In Honor of My Week at Fort Fisher

The new header on the blog is in honor of the week I just spent at Fort Fisher State Historic Site in Kure Beach, NC. The photo is of Admiral David Dixon Porter and his staff on the deck of the USS Malvern in December 1864. You will see the young and dashing William Barker Cushing on the left of the photo.

Fort Fisher is a special place to me. I began my career there as the Mary Holloway Seasonal Interpreter in the summer of 1998. I met my wife there when she worked as a part-time employee while in college. I have assisted in just about every living history program and reenactment that has taken place there in the past 9 years. I've met a lot of wonderful people there that have remained good friends and colleagues over the years. I have many memories and special moments at that earthen fortification situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape Fear River.

Now Fort Fisher is going through a major transition. In March, the Site Manager of 10 years resigned. A new manager has been in place for just under three months and a number of other staff changes have been made. Fort Fisher is in the process of becoming a different place, or at least different from what its been the past decade or so. I view all the changes at Fort Fisher in a positive light. I think everything that has happened so far will turn out for the good. I have confidence in the new manager and think he will do a fine job in continuing to make Fort Fisher one of the premier Civil War sites in North Carolina and the nation.

I spent last week at Fort Fisher training a new crop of artillerists to fire the site's 12-pounder Napoleon. It was one of the best classes I've ever had. I was also assisting the manager in conducting interviews for an open position at the site. Finally, I oversaw the artillery demonstrations for their annual summer artillery shoot yesterday. It couldn't have turned out better. While it was somewhat inconvenient to be out of the office for an entire week, it was one of the most rewarding and satisfying weeks I've had in quite a while. I encourage everyone to keep an eye on Fort Fisher and visit when you get a chance. Good things are happening!

Weekend in Richmond

This past weekend was my living history group's annual trek to the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA. As always, this weekend turns into an opportunity to do a little site-seeing as well. In that spirit, I struck out on my own Friday and visited Pamplin Park for the first time. I went there both out of personal and professional interest. I've always wanted to go there, and have talked to Executive Director A. Wilson Greene in the past about working there. Also, my supervisor has discussed taking a field trip there with our Civil War site managers to see what kinds of ideas we can get as we lead up to the Civil War sesquicentennial. Pamplin Park was not exactly what I expected (not saying that's good or bad). I thoroughly enjoyed my visit, spent the majority of my day there, and am very grateful for the time that their staff spent talking with me. I had some truly genuine and useful interactions with some of their interpreters and other staff. It was one of the better visitor experiences I've had recently.

We had a good day at the MOC on Saturday, visiting with approximately 300 folks. In my experience, most of the visitors at the MOC are extremely interested, inquisitive, and generally well-educated and intelligent. I've had many engaging conversations at that museum over the past three years. On Saturday evening before heading to supper our merry little band stopped by Drewry's Bluff (an annual pilgrimage). As always, its just a spectacular site and I never cease to be amazed when I go there.

Sunday morning we decided to head over to Tredegar Iron Works to the National Park Service's battlefield visitors center. That's also one of our favorite sites. What was new since we were last there is the American Civil War Center. Though the exhibits in this new museum are impressive, it was very disappointing to me on a couple of levels. The name is misleading, as is their claim to tell a complete and balanced story. The exhibits from beginning to end are mainly about slavery, African American involvement in the war, and the legacy of the war on blacks in America. I don't have a problem with that at all, but I feel that they should just say that up front. In their opening video they claim to be telling the complete and balanced story of the war, but that is far from true. Very little of the Confederate story is told, though they do have one Confederate flag and a couple of Confederate coats (tokens at best). Not much more of the Union story is told past how the war effected the nation's African Americans. In no way is this museum presenting a complete story, nor a balanced one. Intellectually and visually this is a great museum; it simply falls short of its claims. It should more appropriately be called the Museum of the Civil War and its Legacy as it Effected America's African American Population (or some such thing). One of the coolest exhibits in this museum was a small display on the Civil War in American Pop Culture which featured Lee and Grant bobblehead dolls and the Dukes of Hazzard car, General Lee. My final analysis is that though this museum is very stimulating, it is horribly mislabeled and not at all what visitors will expect when they visit. Their claims to completeness and balance of story are terribly false.

Latest Encyclopedia Entry

My entry on the USS Underwriter Expedition has just gone live at the North Carolina History Project. Of the five entries I've had published in this online encyclopedia, I think I am proudest of this one. I must give a lot of credit to the editors, who make my poor attempts much more readable and scholarly sounding. I've never been the strongest writer, at least in the academic sense. All thanks go to Dr. Troy Kickler and his staff and reviewers for making my stuff look good. This entry is in my estimation the best I've done to date. I encourage you to go and check out my entries, as well as the rest of the website.

Hint: If you go to the entry linked above you will see my name highlighted at the bottom of the article. By clicking on my name you can access a list of all the articles I've published on the site.

