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!
This past April, we were excited to make Cat 10,000 as Lt. George Morris of USS Cumberland. Today, we “mews” about the significance of Cat 10K for us, as well as who he represents and why.
Since 1999, we have kept track of every thousandth cat on our Census. (For more on our Census and K-Cats, see our Mewsing on Cat 9000 here.) As the Census neared 10,000, we felt that Cat 10K should be someone particularly special. Of course, he also had to come up naturally on a current project. Initially, we thought he would be on “The Boys Are Still There” (Little Round Top). But in February, we finished that diorama still 172 cats shy of 10,000. So, we began looking ahead.
As we did so, we also realized that 2025 will mark 30 years of making Civil War cats and 10 years of the Civil War Tails Diorama Museum! Naturally, the calendar for such a happy anniversary should focus on our K-Cats—which meant we needed to make Cat 10K this Spring! (Yes, the calendars are available here!) The push to make him meant that we needed to “fish or cut bait” on who he would be.
Having finished Little Round Top, we both started new dioramas. Ruth began working on a cavalry fight in Rockville, Md. We considered making Cat 10K to represent Col. Charles Russell Lowell, commanding the Union cavalry. Rebecca began working on CSS Virginia ramming USS Cumberland. Who on the ships could be a K-Cat candidate? While there were several options, Lt. George Morris stood out to both of us.
March 8, 1862, dawned a gorgeous but very ordinary Saturday in Hampton Roads, Va. On the Union ships, life went about as normal—washing laundry, holystoning the decks, and mending clothing, all in preparation for Sunday inspection. Cumberland’s captain, William Radford, headed off to USS Roanoke to serve on court-martial duty that day, leaving Lt. Morris, his second-in-command, in charge.* Little did they know that today, the one day the captain happened to be away, Morris and his crew would be thrown into a situation that no one in the Union Navy had ever experienced.
Around 12:30 p.m., everything about that ordinary day changed. The ironclad CSS Virginia entered Hampton Roads and turned towards the Union flotilla. Capt. Franklin Buchanan planned to ram Cumberland first, because her two 10-inch pivot guns concerned him. Virginia approached Cumberland from the front, so for a time the Union sloop could not bring any guns to bear. Eventually, the Union sailors were able to swing their ship slightly, and opened fire.
Even though Cumberland was half the size of newer ships like USS Merrimack, from which Virginia was constructed, she was not wimpy. When she fired a full broadside (eleven of her 9-inch guns), she sent a total of 880 pounds of iron to her target! Her crew had full confidence in their ability to face any opponent. Now, however, they watched their shots bounce off the Confederate ironclad, doing no damage. Still, they continued firing.
Virginia’s first shot in reply killed five Marines on Cumberland’s quarterdeck and wounded others. Her second shot killed fifteen of a seventeen-man gun crew, and severely wounded the gun captain. Those two shots were harbingers of the wooden ship’s fate.
Virginia rammed Cumberland on the starboard bow, opening a 7-foot hole in the wooden hull. Cumberland began sinking immediately. Still, her gun crews kept firing.
The two ships pounded each other for approximately 45 minutes at close range. Union Marine Daniel O’Connor records that his gun’s second shot was fired at a mere 45 yards! Even at such short range, the shot glanced off the iron casemate, doing nothing more than throwing sparks as it scraped along the iron. Meanwhile, every shell from Virginia wreaked havoc among the gun crews of the wooden ship. Enormous splinters ripped fromthe bulwarks and deck caused even more casualties. Cumberland, who that morning had been a beautiful, “splendid type of the frigate of old times” (Lt. Thomas Selfridge, forward division), was now “a scene of carnage and destruction never to be recalled without horror” (Master Moses Stuyvesant, aft division).
Lt. Morris oversaw the action from the quarterdeck or spar deck. What must have gone through his mind as he watched Virginia’s shells shattering Cumberland and destroying her men?
Several stories tell of a Confederate officer calling on him to surrender and of Morris’ firm refusal. There is debate as to whether or not the incident actually happened. However, O’Connor, who served on a gun crew in the stern near where Morris likely stood, records the story in a letter to his brother, written less than a week after the event.
According to O’Connor, Morris replied to the Confederate, “No! And d— you, you coward, you have made a slaughter house of the ship! We will sink with our colors first!”
