On This Day in History

c/o Rutgers University

The first one all year. . .

1777 — Henry Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia. Both a Senator and three-time Speaker of the House of Representatives, Clay was a strong proponent of the “American System” that benefited industry to a great extent. Styled “The Great Compromiser” and “The Western Star,” a Congressional panel in 1957 named Clay as one of the five all-time greatest Senators (along with John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, Robert Taft and Daniel Webster).

He died of tuberculosis in Washington, D.C. in 1852. Clay was 75-years-old. Subsequently he was the first person to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol.

1861 — Beginning at 4:30 a.m., Confederate forces commenced their bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina. Although the Union garrison returned fire, they were significantly outgunned and, after 34 hours, Major Robert Anderson agreed to evacuate.

Amazingly there was no loss of life on either side during the engagement, although a gun explosion during the surrender ceremonies two days later resulted in two Union deaths. The War Between the States had officially begun.

1908 — Robert Lee Scott, Jr. was born in Waynesboro, Georgia. He is best known for his book God is My Co-Pilot, a memoir about his time as a member of the 1st American Volunteer Group (“The Flying Tigers”) during World War II.

Scott shot down down 13 Japanese aircraft en route to becoming one of our earliest fighter aces of the War. He served in the United States Army Air Forces for 25 years and retired a Brigadier General in 1957. He died in his native Georgia in 2006. General Scott was 97-years-old.

1934 — The strongest surface wind gust ever recorded (to that point in history) is measured at 231 mph on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. The record stood for 62 years until a 253 mph gust was recorded at Australia's Barrow Island during Cyclone Olivia in 1996.

1945 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt died just months after winning an unprecedented fourth term. Our 32nd President, and perhaps the last liberal Democrat for whom I may ever hold a modicum of lasting respect, was a relatively young 63-years-old.

1961 — Russian (Soviet) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to perform a manned orbital flight. His time in space lasted just under two hours.

1981 — The Space Shuttle Columbia launches in NASA’s first shuttle mission (STS-1) from the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The shuttle itself suffered an untimely demise shortly before the conclusion of its 28th mission (STS-107) on February 1, 2003.

1987 — The lovely and vivacious Brooklyn Decker was born in Kettering, Ohio. But the Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girl is a Carolina girl at heart.

1989 — Sugar Ray Robinson, the undisputed best pound-for-pound boxer of all-time, died in Culver City, California. He compiled a 173-19-6 (108 KO, 2 NC) record over a career that spanned a quarter-century, including an almost unbelievable tally at one point of 128-1-2. He was 67-years-old.

1999 — President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit. Scandalous, impeached, and ultimately disbarred, good ol’ Bill sure was fun.

2002 — Religion of Peace: Just seven months after 9/11, a female suicide bomber from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade detonated a bomb at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market, killing seven and wounding 104.


Information initially obtained from Wikipedia; confirmed and revised (when necessary) through various sources.

Did You Know (or Care): The pre- and post-Paterno era

c/o Kristin

Penn State was recently defeated by Houston in the TicketCity Bowl, 30-14. It was the Nittany Lions’ first bowl game without longtime head coach Joe Paterno in a nearly a half-century. Such an unprecedented run got me curious about Penn State’s last postseason appearance without the legendary “Joe Pa” at the helm. What I found damn-near brought a tear to my eye.

The 1962 Gator Bowl (played on December 29 in Jacksonville, Florida) pitted Penn State against the Florida Gators. Led by head coach Charles “Rip” Engle, the Nittany Lions – ranked #9 nationally and winners of nine out of 10 games – were openly disappointed to be playing a second tier bowl game against a team that had struggled to a mediocre 6-4 record.

Feeling slighted by these ruffians from way up north, the Gators responded by placing a Confederate Battle Flag decal on the side of their helmets. The Lions reportedly mocked the sentiment before kickoff, but they were whistlin’ Dixie afterward. The heavy underdog Gators defeated Penn State, 17-7.

Coach Engle steered the Lions for 16 seasons, leading PSU to a respectable 104-48-4 record during his tenure. His retirement in 1965 led to the promotion of a young assistant who ultimately earned two national championships (should’ve been three) and victories in 24 bowl games en route to setting the all-time wins record on the highest level of college football.

Paterno’s departure may have been tenuous at best. But his legend is incontestably permanent.

Sources: The Helmet Project & The Florida Times-Union

Southern Defenders Series: Samuel Garland, Jr.

© Virginia Military Institute

Born in Lynchburg, Virginia on December 16, 1830, the grandnephew of President James Madison graduated near the top of his class from the Virginia Military Institute and completed law school at the University of Virginia by age 20.  He later founded the Lynchburg Home Guard, which, in the spring of 1861, merged with the 11th Virginia Infantry when the War Between the States commenced.

Garland was commissioned as the regiment's Colonel and participated in clashes throughout northern Virginia, including both battles at Bull Run.  Having already distinguished himself by the time he earned promotion to Brigadier General, it was perhaps the untimely deaths of his wife and infant son, just three months apart, by which it was said his reputation for courage under fire resulted from an inability to deal with his grief.

Garland was mortally wounded at the Battle of South Mountain in Washington County, Maryland.  Although Union soldiers dumped the lifeless bodies of 60 Confederate soldiers down a famer's well after the battle, General Garland's body was retrieved by federal troops, whereby Major General George B. McClellan, USA, ordered an honor guard to accompany the young Southern General's body until his remains could be honorably transported home.

