If you visit the tasting room at Domaine Drouhin, a winery sitting high above the Willamette Valley in the Red Hills of Dundee, you might have noticed a photograph of one of the Drouhin ancestors – Maurice Drouhin. The Drouhin family figures among the early entries to the world of Oregon winemaking concentrating on making pinot noir and chardonnay wines. In that, they complement their French production from the Burgundy and Chablis regions of their home country.
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Canadian trappers were among the first non-Native Americans to spend extended periods of time in the nascent Oregon Country during the early years of the 19th century. Most were French speakers from rural Lower Quebec. Many took on Native American women as their wives. Common law marriages and the resultant children failed to receive recognition from either British law. Catholic priests ventured out slowly behind the trappers to bring a modicum of religious stability to those living beyond the pale of society. Most of the retired trappers settled on what is today the French Prairie.
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This is from a talk I gave recently in Victoria, British Columbia regarding the recent American World War One Memorial finalized only recently in Washington DC. A century late, but late is better than nothing?
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If you start wandering about the battlefields of the American Civil War you might start noticing names appearing on more than one battlefield. One such name is George Maney of Tennessee. A recent trip took me out onto the fields of Chickamauga where our group, led by the indomitable David Powell and National Park historian James Ogden, wandered in the footsteps of Maney’s brigade on both 19 and 20 September 1863. Maney’s brigade fought hard on those two days. While they did not achieve greatness, turning the tide of the battle in one direction or the other, they stayed steady.
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Spain and the Philippines lay connected by only a couple of ships – the Manila Galleons – from 1573 until 1815. There was trade with Asia, mainly China, before then. Silver came to the Philippines to purchase silk, porcelain, tea and other items like beeswax. The galleon trade facilitated the exchange of culture, traditions, and culinary practices between the Philippines and Mexico.
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Chickamauga was a battle full of high drama at various stages of the long battle. An excellent case concerns the arrival of the Federal Reserve Corps.
Brigadier General John Beatty stood on Snodgrass Hill along with Major General George Thomas looking off to the north. The Federals chance of holding the line on the afternoon of 20 September 1863 seemed more tenuous by the minute. “We saw off to our rear the banners and glittering guns of a division coming towards us, and we became agitated by doubt and hope. Are they friends of foes?” Still too far off to ascertain exactly, Thomas became agitated as his hand shook, raising his field glass to observe. “Take my glass, some of you whose horse stands steady – tell me what you can see.”
Two officers went to check for sure the identity of the newcomers to the party brewing on Horseshoe Ridge. They waved their hats after the meeting signaling the identity was not foe by friend. Gordon Granger and his Reserve Corps arrived and Thomas with his remaining Cumberlanders felt relief at the addition of 3,819 Federals attempting to salvage something from a very long day at Chickamauga.
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As the dawn rose over the smoking hulk of Fort Sumter and the war clouds finally erupted in a blaze of gun shells zeroing in on the former protector of Charleston, South Carolina, the widely dispersed forces of the Regular Army of the United States began to gather facing the storm as it lashed across the landscape. In the west, Regular Army regiments formed into what became the Regular Brigade.
Continue readingA recent trip took me to La Palma in the Canary Islands off the northwestern coast of Africa. At one point, La Palma (also known as La Isla Bonita – the Beautiful Island) served as an important trading post on the way from Spain to the New World. Santa Cruz de la Palma, founded in the spring of 1493, is a pretty little town on the northeastern side of the steeply rising island. A life-sized model of Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria located in the town center serves as the unique maritime museum for the town. Evidence of the once flourishing Spanish galleon trade.
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A substantial portion of the antebellum Regular Army along with four of the new 1861-authorized new Regular regiments played their Civil War roles as part of the Army of the Potomac. They initially formed as the Regular Infantry Brigade, but as the regiments began to add up, a Regular Infantry Division – Sykes’ Regulars – built up. Recruitment never caught up with battle and disease losses, however, and after several hard-fought battles, the surviving Regulars found themselves pulled from the battlefield after the battle of Cold Harbor in mid-June 1864, their ranks much diminished. In this post, we look at the overall history of the Regular Infantry in the East.
After the war Romeyn Ayres, commander of the Regular Division during 1863-1864 was asked if any of his regulars were still serving. Ayres replied “I had a division of regulars once. I buried half of them at Gettysburg and the other half in the Wilderness. There’s no regulars left.”
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The Shiloh National Cemetery became established in 1866. Officially closed now to new burials, there are some 3,695 – 3,584 from the Civil War era – buried here with 2,359 being unknown. Many of the dead were from the Battle of Shiloh. Men from different regiments lay buried where they fought after the battle. With the establishment of the cemetery, the soldiers were reinterred here, still keeping to their regimental group when possible. Three Confederates lie among the dead, two known – dying as prisoners of war – and one included within the ranks of the unknown. Many dead soldiers also came here from nearby battlefields and hospitals – some 565 different locations. Several veterans from the Spanish-American and the World Wars lie buried here, too, along with one veteran of the Revolutionary War.
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