Regiment during the Civil War, was dedicated in Boston in 1897, Washington delivered a moving address to the crowd. The Tuskegee Airfield is located near Washington's educational institution and home, The Oaks, in Alabama. The Oaks, a National Historic Site, was built of bricks made by Tuskegee students and faculty. The National Park Service restored the 1899 house in 1980. Washington, who wrote "Up From Slavery," died in The Oaks in 1915. |
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| Gravestone of my ancestral cousin Robert Welborn Pickens, and his wife, Kate Wigington, to whom Pickens was married 65 years. Widower Pickens wrote a poem titled "Lonely and Bereft," in Kate's memory. (See LETTERS page.) He also claimed that as a teen, he guarded the legendary "Confederate Gold" in Anderson, S. C. Pickens, born Aug. 31, 1847, died at age 100 on Feb. 19, 1948. He reportedly was the oldest surviving Confederate soldier in the Upstate when he died. |
'Lonely And Bereft' Soldier Burnishes His Legend
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| This historic marker shows where Confederate veteran Robert Welborn Pickens is buried. Pickens wrote to his mother's Welborn relatives that he could see this cemetery, where his American Revolution ancestors were buried, from his home near Easley, S.C. Photo: Find-A-Grave, thanks to Herb Parham III |
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| View of the Pickens family cemetery in Upstate South Carolina Photo, Find-A-Grave |
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| Col. Robert Welborn Pickens at home in rural Upstate South Carolina, circa 1945. Pickens burnished his legend and the legend of the "Confederate Gold" when he told a local newspaper that as a teen, he guarded kegs of the rebel treasury hidden in a train car in Anderson, S.C. |
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| Confederate President Jeff Davis fled from Virginia through the Carolinas to Georgia as Lee surrendered to Grant in April 1865. This marker near Abbeville, S.C., and other markers along Davis' escape route testify to this part of American Civil War history. But where lies the legendary Confederate Gold that might have accompanied Davis? |
Suffering and Death: Civil War Prisons
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| A period drawing of the infamous Andersonville Prison in remote Georgia, where 13,000 men died. Late in war, after the end of prisoner exchanges, prisoner-of-war camps like this one became cauldrons of deprivation, disease and death, horrendous conditions worse that on the battlefield. Today the National Historic Site is home to a national cemetery. Photo, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. |
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| The "Deadline" at prisoner of war camps stood about 17 feet from the prison walls. If a prisoner crossed the deadline, guards would shoot him on sight. My Confederate ancestor Robert Welborn likely wrote about a prisoner crossing the deadline at Confederate Camp Weldon in a letter to his father Joseph in 1864. The term "deadline," it seems, was first used in America during the Civil War. I took this photo when I visited Andersonville a while back. |
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| Graves of known and unknown warriors fill the landscape at the former Confederate prison in Salisbury, N.C. It was reported that nearly 12,000 prisoners died here during the Civil War, but later research claims the true number was closer to 5,000. The Salisbury Confederate Prison Association has more facts. Photo, National Park Service. |
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| I found this monument at the Salisbury Confederate Prison site particularly moving when I visited recently. The monument says 11,700 former POWS are buried in 18 trenches on the grounds, a number rivaling the high death rate at the infamous Andersonville Prison. Scholars dispute that death toll, publicized about eight years after the Civil War's end. I recently visited Salisbury Confederate Prison and Historic National Cemetery, off I-85 in central North Carolina, once guarded by young soldiers of the N.C. Junior Reserves. My ancestral cousin, Robert Welborn, drafted into the Junior Reserves in 1864, likely left active duty before that time. Little remains of the prison today. Union Gen. George Stoneman burned down the empty prison and buildings in 1865. Photo, B.J. Welborn. |
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| Plaque at Salisbury (N.C.) National Cemetery. About 400,000 men suffered in prisoner-of-war camps, many hastily erected, in both the North and the South. At Elmira prison in Upstate New York, it's estimated that 25 percent of the men imprisoned there died, also close to the estimated 29 percent of prisoners who died at Andersonville. Photo, B.J. Welborn. |
The Claustrophobia of the Confederate Sub Hunley
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| The model of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley dominates the third floor of the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia. The model was built largely according to the image captured in the famous 1863 oil painting by Conrad Wise Chapman. The actual iron submarine, rescued from the ocean floor in 2000, is slightly longer. The bow, seen here attached to the top of the model's nose, actually was fastened at the bottom, below the water surface. The bow carried the "spar torpedo" that the sub rammed into he hull of the Federal blockader Housatonic in February 1864. The Housatonic sank within three minutes. |
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| If you look carefully, you'll see a mannequin, clad in a Confederate sailor uniform, atop the model of the Hunley, looking as if he is about to enter the submarine via one of its two cast-iron hatches. Learn more about South Carolina State Museum exhibits and activities planned for the Civil War Sesquicentennial by clicking here. |
Searching for Civil War Truth, James River, Virginia