A mere 31-years-old at the time of his death, Samuel Garland, Jr. was buried at the Presbyterian Cemetery in his hometown on September 19, 1862 next to his wife and infant son.  Memorialized in his official report, Lt. General Daniel Harvey Hill, CSA, stated "This brilliant service. . . cost us the life of that pure, gallant, and accomplished Christian soldier, General Garland, who had no superiors and few equals in the service."

Sources: 1, 2, 3

On This Day in History

 c/o Den of Décor

1189 – European Crusaders launched the Siege of Acre against Saladin's Ayyubid dynasty in present day northern Israel, by which the Christians achieved a conclusive triumph amid the Third Crusade nearly two years later.

Ultimately Richard the Lionheart and his army, which included the Knights Templar, made considerable headway throughout the region, and Saladin himself failed to defeat Richard in any military engagement.

1609 – English maritime explorer Henry Hudson, for lack of a better way of describing it, discovered the Delaware Bay.  Initially selected by the Dutch East India Company to find an easterly passage to Asia, Hudson was unable to complete the predetermined route due to excessive ice blockage.

Hudson redirected while he and his crew were near Norway's North Cape and pointed his ship west to find another passage, this time through North America.  Hudson landed in the Bay some three months later.

1845 – The first issue of Scientific American is published.  After 166 years, the magazine can boast of a circulation that approaches three-quarters of a million.

1862 – Outnumbered by 12,000 troops, Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia engaged U.S. Army Maj. General John Pope and his Army of Virginia at the Second Battle of Bull Run/Second Manassas.  The South earned a decisive victory two days later.

1898 – Though Coca-Cola gets all the press for being a uniquely Southern beverage, a pharmacist named Caleb Bradham developed the recipe for what would become known as Pepsi-Cola at a drug store in New Bern, North Carolina.  PepsiCo was incorporated four years later, which, at present, generates net revenues that exceed $40 billion annually.

1957 – Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) began a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957.  He stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, which remains longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.

1965 – The lovely and vivacious Shania Twain was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

1981 – The Centers for Disease Control revealed a high rate of incidence among gay men for both pneumocystis and Kaposi's sarcoma.  The resulting immune disorder was soon identified as AIDS for the first time.

Most information obtained via Wikipedia; revised (when necessary) and confirmed through various sources.

Sunday's Quote: Even if they're not perfect . . .

c/o History.com's Teddy Roosevelt gallery

There was a time, not that long ago, when a man could speak of his hero without having to also concern himself with making the immediate transition to defend his exemplar of choice in lieu of those who grudgingly object.  As if the belligerent is on some sort of mission, such disputes have become more common amid this often stomach-turning age of antipathy.  Still the irony comes, by and large, when such individuals reveal his/her own personal group of idols, most of whom ordinarily represent the antithesis of those who personify the spirit of Americana.

Here's an example from my own personal set of esteemed paradigms:

Theodore Roosevelt was our 26th President.  But unlike most of the 18 men who followed, the man who disliked being called "Teddy" was considerably more than a politician.  Descended from two uncles who served in the Confederate army, Roosevelt was a northerner by birth and a devoted student of natural history from his adolescence who grew from a frail youngster into the definition of masculinity.

Both an author and a soldier, Roosevelt became more famously identified as a "Rough Rider" and a "Bull Moose."  Likewise a Judo brown belt under Yamashita Yoshiaki and a steadfast supporter of the Boy Scouts – now considered prejudiced in the eyes of some – who pursued "the strenuous life" almost to his dying day, each notable achievement in his life of public service was indicative of the Big Stick diplomacy he advocated that ultimately etched his countenance alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore.

Though it's easy to forget that he is the first American to win a Nobel Prize, even fewer seem to recall that Roosevelt once spoke for a full 90 minutes after he was shot – literally shot in the chest earlier that same day – by a would-be assassin.  To paraphrase the man himself, it takes a lot more than a silly little bullet to kill a Bull Moose.

In over 60 years, various surveys and scholars have yet to rank TR lower than seventh all-time among the elite fraternity of men who have held the highest office in the land.  A devout Christian, Roosevelt's brand of progressivism differs noticeably from the kind employed by liberal Democrats today.  In fact most contemporary progressives would object (as I do) to the picture of Roosevelt above, as there is rarely a legitimate reason to kill a vulnerable animal in the wild.

Imperfections notwithstanding, the best of those who shaped our exceptional nation remain worthy of acclaim because of what they exemplify and inspire.  Those who object only succeed in exposing their own biases held in the deepest recesses of their misguided convictions.

--------------------------------------------------

"They wouldn't be heroes if they were infallible, in fact they wouldn't be heroes if they weren't miserable wretched dogs, the pariahs of the earth, besides which the only reason to build up an idol is to tear it down again."

