Longstreet Society bivouac Saturday

Living historians portraying military leaders in the Civil War will take part in Saturday's annual spring bivouac sponsored by the Gainesville, Ga.-based Longstreet Society.

The event is being held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Piedmont Hotel, where Confederate Gen. James Longstreet lived his last years.

The building serves as the headquarters for the society, which wants to educate people about the general's life.

The program includes tours of the home, entertainment and food. There is no charge, but donations will be accepted for the society's causes.

Society treasurer Joe Whitaker said organizers expect men portraying Longstreet, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen Ulysses S. Grant to be on hand.

For more information on the event, call the society at 770-539-9005. The event is at 827 Maple St., Gainesville, Ga.

• More information about the Longstreet Society

Vandalized Gettysburg monument repaired

NPS photo

The Arm is back.

Seven years after it was vandalized, the 11^th Massachusetts Infantry monument at Gettysburg National Military Park was whole again Thursday.

Once the sword-swinging granite arm was placed on top of the pedestal, the staff attached the sword and hand guard, the park said in a press release.

To replicate the vandalized pieces, National Park Service specialist Brian Griffin studied historic photos – including those by Willliam H. Tipton -- and fragments of the arm, fingers and sword.

“Brian … got a perspective of distances, lengths and sizes,” said Lucas Flickinger, supervisor of the monument preservation branch at the battlefield. “It was pretty painstaking. There were two or three weeks of scaling from the photos.”

Griffin spent about three months on the clay modeling and made a plaster cast that was sent to Granite Industries of Vermont in 2012, which made the final product.

The monument near Emmitsburg Road is a bit unusual.

Rather than depicting a full figure, the monument depicts an upraised arm, poised to bring a sword down.

“I think it is a very powerful symbol of resolve,” Flickinger told the Civil War Picket.

Additionally, the 4^th New York Artillery (Smith’s Battery), and the 114^th Pennsylvania Infantry were vandalized on the same day in February 2006. The park previously repaired them.

Despite a $30,000 reward for information, no arrests or convictions have been made. 

• Read the Picket’s previous profile of the monument preservation branch at Gettysburg
• More photos of repaired monument

Mystery of the Lincoln family cabin

A letter written during the Civil War may shed light on where Abraham Lincoln's parents lived immediately after marrying. History scholars have debated the precise location of the couple's cabin. A Kentucky history museum received transcribed copies of letters written during the Civil War by a Union soldier stationed in Elizabethtown that mentions the cabin's location. • Article

Conjuring future of Cravens House

Turning the landmark Cravens House into a visitors center is one of the ideas proposed by the National Park Service as it updates its management plan for Lookout Mountain Battlefield -- the land, trails, buildings and historic monuments the agency owns from the foot of the mountain to its peak. Historic preservation is the thrust. The idea is to have the battlefields look as they did during the Civil War. That could include removal of side buildings and features that came after the conflict. • Article.