This Mississippi officer was killed by -- of all things -- a falling tree. Lt. Col. Columbus Sykes left letters and a trove of artifacts. Check out 8 of them at Kennesaw Mountain

Lt. Col. Columbus Sykes and his kepi, glove, duster and sock (Photos: Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park)

At Georgia’s Kennesaw Mountain, Lt. Col. Columbus “Lum” Sykes of the 43^rd Mississippi Infantry narrowly escaped death when a Union battery fired upon his position. The officer, dozing under the shade of a tree, scrambled to safety moments before a second shell smashed his blanket.

“Had I been a few moments later in moving, my head would have probably been blown to atoms,” Sykes wrote in a June 29, 1864, letter home. “We have escaped to many imminent dangers during this campaign, that I can but gratefully attribute our escape to a special interposition of Providence.”

Sykes’ correspondence, which I found on Civil War historian Dan Vemilya’s blog, rings particularly ironic when considering what happened to him seven months later in Mississippi when he was resting under a tree.

He wasn’t so lucky that time.

Sykes, 32, was making his way back home to Aberdeen, Ms., in January 1865 when he and two other soldiers bunked down near a decaying white oak in Itawamba County. During the night, the tree fell, crushing the men. Sykes lingered a short time. According to one account, the officer lamented dying in such a way, rather than battle. “Tell my dear wife and children I loved them to the last.”

Visitors to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park northwest of Atlanta are fortunate Sykes left behind more than his letters to his wife and children. A half dozen items belonging to him were donated by a family member in the late 1940s, received by longtime park superintendent B.C. Yates.

The 43rd Mississippi – famous for its connection to “Old Douglas,” a camel that saw service until it was killed at Vicksburg -- served at Kennesaw Mountain. It was in Adams' brigade (Featherston’s division) in Loring’s Corps, which was deployed near the Western & Atlantic Railroad.

“The location would be just off of the park's northern property to the east of the visitor center,” said Amanda Corman, a park ranger and curator at the site.

The regiment hauled cannon to the Confederates' commanding heights but was not involved in defending against the worst of the June 27, 1864, Union assault, given it was on the far right of the Rebel line.

During a brief visit recently, I studied the Sykes items on exhibit under dark light and asked Corman for additional details and photos.

“The Sykes artifacts are able to provide a personal look into items that an officer may own and take into battle. Unfortunately, there (are) rarely personal items of the common solider to compare such items to an officer's belongings,” she wrote.

I am grateful to Corman and the park for these descriptions of the artifacts. All photos are from the National Park Service.

Leather trunk (right): The item has brass studs and a conventional design, and is 18 inches high, 15 inches wide and nearly 28 inches long. It was embossed at top with a small but ornate design. Trunks were often sent to the rear for safekeeping during marching and fighting. Sherman's cavalry captured hundreds of pieces of Confederate baggage near Fayetteville, Ga., in late July 1864.

Field cap (kepi): The butternut headgear – made from cotton and dyed wool jean cloth -- is homespun with a black oilcloth brim. It features cloth lining, a cardboard button and an oilcloth sweat band. Oilcloth was a substitute for leather. The kepi was copied from a design worn by the French army.

Money belt (above): This artifact is believed to be made of suede or soft leather. It features several compartments, white pearl buttons and strings for tying at the waist. As a lieutenant colonel in infantry, Sykes earned about $170 a month. But it was common for soldiers to go months without being paid.

Sock: It is made of a simple chain weave and the thread is unbleached. Jolie Elder with the Center for Knit and Crochet wrote this about Sykes’ sock: “I wasn’t able to measure the sock, but to my eyes the gauge looked finer than typical for today. I was impressed with how many times the heel had been darned. Sock-making was surely a time-consuming chore and someone was determined this sock get the maximum wear possible.”

Linen duster: At hip length, the garment has outside patch pockets and cloth-covered buttons. Sykes may have worn this jacket in hot weather in place of a frock coat.

Sash (above): Made of a red and black floral design, the sash is about 6 feet long and 1-inch wide. The park on Facebook said this of the garment: “Unique in its design, the sash features a floral motif, common in textile patterns of the Victorian Era. If you look closely, you’ll see the pattern is of roses and thorns, often interpreted as symbols of love and the pains that one must sometimes endure for the sake of love. Could it be that Sykes was gifted this sash of roses and thorns by his wife, Emma, as a reminder of her and the love they shared?”

