TBrennan Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 I got a new scanner yesterday and I'm goin' nuts. Here's a photo of the National Military Park at Vicksburg. The point of view is from atop a Confederate fort toward the Federal fortifcations on the other side of the ravine. The Federals dug halfway across the saddle of ground where the road is and then went underground and tunneled towards the Rebel works. The Federals were ready to blow the fort sky-high from underneath when the Rebel surrender ended the seige. On the far side of the ravine to the right of the road can be seen the earthworks that protected an Iowa gun battery, imagine cannons firing at you at that range. The progress of the Federal saps is marked and in the immediate foreground, in the ditch at the base of the fort's wall, are markers that show how far the Federals got in the failed assault before the Federals settled down to beseiging the city Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 Here's the Federal point of view of the same place, I was standing at the Iowa battery. The Federals were also digging towards this fort from another rise of ground to the right. The whole place is crisscrossed with the remains of earthen fortifcations, trenches and saps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 What happen to the forts? Did time and weather have their way with them or what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 Moon---The fortifications have suffered from erosion, remember that they were made of earth. Basically you made a fort by digging a deep, wide ditch and throwing the dirt from the ditch up as a wall. The parapets, the part of the wall the troops actually sheltered behind when on the firing platform, were about 16-17 feet thick at Vicksburg, any thinner and the shells of the Federal 3" rifled cannon would penetrate. The Park Service has stabilized the fortifications and in person they actually look better than they usually do in photos. Some of the works have been restored and then stabilized, like the British fortification pictured at Yorktown Virginia. The Park Service owns about a zillion miles of such earthen fortifcations at places like Vicksburg, Yorktown, Petersburg, Spotsylvania, Kenesaw etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Oh... when I think fort, I think some wooden structure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Tom, This topic (the American Civil War) and the fascination it holds for a lot of people is something I simply don't understand. I'm not trying to be critical here, but I really don't get it. This, to me, is an immensely sad, sorrowful and horrific collection of memories of a period of time when thousands of lives were lost in awful circumstances. I find it apalling to think about what it might have been like to be a member of the forces of eiter side, with erstwhile friends and acqaintences trying to kill me. Imagining the horror of being trapped in one of the lowlands, with artillary unleased against me, cutting down my friends and brothers, with no escape and no hope, unable to escape the carnage... I look at your pictures, and I get chills... people screaming and dying, blood saturating the ground, the stench of gunpowder and smoke hanging in the air... why do some people find this interesting? I find it revolting, repelling, freightening... war is hell. This war, to me, is of the innermost circle of hell. What is it that people take away by studying it? How can someone wrap their mind around this horror and analyse it, without circuming to a sickness of soul and mind that become unbearable? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 I dunno Ray, just the kind of animals we are I guess. If you love history this stuff goes along with it. Hell Ray, maybe you should be gettin' a chill, when I visit some historical places I get an emotional chill I can feel, a frisson. I guess that's the point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benesesso Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Mah favorite song is "Dixie"! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 You a Fitter, Boilermaker or Millwright or somethin'? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benesesso Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Don't tell nobody, but I'm a engineer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benesesso Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 The train was work-this was play. Or was it the other way around? I can't remember---. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benesesso Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 This photo (sorry for the poor quality) shows how small a Klipschorn looks next to a pair of Earthquakes (stacked)with the huge "extendors". Now I just fire them into the rear corners w/o the extenders-keeps the wife happier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 Bene---Nice locomotive, yours? Until I retired a month ago I was a Boilermaker, we're the guys that took that vessel of the low-boy and set it in place. Tom Danley, the Servo-Drive guy, has a thing for big old steam-engines and single cylinder donkey-engines, keeps them in his back yard and fires them up once in awhile. I like that basshorn. Is it a CV-Earthquake like they used for Sensarround? I know there are fellas using those at home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Ray, the civil war is everything you said, however it is our history, our heritage and regardless of what you may feel, there are those of us who have an interest in this time of our history. I respect that you don't wish to study or learn about it, but that does not make us bad people because we do want to know what happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thepogue Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 I live in Yorktown....in the middle of the battle fields.....ya kinda get used to it but it is kinda neat... Pogue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 m00n (p00n?), I am totally in agreement with the idea that those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Studing this, or any, war from that perspective is an honorable pursuit (IMHO). I guess I just can't compartmentalize my emotional horror at the events away from the study of what, and why, what happened, happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 ---------------- On 2/29/2004 10:50:39 PM Ray Garrison wrote: m00n (p00n?), I am totally in agreement with the idea that those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Studing this, or any, war from that perspective is an honorable pursuit (IMHO). I guess I just can't compartmentalize my emotional horror at the events away from the study of what, and why, what happened, happened. ---------------- Ray, I understand. There are those things that I have a hard time compartmentalizing myself. And the whole p00n thing? Heheh.. Well, I can't take on that user name, if I did I would end up with an avitar that would get me in trouble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benesesso Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 One interesting thing to me about the Civil War was to dig a little into the life of JW Booth and learn a bit about why he shot Lincoln and how future life in the US would be as he saw it. TBrennan-Yes, it was mine until I sold it to a RR club near St. Louis about 8 years ago. I didn't build it-took a guy in Kansas 15 years to make, and he never ran it. Check out the Wasbash et. al. RR club on the net. The subs are genuine Universal Studios Earthquakes, made by CV. Folded horns like Khorns, but with a long-excursion 18" driver. Low-freq. cutoff is ~18 Hz. I roll them over to the Khorns ~50 Hz at 24 dB/octave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 ---------------- On 2/29/2004 9:29:18 PM thepogue wrote: I live in Yorktown....in the middle of the battle fields.....ya kinda get used to it but it is kinda neat... Pogue ---------------- Same thing with me here in Fredericksburg. The town itself is a battlefield as well as all the others around. It is still pretty neat, even after living here for 11 years. I'll have to take a nice spring weekend and go look at some of the battlefields that I haven't been on for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 ---------------- On 3/1/2004 1:01:29 AM Benesesso wrote: One interesting thing to me about the Civil War was to dig a little into the life of JW Booth and learn a bit about why he shot Lincoln and how future life in the US would be as he saw it. ---------------- Fairly recently, I saw an episode of that "Unsolved History" program that they have on the Discory Channel about all the assination attempts against Lincoln, including one suspected plot to bomb the White House. One interesting aspect was near the end of the program was the speculation that had Lincoln been succesfully assinated before the end of the Civil War, the his replacement could've very well conceded to peace agreements with the Confederacy. As a result, the U.S. would've pretty much become "Balkanized". The Confederacy would've been its own nation, with the capital at Richmond, VA. The "United States" would've most likely been just the New England states and possibly even the mid-western states (Wisonsin, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas). The capital would probably cease being at Washington, D.C (and just become part of Maryland), and be moved up to New York, Philadelphia, or Boston. Texas would probably be it's own country, as well as California (which probably would've been the entire west coast, encompasing what is now Oregon and Washington). What is Montana and Idaho may also been yet a seperate nation (or end up being part of Canada). New Mexico and Arizona would probably still be part of Mexico. The U.S. would've never become the world superpower that it now is. Lincoln could've very well haved saved the U.S. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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