Eras Gone tallied its 5,000th visitor today!
A humble "thank you" to all of my readers. When I started this project back in July 2012, I had no idea that so many folks would ever find the blog or take the time to read my stories. Thanks again. I hope to continue to add topics on history, archaeology and travel each week.
Stay tuned, and Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Dead of Influenza, Far From Home - An Arkansas Mystery
Last November we observed the end of World War One, the War to end all Wars. Not all casualties were on the battlefield on foriegn shores, however. This is a tale of men who died supporting the War in the United States, a shore that was just as foriegn to them. Their story was all but forgotten until a recent discovery in Little Rock, Arkansas.
By Evin Demirel
ARKANSAS MYSTERY
Re-Blogged From: http://www.syncweekly.com/news/2012/jul/10/arkansas-mystery/
Sculptor Shep Miers likes riding his Vespa around Little Rock. He easily zips from his home, to the Arkansas Arts Center, where he teaches furniture design, to his warehouse off Asher Street. Hard-to-reach places don’t present a problem to his motor scooter, and the field of vision it allows can’t be beat.
Which means, on four wheels, he might have never seen it.
A month ago, Miers had just turned off Asher and was heading north on Woodrow Street when he glimpsed something to his left. There, in the official cemetery of the Diocese of Little Rock, he noticed a small granite marker, by itself under a cedar tree.
Miers entered Calvary Cemetery to inspect the marker. On the tombstone, he read, “In Memoriam of the Porto Ricans who died at Picron, Ark. 1917-18.” A mass grave.
“Well, that’s a story,” he recalled thinking. “I wonder what that’s about.”
He told his wife, Kaye, who told a historian friend. From there, the mystery was forwarded to historians all around the state, but only scant details were found to fill the gaps. A long-forgotten corner of Arkansas’ past, it seemed, had been illuminated. Guy Lancaster, editor of the Arkansas Encyclopedia of History & Culture, agrees: “This is one of those things that has somehow evaded historical consciousness for quite some time, so it’s gonna take some rediscovering.”
The path begins almost 2,000 miles to the southeast, in Puerto Rico, in 1917.
It was a watershed year for the 100-mile-long Caribbean island, which 19 years before had come under United States control following the Spanish-American War [the U.S. renamed it “Porto Rico,” a spelling lasting 34 years]. On March 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed an act granting U.S. citizenship to all Puerto Ricans. The islanders didn’t assume all U.S. citizenship rights, such as the right to vote in presidential elections, but they did inherit most citizenship obligations, such as serving in the military if drafted.
That same spring, the United States officially entered World War I. Around 18,000 Puerto Ricans were drafted to serve its military. This helped alleviate some of the surging unemployment afflicting the island’s rural economy, as corporate-financed sugar plantations had emerged in the preceding years, displacing thousands of subsistence farmers from their own land.
During the next year, the United States ratcheted up its involvement in the war’s European theater. The government and private businesses entered into numerous agreements to fortify American forces, as well as aid allied nations like France. The U.S., for instance, often paid the French for artillery and ammunition not in cash but picric acid, which was used in making explosives, and the war gas chlorpicrin. Demand was high; monthly U.S.-based picric-acid production soared from 53,000 pounds in May 1917 to nearly a million pounds by November 1918. U.S. officials, expecting even more to be needed, had contracted in spring 1918 with chemical companies in Georgia, Michigan and Arkansas to build three plants, each of which was projected to monthly produce 14.5 million pounds of picric acid.
Of these three projects, manufacturing only got off the ground at the one located by what’s now the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.
There’s not much left of the pop-up community formed around the Little Rock area’s picric acid plant. It’s not clear where the roughly 400-acre site was, although we have a few clues: a Picron Street by the airport, a Picron Hill behind the Holiday Inn off Bankhead Drive, government documents stating the site was two miles from the Arkansas River. We do know in the summer of 1917 the New York-based Everly M. Davis Chemical Company cleared off an area full of cotton, corn, sorghum and sweet potato patches, and $7 million was spent on the plant, 25 dwelling homes, a clubhouse and a bunkhouse for 500 workmen. About 1,500 unskilled laborers were needed. Without enough available local workers, some Texans and Oklahomans were brought in. But the turnover rate was extremely high, and demand persisted. Help was sought from Washington, D.C., and soon it arrived.
That summer, the U.S. Department of Labor released numbers estimating 75,000 unemployed Puerto Ricans were available for work in the United States — an untapped resource expected to provide good, cheap labor. Pay for some islanders on the East Coast was set at 35 cents an hour, with time and a half for overtime. Housing was free, and meals cost 25 cents each, according to a 1918 U.S. Employment Service Bulletin. The War Department agreed to import islanders who had signed up for factory work via the home trips of transport ships carrying supplies to a San Juan base.
This, apparently, is how the Department of Labor secured 1,436 Puerto Ricans to work at Picron. According to a 1918-19 document from the U.S. Ordnance Department, though, the experiment proved “unfortunate.”
These island workmen were barefoot, thinly clad, poorly fed, unable to speak or understand English; they reached the scene in the early fall, just ahead of the influenza epidemic. At first they were housed in tents with wooden floors, but later they were barracked at Liberty Hall, a temporary auditorium in Little Rock. The contractors bought them winter outfits, and their organizer testified that they were considerately treated. But they were unable to work effectively, homesickness seized them, and influenza, following, reaped a harvest of death among them. It was two months before a vessel could be had to return them to their native land, and when they embarked, they left 176 of their number in the graveyards of Little Rock.”
