The FReeper Foxhole Remembers George Washington: Hero of the Confederacy? - Sep.19th, 2005

American History Magazine | October 2004 | William F. B. Vodrey

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

.................................................................. .................... ...........................................

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

Where Duty, Honor and Country
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.

Our Mission:

The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.

In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.

The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer.

If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions.

We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.

To read previous Foxhole threads or
to add the Foxhole to your sidebar,
click on the books below.

George Washington: Hero of the Confederacy?

The cost of political greatness, it's been said, is to be forced to campaign long after your death. That's certainly true of George Washington, whose name, image and legacy were appropriated by the Confederacy.

George Washington is rightly called the "Father of our Country." Born on February 22, 1732, near Wakefield, Virginia, he was a planter, surveyor, soldier in the French and Indian War, a politician in Virginia's House of Burgesses and member of the first and second Continental Congresses. A natural leader with extensive military training, he served as commander in chief of the Continental Army through eight hard years of war, sometimes holding his army together by sheer force of will. He rejected a crown, which many of his officers would gladly have given him. He presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and, of course, was the first president of the United States, from 1789 to 1797. He died in peaceful retirement at Mount Vernon on December 14, 1799. More than any other individual, Washington was responsible for securing the independence of the United States, and for establishing a government that would ensure its survival and success. Its capital rightly bears his name.

George Washington

It is not surprising, therefore, as civil war loomed on the horizon, that both North and South would claim Washington as their patron of democracy. After all, no one then stood higher in the public's estimation. Historian Joseph J. Ellis wrote, "If there was a Mount Olympus in the new American republic, all the lesser gods were gathered farther down the slope" from Washington. As historian Anne Sarah Rubin noted: "Far and away the most often invoked icon of the Revolutionary War period was George Washington. Throughout the antebellum period he was beloved by Northerners and Southerners alike and by 1861 had come to symbolize all that was virtuous and heroic about the American Revolution."

Abraham Lincoln invoked the first president as the storm clouds of war gathered. In his Cooper Union speech in New York City on February 27, 1860, Lincoln rejected Southern charges that the young Republican Party was merely a sectional party, something that Washington had warned against in his 1796 Farewell Address. Lincoln said: "Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect the warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the right application of it." Noting Washington's strong commitment to the Union, Lincoln criticized those who made "invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did." Upon leaving Springfield, Ill., for the last time on February 11, 1861, the president-elect said, "I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington."


Abraham Lincoln

Southerners, too, claimed Washington as their guiding spirit. A member of the Georgia delegation to the 1861 Confederate constitutional convention in Montgomery, Ala., even proposed that the new Southern nation be named the "Republic of Washington," and many other Southern leaders invoked Washington's name for political advantage.

Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the permanent president of the Confederate States of America on Washington's birthday in 1861. In his inaugural address, Davis said, "On this the birthday of the man most identified with the establishment of American independence, and beneath the monument erected to commemorate his heroic virtues and those of his compatriots, we have assembled to usher into existence the permanent government of the Confederate States." The Confederacy, he vowed, would "perpetuate the principles of our Revolutionary fathers. The day, the memory, and the purpose seem fitly associated....We are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty." Although neither Davis nor Confederate General Robert E. Lee ever claimed the title for themselves, they were often called "second Washingtons."


Jefferson Davis

At first glance, it appears obvious that the Confederate States of America would seize upon the figure of Washington as a patriotic symbol, putting him on its great seal and holding him up as an icon of secession. He was a Virginian, after all, beloved throughout the country. He had owned slaves. He had led armies in rebellion against a remote, tyrannical power. Many Southerners believed that they were fighting a second American Revolution; some said that had Washington been alive in 1861, he would have supported the Confederacy.

[SAMWolf]

A closer look, however, casts a dark shadow over that assertion.



Washington was firmly, indeed unshakably, for the Union. On June 8, 1783, just two years after his triumph at Yorktown, Washington sent a message to all the state governors, urging them to downplay local jealousies in order to strengthen the Union. He wrote:

[I]t is indispensable to the happiness of the individual states, that there should be lodged somewhere, a supreme power to regulate and govern the general concerns of the...republic, without which the Union cannot be of long duration. That there must be a faithful and pointed compliance on the part of every state, with the...proposals and demands of Congress, or the most fatal consequences will ensue; that whatever measures have a tendency to dissolve the Union, or contribute to violate or lessen the sovereign authority, ought to be considered as hostile to the liberty and independency of America, and the authors of them treated accordingly....[W]ithout an entire conformity to the spirit of the Union, we cannot exist as an independent power.

