Daily history

Good morning,




Quote of the day:

“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”

Charles Schultz



The overwhelming topic of conversation this weekend was the weather. There was a bad-assed winter storm that just clipped the corner of my neck-of-the-woods on Saturday night. We got about 3 inches of snow but it melted on the roads as fast as it fell. This was not the case with my friends that live in the mountains about 40 miles north in the Asheville, NC area. They caught a lot more wind, rain and snow than us. I was coming back from lunch Sunday afternoon and that route gives me a clear view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Those mountains are cloaked in white, It reminded me of Alaska.



I got exactly what I wanted for Christmas…two flashlights and 6 DVD movies. I wanted Debbie does the Marine Corps but nobody could find it, so I settled for Gods and Generals, This was a follow up to Killer Angels. Killer Angels was focused on the Battle of Gettysburg whereas Gods and Generals was about the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Battle of the Wilderness. In both of those battles the Union Army took a severe ass-whipping. At the onset of the infantry charge at Fredericksburg almost 7,000 Union infantrymen were killed in 25 minutes. The slaughter was fantastic.



There was an engagement known as the Battle of the Wilderness. General R.E. Lee had taken a beating at Gettysburg and was retreating back into Virginia. He also knew that he was outnumbered by the Union forces by at least three to one and an infantry assault face to face would be suicide. This battle was the first one where the Union forces were commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant in the Eastern Theater. The Wilderness was a section of Virginia that had very nearly impenetrable undergrowth and thick forests. Lee knew that this type terrain would neutralize the advantage the Union forces had in overwhelming numbers. That part of Virginia had been suffering a drought and the woods and leaves were a tinderbox. Sure enough, when the Confederate and Union artillery began to exchange salvos, a forest fire began almost immediately from the exploding shells. The wounded Union and Confederate soldiers did not have a chance to escape and were burned alive. General Grant mounted his horse and rode far enough away that he could not hear the pitiful screams of those men that were trapped. Later on he said he did that so he would not be inhibited in the future from his typically aggressive style of warfare. It would have bothered the hell out of me too.



A long time ago I read a short story about a Welch Terrier named Blackfriar’s Bobby. It was the story about this dog’s dedication to his master. His master was a train engineer and was based in a town named Blackfriar in England. Every day Bobby would be at the train station at the same time every day waiting for his master. One fateful day Bobby’s master was killed in a train wreck and did not show at the train station to greet Bobby. Bobby showed up at the train station every day at about the same time for the rest of his life waiting for his master. There is a statue of Bobby cast in bronze at the train station donated by the people of Blackfriar. This story may have a few flaws because I did not research it as I normally do, but you dog lovers out there will understand what this all about.



This date in history December 27



1780    Earlier Patriot General Daniel Morgan ordered Patriot Colonel William Washington, George Washington’s cousin, and approximately 275 troops to neutralize the British /Loyalist presence near present day Mountville, South Carolina. The Loyalists led by British Colonel Thomas Waters had been harassing the Patriots in and around that area for some time. On this date Washington arrives with 75 cavalry under his direct command and 200 infantry under the command of Lt. Colonels Joe Hayes and Jim McCall. The area under scrutiny in particular was the area on Bush River near Fairforest Creek. Colonel Washington found the British/Loyalist camped near Hammond’s Store near Mountville. Mountville is about 8 miles south of present day Laurens, SC. Hammond’s Store was a blacksmith/trading post which Washington surrounded and launched a surprise attack. After a four day siege, of the 250 British/Loyalists, 150 were killed or wounded, 45 captured and rest scattered through the harsh South Carolina underbrush. The troops chose of burn Hammond’s Store. This area had only been occupied by Europeans since the early 1760’s and had been under almost continuous attack by the native Cherokees. There had been many cases of murder, rape and plunder by both the Europeans and the Cherokees against each other, not to mention the outlaws that attacked both sides. It was during this time period that this area was considered ungovernable because of all the different prejudices that had been instilled by the hostilities. As you might suspect, it took a limited war against the Cherokees and Choctaws to put and end that that problem. As soon as that was finished there was a short break of 14 years and then we chose to start a fight against those Colonists loyal to the British and the British themselves for our independence from Great Britain. It looks to me that they love of the sting of battle and is in our blood, especially the Scots and the Irish, and we have proven it time and time again. By the way, the exact location of Hammond’s Store has been lost to history.



