EXHIBIT PREVIEW
“1864”
Through July 20. 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays. $7.50; $6.50 ages 60 and up; $5.50 ages 4-12. 2829 Cherokee St., Kennesaw. 770-427-2117, www.southernmuseum.org.
MORE BATTLE OF ATLANTA ANNIVERSARY EVENTS
The Atlanta History Center is launching “Civil War to Civil Rights,” a wide-ranging series of exhibitions, programming and partnerships exploring American history from the 1860s through the 1960s, with an emphasis on how pivotal events shaped Atlanta. Among highlights:
- Juneteenth, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. June 21 and noon-5 p.m. June 22. A commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S. Events include genealogy workshops, in-gallery performances, music, kid-friendly activities and self-guided exhibition tours.
- Civil War historian Daniel Vermilya, a ranger at Antietam National Battlefield and Gettysburg National Military Park, lectures on the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, 8 p.m. June 26.
- "Confederate Odyssey: The George W. Wray Jr. Civil War Collection," July 18-March 15, 2015, a first-ever public exhibit of Confederate artifacts assembled by the Atlanta collector, including Southern-made uniforms, flags, firearms, bayonets and small-caliber artillery pieces.
130 W. Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta. 404-814-4000, www.atlantahistorycenter.com.
The Cyclorama continues its series commemorating the Battle of Atlanta sesquicentennial. Highlights include:
- A Juneteenth celebration, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. June 20, including educational activities, poetry slams and theater.
- U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Natasha Trethewey reading from her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection "Native Guard," with its themes related to miscegenation, slavery and race, the Civil War and the civil rights movement, 6:30 p.m. Sept. 2.
800 Cherokee Ave. S.E., Atlanta. 404-658-7625, www.atlantacyclorama.org.
MORE BATTLE OF ATLANTA ANNIVERSARY EVENTS
The Atlanta History Center is launching “Civil War to Civil Rights,” a wide-ranging series of exhibitions, programming and partnerships exploring American history from the 1860s through the 1960s, with an emphasis on how pivotal events shaped Atlanta. Among highlights:
- Juneteenth, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. June 21 and noon-5 p.m. June 22. A commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S. Events include genealogy workshops, in-gallery performances, music, kid-friendly activities and self-guided exhibition tours.
- Civil War historian Daniel Vermilya, a ranger at Antietam National Battlefield and Gettysburg National Military Park, lectures on the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, 8 p.m. June 26.
- "Confederate Odyssey: The George W. Wray Jr. Civil War Collection," July 18-March 15, 2015, a first-ever public exhibit of Confederate artifacts assembled by the Atlanta collector, including Southern-made uniforms, flags, firearms, bayonets and small-caliber artillery pieces.
130 W. Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta. 404-814-4000, www.atlantahistorycenter.com.
The Cyclorama continues its series commemorating the Battle of Atlanta sesquicentennial. Highlights include:
- A Juneteenth celebration, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. June 20, including educational activities, poetry slams and theater.
- U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Natasha Trethewey reading from her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection "Native Guard," with its themes related to miscegenation, slavery and race, the Civil War and the civil rights movement, 6:30 p.m. Sept. 2.
800 Cherokee Ave. S.E., Atlanta. 404-658-7625, www.atlantacyclorama.org.
War is hell.
In case you ever doubted that axiom, Kennesaw's Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History invites you to bear witness to its new exhibition, "1864."
Rich in historic objects and archival material — weapons and artillery, ambrotypes and uniforms, Confederate currency and letters home — the exhibit examines how the tactics of warfare were evolving in the buildup to the Battle of Atlanta and, in unblinking terms, the effect on soldiers and civilians.
“1864” is an early, significant offering among a wide array of exhibits, tours, lectures and more planned across the metro area in coming months keyed to the sesquicentennial of the Atlanta Campaign.
The Southern Museum is a battle-tested veteran of this 150th anniversary business, having organized a major exhibit and event just two years ago around its largest and most famous artifact, the General locomotive, and its 1862 starring role in the Great Locomotive Chase.
The new exhibit was inspired by the fact that not far beyond the museum’s front door, Kennesaw, then a rural outpost known as Big Shanty, was captured by Gen. William T. Sherman and his charges. The Union forces commandeered the town’s mighty rails to assemble supplies in preparation for attacking a Confederate stronghold at Kennesaw Mountain in the buildup to the fall of Atlanta.
It didn’t hurt, too, that the Smithsonian-affiliated institution boasts a serious and growing permanent Civil War collection that it is proud to showcase; ditto hundreds of additional objects on long-term loan.
But before you pass through the entrance to the 2,000-square-foot exhibit, on view through July 20, the Southern Museum’s curator would like to set some things straight.
“So many times, we see (Civil War) commemorations being phrased as ‘celebrations,’” Jonathan Scott said. “We’re not here to celebrate the war. We’re here to talk about it and look at the issues, and see how it affected everybody, from the top on down.”
Oh, and one more thing: “This is not an uplifting exhibit. You will not walk out of here feeling great about the Civil War. Not to say the exhibit brings you down, but it tries to contextualize it.”
That said, “1864” begins with dueling blown-up quotes on the gallery entry wall suggesting that both sides still felt the conflict was winnable. Even though its third year found Confederate forces weakening and in retreat, the unattributed November 1864 quote from a Richmond, Virginia, newspaper sounded an unbowed note: “When will the Yankee nation begin to understand that we are in earnest to defend our lives and liberties, and we are not playing a game?”
Inside a long Plexiglas-covered case beneath those quotes, however, is potent evidence — weapons commonly used by the opposing forces — that by 1864 the battlefield was far from level.
The example of Confederate arms is an Austrian-made Lorenz Rifle, a weapon of inconsistent quality that had to be muzzle-loaded, allowing the shooter to fire only two to three rounds per minute. Displayed next to it is a Spencer Repeating Rifle, with which Union soldiers could unleash as many as 22 rounds per minute. It could exhaust seven cartridges before needing to be reloaded.
Confederate leaders, requiring replacement soldiers due to mounting losses, expanded their conscription act early in 1864, drafting all men from 17 to 50, according to Scott.
Pointing at the contrasting weapons, he added ruefully, “While the Confederacy is having a hard time just getting men to fill their ranks, Union soldiers are getting much more efficient at killing those soldiers coming out. So it’s really a double insult to the Confederate manpower shortage.”
Nonetheless, the war’s toll was great on both sides.
One wall panel details the gory figures: More than 100,000 Americans were added to the war’s death toll in 1864 alone. By the time of the Confederate surrender the next year, between 620,000 and 750,000 American lives had been sacrificed. (Plus, 1 million horses had perished.) An estimated 2 percent to 3 percent of the U.S. population alive in 1860 had been killed by war’s end.
The power of “1864” is not in its sharp, succinct summation of the land, rail and sea strategies that led the Union to prevail the next year, but in putting a human face on all that loss.
The exhibit offers separate storylines across multiple panels about two Confederate officers, culled from letters in the Southern Museum’s archive.
One is about Temple Cooper, a captain in Company K of the 52nd Georgia Infantry, who had been captured at Baker’s Creek in Mississippi in 1863. The first panel chronicles the determined effort of his wife Unity, back home in Habersham County, to clarify her husband’s fate. In the second, she’s informed by letter from the wife of a fellow officer that he is alive and well, a POW at Johnson’s Island, a Union camp in Ohio.
Alas, the final panel indicates that Capt. Cooper died while in captivity in February 1864, of apparent blood poisoning. A letter details Unity Cooper’s seamstress order for mourning clothes.
Fate was kinder to the other Confederate soldier detailed in “1864,” George Hudson, a captain in Company F of the 36th Georgia Infantry whose family home was near what is now Emory University.
The letters between Hudson and his wife Sarah deal in straightforward fashion with details of family life that he was missing and nuts-and-bolts matters such as taxes and the back pay she would be owed if he perished (“There is now just eight months wages due me — $1,040.”).
But there is poignancy, too, conveyed in correspondence such as in this May 1864 letter from Sarah to her husband: “I can hear that you are fighting every day & falling back nearer to Atlanta. I have never felt so much distress & out of heart since the war commenced as I do now. If I could hear from you this morning & hear that you are alive & unhurt I would be so glad though my heart aches within me while I am trying to write you a few lines for fear that you may never see what I am trying to write.”
A few days earlier, George Hudson had hastily scribbled a note, as the Army of Tennessee fell back into Paulding County, that likely had not arrived in Decatur.
George Hudson’s letter was only three words, but they likely spoke volumes to his family: “I am well.”
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