– Lester Bangs (1948-1982), music critic, journalist and author

Did You Know (or Care): A bit more about the South

c/o Beauvoir

Kevin Levin of Civil War Memory is an example of one who scorns the individual who is perceived to cling to an unsubstantiated illusion that legitimizes certain perspectives which may not fit well within the box of the more easily accepted mainstream.  Indeed he has rejected the following story as a neo-Confederate fantasy solely intended to challenge the public image of Southerners' universal disdain for those of African descent.  So for those who think that we blindly hate everyone, here's an interesting piece I recently caught from History.com --

"Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina fostered a slave child during the war.  On February 16, 1864, the Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut wrote in her journal that, while visiting the Confederate executive mansion in Richmond, she saw a 'little negro Mrs. Davis rescued yesterday from his brutal negro guardian.  The child is an orphan.  He was dressed up in Little Joe's [one of the Davises' sons'] clothes and happy as a lord.'  The mulatto boy's name was Jim Limber, and he and young Billy Davis became friends.

"In her memoirs, Varina Davis said her husband 'went to the Mayor's office and had [Jim's] free papers registered to insure Jim against getting into the power of the oppressor again.'  When federal forces caught the fleeing Davises in May 1865, they gave the boy to an old family friend, Union General Rufus Saxton.  'He quietly went,' Varina Davis wrote, 'but as soon as he found he was going to leave us he fought like a little tiger and was thus engaged the last we saw of him.'"

Original source: The Seven-Day Scholar: The Civil War by Dennis Gaffney and Peter Gaffney

On This Day in History: A fascinating day

One of my least favorite pictures. Ever.

1527 – In an event generally considered to mark the end of the Roman Renaissance, Rome is sacked by Spanish and German troops aligned with the Holy Roman Empire amid the War of the League of Cognac (1526-1530).  Nearly 150 Swiss Guards died fighting the forces of Emperor Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape.  To commemorate the bravery of the Swiss Guards, new recruits are sworn in every year on May 6.

1861 – Arkansas secedes from the Union on the same day Richmond, Virginia is declared the new capital of the Confederate States of America.

1863 – Outnumbered by nearly 73,000 soldiers, General Robert E. Lee and Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson lead the South to victory over the Army of the Potomac in the final day of the Battle of Chancellorsville in northern Virginia.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1937 – The German zeppelin Hindenburg (pictured) catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey.  The 12-story blimp was over 800-ft. in length and filled with seven million cubic feet of pure hydrogen.  Thirty-six people were killed in the incident, and why the airship ignited into flames remains a mystery to this day.

1940 – John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath.

1941 – Bob Hope performs the first of his nearly 200 USO shows at March Field Army Air Corps base in Riverside, California.

1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run a sub-four-minute mile at Iffley Road Track in Oxford, England.

1984 – Having suffered religious persecution throughout the 19th century, Pope John Paul II canonized 103 Korean Martyrs in Seoul, South Korea.

2000 – I was 15 minutes late picking up a girl named Sarah for our first date.  Of the girls who have been in and out of my life, this little golden-haired cutie is the one who sticks out in memory the most.  In the end, I was only successful in turning her affection for me inside out because of what I could not do.

As I once wrote, years ago, about our first evening together...

"I knew that look on her old man's face.  Most fathers go through it at least once or twice.  I imagine it's similar to how an accomplished violinist would feel about handing a Stradivarius over to an unruly ape."

I hope Sarah is doing well, wherever she is.

Initially published 5/6/10 and republished with a few minor revisions; most information obtained via Wikipedia and confirmed through various sources.

Southern Defenders Series: Albert Pike

c/o Revolution Harry

It's been a while, so I thought another summary about one of the lesser known (and Northern born) defenders of the South would be in order:

Born and raised in Boston, Albert Pike was accepted into Harvard at age 15 but chose not to attend. He settled in Little Rock, AR eight years later and worked as a writer for the Arkansas Advocate.

Noted for stance against secession, Pike said the South should remain in the Union and seek equality with the North, but if the Southern States "were forced into an inferior status, she would be better out of the Union than in it."

In 1859 Harvard awarded Pike an honorary master's degree for his work in poetry.  Moreover his rendering of "Dixie" possesses a robustness that makes it perhaps the best and most well-known of the numerous versions of the Southern anthem.

Two years later, Pike was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army and oversaw the training of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole regiments.  He lived in Memphis for a time after the War and worked as an editor of what is now The Commercial Appeal.

Having served as Sovereign Grand Master for the last 32 years of his life, Pike is buried at the headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in Washington, DC. Brigadier General Pike is also the only Confederate figure to have an outdoor statue in our nation’s capital, located in Judiciary Square in the northwest portion of the District.

A century-and-a-half ago today...

On April 12, 1861 at 4:30 a.m., approximately 500 soldiers representing the seven States of the newly formed Confederacy, by command of General Pierre G.T. Beauregard, opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina and continued their bombardment for 34 hours.  Over 600,000 of America’s finest would die in the four-year insurrection that followed.

Worldwide more than 200 civil wars have been fought in just the past two centuries.  Poor people rising up to fight, suffer and die so the more prominent minority could keep their slaves would be the first campaign of its kind in the history of the world – and this is exactly what many have been commanded to believe of their regional kinfolk and defenders for generations.

Of course those who wished to keep their slaves absolutely existed.  The perspective of many among the wealthy and politicos is clear.  But how does one enliven such an appreciable uprising of mostly underprivileged, non-slave-holding Southerners who knowingly faced impossible odds to draw arms against their brethren of the North for the sake of maintaining an institution that was perpetuated by a mere 6% of the populace (according to the 1860 U.S. census)?

