William Hull: History's Worst General?

At 10:00 A.M. on August 16, 1812, a white flag appeared over Fort Detroit. Despite the vehement protests of his officers and men, Brigadier General William Hull surrendered his command without a fight. The British captured an American army of 2,500, some thirty-three cannon, four hundred rounds of 24-pound shot, one hundred thousand cartridges, 2,500 rifles and bayonets, and a newly built 16-gun brig Adams.

Hull was subsequently exchanged for a high ranking British prisoner of war, only to face court-martial charges of treason, cowardice, neglect of duty and un-officer like conduct. During his court martial, Hull tried to shift blame for the debacle at Detroit to his officers and men, accusing the officers of conspiring against him and the men of cowardice. Hull argued that he could not engage in battle with such men who were obviously not up to the contest. Hull continued to assert, “I have done what my conscience directed. I have saved Detroit and the Territory from the horrors of an Indian massacre."

Ultimately, William Hull was found innocent of treason but guilty of the other charges and sentenced to be shot. The court recommended that the sentence be commuted because of his previous honorable service. President Madison commuted the death sentence. William Hull is the only American general to have ever been sentenced to death by a court-martial.

Hull was drummed out of the Army, the court-martial concluding, “The rolls of the army are to be no longer disgraced by having upon them the name of Brigadier General William Hull.” Hull spent the rest of his life blaming others for his own mistakes.



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George Armstrong Custer: Hero or Media Darling?

George Armstrong Custer was no military novice in 1876 when he rode out to subdue the Sioux. Custer graduated from West Point in 1861, and distinguished himself in the American Civil War as a brave cavalry officer, being promoted to the rank of brevet brigadier general in 1863 and brevet major general in 1865. Custer’s adherents made much of the fact that he was a “boy general”, but such honors were fairly common during the Civil War. In fact two of Custer’s subordinate officers in the 1876 campaign, Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen had been given similar honors during the Civil War. Reno was made a brevet brigadier general in 1865 and, by the end of the war, Benteen had been recommended to receive the rank of brevet brigadier general.

Unlike many other brave soldiers, however, Custer had a knack for publicity. He frequently invited correspondents from leading newspapers to accompany his campaigns, and their reporting significantly enhanced his visibility and reputation. Custer put on quite a show for the press, sporting a flamboyant uniform and long hair worn in ringlets sprinkled with cinnamon-scented hair oil. In his manner of dress and command he was not unlike J.E.B. Stuart, the flamboyant commander of General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate cavalry. The North needed its’ own Stuart and Custer cast himself in the role of the North’s dashing cavalier.

While no one could question Custer’s personal bravery or flamboyance, his tactics were weak. His one basic tactic was to charge the enemy, wherever he might be, no matter how strong his position or how large his numbers. On the second day of the battle of Gettysburg, for example, Custer, without reconnaissance, attacked a force four times his size. Custer was personally cited for gallantry although his brigade suffered the highest loss of any Union cavalry brigade engaged at Gettysburg. Custer’s reputation was bought with the dead bodies of his men.

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The Battle of Bladensburg (War of 1812)

Secretary of War John Armstrong Jr., a self styled military genius, had a theory that militia fought best at the spur of the moment. Early deployment would only cause militiamen to brood over the horrors of battle.


Armstrong steadfastly refused to do anything to defend the United States capital in 1814. When residents of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, pleaded for help in the face of several British raids, Armstrong replied, “It cannot be expected that I can defend every man’s turnip patch.”

The British landed at Benedict, Maryland on August 19, 1814, achieving complete tactical surprise. Some 4,500 British veterans faced 429 American regulars and 1,500 poorly trained and poorly equipped militia in a set piece battle in the open. Armstrong’s theories about the use of militia did not prove sound against the British.

The British regulars came on steadily, driving the Americans like sheep. After losing ten dead and forty wounded, the Americans fled the field, leaving ten cannons behind. The route was complete, and was derided at the time as the “Bladensburg Races”. The battle has come down to history as, “the greatest disgrace ever dealt American arms” and “the most humiliating episode in American history.”

Later that night the British burned Washington.

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The Civil War Wedding of Major General George E. Pickett C.S.A.

September 15, 1863, was the happy occasion of the wedding of Miss Sallie Ann Corbell of Chuckatuck, Virginia, to Major General George E. Pickett of Richmond.

The general met the wedding party on the evening of September 14 at the train station in Petersburg and escorted them to the Bollingbrook Hotel. The following day, the church was filled to capacity. The residents of Petersburg still refer to the bells of St. Paul's as "the Pickett chimes" because they had remained silent during the War until Pickett's wedding day. The wedding feast became a community effort. A gun salute was given, bells chimed and bugles hailed as the couple embarked on a train from Petersburg to Richmond. In the capital, everyone pitched in to make the dinner memorable including Varina Davis and Mrs. Robert E. Lee who brought wartime fruitcake. Afterwards there was a night of dancing.



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The Mount Vernon Monster (Bigfoot?)

On May 12, 1979, the front page of The Washington Post carried an article entitled,“The Mount Vernon Monster.” For nine months, in 1978 and 1979, a strange creature wailed and screamed nightly in the woods just a mile from historic Mount Vernon. Some people called it “The Mount Vernon Monster”, others “Bigfoot”. Whatever the creature may have been, it was elusive, frustrating capture attempts by the police, flyovers by a U.S. Park police helicopter, searches by volunteer youth patrols, and the determined efforts of the Fairfax County game warden to track it down. And thus an urban legend was born.

The story made its’ way into oral history projects, which are now being cited by monster hunters as historical authentication of the creature’s existence, “…one of the game wardens, said ‘The thing seems to know when you leave the woods, then it starts to holler.’ One resident said she spotted the monster. She described it as a creature about six feet tall, which lumbered into the woods after being sighted.”

The howling stopped as abruptly as it began, but the story lives on.

Urban Legends of Virginia

Mind bending stories from the Old Dominion. A collection of Virginia’s most notable Urban Legends, many include the true stories behind them.

Williamsburg Governor's Palace Destroyed

On December 21, 1781, the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia, burned to the ground, killing many wounded soldiers recovering there from wounds sustained during the famous Yorktown campaign. The people of Virginia decided not to rebuild the structure, but rather to cover over the spot. The outer buildings of the old palace would remain where they stood until the Civil War, when they too would be demolished.

The memory of the once great structure would be lost until the 1920s, when the task of recreating Colonial Williamsburg was undertaken. Today, the Governor’s Palace is one of the most visited buildings in Colonial Williamsburg.

During the archaeological dig at the site of the Governor’s Palace, the remains of the men crushed by the weight of the collapsing building were discovered in the basement.

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Andrew Jackson and the Stolen Election of 1824

The presidential election of 1824 was one of the most hotly contested elections in the nation’s history. The Federalist Party had dissolved and the United States found itself in the unique position of having only one political party within its borders, the Democratic Republicans. Sadly, this brief period of political unity within the country would be short lived as members of the Party began to divide into factions.

What made the election of 1824 so unique was that the four top contenders for the highest office of the land were all favorite son candidates. Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, was supported by the south, west, and mid Atlantic. Henry Clay found some support in the west, but hoped to garner support in the south and east. William Crawford was supported by the east while John Quincy Adams was supported by New England.

When the final vote in the Electoral College was made, Andrew Jackson had the most votes with ninety nine. John Quincy Adams came in second with eighty four. William Crawford came in third with forty one and Henry Clay rounded out the list with thirty seven. The presidential election was thrown into the House of Representatives for a decision, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. As it was written in the Constitution, only the top three candidates could have their names submitted to Congress for a vote to determine the next President of the United States. Since he came in fourth place, Henry Clay was automatically eliminated.

To the surprise of most, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president of the United States. Rumors of a “corrupt bargain” spread over the capital city.

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The Army of Northern Virginia and Religion

As in every army, drunkenness and vice were abundantly present in the Army of Northern Virginia. Still, it was not uncommon to find soldiers forming around campfires in prayer groups. There was a general demand in the army for small Bibles. “Soldiers are so eager for them that they frequently say they will give several months wages for one.” When the war broke out nearly all the great publishing houses were in the North.

Although the first Confederate Bible was printed in Nashville in 1861, and although the British Bible Society made liberal donations of its publications, religious material was in such scarce supply that many officers lamented, “Our brave boys must beg in vain for Bibles.”

One officer who was acutely concerned with the spiritual well being of his men was General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Jackson made a profession of faith in November, 1851 and thereafter energetically took up his new commitment. Jackson encouraged congregations to send chaplains to the army, “…who are your best men.” Men with strong commitment..who would not be put off.





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Sam Davis: The Ethan Allen of the Confederacy

Sam Davis of Smyrna, Tennessee was captured by Union troops in November 1863 as he was attempting to deliver a secret military message. He was offered his freedom if he would provide the name of the source of the secret information. Sam Davis refused. Although he was wearing a Confederate uniform, Davis was charged with being a spy and sentenced to death. On the gallows Davis was given one last opportunity to save his life by revealing the source of the secret message.

Davis’ last words were, “If I had a thousand lives to live, I would give them all, rather than betray a friend or be false to a duty.” Sam Davis was executed but his example has inspired generations of young Americans.

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First African American Roman Catholic Priest

Father Augustus Tolton is regarded as the first Roman Catholic priest of purely African descent in the United States. Both of Tolton’s parents were brought to America from Africa. Born in 1854 near Hannibal, Missouri, Tolton and his entire family were baptized as Roman Catholics at the behest of their master, Stephen Elliott.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Tolton’s father ran away and joined the Union army, later dying in a St. Louis hospital of dysentery. Tolton’s mother took her three small children and ran away from her master, dodging Confederate bounty hunters, finally reaching safety in Quincy, Illinois.

Tolton’s religious vocation became apparent as he matured and a number of priests attempted to get Tolton accepted in a seminary. No Catholic seminary in the United States was willing to accept a black seminarian. Eventually, Augustus Tolton was accepted to a seminary in Rome. At the age of 26 Augustus Tolton traveled to Italy to begin his studies. Six years later on April 24, 1886, he was ordained a priest at St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome.

Most of Father Tolton’s teachers in the seminary felt that he would never be able to minister in the United States given the widespread climate of racism and anti-Catholicism existing in the country. Father Tolton expected to be sent to Africa and was surprised when Cardinal Giovanni Simeoni insisted that he return to Illinois, saying, “America has been called the most enlightened nation; we will see if it deserves that honor. If America has never seen a black priest, it has to see one now.”

Father Tolton said his first Mass in America on July 7, 1886.



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Women Officers in the Confederate Army

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Lucy Mina Otey, a sixty year old widow, organized five hundred women of Lynchburg, Virginia into the Ladies’ Relief Society. The duties of the members of the Society included preparing and delivering food to the wounded in hospitals, making bandages, mending clothes and assisting surgeons in any way possible. Women would write letters for soldiers and keep patients comfortable. One morning when arriving at a hospital, Mina Otey was denied access by order of Dr. W.O. Owen, the head of Lynchburg military hospitals. Dr. Owen ordered the removal of Otey and all women from the hospitals stating, “no more women or flies are to be admitted.”

Otey immediately traveled to Richmond to talk to President Jefferson Davis to get his personal permission to found her own hospital, run entirely by female nurses. Davis agreed. Corruption and mismanagement became a frequent issue in Confederate hospitals. The Confederate government eventually ordered the shutdown of all medical institutions that were not under direct government control. If a hospital was not headed by a commissioned officer, who was least a captain, then patients had to be moved. Because of the excellence of her hospital and her service to the Confederacy, Mrs. Otey was named a Captain in the Confederate Army by President Jefferson Davis. Only one other woman received a commission in the Confederate Army. This other woman was Sallie Tompkins, who ran a hospital in Richmond, Virginia.

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.

Abortion in the Civil War

Abortion, rather than contraception, was the primary form of birth control during the antebellum and Civil War era. In the Civil War era it is estimated that there was one abortion for every five live births. William Buchan's Domestic Medicine contained prescriptions for bringing on delayed menstrual periods, which would also produce an abortion if the woman happened to be pregnant. The book prescribed heavy doses of purgatives that created violent cramps, powerful douches, violent exercise, raising great weights and falling down.

By the early 1860's most states had laws restricting abortion, but these laws were directed at unqualified abortionists and were intended to protect women. Procuring an abortion was not a crime in South Carolina and was illegal in Massachusetts only after the fetus had "stirred". Most Americans of this period did not regard abortion as a crime until the fetus had "quickened" (begun to move perceptibly in the womb). According to the prevailing view of the time, the fetus had no soul before quickening and had not demonstrated its independent existence through movement. Until quickening, the fetus was regarded as an extraneous part of the pregnant woman that could be removed without ethical constraint.

Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Civil War

A brief look at love, sex, and marriage in the Civil War. The book covers courtship, marriage, birth control and pregnancy, divorce, slavery and the impact of the war on social customs.

Love, Sex, and Marriage in ColonialAmerica 1607-1800

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Runaway Slaves and Drapetomania

Estimating the total number of runaways is difficult. Some consider the claim of a southern judge in 1855 that the South had lost “upwards of sixty thousand slaves” to the North to be a credible estimate. Frederick Olmsted discovered as he toured the South during the 1850s that on virtually every large or medium sized plantation he visited masters complained about runaways. It was a rare planter among those who owned twenty or more slaves who could boast that none of his slaves had ever run off.

Masters were forced to explain why contented and well cared for servants abandoned them so frequently and in such large numbers. Among other disciplines, masters looked to science (i.e. pseudo science) for answers. Dr Samuel Cartwright of New Orleans offered a medical explanation. In an article published in DeBows’Review in September 1851, Cartwright explained that many slaves suffered from “Drapetomania, Or the Disease Causing Negroes to Run Away.” Dr. Cartwright hypothesized, “The cause, in most cases, that induces the negro to runaway from service, is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation.” The doctor went on to assure his readers that the Creator’s will in regard to the negro is that he shall be a “submissive knee bender,” noting a particular anatomical conformation of the knee supposedly peculiar to the race. If the white man abuses the negro or tries to put him on an equal footing, Doctor Cartwright said, it causes a mental imbalance which required, “…whipping it out of them out of it, as a preventative measure against absconding, or other bad conduct.”

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The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

The Chinese immigration “problem” began in California. California, which became a state in 1850, far from major population centers, was confronted with a chronic shortage of workers needed to meet expanding demands for labor. The available white labor supply in California was too costly. Unhappy workers could always take up independent grub stake mining. Profitable individual mining continued late into the nineteenth century in the rich streams of California.

American small producers and workers saw Asian immigrants as a coerced labor force, not unlike slaves, and, as such, a tool that big corporations could use to their detriment. For example, the San Jose branch of the Workingmen's party saw its goal as persevering “in this struggle and agitation until we have eliminated from our midst the Asiatic serfs transported to these shores…at the behest and in the interests of soulless monopolies, by which free labor is being enslaved.” To the small producers, the availability of Asian labor to corporations spelled the end of their independence. They would be forced out of business or farming. Working men, saw Asian labor threatening their jobs, standard of living, and perhaps most important, their unions, which fought to sustain and increase both of these. The anti-Asian movement was less a movement against Asian workers themselves as it was against big corporations.

American workers made a distinction between voluntary and induced immigration. Voluntary immigrants chose to come to America because they valued liberty, equality and the American way of life. Induced immigrants came on the terms of big corporations. The induced immigrants were regarded as tools of big corporations and despoilers of the American way of life.

Chinese immigration did have a negative economic impact on American workers. By 1870, the Chinese were a highly visible segment of the San Francisco labor force (13.2 percent). The immediate consequence of this labor influx was a reduction of wages and the extension of the working day. Of all trades in San Francisco, cigar manufacturing was the most affected by Chinese labor. Ninety one percent of all cigar makers in San Francisco were Chinese. Cigar makers in California, because of cheap Chinese labor, averaged wages ten per cent lower than in twenty other states. Wages for Chinese workers averaged half those of white workers in the shoe and clothing industries. White workers blamed the Chinese for falling wages.

Immigration seemed responsible for the new vulnerability of workers because it expanded the labor pool and created a reservoir of potential strikebreakers. Raised initially because of the Chinese, but later generalized to include southern, central, and eastern European immigrants, the economic threat posed by immigration politicized workers as trade unionists.

Chinese immigration became a national issue culminating in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which forbade any additional Chinese immigrants for ten years. The law was regularly extended each decade until it was repealed in 1943 when China was given a small annual quota of 105 immigrants which continued in effect until 1965.



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The Birth of Racism in America

In the late summer of 1619 a storm beaten Dutch ship (possibly a pirate ship) appeared in the harbor at Jamestown. The ship had nothing to trade except twenty Africans recently taken from a Spanish vessel. An exchange for food was made and the Dutch ship sailed away. It is not clear if the Africans were considered slaves or indentured servants by the English settlers. There was no precedence in England for enslaving a class of people for life and making that status inevitable. It is clear, however, that by 1640, at least one African had been declared a slave. This African was ordered by the court "to serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere."

The development of slavery in Virginia set the pattern for the development of slavery throughout the South and laid the foundations for the development of race relations in America.

Although blacks were held in hereditary servitude long before Virginia laws specifically recognized slavery, a large number of Virginia’s blacks worked as servants for a limited term or otherwise earned their freedom just like whites. White and black servants worked together in the fields, shared the same punishments, the same food, and the same living quarters. The most remarkable evidence of a racially open society comes from the records of Northampton County. These records indicate that some twenty nine per cent of the county’s blacks were free and that a least two of these, Francis Payne and Anthony Johnson were planters (Johnson even becoming a slave owner himself).

During the second half of the 17th century, the British economy improved and the supply of British indentured servants declined as poor Britons had better economic opportunities at home. To lure cheap labor to America, terms of indentures became fixed and shorter. By the 1670s Virginia had a large number of restless and relatively poor white men (most of them former indentured servants) threatening the established order of the wealthy and propertied. A popular revolt in 1676, the so called Bacon’s Rebellion, led Virginia planters to begin importing black slaves in large numbers in preference to the more expensive and politically restive white indentured servants.

