The 1899 Project

Mistress Content Cradock Chapter 7: A Cavalier Who Lost His Cav

2009-10-10T22:19:00.005-04:00

We've moved onto the “burning, glowing beauty” of New England summers as Chapter 7 opens, and Content and her brother Timothy have taken their chores to the open air. However, in Timothy's case, he's performing imaginary chores. Instead of playing with Transformers, or some other bizarre nonsense of the post-millenial here and now, Timothy is shoeing an imaginary horse. As the narrator reminds us, even that type of idle playacting is borderline degenerate. Silly Timothy! Don't you know only girls are supposed to imagine being useful? Pardon me while I shoot some sense into you with my imaginary ray gun. Pew pew pew.

Anyway, my grandmother always said there's nothing quite as entertaining as watching kids play, and apparently Content agrees.

The imaginary horse was a restless brute, and Timothy, planting his short legs well apart, braced himself for the arduous task of keeping him quiet with one hand, while he heated his implements with the other.

“Whoa, whoa! Have a care with thy hind feet,” he exhorted ; “'tis for thy good, I tell thee. Softly, now!”

“It is the flies that makes him restless this hot day,” said Content, smiling.

“If thou wouldst but wave this branch to keep them off, the job would be an easier one,” said Timothy, promptly taking advantage of her awakened interest, — it was not too often that his elders joined in his plays, — and he handed her a little twig, which she waved once or twice in indolent acquiescence.

“Now, stand!” he went on resolutely, while he heated a bit of stick upon a convenient boulder. “Nay, toss not thy head and neigh!—the iron is well-nigh hot. Thou shalt pay me well, neighbor,” he continued to the horse's owner, who stood not far from them, in what must have been a negligent attitude, since he took no pains to control his animal, “an thou teach him not to stand better.”

“He hath a fine black mane and tail,” said Content, admiringly. Timothy paused long enough to cast a judicial glance into space.

“Well enough, well enough,” he admitted grudgingly; “but 'tis a horse's hoofs that I think the most on,” and he dropped the bridle, and struck mighty blows upon his primitive anvil. There was no sound under the trees, save the murmur of insects, and now and then a shout, tempered by distance, from the nearest haying field there was no sight but grass and trees, and the child of serious deportment, and the fair young girl with smiling lips, waving, at careless intervals, a leafy twig; but, in the blessed light of imagination, there was active, stirring excitement, satisfying labor, and deserved success. Horse, neighbor, hammer, anvil, bridle, and forge were visible enough to the participants, yet the only bit of realism was the hot air that brooded over the earth, and might have been breathed forth from the open door of a veritable furnace.

“Is thy horse not shod yet, sweetheart?” asked Content, dropping the twig, and rising to her feet; “or shall I frighten him with this wave of my white apron?” and she shook some bits of thread from her dress. “Methinks I can minister no longer to his comfort and thy convenience.” (pp. 126-8)

As she says this, who should show up but Degory Copton (yes, Degory...and no I've never seen that name in the wild, either), who is very happy to offer Timothy tips in imaginary horsemanship. Since it looks it's clabberin' up for rain, Content asks Copton if he thinks she can make it to Salome's before the bottom falls out. Well, she actually says “Shall I go hence to Mistress Salome's without a wetting?” but I wouldn't dare lay a line like that on you without a little advance work. “'By the feel of the air, and the looks of such things as be visible, I think there be things invisible at hand,' he remarked with the obscurity of the prophet. 'An you want my advice, Mistress Content, you will bide, and leave Mistress Salome alone till another day.'” But no, she's just not seeing it his way, so away she scoots, but not before Copton puts a tale of vague portents in her head.

“I am telling thee about the ship, Master Blacksmith,” said Copton, undisturbed by criticism, “a ship that was sent out by our neighbors of New Haven Colony — and when I tell thee they sent it out, be sure all things were done with an eye on Holy Writ even to the tassels of the tabernacle.”

“The tabernacle of the Most High,” observed Timothy, with the utmost gravity of comment.

“Even so. She set sail in January, as they tell me, in the bitter cold — and cold is cold on a ship's deck, with seventy souls aboard; and since then nor word nor message has come from her to those who sent her forth, until —” Copton paused. The girl's eyes were fixed on his face with startled attention; Timothy was lending his ears with critical seriousness; a light-minded grasshopper chirped loudly at their feet.

“Until?” repeated Content.

“Until last month, — a warm day in June, — when those who were looking saw her coming up New Haven harbor, with one officer aboard. No sailors to cast the anchor, or reef the sails, nor yet no passengers to wave a greeting nor,” his voice dropped a tone lower, “a farewell; no man at the helm, and yet she sailed steadily into the harbor with one officer on her deck.” Content moved a little restlessly, the monotony of the recital jarred on her nerves. “And the officer was leaning on his sword, and gave no word of command, only, they do say, as saw, that he looked heavily, as one in sorrow, towards the shore. And then, in sight of them all, she sank,— sank as though she was gripped fast from beneath, and the water went over her, and the harbor was empty as before.”

“And what of the seventy souls?” inquired Timothy.

Copton looked over to the horizon, and back again to Timothy.

“Them as careth for souls, be it for good or bad,” he answered, “they be the ones that know.”

Content stood upon her feet, and picking up her sunbonnet put it on her head.

“I like not tales of phantom ships,” she said. (pp. 131-2)

Too late for that, sweetie. Now that you've heard that story, you can't unhear it. Timothy, of course, ate that stuff up with a spoon, but Content really had to scoot down the road now. And sure enough, the clouds started gathering once she was on the familiar path, which really helped Copton's tale get inside her head. “She was lightly dressed; she felt singularly frail and alone; and the clouds held vague threats of destruction.”

The gale blew up so quickly that she almost didn't notice Stukely, the wayward cavalier, coming in the other direction. When he spotted her, he managed the same courtly shtick that he laid on her on the day at the meeting-house, only not so much, since his frippery and finery was getting tossed about by the inclement weather. Alack! My dainty velvet is squashed like a field of wheat in the wake of advancing French forces... Soon they find themselves in Salome's house. She's singing a familiar air at the spinning wheel...well, familiar to Stukely, anyway, who begins to sing along as the room grows darker, lit by vivid flashes of lightning. Well, that can't be good.

Salome knows the young man—she knows everybody, of course—and gives Content (and us) a proper introduction: “'Mistress Content Cradock, let me present to thee young Mr. Cyprian Stukely,' said Salome, with a change to her grand manner, which, with all its dignity, seldom lost entirely a tinge of irony, 'late of our mother country beyond seas, now testing the slender resources of those her children who have been cast out to seek otherwheres their bed and board.'” Cyprian. Woof. The name sounds like a medication you put on bug bites.

Stukley, thus presented, wastes no time laying on the charm with a trowel until Salome reminds him how well idle flattery goes over in Puritanland. Content, reminded of what turned her off about his tone the last time they met, isn't taking any lip today, but as we'll see, the needler is about to get the needle.

“I stand reproved,” he said with a gesture of affected humility. “This is not the place, I see, to shout the praises of thy country and mine. It becomes not the stranger to cherish allegiance to the sovereign to whom thy rulers also owe fealty!” Content listened with kindling eyes. Her antagonism to this young trifler revived with new force. She recalled her last meeting with him; and the man who had been her companion then seemed the more earnest and the more purposeful by contrast.

“And thou wouldst have us lift up our voices to lament that the measure they meted to us hath been meted to them again?” she demanded, her voice raised that it might be heard above the sound of the noisy rain. “And that the strong hand hath curbed the passionate strokes of oppression?”

“And thou, too, fair mistress!” exclaimed Stukely, turning towards her, while Salome watched her with the smile a mother yields the precociousness of her child. “What can a man do but strike his colors in the presence of such odds? But verily this is an iron country! I expected not to hear the sweet lips of its daughters uttering approval of murder.”

“I approve no murder,” asserted Content, her cheeks flushing crimson. “I would Charles Stuart were alive again; but I see not that God hath made one law for the oppressed and yet another for the oppressor.”

“The sweet lips of the daughters of New England are seldom found without an answer, Master Stukely,” observed Salome, dryly. “It is well for thee to remember that there be here few voices without signification.'

“Small wonder,” he answered with deliberate utterance, “that there be some who, affrighted by the rigors of argument falling from a woman's lips, however fair, seek peace where soft voices raise not the cry of rebellion.”

The room was nearly dark, for the tempest was at its height, and the silence that ensued was shattered by a crash of thunder. Content turned, half in affright, towards Salome, and the superb disdain in her white face, startlingly visible in the shadow, banished her own apprehension with a shock of surprise. It was as if she had not even heard the thunder; her shining eyes were fixed on Stukely, whose own eyes showed anger, though his lips kept their careless smile.

“Yes, it is well,” she said slowly, as the thunder died away; “we have no place for cowards here.”

Content saw that there was a feeling on the part of the speaker that the words did not express, and the moment that followed seemed to her tense with something beside the power of the storm.

“Did you think I was afraid?” she asked Salome, half laughing, as much to break the silence as to defend herself. “Truly I think I was not altogether free from a touch of apprehension that the thunder would knock the house about our ears. But, believe me, I am not altogether a coward, though I start at such a commotion of the elements.” (pp.140-2)

At this point, Stukely turns back to flattery and their first meeting in Salem at the address of Roger Williams. Content is floored when he says that in spite of his smug, glib appearance, he respects Williams as a “man of power,” even if he doesn't agree with the ends he's pursuing. Softening under this new approach, Content observes that Williams was counting on the confusion around the Winthrop funeral to cover his tracks, combined with the colony's abiding mutual friendship borne from shared hardship and suffering. Well, except for that Anne Hathaway woman. But hush, we don't talk about her.

And that's where Stukely attempts what for him is a subtle masterstroke: “Yet it is but as an outsider that I can see the truth, alas! for it is but a meagre measure that one like myself is allowed to find!” Oh, woe, to be a lone and lonely figure in this new land! Oh, woe! Oh, alas! Oh say, who was that guy I saw you with that day in Salem? Was he your brother or something? Oh, Cyprian... (snicker...Cyprian)

The color grew a little deeper in Content's warm cheeks.

“He is not my brother,” she replied; “but young Mr. Archer of Providence, now gone to England at the behest of Mr. Williams and others.”

“Ah! if he be not your brother,” said Stukely, lightly, “then I may say that methought there was a certain truculency in his bearing that would single him out as a man meet for dealing with those who hold themselves his superiors, now in England.”

The implied criticism vexed her; but there was not the same freedom in defending Archer that there was in the case of more conspicuous men. Moreover, there had been a hint of implication in the transition from friendship on general grounds to the particular case of young Mr. Archer which had not escaped her.

“He hath been Mr. Williams' companion in adversity, as well as in such prosperity as hath been his,” she observed, while her thoughts reverted to Archer's enthusiasm with a flash of sympathy.

“And well might there be something assuming in the bearing of a stern young councillor weighted with cares of state, to the careless eyes of one who would push such heavy matters aside with a foot prone to easier paths," said Stukely, his handsome eyes seeking hers, “even had he not the added responsibility of guarding safely through the perils of Salem so precious a companion.”

The ironical tone did not please Content, though there was a scarcely disguised envy audible through the last words that it is not in the heart of woman altogether to withstand.

“There is one fashion, Mistress Salome,” she said, turning from him to their hostess, “that Mr. Stukely hath not yet caught from us of New England.”

“There is more than one," answered Salome; “but what is it that is evident to thy special observation?”

“He talks of perils where there be none; we have had them without our doors too many times to see them in the midst of safety.”

Stukely's dark cheek flushed; and for an instant the studied indifference of his manner gave way under the sting of the gently spoken words.

“Methinks it hath not been the part of Cyprian Stukely to shrink from perils, seen or unseen,” he said hotly. “But,” he added a second later, with a return to his usual manner which cost him some effort, “I should not be unwilling to dream of them if, by so doing I might win the privilege of guarding Mistress Cradock against them in any path she may choose.”

Perhaps neither of the women liked him the less for his momentary loss of temper. (pp. 146-9)

And gee, the sun is breaking through outside! Can't be symbolic, oh nooooo. Maybe if a bird landed on her shoulder with a gift certificate to Outback Steakhouse tied to its leg, I'd change my mind.

Stukely offers to walk her home, but after Salome drops a king's-corpse-sized hint that she and Content have business to attend to, he leaves well enough alone. After he's gone, the two women discuss him a bit more freely. The main question, of course, is “Who and what is he?” Who he is, Salome informs Content, is a “young English gallant” who doesn't have much use for (or in) a country without a king, but would put his life on the line on its behalf just out of habit. As for what he is, she continues, at this point he probably doesn't know either. He's a cavalier who's lost his cav, so he's got nothin' but leer.

Content brings up the ghost ship of Copton's story, which has been buzzing around in her head like a nest of hornets. “Was it a real ship — or was it —but — a — vision?” “It must be a wiser one than I to tell you whereabouts in the real a vision begins. And how should I know? Thinkest thou I saw it?” Content had never broached the subject that brought her to Salome that day—she was worried about Archer—but this reply was noncommittal enough to put her mind at rest for Archer's fate as Salome went back to her spinning and her singing:

" ' Go, Love, go! for Love is unkind.'
But Love came again,
With the rush of the rain,
On the breath of the wind."

And with the subtlety of a sledgehammer comes the cue that the central triangle is finally established. Will Content Cradock end up with the earnest, hard-working man of the people? Or the smarmy flatterer with the lace doily around his neck? Place your bets, please...

Next: Still no Archer, but plenty of slings and arrows. Cyprian. Buahahahahahahaha!

Sidebar: Now with T-SHIRTS!

2009-10-08T14:42:00.009-04:00

Even a year after the launch of this project, the posts about Mór Jókai's A Hungarian Nabob are still very popular...or at least as popular as anything I've put on here since. In honor of the primacy of place he holds in the legend of The 1899 Project, I have T-shirts.

(Preview image in lower quality.)

That's right, it's a handsome photographic portrait of Jókai himself (Hungarian statesman, novelist, poet, painter, and sculptor) paired with one of my trademark atrocious puns. How can you possibly go wrong? Or rather, how can you possibly go wronger? It's definitely a conversation starter, especially if you don't hang out with world literature majors. Regardless, if this looks like something you'd like on your shirt, coffee mug, or mousepad, follow the link to my CafePress shop. Who knows? We might start a trend!

Oh, and before any natives ask, I used the Western name order because that's the only way my lame pun would work. Cheers!

Mistress Content Cradock Chapter 6: SERPENTS AND COCKATRICES!

2009-10-07T16:55:00.006-04:00

We're back in Salome's house as we begin Chapter 6, and still she insists on that brazen self-expression that we've gradually become accustomed to. This time, the narrator picks out a splash of gold (Consteration! Uproar!) joining the ends of her “crimson, crape-like scarf,” and her dress was a “rich, lustrous material.” This is a puzzler, since we've been convinced that the Bay Puritans' idea of “rich and lustrous” is about as on the money as the concept of “decadence” in a Diet Dr. Pepper ad, but never you mind, because she hears a sound on the water. Company's coming.

“Welcome,” she uttered the word in her low voice whose carrying quality seemed to bear the word into the darkness further than the firelight could penetrate. Still there was no one to be seen, but the sound of steps had grown more distinctly audible. She did not speak again, and in a few moments the figure of a man drew near out of the darkness, and Williams stepped into the contracted circle of light.

“I thank thee,” he said, as with almost foreign courtesy, he bent before her. “I draw near in the darkness and the mystery befitting an exiled man, and I find an open door and a glowing hearthstone, and a welcome that waits not for my challenge. I thank thee again, Mistress Salome.” As he entered the house and closed the door behind his hostess and himself, the marks of weariness were on his face, and he moved like one who is travel-worn and would be glad of rest. In silence Salome went about with an air that with all its dignity spoke the pleasure of serving an honored guest. She placed the highbacked chair far enough from the fire to feel its generosity without being oppressed by it, and set a silver tankard of ale upon a rough stand, the product of Copton's ingenuity.

The gleam of the rich plate banished the poverty of its surroundings, and imparted a hint of magnificence to Williams' reception. When all was finished, and Salome seated herself at the other side of the fireplace, and, still silent, turned her queenly head towards him, the two figures completed the impression of distinction.

“Still chary of thy words, Mistress Salome?” said the man, smiling.

“Not if need call for them,” she answered ; “but a weary man should have breathing space unhampered by giving change for the silver of speech.”

“Not all thy sex have thy tolerance — as I have found in other matters as well,” he said, still smiling.

“And have all thine?” she demanded swiftly.

“Nay, verily,” he admitted, “I am not able to claim that for the sons of men.”

“Then spare their daughters,” she admonished.

“The oppressor may well spare when the besieged city hath such defenders,” he said dryly. “It is well for us that we are not always kept beyond their tender mercies.” (pp. 103-5)

Well, this is downright cordial for Salome, but there's a good reason for that. The topic shifts to the meeting in Salem, which Simone intuits from twenty years of acquaintance with Williams didn't go well at all, because his “prophecy was contention.” That cuts Williams to the quick, “You believe that it is the love of bickering and strife that leads me forth from the congregations of men? That my very soul yearned not after those my people; that I would not fain have bound myself to them with the bond of peace?” Then, sadly, “God knoweth my heart loveth them too well to love their errors. It is a burden that He hath laid upon me, and at times it presseth hardly upon weary shoulders.”

Well, Williams even got to Salome, who, confronted with this, lays a hand on his arm and words of kindness on his ear. She's all scrutable now, and suddenly there's no telling where this scene will go. She asks about Williams' wife and children and how his colony in Providence is coming along, and for awhile both their spirits lift, but then things take a turn.

“Would that Mistress Hutchinson had tarried there!”

“Ay, would that she had!” he answered sadly. “There are nights of silence, when the remembrance of the bloody end of that woman of great gifts and of marvellous grace of carriage weighs my spirit down, and I lie awake in a shuddering rebelliousness against the divine decree that let her go forth but to perish.”

The brutally short version, if your history teacher never got around to it: Anne Hutchinson, who was banished for the heresy of coming up with and teaching her own interpretations of scriptures, co-founded Rhode Island with Williams, but after her husband's death, she and her followers to New Netherland (now the Bronx). Unfortunately, she and her followers got caught in the middle of a sporadic but persistent war between the Dutch and the native tribes and met one of those tragically violent ends you've heard so much about from this period of history It's also worth mentioning that during her heresy trial, the powers that be relentlessly mocked her stress-induced miscarriage as God's punishment for falling from grace. If you want a quick trip through what Williams was reacting to, you couldn't do any better than Hutchinson's story.

Anyway, the mention of Hutchinson breaks Salome's aloof veneer.

“And what think you of my nights of silence!” demanded Salome, her eyes kindling with a deep radiance, as she rose suddenly and stood before him. “Then there come to my ears the cries of the lonely household, though there be no wind abroad ! Then I see Anne Hutchinson as I saw her first, sitting under the preaching of the Reverend Mr. Cotton, her face alight with the grace that of a truth dwelt within; or, later, ministering to a sick and dismayed girl whose courage and whose life seemed slipping away together! — and then, I catch a vision of her fleeing from the hand of murderers — and fleeing in vain!” Her usually impassive voice trembled, and she threw her arm up against the side of the chimney-place and rested her head there an instant before she continued, “And the girl whom she brought back from the gates of death was not there to help —”

“Nor to perish with her,” interpolated her hearer, gently, “thank God!”

“To perish with her then — nor any hand to minister to her, dying, as she ministered to me and others like me, when death seemed at hand and was not! Small wonder,” she added, “that I see visions and dream dreams.”

Williams watched her closely, noting the heavy sadness that settled upon her features, usually so immobile in their regular beauty, and the fire that burned in her eyes. “And who sent her there? Those in authority. Authority! Authority!” she exclaimed passionately, “had we not enough of authority before we crossed the seas?” (pp. 107-10)

Williams gently implores her to come back to Providence, which brings back her icy composure. She presumes he's heard the rumors about her, since, as we've already observed, a woman who chose to live single and alone in this place and this time draws all sorts of bad attention. “Or have they more specific and graver charges? That I know strange properties of herb and root; that I have mysterious visitors? and that somehow,—good men and women know not how, — I have intelligences and revelations and — only soothsayers, witches and the like know what not?” Yes, the W word. And I don't mean “Woot.com's Deal of the Day.”

Salome insists that she isn't scared of that word (which is “witchcraft,” by the way, if you really need an answer key to my clever hints), but in the process of listening to her mocking assertions, Williams is disquieted that she recites almost verbatim the loose talk and comments that had made him fearful for her future in the first place. Again he returns to his Conscience Relocation Plan.

“Come back with me to Providence,” he repeated. “Mary, my wife, will give thee a warm welcome, and Mary Dyar —”

“Yes, and Mary Dyar —” said Salome, coming nearer, “her name hath been, unuttered, on my lips many times.”

“Will give thee room in her house, and thy wisdom will perhaps hold her back from imprudence, while thy tolerance will not strive to quench her spirit.”

“Mine is an ancient bond of friendship with Mary Dyar,” she said slowly. “I pray no harm come to one so dazzled by what she looks to as the light of morning.”

“Thou shalt lead her if she be further blinded.”

“Nay, nay,” and Salome shook her head; “I must stay here, it is here I have pitched my tent. And who knows," she went on, with her enigmatical smile, “but I might introduce further discord into the diversity of thy manifestations. If I should feel called upon to lift up my voice with my head uncovered, who knows but even the liberal founder of the colony might see cause for discipline.”

A frown flitted across Williams' expressive face, Salome watching it unmoved from her composure.

“'Judge in yourselves: is it becoming that a woman pray unto God uncovered?' says the great Apostle,” he answered with a shade of sternness.

“Yea, verily, and 'avoid contentions and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain,' says also the great Apostle. Were it not well to leave to each one his favorite interpretation?” she asked as if in passing curiosity. He started to his feet; but, before he could reply, the satirical voice went on, “And yet perhaps that scandal would be removed from me, for I might find no congregation to disturb. I hear your settlement is in itself something of a scandal among the colonies, inasmuch as it has as yet no meeting-house within its borders.”

Williams sank back into his chair.

"It is not always within four walls that a man communes best with his God," he said.

“And truly it were not possible to have four walls for each one of thy communions! Is Mary, thy wife, admitted now to thine?” the query fell from her calm lips with an indescribable accent. (pp. 112-4)

Williams bows his head as a man who feels like his last port in the storm has washed away. Since even Salome can tell when she takes something one step too far, she tries to reel some of it back in. But no, she's not packing up her kit and moving to Providence unless things get really frosty.

She also remembers to tell Williams that Reverend Killjoy—um, Glover—has picked up his scent, and he replies that he was planning to leave at dawn...alone, because Archer had by this time left for England. “We fear certain intrigues and mishaps for our infant colony possible under the new rule that obtaineth, and news that has come since I came hither demands the presence there of a trusty agent.”

So, a few final words and then goodbye.

“Salome,” said Roger Williams, breaking the silence with his magnetic voice, “Archer has gone to England, and it may be that I shall be called there before we meet again, — if in the providence of God we ever meet again, — and if I am called, I go; manifold changes are in the air there, and may bring manifold changes here. And if I go, hast thou no message to send?”

Salome's features grew rigid, but she turned her dusky eyes upon the speaker.

“I have no message.”

“Not if it be for his soul's good?” he asked gently.

“His soul is not mine to benefit,” she answered, without a flicker of emotion; “neither do I greatly think it is his to be saved. He parted with it, methinks, fifteen years ago.”

“That is not for thee to say.”

“Let him say it who will, or leave it unsaid, I care not,” she said, indifferent to the reproof. “I have no message.”

“It may be he knew not the furrow that the ploughshare should cut when he turned back his hand.”

“He left the field for the house of feasting, and others have gotten the harvest.”

“It is no longer the house of feasting — remember that. For him and for such as he, there may be bitter mourning.”

“I go not beyond the hour of his choice.”

“You are hard, Salome.”

“Yes, I am hard.”

He rose to his feet and passed his hand over his forehead.

“My word is spoken,” he said, “and I go. Once more, hast thou no message?”

“Yes,” exclaimed Salome; “since thou hast come for it at much risk and small profit, I will send a word. Say to him,” — and she caught up a Bible from the table and rapidly turned its leaves, — “say to him this, ' Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.'” (pp. 117-20)

That quote block, by the way, is dedicated to early adopter Matt, who, to my never-ending delight, is being broken by this type of writing much faster than he claimed I'd be. The fact that he can't get past his hatred of the intolerant Puritans being held up for centuries as the paragon of Americanism is just the cherry on the sundae. Eat it, bub. Choke it down! But I digress...

Anyway, those would've been the famous last words, except that Nishokou appears in the doorway with a warning that Rev. Glover is on his way down, looking for “the friend of the Indian.” Well, we can't have Williams and the seeker of heresies in the same room, so Salome instructs Nishokou to bring Glover down on a different path than Williams will be using for his escape. Her face settled back into its standard ice-cold configuration just in time for Glover's entrance...with a constable.

“You have a distinguished visitor to-night,” he said sternly.

“Yes,” said Salome, graciously moving aside that he might enter, “the Reverend Mr. Glover. Truly it is an honor that he seeks this humble roof again so soon, though not without the protection of the law, I perceive, lest there be spells in the air — ”

“Cease your jeers!” he commanded, while his keen eyes took in every corner of the room, which offered not the slightest chance of concealment.

“Where is yon rebel,” he demanded, turning to her, “who dares — ” and his words died upon his lips as he met her tranquil gaze. The superb dignity of her appearance silenced him like a hand laid suddenly upon his mouth. Was this the woman who lived alone and in unassuming poverty? Was he a pastor and a teacher armed with the majesty of ecclesiastical authority? The silken folds of her dress swept the rush-strewn floor as grandly as though they fell upon a marble pavement. The rich crimson of her drapery glowed in the changing reflections of the fire, and the gold of her girdle gleamed as she moved slightly, to face him more directly. His world trembled on its foundations; the daughter of Heth, cowering beneath the frown of one of the chosen household, had become a princess tolerating the presence of an unfriendly ambassador. New experiences seem longer than they are.

“Where is Roger Williams?” he asked hoarsely; while the constable quietly removed the physical power of the law outside the door, feeling that the crisis was diplomatic rather than active.

“He has gone,” replied Salome; “and you will not find him.”

“You are confident, Mistress Salome.”

“Yes, I am confident,” she assented, as calmly as a few moments earlier she had accepted another accusation.

He chafed against her tone; but he could not resist the influence that she carried with her, that influence that said that she knew where others could only guess. (pp. 121-2)

We're running a little bit long in this post, so here's how the rest of it goes: Salome and the Reverend engage in some back-and-forth recriminations, which works better on the Rev. than it does on the eerily placid Salome. She calmly invites Crackston, the constable, to step in, but apparently he's freaked out by how well she's taking all of this and decides to stay at the doorway, lest she turn him into a newt...whether he gets better or not. Having gotten nothing which he can use—except for the knowledge that Williams was there, but not any more—Glover exits with a melodramatic flourish: “'“Behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you,”' muttered the Reverend Mr. Glover, as he stumbled hastily on in the darkness; '“serpents, cockatrices, — which will not be charmed, — and they shall bite you — they shall bite you, — saith the Lord!”'”

That almost felt like the end of a pro wrestling interview. “Serpents and cockatrices, I tell ya! Hit my music...” (Strikes ridiculous poses as the camera closes in and we see his nostrils flare. Trust me, if it's wrestling, that shot's aways there.) “Strong words from the Reverend Glover. Chris Jericho after the break. What's a cockatrice, J.R.?”

Next: Stukely gets a more suitable presentation. By which I mean something other than “Home of the world-famous nut log. Exit 115.”

Content Cradock Sidebar: The Illustrator Betrays Us ALL!

2009-10-06T16:18:00.006-04:00

Before we push on, a note on the illustrations. So far, they have been functional (if very, very, very dull and static), but the line drawing for Chapter 3 of the "exotic" Mistress Salome either betrays the century's unimaginative view of what exoticism actually is or that the author and the artist were working against each other. I lean towards the second possibility.

(Click for a larger version)

Yes, that's exotic, inscrutable, scandalously unseemly Salome, instantly recognizable by her look of boredom and her nondescript appearance. The complete absence of any distinguishing characteristics from the text gives it away, really.

But hark, let's see how the flower flirting from the last chapter was represented:

(Click for a larger version)

Well, neither one of them seems to be having much fun. You'd think she'd be more into it, at least. Content is indeed holding out the fragrant spray of flowers, albeit more out of duty than anything--after all, that's what the caption says, so that's what we do. Archer, on the other hand, seems to be transfixed by something just past and above her left shoulder. Is it a sign from the Great Beyond? A bear? A giant gleaming metallic robot from the future with machine guns for arms and a speaker in its chest blasting "Who Let The Dogs Out?" Alack-a-day, we shall never know...

Before you get the idea that it's all stiff posing and immobile faces...well, it's mostly true, but check out this detail from the "Freudian" candle-lighting scene.

(click for full picture)

"I'm sorry, I've never missed the wick before." "Oh, hold still and let me do it."

And that deep sense of shame from typing the above is one of the many, many reasons I'm not yet Internet Famous. The secret is out.

Mistress Content Cradock Chapter 5: A Tender Moment (and Mistress Pull-My-String)

2009-10-05T22:29:00.003-04:00

Yes, we're still walking and still talking as Chapter 5 begins—and yes, another pair of epigraphs from that same poet fella—but away from the tempest in the meeting house, at least Content has unlaxed a little bit. We're climbing a small hill that overlooks the settlement; “It was a rough path, and at last no path at all; but Content felt in the mood for physical difficulties, and to Archer it was no hardship to follow whither this companion led.” In the open air, she's also getting playfulness back in her mockery, so when Archer broaches the subject of his mentor Roger Williams, she's ready to roll once again.

“And you yourself, would you have banished beyond seas — I say not the leader of controversy, but the man that sat beneath your father's roof-tree, and told Timothy tales of knighthood, and called down blessings upon Mr. John Eliot?”

Content stooped, and, pushing aside the moist dead leaves, plucked a tiny flower from the roots of a sturdy tree.

“Poor little blossom,” she murmured irrelevantly, “born out of due time. If I had not found thee thou wouldst have had no companion, and have died thinking that thou alone didst remember that there was a spring! And if he would pull down my father's rooftree,” she resumed, “I should have thought it were a less disastrous outlay of money and labor if he built his own roof in another colony, that he might build up and pull down, and spare me a place to lay my head! "

“Give me the flower,” said Archer, holding out his hand to hers, which lightly swung the tinted mayblossom. “It hath found its spring in the warmth of thy greeting; I will keep it till we discover its fellow.”

The girl looked up into the strong face of the man ; there was a hint of compulsion in his tone which touched her sensitiveness, and yet was not altogether repelling.

“There is no companion for one who hath mistaken the meaning of the hour,” she objected. “One swallow makes not a summer — one poor little flower cannot make a spring,” and she blew softly upon the half closed petals, which gave out the faintest suggestion of delicate perfume.

“But it belongs to the hour, nevertheless,” said Archer; “I pray you, Mistress Content, give me the flower.”

The slender hand fell again to her side, still swinging the trifling thing.

“I say not,” she said, with a second most trying irrelevancy, “that I would not have sent to him privately and bade him get him gone without further mischance — like Mr. Governor — and maybe a word or two of personal friendship — I say not I would not have done that — and maybe, withal, a token,” she went on; “yes, a token — there could be no harm in sending a token to take with him to Providence.”

Her wide-open eyes shone with something that Archer had not seen before in their starry depths; he was not sure what it was, but it was bewilderingly pleasant to look upon. (pp. 83-5)

There's a cute bit of back-and-forth as Archer tries to talk Content into giving him the flower to take back to Providence as a token, to which she eventually yields. “'Prithee, take it,' she said, with a half affected petulance; 'while you and I have the esteemed Mr. Williams and his controversies before our eyes, we shall lack not ever an unsettled score!'” He accepts it with a tenderness that she couldn't help but note.

They're finally at the top of the hill, and as they rest on a fallen tree trunk, Archer takes a journey through the past. This is a long trip, but kind of important for our eventual destination, so bear with me here.

Archer's eyes were not on the roofs of the settlement, but following a course pointed out by memory.

“Do you see yonder woods?” he asked, indicating a path towards the south.

“Yes.”

“It was there that Roger Williams spent his first night of unsheltered exile.”

“And you were with him?”

“Yes ; but what was it to me —a lad used to court the elements for naught but pleasure? But to him — his heart bound to his people, his head weary with thought and struggle, his love hurt with wounds met in the house of his friends, his shoulders bowed beneath the burden of reproach!” — the young man's voice trembled, and he paused.

“Tell me further,” said Content, gently.

“The heathen of the forest was kinder to him than were they in the bonds of Christian fellowship; for the non-believer made him welcome when those of his own household of faith sent him forth. It was cold, — cold with the very coldness of death, — and he might have warmed himself at many hearths had he but respected less the sanctity of his own conscience ; he was hungry, and he might have been fed at many tables had he but admitted that some may give and others only take. He wandered, lost in the dreary sameness of untrodden forest, because he would not follow the leadership of blind guides!”

Archer had risen, and a stern indignation swept his words in a current so impetuous that Content was thrilled by his emotion; he was no longer the somewhat literal youth she had jested with. His eyes were sad with the same sadness that now and then looked forth from those of his leader and friend. Again she perceived that resemblance between them that was rather spiritual than physical.

“But how should they know? — they did not know —” she stammered. His eyes fell upon her with a certain scorn that seemed, for the moment, to be for her.

“They knew that winter is cold,” he said slowly; “that wild beasts are in the forest; that bread lies not in the path that a wanderer makes through the wilderness ; that the endurance of a man unspared and ungrudged in the service of his God, cannot forever withstand cold, hunger and exhaustion. They knew these things, and they sent him forth. And the Lord led him to a pleasant place; but it was from out the shadow of a great weariness.”

Content's eyes were full of tears; she shivered in the warm rays of the sun; looking at the patches of snow in the hollows, she felt their cruel wet chill.

“I knew not,” she half whispered; “it was a wrong. And you were with him,” she said again ; “and you saw him. And you have listened to my levity and my reproaches, and you rebuked me not — till now.”

Archer's face softened. “And I rebuke thee not now,” he said; “I do but tell thee. Yes, I was with him, and what think you? That he railed at the severity of those at whose hands he had received exile? Nay, Mistress Content, from the lips of yonder man who was driven forth a second time to find a home, there fell not a word of bitterness against those whose will it was. They were in his eyes men who stood ever before the Lord, though they saw not all things clearly, even in the light of His presence.” (pp. 87-89)

Well, friends, that was all it took. “'Forgive my cavilling spirit!' she exclaimed. 'He has conquered me too.'” And then, temporarily at a loss for words, he takes her hand for a moment.

Now that we've broken through, their banter takes a more earnest tone, as Archer returns to all that “meaning of the hour” talk she was spouting a few minutes ago. “'It seems to my loving consideration, more and more, that it may be only that Mr. Williams hath mistaken the meaning of the hour —' he paused, and then went on, sadly, 'so he goeth alone, without even the countenance of his friends and well-wishers.'” We also return to the topic of Lord Douchey McDouchedouche, and the unseemliness of his cheek to “the sober men of our colony.” His proper name is Stukey, but he'll always be Douchey to me. After all the other picturesque names we've been hit with, Stukey doesn't exactly trip from the tongue.

Stukey (ugh) pops up right on cue—his ears must've been burning—making an almost parodic show of deference and doffing his plumed hat as the two passed. They don't even toss him a backwards glance. “'A quaint and most unyielding dignity,' he said to himself. 'Truly, I am glad that there be something in these provinces, besides discussions of church and state, that a man of the world may divert himself with!'” Haha! Such foibles of these colonists! I darest not soil my pinafore beweeping them! But dig the local talent...whoops, too colorful.

Finally they reach Mistress Doty's house, where Content's staying while the family's in town, and the lady of the house invites Archer to sit for a bite of dinner, but before he can, Master Cradock has a few words for him outside. As the gents take private conference, Mistress Doty, “portly almost to clumsiness” (well thanks loads for sharing that), is all “Don't worry your pretty little head, Content honey.” Well, she uses a few more words than that. A few hundred more words.

“It is nothing to rouse thy apprehensions, dear heart,” said Mistress Dotey, comfortably, “that I promise thee, though I know not precisely the subject; but I do know that they but speak of the public weal, and to weak women like us that seemeth but a little thing when brought alongside our private woe — hast ever thought that? — as for me I be not of the seed of the martyrs. Sit thee down there and let me lay aside thy warm cloak — ah, that weaving is of thy mother's warp and woof! — no, so they leave me my roof and my son and my husband, and let me bake bread for them in peace, I fear me I would grow fat in a slothful ease, even though there be dangerous upsetting of creeds and a usurpation of power that pertaineth to spiritual things! Dry thy feet, sweetheart, thou hast been through damp paths 5 our roads, the best of them, are but in a sorry plight, —sloughs of despond that discourage a timid soul like mine more than doubts of the calling and election of certain church members that sit heavy on the consciences of the more truly godly.” (p. 96)

And she chatters on like that for three whole pages. In a situation like this, a wing is as good as the whole damn goose if you just want to get the flavor. It's enough to make you wish somebody would invent the radio so you could drown her out. I hope she remembered to breathe...

Archer does eventually return to put us out of our misery, but a new misery awaits Content.

“Mistress Dotey,” he said, “I come but to thank thee for thy courtesy, and to decline it. Mistress Content,” he went on, and there was a quality in his tone which held the attention of both the women, “thy father, speaking for others, hath committed to my youth and inexperience a trust that it will go hard if I do not faithfully guard. It leaveth me but little time for farewells, ere I take it up. I sail for England at dawn — “

“Alack-a-day!” exclaimed Mistress Dotey, who could hold her peace no longer, and slipped past him to meet Cradock, who was just entering.

“And there be but few hours,” went on Archer, without heeding her, “between now and then. My service to thy mother, whom I had thought to thank in person, and a word to Timothy of the tales I mayhap will have to tell him when I return; and now, Mistress Content,” he paused a moment, and looked down at the graceful head, its hair slightly roughened by the hood, a look of startled non-comprehension in her wide eyes, before they fell before his, “farewell. The stranger that came to thy gate but yesterday may say no more. But,” and his voice was too low to reach other ears, “he bears away with him the fragrance of a flower that hath dared to bloom too early — farewell.” He bowed low over her hand with a respect unsurpassed by the young elegant who had saluted her a half hour earlier. (pp. 98-9)

Well, that's the end of him for awhile, I guess. And as Mistress Dotey fills another page with obnoxious idle chatter—I assume it's meant to be comic relief, since I shudder to think Mistress Human Infodump is intended to be taken any other way—Content Cradock stares morosely through the window as the figure of Resolved Archer vanishes in the darkness.

“Alack-a-day!”? Did somebody bus her in from Blackadder?

Next: Another audience with the mystifying Salome! You'll never guess who pops in!

Mistress Content Cradock Chapter 4: Enter Little Lord Snarksalot from Jerkington

2009-10-04T18:55:00.004-04:00

The arrival of Roger Williams in Salem has spread along a grapevine of sympathetic ears; the unfriendlies so far either locked out by ignorance of or apathy to the news.”As by general consent, and as in all moments of general interest which called for a common meeting ground, the steps of the people turned towards the wooden house where this beloved, if misguided, pastor had so often met them in public worship.” So that's where they find gathered at the beginning of Chapter 4, in a standing-room-only audience with this controversial man, all united in earnestness of cause and attentiveness...with one notable exception. A flashily dressed young man whose “indolence” set him off from the crowd wasn't listening so much as indulging in a little people-watching, his eyes roaming the crowd and eventually landing on...well, you tell me. What's the title of this book, after all? Mistress Salome's Two-Fisted Tales of Puritan Herbalism? Didn't think so.

“It were hard to find fault with that face,” he said to himself, “though it be a picture but poorly framed. It would not disgrace the laces and brocades of Whitehall. In truth,” he continued to muse, “these colonial beauties, while they have lost something of the vigorous bloom and superb outline of our English dames, have already won in their place, whether from the sharp climate or the thin air of theological discourse, a certain delicate pallor and springlike grace of form that it would not be hard to make a fashion even among people of taste. This young Puritan now, though she be no Venus nor Juno, might pose not inaptly as a Flora or a Psyche — but what have we here ? Verily, the lion of controversy hath begun to roar!” and his handsome eyes, with their drooping eyelids and lashes, turned from Content's cheek, which would certainly have flushed an indignant red at his comparisons, had she been cognizant of their levity, to the reading desk where from the midst of a group of men Roger Williams' voice rose in clarion tones. (pp. 65-6)

Befitting a man reaching beyond the standards of the time, this definitely doesn't sound like a standard sermon. I certainly don't remember hecklers when I went to church, such as the intense man who debates points of doctrine from the crowd with Williams, but I'm not entirely convinced that's a bad thing, since at least they're engaging with his message. Fortunately, the man in the crowd is feeding Williams arguments that he can answer, so let's not ring the bell on this match just yet. The topic Master Scowlyface is reacting to is (surprise) keeping the church out of civil law...specifically, Williams' contention that it shouldn't be the duty of the court to (for example) repress heresy. His counterpoint: why should the “broken cistern” of a secular judge to hold water over us? Williams picks up the ball and runs with it from here.

“Yea, if we be not taught of the Lord — if the teaching come not to our souls, that is, and not through the lips of another.”

“Pause, lest you lead some into error!” cried the former speaker. “Would you speak to us of a covenant of grace, and of an inward light, and of such matters as lead to anarchy and unseemliness?”

“Nay, nay, but I would remember that there be diversity of gifts,” said Williams, his eyes glowing with the excitement of argument so dear to his soul. “Were you a stranger without the Bay, it is to a doctor of physic, or to a pilot that you would trust the conduct of your ship and the life of those within it?” He paused a moment and then went swiftly on. “Verily, I say it would be to the man who knoweth the rocks and the shoals from previous knowledge and experience, rather than to that mayhap better man who hath studied the wants of human bodies but after a different fashion. It hath been proved in older civilizations than is ours, that a magistrate may be a godly man and but an indifferent guardian of the public weal. There are ' differences of administration' and 'diversities of operations' and ' to one is given the word of wisdom and to another faith —'”

“Yea,” interrupted his opponent; “but let us try the spirits whether they be of God — else do we cut loose from all that we have come hither to establish."

“Yea,” assented Williams, in his turn; “but let us not try those spirits by the law of man, but by the divining rod of our own consciences.” (pp. 67-8)

The crowd was getting uncomfortable, if not restless. It was too much, too soon, and even Content felt that the Williams' aggressiveness was driving a wedge between the man and the people that he loved. It was while glancing around to take the temperature of the room that she first locked onto the bemused eyes of Lord Cheeky McDouchingham. “Her eyes were held an instant by his, in a surprised curiosity, before she withdrew them, while her tinge of color grew into a deeper crimson at her own folly.”

The debate rages on, Roger Williams displaying why he won Controversialist of the Year more often than he would World's Greatest Grandpa. Meanwhile, Caleb Cradock's face grows sadder, and McDouchingham looks like he's about to ask an usher for a beer and a chili dog, only adding to Constant's irritation. If he struck a nerve with some over the church-and-state material, what Williams says next goes straight to the bone: “No more right […] than have ye a right to the lands that ye have taken well nigh by force from those to whom they were divinely given, and who are even now learning to acknowledge the Giver.”

His stance on giving fair value for the land to its natives (as he did with Providence), rather than a government just grabbing it from the unwashed savages, was a major bone of contention with Williams. This crowd can't believe he's going there again, since they felt the issue had been settled through their blood, sweat, and tears, and I can't be the only one who flashes to 21^st century Israel at this point. Archer enters to the murmurs of discontent that follows, while Williams is building to a crescendo: “'And if our God be our God, then is the land not ours save by honest purchase and Christian charity!' he thundered. 'Was it the God of the Christian who led the council of your united colonies to yield the friend of Roger Williams to the tomahawk of his foes? Upon their heads be the blood of Miantonomoh!'” Ouch. Forget about going to the bone, that's a drill right through the marrow.

It's at this point that Caleb Cradock interjects “Beware lest you speak treason!”, which pulls his friend's rhetoric in just a bit, and that's the cue for the snotty interloper at the back of the room to open his smartass mouth.

“It jars somewhat on the ears of a loyal subject,” interrupted a clear voice which seemed not to raise itself above its natural tone, but which was distinctly audible in the growing confusion of the crowded room, “that the names of your magistrates are so often upon the lips of this worshipful assembly. If there be differences concerning the holding of your lands, as one might judge from the late eloquence so abounding in most recondite allusion,” and he smiled slightly, “is it not to the owner of these lands of Massachusetts Bay that such difficulties should be referred ? Methinks your holdings be of his Majesty King Charles the First,” and his slow glance, with its flavor of impertinence, travelled about the room, while he struck lightly his embroidered gloves one against the other — as if to speak to these provincials it were not necessary to intermit even so slight an occupation. Archer had left Cradock's side and was making his way towards Content, when these words arrested his attention. He stopped in the middle of the crowded room, and across the heads of the seated company, and between the figures of those who stood about, the glances of the two young men met with the flash of crossing swords, and while they held each other for an instant, the speaker's grasp tightened on his glove, holding it suddenly still, and then, unhurriedly, his eyes passed on, dwelt curiously on Cradock, and finally rested on Williams and those nearest him. A silence tense with meaning, though no throb of impatience was audible through it, fell upon the assembly. Content had not turned her head to identify the speaker. She knew as well as if the voice had repeatedly sounded in her ears that it came from the haughty lips of the young man whose attitude she blindly resented from the first.

“Surely I am not mistaken in thinking that his Majesty has not resigned his over-lordship to these—“ the supercilious tones hesitated a moment, — “to these giants of theology that sit upon the bench of the magistracy, judging souls and bodies.”

His words had roused a keen resentment, he had touched a chord it were well for English supremacy not to set vibrating too harshly; but these men were not children to be baited by a boy with an assumption of authority. It was Cradock who spoke, while Archer went on to Content's side, holding back the retort that had sprung to his young lips.

“It is not a thing to be forgotten either by us or thee,” he said with calm dignity, “that our charter is from the hand of a king. But neither is it,” and the company held its breath as his voice grew sterner and weightier, his eyes fixed upon the slender handsome man who leaned forward, a plumed hat swinging lightly in his hand, apparently unconscious of the tide that was rising in the breasts of those about him, “neither is it a thing to be set aside, that we be freemen and not serfs; and while our consciences approve, we have no appeal to make to a more distant tribunal save in a cause, yet unforeseen, that must needs go beyond our own doors — into the presence of the King of England.” The company breathed freer, it was not a disloyal answer; but neither could it be said to positively invoke the excellent discretion and unswerving justice of the first Charles.

“An appeal to the king!” muttered the antagonist of Williams, under his breath. “Who is this young blade who is in such haste to hide him under the ermine?”

“I know not,” answered his neighbor, in the same tone; “and if the royal mantle be long enough to sweep across yonder sea, it may knock down a spire or two ! It behooves us to be careful,” and they exchanged looks of a certain austere humor. (pp. 73-6)

And the saucy lad releases the debate, such as it was, back to the people who were taking at seriously. Mwa-ha-ha! I am such a saucy lad babbling on in my finery! But I am a lad at leisure and must unknot the monotony with due speed! Whiskey for my men and beer for my horses! Maybe he put a coy finger to his pursed lips while the Puritans stared at him like he just landed from another planet...and parked his spaceship on somebody's mule. Third side of the triangle? Well, he's obviously not going away after making a scene like that.

Since news moved slowly in those days, nobody present was aware that Charles the First had lost an appeal to the axe a few months before. Having the king's ear doesn't do much if it's separated from the rest of his body.

Archer tells Content at this point that her father asked him to take her out of the meeting house, since their business could take at least another hour. The events she had just witnessed were still buzzing around in her head like a nest of yellowjackets—Roger Williams, the neigbors, the douchebag with the lace cuffs...everything. Once they were well into the open air, it all came spilling out.

“He is two men!” she exclaimed after a few moments in the clear buoyant air, and she spoke with an accent of irritation. “And it lies not beyond the wit of a maid to denote which is the more winning.”

“Nay, I pray thee,” said Archer, whose single-eyed conscientiousness was apt to lead him into an unfortunate choice of times and seasons for differing with Content, “then were he double-faced — which even no enemy had ever ground for saying of Mr. Williams.”

“And why not double-faced, if two-souled?” she persisted. “And that he be two-souled, I do contend. It was one soul that looked from his eyes upon little Timothy and the Apostle Eliot, and another that saw his old flock come with warm hearts to greet him, and a warm hand-grasp ready for him — those who stood by him in times of trouble, alas ! — and yet held out to them naught but the — the stone — of old differences.”

It were well that Caleb Cradock's ears were safely shut into the meeting-house, while his daughter spoke of the stone instead of the lifegiving bread of religious discussion! As for Archer, it was not the first time that he had been staggered by her eloquence.

“He held his own, I warrant me,” he observed. His craven avoidance of the point at issue met with the check it deserved.

“His own? Yea, verily — it be ever his own that he is holding! I would he held that something hath been committed to other saints as well! If his own be ever the good thing he would have us believe, let him share it with those about him.”

This species of logic dazzled, if it did not convince. Archer realized anew the unwisdom of provoking an argument. Nevertheless the curves of Content's lips were ameliorating.

“Would ye have them accuse him of Antinomianism,” he ventured, having picked up most of the scraps of the conversation he had not heard from the bystanders, “and have him keep silence?”

Content paused and faced him. The spring air waved the soft hair about her low forehead, a thrush sang from an elm.

“I am aweary of Antinomianism!” she exclaimed.

And the heavens fell not. (pp. 78-80)

Which is probably supposed to mean more than it does now, but we're at the chapter break...let it go, let it go.

Hmm, this entry wasn't exactly slopping over with wall-to-wall hilarity. Maybe I'm taken by the idea that, unlike Dave's last choice, things are actually happening in this story. It may not be art, but it's artful.

Next: The sound of reticence giving way. And no, I don't mean mine. Trust me, it'll make more sense when you read it.

Mistress Content Cradock Chapter 3: Sad-colored and Monotonous

2009-10-03T16:38:00.007-04:00

Y'know, it feels like I've shortchanged you on Ms. Trumbull's descriptive diablerie, so what do you say we beat you repeatedly over the head with it to launch into Chapter 3? No? What do you mean “a thimbleful of that stuff is as good as a gallon drum”? Well, it's happening anyway, so stop kicking the chair. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Salome opened the door of her house in the early morning, a week later, and stood looking toward the eastern sky where the rose of dawn had let its petals slowly fall into the sea and grown into a paler flower. In the pearly light she lacked some of the vividness which made her so conspicuous a figure in the dimness of her room; her heavily lashed dark eyes, in whose depths was something that observers felt was always about to flash into self-revelation which nevertheless was always withheld, had under them the shadows of weariness; but the poise of her head was as calm, and the lines of her mouth as immobile as though, if she recognized disturbing forces, it was only to ask them whence they were. There was the slight crunch of sand under a slow and heavy step, and Salome instantly turned her head in the direction from which it came, and saw, as if coming out of the vanishing mist itself, the stooping, but in nowise feeble figure of an elderly man. He was still at some distance, for her hearing was remarkably acute; and she looked back at the water and saw two birds sweep down and up, and down again, and finally lose themselves in the vagueness of the sky, before he came near enough to exchange a word with her. His was not the dignified precision of the Puritan gentleman's costume, but the frieze coat and leather breeches of a workman whose training in manual labor had been that of the discipline of circumstances.

“You go early to Charlestown, Copton,” said Salome, letting her level glance fall upon him as his step sounded before the house. The wayfarer stopped and touched his weatherbeaten cap.

“A man that lets the sun get far ahead of him in his risin' over the colony, Mistress Salome,” he answered, with a glance at the eastern sky, “won't find anythin' particular to put his hand to when he does get up” He spoke with a deliberation one felt might easily degenerate into grumbling.

“A likely tale,” replied Salome, unmoved, “with the work of a whole colony to be done.” (pp. 39-41)

Oh boy, here to repair Mistress Salome's spinning wheel is a colorful but bent rustic whose sentences circle the block a few times before finding the front door. When it comes to Copton, the cap isn't the only thing that's weatherbeaten, as apparently the whole guy looks like he's been out in the elements for too long. Not entirely a wretch, but there's a life of hard toil on every inch of him. Also, the mark of the sinner is on his head. That's not a metaphor, either; twelve years before, he was slapped in the stocks and had his ears bobbed for some transgression of the faith we're not made privy to. “They stood in silence a moment, while the water lapped the shore, and the keen air of a spring morning ruffled Salome's hair with a chilly caress, and their thoughts went back to a richer, warmer, less harsh and lonely country where the branding-iron and the knife had upheld true religion, and spiritual wickedness had sneered and revelled in its high places.” Ah, for the good ol' bad ol' days. Oh, to be in England, now that my lobes are gone...

Copton also brings news of Roger Williams:

“He journeys to Salem to-day with the young man Archer, to get back at the week's end — with or without a strait waistcoat,” the last words he added meditatively, as he stooped to pick up his tools. Salome arrested him by a gesture.

“Yes,” she said, “there is something to do.”

Copton, accustomed to her intuitions, blinked at her seriously without replying. “It was a good deed to come around about to your daily work that you might see if the lonely woman wanted aught that the hand of a skilled ship's carpenter might supply,” she said, with the touch of graciousness that was more impressive than effusiveness from another woman, as she turned and led the way into the house. “My wheel hath stood silent since yesterday noon, and I have more knowledge in applying remedies to trees than to dead wood.”

The old man bent over the broken wheel, and Salome stood in the stream of light from the open doorway watching him.

“That young man Archer,” she said with one of her sudden transitions, “is a personable youth enough, and hath the stuff in him of which the councillors of our new colony be made.”

“I think,” said the old man, as he slowly turned the large wheel with his left hand, while his right sought for the injury, “that that young Archer'll stand without being hitched.”

Salome's rare smile banished for a moment the gravity of her lips.

“A good disposition for one seeking the company of his elected leader, who waiteth not for the spur to throw aside the bridle altogether,” she observed. (pp. 44-5)

All this talk is interrupted by a “stalwart bronze-colored man” in her doorway, an Indian named Nishokou, who brings an offering of two partridges he probably shot out of a pear tree while eight maids were a'milking. “The friend of the Indian makes a journey and returns. He comes to the house upon the sand. He would speak with Salome. He, too, has a word, and she is not to think that he has gone away bearing it with him.” Hoo-boy. If the natives are going to take their line readings from the I Ching, this book is going to need subtitles.

Salome offers her visitors a piece of corn cake before sending Nishokou on his way. “There was a strong suggestion of the dramatic in the scene, which, if to Salome the normal flavor of existence, was an offence in the nostrils of the man who, coming slowly along the sandy beach, paused long enough before the open door to catch the aspect of the vivid little group before he walked swiftly away without salutation of any kind, an outward and visible frown the sign of his inward and spiritual disapprobation.” We'll deal with that fella in depth in a moment, but first to dispatch the present company.

“I ain't never very easy with one of them critters around myself,” he said casually. “Those folks that look like a curiosity and talk like —like a Twelfth Night Revel — they make me suspicious; they're more for show than use. They always seem kind of more naturally related to wild cats than pale faces, as they say. You ain't afraid of him, I presume?” he concluded with mild inquisitiveness.

“Afraid?” Salome repeated the word, not indignantly, but as if it had no meaning in her ears. “The Pequots have had their lesson,” she added indifferently.

“Yes, and there ain't many of 'em left to say it,” he replied with a grim chuckle, as he stepped from the door-stone. (pp. 50-1)

Salome offers a piece of silver for payment, but while Copton's eyes say “Yes, please,” his mouth refuses payment until he feels he's earned it, which makes an interesting impression on her.

Okay, now with the other visitor? Okay, now with the other visitor. Everyone present at his disgusted about-face knew him, but then again, you couldn't not know this particular clergyman in town.

[The colonists on the street] bowed with respect to the tall, black-coated minister, and he returned their salutation with a solemn dignity that bespoke no inclination to minimize his office. Never once did his face break into a smile, and the deep frown in his high, narrow forehead seemed carved in its original formation. Just now the shadow of recent irritation deepened the habitual sternness of his countenance. It was caused by the sight that had met his eyes as he had paused before Salome's door. The picturesqueness of the little scene had struck the austere Puritan like the impotent blow of a childish hand ; it seemed to him antagonistic, defiant, and yet it was difficult to express resentment. Life should be sad-colored, monotonous; and Salome's brilliant, inscrutable figure, Nishokou's savage dignity, the shrewd face of Copton, — which carried in its lines a subtle hint of independence, — side by side, as if in alliance, — these made it seem assertive, unrestrained. They had to his stern eyes almost been declaring themselves outlaws, at least aliens, to the commonwealth of Israel.

Finally, a creature of theology I can sink my chops into, a gloweringly joyless figure who believes that life is something to be endured and existence is a setter of traps. I know I got a false positive from the somewhat eerie Salome, but let's read on to see if we've finally got a real heavy for this story.

Of course they had flashed upon his sight at an unfortunate time, and he was ready to see in their attitude something only perceptible to a diseased vision. He had been disturbed by rumors of the audacious confidence and the kindly reception of a dangerous and an exiled man; and, moreover, he had been on his way to deal with Mistress Salome anent certain reports concerning her free expression of individual opinion, and to examine somewhat her relations to church and state — one and indivisible! The reports were of the vaguest, and touched not her moral character; but the solitary independence of a woman was a thing too unusual not to be looked into, especially when the woman was of somewhat unusual wisdom. “Should women undertake to be wise beyond the bounds set by Holy Writ as interpreted by the masculine understanding,” said the Reverend Isaac Glover to himself, with firm lips, as he turned into a warehouse; “who knoweth but there might be a second irruption like that led by the misguided Mrs. Anne Hutchinson[.]” (pp. 52-4)

Ladies and gentlemen, Isaac Glover: Colonial Taliban. If he's not a primary antagonist from here on, I'll eat my hat. (Note to self: buy a hat. Second note to self: see if Slim Jim makes jerky hats.)

Sad-colored and monotonous...just like the dialogue! (rimshot) The plot I still have hope for...

Anyway, after seeking (and not finding) Caleb Cradock at home, Reverend Killjoy steels himself once again for the Salome experience. I dunno, maybe he sat on a tack or hit his thumb with a hammer. We do know he had prepared himself for a mild exorcism in case she was addressing her rumored infernal familiars. Instead, she was back to her spinning, only this time in the company of Timothy Cradock, who was playing with his two toy ark animals. Of course, Rev. Glover takes issue with that, too. “'It seemeth not to me,' he said in hard metallic accents, 'a godly and a sober recreation for even a woman and a child, to make a play out of a catastrophe that destroyed a sinning world. It savoreth of irreverence.'” Awww, too soon? I have some scorching Lot's wife material that you won't be happy with, either. Anyway, that attitude earns him some understated backsassery from Salome, as does his suggestion that Caleb shows a remarkable lapse of judgment by leaving his child where he may fall in with “dangerous companions,” by which he means the “heathen man” Nishokou and Master Clipped-Ears.

“At least there is no danger that this young Timothy will learn from him to give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister to questions rather than godly edifying — Nishokou's language is but that of the woods and fields.” Mr. Glover did not specifically reply, for he found himself alarmingly near the unauthorized wish that the laity were not so familiar with the epistles; but he continued severely, —

“Ephraim is joined to his idols.”

“Yes, but Ephraim is also a 'pleasant child,' — and we have the Apostle's warrant for believing that even the lawless are under the law of charity.”

“And Copton — it hath occurred to me now and again that Copton hath known swervings from the ordained path of thought, though he be a skilled workman and a law-abiding citizen.”

“He hath stood in the pillory, and hath had his ears cropped for the truth,” said Salome's unmoved even tones; “and it befitteth not one like me, who hath barely come under the physical hand of spiritual tyranny, to gird at him.”

Glover's gloomy eyes lightened with sudden fire. “He hath borne witness,” he said briefly, yielding that tribute to suffering for conscience' sake which even present disapproval could not check upon Puritan lips.

“But the more shame if he falter now,” he persisted the more dogmatically for the admission.

“Fear not!” said Salome, shortly, as if a little weary of the discussion. “He is not one that leadeth children astray.”

There was something in the words that penetrated the panoply of self-righteousness in which this really conscientious man was too apt to array himself. (pp. 59-61)

Not liking where this chat was going to leave him, he turned to the door and asked over his shoulder where the boy's parents were. In his chatty little-kid way, Timothy innocently replies that the whole family and young Mr. Archer are in Salem with Roger Williams...and suddenly the Reverend isn't going anywhere.

“What!” demanded the Reverend Mr. Glover, “I had heard — what dost thou say?” he repeated.

Timothy had been taught that clerical wrath had an edge for evil-doers more fearsome than that of Mr. Archer's knife, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

”The child speaks truth,” said the woman, laying her hand on his quaking shoulder. “But it is not a truth that is meant for all hearers nor yet doers of the word.” There was a moment's pause, as the two confronted each other, and then for the second time that day the Reverend Israel Glover left Salome's door in a state of mind bordering on the anger of the unregenerate. (p. 62)

Oh, look at what you did. Way to rat your folks out, kid!

Next: At the meeting house with Roger Williams. Also, more walking, more talking.

(edited @ 11:01pm because I thought of something else that probably won't be clever in the morning)

Mistress Content Cradock Chapter 2: The Inscrutable Salome and Her Lurid Scarf!

2009-10-01T23:28:00.007-04:00

We open Chapter 2 with a couple more epigraphs and Content running an errand and pondering out loud the Roger Williams problem, that a man who is so predisposed to win friends and influence people should be rejected by the community as a dangerous and seditious. With her on the way is Archer, who would be a good sounding board, except that Content is feeling up to some good-natured needling of this guy.

“It is a hard question for one that loves him to answer,” said Archer, thoughtfully, “as thy father hath doubtless found it before now — for that he loves him, none can doubt. Perhaps he is one of those men who must be, verily, a law unto himself—“

“And will submit only to those laws himself hath made?” asked Content, with a gleam of decorous mischief in her starry eyes.

“Nay, nay; for in our colony there of Providence, there is a justice, yes, and an equity, administered according to laws that are not of one individual, but unchanging and universal — but — but — there be those, thou knowest, who, knowing a right, will yet sit down under a wrong and call it expediency — and Master Roger Williams is none of that race—”

“And is my father? And was Governor Winthrop? And is the young Governor Winthrop, his son? Are they, and many more, of those that sit down under a wrong and call it expediency?” There was a visible hint of contumacy in the turn of her head as she looked up at the tall young Puritan at her side. “Why did they, then, not stay in England, and abide by laws that they knew were iniquitous, and worship as they were bidden by false prophets?” she demanded. Archer began to question the wisdom of his embarkation upon the sea of argument.

“I said not so, Mistress Content,” he declared, somewhat bluntly; “and it is a wilful misconstruction that findeth such irreverence in my words —”

“It is ever another's will that maketh a man wilful, never one's own.” He looked at her askance. She was very grave, and her profile, framed in her gray hood, was almost severe; but her mouth trembled a little as if it were not quite safely beyond the jurisdiction of mirth. (pp. 21-2)

Archer finally latches on to an argument that sounds to him like it should work: if the choice is between following your conscience or biting your lip and bowing to the false, dangerous doctrine that Some Guy feeds you just because it's expedient, then you should realize that you're not going to answer to Some Guy on Judgement Day. It might have worked if that was Content's agenda—and she was somewhat impressed with the force he delivered the argument—but alas, idealists rarely see when someone's stringing them along. “'But if there be no agreement whatsoever as to what may be worship and law, will it not soon be the end of all worship and law together?' asked Content, with deceptive candor. 'Methinks were all men like thy Master Roger Williams in freedom of controversy, it would be a difficult thing to gather together even the two or three in the name of Him who hath commanded it.'” If you can't come to a consensus on what the church actually means and where the state should pick up, what's preventing anybody from pitching 'em both and going fishing instead? Archer is flummoxed; this freedom of conscience stuff is trickier than he thought.

Fortunately for him, they've reached the house Content was looking for. Archer cools his heels outside while Content retrieves a cough syrup from the “inscrutable” Mistress Salome.

The building consisted of but one room, raftered, and containing no articles of furniture, save those demanded by the simplest living, with the exception of a spinning wheel. From the rafters hung the usual supplies of a woman reputed wise in the properties of nature's remedies,— bunches of dried herbs whose faint, pungent, and aromatic scent imparted to the place a suggestion of the exotic which was singularly appropriate to the owner of the house, who turned her head quickly as Content came in. Hers was not the shrewd and wrinkled face naturally associated with the gatherer of simples or the prescriber of ancient remedies. She was a woman still young, though not perhaps far from middle age, tall and straight, with a regularity of feature and impassiveness of expression that was not unlike the level-lidded mystery of the Egyptian type. A brilliant red scarf about her shoulders added to the oriental suggestion, and its color had the effect of a defiance, so vivid it was amid the colorlessness of the neutral harmonies of. the New England environment. (pp. 24-5)

See, you can tell she's brazen because she wears colors. Ooooooospookyfingers... Red's the color of whores, y'know. Hawthorne told me, or that blonde chick on The Office. I can't remember exactly which one.

Salome isn't one for making idle chatter, for no sooner does she fetch Content's bottle than she blurts out “Roger Williams is thy guest.” That was a real surprise, since the announcement of his arrival had been withheld. “Hath he spoken of his visit to England?” Well, no, but we're all very proud of him. This leads to a looser line of talk about how “to the discomfiture of the elect, he buildeth a Zion upon every little hill.” She also notes that someone waits for Constant “whose voice, after all, speaketh things fitter for thine ears than perhaps the tongues of wiser men.” Really lady, I know this is a full-service counter, but there are some places a customer just doesn't want you to go.

With a colonial-style thank-you-come-again, Salome abruptly turns around and goes back to her spinning wheel, leaving Content to puzzle things out for herself. Well, herself and Archer, to whom she recounted the baffling incident while he was attentively ineffective in helping her piece it together, being distracted by curves of her purty mouth. No really, it's in there. But hark! What new incident is this? Where the path meets the highway, they find Content's little brother, father, Roger Williams, and...some guy.

“Who is their companion — he of the tawny coat?” asked Archer. As Content looked intently down the road, the stranger raised his head so that the waning light made its outline more clear, and swept his hand towards the distant horizon, as though including, in what might have been a gesture of appeal, the scene of low lying farms and flat marshes, letting it fall at his side again with a suddenness that made the motion dramatic.
Evidently there was something characteristic in the little manifestation, for Content exclaimed, —
“Yes, it is he! it is the godly Mr. Eliot, the pastor of Roxbury, who spends much of his life among yon poor heathen whom we seek to befriend, but who, alas ! have as many complaints against us, and we against them, as though we could never be aught but declared enemies. But Mr. Eliot neither they nor we can misunderstand.”

That's John Eliot, known as the Apostle to the Indians, but I digress...

The three men drew nearer, and the two small groups met, and after a word or two of greeting, went on their way together, the diminutive Timothy letting go the hand of Roger Williams to join his sister and her companion, who fell, as befitted them, in the rear of their elders. Timothy was somewhat out of breath physically, and, in all likelihood, mentally as well, with his sustained effort to keep up with the great men of this new world Israel; but he had his consolations. They took the material form of a wooden animal of a certain catholicity of design, since it might be called almost anything according to the varying moods of the owner, and find its habitat in a barnyard or a jungle without feeling too much out of place in either. (pp. 31-3)

Timothy's toy was carved by Reverend Williams from a shingle he found by the side of the road, although the boy's not certain which one it is. Archer promises the boy that if they find another shingle, he'll make the animal a mate for the Ark. Anything to impress the kid's sister, I suppose.

The get-together is taken up with shop talk.”There was a note of deep, underlying sadness in the preacher's voice, the depression of all solitary labor was upon him; but in another moment it had yielded to enthusiasm, as he replied to one earnest question after another, while Williams, guided by his own familiarity with the Indian tongue, suggested, discussed, and approved with an intelligence that was like wine to the translator.” Cradock held his tongue and nodded when it was appropriate, while the young people stayed at the back of the pack, the way the kids are supposed to. When they reached the Cradock doorway, Eliot could not linger, and wished his friend farewell.

Timothy, who was in nowise disconcerted by benedictions and amens at, what a later generation might consider, odd times, revived under the influences of light, warmth, and the sight of his mother, and scarcely waited for the door to be closed, before his voice rose confident and serene: “It is an animal that the Reverend Mr. Williams has carved for me, mother, out of a shingle found upon the highroad, and it is in the likeness of one of the animals that went into Noah's Ark; and,” he added, “young Mr. Archer is to make me its companion.”

Roger Williams' wonderful smile glanced from the child to its mother and then to Content.

“'Every one loveth gifts,'” he said; “it is well when so small an one satisfieth”

“Mother,” said Content, as they stood together a moment alone, “he is a man of God.”

“Yes,” said Mistress Cradock, “he is a man of God. But,” and she shook her head with a doubtful but friendly smile, “he is a laborer who, I fear me, is overfond of the harrow, even where the good seed is already planted.” (pp. 37-8)

Y'know, I never thought I was hoping we'd hurry up and get to the romance angle, but dang it, it feels kind of unseemly to sink the fangs of sarcasm into all this religious material. Oh, I can dance all over everything else, but I have a split level head in such matters.

Next: More of Salome and her exotic, scandalous scarf! There's possibly some skulduggery afoot, too! Or maybe she'll use the power of herbalism to invent pastels just to screw with everybody's heads! Yes, I'm clinging to that hope like the last life jacket on the Titanic.

Mistress Content Cradock Chapter 1: Sufferin' Cats, That Dialogue!

2009-09-30T15:17:00.005-04:00

Before we begin, it's ConTENT Cradock, not CONtent. It's a distinction that has to be made because modern net-fiends aren't inclined to contentment.

Our dedication assures us that there's no doubt about where our author's influence lies:

TO
The Memory of my father

JAMES HAMMOND TRUMBULL

WHOSE UNFAILING INTEREST IN THE EARLY HISTORY

OF NEW ENGLAND WAS NOT ONLY TEMPERED

BY ENTHUSIASM BUT LEAVENED

BY KNOWLEDGE

The title page contains a few lines from James Russell Lowell's “An Ode For The Fourth Of July, 1876”...

“They steered by stars the elder shipmen knew,
And laid their courses where the currents draw
Of ancient wisdom channelled deep in law.
The undaunted few
Who changed the Old World for the New.”

...which is pretty high-minded talk for something that's being sold as a love triangle. The chapter headings are also epigraphed like crazy, again with lines from Lowell, so we're already breathing rarified air before the story even starts. Anyway, Chapter 1...

There was a wayward softness mingled with the salt breath of the sea as it sighed over the flats that lay along the riverside, but the melting snow had left enough of its chill in the air to make this caressing warmth a suggestion rather than a presence. Even in the sunlight, a certain mistiness hung over the distant water like the veil of Spring which the laughing Summer would soon push aside.

The spire of the church and the smoke of chimneys rose from the town that clustered about the river's mouth, and now and then floated from its streets the sound of martial music, but in a solemn cadence which denoted that the strife was over and that there remained only rest. Content bent her head to catch the rhythmic beats as they came fitfully to her ears. .The door-yards about were empty, the dust settled undisturbed on the highway in front of her; everybody but herself had gone to the town yonder. It was a day of sorrow, yet of the subdued glory of a final consummation, — the day of the funeral of John Winthrop, late governor of the Colony of Massachusetts. (pp. 1-2)

John Winthrop, the man whose “city upon a hill” sermon gave Ronald Reagan something to believe in (or at least quote endlessly), died on March 26, 1649, and as we're told, the story begins at the tail end of six days' mourning. (Counts on fingers) April 1^st, continuity cops.

At least we're not wasting much time introducing our title character, who is shaking off the type of downer six days of eulogizing can induce in a young woman of twenty. “It was in the very air, the sweetness of this unrestraint, and in unconscious yielding to its influence, Content had left her wheel in the midst of her spinning, and loitered at the door to catch the warmth of the sunlight and the rise and fall of the distant strains.” But make sure don't linger long, you indolent thing, because there's lots and lots of work to be done, and anyway, you should be sad for the deceased and fearful for the future just like your neighbors.

She was just getting up from her wheel and readying another log for the fire when she heard a knock at the door.

As she crossed the large room, whose corners had grown a little obscure, to the broad hearth where the fire was lower but glowing still, without a preliminary knock the outside door opened and a man stood on the threshold. Behind him, the last rays of the western sun threw his figure into prominence but rendered his face almost invisible to Content as she paused in the middle of the room, while they fell caressingly upon her slenderness, and the severe simplicity of her gray gown and white neckerchief. She had turned up this gray gown that it might not be injured by contact with the wood-pile, and the snowy petticoat showed underneath it; her strong young arms clasped the rough bark of the hewn wood, and her large, thick-lashed, blue eyes, which were always unusually wide open, giving her habitually an almost startled expression at variance with the calmness of her demeanor, were fixed upon the entering stranger. Beyond him, just outside of the door, was another figure, that of a younger man, his features too in a half shadow, from which he gazed, with a sudden thrill of emotion, at the fair vision of the girl. There was a moment's pause, due to the surprise of all three, and then the older visitor bowed low, and said in a musical voice, and with a singularly distinct and almost studied enunciation : “Pardon, young Mistress Cradock, — for I perceive by a certain air and resemblance not to be belied that it is to her I speak, — but ere I go further in apology, let me relieve thee of thy burden!” and he stepped quickly forward. “It is the immediate wrong that should be the first righted, after all,” he added, as he took the heavy log from her arms with a courtliness that bespoke familiarity with a world larger than that of the colony. The younger man had come hastily nearer, as if he, too, would be of assistance, but the other put him aside.

“Nay, nay,” he said, “I am thy elder, and should be the earlier in a service that has its rewards. In truth,” he went on to Content, “the April evening hath a chill that makes the replenishing of a fire a grateful task to even a weary wayfarer,” and, bending over, he laid the log within the red glow of the chimney place. As he did so, the leaping flame lighted up his face with sudden brilliancy, and Content marked for the first time what manner of man he was who had thus entered unannounced. He was of about fifty years of age, with strong well-moulded features, keen eyes with a restless light in their depths, a deep frown between the heavy eyebrows, thick hair streaked with gray, and certain lines about the eyes and mouth which might denote qualities at odds with peace and serenity. But the mouth was fine, and the smile that hovered about it, as he stood upright and turned to Content, was very sweet. Again his face withdrew into partial shadow, though the firelight leaped up and flickered over all three of the figures, but it was as if in that instant in which he had bent over the red heart of the flame, the human being had been suddenly revealed to the watching eye, and, instinctively, Content felt that she had read his character then, and that she trusted it. (pp. 3-6)

Sufferin' cats, that dialogue! No, no, I promised that I wouldn't go there unless it was absolutely called for. It's just that sometimes you go in expecting something, and it still hits you like a bucket of icewater when it finally hits you.

The older man introduces himself as an old friend of Constant's father, and having just arrived in town, he'd been assured that “thy father's latch-string hath been out for me,” so he stuck his head in, and the rest of the body just followed. He hadn't been warned, however, that his friend's daughter would be tending the place. With that type of reassurance, such as it is, Content straightens herself out and snaps into hostess mode, pulling a chair by the fire for the guest. The younger man is still modestly standing off to one side, obviously hoping for a brokered introduction to “the flower-like fairness” of the young woman. Finally the older man introduces him as Resolved Archer of Plymouth, who makes it clear (in a very respectful way, of course) that he hopes to be a friend instead of just a friend of a friend. Yes, Resolved Archer. Let's get it out of our systems now. And people busted Frank Zappa's chops for Dweezil and Moon Unit...

But lo, here comes the gathering dusk.

Mistress Content, with the slightest possible flush, stooped to pick up a splinter of wood to light her candle; but Archer had forestalled her, and now, as he stood by her side holding the burning brand to the somewhat reticent wick, Content was conscious of what might have grown into an alarming confusion, had she not recognized and dismissed it in time. He was very tall, and the little torch in his hand illuminated his face as the firelight had done the other in a way to bring out a hint of resemblance between them and to exaggerate it. He had the same resolute chin, keen eyes, and youthful intensity of expression; but the restlessness was not there, nor the marks which told of contest. Just now his eyes wandered from the immediate business of the moment to the warm pallor of Content's cheek, her soft uncurled hair, and the dark lashes and white lids, which were all that he could see of the demurely drooped eyes. It was but a moment that the two stood thus. The stranger at the hearth sighed and looked up; the candlewick caught, and the brand was tossed back into the flame. Content lighted a second candle and placed one on the table by the window. (pp. 8-9)

As a post-Freudian reader, it doesn't take that much imagination to drag some unforeseen implications out of all this “lighting her wick” talk. If Archer had missed the wick the first few times, we would've been in big trouble.

Stop snickering. The old man's talking again.

“It is a great man that was buried to-day,” he said abruptly, turning back into the room; “that hath joined the church triumphant, and left the church militant — the ranks militant, I would say!” he spoke with sudden fire, “since a church is something limited and walled in, and an army is like a sea and may cover the land ! He was a great man,” he added more quietly, “and he is dead; and though there be spiritual sons of Anak with us still, we are but a few people and this is a new country;” his voice fell into momentary sadness and then rose with startling force, as he stepped forward and laid his hand upon Archer's shoulder, “wherefore it becometh us to fight — to fight that we may possess!” he exclaimed; “to withstand, to repel, to be clothed with armor, to carry the shield, to wear the helmet of salvation, and bear the sword of the spirit —“ he paused.

“And to have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,” said Content, in low, thrilled tones, her starry eyes fixed on his with a divine enthusiasm. She was moved, stirred, exalted by the fervor of the man, and spoke almost involuntarily.

His glance fell on her with burning intensity; he threw his head back with a gesture almost of anger, caught his breath to speak, and then paused suddenly, while the deep glow of his eyes grew brighter and the stern lines of his mouth relaxed as he looked at her in her sweet, soft-hued beauty, but with something indomitable after all in the clear note of her security. (pp. 10-11)

He was about to continue, but Mr. and Mrs. Cradock entered the room, and here comes the big reveal: “'I did think,' said the Puritan householder, as he stepped forward with hand outstretched, 'that should the Lord lead him ever again across this threshold, my voice should be the first to give a welcome to Roger Williams!'”

And that's where I figure out this book is a setter of traps for smug jerks like me, because after all that smirky, dirty thinking about wicks, the stranger in the room turns out to be the noted theologian who was a big proponent of religious tolerance at the time where it wasn't what the cool kids were doing, and also came up with the idea of the separation of church and state. As he conceived it—as if we really need to explain this—the “wall of separation” meant that civil authority shouldn't enforce ecclesiastical authority In other words, lock them up for killing and stealing, but nobody should do thirty days in the county jail for an idolatry rap. Naturally, this put him at odds with the Church of England, but he was fine with that, since like many Puritans, he didn't consider it a proper church anyway.

Anyway, while the greetings were going around, Content was in an internal tailspin from the things she said and what they meant in relation to this man. “Was this that disturber of the peace, that stumbling block and cause of offence, who yet was dear to the hearts of the best men of the colony?” Then Williams mentions to her father “I have had a foretaste of thy welcome, friend Cradock, in the readiness of thy daughter to admit us to the warmth of thy hearthstone. Methinks her disposition savors somewhat of thine own in a readiness to turn theory into practice.” As she leaves the room to help her mother prepare dinner, Master Cradock ruefully muses on how her “quick wit” isn't always tempered with grace, then turns the topic to Williams' new colony of Providence (yes, the one in Rhode Island). He's obviously skeptical of the theory of keeping the church out of the courtroom: “And is it not difficult to keep peace in your borders? Doth not the law of the members war often against the law of the body politic?” Williams responds, in effect, that he would rather take a pinch of contention over a bushel of persecution, which doesn't reassure his friend, who'd rather not have either. “Archer sat quietly by, as befitted a young man in the company of his elders, attentive to the matter in hand, but not inattentive to the possible re-entrance of Mistress Content.”

While Cradock doesn't like the idea of “continual ferment,” he's not going to let a difference in opinion kill a friendship.

“Why do I seek to show thee thy error?” he said, with a slight relaxing of the sternness of his features; “though that thou art in error, I plainly perceive. Wiser men than I have dealt with thee to no purpose. And thou hast a certain measure in thy discourse and a spirit that is at variance with thy precepts, that taketh the words out of the mouth of a man who hath thirsted for thy bodily presence, and hath mourned openly the day that the secular welfare of this commonwealth made thee an exile from its borders!” His voice shook with controlled feeling; there was a pathos in the tenderness underlying the unyielded convictions of his faith that was not lost on either of the listeners. Archer's eyes shone with the enthusiasm of his youth, as he looked up at the tall, grave man whose great stature and massive features made him seem literally an upholder of the public weal.

Williams sprang from his chair. “And I,” he said in his deep, sweet voice, laying his hand on the other's arm, “who have sought thy doorway, as the weary hart the waterbrook, for the love I bear thee — thou, who art as my brother, do I not hear in thy speech again the word that hath ever to my ears seemed good, though it fitted not with my intention or my firm conviction?” (pp. 16-17)

To boil it down into Campbell's Condensed Cream of Conversation, “I don't really like what you're saying, but it's good to be able to hear you say it again.” Of course, with the “frozen exterior of Puritan existence,” it only makes sense to bury strong feelings under (here's that phrase again) a verbal thicket.

Oy, this dialogue. I'm going to have a steep adjustment phase if this keeps up. It makes one long for Alf's cockney again. After all, I got meself to fink abart....

Next: We're walking and we're talking. Because there is a romance at the base of this avalanche, y'know, and that's what goes on in these types of stories.

The Rough Riders EXTRA: He Always Does, He Always Does...Unless He Doesn't

2009-09-29T02:10:00.005-04:00

One last Rough Riders sidebar before squaring myself to the new task at hand. By accident, I stumbled across the Wheeler Plantation webpage--as in the family of General Joe Wheeler, who was commander of the cavalry in Cuba--and there's a very informative essay about the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9^th and 10^th Regulars. There's also a fascinating (and, we can assume, more honest) alternate version of the Roosevelt "so I pulled out my gun" story we rolled our eyes at in Chapter 4.

The turn of the twentieth century was marked by rapidly growing racial tension and hostility. Many examples can be found of attempts to discredit the service of African-American soldiers during the Spanish American War. For example, after of the battle of San Juan Hill, Col. Roosevelt stopped two black cavalrymen as they moved to the rear. Roosevelt accused the men of cowardice and ordered them, under threat of being shot, back to the front, whereupon he learned that they were under orders to get shovels and other implements to help dig fortifications for the expected Spanish counter-attack. Roosevelt apologized to the men for not believing their story and hands were shaken all around. Two months later, at the ceremony disbanding the 5^th Corps Cavalry Division at Camp Wikoff, Montauk Pt, N.Y., Col. Roosevelt shook hands and said farewell to every member of the Rough Riders as well as those of the 9^th and 10^th Cavalries.
Imagine the Buffalo Soldier’s sense of dismay when, after the war, Roosevelt retold the incident at San Juan Hill in "The Rough Riders" as:

"Under the strain the colored infantrymen (who had none of their white officers) began to get a little uneasy and drift to the rear… This I could not allow."

As commander of the Cavalry Division, General Wheeler made no racial distinctions in his praise of the men under his command. In his after action report following the battle of Las Guasimas, June 26, 1898, General Wheeler wrote

"I was immediately with the troops of the 1^st and 10^th Regular Cavalry, dismounted, and personally noticed their brave and good conduct…"

It's as true now as it was then: sometimes the truth gets trampled under the hooves of a "good yarn."

Round 5: Mistress Content Cradock

2009-09-28T12:54:00.012-04:00

Dave, the pickmaster for Round 5 and the guy who hammered me with Waters That Pass Away, is trying to strike me down yet again for dragging out The Rough Riders to an unspeakable degree. His goal is to make me wish I had chosen fantasy football as a hobby like other guys. His second nominee for instrument of my eventual destruction: Mistress Content Cradock by Annie Eliot Trumbull.

Selection #5 is drawn from the unnervingly vague category “A Group of Female Novelists,” which sounds like a police report. “A group of female novelists were apprehended at the main branch of the New York Public Library on Tuesday morning adding 'malicious capitalization' to the works of e.e. cummings. No trial date has been set pending syntax evaluation.” I have a sneaking suspicion the common thread in this grouping isn't “chick lit” so much as “lit by chicks.” Silly Victorians, you don't divide books by the sex of the author, you divide them by how much sex the author puts in them. And whether the characters buy expensive shoes. This is called “progress.” Not "annoying."

Enough of the ramble, time to roll through the bramble.

Mistress Content Cradock. By Annie Eliot Trumbull. 12mo. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. $1

Miss Trumbull's latest work is much enhanced by the illustrations by Charles Copeland. It is a historical tale of New England life, and the action takes place in the Salem colony. Chief among the characters portrayed is Roger Williams, and the story deals with the incidents which surrounded this man's independent personality and his tireless appeals for freedom of thought and action. The thread of romance and love is rendered most attractive by the author's well-known bright and attractive style, her delicately fashioned descriptions, and her entertaining dialogue. Miss Trumbull is very happy in her New England stories, which are always sure to contain interesting types of local character.

Unlike Dave's last pick, I managed to scrape up a few biographical notes for our author: Annie Eliot Trumbull (1857-1949) was an author, poet, and playwright whose first full-length book was published in 1889 and who was just hitting the peak of her renown around the time Mistress Content Cradock was published. Trumbull was a junior member of Mark Twain's Hartford circle, the last surviving member of that group on her passing. She was the daughter of philologist and historian James Hammond Trumbull, of whom George F. Hoar of the American Antiquarian society said “[he] knows the history, the life, the manners, even the gossip, of every New England generation from the beginning, as if he had been a contemporary.” As much as I found about her, I'm finding much more about him, but at least that quote means she may have picked up a good grounding in the historical period she chose. Unless, as I suspect and the following review suggests, historical setting is beside the point.

Given a Puritan setting—a stern shore and grim ancestors. Place Oliver Cromwell, Roger Williams, and John Winthrop in the background, and pink arbutus in the foreground, then bring upon the scene Mistress Content Cradock and her two lovers, Archer and Stukely, and the stage is ready for action.

The whole question of the historical novel must be set one side in any fair discussion of Mistress Content Cradock and her virtues or shortcomings. The place and limits of the historical novel involve issues too diverse to be taken up in any right appreciation of a book so modest as this of Miss Trumbull's. Nor do the charm and value of the book depend, to any appreciable extent, on the historical element. In so far as the character of Mistress Content Cradock could have had existence in no other time or place than Puritan New England, the setting is of moment. In so far as the story is the old one of 'two men wooing a maid,” the setting is irrelevant. Mistress Content's own granddaughter could not have vacillated between her two lovers with more feminine inconsequence or have chosen the wrong one with more inevitable persistence than does Mistress Cradock herself. All the characters are very human. That they move upon a Puritan stage is a mere detail of art. That exits and entrances are adjusted somewhat primly, with an eye to effect, and that the story moves with monotonous evenness are perhaps, faults to be grateful for in a day when art seems to be, for the most part, a series of wild and incalculable experiments. --The Critic, August 1899

Any time “monotonous” is used in a book review, I send up a distress flare. Any time “monotonous” is used in a book review as a positive attribute, I check the reviewer's blood alcohol level. The pull-quotes in the publisher's ads call the book “wholesome.” How wholesome I manage to stay in my play-by-play depends on how quickly I acclimate to a love triangle where the dialogue is liberally doused in “thee”s and “thou”s. That never stopped me with Shakespeare, but the operating assumption here is that Mistress Content Cradock isn't another As You Like It. Will it be as I like it? We shall see.

And now, the text:

Google Books has a single copy from the NY Public Library, so that's what we're working from. Them's the conditions wot prevail. Google Books now offers two downloadable formats, the page image PDF versions or an OCR-converted text in EPUB format. Just like Google's (non-proofread) plaintext rendering, scannos abound in the EPUB version. It's not the worst I've seen, but I'm sticking with PDF.

That's all the stage dressing you get, bub. Time to roll up my elbows and get to work.

Chapter Recaps: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 (Links to the chapter recaps go live upon posting.)

Post Game Report: The Rough Riders

2009-09-27T17:45:00.002-04:00

Links to the spoiler-laden Chapter Recaps: Chapters 1 (parts 1, 2, 3) , 2 (parts 1, 2), 3 (parts 1, 2, 3), 4 (parts 1, 2, 3), 5 (parts 1, 2, 3), 6 (part 1, 2).

You'll remember that I singled out a sentence in the last chapter of The Rough Riders for telling more of the truth than anybody could've known at the time (my emphasis): “Sometimes General Wheeler joined us and told us about the great war, compared with which ours was such a small war—far-reaching in their importance though its effects were destined to be.” The Spanish-American War, as short as it was, cast a long shadow in its implications, and not just because armed intervention would be something we made a habit of throughout the 20^th century. It was a very telling move that none of the Cubans were invited to take part in the surrender ceremonies. The official explanation was fear of armed reprisals, but it seems the Americans weren't entirely trusting of the Cubans, even if they supported independence in the abstract. When the treaty came down, Spain signed its colonies over to America, and thanks to a sneaky piece of work called the Platt Amendment, Cuba was occupied by a US Military Government for the next several years under the pretext of shaping it into a “self-governing colony.” Even at the time, it felt like one imperial power was being replaced by another.

The United States gave Cuba back to its own people in 1902—under Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, to be fair—but there were still all kinds of gotchas written into the handover that made sure we had at least one hand on their steering wheel for a long time after. One of those gotchas was the perpetual lease on Guantanamo Bay, which was still left in place even after that other Roosevelt dropped the Platt Amendment in 1934. If you were able to look forward into the future from San Juan Hill, 1898, you might find Fidel Castro scowling back at you.

There was also the matter of the Philippine campaign, which ended with a Filipino declaration of independence that the Americans refused to recognize and the Filipino rebels not being allowed to even enter Manila during the surrender ceremony under threat of gunfire. By the time The Rough Riders was being prepped for the bookstores, the Filipinos' deep sense of betrayal by the Americans led into the Philippine-American War, an intensely divisive war which officially was declared over in 1901, but unofficially dragged on for another ten years.

The Spanish-American War, as short and “splendid” as it supposedly was, left behind consequences we're still dealing with a century later, which fills me with a sharp dread about what we'll be facing in the years to come from where we are now. This is exactly why history is so important. From the bird's-eye view, the same mistakes keep cropping up in a distressingly predictable fashion. This has happened before, and this will happen again...if we're not careful. And yes, that means I'm the fifth Cylon.

As for the text—you had to know I was coming back to that eventually—Roosevelt tells the story of his corner of the war very well. In selling us on the men he led and the war into which he led them, he sketches a number of distinct personalities and their personal yarns. Sometimes this approach devolves into a simple (and simply endless) list of names, but those sections pass quickly. He does make it all sound like a bundle of frustrations broken up by pockets of armed adventure, but from the official report he includes as an appendix, that's pretty much how he saw it.

MVP Of The Book: Frankly, I'm insulted that you have to ask. While Roosevelt's far from alone in his own story, there's a reason Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley called the book Alone In Cuba. Since we spent so much time with Leonard Wood early on, it's worth your time to find out what happened to him after the war. Some parts are impressive, others distinctly unpleasant.

Would you recommend it to a friend? Yes, but only if they're predisposed to war stories or Roosevelt stories. If that's is the type of story you like, you'll like this story.

Is this (still) a summer book? I'm not so convinced on that point, going by the Times' concept of “summer reading” as something that carries you along without insisting on staying around if you can imagine something better. While it's not difficult reading, it's still the history of a particular unit in a particular war, and Roosevelt's approach to his own story assumes that you and he have some common knowledge about the Spanish-American War. Obviously that's no longer a given by any stretch of the imagination; most Americans know this war as the one Roosevelt was in if they know anything at all. To get everything this text has to offer 110 years later, you need to be a bit more actively engaged than you would with a standard lounging-around read. Have a few Wikipedia pages open, at least.

And before we move on, an acknowledgment in the spirit of humility that it's been well over a year since I started my trip report on this book. Hopefully this proves to you that I was not defeated, only delayed. Daleks and Cylons in one post...there's a fanfic waiting to happen.

Next: Finally moving on, and it could be another well-deserved penalty round. Let's find out together.

The Rough Riders Chapter 6 (Part 2): The Voyage Home

2009-09-27T14:45:00.006-04:00

Hey, everybody! We're fever-mangled wrecks but we're going home!

The spirits of the soldiers were rising almost as fast as their lunches once they found out they would be sailing for home, but while the campaign was winding down, they were still in the dark about the disposition of the war at large. With that in mind, Roosevelt's officers began making plans for drilling the men on horseback again in case they had to make a future push against the Spanish cavalry. “The [Spanish cavalry] men were small, and the horses, though well trained and well built, were diminutive ponies, very much smaller than cow ponies. We were certain that if we ever got a chance to try shock tactics against them they would go down like nine-pins, provided only that our men could be trained to charge in any kind of line, and we made up our minds to devote our time to this.”

Without bullets and bursting shells flying around his ears, Roosevelt could now afford to get a little touristy and get a little cozier with the stuff that stuck in his craw before.

The surroundings of the city of Santiago are very grand. The circling mountains rise sheer and high. The plains are threaded by rapid winding brooks and are dotted here and there with quaint villages, curiously picturesque from their combining traces of an outworn old-world civilization with new and raw barbarism. The tall, graceful, feathery bamboos rise by the water's edge, and elsewhere, even on the mountain-crests, where the soil is wet and rank enough; and the splendid royal palms and cocoanut palms tower high above the matted green jungle.

Generally the thunder-storms came in the afternoon, but once I saw one at sunrise, driving down the high mountain valleys toward us. It was a very beautiful and almost terrible sight; for the sun rose behind the storm, and shone through the gusty rifts, lighting the mountain-crests here and there, while the plain below lay shrouded in the lingering night. The angry, level rays edged the dark clouds with crimson, and turned the downpour into sheets of golden rain; in the valleys the glimmering mists were tinted every wild hue; and the remotest heavens were lit with flaming glory. (pp. 213-4)

The embarkation orders came on August 6^th, and the next morning they were on the transport Miami. While things were crowded, the conditions weren't nearly as bad as on the Yucatan. Sure, the dreaded “canned beef” was back, there wasn't a proper infirmary, and the officers slept in “an improvised shed” on the upper deck, but the illness and hygiene were kept under enough control that they didn't have to quarantine the whole lot once the ship landed at Montauk. The only death during the return trip was a dysentery case, and we're helpfully informed that it was his own damn fault for getting wasted on the Cubans' liquor and then marching in the heat before he had fully slept it off. “He never recovered, and was useless from that time on. On board ship he died, and we gave him sea burial.”

That's not to say there weren't other issues, of course.

Soon after leaving port the captain of the ship notified me that his stokers and engineers were insubordinate and drunken, due, he thought, to liquor which my men had given them. I at once started a search of the ship, explaining to the men that they could not keep the liquor; that if they surrendered whatever they had to me I should return it to them when we went ashore; and that meanwhile I would allow the sick to drink when they really needed it; but that if they did not give the liquor to me of their own accord I would throw it overboard. About seventy flasks and bottles were handed to me, and I found and threw overboard about twenty. This at once put a stop to all drunkenness. The stokers and engineers were sullen and half mutinous, so I sent a detail of my men down to watch them and see that they did their work under the orders of the chief engineer; and we reduced them to obedience in short order. I could easily have drawn from the regiment sufficient skilled men to fill every position in the entire ship's crew, from captain to stoker. (p. 215)

“Didn't you have a hip flask when we set out?” “Yeah, but Colonel Buzz Killington took it away from me.” “Buzz Killington? Did he tell you a story about a bridge?” “Thank God, no.” (long pause) “The guy's Batman, y'know.” “Really? That would explain a lot...”

There was also the problem of relieving the shipboard tedium on the nine-day trip, which was dealt with through gambling and the sharing of manly yarns. “Sometimes General Wheeler joined us and told us about the great war, compared with which ours was such a small war—far-reaching in their importance though its effects were destined to be.” You don't know the half of it, Teddy, but we'll talk about that later. There was also time to contemplate the implications of a single word cable that they'd received from a man at the New York Sun before casting off: “Peace.” So much for Havana in December. Unless you're willing to book your own passage, that is...and I wouldn't put that past the Colonel.

On the late afternoon of the 14^th of August, roughly two months after they left Tampa Harbor for Cuba, the ship carrying the Rough Riders cast anchor at Montauk. “A gun-boat of the Mosquito fleet came out to greet us and to inform us that peace negotiations had begun.” Now that the peace was in the bag, the men of the regiment who had been left behind were really in a bad way. “Of course those who stayed had done their duty precisely as did those who went, for the question of glory was not to be considered in comparison to the faithful performance of whatever was ordered; and no distinction of any kind was allowed in the regiment between those whose good fortune it had been to go and those whose harder fate it had been to remain. Nevertheless the latter could not be entirely comforted.”

While there was some confusion in the hospitals at first, the ill were well cared for...although Roosevelt, typically, wasn't among them in the sickbeds. In fact, he had never felt better in his life, “all the better for having lost twenty pounds.”

Oh, there were regimental mascots, too. Funny that he never mentioned them before.

The regiment had three mascots; the two most characteristic—a young mountain lion brought by the Arizona troops, and a war eagle brought by the New Mexicans—we had been forced to leave behind in Tampa. The third, a rather disreputable but exceedingly knowing little dog named Cuba, had accompanied us through all the vicissitudes of the campaign. The mountain lion, Josephine, possessed an infernal temper; whereas both Cuba and the eagle, which have been named in my honor, were extremely good-humored. Josephine was kept tied up. She sometimes escaped. One cool night in early September she wandered off and, entering the tent of a Third Cavalry man, got into bed with him; whereupon he fled into the darkness with yells, much more unnerved than he would have been by the arrival of any number of Spaniards. The eagle was let loose and not only walked at will up and down the company streets, but also at times flew wherever he wished. He was a young bird, having been taken out of his nest when a fledgling. Josephine hated him and was always trying to make a meal of him, especially when we endeavored to take their photographs together. The eagle, though good-natured, was an entirely competent individual and ready at any moment to beat Josephine off. Cuba was also oppressed at times by Josephine, and was of course no match for her, but was frequently able to overawe by simple decision of character.

In addition to the animal mascots, we had two or three small boys who had also been adopted by the regiment. One, from Tennessee, was named Dabney Royster. When we embarked at Tampa he smuggled himself on board the transport with a 22-calibre rifle and three boxes of cartridges, and wept bitterly when sent ashore. The squadron which remained behind adopted him, got him a little Rough Rider's uniform, and made him practically one of the regiment.(pp. 221-2)

Poor kid. He only wanted to shoot somebody. Well, a lot of grown men had to settle for a consolation prize, too.

Now that the excitement of battle was receding into memory, Roosevelt was confronted with the heart-stopping glamor of the mustering-out paperwork...where he discovered for the first time how fast and loose he had played his authority on the battlefield. “The mustering-out officer, a thorough soldier, found to his horror that I had used the widest discretion both in imposing heavy sentences which I had no power to impose on men who shirked their duties, and, where men atoned for misconduct by marked gallantry, in blandly remitting sentences approved by my chief of division.”

During the last month at Montauk, the Rough Riders engaged in daily bronco-busting exhibitions and a few mounted drills, including one for a visiting President McKinley. One afternoon the regiment presented Roosevelt with Remington's “The Bronco Buster” as a gift of thanks. “There could have been no more appropriate gift from such a regiment, and I was not only pleased with it, but very deeply touched with the feeling which made them join in giving it.”

If the month as a whole was a winding-down and wrapping-up period, the last night was a veritable circus.

The last night before we were mustered out was spent in noisy, but entirely harmless hilarity, which I ignored. Every form of celebration took place in the ranks. A former Populist candidate for Attorney-General in Colorado delivered a fervent oration in favor of free silver; a number of the college boys sang; but most of the men gave vent to their feelings by improvised dances. In these the Indians took the lead, pure bloods and half-breeds alike, the cowboys and miners cheerfully joining in and forming part of the howling, grunting rings, that went bounding around the great fires they had kindled.

Next morning Sergeant Wright took down the colors, and Sergeant Guitilias the standard, for the last time; the horses, the rifles, and the rest of the regimental property had been turned in; officers and men shook hands and said good-by to one another, and then they scattered to their homes in the North and the South, the few going back to the great cities of the East, the many turning again toward the plains, the mountains, and the deserts of the West and the strange Southwest. This was on September 15th, the day which marked the close of the four months' life of a regiment of as gallant fighters as ever wore the United States uniform. (pp. 228-9)

Since the book was written barely six months after the muster out, it seems a bit premature to ponder how well everybody turned out in the end, but after an assessment of the uniqueness of his unit among volunteers, Roosevelt goes on to tell us how the men's self-reliance saw the survivors through the short-term future. “[A]s a whole, they scattered out to their homes on the disbandment of the regiment; gaunter than when they had enlisted, sometimes weakened by fever or wounds, but just as full as ever of sullen, sturdy capacity for self-help; scorning to ask for aid, save what was entirely legitimate in the way of one comrade giving help to another.” This in spite of the fact that many of the men had lost their jobs while in service—way to stand behind your army, homefront—and were too sick to go back to work immediately. Roosevelt and a few others managed to scrape up a fund to help these men out, and while a few reluctantly accepted the money, we're told most of them wouldn't accept any kind of help.

In the first chapter, I spoke of a lady, a teacher in an academy in the Indian Territory, three or four of whose pupils had come into my regiment, and who had sent with them a letter of introduction to me. When the regiment disbanded, I wrote to her to ask if she could not use a little money among the Rough Riders, white, Indian, and half-breed, that she might personally know. I did not hear from her for some time, and then she wrote as follows:

“MUSCOGEE, IND. TER.,
“December 19, 1898.

“MY DEAR COLONEL ROOSEVELT: I did not at once reply to your letter of September 23d, because I waited for a time to see if there should be need among any of our Rough Riders, of the money you so kindly offered. Some of the boys are poor, and in one or two cases they seemed to me really needy, but they all said no. More than once I saw the tears come to their eyes, at thought of your care for them, as I told them of your letter. Did you hear any echoes of our Indian war-whoops over your election? They were pretty loud. I was particularly exultant, because my father was a New Yorker and I was educated in New York, even if I was born here. So far as I can learn, the boys are taking up the dropped threads of their lives, as though they had never been away. Our two Rough Rider students, Meagher and Gilmore, are doing well in their college work.

