Cover: Former governor William C. Oates served as a brigadier general in the Spanish-American War. (Courtesy the Alabama Department of Archives and History.)


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Spring 2007, Issue 84

Article Abstracts and Supplements

•Captain Oates and His Red-Shirted Boys
•Montevallo: Mound in a Valley
•Shot Seen ‘Round the World: The Tommy Langston Photo
•Ornamental Ironwork—Signature of Antebellum Mobile
 •Departments



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Captain Oates and His Red-Shirted Boys
By Glenn W. LaFantasie

At the dawn of the Civil War, future Alabama governor William C. Oates organized a company of 121 men on the steps of the Abbeville court house. Though most of the men had no battlefield experience, they nevertheless enthusiastically marched northwards carrying dreams of glory and a strong devotion to the Confederacy. On their journey, these young men—known as Company G of the 15th Alabama—were introduced to the stark realities of a soldier’s life, facing death and hardship as they traveled closer to the war and were thrust into some of its most notorious battles. They would be immortalized at Gettysburg’s Little Round Top.


Additional Information
http://www.archives.state.al.us/govs_list/g_oatesw.html

William C. Oates, The War Between the Union and the Confederacy and Its Lost Opportunities (New York and Washington, The Neale Publishing Co., 1905).

William C. Jordan, Some Events and Incidents During the Civil War (Montgomery, Ala.: Paragon Press, 1909).

William A. McClendon, Recollections of War Times by an Old Veteran While Under Stonewall Jackson and Lieutenant General James Longstreet (1909).

Edmund Cody Burnett, ed., “Letters of Barnett Hardeman Cody and Others, 1861–1864,” Georgia Historical Quarterly, 23 (1939), 265-299, 362-380.

J. Gary Laine and Morris M. Penny, Law’s Alabama Brigade in the War Between the Union and the Confederacy (Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1996).


About the Author
Glenn W. LaFantasie, who received his PhD in History from Brown University, is the Richard Frockt Family Professor of Civil War History and Director of the Center for the Study of the Civil War in the West at Western Kentucky University. He is the author of Gettysburg Requiem: The Life and Lost Causes of Confederate Colonel William C. Oates (Oxford University Press, 2006), Twilight at Little Round Top (Wiley, 2005), and other works on the Civil War. Professor LaFantasie, who served as Deputy Historian of the U.S. Department of State in Washington from 1991 to 1995, has formerly taught at the University of Rhode Island, Gettysburg College, and the University of Maine at Farmington. His articles regularly appear in Civil War Times, North & South, American History, America’s Civil War, and MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. He lives with his wife, Donna, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They have three grown children.


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 When Alabama did design its own state flag in 1895, it looked very similar to this flag of the 15th Alabama Regiment, carried by Oates and his men. (Courtesy the Alabama Department of Archives and History.)
William C. Oates had little idea of the horrors that he would witness during the Civil War. After the war, Oates advocated unsuccessfully for a marker at Gettysburg to commemorate the 15th Alabama’s actions at Little Round Top. (Courtesy the Alabama Department of Archives and History.)
Not every wartime moment was tumultuous. Confederate troops often spent calm, sometimes even monotonous, afternoons at camp. (Courtesy the Library of Congress.)
This calm scene at Sudley Ford on Bull Run, taken after the Confederates had withdrawn from the area, belied the horrors that Oates and his men witnessed when they visited the Manassas battlefield a year earlier. (Courtesy the Library of Congress.)
Confederate troops march towards the base of LittleRound Top, on the left, at the beginning of the assault. (Painting by Edwin Forbes. Courtesy Library of Congress.)
Union artillery on Little Round Top fires onthe ranks of approaching Confederates, prior to the 20thMaine’s downhill charge. (Painting by Edwin Forbes. Courtesy Library of Congress.)
Oates did his best to expose his men to the horrors of war, but the 15th Alabama could not possibly have been prepared for the massive numbers of soldiers who would die at Gettysburg.(Courtesy the Library of Congress.)
According to one photographer, the body of this Confederate soldier, who died at Gettysburg in July 1863 remained in the same spot, unburied, four months later. (Courtesy the Library of Congress.)
In 1902, at one of the 15th Alabama’s reunions, veterans issued statements urging officials at Gettysburg to create a battlefield memorial in honor of the 15th Alabama’s efforts at Little Round Top. (Courtesy the Alabama Department of Archives and History.)
After injury forced him to leave the war, Oates returned to Abbeville, where he practiced law from the front parlor of his home, shown here in 1934. (Courtesy the Historic American Buildings Survey and the Library of Congress.)
Montevallo: Mound in a Valley
By Alissa Nutting

From the earliest Creek inhabitants and Jacksonian pioneers who revered Montevallo for its beauty and fertility, a unique appreciation and spirit has long surrounded the city. As Montevallo developed over time into a lively town of commerce and community, residents began to nurture their love for the area into a vision of education, industry, faith, and recreation. An exploration of the city’s past reveals how present-day Montevallo has stayed true to the preservation of its many riches.


