Siege of Boonesborough

On the Wilderness Road that his axmen made
The settlers flocked to the first stockade;
The deerskin shirts and the coonskin caps
Filed through the glens and the mountaingaps;
And hearts were high in the fateful spring
When the land said “Nay!” to the stubborn king.
While the men of the East of farm and town
Strove with the troops of the British Crown,
Daniel Boone from a surge of hate
Guarded a nation’s westward gate.
Down in the fort in a wave of flame
The Shawnee horde and the Mingo came,
And the stout logs shook in a storm of lead;
But Boone stood firm and the savage fled.

Arthur Cuiterman

Part of the history of the American Revolution that often receives scant attention in most general histories is the Revolution on the frontier.  Here small forces of American patriots engaged in a fierce struggle with the British and their Tory and Indian auxiliaries which determined if the newly born United States would have room to expand in the West, or be limited to the area east of the Appalachians.

One important engagement in this struggle for the future of America was the siege of Boonesborough in 1778.

In 1775 Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Trail from Chiswell, Virginia, through the Cumberland Gap and into central Kentucky.  He built Fort Boone in the central part of what would become the state of Kentucky along the Kentucky River.  American settlers began to arrive in what the Cherokee and the Shawnee referred to as The Dark and Bloody Ground.

With the onset of the Revolution the British at Fort Detroit, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Hamiliton, the Patriots called him “Hair Buyer Hamilton” began to arm the Indian tribes and encourage them, along with Tory renegades, to attack American settlers in Kentucky.

The Indians began a guerilla war campaign against the settlers in Kentucky of ambush and massacre.  Daniel Boone was captured by the Shawnee in February of 1778 while he was on a hunting expedition for meat to feed the settlers at Boonesborough.  Black Fish, the Shawnee chief who captured Boone, intended to go on to capture Boonesborough.  Always quick-witted, Daniel Boone convinced Blackfish that the American settlers were starving, and that in the middle of winter the women and children captives would never survive the long trek back to Shawnee territory.  Boone promised that he would arrange the surrender of the settlement in the Spring.  Brought to the Shawnee village of Chillicothe, Boone was made an adopted Shawnee and given the name Big Turtle. 

July 21, 1861: First Bull Run

The First Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas, was the first major battle of the Civil War.  A Confederate victory, it gave lessons to those paying attention:

1.    It amply demonstrated the hazards of sending half-trained troops into combat.  Both the Union and Confederate armies were green, and it showed in clumsy battlefield maneuvers and  an inability to coordinate attacks.

2.   An early indication that it was much easier to defend and counter-attack than to launch an initial attack in the Civil War.

3.    Rifled muskets were going to make this an exceptionally bloody war.  5,000 Union and Confederate casualties resulted from this battle, just slightly below the total American killed and wounded for either the entire War of 1812 or the entire Mexican War.

4.    One able general, Stonewall Jackson in the case of Bull Run, could seize the initiative and turn the tide of a battle.

July, Springfield and Lincoln

Well, it is time again in the McClarey household for our mini three day July vacation.  (We take a week off in June and August.)  Today we make our annual pilgrimage down to Springfield to the Lincoln sites.  We say a prayer at the tomb of Mr. Lincoln for the repose of his soul and the souls of his wife and children.  All of Lincoln’s immediate family are buried there except Robert Lincoln, a Civil War veteran, who is buried in Arlington.

We also go to the Lincoln Museum, which is first rate.  For those of you with time to kill, go here to watch a CSpan two and a half hour (!) tour from 2005 of the Lincoln Museum.

The day wouldn’t be complete without a stopover at the Prairie Archives, one of the finest bookstores in the State of Illinois, with a special emphasis on Civil War and American history tomes.

Alexander Hamilton and the National Debt

This country was blessed at its founding to have on the scene a member of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, who was a financial genius.  His idea to have the Federal government adopt the Revolutionary War debts of the states in order to establish the credit of the new Federal government was a policy of genius.  At a stroke he restored the credit of the country as a whole, made certain the debt would be paid, made America attractive to foreign investors and laid the basis of future American prosperity.  His ideas on the subject were set forth in his first report to Congress on  public credit, 1789, and which may be read here.

Ben Franklin, the Kite and Historical Truth

In 1752 Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in a storm with a key attached to the kite string.  The key was attached by a wire to a Leyden jar.  The whole purpose of the experiment was to establish that lightning was made up of electricity.  English scientist Joseph Priestly, who had first hand knowledge from Franklin, wrote up the most complete account we have of the experiment:

As every circumstance relating to so capital a discovery (the greatest, perhaps, since the time of Sir Isaac Newton) cannot but give pleasure to all my readers, I shall endeavour to gratify them with the communication of a few particulars which I have from the best authority.

“The Doctor, having published his method of verifying his hypothesis concerning the sameness of electricity with the matter of lightning, was waiting for the erection of a spire [on Christ Church] in Philadelphia to carry his views into execution; not imagining that a pointed rod of a moderate height could answer the purpose; when it occurred to him that by means of a common kite he could have better access to the regions of thunder than by any spire whatever. Preparing, therefore, a large silk handkerchief and two cross-sticks of a proper length on which to extend it, he took the opportunity of the first approaching thunderstorm to take a walk in the fields, in which there was a shed convenient for his purpose. But, dreading the ridicule which too commonly
attends unsuccessful attempts in science, he communicated his intended experiment to nobody but his son” — then twenty-one, not a child as in the traditional illustrations of the scene — “who assisted him in raising the kite.

“The kite being raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of its being electrified. One very promising cloud had passed over it without any effect; when, at length, just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to stand erect,and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he immediately presented his knuckle to the key, and (let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment) the discovery was complete. He perceived a very evident electric spark. Others succeeded, even before the string was wet, so as to put the matter past all dispute, and when the rain had wet the string he collected electric fire very copiously. This happened in June 1752, a month after the electricians in France had verified the same theory, but before he heard of anything they had done.”

July 17, 1861: Battle of Scary Creek

One of the first Confederate battlefield victories, the fight at the Scary Creek in West Virginia was part of a campaign by Union forces in West Virginia to drive the Confederate forces out of the crucial Kanawha Valley.

On July 17, 1861, a Union force of about 1000 men under Colonel John W. Lowe attempted to advance across Scary Creek en route to attacking the Confederate camp at Saint Albans.  After a fire fight of several hours duration at a bridge over Scary Creek, the 800 Confederates holding the Scary Creek line repulsed the Union advance.  The Confederates had been commanded by Colonel George S. Patton, the grandfather of the famed leader of the Third Army in World War II.  Losses in the battle were light:  the Union suffered 14 dead, 30 wounded and seven captured, while the Confederates sustained losses of 4 killed and six wounded, among them Colonel Patton.

Comanche, the Brave Horse

Something for the weekend.  Commanche, the Brave Horse by Johnny Horton.  A 15 hand bay gelding, Commanche entered cavalry service in 1868, age and ancestry uncertain, although it was thought that he was probably part Morgan and part Mustang.  He was purchased by Captain Myles Keogh as his personal war horse, to be ridden only in battle.  During a fight with Comanches in 1868, Comanche earned his name by continuing to allow himself to be ridden by Keogh even though Comanche was wounded in his hindquarters by an arrow.

Keogh rode him in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  He was found badly wounded two days after the battle, the sole survivor of Custer’s force.  He became the prized mascot of the Seventh Cavalry and received special treatment as set forth in this order after his retirement following his lengthy convalescence from his wounds:

Lincoln’s Advice to Lawyers

 

 

Abraham Lincoln on July 1, 1850 was writing down some notes for a lecture to lawyers.  I have always found this advice helpful to me in my legal practice, and I think non-lawyers can benefit from it also:

I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertaining to it which can then be done. When you bring a common-law suit, if you have the facts for doing so, write the declaration at once. If a law point be involved, examine the books, and note the authority you rely on upon the declaration itself, where you are sure to find it when wanted. The same of defenses and pleas. In business not likely to be litigated, — ordinary collection cases, foreclosures, partitions, and the like, — make all examinations of titles, and note them, and even draft orders and decrees in advance. This course has a triple advantage; it avoids omissions and neglect, saves your labor when once done, performs the labor out of court when you have leisure, rather than in court when you have not. Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket? A moral tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men out of it.

Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead

A video clip from the film The Wind and the Lion (1975) where Brian Keith gave a superb performance as Theodore Roosevelt and John Huston gave an unforgettable portrayal of Secretary of State John Hay.  John Milius’ film was superb entertainment, but poor history.  In the film Perdicaris is Edith Perdicaris, portrayed by Candice Bergen, who is taken captive by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, played with considerable panache by Sean Connery, the leader of band of Berber insurgents in Morocco in 1904.  Perdicaris comes to respect, perhaps even to love, her captor, who, after many adventures ultimately frees her.  As is usually the case, reality was more prosaic than fiction.

Perdicaris the captive was not an attractive female, but a 64 year old man, Ion Pericaris.  Perdicaris did grow to respect his captor, who treated him well, regarding him as a patriot fighting against a corrupt regime.  Perdicaris was captured on May 18, 1904.  Raisuli sent to the Sultan a list of demands in exchange for the release of Perdicaris and his stepson who was also a captive.  The demands included $70,000 in gold, safe-conduct for his tribesmen, and being named governor of two districts near Tangier.

Search for the Jeff Davis

I recently wrote about William Tillman and his encounter with the Confederate privateer Jeff Davis, and that post may be read here.  The above video clip is from a film on the search for the sunken Jeff Davis.

The Jeff Davis was constructed in 1845 and began her nautical life as the merchant vessel Putnam, a 187 ton brig.  Used as an illegal slaver under the name of the Echo, she was captured by the USS Dolphin on August 21, 1858.  Sold by the US government to a  Captain Robert Hunter, a Charleston man, she regained the name Putnam until the advent of the Civil War, when she was rechristened as the Jeff Davis.  Armed with five 60 year old British iron cannon, Jeff Davis embarked on a brief but successful career as a Confederate privateer.