John Carlyle of Alexandria, Virginia

     John Carlyle of Alexandria, Virginia stands out as a kind of “representative” man of the colonial period in Virginia.    Born in 1720 in Scotland, Carlyle, came to Virginia as the agent of a merchant at the age of twenty-one in hopes of making “a fortune sufficient...to live independent.”  He achieved success within seven years.  Carlyle’s extensive business activities included import and export trade to England and the West Indies, retail trade in Alexandria, an iron foundry in the Shenandoah Valley, milling and a blacksmithing operation.  In 1749, Carlyle became one of the founding fathers of Alexandria.  In 1753 he built a grand home in Alexandria, overlooking the Potomac.

     Carlyle used slave labor in all of his business ventures and was one of the area’s largest slave owners.  If Carlyle had any reservations about slavery he did not voice them.

     John Carlyle’s life was repeatedly marred by the type of personal tragedy common to the 18^th century.  Of his eleven children, only two lived to adulthood.  His first wife Sarah bore seven children, five of whom died in childhood.  Sarah died in child birth.  Carlyle’s second wife, Sybil bore four children, only one of whom lived to be fifteen years old

     Appointed commissary of the Virginia militia in 1755 John Carlyle had a close view of the British attitude toward the colonies and complained that the British troops “by some means or another came in so prejudiced against us [and] our Country . . . that they used us like an enemy country and took everything they wanted and paid nothing, or very little, for it. And when complaints [were] made to the commanding officers, they [cursed] the country and inhabitants, calling us the spawn of convicts the sweepings of the gaols …which made their company very disagreeable.”

     Relations between Great Britain and the colonies continued to deteriorate over the years.  In 1774, Carlyle joined the newly formed the Fairfax County Committee of Safety.  When war came, Carlyle risked everything and warmly supported the Revolution. 

Murder in Colonial Virginia

A quick historical look at murder most foul in the Virginia of colonial times and the early Republic. Behind the facade of graceful mansions and quaint cobblestone streets evil lurks.

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Courtship in the 18th Century

Dancing was an important courting ritual among the wealthy. It was considered a good way to determine a potential marriage partner’s physical soundness, as well as the state of their teeth and breath. Dancing taught poise, grace and balance, especially important to women who had to learn to remain in their “compass”, or the area of movement allowed by their clothing. Balls often lasted three to four days and took all day and most of the night. They were the primary means of socializing in the south.

Outsiders observing the eighteenth-century southern elite commented on the sharp contrast between male and female standards of behavior. Timothy Ford, a New Jersey lawyer who moved to Charleston in 1785, wrote that “the ladies” there were “circumscribed within such narrow bounds” of acceptable behavior that they “carry formality and scrupulosity to an extreme.” Young gentlemen, in contrast, were expected to be “abandoned” and “debauched.”

Women within the southern elite were by no means “privileged to do anything.” They were expected to embody decorum and self-restraint.  In June 1734, the South Carolina Gazette printed a prayer for young ladies that called on “Virgin Powers” to defend them against “amorous looks” and “saucy love.” When tempted to commit an indiscretion, respectable women should arm themselves with “honour” and “a guard of pride.”  Avoiding company and behavior that might compromise one’s reputation did not require prudery or self-isolation. Conduct manuals appearing in the late eighteenth century advised young women to steer a middle course between undue familiarity, which was dangerous, and cold reserve, which made them undesirable. 

 Link to: Love, Sex,and Marriage in Colonial America 1607-1800

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George Washington: Farmer and Slave Owner

Washington’s relationship to slaves was that of a straightforward businessman,   Washington insisted on turning a profit from his slaves.  The pattern of life at Mount Vernon followed a pattern familiar throughout Virginia.  The work day was from sunrise to sunset, with two hours off for meals.  Sunday was a free day.  Slaves received several days off at Christmas, and the Mondays after Easter and Pentecost.  Slaves received a weekly food allowance, which they supplemented by keeping their own gardens, fishing and hunting (in essence they subsidized their own enslavement in their free time).  Slaves were issued clothes once a year.  Most of the slaves were field hands, while about seventy were skilled craftsmen and household servants. 