The increasingly high price of free labor was incompatible with the profitable running of plantations. The landowners turned to slave labor, encouraging the first massive introduction of slaves from Africa in 1698. The new labor force was more controllable because blacks, as a group, were not normally thought to be naturally guaranteed the “rights of Englishmen” accorded to white freemen. In short, the system was to be based purely on force, and Virginia’s laws soon reflected this.



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U.S. attacks Mexico (1914)

The opening of vast new oil reserves in Mexico, coupled with the conviction that the existing Mexican government under Victoriano Huerta was friendly to British oil interests, spurred the United States to a policy of armed intervention in an attempt to topple the Huerta government. In addition to the economic motivations for U.S. policy in Mexico, Woodrow Wilson, believing in the universal efficacy of the democratic process, was particularly hostile to Huerta who had attained the presidency through violence. With regard to his policy toward the Huerta regime, Wilson stated that he intended “…to teach the Latin American republics to elect good men.”

In its drive to topple Huerta, the Wilson Administration enforced an arms embargo on Mexico. This policy was abandoned when the pro-U.S. Constitutionalists began winning and required additional arms to topple Huerta. The final U.S. intervention against Huerta, the seizure of Vera Cruz, ostensibly to obtain satisfaction for an affront to the American flag, served the more important purpose of cutting Huerta off from vital military supplies and customs revenues coming from Vera Cruz. The occupation of Vera Cruz ultimately led to the ousting of the Huerta government and the installation of the pro-American Constitutionalists. With the triumph of the Constitutionalists, American oil companies were to gain pre-eminence in the Mexican oil fields.

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Teddy Roosevelt and "Protective Interventionism"

In 1904 when Theodore Roosevelt announced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, declaring in a message to Congress that:

“If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters; if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America as elsewhere ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, exercise an international police power.”

Ostensibly invoked to forestall European interventions for debt collections in the Hemisphere, Roosevelt’s “protective interventionism”, in fact, laid the basis for frequent U.S. military intervention in the Caribbean, and the final incorporation of the area into the U.S. sphere of influence. With the advent of the Roosevelt Corollary it was no longer necessary for a European or Latin American government to do any thing concrete to trigger a U.S. intervention. All that was required was the unilateral decision of the United States that intervention was appropriate. With the construction of key naval installations and the adoption of Theodore Roosevelt’s ideology of the “Big Stick”, the United States established a strategic hegemony in the Caribbean and nominated itself to the position of international police power for the area.

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Whiteness of a Different Color by Matthew Frye Jacobson (Book Review)

Jacobson contends that the concept of race is a product of politics and culture and is in fact “a modem superstition”.

The perception of race is a matter of power relationships. The Irish were considered part of a Celtic “race”, inferior to Anglo in the nineteenth century largely because they were outsiders. What made them outsiders? Certainly the long history of English occupation and Irish subjugation was a starting point, but the sticking point was probably religion. As late as 1960, with the election of John F. Kennedy, Catholics (and the ethnic groups that made up their congregations) were not considered quite American. Catholics were considered “ethnic”. In Jacobson’s terms, “not quite white”. Kennedy was attacked for being susceptible to taking orders from the Pope contrary to the good of the American people. Kennedy’s election marked the final passage of Catholics into the main stream of American life.

There appears to be a tremendous need within human society for people to “belong” to some identifiable group. Outsiders are almost by definition inferior to one’s own group in some way. Perhaps this is a reflection of identity formation. Once identified as part of what Benedict Anderson would call “an imagined community” (gang, nation, race), the cohesion of the group becomes of paramount importance to the individual. Group identity becomes the discursive boundary (“ I am an American therefore....”, “I am a Muslim therefore....”). Groups can become more inclusive if the cohesion of the group is maintained. Fear and conflict appear to be catalysts for making groups more inclusive while maintaining cohesion. Thus the Nazi threat of the 1 940s made America more tolerant of ethnic and cultural differences (“expanding the borders of whiteness”). Similarly the rise of a more militant black consciousness succeeded in papering over earlier white ethnic European differences in the face of a common “enemy”.

