Analysis of "A Voyage Long And Strange"

A Book Analysis of "A Voyage Long And Strange"

For History 207A With Dennis Judd

Yesterday I finished reading author Tony Horwitz' wonderful history-adventure yarn "A Voyage Long And Strange: Rediscovering The New World". The non-fiction sub-genre of history travel adventure in the wrong hands can be cliched and hackneyed but not so in this case. The basic premise is that Horwitz comes to realize he knows little about the real history of the land that would later become the United States of America and by extension its surrounding zone of influence, to wit, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. Horwitz then proceeds to visit all the significant historical locations where Old World first visited New World. Horwitz starts in the prologue at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. He quickly becomes disillusioned by the disconnect with American prehistory (and early history) that he sees not only in the tourists there but also within himself. This leads him to bone up on American and New World history starting at the various points of First Contact between Europe and the Americas both North and South. There he finds all kinds of fascinating tales, themes, interconnections, ironies, horrors, mundanities... and myths. This, claims Horwitz, inspired him to undertake a "pilgrimage" to various significant sites related to early European contact in the Americas and retrace some of the more relevant paths that various explorers blazed. Or perhaps Horwitz visited Plymouth, MA, while suffering from "writer's block" and upon visiting the place realized a clever new concept for a book.

The first stop in this journey of discovery is the location of First Contact which would not be achieved by Western Europeans (French or English) or Southern Europeans (Portuguese or Spanish) but by Northern Europeans (Norsemen) half a millennium before the others. The others usually get all the credit because they wrote the histories most of us Moderns digest be it reading or watching television. One of the underlying themes in this tome is the truth many of us come to realize as we travel through this life that our mental image of a place and the reality of it are two quite different things. And it also quickly becomes clear reading this book that this concept applies to historical events as well.

In what is now Newfoundland (New Found Land... get it?) the author visits the site of the first European settlement in North America. Unromantically, it turned out to be nothing more than a farm settlement (founded by Leif Eiriksson... and no, that is not a misspelling of his name) at what is now L' Anse aux Meadows which is nothing more than a moribund fishing village at the ass-end of Canada. After studying the real history of this place and what happened here (and not all of it pretty) and the back-story to it involving Leif's father Eirik "The Pathological Murderer" The Red and his wife (Leif's mother) as well as North America's first recorded psycho-bitch, Freydis, Leif's illegitimate half-sister by another than his mother. After researching this paleo-trailer trash saga, the author pays a visit to the modern descendants of the types of folks the Norsemen encountered and labeled Skraelings which was apparently similar in meaning at that time to the later expressions Digger, Nigger, and Beaner given variously by more southerly Whites as pejoratives for Reds, Blacks, and Browns respectively. What Horwitz finds of Canada's modern aboriginal community is an attitude of circumspection about what history has dropped in their lap. They have adapted to the circumstances while trying to retain as much of the past as possible with mixed results. This is a pattern that will be seen time and again by the author-adventurer throughout his journey.

The author next addresses the matter of Christopher Columbus in view of the fact that most of us Moderns think of him as being the first European to find the New World. The facts of his contributions to this historical happenstance have become blurred by mythology. Horwitz conducts some research of this matter and discovers some unexpected (to him and most of us) facts that run contrary to the myths. For example, Columbus was an idiot who was probably the most ignorant man in his class with his only redeeming quality being his seamanship and boundless enthusiasm and self-confidence bordering on the Quixotic. He was convinced, NOT that the Earth was flat but that the Earth was much smaller than just about any intellectual living at the time knew it actually was and one of his stated goals for his journey west was to visit China directly across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe. D'Oh!

Horwitz next hits the road and visits Santo Domingo in what is now the Dominican Republican, site of the first Southern European settlement in the Americas. Not only does he explore a rather surreal and Kafkaesque Santo Domingo but then he explores other locations on the island of Hispaniola, home to both Dominica and Haiti. He finds history all over the place but most locals are too busy fatalistically living a hellacious existence in the Here & Now to care much about Way Back When. With that being said, it is impossible for even locals to avoid their tangled history in which race played a significant role as it still does. Hispaniola it seems is divided by racism with darker-skinned folks occupying a lower social strata than lighter-skinned folks. There is also an overabundance of mythology even this far south. Dominicans proudly assert that Columbus is buried there, not in Spain as the Spanish insist. This is ironic given the horrors Columbus brought there. Why would they want to proudly celebrate his internment there? Tourism? Hardly any tourists visit the dirt-ass poor nation for the purpose of visiting Columbus' alleged grave site.

Next up, Horwitz touches briefly upon the next two most famous Southern Europeans early in the Americas, Hernan Cortez and Francisco Pizarro. However, he largely avoids those guys probably because there is less mythology surrounding them than any other major figures from this period. The ugly facts about them are largely known to a greater extent than any other Spanish soldiers of fortune from this period. Mythology, as it turns out, is what this book is really all about and where there is no mythology there is no point for discussion in this book.

As it turns out, Ponce de Leon beat those other two guys in traipsing around the New World, having landed in La Florida six years before Cortez ever saw Mexico who in turn preceded Pizarro's bizarro visit to the Inca Empire in South America. De Leon didn't last long getting himself killed early on but he did help blaze the path to North America. His journey was followed by another explorer named Panfilo de Narvaez who was an idiot and got himself and most of his men killed in another expedition to La Florida. However, a remarkable member of his team, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca managed to survive the ordeal undertaking a remarkable eight-year odyssey across all of what is now the Deep South, Texas, and Northern Mexico. The trek by Cabeza de Vaca could perhaps be best described as the Odyssey meets the Heart of Darkness as written by Jack Kerouac... in the 16th Century. Such a story I have never read the likes of and why Hollyweird has never given this story a deserving treatment on the Big Screen escapes me considering the artist class is supposed to be more enlightened than The Masses. 

For purposes of brevity I will not get into too many details of his nearly decade-long ordeal but let us just say that Cabeza de Vaca finds himself part of a group of survivors of Narvaez' incompetence deep in hostile Indian territory far from supplies and unfamiliar with how to survive in an alien land. Over time he gets stranded without supplies, abandoned by first his ships and then by his also-abandoned leader, shipwrecked, captured by Indians, enslaved by those Indians, escapes those Indians, journeys with two other surviving Spaniards and a black Arab slave named Estevanico, gets captured again and enslaved by yet other Indians, escapes those Indians, finds still other Indians who revere him and his companions who "heal" them. This begins the most unlikely and gonzo part of the entire escapade as this motley crew acquires a guru-like persona replete with Estevanico as interpreter and spokesman for the Spanish whom acquire a rapidly growing retinue/entourage that pillages the next village which in turn joins the party and moves on to the next village and pillages it repeating the cycle time and again until they reached Spaniards in Mexico who couldn't believe their eyes. Of course, the Indian followers get variously slaughtered or enslaved (or both in that order) to the chagrin of Cabeza de Vaca & Co. He reported his experience up the chainmail of command having acquired a respect for and sensitivity to the Indians. Needless to say this is sadly atypical of the Spanish during this period. He was then assigned a governorship in what is now Paraguay where he tried to use his office to protect the downtrodden, most notably, Indians. This failed, of course, and after being falsely accused of malfeasance and being later vindicated he died in obscurity.

This saga is incomplete without some explanation of the subsequent deeds of Estevenico and it must be noted reality here was even stranger and more improbable than mere myth. Estevanico acted as a guide on a subsequent Spanish raid... er, expedition north in search of gold... er, lost souls led by a friar named Marcos de Niza.  Estevanico soon recreates the gonzo parade of his prior trek with the Spanish but now with himself as the star this time and Marcos is left to follow his trail disillusioned Indians northward. Our retro-rock star pushes his luck once too often and the Indians of Cibola having had enough of his greed and letchery and contradictory claims finally offed him and the expedition came to an end. However, some wrongly-interpreted intelligence gathering on this journey inspired the next raid north from Mexico.

Horwitz next recounts Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's raid... er, expedition into what is now the American Southwest. He, like other Spanish before him is soon in over his head. Through pluck and luck and cleverness and cruelty he finds his expedition wending its way across what is now Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas... and back home again. Horwitz also traces this trek via roadtrip of his own following the original path as best as he can with the modern roads and our limited knowledge of where precisely the expedition actually trekked. Along the way the author meets a motley crew of Indians and descendents of of Spanish settlers as well as Anglo-Americans living now where this story unfolded back then. Most surprising of all is the enmity now between the descendents of the Indians and the Spanish settlers in New Mexico over the legacy and memory of Coronado. Despite the passage of years and the fact Spain and later Mexico's control of the area was supplanted by Americans the Indian versus Spanish dynamic is the most powerful according to Horwitz.

Horwitz then heads out into the Great Plains where Coronado's expedition was the first experience by Europeans of the agoraphobia that I sometimes experience on that great flat expanse of the Earth's crust. It struck me as a bit ironic how the small towns along Coronado's estimated path across the Great Plains despite being very White and redneckish are nonetheless very attached to their own perceived part in the Coronado story by way of belief in being situated on the very trace of his  journey even when such claims are competatively contradicted by other nearby towns. Again, as has been the case since the prologue of this book, mythology is  more important and more powerful and more enduring than historical facts.

Hernando De Soto's lengthy and ultimately catastrophic expedition starting in La Florida and ending in Mexico (without him) was next on the author's itinerary. Given the incredibly complex and nuanced racial and cultural history of the Deep South and the fact this part of the book delves deep into that rich tapestry of multilayered history over the course of the author's next road trip the book gets more complicated at this point. Horwitz starts in Florida and retraces the itinerary of De Soto's expedition northward through Georgia and the Carolinas and down into Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana (a tiny sliver), and Texas en route to Mexico by sea for the relative few remaining survivors. The author does not follow Do Soto's path into Mexico at this point, however.

It is hard to ignore the observation that immediately comes to mind reading this next part of the book that De Soto, like Coronado, was over-the-top barbaric and utterly ruthless to the point of excess. This was not done by either man nor by Columbus and Cortez and Pizarro and others without thought but was terrorism intended to intimidate local populations into submission. It is generally accepted that terrorism by outsiders never works and although an uncareful and unsophisticated analysis would suggest that terrorism for the Spanish worked I would counter that it did not but that disease and superior systems of technology and organization worked instead. I believe the Spanish triumphed despite and in spite of their barbarity. Had disease not been a major factor nor the wow factor of their technology they would have been in for a far more expensive undertaking than was economically viable. I feel the Spanish would have been forced to deal with the aboriginals on a more equal footing as trade partners and the same goes for the English further north and a bit later on in time.

Getting back to the present in the Deep South Horwitz' own journey through it is as interesting and multi-cultural as De Soto's albeit in entirely different ways and contexts. De Soto met many exotic tribes and destroyed them ultimately if not immediately through deception and treachery in combination with "shock & awe" and terrorism by atrocity. As might be expected the great number of "characters" were found by the author along this leg of his journey and interviewed in the book. He met ambivalent historical reenactors, contrarian historians, park rangers reminiscent of the Carpenter and the Walrus in Alice in Wonderland, a Confederate sympathetic Indian, a dugout canoe-carving Seeker, and others. In the process of this leg of his journey he once again found myth fogging up the murky view rearward into history and thus absorbing it into itself and creating a new reality more real to people than historical fact.

Before reading this book I was unaware that Huguenots from France with the blessing of their Catholic queen had attempted to settle in what was then Spanish-claimed La Florida in 1562.  Of course, it resulted in catastrophe for the French as a result of poor planning and execution by the Protestant French and climaxed with atrocities (live burnings at the stake, etc.) perpetrated by the Catholic Spanish. In a modern-day mirror to that sectarian strife the author found the Catholics and Protestants in modern-day St. Augustine, Florida, (which was built as a result of the presence of the Huguenots in the area) and near where the aforementioned atrocities occurred to be still waging their spiritual... er, spirited war. He met a Pentecostal Protestant nutcase continuing the struggle of the Huguenots. Conversely, the local Catholics purged their own interpretation of their local history of any acknowledgement of their forefather's war crimes. It seems that once again like everywhere elsein the author's journeys for this book St. Augustine as badly as anywhere else reinterpreted its own history in a fashion rifted in divided cultural interpretations each steeped in their own self-affirming mythology devoid of factual basis. Worse than most and probably matched only by Plymouth, MA, St. Augustine provided a tourist trap-y interpretation of its local history and only a handful of locals seemed to appreciate this with circumspection and ironic bemusement.

With the Spanish-flavored part of his journey of historical exploration behind him, Horwitz focused the stretch run of his book on the English part of this story starting with Roanoke, VA, and then moving to Jamestown, VA, and finally concluding back where he started at Plymouth, MA.

To be blunt Roanoke was an English S.N.A.F.U and F.U.B.A.R and C.F. with the "F" in each of those acronyms being the "F" word we all know and love. Given this analysis is about the book primarily and not about the historical details covered in the book I shall be brief in prefacing. Needless to say the details Horwitz gives about Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Colony are ample and uninspiring. It quickly becomes clear that the English are no better than the Portuguese or Spanish or French when it comes to bad behavior. That the English ever succeeded in North America is amazing but certainly the Spanish unwittingly helped out by pre-thinning the native population by means of smallpox which the English reinforced by bringing more. Without smallpox this story would be a very different one.

It is worth noting that the mythology surrounding the Lost Colony is about as strong as any mythology encountered in the author's journeys for this book. The Lost Colony was actually never "lost" but simply moved and went "native" in order to survive and then probably got slaughtered by a different group of natives (Powhatan). At this point in the story it is worth noting that things really begin to get complicated when the descendents of black slaves and the descendents of Indians find themselves at cross purposes, especially in light of the fact there were and still are now folks with a lot of DNA from both groups in their ancestry.

Horwitz next visits Jamestown past and present and we get into all the facts that my History 207A class has already gone over in detail so for the sake of brevity I will not rehash it all. It is notable in this section that the author visits the Pamunkey, about the only tribe other than the Zuni and Navajo and Hopi to not ever leave their own territory and NOT be living on land given to them by the U.S. government, ergo living on the "rez". In this section more Black-Indian complications arise as this is former slave country still being it is in Virginia and there are also plenty of folks with Indian ancestry. Because of the Black-White racial divide Indians didn't want to get grouped with Blacks in times past despite the fact there were always many hybrids of both just as there have been of Whites-Blacks and Whites-Indians (I'm one such). Sadly, this racial dynamic continues in Virginia (and unrelated to any mention in this book it also occurs to this day elsewhere, as well).

For the first time in this story we encounter secret societies based upon historical revisionism which is mildly interesting given it has nothing to do with the Klan. The author visits Henricus where John Rolfe toyed around with tabacco and met Pocahontas... or rather what is left of it which is now simply reconstructed park structures attended by a silver-tongued Creek Indian hottie named Melanie Wright who works as a living interpretation docent there. I would give my eye teeth to be introduced to this young lady. Again, as with the Roanoke story it boggles the mind that the early colonists ever ultimately succeeded in spite of their heavy casualties and many failures and shortcomings. Of course, it helped that the local native population had its own problems at the time with droughts, famines, pestilences (brought by Europeans) not to mention inter-tribal fighting.

In wrapping up his journey, Horwitz ends where he began in Plymouth, MA, but with an entirely different attitude and understanding. Unlike the first time he was there this time he delves deeper into the fabric of the local community following the pattern he established on his visit to Santo Domingo and followed since then of going "local" for a short time and not merely playing tourist nor reporter but getting himself "embedded" in the local community. Upon his return to Plymouth and as a result of this deeper delving the author comes to realize that the inhabitants of Plymouth have a surprisingly sophisticated and circumspect understanding of the historical reality of their town and its place in American history. They even seem to embrace their myth as history and their history as myth quite honestly and openly to the point of being able to poke fun at themselves. A historical reenactor/docent who worked at the replica Mayflower ship anchored in the port of Plymouth made the rather insightful observation in relation to why the story of the Pilgrims was always taken precedence over that of the earlier and more significant Jamestown Colony: "The Virginia story is a lot more exciting, but as a founding myth it's a lousy fit. No one wants to build a national story around a man killing and eating his pregnant wife, or colonists too lazy to grow their own food. Shiftlessness isn't part of the American self-image." True dat!

