Pictures for April 6

Saturday, April 6, 2013

The 16th Annual Salisbury Confederate Prison Symposium met on Saturday at Catawba College, Ketner Hall.  There were beautiful flowering trees on the campus.

Dr. Freeze gave the opening talk, as he always does.  Next Bob O'Connor talked about "The U.S. Colored Troops Prisoners at Salisbury Prison".  After a short break, Ron Nichols talked about "A Post-Civil War Mortality View of Salisbury Prisoners from Wisconsin".  After lunch William Marley told about "The Attempted Outbreak of 1864".  Then Michael Dumont talked about his relative, "Ira Tewksbury:  A Brother Captive Who Didn't Survive".  Lastly Dr. Gray Bullard spoke on "Veterans' Pensions in the Civil War:  The Experience in the South".

After the Symposium we went to the Hall House.  Dr. Josephus Hall was a doctor who helped care for the prisoners during the Civil War, and he had a lovely home and grounds.

A portrait of Dr. Hall's first wife, and the Hall piano.

A reproduction of wallpaper found in the house.

On the Hall House grounds is one of the two cannons that were used to intimidate the prisoners of war inside the Salisbury Confederate Prison.  Both cannons were fired during the attempted outbreak in 1864 (as we learned from one of the Symposium lectures).

From attending the symposium during previous years, I know an owner of property that is where the prison grounds used to be.  It is now thought that the Dead House was at least partially on her property.  Several years ago I had given her a forsythia from my property in Michigan; that forsythia is still alive, and is the yellow-flowering bush to the left in the below photo.  I like to think that bush is a celebration of life in a place where there was so much death.

Descendants of Ferd very close to the (presumed) site of the Dead House on the Confederate Salisbury Prison grounds.  I like to think that Ferd would be happy if he knew a few of his descendants would honor him by taking time to go to and learn about the place where he experienced such misery.