Slave flight, “running away,” the most common form of slave resistance, called into question the notion of benevolent paternalism and struck particularly hard at the idea that slaves were basically happy.  Most running away was not permanent running.  It might better be termed “absenteeism” and was a statement of resistance.  Most slaves who sneaked away overnight or for a few days did so to avoid immediate punishment or to visit nearby wives, husbands, or other family members. This absenteeism was so common that most masters dealt with it by inflicting only mild punishments.   The more serious form of running away, which involved staying away from the plantation for weeks or months was labeled “lying out”.  These runaways lived by fishing, hunting, stealing and trading.  They camped near towns and cities, along rivers or in dense forests.  They often formed small groups.  Masters dealt with this type of behavior more harshly.  White farmers throughout the South complained about blacks “lurking about near the plantations” and doing “mischief”. Few runaways remained permanently at large, however, the Great Dismal Swamp between Virginia and North Carolina was home to several thousand permanent runaways.   Runaways from Washington's estate were not uncommon.

Link to: How Martha Washington Lived

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Alfred Terry: The True Villain of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

According to Nathaniel Philbrick, in his book The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the LittleBighorn, George Armstrong Custer was the victim of another man’s devious scheming at the battle of the Little Bighorn.     The villain of the Little Bighorn was General Alfred Terry and his flawed battle plan.  According to Philbrick, General Terry “wanted Custer to attack if he found a fresh Indian trail.”  He says, everyone knew perfectly well what Custer was going to do once Terry,” in the words of Major Brisbin ‘turned the wild man loose.’”(Philbrick, 99) 

General Terry was protective of his own military reputation however and was spinning an invisible and cunning web.  “Terry had a lawyer’s talent for crafting documents that appeared to say one thing but were couched in language that could allow for an entirely different interpretation should circumstances require it.”  Terry’s ambiguously worded orders to Custer, allowed him to protect his reputation no matter what happened.  “If Custer bolted for the village and claimed a great victory, it was because Terry had the wisdom to give him an independent command.  If Custer did so and failed, it was because he had disobeyed Terry’s written orders.”  Philbrick continues, “As Terry would have wanted it given the ultimate outcome of the battle, Custer has become the focal point, the one we obsess about when it comes to both the Black Hills Expedition and the Little Bighorn.  But, in many ways, it was Terry who was moving the chess pieces.  Even though his legal opinion launched the Black Hills gold rush and his battle plan resulted in one of the most notorious military disasters in U.S. history, Terry has slunk back into the shadows of history, letting Custer take center stage in a cumulative tragedy for which Terry was, perhaps more than any other single person, responsible.” (Philbrick, 102-103) 

Custer was a simple soldier, doing his duty, being manipulated by forces beyond his understanding or control.  “After September 11, 2001, and the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, it (is) possible to recognize…that no matter how misguided the conflict, soldiers such as Custer were only doing their duty.” Philbrick continues, “As it turns out, Custer’s Native opponents had known this all along.”  The warrior He Dog summed it up, “Washington was the place all the troubles started.”(Philbrick, 305)

Link to Custer's Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Paperback edition

For almost one hundred and fifty years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values. Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history. This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.

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Travel Advisory for Georgia, USA

On April 24, 2014, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed a broad expansion of gun carrying rights into law, tacitly admitting that law enforcement agencies in Georgia can no longer protect residents of the state or visitors to the state, anywhere in the state, day or night.  The law will take effect on July 1, and encourages gun owners to arm themselves in a wide range of locales from bars to churches.  The new law also authorizes schools to arm staff members to protect children in elementary and secondary schools, but curiously does not permit guns on college campuses.

Most recent statewide statistics indicate that there is a gun murder every twenty hours on average in Georgia and that the state has the third highest rate of armed robberies with firearms in the U.S.

Those considering travel to the state of Georgia, should evaluate their personal security situation in light of the continuing high rate of violent gun crime in the state. 

Ghosts on Manassas Battlefield

Norse mythology describes the Battle of Heodenings, where two phantom armies fight for all eternity, the dead rising daily to renew the fight afresh.  Is something like this happening on the Civil War battlefield at Manassas, Virginia?

Paula Ann Kirby, author of  A Yankee Roams at Dusk, describes two types of  hauntings that may be occurring at Manassas, (1) residual hauntings, which are a manifestation of stored up energy replaying endlessly like an old movie, and (2) intelligent hauntings, which are rare instances in which ghosts try to interact with the living.

CIVIL WAR CIVILIAN LIFE: MANASSAS,VIRGINIA 

A brief look at the impact of war on civilians living around Manassas based on first person narratives and family histories.

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Were the Indians Better Armed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn?

Were the Indians better armed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn?  Yes and no says Richard Allan Fox Jr., author of Archaeology,History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Re-examined

Custer’s men were initially under no great pressure.  The many Indians who were eventually involved accumulated over time, and cautiously infiltrated up the coulees toward Custer’s command. Eventually Lt. Calhoun’s company deployed to disperse the infiltrating hostiles.  This set off an Indian counterattack, and the sudden and unexpected disintegration of the southern end of Custer’s line.  This disintegration resulted in complete panic and the collapse of the entire command in swift order.  (Fox, 287-288)

In Fox’s view it was the sudden disintegration of the southern end Custer’s line that resulted in disaster.  Custer’s men were armed with the single shot .45 Springfield carbine.  According to anecdotal evidence this carbine had significant problems with jamming, but Fox writes, “Archaeological analyses of cartridge cases…lead to the conclusion that extraction failure was not a significant factor in the defeat of Custer’s battalion.” (Fox, 242)  The Indians were armed with repeating Winchester rifles, but Fox tells us, “Range, stopping power, and accuracy combined to make the Springfield carbine technically superior to any repeating rifle of the day.  The long range Springfield effectively kept Indians at distances beyond their normal abilities as riflemen.”  The effective range of the Springfield exceed that of the Winchester by at least 400 yards.   The Springfield carbine remained the official cavalry firearm after the Little Bighorn and until 1893. (Fox, 251) Because of the rugged and broken terrain at the Little Bighorn, the Indians, armed with repeating rifles, were able to creep within firing range of the cavalry, which was unusual, “Thus, the repeater as instrument of shock, coupled with the liability of the single-shot carbine in close-in fighting, probably contributed significantly to demoralization….The shock effect was magnified by the likelihood, based on archaeological data, that the Indians had at least 200 repeating rifles.” (Fox, 253)

Link to: Custer's Last Stand: Portraits in Time

For almost one hundred and fifty years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values. Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history. This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.

Paperback edition


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History and the Movies

What is the interaction of history, politics, and the movies?

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History's Worst Generals

Success leaves clues.  So does failure.  Some of history’s best known commanders are remembered not for their brilliant victories but for their catastrophic blunders. 

Throughout the centuries countless armies have gone down to defeat, succumbing to greater numbers, more advanced technology, or more skilled opponents.  A few armies have been defeated because of the blundering incompetence of their own commanders.  What are the elements of leadership failure?  A recurrent pattern emerges over the last two thousand plus years. 



Link to : History's Ten Worst Generals

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Custer's Last Stand: The Man Who Killed Custer

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Showdown at Little Big Horn by Dee Brown (1964)

     Dee Brown was a novelist and historian.  This book is a dramatic retelling of the battle as seen through the eyes of many of the major participants, military, civilian, and Indian.  The book is essentially a non-fiction novel, in which Brown puts words into the mouths of participants to make historical points.  For example, Brown has Captain French approaching Major Reno during the initial charge on the village and saying, “Winchesters!....Too many blasted redskins armed with new Winchesters.”  There are no new facts here, just Brown embracing certain historical assumptions through the medium of dramatic dialogue.

    
What is new is Brown’s abandonment of the “Great Man” approach to history.  For Brown, the Battle of the Little Bighorn is not just, or primarily, about George Armstrong Custer.  Using eyewitness accounts, diaries, letters, and testimonies of participants in the battle, Brown embraces the historical perspective of the common man.  Significant too, is Brown’s willingness to embrace Indian testimony on an equal level with that of white participants.  This book anticipates the treatment of the battle in Brown’s more celebrated book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), in which he recounts the battle solely on the basis of Indian testimony.  In Bury My Heart Brown tacitly admits that Indian testimony can be contradictory, acknowledging at one point that no fewer than four different Indians had claims to killing Custer ( Rain-in-the Face, Flat Hip, Brave Bear, and an unidentified Santee warrior named by Red Horse).  Given the contradictions embedded in non-Indian accounts of the battle, however, Brown has concluded that it is reasonable to treat the Indian testimony on an equal footing.

    
Brown’s use of the Indian perspective is a radical departure from previous histories written from the Anglo perspective of the battle and its aftermath.  Brown writes in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, “When the white men in the East heard of Long Hair’s defeat, they called it a massacre and went crazy with anger.  They wanted to punish all the Indians in the West.  Because they could not punish Sitting Bull and the war chiefs, the Great Council in Washington decided to punish the Indians they could find, those who remained on the reservations and had taken no part in the fighting.”  On August 15, 1876, Congress forced the Indians to give up all rights to the Powder River country and the Black Hills, maintaining that the Indians had violated the treaty of 1868 by going to war with the United States.  “This was difficult for the reservation Indians to understand, because they had not attacked United States soldiers, nor had Sitting Bull’s followers attacked them until Custer sent Reno charging through the Sioux villages.” (Brown, 297-298)  By writing from the Indian perspective, Brown reverses the importance of the roles earlier histories assigned to Custer and the Indians.  Custer is now merely the foil for the real heroes of the story…the Indians.

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Hidden Treasure in Virginia

Treasure Legends of Virginia

The history of Virginia told through treasure tales about pirates, Indians, Revolutionary War heroes and Civil War raiders. The full text of the famous Beale Treasure cipher is included along with some sixty other legends.

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Historic Civil War Blenheim: Fairfax,Virginia

Virginia Time Travel interviews Andrea Loewenwater from Historic Blenheim in Fairfax, Virginia.

CIVIL WAR CIVILIAN LIFE: MANASSAS,VIRGINIA 

A brief look at the impact of war on civilians living around Manassas based on first person narratives and family histories.

Women Doctors in the Civil War

A quick look at women doctors and medicine in the Civil War for the general reader. Technologically, the American Civil War was the first “modern” war, but medically it still had its roots in the Middle Ages. In both the North and the South, thousands of women served as nurses to help wounded and suffering soldiers and civilians. A few women served as doctors, a remarkable feat in an era when sex discrimination prevented women from pursuing medical education, and those few who did were often obstructed by their male colleagues at every turn.

Stratagem 1861: The War for the Potomac

Virginia Time Travel interviews Robert Alton, author of the book Stratagem 1861 which describes the war for the Potomac River in 1861.

CIVIL WAR CIVILIAN LIFE: MANASSAS,VIRGINIA 

A brief look at the impact of war on civilians living around Manassas based on first person narratives and family histories.

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Women in the American Civil War

Link to: The Confederate Woman: Soldier and Spy

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The National Civil War Life Museum

CIVIL WAR CIVILIAN LIFE: MANASSAS,VIRGINIA 

A brief look at the impact of war on civilians living around Manassas based on first person narratives and family histories.

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Project Enlightenment – 18th century science reenactment

How Martha Washington Lived: 18th CenturyCustoms 

Neither Martha Washington nor the women of the South’s leading families were marble statues, they had the same strengths and weaknesses, passions and problems, joys and sorrows, as the women of any age.  So just how did they live?

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Book Review: Nathaniel Philbrick - The Last Stand

The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull,and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick (2010)

     “Before Custer became the mythic figure we know today, he was a lieutenant colonel desperate to find a way to salvage his reputation after a run-in with President Grant.  Custer did not stride through history doing what he wanted; he, like any military man, spent most of his time following orders.” (Philbrick, 101)  Custer was on the brink of professional and financial ruin.  If he could catch the Indians all would be well again. In his most hopeful fantasies he imagined a draft Custer for President Movement at the Democratic convention which was to open in St. Louis on June 27.  More realistically he could expect accolades at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and big box office receipts for a lecture tour for which he was already booked. (Philbrick, 119)

     The villain of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (June 25, 1876) was General Alfred Terry and his flawed battle plan.  According to Philbrick, General Terry “wanted Custer to attack if he found a fresh Indian trail.”  He says, everyone knew perfectly well what Custer was going to do once Terry, “, in the words of Major Brisbin ‘turned the wild man loose.’”(Philbrick, 99)  General Terry was protective of his own military reputation however and was spinning an invisible and cunning web.  “Terry had a lawyer’s talent for crafting documents that appeared to say one thing but were couched in language that could allow for an entirely different interpretation should circumstances require it.”  Terry’s ambiguously worded orders to Custer, allowed him to protect his reputation no matter what happened.  “If Custer bolted for the village and claimed a great victory, it was because Terry had the wisdom to give him an independent command.  If Custer did so and failed, it was because he had disobeyed Terry’s written orders.”  Philbrick continues, “As Terry would have wanted it given the ultimate outcome of the battle, Custer has become the focal point, the one we obsess about when it comes to both the Black Hills Expedition and the Little Bighorn.  But, in many ways, it was Terry who was moving the chess pieces.  Even though his legal opinion launched the Black Hills gold rush and his battle plan resulted in one of the most notorious military disasters in U.S. history, Terry has slunk back into the shadows of history, letting Custer take center stage in a cumulative tragedy for which Terry was, perhaps more than any other single person, responsible.” (Philbrick, 102-103)

     In 1886, some ten years after the massacre of Custer and 225 men of the Seventh Cavalry, the well-respected Terry was promoted to the rank of Major General.

Paperback edition

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

For almost one hundred and fifty years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values. Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history. This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.

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George Armstrong Custer: Manufactured Hero?

Six months after the Battle of the Little Bighorn (June 25, 1876), Frederick Whittaker’s A Complete Life of General George A. Custer was published.  Whittaker’s book made no pretense to objectivity, this was a canonization which presented Custer as a dashing and brilliant military leader abandoned to his fate by lesser, disloyal, treacherous, and cowardly men.  Whittaker borrowed generously from Custer’s own book My Life on the Plains, as well as on his own imagination, which was fulsome, since Whittaker was a professional writer of nickel and dime novel fiction for a leading publisher.

Whittaker quoted (or manufactured) the testimony of one of the Indian scouts, Curly, who claimed to have escaped from the field of battle.  When Curly saw that the party with Custer was about to be overwhelmed, he begged Custer to let him show him a way to escape.  “…Custer looked at Curly, waved him away and rode back to the little group of men, to die with them.”  Why, Whittaker asks, did Custer go back to certain death?  “Because he felt that such a death as that which that little band of heroes was about to die, was worth the lives of all the general officers in the world….He weighed, in that brief moment of reflection, all the consequences to America of the lesson of life and the lesson of heroic death, and he chose death.” 

Paperback edition


Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

For almost one hundred and fifty years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values. Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history. This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.

Download Free Kindle Reading Apps:

The best reading experience on your Android phone or tablet, iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows 8 PC or tablet, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone.

Shop for Custer Gifts:

Colonial America mystery writer Andrew Mills

Interview with mystery writer Andrew Mills, author of the Archibald Mercer Colonial Detective series.  Archibald Mercer, America's first detective, solves crimes in colonial and Revolutionary era America.  Books in the series include: (1) The Female Stranger, (2) The Stolen Sash,(3) The Gambler's Debt, (4) The Stolen Election, and (5) The Burning Palace.

The Colonial Detective Mystery Series

Civil War Story of Brentsville, Virginia

“Came to Brentsville (Prince William County, Virginia), examined the place, found five houses occupied, including the jail. But two men reside in this town; the court-house has but a part of the roof remaining on; the houses are generally in ruins.”  So read, in part,  a letter of March 8, 1864, written by Captain Andrew H. McHenry of the 13^th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Brentsville was the county seat during the Civil War. It was at the Brentsville courthouse that citizens met to vote on secession and where they came to enlist in the military. In response to John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, the Prince William Cavalry (Co. A, Virginia Cavalry) was formed here on the courthouse lawn in January 1860. The Ewell Guards (Co. A, 49th VA Infantry), were also organized here and drilled on the courthouse lawn.

When Union General McClellan began his campaign to take the new Confederate capital in Richmond, southern troops were forced to evacuate their winter camps that were set up throughout much of Fairfax and Prince William Counties. Brentsville, then the seat of local government, was one of the first communities affected by invading Federal forces. Thousands of troops of both sides passed through Brentsville. Churches and private homes became hospitals after battles at Manassas and Bristoe Station. Many of the buildings were ravaged for bricks to build encampments. The roof of the courthouse was partially torn off and the adjacent clerk's office was totally destroyed. Most of the county's records were lost. A Union soldier wrote, “The documentary accumulations of more than two hundred years had been torn out of their files and scattered over the floors of the buildings to the depth of several feet.”

Brentsville sat in the midst of “Mosby’s Confederacy” as Confederate partisans harassed union troops throughout the war.  A soldier in the Tenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry wrote, “Guerrillas were all about us, as was evident when a straggling member of the Tenth was fired upon….Oct. 6th, a squad of men went over to Brentsville, shire town of Prince William County, to get bricks for the General’s quarters.  They secured them, but at the expense of the buildings themselves.”


The Prince William Historic PreservationFoundation is currently raising money for museum exhibits and interpretive services for the “ Old Jail”, which is the final building to be restored at the 29 acres Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre, an open-air museum centered around the restored 1820s courthouse. 

The Civil War Wedding

An entertaining look at the customs and superstitions of weddings during the Civil War era.

Wars and Invasions

General George S. Patton once said, “Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance.” Here are four stories about the history of the world IF wars we know about happened differently or IF wars that never happened actually took place.

Gifts for Dog Lovers