On Dec. 3, 1918, less than a month after Armistice Day, the government suspended Picron’s picric-acid production. Less than a year and a half later, it sold the plant, along with the water and gas supply systems, to H.C. Couch, president of the Arkansas Light & Power Co., who represented a group of local businessmen.
For the most part, the Picron site disappears from the pages of public history after this, until one of Couch’s descendants stumbled upon a mass grave in the southwestern corner of Calvary Cemetery. Maybe it’s divine fate that Shep Miers, Couch’s great-nephew, brought this story — which he’d never heard within his own family — to the public. Or maybe it’s simply a reflection of how small and interwoven Arkansas still is, despite tens of thousands of immigrants arriving in recent decades.
As in past eras, many came for work. Many stayed.
By Evin Demirel
ARKANSAS MYSTERY
Re-Blogged From: http://www.syncweekly.com/news/2012/jul/10/arkansas-mystery/
Sculptor Shep Miers likes riding his Vespa around Little Rock. He easily zips from his home, to the Arkansas Arts Center, where he teaches furniture design, to his warehouse off Asher Street. Hard-to-reach places don’t present a problem to his motor scooter, and the field of vision it allows can’t be beat.
Which means, on four wheels, he might have never seen it.
A month ago, Miers had just turned off Asher and was heading north on Woodrow Street when he glimpsed something to his left. There, in the official cemetery of the Diocese of Little Rock, he noticed a small granite marker, by itself under a cedar tree.
Miers entered Calvary Cemetery to inspect the marker. On the tombstone, he read, “In Memoriam of the Porto Ricans who died at Picron, Ark. 1917-18.” A mass grave.
 |
| Shep Miers discovered this forgotten marker at Calvary Cemetery in Little Rock |
“Well, that’s a story,” he recalled thinking. “I wonder what that’s about.”
He told his wife, Kaye, who told a historian friend. From there, the mystery was forwarded to historians all around the state, but only scant details were found to fill the gaps. A long-forgotten corner of Arkansas’ past, it seemed, had been illuminated. Guy Lancaster, editor of the Arkansas Encyclopedia of History & Culture, agrees: “This is one of those things that has somehow evaded historical consciousness for quite some time, so it’s gonna take some rediscovering.”
The path begins almost 2,000 miles to the southeast, in Puerto Rico, in 1917.
It was a watershed year for the 100-mile-long Caribbean island, which 19 years before had come under United States control following the Spanish-American War [the U.S. renamed it “Porto Rico,” a spelling lasting 34 years]. On March 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed an act granting U.S. citizenship to all Puerto Ricans. The islanders didn’t assume all U.S. citizenship rights, such as the right to vote in presidential elections, but they did inherit most citizenship obligations, such as serving in the military if drafted.
That same spring, the United States officially entered World War I. Around 18,000 Puerto Ricans were drafted to serve its military. This helped alleviate some of the surging unemployment afflicting the island’s rural economy, as corporate-financed sugar plantations had emerged in the preceding years, displacing thousands of subsistence farmers from their own land.
During the next year, the United States ratcheted up its involvement in the war’s European theater. The government and private businesses entered into numerous agreements to fortify American forces, as well as aid allied nations like France. The U.S., for instance, often paid the French for artillery and ammunition not in cash but picric acid, which was used in making explosives, and the war gas chlorpicrin. Demand was high; monthly U.S.-based picric-acid production soared from 53,000 pounds in May 1917 to nearly a million pounds by November 1918. U.S. officials, expecting even more to be needed, had contracted in spring 1918 with chemical companies in Georgia, Michigan and Arkansas to build three plants, each of which was projected to monthly produce 14.5 million pounds of picric acid.
Of these three projects, manufacturing only got off the ground at the one located by what’s now the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.
There’s not much left of the pop-up community formed around the Little Rock area’s picric acid plant. It’s not clear where the roughly 400-acre site was, although we have a few clues: a Picron Street by the airport, a Picron Hill behind the Holiday Inn off Bankhead Drive, government documents stating the site was two miles from the Arkansas River. We do know in the summer of 1917 the New York-based Everly M. Davis Chemical Company cleared off an area full of cotton, corn, sorghum and sweet potato patches, and $7 million was spent on the plant, 25 dwelling homes, a clubhouse and a bunkhouse for 500 workmen. About 1,500 unskilled laborers were needed. Without enough available local workers, some Texans and Oklahomans were brought in. But the turnover rate was extremely high, and demand persisted. Help was sought from Washington, D.C., and soon it arrived.
That summer, the U.S. Department of Labor released numbers estimating 75,000 unemployed Puerto Ricans were available for work in the United States — an untapped resource expected to provide good, cheap labor. Pay for some islanders on the East Coast was set at 35 cents an hour, with time and a half for overtime. Housing was free, and meals cost 25 cents each, according to a 1918 U.S. Employment Service Bulletin. The War Department agreed to import islanders who had signed up for factory work via the home trips of transport ships carrying supplies to a San Juan base.
This, apparently, is how the Department of Labor secured 1,436 Puerto Ricans to work at Picron. According to a 1918-19 document from the U.S. Ordnance Department, though, the experiment proved “unfortunate.”
