Blue Gray Review | American Civil War more or less

what it is

Posted on November 6, 2019 by SUMPTER

a big stiff

Not exactly a mummy just in time for Halloween, but in October 150 years ago some folks south of Syracuse, New York dug up what appeared to be a well-preserved human being. The mysterious form didn’t seem to be preserved by mummification but by petrifaction – the process of organic matter turning to stone. And it wasn’t just any human being, it was a giant of a man, over ten feet tall! The find generated a lot of interest; it didn’t take long for a geologist who examined the object to determine that it had never been a living, breathing human, it was just a well-wrought statue.

From the December 4, 1869 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

THE CARDIFF GIANT.

On the 16th of October there was discovered on Mr. NEWELL’S farm in Onondaga County, New York, and about thirteen miles south of Syracuse, what what at first was supposed to be a petrified human form – a giant of the olden time. The first reports of this discovery excited the greatest interest among all classes, and especially among scientific men. The fossil was found about three feet below the surface while some persons were digging for a well.The soil was a sort of bluish [?] clay mixed with quicksand [?] and black loam, and organic remains were found about the body. The figure, when first discovered, lay in a very easy and natural position, horizontal, partly on the right side, with the right hand resting over the abdomen. It’s dimensions were as follow [sic]: From crown of head to hollow of foot, 10 feet 2 1/2 inches; crown of head to tip of chin, 1 foot 9 inches; length of nose, 6 inches; width of nostrils, 3 1/2 inches; width of mouth, 4 inches; point to point of shoulder, 3 feet; point of hip to knee-joint, 3 feet; diameter of calf of leg, 9 1/2 inches; diameter of thigh, 1 foot; length of foot, 1 foot 7 1/2 inches; width of palm, 7 inches; diameter of wrist, 5 inches. The veins, eyeballs, muscles, tendons of the heel, and cords of the neck were all fully disclosed.

hoisting 2990 pounds

As we have said, this figure was at first supposed to be a petrified human form. But it was soon found that this theory seemed hardly plausible. Though the figure had the appearance of stone, the outer surface could be shaved off with a knife without dulling the blade. Dr. J.F. BOYNTON visited the figure, and, after a careful examination, pronounced it to be a statue of a Caucasian. The features were finely cut, and excellent artists have remarked the symmetry of proportions characterizing the whole figure.

Dr. BOYNTON at first supposed that this statue was carved by the Jesuits who dwelt in this valley between 1520 and 1760. After a more thorough examination he declares it to be of gypsum, and of recent origin. He says, in a recent letter to Professor SPENCER, of the Smithsonian Institute, at Washington:

“I have stated that I thought his ‘origin would not carry us back over three hundred years;’ but I am not certain that the known principles of chemistry will justify me in asserting that the period between his burial and resurrection was over three years. Its antiquated appearance has been produced not by abrasion, as many have said, but by the dissolving action of water, which, I think, could have been accomplished in a few months. A more careful and accurate calculation, admitting the possible chance of some undiscovered error creeping into the calculation, may show the burial to have taken place about 370 or 371 days ago – as it may have happened between two days.”

northward bound

Mr. NEWELL, upon whose ground the statue was found, is said to have disposed of it for $40,000. The figure has been carried to Syracuse. Its weight is 2990 pounds. If it were solid stone it would not weigh so much by 500 pounds. A recent theory has been started, that it is a cast-iron figure covered with a coating of cement. The head, it is said, gives a ringing sound when struck, like that of a hollow, metallic body. But Mr. PALMER, the sculptor, states that there are marks of sculptor’s tools.

American Goliah, a pamphlet published shortly after the find (and republished at Project Gutenberg), included a letter from Dr. Boynton explaining his raionale for concluding that the object was not a fossil-man. But the pamphlet also included reasons to think it might have been petrified and included the contrasting opinions of Tom, Dick, and Harry. A letter to the editor explained that the Onondaga people believed the giant was the prophet who predicted long ago the coming of the pale-faces and that he would die and be buried but that later Onondagas would see him again. It seems that the pamphlet was published before the move to Syracuse – hackies were available to drive visitors from Syracuse to the site; “The average daily attendance for the first week was from three to five hundred persons.” The big thing inspired scientists to examine but also artists to write:

TO THE GIANT OF ONONDAGA.

Speak out, O Giant! stiff, and stark, and grim,
Open thy lips of stone, thy story tell;
And by the wondering crowd who pay thee court
In thy cold bed, and gaze with curious eyes
On thy prone form so huge, and still so human,
Let now again be heard, that voice which once
Through all old Onondaga’s hills and vales
Proclaimed thy lineage from a Giant race,
And claimed as subjects, all who trembling hear
Art thou a son of old Polyphemus,
Or brother to the Sphinx, now turned to stone—
The mystery and riddle of the world?
Did human passions stir within thy breast
And move thy heart with human sympathies?
Was life to thee, made up of joy and hope,
Of love and hate, of suffering and pain,
In fair proportions to thy Giant form?
Did ever wife, by whatsoever name
Or tie of union, with her ministries
Of love, caress and cheer thy way through life?
Were children in thy home, to climb thy knee
And pluck thy beard, secure, and dare thy power
Or, was thy nature as its substance now,
Like stone—as cold and unimpressible?
Over these hills, with spear like weaver’s beam,
Dids’t thou pursue the chase and track thy foe,
Holding all fear and danger in contempt?
And, did at last, some fair Delliah
Of thy race, hold thee in gentle dalliance,
And with thy head upon her lap at rest,
Wer’t shorn of strength, and told too late, alas,
“Thine enemies be upon thee?”
Tell us the story of thy life, and whether
Of woman born—substance and spirit
In mysterious unon [union?] wed—or fashioned
By hand of man from stone, we bow in awe,
And hail thee, GIANT OF ONONDAGA!

SYRACUSE, Oct. 20, 1869. D.P.P

“Tell us the story of thy life”? Well, it seems that the mystery man is still speechless, but Wikipedia explains that the Cardiff Giant was a giant hoax. Atheist George Hill wanted to have some fun with believers who read the Bible literally – Genesis 6:4 says that giants once lived on earth. P.T. Barnum was so enamored with the profit-making potential of the object he offered $50,000 for it; rebuffed, Mr. Barnum commissioned a plaster replica he showed off as the original fossilized man and claimed the specimen unearthed in the hamlet of Cardiff was the actual imposter.

The first scientist on the scene, John F. Boynton, was an early leader in the Mormon Church, who was later excommunicated. He seemed to have a wide range of scientific interests. “After parting ways with the church, Boynton traveled throughout the United States lecturing on natural history, geology, and other sciences. Between 1853 and 1854, he joined a U.S. government geological surveying expedition to California. During the American Civil War, Boynton was employed by the U.S. to design torpedoes and other weapons. He holds 36 patents in the U.S. National Patent Office.”

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

die like an Egyptian

shrimps

The Onondaga Nation still has land south of Syracuse. North of that near Onondaga Lake a replica of Sainte Marie among the Iroquois is part of the Onondaga County Parks system. It is “a 17th-century French Jesuit mission located in the middle of the Onondaga nation of the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois. It was located on Onondaga Lake near modern-day Syracuse, New York. The original mission was in use only from 1656 to 1658.” Now the “French Fort” is the Skä•noñh – Great Law of Peace Center

Mormon scientist
and torpedo developer

showed off hoax replica

Onondagas in the middle

The giant is currently lying in repose (a very long repose) at The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Back on October 16th the museum held a 150th Birthday Party for the Giant: Non-members “must pay 50 cents admission (the same price people paid in 1869!)”

well-preserved

You can find all the Harper’s Weekly material from its December 4th issue and all of 1869 at the Internet Archive. Martin Lewison’s photo at the farmer’s Museum is licensed under Creative Commons. I also got the image of John. F. Boynton from Wikimedia, as well as R. A. Nonenmacher’s map of the original five Iroquois nations. From the Library of Congress: the photo of the reclining giant; the midway at the “Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York, 1901, includes Cardiff Giant display, American Inn, Lubin’s Cineography, and streets of Cairo.” – it looks like the giant was housed at the extreme left of the photo; Pharaoh Ramses II died in 1213 B.C. – his mummy has held up pretty well; Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s 1655 etching of David and Goliath, who probably stood about 6 feet 9 inches according to most known ancient sources. P.T. Barnum

tall tale

Posted in 150 Years Ago, 150 Years Ago This Month, Postbellum Society | Tagged Cardiff Giant, fake news, hoaxes, John Farnham Boynton, Onondaga Indians, Petrifaction, Phineas Taylor Barnum, Sainte Marie among the Iroquois | Leave a comment

peace clone

Posted on October 28, 2019 by SUMPTER

In the fall of 1917 a bit of a brouhaha broke out in the United States over Abraham Lincoln, or at least over his likeness. In 1913, to commemorate one hundred years of peace between the cousins, British-American Centenary Committee planned on building a statue of Abraham Lincoln in London. The statue was to be a replica of one by Augustus Saint-Gaudens that stood in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. The big war breaking out in Europe put the project on hold. In 1917 Charles P. Taft offered to pay for a different Lincoln statue to be erected in London. That statue would be a duplicate of one in Cincinnati by George Grey Barnard. Many people, including President Lincoln’s son Robert Todd, objected to that particular work being used for the commemoration. They found it too crass, too undignified, too un-presidential. Besides, did Abraham Lincoln really look like that with such extreme extremities – huge hands and feet?

The peace centenary committee must have worked out a diplomatic solution. According to the October 5, 1919 issue of the New York Tribune Mr. Barnard’s uncouth Lincoln was relegated to Manchester in England and dedicated that September:

over there too

Irish-born journalist William Howard Russell actually met Abraham Lincoln at the White House. From his diary entry for March 27, 1861:

un-disguiseable?

Soon afterwards there entered, with a shambling, loose, irregular, almost unsteady gait, a tall, lank, lean man, considerably over six feet in height, with stooping shoulders, long pendulous arms terminating in hands of extraordinary dimensions, which, however, were far exceeded in proportion by his feet. He was dressed in an ill-fitting, wrinkled suit of black, which put one in mind of an undertaker’s uniform at a funeral; round his neck a rope of black silk was knotted in a large bulb, with flying ends projecting beyond the collar of his coat; his turned-down shirt-collar disclosed a sinewy muscular yellow neck, and above that, nestling in a great black mass of hair, bristling and compact like a ruff of mourning pins, rose the strange quaint face and head, covered with its thatch of wild republican hair, of President Lincoln. The impression produced by the size of his extremities, and by his flapping and wide projecting ears, may be removed by the appearance of kindliness, sagacity, and the awkward bonhommie of his face; the mouth is absolutely prodigious; the lips, straggling and extending almost from one line of black beard to the other, are only kept in order by two deep furrows from the nostril to the chin; the nose itself — a prominent organ — stands out from the face, with an inquiring, anxious air, as though it were sniffing for some good thing in the wind; the eyes dark, full, and deeply set, are penetrating, but full of an expression which almost amounts to tenderness; and above them projects the shaggy brow, running into the small hard frontal space, the development of which can scarcely be estimated accurately, owing to the irregular flocks of thick hair carelessly brushed across it. One would say that, although the mouth was made to enjoy a joke, it could also utter the severest sentence which the head could dictate, but that Mr. Lincoln would be ever more willing to temper justice with mercy, and to enjoy what he considers the amenities of life, than to take a harsh view of men’s nature and of the world, and to estimate things in an ascetic or puritan spirit. A person who met Mr. Lincoln in the street would not take him to be what — according to the usages of European society — is called a “gentleman;” and, indeed, since I came to the United States, I have heard more disparaging allusions made by Americans to him on that account than I could have expected among simple republicans, where all should be equals; but, at the same time, it would not be possible for the most indifferent observer to pass him in the street without notice.

As he advanced through the room, he evidently controlled a desire to shake hands all round with everybody, and smiled good-humoredly till he was suddenly brought up by the staid deportment of Mr. Seward, and by the profound diplomatic bows of the Chevalier Bertinatti. …

I found out about Mr. Russell’s diary in Amanda Foreman’s A World on Fire. She writes that he was “the most famous journalist in the world”, known for his “honest and searing” accounts of the Crimean War. ^[1]One of the book’s themes is how close the American Civil War came to upending that century of British American peace: “Twice in four years Britain and the North were on the brink of war: the first time, in December 1861, British troops were halfway to Canada by the time the two governments backed down.”^[2]

In some ways it would seem Manchester was a good choice for the more earthly Lincoln. During the Civil War the president corresponded with the “working-men of Manchester.” Besides in a speech on March 6, 1860 Mr. Lincoln wasn’t “ashamed to confess that twenty five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat — just what might happen to any poor man’s son!”

Judge Alton B. Parker, who delivered the dedication address in Manchester, lost the 1904 presidential race to Theodore Roosevelt. A The New York Times headline on September 16, 1919 suggests he signaled a major change in U.S. foreign policy: “PARKER PRESENTS STATUE OF LINCOLN; Tells of Friendship with Britain at Unveiling of Barnard Work at Manchester. “EXCUSABLY” LATE IN WAR But America, He Says, Realized That the Isolation Principle Applied No Longer.” Foreign entanglements on the upswing, but as it turned out the United States never joined Woodrow Wilson’s League of nations.

ManchesterHistory says the past century of pollution and weather have made the words on the Lincoln statue’s plaque almost unreadable.

According to Abraham Lincoln Online the Saint-Gaudens replica was dedicated in London July 28, 1920. It stands in Parliament Square, one of twelve statues of notables. And London Remembers that there are also duplicates in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Barnard’s original

dignified in London

I wonder if anyone has tried to come up with an estimate of all the Abraham Lincoln monuments and images from around the world. Just the past couple weeks glancing through (old, digitized) newspapers I learned about a statue in Brooklyn and a bust in Hingham, Norfolk, England, U.K. Of course, old-fashioned Americans like me who still use cash see the famous visage all the time on $5 bills and the Lincoln-head penny minted since 1909. But cash is apparently on the way out , so there might be a little less Lincoln in the future.(It seems that Augustus Saint-Gaudens was hired to redesign the one-cent piece, but he died in 1907, too soon to finish the job).

Hingham Lincoln

150 years in Brooklyn

endangered specie

The political cartoon was published in the March 9, 1861 issue of Harper’s Weekly, which you can find at Son of the South. There was an alleged plot to assassinate the president-elect in Baltimore as he journeyed to his inauguration. Rick Dikeman’s 2006 photo of the Barnard statue in Cincinnati is licensed under Creative Commons. The image of the statue in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, which apparently still stands, was published in the November 13, 1869 issue of Harper’s Weekly at the Internet Archive. From the Library of Congress: The Saint Gaudens statue in London – with Westminster Abbey, on Memorial Day; the New York Tribune in 1919 – bootblack August 3; Manchester October 5, pennies November 2, Hingham November 9. I added the Library of Congress source links on October 29, 2020.

Saint-Gaudens’ Lincoln and Westminster Abbey

he’s got some some big shoes to dust

^[1]Foreman, Amanda A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War. New York: Random House, 2010. Print. pages 72,74.↩
^[2]ibid. page xxiv.↩

Posted in 100 Years Ago, Monuments and Statues, World War I | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Alton Brooks Parker, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, George Grey Barnard, Manchester England, Robert Todd Lincoln, William Howard Russell | Leave a comment

pre-columbian exposition

Posted on October 15, 2019 by SUMPTER

searching for land … any land

150 years ago an article considered a logical conclusion: either the ancestors of the humans Christopher Columbus found in the Americas auto-generated (a second Adam and Eve), or Mr. Columbus and crew weren’t the first people from the Old World to discover the New.

From the September 18, 1869 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY THE CHINESE.

Was Columbus the first discoverer of America, or did he only rediscover that continent after it had, in remote ages, been found, peopled, and forgotten by the Old World? It is curious that this question has not been more generally raised, for it is very clear that one of two things must be true: either the people whom Columbus found in America must have been descended from emigrants from the Old World, and therefore America was known to the Old World before Columbus’s time, or else the aborigines of the western hemisphere were the result of spontaneous human generation – the development of man from a lower species of animal, or descended from a second Adam and Eve, whose origin would be equally puzzling. Unless we are prepared to cast aside Holy Writ, and all our general notions of the origin of the human race, we must believe that there was at one time communication between the Old World and the New. Probably this communication took place on the opposite side of the world to ours, between the eastern coast of Asia and the side of America most remote from Europe; and I believe it is quite possible that the inhabitants of Eastern Asia may have been aware of the existence of America, and kept up intercourse with it while our part of the Old World never dreamed of its existence. The impenetrable barrier the Chinese were always anxious to preserve between themselves and the rest of the nations of the Old World renders it quite possible that they should have kept their knowledge of America to themselves, or at any rate, from Europe. The objection that the art of navigation in such remote times was not sufficiently advanced to enable the Chinese to cross the Pacific and land on the western shore of America is not conclusive, as we have no found that arts and sciences which were once generally supposed to be of quite modern origin existed in China ages and ages before their discovery in Europe. The arts of paper-making and printing, among others, had been practiced in China long before Europeans had any idea of them. Why then should not the Chinese have been equally, or more, in advance of us in navigation? The stately ruins of Baalbec, with gigantic arches across the streets whose erection would puzzle our modern engineers, the Pyramids, and other remains of stupendous works point to a state of civilization, and the existence of arts and sciences in times of which European historians give no account.

One fact, corroborative of the idea that the Old World, or at least some of the inhabitants of Asia, were once aware of the existence of America before its discovery by Columbus is, that many of the Arabian ulema with whom I have conversed on this subject are fully convinced that the ancient Arabian geographers knew of America; and in support of this opinion point to passages in old works in which a country to the west of the Atlantic is spoken of. An Arab gentleman, a friend of mine, General Hussein Pasha, in a work he has just written on America, called En-Nessr-Et-Tayir, quotes from Djeldeki and other old writers to show this.

There is, however, among Chinese records not merely vague references to a country to the west of the Atlantic, but a circumstantial account of its discovery by the Chinese long before Columbus was born.

A competent authority on such matters, J. Haulay, the Chinese interpreter in San Francisco, has lately written an essay on this subject, from which we gather the following startling statements drawn from Chinese historians and geographers.

Fu-Sang = Fusany?

Fourteen hundred years ago even America had been discovered by the Chinese and described by them. They stated that land to be about 20,000 Chinese miles distant from China. About 500 years after the birth of Christ, Buddhist priests repaired there and brought back the news that they had met with Buddhist idols and religious writings in the country already. Their descriptions, in many respects, resemble those of the Spaniards a thousand years after. They called the country “Fusany,” after a tree which grew there, whose leaves resemble those of the bamboo, whose bark the natives made clothes and paper out of, and whose fruit they ate. These particulars correspond exactly and remarkably with those given by the American historian, Prescott, about the maquay tree in Mexico. He states that the Aztecs prepared a pulp for paper-making out of the bark of this tree. Then, even its leaves were used for thatching; its fibers for making ropes; its roots yielded a nourishing food; and its sap, by means of fermentation, was made into an intoxicating drink. he accounts given by the Chinese and Spaniards, although a thousand years apart, agree in stating that the natives did not possess any iron, but only copper; that they made all their tools, for working in stone and metals, out of a mixture of copper and tin; and they, in comparison with the nations of Europe and Asia, thought but little of the worth of silver and gold. The religious customs and forms of worship presented the same characteristics to the Chinese fourteen hundred years ago as to the Spaniards four hundred years ago. There is, moreover, a remarkable resemblance between the religions of the Aztecs and the Buddhism of the Chinese, as well as between the manners and customs of the Aztecs and those of the people of China. There is also a great similarity between the features of the Indian tribes of Middle and South America and those of the Chinese, and, as Haulay, the Chinese interpreter of whom we spoke above, states, between the accent and most of the monosyllabic words of the Chinese and Indian languages. Indeed, this writer gives a list of words which point to a close relationship; and infers therefrom that there must have been emigration from China to America at some remote period, that at the time of the discovery of America by the Spaniards the Indian tribes on the coast of the Pacific, opposite to China, for the most part, enjoyed a state of culture of ancient growth, while the inhabitants of the Atlantic shore were found by Europeans in a state of original barbarism. If the idea of America having been discovered before the time of Columbus be correct, it only goes to prove that there is nothing new under the sun; and that Shelly [sic] was right in his bold but beautiful lines – “Thou canst not find one spot whereon no city stood.” Admitting this, who can tell whether civilization did not exist in America when we were plunged in barbarism? and, stranger still, whether the endless march of ages in rolling over our present cultivation may not obliterate it, and sever the two hemispheres once again from each other’s cognizance? Possibly, man is destined, in striving after civilization, to be like Sisyphus, always engaged in rolling up a stone which ever falls down.

Buddhist temple in China

Aztec idol Teoyaomiqui

This exact same article showed up other places. For example, according to Google Books it was published in the Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, Volume 3 pages 333-335, apparently also published in 1869. The author is said to be Charles Wells

I’m in way over my head here, but it seems that the Chinese who were said to explore America about 500 AD were like Columbus – they found people who had “discovered” the New World well ahead of them. The map-diagram above was published in Ancient Chinese Account of the Grand Canyon, or Course of the Colorado by Alexander M’Allan (1913) (at Project Gutenberg); the book finds similarities between ancient Chinese accounts and American views of North America. Mr. M’Allan cites Edward P. Vining’s 1885 An inglorious Columbus, or, Evidence that Hwui Shăn and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in the Fifth Century A.D. (at Project Hathi and the Internet Archive). Mr. Vining’s book includes on pages 612-613 a side-by-side comparison of the Javan elephant god Bitara Gana, or Ganesa and another look at the Aztec god Teoyaomiqui: “A comparison of the two will show many resemblances that the conclusion hardly seems far-fetched that the latter is merely a modification of the former, brought about by gradual changes, which have accumulated through many centuries.”

The books’s title page included this quote: “If Buddhist priests were really the first men who, -within the scope of written history and authentic annals, went from the Old World to the New, it will sooner or later be proved. Nothing can escape history that belongs to it.” – LELAND.

I don’t think it’s been proven, at least not yet. According to Wikipedia only the Norse colonization of Greenland and Newfoundland around the year 1000 A.D. is the only “historical case of pre-Columbian contact … widely accepted among the scientific and scholarly mainstream.” And

Scientific and scholarly responses to other claims of post-prehistory, pre-Columbian contact have varied. Some of these claims are examined in reputable peer-reviewed sources. Many others—especially those based on circumstantial or ambiguous interpretations of archaeological evidence, alleged out-of-place artifacts, superficial cultural comparisons, comments in historical documents, or narrative accounts—have been dismissed as fringe science, pseudoarchaeology, or pseudohistory.

The Wikipedia article mentions the Chinese Buddhist missionaries of Mr. Vining’s book. Another claim, that about 1000 years later Chinese Admiral Zheng He discovered America before Columbus has been debunked – apparently the claim was based on a fake map.

According to the July 9, 2015 online Daily Mail possibly ancient Chinese characters were discovered in the Southwest United States. “John Ruskamp, a retired chemist and amateur epigraph researcher from Illinois, discovered the unusual markings while walking in the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico.” Mr. Ruskamp considered the find evidence of Chinese visitors to America about 1300 B.C.

What about the people who were already in America when all the possible visitors discovered it? I think the scientific consensus is that the first humans got to the Americas about 14,000 years ago by walking from what is now Siberia to modern-day Alaska over the Beringia land bridge, which was visible and usable because of lower sea levels at the time. These people spread throughout the Western Hemisphere. Some of the details could probably change due to scientific advances and/or the next find. For example, see an article at Sapiens:”Indeed, no tidy, new framework has arisen to take the place of older theories. Instead, new data, including genetic findings, continue to complicate the story of how these continents came to be peopled.”

The used U.S. history text I found at the library book sale began by saying that the ancestors of the modern native Americans came here tens of thousands years ago over the land bridge. But they didn’t realize they found anything new. Although Leif Erikson was the first European to find the Americas and Amerigo Vespucci is the New World’s namesake, the authors seem to have agreed that Columbus should be honored as the discoverer of America because his adventures “inspired the European invasion and the development of the whole area between Hudson Bay and the Strait of Magellan.” ^[1]

In 1893 Chicago hosted a World’s Columbian Exposition to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage. You can read all about it at Travalanche. The John Brown souvenir is a bit of a blue-gray connection.

The Chinese Buddhists and Zheng He might not have visited America, but in 1869 America was very aware of China, probably at least in part because of the Chinese Embassy in 1868 and all the Chinese workmen who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad.

better a little late than never

1893 souvenir

headed west

Harper’s Weekly
June 12, 1869

Harper’s Weekly
September 25, 1869

Harper’s Weekly
September 4, 1869

Reader’s Digest reports that some U.S. states and cities no longer celebrate Columbus Day.

All the Harper’s Weekly material was published in 1869 (at the Internet Archive). You can find Marcel René Kalt alias Groovio’s photo of the Columbus statue at Wikimedia, which also has the stamp. From the Library of Congress: in 1843 John Sartain engraved J.M.W. Turner’s painting of Mr. Columbus looking for land;at the base of the Columbus statue on Manhattan; Buddhist altar c.1907 in Moukden (now Shenyang); Aztec idol Teoyaomiqui; the John Brown souvenir from Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition 1893; exposition overview

I added a couple links on October 16, 2019.

New York Tribune October 19, 1919

globalist icon?

hometown hero

_______________________________

^[1]Garraty, John A., and Robert A. McCaughey. The American Nation: A History of the United States, Seventh Edition. New York: HarpersCollins Publishers, 1991. Print. page 1.↩

Posted in 150 Years Ago, American Culture, American History | Tagged China, Christopher Columbus, Columbus Day, discovery and exploration, John Brown, World's Columbian Exposition (1893) | Leave a comment

survivors still

Posted on October 3, 2019 by SUMPTER

After the Civil War the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was founded in 1866 as a fraternal organization for Union veterans. According to a web page at the University of Mississippi the Fifty-third National (GAR) Encampment took place September 7-13, 1919 in Columbus, Ohio. In its September 21, 1919 issue The New York Times provided a couple photographs of the reunion.

Quaker gun?

According to The Civil War in the East the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment had a rather unique history because it was first known at the “California Regiment” and it’s nickname was the “First California Regiment.” When the Civil War started Edward D. Baker, A U.S. senator from Oregon, raised an infantry regiment in the Philadelphia area that counted toward California’s quota for recruits. By the time of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in October 1861 the regiment had become part of Baker’s Brigade, but at that battle Baker was killed. After that the men were counted as part of Pennsylvania’s quota and the brigade seems to have been referred to as either the California Brigade or the Philadelphia Brigade. From the Peninsula through Cold Harbor the brigade was part of the Army of the Potomac’s Second Corps and was involved in most of the major battles.

Over a third of the 71st was lost at Antietam, and another third was lost at Fredericksburg “occupying a position all day in the open close to Confederate entrenchments.” The regiment helped repulse Confederate attacks on Cemetery Ridge on Day 2 at Gettysburg in July 1863; on Day 3 it was ordered forward to meet Pickett’s charge, but it retreated because of the Confederates’ overwhelming numbers. According to the 71st’s monument, “it fell back into line with the right, thus bringing the whole regiment into action.” After Cold Harbor in June 1864 the remaining men were transferred to the 69th Pennsylvania. On July 2 1864 it “Mustered out under Colonel R. P. Smith. Of the 2,200 men who had served with the regiment, only 153 men returned to Philadelphia to muster out.”

In his article at The American Battlefield Trust, Daniel Landsman writes that the California Brigade did indeed successfully help defend Cemetery Ridge on July 2, 1863 at Gettysburg. And then

On July 3rd, the California Brigade was charged with defending the same position at the Angle during Pickett’s Charge. The Confederate effort against the Angle was greater than any other part of the line. Described as “an advance of an acre of men”, the charging Confederates proved to be too great a force for the 71st Pennsylvania, formerly the 1st California, as they retreated upon seeing the great Rebel approach.

Despite the 71st Pennsylvania’s retreat, the 69th and 72nd Pennsylvania, formerly 2nd and 3rd California, held their position and proved to be instrumental in the defense of the Angle. …

The brigade as a whole didn’t do so well at Cold Harbor. Its new commander, Joshua Owen, and his men were sleeping on the morning of June 3, 1864 while the rest of the Second Division was already in line. The division commander, Brig. Gen. John Gibbon, woke the brigade and then pushed it to the front of line, but General Owen continued to make mistakes and the brigade failed to support Col. Thomas A. Smyth’s attack. The California Brigade was broken up after Cold Harbor. The three year term was up for most of 71st survivors.

71st monument at the Gettysburg Angle

71st fell back … way back?

from Ball’s Bluff to Cold Harbor

________________

It looks like Ike was there for it all, the good, the bad, and the agonizing. According to the 71st’s roster at the Civil War Index Isaac E. Tibben served as a First Sergeant. Apparently to finish up his three years he transferred to the 69th Pennsylvania on June 12, 1864.

Isaac E. Tibben

The regimental history included with the roster explains that the term of service for most of the 71st expired while it’s line was close to the Confederate position at Cold Harbor. Following orders, the regiment retreated from its position under cover of darkness and eventually mustered out.

That same history doesn’t deny that part of the 71st retreated on July 3rd at Gettysburg, but states that many of the men kept fighting and enfiladed the Confederate advance.

___________________
The other picture in the Times shows a group of veterans remembering and memorializing a battle out west about eleven years after the Civil War ended.

remember the Little Bighorn

bone collectors

bones collected

brass button in collection

It appears there was even enough brass left on the field at Little Bighorn for the National Park Service to have some in its “Objects from the Battle” gallery (see above left). There must have some sort of commemoration for the 50th anniversary of Custer’s last battle – The Library of Congress has a tiny image of about nine Sioux veterans on the battlefield in 1926.

There’s quite a bit of information out there about the Pennsylvania 71th; it even has its own Reenactment Unit.

According to the Wikipedia link up top, the GAR “was dissolved in 1956 at the death of its last member, Albert Woolson (1850–1956) of Duluth, Minnesota.” Other organizations serve more modern veterans. The American Legion is commemorating it centenary. According to its site, “The American Legion was chartered and incorporated by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization devoted to mutual helpfulness.”

Actually, a real Quaker gun is a fake cannon.

From the Library of Congress: the September 21, 1919 issue of The New York Times; Carol M. Highsmith’s photograph of the 71st monument at Gettysburg, you can see and learn more at Stone Sentinels; “Capt. Sanderson’s camp at the ford, while gathering the bones and building the monument”; Angle handshake. Hal Jespersen’s map of Pickett’s Charge is licensed by Creative Commons: Map by Hal Jespersen, www.posix.com/CW. What’s left of the 71st’s regimental flag comes from Wikimedia Commons, as does the bone pile: “Scene of Gen. Custer’s last stand, looking in the direction of the ford and the Indian village.” A pile of bones–including the skeletons of cavalry horses–on the Little Big Horn battlefield–was all that remained, ca. 1877. From the National Archives.

October 4, 2019: I added the sheet music, which I found at the Library. The only exact Google return for “Legion Allied Veterans of the Great War” seems only to be this sheet music.

1913

Posted in 100 Years Ago, Veterans | Tagged 71st Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment (“First California Regiment”), Battle of Gettysburg, Battle of Little Bighorn, Cold Harbor, Edward Dickinson Baker, George Armstrong Custer, Grand Army of the Republic, Isaac "Ike" E. Tibben, Philadelphia (California) Brigade | Leave a comment

stars and stripes and kisses

Posted on September 20, 2019 by SUMPTER

After the jubilation of Armistice Day and the haggling over the peace treaty, domestic contention seems to have gained more prominence during the summer of 1919. Although New York City celebrated the return of several military units from Europe, there were many headlines in The New York Times about race riots and work stoppages. In September, while President Woodrow Wilson was barnstorming the nation trying to drum up support for the peace treaty and the League of Nations, General John Pershing, commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary Force, returned to America after almost two and a half years in Europe. The parade in Manhattan featured at least one horse-stopping moment when the general dismounted to kiss a pretty young woman bearing roses. During ceremonies at Central Park General Pershing kissed the Stars and Stripes. On the way to Washington, D.C. he stopped in Philadelphia and saluted the Liberty Bell. In the nation’s capital he addressed Congress and led the First Division down Pennsylvania Avenue in “the last great American parade of the World War.”

home of the brave fellows

flower power

American Beauties

flag kissin’

sacred salute

at the joint session

Penn Ave from airplane

further review with Asst. Sec. FD Roosevelt

___________________

Before he left France General Pershing paid his respects at Quentin Roosevelt’s grave

closing scenes over there

While General Pershing was deployed at Fort Bliss, his wife and three daughters died in a fire at the Presidio in San Francisco in August 1915. Only his son Francis Warren survived. “Colonel Francis Warren Pershing (1909–1980), John J. Pershing’s son, served in the Second World War as an advisor to the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall.”

