Historum - History Forums - Blogs http://historum.com/blogs/ Historum History Discussion Forums en Sat, 25 May 2013 00:55:12 GMT vBulletin 60 http://cdn.historum.com/images/classic/misc/rss.jpg Historum - History Forums - Blogs http://historum.com/blogs/ The Making of Taj Mahal http://historum.com/blogs/sumitsoren/1659-making-taj-mahal.html Tue, 21 May 2013 16:40:14 GMT Please read how the Taj Mahal was constructed. click on my blog link. http://sumitsoren1983.blogspot.com/2011/11/making-of-taj-mahal.html Please read how the Taj Mahal was constructed.

click on my blog link.

http://sumitsoren1983.blogspot.com/2...taj-mahal.html ]]> sumitsoren http://historum.com/blogs/sumitsoren/1659-making-taj-mahal.html The Execution of William B. Mumford http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1657-execution-william-b-mumford.html Tue, 21 May 2013 01:36:51 GMT 'They will fear the stripes, even if they do not revere the bars of our flag'
-Ben Butler

American history is replete with dark irony. In May of 1862, Union general Benjamin F. Butler captured New Orleans from the Confederacy, and became its military governor. Exactly half a century earlier, his father, Captain John Butler, had helped defend New Orleans from the British.

Ben Butler was perhaps one of the most controversial generals of the American Civil War. Born in 1818, he started his career as a criminal lawyer. By the outbreak of the Civil War, he was infamous for being a corrupt and shifty politician. In another great irony, he supposedly voted - fifty-seven times - to nominate Jefferson Davis as the Democratic presidential candidate in 1860.

The man who so passionately supported a states rights, pro-slavery candidate in 1860 became a staunch Unionist in 1861. During military service in the Virginia Theater at the beginning of the War, Butler refused to return several runaway slaves to their Rebel masters, claiming them as 'contraband of war'. It would hardly be the last time that he took a militant stance towards the Confederate South.

Living in New Orleans at the start of the War, was a man named William Bruce Mumford. The date of his birth is unknown - he was a veteran of both the Seminole and Mexican Wars, meaning he was likely in his forties at the youngest. He was married; his wife was substantially younger than himself, but had already given him several children. Mumford was vocal in his patriotism for the newly-declared Confederate States of America.

The Union's navy beat Butler into New Orleans by several days. Sailors under Admiral Farragut raised the American Flag over the US Mint of the city on April 28th, 1862. Almost immediately afterwards, a pack of pro-Confederate citizens tore the flag down. They dragged it through the streets of the city before tearing it to shreds, each man taking a piece as a momento. When Butler entered the city several days later, he proclaimed his intentions to catch and punish the miscreants who had desecrated the US Flag.

Not long afterwards, Bill Mumford was witnessed strutting through the streets of New Orleans with a tattered piece of the flag stuffed into the buttonhole of his shirt; one witness later claimed to have overheard Mumford bragging about his supposed leadership of the mob that first took the flag down. He was promptly arrested by Union soldiers, and was tried with treason by a military tribunal.

Mumford pled not guilty; despite the claims of the witness, he said he was not the ringleader of the group. This did not phase Ben Butler, who formally sentenced Mumford to death on June 5th. This caused a barrage of popular protest in New Orleans. Some citizens begged for Mumford's life, while others bombarded the Union general with hate mail and death threats. The intensity of the protests on Mumford's behalf only deepened Butler's resolve to go through with the execution.

On the night of June 6th, the youthful Mrs. Mumford and her brood of small children received an audience with General Butler. The condemned man's wife begged pitiful for her husband's life, and the children 'fell about my knees', as Butler later recollected. The Union general remained stoical. He told Mrs. Mumford that she should say goodbye to her husband, and offered to help her in any way he possibly could. This offer, though it sounded like mockery at the time, was evidentally taken seriously by both parties, as will later be revealed.

Late on the morning of June 7th, William Bruce Mumford was escorted to the very Mint where he first desecrated the flag. He was given permission to give a final speech, which was defiant and full of pro-Confederate patriotism. Then, the trapdoor at his feet was dropped, and Mumford strangled to death.

Had he not been executed for his impetuous act, history would have never remembered William Mumford. His death caused a fire-storm of protest in the Confederacy; Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Louisiana governor Thomas Overton Moore all expressed outrage - particularly in light of the fact that Mumford was executed for a crime commited before the Union had fully occupied the city. Davis gave all soldiers of the Confederacy permission to execute Butler on sight if they ever captured him alive.

Butler continued to stir controversy in New Orleans. The belles of the city became haughty and verbally abusive towards Federal soldiers; thus, Butler issued the 'Woman Order', giving his men to treat such women like prostitutes. His alleged theft of precious silverware from wealthy citizens earned him the nickname 'Spoons', while others preferred to call him 'Beast Butler'. His Civil War career continued to be full of controversy, but not so full of legitimate battlefield successes.

In 1869, Benjamin Butler was serving his first term as a Massachusetts congressman when he received a shocking visitor - the widowed Mrs. Mumford. Having fallen on bad times financially, the widow took Butler up on his promise to help her if ever she needed him. The very man who had pitilessly executed her husband, now used his political connections to win her a well-paying job. It was one, last dark irony in the story of Benjamin Butler's occupation of New Orleans. ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1657-execution-william-b-mumford.html Sino-Japanese Relations: A Selected Bibliography http://historum.com/blogs/f0ma/1656-sino-japanese-relations-selected-bibliography.html Mon, 20 May 2013 17:08:39 GMT Image: http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/7278/bibliography.png A reading guide for pre-1911 Sino-Japanese relations, for anyone interested. By...

A reading guide for pre-1911 Sino-Japanese relations, for anyone interested. By no means an exhaustive list, just a collection of books I've come across in my travels.

General History:


Classical:


Medieval:


Imperial:




Mongol Invasions:




Imjin War:




(Best avoided if at all possible)
Early Modern:



First Sino-Japanese War:



]]> f0ma http://historum.com/blogs/f0ma/1656-sino-japanese-relations-selected-bibliography.html Burnside - Stuck in the Mud http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1655-burnside-stuck-mud.html Sun, 19 May 2013 21:11:19 GMT 'Burnside may be unfit to command this army; his present plan may be absurd, and failure certain; but his lieutenants have no right to say so to their subordinates'
- Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, artillery chief of the Union First Corps


Ambrose Burnside was twice offered command of the Union Army of the Potomac. A modest man in an Army full of pompous and devious officers, Burnside frankly confessed that he was not up for the challenge. The first time, he flatly refused; the second time, he only reluctantly accepted command after the removal of his friend George McClellan.

Burnside's Fredericksburg Campaign in December of 1862 began on a positive note, but by the evening of December 13th it had become one of the most bloody and embarrassing Union reverses of the War. The Union commander was relying on the quick arrival of pontoon bridges, allowing his men to sweep across the Rappahannock into the town itself. The delay in receiving these bridges gave Robert E. Lee more time to brace himself for Burnside's assault. Over the course of the day, Burnside ordered fourteen piecemeal charges, each of which was shattered by Confederates crouching behind a stone wall.

A truce was finally agreed on December 15th, and that night the Army of the Potomac withdrew across the Rappahannock. As accounts of the battle and its catastrophic losses reached the Northern press, the Union states erupted in grief and fury. Some accused Burnside of incompetence or even duplicity, while others railed against the Lincoln administration for allegedly pushing him into a premature encounter with Lee. Lincoln himself plunged into deep depression. 'If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it' he said to a visitor, and a reporter commented on his increasingly poor hygiene and visible stoop in his posture.

Burnside's name has since become a byword for incompetence. At Fredericksburg, however, his main handicaps seem to have been bad luck, and the sour attitudes of his generals. William B. Franklin and Joseph Hooker, commanding the Left and Center 'Grand Divisions', respectively, took their opposition to Burnside to almost mutinous levels. No general could hope to win victories with such blatantly uncooperative subordinates, and the storm of politicking and back-biting that followed the debacle at Fredericksburg reveals just how troublesome these generals had become.

On December 30th, Franklin granted two of his brigadiers leave - so they could visit Washington and 'try to have things made right'. In a conference with the President, they vocalized the widespread opposition to Burnside in the Army, and their lack of faith in his plans for a renewed attack via the Rappahannock. After this meeting, Lincoln telegraphed Burnside, asking him not to make another 'general movement' without his knowledge.

The first day of 1863 found Burnside in Washington, meeting with Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck. Angry when he learned of Lincoln's visitors, Burnside attempted to resign. Lincoln would have none of it, and that same day he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Burnside returned to the Army of the Potomac, and began plotting his next move.

Morale plummeted in the Army of the Potomac in the month after Fredericksburg. In the last week of January, 25,363 soldiers of the Army were known to have deserted. The mood of the rest was sullen and gloomy. Some were bitter over the slaughter at Fredericksburg, which, like the civilian population, they variously blamed on Lincoln, Burnside, the Radical Republicans, or the Democrats. Others were outraged at the corruption and incompetence of the Army's supply system - rations were poor and many regiments had not been issued sufficient winter gear. Union and Confederate soldiers widely meet to trade during the winter, and many Federals reported dismally that the Rebels generally had a more optimistic attitude.

At one point in January of 1863, Burnside reviewed a unit of soldiers. Their officers ordered them to give him three cheers - but their only response was a stony silence. It was not Burnside's fault that his generals were plotting against him, or that the harshness of winter had turned soldiering into a life of monotone boredom and misery. But the surviving comrades of the nearly 13,000 men who became casualties at Fredericksburg could hardly bring themselves to cheer for a man who had thrown away so many lives, without exacting any advantage for his own cause.

Ambrose Burnside was not a coward - indeed, he had wanted to lead a charge in person after watching his attacks at Marye's Heights fail. The public outcry, and the stigma of his over-cautious predecessor also motivated him to act, quickly and decisively. Thus, he resolved to launch another massive foray across the Rappahannock, this time at Bank's Ford, upriver from Fredericksburg. The movement was set to begin at one in the afternoon on January 20th, with Franklin's Left Grand Division forming the Union vanguard. The men of at least one regiment are known to have erupted with protests and abusive jokes at Burnside's expense when they were informed of the planned movement.

Military offensives in the winter have always been a relative rarity, and often end poorly. The American Civil War was no exception to this rule; the troops were usually occupied building cozy winter quarters, skirmishing with enemy pickets, and looking for chances to get in to drunken mischief to ward off the frigid boredom. Burnside's offensive plan was greeted with dismay and disgust within the ranks of his Army, and with shock - followed by amusement - on the opposite side of the River.

What has become known as the 'Mud March' actually began without any of Burnside's customary bad luck, but this had changed by the night of the 20th, when an icy rain began to pummel the Union troops. For the entirety of January 21st, it rained, turning the ground under the Army's feet into a liquid mud. Amidst torrents of cursing and grumbling, soldiers wrestled cannons and wagons through the mud, while pieces of equipment - and eventually, even horses and mules - were swallowed up in the mire.

On January 22nd, the rain and the mud continued to make life unbearable for the Federals. Several regiments were given an allowance of whiskey - this resulted in an outbreak of drunken brawling. Men and pack animals collapsed in exhaustion, and the latter died by the hundreds. Confederate soldiers on the opposite bank watched this scene unfold with great amusement. Some even found the time to paint 'BURNSIDE STUCK IN THE MUD' on wooden planks, which they then held up for the venomously cursing Union troops to see. Finally, the March was called off, and the Army of the Potomac returned to its previous quarters. Almost to a man, the Army was splattered in mud and cursing ferociously. One soldier quipped that Burnside would have been scared for his life if he could have heard the violent rage being expressed around the camp at night.

