Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis

973?9 c?5w Copy I $3.95
Connelly s Tom Lawrence

Will success spoil Jeff
Davis? McGraw-Hill [1963]

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TJSTE DUE

TILL SUCCESS SPOIL JEFF DAVIS?

With

C CAMPBELL GRANT

McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC.

NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON"

Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis? Copyright 1963 by T. Lawrence

Connelly. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of

America. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in

any form without permission of the publishers.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-20720

First Edition

12407

9 7 ?. /:

Contents

1 Confederatesmanship

The Professional Confederate 11

Great Confederate Epidemic
Centennwtism, Roundtabilitis,

4* Re-enactment Fever 29

8 Our Local Correspondent Reports on

the Re-enactment at Goslin s Branch 43

4 Atlas of Dull, Inconsequential 4* Unimportant

Places Not to Visit on a Centennial Tour

of Confederate Battlefields 55

5 Dictionary of Important Civil War Terms

to be Used in Unimportant Conversations

by Insignificant People 69

6 Confederama, Americana, Junkarama

A Layman s Guide to Civil War Relics 73

[6] Contents

7 The Bonnie Blue Flop

Confederate Strategy # Tactics 83

8 On to Richmond <$ Other Euphemisms

A Concise Account of the North s Strategy 91

9 Just Before the Decisive Battle, Mother 95

10 I Wish I CouWa Gotten to the

Land of Cotton Bull Run to Petersburg 101

11 Rebel Crass

The Confederate Command System 115

1% Battlers, Losers fy Whitewash Jobs 117

13 Sinking the Mint Julep Navy 119

14 We re Tenting Tonight on the Old Launching

Pad The First of the Modern Wars 123

15 John Brown s Buddy

The Confederate Medical Corps 127

16 Whores d Combat

Camp Life in the Confederacy 129

17 A Chapter on Abraham Lincoln Because Every

Book on the Civil War

Has a Chapter on Abraham Lincoln 133

18 Gastronomical Warfare Confederate Cooking 135

19 Why Appomattox? 137

W Get Right with the Confederacy, Brother

The War Nobody Lost 139

To my wife, Sally Evelyn,

who gave me the ideas . . .

wrote most of the manuscript . . .

typed the drafts . . .
corrected my errors . . .
changed the typewriter ribbon faithfully ,

and most important
laughed when it was not funny.

The Professional Confederate

ConfederatesmanshipThe Professional
Confederate

For more than ninety years, writers have peered
through the battle smoke to catch a glimpse of that
vanishing figure in gray the Confederate. Alas, the
old Confederate is no longer a hero to little boys in
the corner drugstore, A host of writers have brought
him into the average American home with a shocking
degree of intimacy. Instead of reading about ghostly
figures in gray topping Cemetery Ridge, we now are
exposed to oversized accounts of everything from the
degree of Confederate sinus drainage to Robert E.
Lee s hair tonic. A new figure, who never was closer
to the War than a Military Park tour, has risen to
place his name alongside other great American folk
types such as the lumberjack, the pioneer, the cow
boy the professional Confederate. Confederates-

[12] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

manship is not a hobby ... it is a vocation. Almost
anyone can be an amateur Confederate, for the quali
fications are relatively easy to meet. Six out of ten of
the following will make you an amateur and start you
on the road to graydom :

1. Cry during Gone with the Wind (especially
when the Yankees burn the Atlanta depot) .

2. Own an LP album of Civil War songs.

3. Visit Gettysburg and buy a souvenir minie ball.

4. Yell like heck when someone raises a Rebel flag
at a football game or a political rally.

5. Buy a copy of Freeman s E. E. Lee (worth three
points).

6. Own a great-grandfather who rode with Jeb
Stuart.

7. If you cannot qualify under number six, then
have a great-grandmother who buried silver
under the smokehouse.

8. Tell about your family plantation burned by
Sherman s raiders. Grit your teeth when you say
"Sherman" and challenge onlookers to sing
"Marching through Georgia."

9. Own a piece of Confederate money.
10. Hate Jefferson Davis.

On the other hand, the professional Confederate,
the ultimate of Confederatesmanship, is of an elite
and highly classified group. He operates everywhere
. . . bars, hotel lobbies, cocktail parties. He may wear

Confederatesmanship

[13]

Confederate socks, a Confederate tie, belt buckle, tie
clasp, cuff links, and carry a cigarette lighter that
plays "Dixie." However, his most distinguishing
feature is his conversation. After only a few minutes
a professional Confederate is identifiable as one of
several types within the species.

1. The Decisive Battler. This type is one to be
avoided at cocktail parties, for he is probably the
most obnoxious and outspoken genus of the Confeder
ates. Thoroughly convinced that the War was lost at
Tiis favorite battle, he refuses to associate with anyone
but those who concur ; as a result, current Civil War
historians are divided into Pea Ridge School, Gettys
burg School, ad infinitum.

[14] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

2. The Regimental Historian. This second type
of Confederate is easily spotted at any gathering.
His hands are full of old muster rolls and glossy
prints of regimental officers. To all Civil War writers
he is the proverbial thorn. He constantly besieges
them with letters of protest regarding minute errors
in their writing. Colonel Blowhard, for example, be
longed to the 45th Tennessee ... not the 44th. A
sadist at heart, this Confederate s favorite game is to
inform grief-stricken United Daughters of the Con
federacy that their grandfathers Tennessee regiment
never served with Bedford Forrest . . . the ultimate
blow to the sirens in gray.

3. The Ballistics Expert. This Confederate is one
of the angry young men of the new Southern army.
Although his tour of duty never took him further
than the Fort Banning Rifle Range, he sees himself
as a Frederick the Great in butternut, convinced that
the technical aspects of firearms is the only subject
worthy of conversation. He thrills audiences with
sulphurous accounts of the use of repeating rifles by
Casement s division at the battle of Franklin, Tennes
see, and waxes eloquent on such subjects as the slash
marks on a Springfield rifle barrel and what might
have happened if the North had used repeaters dur
ing the entire War. His home is usually armed like
the Berlin frontier, with cannon balls, bayonets, and
sabers. The most prized possession is always a Navy
Colt carried by Jeb Stuart (of which there are only

Confederatesmanship

fifty thousand in existence) . His personal character
istics : can lecture two hours on Patton s firepower on
the Rhine front . . . usually is missing several toes . . .
is often divorced.

4. The Professional KentucJcian. A rare and van
ishing breed, the Kentuckians stringed ties and Jeff
Davis beards are fast disappearing to the frozen
chicken pot pie industry. Usually a native of New
York City, the Professional Kentuckian is a frus
trated would-be citizen of the state. The closest he
has been to the Bluegrass is My Friend FlicJcd. Yet
his eyes dim when someone plays "My Old Kentucky
Home" ; he speaks softly of Churchill Downs, though
he is allergic to horses. He can establish kin with
everyone from Henry Clay to Man o ? War. The fact
that little excitement happened in Kentucky during
the War (except a big Federal hog swindle in 1864)

[16]

Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

does not diminish his pride. He goes berserk when
someone suggests that John Morgan was an inept
cavalryman, and babbles for hours over the excel
lence of Kentucky bourbon.

5. The Antiquarian. This Confederate is one of
the most common types and spends most of his time
prowling old attics and privies for war relics. The
pack rat of the Confederacy, he collects anything
that was around during the War and some things
that were not. His home looks like the British Museum
and smells like a quartermaster s warehouse. Where
else could anyone find a six foot square print of the
burial of Stonewall Jackson?

The collector is sometimes duped, however. For
years northbound travelers on busy Highway 41

Confederatesmanship [17]

which follows the winding Tennessee River north
from Chattanooga have stopped at a shabby house
which bears the sign BATTLEFIELD SUVINEBS CHEEP
HEAR. They shell out for battered minie balls sold
by a local rustic complete with stringed tie and
"Y all come." Several years ago, this rustic, who
never got closer to the Chattanooga battlefields than
a riverfront pool hall, confided his secret to me. Near
the river bank is his workshop, complete with bullet
mould and musket, and a garden of lead balls which
are planted and harvested every year to be sold to
Northern tourists. "They whupped us on the moun
tain but Pm getting 5 em back now," he chuckled.
And he is.

6. The Nonprofessional Professional Virginian.
Usually a resident of Baltimore, Maryland, this Con
federate s only connection with the Tidewater is
frozen shrimp cocktail. Yet he readily hauls out his
great-grandfather s uniform, which smells like a
rejected Smithfield ham, and lectures on the "real
waah." For him, there was no other general than
"Bobby Lee 35 and no other army in the field than the
Army of "Nawthun" Virginia.

7. The Retired Army Officer. This Confederate
only makes his listeners wish that warfare had in
flicted at least one more casualty. For some reason,
the retired army officers are usually called Colonel
and always have double last names. Most of them
never rose higher than honorary captains in the Na-

[i8] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

tional Guard. Strategy and tactics are their cup of
tea. They lecture for hours on what if Longstreet
had and what if Stonewall Jackson had not. Other
pastimes of this genus include collecting lead soldiers,
wearing shabby tweed jackets, and damning Field
Marshall Montgomery.

8. The Genealogist. These walking pension rec
ords are usually members of the Daughters of, and
represent the elite of Confederatesmanship. Their
motto is "Every man (especially my grandfather)
his own slaveholder." No genealogist has yet existed
who does not claim for his ancestors fif ty slaves and a
Tennessee valley plantation. They dominate conven
tions with sketches of the family history of General
Beauregard. A most remarkable breed, they can by
means of "research" (i.e., a five dollar bribe to the
state archivist), transfer any inept private in their
family into a Stonewall Jackson. Moreover, they can
smell a battlefield site within fifty miles and determine
if it is suitable for a historical marker. Many a site
of a minor battle such as Dog Walk, Kentucky, is
adorned with a massive half million dollar marble
statue of Southern womanhood weeping over the
wounded form of a Confederate. At least, the local
birds are grateful.

9. The Civil War Author. Currently, the most
popular Confederate is the Civil War author. One
popular type of writer is the graduate student. Lord
knows what the reading public would do without the

Confederatesmanship [ ig]

highly specialized Civil War students that the gradu
ate mills grind out. Consider a few recent disserta
tions, which unfortunately are often published in
book form :

"Saddle Soap Usage in Southwestern Virginia,
1861-1865."

"Confederate Hymn Book Production in East
Mississippi."

"An Inquiry into the Rate of Artillery Production
at Soakum Springs, Alabama : A Study of Company
Receipts and Deposits."

Not to be outdone, a new school of graduate in
structors (labeled "literary historians") stress upon
their students writing style rather than technicality
and have produced such memorable works as "Fairy
Queene Symbols in the Career of Ben Butler."

A second source is the University Press*, the sole
purpose of which is to publish the dull narratives of
Ph.D. s that would not receive consideration else
where. Almost every university press has a Civil War
centennial series. For example, recent publications
are:

Journal of Ezra Snoot, Georgia Planter, 1864-
1865.

Civil War Letters of Private Humbert Slump,
46tJi Arkansas Infantry.

On to Richmond: the Journal of Emma Walnut,
Mascot, 1st Pennsylvania Bulgarian Zouaves.

Children s books have not escaped the craze. The

[20] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

old favorites have been conscripted and revised for
quick sales. For example:

Born to Command: The Biography of Uncle Wig-

The Wizard of Oz and the Coming of the Civil
War.

Tiny Tim and the Orphan Brigade.

Alice in Wonderland: The Military Strategy of
Jefferson Davis.

The easiest way to publish something on the War
is to submit an article to a historical journal. Better
still, start your own journal. There are some two
thousand in print and, judging by the tone of the
articles, many of them are in need of material.
Journal writing has its advantages. If he cannot write
good prose, the writer can bury himself in footnotes.
The footnote is a clever device, designed to confuse
the general reader and absolve the author of any
lawsuits. For example, consider a typical footnote to
the statement "General Crumbley was a bastard." 34

34. Ibid, see also, Cornstalk, Bastards in Gray, loc. sic.*
op. sit., loc. site, sob. Many maintain that General Crumbley
was not a bastard. See Thirty Years 9 View by Mrs. Crum
ble y, op. sit., sic. hoc. Major Kumpley maintained that the
General may have been a bastard but that he was indeed
a "magnificent old bastard at that/* See diary of Isaac
Bumpley, Moose University Archives, XXCI, pt, 2, Sept.
21, 1863. In addition to being a bastard, the General was
also a Mason. See diary of Cornelius Kraut, 1st Wisconsin
Infantry, SWMVHR (XXI, Je. 45).

Confederatesmanship [21]

Closely akin to the article is that bit of academic
payola, the book review. Reviews are written for three
reasons the reviewer needs a free copy of the book,
the author is his worst enemy, or the author is his
brother. Consequently, Civil War reviewers have de
veloped their own language, which scarcely reveals
what they are thinking. Consider a typical review:

"This is a very controversial book [isn t worth a
darn}. It will probably evoke much comment [still
isn t worth a darn]. Professor Klutch has a long-
established career as a historian [so why didn t he
quit while he was ahead?]. His biography of this
great Confederate bastion [bastard], General Lost-
cause, is one of several recent studies on this general
[fifty-three, to be exact]. The book could stand a few
minor corrections [such as addmg a bibliography,
index, and notes]. Despite a few technical errors
[it was the South that lost the War] , this volume is
another creditable publication of Bellweather Uni
versity Press [they publish my book next week].

