80th Anniversary of "Gone With the Wind"-- Part 2" "I Am Not In It"

**  While visiting Atlanta's Cyclorama, the famed panoramic depiction o the Battle of  Atlanta, Clark Gable joked that there was one thing wrong with it:  "I am not in it."

Soon afterwards, one of the mannequins in the exhibit was altered to look like Rhett, with a handlebar mustache, fallen on the battlefield.

From the December 15, 2009 Civil War Picket on the 70th anniversary of "Gone With the Wind."

"I saw Rhett Butler today.   He didn't look so good.

"He was lying on the ground.  His eyes had no focus.  Blood covered part of his abdomen."

On the morning of December 15, Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfied (for whom Atlanta's airport is named), took Clark Kent and his new wife Carole Lombard o the Cyclorama at Grant Park.  Although impressed, Clark said it didn't have him, Rhett, in it.

Hartsfield later had artist Weis Snell  make a Rhett Butler of a dying Union soldier.

And, evidently, he is still there.

"Take a good look my dear.  It's a historic moment you can tell your grandchildren about -- how you watched the Old South fall one night."    Answer below.

Who Said That?  --Old Secesh


Rhett Butler

Battle of Atlanta, the Troup Hurt House-- Part 2: Confederate Break Through

The most famous moments of the Battle of Atlanta occurred at this site:  a mid-afternoon Confederate attack on the entrenched Union 15th Corps, followed shortly by a Federal counterattack.  The Cyclorama shows this decisive moment, taking place at around 4:30 p.m., when Union General John A. Logan rallied his troops to restore the broken Federal line and turn back the attacking Confederates.

Brigadier General Arthur M. Manigault's brigade had spearheaded the mid-afternoon Confederate assault.  Manigault's troops, followed by Col. Jacob H. Sharp's brigade pf Brown's Confederate division, drove a wedge through the Union line at the railroad cut near the present-day Inman Park MARTA station, poured through this opening, and forced the Union defenders to retreat.

Manigault's troops then fanned out to the north and captured the Troup Hurt House and  Captain Francis De Gress's four-gun 20-Pdr. Parrot battery.

--Old Secesh

Battle of Atlanta: The Troup Hurt House-- Part 1: Where Col. Greathouse was killed.

From the Battle of Atlanta Digital Scholarship.

On Digress Avenue:  Site of two famous moments in the Battle of Atlanta: The Confederate capture of the Troup Hurt House and the De Gress Battery and the successful Union counterattack.

Evidently, this is the where Lucien Greathouse was killed in the counterattack.  I was a bit confused by my readings on this battle as apparently the 48th Illinois had retreated and then counter attacked..

The Troup Hurt House is no longer standing but is featured prominently in the Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama painting on high ground north of the Georgia Railroad (now the right of way for MARTA commuter line and the CSX Railroad).

The site is now a privately-owned  home which was a church at one time.  The church was built in 1907.

--Old Secesh

Famed 'Battle of Atlanta' Cyclorama Secure in New Home

From the July 2017, America's Civil War.

One of the world's largest paintings was successfully moved to its new home in February 2017.

Because of its age (131 years) and weight (five tons) and length (more than 100 yards) this process took two days to move nine miles from Atlanta's Grant Park to the Atlanta History center in Buckhead.

It was cut in two and wound around two custom-made steel spools.

In this refreshing in this age of the new destroy anything having to do with Confederates.

--Old Secesh

How Do You Move a Six-Ton Painting-- Part 3: Clark Gable's In It

The Atlanta Cyclorama painting was made by the American Panorama Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the 1880s and these paintings were very popular in this era before movies.  Only one other one still exists today and that one is at Gettysburg.

Many German painters were employed in making these.

Once in its new quarters, the painting will undergo a long restoration process and it is hoped will be on display sometime next year.

A viewing platform will be added at 12 feet high to give viewers a 360-degree experience.  There are also 128 plaster figures in the foreground for depth.  Among those is a Union soldier with Clark Gable's face, created after he and other "Gone With the Wind" actors visited the Cyclorama during the movie's 1939 premier in Atlanta.

--Old Secesh

How Do You Move a Six-Ton Civil War Painting?-- Part 1: Very Carefully

From the February 9, 2017, Yahoo! News, Jeff Martin, AP.

The colossal panoramic painting of the Battle of Atlanta will be lifted by cranes from the building where it has been for almost a century and trucked over to its new location in Atlanta.

The six-ton Cyclorama painting is one of the world's largest paintings and was at its location in Atlanta's Grant Park and now will be seen at the Atlanta History center across town.

Work had already begun on the preparation to move, but the move began Thursday, Feb. 9, and experts believe it will take two days to complete its trek.

It is a massive 15,000 square-foot painting.

You Move It Very Carefully.  --OldPaint

Georgia's "Gone With the Wind" Trail-- Part 2

ATLANTA

Just 20 miles away from Marietta is Atlanta, the city that was burned in November 1864 and less than 75 years later, Margaret Mitchell wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning book in a small downtown apartment she shared with her husband John Marsh.  Mitchell called the two-bedroom basement apartment "The Dungeon."  It is still there and now called the Margaret Mitchell House.  Tours are offered and it has two exhibition galleries pertaining to the book and movie.

HISTORY CENTER

On 33 acres and consists of a historical village and museum on Gone With the Wind and the Wilbur G. Kurtz "History of Gone With the Wind" until April. 2015.

ATLANTA CYCLORAMA

A huge circular canvas of the Battle of Atlanta.

More to See in Atlanta.  --Old Secesh

Protest Planned to Save the Old Gettysburg Cyclorama Building

From the Feb. 14, 2013 Hanover (Pa) Evening Sun by Amy Stansbury.

Richard Neutra designed the Gettysburg Cyclorama Building in the late 1950s to memorialize Pickett's Charge.  The modernistic building was created to unite the country.

Last month, the National Park Service made the decision to tear the building down in keeping with its efforts to return the terrain of the battlefield to the way it looked in July of 1863.

His son, Dion Neutra is leading a protest in an attempt to save it.  This Sunday, February 24th at 1 PM, a mass meeting is planned at the battlefield.  Neutra wants the building repurposed as a Lincoln museum dedicated to the Gettysburg Address. 

As his father built the structure, the Cyclorama was on the second floor and the first was dedicated to Lincoln.

Preliminary assessment of costs put repurposing the building at $21 million and $3.3 million to tear down.  There must be asbestos in it as the repurposing an existing building is quite high to my thinking.

Of Course, I Say "Save IT!!"  --Old Secesh

Goodbye Cyclorama?

From August 27th WITF "Study calls for demolition of Gettysburg Cyclorama Building" by Megan Lello and Rachael Prensner.

A National Park Service environmental study recommends getting rid of this building which once housed a huge painting of Pickett's Charge which was moved to the new museum and visitors center in 2008.

The building has been vacant since then.  Its presence conflicts with the NPS's goal of preserving the landscape the way it looked in 1863.

I always hate to see a building torn down and hopefully they could use it for more displays.  If not, tear it down.

To Save or Not to Save.  --Old Secesh

Atlanta's Grant Park Cyclorama

From the August 25th NBC Alive.

Since 1922, the 360 degree painting of the Battle of Atlanta, once the world's largest painting has been on display at Atlanta's Grant Park. The 42 foot high, 358 foot long painting suffers from neglect, deterioration and few persons visiting it. Its neighborhood is not the best.

There is talk of moving it to Buckhead, the Atlanta Historical center or some site in Downtown Atlanta.

In the 1890s, it traveled with a circus where it was rolled up on telephone poles for travel. The circus went bankrupt and Atlanta ended up with it.

In 1939, Clark Gable was in town for the premier of "Gone With the Wind" and toured it. He remarked, "The painting is great, the only thing that would make it better is if I were in it."

Gable was put on display later that year. He has been lying on his back, mortally wounded, ever since then.

The Ghost of Clark to the Rescue? --Old B-R'er