Abraham Lincoln, who did not amend his long-held stance on human servitude until it became more politically expedient, called for 75,000 volunteers soon after the Stars and Bars had been raised over Fort Sumter, almost instantly triggering the unforeseen secession of four additional states to join the Confederacy, including Tennessee, which had initially voted by a considerable 4-to-1 margin to remain with the Union.  So why the sudden change of heart?

Make no mistake, both sides are responsible for reinterpreting facts to support their own conclusions.  Yet from the lowest enlisted soldier, to the highest ranking and most renowned generals, an ambition to keep an entire race of people in shackles is noticeably absent in their correspondence.  Dismiss that as spin if you like, as the debate itself all too often centers more on demonization than comprehensive veracity.  As a direct consequence, advocating a broader understanding of a matter such as this is frequently rejected without a second thought.

Fatefully perhaps, some of that blame falls on the unrestrained Southerner who flew the Banner for motives that were never typified by Lee and Jackson.  That said, individuals and groups who fly a flag to exhibit a disdain of anyone do not require a symbolism of any kind to demonstrate their brand of contempt.  Truly such people would hate without it.  In fact, if the Confederate States and all its relics had never existed, they would still hate.

And let us be especially honest about this.  America currently has a bevy of racially-based issues throughout New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit and Los Angeles, among other metropolitan areas.  Yet it is the former Confederate nation that is hit with the inclusive liability of all racial matters while virtually all others are given a pass.

The duality of being both Southern and American can be a burden, but it's anything but a curse.  So I ask the nay-sayers: Is it easier to reject this sentiment as a neo-Confederate fantasy, or is it simply too inconvenient, or problematic, to consider the possibility that maybe the unpleasantness of the time wasn't entirely about you?

Later in life, General Beauregard – "The Hero of Fort Sumter" and the fifth-most senior general in the Confederate army – declined offers from both Egypt and Romania to take command of their respective armies, saying "I prefer to live here, poor and forgotten, than to be endowed with honor and riches in a foreign country."  If a more definitive statement about love of home and region has ever been made, I have not seen it.  In the end, perhaps those dastardly Southerners were merely culpable of loving the Southland just a little more than you.

On This Day in History

1543 – Outnumbered by nearly two-to-one, Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated the Adal Sultanate of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Wayna Daga in northern Ethiopia.  It was the final battle of the 14-year Ethiopian-Adal War, in which a potential Islamic conquest was quelled.  Some historians trace the present and longstanding hostility between Somalia and Ethiopia to this war.

1848 – Featuring a bunch of bad ideas regarding how capitalist societies would be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the The Communist Manifesto.

1862 – The Battle of Valverde was fought near Fort Craig in the New Mexico Territory (present-day central New Mexico) between Confederate units from Texas and Arizona, and U.S. Army regulars and Union militia from northern New Mexico.  The South won.

1878 – The first telephone book was issued in New Haven, Connecticut.

1885 – The Washington Monument was dedicated in commemoration of our first President.  It remains both the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk, standing just over 555 feet.

1947 – Edwin Land demonstrates the Polaroid Land Camera, the first "instant camera," to a meeting of the Optical Society of America in New York City.

1948 – The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is founded by William France, Sr.

1952 – The British government, per Winston Churchill, abolished identity cards throughout the United Kingdom to "set the people free."  Remember that when the issue of a nation identity card is brought up by our government.

1953 – Francis Crick and James D. Watson co-discovered the structure of DNA, for which they both received the Nobel Prize nine years later.

1958 – Designed by British artist Gerald Holtom, the Peace Symbol [pictured] was commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.

1962 – David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York.  Once called "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last 20 years," Wallace was best known for his '96 novel Infinite Jest, which TIME magazine included in its "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels" list (from 1923-2006).  Having suffered from severe depression, he ended his own life in 2008.

1965 – Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little forty years earlier in Omaha, Nebraska) was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.  The movie about his life remains Spike Lee's magnum opus.

1979 – The bubbly and vivacious Jennifer Love Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas.  I think she's wonderful.

On This Day in History

1703 – In what is now Tokyo, Japan, 46 of the legendary Forty-seven Ronin committed ritual suicide (seppuku) as part of the samurai honor code (bushidō) for avenging their master's death.

1789 – George Washington was elected the first President of the United States.

1844 – Discovered by German Biblical scholar Constantin Tischendor, the Codex Sinaiticus -- ancient portions of both the Old and New Testaments -- was uncovered at St. Catherine's Monastery in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

1861 – Delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana convened in Montgomery, Alabama to form the Confederate States of America.

1902 – Charles Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan.  Having initially risen to prominence with his solo non-stop flight from Roosevelt Field in New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France (May 20-21, 1927; nearly 3,600 miles), Lindbergh was named TIME magazine's first Man of the Year.  Later in life he also became a prize-winning author, explorer, environmentalist and inventor.  Few have ever accomplished so much in a lifetime.

1906 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer [pictured] was born in Breslau, Germany (present-day Wrocław, Poland).  A master theologian of the Evangelical Lutheran faith, Bonhoeffer became critical of the Church's general insensitivity to the needs of secular society as he witnessed social upheaval, a decline of traditional values and international financial crisis -- much like the events of today.

Opposed to circumventing Christ in "religiosity," Bonhoeffer's time at Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem borough of New York City (where he taught Sunday School) inspired a world view that would ultimately lead him to establish the Confessing Church, which became one of the few opposing voices to the Nazification in Germany.  It also led to Bonhoeffer's two-year incarceration and eventual martyrdom at the Flossenbürg concentration camp, less than a month before the Nazi regime collapsed.

In short, his influence and the example he set by speaking and standing for Truth cannot be overstated.

1945 – "The Big Three" -- Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin -- open The Yalta Conference at the Livadia Palace in Crimea (present-day southern Ukraine) to discuss Europe's postwar reorganization.

2004 – Mark Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook," the forerunner to Facebook, from his dorm room at Harvard University.  Seven years later, Facebook.com boasts of 600 million users and only trails Google as the world's most visited website.

Sunday's Quote: Why they fought

Almost unquestionably, the Civil War is the most divisive historical topic in our nation's history.  Adding to the mix, The Washington Post recently published a piece by author and University of Vermont professor James W. Loewen that addressed five perceived myths encompassing this bygone era.

Scholarly at the outset of his assessment, Loewen concluded that White supremacy, commingled with a desire to expand slavery beyond the continental border, provided the driving motivation for the South's secession.  In fairness, perhaps, he added that "Northerners' fear of freed slaves moving north then caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of November 1862."

Although I'm probably just a "neo-Confederate" hayseed simpleton locked into the mythology and lore of the romanticized Old South, I must say that I've mulled over perceptions such as Loewen's more times than I can count since the mid-90's.  And despite all that I've been commanded to believe, I keep arriving at the same questions:

Why would such a sizable uprising of mostly underprivileged, non-slave-holding Southerners -- a fledgling upstart of a nation -- form a citizen-soldiery to battle against their brethren of the North in the interest of maintaining a slavery establishment that, according to the U.S. census of 1860, was perpetuated by a mere 6% of the Southern populace?  Further, why would these Confederates who knowingly faced impossible odds even consider firing a single shot in the name of White supremacy when, according to Loewen himself, such a mindset (however debatable) was largely shared among their northern counterparts?

Here's a quick history review...

During the second session of the 36th Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution on February 11, 1861 that guaranteed noninterference with slavery in any State.  Undeterred by the eight slave States that remained in the Union, representatives of the new Confederacy (comprised of only seven States at this point) established a provisional Congress and formalized a new Constitution.  They had also chosen Jefferson Davis -- a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army Colonel, Senator and Secretary of War -- as their first provisional president.

Because the resolution failed to draw the seceded States back into the Union, the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution was passed by both houses of Congress on July 25, some three months after those dastardly Southerners took Fort Sumter, stating that war was being waged to "defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union."  Any document regarding a desire to do away with slavery would not be produced until Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, some 20 months after the War began.

For nearly half my life, I have known what rich and politically influential men of the time have said.  But I also wanted to know about the common man who loaded and fired his musket on the field of battle.  I considered those who were under no delusion about the grievous hardship that awaited them all.  And from this, I was forced to consider if it was possible -- if it was even conceivable -- that these ordinary people from a century-and-a-half ago were driven to fight, suffer and die for reasons other than maintaining human servitude and racial domination.

Consider Judah Benjamin.  Prior to his service in the Confederate Cabinet as Secretary of State, Secretary of War and Attorney General, Benjamin was only the second Jewish U.S. Senator in American history and the first Jew considered for nomination to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (an offer he declined twice).

Also consider Ambrosio José Gonzales, a Confederate Colonel and native of Cuba who served as chief of artillery and figured prominently in the South's coastal defense.

And let us not forget Stand Watie (a.k.a., Standhope Oowatie).  The Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, he was also a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army who led the Indian cavalry of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi, CSA.

Did such men fight for the causes of slavery and White supremacy?

Some of Loewen's points are accurate.  Those who wished to keep their slaves absolutely existed and held considerable clout.  But are Loewen's conclusions comprehensive in scope, or is this merely another case of the Southland being hit with the inclusive liability of an institution that has prospered continuously throughout our planet for nearly 4,000 years while everyone else, past and present, are given a pass?

The malignancies and complications of this time in history are undeniable.  But what if I were bold enough to define anyone by only the most negative aspects of their culture?  I doubt that would be very well received.  Hence, I never tell anyone why they have to love the former Confederate nation.  I only tell them why they don't have to hate it.  There's a difference.

"The South will rise again!" is unappealing rhetoric to most, including yours truly.  Yet the act of comparing the unashamed Southerner to Hitler and the Nazis ("Godwin's Law," Reductio ad Hitlerum) invariably makes its way into the conversation, usually when the debate has nowhere else to go.  But more interesting still is how America can always depend on those kooky Confederate flag wavers to be first in line for a fight to defend Old Glory.  Define that however you like, but the unyielding commitment demonstrated time and time again by the sons of the South stems from the reasoning behind why George Washington was placed at the center of the Great Seal of the Confederacy. 

Today we mock the notions of smaller government and States Rights, and we act as if the 10th Amendment doesn't even exist.  At present, we have an uncontrollable national government which, by most accounts, becomes more intrusive with each passing year.  And this is notable because, like it or not, that behemoth was born with Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

Instead of listening to the agenda-driven demagogues of the present, it is better to witness the words spoken by those who experienced the unpleasantness of the time firsthand.  Their viewpoints are not politically correct by our current standard.  But they are indeed correct, and it does matter:

"The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people.  If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so."
-- from "Democracy in America" (two volumes, published in 1835 & 1840) by Alexis de Tocqueville

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to abolish the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."

