The Last Shot Fired 150th Anniversary Civil War Haywood CO, NC

Sam,

Great photos! I am reading a series now about the Civil War. It is interesting but sad, both its cause and the horrific loss of life.

Malcolm

Sounds like a fun event, Sam. Your photos are spectacular (as usual).

c.sam,

    Great civil war layout, I love it, often wanted to put one together myself.

Thanks for posting the great pictures.

PCRR/Dave

Wow, the Confederate soldiers traveled through time to 1905 to capture the ESE...

You'd think they would've put the time machine to better use.

Rusty

A very interesting point of American Civil War lore and a great looking layout. 

Nice pictures Sam. 

Go Yankees!

Sorry,  Couldn't help it. Enjoy the open house and the historic event.

And here I thought that the last shot of the War of Northern Aggression was fired by the CSS Shenandoah out in the Pacific when she was still capturing whalers and was then in fact the last surrender of the war in England in Nov of 65.....after completion of sailing around the world.

"pat", please stay calm - don't make the southern boys come up there and whip you again

and, correct "mwb" - last shots were fired by CSS Shenandoah off coast of alaska

rdeal

Heck, the history books tell people who don't know any better that the entire war ended the very moment that Lee rode away from the McLean house at Appomattox, even though there were still large units in the field as late as June of that year, and scattered smaller units and individuals surrendering as late as the end of the year.

And yeah, Lt Commander Waddell striking the colors on the CSS Shenandoah in November was about as late as you could get for a Confederate surrender of note.

Great pictures.

As one of my former sales reps from SC told me "Paul, we didn't surrender - we're in a 150 year old tactical retreat".

Paul

Sam, buddy, it's not the "Civil War"; it's the "War Between the States", properly.

Even we Southerners have forgotten the difference.

Love that MTH 1905 ESE...got one.

They were so fast that they could travel back in time!

I grew up re-enacting the civil war. My Dad built his own M1841 6-pounder field gun by hand. He cut all the wood and cast all the parts himself. The only component he bought was the barrel, and that was only because he didn't have the capacity to cast something that large.

Dad, with the draft hanging over him in the late 50s, joined the USAF for 3 years as an fighter aircraft electrician. As a kid, I asked why the USAF and he said that it was the only branch of the military that hadn't fought the Confederacy. And as a kid growing up in the Deep South in the 70s, that made plenty of sense to me.

Dad was so happy that I went back to college in my late 20s, that he was willing to ignore the fact that I went into Army ROTC at Florida State University. My school's cadet colors carry a battle streamer for their involvement in the Battle of Natural Bridge, against the US Army in the battle in March, 1865. All of the battle streamers carried by ROTC units today are for fighting against the US Army in the War of Northern Aggression.

When I was looking to have a civil war cannon barrel for a Civil War monument on my layout, I found nobody makes anything even remotely close. So, my Dad, being the talented man he is and an expert of civil war artillery, whipped out a M1857 12-pounder barrel for me out of brass. It was easy for him as he's built numerous large-scale cannon and carriages (yes, including the special artillery-profile wheels, something he really enjoys), so I think this one took him hardly any time at all:

The plan is to mount in on a pedestal as my layout takes place in the 1940s, so an original carriage would have long ago rotted away and nobody was making replica ones at that time. Oddly, the area I model (the Northeast corner of Tennessee) was decidedly pro-Union and actually fielded as many -if not more- units for the Union than is did for Confederacy.

Per "Go Yankees" above, the really odd thing is that most of my family - none of which

so far as we know ever lived above the Mason-Dixon line since they came from Europe -

were NY Yankees fans, myself included. 

Secondly, my favorite RR is, of course, the New York Central (plus hometown GM&O).

The Vanderbilt family did have a recurring relationship with Mobile, however - the

Commodore's second (and young) wife was from Mobile, and his grandson (W.K.) also married a local girl, way back when. 

So, go figure.

Thanks for the kind comments fellas - we hope to have fun.

Being that 'North' Carolina considers itself 'South' and many here have mostly good natured (and some not so good!) attitudes towards northerners (NY & NJ) and Floridians, I have found that I do better telling people I'm from New Orleans (55 years) rather than that I was born in the Brooklyn Navy Hospital.  Everyone here likes New Orleans ..

Here's the link to the site for the festivities coming.

http://www.lastshotfired.com/

I think it's less of a thing than it used to be when I was a kid, because people move all over the place now and it's odd to find someone living in the same area where they were born, far more so than it used to be.

PC-isms have killed a great degree of the "Southern Pride" that used to exist in the Deep South back in the day. My Dad once said that people from the North were embarrassed about the war, in that, "A bunch of farmers with a few great leaders almost defeated the entire US military permanently," which explained why the history of the war was taught in underlying concepts totally differently than it was taught in the South. Any serious historian will tell you that Lincoln didn't care much about slavery all that much, and used it as a political tool to win the war by gaining new men to sign up for the fight as well as leveraging England and France out of supporting the CSA during the war, as well as justifying what he planned to do to the South once he sent armies into those regions, measures that few could honestly say weren't punitive in nature.

As for the models I wrote about earlier, Dad also has been dabbling with large-scale models. He built this 1/6 scale James Rifle, just on a whim. Again, everything that can be bronze, is, but he did paint this one up. It's fully functional in every single way a full sized one is, including being able to fire. It weighs about 25 pounds and the wheels are about 9" tall.

Very nice pictures Sam, excellent as usual. Love the civil war trains, very cool.