the Hyperion Chronicles
“Shore, I stole. But I stole for you!”
#133 History 101: Stranger than Fiction
This was supposed to go out last Friday, but then I realized Americans wouldn’t be at work that day and non-Americans wouldn’t care what day it came out on. The following items are true little tidbits from American history. If you are an American, you can marvel at your deep and rich heritage. And the rest of you can wonder how on Earth The United States ever got as far as it has.
A day by any other name…
To start with, the 4th of July was never supposed to be the holiday Americans have come to know and love (if, for no other reason, to light off fireworks and get stinking drunk). The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4th, but signed over several days, ending in August. It was drafted and accepted, though, on the 2nd. As original Continental Congress member (and later the first Vice President and second President) John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776:
“The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”
That man knew how to throw a party! But you see the point. Adams clearly thought July 2nd was the pivotal day, but that has forever been lost in the mists of time.
Quincy in the House! (of Representatives)
John Adams’s son, John Quincy Adams, or “Q-Dawg,” as his contemporaries called him, has his own great story. Quincy Adams was elected president too, and both before and after that Q-Dawg served in Congress. There, especially as an old man, Quincy gained a reputation for being all knowing. Any time the opposition would try something, Quincy Adams seemed to know about it ahead of time, and would be ready to block.
The secret was in acoustics. Quincy Adams had his desk placed just so in the Capitol building, under that big dome (you’ve seen the pictures), and the sound waves all converged on his spot; enabling him to hear every conversation around him, no matter how far away. So, while his enemies would be over at someone’s desk plotting their moves, Quincy Adams would pretend to sleep at his own desk (he was an old man by then), and hear everything. Isn’t that cool?
A stitch in time…is a hard thing to prove
Sometimes just the opposite happens, and instead of a story being lost in time, it actually gets inflated, or made up entirely. Many have heard the tale of Washington and the cherry tree, or how the crack got in the Liberty Bell; completely untrue. My favorite of these, though, is the case of Betsy Ross. Most Americans can tell you that she sewed the first American Flag, but they probably don’t know that bit of information comes from…Betsy Ross’s own heirs! There is not one bit of evidence that Ross ever sewed the flag, and historians have completely debunked this myth. Nonetheless, the story persists. My favorite reaction is LIFE Magazine’s, in their cash-in-on-September 11th book The American Spirit:
Whether or not the design that was ratified by an Act of the American Congress on June 14, 1777, was first rendered in bulldog cotton by George Washington’s friend Betsy Ross, is inconsequential here.
You’ve got to love that! They tacitly acknowledge the whole thing is bogus, but claim it doesn’t matter. I wonder if this would have worked with my history teacher?
I wonder if this would work with Adultery…
By the way: I always try to make my motto (right after “the Hyperion Chronicles”) some sort of reference. The same is true here too. It comes from Southern Politics. For those of you who are not Americans, or, even worse, Yankees, the South has a special kind of political system, by which I mean not only is it corrupt like everywhere else, but Southerners seem to be genuinely proud of the rascals they elect. One legendary politician from Georgia was Eugene Talmadge. Talmadge, like most Southern officials, was a huge grafter. When he was called on it once at a campaign stop, he reportedly told the crowd, “Shore, I stole. But I stole for you!” He was reelected.
I think my football coach was a descendent of these guys…
Then there is the funny yet extremely sad tale of “The Crater.” This has to be the most bizarre tale to come out of the Civil War, and that’s saying something. Many of you have studied the Civil War, but we’re mostly taught only about the major conflicts, like the Battle of Bull Run, The Second Battle of Bull Run (Heifer’s Revenge), Gettysburg, and the like. But even when major manufacturers weren’t sponsoring battles, there was still fighting every single day all along the contested borders.
In one such incident, Major General Ambrose Burnside (incidentally, the inspiration for the word “sideburns”) got the idea to mine the Confederate base defending Petersburg, Virginia. For weeks digging went on twenty feet below ground as the Union forces tunneled underneath the Rebel camp.
Unfortunately, in this war when brother fought against brother, and people changed sides all the time, secrets were hard to keep, and long before the North used all their dynamite the South found out about the operation. So, on July 30, 1864, when it all went down, most of the Confederate troops were safely out of harm’s way.
Well, the explosion was huge, causing a gigantic Crater, and when the Northern soldiers got there they saw the Southerners who hadn’t gotten out bleeding and dying in the hole. Human compassion overcame them and unit after unit pored down into the Crater to help their fellow man.
The Southern forces, meanwhile, had regrouped on the other side, at the top of a hill, and looked down into the Crater. Seeing all those Union Army soldiers in the hole and unable to get back out, the Rebs started shooting them like fish in a barrel.
It was an absolute slaughter; the biggest one-day loss of life for the Union outside of the major battles, and let to eight more months of trench warfare to take Petersburg. It’s almost too horrible to laugh about 139 years later. Almost.
I wonder if Florida would elect him today…
Last, no column on quirks in American history would be complete without telling you about David Rice Atchison, who may or may not have been the 12th president of the United States.
When James Polk refused to run again in 1848, Zachary Taylor was able to win the election, and according to the Constitution at the time, Polk’s term ended at midnight on March 3, 1849. Unfortunately, March 4 of that year fell on a Sunday, and as a devout Christian, Taylor adamantly refused to take the oath of office until Monday the 5th.
So who was actually president on March 4, 1849? Well, if something had happened, the job and power would have belonged to the President Pro Tem of the Senate, our good friend David Rice Atchison.
But Atchison was a heavy drinker—I’m talking Ted Kennedy drunk—and after attending a rousing inaugural party Saturday night Atchison spent all of Sunday the 4th sleeping off a wicked hangover. He never even knew about the whole thing until it was over.
And yet: he never raised taxes. He never started a war. He never made an interminable speech, and he never blocked traffic for three hours while getting a haircut. In fact, there are those who say (well, there aren’t really, but go with me) that David Rice Atchison was the greatest President America ever had.
Too bad he’s dead. Or is he?
Hyperion
July 7, 2003
Credits
Thanks to K’oz
Thanks to Robert for telling me about Talmadge
Thanks to LIFE Magazine for placing sales over honesty
Thanks to Abigail Adams, for marrying such a party dude and giving birth to Q-Dawg, who would have made a great secret agent
Thanks to the relatives of Betsy Ross, who realized the American dream: profiting over patriotism.
Thanks to David Rice Atchison. We miss you, big guy!
@2003 the Hyperion Chronicles
“Shore, I stole. But I stole for you!”
#133 History 101: Stranger than Fiction
This was supposed to go out last Friday, but then I realized Americans wouldn’t be at work that day and non-Americans wouldn’t care what day it came out on. The following items are true little tidbits from American history. If you are an American, you can marvel at your deep and rich heritage. And the rest of you can wonder how on Earth The United States ever got as far as it has.
A day by any other name…
To start with, the 4th of July was never supposed to be the holiday Americans have come to know and love (if, for no other reason, to light off fireworks and get stinking drunk). The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4th, but signed over several days, ending in August. It was drafted and accepted, though, on the 2nd. As original Continental Congress member (and later the first Vice President and second President) John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776:
“The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”
That man knew how to throw a party! But you see the point. Adams clearly thought July 2nd was the pivotal day, but that has forever been lost in the mists of time.
Quincy in the House! (of Representatives)
John Adams’s son, John Quincy Adams, or “Q-Dawg,” as his contemporaries called him, has his own great story. Quincy Adams was elected president too, and both before and after that Q-Dawg served in Congress. There, especially as an old man, Quincy gained a reputation for being all knowing. Any time the opposition would try something, Quincy Adams seemed to know about it ahead of time, and would be ready to block.
The secret was in acoustics. Quincy Adams had his desk placed just so in the Capitol building, under that big dome (you’ve seen the pictures), and the sound waves all converged on his spot; enabling him to hear every conversation around him, no matter how far away. So, while his enemies would be over at someone’s desk plotting their moves, Quincy Adams would pretend to sleep at his own desk (he was an old man by then), and hear everything. Isn’t that cool?
A stitch in time…is a hard thing to prove
Sometimes just the opposite happens, and instead of a story being lost in time, it actually gets inflated, or made up entirely. Many have heard the tale of Washington and the cherry tree, or how the crack got in the Liberty Bell; completely untrue. My favorite of these, though, is the case of Betsy Ross. Most Americans can tell you that she sewed the first American Flag, but they probably don’t know that bit of information comes from…Betsy Ross’s own heirs! There is not one bit of evidence that Ross ever sewed the flag, and historians have completely debunked this myth. Nonetheless, the story persists. My favorite reaction is LIFE Magazine’s, in their cash-in-on-September 11th book The American Spirit:
Whether or not the design that was ratified by an Act of the American Congress on June 14, 1777, was first rendered in bulldog cotton by George Washington’s friend Betsy Ross, is inconsequential here.
