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Our 46th Year
FOR THE MEETING TUESDAY, January 26, 2010
Meets Fourth Tuesday; January-November
Founded 1964
Second Presbyterian Church
600 Pleasant Valley Drive
Little Rock
Program at 7 p.m.
Online:
www.civilwarbuff.org
Jan Sarna, President
Rick Meadows, Editor
RMeadows@aaamissouri.com / arcivilwarbuff@gmail.com
Dues $20 Per Year
VISITORS WELCOME!
VISIT THE BATTLEFIELDS WHEN YOU CAN…
WHILE YOU CAN
Civil
War Flags at The Old State House Museum
With
Joellen Maack
Join us Tuesday
night as Joellen Maack, curator for 14 years at The
Old State House Museum in Little Rock, brings us a
program on the Civil War Flags being cared for at the
Museum. Completed in 1842, the Old State House Museum
served as the first capital of Arkansas.
Maack received both
her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The
University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Part of Maack’s
program will center on the October 30th
acquisition of two Arkansas battle flags that have
been in Missouri since 1904.
One is the Hart’s
Flag from Dallas County and the other is the Arkansas
6th and 7th Combined Regimental
Flag. A fund raising campaign will soon begin for the
restoration of these flags. The collection of
Confederate battle flags is now available on line:
www.oldstatehouse.com.
At the web site you
will read that “In 1905, the United States War
Department, as a gesture of reconciliation, returned
the captured Confederate flags to the respective
states. Since the 1950’s the flags have been entrusted
to the museum. The effects of light have proven to
damage the flags, so they are not displayed
frequently.
Some of the flags in the collection:
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In
describing the killed and wounded at the Battle
of Murfreesboro, one Arkansas commander
recounted: "Among the rest was our gallant flag
bearer, whose hand was shot off, and he was
forced to abandon his colors."
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Jim Campi, with the Civil War
Preservation Trust, sends us the following update:
Civil
War Flags May Face Their Toughest Battle Yet
By Chris Carola
1/10/2010
Associated Press (NAT)
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20100110_Civil_War_flags_may_face_their_toughest_battle_yet.html
They made it through Shiloh, Antietam,
and Gettysburg, but many of the Civil War battle flags
in the nation's state-owned collections might not
survive the budget battles being waged in some
statehouses.
Preservation work on deteriorating
banners carried in some of the war's bloodiest battles
has been eliminated, scaled back, or ignored by state
budget planners focused on finding money for basics
such as education, health care, and transportation.
In New York, home to the nation's
largest state-owned collection of Civil War battle
flags, money for a preservation project is being cut
from Gov. David Paterson's proposed budget. Indiana's
funding for flag conservation has been returned to the
state's general fund. Ohio hasn't provided government
funding for its 400-plus Civil War battle flags in
nearly a decade.
Another recent budget casualty is
Pennsylvania's allocation for maintaining the
battle-flag collection it preserved in the 1980s.
"Thank goodness we did it back then,"
Ruthann Hubbert-Kemper, executive director of the
Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee, said of
the project, which conserved all of the Keystone
State's nearly 400 Civil War battle flags.
The lack of funding for flag
preservation could hurt efforts to promote the 150th
anniversary of the Civil War next year.
Battle flags are commonly used in
Civil War exhibits, but usually only after lengthy
preservation work that can cost tens of thousands of
dollars. Staging publicity-generating events using the
flags may be more difficult in the run-up to the Civil
War sesquicentennial in 2011, advocates say.
"This isn't the time to be cutting
this. It's the time to be increasing it, because it
will be bring in tourism dollars," said Ed Norris of
Lancaster, Mass., head of the battle-flag preservation
committee for the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil
War.
The total number of battle flags in
state-owned collections isn't clear, but it's likely
several thousand, only a fraction of which have been
preserved. Some have deteriorated into mere fragments
and fringe, victims of neglect or exposure to light,
heat, and humidity. "Time is the enemy," Hubbert-Kemper
said.
With New York facing a budget deficit
in the billions of dollars, the state is dropping its
$100,000 annual funding for flag preservation, parks
agency spokesman Dan Keefe said.
