Three Year Anniversary: Write by the Rails Gets It Right

Three years ago, on a steamy August afternoon in Manassas, four local writers--Cindy Brookshire, Katherine Gotthardt, Sheila Lamb and Pete Pazmino--met at what was then the Simply Sweet Coffee Shop on Main Street to talk about ways they could encourage and support other writers in the area.

As the meeting ended, they agreed to meet later at Okra’s to organize. Recognizing the railroad heritage of Manassas, they named their new group Write by the Rails.

Since that day, things have changed. Simply Sweet has become Grounds Central Station, where owner Matt Brower continues to serve great food and drink and supports all manner of the arts—music, ballet, art, phonography and, of course, writing. And Write by the Rails has grown from those four writers to 257 members signed up through Facebook and other means. Early members joke about not meeting their Facebook friends face to face for months. About forty members are active.

That first year the club held networking meetings at area restaurants, started a email distribution list; publicized the group through local newspapers, online news sites and blogs; staged a literary panel discussion; sponsored multi-author book signings and displays at la Grange Winery in Haymarket, the Manassas Neighborhood Conference and the Arts Alive! Festival (sponsored by the Prince William County Arts Council) at the Hylton Performing Arts Center

The group staged a book signing at the Manassas Railroad Festival in June, 2012, and in the fall of 2012, became the Prince William Chapter of the Virginia Writers Club. The group also published New Departures in November, an anthology featuring poems, short stories, essays and artwork by its members. Eleven members of WBTR (as its members call it) joined the Prince William County Arts Council, and one member was elected to the Arts Council Board of Directors.

This past year Write by the Rails has become a chapter of the Virginia Writers Club. Chapter member June Forte and others worked to establish a Prince William Poet Laureate Program, the first a county (Richmond and Alexandria and a few other cities name laureates.). On June 14 at the Poetry & Jazz on the Lake event at Tacketts Mill, the club named Robert Scott and Zan Hailey as twin Poets Laureate.

Book clubs aren’t new, with some dating to the eighteenth century in England and perhaps even earlier. In the opening years of the twentieth century in this country, a group of writers in the San Francisco Bay area (including Jack London, poet George Sterling and short story writer Herman Whitaker among others) held informal meetings at first but soon became the Press Club of Alameda. In 1909, a faction broke off from the Press Club to form the California Writers Club, which is still active today.

The Virginia’s Writers Club dates back to November, 1918, founded by a group of writers including James Branch Cabell, the first president. Poet Ellen Glasgow hosted the first meetings at her house.

News, plans, members' writings and more are posted on our homepage, www.writebytherails.org, and in the Facebook group, www.facebook.com/groups/Writebytherails.The group is open to the public. If you are a writer (published or unpublished) affiliated with Manassas, Manassas Park or Prince William County, consider officially joining by emailing us at writebytherails@gmail.com. There is no charge to join.

--Dan Verner, Vice President, Write by the Rails

Two Free Book Talks in September

For Immediate Release
Aug. 28, 2013
NR#076
Contact: Patty Prince
703-257-8456 or 703-895-6535

Two Free Book Talks in September

City of Manassas, VA . . . In September, the Manassas Museum will host two free Book Talks, one on Sept. 8 and the other on Sept. 29. Both talks will be held at 2 p.m. at the Manassas Museum and are free to the public.

The first talk, on Sept. 8, features author and former Washington Post reporter Peter Carlson speaking about hislatest book Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy. This absorbing and somewhat humorous tale chronicles the unbelievable, but true adventures of New York Tribune Civil War correspondents Junius Browne and Albert Richardson. While trying to report on the war, the two were captured during the Battle of Vicksburg.

They suffered in multiple prisons, encountered a pirate and a secret society called the "Heroes of America." They then escaped over snowy mountains with the help of sympathetic southerners and slaves.

Carlson started writing and publishing newspapers when he was nine-years-old. He eventually found his way to the Boston Herald American, People magazine and The Washington Post, where he wrote features and columns for 22 years.

The second free Book Talk, on Sept. 29, features author Andrew Carroll who will discuss how his book, Here Is Where, grew out of a volunteer initiative to find and spotlight unmarked historic sites.