By January 23rd, Burnside had few allies left in his army. One of them, George Meade, wrote home to his wife that Burnside 'really seems to have even the elements against him'. The other generals were less understanding. Hooker openly insulted Burnside, while Franklin was rumored to have been the ringleader of a plot to put McClellan back in command.

Burnside appears to have born the hatred of his under-officers with a measure of dignity, up until this point. On January 23rd, he snapped, and in a rage he prepared General Orders No. 8. It called for the removal of a a number of generals, including Hooker, Franklin, and Franklin's cronies who had secretly met with Lincoln at the end of December, as well as other generals who had formed an anti-Burnside faction. Of the three commanders of his 'Grand Divisions', only the elderly Edwin V. Sumner was to remain in command.

On January 24th, Burnside met with Lincoln. He handed the President a copy of General Orders No. 8, and his commission as a major general, asking the President to accept either one or the other. The next day, Lincoln made his decision. With General Orders No. 20, Lincoln removed, Burnside, Sumner, and Franklin from their commands in the Army of the Potomac - the former two, by their own request, the latter, because Lincoln could not fail to recognize his poisonous influence. Joe Hooker, however, was seemingly rewarded for his blustery and and nigh-mutinous conduct. He was appointed Burnside's replacement, and Lincoln proclaimed himself ready to 'risk the dictatorship' that Hooker felt was necessary to save the country.

Burnside's services were retained - indeed, outside of the Virginia Theater, his record in the War was generally a good one. Hooker, however, was to disgrace himself in the debacle at Chancellorsville in May of 1863. 'Fighting Joe' had done much to clean up the mess that Burnside had left him with, improving morale, supply issues, and unit identities within the Army of the Potomac. But, unlike Burnside, he was frozen with fear of failure when he finally came face to face with the Army of Northern Virginia. Lincoln had professed a desire to find a general who would understand the 'arithmetic' of the War. He would find him in 1863 - but not in the ranks of the Army of the Potomac.

Primary Sources:

Boatner III, Mark M. - The Civil War Dictionary
Gallagher, Gary (editor) - The Fredericksburg Campaign
Smith, Carl - Fredericksburg 1862
Wert, Jeffry - The Sword of Lincoln ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1655-burnside-stuck-mud.html Ulysses Grant and the Jews http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1654-ulysses-grant-jews.html Sat, 18 May 2013 15:33:33 GMT In October of 1862, Ulysses S Grant found himself the commander of the Union Department of the Tennessee. Two months later, on December 17th, he... In October of 1862, Ulysses S Grant found himself the commander of the Union Department of the Tennessee. Two months later, on December 17th, he issued one of the most controversial orders of the War, which was to become - along with the bogus allegations of alcoholism - one of the ugliest stains on the great soldier's career.

'General Order No. 11' was issued to expel 'Jews as a class' from Grant's Department, with the rationale that persons of Jewish faith had been engaging in cotton smuggling behind Confederate lines. President Lincoln rescinded the Order as soon as he heard of it, after receiving protests from horrified loyal Jews among others. Out of the several hundred-thousand Jews living in the Union states, it is modernly believed that less than one hundred were personally hurt by General Order No. 11. The damage that this blunder would do to Grant's reputation, however, was only beginning.

Some 10,000 Jews were serving in the Union Army; a smaller but substantial number fought for the Confederacy. Many were European immigrants - particularly from Prussia - who had fled to America in the 1840s to escape anti-Semitic regulations and popular hatred. Outraged and frightened at Grant's Order, some American Jews feared that their problems had followed them across the Atlantic. Some Jewish communities labelled Grant another 'Haman', that infamous Biblical villain who plotted to destroy all the Jews of Persia.

Grant was condemned by large sections of the Jewish-American community for the rest of the War, and afterwards. He publically apologized in 1868, and expressed regret and embarrassment at his order for the rest of his life. Both Jewish and gentile reactions to his apologies varied greatly, but by the end of his second term in the White House most were convinced that his repentence was sincere. General Order No. 11 was issued in the heat of the moment, and was fuelled by ignorance, not malice.

Grant held two presidencies, from 1869-1877. He presided over America during the peak of the Reconstruction Era, doing his best to live up to his campaign slogan - 'let us have peace'. He is credited with combating the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and standing up for the newly-won liberties of African-Americans. Indeed, in a post-war America, a rising power in an era of Western Enlightenment, Grant strove to encourage both religious and racial harmony in the nation.

Grant made a conspicuous effort to win the support and the trust of the Jewish community, not before, but during his first term. He appointed more Jews to positions of governmental authority than any president before him or a long time afterwards, and courted the friendship of many prominent Jewish rabbis and thinkers. During his second term, he displayed great concern at the plight of Jews living in both Russia and Romania, where they were subjected to vicious bouts of anti-Semitic violence.

Though there is no reliable source to back it up, legend claims that Grant even started to eat kosher during the last few years of his life. Many prominent Jewish-Americans expressed their good wishes during his battle with throat cancer, and the condolences to his mourning family when he lost that battle in July of 1885. Jewish communities across America and the world mourned for him and honored his memory in their worship services.

Even one of Grant's pallbearers, E. B. M. Browne, was not only a Jew, but an influential rabbi. With Grant's burial taking place over the Jewish Shabbat, Browne felt it was not right to ride to the funeral in a train. As a result, he famously traveled to the funeral on foot, securing for himself a place in Jewish-American folklore for his refusal to break the Shabbat.

Grant was a sincere and honest man in a nation recovering from total war and entering into a new phase of avarice and grotesque political corruption - indeed, it was his loyalty to those beneath him, rather than any personal vices, that led his presidencies to become infamous for their corruption. He was also hard on himself for his personal failings. In few areas of his life was this better revealed than his sincere and sensitive - even obsessive - efforts to court the forgiveness of the Jewish-American community. ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1654-ulysses-grant-jews.html The Death of A. P. Hill, April 2nd, 1865 http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1652-death-p-hill-april-2nd-1865.html Fri, 17 May 2013 20:49:11 GMT Ambrose Powell Hill (1825 - 1865) was a Virginian and a graduate of West Point. Despite his personal hatred of slavery and his dubious attitude... Ambrose Powell Hill (1825 - 1865) was a Virginian and a graduate of West Point. Despite his personal hatred of slavery and his dubious attitude towards secessionism, he followed his mother state into the Confederacy at the start of the American Civil War. Starting as the colonel of the 13th Virginia Regiment, he quickly rose to higher commands, saving the day for the Confederacy with his timely intervention at Antietam.

In May of 1863, Hill was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and was given command of the Third Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. From here, his previously impressive record began to draw criticism. Controversy surrounded his performance at Gettysburg and the Wilderness, while his poor health - brought on by an STD he contracted as a teenager - put him on sick leave at several points in 1864.

Nonetheless, Hill had performed with energetic competence during the Siege of Petersburg. He spent the later part of March, 1865 on sick leave again, but he returned to the Army on April 1st due to rumors that Grant was about to launch a final assault on the defenses of Petersburg. A clerk of the Third Corps wrote in a letter home that the return of the popular General 'will please us all'.

When Hill arrived back at Petersburg on the morning of April 1st, he was nearly too weak and lethargic to sit in the saddle. His aides observed that the usually friendly and outgoing General was quiet, and seemed to be 'lost in contemplation of his immediate position'. He spent most of the day in the saddle, inspecting the entire line of the Third Corps. Hill's Corps, not unlike his health, had been going downhill rapidly and miserably. Sickness, skirmishes with the Federals, and above all desertion had taken a heavy toll.

Exhausted and in physical agony, Hill was restless on the night of April 1st. Union artillery fire served as an ominous warning of Petersburg's imminent fall; Hill himself was very possibly having premonitions of his own death. Finally, the general rose from his bed, and rode his favorite horse, Champ, to Lee's headquarters on Edge Hill. Here, at four in the morning the two men sat and engaged in a light conversation. It was to be the last meeting between Lee and one of his most gifted subordinates.

This light-hearted conference was suddenly interrupted by Charles Venable, a colonel on Lee's staff, who brought word of the latest Union assault. Federal troops were only half a mile away from where Lee and Hill sat - meaning they had managed to penetrated the entire right of the Confederate line.

Despite his physical misery, this roused Hill to action. The sickly, exhausted Hill of 1864 suddenly turned back into the fiery, energetic Hill of 1862, as he struggled to mount his horse. He rode out to rally his Corps, accompanied by his aides George W. Tucker and William H. Jenkins. Lee sent Colonel Venable after him, with a request that Hill not expose himself to the enemy. It was a request that would go unheeded.

Hill examined his meager lines, which had crumbled in the face of an assault by the Federal VI Corps. Now accompanied only by Tucker, he rode further south, across the Boydton Plank Road. Tucker nervously asked Hill where they were going, and Hill replied 'I mut go to the right as quickly as possible'. Hill was seeking the headquarters of General Henry Heth, and used a clump of woods as cover as they continued their ride.

Suddenly, Hill and Tucker noticed a small band of Union infantrymen were also in the woods. Two of the men sheltered, and aimed their rifles at the Confederates. Hill said to Tucker 'we must take them' and drew his revolver. Tucker implored the General to hang back, and shouted out 'If you fire, you'll be swept to hell! Our men are here! Surrender!' Hill echoed the cry and aimed his weapon at the Federals.

The Union troops were Corporal John W. Mauck and Private Daniel Wolford, both of the 138th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment. Both of them fired, Mauck at Hill, Wolford at Tucker. Wolford missed, but Mauck did not.

The bullet tore Hill's left thumb off, before passing through his heart and out his back. He was killed instantly, and his body fell facedown off his horse. Realizing Hill was dead, Tucker fled and relayed the news to James Longstreet.

A few moments later, Tucker and Colonel William H. Palmer of Hill's staff personally informed Lee of Hill's death. 'Little Powell', though sometimes quarrelsome and independent of mind, was one of the most popular and well-loved men in the Army. Palmer broke down and wept, and silent tears streamed down Lee's face as well.

'He is now at rest, and we who are left are the one to suffer' Lee said quietly, his voice cracking with emotion. Hill had said that he never wished to outlive the Confederacy. Exactly seven days after his death, the Army of Northern Virginia was surrendered to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1652-death-p-hill-april-2nd-1865.html <![CDATA[America's 1871 Korean War]]> http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1647-america-s-1871-korean-war.html Thu, 16 May 2013 22:39:10 GMT OUR LITTLE WAR WITH THE HEATHENS -New York Herald, July 1871 Naturally, when one thinks of American soldiers fighting in Korea, they will think... OUR LITTLE WAR WITH THE HEATHENS
-New York Herald, July 1871

Naturally, when one thinks of American soldiers fighting in Korea, they will think of the 20th Century conflict. However, the United State's first Korean War, the result of diplomatic measures gone sour, occurred only a few years after the guns of the Civil War had silenced.

In the years immediately following the Civil War, the United States Navy had a small naval presence in Korea to assist diplomatic delegations sent to Korea's reclusive government. In May of 1871, Korean forces fired at two American warships. As a result, Secretary of War Hamilton Fish called for an 'expedition' against the 'barbarians'.

The force dispatched to Korea was led by Rear Admiral John Rogers of the Asiatic Squadron. He had at his command around 1,230 sailors and US Marines, bringing with them Remington rifles as well as seven howitzers. Rogers was a veteran of the Civil War, who had been the captain of a Union ironclad. His second-in-command, Winfield Scott Schley, was a Marylander and a fellow veteran of the Union Navy.

The main fighting of this little expedition took place at the beginning of June. The Americans landed at Kanghwa Island, at the mouth of the Han River - about thirty miles to the northeast of Seoul. Here, they captured two small forts, followed by a much more formidable citadel that was situation on a 150-foot hill. In the aftermath of its capture, the citadel caught fire, burning the corpses of most of the Korean dead.

The butcher's bill was stunningly one-sided. The Koreans lost 243 men killed, while another twenty surrendered. Fifty banners and 481 firearms were looted by the victorious Americans. By comparison, the Americans suffered a mere thirteen casualties, only three of which were fatalities. One of these was Lt. Hugh W. McGee, a twenty-seven year old Kentuckian who was the first over the ramparts of the citadel - and was fatally stabbed with a spear.

The American forces withdrew from Kanghwa Island on June 14th, and the Asiatic Squadron itself left Korea on July 3rd. Nine sailors and six Marines were rewarded with the Medal of Honor, to commemorate their service. One of these medals was awarded, posthumously, to young Lieutenant McGee.

Primary Source:

Byron Farwell - Encyclopedia of 19th Century Land Warfare ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1647-america-s-1871-korean-war.html Theodoros Kolokotronis: The Greatest Modern Greek General http://historum.com/blogs/christos200/1646-theodoros-kolokotronis-greatest-modern-greek-general.html Thu, 16 May 2013 16:38:24 GMT Image: http://i.imgur.com/7djR1Md.png 1) *From leader of Kleftes to soldier of the British Army:* Kolokotronis was born in 3 April 1770. His...

1) From leader of Kleftes to soldier of the British Army:

Kolokotronis was born in 3 April 1770. His father, Constantine Kolokotronis, took part in an armed rebellion, the Orlov Revolt, instigated by the administration of Catherine the Great of Russia. He was killed in 1780 in an engagement with Turkish troops, along with two of his brothers George and Apostolis.

Theodoros joined the ranks of a Peloponnesian guerrilla band, and by age fifteen was the leader (kapetanios: captain, warlord) of his own band. In 1806 the Ottomans declared him an outlaw and he managed to escape to Zakynthos, in the Ionian Islands. Most of his 150 men, however, were not so lucky and were killed by the Ottomans. There, in 1809, he joined a corp of Greek infantry in the British army that was fighting the Imperial French Army in the Ionian Islands.

During his time in the Ionian Islands, he was influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte. In his autobiography he wrote:

''According to my judgement, the French Revolution and the doings of Napoleon opened the eyes of the world. The nations knew nothing before and the people thought that kings were gods upon the earth and that they were bound to say that whatever they did as well done.''

2) The Napoleonic Wars:

From September 1809 until April 1810, he fought against the Imperial French in Lefkada. In a fight for a small Fort, Kolokotronis used a trick to defeat the French and at the same time not suffer many loses.

The Greek Army was marching against the Fort, with the British army following right behind. The British thought that the French would fire the Greeks, and until they re-load their weapons, the British would charge and take the Fort.

However, when the French fired, Kolokotronis shouted ''Fall down, dogs'' and the Greeks fell down and so the French hit the British instead of the Greeks. The Greeks lost only 35 men, while the British lost hundreds of men. Then Kolokotronis shouted ''Charge!!'' and the Greeks charged and took the small Fort.

After the takeover of Lefkada, Kolokotronis was promoted to the rank of Major of the Greek infantry corp. In 1817, the Greek corp was disbanded and Kolokotronis joined the Filiki Eteria, a secret organization of Greek patriots. In 1821, he went back to Peloponnese, where the Greek revolution started, and was declared Archistratigos (commander-in-chief) of the Greeks in the Peloponnese.

3) Fighting an Empire with limited resources:

No matter how weak the Ottomans might have been in this period, they still controlled a huge Empire and could muster huge Forces against the Greeks. Kolokotronis not only did not have great numbers, but most of the soldiers were irregulars peasants, each Commander of the Revolutionary Army had his own ambitions and he also did not have the trust of the political leadership of Greece (this would later lead to two civil wars). Yet, he still managed to defeat much larger Ottoman forces.

4) Creating the Revolutionary Army:

When the Revolution started, the Rebel Army was composed from Peasants, who had no combat experience and even when they out-numbered the Turks more than 3 to 1, they would not stand and fight. Also, the army had no organazation and everyone was doing whatever he wanted. Kolokotronis himself said that ''If Wellington gave me 40,000 troops, I could command them, but if I gave him 500 Greeks, he would not command them for more than an hour.''

Kolokotronis managed to train the Peasants (as much as it was possible, of course). He gave them military training and managed to make them from an irregular force to a regular force able to win battles against much larger enemies.

5) Strategic Thinking of Kolokotronis:

An example of the strategic thinking of Kolokotronis was his decision to focus the majority of his forces against Tripolitsa. Situated in the middle of Peloponnese, Tripolitsa was the pre-eminent town in southern Greece, as well as the administrative centre for Ottoman rule in the Peloponnese.

Also, later, when he had to fight the Regular Army of Ibrahim, instead of attacking the enemy army in open battle (Ibrahim had defeated all Greek Forces send against him in open battle), he decided to use guerrilla tactics to wear Ibrahim's forces down until the European Powers would intervene in Support of Greece.

6) Battle of Valtetsi:

Greeks: 3,000
Turks: 5,000

Immediately, after being declared Archistratigos, Kolokotronis established armed camps near the villages of Levidi, Piana, Chrysovitsi, Vervena and Valtetsi who were former rebel's dens that now became headquarters for the preparation of the siege of the Ottoman stronghold of Tripolitsa, taking advantage of the absence of Hursid Pasha (governor of Morea) who was leading an expedition against the apostate Ali Pasha of Janina under the Sublime Porte's special command.

On April 24 (O.S.), 1821, the Ottoman forces of Tripolitsa attacked and put to flight the Greeks based in Valtetsi. The Muslims were then reinforced on May 1 (O.S) by 4,000 Albanians under Mustafa, the Kehayabey of Hursid Pacha, coming from Argolis.

A couple of weeks later, a combined Turkish and Albanian force of 5,000 men, under the command of Mustafa, was departed to destroy the Greek positions at Valtetsi on May 24, 1821. Its main section, under Rubi bey, was sent directly to assault the Greek camp now defended by 2,300 revolutionaries.

The defensive strategy was to fortify 4 tower houses in the area following the pyrgospitia Maniot pattern: Kyriakoulis Mavromichalis as field-commander defended the first tower with 120 men. Ilias Mavromichalis was in charge of the second one with 250 men. Ioannis Mavromichalis with 350 men commanded the third tower and the old septuagenary Mitropetrovas with 80 men stayed in the last one.

Rubi bey ordered to storm the place, while a small force was to move behind the village itself to cut off the Greeks' expected retreat to the mountain paths. He demanded the rebels to surrender their weapons but, when they refused, he began his full assault. The Turkish and Albanian forces managed to capture some positions including the water supply but a fierce resistance obliged them to demand for Kehayabey's reinforcements.

In the mean time, more Greeks, numbering 700 men, under Theodoros Kolokotronis, arrived and attacked the Ottomans on their flanks weakening their operational power. Once again, another contingent under Dimitrios Plapoutas, made a significant entrance in the battle so as to give vital support to the exhausted rebels, balancing the actions.

Against Ottoman expectations, Greeks maintained their positions as the Ottoman cavalry became useless when trying to attack on rocky slopes. All Turkish and Albanian attacks were repelled and finally Rubi bey ordered retreat which turned into a route after the Greeks abandoned their defensive attitude under the fortified positions and violently counterattacked, completely breaking the enemy lines.

The battle itself lasted for nearly 24 hours. The casualties were also unexpectedly heavy for the Ottoman army: 600 dead compared to the 150 dead rebels.

7) The Siege of Tripolitsa:

The siege skills of Kolokotronis can been seen in the siege of Tripolitsa. The siege begun in the summer of 1821

The Turk-Albanian garrison was reinforced in May by some troops and cavalry sent by Hursid Pasha from the north, led by the Kehayabey Mustafa.

Although the siege had been going on for several months, its progress was slow, as the Greeks were unable to maintain a tight blockade and were often scattered by sorties of Turkish cavalry.

The rebels' decisive victory in the Battle of Valtetsi, however, meant that the Greek revolutionaries had effective control over the majority of the areas in the Central and Southern Peloponnese.

Conditions were worsening inside the walls for scarcity of food and potable water. Taking advantage of this, Kolokotronis began quiet negotiations with the leaders of the besieged, aiming at an orderly capitulation. He wisely convinced the Albanian contingent led by Elmas Bey to make a separate agreement for safe passage to Argos, thereby greatly reducing the strength of the defenders. The deal itself was guaranteed by Dimitrios Plapoutas, the renowned Koliopoulos. The city was taken before the 2,500 Albanian had departed, but still they had a safe passage out of the Peloponnese a few days after the fall.

On September 23, the Greek army broke in through a blind spot in the walls, and the town was completely overrun quickly. The fortified citadel in it surrendered three days later for lack of water.

8) Battle of Dervenakia:

Greeks: 8,000-10,000 irregular troops
Turks: 30,000 including 6,000 cavalry

After the final defeat and death of Ali Pasha, the Ottoman forces in northern Greece were reoriented to the south. A force of some 30,000 men, including 6,000 cavalry, was entrusted to Mahmud Dramali Pasha (pasha of Larissa), who had replaced the veteran Hursid Pasha. This force was the largest seen in Greece in more than a century, since the last Venetian-Ottoman War, composed of experienced warriors with ample supplies. Dramali was expected to crush the Greek rebellion by advancing to Corinth, relieve the besieged garrison of Nafplion and recapture the capital of the Morea, Tripoli.

Setting out from Zitouni (Lamia) early in July, he proceeded southwards through Boeotia. The Greeks had sent a force to block the passes at Geraneia, but the size of the Ottoman army discouraged them, and Dramali passed through unmolested. The same was repeated at the fort of Acrocorinth, which was abandoned by its commander, Iakovos Theodoridis, after he murdered the imprisoned Kiamil Bey.

After arriving at Corinth in mid-July, Dramali wedded Kiamil's widow, and called a council to determine his future actions. There, many of his officers, headed by Yussuf Pasha of Patras, urged him to follow a military plan of using Corinth as a base, building up strong naval forces in the gulf and isolate the Morea, before advancing on Tripoli. Dramali ignored this sound advice, and, full of confidence, decided to proceed from Corinth to the south, towards the Argolis.

On arriving in Argos, he found that its citadel, Larissa, was manned, and that the Ottoman fleet, with which he had planned to rendezvous with the Ottoman fleet at Nafplion, was actually at Patras. What he should have done was to have fallen back immediately to Corinth, from where he could have drawn supplies from Patras. Instead, he launched an attack on the citadel. The Greeks, under Demetrios Ypsilantis, held out for twelve days, before lack of water forced them to sneak out past the Ottoman lines in the middle of the night. However, while Dramali was preoccupied with Larissa, the Greeks rallied their forces.

Already the Peloponnesian Senate had stepped into the place vacated by the central government. Military leaders like Theodoros Kolokotronis and Petrobey called for volunteers, who came flocking in, along with the kapetanei and the primates. Five thousand troops assembled at the fortified mills of Lerna; others assembled at points on the marshy banks of the river Erasinos; and daily the Greeks skirmished with the Ottomans as they attempted to find water and fodder for their horses and baggage animals. Other Greek bands infiltrated the mountains which overlook the plains of Argos. On the hills extending from Lerna to the Dervenaki, Kolokotronis, who had been appointed archistratigos (commander-in-chief), concentrated no less than 8,000 men. Around Agionori there were 2,000 troops under Ypsilantis, Nikitaras and Papaflessas. Towards Nafplion large forces were assembled under Nikolaos Stamatelopoulos, the brother of Nikitaras, and these were joined by Arvanites from Kranidi, Poros and Kastri.

