For some strange reason the above images did not appear in my last blog.
On the left is a wonderful picture of Clara Barton, whom you learned in the last blog, was the founder of the Red Cross in the US and had in earlier years nursed the wounded on the battlefields of the Civil War. She also started an organization that helped to identify the graves of over 20,000 of the 65,000 plus, missing from that war.
Last blog images of the Ford Theater should have included the centre picture of the very pistol that took the life of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Today it is found on display at the theater. It is a single shot flint lock gun that was made by the Philadelphia gunsmith Henry Derringer, and this the name of the weapon. It was only about 6" long and weighed 8 ounces and could easily be concealed in the hand.
After John Wilkes Booth assassinated the president, he jumped over the balcony and made his escape out a back door of the building. A horse was standing by to spirit him off into history. He raced it along the very alley behind the theater that I am standing in at the top right. He was later captured by Toronto born Lt. Edward Doherty and others, was shot without authority by one of Doherty's men and actually died in Doherty's arms. This cavalry officer is buried at Arlington and I was stunned by some most interesting details in his Archives file which will be shared in a future blog.
On another topic...
On the left is a wonderful picture of Clara Barton, whom you learned in the last blog, was the founder of the Red Cross in the US and had in earlier years nursed the wounded on the battlefields of the Civil War. She also started an organization that helped to identify the graves of over 20,000 of the 65,000 plus, missing from that war.
Last blog images of the Ford Theater should have included the centre picture of the very pistol that took the life of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Today it is found on display at the theater. It is a single shot flint lock gun that was made by the Philadelphia gunsmith Henry Derringer, and this the name of the weapon. It was only about 6" long and weighed 8 ounces and could easily be concealed in the hand.
After John Wilkes Booth assassinated the president, he jumped over the balcony and made his escape out a back door of the building. A horse was standing by to spirit him off into history. He raced it along the very alley behind the theater that I am standing in at the top right. He was later captured by Toronto born Lt. Edward Doherty and others, was shot without authority by one of Doherty's men and actually died in Doherty's arms. This cavalry officer is buried at Arlington and I was stunned by some most interesting details in his Archives file which will be shared in a future blog.
On another topic...
Back on 21 August I shared with you some information about a petition that has been started by Myrna Forster, a Victoria BC researcher, editor, writer, author and sought after public speaker. She recently authored... 100 Canadian Heroines, and then followed up with... 100 More Canadian Heroines. I'd bet there is a third book in the works.
Myrna is very involved in researching and preserving the history of Canadian women and has started a petition, as noted on the left, to see more women being depicted on our Canadian dollar bills.
She has already collected some powerful followers and over 8,000 signatures.
This is a very worthwhile cause, and I congratulate Myrna on her advocacy for this and helping to set the record right on the incredible part that these women have played in Canada's history, a history mostly ignored for decades, if not centuries.
Since this is Women's History Month in Canada, this would be a wonderful time to contact men and women you know and ask them to also lend their support by signing this petition. It can be found at...
https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/bank-of-canada-add-women-from-canadian-history-to-canadian-bank-notes?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=37959&alert_id=AplSPUYjmO_nkfIzOJYif
This is a subject of much interest to me. If you have read my bio on this site you will see that my mother was the Honorary Patron of the very committee of three women who themselves fought for change in Canada. Their year long effort, if not longer, resulted in the Government of Canada proclaiming October to be Women's History Month in Canada back in 1992. Though a careful read of the press this month seems to forget that these three women also should be remembered for their efforts. Their names are (the late) Cathryne Armstrong CM, Lynne Gough and Cathy Blazkow.
Good luck finding their names in the press!
Myrna is very involved in researching and preserving the history of Canadian women and has started a petition, as noted on the left, to see more women being depicted on our Canadian dollar bills.
She has already collected some powerful followers and over 8,000 signatures.
This is a very worthwhile cause, and I congratulate Myrna on her advocacy for this and helping to set the record right on the incredible part that these women have played in Canada's history, a history mostly ignored for decades, if not centuries.