Before writing this book, Carroll trekked to every region of the country by car, train, plane, helicopter, bus, bike, kayak, and foot, seeking what he calls the "hidden history" that is all around us. His trek included Mound City, Arkansas, where a Civil War-era maritime disaster occurred that claimed more lives than theTitanic; the Paisley Five Point Caves, Oregon, where the oldest human DNA in America was discovered; Saluda, Virginia, where an African-American woman was jailed after refusing to give up her seat on a Greyhound bus, prompting a U.S. Supreme Court desegregation case-more than 10 years before Rosa Parks' arrest; and Rigby, Idaho, where a 14-year-old farm boy had a brainstorm that led to the invention of the television.

Andrew Carroll is the editor of several New YorkTimes bestsellers, including War Letters, which inspired the critically acclaimed PBS documentary of thesame name, and the Grammy-nominated audio version of the book. Andrew was the co-founder, with the late Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky, of the American Poetry & Literacy Project, which distributed free poetry books throughout the U.S.

Both books, Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy and Here is Where, are available at Echoes, The Manassas Museum Store at www.manassasmuseum.org<http://www.manassasmuseu.org>.

Free Book Talk: Mathew Brady, "Portraits of a Nation"

On Sunday, Aug. 18 at 2 p.m., Author Robert Wilson will deliver a free book talk at the Manassas Museum about the photographer who captured the iconic images of Abraham Lincoln and so many others of that time.

Wilson's new book, Mathew Brady, Portraits of a Nation, has met with rave reviews.  Wilson, a resident of the City of Manassas, will travel to Boston, Paris and other great cities during his book tour.  Although his is one of hundreds of books examining Mathew's work, reviewers say Wilson has brought the photographer to life in a new way.  Wilson's richly illustrated biography chronicles Brady's influence on 19th-century photography and his role as promoter, innovator, teacher, mentor, collector, historian, and advocate for the new medium of photography.

The Civil War was the first war in history to leave a detailed photographic record, and more than ten thousand war images are attributed to the Brady studio. Wilson says that Brady knew better than anyone the dual power of the camera to record and excite, to stop a moment in time and preserve it. Mathew Brady, Portraits of a Nation is available at Echoes, The Manassas Museum Store at www.manassasmuseum.org<http://www.manassasmuseu.org>.

Dr. James Robertson Speaking at Manassas Civil War Weekend

City of Manassas, VA . . . Retired Virginia Tech History Professor, prolific author and internationally-known Civil War expert Dr. James "Bud" Robertson has perfected many talents in a legendary career, but storytelling may be his proudest achievement.  Dr. Robertson discusses Civil War military maneuvers, tactics and artillery with ease, and just as easily captivates audiences with stories of romance, mothers, and horses.

Dr. Robertson will be the featured speaker during the Manassas Civil War Weekend, Aug. 23-25. Robertson's Saturday, Aug. 24 talk will be about theConfederate General Stonewall Jackson, Death and Birth of a Legend, at 4p.m. on the Manassas Museum Lawn. His Sunday talk, The Untold Civil War, based on his newest book, will be at 1 p.m. on Aug. 25 also on Manassas Museum lawn.  Both talks are free and part of a three-day weekend filled with living history, music, and events for all ages.

As a young man, Robertson's interest in history was piqued when he heard his grandmother tell tales about her father's Civil War exploits. Former students say the stories he told in packed lecture halls were so enthralling that they often forgot to take notes. His mix of humor, first-person stories, curious facts, and insight into the psyches of the people who started and fought the war continues to inspire both scholars and those with little interest in history. His success may be due to what he says he does: "I make history human. It's full of emotion. It's not memorization of dates and places."

He has authored and edited dozens of books, but Robertson's most well-known work is a 957-page award-winning volume on Stonewall Jackson, which took five years to research and two to write. While teaching and writing, he built the Virginia Tech Special Collections' Civil War research holdings, produced print and video material that has shaped Civil War history education in Virginia's public schools, and still serves as executive director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies <http://www.civilwar.vt.edu>.

