Civil War

Usually it's a glass bottle or an abandoned tire. But workers sorting litter out of the piles of sand and dirt scooped from the bottom of the Patapsco River in South Baltimore this week came across an unusual find - Civil War-era cannonballs. Given the proximity of Fort McHenry, state officials say, it's not uncommon for Baltimore-area barges to return to shore with long-submerged ordnance. But cannonballs are another story. "I've been involved in dredging for 30-some years, and I've seen [munitions]

The city can afford after-school efforts The Sun's editorial "A promise is a promise" (May 16) states that "ideally" there would be enough money for the city to support school construction and renovation plans and fund after-school programs for young people who need them. In fact, city officials can do both now. Baltimore has a surplus and a rainy day fund that holds $83 million ("With levies, trims, city finances are on more stable footing," Oct. 13, 2006). This provides Mayor Sheila Dixon with enough funds to cover the essentials of city operations and at the same time invest in providing opportunities for all city children to grow up healthy and well-educated.

Aug. 17 1863 Federal batteries and ships began bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., harbor during the Civil War. 1896 Gold was discovered in Canada, a finding that touched off the Klondike gold rush.

After Thomas LeGore helped Frederic Shriver Klein convert the Shriver Homestead in Union Mills into a museum, Klein asked LeGore to help him write a book about the Civil War. While doing research, LeGore, then 17, became enamored with a small battle that took place on June 29, 1863, in Westminster known as Corbit's Charge. But LeGore, a Carroll County native, discovered there was not a lot of information available locally on the Civil War battle. "All of the local newspaper accounts of the war had disappeared," he said.

"In terms of important historical associations with ghost stories and a grisly past, Point Lookout Lighthouse in St. Mary's County is right up there. It's five stars out of five stars," says Ed Okonowicz. The Cecil County author and semiretired college professor is Maryland's premier collector of ghost stories, regional folklore and supernatural tales. The lighthouse Okonowicz is talking about stands at the tip of St. Mary's County, where Potomac River waters swirl and mix with those of tidal Chesapeake Bay. The 530-acre site, including the lighthouse, has been a state park since 1962.

Remember back when you had to pay for activities like touring the Constellation, seeing the city from the Top of the World Observation Level, listening to a Peabody concert or watching a classic film at the Charles Theatre? Well, that was sooo last month. It's October now, and your money is no good at some 85 venues participating in the second annual Free Fall Baltimore. About 300 events, ranging from a Center Stage production of Arsenic and Old Lace (alas, sold out) to a mock discussion between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, to showings of classic 3-D films at the Charles, are being offered free of charge.

Surrounded by antique guns, cannons and men wearing winter-weight wool reeking of sweat, 11-year-old Michael Feuz was in heaven.The Mount Airy boy was so excited about this weekend's annual Civil War encampment in Westminster, he listened to theme music on the drive there, and even wore his replica Confederate wool uniform jacket and hat in the nearly 90-degree weather."

By Steffany Palulis : Special to the SunWhile driving through the Deep South in the 1950s, our Maryland license plates sparked the question "Are you for the North or South?" as if the Civil War was in progress at that moment. Although the question was posed with a smile, one sensed that the answer really mattered. Were we with them or against them?By then the Civil War was well behind us northerners, but clearly it was recent enough to continue to eat at these Georgians. By that time, the North had set history to rights by creating memorials of the larger battlefields -- Gettysburg, Antietam and Bull Run. But the less important sites, such as Harpers Ferry, W. Va., were sometimes stalled at a monetary crossroads, teetering between national recognition and ruins, and setting the stage for my childhood imagination.

WASHINGTON -- Decrying what they called the government-backed practice of slavery in Sudan, two congressmen launched a new drive yesterday to spotlight the practice and also prevent the Khartoum regime from using world food donations as a weapon in the nation's civil war.Tens of thousands of Africans from southern Sudan are being held as slaves, including women and children, and often are forced into hard labor or used as concubines, the lawmakers said."Thousands...

BUTLER, Mo. -- Chris Tabor has a dream.Someday what will be akin to an archaeological dig will take place 8 miles southwest of here, and human remains will turn up. Those bones, buried for 137 years, belong to the first black combat soldiers killed in the Civil War.The public perception, cemented by the hit movie "Glory," is that black troops saw their first combat and suffered their first casualties in mid-July 1863 in the storming of Fort Wagner near...

