The FReeper Foxhole Remembers War Watchers at Bull Run (4/21/1861)

The crowd atop the hill loosed a cheer that "rent the welkin," said Russell. Congressmen shook hands. "Bully for us! Bravo! Didn't I tell you so?" they exclaimed. To those perched safely on the heights of Centreville, it seemed the battle could not be going better.

Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

For curious reporters and congressmen--many determined to record rather than speculate on the proceedings--the view from Centreville was simply not enough, so several ventured closer to get a better look. Without much idea of how the battle would unfold, many headed south toward Blackburn's Ford, along Centreville-Manassas Road, where a preliminary fight had raged on July 18. On a ridge about a mile southeast of Centreville, Captain John Tidball had positioned his battery that morning--part of the force calculated to keep the Confederates' attention away from the Union flanking column to the north. Tidball watched with some amusement as civilians thronged to his position, hoping to see or learn something momentous.

Brig Gen Bernard E Bee's Brigade momentarily halts the Union advance on Mathews hill

"All manner of people were represented in this crowd, from [the] most grave and noble senators to hotel waiters," wrote Tidball. (Tidball noted tellingly, however, that he "saw none of the other sex there, except a few huxter women who had driven out in carts loaded with pies and other edibles.") They pulled up with their carriages much as we do to a Saturday morning soccer game--strewing their vehicles along the roadsides. Once the shoulders of the road filled, the drivers pulled into the fields behind the battery, hitching their horses to bushes. All of them made a beeline to Tidball's battery. "I was plied with questions innumerably," sighed the captain.

Tidball spent as much time providing commentary as he did commanding his battery that day. Situated as he was on a secondary front far from the fighting, however, he could do nothing to satisfy his visitors. "Most of the sightseers were evidently disappointed at what they saw, or rather did not see," recorded Tidball. "They no doubt expected to see a battle as represented in the pictures."

The most distinguished of Tidball's visitors was the troika of Senators Wilson, Wade, and Lane. Tidball recorded that all three were "full of the 'on to Richmond' fever"--impatient to see more of the battle than Tidball's overlook offered. Lane, a Mexican War veteran, was particularly intent, declaring that "he must have a hand in it [the battle] himself." When someone pointed out that he lacked a gun, he retorted, "I can easily find a musket on the field." Lane led the trio on foot across the fields toward the Warrenton Turnpike, where a close encounter with battle (a victorious one, of course) seemed more likely.

Senator Jim Lane

Wilson, Wade, and Lane would indeed find a better vantage point--the best available to any of the Manassas spectators, and one available to only a select few. The senators' cross-country trek would bring them to the Warrenton Turnpike at a spot about a mile east of the more-famous-by-the-minute Stone Bridge over Bull Run. There, a ridge overlooking the bridge and stream afforded the best view to be had of the battlefield, short of being in the midst of it. Beyond the bridge, variable crescendos of musketry and artillery fire rolled across the landscape; white smoke rose over the distant battlefield; and occasionally, a skittering line of battle was seen between the white billows.

During the battle's early hours, only a small knot of civilians had managed to get to this place--a half-dozen reporters, the aspiring politico Taylor, the prominent Ohio judge Daniel McCook, and one of his sons. (McCook was scion of perhaps the Civil War's most militaristic family; 16 of his kin would serve.) As word of the Union's morning successes filtered back to Centreville, however, more civilians, like the senatorial triumvirate of Lane, Wade, and Wilson, trickled onto the ridge. Those who got to the overlook (which is today a huge quarry, hundreds of feet deep) were generally the well-connected and the literate: a half-dozen senators, a dozen representatives, and sundry other scribes and voyeurs, probably not more than 50 in all. Although these lucky few were but a fraction of the probably 500 civilians who ventured forth that Sunday to watch the battle, these were the men who would write of their experiences and thereby convey as typical an experience that properly belonged to only a few.

Bull Run, Virginia. Ruins of the stone bridge, looking upstream

Most of these civilians arrived at the overlook fired by good news and optimism. Judge McCook had been there all day with his son Edwin, his carriage parked only a few hundred yards behind the battle line of the 2d Ohio, in which another of his sons, Charles, toiled as an officer. While the intensity of events beyond the stream rose during the day, the mood at McCook's outpost was relaxed--so much so that he invited his officer--son Charles to leave his regiment and lunch with him. By 4:00 p.m. the politicians had lost most of their inhibitions about involving themselves with military affairs. Congressman Washburne, who was present on the ridge, even took it upon himself to reconnoiter for Colonel Robert C. Schenck's Ohio brigade at the bridge. Washburne spotted the enemy, then beseeched Schenck to take a look himself.

At the Stone Bridge--now in Union hands--New York Herald correspondent Henry Villard frantically asked directions to McDowell's headquarters. No one could tell him, and the journalist watched in some puzzlement as the tide of blue-clad refugees along the Warrenton Turnpike grew. After 20 minutes, Villard spotted a familiar staff officer, and repeated his query for McDowell. "You won't find him," came the shocking response. "All is chaos in front. The battle is lost. Our troops are giving way and falling back without orders. Get back to Centreville."

Schuyler Colfax

Not far from Villard and Washburne, Congressman Ely had likewise "strolled down the road" for a better look. When he had gone about 100 yards, a bullet struck the ground near him. The congressman dodged out of the road and found refuge with some others behind a tree, frozen, as he admitted, "from fear of being shot if I moved." How long he remained there, he was unable to say. But it must have been nearly an hour--long enough for the situation around him to change dramatically.

About 5:30 p.m., Ely spotted a line of Confederate infantry emerging from a nearby wood. Two officers approached Ely and asked who he was.

HON. ALFRED ELY

"Alfred Ely."

"What state are you from?" asked the officers.

"From the state of New York," replied Ely.

"Are you connected in any way with the Government?" prodded the soldiers.

"A Representative in Congress," answered Ely.

One of the officers grabbed Ely by the arm, stripped him of a pistol, and proclaimed him a prisoner. The two officers hustled Ely to their commander, Colonel E.B. Cash of the 8th South Carolina. When they announced the identity of their prisoner, Cash--a cantankerous old farmer who would fight one of the last lawful duels in America after the war--pointed his pistol at Ely's head.

"God damn your white-livered soul!" screeched Cash. "I'll blow your brains out on the spot!"

The junior officers quickly interceded: "Colonel, Colonel, you must not shoot that pistol, he is our prisoner." Still enraged, Cash grudgingly stashed his pistol, and the South Carolinians hustled Ely to the rear. He would spend the next six months in a Richmond prison, a political prize tormented all the while by his captors. (Once released, Ely would do the thoroughly American thing and write a best-selling book about his ordeal.)

"Stonewall" Jackson
Manassas
July 21, 1861

Atop the ridge, the remaining civilians sensed that the predicted triumph across Bull Run had unraveled. Soon, Confederate cavalry charged up the hill, cutting off Charles McCook--visiting his father yet again--from his regiment. The elder McCook watched in horror as his son fled along a fence line with a Confederate officer on horseback chasing him. "Charles kept him most manfully at bay with his bayonet," wrote Judge McCook a few days later. The Confederate demanded the young McCook's surrender. "No, never; no, never to a rebel," Charles declared. The horseman circled around McCook and shot him in the back, and someone in turn shot the Confederate officer. Judge McCook gathered up the mangled body of his wounded son, placed him on a makeshift bed in his carriage, and started a mournful ride back toward Centreville. Charles McCook would die within hours.

The knot of dignitaries and reporters on the ridge overlooking Bull Run soon found themselves caught in the swirl of retreat. Washburne started rearward in his carriage, only to come across a wounded soldier. The congressman nobly gave up his seat to the man and started walking. Just moments later, he turned to witness an unnerving sight. "I beheld a perfect avalanche pouring down the road immediately behind me," he wrote. "It was the retreat of the army.... A perfect panic had seized every body. The soldiers threw away their guns and their blankets.... Officers, I blush to say, were running with their men."

The 69th New York (Irish Brigade) and the Fire Zouaves of Col Ellsworth's 11th New York Volunteers try to stem the Confederate tide at the Battle of First Manassas.

London Times correspondent Russell arrived at Cub Run, an offshoot of Bull Run that intersects Warrenton Turnpike a few miles closer to Centreville, just in time to see the disaster unfold. His account would do more to shape the public--and historical--perception of the Union defeat than anyone else's, and it was not a flattering narrative: "The scene on the [Warrenton] road had now assumed an aspect which has not a parallel in any description I have ever read. Infantry soldiers on mules and draught horses.... Negro servants on their masters' wagons; ambulances crowded with unwounded soldiers; wagons swarming with men who threw out the contents in the road to make room, grinding through a shouting, screaming mass of men on foot, who were literally yelling with rage.... There was nothing left... but to go with the current one could not stem."

John Taylor stood agape at the spectacle--"dazed and confounded," he admitted. On either side of the road crowds of soldiers surged toward Centreville. So much had the men discarded that Taylor was certain he "could almost have walked from the field to Centreville on bags of oats, bales of hay, and boxes of ammunition." But, Taylor wrote, the most startling aspect of the retreat was its hurry: "Every one seemed after the honor of being the first man to enter Washington." Soldiers dashed at wagons to cut loose the horses, "and with two on a horse, gallop off toward home." Lamented Taylor, "Every sentiment of shame, and all sense of manhood was absent for the moment."

Additional Sources:

www.vintageviews.org
lincoln.lib.niu.edu
www.rulen.com
www.antiquephotographics.com
www.civilwarphotos.net
www.sonofthesouth.net
docsouth.unc.edu
www.sewanee.edu
www.sullivanballou.info
www.aztecclub.com
www.james.gower.btinternet.co.uk
www.mortkunstler.com
www.oldgloryprints.com

Intense urgency yielded to outright panic when the Confederates managed to get some artillery in range of the bridge over Cub Run. Amidst the gauntlet of shells, a Union wagon swerved and overturned on the bridge, forcing all who wished to cross into the water on either side. "Ambulances, horses, cannon, and men were piled in one confused mass," remembered a Rhode Island artilleryman. Shells burst overhead as the Yankees rushed on, and soon the Rhode Islander shuddered at the sight of "the upper half of a soldier's body flying up the hill." With this, he admitted, "A cry of mortal terror arose among the flying soldiers."

Union Troops fleeing in panic from Bull Run in what became known as 'the great skedaddle'

The scene at the Cub Run bridge was the defining event of the First Battle of Bull Run. It was into this scene (commonly mislocated to the Stone Bridge) that newspapermen, moviemakers, historians, and novelists injected civilians as central characters--frightened souls tossing aside picnics and parasols to infect the retreating army with panic. Yet, dozens of contemporary accounts make it clear that the panic was a military, not a civilian, event. No civilians were killed or wounded (as the moviemakers love to portray), and so few of them were present east of Cub Run that their presence was rarely if ever mentioned by the soldiers who did participate in the panic. That handful of civilians who had reached the ridge overlooking the Stone Bridge managed to recross the Cub Run bridge before the span was blocked and the true panic began. As Taylor asserted after the war, "There is no truth whatever" in the claim that civilians contributed to the panic.

Once across Cub Run, the panicked mob transformed into a discouraged flood, protected by a strong line of infantry and artillery just west of Centreville. Captain Tidball had by now moved his battery to the Warrenton Turnpike and watched as the bedraggled crowd flowed by. Tidball recognized his inquisitors of the morning, Senators Lane, Wilson, and Wade. Lane came by first, now mounted on a "flea-bitten gray horse with a rusty harness on" and wielding, "sure enough," the musket he had promised to find. Not far behind Lane trundled Senator Wilson, "hot and red in the face from exertion...in his shirtsleeves, carrying his coat on his arm." When he reached Tidball, Wilson (who would later briefly command the 22d Massachusetts Infantry, "Henry Wilson's Regiment") swabbed the sweat from his brow and growled, "Cowards! Why don't they turn and beat back the scoundrels?"

And finally up the hill toiled Wade, without the strength to do anything but drag his coat on the ground behind him. Wrote Tidball, "As he approached me I thought I had never beheld so sorrowful a countenance." Wade's normally long face seemed "still more lengthened by the weight of his heavy under-jaws...so heavy it seemed to overtax his exhausted strength to keep his mouth shut."

Such was the condition of most of the Yankees who had found their way to Bull Run that day. But the vast majority of civilians had not gotten near Bull Run, had not caught even a glimpse of a Confederate soldier, and were not panicked by a stumbling mob of frightened Union soldiers. When word of the disaster filtered back to the large gaggle of spectators at Centreville, most of them simply mounted their buggies or horses and headed back toward Washington, albeit with some urgency. One brief spasm of panic infected part of the fleeing horde, but generally the civilian departure was orderly. (Russell noted this sliver of panic, and therefore it became famous.) Some arrived back in the capital during the night, hundreds more the next morning--all of them with tales of woe and fright. The spectacle of these woebegone civilians became an instant target for newspapermen and editorialists--most of whom had been hundreds of miles away during the battle.

As time passed and pens spun ever more colorful explanations for Union defeat, inevitably some pundits began fingering the civilians as not just witnesses to the debacle, but as the disaster's cause. One Syracuse paper asserted, "editors, reporters, congressmen, and others...were the first to fly.... [They] filled with consternation many a man who would have remained firm as granite but for that society."

Senator Benjamin Wade

The Syracuse editorialist was wrong. But such an explanation--now accepted as rote history--proved useful for the army and the government. It deflected responsibility from the officers and soldiers, who were the overwhelmingly dominant actors in the drama, and it appealed to cynical descendants--us--who revel in the follies of our ancestors. Today, few images in American history are so indelibly linked as the First Battle of Bull Run and civilian spectators. We have contorted the image into a carnival: civilians sprawled about on blankets on the edge of the battlefield, nibbling on picnic lunches while watching death and carnage, cheering as though at a football game. Shocking, sudden Union defeat engulfed these misbegotten ones--so the lore goes--and they fled hell-bent with their military protectors, dodging shells, scrambling through streams, often falling to exhaustion or shrapnel.

Modern Americans giggle and gawk at such manufactured images. But the license to giggle and gawk requires us to overlook how we gathered around our televisions by the millions on January 17, 1991, to watch the war with Iraq unfold. It requires us to forget that we swarm by the thousands on hot summer afternoons--hotter by far than July 21, 1861--to watch men pretend to kill each other in reenactments (and we cheer!). It demands that we discount the certainty that if today's civilians could be assured of getting within a few miles of a battlefield without getting hurt, we would not only flock by the thousands, but some of us would be hawking T-shirts, too: "I survived the Battle of Bull Run."

Bull Run, Va. New bridge built by McDowell's engineers; photographer's wagon at left

To sustain our cliched vision of civilian spectators at the First Battle of Bull Run, we must overlook that the historical image conjured by movie-makers and historians is grossly overstated. The civilians in fact affected (or were affected by) events that day very little indeed. Rather, the spectators at Bull Run thoroughly symbolized a nation's naive view of the coming war--and commenced a tradition of war-watching that has since been elevated to a virtual (and dominantly American) industry.

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The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul

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Boy those woods sure have grown up haven't they?

It's so neat to read about a place you have been. That was a good vacation.

A lot more trees in the area today.

Nice country there though.

An excellent pair of essays. I liked them much. Very illustrative of human nature.

As McKay points out, "Men go mad in crowds, but only regain their senses one at a time."

