Gettysburg Today

 

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis

3 July 2013
 

 

(GETTYSBURG, PA) - Gettysburg this year celebrates the sesquicentennial – 150 years – of the two great events which made this small Pennsylvania town famous: the Battle and the Address.  This military buff visited Gettysburg for the fourth time on the exact anniversary of the Battle, first to experience again the mood of the place, and then to get a sense of what people feel when they experience Gettysburg for themselves.

 

At the beginning of July the weather in Gettysburg is usually hot.  It was blistering hot the days of the Battle.  This year, the weather was cool, humid, overcast, and threatened rain most of the time.  When the sun did come out, it was like a heat lamp had been turned on.

 

The town itself lies in the middle of the Battle places.  The major engagement on the first day happened north of the old town, and the engagements on the final two days occurred immediately south of it.  Only minor skirmishing occurred in the town itself, as the Federal troops, broken in battle north of the town, streamed through it on their way to rally on high ground to the south.  The historic buildings of that era are noted with small plaques outside, and their exterior brickworks are carefully maintained.  A modern city has grown up in the northerly direction, around the battle places of the first day.  Development to the south is completely blocked by the battlefield of the second and third day.

 

Anyone who has been to Gettysburg knows how well marked and how well preserved the battlefield is.  While you can tour all the major sites and see the important monuments in a day, it would take many days to find and read the inscription of most of the monuments.  There is a monument to every little reserve artillery battery that was on the field; there is a monument to a cavalry outfit that would like to have been in the battle, but did not because it was ordered to guard the supply trains.

 

Gettysburg is the site of a national military cemetery, and the dedication of that cemetery was the occasion at which President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.  After touring the cemetery and the battlefield south of town, one gets a sense of the pain and the suffering that was inflicted on those three momentous days as two armies fought desperately to win the decisive battle for their cause.  You get a sense of the courage and the devotion, up to and including its last full measure, with which men persevered to do their duty.

 

You look at the quiet shady hillside, the back of Little Round Top, the 20^th Maine memorial, and wonder how the better part of a thousand could crowd into this place and fight with muskets and bayonets up and down the rocky slope in terrific heat.   You look at the open, undulating field which Pickett’s Charge crossed, a mile in the open, crisscrossed with fences and roads and wonder what could possibly have been in Lee’s mind when he ordered it.

 

And then you go to where it ended - the high tide of the Confederacy.  You go to the copse of trees.  You see where Armistead fell, where the 26^th North Carolina was annihilated, save for its color bearer, by a battery of canister at the wall, you imagine the crisis at the angle as the Confederate wave crossed the wall, the smoke, the noise, the shouted orders, the double canister at ten yards, Hancock goes down, the collapse of the 71^st Pennsylvania, the 69^th Pennsylvania is overwhelmed, the 19^th Massachusetts and 42^nd New York  rushing to contain the breach, the volleys of fire from flanking regiments into the boiling Confederate mass, and then - the utter collapse of the attack from lack of reserves.

 

Not only is the battle over, but the fate of a country has been decided.

 

You wonder if people nowadays get a sense of the drama, the devotion to duty, and the sheer importance of what happened at this very spot one hundred and fifty years ago, July 3^rd.

 

Now, the fields of Gettysburg are host to the camps of re-enactors, who will play out and demonstrate for spectators in a tiny way what happened here.  Tourists with their little cameras squint at the screen as they try to capture the image of a monument.  Children touch the cannons and try to sit on the mound of balls, and otherwise run around.  Dads read the inscriptions on the plaques.  Nerds regale their listeners with facts, some of which are actually true.  All activities of peace.

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Battle of Stoney Creek Re-enacted on its Bicentennial

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis

3 June 2013
 

Over six hundred re-enactors crowded the old battlefield to re-enact the Battle of Stoney Creek on its bicentennial anniversary.  The Battle of Stoney Creek, which took place on June 6, 1813, was a decisive battle of the War of 1812 as the victory ultimately decided that Upper Canada would remain in British hands.

 

The weekend festivities featured over three hundred officers and other ranks, with an equal number of re-enactors dressed as sutlers (collectively, the mobile, private enterprise CANEX of its day), settlers, natives, artillerists, and camp followers.  Featured events included demonstrations of American and British field evolutions, or ‘drill’ as it was quaintly called, and the firing of period artillery pieces.