I had heard that Grantland Rice was a famous sportswriter; I didn’t know that he seems to have dabbled a bit in political satire. The Trib seems to have started using his work in its picture paper in late summer 1919. The “primate of Belgium”, Désiré-Joseph Mercier, had to have his picture in the papers almost as much as General Pershing at about the same time. He “is noted for his staunch resistance to the German occupation of 1914–1918 during the Great War” and also visited the Liberty Bell during his tour of the States. Reportedly many soldiers found Kitty Dalton attractive. The Leviathan was originally the German Vaterland. The United States seized her after it entered World War I. The ship transported over 119,000 troops to Europe before the Armistice and after that obviously returned a lot of “Sammies” back over here.

Somehow I doubt Nike is planning a 48-star U.S. flag retrospective any time soon.

The general’s ride back to the States

with “His Father’s Commission as General”

the wounded watched

All the newspaper clippings come from the Library of Congress: New York Tribune: September 14, 1919, September 28, 1919; The New York Times: September 14, 1919, September 21, 1919, September 28, 1919. Also at the Library – the flag sheet music cover. The portrait of the general as a young boy was published in 1919’s The Story of General Pershing by Everett T. Tomlinson the book’s available at Project Gutenberg. I added the information about Cardinal Mercier on September 23, 2019.

hat trick

presidential frustrations

the street of San Francisco

and kissin’ pretty girls isn’t bad either

beloved banner

Posted in 100 Years Ago, Veterans, World War I | Tagged Désiré-Joseph Mercier, Francis Warren Pershing, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Grantland Rice, John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, Kitty Dalton, Liberty Bell, Quentin Roosevelt, SS Leviathan, Woodrow Wilson, World War I | Leave a comment

death of a wagon master

Posted on September 7, 2019 by SUMPTER

still in life

Right from the get-go there were issues with President Ulysses S. Grant’s cabinet. Six months later there was another problem – Grant’s trusted aide, confidant, and Secretary of War, John A. Rawlins died after a long bout with tuberculosis.

From the September 25, 1869 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

GENERAL JOHN A. RAWLINS.

GENERAL JOHN A. RAWLINS, late Secretary of War, died on the afternoon of September 6. The loss to the country will not be easily repaired; that sustained by the President is totally irreparable, for the latter has not only been deprived of a faithful servant, but also of a trusted friend.

JOHN A. RAWLINS was born in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, February 13, 1831. At his death, therefore, he was in his thirty-ninth year. He received a common-school and academic education, and until twenty-three years of age was engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 1853 he entered the law-office of J.P. STEPHENS, of Galena, where he made the acquaintance of President GRANT. In 1854 he was admitted to the bar, and was afterwards tolerably successful in his profession.

almost their whole war ahead of them

Previous to the war General RAWLINS’S career was comparatively obscure, but he had that strength of character and sturdy patriotism which, in the new era that opened in 1861, made him a prominent soldier. From the beginning of the war his record is closely associated with that of General GRANT. Soon after the fight at Sumter a large public meeting was held at Galena at which GRANT presided, and RAWLINS spoke. The latter had been known as a Democrat, and his declaration in favor of coercive measures to maintain the Union had on that account a greater effect.

In August, 1861, he was a Major in the Forty-fifth Illinois, known as the lead-mine regiment; but at the request of GRANT, then a Brigadier-General, he received an appointment as Assistant Adjutant-General, and was assigned to the officer at whose request the appointment was given. From that time he accompanied General GRANT on all his campaigns.

He was made a Lieuteuant-Colonel November 1, 1862, and a Brigadier-General of Volunteers August 11, 1863. He was first appointed Chief-of-Staff to General Grant in November, 1862, and retained this position after the elevation of the latter to the rank of Lieutenant-General. On March 3, 1865, he was confirmed Brevet Major-General. His faithful services as Chief-of-Staff were fully appreciated by General GRANT, who in no small degree owed his remarkable success to General RAWLINS.

dry camping?

For a short time after General Grant’s inauguration General SCHOFIELD remained at the head of the War Department. But the President decided to appoint General RAWLINS to that place in his Cabinet, and finally prevailed upon him to accept it. He was unanimously confirmed, and his appointment was satisfactory both to Republicans and Democrats. Under his charge the affairs of the army have been conducted with increased efficiency, and with a wise economy of expenditure.

General RAWLINS was a victim of consumption, a malady contracted bt exposure during the war. His private character was such as to win the esteem and affection of all who knew him. His temper was equable, and his domestic relations were of the most pleasant nature. His first wife, whom he married June, 1856, died in 1861. In December, 1863, he married Miss MARY E. HURLBURT of Danbury, Connecticut. This lady, who survives him, is herself an invalid.

In the same issue Harper’s gave President Grant some advice about picking a successor:

GENERAL RAWLINS.

The great assent of the country to the words of Attorney-General HOAR’S touching message, in speaking of General RAWLINS – “a man so upright, able, and faithful” – shows how deep is the public sense of his loss. It shows also the sagacity of the President’s course in selecting for so important a position a man with whose character and capacity he was thoroughly satisfied, although his name might not be familiar to the public. From the beginning of the war intimately associated with General GRANT, General RAWLINS constantly proved his ability; and the testimony of all who knew best, since his accession to the War Department, proves the vigor and sagacity with which, even in his extreme ill health, it was conducted by the Secretary. Had he been a conspicuous politician, is it likely that he would have been a better officer, or that the country would more truly mourn his death?

with wife and child at City Point

In selecting his successor we hope the President will look among those that he knows rather than those whom the politicians expect or present. We understand the necessity of party sympathy and support, and we also insist that it is the duty of every man to be a politician, so far as that word implies a knowledge of the principles involved in the questions upon which he votes. But the word politician has come to mean the hucksters in politics, the doers of dirty work claiming to be the party, and in that sense we use it. General Rawlins could not have been the candidate of the politicians; but the party that supported General Grant, as well as the country at large, were satisfied with his appointment. They will be equally pleased with a successor whom upon his appointment they may not know, if his administration of the office shows them, as in the case of General RAWLINS, that the President has selected a man “upright, able, and faithful.”

Wikipedia points out that John Aaron Rawlins was certainly faithful to the Union. At a Galena town meeting after Fort Sumter he said, “I have been a Democrat all my life; but this is no longer a question of politics; It is simply country or no country; I have favored every honorable compromise; but the day for compromise is passed; only one course is left us. We will stand by the flag of our country, and appeal to the god of battles.” (NY Times September 7, 1869)

His loyalty to Ulysses S. Grant included doing his best to keep the general away from alcohol. James M. McPherson has written, “… a hard substratum of truth about Grant’s drinking remains. He may have been an alcoholic in the medical meaning of that term. He was a binge drinker. For months he could go without liquor, but if he once imbibed it was hard for him to stop. His wife and his chief of staff John A. Rawlins were his best protectors. With their help, Grant stayed on the wagon nearly all the time during the war. If he did get drunk (and this is much disputed by historians) it never happened at a time crucial to military operation.”^[1]

According to documentation at archive.org the 45th Illinois remembered its first major at its reunion on September 28, 1869:

patriot from Galena

John A. Rawlins “was originally buried in a friend’s vault in Congressional Cemetery in Washington. He was subsequently moved to Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery.”

In the short term President Grant followed Harper’s advice. He appointed another long-time associate, General William T. Sherman, as on one month interim Secretary of War.

General Grant “in no small degree owed his remarkable success to General RAWLINS.”

All the material from Harper’s Weekly 1869 is available at the Internet Archive. From the Library of Congress: the study; Grant’s upper left-hand man “taken October 1861 at Cairo Ill” ; Grant, Bowers, and Rawlins at Cold Harbor; with family at his City Point quarters; still at City Point with Grant and Bowers; statue in Washington, D.C.

“a man so upright, able, and faithful”

^[1]McPherson, James M. The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. Print. pages 588-589.↩

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, The Grant Administration, Veterans | Tagged 45th Illinois Infantry Regiment, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, Galena Illinois, John Aaron Rawlins, John McAllister Schofield, Ulysses S. Grant, William Pitt Fessenden | Leave a comment

“the cereals of August”

Posted on August 30, 2019 by SUMPTER

First Bull Run, July 21, 1861 2 PM

A recent post was about a medallion and monument related to the American Civil War that was found on a single page in a newspaper from 150 years ago. And, mirabile dictu, the editors at Harper’s Weekly packed even more blue-gray matter onto the very same page! The paper looked at a picture of a grain harvest in Virginia and saw something like a symbol of national regeneration.

From the August 21, 1869 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

HARVESTING ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF BULL RUN.

How rapidly the wounds of war are healed! Half a million of men are swept from the earth by a civil war; but before a grateful people have done writing their epitaphs their places are more than filled, and the census scarcely notes the increase of mortality on their account.

Eight years have passed since the battle of Bull Run, and to-day there is left scarcely a trace of this early conflict of the war. Where the youth of the North and of the South met in array of battle eight years ago, there to-day the farmers are harvesting the cereals of August. The field that was red with blood is yellow with grain. And now the improvements of agriculture are illustrated upon the arena where then a feudal system of labor arrayed its boastful champions.

into plowshares and mechanical reapers

There were two Civil War battles on the Bull Run or Manassas site. The first, on July 21, 1861, was the first major battle in the war. Although Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, in response to the rebel bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter, proposed his “Anaconda Plan” – a slow, methodical squeeze on the South and capture of its territory, there was a lot of political pressure in the North for the Union army to take it to the rebels right away. At the White House on June 29th Union commander Irwin McDowell wanted more time to train his new recruits. President Abraham reportedly ordered General McDowell to begin the offensive with these words: “You are green, it is true, but they are green, also; you are all green alike.”^[1]

It would seem that New York’s 38th Infantry Regiment was certainly green. The two year regiment didn’t leave for the Washington, D.C. area until June 19th. On July 7th “it was ordered to Alexandria and assigned to the 2nd brigade, 3d division, Army of Northeastern Virginia, and was active at the first battle of Bull Run, where it lost 128 in killed, wounded and missing.”

About ten days after the battle a member of the 38th wrote home. The soldiers who survived were a lot less green. From a Seneca County, New York newspaper (probably) published on August 15, 1861:

From a Seneca Falls Boy in the Battle of Bull’s Run.

The writer of the following letter is the eldest son of Mr. HILDRETH HALSEY of the Town:

Headquarters 38 REGT, CAMP SCOTT, Co. H,
Washington, D.C., July 31, 1861.

