Who is this person?

[L Verge]

(01-19-2018 08:27 PM)Anita Wrote:  

(01-19-2018 06:58 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  This is a question Laurie sent me.

Who is this man?

It's Duff Green. Because of recent post about him by Laurie I took a chance and Googled him .

Check this out. http://www.duffgreenmansion.com

Experience the American Civil War
at the Duff Green Mansion

Step into the Civil war era by experiencing the Duff Green Mansion. Learn what daily life was like for Duff and Mary Lake Green as they married, built their home and she gave birth to their first child in a civil war cave.

You can tour their home from the ballroom danced in by Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant to sitting by a fireplace in the former kitchen turned operating room where you might see the Confederate soldier ghost.

You can sleep in an antique bed surrounded by period furniture and you can visit the site of the civil war cave on the property.

Experience the civil war at the Duff Green Mansion.

Visit us for a tour, spend the night or host your next event in the home or on the secluded patio surrounding the swimming pool.

Absolutely correct, both Anita and Gene. Anita, thanks for doing what I hoped everyone would do after I posted about Duff Green. You saved me from having to come up with clues! BTW: There is something about that photo that reminds me of the statue in D.C. (in the front of the LOC?) of the god, Neptune, with his trident in hand...

As for the mansion, its use during the war reminds me of the Franklin, Tennessee, mansion that was used as a hospital and still retains the bloodstained floors. (I can never remember its name, but it is the centerpiece of the historical novel The Last Confederate Widow).

Carnton Plantation is the name of the historic site in Franklin, Tennessee. See history below.

I am not a devotee of historical novels, but I do enjoy ones that are well-written. When I read the book about this family, and especially their war and post-war experiences, I actually cried. Someday, I would love to visit the site, if for nothing else than to pay my respects at the Confederate cemetery on its grounds that the plantation mistress created by reburying the dead who had been hastily buried on the battlefield.

Battle of Franklin (excerpt from Wiki..)

John McGavock was 46 when the Civil War began and was too old to enlist, but he helped outfit and organize groups of Southern soldiers. Carrie contributed to the war effort by sewing uniforms for relatives and friends. As the war got closer to home, John McGavock sent most of his slaves to Louisiana so they wouldn’t be taken by Federal authorities. When Federal troops took control of Middle Tennessee, and learned of the McGavocks’ efforts to aid the South, they took thousands of dollars of grain, horses, cattle and timber from the plantation.

On November 30, 1864, Carnton became the largest temporary field hospital for tending the wounded and dying after the Battle of Franklin. The home was situated less than one mile (1.6 km) from the location of the activity that took place on the far Union Eastern flank. More than 1,750 Confederates lost their lives at Franklin, and on Carnton's back porch four Confederate generals’ bodies—Patrick Cleburne, John Adams, Otho F. Strahl and Hiram B. Granbury—were laid out for a few hours after the battle.

The McGavocks tended for as many as 300 soldiers inside Carnton alone, though at least 150 died the first night. Hundreds more were spread throughout the rest of the property, including in the slave cabins. Carrie McGavock donated food, clothing and supplies to care for the wounded and dying, and witnesses say her dress was blood soaked at the bottom. Carrie's two children, Hattie (then nine) and son Winder (then seven) witnessed the carnage as well, providing some basic assistance to the surgeons.


McGavock Cemetery with Carnton in background (photo would not transfer)

After the battle, on December 1, Union forces under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield evacuated toward Nashville, leaving all the dead, including several hundred Union soldiers, and the wounded who were unable to walk as well. The residents of Franklin were then faced with the task of burying over 2,500 soldiers, most of those being Confederates. According to George Cowan's "History of McGavock Confederate Cemetery," "All of the Confederate dead were buried as nearly as possible by states, close to where they fell, and wooden headboards were placed at each grave with the name, company and regiment painted or written on them."[5] Many of the Union soldiers were re-interred in 1865 at the Stones River National Cemetery in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Over the next eighteen months many of the markers were either rotting or used for firewood, and the writing on the boards was disappearing. To preserve the graves, John and Carrie McGavock donated 2 acres (8,100 m2) of their property to be designated as an area for the Confederate dead to be re-interred. The citizens of Franklin raised the funding and the soldiers were exhumed and reburied in the McGavock Confederate Cemetery for the sum of $5.00 per soldier. A team of individuals led by George Cuppett took responsibility for the reburial operation of 1,481 soldiers, and one civilian, Marcellus Cuppett, George's brother who had died during the process of the reburials, in the spring of 1866. The original names and identities of the soldiers were recorded in a cemetery record book by Cuppett, and the book fell into the watchful hands of Carrie McGavock after the reinterments.

After the war, McGavock continued to farm Carnton under sharecropping arrangements with former slaves until his death in 1893.

20th century

Carrie McGavock managed the maintenance of the cemetery with African-American workers for 41 years until her death in 1905. A prayer in the Confederate Veteran magazine mentioned Carrie McGavock in 1905.

P.S. Some historians consider the carnage and strange tactics at the Battle of Franklin comparable to Pickett's Charge.