Col. John S. Mosby on "Knight Errantry"

 

The grave of Col. John S Mosby grave at the Warrenton Cemetery in Warrenton, Virginia.  As a child, Mosby was small, sickly and was often the target of bullying. He would respond by fighting back. During the course of the Civil War Mosby was wounded seven times. For someone who had been a sickly youth, he proved quite resilient, dying at the age of 82 on May 30, 1916.

Sixty-six of Mosby’s Rangers are buried in the same cemetery. After the war, the thirty-one-year-old Mosby went on to become a distinguished railway lawyer.  He also served as U.S. consul to Hong Kong and in several other Federal government posts. 

Although Mosby’s war time exploits have been romanticized, he himself once said that there was, “no man in the Confederate Army who had less of the spirit of knight-errantry in him or took a more practical view of war than I did.”

Civil War Graves of Northern Virginia

The Great Northern Rebellion of 1860 (alternate history)

The Great Northern Rebellion of 1860 (alternate history)

Treasure Caves in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona

 

In 1934, Charley Williams stumbled out of the Superstition Mountains with handfuls of gold nuggets and a spectacular story.  Williams claimed the nuggets came from a huge pile of nuggets he found just inside a cave’s entrance.   Of course, he couldn’t remember where the cave was located because in his excitement, he had hit his head and become totally disoriented.  He must have been very, very disoriented since the gold was later proven to be dental gold.

Another story tells of gold bars in a cave near the Massacre Grounds (where the Peraltas were massacred by the Apache). Prospector James Baxter claimed he was guided to the cave by a blue light coming from the cave.  This cave is supposedly within a two-mile radius of the First Water Trailhead.

A treasure hunter named John Hallenberg talked about a cave filled with gold bars located on Bluff Springs Mountain.  Hallenberg supposedly found a cave where he discovered all kinds of old writing.  These marks did not resemble Native American petroglyphs but were something entirely different.  Hallenberg thought the writing was Hebrew, but probably could have been anything.  In any event, this adventure somehow convinced Hallenberg that there was indeed a cave in the Superstitions filled with gold bars.  He even had a map showing the direction to this “Cave of Gold.”

In the early 1980s, another tale of a cave filled with gold emerged.  Supposedly, a man named Harry France (or LaFrance) discovered a cave filled with gold bars near Black Top Mesa (or it might have been Weaver’s Needle).  This was probably Jesuit treasure (unless it wasn’t).  With clues like this, it should be easy to find.

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

Paperback:

Dining With George Washington

 

Each morning Martha Washington met with the cooks to plan the menu for dinner, the main meal of the day served between 2:00 and 4:00.  Mount Vernon dinners required two cooks aided by several assistants who performed tedious tasks like peeling vegetables and plucking turkeys.  Martha Washington briefly hired German cooks but most of Mount Vernon’s cooks were slaves.  A great bell was rung fifteen minutes before dinner at Mount Vernon.  Guests changed into dressier clothes for dinner.  George and Martha Washington welcomed thousands of guests to Mount Vernon in the more than forty years they lived there.  A slave butler and waiters, in livery, were responsible for bringing food to the table quickly and efficiently.  Dinner consisted of two courses. 

The first course featured meat and vegetable dishes.  Ham was almost always featured.  A ham was boiled daily and Martha took great pride in her hams.  Martha sent hams as gifts.  In 1796 George Washington informed the Marquis de Lafayette that Mrs. Washington, “…had packed and sent…a barrel of Virginia hams.”  He reminded his friend, “…you know the Virginia ladies value themselves on the goodness of their bacon.”  In addition to ham, foods likely to be found on Martha Washington’s table included carrot puffs, chicken fricassee, pickled red cabbage, fish, and onion soup. Even though these foods appear familiar, the seasonings were very different from those used in modern cooking. Colonial cooks liked nutmeg and especially enjoyed a sweet taste. Salt and pepper were not heavily used. Some foods would make the modern diner blanche, rabbits and poultry, for example, were not only prepared with their heads and feet still attached, they were served at dinner that way as well.

The second course featured sweet dishes and frequently featured fruit, including exotic fruits such as pineapples.  Locally grown fruits including apricots, strawberries, gooseberries and cherries might be made into jams or preserved whole.  Ice Cream was a favorite dessert at Mount Vernon.  Slaves cut chunks of ice from the Potomac River during the winter, which were covered with straw in the Mount Vernon ice house for future use during the summer months.  A recipe of the time, used by Martha Washington, advised on the making of ice cream: “Take two pewter-basins, one larger than the other; the inward one must have a close cover, into which you are to put your cream, and mix it with raspberries, or whatever you like best, to give it a flavour and a colour. Sweeten it to your palate; then cover it close, and set it into the larger basin. Fill it with ice, and a handful of salt: let it stand in this ice three quarters of an hour, then uncover it, and stir the cream well together; cover it close again, and let it stand half an hour longer, after that turn it into your plate.” The Washingtons flavored ice cream with berries, as chocolate and vanilla were not added to ice cream in the eighteenth century.

In contrast to their homegrown fruits, grains, vegetables, meats and dairy products, the Washingtons imported most of their beverages, spices, and condiments.  In a typical year Martha Washington ordered 126 gallons of wine, twenty five pounds of tea and fifty pounds of almonds.  The Washingtons typically offered several hot beverages to their guests including coffee from the Middle East, tea from Asia, and chocolate from South America.  All had been introduced to England and the American colonies late in the seventeenth century and quickly became popular, despite their expense. Tea was brought to Europe in 1610 by the Dutch and arrived in England in 1644.  Tea merchants claimed that the drink was a cure for migraine, drowsiness, apoplexy, lethargy, paralysis, vertigo, epilepsy, colic, gallstones and consumption. Most tea came from China until the 19^th century.

Murder in Colonial Virginia

Martha Washington and Fun

 

Martha Washington

Martha Washington, like other members of her set, spent considerable time directing a large staff of slaves and servants and ensuring the happiness of her husband and children.  Nonetheless, there was time for fun.

People of means were expected to be able to play an instrument or sing.  Ladies did not generally play wind instruments, their garments being too restrictive.  They could sing or play keyboards.  Dancing was an established social grace.  Balls began with court dances like the minuet.  These dances were performed in strict order of precedence, the ranking couple in the room dancing first, and then down the social ladder.  These were solo performances, watched carefully by the other guests.  Pronounced stumbles and fumbles could cause a dancer to be banished for the social season.  After the formalities the floor was opened for general and less formal dancing.

Martha Washington: The First Lady of Fashion (Virginia Time Travel) - YouTube

How Martha Washington Lived: 18th Century Customs

Who Were the Slaves of the Founding Fathers?

Colonel John S. Mosby and the Silver Screen

Col. John S. Mosby

The Gray Ghost was a syndicated television show that aired thirty nine episodes from October 10, 1957 to July 3, 1958.  Tod Andrews (1914-1972) portrayed Colonel John Singleton Mosby.  Virgil Carrington Jones, an expert on Mosby, was historical consultant for some episodes.

Virgil Carrington Jones (1906-1999) worked as a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Washington Evening Star, and the Wall Street Journal.  He was the author of Ranger Mosby.

Treasure Legends of the Civil War

The Civil War Wedding

 

A Death-Sonnet for Custer

 

"From Far Dakota's Cañons" was first published as "A Death Sonnet for Custer" in the New York Tribune, 10 July 1876, two weeks after General George Armstrong Custer's death. Walt Whitman received ten dollars for the poem.

 The sonnet later appeared as “From Far Dakota's Cañons” in Whitman’s monumental work, Leaves of Grass.

I.

From far Montana's cañons,

Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lone-

some stretch, the silence,

Haply, to-day, a mournful wail—haply, a trumpet

note for heroes.

 

II.

The battle-bulletin,

The Indian ambuscade—the slaughter and environ-

ment

The cavalry companies fighting to the last—in stern-

est, coolest, heroism.

The fall of Custer, and all his officers and men.

 

III.

Continues yet the old, old legend of our race!

The loftiest of life upheld by death!

The ancient banner perfectly maintained!

(O lesson opportune—O how I welcome thee!)

As, sitting in dark days,

Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking

in vain for light, for hope,

From unsuspected parts, a fierce and momentary

proof,

(The sun there at the center, though concealed,

Electric life forever at the center,)

Breaks forth, a lightning flash.

 

IV.

Thou of sunny, flowing hair, in battle,

I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in

front, bearing a bright sword in thy hand,

Now ending well the splendid fever of thy deeds,

(I bring no dirge for it or thee—I bring a glad, tri-

umphal sonnet;)

There in the far northwest, in struggle, charge, and

saber-smite,

Desperate and glorious—aye, in defeat most desper-

ate, most glorious,

After thy many battles, in which, never yielding up

a gun or a color,

Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers,

Thou yieldest up thyself.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer and Rain in the Face

One of the many tributes written to honor George Armstrong Custer after the Battle of the Little Bighorn was a poem entitled. “The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

The poem definitely took “poetic license” with the facts.  Neither Custer nor his men carried sabers of June 25, 1876.  More importantly George Armstrong Custer did not have his heart cut out (although Tom Custer may have, this is matter of dispute.)

Longfellow

Rain-In-The-Face

“The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face”
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

In that desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
Roar down their mountain path,
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs
And the menace of their wrath.

"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
"Revenue upon all the race
Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags re-echoed the cry
Of his anger and despair.

In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and riverside
The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing of the stream
And the blue-jay in the wood.

In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,
In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,
Savage, unmerciful!

Into the fatal snare
The White Chief with yellow hair
And his three hundred men
Dashed headlong, sword in hand;
But of that gallant band
Not one returned again.

The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath
And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank, and between
The rocks of the ravine,
They lay in their bloody attire.

But the foemen fled in the night,
And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight
Uplifted high in air
As a ghastly trophy, bore
The brave heart, that beat no more,
Of the White Chief with yellow hair.

Whose was the right and the wrong?
Sing it, O funeral song,
With a voice that is full of tears,
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe,
In the Year of a Hundred Years.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

“Shorty” meets President Jefferson Davis

 

President Davis

Capt. David Van Buskirk of the 27th Indiana Regiment stood 6 feet 11 inches and weighed 380 pounds. He was captured in 1862 and sent to a Richmond Prison. Confederate President Jeff Davis came to see him and was astounded when the Van Buskirk claimed that back home in Bloomington, Indiana, “when I was at the train station with my company, my six sisters came to say goodbye. As I was standing there, with my company, they all came up to me, leaned down and kissed me on top of the head.”

War and Reconstruction in Mississippi 1861-1875: A Portrait

A Dear John Letter in the Civil War

A young soldier left home to join the army. He told his girlfriend that he would write every day. After about six months, he received a letter from his girlfriend that she was marrying someone else. He wrote home to his family to find out who she married. The family wrote back and told him. It was the ....mailman. 

 

Civil War Humor 1861-1865

Union Troops “Not at Liberty”

 

Ambrose Burnside

Troops on both sides enjoyed a joke at the expense of officers.  One anecdote that made the rounds involved General Ambrose Burnside.  General Grant and his staff in Virginia stopped to rest at a plantation. Grant fell into conversation with the two women of the house, when the portly Ambrose Burnside rode up, made an exaggerated bow, and conversationally inquired as to whether the ladies had ever seen so many Yankee soldiers before.

“Not at liberty, sir,” one of the women snapped back.

 General Grant joined heartily in the laughter.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Slavery in Massachusetts

 

James Somersett was a slave taken to England by his master Charles Steuart of Boston, Massachusetts.  In 1771, while in England, Somersett escaped from his master.  He was recaptured and put in chains aboard the ship Ann and Mary which was preparing to sail for Jamaica.  Before the ship sailed Somersett’s godparents, supported by British abolitionists, applied to the Court of King’s Bench for a writ of habeas corpus.  The Captain of the ship was required to produce Somersett so the Court could decide if his imprisonment was legal.  Lord Mansfield, the presiding judge ordered Somersett to be released, finding that neither English common law nor any law made by Parliament recognized the existence of slavery in England.  The Somersett case was a boon to the growing abolitionist movement in Great Britain and ended the holding of slaves in England.  It did not end Britain’s participation in the slave trade or end slavery in other parts of the British Empire, such as the American colonies, all of which had positive laws allowing slavery.