-- Abraham Lincoln, Congressional Records; January 12, 1848

"The Union is a Union of States founded upon Compact.  How is it to be supposed that when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes either can disregard one provision of it and expect others to observe the rest?  If the Northern States willfully and deliberately refuse to carry out their part of the Constitution, the South would be no longer bound to keep the compact."
-- from Senator Daniel Webster's (D-Massachusetts) Capon Springs Speech; June 28, 1851

"Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in the regions north of the Potomac, and this in the midst of the fact that the south, in four staples alone, in cotton, tobacco, rice and indigo had exported produce since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred million dollars, and the North had exported comparatively nothing. ... Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth; but what was the fact?  In place of wealth, a universal pressure for money was felt; not enough for current expenses... and the frugal habits of the people pushed to the verge of universal self-denial for the preservation of their family estates. ... Under this legislation the exports of the South have been made the basis of the federal revenue. ... Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia may be said to defray three fourths of the annual expense of supporting the federal government; and of this great sum annually furnished by them, nothing, or next to nothing, is returned to them in the shape of government expenditure.

"That expenditure flows in an opposite direction; it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted and perennial stream; it takes the course of trade and of exchange; and this is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North.  Federal legislation does all this; it does it by the simple process of eternally taking away from the South, and returning nothing to it."
-- from a lengthy and perfectly stated offering by Senator Thomas Hart Benton (D-Missouri) in 1851

"A legitimate union of states depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the Sovereign people of each state, and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their union is gone.  Any state forced to remain in a union by military force can never be a co-equal member of the American union and can be viewed only as a 'subject providence'."
-- from The Daily Union of Bangor, Maine; November 13, 1860

"If we of the North were called upon to endure one half as much as the Southern people and soldiers do, we would abandon the cause and let the Southern Confederacy be established. ... A nation preserved with liberty trampled underfoot is much worse than a nation in fragments but with the spirit of liberty still alive.  Southerners persistently claim that their rebellion is for the purpose of preserving this form of government."
-- Private John H. Haley, 17th Maine Regiment, United States Army

"With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children and my home."
-- Colonel Robert Edward Lee, United States Army.  Lee was President Lincoln's personal choice to lead the charge against the Southern uprising.

"I am fighting to preserve the integrity of the Union and the power of the government -- on no other issue.  To gain that end we cannot afford to mix up the Negro question.  It must be incidental and subsidiary.  The President is perfectly honest and is really sound on the [N-word] question."
-- Major General George B. McClellan, Army of the Potomac, United States Army

"Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision."
-- Major General Patrick Cleburne, Army of Tennessee, Confederate States Army

"So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of the battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle.  Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North.  The love of money is the root of this as of many, many other evils ... the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."
-- Charles Dickens, author of numerous all-time classics, as editor of the British periodical All the Year Round in 1862

"All these cries of having 'abolished slavery', of having 'saved the country', of having 'preserved the Union,' of establishing a 'government of consent' and of 'maintaining the national honor' are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats -- so transparent they they ought to deceive no one."
-- Lysander Spooner, philosopher and Massachusetts abolitionist

"Concerning CSA President Jefferson Davis: He was imprisoned after the war (and) was never brought to trial.  The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and the South had got a raw deal -- but he refused to ask the United States for a 'pardon', demanding that the government either offer him a pardon, give him a trial or admit that he had been unjustly dealt with.  He died, 'unpardoned' by a government that was leery of giving him a public hearing."
-- from "The Civil War" (1953) by James Street 

"The American people, North and South, went into the (Civil) War as citizens of their respective states.  They came out as subjects ... and what they thus lost, they never got back."
-- H.L. Mencken, one of the more notable commentators of the 20th century, and ironically, a noted detractor of the South

Southern Defenders Series: John C. Breckinridge

Considering the Southern theme that develops from time to time, I have come to realize that the best way to view the South is to possess and better understanding of her defenders.  Hence a new feature of summaries about the Southland's finest has come to fruition:

Born into a prominent Kentucky family, John C. Breckinridge graduated from Centre College in 1839 and attended Princeton soon thereafter, earning admission to the bar in 1840.

Upon serving with the 3rd Kentucky Volunteers during the Mexican-American War, Breckinridge made his way to Capital Hill in 1851 and undertook two terms as representative of Kentucky's 8th congressional district.  Having declined an ambassadorship to Spain, he eventually served as Vice President alongside President Franklin Pierce.  At age 36, John Cabell Breckinridge was, and remains, the youngest Vice President in American history.

He took a seat in the Senate at the outset of Abraham Lincoln's first term, but his nine-month stint abruptly ended when he was expelled for vocally supporting the South's secession, as had 10 other Senators before him.  Subsequently landing a commission in the Confederate Army, Breckinridge broke with his State when the Kentucky Legislature initially voted to remain with the Union.

As commander of the 1st Kentucky Brigade -- nicknamed the Orphan Brigade because of the men who felt abandoned by the government of their home State -- Major General Breckinridge led his troops valiantly throughout the Western Theater, beginning with the Battle of Shiloh (near Savannah, about an hour from Memphis) where he was wounded in action.

After the War, Major General Breckinridge personally oversaw the preservation of both the government and military archives of the Confederate States.  And by doing so, he ensured that a full account of the Southern war endeavor would be preserved for future generations.  In fact, all that I've just written was made possible by the efforts of John C. Breckinridge: American Representative, Senator, Vice President, and Confederate General.

Sunday's Quote: Defending the (seemingly) indefensible

Yesterday I came across an individual (online) who chose to rail against the placement of the Confederate flag on the grounds of the State capital in Columbia, South Carolina.  Here's my response:

"When someone can adequately explain why such an appreciable uprising of mostly underprivileged, non-slave-holding Southerners would even consider battling against their brethren of the logistically superior North to maintain a slavery establishment perpetuated by the wealthiest 6% of the Confederate populace (according to the U.S. Census of 1860), then, and only then, are you able to convince any thinking individual about the malignancy of the Southern Cause.

"Those who fly the Confederate banner to demonstrate a hatred of anyone do not require a symbolism to exhibit their disdain.  If the Confederacy had never existed, they would still hate.  And let's be especially real about this -- heavy racial issues persist to this day in New York City, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Detroit, stretching all the way to Los Angeles and many points in between.

"Because all arguments against the flag eventually make their way back to a matter of slavery, let us not overlook the fact that human servitude is a phenomenon that has existed on practically every corner of the planet for nearly 4,000 years.  In fact Free the Slaves, a human rights lobby group in Washington, D.C., claim as many as 27 million slaves exist in the world right now.  Yet it's the South that is hit with the inclusive liability of all racial matters while practically all others, past and present, are given a collective pass.

"Eliminate the Confederate flag, and you accomplish nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Convince yourself otherwise if you like, but your energy is better served in other capacities.  God bless."

-- Me, just yesterday responding to the impassioned plea of an anti-Confederate activist.  I have opted to identify neither the person, nor the website, as my innocuous rebuttal was removed just hours after it was posted.  Presumably he accepts comments from like-minded individuals only.

Soldiers of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment, 2nd Marine Division during Operation Moshtarak somewhere in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan.

On This Day in History: Those dastardly explorers

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Providence, Rhode Island was found vandalized with red paint yesterday.  For additional effect, a sign that read "murderer" was left hanging around the statue's waist.  Later that day, dueling rallies were held in Boston, about 50 miles from Providence, to celebrate and protest the observance of the Spanish explorer's voyage to the Americas.

Although anti-Columbus sentiment is not new, it has become more virulent.  As school curricula give way to hypersensitivity aimed at national pride, the disregard of other cultural imperfections that are celebrated ad nauseam while concurrently refusing to acknowledge the achievements of both the explorers and Founding Fathers, without whom our greatness would not be possible, is unavoidably conspicuous.  It's also abject hypocrisy.

Aside from Columbus, the following Europeans deserve some degree of recognition and gratitude for their exploration throughout the Americas: John Cabot (c. 1497, via England), Alonso de Ojeda (c. 1499, via Spain, alongside Amerigo Vespucci, after whom America is named), Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (c. 1500, via Spain), Pedro Álvares Cabral (c. 1500, via Portugal), Gaspar Corte-Real (c. 1500, via Spain), Rodrigo de Bastidas (c. 1501, via Spain), Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1513, via Spain), Juan Ponce de León (c. 1513, via Spain) and Juan Díaz de Solís (c. 1516, via Spain).

Now for some history...

1492 – The first expedition led by Christopher Columbus makes landfall for the first time at San Salvador Island in The Bahamas.

1792 – The first celebration of Columbus Day is observed in New York.  It would not become a Federal holiday until 1937.

1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest building at the oldest State university in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

1870 – General Robert Edward Lee died.  A West Point graduate (class of 1829) and U.S. Army Colonel whom President Lincoln personally chose to quell a certain uprising in the South, Lee is best remembered as both the commanding general of the Confederate Army and one of the greatest of all Americans.

1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many public schools throughout the United States as part of a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage.

1901 – The Executive Mansion is officially renamed "The White House" by President Theodore Roosevelt.

1960 – As both General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Premier of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev infamously pounds his shoe on a desk during an assembly of the United Nations to protest the assertion of colonial policy being conducted by the Soviets throughout eastern Europe.

1972 – En route to the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.

1999 – Although its veracity is debatable, "The Day of Six Billion" is commemorated by the United Nations Population Fund as the approximate day on which the number of people in the world reached 6,000,000,000 following the birth of Adnan Nevic in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

2000 – Religion of Peace: The USS Cole (DDG-667), a United States Navy destroyer, is badly damaged in the port of Aden, Yemen by two suicide bombers connected to al-Qaeda, killing 17 and wounding 39.

2002 – Religion of Peace: Terrorists detonate bombs in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and wounding over 300.

On This Day in History

70 AD – Climaxing the First Jewish-Roman War, forces under Roman Emperor Titus sack Jerusalem.  Judea would remain under Roman control for over 550 years until Jerusalem was captured by the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate in 637.

1504 – Michelangelo's 17-foot sculpture of David is unveiled outside the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence, Italy.  It has been located at the Accademia Gallery, also in Florence, since 1873.

1565 – Outnumbered by as much as five-to-one, the Knights Hospitaller -- a Christian military order similar to the Templars -- turned back the Islamic Ottoman Empire's attempted siege on Malta in southern Europe.

1863 – At the mouth of the Sabine River on the Texas-Louisiana border, a small Confederate force thwarted the Federal invasion of Texas at the Second Battle of Sabine Pass.