Dear Father and Mother: – I wrote you a few lines Tuesday, on our return from the battle-field, but suppose you have not got them yet. I begin to feel a little like myself now, although I am stiff and sore yet; but will attempt to give you an account of our movements and of the battle, as correct as I can. I will commence at Centreville, from which place we started for the battle-field.

NY 38th in Willcox brigade

We were all aroused from our slumbers at 12 o’clock on Saturday night and held in readiness until daylight Sunday morning, when we started on the march for Manassas or Bull run, which are in fact all one. We reached there about noon, after marching fifteen miles, and wading muddy streams up to our waists, without having anything to eat since six o’clock Saturday afternoon, save a few hard sea biscuits, which were not very palatable, but had they been ever so good we could not have taken time to eat them.

Just before we entered the field we threw off our blankets, haversacks and jackets, and marched into the field in our shirt sleeves, in a body of five thousand men, which consisted of the whole of the Second Brigade, under command of Col. Wilcox, acting under Brigadier General McDowell. There was only one Regiment on the field before us, and they laid down under the hills, entirely out of sight of the enemy. I believe they fired two shots at random into the woods and then retreated. I do not know what Regiment it was but think it was one from Pennsylvania. Our entire Brigade then received orders to advance on the enemy, which we did on quick time. The enemy then began to fire into us from their masked batteries with terrific force, but fortunately we were so far advanced that the balls passed over our heads, many of them falling into the ranks of different Regiments in the rear of us, killing many of them. At this time we were about half a mile in advance of our battery. The enemy then emerged from the woods and “let sliver” at us with great power. We then retreated and our battery advanced in front of us and fired into the Rebel batteries with powerful force but I think without much avail, as they were too numerous and most of them built of stone and railroad iron, which were almost impenetrable.

Willcox at Henry Hill

The enemy soon got range of our battery and fired into it with such force that they soon killed some of our artillerymen and horses, and broke the wheels of some of our best gun-carriages. Then the Rebels, or what is called the Black Horse Cavalry, rushed out of the woods to take our battery, which they failed to do. During this bombardment we laid just over the point of the hill, and when they attempted to take our battery, we gave them such a shower of bullets, that only three out of sixty retreated, all the rest being killed. We kept them back for about half an hour, when they again rushed upon us with such a powerful body of men that we were obliged to retreat for the last time. The order was then given for a general retreat, which was executed as fast as possible, but when we had got about four miles from the battle-field we were partially headed off by the Rebels, who fired into us with tremendous force, killing many and taking a great many prisoners. The greatest confusion prevailed at this time; those who were scarcely able to walk, at once started at the top of their speed and scattered through the woods in all directions. Many of the wounded jumped from the ambulances and wagons and fled to the woods for refuge.

I notice that the papers foot up the loss of Federal troops at about six hundred, which I am pained to say is too low an estimate, as I am sure the loss will not fall short of 1,000 to 1,500 killed. As to the Rebel loss I can only say that is great. They laid, in many places, like bundles of wheat in the harvest-field.There were from 40 to 60 killed in our Regiment and a great many wounded. Our whole force in the field did not number over 25,000 men, while that of the enemy it is said numbered from 50,000 to 60,000. So you see we stood rather a poor chance to win the battle.

dueling artillery

I was in the hottest of the battle a little over three hours and escaped without even a scratch while those who stood by my side were shot and instantly killed. I was not the least frightened after we had fired the first shot until we had left the field and reached our old quarters near Alexandria. And then to think of what we had passed through during forty-eight hours seems almost incredible, yet it is true. From the time we started from Centreville, until we returned here we marched sixty miles, without a moment’s rest or anything to eat except a few hard sea-biscuit. We suffered more from want of water than victuals. All that we had was what we could dip up out of a mud-puddle along the road. If anybody had told me what I had to pass through, before I started, my first thought would have been that I never could endure it, but as the old saying is, we don’t know what we can endure until we try.

I could write a great deal more, but have not time at present, as I have got to turn out to drill soon. I have only to say that I feel thankful to God for the preservation of my life through the late battle, and hope that it will be spared through all battles to come, until such time as we may all see the Stars and Stripes float all over the United States.

Truly yours,

GEO. R. HALSEY

P.S. – I picked up a beautiful sword on the battle-field, worth about $25.

fought in shirtsleeves

First Bull run is also famous for the greenness of some Northern civilians. Many Washingtonians, including some United States Senators drove their carriages out for a look at the great battle and brought their picnic lunches. The dinner theater became interactive. The American Battlefield Trust explains that most of the spectators stayed well away from the actual fighting, but many of them got caught up in the mass stampede of retreating Union soldiers. None of the spectators from Washington were wounded, although Congressman Alfred Ely was captured and confined in Richmond’s Libby Prison for about five months. “Only one civilian was killed in the battle, the aged widow Judith Henry whose home was engulfed by the fighting.”

Bull Run, Va. Ruins of Mrs. Judith Henry’s house, March, 1862

her grave at Groveton

One young man from Boston, not part of the capital throng, apparently got much nearer the actual battle. According to documentation at Project Gutenberg Edward Henry Clement recounted the adventure of his brother, Andrew J. Clement, at a March 1909 meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Andrew had written up a “little paper” about his adventure years before his death in 1908:

THE BULL-RUN MUSKET.

A single dead soldier of the Union army was an object of intense public interest up to the date of the battle of Bull Run in July, 1861.

The New-York Times
July 18, 1861

The New-York Times
July 19, 1861

The New-York Times
July 20, 1861

_____________

There were two lads of us who left Boston to visit our brothers—both of whom were in the army and in the same company. We expected to find the Army at Washington; and we each carried a box of dainties to delight our brothers with. On reaching Washington, we were sorely disappointed to find that the army had started on its march to Richmond; and that no civilians were allowed to follow—not even to cross the Potomac into Virginia. So there was nothing to do but see the sights in Washington and return to our homes. But we had been there only two days when the news came of a fight or skirmish on July 18th at Blackburn’s Ford, where several were killed, and one of the dead was the brother of my companion. It was a terrible blow to my friend, and a great shock for me.

early death at Blackburn’s Ford

We immediately telegraphed home, and at once came the reply “Get the body, if you can, and send it home.” Well, we two lads went to the War Department and I suppose our sorrowful tale moved them with compassion, for they gave each of us a pass to go to the front to get the body of the dead soldier. I’ve got that pass stowed away now, among my papers, as a War curiosity. It reads,

Allow the bearer, Mr. Andrew J. Clement, to pass the lines and go to the Front for the body of a friend.

DRAKE DE KAY
Aid de Camp.

Later in the war, the death of a soldier was of too little importance to awaken such sympathy at Headquarters. Indeed, two days later, there were thousands killed within two miles of the spot where those killed in this skirmish were buried. After much difficulty, we hired a light wagon in which my friend rode, while I got a seat in an army wagon that was taking out supplies. It was just midnight on Saturday July 20th when we started from Willard’s Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. There was a full moon, and the night was lovely. I was all excitement. I was going to join the army. I should see my brother, and perhaps I should see the big battle everybody was talking about as soon to be fought.

Well, I saw all that I expected to see and a good deal more. As the horses toiled painfully all that night over the rough and hilly roads, I little thought that on the very next night I should be more painfully trudging back over that very route footsore and weary, a gun on my shoulder—and ready to fight if the victorious enemy came up with us. Yet such was the case, and the gun in the hall is the one that I carried to Washington after the battle of Bull Run, July 21st, 1861.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE BATTLE AT BULL’S RUN.

Of course the ride that beautiful night was too exciting for sleep. It was just after daybreak, when we were taking a hasty breakfast at a small tavern, that we heard the first boom of a heavy gun. This was the gun that opened the great battle of Bull Run. We were yet six miles away from the army—and all were impatient to reach our destination. The horses were kept at their best working pace, and when we had gone three miles we met troops marching towards us. These were certain regiments that wouldn’t fight because the ninety days of their term of service had just expired. They looked thoroughly ashamed of themselves, and marched in great disorder. The officer with our wagon, and the soldier who drove it, both scoffed at them and called them sneaks and cowards; and, cowards as they were, they didn’t resent the insults. For myself, I felt as though they all deserved shooting when they got to Washington.

GALLANT CHARGE OF THE SIXTY-NINTH REGIMENT, NEW YORK STATE MILITIA, UPON A REBEL BATTERY AT THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.

An hour later we reached Centreville and looked down on the battle-field. Hastily finding where my friend’s dead brother was buried, I left him to his mournful task of recovering the corpse while I went to find my own brother whom I yet hoped to meet alive. But it wasn’t an easy task. The line of battle was long; and, in spite of my inquiries, I went wrong. I went to the right wing only to find that the regiment I sought was probably away off on the left wing. Nobody seemed able to give exact information, and everybody wanted to know what a boy in black clothes and a straw hat was doing on the battle-field. Once I went up and sat down in the rear of a battery of light artillery to watch the effect of the firing, and the Capt. drove me off with terrible oaths. But I went around a small farm house and crept back again, and saw the grapeshot scatter the “rebs.” And so I went on from point to point, staring and asking questions, and being stared at and questioned in return. At length I learned that the regiment I wanted was at the extreme left. So off I started, already weary from loss of sleep, excitement and tramping under the hot sun.

Arriving at the left, I again was attracted by a battery in action, and it was while I stood entranced with excitement that my brother discovered me. His regiment was lying in the bush close by supporting this very battery. Never was a man more surprised than was he at that moment. He supposed I was at home in Boston. But, before he would talk, he made me go into the woods and lie down with the soldiers so as to be in less danger. And there I crawled around and shook hands with nearly a hundred men whom I had known all my life. Many were the questions I answered, and scores of messages were given me to take home to parents and friends. The boys seemed very sad—for a member had been killed in this company only three days before, and they expected to be actively fighting again at any moment. At length my brother insisted that I should go back to Centreville out of danger, and I started with a heavy heart. But secretly I resolved to try to go to Richmond with the army, for I felt sure it would only take a few days. Up to that time it seemed to be victory for us; and I didn’t believe it could possibly be otherwise. So I went back to Centreville. I was very hungry as well as tired. It was now past four o’clock in the afternoon.

The New-York Times
July 21, 1861

The New-York Times
July 22, 1861

The New-York Times
July 23, 1861

______________

I soon found a group of sick officers who were about to dine off of boiled beef close by the army wagon in which I had come from Washington. They asked me to join them. I had just got fairly seated when the astounding news came that our army was defeated and was retreating. I didn’t believe it; but I rushed to the hilltop to see for myself. Down there on the plain, where I had been in the morning, there was certainly much dust and confusion. Just then fresh troops, the reserves, started to go down, but even to my inexperienced eye it was plain that they went in bad order and went too late. It was there that I saw the general who wore two hats—one crushed over the other—and who was reported in newspaper accounts of the scene as being very drunk that day. He certainly appeared decidedly drunk at that moment.