“I am sorry to tell you of the death of one of your most devoted troopers, Bert Holderman, who was here serving on the Grand Jury. He was stricken with meningitis in the jury-room, and died after three days of delirium. His father, who was twice wounded, four times taken prisoner, and fought in thirty-two battles of the civil war, now old and feeble, survives him, and it was indeed pathetic to see his grief. Bert's mother, who is a Cherokee, was raised in my grandfather's family. The words of commendation which you wrote upon Bert's discharge are the greatest comfort to his friends. They wanted you to know of his death, because he loved you so.

“I am planning to entertain all the Rough Riders in this vicinity some evening during my holiday vacation. I mean to have no other guests, but only give them an opportunity for reminiscences. I regret that Bert's death makes one less. I had hoped to have them sooner, but our struggling young college salaries are necessarily small and duties arduous. I make a home for my widowed mother and an adopted Indian daughter, who is in school; and as I do the cooking for a family of five, I have found it impossible to do many things I would like to.

“Pardon me for burdening you with these details, but I suppose I am like your boys, who say, 'The Colonel was always as ready to listen to a private as to a major-general.' “

Wishing you and yours the very best gifts the season can bring, I am,

“Very truly yours,

“ALICE M. ROBERTSON.”

Is it any wonder that I loved my regiment? (pp. 234-6)

And yes, that offhand comment about “your election” is the only time the text even hints that the book came from the pen of Governor Roosevelt of New York.

Next: The post-game report...with a few pointed comments.

Superfluous nonsense: Lawyerin' in your spare time

2009-09-27T03:01:00.009-04:00

The Rough Riders will be wrapping up later today, but before I call it a night, here's a fabulous tiny-print ad I found in an 1898 edition of McClure's Magazine that included another account of the Cuban campaign.

And in case you can't (or won't) read the image, for whatever reason:

Study Law at Home: Instruction by mail adapted to every one. Methods approved by leading educators Experienced and competent instructors. Takes spare time only. Three courses, preparatory, business, college. An opportunity to better your condition and prospects. Students and graduates everywhere. Eight years of success. Full particulars free. Sprague Correspondence School of Law, 248 Tel. Bldg., Detroit, Mich.

Nice to know that you get your toes wet in the complex, high-stakes lawyerin' world in your down time in the world of 1899, and since they've been in business eight years, you know they're not going anywhere (until Mr. Sprague's checks stop clearing). But would you, the modern sophisticate of the 21st century, feel comfortable with a lawyer holding a mail-order degree? Yeah, I know that's how Orly Taitz did it, but I'm assuming you're looking for one who isn't hilarious.

Why the hell is a cherub holding the book? Are we studying Valentine Law today?

The Rough Riders Chapter 6 (Part 1): Down, With The Sickness

2009-09-24T21:04:00.008-04:00

Peace is bustin' out all over as we begin Chapter 6 (“The Return Home”), and the cavalry had moved to the foothills west of El Caney with the artillery, but if the war had a heavy cost, the peace was raring to beat the living daylights out of the remaining men. “It was a most beautiful spot beside a stream of clear water, but it was not healthy. In fact no ground in the neighborhood was healthy.” The chief issue was a constant recurrence of malarial fever, and while it never knocked more than 20% of the men flat at any one time, there were never more than 50% of all the men who were actually well enough to do anything. To compound the misery, they made the move to the foothills (“through some blunder”) during the hottest part of the day, so the five-mile march tipped put half of the guys down before they reached the new campsite.

The malaria would come and go, then come back again to ask if you were talking about it, which means the men would recover just enough to feel like being up and around, only to taste the backhand of the illness again. “Every officer other than myself except one was down with sickness at one time or another. […] All the clothes were in rags; even the officers had neither socks nor underwear. The lithe college athletes had lost their spring; the tall, gaunt hunters and cow-punchers lounged listlessly in their dog-tents, which were steaming morasses during the torrential rains, and then ovens when the sun blazed down; but there were no complaints.” Even Bardshar, Roosevelt's orderly, had lost eighty pounds from illness.

Of course, the conditions at the larger field hospitals were still pathetic enough to cause all kinds of nightmares, so they were laboring mightily to prevent anybody from getting sent down.

There were but twelve ambulances with the army, and these were quite inadequate for their work; but the conditions in the large field hospitals were so bad, that as long as possible we kept all of our sick men in the regimental hospital at the front. Dr. Church did splendid work, although he himself was suffering much more than half the time from fever. Several of the men from the ranks did equally well, especially a young doctor from New York, Harry Thorpe, who had enlisted as a trooper, but who was now made acting assistant-surgeon. It was with the greatest difficulty that Church and Thorpe were able to get proper medicine for the sick, and it was almost the last day of our stay before we were able to get cots for them. Up to that time they lay on the ground. No food was issued suitable for them, or for the half-sick men who were not on the doctor's list; the two classes by this time included the bulk of the command. Occasionally we got hold of a wagon or of some Cuban carts, and at other times I used my improvised pack-train (the animals of which, however, were continually being taken away from us by our superiors) and went or sent back to the sea-coast at Siboney or into Santiago itself to get rice, flour, cornmeal, oatmeal, condensed milk, potatoes, and canned vegetables. The rice I bought in Santiago; the best of the other stuff I got from the Red Cross through Mr. George Kennan and Miss Clara Barton and Dr. Lesser; but some of it I got from our own transports. Colonel Weston, the Commissary-General, as always, rendered us every service in his power. This additional and varied food was of the utmost service, not merely to the sick but in preventing the well from becoming sick. Throughout the campaign the Division Inspector-General, Lieutenant-Colonel Garlington, and Lieutenants West and Dickman, the acting division quartermaster and commissary, had done everything in their power to keep us supplied with food; but where there were so few mules and wagons even such able and zealous officers could not do the impossible. (pp. 200-2)

As if things weren't squirrelly enough, some of the Cubans in the rear were tagged with yellow fever, a nasty piece of viral work which freaked out some of the doctors and a few of the generals. Fortunately, the yellow fever didn't turn into an epidemic. Unfortunately, there was no telling that to the men in Washington who made the decisions about whether or not to get the hell out of the country, since a few incidents in recent decades had worked a special kind of paranoid magic on their decision making. “I doubt if there were ever more than a dozen genuine cases of yellow fever in the whole cavalry division; but the authorities at Washington, misled by the reports they received from one or two of their military and medical advisers at the front, became panic-struck, and under the influence of their fears hesitated to bring the army home, lest it might import yellow fever into the United States.” The verdict seemed to be to stay in Cuba with their misery and disease.

That wasn't the only thing on which the crazymaking remote-control driving from Washington was wreaking havoc. There was the matter of whether to stay in one place in Cuba, and how to get to the other place, wherever they decided that needed to be. This is one of the longer quote block, but stick with me here...

They unfortunately knew nothing of the country nor of the circumstances of the army, and the plans that were from time to time formulated in the Department (and even by an occasional general or surgeon at the front) for the management of the army would have been comic if they had not possessed such tragic possibilities. Thus, at one period it was proposed that we should shift camp every two or three days. Now, our transportation, as I have pointed out before, was utterly inadequate. In theory, under the regulations of the War Department, each regiment should have had at least twenty-five wagons. As a matter of fact our regiment often had none, sometimes one, rarely two, and never three; yet it was better off than any other in the cavalry division. In consequence it was impossible to carry much of anything save what the men had on their backs, and half of the men were too weak to walk three miles with their packs. Whenever we shifted camp the exertion among the half-sick caused our sick-roll to double next morning, and it took at least three days, even when the shift was for but a short distance, before we were able to bring up the officers' luggage, the hospital spare food, the ammunition, etc. Meanwhile the officers slept wherever they could, and those men who had not been able to carry their own bedding, slept as the officers did. In the weak condition of the men the labor of pitching camp was severe and told heavily upon them. In short, the scheme of continually shifting camp was impossible of fulfilment. It would merely have resulted in the early destruction of the army.

Again, it was proposed that we should go up the mountains and make our camps there. The palm and the bamboo grew to the summits of the mountains, and the soil along their sides was deep and soft, while the rains were very heavy, much more so than immediately on the coast—every mile or two inland bringing with it a great increase in the rainfall. We could, with much difficulty, have got our regiments up the mountains, but not half the men could have got up with their belongings; and once there it would have been an impossibility to feed them. It was all that could be done, with the limited number of wagons and mule-trains on hand, to feed the men in the existing camps, for the travel and the rain gradually rendered each road in succession wholly impassable. To have gone up the mountains would have meant early starvation.

The third plan of the Department was even more objectionable than either of the others. There was, some twenty-five miles in the interior, what was called a high interior plateau, and at one period we were informed that we were to be marched thither. As a matter of fact, this so-called high plateau was the sugar-cane country, where, during the summer, the rainfall was prodigious. It was a rich, deep soil, covered with a rank tropic growth, the guinea-grass being higher than the head of a man on horseback. It was a perfect hotbed of malaria, and there was no dry ground whatever in which to camp. To have sent the troops there would have been simple butchery. (pp. 204-7)

The option that was agreed to? The “we'll just stay where we are until you guys get your heads out of your asses, thank you kindly” option. You know, the one that doesn't spell assured doom.

Keeping morale up was starting to become a problem, mainly because there wasn't a whole lot to do that didn't wring the sick ones out like a dishrag. ”Once or twice I took some of my comrades with me, and climbed up one or another of the surrounding mountains, but the result generally was that half of the party were down with some kind of sickness next day.” There was epic heat in the mornings, and the rains that usually drenched the countryside in the evening made walking around a mucky ordeal. Even if they were well enough to make the trip into Santiago—and there were restrictions—there wasn't much going on in “the quaint, dirty old Spanish city.” By this time, Roosevelt's buddy Leonard Wood had been appointed military governor, and was operating out of “the low, bare, rambling building which was called the Governor's Palace.” Roosevelt was thus the head of his entire brigade, which put him in a prime position to take part in the next bit of drama.

There had developed a consensus among the army officers in Cuba that if there wasn't anything for them to actually do in Cuba, they'd like to get the hell out and go to the fighting in Puerto Rico or wherever, instead of sitting around and waiting for the fever to kill them. Whatever happened after Santiago, everyone in Santiago agreed that the army needed to get out or face ruination. With all of this in mind, General Shafter called a conference of all the division and brigade commanders around the last day of July. “The telegrams from the Secretary stating the position of himself and the Surgeon-General were read, and then almost every line and medical officer present expressed his views in turn. They were almost all regulars and had been brought up to life-long habits of obedience without protest.” However, while every man present agreed that it would be an unforgivable waste to stay put, the officers who were regular army were a bit twitchy about sacrificing their careers to make this point. Since Roosevelt wasn't a career soldier, he presumably had the least to lose from reprisals, so it fell to him to bear the brunt of this gambit. “So I wrote a letter to General Shafter, reading over the rough draft to the various Generals and adopting their corrections. Before I had finished making these corrections it was determined that we should send a circular letter on behalf of all of us to General Shafter, and when I returned from presenting him mine, I found this circular letter already prepared and we all of us signed it.”

In what came to be known as “the 'round robin' incident”, the text of both Roosevelt's letter and the circular letter were dutifully leaked, possibly by Roosevelt himself, to an AP correspondent (as reprinted in Appendix C). “I was present when [the correspondent] was handed both letters; he was present while they were being written.” The goal was to embarrass the government into action, and on that point, it was very successful. “Within three days the army was ordered to be ready to sail for home.” Well, it accomplished that, but there's a possibility that the blowback from the incident was one of the things that cost Roosevelt a much-desired Congressional Medal of Honor, an oversight that was eventually corrected...103 years later. Which only proves yet again that Bill Clinton got to do everything.

Next: Going home! And more boats!

Rough Riders Sidebar: A Gallant Old Fellow

2009-09-24T02:21:00.006-04:00

While we're between chapters (and while I'm bored and awake in the dead of night) is a good time to test out the "clip" function on Google Books: one of the many photographs tipped into the original editions of The Rough Riders was of Sergeant Guitilias, the Civil War vet who helped man the dynamite gun.

Questions for discussion: Do you think that's a look of stoicism, exhaustion, or resentment? And what's up with his hat? That's the flattest hat I've seen on anybody in this book.

The Rough Riders Chapter 5 (Part 3): Sitting, Waiting, Wishing (for something besides #%$&@! HARDTACK!)

2009-09-23T21:19:00.006-04:00

It's still Chapter 5 and we're still waiting for a truce, a surprise ambush, a Spanish brigade in a clown car...anything to break up the monotony of the waiting. All this lollygagging around was killing our man Teddy, who wasn't feeling particularly useful if something wasn't testing his mettle. “Indeed, as long as we were under fire or in the immediate presence of the enemy, and I had plenty to do, there was nothing of which I could legitimately complain; and what I really did regard as hardships, my men did not object to—for later on, when we had some leisure, I would have given much for complete solitude and some good books.”

While the war's motor is idling in the 2-hours-only parking space, Roosevelt holds forth on what it takes for an officer to get his soldiers' loyalty.

With all volunteer troops, and I am inclined to think with regulars, too, in time of trial, the best work can be got out of the men only if the officers endure the same hardships and face the same risks. In my regiment, as in the whole cavalry division, the proportion of loss in killed and wounded was considerably greater among the officers than among the troopers, and this was exactly as it should be. Moreover, when we got down to hard pan, we all, officers and men, fared exactly alike as regards both shelter and food. This prevented any grumbling. When the troopers saw that the officers had nothing but hardtack, there was not a man in the regiment who would not have been ashamed to grumble at faring no worse, and when all alike slept out in the open, in the rear of the trenches, and when the men always saw the field officers up at night, during the digging of the trenches, and going the rounds of the outposts, they would not tolerate, in any of their number, either complaint or shirking work. When things got easier I put up my tent and lived a little apart, for it is a mistake for an officer ever to grow too familiar with his men, no matter how good they are; and it is of course the greatest possible mistake to seek popularity either by showing weakness or by mollycoddling the men. They will never respect a commander who does not enforce discipline, who does not know his duty, and who is not willing both himself to encounter and to make them encounter every species of danger and hardship when necessary. The soldiers who do not feel this way are not worthy of the name and should be handled with iron severity until they become fighting men and not shams. In return the officer should carefully look after his men, should see that they are well fed and well sheltered, and that, no matter how much they may grumble, they keep the camp thoroughly policed. (pp. 181-3)

Whatever it was, Roosevelt's men were so loyal that they even shared their meager rations with him when they saw he was doing without. As it happened, their food supply began finding them again once all that guns-and-bombs distraction settled down—mainly hardtack, pork, and half of the coffee and sugar they were getting before. Since this wasn't the greatest menu in the world for the tropics, especially since yellow fever was starting to make the rounds, T.R. once again did some extracurricular fiddling around out of pocket money for beans, canned tomatoes, and the like, supervising the pack train personally on a few occasions. “If I did not go myself I sent some man who had shown that he was a driving, energetic, tactful fellow, who would somehow get what we wanted. […] My regiment did not fare very well; but I think it fared better than any other. Of course no one would have minded in the least such hardships as we endured had there been any need of enduring them; but there was none. System and sufficiency of transportation were all that were needed.”

As he discussed with the other officers on the line at the time, one of the biggest failings in planning was the complete absence of supply depots. When he sent the mule train out, they had to go all the way back to the supply ships (I'm assuming they were still either at Daiquiri or Siboney), which was an extreme pain in the hindquarters because the Rough Riders never had more than twenty-four hours' worth of food with them at any given time. If a freak hurricane sank them, they better hope they have this guy with them:

You ever eat a mule? Some parts are edible. That's what I've been told, anyway.

While waiting for the end of the siege, Roosevelt busied himself in two ways. First, bolstering his defenses even further...

If the city could be taken without direct assault on the intrenchments and wire entanglements, we earnestly hoped it would be, for such an assault meant, as we knew by past experience, the loss of a quarter of the attacking regiments (and we were bound that the Rough Riders should be one of these attacking regiments, if the attack had to be made). There was, of course, nobody who would not rather have assaulted than have run the risk of failure; but we hoped the city would fall without need arising for us to suffer the great loss of life which a further assault would have entailed.

[...]The week of non-fighting was not all a period of truce; part of the time was passed under a kind of nondescript arrangement, when we were told not to attack ourselves, but to be ready at any moment to repulse an attack and to make preparations for meeting it. During these times I busied myself in putting our trenches into first-rate shape and in building bomb-proofs and traverses. One night I got a detail of sixty men from the First, Ninth, and Tenth, whose officers always helped us in every way, and with these, and with sixty of my own men, I dug a long, zigzag trench in advance of the salient of my line out to a knoll well in front, from which we could command the Spanish trenches and block-houses immediately ahead of us. On this knoll we made a kind of bastion consisting of a deep, semi-circular trench with sand-bags arranged along the edge so as to constitute a wall with loop-holes. Of course, when I came to dig this trench, I kept both Greenway and Goodrich supervising the work all night, and equally of course I got Parker and Stevens to help me. By employing as many men as we did we were able to get the work so far advanced as to provide against interruption before the moon rose, which was about midnight. Our pickets were thrown far out in the jungle, to keep back the Spanish pickets and prevent any interference with the diggers. The men seemed to think the work rather good fun than otherwise, the possibility of a brush with the Spaniards lending a zest that prevented its growing monotonous.

Parker had taken two of his Gatlings, removed the wheels, and mounted them in the trenches; also mounting the two automatic Colts where he deemed they could do best service. With the completion of the trenches, bomb-proofs, and traverses, and the mounting of these guns, the fortifications of the hill assumed quite a respectable character, and the Gatling men christened it Fort Roosevelt, by which name it afterward went. (pp. 188, 189-91)

...and secondly, dealing with the tourist trade.

One day we were visited by a travelling Russian, Prince X., a large, blond man, smooth and impenetrable. I introduced him to one of the regular army officers, a capital fighter and excellent fellow, who, however, viewed foreign international politics from a strictly trans-Mississippi stand-point. He hailed the Russian with frank kindness and took him off to show him around the trenches, chatting volubly, and calling him "Prince," much as Kentuckians call one another "Colonel." As I returned I heard him remarking: "You see, Prince, the great result of this war is that it has united the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon people; and now that they are together they can whip the world, Prince! they can whip the world!"—being evidently filled with the pleasing belief that the Russian would cordially sympathize with this view. (pp. 191-2)

At midday of the 10^th, the Spanish opened fire yet again in a sort of half-hearted way, but Parker's Gatlings, along with the sharpshooters and the dynamite gun, managed to shut the assault down once they figured out that the Spanish gun battery was immediately in front of their hospital. It was obvious that the men had gotten used to their chances on the line.

While I was lying with the officers just outside one of the bomb-proofs I saw a New Mexican trooper named Morrison making his coffee under the protection of a traverse high up on the hill. Morrison was originally a Baptist preacher who had joined the regiment purely from a sense of duty, leaving his wife and children, and had shown himself to be an excellent soldier. He had evidently exactly calculated the danger zone, and found that by getting close to the traverse he could sit up erect and make ready his supper without being cramped. I watched him solemnly pounding the coffee with the butt end of his revolver, and then boiling the water and frying his bacon, just as if he had been in the lee of the roundup wagon somewhere out on the plains. (pp. 194-5)

The next day, Roosevelt's regiment was shifted to the right to guard the Caney road, along with one of the Gatlings. “That evening there came up the worst storm we had had, and by midnight my tent blew over. I had for the first time in a fortnight undressed myself completely, and I felt fully punished for my love of luxury when I jumped out into the driving downpour of tropic rain, and groped blindly in the darkness for my clothes as they lay in the liquid mud.” He ended up wrapped in dry blankets in the kitchen tent, sleeping on a table.

Of course, this monotony was broken up by peace: “On the 17th the city formally surrendered and our regiment, like the rest of the army, was drawn up on the trenches. When the American flag was hoisted the trumpets blared and the men cheered, and we knew that the fighting part of our work was over.” On the 3^rd, the Spanish forces had sent thousands of women, children, and other non-combatants out of the city to the relative safety of El Caney, and while the troops originally did what they could to relieve the hardship of “these wretched creatures,” Roosevelt ended up taking a hard line against feeding them from their already scant rations. “[H]owever hard and merciless it seemed, I was in duty bound to keep my own regiment at the highest pitch of fighting efficiency.” Now that the surrender was in the bag, the refugees were streaming back into the city, and the big-hearted Yankees were helping relieve the burdens. You do remember that to love the war, you must love the soldiers? We did settle that early on, didn't we? Well, the spirit of charity hit a different kind of snag this time around.

I saw one man, Happy Jack, spend the entire day in walking to and fro for about a quarter of a mile on both sides of our lines along the road, carrying the bundles for a series of poor old women, or else carrying young children. Finally the doctor warned us that we must not touch the bundles of the refugees for fear of infection, as disease had broken out and was rife among them. Accordingly I had to put a stop to these acts of kindness on the part of my men; against which action Happy Jack respectfully but strongly protested upon the unexpected ground that "The Almighty would never let a man catch a disease while he was doing a good action." I did not venture to take so advanced a theological stand. (pp. 197-8)

Next: The “splendid little war” in Cuba is over, and the peace runs the risk of killing us. Action-packed? Depends on how you define “action”...

The Rough Riders Chapter 5 (Part 2): A Holiday From The Gondetele

2009-09-21T23:29:00.005-04:00

We've reached nightfall at this point in Chapter 5, when suddenly fires started shooting up around the mountain passes to the right. “They all rose together and we could make nothing of them.” The best theory the Americans could come up with was that these were signal fires between the main Spanish forces in Santiago and their reinforcements—naturally they had no idea that the reinforcements had already arrived in the city, since the Cubans, as T.R. doesn't hesitate to remind us yet again, were just hopeless in stopping the traffic. The Spanish, meanwhile, assumed that those were signal fires between the Americans and the Cuban rebels, not knowing that the Americans were pretty much done with the rebels. With both sides thinking the other was making with the funny business, zany hijinks ensued! And by “zany hijinks,” I mean “sudden outbursts of deadly fire into the darkness.”

Both sides were accordingly on the alert, and the Spaniards must have strengthened their outlying parties in the jungle ahead of us, for they suddenly attacked one of our pickets, wounding Crockett seriously. He was brought in by the other troopers. Evidently the Spanish lines felt a little nervous, for this sputter of shooting was immediately followed by a tremendous fire of great guns and rifles from their trenches and batteries. Our men in the trenches responded heavily, and word was sent back, not only to me, but to the commanders in the rear of the regiments along our line, that the Spaniards were attacking. It was imperative to see what was really going on, so I ran up to the trenches and looked out. At night it was far easier to place the Spanish lines than by day, because the flame-spurts shone in the darkness. I could soon tell that there were bodies of Spanish pickets or skirmishers in the jungle-covered valley, between their lines and ours, but that the bulk of the fire came from their trenches and showed not the slightest symptom of advancing; moreover, as is generally the case at night, the fire was almost all high, passing well overhead, with an occasional bullet near by. (pp. 173-4)

Roosevelt concluded that it wasn't going to get them anywhere returning fire under these conditions, and Captain Ayres of the 10^th Cavalry had the same idea, but getting the idea to hold fire and actually bringing his men around to that idea were two different things.

His troopers were devoted to him, would follow him anywhere, and would do anything he said; but when men get firing at night it is rather difficult to stop them, especially when the fire of the enemy in front continues unabated. When he first reached the trenches it was impossible to say whether or not there was an actual night attack impending, and he had been instructing his men, as I instructed mine, to fire low, cutting the grass in front. As soon as he became convinced that there was no night attack, he ran up and down the line adjuring and commanding the troopers to cease shooting, with words and phrases which were doubtless not wholly unlike those which the Old Guard really did use at Waterloo. As I ran down my own line, I could see him coming up his, and he saved me all trouble in stopping the fire at the right, where the lines met, for my men there all dropped everything to listen to him and cheer and laugh. Soon we got the troopers in hand, and made them cease firing; then, after awhile, the Spanish fire died down. At the time we spoke of this as a night attack by the Spaniards, but it really was not an attack at all. Ever after my men had a great regard for Ayres, and would have followed him anywhere. I shall never forget the way in which he scolded his huge, devoted black troopers, generally ending with "I'm ashamed of you, ashamed of you! I wouldn't have believed it! Firing; when I told you to stop! I'm ashamed of you!" (pp. 175-6)

The rest of the night was spent perfecting the trenches (no more relief forces hopping around like June bugs, as humorous as that image was), and on the morning of the 3^rd the firing began again, with only one man catching a bullet from a sharpshooter. The annoyance of the day were the Spanish sharpshooters in the jungle just beyond the American lines, and so a team of twenty “first-class men,” including the many of the guerrilla-hunters from the previous day, were sent out to clean up the jungle.

Among them was good, solemn Fred Herrig, the Alsatian. I knew Fred's patience and skill as a hunter from the trips we had taken together after deer and mountain sheep through the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri. He still spoke English with what might be called Alsatian variations—he always spoke of the gun detail as the "góndêtle," with the accent on the first syllable—and he expressed a wish to be allowed "a holiday from the gondetle to go after dem gorrillas." I told him he could have the holiday, but to his great disappointment the truce came first, and then Fred asked that, inasmuch as the "gorrillas" were now forbidden game, he might be allowed to go after guinea hens instead. (p. 178)

Meanwhile, I just realized I didn't give a proper introduction to Dr. Robb Church, who first turned up in one of the parts I pruned from Chapter 2. He was a Princeton man assigned as Assistant Surgeon but ended up acting as Regimental Surgeon during the campaign. “It was Dr. Church who first gave me an idea of Bucky O'Neill's versatility, for I happened to overhear them discussing Aryan word-roots together, and then sliding off into a review of the novels of Balzac, and a discussion as to how far Balzac could be said to be the founder of the modern realistic school of fiction. Church had led almost as varied a life as Bucky himself, his career including incidents as far apart as exploring and elk-hunting in the Olympic Mountains, cooking in a lumber-camp, and serving as doctor on an emigrant ship.” All of this backtracking is to mention the field hospital Dr. Church set up on the far side of one of the American hills, and he did about as well as one could expect considering that he didn't really have (here comes the leitmotif again) that much in the way of hospitalin' supplies. As bad as Church had it (and he was feeling a bit sick himself), the conditions in the larger hospitals further to the rear of the lines were “so horrible, from the lack of attendants as well as of medicines, that we kept all the men we possibly could at the front.”

Here we reach an interesting point in the story of the siege of Santiago, one that's batted around in the wrong end of my imagination for quite some time. It doesn't figure into Roosevelt's story, at least as he tells it here, but I'm going to lay it on you anyway since otherwise this entry come up short.

A major player in the Spanish-American War I haven't mentioned yet was one of the biggest players of them all, as far as ground forces go: Major General William R. Shafter, a career soldier who was the commander of this whole operation in spite of being a gouty sixtysomething who weighed in excess of 300 pounds at the start of the campaign. He had a loose-limbed management style when it came to the whole expedition, which may have contributed to any number of frustrations Roosevelt has been complaining about for the past 180 pages. Shafter wasn't even aware that Wheeler had initiated the Battle of Las Guasimas until well after it was over. By San Juan Hill, he had succumbed to the heat of the Cuban jungle and was running the show (if you can call it that) flat on his back and well to the rear of the action.

Here's how the anonymous collective of Wikipedia editors phrase what happened next: “Shafter's lack of political understanding became more apparent after the battle when he proposed to Washington that he would pull his army back several miles to safety and where supplies could reach the troops more easily. However, by the time this message reached Washington a very different turn of events was actually taking place in Cuba. Instead of pulling back, Shafter demanded the surrender of Santiago. The Spaniards did not surrender the city immediately and Shafter conducted siege operations against the city.” The actual idea came from his adjutant, who said later that Shafter “looked at me a full minute for perhaps a full minute and I thought he was going to offer a rebuke,” but he finally decided to issue an ultimatum: surrender or be shelled. The shelling that closed the war came from the navy, and even then only after direct intervention from the Secretary of War. It's a shame that a Medal of Honor winner had to cap his career with this type of confused muddle, even if it was ultimately successful...more or less.

All of the above drama was diplomatically dismissed by Roosevelt, who wouldn't have been privy to any of it from the battlefield anyway, in one jungle's-eye-view sentence: “At twelve o'clock we were notified to stop firing and a flag of truce was sent in to demand the surrender of the city.” Even if it didn't accomplish anything on its own, Shafter's talk of getting a surrender gave the guys on the ground an opportunity to finally get properly restocked.

That afternoon I arranged to get our baggage up, sending back strong details of men to carry up their own goods, and, as usual, impressing into the service a kind of improvised pack-train consisting of the officers' horses, of two or three captured Spanish cavalry horses, two or three mules which had been shot and abandoned and which our men had taken and cured, and two or three Cuban ponies. Hitherto we had simply been sleeping by the trenches or immediately in their rear, with nothing in the way of shelter and only one blanket to every three or four men. Fortunately there had been little rain. We now got up the shelter tents of the men and some flies for the hospital and for the officers; and my personal baggage appeared. I celebrated its advent by a thorough wash and shave.

Later, I twice snatched a few hours to go to the rear and visit such of my men as I could find in the hospitals. Their patience was extraordinary. Kenneth Robinson, a gallant young trooper, though himself severely (I supposed at the time mortally) wounded, was noteworthy for the way in which he tended those among the wounded who were even more helpless, and the cheery courage with which he kept up their spirits. Gievers, who was shot through the hips, rejoined us at the front in a fortnight. Captain Day was hardly longer away. Jack Hammer, who, with poor Race Smith, a gallant Texas lad who was mortally hurt beside me on the summit of the hill, had been on kitchen detail, was wounded and sent to the rear; he was ordered to go to the United States, but he heard that we were to assault Santiago, so he struggled out to rejoin us, and thereafter stayed at the front. Cosby, badly wounded, made his way down to the sea-coast in three days, unassisted. (pp. 180-1)

Next: the end of the violence...the violence with guns, anyway. Yeah, as posts go, this is one of the shorter 'uns...

The Rough Riders Chapter 5 (Part 1): THE DYNAMITE GUN!! (or The Importance of Lowered Expectations)

2009-09-21T01:07:00.005-04:00

So here we are finally at Chapter 5 (“In The Trenches”) dealing with the day after the legend was made. The men who weren't already in trenches were moved behind the guns...then moved again...and again, because finding a place that was safe from shells and the Spanish sharpshooters (which they couldn't place from their entrenched positions because of the smokeless powder, of course) took about three hours. “Moreover, in one hollow, which we thought safe, the Spaniards succeeded in dropping a shell, a fragment of which went through the head of one of my men, who, astonishing to say, lived, although unconscious, for two hours afterward.” The next 24 hours were “cold comfort,” not only because they were bundling and nesting with whatever blankets, hammocks, etc. they found on the previous day's batch of dead Spaniards, but food was at a premium. Oh, the ammunition was making it through in great quantity, but for the most part they were stuck with rationed hardtack Bet they were sorry they scoffed at that “canned fresh beef” then.

The freshly-dug entrenchments turned out to be less than scientific—adequate for safety, if not optimal for defense or access. Do you know what a traverse is in trenching terms? Neither did Roosevelt, who had never even seen a trench until his guys captured the ones dug by the Spanish troops. While nobody actually got hit going in or out of the trenches, that didn't mean it wasn't an adventure:

Under the intense heat, crowded down in cramped attitudes in the rank, newly dug, poisonous soil of the trenches, the men needed to be relieved every six hours or so. Accordingly, in the late morning, and again in the afternoon, I arranged for their release. On each occasion I waited until there was a lull in the firing and then started a sudden rush by the relieving party, who tumbled into the trenches every which way. The movement resulted on each occasion in a terrific outburst of fire from the Spanish lines, which proved quite harmless; and as it gradually died away the men who had been relieved got out as best they could. Fortunately, by the next day I was able to abandon this primitive, though thrilling and wholly novel, military method of relief.

When the hardtack came up that afternoon I felt much sympathy for the hungry unfortunates in the trenches and hated to condemn them to six hours more without food; but I did not know how to get food into them. Little McGinty, the bronco buster, volunteered to make the attempt, and I gave him permission. He simply took a case of hardtack in his arms and darted toward the trenches. The distance was but short, and though there was an outburst of fire, he was actually missed. One bullet, however, passed through the case of hardtack just before he disappeared with it into the trench. A trooper named Shanafelt repeated the feat, later, with a pail of coffee. Another trooper, George King, spent a leisure hour in the rear making soup out of some rice and other stuff he found in a Spanish house; he brought some of it to General Wood, Jack Greenway, and myself, and nothing could have tasted more delicious. (pp. 162-3)

The musketry and the cannon weren't doing a whole lot of good with the front line conditions that prevailed. So the regular artillery was pulled off the firing line and...and...

Omigod...it can't possibly be! Not after all this time!

HERE COMES THE DYNAMITE GUN! WAVE THE FLAGS AND PLAY THE ROCKY THEME!

If you remember waaaay back in October, I mentioned that the dynamite gun used compressed air to fire explosive projectiles, and I was overloaded with disappointment when they kept pulling it out of my grasping fingers. Now, finally, we get the dynamite gun in action! And now that we're at that point...well...

Did you ever have a particular toy you had a massive itch to get for Christmas or your birthday? It loomed so large in your imagination, and if you could get that one present, the very existence of the concept of gift-giving would be vindicated and the sun would come out on the Fourth of July! And then you unwrapped it, and it was a crappy piece of shoddy plastic with a sheet of peel-off stickers that you were expected to stick on yourself with your clumsy six-year-old fingers. Nothing could match the shining perfection you had built up in your memory, and as it sometimes turned out, nothing did. Remember kids: you can carry a talent for creating anticlimax through adulthood...unless you learn how to live your life right.

Wow, that was (ach-HEM) alarmingly specific. Anyway, the point of that rant is that the glory of the dynamite gun was an extremely mixed bag once they rolled it out to the line.

The dynamite gun was brought up to the right of the regimental line. It was more effective than the regular artillery because it was fired with smokeless powder, and as it was used like a mortar from behind the hill, it did not betray its presence, and those firing it suffered no loss. Every few shots it got out of order, and the Rough Rider machinists and those furnished by Lieutenant Parker—whom we by this time began to consider as an exceedingly valuable member of our own regiment—would spend an hour or two in setting it right. Sergeant Borrowe had charge of it and handled it well. With him was Sergeant Guitilias, a gallant old fellow, a veteran of the Civil War, whose duties were properly those of standard-bearer, he having charge of the yellow cavalry standard of the regiment; but in the Cuban campaign he was given the more active work of helping run the dynamite gun. The shots from the dynamite gun made a terrific explosion, but they did not seem to go accurately. Once one of them struck a Spanish trench and wrecked part of it. On another occasion one struck a big building, from which there promptly swarmed both Spanish cavalry and infantry, on whom the Colt automatic guns played with good effect, during the minute that elapsed before they could get other cover. (pp. 164-5)

That's right, the stupid thing could only squeeze off a few shots before it needed several hours' worth of tweaking before you could fire it again...and tweak it again. Sure it was effective...when it worked. Even a mention of the blessed smokeless powder can't get a rise out of me now. It's like Charlie Brown getting all those rocks on Halloween.

The Colt automatic guns had issues of their own, mainly because, being tripod mounted, the extreme weight made them impossible to move without the mules, and the “delicate” mechanism got out of whack just as easily as the dynamite gun. The Colts didn't even use the Krag ammo that the Americans had piled up from here to the New Year, but Mauser shells, which they managed to capture from the Spanish. “Parker took the same fatherly interest in these two Colts that he did in the dynamite gun, and finally I put all three and their men under his immediate care, so that he had a battery of seven guns.”

Roosevelt singles out Parker here as his MVP:

I do not allude especially to his courage and energy, great though they were, for there were hundreds of his fellow-officers of the cavalry and infantry who possessed as much of the former quality, and scores who possessed as much of the latter; but he had the rare good judgment and foresight to see the possibilities of the machine-guns, and, thanks to the aid of General Shafter, he was able to organize his battery. He then, by his own exertions, got it to the front and proved that it could do invaluable work on the field of battle, as much in attack as in defence. Parker's Gatlings were our inseparable companions throughout the siege. After our trenches were put in final shape, he took off the wheels of a couple and placed them with our own two Colts in the trenches. His gunners slept beside the Rough Riders in the bomb-proofs, and the men shared with one another when either side got a supply of beans or of coffee and sugar; for Parker was as wide-awake and energetic in getting food for his men as we prided ourselves upon being in getting food for ours. Besides, he got oil, and let our men have plenty for their rifles. At no hour of the day or night was Parker anywhere but where we wished him to be in the event of an attack. If I was ordered to send a troop of Rough Riders to guard some road or some break in the lines, we usually got Parker to send a Gatling along, and whether the change was made by day or by night, the Gatling went, over any ground and in any weather. He never exposed the Gatlings needlessly or unless there was some object to be gained, but if serious fighting broke out, he always took a hand. Sometimes this fighting would be the result of an effort on our part to quell the fire from the Spanish trenches; sometimes the Spaniards took the initiative; but at whatever hour of the twenty-four serious fighting began, the drumming of the Gatlings was soon heard through the cracking of our own carbines. (pp. 167-8)

Roosevelt also gave all due credit to the cavalry regulars, who were held up as the standard of excellence, and T.R. was extremely proud that the Rough Riders were treated as equals. Of course, Roosevelt indirectly toots his own horn by tooting the horn of his guys, which may be justified to a degree: “In less than sixty days the regiment had been raised, organized, armed, equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted, kept for a fortnight on transports, and put through two victorious aggressive fights in very difficult country, the loss in killed and wounded amounting to a quarter of those engaged. This is a record which it is not easy to match in the history of volunteer organizations. The loss was but small compared to that which befell hundreds of regiments in some of the great battles of the later years of the Civil War; but it may be doubted whether there was any regiment which made such a record during the first months of any of our wars.” The digest version: We were awesome because they were awesome, and I just didn't have the heart to suck while they were in the room.

As the day of the 2^nd wound on, the fighting dwindled to fits and starts, but while the sharpshooters in front of the line were making occasional problems, the guerrillas, who were still lingering in the trees behind the American lines, were indiscriminately popping caps at everybody they could find. “At times they fired upon armed men in bodies, but they much preferred for their victims the unarmed attendants, the doctors, the chaplains, the hospital stewards. They fired at the men who were bearing off the wounded in litters; they fired at the doctors who came to the front, and at the chaplains who started to hold burial service; the conspicuous Red Cross brassard worn by all of these non-combatants, instead of serving as a protection, seemed to make them the special objects of the guerilla fire.” It didn't help a bit that the Spanish were told all kinds of nonsense about Americans showing no quarter with captured prisoners, and therefore they would fight to the end unless they were talked down from the ledge. Regardless, these pests had to be smoked out, so he sent out a party of “first-class woodsmen” to go squirrel hunting.

My sharp-shooters felt very vindictively toward these guerillas and showed them no quarter.

Now what the hell did I just get through saying about that “no quarter” crap??! I even put it in italics! Italics = important! Jeez...maybe I'm still bitter about that dynamite gun.

They started systematically to hunt them, and showed themselves much superior at the guerillas' own game, killing eleven, while not one of my men was scratched. Two of the men who did conspicuously good service in this work were Troopers Goodwin and Proffit, both of Arizona, but one by birth a Californian and the other a North Carolinian. Goodwin was a natural shot, not only with the rifle and revolver, but with the sling. Proffit might have stood as a type of the mountaineers described by John Fox and Miss Murfree. He was a tall, sinewy, handsome man of remarkable strength, an excellent shot and a thoroughly good soldier. His father had been a Confederate officer, rising from the ranks, and if the war had lasted long enough the son would have risen in the same manner. As it was, I should have been glad to have given him a commission, exactly as I should have been glad to have given a number of others in the regiment commissions, if I had only had them. Proffit was a saturnine, reserved man, who afterward fell very sick with the fever, and who, as a reward for his soldierly good conduct, was often granted unusual privileges; but he took the fever and the privileges with the same iron indifference, never grumbling, and never expressing satisfaction. (pp. 172-3)

Forgive me if I do the "never expressing satisfaction" bit without the more redeeming "never grumbling" part accompanying it, but I'm still bitter about that dynamite gun. Should've asked for a lousy BB gun when I started the book...

Next: The night of the day after. Sorry, that's all you're getting tonight, ya dynamite gun-totin' jerks...

The Rough Riders Chapter 4 (Part 3): "Smoked Yankees"

2009-09-18T15:29:00.007-04:00

We're still in Chapter 4, but not for much longer, buddy. Of course, to escape we have to go through another passage about that godawful black powder. This time, the accursed black powder prevents the artillery with Roosevelt from being effective within rifle range. “When one of the guns was discharged a thick cloud of smoke shot out and hung over the place, making an ideal target, and in a half minute every Spanish gun and rifle within range was directed at the particular spot thus indicated; the consequence was that after a more or less lengthy stand the gun was silenced or driven off.” The two volunteer infantry regiments, stuck with black powder and “antiquated Springfields,” were almost equally hopeless.

As if all this talk about black powder wasn't enough to remind you exactly where you are in American history, we come to Roosevelt's first extended mention of the famous Buffalo Soldiers, the African-American units who did their bit for the north during the Civil War and the Union during the Indian Wars. Whenever you see the 9^th and 10^th Cavalry Regiment mentioned in the text, that's a part of them, and bits of them were among the mishmash of troops that Roosevelt found himself commanding at this point in the battle. While Roosevelt admitted that they handled themselves with flying colors on the battlefield, “they are, of course, peculiarly dependent upon their white officers.” Yes, he went there, but wait, there's more...

Occasionally they produce non-commissioned officers who can take the initiative and accept responsibility precisely like the best class of whites; but this cannot be expected normally, nor is it fair to expect it. With the colored troops there should always be some of their own officers; whereas, with the white regulars, as with my own Rough Riders, experience showed that the non-commissioned officers could usually carry on the fight by themselves if they were once started, no matter whether their officers were killed or not. (pp. 143-4, my emphasis)

Of course you can't expect that from "colored troops." It's as plain as the nose on your foot! As genteel as his phrasing of this malarkey is, it's still a bit of a jawdropper to run across this line of talk.

Oh, you didn't think we were done, did you? There's one more anecdote that sticks out like a bare butt painted purple and pressed against an open car window. Roosevelt tells us that since the black soldiers were without their familiar officers, they began to drift to the rear using one excuse or another, breaking down Teddy's line in the process.

This I could not allow, […] so I jumped up, and walking a few yards to the rear, drew my revolver, halted the retreating soldiers, and called out to them that I appreciated the gallantry with which they had fought and would be sorry to hurt them, but that I should shoot the first man who, on any pretence whatever, went to the rear. My own men had all sat up and were watching my movements with utmost interest; so was Captain Howze. I ended my statement to the colored soldiers by saying: "Now, I shall be very sorry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you that I always do;" whereupon my cow-punchers, hunters, and miners solemnly nodded their heads and commented in chorus, exactly as if in a comic opera, "He always does; he always does!"

This was the end of the trouble, for the "smoked Yankees"—as the Spaniards called the colored soldiers—flashed their white teeth at one another, as they broke into broad grins, and I had no more trouble with them, they seeming to accept me as one of their own officers. The colored cavalry-men had already so accepted me; in return, the Rough Riders, although for the most part Southwesterners, who have a strong color prejudice, grew to accept them with hearty good-will as comrades, and were entirely willing, in their own phrase, "to drink out of the same canteen." Where all the regular officers did so well, it is hard to draw any distinction; but in the cavalry division a peculiar meed of praise should be given to the officers of the Ninth and Tenth for their work, and under their leadership the colored troops did as well as any soldiers could possibly do. (p. 144-6)

Well, that was...something, all right. Yes...sir. Moving on now with great speed...

The afternoon brought the only offensive move they saw from the Spanish during the entire battle, not a charge so much as heavy fire from skirmishers. The Americans, overjoyed to see some forward movement from the Spanish force, quickly broke that nonsense up with a little bit of firepower, driving the enemy back to their trenches. Meanwhile, Lt. Parker was getting tired of support and had pushed his Gatlings to the extreme front. “From this time on, throughout the fighting, Parker's Gatlings were on the right of my regiment, and his men and mine fraternized in every way. He kept his pieces at the extreme front, using them on every occasion until the last Spanish shot was fired.”

As night fell and the battle died down, the men were hoping that the Spaniards would try to drive them off to give them an excuse to push on to Santiago. To shut down some loose talk about “retiring” from their current position, General Wheeler assured them that there should be no fear of them pulling back, that they would sit tight until the opportunity to advance presented itself. In the meantime, they helped themselves to the dinner the retreating Spanish officers had been fixing for themselves and spent the next few hours entrenching themselves with some found Spanish tools, helped by a good strong dose of found Spanish coffee.

With the main show out of the way, Roosevelt moves on to the “acts of gallantry” and battlefield promotions from the day's fight. Since I'm about eleven months behind schedule at this point, hopefully you'll forgive me if I just mention Corporal Fortescue of Troop E, one of thirteen men who kept fighting despite being wounded. “I noticed he limped, but supposed that his foot was skinned. It proved, however, that he had been struck in the foot, though not very seriously, by a bullet, and I never knew what was the matter until the next day I saw him making wry faces as he drew off his bloody boot, which was stuck fast to the foot.” When Roosevelt “wry faces,” I see Jim Varney in my mind's eye. Hey Vern, there's a hole in my foot! I would also be shirking my duty, since I singled him out earlier, if I didn't mention that Kettle Hill was where future tabasco king McIlhenny earned a promotion to second lieutenant.

At this point I thought we were done, with the men calling it a day at midnight drenched in sweat and heavy dew from the cool night's air. The only thing left is to tally up the dead and wounded, right? Of course it can't be that simple.

Before anyone had time to wake from the cold, however, we were all awakened by the Spaniards, whose skirmishers suddenly opened fire on us. Of course, we could not tell whether or not this was the forerunner of a heavy attack, for our Cossack posts were responding briskly. It was about three o'clock in the morning, at which time men's courage is said to be at the lowest ebb; but the cavalry division was certainly free from any weakness in that direction. At the alarm everybody jumped to his feet and the stiff, shivering, haggard men, their eyes only half-opened, all clutched their rifles and ran forward to the trench on the crest of the hill.

The sputtering shots died away and we went to sleep again. But in another hour dawn broke and the Spaniards opened fire in good earnest. There was a little tree only a few feet away, under which I made my head-quarters, and while I was lying there, with Goodrich and Keyes, a shrapnel burst among us, not hurting us in the least, but with the sweep of its bullets killing or wounding five men in our rear, one of whom was a singularly gallant young Harvard fellow, Stanley Hollister. An equally gallant young fellow from Yale, Theodore Miller, had already been mortally wounded. Hollister also died. (pp. 154-5)

And now that we're really, really done, let's take a look at the scoreboard:

In this fight our regiment had numbered 490 men, as, in addition to the killed and wounded of the first fight, some had had to go to the hospital for sickness and some had been left behind with the baggage, or were detailed on other duty. Eighty-nine were killed and wounded: the heaviest loss suffered by any regiment in the cavalry division. The Spaniards made a stiff fight, standing firm until we charged home. They fought much more stubbornly than at Las Guasimas. We ought to have expected this, for they have always done well in holding intrenchments. On this day they showed themselves to be brave foes, worthy of honor for their gallantry.

In the attack on the San Juan hills our forces numbered about 6,600. There were about 4,500 Spaniards against us. Our total loss in killed and wounded was 1,071. Of the cavalry division there were, all told, some 2,300 officers and men, of whom 375 were killed and wounded. In the division over a fourth of the officers were killed or wounded, their loss being relatively half as great again as that of the enlisted men—which was as it should be.

I think we suffered more heavily than the Spaniards did in killed and wounded (though we also captured some scores of prisoners). It would have been very extraordinary if the reverse was the case, for we did the charging; and to carry earthworks on foot with dismounted cavalry, when these earthworks are held by unbroken infantry armed with the best modern rifles, is a serious task. (pp. 155-159)

Once again, the official and the Spanish numbers are contained in an extremely long footnote, but if you're that curious, you can seek it out for yourself. “Lieutenant Tejeiro, while rightly claiming credit for the courage shown by the Spaniards, also praises the courage and resolution of the Americans, saying that they fought, 'con un arrojo y una decision verdaderamente admirables.' He dwells repeatedly upon the determination with which our troops kept charging though themselves unprotected by cover.” Which is mighty neighborly of him, I'm sure.

Next: Well, we're one step closer on the road to Santiago, so that has to count for something. Also, THE DYNAMITE GUN! No way am I about to stop now. Just give me a chance to get back into gear...

(Edit note: This post was tweaked on 29 September, because some things just can't be left alone.)

Because if good TV shows can go on hiatus, so can rotten low-traffic bloggers

2009-09-18T11:14:00.007-04:00

The hiatus (the one I hadn't decided to call a hiatus until this morning) is almost over. Watch this space for the continuation of The Rough Riders.

See, I told you last summer not to count on me doing your homework. If you want a more disciplined schedule, you'll have to pay me...

The Rough Riders Chapter 4 (Part 2): My Crowded Chapter Hour

2009-03-05T23:43:00.003-05:00

We pick up Chapter 4 right at the moment where Roosevelt prepares to ride into capital-H History, springing to Little Texas as soon as the word came down. He had intended to run the show on foot, but decided that the ever-oppressive heat combined with the need for speed in his duties made that a bad idea. Besides, the men could see him better on horseback, and vice versa.

The Spanish guerrillas were still firing from the trees and also holding the hill on the right front, which gives us another opening for mentioning the tactical advantages of that infernal smokeless powder and the matter of “a curious incident.”

Always when men have been lying down under cover for some time, and are required to advance, there is a little hesitation, each looking to see whether the others are going forward. As I rode down the line, calling to the troopers to go forward, and rasping brief directions to the captains and lieutenants, I came upon a man lying behind a little bush, and I ordered him to jump up. I do not think he understood that we were making a forward move, and he looked up at me for a moment with hesitation, and I again bade him rise, jeering him and saying: "Are you afraid to stand up when I am on horseback?" As I spoke, he suddenly fell forward on his face, a bullet having struck him and gone through him lengthwise. I suppose the bullet had been aimed at me; at any rate, I, who was on horseback in the open, was unhurt, and the man lying flat on the ground in the cover beside me was killed. There were several pairs of brothers with us; of the two Nortons one was killed; of the two McCurdys one was wounded. (pp. 127-8)

Now take notes, because there may be a test later: the main group with Roosevelt's Rough Riders at this point were the Firstand Ninth Regulars, while the Third, Sixth, and Tenth were divided between Kettle Hill and “the block-house hill, which the infantry were assailing.” (That linked picture isn't from the book, by the way, it's “compliments of Bacardi.” I thought drinking was what you did to forget history, but whatever...) General Sumner in person gave the word to the Tenth to charge the hills. There was a lot of intermingling as they pushed forward, and by the time Roosevelt came to the head of the regiment, he pulls his Glory Move. “I spoke to the captain in command of the rear platoons, saying that I had been ordered to support the regulars in the attack upon the hills, and that in my judgment we could not take these hills by firing at them, and that we must rush them. He answered that his orders were to keep his men lying where they were, and that he could not charge without orders. I asked where the Colonel was, and as he was not in sight, said, 'Then I am the ranking officer here and I give the order to charge'—for I did not want to keep the men longer in the open suffering under a fire which they could not effectively return.” When the Captain hesitated without hearing from his own Colonel, Roosevelt said “Then let my men through, sir!” and rode through the lines, followed by the Rough Riders, who were naturally eating this stuff up with a spoon. After a moment's hesitation, the regulars joined Roosevelt, because seriously, were they going to let that punk hog the whole game? I don't care if he is Batman, there should be plenty of war for everyone.

Meanwhile, Captains Taylor and McBride of the Ninth decided at roughly the same time to charge, while Colonels Carroll and Hamilton off to the left gave their orders to advance (“it seems that different parts slipped the leash at almost the same moment”), and Goodrich and Captain Mills were getting their men in attack positions on other sides of the hill.

Wheeling around, I then again galloped toward the hill, passing the shouting, cheering, firing men, and went up the lane, splashing through a small stream; when I got abreast of the ranch buildings on the top of Kettle Hill, I turned and went up the slope. Being on horseback I was, of course, able to get ahead of the men on foot, excepting my orderly, Henry Bardshar, who had run ahead very fast in order to get better shots at the Spaniards, who were now running out of the ranch buildings. Sergeant Campbell and a number of the Arizona men, and Dudley Dean, among others, were very close behind. Stevens, with his platoon of the Ninth, was abreast of us; so were McNamee and Hartwick. Some forty yards from the top I ran into a wire fence and jumped off Little Texas, turning him loose. He had been scraped by a couple of bullets, one of which nicked my elbow, and I never expected to see him again. As I ran up to the hill, Bardshar stopped to shoot, and two Spaniards fell as he emptied his magazine. These were the only Spaniards I actually saw fall to aimed shots by any one of my men, with the exception of two guerillas in trees.

Almost immediately afterward the hill was covered by the troops, both Rough Riders and the colored troopers of the Ninth, and some men of the First. There was the usual confusion, and afterward there was much discussion as to exactly who had been on the hill first. The first guidons planted there were those of the three New Mexican troops, G, E, and F, of my regiment, under their Captains, Llewellen, Luna, and Muller, but on the extreme right of the hill, at the opposite end from where we struck it, Captains Taylor and McBlain and their men of the Ninth were first up. Each of the five captains was firm in the belief that his troop was first up. As for the individual men, each of whom honestly thought he was first on the summit, their name was legion. One Spaniard was captured in the buildings, another was shot as he tried to hide himself, and a few others were killed as they ran. (pp. 131-3)

Finally, Roosevelt and the others were on the crest, which was the cue for the Spanish in the hills in front of them to open fire with rifles and artillery. Some of the men found a huge iron kettle out in the open (Hey! Just like the name of the hill! What a coincidence!) and took cover behind it. Since they had a good view of the charge on San Juan Hill, they engaged in a few minutes' worth of volley-firing on the blockhouse to help stir the pot. And from here, we get more stories that Roosevelt calls “conspicuous valor” but I call “three-fisted tales of manly toughness.” In an earlier passage, we were told about Sergeant Charles Karsten, who was hit by a shrapnel bullet but stayed on the line firing until his arm went numb, “and he then refused to go to the rear, and devoted himself to taking care of the wounded, utterly unmoved by the heavy fire.” In this round, we're told that not only was Colonel Hamilton killed, but Captain Mills was shot through the head, permanently losing sight in one eye and temporarily losing sight in the other, too. Hamilton just sat down where he was, refusing help until he was told that the hill was taken.

The men hear a “peculiar drumming sound” that turned out to be Lieutenant Parker's Gatlings, every burst of fire pushing closer to San Juan Hill in support of the other attack. “It was the only sound which I ever heard my men cheer in battle.” They had reason to cheer, because with Kettle Hill more or less settled, Sumner decided he wanted to charge San Juan Hill as well (I admit that I lost the thread for a while here, since it wasn't completely spelled out...it really was a crowded hour). So now, another dash for glory...but what would this operation be if there wasn't one more hitch?

The infantry got nearer and nearer the crest of the hill. At last we could see the Spaniards running from the rifle-pits as the Americans came on in their final rush. Then I stopped my men for fear they should injure their comrades, and called to them to charge the next line of trenches, on the hills in our front, from which we had been undergoing a good deal of punishment. Thinking that the men would all come, I jumped over the wire fence in front of us and started at the double; but, as a matter of fact, the troopers were so excited, what with shooting and being shot, and shouting and cheering, that they did not hear, or did not heed me; and after running about a hundred yards I found I had only five men along with me.

“Guys? I'm feeling kind of lonely here...” “Sorry, Colonel, we couldn't hear you over the war.” You can see why this charge isn't the stuff of legends. Oh, wait, there's more.

Bullets were ripping the grass all around us, and one of the men, Clay Green, was mortally wounded; another, Winslow Clark, a Harvard man, was shot first in the leg and then through the body. He made not the slightest murmur, only asking me to put his water canteen where he could get at it, which I did; he ultimately recovered.

*sigh* If you're wondering why there's less of me with each advance in this book, it's because even the slightest hint of cheek bites me in the butt.

Butt.

Cheek.

Huhhuhhuuuuuh.

Anyway, to continue:

There was no use going on with the remaining three men, and I bade them stay where they were while I went back and brought up the rest of the brigade. This was a decidedly cool request, for there was really no possible point in letting them stay there while I went back; but at the moment it seemed perfectly natural to me, and apparently so to them, for they cheerfully nodded, and sat down in the grass, firing back at the line of trenches from which the Spaniards were shooting at them. Meanwhile, I ran back, jumped over the wire fence, and went over the crest of the hill, filled with anger against the troopers, and especially those of my own regiment, for not having accompanied me. They, of course, were quite innocent of wrong-doing; and even while I taunted them bitterly for not having followed me, it was all I could do not to smile at the look of injury and surprise that came over their faces, while they cried out, "We didn't hear you, we didn't see you go, Colonel; lead on now, we'll sure follow you." I wanted the other regiments to come too, so I ran down to where General Sumner was and asked him if I might make the charge; and he told me to go and that he would see that the men followed. By this time everybody had his attention attracted, and when I leaped over the fence again, with Major Jenkins beside me, the men of the various regiments which were already on the hill came with a rush, and we started across the wide valley which lay between us and the Spanish intrenchments. Captain Dimmick, now in command of the Ninth, was bringing it forward; Captain McBlain had a number of Rough Riders mixed in with his troop, and led them all together; Captain Taylor had been severely wounded. The long-legged men like Greenway, Goodrich, sharp-shooter Proffit, and others, outstripped the rest of us, as we had a considerable distance to go. Long before we got near them the Spaniards ran, save a few here and there, who either surrendered or were shot down. When we reached the trenches we found them filled with dead bodies in the light blue and white uniform of the Spanish regular army. There were very few wounded. Most of the fallen had little holes in their heads from which their brains were oozing; for they were covered from the neck down by the trenches. (pp. 136-8)

Ooooo, there must be a better way to put it than “little holes with oozing brains,” but I won't fault him for getting to the point, considering the alternative. Getting shot in the head—the back of the head—apparently didn't stop Major Wessels (Third Cavalry), who got a rude bandage job and went right back to the front. “Lieutenant Davis's first sergeant, Clarence Gould, killed a Spanish soldier with his revolver, just as the Spaniard was aiming at one of my Rough Riders. At about the same time I also shot one. I was with Henry Bardshar, running up at the double, and two Spaniards leaped from the trenches and fired at us, not ten yards away. As they turned to run I closed in and fired twice, missing the first and killing the second.” Roosevelt's revolver, in a pretty on-the-nose bit of symbolism, had been retrieved from the wreckage of the Maine. History does not record whether the bullets were made from the crutches of Civil War veterans, or if the gun had been polished with orphans' tears.

Under heavy fire and great confusion (the regiments were completely intermingled at this point), Roosevelt got together a “mixed lot of men” and made one last push from the ranch houses and trenches they had just taken to drive the Spaniards further back through a line of palm trees and over the crest of a chain of hills. “When we reached these crests we found ourselves overlooking Santiago.” While Roosevelt was reorganizing his men across this new ground, one of Sumner's aides rode up to tell him to not advance further, but hold their ground at all costs. And since I'm kind of floundering at this point, here's a reasonable place for me to make camp.

Next: A few things I don't feel up to warning you about just yet. Trust me, it makes a bigger impression if you go in cold.

The Rough Riders Chapter 4 (Part 1): Featuring The Worst Macy's Parade Balloon EVER

2009-02-19T23:50:00.005-05:00

It's Chapter 4 (“The Cavalry At Santiago”), and we're rapidly gaining on the day that cemented Roosevelt's legend and guaranteed his place on Mount Rushmore. I don't know if I'm more excited about San Juan Hill or that they got enough mules together to take the dynamite guns this time! Come on! Guns! That shoot dynamite! Don't tell me you wouldn't want to see that...from a safe distance.

On June 30^th, the words everybody had been waiting for came down: get yourselves together, we're making a move on Santiago. As before, the men, officers included, only took what they were able to carry themselves, which included three days' provisions.

At last, toward mid-afternoon, the First and Tenth Cavalry, ahead of us, marched, and we followed. The First was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Veile, the Tenth under Lieutenant-Colonel Baldwin. Every few minutes there would be a stoppage in front, and at the halt I would make the men sit or lie down beside the track, loosening their packs. The heat was intense as we passed through the still, close jungle, which formed a wall on either hand. Occasionally we came to gaps or open spaces, where some regiment was camped, and now and then one of these regiments, which apparently had been left out of its proper place, would file into the road, breaking up our line of march. As a result, we finally found ourselves following merely the tail of the regiment ahead of us, an infantry regiment being thrust into the interval. Once or twice we had to wade streams. Darkness came on, but we still continued to march. It was about eight o'clock when we turned to the left and climbed El Poso hill, on whose summit there was a ruined ranch and sugar factory, now, of course, deserted. Here I found General Wood, who was arranging for the camping of the brigade. Our own arrangements for the night were simple. I extended each troop across the road into the jungle, and then the men threw down their belongings where they stood and slept on their arms. Fortunately, there was no rain. Wood and I curled up under our rain-coats on the saddle-blankets, while his two aides, Captain A. L. Mills and Lieutenant W. N. Ship, slept near us. We were up before dawn and getting breakfast. Mills and Ship had nothing to eat, and they breakfasted with Wood and myself, as we had been able to get some handfuls of beans, and some coffee and sugar, as well as the ordinary bacon and hardtack.

We did not talk much, for though we were in ignorance as to precisely what the day would bring forth, we knew that we should see fighting. We had slept soundly enough, although, of course, both Wood and I during the night had made a round of the sentries, he of the brigade, and I of the regiment; and I suppose that, excepting among hardened veterans, there is always a certain feeling of uneasy excitement the night before the battle. (pp. 113-5)

General Wheeler was a bit under the weather, and although he was out at the front, he didn't directly command, which leads to another “devolution of command” passage. You'll forgive me if I take a flyer on rattling that off; these things are involved enough as it is.

In the morning, the guns were brought into position on a hill crest pointing in the direction of Santiago, and the American and Cuban troops were falling into formation. The only orders they had at the outset was that Lawton's force was taking the main fight to El Caney, off to the right by several miles, while Roosevelt's force and the artillery were to be used as a diversion. (The most famous diversion there ever was(!!!), of course, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) At 6 a.m., the first cannon sounded from El Caney, and immediately the guns from their position answered. “Wood and I were sitting together, and Wood remarked to me that he wished our brigade could be moved somewhere else, for we were directly in line of any return fire aimed by the Spaniards at the battery. Hardly had he spoken when there was a peculiar whistling, singing sound in the air, and immediately afterward the noise of something exploding over our heads. It was shrapnel from the Spanish batteries.” This was the first volley of a fifteen or twenty minute barrage which wounded four of Roosevelt's men, as well as two or three regulars (one of which lost a leg), and—I know I'm going to get it for this—raised a big ol' goose-egg on Roosevelt's wrist. The Cubans weren't quite so lucky, as another shell landed right on their position, killing and wounding several while scattering the rest “like guinea-hens.” And here I thought we'd get through five pages without a negative image of the Cuban rebels. Silly me.

After things cooled down, Wood formed his brigade, with Roosevelt's regiment at the frontmost, and in columns of four they hit the trail for the San Juan River. “The Spaniards in the trenches and block-houses on top of the hills in front were already firing on the brigade in a desultory fashion.” “Desultory” is an interesting choice of words. “Did we hit anyone yet?” “Eh. I'm just runnin' down the clock.”

And here's where the fun starts. And by “fun,” I mean “something grisly that I can nevertheless get my smartass teeth into.” Regardez:

Our orders had been of the vaguest kind, being simply to march to the right and connect with Lawton—with whom, of course, there was no chance of our connecting. No reconnoissance (sic) had been made, and the exact position and strength of the Spaniards was not known. A captive balloon was up in the air at this moment, but it was worse than useless. A previous proper reconnoissance and proper look-out from the hills would have given us exact information. As it was, Generals Kent, Sumner, and Hawkins had to be their own reconnoissance, and they fought their troops so well that we won anyhow.

I was now ordered to cross the ford, march half a mile or so to the right, and then halt and await further orders; and I promptly hurried my men across, for the fire was getting hot, and the captive balloon, to the horror of everybody, was coming down to the ford. Of course, it was a special target for the enemy's fire. I got my men across before it reached the ford. There it partly collapsed and remained, causing severe loss of life, as it indicated the exact position where the Tenth and the First Cavalry, and the infantry, were crossing. (pp. 119-20)

Since to my eyes, this is the most memorable “what the hell?” moment of the whole operation so far, a little background is called for here. The US Army had been experimenting with manned recon balloons since the Civil War, and the balloon section, recently created under the supervision of the Signal Corps, accompanied the troops down to Cuba, arriving at field headquarters on the afternoon of the 29^th. Once the 28 man section got their equipment unloaded (what they were allowed to unload, anyway), they patched their single leaky balloon as best as they could, they made a few observations of the countryside ahead (reconnaissance, remember, was a weak point of the operation so far). That was all fine and dandy, until Lt. Col. Derby, chief engineer of the 5^th Corps, decided the balloon really needed to be right on the front lines. I have no idea what you'd call that type of decision in military terms, but I think the civilian term is an insanely bad idea.

At first (according to the Army Communicator article linked above), the balloon did exactly what it was sent to do: help spot troop positions on the enemy side. However, the guys manning the Spanish guns correctly figured out that that big ol' balloon probably showed the furthest American advance, and made a dandy range marker to boot. So they just started firing at that, managing to do all kinds of damage to the Americans with almost pinpoint precision. The balloon wasn't a bad idea, don't get me wrong, but somebody got a little too overambitious.

And now, back to the Roosevelt part of the story, which is still in progress and still under Spanish fire. “After awhile I came to a sunken lane, and as by this time the First Brigade had stopped and was engaged in a stand-up fight, I halted my men and sent back word for orders.” And we finally catch sight of a Famous Hill. Or at least it would be famous if people learned how to tell this story correctly.

Captain Mills was with me. The sunken lane, which had a wire fence on either side, led straight up toward, and between, the two hills in our front, the hill on the left, which contained heavy block-houses, being farther away from us than the hill on our right, which we afterward grew to call Kettle Hill, and which was surmounted merely by some large ranch buildings or haciendas, with sunken brick-lined walls and cellars. I got the men as well-sheltered as I could. Many of them lay close under the bank of the lane, others slipped into the San Juan River and crouched under its hither bank, while the rest lay down behind the patches of bushy jungle in the tall grass. The heat was intense, and many of the men were already showing signs of exhaustion. The sides of the hills in front were bare; but the country up to them was, for the most part, covered with such dense jungle that in charging through it no accuracy of formation could possibly be preserved. (pp. 120-1)

Yeah. Kettle Hill. San Juan Hill was the other one. I can't blame them. That just doesn't sing like “San Juan.”

Anyway, the fight was on in earnest, and Roosevelt observed that they were being hit with two types of shells: the Mauser bullets, which made a “small, clean hole” that healed nicely, and a brass-jacketed bullet shot from a .45 rifle which exploded with a pop, making a jagged sheet of shrapnel which made “a ghastly wound.” T.R. was convinced that the Spanish fire wasn't being targeted so much as raked across the general area, but very few of the wounded who didn't get shot through the heart, spine, or brain actually died at this point. Not that there weren't more than a few of those, and one of the dead under fire was already revealed a few chapters ago.

The most serious loss that I and the regiment could have suffered befell just before we charged. Bucky O'Neill was strolling up and down in front of his men, smoking his cigarette, for he was inveterately addicted to the habit. He had a theory that an officer ought never to take cover—a theory which was, of course, wrong, though in a volunteer organization the officers should certainly expose themselves very fully, simply for the effect on the men; our regimental toast on the transport running, “The officers; may the war last until each is killed, wounded, or promoted.” As O'Neill moved to and fro, his men begged him to lie down, and one of the sergeants said, “Captain, a bullet is sure to hit you.” O'Neill took his cigarette out of his mouth, and blowing out a cloud of smoke laughed and said, “Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn't made that will kill me.” A little later he discussed for a moment with one of the regular officers the direction from which the Spanish fire was coming. As he turned on his heel a bullet struck him in the mouth and came out at the back of his head; so that even before he fell his wild and gallant soul had gone out into the darkness. (pp. 123-4)

As with any story too dripping with dramatic irony to be real, there are sources (even among the battle survivors) that say it didn't quite happen that way, but who's telling this story, anyhow? Raise your hand if you were there. Anybody? Anybody? Yeah, I didn't think so. Even if it's Roosevelt goosing the story for maximum impact, it makes for a good yarn, which is what we're looking for here, if you remember.

