News---Confederate Weapons Cache May Have Been Found In South Carolina River

Huge Cache Of Confederate Weapons Seized by General Sherman may have Been Found In South Carolina River, Washington Post, January 21, 20155

Drunk and rowdy, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s troops captured South Carolina’s capital on Feb. 17, 1865. It was nearing the end of the Civil War, and Sherman’s plan was to destroy the state where secession began.  “The truth is, the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina,” Sherman wrote to Gen. Henry W. Halleck. “I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her.”

Sherman’s 60,000-man army torched Columbia in retaliation for seceding from the Union. The blaze, which he later blamed on a Confederate general he said left cotton bales in the streets, destroyed a third of the city. Sherman’s troops made off with the Confederate armory. They confiscated cannonballs, rammers, sabers and bayonet scabbards. And, on their way out of town, they dumped whatever they couldn’t carry into the Congaree River.

Amid a massive toxic tar cleanup, historians have found possible evidence of the loot using sonar and metal detectors near the Gervais Street bridge in downtown Columbia, the city’s State newspaper first reported over the weekend. The munitions, if indeed they are munitions, are said to be buried in 40,000 tons of black tar that spilled into the river several years ago from a now-defunct power plant. Historians are trying to find the best way to retrieve the stash, with explosive experts on hand.

“Hopefully, none of it is going to blow up,” Joe Long, curator of the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, told the newspaper. Researchers located more than 200 sites in the two-foot-thick oil sludge as “exhibiting signature characteristics that could be associated with ordnance.”

Full Text is continued at Washington Post, January 21, 2015

News---North Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans Fund Conservation of Battle Flag

Sons of Confederate Veterans Funds  Conservation of Another Battle Flag At Museum of History, Michael Hudson, Beach Carolina Magazine, December 16, 2013.    On November 21, 2013, members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Camp 379 in Marion, North Carolina, presented an $8,200 check to staff at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. The funds will be used for specialized conservation treatment of a battle flag carried by the 35th Regiment North Carolina Troops during the Civil War. The generous gift was the result of two years of fund-raising by Camp 379.

“It is an honor for Camp 379 to help preserve a part of North Carolina’s important history for future generations,” noted Jeff Cordell, Commander, North Carolina Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Camp 379. The historic banner is part of the museum’s Confederate flag collection, one of the largest in the nation. The standard wool-bunting state flag is missing its regimental numbers, possibly cut away as a souvenir during the war.

35th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry

35th Infantry Regiment completed its organization in November, 1861, at Camp Mangum, near Raleigh, North Carolina. Its members were raised in the counties of Mecklenburg, Onslow, McDowell, Moore, Chatham, Person, Union, Henderson, Wayne, and Catawba. After fighting at New Bern, the regiment was ordered to Virginia and assigned to General R. Ransom's and M.W. Ransom's Brigade. It participated in the difficult campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Seven Days' Battles to Fredericksburg. Ordered back to North Carolina, it fought at Boon's Mill and Plymouth , then returned to Virginia in May, 1864. The 35th saw action at Drewey's Bluff , endured the hardships of the Petersburg Campaign  siege south of the James River, and ended the war at Appomattox. This unit sustained 127 casualties at Malvern, 25 in the Maryland Campaign, 29 at Fredericksburg, and 103 at Plymouth. Many were disabled at Saylor's Creek, and on April 9, 1865, it surrendered 5 officers and 111 men. The field officers were Colonels James T. Johnson, John G. Jones, Matthew W. Ransom, and James Sinclair; Lieutenant Colonels M.D. Craton, Oliver C. Petway, and Simon B. Taylor; and Majors John M. Kelly and Robert E. Petty.

Text Source with slight edits:  Beach Carolina Magazine

Text Source of 35th NC Infantry: National Park Service

New And Noteworthhy---Inside Your Museum; The Smithsonian's Civil War Collection

Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection, Neil Kagan and Stephen G. Hyslop, editors, Hugh Talman, photographer, Smithsonian Books, 368 pp., profusely illustrated, object list, index, $40.00.

