Confederate Memorial Hall Victim Of Fire Bombing By Joseph A. Ricci NEW ORLEANS, LA.—New Orleans hidden gem, Confederate Memorial Hall, was recently the victim of a crude firebomb attempt on November 9. The two perpetrators, possibly expressin dismay over the national election outcome or hoping to tie the 125-year-old museum to the current monument dispute in the Crescent City, breached a security gate at approximately 1:48 a.m. CST. Once over the gate, one of them unsuccessfully attempted to break into the building using a pair of bolt cutters on a security door padlock. With one man acting as a lookout, the other sprayed some form of an accelerant inside an old tire. H then lit a piece of what appeare to be paper (possibly treated wi a chemical) and placed it in the tire which was laid against the locked steel front doors. The two quickly made their getaway as the fire soon erupted into a
through, charring the wooden door sill and scorching the pain
46 – Advertisers 23 – Ask The Appraiser 4 – Black Powder, White Smoke 28 – Book Reviews 44 – Classifieds 33 – Critic’ s Corner 38 – Events Section 16 – Inspection, ARMS! 11 – The Source 5 – Through The Lens 13 – The Watchdog
Firemen at the scene of the fire at the front door of Confederate Memorial Hall.
from the iron front door. Smoke and soot got into the building, quiring all museum display cases to be cleaned the following day. Amazingly, security camera footage showed numerous cars driving through the Museum District (Memorial Hall is bounded on
of the Camp Street structure and phoned in the fire to the New Or leans Fire Department. The Fire Department arrived on the scene at 2:14 a.m. The museum’s security monitoring service notified the Director, Patricia Ricci, at 2:35 a.m. Ricci arrived at 2:45 to find the firemen had extinguished the fire. She then inspected the dam age with NOFD and NOPD investigators. A shredded steel be was all that remained of the tir as it lay on the cracked, scorch granite. A review of security camera footage revealed that the
As the two tho lashed over the ide could claim rners on the fi nion victorious
By the time you receive this This is our 11th issue this issue we will have moved our as the new owners. Next year headquarters to Charleston, there will be 12 issues per y South Carolina. Our new mailing There are a large number address is 520 Folly Road, Suite of events, tours and seminars P-379, Charleston, SC 29412. for 2017. If you are looking Our phone and emails will re- for something to do then look main the same. no further than this issue. A The tremendous amount of new events are submitted to u history located in the low country we’ll be sure to include them of South Carolina, helped decide throughout the year. the move. During the middle of We would like to thank all December we could possibly our contributors, columnists have some intermittent down time and advertisers who help us due to utilities, phone company, make Civil War News into the Internet installation, etc. so be newspaper everyone reads. patient with us on our move.
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By John Coski Historian–The American Civil War Pub. note: With this column by John Coski, Historian of the American Civil War Museum, we are launching a new series of occasional articles, “What I’m Working on.” Mr. Coski is well-known throughout the Civil War community and is deeply immersed in our national conversation about remembrance of the War. We therefore asked him, well, what he is working on Here’s what he told us. For more than a quarter-century I have been fortunate to work for an institution endowed with an incredibly rich collection of documents, manuscripts, objects, and photographs from the Confederate side of the Civi War, and that is dedicated to an objective study of the war. When I started at The Museum of the Confederacy in 1988, it had just
opened the restored White House of the Confederacy and was pre-
paring the landmark NEH-sponsored exhibit, “Before Freedom Came: African-American Life in the Antebellum South.” Since then, many of my research and writing projects have grown out of my work for the Museum. Although written on my own time, my books on the Confederate James River Squadron (Capital Navy, 1996) and the Confederate battle flag (The Confederate Bat
tled Emblem, 2005) began life as Museum assignments.
