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General Phil Sheridan in 1280 Words

May 6, 2026

Ulysses S. Grant considered Phil Sheridan the greatest general in history. The best example of Sheridan’s exemplary ability was his success turning defeat into victory at the Battle of Cedar Creek during October 18, 1864. The battle took place in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. The Confederate Army under Jubal Early made a surprise pre-dawn flank attack on the Union line, and they also attacked some exposed Union positions. This attack caused most of the Union Army here to retreat in panic. Meanwhile, General Sheridan had just returned from a meeting in Washington DC and was asleep. When he was informed of the attack, he mounted his horse and personally rallied troops back to the front. He reorganized the defense until it was a solid line. The Confederates paused their attack to forage through captured supplies because they were starving. This gave Sheridan time to organize a counterattack (he was a very aggressive commander), and they drove the Confederates back past their starting point earlier in the morning–a decisive victory and all in less than 24 hours. After this battle, the Confederate Army was never able to stop Sheridan’s troops from cutting the supply lines of the main army in Virginia, and the Confederates basically ran out of food and ammunition, forcing them to give up 6 months later.

General Sheridan was a career military man who worked his way up from lieutenant to commander of the U.S. Army. He greatly impressed all his superior officers during a career that included subduing recalcitrant Indians, decisively defeating the Confederate Army in battle after battle, and administering the defeated rebels during reconstruction.

Map of the Shenandoah Valley campaign where the Union Army cut off supplies to the main Confederate Army in Virginia. Along with Sherman’s march through Georgia, this made the Confederacy surrender. They ran out of food and ammunition.

Sheridan personally rallied the troops and reorganized them, turning a stunning defeat into a decisive victory all in 1 day at the Battle of Cedar Creek.

Historians aren’t sure where Phil Sheridan was born. Phil Sheridan was officially born in Albany, New York during 1831, but some suspect he was born on a ship when his family immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland. His mother may have lied, so she could claim he was an American from birth. He was part of a large Irish family that eventually settled in Somerset, Ohio where he clerked in a dry goods store as a teenager. This gave him the experience to be a good supply officer in the army. Sheridan was able to attain an appointment to West Point. He finished near the bottom of his class and was suspended for a year because he started a fight with an older classmate during a marching drill. He was lucky he was not expelled. Sheridan was short, standing just 5’5″, and had a pugnacious personality. The army assigned Sheridan to small western forts, first at Fort Duncan in Texas and later to Fort Reading in California until 1861 where he served as a supply officer. He gained experience solving disputes between Indian agents and Indians who were often cheated. There were some violent incidents.

The onset of the Civil War was a great development for career army officers stuck in stagnant assignments. He impressed his superior officers with his efficient audit of the Missouri quartermaster corps where the army had been defrauded by some corrupt officers. He was promoted to chief quartermaster officer for the 15,000-man army in Missouri. He was known for successfully cracking down on corrupt army officers profiting from the war. These were all non-combat positions, but he was finally promoted to Colonel and put in charge of the 2nd regiment of Michigan cavalry. He soon proved to be as good a combat officer as he was a supply officer. He led men in the Battle of Perryville in Kentucky and the Battle of Stones River. The first was a stalemate; the second was a resounding victory. His regiment’s performance in the latter battle was considered outstanding. Sheridan’s forces were under General Rosecrans when the Union Army outmaneuvered the Confederates through Tennessee and into north Georgia. His regiment took part in the Battle of Chickamauga–a defeat and uncharacteristically a less than stellar performance from his troops. He did manage to rally his troops and organize a successful rear-guard defense and retreat. Sheridan’s role in the Union victory at the Battle of Missionary Ridge during November of 1864 got him promoted to cavalry general of all the Union’s cavalry in Virginia. The Battle of Missionary Ridge was the Union’s army’s successful defense of Chattanooga when they were nearly surrounded and cut off from supplies.

Sheridan’s cavalry burned through the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, destroying farms, slaughtering livestock, wrecking railroad lines, and starving Confederates. Along with Sherman’s March through Georgia, this did more to shortening the war than anything else. They cut the Confederacy off from their main bread baskets. Sheridan’s cavalry was there at the end, ready to give the Confederate army a decisive final blow when they surrendered. He was disappointed that he didn’t get 1 more chance to beat them severely.

After the war General Sheridan was put in charge of a military district that included Louisiana and Texas. Union troops occupied the defeated rebellious states and had to protect freed slaves and enforce free elections. Sheridan did not like Texans and southerners, and he hated ex-Confederates. (He would have been infuriated that some modern military bases are named after mediocre traitorous Confederate Generals.) Sheridan oversaw the integration of street cars in New Orleans (southern whites didn’t think black people should ride in the same cars as them), and he quelled some of the political violence. He didn’t get along with southerners and during 1868 was put in charge of the U.S. Army in the west, then in the process of forcing Indians onto reservations.

Sherman’s successful war against the Indians mirrors the strategy he used to defeat the Confederacy. It was a ruthless campaign to cut off Indians from their supplies. Innocent people on both sides were killed. Indians massacred white settlers, and the army retaliated and often killed women and children when they raided Indian camps. The army attacked Indian camps in a war of attrition that just wore the Indians down until they gave up and agreed to go live on reservations. The U.S. Army didn’t win every battle. Most notably they lost at the Battle of Little Big Horn when Custer divided his forces and attacked a force of Indians that outnumbered his. But the relentless campaigns eventually did make the Indians quit.

Sheridan became commander of the whole U.S. Army after William Sherman retired. Sheridan didn’t get married until he was 44 in 1875. He did have an Indian lover who lived with him at Fort Reading before the Civil War when he was stationed in California. She came to see him many years later when he was in Washington DC before she agreed to marry a French trapper. Apparently, Sheridan was her first choice. It’s just conjecture on my part, but he probably didn’t want to marry her because a mixed-race marriage would have hurt his military career ambitions. Instead, he married Irene Rucker who was 23 years younger than him. They had 4 children. Despite having a small frame, Sheridan grew fat during middle age. He was always a hearty eater and drinker, and he developed heart problems. He suffered a series of heart attacks and died in 1888 at the age of 57.

Reference:

Morris, Roy

Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan

Random House 1992

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What Slavery was like on Butler Island, Georgia during 1839

April 1, 2026

I always had a vague notion that life as a slave on a southern plantation before emancipation was miserable, but after reading a day-to-day account written by a literate British actress who married a slave-owner, I learned it was much worse than I even imagined. Fanny Kemble was the most famous actress in England during the early 19th century. Her father, also an actor, owned a theater that was struggling financially, so he decided to take his theater to the U.S. where his troupe toured the big cities on the eastern seaboard. Fanny met Pierce Butler in 1834 when she was 25, and he used his southern charm to persuade her to marry him. She gave up her successful acting career to be his wife. She was strongly opposed to slavery, but he conned her into believing his 700 slaves were well-treated and happy to be in bondage on his plantation. Butler lived in Philadelphia off the profits of his plantation, a business managed by Roswell King Sr. and his son Roswell King Jr. (The father founded the town of Roswell, Georgia, now a suburb of Atlanta.) The King family were exceptionally cruel overseers. The Kings managed the plantation for 37 years and the Butler Family hardly ever visited it. Rice was the primary crop, but cotton and sometimes sugar cane were also grown. Roswell King Jr. resigned his position during 1839, and Butler took his family to the plantation during January of that year in order to find a replacement manager. Fanny was horrified to discover how badly slaves were treated.

Location of Butler Island. It’s adjacent to the Altamaha River and close to the ocean.

Fanny Kemble was the most famous actress in England and America during the early 1830s. She was staunchly against slavery but fell in love with a slave-owner and married him. She wrote a day-to-day account of her 4 months stay at the plantation in 1839 in the form of letters to a Pennsylvania school teacher. She was horrified.

During some seasons slaves were forced to work from dawn to dusk. The overseer delegated authority to other slaves who were known as slavedrivers. To force the other slaves to keep working, the slavedrivers used whips. (Slavedrivers remind me of Kapos–the Jewish policemen in concentration camps during the Holocaust who helped the Germans enforce their rules.) Slavedrivers were allowed to give up to 15 lashes with the whip. If they thought the recalcitrant slave needed more lashes, they had to seek out the overseer who could give slaves as many lashes as he thought necessary.

Large slave families lived in 1 room huts with doors and windows always open. There was not enough room in these hovels for the whole family to lie down at the same time. They had leaky roofs and dirt floors and poultry roamed in and out due to the open doors and windows. The houses were filthy and full of chicken and duck shit. There was an infirmary for sick slaves, but it was in the same condition as their huts, and sick people had to lie on dirt floors because there were no mattresses let alone beds. Even the house slaves had to live in these huts because they were forbidden to stay overnight in the master’s house.

Slaves were given 1 set of clothes per year. They rarely could wash their clothes because they had nothing to wear when they were washing their only set of clothes. The clothes turned to rags that barely covered their bodies after working the fields all day every day. Slaves were allowed to make money by gathering and selling Spanish moss (used to stuff mattresses) and by selling poultry eggs, but the merchants often cheated them and sold cheap material, so that when they tried to make their own clothes, the material would tear into useless rags.

The slaves’ bodies were filthy and extremely smelly. After working 12 hour days, they didn’t have the energy to make a bath, a much more laborious luxury than it is today. Back then, it was necessary to draw buckets of water and make a big fire to heat the tub, and there was no privacy. The slaves were often covered in dirt, and this contributed to a high child mortality rate. When a child suffered a simple scratch, they often would contract tetanus, also known as lockjaw, and die. Leprosy was rampant and many slaves were walking around with missing ears, nose, and fingers.

Leprosy and tetanus were common on Butler Island Plantation because of the filthy conditions slaves were forced to exist in.

Overseers used black slave drivers to whip recalcitrant slaves. Women were whipped if they refused the sexual advances of the overseers. They were kept pregnant and constantly abused. It was a hellish existence.

After childbirth, women were excused from field work for just 3 weeks. Small children were relied upon to watch the babies and carry them to the mothers working in the fields when they needed to be nursed. This contributed to many health problems for the women who were not yet recovered from difficult childbirths. Childbirth was dangerous enough during the early 19th century. Many slave women had 10-16 children but often well over half or in some cases all of them had died.

There was no consensual interracial sex on Butler Island. Roswell King (both Jr. and Sr.) and his wife were psychopathic monsters. Ironically, Butler’s family and the owners of the surrounding plantations thought highly of the King family because they were able to keep Butler’s plantation profitable, but they must have been aware of how cruelly the slaves were treated. The planters used racist rationalizations to justify King’s actions. Planters disbelieved slaves complaining of cruelty because they believed slaves were habitual liars. Then slaves were whipped for complaining. Fanny noticed there were many mulattos on the plantation who resembled Roswell King Jr. and Sr., and she learned they were indeed the result of forced sex. Slaves who refused the King’s sexual advances were tied to trees and whipped. Worse yet, Roswell made 3 slaves pregnant within a short time span, and when his wife found out about it, she flew into a jealous rage and had all 3 pregnant slaves whipped, then sent to a remote part of the plantation, known as 5 Pounds, where they were raped again by the black slave driver. Roswell King took any slave he wanted, including married slaves, whose emasculated and degraded husbands could do nothing to stop him without risking a severe flogging and death. King did have some kind of relationship with 1 of his mulatto sons. This man expressed anger when he wasn’t allowed to keep a gun as a memento after his father resigned his position and left the plantation, but Butler did not want any of his slaves to have any kind of firearm for any reason. Fanny amazed the male slaves when she went on boat rides with them unescorted by any white man. Most of the plantation owner’s wives were afraid of the male slaves and stayed hidden indoors all day. Unlike Fanny, they did not venture outside for walks, horseback riding, or boat rides; and they thought Fanny was strange for exercising every day.

Slaves were fed twice a day–at noon and at dusk. They were given rice or grits. Children and handicapped slaves guarded the corn fields all day and night to prevent birds and other creatures from eating their most important food source. John Couper, the neighboring planter, grew peaches and turnips, so his slaves could have fresh fruits and vegetables. (He also successfully grew a fruiting date palm–an interesting novelty for the region.) He suggested growing peaches and turnips to Roswell King who rejected the idea–more evidence that he didn’t care at all about the health of the slaves. Good quality seafood abounded, but slaves were often too exhausted to fish. They did gather oysters and left piles of shells in the middle of plantation roads. Fanny praised the quality of local fish including mullet, shad, and the “Altamaha perch” (I’m not sure which species this refers to); but she was afraid to eat catfish. She often went fishing with a slave child, and he told her it wasn’t fit for white people and took them home for himself. On 1 occasion a neighbor gave Fanny a huge drum fish, and she was disgusted when the cook took the entrails home to feed to his family. Another time, the cook stole a ham and was whipped and demoted to field hand. She had a hard time getting another cook to butcher a sheep the way she wanted. Apparently, the sheep on the island grazed on salt marsh grasses, and it gave the mutton an excellent flavor. Slave children often begged for meat.

Fanny was able to prevent a family break-up. Pierce Butler wanted to reward King for his long-time service by giving him a male slave as part of his severance package. Unfortunately, he was married to a pretty mulatto slave with small children. Fanny objected and convinced Pierce, much to his annoyance, to stop the forced separation. I suspect Pierce wanted the slave woman as a secret side outlet for himself. Slaves often expressed their fear they would be sold off and separated if the plantation was sold.

While reading this narrative, I was most surprised at how ingratiating the slaves were to their owners. They were never sullen and expressed “unbreakable good humor.” They were so brainwashed by the system, they believed the white supremacists were right, and they were inferior. It was the explanation for why the white people were masters, and they were the slaves. It’s difficult for me to conceive of this mentality. The slaves had a big celebration when the Butler family arrived on their plantation, and the slave women, especially, always praised their masters, like they were the greatest people on earth. Even after long days of labor, they would come to the house to say hi and beg for small items, such as sugar or flannel. To me, it seems as if they worshipped their owners. This seems so strange to me, so Stockholm Syndrome-like. Most people, unaccustomed to be slaves would have been driven to violent rebellion, yet 1 small white family was able to control 700 black slaves.

Fanny noted the nature of Butler Island. She loved the Carolina jessamine and other flowers, and she enjoyed the birds. She described a bird that may have been a colorful painted bunting, a species not yet rare. She was impressed with some live oaks but not other individual trees, but she thought the pine savannahs and salt marshes were dreary. The snakes terrified her. Rattlesnakes and water moccasins abounded on the plantation, and she saw large black racers. She did think a green snake was pretty. Sand flies made some of her outings unbearable.

The Butler family left their island in April after a 4 month stay, and they went back to Philadelphia. The new overseer left after 1 year, and Butler rehired Roswell King Jr. who managed the plantation until it went bankrupt in 1859. Pierce Butler lost just about everything, and to pay off his creditors, he sold hundreds of his slaves, breaking up many families. Fanny and Pierce were divorced during 1849. They had 2 daughters. One was pro-slavery, like her father, and the other was against slavery, like her mother. The friction between Fanny’s and Pierce’s beliefs led to their divorce. He divorced her, but she tried to keep her marriage together and delayed publishing her journal for this reason. Her journal was not published until 1863.

