West Virginia Encyclopedia

 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- If Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Confederate Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson and first lady Mary Todd Lincoln were ever in the same room, it probably would have looked something like their gathering at the Craik-Patton House last week.

As expected, Grant and Mary Todd bickered constantly. The first lady accused the Union general of being an inept drunk and an unrepentant cigar smoker. Poor Grant tried to defend himself from her nagging insults.

"Everybody believes what they've been printing in the newspapers," Grant grumbled as he waved his unlit cigar.

"Is that your lame excuse?" retorted the first lady.

No, the famous historical characters did not rise from the dead for an afternoon of hobnobbing. Grant, Mrs. Lincoln and Jackson, played by long-time Civil War re-enactors Barry Meadows, Joyce Browning and Steve Cassel agreed to meet at the 1830s-era Craik-Patton House on Kanawha Boulevard last week to commemorate the 14th-annual Civil War Weekend in Putnam County, which begins Friday at Hurricane's Valley Park.

The three characters will make appearances throughout the weekend, along with actors playing President Abraham Lincoln, Confederate spy Belle Boyd and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Lee and Boyd, played by Al Stone of Hinton and Patty Sue Cooper of Parkersburg, could not make it to get-together at the house last week. They sent their apologies via "telegraph," and left stoic Stonewall to deal with two arguing Yankees.

The first lady and her husband's commanding general had a notorious distaste for each other. She believed Grant needlessly sent Union soldiers to their doom.

Thousands of Civil War enthusiasts head to Putnam every year for Civil War Weekend, when hundreds of re-enactors bring back to life the two minor fights that took place there: the Battle of Scary Creek and the Blue and Gray Skirmish at Hurricane Bridge.

On July 17, 1861, before the war's first major engagement, the Battle of Bull Run, Yankee forces commanded by Gen. Jacob Cox pushed through the Kanawha Valley and met several thousand Rebel soldiers near Scary Creek, in Scott Depot.

Confederate Col. George S. Patton, grandfather of the famous World War II general, commanded the line at Scary Creek, according to the West Virginia Encyclopedia.

After a five-hour firefight, and several unsuccessful Union charges across the Scary Creek Bridge, Patton repelled the federal assault and won the battle. Few soldiers died on either side, but Patton was seriously wounded during one Union surge.

Two years later, on March 18, 1863, Confederate and Union forces met again, at Hurricane Bridge. Again, the fighting lasted about five hours and few men died. Both armies eventually withdrew, according to information from the Civil War Weekend's website.

Friday at 9 p.m., the re-enactors will light up the sky with an artillery-fire demonstration. Most of the cannons were used during the war and were restored to working condition, said Lee Casto, one of the organizers of the weekend's events.

Casto has been helping to put Civil War Weekend together for most of the event's 14-year existence, and said the county is "plum full of Civil War history."

He has heard tales of two Rock Branch brothers who joined opposing sides when the war broke out and ended up meeting each other at the Battle of Scary Creek.

"If you sit down and talk to people, you'll hear stories like that," Casto said. "Our county is still a little rural, and neighbors still talk to neighbors."

The Craik-Patton Hhouse is named, in part, after the same Col. Patton who beat back Union advances at Scary Creek. He lived in the house before the war broke out.

Meadows, Browning and Cassel have been re-enacting for years. When dressed in their authentic-looking Civil War garb, the three stay true to their characters, and are forced to improvise when faced with a blatantly modern concept.

They refer to cars roaring down nearby Interstate 77/64 as fast-moving horseless carriages. Walmart is usually some variation of "Wally's Mercantile."

The presentation is noticeably nontheatrical, though. The re-enactors do not inflect their voices or make overdramatic gestures. They see themselves as defenders of history, not actors in a movie.

Gen. Jackson, for instance, was known as calm, reserved, modest and soft-spoken. Cassel takes care to portray a precise emulation of the legendary general. On some days, "Stonewall" walks with Cassel, who in those moments transforms into a vessel of the general's identity.

"You actually have to become that person," Cassel said. "You start to believe that that person starts to speak to you."

Meadows said that, sometimes, it's the spectators who take the parts too far. A few years ago, after Meadows gave a presentation as Grant, genuine Confederate sympathizers confronted him and accused Grant of being a hypocrite for owning slaves before the war.

Meadows began defending Grant as if the sympathizers were attacking his own character. According to some historians, Grant owned slaves before the war, but later denounced the practice.

"I have found that I am becoming Grant at times," Meadows said. "On weekends, I become someone else."

All three said they recognize the Civil War as the "crossroads of the nation" and see re-enactment as a teaching tool for one of the most important events in American history.

"Our very being is rooted in the Civil War," Browning said.

The Putnam County Civil War Weekend is co-sponsored by the county Convention and Visitor's Bureau, Parks and Recreation, the City of Hurricane, and the Hurricane Woman's Club. The event runs through until Sunday. For information, visit www.putnamcountycvb.com or www.civilwardays.com. Reach Zac Taylor at Zachary.Tay...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5189.