It's
not as if the Ol' Bloviator and his wonderful bride needed any further confirmation
of Gavin Stevens's famous declaration in Requiem for A Nun that the past is
neither "dead" nor "even past," but if we had, we
definitely got it a few weeks back after my long suffering bride and I made the
twisty trek from Lexington, Virginia, where the O.B. was teaching at that
point, across the mountains to Appomattox National Historical Park.
The
exhibits and artifacts were impressive but our real destination was the McLean
House, where the actual surrender took place. (There is a misconception that
this happened in the courthouse because at the time this tiny hamlet was known
as "Appomattox Courthouse.") This had come to
pass because poor Wilmer McLean happened to be the first person Lee's aide, Col.
Charles Marshall, encountered upon arrival at Appomattox Courthouse. When they
pressed McLean about a suitable site for the surrender, he first offered a dusty,
unfurnished building nearby that struck Marshall as not quite up to snuff for
one of the most critical meetings in the nation's history. McLean then offered an on-the-spot,
Medallion-miles-be-damned upgrade, the parlor of his home. Lest ol' Wilmer be seen as churlish and
inhospitable, it is important to note that he had pretty good reason for
reluctance in handing over his home to the Confederates, having done the same
with his previous residence, near Manassas, as a hospital and command post for
General P.G. T. Beauregard during the first major battle of the war at Bull Run
# 1. His house had taken a cannonball to
the chimney during the fight, and, after seeing it and his and his wife's 1,200
-acre plantation ravaged by war, he removed himself and his family some 120
miles to the south to the near-obscurity of Appomattox Court House, where he
thought surely the war would not find them again. (Even today, any soldiers
approaching the town from the west, might deem this a fair surmisal on Wilmer's
part.) Yet, Wilmer McLean seemed destined to have, as he was later to say, "the war
beg[i]n in my front yard and [end] in my parlor."
After the proceedings were concluded, Wilmer's coerced hospitality would be rewarded with a locust-like stripping of his furnishings and even pieces of his house itself by Yankee souvenir-seekers who took most anything not nailed down and tore out a lot that was, especially in the "surrender room," where Lee accompanied by a single aide, sat at the desk on the left and Grant, surrounded by several members his staff, sat at the one on the right.
All in all, at 20' x 16' it seemed like a
mighty tight space for such a momentous event. The carefully reconstructed
courthouse, dwellings, store, etc. definitely took us back and underscored what
a tiny, out of the way place the village of Appomattox Courthouse had been in
April 1865.
It
had been a satisfying experience and a sobering one, though perhaps not nearly so
much as the one that awaited us. As we approached Appomattox, we had at one
point found ourselves in the midst of what seemed like a caravan of trucks and
SUVs, all of them with humongous Confederate battle flags flapping all over the
place. The O.B. remarked at the time that he hoped to hell they weren't headed
to the same place we were, but they all whupped into a truck stop, and we
headed on. We noticed as we neared the park that there were four state trooper
cars with flashing bubble-gum machines along the road and several park rangers
as if they were awaiting either a Donald Trump rally or Bonnie and Clyde in a
stolen get-away car. All of this had told the O.B. somehow that we had not seen
the last of that ostentatious band of flaggers, and sure enough, upon exiting, as
we came upon a little Confederate cemetery on the edge of the park, there they
were, apparently holding some sort of rally, replete with flags whose profusion
is not done justice by the photo below, taken by yours truly when we wheeled
into the parking lot to get a better look.
As the O.B. stood in the parking lot a hundred feet or so from the
proceedings trying to get the widest-angle image an iPhone can deliver, he noticed
the approach of a right good sized fellow whose grim countenance and purposeful
stride said that he was less than thrilled by the O.B.'s attempt to capture the
event for posterity. Thereupon ensued the following exchange.
He: "What are you up to, buddy?"
O.B.:
"Taking some photos."
He:
"I see that." (Slight, but pregnant pause.) "Would you like to
join us?"
O.B.:
"Not really. Just been over at the
park and wanted to see what was up. This is public property, isn't it?"
Instead
of replying, he turned away, doubtless after concluding that it would not say a
whole lot for his version of southern honor if he curb-stomped a rickety old
geezer six inches shorter and thirty years older than he, especially in plain
sight of a couple of park policemen. The incident might have seemed less striking had we not just been
hammered with the park service's emphasis on Appomattox as the place where,
thanks largely to two reasonable and heroic men, America came together again. Suffice
it to say, you certainly could not prove any such thing by the crowd at the
cemetery, who gave little indication they were aware of what actually
transpired about a half-mile to the east in Wilmer McLean's parlor.
The O.B. regrets not pressing on another
100 miles or so east of Appomattox to take in his family's first North American
"home place" near Petersburg, where Ambrose Cobbs, late of Willesborough, in
the South East of England, claimed his 350-acre headright grant in 1639. (Each
new colonist was granted 50 acres of land for every "head" he brought,
including his. Ambrose arrived with his wife, Ann, children Robert and
Margaret, along with three men indentured to Ambrose in exchange for his paying
their passage. Hence Ambrose was
credited for 7 heads at 50 acres each= 350 acres.)
Fuming about this missed opportunity to
get better in touch with his family's past did spark the O. B.'s curiosity
about how his ancestors fared in their early years in Virginia. Turns out that
they did pretty well. Ambrose's son, Robert, and grandson Ambrose would
both serve as vestrymen of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, and Robert was
appointed sheriff of York County in 1682. According to historian Christine Eisel, however, Robert's rapid social and political ascent
did spark some jealousy:
"In October,
1658, Elizabeth Frith Woods, along with Johanna Poynter and Elianor
Cooper, plotted
to post a libelous document on the Marston parish church door. As recorded by
the county court
clerk, Elizabeth wrote:
"Gentlemen this is to give you all notice that we have a new fine trade come up amongst us. One of our Vestrymen is turned Mirkin maker. Thomas Bromfield by name, and alsohis wife and goodwife Cobbs, one of our Churchwarden's wife, they make one very handsome Mirkin amongst them and sent it to ye neighbors."
The three women
maligned [vestrymen] Thomas Bromfield, Robert Cobbs (by implication) and their
wives by accusing them of making mirkens. Mirken was a slang term used to
describe a "pubic wig" for women.
The device was
most often associated with prostitutes and sexually promiscuous women of low
standing. A mirken was designed to hide the deformities that could occur from
mercury treatment for syphilis and/or gonorrhea, or to temporarily replace
pubic hair that was shaved due to body lice. The women did not accuse anyone of
wearing mirkens; they accused them of making mirkens, an accusation that
carried layers of meaning. They did not imply that the Bromfields and Cobbses
engaged in loose sexual activity themselves; rather, they implied that the
Bromfields and Cobbses associated with such people, who were beneath the standing
of proper vestrymen and their wives. The women also implied that the Bromfields
and Cobbses insulted their neighbors by sending mirkens to them. Further, Woods
and her conspirators implied that the Bromfields and Cobbses were covering up
some improper and ugly activity, just as a mirken was designed to cover or
disguise a deformity." *
According to Eisel, the women were eventually dismissed
as vicious gossips, and two of their husbands were fined a whopping 10,000
pounds of tobacco for their wives' efforts to defame my 7X great grandpa Bobby, but
from the looks of it, things got hairy for a while.
*(From "SEVERAL UNHANDSOME WORDS": THE POLITICS
OF GOSSIP IN EARLY VIRGINIA." Christine Eisel, PhD. Dissertation, Bowling Green
University, 2012)