The most significant quote of the entire book was quite serendipitously delivered to the author near the end of his journey and quite intentionally and appropriately was located near the end of the book. The Reverend Peter Gomes, an American man of Black (Cape Verde Island origin which is owned by Portugal) and Portuguese ancestry and a distinguished member of an exclusive fraternal order in Plymouth known as The Old Colony Club. Gomes sagely posited "Myth is more important than history. History is arbitrary, a collection of facts. Myth we choose, we create, we perpetuate." That is the theme of the entire book encapsulated into two sentences.

This is not to say we should wallow in our own myths and buy into everybody else's myths and ignore facts and truths. But I do set forth that we should neither adhere to myths and ignore facts nor ought we to merely cling to facts and repudiate all myths. Both serve an important function in understanding why things are the way they are and what happened before and thus gain insights into what we might expect in the future. Our myths also offer us insights into who we are as individuals and groups. Strangely enough these sorts of themes have already been swirling around  in my head much in recent years as I find my intellect wrapping itself around many things that for most of my life have seemed inexplicable and to which I now hope I'm on the verge of making some sort of breakthrough realizations regarding. As the haunting recurring theme in the Battlestar Galactica television series states: "This has all happened before and it will all happen again." Or does it have to?

History Haunts the Paso Robles Inn

 For English 201 With Allysa Emerson

Haunted haunts three blocks from my own house? That possibility never occurred to me at any time during the past two and a quarter years I have lived near downtown Paso Robles, CA. As I quite unexpectedly learned last week that is quite the case at the Paso Robles Inn. Today the Paso Robles Inn attracts both travelers passing through the Central Coast of California as well as visitors for whom the Central Coast is destination. It's mineral baths and overall ambiance have been a draw since its construction was completed in 1891. Since that time great numbers of visitors, including my mother and her parents back in the 1940's and 1950's, as well as people both famous (Ignacy Paderewsky) and infamous (Frank and Jesse James) have found solace within her storied confines. Indeed, it is this very historicity that populates the inn with whatever spirits allegedly haunt it. Being a man of science with a passion for history I undertook an investigation of the place to learn its secrets and other more arcane lore. I visited the place both in daytime and at night in an attempt to wrap my mind around this place and flesh out fact from fiction.

By day the historic Paso Robles Inn looks, well, historical with its retro-style mission-style architecture that clearly dates it to before the advent of the modern fatuous infatuation with mission-style anything. There is nothing kitschy about this place in sharp contrast to the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo which is the penultimate monument to idiosyncratic architecture and interior design, cool as it may be. As I walk up the east-facing wood-framed glass door of the inn's coffee shop I cannot keep myself from snapping a photo of the round-shaped edifice capped with red brick shingles into which I am about to make egress. No Copper Kettle this, the Paso Robles Inn's coffee shop is much more understated than the pink-painted coffee shop of the Madonna Inn. This cute little flashback to a bygone era features more plain but more historic-looking furnishing and adornment, most notable to me being the retro-diner counters and largish wall murals featuring vignettes of early California history reaching back to the days of Alta California.

One mural in particular grabs my attention by showing a Mexican vaquero standing next to his horse while wearing what appears to be almost dress-like pantaloons with frilly-looking fringes at the bottom and immediately below that are aggressive-looking spurs on his riding boots. The frilly fringes jarringly contrast with the nasty-looking spurs not to mention the contrast with the Mexican machismo tradition.

I have come to the coffee shop first for the express purpose of indulging in a quick breakfast as a means of establishing a rapport with the staff in order that they might be more indulgent of my forthcoming questions. I sit down at the counter without prompting from the staff and am immediately greeted by a young and enthusiastic Jessica, a lovely young brunette with a pretty face and an ebullient manner. She provided me with a menu for my perusal and my eye is immediately drawn to the "Jesse James" breakfast sandwich to which I am unable to resist the impulse to order along with an orange juice. While waiting for my breakfast I interrogate Jessica who turns out to be a veritable gold mine of information about her workplace. In answer to my question about this place being haunted she cheerfully exclaims, "Quite a few people here have experienced weird thing over the years", and added, "Most of that seems to happen in the ballroom building out back".

After mining all I could out of her I spend the rest of my wait walking through the rest of the 100 Building which is the main structure of this inn. I leave the coffee shop and wend my way through the adjacent main restaurant dining hall en route to the foyer beyond. The fragrance of a traditional American breakfast fills the air with the olfactory evidence of bacon and sausage most pungently of all. My ears readily detect the din of dishes jostling and metal utensils tingling and the low hum of people conversing just inaudibly enough to be unable to make out what they are saying. This room is more elegantly appointed with linen table cloths being the norm and the furniture stylistically being more elegant and traditional than that in the coffee shop as one might expect.

I pass the restaurant hostess' wood lectern as I make my way out of the restaurant and enter the foyer that connects to the hotel office beyond and knowingly nod and smile at the blond woman "manning" it. This room features a vaulted ceiling replete with interior balcony leading into the El Matador bar on the second floor directly above the restaurant. There is a stairway leading up to it on the right fringed with a wrought iron railing. On the left is an antiquated revolving door leading out into the front parking lot. Directly ahead and above me is a high window allowing egress for most of the light in this otherwise dark and stark room relative to the restaurant dining hall and coffee shop. Despite the nearby food my nose detects little to none of that but rather a detectable scent of the agedness of this 1940's-era building which replaced the more grandiose one that famously burned down on this very location on the night of December 13, 1940, as a result of a careless smoker's discarded cigarette. On the left just beyond the staircase I notice a short hallway lead out onto the main inner courtyard of the inn.

Directly ahead of me is a doorless passage into the next room which features the front desk and office. The cozy fire burning in the rustic-looking period fireplace is quite noticeable even from back in the dining hall and visually dominates the room from its location situated on the north wall directly ahead of me. Next to it in the northeast corner of the room is the main door into the office from outside while the wood-paneled front desk dominates the southwestern quadrant of the room to my left. I am cordially greeted by Stevie, a nice-looking young woman with light brown, medium length hair dressed professionally with a matching demeanor. I ask her a few mundane questions about this place such as how many rooms does it have (98) and how many rooms feature hot spring saunas (36) and when it first opened (1891) and when it burned down (1940) and other such things. She does not seem too eager to discuss specifics of ghosts beyond simply acknowledging the basic facts that everybody here seems to know about. I ask her if she has any hand-outs about the history of this place to which she initially regrets to inform me she does not but then quickly corrects herself upon remembering that indeed there is one available and proceeds to promptly fetch one for me from behind the front desk and offers me a copy to which I enthusiastically accept.

I return from whence I came and to my delight find my food awaiting me and proceed to "dig in" and down my meal eager to explore the remainder of the complex. The sandwich is good but not spectacular. I wash it down with my orange juice, pay my bill while leaving Jessica a generous tip and then head out onto the verdant interior courtyard replete with tranquil koi ponds whose quietude is interrupted only by sounds of the gurgling stream feeding the ponds and the occasional voices of nearby guests and staff. From time to time the rich aroma of hydrogen sulphide gas from the grounds' hot mineral springs that feed its mineral baths manifesting itself as that now all-too-familar "rotten egg" smell we locals have oft smelt downtown Paso Robles since the 2003 San Simeon Earthquake reaches my nose grabbing my geology-minded attention and reminding me that down below me are hot rocks and below them not too many miles down is molten magma.

Ahead of me is the smallish 300 Building looking funky with its two stories, brick facade, and visually pleasing interaction with the adjacent trees and shrubs. In front of it and adjacent to the driveway that loops through this property is a large sign under a pine tree that reads "PASO ROBLES INN WEATHER STATION". Below that it reads as follows:

IF THE ROCK IS WET IT'S RAINING

IF THE ROCK IS SWAYING ITS WINDY

IF THE ROCK IS HOT IT'S SUNNY

IF THE ROCK IS COOL IT'S OVERCAST

IF THE ROCK IS WHITE IT'S SNOWING

IF THE ROCK IS BLUE IT'S COLD

IF THE ROCK IS SHAKING... EARTHQUAKE

IF THE ROCK IS GONE... TORNADO

As I walk westward past the koi ponds and the 300 Building I encounter the similar-looking two-story 400 Building just beyond it on the right and as I continue across the large tree-shaded inner courtyard I encounter successive similar-looking buildings with successively higher numbers, ergo 500, 600, 700 and then buildings wrap around the west and south sides of the courtyard looping back towards the main 100 Building wherein I had just been with 800, 900, 1000, and 1100 numberings.

In regards to the latter building multiple employees who elect to remain anonymous state that the front desk periodically receives a phone call from Room 1107 when nobody is staying in the room and no staff are present in it and no voice is ever heard at the other end of the line.

When I reach the rear of the courtyard I turn right and make my way through a short hallway passage and break out into a rear parking area across which commandingly sits the 1200 Building (the aforementioned ballroom building) which is the oldest structure on the site having been the only significant structure to survive the flames of the night of December 13, 1940, and it's deadly aftermath. That cold winter night the night clerk upon realizing the grand building was on fire ran from room to room throughout the complex successfully warning all the guests to get out which they all did only to himself drop dead of a heart attack upon returning to the hotel lobby. The 1200 Building contains a spacious classic foyer replete with a simple and rustic period chandelier, grand piano, grand staircase, and inn desk with mail slots for guest rooms. It also features an elevator that is a more recent addition to the facility. However, the majority of this floor is occupied by the ballroom which many employees, nearly all of whom request to remain anonymous, claim is the haunt of the figure of a little girl. The second story of this structure features a long hallway that accesses larger suites. This area used to contain more numerous smaller rooms but was remodeled since the Martin Family acquired this property in the 1990's.

As I enter the grand foyer I am immediately enraptured in a sensation of traveling back in time as the smell of some of the older furnishings and features cannot be drowned out by the odors all the remodeling of the place has emplaced here. The bygone-era elegance of this large foyer and the attendant counter and stairs and piano and display cases featuring old documents and photos and such all underlain by a carpet fitting for such a room overwhelm my senses and transport me back to several different historical periods all at once. Particularly notable to me is a framed document showing the history of the title of ownership of this property starting with the Spanish Occupation and then moving to the Mexican Period and then the 24 different owners during the American Period. Notable in that list are Petronillo Rios of Rios-Caledonia Adobe fame, Charles W. Dana, brother of "Two Years Before The Mast" author Richard Henry Dana, and Drury James, brother of outlaws Frank and Jesse James whom he helped hide and allowed to convalesce at the inn from gunshot wounds received during the course of their outlaw activities.

As I am reading this list I hear behind me through the open wooden doors to the adjacent ballroom a member of the staff working there suddenly exclaim "that was odd". I turn around and notice that some sort of function is being prepared for in the ballroom and there is a younger man and a middle-aged woman working there. I walk across the foyer and stop at the entry into the ballroom and gaze in awe at its retro grandeur. The ornate wood word on the ceiling and walls and the classic wood floors visuallly devour all the modern accoutrements of human activity like chairs and tables giving the impression the room is empty even when it is not. I watch the room and this duo for a time either being ignored or not noticed and drink in the vibe and must aroma of the room. I feel a presence here, but of what I know not, be it history or the projections of my mind or perhaps something more.

I turn face and head east towards the base of the stairs featuring massive carved wood railing and then make ascent up them taking three successive left turns and arrive on the second floor to find a long hallway heading off to my right. I make the turn and face west down a long run looking to the far end of this second-floor hallway. The period ceiling light fixtures create an odd illumination in this off-white-walled corridor giving a creepy glow to the passage that is an impossible mix of dim and bright which I just love. The wall mirror at the far end gives the illusion the hallway is even longer. The whole scene strikes me as wonderfully creepily reminiscent of the scene in the Stanley Kubrik version of The Shining when the little boy rounds a turn in such a corridor while riding his Big Wheel encounters twin little girls who invite him to play with them "forever and ever and ever". I take some photos of the view from this end and then traverse the full length of the passage and take some images at the far end and then return down the stairs to the foyer but not before snapping some more images of the foyer from the top of the first run of stairs looking towards the open doors to the ballroom which beckons.

I quietly walk to the open doors of the ballroom where I had been standing a short time earlier and the duo of staff members is still hard at work preparing the room for an event that features an American flag at a table plus a flag to some fraternal order. After standing in the doorway a few minutes surveying the scene the woman finally notices me and is startled which I note. I apologize and introduce myself and my business and ask if anything odd has happened there lately. She tells me that just a short time ago something rolled across the wood floor. She adds that she believes it was a marble and that some marbles had gotten loose in the room in recent days and this must have been one of them. She cannot explain why such a marble would  suddenly let loose of its own accord at the opposite end of the ballroom from where the duo had been working and unprompted by any human agency. This was the incident that prompted her to earlier exclaim "that was odd".

She then proceeds to tell me about the little girl sometimes seen in this room as well as an even creepier event that has occurred to her twice before and once to the young man working with her this day. Apparently, periodically the elevator in the foyer will suddenly and without prompting from any human agency rapidly descend significantly faster than normal from the second floor all the while making an unnerving shrieking/wailing noise all the way down and then jarringly open with nobody inside it and nobody upstairs having activated it. The young man tells me that he initially did not believe her account of this elevator phenomenon until it happened to him once. The duo is initially sheepish and reluctant to share these accounts but I assure them that I don't think they are crazy or being untruthful. Not wanting to keep them from their labors I thank them for their time and head out the door and wend my way through the foyer and head out blinking into the light of day to absorb what I have just experienced, vicarious as much of it was but having felt enough of the brooding spirit of the building to feel compelled to come back at night and thus I do.

I walk from my house down silent empty streets to the Paso Robles Inn as a Winter storm sweeps onto the Central Coast at the midnight hour. The air is damp but rain is yet a few hours away and only gentle breezes blow upon my face. The glow of the lights of Paso Robles illuminate the bottom surface of the storm clouds above giving everything an unnatural nighttime glow even where there are no streetlights. The white neon Paso Robles Inn sign as well as the red neon VACANCY sign both seem to gleam with a seemingly unusually intense brilliance. To my right is the 200 Building better known as the Jesse James Building built to replace the Annex Building which was red-tagged as a result of the San Simeon Quake in 2003. Tonight it appears to be mostly empty which is not unusual during the tourism off-season of the Dead of Winter. I snap some photos of the neon signage for my blog and notice a dark specter observing me from between two columns at the north end of the 100 Building which contains the hotel front desk and office. The specter approaches me and I realize my presence is being challenged by the night watchman. He is courteous but as inquisitive of me as I am of the Little Girl in the ballroom who likes to play with marbles and people's nerves. I state my purpose and he informs me I should come back during the daylight hours when much more staff is on hand to observe as there is only himself and the night clerk present on the grounds at night.

However, before sending me away he generously invites me to check out the foyer in Building 1200 and gives me a little more history than I had previously unearthed. He turns out to be quite knowledgeable about the place and its secrets including the fact that there were/are many tunnels leading out of the inn property which head in many directions. These were, amongst other purposes, means of escape for the James Brothers back in their day. Most of these have been filled in he claims but to this day some may well not be entirely filled in which intrigues me and I wonder if any such subterranean passages wend their way below my abode three blocks north.

