General musings

All of the snow has melted, meaning that the ground here was fully and completely saturated before today’s heavy rains hit. My back yard looks like a lake, there is so much standing water. With two golden retrievers that go slogging through the mud every chance they get, we’re both getting tired of giving the dogs baths. I gave Aurora a bath a little while ago, as there is muck, muck, and more muck everywhere. We’re supposed to have 3-4 inches of rain between today and tomorrow, meaning widespread flooding all over Ohio. I never thought I would hear myself say this, but….

I’m almost praying for a drought. I can’t take any more mud…..

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I seem to have struck a nerve with yesterday’s post. We’ve had about a dozen comments so far, including an especially good one from old friend Ted Savas, I decided to send my complaint on to the History Channel.

The following, although a little difficult to find, appears on THC’s website:

It is important to us to receive feedback from our viewers, and we appreciate your taking the time to contact us.

I took them up on it. I copy/pasted last night’s blog entry into an e-mail and sent it on. I want to encourage anyone else who cares about this issue to do the same. You can send your e-mails to thc.viewerrelations at aetv.com. Maybe a popular revolt by those of us who have been loyal viewers for years might bring back the sort of programming we want. Maybe not. But it’s worth a try.

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We’re watching a modestly interesting documentary on the History Channel called “Axe Men”. It’s about lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest. Once I got beyond wondering when they would sing Monty Python’s Lumberjack Song (they didn’t, by the way), I started wondering about a much bigger and more important question.

This is a routine documentary on contemporary events, the sort of thing that has long been the staple of the Discovery Channel or the National Geographic channel. It’s NOT history. What is this doing on the History Channel? Or “Ice Road Truckers”? Again, interesting, but not history.

I can remember a time when the History Channel actually showed quality history programming. It carried the excellent “Civil War Journal” series. It has done some really interesting programming on the presidents of the United States. Or “History’s Mysteries”, another favorite of mine. There was a time when this channel was history, 24/7/365, and that’s what made it unique. You could always find something that was purely historical and often really interesting on the History Channel.

Now, it’s the UFO/paranormal channel, with lots of of programs about Adolf Hitler and Nostradamus, and these stupid documentaries that have nothing to do with history. Now, I completely understand that television programming is a business and that networks are going to air what makes money for them. I get that. It makes sense.

Here’s the description of another new series:

Gangland, the new series on The History Channel, takes you inside prisons and on the streets of America to view the most violent and influential gangs in our modern times.

The key to that description is the word “modern”. Again, it’s contemporary stuff and NOT history.

However, why not just be honest about it and give up the charade that this is still supposed to be a network that carries legitimate, serious programming about history. Just change the name and stop defrauding the public as to the nature of the content by calling yourself a “history channel” when it is now far, far from being that.

I miss the real History Channel, and I despise the crap that has taken its place.

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Warning: this is an off-topic rant that has nothing to do with the Civil War.

Today is the Daytona 500, the opening race of NASCAR season. I can’t possibly think of anything that I would want to do less than sit and watch a NASCAR race on television. Guys turning left for 2.5 hours in cars that are supposed to be stock cars, but which are anything but. I know that NASCAR is popular, but God in heaven, I cannot, for the life of me understand why. Perhaps these are my northern biases coming through, but I just don’t get it.

I cannot, for instance, fathom sitting in the grandstands having your hearing damaged watching a bunch of guys going around in circles and doing nothing but turning left. I cannot fathom sitting and watching one of these races on television. I’d rather do something really fun and fascinating, like watching paint dry or grass grow. Or the old favorite, watching snow melt. Those activities would be at least as much fun, and just as interesting to me.

And then there’s the whole idea of including NASCAR as a sport. I will grant you that it takes skill to drive one of those cars. There’s no doubt about that. But it’s a stretch beyond reason to say that these guys are athletes. They sit in a car. I sit in a car, but that doesn’t make me an athlete. A commuter, yes. But an athlete, no.

I recognize that it’s a cultural phenomenon and that I might be in the minority in my opinions about NASCAR, but I just cannot, for the life of me, begin to comprehend the fascination with it. I don’t get it, and I never will. And if that makes me some sort of an anomaly then I can live with that.

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On January 29, I reported on the arrest of Daniel Lorello, an archivist employed by the State of New York, who stole hundreds of documents and then sold many of them on eBay.

Then, J.D. Petruzzi reported that he had been contacted by the New York Attorney General’s office because he had apparently purchased a stolen document from Lorello on eBay. J.D. figured he was out the money, but he was ready to return the document to the archives, where it rightfully belongs.

Now, because eBay has decided to do the right thing, it looks like J. D. will get his money back.

EBay To Buy Back Stolen Historical Items, Michael Gormley, Associated Press, February 9, 2008.

Documents dating from the Civil War and others to and from Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt are among hundreds of stolen documents sold online that eBay is agreeing to buy back and return to New York’s archives, a state official said Saturday.

