Notes & Queries

Notes & Queries EDITED BY BOYD B. STUTLER 517 Main Street Charleston, West Virginia this department is designed as an open forum for researchers and readers of Civil War History for questions on phases of the Great Conflict and its personnel. Also for notes on newly discovered or unrecorded sidelights of the war. Contributions are invited — address Notes and Queries Editor. QUERIES 15.General Ambrose P. Hill, CSA: I am engaged in writing a biography of General A. P. Hill, CSA, and am in need of some vital materials; any information will be greatly appreciated . Particularly wanted is information as to the location of the diary kept by the General during the war years, and a war-time picture of the General mounted on horseback. Also needed are newspaper items concerning the wedding of Hill and Kitty Morgan McClung, July 18, 1859, and data concerning the life of Mrs. Hill after the death of her husband in 1865. Cameron L. Meacham (Rev.) 16.Iowa Cavalry at Pohick Church: In the stone work of the old Pohick Church in Fairfax County, Virginia — near Mount Vernon, General Washington's church, of which he was a vestryman — there were once many names and initials cut by Iowa troopers , with their Regimental designations. Many of these have disappeared with the erosion of the years, but some still remain. It is well known that troops were stationed there during the Civil War, but I can find no record of Iowa troops, either infantry or cavalry, serving in the East. Of course, many regiments of Iowa infantry came to Washington with Sherman for 101 102BOYD B. STUTLER the Grand Review in 1865, at the close of the war, and undoubtedly passed and perhaps camped at Pohick Church, but I can find no record of Iowa cavalry being present. If Iowa cavalry did take part in the review, the troopers would hardly have bothered to cut their names and organizations in the stone during a temporary stop. The carvings would indicate an extended tour when time hung heavily on their hands, and not a brief camp while preparing for the review. Query: What was Iowa cavalry doing at Pohick Church during the Civil War? Henry S. Merrick (Lt. Col, AUS, Retd.) 17.Confederate F/ag With One Star: I have a hand-made flag of undoubted Confederate manufacture, composed of the same colors and arrangement as the "Stars and Bars" but with only one large white star in the union. About fifty years ago an inquiry was made to the Confederate Veteran about a flag of this same design, but it was never identified in that magazine. Query: Can any one tell me something about this flag, and when and where such a design was used? Joseph M. O'Brien 18.Lincoln's Famous Epigram: Query; What is the origin of, and when and where did Lincoln utter the famous epigram: "You can fool all the people some of the time; and some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all the people all the time."? Shaw's Lincoln Encyclopedia, citing Vol. 3, Tandy's Collected Works as the source, gives the date incorrectly as September 8, 1858, and the place as Clinton, Illinois. Roy Basler, Editor, in a footnote in Vol. 3, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), places the speech at Clinton on September 2; doubts Shaw's source; has found no contemporary reference to such utterance, but says that "tradition has come to attribute" this most famous of Lincoln's epigrams to the Clinton speeches. Did Lincoln really coin the epigram, and if so, when and where? Benjamin Barondess 19.Texas Infantry Regiments: We know that the 1st, 4th and 5th Texas Infantry Regiments were a part of Hood's famous Texas Brigades, but information as to the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Regiments is elusive. Query: To what Brigade or Brigades were the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Regiments assigned? Harold B. Simpson (Col, USAF) 20.Lincoln's Debt to His Mother: Lincoln is quoted as once remarking: "God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her." Since he was only nine years old...