Re-enactments this weekend near Knoxville

The 150th anniversary of the Civil War battles of Fort Sanders and Campbell's Station is being marked this week near Knoxville, Tenn. A brass band will play Civil War-era instruments, and Dan Paterson, the great-grandson of the Confederate commander during the battle, is expected to attend. Battles will take place Saturday and Sunday near Corryton. • Details

Mississippi city recalls 1863 raid

A new marker in Starkville, Ms., tells of Union Brig. Gen. Benjamin Grierson's raid that started in Tennessee and smashed through much of Mississippi in 1863. The raid was a blow to Southern morale.  • Article

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/09/30/4992223/civil-war-historical-marker-unveiled.html#storylink=cpy

North and South joined hands for Chickamauga monument project

(Civil War Picket photos)

This time, it's built to last.

After years of slowly fading away at Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park, the Lytle Monument stands tall again, a tribute to a fallen Union poet-warrior and others who spilled blood in the 1863 battle.

The pyramid of 323 reproduction 8-inch shells produced by a local foundry was rededicated on Sept. 20, almost 150 years to the hour that Brig. Gen. William H. Lytle was killed leading a counterattack against Confederate forces who would carry the field at Chickamauga that day. He was a brigade commander in Sheridan's Division of McCook's Corps.

R.A. Davis, commander of Lytle SUV camp

Vandalism took its toll gradually after the Lytle Monument was dedicated in 1894. As the pyramid shrank to one level, some of the cannonballs – surplus artillery shells from the Civil War – were used to repair other monuments at the park.

For the restoration, Lookout Metalworks used 130 bags of concrete and welded each of the shells to a metal frame. The cannonballs aren't going anywhere.

"It still chokes me up," Lee Collins, a laborer for the company, said of the significance of the project.

People across the North and South came together to raise about $65,000 for the work.

Tom Reckner's great-great-grandfather fought with the 10th OVI

About 60 percent of the gifts came from outside the Georgia-Tennessee region, said executive director Patrice Glass of the Friends of the Park. Forty percent came from Ohio, home to Lytle, a hero in his hometown of Cincinnati.

"It has been a joint effort and labor of love," Glass told the crowd, seated around the monument and standing under the dappled sunlight on Lytle Hill.

The well-known poetry and bravery of Lytle, twice wounded in previous battles, brought him high esteem among his Confederate adversaries, who placed a guard around his body until it could be returned to Union lines.

Pete Sturdevant played at ceremony

Lytle early in the war led the 10th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

"He was not an officer who led from behind the lines," said Kerry Langdon of the General William H. Lytle Camp #10 of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCV).

Graying warriors in the years after the battle placed monuments in the fields of glory, recognizing fallen men and the sacrifice of Confederate and Union units. The park was authorized by Congress in 1890, a tribute to hallowed ground "where they returned to shake hands," said Glass.

Tom Reckner, who re-enacts with the 6th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, carried a reproduction flag of the 10th Ohio, the unit in which his great-great grandfather, Sgt. Michael O'Brien, served. 

"It touched my heart," Reckner, 53, said of his company commander's decision to let him perform the role during honor guard duties at the Chickamauga ceremony.

O'Brien's service with the 10th included the battles of Perryville and Resaca. According to pension records, he was believed to have contracted chronic bronchitis at Resaca. He died of complications in 1893.

Anthony Hodges of Friends of the Park

Chickamauga canister tree conveys horror

"Bullets, fragments of shell, grape and canister sing over and around, louder than songs of Southern katydids ... canister are cutting swaths of humans in the kneeling rows ... the blood-soaked earth is being dug up in chunks by ripping balls." 

This account by a soldier who took part in the Battle of Chickamauga 150 years ago last week captures the murderous efficiency of canister, an anti-personnel round fired from a cannon. The round resembled a coffee can and contained small, round, iron balls packed in sawdust and used for defending against infantry attack.

They were used throughout the Battle of Chickamauga, including on advancing Confederates at Snodgrass Hill. About 4,000 men died in the three-day battle, which ended in a Confederate victory. Union forces, however, broke out of nearby Chattanooga, Tenn., two months later and began their successful Atlanta Campaign.

On Saturday, while returning from a morning skirmish at the Battle of Chickamauga re-enactment in North Georgia, we stopped by the Gordon-Lee Mansion in the town of Chickamauga, Ga.

The stately home served as a hospital and headquarters for Union Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans, who fled for Chattanooga during a furious Confederate assault on the battlefield a few miles north of town.

One stop in the house tour is a museum that features military artifacts, weapons and news accounts. Of particular note is the remains of a tree cut at the Chickamauga battlefield in 1900. (Click photos to enlarge)

It contains multiple chunks of canister and is a chilling reminder of the helpless condition of soldiers who had no time to get out of the way of these deadly projectiles.

The home's parlor was used by Rosecrans to plot strategy. A portrait above the fireplace in that room is of Gordon Lee, the most famous resident of the house, which was completed in 1847 by James Gordon.

Both armies occupied the mansion during the Civil War.

The downstairs library -- used as an operating room for Union troops -- features bloodstained floors now covered by rugs.

"Amputated limbs were thrown out the French doors to waiting wagons," a tour brochure says.

1890s infographic mapped entire war

The "History of the Civil War in the United States, 1860-1865" was published by The Comparative Synoptical Chart Company back in 1897. And while its gloriously complex form has been preserved by the Library of Congress in great detail, instructions on exactly how to read it properly seem to have been lost to time.Click the bold link and give it a try!