The Unknown SAS? World War Two’s Desert Raiders

The Long-Range Desert Group played a fascinating role in desert operations during World War Two, but unlike the SAS, it is largely unknown. Here, Robert Walsh shares the fascinating story…

An LRDG patrol during the Desert Campaign.

Heavily armed, heavily customized vehicles moving stealthily around the Western Desert, driven by men resembling pirates more than elite soldiers, going deep behind enemy lines to gather intelligence and raid enemy targets. Sounds familiar? You’re more than likely thinking of the original Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment founded and led by Lieutenant Colonel David Stirling. And in this case you’d be wrong. Well, not wrong, exactly. The original SAS were founded for that purpose. But there were other units doing similar work during the Desert Campaign and the SAS weren’t the only ‘desert raiders.’ These units are often overlooked or simply overshadowed by their SAS comrades and many who know the SAS might not have heard of their less famous brethren. The Long-Range Desert Group was one of these units, earning a compliment from their opponents that the SAS themselves would have envied.

They were originally formed in June 1940 at the suggestion of Major Ralph Bagnold, assisted by Captains Patrick Clayton and William Shaw. Bagnold was a pre-war desert explorer and approached General Archibald Wavell, proposing to form a long-range reconnaissance unit to work deep behind enemy lines on covert reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and small-scale raiding missions. Wavell had been a liaison officer with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force during the First World War and doubtless knew of similar operations performed by the ‘Light Car Patrol’. Unlike some of his colleagues (Montgomery, for instance) Wavell understood the concept of what we now call Special Forces and lacked a prejudice common to many generals of the time. Regular British Army officers often had a deep dislike for what they called ‘private armies’, especially when those ‘private armies’ used decidedly irregular methods. Units like the Commandos, SAS and LRDG often found themselves obstructed and hindered by Regular officers and their inflexible attitudes. Wavell not only understood the LRDG’s purpose, he actively assisted in their formation and ensured they were properly supplied and equipped for the job at hand.

Where the SAS tended toward more straightforward sabotage and raiding operations, the LRDG were to adopt a quieter approach, hence the unofficial LRDG motto of ‘Not by Strength, by Guile’ (still the unofficial motto of today’s Special Boat Service, an elite unit within the Royal Marine Commandos). The LRDG did perform raiding operations, but they were mainly to avoid combat and gather information covertly. The SAS might attack airfields, supply dumps, fuels dumps and suchlike, but it was often the LRDG that provided the intelligence and also the transport to get them to and from their targets. Hence the LRDG’s unofficial nickname of the ‘Libyan Desert Taxi Service.’ The LRDG did provide the SAS with transport and intelligence, sometimes joining them in raiding missions. They also ferried secret agents to and from their rendezvous deep behind enemy lines. But they were far more than simply a taxi service for spies and saboteurs. Once the SAS were fully equipped with their own vehicles they were able to mount their own deep-penetration operations and secret agents needed guides who could move stealthily through the desert while fighting if they had to. Hence, the LRDG has sometimes been seen (unfairly and inaccurately) as being merely a taxi service for other units. The LRDG were a small unit, never numbering more than 350 men at their largest, but they achieved results out of all proportion to their numbers.

Specialist Soldiers, Specialized Equipment

The LRDG was a volunteer-only unit. Nobody had to sign up and those that did knew full well the risks of working behind enemy lines. If anything went wrong then they could find themselves stuck hundreds of miles behind enemy lines with very limited supplies and ammunition, large numbers of enemy troops hunting for them, North African desert tribes who might either help them or sell them to the enemy depending on which suited them best, burning heat during the day, freezing cold at night, snakes, spiders, sandstorms, enemy aircraft, ground patrols, impassable obstacles and the ever-present chance of their vehicles breaking down and stranding them in the desert. It was also a multinational force. The first volunteers were from New Zealand, but they were swiftly joined by many volunteers from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Great Britain. Specialized equipment, vehicles, weapons and training were essential for the LRDG to even exist in the desert, let alone function effectively as a military unit. Fortunately, Major Bagnold was an experienced pre-war desert explorer. He could provide essential knowledge and even equipment of his own invention such as the ‘sun compass’ fitted to all LRDG vehicles. He knew how the vehicles needed to be customized to make desert travel less difficult, how to navigate across the desert, which weapons would be most effective, which tribes were pro-British, pro-German or simply helped the highest bidder at any given time. Without Major Bagnold or someone very similar, the LRDG would never have existed except as an idea.

Two LRDG patrols at a rendezvous with their typical vehicles.

Their vehicles were mainly two-wheel drive jeeps and small trucks, heavily adapted for desert use. Radiators were made larger and condensers fitted to save water and reduce the risk of engines seizing. Special low-pressure desert tires and improved suspension systems made vehicles faster and easier to drive. Every vehicle had a ‘sun compass’ for navigation, a device invented by Bagnold during his pre-war exploring days. Any excess weight and unnecessary parts were stripped and replaced with useful items. Shovels and sand channels were standard for digging vehicles out of sand banks. Excess bodywork was removed to make room for extra weapons and equipment. Everything possible was done to convert LRDG vehicles from ordinary small trucks and jeeps into fast, nimble, heavily armed raiding and reconnaissance vehicles. Ford CMP and Chevrolet trucks were standard issue and the famous Willys jeep also became very popular as a patrol commander’s vehicle. Each patrol had a custom-equipped radio truck and four 6-ton trucks to deliver supplies and set up secret replenishment bases in the desert, enabling patrols to patrol deeper into enemy territory and stay in the field for longer. Communications patrols and LDG headquarters were excellent. Courtesy of each patrol’s specialist radio truck, equipped with the most modern radio equipment and the best radio operators, there were only three occasions during the Desert Campaign where a patrol lost radio contact with their headquarters.

Irregular Warriors

Their personal appearance and vehicles were unconventional. Their choice in weapons was equally unusual and staggeringly broad. LRDG members thought nothing of equipping themselves and their vehicles with captured enemy weapons in addition to whatever they found useful from British arsenals. An LRDG truck might have twin-mounted Vickers or Browning light machine guns at the front, a 50. Caliber Browning machine gun in the back and captured German or Italian machine guns such as German MG42s or Italian Breda M38s mounted at its tail. An LRDG trooper might carry a mixture of personal weapons, British, German, American and Italian. It wouldn’t be unusual to see an LRDG trooper carrying a standard British Commando dagger, a German or Italian pistol (possibly more than one) and a British rifle, an American Thompson submachine gun or a captured submachine gun such as a German MP40 Schmeisser or an Italian Beretta M1934. Light machine guns ranged from British Bren guns to American 30. Caliber Brownings via German MG34s, MG 42s or Italian Breda M37s and M38s. It was expected that all LRDG troopers should be as comfortable with using and maintaining enemy weapons as British or American ones. The LRDG also used hand grenades, landmines, rifle grenades, plastic explosives and specially made ‘Lewis bombs’ (designed by SAS officer ‘Jock’ Lewes) for destroying enemy aircraft on the ground. Couple a mixed bag of weapons with dirty, torn, stained fatigues, Arab headdress, a deep suntan and two weeks of unshaved beard and it is no surprise that LRDG troopers tended to look more like pirates or mercenaries than soldiers, especially to traditional military eyes.

The LRDG cap badge, specially chosen to reflect their military role.

The LRDG’s differing role was reflected even in their cap badge. Where the SAS still have the ‘winged dagger’ representing their airborne capability and the Sword of Damocles that can instantly fall on an enemy, the LRDG had a less aggressive emblem. Their cap badge was a wheel (reflecting their mobility) around a scorpion (a small desert creature with a lethal sting). The rest of their uniform (if you could call it that) usually consisted of torn, stained desert fatigues, sun hats and Arab headdress. The LRDG prided themselves on their unconventional methods and practical effective performance, not on the conventional ‘spit and polish’ smartness of the Regular Army. They looked like a bunch of ruffians, but did their particular jobs as professionally as the smartest-looking soldiers on a parade ground. It was results that mattered, not appearances. The SAS had a similar attitude. Shiny boots and polished buttons meant nothing in the North African desert, hundreds of miles behind enemy lines and knowing that they were as likely to be shot out of hand as taken prisoner if an operation went wrong. For both units this apparent lack of formality and convention frequently caused tensions and rifts with soldiers from Regular units, especially with the more traditionally minded senior officers.

At first a typical LRDG patrol comprised two troopers and 28 non-commissioned officers. Between them a patrol drove one Ford CMP truck and ten smaller Chevrolet trucks. Patrol commanders and patrol sergeants had the option of driving customized jeeps. Each patrol had a patrol medical orderly, desert navigator, radio operator and mechanic. In March 1941 patrols were reorganized into one officer, fifteen to eighteen men and five or six vehicles. Halving the size of patrols gave the LRDG the ability to send more patrols over wider areas while each patrol retained sufficient firepower to fight their way out of trouble if they needed to. Stealth was always preferable to combat and the LRDG soon acquired a nickname from the Italian opposition. The Italians began calling them the ‘Pattaglia Fantasma’ or ‘Ghost Patrol’ acknowledging their ability to evade detection and strike at will.

After The Desert War

When all German forces in North Africa surrendered in Tunisia in May 1943, the LRDG, now having grown to two squadrons comprising around 350 men in all, was at a loose end. They needed to find new areas to operate and so justify their continued existence. They soon found them. The LRDG operated in a number of areas besides the desert although they’re best remembered for their desert operations, especially their work at the Battle of Kufra and their raid on Barce as part of ‘Operation Caravan’. New hunting grounds in the Mediterranean and the Balkans now occupied their time. The Dodecanese campaign, the Battle of Leros, Albania, Yugoslavia and the Italian campaign all featured the LRDG, often operating jointly with other raiding and reconnaissance units such as the SAS, Special Boat Service and the Greek ‘Sacred Squadron’. They adapted their methods to fit the different locations they now operated in and their skill and flexibility made them a valuable asset right up until the end of the war. After the war in Europe officially ended on May 8, 1945 the LRDG’s leaders requested that they be deployed to the Far East and continue performing similar operations against the Japanese. Their superiors declined and on August 1, 1945 the LRDG was formally disbanded. Days after their disbandment the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Second World War was over; the Cold War was about to begin.

