Smithfield Light Infantry Camp # 1466

23/08/2026

23/08/2026

Keeping tradition alive.

22/08/2026

On August 21, 1863, the first artillery shells landed inside the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, utterly surprising and scattering Confederate soldiers and civilians alike. The officer who ordered those shots to be fired was Captain Eli Lilly, commanding the 18th Indiana Light Artillery. Before the Civil War, Lilly worked as a druggist and had a deep fascination with chemistry. During the Chickamauga Campaign, he commanded the artillery of Colonel John T. Wilder’s “Lightning Brigade,” a role which eventually placed him squarely in the thick of the fighting along West Chickamauga Creek several weeks later on September 18, 19, and 20, 1863.

Lilly survived the battle and the war, eventually returning home and re-entering the pharmaceutical field. Under his family’s leadership, Lilly Pharmaceuticals became one of the first companies in the United States to mass‑produce penicillin, saving the lives of thousands of soldiers during World War II. It was also among the earliest producers of insulin, transforming the treatment of diabetes and improving the lives of millions.

Eli Lilly’s legacy lives on today, continuing to save lives through the medications his company develops, all of which can be traced back to a young captain who survived the carnage of the second deadliest battle of the Civil War - the Battle of Chickamauga.

However, Lilly's success should bring us pause and cause us to ask ourselves how many cures, discoveries, or breakthroughs never came to be because their potential creators were lost to war? What might the world look like today if every bright mind had lived long enough to share its gifts?

Image: D.M. Spurgin & Son, photographer. Major Eli Lilly of Co. E, 21st Indiana Infantry Regiment, 18th Indiana Light Artillery Battery, and 9th Indiana Cavalry Regiment in uniform / D.M. Spurgin & Son, photographers, Green Castle, Ind. United States, None. [Green castle, ind.: d.m. spurgin & son, between 1861 and 1865] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018652645/.

22/08/2026

On a spring evening in 1864, a Confederate officer hidden in the Florida palmettos did something almost no one thought possible, he sank a Union gunboat with nothing but cavalry and a single cannon. 🔥 His name was J.J. Dickison, and Union troops came to fear him as the Swamp Fox of the Confederacy.

Dickison led a small, fast moving cavalry company through the wilds of north central Florida, striking at Union raiders and vanishing back into the woods before help could arrive. At Horse Landing on the St. Johns River, he set a trap for the Union steamer Columbine. When the gunboat came around the bend, his men opened fire from the bank, and within minutes the vessel was crippled and burning, one of the only times in the entire Civil War that cavalry captured and destroyed an enemy warship. 🌊

Because so few major battles were fought on Florida soil, stories like Dickison's are often overlooked, yet they shaped how the war played out across the peninsula. He seemed to be everywhere at once, and frustrated Union commanders could never pin him down. To this day his exploits sound almost like tall tales, except the records show they really happened. 🐎

Florida's Civil War history runs so much deeper than most people realize. Had you ever heard of Dickison and his ambush on the St. Johns?

22/08/2026

Young women decorating with Confederate battle flags for a dance held at the Lexington Country Club, Kentucky, c. 1951

Photographer: John C. Wyatt

18/08/2026

The person pictured is Rev. Robert “Wright” Lee IV who has been representing himself as a 4th great nephew of Robert E Lee.
Perhaps you saw him speak when Virginia Governor Northam announced the statues along Richmond’s monument avenue were to be removed. Perhaps you saw him on the View or heard him on NPR or even at the VMA Awards in Los Angeles. The point is, he is making a career over denigrating the reputation of General Lee and doing so with the false claim of being related.

Here are the facts. Like his father, grandfather and great grandfather, they all were named Robert Wright Lee, and they were all from NorthCarolina. His 2x great grandfather was John Osborne Lee from Alabama as was his 3x great grandfather Robert Scothrup Lee. His 4th great was William Lee of Georgia. If anyone knows the geneology of RE Lee you’d know that none of these men were related to the Lee’s of Virginia and certainly not RE Lee.

The Lee’s of Virginia DNA Project does not have any of these (the Reverend) men in RE Lee’s line and even when looking at the obituary’s of John Osborne and Robert Scothrup, neither mentions a relationship with the RE Lee family. The bottom line is, this guy is a fraud and everyone that respects and honors General Lee should not allow this guy to perpetuate his false testimony. When you read a post about him, when you watch a YouTube video about him, when you read a news article about

15/08/2026

On display at The Gettysburg Museum of History. Flag relic and hat from the 14th Brooklyn one of the most well known units that fought in the battle of Gettysburg. Sometimes referred to as "The Red Legged Devils"

for more on the collcetions at The Gettysburg Museum Of History see:
www.GettysburgMuseumOfHistory.com