|
Post by g1 on Jul 3, 2008 11:15:40 GMT -5
Here's a link to the operating Berkshires -- one in MI, one in IN, apparently one being restored in OH. www.freewebs.com/steamfans/pm12251223.htmThe 755 is awesome -- the drive wheels are huge -- you don't realize it until you walk up to them and realize they stand over 6' in diameter. I'll upload some photos if I can find them.
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 3, 2008 14:56:45 GMT -5
G1, I've never ridden the rails behind a steam locomotive either, but Dad and Mom both did in their young days and were full of stories about them. They used to catch the train at Gudger--a little whistlestop (that claims my hometown as a suburb!) and ride down to the next little town on the line, then come back on the next train coming the other direction. (The No. 2 and No. 4 runs, if Mom remembers right.) Meanwhile, this is also the anniversary of the third and final day of the Civil War battle at Gettysburg, PA. The battle began on July 1st, according to legend when a Confederate patrol seeking shoes (yes, it is true that many Confederates fought barefoot--another infamy to be laid less to a Union blockade than to states' rights, which reserved many supplies to the use of the soldiers from whatever state produced them) ran into a Union patrol north of the tiny town. It was the battle that broke the back of the Confederacy; that the army fought on for nearly another two years was due to the skill of SOME of its military leaders and the piss and vinegar of the soldiery. It was also, quite possibly, the low point of the legendary Robert E. Lee's career, largely thanks to the infamous action on the third day. Known now as Pickett's Charge, it was foolhardy at best and murder at worst; three brigades (at the time a division) under the direct command of Gen. George E. Pickett were ordered to attack an entrenched position on Seminary Ridge, approaching across an open field. The attack temporarily broke the Union line but in the process the three brigades were decimated. When ordered to regroup and attack again by Pickett's immediate superior, James Longstreet, Pickett famously replied, "General, I have no division." Pickett never forgave Lee, who planned this assault; to the end of his life he maintained, "That old man murdered my division." It was dusty and hot and bloody for both armies. Over the course of the three days of the battle, the two armies sustained over fifty thousand casualties between them. Lee began a long agonizing retreat back across Maryland into the relative safety of Virginia on July 4th, leaving a Union army, commanded by George G. Meade, too battered to follow and deliver a coup de grace Of course you know Fairweather, with her obsession with ghost stories, will point out that of all Civil War battlefields, Gettysburg is the most haunted. No wonder. Incidentally, only one civilian died in Gettysburg during the battle. Her name was Ginnie Wade, and she was killed by a stray bullet while preparing bread for Union troops--also on July 3rd.
|
|
|
Post by Krista on Jul 3, 2008 19:11:27 GMT -5
G1, I've never ridden the rails behind a steam locomotive either, but Dad and Mom both did in their young days and were full of stories about them. They used to catch the train at Gudger--a little whistlestop (that claims my hometown as a suburb!) and ride down to the next little town on the line, then come back on the next train coming the other direction. (The No. 2 and No. 4 runs, if Mom remembers right.) Meanwhile, this is also the anniversary of the third and final day of the Civil War battle at Gettysburg, PA. The battle began on July 1st, according to legend when a Confederate patrol seeking shoes (yes, it is true that many Confederates fought barefoot--another infamy to be laid less to a Union blockade than to states' rights, which reserved many supplies to the use of the soldiers from whatever state produced them) ran into a Union patrol north of the tiny town. It was the battle that broke the back of the Confederacy; that the army fought on for nearly another two years was due to the skill of SOME of its military leaders and the piss and vinegar of the soldiery. It was also, quite possibly, the low point of the legendary Robert E. Lee's career, largely thanks to the infamous action on the third day. Known now as Pickett's Charge, it was foolhardy at best and murder at worst; three brigades (at the time a division) under the direct command of Gen. George E. Pickett were ordered to attack an entrenched position on Seminary Ridge, approaching across an open field. The attack temporarily broke the Union line but in the process the three brigades were decimated. When ordered to regroup and attack again by Pickett's immediate superior, James Longstreet, Pickett famously replied, "General, I have no division." Pickett never forgave Lee, who planned this assault; to the end of his life he maintained, "That old man murdered my division." It was dusty and hot and bloody for both armies. Over the course of the three days of the battle, the two armies sustained over fifty thousand casualties between them. Lee began a long agonizing retreat back across Maryland into the relative safety of Virginia on July 4th, leaving a Union army, commanded by George G. Meade, too battered to follow and deliver a coup de grace Of course you know Fairweather, with her obsession with ghost stories, will point out that of all Civil War battlefields, Gettysburg is the most haunted. No wonder. Incidentally, only one civilian died in Gettysburg during the battle. Her name was Ginnie Wade, and she was killed by a stray bullet while preparing bread for Union troops--also on July 3rd. If y'all ever get the chance to go to Gettysburg, GO! It's really something. In the cemetery, soldiers who weren't ever identified are marked by single square blocks of cement; some of them have words along the lines of "5 soldiers - Indiana" on them. And, there's a lot of those little cement markers. In the actual town, where Ginnie Wade was killed is marked. Hubby & I stayed in a bed & breakfast at the edge of the battlefield that had served as one of the hospitals. At the time we were there, remains had been found as recently as 3 or 4 years ago.
|
|
|
Post by g1 on Jul 4, 2008 8:09:09 GMT -5
Another issue that bedeviled the Confederates was the habit of the southern lleaders to keep locomotives and rail-cars for their own use rather than returning them to general service. The better-disciplined yanks, who also had far more RR stock and the ability to build still more, released the equipment back once its delivery of men and materiel had been accomplished. Yanks, I think, were far more familiar with how RR's worked; they were still quite the novelty to many Southerners. I agree with Krista in re: visiting Gettysburg-- the experience is quite amazing and sobering. The site of Pickett's charge is astonishing -- a very broad open field. What the h*ll was Lee thinking to send his men out of the woods and into the direct fire of entrenched Union forces? Other spots of interest -- Seminary Ridge is solid rock beneath about 6 inches of topsoil -- pity the poor exposed troops trying to hold that position. The Fox Den is an amazing jumblie of rocks jutting out of the soil and must have been a hellish place with bullets and rock fragments ricocheting in all directions. And why didn't the Union pursue the Confederate Army after the battle? They could have pinned the rebs against the flooded river and ended the war a few years earlier.
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 4, 2008 14:12:38 GMT -5
Shameless self-promotion here: FW addresses that issue--sort of--in a new blog that also remembers the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4th, 1863.
As for the keeping of locomotives for their own use, that was a failing confined not only to southern leaders and locomotives. The Confederacy would eventually have fallen apart of its own orneriness, one facet of which was that there was, for a long time, no common quartermasters' corps (if indeed there ever was one)--for example, say North Carolina had a supply of umpteen blankets. Were these their contribution to the war effort? Not hardly--it was specified that the blankets were for the use of North Carolina troops only.
As for Meade not following Lee, he was working from two assumptions: that his own army was mauled nearly as drastically as Lee's at Gettysburg, and that, backs pinned to the river, the Confederates,tired, decimated and hungry though they were, would have been as dangerous as a wounded lion at bay. It would have been a fight literally to the death--and after what Meade's men had suffered at Gettysburg, he was not willing to take that chance. It would be left to Grant to be willing to take the casualties he would inevitably have to take to defeat Lee's troops.
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 4, 2008 14:17:06 GMT -5
Another issue that bedeviled the Confederates was the habit of the southern lleaders to keep locomotives and rail-cars for their own use rather than returning them to general service. The better-disciplined yanks, who also had far more RR stock and the ability to build still more, released the equipment back once its delivery of men and materiel had been accomplished. Yanks, I think, were far more familiar with how RR's worked; they were still quite the novelty to many Southerners. I agree with Krista in re: visiting Gettysburg-- the experience is quite amazing and sobering. The site of Pickett's charge is astonishing -- a very broad open field. What the h*ll was Lee thinking to send his men out of the woods and into the direct fire of entrenched Union forces? Other spots of interest -- Seminary Ridge is solid rock beneath about 6 inches of topsoil -- pity the poor exposed troops trying to hold that position. The Fox Den is an amazing jumblie of rocks jutting out of the soil and must have been a hellish place with bullets and rock fragments ricocheting in all directions. And why didn't the Union pursue the Confederate Army after the battle? They could have pinned the rebs against the flooded river and ended the war a few years earlier. That was another of John C. Calhoun et al's contentions: that too much railroad traffic would lead the South away from its agrarian economy toward an industrialized one. They were always rather fond of pointing out that northern factory workers were slaves of another sort. Also, the major traffic in the south was still by river or, on the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf, by sea. And that is a whole nother story about what impact the railroad industry would have had on river traffic in particular.
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 4, 2008 14:40:29 GMT -5
Incidentally, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4th, 1826, Adams at the age of ninety and Jefferson at eighty-three. Jefferson, who went first, is said to have asked "Is it the Fourth?" before he passed, while Adams's last words are said to have been, "Thomas Jefferson still lives!" After the hurly-burly of their political dealings--Jefferson had been Adams's VP and Adams had for some years held a grudge over his defeat in his 1800 re-election campaign by Jefferson--the two formed a friendship somewhat like that we saw between the late President Ford and President Carter--or even, Lord help us, Father Bush and Bill Clinton.
Another of the Founding Fathers generation also died on July 4th--James Monroe, in 1831. A protege of Jefferson, he's most famous for the Monroe Doctrine, which basically was a bold attempt to put a stop to European colonialization of the Americas. Worked for the most part, eventually, some of the European colonies gained independence through revolution, others after two world wars rendered empires unsustainable.
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 4, 2008 15:32:40 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by g1 on Jul 4, 2008 21:05:13 GMT -5
In that case, here's Johnny Horton singing our real national anthem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4Q47i4zGBsThe historical accuracy of the event portrayed is, um, really something...
|
|
|
Post by Laura on Jul 4, 2008 21:43:39 GMT -5
Incidentally, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4th, 1826, Adams at the age of ninety and Jefferson at eighty-three. Jefferson, who went first, is said to have asked "Is it the Fourth?" before he passed, while Adams's last words are said to have been, "Thomas Jefferson still lives!" After the hurly-burly of their political dealings--Jefferson had been Adams's VP and Adams had for some years held a grudge over his defeat in his 1800 re-election campaign by Jefferson--the two formed a friendship somewhat like that we saw between the late President Ford and President Carter--or even, Lord help us, Father Bush and Bill Clinton. Another of the Founding Fathers generation also died on July 4th--James Monroe, in 1831. A protege of Jefferson, he's most famous for the Monroe Doctrine, which basically was a bold attempt to put a stop to European colonialization of the Americas. Worked for the most part, eventually, some of the European colonies gained independence through revolution, others after two world wars rendered empires unsustainable. Thanks for mentioning this Katie. They talked about this on the evening news. Quit interesting to say the least.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone on Jul 4, 2008 22:07:36 GMT -5
In that case, here's Johnny Horton singing our real national anthem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4Q47i4zGBsThe historical accuracy of the event portrayed is, um, really something... Thank you for this, g. I absolutely LOVE those old ballads. The outfits on the video were great, too. Didn't Johnny Horton also record Sink the Bismarck?
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 4, 2008 22:16:44 GMT -5
In that case, here's Johnny Horton singing our real national anthem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4Q47i4zGBsThe historical accuracy of the event portrayed is, um, really something... Thank you for this, g. I absolutely LOVE those old ballads. The outfits on the video were great, too. Didn't Johnny Horton also record Sink the Bismarck? Yes, Moon, he did. And also the theme from the John Wayne film NORTH TO ALASKA. G1, you reminded FW that she has been planning for some time to follow up her "Battle of New Orleans" blog with one about Jimmy Driftwood, who wrote the lyrics and set them to the old fiddle tune "Eighth of January." The girl's got some writing to do when we return from our virtual vacation in Wales.
|
|
|
Post by g1 on Jul 5, 2008 7:48:34 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Krista on Jul 6, 2008 11:25:11 GMT -5
Five years ago today (July 6) was Joe Wilson's column about what he didn't find in Africa which led to the outing of his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame. Check out this great diary from DailyKos: www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/6/104147/1403
|
|
|
Post by moonstone on Jul 6, 2008 20:55:48 GMT -5
Five years ago today (July 6) was Joe Wilson's column about what he didn't find in Africa which led to the outing of his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame. Check out this great diary from DailyKos: www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/6/104147/1403Krista -- Thanks for this. I enjoyed it. By the way, what does it mean that I now have a "hide" button next to my "recommend" button?
|
|
|
Post by Laura on Jul 7, 2008 2:11:29 GMT -5
Five years ago today (July 6) was Joe Wilson's column about what he didn't find in Africa which led to the outing of his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame. Check out this great diary from DailyKos: www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/6/104147/1403Krista -- Thanks for this. I enjoyed it. By the way, what does it mean that I now have a "hide" button next to my "recommend" button? Moon that hide botton means you can give someone a -comment just like you do a +recommend. If someone is a troll, spewing trash or there is someone who commented that you absolutley, disagree with, you click the "hide" button. The 'hide' button also means you've been given TU status..trusted user by DK.
|
|
|
Post by Krista on Jul 7, 2008 10:22:05 GMT -5
Five years ago today (July 6) was Joe Wilson's column about what he didn't find in Africa which led to the outing of his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame. Check out this great diary from DailyKos: www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/6/104147/1403Krista -- Thanks for this. I enjoyed it. By the way, what does it mean that I now have a "hide" button next to my "recommend" button? Dear, you are a trusted user on DailyKos now!! The "hide" button means you can decide to hide comments from trolls! Other non-TUs won't be able to see them. I've been a TU for awhile, and I think I've hidden maybe 2 or 3. As much of a free speech person as I am, I usually don't hide comments unless they are really personal, hurtful, whatever. Congrats!!
