Daily history

Good morning,


                                      Quote of the day:

"Just remember that amateurs build the Ark and professionals built the Titanic".
                                          Bill Cosby

Today's lesson will be a biography of an American adventurer and the daily lesson.


                                 John Colter

                              American Adventurer

John Colter was born near Staunton, Virginia in 1774. Little is known of Colter until his family moved to what would later become Maysville, Kentucky when little John was about five years old. Surviving in that area of the country was no easy trick. Even though the land later known as Kentucky was ceded to Virginia, the Indian tribes in the Ohio River valley who had not been party to this and considered that area to be their private hunting grounds. Believe it or not, the area was swarming with buffalo at the time. Anyway, these Indians raided the homes and villages of these honky settlers on a regular basis. Because of this, John Colter became an astute woodsman and an expert hunter and fighter. He was described as about 5’-10”, which was tall for that time, blond blue eyed and somewhat shy. He gained a reputation that caught the eye of a man named Meriwether Lewis. Lewis and his partner William Clark had been tasked by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the upper reaches of the recently acquired Louisiana Purchase and find out what was there and was assembling a crew. The obvious choice of travel was the Missouri River basin. No one at the time knew where the rivers origin was but they knew it went out of sight northwest of Saint Louis, Missouri at its branch with the Mississippi. America was very interested to find out if there was a water passage to the Pacific Ocean also. In October of 1803, Lewis offered Colter a place on the expedition at the pay of $5.00 a month. The offer was accepted and the expedition began gathering boats and supplies in Saint Louis. When Lewis and Clark were in Washington celebrating the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase, against the orders of the sergeant left in charge, Colter and three others left the camp named Fort Dubois and went to the closest “grog” shop (bar) and got hammered. After Lewis and Clark returned to the camp they told Colter and the others that in their absence, the sergeant left in charge had the authority of a Captain and any further disobedience would result in expulsion form the expedition and ordered them to not leave camp for ten days. Colter was given a court martial because he threatened to shoot the Sergeant that had turned them in. But after Colter apologized to Lewis and the sergeant, he was reinstated. Soldiers will be soldiers, ya’ll. In May of 1804 Colter and the others departed Saint Louis, crossed the Mississippi and began rowing upstream up the Missouri River amid much ceremony. Before the day was out they were out of sight of civilization. Right from the start it became obvious that Colter was a superior hunter and was assigned as the provider of game for the expedition. It also became obvious that Colter was a superior woodsman and frequently led small scouting groups. The expedition wintered on the opposite bank of the River from a large Mandan Indian village in North Dakota. When the river froze over, the curious but friendly Indians came over to visit and trade. As the expedition passed through Blackfoot Indian country, they were frequently harassed. The Blackfeet had a virtual monopoly of the fur trade in their area and would not hesitate to keep it that way. They just did not realize that the expedition was not interested in furs but they lusted after what they saw in the boats like swords, guns and knives and would steal them at any opportunity. Lewis and Clark did not want to kill any of them because they did not want to start a war. In August of 1805, Colter accompanied William Clark on a scouting trip to see if there was a water passage on the North Fork of the Salmon River. There wasn’t and Clark sent Colter back to tell Lewis the bad news. Finally, taking the advice of their Shoshone guide, they crossed the Rocky Mountains via Lost Trail Pass. It proved to be a very strenuous undertaking. The expedition finally reached the upper reaches of the Columbia River and Colter was selected to be one of a small group to see where the river ended. Colter had located some Nez Perce Indians and the Shoshone guide was able to communicate with them and they said the Columbia River emptied into the Pacific. And indeed the River did empty into the Pacific and the expedition beached their boats near present day Astoria, Oregon. Colter was selected part of a small group to explore the coast north of their location. The group made it up to the coast of present day Washington State but not before having several run-ins with the Klamath Indians. This group established a camp that they named Fort Clapsop and spent a miserable winter amid weeks long rains and snow as is the norm in that area. In the spring of 1806 Colter and the others began retracing their steps to re-join the rest of the expedition. It went much faster now because they knew what lay ahead. After reaching the rest of the expedition, Colter, Forest Hancock and Joe Dickson requested to be discharged so they could go out on their own and trap furs. All three were honorable discharged and set out down the Rocky Mountain on their great adventure. The only problem was that three weeks later the three had a falling out and Colter set out alone. In 1807 in the vicinity of the Big Horn River, he ran across a fur trapping expedition led by Manuel Lisa. Lisa later became a legend in the lore of Mountain Men. Colter joined with this group for a while, and as you might suspect the irascible Blackfeet was on their ass constantly because there was no doubt that these honkies were trapping furs. He helped the Lisa expedition build Fort Raymond at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Big Horn Rivers. He stayed with the Lisa expedition until 1809 and then he and a man name Joe Potts split off from the Lisa group. It was after this that Colter enhanced his reputation. He and Joe Potts were captured by those damned Blackfeet and given an option. Be killed immediately or be stripped naked and after given a small lead, try to outrun a group of pursuing warriors. Potts and Colter chose the later. Potts was not as fast on his feet as Colter and was caught and killed but the fleet-footed Colter ran until there was only one Indian left so he stopped and killed that one. It is believed that Colter was the first white man to lay eyes on the wonders of Yellowstone. He reported many “gushers of steam” (geysers) and “bilins” (hot water mud holes). He was not readily believed but further exploration proved him right. Further descriptions that he made ensured that he had explored the Grand Teton Valley around what is now the Jackson Hole, Wyoming area. During the entire time he had to be on the alert for the Blackfeet. Colter headed back toward Fort Raymond to meet up with two friends that were going into a fur trapping expedition with him. When he got there he found out that both of his friends had been tortured and killed by the Blackfeet. Colter said that he had had enough of the Blackfeet and headed toward Saint Louis where he arrived in the fall of 1810. He met with William Clark, his old commander and told him what he had seen. Using this information, Clark created a map that was used for the next 75 years. Colter fell ill and died in 1812 of “jaundice”. He is buried near New Haven, Missouri on private land.