Reference:

Kemble, Frances

Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839

The University of Georgia Press 1961

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Ulysses S. Grant in 1952 Words

March 4, 2026

Ulysses S. Grant was a great general, but as President he fell short of what I would consider success, partly because he was ahead of his time and partly because he was so naive, he surrounded himself with unscrupulous crooks. Ulysses was born during 1822 in Point Pleasant, Ohio located near Cincinnati. His father owned a leather goods business during a time when most people needed saddles. The sight of the bloody carcasses gave Ulysses a lifetime aversion to meat unless it was cooked very well done. His father helped him get an appointment to West Point in 1839 where Ulysses excelled in math and horsemanship. He finished at the academy ranked in the middle of his class, but half of his class had dropped out before finishing the 4-year program, so he really finished better than 75% of his peers. His best friend at West Point was Fred Dent who invited Grant to visit his family in Missouri after graduation. On his visits to Fred’s home, he met and fell in love with Fred’s sister, Julia, a plain woman with a nice bust and a cross-eye that she never had surgically repaired. They married during 1848. The Grant and Dent families did not get along. The Grants were strong abolitionists and the Dents were slaveowners, and the Grant family refused to attend their son’s wedding in Missouri. Ulysses and Julia eventually had 4 children–3 boys and a girl.

The army assigned Grant to be a quartermaster, an officer in charge of obtaining and distributing supplies. He participated in the Mexican American War between 1846-1848. It was a war that he believed to be unjust. He witnessed and participated in battles and learned that he could remain cool under fire. Grant performed heroically in Monterrey, Mexico when he volunteered to ride his horse through crossfire in an urban combat situation to obtain much needed ammunition. He rode his horse in a zigzag pattern while lying flat on it. He also saw combat action when his regiment took the heavily defended Chalpotec Fortress.

Ulysses was an alcoholic, but he didn’t drink when he was with his family. Apparently, even a small amount of alcohol turned him into a silly fool. Unfortunately, the army separated him from his family when they assigned him to a post in the Pacific Northwest, a region too distant for his family to follow. There was no railroad yet and instead of traversing Indian territory, the army took steam ships to Central America, crossed tropical jungle, and took steam ships to San Francisco. Julia was pregnant at the time as well. Ulysses sought solace in alcohol because he was lonely and depressed, missing his wife and newborn child who he had never seen. His drinking did not interfere with his duties. Every soldier at this depressing outpost drank heavily (I never met a military man who was not a heavy drinker, and I’ve known many), but Colonel Buchanan, his commanding officer, had it in for Grant and forced him to resign after Grant showed up drunk on payday during 1854. He went home to be reunited with his family in Missouri. Grant’s father-in-law gave the family some land to farm and 4 slaves who Grant wanted to free but couldn’t because they were kept in his father-in-law’s name. Grant freed 1 slave Dent gave him the rights to almost immediately. Grant failed after 4 years of farming, then opened a real estate office in town which also failed. His partner fleeced him–just 1 example in his life when he had money stolen from him in white collar crooked schemes. Grant was so honest himself he couldn’t fathom the possibility that other people were not being honest with him. It was a serious flaw in his personality that led to trouble when he was President. He and his family moved to Galena, Illinois where he could work in 1 of his father’s leather goods stores. (His father owned several leather factories and stores across the Midwest.) Grant could carry heavy loads of cow hides that his brothers couldn’t handle. He also clerked in his store, but he didn’t enjoy this work and avoided customers. His career path changed when the Civil War started and he reenlisted.

Ulysses S. Grant and his family.

Grant survived war but his cigars killed him.

Elihu Washburne, a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln, represented Grant’s district in Illinois. Men with army experience were much sought at the beginning of the Civil War, and he helped Grant obtain his officer’s commission. Governor Yates put Ulysses in charge of 10 local regiments of state militia. As more troops joined the Union, Grant was elevated to Brigadier General. He made John Rawlins his adjutant general. Rawlins was a key figure who helped Grant throughout his future career, especially keeping him away from alcohol. Grant’s first success was capturing Paducah, Kentucky before Confederate troops even got there, then his forces defeated the Confederates at Belmont. Grant became a national celebrity when he led his troops to victory at Forth Henry and Fort Donelson at a time when Union forces were losing battle after battle in Virginia and the east. Grant was an aggressive commander always on the attack, and Lincoln liked this because his eastern Generals were slow and defensive. Grant’s victories gave the Union complete command of Kentucky, most of Tennessee, and part of the Mississippi Valley.

Next, Grant’s forces turned back a furious Confederate attack at Shiloh after Grant overcame some early tactical errors. Union forces advanced down the Mississippi River Valley where Grant oversaw a brilliant military campaign that led to the capture of Vicksburg, the last Confederate fortress in the West. Vicksburg’s defenses included 7 miles of fortifications, cliffs, ravines, manmade ditches, and swamps, and it was located at a hairpin turn of the river where ships could be stopped with artillery fire. Grant managed to sneak a major portion of his army past the artillery guns on ships at night south of Vicksburg, then had forces under Sherman feign an attack north of the city. Grant’s forces marched to the highlands to prevent Confederates from reinforcing Vicksburg, and they seized Jackson, Mississippi. They routed the Confederates at every battle during this campaign. They surrounded Vicksburg, and forced its surrender–a stunning victory that led Lincoln to name Grant the commanding officer in charge of the eastern Union Army.

Grant’s grand strategy led to the eventual surrender of the Confederate Army. First, he let Sherman loose into Georgia where his forces razed the heart of the South, destroying the breadbasket and munitions factories of the Confederacy. He attacked Confederate forces in Virginia, and he used Sheridan’s cavalry to destroy Confederate supply lines that fed Robert E. Lee’s forces in Virginia. Some critics unfairly call Grant a butcher because the Virginia campaign was so bloody with high casualty counts. Confederate forces had the advantage of being on the defensive, and according to theoretical military doctrine, attackers need at least a 3-1 advantage in manpower and firepower to have any chance of victory. Attacking forces necessarily have higher casualty counts. Moreover, warfare was evolving toward World War I style trench positions, a type of battle that just leads to many deaths. Grant was a much better strategist than Lee who refused to abandon Richmond, Virginia until it was too late.

Grant was a military hero after the Civil War and won the Presidential elections of 1868 and 1872. His record as President was mixed at best. His gullibility led to him appointing many crooks to cabinet positions, so his Presidency was constantly plagued by scandals. While he was President, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution were enacted, and he did his best to enforce them. At first he was mostly successful. Southern states held fair elections with black people voting and winning office, and he used federal troops to destroy the earliest incarnations of the KKK, but Reconstruction was ultimately overturned at the point of a gun. The vast majority of southern whites were furiously opposed to former slaves having any political power, and northern racists sympathized with southern whites. Support for enforcing reconstruction faded, and by the end of Grant’s 2nd term black people were barely 1 step above slavery. Southern white people lynched and murdered thousands of black people, intimidating them from participating in the political process. After Southern white people retook control of the state governments, they passed laws that made black people 2nd class citizens, and racists on the Supreme Court upheld these laws, limiting what the Federal Government could do until Civil Rights laws were passed during the 1960s. Grant was ahead of his time in his belief in Civil Rights, but he was defeated by the racism of his time.

Grant also sympathized with Native Americans (his personal secretary during the war and his Presidency was Native-American), but he could do little to stop railroads, miners, and the expansion of Western Civilization from encroaching on Indian lands. He replaced some crooked Indian agents who robbed them of government supplies but could never get rid of all of them. It was Grant, not Teddy Roosevelt, who founded the National Park Service when he made Yellowstone the first National Park.

During the Civil War Grant was aggravated when his father introduced him to 2 Jewish cotton speculators, and he ordered the removal of all Jewish people from his military district, an order Lincoln rescinded. Grant was not a bigoted person, and he regretted his kneejerk reaction. He was a good President for Jewish people and appointed more Jewish people to government positions than any other previous President. He also appointed many black people to government positions, something that was unheard of at the time.

Grant’s foreign policy was successful. Americans still resented England for its early sympathy with the Confederate cause, but Grant made lasting peace with England, an ally of the U.S. ever since. He helped Mexico overthrow foreign rule.

Grant blundered in economic matters. He did get the U.S. out of wartime debt, but during the Panic of 1873, he decided not to stimulate the economy, leading to a 5-year economic Depression.

After his 2nd term, Grant decided not to run for a 3rd consecutive term and went on a world tour with his family where he was greeted everywhere with enthusiastic crowds. He did run again in the 1880 Presidential election but lost the Republican nomination to Garfield.

