Category Archives: History

MCCLELLAN ON A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY IN THE NORTHWEST

Posted on by
Reply
Sign noting McClellan's passage through the dense forests of the southern Cascades.
Sign noting McClellan’s passage through the dense forests of the southern Cascades.

As future generals for the Federal Army during the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant and Philip Sheridan are also remembered for their service in the Pacific Northwest during the 1850’s.  Another, George Brinton McClellan made a cameo appearance. He led a group tasked with identifying a possible rail route through the Cascades.  In addition, they potential were to build a military road across the mountain chain so emigrant wagons could more easily reach the Puget Sound of Washington Territory.  This reconnaissance gave McClellan his first extended period of independent command since graduating from West Point with the Class of 1846.

Before George McClellan became the leading Federal general in the early Civil War, he served in the wilds of Washington, surveying for railroad routes.

Continue reading →

U.S. GRANT – OREGON STRINGS TIED TO THE CIVIL WAR

Posted on by
4
1854 view of Columbia Barracks looking south across the Columbia River to Oregon. James Madison Alden – Yale Collection of American Literature, Yale University, CT

Oregon, California and the western territories of the United States played little roles in the devastation seen in the East known as the American Civil War.  In the era before transcontinental rail, the two Pacific states were simply too far away to matter much in the conflagration.  To reach the far west, six months needed to come into play, whether the journey was overland or by sea – choice there of around Cape Horn or across the disease-ridden Isthmus of Panama.  A surprisingly number of men with Oregon ties did play roles in the titanic struggles.  Most of those men had military ties to the Northwest, spending time on duty in the 1850’s helping bring order and stability to the newly settling lands of Oregon, California and Washington Territory.  The most famous soldiers who spent time in Oregon, one Ulysses S. Grant.

Continue reading →

JAMES NESMITH – PIONEER TO THE SENATE – FORGOTTEN OREGON GIANT

Posted on by
Reply
Final resting place of James W. Nesmith
Final resting place of James W. Nesmith

Oregon in its early days featured many folks who by today’s standards would score very low with Political Correctness points.  James Willis Nesmith falls into that category, but with some redeeming qualities.  One of Oregon’s first politicians, his time began with the Provisional Government, extending through the Territorial period well into Oregon’s early Statehood years.  A member of the so-called Salem Clique, a group of Democratically inclined politicians who were prominent in that era, Nesmith outlasted the Clique’s breakup with the Civil War, serving as one of Oregon’s senators through the war years. 

He was one of only eight Democratic senators – four Border State Democrats and four Union Democrats – to vote in favor of the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.  He abstained from the senate vote on the 14th allowing equal rights to all citizens under the law.  Here, he was following the lead of President Andrew Johnson, a fellow Unionist.  His allegiance to his fellow Democrat would cost him in the years to come.

Continue reading →

TRANSATLANTIC JOURNEY REVEALS MAGIC IN THE AIR

Posted on by
Reply
Late Fall sunshine on the east Greenland coast seen on a transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Seattle.

After just returning from a series of eye clinics in Albania, I will share a few thoughts on the sights seen outside the window from over 34,000 feet as I made my way back on a long transatlantic sojourn. This was the second set of clinics I have worked in Albania.

My transatlantic journey began too early at a crowded Nënë Tereza Airport just to the northwest of Tirana.  The first of three flights involved in my return to Oregon was scheduled for 0600.  Another colleague was flying to Rome at 0530, so we shared a cab. We left our hotel out in the western Albanian countryside near Durrës at 0330.  This coming after our last day of clinics. In an unheated building, we saw over 700 patients in Kukës, Albania, three hours north of where we were staying close to the border with Kosovo.

Continue reading →

REVISITING THE “CAYUSE WAR” – MURDER, REVENGE AND A NEW TERRITORY

Posted on by
2
Print from a wood-engraving by N. Orr & Co., originally published in Frances Fuller Victor’s, The River of the West, circa 1870.