These island workmen were barefoot, thinly clad, poorly fed, unable to speak or understand English; they reached the scene in the early fall, just ahead of the influenza epidemic. At first they were housed in tents with wooden floors, but later they were barracked at Liberty Hall, a temporary auditorium in Little Rock. The contractors bought them winter outfits, and their organizer testified that they were considerately treated. But they were unable to work effectively, homesickness seized them, and influenza, following, reaped a harvest of death among them. It was two months before a vessel could be had to return them to their native land, and when they embarked, they left 176 of their number in the graveyards of Little Rock.”
On Dec. 3, 1918, less than a month after Armistice Day, the government suspended Picron’s picric-acid production. Less than a year and a half later, it sold the plant, along with the water and gas supply systems, to H.C. Couch, president of the Arkansas Light & Power Co., who represented a group of local businessmen.
For the most part, the Picron site disappears from the pages of public history after this, until one of Couch’s descendants stumbled upon a mass grave in the southwestern corner of Calvary Cemetery. Maybe it’s divine fate that Shep Miers, Couch’s great-nephew, brought this story — which he’d never heard within his own family — to the public. Or maybe it’s simply a reflection of how small and interwoven Arkansas still is, despite tens of thousands of immigrants arriving in recent decades.
As in past eras, many came for work. Many stayed.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
The Other December 7th - The Confederacy's Last Hurrah to Retake Missouri
To every American December 7th will always live in infamy as the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. But until 1941, the history books told another story for that day. Despite the strategic importance of the fight, and the intense combat that occured there, Battle of Prairie Grove is little remembered now, except for those folks who study the American Civil War west of the Mississippi River. The battle ensured that Missouri and North West Arkansas were remained firmly in Union Control for the remainder of the War.
This is the Story of the Battle of Prairie Grove, fought 150 years ago today.
Winter in the Ozarks is harsh. The soldiers and citizens in the northwestern Arkansas Ozarks suffered mightily through the early winter of 1862, and their plight was exacerbated in the Battle of Prairie Grove, December 7, 1862.
The Union Army had secured the bulk of the state of Missouri against the Rebels by mid 1862. In St. Louis, General Samuel Curtis had relocated from Helena, Arkansas, to take overall command of the Federal Department of the Missouri. He oversaw General James Blunt’s Department of Kansas and Brigadier General John M. Schofield, who had given up command of the District of Missouri to take charge of Union field operations in the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas. The primary charge to Blunt and Schofield was to eliminate rebel activity from the Ozarks.
This was a complicated order. Rebel activity came by way of night raids on Union encampments, bushwhacked homesteads, supply depot plundering and telegraph line cutting. Bushwhacking was a veritable hydra of hostility. It was not for lack of vision that the triumvirate of Union military leaders in the Ozarks set out to achieve peace through rebel suppression. The secessionist tactics were simply too clandestine and too persistent for long term, measureable success.
Blunt was the man for the job. His regard for guerrillas and anti-Union activities would become notorious. Believing any campaigns unnecessary through the winter, Schofield returned to St. Louis to recover from illness. Two divisions were ordered to winter camp in Springfield, Missouri, leaving Blunt and his one division in northwestern Arkansas.
The Confederates, for their part, were scrambling to send troops across the Mississippi to secure Vicksburg in that ongoing siege. Major General Thomas C. Hindman, commanding the Army of the West, was convinced that his men could take out Blunt before moving troops east. His plan centered on attacking Blunt, encamped near Cane Hill, before Federal reinforcements could arrive from Springfield.
Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke commanded a federal force of nearly 2,500 men, and his initial orders from Hindman were to gather subsistence for the larger army, by way of procured flour and meal from regional mills, and fruits and vegetables from area farms. The presence of his adept cavalry, too, was believed to divert Blunt until Hindman could bring his full force in.
Blunt and his 5000 men attacked Marmaduke on November 28. Retreat and counterattack followed, with a truce finally being called by Marmaduke to collect their dead and wounded. The Confederates returned to Hindman’s camp at Dripping Springs, near Van Buren. Blunt remained at Cane Hill, and only briefly savored his victory.
On December 3, he received word that Hindman, with over 11,000 men and 22 cannons, was en route to attack him again. Now outnumbered by more than two to one, Blunt sent word to Curtis for reinforcements. Curtis then telegraphed Major General Francis J. Herron in Springfield to hurry his two divisions toward Blunt. Herron’s 6000 men covered over 100 miles in three days, arriving in Fayetteville, on December 6. Hindman was now nearly matched, if not outnumbered, and he was forced to form a new plan.
Instead of a frontal attack on Blunt, Hindman decided to take out the Union reinforcements. He would defeat Herron’s men before they could reach Blunt, and then turn his massive force on Blunt’s rear. He told his men to keep their campfires burning, and left an Arkansas cavalry regiment in the hills opposite Blunt’s front line, to keep the Yankees in place with diversionary skirmishing. Herron learned of the Confederate assault in the early hours of December 7. His men moved to repel the Rebel surge on a horseshoe shaped wooded hill on the Illinois River, known as Prairie Grove.
The Twentieth Wisconsin and Nineteenth Iowa Infantry regiments crossed the open corn and wheat fields in the valley before surging forward up the slope, capturing the Confederate cannon of Captain William Blocher’s Arkansas Battery near the home of Archibald Borden. The Union soldiers continued their advance until suddenly the woods erupted with cannon and small-arms fire. The Confederates surrounded the Federal troops on three sides and quickly forced them to retreat to the Union cannon in the valley. A Southern counterattack went down the slope into the open valley, where it was met with case shot composed of small lead balls inside exploding projectiles. Herron’s artillery also used canister shot, consisting of tin cylinders filled with iron balls packed in sawdust which, when fired, turned a cannon into a giant shotgun blast, leaving gaping holes in the Confederate ranks and forcing a retreat to the cover of the woods on the ridge.