Earlier I mentioned the LRDG receiving the highest of compliments from the unlikeliest of people. The unlikely person was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the legendary ‘Desert Fox’ and commander of the Afrika Korps. His compliment to the LRDG was this:

The Long-Range Desert Group caused us more damage than any other British unit of equal strength.

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Sources

Gross, Kuno; O'Carroll, Brendan and Chiarvetto, Roberto. Incident at Jebel Sherif. Berlin: Kuno Gross, 2009

http://www.lrdg.org/

http://www.specialforcesroh.com/browse.php?pageid=lrdg

http://www.lrdg.de/vehicles.htm

Morgan, Mike. Sting of the Scorpion: The Inside Story of the Long Range Desert Group. The History Press Publishing, 2003

The Prussian Crusades – The fascinating story

The Prussian Crusades were full of thirteenth century intrigue and drama. Here, Robert Van Ness follows up his article on Prussia’s early beginnings and tells us the story…

The Teutonic Knights wasted little time once they began establishing themselves in the unstable Baltic region. They came to crusade against the native Prussian pagans, who had a centuries-long history of proving themselves to be unruly, as well being unaccepting of Catholicism. The native Prussians also seemed untrustworthy of anything coming out of the west, and for good reason. Rome had sent envoys to the area, the Danish had sent armies, and the Poles had signaled intent to take lands for themselves. Each instance involved some degree of bloodshed and/or corruption. The Teutonic arrival, in Prussian eyes, would be no different. The Prussians were correct.

After initial wrangling over territorial disputes, Grandmaster Hermann von Salza sent 7 Teutonic Knights and about 100 lesser troops to take Vogelsang in Masovia. A castle had been attempted in the area a year before, in 1229, but the Prussians massacred the builders. After the Teutons arrived, however, the Prussians could not reverse their negative fortunes. The small army established a foothold, and then they completed the attempted castle. A year later a fresh force of 200 arrived to reinforce the Teutonic claim. Though this action may seem innocuous in the grand scheme, it did signal the beginning of the Teutonic Crusades, and thus a great historical shift in Prussian livelihood, that, when the Crusades were completed would set events in motion. When those Crusades were finished, events were set in motion that would affect Central and Eastern Europe for centuries.

The Beginnings

The Teutonic Order began conducting yearly campaigns into the region after their first venture in 1230. These raids represented a historical shift in that they were coming predominately from the west, out of the Holy Roman Empire, instead of out of the east from Polish or Russian lands. Promises from the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor spurred many Germans to emigrate into the newly conquered lands. This occurrence, accompanied with the consistent, yearly campaigns, ensured success, where every earlier attempt met with failure. Further Teutonic success ensured that the Prussian region would become German.

A map of the tribes encountered by the Teutonic Knights during their Prussian Crusades.

Within two years, the Crusaders were warring against Pomesania. A bit of chance aided the Knights when a Prussian commander defected to the Teutons. He helped steer the Crusaders through Prussian defenses toward the main castle at Rogow. Rogow was no match for the attackers, and once it fell, neither were the other area defenses. Thorn was captured, and then the Pomesanian king, Pepin, was tricked into being surrounded. Pope Gregory IX quickly sent 5,000 immigrants to reinforce the Teutonic conquest during the next year, as the Knights continued their Crusade eastward.

1233 witnessed the largest army to march into the region up to that time. A 10,000 strong crusading army was led by the Knights into the remaining Pomesanian regions. They built a fortress at Marienwerder, from which the powerful army launched various attacks against the Pogesanians, who offered a rather stiff resistance. Yet Teutonic cavalry galloped into the fray during a battle along the frozen Sirgune River, and the Pogesanian front disintegrated. Another Teutonic fortress was quickly built at Rehden to ensure Crusading dominance over the newly subjugated lands.

Growing Pains

These successes, oddly, caused a breech between the Teutons and her allies, most notably Konrad of Masovia, in 1235. Konrad claimed land that was not to be given to him, and the Knights refused to cede the disputed lands to him. Eventually Konrad pulled out of any future crusades, while the Teutons began acquiring the remaining faltering knightly orders in the Baltic, such as the Sword Brothers, who were all but decimated by the Livonians further north of Teutonic claims.

A new ally, Henry III, Margrave of Meissen, arrived to aid the Teutons as they marched along the Vistula River in present day Poland. The newly established immigrant towns also supplied ample support, which allowed the Crusaders the freedom to push further into pagan lands. The Teutons hammered the Bartians, Natangians, and Warmians in successive engagements between the campaigning years 1238 and 1240. 

The attack against the Warmians is of special note, because the Warmians slaughtered a Teutonic outfit, which spurred an even larger crusading force onward against the pagan defenders. When the pagan commander, Kodrune, realized that holding out against the numerically superior force was hopeless, he begged his army to surrender and convert. The Warmians would hear none of it, and killed Kodrune before they were, as Kodrune presciently understood would happen, destroyed.

Teutonic successes brought more Papal recognition in 1243. The newly conquered lands were demarcated across four new provinces - Culm, Pomesania, Ermeland, and Samland. What had once not been Germanic lands were now being inhabited by droves immigrating eastward out of the Holy Roman Empire. But the region was not yet pacified. In fact, the gains made during the initial Teutonic Crusades were threatened by a resurgent Prussian uprising beginning in 1242.

First Prussian Rebellion

A former Teutonic ally, Duke Swantopelk of Pomerellia, was spooked by the rapid crusading gains. Swantopelk then switched allegiances, and began funding, supplying, and training the Prussians against the Knights in 1242. The Teutons also found themselves without their Polish allies in the rebellion, because the Poles were warring with each other over domestic issues. 

For two years the Prussians dragged the Teutons into wooded battles, where the heavier armored knights could not maneuver as easily. Defeat followed defeat for the Teutons, but the Prussians lacked engineering skills needed to erect proper siege-works in order to destroy the many Teutonic fortresses now dominating the countryside. Thus a seeming impasse was reached in 1244, which for the most part lasted until 1249. That is until the Germans used another weapon, politics.

German connections swayed Swantopelk away from the Prussians once again. The new Pope, Urban IV, entered diplomatic wrangling, as did the Polish princes, who wanted to take Swantopelk's land. Swantopelk found himself unable to continue the Prussian resurgence, and was forced to switch allegiances once again. Regardless of the change, the Prussians still won further battles after Swantopelk's defection, but by 1253, the Teutons were once again in control, and they could resume their crusade against the Samland region.

The Crusades Resume against Sambia

Their work was not yet complete in the 1250s; in fact, quite a few more campaigns would be undertaken before the Prussian lands were declared ‘Christianized’, but the seeds of future hatreds were brutally sewn during this period. Notably the Germans, who were not native to the region began dominating the Poles and Slavs, who did claim the Baltic lands as ancestral. In order for the early German settlers to make what was later called Lebensraum the pagan, or less-than-civilized, would have to either convert or die. To that end, the Crusades continued in 1252.

The Sambian peoples had not yet been pacified. A new army led by Heinrich Stango aimed to pierce directly through Samland, but was met head on by formidable resistance at Vistula Lagoon. The Sambians routed the Knights, killed Stango, and awaited a Crusading response. The response came in the form of a concerted Dominican effort to raise a massive army for the time, 60,000 men. The enormous army of Bohemians, Saxons, Moravians, and Austrians met the Sambians at the Battle of Rudau. The defenders stood little chance under such an enormous army. The main Sambian army surrendered, and was hastily baptized. The Crusaders then continued to march into Sambian territory, and either baptized or killed inhabitants along the way to conquering the region by January 1255. As normal Teutonic procedure dictated, a series of fortresses were constructed to ensure Teutonic overlordship. Thus fortresses at Memel, Konigsberg, and Wehlau still exist, reminding the onlookers of the hard-fought era.

​

The remains of St. Jacob’s Tower in Wehlau (Znamensk).

The Prussian Crusades Wind Down

The Prussians, however, had one more trick to play. The Livonian branch of the Order continued to reach northeastward into Samogitia, and had some early success. A cease-fire of sorts was signed to end the fighting for two years, but when that treaty ended in 1259, the Samogitians rebelled. They crushed the Crusaders at Skuodas, which sent shockwaves throughout the pagan region. Other Prussians rallied around the Samogitian victory and also rebelled. Together they ran roughshod throughout the largely unguarded regions of Livonia, Poland, and Prussia, because the Knights were mostly away fighting in the Holy Land during this time. After a year of turmoil the Holy Roman Empire concocted an army to assist the remaining Knights in their effort to quell the uprising, and by 1261 the pagans were being unconditionally beaten. Previously subjugated Prussians had enjoyed considerable surrender terms, but the Knights forced the rebels into total serfdom after this uprising. Once again, to ensure control, the Knights dotted the landscape with more fortresses.

The Knights, and Germanic immigrants into the region, were now certain masters of Prussia and the lower Baltic region. All that remained were a few lesser tribes, who still repudiated Catholicism. Minor battles and small uprisings continued to occur for the next 20 years, but nothing could break the increasingly powerful grip the Teutonic Knights held on Prussia. It was theirs, and would be engineered along Holy Roman designs, and the Knights would use their newly won kingdom to launch other crusades deeper into northeastern Europe. Their involvement redrew, and would redraw European boundaries for future generations with painful side effects as will be seen in subsequent posts.

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The Cold War: A War without a Winner

“Did anyone really win the Cold War?” was the question that Samantha Jones asked after the recent shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. After all, many assume that as the USSR collapsed in 1991, the US won the Cold War. Instead, Samantha argues that nobody really won this war. Here she explains why.

With the recent shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, tensions in some ways similar to those felt during the Cold War are once again being raised upon the world stage. With President Putin’s reaction to the crisis and the obvious Russian military presence between the border of Russia and Ukraine, this hostility links back to events and ideologies that brought about the Cold War. Once again the rivalries between various countries have influenced nations and people worldwide. No longer is this a matter of communism versus capitalism, or socialism versus democracy, but is instead a power struggle that goes beyond two major superpowers. The aftermath and rivalries from the Cold War are still present today. Why? Perhaps it is because the Cold War was a war that had no final end without a final winner.

An East German soldier guarding the newly-formed Berlin Wall in August 1961.

