Pictured here is Iris Lee Gay Jordan, the daughter of Lewis Gay, who served as a private in the 4th Florida Infantry Regiment.
Private Gay was captured early in the war and was imprisoned at Fort Delaware. After being exchanged, he returned to his regiment and fought in all the major battles of the western theater. He died at the age of 91 in 1931.
Gay was 82 years old when his Iris was born. Her mother, Gay’s second wife, Minnie McLeod Gay, was 41. Minnie lived until 1973.
Mrs. Jordan is still with us and is quite active. This photograph was taken in 2012 at the dedication of a Confederate monument in Dallas, Ga. On Mrs. Jordan’s left is Stevan Crew, a member of the William J. Hardee Camp # 1397 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which commissioned the monument. On her right is Gould Hagler, the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation.
PERRYVILLE, Ky. – On the very ground where Americans fought Americans over their discontent for each other, a group of Federal Civil War reenactors put aside differences they might have and resolved to work together to strengthen the hobby west of the Appalachians by forming the Grand Armies of the Republic (GAR).
The goal of the pact is to preserve history and educate the public about the Civil War.
In the spirit of President Abraham Lincoln’s words of binding up the nation’s wounds, this group of reenactors representing nine Midwestern umbrella organizations, intend to mend hard feelings that have festered and eroded the reenacting community.
In a hobby that has grown more divisive through the last two decades, punctuated by groups boycotting other’s events for command and control, this newly formed group pledged to support one another’s events and resolve differences without creating fissures that have weakened the hobby over the years, which has directly resulted in diluting the hobby.
Buying and Selling the Finest Confederate, Obsolete and Southern States Currency
The group also pledged to work with like-minded reenacting groups with Confederate impressions.
The group plans to support regional and national events. Additionally, the group plans to cooperate to eliminate conflicting regional events that fall on the same weekend, which has the effect of weakening both events.
It is hoped that these efforts will bolster promising regional events, returning them to days when a thousand or more reenactors attended these homegrown history lessons, which now often receive no more than living historians measured in the hundreds.
Participating organizations to date include; Army of the French
Civil War Catalog Featuring a large assortment of Civil War and Indian War autographs, accoutrements, memorabilia, medals, insignia, buttons, GAR, documents, photos, & books.