Category: History

Brief narratives about people and events in the American past.

Black Jack

In all of American history, only two generals have held the rank General of the Armies, George Washington and John J. Pershing.*

Pershing was born on September 13 in 1860. He graduated from West Point, 30th in a class of 77, and was stationed at Fort Bayard, New Mexico Territory (near Silver City), serving with General Miles in the last capture of Geronimo. Then he served in the Dakotas at the time of Wounded Knee. Pershing fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, and successfully (from the U.S. standpoint) controlled an insurrection while serving in the Philippines.

Still a captain, Pershing was promoted to Brigadier General by order of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. That is, he skipped major, lieutenant colonel and colonel. The fact that Pershing’s father-in-law was a U.S. senator and the president had attended the Pershings’ wedding had no bearing on this, of course.

Pershing’s wife and three daughters were killed in a fire in 1915 at their home at the Presidio in San Francisco while Pershing was commander of the Eighth Brigade there. A son survived.

In 1916-1917 Pershing led 12,000 American troops into Mexico in a failed attempt to capture Pancho Villa after his raid on Columbus, New Mexico.

In 1917, Pershing was named commander of the American Expeditionary Force — ultimately 2-1/2 million men. In his memoirs he wrote that his two biggest problems were keeping the British and French from incorporating the American army into theirs and getting the supplies he needed for such a large force.

Pershing was welcomed home a hero in 1919, became army chief of staff, and retired from active duty in 1924.

He died in 1948.

Pershing was nicknamed “Black Jack” as a result of his time as an officer in the 10th Cavalry, a unit of African-American or “Buffalo” soldiers.

* Pershing was awarded the rank General of the Armies in 1919 while still in the Army. Washington was promoted to the rank in 1976 as part of the Bicentennial. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan were four star generals of the army. Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Arnold and Bradley were five star generals of the army. Washington wore three stars, but by law is the highest ranking army officer. Pershing is second; he wore four gold stars.

Montcalm and Wolfe

It was 253 years ago today (September 13, 1759) that British military and naval forces under General James Wolfe defeated the French under Marquis Louis-Joseph de Montcalm on the fields once belonging to Abraham Martin outside Québec. Both commanders were killed. That’s Wolfe’s death on the field above as depicted by Benjamin West. Montcalm died the next morning.

Fewer than 10,000 combatants were on the Plains of Abraham that day for a battle lasting just about an hour. Yet, and even though the war continued for four more years, it was the pivotal battle for North America. Controlling Québec meant controlling the St. Lawrence River. In the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War in 1763 — it is known as the French and Indian War in America, as the War of the Conquest in Québec — France ceded to Britain its claim to Canada, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley.

The British, unable to pierce Québec’s defenses throughout July, had launched a war of terror. An estimated 1,400 farms had been destroyed — no one knows the number of murders, rapes, thefts and scalpings. Even so, the French held, well arrayed against an assault on the cliffs and shore below the city, and supplied from up river against a siege.

Finally, perhaps in desperation, Wolfe moved his army up river past Québec. On the night of September 12th, he let the ebbing river bring them back down to an obscure pathway up the cliff to the Plains of Abraham. By daylight, seven British battalions were on the field; five more were still coming up the path and artillery was being manhandled up the cliff as well (4,500 men in all). Montcalm, reportedly rattled by Wolfe’s surprise move, decided to assault the probably superior British force in a frontal assault.

The French marched on the seven forward British battalions; the Redcoats were formed two deep, a half-mile wide. The British were ordered not to fire until the enemy was at 40 yards. The French fired at 125-150 yards, to little effect — though they did mortally wound Wolfe. The British held fire. The French attacked without cohesion. The British stood still holding fire.

When the French advance reached 40 yards the British fired. From then it was a rout. In fact the British command needed to order its pursuing troops back. British discipline reformed before French reserves arrived from behind; the arriving French did not engage. (The outcome might have been different if Montcalm had kept his cool and waited to trap the British before attacking.) Each side had about 650 casualties.

The British dug in for a siege. The town, its supplies now cut off, capitulated on the 18th.

And the British spent a miserable Québec winter with nothing to eat — they had destroyed all the farms before harvest.

The British captured Montréal the following September. Canada was British.

Chief Executive Victim of Most Cowardly Anarchist

On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Leon Czolgosz, a Polish citizen associated with the Anarchist movement, fired two shots at McKinley who was greeting the public in a receiving line.

McKinley died September 14, whispering the words of his favorite hymn, “Nearer my God to Thee, Nearer to Thee.” He was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.

— Source Library of Congress.

T. Dart Walker, 1905

Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair on October 29, 1901.

See The New York Times articles from the day of the shooting.

Title for this post from headline in The San Francisco Call.

Rosie the Riveter

The song came first, in 1942.

“Rosie the Riveter” by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb

All the day long, whether rain or shine
She’s a part of the assembly line
She’s making history, working for victory
Rosie, brrrrrrrrrrr, the riveter

Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage
Sitting up there on the fuselage
That little frail can do more than a male can do
Rosie, brrrrrrrrrrr, the riveter

Rosie’s got a boyfriend, Charlie
Charlie, he’s a Marine
Rosie is protecting Charlie
Workin’ overtime on the riveting machine

When they gave her a production ‘E’
She was as proud as a girl could be
There’s something true about, red, white, and blue about
Rosie, brrrrrrrrrrr, the riveter

Then came the “We Can Do It!” poster — but that wasn’t really Rosie.

In 1943 Norman Rockwell created a “Rosie” for The Saturday Evening Post — but he “adopted” the name from the song (and the Post was nervous about that for a long time).

We Can Do It! Norman Rockwell's Cover 1943

In 1942, as World War II raged in Europe and the Pacific and the song “Rosie the Riveter” filled radio waves across the home front, manufacturing giant Westinghouse commissioned artist J. Howard Miller to make a series of posters to promote the war effort. One such poster featured the image of a woman with her hair wrapped up in a red polka-dot scarf, rolling up her sleeve and flexing her bicep. At the top of the poster, the words ‘We Can Do It!’ are printed in a blue caption bubble. To many people, this image is “the” Rosie the Riveter. But it was never the intention to make this image “Rosie,” nor did many Americans think of her as “Rosie.” The connection of Miller’s image and “Rosie” is a recent phenomenon.

The “Rosie” image popular during the war was created by illustrator Norman Rockwell (who had most certainly heard the “Rosie the Riveter” song) for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943 — the Memorial Day issue. The image depicts a muscular woman wearing overalls, goggles and pins of honor on her lapel. She sports a leather wrist band and rolled-up sleeves. She sits with a riveting tool in her lap, eating a sandwich, and “Rosie” is inscribed on her lunch pail. And, she’s stepping on a copy of Adolph Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf.”

Rosie: By Any Other Name, U.S. Department of Labor

After the cover, stories about real-life Rosies, many of them actually named Rosie, sprouted in newspapers. And the Federal government adapted the name and depiction for one of the most successful advertising campaigns ever.

Howard Miller’s “Rosie” has emerged as the most recognizable of the Rosies, but she wasn’t even a Rosie.

One version of the song that started it all.

The Gettysburg of the West

The battle of Glorieta Pass concluded 150 years ago today (1862). Union troops from Fort Union, New Mexico, joined by volunteers from Colorado, effectively ended Confederate attempts to march north up the Rio Grande and on to the gold fields in Colorado.

Estimated casualties: Union 142, Confederate 189.

The Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Battle Summary: Glorieta Pass provides somewhat more detail on the three days, including this:

Glorieta Pass was a strategic location, situated at the southern tip of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, southeast of Santa Fe, and on the Santa Fe Trail. . . . Both Slough [Union] and Scurry [Confederate] decided to attack and set out early on the 28th to do so. As Scurry advanced down the canyon, he saw the Union forces approaching, so he established a battle line, including his dismounted cavalry. Slough hit them before 11:00 am. The Confederates held their ground and then attacked and counterattacked throughout the afternoon. The fighting then ended as Slough retired first to Pigeon’s Ranch and then to Kozlowski’s Ranch. Scurry soon left the field also, thinking he had won the battle. Chivington’s men, however, had destroyed all Scurry’s supplies and animals at Johnson’s Ranch, forcing him to retreat to Santa Fe, the first step on the long road back to San Antonio, Texas. The Federals had won and, thereby, stopped Confederate incursions into the Southwest. Glorieta Pass was the turning point of the war in the New Mexico Territory.

Earl Warren

… was born in Los Angeles on this date in 1891.

Among the decisions the Supreme Court made under Warren as Chief Justice were those that:

  • Outlawed school segregation.
  • Enunciated the one-man, one-vote doctrine.
  • Made most of the Bill of Rights binding on the states.
  • Curbed wiretapping.
  • Upheld the right to be secure against “unreasonable” searches and seizures.
  • Buttressed the right to counsel.
  • Underscored the right to a jury trial.
  • Barred racial discrimination in voting, in marriage laws, in the use of public parks, airports and bus terminals and in housing sales and rentals.
  • Extended the boundaries of free speech.
  • Ruled out compulsory religious exercises in public schools.
  • Restored freedom of foreign travel.
  • Knocked out the application of both the Smith and the McCarran Acts–both designed to curb “subversive” activities.
  • Held that Federal prisoners could sue the Government for injuries sustained in jail.
  • Said that wages could not be garnished without a hearing.
  • Liberalized residency requirements for welfare recipients.
  • Sustained the right to disseminate and receive birth control information.

(Source: The New York Times)

Warren’s parents were born in Norway (father) and Sweden (mother). Elected governor of California three times (1942, 1946, 1950), Warren was so popular he won both the Democratic and Republican primaries in 1946. The darkest mark against Warren’s public service was the wartime internment of Japanese Americans.

President Eisenhower appointed Warren chief justice in 1953; he retired from the Court in 1969. NewMexiKen considers Warren the most significant historical figure I’ve ever seen in person (briefly at the 1964 New York World’s Fair) — and I’ve seen five presidents.

War Is Always Hell

An unpleasant anniversary worth noting.

A group of South Vietnamese villagers reported today that a small American infantry unit killed 567 unarmed men, women and children as it swept through their hamlet on March 16, 1968.

They survived, they said, because they had been buried under the bodies of their neighbors.

The villagers told their story in the presence of American officers at their new settlement, which lies in contested territory less than a mile from the ruins of their former home.

The officers refused to comment pending the outcome of an Army investigation into charges of murder against Lieut. William Laws Calley Jr., 26 years old, of Miami.

The New York Times

Valentine, You Slay Me

It was on this date in 1929 that the Valentine’s Day Massacre took place in Chicago. Here is the beginning of the news report in The New York Times:

Chicago, Feb. 14 — Chicago gangland leaders observed Valentine’s Day with machine guns and a stream of bullets and as a result seven members of the George (Bugs) Moran-Dean O’Banion, North Side Gang are dead in the most cold-blooded gang massacre in the history of this city’s underworld.

The seven gang warriors were trapped in a beer-distributors’ rendezvous at 2,122 North Clark Street, lined up against the wall by four men, two of whom were in police uniforms, and executed with the precision of a firing squad.

The killings have stunned the citizenry of Chicago as well as the Police Department, and while tonight there was no solution, the one outstanding cause was illicit liquor traffic.

Additional background from This Day in History:

Capone was in Florida in February 1929 when he gave the go-ahead for the assassination of Bugs Moran. On February 13, a bootlegger called Moran and offered to sell him a truckload of high quality whiskey at a low price. Moran took the bait and the next morning pulled up to the delivery location where he was to meet several associates and purchase the whisky. He was running a little late, and just as he was pulling up to the garage he saw what looked like two policemen and two detectives get out of an unmarked car and head to the door. Thinking he had nearly avoided being caught in a police raid, Moran drove off. The four men, however, were Capone’s assassins, and they were only entering the building before Moran’s arrival because they had mistaken one of the seven men inside for the boss himself.

Wearing their stolen police uniforms and heavily armed, Capone’s henchmen surprised Moran’s men, who agreed to line up against the wall. Thinking they had fallen prey to a routine police raid, they allowed themselves to be disarmed. A moment later, they were gunned down in a hail of shotgun and submachine-gun fire. Six were killed instantly, and the seventh survived for less than an hour.

Moran survived until 1957. Capone died in 1947. Prohibition ended in 1932.

Great Man, Great Words

Our greatest president was born 203 years ago today. It seems a good reason to read, once again, some of his most meaningful words — read them slowly and meticulously, perhaps almost saying them aloud as he did.

The Address at Gettysburg (November 19, 1863):

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

And, from his Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1865):

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Song of Bernadette

It began 154 years ago today.

Bernadette Soubirous was born in 1844, the first child of an extremely poor miller in the town of Lourdes in southern France. The family was living in the basement of a dilapidated building when on February 11, 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette in a cave above the banks of the Gave River near Lourdes. Bernadette, 14 years old, was known as a virtuous girl though a dull student who had not even made her first Holy Communion. In poor health, she had suffered from asthma from an early age.

There were 18 appearances in all, the final one occurring on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, July 16. Although Bernadette’s initial reports provoked skepticism, her daily visions of “the Lady” brought great crowds of the curious. The Lady, Bernadette explained, had instructed her to have a chapel built on the spot of the visions. There the people were to come to wash in and drink of the water of the spring that had welled up from the very spot where Bernadette had been instructed to dig.

According to Bernadette, the Lady of her visions was a girl of 16 or 17 who wore a white robe with a blue sash. Yellow roses covered her feet, a large rosary was on her right arm. In the vision on March 25 she told Bernadette, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” It was only when the words were explained to her that Bernadette came to realize who the Lady was.

Few visions have ever undergone the scrutiny that these appearances of the Immaculate Virgin were subject to. Lourdes became one of the most popular Marian shrines in the world, attracting millions of visitors. Miracles were reported at the shrine and in the waters of the spring. After thorough investigation Church authorities confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions in 1862.

American Catholic

Bernadette Soubirous died, a nun, at age 35. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1933.

One wonders exactly what “scrutiny” means in this case.

24-year-old Jennifer Jones won the best actress Oscar for playing the 14-year-old French girl in the 1943 film Song of Bernadette.

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.

The Dawes Act

… “An act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations…” was approved by President Grover Cleveland on this date in 1887.

Named for its chief author, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes from Massachusetts, the Dawes Severalty Act reversed the long-standing American policy of allowing Indian tribes to maintain their traditional practice of communal use and control of their lands. Instead, the Dawes Act gave the president the power to divide Indian reservations into individual, privately owned plots. The act dictated that men with families would receive 160 acres, single adult men were given 80 acres, and boys received 40 acres. Women received no land.

The most important motivation for the Dawes Act was Anglo-American hunger for Indian lands. The act provided that after the government had doled out land allotments to the Indians, the sizeable remainder of the reservation properties would be opened for sale to whites. Consequently, Indians eventually lost 86 million acres of land, or 62 percent of their total pre-1887 holdings.

This Day in History

The alloment of lands ended in 1934. The problems The Dawes Act created continue.

Inauguration Day

The 57th presidential inauguration will be a year from today.

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution states that the “terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January.” The Amendment was ratified in 1933 — the first inauguration on the new date was January 20, 1937.

Before the 20th Amendment, the Constitution did not provide the date when the terms began and ended. The terms of the first President and Vice President were fixed by an act of the Continental Congress adopted September 13, 1788. That act called for “the first Wednesday in March next to be the time for commencing proceedings under the Constitution.” It happened that the first Wednesday in March was the 4th day of March, and hence the terms of the President and Vice President and Members of Congress began on March 4, 1789. (Washington did not take the oath of office until April 30, 1789, but technically his term began March 4th.)

The Constitution set the terms of the President and Vice President at four years. Accordingly, any change from March 4th required a constitutional amendment because a date change would mean that the incumbents would not serve exactly four years. Franklin Roosevelt’s and John Nance Garner’s first terms were 43 days less than four years — March 4, 1933 – January 20, 1937.

The 20th Amendment also moved the time for the new Congress from December forward 11 months to January: “The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.” Article I, Section 4 had read: “The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.”

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 opposed slavery and supposedly supported preservation of the Union that his father and uncles had helped create, 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 nullifies 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.

Best lines of someone born 306 years ago today

  • 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.

Benjamin Franklin

What I’m Reading

Paris to the Past: Traveling through French History by Train (2011) by Ina Caro. The author centers herself in Paris, then tours French history and architecture by means of day rail trips. An interesting approach, good background and a good style make it an enjoyable read — and make the reader anxious to repeat her journeys.

The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) by William Hickling Prescott, a classic of American historical literature. I’m reading the 99¢ Kindle version.

I think I will follow this however, with Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico (1995) by Hugh Thomas. As good as Prescott’s storytelling is, it is still dated both in research and style.

Best redux post of the day

Andrew Tobias gave us all a little perspective when he posted this six years ago:

I am listening to [the book] 1776 on my Nano, and it’s 2 degrees Fahrenheit (in Boston, in 1776) and people are dragging 120 tons of can[n]ons from Ft. Ticonderoga 300 miles to General George Washington in Dorchester, and the suffering of the troops — civilians like you and me, who’ve left their families to fight the British — is astounding. Sentries are literally freezing to death. And all I can think about is how upset we get if we’re assigned a middle seat.

63 Years Ago Today

President Harry S. Truman, in his 1949 State of the Union Address:

We must spare no effort to raise the general level of health in this country. In a nation as rich as ours, it is a shocking fact that tens of millions lack adequate medical care. We are short of doctors, hospitals, nurses. We must remedy these shortages. Moreover, we need–and we must have without further delay–a system of prepaid medical insurance which will enable every American to afford good medical care.

Madness Shoots, Arrogance Kills

I’m reading Candice Millard’s excellent Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President.

Millard tells the story of the assassination of the 20th president, James A. Garfield. Garfield, a good man and potentially a good president, was shot by the lunatic Charles Guiteau, but killed by the medical profession.

Highly recommended.

Other recommended recent reads:

Stephen King’s 11/22/63: A Novel.

Robert K. Massie’s Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.

Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck.