Missouri was significant state during Civil War
Springfield, MO. - As most Civil War scholars and historians agree, Missouri was third in line behind Virginia and Tennessee in the number of military actions that took place within its boundaries. Missouri sent more men to war, in proportion to its population, than any other state.
The total number of Missouri volunteers who served both for the North and the South was 199,111. Why was Missouri so important? Control of the Mississippi River. We are now nearing a four-year national celebration of the sesquicentennial (150 years) of the U.S. Civil War which will start in 2011 and end in 2015.
I can remember very well the centennial celebration we observed in 1961-1965 and the U.S. Department of the Interior dedication of Wilson's Creek when it became a national battlefield park. During this same period, Pea Ridge, Ark., also earned a national battlefield designation and Prairie Grove became an Arkansas state park.
As Ozarkers, we are very fortunate to have two national parks, several national and state historic sites (Carthage and Newtonia) within our geographic boundaries dedicated to the Civil War in southwest Missouri. In other areas of the state, we have state parks dedicated to the battles that occurred at Athens, Lexington and Fort Davidson or Pilot Knob.
The total number of Missouri volunteers who served both for the North and the South was 199,111. Why was Missouri so important? Control of the Mississippi River. We are now nearing a four-year national celebration of the sesquicentennial (150 years) of the U.S. Civil War which will start in 2011 and end in 2015.
I can remember very well the centennial celebration we observed in 1961-1965 and the U.S. Department of the Interior dedication of Wilson's Creek when it became a national battlefield park. During this same period, Pea Ridge, Ark., also earned a national battlefield designation and Prairie Grove became an Arkansas state park.
As Ozarkers, we are very fortunate to have two national parks, several national and state historic sites (Carthage and Newtonia) within our geographic boundaries dedicated to the Civil War in southwest Missouri. In other areas of the state, we have state parks dedicated to the battles that occurred at Athens, Lexington and Fort Davidson or Pilot Knob.
Posted on Nov 08 2007 by Notch
Wanted: Jesse James
"Americans," noted Oscar Wilde while passing near Jesse James's hometown on an 1882 lecture tour, "are certainly great hero-worshippers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes." Wilde wasn't wrong, but the truth is not so simple. It would be more accurate to say that when faced with a criminal they regard as a hero, many Americans simply choose to disregard his criminality.
Based on Ron Hansen's great 1983 novel, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," Andrew Dominik's brilliant, brooding film, which opens Friday, more closely resembles in mood and tone such classics as "Bonnie and Clyde" and "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" than traditional Westerns. This is altogether appropriate, since Jesse James had little in common with a classic frontier shooter like Billy the Kid, aside from their having died less than a year apart. As T.J. Stiles points out in his 2002 biography, " Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War," "Jesse himself looks South, not West; he, his brother, and his bandit colleagues were proud products of the Confederate war effort." The Confederate cause was their rationalization for an unbroken series of bank and train robberies for the next 17 years as far south as Alabama and as far east as Virginia.
Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Mo., in 1847 in what Mr. Stiles calls "the most hotly ideological era in American history," and in the border state destined to be the site of the most vicious internecine fighting of the Civil War. One does not have to sympathize with either James or his Confederate sentiments to agree with his apologists that the boy was fated at birth to be a killer. "It was," writes Ted P. Yeatman, author of the popular dual biography, " Frank and Jesse James" (2000), "sort of like growing up in some parts of Iraq today."
Jesse's older, brother, Frank, rode with the infamous guerilla leader William Clark Quantrill, a man who, as revealed in Paul I. Wellman's "A Destiny of Western Outlaws," spawned an amazing lineage of crime that extended to the James associates the Younger brothers, later to the Dalton brothers (said by some to related by blood to both the Jameses and Youngers), and all the way to hitmen for the Kansas City branch of the Capone mob in the 1930s.
Jesse James was not, as Terrence Rafferty wrote in the September 16 New York Times, "in his short lifetime the most celebrated outlaw in the United States." There's no evidence that before his death he was more famous than either his brother Frank (with whom he shared space on the wanted posters) or his fellow gang member, Cole Younger. It was his assassination by gang member Robert Ford (paid by Missouri governor Thomas Crittenden, played knowingly by James Carville in Mr. Dominik's film), that propelled Jesse to the forefront of American outlaws.