The paperback trade has entered the competition
for Civil War publications. Gory and lurid covers in
your corner drugstore advertise the latest War
novels.

Lady Chatterley*s Forage Master.

Exodus A Novel of Bragg s Military Career.

Look Backward, Angel A Novel of the U.D.C.

A World I Never Made A Brief History of the
South.

[22] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

The ultimate in Civil War bibliography is still the
monograph. Several thousand are published each
year, but only the top sellers can be mentioned here.

General E. J. Stackhouse. Seeking the Lost: The
Wilderness Campaign.

Gunpowder Vandiver. Mighty Stonewall: A Sur
vey of Ante-Bellum Virginia Architecture.

Gunpowder Vandiver. Rebel Blast: A History of
Confederate Ordnance.

Clifford Dawdey. The Land They Fought For: A
History of White Citizens Councils.

Bull Wiley. Farewell to Arms: The Life of Johnny
Reb.

Douglas Southall Freeholder. Til Cry Tomorrow:

A Biography of R. E. Lee.

Among the books not to include on your selected
reading list are :

The Life and Sermons of Reverend Elijah Gooch
of the $3rd Alabama Infantry in Six Volumes.

An Examination of the Techniques of Confederate
Gunpowder Measuring with an Additional Re
port on Metallurgy Experiments Conducted at
Relishburg, Georgia, Regarding the Density of
Number Two Ironplate Cartridge Boxes, 1861-
1865.

Confederate Memorial Volume of Songs and Poems
by Miss Cypress Pantaloon of Oxford, Missis
sippi, Together with the Funeral Orations of
General Leonidas Polk.

Confederatesmanship [ 23 ]

History of the Forty-Third Arkansas Regiment,
as Told by Its Old Commander; Appended to a
Complete Roster of the Old Forty-Third.

The Complete Papers, Letters and Speeches of
General Theophilu,s Holmes m Twenty-Seven
Volumes.

How long will Confederatesmanship flourish? The
new Confederacy receives reinforcements every year.
The Long-Playing Record Collector has also joined
the ranks. Time was when the only Civil War music
available was either old movie soundtracks or ancient
records of Roy Acuff singing "Battle Hymn of the
Republic." Nowadays, Confederates gather and weep
over a variety of albums. Every recording artist and
some that are not have recorded Civil War albums.
Some of the most notable ones are :

Songs I Wish I Could Have Sung the First Time
Around, by the TJ.D.C. Chorale. This album includes
such hits as "Marching through New York," and
"Confederate Victory March. 5

Cool Rob Lee and His Rebel Rockers Shake the
Civil War, which contains "Rocking Bonnie Blue
Flag," "You Ain t Nothing but a Carpetbagger,"
and "Just Before the Battle, Mother, Mambo."

Other top-selling albums are Urias Cowfever and
His Smoky Mountain Rail Fence Rompers Pick Out
Songs of the Southern Secession, and The South
African Hippopotamus Jawbone Band Plays Songs
of Dixie.

[24] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

From Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind
to Saturday Westerns, the Confederates continue to
win the battle of the movie screen. Southern armies
are usually pictured as outnumbered but not out
fought ; Southern officers as having a dash of chivalry
not present in their Yankee foes. If the South loses,
in a movie, it loses because it was overwhelmed by a
force some one hundred times larger. In Western
movies, the South has always won out at the end by
rescuing a smaller Northern force from a horde of
Apache Indians.

Perhaps there will be a movie titled Whatever
Happened to Robbie Lee? in which all of the cliches

The heroic women

Confederatesmanship [25]

and maudlin lines that have been uttered in Civil War
movies will be assembled for one last big gasp.

AGED PLANTATION OWNER TO SON IN NO UNIFORM!

"There s been a Tolliver in every war so why are
you standing there in your BVDs?"

AGED PLANTATION OWNER TO SWEET MAGNOLIA BLOS
SOM, BOTH LOOKING FAR DOWN ROAD : "Don t worry,
honey, he ll be back some day."

HEROIC SON TO MAGNOLIA BLOSSOM: "I ll be back some
day and we ll build that little smokehouse for two."

MAGNOLIA BLOSSOM TO HERO : "I ll be waitin by the
stable door for your return*"

of the South

[26] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

GRIZZLED SERGEANT TO ELEGANTLY DRESSED MAJOR:

"It wuz us who did the fighting at Bull Run,
Sharpsburg, etc., etc., and not you fancy officers/ 3

ELEGANTLY DRESSED MAJOR TO GRIZZLED SERGEANT :

"You must think I like sending those men out there
to be killed"

YOUNG HERO TO GRIZZLED SERGEANT: "Look, the

Yankees are charging."

GRIZZLED SERGEANT : (Calmly spitting tobacco juice}
"Save your powder, boy, they ll get a lot closer."

YOUNG HERO TO GRIZZLED SERGEANT: "Look the

Yankees are being ambushed by Apaches."

GRIZZLED SERGEANT TO ELEGANTLY DRESSED MAJOR:

"Hooray ! We ve saved the gold shipment that will
buy foreign troops to help Robert E. Lee take
Washington and win the War."

ELEGANTLY DRESSED MAJOR TO GRIZZLED SERGEANT:

"But they are Americans we just can t let them
be slaughtered by Indians."

(Follows fifteen minutes of unnecessary drumbeatmg 9
mcoTwrent shouts of "Mount up," bands playing med
leys of Civil War songs.)

ELEGANTLY DRESSED MAJOR: "Sergeant, move the men
forward."

GRIZZLED SERGEANT: "Forward men."

YOUNG HERO TO FRIEND: "Look, we re moving for
ward."

Confederatesmanship [27]

(Union and Confederate battle flags now stand side
by side while soundtrack repeats medley of war songs
till Indians are routed.)

EMBARRASSED YOUNG UNION CAPTAIN FRESH FROM

WEST POINT : "My compliments, sir."

ELEGANTLY DRESSED MAJOR TO EMBARRASSED YOUNG
UNION CAPTAIN FRESH FROM WEST POINT! "My

compliments too let s cut this war jazz, split the
gold, and invest in Western real estate."

EMBARRASSED YOUNG UNION CAPTAIN FRESH FROM
WEST POINT TO ELEGANTLY DRESSED MAJOR!

"Spoken like an American."

The Great Confederate Epidemic:

Centennialism, Roundtabilitis,

& Re-enactment Fever

Time was that if Podunk Corners wanted to commem
orate the birthday of General Lockjaw Polk, nobody
got very excited. The local cell unit of the Sobbing
Sisters of the S.S. would head for the village statue
and hang a wreath on its granite cartridge box ; the
ducktail-adorned local guard unit would fire a dis
interested volley; and last year s 4-H Queen would
read a grisly poem telling of General Folk s retreat.
Not so today. The local boys from the Chamber of
Commerce, motel owners, cider and minie ball huck
sters, and retired National Guard Colonels who never
saw a live round of ammo, have joined forces to
commemorate in style everything from the battle of

I>93

[30] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

Gettysburg to the last mule in the Rebel army. Two
groups have led the way in the present day race to
commemorate the centennial commission and the
roundtable members.

The centennial commission, whether statewide or
local, is usually comprised of the following members :

CHAIRMAN: An off-beat State College history
teacher and Civil War buffoon whose last book sold
two copies*

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: This post, which demands
leg work and tail resting, is generally filled by an
out-of-work and self-appointed "Colonel," who got
his commission as a former auctioneer. He wears
moth-chewed suede coats, splatters his droll con
versation with references to "f athuh s division" and
the "Yunkees," and displays on the wall behind his
oversized desk a large map of Civil War campaigns,
replete with numerous colored tacks.

THE COMMITTEE : No centennial commission would
be complete without the Committee. The Committee
is composed of influential state senators, battlefield
motel owners, high brass of the Sobbing Sisters of the
S.S., county judges, bored bank presidents who col
lect lead soldiers, and a solid phalanx of first class
antiques such as family tree surgeons and museum
operators. All of these people are affected with a
strange and contagious malady known as "Centen-

The Great Confederate Epidemic [31]

nialism." Basically, the disease Centennialism is the
uncontrolled desire to commemorate. 1 The object of
the centennial celebration makes no difference. If
Robert E. Lee threw a corn cob at a pesky camp dog
somewhere in the neighborhood, a commemoration
ceremony will be held, complete with the planting of
a gaudy, silvery-embossed highway marker. There is
something magic about the figure 100, possibly the
fact that it so closely resembles a one dollar mark.

The symptoms of Centennialism are easy to dis
cern: the pulse quickens whenever the term "Con
federate Monument" is mentioned ; eyes dilate at the
sight of an unmarked Civil War site; the nose
twitches violently when within 500 yards of an un-
restored Civil War breastworks ; and extreme itching
occurs, especially near the pocketbook, whenever the
term "tourist" is mentioned. Naturally, the Centen
nial Committee plans all ceremonies within range of
local motels and orange blossom honey stands oper
ated by surprise! Committee members.

Centennialism is seen in two acute forms "Round-
tabilitis" and "Re-enactment Fever." The breeding
place for many Civil War bugs is the Roundtable,
made up of hapless individuals who have Round-
tabilitis. A roundtable is not a roundtable at all, for
the only table these Civil War buffs see is the game
room bar. A typical Civil War roundtable might con-
1 To make money.

[32] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

sist of: a former shavetail second lieutenant who
never tires of telling how he singlehandedly won the
Battle of the Bulge ; a frustrated plumber who always
wanted to charge with Pickett; a henpecked elec
trician whose wife would not let him keep mummified
generals in the house ; and, almost always, a Confed
erate money dealer, who always "just happens to
have" a slash mark III Leonidas Polk thirty-five dol
lar bill in his wallet for fellow members to fawn over.
Roundtables have more officers and ranks than the
original Confederate army, which is saying quite a
lot. Civil War buffoons do not stop with a president,
secretary, and treasurer. Everyone is an officer. Such
high offices are held as :

GUIDON BEARER i Takes down all the pin-ups after
the meeting closes.

FORAGE MASTER : The leader of the advance on local
tavern.

DRUM MAJOR: Hires the high stepper who enter
tains after the meeting is over.

CO:LOR GUARD : A delegation which writes angry let
ters whenever a Civil Rights Bill is before Congress.

Roundtables divide themselves into military units
such as platoons, batteries, and squads of four for gin
rummy. In almost every roundtable, one will find a
member smitten with uniformitis (i.e., a mania for
wearing the exact uniform and equipment that Gen-

[34] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

eral Beauregard wore right down to his ragged un-
dershorts) . This type of Civil War buffoon will accost
you upon entering the meeting hall, and, with gleam
ing eyes, inform you that your forage cap should
have a black worsted braid not over one-eighth of
an inch wide. You hardly have time to run to the
nearest surplus store to right the error when he jo
vially informs you that the chevron on your sleeve is
not one inch above the position of the elbow joint.
Feebly, you throw your regulation blue tunic around
yourself to conceal more mistakes in dress, only to be
informed that the single row of six brass buttons on
your tunic does not extend to the waistline. Even
when the buff attempts to maintain proper uniform
standards, he can fall into error. One hapless Civil
Warrior, whose roundtable wore shell jackets with
eight brass buzzards on the gizzard, was arrested en
route to the meeting for impersonating a highway
patrol officer. Uniformitis is an expensive form of
roundtabilitis. Surplus stores get rich on Civil War
buffoons who troop in to purchase gray twill tunics,
yellow silk sashes, gilt braid forage caps, and regula
tion cavalry boots fresh from the closeout of a motor
cycle accessory supply house.

The minutes of a typical meeting:

7:00 P.M. Bugle call to arms. Since Chief Bugler
Leonidas Poke VII was too inebriated to blow, an

The Great Confederate Epidemic [35]

LP record of the South African Loyalist Corps Drill
Team was used.

7 :10 P.M. Pledge of allegiance to the Confederate
flag. During the pledge, the flagstand collapsed and
four states on the flag were soaked in the rum punch.

7 :15 P.M. The Grand Minutes Major removed his
cavalry hat and read the minutes of the last meeting.
Remarks concerning the argument over where to have
the annual parched corn and salt pork feed were
stricken from the records as too profane.

7:30 P.M. The business meeting commenced.
Forty dollars was voted to send to the Wetumpka,
Tennessee, Ladies Trap Drum Regiment Auxiliary
to restore the statue of General Felix Zollicoffer,
whose right knee was crushed by a drunken bulldozer
operator.

7 AS P.M. The Roundtable voted fifty dollars as
a cash award for the sixth grade student at Coontrot,
Kentucky, who writes the best essay on why the Con
federacy would have won the War for Southern
Liberation if it had had more men.

8:00 P.M. Discussion of possible new members.
Mr. Hobart Lumpkin was rejected by a 40 to 2 vote
because he has a cousin who lives in Michigan. Colo
nel Bluefield Allegheny, prominent stockraiser, was
unanimously accepted after promising to loan the
Roundtable his entire herd of fine Kentucky mules

[36] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

for the re-enactment of the cavalry skirmish at Davis
Ford, Tennessee.

