CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

April 24_Sad News:Oil Rig Lost-This Day in History 416wc

I am sad to report that the Coast Guard search for the missing 11 oil rig workers in Louisiana has been ended. At least the families of the miners lost in West Virginia at the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster were able to bury their men, but these families will likely never know the exact fates of their lovd ones. What a sad and tragic report.





http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-0424-oil-rig-wire,0,7695582.s...








In history:





today is the 94th Anniversary of the Easter Rising in Dublin, the 147th Anniversary of General Order 100 in 1863, in which the Union provided for treatment of captured Confederate soldiers based on the tenets of the Geneva Convention (a Convention that is supposed to be followed even in the present time, but as we all know from reports of torture of prisoners almost everywhere, is definitely not followed).





The Library of Congress was established on this date in 1800.





http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-easter-rising-begins-in-dublin?HP...


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/general-orders-no-100-issued?HPF_rid=...


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/library-of-congress-established?HPF_r...








April 26-Monday-is Confederate Memorial Day in many states (but not all) in the American South. So yes, Gentle Readers, on Monday you will be treated to a full and complete rendition of my personal take on the topic. However, I wish to mention that today-although nowhere is this actually “Confederate Memorial Day,” the State of Mississippi is unveiling a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis-the one and only Confederate President-at his home, Beauvoir, which survived Hurricane Katrina with only the antebellum residence intact.





The statue shows President Davis, his son Joe, and his “foster” son, the black child Jim Limber, a freed black child whom Mrs. Davis (Varina Howells Davis) rescued in Richmond, Virginia. The statue was sculpted by Pennsylvania historical sculptor Gary Casteel, and commissioned by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in 2008. Like everything else about the War, the statue has been the subject of much controversy. Part of it is probably due to the facts that the child Jim Limber was of mixed race, a freedman, and born into slavery, rescued from a beating in the city of Richmond by the second wife of the President of the Confederacy. So here is a statue seeming to verify that Jefferson Davis was compassionate toward freed blacks, an odd fact considering his role as President of the Secession Government, over states which seceded from the Union in order to maintain their right to enslavement.





Jefferson Davis' birth bicentennial occurred in 2008; one year from this month (April 2011) marks the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the War Between the States.


http://www.sunherald.com/2010/04/19/2112656/davis-statue-to-be-dedicated.html