“Sink it is,” the Confederate replied.
When O’Connor recorded his account he was not seeking glory for himself, Morris, or the ship; he was just writing home of his experiences. His words ring true as the gritty reply from a ship fighting to the bitter end, and give us a glimpse into Morris’ steadfast determination.
No one could blame Morris if he had chosen to surrender. Lt. Selfridge, in his reminiscences, noted, “There would have been no dishonor in surrendering to such odds,” since Cumberland faced an ironclad opponent twice her size and, in all reality, never stood a chance. But Cumberland never struck her colors. Selfridge continues,
and yet what would have been the result [of surrendering]? The Merrimac fresh from the surrender of the Cumberland, would have destroyed the fine steam frigate Minnesota…would have captured the remaining naval force at Hampton Roads,…and when the Monitor arrived late Saturday night she would have found herself alone.
As it was, Virginia was at the mercy of the tide, and the longer she dealt with Cumberland, the less time she had to maneuver without risking running aground. Morris’ decision and Cumberland’s sacrificial fight bought time for the other ships.
Morris’ decision was not in opposition to the feelings of his crew. First-hand accounts from his officers and men do not show regret that the ship kept fighting. In fact, the thought of surrender or escape seems never to have crossed their minds; they manned their guns until the order came to abandon ship.
By 3:35 p.m., Cumberland’s bow had sunk so far that the water reached the main hatch in the middle of the ship. Lt. Morris sent word to get any wounded who could walk out of the cockpit below decks—“Save all who can!”—and then finally ordered, “All hands save yourselves!”
Men climbed out of gun ports and hatches, or jumped overboard. Some wounded managed to make it off, but those below decks or too badly injured to move drowned. Cumberland sank in 54 feet of water, so her masts remained above the surface, allowing men to climb the rigging and wait for small boats to rescue them.
Acting Master’s Mate Charles O’Neil jumped overboard and managed to scramble into the sailing launch. He recalled seeing men in the water all around the boat, including Lt. Morris, “struggling by himself.” O’Neil passed him a boathook and drew him alongside. As O’Neil and others pulled him into the boat, Morris said, “Don’t let go of me, for I can’t swim.”
Can you imagine standing on the deck for nearly an hour, watching the bow sink lower and lower, knowing that saving the ship is impossible, and knowing that you can’t swim? (The inability to swim was not unusual for a sailor of that time.) If Morris had surrendered, he could have ensured a safe trip to shore in a boat. But he did not let his personal situation or fears affect his actions as commander. It was not until he was in the water that he thought of himself. Even then, as soon as he reached shore and saw his boatload of men safely off, he returned to Cumberland’s wreck to recover the flag and any survivors.^ Whatever fear he had felt while in the water, whatever exhaustion he must have felt after the adrenaline rush of the last hour, he still did his duty as the ship’s commander, thinking of the men left behind and the Stars and Stripes left flying undaunted and defiant.
So, what became of Cumberland’s gallant crew and Lt. Morris? Long after the war, Selfridge wrote, “And yet the government bestowed neither promotion or medals upon the officers and crew of the Cumberland.” He also felt that history had already forgotten Cumberland and her crew, and that “the memory of her deeds are almost unknown.”
Dioramas, for us, are a way to honor and remember a story, and ever since we first read about Cumberland years ago, we felt she begged for a diorama. As Confederate Lt. John Taylor Wood (Virginia) wrote, “No ship was ever fought more gallantly.” This is why we are excited to begin this work.
As we read the anecdotes about Morris, we agreed with the conclusion made by a Confederate observer on shore, “A gallant man fought that ship.” As we discussed candidates for Cat 10K, we felt that Morris’ story also seemed to embody the determination of Cumberland’s crew as a whole. Honoring him would honor the entire crew.
Some might say it’s “only” a clay cat, it’s “only” a diorama. But we look forward to sharing Cumberland’s story with museum visitors. It will be helpful to have both dioramas in order to show the contrast between the first day of iron vs. wood, and the second day of iron vs. iron. But closer to our hearts is the desire to commemorate Cumberland and her crew. Sharing a historical story has always been the purpose of our dioramas, from our first little scene in 1998 to the completion of “The Boys Are Still There” in 2024. It is one thing to mention Cumberland’s fight as we speak about Virginia and Monitor, but it is another thing to show it. Even in the early stages of research, we feel a weight of responsibility to do all we can to convey the emotion of Cumberland’s story and the steadfastness of her gallant crew, and to get the details right in order to best portray a ship “Destroyed But Not Conquered.”
