Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“I am always looking for meaningful one night stands.”

                                  Dudley Moore

I took Saturday off to go fishing with my brother to Lake Russell. Russell is one of those in the Savannah River basin. The fishing forecast was very discouraging but my brother is the eternal optimist and said that if we tried this method or that method we should at least find where they are then it would be just trial and error to determine which bait would be best. It is a known fact that fish are cold-blooded and their metabolism slows down the proportionately to how cold it gets. We have had the coldest winter in recent memory and there is no doubt in my mind that the water in our nearby lakes have chilled to unprecedented levels and the “spawn” will be at least two weeks late. But that is not why we went fishing anyway. We caught two bass lost one at the boat, but we went fishing as a way of male bonding and camaraderie. It works every time. It’s a guy thing. By the way, we threw all the fish back as we do all year with the exception of one “mess” and we save those to have a family fish fry sometime in June and another in September.

Last Friday night there was a fire at Lake Crest Apartments here in Greenville. The fire was in building “C” which destroyed 23 apartments. One of those apartments belonged to a member of the “Four O’clock Club” and his name is Lee. Lee lost everything except the clothes on his back. He works at the Marriott at the airport so I guess he will have a place to sleep but he has a long road ahead to recover what he has lost.

We are here for you, Lee.

An religious argument has risen it ugly head at Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina. Erskine is sponsored by the Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church who recently fired over half of the College Board of Trustees and installed men and women that they, the church, had selected. The faculty and the alumni are raising almighty hell fearing that the church will start approving or disapproving the college curriculum, which would be likely. A great many of the institutions of higher learning in South Carolina have a religious affiliation making them a private school and out from under the heel of the state. In 1991 Furman University here in Greenville asked a revolutionary leader in the implementation of race reform to speak at the University. The Southern Baptist Convention representatives rejected this invitation as being disruptive but I think we all know why this speaker was rejected. Soon thereafter the Furman board of Trustees canceled their association with the Baptist saying that they do not need the money at the cost of censorship. They did the right thing. At Erskine the students are required to attend convocation but students at Wofford, also a religiously affiliated college, students are not required to attend any sort of religious ceremonies and seminars. Erskine has open discussions about creationism in history classes. That is treading on thin ice. If the discussion is used in the third person such as “Jack Wilson believed in creationism and was a patriot.” That is OK but if a professor stands up in front of a class and says “I believe in creationism and here is why.” History is a science and is not interested in one person’s opinion. History has to be events or statements that have tangible evidence that it was really said or happened. One person’s opinion has neither. That type of discussion belongs in a “Bible School” or a seminary.

This date in history March 15

1783    Previously the United States Congress had received word that a group of officers in the Continental Army had planned a secret meeting in the Newburgh, New York area to plan a revolt or mutiny, if you will, because Congress had failed to pay them and provide them with a clothing and food allowance that had been previously promised. On this date, George Washington shows up at the meeting of the officers. As you might suspect, you could hear a pin drop as Washington walked up to the rostrum. He read them the riot act and called the meeting illegal and unmilitary. He then pulled out a letter that Congress had sent him about the meeting. With his hands slightly shaking he reached in his coat pocket and retrieved a pair of spectacles and before he put them on he said “I am shaking because I have grown old in the service of my country, and now it appears that I will go blind.” At this there was not a dry eye in the house because they realized what a tremendous contribution this great man had made for his country and they felt very small for what they were contemplating. Anyway, the officers withdrew any threat to Congress and rededicated themselves to the service of their country. We all need to contemplate this.

44BC    On this date, the Ides of March, Julius Caesar is murdered in the Roman Senate by 60 Senators. Leading the attack was Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, better known as Brutus and Cassius. After Caesar was struck in the neck with a sword, the rest of the Senators fell upon him and made a contribution with a stab of their own. Because of the contribution that Caesar had made to Rome with his organizational skills and military expertise, he was named dictator for life. Well, come to find out that even this much power is too much for one man and the Senate agreed that they had to cap Caesar. It is legend that his last words were “et to Brute” meaning “You to Brutus?” Brutus and Caesar had been life long friends and I suppose Caesar could not believe that Brutus would be part of this conspiracy. As the saying goes “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

1831    On this date Edward R. Perry is born in Richmond, Massachusetts and is educated at Lee Academy and at Yale. In 1852 he moved to Georgia to teach school and study law. After a trip to Alabama he decided to settle in Pensacola, Florida to practice law. At the outbreak of the Civil War he offered his services to the Confederacy and became a member of the Pensacola Rifle Rangers. This unit was absorbed into the 2nd Florida Regiment which played and important role in several battles later on. His unit was involved in the Peninsular Campaign and especially the Battle of the Seven Days. The commander of his unit was killed at the Battle of Williamsburg and Perry assumed command and was promoted to Brigadier General and was given command of two other regiments. A few months later his unit was involved in the Battle of Antietam and suffered heavy losses. He came down with typhoid fever and he missed Gettysburg where his unit suffered heavy losses once again. He was able to rejoin his unit just in time for the Battle of the Wilderness where he was seriously wounded. This wound forced him to surrender command of his unit and he spent the rest of the war recruiting in Alabama. He served as Governor of Florida from 1884 to 1888. With his health failing he moved to a drier climate in Kerrville, Texas in 1889 where he died from a stroke in October of that year. He is buried in the cemetery of Saint John’s Church in Pensacola. The city of Perry, Florida is named in his honor.

1767    On this date Andrew Jackson is born in the Waxhaw villages on the North Carolina/South Carolina border. Andy was captured and tortured at the age of 13 by the British during the French and Indian War, an ordeal he never forgot and never cut a British military unit an inch of slack for the rest of his life. He proved it time and time again when he was sent to northern Florida to clear out the British. He did this with much efficiency and a hell of a lot of brutality. He was taken to task for his relentless slaughter of every Briton he found, but he was effective and they finally let him alone. We all know of his triumph at the Battle of New Orleans where he defeated the British assault almost to the point of annihilation. Andy fought many duels and was wounded more than once, but for the most part his opponents suffered far worse. He finally became president and was known for taking walks along the streets of Washington. On one occasion a man ran up to him and whipped out pistol and fired only the pistol misfired. He then pulled out another one and it misfired also. It was then that Andy raised his hickory cane and beat the living s--t out of this guy and probably would have killed him if others had not intervened. It was from this event that he gained the nickname of “Old Hickory”. It was Andy that signed the Removal Act which resulted in the transfer on the greatest majority of the Southern Cherokees to Oklahoma and the infamous “Trail of Tears”. Andy had proven time and again that he was a hater of blacks and Indians. Andy died in 1845 and is buried at his home near Nashville, Tennessee known as The Hermitage

1820 The State of Maine enters the Union. Maine was the other side of the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was allowed into the United States as a slave state if it was guaranteed that Maine would enter the Union as a free state so as to keep the balance of Free states to Slave states.

Born today:

1767    Future President Andrew Jackson. He said “It’s a damned poor mind that think of only one way to spell a word.” Andy was not the most educated man we ever had for a president but he damned sure was the meanest.

1849    English actress Dame Margaret Kendal. When speaking of Sarah Bernhardt she said “She is a great actress from the waist down.” I wonder what she meant by that.

1935    US televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. He said “The media is run by Satan, I wonder how many Christians are aware of that”. When it comes to being a sincere preacher, Jimmy is a good singer/piano player.

1892    English writer Dame Rebecca West. She said “The hatred of doing housework is the natural progression of civilization.” Methinks the good Dame Becky and I are related.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow