Who Was Elodie Todd?

From the February 2018 Civil War Times "I do not think of peace" by Susannah J. Ural.

Elodie Todd was a native Kentuckian and was stunned when Confederate officer Nathaniel Dawson proposed marriage just before his company left Selma, Alabama, for Virginia.   She was 12 years his junior and wasn't sure her family would accept, especially since she barely knew Nathaniel.  They kept up a steady stream of letters from April 1861 to April 1862.  The last two posts were taken from her letters to him.

The letters offer insights into the war and, especially her family.  Being from a border state, Kentucky, her family was split as well.  Five of her siblings supported the Union while nine, including herself, supported the Confederacy.

One of her siblings was none other than First Lady of the United States, Mary Todd Lincoln, a half sister.

The letters between Nathaniel Dawson and Elodie have been published  in "Practical Strangers:  The Courtship Correspondence of Nathaniel Dawson and Elodie Todd, Sister of Mary Todd Lincoln."

Her father, Robert Smith Todd, remarried after his first wife, and Mary Todd Lincoln's mother, Elizabeth Ann Parker Todd, died in 1825.

--Old Secesh

Submerged Civil War Relics Could Get a New Home-- Part 2

These 'sunken" weapons are still there. Divers occasionally look in the murky waters for items to sale and sometimes get arrested.

City councilman Greg Bjelke has gotten a $13,160 grant for Selma to study ways to protect the weapons above and below the water. Those recovered are sent to a museum.

Selma was a sleepy village before the war, but the Selma Ordnance and Naval Foundry (the CSS Tennessee was built here) grew to employ 10,000 workers producing pig-iron ingots from Alabama blast furnaces.

Union forces destroyed a million pounds of small arms, ammunition as well as 60,000 artillery shells and 15 siege guns. Another 8,000 pounds of horseshoes, five locomotives, 3 million feet of lumber and 10,000 bushels of coal also were destroyed.

--Old Secesh

Submerged Civil War Relics Could Get a New Home-- Part 1

From the August 21, 2012, Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser by Alvin Benn.

The war was nearly over and Union troops in Alabama had two more missions to complete. Both gave them much pleasure. One was to burn Selma to the ground on April 2, 1865, and the second was to destroy as many weapons as they could by dumping them into the Alabama River.

Selma was one of only two major armament centers in the Confederacy.

It took a week to "sink" the weapons in the river near where the noted Edmund Pettus Bridge was dedicated 85 years later. (This bridge played a role in the Civil Rights Movement.)

Fun At the River. --Old Secesh

Another Loss for the Home Team

From the Sept. 26, 2012, CBS News

The Selma, Alabama, City Council voted to stop work on the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the cemetery because of black marches and opposition.  Ten years ago, their demonstrations led to the statue being removed from outside a public building in a very visible site to the cemetery's Confederate section.

More recently, someone, wonder who, cut the head off the statue.  Groups are trying to restore it, but the blacks and their supporters don't want it.

Looks Like They Have Won This One, At least Temporarily.  --Old Secesh