In 150 slim chapters, beginning with the Smithsonian before the Civil War to the creation of the Lincoln penny, some very remarkable objects and their stories are revealed in Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection. The Institution was a creature of antebellum politics. Slave holding Congressmen resisted the passage of the 1846 Congressional bill to establish the Smithsonian Institution. Yet the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, was the regent of the Smithsonian from 1847 to 1851; his circa 1855 photographic portrait graces an early page of the book. During the war years the Smithsonian Secretary was Joseph Henry who was a vocal advocate of slavery; he and his family lived the the building that included a museum, a library and other facilities. Henry refused to fly the U.S. flag over the building. He believed that the flag was an invitation for Confederates to fire on the building and its neighborhood.

Generally, the chapters consist of one page of  narrative and one to three pages of photographs of objects.  For example Chapter 10, John Brown, has one page of narrative divided into two columns; between the columns is a photo of one 950 pikes "that Brown acquired to arm slaves incited to rebel by his rat on Harper's Ferry." The second page is a photographic image of Brown [not bearded] taken in the mid-1850s by Augustus Washington, and African American. The third and fourth pages includes a small photographic image of Brown [bearded] taken in 1858, photos of weapons used by Brown in Kansas [44. caliber Sharps rifle, 52 caliber Sharps carbine, .31 caliber six -shot revolver] and August 10 1857 personal letter from John Brown to George Stearns regarding funds that bought the arms used in Kansas.

The150 chapter capture hundreds of unique items in the Smithsonian's collection. Chapters such as The Fire-Eaters' War, the Wartime Patent Office, the Telegraph at War, and Appomattox Paroles offer unique documents, devices and and military accouterments.  Indeed, there is something for everyone in Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection.  Currency and postage stamp printing plates, children toys, a soldier's photographic image in a hardtack frame, a variety of telegraph keys, two intact Minie balls that collided in flight, printing presses that accompanied armies, and a small wooden drum that held slips of paper which identified Union men eligible for the military draft  are just a few of the hundreds of objects that tell a stories in Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection. Some are amazingly unique. Federal soldier Solomon Conn of Company B, 87th Indiana purchase on May 1, 1863 in Nashville a violin to share with others because he never in his life learned to play the instrument but, its back he inscribed all the battles in he carried the fiddle. The entire back is full. in 1988 his heirs gave the instrument to the Smithsonian Institution. 

Readers of all ages will find delights, new information and unique images between the covers of  Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection.

News---A Year And A Day Jail Time For 18,000+ Thefts From Petersburg National Military Park

For Battlefield Thefts, Man Gets 366-Day Term, Mark Bowes, Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 23, 2012

On 1,014 days over four years, John J. Santo scoured Petersburg National Battlefield Park and other properties with a metal detector and his dog, looking for Civil War-era artifacts that he could collect and turn into cash. It became his full-time job. When authorities caught up with him last year, they recovered more than 9,000 rusty relics, including bullets, buckles, cannonballs, breastplates and buttons during a search of his home. But perhaps the most astonishing find was a journal he kept of every one of his illegal expeditions.

By his own account, Santo wrote that he recovered more than 18,000 bullets, 68 fuses, 31 cannonballs and shells, 13 buckles, seven breastplates, five saber tips and 91 buttons over 1,014 days. "The defendant's journal is a tell-all of his misconduct, identifying with a high degree of specification where he engaged in metal detecting/relic hunting and when and what he recovered," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney N. George Metcalf in federal court papers. "He even kept a running tally of the items he found from day to day on a yearly basis."

Santo's handwritten journal, recovered during a July 10, 2011, search of his Petersburg home, proved to be his undoing. On Wednesday, the 52-year-old unemployed Pennsylvania native was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Richmond to one year and one day in a federal prison. He pleaded guilty in December to two counts of damaging archaeological resources and one count of pillaging Petersburg National Battlefield Park. Santo is regarded as the park's most prolific relic thief. "At least in this park, he's like No. 1 as far as the amount of stuff he's taken and how long this has been going," Park Superintendent Lewis Rogers said Thursday. "This is the biggest catch that the park has had."