President John F. Kennedy asked Robertson to serve as executive director of the national commission of the Civil War Centennial in 1961 after plans centered on a celebration rather than a dignified commemoration. Robertson successfully worked with 34 state and 100 local centennial commissions, all amid the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement. Robertson returned to the issue of commemorations 50 years later as a charter member of Virginia's Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, and has been influential in shaping the 150th observances throughout the Commonwealth.

Kennedy's aides also called Robertson to the White House on the evening of the president's assassination to redecorate the East Room as it looked when Lincoln's body lay in state in April of 1865. Robertson positioned the black bunting and located the Lincoln catafalque on which Kennedy's remains were laid.

When Hollywood came calling, producers used Robertson's book as the foundation for the portrayal of Jackson in the movie Gods and Generals, and Robertson served as the chief historical consultant for the film. Robertson has also made his mark in radio and television.

Over 14 years, Robertson wrote and narrated a collection of 350 radio commentaries that were aired on National Public Radio stations, and hosted a three-hour,award-winning Blue Ridge Public Television documentary entitled "Virginia in the Civil War: A Sesquicentennial Remembrance." Designed for use in the classroom, the program was broken down into nine 20-minute segments and distributed free to all public elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as every library system in Virginia. Robertson said he considers this "one of my greatest achievements."

Visit www.manassascivilwar.org for a complete schedule of events for the Manassas Civil War Weekend.


*** end ***


Patty Prince
Communications Coordinator
703-257-8456
703-895-6535
www.manassascity.org/facebook<http://www.manassascity.org/facebook>
www.twitter.com/cityofmanassas<http://www.twitter.com/cityofmanassas>
www.flickr.com/photos/cityofmanassas<http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityofmana
ssas>
www.manassascity.org<http://www.manassascity.org>

Manassas Museum Book Talk: The Washington Arsenal Explosion

The deadly explosion that took the lives of the women at Fort McNair is the subject of The Washington Arsenal Explosion, Civil War Disaster in the Capital - a free book talk. Join Erin Bergin Voorheis, the author's wife and editor, as she talks about her late husband's book on Sunday, March 10 at 2 p.m. at the Manassas Museum.  On June 17, 1864, dangerous working conditions and a series of unfortunate events led to the deadly explosion of a Federal arsenal at Fort McNair, where young women made cartridges to assist the war effort. Author Brian Bergin wrote about the little-known event, detailing the poor working conditions, the investigation into the avoidable events leading to the tragedy, and the reaction of a community already battered by the Civil War. The women lived in the close-knit poor Irish neighborhood called the Island; and when they died, their funeral was one of the largest ever seen in that district.

Brian Bergin had a deep fascination for history and story-telling. To better understand historic places and people, he recreated Lewis and Clark's journey from Missouri to Oregon, biked the C&O Canal from Cumberland, Maryland, back to his home in Arlington, Virginia; and hiked inShenandoah National Park to learn about the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Erin Bergin Voorheis is a freelance technical writer and editor. The Washington Arsenal Explosion, Civil War Disaster in the Capital is available at Echoes, The Manassas Museum Store.

______________________________________

For information, contact

Patty Prince
Communications Coordinator
703-257-8456
703-895-6535
www.manassascity.org/facebook<http://www.manassascity.org/facebook>
www.twitter.com/cityofmanassas<http://www.twitter.com/cityofmanassas>
www.flickr.com/photos/cityofmanassas<http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityofmana
ssas>
www.manassascity.org<http://www.manassascity.org>

Free Book Talk at the Manassas Museum

Although much is known about Frederick Douglass, the once-fugitive slave whose speeches inspired many to support abolition, little is known about the final years he spent in Washington, D.C. Author
John Muller will speak about those years during a free Book Talk at TheManassas Museum on Feb. 24 at 2 p.m.

Muller's new book, Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C., The Lion of Anacostia, explores the last eighteen years of the orator's life at Cedar Hill in Anacostia. The ever-active Douglass was involved in local politics, aided in the early formation of Howard University, edited a groundbreaking newspaper, and lectured to benefit the poor. In an unusual twist of fate, he served as Marshal of the District and was responsible for bringing fugitives to justice.

