Helen:
During that discussion did we touch upon the irony of the huge deposits of kaolin clay underneath the site of the infamous Andersonville Prison in Tennessee?
For you non-USners:
Andersonville was a POW camp for Union soldiers unlucky enough to have been captured within its catchment area. Most of the inmates died of various diseases, principally diarrhea. And all this while sitting directly on top of a mineral which could have saved most of their lives.
The Confederate officer in charge of the prison was convicted of war crimes after the war and was hanged. So far as I know he was the only Confederate to suffer that fate, though Cantrell and Mosby and pretty much all of the Kansas terrorists and a few others probably deserved it.
The people of Andersonville, anxious to put the Civil War behind them (not!) have a ceremony on the anniversary of the officer's birthday, during which they do their level worst to continue the cultural division between North and South.
TEd