8 :30 P.M. Grand Sergeant Major introduced the
speaker for the evening, Lester B. Cockroach, Grand
Imperial Cannon Swabber of the Maury County,
Tennessee, Howitzer Drill Unit. Mr. Cockroach de
livered a fine two hour lecture on "Where Nathan
Bedford Forrest Crossed Duck River on November
29, 1864," complete with sound movie, colored slides,
charts, and flannelgraphs.

10:30 P.M. Recreation Hour was provided by
Forage Master Tobe Jones. A fine performance was
given by the Rebellettes, from Backwater, Missis
sippi This fine precision exotic dancing team re
moved their regulation uniforms smartly to the tune
of "Yellow Rose of Texas." Highlight of the eve
ning s entertainment was an impressionistic dance
representing the flags of the Confederacy.

12 :00 Midnight Following a lengthy Recreation
Hour, club members, before departing for individual
bivouacs, slaked their thirst at the Rebel canteen, a
folding bar which fits smartly into the rear of the
Civil War bookcase of host Herby Johnson.

Avid roundtables purchase elaborate outfits and
organize drill teams to perform not only at local bat
tle re-enactments and centennial celebrations, but at

The Great Confederate Epidemic [37]

practically any event to which they are invited,
whether the County Co-op Fertilizer Queen Pageant
or a parade honoring the opening of a new agricul
tural extension service. The smaller the town, the
more elaborate is the name and dress of the drill team*
Hence, in Tennessee you might have the Ragweed
County Flaming Zouave Dragoons composed of local
feedstore employees riding plough mules.

Artillery units are also very popular. Local round-
tables buy cannon from scrap iron jobbers or else
"requisition them" from national military parks. The
result might be the Watercress County, Kentucky,
Royal Brass Napoleon Artillery Battery, consisting
of one battered field p t iece too dangerous to fire.
Casualties among these groups who insist upon
demonstrating their inability to handle old weapons
are larger than in most of the Civil War battles.
Roundtables lose charter members by the caisson-
load every time some cannon of ancient vintage is
rammed up for a July 4 shoot-out. Avid roundtable
members intent upon drill-team firing of decrepit
rifles are frequently maimed when they put enough
charge in a rabbit rifle to kill an elephant. At the
centennial celebration of the birthday of General Cut
lass Cotton-boll, held at Womply Springs, Missis
sippi, the fine artillery battery from Holly Bogs,
Mississippi (which doubled as the volunteer fire de
partment) put on a fine loading exhibition for the

[38] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

crowd gathered at the general s statue. However, one
Bernie Zuck, assistant wheel greaser for the battery,
dropped his rabbit-tobacco cigar into the firing pan
of the cannon, and the fine statue of the general was
reduced to a handsome sundial.

By far the most contagious form of Confederate
sickness is Re-enactment Fever, which hits both round-
table members and centennial commissions. One cen
tennial organization has gone so far as to put out a
book entitled. Instructions for Organization, Equip
ment, and Uniform of Military Memorial Units,
which has more rules than the old Rebs had ever
heard of. In previous years, when citizens wanted to
join in a commemoration ceremony, they grabbed a
ten-cent flag and marched with the band. Not so with
those neo-Confederates smitten with Re-enactment
Fever. The minimum of equipment demanded for
participation in a Rebel wake includes uniforms,
pistol, saber, cartridge box, canteen, saddle, blanket,
bedroll, and preferably a horse which explains why
the Civil War is still a rich man s war and a poor
man s fight.

Commissioners and roundtablers smitten with the
fever will re-enact everything. The favorite re-enact
ment is the battle. Thousands of volunteers are avail
able to portray Confederate soldiers ; Union soldiers
are drawn by lot because it has always been their lot
to be the villain.

The Great Confederate Epidemic [39]

A typical Confederate army portrayed in a re-
enactment of the battle of Indian Burp, Arkansas,
might include :

COMMANDING GENERAL: General Hammus Hock,
portrayed by State Senator and Chairman of the
Historical Appropriations Committee I. 0. Belch.

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER : Brigadier General Eli-
jah Bullmoose, portrayed by I. 0. Belch, Jr., son of
Senator Belch, promising student and pool player at
Grundy State College,

FIRST ARMY CORPS : The first corps, commanded by
Colonel Ezra Spit (portrayed by prominent Burp
County lawyer and prospective candidate for County
Judge, Elias Hunk), is made up of boys from the
Lacepants Military Academy Spotted Horse Troop.

SECOND CORPS: The second corps, commanded by
Brigadier General William J. Hardeeup (portrayed
by Humbert Plump, State Commander of the Sons
of the Sobbing Sisters of the Southern Secession),
are volunteers recruited from the State Highway
Patrol.

CAVALRY: The cavalry battalion, commanded by
Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Furrier (por
trayed by State Sobbing Sisters Vice Regent Miss
Alma Plunk, who grew a handsome beard for the oc
casion) , is composed of volunteers from Little Lord

[40] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

Flauntitboy Riding Academy from Bourbonsnod,
Kentucky.

ARTILLERY BATTERY : The artillery battery, com
manded by Colonel Winchester Chainshot, is por
trayed by the Nashville, Tennessee, Fifth Davidson
County Light Mounted Napoleon Swabbers Battery,
commanded by Guflford Snob, prominent Nashville
wholesale plumbing parts salesman*

Special mention for the ceremonies should be given to :

Burp County Ladies Aid Society, for help in re
moving the wounded when the artillery battery ex
ploded.

Elijah Cob, Burp County Constable, for his help
in directing traffic. Officer Cob wisely allowed only
those automobiles bearing the sticker "Centennial
Commission Official Car" to drive over the Federal
breastworks in the final Confederate charge.

Sheriff Opie Jones, for his quick apprehension of
fourteen Confederate infantrymen using live am
munition.

Mr. Lester Gooch, for his excellent operation of the
sunglass concession located in the Confederate biv
ouac area. Mr. Gooch respectfully pulled the plugs
out of the automatic vending machines during the
reading of the "Ode to the South."

Warden Horace Jones of the Burp County Prison

The Great Confederate Epidemic [41]

Farm, who donated 300 trustees to portray the Fed
eral army. And to the State Highway Patrol for re
covering one corps of the Federal army, which fled the
battlefield and the county in the heat of the day s
battle*

OUT Local Correspondent Reports

on the Re-enactment at

Gosliris Branch

It all started over the battle of Goslin s Branch. Ac
cording to Miss Elsie Sloan at the county library,
the fight was between Colonel Asthma M. C. F. Kil-
patrick s 385th Arkansas Light Mounted Bragoon
Horse Artillery and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel
Wheezemeyer A. Hankin s Brigade of the 145th
Rhode Island Mounted Fusileers (provisional) . Most
everybody around Goslin s Branch had forgot about
the big battle till the Sobbing Sisters of the Southern
Secession (Camp 4<52), commanded by Mrs. Tobe
Potts (he s the fertilizer salesman over at Cave
Springs), decided to build what they called in the
county newspaper a "decent and fitting memorial to
this decisive battle, the highwater mark of Confed-

[43]

[44] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

erate fortunes in the western part of Southeastern
Tennessee."

Now I don t care much myself, cause everybody
knows around here that the battle was fought over
who was going to get the six hogs out of Junior Pott s
grandfather s back pen down by Mingo Branch. Fact
is, only real casualty was a Yankee forage master
who ran into the outhouse while looking back over his
shoulder. But this didn t make much difference. Camp
452 decided that some kind of stone ought to be put
up to remember the event.

Well, that didn t exactly bother me either, except
that they decided to put up a marker next to Augie
Dodson s pond on the Sequatchie Road. Since they
held the lease on the property, the Sobbing Sisters
voted to fence the pond in, build a monument, and go
down to the Tolliver Landing graveyard and haul
up what s left of Colonel Winchester St. Lefant
Potts. 1 Then they would bury the old bastard by
the pond and only allow folks to fish there who could
prove some way or other that their ancestors fought
in the battle. 2

That nailed the hide to the smokehouse. Every
body in this half of Sequatchie County knows that
Augie Dodson s pond is the best bullhead hole west
of the log dam on the Caney Fork River. For years it
has been open to anybody who wanted to use it, so

*Tobe Pott s grandfather and Confederate commander in the
battle.
2 On the Confederate side.

Our Local Correspondent Reports [45]

long as he didn t let Si Mosby s sheep out of the south
field. Besides, this had always been the official meeting
place of the Cumberland Ridge Coon and Fox Hound
Breeders Association M.O. 3 Wasn t another place
west of Knoxville where a man could sit and drink
hard cider and fish bullets, and have a body s peace.

So I reckon I knew what to expect when the club
had its monthly meeting at the county line service
station the next night. By the time I got there, things
were going whole hog. I could see all twenty members
there, and most of them were already plastered on
Mrs. Sue Nell Mangum s homemade watermelon white
wine. Hubert Hill, Sunday School Superintendent
over at Cave Springs Two-Seed-in-the-Sprrit-Re-
formed Evangelical and Running-Water-Baptism
Only Church was holding the floor fact is, he was
lying on it (Hubert always could drink more than a
boar coon eating sorghum). "It s unconstitutional,
immoral, and a downright durn dirty trick," he
spluttered. "Why, everybody knows old Winchester
Potts was the biggest stud east of Elk River." Don t
think I d argue that.

Fact is, the only fighting old Winchester did worth
anything was when the Yankees trapped him in bed
with some woman over at Horse Mill one December
night in 1862. Seems Colonel Potts, who had been
detached for "special service," fought his way clean
out of bed, past a whole squad of Yankee cavalry and

8 Men only.

[46] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

out the front door of the Stockfarmers Hotel. Folks
said it was a right smart fight. Probably would have
been a sight ^more impressive if Winchester hadn t
caught his night shirt on the hitching post when he
jumped on his horse. According to all reports, Colonel
Potts had the honor of being the only naked cavalry
man in Bragg s army that night in action on the
Shelbyville road.

Well, the club decided to send a committee to the
monthly meeting of the Sobbing Sisters to see what
we could do about keeping the pond open. Having
some Confederate ancestry myself (grandpa packed
cartridges at the Selma arsenal) I was chosen spokes
man. When we got to the meeting room (basement of
the Baptist Church) the meeting had already started,
so we slipped in on the back row. Mrs. Tobe Potts,
the Imperial Sergeant-Major General, was reporting
on ways and means. She wasn t much to look at (had
a face like a gutted catfish) but she cut a right smart
figure in her uniform, even if her sword did keep
stabbing her big toe. Fact is, she was rumored to be
the only woman in town with a picture of Pickett s
charge on her left bicep.

After she reported, everybody stood up and sang
"Marching through New York." It was right catchy,
but Hobie Gilbert swore up and down that he d heard
the tune before. Then Miss Sue Nelle Hawkins led the
pledge of allegiance to the South, at which time the
color guard from Miss Bessie Jones 5 Sunday School

[48] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

class presented arms. Would have been right impres
sive if Miss Bessie hadn t swung her flag too soon
and caught Sue Nelle across the ribs. Sue Nelle (boys
at the pool hall claimed she had a pair of drawers
made out of a battle flag) jumped like a goosed boar
and told Miss Bessie to keep her durn hands off the
regimental flags anyway.

Well, they got quieted down when the club sang
their official Confederate hymn, "Never Grow Old,"
after which Mrs. Sam Sewell led a closing prayer
for "continued peace and good will," which would
have gone over better if she hadn t dropped a car
tridge box right before she amened.

We saw we weren t doing any good, so we slipped
out and went down to rest at the pool hall. Signs
were already going up all over town about the big
centennial celebration, and it looked like a real f oot-
stomper was in store, with bands, schoolteachers from
State College reading all kinds of important papers,
and all six candidates for sheriff on the program. The
club held a meeting in the back room of the pool hall,
but it was more like a funeral. Hobart Jones, had
a face as long as a Plott hound when he reported
there wasn t nothing in the deed at the courthouse
that would keep em from planting old Colonel Potts
at our bullhead hole. Besides, Augie Dodson s wife
had done put the pressure on him to let the women
use the pond. Seems she made him sleep on the couch
for a week. At which he relented and not only let

Our Local Correspondent Reports [49]

em use the pond, but got rooked into being appointed
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Secession Auxiliary. Then
Lick Sullivan, the official keeper of the club s f oxhorn
announced his retirement because of "circumstances
beyond his control" (he weighed 120 and his wife
240). Seems the whole club just busted up, so we
couldn t organize any opposition. Lem Wilkins joined
the church and even gave up chewing, and Sam Wash-
burn, the president, got thirty days for killing fox
squirrels out of season.

The day of the big show arrived with only three of
us left in the club. But one was driving a float and
another hung one on at the pre-centennial fish fry,
so that left just me. I hung around the pool hall until
parade time. I guess I ve seen five parades in my life
time, but this was the biggest since a local girl won
the Valley Sweet Potato Queen Contest back in 42.
In all I guess I counted
three bands, including one
fine eleven-piece one from
the Monroe County Con
solidated High School.
This one has always been
a big favorite of mine since
drum majorette Lula Mae
Shouse forgot to wear her
tights in the 1950 "Bring
Our Boys Back From Ko
rea" Celebration. Course

[So] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

I m not even counting the drill team from the Ladies
Temperance Society that carried signs saying to
drink spring water and keep healthy. They clanked
soft drink bottles in rhythm till they reached Doc
Bufford s drugstore, where they fell out from ex
haustion.

Then came the official party in the constable s car.
It was an impressive group, even though the car threw
a rod and they had to continue the parade in Opie
Read s cattle truck. There was Major Gus Turner
running for re-election. Miss Sue Nelle Hawkins,
the Fertilizer Co-op Queen, and little Lancelot Pigg,
the county spelling champion. Next I spotted Boy
Scout Troop 599 from Oliver Springs, dressed in
authentic Indian costumes. They looked right Indian,
even if little Eddie Logan s headdress did have
"Hoboken, New Jersey," painted on it.

I stepped in to march with the men s Sunday
School class from Caney Fork, even though I didn t
have my button that signified I d read Second Chron
icles twelve times. We were marching behind the
county high school majorettes, who later complained
that they kept getting pinched by a bunch of drunks.
I can t hardly deny this, since when we made a hard
right turn on the public square, the whole first row
of the class, including the roll keeper, kept going
straight into Bud s Tavern.

Well, the ceremonies at the pond began in a big
way. Reverend Perkins opened with his talk on "The

OUT Local Correspondent Reports [51]

Greater Confederate Moral Victory at Gettysburg,"
after which the local K.K.K. harmonica band played
"All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight." Then Miss
Ophelia Cotton Gin, great-granddaughter of the fa
mous Brevet Brigadier General Secession T. Cotton
Gin, read the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the
Fourth Tennessee Infantry. Then a constipated-
looking teacher from State College started to read a
right long paper on "Symbolism and Poetic Imagery
in Confederate Field Battle Reports." I would have
enjoyed it except Hobie Potts kept going to sleep be
side me and slobbering on my battle flag.

Then came time for the burying ceremonies. The
County Judge delivered a powerful oration on "Colo
nel Winchester Potts, Father, General, and Nation
Builder." Right powerful speech covered every
thing from the battle of Magna Charta clear through
the causes of the Revolutionary War to the Battle
of Primm s Smokehouse in 1864. When the Judge
finished, he took a swig of Miss Willie Lumpkin s
homemade gourd brandy, and nodded to the Boy
Scout troop. A war surplus bugle blared out taps,
and the burying was on.

The Sobbing Sisters had done it up, alright. To
make it a more impressive sight, they d decided to
float the Colonel s coffin across the bullhead pond on
what they called a funeral barge. Course it wasn t
really nothing but two of Buck Collins tractor inner-
tubes and a bunch of nailed planks. But when the

[52] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

bugle played Taps, they started paddling the raft
across the pond. I could tell right off it was loaded
a mite heavy. Besides Old Winchester and his coffin,
there was an official honor guard (Tobe Wilkins and
his rabbit gun) , and a full delegation of the Sobbing
Sisters aboard.

Right off, things went wrong. Just as they neared
the bank, the hired mourners from Cave Springs
Church burst into singing "He Arose," but Augie s
prize sow, cooling off in the mud on the shallow bot
tom, woke up at the noise and raised up just as the
funeral barge floated over. The raft flipped and threw
the whole bunch into the bullhead hole honor
guard, Sobbing Sisters, and Colonel Potts still riding

Our Local Correspondent Reports [53]

in his casket. Somebody jumped in and dragged the
ladies out of the mud while others finally got a rope
on the coffin, which was floating toward the mill dam.
Then they hauled the Colonel ashore for the burying.

Reverend Perkins, by this time a little stout with
the gourd wine, muttered a few verses, gazed into the
sky, and whispered through his beard to the pall
bearers to hurry up and get the bastard planted.
And then it happened. The Colonel s waterlogged
casket gave way at the bottom, and the mortal re
mains of the old boy rattled into the grave all, that
is, except a small medal which fell at the Judge s feet.
"Dear friends," he spluttered, "Providence has al
lowed us a brief glimpse at a war trophy of this
venerable patriot." He cleared his throat, accidentally
spit in the grave, and read the inscription. "To
Colonel Winchester Potts, for four years service be
hind the Rebel lines as a spy. Best regards, Major
General U. S. Grant, U.S.A."

Well, that was last month, and rumor has it that
the Sobbing Sisters have disbanded and are now
weaving potholders instead. I don t know why they
took it so hard. I thought it was right enjoyable so
enjoyable that I reckon I ll mosey down to Chat
tanooga next month. I hear tell they re planning a big
celebration there, too. Guess I ll go that is, if the
bullheads quit biting !

Your correspondent,
Ezra Buttrey

Atlas of Dull, Inconsequential &

Unimportant Places Not to Visit

on a Centennial Tour of

Confederate Battlefields

Northern tourists in the South have always needed
protection from crumbling Confederate statues of
Braxton Braggs, imitation dogwood, and hush pup
pies with Mickies in them. Most guide books are out
of date because so many sites, especially graveyards,
have been moved to make room for TVA. Many an
old state s righter either turned over in his grave or
got turned out of it by this phase of the New Deal.
The following guide is provided for tourists who
plan to attend any of the 1,001 battle re-enactment
blow-outs that will ravage the South during the cen
tennial celebration. The pace of the re-enactments is
proceeding so rapidly that many Southerners claim
they are already in a Second Reconstruction, which

[55]

[56] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

is not much like a second honeymoon unless the Su
preme Court looks like your mother-in-law.

This tour will proceed as follows : Lexington, Ken-
tucky-Gunlock, Tennessee-Burp s Corner, Georgia
Lynchmob, Mississippi-New Orleans, Louisiana via
U.S. 31, U.S. 41, U.S. Grant and General Sherman,
State Route 10%, sixteen fox trails, and a creekbed.
To confuse the tourist, the tour is described in a man
ner similar to the descriptions of tours in the Amer
ican Guide Series.

Mileage

.666% * Lexington, Kentucky. A quiet and charm
ing town, Lexington is the birthplace of General Phi
lander Crust, C.S.A., 1840-1865. General Crust, one
of the 546 boy heroes of the Confederacy [which
makes us think somebody s kidding ] 9 was killed at
Cowpile, Alabama, in 1865, when his faithful horse
Terence kicked six soldiers and one nearby cannon
shell. General Crust, dying in the arms of his orderly
Fitzgerald who was busy picking the general s pock
ets, uttered those famous words, "Ouch!" His home
is now run by the Sobbing Sisters of the Southern
Secession, Old Horse Chapter, and is operated by the
old antiques as a museum.

41.1. At this point the road ascends Goose Moun
tain. At 42.3, right 6 miles to dry ford, cross and fol
low hog path 55 feet to Lonesome Rock. At Lone
some Rock, tradition says all Confederate generals

Atlas of Dull, Unimportant Places [57]

who ever admitted losing a battle wrote their names
both of them.

51.6: Left, 6 miles, then east 5 miles on Peapatch
Turnpike to home of Luster Mint julep, popular
Blowhard County Secession leader. Here one sees the
famous Mint julep smokehouse, where other hams
were cured.

62.3 : Highway crosses Tennessee line.

62.4 : Speed Trap.

62.5 : Office of Justice of the Peace*

62.6: Loan Office.

74.999 : Right 6 miles to the curve overlooking the
Sowbelly Fork of the East Branch of North Shin-
bone Creek is the beautiful Marsha Falls, named for
a local Southern belle who loved to kick the gong
around. Local superstition says that underneath the
falls was a favorite hiding place for Yankee soldiers
and Marsha.

85.4 : Left 6 miles to Big Piggut Church National
Cemetery. Six Confederate soldiers who died from
overeating country ham were buried in June 1862.
The graves are marked and cared for by the S.S.S.S.,
Humbert Burp Chapter. Donations are appreciated.
Leave them with the kindly old sexton or if he is
absent, put them on the front seat of his sports con
vertible.

90.2: The highway gently traverses Hog Ridge
and drops suddenly. After picking yourself up, con
tinue across Turkey Ulcer Creek. From the bridge.

[58] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

92.1, one sees the famous Losers Leap. Tradition has
it that General A. S. S. St. Fluke, U.S.A., com
mitted suicide here after surrendering his mountain
garrison to a platoon of folksingers.

98.9 : BLUE BOILING SPRINGS. Here on the Cumber
land Mountain range is located a century-old spa and
health resort. Chalybeate springs pour forth large
quantities of mineral water. Blue Boiling Springs is
a growing community, consisting of one hotel, one
general store [with a new meat chopper], and forty-
six Confederate monuments. At the world-famous

Atlas of Dull, Unimportant Places [59]

Crawl Inn Hotel, Miss Sue Nelle Goldenrod, called
by some who lived to regret it the poet laureatess of
the Confederacy, wrote 400 stanzas of her most fa
mous poem, "The Death of General Zollicoffer at
Mill Springs, Kentucky. 35

100.1 : Right .2 mile to Tinkling Spring. (Caution !
There is a narrow foot trail to the spring use safety
harness. Visitors should check with the First Aid sta
tion before descending.) Soldiers from both armies
drank together at the spring, if they ran out of
booze, they drank out of the spring. Whether they
wore the blue or the gray, both sides wore hangovers.

128.6: Left .6 mile to a frog pond, right 8 miles
to Robber s Cave. This cave was once the hideout of
notorious Rebel outlaws and robbers led by the in
famous Fleecem Jones. Today the cave is owned by
another operator, Fleecem Jones III, who in dealing
with tourists stopping at the cave, carries on in the
great tradition of his ancestors. Right .2 mile to the
Grand Hall of Glittering Columns and the Palisaded
Fountain of Snowfall of Stalactite and the Stalag
mite Grand Ballroom of Flowing Onyx. In this un
pretentious room, cave formations (made of plaster
by Fleecem Jones III in his workshop), hang from
the wall. On the ceiling of the room can be seen the
inscribed names of various Federal soldiers who hid
out in the cave. The fact that the names appear to be
written with a ball-point pen causes some slight doubt
as to the authenticity of these inscriptions.

[60] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

139.6 : Herbie Peatmoss 5 Civil War Museum and
Gift Shop. (Park in back lot next to lifesize model
of Abraham Lincoln, insert a quarter and the me
chanical Lincoln will split a rail. Insert a dollar and
he will save the Union.) A side trip from Peatmoss 5
can be made on burros with cavalry saddles. Each
tourist can thus ride his ass to the site of Fort
Plumby, where for five dollars, he can witness the
Civil War centennial re-enactment of the surrender
of Fort Plumby, January 5, 1864, by Private Silas
Gooch, Company B, Fifth HogkUl County, Tennessee
Mounted Flaming Zouaves, to the Smoky Bear Bri
gade of U.S. Partisan Rangers. For an additional
ten dollars, tourists can witness an endorsed national
Civil War centennial re-enactment of the hanging of
Private Gooch, sponsored by the Whoopee County,
Alabama, Civil War Round Table. Donations are re
quired for the memorial fund for those who volunteer
to portray Private Gooch. For an additional ten dol
lars, the guide will get you back through the woods
to Peatmoss Gift Shop, where the tourists are hung.

While in the gift shop, visit the lovely museum
sponsored by the General Simon Bolivar Bucket
Chapter of the S.S.S.S. A large collection of old
Confederates and old Confederate items can be found
here. See especially little Sue Nell Peatmoss collec
tion of stuffed animals and Confederate brigadier-
generals. Other interesting items include a stump on
which General Robert EL Lee sat while being treated

3

[62] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

by a surgeon for athlete s foot, and a rabbit s foot
once owned by Stonewall Jackson s pet rabbit, John
C. Fremont. Of special interest is the stuffed horse,
Horace, favorite mount of Corporal Buford Plunk.

After visiting the museum, tourists are invited to
purchase gifts in the tourist craft shop, where crafty
salesmen are ready to sell genuine handicraft items
made in the vicinity by local people. Among the
locally-made items which can be bought here are:
handmade Inca Indian Silver Hammered Zipper
Flys, handmade Smoky Mountain Pottery, hand
made Ozark Mountain Pottery, handmade Rocky
Mountain Pottery, handmade mountains. Other items
include authentic Civil War bullets, used modern
bullet moulds, and genuine Civil War uniforms and
rifles [used only in old centennial celebrations].

141.2: Georgia State Line. Buy a peach and help
the Klan.

156.2 : The highway climbs to the top of the Smoky
Mountain range [this is some feat in itself for there
are few climbing highways]. Atop Bugaboo Gap is a
large aluminum arrowhead, a memorial to the bri
gade of Cherokee Indians, led by Lt. Col. Sitting
Bullregard, who defeated a detachment of Sherman s
army marching through Georgia. The descendants
continue on in the traditions of their sacred fathers
by scalping every tourist who stops at the Gap. Two
miles west is a foot trail and an outdoor amphitheatre,
where nightly performances are given of the pageant,

Atlas of Dull, Unimportant Places [63]

"The Red in the Confederate Flag, Its Origin, His
tory, and Meaning to Future Confederate Descend
ants." This six-hour play is sponsored by the Cracked
Pottery Chapter of the S.S.S.S. All proceeds from
the play go toward work on the 300-foot high face
of General Leonidas Polk being carved on the face of
the mountain.