Park officials couldn't place a monetary value on the 9,000 recovered items, which are now being sorted and reviewed by park historian Jimmy Blankenship and will be eventually added to the park's collection. "I don't know any case where anyone had more artifacts than this guy did," Blankenship said. "We don't even have 2,000 bullets in our entire museum collection, and we are inheriting over 8,000 bullets from the stuff that (Santo) still had at his house."

Blankenship said one of the issues that concerned the court was the amount of relics Santo apparently sold. "We know he found over 18,000 bullets," Blankenship said. "We only confiscated something like 8,500. So what happened to the other 10,000 bullets?" Blankenship said the truly distressing aspect of Santo's misdeeds is that historians will never know the true historical value of the items he plucked from the ground. "We don't know where he found them at, we don't know the context in which they were laying in the ground," Blankenship said. "So all that information that we could have got from these items if it had been a scientific archeological dig is gone forever. And that's the real sad part of this case."

Blankenship noted that not all the recovered artifacts came from the battlefield park. "He was relic hunting all over the place." Based on his own writings, Santo searched park property regularly from 2006 to 2010, frequently accompanied by his dog. Park employees spotted Santo on several occasions, but when spotted he would run away, usually leaving behind dozens of freshly dug holes, according to court papers. During an encounter on March 27, 2009, Santo dropped a pair of metal shears he was using to dig artifacts from the ground, authorities said in court papers.

After fleeing a park ranger on Nov. 18, 2010, Santo wrote in his journal for that date, "Ran into Park Ranger Ran Away." A park archaeologist assessed the cost to repair the park grounds, along with the archaeological loss of relics, to be at least $37,945, according to court documents. The defendant's attorney described Santo in court papers as a recovering alcoholic who has an extreme anxiety disorder that prevents him from working or socializing with people. As a result, he rarely left his home and his only outlet was walking in the battlefield park with his metal detector and dog, his attorney wrote. Santo lived with a girlfriend in Petersburg's Walnut Hill neighborhood, about 2 miles from the battlefield park. His attorney wrote that Santo always backfilled the holes he dug and never sold anything he recovered.

But federal prosecutors said the evidence strongly suggested otherwise. Santo has no means of support other than his girlfriend's Social Security check, and "the circumstances strongly suggest that (Santo) supported himself by selling these artifacts," prosecutors said. Prosecutors noted that Santo was convicted of relic hunting on Petersburg city property in October 2007 and that the experience didn't deter his plundering. They said Santo's journal shows that on the day he was charged in Petersburg, and again on the day he was convicted, he went to the battlefield park with his metal detector to hunt for relics.

Text and Images Source: Richmond Times Dispatch

News---Historian Sentenced For Stealing Lincoln Letter

Historian Sentenced For Stealing Lincoln Letter, reporting by Edith Honan; editing by Michelle Nichols and Xavier Briand, Reuters News Service, Sep 19, 2008.

A U.S. historian who pleaded guilty to stealing letters written by former Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Friday. Edward Renehan, 52, pleaded guilty in May to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property and admitted stealing a March 1, 1840, letter by Lincoln and two letters dated August 9, 1791, and December 29, 1778, by Washington.

The letters, part of the personal collection of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, were taken from the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Renehan had been the acting director of the New York-based historical and cultural group. Renehan later sold the letters to a New York gallery for $97,000, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan said.

Jim Bruns, head of the Roosevelt association, attended the sentencing at Manhattan federal court. He told reporters the letters were "not significant to the shaping of America," but were treasured by Roosevelt, who displayed them in his library. In sentencing Renehan, who faced a maximum of 10 years in prison, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin called the case "baffling."