The online auction giant has no liability in the sale of the stolen artifacts, but agreed voluntarily to offer buyers the amount that they paid, according to the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because not all details of the investigation have been announced. “We believe that when people realize they bought stolen artifacts they will step forward and do the right thing,” the state official said. The official said the buyers appear not to have known the documents were stolen and so wouldn’t face criminal charges. Cuomo and eBay will contact the buyers, the state official said.

In January, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s investigation found that about 200 documents had been stolen from the archives and sold in the past two years. Checking through the buyer and seller comments in those eBay sales revealed that 200 other documents had been sold since 2001, according to the official. The total cost of buying back the documents for which eBay has sales records is estimated at $68,000. The offer by eBay means the state won’t have to spend money to buy the records. If there is a conviction, a court could order restitution. Usher Lieberman, an eBay spokesman, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

In January, Cuomo charged Daniel Lorello, 54, an archives and records management specialist in the state Department of Education, with stealing items from the archives. Lorello, of Rensselaer near Albany, pleaded not guilty to charges of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and scheme to defraud and was released awaiting trial. He faces up to 25 years in prison. Among the items stolen were Davy Crockett Almanacs—popular 19th century pamphlets about the frontier hero’s exploits—that sold for more than $5,000; artifacts associated with the Revolutionary, Civil and Mexican wars, black Americana and items related to both Roosevelts and to Jewish Americans.

The state was alerted to the theft and sales by a history buff, Virginia attorney Joseph Romito, who noticed the sale on eBay of a four-page letter by former Vice President John Calhoun that he knew belonged to the New York State Library and Archives. That letter was sold for $1,800.

I really respect that eBay is willing to do this, and I’m glad that no innocent purchaser who unwittingly bought one of these stolen documents from Lorello is going to end up taking a loss. That’s a great outcome, and perhaps it will assist in assuring that all of the stolen documents are returned to New York, where they belong.

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I spent much of the day going through reels of microfilm of old newspapers at the Ohio Historical Society today. Although OHS continues to be a whipping boy for the General Assembly whenever it needs a budget to slash, the OHS manages to struggle on, doing an excellent job with the outstanding collections it has. It has a truly impressive collection of Civil War newspapers on microfilm.

I’ve always enjoyed the accounts that can be found in newspapers. A lot of newspapers published soldier correspondence, and you can find great stuff there. Those accounts tend to be very reliable, because they were written contemporaneously and with the knowledge that the folks at home would be reading them. As just one example, today I found a letter by the colonel of the 149th Ohio Infantry, who made a stand at the stone bridge across the Monocacy River on the National Road. Brown’s letter, to his uncle, was written the day after the battle, and contains details I have never seen before anywhere else. It’s great stuff.

It’s also amusing to see some of the other stuff that can be found in those old papers. Lancaster, Ohio was William T. Sherman’s home town. The local newspaper, the Lancaster Eagle, was run by a major Copperhead sympathizer. The articles are very pro-Clement Vallandingham, and some of them contain some amazingly snarky commentary. The one that caught my eye today again had to do with Monocacy. It noted that Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace, who had been the Union commander at Monocacy, had been relieved of command of the Middle Military District. Indulging his inner snark, the author suggested that the reason why was because Wallace’s defeat at Monocacy had disturbed Henry W. Halleck’s nap time. I actually laughed out loud when I read that.

It seems that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

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Way back in the fall of 1981, the first semester of my junior year in college, I participated in a wonderful program sponsored by American University called the Washington Semester. Students from colleges and universities all over the country send students to AU for this program. When I was there, there were 35 of us from my alma mater, Dickinson College, by far the most participants from any school. I did the foreign policy program, meaning that I did an internship two days per week, we had seminars around Washington two days per week, and Friday was reserved for a large independent study paper due at the end of the semester. At no time in my life did I learn more, study less, have more fun, or get better grades. It was a fabulous experience that I recommend highly.

AU’s campus is in the far northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., at Ward Circle, where Nebraska Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue intersect. It’s one of the nicest parts of the District, at the northern end of Embassy Row, near the new Russian Embassy and the Japanese Embassy, a few blocks down Wisconsin Avenue from Tennally Circle. The University sits on a plateau that rises from the Potomac River from Georgetown.

Tuesday night was a big party night, and the University had its own on-campus pub in the student union building, not far from Ward Circle. We spent a lot of fun Tuesday nights there, drinking cheap, bad beer, and doing the sorts of stupid things that college students do as a consequence of drinking cheap, bad beer.

What does this have to do with the Civil War, you ask? Good question.

In the course of working on the Monocacy project, J.D. and I have decided to focus on Early’s advance on Ft. Stevens and the probes of the defenses of Washington by his army. Brig. Gen. John McCausland commanded a brigade of Virginia cavalry attached to Early’s army. McCausland claimed that he actually penetrated the defenses of the Federal capital, and that he could see the Capitol from the high ground in front of an abandoned fort briefly held by his men. This is one of those intriguing little obscure incidents of the Civil War that catch my attention and which cause me to want to learn more.