Seeing Confederate movement on his flank, Herron decided to attack again. The Thirty-seventh Illinois and Twenty-sixth Indiana Infantry regiments went up the hill into the Borden apple orchard. Lieutenant Colonel John Charles Black of the Thirty-seventh Illinois led the way with his right arm in a sling because of a wound he had sustained at Pea Ridge nine months earlier. Outnumbered, the Federal soldiers fell back to a fence line in the valley, where they stopped another Confederate counterattack using Colt revolving rifles carried by the men of Companies A and K of the Thirty-seventh Illinois. Black sustained a serious wound to his left arm but remained with his command until it was out of danger. Black received the only Medal of Honor awarded for this battle.
With only two fresh infantry regiments left, Herron’s command was in peril even as Confederate troops began massing to attack the Twentieth Iowa Infantry, which served as the Federal right flank. Before the attack, two cannon shots rang out from the northwest at about 2:30 p.m., signaling the arrival of Blunt’s command; he quickly deployed and attacked the Confederate left flank. Blunt’s division was at Cane Hill the morning of December 7 expecting to be attacked by the Confederates. Hindman left Colonel James Monroe’s Arkansas cavalry on Reed’s Mountain to skirmish with Blunt’s Federal troops while the rest of the Confederate army marched past the Union position. The ruse worked, as Blunt’s command remained in a defensive position at Cane Hill until it heard the roar of battle at Prairie Grove. Marching to the battlefield, the Union soldiers under Blunt arrived in time to save Herron’s divisions.
The Confederates responded to the Union advance on their left flank by skirmishing in the woods with the Federal troops until Blunt gave the command to fall back to his cannon line in the valley. Believing this was an opportunity to win the day, Brigadier General Mosby M. Parsons, in command of the Confederate Missouri Infantry brigade, launched an attack across the William Morton hayfield at about 4:00 p.m. As the Southern soldiers advanced, a devastating fire from all forty-four cannon in the Union army tore into the Confederate ranks, which fell back to the cover of the wooded ridge as darkness fell.
Captain H.C. Palmer of the 11th Kansas Infantry wrote “The rebels…came sweeping out of the timber in solid column … lifting their guns with fixed bayonets above their heads. They came on with a yell, like 7,000 demons as they were, and were within 300 yards of us when the command "Fire!" was given and twelve guns, double shotted with grape and canister swept great holes through their column”.
By mid morning, the full brunt of fighting had commenced. Blunt finally received word of the battle and arrived to support Herron at nearly 2 p.m. Hindman’s extended line, weary and stretched thin, barely held out against the converging Union fronts. Back and forth, each side surged and fell back, and the fighting continued without any measureable gain for either side, unless casualties were considered.5 After twelve hours of unproductive fighting, Hindman finally retired.
Yet again, he deceived Blunt. Leaving campfires lit and Marmaduke’s cavalry in position, as if to resume fighting at daybreak, Hindman sent his army south during the night, wrapping the wheels of the artillery pieces in blankets to muffle the sound.6 Though Blunt was decidedly irritated, he met with Hindman the next morning to arrange for the care of the Confederate wounded that the Rebel Army could not transport.
Blunt’s men remained to bury the Confederate dead, and the Union Army provided rations for the Confederate wounded that were transported by Union ambulance to their field hospitals. Hindman’s army nearly disintegrated on their march south, arriving at their camps near Van Buren and Fort Smith with fewer than 5000 men. Casualties, sickness and desertion claimed the bulk of the Rebel Army after Prairie Grove; the men that remained to face Blunt later that month at Dripping Springs were ill, half-starved, shoeless and without warm clothing or blankets for the Ozark winter.
The losses at Prairie Grove were about even for both armies, with roughly 1300 casualties each. The nature of war is such that orders and plans, on paper or in theory, don’t develop in predictable ways. Leaving the wounded on the battlefield, even in hotly contested ground, is a sacrosanct practice. At Prairie Grove, with both sides gaining and losing ground, the dead and wounded were a present, tangible reminder of the perils of war.
This website offeres several animated videos of various stages of the Battle of Prairie Grove.
http://vimeo.com/29728216
The text for this article were taken directly from two sources:
The Encyclopediea of Arkansas - The Battle of Praire Grove by Don Montgomery
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=513
Comunity in Conflict - The Impact of the Civil War in the Ozarks
http://www.ozarkscivilwar.org/archives/342
This is the Story of the Battle of Prairie Grove, fought 150 years ago today.
Winter in the Ozarks is harsh. The soldiers and citizens in the northwestern Arkansas Ozarks suffered mightily through the early winter of 1862, and their plight was exacerbated in the Battle of Prairie Grove, December 7, 1862.