During this time, his wife of forty-four years, Anna Murray, passed away; and eighteen months later, he married Helen Pitts, a white woman. Unapologetic for his controversial marriage, Douglass continued his unabashed advocacy for the rights of African Americans and women and his belief in American exceptionalism.

John Muller is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, historian, playwright and policy analyst. A former reporter for the Washington Times, he is a current contributor to Capital Community News, Greater Washington and other Washington, D.C. area media. His writing and reporting have appeared in Washington History, the Washington Post, the Georgetowner, East of the River, the Washington Informer, Suspense Magazine and Next American City (online). His book is available at Echoes, The Manassas Museum Store.

________________
Patty Prince
Communications Coordinator
703-257-8456
703-895-6535
www.manassascity.org/facebook<http://www.manassascity.org/facebook>
www.twitter.com/cityofmanassas<http://www.twitter.com/cityofmanassas>
www.flickr.com/photos/cityofmanassas<http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityofmana
ssas>
www.manassascity.org<http://www.manassascity.org>

A Song for New Year's Eve

by William Cullen Bryant
November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878
Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay—      Stay till the good old year, So long companion of our way,      Shakes hands, and leaves us here.           Oh stay, oh stay, One little hour, and then away. The year, whose hopes were high and strong,      Has now no hopes to wake; Yet one hour more of jest and song      For his familiar sake.           Oh stay, oh stay, One mirthful hour, and then away. The kindly year, his liberal hands      Have lavished all his store. And shall we turn from where he stands,      Because he gives no more?           Oh stay, oh stay, One grateful hour, and then away. Days brightly came and calmly went,      While yet he was our guest; How cheerfully the week was spent!      How sweet the seventh day's rest!           Oh stay, oh stay, One golden hour, and then away. Dear friends were with us, some who sleep      Beneath the coffin-lid: What pleasant memories we keep      Of all they said and did!           Oh stay, oh stay, One tender hour, and then away. Even while we sing, he smiles his last,      And leaves our sphere behind. The good old year is with the past;      Oh be the new as kind!           Oh stay, oh stay, One parting strain, and then away.   _______________________________  WbtR wishes everyone peace in 2013.

Dec. 2 Book Talk at The Manassas Museum: Yes’m’ by J.M. Duke

Manassas native J. M. Duke will introduce her new segregation-era historical novel Yes’m’ during a Manassas Museum Book Talk on Dec. 2.

Although the work is fictional, Duke describes a 1950s inter-racial relationship that may have been inspired by her experiences growing up in the Manassas area.

Yes’m’ takes readers to a small segregated town in Virginia during the 1950s. The main characters are Pearl, the black hired help for an upper middle class white family and her charge, young Samantha Lee. Samantha chronicles, in first person narrative, the early years and experiences she and Pearl share in a town racially divided by both railroad tracks and philosophy.

As Sammie matures through the tumultuous 1960s, she continues to record the challenges, influences and local impact she and Pearl witness when the state enforces the integration of public schools and the nation struggles to achieve civil and women’s rights.  By 1969, having lived through two decades and diverse experiences, Sammie and Pearl find themselves still in the same small town, but in a very different place from where their epic began.

Duke says her desire in writing the book was to capture a time familiar to many who lived in the south at that time. “Yes’m’ records a period of time and a way of life that has been overlooked,” Duke says. “It is a different take on the struggle for equal rights.”

Duke was also one of the authors of the recent book, Manassas, The Times They Were a Changin', a "collective memoir" authored by members of the Osbourn High School class of 1969. The book was compiled to preserve and present a small part of one generation in Manassas from 1950 through 1969.

The Dec. 2 Book Talk at the Manassas Museum is free and begins at 2 p.m. Both Yes’m’ and The Times They Were a Changin' are available at Echoes, The Manassas Museum Store.

" Thank God He Survived Pickett’s Charge"

from

Manassas Museum

9101 Prince William Street

Manassas, VA 20110

When author Carl L. Sell, Jr. began to research his ancestors, he didn’t know that the
compelling story of his great grandfather, a Civil War soldier, would eventually result
in a book. Sell will recount that story during a Book Talk at The Manassas Museum
on Oct. 21 at 2 p.m.

Thank God he survived Pickett’s Charge, Sell’s new book, recounts the
experiences of his great-grandfather, Private James Farthing from
Pittsylvania County, Virginia, who served as a private with the 38th and
later the 53rd Virginia infantry regiments. The book describes his long
march from enlistment through Gettysburg, where he was wounded during
Pickett's Charge, and continues to Chester Station, where he was again
wounded. As a member of the 53rd, Farthing was captured at Five Forks in
1865 and spent time as a prisoner at Point Lookout, Maryland.

Although Farthing did not leave a diary or journal detailing his
experiences, Sell combined information from secondary sources about
the regiments, and added fictional dialogue between the characters. At times
he planted himself firmly in Farthing’s shoes, and told the story as he
thought his great-grandfather would.

The Oct. 21 Book Talk is free and Thank God he survived Pickett’s Charge 
is available at Echoes, The Manassas Museum Store.


*** end ***

Patty Prince
Communications Coordinator
703-257-8456
703-895-6535
www.manassascity.org
www.manassascity.org/facebook
http://twitter.com/CityofManassas

Dan Verner Interviews Linda Johnston

WbtR member Dan Verner interviews WbtR member Linda Johnston,

Editor and Illustrator

 of

Hope Amid Hardship: Pioneer Voices from the Kansas Territory

Dan: Good morning, Linda, and welcome to the Biscuit with Gravy Interview Program [on Dan's personal blog], a somewhat irregular feature on Biscuit City, going out to all our readers and listeners on the Biscuit City Network. Welcome to our newly renovated glass-enclosed observation post.

Linda: Thanks! I’m glad to be here. I must say that the observation post is smaller than I expected.

Dan: I’ll admit it is cozy, but serviceable. Anyhow, I first met you at one of our Write by the Rails meetings which were held Monday evenings this summer. You had a manuscript copy of a portion of your book and I think it’s accurate to say everyone there was blown away by it. How did you get the idea for such a book?

Linda: When we lived in Kansas about twenty-five years ago, we were close to an historic site on the Santa Fe Trail, just outside Kansas City. I was a guide there and one day while waiting on a group, I saw a diary of a pioneer woman on a shelf in the library. She had traveled the trail, and I became interested in similar diaries, particularly women’s stories.

I could identify with moving and leaving everything familiar behind since we had moved so much with my father in the Air Force and then after we married. My story, in a sense, was the same story as the pioneers.

I continued to research and read pioneer diaries off and on for the next twenty years. Although I had always wanted to do a book, five years ago I became serious about it and took a writing class at NOVA. I did research at the Library of Congress and at the Kansas Historical Society when I visited my daughter who was in school at the University of Kansas.

I should say that I also became interested in diaries kept by men. They were exceptionally observant and wrote very well. Their script is beautiful as well.

My book tells my story as well. I am interested in art, nature and in the emotions of moving and coming to a new place. They’re all there in the book.

Dan: It’s unusual for a book about pioneers to focus on the positive experiences in their lives. Why did you take that approach?

Linda: I asked myself, what did I want my readers to know about these pioneers? What was life like for them on the frontier? How did they cope with what they encountered? How would I have dealt with similar circumstances? I went back to Kansas every year and found a few more diaries that intrigued me each time.

These people have become very real to me and an important part of my life and of my story. We’ve traveled together all these years.

The original diaries are time machines—they’re a direct connection to the past. When I hold one of them, I’m touching someone’s life.

I want to tell the readers about one man, Samuel Reader, who kept an illustrated diary from the time he was 14 until he was 80. That covered the span of years from about 1855 until 1915. Imagine having such a record of your life!

Dan: How do people react to your book, generally?

Linda: People are enthusiastic about it and interested in it. It’s so personal, I want people to like what I’ve done. I’ve been fortunate to be able to do art work. I keep travel journals and I illustrate them, which is what people did before the advent of inexpensive cameras.

