2016 Thursday, September 1, Corinth during and after the Civil War

A day trip to Corinth, MS. 

Our first stop was 1551 Horton Street at the Corinth National Cemetery, which was established in 1866, as a central burial site for approximately 2,300 Union casualties of the Battle of Corinth.

Many of the tombstones are unknown (represented by a number)  Soldiers represented by 273 different regiments from 15 states. The cemetery is well kept with rows and rows of white tombstones. We saw “An Act” as a marker to establish and protect National Cemeteries. 

We also saw a marker addressed by President Lincoln at the dedication of “the Gettysburg National Cemetery” on November 19, 1863.

There were several large trees throughout the cemetery.

A marker with a poem

From the Bivouac of the Dead

by Theodore O’Hara

The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat 

The soldier’s last tattoo;

No more on life’s parade shall meet

That brave and fallen few.

On Fame’s eternal camping-ground

Their silent tents are spread,

And Glory guards, with solemn round,

The bivouac of the dead. 

Corinth National Cemetery 

A National Cemetery System

Civil War Dead

An estimated 700,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died in the Civil War between April 1861 and April 1865. As the death toll rose, the U. S. government struggled with the urgent but unplanned need to bury fallen Union troops. This propelled the creation of a national cemetery system.

On September 11, 1861, the War Department directed commanding officers to keep “accurate and permanent records of deceased soldiers.” It also required the U. S. Army Quartermaster General, the office responsible for administering to the needs of troops in life and in death, to mark each grave with a headboard. A few months later, the department mandated the interment of the dead in graves marked with numbered headboards, recorded in a register.

Soldier’s graves near General Hospital, City Point, Va. c1863. Library of Congress

Creating National Cemeteries

The authority to create military burial grounds came in an Omnibus Act of July 17, 1862.

It directed the president to purchase land to be used as “a national cemetery for the soldiers who shall die in the service of the country.”

Fourteen national cemeteries were established by 1862.

When hostilities ended, a grim task began. In October 1865, Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs directed officers to survey lands in the Civil War theater to find Union dead and plan to reinter them in new national cemeteries. Cemetery sites were chosen where troops were concentrated: camps, hospitals, battlefields, and railroad hubs. By 1872, 74 national cemeteries and several soldiers’ lots contained 305,492 remains, about 45 percent were unknown. 

Knoxville was established after the siege of the city and the Battle of Fort Sanders in 1863. Cemetery plan,1892, National Archives and Records Administration. 

Lodge at City Point, Va., pre-1928. The first floor contained a cemetery office, living room, and kitchen for the superintendent’s family; three bedrooms were upstairs. 

Most cemeteries were less than 10 acres, and layouts varied. In the Act to Establish and Protect National Cemeteries on February 22, 1867, Congress funded new permanent walls or fences, grave markers, and lodges for cemetery superintendents.

At first, only soldiers and sailors who died during the Civil War were buried in national cemeteries. In 1873, eligibility was expanded to all honorably discharged Union veterans, and Congress appropriated $ 1 million to mark the graves. Upright marble headstones 

honor individuals whose names were unknown; 6-inch-square blocks mark unknowns.

By 1873, military post-cemeteries on the Western frontier joined the national cemetery system. The National Cemeteries Act of 1873 transferred 82 Army cemeteries, including 12 of the original 14, to what is now the National Cemetery Administration. 

Reflection and Memorialization 

The country reflected upon the Civil War’s human toll-

2 percent of the U. S. population died. Memorials honoring war service were built in national cemeteries. Most were donated by regimental units, state governments, and veterans’ organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic. 

Decoration Day, later Memorial Day was a popular patriotic spring event that started in 1868. Visitors placed flowers on graves and monuments and gathered around rostrums to hear speeches. Construction of Civil War monuments peaked in the 1890s. By 1920, as the number of aging veterans was dwindling, more than 120 monuments had been placed in the national cemeteries.

National cemetery monuments left to right: Massachusetts Monument, Winchester, Va., 1907; Maryland Sons Monument, Loudon Park, Baltimore, Md., 1885;  Women’s Relief Corps/Grand Army of the Republic Monument to the Unknown Dead, Crown Hill, Indianapolis, Ind., 1889.