Early relationships between European newcomers and Native Americans living in the Pacific Northwest certainly went no better than in most other regions of the Americas.  European supremacy became much easier through early introduction of disease, an actual prelude in many cases to actual ethnic introductions.  Bad as the era directly before the two peoples came together face to face was, disease continued to inflict the Native populations, a factor leading directly to ill will and what became known as the “Cayuse War” in 1847.

Continue reading →

EVOKING EPIC STRUGGLES FROM A TEMPESTOUS TIME ON MENGORE

Posted on by
Reply
Aljaž-like refuge atop Mengore – only large enough for pigeons, however.

There are several open-air museums relating to the ghastly events of World War 1 along the Soca-Isonzo River valley. Six are found in the upper reaches from Bovec in the north to Tolmin in the south. Here, we concentrate on those found on three hillocks – one being Mengore – across the river from Tolmin on the west side which made up the Tolmin Bridgehead.

Continue reading →

PILLARS OF HERCULES – NEW WORLD TWIST ON AN OLD CLASSIC

Posted on by
Reply
Pillars of Hercules rise to the right of Cigar Rock.

Flying along Interstate 84, you might catch an ephemeral glance at a waterfall or two. If you know when to look.  Traffic speeds along well above the speed limit of 65 mph. The number of cars and trucks seem to exponentially increase with the years.  Pity the traveler who finds themselves stuck behind one of the giant propellors heading to the wind farms just south of the east end of the Columbia River Gorge. Road travel has come a long way since the first road was put in over 150 years ago. Basalt columns occur in many areas along the way. So, the columns and cliffs jutting up to the south of the freeway just west of the Bridal Veil exit – exit 44 – might not garner an extra glance from a speeding car.  You have just missed noting the Pillars of Hercules.

Continue reading →

CAPORETTO OSSUARY – CATRASTROPHIC DEFEAT REVISED AS A NEW BEGINNING

Posted on by
Reply
Road entrance leading from Kobarid up to the Italian Ossuary.

Over 600,000 Italians lie dead on the battlefields of the Great War with another 170,000 dying of illness or wounds in hospitals further back.  Buried in small battlefield cemeteries, like elsewhere across the destroyed landscapes of Europe, remains in the small cemeteries were gathered up into larger cemeteries.  Unlike the American example of offering repatriation of remains to families – two thirds of American families opted for that option – here in Italy, only about 50,000 remains returned to the families.  By 1927, too many cemeteries remained for the State to maintain upkeep.  So, the huge ossuaries – charnel houses, in England – came onto the scene. Here at the Caporetto Ossuary, mythology transposed defeat into victory of sorts. A victory leading to the Blackshirt March on Rome; a renewed and greater Italy.

Continue reading →

DESCHUTES RAILROADS FEUD DEEP IN THE CANYONS

Posted on by
Reply
On the old railbed of the Des Chutes Railroad with the river below.

Type in a query for ‘railroad wars’ and you will find three events under the Wikipedia entry for “railroad wars”.  The last event was the “Deschutes Railroad War”.  Of the three, this is the shortest entry.  The entry focuses on the actual building difficulties of the two Deschutes railroads erected on either side of the river.   But to really understand the real reason for the enmity between the competing rail companies, we need to go further back before the 1912 construction of the two lines.

Continue reading →

EDWARD STEICHEN BRINGS A CAMERA TO THE GREAT WAR

Posted on by
Reply
Cameras from the AEF Photographic Section – the two larger darker cameras (2 and 3 from the right) were De Ram semiautomatic cameras.

With the onset of heavier-than-air flight, it was only a matter of time before warfare incorporated the new adjunct into its far-flung assemblage.  World War One saw America late to the scene with forces unprepared for what lay ahead in the battlefields of France and Belgium.  One of the men helping bridge the wide gulf to the new industrial levels the Great War brought about was Edward Steichen.

Continue reading →