Additional Information
http://www.cityofmontevallo.com/

http://www.montevallo.edu/

http://www.rootsweb.com/~alshelby/schs.html

Alabama Girls’ Technical Institute Bulletin. Montevallo, AL: The Institute, 1915–1916.

Annual Catalogue of the Girls’ Industrial School of Alabama. Montevallo, AL: The School, (Columbia, S.C. : Bryan Ptg.), 1897–1898. Montevallo, AL: Times Printing Co., 1990.

“Early Days In and Around Montevallo.” Montevallo News. 1895. The Shelby Chronicle. 1897. Shelby County Historical Society. Copied by Bobby Joe Seales 1898. http://www.rootsweb.com/~alshelby/Montevallo.html .

Getting acquainted with Shelby County : an introductory resource study. Montevallo, AL: Alabama College, 1945.

Griffith, Lucille. Alabama College, 1896–1969. Montevallo, AL: 1969.

Harrison, Fairfax. The Independent Woman; An Address Before the Alabama Girl’s Technical Institute, Montevallo, Alabama, October 17, 1914. Washington: 1914.

Johnson, Golda W. The Lives and Times of Kingswood in Alabama: 1817–1890. Montevallo, AL: University of Montevallo, 1976.

Kelly, Maggie Lou. A History of the First United Methodist Church of Montevallo: 1818–1979. Montevallo, AL: Times Printing Co., 1979.

Meroney, Eloise. Montevallo: The First One Hundred Years. Montevallo, AL: Times Printing Co., 1977.

National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. A study of the employability of women in Alabama, 1929–1935 : a study / conducted by the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Inc., and the Alabama Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, in cooperation with Alabama College. Montevallo, AL: Alabama College, 1936.

The One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Battles of Montevallo and Bibb Furnace: March 31 & April 1, 1990. Montevallo, AL: Times Printing Co., 1990.

Steckel, Minnie L. The Alabama Business Woman as Citizen. A Study Conducted by the Alabama Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs in Collaboration with Alabama College, Montevallo, Alabama. Montevallo, AL: Alabama College, 1937.

Tipton, Mary Frances. Years Rich and Fruitful: University of Montevallo 1896–1996. Montevallo, AL: University of Montevallo, 1996.

Welcome to Alabama College at Montevallo. Montevallo, AL: The College, 1900.


About the Author
Alissa Nutting is an Assistant Editor at Alabama Heritage. She lives in Tuscaloosa where she is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama and editor of the Black Warrior Review. Her fiction has appeared in various literary journals including Swink, The Southeast Review, Ecotone, and Versal, and is forthcoming in a short-story anthology from Tin House Books. The author wishes to thank Marshall Goggins, Bobby Joe Seales, and the inspiration of Eloise Merony’s book Montevallo: The First One Hundred Years for being invaluable resources.
Back to Top		 From the beginning, residents of this picturesque Alabama town were committed to an exceptional quality of life—heart, mind, body, and soul. (Courtesy Marshall Goggins.)
The picture of affluence, Kingswood came to symbolize wealth in Montevallo. Slave labor allowed for each brick to be made from local clay. (Photo by Robin McDonald.)
Reynolds Hall, built in 1851 on land donated by Edmund King, served as Montevallo’s first school. It was in front of this building that local troops were mustered for the Civil War. (Photo by Robin McDonald.)
The Montevallo First Baptist Church, shown in the late 1870s,was rebuilt in 1858 on a lot donated by Edmund King after the original building collapsed. (Courtesy Marshall Goggins.)
The first faculty of the AGIS posed for this photo shortly after the school’s opening in 1896. These instructors had the support of an entire town that was elated to be home to an institution of higher learning. (Courtesy Bobby Joe Seals and the Shelby County Historical Society, Inc.)
Seeking inspiration from the world around them, this class of AGIS art students (c.1900) take their canvases and pencils to the field. (Courtesy Marshall Goggins.)
Main Hall is still the largest dormitory on the University of Montevallo campus. (Photo by Robin McDonald.)
In 1908, construction was underway on a Main Dormitory for the A.G.I.S. The campus, including the home of Dr. Thomas Waverly Palmer, the school’s president, can be seen in the background. (Courtesy Bobby Joe Seals and the Shelby County Historical Society, Inc.)
Wearing regulation wool bathing suits, these A.G.I.S. students enjoy a swim in the school pool circa 1920. At 30 x 65 ft., the pool was one of the largest in Alabama. (Courtesy Bobby Joe Seales, the Shelby Country Historical Society.)
While Orr park has long been popular for its recreation areas, the figures carved into dead trees by local resident Timothy Tingle also charm visitors. The park currently hosts around thirty carvings and counting. (Photos by Anderson B. Scott.)
While Orr park has long been popular for its recreation areas, the figures carved into dead trees by local resident Timothy Tingle also charm visitors. The park currently hosts around thirty carvings and counting. (Photos by Anderson B. Scott.)
Located on the current University of Montevallo campus where the Alice Boyd building stands today, Montevallo’s first public school quickly grew from its one-room beginnings. Its third room was a new addition in this 1908 photo. (Courtesy Marshall Goggins.)
Demonstrating the town’s jovial spirit, here a group of men dress up at city hall for a “womanless wedding.” When civic organizations staged such events, a good laugh was had by all. (Courtesy Marshall Goggins.)
Greatly responsible for Montevallo’s industrial boom in the mid-1800s, this steam engine pumped new money from visiting merchants and tourists into the town’s economy. (Courtesy Marshall Goggins.)
An early resident completes a transaction at a window inside the Montevallo Bank circa 1905. (Courtesy Bobby Joe Seals and the Shelby County Historical Society, Inc.)
These AGIS home economics students busily hone their cooking skills. Home economics was a major field of study at the Girls’ Industrial School. (Courtesy Bobby Joe Seals and the Shelby County Historical Society, Inc.)
Shot Seen ‘Round the World: The Tommy Langston Photo
By Clarke Stallworth