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| View of James River, south of Richmond, today. The red buoy, about 300 yards downstream from the foot of Drewry's Bluff, marks where Confederates built obstacles to deter Union gunboats in the Civil War. Confederates drove rows of pilings into the riverbed. Then they sunk huge crates of stone and scrap iron between them to form barriers across the river, wider than a football field at this point. In the 1862 Battle of Drewry's Bluff, the frustrated Federal navy suffered a barrage of gunfire from the bluff and retreated. |
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| Historic Civil War photo of Confederate quarters at Drewry's Bluff. Union soldiers dubbed the battery "Fort Darling." |
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| A display at the Richmond National Battlefield Park visitor center, in the former Tredegar Iron Works building, shows destruction of the Confederate capital near the end of the Civil War. |
A Tale of Two Southern Cities
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| Historical photo of the Confederate White House, Richmond. |
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| The Confederate capital, Richmond, during the American Civil War. |
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| Depiction of the U.S. arsenal in Fayetteville, N.C., during the Civil War, when it was used by the Confederacy. Sherman's troops reduced the arsenal to rubble in 1865. Construction of a highway loop in 1988 nearly finished off the site, now part of the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex. |
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| The 1832 Market House stands at the center of a rotary dominating Hay Street. When I was growing up in nearby Dunn, N.C., we called the historic structure that once served as Fayetteville's Town Hall "the old slave market." |
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| The former Tredegar Ironworks along the James River today serves as headquarters for Richmond National Battlefield Park. Tredegar in the 1860s was the most important supplier of rail products, bridge sections, munitions and cannon to the Confederacy. It also produced armor plating for two ironclad gunships, the CSS Virginia II and the CSS Fredericksburg. My ancestor, David Lindsay Welborn, wrote a letter to his father, Joseph Welborn, while serving aboard the Fredericksburg in 1864. (More on PREVIEWS page.) |
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| One of many tree-lined streets in the historic seaport, Georgetown , South Carolina. I gave a presentation titled "Gray Ghosts" here on a recent Friday night. |
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| Prominent architect Robert Mills designed Georgetown's historic courthouse, built in 1823-1824. I talked to a crowd of about 75 history lovers in the old courtroom upstairs. |
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| Early arrivals wait to hear about my Civil War Odyssey in Georgetown's historic courthouse recently. |
The Blood-Stained Chair In Dearborn
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| Scene from Greenfield Village historic park in Dearborn, Michigan |
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| The Lincoln assassination in Ford's Theater depicted by Currier and Ives. President Lincoln sits in the famous rocking chair now displayed at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Mary Todd Lincoln, center; John Wilkes Booth at right.  |
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| From a display at Fort Sumter National Monument |
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| Battered interior of Fort Sumter 150 years after bombardment. (National Park Service photo) |
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| Charleston, S.C., waterfront as seen from boat heading to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor (top). Bottom: You can learn of Fort Sumter's dramatic story through many displays at the fort's remains. |
One Soldier's Matter of the Heart
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| This monument to Lyndon Welborn's great-grandmother, Martha McGee Bell (Pa Joseph's grandmother) dominates the Bell-Welborn family cemetery near Lyndon's grave. Martha Bell functioned as a Patriot spy in the American Revolution. |
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| The Welborn family marker in the historic Bell-Welborn Cemetery in rural Randolph County, N.C.
Not All "Southerners" Lost The War
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| Slave States and Free States. Map courtesy Lincoln Home National Historic Site. Information for the map was obtained from the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization website at http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu. SOURCE: Yahoo.com. (Scroll for more photos.) |
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| Sojourner Truth, a freed slave, asked crowds, "Ain't I A Woman?" |
Surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon determined the borders
of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and W. Virginia, then part
of Virginia to settle a border dispute (1763-1767).
The Mason-Dixon line came to symbolize a cultural border.
of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and W. Virginia, then part
of Virginia to settle a border dispute (1763-1767).
The Mason-Dixon line came to symbolize a cultural border.
Ready. Aim. Fire!
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| Reenactment of Union Gen. William T. Sherman's Troops firing on State House in Columbia, S.C. See ARCHIVES, Feb. blog post for details on "Columbia's Longest Days." |
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Union re-enactors fired from the west bank
of the Congaree River in downtown Columbia. |
For more on Sherman in Columbia, go towww.shermansmarch.com, as well as http://www.museum.state.sc.us/exhibits/civilwarinsc.aspx
America Remembers Lincoln
Tributes to our 16th President Abraham Lincoln dot America from coast to coast. From Washington, D.C. to Gettysburg, Penn., to Hodgenville, Ky., to Keystone, S.D., to Long Beach, Calif., you'll find that some of the most impressive monuments on the continent were erected to honor the man who guided the Union through the Civil War.