I thank him for his time and walk off the property and head north on Spring Street which now has begun to be raked by fairly significant wind gusts causing a cacophony of rattling leaves and litter and other light debris caught up in the wind skittering along the pavement. Not a soul is around and I am alone, a perfect reenactment of the frightening and haunting recurring dreams I oft experienced as a child of being alone at night in a city environment. However, this time I am utterly unafraid and feel like the master of my environment, the hunter of history and seeker of ghosts both metaphorical and metaphysical. I reflect upon what I have learned about the old girl and what she has whispered like sweet-nothings into my ear as I confidently stroll down the street energized by the buzz of my new love affair with the Paso Robles Inn. As with any woman she is complicated and inscrutable but fascinating and alluring and seductively shows off just enough of what is below the outer clothing of paint and landscaping and remodeling and more recent add-ons to be utterly irresistible to me. I know that I am not alone as many whom I encountered the past several days have clearly been besotted by her as well. The Paso Robles Inn is a nexus connecting numerous time periods in California history permitting them to find unity while trapping history's ghosts there.

Be sure to also check out Paso Robles Inn Photo Study I and Electricity In The Air Tonight At Paso Robles Inn and Picture of the Day - Paso Robles Inn Haunts and Picture of the Day - Paso Robles Inn Coffee Shop.

Thomas Jefferson: A Critical Analysis

For History 207A With Dennis Judd

     This essay is supposed to be about Founding Father of the United States Thomas Jefferson. The assignment is to create an essay based upon a power-point presentation created by our instructor that is not supposed to be a rote biography listing all the now nearly hackneyed facts of his life that we have heard over and and over all our lives. But rather this power-point presentation addresses the axis of Jefferson with the topics of slavery, his role in government both domestic and foreign as well as his relationship with women (yes, we will have to get Freudian). We are to be necessarily "critical" which I interpret to mean "analytical" as opposed to "negative" which I interpret to mean "judgmental" in our assessments. For me as a 41 year-old Free Thinker I perpetually try to follow such a tact as a course of policy. I abhor oversimplifications and over-reactions as well as absolutes such as "always" and "never". At the same time I eschew moral relativism and reject the false labeling of objective analysis that comes to a necessarily negative conclusion as being merely high-minded judgmentalism, a tactic used by those in the wrong (or their apologists) as a fig leaf to cover sin (in a non-spiritual interpretation of that expression). What I fear when composing such a treatise is that the person grading my work will be brain-deadened by proof-reading all the other essays by students with the same assignment. Thus my composition will get mentally blended in with the others and get lost in the background noise of many seemingly similar essays essentially saying the same thing. Lastly, and as sort of a footnote, I have had a lifelong struggle attempting to use an economy of words to efficiently convey ideas with minimal words. Clearly I have already gotten off on the wrong foot avoiding that here but I am using this assignment as a test of how much I can improve upon this.

     Thomas Jefferson's relationship with women seems to have been a typically complicated and nuanced one for such an atypically complicated and nuanced man given the complexity and nuanced nature of women and of female-male relationships. Based upon my own analysis, Jefferson seems to have had a healthy relationship with his mother (I warned you I'd get Freudian). Unsurprisingly, he grew up to have a healthy marriage (starting in 1771 when he was 28) to Martha Skelton, a previously-widowed then-23 year-old woman. Their happy marriage only ended when she tragically died giving birth to their sixth child 11 years later (the child survived the birth). Some might regard his written comments concerning his sisters (and lack thereof in some cases) as being a sign of indifference to these significant women in his life. However, my read of this is that he was like that about everybody else in his life, female or male. Emotive expression was not encouraged in the culture of 18th century Virginia elites or for men of elite status anywhere in the English-speaking world at that time which is still much the case to this day. In this regard Jefferson was probably quite typical for his station. Indeed, for the reserved and emotionally-restrained Jefferson, in his reference to losing his beloved wife Martha he admits to possessing "a stupor of the mind" and being "as dead to the world as she whose loss occasioned it" belies his strong love for her and the emotional devastation her loss engendered upon him.

After the death of his wife he got into a relationship (probably more an emotional affair than a bona fide romance with a physical element) with one Maria Conway, a married artist. This occurred while he was the U.S. representative to France. It is worth noting that he took Sally Hemings with him to France even though there is no indication the two of them were yet involved at that time. My own interpretation of Jefferson is that he seems to have respected women to a greater degree than many of the other Founding Fathers some of whom themselves seemed to hold women in higher esteem for their time than might otherwise be expected even while in some cases sexually exploiting them and in turn being sexually exploited by them. Jefferson himself might be considered by some as having exploited at least one women, his slave Sally Hemings. However, that is not my "critical" interpretation of what happened. I feel that the older white male widower fell in love with a beautiful younger mixed-race, light-skinned black woman who happened to be his slave. Hearts and hormones then proceeded to do what God designed them to do. Jefferson never remarried after the death of Mary, but seems to have participated in an affair with Hemings (who was 3/4 white to 1/4 black and a close relative of his late wife) for the rest of his life which spanned parts or all of four decades. My own analysis of this situation is that Jefferson would have married her had the social mores of my own historical context existed in the time and place of Jefferson. In this regard he himself was a slave to his time and place just as I am to mine. As the saying goes, "when in Rome do as the Romans do."

Where I do find no fault with Jefferson as it pertains to women  I do find a degree of hypocrisy in his attitudes about race and by extension, slavery, and by further expansion, religion (as a devout Christian I would not go so far as to call it "faith" when talking about Jefferson). I acknowledge that Jefferson's views on slavery changed over time and were complex and nuanced and contained internal contradictions. He clearly believed in the freedom inherent to each and every human being as perfectly described in his famous reference to "inalienable rights" and before that the comment that "under the law of nature all men are born free." It is also clear from his own comments that he did not feel that black human beings were fully human but that they were biologically different than white folks while somehow the "Indians" were equal to whites but merely coming from an environmentally different context which explained (said he) how they were different to whites.

Jefferson, despite being the rational and scientific-minded man he was who was so influenced by John Locke and the Enlightenment, never sought nor offered empirical evidence to support his views about race. He grew up to challenge his "momma's religion" and to become a deist and an unbeliever in the full legitimacy of the Bible. Yet, he seems to fully embrace his "momma's views on race", to wit, that black and white human beings were not equal. Yet, he seemed to struggle with the justice of his unjust views on the matter of race and by extension, slavery and by the time of his death those views had liberalized quite a bit. To his credit on more than one occasion throughout his life he fought for the freedom of blacks such as when in 1769 while still believing in black inferiority he unsuccessfully attempted in the House of Burgesses to make it legal to free one's slaves if one so chose. Later, in 1807, he helped write laws that formally criminalized the international slave trade. He also once stated in reference to slavery "My heart trembles for my country when I reflect that God is just and his justice can not sleep forever... the almighty has not attribute which can side with us in such a contest." In reference to the 27 slaves he lost during the Revolution when the British Cavalry Colonel Banastre Tarleton raided Monticello he stated "Had he carried off the slaves to give them freedom, he would have done right". Yet, throughout his life including even in later years he was hardly the most vocal opponent of slavery with these notable exceptions. This demonstrates his own slavery to cultural values of the South to which he himself was a slave.

Thomas Jefferson led a rather remarkable career as a politician and diplomat what is way too filled with events and intrigues as to be adequately addressed in this multi-topic essay. However, a quick outline analysis here will have to suffice. As with many/most of the successful and notable Founding Fathers of the United States he was well-educated and a lawyer by trade. However, in his case he did not follow his law practice to the degree of enthusiasm one sees in the careers of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, for example. Jefferson first got into the political game by joining the House of Burgesses representing his native state of Virginia. During the American Revolution he became a member of the new Virginia state legislature and then became governor later as the Revolution progressed. Between his stint as a member of the House of Burgesses and his being a member of the nascent Virginia legislature he served in the Second Continental Congress becoming the primary author of the Declaration of Independence although with much input from others such as his friend John Adams and also notably Ben Franklin.

Next, Jefferson was a member of the Congress of the Confederation and then was sent to France to succeed Ben Franklin as Minister to France where John Adams was also located at that time. He then later returned home and became the first American Secretary of State under the first American President, George Washington, where he spent much of his time opposing Alexander Hamilton's Federalism and Anglophilia and closeness to banks and industry to which Jefferson was culturally opposed. During that period he formed the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose his boss's Federalist Party. It was his opposition to Hamilton's First Report on Public Credit and Second Report on Public Credit (and the festering effect of Jefferson's letter to Mazzei critical of Washington that was made public) over which he eventually felt compelled to resign Washington's cabinet and for which Washington never forgave him nor talked to him again.

