Lexington Ghost Tour

[MauEvig]

Well guys...since I loved the tour last year we're going to go again tonight! I am so looking forward to this.

[Andybev01]

Post photos if you can.

[Murfreesboro]

Hope you had a great time!

[MauEvig]

I didn't get any pictures of the actual tour...but it was still fun. I still think my favorite story is of the heroic Robert E. Lee and the three omens that surround his death.
I think it's interesting how his daughter believed she was responsible for his death because of her organ playing and him telling her she should play something else...so she blames herself. Then there's the storm that occurred simultaneously the very moment Lee laid his head down. Finally, the aurora that could be seen the moment of his death, and the Scott's Irish legend of how the sky's lights do not becon, save for those of fallen heroes and great leaders (or something like that.)

I did get a nice little gem in the form of a book as a souvenir however. I'll post that later.

[Murfreesboro]

I hadn't heard of the omens surrounding Lee's death. Interesting!

I don't think he lived to be very old, maybe only 65 or something like that. Even in that era, that wasn't so old. My husband has always said that the Civil War just used people up, that it was incredibly stressful on the generation that fought it. I can believe that.

[puaa001]

Thanks For Sharing Nice Topic.

[Kolchak]

I believe Lee was 63 or 64 when he died. There are plenty of legends that surround him, whether fact or fantasy, to me he is and will always be the greatest general this or any nation produced. We could sure use him and those who thought like him now.

[Murfreesboro]

I agree with your assessment of Lee, at least as far as his character is concerned. I don't know enough about the military to assess him as a general, but my husband, who is a walking encyclopedia of military history, thinks very highly of him in that regard as well. (And husband is not Southern. His parents were from Illinois and Missouri. What Civil War ancestry he has is Yankee.)

[NeverMore]

A local school is changing it's name, even though no one made a fuss. I guess some people would prefer to forget history.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/new ... ng-effort/

[Kolchak]

Not surprised in the least. There is an elected moronic retard here that wants to destroy the entire monument on Stone Mountain. Instead of looking at the real cause for the problems in the community they change history and lie and then do something that only widens the gap between the races and in the end will result in a real civil war. It should be noted that the US has never had a civil war since by definition a civil war is a war fought by two or more groups to gain control of a central government. What occurred in 1861 was a rebellion. Exactly like the one fought in 1776. It is even referred to in the Department of War texts of the era as the War of the Rebellion. Look it up. If the revolution had failed in 1776 the British would have been successful in putting down the rebellion. If you win, you can call it revolution. If you lose it is called a rebellion.

[Murfreesboro]

OMG on the San Diego school. And huge OMG on Stone Mountain! I have seen that memorial. Very, very sad if they destroy it.

You are of course right about the terms "rebellion" vs. "revolution" vs. "civil war."

If you dig further back in history, the term "revolution" had an even different connotation. The English "Glorious Revolution"of 1688 was considered glorious because almost no blood was shed over it (when they kicked out their Catholic King James II, whose 2nd wife had just given birth to a son, in favor of James's Protestant daughter from his first marriage, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange). Anyway, "revolution" was an astronomical term, suggesting the orderly progression of the stars in the cosmos. Non-violent. I guess it was the French Revolution that sealed its current connotation of being a bloody rebellion. A revolution is, at its root, something that issues in a new order of things.

In the South, traditionally, no one has regarded that conflict as a civil war. It was always called the "War between the States," and most of those who fought in it on the Southern side did indeed see it as a second American revolution. As always, history is written by the winners.

I think our country is more polarized right now than at any time since my 1960s childhood. I don't want to see a civil war or a rebellion in my lifetime, but sometimes I think I might.

[MauEvig]

Here's the book I got from the Ghost Tour:



I've been so caught up in the stresses of life I nearly forgot to post it. It's a nice little collection of the stories in the tour, along with stories that hadn't been covered in it.

