Today we start a two-part Mewsing. Part One looks at how we developed a childhood hobby into a successful business. Part Two will encourage you (kids and adults alike) to take some of the lessons we have learned from our experience and apply them to your own lives.
We were homeschooled all the way through high school. Growing up, we enjoyed reading, and our mom would pick up books on all subjects. Two of them were biographies about Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. When we were 11, Rebecca read those biographies and liked the generals. So, she made them out of modeling clay.
We had always fiddled with clay, making all sorts of little animals. And since we had cats as pets, when we were kids everything was about cats. It was only natural (in our minds) that when Rebecca made the generals out of clay, they came out as cats in uniform with beards.
We kept reading Civil War books and kept making clay cats of people who caught our interest. After a couple of years, we began to set them up in small scenes of the events we were reading about. Over time, the dioramas became larger and more detailed and accurate.
Our parents created an encouraging environment for creativity and learning, allowing us to pursue our interests. They never told us we were silly for making Civil War cats. Instead, they invested their time to take us to battlefields and reenactments. They fed our interest by buying us hundreds of Civil War books over the years. Dad helped us build the topographical bases for our largest dioramas. Mom contributed fabric for tents and flags on the dioramas and helped us to sew Civil War dresses for the lessons we taught in high school. Mom and Dad are still our biggest fans, still supporting and encouraging us in many, many ways. Civil War Tails would not have been possible without them.
So how did this hobby become a museum?
When we were kids, we transported our clay cats in boxes that we labeled “Clay Civil War Cat Museum.” Obviously, we had no museum and no particular reason to believe we would. But that was our dream.
All the way through high school and college, that’s all it was: a dream. We knew what we liked to do—but a hobby is not a career. And it seemed a grandiose dream: we could never start a museum!
But Rebecca took small business courses during college, just toying with the museum idea.
After college, Ruth became a lawyer, but Rebecca never knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. She remembers thinking, “I just like making dioramas.” Eventually, she realized, “No, I also enjoy sharing them with others.” But even then, she didn’t know what to do with that realization.
High school gave us two opportunities that turned out to be “trial runs” before a variety of people and ages. We didn’t know what was to come, but we did see that everyone really liked our Civil War dioramas of little clay cats. We taught Civil War lessons to other homeschooled students who really enjoyed seeing the dioramas we used as visual aids.
We also worked as waitstaff at a retirement community. Mom told us, “If you make friends with the residents, they’ll become like grandparents to you.” And she was right. We loved the residents there. Naturally, we wanted to share our clay cats with them, and so began the tradition of taking the dioramas in for one afternoon a year, for the residents and staff.
Every year, one resident, Helen, would say, “You should take these into schools!” And we would laugh and joke, “You wanna be our agent?”
In 2012, Rebecca thought, “Maybe I should consider the idea, instead of brushing it off each year.” She did, but we soon realized that travel is hard on the dioramas, and they were multiplying and getting larger.
So we decided, “Maybe we should bring the kids to the dioramas, instead of the dioramas to the kids.” We began searching for a commercial property in Gettysburg, in order to start a museum. But we would not have taken that step if we had not finally listened to Helen.
Now, here we are, having made our hobby into a career. A dream come true!
Stay tuned for Part Two, where we’ll consider life after the dream becomes reality—and give you some takeaways to inspire your own journey!
In today’s Mewsing, we spotlight the two generals whose biographies inspired Rebecca to make our original two clay Civil War cats thirty years ago. While we have spotlighted the cats before, today we take the time to look at the men behind them.
Hiram Ulysses Grant was born on April 27, 1822 to Jesse Root Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant. Jesse preferred the name Ulysses, so that is what he called his son, rather than Hiram.
Even at a young age, Ulysses was fearless. When he was less than two years old, a neighbor fired a pistol next to the boy’s head, just to see what would happen. Unfazed, Ulysses reached for the firearm instead. When he was five years old, a pony tried to buck him off, but he clung to its mane until it stopped bucking.
In 1839, at his father’s insistence, Ulysses attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. He found he had been registered under the name “Ulysses S. Grant” because the Congressman who nominated him had submitted his name incorrectly. The register could not be changed, and so as long as he wore the Army’s uniform, he would be Ulysses S. Grant.
In 1844, just before he left for the Mexican War, he and Julia Dent became engaged. Four years later, a few months after the war ended, Ulysses married Julia. Over the next ten years, they added three sons and a daughter to their family.
The Grants were not rich; at times they were dirt poor. But Ulysses was a compassionate man who would help anyone in need. And he was determined. Once, a man’s mule was seized to satisfy a court judgement. Ulysses knew the man was poor and needed the mule, so he bought it at auction for fifty dollars and gave it back to the original owner. But the mule was seized again because technically it had not changed owners. Ulysses went back to the auction and bought it again, this time for five dollars, and gave it to the man. The mule was seized again! Ulysses bought it a third time, and told the man to take it to another county and trade it for another mule. If that didn’t work, Ulysses said, “I am going to have that old mule even if I have to buy it once a week all summer!”
Such determination would continue to hold a prominent place in his character during the Civil War.
In 1862, Grant—by then a brigadier general—laid siege to Fort Donelson. After failing to break out, the Confederates asked for a cease-fire. Grant replied, “No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.” The next day, Fort Donelson surrendered, and U. S. Grant gained the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. As soon as President Lincoln heard of the surrender, he promoted Grant to major general. Later that year, after the bloody battle of Shiloh, people at home wanted Grant replaced. Lincoln responded, “I can’t spare this man. He fights.”
In November, Grant began his campaign to take the fort at Vicksburg. After a siege that lasted for months, Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and splitting the Confederacy in half.
The next year, Congress passed a bill to create the rank of lieutenant general. On March 9, Lincoln formally gave Grant his commission. Only one other man in the nation’s history had carried that rank: George Washington.
Grant remained in the east with Gen. George Meade’s Army of the Potomac. Now general-in-chief of all the Union armies, Grant knew the way to win the war was to pressure the Confederates on all sides, to never give their armies time to regroup, and to press them into submission quickly.
On May 5, 1864, the battle of the Wilderness began. Towards the end of the second day, things looked bleak for the Union army. Panicked officers came to Grant, telling him the army was falling apart. He calmly whittled a stick until one officer exclaimed, “I know Lee’s methods well by past experience. He will throw his whole army between us and the Rapidan, and cut us off completely from our communications.”
Grant’s patience snapped and he replied, “I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault and land in our rear and on both our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do!”
On the evening of May 7, the Union army pulled out, but they did not retreat north, as the soldiers expected. Instead Grant pressed southward, around Lee’s army.
Throughout May, the Union army repeatedly hammered Lee’s line, but failed to break it. Still, Grant pressed southward instead of retreating. After the bloody battle of Cold Harbor, people at home began calling him “Butcher Grant.” But he did not want thousands of men to die. Once he said that sometimes he could hardly bring himself to give the order for battle because of the death and misery that would follow. The high death toll was the inescapable cost for continuing to press Lee’s army, and pushing onward to end the war.
Mid-June 1864 saw the armies settling into the siege of Petersburg, on the outskirts of Richmond. Finally, in April 1865, the Confederates pulled out of Richmond and Petersburg, and four days later, the Union army nearly surrounded Lee’s at Appomattox Court House. After a failed last attempt to break through the Union line, Lee met Grant in the parlor of Wilmer McLean’s house and surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant gave him generous terms; when Lee pointed out that many of his men owned their horses, Grant said that any man who claimed to own a horse or mule could take it with him to work his farm. He also ordered rations to be given to the starving Confederates.
Grant went to Washington to meet with Lincoln, and on the 14th of April the president invited Ulysses and Julia to join him and Mary at Ford’s Theater. The Grants declined because they had plans to visit their children in school in New Jersey (and Julia couldn’t stand Mary Lincoln). When the Grants reached Philadelphia at midnight, they were shocked to hear that President Lincoln had been shot and was not expected to live.
In 1868, the Republican Party nominated Grant for president, even though he did not want it. When he received the news of his election, he sadly told Julia, “I am afraid I am elected.”
One of the first things President Grant did was to push for a Panama Canal, built by American engineers and under American control. His terrible experience in 1851, while crossing Panama on the way to California with his regiment, had convinced him of a canal’s necessity.
On March 30, 1870, he signed the 15th Amendment into law, giving African-Americans the right to vote.
In 1872, Grant won election to a second term, to his chagrin. Toward the end of that term, he told Julia, “After I leave this place, I never want to see it again.” He managed to avoid nomination for a third term and later told a friend, “I was never as happy in my life as the day I left the White House. I felt like a boy getting out of school.”
In February 1885, Grant learned he had advanced throat cancer, with only a few months to live. He had been considering writing his memoirs, and now he wrote or dictated as much as he could. One day he dictated 10,000 words! He finished his memoirs a couple of weeks before his death on July 23, 1885.
***
Robert Edward Lee was born on January 19, 1807, the son of the Revolutionary War general “Light Horse Harry” Lee. Accepted into West Point when he was seventeen, Robert graduated near the top of his class. He served as an engineer in the Mexican War, and then as Superintendent of West Point from 1852-55. In 1859, when the abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Col. Lee was sent with marines to arrest him.
As war loomed, Lee opposed secession, and wrote, “I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for [the Union’s] preservation.” At the same time, he believed he had a higher duty to his state. If Virginia seceded, he said, “I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people.” On April 19, 1861, he learned that Virginia had seceded. The next day he resigned from the United States army.
In May 1862, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia. As he led the army to victory after victory over the next two years, and as the men learned how much he cared for his soldiers, instead of “Granny Lee,” his men affectionately dubbed him “Marse Robert.”
After the defeat at Gettysburg in July 1863, Lee accepted full responsibility. Even as he met the survivors of Pickett’s Charge on July 3, he told them, “It is all my fault.” As the army retreated the next day, he told Gen. Longstreet, “It’s all my fault. I thought my men were invincible.” When he returned to Virginia, he offered to resign, but President Davis knew Lee was still the best choice for commander of the army.