 

The sight of the restored RCAF Lancaster Bomber of Canadian Warplane Heritage, which overflew the battlefield in the morning, Merlin engines purring, did not seem to auger well for American prospects.

 

After an artillery demonstration, the re-enactment began near twilight with the marching of the British troops, dressed in customary red tunics, to the south end of the battlefield.  The line of Red Coats marching in ranks of four ran for over 100 meters end-to-end and looked powerful in numbers alone; even dangerous.  The Royal Scots Grenadiers re-enactors stood in for the 49^th Regiment of Foot and the 8^th King’s Regiment.

 

The demonstration of black-powder musketry and volley-fire during the battle re-enactment was quite realistic; all that was missing were whizzing lead balls and bayonet charges.  The battle raged back-and-forth for a good thirty minutes.  Then, as night deepened, the line of Red Coats began an inexorable advance, culminating in the famous rush made by Sgt Alexander Fraser of the 49^th, his brother Peter, and about thirty other volunteers.  In a feat which would win a Victoria Cross today, Fraser and his cohorts rushed directly at an American artillery battery, captured it, and subsequently captured the two senior American generals, John Chandler and William Winder, along with seventy-five rank and file.

 

With the battle won, the battlefield proceedings ended with the women of the camp marching in single file onto the field, each carrying a lit lantern.  As the moderator read out a name of one the deceased of the battle, a lantern was extinguished.  The spectators were both moved and appreciative.

 

Night having completely enveloped the battlefield, the American forces withdrew to their camp, and the re-assembled Red Coats marched in column of route back to theirs, to much applause for a stunning performance.

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War of 1812 Bicentennial Symposium

 

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


2 March 2013

 

The War of 1812 came to Hamilton, ON, again.  This time, it wasn’t Americans with guns.

 

In their stead came a number of distinguished historians and scholars armed with words.

 

The engagement, held at the Sheraton-Hamilton Hotel, was a bicentennial commemoration conference whose focus was the decisive events of 1813.  The theme of the conference was “Walking the Razor’s Edge: A Continent in Play.”

 

Both America and Britain were represented.  Leading the list of speakers was Dr. Andrew Lambert, professor of Naval History at King’s College, London.   Dr. Don Hickey, Professor of History at Wayne State College, Nebraska, closed out the symposium.  Twenty-two other speakers were scheduled to lecture in four sessions.

 

In the middle were conference attendees, who numbered 280, according to event organizers Rob McGuire and Tom Fournier.  Some attendees were dressed in period costume, and most of them sounded Canadian.

 

Representing the British side, Andrew Lambert was welcomed with whoops and cheering.  His opening keynote took the view that the war was a paltry affair, so far as Britain was concerned.  Britain had had much more powerful France under Napoleon to deal with.  Britain won the War of 1812 conclusively by crushing American finance through blockade, and then burning down of White House and seizing the USS President in a daring raid in June, 1814.

 

Representing America, Don Hickey was welcomed with good spirits, which he returned.  He entitled his closing keynote provocatively: “Ten things Canadians should know about the War of 1812 but probably don’t.”  He opened by saying “I should have called it ten things average people should know, since only Canadians remember anything about the war at all!”

 

He agreed that Britain won the war, and held British diplomacy before, during, and after the war in high esteem.  The “ten things” were a list items he usually presented to his American military audiences.  Noteworthy among them was Hickey’s calling this Canada’s “war of independence, critical to the evolution of a sovereign Canada.”

 

Enliving and adding colour to the symposium were a number of military re-enactor groups, including: 41^st Regiment of Foot Military Living History Group, 49^th Regiment of Foot (Canadian Military Heritage Society), and, in the person of media liaison Rob McGuire, the 1^st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots) Grenadier Company.  The City of Hamilton, Mr. William Longo, and Military Heritage partnered with organizers to put on the conference.

 

War of 1812 symposia has been held annually since 1998.  The bicentennial of 1812 was convened last year at the University of Guelph, in Guelph ON, which organizer Tom Fournier described as a “tremendous success.”  Though attendance was down slightly this year, both Tom Fournier and Rob McGuire pronounced themselves “happy” with this year’s conference.

 

Next year’s bicentennial of 1814 symposium will be held in London, ON.

 

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Memorial Day in Canada

 

Vincent J. Curtis


5 June 2013

  

“When was the first day of remembrance of any kind celebrated in Canada?”

 

If you could get people even to answer the question, the likely answer would be, November 11^th, 1919; the first anniversary of the armistice which concluded the fighting of the First World War.  It was then called Armistice Day.

 

Though a good answer, it would be wrong.  The first time a day of remembrance was observed in Canada was on May 30^th, 1890, and it was for Canadian veterans of the American Civil War.  It is still observed in a small way today.

 

Over 40,000 Canadians are believed to have volunteered south of the border for the conflict, which raged from 1861 to 1865 and saw the deaths of some 600,000 men.  That staggering number was suffered by a country of only thirty million in population, the size of Canada today.  That casualty figure has yet to be exceeded by all the other wars that the United States has fought, before and since, combined.  In the 1890’s when one spoke of “the war,” the Civil War was the one meant.

 

Many Canadians volunteered to fight south of the border, in part because of the cause, the ending of slavery.  The adventure of it all drew many others.  But Canada was suffering an economic depression at the time, and American recruiters were offering a $100.00 bounty to sign up.  Aggressive recruiters for the Union even tried to get British soldiers stationed in Canada to desert.  The result was a large number of war veterans who lived in Canada.

 

The Grand Army of the Republic, the fraternal organization of Union veterans of the Civil War, in 1868 established “Decoration Day,” as May 30^th, a day on which flowers would be placed on the gravesites of Civil War casualties.  The name was later changed to “Memorial Day.”

 

A GAR Post, named after William Winer Cooke (of whom more later), was established in Hamilton in 1889 through the auspices of the U.S. Consul, Colonel Monahan, and the practice of holding a ceremony of honor at the gravesites of deceased Civil War veterans was begun the next year in Canada under the direction of Vice-Consul Colonel Richard Butler.  The Cooke Post continued the practice into the 1930s, when the last of its membership died.   The records of the Cooke Post were lost and the location of the specific gravesites were, in many cases, forgotten.

 

Interest in the location of the gravesites of Civil War veterans was revived through the activity of local historian Robin McKee.  McKee gave tours of the Hamilton Cemetery based upon certain themes, and one theme was of notable war veterans buried in the cemetery.  A veteran of note was William Winer Cooke.

 

Cooke was a veteran of the Civil War.  During the war, he happened to meet and befriend one General George Armstrong Custer.  Such good friends were they that Custer, on December 28^th, 1869, arrived in Hamilton to visit with Cooke’s family for several days.  Cook later served in Custer’s 7^th U.S. Cavalry, and was killed with Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.  Cooke’s mother arranged to have her son’s remains disinterred from his burial site at the Little Big Horn battlefield, and reinterred at the family plot in Hamilton cemetery.  Because of his death with Custer, Cooke was the most prominent veteran of the Civil War from Hamilton, and the new GAR Post in Hamilton was named after him.

 

One of Robin McKee’s tour guests, an old gentlemen, happened to be the son of one of the veterans of the old GAR post, and got McKee started on mapping out the location of many more Civil War veterans.  Eventually, Civil War veterans became the theme of one of McKee’s tours.

 

The GAR was noteworthy for its endorsement of equal treatment for black veterans at a time when racial prejudice was strong in America.  McKee is most proud of having discovered the location, and of having a proper Civil War headstone from the United States government placed upon, the grave of Nelson Stevens, a veteran of the 25^th United States Colored Troops.  Stevens was an escaped slaved who found refuge in Canada, and who returned to fight for the freedom of his race.  He faced instant execution if he were captured by Southern troops.  Stevens returned to Canada, and died in poverty.  His grave was unmarked.  McKee knew of Stevens, and with a lot of detective work as well as the aid of ground penetrating radar, he located his remains.  A proper stone now marks the spot. 

 

McKee’s tours attracted the attention of American Legion Post 18, based in Burlington ON.  The members of Post 18 are either retired American servicemen who live in Canada, or are Canadians who served in the American forces, such as during the Vietnam War.  Post 18 arranged with McKee to perform Memorial Day honors at the gravesites of the veterans he found as part of his tour.  Since then, the remains of more Civil War veterans and of American veterans of other of her wars have been located, and Post 18 now conducts Memorial Day honors at three different cemeteries.

 

Between the work of historian McKee and the members of American Legion Post 18, Memorial Day continues to be observed in Canada, and remains Canada’s oldest service of remembrance.  Canada’s Civil War veterans are honored on that day.

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It’s all over but the paying

 

 

Vincent J. Curtis


1 May 2013

 

Canada isn’t committed to buying the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, Canada is condemned to buying it.

