Big Tent Farbs at Vicksburg

[Silas]

I ran across this recently and thought it was worth posting. So, here's a link to the photo of "Mess B" at the National Memorial Reunion and Peace Jubilee of October, 1917, at Vicksburg. From the report generated after the event, three meals a day for four days were served to these veterans. The menu had prunes available for just about every meal to these hearty veterans.

Serious question: does anyone know the specific day when and location where the "Walking Cane War" commenced? Being publicised as a unity weekend during the Great War, this last skirmish involving CW participants made the local newspaper, but didn't make the official report for the event.

[ephraim_zook]

Re: Big Tent Farbs at Vicksburg

Silas,

16 - 19 October 1917.

I reached this city from Nogales, Ariz., on March 26, 1917, and looking into the situation found great difficulty with regard to camp site, the terrain being extremely broken with little level ground anywhere. Upon careful survey, however, a place was found where with considerable cutting and filling it appeared that a camp site could be improvised. This was in the Vicksburg National Military Park immediately south of the park spur of the Alabama & Vicksburg Railway, which company agreed to a grade crossing and promised to put in a 1,000-foot platform for reunion purposes.

From a report to the Quartermaster General of the Army written by Colonel Willard D Newbill, Quartermaster Corps, Vicksburg.

I did a google search on "national memorial reunion and peace jubilee 1917" and the full text of the report showed up as the second hit. Some interesting reading in there.

regards
Ron Myzie

[Silas]

Re: Big Tent Farbs at Vicksburg

I have that report. It's a fantastic document. I've read it from beginning to end a couple times this week. There's nothing about the "walking stick war" mentioned in his report. Being a "peace jubilee" there wouldn't be any reason to mention the last known skirmish of CW veterans. I'm trying to get some specifics about where the skirmish occurred and its extent.

I was looking in volumes of Confederate Veteran yesterday and didn't see anything other than positive spin. As big as the event was, the big push for the UCV that year was a Confederate reunion in Washington, D.C., in early June. Several monuments were unveiled at Gettysburg during that weekend. There was a big parade of Confederate veterans down Pennsylvania Avenue. Even then, there was politics about which event to attend. The peace jubilee was sponsored by an Illinois based veterans group.

I suspect the "walking stick war" is a drink with a heavy dose of sappy myth with a few sprinkles of truth. Of the roughly 12,000 veterans who attended, only 42 were hospitalized over the week long celebration. No known deaths, but there was one poor guy who fell off a truck and broke a hip. He was hospitalized for as many as ten days.

[ephraim_zook]

Re: Big Tent Farbs at Vicksburg

I didn't have a chance to read through the entire report. I was at work when I found it. I'm sorry I gave you redundant info. I'll need to do some more digging. You've piqued my interest.

Ron Myzie