AN UNUSUAL WAR

The Cold War was a war that was never won. Despite the massive cost and time spent on the conflict, little physical confrontation occurred between the super-powers. This was not a normal war. Simply put, the Cold War was a series of cooling, warming and frosty interactions between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States (US). Although these superpowers are said to be the big players, the hostility between these countries caused a catalyst for revolutionary worldwide events and issues. It involved the Third World, the Middle East and the Western sphere of influence. From the aftermath of World War Two, a vicious rivalry between communism and capitalism arose, bringing the world into a new age of technological warfare with nuclear weaponry. Welcome to the modern world.

It is widely believed that owing to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US won the Cold War by default. But this really is not the case. By analyzing the physical conflicts, technological aspects and scale of this worldwide conflict, one can see the deep layering and complications to this. To have a winner, one must have a loser. But what did the US win? It did not receive any territory, reparation payments or a formal apology from the USSR. It was a war with no surrender or defeat. Yes the Berlin Wall came down and yes the USSR is no longer a communist nation. However, this does not mean the US won the Cold War. In my opinion the Cold War has no winner, which is why remnants of the conflict continue today.

For a world war there was very little physical confrontation in regard to the scale of the conflict. In no way do I mean any disrespect to those that did fight during the Cold War; however in comparison to the world wars, the armed struggle was small. The Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan are probably the most noted military contests during this time. Even so, both superpowers were defeated in Vietnam and Afghanistan and retreated after a series of long battles and the loss of many human lives. Also, both superpowers were overcome by an enemy that was not the USSR or the US. Of course the presence of each superpower was evident behind the battleground, such as supplying resources, aid and even initiating certain conflicts. But in a physical sense, it hardly seems reasonable to announce a winner when both the USSR and the US failed to decisively win militarily during the Cold War.

GLOBAL BATTLE, UNCLEAR WINNER

As mentioned before, the Cold War was also a revolutionary conflict in terms of technology, truly introducing the world to nuclear weaponry. The Space Race and the Hydrogen Bomb reveal how warfare took on a new meaning at this time. In this sense, the Cold War was a war that almost happened, or a war that could have been. What I mean by this is that it is a real victory for both superpowers as they decided not to use this form of weaponry against each other on a massive scale. Since neither superpower actually used their nuclear weapons and this war was not fought in outer space, the US does not deserve the title of ‘winner’ in this particular arena.

Lastly it is quite insular and ignorant to believe that the Cold War was only fought between the USSR and the US; therefore to announce one winner is incorrect. The crises in the Middle East, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the rise of Mao’s China, the Korean War, the Berlin Wall, the imposition of communism on Eastern Europe, and numerous nations fighting for their independence can all be connected to the Cold War. Countless personalities and politicians outside these two superpowers were involved in continuing and trying to stop this worldwide division. It was not just an ideological struggle between the democratic capitalists and the dictatorial communists. After World War Two the world entered into a period that broke with traditions of the past, such as colonization. The extreme layering in each piece of the Cold War puzzle does not add up to one clear victory. It is unjust and unfair to only include the US and the USSR in this debate and the question of who won.

As one could write an entire book on this subject, I have only touched the tip of the iceberg here. Hindsight tells us that the Cold War was unlike any other war in history for so many reasons – including that there was no clear winner or loser. Yes the USSR collapsed, but this was not due to any direct action caused by the US, rather domestic issues rotting the superpower from within. And yes the capitalist US did survive when the USSR did not, but just what did it gain? Reagan’s large increase in military spending in the 1980s caused the US to greatly increase its debt as well as use methods that can be argued to be crimes against humanity.

And was it worth it? After all this, parts of the world are still at war, the US and Russia aren’t friends, small nations are fighting for their independence in civil wars, and superpowers continue to dominate those that are weak. It seems that not much was learned from the Cold War.

Do you agree with Samantha’s argument? Did the Cold War not have a winner? Let us know your thoughts below…

A Classical Tale. Odysseus and the Great Unknown

Homer´s Odyssey is one of the classics of ancient literature.Some of the most fascinating parts of the book are Odysseus’ tales of fantastical lands as he travels home. Here Francesca Spiegel explores the book and tells us more.

Travelogues and travelogue-like passages appear in ancient literature in more than a few places. Some of the travel descriptions of ancient Greece which have been transmitted to us, appear to be dedicated to geographical and cultural education of the reader, seeing as to travel very far given the ancient transportation system was a noteworthy feat. Another sub-category of travelogue is the historiographic, in which the military exploits of an army and its men are recounted not only in terms of their skills in battle, but also expanding upon their courage and endurance at making their way to the location of the battle.

Land of the Lotos-Eaters (1863) by Robert Duncanson.

Homer’s Odyssey typifies the saga of the long return, the homeward journey from a faraway place. In the Odyssey, readers are first introduced to Odysseus as an absentee father who left behind his wife and young son in order to take part in the Trojan War, in his capacity as the king of Ithaca. The last part of the book focuses on how Odysseus eventually arrives back home after his long absence and is faced with a barrage of suitors to his wife, his mansions in decay and the city under very bad administration, all of which he has good mind to reclaim for himself. If we are to believe the legend, twenty years have passed since Odysseus was last in his home town: he fought for ten years in the Trojan War, and then took ten years to get back home. When he arrives, the youth has grown, nothing is like it was, and Odysseus himself, after the war and the long road, is quite a different man as well.

Sandwiched in between these scenes from Odysseus’ home at Ithaca, are the surreal and extraordinary tales of what Odysseus saw and did on his ten year long journey, which, as readers are informed, took so long because an angry Poseidon kept sweeping his ship astray – for revenge.

THOUGHTS ON THE ODYSSEY

In the story, Odysseus lives to tell the tale, so that his adventures among witches, ogres and monsters, his descent into the underworld, and visit to Lestrygonians, his shipwrecks, entrapments, and ingenious explorations out in the great unknown, have since become some of the most popular legends. Nearly everyone has heard of the Cyclops, the one-eyed giant who eats human flesh and lives in a cave, and whom Odysseus squarely overpowered by feeding him wine and blinding his one eye with an incandescent wooden beam. Or the beautiful sirens, whose enthralling charm and irresistible singing Odysseus was able to bypass by putting wax in the ears of all of his party.

Interpretations of the Odyssey have traditionally pointed out the strong focus on loyalty that is implicit in the will to take on challenge upon challenge only to come back home, and attached to this loyalty towards his home town and family, is a commitment to the Greek culture, of which the forms and values appear especially in relief by contrast to the strange lands wandered by Odysseus in the meantime. At Circe’s, the witch who can turn men into swine and wants to make Odysseus the king of her little kingdom it is said:

But venomed was the bread, and mixed the bowl,

With drugs of force to darken all the soul:

Soon in the luscious feast themselves they lost,

And drank oblivion of their native coast.

The fear of never making it home is ever-present, and the lure of the sometimes rather enticing propositions made by the fairytale-like creatures in equal parts attractive and revolting seems to intensify at each turning of the road. Here is another passage:

We plied the banquet, and the bowl we crown’d,

Till the full circle of the year came round.

But when the seasons following in their train,

Brought back the months, the days, and hours again;

As from a lethargy at once they rise,

And urge their chief with animating cries:

Is this, Ulysses, our inglorious lot?

And is the name of Ithaca forgot?

Shall never the dear land in prospect rise,

Or the loved palace glitter in our eyes?

BIZARRE CREATURES

The travelogue description introduces many episodes of arriving on strange shores and meeting unknown cultures and hybrid, half-awesome, half-scary species of character beings. The places Odysseus goes to seem to appear at first from a distance, enclosed either by walls, or thick vegetation, or water, so that they are each in their own way a closed universe and a microcosm in a capsule – at times it seems like the Odyssey draws up a map of warped microcosm after warped microcosm before our eyes, and each time, a new breed of phantasmagoric characters hop on the scenery as if they belong to a surreal film set. For example, Odysseus travels to:

A floating isle! High-raised by toil divine,

Strong walls of brass the rocky coast confine.

Six blooming youths, in private grandeur bred,

And six fair daughters, graced the royal bed.

These sons their sisters wed, and all remain

Their parents’ pride, and pleasure of their reign.

All day they feast, all day the bowls flow round,

And joy and music through the isle resound;

At night each pair on splendid carpets lay,

And crown’d with love the pleasures of the day.

This 1873 verse translation I have been quoting from is by T.A. Buckley and in the public domain. The digital media revolution increases the use of public domain books, but these books are often in the public domain by virtue of being 100 years old or more. Looking at this nineteenth century translation, which I very much enjoy for what it is and I hope you have as well, adds a specific flavor to the story. The Odyssey was very popular in the British colonial Empire and Odysseus’ character, by no means one beloved by all ages, had a distinct appeal with his explorer’s nature and experience of the great unknown. A contemporary of this translation was Tennyson, whose famous poem The Lotos Eaters conflates the pleasures of a Victorian opium smoker with the adventures of Odysseus on Lotophagi Island:

And round about the keel with faces pale,

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,

The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave

To each, but whoso did receive of them,

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave

Far far away did seem to mourn and rave

On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;

And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake,

And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

The painting at the top of this article titled Land of the Lotos-Eaters (1863) by Robert Duncanson also epitomizes the conflation of nineteenth century exoticism with Hellenism which is yet another aspect of the same phenomenon. As much as it is important to notice these identifications and projections, the real interest lies in finding out what the Odyssey can mean to ‘us’ now.

This article was provided by Francesca Spiegel from www.via-antiqua.com.

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Re-establishing Anglo-American Relations: John Quincy Adams in London

In 1788, John Adams left London, never to return to Europe. His son, John Quincy Adams, would assume his father’s post at the Court of Saint James 27 years later. While both men represented the United States in Great Britain after wars, JQA had a more successful time in establishing stronger ties between the two nations than his father had. This article by Steve Strathmann follows the first in the series here and details the ups-and-downs of John Quincy Adams’ time in London.

The Experienced Diplomat

John Quincy Adams first came to Europe with his father during the Revolutionary War. In addition to working for his father, he spent three years in Russia serving as secretary for an American mission at the tender age of fourteen. After graduating from Harvard, he was appointed Minister to the Netherlands by George Washington. During his time in The Hague, he travelled frequently to London on business, where he met his future wife Louisa Johnson, the American daughter of a Maryland father and English mother. In fact, the church where they were married, the Church of All Hallows Barking, still stands today near the Tower of London and has a plaque outside marking the occasion.

JQA would later serve terms as American minister to Prussia and Russia. While at St. Petersburg, he was asked to join the American group negotiating to end the War of 1812. After the Treaty of Ghent was signed, he hoped to return home, but was asked to serve as President Madison’s Minister to the Court of St. James. The offer was too tempting for Adams to refuse and he crossed the English Channel in May 1815.

John Quincy Adams by Gilbert Stuart, 1818 (The White House Historical Association).

Official Relations with Britain

John Quincy Adams presented his credentials to the Prince Regent on June 8, 1815. The prince did not seem prepared for the meeting, at one point even asking if JQA “was related to Mr. Adams, who had formerly been the Minister from the United States here.” The new minister established an office on Charles Street and rented a house outside of London in the village of Ealing. While in Britain, John Quincy and Louisa would have their whole family (sons George, John and Charles) together for the first time in six years.

Adams maintained good relationships with both Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh. His primary mission was to help negotiate a treaty of commerce with the British. The result of these negotiations would only be a commercial convention, but the Americans did make some gains. These included a prohibition on discriminatory duties, the opening of British East Indies ports to American shipping and ‘most favored nation’ status for the United States.

There were still outstanding issues left over between the two nations after the War of 1812. These included the impressment of sailors, the return of slaves that fled to the West Indies with British help during the war, and the opening of Canadian waters to American fishermen. Castlereagh said in response that these were issues that could be dealt with at a later date when the Anglo-American relationship was stronger. Adams did not press the foreign secretary, especially over the escaped slaves. A life-long abolitionist, Adams only brought up the topic because his diplomatic instructions called for it.

One area where significant gains were made was on the Canadian border of the United States. On January 16 and March 21 of 1816, Adams proposed to Castlereagh that there should be a reduction of arms on the Great Lakes. The foreign secretary agreed and the negotiations that followed led to the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817. This pact reduced the two lake fleets to four ships apiece that were to primarily deal with customs issues. This agreement was “the first reciprocal naval disarmament in the history of international relations”, according to historian Samuel Flagg Bemis. Others have added that it is also the most successful and longest-lasting deal of its kind.

Outside the Office

In addition to his good relations with Liverpool and Castlereagh, Adams struck up friendships with other notable Brits. One was the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Though the two men had differing views on certain topics, they became friends due to their appreciation of each other’s intellect. John Quincy and Louisa also were invited to a wedding held at the Duke of Wellington’s home.

Adams enjoyed going to the theater and opera in London, especially to see the works of William Shakespeare. He read Shakespeare often, and his diaries contain reviews of London performances of Richard the Third and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

John Quincy and Louisa were thrilled to have their family together and being able to watch their sons’ growth. George and John were enrolled in an Ealing boarding school, while Charles attended school during the day. While he loved his boys, JQA worried that they did not focus enough on their studies. According to biographer Fred Kaplan, he hoped that someday they “would be his intellectual companions” much like he was to his father.

Unfortunately, Adams did have to deal with some health issues during his London tenure. He injured his writing hand and also had several eye infections. These afflictions were especially hard on a man who was a vociferous reader and writer. Louisa helped during this period by taking dictation and reading aloud to her husband. Adams eventually healed and was able to resume all of his diplomatic duties.

In April 1817, Adams received a message from President James Monroe, asking him to return to Washington and become Secretary of State. Though John Quincy hesitated, the rest of his family were excited about the prospect of returning to the United States, including his elderly parents. He eventually decided that he would accept the cabinet post, and on June 10, 1817, the family left London for the long journey home.

In 1861, Charles Francis Adams would return to take the post that his father and grandfather held before him. His primary duty: keep the British out of the American Civil War. But that’s for next time…

We shall have the next article in this series next month.

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Sources

Kaplan, Fred. John Quincy Adams: American Visionary. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.

Remini, Robert V. John Quincy Adams. New York: Times Books, 2002.

Unger, Harlow Giles. John Quincy Adams. Boston: De Capo Press, 2012.

World War One – How did the Eastern Front differ from the Western Front?

The Eastern Front in World War One is often largely unknown to many Westerners. The situation there was quite different to that on the Western Front. Here, Rebecca Fachner follows up on her articles on Royal Family squabbles here and the spark that caused war to break out here.

The 100th anniversary of the first summer of World War One rolls onward, and with it commemorations of battles that everyone in the Western world seems to know instinctively - the Marne, the Somme, Ypres…  The war on the Western Front is very much alive in the Western consciousness, but what is so often forgotten is that it was actually a two-front war in Europe. Germany was not only fighting in the West against the French and British (and eventually the Americans), but also in the East against the Russian Empire.

Russian troops on the move to the front line. From National Geographic magazine, volume 31. 1917.

As a fighting force, the Russian Empire was extremely contradictory. They were a formidable foe, but at the same time a very worrying ally. Their one huge advantage in warfare was the sheer numbers of troops that they had at their disposal. It was truly a staggering amount of men, millions upon millions of Russian troops, a “mass of bodies ready to bleed” in the words of one historian of the period.[1] The main disadvantage for the Russians was everything else. The army had miserably poor leadership, was woefully underfunded and was technologically backward. In the years before the war, the Allies, especially France, had spent enormous sums of money trying to improve Russia’s technological capability.

Railroads had been a particular target, as the movement of troops to the front as quickly as possible was of paramount importance. France knew that German war plans hinged on Russia’s inability to mobilize their troops and so planned on attacking France first, then moving on to Russia only after the French had been defeated. Therefore, if Russia could respond more quickly, and force Germany to divert troops in their direction earlier, so much the better for France.  Their efforts did do some good, but not enough, as was painfully demonstrated in the opening days of the war. It took weeks for the Russians to assemble a fighting force along the German and Austro-Hungarian borders.

DIFFERENCES WITH THE WEST

Russia began the war by invading eastern Germany. It was able to do so as Poland was not an independent country at this time meaning that Russia and Germany were contiguous. The first major engagement of the war was the Battle of Tannenberg, which was a resounding defeat for the Russians. The next week at the Battle of Masurian Lakes, the Russians were pushed back further, and would not fight on German soil for the remainder of the war. Despite the inauspicious beginnings, the Russians did enjoy some success, particularly against Austria-Hungary in the fall of 1914. By 1915, however, the Germans had made the Eastern Front their top priority and began to hurl troops at the Russians, managing to turn the tide of the eastern war permanently in their own favor. Russia never again enjoyed a significant advantage.

The geography of the war in the east was very different when compared to the west. Rather than a compressed front line, the Russians and Germans were eventually fighting over an area of more than a thousand miles. This spread the fighting, placing a much larger burden on military supply chains than in the west, and making Russian transportation problems an even bigger issue as they began to have supply problems soon after war broke out. One small, seemingly trivial problem added to the frustration, namely that Russian railroads were, and still are, on a different track gauge than parts of Europe further west. Railroad tracks in Europe (and almost everywhere else) are 4 feet 8 inches apart from each other, but in Russia the tracks are 5 feet apart. This means that trains from Europe don’t work in Russia and vice versa; to this day, if you are travelling by railroad into Russia it causes delays at the border. This created all kinds of chaos for supplying both armies and moving troops. All told, it generally slowed down the war in the east. Additionally, because the front line stretched over so large a territory, trench warfare, something that is so closely associated with the war in the west, was not a factor in the east. There was no need for trenches, as the armies had so much more room to maneuver.

Another significant and often remarked upon problem for the Russians was the personality of the men making the key decisions. Tsar Nicholas was a weak and largely ineffective leader, and enjoyed far too much command authority for a person with limited military experience. His two top commanders, Grand Duke Nicholas and Minister of War General Sukhomlinov, hated each other and constantly tried to undermine the other, often to the detriment of their command.  One of those commanders, it must be said, Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievich, was an extremely dedicated and able military commander, frustrated by the duplicity of his counterpart and the ineptitude of his boss.

THE TSAR TAKES CHARGE

This was not a recipe for success, and as the Russians continued to lose, blame was shifted around and around the command structure. Eventually the Tsar, frustrated and exasperated, decided to move to army headquarters to take personal command of the military. He hoped that his presence would inspire both the troops and the command structure and turn the tide of the war. On the face of it, this was not as poor a decision as it turned out to be, and at least the Tsar’s heart was in the right place, so to speak. Unfortunately, Nicholas’ presence had the opposite effect, and he was blamed by many for every single thing that went wrong with the war from that point on. This severely undermined his authority, not just with his army but also with his people, who had previously believed that the Tsar was close to divine, and blamed all the military failures on his generals. With his very visible presence at the head of his army, Nicholas was exposed as ineffective and weak, and the Russian people had no choice but to blame him for the manifest failures of his strategy.

Compounding the Tsar’s image problem was that he had left his wife in control in his absence. Empress Alexandra was dangerously unstable, and extremely unpopular, partly due to her association with the monk Rasputin; it was widely thought that she was under his direct control. Alexandra quickly assumed many of the governmental duties that her husband had left behind, which was very unfortunate, as she had little political acumen and no experience in government. What she did have was an unshakable faith in Rasputin, and a stubborn refusal to grasp how widely he was mistrusted and disliked. Alexandra careened from one disastrous policy to another, dismissing competent ministers and replacing them with self-serving yes men. Events continued to spiral out of control, and after years of war and shortages, poor management and an ineffective monarchy, it is actually extraordinary that the revolution didn’t happen sooner.

The Russian Revolution, at least the first one, didn’t end the war. The first Russian Revolution, in February 1917, deposed the Tsar but the Provisional Government that took his place did not want to end the war. Alexsandr Kerensky, the leader of the Provisional Government, had the makings of a political genius, and it is one of the frustrating what-ifs of the Russian Revolution to wonder what he might have achieved, but he was intent on continuing to prosecute the war. This proved to be the undoing of both the Provisional Government and Kerensky, as they underestimated just how war weary Russia was, and suffered the consequences when the Bolsheviks launched the October Revolution, promising, among other things, to end the war.  The Bolsheviks sued for peace, and the Germans forced them to sign a humiliating treaty, ending the war in the east.