Glove: The tan item was made for the right hand. The Union and Confederate armies did not supply gloves, so soldiers had to purchase their own.

Frock coat: The coat has Federal eagle buttons and two large gilt wire stars on each collar to signify Sykes’ standing at lieutenant colonel. It featured no braiding. Because of shortages, Confederate officers commonly pilfered Union buttons to replace those they lost.

The 43^rd Mississippi Infantry was formed in summer 1862 with 11 companies. It surrendered in April 1865.

A lawyer, husband and father from a wealthy Mississippi slaveholding family, Sykes survived every hardship of the Atlanta Campaign.

The lieutenant colonel's brother, William, was killed in combat at Decatur, Ala., in 1864. Earlier in the war, Lum was wounded and taken prisoner at Corinth, Ms.

I’ll close this post with part of another June 1864 letter written by Sykes, as published in Vermilya’s blog associated with his 2014 book “The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain” from Arcadia Press. (Vermilya is currently a ranger with Gettysburg National Military Park).

“As long as this unprecedented campaign continues we will have to rough it in the same way, marching, lying, and sleeping in line of battle ready to move at a moment’s notice, day or night. I am now using Paul’s horse, the celebrated ‘Plug Ugly’ as he calls him, as near no horse has ever troubled a man in or out of the army.”

Kennesaw Mountain is a 'leadership laboratory' for future Georgia National Guard officers. A cadet's coat helps further their training

Officer candidates in 2016 reenact Federal charge at Kennesaw Mountain (GMI photo)

Georgia Military Institute, which provided cadets for Confederate service and was burned by Sherman’s troops in 1864, lives on today as the Georgia National Guard’s officer candidate school – located about two miles from the original campus. 

The Clay National Guard Center near Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta recently acquired on loan the GMI coat of Pierce M.B. Young, who went on to attend West Point in 1857 (where he was a roommate of George Armstrong Custer) and join the Confederate army before graduation in 1861.

Josh Headlee, curator/preservation specialist with Georgia State Parks, said Young’s cadet coat is the earliest one known to still exist. Young, a native of South Carolina who moved to Cartersville, Ga, at a young age, was a major general for the South, serving under Wade Hampton and J.E.B. Stuart. He later served in Congress and as a diplomat. Young died in 1896.

Young’s coat is on a three-year loan. Maj. William Carraway, historian with the Georgia Army National Guard, told the Picket that items such as Young’s and staff rides (which combine study and tours of battlefields) provide valuable insight and training for OCS students.

Pierce Young's GMI coat and as he appeared during, after Civil War

Carraway responded to the Picket’s questions about the training and museum exhibits:

Q. What do staff rides to Atlanta area Civil War sites accomplish? What can the war teach today's soldiers? 

A. A key component of the staff ride is participant research. This element of research is what differentiates a staff ride from a battlefield tour. The best staff rides therefore are tailor-made to the unit in question and its mission; therefore, the staff ride begins months in advance by identifying the training objectives of the unit and assigning research questions for individuals to study and brief on site. The staff ride is less of a lecture by a historian and more of a discussion facilitated by the historian based on the input provided by participating soldiers, their research and the insight they bring from their backgrounds and careers.  

The officer candidates of our current GMI consider Kennesaw Mountain in particular and the Atlanta Campaign in general as a leadership laboratory to examine the decisions made by commanders and how those decisions were influenced by terrain, weather and larger strategic considerations. The officer candidates examine the battle of Kennesaw Mountain from the perspective of staff functions – personnel, logistics, signal, medical, command, etc. and consider how they would make decisions based on the information gathered.

Maj. Carraway describes artillery action at Kennesaw Mountain (GARNG)

What options are available for the Federal and Confederate commanders? How are those options influenced by logistics? What is the enemy trying to do and how can a commander discern the enemy commander’s intent? What reconnaissance objectives should be designated to determine the enemy’s intent? How does the commander prevent the enemy commander from discerning his intent, composition and strength? All of these questions and others can be explored on ground on which past engagements were fought to inform the decision making process of current and future leaders. 