Note: spelling and punctuation in the quotes have been updated, as needed.
*As soon as Capt. Radford learned that Virginia had come out, he took a boat to shore, found a horse, and galloped for Cumberland. By the time he arrived, his ship had already been destroyed.
^Morris found neither. Other small boats had picked up survivors, and Lt. Selfridge, who also returned to the wreck, had recovered the flag.
Today we look at another FAQ and consider the question, “How did you end up here?” (For our previous FAQ on what inspired us to make our cats, click here.)
When we began making our Civil War cats in 1995, they were just toys. We would have them fight our other toys and even wrote stories based off of the elaborate battles, campaigns, and adventures that “our guys” had. Then, in 1998, we began setting them up in scenes which, in time, developed into dioramas.
In high school, we taught lessons on the Civil War to other homeschooled students. The children really enjoyed seeing the dioramas that we used as visual aids. We also began working at a local retirement community. While the details are lost to time, somehow we arranged to bring our dioramas in to display for the residents for an afternoon. It became a yearly event, and the residents loved seeing our dioramas. Every year, one resident in particular, Helen, suggested, “You should take these into schools!” We would just laugh and joke, “You want to be our agent and contact the schools?”
In 2012, we decided to seriously consider Helen’s idea. As it turned out, that was also the year that Rebecca dropped one of the six sections of “The Fate of Gettysburg” in the truck while unloading it, and many of the cats, along with their fallen hats and guns, rolled off! By that year, we also had Fort Sumter (which is very heavy) and knew that the planned Little Round Top would be a massive eleven feet long. So, we concluded that not only is transportation hard on the cats, but, quite frankly, the dioramas wouldn’t fit in a classroom! Not to mention that it took us a couple hours to set up the display and a couple more to break it down. So we thought, “Maybe the kids should come to the dioramas instead.” Shortly afterward, Rebecca began poking around real estate listings, just to see what was in Gettysburg. Why Gettysburg when we were in the Philadelphia area? Well, it’s a no-brainer location for a Civil War museum and, conveniently, it is Rebecca’s favorite battlefield. In April of 2013, our Civil War cats made the 100-mile trek down the PA Turnpike to their new home.
Civil War Tails would not be possible without the support of our parents over the years—from encouraging our imaginations as kids to supporting us in our crazy idea to move out here to open a cat diorama museum! And for (still) chipping in their time, resources, and skills when we need help with the dioramas and museum.
This also would not have come about if not for the enthusiasm of the students and residents who absolutely loved seeing our little clay cat dioramas. Their reactions showed us that people would enjoy seeing our work and helped us to believe that the museum would be a success. From our early days of making cats, we labeled their storage boxes with “Clay Civil War Cat Museum.” But could such a thing really happen? Could we own a museum? Nah! Well, Helen’s persistent comment each and every year prompted us to… start a museum!
A big thank you to all of you who have come to Civil War Tails or have followed us on social media, confirming that the students and residents were right. We are looking forward to 2025, when we will celebrate 30 years of Civil War cats and 10 years of Civil War Tails! We have been encouraged and touched by the interactions with and reactions of thousands of you, our visitors. And we have enjoyed inspiring many of you and your children to learn more or create more.
Yes, our eleven-year-old selves had no idea what we were starting with those first few clay cats!
Today we celebrate the completion of our diorama of Little Round Top, “The Boys Are Still There”!
On February 9, 2024, we placed the last trees and ground cover, and the diorama was done! Our construction crew could finally pack up their billboard and head off to a well-earned vacation!
Dedication:
And then we found Mr. Bennett’s work. By reconciling soldiers’ first-hand accounts, he has reached a very clear picture of what Col. O’Rorke, Adj. Farley, and the regiment most likely did. Not only has he written articles and a regimental history for the 140th New York, but he graciously supplied us with the first-hand accounts and his own writings, and answered our questions. We cannot thank him enough for his help. “Invaluable” only scratches the surface.
Trivia:
Our page on “Making Little Round Top” tells how we designed and made the topography, and our page on Little Round Top tells the history, but here is some fun trivia about the diorama:
Little Round Top rocks (DAS)
There are 2,600 hand-sculpted clay boulders on the diorama based off of photos from the battlefield (period, early 20th Century, and current). Our dad still remembers how cold it was when the three of us tromped over the hill in the dead of winter, taking hundreds of photos of thousands of rocks. (Hey, winter is a good time for rock photography—there are no leaves on the trees!) And yes, Rebecca counted all 2,600. Apparently, counting the cats wasn’t nerdy enough for her! Now, this trivia probably has you wondering, do rocks outnumber cats? Or do cats outnumber rocks?
There are 2,650 cats on the diorama: 1,525 Union and 1,125 Confederate. In case you’re curious, that is just shy of our diorama of the Angle. “The Fate of Gettysburg” holds 3,000 cats.
This is the 2,000th cat installed on Little Round Top. He is a private in the 16th Michigan. Rebecca did not give him a corps badge purely so we could be sure to remember which he is. It also helps that he is near the big rock that the 16th Michigan’s monument stands upon today.
Col. Patrick O’Rorke (140th New York)
The last cat made for the diorama is Col. Patrick O’Rorke.
The last cat installed is one of the engineers or “sappers” working to clear a route for Hazlett’s artillery and Weed’s brigade of infantry.
The last corps badge Rebecca painted is on Sgt. John Wright, of the 140th New York. He and several others carried Col. O’Rorke’s body to the rear. After painting badges on nearly all of the Union infantry’s kepis, it was a strange moment for Rebecca when she realized that she probably will never have to paint another Maltese cross corps badge! Or, at least not for a while.
Three K-Cats are on the diorama. A K-Cat marks each 1,000 on the Cat Census that we keep.
Cat 6000 is Col. Joshua Chamberlain, 20th Maine
Cat 7000 is Maj. Ellis Spear, 20th Maine
Cat 9000 is Col. Strong Vincent
So, what total did “The Boys Are Still There” bring our Cat Census to? 9,828. We are a mere 172 cats away from Cat 10,000!! Stay tuned! (But don’t hold your breath—we need to do some research on USS Cumberland, first.)
Oops, we just spilled the beans! What’s next, you were about to ask?
Rebecca is beginning research for a diorama of the ironclad CSS Virginia (Merrimack) sinking the wooden sloop of war USS Cumberland, as a companion to our diorama depicting the inconclusive duel between the ironclads the following day. As we interact with visitors, we have come to realize that many people don’t know about the first day’s fight—a day which has been called the worst defeat for our navy until Pearl Harbor. As part of that day’s fighting, Virginia rammed Cumberland, and then the two ships pounded each other until the Union sloop sank. While Cumberland’s shots had no serious effect on the ironclad, Virginia’s wreaked havoc on the wooden ship. Lt. John Taylor Wood aboard Virginia remembered, “No ship was ever fought more gallantly.”
Ruth is working on a cavalry skirmish in Rockville, Md., in 1864. Facing charging Confederate cavalry, Col. Charles Russell Lowell ordered his Union cavalrymen to dismount and turn their horses loose, in order to have every man on the firing line. Ordinarily, one in every four men would hold the horses. In his book The Guns of Cedar Creek, author Thomas A. Lewis likens the order to telling sailors to scuttle their ship in the middle of the ocean. Fortunately for Lowell’s men, other Union soldiers caught the horses, and his thin line was able to break up the Confederate attack.
“Merry Woofmas” from Joanie the Museum Dog of Civil War Tails! She has her begging face and Christmas hat on as she writes to Santa this year…
Dear Santa,
This is Joan, the Villalobos dog. I have a new name and address this year. I’m Joanie, now, and guess what? I got a home! I live at Civil War Tails in Gettysburg, PA now. That’s “tails” not “trails.” I hope it’s not confusing. Oh, the cats here say that you know where we are, because they saved you from COVID in 2020. That’s good, because some people have trouble finding us, so I was worried you might not find me this year.
I feel a little silly writing to you. I feel like I already got my Christmas presents. I have a really nice home, with more toys than I know what to do with, and lots of blankets and beds. I get a chomp treat every day, too. My home came with an amazing sofa. I didn’t know what a sofa was or how to get onto it, but I learned quickly. It’s such a nice bed! It’s perfect for rolling on and squishing my face into! My hoomans tell me, “Watch out! You’ll roll off!” but I don’t know what that means. Sometimes I end up on the floor and I don’t know what happened, but I just jump back on. It makes my hoomans laugh, so that makes me happy.