The defeat at Gettysburg and the increasing hardship as supplies dwindled in the Confederacy did not dampen the soldiers’ love for Lee. In April 1864, Longstreet’s corps returned from a temporary assignment in Tennessee. When the men saw Lee, they “hung around him and seemed satisfied to lay their hands on his gray horse or to touch the bridle, or the stirrup, or the old General’s leg—anything that Lee had was sacred to us fellows who had just come back. And the General—he could not help from breaking down…tears traced down his cheeks…”
Lee always thought of his men. At Christmastime,1864, he was invited to dinner. During the meal, the hostess noticed he had not eaten his turkey, and she asked if he did not like it. He replied that he was saving it and hoped he could take it with him to give to an ill staff officer. The hostess then set aside some turkey so Lee could eat his.
Lee’s concern for others did not stop at his own men. Despite the raging war, he saw the Union soldiers as fellow men, not merely enemies to be destroyed, and he consistently referred to them as “those people” instead of “Yankees” or pejoratively. Once, when an officer said he wished all the Yankees were dead, Lee asked, “How can you say that, General? Now, I wish they were all at home attending to their own business, and leaving us to do the same.”
During the siege of Petersburg, a Union prisoner complained to Lee that a Confederate had stolen his hat. The general told him to point out the man and when he did, Lee had the Confederate return the hat. One of the other prisoners wrote, “I wondered at him taking any notice of a prisoner in the midst of battle. It showed what a heart he had for them.”
Another time, a general said they should warn Grant to stop destroying their supplies, or else they would not feed the Union soldiers they captured. Lee replied, “The prisoners that we have here, General, are my prisoners; they are not General Grant’s prisoners, and as long as I have any rations at all I shall divide them with my prisoners.”
The end came at last on April 9, 1865. Gen. Gordon’s infantry and Gen. Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry attempted unsuccessfully to break the Union line. Finally, Gordon sent the message, “Tell General Lee I have fought my Corps to a frazzle, and I fear I can do nothing unless I am heavily supported by Longstreet’s Corps.”
Lee listened to the report, then said, “Then there is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.” Knowing his duty did not make the decision any easier. As he looked toward the Union line, he mused, “How easily I could be rid of this, and be at rest! I have only to ride along the line and all will be over! But it is our duty to live.”
So, dressed in his finest uniform and a red sash, Lee rode to Appomattox Court House to surrender. When it was over and he returned to his lines, his men crowded around him, cheering him. Gradually the cheer died away as they saw their general’s face and then they began to ask, “General, are we surrendered?”
Choking down tears, Lee replied, “Men, we have fought the war together, and I have done the best I could for you. You will all be paroled and go to your homes until exchanged.” Then, almost inaudibly, “Good-bye.”
Lee reached Richmond on April 15. He at once began encouraging reconciliation and urging his fellow southerners to accept their defeat and to work to rebuild the devastated South. Knowing that many would follow his example, he applied for a pardon. Because he was the commanding general, he was never pardoned, but many of his soldiers were. On September 28, 1870, Lee walked home in the rain from a church meeting. That night he fell ill. He died two weeks later on October 12. His last words were the command given when an army broke camp: “Strike the tent.”
Today we look at another FAQ and consider the question, “How do you decide what’s next?” (For our previous FAQs, check out our Mewsings index.)
We always have a wish list of diorama ideas, but it does not remain static. Generally speaking, the list falls into the following categories, with specific diorama ideas bopping up and down within their category or between categories.
Top of the list – these are the ideas that have “clawed their way to the top” by the time we are ready to choose a new diorama. Usually, this category only has a handful of ideas, and they hold extra interest for us, making us really, really want to make them someday. For example, every time we would read about USS Cumberland fighting the ironclad CSS Virginia, the story of her crew’s desperate fight against impossible odds would tug at our heartstrings. She needed a diorama.
Middle of the pack – these are ideas that have stuck to the list over the years with a little more desire or importance, but have not yet made it into the top handful. It also includes dioramas that we have started and “should” finish but we need a little extra inspiration to get us moving again.
Bottom of the totem pole – these are ideas that are not quite forgotten, but are superseded by others. It includes ideas brought on by interactions in the museum, as we recognize gaps in our dioramas, see areas that would benefit our visitors, or add suggestions. For example, we do not have the 1st day of Gettysburg or the Western Theater (Mississippi area) well represented. This category and the middle one are constantly swapping diorama ideas, as our thoughts and inspiration ebb and flow.
So, when push comes to shove, how do we pick one? As an example, we will use our decision-making process for choosing the next diorama after we finished “The Boys Are Still There” on February 9, 2024.
1) Follow your heart.
The first consideration is which idea has clawed its way to the top of the list, at the moment. This is usually pretty easy, since even the “Top of the List” category usually has a favorite that particularly moves or inspires us more than the others. In February 2024, that was a new version of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry’s assault on Battery Wagner.
2) Variety is the spice of life.
Sometimes there are other considerations, instead of purely choosing the idea that has our attention. In our example, Battery Wagner would have been a shoe-in—except that we had just finished a major infantry diorama that stretched over 11 years. Since we still want Battery Wagner to be the next major diorama, but were not ready to dive into another huge project, we had to pick a small, less extensive scene to serve as an interlude.
3) What’s the best choice for the interlude?
We considered a few “quick*” options from the first two categories:
A cavalry skirmish* at Rockville, MD – already started
USS Cumberland vs. CSS Virginia – only* two ships
The McClean house at Appomattox – already started
4) Weigh additional factors.
Cumberland was a no-brainer for the “interlude” diorama. Not only would it be small* and simple*, but the disaster of the March 8, 1862 battle of wood v. iron increases the importance of the next day’s “draw” between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. While speaking with visitors to the museum, we have realized that many people do not know about the first day’s battle. So, not only did our hearts vote for Cumberland, but we felt it would be an important addition to the museum. Plus, the best way to motivate Rebecca to do something is to involve a ship in it!
Since Rebecca would be the one making the ships and would not need help until making the crews, Ruth made her own choice between Appomattox and Rockville. Both were ideas that Ruth would take the lead on, and both were already started. So the choice came down to preference: a diorama where the measurements of the house needed to be redone, or a nice easy*, quick* little* cavalry skirmish. She chose the latter.
So there you have it! Battery Wagner is still waiting its turn, but surely* only for a few* years.
*So we thought. As it turns out:
Rockville will probably measure 2’x4’, with ~40 Union and ~100 Confederate cavalry, plus houses on both sides of the street. This would make it roughly half the size of “Come On, You Wolverines”!
Cumberland will be similar in size to the current diorama of the ironclads (as expected), but will involve scratch-building a full-rigged ship from wood. Oh, and did we mention that the cats on Cumberland will not be visible, unless the entire spar deck (the top deck) and the masts lift off? And Rebecca is busy geeking out, so we’re a year into the project, and she is still figuring out where each stay or brace leads. Ruth just cheers her on.
Today we take a journey through 30 years of Civil War cats by looking at our K-Cats and how the dioramas have progressed over the years.
Cat 3,000 – January 1, 2000
Cat 3,000 was placed on the diorama “I Want You to Prove Yourselves” at midnight, January 1, 2000. We had just begun keeping a Cat Census, so he is the first K-Cat! We do not know who Cats 1,000 and 2,000 are.
Cat 4,000
We reached Cat 4,000 while making “The Fate of Gettysburg.” At the time that we made him, we did not yet know about “turf,” and so the diorama was just painted green.
Cat 5,000 – June 25, 2005 (10-year anniversary)
Cat 5,000 was installed on “Desperation at Skull Camp Bridge” on June 25, 2005, our 10-year anniversary. At that time, the “water” was a piece of plastic wrap, wrinkled to form ripples. The diorama received a revamp in 2017 to add Realistic Water, with splashes and ripples made from Liquitex Gloss Super Heavy Gel.
Cat 6,000
We chose to make Cat 6,000 as Col. Joshua Chamberlain. The 20th Maine were the first cats installed on “The Boys Are Still There,” and we have a photo from 2014 which shows Cat 6K installed. Incidentally, the first cat installed on the diorama was Sgt. Andrew Tozier, carrying the 20th Maine’s flag.
Some other photos showing the status of the diorama around that time. We were busy painting cats and in the early stages of installing ground cover:
Cat 7,000
Cat 7,000 is Capt. Ellis Spear, commanding the left wing of the 20th Maine. He was probably installed around 2015.
Here are some photos of the progress, dating from around 2017 and 2018.
Cat 8,000
Cat 8,000 is on “The Fate of Gettysburg,” less than a foot away from Cat 4,000. How did the two end up on the same diorama, but so far apart in number? Because in 2011, we revamped the diorama to add the ground cover. This is also when we added ~1,000 cats to the diorama. We finally finished adding them, including Cat 8K, in 2016.
Cat 9,000 – July 2, 2022
Cat 9,000 is Col. Strong Vincent, installed on the diorama on July 2, 2022. Nearly two years would pass before we finished the diorama in February 2024, but it was getting closer! The ground cover was (finally!) finished, and we had just begun to install Hazlett’s battery.
Cat 10,000
In 2024, we finally reached Cat 10,000—Lt. George Morris of USS Cumberland. He will spend a while in storage, waiting for Rebecca to make his ship, but we are very excited to have reached this K-Cat milestone by our 30-year anniversary!
We have come a long way in our abilities in the 25 years since Cat 3K. Cat 3K is a “shrunk” cat, standing 1.5” tall. Nine months after we installed him, when we began “The Fate of Gettysburg,” 1-inch tall was the smallest we could make. The close-up of Cat 4K indicates how well we could do a “plaid” shirt at the time. Fast-forward to Cat 10K, who stands ¾-inch tall. His hailing trumpet is less than 5/32-inch long, carefully sanded to shape with a tiny file!