Kolokotronis pursued a scorched earth policy, aiming at starving the Ottomans out. The Greeks looted the villages, burned the grain and foodstuff they could not move, and damaged the wells and springs. Dramali's army was trapped in the sweltering Argolic plain. However, Kolokotronis was not in a position to coordinate all the Greek forces, for many operated under their own leaders, refusing to follow his orders

As it was, Dramali was given the opportunity to carry out his belated decision to retreat. On 26 July he dispatched an advance guard consisting of 1,000 Muslim Albanians to occupy the passes. These troops, who were either mistaken by the Greeks for cobelligerents or deliberately allowed to pass, got through entirely unharmed. But a body of Dramali's cavalry which was following up to occupy the Dervenaki was intercepted by Nikitaras at the village of Agios Vasilis and was routed, a victory which gained for Nikitaras the name of 'Turk-eater' (Turkofagos). Very few of the Ottoman delhis (light cavalry) managed to escape; most of them had lost their horses and, as they tried to make their way on foot up the ravines of the mountains, they were almost all intercepted by small Greek bands or shot down by individual marksmen from concealed positions. During the encounter the Greeks took an enormous amount of booty - hundreds of horses and baggage animals and a considerable quantity of treasure, arms and stores.

Two days later (28 July), Dramali attempted to evacuate his main forces by way of the route through Agionori. Here he came up against the Greeks under Papaflessas who was holding the main defile (Klisoura). Unable to proceed, he soon found himself assailed by Nikitaras and Ypsilantis who made a forced march from their positions at the village of Agios Vasilis and at Agios Sostis. Although Dramali himself with the main troop of delhis managed to force his way through and finally reach Korinthos, the Greeks captured all the baggage and the military chest; and they annihilated almost completely the unmounted personnel of Dramali's army. But no sooner had they achieved victory than they dispersed: the Moreots hastened to return to their villages taking with them animals and other booty on which they had been able to lay their hands. Dramali died, a broken man, in the following December at Korinthos. His campaign had resulted in a disaster of great magnitude: out of an army of more than 23,000 with which he entered the Morea, barely 6,000 had survived.

9) The Civil War:

After the start of the Revolution a Peloponnesian assembly convened, and elected on May 26 a Senate. Assemblies convened also in Central Greece (November 1821) under the leadership of two Phanariots: Alexandros Mavrokordatos in the western part, and Theodoros Negris in the eastern part.The three local statutes were recognized by the First National Assembly, but were later dissolved by the Second National Assembly.

The First National Assembly was formed at Epidaurus in late December 1821, consisted almost exclusively of Peloponnesian notables. The Assembly composed the first Greek Constitution and appointed the members of an executive and a legislative body that were to govern the liberated territories. Mavrokordatos saved the office of president of the executive for himself, while Ypsilantis, who had called for the Assembly, was elected president of the legislative body, a place of no significance.

Military leaders and representative of Filiki Eteria were marginalized, but gradually Kolokotronis' political influence grew, and he soon managed to control, along with the captains he influenced, the Peloponnesian Senate, which was not dissolved by the National Assembly. The Senate actually governed Peloponnese, while the central government was too weak to exercise its power. Seeing the impasse and the growing power of the Peloponnesian captains, Mavrokordatos and the Hydriots proposed the dissolvement of the Senate and its incorporation into the National Assembly. Mavromichalis accepted the proposal, but the military leaders rejected it.

After the rejection of the proposal, the central administration tried to marginalize Kolokotronis who controlled the fort of Nafplion. In November 1822, the central administration promulgated the law for the election of representatives for the new National Assembly, but Kolokotronis defied the law, and declared that Peloponnese will organize its own assembly for the elections of the new members of the Senate.

The provisional government decided that the National Assembly would take place in Nafplio, and asked Kolokotronis to return the fort to the government. Kolokotronis refused, and proposed that the Assembly take place in Nafplion, while the city would remain under his control. His stance divided his supporters and weakened him politically.

Most of the members of the Peloponnesian Senate obeyed the decisions of the government, and the captains were forced to negotiate their participation in the Assembly. Finally, the Second National Assembly was gathered in March 1823 in Astros. Central governance was strengthened at the expense of regional bodies, a new constitution was voted, and new members were elected for the executive and legislative bodies.

Trying to coax the military leaders, the central administration proposed to Kolokotronis to participate in the executive body as vice-president. Kolokotronis accepted, but his actions caused a serious crisis when he prevented Mavrokordatos, who had been elected president of the legislative body, from assuming his position. His attitude towards Mavrokordatos caused the rage of the members of the legislative body, which was controlled by the Roumeliotes and the Hydriots. Both Kolokotronis and his president in the executive, Petros Mavromichalis, were harshly criticized by the members of the legislative body.

The crisis culminated when the legislative overturned the executive and dismissed its members. Kolokotronis and most of the Peloponnesian notables and captains supported Mavromichalis, who remained president of his executive in Tripolitsa. However, a second executive, supported by the islanders, the Roumeliotes, some Achaean notables—Andreas Zaimis and Andreas Londos were the most prominent—and others, such as Papaflessas, was formed at Kranidi with Kountouriotis as president.

The war started in early March 1824, when the government asked Panos Kolokotronis to surrender Nafplion. Panos denied and the government decided to besiege the city. In 22 March 1824, the forces of the new executive besieged Tripolitsa, and after two weeks of fighting an agreement was reached between Kolokotronis, from the one side, and Londos and Zaimis, from the other.

The old executive was finally dissolved, and Kolokotronis fled the city. In 22 May the first phase of the civil war officially ended. Most members of the new executive however wanted a complete victory over their opponents, and were thus displeased by the moderate terms of the agreement that Londos and Zaimis brokered.

Kolokotronis and Mavromichalis retreated, but they intended to regroup their forces and launch a new offensive. Additionally, Panos Kolokotronis agreed to surrender Nafplion only to Londos and Zaimis, an arrangement which again resulted in the intensification of the mistrust of the government towards the two Achaean notable, who were still allies of the central administration.

The military conflict resumed when Kolokotronis roused the residents of Tripolitsa against the local tax collectors of the government. Papaflessas and Yannis Makriyannis failed to suppress the rebellion, which spread throughout the Peloponnese. While the Peloponnesians were undecided about their further moves, the government regrouped its armies, which now consisted mainly of Roumeliotes and Souliots, several of whom previously served the Peloponnesians.

The plan of the government was implemented by Kolettis, who ordered two bodies of Roumeliotes and Souliots to invade the Peloponnese. In January 1825, a Roumeliote force, led by Kolettis himself, raided once again Peloponnese, and arrested Kolokotronis.

10) Keeping the Revolution alive:

After the civil war, Ibrahim (son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan) was able to land at Modon on February 26, 1825, with an army of 17,000 men. His troops were armed with the most modern equipment and trained by European (Mainly French from the Napoleonic Wars) experts.

He defeated the Greeks in the open field, and though the siege of Missolonghi proved costly to his own troops and to the Ottoman forces who operated with him, he brought it to a successful termination on April 24, 1826.

Kolokotronis was released from jail by the same Government he fought against in the Civil Wars and was given Command of the Army of the Peloponnese with orders to defeat Ibrahim.

And to make matters worse for Kolokotronis, he still had to be on guard against the machinations of Petros Mavromichalis even as he was bracing himself against the new threat.

As I have already posted, instead of fighting in open battle, Kolokotronis used guerrilla tactics to wear Ibrahim's forces down until the Europeans would openly take the side of Greece.

Kolokotronis also used ''Revolutionary Violence'' to stop Villages from surrendering to the Sultan. He ordered ''fire and axe to those who surrender to the Sultan'' and so he managed to keep the revolution alive.

In the end, The French send an expeditionary force in Pelloponnesus to support the Greeks in 1828 and forced Ibrahim to leave Greece. So, in the end Kolokotronis won without having to defeat Ibrahim in an open battle.

11) Tricks of Kolokotronis:

Kolokotronis used smart tricks to defeat the enemy. He called those tricks strategimata (strategies). When a large Ottoman force was heading against his forces, in the night he ordered all of his soldiers to light not 1, but 15 fires each. The Turks thought that Kolokotronis had a huge army, and did not attack him.

In the siege of Patra in 1822, a few Greeks fought a much larger force of Turks. Kolokotronis then shouted ''Attack them, Greeks!!! The Persians (nickname for the Ottomans) are retreating!!''. The Turks thought that Kolokotronis had set them a trap and Greek forces were ready to ambush them, and they routed.

Once, when 4,000 Turks were coming against his few forces, he did not let anyone use his Binoculars and told his men that they outnumbered the Turks.

12) What he did for Greece and Europe:

Kolokotronis managed to secure the independence of Greece. So, Greece became the first nation to win a national revolution and become independent in post-Napoleonic Europe. He died in 4 February 1843, aged 72. ]]> christos200 http://historum.com/blogs/christos200/1646-theodoros-kolokotronis-greatest-modern-greek-general.html <![CDATA[The Angel of Marye's Heights]]> http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1645-angel-marye-s-heights.html Thu, 16 May 2013 12:42:40 GMT December 13th, 1862 was one of the darkest days of the Civil War for the Union. At Marye's Heights, just outside Fredericksburg, seven divisions of Union infantry had been shattered in piecemeal assaults on the Confederate position. Somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 of the boys in blue became casualties. The commander of the Army of the Potomac, Ambrose Burnside, proposed to lead another assault in person the next day, but was fortunately dissuaded by his underlings.

For the wounded men stuck in the no-man's land between the two armies, that night was the most hellish of their lives. Hundreds suffered from the cold, thirst, and the general misery of their surroundings in addition to their wounds.

But this grim spectacle was simply too much for one young Confederate soldier. If the Civil War was a 'war between brothers', his act was arguably the most brotherly of all.

Sergeant Richard Rowland Kirkland had been born in 1843, at Flat Rock, South Carolina. Enlisting in the 2nd South Carolina Infantry at the beginning of the War, he had become a segeant in Company G by the latter part of 1862. He was a veteran of such battles as First Bull Run and Antietam, but the horror he witnessed at Marye's Heights was beyond anything he had seen previously.

At some point on Sunday, December 14th, Kirkland approached Brigadier General Joseph Kershaw, saying 'all night and day I have heard those poor people crying for water, and I can stand it no longer. I ask permission to give them water'. With a few individual exceptions, the 'poor people' he referred to were Union soldiers.

Kershaw dubiously eyed the young sergeant, informing him that he was likely to get shot the second he stepped over the stone wall that marked the Confederate positions. Kirkland replied that he was 'willing to try it' all the same, and requested permission to carry a white flag. Kershaw forebade this, as the Union forces might interpret it as an attempt to negotiate a truce.

A moment later, Kirkland sprung over the stone wall, carrying an armload of full canteens. Men on both sides watched with fascination as he tended to the wounded, begging Union soldiers. He gave water to them all, and covered them with their overcoats or provided whatever other relief he could think of.

Kirkland's mission of mercy lasted an hour and a half, and not a single shot was fired in his direction. He earned a place in Civil War legend as 'the Angel of Marye's Heights'. Tragically, this tender-hearted young Rebel was to die two years later, killed in action at Chickamauga. ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1645-angel-marye-s-heights.html The Battle of Franklin http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1644-battle-franklin.html Thu, 16 May 2013 10:27:35 GMT There were few battles in the American Civil War that made Confederate soldiers look more gallant, or a Confederate general look more disgraceful,... There were few battles in the American Civil War that made Confederate soldiers look more gallant, or a Confederate general look more disgraceful, then Franklin.

