Friday, April 27

Good morning and welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

     It's the birthday in 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts of Samuel Morse. Morse attended Yale University where he studied religion, mathematics, and the science of horses. He supported himself by painting and was so talented that his father sent him to England for three years to improve his skills.
    While doing a portrait in Washington D.C.in 1825, he received a message that his wife was dying in New Haven. By the time he got home, his wife had been buried. He was so distraught by this that he devoted the rest of his life to finding a means of improving communications.
    Europeans had been working on telegraphs for years but they could only transit short distances. Morse and his colleagues set up a series of relays and in 1844 were able to send a message from the U.S. Capitol to Baltimore, 38 miles away. By 1850 there were 12,000 miles of wire across the country. There had been various attempts over the years to develop a code. One inventor just transmitted numbers to create words that had to be looked up in a book. Others had a needle that pointed to the intended letter. At first Morse had his code punched out onto a paper reel, but when it was discovered that with a little practice, operators could write down the letters as they heard them, the paper reel became superfluous.
     Morse spent years fighting patent battles and never really grew rich from his inventions. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York on an anti-immigrant program. He believed the pope was trying to take over the U.S. through Catholic immigrants.  These beliefs may have stemmed from his childhood as the son of a strict Calvinist preacher. He died in 1872 in New York City at the age of 80.

    It's also the birthday in 1822 in Point Pleasant, Ohio of Ulysses S Grant. Grant had to work in his father's tannery which he disliked. His real love was horses, so his father put him in charge of deliveries. Grant had a spotty education in country schools. At age 16, he entered West Point after his father obtained an appointment for him. After his graduation from West Point, Grant planned to resign from the army after his four year obligation, but his marriage to Julia Dent  made it necessary to keep his commission.
    He fought in several battles during the Mexican War and later said this experience was the basis of his later success as a leader in the Civil War. He thought the Mexican War was an unjustified land grab to extend slavery and saw the Civil War as God's retribution. After Mexico, he was sent to California to protect the settlers and prospectors there. The trip was too dangerous for Julia and their new baby to accompany Grant to his post. He grew bored and lonely and took to drink. He decided to resign from the army so he could be with his family.
    Unlike his father, Grant had no head for business.  After several failed ventures in St. Louis, he took a job in his brothers' leather goods store in Galena, Illinois. With the outbreak of the Civil War in April, 1861, his skills were again in demand. In four years he rose from colonel of a regiment to general of all the Union Armies.
    He served as president from 1868-76. His administration had several corruption scandals, though Grant himself was honest. He often put his trust in the wrong people and lost his wealth in a pyramid scheme. Mark Twain had been after Grant to write his memoirs which Grant could not be bothered with, but his financial setbacks convinced him to write a book to make money for his family. He finished his memoirs, which are considered a classic of the form, as he was dying of throat cancer. He died July 23, 1885 at the age of 63.

Grant was an artist too. 



Today's poem is by Herman Melville in memory of one of Grant's most costly victories.



Shiloh: A Requiem (April,
1862)

                           

                                             

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,

      The swallows fly low

Over the field in clouded days,

      The forest-field of Shiloh—

Over the field where April rain

Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain

Through the pause of night

That followed the Sunday fight

      Around the church of Shiloh—

The church so lone, the log-built one,

That echoed to many a parting groan

            And natural prayer

      Of dying foemen mingled there—

Foemen at morn, but friends at eve—

      Fame or country least their care:

(What like a bullet can undeceive!)

      But now they lie low,

While over them the swallows skim,

      And all is hushed at Shiloh.

 

 

 

 

Come back Sunday for more squibs from @jmcdonnell123