Category: History

Brief narratives about people and events in the American past.

George Washington’s Birthday

Tomorrow the federal holiday is George Washington’s Birthday. (See Three-day weekend for the background.)

Most know that Washington’s actual birthday is February 22. But, in fact, Washington was not born on that date either.

So, our little one item quiz for today (and so you can dazzle your friends and co-workers this week):

If there had been a calendar on the wall when George Washington was born, what would have been the month, day and year?

I’ll confirm the answer once someone gets it correct. No fair Googling.

We are surrounded by imbeciles

Far and away, Abraham Lincoln is ranked by Americans as the nation’s greatest president, according to a poll conducted by Harris Interactive and released this week, just ahead of Presidents Day. What’s surprising is that President George W. Bush, whose approval rating has plunged to just 30 percent, also sneaks into the top ten list.

AOL News

  1. Abraham Lincoln
  2. Ronald Reagan
  3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
  4. John F. Kennedy
  5. George Washington
  6. Bill Clinton
  7. Thomas Jefferson
  8. Harry Truman
  9. Theodore Roosevelt
  10. George W. Bush

The point being, of course, is that a lot of people (an awful lot) can only name two or three recent presidents, so they tend to show up on these lists.

A recent ranking by “scholars” has the top ten:

  1. Washington
  2. Lincoln
  3. FDR
  4. Jefferson
  5. TR
  6. Jackson
  7. Truman
  8. Reagan
  9. Eisenhower
  10. Polk

President Lincoln’s Cottage

The New York Times takes a look at a new Lincoln museum. The article begins:

WASHINGTON — If you look out the windows of President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home — the idiosyncratic and intriguing museum that is opening to the public on Tuesday after a ceremonial event on Monday — you have to imagine what Abraham Lincoln might have seen during those summer evenings when he stood here. The cottage is on a hilltop, the third highest in the area. And when Lincoln first came here, seeking a respite from the summer heat, the swampy air and the incessant bustle of the White House, he could have looked out over the expanding city below him, with the unfinished Washington Monument and incomplete Capitol dome rising in the distance.

ASCAP

The writers’ strike is over. It’s just the latest in a long line of efforts to make certain creative artists received fair compensation.

The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers was founded [on this date] in New York City in 1914. The founding membership included some of the most popular musicians of the day, including Irving Berlin, John Philip Sousa, and the composer Victor Herbert. The group was formed to protect intellectual property and help musically inclined writers make a living off their art. Technically, there were already laws on the books that should have done this, but many of them weren’t being enforced.

According to ASCAP lore, it was Victor Herbert who realized what a problem enforcement had become when he walked into a hotel one evening and heard one of his own songs being played. Knowing he hadn’t given permission or been paid for his music, Herbert set out to create a union that would stand up for the rights of musicians and composers.

The first office of the ASCAP was little more than a closet in New York’s Fulton Theater Building. The office furniture consisted of a table and a single, broken chair. Today, the organization has more than 300,000 members, and it collects and distributes millions in royalties.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Lake Powell’s sandstone walls speak after 232 years

[A] rare historical marking has been authenticated on one of the canyon cliffs that surround Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The inscription was carved when the United States was only six months old.

It was left in November 1776 by Friars Dominguez and Escalante when their exploring party became trapped in a fierce storm along the Colorado River. In a hidden canyon up from the main river channel in what is now Padre Bay, someone carved in elegant script “paso por aqui, 1776.” The words are Spanish for “we passed by here.”

There’s more details at High Country News.

Thomas Alva Edison

… was born in Milan, Ohio, on this date in 1847.

Edison’s stature has diminished since his death; technology has evolved so much since then. But he was still a hero when he died in 1931. These are the sub-headlines from his obituary in The New York Times:

World Made Over By Edison’s Magic

He Did More Than Any One Man to Put Luxuries Into the Lives of the Masses

Created Millions Of Jobs

Electric Light, the Phonograph, Motion Pictures and Radio Improvements Among Gifts

Lamp Ended “Dark Ages”

He Held the Miracle of Menlo Park, Produced on a Gusty Night 50 Years Ago, His Greatest Work

The Undiscovered World of Thomas Edison is an informative and interesting essay from the December 1995 Atlantic Monthly.

