The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Cherokee Trail of Tears (1838-1839) - June 3rd, 2003

http://www.powersource.com/cocinc/history/trail.htm ^

[HiJinx]

Let's try this again, adding the URL this time!!!!

Hundreds cheer homecoming of Marine Reserves

[snippy_about_it]

This is wonderful Jinxy.

Inside the buses, the young Marines marveled at the hoopla and the fact they now had a new status: war veterans.

"We're 19, 20 or 21 years old and we're already veterans,"

How precious.

I've put a link to the full story here.

Arizona Daily Star
Hundreds cheer homecoming of Marine Reserves

[snippy_about_it]

oops. I was just right behind ya! lol.

[HiJinx]

That'll teach me to proof my HTML before posting!!

I caught this on the morning news as I was getting ready for work, and decided it just had to be my weather post for today.

Army, Air Force, and Marine reserves have a heavy presence here in Southern Arizona, and I knew that we had hundreds of neighbors called up for service...what I didn't know is that many of them had headed home. The TV newscast was a very welcome surprise.

Well, time to head to work...hope you and yours have a great day!

[snippy_about_it]

...hope you and yours have a great day!

You too Jinxy.

[snippy_about_it]

Well, this was certainly a depressing reminder of some of our unpleasant history, but we need reminders.

Thank you SAM.

[WaterDragon]

Reading about this part of our history always makes me sad.

[snippy_about_it]

Yes, I'm looking for something now to snap out of it. :(

[Sparta]

Good morning Sam. This is truly not one of America's finest moments. I have to say Jefferson's approach was the better solution. By the time of the Trail of Tears, the Cherokees had developed their own alphabet, a society resembling traditional Southern society at the time, and were a civilized people. The major problem was the failure to integrate the Indians into American society. The problem which continues to this day with the reservations, most of them are truly Hells on Earth.

[stand watie]

THANKS!

FRee dixie,sw

[SAMWolf]

Thanks HiJinx! I love reading those stories.

[SAMWolf]

It shows that the US isn't perfect, we've made mistakes in our past but we also admit that we made them and try to correct them.

[snippy_about_it]

Your welcome.

FRee dixie bump back atcha!

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning Sparta.

Institutionalized slavery and the treatment of the Native Population have to be the two worst chapters in our History.

[WaterDragon]

It shows that the US isn't perfect, we've made mistakes in our past but we also admit that we made them and try to correct them.

I very much agree with you. I posted a column by Thomas Sowell today and he addresses that. He says the U.S. isn't Utopia, but it's still the best there is in the world. I believe that, too. It's kind of like being parents. We made mistakes while we were doing the very best we could most of the time. We can't go back and re-parent children who are now adults because that would be extremely damaging to those adults. So we have to go on, doing our best each day TODAY, learning from past mistakes but not trying to RE-DO those past times. This is how I try to make sense of all this for myself.

[SAMWolf]

That's right, going back and rewriting or erasing the past is a bad idea. We have to learn from our mistakes.

[weldgophardline]

Good afternoon SAM, history has the good with the bad and we need to learn both. It is hard to see what poeple have done in the past but it is a part of our fabric we need to see.

[SAMWolf]

Good Afternoon, weldgophardline.

[colorado tanker]

Looks like Col. Nading might get lucky tonight. :)

[aomagrat]

Today's classic warship, USS Cherokee

Cherokee class gunboat
Displacement. 606 t.
Lenght. 194'6"
Beam. 25'2"
Draft. 11'6"
Speed. 13 k.
Complement. 92
Armament. 2 20-pdr. r., 4 24-pdr. sb.

USS Cherokee, an 606-ton (burden) screw steam gunboat, was built in 1859 at Renfrew, Scotland, for commercial employment. Under the name Thistle she successfully ran through the Federal blockade into Charleston, South Carolina, in late January 1863. She ran aground while attempting to leave port a month later. Salvaged, sold to another owner and renamed Cherokee, she again attempted to an outbound passage, but was captured by USS Canandaigua on 8 May. Prior to delivery to the Boston Prize Court in July, she was used in the search for the Confederate raider Tacony. She was subsequently purchased by the Navy, converted to a warship at Boston Navy Yard, and commissioned 21 April 1864, Acting Volunteer Lieutenant J. F. Nickels in command.

Cherokee sailed from Boston 11 May 1864, bound for duty off the coast of North Carolina with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. In addition to contributing to Union victory by cutting the Confederacy off from overseas sources of supply, this squadron repeatedly bombarded coastal defenses, and cooperated with the Army in amphibious expeditions up the many bays, inlets, and rivers of the serrated coast. Cherokee 's operations included the capture of blockade runner Emma Henry 8 December 1864, and bombardments at Fort Fisher, N.C., in December and January 1865. On 30 January she was ordered close inshore at New Inlet to reconnoiter the Half Moon Battery, where she discovered a large party of Confederates approaching the fortifications recently secured by Union troops. Cherokee threw heavy fire ashore, which drove the Confederates away after three determined rushes at the Union lines.

In February 1865, Cherokee joined the East Gulf Blockading Squadron, and patrolled against blockade runners between Key West and Havana until the close of the war. She was decommissioned at Boston 23 June 1865, and sold there 1 August 1865.

In 1866 she returned to civilian trades. In 1868 the steamer was sold to the Chilean Government. She served Chile's Navy for a decade under the name Ancud and spent another decade as a merchant vessel. The former Cherokee was wrecked at Chiloe, Chile, on 25 August 1889.