Nineteen miles to the south of Nashville, Tennessee, John Bell Hood and his Army of Tennessee attacked entrenched Federals under the command of Brigadier General John Schofield. In a brave but costly assault that was compared to Pickett's Charge, the Confederates charged across two miles of open ground before coming into contact with the Yankees.

Hood's men managed to break the center of the Federal line, and captured no less than eight artillery pieces, but they were forced to withdraw after suffering crusing losses. The Southern Confederacy had lost six generals, 32 regimental colors, and 6,252 officers and men. Among the fallen generals were Patrick Cleburne, the 'Stonewall of the West', and States Rights Gist.

Schofield received a Medal of Honor and a promotion to brevet Major General for his victory. Hood, on the other hand, was censored for what practically resembled a deliberate attempt at destroying his army. Franklin was one of only a few Civil War battles that witnessed a substantial amount of hand-to-hand combat. ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1644-battle-franklin.html Fitz John Porter - Disgraced Union General http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1643-fitz-john-porter-disgraced-union-general.html Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:48 GMT Porter (1822-1901) was born into a New Hampshire family that had contributed several men to the US Navy in both the Revolutionary War and the War of... Porter (1822-1901) was born into a New Hampshire family that had contributed several men to the US Navy in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 (indeed, he was a relative of the Union admirals David Dixon Porter and James G. Farragut). He was a West Pointer whose pre-War experience included service in the Mexican and Utah wars.

It seems that Porter spent most of his military career lurking in the shadows of other men. In Mexico, the highest rank he achieved was brevet major. He was an adjutant to Robert E. Lee 1853-1855, when the latter was the Superintendent of West Point. He was an adjutant general in the West, and served under A.S. Johnston in Utah. Ironically Porter, destined to be a Union man, had been a subordinate to at least two hallowed members of the Confederate Pantheon.

During the first year of the Civil War, Porter became associated with George McClellan, and by May of 1862 was commanding the Fifth Corps. His successful performance during the Peninsular Campaign won him the rank of brevet major general, but from here, his military career would be lost in a storm of controversy and disgrace.

Porter was outspoken about his detest for John Pope, when he was sent with his Corps to reinforce the latter in August of 1862. During the Battle of Second Manassas, Pope gave Porter orders that were, in the words of Frank E. Vandiver, 'impossible to implement' - and resulted in roughly one out of every three men of the Corps present becoming casualties.

After the defeat, Pope removed Porter from command 'for disobedience, disloyalty, and misconduct in the face of the enemy'. Pope himself, however, was soon removed in favor of McClellan, who reinstated his friend as commander of the Fifth Corps. Porter fought at Antietam, but was arrested and court-martialed in November of that year, after McClellan lost command of the Army of the Potomac for the second and final time.

Fitz John Porter was cashiered in January of 1863, and spent the rest of the War fuming about the premature demise of his career. In 1878, Porter was exonerated of Pope's charges by a board headed by John Schofield, but it was only in 1886 that the US Congress restored him to the rank of infantry colonel. Two days after this event, Porter retired, satisfied that his name had been cleared.

From my readings, it seems that Porter's behavior at Second Manassas remains one of the controversies of the Civil War. Vandiver, mentioned above, describes Porter's removal as 'perhaps the greatest injustice done to a Federal commander in the Civil War'. The late Kenneth P. Williams, author of the five-volume Lincoln Finds a General, argued that Porter was indeed guilty of the charges levelled by Pope. ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1643-fitz-john-porter-disgraced-union-general.html Vicksburg Justice http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1642-vicksburg-justice.html Mon, 13 May 2013 19:34:46 GMT Vicksburg, in Warren County, Mississippi, was named in honor of Newit Vick, a Methodist missionary from Virginia who settled in the vicinity in the... Vicksburg, in Warren County, Mississippi, was named in honor of Newit Vick, a Methodist missionary from Virginia who settled in the vicinity in the 1820s; it was formally acknowledged as a city in 1825. By that year, Vicksburg had a population of some 2,500 whites and Indians, as well as nearly 10,000 slaves. It had become a center of commerce, and was home to banks, insurance businesses, jewelers, and doctors.

But Vicksburg's waterfront also became home to a thriving population of rogues, including professional murderers and gamblers, drunks, and prostitutes. They were held in contempt by the city's more genteel inhabitants.

In 1835, this contempt turned to conflict when a drunk from Vicksburg's 'city within a city' disrupted a Fourth of July gathering hosted by the Vicksburg militia company. He was tarred, feathered, and flogged, and a gang of 400 vigilantes subsequently raided the brothels and saloons on the waterfront.

The situation was intensified by the so-called 'Murrell Excitement' which raged in Nashville, Memphis, and Natchez that very week. A rumor claimed that John Murrell, a Virginian-born thief and slave-catcher, was the ringleader of a plot to free Southern slaves. As a result, no less than ten white men and twenty black men were lynched in these Southern cities, for alleged involvement in this apparently bogus plot.

The tensions spread to Vicksburg, where the raids on the city's red light district turned bloody. The mob attacked the Kangaroo Club, laying siege to the tavern's owner and five of his fellows. When the owner managed to shoot a member of the mob, a local doctor, the rioters went berserk. The murderer and his comrades were lynched, and another man who was implicated was bound and turned loose in a rowboat on the Mississippi.

These inter-city tensions seem to have died out past July of 1835. The very next year a railroad connecting Vicksburg to Jackson was constructed, predominately by using slave labor. Vicksburg's prosperity continued to grow, and by the end of the 1850s it had become one of the richest cities in the South. ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1642-vicksburg-justice.html The Spotted Cat: A Study of Nazca Pottery with Feline Motif http://historum.com/blogs/ghostexorcist/1641-spotted-cat-study-nazca-pottery-feline-motif.html Sat, 11 May 2013 04:10:49 GMT *The Spotted Cat: A Study of Nazca Pottery with Feline Motif* By Jim R. McClanahan Double-spout and bridge water vessels are common in many...
The Spotted Cat: A Study of Nazca Pottery with Feline Motif

By Jim R. McClanahan

Double-spout and bridge water vessels are common in many South American cultures. Although used as far back as the Machallila culture (1430-830 BP) of Ecuador, [1] it is most often associated with the Paracas and Nazca cultures of southern Peru. The Paracas culture (700 BCE-1 CE) can be split into two subcultures, the Cavernas and the Necropolis. The Cavernas subculture was named thusly because they buried their mummified dead in small underground chambers. [2] They wrapped the mummies in plain textiles with snake, fish, human, and feline motifs. [3] The Paracas Cavernas were best known for their brightly colored incised pottery, the double-spout vessel being among the most common types. [4] The second subculture, the Paracas Necropolis, was named thusly because they buried their mummified dead (the higher ranking ones having the famous elongated skulls) in huge underground cemeteries. They were best known for their expertly woven and brightly colored textiles. The large mantles they buried their dead with contained motifs dealing with war, agriculture, and animals, such as weapons, trophy heads, plants, birds, killer whales, and, again, felines. [5] The Nazca culture (1 CE-700 CE) is considered a continuation of the Paracas culture because they shared a similar religion, practices of war, and textiles and pottery. [6] It continued many of the motifs mentioned above. Beyond the geoglyphs known as the “Nazca Lines,” [7] they are most famous for their mastery of thin-walled, brightly colored polychrome pottery. Donald A. Proulx comments, “The most prestigious form of vessel was the double spout bottle.” [8] In this paper, I intend to show that a double-bridge and spout water vessel (#1-401) of unknown provenance held in the collection of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio belongs to the Nazca culture, as well as provide a date and general location for its manufacture.

The vessel

The vessel (#1-401 hereafter) is made from a fine sand and clay mixture with a density of 5%. It is covered in various colors of slip that are smooth and uncracked. The pale brown (10YR 7/3) body is round, being wider at the bottom than at the top. The diameter of this widest part is 132.4mm, and it is banded by a thick strip of dark reddish brown (2.5YR 3/3). The very bottom is light reddish brown (5YR 6/4). The top is affixed with two unevenly positioned spouts the same color as the band and are connected by a handle. Both spouts are broken at different lengths; the left spout is the longest at 44.5 mm, while the right spout is the shortest at 41.4 mm. The diameter and wall thickness of both is 21.9 mm and 6.3 mm, respectively. The handle between them is 29.4 mm long and 8.1 mm thick. The broken edges of the spouts are rounded, giving the impression that the breakage happened long ago. The body of the vessel has a small hole that is 10.9 mm at the widest part. The break most likely happened recently as the edges are still sharp and the broken piece rattles inside when the pot is shaken. The surface is heavily pock marked with deep pitting in three places (the largest being 31.6 mm in width). It stands 170.2 mm tall and weighs 457.4 grams.

The piece is adorned with two nearly identical feline figures that occupy opposite sides (fig. 1). All features are drawn with a very thick black line. The head is shaped like a number 8 with a large top and small bottom. The upper half of this is cross cut by a thick undulating yellowish red line (5YR 5/6) that represents a brow connected to outward pointing ears. The crown of the head is black (7.5YR 3/2), while the face is a dark red (10R 3/3). Underneath this are two large piercing white eyes with large black pupils and a pair of pursed white lips with a long red tongue (2.5YR 4/4) hanging beneath. The chin is framed by a whisker-like mask the same color as the brow. The black body is comprised of four tightly grouped legs, an arched back with four faintly visible crescent-shaped black spots, a stylized wing(?), and a very thick tail with 7 white strips that curls sharply towards the head. The roughly uniform legs each have two white strips and three squared white toes. The reason for this striping will be discussed below. The wing is the same color as the cheek puffs and brow. Although both feline figures are the same as far as iconography goes, both are of unequal size. The side covered in large pock marks is the longest at 135.6 mm, while the side with the small hole is the smallest at 135.9 mm.



Fig. 1. Front view of #1-401. Scale = 5 cm.

Evolution of the feline iconography

It is my belief that the mirrored feline on the vessel is a figure common to Paracas and Nazca material culture known as the “Spotted Cat.” It first appeared on Paracas textiles, [9] but it is most prominent on the first five of Lawrence E. Dawson’s nine seriation phases of Nazca pottery. Phase one, which lasted from 200 BCE – 150 CE, coincides with Alan Sawyer’s “Proto-Nazca” period. [10] This phase is characterized by laying/sitting feline figures that are molded directly onto single spout pottery. The body is sometimes modeled and sometimes flat, and the features are incised into the clay. Painting slip was applied within the boundaries of these lines. The depiction is naturalistic in comparison to later versions, with perky ears, piercing eyes, teeth (sometimes fully bared), whiskers, and claws. The back is covered with spots (sometimes oval and sometimes diamond shaped), and the arms and legs are striped with a very distinct alternating black-white linear pattern reminiscent of a column on a chessboard. Late examples of phase one have whiskers that have been transform into a whisker-like mouth mask (fig. 2), which came to dominate the motif for the entirety of its existence. [11]



Fig. 2. Phase one example.

Phase two, which lasted from 150 CE – 200 CE, happened during the latter part of the Proto-Nazca period. This phase is characterized by standing figures with the head and front legs in frontal view, while the body, hind legs, and tail are in profile. Molded features and incised lines are discarded in favor of painting the figure directly on the vessel. This was also the time that the figure first started to appear on double-spout and bridge water vessels. The naturalistic features give way to more stylized variants. For starters, the nose completely disappears and the once open mouth with bared teeth is replaced by a long tongue sticking out and, sometimes, hanging below the lips. There are three variants to the tongue: 1) sticking out of the mouth; 2) hanging from the top of the lips; and 3) hanging from below the bottom lip. The mouth mask flares outside the boundaries of the head, and the crown and ears are separated from the face. It gives the appearance that the face is a mask (fig. 3). The back is arching, and the spots vary from semicircles to crescent shapes. The black-white linear pattern from phase one is superseded by the same shapes on the back. Some figures have sharp claws, while others have squared off toes with no claws. Some versions present a bird’s eye view of the figure. This is a reference to the old naturalistic feline from phase one, which, as mentioned above, was modeled on top of the vessel. [12]



Fig. 3. Phase two example.