Grant lost all his money and all of his family’s money in what we would call today, a Ponzi Scheme. Ferdinand Ward conned Grant into putting his name on an investment firm called Grant and Ward. Because Grant’s name was on it, many Union veterans put their life savings into this firm. It was a total scam, and everybody who invested in it lost every penny they put into it, including the extended Grant family. About the same time, Grant’s decades’ long habit of chain-smoking cigars caught up to him. He developed throat cancer. He was broke and dying. Mark Twain rescued Grant from his financial difficulties. He gave Grant a good deal in exchange for the rights to publish his memoirs. Grant suffered horribly while he struggled to write the book. He couldn’t eat, drinking any kind of liquid was painful; and he had to sleep sitting up because the huge cancerous tumor strangled him when he laid down. Doctors had to scrape phlegm from his throat daily. Nevertheless, he finished writing his memoirs a few weeks before his death, and they were a best seller, saving the family from poverty. Grant died in 1885.

Reference:

Chernow, Ron

Grant

Penguin Press 2017

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Jack Johnson in 2487 Words

December 10, 2025

35 years ago, I saw a photograph of Jack Johnson and was so impressed with his physique that I was inspired to buy a punching bag. I’ve been banging on the heavy bag for 4 5-minute rounds twice a week ever since. For some stupid reason (I don’t know why) punching the bag gave me more confidence than tennis or weight-training–2 other physical activities with which I was fairly proficient. I was surprised to recently learn that neither my wife nor my sister had ever heard of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world. He won the championship in 1908 when roughly 10% of the U.S. population belonged to the KKK, and this hate group was mainstream, not like today when it’s just an organization for a few hateful losers. The heavyweight boxing champion was the most famous celebrity in sports throughout the entire 20th century, and boxing was 1 of the most popular sports in 1908, ranking behind baseball, horse racing, and maybe bicycle racing. (Football was in its infancy. The forward pass had just been legalized.) Today, most people aren’t aware of the heavyweight champion (Olexander Usyk from Ukraine), and I (a boxing fan) even had to look his name up to remind myself of who the current champion is. It was a big disaster for white supremacists and racists when a black man won this coveted title near the turn of the last century. Here is a brief history of Jack Johnson’s life.

Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas during 1908. His parents were former slaves who worked their way into a respectable middle-class standard of living. His father was a janitor, and his mother washed other people’s clothes. His family included 8 natural brothers and sisters and an adopted brother. Nevertheless, his parents managed to buy a nice house that was later destroyed by the famous Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Galveston was a port city with many different types of people, and it was less viciously racist than most other cities of the time. Jack’s best childhood friend was white. To make money as a child, Jack held on to the milkman’s horse when he took bottles to people’s front doors.

Jack didn’t like working on the docks as a teenager, and he started boxing for money. He hoboed on a train and went to Chicago for his first fight where he met Jack Curley, the promoter who transmogrified pro wrestling into the pre-arranged spectacle that it is today. Curley would later promote Jack’s fight with Jess Willard. Jack’s first fight was a battle royale, an event where a group of black men wearing blind folds swung at each other, and the last man standing was the winner and would get a few bucks. White spectators thought these events were hilarious. Jack was the winner. Jack worked a little while as a sparring partner in New Jersey, then returned to Galveston and beat the local heavyweight champion. His first notable fight was against the Jewish boxer Joe Choynski, an experience fighter who had had bouts with 5 different champions. (Choynski was the first boxer ever to get hit by a left hook, a punch invented by Gentleman Jim Corbett during his 26-round fight against Choynski on an offshore barge. Corbett had broken his hand but it hurt less to land a hook. Corbett won the fight but had to be told he won because he was senseless himself.) Boxing was illegal in Texas, so the bout between Johnson and Choynski was billed as a physical education exhibition. Choynski knocked Johnson out in the 3rd round with a sudden left hook to the eye, and as soon as the fight was over, 6 Texas Rangers entered the ring and arrested the fighters. The judge told Choynski he should be ashamed of himself for beating up a poor black kid who didn’t know anything about boxing, and he sentenced the 2 of them to spend their days in jail, though at night Choynski went to a hotel and Johnson went home. They sparred for the guards and reporters while in jail and became good friends. Choynski advised Johnson to become a more defensive fighter, and this change in tactics made him more successful. The judge released them, and Johnson headed to California where boxing was legal and popular.

Johnson’s physique inspired me to buy a heavy punching bag 35 years ago, and I’ve been banging on it ever since. His bout with Ketchel was semi-fixed, but Ketchel sucker punched Johnson who got up and really knocked Ketchel out.

Johnson and Choynski were arrested after their fight in Texas because boxing was illegal there. Choynski advised Johnson to become a defensive fighter and the counseling made him a better fighter.

Johnson’s 1st legal wife. She was an actress who killed herself. Johnson was reviled by both black and white for marrying white women.

Johnson developed into a great defensive fighter with a terrific right uppercut. The uppercut was an effective punch for the style of fighting then that involved much clinching and infighting. (I can’t really analyze his fights because the ancient film quality is so poor I can’t determine if punches land.) Early during his career he had a hard time with Klondike Smith, another black fighter with a defensive style, but he fought him 5 times and eventually beat him. Johnson’s first manager was Frank Carillo, a saloon-owner who had financial interests in racehorses as well. Carillo was the kind of unscrupulous crook who would set up illegal cock fights, call the police on the participants, and loan bail money to the people in jail at exorbitant interest rates. Sportswriters first took note of Johnson when he was Kid Carter’s sparring partner, and he was beating him. Johnson won the “colored” heavyweight championship in 1903 and fired Carillo for stealing his money. In another important bout he defeated Ed Martin in a 20-round fight, knocking him down 3 times despite being outweighed by 70 pounds. Next, he destroyed the former heavyweight champion Bob Fitzimmons–an easy 3 round knockout. Johnson began campaigning to fight the white heavyweight champion, Jim Jeffries, but Jeffries refused to give a black man the chance to win the heavyweight championship for blatantly racist reasons. Jeffries retired after wiping out all the white contenders. Tommy Burns won a tournament to replace Jeffries as champ, and he promised Johnson his turn, but first he took on all the top white contenders. Johnson even followed Burns to Australia to challenge him. Eventually, Burns agreed to the fight, though he earned 6 times more money than Johnson for the bout. Burns was only 5’7″, but he was a good fighter often beating much larger opponents. Johnson’s skill had him outclassed. His rushing style was tailor made for Johnson’s defensive style. Johnson knocked him out in the 15th round. Racist white people were appalled. Newspapers referred to Johnson with every racist epithet I’ve ever heard, and some I haven’t. Southerners offered to lynch him.

Johnson’s first notable defense after a couple of exhibitions was a fight with the middle weight champion Stanley Ketchel, the first “Great White Hope.” (All the white fighters who challenged Johnson were the hope of racists.) The fight was semi-fixed. (It may have been so they could sell film rights for a long bout, but no one really knows why.) Johnson was supposed to carry Ketchel for 20 rounds and get the decision. Ketchel had a rushing style, also tailer made for Johnson. However, Ketchel double crossed Johnson and sucker punched him, knocking him down. Johnson got up and knocked Ketchel out with a blow so hard it knocked 4 of his teeth out which stuck in Johnson’s glove. Now, the public demanded Jeffries come out of retirement to save the honor of the white race. Nat Fleischer, founder of Ring Magazine, saw every heavyweight champion from Gentleman Jim Corbett to Muhammad Ali, and he claims Jeffries was the best in his prime. Jeffries was no longer in his prime by the time he agreed to fight Johnson. He had been retired for 5 years, was drinking heavily, smoked 6-7 packs of cigarettes a day, and had ballooned up to 300 pounds. He did get back into shape, and the fight took place in 1910. It was by far the biggest most anticipated sporting event of the 20th century up to that point. Jeffries might have won a few early rounds, but Johnson outboxed him and knocked him out in the 15th round. The overtly racist crowd attending the fight was stunned silent. As a result of the fight, race riots across the country led to the deaths of 11 people. Scores more were wounded.