manuscript sources to assist the research of other people – from “buffs” and genealogists to youn graduate students to established scholars whose books I have been reading most of my life. Working in the library introduced me to the Civil War scholars whom I recruited for the Museum’s lecture series and symposia and as judges for the Museum’s book award program (another part of my portfolio). I have been able
dissertation research and, years later, present them with awards
for their finished books, and th bring them back to Richmond to deliver lectures. know, The Museum of the Con-
federacy has had to evolve and seek ways to survive and thrive in the increasingly congested neighborhood around the White
House. In 2012, we opened a new Museum “wing” – 90 miles west in Appomattox – as part of a break-out strategy. In 2014 th
um MOC combined with the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar to form the American Civil War Museum. We soon will be breaking ground on a new museum building on Richmond’s James River waterfront. The merger also entailed a licensing agreement with the venerable Virginia Historical Society. By that agreement, we have transferred custody (though not ownership) of our manuscript collections to the VHS. There the manuscripts will be available to researchers at a new Civil War Research Center. Researchers coming to Richmond will have one-stop access to the combined resources of the two institutions In coming years, much of the Museum’s research collection will be digitized and made available on the internet. The
creation of the VHS-based Civil War Research Center is a work
in progress, and some of our materials may be unavailable for short periods. Since 2009, my primary duty (aside from helping to create the exhibits for the Museum of the Confederacy at Appomattox and overseeing scholarly programs) has been as editor and principle writer of the Museum’s quarterly Magazine. Researching and writing articles for the Magazine
to use the sources that I had bee serving to others and to publish
been able to showcase dozens of the countless compelling human stories that lie within our manuscript collections. Whenever possible, I make this work do double or triple-duty in the form of Museum programs or articles for other Civil War publications. A collection of more than 300 letters written by ordinary south erners in 1865 and intercepted by Federal troops provided a window onto conditions and attitudes
months. A recent donation of four diaries kept by an Ohio soldier
gave the Museum – in the words of the donor – “diaries of brothe who fought on opposite sides of the war.” The unusually perceptive and articulate diaries of Jo
Summerfield Petty, USA, and James Thomas Petty, CSA (in our collections since 1943) were a joy to read and to write about,
and I hope to do more with them. On my own time, I have begun what I hope will be a booklength study of Belle Isle. I wan
to explore not only the island’s role as an infamous Civil War prisoner-of-war camp, but its wider history as an industrial and recreational site and the practical and philosophi questions presented by a piece o “hallowed ground” that is now the city’s playground – question that I have occasionally pondere during the 20 years that I have bicycle commuted across the island.
Belle Isle lies just across a narrow river channel from Tredegar Iron Works and the American Civil War Museum’s future home, so my research will also aid the Museum’s interpretation of the Richmond Civil War waterfront. In my career, as in William Faulkner’s famous observation about southern history, the past isn’t ever really past. I contin to talk and write about the Confederate Navy and, especially,
the wake of the June 2015 murders at Mother Emmanuel Afri-
around the globe about the histo ry and evolving meaning of the Confederate flag. As it has over the past 28 ye my interests and objectives as a historian have dovetailed with those of the Museum: to provide background and perspective on the controversies that arise from the legacies and memories of the Civil War and contribute to a constructive discussion of those issues. Next on the
symposium (co-sponsored with the University of Virginia’s Joh
L. Nau III Center for Civil War Studies and hosted by the Librar of Virginia) on February 25, 2017, which will explore the pas present, and future of Civil War
TO THE EDITOR: I’m a long-time researcher of U.S. Army Ordnance Department records at the National Archives, and for the last ten years I have been focused primarily on Civil War records, but I am new to show in Richmond, I picked up a copy of your November 2016 issue (Vol. 42, Number 10) and was quite impressed. However, that is not my purpose in writing. In Mr. Bilby’s column in tha issue, I noticed a section titled “Provenance of Gettysburg loaded muskets,” in which Mr. Bilby discussed an April 2016 “Watchdog” column by Craig Barry. I have not seen Mr. Barry’s article so I don’t know specifically what he said, but based on Mr. Bilby’s statements the substance of it was regarding a: “much-repeated account of the 24,000 muskets, many of them with a number of loads in their barrels, retrieved from the field at Gettysburg.” Mr Bilby noted that neither he nor Mr. Barry had found any official provenance for the story. Well, a a matter of fact, I can help with that problem. My primary interest is in cavalry arms and in my research I have not paid much attention to muskets. But sometimes I come across something that is far afie from my primary purpose but is so interesting that I make note of it for my files. On seeing Mr. Bilby’s article I recalled seeing something on this topic, did a search of my material, and found the following notes: 1/4/1864, Record Group (RG) 156, Entry (E) 20, Volume 40, Letter W28 of 1864: Capt. Benton at Washington Arsenal forwarded a report of Master Armorer J. Dudley re the condition of small arms received from the battle fields. 1/4/1864, RG156, E201, Report #376: Master Armorer J. Dudley reported to Capt. Benton on small arms received from battlefields. He based his report on the arms taken from the Gettysburg battlefield. Of the number received (27,574), at least 24,000 of them were loaded. About one half contained two loads each, one forth contained from three to ten loads each and the rest had only one load. Some of the guns had two to six balls with only one charge of powder, and in some cases, the ball was
at the bottom of the barrel with the powder charge on top of it. In some arms, as many as six paper cartridges were found
whole – not having been torn open. Twenty-three loads were found in one Springfield rifle, each load being in regular order. Twenty-two balls and sixty-two buckshot with a corresponding quantity of powder, all mixed up together, were found in one percussion smooth-bore musket. Mr. Dudley also stated: “About six thousand of the arms were found loaded with Johnson’s & Dow’s cartridges, many of these cartridges were found about half way down in the barrels of the guns, and in many cases, the ball end of the cartridge had been put into the gun first. These cartrid were found mostly in the Enfield Rifle Musket.” About 1,000 of all muskets found, Union and Confederate, had stocks broken at the wrist with the butt of the stocks completely gone. One hundred and thirty-six arms of different kind had been marred by shot; in many the ball had gone through the bar rel or other parts had been shot away. Many barrels were burst, almost always near the barrel from having the muzzle clogged by mud or having left the tampion in place. Mr. Dudley noted tha barrels of American manufacture were superior to those of the Enfields and Austrian weapons in both material and workmanship. Without knowing where to look, this report would be difficult to find. One would expect it to have been filed in the letters ceived by the Chief of Ordnance, which is Entry 21 in the Chief of Ordnance records (Record Group 156), and the first set of notes above supports that assumption, for Entry 20 contains the registe for Ordnance Department letters received. But for some unknown reason, the Ordnance Office instead filed the report with “Reports of Experiments,” which the
Dear Charles: Thanks for the provenance. This should settle the issue, the I did not doubt the probability, but this is excellent confirmatio Joe Bilb
fire had indeed been intentionally set by two individuals who
attempted to conceal their identities with baseball caps, hoodi and gloves. They moved quickly and deliberately as if they had previously staked out the museum and rehearsed what they were going to do. While there is no current known connection to the monument controversy, it should be noted that the Robert E. Lee Monument around the corner from Memorial Hall, was vandalized with spray paint the sam night. The Museum fire is being actively investigated by the New Orleans Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Even though the museum building did take in some smoke, the invaluable collection of Confederate memorabilia was intact and undisturbed. The fire resulted i the Museum closing its doors for one and a half days so the staff could conduct thorough cleaning and erect safety barricades for guests. The foyer between the security doors and the glass entrance doors had to be scrubbed numerous times to remove the soot that had accumulated in the small enclosure immediately behind the doors that the tire was laid against. Members of the Museum
Thankfully the heavy duty securi from the fire department prevent exterior.
Interior view of the smoke with no evident damage to the priceless artifacts.
Board of Directors were notifi later that morning, and an ema notification was sent to Memor Hall Foundation Board members. The Memorial Hall Board of Directors met in an emergency meeting to discuss steps to be taken to preclude a recurrence and to discuss funding options for procedures and equipment that will enhance security. Th decision was made to increase after hours building security, the knowledge that a significa expense will be incurred by th small museum. In the subsequent weeks since the fire, an after-hours security force has been enlist to inspect the building at nig The building’s security perime is also being fortified with a temporary 6-foot exclusion fence and gate, to be followed
by more permanent iron work. (The permanent iron work must first be approved by the City of
New Orleans Historic District Landmarks Commission,
lengthy and uncertain process.) The design of the iron work will better fit the period of the str while providing the desired increased security. More and newer security cameras are being deployed around the building to eliminate all blind spots. Additional fire detectors and heat sensors were also installed throughout the museum and on the exterior of the building.
Damage to the front door from the burning tire. Remains of the tire can be seen burned into the door step.
The fire received some local media coverage, and the story even appeared on a nationwide “underground” style website sympathetic to the perpetrators. That website stated, anonymously of course, that the artifacts within “should have been in the fire” too. All of these enhancements, not to mention the repair of the granite steps, will cost a signi cant amount of money. Memorial Hall is actively soliciting cont butions from anyone who would like to see the nation’s second largest Confederate artifact col lection survive these perilous times. The Museum receives no state or Federal funds. It opera solely on admissions, donations, and support from the Memorial Hall Foundation. Memberships in the Memorial Hall Foundation will aid the museum in its current efforts to increase securit Memberships in the Foundation, as well as one-time contribution can be made through PayPal, via
at Memorial Hall Museum, 929 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA 70130.