So many people are turned off by history, but this is a book for those folks who normally would not pick up a book about history. It shows a different perspective. It’s the personal story of real people and their lives. I wanted to make history personal. It’s taking a look “between the ticks on the time line.” Anybody can read about people who made history: I wanted to write about people who are history.

I wanted people to understand that these pioneers had the same emotions, struggles and heartaches as we do. The context of their experience and understanding it are everything.

Dan: Did you find a publisher while you were working on it or did that happen before you started?

Linda: Last October, I was at a Women Writing the West conference in Seattle. Those attending had the opportunity to sign up and meet with editors and publishers who were presenters at the conference in order to pitch a book. I did just that. I met with Erin Turner, from Two Dot Books, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press. I thought targeting a regional of a larger press would be a good fit for my book. As it turned out, Erin loves Kansas history and has written two books on Kansas herself.

So, I prepped for my presentation. I had props—a picture of Samuel Reader, a leather covered diary and some of my paintings. I felt at ease with her and we connected. I sent my manuscript to her and touched base at Christmas and New Year’s. In March I got an email that she was interested in my book and that I should send a query. I sent her an annotated table of contents. She sent a message that she was going to pitch the book to the publishing committee the next day.

She emailed me the afternoon after the committee presentation to tell me that they wanted to publish the book. I was so excited!

They sent a contract, and I hired an attorney to review it. That was costly, but it was worth every cent.

I had experience talking about my book at conferences and that paid off.

Dan: Please tell us about your trip to Kansas this summer to gather more information. You also did something when you discovered the graves of some of the people mentioned in your book. I thought that was very touching. Please be sure to tell us about that.

Linda: Last spring I received a grant from the Kansas Historical Society to complete my research. I made a trip to Kansas in August to do that. While I was there I gathered more information and met some fascinating people.

We don’t usually hear the words, “pioneers” and “fun” used together. But they, like us, did have good times as well as bad. That’s why the book is called Hope and Hardship.

One settler, Joseph Savage, went to Kansas in 1854. He went back to New England the following spring to get his wife and five children. . . He went back to New England, remarried, and returned to his farm in Kansas. His experience shows the character of many early settlers.

That strength got them through difficult times, including droughts in 1856 and 1860. During that time, settlers received aid (clothing, money, and other supplies) from eastern states. This helped them survive as well.

Another woman emigrated there and hated the place. Her father-in-law didn’t want her to leave, so she stayed. She wrote poetically about the wildflowers and nature, and although she might have been “sad and sorrowful” one day, the next day she went to church and recorded that Kansas had invigorated her and that she had never felt so good, that it was a “fairy land.”

Dan: Please tell us about some interesting people you met in the course of doing this book.

Linda: I got in touch with Bill Griffing, who had posted some of his ancestor’s (James) letters online. James lived in Manhattan, Kansas Territory. Another of my diarists, Thomas Wells, lived in Topeka but moved to Manhattan in 1870 and lived next door to James the rest of his life. The two families became lifelong friends. This illustrates the network of relationships that characterizes a society.

Dan: You have an interesting way of working on the book. Would you describe how that happens?

Linda: I paint for a week and then I write for a week, every day, eight to ten hours a day.

Dan: I might add that the paintings are charming and lovely. What sort of projects do you have planned in the future?

Linda: I might like to do a book on Pike’s Peak. Many settlers traveled from the Kansas Territory to search for gold there. I would also like to do a children’s nature book, maybe on nature journaling. I participate in a writing workshop for fourth and fifth graders each summer and really enjoy that.

As part of my book project, I would like to encourage kids to keep a journal and understand that their everyday lives are a part of history. I will incorporate this in my website, which is my next big project once I have turned in my final manuscript.

Dan: Wow! That’s quite a list. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Linda: I feel very blessed that this project is coming to fruition and involves all the things that I enjoy.

Dan: When does your book come out?

Linda: The launch date is August 13, 2013, and the book will be published by Two Dot Books, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press. I’ve already got the caterer lined up for the release party!

Dan: I want to thank you for being our guest today, for an informative, far-ranging interview. We’re looking forward to seeing your book when it comes out. I’ll put a notice here when it does with some information about how our readers can get a copy. We wish you the best in your work!

We’ve been talking with Linda Johnston, editor and illustrator of Hope Amid Hardship: Pioneer Voices from the Kansas Territory. It’s a beautiful book and one that I look forward to reading

This has been the Biscuit City Interview Show brought to you on the Biscuit City Network. Stay tuned for more interviews at irregular intervals. And so we bid you a fond farewell from the glass-enclosed observation tower.

A Civil War Poem

The Red Flagged House

by Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt

You say you are here to protect us,
the man-less, the son-less, the tepid wives
wafting through misused rooms of our
home-turned-makeshift-hospital.  But
the divan is upholstered in wounded,

dun rags stacked on our armoire,
gauze, iodine, ammonia, spirits following
the hems of our dresses.  "We cannot fit
one more!" we cry.  But you are deaf with war.
"We have nothing left to give you!" we

wail, but the moans of our warriors bury us
in bandages and heat rash and fungus.  Our dresser
lies on its back, an oaken cot for Confederates,
our maple table forced to feed soldiers to surgeons,
and everywhere, blood of our bold and our young

re-paints our wood, our walls, our memories.
We shuttle torn uniforms from what was home
to hearth, stir some in our soup cauldrons, burn others
to stay the fire, the fetid smoke of our torched ideals
and stained coverlets greeting each new casualty.

You say you are here to protect us, we your women
who don't want war, we who try to heal hurts,
scouring basins with our old lace, sucking up sweat
with our linens, mending the last blankets we own,
and asking, "Who will protect us from you?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

WbtR member Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt is the author of Poems from the Battlefield, a Civil War themed collection of her poetry and photos, as well as archival photos and period quotes.  "The Red Flagged House," one of the poems in the collection, was inspired by the Stone House at Manassas National Battlefield Park.

Hell is Being a Republican in Virginia--A Literary Discussion

The Manassas Museum
9101 Prince William Street
Manassas, Virginia 20110


News Release
Date: August 30, 2012
Contact:
Lisa Sievel-Otten
703-257-8285
lotten@ci.manassas.va.us

___________________________________________________

Hell is Being a Republican in Virginia: The Postwar Relationship Between John Singleton Mosby and Ulysses S. Grant

A Book Talk with Author David Goetz

Sunday, September 9, 2 p.m.

As 150th commemorations of the battles of Manassas or Bull Run conclude, one local author’s new book looks ahead to the political aftermath of the Civil War.
David Goetz, a well-known historian and Civil War tour guide who wrote Hell is Being a Republican in Virginia: The Postwar Relationship Between John Singleton Mosby and Ulysses S. Grant, will talk about his work during a free Book Talk at The Manassas Museum on Sunday, September 9 at 2 p.m.

The book tells the story of two unlikely allies who, at war’s end, put down their weapons and sought peace between the North and the South. Their 13-year post-war relationship, fueled by a mutual desire for peace and reconciliation, began when John Singleton Mosby, a Confederate hero, and Ulysses S. Grant, a Union hero and future President, built trust between themselves before moving on to the larger task of helping heal the nation.

In the book, Goetz also details Mosby’s role as a guerrilla chieftain in Virginia during the Civil War, the lives of both men during the early Reconstruction years, and what became of Mosby after Grant’s death in 1885 to his own in 1916.

“It is my fervent desire that you, dear reader, will also seek peace and reconciliation in your life and that our leaders will find ways to reconcile between themselves and follow the example of Grant and Mosby in healing our nation today and in the future,” Goetz writes.

Goetz, who has a professional background in public relations, sales and marketing, owns Mosby’s Confederacy Tours, is descended from the family of a Civil War chaplain, and is active in area Civil War associations. He is a U.S. Army veteran, and lives in Warrenton.

Hell is Being a Republican in Virginia: The Postwar Relationship Between John Singleton Mosby and Ulysses S. Grant is available at Echoes, The Manassas Museum Store. The September 9 Book Talk is free.