Q. When it comes to staff rides and other activities, what specifically does the Atlanta Campaign teach guard members? 

A. The U.S. Army and National Guard conduct staff rides to convey lessons of the past that apply to modern-day military problems and challenge Army leadership. The Atlanta Campaign specifically is replete with lessons for modern day logisticians, maneuver leaders, military intelligence and reconnaissance. Staff rides may be conducted for entry-level soldiers all the way to senior leaders. Many of the problems faced by commanders and staff officers of the American Civil War resonate today. Sherman’s logistical planning for the Atlanta Campaign has direct implications for modern commanders planning sustainment of short and long-term operations in the field. Commander’s selection of terrain similarly resonates to the modern soldier. 

A view of the GMI campus during the Civil War, as drawn by a Union officer

Q. How do you plan to interpret the Young coat? Is it specifically there because he attended GMI? 

A. The uniform provides an unparalleled opportunity to acquaint officer candidates of the current Georgia Military Institute with the full extent of the institute’s heritage and history. In addition to the American Civil War, graduates of GMI have served overseas during the Spanish American War, World War I, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Georgia Military Institute graduates have served at the highest levels of the Georgia National Guard to include commanders of the Georgia Army National Guard and the adjutant general. 

Uniforms on exhibit at Clay Center (Georgia Army National Guard)

Q. I understand the coat is on exhibit at the headquarters building. With what other items?

A. The exhibit displays uniforms, artifacts and imagery reflective of the history of the Georgia National Guard. This presently includes uniforms from the Spanish-American War era, WWI, WWII and modern uniform articles. The GMI uniform of Cadet Young anchors a portion of the exhibit dedicated to the history of the Georgia Military Institute and its more than 2,500 graduates who have gone on to serve in the Georgia National Guard and U.S. Army. 

Q. How did the loan come about? 

A. Michael Hitt, historian at GMI, discovered that the uniform was in the holdings of the state. We began an inquiry and confirmed that our display location could meet the security and environmental control requirements for the proper display of the uniform. The loan allows the Georgia National Guard to display the uniform as part of its historic uniform exhibit at the Clay National Guard Center in Marietta. 

Gordon Jones of Atlanta History Center displays Civil War coats (GARNG)

Q. Is the exhibit available to the public? 

A. The uniform is on display at the Clay National Guard Center in Marietta, which is co-located with Dobbins Air Reserve Base. While the military bases have restricted access, members of the public may contact the Georgia National Guard history office to inquire about viewing the uniform and other holdings of the Georgia National Guard archives. 

Q. I know the officer school is named for GMI. How does the guard interpret the grounds' history? 

A. The first iteration of the Georgia Military Institute was located approximately 2.5 miles northwest of the Clay National Guard Center. The historian of GMI is very active in researching and interpreting the history of the original GMI as well as the second iteration of the institute which operated from 1891-1898 in Atlanta. Research is ongoing to identify graduates that served in our nation’s wars such as Maj. William Kendrick, a GMI instructor who served during the Spanish American War, and 1st Lt. Homer Ashford of GMI, who mobilized to the Mexican Border in 1916 and subsequently deployed to France with the 31st Division in 1918. Graduates of the current iteration of the Georgia Military Institute were among the first mobilized for the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and served during the Vietnam War. 

Officer candidates do survey of the 1864 fighting at Kennesaw (GARNG)

Q. What is the mission of the 161st Military History Detachment? Is it based at the Clay Center? Is there a Civil War-related aspect? 

The 161st MHD is based at the Clay National Guard Center. Military History Detachments are staffed and equipped to deploy overseas and stateside to collect vital documents and interviews for major operations. The MHD is vital to how we will tell the history of current operations in the future. While there is no direct Civil War link to the MHD mission, it is valuable for an MHD commander to consider how future historians will regard current operations, and examining how past campaigns were documented and remembered provides insight into how the MHD conducts its mission. The MHD must anticipate the questions future historians will have about current operations and strive to collect the materials, artifacts and interviews to answer those future inquiries. 

Shiloh's visitor center is closed for months during a museum overhaul that will focus on stories rather than objects

The museum is being largely gutted during the work (NPS photo)

Shiloh National Military Park has gutted its visitor center museum, with plans to transform the space from an object-based presentation to one that highlights compelling stories from the April 1862 battle, officials say.