Here's a sampling:
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| The Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Ill. preserves the house where Lincoln lived for 17years. For more go to http://www.nps.gov/liho/index.htm. Above: Sign at Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania. |
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| Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota depicts the heads of four U.S. presidents and tells the story of America: Washington (founding), Jefferson (growt), Roosevelt (development), and Lincoln, far right, (preservation). Gutzon Borglum, who designed Stone Mountain in Georgia to honor Confederate heroes, carved the monument. Go to http://www.nps.gov/moru/index.htm To learn about the two dozen or more sites along the multi-state Lincoln Heritage Trail, check out my book America's Best Historic Sites: 101 Terrific Places To Take The Family (Chicago Review Press 1998). Go tohttp://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Literary-America-Complete-/dp/0971897425Landmarks |
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| The Lincoln Tomb north of Springfield, Ill., houses the graves of Lincoln and his family. The obelisk towers 117 feet above the granite tomb, which visitors can enter. It's said that if you rub the nose on the bronze Lincoln head at the entrance, you'll have good luck. Go to http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/sites/tomb.htm |
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The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site near Hodgenville, Ky., right, has 56 granite
steps, one for each year of the President's life. Photo at left shows replica of Lincoln's log cabin boyhood home at nearby Knob Creek, Ky. Go to http://www.nps.gov/abli/index.htm
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Wilkesboro, N.C.: Stories of Blue Ridge Past
I visited Wilkesboro, N.C., about an hour west of Winston-Salem in the Blue Ridge hills, to discover more about my Confederate ancestors. My thanks to the folks at the Wilkes Heritage Museum, housed in the 1902 Wilkes County Courthouse building, and to Faye Byrd at the James Larkin Pearson Library of Wilkes Community College.
Here are a few things that might interest you about the town, population about 3,200, famous for its history of moonshine and stock car racing. The museum, at 100 E. Main St, will kick off a Civil War exhibition April 1, 2011.
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| The Old Wilkes Jail (1860) was new when my Confederate ancestor, Lyndon M. Welborn, volunteered for duty in the Wilkesboro public square. Lyndon was a private in Company B, First Regiment of North Carolina Troops. A monument, outside the jail today honors Wilkes' Confederate Dead. The monument stands outside the old jail, near settler Robert Cleveland's log home (1780s). Cleveland fought in the American Revolution. The 1790 Census shows 24 people living on Cleveland's premises, including 10 slaves. |
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| St. Paul's Episcopal Church (1849), where I surmise Lyndon Welborn and his fellow Confederate volunteers - all said to be more than six feet tall - might have worshiped before heading to Raleigh, N.C., state capital, for training. The captain of Lyndon's regiment, J.B. Gordon, is buried on the church grounds. For more, go to www.wilkesheritagemuseum.com |
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| Something I found in the James Larkin Pearson Library of Wilkes Community College. To hear the Confederate Anthem, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCOyioKksgU |
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| Eng and Chang Bunker, the seminal "Siamese Twins," who retired to Wilkes County. For more go to http://www.wilkesboro.com/oldwilkesinc/engchang.htm or http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/bunkers/ |
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| Tom Dula's grave in Wilkes County is not open to the public. Dula, an impoverished Confederate veteran, was convicted of brutally murdering his lover, Laura Frost. He is immortalized in a folk song "Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio. Hear the sixties tune at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMJeuJBrX6w&feature=related |
Columbia, S.C.: Symbol of A Fading Confederacy
NOTE: These photos reflect only a small number of reminders of South Carolina
First Baptist Church downtown, where S.C. leaders met to debate secession in 1860.
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Confederate Woman's Monument
erected 1912, south side of S.C. State House
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Two of the six bronze stars on exterior of S.C. State House marking hits by Sherman's cannons in 1865. (Center and beneath right window.)
Statue of Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton III, right, at State House. Robert E. Lee Tree, left, is a Southern magnolia tree on S.C. State House lawn.
 Former Confederate Printing Plant at Corner of Gervais and Huger Streets Near State House
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I took this photo (left) of my brother, Ed Welborn Jr., when he was 21. The right photo is of my father, Ed Welborn, upon graduation from high school. I imagine my Confederate ancestor, Lyndon McGee Welborn, looked somewhat like them.
I’ve pored over Homer’s paintings in Civil War books with a magnifying glass, thinking, is one of these soldiers Lyndon? Is this guy tall enough? Does he have the Welborn eyes? – From book-in-progress, Dear Father I’m Sorry To Tell You.
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Header photo information: Black and white photos in the blog header were taken by Matthew Brady, courtesy The U.S. National Archives.
