Rambling Anecdotes

[4V50 Gary]

Oh, for the good ole days of politics.

Congress - the way it oughta be...

In the 19th Century, it was not unusual for the "gentlemen" of Congress to arrive at that fine institution of gubment equipped to wage battle on behalf of their constitutents - literally.

Our leading citizens carried upon their persons not only memorized speeches reflecting their perspectives, but also canes, dirks, dangers, brass knuckles as well as pistols.

One day a distinguished member from Mississippi, William Barksdale, was so outraged that he flew to the podium and physically attacked his opponent. Now, the movies like to show vigorous men with flowing hair but Barksdale was a man who wished he ask his barber for a trim. During the fight, his "rug" went airborne and Barksdale disengaged and scrambled to recover his rug and his dignity. Remember that scene in the Three Stooges, "Order in the Court?"

He would later earn a name for himself when his men delayed the Federal pontineers for 11 hours at Fredericksburg. Barksdale did not survive the attack on the Peach Orchard (2nd day at Gettysbrug, July 2) and died while in Federal custody.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Pure fiction

Or at least some of it has no basis of fact to support it. But some digression first. So, e/r home I swung by the Friends of the Public Library bookstore and picked up an old book on Weapons & Tactics. I felt I needed to diversify and shouldn't read about scalping & sniping all the time.

Here's what the (circa '41) book says about the Royal Americans: "The British Army needed to produce soldiers who could meet the Indian allies of the French on equal terms; this need led to the formation of our Royal American Rifles, the first modern infantry. These forerunners of the rifle brigade wore a uniform designed to hide a man wearing it. All previous uniforms, from the liveries of the royal guards or noblemen's retinue, through the red coats of Cromwell's troops, to the elaborate and desperately uncomfortable kit of Geroge the Third's infantry, had been designed to largely to make the wears obvious. In battles that we like large and brutal games in the open fields, commanders and men needed to know who was on their side and who was against them. The uniforms they wore were, therefore brightly coloured, like the jerseys worn by football teams. They were also often elaborate, even decorative, partly because it was considered good for drilling men into automata to make them slave at polishing buttons and other gear; partly because othe richness of uniforms showed the wealth and therfore the fighting resources of the autocrat at whose servce was the man within the uniform. Uniforms of this sort was a hopeless handicap in the forests of America. The Rifles, therefore, wore green jackets. And they wore black buttons, as their inheritors do to this day.

Thankfully we have modern historians and researchers who can correct these mistakes. If you're curious and want to learn more about the Royal Americans, check out Bedtime Stories at THR.

More research reveals that the statement is correct with respects to 5/60, which was raised in 1797; decades after the first four battalions which were raised Dec. 1755.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Got two articles of mine published in Feb. 2005 MuzzleBlasts magazine. Check it out.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Masonic brotherhood

We all know about Fort Pillow which angered the Colored Troops. Many of them would advance into battle encouraging each other with the cry, "Remember Fort Pillow." It was the codeword to take no prisoners. This make the Confederates fight even harder when they faced colored troops. In some cases, but for the presence of the white officer or of other (Federal) white troops, the Corn-feds would have been massacred. Here's a tale of one Corn-fed Mason whose life was saved by a Federal Mason at Fort Blakely, Alabama:

"More of our troops were slaid after the surrender than in the battle. Finally the white officers bunched us in squads of forty or fifty each and placed guards around us as close together as they could stand with fixed bayonets facing outward to protect us from the infuriated mob. They continued to shoot our men down, shooting between or over the heads of the guards.

"Captain Adair fell at my side and with a mortal wound. I was cuaght on the outer edge of my squad when I discovered an infuriated Negro about ten feet from me with his gun on me. I stepped behind the guard. He then moved around to one side and back again when I placed the guard between us again.

"At that time a white officer appeared, seeing on his hat the square and compasses [a Masonic symbol] made with a pencil, I gave him a sign which brought him to my side. I pointedout the Negro and asked him to please not let him kill me as I had fought him like a man, surrendered like a man, and would like to be treated like a man.

"He stepped out and struck the Negro on the head with his pistol. The Negro turned and ran up the breastworks. He fired at the Negro and I saw him fall over the breastworks. Shortfly afterward the white office came to my side and asked me if that Negro had bothered me any more. I told him no and was much obliged to him. He whispered to me that he had done three others the same way. This shows that Masonery [sic] will protect a brother even though he be a foe."

Both sides were guilty of killing their prisoners. I've even found an account of a Confederate sharpshooter being killed after surrendering.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Cheating them with Cheatham

At the Battle of Belmont, while advancing through the thick woods with reinforcements, Confederate Gen. Benjamin Frank Cheatham took the lead and encountered 50 troops. Trouble is, they were Union troops. Thankfully, as it was early in the war, there was plenty of confusion on both sides. He boldly rides up and asks, "What cavalry is that?" "Illinois cavalry, sir," came the reply. "Oh, Illinois cavalry!" Cheatham bluffed, sighting two Union regiments arrayed behind them. "All right, just stand where you are." He rode off, deployed his men, and attacked. Soon the bodies of Federal soldiers lay "as thick as stumps in a new field," commented one Confederate, and another thought they lay thicker "than ever I had seen pumpkins in a cornfield."

Cheatham was later a Corps Commander with the ill-fated Army of Tennessee.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Pass the prunes, please

Before we read our anecdote, every regiment had an "awkward" squad. Those where the guys who never got anything right so rather than mess up the entire platoon, they were grouped into one squad and carefully drilled until they got it right. You can read more about the awkward squad in John Billing's classic account of the Civil War, Hardtack and Coffee. So, please pass the prunes.

One of the boys, a rather awkward fellow, received a box from home. It contained among other things a box of dried prunes; he stewed some of them for sauce. He had no more than got them finished when the order was given to fall in for inspection. In his haste he upset his pan of sauce on his gun and equipments; line was formed and along came the colonel, the captain and the inspecting officer. He presented his gun to the inspecting officer; but to the surprise and horror of the officer, his gloves of immaculate whiteness, were covered with a soft brown sticky substance. he looked at his gloves for an instant, and with an oath demanded "What is that?" and the king of the awkward squad made answer, "It is nothin' but stewed prunes." For an instant military discipline was powerless, but the man was sent to his quarters and was later dealt with.

 

[4V50 Gary]

General William T. Sherman, a man of the people

...or better, why Sherman couldn't run for President.

After the war, the Army of the Potomac did a grand review before an applauding capital. The next day, Sherman's Army held their review.

Sherman dismounted and took his place at the review stand. As he was leaving...

The crowd surged around the stand to get a nearer view of the great Generals and the great men of the nation. We maintained our position near the foot of the stairs as they came down the steps, and here we saw another striking illustration of the characteristics of General Sherman. As he attempted to descend, the crowd pushed up the stairway to grasp him by the hand and to load him down with flowers. He accepted all the flowers that he could hold in one hand and under his arm, and to gratify the people, shook hands, as is ever the desire of a crowd in meeting great men. The General was very affable at first, patiently shaking hands with his admirers, and the crowd all the while seemingly to grow more dense. The hand shakes became less and less cordial, and the General's affability apparently departing.

He pushed down step by step - we could see that his patience was exhausted, and refusing the offered hands, forced his way down, brushing aside the men in front of him, finally exclaiming angrily, 'Damn you, get out of the way! Get out of the way!'

The crowd concluding that he meant just what he said, gave way for him to descend, and mounting his horse, he rode away."

 

[4V50 Gary]

Uncle Billy's guide to making friends to "To H*** with them!"

Here's an account of Uncle Billy whose men scorched and burned their way from Atlanta to the Sea and then through the Carolinas. No, it's not about the "great picnic" as his men called it but of Uncle Billy and how he sets the example for diplomats worldwide. The scene is the Grand Review of Sherman's Army. It takes place just as Sherman rides up (and before he gets pissed at the admiring citizens):

General Sherman having passed the reviewing stand, left the coumn and took his place beside President Johnson. He dismounted immediately in our front, and ascended the steps leading to the grand stand, and here occurred a scene that exhibited the strong fiery character of this great General. It will be remembered that the Secretary of War, Stanton, had humiliated General Sherman before the whole country but a few days before in general orders, denouncing Sherman for the terms of surrender granted by him to the rebel General Johnston and his army. Secretary Stanton as it happened, sat next to the head of the stairs upon the stand. As General Sherman approached, Secretary Stanton arose and extended his hand. General Sherman, resenting with indignation the indignity placed upon him, without looking at the Secretary of War, placed his left arm against Stanton's shoulder brushing him aside, and grasped the hand of the President, shaking hands with General Grant and the Cabinet officers, leaving Secretary of War Stanton like a whipped child to take his seat. It was a most sensational and interesting sight to those who were near enough to see and understand the situation. We saw clearly the two men as they met, and the hot blood of General Sherman to redden his face, and in my imagination his very red hair to stand on end."

Well, Uncle Billy was a soljer & not a politician and it showed.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Dedicated to Chaplain John of the CA Woodland Police Dept.

This concerns the Third New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry. The Union Army had just been whupped by those damned Rebels at Secessionville (James Island near Charleston, SC). BTW, I was attacked by a Rebel Dog at Secessionville. I came to a dead end and pulled into a driveway to turn around. The Rebel Dog came at my car, barking all the time. I put the car in reverse and retreated thinking all along he would stop once I retreated. However, this only emboldened him and he pursued. In reverse I fled for another hundred yards until I reached the next driveway. I backed into it so I could now turn around to leave. The Rebel Dog was still charging, barking with every lunge forward. Brought to bay because I didn't want to hit the critter, even if he was too stupid to know that a ton of steel beats flesh & bone every time, that darn Rebel Dog kept coming & SLAM! He bounced off my fender. Stunned, he walked away without a whimper. My jaw hurt from laughing. Not even Sheridan at Cedar Creek enjoyed such a complete victory. Enough rambling.

Recall that the Union Army was defeated at Secessionville and many embarked upon steamers and sailed south to Hilton Head, SC to reorganize. We let the Adjutant of the Third NH describe it:

"Our Chaplain Hill was a very zealous man, and the chaplain having special prayer meetings in the evening were quite well attended.

Over in another camp was the Fourth N. H. regiment, commanded by Colonel Whipple. The colonel was a well known lawyer from Laconia, N. H., a very bright man, but somewhat addicted to the cup, and there was a keen rivalry between the Third N. H. and the Fourth N. H. regiments as to the merits of the two regiments. One day the news camp to Colonel Whipple of a revival over in the Third N. H. camp. One of his officers had told him that twelve men of the Third N. H. had been baptized. This was something new in the experience of the camp, and Colonel Whipple became very much interested, and calling the adjutant, he says, 'Adjutant, they tell me that twelve men of the Third N. H. regiment have been baptized. I want you, sir, to detail fifteen men at once and see that they are baptized. I'll be d----d if the Third N. H. shall get ahead of the Fourth regiment."

 

[4V50 Gary]

Bow wow

Soldiers are not slow to forage when rations are poor. One Union regiment had men going out regularly and so the local landowners and farmers began to complain about their livestock being missing. It became an embarassment for the commanding general. To discourage the foraging, the provost would stop men attempting to enter camp with unauthorized livestock. While the ownership of the plundered (and partially butchered) animal couldn't be determined, they could not allow the foragers to reap the benefit of their harvest. So, the Provost and his men confiscated the foragers' hard earned food. However, not letting such wonderful repast go wasted, it was prepared and served at the officers' mess. Being their betters, why shouldn't they enjoy a fine steak or loin or chop every now and then? It would teach the men a lesson. Well, some foragers were understandably not pleased with having their hard gained food taken from them. So, they conspired to get even.

One day a foraging party attempted to run the gate but the alert men of the Provost Marshal intercepted them anyway. The foragers were forced to surrender what appeared to be a skinned sheep. As before, it was served to the officers that night and the foragers went meatless (except for the "salt horse" served to them by Uncle Sam). Then the fun began. "Bow wow!" came from one unidentified soldier. Another responded, "bow wow!" Soon, an entire chorus of seranaded the camp with barking. The officers realized they had been tricked into eating dog. The men kept up the barking for a couple of days until their commanding general wrote a special order forbidding any barking in camp.

 

[chaplain john]

Re Bow-Wow

Gary are you sure that those Union Soldiers weren't "Galvanized Yankees"? They sound more like Reb-oops... I mean Freedom Fighters to me.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Chaplain John. They weren't Galvanized Yankees. They were midwesterners and to be specific, two men from the 38th Illinois.

 

[4V50 Gary]

How Dry I am?

As today, prisons and jails don't want their inmates to have alcohol. Inmates get drunk, stupid, cause fights and are more work for the guards. It's no different in the Civil War when some prisoners were getting out of hand because they were drunk. Such was the case in New Orleans when some Corn-feds imbibed too freely. Well, the Provost Marshal wasn't very pleased with the situation and he tasked one man to investigate the source of spirits. He did and here's his story:

Well, I watched every day for awhile to see who got passes and I noticed that a certain man who went out always took his gun with him. One day he went downthe street and after he had gone I went out and saw him step to the side of a house, and I saw him stretch his arm out and put his hand against the house, then turned and walk away, but he did not have his gun. He walked around in the street awhile, looking in the show windows, then he crossed back over the street and went to the house where I had seen him beofre, stretched out his arm against the house and then turned around and walked away with his gun. He went back up the street, passed the office and around the corner of the prison pen. I crossed over to the other side of the street so that I could see right down the street where he was standing. He had his gun barrel stuck through the fence and the prisoners on the inside were catching the liquor in their tin cups as it trickled from the gun. As each one got as much as he wanted, he would shove up the muzzle and the flow would start again. Then I went back to my quarters. After a while he came up and put his gun away. I did not say anything to him but I told the marshall what I had seen. He told me to send him in. I told him he was wanted in the office. He went in, but what took place I don't know. The Provo called me again and told me to detail two men with guns and bayonets on, have them fill his knapsack full of bricks, strap it on him and march him up and down Barronne Street for six hours. We never had troubled any more with drunken prisoners."

 

[4V50 Gary]

Fall in for drill!

"July 25. The colonel, thinking that guard duty and dress parades are not quite enough exercise for us, has ordered company drills in the forenoon. The company officers do not take very kindly to this, and thinking it a good opportunity to give the sergeants a little practice in drilling the companies, they shirk out of it every time they can invent an excuse to do so. The companies are seen out under command of the orderlies or some other of the sergeants frequently. B company moves out of the company street on to the parade ground, and after exectuing a few brilliant maneuvers, starts off across the fields to the Trent road, a little out of sight of the camp, and here in the shade of the trees we sit down and await the recall, when we march back into camp with all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war. The duty has been performed and everybody seems well enough satisfied, except perhaps the performers."

Fools! They should have found a fishing hole and made a day of it.

 

[4V50 Gary]

In one of the above posts, we learned of a new use for the musket. It stores alcohol quite nicely. Click here to learn the significance of muzzle control.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Got Rice?

When the boys marched off to war, many of them were in total ignorance of cooking. Recall that back in the antebellum days, one's mother or the wife cooked the meals while the man worked the fields (or trade). Womens' Lib hadn't made its appearance and neither did suffrage. So, you can imagine the disasters that followed when men untutored in the culinary arts were issued raw material with which to prepare their repast. Here's one tale:

The boys told me it was my time to cook. I could not cook and told them so, but the answer I got was, "No back talk, do as you are told." That settled it, so I got busy and got a camp kettle that held about four gallons of water. I filled it about half full, made a fire, and set the kettle on. I put about two pounds of rice in it and stirred up my fire. I soon had things going fine. The whole thing was boiling now like a house on fire. Pretty soon I saw the kettle was getting fuller all the time and it wasn't long until it acutally did run over. I did not care so much for the rice, but I was afraid that it would put my fire out. I did not have a thing to put it in, and I thought of my rubber blanket. I got it and my tin cup, spread the blanket on the ground, and went to bailing it out of the kettle on to the blanket. The faster it boiled, the faster I bailed and when the rice in the kettle was cooked, I had more on the blanket than I had in the kettle. But at the same time I had come out ahead, fir I had saved my reputation as not being a cook and I had save the rice which was quite a saving. There was enough cooked rice for a mess and there was enough half-cooked rice for another mess the next day. Now this is not a joke. I assure you this is a true story of my experience in cooking rice and now I am going to leave the cooking business to the ladies where it belongs for they know more about in in five minutes than I do in a lifetime."

Betcha figured out the writer isn't Chinese or Japanese.

BTW, my friend's father taught us in college how to cook rice over an open campfire. You don't. You add the right proportion of water to the rice and then placed the covered pot over the coals. Cooks just fine.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Wyatt Earp: Frontier Mashall by Stuart N. Lake

This was sent to me by one of our staffers at THR. It is the story of Wyatt Earp as told to Stuart N. Lake.

"I was a fair hand with pistol, rifle, or shotgun, but I learned more about gunfighting from Tom Speer's cronies during the summer of 1871 than I had dreamed was in the book. Those old-timers took their gunplay seriously, which was natural under the conditions in which they lived. Shooting, to them, was considerably more than aiming at a mark and pulling a trigger. Models of weapons, methods of wearing them, means of getting them into action and operating them, all to the one end of combining high speed with absolute accuracy, contributed to the frontiersman's shooting skill. The sought-after degree of proficiency was that which could turn to most effective account the split-second between life and death. Hours upon hours of practice, and wide experience in actualities supported their argunments over style.

"The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting -- grandstand play-- as I would poison.

"When I say that I learned to take my time in a gunfight, I do not wish to be misunderstood, for the time to be taken was only that split fraction of a sceond that means the difference between deadly accuracy with a sixgun and a miss. It is hard to make this clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight. Perhaps I can best describe such time taking as going into action with the greatest speed of which a man's muscles are capable, but mentally unflustered by an urge to hurry or the need for complicated nervous muscular actions which trick-shooting involves. Mentally deliberate, must muscularly faster than thought, is what I mean.

"In all my life as a frontier police officer, I did not know a really proficient gunfighter who had anything but contempt for the gun-fanner, or the man who literally shot from the hip. In later years I read a great deal about this type of gunplay, supposedly employed by men noted for skill with a forty-five.

"From personal experience and numerous six-gun battles which I witnessed, I can only support the opinion advanced by the men who gave me my most valuable instruction in fast and accurate shooting, which was that the gun-fanner and hip-shooter stood small chance to live against a man who, as Jack Gallagher always put it, took his time and pulled the trigger once."

Next week we'll go into part II where Wyatt Earp gives more insights into 19th century gunplay.

Message brought to you courtesy of Rich Lucibella & SWAT magazine (of which I am not associated with - they keep kicking me out. )

 

[4V50 Gary]

Wyatt Earp continued

Gang, if you can wait, support your local library & check out Stuart Lake's book. Anyway, here's the second installment. Enjoy. Recall that Earp was discussing the skill required of a gunfighter was not fancy gun handling but good nerves, deliberate aim and speed.

"Cocking and firing mechanisms on new revolvers were almost invariably altered by their purchasers in the interests of smoother, effortless handling, usually by filing the dog which controlled the hammer, some going so far as to remove triggers entirely or last them against the guard, in which the guns were fired by thumbing the hammer. This is not to be confused with fanning, in which the triggerless gun is held in one hand while the other was brushed rapidly across the hammer to cock the gun, and firing it by the weight of the hammer itself. A skillful gun-fanner could fire five shots from a forty-five so rapidly that the individual reports were indistinguishable, but what could happen to him in a gunfight was pretty close to murder.

"I saw Jack Gallagher's theory borne out so many times in deadly operation that I was never tempted to forsake the principles of gunfighting as I had them from him and his associates. There was no man in the Kansas City group who was Wild Bill's equal with a six-gun. Bill's correct name, by the way, was James B. Hickok. Legend and the imaginations of certain people have exaggerated the number of men he killed in gunfights and have misrepresented the manner in which he did his killing. At that, they could not very well overdo his skill with pistols.

"Hickok knew all the fancy tricks and was as good as the best at that sort of gunplay, but when he had serious business at hand, a man to get, the acid test of marksmanship, I doubt if he employed them. At least, he told me that he did not. I have seen him in action and I never saw him fan a gun, shoot from the hip, or try to fire two pistols simultaneously. Neither have I ever heard a reliable old-timer tell of any trick-shooting employed by Hickok when fast straight-shooting meant life or death.

"Primarily, two guns made the threat of something in reserve; they were useful as a display of force when a lone man stacked up against a crowd. Some men could shoot equally well with either hand, and in a gunplay might alternate their fire; others exhausted the loads from the gun on the right, or the left, as the case might be, then shifted the reserve weapon to the natural shooting hand if that was necessary and possible. Such a move - the border shift - could be made faster than the eye could follow a top-notch gun-thrower, but if the man was as good as that, the shift would seldom be required.

"Whenever you see a picture of some two-gun man in action with both weapons held closely against his hips and both spitting smoke together, you can put it down that you are looking at the picture of a fool, or a fake. I remember quite a few of these so-called two-gun men who tried to operate everything at once, but like fanners, they didn't last long in proficient company."

We'll conclude with Part III next week.

 

[drinks]

# 56

If you do the math, 2 gallons of water is 16 cups of water, 2 lb of rice is 8 cups of rice, this is the recommended ratio of rice and water and would never have resulted in the described happening.
This is just another wild bull tale by someone who did not have enough to do.
Don

 

[beenthere]

Rice

On the other hand my father told me of a Boy Scout camping trip he was on during the depression. Everyone was hard pressed for money and nearly every scout brought a pound of rice to contribute to the patrol stores as their contribution. Their first meal they ended up with a five gallon can of rice after burying part of it.

When he went in for his cooking merit badge the examiner asked how to cook rice. Dad told him "first you bring the water to a boil, then you stand back about ten feet and throw the rice one grain at a time at the pot". The examiner slapped his leg and said "yep, you've cooked rice". He passed.