Inclusion in the dominant group is about assimilation and cohesion. Assimilation is the badge of acceptability. In the early days of the Saudi Naval Expansion Program (SNEP), for example, Saudis were not accustomed to dealing with professional women in the workplace. Business required women to travel to Saudi Arabia, which was unacceptable to the Saudis. Not sending them was unacceptable to the Americans. Ultimately, the Saudis declared the women, “honorary men” so that they could travel and work in the Kingdom. Because of their work status, American women had been assimilated into the Saudi world view as “men”. Jacobson correctly indicates that a similar process breaks down the barriers between different ethnic and racial groups.

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Book Review: Discipline & Punish by Michael Foucault

A truly thought provoking book on the nature and purpose of punishment. In the final analysis, Foucault argues that the purpose of punishment is to insure the docility and utility of the population in support of the goals of the ruling elite. Punishment then operates at two levels, overt and covert. Overt punishment being the police power of the state, covert punishment being the penalties of societal institutions in the society (schools, the workplace, religion.. .what Foucault calls disciplinary society). The optimal situation for a ruling elite is to have the population internalize the norms of the elite and police itself with very little external force (social order with maximum economy).

The key issue then becomes, “Who rules?” In a small, stable, homogeneous society with internalized-shared values there would be very little need for punishment. The clash of values produces deviations from the “norm”.. .and thus anti-social behavior (crime). Every crime is a revolt against the status quo.

In the post-9/l 1 world we may be seeing the emergence of the “rationalization of the means of control” over mass populations. Technology offers the tools for the economic surveillance and tracking of people. As Foucault points out, continuous surveillance is the ultimate means of insuring that no one deviates from the norm. The question becomes what values will control the deployment of such technology. There are parallels between the challenge to current American civil liberties and privacy rights posed by the emergence of new “rationalizing” surveillance technology, and the loss of traditional rights suffered by 18th & 19th century workers during the Industrial Revolution that rationalized the means of production. The book is helpful in that it establishes some fundamental questions about discipline and punishment that provide an analytical framework applicable to various societies in various times.

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That Noble Dream by Peter Novick (Book Review)

The work establishes the question, “Is objectivity possible in the writing of history”, as the central proposition of the development of the American historical profession since
1884.

The work portrays the vagaries of a narrow, and increasingly isolated, craft guild which appears to produce historical research primarily for members of its shrinking guild, having dismissed involvement with: (1) general education at the secondary and lower levels, (2) the general lay audience with an interest in history, and (3) public history. (Pages 362, 372,373,513)

The better question for historians to ask might be, “What is history for?” Can history be used as a tool for socialization within society. . . and if so how and what are the legitimate parameters for teaching? Can history be used as a predictive tool? The study of military history suggests that history can teach predicative lessons. What about other fields?

“Good history” is as subjective a term as “good law”, both are subject to the shifting values of the time and subject to the vagaries of advocacy. Advocacy history appears no more suspect than history that is refereed by “peer review”. The peers in a peer review are either coming from one homogenous point of view (as in the early Anglo-Saxon, Social Darwinism days of 1884, the year of the founding of the American Historical Association) which makes their world view suspect in terms of it universal application, or they are coming from diverse ideological-social/racial-gender backgrounds, which make their peer review comments very much like the existing system of American legal advocacy. Just as there is “Enough law for every clients position”, so too there appears to be enough history to serve a multitude of worthy ends if one doesn’t insist on one eternal, immutable and knowable Truth. Worthy ends such as: (1) History as art (fact based expositions of the human condition much like the fictional exposition of the human condition found in novels), (2) history as predictive tool (e.g. Sun Tzu’s ART of WAR),(3) history as socialization instrument ( an inclusive and expanding public mythology for an immigrant nation).

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

Since his death along the bluffs overlooking the Little Bighorn River, in Montana, on June 25, 1876, over five hundred books have been written about the life and career of George Armstrong Custer. Views of Custer have changed over succeeding generations. Custer has been portrayed as a callous egotist, a bungling egomaniac, a genocidal war criminal, and the puppet of faceless forces. 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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Orientalism by Edward Said (Book Review)

Perhaps a groundbreaking book in its day, Orientalism now seems rather trite in its conclusion that intellectual schemas support the political and economic agendas of ruling elites and that the Western view of the Orient (and especially of the Middle East) has been ethnocentric and self serving.

