3rd Annual Tyler Scottish Festival and Highland Games

This weekend, amidst the storms that sometimes happen in this part of Texas, we attended an outdoor festival.

This time, it was in Tyler.

Among the roses and pine trees, on the campus of South Springs Baptist Church, was the 3rd Annual Scottish Festival and Highland Games.

A part of what makes homeschooling Sadie possible are the odd jobs and vendor opportunities that we seek out, and the Celtic gatherings are always a favorite.

Stephanie sells Lilla Rose hair accessories, and she loves them, and it always pleasant to see other women react as she does.  

A major draw at these events are the games, which for the most part predates modern track and field events.  From the Braemar stone throw (shot put with a boulder) to the sheaf toss (below), heavy athletes come from all over to compete.

And we cannae forget the caber toss!

Another major element of most of the Scottish, Irish, and Celtic festivals is music. This one was not a large event, but there were a few class acts.

Bagpipe band "Kilty as Charged" and Hugh Morrison.

Ricky Pitman, "The Bard of the South."  He is the author of "Confederate Alphabet," which Stephanie illustrated.

 A proper Highland Coo calf and a falconer discussed the history of falconry.

 The Scottish Clan Village.  Sadly, my own Frasers were not represented at this one.  Maybe I can change that within the next year.  Also, a sheep-herding demonstration was a highlight.

The event this year was a good one, but small.  Overcast and cool until the afternoon, the humidity rose ahead of the storm that brought tornados near home.  We were given the nod to break down early, but the skies opened up with heavy rain as we loaded the truck.  

We both felt like drowned rats, but many came by her booth and went home with pretties, and well pleased.  Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we will be back next year to get in touch with our inner Scot!

Living History Days at the Confederate Reunion Grounds.

History is all around us, and often where you least expect it.

In a small corner of Limestone County, Texas, is the Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site, a unit of the Texas Historical Commission.  Each spring for many years now the site and its friends group have hosted a living history weekend and school day to educate about days gone by.  

This year, due to spring weather and event conflicts, the Friends of the Confederate Reunion Grounds, who works to raise awareness and funds for the site, chose to try a fall event.   If all goes as hopes, it will replace the spring Living History Days.

The Confederate Reunion Grounds lies at the confluence of the Navasota River and Jacks Creek.  Starting in the late 19th Century the veterans of the Confederate Army that had moved to Texas gathered here each summer to reminisce about their wartime experiences with their comrades in arms and their families as well.  Beneath the Bur Oak trees they would camp, while special trains came from all over Texas with the veterans.

The social heart of the Conferate Reunion Grounds!  The Dance Pavillion, built in 1893.

School Day could not happen without volunteers!

Dance Lessons!

Representatives from other THC sites always support us.  In this case, Caddo Mounds.

Old Valverde.  Captured in 1864 at the Battle of Manfield, it was used for years to open and close the reunions.

Flying proudly!

Excited visitors to the site!

Sutlers demonstrating their wares and educating at the same time!

Ms. Burkeen and site educator, Ms. Richardson.

Without reenactor volunteers, these things would never work!  Great work, Ms. Stephanie!

Display of various flags.

Brazos Rose chapter of the Order of the Confederate Rose has supported us for years. 

Blacksmithing!

Learning about the US Camel Corps project of the 1850s.

Camels are always a hit with the crowds.

Learning about the livestock.

 

Moo.

Living Historians camp in the Navasota Valley.

Rifle Demonstrations.

Texas troopers

She makes you proud, doesn't she?

A view of sutler row from the parade ground

Mr. Furlow discussing flags while he sews on one of his reproductions.

Blacksmithing is always a hit.

Stay away! It is hot!

Our own Captain Ron setting up his home for the next two days

A view of the 12th Texas Artillery's camp.

Young ones are the key to our future.  Teach them right!

Tired?

The 12th Texas Infantry in formation for the Saturday morning flag-raising.

 

Drummer Boy Ice Cream is always a hit.  

Mr. O'Toole from the Pearce Civil War Museum inviting visitors to their annual Veterans Day Living History in Corsicana.  For those interested, it is on November 10 this year.

Old Valverde has such an interesting history!

More pictures are sure to follow as volunteers and workers sort and sift through their cameras and phones over the next few days.  The CRG is a special place and an historical jewel in central Texas.  Most people drive by between Mexia and Groesback or from Mexia to Waco and never even stop.  

Next time you are in the area, please do.  Show some love to the veterans and their families who held the grounds in a special regard, just as many of us still do.

Banks of the Mobile by Jed Marum

There are times when you just want to share a good song, and I think Jed would have wanted me to.


This song is another of his War Between the States songs.  From the liner notes:



A young Scottish born girl grows up in Montreal, Canada and in Mobile, Alabama and matures into a devout Christian "Southern Lady" with strong Scottish roots.  During the US Civil War, she supports her adopted homeland by working as a battlefront nurse.  This song was inspired by her courage in facing this terrible duty (work "no lady ought to endeavor,") and by her diary, "Kate Cumming: A Confederate Nurse."  Kate spent much of her time during the war helping the mortally wounded of both armies make their final peace and prepare for death.  She returned home after the war and died many years later, unmarried, at the age of 76.  This song pictures her last moments in her beloved Mobile, among the many young men she so lovingly attended.



The song is beautiful and I have long loved it, but Jed's explanation makes it all the more poignant.

Book Review: The Taming of the Nueces Strip

On occasion I find a book that I cannot put down, that engrosses me to the point that the normal habits of the day get ignored and I stay up far later than I should.  It is a book that captivates the imagination.  I recently read one of those books.

I first became aware of George Durham’s telling of the story of Leander McNelly’s Special Force of Texas Rangers years ago when Dimension Films released the movie titled Texas Rangers.  I enjoyed the movie, being one that felt like a throwback to the classic western genre.  Leander McNelly fascinated me and I did some rudimentary research into the man, but that was about as far as it goes.  I knew he was born in Virginia, moved to Texas as a young man because consumption, and died young. That was it. The work it was based on, The Taming of the Nueces Strip, sort of slipped from my mind and attention, and life goes on.

Captain Leander H. McNelly

Then, a few months ago, my wife being as much as a historian as I (and researching for a novel that she is writing) found a biography of Captain McNelly at the local library, and as such the fascination with McNelly surfaced again.  I even pulled out my copy of Texas Rangers again and watched it.  My wife quickly lost interest because the story in no way matched the tale that McNelly’s biography told.  Sadly, according to sources with the Texas Ranger's museum in Waco, the producers were offered assistance in the film but declined it.

So it was time to read Durham’s account, as told to Clyde Wantland.

George Durham was born in Georgia during the War Between the States on a farm that suffered from Sherman’s March to the Sea.  “Dad outlasted the actual war,” stated Durham, “but he didn’t outlast Sherman. “  Did Old Man Durham die or was he simply broken by the devastation and Reconstruction of Georgia?  Durham did not make that clear other than the fact that all the family had left was a pillaged house and the clothes on their back.  But what he does make clear is that he came to Texas in 1875 for one reason – to find Capt. Leander H. McNelly.  His father had served under (or “worked for”) McNelly as a scout in Louisiana, and undoubtedly told stories that were larger than life.  The two men first met near Burton, Texas, just before the recommissioning of a ranger company to try to tame the lawless region between the Nueces and Rio Grand River.  “I had pictured the Captain McNelly I came to see to be a picture-book sort of Texas fighter. Big and hairy, with his pistols gleaming. What I had just seen could have been a preacher.  A puny one at that.”  The physique did not match the legend, as Durham would tell.  

Durham described himself as a farm boy, a husky lad, and enamored by the captain that would affect the rest of his life.   And he was there at the beginning. The next year was a violent crusade to stop the theft of South Texas cattle by Mexican bandits under the payroll of Juan Cortina (who incidentally had been a thorn in the side of Col. Robert E. Lee before his resignation that would mark his place in history). The law favored the bandits, and those that played by the "rules" were going to accomplish little.

Among the hardships were hunger, lack of funding by Gov. Coke’s administration, spies, and McNelly’s struggles with consumption (tuberculosis). Told in Durham’s country speak he strives to set the record straight about his time with “the McNelly’s,” and the crime that marked the region.   Later a cowhand and lawman, George Durham formative experience was his time as a ranger.  Even when old Leander McNelly was never far from his thoughts.  

Honestly, I can say that I will never be able to watch Texas Rangers again in the same way.  And that is okay.  I know the history now, thanks to George Durham, and the aforementioned movie will now to me become a b-roll Western which is fiction based upon truth, where only the names are the same, and then, not even those.