Sacajawea gives birth

From the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 203 years ago today:

Meriwether Lewis:

The party that were ordered last evening set out early this morning. the weather was fair and could wind N. W. about five oclock this evening one of the wives of Charbono was delivered of a fine boy. [1] it is worthy of remark that this was the first child which this woman had boarn and as is common in such cases her labour was tedious and the pain violent; Mr. Jessome informed me that he had freequently adminstered a small portion of the rattle of the rattle-snake, which he assured me had never failed to produce the desired effect, that of hastening the birth of the child; having the rattle of a snake by me I gave it to him and he administered two rings of it to the woman broken in small pieces with the fingers and added to a small quantity of water. Whether this medicine was truly the cause or not I shall not undertake to determine, but I was informed that she had not taken it more than ten minutes before she brought forth perhaps this remedy may be worthy of future experiments, but I must confess that I want faith as to it’s efficacy.—

Background by Journals editor:

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau would have a varied and lengthy career on the frontier, starting with his role as the youngest member of the Corps of Discovery. Clark nicknamed him Pomp or “Pompy,” and named Pompey’s Pillar (more properly Clark’s “Pompy’s Tower”) on the Yellowstone after him in 1806. Clark offered to educate the boy as if he were his own son, and apparently took him into his own home in St. Louis when the child was about six. In 1823 he attracted the notice of the traveling Prince Paul of Wurttemburg, who took him to Europe for six years. On his return to the United States he became a mountain man and fur trader, and later a guide for such explorers and soldiers as John C. Frémont, Philip St. George Cooke, W. H. Emory, and James Abert. He eventually settled in California and died in Oregon while traveling to Montana in 1866.

Source: Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online February 11, 1805

Oyez oyez oyez

On this date in 1803 Marbury v. Madison was argued before the Supreme Court.

Marbury was the case that established the Supreme Court’s standing as the arbiter of the Constitution.

On this date in 1856 Dred Scott v. Sandford was argued before the Supreme Court.

Scott was the case where the Supreme Court ruled that persons of African descent could never be citizens of the United States whether free or slave and that the federal government had no constitutional authority to limit slavery in the territories.

This Republic of Suffering

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States embarked on a new relationship with death, entering into a civil war that proved bloodier than any other conflict in American history, a war that would presage the slaughter of World War I’s Western Front and the global carnage of the twentieth century. The number of soldiers who died between 1861 and 1865, an estimated 620,000, is approximately equal to the total American fatalities in the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War combined. The Civil War’s rate of death, its incidence in comparison with the size of the American population, was six times that of World War II. A similar rate, about 2 percent, in the United States today would mean six million fatalities. As the new southern nation struggled for survival against a wealthier and more populous enemy, its death toll reflected the disproportionate strains on its human capital. Confederate men died at a rate three times that of their Yankee counterparts; one in five white southern men of military age did not survive the Civil War.

Above from This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust, a new history of the reaction to the unprecedented death and dying of the American War of the Rebellion.

These are the times

Thomas Paine was born in England on this date in 1737.

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

The Crisis, December 23, 1776

The State of the Union

Ari at The Edge of the American West asked some historians “Has the state of the union ever been worse?” You should read the whole posting, but here’s the verdict.

Yes, there have been darker moments for the nation. Three of them. First, 1814, at the low ebb of the War of 1812, around the time the British sacked Washington. Second, the spring and early summer of 1863, when the Union couldn’t find a general to deal with Robert E. Lee’s treasonous hijinks. And third, 1933, before FDR’s New Deal began to alleviate the worst effects of the Depression.

Michigan

… joined the Union as the 26th state on this date in 1837.

  • “Derived from the Indian word Michigama, meaning great or large lake.”
  • The State Nickname is the “Great Lake State”. Others include “Wolverine State” or “Water Winter Wonderland”.
  • Michigan
  • The State motto is “Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice” (If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you).
  • The Michigan state flower is the apple blossom, the tree the white pine and the bird the robin.
  • Indigenous people in Michigan at the time of contact were the Ojibwa, Ottawa and Potawatomi.