1831    On this momentous day the HMS Beagle sailed from England for a five year voyage of discovery with a scientist named Charles Darwin aboard. The ship spent a lot of time on the east coast of South American continent before traversing Cape Horn over the west coast. The ship spent several months in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Peru. It was during this time period that Darwin developed the theory of evolution that he called “natural selection.” This theory is further described as the “survival of the fittest.” In other words, only the strong survive. After he had made all of his experiments and observations, almost apologetically Darwin wrote the immortal book “Origin of Species”. His book shook the scientific world to it roots, especially paleontology. What caused the turmoil was that this book and the one that followed, “The Descent of Man” tracked homo-sapiens back to sub-humans such as gorillas and chimpanzees. Needless to say the human elitists and the clergy hit the roof because it was adverse to what was taught in the Bible. But Darwin’s logic was impeccable and was almost bullet-proof and except for later changes made genetics and molecular biology his theory is valid today. To NOT believe what he found and deduced requires a leap of faith, not vice versa.



1979    Earlier in Afghanistan a devout communist named Hatzullah Amin had taken control of Afghanistan in a bloodless coup and began the installation as a hard –nosed, take-no-prisoners type communist government. Well, the well known Afghani warlords called bullshit on that and began a well armed revolution. Then another more moderate communist named Barack Karmal began an attempt to take control, except this time Russia sent in 75,000 troops to help Karmal gain control. Needless to say, Hatzullah was assassinated post haste and Karmal assumed control. The only problem here was that the waspish Afghani warlords were not happy with that either and escalated their attacks, especially against the Russian army. Ten years later, the Russians were no closer to vanquishing the Afghani rebels that at the beginning and had lost over 100,000 troops and this war had put Russia on the cusp of bankruptcy so they did the honorable thing. They gathered up their shit and went back to the house.



2004    Yesterday at about 3:00A Indonesian time an earthquake that read 9.3 on the Richter scale struck the ocean floor near the southern tip of the Indonesian archipelago. One part of the ocean bottom thrust upward by more than 15 feet displacing over 7 cubic miles of ocean. I guess we all remember the movies of the resulting tsunami that came ashore in Indonesia, Sumatra, India and even in Somalia in east Africa. There was even a tsunami in Alaska. This earthquake was the second strongest ever recorded since the Richter scale came into existence. Geologists tell use that the entire earth moved a centimeter or two as a result of this event. The strange thing is that the animals knew what was happening. Many of the dogs in some of the villages along the Indonesian coast began whining and ran to high ground and would not return. In some of the cities along the Indian coast, rats swarmed together in huge packs and ran down the streets in broad daylight. Some of the rats swarmed over the edge of wells and jumped in. It must have seemed like the end of the world. It was the end of the world for over 230,000 people.



1846    Earlier an American military unit led by US General John Wool had began an invasion of the state of Chihuahua in the Mexican War. On this date General Wool decided to withdraw when he found out that his wheeled vehicles could not be used in the desert. After this, US Colonel Alexander Doniphan and his arm of about 1,000 infantry began an attack on the Mexicans near El Paso, Texas. This rag-tag group of volunteers was known as “Doniphan’s Thousand”. He was facing an army of about 4,000 Mexicans. On his initial assault Doniphan’s wild men pierced the Mexican lines and kept going all the way to the sea of Cortez where they were picked up by ship and taken to New Orleans and discharged. This engagement proved that the Mexican Army was not as formidable as previously thought and US General Winfield Scott took an army into Mexico City which forced the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 in which Mexico ceded vast lands that stretched from Texas to the Pacific coast and up to Oregon.



Quotable quotes:



Upon meeting Henry James, William Faulkner said “He is one of the nicest old ladies I’ve ever met.”



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.