Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“Worthless
people live to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink to
live.”
Socrates
Recently
I have determined that many do not know the sequence of events that
preceded the American Civil War. I will try to present it without
editorial.
After
a series of fits and starts the United States became a democratic
republic with our present form of government being three branches:
Executive (President), Legislative (House and Senate) and Judicial
(Supreme Court). At that time many of our ancestors were very
suspicious of a centralized government because it too closely
resembled a monarchy (England) and we had just fought out way out of
one in the recent past. It was eventually proven that each state
could not support and defend itself independently so a finely
balanced republic was the answer. The southern United States was
the worlds major supplier of cotton along with a hell of a lot of
rice. This made the plantation owners very wealthy. There is no
doubt that much manpower was required to keep this much acreage
viable and slavery was the answer. At one point the population of
those southern agricultural states was about 50% slaves. In 1850 the
Republican Party was formed for the sole purpose of the abolition of
slavery. The writings of the Republican leaders and the southern
politicos showed a prolific increase in tension. Republican Abraham
Lincoln took office in 1860 in spite of losing the popular vote but
winning the electoral vote. That brought the tensions to the boiling
point and secession began. At that time the states were divided into
either “free states” or “slave states” meaning that slavery
was allowed in some states and not others. Congress made it a point
that there was an equal number of free and slave states so neither
side could dominate. In this time period there were 15 states each.
There were eleven “slave” states that seceded and four that did
not. Those that did not were Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and
Missouri. The Union army declared war against those states that had
seceded. The Union army did not do well in the first 18 months so
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This document freed
the slaves “in those states in rebellion.” Lincoln had admitted
that he hoped the slaves would rise in revolt and take some of the
heat off his military. The Lincoln administration admittedly had to
do a lot of dancing to keep Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri
from joining the Confederacy because they were slave states but were
not “in rebellion” so they stayed “slave states” until the
13th
Amendment was ratified. In January 1865 the US Congress (minus the
representatives from the Confederate states) passed a resolution in
the form of the 13th
Amendment that abolished slavery in the United States and its
possessions. On April 9 of 1865 the war in the Eastern theater ended
with the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia led by Robert E.
Lee. Lincoln was assassinated 5 days later. There was another
considerable Confederate army in the Carolinas led by Joseph Johnson
and he surrendered to William Sherman in North Carolina about two
weeks after Lee. There was yet other Confederate armies in the
western arena lead by General's Joe Shelby and Kirby Smith. They
fought a guerrilla war for a while but eventually those armies faded
away. On December 6 of 1865 the 13th
Amendment was ratified by all of the United States (Georgia being the
last one) and the bloodiest war in American history had ended along
with slavery.
This
is editorial:
The
Civil War may have been started because of slavery but the
Confederate soldiers did not fight like they did to protect it. 90
percent were not slave owners. When interviewed most said that they
fought for the right to secede no matter the reason and/or they felt
they were being invaded by the Union army.
2%
of the entire population of the United States was either killed or
died in this tragedy. Disease killed nearly a as many as combat.
Today 2% would be a little over 7 million, or about 95% of the
present population of New York City. I used New York City as an
example arbitrarily.
This
Date in History May 1
1960
On this date in this year I was in the United States Air Force
stationed at Eielson AFB, Alaska. Eielson was an intelligence
gathering and cold weather testing base, meaning there was a lot of
spy planes that passed through there like RB-47’s, RB-66’s,
RB-58’s, and an occasional U-2. I found out later that the U-2’s
were capable of flying at or above 70,000 feet and the CIA believed
that the Russians had no fighters or missiles that could reach that
altitude so they would send U-2’s on over flights of Russia taking
precision photos along the way. On one particular night, the klaxon
began blasting and SAC intelligence officers ran up in the control
tower with me and we spent the night together. The story was that
the Russians had something interesting going on near the Bering
Straits and our military wanted photos. This particular night they
chose to send out an RB-47 and a KC-135 tanker. Neither plane got
off the ground because the fuel was contaminated. To this day I
think it was sabotage and so did the SAC officers. Speaking of
U-2’s, later on one of them departed Karachi, Pakistan and was on
his way to Buda, Norway, but it might have been vice-versa but in any
event Russia is in the middle of that flight path. This spy flight
U-2 was shot down in Russia with CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers
aboard. The CIA was not worried, the said that there was no part of
the plane that was identifiable as American and the pilot was suppose
to commit suicide with a cyanide tablet that was aboard the aircraft,
therefore President Eisenhower said it was a weather recon aircraft
that had gotten off course. Little did President Ike know that the
pilot had not taken the poison but was alive and in the hands of the
Russians, parachute and a large chunk of the aircraft included.
After this Ike had to admit it was indeed a spy flight and the
relationship with the Russians hit an all time low. Powers was a
prisoner for two years then he was swapped for master Russian spy
Rudolph Abel. It seems that Abel had been spying for Russia in
United States. Spying is spying whether on the ground or in the air.
1898
A few months before the US battleship Maine exploded in Havana
harbor for reasons unknown. A naval investigation showed it was
caused by a mine no matter whose it was but that was probably not the
real reason. In any case, a series of events led to the United
States and Spain declaring war on each other. At the same time US
Commodore George Dewey was tasked by US President William McKinley
with the destruction of the Spanish fleet in the Pacific. Dewey
found the Spanish fleet anchored in Manila Bay in the Philippines.
Dewey had all the ships in his fleet to extinguish their lights and
on this night they sneaked into the harbor and deployed. At the
crack of dawn Commodore Dewey issued the famous order to the
commander of his flagship the USS Olympia saying “You may fire when
ready, Gridley.” And Gridley indeed opened fire and 10 of the
Spanish vessels were sunk in their moorings from which the Spanish
navy never recovered. The Spanish-American War was over in short
order after this fiasco.
Born today:
1918
TV host Jack Paar. He said “Immigration is the sincerest form
of flattery.” Si senor.
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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