171.4: The highway crosses Bumbling Branch.
West .2 mile to the spot where Georgia Congressman
Fatback Sowlasses announced his candidacy for re
election to the Confederate Congress in 1864. His
speech was interrupted by the approach of Sherman s
army and this brave and resourceful southern patriot
immediately announced his candidacy for the United
States Congress.

189.4: Little Pig s Eye Battlefield Museum and
Chenille Bedspread Shop. This shop is operated by
the ladies 9 auxiliary of the Sons of the Butternuts,
an organization of Confederate ancestors. Confident
of their cause, these Sons of the Butternuts, known as
SOB s for short, operated a confidence game by sell
ing Georgia chenille bedspreads made in Brooklyn,
thus proving the adage, "If you can t outstich em,
join em." The bedspreads may be bought in a variety
of familiar patterns, including the famous "Birth of
Stonewall Jackson s Horse," a diagram of Jefferson
Davis family tree, and a print showing the total
number of Union casualties in the war. Proceeds from
this blanket sale of bedspreads will go toward the

[64]

Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

centennial re-enactment of Lincoln s assassination,
which is presented each week at the SOB s Bayonet
Bread Bake and Parched Corn Supper sponsored by
the Goosegrease Country Rifle Drill team. The mu
seum may be reached by automobile; train service
has been temporarily discontinued for the past
hundred years.

189.5 : A large cast iron hog painted Confederate
gray marks the site of the battle of Little Pig s Eye
Creek In 1864, the advance of Sherman s 80,000
troops was temporarily halted at the creek bridge
by one WiUard Slump, who operated the toll bridge
over the creek. Placing himself squarely in the path
of Sherman s army, this brave private citizen defied

General Sherman enjoying the hospitality of the South

Atlas of Dull, Unimportant Places [65]

General Sherman to march his troops across the
bridge without paying a toll for each soldier. Gen
eral Sherman replied, "In a Pig s Eye/ 5 and ordered
the troops forward as Willard Slump held firm. The
army advanced. His ancestors are invited to drop by
on weekends and help look for Willard.

200.4 : Alabama State Line. Watch for fallen stars
in road.

200.9 : Left 500 yards to an ancient trysting place
for soldiers and their sweethearts, Crumbly s Well.
This handsome glass brick and neon tubing structure
was built by Enoch Crumbly, early Alabama pioneer
and confidence man. Superstition has it that coins
(especially large coins such as silver dollars) bring
good luck when tossed into this antique structure.
The good luck is usually brought to Enoch Crumbly,
Jr., who cleans out the well after dark every night.

250.4%: Grave of Old Wroxton. (See caretaker
at Two-Seed-in-the Spirit Evangelical Church, Con
servative Branch, for the key to the gate, or else just
kick in the rusty iron fence.) Here under a mag
nificent stone sculpture of the Alabama Secession
Convention is buried Old Wroxton, favorite mount of
Senator Sidemeat, former grand regent, imperial
viceroy and flag furler of the Sons of the Confed
eracy. Wroxton served his master well until 1924,
when, as the Senator was out riding around his sas
safras plantation, he accidentally jabbed an "Elect
Calvin Coolidge" button in the horse s rump. The

[66] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

animal tossed his master into a convenient barbecue
fire, giving birth to the name, "Southern fire eater. 55

300.2: Southernsnobobia. Right .1 mile on road
lined with dead magnolia leaves to this palatial man
sion. Built by Confederate statesman B. Weevil
Moore, the house was designed by a traveling archi
tect, who, when he passed on took Mrs. Moore who
wanted more, with him. Colonel Moore lived in seclu
sion at the house for two weeks before he married
again. His second wife, a distant relative of Grover
Cleveland, is reported by local tradition to have had
a very handsome moustache.

400% : Mississippi line. All trucks and buses must
stop for inspection at the State Pest Control Station.
Here the State attempts to halt entry of the boll
weevil, cotton worm, and other things that are bug
ging Mississippi.

450: Muster Ground. Located under a clump of
oaks, was the muster ground of the Tallapoopoochie
County Artillery. This handsome company of 200
local dignitaries and six mules, a total of 206 jack
asses, met weekly during the Civil War to drill and
to petition their congressman for a cannon.

500.7: Forks of the Loolapoolooza River. Here,
where the Watachiee Swamp is traversed by Tal-
lachusetee Creek which runs into Wishahuskiee River
which joins Sam s Pond, is the Forks of the Loola
poolooza River State Historical Monument. In 1864,
Nathan Bedspring Forrest with fifteen Confederate

Atlas of Dull, Unimportant Places [67]

troops and a fine battalion of Southern pool hall
roustabouts, ambushed a regiment of Federal mar
shals guarding a wagon train of confiscated country
hams. The Federal commander, commenting on the
ambush, gave birth to the expression, "I couldn t
see Forrest for the trees."

Re-enactment blues

Field piece

Dictionary of Important

Civil War Terms to be Used

in Unimportant Conversations

by Insignificant People

CASHIERED One who was dismissed from tlie army
was cashiered thus he paid the price for his faults.

CHAINSHOTS Chainshots were soldiers who were
heavy drinkers.

DEPOTS Depots were latrines used by German-
speaking regiments.

DETACHED BASTION This was a type of fortifica
tion. It was also a SOB on special assignment.

DRAGOONS Dragoons were mounted infantry who
were considered to be monsters by local citizens.

DRUMMER A name applied to cowardly soldiers
who beat it when a battle began.

ESCARP A type of fortification. Also a French
catfish.

FTEI/D PIECE A camp follower.

[69]

[70] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

FIELD TACTICS Field tactics was the art of mak
ing hay with a farmer s daughter.

FERE BALL Fire balls were shells that flashed at
night, or officers that flashed in daylight.

GRENADIERS Female hand grenades.

GUIDES Guides were friendly citizens who guided
troops to enemy armies or friendly arms.

GUNNER S PINCERS These were devices used to set
off a cannon, or a girl.

KNAPSACK A soldier s bed.

LIGHT INFANTRY Troops commanded by officers
who carried no weight in Washington.

LOOPHOLES Loopholes were holes that soldiers
fired through and that generals who made mistakes
crawled through.

LUNETTE A type of trench dug by an insane
officer.

MESS Where and what Confederate soldiers ate.

MUSTER ROLLS Stale Confederate bread.

PONTOON A small-sized poltroon.

POWDER FLASK A pocket flask loaded with gun
powder, which soldiers thought was a downright waste
of space.

QUAKER GUNS These were phony cannon made
from logs and painted black to deceive the enemy, the
Penn being mightier than the sword.

SEXTANT Sextants were devices used by sailors
for measuring distances around oceans and women.

Important Civil War Terms [71]

SPLINTER PROOF The splinter proof was a safety
shelter for Federal soldiers during enemy attacks.
During enemy attacks, Federal sailors hid in shrink
proofs.

SPURS Spurs were worn by cavalrymen and by
chickens. To an infantryman, they were one and the
same.

TELESCOPIC SIGHTS Telescopic sights were used
by sharpshooters, as well as by troops stationed near
nurses quarters.

Confederama, Americana, Junkarama-
A Layman s Guide
to Civil War Relics

The present-day Confederama craze has turned many
previously law-abiding citizens into first-class klep
tomaniacs who chip away at old bricks, dig up mili
tary parks in the dead of the night, and bilk sweet
old farm ladies out of grandpa s sword. Collecting
Civil War "relics" has become a status symbol. The
layman s collection must contain these items if it is
to be considered worthy :

1. A Genuine Confederate Bayonet Most Rebs
were too poor to afford a rifle, much less a bay
onet. If it were not for the Spanish-American
war, there would be a severe shortage of Con
federate bayonets.

2. A Genuine Confederate General s sword
Most of these are old Masonic swords to be had

[73]

[74] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

at attractive prices in a Newark, New Jersey
pawn shop.

3. A Civil War Canteen Usually a surplus Boy
Scout job picked up at an abandoned Tender
foot campsite.

4. A Cannonball from Shiloh Every collector
has one. There are more old pieces of lead float
ing around labeled Shiloh cannonballs than
there were cannonballs in the whole Confed
erate army.

5. A Cartridge Box Spend five minutes in the
den of a Civil War buffoon and he ll shove a
crumbling mass of rust into your palm and
brag about his CW cartridge box. Look close :
it may be a rusty sardine can.

6. A Confederate Bullet The buff will thrust
upon you a battered mass of lead that re
sembles a fishing sinker chewed by a record
walleyed pike.

Serious collectors spend hundreds of dollars each
year prowling attics and roadside gyp parlors for
everything from antique lithographs of Robert E.
Lee s family to a button from General Cornsilk s
truss. By far the most rabid collector is the one
smitten with metal detectoratis. Given a war surplus,
German mine detector and the scent of a minie ball,
this jerk would plough through the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon if he thought it would produce Jeb
Stuart s shoe heeL Elaborate outfits include ear
phones, metal detector, and automatic shovels which

Confederama, Americana, funkarama [75]

dig while a hidden recorder plays "Dixie. 55 One can
scarcely go to a party without some Civil War buff,
foaming at the mouth, and dumping a half dozen
grimy objects into your hands which although they
look like tire weights, might with a lot of imagination,
resemble minie balls.

Another collector to be avoided is the lead soldier
addict. He will happily shell out five bucks for a
lead Robert Lee giving a hand salute ; ten dollars for
R. E. L. looking through field glasses ; and twenty-five
dollars if he is thumbing his nose at the Yankees.
Bootleg firms offer more interesting lead soldiers,
such as female spies paying for information. The
only bright spot in the future of a leadsman is that
if he tires of his hobby he is way ahead on fishing
tackle.

One sidesteps the metal detector fiend and the col
lector of lead soldiers only to cope with the egghead
division of Confederatassa the Confederate stamp
collector. Confederate stamps were quite unimpres
sive, their texture resembling that of a tax stamp on
a three-cent tobacco sack. Rebel envelopes were al
ways adorned with maudlin scenes showing General
Zollicoffer being mortally wounded at Mill Springs,
Kentucky, or a sentimental poem to the girl in the
cornhusk dress back in Haysack, Kentucky. Pity the
poor cocktail party guest who gets cornered in a dis
cussion over the virtues of handstamped pads over
postmasters* provisions.

Should the layman be confronted with a collector

[76] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

and find himself hard pressed to carry on an intel
ligent conversation, we include below a brief glossary
of remarks for viewing Confederatassa collections.

"My, but that bayonet looks sharp to be so old."
(don t comment on the rust-colored stain. It s rust.)

"Let s see, how was this musket fired, anyhow."
(Stamps you as a lover of firearms.)

"A cannonball from Richmond? . * . I have a
cousin who lives in Lynchburg." (Shows you re well
connected.)

"My great-grandfather had a whole trunk of this
old Confederate money, but he burned it." (Con
gratulations you have begun the Class-A category
of shaggy dog story of the Civil War.)

"I have some old bullets in a shoe box at home you
might be interested in/ (Guarantees you a dinner
invitation.)

Should the layman choose to collect, he will have
no trouble in finding items to buy. Confederatassa is
big business today. Someone is always willing to un
load some old lead bullets, a rusty piece of a rifle, tin
can fragments, or train conductor s buttons, and call
them relics of Gettysburg. Running equally strong is
the gadget trade. For several shekels anyone may
purchase a Confederate lighter, cigarette case, socks,
tie, belt buckle, pin, tee shirt, hat, teaspoons, salt and
pepper shakers, cup and saucer, or even jockey
shorts.

Confederama, Americana, funkarama [77]

However, there are two pitfalls to avoid at all cost
the roadside museum and the catalog. The roadside
museum is a combination of old junk under glass and
new junk on a sales counter. Fifty miles before the
traveler reaches the museum, he spies gaudy signs
draping the roadside heralding "Genuine Museum,
Gift Shop and Wild Animal Museum." After forty-
nine more miles of cherry cider, chenille, and chocolate
praline advertisements, the exhausted traveler stops
at the museum to recover himself. Treading his way
carefully over piles of rusty cannon balls and stuffed
bears, he pays a "free will offering" to see the same
kind of junk he has in his basement, and plunks down
four bits for a Confederate teaspoon made in Tokyo.

More beguiling are the mail order house catalogs
that push old and new Conf ederatassa. They pride
themselves in terming their products Confederama,
Americana, Railroadana. 1

To help the reader avoid mistaking Arkansas hog
guns for "genuine" Kentucky rifles and paying five
dollars for a CSA belt buckle picked up at Bull Run
via a Chicago moulding factory, a brief catalog to
Conf ederatassa is included here.

GAMES

Civil War games are currently very popular.
Board and dice games are available for all prominent
battles such as Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Pea
Ridge, and Gauley Bridge. Plan your own battle

1 "Ana" is a catchall for junk.

oyii 9SJOU, jnoX
paijOBq }sn[ ndX

991 U99 SBM }BIJ1

MONOTONY

A TOUR OF THE LESSER KNOWN
BATTLE AREAS OF THE O.W.

DON T BOTHER TO LOOK
IT UP-THESE ARE ACTUAL
NAMES OF BATTLES,PAL.

* >".**,., *

Put on your
grandfather s
forage cap and
move up 1 square.

Your canteen has
sprung a leak-go
to Waterproof.