Since this is Women's History Month in Canada, this would be a wonderful time to contact men and women you know and ask them to also lend their support by signing this petition. It can be found at...
https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/bank-of-canada-add-women-from-canadian-history-to-canadian-bank-notes?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=37959&alert_id=AplSPUYjmO_nkfIzOJYif
This is a subject of much interest to me. If you have read my bio on this site you will see that my mother was the Honorary Patron of the very committee of three women who themselves fought for change in Canada. Their year long effort, if not longer, resulted in the Government of Canada proclaiming October to be Women's History Month in Canada back in 1992. Though a careful read of the press this month seems to forget that these three women also should be remembered for their efforts. Their names are (the late) Cathryne Armstrong CM, Lynne Gough and Cathy Blazkow.
Good luck finding their names in the press!
Changing subjects again with some more housekeeping, Some of you who have been kind enough to send along your comments about the stories I am bringing you in these blogs, may have seen the above at the COMMENTS page.
This is new.
It has come about as a result of unscrupulous loans companies that have had to resort to stealing advertising space to flog their internet loan services.
Over the last month several have decided that my site was ripe for their exploitation. They would send comments to the site using the form provided. Their comments of course had nothing whatsoever to do with the focus of the site. The comments posted were motivation quotes, and of course each contained the name of the company flogging its loans. Soon several with different names, but the same motivation quotes started to follow suit. No doubt all are owned by the same business that chooses such unethical tactics to get its name... or numerous names... out.
I have therefore set up the above filter on my site that allows me to scrap their crap before it gets posted.
Be assured I am not trying to edit bonafide comments and wanted to explain this to those who have seen this new notice.
For the culprits involved, continued attempts will result in your business names being given wide circulation along with notification of the tactics you use.
Cheers, BA
And now to Arlington we shall go...
Arlington National Cemetery is probably the most famous cemetery in the United States. It is here that President's Kennedy and Taft and family members are buried as are the Tombs of the Unknown from several wars. There are many very well known people buried here from Audie Murphy to generals and admirals and private soldiers sailors and airmen, marines and coast guards to boot. If you have travelled to the moon or the north or south pole, chances are you are here.
The property is over 1,000 acres in size though possibly about 700 have ben used so far as burial grounds... with more arriving every day except Sundays. An average of about 25 are laid to rest daily and yesterday there were 39 burials to be added to about 300,00 to date. The above lower photo shows yet another soon to be laid to rest after an horse drawn escort moves the remains to their designated resting place. There are at least 15, if not more Canadians buried here. Many are Medal of Honor recipients, and it was in honour to these men that I visited the cemetery several times whilst in the DC area. It is actually located just outside of DC and technically in Arlington County Virginia.
The welcoming centre is the place to visit on first arrival where a few rules of common sense are explained to you and then you can either try on your own, not recommended, or ask for assistance in locating the grave your are interested in. Within the center pictured above, are several kiosks that will help you locate the grave searched for.
The real estate once belonged to George Washington Parke Curtis, a grandson of Martha Washington. His daughter married a young an upcoming US officer by the name of Robert E Lee. Their mansion was built on the land now housing the cemetery. In 1864 the very first burial took place. It was a young soldier by the name of William Christman, who's marker is shown above. He did not see battle in the Civil War, thought he signed up for that very reason. He died shortly after enlistment from disease. The same fate that met more soldiers than any action from the enemy. His $300 bounty for enlisting was used by his parents to buy some land to start a farm in Pennsylvania.
The property is over 1,000 acres in size though possibly about 700 have ben used so far as burial grounds... with more arriving every day except Sundays. An average of about 25 are laid to rest daily and yesterday there were 39 burials to be added to about 300,00 to date. The above lower photo shows yet another soon to be laid to rest after an horse drawn escort moves the remains to their designated resting place. There are at least 15, if not more Canadians buried here. Many are Medal of Honor recipients, and it was in honour to these men that I visited the cemetery several times whilst in the DC area. It is actually located just outside of DC and technically in Arlington County Virginia.