Phase three, which lasted from 200-350 CE, coincides with Sawyer’s “Early Nazca” period because this is when the Nazca first adopted it. The figures of this phase are similar to phase two, but even more stylized. The crown of the head is represented as a black cap, which comes to dominate the motif, and eyebrows first appear (fig. 4). The mouth mask flares out even more than previously. The back markings change to a tulip shape, and the tale has a sharper curve than phase two. The linear pattern reminiscent of phase one, though much skinnier, reappears on the legs. Lines are drawn parallel across the torso to indicate an underbelly. Later variants of phase three delete the tongue in favor of a piece of fruit. Others have a single piece of fruit attached to the front paw, or an entire row of vegetation growing out from its side. One variant represents the feline with a strange yoga-like pose with the head pointing upwards (as if seen from a bird’s eye view), front legs forward, and the back legs and tail off to the side as if being seen in profile. This eventually became common in later phases. [13]



Fig. 4. Phase three example.

Phase four, which lasted from 350-400 CE, also happened during the Early Nazca phase. Again, like phase three, many of the prevalent characteristics carry over into phase four. However, it is during this time that three variants dominate this period. Variant one is simply a more stylized version of phase three. Except, double eyes, horizontal back markings that line the stomach, and additional floral elements are added. The stomach markings are often in the shape of plants, and the types of plants attached to the mouth, paw, or side of the body are more varied. Variant two looks like the late phase three variant in the strange yoga-like pose. It is less prominent than the other kinds. The body of variant three is generally in the same standing posture as before, but much has changed. The black cap and mouth mask disappear to be replaced by a human-like face mask (complete with nose) with sharp points near the temples that recall the mouth mask from previous phases. Large ears of maze sit astride these points, and the flat bar representing the forehead sometimes has three plants sitting on top. The overall presentation looks like an ornate mask and headdress (fig. 5). The eyes of this mask are diamond shaped with face painting underneath and, sometimes, around the chin. The body is much stockier, with larger forelimbs, and the torso is trisected horizontally into three sections. Each section is decorated with some type of semicircular or linear pattern. Like previous phases, the arms and legs are striped. Plants are attached at various points all over the body, giving the impression that they are literally issuing forth from the feline. [14]



Fig. 5. Phase four example.

Phase five, which lasted from 400-550 CE, coincides with Sawyer’s “Middle Nazca” phase. It has two distinct phases: conservative and radical. As the name implies, the conservative examples conserve common elements from the past phases. The radical heads in a different direction. Conservative variant one looks similar to the later stages of phase four, but the mouth mask returns. Some versions replace the tongue with a plant. The body is still stocky, but the three sections on the torso are even more pronounced, with larger representations of plants on the midsection. Some examples have fruits sprouting from the stripes on the tail. Conservative variant two is depicted in the yoga-like pose from phases three and four. The body is no longer curvy, but, with the exception of the tail, is drawn with blocks. The body is surrounded by plants, and the tail is often drawn bifurcated like a snake’s tail, or it is tipped with a plant. Conservative variant three returns to the standing figure with curvy features. The top of the head is depicted almost like a three-pointed crown, and the markings on the back change into tridents. The radical phase simplifies and expands on existing themes. Some examples are so simplified—being reduced to a series of blocks and curves—that they appear as if they were drawn by a child. Other examples have duplicated body parts, such as multiple ears, eyebrows, and, especially legs (having as many as six appendages). The legs are sometimes depicted as being thin and twisted supports, which are very alien in appearance in comparison to the other appendages (fig. 6). [15]



Fig. 6. Radical example of phase five. Click
here for a conservative example.

Origins and cultural significance of the feline motif

The early Nazca scholar Luis E. Valcarcel originally thought the Spotted Cat was a river otter (gato del agua). However, later scholars came to understand that it depicted a stocky wild feline known as the Pampas cat (Felis colocolo) (fig. 7). [16] The Pampas cat is present in Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, and Argentina, and its habitat ranges from the cold grass steppe lands of higher elevations (1800-5000 m) to warm savannahs and deciduous forests of lower elevations (142-793 m). [17] The markings on the coat differ from region to region. As can be seen from figure 8, the markings associated with the area around Peru—spotted back and thickly striped arms, legs, and tail—explain the spots and linear patterns common to the Spotted Cat motif from Nazca pottery.



Fig. 7. The Pampas Cat. [18]

Elizabeth P. Benson explains that “Maya and Moche art show small felines in human company. This may be a jaguar cub, but sometimes another smaller feline might be substituted in art and ritual—an ocelot, margay, papas cat, or jaguarondi.” [19] This suggests that Pampas cats may have been kept as pets. Large cats like jaguars and pumas were kept for ritual purposes by pre-Columbian people, who also used them as symbols of war and power. [20] It’s important to note that early depictions of a Paracas and Nazca warrior/shaman deity known as the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being (AMB) is sometimes called the “cat demon” due to its whisker-like face mask. [21] Could this mean the cat was considered a symbol of war and power just like the jaguar? Well, not exactly, but it was indirectly connected to warfare. War and agriculture seem to have had a close symbolic relationship in both the Paracas and Nazca cultures.



Fig. 8. The geographical range of the Pampas cat and
the coat markings associating with each area. [22]

A common practice in Nazca warfare was to decapitate the head of a fallen enemy in order to use it for ritual purposes. Proulx explains:
“The Nazca believed that decapitation and the ritual burial of groups of trophy heads were necessary to ensure regeneration and continued growth of crops. Trophy heads are frequently portrayed with plants sprouting from their mouths; sometimes plants are even drawn in the likeness of a trophy head. Thus the acquisition and burial of trophy heads was a primary means of propitiating the nature spirits and ensuring the continuity of life.” [23]
Local shamans who presided over these burial rituals wore a mouth mask like that from the Spotted Cat and AMB iconography. [24] Proulx states that the feline kept the crops healthy by eating pests. [25] Its association with the ritual then explains why a textile from the Paracas Necropolis depicts a Spotted Cat with severed “trophy heads” in place of its spots (fig. 9). [26]



Fig. 9. A boarder from a woolen Paracas Necropolis textile,
c. 100 BCE-200 CE. [27]

Farmers who took part in planting rituals painted their faces and imbibed alcohol and hallucinogens. [28] This recalls the Spotted Cats from phase four with painted faces and maze decorations. As noted above, vegetal elements began to be incorporated in phase three and increased with each new phase, essentially transforming the feline into an embodiment of agriculture and fertility. The early Nazca scholar Eduard Seler interpreted this later incarnation of the Spotted Cat as a “bringer of food.” [29] Therefore, the feline should be considered a spirit of the harvest.

Nazca pottery methods

According to Patrick H. Carmichael, the Nazca people used different methods, such as coiling, drawing, direct shaping, paddling, and scraping, to create their pottery. Coiling is done by rolling out long tubes of clay between the hands and a table or the thigh and, as the name implies, coiling them into the sides of a vessel. It was never used as a primary technique. [30] Drawing is done by pinching or pulling the clay upwards. Entire vessels can be made using this technique. [31] Direct shaping is done by beating or pulling a lump of clay into a shape by hand. This is primarily used to create the bottoms of a vessel. [32] Paddling is done by beating the inside of the vessel with a wooden paddle, while simultaneously pressing from the outside with a smooth stone. This technique is primarily used to thin wall thickness. [33] Scraping is done by scraping the vessel with a pot shard, shell, or gourd piece. This technique is used to further thin the walls and smooth bonded areas of clay. [34] Izumi Shimada explains double-spout and bridge water vessels were “first formed by working the shoulders of the vessel inward, until only a small opening was left that could be sealed by a plug or twisting off extra clay. Then two holes were cut, and a hand-formed double spout and bridge was attached.” [35]

Slip was actually applied to the pottery before firing. [36] Early Nazca potters had problems with the slip shrinking faster than the pottery during firing, which caused cracks to form. They experimented with the formulas and finally solved this problem by phase three. [37] The fifteen core colors of Nazca pottery were created from a mixture of clay and crushed (sometimes burnt) minerals. For example, reds and browns were made from iron oxides like hematite, limonite, magnetite, or cinnabar. Blacks were made from manganite, pyrolusite, manganese and iron oxide, or copper oxide. Whites were created using Kaolin clay or even possibly lead tin. [38] All of the various shades of these colors were the result of experimenting with varying levels of minerals, clay bases, and other fillers.

There have yet to be any Nazca firing sites discovered, so the exact methods used to bake the pottery is unknown. However, Proulx points out “modern studies suggest that pots were fired in oxidizing fires in shallow pits, using wood of the local huarango tree, rushes, or llama dung as probable fuel.” [39]

A manufacturing complex?

Several theories regarding the manufacture of Nazca pottery have been suggested. Carmichael believes that communities produced pottery in their own homes as needed. Helaine Silverman expanded upon this by proposing they brought their wares with them and exchanged them for pieces from other communities when they made pilgrimages to the holy city of Cahuachi in the lower Nazca Valley. Another theory put forth by Kevin J. Vaughn states only a few communities manufactured large numbers of pottery to be distributed throughout the region. [40] Although no manufacturing materials (potter’s plates, kilns, etc.) have been found to even support home production, scientific analysis shows the clay used to make a large number of pots sampled from different areas had the same elemental composition. Using local artisans and random sampling, Vaughn’s Early Nasca Craft Economy (ENCE) project located and sampled 29 sources of clay suitable for making pottery, as well as sampled sun-dried adobe from local structures in the Southern Nazca Region (SNR) (fig. 10). Clay samples were shaped into discs and fired in a traditional kiln at 800 degrees Celsius. Neutron Activation Analysis revealed adobe taken from the structures at Cahuachi matched the sampled pots. [41] Previous analysis by Silverman shows this adobe was made from silt collected from a river bottom. THE ENCE project team was unable to pinpoint the exact source of the clay, possibly due to the river drying up in the desert environment; but, based on Dean E. Arnold’s research on clay sources for American, Mesoamerican, and South American pottery, they believe the source has to be local, possibly within a 3-4 km radius of Cahuachi. [42] Vaughn believes this might suggest “[t]hat Early Nasca elites at Cahuachi controlled the production of a large sample of polychromes and perhaps distributed these artifacts to people making pilgrimages to the site.”[43]



Fig. 10. The Southern Nazca Region (SNR). The yellow
area indicates the boundaries of the clay survey. The red
dot indicates the location of Cahuachi. Click here for a
larger picture. [44]

Just like the clay used to make the pottery, scientific analysis shows minerals used to make the black slip appearing on a large number of sampled pottery had a similar composition. After performing laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) on 130 shards, Vaughn found 7 formulas for black slip, most of which seemed to adhere to a mixture of a 1:7 manganese-to-iron ratio. Eighty-four percent of the samples fell under the first formula, which was comprised of the same distinct minerals. [45] This is further evidence of a centralized production site.

