Making Renegade South more user-friendly

On the advice of Kevin Levin, moderator of  Civil War Memory , I have restructured the sidebars on Renegade South’s home page. The search box now appears first, and I encourage you to use it to search for names or places that may appear in various posts, if you haven’t already done so. Next are the “Recent Posts” and “Recent Comments” boxes that allow you to quickly access the newest additions to the blog.

I have also expanded the categories list so that the posts are cross listed more effectively. Specifically, I added “North Carolina” and “Texas” categories to allow visitors to find those posts more quickly, especially given the multitude of “Free State of Jones” material contained on Renegade South.

I hope you find Renegade South to be more user friendly as a result of these changes!

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Your moderator is back on board

You may have noticed that there have not been many posts on Renegade South for the past week or so. The reason is that I made a big push this past two weeks to get a revised version of “Southern Communities at War” to the University of North Carolina Press. I finally got it into the mail this Friday, then found the energy to post one column, and then pretty much collapsed from fatigue. But it’s Sunday evening now, and my partially-rested brain is already starting to churn up ideas for a new post.

So stay posted; we’re back in business. And please remember to read the comments and questions left by others–you might be the one person who can answer them! Or you might find a comment that spurs you to add your own insights. Hope to hear from you.

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Ed Payne to Speak About Sarah Collins at Laurel-Jones County Library

Independent historian Ed Payne, of Jackson, will present “Sarah Collins: Pioneer Woman in the Free State of Jones” before the Jones County Genealogical and Historical Society at the Laurel-Jones County Library on Saturday, March 28, at 10:00 a.m.

Ed’s article on Sarah Collins is scheduled to appear in the April issue of the Journal of Mississippi History.

Those who have been following my recent posts about the Collins family may already know that Sarah (Sallie) Collins (1810-1889) was the daughter of Stacy and Sarah (Anderson) Collins, among the first settlers in the area that would become Jones County. Ed offers the following profile of Sarah Collins:

Sarah’s family connections and personal decisions placed her at the center of events in Civil War Jones County. Although she was a slave owner, Sarah is documented as having assisted the Newton Knight band—which included three of her brothers and four nephews. At the same time, her son and a son-in-law were fighting in Confederate units. Thus the life of Sarah Collins offers a unique prism through which to view the legacy of the Free State of Jones.

Sarah also exemplifies the strength and grit of the pioneer women of the Piney Woods: single-handedly killing a bear in her teens, enduring the death of her husband (George Willoughby Walters) and three children in her early forties, strongly contesting a divorce suit filed by her second husband, and then struggling to operate her own farm over the next three decades.

NOTE: Kinship ties between the Collinses and other area families who ended up on opposing sides during (and after) the Civil War will also be discussed. These allied families include ANDERSON, POWELL, WALTERS, and WELBORN.

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New: RSS Feed for Southern Unionists Chronicles

Please note on the sidebar of Renegade South’s homepage that Robert Moore’s blog, Southern Unionists Chronicles
is now one click away thanks to the addition of an RSS Feed. I encourage readers  not only to visit, but to consider contributing Unionist documents to Robert’s site.

Vikki

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Renegade South is linked in!

You may already have noticed that several new links are posted under the Renegade South blogroll. It all started night before last when I ventured out into the blogosphere (since I am, now, a blogger!),  and visited a few Civil War sites. I was so pleased with what I found that I posted a few comments out there.

Well, the response was more than I could ever have hoped for! Kevin Levin, Civil War Memory, Robert H. Moore, Cenantua’s Blog and Southern Unionists Chronicles, and Brett Shulte, TOCWOC A Civil War Blog,  all welcomed me to the world of Civil War blogs and added this site to their blogrolls.

And, suddenly, Renegade South is getting a lot more traffic, so I decided to contribute to the cross-traffic by posting their sites here, which also makes it easier for you to navigate between the different sites. I hope that you enjoy their blogs, and, as always, I welcome your comments.

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