General Sam on the Battle of Saylers Creek
Callie Oettinger alerted me to some reflections on Civil War history by one of the fathers of Delta Force, LTG Samuel Vaughan Wilson over at Command Posts:
Memories of the Battle of Saylers Creek
I remember the holes in the wood siding of Lockett House, where my grandmother, Lucy Lockett was born and raised. The holes were made by mini balls fired by both sides. There were thirty-two of them in the front side of the house alone, along with four larger scars made by cannon balls.
In the course of the battle, the farmhouse had been turned into a hospital for both the Northern and Southern forces, and Lucy Lockett’s young niece, Mamie Lockett, had spent most of the fight crouched on a pile of last fall’s potatoes there on the floor of the basement, her tiny frame shielded by that of her nanny’s.
When I would visit her in the early 1930’s, “Cousin Mamie-we sometimes called her “Aunt Mamie”-would sit there in the front parlor rocking and holding on to her cane, and, if I was patient and kept quiet long enough, she would talk about the battle of Saylers Creek, which shattered Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia on the way to Appomattox Courthouse.
“After a while,” she would say….
Read the rest here.
April 7th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Ed. Note: Command Posts spells the General Wilson’s middle name "Vaughn" while Wikipedia gives it as "Vaughan" – I am not 100% certain but I think the latter is correct.
April 7th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Wow. That’s deep.