The federal park in southern Tennessee recently announced the closing of the visitor center for several months. The film “Shiloh: Fiery Trial” is still being shown in the auditorium. Restrooms are available nearby.

The museum is long overdue for the overhaul: The exhibits are about 35 years old.

Park ranger Chris Mekow tells the Civil War Picket in an email that among new items to be displayed is the frock coat of Col. Francis Eugene Whitfield, commander of the 9^th Mississippi Infantry.

Park officials remove artifacts, exhibits from the walls, floor (NPS photo)

“He was wearing this coat in the Battle of Shiloh when he was seriously wounded. The bullet hole and blood are still there. We are very excited to get this on display for the first anywhere,” Mekow said.

The coat came from a private collection with help from grants and donations through the Friends of Shiloh National Battlefield Park. It was donated to the park several years ago.

F.E. Whitfield

Whitfield was wearing the coat on April 7, 1862, during fighting at the Hornets Nest. He accepted the surrender of Lt. Col. William Shaw of the 14th Iowa.

Whitfield, wounded in 1864 at Resaca in Georgia, survived the war and died in 1885.

The Civil War in North Mississippi Facebook page says the double-breasted coat appears to be made of imported gray wool and was finely tailored, with French blue facings, a gold sleeve braid and a three-button cuff.

In September 2017, noted Civil War collector Rafael Eledge donated uniform trousers Whitfield wore after the battle to the park (photo below).

The Picket has asked Mekow for more details on the nature of story-based items and interpretation that will greet visitors after the museum overhaul.

“As for other new exhibits, you will just have to wait,” he wrote previously.

Col. Whitfield's pants before conservation (NPS)

During the work, a temporary station will be set up outside of the 87-year-old building and manned by rangers to assist visitors. Battlefield grounds and park’s bookstore remain open during the project.

Officials say updates will be provided on the park's website and Facebook page.

Visitor center exterior and dismantled exhibits (NPS)

Restored coat back on display at school

What a long, strange trip it's been for Gloucester High School's once decaying Civil War era-coat. Now restored to its tailored, but still historically tattered Confederate gray self, it hangs handsomely ensconced in a museum-quality 3-D casing in a new place of honor in the Massachusetts school's atrium. The coat, which for decades had been displayed in a glass trophy case in the halls of the high school, was once owned by Albert W. Bacheler, a celebrated Civil War veteran who served as the school’s principal from 1883 to 1913. • Article

Puzzle solved: USS Monitor coat reassembled, displayed. Second puzzle: Who owned it?

One of the front panels (Images courtesy of The Mariners' Museum and Park)

Elsa Sangouard worked from drawings, PC to assemble pieces

Senior conservator Elsa Sangouard has worked inside the USS Monitor’s massive turret and on the gun carriages that held its two 11-inch Dahlgren guns.

While these and other iron pieces Sangouard has handled tell the story of the famed Federal ironclad’s instruments of death, a painstakingly conserved and reassembled sailor’s coat is her favorite artifact.

“Anything working with sailors is extremely touching. The coat represents the last minute of the ship and the drama for the entire crew,” she said.

Half of the delicate artifact late last year went on display in the replica captain’s stateroom at the USS Monitor Center of The Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News, Va. 

The tailor-made coat came out of the water when the turret was lifted in 2002. Officials said crew members likely threw off heavy coats as they scrambled off the USS Monitor during a terrible storm near Cape Hatteras, N.C., on Dec. 31, 1862. This coat was the only major item of clothing found in the wreck.

(Image courtesy of The Mariners' Museum and Park)

Visitors can gaze upon the reconstructed coat (click photo to enlarge), its six panels lying in a low-light, climate-controlled display case. Conservators dared not try to hang the artifact on a mannequin.

“All of the wool is in pretty good shape, but it is very fragile,” said project manager Will Hoffman. “If you can hang it, that means all the weight on the fiber is hanging off the individual fibers.”

The coat, even after these years, still wears a shroud of mystery: Who did it belong to? Was it one of two sailors whose remains were found in the turret? One of the 47 men who safely made it off the ironclad? Did an officer or enlisted man wear it?