On May 14, 1961, Birmingham Post-Herald photographer Tommy Langston waited for the Freedom Riders to arrive in the Birmingham Trailways bus station. The Freedom Riders had already been attacked on their journey south, and Langston was prepared for a scene. What he did not know, however, was that the violence he would document that day would go on to endanger his life and alter the course of a revolution.


Additional Information
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5149667

About the Author
The son of a country doctor in Thomaston, Alabama, Clarke Stallworth attended Marion Institute, Emory University, and received his BA in journalism from the University of North Carolina. He was city editor of the Birmingham Post-Herald and managing editor and columnist at the Birmingham News. For the past twenty years, he has been a newspaper consultant, visiting more than one hundred daily newspapers and giving more than five hundred workshops for press associations. He has made thirty-three presentations at the Alabama Press Institute in Reston, Virginia. He has taught journalism at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Samford University, and Jacksonville State University. He is the author of three books on Alabama history. He is married to Anne Nall Stallworth, author of three published novels. They have two children and three grandchildren.


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 George Webb is beaten by a mob of Klansmen in the Birmingham Trailways bus station. Tommy Langston’s famous photo is the only surviving image of the brutality that took place that day. Gary Thomas Rowe, Klansman and FBI informant, is second from the right, with his back to the camera. (Photo by Tommy Langston, courtesy Birmingham Post-Herald and Bettmann/CORBIS.)
The Freedom Riders expected trouble in Birmingham. One of their busses had already been attacked and burned in Anniston. (Courtesy Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.)
Tommy Langston began working for the Birmingham Post-Herald immediately after he graduated from college. He would continue to work there until he retired, thirty-eight years later. (Courtesy Tommy Langston.)
Ornamental Ironwork—Signature of Antebellum Mobile
By John Sledge
Photography by Sheila Hagler

Early Mobile's bare, simple streets matched its lack of prosperity. But after Alabama's statehood, the city's ports began to thrive and the face of Mobile changed accordingly. As the city became richer and more populated, business owners imported large amounts of iron from northern foundries to make impressive decorations for their establishments. Through much of the nineteenth century, the trade of ornamental ironwork grew quickly in Mobile, infusing the city's austere beginnings with the unique, lush verandas and building-sides it is still renowned for today.


Additional Information
http://www.mobilehd.org/ornament.php


About the Author
John Sledge was born in Gainesville, Florida, in 1957 and moved with his family to central Alabama in 1962. He grew up in Montevallo but has deep roots on the Gulf Coast. His mother lived in the Pontalba Building in New Orleans as a child, and his father grew up in Georgia Cottage on Springhill Avenue, home of Victorian authoress Augusta Evans Wilson. Sledge holds a BA in history and Spanish from Auburn University and a master’s degree in historic preservation from Middle Tennessee State University. He is an architectural historian with the Mobile Historic Development Commission, where he has worked since 1985. He is the author of two books, Cities of Silence: A Guide to Mobile’s Historic Cemeteries (University of Alabama Press, 2002) and An Ornament to the City: Old Mobile Ironwork (University of Georgia Press, 2006). In addition, Sledge is Books editor for the Mobile Press-Register. He lives in Fairhope with his wife and daughter. This article is adapted from John Sledge’s new book, An Ornament to the City: Old Mobile Ironwork published by the University of Georgia Press (www.ugapress.uga.edu). Publication of this book was made possible in part by a grant from the A. S. Mitchell Foundation.

Sheila Hagler, who resides in Grand Bay, Alabama, is a fine art photographer specializing in black and white. For nine years, she has taught students (middle and high school) in south Mobile County as an artist in residence for the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Her program, Merging of Cultures, produced the post-Katrina exhibition, "Eyes of the Storm." Hagler is also one of three women featured in a PBS documentary airing nationwide this year, "Living Courageously: The Spirit of Women." Hagler was nominated because of her work with at-risk, post-Katrina children in Bayou La Batre.


Back to Top		 This lovely railing, imported from the Philadelphia foundry Wood and Perot, flanks the steps at the Richards House (1860), at 256 N. Joachim Street. Richards was a wealthy steamboat captain from Maine. (Copyright 2006 by Sheila Hagler.)
Detail from the Goodwin and Haire map, 1824. This cotton warehouse, long since destroyed, featured one of the earliest iron balconies in the Port City. (Courtesy the University of South Alabama Archives.)
The gates and fence at Barton Academy (1836), 504 Government Street, are an elegant manifestation of neoclassicism in iron. The fence palings, matching the gate bars, are spaced at intervals of fifteen by posts cast as Roman fasces (bundles of sticks bound by leather and symbolizing authority). (Copyright 2006 by Sheila Hagler.)
Human figures in ornamental ironwork are rare. Here is a detail of the Richards House verandah in winter. (Copyright 2006 by Sheila Hagler.)
The Richards House is dramatically demarcated from the sidewalk by one of the best-preserved cast iron residential fences in the city. (Copyright 2006 by Sheila Hagler.)
An example of the Port City's most beautiful ornamental ironwork, the Slatter Mausoleum (1860) and its surrounding Gothic Revival fence in Magnolia Cemetery were ordered by a cotton factor. The pieces arrived in forty heavily packed wooden boxes. (Copyright 2006 by Sheila Hagler.)
The iron deer in Washington Square had suffered vandalism prior to its 2004 restoration. (Copyright 2006 by Sheila Hagler.)
Moved four times in response to shifting political winds, this statue known as “Sambo” has at last found peace outside Mobile's National African American Archives, 564 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. (Copyright 2006 by Sheila Hagler.)
 

Departments
Alabama Treasures
Ella Smith and the Alabama Indestructible Doll
By Susan Hales

The eccentric Ella Smith of Roanoke, an art instructor and amateur inventor, was one of few women who held patents in the early twentieth century. After her retirement Smith pursued a goal to produce an indestructible doll for children. Because of Smith’s artistic skill and business sense, her creations have since proved to have a value as durable as the dolls themselves.


About the Author
Susan Warley Hales is an artist and writer living in Mobile, Alabama, where she recently received her BFA in Studio Art with a thesis show in which dolls were used to represent her family stories. In researching and purchasing the dolls for the paintings she became aware of the Alabama Indestructible Doll of Roanoke. Susan will complete her MA in Creative Writing in June 2007 from the University of South Alabama where she currently works at the University Library. 		Touted as the “Alabama Indestructible Doll,” Ella Smith’s creations now survive primarily in museums and private collections. (Courtesy the Museum of East Alabama.)
Estimates suggest Smith’s business produced eight thousand dolls per year. (Courtesy the Museum of East Alabama.)
The Roanoke Historical Museum contains several reproductions of Ella Smith dolls.
The Roanoke Historical Museum contains several reproductions of Ella Smith dolls.
Two of the original Ella Smith Dolls, also in the Roanoke Historical Museum. The doll on the left, with the sewn-on ears, is the older of the two.
 
Nature Journal
Doodlebugs and Antlions
By L. J. Davenport

Many people worldwide share the common childhood memory of lying by the hole of a doodlebug and urging it to come out with a rhyming plea. Larry Davenport describes the life process of the doodlebug and also accounts for the cultural significance of the ever-present insect, discussing its many appearances in literature as well as the variations of doodlebug rhymes across the globe.


Additional Information
http://www.antlionpit.com/


About the Author
Larry Davenport is a professor of biology at Samford University, Birmingham.
 A freshly dug-up doodlebug, a half-inch long, brandishes its menacing pincers, Jefferson County. (Digital photograph by W. Mike Howell.)
Reading the Southern Past
White Folks and the Civil Rights Movement
By Stephen Goldfarb

Jason Sokol and Gary May have each published books on the white response to the civil rights movement, There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945–1975 and The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo, respectively. Stephen Goldfarb summarizes both works and discusses the differing focus in each one.


About the Author
Stephen Goldfarb holds a PhD in the history of science and technology. He retired from a public library in 2003.


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