•   Musings and History


    Quote of the day:

    “Suffering is like a pile of rocks. You can choose to carry the load, throw them at other people, let them lay there or use them to build an altar.”


    Trivia question of the day:

    The edges gold and silver coins were being scraped off by unscrupulous people throughout Europe and remelted into another coin or sold by weight. They needed a solution. A very smart man devised the system of minting coins with ridges on the edges so any loss would be visible. Who was it?  Answer at the end of the blog.


                   This Date in History   November 16

    1776 Hessian Lieutenant General Wilhelm Von Knyphausen and 3,000 mercenaries along with 5,000 British troops surround and begin a siege of Fort Washington. The fort is on the northern end of Manhattan Island. The Hessians received stiff resistance from the 3,000 Continentals inside the fort initially but they were eventually overwhelmed. The 3,000 Continentals faced a rough road ahead because most of them would be put aboard British prison ships anchored in New York harbor where the majority would die from deprivation and disease. Included in the people inside the fort were James and Margaret Corbin from Virginia. James was an artilleryman manning one of the cannons that was firing on the Hessians. James was severely injured and died soon after, his wife Margaret took over his duties in spite of receiving a severe arm and leg wound herself, and the firing of the cannon continued until the fort’s commander, Patriot General Robert Magaw surrendered the fort to avoid a massacre. Margaret survived but lost the use of here left arm. Earlier a Patriot soldier named William Demont had deserted and went to the Hessians and told them how the fort was laid out what the strengths and weaknesses were which went a long way toward Von Knyphahausen’s success. The site of Fort Washington today is at the corner of Fort Washington Avenue and 183rd street in New York City.


    1863 After the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, CSA General Robert E. Lee sent CSA General James Longstreet and two divisions to assist the beleaguered CSA General Braxton Bragg in his campaign in the area of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Longstreet and his troops had arrived in the nick of time at the Battle of Chickamauga to ensure a Confederate victory. The Confederates had the Union army in the middle of a semi-circle which prevented any supplies from reaching them. A surprise attack by the Union army opened the way for supplies to reach them by river boat. Longstreet and Bragg argued much of the time about tactic and strategy but since Bragg was in command, he prevailed. Bragg was acknowledged to be the most inept commanding General on either side. As with most, he allowed his ego to hold high esteem in his planning of a military action. It cost the Confederacy the lives of thousands of brave men. Bragg released Longstreet to go east and try and secure the area of Knoxville, Tennessee. This area was a hotbed of anti-Confederacy and pro-Union sentiments. Defending this area for the Union was US General Ambrose Burnside and his division of 5,000 troops. Both Longstreet and Burnside realized that the Tennessee River crossing at Campbell Station was paramount. If Longstreet reached the crossing first, he could annihilate Burnside’s division because of superior numbers but if Burnside reached the crossing first he could prevent a pursuit by Longstreet. On this date Burnside reached the crossing first and was in the process of crossing when Longstreet arrived. There was a brief fire fight but it was too late in the day and the crossing by Burnside succeeded and he and his troops escaped.


    1957 On this day one of the worst monsters in American history, Edward Gein, killed his final victim. He killed Bernice Worden in Plainfield, Wisconsin. This monster would dig up corpses of women, have sex with them and eat parts of their bodies at times. After the death of Bernice the police became suspicious of Gein because of his unusual behavior. He had been extremely dominated by his mother and when she died in 1945, he began studying anatomy and became fascinated by the human body, especially female. Even though he was a quiet and unassuming farmer, a monster lurked beneath. The police obtained a search warrant for his house. What they found was a scene from hell. The fridge was full of human organs. There was a human heart on the stove roasting and human limbs scattered about. He had soup bowls made of human skulls and had chairs upholstered in human skins. It is this character that was the inspiration for Hannibal Lechter and Buffalo Bill in the movie “Silence of the Lambs”. Gein was properly judged to be crazy as a loon and was sent to the Wisconsin Asylum for the Criminally Insane where he died in 1984.


    1849 On this day Russian author Fedor Dostoevsky is sentenced to be executed by firing squad. He was accused of belonging to an anti-government extremist group as indeed he was. He delivered to us some of the greatest novels ever written the first success was the immortal Crime and Punishment. As he was being tied to a post to be shot, a reprieve arrived and he was sent to a labor camp in Siberia for four years. After leaving the labor camp he began writing once again and gave us Possessed which was successful. But in 1880 he gave us his masterpiece in The Brothers Karamazov that was an immediate success. He never was able reap the fruits of his talent because he died a year later.


    1821 On this date William Becknell arrived at Santa Fe, New Mexico and opened a trade good store. He was immediately successful and started planning another expedition. His most important contribution was the marking of the Santa Fe Trail that was used by thousands of settlers heading west but most importantly the trail came right by his trade good store. He had to stop trading for a while because the owners of the land at the time were the Spanish and they did not want any honkies setting up permanent town and cities on their lands. Becknell moved his operation further north out of Spanish territory. Later on he ran across a group of Mexican soldiers who told him that Mexico had fought and defeated the Spanish and was no longer under Spanish rule meaning Santa Fe was open for business. He immediately pulled up stakes, replenished his supplies and hot-footed it back to Santa Fe. After he had sold all of his goods, he returned to his home in Franklin, Missouri with his saddle bags full of Mexican silver and gold. He was a wealthy man. But he was known as “The Father of the Santa Fe Trail.”


    Births and deaths:

    1873 US Composer W.C. Handy was born. He said “Life is like a trumpet. You can’t get anything out of it unless you put something in.”



    1904 US Guitarist Eddie Condon is born. When asked for his hangover cure he said “Take the juice of two fifths of whiskey.”


    1961 US senator Sam Rayburn died. When asked what the three most important words were he said “Wait a minute.”


    Answer to the trivia question:

    The inventor of ridged coins was Sir Isaac Newton when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasurer) in London.


                      Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow