Battle of Fort Donelson February 1862

General Ulysses S. Grant (Harper's New Monthly Magazine. July 1865)

Winter campaigns were never easy. The schizophrenic Tennessee weather hurled wind and rain at the troops all day, making it almost impossible to march or grab a foothold in the mud and yuck. Then, it would freeze after dark, and the soldier’s clothing would strangle them like prison armor.

F. F. Kiner, Chaplain of the 14th Iowa Infantry, marched from Fort Henry to Fort Donelson. He slept on the cold, wet ground on his first night at Fort Donelson. It rained all day, then froze up after dark. “Our blankets froze stiff around us,” said Kiner, “and when moved, would stand in any position we would put them in.”

One night after it snowed, Kiner thought that the boys looked like “chunks of old logs lying beneath the snow.”

Not much fighting occurred on the left wing that day, so the sharpshooters made a game of it. Whenever a rebel raised his head to see what was happening, “the deadly aim of a Yankee sharpshooter paid his respects to his secession friend by sending a bullet through his brain.”

On February 15, Kiner’s brigade received orders to charge the works immediately in front of them. When the time came, they raced up the steep, open hill with bayonets fixed on their muskets. Shot and shells burst all around them. Rebel muskets blasted away, knocking down many of the soldiers.

Four Photos Showing Life On The Battleship Maine Spanish American War

 

Crew of the Battleship Maine
(At the time this photo was taken, it is unsure how many of the 260 men pictured survived.)

Wright’s History of the Spanish American War (1898) published these photos of life on the Battleship Maine. Most were taken just days before the explosion. How many of the sailors pictured survived the blast is uncertain.

Torpedo tube and gunners on the Battleship Maine. All of them perished in the explosion.

General Joseph Wheeler From The Civil War To The Spanish American War

 

General Joseph Wheeler (Munsey's Magazine. 1898)

Joseph Wheeler’s infantrymen plunged into the slaughter at Shiloh in April 1862. Cannons boomed through the woods, musket fire ripped through the ranks, and the young colonel led the 19th Alabama into his first major battle. He’d started the war on foot, but he wouldn’t stay there.

Give Wheeler a horse, and things moved considerably faster.

He’d quit the U.S. Army in 1861 to join the Confederacy. By the end of 1862, he’d climbed to brigadier general and taken charge of cavalry, scouting ahead of Confederate columns and snapping at pursuing Union troops. “Fighting Joe” had found his work.

His riders struck wagon trains, tore up railroad tracks, and cut communications. While Confederate infantry trudged along muddy roads, Wheeler’s horsemen screened their movements and fought to keep Union cavalry away. When the army retreated, they stayed behind to buy it time.

But riding hard didn’t guarantee results. In 1864, Wheeler swept north to wreck William Tecumseh Sherman’s railroad supply line while Union forces pressed toward Atlanta. His men damaged tracks, but repair crews patched them up, and Sherman kept squeezing the city.

Wheeler couldn’t raid the Confederacy out of defeat. In 1865, the shooting stopped, and he eventually traded military orders for speeches in Congress.

Then, thirty-three years later, he put on U.S. Army blue.

At sixty-one, Wheeler volunteered to fight Spain. President William McKinley appointed him a major general of volunteers, and the former Confederate headed for Cuba commanding American cavalry—including regulars, Black Buffalo Soldiers, and Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.

On June 24, 1898, his columns pushed toward Las Guasimas. Buffalo Soldiers hacked through brush; Spanish riflemen opened fire. The Americans fought forward until the Spanish rear guard withdrew toward Santiago.

A week later, illness couldn’t keep Wheeler away from the fighting at San Juan Heights. He went forward as his cavalrymen, fighting on foot, joined the assault. Afterward, he helped negotiate Santiago’s surrender.

The young officer who’d fought to break the United States apart had returned as a gray-bearded general fighting under its flag. Different coat, different enemy—and Fighting Joe still wouldn’t sit out a battle.

Admiral George Dewey Hero of Manila Bay

 

Admiral George Dewey on the deck of the Olympia 
(colored illustration from 1898)

“You may fire when ready, Gridley.”

Olympia let fly. Guns thundered, smoke swallowed the deck, and shells hurled up water around the Spanish squadron. Below, ammunition crews hauled up more rounds.

George Dewey had found his fight.

Dawn broke over Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, as six American fighting ships steamed past the Spanish squadron near Cavite. Guns fired down the American line. Dewey led his ships through a turn and brought them back for another pounding.

Aboard the Spanish flagship Reina Cristina, Admiral Patricio Montojo pushed toward the Americans. Shells smashed into his ship, knocked out guns, and ignited fires. With his flagship burning beneath him, Montojo transferred to another vessel.

The Americans kept coming.

Pass after pass, Dewey’s ships churned through the bay, firing into Spain’s aging vessels. American crews rammed home fresh rounds and fired again. Spanish sailors fought their guns and struggled against spreading flames, but their lightly protected ships couldn’t withstand the heavier American batteries.

Then came a report that threatened to stop Dewey cold: Olympia’s five-inch guns were running short of ammunition.

Washington Irving Gave Us Rip Van Winkle, The Headless Horseman, And More

 

Washington Irving (after an 1897 image)

Rip Van Winkle slept through the American Revolution, then found out the country had changed without him. Twenty years gone, and he hadn’t even moved.

 

Washington Irving dreamed him up. Then he sent a headless horseman after a schoolteacher and gave Americans something to think about on the road home.

 

Those two stories have kept his name alive for two centuries. Good luck getting that kind of mileage out of five volumes on George Washington.

 

Irving wrote those, too. Along with books about explorers, fur traders, and Spanish history. He spent years digging through archives, and piecing together other people’s adventures. But the man who slept through everything still gets top billing.

 

Born in New York City on April 3, 1783, Irving was the youngest of eleven children. His parents named him after George Washington. Law looked like a promising career.

 

He was more interested in books, theaters, and seeing what was around the next bend.

 

New York gave him plenty of material to work with. Trips up the Hudson River supplied old Dutch villages, wooded hills, and stories he’d hang on to. In 1798, yellow fever drove him out of the city to stay in Tarrytown, near the countryside he’d eventually populate with ghosts.

 

Is The Lizzie Borden House At Fall River Haunted?

 

Borden house at Fall River. Abby Borden (right). Andrew Borden (left).

You’re almost asleep when the mattress dips like someone just sat down. And now you’re wide awake, in the bedroom where Abby Borden was hacked to death.

Welcome to the Lizzie Borden House. Hope you weren’t counting on getting much sleep.

Some guests at the Fall River home say they’ve felt something settle onto the bed. Others have heard a woman’s voice close to their ear, or felt someone tucking them in.

Tucked in sounds nice until you think about who’s doing the tucking. You’d probably like to meet them before they start handling your blankets.

Then again, maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you’d rather keep your eyes shut and pretend this was somebody else’s terrible vacation idea.

The place looks harmless enough from the street. Just an ordinary house on an ordinary street. One you could walk past without giving it a second thought.

Is Abraham Lincoln Haunting The White House?

 

You’re staying at the White House. Nice room. Good sheets. Then somebody knocks.

 

Outside stands Abraham Lincoln. Now what? Shake hands? Ask about Gettysburg? Call downstairs and complain that the former president is interrupting your sleep?

 

Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands got that room-service surprise during a 1942 visit. Legend says she opened her door, found Lincoln standing there in his top hat, and fainted.

 

Did it happen? That’s where things get slippery. The story’s famous, but famous isn’t the same as proven.