Monday

                                  Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”

                                                  Mark Twain

Trivia question of the day:

What is the oldest recognized breed of dog still in existence? Answer at the end of the blog.

                                 This Date in History

1969 Operation Sealords is initiated by US Vice Admiral Zumwalt whereby a combined force of American and South Vietnamese river boats named Task Force 194 would patrol the smaller and lesser used tributaries of the Mekong river delta in an attempt to prevent incursions by the North Vietnamese from Cambodia. Needless to say this operation was a failure because incursions continued unabated until the end of the war. In 1971 the total responsibility for the patrols was given to the South Vietnamese navy. What a fiasco the whole war was.

1862 The Battle of Perryville, Ky. happens on this day. Two Confederate forces commanded by CSA Gen. Braxton Bragg and CSA Gen. E. Kirby Smith having entered Kentucky earlier in an attempt to recruit support for the cause and to draw Union forces away from the Chattanooga area. They succeeded in drawing troops from Chattanooga when a union army commanded by US Gen. Don Carlos Buell left Chattanooga and began a chase to catch Bragg and Smith. He caught up with the Confederates at Perryville. Buell dispatched 58,000 to confront Bragg and 20,000 to handle Smith. A ferocious battle ensued and the Union army prevailed from the sheer force of superior numbers. The Union army suffered 4,200 casualties and the Confederates 3,400. The Confederacy could not well afford these numbers of casualties and the Union could because the Kentuckians could not be swayed to the Confederate cause and there were 80,000 Union troops in training in Cincinnati.

1918 On this day US Private Alvin York in one engagement kills 25 Germans and captures 132. Earlier, York and 15 others had been sent to capture a railroad depot in the Argonne Forest and gotten lost and found themselves behind enemy lines. There was a brief firefight and in the confusion a number Germans surrendered. On their way back toward their lines, a German machine gun nest above saw how small York’s unit was and in German yelled to the captured Germans to hide and then opened fire. Half of York’s unit was killed almost instantly. York, being a backwoodsman hunter from Tennessee, started picking off the Germans with his rifle with deadly accuracy. After a while York jumped up and charged the nest with the other following close behind. A detachment of 6 Germans were sent to intercept York but all were cut down by York and his .45 automatic. York kept up the killing until the rest of the Germans surrendered. On the way back to his lines many other Germans surrendered thinking it was a general surrender. Alvin York was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

1871 A fire starts in the barn of Patrick O’Leary in Chicago and the flames, fanned by winds off the prairie, spread quickly and the Great Chicago Fire was underway. After the fire finally burned itself out two days later an area four miles long and 2/3 of a mile wide was incinerated. The fire took the lives of 300 and made over 100,000 homeless. The upside of this catastrophe was that the fire did not reach the many grain silos and stock yards on the outskirts of Chicago and the great city was back in business in a short while.

1780 On October 7 the Battle of Kings Mountain occurs with the destruction of British Major Patrick Ferguson and his detachment. Ferguson had been sent by British General Cornwallis to make sure that there would be no guerrilla tactics against his army while moving from Winnsboro, S.C. through North Carolina into Virginia. After hearing about the destruction of Ferguson and his troops, Cornwallis reverses course and goes back to Winnsboro to await reinforcements. The strange thing about this engagement was that Ferguson was the only British subject in the battle. All the others were American Loyalist against the Patriots. The beginnings of this victory had begun on September 25 when Patriot leaders Colonels Charles McDowell, John Sevier, Isaac Shelby and William Campbell met in western North Carolina and decided to eliminate Ferguson and his troops. They marched for 5 days before stopping at the Quaker Meadows Plantation in present day Morganton, N.C. there they were joined by many frontiersmen. In the mean time Ferguson who was in camp at Gilbert Town near present day Rutherfordton, N.C. decided to move on to Kings Mountain. The Patriots found out that Ferguson was not at Gilbert Town and followed him to Kings Mountain. Ferguson camped on a plateau about 60 feet higher that the surrounding lands. The Patriots surrounded the base of the plateau and the battle began. After about an hour of ferocious gunfire Ferguson raised a white flag of surrender, and yelled out “I am an officer in the King’s army and will be treated with dignity and respect”. That was greeted almost instantly with eight musket balls and Ferguson was dead before he hit the ground. The second in command raised the white flag of surrender again but the Patriots kept killing for a while remembering that when some Patriots tried to surrender to the infamous British Colonel Banastre Tarleton at Waxhaw, North Carolina he continued to kill them anyway. There were no British/Loyalist survivors at the Battle of King’s Mountain. British General Henry Clinton recognized this as the beginning of the end and said so. About a year later Gen. Cornwallis hands his sword to Gen. George Washington. There were a few skirmishes after this but essentially the Revolutionary War came to an end and this great ship of liberty and freedom was launched on the sea of blood shed by our ancestors.

Born today:

1912 US writer John Gardner. He said “All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species.” That sounds like a football game to me.

1890 US aviator Eddie Rickenbacker. He said “Aviation is proof that given the will, we can achieve the impossible.” Tack onto that “and the understanding of the female mind.” I’m just joking.

Answer to the trivia question:

The oldest breed of dog still in existence is the Saluki. It is a slim but rugged sight hunter used for thousands of years. It's recognizable image is on the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs.

               Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow