The War of 1812: The Battle of New Orleans & The Mississippi River

The Mississippi River — trade route, boundary line, and burial ground. According to www.nps.gov the Mississippi River flows 593,003 cubic feet of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico. This equates to 4.4 million gallons per second, with each droplet telling a story and holding a memory. Researching currents and flood stages gives us a hint at her moods, but she has long been a crucial player in the history of American. Here, Bethany Bellemin will look at the river’s importance in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

The Battle of New Orleans. By Edward Percy Moran, 1910.

Key Players

1812. The testing time for a new American had begun. The British fleet had been confiscating crewmen from United States’ vessels claiming them as deserters of the British navy. While some of them had been deserters looking to start a new life, other sailors taken were simply American citizens going about their lives. After a few years of this injustice, the Americans had finally had enough. War was officially declared against the former mother country on June 18, 1812. It was going to be a conflict with far more significance than either side realized.

For two years war waged bringing the most pivotal battle with it. The beginning of the end started on December 21, 1814. The war had come to New Orleans, Louisiana. The ensuing conflict would prove to be a crucial and defining moment, not just for the war, but also for the entire nation.

December 1, 1814. General Andrew Jackson, the man of the hour had arrived. Robert Tallant, an authority on the Battle of New Orleans called him, “The toughest fighting man in the country.” (The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans, Robert Tallant, 84). Jackson was preparing for the looming battle ahead with an ill-prepared army, and he was running out of time. With his troops low on ammunition and food, Jackson prepared his defense and hoped the supply boats would arrive in time. The British, under the command of Major General Pakenham, was sailing in with a fleet, fully prepared for a quick seizure of the city and the mouth of the Mississippi River. The British army had determined to conquer New Orleans using her access to the interior via the river and put a chokehold on America. It was known that whoever controlled the river controlled the nation. The city of New Orleans knew they were a pawn in the game and the control of the river was the key element to the upcoming events in which they would be participating whether they wished to or not. There was no ignoring the British ships silhouetted against a gulf sky.

The supplies Jackson was waiting for were running late, and his temper was running short. The keelboats hauling the goods had stalled upriver with their captains refusing to deliver the load unless they were paid a higher fee. It was a classic trade monopoly that the river has witnessed time and time again.

Enter Henry Miller Shreve, inventor and entrepreneur of growing renown along the river. With lives and the fate of the nation at stake, he knew what he had to do. In December 1814, he set off down the river in his steamboat the Enterprise which he had loaded with supplies for the small army amassing at the mouth of the Mississippi. Shreve was already tackling the Livingston-Fulton embargo on river trade and was no stranger to opposing injustice in the trade routes. Fighting for his country was just as close to his heart. He also made certain that the three keelboats delivered their load to Jackson: regardless of the captains' complaints against the action. A deal was a deal in Shreve’s mind and was as irrevocable as the flow of the river.

Now the spotlight moved to Jean Lafitte, privateer and businessman. He never revealed in his life why he disliked the British so much, but it is a known fact that he opposed them enough to refuse their offers attempting to cajole him into joining the British army, which also seemed to have lit the match that pushed him to offer his influence and abilities in the aid of his new country. He was not American born but he was American made. Jackson is said to have taken an instant liking to him which is recommendation enough from the stern general.

Alongside Henry Shreve, and the temporary ally, Jean Lafitte, Jackson was now ready. Lafitte was able to supply the flints needed to outfit the army Jackson commanded, many volunteers lacking any weapons whatsoever. (The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans, Robert Tallant, 119). Jackson, Shreve, and Lafitte: men that ran in very different circles and yet their decisions had brought them all together in this moment. The three men were perhaps unknowingly cornerstones for this battle, would all carry have a lifelong respect for each other.

Why New Orleans

The battle of New Orleans would forever mark the young country of America. Sometimes called the Second War for Independence, it was proof that the new country was here to stay. It would set the nation apart, a new land with opportunity and justice for all. And everyone from every people group were eager to take part in the battle. Even the Choctaw nation took an interest, making up a small group of eighteen and heading down the river to help defend Louisiana. The United States had an army of 2,131 while the British were known to be marching in with at least 12,000 seasoned soldiers. The odds were not in New Orleans’ favor. Robert Tallant made this empowering statement about Jackson’s troops: “It is doubtful if a braver little army every marched in the history of the world.” (The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans, Robert Tallant, 128-130). It is also to be noted that it is the first recorded time that all different people groups of the country fought united against a common foe. For the first time, the former colonists really felt like Americans.