When Washington retired from politics Jefferson ran for office against his friend John Adams to whom he was a political foe which started a long period of estrangement between them. Adams won but Jefferson became vice president. The XYZ Affair politically weakened American Francophiles like Jefferson and empowered the Federalist Anglophiles like his friend President Adams. During his tenure as vice president he opposed Adam's and Hamilton's Alien & Sedition Acts by co-writing the Kentucky & Virginia Resolutions. One election cycle later Jefferson ran again and won in the "Revolution of 1800" as Jefferson viewed it. In actuality, his Presidency was the "3-vote Presidency" and almost didn't happen with fellow Democratic-Republican Aaron Burr nearly taking it from him were it not for Burr not campaigning for himself and Burr's fierce opponent Alexander Hamilton campaigning for Jefferson (ironically both men being fierce opponents of each other). The Jefferson Presidency was marked by fierce political strife with the Federalists to whom he was rabidly opposed and his success against them was a mixed bag as was his success in general as a President of the United States. While he succeeded as President in expanding the new nation's frontier with the Louisiana Purchase and then sending Lewis & Clark to explore the new territory as well as sending U.S. Marines into Tripoli to deal with Barbary Pirates whom European governments merely bribed in order to keep at peace, Jefferson did less well at home although he did establish West Point Military Academy.

Jefferson failed on many of his domestic policies from Dambargo of 1807 which backfired and hurt the economy of New England and hurt him politically in the North and guaranteed he would be a one-term President. In the Chase Impeachment Trial he attempted to stack the U.S. Supreme Court in his favor which would have worked had Vice President Aaron Burr not opposed his unethical and undemocratic effort which a fair-minded analysis of the matter must necessarily conclude was hypocritical on the part of Jefferson given his opposition to centralized power. In Marbury vs. Madison he attempted to subvert the will of the previous President and created a Constitutional crisis that only the brilliance of Chief Justice John Marshall avoided coming to a head and in the process strengthened the power of the Federal Government by way of enabling the genesis of the legal precedent of "judicial review" by the U.S. Supreme Court which was counter to his anti-Federalist views.

It is my own analysis that Jefferson made a far more effective revolutionary than leader and a far more effective diplomat abroad than politician at home. And like all great men he was a complex man and like all human beings he was quite capable of falling short of his own claimed ideals and values causing him to be guilty of hypocrisy at times and he like most of us was a slave to and product of his time and place.

The Fort Pillow Massacre

In-Class Test Question Essay For History 207A With Dennis Judd

Fort Pillow is located 40 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. It is the location of a former Union fortification (and not a very good one) that was easily overwhelmed by Confederate forces led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest on April 12, 1864. The Union forces were comprised of about half and half white and black soldiers. About half these soldiers died but there were three "interesting" caveats to this. First, the kill ratio of dead to injured and/or captured was way higher than typical for the war overall. Second, there was a significantly higher death rate for black Union soldiers than white Union soldiers. Third, the majority of Union casualties came after the fort had fallen. According to eyewitness accounts from both sides that day, under direct orders from Forrest the black Union soldiers were slaughtered wholesale while even a good many white Union soldiers were likewise executed after all the Union forces had surrendered. Some of these deaths allegedly entailed some POW's being essentially burned at the stake (more specifically tied to bed frames and set on fire) or buried alive. After initially celebrating the slaughter, the Confederacy and its media changed tactics and ignored it or even denied it given the outrage it engendered in the North and the potential blow-back it might (and in some cases did) trigger.

It would be easy to imagine this was an isolated atrocity such as will inevitably occur in any war. However, this atrocity was hardly an isolated incident even though it was the most over-the-top incident of its kind in the war. As it turns out, General Forrest's orders at Fort Pillow was merely in keeping with well-established Confederate policy. This policy was shamefully founded on the Dred Scott Decision that asserted that black slaves were not endowed with rights to which white folks need concern themselves such as a right to life or liberty and that slaves were mere property. Consequently, killing black Union soldiers was done to discourage other black Union soldiers from fighting for the Union and thus to the South was no worse than slaughtering livestock according to this flawed world view. One can quite reasonably draw parallels between this and Rome's treatment of Sparticus' defeated slave army whose captured members were subjected to crucifixion along the Appian Way inbound to Rome as a psychological device to intimidate other slaves from contemplating armed rebellion against their masters.

As is always the case in such matters there was subsequent blow-back for the Confederacy as black Union troops henceforth oft invoked the memory of Fort Pillow when rushing forth into battle and in some cases themselves executed Confederate prisoners or troops trying to surrender. At the time of the massacre Union generals threatened reprisals but none such were forthcoming as a consequence of policy. To this day the State of Tennessee glosses over the events of that cruel day even in their historical interpretation materials at modern-day Fort Pillow State Park. It is worthy of noting that there never were any post-war "Nuremberg Trials" regarding this event as there was for Andersonville.

Two Turning Points In The American Civil War

For History 207A with Dennis Judd

My entire adult life I have been haunted by, amongst other things, turning points and final stands. I expressly do not believe in reincarnation, but if I did not know better I'd probably believe I have been a warrior many times throughout history in many different turning points and final stands, only to die and be reincarnated in another time and place as a warrior in yet another conflict's turning point or final stand. What I believe is really occurring within me is that I have an intense soul and strong intellect (I'm not egotistically declaring myself to be smart but merely that my mind is unusually active) which allows my mind to wrap itself around concepts and personalities and events and grasp not only the details but the emotions and overarching gravity of these things. This allows me to connect with them as if I had been there in those events and/or interacted with those people.

As with all conflicts, the American Civil War (which I consider to actually be the Second American Civil War after the American Revolutionary War) contained a turning point, or rather two of them. One of these turning points was the Battle of Gettysburg which it seems everybody has heard of and most people seem to know something about if for no other reason than there have been some notable Hollywood movies made about it such as the 1993 movie "Gettysburg". The other turning point in the war was the Battle of Vicksburg, or more accurately, the Siege of Vicksburg. The siege began 47 days before the city finally fell and just as the Battle of Gettysburg likewise concluded. In fact, one of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's reasons for initiating the campaign that resulted in the Battle of Gettysburg was to divert Union focus away from beleaguered Vicksburg, Mississippi. However, no memorable movies devoted to Vicksburg were filmed and given America's propensity to learn more from television and cinema than from books and schooling few Americans know much about this chapter of the war.

For me personally, Vicksburg has personal meaning as according to family oral tradition one of my ancestors from my mother's father's side of the family fought for the Confederacy at Vicksburg and survived. Union General Ulysses S. Grant while orchestrating the North's western theater of operations pursued Confederate General John Pemberton into the Southern stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. However, two direct assaults across the Mississippi River were unsuccessful due to terrain advantages for the defenders. Hence, a resourceful Grant looked for another avenue of attack and headed south down the west bank of the Big Muddy and crossed it at Bruinsburg and then headed northeast to Jackson, MS, taking. He then headed back west to Vicksburg, MS, where he laid siege to the city entrapping General Pemberton and his rebel army which he had foolishly neglected to evacuate prior to Grant's approach. Pemberton's army had experienced horrendous losses fighting Grant prior to Vicksburg but was pretty much finished off by the privation of the Siege of Vicksburg. The city fell on July 4, 1863, and the heinous memory of that siege and its privation for soldier and citizen alike led to the city refusing to celebrate Independence Day for the following century.

The immediate consequence of the fall of Vicksburg was that the Union now controlled the Mississippi River. This in turn allow Union forces out west to more quickly and liberally resupply their forces. More strategically, this resulted in splitting the Confederacy into eastern and western pockets. As a result, food and other supplies that came into the Deep South from places like Texas would no longer be available to the Confederacy. This in turn deepened the starvation already setting in there. Even had Robert E. Lee won at Gettysburg it is not certain the Confederacy could have won the war as result of what happened at Vicksburg.