From "Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds", important book on politics, investing, and economics, written about 1800 or so.

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Hump Day Bump for the Bull of the Run Freeper Foxhole

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Good morning, snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

Good morning

Early in the war, it was not uncommon for the Yankees to watch the battles over their shoulders at an exceeding distance.

March 2, 2005

Little By Little!

Read:
Exodus 23:20-33

Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land. -Exodus 23:30

Bible In One Year: Deuteronomy 7-9

cover When I was a little girl, my mother gave me her prized "reader" to help me learn, just as it had helped her years earlier. I loved one particular story, never dreaming how much it would affect me years later.

It was about a little boy with a small shovel. He was trying to clear a pathway through deep, new-fallen snow in front of his house. A man paused to observe the child's enormous task. "Little boy," he inquired, "how can someone as small as you expect to finish a task as big as this?" The boy looked up and replied confidently, "Little by little, that's how!" And he continued shoveling.

God awakened in me the seed of that story at a time when I was recovering from a breakdown. I remember how my "adult" self taunted the weak "child" within me: "How can someone as inadequate as you expect to surmount so great a mountain as this?" That little boy's reply became my reply: "Little by little, that's how!" And I did overcome-by depending on God. But it was one small victory after another.

The obstacles facing Israel as they considered claiming the land God had promised them must have seemed insurmountable. But He didn't ask them to do it all at once.

"Little by little" is the strategy for victory. -Joanie Yoder

He does not lead me year by year,
Nor even day by day;
But step by step my path unfolds-
My Lord directs my way. -Ryberg

Trust God to move your mountain, but keep on climbing.

FOR FURTHER STUDY
How Do You Live The Christian Life?

On This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on March 02:
1316 Robert II the Steward, King of Scotland (1371-90)
1409 John II French duke of Alençon/co-fighter of Jeanne d'arc
1459 Adrian VI [Adriaan F Boeyens], Netherlands, Pope (1522-23)
1481 Franz von Sickingen German knight
1760 Camille Desmoulins France, journalist/pamphleteer/revolution leader
1769 DeWitt Clinton (Governor/Senator-NY)
1793 Sam Houston 1st president of Texas (1836-38, 1841-44)
1810 Leo XIII [Vincenzo G Pecci], 256th pope (1878-1903)
1824 Henry Beebee Carrington Brigadier General (Union volunteers), died in 1912
1828 Jefferson Columbus Davis Brevet Major General (Union Army), died in 1879
1829 Carl Schurz Major General (Union volunteers) journalist/political reformer/Civil War general
1876 Pius XII [Euhenio MGG Pacelli], 260th Pope (1939-58)
1902 Edward Uhler Condon atomic scientist (Manhattan Project)
1904 Dr Seuss [Theodor Geisel] children's book author (Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who!)
1909 Mel Ott 1st National League-er to hit 500 homeruns, hall of famer (New York Giants)
1917 Desi Arnaz Santiago Cuba, singer/actor (Ricky Ricardo-I Love Lucy)
1923 "Doc" Watson bluegrass musician
1923 Robert H Michel (Representative-Republican-IL, 1957- )
1926 Murray Newton Rothbard economist/Libertarian Party founder
1928 Philip K Dick writer
1931 Duane F Graveline Newport VT, astronaut
1931 Mikhail S Gorbachev Privolnoye USSR, Soviet Secretary-General (1985-91)
1931 Tom Wolfe Richmond VA, journalist/author (Right Stuff)
1942 John Irving Exeter NH, writer (World According to Garp)
1942 Lou Reed [Louis Firbank] Freeport NY, vocalist/guitarist (Walk on the Wild Side, Velvet Underground)
1943 George Benson jazz/blues guitarist (Breezin', This Masquerade)
1949 Gates McFadden actress (Beverly Crusher-Star Trek Next Generation)
1949 Rory Gallagher Ballyshannon Ireland, rock guitarist (See Here)
1952 Laraine Newman Los Angeles CA, comedienne/actress (Saturday Night Live)
1955 Jay Osmond Ogden UT, singer (Osmond Brothers, Donny & Marie)
1975 Arleen McDonald Miss Mississippi-USA (1997)

Deaths which occurred on March 02:
0986 Lotharius King of France (954-86), dies at 44
1127 Charles the Good, Count of Vlanderen, murdered
1333 Wladyslaw IV the Short One/Great, duke/king of Poland, dies
1797 Horace [Horatio] Walpole British horror writer, dies at 79
1855 Nicholas I Pavlovitch tsar of Russia (1825-55), dies at 58
1895 Ismail Pasha kedive of Egypt (1863-79), dies at 64
1939 Howard Carter British archaeologist/Egyptologist (King Tut), dies at 65
1957 Harry E Soref inventor (padlock), dies at 70
1972 Bill Lawrence news anchor (ABC), dies at 56
1973 Cleo Noel US ambassador to Sudan is assassinated
1979 Mollah Mustafa Barzani Kurdish leader, dies at 75
1979 Sir Richard Sykes British ambassador is assassinated in Holland
1982 Philip K. Dick author (Hugo-1963, Dr Futurity), dies at 53
1987 Randolph Scott actor (Fort Worth, Gung Ho, Jesse James), dies at 89
1991 James "Cool Papa" Bell Negro baseball league great, dies at 87
1992 Sandy Dennis actress (Up the Down Staircase), dies of cancer at 54
1998 Henry Steele Commanger (95), American historian dies

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1965 LOCKHART HAYDEN J.---SPRINGFIELD OH.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1966 WORST KARL EDWARD---FORT SMITH AR.
1968 MARTIN DONALD E.---GARY IN.
[04/15/68 ESCAPED]
1968 WIDENER LARRY ALLEN---YOUNGSTOWN OH.
[03/68 REMAINS RECOVERED]
1969 BOGIAGES CHRISTO C. JR.---CLEARWATER FL.
1969 EVANS WILLIAM A.---MILWAUKEE WI.
1969 MAY MICHAEL F.---VASSAR MI.
1970 MC VEY LAVOY D.---LAMAR CO.
1970 SKIBBE DAVID W.---DES PLAINES IL.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
0871 Battle at Marton: Ethelred van Wessex beats Danish invasion army
1458 Hussite George van Podiebrad chosen king of Bohemia
1498 Vasco da Gama's fleet visits Mozambique Island
1776 Americans begin shelling British troops in Boston
1789 Pennsylvania ends prohibition of theatrical performances
1799 Congress standardizes US weights & measures
1807 Congress bans slave trade effective January 1, 1808
1817 1st Evangelical church building dedicated, New Berlin PA
1819 Territory of Arkansas organized (You and you go over there. You 3 move two feet to the left...I said LEFT.)
1819 US passed its 1st immigration law
1824 Interstate commerce comes under federal control
1836 Republic of Texas declares independence from Mexico
1853 Territory of Washington organized after separating from Oregon Territory
1855 Aleksandr Romanov becomes tsar of Russia
1858 Frederick Cook, New Orleans, patents a cotton-bale metallic tie
1861 Government Printing Office purchases 1st printing plant, Washington DC
1861 US Congress creates Dakota & Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska & Utah territories
1865 General Early's army is defeated at Waynesborough
1866 1st US company to make sewing needles by machine incorporated, Connecticut
1867 Congress abolishes peonage in New Mexico
1867 Jesse James-gang robs bank in Savannah MO, 1 dead
1867 US Congress creates the Department of Education
1867 US Congress passed the 1st Reconstruction Act
1868 University of Illinois opens
1874 Baseball batter's box is officially adopted
1877 Rutherford B Hayes (R) declared President despite Samuel J Tilden (D) winning the popular vote, but is 1 electoral vote shy of victory
1887 American Trotting Association organized in Detroit MI
1889 Kansas passes 1st US antitrust
1896 Battle of Aduwa, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) defeats invading Italians
1899 President McKinley signs bill creating Mount Rainier National Park (5th in US)
1903 Martha Washington Hotel, catering to women only, opens in New York NY
1904 "Official Playing Rules of Professional Base Ball Clubs" adopted
1909 Great Britain, France, Germany & Italy ask Serbia to set no territorial demands
1910 2 trains crash in snow storm in Wellington WA, 118 die
1915 British Vice Admiral Carden begins bombing of Dardanelles forts
1915 Vladmir Jabotinsky forms a Jewish military force to fight in Palestine
1917 Jones Act: Puerto Rico territory created, US citizenship granted
1919 1st congress of Communist International opens at the Kremlin
1923 Time magazine debuts
1925 Japan's House of Representatives recognizes male suffrage
1925 Nationwide road numbering system & US shield marker adopted
1927 Babe Ruth becomes highest paid baseball player ($70,000 per year)
1933 "King Kong" premieres at Radio City Music Hall & RKO Roxy NYC
1933 Most powerful earthquake in 180 years hit Japan
1937 Mexico nationalizes oil
1938 Landslides & floods cause over 200 deaths (Los Angeles CA)
1938 Trials of Soviet leaders begins in the Soviet Union
1939 Eugenio Pacelli chosen as Pope Pius XII
1939 Mass. Legislature votes to ratify the Bill of Rights; 147 years late
1943 1st transport from Westerbork Netherlands to Sobibor concentration camp
1943 Sea battle in Bismarck Sea finishes, US & Australia win
1944 Fumes from locomotive stalled in a tunnel suffocates 521 in Italy
1945 8th Air Force bombs Dresden
1945 King Michael of Romania gives in to Communist government
1949 Lucky Lady II (USAF B-50 Superfortress), completes 1st nonstop round-the-world flight at Fort Worth TX, covering 23,452-milles in 94 hours