In a variation on the whole command devolution theme these battle stories have been drenched in so far, O'Neill's men were temporarily at a loss regarding whom to follow; one man, Henry Bardshar, attached himself to Roosevelt as his orderly. In the meantime, Roosevelt himself was getting a little impatient, and was about to use his own initiative (again) to march his guys toward the guns, when Lt. Col. Dorst finally settled it with the command to support the regulars in the assault on the hills.

General Sumner had obtained authority to advance from Lieutenant Miley, who was representing General Shafter at the front, and was in the thick of the fire. The General at once ordered the first brigade to advance on the hills, and the second to support it. He himself was riding his horse along the lines, superintending the fight. Later I overheard a couple of my men talking together about him. What they said illustrates the value of a display of courage among the officers in hardening their soldiers; for their theme was how, as they were lying down under a fire which they could not return, and were in consequence feeling rather nervous, General Sumner suddenly appeared on horseback, sauntering by quite unmoved; and, said one of the men, “That made us feel all right. If the General could stand it, we could.” (pp. 125-6)

You don't have to tell a guy like Roosevelt twice...or even once, sometimes. “The instant I received the order I sprang on my horse and then my "crowded hour" began.”

Next: “My 'crowded hour.'” And no, that's not the title of a Steve Miller song.

The Rough Riders Chapter 3 (Part 3): Summarized With Minute Inaccuracy

2009-02-13T18:13:00.009-05:00

Chapter 3 is still raging all around us, but for the moment the torrent of bullets flying around Roosevelt and company has slowed to a drizzle, a situation unique to his part of the line. T.R. wasn't exactly clear where the battle lines were at this point, or where the main opposition was. Obviously this just wouldn't do, so when they spotted some cavalry regulars, Sergeant Lee of Troop K climbed a tree and waved the troop guidon from the highest point. They waved theirs back, and satisfied at having established a connection with the regulars, Roosevelt led a troop back to the path to find Wood and the rest of the regiment.

Wood, as it turned out, had pushed right into the thick of it. “When the firing opened some of the men began to curse. 'Don't swear—shoot!' growled Wood, as he strode along the path leading his horse, and everyone laughed and became cool again.” Meanwhile, the advance guard ran up against the Spanish advance, and then...

Here, at the very outset of our active service, we suffered the loss of two as gallant men as ever wore uniform. Sergeant Hamilton Fish at the extreme front, while holding the point up to its work and firing back where the Spanish advance guards lay, was shot and instantly killed; three of the men with him were likewise hit. Captain Capron, leading the advance guard in person, and displaying equal courage and coolness in the way that he handled them, was also struck, and died a few minutes afterward. The command of the troop then devolved upon the First Lieutenant, young Thomas. Like Capron, Thomas was the fifth in line from father to son who had served in the American army, though in his case it was in the volunteer and not the regular service; the four preceding generations had furnished soldiers respectively to the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. In a few minutes Thomas was shot through the leg, and the command devolved upon the Second Lieutenant, Day (a nephew of "Albemarle" Cushing, he who sunk the great Confederate ram). Day, who proved himself to be one of our most efficient officers, continued to handle the men to the best possible advantage, and brought them steadily forward. L Troop was from the Indian Territory. The whites, Indians, and half-breeds in it, all fought with equal courage. Captain McClintock was hurried forward to its relief with his Troop B of Arizona men. In a few minutes he was shot through the leg and his place was taken by his First Lieutenant, Wilcox, who handled his men in the same soldierly manner that Day did.

Among the men who showed marked courage and coolness was the tall color-sergeant, Wright; the colors were shot through three times. (pp. 95-6)

As Roosevelt was leading G Troop back up the trail, he passed Fish “as he lay with glazed eyes under the rank tropic growth to one side of the trail.”

When they found the front, he found “a very thin skirmish line” doing what advancing they could over open ground, with Wood leading his horse through the thick of it and somehow managing not to get hit. And here, once again, we discover why cowboys don't use swords: “I had left (my horse) at the beginning of the action, and was only regretting that I had not left my sword with it, as it kept getting between my legs when I was tearing my way through the jungle. I never wore it again in action.”

Major Brodie, who you might remember was at the front of everything when the bullets started flying, was still close at hand, but not for long, as he was spun around by a bullet which shattered his arm. At first he refused to go to the rear to get patched up, but some things just won't be denied, and Wood soon directed Roosevelt to take over Brodie's left wing for the next push.

I now had under me Captains Luna, Muller, and Houston, and I began to take them forward, well spread out, through the high grass of a rather open forest. I noticed Goodrich, of Houston's troop, tramping along behind his men, absorbed in making them keep at good intervals from one another and fire slowly with careful aim. As I came close up to the edge of the troop, he caught a glimpse of me, mistook me for one of his own skirmishers who was crowding in too closely, and called out, “Keep your interval, sir; keep your interval, and go forward.” (pp. 97-8)

“A perfect hail of bullets” was raining upon them, and once he got a good fix on the surroundings, Roosevelt became convinced they were being fired upon from a few building that were part of a ranch on the front, but that damn smokeless powder (the wonder of the age and part of any Rough Riders drinking game) was cutting the legs out from under them. The Spanish bullets were overshooting their position, however, so the men were suffering more from heat exhaustion than actual casualties at this point. “As we advanced, the cover became a little thicker and I lost touch of the main body under Wood; so I halted and we fired industriously at the ranch buildings ahead of us, some five hundred yards off. Then we heard cheering on the right, and I supposed that this meant a charge on the part of Wood's men, so I sprang up and ordered the men to rush the buildings ahead of us. They came forward with a will.” After a quick exchange of fire (most of which went over their heads) the opposition ceased entirely, and when they stormed the building, they found two Spanish sharpshooters, each shot through the head. In a footnote later on, Roosevelt speculates these were guerrillas instead of regular army.

(Man. Have I mentioned lately this stuff just doesn't lend itself to comedy at all?)

Having taken out the object of their immediate infliction, confusion reigned (doesn't that sound familiar). Although the firing had died down, the jungle forest was so thick it was impossible to tell what was going on where, and for how long it would keep going. To add to the commotion, one of the men arrived with the information that Wood had died in the battle, which would've been a good place for Roosevelt to drop a cliffhanger if he was playing that game, except he obviously wasn't since he tells us in the same breath that it later turned out to be a false report. Since that meant the command fell to him, however, he immediately took charge, ordering the filling of canteens, making sure the heat exhaustion cases were tended to...oh, and running into the not-dead-after-all Wood, who told him the Spanish had retreated and the battle was over, with the Americans being that much closer to Santiago. While while the late arrivals complain about not getting a chance to fight, T.R. does the numbers for us.

The Rough Riders had lost eight men killed and thirty-four wounded, aside from two or three who were merely scratched and whose wounds were not reported. The First Cavalry, white, lost seven men killed and eight wounded; the Tenth Cavalry, colored, one man killed and ten wounded; so, out of 964 men engaged on our side, 16 were killed and 52 wounded. The Spaniards were under General Rubin, with, as second in command, Colonel Alcarez. They had two guns, and eleven companies of about a hundred men each: three belonging to the Porto Rico regiment, three to the San Fernandino, two to the Talavero, two being so-called mobilized companies from the mineral districts, and one a company of engineers; over twelve hundred men in all, together with two guns. (pp. 100-1)

The battle safely out of the way, Roosevelt then spends the next few pages picking nits with the Spanish account of the aforementioned General Antero Rubín, who claims to have repulsed the attack in his book, the rapscallion. The heavily condensed version: Rubin got the details all wrong, claimed the opposing force was five times its actual size, and counted his dead kind of funny, too. T.R. thankfully stops short of claiming Rubín's mom picks out weird clothes for him. While scoffing at all this, he grants that some of the American official reports may have been inflated when they counted some of the Spanish dead two or three times, which is a hell of a trick considering the total number was less than ten.

Following on the above theme, the afternoon's meal was also a load of beans found on a Spanish mule (again with the mules! Oh well, might as well stop fighting it. And no, I'm not implying that Rubín was that stubborn.). Then was the matter of the wounded and dead, and just as Roosevelt didn't spare the action earlier, he doesn't spare the cost of the fight now.

Dr. Church had himself gone out to the firing-line during the fight, and carried to the rear some of the worst wounded on his back or in his arms. Those who could walk had walked in to where the little field-hospital of the regiment was established on the trail. We found all our dead and all the badly wounded. Around one of the latter the big, hideous land-crabs had gathered in a gruesome ring, waiting for life to be extinct. One of our own men and most of the Spanish dead had been found by the vultures before we got to them; and their bodies were mangled, the eyes and wounds being torn.

The Rough Rider who had been thus treated was in Bucky O'Neill's troop; and as we looked at the body, O'Neill turned to me and asked, "Colonel, isn't it Whitman who says of the vultures that 'they pluck the eyes of princes and tear the flesh of kings'?" I answered that I could not place the quotation. Just a week afterward we were shielding his own body from the birds of prey.

[...]Thomas Isbell, a half-breed Cherokee in the squad under Hamilton Fish, was among the first to shoot and be shot at. He was wounded no less than seven times. The first wound was received by him two minutes after he had fired his first shot, the bullet going through his neck. The second hit him in the left thumb. The third struck near his right hip, passing entirely through the body. The fourth bullet (which was apparently from a Remington and not from a Mauser) went into his neck and lodged against the bone, being afterward cut out. The fifth bullet again hit his left hand. The sixth scraped his head and the seventh his neck. He did not receive all of the wounds at the same time, over half an hour elapsing between the first and the last. Up to receiving the last wound he had declined to leave the firing-line, but by that time he had lost so much blood that he had to be sent to the rear. The man's wiry toughness was as notable as his courage. (pp. 104-6)

The wounded were carried back to an improvised open-air hospital at Siboney the next day; those that could walk did. One of the most severely wounded was the correspondent Edward Marshall, who was shot through the spine (!!!) but was still dictating his report of the battle while still conscious. It's again stressed here how there was no complaining in the hospital, with the men helping each other in whatever way they could. Of course, he can understand how somebody else would get the wrong impression from the more underbellied members of the popular press (and those evil novel-writers): “At the front everyone behaved quite simply and took things as they came, in a matter-of-course way; but there was doubtless, as is always the case, a good deal of panic and confusion in the rear where the wounded, the stragglers, a few of the packers, and two or three newspaper correspondents were, and in consequence the first reports sent back to the coast were of a most alarming character, describing, with minute inaccuracy, how we had run into ambush, etc.” MEDIA! (shakes fist at the empty air in outrage) Among the heavily confused were the mules pulling the big rapid-fire guns, who took off into the jungle at the outset and weren't found until after the Spanish pulled back.

The next morning, they buried the seven dead Rough Riders in a common grave as the men sang “Rock of Ages” and the vultures circled overhead. As General Young was struck with “the fever,” Wood took charge of the brigade, leaving Roosevelt in command of the regiment.

There was nothing like enough transportation with the army, whether in the way of wagons or mule-trains; exactly as there had been no sufficient number of landing-boats with the transports. The officers' baggage had come up, but none of us had much, and the shelter-tents proved only a partial protection against the terrific downpours of rain. These occurred almost every afternoon, and turned the camp into a tarn, and the trails into torrents and quagmires. We were not given quite the proper amount of food, and what we did get, like most of the clothing issued us, was fitter for the Klondyke than for Cuba. We got enough salt pork and hardtack for the men, but not the full ration of coffee and sugar, and nothing else. I organized a couple of expeditions back to the seacoast, taking the strongest and best walkers and also some of the officers' horses and a stray mule or two, and brought back beans and canned tomatoes. These I got partly by great exertions on my part, and partly by the aid of Colonel Weston of the Commissary Department, a particularly energetic man whose services were of great value. A silly regulation forbade my purchasing canned vegetables, etc., except for the officers; and I had no little difficulty in getting round this regulation, and purchasing (with my own money, of course) what I needed for the men.

One of the men I took with me on one of these trips was Sherman Bell, the former Deputy Marshal of Cripple Creek, and Wells-Fargo Express rider. In coming home with his load, through a blinding storm, he slipped and opened the old rupture. The agony was very great and one of his comrades took his load. He himself, sometimes walking, and sometimes crawling, got back to camp, where Dr. Church fixed him up with a spike bandage, but informed him that he would have to be sent back to the States when an ambulance came along. The ambulance did not come until the next day, which was the day before we marched to San Juan. It arrived after nightfall, and as soon as Bell heard it coming, he crawled out of the hospital tent into the jungle, where he lay all night; and the ambulance went off without him. The men shielded him just as school-boys would shield a companion, carrying his gun, belt, and bedding; while Bell kept out of sight until the column started, and then staggered along behind it. I found him the morning of the San Juan fight. He told me that he wanted to die fighting, if die he must, and I hadn't the heart to send him back. He did splendid service that day, and afterward in the trenches, and though the rupture opened twice again, and on each occasion he was within a hair's breadth of death, he escaped, and came back with us to the United States. (pp. 110-12)

And ambulance dodging is as good a place as any to stop for now. For another take on Las Guasimas, we can always lean on Wikipdedia. Since it explains why the Cuban rebels didn't come out for support, which struck such a sour note in this chapter, it's highly recommended.

Next: The cavalry at Santiago...and a bunch of hills over by San Juan. I'm sure if they're important, somebody will tell us.

The Rough Riders Chapter 3 (Part 2): My Mood Changes Palpably Here

2009-02-10T07:32:00.004-05:00

Before we move into the actual battle (shades of PRI's Marketplace), let's do the numbers: “General Young had in his immediate command a squadron of the First Regular Cavalry, two hundred and forty-four strong, under the command of Major Bell, and a squadron of the Tenth Regular Cavalry, two hundred and twenty strong, under the command of Major Norvell. He also had two Hotchkiss mountain guns, under Captain Watson of the Tenth.” For those who didn't follow the links, the Hotchkiss guns were carriage mounted light artillery designed especially for rough country. The light mountain gun was a 1.65-inch (42 mm) piece with a range of up to two miles. The shells it fired sound like a really nasty piece of work: “The common shell would explode on contact showering the enemy with jagged shell fragments. The canister would rip open at the muzzle spraying the enemy with a fan shaped pattern of hardened lead 1/2 inch balls. This projectile was used at close range.” Yikes.

Did I mention they found something? Well, they did.

It was at half-past seven that Captain (A. L.) Mills, with a patrol of two men in advance, discovered the Spaniards as they lay across where the two roads came together, some of them in pits, others simply lying in the heavy jungle, while on their extreme right they occupied a big ranch. Where General Young struck them they held a high ridge a little to the left of his front, this ridge being separated by a deep ravine from the hill-trail still farther to the left, down which the Rough Riders were advancing. That is, their forces occupied a range of high hills in the form of an obtuse angle, the salient being toward the space between the American forces, while there were advance parties along both roads. There were stone breastworks flanked by block-houses on that part of the ridge where the two trails came together. The place was called Las Guasimas, from trees of that name in the neighborhood. (pp. 81-2)

“Obtuse angle”? I was told there would be no math...

The attack didn't begin until around eight o'clock to allow Wood to get into position, and in the meantime General Wheeler was brought up to speed on the plan. They led with the Hotchkiss guns while the Spanish troops fired back “almost as on parade,” and do you remember that smokeless powder that Wood was so eager to get? The Spanish were also well stocked with the stuff, which made it harder to get a fix and return fire, so we can assume they were both in the same boat on that account. Nevertheless, Young began to push the men forward, but it was so hard to see what was going on in the jungle that the support troops eventually got mixed in with the vanguard. But don't read into that a more general breakdown, since Roosevelt tells us there were no stragglers in the regulars (“the men followed their leaders with the splendid courage always shown by the American regular soldier”), and were so unshakable that not one of them used more than ten rounds during the battle.

At this point, showing how meticulous this record is intended to be, we get a quick list of the handoffs of command during the battle that reminded me more of the “begats” which opened the New Testament, but it shows a continuity of leadership that wouldn't be broken.

Major Bell, who commanded the squadron, had his leg broken by a shot as he was leading his men. Captain Wainwright succeeded to the command of the squadron. Captain Knox was shot in the abdomen. He continued for some time giving orders to his troops, and refused to allow a man in the firing-line to assist him to the rear. His First Lieutenant, Byram, was himself shot, but continued to lead his men until the wound and the heat overcame him and he fell in a faint. The advance was pushed forward under General Young's eye with the utmost energy, until the enemy's voices could be heard in the entrenchments. The Spaniards kept up a very heavy firing, but the regulars would not be denied, and as they climbed the ridges the Spaniards broke and fled. (pp. 84-5)

Passing around the glory is all fine and dandy, but this book is called The Rough Riders, not General Young On A Mule In Cuba. Where's the guy across from the title page? He's had troubles of his own, since his still-footsore horsemen-minus-horses needed to march up a steep hill, and a number of them kept falling out of line. Thanks to a combination of these stragglers and a detail that was left behind to guard the supplies on shore, the Rough Riders went into their first real charge with less than 500 men. And while they managed to get enough precious mule-power to bring along some Colt automatic guns (the “Potato Diggers,” among the first generation of automatic machine guns used by the United States), they had to leave the dynamite gun behind “as mules for it could not be obtained in time.” Dammit, if it turns out Roosevelt dangled a provocatively-named piece of artillery in front of me just to yank it away, I'm going to get salty. We already lost the horses and most of the mules, throw me a bone over here!

With Captain Capron's troop in the lead, Sergeant Hamilton Fish and three other men at the frontmost, they made their way through a jungle trail so narrow, they had to march single-file. With them were two civilian journalists, Edward Marshall and Richard Harding Davis, who held their own with the soldiers. And just to keep the well of goodwill poisoned, we can't let this one slip by: “There was a Cuban guide at the head of the column, but he ran away as soon as the fighting began.”

But enough of the locals, let's have some local color!

After reaching the top of the hill the walk was very pleasant. Now and then we came to glades or rounded hill-shoulders, whence we could look off for some distance. The tropical forest was very beautiful, and it was a delight to see the strange trees, the splendid royal palms and a tree which looked like a flat-topped acacia, and which was covered with a mass of brilliant scarlet flowers. We heard many bird-notes, too, the cooing of doves and the call of a great brush cuckoo. Afterward we found that the Spanish guerillas imitated these bird-calls, but the sounds we heard that morning, as we advanced through the tropic forest, were from birds, not guerillas, until we came right up to the Spanish lines. It was very beautiful and very peaceful, and it seemed more as if we were off on some hunting excursion than as if were about to go into a sharp and bloody little fight.

Of course, we accommodated our movements to those of the men in front. After marching for somewhat over an hour, we suddenly came to a halt, and immediately afterward Colonel Wood sent word down the line that the advance guard had come upon a Spanish outpost. Then the order was passed to fill the magazines, which was done. (pp. 86-7)

Wood gave orders for Roosevelt to deploy three troops to the right of the trail, where the jungle was thickest, while Major Brodie would take the other troops to the left where there was something close to open ground. All of this was barely in place when “a crash in the front announced that the fight was on.”

Meanwhile I had gone forward with Llewellen, Greenway, Kane and their troopers until we came out on a kind of shoulder, jutting over a ravine, which separated us from a great ridge on our right. It was on this ridge that the Spaniards had some of their intrenchments, and it was just beyond this ridge that the Valley Road led, up which the regulars were at that very time pushing their attack; but, of course, at the moment we knew nothing of this. The effect of the smokeless powder was remarkable. The air seemed full of the rustling sound of the Mauser bullets, for the Spaniards knew the trails by which we were advancing, and opened heavily on our position. Moreover, as we advanced we were, of course, exposed, and they could see us and fire. But they themselves were entirely invisible. The jungle covered everything, and not the faintest trace of smoke was to be seen in any direction to indicate from whence the bullets came. It was some time before the men fired; Llewellen, Kane, and I anxiously studying the ground to see where our opponents were, and utterly unable to find out.

We could hear the faint reports of the Hotchkiss guns and the reply of two Spanish guns, and the Mauser bullets were singing through the trees over our heads, making a noise like the humming of telephone wires; but exactly where they came from we could not tell. The Spaniards were firing high and for the most part by volleys, and their shooting was not very good, which perhaps was not to be wondered at, as they were a long way off. Gradually, however, they began to get the range and occasionally one of our men would crumple up. In no case did the man make any outcry when hit, seeming to take it as a matter of course; at the outside, making only such a remark as: "Well, I got it that time." With hardly an exception, there was no sign of flinching. I say with hardly an exception, for though I personally did not see an instance, and though all the men at the front behaved excellently, yet there were a very few men who lagged behind and drifted back to the trail over which we had come. The character of the fight put a premium upon such conduct, and afforded a very severe test for raw troops; because the jungle was so dense that as we advanced in open order, every man was, from time to time, left almost alone and away from the eyes of his officers. There was unlimited opportunity for dropping out without attracting notice, while it was peculiarly hard to be exposed to the fire of an unseen foe, and to see men dropping under it, and yet to be, for some time, unable to return it, and also to be entirely ignorant of what was going on in any other part of the field. (pp. 88-90)

It was at this point that Richard Harding Davis, in a remarkably un-Geraldolike moment, succeeded in finding the Spanish entrenchments with his field glasses by finding the tops of their hats. Using three or four of his best shooters, they managed to flush out enough of them to know they were onto something. After a round of quick firing, the Spaniards retreated to another position, followed by another large body of men who T.R. later discovered were more Spaniards. At the time, however, he thought they were the Cuban forces Young had been promised, since he didn't get the message that they slept in or had to drive their mom to the farmacia...y'know, whatever makes them look worse in the post-game report. The short version is that they didn't shoot at the second group because they didn't know who they'd be shooting at..

Once the action heats up, it becomes increasingly difficult—inadvisable, even—for me to do much more than artful editing, especially when we run across passages like these.

At every halt we took advantage of the cover, sinking down behind any mound, bush, or tree trunk in the neighborhood. The trees, of course, furnished no protection from the Mauser bullets. Once I was standing behind a large palm with my head out to one side, very fortunately; for a bullet passed through the palm, filling my left eye and ear with the dust and splinters.

No man was allowed to drop out to help the wounded. It was hard to leave them there in the jungle, where they might not be found again until the vultures and the land-crabs came, but war is a grim game and there was no choice. One of the men shot was Harry Heffner of G Troop, who was mortally wounded through the hips. He fell without uttering a sound, and two of his companions dragged him behind a tree. Here he propped himself up and asked to be given his canteen and his rifle, which I handed to him. He then again began shooting, and continued loading and firing until the line moved forward and we left him alone, dying in the gloomy shade. When we found him again, after the fight, he was dead.

At one time, as I was out of touch with that part of my wing commanded by Jenkins and O'Neill, I sent Greenway, with Sergeant Russell, a New Yorker, and trooper Rowland, a New Mexican cow-puncher, down in the valley to find out where they were. To do this the three had to expose themselves to a very severe fire, but they were not men to whom this mattered. Russell was killed; the other two returned and reported to me the position of Jenkins and O'Neill. They then resumed their places on the firing-line. After awhile I noticed blood coming out of Rowland's side and discovered that he had been shot, although he did not seem to be taking any notice of it. He said the wound was only slight, but as I saw he had broken a rib, I told him to go to the rear to the hospital. After some grumbling he went, but fifteen minutes later he was back on the firing-line again and said he could not find the hospital—which I doubted. However, I then let him stay until the end of the fight. (pp. 92-3)

And here, good friends and better strangers, is where I just fall flat. This is all the heaviest of stuff, with guys unflinchingly paying the gravest price—the textbook definition of “red-blooded,” in other words. It's also ultra-manly to the point where your bookmark turns hairy. Meanwhile, my biggest physical agony of the past twelve months that didn't involve rolling over in bed the wrong way was when I hand-washed a glass with a cracked rim and cut the bejeezus out of my thumb just enough to get some impressive bleeding action going for the next half-hour or so. Hoo-boy, was I ever a wreck for the rest of the day! My pinafore was all stained with salty tears, and only a cookie and a story could ease my simpering.

So yeah, I'm not stupid enough to get all glib about the actual battles. You don't mind if I still rag on the storytelling, do you? Because if I don't have something to react to, I might as well turn this into an all-poetry blog, and as we all know, that's a path straight into the mouth of madness.

Next: the dramatic conclusion of our first battle (and possibly Chapter 3)! Also, my inner smartass comes out of its hole once the shooting stops!

(Gun info found at The Spanish-American War Centennial Website...because sometimes Wikipedia just isn't up to the job.)

The Rough Riders Chapter 3 (Part 1): Brigadier-General Young and His Crazy Horse In “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Near The Front Lines)”

2009-02-08T00:55:00.005-05:00

Okay, where were we again? Oh yes, Cuba. Undaunted, we march on...

Since Chapter 3 is titled “General Young's Fight at Las Guasimas,” we obviously need to be introduced to General Young himself, and since it's been a few pages since the topic came up, we just as obviously need to be reintroduced to the unavoidable inevitability of the conflict at hand.

Just before leaving Tampa we had been brigaded with the First (white) and Tenth (colored) Regular Cavalry under Brigadier-General S. B. M. Young. We were the Second Brigade, the First Brigade consisting of the Third and Sixth (white), and the Ninth (colored) Regular Cavalry under Brigadier-General Sumner. The two brigades of the cavalry division were under Major-General Joseph Wheeler, the gallant old Confederate cavalry commander.

General Young was—and is—as fine a type of the American fighting soldier as a man can hope to see. He had been in command, as Colonel, of the Yellowstone National Park, and I had seen a good deal of him in connection therewith, as I was President of the Boone and Crockett Club, an organization devoted to hunting big game, to its preservation, and to forest preservation. During the preceding winter, while he was in Washington, he had lunched with me at the Metropolitan Club, Wood being one of the other guests. Of course, we talked of the war, which all of us present believed to be impending, and Wood and I told him we were going to make every effort to get in, somehow; and he answered that we must be sure to get into his brigade, if he had one, and he would guarantee to show us fighting. None of us forgot the conversation. As soon as our regiment was raised General Young applied for it to be put in his brigade. We were put in; and he made his word good; for he fought and won the first fight on Cuban soil.

Yet, even though under him, we should not have been in this fight at all if we had not taken advantage of the chance to disembark among the first troops, and if it had not been for Wood's energy in pushing our regiment to the front. (pp. 73-4)

Anyway, enough is enough! We're finally in Cuba, and this time I mean it! Boots on the ground and everything! Don't give me any lip or we'll take the next boat out to the Bahamas instead!

Men were landing by boatloads, marching a quarter of a mile inland to make room for the next wave. “The country would have offered very great difficulties to an attacking force had there been resistance. It was little but a mass of rugged and precipitous hills, covered for the most part by dense jungle. Five hundred resolute men could have prevented the disembarkation at very little cost to themselves.” However, the main enemy forces at Daiquiri took off before the shelling began, so instead the Americans were greeted by hundreds of “tatterdemailons” that made up the local insurgency, armed with anything they could find that would shoot. Here, o patient reader, is one of those moments where you can see the next hundred years (not to mention an ugly undercurrent in the text) start to unfold: “It was evident, at a glance, that they would be no use in serious fighting, but it was hoped that they might be of service in scouting. From a variety of causes, however, they turned out to be nearly useless, even for this purpose, so far as the Santiago campaign was concerned.” Well, that's just a dandy attitude, all things considered.

While General Lawton's men pushed on in advance, the first night's encampment was on a dusty plain ringed with jungle and palms, and since they didn't have their mule train, the men had to make do with what they could carry, while the officers were equipped (if that's the right word) with nothing more than a mackintosh and a toothbrush. Scoff if you like, but think what MacGruber could do with that and a can of Pepsi! Maybe that's how the Maine blew up...

The next morning was unloading day, but while that operation was a success, there wasn't much they could do with most of it. “If we had been allowed to take our mule-train, we could have kept the whole cavalry division supplied.” Yes, yes, and if you had an ice cream truck, you could draw the Spanish out with the little tune and lay 'em flat with doped Eskimo Pies. Enough about your stinkin' mules already!

(Deep breath...get your thumbnail out of the page...)

Wheeler, “a regular game-cock,” was eager to get first blood and to get his men to the vanguard when the fighting started, so when he heard that Lawton had laid eyes on some of the Spanish forces, he just had to check for himself. When he was satisfied they weren't going anywhere, Wheeler made plans to get the cavalry into position for the following morning, managing to get them to the extreme front by the time the action heated up. By the time Colonel Wood gave the order for their regiment to set out, Roosevelt had found Texas—his personal horse that didn't drown—and led his squadron mounted, as was Wood at the head of them all. Of course, the main body of the regiment wasn't nearly that lucky. “The men were not in very good shape for marching, and moreover they were really horsemen, the majority being cowboys who had never done much walking. The heat was intense and their burdens very heavy. Yet there was very little straggling. Whenever we halted they instantly took off their packs and threw themselves on their backs. Then at the word to start they would spring into place again.” And I'm sad to say that the first thing I thought of was “Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down,” except T.R., always one step ahead, quickly makes me regret my snarky insolence.

That night's encampment was livened up by torrential rains, which were at least good enough to hold off until the men finished their coffee. After the fires were relighted, we hit the aforementioned insolence-regretting passage.

Wood had gone off to see General Young, as General Wheeler had instructed General Young to hit the Spaniards, who were about four miles away, as soon after daybreak as possible. Meanwhile I strolled over to Captain Capron's troop. He and I, with his two lieutenants, Day and Thomas, stood around the fire, together with two or three non-commissioned officers and privates; among the latter were Sergeant Hamilton Fish and Trooper Elliot Cowdin, both of New York. Cowdin, together with two other troopers, Harry Thorpe and Munro Ferguson, had been on my Oyster Bay Polo Team some years before. Hamilton Fish had already shown himself one of the best non-commissioned officers we had. A huge fellow, of enormous strength and endurance and dauntless courage, he took naturally to a soldier's life. He never complained and never shirked any duty of any kind, while his power over his men was great. So good a sergeant had he made that Captain Capron, keen to get the best men under him, took him when he left Tampa—for Fish's troop remained behind. As we stood around the flickering blaze that night I caught myself admiring the splendid bodily vigor of Capron and Fish—the captain and the sergeant. Their frames seemed of steel, to withstand all fatigue; they were flushed with health; in their eyes shone high resolve and fiery desire. Two finer types of the fighting man, two better representatives of the American soldier, there were not in the whole army. Capron was going over his plans for the fight when we should meet the Spaniards on the morrow, Fish occasionally asking a question. They were both filled with eager longing to show their mettle, and both were rightly confident that if they lived they would win honorable renown and would rise high in their chosen profession. Within twelve hours they both were dead. (pp. 79-80)

And with the consequences of war, even a “splendid” one, once again fixed firmly in our heads, Roosevelt finds out from Wood the plan for the next morning: “We were to start by sunrise toward Santiago, General Young taking four troops of the Tenth and four troops of the First up the road which led through the valley; while Colonel Wood was to lead our eight troops along a hill-trail to the left, which joined the valley road about four miles on, at a point where the road went over a spur of the mountain chain and from thence went down hill toward Santiago. The Spaniards had their lines at the junction of the road and the trail.”

Here Roosevelt does the “big man” thing by letting Young's part of the first battle jerk the curtain on the combat phase of this yarn, but not before mentioning that General Castillo, commander of the Cuban forces, had promised a complement of eight hundred of his guys if Young and his people did the necessary reconnaissance to get a feel for the Spanish troop strength. “This promised Cuban aid did not, however, materialize, the Cubans, who had been beaten back by the Spaniards the day before, not appearing on the firing-line until the fight was over.” Call me skeptical, but I get a funny feeling T.R. doesn't want us to be impressed with the natives. Will our text take a slant that you could ride down on a toboggan? Maybe we'll find out next time. Maybe we'll also find out if I manage to limber up my ridiculous self again.

Next: FIRST BLOOD! You've waited this long, another day won't break you!

I Promise You We're Still Open

2009-02-04T19:06:00.003-05:00

What can I say, my life had a case of the Ridiculous for the past few months. Expect a continuation of my action-packed coverage of The Rough Riders in a couple of days...and this time, I mean it. We spent all that time on the boat, so damn skippy we're gonna see the fighting.

That is all.

This Just Hasn't Been My Month...

2008-10-22T00:43:00.003-04:00

Yes, this is yet another "I'm still here" post. It's not something to be proud of.

I won't promise that things aren't going to stay choppy, at least for the short term, but more updates are coming. Watch this space. Or the space just above it, since that's where the new stuff goes.

The Rough Riders Chapter 2 (Part 2): Now With More "Canned Fresh Beef!"

2008-10-05T23:03:00.003-04:00

Yes, me again. Did you seriously think I'd completely abandon a future president in a coal car outside of Tampa? The agonizing hesitation between entries paid off in a way, since the History Channel documentary Spanish-American War: First Intervention—I liked it, even if some reviewers just weren't feeling the love—was parceled out through their Cable in the Classroom slot last week. It gave some much-needed gap-filler to this entry.

On to the back end of Chapter Two, where Roosevelt, Wood, and company are piling out on the quay by Port Tampa, all the trains unloading willy-nilly “wherever they happened to be, no attention whatever being paid to the possible position of the transport on which the soldiers were to go,”—and really, why should this part of the operation be any different than anything else so far? After a metaphorical once-around-the-block, Roosevelt and Wood decided if they were going to get a transport ship at all, they'd have to hustle, mainly because nobody could tell them who to ask about ship assignments. Eventually, the found out that the guy to see was the depot quartermaster, but good luck finding him, since they were assured he was asleep on one of the transports...unless he was awake and somewhere else. Of course, being thoroughly awesome individuals, they made an end-run around that nonsense, too.

