BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: AMERICANA #6 (for July 4th, 2023)

"I have heard it said that there are only four things
you need to fear in California -- earth, air, fire, 
and water."
                  Alex Stone. Fooling Houdini (New York: HarperCollins, 2012)

THE ORIGIN OF UNCLE SAM

In Troy, NY, "Samuel Wilson and his brother ran a firm 
known as E&S Wilson -- they were butchers and meat-packers. 'Samuel not only supplied meat to the military on his own, 
he secured an appointment as inspector of beef and pork 
for the northern army.'" (see The New York Gazette for
May 12, 1830)
   "The casks were marked E.A.-U.S.  This work fell to 
the lot of a facetious fellow in the employ of messrs. 
Wilson, who , on being asked by some of his fellow-workmen 
the meaning of the mark (for the letters U.S. for United 
States were almost entirely new to them) said that he 
did not know unless it meant Elbert Anderson and Uncle Sam -- alluding exclusively then, to the 'Uncle Sam '  Wilson. 
The joke took among the workmen....
  "In a short time all Government property was being 
referred to as Uncle Sam's -- wagons, arms, payrolls 
and the like."
   
Alton Ketcham. Uncle Sam (New York: Hill  &Wang, 1959)
**

The smallest U.S. state has the longest name -- "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation"
**
ON THE FATE OF THOMAS HICKEY (?-1776)

'Thomas Hickey was a private in the Commander-in-Chief's Guard, a unit formed on March 12, 1776, to protect George Washington, his official papers, and the Continental Army's cash. That spring, Hickey and another soldier were arrested for passing counterfeit money. While incarcerated in Bridewell prison, Hickey revealed to another prisoner, Isaac Ketchum, (possibly overheard by two others, Isaac and Israel Youngs) that he was part of a wider conspiracy of soldiers who were prepared to defect to the British once the expected invasion came.
Arrested by civilian authorities, Hickey was turned over 
to the Continental Army for trial. He was court-martialed and found guilty of mutiny and sedition. He was hanged  on June 28, 1776, at the corner of Chrystie and Grand  Streets before a crowd of 20,000 spectators in New York. "

Wikipedia

**
3 PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES IN A SINGLE YEAR

Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, and 
John Tyler were Presidents in 1841.

Rutherford Hayes, James A. Garfield, and 
Chester A, Arthur were Presidents in 1881).

**
Wyatt Earp speaks on gunfighting on the frontier 
Narration by Steve Berwick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEJNpWBcvQE

**

"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."
                   Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

**

 TWO JOHN BROWNS

"There was a singing quartet in residence at the fort* : Sgt. Charles Edgerly,  Sgt. Newton J. Purnette, Sgt. James Jenkins, and Sgt. John Brown.
   " One day, in December of 1859, news arrived at the fort about the famous abolitionist: 'John Brown's dead.' Some 
smart-aleck, thinking of his singing comrade, Sgt. John Beown, is said to have replied, ' But he still goes marching around.
' A soldier named Henry Halgreen reportedly turned this wisecrack into the first verse of the song about his 
comrade: 'John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the 
grave/His soul goes marching on.' A soldier who played 
the organ set it  to the music of ' Say, Brothers, 
Will You Meet Us?'
    "So the song was a joke, joshing among soldiers, 
the sort of ribbing a sergeant in today's army might 
receive if he had the misfortune of being named Uday
 Hussein."

*Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. "John Brown's Body 
became the 12th regiment's marching song,."

Sean Willentz and Grell Marcus, editors. The Rose & 
the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad
(New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 2004.

**
JOHNNY INKSLINGER ON THE TRAIN BACK FROM GETTYSBURG
REFLECTS UPON THE TERRIBLE RECEPTION OF ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN'S SPEECH

Like a soldier's leave,
The world we wake to
Is vague & tremulous.
Pocatello, yes! Gettysburg,No!
More than 4 score and 7 years ago,
Lincoln came to dedicate a battlefield,
A deathscape of disappointments.

The Chicago Times was not impressed:
"An offensive exhibition of boorishness and vulgarity."

Hell, Abe, foolish ape in a stovepipe hat,
I've had worse reviews than that!
Voice high-pitched.

Whatever could be sd
Could not raise the dead. Sad.
And the Times & the times,
As one might say:
"He has outdone himself.He has literally come out
of the little end of his own horn. By the size of
it, Medocrity is superb."

Too brief.
Then the train ride back to more grief.

Louis Phillips