An Inspiration for "Brookhaven" - The Family Bible

In the early 1980s, the Young family Bible was passed down to me from my father. We had looked at it together much earlier, especially the family records it contained. All of the entries for births and deaths, beginning in 1802 and ending in 1890, were in the same hand, presumably my great-grandfather’s.  

For years after I received it, I did the time-honored family thing: kept it wrapped in brown paper and twine and on a closet shelf. I did eventually buy an acid-free box to store it in, but it was fragile. The binding was coming apart, the ink on the family records was fading, and some of the pages were loose.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph: a page of records in the family Bible, before restoration.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

World War II, Remembered Rightly – Philip Jenkins at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

A Gathering of Old Men – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

Family Matters –Alan Jacobs at The Homebound Symphony.

 

Political Violence Happens Because We Let It – Charles Fain Lehman at The Free Press.

 

“Snow-Bound,” poem by John Greenleaf Whittier – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

"Shiloh" by Shelby Foote

Shelby Foote (1916-2005) was a journalist, writer, and historian best known for his three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative, published between 1958 and 1974. His writings about the war and the South generally tilted in the direction of the Lost Cause, which means he’s as far out of favor with historians today as he can be. And yet his scholarship and depth of research were impressive. 

Foote also wrote six novels, one of which was entitled Shiloh, published in 1952. As the title indicates, it was about the Battle of Shiloh, fought April 6-7, 1862, in southern Tennessee very close to the Mississippi border. It was something of a seesaw battle, in that the Confederates under Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard clearly won the first day, only to see their victory turned into defeat the second day by the Union forces under Ulysses Grant and Don Carlos Buell. There were some 24,000 casualties, the total of both sides, and Shiloh has the dubious distinction of being one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves – book review by Tim Talbott at Emerging Civil War.

 

‘I am very uneasy to know if my husband is alive or dead’: Memorial highlights Irish in US civil war – Sen O’Riordan at Irish Examiner.

 

Don’t Burn Down the Ivory Towers – Joshua Katz at The Free Press.

 

The Return of the Progressive Atrocity – Susie Linfield at Quillette. 

 

MeToo unless you’re a Jew – Nicole Lampert at UnHerd. 

C.S. Lewis: A Sonnet -- Malcolm Guite.

Saturday Good Reads

The Young family Bible contained a mystery. 

This particular King James Version was published in 1801, which means it’s now 218 years old. It looks it. It’s been through a considerable amount of history and turmoil. 

The Bible was passed from my great-great grandfather Franklin Young to his youngest son, Samuel. Samuel, in turn, passed it to his youngest son James, who gave it to his only son, my father. On my father’s death, it went to me as the oldest surviving son.

There was a man listed in the family records who was not a member of the Young family. The man’s name was Jarvis Seale. Years ago, I asked my father who the man might be, and he didn’t know but thought it might be a cousin. 

Samuel and Octavia Young (circa 1880)

It was while researching family genealogy that I discovered his identity. And the family Bible contained one direct and one indirect clue. The direct clue was the date of Seale’s death – April 1862. The indirect clue was the passing the Bible by Franklin Young to his youngest of three sons, my great-grandfather Samuel. Samuel was the only son to survive the Civil War. One older brother died in Texas, and one died at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. I saw the date and it clicked. Further checking confirmed it. Jarvis Seale was Franklin’s son-in-law, married to Samuel’s older sister. Jarvis also died at Shiloh.

I was reminded of this family history this week when I read two stories by Sean Michael Chick at Emerging Civil War. Chick had an ancestor who died at Shiloh, too. More than 110,000 soldiers were engaged in the battle, representing both Union and Confederate armies, and more than 23,000 casualties occurred. It was the bloodiest battle up to that time in American history. 

You can read Chick’s stories here: The Rise and Fall of W. Irving Hodgson and Shiloh and Private Samuel Chick. 

More Good Reads

Writing and Literature

The Code of the Western: The oldest genre is still alive and kicking – Terry Teachout at Commentary Magazine.

Moral Reasoning in an Acceptable Time: Madeleine L'Engle's "The Kairos Novels" - Matt Miller at The Russell Kirk Center. 

Shallow Calls to Shallow: On Thomas Merton, 50 Years After His Death – Garry Wills at Harper’s Magazine.

Beowulf the work of a single author, research suggests – Nicola Davis at The Guardian.

The Pleasure of (Re)Reading – Peggy Rosenthal at Image Journal.

Life and Culture

The Liberal Arts vs. Progressive Education – Robert Stacey at The Imaginative Conservative.

What They Don’t Teach You at the University of Washington’s Ed School – Nick Wilson at Quillette.

A History Textbook that Inspires, Not Lectures, Students about America – Jenna Robinson at the James Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

Something strange is going on at this civil rights institution. It must be investigated. – Jiom Tharpe at the Washington Post.

Art 

How Dickens, Brontë and Eliot influenced Vincent van Gogh – Kathryn Hughes at The Guardian.

Faith

Why the World’s Longest Reformed Bible Study Started in Africa – Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra at The Gospel Coalition.

The Christian Bubble – Zak Schmoll at Entering the Public Square.

“Conservative” And “Liberal” Christianity – George Sinclair at The Gospel Coalition.

Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson Help Us to Pray – Chris Yokel at The Rabbit Room. 

Gaining Perspective in a Quarter-Life Crisis – Hugh Whelchel at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

Poetry

Heavy Cream – Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

When, if not now? – Robert Rife at Rob’s Lit-Bits.

Ballads: The Story Poem Form – Mary Harwell Sayler at The Poetry Editor.

British Stuff

Medieval Parasites – Katherine Harvey at Aeon Magazine.

A seal bearing a name that appears in the Bible was discovered in the City of David – Israel Antiquities Authority

Painting: The Reader, oil on canvas (1875-1876) by Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919).