Jack Johnson defeated Jim Jeffries in 1910. A sea of white people were stunned silent by the result.

Johnson went to Europe due to legal difficulties which I will discuss below. There, he beat overmatched competition in exhibitions simply for pocket money, including the first all-black heavyweight championship bout (for the real title) against Battling Jim Johnson. His next big fight was in 1915 in Havana, Cuba against Jess Willard, an ex-bronco buster who was as big as modern heavyweights at 6’7″ and 230 pounds. By now, Johnson was not training hard and was overconfident. He agreed to a 45 round fight and easily outboxed Willard for most of 20 rounds. If it would have been like a modern 12 or 15 round fight, he would have easily retained his crown by decision. Instead, it was very hot, and Willard used his weight to wear Johnson out. Finally, he knocked Johnson out in the 26th round. Years later, Johnson claimed he threw the fight, but evidence suggests this was not true, and he was trying to sell a phony story for money. It was over 90 degrees F, and it doesn’t make sense that he would toil so hard in that heat, if he was planning on taking a dive. Johnson continued to fight exhibitions for money but never fought a top contender after losing his crown. He wanted to fight Jack Dempsey who destroyed Willard in 1919 to win the heavyweight crown, but Dempsey’s promoter wouldn’t let him fight black boxers. Though Dempsey’s aggressive style was tailor made for Johnson, he was much younger and in much better shape. Dempsey likely would have won. Johnson fought well into his sixties because he was always nearly broke. Until he was 48 he won against overmatched competition and made top contender Firpo look bad in sparring, but in his late 40s he even started losing to lesser opponents.

Johnson was already reviled for being a black heavyweight champion, but he made even more enemies by openly courting and marrying white women when miscegenation was illegal in more than half of the states. Most of the women were prostitutes who he referred to as his wife when in public. He did fall in love with the mentally unstable actress Etta Duryea, and he really married her. Johnson’s conduct was questionable. He continued seeing prostitutes behind her back, and he beat her (putting her in the hospital) at least once. She suffered from depression and committed suicide. 3 weeks later, Johnson started seeing another white prostitute, Lucille Cameron who performed in his integrated night club known as the Cafe de Champion. He married her, and her mother, with the aid of a crooked lawyer, falsely accused Johnson of forcibly holding her captive. This began Johnson’s legal troubles, eventually forcing him to live overseas as a fugitive from justice. There was a popular conspiracy theory then that Jews were kidnapping white women and forcing them to live as slaves for rich black men. As a result, Congress passed The Mann Act which expressly forbade the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes. (An unmarried couple who went out of state for a vacation together could be prosecuted, showing how ridiculous this law was.) Johnson tried to bribe his way out of it but was forced to flee to Canada to avoid a certain prison sentence. From there he went to England and France and performed a strong man act and acted in plays in theaters between fights. He even starred in a Spanish movie, though that film hasn’t survived the ravages of time. He spent some time in Cuba where he lost to Willard, and Mexico before crossing the border and turning himself in to authorities. The feds sent him to Leavenworth prison for 2 years, but thanks to his political connections, he was treated better than the average prisoner and put on boxing shows for inmates.

After his release from prison, Johnson performed in small theaters and boxed for small prize winnings, but he was not popular and was no longer front-page news. He stumbled from one failed money-making scheme to another, and he never saved much money. He was always a spend-thrift. He did buy a house for his mother, but he spent most of his money on fast cars, jewelry, and women. His 2nd wife divorced him. Shortly after this divorce, he married his 3rd and final wife, Irene Pineaux. She said he was charming, and she always vigorously defended his reputation.

Johnson was a reckless driver. He once spent 2 weeks in jail for repeated speeding tickets, and 1 year when he was drinking heavily, he totaled 4 cars. He drove even faster during ice storms, and some of his friends refused to be passengers in his car. On a road trip from Chicago to Texas, he and his companion stopped at a restaurant but were forced to eat behind the establishment because they didn’t serve black people. Johnson drove so angrily after this incident, he wrecked his car and died as a result of the accident. His passenger survived. Johnson was 67.

Black boxers of later generations blamed Johnson for their difficulties in getting chances to fight for titles. They thought his open defiance of social norms gave black fighters a bad reputation. Joe Louis overcame this obstacle and became the first black boxing champion who was mostly accepted by white people. Johnson had a feud with Louis and openly rooted for his opponents. Jack Blackburn was Louis’s trainer. Blackburn was a great lightweight boxer who never had a chance to fight for the title. Despite being a lightweight, he outboxed Johnson in sparring decades earlier, and they didn’t like each other. Johnson wanted Louis to fire Blackburn and hire him as his trainer. Louis’s refused to fire Blackburn, and a bitter jealous Johnson constantly belittled Louis in the press, starting a feud that never ended, while they lived. Muhammad Ali, however, always expressed his admiration for Johnson’s defiance against the racist norms of the time.

Reference:

Ward, Geoffrey

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

Vintage Books 2004

https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/1187

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The Landscape that Saved King Alfred the Great

June 12, 2025

If not for King Alfred the Great, Great Britain would be a Scandinavian country today. Viking raiders began marauding Britain during the late 8th century. Most of the people who lived in Britain at the time descended from Angles and Saxons–Germanic tribes that began migrating to Britain around 500 AD after the Roman Empire collapsed. Wales was a refuge for the original inhabitants of Britain. The region we know today as England consisted of several kingdoms during the 9th century. Aside from occasional civil wars within the kingdoms, the people living on the island then were not used to violence, and the Vikings found easy victims in the undefended monasteries. They robbed and murdered defenseless nuns and monks. These pious people believed the Viking attacks were divine retribution because they weren’t devoted enough to God. Nevertheless, the local kings began raising armies and fighting back against the Viking marauders. King Egbert, Alfred’s grandfather, fought the Vikings, losing 1 battle, but winning another during 839. Aelwulf, Alfred’s father, inherited the throne in 840.

Alfred the Great is considered the founder of modern England, but he survived numerous battles with Vikings and a coup before he became known as the Great king. He was born in 839, the youngest of 5 siblings–his oldest brothers were born to a different mother, and they were decades older than him. After Aelwulf’s death Alfred’s older brothers became kings of Wessex, a kingdom in the southern part of Britain.

Viking raiders began establishing permanent settlements in Britain and eventually took over the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia. Kings often paid tribute to get the Vikings to leave them alone, but then the Vikings would break their oaths and simply occupy a different region of the kingdom. Vikings would set up puppet kings in the kingdoms they controlled. The Vikings launched a major invasion with 300-400 warships and 5000 men during 865. Alfred helped his last surviving brother king fight the Vikings. They allied with the neighboring kingdom of Mercia to fight off the Vikings, but when the Vikings next invaded Wessex, Mercia did not return the favor. Alfred’s older brother died, probably from wounds suffered weeks earlier at the Battle of Mereton, and Alfred inherited the throne in 871.

Kings participated in battles during this time period. Battles were primitive brute force in the 9th century. Both sides would form shield walls and push against each other. Men in the first row tried to stab around and between the shields with swords and spears. When a shield holder fell, another would move up to plug the gap. Saxon and Viking kings often died during these types of battles.

These were the kingdoms of England during the 9th century. King Alfred the Great laid the groundwork for them to be united. His son, Edward, united them all into the country of England.

9th century warfare was brutal hand to hand combat. The goal was to break through the other army’s shield wall. Kings participated.

9th century Britain was wilderness and farmland. There were very few towns and a few people lived in abandoned Roman ruins. Unbroken oak forest thousands of square miles in extant still existed then.

King Alfred and his followers were forced to hide in a marsh after a coup staged by disloyal nobles allied with the Vikings.

Artist’s depiction of King Alfred the Great hiding in a marsh following a coup.