A clip about the 1916 Battle of Lake Narocz on the Eastern Front is available here on the site.

[1] Massie, Robert Nicholas and Alexandra: the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. P. 302

A Trip into the past with a Pirate

Peter Cornelius Hoof was taken captive by pirates nearly three centuries ago. But Laura Nelson has an intriguing connection to him. Here, she follows on from her first post (link here) and continues to tell Hoof’s intriguing story of capture and life on the high seas.

Of being in prison, Peter said there was never enough food or water. He was always thirsty and hungry. There were long hours of nothing to do but sit and think – think about how he would like to see his family again and how he had disappointed his father and broken his mother's heart. He thought of the sorrow he was causing them, how he should have returned to his family, and what he wouldn't give to hug his mother again and hear her voice.

 "Mr C. Pitt as the Bloodhound of the Bay", a portrait of a pirate in the Museum of London.

On 5 September 1717, unknown to the incarcerated pirates, King George I issued a royal proclamation for the suppression of piracy that included a pardon.

. . . we do hereby promise, and declare, that in Case any of the said Pyrates, shall, on or before the Fifth Day of September, in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighteen, surrender him or themselves, to one of our Principal Secretaries of State in Great Britain or Ireland, or to any Governor or Deputy Governor of any of our Plantations beyond the Seas; every such Pirate and Pirates so surrendering him, or themselves, as foresaid, shall have our gracious Pardon . . . (Pirate’s, 81)

This is important to note, because there is some debate as to when exactly the authorities in Boston became aware of the pardon. There is some speculation that they knew the arrival of the pardon was imminent and thus hastened the trial and execution before it did. “The proclamation was sent out to the governors in the West Indies and the American colonies, who then had the responsibility of contacting the pirates.” (Cordingly, 205) On 9 December 1717, the Boston News-Letter published the proclamation. The Whydah pirates had been tried and convicted in October.

While the pirates awaited their trial, the Reverend Cotton Mather ministered to them. The eight pirates from the Mary Anne were about the third group of pirates he had ministered to since the famous Salem witch trials of 1690. At one point during the course of these discussions, Mather noted in his diary, "Obtain a reprieve and, if it may be, a pardon for one [of the] Pyrates, who is not only more penitent, but also more innocent than the rest." (Woodard, 227) Unfortunately, inquiries into historical records in Boston failed to unearth any evidence that Mather ever took any official steps towards obtaining such a pardon, nor for which specific pirate he meant to do so.

Peter says that during one of his sessions, the Reverend Mather wrote a letter to Peter's parents for him. He told them how sorry he was for hurting them so much. He also apologized for being a bad son and for not being more dutiful to them.

During the interrogation before his trial, Peter gave exact information about the treasure aboard the Whydah:

" The money taken in the Whido, which was reported to Amount to 20000 or 30000 Pounds, was counted over in the Cabin, and put up in bags, Fifty pounds to every Man's share, there being 180 Men on Board. . . . Their Money was kept in Chests between Decks without any guard, but none was to take any without the Quarter Masters leave." (Trial, 319)

Tried alongside Peter were Simon Van Vorst, John Brown, Hendrick Quintor, John Shuan, Thomas South, and Thomas Baker. It was time for them to face the court, and what a court they faced!

His Excellency Samuel Shute Esq; Governour,

Vice Admiral, & President. The Honourable William Dummer Esq;

 Lieutenant Governour. The Honourable Elisha Hutchinson, Penn Townsend, Andrew Belcher, John Cushing, Nathaniel Norden, John Wheelwright, Benjamin Lynde, Thomas Hutchinson, and Thomas Fitch, Esqrs; of His Majesty's Council for this Province.

John Meinzies Esq; Judge of the Vice Admiralty.

Capt. Thomas Smart Commander of His Majesty's Ship of War the Squirrel, and John Jekyll Esq; Collector of the Plantation Duties. (Trial, 299)

The indictment “for Crimes of Piracy, Robbery & Felony committed on the high Sea” included several articles. First, the pirates “without lawful Cause or Warrant, in Hostile manner with Force & Arms, Piratically & Feloniously did Surprize, Assault, Invade, and Enter . . . the Mary Anne of Dublin . . . ." (Trial, 296) Second, they did "Piratically & Feloniously seize and imprison Andrew Crumpstey Master thereof . . . ." Third, they did "Piratically & Feloniously Imbezil, Spoil and Rob the cargoe of said Vessel . . . ." And fourth, they "over powered and subdued the said Master and his Crew, and made themselves Masters of the said Vessel . . . did then and there Piratically & Feloniously Steer and Direct their course after the above-named Piratical Ship, the Whido, intending to joyn and accompany the same; and thereby, to enable themselves better to pursue and accomplish their Execrable designs to oppress the Innocent, and cover the Seas with Depredations and Robberies." (Trial, 297)

After reading the indictments, the court declared "all and each of them ought to be punished by Sentences of the said Court with the pains of Death, and loss of Lands, Goods and Chattels, according to the direction of the Law, and for an Example and Terror to all others." (Trial, 297)

At this point in the trial, Simon Van Vorst asked for counsel for the pirates "that so they might be well advised on what to do." (Trial, 297) His request was granted, and one attorney, Robert Auchmuty, was appointed to defend all seven of the pirates, but after two of his motions were denied, he resigned. (Trial, 299) One of those motions was to allow Thomas Davis, a carpenter on the Whydah, to be brought in to give evidence on the pirates' behalf. The motion was rejected because Davis was also in prison for the same offense and his guilt or innocence had not yet been determined. (7) So the illiterate pirates were left to face the court alone. They all pleaded not guilty to the charges. They were given copies of the indictment and about two days to prepare for their trial. Weakened after months of confinement in a dark cell and a bread-and-water diet and compelled to stand during these proceedings, you can imagine how hard it was for any of the pirates to understand what the Advocate General was saying, much less what all of it meant. Mostly they understood that the entire proceedings were set heavily against them and they were in serious trouble.

During the trial, Peter declared in his defense that "He was taken by Capt. Bellamy in a vessel whereof John Cornelius was Master, That the said Bellamy's company Swore they would kill him unless he would joyn with them in their Unlawful Designs." (Trial, 306)

An interesting part of reading the trial transcript is that the prosecutor and witnesses have statements of one or more paragraphs, while the pirates' statements are sometimes only a sentence or two long. Obviously not much care was taken to record what each one actually said in his defense, an obvious bias by today's standards.

During their imprisonment, Blackbeard vowed to come to Boston to rescue them and actually did set out towards Boston from the West Indies. But before he had gone far, or had even left the harbor (depending on what source you read), he found out the authorities in Boston had blockaded the harbor with a man-of-war and several other ships. This represented way too much firepower for a pirate ship, so Blackbeard abandoned the rescue attempt. After the six pirates were hanged, he took out his vengeance on several ships from Boston, burning them to the waterline, cargo and all. One specific example was a ship called the Protestant Caesar, in the Bay of Honduras.

Although Peter’s trial was completed on 18 October, he and the other pirates were not hanged until 15 November 1717. All of them, except Thomas Davis, were found guilty of the crimes of piracy, robbery and felony on the High Seas. They were sentenced to be hanged until dead. Thomas Davis, a carpenter, was the only one whose plea of being a forced man was believed by the court. He was found not guilty.

In 1717 hanging was not like you see in Wild West movies where the noose is tied around the neck, a horse or wagon is kicked out from underneath the victim, his neck snaps from the force of the drop and, in a couple of minutes, he is dead. Hanging at this time was done by a method called the short drop. The noose was around the neck, but the body was only dropped a short distance, not enough to break the neck. What killed the person was the slow movement of the noose against the neck, causing a prolonged, torturous death by slow asphyxiation. The entire process took about fifteen to twenty minutes, during which time the body naturally struggled to breathe.

Hangings were a public event, attended by hordes of people, who jeered and taunted the victims. Even children were brought along to watch the victims choke to death. To get to the scaffold, the pirates walked through town to a canoe, where they were then rowed across to the mudflats at the Charlestown ferry landing to be hanged.

Cotton Mather accompanied them to the place of execution. Unfortunately, he did not record all of the conversations he had with the eight men during their several months of confinement. Aside from their interrogations before the trial, Mather only published his final conversations with them as they walked to the gallows. To add yet another unfortunate aspect to the lack of historical documents, he only wrote down these conversations after the hangings were concluded. He apparently was not accompanied by any sort of secretary or scribe to record the conversations as they happened. So their content must be seen through the filter of Mather's recollection.

He recorded his final conversation with Peter thusly:

CM: Hoof; A melted Heart would now be a comfortable Symptom upon thee. Do you find anything of it?

PH: Something of it; I wish it were more!

CM: To pursue the Good Intention, I will now give a Blow with an hammer, that breaks the Rocks to pieces. I will bring you the most Heart-melting Word, as ever was heard in the World. We find in the Sacred Scripture such a word as this; CHRIST, who is GOD, does beseech you, Be ye Reconciled unto GOD. That ever the Son of GOD should come to us, with such a Message from His Eternal Father! What? After we have so Offended His Infinite Majesty! After we have been so Vile, so Vile – and He stands in so little Need of us! To beseech such Criminals, to be Reconciled unto the Holy GOD, and be willing to be Happy in His Favour! O Wonderful! Wonderful! Methinks, it cannot be heard without flowing Tears of Joy!

PH: Ah! But what shall I do to be Reconciled unto GOD!

CM: Make an Answer, make an Echo, unto this Wonderful World of your SAVIOUR. And what can you make but this? – And for this also, you must have the Help of His Grace to make it; O my dear SAVIOUR, I beseech thee to Reconcile me unto GOD.

PH: Oh! That it might be so!

CM: A Reconciliation to GOD is the only thing that you have now to be concern’d about. If this be not accomplished before a few minutes more are Expired, you go into the Strange Punishment reserved for the Workers of Iniquity. You go, where He that made you, will not have Mercy on you; He that formed you, will shew you no favour. But it is not yet altogether Too Late. An Hearty Consent unto the Motions of the Reconciler, will prepare you to pass from an Ignominious Death, into [an] Inconceivable Glory.

PH: Oh! Let me hear them!

