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Many thanks to the folks at KFBK for airing an interview with Joe Marti, the organizer of the upcoming Gettysburg Address anniversary commemoration at Old City Cemetery.

The ceremony will begin at 10:00AM on Tuesday, November 19, and features well-known Lincoln impressionist Wayne Scott. In addition to Mr Scott’s Lincoln portrayal, we will also unveil a newly repaired grave marker of a Civil War veteran and former Sacramento police officer.

Parking is available across the street from the cemetery entrance. There will be a covered  spectator area, but please dress for the weather!

Mark your calendars: on Saturday, December 14 we will have a live-fire session at one of two local ranges. Brother Bob Maerdian is supplying muskets and ammunition, but you are free to bring your own. Also bring ear and eye protection, if you have it.

The location is yet to be determined, but we should have it nailed down soon. Check back here for updates.

[mantra-pullquote align=”left|center|right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”33%”]”…on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.”[/mantra-pullquote]

On November 11, 1918, at 11:00 on the morning, a lasting quiet finally descended on the trenches of World War I. The armistice agreement between the Allies and Germany brought an end to a war that caused the deaths of more than 16 million people. Most of the Allied nations now celebrate a holiday on November 11 to commemorate the servicemen killed in the war.

The 2012 Veterans Day procession at Sylvan Cemetery.

In the United States, our celebration is slightly different. The holiday we know as Veterans Day honors all American veterans, whether living, dead in action, or deceased from other causes. The official national remembrance of war dead instead falls on the late-May holiday of Memorial Day, which became entrenched in that role in the decades immediately following the Civil War.

The Sylvan Cemetery in Citrus heights will hold Veterans Day ceremony on November 11 at 11:00AM. The ceremony includes a procession of veterans through the cemetery led by Citrus Heights Police and local Boy Scouts. The Sylvan Cemetery is the final resting place of many veterans, and features a military memorial garden. The cemetery was opened in 1862, and is one of the oldest continuously operating cemeteries in the Sacramento region.

Capt. Brad Schall talking with Alcatraz visitors.

“The Rock” was the nickname of the famous prison located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. However, the island was originally used by the US governement as a for during the Civil War. The Alcatraz, along with Fort Point and other key positions around the Golden Gate were used as defensive gun emplacements to defend the bay and the city in case of Confederate attacks. Why would San Francisco be considered a possible target during the Civil War? One word: gold.

The gold that was mined in the Sierra Nevada was sent to San Francisco, where it was shipped to banks on the east coast to fund the war effort. An interruption in the supply of money could have changed the course of the war, so San Francisco was well worth defending.

On September 28, Alcatraz will return to it’s origin days when dozens of Civil War re-enactors will be on the island to lead the public through presentations and demonstrations of life on the island in the 1860’s. For more information on teh event, contact The Friends of the Civil War Alcatraz.

Flag design of the 1st Cherokee Rifles Brigade

Join the members of Gen. Wright Camp 22 as we welcome historian and author Guy “Red Corn” Nixon to the California Military Museum on October 2 at 7:00PM.

Guy is a Native American, whose family history in California goes back to 1846, when his ancestors moved to El Dorado County from Oklahoma. He ahs done extensive research on his ancestry, which includes Osage, Pawnee, and Cherokee heritage.

Among his famous ancestors: a first cousin to his family is Sequoyah, the man credited as the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary. Another relative, John Mathews, a cousin of his grandfather, is reputed to be the first American pilot credited with an air-to-air combat kill in World War I, and was also the first Native American to attend Oxford University.

At the October 2 meeting, Guy will be talking about his Civil War heritage, which includes ancestors who fought in Native American brigades for the Confederacy.

Guy has written a number of books about his ancestors, and about his genealogical research process. Titles include: “A River Divided The Story & Biography of ‘ Chief ‘ Coppa Hembo,” “Slavery in the West,” “The Battle over Hell Hole and Rubicon in El Dorado and Placer Counties, California 1907,” “From Warrior to Judge The Biography of Wahshashowahtinega Bill Nixon Hapashutsy of the Osage Tribe 1843 to 1917,” and “Finding Your Native American Ancestors.”

For information about Guy, see this article in the Mountain Press Democrat.

The Placerville Library is hosting two very special Civil War events this month. The first event, on September 14, is an in-depth examination of two of the most important battles fought in Virginia, Chancellorsville and Frederickburg.

The second event, on September 21, is an interactive display of Civil War camp life and medical practices. Both events start at 11:00AM, and are at the Placerville Library, 345 Fair Lane, Placerville, CA.

For more information, contact the library at (530) 621-5540 or visit the library’s website.

All members of the public are hereby invited to attend a speech by President Abraham Lincoln in Sacramento’s City Cemetery on the 19th of November, 2013.

The President will be speaking upon the occasion of the dedication of a new cemetery, honoring the brave men who defended the Union in the great victory at Gettysburg. He will give his Address during a ceremony beginning at 10 o’clock in the morning.

All ages are welcome, especially children of school age. One and all should pass  the word to friends and neighbors about this historic event!

You’re invited to visit Camp 22 on Saturday,August 31 in historic Old Sacramento. We will be there for the annual Gold Rush Days celebration, so stop by the California Military Museum and see our display of Civil War weapons and artifacts, and meet some Union Army soldiers. If you’re lucky, you may even meet General Wright himself!

This year, we will feature a display about the USS Camanche, the only “ironclad” warship to serve in California during the Civil War. We also will be displaying an officer’s field desk, along with some pistols, swords, and rifles.

Sacramento has a significant Civil War history. It was center of the political debate over whether California would stay in the Union or join the Confederacy. Also, Company B of the 8th California Regiment was recruited here, and during the war the company was sent to Fort Point, then Fort Stevens (in Oregon) to guard against potential Confederate attacks on the gold supply.

This is the second in a series of posts about Civil War veterans buried in the Old City Cemetery who were awarded the Medal of Honor – the highest military honor awarded by the United States.

Newton Thomas Gould (May 14, 1843 – April 2, 1925) was a Union Army soldier during the American Civil War. He received the Medal of Honor for gallantry during the Siege of Vicksburg on May 22, 1863.

Gould joined the 113th Illinois Infantry in August 1862. On May 22, 1863, General Ulysses S. Grant ordered an assault on the Confederate heights at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The plan called for a storming party of volunteers to build a bridge across a moat and plant scaling ladders against the enemy embankment in advance of the main attack.

The volunteers knew the odds were against survival and the mission was called, in nineteenth century vernacular, a “forlorn hope“. Only single men were accepted as volunteers and even then, twice as many men as needed came forward and were turned away. Gould was one of the volunteers selected to carry out the assault.

The attack began in the early morning following a naval bombardment. The Union soldiers came under enemy fire immediately and were pinned down in the ditch they were to cross. Despite repeated attacks by the main Union body, the men of the forlorn hope were unable to retreat until nightfall. Of the 150 men in the storming party, nearly half were killed. Seventy-nine of the survivors were awarded the Medal of Honor, including Newton Gould.

Gould continued to serve with the 113th Illinois until the war ended in June 1865. He died on April 2, 1925, at age 81 and was buried at Old City Cemetery in Sacramento, California.

The Camp22 clean-up crew at work in Old City Cemetery

Camp 22 recently did some work at the Old City Cemetery in Sacramento. On Saturday, June 15, they cleaned more than 70 headstones and repaired an interpretive sign at the G.A.R. monument.

See more information and a photo gallery here. Or, visit the cemetery to see the results for yourself!