Civil
War Round Table of Dallas
Monthly Message
NEWS FROM THE CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE
OF DALLAS
February 2008
Texas in the Civil War -- 21st Texas History Forum set for February 29
San Antonio, TX: The Daughters of the Republic of Texas
are hosting their 21st Texas History Forum – Texas in the Civil War – on February 29th
in Alamo Hall on the grounds of the Alamo.
Featured
speakers include historians Dr. Donald E. Reynolds, Prelude to Secession: The Texas Slave
Insurrection Panic of 1860; Dr. Steven Townsend, Cotton on the Texas Border : Union and
Confederate Efforts to Control the Brownsville Cotton Trade; and Dr. Jerry Thompson, Mexican Texans in the Civil War.
Donald E. Reynolds is a native of Munday, Texas.
He earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from North
Texas State
University (now UNT) and received his
Ph.D. from Tulane
University in 1966. He taught for thirty-one years at East Texas
State University/Texas A&M, Commerce, serving as
head of the Department of History from 1982 until 1993. Upon his retirement in 1996, he was named
emeritus professor of history. He has
published two books: Editors Make War: Southern Newspapers in the
Secession Crisis (Vanderbilt U. Press, 1970), which won a Texas Writers
Roundup Award in 1971, and Professor
Mayo’s College: A History of East Texas State
University (ETSU Press, 1993). In
addition, Reynolds has contributed chapters to two books: A Mythic Land Apart: Reassessing Southerners and Their History (Greenwood, 1997) and The Press in Times of Crisis (Praeger, 1995). His
newest book, Texas Terror: The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1860 and the Secession of
the Lower South, was published this fall by the Louisiana State University
Press.
Stephen A. Townsend teaches history at New Mexico
Junior College in Hobbs. He holds a
Ph.D. in American History from the University
of North Texas
(2001). His paper, based on his
book The Yankee Invasion of Texas,
published in 2006 by Texas A&M University Press, analyzes two military campaigns
launched against Brownsville,
Texas: the Union effort, launched in 1863, which
proposed to shut down the cotton trade, and the Confederate campaign, launched
in 1864, which sought to restore the trade. His book received the 2006 Kate Broocks Bates Award for Historical Research, given by the
Texas State Historical Association, and the 2006 SCV-SGR Book Award presented by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Jerry Thompson, Regents Professor at Texas A&M
International University,
is among the best and most prolific historians of the Southwestern campaigns of
the American Civil War. A past president of the Texas
State Historical Association, he has edited and written twenty books on the
history of Texas
and the Southwest, besides numerous articles in national and regional
journals. He
holds a doctorate from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Dr. Thompson’s presentation will
focus on the Mexican Texan participation in the Civil War. At least 3,000 Mexican Texans joined the
Confederate Army. The most famous was Santos
Benavides, who as a colonel became the highest ranking Tejano
to serve the Confederacy. Colonel Benavides, along
with his brothers Refugio and Cristobal, who both became captains in Benavides’
Regiment, compiled a brilliant record of border defense and were widely
heralded as heroes throughout the Lone
Star State. As many as 950 Texas Mexicans, resentful of growing
non-Hispanic political dominance of their communities, enlisted in the Union
Army. Tejano frustrations
during the war are exemplified by the case of Capt. Adrian J. Vidal, who joined
the Confederacy but deserted to join the Union Army only to desert again and
join the liberals in Mexico,
where he was captured and executed by the French.
Forum
seating is limited and pre-registration is advisable. Please
send a check for $15 for the half-day seminar to the DRT Library Committee, P. O. Box 1401, San
Antonio, Texas 78295-1401. Reservations will remain open as long as
seating is available.
The 21st
Texas History Forum is funded in part by a generous grant from The Summerfield
G. Roberts Foundation. Partial funding for travel
expenses incurred by speakers Jerry Thompson and Stephen Townsend was provided
by Texas A&M University Press.
The
Daughters of the Republic of Texas sponsor the Texas History Forum under the
guidance of Laura T. Beavers, the DRT Historian General, with proceeds in
excess of expenses dedicated to the June Franklin Naylor Fund of the DRT
Library at the Alamo, which supports an annual book award for the best book for
children on Texas
history.
Call the
DRT Library at 210-225-1071 for more information about registration or visit www.drtl.org/Events/TexasHistoryForum2-29-08.asp
for complete special event information or to print the registration form www.drtl.org/Events/RegFormFeb08.pdf
for mailing.
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The Center for Civil War Photography
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Press Release
Another Lincoln-Related
Photo Discovery
Three stereoscopic negatives at the
Library of Congress, heretofore misidentified as showing either the Grand
Review of the Armies or the inauguration of President Grant, have been
determined to actually show the crowd in front of
the Capitol for the second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln on March 4,
1865.
The
discovery was made by Carol Johnson, curator of photography at the Library of Congress, after
a patron alerted her to the fact that two stereo images that obviously
showed the same scene had radically different identifications in the
library's online Civil War photographic negative collection. (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/cwpquery.html)
Before this discovery, there were
two known images of the crowd gathered for the second inauguration taken
from the same vicinity, one of those being a print at the library (LC-USZ62-7812). But the patron's recent query to Johnson prompted
her to re-examine the library's identifications on three successive images
near the end the group of stereoscopic negatives attributed to Alexander
Gardner. These images are LC B811-1284, LC B815-1285 and LC
B815-1286.
The library had
1284 identified as the Grand Review of the armies in May 1865, while 1285
and 1286 were said to show the inauguration of President U.S. Grant on
March 4, 1869. However, there is a curious
notation "Lincoln?"
next to the entries for 1285 and 1286 in the library's printed index log
for the Civil War negatives.
That prompted
Johnson to take a closer look at the three images, and she was able to link
them to the second inauguration of Lincoln,
on March 4, 1865, though the print in the library's collection (LC USZ62-7812) that is
identified as having been taken at Lincoln's
second inaugural.
The trees are
leafless in all three images, so 1284 could not have been taken in May
1865, which was the time of the Grand Review. Images
1285 and 1286 do not show Grant's inauguration because other photos of
that event show that a platform was constructed that extended out from the
steps of the Capitol, and no such platform is in these images.
These three
'new' images of the crowd gathering for Lincoln's second inauguration mimic three
frames from a movie, with 1284 and 1285 showing the troops as they march in
and prepare to assemble, and 1286 showing everyone in place for the
ceremony. The images do not show any part of
the podium where the ceremony occurred.
As with the
discovery of Lincoln himself in the two images from the Gettysburg Address
ceremony, this discovery came about because someone took the trouble
to take a careful, detailed look at the various images in question.
To view this press release and images please visit our
website: http://www.civilwarphotography.org/press/LincolnPhotos.pdf
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