12x16
Oil on Linen
My first Plein Air solo attempt across the street from my house.
Local Historian Harry Lewis Thompson can tell it way better than I can, but On Jan. 30, 1864, a three-pronged amphibious Union assault from naval gunboats on the Cashie and Roanoke Rivers, routed a small detachment of the 3rd Georgia Calvary that had recently been sent here to Windsor - a small port village that had been established as a last ditch effort Southern recruiting station. Most of the local boys were away still fighting either in Central North Carolina or in Virginia.
The night before the attack most of the soldiers were bellied up in the town saloon which sat just behind this monument on South King St. The local townspeople had been partying with the new soldiers most of the week and this night in particular the crowd went at hard and late. When the Union Navy fired its first round early the next morning as the blue coats began their land fall at the south end of town, most of the Confederate soldiers were still tanked up or passed out on the tavern floor. As the town was being surrounded, an artillery defense was set up in front of the saloon facing down King St. in an attempt to defend the whiskey if all else failed. It wasn't long before the hungover Southerners were pushed out of town and several local Confederate sympathizers were taken prisoner to be held hostage for the return of Union prisoners in Richmond.
After the War was over, local stand out veterans, such as Capt. Edward R. Outlaw, organized the Bertie Monument Association to memorialize those from the area who had fought and died for the Homeland. Later the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) took over the task and this monument was built on the corner of King and Dundee Streets - across from the courthouse and directly in front of where the Saloon used to be. Traditionally all monuments erected by the UDC were built facing North immortalizing the Confederate Soldier in his continuous vigil of guarding the South against the North. In this case the Bertie Soldier is guardin' the whiskey too.
