Civil War show in Dalton, Ga.: Chance to buy period items, learn about failed Rebel strategy

(2010 Chickamauga Civil War Show -- Picket photo)

Failings of Confederate leadership in the Western Theater will be the subject of an upcoming seminar held in conjunction with the Chickamauga Civil War Show in Dalton, Ga.

Bandy Heritage Center for Northwest Georgia’s Feb. 6 colloquium will draw patrons who flock to the annual firearms, artifacts and relics show at the Dalton Convention Center, 2211 Dug Gap Battle Road.

“We have held our colloquium in conjunction with the Civil War show every year since 2010,” said Brian Hilliard, Bandy project director. “It is a natural tie-in with the community interest in the show.”

The talks in the lecture hall on the upper level of the trade center are free and feature three prominent Civil War historians and authors. The schedule for “Losing the Heartland: The Failure of Confederate Theater Command in the West” is:

Tim Smith

9:15 a.m.: “Albert Sidney Johnston: Hero or Villain?”

Tim Smith will examine the general’s strategic and tactical decisions and their repercussions. Smith, including in “Shiloh: Conquer or Perish,” has written extensively about the fallen leader’s conduct at that 1862 battle. In an America’s Civil War magazine article, Smith took on the myth that the South would have won the battle if Johnston had lived.

10 a.m.: “Joseph E. Johnston and the Mess in the West”

Richard McMurry will explore the complex relationships between Johnston and his superiors and subordinates and how that affected strategy. The general had a defense-and-retreat strategy in northwest Georgia that eventually led to his loss of command. Johnston later argued he was heavily outnumbered and won support from early postwar writers, but McMurry has raised questions about his effectiveness. “It turns out that Joseph E. Johnston is not regarded now by a lot of people as the greatest thing since grits,” the historian said in 2014, adding the general’s retreat toward Atlanta was a political and logistical disaster for the South. (Coincidentally, Johnston led troops against Maj. Gen William T. Sherman around Dalton during the Atlanta Campaign).

Steve Davis

11 a.m.: “Bonnie Blue Flop: P.G.T. Beauregard and Confederate Strategy in the Autumn of 1864”

Steve Davis, who has written extensively about the Atlanta Campaign, will discuss Beauregard’s role in Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ failed efforts to create a unified command structure in the West. The Louisiana-born general did not get along well with Jefferson Davis and other leaders.

11:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: Discussion panel

In the same building, the Chickamauga Civil War Show is scheduled for 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 6, and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 7. Admission is $10 for adults; children under 12 get in free.

Show organizer Mike Kent told the Picket he expects to have 475 tables with dealers from more than 20 states and England. Rafael Eledge, who appears on PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow,” and his business Shiloh Relics will be among the vendors. Eledge will give free appraisals, Kent says.

“We expect a great crowd as always, with several local Civil War Roundtables making their annual pilgrimages to the show,” said Kent.

Program will discuss Missouri massacre

Joplin, Mo., residents will get a chance Thursday to learn more about a skirmish that may not have unfolded as previously believed, according to new archaeological evidence. The Civil War came to the Rader Farm site in during two days in May 1863. Fifteen black soldiers of the 1st Kansas Colored and three white soldiers from the 2nd Kansas Volunteer Artillery Battery were killed by Confederate guerrillas. The bodies of some of the black soldiers were mutilated. • Article

War and illusion: Atlanta Cyclorama's dramatic diorama figures were made in all sizes

(Picket photo of AHC exhibit)

Onward the men rush to join the battle. They dodge shattered tree limbs and fallen comrades to meet the Rebel challenge. And, if the artists’ illusion is successful, they will be pulled from the foreground and into the painting’s maelstrom of death.

Like other cycloramas, the massive work depicting the July 1864 Battle of Atlanta was an immersive experience for patrons who gazed in wonder. It was all about building the illusion of being there – capturing the very human moments of anger, terror, determination and pain. The panorama allows a 360-degree view of the subject.

Dioramas were a big part of the experience. Plants, structures and human figures close to viewing platforms and in the foreground of the painting added a realistic perspective – and the Atlanta Cyclorama has all of that.

The Cyclorama was closed last year in anticipation of its relocation from Grant Park to the Atlanta History Center in the Buckhead community.