At last, however, after over an hour's industrious and rapid search through this swarming ant-heap of humanity, Wood and I, who had separated, found Colonel Humphrey at nearly the same time and were alloted a transport—the Yucatan. She was out in midstream, so Wood seized a stray launch and boarded her. At the same time I happened to find out that she had previously been allotted to two other regiments—the Second Regular Infantry and the Seventy-first New York Volunteers, which latter regiment alone contained more men than could be put aboard her. Accordingly, I ran at full speed to our train; and leaving a strong guard with the baggage, I double-quicked the rest of the regiment up to the boat, just in time to board her as she came into the quay, and then to hold her against the Second Regulars and the Seventy-first, who had arrived a little too late, being a shade less ready than we were in the matter of individual initiative. There was a good deal of expostulation, but we had possession; and as the ship could not contain half of the men who had been told to go aboard her, the Seventy-first went away, as did all but four companies of the Second. These latter we took aboard. Meanwhile a General had caused our train to be unloaded at the end of the quay farthest from where the ship was; and the hungry, tired men spent most of the day in the labor of bringing down their baggage and the food and ammunition.

The officers' horses were on another boat, my own being accompanied by my colored body-servant, Marshall, the most faithful and loyal of men, himself an old soldier of the Ninth Cavalry. Marshall had been in Indian campaigns, and he christened my larger horse "Rain-in-the-Face," while the other, a pony, went by the name of "Texas." (pp. 59-60)

The troops were packed like sardines both above and below decks, and here's a good a place as any for one of the less savory details that T.R. fails to mention: the “troop carriers” were badly converted cargo ships with one toilet for every 1,256 men. Since the place probably smelled like a stable by the time they reached Santiago, it'd be easier to forget they left the horses in America. Of course, if they had horses, they might have been tempted to eat them, since “the meat was very bad indeed.” The protein portion of their rations was something called “canned fresh beef,” which was stringy and unseasoned. “Not one-fourth of it was ever eaten at all, even when the men became very hungry.”

Of course, that was all small potatoes, because they were finally underway! Except they weren't, since the next morning, the order to sail was countermanded because some brilliant officer mistook some of the ships for Spanish vessels. Meanwhile, the men (the ones packed like sardines) were cooking like Ballpark Franks, “but everyone made the best of it, and there was little or no grumbling even among the men. All, from the highest to the lowest, were bent upon perfecting themselves according to their slender opportunities.”

About the only amusement was bathing over the side, in which we indulged both in the morning and evening. Many of the men from the Far West had never seen the ocean. One of them who knew how to swim was much interested in finding that the ocean water was not drinkable. Another, who had never in his life before seen any water more extensive than the headstream of the Rio Grande, met with an accident later in the voyage; that is, his hat blew away while we were in mid-ocean, and I heard him explaining the accident to a friend in the following words: "Oh-o-h, Jim! Ma hat blew into the creek!" So we lay for nearly a week, the vessels swinging around on their anchor chains, while the hot water of the bay flowed to and fro around them and the sun burned overhead. (p. 63)

By the way, in case you were wondering, this entry is low on cheeky rejoinders because all that talk about sardines and Ballpark Franks is making me hungry.

Finally, the order to sail arrived on June 13^th, and by the next day they were actually underway for parts uncertain—would it be Puerto Rico or Santiago? Well, I already wrecked the reveal by saying “Santiago” a few paragraphs ago, so hee-haw for me, I'm a jackass. And while we're on the ocean, Roosevelt's thoughts drift back to Bucky O'Neill.

[H]e, alone among his comrades, was a visionary, an articulate emotionalist. He was very quiet about it, never talking unless he was sure of his listener; but at night, when we leaned on the railing to look at the Southern Cross, he was less apt to tell tales of his hard and stormy past than he was to speak of the mysteries which lie behind courage, and fear, and love, behind animal hatred, and animal lust for the pleasures that have tangible shape. He had keenly enjoyed life, and he could breast its turbulent torrent as few men could; he was a practical man, who knew how to wrest personal success from adverse forces, among money-makers, politicians, and desperadoes alike; yet, down at bottom, what seemed to interest him most was the philosophy of life itself, of our understanding of it, and of the limitations set to that understanding. But he was as far as possible from being a mere dreamer of dreams. A stanchly loyal and generous friend, he was also exceedingly ambitious on his own account. If, by risking his life, no matter how great the risk, he could gain high military distinction, he was bent on gaining it. He had taken so many chances when death lay on the hazard, that he felt the odds were now against him; but, said he, "Who would not risk his life for a star?" Had he lived, and had the war lasted, he would surely have won the eagle, if not the star. (pp. 67-8)

Colonel, please, no spoilers...

On the morning of the 20^th, they were in sight of the Cuban coast (“High mountains rose almost from the water's edge, looking huge and barren across the sea.”), and by the end of the day they found themselves anchored off of Santiago Harbor waiting for the order to land, which came on the 22^nd. The landing was attempted at Daiquri, (“a squalid little village”), and everything went off with clockwork precision. Oh, who the hell am I trying to fool, the whole thing was as much of a muddle as everything that came before. “There were no facilities for landing, and the fleet did not have a quarter the number of boats it should have had for the purpose. All we could do was to stand in with the transports as close as possible, and then row ashore in our own few boats and the boats of the war-ships.” As it happened, Roosevelt's former aide (Lieutenant Sharp) was in command of a converted yacht that was part of the escort and offered to help put them ashore. Sharp's pilot knew how to get the transport within a few hundred yards of shore, which was a mile and a half better than they managed on their own.

And so, under a cover of American shells, they set off for shore, the men stocked with three days' field rations and a hundred rounds of ammunition. “Our regiment had accumulated two rapid-fire Colt automatic guns, the gift of Stevens, Kane, Tiffany, and one or two others of the New York men, and also a dynamite gun, under the immediate charge of Sergeant Borrowe.” I'm not an expert, but dynamite gun? Now we're talking! A weapon that uses compressed air to fling explosive charges really speaks to a guy who grew up in a part of the country where evil children made pipe bombs to kill time.

Then, we come to the mules and officers' horses they managed to bring with them. What complicated procedure did they use to put their limited animal resources ashore? They pushed them overboard and hoped to God they could swim. “Well, you're on your own.” (swat to the horse's rump) And as the History Channel documentary reminded me, just because a horse could swim didn't mean you could trust its sense of direction; one horse was found alive about a week later, miles off shore and still swimming in the wrong direction. “Both of Wood's got safely through. One of mine was drowned. The other, little Texas, got ashore all right.”

There's also the matter of what immediately followed: “While I was superintending the landing at the ruined dock, with Bucky O'Neill, a boatful of colored infantry soldiers capsized, and two of the men went to the bottom; Bucky O'Neill plunging in, in full uniform, to save them, but in vain.” At the start of the next chapter we're assured “Oh, don't worry, we managed to recover the rifles.”

Okay, fine, I'm sure it wasn't as bad as I made it sounds (unless it was), but hey, we're finally in Cuba!

Next: Making camp before the shooting starts. Did you expect something clever? Cut me some slack! Horses and black guys were drowning up there!

A Notable Book...This Post, Not So Much (Combo Rough Riders Sidebar / Procrastination Post)

2008-09-25T12:43:00.008-04:00

Where did the updates go? Don't ask me what ate the past two weeks. All you need to know is that the march to Cuba resumes later today. In the meantime, here's a vintage ad for the book to kill about ten seconds of your day.

The Rough Riders Chapter 2 (part 1): The Audacity Of Hoping To Shoot Some Spaniards

2008-09-12T23:45:00.004-04:00

Sorry for yet another delay. It's been a busy week in the real world.

Chapter 2 (“To Cuba”) begins with some leftover character sketches that spilled over from Chapter 1, this time focusing mostly on men promoted during basic training in San Antonio, all of them we're promised are good people, but we'll be here all day. Before we plow through, I'd be less than diligent if I didn't mention Louisiana's John McIlhenny, “a planter and manufacturer, a big-game hunter and book-lover, who could have had a commission in the Louisiana troops, but who preferred to go as a trooper in the Rough Riders because he believed we would surely see fighting. He could have commanded any influence, social or political, he wished; but he never asked a favor of any kind. He went into one of the New Mexican troops, and by his high qualities and zealous attention to duty speedily rose to a sergeantcy, and finally won his lieutenancy for gallantry in action.” He then went on to slather the world in Tabasco sauce. And no, I'm not kidding. Check your kitchen cabinet. Admit I'm right.

There's one other leftover that's just too good to skip:

One of our best soldiers was a man whose real and assumed names I, for obvious reasons conceal. He usually went by a nickname which I will call Tennessee. He was a tall, gaunt fellow, with a quiet and distinctly sinister eye, who did his duty excellently, especially when a fight was on, and who, being an expert gambler, always contrived to reap a rich harvest after pay-day. When the regiment was mustered out, he asked me to put a brief memorandum of his services on his discharge certificate, which I gladly did. He much appreciated this, and added, in explanation, "You see, Colonel, my real name isn't Smith, it's Yancy. I had to change it, because three or four years ago I had a little trouble with a gentleman, and—er—well, in fact, I had to kill him; and the District Attorney, he had it in for me, and so I just skipped the country; and now, if it ever should be brought up against me, I should like to show your certificate as to my character!" The course of frontier justice sometimes moves in unexpected zigzags; so I did not express the doubt I felt as to whether my certificate that he had been a good soldier would help him much if he was tried for a murder committed three or four years previously. (pp. 43-4)

Jury foreman: “Your Honor, on the charge of first degree murder, we find the defendant not guilty by reason of a note from Roosevelt.”

Judge: “Case dismissed. And just to speed things up, does anybody else have a note from home?”

Not long after Wood had finished his bureaucratic juggling act to get the store fully stocked, the orders came down to finally—finally!—put the troops (and their 1,200 horses and pack mules) on a train to Tampa. The train was split into seven sections, with Wood taking charge of the first three and Roosevelt the last four. This gives T.R. some thinkin' time.

To occupy my few spare moments, I was reading M. Demolins's "Supériorité des Anglo-Saxons." M. Demolins, in giving the reasons why the English-speaking peoples are superior to those of Continental Europe, lays much stress upon the way in which "militarism" deadens the power of individual initiative, the soldier being trained to complete suppression of individual will, while his faculties become atrophied in consequence of his being merely a cog in a vast and perfectly ordered machine. I can assure the excellent French publicist that American "militarism," at least of the volunteer sort, has points of difference from the militarism of Continental Europe. The battalion chief of a newly raised American regiment, when striving to get into a war which the American people have undertaken with buoyant and light-hearted indifference to detail, has positively unlimited opportunity for the display of "individual initiative," and is in no danger whatever either of suffering from unhealthy suppression of personal will, or of finding his faculties of self-help numbed by becoming a cog in a gigantic and smooth-running machine. If such a battalion chief wants to get anything or go anywhere he must do it by exercising every pound of resource, inventiveness, and audacity he possesses. The help, advice, and superintendence he gets from outside will be of the most general, not to say superficial, character. If he is a cavalry officer, he has got to hurry and push the purchase of his horses, plunging into and out of the meshes of red-tape as best he can. He will have to fight for his rifles and his tents and his clothes. He will have to keep his men healthy largely by the light that nature has given him. When he wishes to embark his regiment, he will have to fight for his railway-cars exactly as he fights for his transport when it comes to going across the sea; and on his journey his men will or will not have food, and his horses will or will not have water and hay, and the trains will or will not make connections, in exact correspondence to the energy and success of his own efforts to keep things moving straight. (pp. 47-8)

So in a nutshell, he's saying that the American style of military (at least as it was back then) rewards the proactive problem solver, and you're in for a flaming pit of hurt if you're a lazy punk who expects things to just happen. It's a good thing that T.R. and Wood are just loaded with get-up-and-go, since they'll need it in spades during the next leg of the trip.

On Sunday, May 29^th, the Rough Riders were finally ready to depart for Tampa, with the three sections under Wood loaded first, and here's where things started to go a trifle awry, because if the loading experience was any indication, the 48 hour trip promised by the railroad wasn't going to come off that quickly. “There were no proper facilities for getting the horses on or off the cars, or for feeding or watering them; and there was endless confusion and delay among the railway officials.” Still, Wood had worked out a system to minimize confusion, “and when the delays of the [railroad men], and their inability to understand what was necessary, grew past bearing, I took charge of the trains myself, so as to insure the horse-cars of each section being coupled with the baggage-cars of that section.”

Roosevelt's men worked well into the night to get their freight and animals loaded, but they weren't quite out of the woods yet, since the passenger cars were still a few hours away. Meanwhile, some of the troops had drifted off to get their drink on at the “vile drinking-booths around the stockyard.” As quickly as they turned into military men, they weren't above a little drunken disorderliness once in awhile. One guy was even tossed in jail during basic training and missed the big show. Well, they are supposed to be cowboys...

Once their passenger cars caught up with them (which finally happened around dawn), they finally set off on the two day trip to Tampa, which, thanks largely to the sterling efficiency and precision of the rail yards, managed to be dragged out to four. But don't take my word for it:

The next four days were very hot and very dusty. I tried to arrange so the sections would be far enough apart to allow each ample time to unload, feed, water, and load the horses at any stopping-place before the next section could arrive. There was enough delay and failure to make connections on the part of the railroad people to keep me entirely busy, not to speak of seeing at the stopping-places that the inexperienced officers got enough hay for their horses, and that the water given to them was both ample in quantity and drinkable. It happened that we usually made our longest stops at night, and this meant that we were up all night long.

Two or three times a day I got the men buckets of hot coffee, and when we made a long enough stop they were allowed liberty under the supervision of the non-commissioned officers. Some of them abused the privilege, and started to get drunk. These were promptly handled with the necessary severity, in the interest of the others; for it was only by putting an immediate check to every form of lawlessness or disobedience among the few men who were inclined to be bad that we were enabled to give full liberty to those who would not abuse it.

That's buckets of coffee, not pots. It takes more than a sissy percolator to keep a thousand men awake and grinding their teeth. What the hell do you mean “What kind of coffee is it?” It's the coffee kind of coffee, and hot enough to change your nickname to Ol' Melty if you're not careful. Stir it with your finger if you're brave enough, just not one you think you'll need later. Latte? Latte the back of my hand, ya son of a bitch.

Everywhere the people came out to greet us and cheer us. They brought us flowers; they brought us watermelons and other fruits, and sometimes jugs and pails of milk—all of which we greatly appreciated. We were travelling through a region where practically all the older men had served in the Confederate Army, and where the younger men had all their lives long drunk in the endless tales told by their elders, at home, and at the cross-roads taverns, and in the court-house squares, about the cavalry of Forrest and Morgan and the infantry of Jackson and Hood. The blood of the old men stirred to the distant breath of battle; the blood of the young men leaped hot with eager desire to accompany us. The older women, who remembered the dreadful misery of war—the misery that presses its iron weight most heavily on the wives and the little ones—looked sadly at us; but the young girls drove down in bevies, arrayed in their finery, to wave flags in farewell to the troopers and to beg cartridges and buttons as mementos. Everywhere we saw the Stars and Stripes, and everywhere we were told, half-laughing, by grizzled ex-Confederates that they had never dreamed in the bygone days of bitterness to greet the old flag as they now were greeting it, and to send their sons, as now they were sending them, to fight and die under it. (pp. 51-3)

At the end of this journey was Tampa, “in the pine-covered sand-flats at the end of a one-track railroad.” And who was there to greet them and steer them? Don't be ridiculous—nobody. The whole place was a perfect storm of confusion. “We had to buy the men food out of our own pockets, and to seize wagons in order to get our spare baggage taken to the camping ground which we at last found had been allotted to us.” And if this was a sitcom, the little devil would pop up on his shoulder asking “How do you like your individual initiative army now, Teddy?” while rubbing its stereotypical cloven hooves together.

Of course Roosevelt liked it just fine once he and Wood sorted everything out, and soon the men were camped out along the streets and back to their drilling. “Over in Tampa town the huge winter hotel was gay with general-officers and their staffs, with women in pretty dresses, with newspaper correspondents by the score, with military attachés of foreign powers, and with onlookers of all sorts; but we spent very little time there.” As it transpired, they didn't have to sit tight for long, but they were dealt an unfortunate blow.

There were but four or five days at Tampa, however. We were notified that the expedition would start for destination unknown at once, and that we were to go with it; but that our horses were to be left behind, and only eight troops of seventy men each taken. Our sorrow at leaving the horses was entirely outweighed by our joy at going; but it was very hard indeed to select the four troops that were to stay, and the men who had to be left behind from each of the troops that went. Colonel Wood took Major Brodie and myself to command the two squadrons, being allowed only two squadron commanders. The men who were left behind felt the most bitter heartburn. To the great bulk of them I think it will be a life-long sorrow. I saw more than one, both among the officers and privates, burst into tears when he found he could not go. No outsider can appreciate the bitterness of the disappointment. Of course, really, those that stayed were entitled to precisely as much honor as those that went. Each man was doing his duty, and much the hardest and most disagreeable duty was to stay. Credit should go with the performance of duty, and not with what is very often the accident of glory. All this and much more we explained, but our explanations could not alter the fact that some had to be chosen and some had to be left. (pp. 55-6)

I know I'm still a part of the team, but dammit, I wanted to shoot something! Maybe that Tennessee guy can help me out...and maybe the Colonel can write me one of those notes, too.

On the evening of June 7^th, they were informed that the train for Port Tampa, from where they'd be casting off for parts unknown, was leaving at daybreak, and if they weren't on it right on the dot, they'd just have to thumb their way to Cuba. At midnight, the men who were allowed to go were at the appointed track with their gear, but in the spirit of the operation's smoothness so far, their train wasn't anywhere to be found. “Some regiments got aboard the trains and some did not, but as none of the trains started this made little difference.” Finally, they resorted to flagging some coal-cars, and the engineer was persuaded to back his train the whole nine miles to the port. They were dusty—coal dusty, which is the second worst kind at least—but they were there.

Next: Where “there” is, and how ridiculous “there” can be. And Cuba! And this time I mean it!

The Rough Riders Chapter 1 (part 3): Training In A Nutshell

2008-09-06T18:47:00.000-04:00

Thoroughly exhausted—and exasperated—by the '08 Republican Convention, my trip into the heroic past continues unabated with the concluding entry for the surprisingly difficult to condense Chapter 1 of The Rough Riders.

The last post concerned the remarkable individuals that made up the 1^st US Volunteer Cavalry, but again, the big trick was turning them into a remarkable fighting force. Fortunately most of them got it. “There were plenty of hard characters who might by themselves have given trouble, and with one or two of whom we did have to take rough measures; but the bulk of the men thoroughly understood that without discipline they would be merely a valueless mob, and they set themselves hard at work to learn the new duties.” For the officers' part, being too hard would have been as fatal as being too loose, since they didn't want to drum out the vital elements that made Congress start beating the bushes for men of the Territories in the first place. To that effect, they only stressed the essentials while letting what was considered nonessential slide, and the men adapted their approaches accordingly. That's not to say there wasn't a learning curve.

One of the new Indian Territory recruits, after twenty-four hours' stay in camp, during which he had held himself distinctly aloof from the general interests, called on the Colonel in his tent, and remarked, "Well, Colonel, I want to shake hands and say we're with you. We didn't know how we would like you fellars at first; but you're all right, and you know your business, and you mean business, and you can count on us every time!"

That same night, which was hot, mosquitoes were very annoying; and shortly after midnight both the Colonel and I came to the doors of our respective tents, which adjoined one another. The sentinel in front was also fighting mosquitoes. As we came out we saw him pitch his gun about ten feet off, and sit down to attack some of the pests that had swarmed up his trousers' legs. Happening to glance in our direction, he nodded pleasantly and, with unabashed and friendly feeling, remarked, "Ain't they bad?" (pp. 30-1)

Yes they (ahem) is. Now put your pants back on, soldier.

While the men were being drilled (first in marching, then in open-order work, skirmishing, and firing), there was the matter of getting and breaking the horses. Come on, it's cavalry. You didn't think they were going to take turns riding each other, did you? At least half were unbroken, but that's where having “abundance of men who were utterly unmoved by any antic a horse might commit” came in handy, and while the basic drills came together “ragged but right,” the mounted drill was a rollicking success. And if you don't understand why, there's obviously a part of the word “cowboy” that isn't getting through to you. Unfortunately, they weren't actually used mounted in battle, which deeply disappointed Roosevelt.

We thought we should at least be employed as cavalry in the great campaign against Havana in the fall; and from the beginning I began to train my men in shock tactics for use against hostile cavalry. My belief was that the horse was really the weapon with which to strike the first blow. I felt that if my men could be trained to hit their adversaries with their horses, it was a matter of small amount whether, at the moment when the onset occurred, sabres, lances, or revolvers were used; while in the subsequent mêlée I believed the revolver would outclass cold steel as a weapon. But this is all guesswork, for we never had occasion to try the experiment. (pp. 36-7)

And since this entry is going to be unspeakably short if I don't allow myself to meander once in awhile, let's pause for a moment to ponder hitting the opposition with horses. Even I (whose knowledge of military tactics ends with Hogan's Heroes) know he's talking about using them as big, fleshy battering rams, but why not a Roosevelt Horse Cannon (patent pending)? Do you think that firing a bronco through the air would be enough to make the Spanish break ranks? Or would we need a few Clydesdales on a catapult to soften them up?

No, no, that would be cruel...unless you trained them to tuck and roll. And wear a helmet and kneepads. It's not like they'd be landing on the hard ground, either, since they'd have a whole Spanish unit cushioning their fall! And yes, I'll stop now. This is what you get when two weeks of unceasing political rhetoric drives me around the bend.

Discarding my brilliant-but-criminally-cruel idea, the weapons of choice were the aforementioned Krag or the revolver, with all cartridges packed with the relatively new smokeless powder to increase visibility during battle. “A few carried their favorite Winchesters, using, of course, the new model, which took the Government cartridge.” For the matters of keeping things moving along, they skipped sabre training, T.R. rightly figuring that cowboys didn't use frickin' swords. Maybe the vaqueros did in old California, but dammit, we're not fighting Zorro today. The concept is enough to trigger one of those ridiculous Family Guy flashbacks. Remember, the idea here is to get these guys into Cuba before the Spanish army dies of old age.

So, the summing up:

It was astonishing what a difference was made by two or three weeks' training. The mere thorough performance of guard and police duties helped the men very rapidly to become soldiers. The officers studied hard, and both officers and men worked hard in the drill-field. It was, of course, rough and ready drill; but it was very efficient, and it was suited to the men who made up the regiment. Their uniform also suited them. In their slouch hats, blue flannel shirts, brown trousers, leggings and boots, with handkerchiefs knotted loosely around their necks, they looked exactly as a body of cow-boy cavalry should look. The officers speedily grew to realize that they must not be over-familiar with their men, and yet that they must care for them in every way. The men, in return, began to acquire those habits of attention to soldierly detail which mean so much in making a regiment. Above all, every man felt, and had constantly instilled into him, a keen pride of the regiment, and a resolute purpose to do his whole duty uncomplainingly, and, above all, to win glory by the way he handled himself in battle. (pp. 37-8)

And we've just run out of chapter 1! Time to get to the main show! The chapter head promised me!

Next: Cuba! Finally! With exclamation points!

Not Yet (first in a projected series of procrastination posts)

2008-09-03T20:17:00.004-04:00

Yeah, I know I only had a few more pages to cover in chapter 1, but this whole Sarah Palin thing has drawn me forcibly into the 21st century for the past few days. Not because I'm in the media or anything, just because I'm a filthy stinkin' rubbernecker.

She's going to speak at the Republican convention tonight, selling the idea of herself to the party of Teddy Roosevelt (at least that's what it says on the letterhead), and from there, it's back to Roosevelt building the legend that makes "the party of Teddy Roosevelt" a bit zingier to cap a speech with than "the part of William Howard Taft."

The Rough Riders Chapter 1 (part 2): The Mustering (No, not the Re-Clabbering)

2008-08-31T22:19:00.013-04:00

We now return to Chapter 1 of The Rough Riders, which is already in progress. Don't panic, we still haven't made it to Cuba yet.

“The only organized bodies” (that is, regular army) they were allowed to accept were from the Four Territories, “that is, from the lands that have been most recently won over to white civilization, and in which the conditions of life are nearest those that obtained on the frontier when there still was a frontier.” (I'm still really shaky on my history here, but since the mustering-places were New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory (which had by this time been whittled down to what's now eastern Oklahoma), those are the four he means.) However, their original allotment of 780 men was raised to 1,000, which allowed for recruitment of volunteers outside the Southwest, and since you must love them to love their war, their colorful stories make up the next part of the chapter.

First up: the college boys, social clubs, “and from among the men who belonged neither to club nor to college, but in whose veins the blood stirred with the same impulse which once sent the Vikings over sea.” Were there a lot of Viking raiders in the social set? Is that why T.R. the Prez was a trust buster, fearing the rise of overmonied raiders sailing down the Hudson in massive boats rowed by child labor? “The Morgan mansion is mine this day!” one would shout, holding his battle axe high over his head, ragged bands of accountants kneeling at his feet checking the latest stock tickers. Yes, we have done the Devil's work this day, but look at the spoils, my friends! Now make poses with me, my doughy plutocratic bretheren!

Pardon me, I went on a little trip there. Anyway, the college guys...

Harvard being my own college, I had such a swarm of applications from it that I could not take one in ten. What particularly pleased me, not only in the Harvard but the Yale and Princeton men, and, indeed, in these recruits from the older States generally, was that they did not ask for commissions. With hardly an exception they entered upon their duties as troopers in the spirit which they held to the end, merely endeavoring to show that no work could be too hard, too disagreeable, or too dangerous for them to perform, and neither asking nor receiving any reward in the way of promotion or consideration.

And what did you do with your summer break, punk? Backpacked around Europe? Bah. I snark in your general direction. And no, I never served, so you know what kind of jackass that makes me. Moving on...

The Harvard contingent was practically raised by Guy Murchie, of Maine. He saw all the fighting and did his duty with the utmost gallantry, and then left the service as he had entered it, a trooper, entirely satisfied to have done his duty—and no man did it better. So it was with Dudley Dean, perhaps the best quarterback who ever played on a Harvard Eleven; and so with Bob Wrenn, a quarterback whose feats rivalled those of Dean's, and who, in addition, was the champion tennis player of America, and had, on two different years, saved this championship from going to an Englishman. So it was with Yale men like Waller, the high jumper, and Garrison and Girard; and with Princeton men like Devereux and Channing, the foot-ball players; with Larned, the tennis player; with Craig Wadsworth, the steeple-chase rider; with Joe Stevens, the crack polo player; with Hamilton Fish, the ex-captain of the Columbia crew, and with scores of others whose names are quite as worthy of mention as any of those I have given. Indeed, they all sought entry into the ranks of the Rough Riders as eagerly as if it meant something widely different from hard work, rough fare, and the possibility of death; and the reason why they turned out to be such good soldiers lay largely in the fact that they were men who had thoroughly counted the cost before entering, and who went into the regiment because they believed that this offered their best chance for seeing hard and dangerous service. Mason Mitchell, of New York, who had been a chief of scouts in the Riel Rebellion, travelled all the way to San Antonio to enlist; and others came there from distances as great. (pp. 10-12)

Seriously, I know we're talking 110 years' distance, but this is almost like a university from another dimension. I know a few college guys who don't even “thoroughly count the cost” of choosing a cellphone carrier or posting their contact information on an Internet forum. Who knows from life or death?

The Colonel also made room for his own friends, including Harvard classmate Woodbury Kane (“All he desired was the chance to do whatever work he was put to do well, and to get to the front; and he enlisted as a trooper.”) and “ranch partner” Robert Munro Ferguson. Some of the recruits from Virginia, Maryland and the Northeastern states got a “facts of life” talk before they were sworn in that yes, there was danger and blood and bullets ahead, but there was also exhausting work ahead too, sometimes tedious but always necessary, and you were expected to face them equally. “I warned them that work that was merely irksome and disagreeable must be faced as readily as work that was dangerous, and that no complaint of any kind must be made; and I told them that they were entirely at liberty not to go, but that after they had once signed there could then be no backing out. Not a man of them backed out; not one of them failed to do his whole duty.”

The bulk of the regiment was strictly Four Territories, and you can tell Roosevelt really loved those guys. And since, as I mentioned, you must love them too, here comes the romance of the barely tamed Southwest.

They were a splendid set of men, these Southwesterners—tall and sinewy, with resolute, weather-beaten faces, and eyes that looked a man straight in the face without flinching. They included in their ranks men of every occupation; but the three types were those of the cow-boy, the hunter, and the mining prospector—the man who wandered hither and thither, killing game for a living, and spending his life in the quest for metal wealth.

In all the world there could be no better material for soldiers than that afforded by these grim hunters of the mountains, these wild rough riders of the plains. They were accustomed to handling wild and savage horses; they were accustomed to following the chase with the rifle, both for sport and as a means of livelihood. Varied though their occupations had been, almost all had, at one time or another, herded cattle and hunted big game. They were hardened to life in the open, and to shifting for themselves under adverse circumstances. They were used, for all their lawless freedom, to the rough discipline of the round-up and the mining company. Some of them came from the small frontier towns; but most were from the wilderness, having left their lonely hunters' cabins and shifting cow-camps to seek new and more stirring adventures beyond the sea. (pp. 15-16)

From here, T.R. makes the case for the officers and works his way backwards to the enlisted men.

The Captains and Lieutenants were sometimes men who had campaigned in the regular army against Apache, Ute, and Cheyenne, and who, on completing their term of service, had shown their energy by settling in the new communities and growing up to be men of mark. In other cases they were sheriffs, marshals, deputy-sheriffs, and deputy-marshals—men who had fought Indians, and still more often had waged relentless war upon the bands of white desperadoes. There was Bucky O'Neill, of Arizona, Captain of Troop A, the Mayor of Prescott, a famous sheriff throughout the West for his feats of victorious warfare against the Apache, no less than against the white road-agents and man-killers. His father had fought in Meagher's Brigade in the Civil War; and he was himself a born soldier, a born leader of men. He was a wild, reckless fellow, soft spoken, and of dauntless courage and boundless ambition; he was stanchly loyal to his friends, and cared for his men in every way. There was Captain Llewellen, of New Mexico, a good citizen, a political leader, and one of the most noted peace-officers of the country; he had been shot four times in pitched fights with red marauders and white outlaws. There was Lieutenant Ballard, who had broken up the Black Jack gang of ill-omened notoriety, and his Captain, Curry, another New Mexican sheriff of fame. The officers from the Indian Territory had almost all served as marshals and deputy-marshals; and in the Indian Territory, service as a deputy-marshal meant capacity to fight stand-up battles with the gangs of outlaws. (pp. 16-17)

The ranks were mostly made up of young men, “yet some were past their first youth,” some of whom didn't have a last name, just a first preceded by a colorful adjective suitable for a Time-Life book (Cherokee Bill, Happy Jack, Smoky Moore). There were also Indians (or Native Americans, if you'd prefer), who we're assured were treated as equals, although only a very few were actually pure-blooded. “The others shaded off until they were absolutely indistinguishable from their white comrades,” and the majority of them were schooled “at one of those admirable Indian schools which have added so much to the total of the small credit account with which the White race balances the very unpleasant debit account of its dealings with the Red.” One of the best of the lot was Pollock, a full-blooded Pawnee.

Pollock was a silent, solitary fellow—an excellent penman, much given to drawing pictures. When we got down to Santiago he developed into the regimental clerk. I never suspected him of having a sense of humor until one day, at the end of our stay in Cuba, as he was sitting in the Adjutant's tent working over the returns, there turned up a trooper of the First who had been acting as barber. Eying him with immovable face Pollock asked, in a guttural voice: "Do you cut hair?" The man answered "Yes"; and Pollock continued, “Then you'd better cut mine," muttering, in an explanatory soliloquy: "Don't want to wear my hair long like a wild Indian when I'm in civilized warfare.” (p. 21)

We're running a little long again, so let's pick one more to represent the whole.

Another Indian came from Texas. He was a brakeman on the Southern Pacific, and wrote telling me he was an American Indian, and that he wanted to enlist. His name was Colbert, which at once attracted my attention; for I was familiar with the history of the Cherokees and Chickasaws during the eighteenth century, when they lived east of the Mississippi. Early in that century various traders, chiefly Scotchmen, settled among them, and the half-breed descendants of one named Colbert became the most noted chiefs of the Chickasaws. I summoned the applicant before me, and found that he was an excellent man, and, as I had supposed, a descendant of the old Chickasaw chiefs. (pp. 21-2)

Well heck, not a lot you can do with that, maybe an inappropriate reference to that Cher song or...wait, did he say Colbert?

COLBERT??!!!

Is this part of our continuing series “Better Know a Regiment!”? This week: The 1^st Volunteer Cavalry. THE FIGHTIN' FIRST!

No no, it was probably this guy from Troop F, the only Colbert on the muster-out roll. I doubt there's a real connection, unless the Choctaw Nation was infiltrated by Irish Catholics at some point (not entirely impossible, y'know). There's just something in the eyes that makes me want to know how he pronounced his last name. As to why Roosevelt calls him a Chickasaw and his picture is in a modern book about the Choctaws...well, most of the letters are the same. Cut a legend-in-the-making some slack, Jack.

We're also assured that while there were some “wild Indians,” it was a wildness like the cowboys with which they hung out, and a bit of “rough discipline” brought the hardest of them around. A taste of the lash? A big stick, maybe? Wouldn't that be cheaply ironic...

From Texas, they tapped the ranks of the famous Texas Rangers, which gave them Nolan Ryan, Gaylord Perry, and...oh wait. Chuck Norris? No? Aw hell, let me start again.

From Texas, they tapped the ranks of the famous Texas Rangers, which gave them disciplined frontier fighters who didn't need much to get up to speed. “They were accustomed to living in the open, to enduring great fatigue and hardship, and to encountering all kinds of danger.” Many of the recruits from Arizona and New Mexico were fresh (if that's the word for it) from Apache fighting, but they weren't exactly the standard from those territories.

As a rule, the men were more apt, however, to have had experience in warring against white desperadoes and law-breakers than against Indians. Some of our best recruits came from Colorado. One, a very large, hawk-eyed man, Benjamin Franklin Daniels, had been Marshal of Dodge City when that pleasing town was probably the toughest abode of civilized man to be found anywhere on the continent. In the course of the exercise of his rather lurid functions as peace-officer he had lost half of one ear—"bitten off," it was explained to me. Naturally, he viewed the dangers of battle with philosophic calm. Such a man was, in reality, a veteran even in his first fight, and was a tower of strength to the recruits in his part of the line. With him there came into the regiment a deputy marshal from Cripple Creek named Sherman Bell. Bell had a hernia, but he was so excellent a man that we decided to take him. I do not think I ever saw greater resolution than Bell displayed throughout the campaign. In Cuba the great exertions which he was forced to make, again and again opened the hernia, and the surgeons insisted that he must return to the United States; but he simply would not go. (pp. 25-6)

All terribly exciting, and the part of Daniels' personal legend which T.R. didn't cover is red-blooded enough to make even John McCain look like he's wearing a dress, yet I'm sad to say that my first question was if he came before or after Marshall Dillon. And if that's where Chester Goode went after season eight.

“The temptation is great,” the Colonel tells us, “to go on enumerating man after man who stood pre-eminent, whether as a killer of game, a tamer of horses, or a queller of disorder among his people, or who, mayhap, stood out with a more evil prominence as himself a dangerous man—one given to the taking of life on small provocation, or one who was ready to earn his living outside the law if the occasion demanded it.” Yeah, tell me about it. So that we won't be here all day, let's concede this point that yes, they were awesome men (and did I mention you must love them? Our whole foreign policy depends on it!), but the trick was to make them into a unified fighting force. We'll have to deal with in the next post.

Next: Basic training, which might actually be a shorter post for a change. Dammit, we still haven't made it out of Chapter 1! Why must your yarn intrigue me so, o great and powerful T.R.?

The Rough Riders Chapter 1 (part 1): Clabberin' Up For War

2008-08-30T21:58:00.007-04:00

Before we launch this campaign, one caveat: it's pretty safe to assume this isn't the whole story of the war, or even of the Rough Riders themselves. What we're presented with here is most likely the version of the story considered noble enough for public consumption, and to reassure the homefront that yes, this was a decent war fought for decent reasons by gallant soldiers, the bulk of which were still alive at press time and ready to kick your sorry pansy ass if you decided to split hairs with them. However, this is a first-generation document, and you ignore it at your own peril. (makes “spooky” fingers at the reader)

As a curtain jerker for the main show (Chapter 1, “Raising the Regiment”), the first three stanzas of a Bret Harte poem:

Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands,
And of armed men the hum;
Lo! a nation's hosts have gathered
Round the quick-alarming drum—
Saying, "Come,
Freemen, come!
Ere your heritage be wasted," said the quick-alarming drum.

"Let me of my heart take counsel:
War is not of Life the sum;
Who shall stay and reap the harvest
When the autumn days shall come?"
But the drum
Echoed, "Come!
Death shall reap the braver harvest," said the solemn-sounding drum.

"But when won the coming battle,
What of profit springs therefrom?
What if conquest, subjugation,
Even greater ills become?"
But the drum
Answered, "Come!
You must do the sum to prove it," said the Yankee-answering drum. (p. xii)

If you didn't click the link, the poem's called “The Reveille,” disappointing those of you who were expecting it to be called “Stop Being A Pussy And Enlist Already.” And yes, this poem is also posted somewhere on the Stormfront site, but you can't blame Harte or Roosevelt for that.

(You really expected me to link to Stormfront? No, don't answer that. Yikes.)

As far as launching the story, T.R. doesn't futz around. From the first paragraph: “During the year preceding the outbreak of the Spanish War I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. While my party was in opposition, I had preached, with all the fervor and zeal I possessed, our duty to intervene in Cuba, and to take this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the Western World. Now that my party had come to power, I felt it incumbent on me, by word and deed, to do all I could to secure the carrying out of the policy in which I so heartily believed; and from the beginning I had determined that, if a war came, somehow or other, I was going to the front.”

Since there wasn't a war just yet—a minor point soon to be solved—he busied himself getting the navy up to snuff, while finding sympathizers to his point of view in the naval officers, certain Senators, and House members, “particularly those from the West, where the feeling for war was strongest.” But alas, Congress came and went with the seasons, some of them drying up, falling off the tree, and crunching under your feet as you raked them off your lawn. Roosevelt found in Dr. Leonard Wood, an army surgeon and medical advisor to the president, a friend who didn't split town when school let out, but Wood (and I'm sorry to throw this into the pot) is dangerously close to being built up as the lost Galbraith brother before the Colonel comes to his senses.

He had served in General Miles's inconceivably harassing campaigns against the Apaches, where he had displayed such courage that he won that most coveted of distinctions—the Medal of Honor; such extraordinary physical strength and endurance that he grew to be recognized as one of the two or three white men who could stand fatigue and hardship as well as an Apache; and such judgment that toward the close of the campaigns he was given, though a surgeon, the actual command of more than one expedition against the bands of renegade Indians. Like so many of the gallant fighters with whom it was later my good fortune to serve, he combined, in a very high degree, the qualities of entire manliness with entire uprightness and cleanliness of character. It was a pleasure to deal with a man of high ideals, who scorned everything mean and base, and who also possessed those robust and hardy qualities of body and mind, for the lack of which no merely negative virtue can ever atone. He was by nature a soldier of the highest type, and, like most natural soldiers, he was, of course, born with a keen longing for adventure; and, though an excellent doctor, what he really desired was the chance to lead men in some kind of hazard. To every possibility of such adventure he paid quick attention. For instance, he had a great desire to get me to go with him on an expedition into the Klondike in mid-winter, at the time when it was thought that a relief party would have to be sent there to help the starving miners. (pp. 3-4)

Well now, some of that reads like an unprocessed man-crush. I was this close to saying “get a room,” but buddy, a Medal of Honor's nothing to sneeze at. Oh, wait, there's more...

In the summer he and I took long walks together through the beautiful broken country surrounding Washington.

Steaaaaaaaady now...

So they bonded by kicking the football around and other sports, but the conversation didn't stray very far from the Spanish problem. “We both felt very strongly that such a war would be as righteous as it would be advantageous to the honor and the interests of the nation; and after the blowing up of the Maine, we felt that it was inevitable. We then at once began to try to see that we had our share in it.” What that share would consist of was another matter altogether—although both men being tight with the White House gave them a tactical advantage. Nevertheless, there were ten men for every single opportunity, which didn't bode well for a couple of guys (even well-connected guys) who wanted to get right in the thick of the scrap.

All this was solved when Congress authorized three cavalry regiments drawn from the men of the Rockies and the Great Plains. Roosevelt was offered the command of one of the regiments, but realized that in the time it would take for him to get up to speed on finding out how to equip that type of outfit, the war might be over, and that wouldn't be cool at all. “Fortunately, I was wise enough to tell the Secretary that while I believed I could learn to command the regiment in a month, yet that it was just this very month which I could not afford to spare, and that therefore I would be quite content to go as Lieutenant-Colonel, if he would make Wood Colonel.” This was fine and dandy with the Prez and the Secretary, so they were commissioned in the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, dubbed the “Rough Riders” by da peeple! The Colonel actually didn't care for it all that much, but by the time “Rough Riders” started turning up in official communications, it was too late to call that boat back to shore. He probably didn't trademark it, either.

While war fever was so hot that “[w]ithout the slightest trouble, so far as men went, we could have raised a brigade or even a division,” getting the men trained and supplied was something else again. You're not going to send those boys against the Spanish army with pocketknives and slingshots, are you? Well, you might, but that's why you're reading a blog instead of being a hero to the nation. (Unless, of course, you're busy doing both. Sometimes heroes of the nation get a day off.) Apparently, the American army of the time was really hurting for slingshots and etc. etc., which is where Wood's knowledge of red tape (and well-placed, well-timed pestering) came in handy. “To a man who knew the ground as Wood did, and who was entirely aware of our national unpreparedness, it was evident that the ordnance and quartermaster's bureaus could not meet, for some time to come, one-tenth of the demands that would be made upon them; and it was all-important to get in first with our demands.” Wood even managed to get the Krag-Jorgensen carbine used by the regular cavalry (the career soldiers...M*A*S*H hasn't steered me wrong yet on terminology). Sure, they could've waited for everything to make it through channels, but T.R. assures us that thanks to that extra bit of speed, “no other volunteer regiment saw anything like the fighting which we did.” Remember, Teddy Roosevelt was Batman, and Batman ain't no sideline sitter, buddy.

Doggonnit, it just occurred to me that we're within spitting distance of my recent post lengths and I haven't even covered a third of the chapter. Teddy's get-to-the-point, all-meat-no-gristle style so far is fresh air and clear skies after the endless rambling of Waters That Pass Away, but after last month's ordeal, it's also like buying one of those things at the dollar store that looks like a Technicolor hockey puck and watching it turn into a beach towel when you get it wet. Seriously, the best part of the chapter is yet to come, so let's draw a line here to avoid a TL;DR situation and come back in an hour (or maybe a day).

Next: Get to know the Rough Riders! And yeah, I chickened out and used the spoiler tag anyway. Some men can't be proud about these types of things.

Round 4: The Rough Riders

2008-08-27T17:50:00.014-04:00

Our next selection was originally filed by our anonymous NYT editor under “History, Biography, and Memoirs,” and it's a real humdinger, buddy...

The Rough Riders. Theodore Roosevelt, Colonel First Volunteers, United States Army. New York: Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. 8vo. $2.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the reasons why this is the most interesting account of the American Invasion of Cuba, for no one aware of that achievement is ignorant of the part taken by the present Governor of New York and the regiment of which the close of the war found him commander. What no one can know without reading it is the extraordinary skill with which the narrator eludes the danger of being ostentatiously modest and of boasting either on his own behalf or on his men's, and writes as the infant talked to Eustace Cleaver, “telling this thing just as it was,” because he feels that his country desires to know it. The book is illustrated with forty full-page pictures from photographs, and has two portraits of the author. The other pictures, excellent though they are, will not be needed by those who fight the battles o'er again under Col. Roosevelt's command. Complete lists of the officers and men of the regiment are to be found in the appendices, also some much needed corrections of the narratives given by civilians, and comment by officers present in Cuba, and the text contains some matter not published in Scribner's Magazine, where the book first appeared.

The Rough Riders is our first brush with recognizable (then-) current events in the Project, and brings to the signature event of not only the previous year but possibly of America's post-Civil War foreign policy up to that point. We also hit an anniversary I could've tied this to if I hadn't been so busy with the misery porn of Waters That Pass Away. On August 12, 1898, 110 years ago this month, hostilities were halted in the Spanish-American War, the so-called “splendid little war” that effectively marked the end of the Spanish Empire and warmed up the band for the American Century. (You can safely assume that all I know about this conflict is what I saw on the History Channel, by the way.) The problem here is that, with it still being so fresh, we have more than a few non-fiction books on the list that touch on the conflict in one way or another, even a history of the recently claimed territories with the not too reassuring title of Our Island Empire. So what am I supposed to do? Read the background first or throw ourselves into events? I'm an American, Jack, so the answer is obvious: throw myself into the conquest first and then figure out what the hell's been conquered (and why) later.

In Roosevelt, we finally have an author who truly needs no introduction, so I'll just remind you that in the years immediately leading up to the events in the book he was busy living a life that befits a legend-in-the-making and being Batman. Theodore R. had recently topped off a blockbuster return to public life after spending several years getting his head together out west, first by becoming president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners and bringing a zealous spirit of reform to the NYPD, even going so far as to walk late-night and early morning beats to be sure the patrolmen were actually on duty. He followed this up with an appointment as William McKinley's Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and helped build up the country's sea power on the theory that a nation with global interests needed a modern navy. (Also on his personal belief that we probably needed a war to prevent cranking out a rising generation of callow wimps (you can look it up), but that's just a sidebar to the main show.)

Since I assume you already know how this story ends, I don't feel as compelled to use the spoiler tag. Not that anyone's paying attention to those, of course... I also probably won't be obsessively recapping every section this time, just touching on the points that jumped out at me. Or maybe I will go nuts again. We'll feel it out as we go along. Whatever keeps things moving...

As for the text itself, there are so many options here:

Google Books has multiple options for PDF and page-scan fans, and as usual, the page numbers will be from the Scribner's first US edition (complete with fancy-schmancy photographs).
Project Gutenberg only gives us a plain ASCII and PDA-compatible version this time, so for a shiny HTML edition (with the aforementioned fancy-schmancy photos), you have to go to Bartleby.com.

In a perfect world, I'd also be able to link to the serialized version that started in the January 1899 edition of Scribner's Magazine, but for some reason, the otherwise excellent Making of America archive at Cornell comes up a few years short, so you'll just have to settle for Charles Dana Gibson's manly and rugged portrait that accompanied the first installment. Poor you.

(Edit @ 11:24pm: Spoke too soon, because Google has my back on this one, too. Here are the installments from January, February, March, April (which is marred by The Monkey's Paw...um, scanner's hand...on a few pages. Don't make a wish on it, just to be safe....), May, and June 1899. Regardless, I'm still working from the book for the "exclusive" material.)

Stay tuned, lit fans...we're charging the hill soon.

And once again, links to the Chapter Recaps (chock full of spoilers, links go live as they're posted): Chapters 1 (parts 1, 2, 3) , 2 (parts 1, 2), 3 (parts 1, 2, 3), 4 (parts 1, 2, 3), 5 (part 1, 2, 3), 6 (part 1, 2), and post-game.

Hammockuity: Poetry Suitable For TORTURE!

2008-08-25T19:12:00.004-04:00

Here now, as threatened in one of my earliest posts, is the complete version of “Hammockuity” by J. Ashby-Sterry, partly because this is the last week of summer before Labor Day weekend, but mostly because I'm still smarting from book #3. Some people deal with pain by sublimating...I deal with mine by sharing.

If you swing in a hammock the Summer day through,
And you dream with profound assiduity,
A new phase of content it will give unto you,
Which philosophers call “hammockuity.”

All through the lazy afternoon
Beneath the sycamore,
I listen to the distant Lune,
Or slumber to its roar;
'Tis sweet to muse, to sleep or sing,
When talk is superfluity;
'Tis sweet beneath the trees to swing,
And practise hammockuity.

Forgotten here, I would forget
The destiny fate weaves,
The while I smoke a cigarette
To music of the leaves;
I wish my present lazy life
A lengthy continuity;
Away from trouble, care, and strife,
In happy hammockuity!

While others work, while others play,
Or love, or laugh, or weep;
I watch the smoke rights curl away,
And almost fall asleep!
I'd give up thoughts of future fame—
Despite such incongruity—
I'd forfeit riches, power, name,
For blissful hammockuity!

I hate the booming busy bee,
Who dares to wake me up—
I wonder if it's time for tea,
Or grateful cyder-cup?
I would I could, beneath the trees,
Repose in perpetuity,
And swing, and swing, and take mine ease,
In lasting hammockuity!

And I reiterate: Hammockuity. Ugh.

Book #4 is on the way, I promise. Just give me a moment to catch my breath...

Post-Game Report: Waters That Pass Away

2008-08-24T22:49:00.010-04:00

Caution: This post-game rant is going to be a sprawling, rambling mess, so seat yourselves comfortably. And once again, here are the links to the spoiler-laden chapter recaps for the latecomers:
Book I: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. (with a Halftime Report)
Book II: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

I have a dog whom we didn't train very well as a puppy. She's a great companion, but she won't fetch, she snarls at not only strangers but people who shouldn't be strangers anymore, and does all kinds of ridiculous things to the sofa pillows. But the one thing that confuses me above all is what she does when you point to something, because she'd rather look at your finger than the place where the finger's pointing.

That in a nutshell is one of the insurmountable issues I had with Waters That Pass Away. Nannie Winston is my dog and she wrote a 300+ page story about my finger.

To illustrate, let's go back for a moment to Book 1, Chapter 7, which focuses on the disgraceful deeds of Andrew Tompson. When I approached this chapter in the play-by-play, I mentioned the modern critic's favorite mantra: show, don't tell. With those words in mind, I want you to have a look at what's going on at the very end of this chapter, especially in light of what came immediately before.

We have just burnt several pages, with prose so deeply purple it might as well have been navy blue, dealing with the white hot passion Tompson holds for Helen Galbraith. Everything we've learned about the man so far is (once again) spelled out in big bold letters. We've read maybe the second or third redundant account of his overheated emotions and how she will bend to his will...oh yes, she will (arches eyebrow). We've been told, flatly and rather artlessly, what we're expected to think of him, rather than just letting his creepy, stalkerly actions speak for themselves. But when it comes time for something to actually happen, for the man to act decisively for once in his life...well, you tell me...

With this purpose clearly defined in his mind, Tompson walked on at an unprecedented pace, heeding no one who passed him by. Reaching Madison Square he still walked on, down Fifth Avenue. At Eighteenth Street he paused a moment, looked about at the numbers of the houses in that vicinity, then facing towards the east, crossed over to Broadway, and continuing east from this point he finally disappeared into a house which appeared to possess the double character of a residence and place of business.

It is useless, and would be degrading, even if not uninteresting, to follow Andrew Tompson into this house, and to listen to the exact conversation which he held there with one who should not, under any conditions, never have touched his life. It is sufficient to say that when, at an early hour of the morning, Tompson turned into his own home, he was perfectly aware that he had been guilty of a dastardly act. He had placed the matter of Helen Galbraith and Mr. Westmore into the hands of a skilled detective! The truth he must have. The events of the future must come within his knowledge, so that he could deal with them according to his own purposes. This was his excuse, and so entirely had he yielded to the promptings of his lower nature, that he honestly felt himself justified in adopting any course which might realize the end he had in view. (pp. 147-8, my emphasis)

So to summarize, we've been told in excruciating detail the state of mind that led him to the decision to hire a private detective, complete with extensive editorializing. We've been shown what he was doing in the hours immediately before his fateful decision. We've been told of the immediate aftermath of the detective decision. We're even given a turn-by-turn Google Maps-esque narrative of the moments before he entered the man's office. The only thing we're not privy to is the actual meeting itself...in this case, we're not even given a frustratingly vague summary from the narrator. In fact, we're told it's not even worth talking about. Don't give it another thought.

The whole episode is infuriating, all the more so because it happens over and over again. We're told the sad story of Marie Levier and her bastard child through a third party, which is followed by a “what is to be done” debate by Mrs. Elliott's League of Busybodies, but Helen's visit to the girl, which we're assured was long and exhausting, is dismissed in one desultory sentence, and the whole episode is never mentioned again. Forget about showing adultery (seriously, that was too much to ask), it's hard to accept Helen as a woman being befouled when the author can't even bring herself to use the word “adultery.” Even worse, Westmore vanishes from the story for the entire length of their affair. After the initial “darling” at the end of Book 1, he only shows up again once it's time to dismantle the evil that he's done, and not a second sooner.

The whole narrative is maddening like that, circling around key events from an extreme distance without actually landing on them. I understand that the author was probably a genuinely pious woman, and didn't set out to write anything other than a sincere corrective, but if you're going to write a story about sin, you're going to have to write about the sin at some point. That's not what we get.

What we do get—in spades—are a number of rambling conversations, apparently about whatever the the author was thinking about at the time and usually completely superfluous to the story. We're also given an exhaustive history of Alexander Galbraith, telling us—again, not showing us—how godlike and imposing he was when he was operating at full-power (and with all his limbs), but he doesn't actually do anything in the present-day story but stare out the window and slowly waste away. It's an amazing amount of space wasted on a character who was utterly incidental to the plot.

And so many Mary Sues! Would it have killed Ms. Winston to introduce a flawed but sympathetic character? The wrong decisions and the delusions were reserved almost solely for the selfish, evil antagonists. And yes, Helen Galbraith was a sinner, but you convince me that she was genuinely flawed. Her major grievous mistake had a lovingly crafted element of perfection, since she was coerced into a liason so she could keep the job that kept her husband from dying of starvation. Once you realize what type of characters the story has been populated with and where they line up on the moral axis (and none of that was left to guesswork, since it was spelled out at every juncture) nothing that happens (or nothing that you've been told just happened) really surprises you.

Did I mention that I couldn't stand this book? This is the one time I missed having a hard copy version so that I could have the joy of throwing it across the room after I finished the last page. That's not to say there's nothing you can take away from the book, since Pliny the Elder said that even a bad book can teach you something. The digressions give you a quick trip through the attitudes of the times, and the book itself is an extreme example of sentimental style of writing that, let's face it, just doesn't work today, but was deemed Quite Worthy in 1899. In that way, it's educational...just not particularly entertaining.

MVP Of The Book: I was very close to declaring myself the MVP, just for finishing it without pulling my hair or eyes out, but in the end I have to hand it to Sherman Elliott, so rugged and manly that his sweat smelled like Old Spice before anybody knew that was what Old Spice smelled like, for delivering in the final chapter the one monologue that felt like it had flesh and blood behind it, rather than reaching for the mechanical effects of leaden melodrama that dominate the text.

One of the many textual games I play to keep myself engaged is to find the messages that actually speak across the chasm to us, and the last paragraph of Mr. Elliott's homily seemed to be staring holes in The Way Things Are Now—both in 1899 and 2008. When he says “Those that crave great positions, rather than true greatness—those who undertake tremendous labor for the fame attached to it rather than for the sake of adding a finer and more enduring quality to human labor—these become often popular heroes—but also only for a time,” he might as well be talking to you, buddy. It also served to open up the whole “sit still and suffer” concept as more than a callous turn of phrase (although let's be honest, it strikes modern eyes in a very different way). You can tell this is where the author's real emotional investment lies, and she puts those words into the mouth of Sherman Elliott. It's a shame Ms. Winston didn't come through until the end was in sight, and even then was only able to hold it together for two pages.

Would you recommend it to a friend? Oh, God no. I can't think of anybody I've ever known who would appreciate this story as straight entertainment, and if they're looking for a so-called “problem novel,” they don't have to go here.

Is this (still) a summer book? Definitely not. The book was well enough regarded in its day—but not, as I found out, well enough regarded to avoid being retitled when it was reissued a few years later—but for modern audiences, it's the exact opposite of a light read. Waters That Pass Away is the type of book that the stereotypical view of 19^th century popular reading was built around. It was an ordeal to finish (it took a whole frickin' month, folks...you want me to go faster on the penalty rounds, start paying me), and I've been told that even my recaps were rough sledding; that's only because I want you to hurt like I do. Unfortunately, that doesn't bode well for the rest of the list, since for a style to become a stereotype, there obviously has to be more than one book like this on the list. My heart is overcome with terror...

Before I let it drop, it's also worth mentioning that to go directly from The Hooligan Nights, where any morality was suggested by a character's actions but judgment was left to the reader, to Waters That Pass Away, where every page tells you at length what you're supposed to think, makes me realize what a vegetable feels like when it's being blanched.

No nagging question this time. Let's just get this over with...

Coming soon: The long-awaited Round 4! I've got an idea of my own, but as always, I'm open to suggestions.

Waters That Pass Away Book 2, Chapter 8: Flawless Victory...But Not Mine, Sadly

2008-08-24T16:01:00.005-04:00

(If some of this Waters recap seems a bit hurried, that's because finally I can see the end in sight! Take me home!)

As we reach Book 2, Chapter 8, the final step in our long ordeal, Sherman Elliott has finally noticed that envelope on his desk, the one that has “Important—to be read at once” written across it. He opens it, reads it, puts it down, and asks his private secretary to summon Westmore immediately. Oh, you couldn't possibly think we were done with the concentrated evil of Old Man Westmore? The evil so monumental that the author can't even bear to talk about it? And since Helen left him, he'd managed to regain some of his old hubris in the interim.

Westmore would have gladly have delayed this meeting as long as possible. Yet he did not apprehend any great difficulty; Mr. Elliott could not afford to break with him and create a scandal, having his family and his editorial position to maintain, and no money of any consequence. The first rude shock, when Helen had imparted the condition of things to him, had stunned him terribly—making him fear that his reputation and great power were hopelessly lost. However, he had spent several hours considering the matter, and had decided that through its financial side he would be able to settle the whole thing satisfactorily and finally. Bracing himself, therefore, for the unpleasant interview which he could not avoid, he presented himself in the private office of the editor about eleven o'clock at night.

“He will die game!” Mr. Elliott commented mentally, when he saw Westmore. The two men sat down opposite one another. (pp. 302-3)

Elliot cuts to the point immediately, that Helen has spilled the beans on everything, and when Westmore tries his “that wily temptress” gambit for the first time (“I suppose you think, Elliott, that a man is to remain immaculate before every kind of temptation.”), the editor lowers the boom. “I do not believe for a moment that Mrs Galbraith tempted you. Nothing you say will make me believe it.” In addition, he makes it clear that he's become increasingly aware of the whiff of brimstone that Westmore's character puts out when the wind is right. The fate of Helen Galbraith was just the cherry on the cow chip sundae.

Well, what is to be done? Elliott has that decided, too; the present business associations between the two men must come to an end. Although he puts up a token fight, he seems perfectly fine with it, if that's the bullheaded direction his associate wants to go. Get on your bike and pedal your overprincipled ass out of here, Sherman. Oh, but Elliott isn't planning on going anywhere.

Wait, what?

“I am going to speak to you very plainly, Mr. Westmore,” said Mr. Elliott, “and I do not wish to be misunderstood. The association must end, but you are the one who must go. You have no right to hold the place you hold. Your character in no way justifies the influence you can exert whenever you wish to do so. This paper is a great paper—its power is unlimited—it should be in the hands of true-hearted men who will exercise their power at all times as it should be exercised. When I came to you I did not know what kind of man you were; but now that I know, I consider myself bound so far as I can to restrict your power—to force you to retire from the situation. You must accept the terms I have to offer—for I intend to remain.”

“I do not understand you—what do you mean?—what are you aiming at?” asked Mr. Westmore anxiously, beginning to fear that after all he might be beaten.

“I mean this,” replied Mr. Elliott, still speaking quietly. “There was a time when I could not have commanded capital; but to-day that is different—no man in New York can command it more readily than I can, and from a high class of men. I propose to buy this paper, and run it entirely myself. You can put your own price upon it—but all the world knows what its stock is worth.”

“But suppose I do not consent to sell,” Westmore stood directly before Mr. Elliott—he spoke as quietly as the later had done,—but it could be seen that he was furiously angry.

“Then your whole character is revealed to the town.”

“And you would also expose your dear friend, Mrs. Galbraith?” he asked contemptuously.

“I do not need this last piece of wickedness to undo you; the reputation of Mrs. Galbraith is safe in my hands. That deal of last fall in connection with those western mines—that, you know, would be sufficient.” Mr. Elliott spoke very slowly watching the effect of his words. The effect was instantaneous. Westmore started, his face turning very pale. (pp. 306-7)

Well, since you put it that way...

As Helen before him, Mr. Elliott makes it clear that he didn't do this out of spite or personal interest. In fact, in doing this, he anticipated taking on a debt that he'd never live to completely pay off, but when you're the editor of a great metropolitan newspaper, you have a moral obligation to do the right thing. (Are you listening, New York Post? Oh sorry, that was “great metropolitan newspaper.” And I see I already did a Post snipe during this book, so never mind.) With that, the matter was settled, although Westmore, unreflective to the bitter bloody end, never forgave Helen Galbraith for her part in his ignominious fall from influence.

The next morning, fully recharged from his chore, Mr. Elliott shares Helen's letter with the missus, who is so shaken that she reads the sorry history twice. Obviously something must be done, so Sherman sets out alone to make it clear that the Elliotts have her back. He arrives not a moment too soon, as there's now a dead body in the parlor. Gradually, Helen unburdens herself completely, and in response, Elliott gives her a small sampling of Eternal Truths. This is what the author has been building to through the whole book, so we might as well take it at full blast...

“'Expect a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.' This, it seems to me,” he said, “is what you must learn. You started forth in life confident of the promise of eternal youth, of eternal success. But this is never to be in any life. Youth must go—success must give way—we must learn to die to our own ambitions—even to what often seem to be our aspirations. We may try to escape a personal knowledge of the deeper truths, of the more searching and awful lessons of life; but if it be necessary for our own development that we learn them, God will surely bring us face to face with them—will instruct us, if even by severe methods, where we need instruction. There is no food which the soul needs but truth, and when once it is fed upon truth, all that is material, all that is physical will fade away, and the spiritual will come into our lives with clear and compelling dedication. I know, Mrs. Galbraith, that these things are true.

“One must often wait long,” he continued, “for the hour that he is strong enough to grapple with and master the weakness, or the wilfulness, or the rebelliousness, of his own nature. But when that hour is come, as will surely be the case, if one is not 'disobedient unto the heavenly vision,' there will come a transformation like the descent of the heavens upon the earth, and the whole world will not be fuller of unspeakable splendors than is the human soul that has endured, and pressed forward, and achieved the entire conquest of self.”

He saw that Helen followed his words with attention, and that they seemed to bring some kind of help, or light to her.

“Possibly,” he went on, feeling that something concerning his own experience might draw her nearer to him, and add impressiveness and value to what he had already said, “possibly, no man comes closer to the heart of a people in modern life than does the editor of a great daily in a city like New York. In such a position a man stands shoulder to shoulder with all the great movements of his time, and with all the men who are behind these movements. If the editor will observe closely he will see that one great law works through every grade and every development of life. For a time, often, men, who are purely self-seeking, who aim to lift themselves by means of association with a great cause, seem to succeed, but only for a time. Those that crave great positions, rather than true greatness—those who undertake tremendous labor for the fame attached to it rather than for the sake of adding a finer and more enduring quality to human labor—these become often popular heroes—but also only for a time. I have seen it repeat itself over and over. My own career has taught me that the only men who, at the final count, are the winners in public life, as in private life, are those who learn to seek other things than the gratification of their own ambitions, or their own wills. In saying this, I am not seeking to point you to a state of self-abnegation where life is barren and cold and fruitless. Such, however, would not be the result of the kind of self-surrender of which I am speaking. The life which I have in my thoughts is one filled with labor and righteousness and the pursuit of truth—and you will find in it what you will find in no other life—no matter what has seemed its promise at the start—you will find in it happiness and eternal hope.” (pp. 313-5)

Oddly enough, this was the first passage in the book that I could genuinely get behind, because finally we've reached a section that doesn't feel as artificial as a wind-up toy, even if it is still a trifle stiff. I'll touch on this fully in the post-game report, since it deserves revisiting, but for the moment I'll say this excerpt deserves to be in a far better book than this one. It definitely hammers home the Book of Job vibe I got from all that “sit still and suffer” talk.

On Mr. Elliott's pledge that friendship is a sacred bond (“not even love is more sacred than friendship”...oooooo-kay), Mrs. Elliott soon takes charge of the household for the duration of the funeral preparations. Eventually the Elliotts remove Helen from her cottage completely, allowing her to finally catch her breath and mend body and soul. Turns out she really needed it, because after Alex is buried in his hometown, she slides into an exhausted torpor.

After several weeks of recharging, she becomes conscious of a desire: “Yes, I want the sea! that is it!” Obviously the sea wasn't coming to Grammercy Park any time soon—global warming hadn't even been invented yet. So they make the arrangements for a quiet cottage on White Island in the Isles of Shoals, which seems to do the trick in spades.

Alone now, except for the eternal sound of the sea, Helen gave herself up to the welcome loneliness and freedom of her life. During these days she seemed to be always awake and out of doors, and the sunrise became as familiar to her as the sunset. She began to feel that for the first time in her life she was brought face to face with the vast powers of nature, and that she was gaining a new sense of the relations of man to his Creator. Often in the soft, moonlit summer nights, while she was leading this sea-bound, solitary life, she would go alone down to the water's edge and sit there in silent awe and wonder at the majesty of the solemn sea and of the great forces of the universe. At such times as these, the mingled mysteries of human pain and human grief were unfolded to her vision; and then it was she began to feel that the future might yet hold sacred duties for her. The thought of Galbraith was always with her; but principally as he had been in his young manhood, stretching forth his strong, willing hands towards the work which he longed to do. At times the thought of him in that different life—bereft of his arms, succumbing day by day to the miseries and agonies of a slow death—this thought would come; and when it came she felt it was more than she could bear in her solitude. But as the days went by, and the influence of sky and sea wrought upon her, the lesson which all of this was meant to teach commenced to be learned by her; and the life of which Mr. Elliott had spoken—the life filled with labor and righteousness and the pursuit of truth—this life commenced to seem possible to her.

[...]Now she saw that up to this time, even in those days of fiercest battle before Galbraith's death when she sought to surrender entirely her own will, that up to this time, through all the past, her life had been but a struggling, rebellious one. Never had she been willing to sit still and suffer, never submissive to accept what had come to her; but always fighting to alter the condition of things, always striving to find a way of her own. (pp. 318-9)

Not long after, the Elliotts made an unannounced visit to see how Helen was coming along, and in their conversation by the shore, Helen makes clear that she's ready to go back, to find that world of “labor and righteousness and the pursuit of truth.”

[“]My aim now is to redeem the time—to find again the way which I have lost—in fact, so to live that I may prove myself worthy to have been the chosen companion of so large and beneficent a soul as was Alex Galbraith's.”

“Then you are ready to go back with us?” asked Mrs. Elliott, gathering Helen's hands in her own as she spoke, and pressing them against her heart.

“Yes, my friend, if you will have me,” Helen replied.

“Now and always,” said Mrs. Elliott. “We need you—your work needs you—no woman in the world has a place more ready for her than you have.”

“You are too good! You are too good!” Helen's tears could no longer be held in check.

“We are not good, dear; we only love you,” said Mrs. Elliott, putting her arms about Helen's shoulders and drawing her closely to herself. (pp. 320-21)

“Then, I have a plan, dear,” said Mrs. Elliott. “There are my girls on the East Side. Some one must help me about them.”

“And I—am I to be that one?” Helen asked eagerly.

“Yes, my dear, if you will.”

“Ah, I thank you, that is what I want—it will bring me what I seek.”

“Then the future has hope in it already,” said Mr. Elliott.

And so it came to pass that to-day there goes in and out among the homes of sin and degradation in New York city a tall, pale woman of wonderful grace and beauty, who, clad in a simple robe of black, is looked upon by many weary, fainting souls as their Vierge Consolatrice. The sympathies and merciful kindnesses of this woman knows no limitations. Her life is dedicated—the seal of a great cause has been put upon it—and at last she walks steadily onward, her heart purified and subject to the will of God. (p. 322)

Sure, that makes it sound like she became a non-Catholic version of an nun, but nothing can kill this moment for me. The glory shines all around my keyboard, not just because Helen Galbraith has discovered redemption through helping others, but because this dire, interminable book has finally ended! Huzzah!

Next: Post-game or post-mortem? Either way, once again I try to make sense of it all. Say a prayer, light a candle...