You are behind the
sorghum curtain-
lose 3 turns.

[8o] Will Success Spoil JeS Davis?

strategy. Each game comes complete with a mummi
fied brigadier general and live black powder for
special effects.

CIGAHETTE LIGHTERS

Wind-up musical box lighters are popular. A hand
some version features a sixty-piece military band
playing fourteen verses of "The Conquered Banner
while miniature rockets fire salvos into your cigar.
For ministers, the usually "Forget Hell" inscription
is replaced by "Forget, fudge!"

CONFEDERATE JEWELRY

Confederate tie pins are popular if a person does
not mind walking around all day with a picture of
General Joe Johnston on his stomach. Key chains
and watch fobs are adorned with sharp-edged Con
federate battleflags which neatly rip out the lining of
your pockets.

CIVIL WAR HATS

At almost any battlefield site, one can spot a regi
ment of tourists walking around in caps that look like
surplus from the Boer War. No self-respecting, starv
ing, freezing, bald-headed Rebel would have adorned
his pate with one of these ornaments that has every
thing on it but the Jefferson Davis family tree.

Confederate uniforms varied;
some were dressier than others

to

The Bonnie Blue Flop-
Confederate Strategy
& Tactics

Despite rumors to the contrary, the Confederacy did
have a strategy in the Civil War. Several schools of
opinion offered advice to Jeff Davis who welcomed
it like castor oil. The Beauregard school suggested
concentrating all available Rebs for one big push.
The only trouble was that Beauregard s ideas always
required a couple of million men that Davis did not
have. The Braxton Bragg school win and retire
was popular, but as time went on Bragg did less of the
former and more of the latter. Old Joe Johnston led
the Fabian School, named for the ancient commander
famous for his retreats, Fabian tactics was only a
fancy name for getting the hell out of there.

Was Jefferson Davis a great strategist? Some
point to photographs of Davis* furrowed brow and
thoughtful expression and say he must have been.
Actually, Davis suffered from headaches.

[83]

[84] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

1. Defensive-Offensive This was the heart of
Confederate strategy, which explains why the Con
federacy did not live longer. Basically, the idea was
to sit on the defensive and wait for a favorable mo
ment to attack.

This offensive type of defensive strategy was tried
at least seven times during the War with disastrous
results. In 1862 the first Rebel offensive was in Texas,
where a band of Confederraros under General Henry
Sibley (who invented the Sibley tent and sat in it
most of the War), hoped to win New Mexico and
Carlsbad Caverns for the Confederacy. All went as
planned until Sibley suffered an inglorious defeat at
Glorietta Pass, after which the Indians took over,
scalping stray Rebs and robbing them of their belt
buckles for their grandsons to resell.

Then in April 1862 the South attacked the North
at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. Since it was
against roundtable rules for North and South to call
a battle by the same name, the Yankees refused to
fight at Pittsburg Landing. Instead they fought at
Shiloh, "the place of peace/ 5 where the Confeds
tossed in their magnolias and hightailed to Corinth,
Mississippi.

Fortunes were low for Jeff Davis strategy until
the summer of 1862, when Lee and Bragg tried a
two-pronged invasion, or more correct, a prong and
a half invasion. Lee was still apologizing to Davis for
the not-too-Sharpsburg performance when Bragg
roared into Kentucky, bourbon-bound. After a mag-

The Bonnie Blue Flop [85]

nificent job of losing the whereabouts of the enemy s
army and half of his own, of burning his supply
dump before evacuating the supplies, and of fighting
half of the Union army with a corporal s guard at
Perryville, Bragg retreated to Tennessee. He sal
vaged only his tranquilizer wagon.

In 1863 Jeff Davis tried again. Robert E. Lee took
his troops on a long July Fourth weekend to Penn
sylvania, where he shot his bolt in a nutty attempt
to outflank the Main line. A year later Lee tried
again, sending Jubal Early on a raid up the Shenan-
doah Valley. He got as far as Washington where he
sickened at the sight of the Lincoln Memorial and
turned back.

The final great defensive-offensive move was the
1864 Nashville campaign. The Confederate Army of
Tennessee, which changed commanders more often
than underwear, was now commanded by John Bell
Hood, the "Lion of the Confederacy." In a brilliant
stroke, Hood forgot to lay all of the track on his
supply railroad. Then he trapped the entire Yankee
army off base, only to let it march by his campfires
without even throwing a charcoal briquet. Finally he
besieged Nashville, the strongest fortress West of
Gibraltar, with a paltry 17,000 troops. When he lost
the battle, Hood sat in his tent and cried.

2. Defend Richmond Jeff Davis, Lee, and other
Richmond Rebs were infested with a curious blind
ness of the left eye they never knew there was a
Western Confederacy. This disease, "Tidewateritis, 55

[86] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

made the individual believe that there was no general
save Lee and that Stonewall was his prophet. Let Don-
elson fall, let Vicksburgians dine on mule tail soup,
let the Army of Tennessee be commanded by Bragg
whatever calamity befell the Western Confederacy
went unheeded to sniffers of the Shenandoah breeze.
Confederate officials wanted the capital at Richmond
so they could keep an eye on front-line operations.
Their wives wanted the capital at Richmond so .they
could keep an eye on behind-the-lines operations.

3. All We Want is to be Left Alone This touch
ing cry was voiced in 1860 by thousands of peace-
loving Rebels who wanted only to use their bowie
knives, bullwhips, rifles, cannon, bayonets, and gun
boats to kill small game like Harriet Beecher Stowe.

4. Diplomacy Confederates hoped to whitemail
Europe into supporting the South. The Rebels be
lieved that "Cotton was king," and that England
would aid the South if her supply ran low. But Eng
land, which was now using Egyptian cotton, main
tained a Sphinx-like silence, and the Confederacy s
efforts to reduce John Bull came to naught. The sly
diplomat John Slidell then parley-vooed with Napo
leon III but here the South s hopes were Waterlooed
too. France was too busy frying tamales with Maxi
milian in Mexico to give aid. The only ruler who
recognized the South was the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-
Gotha. Most Southerners did not even know where
his kingdom was. This was aU right, because he did
not know where the Confederacy was, either. The

The Bonnie Blue Flop [87]

most famous diplomatic episode of the War was the
Trent affair. A Confederate diplomat s liaison with a
Mrs. Trent.

5. Geography It was very hard to combine Con
federate movements in the East and West because
Confederate leaders did not like integration. Ac
tivities overlapped and jealous generals refused to
cooperate and took up their marbles and went back
home.

Rebel historians always point out that the flow of
rivers through the South put the Confederates at a
disadvantage. This river question has long been the
crying towel of modern Confederates. Robert E. Lee
had a knapsack full of good rivers running West to
East across the front of his lines, but Rebs always
moan about the lack of barriers to the enemy s ap
proach on Lee s front. In the West, where the rivers
ran North to South, Rebs were really up a creek.

6. Logistics The disparity between the two forces
has long been a favorite sop for Sobbing Sisters.
Memorial Day speakers always wax long on the Rebel
army s shortage of men, munitions, and money. The
North had 22 million people; the South had 5%
million whites and 3% million slaves. Official figures
show that the North s corn production was twice that
of the South. The North produced ten times as many
manufactured articles as did the South. What the
South did produce mint leaves, grouse-feather fans
and banjoes were not too useful at the Bloody
Angle,

[88] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

7. To fit his hog-jowl strategy, Jeff Davis had to
find a set of tactics the science of what troops do
not do when they get to the battlefield. Rocking chair
strategists ponder lovingly the droll military terms
that made up Rebel tactics. Any Confederate battle
was a "mass offensive." "Surprise" was what the
Yankees always did to the Rebs. "Economy of force"
meant saving a rock or two to throw during the next
battle. And "irregular warfare" all of it, from
Sumter to Appomattox.

The three great tactical weapons of the Confeder
ate army were the bullet, trench, and bayonet. Fire
power was increased in the War by the use of the
rifled-musket which fired a minie ball. The minie ball
was a grooved bullet invented by a French soldier,
Claude Minie, who wanted a bullet which spun after
being fired. For putting a little English on the bullet,
Minie was executed for treason.

At least eighty-one different types of shoulder
weapons not counting women spies were used by
the Confederates. This disparity of weapons did not
really produce an ammunition problem. All Confed
erate rifles fired poorly. But the increased use of rifles
did not produce changes in the age-old tactics of fire
and shock. Fire was what the Confederates would
have done if their powder had not always been wet.
Shock was what they felt when the Union army did
not disappear after they fired.

The Bonnie Blue Flop

[89]

The nomenclature and procedure for a Confederate
attack is generally as follows:

Skirmish line A line of thin soldiers, offering small
targets, moving ahead of the regular force. Obtain
ing members for this unit was no problem in Rebel
armies everyone was underweight.

Battle line The battle line advanced at intervals of
7 feet, 6 inches, barring a fractional wind change
whereby the entire column wheeled left at 7 foot
intervals in flank formation. In sight of the enemy
the Confederate line howled and yipped.

On to Richmond & Other Euphemisms

A Concise Account of the

North s Strategy

Lincoln had no military training but after he learned
that ten thousand biographers planned to do volumes
on Northern military strategy, he took less interest in
posing for pennies, and more interest in the war. He
gave war operations top drawer priority because his
cabinet demanded it.

When war broke out, both sides were using smooth
bores evidence of this being found in Congress as
well as the army.

The often-used smoothbore rifle was loaded at the
muzzle which meant that the soldier carried the
bullets in his mouth, thus originating the term
"armed to the teeth/

Many books were written to improve military tac
tics, the Union using as its final authority, William

[92] Will Success Spoil JeS Davis?

Hardens imaginatively entitled Tactics. In the orig
inal work, Hardee discussed at length such military
concepts as right dress (tux and tails), attacks by
columns (with special attention to Drew Pearson),
formations (T and single wing, with an excessive
number of generals wanting to play quarterback).
Most theories and plans for whipping the South
have been devised in recent years by armchair strate
gists off their rockers. There are so many that an
index is needed :

The DEFEND-WASHINGTON SCHOOL. Many North
erners feared the invasion of Washington by a large
army of foreigners from the South, trying to take
the relics from the National Museum. But Jeff Davis
said no, insisting that the South had enough old relics
walking around without importing any more. One
attack was made, however, in 1862. A brigade of
Southern genealogists stormed the garden of the
Library of Congress and tried to steal a fine grove
of family trees. The pedigree tracers intended to
prune off the limbs of any of their trees which might
have northern leanings. Protected by coats of arms,
this daring, hand-picked group cut their way through
a gallant regiment of the Massachusetts "We Met the
Mayflower Club," and other allied families, to a
notable victory.

The MNCOI/tf-WAS-HIS-OWN-GENERAI, SCHOOL.

Many people think that Lincoln was the greatest

On to Richmond & Other Stories

[93]

military strategist of the war. Even General Grant
leaned on him after he d had a few.

The u. s. GRANT SCHOOL. The latest fashion in
American history is to "reconsider." Everyone is re
considering Grant, and he now emerges as the world s
most reconsidered general At West Point, Grant s
roommate was Jefferson Davis, but the two boys could
not get along and were separated. Grant always re
gretted that they divided since Davis had the only
portable distillery in the dormitory. In 1861 Grant
was determined that Davis would not leave again.

U. S. Grant under a cloud

Just Before the Decisive Battle,
Mother

A discussion of what was the Civil War s most de
cisive battle can produce an argument almost as harsh
as the subject: Was General Lee really an octaroon?
According to government publications, there were
10,455 engagements fought between North and
South. But just how many men does it take to have
an engagement? Of the total number, only seventy-
six were classified as "battles," while 6,377 were
labeled "skirmishes." The Confederates had more
descriptive terms for fights than they had money in
the bank. Just whether or not a fight was a battle or
a skirmish usually depended upon who got beat. Be
fore reading a battle account, one should familiarize
himself with the meaning of the following terms.

[95]

[96]

Will Success Spoil feff Davis?

Campaign What a General calls a maneuver if it is

successful.

Reconnaissance An unsuccessful maneuver.
Battle A fight that the General wins.
Skirmish A fight that a General loses.
Strategic Withdrawal A fight in which a General

gets the stuffing beat out of him.
Raid A successful attack on a Union chickenhouse.

Scout The farmer had buckshot.

Affair What officers had with lady spies.

Capture What Confederates did when they took

possession of a farmhouse.
Occupation What Confederates did if the farmer

had a daughter.

Just Before the Decisive Battle, Mother [97]

Combat What most generals never saw.
Siege The successful capture of a distillery.
Operations Poker games in the mess tent.
Expedition A night sortie to a battlefield comfort
station.

Even worse are the names of battles. An atlas of
Confederate operations is a lexicographer s night
mare. The battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky is also
the battle of Logan s Crossroads, Fishing Creek, and
Somerset. Do not confuse the battle of Hog Moun
tain, Alabama, with that of Hog Jowl Valley, Ala
bama the distinction is that the latter is also known
as Ladd s Valley. There were three battles at Paint
Rock Bridge, Alabama, eight battles at Fort Morgan,
and six battles at Mossy Creek, Tennessee. Also, Con
federate states named battlefields in different ways.
Louisiana is swamped with battle names such as
Bayou Teche and Snaggy Point. Georgia goes back
to the Indians for names like AUatoona and Coosa-
ville Road. Maryland takes to the hills to name its
battles, such as the epic struggles of South Moun
tain and Crampton s Pass. Mississippi bogged down
in river bottom nomenclature. Dozens of battles are
named Tallahatchie River, Hatchie River, Wau-
hatchie River, or Birdhatchie River. The prize for
the zanlest battle names must be awarded jointly to
Kentucky and Tennessee. The Bluegrass state saw
encounters such as Dog Walk and Goose Creek Salt

[98]

Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

Works. Tennessee was the scene of such great battles
as Bobo s Crossroads and Rising Sun. And do not
forget, something important must have happened at
the battle of Elrod s Tan Yard in Alabama.

Another characteristic of Confederate battles was
how they whizzed, roared, or sputtered. Impecunious
light colonels, looking for a brigadier s bars, colored
battle reports with fancy adjectives and purple prose
that made a battlefield sound like a convention of the
Association of Onomatopoeia Poets. Battlefield re
ports are cluttered with bloodthirsty expressions
such as:

Roared

Kicked

Nudged

Fled

Whizzed

Knocked

Exploded

Ran

Sputtered

Drove

Shattered

Panicked

Popped

Stabbed

Soared

Routed

Crackled

Stung

Shrieked

Demoralized

Boomed

Jabbed

Shone

Retreated

Banged

Blew

Sparkled

Charged

Beat

Blared

Glittered

Drove

Broke

Trumpeted

Waved

Edged

Cracked

Gouged

Resounded

Slew

Mashed

Smashed

Recoiled

Killed

Pushed

Smacked

Scattered

Wounded

Shoved

Slammed

Cut

Maimed

Just Before the Decisive Battle, Mother [99]

Moreover, geographical landmarks were not just
hills, creeks, and fields. Every Civil War battlefield
has the same colorful set of landmarks :

Sunken Road
Peach Orchard
Wheat Field
Corn Field
Stone Bridge
Bloody Angle
Plank Road
Turnpike
Stone Wall
Rail Fence
Locust Thicket
Locust Grove
Hornet s Nest
Devil s Den
Rock Church
Stone Church
Log Church
Burnt Church
Brick Church
Abandoned Church
Telegraph Road

MiE

Abandoned Mill
Somebody s Springs
Somebody s Ford
MiU Dam
Burnt Tavern
Burnt Farmhouse
Sulphur Springs
Cedar Hill
Cedar Knob
Cedar Mountain
Cedar Springs
Abandoned Railroad
Red Barn
White Barn
Burnt Barn
Raccoon Springs
Somebody s Crossroads
Widow Somebody s House
Pine Knoll
Beech Grove

A congressional observer

I Wish I Could a Gotten
to the Land of Cotton-
Bull Run to Petersburg

The Confederates moved their capital from Mont
gomery to Richmond because Davis preferred shells
falling on Richmond to stars falling on Alabama.
Richmond was a very important town, being the chief
repository of genealogical records of Southern fami
lies. Simultaneously, General Joseph Johnston, and
a Southern army composed of ten thousand brigadier
generals marched toward Washington.

The two armies collided at an appropriately named
creek Bull Run, the scene of the first major engage
ment of the C.W. For every soldier on the field, there
were always a dozen or so observers Congressmen,
artists, photographers, and book publishers ready
with memoir contracts in hand.

[101]

[io2] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

At the loss of Bull Run, panic gripped Washing
ton. Egg rolls on the White House lawn were can
celed and the bar at the National Press Club was
emptied. Work was suspended on the Lincoln Memo
rial, and the Pentagon was camouflaged as a square.

The Yankees appointed George McClellan as the
new commander. He was called Little Napoleon by
his troops because of his habit of tucking his arm
inside his coat like the little emperor. Actually Mc
Clellan broke out into a rash every time he came within
ten miles of battle. McClellan reorganized the army
the cavalry were assigned to combat duty instead of
spending all their time giving pony rides to Lincoln s
kids.

Land of Cotton

Meanwhile, Lincoln became impatient lest the war
would not be over in time for him to enjoy the Wash
ington theater season. In the summer of 1862 he told
McClellan to march on Richmond via Williamsburg.
McClellan protested that his army would get jammed
up in the Williamsburg tourist traffic but Lincoln
overruled him.

Lee scored once more at the Second Battle of Bull
Run. The new Federal general was John Pope. Pope
did not aim for Richmond, but instead headed for
Cedar Mountain, Virginia, for reasons known only to
himself and he s dead. At this engagement, General
Phil Kearney was shot in the rearguard by a Rebel

(1) It s not that we don t
appreciate you, McClellan, but . .

(#) We just thought you would be
happier somewhere else, Pope . .

How long have you
been with us, Burnside?

Hooker^ it s been nice
knowing you. . . .

(5) Well, Meade, I don t quite

Jcnow how to my thu 9

but...

(6) Now that that s settled, Grant,
how about one more short one?

[106] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

sharpshooter. This notable event has been under
standably overlooked by local commemorating com
mittees erecting statues.

Robert E. Lee began his offensive by invading
Maryland but luckily for the North, a Union soldier
found Lee s secret plans wrapped around a cigar.
This was embarrassing for the South since, like all
good Southern generals, Lee did not smoke, drink,
chew, cuss, or wear union suits.

During the summer of 1863 things were dull while
everyone waited for Vicksburg to surrender. To pick
up the tempo, Jeff Davis and Lincoln flipped a
penny 1 and decided to fight the decisive battle of the
war at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Gettysburg was
selected because of adequate hotel facilities for visit
ing British generals who would walk around after the
battle and poke the ground with their swagger sticks.

In the interim, the Confederates moved against
Gettysburg Woman s College, known on military
maps as the Peach Orchard; the pickings were not so
good and Confederate advances were repulsed.

With Generals Meade and Lee in charge, the teams
met in the center of the field. The Federals won the
toss and elected to receive. Lee had his choice of site
and decided to defend the western end of the field so
his good profile would be in front of Brady s cameras.
The actual battle plan of the siege at Gettysburg
(discovered in 1924 in the papers of Lee s aide-de-

1 An Indian-head: Davis considered Lincoln pennies two-faced.

Mathew Brady covers the battUfront

Ton don t have to smile,
General Sherman*

I wonder if you would mind

holding up the battle for a

few minutes, General

Eumndef

Well f it s been nice meeting
you at last) General Lee.

No thanks, Til have my

lunch in here; it s going to

be a long exposure.

Say cheese.

It might make it easier,

General, if you would try to

visualise a little bird

about here.

Could you hold the glass I m awfully sorry. General

In the other hand, Pickett, but I seem to have

General Grant? had my lens cover on could

we have a retake?

No, I don t mind the bombardment, General,
but there seems to be a bee in here

[no] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

camp and Traveler bather, Lieutenant Orphesu Swin
burne Crust) called for Lee and Meade to clash atop
Cemetery Ridge. Orations were to be given on this
"high water mark" of the Confederacy and photogra
phers were to take pictures. Old Rebels still maintain
that they were double-crossed as the Yankees actually
opened fire before the regimental bands had played
the first forty stanzas of Bonnie Blue Flag. But the
deceitful General Meade had suddenly remembered
that the next day was July Fourth, and being a Fed
eral employee he was entitled to a long weekend pro
vided his work was finished.

Uninformed of this treachery, the Confederates,
with uniforms pressed and sideburns combed, ad
vanced across the Emmitsburg Road. Alas, the Union
guns opened and so much for Gettysburg. There
are whole books on the subject of this three-day battle
for those who want to be bored senseless. 2

But what of the action in the West? Operations in
the Mississippi River bogged down when Rebel engi
neers built Fort Henry too close to the river and
water slopped over into their sputtering batteries.
After the capture of forts Henry and Donelson, the
Rebel fortress of Nashville fell to the enemy, despite a
heroic defense by the members of the Grand Ole
Opry. General Albert Sidney Johnston, who made his
last stand in Mississippi, was called the "Western

3 Yes, this is the first book on the Civil War not to mention
Pickett s charge.

Land of Cotton [***]

Lee" but was not successful because his horse was
named Clyde and not Traveler. Successful Rebel Gen
erals have always had horses with romantic names
Traveler, Thunderbolt, Old Sorrel, etc., but never
Clyde. When Johnston hit Grant s army at Shiloh,
Grant was out fishing. The Federal lines held and
Grant was proclaimed a hero despite the fact that
some Unionists complained that he had been drinking
during the battle. This is a charge difficult to under
stand. Of course he was drinking. But he was drinking
and fishing, not drinking and fighting. You can t ex
pect a man to sit by a muddy Southern river waiting
for the catfish to bite, without a jug.

Variations on the beard, mustache and tair-do-their integrations and sab-families.

Baroque or
Virginia Creeper

-ie tte totos t way tad te

Rebel Crass
The Confederate Command System

ROBERT E. LEE The inventor of knighthood, Lee
finished his education at West Point second in his
class. Against slavery and secession, he was also
against coercion of the South and damnyankee inter
ference. Standing foursquare on all major issues, Lee
was offered a job in the Confederate army posing for
postage stamps. A famous scene shows Lee making
a decision while pacing the rose garden of Arlington
all night. Actually, he was not thinking about the
war but was worried about cutworms in his snap
dragons,

NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST Like all great men,
Forrest was born in a log cabin, but by 1860 was

[n6] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

worth over a million dollars, striking it rich as a
slavetrader. He is known for his many famous say
ings, among them:

"War means fighting and fighting means killing
so I quit."

"I got there fust with the mostus and left lastus
with the leastus."

JOHN HUNT MORGAN Morgan was famous for
his raids into Kentucky to "liberate" people. These
raids were touching examples of sacrifice, Ken-
tuckians being so anxious for liberation that they
hid behind trees and shot at Morgan to get his atten
tion.

Battlers, Losers & Whitewash Jobs

Civil War buffs have long since passed the stage of
hanging pictures of Lincoln and Grant in their den
and calling it quits. Now, even the living-room walls
are plastered with glossy eight-by-elevens of such
illustrious figures as M. C. Zook, Israel B. Richard
son, Benjamin Franklin Butler, and Daniel Sickles.
Sickles, once Ambassador to Spain, was famous for
shooting the son of Francis Scott Key, who had been
seeing Sickle s wife by the dawn s early light.

George Armstrong Custer is remembered today by
the many paintings of his last stand which hang on
the walls of local taverns. This exploit is somewhat
suspect, for Custer is shown standing with an arrow in

["7]

[n8] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

his heart and is quoted as saying that the beer is
mellow and light.

Benjamin F. Cheatham, Rebel general, had the
amazing ability to cuss for forty-seven minutes with
out repeating a single word. Though he did not write
his memoirs, it was said of Cheatham that his tongue
was mightier than his sword.

Sinking the Mint Julep Navy

Lincoln proclaimed all Confederate sailors pirates.
The U.S., however, had not signed the 1856 Paris
Declaration making piracy illegal because we still
thought there might be an honest buck in it some
where.

Lincoln wanted Southern ports blockaded so the
South could not receive its essential cargo magnolia
plants, foot-long cigars, and bullwhips.

Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mai-
lory, built ironclads wooden boats with metal under
wear to break the blockade. The primitive Confed
erate submarine, the H. L. Huriley, established an
early record for staying underwater it s still there.

David Farragut, the naval hero of the Union,
uttered his famous and generally misunderstood

An Ironclad on the Mississippi

Sinking the Mint Julep Navy

Primitive Confederate Submarine

words during the battle of Mobile Bay. Steaming
into the bay, he saw that it was heavily mined and
yelled to his skipper, "Damn it, look out for the
torpedoes, full speed and head out of here."

Rebel gunboats were old steamboats armed with
cotton bales and calliopes, much more valuable to
Mark Twain and Stephen Foster in their line of
work than to the Confederate admirals.

Alner Doubleday, "Father of baseball,"
orders Us troops onto the field.

We re Tenting Tonight

on the Old Launching Pad

The First of the Modern Wars

Ever since Cain did Abel in with a hunk of limestone,
everyone has squabbled over which was the first of the
so-called modern wars. Every war, from the battles
of Alexander the Great to a Zulu tribal uprising has
been scanned by experts looking for a first. Thus the
3rd Afghan war of 901 B.C. might be the first of the
modern wars because, as any schoolboy knows, repeat
ing slingshots were used for the first time. Since bal
loons, rockets, and railroads were of major impor
tance during the Civil War, the experts have pinned
this "modern" label on our War Between the States.
The subject of Civil War weapons is so complex
that the ordinary buff needs to be thoroughly briefed
before he clashes swords at roundtable meetings.

[123]

[124] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

There, such questions as whether or not Corporal
Cleitus Foot was killed with a slash 2, mark 00, type
180 grain bullet assume major importance. One
subtle weapon was the prefabricated magnolia leaf,
used for psychological warfare. This imitation plant
emitted a strong odor which represented the smell of
the South on a dewy morning. A combination of a
damp museum, wormy Georgia canteloupe, the floor

The $mett of the South on a dewy morning

We re Tenting Tonight [125]

of a smokehouse, and the breath of a foxhound this
scent combined with the melodies of Stephen Foster
caused many a Union soldier to desert.