The 120 plaster figures built in the 1930s are now in storage at the Atlanta History Center. They will be patched and touched up during construction of a new Cyclorama building at the AHC.

So important is the Civil War to Atlanta’s story is that several related items are currently on display at the AHC’s exhibit “Atlanta in 50 Objects.”

(Library of Congress)

Near the exhibition entrance is one of the plaster figures from the Cyclorama, created in a supine position. The Union soldier, blood running down his shirt, may be in his dying moments as others rush by him. Not on display with him are his cap and rifle.

(If you enlarge and look closely at the painting above, you can see the figure on the right, just above the railroad track.)

Erica Hague, collections manager at the Atlanta History Center, said some of the plaster figures “are in really good shape. Some have guns that fell off and have chips.” Others may have lost a few of their fingers over 80 years.

The figures were made in a variety of sizes, ranging from about 18 inches to 5 feet. They weigh from 10 to 100 pounds.

And because the only perspective that mattered was what was seen from the viewing platform, the backs of many figures were not painted and some of their faces and other features are not complete.

“It’s a little creepy in a good way,” said Hague, adding a few can appear zombie-like.

The figurines were fashioned between 1934 and 1936 as part of a Works Progress Administration project. “Artists Weis Snell, Joseph Llorens, and Wilbur Kurtz fashioned plaster figures for a diorama as foreground for the painting. Set on a flooring of red clay, the shrubbery, cannon, track, and 128 soldiers gave the painting more realism for visitors,” the AHC says.

Some of the figures were created from the same structural form, but with different features or expressions (others face away from the viewer). Their interior was bolstered by rebar and some have rust, Hague said.

All but six of them depict Union soldiers. (The Milwaukee company that employed German artists to produce the painting was influenced by one patron, politician John A. Logan, who commanded the XV Corps at the Battle of Atlanta.)

The most famous figure is a Union corpse with the face of Rhett Butler. Clark Gable, who played Butler in “Gone With the Wind,” has visited the Cyclorama in December 1939 while in Atlanta for the film’s premiere.

The Cyclorama was cleaned and treated during a major restoration in 1979-1981. Clay in the old diorama was replaced with a fiberglass and plastic coating and the figures were reset.

Hague said the figures have been digitally mapped in their old setting, but a new diorama floor will have to be constructed (real tree stumps will be replaced with faux versions).

The plaster soldiers won’t be in their exact original positions when the refurbished painting opens in a couple of years. That’s because the Atlanta Historic Center will restore the massive mural to its full hyperbolic, or hourglass, shape. That will re-create the intended visual perspective lost when the painting was cut to fit into the Grant Park building.

Once the painting is moved and its new building is opened, visitors will be able to witness the ongoing restoration.

Mass grave speaks to sacrifice, loss

Matthew Barbour, a New Mexico state archaeologist, says the remains of Confederate soldiers discovered in 1987 in a mass grave site speak to the violence, loss and futility of war. “It shows the very real consequence of war,” said Barbour during a presentation on the uncovered remains of soldiers killed during the Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass in 1862. “The battle pretty much ended up being pointless,” Barbour said. • Article

Raising the CSS Georgia (update): Artifacts recovery by the numbers

9,000-pound Dahlgren recovered i n 2015 (USACE)

As first reported by the Associated Press, CSS Georgia conservators are treating fewer than half of the 29,716 artifacts recovered from the scuttled Confederate ironclad’s watery grave in Savannah, Ga.

Russell Wicke, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers district’ office, told the Picket that 165 tons (13,019 artifacts) went to a Texas A&M University laboratory for conservation, while 134 tons (16,697 items) were reburied in the river.

Why more artifacts reburied, while weighing less? That’s because the more mundane bolts, washers, nails and smaller items were not considered “unique,” according to the AP report. They were documented and placed in underwater storage containers.

Among the larger items being conserved are several heavy artillery pieces and sections of the armor casemate.

The Army Corps of Engineers has supervised the $14 million removal of the one-off CSS Georgia as part of a major harbor deepening project in Savannah. Research will continue for years on the vessel and its huge load of artifacts.

Wicke told the Picket his office is working with Texas A&M on obtaining a list of all artifacts and a progress report on conservation.