When Flying Saucers Attack!

[Mayerling]

Hi Celesta, Plang, Mike, Stan and J.D.,

Joe Johnston was the cautious (possibly overly cautious) Confederate Commander who drove Sherman crazy by refusing to fight him but forcing Old Cump to come after himself. As a result Sherman made bloody errors like the frontal assault at Kennesaw Mountain (what a great name for a baseball czar!). But Johnston moved too slowly for Jefferson Davis (who disliked the man - they got on each other's nerves). So when Johnston reached the outskirts of Atlanta, Davis replaced him with John Bell Hood. Johnston would resume command when Hood lost Atlanta, and was defeated in Tennessee.
He resumed driving Sherman crazy in the Carolinas, and Sherman got to respect Johnston's abilities. Johnston recipricated. Sherman tried to get a gentler peace arrangement for Johnston and his men to surrender under (similar to the one Grant gave Lee on April 9, 1865 at Appomatox). But this was after Lincoln's assassination, so Secretary of War Stanton forced a harsher set of peace terms on Johnston. But the Sherman - Johnston friendship actually survived the peace term embroglio. When Sherman died in January 1891, Johnston was a pall bearer. He stood hatless in the rain as a mark of respect, telling a friend that Sherman would have done the same for him. Two weeks or so later Johnston died of pneumonia.

The Sultana disaster has been the subject of at least three books since the 1950s (two in the 1990s). It has never been forgotten (the survivors formed a memorial group). But the victims were mostly soldiers returning home, or some local southerners going to St. Louis. It's not like the cream of society on the Titanic, or various prominent theatrical and literary people on the Lusitania. Ironically enough, if the wreckage of the Titanic and Lusitania are still available for underwater study, Sultana is not like that. The channels of the Mississippi River constantly change, and what was once water becomes mud, then rich land. The wreckage of the Sultana was located about half a century ago on a farmer's bean field (or something like that) underground.

[Imagine planting corn and finding a smokestack! ]

J.D., before blaming either of the Mayor Dailys (or is it Mayor Dailies) or John Charles Daily for that matter (remember him?), let's just leave the fault in the hands of science, or nature, or the Deity. New York City is also on a fault, which I believe is called "the Raritan Fault." In any case, the fault, dear J.D.,
is not in the stars but in ourselves.

Plang, there is a possibility that New York City can be victimized by sea as well. We are overdue for a return hurricaine (the last violent one to hit the area is the 1938 one that touched New York City, but battered Long Island and New England - in particular Rhode Island). There is a chance for a future major tsunami started by a possible land slide in (I believe) the Canary Islands, where one island has a chance of partly slipping a large chunk of ground into the sea (causing a major "ripple" affect). Finally, if global warming continues - well the sea level may not affect me in Flushing, but the Rockaways, Coney Island, and Fire Island may become things of the past.

Best wishes,

Jeff

[Doctor X]

Certainly New York has many faults, not the least of which is Mr. Hanky the Yankees Poo--"He hates me! He'll fire you!"

Sherman was threatened with court martial for his treatment of Johnson. Johnson may have bothered him in Georgia, but Cump got him in the Carolinas. Johnson boasted that no army could make it through the swamps, and Cump did it in a way that made his March look like a foraging expedition. Men slept in trees.

He had conferred with Lincoln regarding the terms for the Confederates.

Lincoln was assassinated.

As you note, Sherman gave very lenient terms to Johnson such that Johnson remarked that he previously thought the worse thing that could happen to him would be to meet Sherman on a field.

Washington--Stanton as you note--reacted very badly to this and ordered him to change the terms. Stanton and others attacked him viciously and hinted at court martial. However, Sherman had two things going for him. First, he was Sherman and a veritable hero and star. Second, he had the firm backing of Grant. Stanton and his ilk backed down.

Famously, Sherman publicly ignored Stanton's hand during the last "Grand Review" of the Union Army in Washington. He was greeted as a hero.

Yes, Sherman and Johnson became friends as did a number of other "old warriors."

It would have been interesting if Lincoln had survived. He favored a very lenient reconstruction. How would he have reacted to the South attempting to prevent freed slaves from becoming citizens and then voting? How would have have dealt with the "radical Republicans" who refused to seat Southern politicians until Amendments were ratified . . . et cetera.

