So I wake up and crawl out of bed after a long night spent waking my dead dog at the bar (urrrgh) because I have to go to work, and I realize all my work clothes are in the wash and I get out the pants I got for Christmas and just haven’t gotten around to wearing yet, and they’re too long so I hunt around and find some shoes I also haven’t ever worn that are cute and red and tall enough that I don’t step on my pants, and I find out halfway across the parking lot that they kill the hell out of my feet, and then BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
I seriously almost peed myself before I figured out the date and that those must be Sherman’s troops across the river hitting us with cannon fire before burning our shit to the ground. We surrendered, and then everybody was all “Uh, I didn’t burn your city down, ask that other guy.” I don’t remember them ever doing cannon recreations before the big anniversary a few years ago, but I think they’ve done it every year since then, and every year it scares the crap out of me before I figure out what it is. I can hear it from my house, two miles away from the river.
Anyway, in 1865, this was the end result, after they’d cleaned up the rubble and begun rebuilding. That’s pretty much the entirety of downtown. There are almost no antebellum buildings on the main commercial streets at all - one little cafe, I think, is the only thing that survived and continues to do so.
Anyway, I can tell you, if you were here in Columbia in early February of 1865, you would have been scared to death. It’s an amazing way to step into the shoes of people who were gone and experience a little bit of their lives (and pretty cheap, as historical experience field trips go.)
I went to first thru third grade in Columbia, and one of my sisters was born there (Daddy was getting a PhD at the Uni there). I remember something about - iron stars on the courthouse? Where the cannon shots had landed? Is that right?
Yeah, they didn’t repair the cannonball damage to the facade, and there are gold stars where they hit. (Some in the floor, too, IIRC, but it’s been ages since I’ve been there.) The State House, not the courthouse. It was under construction at the time.
Ahhh a reenactment. My first thought was “The man was bad enough the first time around whats he gonna be like as a zombie?! He might even decide to actually burn down my city this time instead of just capturing it.”
It couldn’t have been Sherman. I passed the building with his face on it earlier today and he was there glowering at traffic. (I grew up halfway between his hometown and Little Phil Sheridan’s.)
And here I thought I had such a female name… I mean, I think I’m excused from not knowing Nurse Carmen was a guy, but…
Yes, I had to put my dog down yesterday and we went out and had a few drinks last night and talked about him. Although “waking the dead dog” does describe a few frat parties I observed as a non-participant in college and I may begin using the expression.
ETA - by the way, I feel absurdly flattered that enough people know me here to know my dog died. I never thought of myself as somebody people remember, and it’s oddly touching.
Well, I didn’t mean to do the whole “my dog died, feel sorry for me” thing - I just wanted to explain how this morning was NOT a good morning and then I came under artillery fire. I mean, it’s nothing compared to what you’re going through.
Ooh, I’m sorry about your dog, Zsofia. It was the thread title that pulled me in, as I had just been re-reading “Gone With the Wind” for no especially good reason so I thought “eh, what? Sherman? Not that Sherman, surely?”
I’m amused that your oh-so-efficient morning dressing arrangements sound a bit like mine. Trousies too long? Right, find shoes that will work. Never plan this properly, dear me no. And I agree that loud bangs and crashes is the LAST thing I want to add to the morning chaos.
I AM sorry about your dog, but I also thought I had hit upon some new phrase that everyone but me understood. I wish it had been merely an unusual euphemism now.
I’m lucky, I grew up in Savannah, and the worst we had of Sherman was having to surrender on Christmas Day. Of course turning belly up and surrendering without a fight might have had something to do with it.
I was just going to bring that up. I went to SCAD, and the main building is right across from the little square where Sherman made his home, and everything is just so remarkably preserved.
Haha, that somehow sounds like a glass or two of sherry, a lovely spot of lunch, then pop out for a bit of fresh air and a quick surrender, then home again home again jiggety jig, back to the fireside for sherry and cake.
Oops, I imagine it wasn’t quite like that, though.
And I agree that loud bangs and crashes is the LAST thing I want to add to the morning chaos.