Let’s journey a little farther into the world of detail in Civil War Tails:
Little Round Top:
The cannons are made from Sculpey and scraps of wood.
Each flag is hand-painted, following pictures of the actual flags, if we can find them. This one belongs to the 140th New York.
And, of course, the corps badges, which average 1/16-inch diameter.
The last corps badge to be painted!!
Sekigahara:
The samurai that Ruth makes for our Sekigahara display are 1.25-inch tall, made solely from colored Sculpey III (no paint) and with only a toothpick for a tool. She makes each according to the way a samurai would dress. This means that a lot of meticulously-added detail is covered up by subsequent layers!
Kobayakawa Hideaki is Rebecca’s favorite example to show visitors, because she tried to help with putting the dots on his pants. She did two rows, and then decided to stick to cheerleading Ruth instead! It is fun for us to see which crazy details we each prefer, and we stand in awe of each other’s nuttiness 😊
Ii Naomasa…
…and one of his “Red Devils”
USS Cumberland:
Instead of dots on pants, Rebecca’s nuttiness consists of…scratch-building ships in bottles. At Civil War Tails, you will see USS Cumberland in a bottle she found in Civil War Tails’ basement. In order to make the ship large enough to fill the bottle, she made the hull in three sections that could fit through the bottle’s mouth (as long as nothing, not even a thread, sat between the largest fighting top and the deck). She then had to glue down the shrouds and stays inside the bottle. At this point, Ruth’s mind explodes and she goes and makes samurai!
2025 is a big anniversary year for the cats at Civil War Tails. We are celebrating 30 years of Civil War cats and 10 years of Civil War Tails Diorama Museum!
To celebrate, we have designed special anniversary t-shirts.
On the front is our “30 Years… 10 Years… 10,000 Cats and One Dog” design. On the back is a list of our K-Cats, identified by number and name.
We have an assortment of sizes in the four colors shown (white, black, blue, and light pink). If we do not have the color you want in the size you need, we’ll order it–so don’t be shy!
Stop by Civil War Tails or email us at info@civilwartails.com to order your anniversary t-shirt today!
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and Adams County lay blanketed in snow. Mounds of snow. Piles. Drifts. And still it kept falling, every snowflake hurrying to the ground on the whipping wind. This was a “bomb cyclone” snowstorm to make the one of ’93 proud.
In the police department at the Gettysburg Borough building, a red alarm light suddenly began flashing and a frantic rendition of “Jingle Bells” screeched.
“What’s going on?”
“What’s the alarm for?”
“Has that always been there?”
“Where’s the music coming from?”
“Attention, everyone!” the police chief hollered over the noise. “NORAD has issued a Code Red! Santa is lost somewhere in Adams County! You’ve trained for this; let’s go!”
Officer Oliver (not his real name because, of course, we can’t disclose who is in charge of the Santa Emergency Beacon) dashed for the new Gettysburg Police pickup truck. Back in ’93, after Santa got lost for three days, NORAD devised a system of emergency beacons to be scattered throughout the country. In proper government fashion, it took them 30 years to implement the plan. But Gettysburg finally received their beacon in 2023, squirreled it away in a secret vault, and bought a pickup truck to transport it when needed.
He climbed inside and, as the others loaded the beacon in the back and strapped it down snug, he took a deep breath and pushed the “Snow Emergency Mode” button which, unlike other features, was not on the touchscreen but was a physical button with an elf’s hat icon.
Someone thumped on the back window that they were ready, and he started off. The truck plowed through the drifted snow like it was nothing, speeding the two blocks up to the Square. By the time they arrived, the bed of the truck was nearly full of snow. The officers shoveled it out, unloaded the beacon, and set it up next to the Christmas tree in the Square.
Just as they were about to plug it in, a huge white blur rumbled in, grabbed the beacon, and thumpity-thump-thumped away, laughing!
“What the—?”
“Hey! Come back here!”
“It’s Frosty!”
“Stop!”
“Haha! Catch me, if you can! Haha!” drifted back to them on the wind.
Officer Oliver leaped into the truck and tore after the distant lumbering form of Frosty. But now, even in “Snow Emergency Mode,” the truck fishtailed and slid, and Frosty’s form grew smaller and smaller as the snowman bounded in his natural element. And then, with a big, soft “floomph!” the truck landed in a huge drift.
“What happened?”
The voice startled Officer Oliver, until he remembered that the radio channels remained open in a Code Red emergency. “Oh, I’m stuck in a ditch.”
“But we need the beacon! Santa’s lost out there!”
Officer Oliver was already dialing his cell. “Don’t worry. I’m calling for backup.”
“Who? PennDOT is snowed in. The PSP isn’t answering their phone. I think even Letterkenny is snowed in.”
Officer Oliver heard a sleepy “hello?” on his cell and breathed a sigh of relief. “Joanie! I need your help!”
“Officer Oliver!” the voice woke up. “Are we going out for a puppuccino?”
“Santa’s lost and Frosty stole the emergency beacon. I need the Civil War cats to find Santa and get him back on track!”
