Cruisin' With the USS Montgomery-- Part 1: Who Fought the Civil War?

From my presentation "RoadTrippin' Through History:  The Continuing Saga of the USS Montgomery" that I gave January 19, 2023.

Some of this is written in this blog and other parts are in my Cooter's History Thing and Tattooed on Your Soul: World War II blog.  I am putting it all together in this one now.

I am a history nut.  I love my history and have loved it since I was a young lad of seven in 2nd grade and my dad took me to a Civil War fort in North Carolina called  Fort Fisher.  We were living in North Carolina at the time (I lived there for most of my first ten years).  I did not know anything about the Civil War.

My dad explained to me that the war was fought between the North and the South.  I told him, "Then we were for the North."  He said we weren't.  But, how could that be?  I knew we lived in North Carolina and that South Carolina was right by us.  As such, the Civil War must have been between North and South  Carolina.

Dad said no.  Those weren't the two sides.

I had paid attention at school in geography class and knew there was a South America and we lived in North America.  As such, then we would still be for the North.

Dad said no.

Now, you had a confused young man.  When I got back to school, I checked out a kid's book "The Civil War" by Fletcher Pratt from the library and read and reread several times and started getting an idea about this war.

Well, as they say, the rest is history.  In the 2nd grade I knew I wanted to be a teacher so I could teach history.  And, I was for 33 years.   See what Dad and Fletcher Pratt started.

And Fort Fisher Is Still My Favorite Civil War Battle.  --Old B-Runner

Top 10 Civil War Sites in Eastern North Carolina-- Part 1: New Bern, and Fort Fisher

From the September 8, 2021, New Bern (NC) Sun-Journal by  Todd Wetherington.

1.  NEW BERN BATLEFIELD PARK in New Bern.    

Includes more than 30 acres of the battlefield which took place March 14, 1862.  There is a history walk now which includes 35 interpretive panels of the battle and impact on New Bern.

2.  NEW BERN ACADEMY in New Bern.

Located four blocks from the Tryon Palace, built in 1809 as a school for boys and girls.   Used as a hospital during the war and recruitment place for the 35th USCT.   Today it is a museum.

3.  FORT FISHER in Kure Beach.

You might say I've written a little bit about this place.

--Old B-Runner

John Julius Guthrie Obituary-- Part 1

From the Newspapers.com site.

Clipped from the December 1, 1877, Raleigh News.

CAPT. J.J. GUTHRIE

The Norfolk  Landmark says  of Capt. J.J. Guthrie who was lost on the wreck of the Huron:

He was a native of North Carolina, having been born at Raleigh; and had a sword of honor voted him by that State in recognition of an act of conspicuous  gallantry performed in the China Seas.  He had served with  credit and distinction in the navies of the Union and of the Confederacy, and recently had entered  on the discharge of his duties in connection with the Life Saving Service with generous enthusiasm.

The Landmark is mistaken as to the nativity of Capt. Guthrie.  John Julius Guthrie  was the son of Dr. John  Guthrie, of Washington, N.C.,  where he was born about the year 1814,  and was therefore in his 63rd year at the time of his death.

His father died when he was quite a boy,  and he came to this city  with his widowed mother, who is buried here in the old cemetery.  He was placed under the care of  Rev. Dr.  William McPheeters, and went to school to this distinguished preacher and educator  at the Raleigh Academy.

--Old B-Runner

Remembering the Events of September 11, 2001

 I was with a friend who installing a battery in my '85 Firebird today which is why all these posts about 9-11 are coming in this late.  Now, you wouldn't think installing a battery was a problem, but not my battery.  This was the battery from hell.

What Dennis believed to be a five-ten minute effort, ended up as a two and a half hour lesson in futility.  He worked and worked, but to no avail.  Those bolts and nuts just would not budge.  We finally ended up going to O'Reilly's to get a battery that was designed for am '85 Firebird.  

Dennis and his brother Al and Vince are undertaking an effort to make that Firebird presentable.

I remember September 11, 2001, as being just three days before my mother's birthday which always remind me to send her a present.

I was teaching one of my 7th grade classes at John T. Magee Middle School in Round Lake, Illinois, when another teacher told me what had happened.  This was all we did in every one of my classes after that.  I knew that this was going to be one of those Pearl Harbor, JFK assassination events that people will be remembering for many years afterwards.

I wanted to make sure my students got the full experience.

About That Darn Cat-- Part 2: Why Did He Put the Cat in the Cannon?

Francis Butts, in his account of the sinking of the USS Monitor, came up with a really good human interest story and that had to do with a cat.

According to him, while bailing water out of the Monitor's famous turret, he plugged one of the two cannons in it with his boots and coat.  (Why he would do this with the ship in that condition, I wouldn't know.)  Then, he saw "a black cat... sitting on the breech of one of the guns howling.

"...I caught her, wrote the sailor, "and, placing her  in another gun, replaced the wad and tampion, but I could still hear that distressing howl."

He never explained why he decided to do that with the cat.  Was he trying to save it or maybe quiet the howling?

Archaeologists are keeping this story in mind as they drill out the insides of those cannons.

What if they find the bones of a cat in one of the cannons?

When I was talking about the sinking of the Monitor to my classes of 7th graders, the cat story drew more interest than any other aspect of the ship.

--Cat, Or, No Cat.  --Old B-R'er

Charles William MacCord-- Part 1: Ericsson's Chief Draftsman

From the Oct. 10, 2010 Dead Confederates blog.  The Monitor's Screw.

Back on October 30, I wrote about this man when I came across his name and what he did in the Stevens Institute student newspaper.

It is surprising, that with over 100 patentable inventions on the USS Monitor that no one in authority bothered to preserve the ship's construction drawings..  The Navy didn't, the Continental Ironworks who built it didn't, nor did the ship's inventor, John Ericsson.

But, these drawings were saved by Charles William MacCord, described as the "cantankerous chief draftsman, of John Ericsson.

MacCord was later on the faculty of the Stevens Institute of Technology when it opened and this is where the drawings are preserved.

Thanks Mr. MacCord

Special Attention Needed for Training of Confederate Naval Officers

APRIL 30TH, 1864:  Secretary Mallory reported to President Davis regarding the operation of the Confederate Navy Department:  "Special attention is called to the necessity of providing for the education and training of officers for the navy, and to measures adopted by the department upon the subject.

Naval education and training lie at the foundation of naval success; and the power that neglects this essential element of strength will, when the battle is fought, find that its ships, however formidable, are but built for a more thoroughly trained and educated enemy....

While a liberal education at the ordinary institutions of learning prepares men for useful service not only in the Army, but in more branches of public affairs, special education and training, and such as these institutions cannot afford, are essential to form a naval officer.

In recognition of the necessity of this special training, every naval power of the earth has established naval colleges and schools and practice ships, and the radical and recent changes in the chief elements of the naval warfare have directed to these establishments marked attention."

On other words, it is harder to train naval officers than Army and schools are needed.

--Old B-R'er

Civil War History Becomes "Real" for Pennsylvania High School Students

From the March 1, 2014, Philadelphia Inquirer by Edward Colimore. //// The Historical Society of Moorestown brought their exhibit "Moorestown During the Civil War" to school. //// The students got to "meet" Joseph Hugg, a Navy surgeon on the USS Hartford, Admiral Farragut's flagship and William Gold, a sailor on the USS Cumberland, which was sunk by the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia. //// They also met George Wiltshire, a farmer who joined the Army at age 19, was wounded twice and held prisoner at Belle Island in Richmond. --Old B-Runner