“Memoirs from the Bluegrass ~ How I Became a Confederate Soldier” will be presented by Col. Peter Mullen on the following upcoming dates:
August 19, 2104, to Amelia Island Genealogy Society, Fernandina Beach, Florida, 7:00 pm
September 23, 2014 to Sons of the Confederacy, at the Museum of Southern History, Jacksonville, Florida at 7:00 pm
Peter P. Mullen* is a native born Kentuckian and a graduate of the University of Louisville and Western Kentucky University earning degrees in Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science and currently living in Callahan, Florida where he is a professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville. He is a member of the Speakers Bureau for the Georgia Historical Society, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial, Connecticut Civil War Sesquicentennial, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Anthropological Multicultural Association of the South, and Florida State College; he lectures to professional and historical societies nationwide in observance of the Sesquicentennial Commemoration of the Civil War.
Professor Mullen was commissioned by Governor Steven L. Beshear of the Commonwealth of Kentucky as a Kentucky Colonel on September 20, 2011 in the 220th year of the Commonwealth.
Peter Mullen ~ Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels
540470 Lem Turner Road, Callahan Florida, 32011
(904) 879-4931 “Proud to be Southern”
MEMOIRS FROM THE BLUEGRASS
This is a dialogue written and presented in “living history” format, reflecting 19th century period attire, language, and correctness by Peter P. Mullen, Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, based on R.M. Heater’s memoir “How I Became a Confederate Soldier” published by Andy Turner, Gatehouse Press, 2013.
R.M. Heater lived on a farm near Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, in Mercer County. After the Battle of Perryville in October of 1862, the Union Army occupied the Bluegrass Region of Central Kentucky, imposing martial law on all civilian communities; ever since the Commonwealth of Kentucky had been awarded the center star on the Confederate Battle Flag by President Jefferson Davis on December 10, 1861, the Union Army considered most civilians as disloyal citizens and pro-southern sympathizers.
Heater’s older brother had already joined the 30th Tennessee Regiment, CSA; when his brother sent a letter home, Heater was arrested for treason at the age of 20, and sent to jail in Franklin, Kentucky. Heater was offered freedom if he would join the Union Army…… when he refused, he was sent to a military prison in Bowling Green. Here he took into his confidence two fellow prisoners, O.W. Laney from Col. John S. Scott’s 1st Louisiana Cavalry and a fellow Son of the Commonwealth, John Gafford from General John Hunt Morgan’s command.
Heater, Laney, and Gafford escaped the prison only to be recaptured and sent back to be shackled with a thirty pound ball and handcuffed…. All three were told they would never see their homes again.
A turn of fate resulting in the escape of fourteen prisoners, afforded Heater and his two Rebel Compatriots the chance to once again regain their freedom from the Union Army by using the Louisville and Nashville Railroad as a guide away from Bowling Green.
This dialogue documents their successful efforts to evade Union Patrols, returning to Heater’s home in Mercer County Kentucky and being secretly escorted by neighbors to Robertson County, Tennessee, where he was reunited with his brother and joined the 30th Tennessee Regiment under the command of Capt. George Page in the spring of 1864.
Pvt. R.M. Heater, 30th Tennessee Regiment, Army of Tennessee, Confederate States of America
Pvt. Heater was one of 40,000 men from the Commonwealth of Kentucky who served in the Armies of the Confederacy defending his homeland from Northern Aggression
James Taylor I (the elder) 