***
At Civil War Tails, Joanie the Museum Dog explained the situation. The cats sprang into action.
“Tell the Signal Corps to keep an eye out!” Gen. Grant ordered.
“Tell Gen. Stuart to scout—” Gen. Lee stopped and looked around. “Where is Stuart?”
Lt. Col. Ely Parker reported, “Signal stations say the snow’s too thick to see anything. Black flags and signal torches are both useless.”
“What’s the last known location for Santa?” Grant asked.
Parker shrugged. “NORAD lost him near Fairfield. They got a patchy transmission afterward—he said something about Steinwehr and the Eternal Light Peace Memorial.”
Both generals groaned. “They’re nowhere near each other! He could be anywhere!”
Patrick the Only Clay Dog bounded up. “Maybe I could sniff him out,” he offered.
“Good idea! Joanie, will you help?”
“I’d love to,” Joanie replied, wagging her tail, but then her ears drooped at a sudden thought. “But I’m not allowed outside unless I have a leash ‘with a hoomanattachedto it.’ And all my hoomans are snowed in at the Christmas Eve service.”
Grant rolled his eyes. “Now she decides to obey!”
“Please,” Lee prompted. “It’s an emergency.”
Joanie said in a small voice, “But if I’m naughty, Santa won’t bring me a big bone chew this year.”
“We need a human!” Lee called across the museum.
10,011 pairs of cat eyes, 789 pairs of horse eyes, and two pairs of dog eyes stared back.
“Um,” Grant said, “the whole point in Civil War Tails is that we’re cat soldiers.”
Everyone groaned.
“May I be of assistance?”
Everyone turned at the strange voice—a dapper officer astride a white horse, flanked by half a dozen cavalrymen. Men.
“Of course!” Grant hopped up and down in joy. “You used to be at the Soldier’s National Museum!”
The little metal soldiers nodded.
Joanie was already wriggling into her winter coat that Nana had made. “Let’s go!”
The cavalrymen wrapped her leash around her in a snug harness and climbed aboard her broad back.
Ready, Joanie bounded out the door, with Patrick skittering beside her on top of the snow.
Patrick spoke up. “But how will we find—”
“COOKIES!!” Joanie’s eyes got big and bright, and her ears perked straight up. “I smell sugar cookies with a hint of sweaty reindeer!” She dashed off, and Patrick had the presence of mind to grab the tip of her tail as it whipped past.
The cats streamed after her. Snow blew in their faces, hiding all buildings, street signs, lights, trees and fences from view, but they could still glimpse the bright orange of Joanie’s quilted coat, and her voice came back on the wind, crystal clear, “Cookies! Cookies! Cookies! And fruitcake! Oh, but I can’t have that. Oh! Is that—? Oh, it IS! DONUTS! DonutsCookiesDonutsCookies!…” and on and on she went.
They found Santa in a patch of woods that looked like every other Pennsylvanian patch of woods, with his sleigh stuck fast in a creek bed snowdrift.
“SANTA!!!” Joanie nearly leaped on him in sheer exuberance, but remembered her manners at the last instant, plunked into a “sit” with a suddenness that nearly jarred her passengers loose, and began wagging her tail—swisha-swisha-swisha—in the snow.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Santa exclaimed, looking more weary and worried than jolly. He handed Joanie a cookie, rubbed the dog slobber off his glove, and said, “Of all the years for Rudolph to be sick!”
“Don’t worry,” the cheery voice of Pvt. Quinlan Sullivan piped up. “We’ll have you out and on your way in no time!” His team of artillery horses trotted up to the sleigh. Artillerycats unhitched the exhausted, sweaty reindeer, and Sullivan began backing his limber towards the sleigh.
“Don’t hit it! Be careful! Ohhh!” Santa put his gloved hands to his mouth. “Oh dear, if you dent it, the magic won’t work and I’ll never finish my route on time!”
Lt. Hazlett chuckled from where he sat his horse, watching. “Don’t worry, sir. Sullivan’s our best driver, and he’s been practicing this maneuver, ever since he watched a Facebook video of the Budweiser Clydesdales backing their wagon up to the loading dock.”
Sure enough, the limber stopped just in front of the sleigh, and sailor cats had the two lashed together in no time. With the reindeer and horses pulling together, they got the sleigh out with hardly any trouble—except to Santa’s blood pressure.
Merrily, they all headed back to Gettysburg, so Santa could fortify himself with some of the famous eggnog of the Civil War cat ladies, before finishing his route.
As they passed through the Square, who should appear but Jeb Stuart, Mosby, and Custer, escorting a befuddled Frosty.
“It was just some fun,” the snowman tried to explain as they handed the beacon over to a grateful Officer Oliver at the Christmas tree. “It was just a joke! Haha! Funny!”
No one bothered to reply.
“Joanie,” Officer Oliver called, as the procession turned down Baltimore Street.
Joanie bounded over. “Did I do good?” She wagged her tail.
“We have whipped cream at the police station. If you can spare a minute, we can go make you a puppuccino.”
