October 2007 - 15th Regiment SC Vols Camp 51

Volume XV, Issue X
October 2007
15th Regimental Report
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I S S U E :
Commander’s Comments
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Chaplain’s Corner
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Louisa McCord OCR
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Aided in Building Torpedo
of 60’s
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Camp 51 Christmas
Dinner Speaker
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The Confederacy’s Bomb
Brothers
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Important Announcements
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Camp 51 Cookbook
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Civil War Bus Tour
November 17th
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News about David Kruger
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2008 SC Division
Convention Information
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Calendar of Upcoming
Events
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2007 Speakers
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October 30th
Speaker
Frances Meissner
The War As Seen
Through The Eyes Of
Columbia Women
Send all camp
correspondence to:
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TWO SHARPSHOOTERS, ONE KNAPSACK:
RESERVING
A R
ARE of
PConfederate
IECE OF HISTORY
SouthPCarolina
Society
Order
Rose Report
July 2005
On September 30, 1864, a Union
sharpshooter found himself surrounded by a
band of determined Confederates on a
Virginia battlefield. Outnumbered, the
soldier and his brethren bolted for safety,
cutting loose their knapsacks in the
scramble to live.
Oscar Chappell at a UCV
Reunion
A youthful Confederate sharpshooter
named Oscar Fitzland Chappell picked up
one of those sacks. Just 17 years old,
Chappell held onto that simple canvas pack
for the rest of the war, even through the
misery of a New York prisoner-of-war
camp. Chappell was a Private in Co. F of
the 12th South Carolina Volunteers
(Dunlop’s Sharpshooters).
For more than a century, the rare
knapsack has been in the collection of the
South Carolina Confederate Relic Room
and Museum.
New research suggests the knapsack
may have belonged to Nathaniel Rodgers of
the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters. Yet, the
mystery remains how a Michigan
sharpshooter had a knapsack specific to
another Union unit – Berdan’s
Sharpshooters (1st and 2nd Regiment US
Sharpshooters). Dr. David Moore at North Georgia College and State
University has researched the knapsack mystery since 2003.
(Continued on page 15)
15th Regiment SC Vols
P.O. Box 280602
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Winner of the S. A. Cunningham Newsletter Award
Camps with over 50 members
2007 SCV National Convention - Mobile, Alabama
2006 SCV National Convention - New Orleans, Louisiana
2004 SCV National Convention - Dalton, Georgia
2003 SCV National Convention - Asheville, North Carolina
2002 SCV National Convention - Memphis, Tennessee
Winner of the Ambrose Gonzales Newsletter Award
First Place-Electronic Distribution 2007 S.C. SCV Convention - Mount Pleasant
First Place-Electronic Distribution 2006 S.C. SCV Convention - Beaufort
First Place-Electronic Distribution 2005 S.C. SCV Convention - Florence
First Place 2004 S. C. SCV State Convention - Greenville
Second Place 2003 S. C. SCV State Convention - Mount Pleasant
First Place 2002 S. C. SCV State Convention - Aiken
2007 Officers
Commander
Chief Louie Chavis
Commander@15thregtscvols.org
Scrapbook
Charlie Hood
Member - at– Large
E M Clark
Lt. Commander
Allen Frye
LtCommander@15thregtscvols.org
Adjutant
Shawn Kyzer
Adjutant@15thregtscvols.org
Chaplain
Larry Sharpe
Chaplain@15thregtscvols.org
Judge Advocate
Bobby Frye
Newsletter Editor/Webmaster
Steve Wolfe
Editor@15thregtscvols.org
Color Sergeant
David Kruger
Ask about how you can become a
South Carolina
Guardian
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Commander’s Comments
Commander’s Comments
October 2007
Hello Fellow Compatriots,
Hope all of you are doing great. Thanks goodness we are getting
some cooler weather but we do need all of your prayers for rain. At our
last meeting, we had Rick Hatcher. He gave us an excellent history on
Fort Sumter down in the Charleston Harbor. I have previously visited
Fort Sumter, but Rick’s history gave me more meaning to the whole
picture. I do intend to re-visit with this new information. Thank you
Rick for coming to talk to us and doing such a great job.
I have two financial announcements to make to all of you.
1. If you have not paid your annual dues yet, please be prepared to do so at the Camp Meeting. The
deadline is October 31st. We will be meeting on October 30th. This will be close, but it can be done.
You also have the option of mailing to Shawn Kyzer to get them in before the deadline.
2. Steve Wolfe has repeatedly asked for anyone who has a computer to sign up to get the newsletter
electronically. This has not worked, so now we are forced to add $12.00 additional dollars to our
Camp Members who get their newsletter by mail. This will go into effect beginning January 1, 2008.
We really regret having to do this, but we no longer have a choice in the matter. Postage, paper and
ink as well as now having to use envelopes, has driven the cost up. This has been suggested by
Members as a solution.
Another announcement that I have to make is that I will not be running again as your Camp
Commander. Being the Chief of an American Indian Tribe requires more of my time than any of you
will ever know. I truly hope that I have served the Camp in a positive way. I will still be a member
and active with the Camp, but holding two leading positions as well as all the boards and committees
that I sit on, has taken a lot out of me and my family. I truly hope that all of you understand this. We
will be holding Camp elections in November, so be thinking of who you would like to nominate to
replace me. I know that we have several loyal, dedicated people that can take over this very prideful,
honorable duty. I have been most Honored and Humbled to have been Camp 51’s Commander.
We are only 5 months out from out State Convention. We, as a Camp, need to come together
to brainstorm and get the planning finished for this most honorable and hopefully profitable event.
Steve needs to have a meeting with all that have volunteered to help. Let’s come together and plan a
meeting date to discuss the Convention. Please contact Steve Wolfe with dates and time available to
hold a meeting.
This month we have Frances Meissner coming to talk to us about “The War as Seen Through
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Chaplain’s Corner
October 2007
Text: On the Wings of a Snow-White Dove
Scripture: Psalms 55:6
“And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would
I fly away, and be at rest.”
Thought: Even as Abraham believed in God, it was
accounted to him for righteousness.
Greeting to our fellow Compatriots and Sons of Confederate
Veterans;
This past Memorial day as I rode across Lake Murray, viewing the beautiful whitecaps, the gulls, and
other down-home fishermen, it was a wonder how man had built such a large place to fish and relax.
But then as we rode into the back waters, there stood tombstones, graves, and simple markers of those
who had settled this area and formed several little towns, which are now forgotten. There lay the graves, never
moved, but just the head markers placed elsewhere. My heart went out to those brothers who had given their
lives for you and I during a past war. The decent respect, which to me was not given, grieved my heart and
spirit.
All of what people call a lake of pleasure to attract this new generation, to turn the turbines that grasp
for every dime that can be collected, and over charge for their simple services, was all I saw. This is the
Laodicean Church age of Revelation 3:14. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and
have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and
naked.
I believe that this age we are living in today will perhaps be the last generation before Christ says,
“That’s Enough.” Today one cannot even walk down the street with out seeing sin on every corner. Women
with women, men with men, homosexuality. Ungodly acts that during the Bible days, they would have been
stoned to death for their immoral acts that were being committed. What happen to the days when a lady walked
down the side walk, any decent man would step aside, and tip his hat, or open the door and stand aside for a
lady to come into the stores and restaurants. The days of hospitality are over, are the people with real respect.
America has sinned away its morals.
Our nation used to go to Paris, France to get the design for all her immoral clothes and fashions. All our
clothing makers went to the places like it was in Sodom and Gomorrah, but now these countries come to The
USA for their fashions. I remember when I read in a book one time where an old fashion preacher of God’s
Word stated, “It used to be that our women dressed decent and were beautiful, now they can walk down the
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A few words to share from the President of the
Louisa McCord Chapter OCR
Good Day Ladies and Gentlemen,
I hope everyone is doing well. I’m sure everyone is beginning preparations for the upcoming
holiday season. It will be here before we know and it is our time to spend with family, friends,
coworkers and others who don’t have anyone to share it with.
It is also time in November for our Chapter elections and our new officers will be appointed
and welcomed into their position at the December dinner. My term has long been up, actually longer
than I thought, and it is time to have some new ideas and officers. Please remember that I will support
and assist the new officers in any capacity that I can and am asked of. Saying that, I would like to
nominate for the position of President of the Louisa McCord Chapter – Carolyn Jordan and Apryl
Kyzer. For Vice President, I would like to nominate – Gail Rhymer and Carole Crosby. For
Secretary, I would like to nominate, Maria Shull and Kathleen Chavis. I would like to have Steve
Wolfe remain as Treasurer just because it is such a hassle to have the paperwork done at the bank for
new signatory and all. So please decide if you can accept this nomination and if you have anyone else
you’d like to appoint. I still would like us to have someone work with the Rosebud program and have
it expanded so that’s a thought also. I do want to remind you all that we do have fairly new members I
am nominating for Officers, but I have all the confidence in the world they will do a fabulous job and I
will be there to assist them if they would like me to. I did want to recognize Diane Padgett for all the
hard work she has done and continues to do for the Chapter and Camp despite all her pain. Because of
her health at this time, Diane asked that I not nominate her for an officer position, otherwise I would
have, as I know Diane would have given 100% and make us proud.
I will be working on and completing the Volume II Cookbook to have for preparation to sell
next year as a fundraiser. We will have a few copies of Volume I at the meeting this month and can
take orders for Christmas of Volume I by request. We need to start working on cockades, goody bags
and other items (call for donations and make some things) for the upcoming State Meeting. It will be
here before we know it, so let’s get ready to work really hard.
Please remember everyone who is ill at this time, remember our friends who are deployed and
serving us and our country, remember those who are alone at this time, and also our new births that
arrive to give us joy. Our member, Diane Padgett, has been suffering for a long, long time with pain
but has always been a strong, supportive force for us. Please remember her as she continues to travel
the road to recovery. A message from Diane: “Oct. 11, I went to see another New doctor (this makes
my 75th Doctor). He is a very young Surgeon and will be doing a number of operations over the
course of several months. I will return to his office on Oct. 24th to meet with the Medtronic Rep. and
the surgeon to place a temporary stimulator into my body. The surgeon feels that not only is there a
problem with the battery/generator, but there is a problem with the leads/wires that are implanted into
my vertebra. The surgeon stated that he feels that the entire system needs to be removed and be
replaced with new equipment. The temporary stimulator is going to be worn for a week or so and will
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was the surgeon in charge of the Gordon Hospital in Nashville in 1861. He was not full convinced of
the usefulness of women in the hospitals until he saw the work of the Confederate ladies among the
wounded following the battle of Shiloh. In his own personal narrative he declared, “Then, and ever
after throughout the war the women of the South, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated,
whenever or wherever they were in the vicinity of the sick or wounded, whether separated from their
commands, suffering on the battlefield or languishing in the hospitals, never hesitated to go to their
relief. Aged and stately matrons, youthful and inexperienced maidens, who perhaps had never left
home the distance of a mile without an escort, undauntedly entered hospital wards or visited in out of
the way places sick and wounded Confederate soldiers and administered to them.”
The gratitude of the soldiers were always manifest whenever these matrons, who were interns,
came into the wards, for they served them as amanuenses by writing letters to the families and friends
of the disabled. They prayed for and with them when requested. They cooked appropriate and delicate
food for them when needed. They wiped the sweat from the brows of the dying and closed the eyes of
the dead. Often entrusted to send the last messages of the dying to their families and friends at home,
those faithful matrons never failed to perform their promises.
By law, the matrons were obliged “to exercise a superintendence over the entire domestic
economy of the hospital, to take charge of such delicacies as may be provided for the sick, to
apportion them out as desired, to see that the food or diet is properly prepared and all such duties as
may be necessary.” The matrons were authorized assistant matrons “to superintend the laundry, to
take charge of the clothing of the sick, the bedding of the hospital, to see that they are kept clean and
neat, and perform such other duties as may be necessary,” as well as ward-matrons, whose duties
“shall be to prepare the beds and bedding of their respective wards, to see that they are kept clean and
in order, that the food or diet for the sick is carefully prepared and furnished to them, the medicine
administered and that all patients requiring careful nursing are attended to and all such other duties as
may be necessary.”
Remember to have a GREAT Day!!! Life is short! Break the rules! Forgive quickly! Love truly,
Laugh uncontrollably…... And never regret anything that made you smile.
Yours in history,
Andrea M. Evans-Wolfe
President, South Carolina Society OCR
President, Louisa McCord Chapter OCR
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determine if I will get complete coverage from pain. The surgeon warned me that due to the fact that I
have been dealing with pain for so long that I may not get complete pain coverage. Take care my
friends.”
I am enclosing two articles submitted by Maria Shull for our newsletter that are very
interesting. Thank you, Maria for sharing these with us.
KATE CUMMINGS-CONFEDERATE NURSE
The Cumming family moved to Montreal, Canada, then settled permanently in Mobile,
Alabama, while Kate was still young enough to become thoroughly Southern. Intelligent and
courageous, she did not believe in the right to secede, yet she became an impassioned Confederate,
blaming Abraham Lincoln for the war, condemning Yankees for being Yankees and lashing out
against her own people for anything less than wholehearted patriotism and at the soldiers for not
fighting as often as she thought they should.