 Benjamin Franklin  Liddon Home 

 Benjamin Franklin  Liddon Home 

We rode past the Benjamin Franklin Liddon Home (called the Cat House) build circa 1907, which was under renovation by Richie and Margret Mathis. 

This castle home is located at the corner of Webster and Bunch streets. 

Mr. Liddon was an eccentric businessman and an architect who loved motion pictures and wanted to bring entertainment to the area. 

The castle-like home has Corinthian columns, imported from New York, intricate stonework, and turrets (an eye-catcher).

 Fillmore Church, Corinth’s oldest church

We stopped at the  Fillmore Church, Corinth’s oldest church. It was erected in 1871 by Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The building was constructed of load-bearing red brick walls (faded over time) and windows with lancet arches. The main steeple is attached to the front facade of the building with a red slate, and triangle roof. 

Site of Rose Cottage

The site of Rose Cottage was facing the  Fillmore Church. 

The Rose Cottage was the headquarters for Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston, who had received a fatal wound at the Battle of Shiloh. 

I walked up the street to the Oak Home, where I took several pictures. 

Judge W. H. Kilpatrick of Corinth had Oak Home built in 1857 by Tom Chesney, a local house designer, and builder. Mr. M. S. Miller, a civil engineer working in Corinth shortly before the war, made this sketch in 1860, the only known Civil War vintage picture of Oak Home. Miller notes that a wood fence surrounded the whole block and that the “fine house” was straw-colored with a yellow door bordered by sidelights. 

Also, a green magnolia plaque marker was located in front of the Oak Home, located at 808 N Fillmore Street. 

The house had a black shingle-hipped roof, with two chimneys, a triangle-covered porch an entrance with white siding, and was surrounded by a white picket fence. 

OAK HOME

Built in 1858 for Judge W. H. Kilpatrick. Used in Civil War as headquarters of General Leonidas Polk. Bought in 1866 by Mrs. Thomas Quincy Martin and occupied continuously by her descendants. 

Curlee House built in 1857 

Our next stop was the corner of Jackson and Childs Streets to tour the Curlee House built in 1857 an example of Greek Revival. The restored home contains eighteenth and nineteenth-century paintings, antiques, and  Civil War memorable. 

The house was a one-story mansion with high ceilings and mural walls in the hallway. It had a kitchen, dining room, and two bedrooms. Both front rooms had floor-to-ceiling mirrors, fireplaces with huge wooden mirrors above the fireplace, with crystal chandlers hanging from the ceiling. 

 Mathushek Piano

There was a Mathushek Piano manufactured in New Haven, Ct, patented June 24, 1894, sitting in the hallway.

Mathushek was one of the greatest innovators in piano design. He established his firm in 1863, and he built his pianos in partnership with Driggs. He moved his firm to New Haven, Ct in 1866. He built a line of square grand that was very different from their contemporary competitors. These square pianos were known as the Colibri and the Orchestral models. The piano in the hallway was an Orchestral model. Opened and displayed above the keys was the song, “Beautiful Star of Heaven”. 

Curlee House Marker 

One of Corinth's founders, surveyor Hamilton Mask, built this Greek Revival home in 1857, pictured above as it appeared about 1862. It became known as the "Verandah House" because of its porches and served as headquarters for both Union and Confederate officers. William P. Curlee, whose name it now bears, bought the property in 1875. Except for minor changes, it appears today much as it did in 1862. You are invited to tour the house during its open hours.

During the war high-ranking officers customarily occupied private homes for use as dwellings and headquarters. The generals pictured above occupied the Curlee House at different times in 1862.

Gen. Braxton Bragg, CSA, Gen. John B. Hood, CSA, Gen. Henry W. Halleck, USA

We walked outside where we saw a small vegetable garden, flower gardens, sitting area, restrooms, and the Verandah House 1857. 

The building to the left in the photograph is believed to have been the kitchen for the Verandah House 1857. Kitchens in the 19th century were often outside structures due to the danger of fire as cooking was done in an open fireplace. Homes in this period, of necessity, were largely self-sufficient  Outside utility buildings included kitchens, stables, carriage houses, smokehouses, spring houses, and privies were needed to house these various activities. Many of the outbuildings were conveniently located in close conjunction with the main house and as a result,  became important elements in the design of the grounds and gardens. 

Fresh vegetables, herbs, fruit trees, and flowers were often grown near the kitchen. Summers are spent canning and picking many of the harvested fruits and vegetables. Herbs were used as flavorings and for various medicinal purposes. Some of the plants and flowers grown in the Verandah House kitchen garden were favorites of Stephanie Sandy and most were favorites during the 19th century too.

Three sides of the house had an outside entrance, and there was a basement on the backside of the house.

On the side of the house without an outside entrance, facing a white siding house that reminded me of the Amityville Horror House. 

Would not want to have them as neighbors. 

Amityville Horror House in Corinth 

Amityville Horror House

Abe Reubel House

Our next stop was outside the Abe Reubel House, 1109 Jackson Street built in 1904 in the Neoclassical style, with Georgian Revival influences. It had three bailed dormers on the roof, each with cornice returns. 

The central dormer had a Palladian window. 

 B&B Generals Quarters Inn, 924 North Fillmore Street. 

We saw the finely restored 1872 grand Victorian home in historic Corinth, called the B&B Generals Quarters Inn, 924 North Fillmore Street. 

 Waldron Street Christian Church

We stopped to take a picture of the Waldron Street Christian Church built to compliment the style of the original church built in the 1900s.

We rode downtown stopping for lunch at Borroum’s Drug Store and Soda Fountain. 

Hubby ordered a cheeseburger with onion rings. I wanted to try the Slug burger, served with onions, lettuce, tomatoes, mustard, and a bag of baked chips. 

The Slug Burger is a patty made from a mixture of beef or pork and an inexpensive extender such as soybeans, it is deep-fried in oil.

According to town legend the term “slug burger" comes from the slang term for a nickel. 

Slug Burger

Reading the history of the Slug Burger

Ordering the Slug Burger

Camille Barroom Mitchell the pharmacist

The soda and Ice Cream Counter

Paying tab and purchasing a cookie 

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Borroum Drug Store is Mississippi’s oldest drug store established in 1865 and still in the family. Camille Barroom Mitchell the pharmacist is the great-granddaughter of Doctor A. J. Barroom, who started the store after the Civil War in 1865.

Met this sweet lady, she was reading the new paper, and looking at the ads. She was talking about the price of something is $12.99 and though the price might go down it went up instead. 

Camilla was sitting at a table across from us, she talked to us, while I ate my slug burger. 

Everyone we met at the Drug Store was friendly and the food was good. I know the next time we are in Corinth that we will be going back for a visit. 

I want to try their cornbread salad. I watched as one of the waitresses make the cornbread salad for a couple sitting behind us. 

First, she crumbled up a handful of cornbread, followed by a large dipper full of hot chili, next to a couple hands full of lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese, and topped with Jalapeños peppers.  

We walked up front to pay, cash only! On the counter was a cake plate full of cookies.
There was oatmeal, chocolate chip, Macadamia and oatmeal-raisin, chocolate with coconut cookies. 

We bought one of the oatmeal raisins with coconut and chocolate cookies. 

We rode to the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center. We saw many items found during the Civil War that had been placed on the concrete sidewalk. We saw canteens, belt buckles, shells, bullets, hats, food pails, shovels, a gun, rifles, and other items. 

At the entrance to the wall was a bronze plaque of six Confederate Soldiers carrying rifles. 

Inside we were greeted by a National Park Ranger. He said we could watch a film in about twenty minutes and in the meantime, we could tour the museum. FREE!!

We walked outside to see a couple of canons and a flowing fountain with different battle sites during the Civil War. 

Bronze plaque of six Confederate Soldiers

Corinth was the beginning of freedom

Last we watched a ten-minute film about the Civil War. 

We bought hamburger meat, and shrimp at Foodland for supper. 

We had a great day, saw many sites, and learned some history about Corinth during and after the Civil War. 

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