Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“A
study shows that the average man uses 60 calories in 30 minutes of
foreplay. Listen, a guy that engages in 30 minutes of foreplay is
not the average man.”
Jay
Leno
This Date in
History May 1
1863
On this date began the first day of the Battle of Chancellorsville,
Virginia. It was in this battle that the superior battle savvy of
CSA Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson became known to the
world. The Union army in that area known as the Army of the Potomac
and had been through several commanders and all had their asses
handed to them by CSA General R.E. Lee. The newest one was US
General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker. Hooker relieved US General
Ambrose Burnside after the disastrous Fredericksburg winter campaign
where Burnside lost 14,000 to Lee’s 5,000. Now was the best chance
the Union army ever had. The Army of the Potomac numbered 133,000
and Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia numbered 60,000. The
Confederate corps under the command of CSA General James Longstreet
was on detached duty to the south. Hooker’s plan was a good one.
He was going to pin down the Confederates that were dug in on the
flat plain of the Rappahannock River and then head upstream with a
substantial number of troops, cross the river and attack Lee from the
rear. Lee surmised that Hooker had this in mind and detached most of
his troops and headed upstream to meet Hooker’s flanking attack
leaving CSA General Jubal Early and his corps dug in on the flat
plain. Lee and Hooker met just north of the Wilderness and a battle
ensued. Hooker was baffled to think that Lee had correctly guessed
his strategy, and even though he had Lee outnumbered more than two to
one, he chose to dig in and set up a defensive perimeter. Lee jumped
at this chance to take the initiative and take it he did. Lee split
his army yet again and sent Stonewall Jackson and 25,000 troops
around the right flank of the Union defenses and about 5:00p,
rabbits, deer and other wildlife boiled out of the wood behind the
Union lines followed closely by Stonewall Jackson’s cavalry and
howling infantry. The Union infantry were gathered around their
campfires making dinner and we caught completely by surprise and
tumbled eastward in a headlong retreat. This action fragmented the
Union infantry and the Confederates were able to isolate and crush
them piecemeal. After a couple of days of this ass-whipping they and
General Hooker were heading their young asses back to Washington in a
total rout. It was in this battle and the Shenandoah Valley campaign
that made “Stonewall” Jackson is a legend in the annuls of
military history. Military historians call Lee’s action in this
encounter as “the perfect battle”. This evening Stonewall
Jackson was out scouting to find out where the Union positions ended
up. He was shot by a Confederate soldier by accident. The wound
cost him his left arm but it did not appear to be life threatening.
They were wrong. Jackson developed pneumonia and died 10 days later.
It was a terrible blow to the Confederate army.
1960
On this date 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. Well, 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 on United States while on
the ground and not aloft. Spying is spying.
1852
On this date Martha Jane Canary is born in Princeton, Missouri.
Martha Jane became a legend in the old west by claiming to be the
lover of Colonel George A. Custer and had indeed bore him a child.
The history of the west and Custer in particular showed that this was
a bullshit story. But she was indeed part of an expedition into the
so-called sacred hills of South Dakota, better known as the Black
Hills which the Cheyenne held sacred. It was there that she gained
the nickname of Calamity Jane. She was probably just a laundress,
but she was there. Eventually she ended up in one of the most famous
towns of the old west, Deadwood South Dakota. It was there that she
claimed that she was the lover of Wild Bill Hickock who was indeed a
temporary resident of Deadwood but there is no evidence that she and
Wild Bill ever got together. Eventually she told her tales so many
times that she began to believe them herself. Jane eventually let
the booze soak into her brain and she was found hiring her self out
in a black brothel in a town called Horr, Montana. She was offered
help but she said that she wanted to be left alone and “wanted to
go to hell by her own path.” A few months later she was found dead
in Terry, Wyoming. She was 51 years old.
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:
1922
US writer Joseph Heller. He said “Good God, how much reverence
can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include
phlegm and tooth decay as his divine system of creation?” Joe
Heller wrote the famous book “Catch 22”.
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