"By all accounts, Mr. Renehan is a pre-eminent historian and biographer, and yet he engaged in this stealing," said Chin. "It's really hard to understand. I'm not sure that I've heard a convincing explanation." Renehan, who has written six books including one on the Kennedys, said he has suffered from bipolar disorder, which at the time of the thefts, from 2005 to 2006, was undiagnosed. "At the time that I took those letters... I was on an extended manic episode," an emotional Renehan said in his plea for leniency. He was ordered to report to prison by January 2.

Text Source: Thomson Reuters 2008.

And From the May 21, 2008 New York Post:

Ill Served: Edward Renehan Says Bipolar Disorder Led Him To Steal Historic Letters By Lincoln And Washington, Kati Cornell, New York Post, May 21, 2008

A sticky-fingered historian has 'fessed up to lifting two prized letters by George Washington and another by Abraham Lincoln and selling them for nearly $100,000. Edward Renehan, former director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association in Oyster Bay, LI, is facing 24 to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty yesterday to transporting stolen goods across state lines.

The letters by Washington, dated 1778 and 1791, and Honest Abe, written in 1840, sold for $97,000 at a Manhattan gallery, according to court papers. The Lincoln letter was handwritten and signed more than 20 years before he became president. The Washington documents just carried his signature. While the contents of the letters have only minor historic significance to the presidents, they are rare and valuable, defense attorney Peter Brill said. Renehan, who has written six books, is also facing state charges in Nassau County for stealing a fourth letter from the association he once headed - this one by Roosevelt.

In it, the 26th president, who kept a vacation home in Oyster Bay, discusses the death of his youngest son, Quentin, in 1918 during World War I. Brill said Renehan, 51, left his post as director of the association last year, before the thefts came to light, after he learned he had been suffering from a previously undiagnosed bipolar disorder. "This was a single aberrant act in an otherwise pretty impressive life," said Brill, adding that Renehan is a "very successful author" and had no pressing need for cash.

"He takes full responsibility," Brill said. "It's just that in that state maybe you do things you wouldn't do if you were thinking clearly." Renehan is due in court on the state case on June 13 and faces a maximum sentence of seven years behind bars. "I suspect we'll try to work out a disposition that will cover everything," Brill said.

The historian was arrested before he could sell the Roosevelt letter, which has been returned to the association. Renehan is well known in history circles, having penned books on Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Kennedy clan. He says on his online MySpace page that "biography" is his first love and that he is devoted to "green" politics and folk music, even claiming to have once sung with Pete Seeger. He admits to having bipolar disorder and says, "I continue to pick the shattered pieces from one of my last great expended hypomanias."

Text Source: New York Post
Photo Source: New York Post

News---Uncle Billy! Please Come Home!

After Decades Away, Restored General Sherman Marches Home, Alan Johnson, Columbus Dispatch, March 20, 2008.

Grime and varnish marred the painting of Gen. William T. Sherman, left. The restored work will be returned to the Sherman museum in Lancaster. Were it not for the sharp eye of a member of the Fairfield Heritage Association, General William Tecumseh Sherman might still be lost after nearly 26 years away from home.

Instead, a rare original portrait of the Civil War general, known affectionately to his troops as "Uncle Billy," will return to the Sherman House Museum, the Sherman family home in Lancaster, in a March 29 ceremony.

The painting, which is about 150 years old, was among dozens of items, almost all of them connected to Sherman himself, that were stolen from the museum in 1982. The portrait was recovered last fall after a museum volunteer saw it in a Garth Auctions catalog. The Delaware, Ohio, art auctioneer and appraiser listed the selling price at $800 to $1,600, but turned it over to the Ohio Historical Society after learning it was stolen. Where was the painting from 1982 to 2007?

No one knows for sure. The woman who commissioned the painting to Garth Auctions for sale had it for only a short period of time and was unaware that it had been stolen, officials said. Barry Bauman, the Chicago art conservator who spent a month and a half repairing and restoring the painting, said he's pretty certain it was in storage. "The portrait was layered with a dirt and grime film, a slow buildup as if it was in long-term storage," he said. "It was so badly treated in the past. … There was a yellow varnish on it, and the background had been almost completely repainted."