The demands of the tourist trade were, predictably,
so great that efforts were made from the beginning to
conserve the supply of minie balls. Also, the sharp-
tipped umbrellas of the Virginia Old Dames, con
sidered in retrospect to be the Confederacy s second
most effective weapon.

Great improvements were made during the War in
rockets and signals, especially by General Sherman
who lit a Georgia mansion every night to tell his wife
he would be home for Yom Kippur. Rocketry became
so advanced that the Yankees published a brief digest
of terms including :

BOOSTER A good thing to drink before a battle.

BLAST OFF What generals did at privates.

RE-ENTRY Slipping back into camp AWOL.

Since hot air was plentiful, the balloon corps made
great strides during the war. The most illustrious
balloon was the U. S. Grant, which flew higher than
a kite. Professor T. S. C. Lowe, the famous Union
balloonist, was never shot down, because the Con
federates always shot at random, which is why they
missed Lowe.

Firearms underwent explosive developments. Dum
dum bullets named for the Union generals were in
constant use. Horse pistols had to be discarded due
to difficulties the horses had in pulling the trigger.

[126] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

Railroads were important for use in moving troops,
visiting congressmen, and camp following. The Chesa
peake and Ohio Railroad became a favorite target of
the Confederates and was soon known as the Collapsed
and Outoforder Railroad.

John Brown s Buddy
The Confederate Medical Corps

For Johnny Reb, a fate worse than death was to be
sent to a Confederate hospital. Anyone from a horse
doctor to a medicine-show quack could get a surgeon s
rank if they had the nerve and the equipment to hack
off a limb. Books were provided by the Confederacy
to guide the "doctors," including that notorious work,
A Manual of Military Surgery for the Use of Sur
geons in the Confederate Army. This book contained
such chapters as "Amputations," "How to take Tem
perature," "Amputations," "The Art of Boiling
Water," and "Amputations."

When the War started, the agricultural South was
making hay instead of tourniquets and moonshine
instead of castor oil. After Sumter, various attempts
were made to get supplies. Blockade running was

[127]

[i28] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

popular but not all blockade runners were as lucky
as Rhett Butler. A medicine-smuggling trade was
developed in Mexico but the unreliable Latin saw
to it that the South received generous supplies of
frozen chili and imitation Aztec jewelry. The gov
ernment in order to combat the lack of medical sup
plies published Resources of Southern Fields and
Forests, a manual which prescribed home remedies
made from herbs. Two examples are :
For Nausea or upset stomach: Boil the roots of an
Apple tree along with Peach tree leaves and drink
the lukewarm mixture. This did not exactly cure the
cause of the nausea but at least it brought the prob
lem to the surface.

Swellings: Apply a poultice of onion and garlic.
Some historians attribute the failure of the Confed
erate surprise attack at Shiloh to this offensive cure*
Many a sedate magnolia dowager s Georgia plan
tation was turned into a field hospital where some of
the most heartrending scenes of the Confederacy were
staged. Confederate memoirs are filled with memora
ble accounts of those patriotic women who tore their
petticoats to shreds for bandages amid cries of
"More, more" from the doctors and "Take it off"
from the patients*

Whoies cf Combat Camp Life
in the Confederacy

A favorite form of entertainment was pillaging, or,
as defined by the Sobbing Sisters, "requisitioning
war materials." 1 Pillagers in the Confederate ranks
were known by the genteel designation of "Parti

sans. 55

Farm animals of a dangerous nature, such as cows,
chickens, ducks, and eggs, were often shot in self-
defense by conscientious Rebs attempting to protect
their comrades. Any Partisan knew that a goose al
ways charges when wounded.

Alas, the Confederate knight was not immune to
the temptations of the gentler sex. To listen to
modern-day Sobbing Sisters, one would get the
impression that all Rebs sat around the campfire at

1 Anything you can get your hands on.

[129]

[130] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

night singing "Home Sweet Home," knitting socks,
and roasting Yankees. But sex was a problem in the
Confederate army, as it had been in armies since the
days of the Trojan whorse. There were many petti
coat brigades tenting on the old camp ground, these
"shock troops" providing the inspiration for such
rousing war songs as "All Quiet Along the Potomac
Tonight" and "Rose of Alabama." 2 The more enter
prising camp followers smuggled maps and cannon
balls through the lines in their petticoats, thus reap
ing income from two professions. 3 "Walks" around
the camp were quite popular, Rebels escorted the
ladies" to inspect the fortifications by moonlight.

* Or "She ain t in the choir back home."

* Some great American fortunes were started in this way.

Whores d Combat

[131]

Because the South had always been a hospitable
section, social disease became a problem. The situa
tion was a pressing one, as evidenced by the large
number of ballads of the era which were dedicated to
the ladies willing to secede or concede.

The real commander-in-chief

A Chapter on Abraham Lincoln
Because Every Book on the Civil War
Has a Chapter on Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln invented the log cabin. As a child he con
stantly borrowed books, forgetting to return them.
This was the origin of the Lincoln library.

During the War, Lincoln came under editorial
criticism which went so far as to question his fabled
honesty. His detractors claimed that when he walked
two miles to return two pennies to that poor widow,
she protested, not out of sympathy but because ac
tually he owed her fifty cents.

Lincoln s cabinet did not like him or his jokes. He
often tried to read excerpts from Mark Twain and
hilarious editorials from the New York Times to
these gentlemen but they just did not dig him. As is

[134] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

so often the case, they didn t know he was a Great
Man until after he was dead.

The radicals in Lincoln s administration were
troublesome. While most Northerners wished to see
Jeff Davis hang, the radicals wanted to tickle his feet
as he swung. Thaddeus Stevens was the most famous
of this group. The respect accorded to Stevens was so
great that his fellow senators never used his pool cue
in the Senate Conference Room.

The venerable
Mr. Stevens

Gastronomical Warfare-
Confederate Cooking

The Confederates never really had to win the War.
All they had to do was to let the Yankees take over
all of the territory they wanted and then feed them
to death on a variety of dishes usually arranged
under the misnomer, "Southern Cooking." One must
try a few old recipes to get the real flavor of the Old
South.

Mint Jtdep No one who has ever set foot in Ken
tucky would think of leaving the State without plunk
ing over a fistful of money for one scant shot of Old
Tennis Shoes decorated with a cluster of greens
served in a dimestore glass adorned with Confederate

[136] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

flags. Actually the same effect can be had by swilling
vodka while chewing spearmint gum.
Grandmother Chess Pie According to every South
erner, his grandmother was the best cook in the whole
Confederacy. Every member of the Sobbing Sisters
has an album full of old family "secret" recipes with
"Chess pie" being a favorite among Southern family
tree pruners. A sticky and loathsome concoction of
eggs, butter, and too much sugar, chess pie is a
Southern delight. If grandmother did the cooking,
small wonder Rebel armies nigh starved to death.
Truckstop Pie A greasy-spoon treat in Dixie is a
gooey mess, called Southern Apple Pie, General Lee s
Apple Pie, or Shenandoah Valley Apple Pie. South
erners always try to name their dishes after famous
generals. Hence one has such delicacies as General
Beauregard Creole Sauce and Braxton Bragg Sour
Cream Dressing.

No Southern library is complete without a poorly
bound volume of recipes scraped together by the
Ladies Auxiliary. The fad has carried over into road
side eating places. Pecan pie becomes Georgia Con
federate Pecan Pie Delight. Cold, hard rolls with
enough yeast to kill a mule become Southern Planta
tion Bread. And a slab of ham that would be rejected
in a breadline bears the name Virginia Old South
Hickory Smoked Salt Cured Pecan Fed Hog South
ern Ham. Words never fail the Southern cook,
though recipes sometimes do.

Why Appomattox?

Grant s terms were generous: Confederate officers
were allowed to keep their sidearms for the spring
dueling season or as they phrased it, "spring plant
ing." Several of the Dixie states were permitted valu
able concessions for the forthcoming Centennial cele
bration. Virginia received the apple cider monopoly,
Kentucky the stringed tie and frozen chicken pot pie
concession, Tennessee the Smoky Mountain hand-
woven BVD distributorship, Georgia the chenille-
spread franchise, and Mississippi received a monop
oly on bedsheets.

Before posing for the signing of the surrender, Lee
and Grant carefully adjusted their public images.

[>38] Will Success Spoil JeS Davis?

Lee was to bear the image of an eagle with a broken
wing, and Grant that of an Old Crow.

Lee went into semiretirement, buying a half -inter
est in Washington and Lee University. He spent the
remainder of his life growing handsomer and hand
somer and teaching classes in military strategy.
Grant went into politics briefly and made a mess of it.

In order to qualify as a professional Confederate,
answer three out of five of the following, grade your
self, and pick up your diploma at any convenient
way station along U.S. 4*1:

1. General Lee once called General Grant a

. (Use imagination on this one.)

2. Longstreet was late arriving at Gettysburg be
cause . (Who can say you re wrong?

Even Bruce Catton wasn t there.)

3. Traveler s favorite food was .

4*. John Bell Hood s worst defeat was at
(Wide range of choices.)

5. Stonewall Jackson s favorite color was

Get Right with the Confederacy,

Brother
The War Nobody Lost

The last shots were fired at Appomattox and Benton-
ville, when Lee and Joe Johnston tossed in the
cartridge box. Think so? Get right with the Con
federacy, brother ! A whole regiment of pseudo-but
ternuts have driven their limousines onto the old
campground to renew the battle. Who are these gray
ghosts? A phalanx of antiquarians who will never be
defeated the Sobbing Sisters, and the Confederate
Songsters.

THE SOBBING SISTERS
OF SOUTHERN SECESSION

A fine history of this organization may be found in
Mrs. Lucius H. M. Q. Finch s History of the S.S.,

[140] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

Complete with a Roster of Regents, Vice-Regents,
and Flag Bearers, and A Review of the War for
Southern Righteousness, with Appendices Listmg all
Patriotic Duties Performed, 1868-1918*

The S.S. has many impressive offices. A partial
roster of these will undoubtedly be of great interest
to the public.

Distinguished Grand Regent A post of honor,
usually bestowed on the hapless wife of the local
State Senator.

Vice Regent This lady handles all matters of
vice which occur in the group. For such offenses as
teasipping, or owning a copy of the Gettysburg
Address, members may be required to turn in their
lock of Robert E. Lee s hair.

Grand Flagwoman She is in charge of caring
for the half million memorial flags which drape the
windows at every S.S. meeting. Other duties include
periodic de-mothing of old Rebel flags.

Grand Monwment Scraper This heavy-duty na
tional post carries the responsibility of cleaning and
polishing the 526,000 Confederate monuments in the
United States.

Grand Lee Bushbeater This officer is in charge of
beating the bushes for any unmarked spot where
Robert E. Lee ever sat, stood, lay, or spit. This officer
carries on her back an official portable granite
marker.

*In this booklet one also learns that the S.S. is the parent
organization of the Sons of Confederate Deserters.

The War Nobody Lost [141]

President-General of Harassment The chief lob
byist of the group ; the post is currently held by Mrs.
Gerard Lafour Swamp of Bayou Bayous, Louisiana.
When she is not polishing cannonball fences on her
lovely Slush Creek Plantation, Mrs. Swamp doubles
as a stock car anouncer. Her official duties include
speaking to businessmen s luncheons on such topics
as why city hall needs another statue of Leonidas
Polk.

No discussion of the S.S. would be complete with
out a mention of the Graylist. The Graylist is the
blacklist of the Confederacy. Those on it are boy
cotted, bombarded with letters and telegrams, and
occasionally poked with umbrellas. One may be placed
on the Graylist for such offenses as :

1. Having Yankee generals on the family tree.

2. Not having Confederates on the family tree.

3. Using the term "Civil War."

4. Calling a Confederate a "Rebel/ 5

5. Hinting that the South might have lost a battle.

6. Not liking hushpuppies.

THE CONFEDERATE WARBLER

This thrush in gray hums constantly during Civil
War Centennial celebrations. The songs are tired
ones "Dixie," "Lorena," or "The Vacant Chair."
Since there is little hope that the old tunes will fade
away, perhaps some new lyrics might help.

[142] Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis?

DIXIE

I wish I d been begotten,

Somewhere besides the Land of Cotton,
Get Away, Get Away, Get Away, Dixie Land*
There s buckwheat cakes with truckstop batter,

Phony country ham and cold egg platters,
Get Away, Get Away, Get Away, Dixie Land.

The Wai Nobody Lost [143]

BATTERED HYMN OP THE REPUBLIC

Mine eyes have seen the Centennial till my corneas
are sore,

I ve sat on re-enactment bleachers, till my
Rebel suit is wore.

I m tired of hearing speeches *bout some great Con
federate bore,
They just go on and on.

The war will never be over. Let minie balls corrode,
Confederate money crumble, and imitation battle
flags rot. As long as there is a tear- jerking poem to
be read, a droll statue to be unveiled, a cannon ball
to be unearthed, a fast buck to be made then there
will always be a Confederacy. Grant, Sheridan, Sher
man they could whip Marse Robert Lee and Re
treating Joe Johnston. But they wiU never whip that
long gray line of genealogists, antique dealers, his
torians, promoters, and roundtable buffs marching
to the Gray Nirvana.

The End

116811

3