Vaughn is, however, aware that the lesser quality examples of Nazca pottery in museum collections may be indicative of household manufacture outside of this complex. He writes, “smaller, household workshops may have existed in the region where utilitarian pottery and perhaps very small quantities of polychrome pottery were produced primarily for household and community use.” [46]

Conclusion

Several features of #1-401 firmly place it in the Nazca culture. The Spotted Cat is not modeled and incised onto the pottery like phase one. It is instead painted directly onto double-bridge and spout vessels like in phases two and later. Both phases two and three share common elements like standing bodies in partial profile, long tongues, face and flaring mouth masks, arched backs, curled tails, and (sometimes) squared toes. However, iconographical elements of #1-401 place it in phase three or later, when the Nazca first adopted it as a motif. For instance, the crown is presented as a large black cap, and the head is bisected by an undulating set of eyebrows. The tail has a very sharp curve towards the head. The odd torso feature that I originally thought was a wing is actually a variation of the lines used to indicate the underbelly. Finally, whereas phase two had tulip shapes on the legs, phase three returns to the linear stripe pattern known from phase one. The feline figure does not have any of the vegetal elements common to later examples from phase three, such as fruit emanating from the mouth. Nor does it have any of the elements from the later phases like duplicated body parts, a nose, face painting, decorative patterns on the midsection, trident-shaped spots, a yoga-like posture, a bifurcated tail, or head to toe coverage in fruits and vegetables. It should be noted that tulip-shaped spots on the back are a staple of phase three, yet #1-401 has crescent-shaped spots like in phase two. Therefore, I would place the vessel in the very earliest part of Phase three. This is confirmed by the fact that the slip is smooth and without cracks, an improvement in slip technology made during this phase. This dates the piece to around the year 200 CE.

Previous research scientifically analyzed shard, clay, and adobe samples to pinpoint the area of the clay used to make a large sampling of Nazca pottery. Although the exact source was never located, evidence suggests that the material was probably gathered from a local source within a 3-4 km radius of the holy city of Cahuachi in the lower valley of the Ica region of southern Peru. Scientific analysis of the minerals used to produce the polychrome slip indicates that the black color from a large sampling of Nazca pottery was made of the same compositional elements. This homology in clay and slip mineral composition suggests that Early Nazca elites situated at Cahuachi controlled the manufacture and distribution of polychrome pottery. Despite this, there might have been lower quality pottery created by smaller household workshops in the outlying region.

#1-401 has an asymmetrical shape with unevenly placed spouts. The handle between them slopes downward to compensate for the misalignment. The depiction of the Spotted Cat appears to have been painted by someone not well acquainted with the technique. For instance, the outlining is cursory and smudged in various spots. The line normally meant to indicate the underbelly is abbreviated and turned back on itself to create the aforementioned wing-like structure. The coloring sometimes goes outside of the lines, and the often visible brush strokes are hurried. This haste is best exemplified by the way the slightly lighter black background color was painted over top of the crescent-shaped spots on the back, rendering them almost invisible. This lower quality workmanship suggests that the vessel might have been a specimen made in the outlying region. I can't say for certain where, but I imagine it wasn’t too far away from the Cahuachi manufacturing complex as people from the region regularly traveled to the holy city and drew upon the same techniques and iconography.

Notes

[1] Helaine Silverman, and William Harris Isbell, Handbook of South American Archaeology (New York: Springer, 2008), 460 and 467.
[2] Ibid, 565.
[3] Ibid, 567.
[4] Ibid, 566.
[5] Ibid, 569 and 571-572.
[6] Ibid, 572.
[7] Ibid, 581.
[8] Ibid, 573.
[9] Elizabeth Farkass Wolfe, “The Spotted Cat and the Horrible Bird; Stylistic Change in Nasca 1–5 Ceramic Decoration,” Ńawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 19 (1981): 2.
[10] Ibid, 1. Figures 3-9 come from this publication. All dates come from Proulx, 26.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid, 2-3.
[13] Ibid, 3-4.
[14] Ibid, 4-5
[15] Ibid, 5-6.
[16] Donald A. Proulx, A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography Reading a Culture Through Its Art (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2006), 88.
[17] Rosa Garcia-Perea, “The Pampas Cat Group (genus Lynchailurus Severtzov, 1858) (carnivora: Felidae), a Systematic and Biogeographic Review,” American Museum Novitates 3096 (May 19, 1994): 1-35.
[18] “Pampas Cat,” Explora Blog, Blog explora » Pampas Cat (accessed April 15, 2013).
[19] Elizabeth Polk Benson, Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin America (Gainesville, Fla: Univ. Pr. of Florida, 1997), 45.
[20] Ibid, 45-51.
[21] Proulx, 62. See figure 5.1.
[22] Garcia-Perea, 22.
[23] Silverman, 579-580.
[24] Ibid, 578.
[25] Ibid.
[26] “Border with Pampas Cats,” A Stolen World: The Paracas Collection, Border with pampas cats : Paracassamlingen - En stulen värld (accessed April 15, 2013).
[27] Ibid.
[28] Silverman, 578.
[29] Peter Fux, Martin Sauerbier, Thomas Kersten, Maren Lindstaedt, and Henri Eisenbeiss, “Perspectives and Contrasts: Documentation and Interpretation of the Petroglyphs of Chichictara, Using Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Image-Based 3D Modeling,” In New Technologies for Archaeology Multidisciplinary Investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, Edited by Markus Reindel and Günther A. Wagner (Berlin: Springer, 2008), 376.
[30] Patrick H. Carmichael, “Nasca Pottery Construction,” Ńawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 24 (1986): 33-34.
[31] Ibid, 34-35.
[32] Ibid, 35.
[33] Ibid, 35 and 38.
[34] Ibid, 38.
[35] Frank Salomon, and Stuart B. Schwartz, The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 400.
[36] Donald A. Proulx, A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography Reading a Culture Through Its Art (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2006), 28.
[37] Salomon, 401.
[38] Keven J. Vaughn, Christina A. Conlee, Hector Neff, and Katharina J. Schreiber, “A Compositional Analysis of Nasca Pigments: Implications for Craft Production on the Pre-Hispanic South Coast of Perus,” In Laser Ablation ICP-MS in Archaeological Research, edited by Robert J. Speakman (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2005), 142.
[39] Proulx, 16.
[40] Kevin J. Vaughn and Hector Neff, “Tracing the Clay Source of Nasca Polychrome Pottery: Results from a Preliminary Raw Material Survey,” Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004): 1579.
[41] Ibid, 1581.
[42] Ibid, 1583-1584.
[43] Ibid, 1584.
[44] This map was adapted from note #40.
[45] Vaughn et al. 2005, 146-150.

Biography

Benson, Elizabeth Polk. Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin America. Gainesville, Fla: Univ. Pr. of Florida, 1997.

“Border with Pampas Cats.” A Stolen World: The Paracas Collection. Border with pampas cats : Paracassamlingen - En stulen värld (accessed April 15, 2013).

Carmichael, Patrick H. “Nasca Pottery Construction.” Ńawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 24 (1986): 31-48.

Fux, Peter, Martin Sauerbier, Thomas Kersten, Maren Lindstaedt, and Henri Eisenbeiss. “Perspectives and Contrasts: Documentation and Interpretation of the Petroglyphs of Chichictara, Using Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Image-Based 3D Modeling.” In New Technologies for Archaeology Multidisciplinary Investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru. Edited by Markus Reindel and Günther A. Wagner, 359-378. Berlin: Springer, 2008.

Garcia-Perea, Rosa. “The Pampas Cat Group (genus Lynchailurus Severtzov, 1858) (carnivora: Felidae), a Systematic and Biogeographic Review.” American Museum Novitates 3096 (May 19, 1994): 1-35.

“Pampas Cat.” Explora Blog. Blog explora » Pampas Cat (accessed April 15, 2013).

Proulx, Donald A. A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography Reading a Culture Through Its Art. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2006

Salomon, Frank, and Stuart B. Schwartz. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Silverman, Helaine, and William Harris Isbell. Handbook of South American Archaeology. New York: Springer, 2008.

Vaughn, Keven J., Christina A. Conlee, Hector Neff, and Katharina J. Schreiber. “A Compositional Analysis of Nasca Pigments: Implications for Craft Production on the Pre-Hispanic South Coast of Perus.” In Laser Ablation ICP-MS in Archaeological Research, edited by Robert J. Speakman, 139-153. Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2005.

Vaughn, Kevin J., and Hector Neff. “Tracing the Clay Source of Nasca Polychrome Pottery: Results from a Preliminary Raw Material Survey.” Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004): 1577-86.

Wolfe, Elizabeth Farkass. “The Spotted Cat and the Horrible Bird; Stylistic Change in Nasca 1–5 Ceramic Decoration.” Ńawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 19 (1981): 1-62. ]]> ghostexorcist http://historum.com/blogs/ghostexorcist/1641-spotted-cat-study-nazca-pottery-feline-motif.html The Quotable Sir Charles Napier http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1637-quotable-sir-charles-napier.html Fri, 10 May 2013 19:31:09 GMT Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853) was one of a host of 19th Century British military men to carry that surname. He was also the first, and one of the... Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853) was one of a host of 19th Century British military men to carry that surname. He was also the first, and one of the most colorful, British generals to distinguish himself during the reign of Queen Victoria. Napier was notable for both his courage and his bad luck during the Napoleonic Wars, being captured at Corunna and then suffering a miserable facial wound during the Peninsular Campaign. He held command of the 102nd Foot during the American War, known to his foes as the 'War of 1812'.

Napier was the British governor of part of the Ionian Islands 1819-1830; he stood out for his humanity and his desire to better the lives of the people he governed. He also acquired a lover, a high-spirited Greek girl named Anastasia by whom he fathered two daughters. Napier married twice; both of his brides were almost old enough to be his mother. His mistress Anastasia seems to have been the only woman he ever loved with romantic passion, but their liaison ended when he was dismissed from the Ionian Islands.

In 1839 Napier was given the rank of major-general, and commanded the Northern District of England. He was charged with surpressing Chartist sentiments in the area, despite his personal sympathies with the working man. In 1841, despite his advanced age and poor health, he accepted a command in Sind, where he famously defeated an army of 30,000 Baluchis at Miani in 1843. A month after this victory, he defeated them again at Dubba. Because 'Dubba' was a local word for 'skin of grease', Napier dispatched a young officer - incidentally, his future son-in-law - to find another local, more eloquently-named village to name the battle after. It went down in histoy as the Battle of Hyderabad.

As in the Ionian Islands, Napier ruled Sind with decency and compassion for the poor, and was again dismissed by his superiors. He returned to India in 1849, however, to replace Sir Hugh Gough as the British commander in the Second Sikh War. Gough had already brought the war to a conclusion by the time Napier arrived. He was the commander in chief in India for two years, before he was forced to resign yet again. Sir Charles Napier died in retirement near Portsmouth on August 29th, 1853.

Even by Victorian standards, Sir Charles Napier was something of an eccentric. He was brilliant and forward-thinking, and was remarkably understanding and seemingly devoid of supremacist attitudes in his dealings with 'natives'. He stood out for being the first British general to ever mention non-white soldiers by name in post-battle dispatches. He was a fervent Christian, yet was known for his foul mouth and his sexual promiscuity; however, he abstained from alcohol and smoking. In his letters to family, Napier stands out for his witty perspective, and his love of irony and gothic humor.

Ironically, the quote most often attributed to Sir Charles Napier does not seem to have been his. During his 1843 conquest of Sind, Napier was reportedly appalled at the level of human suffering he had caused, and supposedly exclaimed 'peccavi!' Latin for, 'I have sinned!' Though this expression was falsely put in Napier's mouth by Punch magazine, his disgust with the bloodshed seems to have been genuine. The rest of this essay will consist of some of Napier's cleverest or best-known quotes. My primary source has been Eminent Victorian Soldiers by Byron Farwell.