|
|
|
Post by moonstone on Jul 7, 2008 11:13:53 GMT -5
Krista -- Thanks for this. I enjoyed it. By the way, what does it mean that I now have a "hide" button next to my "recommend" button? Dear, you are a trusted user on DailyKos now!! The "hide" button means you can decide to hide comments from trolls! Other non-TUs won't be able to see them. I've been a TU for awhile, and I think I've hidden maybe 2 or 3. As much of a free speech person as I am, I usually don't hide comments unless they are really personal, hurtful, whatever. Congrats!! Thanks. I'm a little surprised as I don't post that often, except for your diaries. I guess that's good news, but I doubt I'll ever hide any comments, unless as you say, they are nasty or hurtful on a really personal level. Or if anyone has the audacity to suggest that Ann Curry should take over as host of Meet the Press. Like you, I'm too much of a free-speech kind of gal. It's kind of fun to have the power, though.
|
|
|
Post by Krista on Jul 7, 2008 11:22:22 GMT -5
Dear, you are a trusted user on DailyKos now!! The "hide" button means you can decide to hide comments from trolls! Other non-TUs won't be able to see them. I've been a TU for awhile, and I think I've hidden maybe 2 or 3. As much of a free speech person as I am, I usually don't hide comments unless they are really personal, hurtful, whatever. Congrats!! Thanks. I'm a little surprised as I don't post that often, except for your diaries. I guess that's good news, but I doubt I'll ever hide any comments, unless as you say, they are nasty or hurtful on a really personal level. Or if anyone has the audacity to suggest that Ann Curry should take over as host of Meet the Press. Like you, I'm too much of a free-speech kind of gal. It's kind of fun to have the power, though. There are guidelines on DailyKos under FAQ or something that helped me in whether to hide or not; that "power" wigged me out for a long time, but I'm better now.
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 7, 2008 13:42:52 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/arts/design/07cycl.html?_r=1&oref=sloginIn the 1880s the Frenchman Paul Philippoteaux painted four cycloramas--paintings in the round--of the Battle of Gettysburg. Only two of the giant paintings are known to have survived, and only one of those is on view, along with many artifacts donated by reenactors--will be on display at Gettysburg until September 26th. The restoration of this great work took five years. Amazing slide show detailing the work that went into it.
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 7, 2008 13:44:54 GMT -5
On July 7, 1981, President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court.
Never was much of a fan of Reagan's policies, but this one he deserves a lot of credit for.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone on Jul 7, 2008 13:59:16 GMT -5
On July 7, 1981, President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court. Never was much of a fan of Reagan's policies, but this one he deserves a lot of credit for. Agreed for the most part, but always remember that she was vote #5 creating the majority in the election case of 2000.
|
|
|
Post by Krista on Jul 7, 2008 14:36:07 GMT -5
On July 7, 1981, President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court. Never was much of a fan of Reagan's policies, but this one he deserves a lot of credit for. Agreed for the most part, but always remember that she was vote #5 creating the majority in the election case of 2000. Oh *&^%$#@!...I did not need to be reminded of that today.
|
|
|
Post by g1 on Jul 7, 2008 23:52:02 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/arts/design/07cycl.html?_r=1&oref=sloginIn the 1880s the Frenchman Paul Philippoteaux painted four cycloramas--paintings in the round--of the Battle of Gettysburg. Only two of the giant paintings are known to have survived, and only one of those is on view, along with many artifacts donated by reenactors--will be on display at Gettysburg until September 26th. The restoration of this great work took five years. Amazing slide show detailing the work that went into it. I'll have to make the trip to see this. (I've been looking for an excuse to hit eastern PA) I was in the old museum years ago and the diorama was impressive then, though the building on the site was a world-class architectural disaster. I'm glad to learn that they've put together a more appropriate display.
|
|
|
Post by Fairweather on Jul 10, 2008 9:10:10 GMT -5
Courtesy of the NY TIMES:
On July 10, 1940, during World War II, the 114-day Battle of Britain began as Nazi forces began attacking southern England by air. By late October, Britain managed to repel the Luftwaffe, which suffered heavy losses.
***************************************************************************
Rather foolishly in hindsight, Hitler let Goering persuade him that Britain could be as easily taken as France (which fell in six weeks) and not only that, but the Luftwaffe alone could bring the Brits to terms. He reckoned without the backbone of the British people--and a bulldog of a man named Churchill.
And unlike Pat Buchanan, I think THAT war was necessary.
|
|