Click image for larger version.

Addendum: The first bullet above is a quotation from michigan.gov, the “Official State of Michigan Portal.” It should be corrected. It is the equivalent of saying, “Derived from the European word …”

There are no “Indian” words. Indian is not a language.

Gold

… was discovered by James W. Marshall on the property of Johann Sutter near Coloma, California, 160 years ago today. By the end of the year the rush was on; nearly 100,000 people arrived in California in 1849.

But these days, as The Gatlin Brothers sang —

All the gold in California
Is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills
In somebody else’s name

Poll cats

The 24th Amendment was ratified on this date in 1964, making poll taxes illegal in federal elections.

Poll taxes were one way that the states of the former Confederacy circumvented the 15th Amendment. These taxes became common at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Many states included grandfather clauses in their version of the poll tax, allowing people whose parents or grandparents had voted to do so as well. In this way, the taxes disfranchised African-Americans while allowing whites, with some exceptions, to vote.

The Edge of the American West

Robert E. Lee

… was born in Stratford, Virginia, on this date in 1807, the son of Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee.

In 1810 the Lee family moved to Alexandria, then in the District of Columbia. The Lee’s lived first at 611 Cameron, but from 1811 or 1812 at 607 Oronoco.

Lee graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1829, second in his class and reputedly the only cadet to this day to have no demerits on his record. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, great granddaughter of Martha Washington, at Arlington House in 1831. Arlington House was in the District of Columbia from the time it was constructed until 1847 when the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia was receded to Virginia.

So, although Lee supposedly supported preservation of the Union that his father and uncles had helped create and opposed slavery, and although his residence had been in Virginia no more than 17 of his 54 years, in 1861 he turned down command of the Union forces to remain loyal to Virginia. I suggest that nullified his record of no demerits.

Appropriately enough Lee’s strategic vision was limited to the Virginia theater. This shortcoming, common among the Confederate leadership, contributed significantly to the rebellion’s ultimate failure.

After the surrender at Appomattox Court House Lee was a prisoner of war but paroled. He returned to Richmond. He was indicted for treason but, with the support of Grant argued that the parole superseded any prosecution. On June 13, 1865, Lee wrote to General Grant about the parole and to President Johnson to request a pardon under the requirements of Johnson’s amnesty proclamation.

Richmond, Virginia, June 13, 1865.

Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant, Commanding the Armies of the United States.

General: Upon reading the President’s proclamation of the 29th ult., I came to Richmond to ascertain what was proper or required of me to do, when I learned that, with others, I was to be indicted for treason by the grand jury at Norfolk. I had supposed that the officers and men of the Army of Northern Virginia were, by the terms of their surrender, protected by the United States Government from molestation so long as they conformed to its conditions. I am ready to meet any charges that may be preferred against me, and do not wish to avoid trial; but, if I am correct as to the protection granted by my parole, and am not to be prosecuted, I desire to comply with the provisions of the President’s proclamation, and, therefore, inclose the required application, which I request, in that event, may be acted on. I am, with great respect,

Your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE.

Richmond, Virginia, June 13, 1865.

His Excellency Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States.

Sir: Being excluded from the provisions of the amnesty and pardon contained in the proclamation of the 29th ult., I hereby apply for the benefits and full restoration of all rights and privileges extended to those included in its terms. I graduated at the Military Academy at West Point in June, 1829; resigned from the United States Army, April, 1861; was a general in the Confederate Army, and included in the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, April 9, 1865. I have the honor to be, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE.

Possibly due to clerical error concerning the requirement for a loyalty oath (Lee’s 1865 oath was lost until 1970) Lee was never individually pardoned. Nor was he prosecuted for treason. His citizenship was restored in 1975 in conformance with his original appeal to Johnson.

Lee was offered and accepted the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee) and served from September 1865 until his death in October 1870.

From Douglas Southall Freeman’s 4-volume biography of Lee.

General Lee was returning to his camp and was close to it when he met a cavalcade in blue and was greeted with a cheery “good morning, General” from a bearded man, who removed his cap as he spoke. For the moment Lee did not recognize the speaker, but the latter recalled himself as none other than George Gordon Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, and an old friend of kindly days.