Bauman, who formerly worked for the Art Institute of Chicago, did the work on the Sherman painting free. He figures it was a $10,000 job, although no official value has been placed on the restored work. "The conservator is invisible," he said, "but it's a lot of fun to be behind the scenes." The painting belongs to the Ohio Historical Society, which is giving it back to the Sherman museum. It is not signed and contains no date, but it apparently was painted just before the Civil War.

Laura Bullock, director of the museum, said whoever stole the painting and other items in 1982 did some homework. Only items personally connected with Sherman -- the painting and his chair, for example -- were taken from among hundreds of Civil War artifacts. The painting, although unsigned, is "precious to us," Bullock said. The museum has two other paintings of Sherman, one in military uniform and the other when he was 68, three years before his death.

Photographs: courtesy of Barry Bauman Restoration

Contact The Author: ajohnson@dispatch.com

Source: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/03/20/SHERMAN_RETURNS.ART_ART_03-20-08_B1_GM9MR85.html?sid=101

CWL --- Walking Gettysburg's Battlefield: Civil War Minutes, Volume 3, Parts 1 & 2.

Gettysburg and Stories of Valor: Civil War Minutes Volume 3, Parts 1 & 2, writers: Michael Kraus, David Neville, director Michael Bussler, Inecom Entertainment Company, 90 minutes, 2004.

Inecom Entertainment Company is among the best small, independent producers of history documentaries. In terms of direction, content, writing, and production, I would pick an Inecom product over all others, including the History Channel. This pair of dvds is full of informative, but unpadded, and interesting, but unexaggerated, stories. The writers know the difference between trivia and obscure information. Trivia is humorous and superficial; obscure information is insightful and illustrates a larger truth. Part 1 of the set offers 14 topics on Gettysburg and part 2 sets forth 16 stories of the Civil War. Biographies and material culture, behavior and events are dual themes throughout Volume 3.

Interested in Civil War era medicine? On disk 2, there are short features about caring for the wounded, bullet wounds, and amputees. Looking for background on generals? On both disks there are stories of Winfield S. Hancock, Lewis Aristead, Alexander Hays and Felix Zollicoffer.

Haven't heard from Civil War era civilians recently? Meet John Burns of Gettysburg, and the men, women and children of Pittsburgh's Allegheny Arsenal who died on the afternoon of September 17, 1862. Take a look at one of the farmsteads that became a burial site for hundreds of Confederate dead at Gettysburg, the Forney farm. Explore Gettysburg's historic photographs that are faked. Walk through both the Evergreen and the National Cemteries on Cemetery Hill, Gettysburg. You'll find Confederates buried in the National Cemetery and the actual location of the podium for the Gettysburg Address in the Evergreen Cemetery.

The writers and director tell the stories of the men who carried the weapons by focusing on their material culture . Examine the path of shrapnel through a CSA major's coat sleeve. Carry a drum across the Emmitsburg Road, lose it and have it returned 20 years later. Go through the haverack and knapsack of a soldier. Cross the Dead Line at Andersonville; live in POW camps in the North.

Thankfully, reenactors are not in every shot; they are limited in their appearance to closeups as they handle their guns, bone saws, haversacks, and drums. Don't get me wrong; I am a reenactor and appreciate the 'living history aspect' of the hobby. But to show reenactors running through woods, up hills and across streams, ad nausem like the History Channel or MediaMagic frequently do, usually covers bad writing and unsupported generalizations.

The writers and directors show the actual implements of war as they are preserved in private and public collections throughout the country. The credits that run at the end of each disk will answer the question you will probably ask several times during your viewing of Civil War Minutes; "Where did they find that?" Civil War Minutes, Volume 3, Gettysburg and Stories of Valor, is recommended for all ages and all levels of interest in the Civil War.