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by Those Who Write It
I really had little choice in this, growing up in middle Tennessee, the veritable home of James K. Polk, yes, he was a president, actually the 11th one who was the first president to only run for this office once---probably just as well, since he died of cholera six months after leaving office. I had two great great grandfathers who fought for the Confederacy or against the Northern Invaders, depending on who you asked. One grandfather died August 25, 1862 at the Rappahannock River in Virginia reportedly due to cannon fire. The other one rode with a partisan cavalry outfit and then later in the war, his unit was absorbed under the command of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, yes, the one who after the war formed an early version of the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee-just down the road from my hometown of Columbia. That grandfather, however, survived the war and went on to become a Church of Christ minister for about the next sixty or so years-at least well into his nineties. In my part of the country, virtually every piece of land on which you could stand had also been the site of a Civil War battle (ok, a War of the Northern Aggression battle). I should also point out that according to my third grade teacher, naming folks from up north was actually an exercise in three syllables instead of two---nope, not Yankees, instead of course they were Damn Yankees. There were always arrowheads around; everyone I knew seemed to claim to be descended from the Cherokee Nation. All of this as far as I know is factual, except the veracity of the claims of Cherokee ancestry. Andrew Jackson was regarded as one of the state's biggest heroes; his statue is not only in New Orleans, but also on the grounds of the state capitol in Nashville. True-so far-fair depiction-maybe. In the South, the Civil War was reputed to be fought for States' Rights-it seemed to some as though slavery was almost an afterthought. A large number of historians declare that in all likelihood slavery would have been abolished by 1870 or so, not because it was- and it certainly was- an abomination-but because of inventions by folks like Eli Whitney and his cotton gin, slavery was almost to the point of becoming not as economical as buying all the new farm machinery. Still when you put names and faces and ripped apart families with the slaves, abomination doesn't seem a strong enough word. I have strong feelings about looking back at some of the wills of my ancestors that list slaves as chattel, in other words, the same as household goods like pots and pans and other common property, listed even after the livestock. Even with roots in the South that stretch back to the 17thcentury, I can find no justification for slavery. Reluctantly I have to admit I am looking at this from a man of my time. I can only speculate how I hope I would have felt if I had lived then with what was accepted by society. A perfect example would be reading some of Rudyard Kipling's works and his writings on the "the White Man's Burden." Racist-definitely, well-intentioned- probably but maybe not so much as seeing that as "just the way things are." In the military, one hears the term "fluid environment" used frequently to emphasize that things might be in a constant state of change. I guess the same is true with history: people looking back on an era might consider it very differently from the folks that actually lived it. In other words, looking at the "good old days" usually involves a sliding scale of "good." But back to Andy Jackson, who had been allied with the Cherokees in wars against the Creek Nation in 1813-1814 when he was a Colonel in the Tennessee militia. When he became president, he had a Removal Act passed by Congress in 1830 to forcibly remove the Cherokees and other nations from the east, including from Tennessee and to send them all west to Indian Territory, what is now Oklahoma. That led to the genocide called the Trail of Tears starting with the Choctaw in 1831 and finishing with most of the remaining Cherokees in 1838 as thousands of Native Americans died of disease, starvation, exposure, or mistreatment on the long journey. Jackson, however, has always been remembered as a president of the people. As president, he had very few if any guards to protect him and allowed people to come and go as they wished from the White House. In 1835, an unemployed house painter named Lawrence attempted to shoot President Jackson with two different pistols, both of which misfired---accounts vary, but apparently Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane and had to be restrained while Davy Crockett among others subdued Lawrence. Jackson was known to have fought at least 13 duels, though only killing one opponent. He was said to have inside him numerous lead balls from these duels that couldn't be removed. One can only conjecture how Washington would be today if the same kind of atmosphere prevailed. The reason, however, I really started to study history and its different versions was an heirloom that somehow had been passed down in my family, and nobody knew exactly how---a perfect example of a 1873 Springfield single-shot, 45-70 caliber breach-loaded (trap-door) cavalry carbine-the exact type of rifle that had been used by Lt Col George S. Custer's troopers on June 25, 1876 at (depending on the historian) the Massacre at the Little Big Horn, Custer's Last Stand, or the brilliant light cavalry victory at the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Yes, he was not a general as most folks think, he had been a brevet brigadier general in the civil war but after the war, was reduced to the rank of captain. Through the political maneuvering of his wife, he was able to secure a command as a lieutenant colonel in the 7th Calvary. During "Custer's Last Stand," probably due to a combination of arrogance and refusal to listen to his Crow Scouts or his officers, he ended up facing roughly a couple of thousand Lakota Sioux, Arapaho, and Northern Cheyenne warriors. Possibly, he underrated the combat abilities of these warriors; most military tacticians now consider them to have been among the best examples ever of light cavalry. No, Sitting Bull did not lead them into battle, he was a medicine chief who foretold the victory after a vision and warned the warriors that if they mutilated the soldiers or stole from them, that it would be the beginning of their downfall. The actual war chiefs were leaders like Crazy Horse and Gall. Now back to my Springfield rifle; it was called a 45-70 because it had a 45 caliber projectile propelled by 70 grains of powder. I always wonder why in 1873 the troopers had single shot rifles. As a matter of fact, the warriors that attacked them didn't just use bows and war clubs-a minority of them did and some actually still counted coup by touching the soldiers without killing them. The majority of the warriors had repeating rifles, most of which they had bought from white traders. They had Spensers (7 shots), Winchesters (15 shots) and Henry's(16 shots and which had been in use since the time of the Civil War. Confederate soldiers would take them off dead Union troops and said that they were a rifle you "load on Monday and shoot until Sunday," when it finally was time to reload them. The few hundred troopers with Custer had the single shot Springfield, a minority also had six shot pistols. However, the War Department had handicapped the troopers even more-the 9 pound cavalry carbine was about a foot shorter than the regular infantry gun, it had no provisions for a bayonet, and then the cartridge---the bean counters decided that they could use 45-55 shells, the rational being that less powder would make the carbines recoil less and be easier to shoot from the mount-in fairness, there was some truth to this. But why the single shot?-- bluntly the War Department were convinced that their troops were bad shots and if they had repeating rifles, they would waste more shells-- also to support single shot rifles, they could ship less cartridges and save on manufacturing and shipping costs. If this wasn't enough, at this time they used copper cartridges because they were cheaper than brass ones. Anthropologists examining the battlefield were puzzled for years because they kept finding tiny silver triangles in their excavations. Recently, they decided that many of the troopers fired several shells in their carbines and the resulting heat caused the copper to expand and jam in the barrel. The shiny triangles were from the troopers breaking their knives trying to get the swollen copper empties out of their jammed rifles. This is further supported by most of the Lakota pictorial images of the battle showing the troopers firing only pistols. At least after this, copper shells were no longer used. A classic culture clash also occurred when some troopers apparently tried to surrender-the warriors attacking then did not understand the concept of surrender-prisoners could be captured or even spared-but any troopers that tried to surrender were killed on the spot. Perhaps, one of the most controversial questions involved Custer himself-he was one of the few soldiers not mutilated-he had a head wound and a chest wound, either of which would have been mortal. For years, historians have argued if Custer might have shot himself-most of them seem to believe that he probably didn't, because the chest wound bled more than the head wound which indicated probably that the chest wound was the first and the shot that killed him. Those that believe that say the head wound was post-mortem; however, all of this information was recovered by witnesses long after the battle when the soldiers were in an advanced state of decomposition. Picture if you would Errol Flynn doing such a thing when he starred as Custer in "They Died With Their Boots On". I have tried to be as factual as I could in what I have written, but I certainly can not swear with the veracity of an eyewitness. As far as citing sources, this is in no way presented as an academic treatise-most if not all of the information was from memory of things I saw, read, or heard from I have no idea how many places. Certainly I think I could cite The History Channel. I also would be remiss not to include Dee Brown's book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), a book that is possibly as controversial today as when it was first published. I would recommend this book to anyone, mainly for the way Brown approached the frequently omitted rest of the book's title: An Indian's History of the American West. Some argue that this book was written with a clear-cut agenda, certainly close to the time that AIM (the American Indian Movement) was flourishing. In 1973 on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed, one paralyzed and two Lakota Sioux were also killed. The AIM activists were led by Dennis Banks and Russell Means, who by the way played Chingachgook in the latest "Last of the Mohicans" movie. And here I am, violating a cardinal rule drummed into my head by various English teachers over the years-never introduce new information at the end of your presentation. Hmmm, I guess never is a measure of time as history is a depiction of time---ok, loophole established. And if you haven't read, James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans---my only question to you---why not? I think that I have pursued history enough to believe that history is actually a misnomer-much more likely it should be his-story or her-story or our-story or their-story... And if you think you know all the answers, read another book, watch another history program or movie, or sit through another class. Ummm, I would employ caution drawing opinions from movies such as "Titanic" or "Pearl Harbor". ---Please. Carved in stone, painted in blood Whispered on the wind. © Will Dixon 2009 Will Dixon is a tenth generation
Tennessean, but has since his college days lived in Mississippi,
Germany, Texas, Florida, Australia, Tennessee again, and then
back to Florida where he now lives in Rockledge, a small city
a few miles inland from the Space Coast. Each place was the same
and different as were its people - an education in itself if
one were not foolish enough to ignore it, and he has tried his
best not to ignore the people or the places. Now the voices come
back either as characters or inspirations. The voice of an opal
miner in the Outback might come back as the voice of an old sailor.
Will is left-handed, dyslexic, an Aquarian, and has been told
by numerous doctors that he has neurological issues; so he claims
he is probably wired differently and looks at things from different
angles than most folks. All well for writing, sometimes good
for life issues, but can play hell when he is trying to understand
the symbols used for international road signs! |
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Probably Will:
I
have been accused of having a fondness for history------the fact
of the matter is that I love history. I can quote George Santayanna
at the drop of a hat and frequently do; I can even nod my head
and say, "See Hitler should have learned from Napoleon and
never allowed himself (actually his armies) to get pulled deeper
into Russia during winter." But just as I maintain that
I am a bender of words instead of a writer-that idea seems to
gain support the more I attempt such bending-I also declare that
I am not a historian, but am instead a student of history. This
is different, however, from my floundering with words. As I have
read, studied, watched movies, inhaled the History Channel, perhaps
even lived a bit of it, I have learned more and more just how
true it is that history is defined by those that write it, or
in some other way, record it. This is especially true of those
who win wars; more often than not, that group becomes the victors
and hence get the first shot (sorry) at writing the "true"
story of what caused the war, why they were in the right, etc.
So if you look at history as what happened, well, most of the
time, you actually get a version of what happened. Bluntly, history
does not necessarily equal clear and unequivocal truth. So does
that mean I love a not necessarily clear and unequivocal version
of things that happened? In a word-kinda, in another word-sorta.
What I truly love is trying to get as much information, preferably
that claimed as reliable as possible, and to try to wade through
as many versions of what is reputed to be the "plain, unvarnished
truth."
From The Attic
Cheshire Cat
Songs of