News in Brief
New amphitheatre to host festival finale

A new amphitheatre will send Civil War-style music and the boom of cannons echoing through Frankfort next year as part of the Cornets and Cannons Music Festival.

The soon-to-be-built Ward Oates Amphitheatre will host the Sept. 4 grand finale of the festival – the Battle of the Bands. The amphitheatre has been made possible by a $100,000 donation from the Ward Oates Foundation. Oates, a state highway commissioner under Gov. A.B. Chandler, died in 2009 at age 103.

The amphitheatre site is on the river side of the floodwall behind the Kentucky Bar Association on Main Street. The location is the perfect spot to get loud, according to Nicky Hughes, curator of Historic Sites with the Frankfort Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites Association.

After the “Battle,” the bands will play a piece that actually contains musket shots and cannons.

Kentucky Civil War-era Steinway ‘good as new’

Kentucky haystacks may have hidden many treasures during the Civil War, including a piano.

An old-style square grand Steinway built Dec. 4, 1858, has been restored at the firm’s Queens factory in New York. The instrument survived the Civil War, being hidden under a haystack in a Kentucky field to escape the Yankees. Number 2166 (each of the half-million Steinways ever made have a pedigree number) had survived beyond Kentucky with a Maryland family and two Sunday School teachers. Specifics are not available as to the instrument's original and subsequent owners.

The piano was donated recently to Richard K. Lieberman, director of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives in Queens, who is writing a history of the Steinways. Three retired craftsmen were contacted to conduct restoration. The sound was gone and teeth marks of mice were on three bass keys. Some obsolete parts such as iron-covered strings were made fresh from old specifications.

The Rosewood piano was restored “a little better than good to provide a Steinway sound.”

Preservation conference scheduled Oct. 21-23

The Kentucky State Historic Preservation Conference is scheduled Oct. 21-23 in Frankfort, a biennial event to share information about approaches, techniques and programs that will inspire and assist participants in preserving historic buildings and sites in their communities.

Co-sponsors are the Kentucky Heritage Council/State Historic Preservation Office and Preservation Kentucky Inc.

The conference theme, Preservation Works!, highlights the work of traditional trades craftsmen such as brick masons, carpenters, timber framers, plasterers, brick makers, painters, blacksmiths, and slate, metal and wood shingle roofers.

Rotation planned for historic Civil War submarine

South Carolina scientists plan to delicately rotate the 23-ton Civil War submarine that was the first in history to sink an enemy warship.

Scientists will rotate the H.L. Hunley to an upright position early next year, exposing sections of hull that have not been examined in almost 150 years. The work should provide final clues to explain why the Hunley went down after sinking a Union blockade ship off Charleston in 1864.

When the Hunley sank, it was buried in the sand on its side. It was kept that way as slings were put beneath it and it was raised and brought to a conservation lab in North Charleston a decade ago. Rotating the sub also allows scientists to finish removing the crust from the hull and proceed with conservation.

A replica of the Hunley has been displayed at various Civil War events in Kentucky.

Frazier Museum developing new 2011 exhibit

Louisville’s Frazier International History Museum is developing a new Civil War exhibition that will be on display in the fall of 2011.

The original exhibit, “My Brother, My Enemy,” will center around Kentucky’s unique experience as a border state and how its physical and political positioning led to deep divisions among families and friends.

As part of the exhibit, rare papers documenting Mary Todd Lincoln’s involuntary commitment at an Illinois insane asylum will be publicly shown for the first time, framed in the greater context of Kentucky’s unique position in the national conflict. The historic papers, acquired via auction in June, provide an insight not only into the one of the lowest points of Lincoln’s life, but into the lives of women of that time.

Other exhibit artifacts will include uniforms, letters, photos and other memorabilia never before available to the public.

Busts on display at Richmond center

The first of six busts of generals who commanded troops at the 1862 Battle of Richmond are now on display at the Battlefield Park History and Visitors Center.

The bronze sculptures of Confederate Generals Edmund Kirby Smith and Patrick Cleburne arrived this spring and soon will be joined by a bust of Union Gen. William (Bull) Nelson.

Bruce Everly of Everly Sculpture in Chicago was commissioned to produce the busts and will continue to do so through the calendar year and, possibly, into 2011. Everly’s next creations will be sculptures of Union Generals Mahlon Manson and Charles Cruft and Confederate General Thomas Churchill.

CSA Gen. Henry Heth, who entered Richmond with his forces a day after the Aug. 29-30 battle, may be commissioned later, depending upon funding.

Each bust, except for the one of Cleburne, portrays the generals as they may have looked during the Madison County conflict. Cleburne, depicted with a mustache and goatee, suffered a severe facial wound at Richmond and grew the beard to hide the scar.

The busts are approximately 14x18-inches in size.

Belle Civil War cruise attracts 80

Eighty Civil War enthusiasts, all attired in period clothing, participated in a Sept. 11 cruise aboard the historic paddle wheeler Belle of Louisville.

Organized by Battle of Richmond President-Elect Paula White, the cruise was a three-hour event down the Ohio River. A special reception in the Captain’s Quarters and a dance on an air-conditioned deck were included in the program.

The cruise was sponsored by the 2nd Kentucky Infantry CSA.

Richmond has record attendance

The Battle of Richmond attracted a record crowd for its re-enactments and re-enactment weekend Aug. 28-29.

Battle re-enactments were witnessed by some 3,000 spectators for both days and total attendance for the weekend was estimated at 5,000.  It was the Battle of Richmond Association’s ninth re-enactment weekend event.