What a wonderfully adventuresome but short life.

This date in history February 17

1865    On this date United States General William T. Sherman and his army of 60,000, in his continuing campaign against innocent and defenseless civilians, enters the state capitol of South Carolina and begins an orgy of rape and destruction. Two days before CSA General Wade Hampton III had pulled out of Columbia knowing that if he stayed and fought his small cavalry unit would be swarmed under and annihilated. The Yankee army took great pleasure and were very meticulous in their destruction of this city because they felt that it was South Carolina that was first to secede and provided the impetus for all the others. This method of “burnt turf” warfare was advocated by both General Ulysses Grant and President Abraham Lincoln. Ya’ll will need to remember that Abraham Lincoln issued a “call to arms to preserve the union” after the secession began. The US army had its ass handed to it by the Confederates in the first few battles of the Civil War and then the northerners pressed Lincoln to allow the Southerners to form their own country so as to stop the slaughter. Then Lincoln saw that patriotism was not going to get the job done so he switched horses and said the war was about freeing the slaves which changes the impetus from patriotism to a matter of conscience. Now when the US Army has a chance at barbarism with impunity they say they are punishing those that led the secession. That was bullshit; they are back on the other horse again. They were just doing rape and pillage because they could get away with it, politics not withstanding. But mankind’s history is full of similar events from the wars between the Mesopotamian city-states, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Tutsis vs Hutus not to mention what is happening in Darfur. Mankind’s history is full of atrocities against the innocents and it appears to me that there is no end in sight.

1906    Earlier there had been a workers strike at various silver and gold mines near Coeur de Lene, Idaho and the mine owners had beseeched the Governor Frank Steunenberg to intercede. Foolishly the Governor did indeed intercede in favor of the rich mine owners. Well, soon thereafter a bomb detonated at Governor Steunenberg’s fence gate at his Caldwell, Idaho home while he was opening it. The governor was killed instantly. The mine owners, not to be outdone, hire the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency to find out who killed the governor. The Pinkertons brought in their ace detective in John McParland to investigate in and around Caldwell. McParland and the local police focused in on a man named Tom Hogan. McParland befriended Hogan ands soon found out that he was not Tom Hogan but he was Harry Orchard, a renowned assassin. After much pressure was applied, Orchard implicated Bill Hayward, Charles Moyer and George Pettibone all leaders of the National Miners Union. The only problem was that all three were in Colorado where law enforcement is very sympathetic to unions and it was guaranteed that they would not extradite the three on the word of an admitted murderer. So Idaho did the next best thing. Several Idaho officials and a few Pinkerton agents went to Colorado and kidnapped the three back to Idaho. But the Union had another ace up its sleeve; they brought in famous lawyer Clarence Darrow in their defense. Hayward was tried first and the prosecution could not get any corroboration for Orchard’s testimony and it came down to Orchard’s testimony alone and being it almost a sure thing that he was guilty, Hayward was acquitted. Since Hayward was acquitted, there was no sense in trying the other two. After he was released Hayward fled to Russia where he spent the rest of his days. He was buried in the Kremlin.

1995    On this day the ferry Neptune departs Jeremie for Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This boat was only 150 feet long with three decks and was carrying 1,200 people and farm animals. Normally the trip takes 12 hours. The bad thing was that this boat was licensed for only 650 people, had no life rafts, no life preservers and no emergency radio. About half way to Port-au-Prince a storm rises and the bottom deck begins to become awash because of all the extra weight. The passengers, animals in tow, flee to the top deck. Well, ya’ll can guess what happened next. Most of the passengers get on one side and the boat capsizes. Haiti has no Navy or Coast Guard so those people are out there on their own paddling around and hanging on to the boat. Finally the United States send a Coast Guard cutter and they rescue about 350 people. The rest are lost. What a nightmare that must have been.

1820    On this date the United States Congress enacts legislation known as the Missouri Compromise. Since the beginning of the addition of more and more states the southern agrarian society had been fencing with the industrial north about slavery. The southern states were sensitive to having more free states than slaves states because if they were outnumbered, slavery could be abolished which would be devastating to the huge plantations. All of this was of great import to the south up until the invention of the cotton gin and the steam powered farm vehicles. Anyway, at this point in time Missouri was petitioning to come into the union as a slave state and the northern states objected because it would upset the balance. So the Missouri Compromise stated that Missouri would come into the union as a slave state and the next year Maine would be allowed in as a free state. All of this was just a delaying action because the Civil War exploded just 41 years later.

1944    On this date the United States Navy and Marines began the invasion of Eniwetok atoll in the northwest Marshall Islands. It was determined that the Marshall Islands had to be neutralized before the capture of the Marianas where the Unites States Air Force could launch strikes against the Japanese mainland. The capture of Eniwetok would achieve that purpose. The Japanese on Eniwetok were very outnumbered and outgunned. The battle was over in six days with only 64 of the original 2,677 Japanese soldiers surviving. There were only 195 American casualties. Soon after this the US Marines attacked and after a substantial struggle captured the Marianas Islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam. The US Air Force launched bombing attacks on the Japanese mainland from Guam and Saipan using the newly invented B-29 long range bomber. It was from Tinian Island, which is adjacent to Saipan, that the B-29 Enola Gay departed on August 6, 1945 to make the bomb runs on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and dropped a bomb that changed mankind for eternity.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow