Notes from Vernon Parish

From the Country Inn motel, Leesville, Louisiana, Monday night.

After a busy but fantastic weekend at the North Texas Irish festival, I returned home about 11:30 p.m. Sunday night. I worked online till 2:00 a.m., then fell into bed. I rose at 6:00 hurriedly packed, and hit the road by 8:00 a.m. for Vernon Parish. I was interviewed on a local radio newspaper by an entergetic broadcaster on a Leesville station. I performed my first “live on the radio” song, “The Water Is Wide,” and talked about my books and the Library Musical Odyssey V program. It seems I’m their last musician for the year. The libraries website is here: The library’s director, Howard, and Gary, the Musical Odyssey director, are doing a fine job serving the community. We had a very large crowd and they were so into the Irish songs and the stories behind the songs and were delightful to be with. It seems everyone loves the Irish. I’m now in my hotel room, giving thought to the tasks that need to be done tomorrow.

Return from North Texas Irish Festival

It has been one busy week. Thursday, I was with the McComb Public Library. And in a schedule arranged by them, I presented to a middle school there in town, a luncheon for a group of readers who meet in the library, a short presentation to a day-care center, and another middle school in Pike County. It was a wonderful day. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, each table at the luncheon had an Irish potato center-piece. Here is a photo of one of them.

Last Friday, I taught my classes at Delta Community College, and then hit the road for the North Texas Irish Festival. Riding with me were my friends from the Celtic Society, Tom and Michael. We headed out to a pub I’d never been to–Tipperary Inn and had a grand time.

I’ll probably have more posts about the NTIF festival as emails and photos filter in. I signed books at the NELA Celtic Society’s booth the whole weekend. I performed three times and my work seemed well received. Our booth was next to an organization devoted to saving Irish Wolf Hounds, the biggest dogs in the world! You should do a study on these beautiful, gentle with people dogs. Absolutely fascinating. Here is a photo of a tapestry they had of Finn McCool (legendary Irish hero) and his two hounds, Bran and Sgeolan.

In my Irish set, I perform the song, “Rose of Tralee.”  I was delighted and honored to meet Roisin Mulligan who was the 2008 Texas Rose of Tralee. She was born in Dublin Ireland and moved to texas at the age of five. She teaches kindergarden in Burleson, Texas. A beautiful, wonderful lady.

Here is a photo of Rhonda Loeliger, one of the key people for the Austin Celtic Festival which will be held Nov. 7-8 2009.  This beautiful and sharp lady works for the largest Celtic gathering in Central Texas.  They consistently have some of the best of internationally known Celtic performers on their program. You can find their website here: www. AustinCelticFestival.com.

Here are photos of Shelia Hoh, who is with the Scottish Society in Minden, Louisiana. With folks like this beautiful and talented woman working for and leading them, I predict great success for their society.

Tomorrow, I’m at the Vernon Parish Library. I also have a radio interview to do around noon. Next post will likely be Tuesday night.

Irish Confederate Units During the War Between the States

As I prepared for the North Texas Irish Festival coming this weekend and for my program at McComb MS Public Library on Thursday, I was reading The Irish Brigade by Russ A Pritchard, Jr. and came upon a list of Irish units during the Confederacy and decided to publish it. If you know of any others, please send them my way and I’ll add them to this post.  I’m going to follow up this post with a listing of Federal Irish units.

Irish Battalion (1st Virginia Infantry Battalion, Provisional Army)

Irish Brigade, Company A (Company I, 6th Louisiana Infantry, the “Fighting Tigers”!)

Irish Brigade, Company B (Company F, 6th Louisiana Infantry)

Irish Jasper Greens (Company A, 1st Georgia Volunteers)

Irish Volunteer Guards (a company of the 8th Georgia Infantry)

Irish Volunteers, Company A (Company D, 1st Georgia Volunteers)

Irish Volunteers, Company B (Company E. 1st Georgia Volunteers)

Irish Volunteers (Company F 7th Louisiana Infantry)

Irish Volunteers (Company A, 1st Virginia Infantry Battalion, Provisional Army)

Irish Volunteers (Company C, 1st South Carolina Infantry Battalion)

Irish Volunteers (Company C, 19 Battalion Virginia Artillery)

Sons of Erin, 10th Tennessee Infantry

This is an incomplete listing, for I know the Confederate Army had a high percentage of Scots, Irish, and Scots-Irish in its rank.  These men are the stuff that legends and songs are made of.

Travel News & “Wrong Train” Song Lyrics by Jeff Talmadge

Today, as most days are when I’ve just returned from a trip, has been spent trying to catch up. A friend of mine, Carol Murdoch, a writer with an award winning blog, sent me a book, Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. It arrived today and I can’t wait to get to reading it! I had a grand time last Saturday in Lake Jackson, Texas at the Historic Museum there and will post some good photos when they arrive of that event. I found a new route from Monroe to Houston that is not much further than going to the west side of Fort Worth, so I’ll likely be planning more trips there. Of personal interest were the statues I passed this trip: the small memorial to Jim Reeves on Highway 79, the HUGE statues of Sam Houston (77 ft. high, including base at I-45 Huntsville) and Stephen Austin (Highway 288, 76 ft. high). I also booked a coffee shop for a musical program at a mall in Sherman, Texas and a couple of bookstores and libraries.

JEFF TALMADGE

If Jeff Talmadge isn’t a poet, then I truly don’t know what one is. His songs are constructed with lyrics that can scald or soothe the heart and reflect the voice of experience and wonderfully deep insights into human nature. Here is a song of his about “choices,” entitled, “Wrong Train.”

Wrong Train by Jeff Talmadge

On a train between two cities
I knew that I’d gone wrong
I was headed east
When I should be going west.

And I must have muttered something
‘cause the man beside me smiled
He looked me in the eye
And then he said

CHORUS:
It’s not the wrong train that you’re on
It’s just another way to go.
It’s not the wrong train that you’re on
And you found another way back home.

Well I’ll change at the next station
I said to my new friend
I’m losing time and it’s getting kind of late.

It isn’t lost, he said,
It’s only spent another way
And time is like this train
And it won’t wait.

CHORUS:
And this train don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right
But you’re where you ought to be tonight.

Well I finally made it home that night
Not quite the way I planned
Isn’t that the way
It always goes

And now when I get lost
I say I’m just exploring
‘cause life’s a whole lot
like that train I know.

CHORUS:

You found another way back home

An Odd Story from America’s Civil War: Gunpowder

I have to thank Harry Sargent of Lake Jackson Texas for this information. I met him at the museum where I did my program this weekend. As my Confederate ancestor was assigned to the Mining and Nitre department that made gunpowder, I was very interested.

The Art of Making Saltpetre

During the American Civil War,  the Confederates, to provide nitrate for making gunpowder, had to resort to all sorts of devices.  This included digging out and leaching the earth from old smokehouses, barns, and caves and making artificial beds of all sorts of nitrogenous matter.  They designated agents for the purpose in every town and city.

The officer at Selma, Ala, was particularly energetic and enthusiastic in his work and put the following advertisement in the Selma newspaper on October 1, 1863.

“The ladies of Selma are respectfully requested to preserve the chamber lye to be collected for the purpose of making nitre.  A barrel will be sent around daily to collect it.  John Haralson, Agent, Nitre and Mining Bureau, C.S.A.”

This attracted the attention of army poets and the first of the following two effusions resulted.  It was copied and privately circulated over the Confederacy.  Finally it crossed the line, and an unknown Federal poet added the “Yankee’s View of It.”

CONFERATE VIEW OF IT

John Haralson, John Haralson—you are a wretched creature;
You’ve added to this bloody war a new and useful feature.
You’d have us think, while every man is bound to be a fighter,
The Ladies, bless the pretty dears, should save their pee for nitre.

John Haralson, John Haralson, where did you get the notion,
To send the barrel ‘round to gather up the lotion?
We thought the girls had work enough to making shirts and kissing,
But you have put the pretty dears to Patriotic Pissing.

John Haralson, John Haralson, pray do invent a neater,
And somewhat less immodest way of making your saltpetre.
For ‘tis an awful idea, John, gunpowdery and cranky
That when a lady lifts her skirts, she’s killing off and Yankee.

YANKEE VIEW OF IT

John Haralson, John Haralson, we’ve read in song and story,
How women’s tears, through all the years, have moistened fields of glory.
But never was it told before, how ‘mid such scene of slaughter
Your Southern beauties dried their tears and went to making water.

No wonder that your boys were brave; who couldn’t be a fighter,
If every time he fired his gun, he used his sweetheart’s nitre.
And vice versa, what could make a Yankee soldier sadder,
Than dodging bullets fired by a pretty woman’s bladder?
They say there was a subtle smell which lingered in the powder
And as the smoke grew thicker and din of battle louder,
That there was found in this compound one serious objection—
No soldier boy could sniff it without having an erection!!

Thanks to Elinor Owens, Editor of the ACS Philadelphis Section’s Catalyst, for digging this up and publishing it first.