King Alfred hid on a hill in the middle of a marsh that was accessible only by boat. The hill was hidden by an alder scrub thicket. All these other structures were built long after Alfred hid here.

During the first 4 years of Alfred’s reign Vikings conquered Mercia because Alfred and his brother had fought them to a standstill in Wessex and bribed them to go away. This time Alfred did not come to Mercia’s rescue. In the year 875 Vikings began another major invasion of Wessex, but a storm sank hundreds of Viking ships. Alfred attacked the remaining Vikings and forced them to retreat back to Mercia. To raise and maintain his army, Alfred depended upon noblemen landowners to provide money and peasant manpower. Noblemen who couldn’t provide this were forced to cede land to the king. Some key noblemen decided that instead of paying King Alfred to defend the kingdom against the Vikings that they would pay the Vikings directly who would establish a puppet king to replace Alfred. It was a coup and Alfred was forced to flee with a few of his loyal followers. He could have abdicated the throne and lived in exile at the Vatican, like other Saxon kings deposed by the Vikings. Instead, he decided to fight for his throne.

During the 9th century much of Britain was a vast wilderness. There were great unbroken oak forests, thousands of miles in extant including Selwood, Ashdon, and Andredsweald. Heaths and great wetlands existed on less well drained sites. The rest was farmland. Very few people lived in towns or abandoned Roman ruins. The population of Wessex was an estimated 500,000, compared to a population of 5.3 million today. Alfred and his men found a 2-acre hill accessible only by boat in the middle of a marsh. An alder break hid the island. (Alder forms scrubby thickets difficult to penetrate.) Today, the island is known as Athelney, and it’s located on the Somerset Levels. It’s no longer a marsh, but instead is drained farmland that would be unrecognizable to people who lived here in the 9th century. Alfred and his followers lived off the land here. They fished and hunted and robbed Viking foraging parties. They started fighting a kind of guerilla warfare from this hidden base. The wilderness around them abounded with roe deer, wild boars, feral goats, rabbits, wolves, beaver, ducks, and geese. This untracked wilderness allowed Alfred to regroup and regain support among the locals.

Alfred raised an army of 4,000 peasants and farmers who marched against the Vikings and defeated them in battle. He forced the Viking King Guthrum to leave Wessex. Alfred ruled Wessex until his death in 899, and he laid the groundwork for his son, Edward, to unite all the kingdoms into the nation of England. Alfred established a defense in depth system, having fortifications built throughout his kingdom. He developed an alternating system of service with half the men serving in the army, while the other half worked on their farms. This reduced famine and desertion. He founded the English navy, so ships could patrol against Viking raiders. He allowed some noblemen to build trading warehouses on the rivers and promoted the development of towns within abandoned Roman ruins. These steps created a middle class. He also promoted literacy and education, improving communication with the bureaucrats who helped him run the country. He married his daughter to the king of Mercia, in effect merging the 2 most populous kingdoms in England. England became too strong for Vikings to prey upon, and they focused on invading and conquering French kingdoms. Descendents of these French Vikings didn’t successfully invade England again until 1066.

Reference:

Pollard, Justin

Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England

John Murray Publishers 2005

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The Origins of the Xylophone, Marimba, Vibraphone, and Glockenspiel

May 22, 2025

For years I joked I was going to learn how to play the xylophone, so I could attract groupies with big boobs. Imagine the ludicrous site of an elderly man (I’m 63) capturing a following of voluptuous women by mastering an instrument that went out of fashion 80 years ago. I really do love the way the xylophone sounds though, and when my wife requested a keyboard for Christmas, I decided I would use it to learn how to read music, then really learn how to play the xylophone. I purchased a glockenspiel instead because it was cheaper, and now I’m learning easy songs and riffs to play on it. I became curious about these types of instruments and researched the origins of them. Striking different keys to get different sounds is an ancient concept, likely pre-historic.

Xylophones may have been invented separately in Africa and Southeast Asia, though I hypothesize an early form of xylophone may have been brought out of Africa when the first Homo sapiens left the continent 50,000 years ago. The earliest known xylophone existed in Southeast Asia 1200 years ago. It’s similar to the harmonium, an instrument known to have existed in China 4000 years ago. A harmonium is simply a xylophone with vertical keys instead of horizontal keys. Xylophone is a Latin word meaning wood sound. The earliest mention of a xylophone in Europe dates to 1511. Folk musicians in Central Europe played xylophones 200 years earlier than this, and they likely adopted the instrument following the Mongol invasions by the Khan dynasty. The Mongols massacred many Europeans, but eventually opened up a cultural exchange, bringing Chinese trade, after they were done killing and pillaging.

This is a primitive type of marimba with fire-cured wooden keys and gourds used as resonators.

A panharmonicon with vertical keys instead of horizontal.

African slaves brought knowledge of how to build marimbas to Guatemala and southern Mexico about 500 years ago.

The vibraphone was invented in 1921 and is simply a marimba with metal keys instead of wooden.

An early form of glockenspiel. A glockenspiel is a xylophone with metal keys instead of wooden. They are also called bells. Bells can be used instead of metal keys.

A marimba is a xylophone with resonator pipes below the keys. The earliest known occurrence of the marimba is from southern Mexico and Guatemala in 1545. The technology to build a marimba came from African slaves who played the instrument. Africans fire-roasted wooden boards and placed them over gourds. Today, marimbas use metal pipes instead of gourds. The length of the boards determines which key they sound like.

Herman Winterhoff invented the vibraphone in 1921, and this instrument surpassed the popularity of the xylophone and marimba among jazz musicians during the big band era. A vibraphone is simply a marimba with metal keys instead of wooden keys, and they also have resonator pipes below the keys. Lionel Hampton popularized the vibraphone during the big band jazz era of the time, and he was a popular member of the Benny Goodman Orchestra.

I figured out how to play the riff used when Benny and Lionel alternate solos. I think I’m going to have to learn Hampton’s solos by watching old videos of him playing because I don’t think his parts are written down.

Augusta Martiel invented the modern glockenspiel during 1886, but it is based on an ancient Chinese use of bells to produce melodies. Some musicians simply refer to a glockenspiel as bells. A glockenspiel is a xylophone with metal instead of wooden keys.

I’ve been learning to play songs on the glockenspiel for about a month now. Glockenspiels cost about half as much as a vibraphone, but once I improve and can play 500 songs, I might spring for one. I think they sound nicer. I’ve learned to play “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “God Bless America,” “House of the Rising Sun,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “The Girl from Ipanema,” “Hall of the Mountain King,” “Werewolves of London,” and “Something” and “Ob La Di Ob La Da” by the Beatles. I can play several cool rhythm and blues riffs, and the basic bass line for most 1950’s rock songs. I figured out how to play a Lionel Hampton riff from Benny Goodman’s “Stealing Apples. My goal is to someday play as well as him. I’ve struggled figuring out how to play “Under my Thumb.” I think I have the notes correct, but the Rolling Stones used a marimba, and the song just doesn’t sound right on a glockenspiel.

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The Battle of Chickamauga and the Horrors of War

October 27, 2022

I can think of nothing more terrifying than being in combat with other human beings. Typical Halloween frights don’t scare me, but the thought of men wielding guns, tanks, combat aircraft, and conventional or nuclear-tipped missiles is very frightening. I sympathize with the people of Ukraine and especially the soldiers who are defending freedom and democracy in a large-scale war taking place now. In pop culture war and horror go hand-in-hand in movies and books. There used to be a comic book entitled Weird War Tales published from 1971-1983 by DC comics. The stories involved killing, maiming, torture, and psychological trauma with the added element of the supernatural. What better way to keep a kid awake late into the night? In reality war is horrible enough without a supernatural element.

Weird War Tales was a popular comic book from 1971-1983. For Halloween this year, I can think of nothing more terrifying than men killing each other at the behest of their governments.