I’m trying hard to be a good pup, Santa. But sometimes, I mess up. I don’t mean to, but I’m still learning how to be a house dog, so please don’t count it as being naughty! You see, sometimes, I forget that my hooman is on the walk with me and I try to chase squirrels. Other times, I love her so much that I want to defend her from other dogs, but she doesn’t like me doing that, either. When we’re home, I follow her everywhere to make sure she’s safe, but if she leaves me, I get lonely and steal her sweatshirt. But I don’t hurt it; I just want it to keep me company. She doesn’t seem to mind, so I think I’m not being naughty?
Everything is so different from New Orleans! I love being outside, exploring what Pennsylvania is like. First, it was exciting learning about Yankee squirrels. Now, the leaves are falling off the trees. Up in town they’re okay to walk on, but I don’t like walking on the big oak leaves around our house. I try to hop over them as quick as I can. Now it’s getting cold. But that’s okay because I have a warm coat that Nana made. And brisk, breezy days are so exciting! There’s just so much to sniff on the wind! Sometimes, my hooman asks, “What is the wind saying to you? What stories does it tell?” I wish I could tell her. I don’t suppose you could make me able to speak Hooman?
My hoomans even gave me a job at the museum. I like wearing my bandana and saying hi to visitors. Sometimes, I’m so sleepy that I miss them. Sometimes, I wish my hooman and I could just snuggle on the sofa all day. But other days we spend so much time on the sofa that I’m happy to go back to work in the museum. So it all works out.
If you have extra space on your sleigh, Santa, I would love a big chomp. Sometimes I dream of one that’s two feet long, with a red bow on it. And maybe some cookies! My hoomans have a big tray of cookies, and they look so good. If dogs can have cookies, could I have a few?
Merry Woofmas,
Joanie
Don’t tell Joanie, but the treats on her Christmas list are already tucked away and waiting for her!
Merry Christmas to all, from Rebecca, Ruth, Joanie, and the 9,740 cats at Civil War Tails!
As we look forward to family and food here at Civil War Tails on Thanksgiving Day, we would like to take a moment to reflect over this past year.
Thank you to all of our wonderful visitors for making Civil War Tails a part of your trip to Gettysburg. Thank you for supporting us another year (our best yet!). Thank you for your kind words and the joy you bring us! Thank you for letting our clay cats bring you joy. Thank you for letting us share our museum with you, and for sharing our museum with your family, friends, and even total strangers!
We have taken to jotting down memorable comments and interactions on a daily basis. It is so much fun to look back over a month or year! I would guess the most-heard comments this year are “Amazing!” and “Fantastic!” We love seeing our dioramas afresh, through the eyes of our visitors.
Thank you for making our little clay cats feel like celebrities! One favorite memory is of one visitor who had seen our post about the 2000th cat installed on Little Round Top. When she saw him “in person,” it was like she was meeting a celebrity! Another favorite memory is of a guest who saw our diorama “Desperation at Skull Camp Bridge” on our website. The story fascinated her so much that she researched the action before coming. When she finally saw our diorama “in the flesh,” she commented, “I have goosebumps!”
As with every year, we love thinking back over how our museum has inspired kids. We received a very sweet note from a little boy who has been inspired by our dioramas. We also enjoyed repeat visits from kids who have been here before and asked their parents to come again or who were bringing first-time family members. (Theron, we still plan/hope to finish Little Round Top before you return in the spring!)
Thank you also for your outpouring of support when we lost our sweet, perfect museum dog Kelly. Thank you for welcoming Joanie and for helping to give her a pawfect job and furever home. (Thanksgiving Day is the 3-month anniversary of her adoption!)
Thank you, as always, to our mom and dad, without whose encouragement this would never have happened, and without whose support Civil War Tails would not be possible.
Last, but most importantly, thanks be to God for giving us not only 8 years of Civil War Tails but our best museum year, by far!
We look forward to 2024 and hope to enjoy many more moments with you, our visitor-friends, whether in person or on social media.
Civil War Tails at the Homestead Diorama Museum - Gettysburg miniatures 