Wild Weekend

I normally don't go a week in between posts unless there is really nothing going on. This time however, there is too much going on. It all started last Monday when my wife, who hadn't been feeling all that good for the past couple of weeks, spent the better part of 9 hours at the hospital having numerous tests run and getting fussed at by an old retired Navy doctor for not taking better care of herself. Granted, my wife has lost 80 pounds over the past 10 months (and she's done it naturally, with no drugs, surgery, or anything else - just diet and lots of hard work at the gym). It seems the diet part caught up with her and the doctor decided she needed to work with a nutrionist to get things worked out. We also found that she had gall stones, which had been causing a lot of her problems. Her surgeon told her on Thursday she had 14 stones! He said that he didn't know when he'd be able to schedule the surgery, but he'd be on call at the hospital all weekend (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Friday she had a serious gall bladder attack, so off to the hospital, spent the night, and had the surgery yesterday at 8 a.m. She was released by 4 p.m. and I brought her home. She is turning out to be an impatient patient. She won't just sit still and rest, she wants to get up and do stuff around the house, so its been a bit of a battle. Eventually she wore herself out and had to lay down.

As I was on my way to the hospital Friday, my mother called and told me that she was moving my father into an assisted living facility. I knew this was coming soon, but geez, what timing. Dad has Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. My mom, though in fairly good health (and ten years younger than Dad), is a small person. She's too frail and weak to take care of him. I'm relieved that he's in the nicest facility in town, but he's not real happy about it. He understands why he has to be there, but he still doesn't like it. My brother, who absolutely hates nursing homes and the like, even said he was impressed with the facility. So hopefully everything is going to work out well for all of us. Mom lives in the country, about a 15 minute drive from town. My brother and I would like for her to sell the house and move into town, closer to Dad and the two of us, but she's planning on staying at the house. I know there's some work to be done there before she can sell it, but hopefully within a year or so she'll be ready for a change too.

As always, the work schedule is extremely busy, but its mostly fun. I am having a great time with work right now, which makes all the other craziness in my life seem poorly timed. But, there's a time for everything I suppose and maybe this weekend's developments were meant to make me see that as much fun as I'm having at work, there are other things I need to be tending to as well.

Our living history group is doing our annual weekend at the Museum of the Confederacy next weekend. On Friday I will be heading up early and visiting Pamplin Park for the first time. I am looking forward to this little mini-vacation much more now than I was before. And of course, it will provide more good blog material!

A Day in Raleigh

Yesterday my wife, stepdaughter, and I took a family outing to Raleigh. The main purpose of this trip was to visit the NC Museum of Art to see the Temples and Tombs exhibit, a special traveling exhibit of ancient Egyptian artifacts from the British Museum. My wife has always had an interest in this particular historical period, so this was an exhibit she didn't want to pass up. While I'm not the biggest fan of ancient Egypt, nor very knowledgeable about it, I did enjoy the exhibit. I thought we'd stick around and see more of the museum's permanent collection afterward, but lunch seemed to be more important to my stepdaughter at that point, so we left.

After lunch we headed downtown to the NC Museum of History. My wife wanted to see the recently installed exhibit on North Carolina's military history. I like the concept of this exhibit, but it certainly could have been done better. Since it covers everything from the American Revolution to the present war on terror, nothing is really given a thorough treatment. The French and Indian War is all but neglected, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War are given very little space, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are almost inseparable if you aren't paying attention and are crammed into a rather small area, and the current war on terror gets more attention than almost all other wars, except the Revolution, Civil War, and World War II. The Spanish-American War and World War I sections are larger than I expected. The choice of artifacts displayed throughout the exhibit is very good. I particularly enjoyed seeing General William Dorsey Pender's uniform (his coat is somewhat unique). I also was glad to see a pre-war photograph of James I. Waddell in his US Navy uniform, as well as his US Navy officer's sword. It was especially interesting to me since I have recently written an encyclopedia entry on Waddell.

Finally, since my stepdaugher isn't really interested in history or art, we made one final stop at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. After taking her to the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores just the day before, I didn't think she'd care to see anymore wildlife, but I was wrong. So, instead of visiting the State Capitol, as had been my plan, we ended the day looking at animals. But, everyone was happy at the end of the day, so the trip was a successful one.

New Ship on the Header

Yeah, I know I left the CSS Chickamauga on the header longer than I usually leave a ship up there. I've been real busy and haven't had time to make the change. So for all you ship watchers (and I know some of you are out there), here's the latest.

USS Cambridge was an 868-ton screw steamer that was 200 feet long, 32 feet wide, and drafted 13.5 feet. She had a complement of 96 officers and men, was capable of 10 knots, and was armed with two 8-inch rifles. To me, that seems like pretty light armament for a ship as large as the Cambridge. Anyhow, she was built in Boston in 1860, purchased by the US Navy and commissioned in 1861. She was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from September 1861 until October 1864, when she was transferred to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Over the course of the war, the Cambridge captured 11 prizes. She was decommissioned and sold at Philadelphia in June 1865.

I chose this ship as the result of a conversation I had yesterday with Park Historian Paul Branch at Fort Macon State Park in Atlantic Beach, NC. Our living history group is talking about doing some living history at the fort and I was inquiring about the possibility of any Union sailors being present in the fort at any time during the war. They certainly were in the area as Beaufort, NC was a coaling station for the squadron. As it turns out, sailors from the Cambridge were detailed to man heavy artillery at Fort Macon during an instance where a large part of the garrison had been called away for field duty. So, when we go to Fort Macon (date yet to be decided) we will portray sailors from this ship.