Andrew Johnson was impeached--but not convicted--based on a bad law. He broke a law that was patently unconstitutional, but the fool did not wait for the proper challenge. This "law" was designed to prevent a President from firing his cabinet members without approval of the Congress--as in . . . Stanton!

Lincoln would have avoided that and there is no way in Big Daddy's Green Earth that Lincoln gets impeached.

Historians can go nuts wondering about what would have happened.

--J.D.

[plang]

Hi Jeff! Johnston, Sherman, Davis, Hood, would have liked to put a sniper bullet between their eyes. That takes care of that!
Mississippi River. A major means of transporting cargo, anything else is irrelevant. According to the profiteers.
Except when something happens whereas they get screwed.
The American Civil War is still a case in study.

[Celesta]

Hi Jeff, Thank you for posting that on Joe Johnston. The sense here, in the Atlanta area, is that Davis screwed-up, when he replaced Johnston with Hood. I'm glad to see that local lore holds up. It's been a long time since I've been up to Kennesaw. It used to be a very nice site, well tended, and of course the mountain is a nice part of the visit. You can drive all the way to the top. We took picknicks to site in our younger days, being careful to keep our wine bottle out of site! Anyway, the story of the battle was told pretty well, at spots around the site. There's an old stagecoach road there that is a cut deeply into its bed and, you get a sense of looking into the past, as if you could just walk down the road into history. Well, that's how I remember it.

Thanks again. Loved the smokestack in the cornfield!

Celesta

[Celesta]

Hi J.D., That's interesting additional information, and, yeah, historians, and plebs like me, could make themselves nuts speculating. It would have been interesting to see how things developed, if Lincoln had not been shot. I wonder if some of the hard feelings that came about after the war would have been avoided if he hadn't been. I always got the feeling from the old folks here that it was less the loss of the war that bothered people and more the way things developed after the war. Carpet baggers are still not liked.

Gotta run. Will pick up later. Thanks, Doc.

[Mike Covell]

Walked into a bargain bookstore in the city centre, situated under "The Old Customs House" were Robert D'Onston Stephenson once worked and picked up a H.Rider Haggard double pack featuring "She" and "Ayesha, The Return of She" all for £1.99!!

I also picked up a copy of James Morton's "Gangland The Early Years" for £1.99, it features a chapter on the Ripper in America and looks at Tumblety!!

Other than that I have been resting, the weather has been really odd here, rain in the morning, sunny by lunch time, hailstone by afternoon, sun and showers by tea time, and thunder and lighting by bed time!!

I have built a massive shelter over the rabbit hutch, just so I can clean "Noddy" and "Tessie Bear" out......thats what happens when you let a 4 year old name them!! I would have prefered "Jason" and "Freddie"

[Mayerling]

Hi all,

I sometimes wish that Doc Tumblety could be developed into a stronger suspect than he is - it would unify two of my favorite subjects: Jack the Ripper and the American Civil War (in Doc's case his presumed connection to Lincoln's Assassination).

Lincoln was such a superior politician to Andy Johnson that one can safely assume his second term would have moved more smoothly, but whether he could have accomplished a lasting peaceful transition is another matter.
It was suggested in a book about a later era that had Woodrow Wilson died of the stroke he had in 1919 in Pueblo, Colorado, fighting for the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, his memory would have been far more intensely felt in this country than it became following his decline in health and growing ineptitude in confronting Senator Lodge and his forces. Certainly Vice President Thomas "What this country needs is a good five cent cigar" Marshall was more willing to compromise with Lodge, and the treaty might have gotten through. Similarly a longer lasting Lincoln might have had more failures in his second term. Second terms are usually not successful for Presidents.

Best wishes,

Jeff

[plang]

My goodness Celesta! Your Confederate sympathies were blatantly revealed!
To Arms!!
Hiya Mayerling. Most 'good ' Presidents are assassinated. That explains why Dubya is still alive.
Mike, rabbit stew is quite good if done right. Explaining that to your kids is hard.

[Mike Covell]

Back in 1999, my sister had a pet rabbit for her kids and called me one morning to ask if it was ok to wake the rabbit during hibernation, as the hutch was starting to smell!!

I informed her that rabbit's do not hibernate and she asked if I could pop round to take a look.

A bad case of frost had frozen the poor thing, and she thought it had been hibernating for over a week!



Well, it's local election day here in the uk, I am supposed to be off to vote, but cannot find my polling card anywere!!

Lost the wifes too

[plang]

Mike, it's not nice to make fun of your sister. So did you boil the rabbit?
Local election? Like city council or some damn thing? Who gives a

[Mike Covell]

Local Election means you get loads of junk letters from someone you could not give two hoots about!

One had the cheek to write about the "Local Chineese" now if you cannot spell, how can you run the ward!!

He he, no rabbit pie yet, my old work mate used to make Pigeon Pie, quite nice actually.

[Celesta]

My goodness Celesta! Your Confederate sympathies were blatantly revealed!
To Arms!!
Hiya Mayerling. Most 'good ' Presidents are assassinated. That explains why Dubya is still alive.
Mike, rabbit stew is quite good if done right. Explaining that to your kids is hard.

Consider me geographically challenged, I guess. "To Arms!" Unlike Venus, I, at least have them.

I ain't eating no bunnies, and no buffalo.

[Celesta]

Hi all,

I sometimes wish that Doc Tumblety could be developed into a stronger suspect than he is - it would unify two of my favorite subjects: Jack the Ripper and the American Civil War (in Doc's case his presumed connection to Lincoln's Assassination).

Lincoln was such a superior politician to Andy Johnson that one can safely assume his second term would have moved more smoothly, but whether he could have accomplished a lasting peaceful transition is another matter.
It was suggested in a book about a later era that had Woodrow Wilson died of the stroke he had in 1919 in Pueblo, Colorado, fighting for the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, his memory would have been far more intensely felt in this country than it became following his decline in health and growing ineptitude in confronting Senator Lodge and his forces. Certainly Vice President Thomas "What this country needs is a good five cent cigar" Marshall was more willing to compromise with Lodge, and the treaty might have gotten through. Similarly a longer lasting Lincoln might have had more failures in his second term. Second terms are usually not successful for Presidents.

Best wishes,

Jeff

Yeah, I can agree that Johnson was not that swift a side-stepper as some of his colleagues. He seems a sad figure to me.

[Doctor X]

McKinley. . . .

Johnson was a from different party chosen for unity. Technically, Lincoln is one of the few "third-party Presidents"--the Republicans joined with Union-loyal Democrats to form the "National Union Party" for the election. Use that next time some schmuck asks you who the first President was . . . of the original Confederacy after the American Revolution. They were not "Presidents of the United States," so the question is [Get on with it!--Ed.]

Er . . . right, anyways, the Republicans simply were not going to tolerate a Democrat from the South as President. Johnson did not make it any easier. He was also not exactly a proponent of civil rights--vetoing the Civil Rights Act. He could not compromise with the more moderate Republicans. He was the wrong guy at the wrong time.

Unheard of now, he became a Senator a few years after leaving office.

--J.D.

[Mayerling]

Hi all,

Technically Lincoln is the only President who was elected from two "minority" third parties. He was the second candidate of the Republicans in 1860 (General John Charles "Pathfinder" Fremont was the first in 1856), and he only won because the Democrats split and self-destructed between Douglas and Breckenridge. The Whigs still had a remnant called the Constitution Party running John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts.

The Republicans seriously considered dumping Lincoln in 1864, even after he got nominated (although he called the party the Union Party, and ran with Democrat Andrew Johnson). There were serious attempts to get Fremont to run again, or replace Lincoln with Treasury Secretary Chase.

The Republicans really first elected a President without trouble in 1868 when
Grant got elected the first time.

His opponent, former Governor (and Copperhead) Horatio Seymour almost closed the gap over Grant in the last month of campaigning.

By the way, Horatio Seymour's "copperhead" sympathies to the South in the Civil War were the first signs of his family's tendencies to question and belittle American War efforts. His great granddaughter (or possible great great granddaughter - I'm not sure which) is Jane Fonda (her mother was Frances Seymour, who married Henry Fonda).

Best wishes,

Jeff