Musing of a History Buff - Sept. 10

  Musings of a history buff

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Ellis Lee Knox. I moved back to Texas to live on my wife’s land on Lake Bob Sandlin in December of 2006 from the Washington D.C. area.

There, I was a direct contractor to The Central Intelligence Agency, really, no fooling! I worked for CIA University, in the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis.

 At the Kent School, new analysts were trained to write the Presidential Daily Briefing for the President of these United States. It’s the most important document the CIA produces.  I was the technology manager of the school’s several classrooms, photographer, videographer and general gofer.

While living in northern Virginia surrounded by the history of the United States, I was literally in history buff heaven.  My interest in the War of Northern Aggression from 1861 to 1865 was especially heightened and fed.

Being the great-grandson of two Confederate soldiers, my interest in the many local battlefields was fed but never satisfied. The three day battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, of 1863 was of particular interest.

The Kent School students receive a special intelligence tour of the battlefield. The British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst also sends its students there to study the second day’s action at little round top by the 20^th Maine Battalion. I visited many times.

My great-grandfather, Amos Ellis, was there those three days along with four great uncles, two on the Ellis side in the First Texas Regiment and two from the Knox side in the Fourth Texas Regiment of the Texas Brigade.

My great-great-grandfather, James Washington Knox, was in the Sixth Battalion Texas Cavalry and was top sergeant. However, he fought only in the western theater of the Civil War.

 I was a reenactor in a reenactment of a battle my great-grandfather Knox was in, the battle of Pleasant Hill in Louisiana, in 1864. The Confederate forces won that battle in a route.

With all the warriors in my family, and hearing their stories, this created a great interest in me in our history early on in my life. I have, as many do, family who served in practically every war, from the English colonies, the United States, Mexican Texas, both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. My son spent 18 years in the Marine Corps and served four tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

However, it is not just war that makes history interesting, it’s a lot about the little stories of people who just want to make a living and, as a sidebar, created the greatest country that has ever existed on this planet. I don’t think most of our forefathers ever thought that what they were doing was contributing to making a country.

They were just living their lives, raising their families, and going on about their business as free people do. But when the need arose, they dropped what they were doing and did whatever had to be done for the good of their community, their state, or their country.

My uncle Denmon Knox, a B-17 bomber pilot in WW II and bomber of Berlin, once said to me, “World War II was a war we didn’t ask to fight, but we had to fight it and we had to win it. So we went, we fought, we won and we came home.” He raised a family, worked hard, retired to his hometown and died in his 80s.

He was truly a typical American. That was the greatest generation.

 However, they have all been great in one way or another. My wife's two great-grandfathers fought in the Texas Revolution. William H. Smith died at the Alamo and the other, John Schlobohm, fought at San Jacinto.

I hope you will join me as I ramble around in our history – local, state, national and occasionally the world. Stop me on the street if you have a suggestion. I have learned to love the research at the Agency, especially if I get interested.

So, ‘till next time.