Yes, I’m headed out in the morning for another trip to our great nation’s heartland. Probably no posting until Thursday.
Today is the anniversary of the 2nd day of battle at Gettysburg, and is perhaps most famous for the action that took place at the Devil’s Den and Little Round Top.
I want to mark the day a little differently this year. You see, many people – especially those who get their impression of the battle from the movie Gettysburg, imagine that once Chamberlain and the 20th Maine fought off the Confederate attack at Round Top with their gallant bayonette charge, the thing was pretty much over.°
That is completely false, however. Longstreet’s attack against the Union line was part of an “oblique”. Imagine, if you will, a wave coming in at an angle to the beach. Little Round Top was the extreme left of the Union line, but the Rebel wave continued to roll farther north all day and into the evening. Indeed, the attack didn’t really peter out until it had worked its way all the way around to Culp’s Hill on the Union right.
One incident of outstanding courage and valor among the many that get overshadowed by Chamberlain’s charge occured later in the afternoon about halfway along Cemetary Ridge. The Union III Corp, under the hapless Sickles, had got itself out of position and chopped up, leaving a gap in the line the Confederates eagerly moved to exploit. The only thing stopping them was the 1st Minnesota Infantry. One of its officers takes up the story:
“…but the First Minnesota had never deserted any post, had never retired without orders; and, desperate as the situation seemed, and as it was, the regiment stood firm against whatever might come. Just then Hancock, with a single aide, rode up at full speed, and for a moment vainly endeavored to rally Sickles’s retreating forces. Reserves had been sent for, but were too far away to hope to reach the critical position until it should be occupied by the enemy, unless that enemy were stopped. Quickly leaving the fugitives, Hancock spurred to where we stood, calling out as he reached us, “What regiment is this?” “First Minnesota,” replied Colvill. “Charge those lines!” commanded Hancock. Every man realized in an instant what that order meant–death or wounds to us all, the sacrifice of the regiment, to gain a few minutes’ time and save the position. And every man saw and accepted the necessity for the sacrifice; and in a moment, responding to Colvill’s rapid orders, the regiment, in perfect line, with arms, at “right shoulder, shift,” was sweeping down the slope directly upon the enemy’s centre. No hesitation, no stopping to fire, though the men fell fast at every stride before the concentrated fire of the whole Confederate force, directed upon us as soon as the movement was observed. Silently, without orders, and almost from the start, “double-quick” had changed to utmost speed, for in utmost speed lay the only hope that any of us could pass through that storm of lead and strike the enemy. “Charge!” shouted Colvill as we neared the first line, and with leveled bayonets, at full speed, we rushed upon it, fortunately, as it was slightly disordered in crossing a dry brook. The men were never made who will stand against leveled bayonets coming with such momentum and evident desperation. The first line broke in our front as we reached it, and rushed back through the second line, stopping the whole advance. We then poured in our first fire, and availing ourselves of such shelter as the low bank of the dry brook afforded, held the entire force at bay for a considerable time, and until our reserves appeared on the ridge we had left. Had the enemy rallied quickly to a countercharge, its overwhelming numbers would have crushed us in a moment, and we would have effected but a slight pause in its advance. But the ferocity of our onset seemed to paralyze them for a time, and though they poured in a terrible and continuous fire from the front and enveloping flanks, they kept at a respectful distance from our bayonets, until, before the added fire of our fresh reserves, they began to retire and we were ordered back. What Hancock had given us to do was done thoroughly. The regiment had stopped the enemy, held back its mighty force, and saved the position, and probably that battle-field. But at what a sacrifice! Nearly every officer was dead, or lay weltering with bloody wounds–our gallant colonel and every field-officer among them. Of the two hundred and sixty-two men who made the charge, two hundred and fifteen lay upon the field, struck down by Rebel bullets; forty-seven men were still in line, and not a man was missing. The annals of war contain no parallel to this charge. In its desperate valor, complete execution, successful result, and in its sacrifice of men in proportion to the number engaged, authentic history has no record with which it can be compared.”
Lieutenant William Lochren, 1st MN Infantry
The First Minnesota at Gettysburg,
“Glimpses of the Nation’s Struggle.”
A Series of Papers Read Before the
Minnesota Commandery of the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
1887-1889 Vol 3., St. Paul: D.D. Merril Co. 1893
Pretty amazing story, isn’t it.