CHARGE OF THE BLACK HORSE CAVALRY UPON THE FIRE ZOUAVES AT THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.

Wild with excitement, I rushed down hill too; but long before I got where I had been a few hours before, I met the rush of panic stricken men coming pell-mell from the field. To resist this rush was impossible and worse than useless. Wagons driven at full speed came with the men. Shouted curses filled the air. Wagons broke down, and, cutting the harnesses, men mounted the horses and rode off toward Centreville. Muskets were thrown away and filled the road for a long distance. It was there that I picked up my gun, begged a pocket full of ammunition, and resolved to do my share when the terrible Black Horse Cavalry reached us—for it was reported that they were coming at full speed. Ere long I reached Centreville again, and left the rush to look for my wagon. It had gone, long before, in the grand stampede for Washington. That didn’t worry me much then—I thought I would find my brother again; and fight in company with the boys I grew up with. So I waited and waited at Centreville till the sun got low. I saw at length that it would be useless to try to find anybody. There were several roads; and all were full of disorganized troops.

But the first mad rush was over. All the army did not run. I did not run a step. It was nearly sunset when I left Centreville; and, as I was terribly hungry, I stopped, after going about a mile, and joined two of N. Y. 69th regiment who were having a regular feast out of a broken down and abandoned sutler’s wagon. I remember that I ate a whole can of roast chicken and many sweet biscuits, and washed the whole down with some sherry wine drank from the bottle—my first experience in wine drinking.

RETREAT OF OUR TROOPS FROM BULL RUN, BY MOONLIGHT. COLONEL BLENKER’S BRIGADE COVERING.

Much refreshed, I took up my musket and started for Washington with an oddly mixed crowd of gay militia uniforms representing parts of many regiments. Yet there were still behind us good, orderly, full regiments, that stayed in Centreville till after midnight and came into Washington late the next day in fine marching order. They did not run, and my brother’s regiment was one of them. It was 10 p. m. when I reached Fairfax Court House. There I rested, sitting on a rail fence, as a motley crowd poured by, each squad saying that the Black Horse Cavalry was coming. So I clung to my musket, though my shoulders began to get a little sore. It was after midnight when I started again. The night was very dark, for heavy clouds obscured the moon. The road, very rough in itself, was now full of materials thrown out of wagons. There were shovels, pickaxes, boxes, barrels, iron mess-kettles, muskets, knapsacks, and all sorts of litter that soldiers could throw away, and over these and the loose stones of the rough road we stumbled in the dark, amid choking dust, and up and down the long rolling hills that the army marched over so often afterwards during that terrible war. Still, I well remember that it seemed to me a sort of wild picnic; and I would clutch my gun and feel of my cartridges in a very determined mood to defend Washington to the death.

celebrating First Manassas at Virginia state capitol

Wearily the night wore on; and steadily I tramped, talking in the dark, from time to time, with strangers—men from all parts of the Union whom I didn’t see then and probably never saw afterwards. Bad as it was to march in the dust, it was still worse when it began to rain just before daybreak. Gently it came at first; and slowly the dust became a thick paste of slippery mud. Steadily the storm increased till it became a downpour. I had on a thin black summer suit, a straw hat, and a pair of low-cut thin shoes and white stockings. When day broke we were a bedraggled, thoroughly soaked, mud-stained party. Of all that vast crowd probably I presented the worst appearance, for I was the only citizen in that section of the crowd. I bantered jokes with such as were in joking mood, but most of the crowd were now silent and weary. All along the road lay men asleep in the pouring rain. There were blood blisters on my feet, but never once did I stop except to get a drink of water at a brook just after daylight. The rain now fell in torrents; we were literally wading in mud and water.

The thirty miles from Centreville to Washington seemed three times that distance. My gun grew more and more heavy, and I shifted it constantly. It was about ten o’clock Monday forenoon when I reached the Virginia end of Long Bridge. A strong guard was posted there to stop the troops; for Washington was already full of fugitive soldiers. Forcing my way through a vast mob of shouting, cursing soldiers, I reached the officer in charge, and got a rough reception. First he doubted my pass; next he wanted to take away my musket, but I protested that I had saved it from the enemy; and at length he allowed me to pass carrying the gun I had so honestly won. I went down Pennsylvania Avenue much stared at as I limped along. Reaching my hotel, I took a bath and turned into a good bed, thinking of my brother and the thousands of other soldiers who were out in the rain and many of whom would perhaps have no bed to turn into for three years; for there were a few three years regiments even then.

remembering First Manassas (c1872)

The next day, to my great joy, my brother’s regiment marched in and over to Georgetown heights; and, after visiting them there, I sent my gun home by Adams Ex. and took the train for Boston. Said my father, when I got home, “Well, I think you have got enough of war now.” “No, sir,” I said, and in less than thirty days I had enlisted; and three years from the date of the first battle of Bull Run I was skirmishing about six miles from Richmond—three years—and yet I hadn’t quite got to Richmond.

That Bull-Run musket is the only war weapon left in the family, and I hope you will keep it in memory of the good work I was willing to do with it, even before I was a soldier.

According to the report on the historical society’s meeting Andrew J. Clement served as First Sergeant, Company M, First Massachusetts Cavalry. Margaret Leech mentions Sergeant Clement in her Reveille in Washington: 1860-1865.

According to documentation at Wikipediathe Library of Congress, two years after the Massachusetts Historical meeting and fifty years after the first battle, it wasn’t war, it was peace at the Bull Run battlefield:

“Veterans Register and Receive badges here”

“W.C. Round, Confederate veteran” wearing badge

President Taft drove out from Washington

July 21, 1911 at Henry Farm, Confederate veteran and Virginia governor William Mann wearin’ the gray (jacket)

I don’t think there’s too much farming going on at the Bull Run battlefield these days. Since 1940 the site has been a national park. This post has mostly been about the first battle, but on August 30-September 1 this year the Manassas National Military Park is commemorating the 157th anniversary of Second Manassas. Besides the location and Confederate victory, Stonewall Jackson was common to both battles. His “steadfastness influenced the outcome of both battles.” (see brochure)

on contested ground

calm on the battlefield

an influential general

I first used the letter from George Halsey during the halcyon days of the American Civil War Sesquicentennial. Brigade commander Orlando B. Willcox would eventually receive the Medal of Honor for his conduct at First Bull Run. I found the letter at the Seneca Falls (NY) public library in one of several big loose leaf binders filled with newspaper clippings from the Civil War years.

You can find all the Harper’s Weekly from 1869 at the Internet Archive

The New York State Military Museum provides the rosters for the state Civil War units. And a whole lot more

The images of First Manassas (except for the top one) are from Harper’s Weekly August 3 and August 10, 1861. They are online at Son of the South.

Hal Jespersen’s maps are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license: July 18th; July 21stmorning; July 21st early afternoon

From the Library of Congress: First Manassas at 2 PM, originally published in the August 10, 1861 issue of Harper’s Weekly; Robert E. L. Russell’s sketch of First Manassas at 3 PM; remains of Judith Henry’s house – the Organization of American Historians agrees; Carol M. Highsmith’s photo of Judith Henry’s gravesite – you can see more about it at Find A Grave; also from Carol M. Highsmith: cannon at the national park, Stonewall statue erected in 1938; Manassas National Battlefield Park brochure; Richmond celebration; Bartow monument (c1872), but according to Wikipedia, the white obelisk monument dedicated in September 1861 was stolen in 1862 (a smaller marker from 1936 still should be there); from the peace jubilee: registration, ex-Confederate W.C. Round, President Taft, ex-Confederate and Virginia governor William Mann center stage – the governor served in the 12th Virginia Infantry, which apparently didn’t take part in First Manassas, group shot of the vets; George N. Barnard’s photo near Sudley church from March 1862.

peace party at Henry Farm, 1911

interlude: “Along Bull Run near Sudley church” March 1862

^[1]McPherson, James M. The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. Print. pages 335-336.↩

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Month, Aftermath, Battlefields, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction, Veterans | Tagged 38th New York Infantry Regiment, 69th New York, Battle of Blackburn's Ford, Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run), battlefield parks, Black Horse Cavalry, Bull Run, Francis Stebbins Bartow, Manassas National Battlefield Park, Manassas Peace Jubilee, Second Battle of Bull Run, war reunions, William Hodges Mann, William Howard Taft | Leave a comment

white lion, black cargo

Posted on August 23, 2019 by SUMPTER

probably from English privateer

400 years ago this month the first Africans arrived in the colony of Virginia in what is now the United States. According to Encyclopedia Virginia, in the summer of 1619 two English privateers, the White Lion and the Treasurer attacked the São João Bautista, a Portuguese ship, as it approached modern Mexico with its cargo of West African slaves. Each English ship stole some of the slaves. The White Lion’s “captain, John Colyn Jope, bore a Dutch letter of marque, paperwork that allowed him, as a civilian, to attack and plunder Spanish ships”. In late August the White Lion landed at Point Comfort in Virginia. According to the National Park Service (Historic Jamestowne), the Africans were bartered for food. John Rolfe, the colony’s Secretary, wrote: “About the latter end of August, a Dutch man of Warr of the burden of a 160 tunes arrived at Point-Comfort, the Comandors name Capt Jope, his Pilott for the West Indies one Mr Marmaduke an Englishman. … He brought not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes, w[hich] the Governo[r] and Cape Merchant bought for victuall[s].” The Park Service said that Mr. Rolfe referred to the White Lion as a Dutch ship to avoid anyone blaming the English for piracy.

it’s history

The Park Service goes on to point out that the peculiar institution was unknown in Virginia at the time. Slavery evolved gradually from something like “indentured servitude to life long servitude.” A series of customs and laws that strengthened slavery are listed from
the 1630s to 1705. This process is summed up by The Jamestown Chronicles:

By the 1650s there were free people of color in the colony, but most did not do as well economically as free white Virginians. Although legal discrimination was evident by the late 17th century, Africans, such as Anthony Johnson, did prosper in Virginia. He owned land in Northampton County, had one servant, and owned one slave.

The first law recognizing the existence of slavery in Virginia was passed in 1661, and a law making it hereditary was passed the next year. As landowners created laws to control the labor they needed, institutionalized slavery gradually evolved from these laws and a “slave code” was produced by the General Assembly in 1705.

fleeing to freedom at Point Comfort

The Zinn Education Project notices some ironies with the 1619 landing: the landing was at Point Comfort, but life was anything but comfortable for the majority of African-Americans under slavery; “1619 also was the year that a semblance of democracy came to Virginia” when the first legislative assembly convened – the assembly included elected Burgesses; Fort Monroe on Point Comfort became a destination for slaves seeking their freedom during the Civil War – General Benjamin Butler declared the male slaves that showed up to be contraband of war, and he wasn’t going to give them back.

1619 was also the time when a group of English people living in Holland were planning to establish a colony in the New World where they would be free to practice their non-Anglican religion without losing other parts of English culture to Dutch influence.