The Mississippi River was a major deciding factor on the outcome of the war. Even the British were aware that the river would determine the winning side. Controlling the watery trade route could split the nation in half and ensure the ability to deliver ammunition along the waterways to the nation that held the power. It was well known that the majority of news, military orders, and citizen mail for the southern portion of the country went down the waterway as well; trade was not the only thing that was in jeopardy. New Orleans had long known that the war would come to them, it was inevitable. She stood at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico and going by her was the only way the interior could be reached by boat. If she fell, potentially so did the nation.

The first shots fired in defense of New Orleans were from aboard the Carolina, a steamboat merchant vessel that sailed down the Mississippi to the British encampment. Shots were exchanged beginning at 7 p.m. on December 23, 1814. It had started.

It was a long battle, lasting from December 23 to its finale on January 8, 1815. The casualties for the Battle of New Orleans were grossly unbalanced with the British recording over 2,000 casualties among their troops. In contrast, Jackson’s smaller force, with their base camp at the now famous Chalmette Plantation, endured less than 100 casualties. This success in preservation can be attributed to the guerrilla warfare style of the Americans and the fact they knew the lay of the land. Also fighting for one's own country has a higher moral fiber than fighting to conquer another’s homeland. The British soldiers were certainly less enthusiastic than their commanders about the whole affair.

A Pointless Battle or Something More?

Ironically, the war ended before the famous battle on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, Belgium. But news had to come by ship and that took time. Edith McCall, a historian on Captain Shreve, notes it was seven weeks before the news of the treaty reached New Orleans. She further states that “the Battle of New Orleans soon became known as ‘the needless battle,’ for it was fought two weeks after the war was officially over. However, no one argued that it had been a useless battle, for it won new respect for the American military forces.” (Mississippi Steamboatman: The Story of Henry Miller Shreve, Edith McCall, 29-30). The War of 1812 was considered officially ended by Congress ratifying the treaty on February 16, 1815. The United States finally saw itself as a separate country and not just a singular group of colonies that still reflected Britain. Now she saw herself as a nation that could stand the test of time and make her mark on the world.

All the men that played a part in it, the knowns and the unknowns, showed that the country was built on initiative. Shreve taking his steamboat with munitions; Jackson pushing his troops to march from Pensacola, Florida to New Orleans as quickly as possible; Lafitte relentlessly offering his aid in the conflict from supplying weapons to sharing knowledge of the swamp lands: this was initiative and these are the types of men that laid the foundation for their sons and grandsons and further down to the ones who would enlist in World War Two in the fight to protect their country and stop Nazi Terrorism. This is the backbone of America, and it took a battle that was fought too late after a war to prove it to herself.

Robert Remini, another historian covering the famous battle, remarks that “the Battle of New Orleans was one of the great turning points in American history. The country had gone to war with England in a desperate effort to prove that its independence won in the revolution was no fluke, no accident, no grant by a reluctant mother country…in that one glorious moment the nation had demonstrated that it had the strength, will, and ability to defend its freedom and prove to the world that it was here to stay, that its sovereignty and rights were to be respected by all.” (The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and the First Military Victory, Robert V. Remini, 195). The United States was now a player among the powers of the world.

The Mississippi River was the heartbeat of a growing nation at a time when roads were few and railways were fewer. Even for the people that did not live near her shoreline, the river was the line of communication and trade from north to south. For those who were directly influenced by the waterway, the river was their very own to protect and utilize. Fishing, trade, and all manner of livelihood ebbed and flowed with the river's currents. Keeping the waterway in the hands of the Americas ensured she would last as long as the river ran. The people of New Orleans and of the swamplands considered her home, but she also became a symbol: no one will easily lose what he is willing to die to protect. The Battle of New Orleans was a group of people with little connection before the event. In their attempts to protect a river they forged a bond; and in doing so solidified the United States of America. That is one of the things that makes America what it is. And we can can thank a river for that.

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References

When it comes to history, I always tell people don’t take just one person's word for it. Research it and find your own conclusions based off of the facts that present themselves. That’s what makes us all historians: the curious mind and the searching heart. I found these books to be invaluable in my study of The Battle of New Orleans and hope you find in them a piece of the past to hold onto for yourself as well.

It Happened on the Mississippi River, James A. Crutchfield, Morris Book Publishing, 2009.

The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and the First Military Victory, Robert V. Remini, Penguin Books, 1999.

The Story of the Battle of New Orleans, Stanley Clisby Arthur, 1915, republished Cornerstone Book Publishers, 2015.

Mississippi Steamboatman: The Story of Henry Miller Shreve, Edith McCall, Walker Publishing Company, 1986.

Sink or Be Sunk!, Paul Estronza La Violette, Annabelle Publishing, 2002.

The Greatest Fury: The Battle of New Orleans and the Rebirth of America, William C. Davis, Caliber by Penguin Random House, 2019.

Master of the Mississippi, Florence L. Dorsey, Pelican Publishing, 1998.