The Battle of Gettysburg occurred as a result of Robert E. Lee's machinations and initiative. He had multiple objectives at stake in undertaking this bold move. As previously stated, he hoped to relieve Vicksburg by diverting Union forces away from it by striking deep into Union territory as up to that point most of the fighting in this conflict had occurred south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Unfortunately for the Confederacy that fact would not change after the Battle of Gettysburg. Lee also hoped to put on a strong enough show to impress Union politicians to sue for peace and/or for foreign powers in Europe to side with the Confederacy. In fact, British military observers were embedded behind Confederate battle lines in order to make this very determination on behalf of their government. A final and logistical motive for this maneuver was to obtain food from foraging Union farms as well as shoes for his Southern army from a shoe factory in Gettysburg, PA, (let the Southern jokes begin).

Heading into the Gettysburg Campaign General Lee had the advantage of a better army as well as a large enough army to wage offensive warfare. He also faced an Army of the Potomac that had just experienced yet another leadership change a few days prior when General Joseph Hooker was replaced with General George Meade. On the down side, General Lee in the previous major engagement, the Battle of Chancellorsville, lost Confederate General Stonewall Jackson who was mistakenly killed by one of his own sentries. In response to this Lee stated "I have lost my right arm." Also, as previously mentioned his army was hungry and also suffered from the perennial of  Southern problems, a dearth of shoes.

On the eve of the battle, two more factors entered the equation that would cripple any hope of victory for the Army of Northern Virginia. J.E.B. Stuart and the cavalry he commanded went off on a shopping spree for free Union wagons and disengaged from direct contact with the enemy as well as lost contact with his own chain of command. This was done despite the fact cavalry in that day and age were not only a strike force but also an instrument of reconnaissance without which Lee had no idea as to the strength and disposition of Meade's forces. This would prove fateful as Lee would soon be caught off guard by the size and disposition of Meade's approaching force. Another unfortunate factor for Lee was the fact that he made a grave tactical error in rejecting General James Longstreet's sage counsel that the then-unfolding battlefield favored the enemy and needed to be moved elsewhere. Lee rejected this advice as he wanted to defeat the Army of the Potomac deep in Union territory and in a fair fight. As Sun-Tzu suggested in the Art of War and W.C. Fields rephrased "Never give a sucker an even break."

The catalyst for the battle was a Union cavalry contingent crashing a Confederate shoe-hunting party titled "Johnny Reb & The Shoe Factory" located in Gettysburg as there was a shoe factory located there (okay, I'll stop). Although no major fighting resulted from that encounter it did result in forces on both sides pouring into the area and Day One starting on the morrow. Day One saw the Union forces ejected from areas north and west of Gettysburg and chased right out of town to the south and forced back into more defensible positions. It is from these more defensible positions that the Union forces would hold the line and be victorious. Notably, Confederate forces on this day failed to take Cemetery Ridge before it could become an established defensive position for the Union. Day One was a round won by the Confederacy.

Day Two saw most of the remaining forces that would be engaged in this battle by both sides having done so by this morning. The Union forces enjoyed a 2-1 numerical advantage in defense. Traditionally, an attacking force should enjoy a minimum of 3-1 numerical superiority for it to have any reasonable chance of success. The Confederate forces attempted to envelope the Union salient by flanking maneuvers on both the left and right flanks. The right flanking maneuver was to be a diversion and hold in place Union forces while the left flank was the primary target. It was on this flank the effort came the closest to success where Confederate forces attempted to take Little Round Top at the south end of the Union's "hook-shaped" defensive salient. They hoped to completely turn the Union flank and transform the salient into a pocket and that pocket into a death trap. This did not succeed as Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his 20th Maine Regiment along with an ad hoc collection of other smaller units held onto Little Round Top at the extreme southern end of the Union flank. At the climax in true Hollywood movie-style, a bayonet charge necessitated by running out of ammunition succeeded in forcing not mere retreat but in some cases the surrender of the attacking Confederate forces. Day Two was a round won by the Union.

Day Three saw Lee get a bit more forceful (desperate?) and throw all that he had against the Union defenses in a reprise of the previous day's general plan. This time he intended for amongst other things, General George Pickett's division along with two other divisions commanded by General Johnston Pettigrew and General Isaac Trimble to slam into the center of Union forces on Cemetery Ridge. To call this attack "Pickett's Charge" as it is commonly known is perhaps a bit inaccurate as a result of this fact as all three division generals were equals who were in turn subordinate to General Longstreet who opposed the attack and only reluctantly gave Pickett at best a tepid indication to commence the attack. "Pickett's Charge" was preceded by possibly the largest artillery barrage of the entire war, especially in light of the fact Union big guns joined in response albeit with fading intensity over time to intentionally mislead Confederate gunners into believing they were knocking out Union guns when they were in fact not. This soon became apparent as the three divisions of "Picket's Charge" containing anywhere between 12,500 and 15,000 men began spreading out across the 3/4 mile deep and mile wide "kill zone" in which they endured not only catastrophic artillery fire but also withering rifle fire from rifles with both long range and great accuracy. For a short time one small part of the attack did penetrate Union lines in what have been called the "high-water mark of the Confederacy" but that was soon repulsed and the charge degenerated into a virtual route.

The immediate consequence of this fiasco was that General Lee immediately went on the defensive after losing half of that day's attacking force and 23,000 more casualties overall for the entire three-day FUBAR. Although the Union suffered about the same number of casualties they not only possessed a large force to begin with but could replace their losses much more readily than the Confederacy could replace their's. Lee immediately took responsibility for what happened and realizing his tenuous tactical position retreated south back to Virginia. He was followed by a very tepid pursuit initiated by General Meade who allowed Lee to get away without trying to annihilate him while he was vulnerable and away from his home turf. This failure allowed the war to continue another two years. Hence, both commanders failed to deliver a knock-out punch to end the war immediately as they both could have done. However, Meade won a strategic as well as tactical victory that indeed turned the tide of the war.

Henceforth the Confederacy would lack the troop strength to engage in offensive operations but instead merely react to Union depredations led by up and coming Union Generals U.S. Grant and W.T. Sherman over the course of the following two years down the stretch run of the war. Futhermore, following this debacle no European nations had any interest, most notably England, in getting involved in a war on behalf of slavery which was unpopular in England. Obviously, the outcome of this battle had the opposite effect as was intended by General Lee of encouraging Union politicians to sue for peace. On a final note: the Army of Northern Virginia failed to gain appreciable food supplies as hoped and about those shoes they came to Gettysburg to get, well, they now had plenty of shoes they could strip from their dead.

Hamilton Versus Burr... And Other Stuff

American Experience: The Duel

An Analysis in Answers to Four Questions 

By Kim Patrick Noyes for History 207A

1. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were both highly intelligent and ambitious men as well as hyper-aggressive competitors and, not coincidentally, hyper-sexual philanderers. They were both powerful men who could be charming and for whom the ladies had an eye and whom had an eye for the ladies. However, where Burr simply was charming Hamilton acted charming when he wanted to be so but otherwise was rather misanthropic in private. In the upshot he was more intelligent than Burr who was politically more sophisticated and thus a more effective politician (and lawyer). In all fairness Hamilton was no slouch as a politician and lawyer both not unrelated vocations in which he excelled nearly as effectively as Burr. However, he was a black and white thinker who felt individual people were either his ally or his enemy: there was no middle ground. This cost Hamilton more than he probably recognized. Where Hamilton was a visionary driven by ideology Burr was a political tactician driven by material self-interest. Both men were willing to cross their bosses in order to achieve their goals, even to the point of treason. Hamilton did so when he let the British, whom he admired, know that his boss was bluffing about renewing a treaty with the French if America did not get concessions out of the British. This was on purely ideological grounds as perpetrated by an ideologue. Burr did so out of purely personally ambitious grounds when he attempted to become emperor of lands in then-Mexico (which included what is now Texas) and the then-Louisiana Territory.

The two men were as different as day and night in their heritage and formative experience as well. Hamilton, born on Nevis in or about 1755, was the illegitimate progeny of a traveling trader from Scotland and a compulsive adulteress. Burr was born as the child of elites in 1756 in New York into the Jonathan Edwards clan. Hamilton had the fateful good fortune to be discovered by a St. Croix businessman benefactor who recognized Hamilton's potential and working in collaboration with a reverend sent him to school in the American colonies for a formal education. Around the same time Burr was shipped off by his family to Princeton University where his maternal grandfather Jonathan Edwards had begun his studies there at the same age and later served as its President for a time. Within a short time of graduating from that institution Hamilton was rejected for admittance there and thus ended up attending Columbia University.

2. The opening salvo in the conflict between Hamilton and Burr was Burr's decision to challenge Hamilton's father-in-law Philip Shuyler for his New York United States Senate seat in 1791. He successfully took it by aligning himself with two political families (Clinton and Livingston) who were rivals of the Shuyler Family and by extension, Alexander Hamilton. To make matters worse, Burr seemed to do it as a nakedly ambitious ploy devoid of any ideological motive.

Another layer of depth to the breach between them was their being on opposite sides of the dominant political axis of conflict at that time, to wit, Hamilton being a Federalist and Burr being a Jeffersonian anti-Federalist who officially were known as Democratic-Republicans. However, even before the two came into direct conflict they already had come into indirect competition... for the respect of General George Washington. Burr got to Washington first but the two of them did not get along while Burr served on Washington's general staff for a brief time during the war. Hamilton got there second but he and Washington clicked immediately and maintained a good working chemistry for years to come extending into and through Washington's Presidency.

The next time these two men locked horns occurred when an internal memo of sorts penned by Hamilton that was intended for only the eyes of particular members of the Federalist Party which treatise heavily excoriated then-President John Adams was leaked by Burr to the public. This caused great embarrassment to Hamilton and permanently damaged the Federalist Party.

Within the same calendar year Hamilton was gifted by fate to return the favor in full measure and fully availed himself of the opportunity. Thomas Jefferson ran for President in the Presidential election of 1800  with Burr as his running mate (candidate for Vice President of the United States). Burr made full use of his impressive political skills to recruit votes in the electoral college for Jefferson and himself. For reasons which remain unclear (was it a coincident of fate or political savvy or a mix of both?) Jefferson and Burr came up with an equal number of votes in the electoral college. Per the United States Constitution, Congress and in particular the lower chamber (United States House of Representatives) controlled by Hamilton's Federalists was to vote to break the deadlock in the electoral college and did so. Burr thought it bad form to campaign for himself under the circumstances. Hamilton, while no lover of Jefferson, felt he was the lesser of two evils when compared to Burr as at least Jefferson had beliefs beyond personal ambition. Therefore, Hamilton actively campaigned for Jefferson and against Burr and turned what started out as a Federalist consensus in favor of Burr into one in favor of Jefferson who as a consequence became the third President of the United States.

The final and decisive chapter in their feud occurred four years later when Burr ran for the New York governorship. In a naked display of political ambition, Burr switched allegiance to Hamilton's Federalist Party and Hamilton, who famously viewed it as a religious duty to oppose Burr's political career, actively campaigned against Burr's candidacy. Burr lost the Federalist Party candidacy but forge ahead as an independent candidate. At this point both sides of the political divide hammered upon him, none ferociously than Hamilton. Comments he made about Burr at a dinner party hosted by Hamilton's father-in-law found their way to Burr via a letter from an attendee of the party which made its way into a newspaper. This gave Burr while still licking his fresh wounds the sour grapes impetus to ultimately challenge Hamilton to a duel. The two of them badly mishandled the negotiations leading up to the duel unnecessarily making it an inevitable tragedy of history to which we all know the famous outcome.

Male elites (and sometimes even non-elites) of this era settled their public differences by means of "affairs of honor" which was a euphemism for dueling. This was a carefully staged war dance that began with an exchange of letters which usually settled differences. Failing that the two men would have "seconds" or what we nowadays might refer to as "wing-men" act as intermediaries and representatives and witnesses and assistants. By way of their assistance matters taken as far as meeting at the dueling site might still be settled non-violently. Indeed, given the inaccuracy inherent to the smooth-bored pistols they used shots could be fired and nobody be harmed seriously or even at all. Death was a rare outcome to dueling which was technically illegal just about everywhere and also verboten by just about every religious denomination.

3. Burr, who never ceased to be personally ambitious even after killing Hamilton, was still then-President Jefferson's Vice President, but Jefferson never ceased shunning him since the political intrigues of 1800 viewing him as disloyal. He was safe in the nation's capitol but faced murder indictments in New York (where he lived) and New Jersey (where the duel occurred). Shunned in the northern states he found more sympathy in the southern states who viewed the matter of the entire affair as a matter of honor,  not a crime. This exposed yet another rift that foreshadowed the growing cultural divide that would lead to America's second civil war later in the 1860's.

To the surprise of some and chagrin of President Jefferson in the impeachment trial of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Chase over which Burr presided (as Vice President as required by the Constitution in a tied chamber) he deigned to actually give Justice Chase a fair trial. This was as opposed to railroading him through the system as Jefferson had hoped and intended would happen. This entire affair was a naked attempt by Jefferson to stack the Supreme Court in his favor as FDR would later and also unsuccessfully attempt when faced with a Supreme Court thwarting the President's policy agenda. The primary focus of analysis regarding Burr's rationale for not towing the party line seems to run along the either/or axis of his doing it out of a sense of exalted ethics or contrariwise disloyally doing it to Jefferson for icing him out of the political arena since the 1800 election. For one thing, I find it difficult to label as "disloyal" any attempt to thwart one's boss from doing something that is incontrovertibly ethically wrong. My own judgment in this matter is that the truth includes a bit of both ethics and politics.

Burr's Conspiracy was a rather hair-brained attempt to become "emperor" of a new principality to be carved out of parts of both the then-Louisiana Territory and perhaps part of then-Mexico which included what is now Texas. The plot was to hinge largely on the assistance of a corrupt U.S. Army general, the then-head of the United States Army, General James Wilkinson, no less, who was also the military governor of the Northern Louisiana Territory.(and a spy for Spain). Ironically enough, this man would later be a double-traitor and turn in Burr to U.S. authorities. This would not happen before Burr had first sought British financial backing and be turned down and then with private financial backing create a small mercenary strike force. As a result of Wilkinson's double-crossing him he was arrested in Louisiana in 1807 and shipped off to Virginia to stand trial. He was spared being publicly hanged by means of a legal technicality betting him acquitted (the proverbial black glove did not fit apparently). However, he was now thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the American people, North and South, and left the country in disgrace.

4. Being the revolutionary whom he was, Thomas Jefferson seemed to have an aversion for rules, even rules he was constitutionally-bound to honor, technically at least. Jefferson in the Chase Case attempted to subvert the independence of the Supreme Court when it suited his own agenda by attempting to railroad a flawed but not corrupt Supreme Court associate justice en route to he hoped subsequently doing something similar to his distant relative the Federalist U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. Both men despised each other, family ties notwithstanding.

In the Supreme Court case Marbury vs. Madison President Jefferson through his agent, U.S. Secretary of State James Madison, attempted to subvert the will of outgoing President John Adams)by not delivering a last-minute signed justice-of-the-peace of the District of Columbia appointment to one William Marbury, a Federalist. Marbury sued Madison to force him to deliver to him his appointment to that office to which Madison refused. Chief Justice Marshall shrewdly navigated treacherous political waters that might have been stirred into a storm of constitutional crisis had he directed the court to take on Jefferson directly causing Jefferson to perhaps defy the will of the court. What Marshall did instead was to rule as unconstitutional the law that gave his court the right to rule in this case in the first place. He then went on to bitch-slap Jefferson by suggesting Marbury deserved his appointment and by extension, that Jefferson should do the right thing. In the end Jefferson achieved a tactical victory while Marshall achieved a strategic victory. This case established a vitally important legal precedent that continues to this day, to wit, the Supreme Court's authority known as "judicial review" to declare as unconstitutional laws written by the United States Federal government which concept has been extended to include laws by all levels of government.