A short walk on killing field at Franklin, Tennessee

What lies beneath? A Vanderbilt team explores Shy's Hill

From left, Vanderbilt research analyst Natalie Robbins, students Jordan Rhym and Alyssa Bolster,
geospatial librarian Stacy Curry-Johnson, and professor Brandon Hulette pose with
a ground-penetrating radar machine at Shy's Hill. (CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

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On a hazy Thursday morning at Shy's Hill in Nashville — ugh, Oregon wildfires — I did what comes naturally for me: Watch other people work. Military science professor Brandon Hulette, research analyst Natalie Robbins, geospatial data and systems librarian Stacy Curry-Johnson, and students Jordan Rhym and Alyssa Bolster -- all from Vanderbilt University -- manuevered a $13,000 ground-penetrating radar machine over four sites on the hallowed ground south of downtown. Robbins calls her team "spatial specialists," which sort of makes my head spin.

The ground-penetrating radar provides an "image" of 
the subsurface like this one, held by Vanderbilt
research analyst Natalie Robbins.

The specialists' mission: Use the GPR to determine what, if anything, might lie beneath the ground near the crest of Shy's Hill, unsuccessfully defended by the Army of Tennessee on Dec. 16, 1864 — Day 2 of the Battle of Nashville. Data from the GPR will be downloaded to create "images" of the subsurface. (They remind me of sonograms.) Could the GPR reveal remains of Confederate trenches? Human remains? Perhaps a stash of 500 beer can tabs from a long-ago bash? I'll report back in this space about findings.

Much of Shy's Hill was carved up more than 60 years ago by residential developers -- the very top of the hill was sliced off in the 1950s for a water tank, making it nine or 10 feet shorter than in 1864. This opening sentence from a feature story in a 1959 edition of the Nashville Tennessean makes my heart hurt: "Today Shy's Hill has been stormed, captured and occupied by building contractors and home owners. A phalanx of bulldozers led the way, and handsome brick houses now line the streets which circle the knob, halfway to the crest."

Bleh.

A small section of the hill -- the extreme left of the Confederates' line on Day 2 of the battle -- is preserved and maintained by the Battle of Nashville Trust. (Full disclosure: I am a board member.) The next time you're in Nashville, put it on your must-see list, because it's worth the hike up the steep, rugged trail to the top. 

In the video below, Hulette explains the team's Shy's Hill mission: 

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SOURCE

• Nashville Tennesseean, Dec. 13, 1959.

Rebels' 'vandalism': Defacement of Andrew Jackson monument

A cropped version of a Harper's Weekly illustration from July 5, 1862, of a park monument
to Andrew Jackson in Memphis, Tenn. It was defaced by Confederate sympathizers.
(Archive.org.) 

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Monuments to Andrew Jackson -- a racist, ethnic cleanser, and tyrant to some; a hero to others -- literally and figuratively have taken a beating recently. In June 2020, protesters in Washington climbed atop the sculpture of the seventh U.S. president in Lafayette Square opposite the White House, tying ropes around Jackson and his horse before attempting to pull the statue from its base, which was defaced with spray paint. In July 2020, the Jackson (Miss.) city council voted to remove a bronze statue of "Old Hickory" from City Hall grounds.

This Andrew Jackson monument in Lafayette Square,
opposite the White House, was defaced in 2020.
(Wikipedia | AgnosticPreachersKid)

Jackson, who died in 1845, was a flashpoint during the Civil War, too.

In the center of Union-occupied Memphis, Tenn., in June 1862 was a beautiful park filled with trees, flowers, shrubbery, and "benches for the accommodation of loungers of both sexes." Surrounded by an iron railing, the public square -- lighted by gas at night -- was a premier gathering spot. Authorities aimed to keep it that way -- dogs were discouraged, and anyone who meddled with the shrubbery risked a $10 fine, a significant sum. (You can still visit Court Square, where scenes from The Firm, the 1993 movie starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman, were filmed.)

In the park's northwestern section, surrounded by a circular iron fence and "ornamented by carefully trained shrubbery," rested a large, marble bust of Jackson atop a tall pedestal. (The former president was a co-founder of Memphis.) "Honor and gratitude to those who have filled the measure of their country’s glory," read an inscription in the pedestal's south side. On the north side appeared these words:

THE FEDERAL UNION, IT MUST BE PRESERVED 

That was a take on Jackson's famous utterance, made at an 1830 Thomas Jefferson birthday dinner, about federal law superseding authority of individual states. (Read more about the Nullification Crisis and its Civil War ramifications here.) 

A circa-1844 daguerreotype of 78-year-old
former president Andrew Jackson.

Before the Rebels high-tailed it out of Memphis in early June 1862, someone was determined to erase the words of the "Hero of New Orleans." Wrote a Chicago newspaper correspondent:

During the occupancy of Memphis by Gen. [Sterling] Price’s rebel army, a Col. Brunt rendered himself forever notorious and forever infamous by defacing and partly erasing the word federal in the above inscription. The monument still stands, however, a lasting rebuke to the rebels and a reminder of the reckless and venom minded policy of some of the men who have led its armies. The word federal has not been entirely effaced. It is yet readable, and is fast coming out of the dust of anarchy and confusion which for a twelve-month [period] have obscured it.

In addition to the word "Federal," the first two letters of "Union" were chipped by "some rampant rebel," another newspaper correspondent reported, "presenting an appearance as if a small hammer had been several times struck across the obnoxious words." 

Continued the correspondent: "It was a very feeble attempt at defacement of the words that grated harshly on treason's ear." The bust reportedly suffered the wrath of Rebel rabblerousers, too. (Damn kids!)

A Union soldier recalled a visit to the Court Square in late fall 1862. "...one of our company marched in, and it done me good to see them in a ring around the marble bust of General Jackson to which they showed their respects with presenting arms," wrote 30th Iowa quartermaster sergeant John Caleb Lockwood. "Upon the marble pillars upon which the bust of the general stands are cut the words, 'The Federal Union—it must be preserved.' The words 'Federal' I noticed were defaced as though it was intended to be obliterated. I thought I could see from the countenances of the citizens that we were not very welcome visitors."

An uncropped version of an illustration of the Jackson monument park in Memphis
from Harper's Weekly on July 5, 1862. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

Another Northern visitor was infuriated by the damage. "Vain attempt to obliterate the noblest utterance of Tennessee's favorite son!" he wrote. "There it stands, marred but still legible, a monument of vandalism of the perpetrators, and of the still greater vandalism and infamy of the rebels, who would not only obliterate the mute words on the marble but who have employed their mightiest energies to destroy the Federal Union itself, with all its living interests."

Now I couldn't track down "Col. Brunt," whose descendants may be aghast by his alleged behavior. As for the bust of Jackson, well, you can visit it at the D’Army Bailey County Courthouse in Memphis. Be warned: "It bears ample evidence of the turbulent reaction to Jackson."   

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SOURCES

• Chicago Tribune, June 18, 1862.
• Harper's Weekly, July 5, 1862.
• John Caleb Lockwood letter to his wife, Nov. 7, 1862, William Griffing's Spared & Shared site (Letter 2), accessed July 20, 2021.
• Nashville Daily Union, June 22, 1862.
• The Presbyter, Cincinnati, Ohio, July 31, 1862.

A 'remarkable accident': How New York soldier died in Virginia

An illustration, probably by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, of the grave of Corporal James Bryant and 
a tree upon which the soldier's name, unit and death date were etched. (Library of Congress)

Larkin Goldsmith Mead of Harper's Weekly created this illustration of a deadly lightning strike that killed 1st New York Light Artillery Corporal James Bryant in Virginia.

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When Elizabeth Bryant sent her only son to war, she probably feared he could be maimed or killed in battle or victimized by disease. But there's no way she imagined how 25-year-old James Bryant would die at the front in Virginia on an ungodly awful morning.

At roughly 2 a.m. on June 3, 1862 -- two days after the Battle of Seven Pines (Va.) -- a nearly spent thunderstorm approached the 1st New York Light Artillery's camp near Mechanicsville, seven miles northeast of Richmond. Humidity was as thick as a pot of bad coffee. Between the cannons and caissons weary soldiers placed tarps over sticks and rails for shelter. 

Corporal James Bryant's grave
in Cold Harbor (Va.) National Cemetery.
(Find A Grave)

"The sentries perceived a dark cloud sweeping from the west at a very low elevation, and as it passed over the park a terrific discharge of the electric fluid took place," wrote Larkin Goldsmith Mead, a Harper's Weekly illustrator embedded with the Army of the Potomac. "The whole battery seemed enveloped in a sheet of flame."

Boom!