Civil War buffs and historians
consider battle flags, especially those damaged by
shot and shell, to be among the most compelling
artifacts to survive the war. Flags marked a
regiment's location on the battlefield, and flag
bearers made prominent targets. Some banners are
stained with blood.
"There are many flags that were
carried in battle heroically by soldiers who died in
doing so," said Christopher Morton, assistant curator
at the State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs,
where many of New York's flags are stored.
In the South, several states rely on
donations from reenactment groups and descendants of
Confederate soldiers to fund flag preservation.
The Museum of the Confederacy in
Richmond, Va., is home to the largest Civil War
battle-flag collection in the South, with more than
500.
Joelleen Maack will update us
Tuesday night on the estimated cost to restore the new
acquisitions at the Old State House Museum.
The CWPT announces that 2,944
Acres of Hallowed Ground were saved in 2009
Included on the list
are:
Battlefield
State Acreage
Natural
Bridge FL
55
Tupelo
MS 12
Raymond
MS 66
Parker’s
Crossroads TN 5
Davis
Bridge
TN 643
Wood
Lake MN
60
14 locations in
Virginia, some include:
Brandy
Station 433
Chancellorsville
85
Appomattox
Station 47
Wilderness
94
To view the entire report visit the
Civil War Preservation Trust at
www.civilwar.org
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Membership
Dues
Our good Treasurer,
Brian Brown, reminds us that membership dues for 2010
are due now. These monies help to pay for the
transportation and lodging costs of our speakers.
Printing costs for our newsletter and brochures we
have at various locations in Central Arkansas are also
supported by your dues. In addition, monies are also
used for the wayside signs for the Campaign for Little
Rock that the CWRT of Arkansas purchases and
maintains.
Annual dues are
only $20. Additional monetary gifts that you make
will be used for preservation efforts for Civil War
battlefields, places and objects of historical
importance related to the Civil War.
You can pay on line:
www.civilwarbuff.org or by mail:
Brian Brown, Treasurer
The Civil War Roundtable
of Arkansas, Inc.
P.O. Box 25501
Little Rock, AR 72221
Questions? Call Brian at 501-376-2981
Special Thanks
Thanks to Dr.
William Shea, professor of history at the University
of Arkansas in Monticello, for an outstanding program
at our last meeting in 2009. His topic was on The
Battle of Prairie Grove which was fought on December
7, 1862. Several members of our Roundtable purchased
copies of his new book, Fields of Blood,
available thru the University of North Carolina Press.
Mark Christ wrote a
book review in the Arkansas Democrat/Gazette on
December 13, 2009. Christ writes: “Much of Shea’s
focus falls on Confederate Gen. Thomas Carmichael
Hindman, who took command of the Army of the
Trans-Mississippi in May 1862. The book describes a
situation in which state government was virtually
nonexistent and local governments ceased to function
as Arkansas teetered toward total chaos.”
After the Battle of
Pea Ridge practically all Confederate troops, arms,
ammunition, wagons, harnesses, and other military
stores in Arkansas were sent to Corinth. Christ
continues: “Within 10 weeks he (Hindman) had cobbled
together a viable army of more than 20,000 soldiers,
staggered Union offensive operations, and set his eyes
on the Confederate grail of bringing Missouri into the
secessionist fold. “It was an achievement without
parallel in the Civil War,” concludes Shea, who has
described Hindman as the greatest Rebel general of
all, not for his skill on the battlefield but for his
unprecedented accomplishments west of the
Mississippi.”
Fields of Blood
should be on the shelf on every library on those
interested in the Trans-Mississippi. It is on mine,
(your editor). Thanks again Dr. Shea!
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Speakers for 2010
February
Dr. Michael Dougan, History Professor ASU in
Jonesboro:
“General Pearce”
March
Mark Hayes, Naval History and Heritage Command in
Annapolis, MD:
“Strategic Impact of Joint
Operations on the Western Rivers Spring 1862”
April “David O. Dodd” at the
Ten Mile House in Little Rock
May Mark Christ, Community Outreach
Director, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program: “Battle
of Arkansas Post”
June TBA
July Brian Brown, Local Historian:
“The Battle of Belmont or
Fort Donelson”
Hope to See You Tuesday
Night with Joellen Maack and her Flags!
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