A mid-nineteenth century historian from Virginia mentioned “the Pilgrims” in the same chapter he covered the 1619 landing at Point Comfort. He began by reviewing that first legislative assembly. He closed by mentioning another Virginia market for humans about the same time, but the women probably weren’t forced to get on the boat. From History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia by Charles Campbell (1860) (at Project Gutenberg (pages 143-147):

Thus after eleven years of suffering, peril, discord, and tyranny, intermingled with romantic adventure, bold enterprise, the dignity of danger, virtuous fortitude, and generous heroism, were at length established a local legislature and a regular administration of right. The Virginia planters expressed their gratitude to the company, and begged them to reduce into a compend, with his majesty’s approbation, such of the laws of England as were applicable to Virginia, with suitable additions, “because it was not fit that his subjects should be governed by any other rules than such as received their influence from him.” The acts of the Assembly were transmitted to England for the approval of the treasurer and company. They were thought to have been very judiciously framed, but the company’s committee found them “exceeding intricate and full of labor.” There was granted to the old planters an exemption from all compulsive service to the colony, with a confirmation of their estates, which were to be holden as by English subjects.

It is remarkable, that from about 1614, for some seven years, James the First had governed England without a parliament; and the Virginia Company was during this period a rallying point for the friends of civil and religious freedom, and the colony enjoyed the privilege, denied to the mother country, of holding a legislative assembly.

Yeardley finding a scarcity of corn, undertook to promote the cultivation of it, and this year was blessed with abundant crops of grain. But an extraordinary mortality carried off not less than three hundred of the people. Three thousand acres of land were allotted to the governor, and twelve thousand to the company. The Margaret, of Bristol, arrived with some settlers, and “also many devout gifts.” The Trial brought a cargo of corn and cattle. The expenditure of the Virginia Company at this period, on account of the colony, was estimated at between four and five thousand pounds a year.

A body of English Puritans, persecuted on account of their nonconformity, had, in 1608, sought an asylum in Holland. In 1617 they conceived the design of removing to America, and in 1619 they obtained from the Virginia Company, by the influence of Sir Edward Sandys, the treasurer, “a large patent,” authorizing them to settle in Virginia. They embarked in the latter part of the year 1620, in the Mayflower, intending to settle somewhere near the Hudson River, which lay within the Virginia Company’s territory. The Pilgrims were, however, conducted to the bleak and barren coast of Massachusetts, where they landed on the twenty-second day of December, (new style,) 1620, on the rock of Plymouth. Thus, thirteen years after the settlement of Jamestown, was laid the foundation of the New England States. The place of their landing was beyond the limits of the Virginia Company.

In the month of August, 1619, a Dutch man-of-war visited Jamestown and sold the settlers twenty negroes, the first introduced into Virginia. Some time before this, Captain Argall sent out, at the expense of the Earl of Warwick, on a “filibustering” cruise to the West Indies, a ship called the Treasurer, manned “with the ablest men in the colony,” under an old commission from the Duke of Savoy against the Spanish dominions in the western hemisphere. She returned to Virginia after some ten months, with her booty, which consisted of captured negroes, who were not left in Virginia, because Captain Argall had gone back to England, but were put on the Earl of Warwick’s plantation in the Somer Islands.

colonial beginnings

It is probable that the planters who purchased the negroes from the Dutch man-of-war reasoned but little on the morality of the act, or if any scruples of conscience presented themselves, they could be readily silenced by reflecting that the negroes were heathens, descendants of Ham, and consigned by Divine appointment to perpetual bondage. The planters may, if they reasoned at all on the subject, have supposed that they were even performing a humane act in releasing these Africans from the noisome hold of the ship. They might well believe that the condition of the negro slave would be less degraded and wretched in Virginia than it had been in their native country. This first purchase was probably not looked upon as a matter of much consequence, and for several ages the increase of the blacks in Virginia was so inconsiderable as not to attract any special attention. The condition of the white servants of the colony, many of them convicts, was so abject, that men, accustomed to see their own race in bondage, could look with more indifference at the worse condition of the slaves.

“cruel slave-trade” … elevating?

The negroes purchased by the slavers on the coast of Africa were brought from the interior, convicts sold into slavery, children sold by heathen parents destitute of natural affection, kidnapped villagers, and captives taken in war, the greater part of them born in hereditary bondage. The circumstances under which they were consigned to the slave-ship evince the wretchedness of their condition in their native country, where they were the victims of idolatry, barbarism, and war. The negroes imported were usually between the ages of fourteen and thirty, two-thirds of them being males. The new negro, just transferred from the wilds of a distant continent, was indolent, ignorant of the modes and implements of labor, and of the language of his master, and perhaps of his fellow-laborers. To tame and domesticate, to instruct in the modes of industry, and to reduce to subordination and usefulness a barbarian, gross, obtuse, perverse, must have demanded persevering efforts and severe discipline.

While the cruel slave-trade was prompted by a remorseless cupidity, an inscrutable Providence turned the wickedness of men into the means of bringing about beneficent results. The system of slavery, doubtless, entailed many evils on slave and slave-holder, and, perhaps, the greater on the latter. These evils are the tax paid for the elevation of the negro from his aboriginal condition.

Among the vessels that came over to Virginia from England, about this time, is mentioned a bark of five tons. A fleet sent out by the Virginia Company brought over, in 1619, more than twelve hundred settlers. The planters at length enjoyed the blessings of property in the soil, and the society of women. The wives were sold to the colonists for one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco, and it was ordered that this debt should have precedence of all others. The price of a wife afterwards became higher. The bishops in England, by the king’s orders, collected nearly fifteen hundred pounds to build a college or university at Henrico, intended in part for the education of Indian children.

In July, 1620, the population of the colony was estimated at four thousand. One hundred “disorderly persons” or convicts, sent over during the previous year by the king’s order, were employed as servants. For a brief interval the Virginia Company had enjoyed freedom of trade with the Low Countries, where they sold their tobacco; but in October, 1621, this was prohibited by an order in council; and from this time England claimed a monopoly of the trade of her plantations, and this principle was gradually adopted by all the European powers as they acquired transatlantic settlements.

The National Park Service at Fort Monroe is commemorating the First African Landing this weekend.

point of commemoration

According to the Encyclopedia Virginia, the Treasurer arrived in Virginia several days after the White Lion. Some of the Africans were apparently sold there, but most seem to have ended up in Bermuda.

From the Library of Congress: the first landing published in the January 1901 issue of Harper’s Monthly Magazine; contrabandenvelope; Fort Monroe NPS brochure in the tobacco field – said to be at Point Comfort in 1920; I don’t have any idea where that could have been on the peninsula

The two images of Africans being sold right off the boat come from U.S. History Images

DrStew82’s photo of the Virginia state historical marker is licensed under Creative Commons

at Point Comfort, 1920

Posted in 400 Years Ago, American History, Slavery, Southern Society | Tagged 400 Years Ago, Fort Monroe, Jamestown, John Rolfe, Poiint Comfort, Slavery, Virginia Colony | Leave a comment

going way back

Posted on August 9, 2019 by SUMPTER

150 years ago Harper’s Weekly noticed some Civil War-related items that were associated with earlier times in American history. From its August 23, 1869 issue:

Unionist profiles

THE AMERICAN TRIUMVIRATE.

A MEDALLION has been recently published by W. MILLER & Co., Artists of Philadelphia, giving in a single view the heads of WASHINGTON, LINCOLN, and GRANT. The idea of combining these three heads in a single piece of art reflects a popular conception. WASHINGTON, LINCOLN, and GRANT were made Presidents at the three great critical eras of our history. WASHINGTON – the Virginian gentleman – is the characteristic representative of our colonial period. LINCOLN and GRANT belong to that new era in which the gigantic West plays so important a part. History will record that General GRANT was the guardian of our liberties even before he was called to the seat of Executive power. Truly WASHINGTON will ever stand upon record as the Father of his country, LINCOLN as its Savior, and Grant as its Preserver.

This medallion is of bronze, the heads being of life-size. It was privately presented to Mrs. General GRANT at Long Branch by ex-Secretary BORIE. Messrs. MILLER & Co. are executing a number of artistic pieces of this character, which are of great beauty and value.

rock solid

SOLDIERS’ MONUMENT AT PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS.

On Monday, August 9, the Soldiers’ Monument at Plymouth, Massachusetts, was dedicated. The location of a monument commemorative of the heroes of the war for the Union upon a spot which was nearly two hundred and fifty years ago rendered sacred by the landing of the Pilgrims makes this dedication an occasion of great popular interest; and we have, therefore, given an illustration of the monument on this page.

And it looks like the Plymouth monument is holding up quite well after all these years. In a post on August 30, 2015 at Historical Digression Patrick Browne describes the monument and includes a color photograph. Maine governor and Gettysburg hero Joshua Chamberlain gave the main speech. There’s a lot of symbolism at the top of the nearly 50 foot high statue: it is “crowned by an eagle with one foot on a serpent and another on a broken chain.” I’m pretty sure those were Abraham Lincoln’s goals by the end of the war: emancipating the slaves and preserving the Union against the rebels. At least early on some Confederates apparently adopted and adapted the rattlesnake or Gadsden flag, which was used by the American patriots during the Revolutionary War.

Another one of those amazing coincidences in life: a few days ago I was surprised to see what appeared to possibly be the rattlesnake flag combined with the Russian flag in a photo that was part of an article about protests in Moscow (The Economist July 27th 2019 page 42). It’s hard to be sure given the angle of the photo, but I think it is probably the flag of the Russian Libertarian party.

Alabama state flag 1861 (reverse)

rebels at Fort Moultrie, early 1861

flag of Libertarian Party of Russia

The first member of the American Triumvirate, George Washington, seems to have been on both sides of the snake issue. He was a leading rebel during the 1770’s but in 1787 was elected president of the Constitutional Convention in which each state gave up some of its sovereignty in order to create a stronger national government, and then in 1789 Mr. Washington was sworn in as the first president under that constitution.

correct date for pater

Mrs. Grant in profile

Thanksgiving in August? I got excited when I saw that image of re-enactors at the tercentenary pageant. Will there be a celebration for the 400th?

Of course this Harper’s material is going way back, even to the time before “0”. Ancient Rome had two famous triumvirates in the first century BCE. Unlike the American medallion, each Roman triumvirate was made up of contemporaries., but Caesar was a common theme – Julius and then his great-nephew Octavius in the second. Octavius became Augustus.

And there’s all that Latin. The Confederates used Noli Me Tangere for “Don’t Tread on Me”. According to Wikipedia the phrase is also used as the Latin translation of a bible verse, John 20:17.

render unto Caesar Augustus (c. 18 BC)

Plymouth Rock reunited

looking down on Plymouth, 1882 (Soldiers’ Monument – #7)

LeBeHa’s image of the Russia Libertarian party’s flag is licensed under Creative Commons. So is the image of the denarius by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. John O’Neill’s photo Plymouth Rock is licensed under GNU Free Documentation License. (Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. At the left of the rock can be seen where it was split in two in 1774, with the top part relocated to the town’s meetinghouse. The two parts were later rejoined in 1880, at which time the date 1620 was inscribed into the rock. Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA.) From the Library of Congress: Fort Moultrie, a detail from an image in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper from February 23, 1861 showing S.C. Governor Pickens’ wife and daughter visiting the fort; medallion; I’ve read that Julia Dent Grant always wanted her photographs taken in profile because of an eye problem; bird’s eye view of Plymouth; tercentenary. Fornax’s Alabama flag is in the public domain.

Plymouth, Mass. 1921

Posted in 150 Years Ago, 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, American History, Monuments and Statues, Postbellum Society | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Adolph Edward Borie, Gadsen flag, George Washington, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Plymouth Massachusetts, Ulysses S. Grant | Leave a comment

under the influence

Posted on July 20, 2019 by SUMPTER

150 years ago a newspaper doubted the truth of what it called a “verdict of Science” regarding earth’s next-door neighbor. From Harper’s Weekly May 22, 1869:

THE MOON’S INFLUENCE

WHATEVER be the influence exercised upon the earth by the varying positions of the planets, it is unquestionable that a very important effect is produced upon our orb by the changes in the position of our satellite the moon. That tiny orb, a mere speck compared with the larger planets, nevertheless by its nearness exerts an influence upon earth far greater than that produced by all the planets collectively. In old times it was never doubted that the moon greatly affected the superficial condition of our planet – not only as regards the weather, but also by more subtle forms of action. The words “lunatic” and “moon-struck” still exist to show this old belief – indicating the real or supposed effect of the moon’s action upon the cerebral or nervous organs of man. And in many of the old, indeed still prevalent, weather-proverbs, the belief in the influence of the moon upon the atmospheric conditions of our planet is abundantly shown. In recent times, Science has strongly combated [sic] this old belief; and some years ago it was authoritatively declared, as the verdict of Science, that the moon had no effect upon the weather at all. Now, even judging á priori, yet upon purely scientific grounds, this verdict of the savans might have safely been pronounced a mistake. Since the moon powerfully affects the ocean, the vast expanse of water which covers the larger part of the earth’s surface, producing the striking phenomenon of the tides – can it be doubted that lunar action does not equally, nay to a much greater extent, affect the still more mobile ocean of air (the atmosphere) which covers the whole surface of our planet? And if the moon produces tides and currents in the atmosphere, must it not to an important degree affect the weather, which is so largely dependent upon the currents, movements, and disturbances in the atmosphere?

full moons

In truth, although the recent dictum of Science ignoring the old belief, and denying that the moon has any influence on the weather, has not yet been formally revoked, it is easy to see that savans begin to falter in their doctrine. And well they may. A whole host of facts are arrayed against them. Professor Pidmieri [Luigi Palmieri], who has so closely studied the varying phenomena of Vesuvius, declares that there is a perceptible relation between the phases of the moon and the developments of volcanic action. Any one, too, who has lived in the south, or even sailed on the Mediterranean, may have noticed how carefully sleepers in the open air guard their head and face against the rays of the moon; he may even have seen instances of the injurious consequences (in the form of ophthalmia and other ills) which attend the neglect of such precautions. In India it is well known that meat exposed to the moon-rays immediately putrefies. Some of these facts indicate a lunar action more subtle than Science can as yet account for. But the moon’s influence on the weather is perfectly intelligible – on this ground, if no other, that it produces and tides and currents in the atmosphere just as it does in the less mobile ocean.

The subtlety might have to do with finding the right tool to measure. It seems like a big part of Science is its instruments and how powerful/sensitive they are. In 1609 Galileo Galilei adopted and adapted a Dutch telescope. “While not being the only one to observe the Moon through a telescope, Galileo was the first to deduce the cause of the uneven waning as light occlusion from lunar mountains and craters. In his study, he also made topographical charts, estimating the heights of the mountains. The Moon was not what was long thought to have been a translucent and perfect sphere, as Aristotle claimed …”

Telescopes have become more and more powerful. In Through the Telescope (1906) James Baikie presented quite detailed images of the moon, and he also gave Galileo his due:

… The man to whom the human race owes a debt of gratitude in connection with any great invention is not necessarily he who, perhaps by mere accident, may stumble on the principle of it, but he who takes up the raw material of the invention and shows the full powers and possibilities which are latent in it. In the present case there is one such man to whom, beyond all question, we owe the telescope as a practical astronomical instrument, and that man is Galileo Galilei. He himself admits that it was only after hearing, in 1609, that a Dutchman had succeeded in making such an instrument, that he set himself to investigate the matter, and produced telescopes ranging from one magnifying but three diameters up to the one with a power of thirty-three with which he made his famous discoveries; but this fact cannot deprive the great Italian of the credit which is undoubtedly his due. Others may have anticipated him in theory, or even to a small extent in practice, but Galileo first gave to the world the telescope as an instrument of real value in research.

The telescope with which he made his great discoveries was constructed on a principle which, except in the case of binoculars, is now discarded. It consisted of a double convex lens converging the rays of light from a distant object, and of a double concave lens, intercepting the convergent rays before they reach a focus, and rendering them parallel again … . His largest instrument, as already mentioned, had a power of only thirty-three diameters, and the field of view was very small. A more powerful one can now be obtained for a few shillings, or constructed, one might almost say, for a few pence; yet, as Proctor has observed: ‘If we regard the absolute importance of the discoveries effected by different telescopes, few, perhaps, will rank higher than the little tube now lying in the Tribune of Galileo at Florence.’

In his 1883 The Moon Reverend C.M. Westlake used evidence from the telescope to imagine traveling to and spending some time on the moon:

Apennines, Alps, and Caucasus. Paris Observatory.

… It is quite probable as the moon looks to-day so will it appear to observers thousands of years hence. An ideal view of the moon-world and its phenomena may be pleasing and profitable. We pass no planets or stars in our journey to the moon; for it is the nearest of the larger heavenly bodies. In imagination we traverse the 240,000 miles of space and stand at sunrise upon one of the mountain tops of the moon. Over head is a cloudless sky, of inky blackness; the background of countless brilliant stars, and of the earth, which is in appearance equal to many moons, and, when passing between the sun and the moon, is like a dark sphere in a circle of glittering gold and rubies. From the dark horizon, the sun suddenly darts his dazzling beams upon the tops of the mountains; yet for a time leaving the flanks and valleys still wrapped in total night. In the absence of air and vapor there is no gradual transition of night into day; no penciling streaks, no gilding and glowing, which make earth’s sunrise so beautiful; yet there is increase of illumination as more and more of the sun’s disk becomes visible above the horizon. The light, with a motion twenty-eight times slower than upon the earth, creeps down the mountain side, across the plain, and into the fearful blackness of the yawning crater.

Region of Maginus: Overlapping Craters. Paris Observatory.

Look where we may, we see vast regions of the wildest volcanic desolation, in which the ground is honey-combed with countless round pits or craters, some of them of immense depth and upward of four miles in diameter. On our right are steep gorges and precipitous chasms of appalling depth and blackness, and on our left cliffs, crags, and peaks tower far above us. We gaze upon the debris of long since expired volcanoes, but look in vain for a single vestige of past or present organic life. “No heaths or mosses soften the sharp edges and hard surfaces, no tints of cryptogamous or lichenous vegetation give a complexion of life to the hard fire-worn countenance of the scene. The whole landscape, as far as the eye can reach, is a realization of a fearful dream of desolation and lifelessness ; not a dream of death, for that implies evidence of pre-existing life, but a vision of a world upon which the light of life has never dawned.” In the midst of this dreary, desolate grandeur we look in vain for oceans, lakes, or seas; we listen in vain for the hum of industry or the sounds of wind or water, where there is no life to break the stillness, no breeze to murmur, “no brook to plash, no ocean to boom and foam.” Let this desolate, craggy, motionless world be filled with the activities of our own; and, in the absence of air, which is the medium of communication with the organs of hearing, it would still be a realm of dead silence. In vain would lips quiver and tongues essay to speak. The rattle of drums, the crash of musketry, the thunder of a thousand cannons would produce no sound in that airless world. At the close of the moon’s long day we see, in glorious perfection, the red protuberances, crimson flame billows, corona and zodiacal light of the sun; as during the day we may have seen its spots and faculae. During the lunar night periods of twenty-four hours each can be marked off by the successive reappearances of certain surface features of our globe. The positions of the constellations can be used for a similar purpose. Occasionally comets are seen in all their glory. The planets appear regularly every night; but meteors are never seen. Yet meteoric particles, sometimes singly and sometimes in showers, frequently smite the face of the moon. They meet with no resisting atmosphere, to melt them by its heat or break the velocity of their descent. These particles, under their initial velocity and the moon’s attraction, crush into its surface with a force greater than that of a cannon ball striking a target. Kepler, though forced to abandon the theory after measuring the dimensions of some of the moon’s craters, at first thought that they were artificial excavations in which the inhabitants sheltered themselves during the long and scorching days. They would be no less necessary as a protection from this bombardment of meteoric particles than from the frightful extremes of heat and cold.

the old gray mares (or maria)

Key to Chart of Moon. Nasmyth and Carpenter.
(to the left)

earthrise from Apollo 10

To get back to the 1869 Harper’s editorial, on February 2, 2016 at The Weather Channel reported on a scientific study that found that the moon does have a (very tiny) affect on earth’s rainfall:

“‘To the best of our knowledge, this phenomenon was predicted by the classical tidal theory, and there were actually some meteorologists who tried to detect it before (using station data, not satellites), but we are the first to convincingly demonstrate that the effect is actually there and is detectable, using satellite data,’ Tsubasa Kohyama, lead author of the study, told weather.com in an email.”

It does seem that scientific truths can change over time and scientific instruments play a part in that.

But the main thing I want to say is that I’m thankful that I could watch so much of the space program as a little kid growing up, and Apollo 11 was definitely the apex of that. I don’t have vivid memories of the details, but I could and did stay up for those first two humans stepping out on the lunar surface.

Apparently Luigi Palmieri had a crater on the moon named for him; the crater floor “has been flooded with lava.”

Eagle from Columbia

Buzz Aldrin salutes Old Glory

and we were there

From Wikimedia: newspaper; plaque. From the Library of Congress: full moons from about 1898, the photographs were taken a month apart. The howling wolf is from clker.com, and I got earthrise from Apollo 10 at WPClipart

Rev. C.M. Westlake’s The Moon is available at the Internet Archive

You can read Through the Telescope at Project Gutenberg. All the black and white images of the moon except for the two full moons come from his book. The lunar chart indicates that the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11’s Eagle landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20, 1969. “Mare Tranquilitatis” is about center left.

historical marker

in black and white

Posted in 150 Years Ago, Technology | Tagged Apollo 11, Galileo Galilei, Luigi Palmieri, the moon, the telescope | Leave a comment