Nor is there any evidence that Jesse was the Robin Hood that the dime novelists and, later, Hollywood scriptwriters portrayed him as. His expressed idol was the Scottish rebel and forest outlaw " Sir William Wallace," as he revealed in a letter to the Kansas City Times in 1872. In the words of Mr. Stiles, though, "From a modern perspective, he resembles Osama bin Laden more than either Robin Hood or Wallace."
Based on Ron Hansen's great 1983 novel, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," Andrew Dominik's brilliant, brooding film, which opens Friday, more closely resembles in mood and tone such classics as "Bonnie and Clyde" and "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" than traditional Westerns. This is altogether appropriate, since Jesse James had little in common with a classic frontier shooter like Billy the Kid, aside from their having died less than a year apart. As T.J. Stiles points out in his 2002 biography, " Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War," "Jesse himself looks South, not West; he, his brother, and his bandit colleagues were proud products of the Confederate war effort." The Confederate cause was their rationalization for an unbroken series of bank and train robberies for the next 17 years as far south as Alabama and as far east as Virginia.
Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Mo., in 1847 in what Mr. Stiles calls "the most hotly ideological era in American history," and in the border state destined to be the site of the most vicious internecine fighting of the Civil War. One does not have to sympathize with either James or his Confederate sentiments to agree with his apologists that the boy was fated at birth to be a killer. "It was," writes Ted P. Yeatman, author of the popular dual biography, " Frank and Jesse James" (2000), "sort of like growing up in some parts of Iraq today."
Jesse's older, brother, Frank, rode with the infamous guerilla leader William Clark Quantrill, a man who, as revealed in Paul I. Wellman's "A Destiny of Western Outlaws," spawned an amazing lineage of crime that extended to the James associates the Younger brothers, later to the Dalton brothers (said by some to related by blood to both the Jameses and Youngers), and all the way to hitmen for the Kansas City branch of the Capone mob in the 1930s.
Jesse James was not, as Terrence Rafferty wrote in the September 16 New York Times, "in his short lifetime the most celebrated outlaw in the United States." There's no evidence that before his death he was more famous than either his brother Frank (with whom he shared space on the wanted posters) or his fellow gang member, Cole Younger. It was his assassination by gang member Robert Ford (paid by Missouri governor Thomas Crittenden, played knowingly by James Carville in Mr. Dominik's film), that propelled Jesse to the forefront of American outlaws.
Nor is there any evidence that Jesse was the Robin Hood that the dime novelists and, later, Hollywood scriptwriters portrayed him as. His expressed idol was the Scottish rebel and forest outlaw " Sir William Wallace," as he revealed in a letter to the Kansas City Times in 1872. In the words of Mr. Stiles, though, "From a modern perspective, he resembles Osama bin Laden more than either Robin Hood or Wallace."
Posted on Sep 21 2007 by Notch
Feeding operations would hurt nearby tourism
There are applications on file with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to construct concentrated animal feeding operations near Athens Historic Site and Roaring River and Arrow Rock state parks.
Arrow Rock State Park is just north of Interstate 70, a few miles west of Boonville. People come to visit Arrow Rock because of its historic nature, they don’t come to smell hog manure. But, there is a proposal to construct a 4,800-hog facility only two miles from the park.
The centerpiece of Roaring River State Park, in Barry County, is a boiling spring that provides clear, cold water to state-owned trout hatcheries, trout rearing ponds, and a series of trout pools open to anglers.
The area around the park is composed of sinkholes, caves and springs. Surface water quickly becomes ground water.
If the spring becomes contaminated with chicken manure, there go the trout, and there goes the trout fishing area. With the demise or decline of trout fishing, there will be fewer anglers, and the local economy, motels and convenience stores will suffer.
Arrow Rock State Park is just north of Interstate 70, a few miles west of Boonville. People come to visit Arrow Rock because of its historic nature, they don’t come to smell hog manure. But, there is a proposal to construct a 4,800-hog facility only two miles from the park.
The centerpiece of Roaring River State Park, in Barry County, is a boiling spring that provides clear, cold water to state-owned trout hatcheries, trout rearing ponds, and a series of trout pools open to anglers.
The area around the park is composed of sinkholes, caves and springs. Surface water quickly becomes ground water.
If the spring becomes contaminated with chicken manure, there go the trout, and there goes the trout fishing area. With the demise or decline of trout fishing, there will be fewer anglers, and the local economy, motels and convenience stores will suffer.
Posted on Mar 14 2007 by Notch
Why the Civil War Still Matters
Much has changed within the historical profession and in race relations, but as we approach the Civil War sesquicentennial celebrations beginning in 2011 there is reason to be concerned.
While academic and National Park Service historians have worked tirelessly over the past four decades to revise our understanding of the Civil War by emphasizing the importance of slavery, race, and emancipation as central themes of the war, the general public continues to hold onto a sanitized, white-only interpretation.
From this perspective little has changed since the turn of the last century when reconciliation elevated Civil War soldiers and the war in general to a status that called for reverence and little critical questioning. Just think how surprised Americans were at the release of the movie Glory in 1989, which starred Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman and recalled the history of the 54th Massachusetts.
I dare say that Americans love to remember their past when they can set the terms of the inquiry.
We prefer a heroic past that is continually progressive and exceptional compared to the rest of the world. Just reflect for a moment on the way we think about our Civil War compared with news of civil wars from around the world. For most people the news of foreign civil wars conjures up images of confusion, sadness, corruption, uncertainty, and violence.
While academic and National Park Service historians have worked tirelessly over the past four decades to revise our understanding of the Civil War by emphasizing the importance of slavery, race, and emancipation as central themes of the war, the general public continues to hold onto a sanitized, white-only interpretation.
From this perspective little has changed since the turn of the last century when reconciliation elevated Civil War soldiers and the war in general to a status that called for reverence and little critical questioning. Just think how surprised Americans were at the release of the movie Glory in 1989, which starred Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman and recalled the history of the 54th Massachusetts.
I dare say that Americans love to remember their past when they can set the terms of the inquiry.
We prefer a heroic past that is continually progressive and exceptional compared to the rest of the world. Just reflect for a moment on the way we think about our Civil War compared with news of civil wars from around the world. For most people the news of foreign civil wars conjures up images of confusion, sadness, corruption, uncertainty, and violence.
Posted on Mar 12 2007 by Notch
Congress and the War: Now and Then
Rep. Peter King won plaudits from the White House recently for defending President Bush's conduct of the Iraq war against Democratic critics in the House. But the New York Republican bombed out when he claimed that "never before in our history has Congress attempted to control or restrict strategic battlefield decisions."
"It's the first time (Bush) has had a review of his policy, rather than a rubber stamp," Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said during the House debate on a resolution voicing opposition to the president's conduct of the war. But it was not the first time that Congress has sought to superimpose its will on how to fight a war on a commander in chief.
"It is very hard to change war policy from Capitol Hill," Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said before the House voted. It is hard, as Obey reflected. Yet, over the years, the power of Congress to check presidential actions in wartime have waxed and waned.
Although the Constitution reserves to the Congress the sole power to declare war, the lawmakers have not done so since the United States entered World War II in 1941. During World War II, they rarely interfered with the conduct of war. During the Korean War, there was hot talk on Capitol Hill of impeaching President Harry Truman for having sacked Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. However, a Senate investigation of his removal, chaired by Richard Russell (D-Ga.), led to a cooling of the public mood, dashing MacArthur's presidential hopes.
"It's the first time (Bush) has had a review of his policy, rather than a rubber stamp," Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said during the House debate on a resolution voicing opposition to the president's conduct of the war. But it was not the first time that Congress has sought to superimpose its will on how to fight a war on a commander in chief.
"It is very hard to change war policy from Capitol Hill," Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said before the House voted. It is hard, as Obey reflected. Yet, over the years, the power of Congress to check presidential actions in wartime have waxed and waned.
Although the Constitution reserves to the Congress the sole power to declare war, the lawmakers have not done so since the United States entered World War II in 1941. During World War II, they rarely interfered with the conduct of war. During the Korean War, there was hot talk on Capitol Hill of impeaching President Harry Truman for having sacked Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. However, a Senate investigation of his removal, chaired by Richard Russell (D-Ga.), led to a cooling of the public mood, dashing MacArthur's presidential hopes.
Posted on Mar 08 2007 by Notch
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