1892 – The original Pledge of Allegiance is first published in The Youth's Companion as part of the celebration of Columbus Day: "I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."  The Pledge would be revised four times until finally settled upon by President Eisenhower in 1954.

1968 – The Beatles perform "Hey Jude" (pictured above) on The David Frost Show for their final performance on live television.

1975 – U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant [E-6] Leonard Matlovich appeared in uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline, "I Am A Homosexual."  Matlovich was later given a general discharge for his cover story.  He died of complications from HIV/AIDS on June 22, 1988.

Just Thinking Out Loud: Five years ago (yesterday)

August 13, 2005: "Reverend" Al Sharpton, alongside D'Army Bailey and the Memphis chapter of the Nation of Islam, headlined a shindig at Nathan Bedford Forrest Park in downtown Memphis, across from the UT medical school, to rally for the removal of the statue/sarcophagus of Lt. General Forrest (Army of Tennessee, CSA).

Just a couple of miles away, a comparably sized group of born and bred Southerners gathered around the statue of President Jefferson Davis at Confederate Park on Front St.  After giving a couple of brief interviews to the local media, I began wondering about the other side's rally.  No one else was willing to check it out, so I went alone.

I must've stuck out like a sore thumb in my suit and tie, especially in 97-degree weather.  But I went because I care.  And I care, in part, because I have never understood why an entire region -- a fledgling upstart of a nation -- of mostly poor, non-slave-holding Southerners would form a volunteer army to battle against the logistically superior North to merely ensure that a relatively small percentage of the upper crust would be allowed to maintain an institution that was not practiced by 94% of the populace.

In short, the overall experience was fascinating.  Perhaps I will delve with greater detail some other time.

A slightly different take on immigration

My extemporaneous inquiry into varying topics led me to uncover a bit of information earlier today about which I had all but forgotten.  Initially saved to a file I discovered while searching for something else, the originator(s) of this piece is unknown, but the subject matter is verifiable nevertheless:

"Confederate leaders ... had their eyes squarely on Brazil — a country of nearly 4 million square miles and more than 8 million people.  Prior to the outbreak of the [Civil] war, U.S. Naval Academy founder Matthew Maury dispatched two Navy officers to the Amazon basin, ostensibly to map the river for shipping.  Instead, they were secretly ... collecting data about separatist movements in the region."

"When the South lost the war, Maury refused to abandon his plans.  He helped 20,000 ex-rebels flee to Brazil, where they established the Confederate colonies of New Texas and Americana. ... Confederados also educated slaves and black freedmen in their new schools.  To their Brazilian neighbors, this practice was considered unusual and even scandalous.  To this day, hundreds of descendants of the Confederados still gather outside Americana to celebrate their shared heritage of rocking chairs and sweet potato pie.  In a strange way, a part of the Old South still survives — thousands of miles below the U.S. border."

On This Day In History: How 'bout some war...

1775 – Having been unanimously voted commander-in-chief of the Continental army by Congress several weeks prior, George Washington arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts to take command of the army he would lead to victory eight grueling years later.

1778 – British and Iroquois forces kill 360 people in the Wyoming Valley massacre amid the American Revolution.  Some of the raiders hunted the fleeing Patriots before torturing to death upwards of forty who had already surrendered.

1863 – The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the War Between the States culminates with Pickett's Charge.  That didn't go well.

1898 – Amid the waining days of the Spanish-American War, the Spanish fleet is destroyed by the United States Navy in Santiago, Cuba.  Victory would be secured the next month.

1913 – Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett's Charge.  Upon reaching the High Watermark of the Confederacy, the Southerners were met by the outstretched hands of friendship from their northern counterparts.  I've seen footage from the event, and it's very touching.

On This Day in History: May 6 (A most fascinating day)

1527: In an event generally considered to mark the end of the Roman Renaissance, Rome is sacked by Spanish and German troops aligned with the Holy Roman Empire amid the War of the League of Cognac (1526-1530).  Nearly 150 Swiss Guards died fighting the forces of Emperor Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape.  To commemorate the bravery of the Swiss Guards, new recruits are sworn in every year on May 6.

1861: Arkansas secedes from the Union on the same day Richmond, Virginia is declared the new capital of the Confederate States of America.

1863: Despite being outnumbered by nearly 73,000 soldiers, General Robert E. Lee and Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson lead the South to victory over the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

1889: The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1937: The German zeppelin Hindenburg (pictured) catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey.  The 12-story blimp was the length of three football fields and was filled with seven million cubic feet of pure hydrogen.  Thirty-six people were killed in the incident, and why the airship ignited into flames remains a mystery to this day.

1940: John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath.

1941: Bob Hope performs the first of his nearly 200 USO shows at March Field Army Air Corps base in Riverside, California.

1954: Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run a sub-four-minute mile at Iffley Road Track in Oxford, England.

1984: Having suffered religious persecution during the 19th century, Pope John Paul II canonized 103 Korean Martyrs in Seoul, Korea.  

2000: I was 15 minutes late picking up a girl named Sarah for our first date.  Of the girls who have been in and out of my life, this little golden-haired cutie is the one who sticks out in memory the most.  In the end, I was only successful in turning her affection for me inside out because of what I could not do.

As I once wrote, years ago, about our first evening together...

"I knew that look on her old man's face.  Most fathers go through it at least once or twice.  I imagine it's similar to how an accomplished violinist would feel about handing a Stradivarius over to an unruly ape."