Harrison Ford is great, but it's Alfred Molina that makes this scene for me.
01/26/2023
01/25/2023
01/24/2023
We’re All Predisposed to Believe That Women Are Untrustworthy and Incompetent
Feel Hecate's righteous fury:
[M]ere days before the election, James Comey (who will never, ever, need to kick his own ass if I’m in the bar) released some emails from Clinton’s aide’s husband (right, a man, another one who thought sending dick pictures was a good move) and that played into the whole But Her Emails bullshit. A few days later, when Comey admitted that there was no there, there, it was too late. The damage was done. And the result was Donald Trump.
Now, of course, we know that Donald Trump not only mishandled classified information (we knew that while he was in the White House, and we knew that so did Daughter-Wife, and Kushner, and most of his aides), but also refused to return the documents when asked, lied and said they’d all been returned, and then made up stupid stories that change regularly about whether the documents were planted, whether he’d declassified them “with his mind,” whether he’d shared them with the revolving circus of spies and bad actors who file through his tacky Mos Eisley cantina of a resort, etc. And, it turns out, Joe Biden had classified documents at his home. And, it turns out, Mike Pence had classified documents at his home. (It’s important to note that Biden and Pence helped with the searches and turned the documents over ASAP, which makes their cases quite different from Tump’s. It’s also likely that our system of deciding which documents get classified** and how such documents are handled, especially in this digital era, is due for an overhaul. I’m sure Congresswoman Greene will get right on that.) So we can now see that the woman got accused of, and crucified for, doing something that men do regularly — and she never even did it. And no one is surprised.
Read the whole thing so we can all die angry together.
PS - please forgive my use of a graphic that init caps bell hooks' name.
01/23/2023
01/22/2023
With Such Precision, Courage, and Skill
50 years ago, the Apollo 17 crew spoke before a joint session of Congress. Kicking it off was CDR Cernan, who explained their mission insignia (designed by space artist Bob McCall), amongst other things:
The symbol of our path of Apollo 17 is one that goes far beyond our flight, and it is one that goes far beyond what we really think of the entire mission of Apollo now, but we feel it very symbolic of our country in that we have a bust of Apollo, a gold bust of Apollo, representing not just Apollo but representing mankind, representing his intelligence, representing his wisdom.
Uniquely, this bust of Apollo is not looking behind, but he is looking ahead. He is looking into the future. He is not turning in upon himself and feeling sorry for his own ills, but he is looking out to the future and accepting the challenge of that future.
To go along with this symbol of mankind is the American eagle that is superimposed upon the moon. It is not basking in the accomplishments of this last decade in space, but utilizing the information and the experience from those accomplishments and projecting and thrusting out further into the future, leading mankind into that freedom of space as he has led mankind for the last 200 years.
Then CMP Evans spoke briefly, including some echoes of Gus:
While Gene and Jack were down on the surface of the moon, as I jokingly say, getting their space suits all dirty and picking up rocks, I was fortunate enough to be flying around the moon, and hopefully I developed a capability, that man can perform in space. No matter how well his cameras and his sensors and his instruments operate, man has the capability to observe, describe and then interpret.
This is notwithstanding the fact that a lot of instruments also are able to see and look at more than man can. But man as a computer can correlate the two processes together.
Finally, the only scientist to walk on the moon, LMP Schmitt, geeked out and then observed:
I have spoken of just one facet of the revolution in knowledge that your Apollo program brought to the world. Possibly more important than factual knowledge, however, was the overall act of obtaining that knowledge. In doing so, man has evolved into the universe. Although the nature of that evolution was technological, I believe, it will be marked a thousand years from now as a single unique event in human history.
This event will appear more distinctly even than history's record of our use of atomic energy. In its at times unseemly, at times shortsighted but always human pathway through time, mankind found that its reach could include the stars.
Jack would return to the Capitol four years later, but this time as the junior Senator from NM. Appropriately enough, he ended up chairing the Science, Technology, and Space subcommittee, not unlike fellow astronaut-scientist George Santos has in the House a generation later. The circle is now complete.
Picked the Wrong Pandemic to Give Up Sniffing Glue
Got a notification on my phone:
Sadie put this event in our family calendar. Guess I can overlook her refusal to deploy an apostrophe.
Selah.
01/21/2023
I Kings 20:28
The Gods of the valley are not Gods of the hills.
- Ethan Allen's retort to usurping New Yorkers, June, 1770
In honor of Ethan Allen's birthday on January 21, 1738, here's a little background on the birth of his little boys club, recorded by Ira*, his little brother:
Civil officers from New York were therefore opposed by the people of New Hampshire Grants, who, in return, were indicted for riots, by the people of New York, from whence writs were issued, and their Sheriffs' officers sent to apprehend the delinquents. These officers were seized by the people, and severely chastised with twigs of the Wilderness ; every day produced new events, which induced the settlers on the Grants to form themselves into a military association.
Mr. Ethan Allen was appointed Colonel Commandant, and Messrs. Seth Warner, Remember Baker, Robert Cockran, Gideon Warren, and some others, were appointed Captains ; Committees of Safety were likewise appointed in the several towns west of the Green Mountains...
Here Justices of the Peace and Civil Courts were also appointed, and allowed (by the people) to act, when the title of Lands was not concerned, nor riots, nor sending people off the Grants without the concurrence of the Committee of Safety. The Governor of New York had threatened to drive the military (his opposers) into the Green Mountains, from which circumstance they took the name of Green Mountain Boys...
Surveyors of land under New York were forbid to run any lines within the Grants ; transgressors in this point were to be punished according to the judgment of a Court formed from among the elders of the people, or military commanders. Their punishment sometimes consisted in whipping severely with beech twigs, and banishment, not to return on pain of suffering the resentment of the Green Mountain Boys.
Mr. Hugh Monroe, an old offender, was taken, tried and ordered to be whipped on his naked back ; he was tied to a tree and flogged till he fainted ; on recovering he was whipped again until he fainted ; he recovered and underwent a third lashing until he fainted ; his wounds were then dressed, and he was banished the district of the New Hampshire Grants.
These severities were used to deter people from endangering their lives, and to prevent aid being given to the land claimants of New York ; they proved to answer the purpose, and the Green Mountain Boys soon became the terror of their adversaries. When the Sheriffs' officers came to collect debts they were used with civility, and the cause of the people was explained...
This is an especially fun incident from the summer of '73:
Dr. Samuel Adams, of Arlington, became friendly to the interests of the monopolists of New York, and often spoke disrespectful of the Convention and system of the Green Mountain Boys, advising people to purchase lands under the New York titles. Such conversation tended to divide the people...
Under these circumstances Doctor Adams was requested to change his conversation on the subject, or, at least, to be silent. The Doctor persisted, and declared that he would speak his mind, and converse as he pleased. He also armed himself with a pair of good pistols and other private weapons, and gave out that he would silence any man who attempted to molest him.
However, the Doctor was soon taken by surprize, and carried to the Green Mountain tavern, at Bennington, where the Committee heard his defence, and then ordered him to be tied in an armed chair, and hoisted up to the sign (a cat-a-mount's skin stuffed, sitting upon the sign-post, 25 feet from the ground, with large teeth, looking and grinning towards New York) and there to hang two hours, in sight of the people, as a punishment merited by his enmity to the rights and liberty of the inhabitants of the New Hampshire grants.
The judgment was executed, to the no small merriment of a large concourse of people. The Doctor was let down and dismissed by the Committee, with an ad-monition to go and sin no more. This mild and exemplary disgrace had a salutary effect on the Doctor, and many others.
Our sanitized national (and state) myths really elide how the Founding generation was just a gang of greedy thugs.
* I love old book titles: The natural and political history of the State of Vermont, one of the United States of America; to which is added an appendix containing answers to sundry queries addressed to the author.
01/20/2023
The Terms of the President and Vice President Shall End
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December...
- US Constitution, Article I, Section 4 (OG)
Sometimes I get a little muddled as I'm traipsing through The Record because of all the original dates stipulated by the Constitution and early statutory arrangements.
Take, f'rinstance, the Third Congress, elected in 1792, same year Washington won his second term. The electoral votes were counted the following February by the Second Congress, which then expired as the president's term began on March 4, but it wasn't until December that the Third got organized and received Washington's SOTU.
While the Constitution did specify when Congress must meet, it is silent as to when terms - theirs and the president's - actually begin. There is this clause in Article II, Section 1, however:
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
I'll note the choice of 'Time' for "chusing" Electors, as opposed to 'Day' for when they actually vote. Early elections took weeks or months, and what we know as election day wasn't made consistent nationally until "An act to establish a uniform time for holding elections for electors of President and Vice President in all the States of the Union" became law on January 23, 1845*.
But before anything could ramp up under our new framework, the old Continental Congress had to figure out the deets. On September 13, 1788 - just a bit less than a year after the Convention's proposal, and not even three months since ratification - they resolved:
That the first Wednesday in Jany next be the day for appointing Electors in the several states, which before the said day shall have ratified the said constitution; that the first Wednesday in feby . next be the day for the electors to assemble in their respective states and vote for a president; and that the first Wednesday in March next be the time and the present seat of Congress the place for commencing proceedings under the said constitution.
Thus, March 4 became the Big Day for all things, and remained so for 145 years. But the duck's lameness really needed to be addressed, what with improvements in communications and transporation, so thankfully that awkward liminal period was drastically shortened with ratification of Amendment XX on January 23, 1933:
The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January...
Much better, and still leaves plenty time for promulgating election lies and trying a little coup-ing for funsies. But anyway, we got our first inauguration under the modern scheme with FDR in 1937:
When four years ago we met to inaugurate a President, the Republic, single-minded in anxiety, stood in spirit here. We dedicated ourselves to the fulfillment of a vision--to speed the time when there would be for all the people that security and peace essential to the pursuit of happiness. We of the Republic pledged ourselves to drive from the temple of our ancient faith those who had profaned it; to end by action, tireless and unafraid, the stagnation and despair of that day. We did those first things first.
Our covenant with ourselves did not stop there. Instinctively we recognized a deeper need--the need to find through government the instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization. Repeated attempts at their solution without the aid of government had left us baffled and bewildered. For, without that aid, we had been unable to create those moral controls over the services of science which are necessary to make science a useful servant instead of a ruthless master of mankind. To do this we knew that we must find practical controls over blind economic forces and blindly selfish men.
We of the Republic sensed the truth that democratic government has innate capacity to protect its people against disasters once considered inevitable, to solve problems once considered unsolvable. We would not admit that we could not find a way to master economic epidemics just as, after centuries of fatalistic suffering, we had found a way to master epidemics of disease. We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster.
Of course, he was also the last president to start work on March 4, back in 1933. Coulda had his own little coup, too, if it weren't for The Fighting Quaker.
At least FDR had Democratic supermajorities in both chambers, so it was a rather productive time legislatively. Good thing Dark Brandon got a lot of shit done in his first couple years, now that Kremlin Kevin's Krazies are in charge of the asylum. Speaking of single-minded anxiety...
* Of course, the States still determine other electoral stuff, but it makes sense to have everything ride on the electors' coattails.
01/19/2023
#throwbackthursday
January 23, 2020 was a significant date.
01/18/2023
01/17/2023
01/16/2023
Naming Convention
And one more sidebar, since Dannemeyer alluded to this in his floor speech:
The story of how Michael became Martin began in 1934 when King’s father, who then was known as the Rev. Michael King or M.L. King, was senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church and a prominent minister in Atlanta. In the summer of 1934, King’s church sent him on a whirlwind trip. He traveled to Rome, Tunisia, Egypt, Jerusalem and Bethlehem before setting sail to Berlin, where he would attend a Baptist World Alliance meeting...
King arrived in Berlin a year after Adolf Hitler became chancellor. During his trip, the senior King toured the country where, in 1517, the German monk and theologian Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle church, challenging the Catholic Church. The act would lead to the Protestant Reformation, the revolution that would split Western Christianity.
All around him in Berlin, King Sr. was seeing the rise of Nazi Germany. The Baptist alliance responded to that hatred with a resolution deploring “all racial animosity, and every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward coloured people, or toward subject races in any part of the world.”
When the senior King returned home in August 1934, he was a different man, said Clayborne Carson, director of the King Institute. It was sometime in this year that he changed his name and changed his son’s name, too.
...“Daddy King himself said he changed the name because he had an uncle named Martin and an uncle named Luther, and he was following his father’s wishes to change the name,” Carson said. “But it seems likely he was affected by the trip to Berlin because that would have brought him in the land of Martin Luther. I think the obvious reason is Martin Luther sounded more distinguished than Mike King.”
But the younger King initially “shrank from it, commenting publicly only once, after the Montgomery bus boycott, that ‘perhaps’ he ‘earned’ his name,” Branch said. “Reverend King supplied the wish and the preparation, but it remained for strangers in the world at large to impose Martin Luther King’s name upon him.”
...By the 1950s, the young King had become Martin in his letters, according to the King Institute. In a July 18, 1952, letter to Coretta, who would become his wife, King writes: “Darling, I miss you so much.” The letter is poetic: “My life without you is like a year without a spring time which comes to give illumination and heat to the atmosphere saturated by the dark cold breeze of winter.” He goes on to talk about his opposition to capitalism and trade monopolies and the necessity of gradual social change.
King signs the letter, “Eternally Yours, Martin.”
Choosing one's own name is a powerful thing.
Selah.
Which King?
The island we call home is not incorporated, but rather is a Census Designated Place administered by King County.
Originally our county was named for William R King, a slaveholder who is notable for helping draft the Compromise of 1850, becoming the only Veep from Alabama as well as the only one to take his oath on foreign soil, and being just the third to die in office. Oddly enough, he expired at his plantation, Chestnut Hill, in Selma.
But in 1986, the King County Council said "no more":
WHEREAS, William Rufus DeVane King was a slaveowner and a 'gentle slave monger' according to John Quincy Adams, and
WHEREAS, the citizens of King County believe that the ownership of another human being is an injustice against humanity, and
WHEREAS, William Rufus DeVane King earned income and maintained his lifestyle by oppressing and exploiting other human beings, and
WHEREAS, the citizens of King County cherish and uphold the constitutional tenent of the 'unmitigated pursuit' of life, liberty, and happiness for which many citizens of this county have given their lives as a supreme sacrifice to defend these foundations of freedom, and
WHEREAS, the citizens of King County through their various faiths uphold the principle that all mankind was created equal, and
WHEREAS, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that liberty, justice and freedom were the 'inalienable rights' of all men, women and children, andWHEREAS, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a spiritual man who believed all people were created equal in the sight of God...
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT MOVED by the Council of King County: The King County Council, hereby, sets forth the historical basis for the "renaming" of King County in honor of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man whose contributions are well-documented and celebrated by millions throughout this nation and the world, and embody the attributes for which the citizens of King County can be proud, and claim as their own.
BE IT FURTHER MOVED,King County shall be named after the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Counties are a creature of the State, so this didn't become official official until 2005, when the Governor signed a bill making it so. Then came the rebranding, with a crown logo being replaced by Dr King's visage in 2006.
Did this end racism in King County, or America at large? Nope. But I prefer not having imperialism shoved in my face when I ride the bus or cast my ballot, and am glad for the reminder that we can change.
01/15/2023
He turned the power to the have-nots
On Dr King's actual birthday, here are some things he said in speeches not about his dream:
- Paul’s Letter to American Christians (November 4, 1956)
- Through [Capitalism] you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous.
But Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to humanity.
- Through [Capitalism] you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous.
- Proud to be Maladjusted (March 17, 1966)
- Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in psychology. It is the word maladjusted. It is the ring and cry of modern child psychology and certainly we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. We all want to live a well-adjusted life in order to avoid the neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But I must honestly say there are some things in our nation and the world to which I am proud to be maladjusted and wish all men of goodwill would be maladjusted until the good society is realized.
I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to a religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few, leaving millions of people smothering in an air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.
- Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in psychology. It is the word maladjusted. It is the ring and cry of modern child psychology and certainly we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. We all want to live a well-adjusted life in order to avoid the neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But I must honestly say there are some things in our nation and the world to which I am proud to be maladjusted and wish all men of goodwill would be maladjusted until the good society is realized.
- The Other America (March 14, 1968)
- [I]t is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.
And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
- [I]t is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.
Just figured I could share a few of my favorites before conservatives go through their ritual of co-opting King, taking his words out of context, and otherwise pretending he'd be one of them. Any others we should mention?
When Eternity Shall Unknot the Records of Time
Short follow-up on that rabbit hole post from the other day. Our spy and diarist, Elizabeth Van Lew, recorded this during the Fall of Richmond, April 2, 1865:
I went to the front door of a neighbor. On the steps a woman was sitting in speechless acquiescence. We spoke of the news. She knew only the evacuation of the city.
“The war will end now,” I said. “The young men’s lives will be saved.”
“I have a son in the army about Petersburg,” she replied.
I sympathized with her and assured her she might hope for his life; that here would be an end of the terrible words, “the last man must die,” which were so often spoken and acted upon.
She replied, “It would be better, anything would be better, than to fall under the United States Government.”
It was useless to talk with her.
...The constant explosion of shells, the blowing up of the gun boats, and of the powder magazine, seemed to jar, to shake the earth, and lend a mighty language to the scene. All nature trembled at the work of arbitrary power, the consummation of the wrongs of years. The burning bridges, the roaring flames added a wild grandeur to the scene.
Amidst all this turmoil, quietly, noiselessly, the Federal army entered the city. There were wild bursts of welcome from the negroes and many whites as they poured in. In an incredibly short space of time, as by magic, every part of the city was under the most kind and respectful of guards.
...What a moment! Avenging wrath appeased in flames! The chains, the shackles fell from thousands of captives, and thousands of arms fell powerless to wield the Christianizing lash. Civilization advanced a century. Justice, truth, humanity were vindicated. Labor was now without manacles, honored and respected. No wonder that the walls of our houses were swaying; the heart of our city a flaming altar, as this mighty work was done.
I was struck first by the MAGA quality of her neighbor. Then, by the scenes of destruction around her as I also read about Russian war crimes in Dnipro. And that's all I got.
Selah.
01/14/2023
01/13/2023
We Associate
Wow, did I go down a Civil War rabbit hole after yesterday's post. We begin our documentary adventure on August 1, 1861:
Whereas it is currently reported that the forces now in rebellion against the government have in imprisonment loyal citizens of the United States, and among others the Hon. Alfred Ely, one of the members of this House from the State of New York:
Resolved, That the President be requested to furnish to this House any information he may have in his possession on the subject.
Lincoln promptly responded:
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of yesterday, requesting information regarding the imprisonment of loyal citizens of the United States by the forces now in rebellion against this government, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, and the copy of a telegraphic despatch by which it was accompanied. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
WASHINGTON, August 2, 1861.
...UNITED STATES MILITARY TELEGRAPH.
[Received August 1, 1861.-From Richmond, Va., July 31.]
I am here a prisoner. Ely, Arnold Harris, and McGraw are also here.
C. HUSON, JR.
I had no idea who this Huson character was and why it was he, rather than the Congressman, sending a telegram to SecState William Seward , but we'll get to that in a bit. I was originally interested in Rep Ely's experience as a prisoner, so I dove into his journal. Just a few days after his capture along with what he estimated were several hundred soldiers:
[T]he officers formed themselves into an association, called "The Richmond Prison Association," for mutual improvement and amusement...The Association held its first meeting at once, and the speeches, toasts, and songs pretty clearly indicated the intelligent and educated character of its members.
There is a footnote in the version of Ely's account that was published in 1862:
Although the outside accounts of what took place within the walls of the prison were almost invariably full of falsehoods, some of them were amusing. Here is one, for example, which was communicated to the Charleston Courier, under date of August 19, 1861:
"Among their amusements are those of card-playing, psalm singing, cursing, and debating. The latter is almost nightly the occupation of the officers. Ely acts as the moderator of the meeting, or occasionally takes a hand himself.
Huson, his congressional competitor - a jolly, good-natured soul, by the way, fat, funny, interesting - is the leading speaker, and the smaller guns predominate in the intellectual battery according to their various calibres. The subjects are any thing and every thing you can imagine, ranging on the gamut from the solemn to the ridiculous.
Their subject last evening was derived from the following simple incident: A newsboy who had been in the habit of selling his papers at three, suddenly ran his price up to five cents, and on making his accustomed sale in the morning to one of the prisoners, the latter first refused to 'come down.'
...[I]t was finally decided by the Hon. Speaker Ely, that, the boy being the sole and undisputed owner of the property, and the said property not being contraband of war, and no concatenation of circumstances having arisen to obstruct the right thereby vested in the original possessor of the aforesaid vehicle of information, the right was undoubtedly inherent in the adolescent merchant to determine for himself the incipient value of his
goods, and to charge for the same accordingly, ad valorem duties to the contrary notwithstanding.Exception was taken to the ruling of the Chair, and Mr. Huson proceeded to quote Shakspeare and Byron and Tom Moore in support of his position. Others followed in the senatorial burlesque, quoting, amid shouts of laughter scraps of Latin, French, and Irish, telling stories, and even singing songs, until bed-time arrived, when the party retired to their blankets. There's a sweet for every bitter, the poet says, and the prisoners are doing all they can to extract it."
What a picture, eh? Anyway, not long after The Association's inception, Ely wrote:
The society of Mr. Huson, I confess, relieves the dreary monotony of unoccupied time, as he is the only person among the prisoners with whom I had any previous acquaintance.
Nothing of special interest has happened to-day, except the arrival of the Rev. John F. Mines, an Episcopal clergyman from Bath, in the State of Maine. He was chaplain in the 2d Volunteer Regiment from that State, and was taken a prisoner of war at Bull Run, whence he could easily have escaped, but remained behind to comfort and administer to the wants of the sick and wounded.
The following day, Ely noted that Huson was "quite sick," and in short order things started to get real. There were discussions of parole for the Congressman , but they went nowhere. And then you start seeing entries like this:
August 4.-There has been only the usual routine of prison method to-day of spending unoccupied time, and no items of interest to chronicle. Indeed, I do not aim to record, with any degree of minuteness, all the passing events, even though they may be of interest.
The " Association " held another meeting today, and Mr. Huson was invited to address the members, but he was too much indisposed to comply.
And this:
August 13.-The Southern papers call us all, without distinction of birth or nationality, " Yankee prisoners." General Winder called this morning to see me...and remarked jocosely that he thought my " skin was thick enough not to pay any attention to newspaper articles." He seemed unusually pleasant, and inquired how we got along, &c. He remarked, on looking about the quarters, that Mr. Huson did not lose much flesh, and wondered how Secretary Seward could get along, as Mr. Huson was his private secretary.
Now, I'm not sure Huson was actually Seward's secretary, as there was all sorts of inaccurate information floating around. For example, Huson was reportedly at Bull Run because he was going to be made Governor of Virginia after the Union routed the rebels. But he definitely was married to Seward's niece, Catherine.
As summer turned into autumn, Ely reported that Huson's condition was getting bleak. Some entries over the course of September and October:
Mr. Huson is very sick with fever, and seems to grow worse daily; he is greatly reduced in flesh, and it is about time to think seriously of the result. I have made application repeatedly to General Winder and Dr. Higginbotham, hospital surgeon, to permit him to return home with the wounded...The result of these applications has not yet been favorable.
...Mr. Huson growing worse, was delirious last night and very restless. He has a raging fever, and the remarks among the officers are that he will not recover. I think myself that the chances are growing less; every possible attention is paid to him.
...Dr. Higginbotham stated to Mr. Huson that he was too sick to allow of his going home to-day, even if the Surgeon-general would have assented.
...Mr. Huson is said by some of the officers to look better this morning, but a different opinion prevails with others. He is sinking, sinking, sinking; this is most evident to me...He seems less inclined to talk, and less able to do so to-day. I am waiting with great anxiety to ascertain the result of my application to the Acting Secretary of War as to his removal.
Huson was ultimately transferred to a civilian home, and for a sidebar on that I turn to the diary of Corporal Merrell, another New Yorker:
I cannot forbear mentioning here, to the everlasting disgrace and infamy of Capt. Gibbs, the (Confederate) officer of the post, that on the day of Mr. Huson’s removal to the house of Mrs. Van Lew, he was required to sign a parole of honor not to attempt an escape. Though suffering from extreme exhaustion, unable to sit up in bed, and regarded by his fellow prisoners as a dying man, he was yet compelled by the rebel officer to execute this parole. In order to do this, two of his fellow prisoners assisted to raise him up, and the paper was duly subscribed. It was happily the last “duty” which Mr. Huson was required to perform.
One other quick sidebar from a newspaper account after the war:
Miss Van Lew was a resident of the city of Richmond, residing in an elegant mansion on what is known as Church Hill, when the rebellion broke out. Thoroughly loyal at heart, she early found a way to make herself known to the “Yanks” who were confined in tobacco warehouses of that city, after the disastrous battle of Bull Run.
Books and comforts were sent to the starving captives, while Captain Todd (a brother of Mrs. Lincoln) was commandant of the prisons. But that worthy gobbled up everything of the kind, and vented his rage in drunken curses on the giver, and those to whom they were sent. But where there is a will, there is a way, and woman’s wit will always find it.
Nothing daunted by her first failure, Miss Van Lew offered rooms in her house to Captain Gibbs, the successor of Todd. Under this cover she could and did exercise a degree of hospitality to the prisoners in the way of books, provisions and clothing. Gibbs was an old soldier and a kindly man, though in many respects a severe disciplinarian. Evidently, he winked at the acts of the lady beneath whose roof he was sheltered.
The occasion of this vignette was Miss Van Lew's appointment as postmistress of Richmond. We're gonna learn more about her shortly. Returning to Ely:
October 14.-This morning while at breakfast, one of the Lieutenants called me to see a lady at the door in a carriage, and I went immediately. The Lieutenant introduced me to Miss Van Lew, whom I at once recognized as the same lady who had visited our quarters on the second day after my arrival, and she informed me that Mr. Huson was at her mother's house.
I discovered that she was in tears, and she instantly spoke, and said, " she had bad news to tell me." Mr. Huson is not dead! said I. " No," she replied, but she did not think it possible for him to live; he was insensible and had been so most of the night, and she desired me to come up to her house. She immediately rode away, and I returned to my quarters to prepare to go.
I waited about twenty minutes for Captain Gibbs to accompany me, and as I was going from the door, a messenger came down from Mrs. Van Lew's with the mournful announcement that Mr. Huson was DEAD!
On my arrival at the house, I was conducted to his room, and lo! before me lay the lifeless form of my friend, cold in death.
So there in Miss Van Lew's house did Mr Huson's journey sadly end. Ely would remain a prisoner until his exchange:
On Wednesday, December 25th, a Christmas day long to be remembered, and in a very special sense a " merry " one, I bid an unreluctant adieu to Richmond at the early hour of 5 A. M., and took passage on the railroad train for Petersburg, in the same State.
It was my wish to remain in Richmond through Christmas day, and I so intimated to General Winder, upon applying for my passport to Norfolk on the previous day. But the General, after pausing for a moment, very significantly said that he had seen and conversed, with the Secretary of War; and in consequence of suggestions made by him, would advise me to leave in the morning train.
He undoubtedly regarded me as too dangerous a customer to be allowed to tarry long in the Confederate States; and probably thought that the sooner my departure was effected the less knowledge I should acquire of the fortifications about Richmond, and of the real state of public sentiment existing in the minds of the people, especially as there seemed to be not a little evidence of the revival of loyal feelings among a large class of the population.
With Ely heading home, let us turn now to Van Lew. I was so drawn into this affair that I actually coughed up 10 bucks for a book about her (A Yankee Spy in Richmond), from which I will be posting excerpts, but you can also read a little about her in the Smithsonian Magazine.
So who was this person, and why does she figure into this saga?
John Albee, a Boston researcher who spent twenty years around the turn of the century studying Elizabeth Van Lew, said, “I have repeatedly asked those who knew Miss Van Lew for some explanation of her activities on behalf of the slave, though she owned slaves herself.”
...[H]e recorded that one of Elizabeth’s friends recalled Miss Van Lew saying that as a girl she had gone to Hot Springs and there met a daughter of a slave trader.
“This girl told Miss Van Lew that once her father had for sale a slave mother and her young babe, and that when the mother found that she had been sold to one purchaser and parted from her babe, who had been sold to another, the mother’s heart broke and she fell dead. Miss Van Lew said that she never forgot that fearful story and its effect lasted for her life.”
Soon after the death of her father, she convinced her mother to free their nine slaves, and Elizabeth used some of the money generated by her endowment to purchase relatives of the servants and to free them.
Okay, that provides some insight. We'll get into her Civil War activities, but I can't not also post this little gem:
Elizabeth was one of the belles of Richmond and considered pretty in her youth, but she never married. Albee speculated Miss Van Lew may have been involved in a failed romance that left her forever bitter.
Hmm. Reading that, I had to also look a bit into this Albee guy, and it appears he was a "Transcendentalist author, teacher, and minister." His perspective on Van Lew's martial status might be colored by his own bitterness, if I might make one final brief aside:
December 1859 was full of emotional encounters, romantic angst, and introspection for John, as he and Louisa had split but couldn’t seem to stay apart. He described quarrels, saying to her: “I love you. […] But I can hate too.” However, he concluded the whole affair philosophically: “Life is too much, one must soon see, for any man to undertake seriously. Keep a jester in your house if you would prevent matters from coming to extremities.”
Yeah man, I am right the fuck there with ya. But enough about him, let's get back to Elizabeth:
As word spread through Richmond society of the Van Lews’ antislavery feelings, social invitations stopped coming. Elizabeth’s determination to fight against slavery solidified shortly after her forty-first birthday in 1859, when she learned of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, his subsequent capture by Colonel Robert E. Lee, and his hanging.
“I have always thought him one who suffered so deeply with the slaves,” she wrote in one of the first pages of her journal. From that time on, she added, Southern people were in a “palpable state of war. They thirsted for it; they cried out for it. It was not enough that one old man should die. No plea of people . . . would be listened to.” She determined she would do all in her power to see the South defeated, the slaves freed, and the Union reunited.
To that end, she turned to spying:
The Van Lews owned a small vegetable farm near the Richmond-Henrico County line, abutting the James River and the Osborne Turnpike. She used it from the beginning of the war as the first of five points along the James River to pass along information to the Federal forces at Fortress Monroe in Hampton. The farm also was the first relay point for intelligence she sent in 1864 and 1865 to General Grant at City Point near Petersburg. Information was delivered by servants carrying baskets of eggs. One egg in each basket was hollow and contained her notes, which she had torn into small pieces.
In addition, notes were carried in the soles of the servants’ shoes. She devised her own code consisting of a series of numbers and letters. By placing coded notes into the spines of books, she used the cipher to get information into and out of the prisons, particularly Libby Prison, where most of the captured Union officers were held. The first real test of Elizabeth’s ability to intercommunicate with the prisoners came in July 1861, when more than 600 Union prisoners were brought to Richmond after the July 21 First Battle of Bull Run.
And finally tying this all together:
Elizabeth soon made contact with the Union officers...But her contact with the prisoners, and particularly her aid and comfort of the injured, soon brought public criticism. Although not naming the Van Lews, an article in the July 31, 1861, Richmond Enquirer clearly referred to them and condemned their activities.
But Elizabeth was too feisty and determined to let the criticism stop her, and she put herself in precarious situations time after time. Toward the end of 1861, she learned that Congressman Ely’s civilian friend Calvin Huson of Rochester was seriously ill and dying at Harwood Prison, where he too was held prisoner after being captured at the First Battle of Bull Run. She and her mother, a more cautious loyalist, offered to attend to him at their home, and the Confederate officials finally agreed.
...“This evening Mr. [Jackson] Warner [prison commissary] reported to me that he had just come from Mrs. Van Lew’s, and that Mr. Huson was better, and had remarked that he would give one hundred dollars if his family could see for one moment how comfortably situated he was, and the care the ladies took of him,” Ely [wrote on October 9]...Mr. Huson died October 14, and the Van Lews buried him in their family plot at Shockoe Hill Cemetery.
Oh my gosh, there's just so much more, but I've already rambled on, and taken detours, enough. Thanks for coming along on Mr Toad's Wild Ride to Richmond.
PS - Turns out to be a perfect night for a new book. Sam is spending the night at a buddy's off island, and Sadie is going to see Avatar with her friends, which will almost assuredly turn into an impromptu sleepover, if history is any guide. A blessedly quiet Friday for me and Bailey!