Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“I
went to a Pavarotti concert once. He does not like it when you join
in.”
Mick
Miller
Trivia
question of the day:
Ancient
historian Plutarch reported that in Macedonia in the year 344 BC
Phillip the king of Macedonia was offered a horse that was a
magnificent animal but was wild. His 13 year old son Alexander
walked out and immediately had the horse in control. He saw that the
horse was afraid of his shadow, made sure the horse never saw it and
the horse was his the rest of his life. He became Alexander the
Great...what was the name of the horse? Answer at the end of the
blog.
US President George W. Bush was suspended from flying with the Texas National Guard because he had missed his annual physical examination. Dubya’s military record is a little murky, to say the least. He was honorably discharged in 1973 so he could attend the Harvard Business School. Many of his enemies claim that this action pre-empted him from being drafted and going to Vietnam and is nothing short of draft dodging. They also claim that Dubya was AWOL for six months to a year at a time and it was protected by his father. He always said that he fulfilled his military obligation and his military record indicated that he did. But those records could have been manipulated also. I will let y’all make your own decisions.
This
Date in History January 23
1865 On this date
CSA General John Bell Hood is relieved of command of the CSA Army of
Tennessee thus ending a sad chapter in the history of the United
States. Hood had requested to be relieved a couple of weeks earlier.
John Bell Hood was born in Kentucky and graduated from West Point in
1853. As with most of his class, he served in the western theater
until hostilities broke out at the start of the Civil War. Hood
resigned his commission and offered his services to the famous Texas
4th
Infantry. His regiment was sent to serve with CSA General Robert E.
Lee and the equally famous Army of Northern Virginia. Hood served
with distinction in the Peninsular Campaign and especially in the
Battle of the Seven Days in 1862. Hood aggressive nature did not go
unnoticed and he was eventually given command of a division. There
is little question that his aggressive counter-attack at the Battle
of Antietam saved General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia from
total annihilation. His next major assignment came at the second day
of the Battle of Gettysburg in June of 1863 when he was ordered to
attack the left flank of the Union lines on a hill known as Little
Round Top. He had under his command was the 4th
and 5th
Texas, the 5th
Alabama and a number of other regiments totaling about 2,500 men. He
was attacking the 20th
Maine numbering about 300. At the onset of the battle Hood was
severely wounded and lost the use of an arm as a result. Hood’s
troops were not successful in turning the flank of the Union army on
Little Round Top only because of the stubbornness of the 20th
Maine and the resolve of their commander Colonel Joshua L.
Chamberlain. Hood spent quite a bit of time recuperating from this
severe wound. Hood resumed his duties with the CSA Army of Tennessee
and fought at the bloody Battle of Chickamauga where he was again
severely wounded which resulted in the loss of a leg. When US
General William T. Sherman began his attack across the state of
Georgia beginning near Chattanooga, Tennessee and aimed at Atlanta
and the port of Savannah, CSA General Joseph Johnston was in command
of the CSA Army of Tennessee. Johnston knew he was out manned and
outgunned and chose to use defensive strategy by digging in, fight
and retreat. The closer Sherman got to Atlanta, the more nervous CSA
President Jefferson Davis became. Finally Davis decided that the CSA
needed a more aggressive commander of the Army of Tennessee and
relieved Johnston and named Hood as his replacement. Hood assumed
command and immediately struck hard at Sherman’s army in three
different futile and costly attacks in and around Atlanta. Eventually
Hood pulled his army out of Atlanta, moved west and headed north back
toward Chattanooga hoping that Sherman would follow to protect his
supply line but it didn’t happen that way. Hood finally moved the
Army of Tennessee within striking distance of Sherman’s vital
supply line near Nashville, Tennessee. Another Union army was dug-in
and waiting but Hood flung what was left of his army at the Union
fortifications in two unsuccessful and even more costly attacks. At
the end of these two battles the CSA Army of Tennessee ceased to
exist as a viable fighting force. When Hood took command in July of
1864, the CSA Army of Tennessee had 64,000 troops, when he was
relieved on this day there were 18,000. War is hell.
1870 This is another
incidence of the American cavalry out of control. Earlier a Montana
cattle rancher named Malcolm Clarke had accused a Blackfoot sub-chief
name Owl Child of stealing his horses and had savagely whipped him in
public. As you might expect, Owl Child returned with a group of his
closest friends and capped Clarke and his son in the most horrible of
fashions and then fled north to join up with a group of rebel
warriors led by another Blackfoot named Mountain Chief. The public
outcry became so loud that the military Indian agent in that area
notified Colonel Eugene Baker to gather up some troops and cavalrymen
and seek out Owl Child and bring him in. The only problem here is
that Colonel Baker is heavy into the sauce and stays in the bag most
of the time. Anyway, the force led by Baker sets out looking for Owl
Child. Finally, some of Baker’s Indian scouts find an Indian
encampment. They return and tell Baker what they had found but they
could tell by the markings on the teepees that they were not of the
tribe that Owl Child belonged to, that they were a peaceful group of
Blackfeet. Baker absorbs this information along with another quart
of whiskey and at dusk he says “I don’t care, they are still
Indians” and orders his troops to surround the village and open
fire and burn anything combustible including their meager food
supply. The troopers surround the encampment and did indeed open
fire and burned all that would burn. The Indians have no idea what
the hell is going on and are massacred. The total killed was 39 men,
60 women and 55 children. Baker allowed the capture of a few of them
but when he found out that some of them have smallpox, a gift from
the damned Europeans, and ordered them released out onto the prairie
in a Montana winter with no food. When word of this atrocity reaches
the east there is a loud outcry and demands are made to correct this
situation. President Ulysses Grant orders that all Indian agents
must be civilians from now on. But the troopers and Colonel Baker
were never brought to justice. No wonder Crazy Horse, Dull Knife,
Red Cloud, Sitting Bull and the others were so vicious and cruel in
their retribution. What goes around….
1556 In the middle of
the afternoon the ground around the Chinese city of Shannxi begins to
heave and shake. It is the beginning of the most deadly earthquake in
recorded history. The city is a conglomeration of small shacks and
huts that are heated by charcoal braziers that also serve as a stove.
The aftershocks continue until the following morning triggering huge
crevasses that open and close crushing thousands of people along with
miles long landslides not to mention the fires. After all was said
and done there were an estimated 830,000 deaths. I am going to
repeat this: 830,000 deaths. The second largest disaster in history
was the tsunami of 2004 in the Indian Ocean. There were only 240,000
deaths there. Repeat: 240,000 deaths.
Answer to the trivia
question:
Alexander the Great's
horse was named Bucephalus.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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