During the war Cumming ignored those of her family who opposed hospital work as unlady
like and became one of the best-known nurses in the Western Confederacy. Through 1861, illness and
reluctance to displease her brother restricted her service to collecting supplies and distributing them to
convalescents. In April 1862 she nursed the wounded at Shiloh, worked that summer at Corinth,
Okolona and Chattanooga and in the fall enlisted in the army’s medical department as a hospital
matron. Opinionated and assertive, Cumming worked under Dr S. H. Stout, a progressive military
physician committed to the employment of women in hospitals. Cumming applied her energy and
organizational ability to running efficient, clean wards and adequate kitchens and to making the
wounded as comfortable as possible as the army retreated before Sherman through Alabama,
Tennessee and Georgia.
SALLY LOUISA TOMPKINS-CONFEDERATE NURSE
When the government asked the public to help care for the wounded of first Bull Run,
Tompkins responded by opening a private hospital in a house donated by Judge John Robertson.
Robertson Hospital, subsidized by Tompkins’ substantial inheritance, treated 1, 333 Confederate
soldiers from its opening until the last patients were discharge June 13, 1865.
Because the hospital returned more of its patients to the ranks than any other medical care
facility, officers tried to place their most seriously wounded men in Tompkins’ care. She used her high
rate of success to convince President Jefferson Davis to allow her hospital to stay open even as his
orders shut down other private hospitals in the city. To circumvent the regulation calling for all
hospitals to be run by military personnel, on September 9, 1861 Davis appointed Tompkins captain of
cavalry, unassigned, making her the only woman to hold a commission in the Confederate States
Army. Her military rank allowed her to draw government rations and a salary to help defray some of
her operating costs. Only 73 deaths were recorded at Robertson Hospital during its 45-month
existence.
Dr S. H. Stout, later Medical Director of Hospitals of the Army and Department of Tennessee,
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Aided in Building Torpedo of 60’s
Louis Carroll 87, Dead at Bamberg, Helped with Civil
War Experiment
Bamberg, Oct 29, (1932) - Louis Carroll, 87, one of
Bamberg’s antebellum negroes, is dead. Carroll was a
witness more than seventy years ago of the experiments
made by Dr. Francis F. Carroll with a submarine torpedo
and he also helped Dr. Carroll make what was probably the
first rocket power boat ever attempted. Since the death of
Dr. Carroll, many years ago, the submarine torpedo and
rocket power have both been perfected as engines of war.
Carroll was born in Charleston of slave
parents. The parents belonged to Dr. Carroll’s father.
Before the Confederate war the Carrolls moved to Bamberg
County and settled on what is now known as the Pickney
place, which borders on Clear Pond, a highland lake with
neither inlet or outlet. It was in this pond that Dr. Carroll
carried on his experimental tests. The negro slave family
came with them to this county.
Kind to Slaves.
Louis said that his master loved so much that the younger children, he among them, were
allowed their freedom, and the older continues to live on the plantation after Lincoln’s proclamation.
He described the devotion between slaves and master as much touching.
Louis Carroll then a young boy, often assisted the master’s son, Dr. Frank, who was of an
inventive turn. Louis, after the death of the older Carrolls, came to Bamberg, and for some fifty years
was a contractor here, recognized generally as an expert workman and he did a good and honorable
business, holding the respect of whites and negroes throughout his long life. His mind remained clear,
and he told tersely of his association with inventor of the modern submarine forerunner.
During the first year of the Confederate war, Louis related, Dr. Carroll conceived the idea of
inventing a torpedo which to destroy the enemy ships. He went to work on it, and first built a boat,
which he propelled by means of a rocket, described by Louis as a “skyrocket.”
It was made out of a
piece of oak log about seven or eight feet long. The log was hollowed out, with an inside aperture
about six inches in diameter. He tied a winding cable to the boat, but this was merely to cause the
return of the apparatus after it had been dispatched to the target.
The torpedo was attached to the boat in some way, not clearly described, and was propelled by
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means of a coil spring. The boat would correspond to the present day submarine, except that it
traveled on the surface, which was its apparent weak points. Louis did not see the doctor explode a
torpedo, but he does very well seeing him send his apparatus across the pond to any described
destination by means of the rocket. Dr. Carroll said that his experiment was a success.
Stump Used as Target.
Francis F. Carroll, attorney of Summerville, son of Dr. Frank Carroll, does not remember
much about the doctor’s experimental work, but he stated that he has heard several older citizens say
they saw the doctor explode a stump across Clear Pond with a torpedo operated on the manner
described by Louis Carroll.
In 1862, the negro said, Dr. Carroll considered that his invention was successful enough to into
practice. The apparatus was sent to Charleston and at Castle Pickney it was given a try out by the
Confederate government, which pronounced it a success, but that inasmuch as it was a surface
instrument, they were fearful that it would be shot to pieces before it could get in any deadly work.
Consequently, it was returned to Clear Pond, and Dr. Carroll was asked to experiment further and try
to perfect an undersea submarine. He continued along this line, Louis Carroll said, and some time
afterwards submitted a new apparatus to Castle Pickney, but it was not successful, in that it could not
be properly balanced to travel at a uniform depth. To use his words, “it dived too much.”
The doctor continued his experiments, but Louis Carroll said, but soon Sherman’s army came
through, and every thing was destroyed, including all of the doctor’s models and drawings and as the
war soon ended, that was an end to the submarine and torpedo.
Carroll said that it was always understood George Washington once passed though this section
and stopped at the same house occupied by the white Carrolls at Clear Pond.
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the Eyes of Columbia Women. All of you ladies should come out and join us gents for this meeting.
This should be an enlightening perspective.
Yours in Heritage and History
Chief Louie C Chavis
Commander
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Camp 51 Christmas Dinner
Saturday December 15th, 6:30 PM
Willy’s Foxfire Grill
Bower Creek Parkway, Harbison
Special Speaker: Dr Walter Edgar
Camp 51 is honored to have as
our 2007 Christmas Dinner speaker, Dr.
Walter Edgar of the University of South
Carolina. Dr. Edgar is a much sought
after speaker who was kind enough to
cancel an out-of-state engagement so that
he can be with us.
As well as being the host of
SCETV’s, Walter Edgar’s Journal, Dr.
Edgar is the author of The South
Carolina Encyclopedia and South
Carolina: A History.
This event will be held at Willy’s
Foxfire Grill on Bower Creek Parkway in Harbison. This restaurant is
only a few doors down from the
Columbia Grand Theaters.
Willy’s Foxfire Grill’s owner Neville Poots has announced that
they have hired a chief that has worked with them at a couple of their
other establishments in Columbia (Restaurant 123 & Gervais and Vine),
and that he will have three different selections (all new) for us to choose
from for this event.
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The Confederacy’s Bomb Brothers
George and Gabriel Rains had a knack for blowing things up during the American Civil War
between 1861-1865. They were the Confederacy’s “Bomb Brothers.” Were they fathers of the
modern day land mine?
By Peggy Robbins
President Jefferson Davis studied the small, odd-looking object. A heavy, black iron casting, it
resembled a lump of coal. What it was, however was a bomb fresh from the drawing boards of the
Confederate Torpedo Bureau. This device, experts told Davis, could be spirited aboard a Union
steamer and dropped into the ship’s load of coal. When heated in a boiler, it would explode and
cripple the vessel. Turning the weapon over in his hands, Davis exclaimed, "Perfection herself!"
One of the first victims was the steamship Greyhound, headquarters of the Union Army of the
James’s commander, Major General Benjamin F. Butler. As the ship steamed along Virginia’s James
River on November 27, 1864, crewmen unwittingly threw one of the "coal lump" devices into one of
the boilers. In moments, the Greyhound erupted into flames and sank. Among her startled passengers,
none of whom was seriously injured, were Butler and Rear Admiral David D. Porter. Union
investigators declared, "Confederates dressed as roughly-garbed stowaways [had] slipped aboard and
planted explosives, then fled." Confederates who knew
the truth only laughed.
George Rains (right) and his older brother Gabriel (left)
created explosive solutions to the Confederacy’s
problems during the war. George created the gunpowder,
and Gabriel used it to create landmines lethal to Federal
soldiers.
The new weapon was the invention of Gabriel
James Rains, whose munitions experiments were
known throughout the South. But he was only part of
the Confederacy’s success at developing and using
explosive devices. Gabriel’s younger brother, George
Washington Rains, undoubtedly provided the powder
that filled the bomb. The younger Rains was
instrumental in creating much of the struggling
South’s gunpowder. These tow munitions experts were
the Confederacy’s "Bomb Brothers," and without them
the South would likely have fallen far sooner than the
spring of 1865. President Davis and other Confederate
leaders considered them among the South’s greatest
assets.
Gabriel and George Rains were brothers, but 14 years separated their births, and they had few
strong ties to one another. There is no evidence that their professional lives intersected before, during,
or after the war, nor do they seem have had a close personal relationship. What is likely, however, is
that they were rivals. There was fierce competition and jealousy between branches of the Confederate
Ordinance Department, and the Rains brothers labored in different divisions—Gabriel leading the
Torpedo Bureau and George, the Niter and Mining Bureau.
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Sons of a North Carolina cabinetmaker, the "Bomb Brothers" were born in Craven County,
North Carolina, Gabriel in 1803 and George in 1817. George was still attending a preparatory
academy when Gabriel entered West Point, from which he graduated 13th in the class of 1827. As a
lieutenant in the 5th U.S. Infantry, Gabriel served in Florida and Louisiana, fighting in the Second
Seminole War, and later recruited troops for the Mexican War, in which he
also took part. During his years in the Regular Army, Gabriel earned a
reputation for experimenting with explosives. By May 1861 he had risen to the
rank of lieutenant colonel, but when his native North Carolina seceded, he
resigned his commission and entered the Confederate army as a colonel; by
September he was a brigadier general.
George, meanwhile, had followed his brother to West Point, graduating
third in the class of 1842. He began his military career as a second lieutenant in
the Corps of Engineers, then transferred to the artillery, his true interest.
George taught chemistry, mineralogy and geology at West Point from 1844 to
1846 before serving as a first lieutenant at Port Isabel, Texas. He got his first
taste of combat in the Mexican War. George continued to pursue his longtime
interest in perfecting guns and gunpowder throughout his army career.
Federal soldiers suffered
great losses at the hands of
the Confederacy’s
landmines.
George was a captain when he resigned his commission in 1856 and
headed north to become president of the Highland Iron Works in Newburgh, New York. There, he
honed his powder-making skills, inventing efficient steam engines and boilers, until the outbreak of
war drew him home to join the Confederate army. Commissioned a major of artillery in July 1861, he
was soon chilled to the Ordnance Bureau and assigned to establish powder mills. He would rise to the
rank of lieutenant colonel in May 1862 and colonel in July 1863.
Both brothers were enthusiastic about their munitions work. Gabriel, however, began the war
unsuccessfully as a brigade commander. His failure to attack Federal troops of Major General George
McClellan during the May 31-June 1, 1862, Battle of Seven Pines, Virginia, drew criticism from
Confederate Major General Daniel H. Hill. Rains would hold no further field command in the war.
But Jefferson Davis had something bigger and louder in mind for him.
At the war’s outset, the South’s harbors were largely defenseless against the threat of Union
attack. The old brick forts with their old, rusty cannon were nearly useless in preventing Union ships
from steaming up Southern rivers. Officials of the Confederate War and Navy departments discussed
the use of "torpedoes"—exploding mines. The technology was not yet developed, and there were
controversial ethical issues to resolve, but the experimenting began.
The South’s first torpedoes were simple, powder-filled tin cans with trigger attachments. These
offered little promise. But then Gabriel developed what came to be known as the "Rains Patent," a
mine that could be used both on land and in water. These early torpedoes were made of sheet iron, and
each had a fuse protected by a thin brass cap covered with a beeswax solution. If pressure were
exerted on that cap, the torpedo would explode. Rains used these bombs with significant success both
in the water and on the land.
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In the spring of 1862, while Gabriel was still leading a brigade, he turned his "Rains Patent"
into the "sub-terra explosive shell," known today as a landmine. In May, during the Peninsula
Campaign, the Union Army of the Potomac was pressuring Confederate forces retreating from
Yorktown in the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. Rains’ brigade was part of
the Rebel rearguard. Some of Rains’ men found loaded 8- and 10-inch Columbiad artillery shells
equipped with sensitive fuse primers in a broken-down ammunition wagon near Richmond. Rains
planted these shells inches beneath the sand of Richmond’s beaches "simply as a desperate effort to
distance our men from pursuing Union cavalry," he explained. Suddenly a series of shells exploded
beneath the hooves of Federal horses. Pandemonium erupted as
many whole Union companies bolted in panic. They were the
victims of the first land mines ever used in battle. Rains had
originally buried four of them and was so impressed by the
contusion they caused that he buried more. Their use around
Richmond grew proportionately. Rains estimated that the
approaches to Richmond were laced with more than 1,300 land
mines by 1864, most of them operated by trip cords that could be
Union sailors carefully remove torpedoes
from Mobile Bay after Federals captured
pulled by hidden Confederates.
the bay in August 1864.
Union officers angrily denounced the mines as unethical and
lambasted the Confederacy for using "sub-terra booby traps," but Rains continued to plant them. They
were buried around houses, shops, and telegraph poles, and hidden in carpetbags and bags of flour.
Army of the Potomac commander Major General George McClellan immediately threatened to use
prisoners of war to clear minefields, and Union Attorney General Edward Bates spoke out indignantly
about the "devilish devices." For two and a half years Major General William T Sherman railed
against the use of the mines, like McClellan, vowing to force prisoners to march ahead of his troops,
who knew the mines as "infernal machines."
Not all the opposition to the mines came from the enemy. Major General James Longstreet,
who commanded a retreating division that had directly benefited from Rains’ Richmond mines,
furiously condemned them and forbade any further use of them. But Rains lobbied the Confederate
government for approval of the mines. The dispute grew until Secretary of War George Randolph
announced the South’s official policy for employing the new weapon. "It is admissible to plant shells
in a parapet to repel assault, or in a road to check pursuit," Randolph decreed. "It is not admissible to
plant shells merely to destroy life and without other design than that of depriving the enemy of a few
men."
Rains had won the squabble, and he was delighted. "No soldier will march over mined land,"
he predicted, "and a corps of sappers, each having two ten-inch shells, two primers, and a mule to
carry them, could stop an army." His vision may have been a bit too optimistic, because once the first
explosions occurred, the unhurt Union soldiers simply detoured around them. But Rains’ mines were
indeed useful, particularly in guarding fortifications. For instance, during the Siege of Charleston,
South Carolina, in July 1863, the Confederates planted a large mine held with mines so close together
and so near the surface that no soldier could step on the field without detonating one or two. The
mines were used effectively around Battery Wagner on the South Carolina coast, at the northern tip of
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Morris Island, and just below Fort Sumter, allowing Charleston to withstand strong Union assaults.
The Union suffered 1,623 casualties in the siege while the Confederacy suffered on1y 186. The
experience was repeated elsewhere; Sherman wrote that in December 1864 "the rebels’ land torpedoes
at Fort McAllister, Georgia, killed more of our men than the heavy gun of the fort."
Even as Rains was placing mines along Richmond’s roads, Davis urged him to begin his work
on protecting the South’s harbors. On October 31, 1862, the Confederate Congress authorized a
Torpedo Bureau, a division of the War Department, to organize and improve torpedo and mine
warfare and Rains was placed at its head. Immediately he closed off
the James River to enemy shipping by lining it with hundreds of
mines and torpedoes. It was not long before Union men were
reporting that there were mines in the river, some of them 2,000
pounds in size. Several, fired by wires stretched from the banks, had
blown up Northern ships, and no river vessel was safe. Bombs
resembling coal, like the one used to sink the Greyhound, added to
Led by Gabriel Raines, the Confederacy's
the North’s confusion on Southern rivers.
Torpedo Bureau created the explosives,
like these newly cast torpedoes at the
Charleston Arsenal, that linked key
The underwater torpedo may have been the South’s most
Southern rivers and ports.
effective defensive weapon. Confederates had used crude
underwater torpedoes, most constructed from glass demijohns (large,
narrow-necked bottles) or tar-covered beer barrels, as early as 1861. These were not very effective,
but they were the forerunners of the very destructive instruments Rains helped develop in 1862 and
1863.
Problems delayed Rains’ early work on underwater torpedoes. He needed wire for an electrical
firing system, but wire was scarce in the Confederacy. The general corrected that by sending female
"wire-stealing crews" into Union territory. The women’s biggest haul by far was a cable the Union
had abandoned in the Chesapeake Bay. Gabriel unraveled tile cable and used it in hundreds of mines.
Still another problem was lack of funds. Despite Davis’ support, Rains was often without his fair share
of military appropriations. He began his torpedo work in 1862 with $20,000. The allotment rose to
$350,000 in 1864 and later to $6 million, when it was too late.
Despite these handicaps, Rains managed to establish torpedo manufacturing plants in
Richmond and ports throughout the South, along with a so-called "munitions plant" along the
Mississippi River. The last, unlike the others, was simply a shed under which three or four men
packed powder into demijohns, attached ignition devices, and loaded them on a wagon. A slave
named "Old Pat" drove the wagon, and his job was to place the mines in the river where they would
explode beneath the invading Federal fleet. They didn’t work very well, largely because Old Pat failed
to anchor them properly. Most of the torpedoes floated away with the current.
Nevertheless, Confederate underwater torpedoes were having an effect. Torpedoes detonated
from shore destroyed seven of 12 Federal vessels steaming up the Roanoke River to capture Fort
Branc, North Carolina, on December 9, 1864. An electric torpedo sank the U.S.S. Commodore Jones,
a converted ferry, on the James River on May 6, 1864, killing 40 men. Witnesses claimed the ship was
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The fur-covered knapsack was patterned after 19th century Prussian design and manufactured
by Tiffany & Co. in New York. The knapsack belonging to the SC Confederate Relic Room and
Museum is one of only five known to exist today.
The SC Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum, with
the help of Berdan Sharpshooters Living Historians, is raising
funds to conserve this rare knapsack. It will cost $3500 - $5000 to
conserve this wonderful piece of history. If you would like to
contribute to the knapsack conservation fund, please contact W.
Allen Roberson, Museum Director, at arobers@crr.sc.gov or
803.737.8096.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS
October Vote: Proposed $12 a year postage surcharge for
members who receive their newsletter via the US Postal Service. If
passed, this surcharge would go into effect on January 1st, 2008. Recent
postal mailing changes have forced us to spend more money on
envelopes and postage. Currently this publication costs $1 per month
for postage. To avoid this surcharge those members who have email and
are still receiving this newsletter by US Mail, should advise the editor to
email their newsletter.
November Elections: All Camp elected positions will be voted on.
If you are interested in nominating someone or being nominated
yourself, this is the time to let your intentions be known. The elected
positions are: Commander and Adjutant.
2008 Speakers: We are currently booking for 2008. If you have
someone that you would like to hear, please contact the editor as soon
as possible.
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blown 50 feet into the air. A Confederate soldier captured on the riverbank afterward refused to tell
the location of other torpedoes until he was lashed to the bow of a Federal ship dragging the river for
mines. Farther south, a large field of buried mines protecting Fort Fisher, North Carolina, helped stall
the fort’s capture until January 15, 1865.
Such incidents not only took lives and destroyed ships but also unsettled Union naval officers,
some of whom began to exercise extreme caution that weakened their effectiveness. In April
1862,Captain Quincy Gillmore
reported that at Fort Pulaski, near
Savannah, Georgia, "the probability
of encountering torpedoes, for which
our vessels were not designed,
determined a change of plan." On
March 12, 1863, Federal Secretary of
the Navy Gideon Welles wrote in his
diary: "The attack on Charleston will George Rains (left), shown here years after the war, designed the Augusta
powder works (right) with safety and efficiency in mind.
be delayed.... .Little is known of
obstructions and torpedoes, but great
apprehensions are entertained." Confederates added to the confusion by dumping empty barrels into
harbors, creating the appearance of floating mines.
As excellent as Rains’ torpedoes were, they had one weakness: prolonged submersion could
corrode them, rendering them useless. An example came in Mobile Bay, Alabama, on August 5. 1864,
when Union Rear Admiral David Farragut steamed his fleet through heavily mined waters to capture
Mobile. Farragut is famous for his command. "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" What seems
like boldness, however, was actually recklessness. Many officers in the fleet heard the almost constant
snapping of primers under the bottoms of the ships and wondered why only one torpedo exploded (the
one that sank the monitor Tecumseh). They later learned that the torpedoes had been in the water so
long they had corroded.