In 1773, as the people of Massachusetts railed against the Crown over matters of taxes, the General Court in Boston received the first of three petitions in which advocates for slaves argued that Lord Mansfield’s decision should apply to the colonies since people were being, “held in a state of Slavery within a free and Christian country.”  The issue of slavery was never to be decided in the colonial courts.  Relations with the Crown continued to deteriorate leading to armed rebellion. 

Who Were the Slaves of the Founding Fathers?

Secrets of Early America 1607-1816

The Value of Humor in War and Elsewhere

 

Humor had its place in even the toughest situations. During the Civil War, a Confederate veteran remembered many years later, “While on that raid we marched and fought for days and nights in succession. Late one dark night we were on the march; it was raining, and we were all wet, cold, tired, sleepy, and hungry. We were bunched up in a creek bottom waiting for those in front to cross the stream. Not a word was being spoken. Old sore-backed horses were trying to rub their riders off against some other horse. We knew we would have fighting to do as soon as day broke, and we had the blues. All at once Joe Leggett said: ‘Boys, I have become reckless; I've got so I don't care for nothing. I had just as soon be at home now as to be here.’ The effect was magical. While the skill and bravery of our generals and the fighting qualities of our soldiers could not have been excelled, if it had not been for those jolly spirits to animate others the war would have come to a close much sooner.”

CIVIL WAR CIVILIAN LIFE: MANASSAS, VIRGINIA

War and Reconstruction in Mississippi 1861-1875: A Portrait

A Soldier Defends a Hopeless Position in the Civil War

 

A soldier had lost his bayonet and whittled one from wood so he could stand inspection. He was hoping not to be discovered until the regiment had gone into battle where he could pick up one from a dead soldier. At an inspection, an officer asked to see his bayonet. The soldier stated “Sir, I promised my father I would never unsheathe my bayonet unless I intended to kill with it.” The Officer insisted he hand over the bayonet. Taking it out, the soldier looked skyward and declared “May the Lord change this bayonet to wood for breaking my vow.”

Civil War Humor 1861-1865

Black Soldiers in the American Revolution

 

During the American Revolution, the British lacked sufficient manpower to put down a revolt by a “people numerous and well-armed”.  This manpower shortage made the use of slaves all the more appealing to the British since slaves constituted some twenty percent of the total population of the colonies.  On June 30, 1779, Sir Henry Clinton the Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America, promised in the so-called Philipsburg Declaration that "every NEGRO who shall desert the Rebel Standard, [is granted] full security to follow within these Lines, any Occupation which he shall think proper." Now it was not hundreds of slaves seeking refuge in British lines but tens of thousands.  Some one hundred thousand slaves (out of a population of 500,000 slaves) are estimated to have sought freedom with the British over the course of the next four years.  The number might have climbed even higher had slaves not feared brutal retaliation against their families if they fled from their masters.

By freeing the slaves, the British forced slave masters to guard slaves, one of their chief economic assets, instead of fighting British troops. The British were willing to emancipate slaves if by so doing they could first cripple and then crush the rebellion.  Much as in the later American Civil War, military necessity rather than morality acted as the catalyst of history. The use of slaves by the British for military purposes soon prompted the American rebels to begin recruiting blacks.  George Washington gave his approval to Rhode Island's plan to raise an entire regiment of black slaves (the state bought and emancipated slaves willing to become soldiers). Similarly, Massachusetts raised an all-black unit, the Bucks of America under Samuel Middleton, the only black commissioned officer in the Continental Army. In October 1780, even Maryland accepted "any able-bodied slave between 16 and 40 years of age, who voluntarily enters into service . . . with the consent and agreement of his master." New York began recruiting slaves in March 1781.  By June 1781 some 1,500 (25 %) of the 6,000 troops under George Washington’s direct command were black.

Who Were the Slaves of the Founding Fathers?

How Martha Washington Lived: 18th Century Customs

The Grave of a Hero of the Titanic

 

One of the notables honored at Arlington National Cemetery is Major Archibald Butt (1865-1912).  Archibald Butt was the military aide to both Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.  Butt and his housemate (some say lover), the painter Francis Davis Millet, died during the sinking of the Titanic.  Butt was universally recognized for his heroic conduct during the tragedy. His body was never recovered.  President Taft who had come to regard Major Butt, “as a son or a brother”, praised him as a Christian gentleman and the perfect soldier.  Taft wrote, “I knew that he would certainly remain on the ship's deck until every duty had been performed and every sacrifice made that properly fell on one charged, as he would feel himself charged, with responsibility for the rescue of others.”  At a May 5 ceremony, Taft broke down weeping, bringing his eulogy to an abrupt end.

As the Titanic sank, the crew prepared the lifeboats and Major Butt helped in the rescue efforts.  One survivor described him as calm and collected, “Major Butt helped…frightened people so wonderfully, tenderly, and yet with such cool and manly firmness.  He was a soldier to the last.”  A cenotaph was erected in the summer of 1913 by his brothers in Section 3 at a point that Major Butt had previously selected as his gravesite.  The Butt-Millet Memorial Fountain, a private memorial fountain, located in the President’s Park, adjacent to the White House, was dedicated in October 1913.  Powerful friends argued that Butt (who was an aide to the president) and Millet (who was vice chair of the United States Commission of Fine Arts at the time of his death) were both public servants who deserved to be memorialized separately from private citizens who died in the Titanic disaster.

 Legends of the Superstition Mountains

The Grave of the First Man to Reach the North Pole ?

 The Grave of Robert E Peary

One of the notables buried at Arlington National Cemetery is Robert E. Peary (1856-1920), an American explorer who claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. Peary's claim was widely credited for most of the 20th century. The first undisputed explorers to reach the North Pole were documented in 1969.  Some historians believe that Peary was guilty of deliberately exaggerating his accomplishments.

Women Doctors in the Civil War

The Grave of William Howard Taft

 

One of the notables buried at Arlington is William Howard Taft (1857 – 1930), the 27^th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States.  Taft is the only person to have served in both offices.  Taft and John F. Kennedy are the only U.S. Presidents buried at Arlington.

 

Taft is not only one of two presidents buried at Arlington National Cemetery, he is also one of four Chief Justices buried there (the others are Earl Warren, Warren Burger, and William Rehnquist). Taft was the first president to throw out the baseball at a season opener, in a game between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1910. Taft's wife, Helen Herron Taft, who died in 1943, was instrumental in bringing Japanese cherry trees to Washington, D.C.  A fourteen foot tall granite monument, inspired by ancient Greek burial steles, marks the graves of Taft and his wife. Mrs. Taft arranged with James Earl Frazer, a New York sculptor, to design this private monument for the grave. The design was approved by the Commission of Fine Arts and the secretary of war. It was erected by the Taft family in early 1932.

How Sherlock Holmes Lived

Haym Salomon: A Jewish Patriot of the American Revolution

 

Haym Salomon, a Polish-born Jewish businessman immigrated to New York City in 1775 and became a financial broker for merchants dealing in overseas trade.  Salomon joined the Sons of Liberty and was arrested by the British in September 1776 as a spy.  He was detained on a prison ship for eighteen months before being released.  He returned to spying and was arrested again, this time being condemned to death.  After a daring escape, Salomon made his way to the Patriot capital in Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, because of this financial expertise and language skills, Salomon helped convert French loans into ready cash by selling promissory notes.  He also negotiated large donations from the wealthy, and donated his entire fortune to the patriot cause.

In 1781, George Washington sent for Salomon to raise money for the Yorktown campaign when no money and no credit was available.  Salomon worked his magic and Washington was able to pay the army that won the American Revolution.

How Martha Washington Lived: 18th Century Customs

Who Were the Slaves of the Founding Fathers?

19th Century Utopian Societies That Condemned Traditional Marriage

 

Francis Wright

In the early 19th century, not everyone looked at the institution of marriage with a cheerful eye.  In 1826, Frances Wright's Utopian community in Nashoba, Tennessee, rejected the concept of marriage entirely.  Wright and her followers argued that love and respect, rather than legal ties, should bind couples.  When love and respect disappeared, couples should simply separate. 

                                          The Oneida Community

In New York, the Oneida Community, founded in 1848, described marriage as, "contrary to natural liberty....a cruel and oppressive method of uniting the sexes."  This Community practiced a form of community marriage where each woman was married to every man and each man to every woman.  Most Americans rejected these views and pressured young people to marry.  A man's credit rating, for example, depended in part on whether or not he was married and had children.

Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Civil War

Love, Sex and Marriage in Victorian America