freestateofpatrick.com blog

Eric Wittenberg recently blogged about NewspaperArchive.com. I find newspapers to be an interesting primary source, but like today’s you have to use them with a grain of salt. There is no such thing then or now as an unbiased press. Several years ago Virginia Tech got a grant to index Civil War newspapers.

Here is a link to the Virginia Tech Grant To Index Civil War Newspapers.

http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2003&itemno=1

Here is the link the Virginia Center For Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech

http://www.civilwar.vt.edu/

Civil War Collection at Virginia Tech

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/civwar/

Thomas D. Perry Collection at Virginia Tech

http://www.freestateofpatrick.com/tdpcollection.htm

Browsing The Civil War at Virginia Tech

http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/cw

On May 11, 1864, while J. E. B. Stuart fought his last battle at Yellow Tavern, Union General George Crook made his headquarters at the Olin and Preston Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia. Thus began a connection between Virginia Tech and the American Civil War. The men who served under Southwest Virginia’s most famous soldier more than influenced the early days of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. It comes full circle in many ways with this author as I build a collection of Stuart material at my alma mater. With the football season beginning to erupt, I thought I would do some new stories about Virginia Tech History and some old stories. J. E. B. Stuart’s connections to VPI and SU are documented here on this website.

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/125th/confeds/confeds.htm.

Floyd and Elizabeth Hobbs with their great-grandsons Robert and Adam Pennington circa 1974. Courtesy of Ann Dozier.

Floyd Thomas Hobbs passed away twenty-two years ago when I was fifteen years old. He was born in the nineteenth century and died in the bicentennial year of 1976 in his sleep at his home at 1815 Fenwick Street in Augusta, Georgia. Outside his bedroom window, there were roses and azaleas everywhere. Cuttings from some of these plants are still in my mother’s yard as he was her father and my maternal grandfather.

I drive my mother to Augusta, Georgia, to visit her sister, Kathyrn, who continues to experience the short-term memory loss of Alzheimer’s. I listen to the conversations between the daughters of Floyd Hobbs and learn something new every single time. I drive them out to the countryside in Jefferson and Warren County, where my grandparents grew up and lived before moving into the “Garden City” of Georgia.

His father David Thomas Hobbs descended from several generations in Warren County, Georgia. I recently discovered they came from North Carolina all the way back to Edenton, North Carolina, in the 1750s. He never talked about his family and his mother. I am sure there is some story there, but that is for another day to investigate.

I have very good memories of him, but not as many as I wish. I remember he took me to Burger King up the alley, Barnes Lane, from his home. He drove me around town. Once he got a ticket for running a red light, which was very embarrassing for him having his youngest grandchild in the car. I was his only naturally born grandson (Uncle Ed and Pat adopted Jack) and I can imagine what he felt as only a man can about a grandson.

Before World War Two, he worked at many places such as at Fury’s Ferry on the Savannah River, where the bridge on Highway 25 is today in the fashionable northern end of Augusta up in Evans. He worked on the locks at the Augusta Canal at the northern end of that body of water that supplies Augusta’s water and is now a National Heritage Area. He and my grandmother Elizabeth Prescott Hobbs moved to Augusta and back to the country then back to Augusta with the depression, jobs and other factors affected their lives. She worked in textile mills along the Augusta Canal and at Bailey’s Frame Shop downtown. He was too old to serve in World War Two, but he contributed to the war effort as a carpenter and electrician. He worked at Fort Gordon, shipyards at Savannah and Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

These are some of the facts about my grandfather, but here is the kind of man he was. Every time he went to visit his father-in-law Jesse Prescott, he always carried them fruit. During the war, he never passed a walking soldier along the roads between Savannah and Wrightsville Beach without picking them up. When his sister-in-law, Pearl and her husband lost their son to a blood disease and her husband Restey became disabled he made sure they had food. Pearl said they would have starved if not for Floyd.

Floyd and “Momma Lizzie” lived on Fenwick Street when I knew them and before in Harrisburg area on Hicks Street. He worked as a mechanic at Eastern Motor Company and other dealerships fixing cars such as Oldsmobiles. He was hit by a car crossing Broad Street while working at one of these dealerships. For the rest of his life he could not turn his neck to the left to see and you always had to tell him if anything was coming before he pulled out while driving.

My main memory of him is tending his flowers. Roses and azaleas bloomed all around the little house on Fenwick Street. He tended them as if they were children. His grass was perfect and he watered every day all around his house. It is the image of him that always comes to my mind. I visit his grave every time I go to Augusta and spend some time in the shade of a gigantic pine tree in the cemetery. Nearby are azaleas.

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Amazon released my first DVD this week from my talk last year at the Bassett Historical Center. Part of the proceeds from the sale of the DVD will go to the building fund for the library. This is a powerpoint presentation with lecture included. It shows all known images of J. E. B. Stuart along with my years of research. The cost at Amazon is $19.99.

Click Here To Order

Historian Thomas D. Perry speaks at the Bassett Virginia Historical Center in May 2008 on J. E. B. Stuart covering little known aspects of the life of Robert E. Lee’s cavalry general during the Civil War. This program shows all known photos of Stuart during the discussion. Part of the proceeds go to the library.

Reflecting on J. E. B. Stuart ASIN: B001E0Q08G

Born in 1743 along the banks of the Rivanna River Albemarle County, Virginia, at his parent’s home Shadwell, named for the place his mother came from in England, the young red head found himself in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 at the age of 33. He was about to change the world. Not known as an orator, he found himself on a committee with Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston to draft a declaration of independence. After preparing a draft, he then suffered in silence as his committee and then the Continental Congress went over every word of the document. If he did nothing else in life, this was enough. He went on to be Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, Vice-President and the third President of the United States. If you visit his grave, you will not learn any of this. What you will read there is that he founded the University of Virginia, wrote the Virginia Resolution on Religious Freedom and the Declaration of Independence. The latter is appropriate as he died along with John Adams, who served on the committee with him on July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years to the day the document went public. Who says God does not have a sense of the dramatic. Although he was dead when John Adams uttered his last words, “Thomas Jefferson Still Survives.”

Original Draft by Jefferson

http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/rough.htm

Comparison of Drafts

http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/compare.htm

Thomas Jefferson’s Account

http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/account/index.htm