Union Talbot Boys closer to becoming real

Three months have gone by since my last update on my journey to making the Union Talbot Boys more than just talk.  Holidays and my day job are partly to blame for the delay in an update, but mostly, an exciting new development has had me keeping a lid on the story.

If you remember, my journey started with the Talbot County Council back in August and ended with them in October.  When I started my exploratory journey on my own lonely path because I couldn't find anyone else working on the Union Talbot Boys project, I got a lot of suggestions from various people and organizations, all of whom ended our meeting with a finger pointing in a new direction for me to explore.  All that finger pointing had me walking in a very large circle, but when I circled back to the Talbot County Council, Jennifer Williams, President of the Talbot County Council, forwarded my emails to the legal department.  With a huge thank you to Ms. Williams, she sent me on a path to making the Union Talbot Boys a reality.

After a couple of emails to Anthony P. Kupersmith, Esq. (Acting County Attorney), his office arranged a meeting with R. Andrew Hollis (Talbot County Manager), Mary O'Donnell (Assistant County Attorney) and himself.  To my surprise, I wasn't the only invitee to this meeting regarding the Union Talbot Boys.  Two other gentlemen also pursuing the goal of creating the Union Talbot Boys were invited so we could meet each other and discuss where we were at in our plans.

I have a confession to make.  I'm a bit impatient at times.  As I embarked on my circular journey, many times I thought the system isn't for the little guy with a dollar in his pocket.  It's for the person carrying a fat wallet or a fat purse.  The little guy with a dollar in his pocket gets shoved out the door with the hope he gets thirsty, stops at a tavern for a beer, and forgets what it was he had set out to do.  I'm sure that bit of frustration showed in a couple of my previous articles as I wrote them in real time while experiencing the events and emotions.  But I learned two valuable lessons that's easy to forget in this technological world of instant gratification.  I learned no matter how things might look, you don't know everything going on behind the scenes, and patience and persistence pays off. 


I'll never know if my initial contact with the County Commissioners resulted in a three month circular journey because they were measuring my commitment to the project before involving other people who could provide valuable help or if fate happened to make my journey circle back to the County Commissioners to afford me the opportunity to meet others who were working towards the same goals.  All I know is I sat in the meeting with two gentlemen who were further along on their path to making the Union Talbot Boys a reality than I had gotten on my path and there were important ears listening to the three of us.
Story won't be complete
until the Union Talbot Boys
join him

In fact, not only did those important ears listen, but Mr. Kupersmith, Mr. Hollis, and Ms. O'Donnell took copious notes of all we said.  Between the three of them, there were enough words on their pieces of paper for a short story.  The other two gentlemen took a paragraph or so of notes each.  I didn't even have a pen to write my name on the blank sheet of paper, a sheet I had to borrow.

By now, you're probably wondering who the other two gentlemen are.  Best I can tell, they're regular guys like me who happen to feel strongly about the Union Talbot Boys.  They aren't trying to make the monument a reality in pursuit of their fifteen minutes of fame.  They're trying to make it a reality because it's the right thing to do.

There's the tricky part.  How do we know what "the right thing to do" is? The pages of history are filled with stories of people doing what they felt was "the right thing to do."  Many of their choices have stood the test of time.  Some haven't.  Some we still debate.

One good indication that "it is the right thing to do" is there are no underlying selfish motives for doing it.  As that principle applies to the effort to erect a Union Talbot Boys Memorial, it means those involved aren't making the effort to gain fifteen minutes of fame, to enhance their résumé, to push or validate their own views, or to gain personally in some way.

Since our first meeting the week before Thanksgiving last year, the talk has always centered on how to tie in the Union Talbot Boys with the existing Confederate Talbot Boys and get both monuments to tell the whole story of that turning point in American history.  The driving force has been that the community shouldn't be shuffling history off to a weed overgrown cemetery or an obscure museum simply because we don't like what that history shows us.  Instead, it should stare us in the face so we are forced to stare back at it, reconcile with it, and teach it so no future generations repeat the mistakes.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a third gentleman on the team when we met at the courtyard grounds with a local monument broker to assess the location.  Again, the talk centered on where to place the Union Talbot Boys and how to tie it in with the Confederate Talbot Boys to get both monuments to tell their story.  The meeting reinforced my belief that as a group, pursuing the Union Talbot Boys project was the "right thing to do."

As we talked and the monument people took their measurements, an elderly lady milled around within earshot of our conversations.  After some time had passed, one of us (I don't remember who) struck up a conversation with the lady.  After introducing herself as Sue, her comment was a simple statement that she was happy to hear somebody cared about the Talbot Boys and was working on getting the whole story told.

For some people, the existing Talbot Boys and the proposed Union Talbot Boys are simply statues on a hunk of rock.  For others, like Sue, those monuments mean a lot for unexpressed reasons.  And for others, like the gentlemen I'm working with, the monuments are personal.  When the Union Talbot Boys is completed, they'll have family members listed on both monuments.  Call the Civil War whatever you like, but in the end, it was and always will be a war of brother against brother, a dark but necessary chapter in our history, and a turning point in what our country would become.  We have a ways to go to achieve the ideal, but if we start erasing the bits of history we don't like now, we're doomed to repeat our darkest chapters in one form or another later.


TL;DR Folks:
A group of residents, brought together with the help of the County Commissioners, is working on making the Union Talbot Boys a reality so that the Talbot County Courthouse grounds can tell the whole story of the Civil War.  For readers of this blog, you already know me, but I assure you the other people I'm working with are not Drunk Rednecks.  They are soberly pursuing a solid plan to honor the Civil War veterans on both sides of the conflict and ensure we don't forget the lessons the Civil War era taught us.  I look forward to introducing them to you as we continue to develop and build the project.

The whole Talbot Boys saga:
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Posted by Five Drunk Rednecks

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