Visiting the Relic Room!

A beautiful Wednesday morning in Columbia, South Carolina. I've been so busy here that I haven't had a chance to blog; the archives room at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum is full of so many interesting things! I've been reading, and talking with the Curator of History, Krissy Johnson, and later we're visiting sites in Columbia. (Some sites are still standing, even though Union General Sherman's men burned the city down in February of 1865).

The Relic Room has been a museum since 1896; it was started by a group of Confederate widows (and wives of former Confederate soldiers) about thirty years after the war, as a place to remember their history. They were proud of their soldiers, and proud of what they had done on the homefront during the war - managing farms and businesses while their men were gone to war. And when they started the museum, they didn't just save the uniforms and weapons of the men - they saved things that reminded them of their own experiences, like a coffee grinder that was used to make fake "coffee" from acorns. (Sounds pretty good to me, but then, I'm a bear!)

More later - lots to see here!