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Mudcat Falls Historical Society Fights to Save Local Civil War Site

MUDCAT FALLS -- It wasn't the battle of the Blue and Gray, but Mars versus Venus -- the battle of the sexes -- that raged in Calabash County during the great American Civil War. While men were dying in battle at Gettysburg, Antetiem, Bull Run and Vicksburg, the women of Mudcat Falls were keeping the not-so-home fronts warm for fighting units on both sides during the deadliest conflagration ever to visit upon our native shores. These shocking revelations came to light recently through the discovery of daguerreotypes, including several Mathew Brady originals, and other tattered documents by the Mudcat Falls Woman's Auxiliary Historical Society in the basement of the "Old Stone House" during their restoration efforts.

"The Old Stone house is the oldest stone structure in Calabash County and we girls were working to save what we thought was an important downtown landmark from being torn down to make room for a new Walgreens. They said that General Ulysses S. Grant slept there, but we thought that meant something completely different," said Madeleine Goulash, President of the MFWAHS. "We really wanted to find an important battlefield or something, but there just wasn't one around. We had no idea of the type of activities that really went on in those rooms during the war, and now we've raised all this money and got the structure listed on National Register of Historic Places and everything."

The National Register of Historic Places is the official United States Government list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. Authorized under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Register is part of a federal program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect our historic and archeological resources. Properties listed on the Register include districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that are significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture. The Old Stone House is the town's first and only entry on the Register.

"I have examined these artifacts, finding them to be authentic and persuasive in proving Mudcat Falls to be an important stop-over point along the river for troops of both the Union and Confederacy" reported Killarney Killkarp, Professor of History at Pistol Creek State University. Barely suppressing a smirk, he added. "Of course, it appears quite clear, though, that the primary commerce of the town during the war was 'Horizontal Recreation,' meaning many of the delicate doves of Mudcat Falls were likely to have been quite soiled by the time the surrender at Appomatox brought a different kind of peace to the war-torn nation in 1865. This discovery would also explain the great diversity of ethnicity manifest in that area's population."

"I will admit that at first most of us girls were quite upset to learn that not all of the women of the war were as honorable and worthy a role model as Scarlett O'Hara. It really seemed to put a crimp in our plans for historical seminars, workshops, decor decisions and recreating costumes of the period for our hostesses," said Goulash. "But when I told my husband, Darrell, about what we found in the basement, he seemed to have a renewed interest in me and my activities outside the home, instead of just parking himself in the La-Z-Boy to watch NASCAR all weekend long. Suddenly, we at the Society have quite an energetic crew of 'Hubby Helpers,' as we call them, working their little hearts out to get the Old Stone House ready to open to visitors. Attendance at our regular monthly meetings is also up and the discussion is much more lively than ever before."

The Mudcat Falls Woman's Auxiliary Historical Society meets the second Thursday of every month. Next month's meeting will be moved from Madeleine Goulash's living room to the Calabash-Hoover High School Gymnasium.

©2003 MFTHPPPGT




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