A postwar U.S. Navy report listed the loss of Union ships from torpedoes as much greater than
all other causes combined. "The torpedo service of the Confederacy probably contributed more to its
defense by far than all the vessels of the Confederate Navy," Russell Soley, a Northern observer and
writer during the war, later wrote. Gabriel Rains had been sure of that all along.
His brother George, sometimes called the "chief chemist of the Confederacy," was just as busy
as his brother during the war. When he joined the Ordnance Bureau, Colonel Josiah Gorgas, chief of
ordnance told him to get busy making gunpowder. It was up to George to determine where and how.
His task would not be an easy one. For half a century before the Civil War, there had been virtually no
ammunition made in the South except during the Mexican War. A few days after the April 14, 1861,
capture of Fort Sumter, the Confederate War Department reported that there was only 491,111 pounds
of powder for rifles, muskets and cannons within Confederate territory. The comparatively small
amount of powder (292,316 pounds) seized when the Federals abandoned the Norfolk Navy Yard in
Virginia on April 20 was divided among Confederate armies gathering on the Potomac River and near
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Available again for Christmas by your request.
Our Heritage Cookbook Volume I
Due to many requests, we are printing a limited number
of copies of our cookbook that will make the perfect
Christmas gift for that person on your gift list. These books
will be available at the October, November, and December
meetings, or until they are sold out. The price of the
cookbook is $15 if purchased at a meeting of $18 if
purchased by mail. Again, these books will be printed in a
limited number & by request, so get your order in as soon as
possible.
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Richmond and Mobile. None remained for the force assembling in Tennessee and Kentucky under
General Albert Sidney Johnston. President Davis said his army had enough powder for one month of
"light fighting." It was a desperate situation.
On July 10, George Rains left Richmond by rail on a mission: to enlarge and improve the
South’s existing powder-making facilities. "I almost lived in railroad cars," he recalled, "devising
plans, examining the country for locations, hunting up
materials, engaging workmen, making contracts and
employing more or less every available machine shop and
foundry from Virginia to Louisiana."
Gunpowder at that time was made mainly of potassium
nitrate (a whitish, powdery metal also know as saltpeter or
niter) with sulfur and charcoal. George knew there was very
little above ground niter or sulfur in the Confederacy, so he
prospected for these substance throughout the summer of
1861. In limestone caves in Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama
Federal soldiers from the steamer Resolute
and Georgia he found an abundance of earth rich in nitrates.
recover Confederate-placed torpedoes—buoyed
watertight oil barrels—from the Potomac
He put crews to work digging it out, and soon formed the Niter by
River. Northern officers lobbied against the use
of these and other explosives, which they called
and Mining Bureau. Then he turned two idle mills near
“infernal machines” and “sub-terra booby
Nashville, Tennessee, into a powder-making factory and
traps.”
enlarged them; by late October 1861 the factory was producing
3,000 pounds of powder a day. The operation was so successful that Rains sought to start a second
plant nearer to Richmond, but could find on one capable of replacing him as overseer in Nashville. So,
he wrote a booklet detailing the powder-making process, Notes on Making Saltpeter from the Earth of
the Caves, and trained a force of men. Leaving them to run the Nashville plant, he headed for
Richmond.
Rains had sent agents to Europe by way of Canada to buy more nitrate, and in time he
smuggled about 2.8 million pounds through the Union blockade. Closer to home he found an
untapped, if revolting supply: outhouses, latrines and chamber pots. Though the collection method
was unpopular and heavily criticized, it was productive. Niter beds filled with these waste materials
were established near many population centers and yielded several ounces of niter to each cubic foot.
The process inspired some of the war’s bawdiest songs.
By mid-November 1861, Rains was producing about 1,500 pounds of powder daily in
Richmond. His two plants were producing powder at a rapid pace, but he knew it was not enough.
About this time he read a booklet describing England’s Waltham Abbey Works, then the world’s most
up-to-date powder plant. The Confederacy desperately needed a great plant like that, he told Gorgas,
who agreed and allowed Rains to begin working on it.
The Waltham booklet contained no diagrams or drawings, but the instructions it provided were
complete. With Shaler Smith, Rains chose Augusta, Georgia, site of a former U.S. arsenal, as the
home for his new operation, the Augusta Powder Works. The complex stretched for miles along a
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canal and was ideal for a central supply base; it was safe from Union raiders, offered easy access to
water and rail transportation to the South’s main shipping points, and had sufficient willow trees to
make charcoal.
With the location chosen, George searched the South for materials to build the factory. The
renowned Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, which produced up to half the Confederacy’s domestic
cannon, gave him 250 tons of machinery, including 24 five-ton rollers to crush the niter into
gunpowder. He obtained two more rollers from a plant in Macon, Georgia, and another two from
Chattanooga, Tennessee. In various corners of the South, George found machinery made in the North
before the war–a 130-horse-power engine, five boilers, a 14-ton flywheel, huge retorts, iron cylinders,
iron evaporating pans–and hauled it all to Augusta. It was quite an accomplishment. Gorgas was
pleased to report periodically to Confederate government officials that "George Rains and his men are
still working miracles at Augusta."
Under Rains’ direction, copper boilers were made from turpentine and whiskey stills he
brought in from back-woods moonshiners. He brought raw copper from Tennessee, iron and coal from
northern Alabama and North Carolina, and tin and zinc for roofing from Mobile. He did not stop until
the plant was ready to make powder. It continued its operation until the end of the war, furnishing the
Confederacy with gunpowder of the finest quality.
The Confederacy spent about $385,000 for the plant, and both Rains and Gorgas boasted that it was
one of the South’s best investments. By the time the plant began operation on April 10, 1862, powder
coming through the Union’s blockade cost more than $3 per pound; the Augusta Powder Works made
a million pounds a year at a significantly lower cost. According to George’s calculations, the powder
works saved the Confederacy almost $2 million.
Rains pioneered clever new designs to increase the plant’s productivity. He developed new
ways to cool the powder and remove smoke and ashes from the factory. He also originated and
perfected new methods of purifying and pulverizing raw sulfur. When a lack of willow threatened to
slow charcoal production, he determined that cottonwood, abundant near Augusta, would work just as
well.
Safety was always one of Rains’ main concerns at the Augusta Powder Works. To minimize the
danger, the 12 rolling mills featured walls as thick as 10 feet, and the buildings along the canal were
separated by at least 1,000 yards to prevent any explosion from setting off a chain of blasts. Thirtygallon water tanks lined the area above the boilers and were rigged to drench the powder the moment
a fire started.
During its three years of operation, the Augusta works suffered only four explosions, two of
which were minor incidents causing no injury. The first serious explosion was caused by workers who
failed to remove a finished charge from the mill before beginning a new one. Suddenly, 120 pounds of
gunpowder burst into flame, and the front and roof of the mill were blown off. Several workers
suffered minor injuries, but the other 11 mills were undamaged. The most serious explosion occurred
just outside a temporary granulating building while the foreman, known for his strictness in enforcing
safety regulations, was absent. It shook the earth for some distance, blew up three tons of powder and
shot flames and white smoke 500 feet into the air. Seven men, a boy, and two mules were killed in the
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blast. It is believed to have been caused by workmen smoking—a violation of one of Rains’ strictest
rules.
Explosions were only a secondary problem at the plant claimed Rains. Because the
Confederate army kept drafting his workers away, his workforce was relatively unstable. In 1864 he
wrote to Gorgas: "My principal agent attending to the transportation of wood for the Steam Engine
and for the powder works has been taken from the works to do duty with a local company here, so that
these works are liable to be stopped for want of wood on any day and as the supply for all the Arsenals
depends on the powder daily made at the works, such interruptions are likely to be disastrous."
With Gorgas’ support Rains managed to keep the plant operating every day until the end of the
war. The Augusta Powder Works responded promptly to the Confederate calls for powder throughout
the war; in one two-day period the plant produced 22,000 pounds of gunpowder to fill a rush order
from Charleston. Rains also devised "safety powder boxes" to replace kegs for shipment, and after the
war he claimed there had been no explosions during powder deliveries from Augusta.
The Augusta Powder Works had produced 2.75 million pounds of high-quality gunpowder by
April 1865. More than 70,000 pounds was still on hand when Richmond fell that month. George was
pleased after the war to learn that his captured gunpowder was being used for artillery practice at Fort
Monroe, where Federal officials classified it as "very superior—the very best."
Rains closed his powder works on April 18, 1865. "Sadly I took down the last beloved
flag and folded it away," he recalled. "The fires went out in the furnaces; the noise of the
mills ceased; one by one the workmen slowly went away and once more I stood on the banks of the
canal alone."
Rains remained in Augusta after the war. He was professor of chemistry and pharmacy at the
Medical College of Georgia (later the University of Georgia) from 1867 to 1884, serving for a time as
dean. The writer of History of the Confederate States Powder Works, George later went into business
in New York in 1894 and died in Newburgh on March 21, 1898, at the age of 81. After the war; his
brother; Gabriel, had found his way to Georgia too, living for a time in Atlanta before moving to
Charleston. In South Carolina he served in the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Department from 1877 to
1880. He died in Aiken, South Carolina, on August 6, 1881, at the age of 78.
The Rains brothers had lived separately, worked separately, and died separately. But in the
South and North alike, their explosive legacy was remembered. To history, they would always be the
"Bomb Brothers."
http://maic.jmu.edu/JOURNAL/6.1/notes/robbins/robbins.htm
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street with about enough clothes on the pack a wad in a musket shotgun.” Years ago I remember it was against
the law to spit on the side walk.
Why is it that everyone waits until all of their life comes into a state of desperation, before they ask for
prayer, call a pastor, or a church member. It is so great to always have a direct contact with Our Great Creator.
The One who created you and me to worship Him. Remember, Heaven is not a million miles away up through
the atmosphere, but it is in the next dimension just above where you and I stand today. That is His Presence.
How many times haven’t we read where our soldiers on a battlefront asked God if He would bring them
back home to their parents or family they would serve Him. That’s a full commitment to God. He’ll take your
word for what it is worth, but can you keep your promise like He has kept His?
I would like to drop in a little story that comes to mind, during a battle during which the Germans had a
small U.S. battalion pinned down and surrounded on a battlefield overseas and what God did for them. The
following is a passage from the message “On The Wings of a Snow-White Dove” preached by Reverend
William Branham in 1965:
“The dove is used in the Bible as a symbol of peace, and also it is used by nations as a symbol of peace.
We have nations... Our nation is represented by an eagle. And there are other birds of other nations. Rome has
an eagle. Germany has an eagle; many of them, great birds of the sky. But in all of them, the dove symbolizes
peace in all nations. It is a universal symbol.
Another thing about the dove, it is a home-loving bird. It loves to stay home. And another thing it is, it's
always loyal to its mate. The dove, male or female, never leave one another. That female finds her mate in
mating season. See? That's complimentary to God's great creation. And by this home-loving conduct, by the
conduct of its home-loving, it has been successfully used for a--a carrier pigeon. Because it loves home, you
turn it loose anywhere, it'll always go back home. It'll go back home.
I have a little story in my mind; I read one time out of a book. Now, it may be in "The Decline of the
First World War."
The American soldiers was pinned down by German machine-gun fire, and they were in kind of a pit.
You soldiers, I guess, understand how they were on a reconnaissance somewhere. And they were pinned down,
and they had just a little bit of ammunition left. And the Germans were moving in great units, moving in
everywhere. And they knew that unless they'd get some reinforcement, some help, that they would soon all die
(they had to); the Germans coming right down off the mountain, looking right down their neck, going right into
them like that.
And one of them happened to remember that he had a little mascot, a little pigeon. So he knew that this
pigeon, if it could get out of there, would carry the message to the main headquarters to where they'd been
stationed. And so they set down and wrote on a note, "We are pinned down in a certain position at a certain
area. We're out of ammunition, in a few hours we'll have to surrender or either we'll be massacred." And they
pinned this, or tied it on the--the foot of this little dove and turned him loose.
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Now, he's a home-loving bird, so he... What does he do? He takes back home for his--meet, find his
mate. She was worried about him; he'd have to come back home.
And as he went up, the Germans seen what had happened. So the thing they done, they started shooting
at the dove. And one of them hit him with a .30 caliber machine gun, or bullet, it broke his leg. Another one tore
a big hunk out of his back. His chest was bruised all the way across. One of his wings was crippled, the end
shot off of it, and he flew sideways. But he kept climbing, and finally he made it. Crippled, wounded, broken,
bruised, but he fell in the camp with the message. That was a great dove.
Isaiah 53 tells us of One, came down from home and all that was good:
And he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquity: the chastisement of our
peace was upon him; and with his stripes we were healed.
But being wounded, broken, beaten, torn, but He knowed His way back home. So from Calvary's cross
where they bruised Him, mashed Him, tore Him, like a bunch of wolves upon Him, He made His flight from
Calvary and then landed in heaven's doors, saying, "It's finished. It's finished. They're free. Sickness can be
healed now. Sinners can be saved. The captive can be set free."
Though He was bruised and wounded, that great battle there when even everything against Him... Even
the poet cried out.
Mid rendering rocks and darkening skies,
My Saviour bowed His head and died;
But the opening veil revealed the way
To heaven's joy and endless day.”
On a cot in the south pacific during the war, there lay a wounded soldier, shredded by the Japanese
machine gun nest. When he was transported back to the medical tent, he was placed with those who did not
stand a chance of survival. As the Chaplain walked through to speak to him, he asked if all was well with his
heart. He had only a few minutes to live. The little young lad lay there a few seconds, and began to pray; “ Now
I lay me down to sleep, I pray to God my soul to keep”. He closed his eyes and slipped away. He had left Him
in the cradle where his mother had prayed over him faithfully.
In closing, always remember, that dove, His Spirit is with you wherever you go. Never forget, He is as
close as you will let Him be. There is nothing like a wonderful time of fellowship around your faith with others.
In the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
God Bless You,
Your Chaplain in Christ,
Rev. Larry D. Sharpe, Sr.
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New Civil War Bus Tour November 17th
Hello All!
The Greater Columbia Civil War Alliance would like to announce its first ever bus tour of the left wing
of Sherman's Army. On Saturday, November 17, 2007 at 10 a.m. the tour bus will depart from the Cayce
Historical Museum, located at 1800 12th Street, Cayce, S.C. 29033.
Lasting nearly three and a half hours, the tour will head toward Pelion and then make its way north
toward Lexington. Narrated by Dean Hunt, a history teacher and author of a soon-to-be-published book about
the left wing of Sherman's army, the tour will give participants the opportunity to learn about a part of Civil
War history that is seldom discussed. Those on the tour will have the unique opportunity to visit three
bridges along the North Edisto River where fighting occurred as well as other historically significant sites in the
area and the town of Lexington.
Tickets for the tour are $20 per person. Please contact us by phone at (803) 217-0071 or by e-mail at
gccwa@knappagency for tickets or more information. Please send checks made out to the Greater Columbia
Civil War Alliance to 1717 Gervais Street, Columbia, SC 29201. We will e-mail you a map with directions to
the Cayce Museum.
Information about the November bus tour as well as our Columbia's Longest Days event this February
can be found at our Web site: www.columbiaslongestdays.com.
If you have any other questions or need anything else, please give me a call or e-mail me back. Thanks
so much!
Sincerely,
Liz Jenkins
News about David Kruger
Looks like our soldier is going to be on the move again so please hold mail for the time being unless it
is a box that you can mail by midweek! Boxes usually arrive quickly but cards and letters can take up to a
month. If you've recently mailed cards or letters, they will catch up with him eventually.
Once again, I cannot say thank you enough to all who have remembered David and the other soldiers
with packages, and the cards and letters to David. With the holidays coming, please remember them again they WILL NOT be coming home for Christmas even though rumors are flying that it may happen. Christmas
cards, cookies, etc will be appreciated by all (the guys wait for David to open his boxes to see if there are
homemade goodies in them cause he does share thanks to all of you). Our hope is that we will see the guys
again by the end of winter if not sooner and keeping their spirits high is important!
Also remember that this time of year is a time when those who are up to mischief may call, write or
visit. BE CAREFUL what you say and who you talk to. The 263rd has been praised for the security that they
and their families and friends have exercised throughout the tour of duty so far and we appreciate the caution
and care that you all have taken to protect it throughout this year.
Thank you again for remembering the guys in prayer and spirit. Please pass on to any that you know
about holding mail temporarily. I'll send a new address as soon as I have one.
Count each day as a blessing and thank God that it was a good one!
Love to all,
Mandy
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South Carolina Division
Sons of Confederate Veterans
2008 State Convention
March 14th-15th, 2008
Hosted by
15th Regiment South Carolina Volunteers, Camp 51
Registration Form
Name: _______________________________________________________________________
Address: ____________________________________________________________________
City/State/Zip: _______________________________________________________________
Phone: (____) ____-________
Email: ________________________________________
Rank, Title, and/or Real Son: ___________________________________________________
Ancestor’s Name/Rank: _____________________________ Unit:______________________
Guest’s Name: _______________________________________________________________
Registration Fee:
Early-Registration
(March 17th - July 31st, 2007)
$40.00
$__________
Regular Registration
$50.00
(August 1st - January 31st, 2008)
$__________
Late Registration
$60.00
$__________
Guest Registration (Awards Luncheon)
$20.00 per guest
$__________
Ancestor Memorial (Deadline January 31st)
$10.00 each
$__________
Friday Night Social (Confederate Relic Room)
($5 will be donated to the CRR)
$20.00 per person
$__________
Vendors/Display Space (limited)
$20.00 per table
$__________
TOTAL ENCLOSED
$__________
Make Checks Payable to: SCV Camp 51
Mail form and check to:
2008 SC SCV Convention * 15th Regt. SC Vols * P.O. Box 280602 * Columbia, SC 29228
P a g e
2 5
1 5 t h
R eg i m e n t a l
R ep o r t
Continuing Our Heritage
Volume II
Is currently accepting recipes. This is our main 2008 fundraiser.
See Andrea at the next meeting or email your recipes in Word format to:
OCR@15thregtscvols.org
Calendar of Upcoming Events
October
30th
Camp Meeting
November
19th
MOSB Meeting
Chapter Elections
November
27th
Camp Meeting
Camp Elections
December
15th
Christmas Gala
Date
2007 Speakers & Topic
January 30th
John Griffin
Abraham Lincoln’s Execution
February 27th
Dr. John Brinsfield
The Spirit Divided: Memoirs of Civil War Chaplains The
Confederacy
March 27th
Jack Marlar
Great Artillery Actions of WBTS
April 24th
John Hammond Moore
The 1865 Grand Bazaar
May 22nd
Mike Dawson
The Battle of Congaree Creek
June 26th
Doug Bostic
Robert E. Lee’s time in South Carolina,
November 1861 to March 1862
July 31st
E. M. Clark
S.C. Guardian Program
August 28th
Dr. Jon Leader
The Chester Cannons
September 25th
Rick Hatcher
History of Fort Sumter
October 30th
Frances Meissner
The War As Seen Through The Eyes Of Columbia Women
November 27th
Alexia Jones Helsley
Beaufort During The War
December 15th
Dr. Walter Edgar
GOD
And My Country
15th Regiment
South Carolina
Volunteers
Newsletter Editor
15th Regiment South Carolina Volunteers
130 Upper Loop Way
Columbia, South Carolina 29212
Email: SC_15th_Regiment@hotmail.com
Next Camp Meeting
Tuesday October 30th,
6:30 PM
Gilligan’s Seafood & Raw Bar
Lexington
“To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans,
we will submit the vindication of the
cause for which we fought. To your
strength will be given the defense of the
Confederate soldier’s good name, the
guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of
those principles he loved and which
made him glorious and which you also
cherish. Remember, it is your duty to see
that the true history of the South is presented to future generations.”
Stephen D. Lee
The 15th Regimental Report is a monthly publication of the Lexington,
South Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 51.