The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans, Robert Tallant, Pelican Publishing, 1951. (You will notice this was one of my favorite books to quote in this article. A well written and engaging narrative of Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans).

The Vicksburg Campaign: Part 1 - The Strategic Problem of Vicksburg

The Vicksburg campaign was a series battles from 1862 to 1863 in the US Civil War. The fighting was focused on Vicksburg, Mississippi. In part one of a two-part series, Lloyd W Klein looks at the strategic importance of Vicksburg.

The bombarding and capturing of Fort Hindman, Arkansas Post, January 1863. By Currier and Ives.

"See what a lot of land these fellows hold, of which Vicksburg is the key! The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.”

-- Abraham Lincoln

“ … the nailhead that holds the South's two halves together."

– Jefferson Davis

The vital importance of controlling the Mississippi River was apparent from the beginning of the Civil War. The river not only served as a crucial supply route but also facilitated the transportation of troops and military provisions, while also aiding in effective communication. By gaining control over the Mississippi River, the Union would effectively cut off the Confederacy's access to this vital thoroughfare, creating a division between the western and eastern southern states. Furthermore, this strategic move would enable Northern traffic to freely navigate the entire length of the river, essentially transforming it into a logistical superhighway that would greatly influence operations in the Western theater.

By June 1862, the Union army and naval forces had captured New Orleans and many other forts and cities along the Mississippi River. However, the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg in Mississippi remained under their control. With General Halleck's transfer to Washington as the commander-in-chief, General Grant assumed command of the Army of Tennessee and was entrusted with capturing Vicksburg.  This was no easy task. It had been tried by others without success.

Admiral Farragut had attempted an assault up the river in May 1862 after he captured New Orleans.  He demanded surrender but he had insufficient troops to attack. Returning with a flotilla in June 1862, his attempts to bombard the fortress into surrender were unsuccessful. Throughout July, the Navy shelled Vicksburg and engaged in minor battles with Confederate vessels in the area, yet their forces were not enough to attempt a landing, leading to the abandonment of the mission.

Geography

Vicksburg held immense strategic significance due to its geographical location overlooking a sharp 180-degree bend on the Mississippi River, situated atop a towering 200-foot bluff. Because of the horseshoe turn, ships were essentially forced to face toward it, then away from it, and had to maneuver slowly. Perched on high, steep bluffs 200 feet above the river and heavily defended by forts and earthworks, it was heavily defended with formidable forts and earthworks. It was called the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy" for good reason, as it appeared impregnable to any military force of that era.

North and east of Vicksburg, the Mississippi Delta was formed by the convergence of the Yazoo River with the Mississippi River. Spanning over 7000 square miles, this alluvial floodplain boasts an intricate network of streams, rivers, bayous, and swamps. Some of these waterways were navigable, while others were impassable. The Delta is a 7000 square mile alluvial floodplain, with many streams, rivers, bayous, and swamps, some of which were navigable, some of which were entirely unpassable. Its geological origin is that of regular flooding of both rivers over thousands of years, creating a flat, fertile land with swamps and other wetlands. It was a land inhabited by swarms of mosquitoes carrying malaria, poor roads, and untamed wilderness. Additionally, it housed some of the largest, most productive, and isolated cotton plantations. The slave population in this area developed its own unique culture and music, which eventually emerge as Mississippi Delta Blues.

A bayou is a sluggish and narrow river characterized by an ill-defined shoreline, often associated with a marshy lake or wetland. It can also refer to a creek whose direction of flow changes daily due to tidal shifts. Bayous typically contain brackish water and are frequently boggy or stagnant. On the other hand, a swamp or marsh is a low-lying wetland predominantly covered by woody vegetation. These areas experience saturation of water in the ground and are either partially or intermittently submerged. Swamps and marshes serve as transitional zones between land and water. Wetlands encompass not only floodplains but also other areas that are prone to flooding or remain underwater.

The Initial Advance

Ulysses S Grant assumed command of the Army of Tennessee and immediately devised a strategic plan. Departing from Memphis, he aimed to trace the path of the Mississippi Central Railroad towards the south, reaching Holly Springs. Meanwhile, General Sherman was entrusted with leading four divisions, totaling around 32,000 soldiers, down the river. Grant, on the other hand, would continue his advance with the remaining forces, approximately 40,000 strong, along the railroad line towards Oxford. The Confederate forces, under the leadership of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, posed a formidable challenge, with 12,000 troops stationed in Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi, while Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn commanded around 24,000 soldiers in Grenada.

Grant faced numerous obstacles in his mission, including the Confederate Army's opposition, the demanding terrain and geographical features, the prevalence of diseases, and logistical difficulties in maintaining a steady supply chain. However, his most significant concern came from the political realm. President Lincoln envisioned a two-pronged offensive strategy, with Major General John McClernand authorized to advance down the river, while Nathaniel Banks would move upstream from New Orleans. This political pressure added an additional layer of complexity to Grant's already challenging circumstances.