The Union Army had secured the bulk of the state of Missouri against the Rebels by mid 1862. In St. Louis, General Samuel Curtis had relocated from Helena, Arkansas, to take overall command of the Federal Department of the Missouri. He oversaw General James Blunt’s Department of Kansas and Brigadier General John M. Schofield, who had given up command of the District of Missouri to take charge of Union field operations in the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas. The primary charge to Blunt and Schofield was to eliminate rebel activity from the Ozarks.
 |
| BG James Blunt |
Blunt was the man for the job. His regard for guerrillas and anti-Union activities would become notorious. Believing any campaigns unnecessary through the winter, Schofield returned to St. Louis to recover from illness. Two divisions were ordered to winter camp in Springfield, Missouri, leaving Blunt and his one division in northwestern Arkansas.
The Confederates, for their part, were scrambling to send troops across the Mississippi to secure Vicksburg in that ongoing siege. Major General Thomas C. Hindman, commanding the Army of the West, was convinced that his men could take out Blunt before moving troops east. His plan centered on attacking Blunt, encamped near Cane Hill, before Federal reinforcements could arrive from Springfield.
 |
| MG Thomas C. Hindman |
Blunt and his 5000 men attacked Marmaduke on November 28. Retreat and counterattack followed, with a truce finally being called by Marmaduke to collect their dead and wounded. The Confederates returned to Hindman’s camp at Dripping Springs, near Van Buren. Blunt remained at Cane Hill, and only briefly savored his victory.
 |
| MG Francis Herron |
On December 3, he received word that Hindman, with over 11,000 men and 22 cannons, was en route to attack him again. Now outnumbered by more than two to one, Blunt sent word to Curtis for reinforcements. Curtis then telegraphed Major General Francis J. Herron in Springfield to hurry his two divisions toward Blunt. Herron’s 6000 men covered over 100 miles in three days, arriving in Fayetteville, on December 6. Hindman was now nearly matched, if not outnumbered, and he was forced to form a new plan.
Instead of a frontal attack on Blunt, Hindman decided to take out the Union reinforcements. He would defeat Herron’s men before they could reach Blunt, and then turn his massive force on Blunt’s rear. He told his men to keep their campfires burning, and left an Arkansas cavalry regiment in the hills opposite Blunt’s front line, to keep the Yankees in place with diversionary skirmishing. Herron learned of the Confederate assault in the early hours of December 7. His men moved to repel the Rebel surge on a horseshoe shaped wooded hill on the Illinois River, known as Prairie Grove.
After crossing the Illinois River under artillery fire, Herron positioned his artillery and exchanged fire with the Confederate cannon. The superior range and number of Union cannon soon silenced the Southern guns, allowing the Union infantry to prepare to attack the ridge. Before the infantry advanced, the Union artillery pounded the Southern position on the ridge for about two hours.
The Twentieth Wisconsin and Nineteenth Iowa Infantry regiments crossed the open corn and wheat fields in the valley before surging forward up the slope, capturing the Confederate cannon of Captain William Blocher’s Arkansas Battery near the home of Archibald Borden. The Union soldiers continued their advance until suddenly the woods erupted with cannon and small-arms fire. The Confederates surrounded the Federal troops on three sides and quickly forced them to retreat to the Union cannon in the valley. A Southern counterattack went down the slope into the open valley, where it was met with case shot composed of small lead balls inside exploding projectiles. Herron’s artillery also used canister shot, consisting of tin cylinders filled with iron balls packed in sawdust which, when fired, turned a cannon into a giant shotgun blast, leaving gaping holes in the Confederate ranks and forcing a retreat to the cover of the woods on the ridge.
 |
| “…The Bayonet or Retreat” by Andy Thomas. Union Troops Fighting at the Bordan House |
Seeing Confederate movement on his flank, Herron decided to attack again. The Thirty-seventh Illinois and Twenty-sixth Indiana Infantry regiments went up the hill into the Borden apple orchard. Lieutenant Colonel John Charles Black of the Thirty-seventh Illinois led the way with his right arm in a sling because of a wound he had sustained at Pea Ridge nine months earlier. Outnumbered, the Federal soldiers fell back to a fence line in the valley, where they stopped another Confederate counterattack using Colt revolving rifles carried by the men of Companies A and K of the Thirty-seventh Illinois. Black sustained a serious wound to his left arm but remained with his command until it was out of danger. Black received the only Medal of Honor awarded for this battle.
With only two fresh infantry regiments left, Herron’s command was in peril even as Confederate troops began massing to attack the Twentieth Iowa Infantry, which served as the Federal right flank. Before the attack, two cannon shots rang out from the northwest at about 2:30 p.m., signaling the arrival of Blunt’s command; he quickly deployed and attacked the Confederate left flank. Blunt’s division was at Cane Hill the morning of December 7 expecting to be attacked by the Confederates. Hindman left Colonel James Monroe’s Arkansas cavalry on Reed’s Mountain to skirmish with Blunt’s Federal troops while the rest of the Confederate army marched past the Union position. The ruse worked, as Blunt’s command remained in a defensive position at Cane Hill until it heard the roar of battle at Prairie Grove. Marching to the battlefield, the Union soldiers under Blunt arrived in time to save Herron’s divisions.
 |
| The Bordan House as it appears today. From: http://www.menaar.com/Arkansas_State_%20Parks/prairie_grove_battlefield_state_park_in_arkansas_picture_gallery.htm |
The Confederates responded to the Union advance on their left flank by skirmishing in the woods with the Federal troops until Blunt gave the command to fall back to his cannon line in the valley. Believing this was an opportunity to win the day, Brigadier General Mosby M. Parsons, in command of the Confederate Missouri Infantry brigade, launched an attack across the William Morton hayfield at about 4:00 p.m. As the Southern soldiers advanced, a devastating fire from all forty-four cannon in the Union army tore into the Confederate ranks, which fell back to the cover of the wooded ridge as darkness fell.
Captain H.C. Palmer of the 11th Kansas Infantry wrote “The rebels…came sweeping out of the timber in solid column … lifting their guns with fixed bayonets above their heads. They came on with a yell, like 7,000 demons as they were, and were within 300 yards of us when the command "Fire!" was given and twelve guns, double shotted with grape and canister swept great holes through their column”.
 |
| "They Came Like Demons" by Andy Thomas |
Yet again, he deceived Blunt. Leaving campfires lit and Marmaduke’s cavalry in position, as if to resume fighting at daybreak, Hindman sent his army south during the night, wrapping the wheels of the artillery pieces in blankets to muffle the sound.6 Though Blunt was decidedly irritated, he met with Hindman the next morning to arrange for the care of the Confederate wounded that the Rebel Army could not transport.
 |
| BG John S. Marmaduke |
The losses at Prairie Grove were about even for both armies, with roughly 1300 casualties each. The nature of war is such that orders and plans, on paper or in theory, don’t develop in predictable ways. Leaving the wounded on the battlefield, even in hotly contested ground, is a sacrosanct practice. At Prairie Grove, with both sides gaining and losing ground, the dead and wounded were a present, tangible reminder of the perils of war.
This website offeres several animated videos of various stages of the Battle of Prairie Grove.
http://vimeo.com/29728216
The text for this article were taken directly from two sources:
The Encyclopediea of Arkansas - The Battle of Praire Grove by Don Montgomery
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=513
Comunity in Conflict - The Impact of the Civil War in the Ozarks
http://www.ozarkscivilwar.org/archives/342
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Power Ball Jackpot - Roman Style!
Bath, England uses the moniker "Roman City of Bath" for its tourist marketing. My wife Phyllis and I, and friends Tod and Laurie Jordan, had the pleasure of visiting Bath in 2008. The city is known mostly for its restored Roman baths, although its Georgian architecture and Regency era association with author Jane Austin also draw visitors.
The town was in its heyday as a resort, spa and meeting place for the rich and famous during the late Georgian and Regency period. The amazing thing is they had no idea what lay beneath their feet in those days. One of the most famous gathering places for the social elite in Regency era Bath was the "Pump House," an meeting hall and tea room. The hot mineral water spring that still flows from a fountain at the Pump House, comes from a vast Roman era bath and spa that was discovered beneath it in the mid 19th Century.
Since that find, other Roman bath houses, villas and wells have been unearthed far below the modern level of the city. Even as I and my wife visited Bath, another more spectacular find was being uncovered. During excavations of a new building site on Beau Street, a scant 450 feet from the Roman Baths, a hoard of 22,000 silver coins was discovered under the tiles of a Roman bath house. That find has been kept secret till June 2012 as the coins were being analyzed at the British Museum in London.
This is the fifth largest treasure hoard found in the UK and the largest Roman hoard of its kind. It also has the distinction of being the largest hoard ever found by a professional archaeologist during a planned excavation. The find was recovered with the utmost care using the latest scientific methods.
Dates on the coins range from about 30 BC to about 270 AD. The encrusted coins are arraigned to indicate that six separate sacks of coins were deposited together. Traces on some coins suggest the sacks were made of leather. The estimated date of the hoard fits nicely with a time of extreme upheaval known as the "Crisis of the Third Century," in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed as Britain and Gaul broke away to form the short-lived Gallic Empire. Perhaps someone hid the treasure planning to return for it. Who knows why they did not return?
The Roman Baths is raising £150,000 to acquire, conserve and display the hoard. If you would like to help with a donation please phone the Roman Baths Administrator on +44 (0)1225 477773 with your credit card details, or send a cheque made payable to ‘Bath & North East Somerset Council’ to:
The town was in its heyday as a resort, spa and meeting place for the rich and famous during the late Georgian and Regency period. The amazing thing is they had no idea what lay beneath their feet in those days. One of the most famous gathering places for the social elite in Regency era Bath was the "Pump House," an meeting hall and tea room. The hot mineral water spring that still flows from a fountain at the Pump House, comes from a vast Roman era bath and spa that was discovered beneath it in the mid 19th Century.
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| A Fountain in the Pump Room still provides hot mineral water just as it did in Jane Austin's time. Photo by author |
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| Ruins of a Roman bath house displayed beneath the Pump Room. Photo by author |
Since that find, other Roman bath houses, villas and wells have been unearthed far below the modern level of the city. Even as I and my wife visited Bath, another more spectacular find was being uncovered. During excavations of a new building site on Beau Street, a scant 450 feet from the Roman Baths, a hoard of 22,000 silver coins was discovered under the tiles of a Roman bath house. That find has been kept secret till June 2012 as the coins were being analyzed at the British Museum in London.
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| One of the 22,000 Silver Coins of the Beau Street Hoard From: http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2012/06/07/the-beau-street-hoard-excavation-progress/ |
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| The excavation on Beau Street From: http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2012/06/07/the-beau-street-hoard-excavation-progress/ |
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| Six leather sacks of coins made up the hoard. Conservators at the British Museum are slowly removing each coin from the encrusted block for conservation. From: http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2012/06/07/the-beau-street-hoard-excavation-progress/ |
Dates on the coins range from about 30 BC to about 270 AD. The encrusted coins are arraigned to indicate that six separate sacks of coins were deposited together. Traces on some coins suggest the sacks were made of leather. The estimated date of the hoard fits nicely with a time of extreme upheaval known as the "Crisis of the Third Century," in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed as Britain and Gaul broke away to form the short-lived Gallic Empire. Perhaps someone hid the treasure planning to return for it. Who knows why they did not return?
The Roman Baths is raising £150,000 to acquire, conserve and display the hoard. If you would like to help with a donation please phone the Roman Baths Administrator on +44 (0)1225 477773 with your credit card details, or send a cheque made payable to ‘Bath & North East Somerset Council’ to:
The Roman Baths
Pump Room
Stall Street
BATH
BA1 1LZ |
| From: http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/whats_on/beau_street_hoard.aspx |
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving
Even during the most intense year of fighting during the American Civil War, Preseident Lincoln took time to proclaim a national day of thanksgiving. Days of thanksgiving had been celebrated at various times in northern states since early colonial times. Lincoln's proclamation estblished, for the first time, a national holiday set on a specific day in November.
Happy Thanksgiving Day to all my readers. I hope that the Lord will bless you on this day that we have set aside to show our thanks to Him that provides all.
A Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving
October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
A. Lincoln
Happy Thanksgiving Day to all my readers. I hope that the Lord will bless you on this day that we have set aside to show our thanks to Him that provides all.
A Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving
October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
A. Lincoln
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Ancient Bones in an Ancient Well
The Israel Antiquities Authority has announced a very significant find, with a mystery, in the Jezreel Valley.
Surviving water wells from the stone age era are extremely rare. This was a time when humans were first relying on agriculture and domestic animals to make a living. As they settled down to farm, they could no longer rely completely on springs and streams to provide the water they needed to survive.
Yotam Tepper, of the Israel Antiquities Authority explained, "This was a period after permanent settlements and already been established and after the agricultural revolution and domestication of sheep, goats, cattle and wheat. Now it became necessary to 'domesicate' water, too."
Wells from this period are a tangible evidence of a giant step forward in terms of human culture. The well in the Jezreel Valley has been dated as one of the oldest in the world, to about 6500 BC or 8,500 years old.
The well, which was discovered during road construction, was built with stacked stones at the top and the bottom was hewn into limestone - hewn by hand with stone tools. The well is approximately 25 feet deep and 4 feet in diameter. Capstones covering the well recall Genesis 29:2, "stone upon the well's mouth."
The biggest surprise was what was found with the lost tools under the layer of silt. The skeleton of a young woman and a man aged 30-40 were found tossed into the well. Did they die in some tragic accident, or were they murdered and thrown into the shaft? Were the deaths from a domestic dispute or the result of waring tribes?
Surviving water wells from the stone age era are extremely rare. This was a time when humans were first relying on agriculture and domestic animals to make a living. As they settled down to farm, they could no longer rely completely on springs and streams to provide the water they needed to survive.
Yotam Tepper, of the Israel Antiquities Authority explained, "This was a period after permanent settlements and already been established and after the agricultural revolution and domestication of sheep, goats, cattle and wheat. Now it became necessary to 'domesicate' water, too."
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| An Antiquities Authority archaeologist exploring the recent find. Photo by Gil Eliahu |
Wells from this period are a tangible evidence of a giant step forward in terms of human culture. The well in the Jezreel Valley has been dated as one of the oldest in the world, to about 6500 BC or 8,500 years old.
The well, which was discovered during road construction, was built with stacked stones at the top and the bottom was hewn into limestone - hewn by hand with stone tools. The well is approximately 25 feet deep and 4 feet in diameter. Capstones covering the well recall Genesis 29:2, "stone upon the well's mouth."
 |
| 8,500 year old bones recovered from the ancient well in the Jezreel Valley. Photo from Israeli Antiquities Authority. |
The well was silted in at some point early in its use and has become an unintentional time capsule. Arrow heads, animal bones and flint tools associated with harvesting crops all helped in dating the well. Other signs in the region confirm that this part of Israel may have been one of the first places in the area where people settled down and turned from hunting and gathering to agriculture for subsistence.
"There is no evidence that they were buried in a regular fashion. There is a story here, but we don't have answers," Tepper said. "What is clear is that after these unknown individuals fell into the well, it was no longer used for the simple reason that the well water was contaminated and was no longer potable."
The well was abandoned when the bodies were thrown in. It was later covered and its location lost. That is why it has been left unused for over 8,000 years.
The well was abandoned when the bodies were thrown in. It was later covered and its location lost. That is why it has been left unused for over 8,000 years.
The full story can be found here:
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
How the Guillotine Helped to Create the Modern Restaurant
The next time you’re at your favorite cafe, raise a glass to the aristocrats who lost their heads so that you could enjoy your foie gras.
France gave birth to what we call today a restaurant. But it was no civilized affair. In fact, today’s restaurant business is actually a byproduct of the class warfare that arose during the French Revolution.
Ironically, the popularity of these restaurants grew at a time when the bulk of the French population couldn’t afford bread. Decades of harsh winters and oppressive taxation had taken their toll on kitchen tables. Worse still, the greater part of the nation’s tax dollars had gone to pay for the excesses of the aristocracy and monarchy, including helping to finance the American War of Independence. By 1789, the starving French masses could no longer be controlled. Looting and riots erupted throughout Paris, ushering in the French Revolution.
Aristocrats fled to the countryside, leaving behind their highly skilled chefs and the fine wines from their cellars. Suddenly, unemployed cooks and abandoned bottles found their way to the city’s eateries, and within a year, nearly 50 elegant restaurants had popped up in Paris. These epicurean temples catered to the new class of French deputies and businessmen and were featured in travelogues throughout Europe. As word of their deliciousness spread, Parisian restaurants became tourist attractions on par with Notre Dame.
Admittedly, fine dining hit a rocky period during the Reign of Terror of 1793-94, when anyone suspected of ties to the aristocracy risked facing the guillotine. One unfortunate proprietor hung a sign over his door that read, “We welcome people of the best sort.” The elitist sentiment quickly landed him in prison. Still, he was the exception. Most Parisian restaurants kept up a lively trade, their tables replete with fine hams and pates. And most patrons felt safe enough within their walls to joke about Robespierre, the grandmaster of the Reign of Terror, and how he couldn’t afford to send his spies there.
The restaurant business truly came into its own during the early 1800s, after the upstart general Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the country and granted “freedom of pleasure” to all citizens. Napoleon reasoned that people who were focused on Champagne and sauce reductions probably wouldn’t conspire against him. A few years later, when Napoleon’s military conquests brought fantastic wealth to Paris, restaurants began to compete for customers with marble décor and salacious entertainment. One establishment featured bare-breasted women dressed as Amazon warriors, who were lowered from the ceiling in golden chariots.
In the end, many more Frenchmen dined out than could actually afford the experience. Oddly, it became almost commonplace for customers to steal knives and spoons. One waiter at the upscale restaurant Naudet’s spotted a patron pocketing the flatware and politely handed him a bill that included “Cutlery, 54 francs.” The customer paid up cheerfully, tut-tutting, “How dear things are getting these days…” But this only goes to show how far restaurants had come. In less than a century, fine dining went from being the exclusive privilege of people born with silver spoons in their mouths to a must-have for people who stole them.
This is a re-blogged adaption of a story by Tony Perrottet you can read here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28851#ixzz2BaYSAxcF
--brought to you by mental_floss!
France gave birth to what we call today a restaurant. But it was no civilized affair. In fact, today’s restaurant business is actually a byproduct of the class warfare that arose during the French Revolution.
Back in the Middle Ages, fine dining was a privilege enjoyed exclusively by feudal lords who had their own grand kitchens and personal chefs. The only commercial eateries for the masses were seedy roadside inns, where strangers crowded around mediocre buffets of tepid roasts, stews and over-sauced legumes. But sometime in the 1760s, the merchant class of Paris developed a taste for healthy light broths known as restoratives, or restaurants. By the 1780s, this new Parisian “health food” craze led to a handful of reputable dining halls, where customers could sit at individual tables and choose from a wide range of dishes.
Ironically, the popularity of these restaurants grew at a time when the bulk of the French population couldn’t afford bread. Decades of harsh winters and oppressive taxation had taken their toll on kitchen tables. Worse still, the greater part of the nation’s tax dollars had gone to pay for the excesses of the aristocracy and monarchy, including helping to finance the American War of Independence. By 1789, the starving French masses could no longer be controlled. Looting and riots erupted throughout Paris, ushering in the French Revolution.Aristocrats fled to the countryside, leaving behind their highly skilled chefs and the fine wines from their cellars. Suddenly, unemployed cooks and abandoned bottles found their way to the city’s eateries, and within a year, nearly 50 elegant restaurants had popped up in Paris. These epicurean temples catered to the new class of French deputies and businessmen and were featured in travelogues throughout Europe. As word of their deliciousness spread, Parisian restaurants became tourist attractions on par with Notre Dame.
Admittedly, fine dining hit a rocky period during the Reign of Terror of 1793-94, when anyone suspected of ties to the aristocracy risked facing the guillotine. One unfortunate proprietor hung a sign over his door that read, “We welcome people of the best sort.” The elitist sentiment quickly landed him in prison. Still, he was the exception. Most Parisian restaurants kept up a lively trade, their tables replete with fine hams and pates. And most patrons felt safe enough within their walls to joke about Robespierre, the grandmaster of the Reign of Terror, and how he couldn’t afford to send his spies there.
The restaurant business truly came into its own during the early 1800s, after the upstart general Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the country and granted “freedom of pleasure” to all citizens. Napoleon reasoned that people who were focused on Champagne and sauce reductions probably wouldn’t conspire against him. A few years later, when Napoleon’s military conquests brought fantastic wealth to Paris, restaurants began to compete for customers with marble décor and salacious entertainment. One establishment featured bare-breasted women dressed as Amazon warriors, who were lowered from the ceiling in golden chariots.
In the end, many more Frenchmen dined out than could actually afford the experience. Oddly, it became almost commonplace for customers to steal knives and spoons. One waiter at the upscale restaurant Naudet’s spotted a patron pocketing the flatware and politely handed him a bill that included “Cutlery, 54 francs.” The customer paid up cheerfully, tut-tutting, “How dear things are getting these days…” But this only goes to show how far restaurants had come. In less than a century, fine dining went from being the exclusive privilege of people born with silver spoons in their mouths to a must-have for people who stole them.
This is a re-blogged adaption of a story by Tony Perrottet you can read here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28851#ixzz2BaYSAxcF
--brought to you by mental_floss!
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