1950 Silly Putty invented

1955 King Norodom Sihanukh of Cambodia succeeded by his father
1956 Morocco tears up the Treaty of Féz, declares independence from France
1958 1st surface crossing of Antarctic continent is completed in 99 days
1962 Wilt Chamberlain scores incredible 100 points in an NBA game
1966 215,000 US soldiers in Vietnam
1968 USAF displays Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, biggest plane in the world
1969 1st test flight of the supersonic Concorde
1969 Phil Esposito becomes 1st NHL Player to score 100 points in a season
1970 American Airlines' 1st flight of a Boeing 747
1970 Rhodesia becomes independent republic
1970 Supreme Court ruled draft evaders can not be penalized after 5 years
1972 Jean-Bédel Bokassa appoints himself President for life of Central African Republic
1973 "Black September" terrorists occupy Saudi Embassy in Khartoum
1974 1st class postage raised from 8¢ to 10¢
1974 Grand jury concludes President Nixon is involved in Watergate cover-up
1976 Walt Disney World logged its 50 millionth guest
1977 Bette Davis is 1st woman to receive Life Achievement Award
1977 Future Tonight Show host Jay Leno debuts with host Johnny Carson
1978 1st broadcast of "Dallas" on CBS TV
1981 Howard Stern begins broadcasting on WWDC in Washington DC (IQ of DC drops 2 points)
1982 Terror group "The Shining Path" frees 260 prisoners in Peru
1983 Compact Disc recordings developed by Phillips & Sony introduced
1983 Final episode of MASH; 125,000,000 viewers
1986 Protesters try to stop Land Rover motor company being sold to US
1989 12 European nations agree to ban chlorofluorocarbon production by 2000
1991 Del Ballard Jr throws most famous gutter ball in PBA Tour history
1994 Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh promises to surrender if taped statement is broadcast; it is, but he doesn't
1995 Space shuttle STS-67 (Endeavour 8), launches
1998 U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's deal to open Iraq's presidential palaces to arms inspectors. (And this time we really REALLY mean it)
1999 Atyrau, Kazakhstan, 26 inmates stabbed themselves in the stomach in an attempted mass suicide to protest prison conditions. All survived
2000 A federal jury in Washington convicted Maria Hsia, a friend and political supporter of former Vice President Al Gore, for arranging more than $100,000 in illegal donations during the 1996 presidential campaign. Hsia was later sentenced to three months of home confinement.
2001 In France Alois Brunner, former deputy of Adolf Eichmann, was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes against humanity. He was believed to be still alive in Syria, where he fled in 1954.
2003 Fidel Castro offered to mediate with North Korea over its nuclear program, though he acknowledged Cuba's ability to stem the growing crisis was limited.
2004 Residents of Killington, Vermont, voted to join New Hampshire due to a dispute over property taxes