Said says that to be an Oriental (Muslim) is to know certain things in a certain way (Said,195). At the same time he argues that Huntington’s thesis concerning the post-Cold War “clash of civilizations” (Western, Confucian, and Islamic) is far from convincing because of the interrelationships and interdependence of civilizations (Said,347). The whole premise of Orientalism rests on the notion that Western scholars have been representing the East in terms of its relationship to an expansionist, imperialist, messianic West. The East is something that is acted upon, or seen in relationship to the West. Certainly during the European colonial/expansionist period the interdependence of cultures did not prevent a clash of civilizations as the European powers systematically dominated the world politically and militarily. Different cultures have different values based on their historical development. Why should it be startling that these values might come into conflict? Said, laments that Arab intellectuals have done a poor job in establishing an intellectual superstructure to counter the dogmas of modem Orientalism (Said, 301), but even if they were to do so, would not this construct represent Muslim values (i.e. to be an Oriental (Muslim) is to know certain things in a certain way)? A clear articulation of Muslim value assumptions might be the starting point for a reconciliation of value differences with the West, however, as Said points out the Muslim world is not a monolith. There are a multiplicity of values competing in the Muslim world, just as there are a multiplicity of values competing with one another in the Western world. If differing values can lead to conflict within one’s own historical cultural group (e.g. the abortion issue in the United States) how much more irreconcilable must value differences between cultures be, even if precisely articulated and the differences rationally understood?

There is no reason to believe that a Muslim intellectual superstructure explaining the Occident will be any less ethnocentric or self serving to Muslim economic/cultural/political interests than Orientalism has been to the West. Scholars are products of their cultures and can only distance themselves so far from the values of those cultures. Even if one bold spirit were to be able to truly step outside of the culture, the critical mass of scholars would still be working within the value structures of their culture.

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America's Plan to Invade Canada (1930)

After World War I the British Empire was at the height of its world wide power. The rivalry between the United States and Great Britain during the 1920s and 1930s over who would control the world’s oil supply led American strategic planners to envision the day when America might be at war with Great Britain. War Plan Red ("Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan -- Red"), formulated and approved in 1930 and declassified in 1974, set out America’s plan to eliminate Great Britain as a significant economic rival. Most of America’s plans revolved around the annexation of Canada and the islands of Jamaica, Barbados and Bermuda. These were American imperial dreams dating to the time of the American Revolution, when American forces were repulsed in their attempt to conquer Canada. American attempts to annex Canada during the War of 1812 were similarly repulsed.

Plan Red contemplated the immediate seizure of Halifax to deny the British an Atlantic port from which they could reinforce Canada. U.S. forces would then launch a three pronged attack, (1) an attack from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, (2) an attack from North Dakota to seize the strategic rail center at Winnipeg, splitting the country, and (3) an attack launched against the province of Ontario from Detroit and Buffalo. Mopping up on the West Coast was to include the seizure of Vancouver and Victoria.

Canada, not unaware of America’s historical aggressive designs had earlier developed “Defence Scheme No. 1” which, in the event of hostilities, called for flying columns to quickly enter American territory. These small mobile forces were to capture such cities as Seattle, Minneapolis and Albany, and then fall back in a scorched earth retreat that would slow down the invading Americans, giving Great Britain time to re-enforce Canada.



The Invasion of Canada 1933

     Sticking as closely as possible to the real history of the period, making no radical leaps in terms of behavior, logic, or technology, the author paints a stunning picture of how the history of the world could have been radically different.

An Englishman Fighting in the American Civil War

                                                              Bradford Smith-Hoskins


It was not unusual to find British officers visiting or even fighting with the opposing armies during the American Civil War. Colonel Sir Percy Wyndham, for example, commanded the 1st New Jersey Cavalry and was the arch nemesis of Colonel John Singleton Mosby, the “Grey Ghost” of the Confederacy. Another Englishman, Bradford Smith-Hoskins, “Late Capt. in her Britannic Majesty’s Forty Fourth Regiment”, fought under Mosby’s direct command.


Mosby described the engagement in which the thirty year old Englishman died. “Captain Hoskins, an English officer, was riding by my side. Hoskins was in the act of giving a thrust with his saber when he was shot….Hoskin’s wound was mortal. When the fight was over, he was taken to the house of an Englishman nearby, and lived a day or two.” The house in question was called “The Lawn” and was owned by Charles Green, himself an Englishman. Green preserved the house from occupation or destruction by the Union army by flying a British flag over the property throughout the war and proclaiming it neutral territory.

The grave of this British officer, buried so far from home, is in the small cemetery of the Greenwich Presbyterian church in the village of Greenwich in Prince William County, Virginia.

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The Werewolf as Urban Legend

How much have our thought processes changed since the werewolf scares of the Middle Ages? Sometimes one wonders.

In August 1972, the Ohio Crescent-News reported that police were searching for a “wolf-man” who attacked at night in the town of Defiance, Ohio on three separate occasions within one week. The attacker was described as tall with an "animal-like head". Witnesses said the werewolf was seven to nine feet tall, and wore blue jeans and a dark shirt. He was said to have hairy feet, fangs, and a caveman-like canter.

The Toledo Blade dispatched reporter James Stegall to the scene. Stegall reported, “Three persons have told police that they saw a large beast that resembles a werewolf lurking along railroad tracks near downtown Defiance in the last week. In each case he was spotted during the early morning hours, and one man, a train crewman switching trains, said that he was approached from behind and was struck on the shoulder with a piece of 2-by-4 lumber. But when he ran the "werewolf" also disappeared into some nearby brush. In the other reported incidents the "werewolf" was seen by another train crewman about 3 a.m. Police say the third report came from a motorist who said "it" ran in front of his car about 4 a.m. and then quickly disappeared. ‘We don't know what to think.’ Chief Donald Breckler said. ‘We didn't release it (to the news media) when we got the first report about a week ago. But now we're taking it seriously. We’re concerned for the safety of our people.’”

And thus an urban legend was born. Notwithstanding the fact that Chief Breckler said that he believed that the attacks were being made by a man wearing a mask, within the week at least three hysterical people sought protection from the police. Many people who had not actually seen the creature felt sure they were being watched or were in imminent danger. One woman told the police that every night at 2:00 a.m., something rattled her door knob. Another woman phoned the police to say there was something scratching at her door and she intended to shoot, if anything came through it. No more was heard from the creature after mid-August.

Urban Legends of Virginia


Mind bending stories from the Old Dominion. A collection of Virginia’s most notable Urban Legends, many include the true stories behind them.

Benjamin Franklin and Slavery

At the age of 81, Benjamin Franklin became the president of the Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. The society, founded by Philadelphia Quakers was one of the first abolitionist organizations in America.

Franklin had not always been such an ardent abolitionist, and is known to have owned two slaves, George and King, who worked as personal servants.

Benjamin Franklin began life as an apprentice, legally bound to a master for a set term. He did not care for the restrictions and ran away from the master, settling in Philadelphia. As an up and coming businessman, however, Franklin had no problem with the institution of slavery. His newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette regularly ran notices regarding the purchase and sale of slaves.

Franklin’s views gradually changed as he grew older. After about 1770 his writings became progressively more anti-slavery, and in a letter to the London Chronicle he called slavery "a constant butchery of the human species by the pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men."

By 1789 Franklin had freed his slaves and become a fervent abolitionist.



Link to: Who Were the Slaves of the Founding Fathers?

Who were the slaves of the Founding Fathers? What do their individual stories tell us about the Founding Fathers as men?

A Plot to Kill Martha Washington?

George Washington died on December 14, 1799. At the time of Washington’s death, there were some 317 slaves living on his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia (123 were owned by Washington outright, forty were rented from a neighbor, and 154 belonged to Martha Washington under the term of her first husband’s will). Under the terms of Washington’s will, his slaves (not including the forty who were rented or the slaves belonging to Martha Washington) were to be freed upon the death of his wife. Only one slave, William Lee was freed outright in Washington’s will.


The terms of the will created an almost immediate problem for Martha Washington. The only thing standing between 123 slaves and their freedom was her life. According to a contemporary letter, Martha Washington “did not feel as tho her Life was safe in their [slaves] Hands”. Martha Washington’s fears may or may not have been misplaced, but they certainly reflected the attitudes of slave owners of her day. The closeness of house servants to their masters, for whom they cooked and washed in the very house where the master slept, made the threat of poisoning terrifying. Nor was this fear groundless. The records of colonial Virginia document the trial of 180 slaves tried for poisoning. Martha freed Washington’s slaves within a year after his death. She never freed her own slaves.

Link to: How Martha Washington Lived

Murder and mayhem at Mount Vernon

The Washington Heir

Gifts for Dogs

Berry Gordy: Did Motown Records Build Cultural Bridges?

In the 1960s, Berry Gordy (founder of Motown Records) stressed the creation of music that was, “simple, direct and emotional” with cross over potential. He established a factory like operation, complete with a “finishing school” that polished ghetto kid performers, and produced a consistent string of star performers and hits. Gordy’s emphasis on creating non-threatening performers made blacks and by inference the civil rights movement more palatable to whites. The scenario would play out like this: “I like the music, I like the performer, he/she isn’t so bad. I now have a cultural bridge (however narrow) to relate to other blacks. They aren’t so bad.” Whites begin to relate to blacks in terms of common humanity rather than stereotypes using the cultural bridge provided by the Motown sound. Television impresario Ed Sullivan summed it up when he said, “(The Negro performer) has become a welcome visitor, not only to the white adult, but to the white children, who will finally lay Jim Crow to rest.”

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