General Grant's initial strategy to reach Vicksburg by taking the most straightforward overland route, following the train road, proved to be unsuccessful. The problem with this direct approach was that it was too predictable and vulnerable: any threat to the single-lane Mississippi Central Railroad would have disastrous consequences. Unfortunately for Grant, the Confederates had Nathan Bedford Forrest, a skilled commander who posed a significant threat to this route. As a result, Grant's offensive failed as raids by Van Dorn and Forrest disrupted his supply lines and communication networks. The destruction of the supply depot at Holly Springs forced Grant to abandon his original plan.

Chickasaw Bayou

Meanwhile, Sherman moved downriver to Johnson's Plantation and attempted a direct northeast advance toward Vicksburg. However, this strategy required traversing through swamps and facing strong defenses on hills overlooking a bayou. Despite launching attacks for three consecutive days at Chickasaw Bayou (December 26 - 29, 1862), Sherman's forces made no progress. The heavily fortified hills and the challenging terrain hindered their advancement, leaving them unable to break through.

On December 27, the Union army pushed their lines forward through the swamps toward the Walnut Hills, which were strongly defended. On December 28, several futile attempts were made to get around these defenses. On December 29, Sherman ordered a frontal assault, which was repulsed with heavy casualties, and then withdrew.

The problem was that the bayou ended in a wall of hills, the Walnut Hills, which provided a strong defensive advantage. The strategic significance of this attack was in its proximity to Vicksburg, which is exactly what enabled Pemberton to bring sufficient manpower for its defense. Another factor was that Porter’s bombardment failed to have an important effect. Sherman had over 30,000 men of whom 1700 were casualties; Pemberton had about 14,000 with less than 200 casualties.

General McClernand and Arkansas Post

Meanwhile, General McClernand led his Corps to Memphis and proceeded down the Mississippi River, where he instructed Sherman to join forces with him, disregarding Grant's directives. Their target was Arkansas Post, home to Fort Hindman at the junction of the Arkansas River, located 50 miles upstream. With the support of Admiral Porter's ironclads bombarding the fort, they managed to land sufficient numbers of troops to capture the fort and take prisoners despite sustaining heavy losses.

Initially skeptical of the expedition, Grant expressed disapproval in a letter to Halleck. However, the successful outcome compelled Grant to recognize its importance and collaborate with McClernand. The capture of Fort Hindman was crucial in preventing potential threats from the rear, underscoring the necessity of neutralizing such strongholds to secure Grant's position.

Although McClernand incurred over 1000 casualties in a 30,000-man army, he captured 5000 Confederates. Grant would need to win a victory over the rebels and his rival in his army. As a Democratic congressman from Illinois and a close friend of Lincoln, McClernand enjoyed a political alliance with the President. However, his position as a political general had its drawbacks. While serving as second in command at Belmont and later as a division commander at Donelson, Grant knew that if he failed, he would be next in line. Despite this, Grant maintained direct communication with Lincoln, bypassing the chain of command, and freely offered his advice and criticism of others. His ultimate goal was to secure an independent command.

Grant’s Bayou Operations

From January to March 1863, Grant’s basic plan was to get close to Vicksburg with his army so that in the Spring, he could be ready, without being exposed to the town's formidable artillery. Grant sought to create alternative routes that could serve as highways for his troops by preparing waterways in the vicinity,. These operations involved a series of seven initiatives or "experiments" that took place from January to March 1863. Although all of these attempts ultimately failed, Grant's willingness to explore various possibilities demonstrated his fearlessness in the face of potential failure. This mindset, characterized by creativity and thoughtfulness, ultimately led to his success. Grant's relentless pursuit of alternative strategies showcased his determination to find a solution, even if it meant considering unconventional approaches.

Grant’s Canal

One in particular deserves special mention. Grant's Canal was an attempt to create a canal through De Soto Point in Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi. In 1862, Farragut had explored the option of bypassing the fortified cliffs by constructing a canal across the river's bend, the De Soto Peninsula. Brigadier General Thomas Williams was sent to De Soto Point with 3,200 men to dig a canal capable of bypassing the Confederate defenses. Diseases, especially malaria, yellow fever, and dysentery, as well as falling river levels, prevented Williams from successfully constructing the canal, and the project was abandoned.  In January 1863, the project regained momentum when General Grant took an interest in its potential.

Encouraged by Grant, who had received favorable feedback from the navy regarding President Lincoln's support, Sherman's troops resumed excavation in late January 1863. Mockingly referred to as "Butler's Ditch" by Sherman, referencing Major General Benjamin Butler, who had initially dispatched Williams for the task, the canal was a mere 6 feet wide and 6 feet deep. Recognizing the extensive engineering challenges, Grant initiated modifications by relocating the entrance upstream to capitalize on a stronger current.

Reports indicated that the water in the canal was stagnant and lacked any current, necessitating the need for a deeper channel for the Union Navy ironclads to navigate through. Grant, recognizing this issue, also gave orders to widen the canal. However, as the month drew to a close, it became evident to Grant that the canal project would not be successful. Union officers who visited later discovered that the water level was only 2 feet and observed the absence of any current, despite earlier reports of depths reaching up to 8 feet and widths up to 12 feet in certain areas. The situation took a turn for the worse when a sudden rise in the river caused the dam at the canal's entrance to break, resulting in flooding in the surrounding area. Consequently, the canal began to fill up with sediment and backwater. In a desperate attempt to salvage the project, two large steam-driven dipper dredges named Hercules and Sampson were deployed to clear the channel. However, their efforts were thwarted by Confederate artillery fire from the bluffs at Vicksburg, forcing them to retreat. By the end of March, all work on the canal was abandoned.

In April 1876, the Mississippi River changed course, forming a channel through De Soto Point. Vicksburg became isolated from the riverfront after the oxbow lake formed by the course change became cut off from the river. It was not until the completion of the Yazoo Diversion Canal in 1903 that Vicksburg regained its connection to the river. Although most of Grant's Canal has been destroyed over time due to agricultural activities, a small section measuring approximately 200 yards in length still remains. It is worth noting that General Grant did manage to alter the course of the Mississippi River, a remarkable feat of engineering. However, this achievement came too late to hold any military significance.

Lake Providence

Brig. Gen. James B. McPherson constructed a canal stretching several hundred yards from the Mississippi River to Lake Providence, enabling access to the Red River via Bayous Baxter and Macon, as well as the Tensas and Black Rivers. This strategic waterway would allow Grant's forces to link up with Banks at Port Hudson. By March 18, the connection was navigable, but the limited number of "ordinary Ohio River boats" provided to Grant for navigating the bayous could only accommodate 8,500 men. Although this was the only one of the bayou expeditions to successfully bypass the Vicksburg defenses, it was not enough for a successful Vicksburg operation. It did allow the possibility of sending reinforcements to Banks.

Yazoo Pass

The Yazoo Pass initiative aimed to reach the elevated terrain above Hayne's Bluff and below Yazoo City by breaching the Mississippi River levee near Moon Lake, approximately 150 miles above Vicksburg, near Helena, Arkansas. This plan involved traversing the Yazoo Pass, an ancient route from Yazoo City to Memphis that had been obstructed by the 1856 levee construction, isolating the Pass from the Mississippi River to Moon Lake. The route would lead through the Coldwater River, then the Tallahatchie River, and finally into the Yazoo River at Greenwood, Mississippi. It may also have been intended as a method to raid the railroad bridge at Grenada.. Despite the Union's efforts to blow up the dikes on February 3, obstacles such as low-hanging trees and deliberate Confederate obstructions hindered progress. These setbacks allowed the Confederates to hastily erect "Fort Pemberton" near the junction of the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha Rivers, effectively repelling the Union naval forces.

Steele’s Bayou

On March 14, Admiral Porter attempted to reach Deer Creek by sailing up the Yazoo Delta through Steele's Bayou, which is located just north of Vicksburg. The purpose of this maneuver was to outflank Fort Pemberton and enable the landing of troops between Vicksburg and Yazoo City. However, the Confederates obstructed their path once again by felling trees and causing the paddlewheels of the boats to become entangled with willow reeds. This situation raised concerns that Confederate troops might seize the boats and sailors, necessitating Sherman to move troops by land to rescue them.

Duckport Canal

Another canal project known as the Duckport Canal was initiated to create a waterway from Duckport Landing to Walnut Bayou, aiming to allow lighter boats to bypass Vicksburg. However, by the time the canal was nearly completed on April 6, the water levels had significantly decreased. As a result, only the lightest flatboats were able to navigate through the canal, rendering it ineffective for larger vessels.

Milliken's Bend

The main challenge Grant faced in dealing with Vicksburg was its formidable position as a fortress situated on elevated bluffs along the river. The city boasted massive batteries that could outmatch any Union ships on the river. Additionally, Vicksburg was surrounded by nine major forts or citadels and protected by 172 guns, which commanded all possible approaches by both water and land. Furthermore, the city housed a garrison of thirty thousand troops, making it a highly fortified and well-defended stronghold.

Moreover, the turn in the river beneath the town ensured that any naval force would face immediate and devastating bombardment, making it a formidable barrier for potential invaders. However, the protected northern invasion route through a maze of swampy bayous posed a significant obstacle for Grant's army. While his troops could camp on the west side of the river, the logistics of launching an attack from that position were complex and uncertain. The necessity of eventually crossing the river to the other side raised questions about how the supply line and reinforcements would be managed during the movement.

Grant wasn’t actually directly across the river, because the large Cypress Swamp comprises the west bank. He was located at Milliken’s Bend, upriver from the 180-degree turn in the river. Despite the seeming disadvantage of being further away, this positioning allowed for a level of strategic ambiguity that Pemberton underestimated. Milliken's Bend, situated in Louisiana about 15 miles upriver from Vicksburg, served as a crucial staging area for Grant's army by 1863. The distance from Pemberton's forces provided Grant with the element of surprise and control over the river traffic, enhancing his strategic advantage.

The construction of bridges, corduroy roads, and the clearing of swamps by McClernand's troops from Milliken's Bend to the proposed river crossing at Hard Times, Louisiana, below Vicksburg, demonstrated the meticulous planning and effort required to overcome the challenging terrain. By filling in the swamps and creating a 70-mile road by April 17, the Union forces were able to establish a vital connection for their movements toward Vicksburg. This logistical feat showcased the determination and resourcefulness of Grant's army in navigating the difficult landscape to achieve their strategic objectives.

April brought receding waters and the emergence of roads from Milliken’s Bend to points downriver on the west bank. Grant planned to march his troops over those roads to a location where he could ferry them to the east bank of the river.

The Plan Emerges

Grant pored over maps and developed a plan requiring naval cooperation by January. Grant expressed that the next step was to get south of the city when he first landed at Young’s Point, in late January. In early February 1863, Grant conveyed to General Halleck and Admiral Porter his conception for the campaign. He later convened a staff meeting to outline his intentions. He expressed his desire to lead his army south of Vicksburg, cross the river, and sever the vital railroad link between Vicksburg and Jackson. However, despite his clear plan, Grant chose to delay the execution of his strategy until Spring. According to Grant's account in his memoirs, he attributed this delay to the high water levels of the river in January, which made it impractical to commence the campaign at that time.

Grant directed his army to march southward along the west bank of the Mississippi River, aiming to position his forces well below Vicksburg. The next step in his plan involved transporting his troops across the river, a task that required navigating past the formidable guns of the city. Once safely on the Mississippi shore south of Vicksburg, Grant intended to strike inland, engaging any Confederate forces encountered along the way, with the ultimate objective of capturing Vicksburg. Grant's meticulous planning involved extensive study of maps and charts, as he single-handedly devised this approach. However, his subordinates, including Sherman, McPherson, and Logan, expressed reservations about the plan, deeming it too risky. By using the new road, and a large Bayou, Grant was capable of reaching Hard Times Landing without being detected. The army marched south on the west side of the Mississippi River and crossed the river south of Vicksburg at a place named Hard Times.

Hard Times is just beyond Big Cypress swamp. At that location, the Mississippi River takes a wide inward turn. Bayou Vidal, which may have once been the main river channel, provided a direct route for Grant's forces. This route was approximately six miles beyond Grand Gulf on the opposite side of the river, where they boarded transports to cross over to Bruinsburg. Grant recognized the significance of this route and understood that he could continue to utilize it for transporting supplies as long as necessary.

Grant had three options for attacking Vicksburg: The first option was to return to Memphis and approach the city from the north and east via an overland route. However, Grant dismissed this option as it would have negatively impacted morale to retreat. The second option involved directly assaulting the city by crossing the Mississippi  River. Grant rejected this option, believing it would result in a significant loss of life or even defeat. The third option was to march his troops down the west bank of the Mississippi, cross it, and approach the city from the south and east. Upon hearing Grant's plan, Sherman expressed doubts and suggested that Grant should reconsider option #1 and return to Memphis. Blair after the war also expressed his skepticism at the time. 

The Naval Rendezvous

Grant’s particular genius in the war was his brilliant collaborations with the navy. His victories at Forts Donelson and Henry for example were made possible by the combination of ground and water approaches. In that sense, the concept of combined arms forces was an innovation General Grant developed. Vicksburg is the outstanding application of the model.

The Union troops needed to rendezvous with their Navy to cross into Confederate territory, but the success of this operation depended on the ability of the boats to evade the guns defending Vicksburg. It was crucial for there to be an adequate number of gunboats and transport ships positioned south of the city to ensure the plan's success. Once the Union Navy had navigated downstream past Vicksburg, there was no turning back due to the strong river current.

On the evening of April 16, two weeks before the planned river crossing, Admiral David Porter guided the Union fleet past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg to join forces with Grant. Despite being detected by Confederate lookouts as they rounded De Soto Point, the fleet pressed on and engaged in battle with the Confederate batteries. Despite sustaining damage from enemy fire, the Union fleet successfully fought their way through to rendezvous with Grant.

Porter directed to ensure the concealment and protection of the boilers on the steamships by utilizing barriers made of cotton, hay bales, and bags of grain. This strategic measure would prove beneficial in the future as well. Additionally, to provide an extra layer of defense, coal barges, and surplus vessels were securely fastened to the sides of the critical vessels. Commencing at 10 pm on April 16, Porter assumed command of a fleet consisting of seven ironclad gunboats, four steamers, the tug Ivy, and a variety of towed coal barges, as they embarked on a downstream journey. The Union vessels were illuminated by Confederate bonfires, becoming targets for a relentless two-hour barrage from the Vicksburg guns. Despite the intense fire, the ironclads and supply-laden transports successfully navigated past the Vicksburg guns. The Confederate cannons unleashed a total of 525 rounds, resulting in sixty-eight hits. Remarkably, only one vessel was lost, and there were no casualties among the crew. Additionally, the Confederates had placed ropes strung across the river with explosives attached that could be moved by pulleys.

Grant realized that it would be impossible to provide his army with supplies using the muddy west bank road. As a result, a second convoy was organized to address this issue. On the night of April 22, six transport vessels, without any escorts, were tasked with towing barges loaded with 100,000 rations and other essential supplies, attempting to pass through the Vicksburg batteries. Grant, recognizing the importance of additional supplies, ordered another group of vessels to bring reinforcements one week later on the same night. This time, six protected steamers, under the command of Colonel Clark Lagow from Grant's staff, towed twelve barges filled with rations. Despite facing heavy fire from the Vicksburg batteries, five of the steamers and half of the barges successfully made it through. The vessels were primarily manned by army volunteers from "Black Jack" Logan's division, as the civilian crews were too fearful to navigate through the dangerous Vicksburg gauntlet. Although the run was mostly successful, the leading vessel, a hospital ship, was unfortunately sunk, resulting in the loss of two lives.  Meanwhile, by cutting a new road through the swamp, when necessary, McClernand's corps worked its way south and was joined by one of McPherson's divisions.

Diversionary Tactics

To enhance the element of deception during his planned landing, Grant employed diversionary tactics to divert Pemberton's attention away from the south and the river crossing site. These tactics were executed through two well-conceived feints.

Snyder’s Bluff

While he was moving south with McClernand and McPherson on the west (Louisiana) bank, Grant had Sherman’s Fifteenth Corps threaten Vicksburg from the north. On April 27, Grant ordered Sherman to proceed up the Yazoo River and threaten Snyder’s Bluff northeast of Vicksburg. On the 29th, Sherman debarked ten regiments of troops and appeared to be preparing an assault while eight naval gunboats bombarded the Confederate forts at Haines’s Bluff.

Sherman’s division remained north of Vicksburg. General Sherman led a highly successful diversionary attack by utilizing a combined naval and infantry operation. Blair's division, consisting of eight gunboats and ten transports, secretly and quietly moved to the mouth of Chickasaw Bayou the night before the operation. At 9 am, all gunboats, except one, opened fire on the enemy forces in the bayou, while one gunboat and the transports moved upstream.

At the Battle of Snyder’s Bluff, the troops proceeded upstream until approximately 6 pm, crossed Blake’s Levee, and launched an assault on the artillery near Drumgold’s Bluff. This location was significantly north of Vicksburg, diverting focus from the ongoing activities downstream. The attack faced insurmountable challenges due to the strategic positioning of batteries on Drumgold’s and Snyder’s Bluffs, as well as the course of the Yazoo River that General Sherman's forces had to navigate.

At first,  heavy casualties were sustained. The next morning more troops were deployed, but the difficult terrain of swamps and marshes posed formidable barriers to any progress. Sherman eventually retreated to Milliken’s Bend, realizing that his contingent, which constituted only a fraction of General Grant's overall command, would likely have failed to capture the bluffs even if a direct attempt was made.

Sherman withdrew on May 1 and hastily followed McPherson down the west bank of the Mississippi. His troops were ferried across the river on May 6 and 7.

This diversionary maneuver effectively drew Pemberton's attention away from Grant's actual landing site. Pemberton sent 3,000 troops that had been marching south to oppose Grant.

Grierson’s Raid

The success of this diversion was remarkable, as it involved a daring cavalry raid that originated from La Grange, TN and penetrated central Mississippi on April 17. This marked the commencement of a relentless 17-day campaign characterized by constant movement, widespread devastation, and frequent clashes. Upon its conclusion, General Grant aptly hailed it as "one of the most remarkable cavalry exploits of the entire war."

Under the leadership of Grierson, a force of 1,700 soldiers from the 6th and 7th Illinois, as well as the 2nd Iowa Cavalry regiments, embarked on this audacious mission from La Grange. Over the course of 17 days, Grierson's troops covered a staggering distance of 800 miles, engaging Confederate forces repeatedly. They successfully disrupted two vital railroads, took numerous prisoners and horses, and inflicted significant damage to enemy property. Their journey culminated in Baton Rouge on May 2, where Grierson joined forces with Nathaniel Banks in the ongoing siege at Port Hudson.