The Civil War, the War Between the States, whichever you wish to call it was a very tragic event. I agree that the winners are the ones who write history, and one of my college Professors who taught world History said that one should be leery of that and historical sources that are biased. I'm doing my best to maintain an unbiased view of the Civil War, and I've concluded that neither side was right in the end. It was a tragedy like you said. What I find interesting is the internal conflict Lee had. He agreed with the Union, but felt a strong loyalty to his home state in Virginia. In the end he tried to make peace between the young men who were both of Northern and Southern origin. He's a man from history that most certainly has my respect.

I really hope we don't have another civil conflict one day like that Murf. If we do, I think we'll move to Canada. Let the United States hash it out, I want no part of it.

Notably there were other stories in the Lexington tour that had nothing to do with the Civil War, but I think most of the stories took place around the same time. There's one about a young man who commit ed suicide, and ever since then there's a bedroom window in this old party house that never closes. I think this individual really regrets taking his life and being stuck in that negative feeling for his entire afterlife. There's a couple animal related stories as well, which I find to be the saddest of all the stories, but I guess I'm a bit biased in favor of animals.

They do talk about Stonewall Jackson...interestingly enough I'm not finding much of his story in the book...only a brief mention. On the tour they say he married twice, lived a tragic life without knowing what love really was until he married his first wife...who succumbed to death from childbirth and also lost his first child in the process. He married again, and he does eventually have a daughter...but I believe he dies during the war...I can't remember exactly. His monument is said to turn it's head to look at his buried wife in the cemetary, and also not to turn his back on the North. I believe it's said the ghosts of his fellow soldiers will come to join him. And they said something about throwing him a lemon, because he either loved lemons, or hated them. No one knows for sure. Some say it was actually peaches he loved.

[Murfreesboro]

What a neat little souvenir book!

Stonewall Jackson was a college professor at one of the VA schools, VMI, I think. He was an excellent general and Lee's right-hand man until he was killed, I've forgotten which battle. Oddly, he wasn't killed by the Union, but by his own men, who mistook him for the enemy when he was out on patrol. He didn't die at first, but his arm was amputated. He died a few days after that.

Stonewall Jackson was a very devout guy, Presbyterian, I believe, who was totally committed to the idea of predestination. Consequently he never feared anything at all on the battlefield, because he believed that his death was preordained and he had no control over it.

They say George Washington was like that, too. I don't know if it was religious conviction on Washington's part, but he was also a general who would literally lead his men into battle.

[Murfreesboro]

Posting again to add some stuff about Lee. My husband has always pointed out that, except for his one "official" photograph, Lee never wore a general's uniform while he led the Confederate forces. He never wore anything more than (I believe) a colonel's uniform, because that was the highest rank he had achieved in the US Army. IOW, deep down he probably felt that his "rank" in the Confederate army was somehow illegitimate. Conflicted, indeed.

He was also the person who freed George Washington's slaves (perhaps I have mentioned this elsewhere? Forgive me if I am repeating myself.) Here's how that happened. In his will George Washington manumitted his slaves. However, Washington didn't really own many slaves outright. Most of his slaves were actually entailed to his widow's estate from her first husband, Custis. Since her children were exclusively from that marriage, her property went to them after her death. She had no power under the laws of that time to free the slaves, only to use them while she lived. Her children (and maybe grandchildren?) had no interest in freeing those slaves, so it didn't happen. Finally, one of her descendants (a grandson or great-grandson, I've forgotten which) left the directive in his will to free his slaves. And the executor of his will was his son-in-law, Robert E. Lee.

Another anecdote about Lee, after the war. A black man came into the Episcopal church during a communion service Lee was attending and went forward to take communion at the rail. Now, the Episcopal church has common cup--everyone at the church drinks from the same cup at communion. It just gets passed down the altar rail from one person to the next. Drinking after a black man was a huge breach of the decorum of that time (and even 100 years later, when I was a child in Mississippi, it was highly controversial). Nevertheless, Lee came forward at that service and took communion with the black man. He was about as far from being a racist as any man who ever lived.