Officials say it took a real team effort over more than a decade to conserve and display the item. For Sangouard, working with the tattered garment’s 137 pieces was like working on a jigsaw puzzle.

Coat’s design appears to be a ‘one off’

(Images courtesy of The Mariners' Museum and Park)

The “hybrid” dark blue, double-breasted coat was modified to serve as part of a U.S. Navy uniform. It’s a mix of a standard sack coat in the front, with a fitted, vented back of a classic frock coat.

Hoffman and Sangouard told the Picket they are puzzled by the coat design and its rubber buttons. The Novelty Rubber Co. produced the latter, using a Goodyear patent.

An officer likely would have used copper-alloy buttons. But why would an enlisted man go to the trouble of procuring a custom-made jacket, they ask.

John Quarstein, director of the center, told History Net that the garment might have belonged to a warrant officer such as a master’s mate, boatswain’s mate, gunner or quartermaster.

HistoryNet said one candidate is enlisted sailor Jacob Nicklis, one of 16 crew members lost with the USS Monitor. His father was a tailor in Buffalo, N.Y.

Working largely from fragments

(Photo courtesy of NOAA)

The remains (above) of the merino wool coat were found largely in a pile in the turret’s organic and iron sediment. While conservators weren’t positive what they had, they could make out collar fragments and a button hole. Cotton threads that held the panels together had dissolved after decades in saltwater.

The two front panels of the coat were largely intact, while much of the rest was in pieces. About 80 percent of the garment survives.

Sangouard, who joined the project five years after the turret was lifted, said smaller pieces were taken out of cool storage in 2009 to begin the conservation process.

(Image courtesy of The Mariners' Museum and Park)

Conservators found the appropriate methods for cleaning and soaking the coat in solution. That took more than a year.

Despite the cleaning, some iron corrosion caused by turret tools remain on some portions of the coat; in one case the fabric bears the shape of a tool handle.

Putting the puzzle ‘back together’

Once the cleaning was completed, Sangouard used transparent paper to draw all the fragments.

“We needed to document the exact size of each fragment before drying them, just in case there was going to be a size change,” she told the Picket.

The conservator scanned the transparent paper and retraced the shapes, using Adobe Illustrator. She then reduced the scale of all pieces.

(Image courtesy of The Mariners' Museum and Park)

“Once all the parts were smaller and digitized (smaller but still very accurate in shape), I worked on my PC like I would have at home on a jigsaw puzzle. 

“Without taking distance from the object and looking at all the parts from afar, only the main panels could be placed in relative position to one another. Using Illustrator helped find a fair amount of smaller connections that were really difficult to see when looking at the object itself. 

“In other words, tracing the pieces helped document the object before drying it, but also helped putting the puzzle back together.”

The coat eventually was sent to textile conservators in Richmond who adhered the pieces to the exhibit panels. The museum’s Bronze Door Society contributed $20,000 to the project.

To whom did the coat belong?

USS Monitor on James River in Virginia (U.S. Navy)

The coat will help further the museum's goal of bringing the human component to a story of the innovative ironclad that tangled with the Confederacy's CSS Virginia in nearby Hampton Roads in March 1862.

The USS Monitor, while smaller, was more nimble than the CSS Virginia, and the two vessels fought to what many consider a draw.

Hoffman, the project manager, said the garment gives museum visitors a human connection to the USS Monitor.

Officials would like to know who wore the jacket. They know the weight and sizes of most of the crew. Sangouard said the man was thin and not 6 feet tall.

“Can we figure out who it is?” asked Hoffman. “There is potential.”

Boys want votes on how to display coat

Community members in Gloucester, Mass., Boston and other locales came together to rescue a dilapidated Civil War era coat. A call to action and crowdfunding campaign launched in the fall of 2015 by 11-year-old brothers George and Charles King has brought in more than $4,000 in donations to repair the garment. Now the  brothers are calling again upon these communities to decide how the coat should be displayed. • Article

Re-enactors fund coat preservation

A coat worn by a North Carolina officer who was badly wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg has been stowed away at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh since 1914. A group of Civil War re-enactors has donated $10,000 to the museum so Collett Leventhorpe's coat can be preserved and put on display for the first time. • Article