September 19 a signifant day in the West

[rivrrat]

Friends,

Today marks two significant events in the Western Theater and the Trans Mississippi.
September 19, 1863 was the first day of the Battle of Chickamauga, a serious setback for Union forces in Tennessee. Among the fallen that day was Sergeant Warren Hamilton, 35th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, my Great Great Uncle.

Today also marks the beginning of Sterling Price’s 1864 invasion of Missouri. An attempt to bring Missouri into the Confederate fold, doomed from the start, but an amazing effort for so few with so little. It would see, among others, the Battle of Westport Missouri the Gettysburg of the West, and the Battle of Mine Creek the only Civil War battle between “Uniformed Troops” in Kansas during the war.


(Message edited by rivrrat on September 19, 2003)

[aggie80]

Well, I don't know about the west, but today, September 19th is the official "Talk Like a Pirate Day!"

Doug,
I'd like to hear more about Price. I used to get a kick out of John Wayne in True Grit. Obviously he had admiration for both Quantrill and Price. Anytime you want to give more info on it, I'd be interested.


Mark,
I took the personality profile thingee on the pirate site. I love pirates and pirate's history.


You are The Cap'n


Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some slit the throats of any man that stands between them and the mantle of power. You never met a man you couldn't eviscerate. Not that mindless violence is the only avenue open to you - but why take an avenue when you have complete freeway access? You are the definitive Man of Action. You are James Bond in a blousy shirt and drawstring-fly pants. Your swash was buckled long ago and you have never been so sure of anything in your life as in your ability to bend everyone to your will. You will call anyone out and cut off their head if they show any sign of taking you on or backing down. You cannot be saddled with tedious underlings, but if one of your lieutenants shows an overly developed sense of ambition he may find more suitable accommodations in Davy Jones' locker. That is, of course, IF you notice him. You tend to be self absorbed - a weakness that may keep you from seeing enemies where they are and imagining them where they are not.

[blue_zouave]

Talk like a pirate! Arrrgh Arrgh! Shiver me timbers! Avast thou, varlet!

The Battle of Chickamauga is the one I'm most interested in, and which figures in my novel. Of course, my hero has no idea of what's going on with the battle itself, since he's behind the lines at the field hospital. I got to tour the Union hospital sites at Chickamauga a couple years ago. The Confederate ones were along the creek and are now on private property, so we didn't see those.

Zou

Prof. Booker T. Washington . . . stood on the platform of the Auditorium, with the sun shining over the heads of his hearers into his eyes, and his whole face lit up with the fire of prophecy . . . It electrified the audience, and the response was as if it had come from the throat of a whirlwind.
James B. Creelman,
"The Effect of Booker T. Washington's
Atlanta Speech,"
from the New York World
September 19, 1895.




On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington delivered his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia. Washington, the founder and president of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, was the first African-American man ever to address a racially-mixed Southern audience. He used the occasion to advocate a moderate approach to race relations in the New South:
To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are--cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded."
"Address of Booker T. Washington,"
Atlanta, Georgia, September 18, 1895.

[ewc]

"Doctors is all swabs, and that doctor there, why, what do he know of seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with the Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes-- what do the doctor know of lands like that?-- and I lived on rum, I tell ye. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on ye, Jim, and that doctor swab."

-Billy Bones to Jim Hawkins at The Admiral Benbow Inn, after a stroke he suffered in his duel with Black Dog, a shipmate of old.

And Long John Silver to his pirate shipmates, which Jim overheard while in the apple barrel:

"Flint was cap'n; I was quartermaster, along of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his deadlights. It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me-- out of college and all-- Latin by the bucket, and what not; but he was hanged like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest, at Corso Castle. That was Roberts' men, that was, and comed of changing names to their ships-- Royal Fortune, and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, so let her stay, I says. So it was with the Cassandra, as brought us all safe home from Malabar, after (Cap'n) England took the viceroy of the Indies; so it was with the old Walrus, Flint's old ship, as I've seen amuck with the red blood and fit to sink with gold!"

Ah, Long Live 'Talk Like a Pirate' Day. Some lively passages from Stevenson's Treasure Island.

(Message edited by Ewc on September 19, 2003)