The Battle of Chickamauga was 2nd only to Gettysburg as the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. A few months before this battle General Rosencrans of the Union Army outflanked General Bragg of the Confederate Army in a brilliant tactical maneuver and forced them to retreat from Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Union Army advanced all the way to the Chickamauga Valley in North Georgia. General Bragg wanted to retake Chattanooga, and he chose to attack the Union Army in the Chickamauga Valley on September 19, 1863. The Confederates had a manpower advantage here with 65,000 troops vs 60,000 Union troops. The Union lines held on the first day of the battle. On the second day Rosencrans mistakenly thought there was a hole in his line, and he blundered by rushing thousands of reinforcements to where there was no gap in his line. This created an actual gap in his line, and the Confederates pushed through, forcing the Union Army to retreat. The Union Army did fight a successful rearguard action to cover their retreat back to Chattanooga where they spent the winter. The Battle of Chickamauga left Confederates with 18,454 casualties and the Union with 16,170 casualties.

Map of the Battle of Chickamauga. The Union lost this battle due to a General’s blunder.
Union and Confederate soldiers killed each other in the woods and fields at this location. Snodgrass Hill is where Union troops successfully fought a rearguard action, allowing them to retreat back to Chattanooga.
Imagine dead bodies strewn about this split rail fence.
Staring down the barrel of a cannon. Some of the new repeating rifles had a longer range than artillery during the Civil War. Imagine hundreds of bayonet wielding soldiers running up this hill toward you, seemingly coming out of nowhere from the smoke, dust, and shadows.
Imagine trying to poke a hole through someone with that bayonet. Imagine trying to stop an enemy soldier from trying to poke a hole through you, when you just ran out of bullets.

This battle marked the first widespread use of the Spencer repeating rifle, a weapon capable of firing 14 rounds per minute compared to just 2-3 rounds per minute for the average rifle or musket of the time. Union soldiers were shocked at how fast they could mow down Confederate soldiers at once. It was a sign of what would happen in future wars. The bullets used during the Civil War, known as Minie balls, were so large they caused traumatic damage to any limb struck. This explains why there were so many amputations during the Civil War. Even modern medical technology couldn’t salvage a limb struck by a Minie ball. Amputation was the only treatment then, and if Minie balls were used today amputation might also be the only option. Anesthesia was in its infancy and not always available then. Getting a limb sawn off without anesthesia must have been a horrible ordeal

When southern apologists claim black people fought on their side, what they mean is yes, some of them brought their slaves with them. This slave saved his master from a gruesome unnecessary leg amputation by sneaking him out of the hospital. The richer soldiers brought their body servants with them. A body servant was a slave that helped their master get dressed (and probably helped them wipe their ass too).
This man fought for the Union at The Battle of Chickamauga. He later became a lawyer and unsuccessfully argued in front of the Supreme Court against the separate but equal educational system in Plessy vs Ferguson.

Following the Union defeat, General Bragg occupied the heights surrounding Chattanooga. He planned to lay siege to Chattanooga instead of directly attacking it. Many military strategists have criticized this decision. General Grant replaced General Rosencrans. Eventually, the Union Army chased the Confederates away from the heights surrounding Chattanooga. Over the winter General Grant improved Union supply lines in this region, and in the spring he unleashed General Sherman and his troops on the Confederacy, leading to Sherman’s march through Georgia and the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy.

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Railroad Ecology

September 15, 2022

George Stephenson invented the first workable steam engine locomotive in 1814, and he designed the first working rail system in 1820. The British government approved the construction of this first track used for hauling coal. The first rails were made of wood, but they wouldn’t hold locomotives filled with heavy loads of coal. The type of iron available then was also not strong enough to hold all that weight, so Stephenson invented an improved type of iron that could. Americans bought this technology and constructed our first working railway track in 1828. It was the Baltimore-Ohio Railroad and was 8 miles long. Tavern keepers opposed the construction of railways because they feared losing business when railway tracks were constructed far from their establishments, and religious nuts who thought railroads were sinful also fought against their construction, but the free market eventually won. Today, there are over 800,000 miles of railway tracks around the world.

George Stephenson invented the first workable locomotive steam engine in 1814. He also invented the iron used on railway tracks.

The many miles of railway tracks across the world have a big impact on the environment. They increase mortality of large animals, and they serve as migratory barriers for smaller animals, especially amphibians. Herbicides used to suppress vegetation influence the types of species that can live near railway embankments. Grassland corridors on railway embankments cut through forest facilitate the spread of invasive plant species. The impact is so extensive that railroad ecology has become a subset within the science of ecology. Railroad ecology has been more studied in Europe than the United States, but more and more scientists here are starting to pay attention to it.

A study in southern Poland looked at the influence of railway embankments on bird populations. This study counted 1644 individuals of 67 species. They found railway embankments hosted a greater diversity of species, but total number of birds was about the same as found in agricultural fields. They counted 923 individuals of 58 species found on railway embankments. The 3 most abundant in order were starlings, skylarks, and white-throated sparrows. 17 species were only found on railroad embankments, while 9 species were only found in agricultural fields. Railway transects had higher diversity, but birds were most abundant where railway embankments passed over wetlands, wet meadows, slopes, and bushy areas.

A scientific study found skylarks were the 2nd most common species of bird found on railroad embankments in southern Poland.

A study in Alberta Canada looked at wildlife mortality caused by train collisions with large mammals. This study determined 646 large mammals were killed by trains along 1 major track between 1995-2018. Species killed by trains here included grizzly and black bears, white tail and mule deer, bighorn sheep, moose, wolf, coyote, and Canadian lynx. 50 bears, 27 large carnivores, and 560 ungulates were killed. Areas with increased train speed and near water resulted in greater casualties. Trains coming around bends also caught large mammals by surprise.

This moose was rescued, but many large mammals are killed by trains every year.

References:

Cassady, Colleen, V. Whittingham, A. Forshner, A. Gangadhare, and D. Lietze

“Railway Mortality for several Mammal Species Increases with Train Speed, Proximity to Water, and Truck Curvature”

Scientific Reports 20776 2020

Kajzer-Bonk, J. et. al.

“The Effect of Railways on Bird Diversity in Farmland”

Environmental Science and Pollution Research 26 2019

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Natural History in Yiddish

September 8, 2022

My late Grandfather on my father’s side spoke 7 languages, and his second wife spoke 8. They lived in Europe where countries that have different official languages border each other. I know 1 language because I live in the U.S. and never needed to learn a different one, though I long wish I was fluent in more than just English. I took a year of Spanish and a year of French in high school, but I’ve forgotten most of what I learned and never did master either enough to speak or understand them fluently. I suffer from a neurological condition that puts me at high risk for developing dementia. To delay the onset, I decided to keep my mind active by learning a new language. I chose Yiddish. My dad used to pepper his language with Yiddish words, and I think this experience gives me a head start. Moreover, my last name is Yiddish. Gelbart is Yiddish for yellow beard. Centuries ago, one of my ancestors must have been a blonde.

Yiddish is older than modern English and modern German. Modern English originated between 1400 AD-1500 AD, and modern German began between 1500AD-1600 AD, but Yiddish originated about 1000 AD. Yiddish literally means Jewish, and it was the language most often spoken by Jews of Central Europe until World War II. When Judea (now Israel) was a colony of the Roman Empire, Jews periodically rebelled. To suppress rebellion and dissent, Romans took a majority of the Jewish population into slavery and removed them from Judea, spreading them throughout the Roman Empire where they could no longer muster an organized resistance. Eventually, Jews in what today are Italy and France became free merchants and artisans. Germanic kings invited them to live in the Rhine River valley to improve their economies. Jews were likely speaking a combination of archaic Italian and French along with Hebrew and the related language of Aramaic. Soon, they picked up the medieval German languages spoken in the Rhine River valley. Whenever economic times deteriorated, Jews became the scapegoats, and the nobility would put the blame on them, and they would often be expelled. But Slavic kings located in what today are Poland and Russia would invite them to their kingdoms to help improve their economies. The Yiddish language picked up Slavic words as well. Yiddish is a mix of all these languages but is primarily medieval German with about 15% Hebrew. Jews still spoke Hebrew in synagogues and schools, but Yiddish was a street language used in their daily lives. Hebrew was considered a holy language. Before World War II there were 11 million Yiddish speakers in the world, but today there are just 600,000, mostly Hasidic Jews living in New York City and Israel. Israel chose Hebrew over Yiddish as its official language.

When the Romans conquered Judea and later suppressed rebellions, they enslaved much of the population and transported the Jewish slaves throughout the Roman Empire. Many Jews that were settled in Italy and France eventually migrated to kingdoms where Germanic languages were spoken. Yiddish–a complex mix of Hebrew, Romance languages, Slavic languages, and medieval German–originated there.

I’ve encountered difficulties learning Yiddish. Yiddish uses the Hebrew alphabet. I took some Hebrew classes 50 years ago, but to be honest most of the Hebrew alphabet letters look alike to me. I decided learning the Hebrew alphabet was too challenging for me, so I am learning Yiddish transliterated into the English alphabet. I think Yiddish is probably no harder to learn than English for people who didn’t grow up speaking it. However, there are some quirks. For example the article “the” has 4 different versions in Yiddish depending upon the gender of the noun it precedes, and there is no rhyme or reason for whether a noun is masculine, feminine, or neutral. Masculine nouns are preceded by der, feminine nouns by di, and neutral nouns by dos. To know which is which requires rote memorization of every single noun and its preceding “the.” Masculine nouns that are the objects of a sentence or in a prepositional phrase are preceded by a 4th version of “the”–dem. Feminine nouns in prepositional phrases become masculine and are preceded by der instead of di. Neutral nouns in prepositional phrases are preceded by dem. Prepositions and “the” articles commonly become contractions–an additional challenge. Another complexity are plural words. In English plural words are simply followed by an s, though some words require the middle vowels to be changed, as in geese instead of gooses. In Yiddish plural words can end in en, s, er (with a middle vowel change), im, and es. Money and time have no plural versions but remain singular.

Today, I combined my natural history studies with my Yiddish studies and learned about 50 natural history words in Yiddish. Some words are remarkably similar or exactly the same in both languages, but others are quite different. I got these from google translate, so if they are wrong blame that.

natural history-natural geshikhte

tiger-tiger

lion-leyb

cat-kats

wolf-vulf

dog-hunt (Interesting. Dogs were used for hunting, so hunt?)

bear-bir

cow-ku

buffalo-buflox (Ox?)

horse-ferd

sheep-shep

elephant-helfin

camel-kemi

hare-hoz (My father called rabbits, “hazels.”)

rabbit-kinigi (Similar to the archaic word for rabbit in English–coney)

squirrel-veverke

wild boar-vilde khazer (Khazer is a big insult in Yiddish because pigs are not kosher.)

deer-hirgch or dir

animal-khaye or behamye (Similar to beast?)

mouse–moyte

rat-shtshur

bird-foygi

dove-tayb

eagle-odler

hawk-fulk

owl-sove

snake-shlang (Similar to shlong, slang for a penis)

frog-zobe

dinosaur-daynasar

ground sloth-erd slotsch (Earth similar to erd)

catfish-som

carbon dating-tshod dayting

sedimentary rock-sedementari shteyn

spider-shpin (As in spin a web)

ant-muraske

cockroach-taraken

open pine savannah-efenen sosne savannah

oak woodland-demb vudland

beech and birch forest-bitsch aun berne veld

prairie-preri

dry scrubland-trukn skrublem

sea shore-im brig

grassy hill-granike berg

ecology-ekologi

copulation-kapayaleyshen

sperm-zeyre

erection-ireksten

remove your bra and panties-aropnemen dayn biusthalter aun heyzelke (Another word for bra is stanik.)

Reference:

Blech, Benjamin

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Yiddish

Alpha Books 2000

Posted in History | 2 Comments »

The First Nazi Criminal Extradited from the U.S. to Germany was a Friendly Housewife

July 20, 2022

I was speaking quietly to my friend in the school cafeteria at Washington Elementary in Niles, Ohio 53 years ago when Mrs. Yuhasz snuck up behind me, yanked me up by the back of my shirt, and nailed me on the butt with a club perforated with holes that reduced wind resistance. I was so startled; I literally pissed my pants. The elementary school shared the same building with the junior high, and Mrs. Yuhasz, the junior high counselor, demanded absolute silence because school kids chattering during lunch might interfere with junior high students concentrating on their scholarly studies. Mrs. Yuhasz often slammed her club on a table, transforming the chatter into sudden silence. On other occasions she’d shock the students into silence by beating 1 of us as an example.

5 years after the butt-beating, I had an appointment to see Mrs. Yuhasz while she was performing her official duties as a middle school counselor. She said she was “glad we got along now” as if we ever had had any interaction since she’d clubbed my rear. She remembered that incident, and this suggests to me that Nazi war criminals remembered every act of violence they ever perpetrated on their victims. Mrs. Yuhasz could be nice. I’m sure she baked cookies for kids visiting her house. But I remember her as a brutal woman, and I was reminded of her while reading a history of Nazi war criminals.

Much to my surprise, the first Nazi war criminal extradited from the U.S. to Germany was a woman, and this extradition didn’t occur until 1973. Her name was Hermine Braunsteiner-Ryan. During World War II she was a factory worker when her landlord suggested she sign up to be a SS prison guard. She worked at the Ravensbruck Prison, a concentration camp for women in northern Germany where an estimated 90,000 people died. Then she transferred to the Madjanek Camp in Poland, a slave textile factory with 7 gas chambers and 2 gallows. An estimated 78,000 people died here. Hermine wore hob-nailed boots and carried a whip. She kicked and/or whipped 80 starving women to death. In addition she threw 103 children onto crowded trains headed for gas chambers. She picked the kids up by their hair when she threw them on the trains. After the war the U.S. Army arrested her, and she spent a mere 3 years in an Austrian prison.

Hermine Braunsteiner-Ryan was the first Nazi war criminal extradited from the U.S. back to Germany. She kicked and whipped 80 women to death and threw (literally) over 100 children on trains bound for gas chambers.

Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi hunter, never heard of Hermine until he was eating in a restaurant while on vacation in Israel during 1964. 3 women who served time at Majdanak told him about Hermine, and he went to work locating her. After her release from prison, she worked as a waitress and met an American construction worker vacationing in Austria. They fell in love and got married. They moved to Canada, then New York City. Wiesenthal assigned a New York Times reporter, Joseph Lelyveld, the task of tracking down her exact address. He found her and conducted an interview. He described her as a big boned blonde wearing pink and white shorts and a white blouse. She was in the process of painting the interior of her house during the interview. He informed her Wiesenthal was looking to bring her to justice. She said she’d already served time, but when the reporter told her that was for crimes committed at Ravensbruck and not Madjanak, she burst into tears and lamented that her life was over. Still, her husband supported her and claimed she “wouldn’t hurt a fly.” He crowdfunded her legal defense, and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service kept bungling the case. Hermine had lied on her immigration application about serving time in prison–grounds for immediate deportation. Nevertheless, it took 9 years before she was finally extradited to Germany. She stood trial with 14 other Nazi war criminals. The trial took 2 years, and she was sentenced to life in prison but was released 3 years before her death due to poor health. She had a leg amputated because of diabetes complications. How ironic. I wonder, if this was the leg, she used to kick women to death. Hermine died in 1999.

Of the estimated 10,000 Nazi war criminals who escaped to the U.S., only 128 faced legal proceedings, and of these just 67 were extradited. 28 of these criminals died while awaiting trial. It is shocking that just a fraction of 1% ever faced justice. The Red Cross and the Vatican actively helped Nazi war criminals escape to Argentina. I have no respect for either institution. Most Nazi war criminals have died of old age by now, but many likely served as teachers and school administrators who beat baby boomers with aerodynamically designed clubs when we were in school.

Reference:

Pick, Hella

Simon Wiesenthal: A Life in Search of Justice

Phoenix Paperbacks 1996

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