Mike,
Traveling man! I hope that when you arrive in Marietta next month you leave the carpet bag at home!
. There are still "shoot-on-site" orders out for anyone seen carrying such luggage "south of the border". Also, I meant to ask, how much iron CAN you carry in one of those bags?
As you noted the removal of the smokestack and brought that to my particular attention it might be that you were referring to the remains of the Selma Foundry structures in Selma?
They were likely built from the same brick as the Confederate Naval Gun Foundry and Ordnance Works ("CNGF&OW") - salvaged from the site and rebuilt into a successful foundry operation that was in continuous operation up until the 1960's. The same George Peacock who served as Catesby ap R. Jone's furnace master was the owner/operater of a foundry there for many years. Ironically, Peacock was brought to America by John Ericsson of USS Monitor fame circa 1848 to work with Ericsson on the development of ironclad ships for the US Navy. Like everyone else, Peacock determined that the intensely irritating Swede wasn't someone he could work with and parted company with him not long after arriving in America. The irony (shortcut in the story here) is that Peacock (arguably the finest iron expert/furnace master to be found anywhere) wound up working for Catesby Jones at the CNGF&OW in Selma making rifled cannon and projectiles specifically designed to destroy Monitor class vessels developed by Ericsson for the use of the yankee navy. BTW, the Brooke rifles were perfectly capable of penetrating the 8" of layered iron normally employed in the construction of Monitor-class turrets.
FWIW, the current management in Selma offers not one chance in a million that a dime will be spent to preserve the historically significant structures now almost beyond saving. Sad, but true.