 

Condemned by a combination of factors.  The first is a complete lack of rigor in the analysis of strategic needs:  What threats will North American air space face between now and 2030, and between now and 2040, that will necessitate stealth technology?

 

What are the likely kinds of overseas deployments that will the RCAF have to undertake between now and 2040, given that any such deployment will be voluntary on Canada’s part?  Can tactics substitute for stealth?

 

Is the investment in stealth technology going to hold good for forty years, given the rapid advances in electronic technology?  (Stealth is derived from the shape of the aircraft and the materials of construction, and together these prevent the reflection of radar and other signals back to the enemy’s detectors.)

 

Will UAV technology overtake the requirement for manned aircraft?

 

What about investments in other CF capabilities, such as fighting ships?

 

In other words, is $85 million US times 65 copies a worthwhile investment of defense dollars?

 

The recent webcast conference sponsored by Lockheed-Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35, made it clear that Canada’s fighter pilots are convinced that the stealth fighter is the way to go.  The way to go in the same way that, if you like driving fast cars, an Italian sports car is the way to go over a Ford Mustang - when you don’t have to pay for either one.

 

Having the F-35 to fly will enable our fighter jocks to to sit across the Mess table from their peers from other countries and be able to thump their chests and say, “We’ve got the stealth fighter, too!”

 

Canadian fighter jocks won’t be “penalized” as they were in Kosovo because their jets had non-standard refueling nozzles.  Canadian fighter jocks won’t be left out of the fight because their jets will have all the same data sharing electronics and spare parts as those of our NATO allies.  The embarrassments of the Libya campaign won’t happen again.

 

There is no doubt the F-35 is a capable flying machine, and 80 of the estimated 3100 production aircraft have already been delivered.  However, not one of these aircraft is presently able to fight because the weapons systems for them are still being tested.  As racehorses go, these fighter aircraft are geldings.  They are a terrific flying platform with nothing on them except makeweights.  The electronics in them will be great, also.

 

Canada will be taking delivery of its first F-35 in 2017.  By then, one hopes, that Canadian aircraft will be a little more manly.

 

During the webcast, a remarkable claim was made that the cost of a Gen-4 fighter like the F-16 E will be the same as the Gen-5 F-35 in 2017.  Implication: there is no point in looking to scrimp on stealth because the costs will be the same.  The new, advanced electronics make the Gen-5 fighter far more capable in every respect to a Gen-4 fighter and so why not buy better for the same cost?  If you believe the premise.

 

The US Navy and the Australian government are not placing their faith in stealth technology, which is unalterable.  Instead, they are investing in tactics and in electronics.

 

The US Navy commissioned and has in service the EA-18G Growler aircraft, which is based on the “Super Hornet” airframe.  This aircraft has one purpose: to be the platform for all the superior electronics a fighter squadron needs.  It is capable of jamming radars, employing radars, and doing the data sharing among the individual jets of a fighter squadron.  The fighter squadron does not rely on stealth technology to remain undetected, but on blinding the enemy’s electronic detectors with the gear carried by the Growler.  The flyaway cost of one of these is $68.2 million, less than the F-35; and it can be employed with Canada’s current fleet of CF-18s immediately.

 

The F/A 18 Super Hornet is a new aircraft that presently is in service, (Flyaway cost: $67 million) and is considered to be a Gen-4.5 aircraft because it is not completely stealthy.  However, as a fighter/bomber it is as capable as the F-35.  The last time I checked, the Mark I human eyeball is capable of detecting a stealth fighter.

 

Canada’s fighter-jock mentality is of individual aircraft doing individual missions, just like World War I.  Consequently, no one is shaping the thinking of fighter tactics such that other than stealth technology is admissible to the discussion.

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The Self-Mutilation of Angelina Jolie

In the news recently has been an example of moral exhibitionism by Angelina Jolie.  This famous movie actress announced to the world that she has had her breasts removed as a preventative against cancer.  It has now been revealed that she will also have her ovaries removed.

The announcement of her prophylactic double mastectomy was greeted as a brave example to follow for other women who might also be threatened by breast cancer.  One fellow has had his testes removed because he carried the same gene that Jolie carries.

It seems to have occurred to no one that these may be only the latest examples of self-mutilation that Angelina Jolie has put herself through in the last fifteen years.  She may not be so much brave, as having a few screws loose.