McCausland’s account is tantalizing and at the same time frustrating. He does not name the fort that he claimed that he occupied, but claimed it was in or near Tennallytown. Most people who have looked at this incident have indicated that they believe it was Fort Gaines, which was located in the northwest quadrant of the city, and the fort with the highest elevation. However, recent historical detective work suggests that rather than Fort Gaines, the fort was actually Fort Reno, named for Maj. Gen. Jesse Reno, commander of the 9th Corps, and who had been killed during the September 1862 Battle of South Mountain. I’m convinced.

Fort Reno occupied precisely the same ground as the front portion of the American University campus. The dormitory where I stayed for the semester would have been located directly behind the spot occupied by Fort Reno. But for the high-rise apartment buildings that clutter the skyline and block the view of downtown Washington, you would be able to clearly see the Capitol dome from there. Therefore, although there are no historical markers to suggest that the university’s campus had historical significance, and I had no way of knowing it, I spent an entire semester living–and partying–on some very important historic ground that is directly relevant to our Monocacy project.

Just think…I might have been drinking bad beer on the very spot where McCausland stood and visually inspected the defenses of the Federal capital. And I never knew it.

We’ve decided that we definitely need to include this episode in the driving tour portion of the Monocacy study, which will take me back to AU’s campus for the first time in more than 20 years. Won’t that make for an interesting trip down memory lane?

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One of the reasons why the Battle of Monocacy fascinates me is that it represents one of the only instances during the Civil War where militia not only stood and fought, but did so quite effectively. The northernmost portion of the battle occurred at the stone “jug” bridge, which carried the National Road across the Monocacy River.

Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace’s Federal command consisted of three brigades. Two of those brigades belonged to Brig. Gen. James Ricketts’ Third Division, Sixth Corps. These two brigades did the bulk of the fighting, on the main battlefield. The third brigade, consisting of troops from the Eighth Corps, a hodgepodge command based in Baltimore, was made up largely of 100 days’ militiamen raised as emergency troops. The better part of two regiments of Ohio troops made up the bulk of this command. These men were completely untried, and they had very little in the way training.

Col. Allison L. Brown commanded these men. There were also a regiment and a half of the Maryland Potomac Home Guard, the 11th Maryland, and 6 guns of a Baltimore battery. These men were not the sort of men one would expect to stand and fight long and hard against Confederate veterans, but that’s exactly what they did. They stood and fought all day long against Maj. Gen. Robert Rodes’ veterans, and were the last men to leave the battlefield, even after Ricketts’ troops had been driven from the field by Early’s men. They were left to their own devices and to get away, each man for himself.

The courageous and unexpected stand of these militiamen at the Jug Bridge ensured that the bulk of Wallace’s command escaped from the battlefield and lived to fight another day. It was one of the few instances of the Civil War when militiamen not only stood and fought in the face of the enemy, but did so effectively and bravely.

We’re going to tell their story in detail in our tactical study of the Battle of Monocacy, hopefully, in greater detail than it’s ever been told previously. I hope to do these forgotten soldiers justice in the process.

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One of the things that I really enjoy doing when working on my projects is developing orders of battle. I’ve always been very proud of my ability to put together detailed orders of battle that include a lot of useful information, such as the names of regimental commanders, and, if something happened to them, successors.

Sometimes, it’s just not possible to get everything. Given that the Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads occurred a scant few weeks before the end of the Civil War, and given the wretched state of Confederate record-keeping at that time, in spite of years of research and my very best efforts to do so, I was unable to identify several of the regimental commanders on the Confederate side. That really bothered me, because it was the first time that I’ve ever been unable to fill in all of the regimental commanders in an order of battle.

This evening, I started working on an order of battle for the July 9, 1864 Battle of Monocacy, which is going to be the next project for J. D. and me. I got a decent start on it, but I’ve still got a bunch of regimental commanders on both sides to identify.

This time, though, I’m going to succeed. I’m going to get all of them.

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Always being on the alert for examples of neo-Confederate idiocy, I came across this prize on one of the Yahoo Groups e-mail lists on the Civil War that I subscribe to. It came across last night, and I hereby declare it the neo-Confederate grand champion for 2008, as I cannot imagine ANYONE topping this little prize:

I would also like to add that I am a founding family of Virginia and America. My family fought for the South. None of my ancestors owned any slaves. Also, with my family coming into this country in 1609 and 1614 I had many direct ancestors die in the Rev. war. If your family has not been in this country since before the ACW, I would rather not hear your opinion. As I do not believe you to be an American.

By our hero’s definition, more than 90% of U. S. citizens are not Americans, including me–my family did not immigrate to the U. S. until 1904. I wonder what our neo-Confederate hero thinks about Native Americans, since they pre-date his family?

Nice grammar, too.

Not surprisingly, our genius refuses to sign his posts, so nobody knows what his name might be. However, I do wish he’d head back to the mobile home, raise the Confederate battle flag with “git ‘er done” on it, turn on the Dukes of Hazard, and hopefully, never, ever reproduce. Like Britney Spears, this guy is a prime example of why people should be required to obtain a license to reproduce.

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