A few years ago there was a minor flap when the North Carolina legislature started suggesting that Minnesota should give back some of its captured regimental battle flags that now hang in the Minnesota State House. Then-governor Jessie Ventura very sensibly replied, “Why? We won.”
I don’t know if any of the flags in question were picked up by the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg, but even if not they completely justify the state hanging on to them.
º This is not really the fault of the movie. It takes its material directly from Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels, and Shaara says explicitly in his introduction that the book is not about the battle itself, but about some of the men who fought in it. The result, however, is that many other people and events get left out.
It pains me to write this post.
No, really. You see, I’ve been hauling field-stones around all day and my arms and hands are aching something fierce.
Before this morning’s project began, it must have been at least 12 years since I last built a fieldstone wall of any kind. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy this kind of work and the immense satisfaction I get in watching the endless individual decisions about how to pick and choose interlocking stones gradually produce a neat, solid whole.
Oh, would you like to see? It may not look like that big a project, but for one guy with only his kid’s radio-flyer wagon with which to haul the stones around (what with the tires on the wheelbarrow being flat), it was plenty exercise for the day.
This was the first part of our cleaning-up-the-ditch-by-the-street project. (There’s a fourth maple on the other side of the driveway on which I was standing when I took this picture that I also encircled.) Technically, the land actually belongs to the great Commonwealth of Virginny, but good luck getting them to come out and spruce it up.
Nice and neat, as I say. We likes nice and neat.
As I mentioned, it’s been a good twelve years since I last worked with fieldstone. This was at the first house we owned, a little blue clapboard out in Reston. Being, well, twelve years younger and without kids, I was seized with the ambition to do something about the lack of landscaping on the little 1/8th of an acre plot by ringing the house with flower beds. Because the house sat on the side of a little swell, the beds on two sides required the construction of a wall a good three feet deep in order that the tops of the beds were uniformely straight all the way around.
I forget how long it took me to finish, but I may say that I was pretty pleased with the results. So, I soon discovered, were half of the neighborhood. The female half, that is, who relayed no end of compliments through Mrs. Robbo. However, I quickly discovered that the male half was not happy at all, at all. This was because their wives started bombarding them with questions along the lines of, “Why can’t you do something like Robbo did?”
In fact, I had completely failed to remember that my project was a direct violation of Section 23(b) of the Man Code, which clearly prohibits the handing of such ammunition to a neighbor’s wife. Just goes to show what happens when you don’t keep up with the regs. Sorry, guys.
Well, we didn’t stay in the old house all that long what with gels starting to come along, and I more or less forgot all about it.
So about five years ago I first offered my services to Uncle Sam. (Stay with me here.) As part of the security clearance process, Uncle sends investigators out to interview friends, neighbors, business colleagues and the like to find out if the applicant has any strange habits, shady secrets or obvious treasonous intent. The fellah who ran my case was a retired FBI agent doing a little freelance work. Having done his preliminary survey, he came down to my office one day to interview me. Most of it was pretty perfunctory, given that I’ve lived a pretty dull and respectable life so far, and had no record of any sort to explain.
Suddenly, though, after finishing what I thought were all his questions, he suddenly fixed me in the eye and said, “I understand that you enjoy building walls.”
I gaped at him for a second, dumbfounded. Then I realized he must have been talking with one of my old neighbors who had told him about my landscaping. I burst out laughing at that and considered making some kind of crack about how I enjoyed getting stoned. My guardian angel interposed at that point, however, suggesting that a G-Man might not think it was s’damn funny, so instead I shrugged and said, “Well, it keeps me off the streets, I guess.”
Despite what GMT-centric WordPress may say regarding date-stamping, I cannot let July 1 wind down without singing the praises of the Man of the Day, Gen. John Buford.
Buford was, of course, the Union cavalry commander who made the conscious decision to provoke the fight that began this day in 1863 just to the west of the little Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. Two days later, the Confederate Army slunk back to Virginny with a serious bloody nose.
I’ve read Buford’s biography. What’s most interesting about it is the fact that he was an intelligent, hard-working, professional soldier who spent most of his career fiddling about in frustration and drudgery. And yet, he just so happened to be the man on the spot on that fateful morning who recognized the advantages of the terrain and realized what would happen if his small force could hold up Lee’s army to the west and north of Seminary Ridge even for a little while. One wonders: How many other commanders in his position would have recognized the tactical situation and acted on it so forcefully?
These days, it’s fashionable to state that history ought to be taught “from the bottom up,” with emphasis on what the little people were doing and thinking and believing at any given time. Well, that’s all very well, but the fact of the matter is that Kings and Battles still count: Individual men and women, most of them in positions of power and authority, have changed the course of history through their actions. One simply cannot deny either the fact or the need to know such fact.
UPDATE: Per fellow port-swiller Groovy Vic’s request, the book I mentioned is General John Buford: A Military
Biography by Edward Longacre. Published in 1995 in response (I believe) to interest generated by the movie Gettysburg, I understand it’s the first book to review Buford’s entire military career, from West Point through his service on the Plains, in the Border States and later in the Civil War.
As a rule, I have tried to avoid slanging my former faith, in large part because of those family and friends still associated with it. However, there are times when posts simply write themselves, and this is one of them.
We received in the mail today the latest edition of the Virginia Episcopalian, the diocesan newsletter. And damme if a front page article didn’t begin:
How can General Convention not be fun when Mickey Mouse and Goofy will be right across the street? Thousands of Episcopalians will converge next month on a convention center in Aneheim, Calif., next to Disneyland, with all its irresistible symbolism.
How, indeed? I can only assume that while the author of the article intended to be funny, he didn’t intend to be funny in the way that this passage really is funny.
According to Wiktionary, to “Disneyfy” something means ”to make something (especially a location) more acceptable or marketable by removing potentially distasteful or controversial elements, particularly at the cost of its historical nature.”
Can you think of a better definition of TEC these past 30-odd years, and especially in the past 10? I sure can’t.
The punch line is that TEC New Hampshah Bishop Gene(!) Robinson was quoted the other day as predicting that the recently-formed Anglican Church of North America, which rejects “rejecting the cost of its historical nature,” was doomed – doomed! – because it refuses to “remove potentially distasteful or controversial elements” by not ordaining openly gay or women priests.
This is especially hy-larious in the non-Disney sense in that a) TEC, never that big to begin with, has been bleeding members these past ten years and b) the largest faith in the same geographical area, the (ahem) Catholic Church, happens to follow exactly the same practice condemned by Gene!, and yet still out-numbers TEC by something like 35 to 1.
Heh, indeed.
(Oh, I should confess that I found the Mickey image at Fr. Austin Murphy’s Jesus Goes To DisneyWorld, so I’m not saying anyone is perfect. I can understand the good Father’s efforts to find faith in popular culchah, but I simply cannot imagine Jesus approaching our current nihilistic, self-centered, plastic, celebrity-driven system with anything but horror.)
The European Commission had long warned France it could face a multi-million pound fine if it failed to do more to save its hamsters from extinction.
But French authorities refused all attempts by the commission to protect the diminutive mammal, also known as the European hamster, according to an official linked to the proceedings.
According to the EU’s executive body, the rodent requires around 600,000 acres of protected land to thrive, but now has less than 8,500 acres in eastern France in which to roam and feed.
Once considered vermin, the Alsace hamster (Cricetus cricetus) has been all but wiped out by rat poison, traps and farmers flooding its burrows.
According to the Commission, its numbers in Alsace plummeted from 1,167 in 2001 to 161 in 2007, and have continued to decline over the past two years.
The population needs to reach 1,500 to remain stable.
The hamster, which has distinctive beige fur, white stripes and a black belly, hibernates for six months and its staple is cabbage, onions and beetroot. However, farmers in Alsace have for years mainly grown maize, which is not ripe when it awakens in March.
Just imagine if the EC had been around in 1940. Hitler wouldn’t have dared to launch a Blitzkrieg through the Ardenne had he been warned about the Alsace hamsters. (And I’ll bet they’d have held the Maginot Line better, too.)
The local classickal station has been featuring an “American Musick” theme this month which it intends to run all the way through the July 4 weekend.
On the one hand, this has been beneficial in that I’ve been able to sample pieces by composers I’ve never heard of before.
On the other hand, well, it turns out there’s a pretty good reason why I’ve never heard of them. Once one gets past Barber (whom I dislike), Copeland (whom I find tedious) and Gershwin (whose “Rhapsody in Blue” has been beaten to death), the bench turns out to be awefully shallow. Frankly, I think the station over-reached somewhat.
I don’t believe this is a particular bad reflection on America per se. Rayther, I think it’s just a result of unfortunate timing. America being such a young nation, the Arts in this country were just starting to come up when classickal musick as a whole was starting to come off the rails. Most recognized American composers are from the 20th Century and, well, that just isn’t a very good place to be in terms of serious musick.
By way of comparison and to prove my point, I would also note that the 20th Century was a good place to be in terms of more popular kinds of musick. Think swing and big band. Think Broadway musicals. There it’s arguable that American talent in fact dominated. And the truth of the matter is that I’d much rayther listen to Rodgers and Hart or Cole Porter than, say, Howard Hanson.
The blueberries at the port-swiller residence are ripening fast this week. (We have half a dozen bushes. Granted, they’re high-bush, which I know is downright heretical to some people, but they’re very yummy nonetheless.)
Last weekend, before we drove off to camp, the eldest gel and I were out grazing on the earliest arrivals. I remarked that it was a shame she was going to be gone for the two weeks of prime berry time, and that I guessed I would have no choice but to eat all of them without her.
“Isn’t that a shame,” I said.
“Daaaaaaaad!” she replied, and poked me heavily in the rib cage.
I laughed.
She laughed.
A simple tale of father/daughter bonding based on a little gentle teasing, no? And yet, I’ve told this story to half a dozen people this week and received not a smile or a laugh, but a look of “How could you be so mean?” incredulity. Granted, the people I’ve told have tended either to be childless or else to have only babies or toddlers, and all of them are much more Liberal than I am, but nonetheless I find their reaction worrisome.
I’d have thought – well, I do think – that teasing among family members, so long as it is good natured and not designed to be ugly, is an extremely healthy thing. It teaches the kiddies not to be thin-skinned and it acts as a harmless escape valve to blow off pressure between the grown-ups that might otherwise build to an explosive level if they spent their lives tip-toeing around one another. Is this no longer acceptable among the Enlightened?
I would estimate that between our internal systems at work and all the courts across the country where I file documents electronically, I have to use at least a dozen different passwords and user names, several of which must be changed periodically. On top of that, there are all the electronic accounts we keep at home – banking, on-line shopping and the like. And, of course, there are the keys to this place as well as Llama Central.
Because I had to go round and get checked in for a new security badge yesterday, something suddenly occured to me: Sooner or later, those Big Guv’mint types who have been yearning for citizen identity cards and a centralized national database are going to make the pitch that such a system would allow us to do away with all these pesky different ID’s and passwords, thereby eliminating the need to keep track of all of them and the headache of losing them. Indeed, I can even see the argument that a subcutanious microchip implant with a unique identifier, coupled with a universal scanner attached to all electronic devices, would eliminate the need for remembering any user ID or password.
And we, rayther than rising up in wrathful defense of our civil liberties, are instead going to be grateful for the convenience and will go along quite cheerfully.
See if we don’t.
Regular port-swillers will know that I’m baching it this week, Mrs. R having gone up to Connecticut to visit family and the gels being away at camp. Said regulars will also be aware both that two cats reside at the port-swiller residence and that I am not overly fond of cats.
For all the years I’ve had to endure feline company, we’ve fed the little brutes dry food. Unfortunately, within the past month or two Mrs. R became convinced that we should introduce some wet food into their diets as well. “Oh,” she said, “It’s just a supplement now and again.”
Uh, huh.
Gradually but speedily, the cats decided that wet food was all they cared about. Dry, in a word, just wasn’t good enough anymore.
And so we came to this week’s diaspora. I’ve had nothing to do with the wet food up until now, and I made abundantly clear to Mrs. R that I would not do so going forward, the stuff being thoroughly disgusting to the smell and also a great ant magnet.
Mrs. R just shrugged when I threw down. The cats? That’s a different matter. Earlier this week it was nothing but meaningful looks. After a few days, their concern became verbal, manifesting itself in a loud yowling every time I went anywhere near the kitchen. My refusal to capitulate in the face of such protest has now been challenged by Bella, the younger and more active of the pair, who showed her displeasure today by raiding the kitchen garbage, something she’s never done before.
Well. As the Lord said to Job, thus far and no farther. I’ll be damned if I let a pair of those little bastards bully me around. I actually found myself this evening staring at them and stirring up their bowl of dry, saying in my sternest tone, “This. Is. It.”
The look they shot back at me was as much as to say, “Dry? We don’t need no stinkin’ dry!”
Thank Heaven they aren’t heavily-armed banditos, or I’d be in a world of hurt.
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