With anniversary observances of two wars expected to bring an influx of tourists, Maryland has received a $5.6 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration to improve and market its scenic roads. The infusion of money for the Maryland's Byways program will help the state prepare for the sesquicentennial of the Civil War starting in 2011 and the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. Important engagements of both wars were fought on Maryland soil, including the defense of Baltimore in 1814 and the Antietam campaign of 1862.

The future health of the Chesapeake Bay may well depend in part upon how much respect we pay to history. Granted, it may be a small part. But as we struggle to piece together workable plans to improve bay water quality, the little pieces are what make up the big picture. For proof, we need only to recognize the link between muskets and mollusks. More than a century and a half ago in the Mid-Atlantic, from the rolling countryside of lower Pennsylvania to tidewater Virginia, Union and Confederate soldiers fought at scores of locations during the bloodiest and most tumultuous period of our nation's story.

Baltimore is set to designate President Street Station, an 1850s train depot with chapters in the histories of both the Underground Railroad and the Civil War, as a city landmark. But the city's plan to also seek a long-term tenant to revitalize the vacant building has a group of history buffs fearful that the building's past will get swallowed up in any future use. This summer, the Planning Department expects to issue a request for proposals on how to reuse what is believed to be the oldest surviving urban train station in the country.

In the end, a quaint watercolor painting of a young town full of promise yielded the final key to unlocking a mystery dating back more than 130 years. The artwork, depicting the proposed community of Sanborn as part of a decades-old real estate ad, is an aerial perspective of existing homes and never-developed lots off Ryan Avenue in Hanover, just east of Elkridge. But one detail in the landscape turned the souvenir into a pseudo-treasure map for the community. The 19th-century Anderson Chapel on Ryan Avenue, claimed by the ravages of time and neglect 40 years ago, faced the B&O Railroad tracks.

A proposed trash incinerator and a planned natural gas plant threaten to encroach on two Civil War battlefield sites in Western Maryland, a preservation group warned yesterday. The Washington-based Civil War Preservation Trust said recent developments have put the Monocacy National Battlefield near Frederick and South Mountain near Middletown on its list of the nation's most endangered battlefields from that war. "In town after town, the irreplaceable battlefields that define those communities are being marred forever," said O. James Lighthizer, the trust's president.

Civil War sensitivity must run both ways I read with interest the editorial "A Civil action" (Nov. 21) which seems to confuse the "Stars and Bars" with the Confederate Battle Flag. The Stars and Bars is actually the first Confederate national flag. Mostly, it flew over Confederate government buildings during the war. The battle flag is the one depicted in the photo next to the editorial. Unfortunately, that flag has often been usurped by hate groups that share nothing in common with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

John T. Ciesielski Sr., a former longtime Aberdeen Proving Ground employee and Civil War buff, died Oct. 13 of kidney failure at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. The Overlea resident was 96. Mr. Ciesielski was born in New Kensington, Pa., and moved to Highlandtown with his family in 1920. He was a 1929 graduate of City College. He worked at Lever Bros. and Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant before enlisting in the Army in World War II. He served as a materials clerk in Cheltenham, England, and Paris.

I grew up in Pennsylvania, near Valley Forge and Independence Hall, two of the most exalted places in American history. But it was always a little town to the west that stole the show - Gettysburg, where thousands fought to the death for the very soul of our country. And yet, despite numerous school field trips and family visits, Gettysburg and its sprawling Civil War battlefield always left me a little cold. I know that's heresy, especially for a native Pennsylvanian. Even worse, one of my ancestors was a Civil War veteran.

CAIRO, Egypt - Two car bombs struck near a hotel and a military compound in Algeria yesterday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 31, the Algerian Interior Ministry said. The blasts followed Tuesday's deadly attack on prospective recruits at a police academy. The car bombs detonated about 15 minutes apart around 6 a.m. local time in the town of Bouira. The first injured four soldiers outside a regional military command center, according to the Algerian press agency. The second killed at least 11 people around the Sophie Hotel, which is reportedly used by employees of a Canadian construction company building a dam in eastern Algeria.

Some missionaries have a calling to teach their faith in far-off lands. Chaplain Alan Farley says God called him to places closer to home but to a different time. Farley preaches at Civil War re-enactments across the country. Yesterday he held a service under a white tent in a Westminster field that had all the makings of a revival from the 1860s. The congregation wore period dress, perhaps their Sunday best, and women in heavy cotton hoop skirts fanned themselves with programs, as Farley implored them to come forward to admit their sins and pray.