Comparing pictures of her when she was a teenage model with those of her in her twenties make it obvious that she has had facial reconstruction, or plastic, surgery in her early twenties.  That freakishly sharp jawline and her famous puffy lips were not so straight or so puffy in her teenage years.

She became notorious in her twenties for her numerous tattoos and body piercings, as well as a bizarre marriage to Billy Bob Thornton.  She later became a lesbian.

Her marriage to Brad Pitt may have put her more self-destructive tendencies into abeyance for a while, but they seem to have broken out anew.

With the removal of her perfectly healthy breasts and ovaries, the substance of her womanhood - what made her famous on the screen - has been destroyed.

The doctor who recommended she mutilate herself in that manner must have something of the sadist in him.

Rather than marveling at the courage of Angelina Jolie, we ought to be wondering at the bizarre psychological needs she carries that has led her over the last fifteen years to a series of self-mutilations.

Facts, faith, and religion: a Response to T. David Marshall

RE:  Fact: Faith is not reasonable by T. David Marshall, The Spectator May 8^th, 2013

 

This is in response to an Op-Ed article published in the Hamilton Spectator on 8 May 2013.

 

 

While I generally agree with the conclusions of Mr. Marshall, the process by which he reaches those conclusions is full of error.

 

Mr. Marshall does not know what science is.  He does not understand the difference between rational science and empirical science.  He does not understand what reason is.  He does not understand the difference between faith and reason, or between faith and knowledge.  His definition of religious observance betrays a sense of contempt.  Yet he reaches the correct conclusion that a religion ought to be held accountable for what it professes.

 

Science is not, as Marshall says, a “mode of thinking and method of inquiry.”  Scientific method is a method of inquiry.  Science is an organized body of knowledge.

 

Prior to Sir Isaac Newton, all sciences were rational sciences - branches of philosophy like philosophical theology; or, like geometry, branches of mathematics.  Only since the 17^th century has empirical science, the kind of science Mr. Marshall actually means, been in existence.

 

Mr. Marshall, as a former lecturer in ethics, might be horrified to learn that ethics is a rational science, one founded upon a self-evident truth and which, like religion, offers propositions that are prescriptively true.  In contradistinction, chemistry is a both a rational and an empirical science that offers propositions that are descriptively true.

 

The difference between ethics and religion is that the prescriptively true propositions of ethics are those founded upon a self-evident truth, while those of religion are founded upon propositions dogmatically asserted to be true.  The difference between ethics and religion on one hand, and chemistry and physics on the other, is the difference between prescriptive and descriptive.

 

Reasoning is the process by which both ethics and religion create their bodies of doctrine, though they begin from differing basis sets of starting propositions.  Reasoning is also employed in the empirical sciences, and the conclusions of the reasoning process in empirical science can be confirmed by scientific experiment.

 

Religion is not unreasonable.  The Christian faith came to be what it is today because it passed through the filter of Greek philosophy during the early years of its existence, as the best minds of their time grappled with the meaning of Christ and God.

 

It is not unreasonable to assert the existence of God.  Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, first proposed the existence of a Prime Mover, an Uncaused Cause.  Today, the God of philosophical enquiry is understood to be the creator ex nihilo of the universe and the efficient cause of its continued existence.  One can understand this notwithstanding belief in any particular religion, or in no religion.  Religion adds understanding of God to the bare-bones understanding of the God philosophical enquiry.  This is where faith comes into play in religion – you either believe in the dogmatically asserted propositions of the faith or you do not.

 

Physics cannot touch this understanding of God, Stephen Hawking notwithstanding.  The laws of physics came into existence after the universe was born, and physics has no explanation for the continued existence of the universe.  The particular beliefs of this religion or that cannot impugn the existence of the God of philosophical inquiry.

 

Consequently, one can reach the conclusion Mr. Marshall reached - that a religion is accountable for what it professes to be true - without making all the errors Mr. Marshall made.  That some people shrink from the full conclusions of their professed religion is a statement about the condition of man not unknown to any religion.  It is as much a lack of rigor in reasoning – a failure to act on a philosophical imperative by the individual – that leads people to act in a manner inconsistent with religious beliefs.  It is not an act of reason, as Mr. Marshall asserts, to refrain from acting on religious beliefs, but a failure of reason.

 

Faith and reason are not at odds with each other; reason is a means by which the consequences of faith become known.  And if those consequences are discovered, empirically, to be in error, then fault lies in the propositions of the faith.

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