Ola Jean Kelly, executive director of the Union County Museum, said the group, consisting of 18 seniors from all over the United States, is scheduled to arrive at 9 a.m. Mrs. Kelly said the theme of the tour is “A Senior Program Journey: The Breakup of the Confederacy.” The group is led by Ed Barr, a program facilitator with the Smithsonian. The purpose of tour is to follow the trail that Confederate President Jefferson Davis,his family and members of his cabinet traveled during their retreat from Richmond, Va., in late April 1865.
Davis stopped in Union at the Wallace House on East Main Street then spent the night at the country home of Capt. and Mrs. James T. Douglas which was located between Union and Cross Keys. The next day the entourage continued to the Cross Keys house where they ate a midday meal before traveling on toward Abbeville.
The Smithsonian tour group will be the latest in a series of tour groups to visit historic sites in Union County. Mrs. Kelly said that between October 2008 and April of this year an average of one tour group a month visited. Most of the visitors have been from the West Coast and Canada.
Mrs. Kelly said that she will greet the Smithsonian group “with southern hospitality and light refreshments with the assistance of several members of the historical society.”
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