Chickamauga stands as the Granite Forest of the West, a counterpoint to Gettysburg. The battlefield lies much more scattered than you find at the Granite Forest of the East. The battlelines here ebbed and flowed during the two main days of battle. One of the largest groupings of granite monuments stands atop Horseshoe Ridge where for five and a half hours, Federal forces staved off total defeat following the catastrophic rupture of their lines along Lafayette Road.
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Nesmith Point gained the name Mount Nesmith in 1915, bestowed by the Oregon Geographic Board working with the Oregon Historical Society and the Mazamas, a local Portland climbing group. James Nesmith was a tough specimen, an important political figure from the early days of Oregon as both a territory and state. He served as one of Oregon’s senators during the Civil War. But Nesmith was never a climber spending most of his time in Oregon on his farm and grist mill near Rickreall, a few miles to the west of Salem where his grave also sits.
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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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We do have our favorite hikes. And we have our favorite training hikes. A training hike is not always our favorite, maybe because of the effort needed to complete. Maybe the training hike has no real wow factor, just a lot of sweat and strain. In recent years, one of my first major hikes of the season has centered on the Wahkeena Basin and Devil’s View high above.
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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.
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