Three years later, with the need for a stronger federal government even more apparent, Washington wrote to future Chief Justice of the United States John Jay in August 1786, "I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power, which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the state governments extends over the several states."



In late 1786, the inhabitants of western Massachusetts took up arms against monetary policies imposed by their own elected government. Historian Edmund S. Morgan wrote that Washington "was outraged by the very idea of rebellion against a republican government...in the years that followed the winning of independence, as the power of Congress continued to wane, his great worry had been that the failure of the states to support the union would ‘destroy our national character, and render us as contemptible in the eyes of Europe as we have it in our power to be respectable.'" The difficulties the state and national governments faced in putting down Shays' Rebellion highlighted the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and eventually led to the convening of the Constitutional Convention and the strengthening of the federal government.

After the Constitutional Convention had done its work and adjourned, Washington wrote in November 1787, "[T]here are characters who prefer disunion, or separate confederacies to the general government which is offered to them...but as nothing in my conception is more to be deprecated than disunion, or these separate confederacies, my voice, as far as it will extend, shall be offered in favor of [the Union]." Morgan wrote that once Washington was president, he "identified the national interest so closely and so personally with the new national government that he could scarcely recognize the validity of any kind of dissent...[He] had borne the brunt of a war that was needlessly prolonged because of the supineness of the central government. He had watched the nation approach the point of dissolution in the 1780s, a development that threatened everything he had fought for." Washington wrote to the Irish patriot Sir Edward Newenham in 1788 that, under the new Constitution, the United States would be "nearer to perfection than any government hitherto instituted among men." He agreed with Jefferson, who confided to him in 1794, "I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the union into two or more parts."


The Whiskey Rebellion
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- October 3, 1794

In September 1791 the western counties of Pennsylvania broke out in rebellion against a federal excise tax on the distillation of whiskey. After local and federal officials were attacked, President Washington and his advisors decided to send troops to pacify the region. It was further decided that militia troops, rather than regulars, would be sent. On August 14, 1792, under the provisions of the newly-enacted militia law, Secretary of War Henry Knox called upon the governors of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania for 12,950 troops as a test of the President's power to enforce the law. Numerous problems, both political and logistical, had to be overcome and by October, 1794 the militiamen were on the march. The New Jersey units marched from Trenton to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There they were reviewed by their Commander-in Chief, President George Washington, accompanied by Secretary of the Treasury and Revolutionary war veteran Alexander Hamilton. By the time troops reached Pittsburgh, the rebellion had subsided, and western Pennsylvania was quickly pacified. This first use of the Militia Law of 1792 set a precedence for the use of the militia to "execute the laws of the union, (and) suppress insurrections". New Jersey was the only state to immediately fulfill their levy of troops to the exact number required by the President. This proud tradition of service to state and nation is carried on today by the New Jersey Army and Air National Guard.

As president, Washington was true to his principles. To put down the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 -- the first major insurrection against the authority of the United States -- he used military force, demanding that federal law be obeyed. The dissolution of the Union, he wrote at the time, would be "the most dreadful of all calamities." He warned, "If the laws are to be trampled upon with impunity, and a minority (a small one too) is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put, at one stroke, to republican government." Calling on the militias of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to stop the armed rebellion against a federal excise tax on distilled spirits, the president announced that the military's first duty is "to combat and subdue all who may be found in arms in opposition to the national will and authority."

Once the rebellion was almost bloodlessly suppressed, he wrote to his friend and Revolutionary leader Edmund Pendleton: "I hope, and believe, that the spirit of anarchy in the western counties of [Pennsylvania], to quell which the force of the Union was called for, is entirely subdued...the spirit with which the militia turned out, in support of the Constitution, and the laws of our country...does them immortal honor. [R]epublicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination: on the contrary...under no form of government will laws be better supported, liberty and property better secured, nor happiness be more effectually dispensed to mankind." He also wrote in May 1797 to Revolutionary War general William Heath that Americans should be "indignant at every attempt [of those who] should presume to sow the seeds of distrust or disunion among ourselves."

[SAMWolf]

Washington would have denounced the view of many Confederate leaders that the Union was merely a temporary, convenient alliance between the states. He was never in any doubt that the Union was intended to be permanent, despite the Constitution's silence on the point. In 1783 Washington wrote that the first thing "essential to the well being, I may even venture to say, to the existence of the United States as an independent power [is] an indissoluble Union of the states under one Federal head." After the Whiskey Rebellion, he wrote of his satisfaction that "my fellow citizens understand the true principles of government and liberty [and appreciate] their inseparable union." As new states and their citizens joined the Union, Washington said the nation should bind "those people to us by a chain which never can be broken."



In his Farewell Address of September 1796, Washington wrote: "To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances however strict between the parts can be an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced...[the federal government] has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty...the Constitution which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government." In the address, his last major statement to the nation, Washington expressed his hope that "Union and brotherly affection may be sacredly maintained."

Given his strong support for the Union, it follows that George Washington was no zealot in defense of states' rights; far from it. In 1777, during the Revolution, he was criticized by some members of the Continental Congress for permitting New Jersey citizens who had been forced to swear allegiance to the British Crown to expunge this by swearing allegiance, not to their state, but to the United States. After the Revolution he saw, under the weak Articles of Confederation that then guided the relationship between the states, the dangers of states' preeminence over the federal government -- as when New York, with impunity, negotiated a private treaty with the Indians to its own advantage.



In a July 1783 letter to historian and educator the Rev. William Gordon, Washington wrote:

It now rests with [Congress]...to make this country great, happy, and respectable; or to sink it into littleness; worse perhaps, into anarchy and confusion; for certain I am, that unless adequate powers are given to Congress for the general purposes of the Federal Union that we shall soon moulder into dust and become contemptible....We are known by no other character among nations than as the United States; Massachusetts or Virginia is no better defined, nor any more thought of by foreign powers than the County of Worcester in Massachusetts...or Glouster County in Virginia...yet these counties, with as much propriety might oppose themselves to the laws of the state in [which] they are, as an individual state can oppose itself to the Federal Government, by which it is, or ought to be bound. [When counties] come in contact with the general interests of the state, when superior considerations preponderate in favor of the whole, their voices should be heard no more; so it should be with individual states when compared to the Union....I think the blood and treasure which has been spent [in building the nation] has been lavished to little purpose, unless we can be better cemented; and that is not to be effected while so little attention is paid to the recommendations of the sovereign power.

Washington concluded, "[W]hen the band of Union gets once broken, every thing ruinous to our future prospects is to be apprehended; the best that can come of it, in my humble opinion, is that we shall sink into obscurity, unless our civil broils should keep us in remembrance and fill the page of history with the direful consequences of them."


Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee

Following the Revolution and to the end of his days, in fact, Washington was concerned that disunion would make America the plaything of European powers. Given the diplomatic flirtations of Great Britain and France with the Confederacy, this was quite prescient. Washington wrote in 1783, "[T]he United States came into existence as a nation, and if their citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own...it is in their choice, and depends upon their conduct, whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptible and miserable as a nation...[it would be an] ill-fated moment for relaxing the powers of the Union, annihilating the cement of the confederation, and exposing us to become the sport of European politics, which may play one state against another to prevent their growing importance, and to serve their own interested purposes." He insisted, "It is only in our united character...that our independence is acknowledged, that our power can be regarded, and our credit supported among foreign nations."

[SAMWolf]

George Washington did not share the view of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and other leading Southerners that he was a citizen of his state first, and of the United States second. It was Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, Robert E. Lee's own father, who most famously eulogized Washington as "a citizen, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." This was part of a memorial resolution that Lee introduced not in the Virginia legislature, but in the U.S. House of Representatives. Virginia was not Washington's "country." He believed that love of country meant "giving every possible support and cement to the Union," and wrote in 1796: "Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations."


Robert E. Lee

Washington's last will and testament began with what historian Richard Norton Smith called "an unmistakable political statement." Washington described himself as "a citizen of the United States, and lately President of the same." Smith observed, "Not [as] ‘a citizen of Virginia,' not as a Southerner or a Tidewater aristocrat, but as an American, Washington chose to round out his life with the creed to which he had devoted himself for forty years." Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Joseph J. Ellis wrote that the "core of Washington's vision" was the Union, and suggested that "[a] reincarnated Washington...would have gone with Lincoln and the Union in 1861." Another Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, Garry Wills, agreed, "He was as ardent a proponent of union as President Lincoln would be, and he had in some measure foreseen that this would be the great trial of the republic."

One states' rights issue in particular bothered Washington. Even though he and his wife, Martha, owned and oversaw the work of more than 250 slaves at Mount Vernon, he was not an enthusiastic supporter of the "peculiar institution." Historian Roger Bruns noted: "As he grew older, he became increasingly aware that it was immoral and unjust. Long before the Revolution, Washington had taken the unusual position of refusing to sell any of his slaves or to allow slave families to be separated." Although at the beginning of the Revolution he opposed using black soldiers, he eventually worked with Congress to allow "free Negroes" to join the Continental Army and even introduced measures to permit enslaved blacks to serve in return for their freedom.


Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

After the Revolution, Washington told an English friend, "I clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union by consolidating it in a common bond of principle." He said soberly that if the South were ever to try to divide the nation over the issue of slavery, he would "move and be of the northern" part. He wrote to his friend John Francis Mercer on September 9, 1786, "I never mean...to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees." Ten years later, he wrote to Robert Morris, a major financier of the Revolution, "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see some plan adopted for the gradual abolition" of slavery. As president, Washington signed legislation enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, and wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette that he considered it a wise measure.

Throughout his life, he was known as a benign slaveholder (although admittedly, to 21st-century eyes, that's virtually an oxymoron). Washington, alone among the slaveholding framers of the Constitution, included provisions in his will for the freeing of his personal slaves, adding that, prior to their emancipation, Mount Vernon slaves should "be taught to read and write, and brought up to some useful occupation." At the time, Virginia law prohibited teaching slaves to read.

"Deo Vindice" was the motto that appeared below the mounted figure of Washington on the Great Seal of the Confederacy: "God Vindicates." Whether or not God vindicates the Confederacy is a question probably best left to theologians and other thinkers and philosophers. It is very clear, however, that had he lived to see it, Washington would not have supported the Confederacy. His principles were timeless, his commitment to the Union was absolute, his opposition to slavery had grown strong and his personality was such that he surely would never have been swayed by the secessionist hysteria of the early 1860s. No one worked harder or did more than George Washington to see that the United States would become -- and remain -- one nation, indivisible.

[SAMWolf]

Showcasing America's finest, and those who betray them!

Please click on the banner above and check out this newly created (and still under construction) website created by FReeper Coop!

---

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

---

Actively seeking volunteers to provide this valuable service to Veterans and their families.

---

We here at Blue Stars For A Safe Return are working hard to honor all of our military, past and present, and their families. Inlcuding the veterans, and POW/MIA's. I feel that not enough is done to recognize the past efforts of the veterans, and remember those who have never been found.

I realized that our Veterans have no "official" seal, so we created one as part of that recognition. To see what it looks like and the Star that we have dedicated to you, the Veteran, please check out our site.

Veterans Wall of Honor

Blue Stars for a Safe Return

---

UPDATED THROUGH APRIL 2004



The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul

Click on Hagar for
"The FReeper Foxhole Compiled List of Daily Threads"

---

LINK TO FOXHOLE THREADS INDEXED by PAR35

[snippy_about_it]

"FALL IN" to the FReeper Foxhole!



Good Monday Morning Everyone.

If you want to be added to our ping list, let us know.

[Wneighbor]

Evenin' Sam

[nathanbedford]

To attempt to confuse the ignorant by subtly setting Washington in contradistinction to Lee and Jackson is a monstrous lie, especially as it relates to the actual manumission of slaves and actual, personal relationships with slaves.

Moreover, to argue by analogy is always a betrayal of a weakness of position. No one believes that the man who pledged his life, his fortune and his sacred honor to a rebellion against his sovereign would fail to do so again if he saw his precious liberties similarly threatened by a new confederation, or "union" of states.

[alfa6]

Monday Morning Bump for the Freeper Foxhole

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Iris7]

The piece has the unmistakable odor of propaganda.

Reminds me that Dr. Samuel Johnson remarked that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

France has had, what, five Republics since their Revolution? Serious students of history, with whom I agree, have written that the first American Republic expired in 1861, the second with the 16th amendment, and the third in about 1933 with the coming of socialism. FDR Il Duce. The fourth expired with the Viet Nam war, a civil war in all but name. So, like the French, we live under the Fifth Republic.

I am not cynical about this, not at all. I see opportunities steadily expanding for men and women of the heroic nature, those unwilling to lie to themselves. Perhaps we may neutralize the endless horde of the left and build a country fit for heroes.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

[GailA]

Good morning Snippy, Sam and every one.

[texianyankee]

Good Monday morning to all. Here's hoping this is the first day of a great week.

[Valin]

AVAST YE SCURVY SWINE!


Birthdates which occurred on September 19:
0086 Antoninus Pius 15th Roman emperor (138-161)
0866 Leo VI Sophos Byzantine Emperor (886-912)/writer (Problematica)
1655 Jan Luyts Netherlands, scholar/physicist/mathematician/astronomer
1737 Charles Carroll signed Decl of Ind
1802 Louis Kossuth Hungary, President of Hungary (1849)
1822 Joseph Rodman West Bvt Major General (Union volunteers)
1867 Arthur Rackham England, artist/illustrator (Grimm's Fairy Tales)
1898 Giuseppe Saragat president of Italy (1964-71)
1901 Joseph Pasternak film producer (Anchors Aweigh, Date With Judy)
1902 James Van Alen created Simplified Scoring System for tennis
1907 Lewis F Powell Jr Va, Supreme Court justice (1972-87)
1911 William Golding England, novelist (Lord of the Flies-Nobel 1983)
1914 Rogers Morton Louisville Ky, US Secretary of Interior (1968-75)
1922 Emil Zatopek Czechoslavakia, 5K/10K/marathon (Olympic-gold-1952)
1926 Edwin "Duke" Snider Bkln Dodger centerfielder (406 HRs)
1926 Lurleen Wallace (Gov-D-Ala)
1928 Adam West Walla Walla Wash, actor (Batman, Last Precinct)
1931 Brook Benton Camden, SC, singer (Rainy night in Georgia)
1932 Mike Royko Chicago, journalist (Chic Daily News)/author (Boss)
1933 David McCallum Glasgow Scot, actor (Ilyla Kuryakin-Man From UNCLE)
1940 Bill Medley Santa Ana Cal, rocker (Righteous Bros-'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin')
1940 Paul Williams singer/composer/actor (An Old Fashioned Love Song
, Planet of the Apes)
1943 Mama Cass Elliot Balt Md, singer (Mamas & Papas-Monday Monday)
1945 David Bromberg Phila, musician (Demon in Disguise)
1945 Freda Payne Detroit Mich, singer (Band of Gold)
1945 Randolph Mantooth Sacramento Calif, actor (Emergency, Loving)
1948 Jeremy Irons England, actor (French Lieutenant's Woman)
1949 Twiggy Lawson [Leslie Hornby], England, model/actress (The Blues Brothers)
1950 Joan Lunden Fair Oaks Calif, news host (Good Morning America)
1957 Richard M Linnehan Lowell Mass, US Army Capt/astronaut
1958 Kevin Hooks Phila, actor (Sounder, Aaron Loves Angela)
1965 Debbye Turner Miss America (1990)

---

Deaths which occurred on September 19:
1180 Louis VII, the Younger, King of France (1137-80), dies
1356 Jean de Clermont, French marshal, dies in battle
1862 [Lewis] Henry Little US Confederate brig-gen, dies in battle at 45
1863 Preston Smith US Confederate brig-gen, dies in battle at 39
1864 Archibald Campbell Godwin Confederate brig-general, dies in battle
1864 David Allen Russell US Union general-major, dies in battle at 43
1864 Robert Emmet Rodes US Confederate gen-major, dies in battle at 35

1881 James A Garfield US president, dies of gunshot wound

1968 Red Foley country singer (Mr Smith Goes to Washington), dies at 58
1978 Rolf Gunther, East German priest, self imolation
1988 Oren Lee Staley 1st pres of Natl Farmers Org (1955-79), dies at 65
1995 Orville Reddenbacher, popcorn magnate, drowns in bathtub at 88

---

Take A Moment To Remember
GWOT Casualties

Iraq
19-Sep-2004 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Sergeant Brandon E. Adams Walter Reed Medical Ctr. Hostile - hostile fire - grenade



Afghanistan
A GOOD DAY


http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
//////////
Go here and I'll stop nagging.
http://soldiersangels.org/heroes/index.php

---

On this day...
1356 English defeat French at Battle of Poitiers
1559 5 Spanish ships sinks in storm off Tampa, about 600 die
1657 Brandenburg & Poland sign Treaty of Wehlau
1676 Rebels under Nathaniel Bacon set Jamestown Va on fire
1692 Giles Corey is pressed to death for standing mute and refusing to answer charges of witchcraft brought against him. He is the only person in America to have suffered this punishment.
1737 A cyclone in the Bay of Bengal hits Calcutta 3,000 people killed, 1,000s of ships destroyed.
1777 Battle of Freeman's Farm (Bemis Heights) or 1st Battle of Saratoga
1796 George Washington's farewell address as president
1846 Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning elopes
1848 Bond (US) & Lassell (England) independently discover Hyperion, moon of Saturn
1849 1st commercial laundry established, in Oakland, California
1862 Battle of Luka, Miss
1863 In Georgia, the two-day Battle of Chickamauga begins as Union troops under George Thomas clash with Confederates under Nathan Bedford Forrest
1864 3rd Battle of Winchester, Virginia
1870 Two Prussian armies begin a 135-day siege of Paris as the 2nd Empire collapsed.
1873 Black Friday: Jay Cooke & Co fails, causing a securities panic
1879 Thomas Ray becomes youngest to break a world track & field record pole-vaulting 11' 2¬" at age 17 years & 198 days
1890 Turkish frigate "Ertogrul" burns off of Japan, kills 540

1928 Mickey Mouse's screen debut (Steamboat Willie at Colony Theater NYC)

1934 Bruno Hauptmann arrested for kidnapping the Linbergh baby
1939 Wehrmacht murder 100 Jews in Lukov, Poland
1940 Nazi decree forbids gentile women to work in Jewish homes
1944 Finland & Russia agree to cease fire
1944 Battle of the Huertgen Forest on the Belgian-German border began
1945 Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) sentenced to death in London
1950 UN reject membership of China's People Republic
1955 Argentina's President Juan Peron is overthrown by rebels.
1956 1st intl conference of black writers & artists meets (Sorbonne)
1959 Nikita Krushchev is denied access to Disneyland
1967 Nigeria begins offensive against Biafra
1970 "Mary Tyler Moore" show premiers
1973 NL refuses to allow San Diego Padres move to Washington DC
1973 Pirate Radio Free America (off Cape May NJ) goes on the air
1980 Titan II missile explosion (Damascus, AR)
1981 Simon & Garfunkel reunite for a NYC Central Park concert
1982 New Orleans Saints 1st road shutout victory beating Chic Bears 10-0
1982 Streetcars stop running on Market St after 122 years of service
1983 St Christopher-Nevis gains independence from Britain (Nat'l Day)
1985 9,500 die in Mexico's earthquake (6.9)
1986 Fed health officals announce AZT will be available to AIDS patients
1988 Israel launches 1st satellite, for secret military reconnaissance
1989 Chase Manhattan Discovery Center at Brooklyn Botanic Garden opens
1989 Appeals court restores America's Cup to US after NY Supreme Court gave it to New Zealand (NZ protested US's use of a catamaran)
1991 Frozen mummy (Ice Age) found in the Alps Otzi (Frozen Fritz).
1998 At the 22nd annual Oktoberfest in Cincinnati 25,000 kazoos were distributed in an attempt to set a Guinness record for the "World’s Largest Kazoo Band."
2002 Colombian Army troops kill 21 guerrillas and freed 2 kidnapped civilians. A 3rd hostage died in the fighting
2002 A Palestinian terrorist blew himself up on a crowded bus in downtown Tel Aviv, killing at least five other people and wounding 49.
2003 Former Iraqi Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmad, Saddam Hussein's last defense minister, surrendered to an American commander. 27 on the most-wanted list.

---

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Bhutan : Blessed Rainy Day
Chile : Army Day (1810)
Laundry Day
St Kitts & Nevis Independence Day
US : National Talk Like A Pirate Day
Are You Somebody? Day
National Tie Week (Day 2)
National Butterscotch Pudding Day
National Dog Week (Day 2)
National Chicken Month

---

Religious Observances
Ang, RC : Ember Day
RC : Memorial of St Januarius, bishop, & companions, martyrs (opt)
Ang : Commemoration of Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury

---

Religious History
1853 Baptist pioneer missionary J. Hudson Taylor, 21, set sail from England to China. In 1865, Taylor founded the China Inland Mission, now known as Overseas Missionary Fellowship. Its U.S. branch is HQ'd today in Robesonia, PA.
1938 The Carpatho-Russian Diocese of the Eastern Rite of the U.S.A. was canonized as a diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church. Father Orestes Chornock, Orthodox bishop of Agathonikia, was made Metropolitan of the new diocese.
1943 The first Baptist church was organized in Anchorage. (Prior to this date, there had been no Baptist church in Anchorage, and only one Baptist church in all the rest of the state of Alaska.)
1948 American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'Father, make of me a "crisis man." Make of me a fork, so that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.'
1971 Death of William F. Albright, 80, American Methodist archaeologist. Professor of Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins for nearly 30 years, he penned over 1,000 articles and books, and led several Near Eastern expeditions which excavated the biblical sites of Gibeah, Bethel and Petra.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

---

N.D. Residents Eat 4,518 Pounds of Fries


GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) - Residents here have gobbled up a new record for the largest single serving of french fries. An estimated 4,518 pounds of french fries were consumed during Thursday night's annual french fry feeding frenzy.

The event is held during "Potato Bowl U.S.A" week, which recognizes the potato industry in the Red River Valley and includes a weekend University of North Dakota football game.
This year's total eclipsed the record of 4,410 pounds of fries set two years ago.
Along with 11,000 servings of fries, organizers had more than 100 gallons of ketchup on hand.

Dave Gottberg, a director with the J.R. Simplot french fry plant in Grand Forks, estimated that about 10,000 people were served.
"It was fantastic weather and the 40th anniversary and all, plus they advertised pretty well for us this year," he said.

---

Thought for the day :
"Whether one eats a cat or not is a personal choice, and I don't want to sway anyone one way or another. But if you do, there is one obvious cooking tip: Always remember to remove the bell from the cat's collar before cooking."
Mike Royko

[Professional Engineer]

Good morning ladies. Flag-o-Gram.

I missed a large item in my end of day report yesterday. I was able to watch "Gods and Generals" all the way through. Bittygirl spent that time either playing in a box, or riding her rocking horse watching the movie.

[The Mayor]

September 19, 2005

Our Lord's Command

Read:
John 21:14-22

Jesus said, . . . "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." —Mark 1:17

Bible In One Year: Ezekiel 28-30

Jesus asked Simon Peter a heart-searching question long ago on the seashore in Galilee: "Do you love Me?" (John 21:15-17). Then the risen Lord told His disciple Peter that his future would lead to martyrdom. And Peter accepted that destiny without complaint.

But then Peter asked about the apostle John's future (v.21). We can only guess what motivated his question. Was it brotherly concern? Was it fleshly curiosity? Was it resentment because he thought that John might be spared a martyr's death?

Whatever Peter's motive, Jesus responded with a counter-question that applied not just to Peter but to every follower of His: "If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me" (v.22). In that question, Jesus was saying in essence, "Don't worry about what happens in the life of anybody else. Your task is to keep following Me steadfastly."

It is so easy to let our relationship with the Lord be overly influenced by the behavior and experiences of others. But we must not be concerned with what God has planned for anyone else. Through the conflicting voices that surround us, we must keep hearing the Savior's clear command: "You follow Me." —Vernon Grounds

Jesus calls us o'er the tumult
Of our life's wild, restless sea,
Day by day His sweet voice soundeth,
Saying, "Christian, follow Me." —Alexander

To find your way through life, follow Jesus.

FOR FURTHER STUDY
What Does It Take To Follow Christ?

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning America!!

[SAMWolf]

Arrrrrgh!

[SAMWolf]

Good Flick, but I liked "Gettysburg" better.

[snippy_about_it]

Pirates reporting in aarrrgh.

samwolf aka reeking jim dagger
snippy aka Swashbuckler Esmerelda

and our trusty salty dog, sarge aka Cap'n Bernard Cannonbait

Happy talk like a Pirate Day, matey.

[Professional Engineer]

Hiya Sam

I definitely wanna see Gettysburg now.