“But what are you doing with all that gray in your beard?” Lee asked.

“You have to answer for most of it!” Meade magnanimously replied.

America’s Founding Uncle

Benjamin Franklin was born on this date in 1706.

As his most recent biographer, Walter Isaacson, states:

[Franklin] was, during his eighty-four-year-Iong life, America’s best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical, though not most profound, political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He devised bifocal glasses and cleanburning stoves, charts of the Gulf Stream and theories about the contagious nature of the common cold. He launched various civic improvement schemes, such as a lending library, college, volunteer fire corps, insurance association, and matching grant fund-raiser. He helped invent America’s unique style of homespun humor and philosophical pragmatism. In foreign policy, he created an approach that wove together idealism with balance-of-power realism. And in politics, he proposed seminal plans for uniting the colonies and creating a federal model for a national government.

But the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America’s first great publicist, he was, in his life and in his writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity.

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Best lines of the past 302 years, so far

  • The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money.
  • He is not well-bred, that cannot bear ill-breeding in others.
  • You may talk too much on the best of subjects.
  • A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
  • All would live long, but none would be old.
  • One today is worth two tomorrows.
  • Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
  • Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
  • Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
  • Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
  • Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
  • Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five.
  • I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.
  • If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
  • I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

All the above from Benjamin Franklin, born in Boston on this date in 1706.

Martin Luther King Jr.

… was born on this date in 1929.

Many may question some of King’s choices and perhaps even some of his motives, but no one can question his unparalleled leadership in a great cause, or his abilities with both the spoken and written word.

There are 10 federal holidays, but only four of them are dedicated to one man: one for Jesus, one for the man given credit for discovering our continent, one for the military and political founder George Washington, and one for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964
Library of Congress

Alexander Hamilton

… was born in the British West Indies on this date in 1757 (or possibly in 1755).

Hamilton Ten Dollar Bill

He grew up on the tiny island of Nevis, where his father abandoned the family and his mother died when he was just a boy. He was taken in by a local merchant who gave him a job at a general store. He turned out to be quite good at accounting, so when he was thirteen, his boss took a trip to Europe and left young Alexander in charge of the store. He started writing on the side, and an article about a recent hurricane so impressed the adults around him that they all pitched in to pay for his passage to New York, where he could attend school.

He arrived in America just as rebellion against Great Britain was brewing, and he immediately began to write for New York newspapers in support of the colonies’ rights. He impressed George Washington so much that he became Washington’s right hand man when he was barely twenty-years old. After the revolution, when many American politicians believed that the colonies should remain mostly independent of each other, Hamilton was one of the earliest supporters of a strong central government.

In just three years, between 1787 and 1790, he served on the constitutional convention, wrote the majority of the Federalist Papers, which helped garner support for the new constitution, became the first secretary of the treasury, and set up the U.S. National Bank.

While serving on Washington’s cabinet, Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson became bitter enemies, and set out to undermine each other with gossip about each other’s scandalous private lives. Hamilton was having an affair at the time, and there were rumors that Jefferson had had children with one of his slaves. But despite their bitter rivalry, Hamilton later spoke in favor of Jefferson as president over Aaron Burr, whom he considered a scoundrel.

Four years later, Burr challenged him to a duel. They met at sunrise in a wooded area of Weehawken, New Jersey, above the Hudson River. Hamilton showed up for the duel to prove his courage, but he purposely fired his gun straight up into the air. Burr aimed at him anyway, and Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the next day.

He hasn’t been as well remembered as Washington or Jefferson, but by setting up the national treasury, the national bank, the first budgetary and tax systems, and most of all by helping gather support for the U.S. constitution, he did more to design the system of government we now live under than almost any other man.

The columnist George F. Will said, “We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton’s country.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

The Battle of New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans was fought 193 years ago today (you know, “In 1815, we took a little trip, along with Colonel Jackson, down the mighty Mississip”). Pulitizer-winning historian Alan Taylor gives a quick summary at The Edge of the American West.

We took a little bacon and we took a little beans,
and we fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.