'She looked so wicked and haughty...I think of nothing else, and hate any kind of company where she is not' - Napier, writing in 1802 of his first love, the daughter of Lord Gage

'Then blaze away!' - Napier to his soldiers at Corunna, when he asked them if they could see the enemy

'George was hit in the stern and I in the stem. That was burning the family candle at both ends' - Napier, upon hearing that his brother was wounded in the hip

'My friend Stewart is dead: I wonder how he likes it' - Napier in a letter to his mother in 1812

'This kind of man it gives me pleasure to flog, and no regiment is without several' - Napier, on a soldier he punished for beating his own wife

'I dislike sacking and burning towns...is very disgusting...nevertheless a pair of breeches must be plundered, for mine are worn out, and btter it will be to take a pair than to shock the Yankee dames by presenting myself as a sans culotte' - Napier in a letter to his mother during the War of 1812

'Tell Aunt that out of regard for her I don't bayonet many children' - another letter written during the American War

'They are fine fellows, liars it is said, but so are we' - Napier on the Americans

'Power is never disagreeable' - Napier on his administration in the Ionian Islands

'Never have I wronged a woman in my life. I have kissed away many a tear, but never caused one'

'So thin, so sharp, so black, so Jewish, so rascally, such a knavish looking son of a gun' - Napier describing his own physical appearance

'I saw she had a good head and no humbug and this, I thought, would suit the kangaroos' - Napier on his second wife, whom he married in 1835, when he was aspiring to become a governor in Australia

'The people are starving and the government does nothing...the road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but it is assuredly hung with Manchester cotton' - Napier, during the Chartist 'disturbances'

'Charles! Charles Napier! Take heed of your ambition for military glory; you had scotched that snake, but this high command will, unless you are careful, give it all its vigour again. Get thee behind me, Satan!' - Napier in his journal, during his first Indian command

'They are tyrants, and so are we, but the poor will have fairer play under our sceptre than under theirs...we have no right to seize Scinde, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful, humane piece of rascality it will be' - Napier on his conquest of Sind

'We break treaties, but that is not a reason for letting others do the same.'

'Am I guilty of these horrid scenes?' - Napier in his journal, after the Battle of Miani

'I never feel angry in my heart against any one - beyond wishing to break their bones with a broomstick!' - Napier on his critics in Parliament

'The burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation also has a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to our national customs' - Napier to Indian leaders indignant at his ban on the practice of Hindu widow-burning

'My God! What numbers of lives I could have saved had I been master in this Sikh War! I think there never was a such a galaxy of blunders since war was war!' - Napier on Gough's conduct in the Second Sikh War

'So perverse is mankind that every nationality prefers to be misgoverned by its own people rather than well ruled by another'

'The human mind is never better disposed to gratitude and attachment than when softened by fear'

'The best way to quiet a country is a good thrashing, followed by great kindness afterwards. Even the wildest chaps are thus tamed' ]]> Salah http://historum.com/blogs/salah/1637-quotable-sir-charles-napier.html Was Paranthropus robustus a tool maker and user? http://historum.com/blogs/ghostexorcist/1636-paranthropus-robustus-tool-maker-user.html Thu, 09 May 2013 23:57:17 GMT *Was Paranthropus robustus a tool maker and user?* By Jim R. McClanahan Apart from language, the manufacture and use of tools is often used...
Was Paranthropus robustus a tool maker and user?

By Jim R. McClanahan

Apart from language, the manufacture and use of tools is often used to differentiate humans from animals. For instance, in his book The Cultured Chimpanzee (2004), the primatologist William McGrew explains that one common argument laid against the concept of ape culture is that they have never built and launched a space craft. However, he counters that most humans haven’t done this either. It is important to point out that modern humans were not the first hominids to use tools. [1] For example, the human ancestor Homo heidelbergensis is known to have made tools associated with the Oldowan complex (2.5-1.5 MYA). [2] Are there any earlier species associated with tools? There are many, but in this paper, I intend to show that the human cousin Parathropus robustus, a member of the “robust” australopithecines who lived in South Africa around 2 MYA, was a tool maker and user for three reasons: 1) Biological - thumb anatomy and dental isotope composition; 2) Archaeological – bone tools have been found in association with P. robustus fossils; and 3) Comparative – the capacity of wild and captive apes to make and use tools.



The bones of the hand.

The thumb of P. robustus has many features that indicate a hand capable of grasping tools. For instance, the distal phalanx has a pronounced bony connection point for the flexor pollicis longus muscle that originates from the middle part of the anterior radius. The presence of such a connection point is important because this muscle is responsible for the flexion of the thumb in the human hand. Apes and monkeys do not have this muscle because they do not rely on precision grasping. The apical tuft, the tip of the distal phalanx, is very broad, indicating that it had a pad on the end of the thumb like humans. This again is another feature not shared by apes and monkeys. The base of P. rubustus’ pollical metacarpal is very broad, which in human hands is used to help alleviate the stress on the joint created from the greater mobility of the thumb. The proximal phalanx is shorter and straighter than that of apes. This is associated with precision grasping, while the longer curved variety of apes is associated with power gripping. [3] All of these point to a mobile thumb with a fleshy pad capable of grasping, which is perfect for the manipulation of tools.



Left - An artist's interpretation of P. robustus. Right - P. robustus teeth (L) in comparison with human teeth (R).

P. robustus has very large, puffy molars and small incisors. Coupled with facial anatomy suited for powerful chewing, microwear analysis of their teeth shows that they most likely ate hard foods. Before the discovery of their hand bones, some scientists suggested based on their robust facial features alone that they were food specialists and that this had probably led to their demise. However, laser ablation stable isotope analysis of the various layers of their thick tooth enamel shows that P. robustus ate both C3 (fruits and leaves) and C4 (grasses and tubers) vegetation. This means they were food generalists just like humans. It’s possible that changes in Africa’s environment may have led many early species on the human line to have more flexible diets starting after 3 MYA. [4] Tool use would have then helped food generalists like P. robustus access their food more effectively.



Bone tools from Drimolen. Scale = 10 mm.
Click here for a larger picture.

Numerous bone artifacts dating to around 1.8 MYA have been found in association with P. robustus fossils in South African sites such as Swartkrans, Sterkfontein and Drimolen. Microscopic analysis of original and replica pieces have eliminated specimens created from weathering and faunal gnawing to show that real bone tools conform to certain characteristics: thick bone shaft fragments from medium to large mammals that have rounded tips and marked striations running parallel along the piece. [5] The striations of these artifacts were compared with those on bone tools used by local Bantu-speaking tribal groups and modern bone tools used in experimentation. Analysis by 2D and 3D computer software found that the artifacts were most likely used for foraging for termites. Although, digging for tubers and processing thick-skinned fruits were also possible uses. Past experiments suggest these bone tools were carried in hand and were multipurpose. [6] Based on the similarities in sexual dichotomy with gorillas, some scientists have suggested that these tools were used by females of the P. robustus species in a fashion similar to the termite foraging of female chimps. [7]



Kanzi knapping a stone tool. See here for
a video of him in action.

Modern day wild and captive apes are known to make and use tools. For instance, McGrew points out that the 8 known wild chimpanzee communities in Africa have a combined “tool kit” comprising around 20 different tools used for “sociality, sex, and self-maintenance.” [8] These range from chewed up leaves to act as a “water sponge” to stone anvils to crack open palm nuts. Among these kits, they have “tool sets,” tools used in ordered succession (A-B-C-D) in order to accomplish a task. [9] Most importantly, bonobos involved in archaeological experiments have been shown, years after minimal instruction, to produce and use tools on par with those created by early members of the Homo lineage. The bonobo Kanzi and his sister Panbanisha were tasked with making tools suited for opening treat-filled logs and digging beneath sandy and or rocky soil to retrieve food from underground. Kanzi produced simple stone choppers, wedges, drills, and stone hammers similar to Oldowan tools produced in Africa 2.5 MYA (predating P. robustus by roughly 500,000 years). The marks left on the log by the tools are very similar to those found on bones processed by early hominines. Panbanisha was not as successful in creating stone tools, but it is interesting to note that she preferred to use antlers more for digging into the ground instead of stone implements. [10] This obviously parallels the suggested use of bone tools by P. robustus females. Granted, this experiment consists of primarily stone technology, but this means P. robustus could have had the same capabilities to produce tools since it has a brain capacity equal to or greater than chimps and bonobos. [11]

In conclusion, the anatomy of P. robustus’ hand bones indicates a mobile thumb with a fleshy pad capable of precision grasping. Laser ablation stable isotope analysis of the various layers of their thick tooth enamel shows that they ate both C3 and C4 vegetation, making them food generalists. Numerous bone tools have been found in association with P. robustus fossil sites in South Africa. Analysis by 2D and 3D computer software found that the artifacts were most likely used for termite foraging, possibly by females of the species. Modern day apes with brains similar in capacity to P. robustus are capable of producing and using tools on par with those created by early members of the Homo lineage. Therefore, P. robustus was most certainly a tool maker and user.

Notes

[1] William Clement McGrew, The Cultured Chimpanzee: Reflections on Cultural Primatology (Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 168-169.
[2] Roffmana et al. “Stone tool production and utilization by bonobo-chimpanzees (Pan paniscus).” PNAS 109 (36) (September 4, 2012): 14501.
[3] Randall L. Susman, “Hand of Paranthropus Robustus from Member 1, Swartkrans: Fossil Evidence for Tool Behavior.” Science 240, no. 4853 (May 6, 1988): 781-84.
[4] Matt Sponheimer, et al. “Isotopic Evidence for Dietary Variability in the Early Hominin Paranthropus Robustus.” Science 314, no. 980 (2006): 980-82.
[5] Lucinda Backwell, and Francesco d’Errico. “Early Hominid Bone Tools from Drimolen, South Africa.” Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (2008): 2891.
[6] Francesco d’Errico, and Lucinda Backwell. “Assessing the Function of Early Hominin Bone Tools.” Journal of Archaeological Science 36, no. 8 (Aug 2009): 1765-1766 and 1771-1772.
[7] Blackwell et. al, 2893.
[8] William C. McGrew, “Chimpanzee Technology,” Science 328 (2010): 579.
[9] Ibid, 580.
[10] Roffmana et al., 14500–14503.
[11] David R. Begun, A Companion to Paleoanthropology (Chicester: Wiley, 2012), 154-155.

Bibliography

Backwell, Lucinda, and Francesco d’Errico. “Early Hominid Bone Tools from Drimolen, South Africa.” Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (2008): 2880-94.

Begun, David R. A Companion to Paleoanthropology. Chicester: Wiley, 2012.

d’Errico, Francesco, and Lucinda Backwell. “Assessing the Function of Early Hominin Bone Tools.” Journal of Archaeological Science 36, no. 8 (Aug 2009): 1764-73.

McGrew,William C. “Chimpanzee Technology.” Science 328 (2010): 579-580.

---------- The Cultured Chimpanzee: Reflections on Cultural Primatology. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Roffmana, Itai, Sue Savage-Rumbaughb, Elizabeth Rubert-Pughb, Avraham Ronenc, and Eviatar Nevo. “Stone tool production and utilization by bonobo-chimpanzees (Pan paniscus).” PNAS 109 (36) (September 4, 2012): 14500–14503.

Sponheimer, Matt, Benjamin H. Passey, Darryl J. de Ruiter, Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg, Thure E. Cerling Cerling, and Julia A. Lee-Thorp. “Isotopic Evidence for Dietary Variability in the Early Hominin Paranthropus Robustus.” Science 314, no. 980 (2006): 980-82.

Susman, Randall L. “Hand of Paranthropus Robustus from Member 1, Swartkrans: Fossil Evidence for Tool Behavior.” Science 240, no. 4853 (May 6, 1988): 781-84. ]]> ghostexorcist http://historum.com/blogs/ghostexorcist/1636-paranthropus-robustus-tool-maker-user.html