You’ve got to love that! They tacitly acknowledge the whole thing is bogus, but claim it doesn’t matter. I wonder if this would have worked with my history teacher?
I wonder if this would work with Adultery…
By the way: I always try to make my motto (right after “the Hyperion Chronicles”) some sort of reference. The same is true here too. It comes from Southern Politics. For those of you who are not Americans, or, even worse, Yankees, the South has a special kind of political system, by which I mean not only is it corrupt like everywhere else, but Southerners seem to be genuinely proud of the rascals they elect. One legendary politician from Georgia was Eugene Talmadge. Talmadge, like most Southern officials, was a huge grafter. When he was called on it once at a campaign stop, he reportedly told the crowd, “Shore, I stole. But I stole for you!” He was reelected.
I think my football coach was a descendent of these guys…
Then there is the funny yet extremely sad tale of “The Crater.” This has to be the most bizarre tale to come out of the Civil War, and that’s saying something. Many of you have studied the Civil War, but we’re mostly taught only about the major conflicts, like the Battle of Bull Run, The Second Battle of Bull Run (Heifer’s Revenge), Gettysburg, and the like. But even when major manufacturers weren’t sponsoring battles, there was still fighting every single day all along the contested borders.
In one such incident, Major General Ambrose Burnside (incidentally, the inspiration for the word “sideburns”) got the idea to mine the Confederate base defending Petersburg, Virginia. For weeks digging went on twenty feet below ground as the Union forces tunneled underneath the Rebel camp.
Unfortunately, in this war when brother fought against brother, and people changed sides all the time, secrets were hard to keep, and long before the North used all their dynamite the South found out about the operation. So, on July 30, 1864, when it all went down, most of the Confederate troops were safely out of harm’s way.
Well, the explosion was huge, causing a gigantic Crater, and when the Northern soldiers got there they saw the Southerners who hadn’t gotten out bleeding and dying in the hole. Human compassion overcame them and unit after unit pored down into the Crater to help their fellow man.
The Southern forces, meanwhile, had regrouped on the other side, at the top of a hill, and looked down into the Crater. Seeing all those Union Army soldiers in the hole and unable to get back out, the Rebs started shooting them like fish in a barrel.
It was an absolute slaughter; the biggest one-day loss of life for the Union outside of the major battles, and let to eight more months of trench warfare to take Petersburg. It’s almost too horrible to laugh about 139 years later. Almost.
I wonder if Florida would elect him today…
Last, no column on quirks in American history would be complete without telling you about David Rice Atchison, who may or may not have been the 12th president of the United States.
When James Polk refused to run again in 1848, Zachary Taylor was able to win the election, and according to the Constitution at the time, Polk’s term ended at midnight on March 3, 1849. Unfortunately, March 4 of that year fell on a Sunday, and as a devout Christian, Taylor adamantly refused to take the oath of office until Monday the 5th.
So who was actually president on March 4, 1849? Well, if something had happened, the job and power would have belonged to the President Pro Tem of the Senate, our good friend David Rice Atchison.
But Atchison was a heavy drinker—I’m talking Ted Kennedy drunk—and after attending a rousing inaugural party Saturday night Atchison spent all of Sunday the 4th sleeping off a wicked hangover. He never even knew about the whole thing until it was over.
And yet: he never raised taxes. He never started a war. He never made an interminable speech, and he never blocked traffic for three hours while getting a haircut. In fact, there are those who say (well, there aren’t really, but go with me) that David Rice Atchison was the greatest President America ever had.
Too bad he’s dead. Or is he?
Hyperion
July 7, 2003
Credits
Thanks to K’oz
Thanks to Robert for telling me about Talmadge
Thanks to LIFE Magazine for placing sales over honesty
Thanks to Abigail Adams, for marrying such a party dude and giving birth to Q-Dawg, who would have made a great secret agent
Thanks to the relatives of Betsy Ross, who realized the American dream: profiting over patriotism.
Thanks to David Rice Atchison. We miss you, big guy!
@2003 the Hyperion Chronicles
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