The welcoming centre is the place to visit on first arrival where a few rules of common sense are explained to you and then you can either try on your own, not recommended, or ask for assistance in locating the grave your are interested in. Within the center pictured above, are several kiosks that will help you locate the grave searched for.
The real estate once belonged to George Washington Parke Curtis, a grandson of Martha Washington. His daughter married a young an upcoming US officer by the name of Robert E Lee. Their mansion was built on the land now housing the cemetery. In 1864 the very first burial took place. It was a young soldier by the name of William Christman, who's marker is shown above. He did not see battle in the Civil War, thought he signed up for that very reason. He died shortly after enlistment from disease. The same fate that met more soldiers than any action from the enemy. His $300 bounty for enlisting was used by his parents to buy some land to start a farm in Pennsylvania.
The cemetery is located within the yellow circle at the left. You can see the Potomac River separating DC from Virginia. As noted in past blogs, and it was this very river that Lincoln and his cabinet kept staring at in 1862. They were all fearful that the Merrimack, after its destruction of so much on the Union navy, would soon come sailing along this river in an attack against the White House and capitol buildings. (History found Canadians fighting on shore and in the vessels... for BOTH SIDES that day.)
The area of the cemetery is monstrous and takes considerable time to wander about in... and thus the need for considerable direction before heading of on what might, and in my case often was, fruitless for several reasons.
The area of the cemetery is monstrous and takes considerable time to wander about in... and thus the need for considerable direction before heading of on what might, and in my case often was, fruitless for several reasons.
This image is taken from one of the kiosks at the cemetery. It is the tool used to find the graves. You can see the massive grounds on the right. Using the tool on the left, the first step is to click on the upper left link to search burials.
After clicking as above noted, the first of 4 images above appear. Clicking on the USING KNOWN INFO button opens up the 2nd image. Here you can fill in as much info as you have. A spelling mistake will not get you the file you need...unless that misspelling is what the system was fed to begin with. It happens. Some MOH fellows used phony names, and thus that is what you search for. As you can see from image three, I entered John Grady, a Canadian Medal of Honor recipient and did not add any more info. The 4th image opened up and, since I knew his birthdate, I clicked on the first option presented.
And we have a hit. The image on the left gives DOB and Death, internment date, section of grave and grave number. It also gives a picture of the grave. To get a better image...click on DETAILS and you get the two images on the right. Note also the neat function of printing. Hit the download button and it spits out a picture...FOR FREE. You can now carry this with you so as to have a great idea what you are looking for when you get out into the cemetery. Believe me, after awhile they all look alike. Having the picture is a great aid.
When finished with this page, you click on the DIRECTONS box on the left image and this is what you get...
On the left is a description on how to walk to the grave, the distance and expected time needed to get there. On the right is a map showing you the route from the Welcome Center to the grave.
The above photo on the right also has an option to enlarge the picture. You can keep enlarging till you actually see the marker. This is a great tool because it allows you to make notes of very large markers and obstacles, such as trees, that can serve as guides to the actual marker you are looking for.
And with some luck you might end up with this shot as a keepsake. But be warned.
You have to bring your own flag!
In the next blog I will bring you some of the MOH marker pictures I took and some other very interesting ones I discovered along the way.
In the mean time you can go to the Arlington site on your own from home and do these same searches. Pick a name and feed it into the kiosk and see what comes out.
Type in John Kennedy or Audie Murphy or Glenn Miller or Lee Marvin and enjoy. The URL is at... http://public.mapper.army.mil/ANC/ANCWeb/PublicWMV/ancWeb.html
Back on Monday,
Bart
And with some luck you might end up with this shot as a keepsake. But be warned.
You have to bring your own flag!
In the next blog I will bring you some of the MOH marker pictures I took and some other very interesting ones I discovered along the way.
In the mean time you can go to the Arlington site on your own from home and do these same searches. Pick a name and feed it into the kiosk and see what comes out.
Type in John Kennedy or Audie Murphy or Glenn Miller or Lee Marvin and enjoy. The URL is at... http://public.mapper.army.mil/ANC/ANCWeb/PublicWMV/ancWeb.html
Back on Monday,
Bart
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