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Burma : Peasant's Day
Ethiopia : Battle of Aduwa Day (1896)
Texas 1836, Morocco 1956 : Independence Day
US : National Procrastinators Week (starts tomorrow)
US : TV Turn-Off Week (Day 2)
Philatelic Literature Month.

Religious Observances
Bahá'í : Beginning of month of 'Alá (19 days of fasting)
Anglican : Commemoration of Chad, Bishop of Lichfield
Lutheran : Commemoration of Charles Wesley
Lutheran : Commemoration of John Wesley
Jewish : Purim (feast of Lot) (Adar 14, 5759 AM)

Religious History
1930 American missionary Gustav Schmidt, 39, opened the Danzig Instytut Biblijny in the Free City of Danzig (Gdansk), Poland. It was the first Pentecostal Bible institute established in Eastern Europe.
1934 Birthday of Dottie Rambo, contemporary gospel singer and songwriter. She has authored such country gospel favorites as "In the Valley He Restoreth My Soul," "Build My Mansion Next Door to Jesus" and "I Just Came to Talk With You, Lord."
1948 U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall prayed: 'O God, forgive the poverty and the pettiness of our prayers. Listen not to our words but to the yearnings of our hearts. Hear beneath our petitions the crying of our need.'
1959 American Presbyterian apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote in a letter: 'Christianity is the greatest intellectual system the mind of man has ever touched.'
1979 Over 1,100 Christian organizations combined to form the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). This oversight agency was created to demonstrate to the public that religious groups wanted to make themselves accountable for the funds they raise and spend.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play."

Good morning ladies. Flag-o-Gram.

by Pfc. Cheryl Ransford

March 1, 2005

Sgt. 1st Class Erika Gordon, 58th Military Police Company, Afghanistan, trains with her dog. This photo appeared on www.army.mil

An Army of Woof size

Goods morning, y'all...MUD

BTW..."Gonzalez!!"
(To be sung to Waylon Jennings' "Amanda")

I've held it all in, Lord...God knows I've tried...
But it's an awful awakening in a patriot's life...
To know of Left's tyranny and Slick's shameless lies...
Then put "OUR GUYS" in Justice, but they IGNORE Clinton's CRIMES...

Gonzalez, please do what's Right!!
Fate...it SHALL force you to INDICT Left's blight!!
George Dubyuh, put up a Fight!!
Patriots will help you when you do what's Right!!

That's what's special 'bout FReepers, folks, we understand...
The pleasures of fightin' Slick's BigMoneyMan.
T-Mac screwed o'er the Teamsters...his crimes are OBSCENE.
Now Ashcroft's no longer, Fer Justice We FReep!!

George Dubyuh, Pride of the Right...
Left, they may hate you, but they'll learn our Might!!
Gonzalez, Slick we'll INDICT...
Fate shall then make Bill his Cell-Buddy's "wife"!!

Mudboy Slim (08/27/2001)

Morning Iris7.

I guess human nature doesn't change much.

Morning Snippy. Ready to go reading?

Hi Feather.

Little By Little!

Read:Exodus 23:20-33

Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land. -Exodus 23:30

Bible In One Year: Deuteronomy 7-9

Read:
Exodus 23:20-33