Joanie’s face lit up and she bounded up and down like a dolphin, smiling from ear to ear. “A car ride?” She bounded in a wriggly circle. “I finally get to ride in your truck? Yay-yay! Oh, this is so exciting!”
And so Christmas was saved again. Santa went on his jolly way (we shall not say if he was or was not a little tipsy on eggnog), and Joanie was rewarded with a car ride, puppuccino, and donuts and Christmas cookies at the Borough building, where everyone told her she was a Good Pup. Which, of course, she knew!
Today we take a moment for our annual reflection on all that we are grateful for, here at Civil War Tails.
This Thanksgiving, we looked through our “comment diary” and pulled out some of our favorite memories from the last year.
Some adjectives we have heard (repeatedly) this year are:
Awesome
Amazing
Phenomenal
Spectacular
Marvelous
Remarkable
Some of our favorite reactions and comments:
“I’m flabbergasted!”
“This is so much better than I expected!”
“My life is so much better now, knowing this is here!”
“My mind is blown!”
“This was delightful.”
It warms our hearts to see how our dioramas catch kids’ imaginations or help to interest them in the real stories. This year, two particular interactions come to mind.
The first was a little boy, not much older than a toddler, who I happened to notice as he looked at “Desperation at Skull Camp Bridge.” He was short enough that the swimming horse’s nose was right at his own nose level. He stood for the longest time, unmoving, mouth agape, nose to nose with the horse, just looking at him, and then just looking at Gen. Wheeler’s horse, also at eye-level. It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen—a little kid, too young to understand history and facts, completely fascinated by a couple of little Sculpey horses, on his eye-level, looking back at him.
Gen. Joe Wheeler
The second is a family who visited last year and bought our book. In reading it, the story of Lt. Frank Haskell’s horse, Dick, caught one child’s fascination. When they returned for a second visit, the child asked about “the horse that was wounded in the leg, and he died, but he was helping…” I immediately knew that she meant Dick, and pointed him out to her on our Pickett’s Charge diorama. On their third visit, the child still remembered Dick and looked for him again. Lt. Haskell wrote about Dick in a letter home after the battle of Gettysburg, describing how brave the horse was and how he had stayed on his feet, carrying Haskell to and fro, despite being severely wounded. Haskell finished by saying that his horse deserved a monument. There is no monument to Dick on the battlefield, but we have a little model that is telling his story to future generations!
We enjoy seeing our dioramas surprise skeptical visitors. Yes, that’s right, not everyone arrives thinking they will like Civil War cats. So it is fun to hear comments like, “I thought we would be here for five minutes, and now I’m like, ‘We gotta leave??’” Over and over, the historical accuracy of our dioramas wins over the hearts of the history buffs who came in just to be supportive of a friend or family member. We very much appreciate their willingness to tag along, and then their excitement and “geeking out” over details like the ironclads or the corps badges on Little Round Top’s Yankees.
One particularly memorable comment caught us by surprise! “This [visit to Civil War Tails] is life-changing!” Wait, life-changing? The visitor went on to explain that seeing our dioramas was the first time she could picture the battle, despite growing up locally and visiting the battlefield since. This reaction is one that never gets old. We love hearing how our dioramas help people—novices and buffs alike—to visualize what they have heard or read about. Time and again, we hear, “This helped me understand…” or “Nothing has brought the scope of it to me like this!”
Next year, we will celebrate 10 years of our museum (and 30 years of making Civil War cats!). We give thanks to God for placing the right people in our lives to show us that cat dioramas might just be “a thing,” and especially Helen who encouraged us every year to take our dioramas into schools (a suggestion that ultimately led us to start the museum). We also thank God for putting the pieces into place for us to find and buy our building and to turn it into Civil War Tails.
We thank Mom and Dad for helping us on this venture, one that we dreamed about as kids but never thought possible. It truly would not be possible without them. I know we say it every year, but it’s worth repeating!
And we thank you—all the visitors who come into the museum, all the folks on social media who are too far away to visit but share our posts and tell their friends, and all of you who support our museum by ordering merchandise through our website when you can’t make it here in person. Thank you for allowing our clay cats to bring you joy, whether in person, in online pictures, or even by discovering a Civil War Tails brochure on a rough day! We continue to be surprised by how our dioramas are touching people’s lives. We love doing it and seeing it, and we hope to continue for many years to come.
It’s October, and the Headless Horsecat is on the prowl again at Civil War Tails! This year, he has some friends along for the journey. Can you find them all? Hint: each photo adds one more friend.
Did you find all 6 ducks and the Grim Reaper? Come meet them in person at Civil War Tails!
Happy Halloween!
Can’t get enough Headless Horsecat? Check out all of his adventures here!
Is a diorama ever finished? In today’s mewsing, we consider how continuing to learn shapes our projects.
The question sometimes comes up while visitors look at “The Fate of Gettysburg,” whether our dioramas are finished or if we continue to work on them. The answer is both. Sometimes, the diorama needs modifications. Other times, a diorama itself is finished, but in need of a new version. Why the changes? Because as the years pass, we continue to learn, whether about materials or history.
Our Pickett’s Charge diorama is a good example of both. When we began “The Fate of Gettysburg” in 2000, it was a new version of our previous diorama. In a desire to make Pickett’s Charge to-scale, we scrapped the old diorama (which was itself modified several times) and began a brand-new version on a new base where it could be to-scale, topographical, and a specific point in time. We painted the base green for grass, installed 1,900 cats, and it was done. You might think that was that. We did.
Until 2011.
While making our Devil’s Den diorama in 2009, we discovered “Turf” by Woodland Scenics. Made of specks of colored foam, turf is a ground cover that finally worked as grass for ¾-inch cats! Up until then, we had experimented with types of moss, but nothing was small enough for 1-inch cats or smaller. Over the summer of 2011, we revisited “The Fate of Gettysburg” and added turf to the green-painted surface. Yes, that meant adding tweezer-fulls of specks of foam around each and every cat who was stuck down on the diorama!
While we did so, Rebecca realized that she had lost the list of identified officers and men, so she reread all of our books on Pickett’s Charge and compiled a new list (and then found the old one). As she read, she realized that if we doubled the width of our diorama, we would have nearly all of the Confederate line at the point in time portrayed. In other words, we have most of Pickett’s division on the diorama. And she concluded that most of the division is stalled out at the stone wall, not having crossed it following Gen. Armistead. So, all of that meant that we needed to add approximately 1,000 Confederates along the wall, as well as others advancing into the Copse of Trees and fighting hand-to-hand with the 69th Pennsylvania.
We also realized that ten years earlier, we had forgotten to think of the killed and wounded horses from Lt. Cushing’s battery. The guns have been abandoned by the time portrayed, and so we never thought about what was left behind. So, as Rebecca reread the books, she kept an eye out for the involvement of Cushing’s battery, not only in the cannonade of the afternoon, but also in the morning’s artillery duel and the fighting the day before.
20092020
So, what began as simply adding green “turf” ended up involving adding horses, debris from exploded limbers and caissons, various colors of dried tea for kicked up dirt from shells and shot from the cannonade, Confederates along the wall and in the Copse, and more Union cats in the Copse. Even now, we still have a few more adjustments that we want to make, in order to have it more accurate.
Continuing to learn about materials led to the revamp in the first place. Reading the same books as we had the first time around but ten years later meant noticing new details and reaching new conclusions, which in turn led to modifying the figures on the diorama.
Another example is “I Want You To Prove Yourselves,” our diorama of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment charging Battery Wagner. It was our first to-scale diorama (also a new version of an older one). We were in high school when we made it, and as we read the description of Battery Wagner, we could not understand how a fort could be built of sand and palmetto logs. How could sand be built into a fort? It’s hard enough to stick sand together for a big sand castle, much less a fort. The only way we could think for it to work would be to use sandbags. So, we made the wall of our fort with logs and sandbags.
Now, 25 years later, we have learned that the logs would form the structure underneath, and the sand is mounded up against the walls (for a portrayal of Battery Wagner, see Keith Rocco’s painting “54th Massachusetts Infantry at Fort Wagner“). As a result of our continued learning, we plan to make a new diorama someday, showing the fort’s construction correctly, as well as taking the opportunity to have the entire 54th Massachusetts Infantry.
As we grow older, our daily experiences shape how we analyze what we read. So, we bring insights to our reading that we didn’t know when we were younger. As we practice our hobbies, we increase our abilities, perhaps to add detail or complexity. Sometimes we can go back and add to an older project and improve it, and sometimes we need to start fresh with a new version.
Continue to learn by reading, observing, and listening. And as you work on your projects—whether dioramas, crafts, writing, painting, drawing—let your new discoveries shape your creations!
In this month of heat waves, the cats at Civil War Tails would like to offer some tips on how to beat the heat!
First, some tips on what not to do:
Do not roll barrels of gunpowder out of the powder magazine of a burning building. Instead, just close the magazine door, bank it with dirt, and run for the nearest air conditioner.
Do not sit inside the turret of a monitor—you will bake! …Unless you’re a tuna casserole and need to bake.
Now, what to do:
Lounge in the grass and watch the clouds go by while the BBQ cooks on the grill
Dive full-speed off a 15-foot bank into the river
Ride a train through the countryside—the faster, the better!
Go swimming. (This tip is recommended by the horses of “Desperation at Skull Camp Bridge,” but not particularly recommended by the cats.)
Dig a tunnel. It’s cooler deep in the earth, just a little stuffy.
Ride your horse in the nearby stream—just make sure he doesn’t roll in it with you still in the saddle!
Fill a bucket of water to pour over your head. …Or maybe this cat is recommending falling into the creek. Your guess is as good as ours!
A tip from Patrick the Only Clay Dog and Joanie the Museum Dog—take a nap! Patrick recommends napping in the grass. Joanie recommends a sofa under an air conditioner!
Civil War Tails at the Homestead Diorama Museum - Gettysburg miniatures 