CM: First, You must Consent unto This; O my SAVIOUR, I fly to thy Sacrifice, I beg, I beg, that for the sake of That, thy Wrath may be turned away from me; I cannot bear to have thy Wrath Lying on me! Can you say so!

PH: I say it, I say it! CM: But then, you must Consent unto This also; O my SAVIOUR, I Cry unto thee, to take away all that is contrary to GOD in my Soul; and cause me to Love God with all my Soul; and Conquer my depraved Will; and bring to Right all that is Wrong in my Affections; and let my Will become entirely subject unto the Will of GOD in all things. Can you say so.

PH: I say it, I say it!

CM: lf it be heartily said, The Reconciliation is accomplished. But if you were to Live your Life over again, how would you Live it?

PH: Not as I have done!

CM: How then?

PH: In serving of GOD, and in doing of Good unto Men.

CM: God Accept you. Oh! That your SAVIOUR, might now say to you as He said in a Dying Hour, unto One, who died as a Thief, This Day thou shalt be with me in Paradise. I do with some Encouragement leave you in His Glorious Hands.

PH: O my dear JESUS! I lay hold on thee; and I resolve, never, never, to let thee go!

CM: May he help you to keep you hold, of the Hope set before you.

PH: My death this Afternoon is nothing 'tis nothing; 'Tis the wrath of a terrible GOD after Death abiding on me, which is all that I am afraid of.

CM: There is JESUS, who delivers from the Wrath to come; With Him I Leave you. (Mather, Instructions, 138-139)

On the scaffold, awaiting their hanging, Peter and Thomas Baker appeared “very distinguishingly Penitent.” (Mather, Instructions, 143) Nothing else is said about the appearance of the other pirates. John Brown gave a speech in “too much of the Language he had been used unto." (Mather, Instructions, 143)

No death certificate exists for Peter. Lacking burial records, modern researchers believe that after the pirates were hanged, their bodies were subsequently covered in tar and hung in gibbets near the harbor to rot and serve as a warning to sailors against becoming pirates. Absent other evidence, it would seem that this was the fate of the Whydah pirates.

Unfortunately, because of centuries of “wharfing-out,” the filling in and building up of land to extend the city farther into the harbor, it is no longer possible to walk the same ground that Peter did in 1717, as that ground simply no longer exists. The jail where he was held is long gone. The Old State House, where the trial was held, used to be almost at the harbor, but is now in the middle of downtown Boston (again because of the wharfing-out process). The building itself only vaguely resembles its original design. It has been re-purposed, restored, and re-built several times over the ensuing centuries. For example, the last time it was "re-worked," the architect installed a spiral staircase, which is not authentic to the building as the original design did not have one. Early in the 1900s the basement of the Old State House was excavated and turned into a subway stop now appropriately called the State station. It took public outcry to bring in legislation to prevent further commercialization of the building.  

While visiting Boston, I made a trip to Provincetown, on Cape Cod, to visit the Whydah Pirate Museum. There I was able to see even more artifacts of the wreck of the Whydah. I was able to touch more coins, some ballast stones, a cannon round, and a bar shot. And yes, I got the same energy drain that I experienced during the traveling Real Pirates exhibit. In fact, I almost fell over!

Through all of this, Peter has been a wonderful person to work with. He was a happy-go-lucky person before the pirates took him captive. He still has a wonderful sense of humor. He also has the manners of a gentleman, even though the class restrictions of his day prevented him from actually being one. This ability to walk in both worlds, the world of manners and the world of the pirates, allowed him to survive and function among the pirates. I hope that writing this article will help his soul to move forward as he hoped.

The lesson I wish for you to take away from this is that any one of us, even someone who considers himself or herself to be a nice person, as Peter did, can make a poor choice or a bad decision. In Peter’s case, his choices and decisions put him into a situation that he could not readily get out of. It can happen to anyone.

This article is provided by the Pirates and Privateers blog here.

If you have questions about Peter, you can contact Laura at PeterandLaura55@yahoo.com, or you can visit her blog via: PeterCorneliusHoof.blogspot.com.

Copyright 2013 by Laura Nelson.

Notes

1. Real Pirates tells the story of the Whydah and how she went from being a slave ship to a pirate ship. It’s a traveling exhibition sponsored by National Geographic with artifacts from the Whydah Pirate Museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts and established by Barry Clifford, the underwater explorer who discovered the wreck of the Whydah off Cape Cod.

2. Peter Hoof is not the lover that is mentioned here. That person’s name is Andre.

3. A periaga, more commonly spelled piragua or pirogue, was a canoe favored by Caribbean pirates during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Both Alexandre Exquemelin and William Dampier described them in their books. Benerson Little provides more details on these favored boats in A Sea Rover’s Practice on pages 49-52.

4. Appointed chief physician to the Haslar Naval Hospital in 1797, Thomas Trotter observed young patients who were despondent. “He attributed this to the horror of the patients whose next bed neighbor might be a seaman hospitalized because of brutal lacerations and festering sores at the draining sites of whiplash wounds on his back and buttocks.” (Friedenberg, 31) The United States Navy abolished flogging in 1840.

5. Nowadays we call this phenomenon the Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages or captives identify with their captors and perhaps even to defend them. The name derives from a 1973 hostage incident in Stockholm, Sweden. At the end of six days of captivity in a bank, several kidnap victims actually resisted rescue attempts and afterwards refused to testify against their captors. The behavior is considered a common survival strategy for victims of interpersonal abuse. Two of the most famous examples are Patty Hearst and, more recently, Elizabeth Smart. See "Understanding Stockholm Syndrome" by Nathalie de Fabrique, Stephen J. Romano, Gregory M. Vecchi, and Vincent B. Van Hasselt in the July 2007 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, US Dept. of Justice, FBI, 76:7, 10-15.

6. Eastham is on Cape Cod.

7. Davis was tried separately and found not guilty.

Further information

Burgess, Robert F. Finding Sunken Treasure: True Story of the Pirate Ship Whydah. Spyglass Publications, 2012.

Clifford, Barry. Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World's First Excavation of a Pirate Treasure Ship and the Man Who Found Her. Cliff Street Books, 1999.

Clifford, Barry, and Kenneth J. Kinkor. Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. National Geographic, 2007.

Cordingly, David. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Random House, 2006.

Dana, Richard Henry. Two Years Before the Mast. Penguin Books, 1840.

Dethlefsen, Edwin. Whidah: Cape Cod's Mystery Treasure Ship. Seafarer's Heritage Library, 1984. Friedenberg, Zachary B. Medicine under Sail. Naval Institute Press, 2002.

Lee, Robert E. Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times. John F. Blair, 1974. Mather, Cotton. "Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead" in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 4: 129-144.

Mather, Cotton. “Warnings to Them that Make Haste to be Rich, in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 4: 145-153.

The Pirate’s Pocket-Book edited by Stuart Robertson. Conway, 2008.

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Beacon Press, 2005. Reynard, Elizabeth. "The ‘Pyrats’ and the Posse," in The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod. Chatham Historical Society, 1993.

"The Trials of Eight Persons lndited for Piracy" in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 2: 289-319. Vallar, Cindy.

 "Cotton Mather, Preacher to the Pirates" at Pirates & Privateers [http://www.cindyvallar.com/mather.html], 2009.

Vanderbilt, Arthur T. Treasure Wreck: The Fortunes and Fate of the Pirate Ship Whydah. Schiffler Publishing, 2007.

Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Harcourt, 2007.

Special thanks to Bonnie Cormier of the Eastham Historical Society and Jessy Wheeler of the Boston Public Library for research help. Also to Cefton Springer for the stories of the use of the cat-o'-nine-tails in Barbados (his home country).

Thomas Jefferson – The President who re-wrote the Gospels

Thomas Jefferson is today known as one of America’s greater presidents. So much so that both Democrats and Republicans claim him as their own. But he also undertook another remarkable feat – he re-wrote the Gospels to make them less miraculous. William Bodkin explains.

Few people in American history have been picked over as much as Thomas Jefferson. Of the Founding Fathers, he is considered second only to George Washington, and of the presidents, only Abraham Lincoln may have had more written about him. This is all with good reason. Jefferson, alongside John Adams, formed the original American frenemies; together they forged the creative relationship that gave birth to the United States. Their influence, and conflicts, remain to this day. The United States runs for political office in the language of Jefferson, that of personal freedom and self-determination, but governs in the language of Adams, that of a technocratic elite managing a strong central government.

A portrait of Thomas Jefferson. Circa 1791.

In my last post, I considered John Adams’ Declaration of Independence, the May 15, 1776 resolution he believed to be the real Declaration, consigning Jefferson’s to a mere ceremonial afterthought.[1] Adams, eyes firmly locked on posterity, seemed to compete for immortality with Jefferson. However, despite recent efforts to rehabilitate the image of the second president, Adams, who knew he had made himself obnoxious to his colleagues[2], has largely lost this battle.

Jefferson, by contrast, is beloved as the genius Founding Father whom everyone claims as their own.  The Democrats revere him for founding their party, one of the oldest in the world. The Republicans, and the tea party movement in particular, love to quote his language of personal freedom and revolution, like invoking his statement that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”[3] All agree that his “ceremonial afterthought” should be celebrated for all time.

And yet, though he has won history’s affections, there’s an excellent chance Jefferson would be irritated by being worshiped or followed today.  After all, Jefferson had “sworn eternal hostility” against “any form of tyranny over the mind of man,”[4] believing that one generation of humanity could not bind another with its ideas, or even its laws. Jefferson said that it was “self-evident” that “the earth belongs to the living.”[5] Indeed, were he alive today, he would probably encourage us to discard things such as the “original intent” of the Founding Fathers much in the same way he discarded the work of the Evangelists who wrote the Christian Gospels.

REWRITING THE GOSPELS

Jefferson was not known for his devotion to religion. Abigail Adams wrote, after Jefferson had defeated her husband John Adams for the presidency, that the young nation had “chosen as our chief Magistrate a man who makes no pretensions to the belief of an all wise and supreme Governor of the World.” Mrs. Adams did not think Jefferson was an atheist. Rather, Jefferson believed religion to only be as “useful as it may be made a political Engine” and that its rituals were a mere charade. Mrs. Adams concluded that Jefferson was “not a believer in the Christian system.”[6]

Jefferson, who always professed a high regard for the teachings of Jesus, found the Gospels to be “defective as a whole,” with Jesus’ teachings “mutilated, misstated, and often unintelligible.”[7] Jefferson seemed most offended by the accounts of miracles. The Gospels could be improved, he concluded, by removing the magical thinking - that is, anything that could not be explained by human reason.

Following his presidency, Jefferson reconciled with John Adams once Adams had recovered from the bitter sting of presidential defeat. Jefferson confided in his old friend about the project he had undertaken to rewrite the Gospels. Jefferson wrote to Adams that “by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book,” he was able to separate out “the matter which is evidently his (Jesus’),” which Jefferson found to be “as distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill.”[8] Adams responded favorably to Jefferson’s project, commenting “if I had eyes and nerves I would go through both Testaments and mark all that I understand.”[9]

Jefferson, though, was not finished. He believed the effort he described to Adams was “too hastily done”.  It had been “the work of one or two evenings only, while I lived in Washington.”[10] Think, for a moment, how astounding that is. Jefferson’s first effort at reworking the Gospels came while he “lived in Washington,” meaning while he was president. So for fun, after steering the American ship of state, he rewrote the Gospels.

A NEW WAY OF THINKING

While working on his second Gospel revision, Jefferson described his complete disdain for the Evangelists. He found their work to be underpinned by “a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications.” Yet he still believed that “intermixed with these” were “sublime ideas of the Supreme Being”, “aphorisms and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence,” that had been “sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors.” All had been expressed, by Jesus, “with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed.” Jefferson could not accept that Jesus’ purest teachings were the “inventions of the groveling authors who relate them.” Those teachings were “far beyond the powers of their feeble minds.” Yes, the Evangelists had shown that there was a character named Jesus, but his “splendid conceptions” could not be considered “interpolations from their hands.” To Jefferson, the task was clear once more. He would “undertake to winnow this grain from its chaff.”  It would not “require a moment's consideration”, as the difference “is obvious to the eye and to the understanding.”[11]

At the end of this process, Jefferson, in his seventy-sixth year, had completed his Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, extracted from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French & English, an account of the life of Jesus, bereft of any mention of the miraculous. No wedding feast at Cana, no resurrection of Lazarus, and ending with the disciples laying Jesus in the tomb, rolling a great stone to the door, and then departing.

Jefferson’s rewriting of the Gospels is a perfect distillation of his belief that each generation could take and shape the meaning of the Gospels, or really, anything, for their own purposes. Jefferson took these beliefs to his gravestone. Prior to his death, he chose to list there, of all his accomplishments, his three great contributions to the freedom of thought: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence and the Virginia Statutes on Religious Freedom; Father of the University of Virginia.” Jefferson hoped, perhaps, to inspire successive generations not to follow his words, but rather, to live by his example, and cast off the intellectual bonds of the past in order to create a new way of thinking.

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[1] See, Ellis, Joseph, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence, Chapter 1 , “Prudence Dictates.” (Knopf 2013).

[2] Id.

[3] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Novmeber 13, 1787.

[4] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.

[5] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, September 6, 1789

[6] Letter of Abigail Adams to Mary Cranch (her sister) dated February 7, 1801.

[7] Jefferson, Thomas. “Syllabus of an estimate of the merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, compared with those of others.” College of William and Mary, Digital Archive (https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/15130).

[8]Letter of Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, October 13, 1813.

[9] Letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, November 14, 1813.

[10] Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Rev. F.A. van der Kemp, May 25, 1816.

[11] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to William Short, August 4, 1820.

The 3 most bizarre Tanks ever

Tanks have been integral to armies since World War One. But over the years a number of prototype designs have been made that never quite worked. Here, Adrian Burrows tells us about the most bizarre tank designs…

Since the Great War the mighty tank has formed the mainstay of any skilled (or unskilled) military commander’s army. The tank started its military career from fairly inauspicious beginnings.  Originally called ‘Landships’ - this name didn’t stick as military bods were concerned that such an overly descriptive title might give away what their secret weapon was to the enemy, so the name ‘tank’ was instead adopted - the tank really hasn’t changed a great deal in its design or function since its first use in battle. Yes, advances in technology have rendered a modern tank a distant relative to the first tank prototype (fondly named as ‘Little Willie’ by the British Military) but it still remains a relative nonetheless.

The classic image of a tank is of a hulking and box like central chassis, the twin caterpillar tracks either side in order to propel its vast form forward over any and all terrain, and a rotating turret to provide a 360 degree field of fire. Perhaps the core tenants of tank design haven’t changed because the initial concept was just so effective. Why try to fix what isn’t broken? Well, that didn’t stop people from trying. Allow me to present to you the top three weirdest tank prototypes of all time.

3. The Russian Tsar Tank

Caterpillar tracks are brilliantly effective at moving big heavy tanks across difficult terrain. Indeed, they were initially designed in order to allow tanks to climb up and over the trench-laden terrain of the Western Front. Yet, as thought by the Russian boffins Nikolai Lebedenko, Nikolai Zhukovsky, Boris Stechkin and Alexander Mikulin, if caterpillar tracks are great then surely two giant bicycle wheels would be awesome.

That was the primary design decision behind the Russian Tsar Tank - and what a sight it must have been. Each giant spoked wheel attached to the central hub of the chassis was a massive 27 feet in diameter, the idea being that such a vast wheel would be able to plough through any obstacles in its path (and the two 250 horse power Sunbeam engines would certainly help with that). The tank was ready for war armed with a giant 8-meter high cannon turret and plans for further cannons to be attached to the tank’s frame. The central casing itself was a massive 12 meters wide with thick armor to protect the soldiers inside. So far so good? Why on earth didn’t the Russian Tsar Tank take off?

Its Achilles heel turned out to be the small stabilizing wheel at the rear of the tank (giving it its tricycle appearance). During the first test run through a field the stabilizing wheel became firmly entrenched in a patch of mud. The entire mighty form of the Tsar Tank became rooted to the spot, making it a major target that resembled a giant penny-farthing. After the abysmal test run the tank never saw active service and remained stuck exactly where it was until the end of the war.

2. Ball Tank

Texan Inventor AJ Richardson had a noble goal, how best to ensure men could quickly and safely cover the distance of a mud and crater strewn No Man’s Land in order to close in on an enemy position? The answer he came up with? A giant metal ball. This mighty metal ball of death could not only protect the troops within it, but being spherical it could also outmaneuver anything else on the battlefield. The project was never developed due to one small problem that scientists at the time could not overcome… there was no way that the troops within could see outside of the tank. In theory though, it would have been amazing.

1. Antonov A-40 Krylya Tanka (Tank Wings)

Tanks are big and powerful but slow and cumbersome. If somehow their maneuverability could be increased then surely nothing could stand in their path as they rapidly out flanked the enemy’s position. The logical conclusion to this quandary? Invent a tank that can fly.

And that’s exactly what Oleg Antonov set about doing in 1942. A T-60 Light Tank (light being 5.8 tons) went on a crash diet under Antonov’s watchful eye by removing the vehicle’s armor, weaponry and headlights. The T-60 was also provided with a limited amount of fuel in order to decrease its total weight yet further. What was the next step? Attach some wings to the tank of course. Yes, they were literally stuck to the side of the tank, transforming it into the world’s most unlikely glider. The final step was to utilize a Tupolev TB-3 plane to lift the tank gently in to the air; once the plane had reached a sufficient height and speed, the prototype could be released, allowing it to glide majestically into battle.

Did it work? I would love to say yes, but no, no it didn’t.

Remarkably no one died in the experiment. The TB-3 had to ditch the tank in mid-flight due to the massive drag it caused, but apparently the T-60 did glide back down to earth before being driven back to base. This initial set back didn’t put off the Soviet Union. Over the next twenty years the country was able to develop the necessary techniques and equipment to para-drop BMD-1 vehicles with its crew on board.

So, that’s my top 3 most bizarre tank prototypes of all time. Tanks with bicycle wheels, ball tanks, tanks that can fly… the weird and the wonderful. Perhaps your list would differ? If so I would love to read your top 3. There’s plenty to consider after all. Those that just missed out on a place in my top three include the Russian Screw Drive Tank that couldn’t go in a straight line and the British Praying Mantis Tank intended to shoot over obstacles. Both fine ideas ruined by issues of common sense. But then that’s what makes them so brilliantly barmy. Until next time!

Adrian Burrows works at Wicked Workshops, an organization that prepares great history workshops. Find out more about a World War One related workshop here.

Do you know a weird and wonderful tank? If so, let us know below...

What really happened in the Wild West? The Gunslinger Myth

The Wild West of nineteenth century America was at times a chaotic and unruly place, not helped by the lack of law enforcement officials. Even so, many myths have arisen about the period. Here, Robert Walsh debunks the myths and shares what really happened.

The Wild West was the home of many colorful (often disreputable) characters. Native Americans, gold prospectors, gamblers, cattle ranchers, miners and immigrants scrambled to extend the new frontier. They spread further West in search of their fortunes. With law-abiding, hard-working citizens came criminals. The most notorious were gunslingers, hired guns who would rob a bank one month, protect a cattle baron the next and then be hired as a town marshal the month after that. Being a gunslinger didn’t automatically make a man a criminal; some of the best known were both law enforcers and lawbreakers at different times.

A stylized version of a Wild West gunfight.

Gunslingers in popular culture

The popular image of gunslingers comes from cheap novels and films and it is far more fiction than fact. Hollywood would have us believe that hired guns were either all good (like Gary Cooper’s portrayal in the classic film ‘High Noon’) or all bad (like Michael Biehn’s portrayal of Johnny Ringo in ‘Tombstone’). This black-and-white idea doesn’t reflect reality. Pop culture’s image is often a slow-talking, fast-drawing lone gunman riding into town, taking on several men at once while wearing one or two pistols in low-slung hip holsters and, naturally, letting them draw first before instantly killing all of them. He’ll probably indulge in a drawn-out, climactic gunfight, standing opposite his opponent in the middle of a street for several minutes, each waiting for the other to make the first move. The ‘good guy’ lets the ‘bad guy’ draw first but still wins, naturally.

This portrayal is, frankly, grossly inaccurate. Gunslingers weren’t even called gunslingers during the ‘Wild West’ period. They didn’t wear the standard ‘gunfighter’s rig’ of a low-slung hip holster tied to their thigh for a faster draw. Many didn’t favor the pistol as their primary weapon. Drawn-out standoffs were almost non-existent, as were single gunslingers choosing to fight multiple opponents single-handed unless they absolutely had to. Few made public show of their skills with trick shooting or fancy pistol twirling in saloons or on street corners (notable exceptions were ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok and the infamous John Wesley Hardin). They were seldom always lawmen or outlaws and frequently both at different points in their careers (some even managed to hold public office as sheriffs or marshals while operating as vigilantes, assassins, extortioners and general criminals). Pop culture’s version of the gunslinger hasn’t made them more interesting; it has dumbed down who these men were, what they did and how they did it while ignoring the more complex aspects.

‘Shootists’ – The reality

According to etymologist Barry Popik the word ‘gunslinger’ didn’t come into use until the 1920 movie ‘Drag Harlan’ and then in the novels of famed Western author Zane Grey who first used it in his 1928 novel ‘Nevada’. The word ‘gunfighter’ first appeared in the 1870s. Wild West gunmen were more commonly known as ‘shootists’, ‘badmen’, ‘pistoleers’ or ‘pistoleros’ (a Spanish word for ‘gunman’). Granted, the word ‘gunslinger’ sounds good, but it first appeared long after gunslingers themselves ceased to exist. Feared gunman Clay Allison is believed to have coined the most popular term of the period when asked about his occupation by replying “I’m a shootist.”

Pop culture would also have us believe that gunmen wore customized gunbelts and holsters, the standard ‘gunfighter’s rig’. They didn’t. The stereotypical ‘gunfighter’s rig’ beloved of movie directors the world over didn’t exist during the period. It came into being in the 1950s when ‘quick draw’ contests with blank-firing revolvers became a competitive sport. The low-slung holster tied down to a man’s thigh simply didn’t exist.

Also almost non-existent was the idea of two fighters walking out into a street, facing each other and then fighting a ‘quick draw’ duel. If a real gunfighter drew quickly it was usually because an opponent had tried to ambush him. Most one-on-one gunfights resulted from personal disputes such as over women or during card games where insults were exchanged and guns drawn immediately. The idea of Wild West gunfights having any resemblance to European dueling is best left in dime novels and movie theaters where it belongs. Only two such face-to-face duels are on record as having actually happened, between ‘Wild Bill’ and Davis Tutt (Hickok killed Tutt with a remarkable single pistol shot at a range of over fifty meters) and between Jim Courtright and Luke Short (Short killed Courtright with a volley of four bullets, not a surgically-delivered single shot). Gunfights like those in the ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ directed by Sergio Leone are wonderful viewing, but bear almost no relation to reality.

Gunfighters of the time were also far more sensible than to tackle multiple opponents single-handed unless they absolutely had to. One extremely rare example was the notorious ‘Four dead in five seconds’ gunfight in Austin, Texas. Gunfighter Dallas Stoudenmire (employed as town marshal at the time) used his two pistols to kill four men, three of whom had ambushed him. Unfortunately the fourth was an innocent bystander already running for cover when the shooting started.

Tools of the trade

Another myth is that gunfighters all preferred revolvers. In films they draw one or two pistols, empty them without seeming to aim and, naturally, kill every opponent without missing or accidentally shooting anybody else. Any pistol marksman will tell you that holding a revolver with one hand and fanning the hammer with the other is the worst way to shoot accurately. In reality, most gunmen favored the ‘coach gun’ (a short-barreled shotgun used by stagecoach guards, hence the phrase ‘riding shotgun’) or rifles like the 1873 Winchester. Legendary gunman Ben Thompson was a firm devotee of the shotgun, as was John ‘Doc’ Holliday’ of OK Corral fame. Billy the Kid always preferred a Winchester rifle. The reason was simple. Shotguns and rifles are more accurate than pistols so killing with the first shot was more likely. It was pointless drawing a pistol quickly if you couldn’t hit your target before they hit you. As Wyatt Earp once put it: “Fast is fine. Accurate is final.”

Some gunfighters bucked that trend. Clay Allison, Dallas Stoudenmire and Frank and Jesse James all preferred pistols, but they were exceptions. Small pistols like the Derringer were tiny, often firing only one or two shots instead of the six rounds in a typical revolver. They were easily concealed ‘hideout guns’ often hidden in waistcoat pocket or by gamblers for use at a poker table. Similar guns were made for women and nicknamed ‘muff pistols’ because they were often carried in the fur-lined hand-warmers fashionable among women of the time. Whether picking a fight over a poker game or trying to rob a female stagecoach passenger, these small guns often fired large-caliber bullets, much to the distress of many an outlaw.

As time went on single-shot, muzzle-loading weapons were replaced by ‘repeating’ guns like the revolver, shotgun and breech-loading rifles such as the 1873 Winchester. Gunfighters now had weapons enabling them to deliver greater firepower with less time spent reloading their weapons. Samuel Colt’s ‘Peacemaker’ revolver was accurate, powerful and instantly outdated other revolvers by being the first to use all-inclusive metal cartridges. The new cartridges rendered old-school ‘cap and ball’ revolvers obsolete almost overnight. These require the user to fill each individual chamber with gunpowder, add a lead pistol ball and some wadding, ram the ball, powder and wadding into each chamber using a lever under the barrel and then fit a percussion cap over each chamber. Only then is a ‘cap and ball’ revolver fully loaded. The ‘Peacemaker’ could be reloaded simply by shaking out the spent metal cartridges and replacing them. Improved weapons meant increased firepower. Increased firepower was essential in the evolution of the gunslinger.

‘Wild Bill’ Hickok, the first legendary gunslinger, in the 1870s.

Rise of the hired gun

So what created the gunslinger? Why was there a need for hired guns rather than the police forces we know today? In a word, necessity. Law enforcement was at best basic. Individual US marshals could find their territory extended over hundreds of square miles. County sheriffs had the same problem. There was simply too much ground containing too many people for such limited law enforcement to deal with. Outlaws could easily evade even the most persistent marshals and sheriffs simply by crossing State lines, putting themselves beyond the legal jurisdiction of their pursuers. The court system on the frontier consisted largely of ‘Circuit Judges’ (a term still used today). Individual judges were allotted a ‘circuit’ of towns and rode round and round conducting trials and any other legal business that had amassed since their last visit. Jails were insecure and their staff often corrupt, so even when criminals were arrested they often easily escaped. Authorities could also offer rewards for wanted outlaws on a ‘dead or alive’ basis, encouraging many gunslingers to work as bounty hunters. With rewards offered ‘dead or alive’ many bounty hunters found it safer to simply kill wanted outlaws, deliver their bodies and collect their reward. It was safer than the additional risks associated with delivering live outlaws into custody for the same amount of money. Bounty hunters of the time were sometimes referred to as ‘bounty killers’ because, to them, fugitives were worth the same alive or dead.

The gunfighter - Hero or villain?

With the vastly inadequate official systems available, many towns hired their own sheriffs and marshals. Naturally, the job required men who were expert with guns and bold enough to fight when necessary. Not every expert marksman was also prepared to face ruthless criminals for a sheriff’s wage. So townsfolk often turned to whoever was prepared to do the job, often hiring gunfighters based on their fearsome reputation rather than their regard for the law. Notorious outlaws ‘Curly Bill’ Brocius (later killed by Wyatt Earp) and William Bonney (known as ‘Billy the Kid’) were also sheriff’s deputies at one time. Even the infamous John ‘Doc’ Holliday, one of the most feared gunmen of the Wild West, was deputized by his long-time friend and Deputy US Marshal Wyatt Earp after the famed ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ in Tombstone, Arizona. Equally notorious killer Ben Thompson became Chief of Police in Austin, Texas, despite having previously served a sentence for murder.

Businessmen also hired groups of gunslingers to protect their lives and their interests. Famed cattle baron John Chisum once employed ‘Billy the Kid’ as a gunman to protect his livestock against cattle rustlers. Mining companies often employed notorious gunmen such as Butch Cassidy to escort shipments of newly minted bullion and payrolls, ensuring their safe arrival by hiring gunmen who might otherwise try robbing those very shipments. In the absence of adequate official law enforcement many people sought their own version by employing as sheriffs and marshals exactly the kind of people they hoped to be protected from. Famed marksman Tom Horn (later hanged for murder) was a sheriff’s deputy and a Pinkerton detective while performing contract murders at the same time. Jim Courtright was a town marshal when he fought his famous duel with Luke Short. Being town marshal hadn’t stopped Courtright from trying to extort Short. It didn’t stop Courtright killing him, either. Wyatt Earp was heavily involved in gambling (and, some say, pimping) while also serving as a Deputy US Marshal.

Men of dubious reputations weren’t everybody’s first choice as law enforcers, but then they were often the only men available to do the job. The frontier territories, with their cattle ranches, mining towns, railroads and various other lucrative businesses and limited law enforcement, offered rich pickings for outlaws prepared to rob, extort and kill anybody opposing them. Law-abiding citizens had to hire their own gunmen and sometimes resort to vigilante justice through lynch mobs. Until the law was fully established the gun took precedence.

One last thought on the gunslinger myth is that pop culture isn’t entirely to blame. To develop and keep their credibility gunmen had to be regarded as people to both respect and fear. The more feared they were, the fewer challenges they were likely to face. With that in mind, many gunfighters built myths around themselves and made themselves seem as skilled (and therefore deadly) as they could get away with. John Wesley Hardin was a notorious braggart. Clay Allison was the same. If gunfighters are so badly misrepresented in the modern world then they are also to blame.

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References

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/gunslinger_or_gun_slinger/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHt6i5Wi02s

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-outlaws.html

http://www.historynet.com/wild-west-outlaws-and-lawmen

http://www.elpasotimes.com/125/ci_3767809

http://www.historynet.com/dalton-gang

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-BatMasterson5.html

Image sources

http://www.modernmythmuseum.com/m%20saga%203%2055%20holliday.html

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickok#mediaviewer/File:Wild_Bill.jpg