"The flame seemed to strike one of the guns, leaped from thence to the supports of the tent, passing downward, and stunning and burning or partially paralyzing a whole platoon of twenty men," Mead wrote. Corporal James Bryant, "an intelligent and brave young man" from Bath, N.Y., was killed instantly -- the only soldier to die in the "very remarkable accident."

"The electric fluid passed under the rubber blanket of one man, lifting him several inches from the ground," Mead wrote. "Some [soldiers] had legs and arms partially paralyzed." 

Days earlier, another lightning strike killed a 44th New York quartermaster, knocked another soldier senseless, and ignited a box of cartridges. Luckily for the 1st New York Light artillery, none of its ammunition chests were ignited.

Comrades buried Bryant nearby under two large trees -- the corporal's name, unit, and death date were carved into one of them. Mead sketched Bryant's grave and also created an illustration of the lightning strike for Harper's Weekly, although it's unknown whether he witnessed the freak accident or relied on accounts of those who did. 

"The men are unanimous in the belief that lightning," Mead wrote, "is harder to beat than the rebels."

Bryant's remains eventually were disinterred from under the large tree and re-buried nearby, in Cold Harbor (Va.) National Cemetery. Elizabeth Bryant filed paperwork to obtain a mother's pension -- the request was approved at the standard rate of $8 a month.

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SOURCES

• Harper's Weekly, July 5, 1862.
• James Bryant's pension file, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C., transcribed by Jennifer Payne (accessed July 17, 2021).
• Krick, Robert K, Civil War Weather in Virginia, University of Alabama Press, 2007.

A visit with great granddaughter of Sam Watkins of Co. Aytch

Ruth Hill McAllister at the grave of Sam Watkins, her great grandfather.

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Confession: I have not read Company Aytch, Confederate soldier Sam Watkins’ classic memoir, which puts me in a minority among my Civil War friends, acquaintances and hangers-on, according to an informal poll. I promise to rectify that, especially now that I have a copy of the latest version, signed by Watkins' great granddaughter herself.

This image of Sam Watkins hangs in Ruth Hill McAllister's
house. Watkins died in 1901.

On a steamy Tennessee afternoon, Ruth Hill McAllister and I meet in-person for the first time, at Zion Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Columbia, where the remains of her famous ancestor rest along with his wife, Jennie. Clearly, Watkins – one of the “stars” of Ken Burns’ 1990 Civil War documentary – is not forgotten. Atop the 1st Tennessee veteran’s gray-granite marker sit tokens of remembrance left by visitors: pennies, nickels, dimes — even a pen knife, which seems a bit odd. 

Behind us stands Zion Presbyterian Church, Watkins’ longtime place of worship built, in part, by slaves. And steps from his grave stands one of those ubiquitous (and addictive) Civil War Trails tablets. It includes this quote from Company Aytch: 

"America has no north, no south, no east, no west. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south. We are one and undivided." 

Too bad today's America is not "one and undivided." But that’s a discussion for another day. Ruth, as sweet a lady as you’ll ever meet, invites me to her 19th-century house. There, I enjoy two slices of McAllister's freshly baked banana coffee cake with sweet tea, bond with her rambunctious but friendly dog and chat about one of the Civil War’s more fascinating characters. 

Visitors leave tokens of remembrance on Sam Watkins' gravestone in Columbia, Tenn.

Zion Presbyterian Church, which Sam Watkins attended, still holds services.

Thirty-one years ago — yikes! — Ruth's family sat glued to the TV for Burns' mini-series, which may have shaded the truth a bit (see: "Gettysburg/Confederates shoes story") but opened the eyes of millions to America's greatest conflict. (Lord, I can't get enough of former newspaperman Charles McDowell's Watkins voiceover.)

An ancient family Bible includes a list of Watkins births.

“My parents just hoped to live long enough to see the special,” Ruth tells me. (They did.) "We felt honored Sam was a part of it."

Watkins, who died in 1901, never dominated family discussions while McAllister was growing up. But her father had a habit of writing down notes from conversations with his mother — Watkins' daughter, Ruth's grandmother — about him on the backs of envelopes. Some of those scribblings are stuffed in the nooks and crannies of McAllister's beautiful house. (Ruth also has the ancient, Sam Watkins-signed family Bible, a neat relic to examine.)

Samuel Rush Watkins, who was promoted from private to corporal in 1864, seemed to be everywhere in the Western Theater — battles at Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro/Stones River, Nashville and elsewhere. But it’s his folksy, often-eloquent writing (and razor-sharp sense of humor) that leaves me slightly in awe. A few Watkins-isms: 

• "A soldier's life is not a pleasant one. It is always, at best, one of privations and hardships. The emotions of patriotism and pleasure hardly counterbalance the toil and suffering that he has to undergo in order to enjoy his patriotism and pleasure. Dying on the field of battle and glory is about the easiest duty a soldier has to undergo."

• 

  A close-up of Sam Watkins' gravestone -- and metal CSA
  marker next to it -- in Zion Presbyterian Church Cemetery
  in Columbia, Tenn.

  "I always shoot at privates. It was they who did the shooting and killing, and if I could kill or wound a private, why, my chances were so much the better. I always looked upon officers as harmless personages."
• "General [Braxton] Bragg was a disciplinarian shooter of men, and a whipper of deserters. But he was not any part of a General. As a General he was a perfect failure."
• "The lice and the camp itch were the greatest luxuries enjoyed by the private soldier. Ah, reader, they were luxuries that were appreciated. A good scratching was ecstasy. It was bliss."
• "The majority of Southern soldiers are today the most loyal to the Union. Many disown the Southern cause and have buried in forgetfulness all memory of the war."

Initially published in 1882, Company Aytch sold for $1.25 in hardback, 75 cents in paperback. Watkins even gave away some of the 1,500-book printing run as wedding gifts. He intended to re-publish the book, marking up a first edition with changes, corrections and additions in a "sometimes indecipherable scrawl," according to McAllister. But her great grandfather never did publish another edition.

Ruth Hill McAllister gave me a copy
of Company Aytch. Signed it, too.

That marked-up treasure remained with Ruth's Uncle Paul for decades. Immediately after his death in 1997, however, no one could find it. Her cousin Jenny eventually discovered the pencil-smudged, brittle copy in a box. Later, when Jenny asked Ruth if she were interested in buying it from her, McAllister was "delighted" and paid a "handsome price." It's now in a bank vault.

The latest edition, the only authorized one that includes Watkins' changes, corrections and additions, was published in 2011, with Ruth's impetus. "It is my sincere hope," McAllister writes in the introduction to that edition, "that historians and other readers will find it of some interest and benefit." Before my departure, Ruth gives me a copy as a gift.

Now if you will please excuse me, I have some reading to do.

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Interview: Laura DeMarco, 'Lost Civil War' author. Plus, a list!

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In a Zoom chat, author Laura DeMarco and I talked about her new book, Lost Civil War: The Disappearing Legacy of America's Greatest Conflict. The recently published book (Pavilion Books, 176 pages) is lavishly illustrated with period photos of battlefields and historic places. In our nearly 28-minute visit, we discussed a Gettysburg site few know about, Antietam's Dunker Church, and a fort in Louisiana that had ties to (gasp!) a cult. Heck, we even discussed the Cleveland Browns, who (sadly) may dominate the AFC North this season. That's a tough sentence for this longtime Steelers fan to write.

Here's more on DeMarco at her author page. Here's where you can purchase the book on Amazon.com. 

Below, Laura offers a list of sites she wishes had been preserved and/or properly memorialized. Plus, an outside-the-box bonus.

The 8th Vermont monument on the Cedar Creek battlefield.

SHENANDOAH VALLEY BATTLEFIELDS: Some of the most important battlefields of the Civil War in Virginia are buried under asphalt and concrete. A drive down Interstate Highway 81 provides a tour of Shenandoah Valley Civil War battlefield sites — planned or not. The interstate travels through the valley for 150 miles, cutting through seven battlefields as it winds through the picturesque countryside, including: Second and Third Winchester, First and Second Kernstown, Cedar Creek, Fisher’s Hill, Tom’s Brook. and the New Market battlefields.

An August 1863 image of Camp Letterman. 
(Library of Congress)

CAMP LETTERMAN, NEAR GETTYSBURG: Camp Letterman opened July 22, 1863. It was the first major war hospital located on a battlefield, not at a faraway city or barracks. Hundreds of tents were set up as the wards, and men from both sides filled the beds, another first. The hospital became home to more than 4,000 convalescing soldiers. Hundreds of convalescing men stayed behind in the hospital after the armies had moved on, until the last ones could be moved by train, or on their own, in January 1864. The hospital was closed that month, and for nearly a century its great significance was under-appreciated as development paved over Wolf’s farm. The site has been gradually taken over by sprawl, and even a mobile home park. In 2018, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives finally voted to honor the role Camp Letterman played in the Civil War and military medical history. A historical marker sits near Sheetz gas station No. 326.

Hard-to-get-to Fort St. Phillip in Louisiana. This is an 1898 addition to the fort. (NPS photo)

FORT ST. PHILLIP (LA.): Founded by the Spanish in 1792, Fort St. Philip has the most fascinating history of any American fort. It was ruled by the Spanish, French, and United States, and was the location of a Civil War siege, a Civil Rights threat, and a cult. The remaining structures were severely damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Today, portions of the original masonry fort and rusty artillery remain abandoned and covered in overgrowth. The land is shrunk more and more by erosion each year. Fort St. Philip, which played such a vital role protecting New Orleans, is only accessible by boat or helicopter.

A stereoview of Marshall House in Alexandria, Va. (Library of Congress)

MARSHALL HOUSE (ALEXANDRIA, VA.): One of the most significant deaths in the early days of the Civil War took place not on the battlefield, but in an inn. The Marshall House at 480 King Street in Alexandria, Va., was the site of the May 24, 1861, assassination of Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth, founder of the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment and close friend of President Abraham Lincoln.

It was a day that would live in infamy in the Civil War, energizing both Union and Rebel troops. The Marshall House was badly damaged in an 1873 arson, though it was rebuilt. The infamous location was demolished in 1950. But the controversy didn’t end with its removal. The Sons and Daughters of the Confederate Veterans hung a historic plaque on a new hotel on the site, The Monaco, that only mentioned Jackson, “the first martyr to the cause of Southern Independence” — not Ellsworth. The controversial sign was finally taken down in 2017 when Marriott purchased the property and renamed it The Alexandrian.

Brady, post-war

MATHEW BRADY'S FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN PHOTOS: Perhaps the most famous lost photographs were from the early days of the war. Mathew Brady, new to his field operation, photographed the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861. One of the rare times he attempted shoot a battle in action, Brady arrived at Bull Run with a group of newspaper reporters and Union troops led by General Irvin McDowell a few days before the fighting. On July 21, he ventured onto the battlefield with a wagon and assistants. They got too close to the action, however, and when the Union soldiers retreated to Centreville, they abandoned their wagon and joined the exodus. No images of this seminal battle survive.

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Strange daze: A 'hypnohistory' session at a Tennessee fort

Before the hypnosis session at Fort Granger, I was a bundle of raw nerves.

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Before leaving home to be hypnotized at a Civil War fort in Franklin, Tenn., a clause I never in the history of ever thought I’d write, Mr. B offers me a piece of her mind.

“Don’t come back clucking like a chicken.”

Also: “Wear pants.”

I’m not quite sure what she means by that, because I wear pants 50 percent of the time at home and ALMOST 95 PERCENT OF THE TIME OUTSIDE, which I think is admirable for a man my age.

Humorist/retired lawyer Jack Richards offered 
hypnotic suggestions while I was blindfolded.

Anyhow, hypnosis at Fort Granger seems like just the kind of thing to complete a whirlwind of recent weirdness. In the span of 17 days, I examined up close the "World's Largest Moon Pie" in Bell Buckle, Tenn.; shot a selfie at Little Hope Cemetery (like, no kidding) near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky; stomped my feet at the Smithville (Tenn.) Fiddlers’ Jamboree; and ate blazing-hot chicken tenders at the Music City Hot Chicken Festival in Nashville. (In early June in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, my car and I lost a stare-down with a bull and a herd of cows at the Widow Pence farm on the Cross Keys battlefield, so there’s a pattern developing here.)

Whew! I’m nearly out of breath just typing that last paragraph.

Naturally, the hypnosis trip started with a text from my friend Jack Richards, a full-time humorist/retired lawyer who loves history.

Funny guy: “We get to Fort Granger early in the day, before any crowds. I bring folding chairs. We find a quiet place. We take 20-30 minutes and do a hypnotic session with an emphasis on what happened there in 1864. … Want to meet there around 6:30 a.m. tomorrow. P.S. I was a Psych major at Penn State with an interest in hypnosis.”

Early morning reporting essentials at Fort Granger:
toilet paper (don't ask), a notebook, and a pen.

Me:“Hell yes. Let’s do it.”

A millisecond after sending the reply, extreme doubts creep in. Firstly, “Psych major” and “Penn State”? Seems sketchy. Secondly, what if under deep hypnosis I babble about some long-ago transgressions? At West Virginia University, pals and I dangled a small person by his belt from an upper floor of the freshmen dorm. Will Mrs. B seek an annulment if she reads this?

Throwing caution (and potentially 29 years of a solid-gold marriage) into the wind, I head to Franklin at 5:55 a.m. anyway. I am armed with toilet paper (don't ask), a reporter's notebook and pen, and an open mind. Arrival at Fort Granger: 6:21 a.m.

Let the hypnosis begin!

But first, a primer: Built with the aid of Black labor, the fortification on Figuers Bluff above the Harpeth River was completed in early 1863. In its heyday, more than 10,000 Federal soldiers were stationed at Fort Granger and the surrounding area.

During the Battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864, U.S. Army artillery from the fort devastated brigades in William Loring’s division on the Confederates' right flank, roughly a mile away as a cannon ball flies. "After sundown, the sparks of rifle fire and the lightning, thunder and groaning of the heavy cannons was splendid and awe-inspiring for the eye and ear," wrote a German immigrant in the 15th Independent Indiana Artillery Battery who witnessed Granger's guns blazing.

Stay off the earthworks!

Decades after the war, the fort was left to nature and hobos. Today it’s a fairly well-maintained city park, with paths along massive, well-preserved earthen walls.

No hobos or any other humans are in sight when Jack and I plop our lawn chairs near the middle of Fort Granger. Then he offers his guinea pig hypnotic subject a green-and-white checkered bandana for a blindfold. “Relax,” Jack tells me. “Put this on.” I envision early rising fort walkers thinking, “Why is the man in a lawn chair holding that other man hostage at 6:35 a.m.?” 

The next 25 minutes are a blur of hypnotic suggestions and historical tidbits.

“Tune out everything,” Jack says.

“Concentrate on my voice.”

“Focus on your feet.”

"Focus on your knees."

And then come words that make me feel really queasy: “Focus on your thighs. They are the biggest part of our bodies, and we rarely think about them.”

Oh, Lord.

Our hypnosis session was held near the middle of Fort Granger.

I nod off into some strange netherworld. You’d probably feel the same if you drank a few cheap beers, burned incense, and watched The Twilight Zone on Netflix.

“Union troops hanged two Confederate spies here on June 9, 1863,” Jack says.

“Fort Granger guns, commanded by Captain Giles Cockerill, tore at the Confederates with vicious enfilade fire.”

An overgrown area near the war-time entrance of the fort.

“Fort Granger fired 163 rounds during the battle, or about 40 per gun.”

“Think about the passage of time.”

Now I’m not saying I was transported back to Nov. 30, 1864, but I did hear while under hypnosis church bells playing “My Country, Tis Of Thee” / ”God Save The Queen” and roosters crowing. Who knows if those sounds were real? I also heard cannon fire, but that was just my hypnotist playing a YouTube clip practically inside my eardrum.

Afterward, Jack and I compare notes and listen to “La Wally,” an excellent operatic song, from his robust Spotify collection. It's an otherwordly experience, for sure. Then a dog walker finally shows up, no doubt wondering what the oddballs in the lawn chairs are up to.

“Hypnohistory,” Jack calls our session.

“Is that a thing?” I ask.

“It is now.”

We chuckle as only two Civil War nerds can.

Hypnotist Jack Richards walks on a trail near an imposing, earthen wall at Fort Granger.

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SOURCE

• Fout, Frederick, The Darkest Days of the Civil War, 1864 and 1865, Translation of Fout’s 1902 Die Schwersten Tage des Bürgerkriegs, 1864-1865.

So a man walks into a Philadelphia bar to talk Civil War ...

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So I walked into a bar in south Philadelphia and asked a waitress if she knew anything about the deadly explosion at a munitions factory on the site in 1862. No, she told me, but the place had a "weird, vacant bar" vibe before it became Triangle Tavern. Then I explored the 'hood and shot a video (above) before ordering a heartburn-inducing cheese steak (with sweet peppers!) at Pat's. What a day!

On March 29, 1862, Professor Samuel Jackson’s fireworks-turned-cartridge factory exploded, killing and injuring dozens of workers. It was the Civil War’s first munitions factory accident involving a major loss of life. No historical tablet marks the site of this deadly tragedy, an omission someone must rectify.