By skillfully diverting attention to the north and east of Mississippi, this raid effectively diverted Confederate focus away from the gathering of troops at Grand Gulf. Through the deployment of small patrols and deceptive maneuvers, Grierson managed to confuse the enemy regarding his true location, intentions, and direction. Operating deep within enemy territory, his forces systematically dismantled rail infrastructure, liberated enslaved individuals, razed Confederate storehouses, disabled locomotives, and obliterated commissary stores, bridges, and trestles. The lack of a viable response from General Pembleton further contributed to the raid's triumph. While Forrest was engaged in Alabama, combating Streight's Raid, other Confederate cavalry units were dispatched but proved unable to catch up with Grierson's swift movements. This strategic diversion ultimately hindered Pemberton's ability to effectively counter Grant's advance from the south, as he found himself inadequately equipped to confront the Union forces due to the distractions caused by Grierson's audacious exploits.

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Further Reading:

·       Donald L Miller, Vicksburg: Grant's Campaign That Broke the Confederacy. Simon and Schuster, 2019.

·       Grant’s Memoirs

·       Sherman’s Memoirs

·       Grant by Chernow

·       https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/vicksburg

·       https://www.historynet.com/battle-of-vicksburg

·       https://civilwarmonths.com/2023/04/15/vicksburg-grant-and-porter-assemble/amp/

·       https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/achenblog/wp/2014/04/25/ulysses-s-grant-hero-or-butcher-great-man-or-doofus/

·       https://www.historynet.com/vicksburg-the-campaign-that-confirmed-grants-greatness/

·       https://www.vicksburgpost.com/2003/01/27/water-returned-to-citys-doorstep-100-years-ago/?fbclid=IwAR1X5nFZ8F-l_0sbr3Ki1HBygBiPb-GCgxl4aBCznjSOgKAvVdURVJUvJDA

·       https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/nature/river-course-changes.htm?fbclid=IwAR3mflQUgR8JaUEIcrm2v_lLlfdGup44_XwzxIcJ1mTAyyCT2h_umfcT2Sc

·       https://www.historynet.com/americas-civil-war-colonel-benjamin-griersons-cavalry-raid-in-1863/

·       https://www.historynet.com/griersons-raid-during-the-vicksburg-campaign/

·       https://www.thoughtco.com/major-general-benjamin-grierson-2360423

·       https://emergingcivilwar.com/2021/04/29/that-other-cavalry-guy-benjamin-h-grierson/

·       https://www.historyonthenet.com/grant-vicksburg

·       https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/port-gibson

·       https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/battle-of-port-gibson/

·       https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/historyculture/battleportgibson.htm

·       https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/grants-vicksburg-supply-line

·       https://www.historynet.com/mississippi-nightmare/

·       https://www.thoughtco.com/battle-of-champion-hill-2360280

·       https://www.rebellionresearch.com/battle-of-raymond?fbclid=IwAR1L1PcCwGRCFLg-Bv7neO1tG6cv7RsnmZO8kNvv5XVjUBkM6t3CiPtu96c_aem_th_AaSypV4shWeio-QbLLXIuILea41vtkZsruFEMGykenl_kK8dPEuWWYZiUP44s9G8ws4&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

·       Klein LW, Wittenberg EJ. The decisive influence of malaria on the outcome of the Vicksburg campaign. Surgeon’s Call: The Journal of the National Civil War Medicine Museum. 2023; 28(1): 4 – 14.

What was the Unseen Ship Near the Titanic's Tragic End?

April 14, 1912, is etched in history as the night the RMS Titanic met its tragic fate. As the luxury liner sank beneath the icy waters of the North Atlantic, a mystery emerged that continues to baffle historians and enthusiasts alike: the tale of a ship seen near the Titanic, shrouded in controversy and intrigue. This is the story of that mysterious ship and its connection to the sinking of the Titanic.

Richard Clements explains.

The SS Californian.

The Titanic's Final Voyage

The RMS Titanic, deemed "unsinkable," embarked on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City on April 10, 1912. Boasting opulence and advanced engineering, the Titanic was a marvel of its time. However, on the night of April 14, disaster struck. At 11:40 PM, the ship collided with an iceberg, and within hours, it was evident that the Titanic was doomed. Distress signals were sent, flares were fired, and the call for help echoed across the cold, dark sea.

The Mystery Ship

As the Titanic's distress flares illuminated the night sky, survivors and crew members reported sighting a nearby ship. This vessel, dubbed the "mystery ship," seemed tantalizingly close yet failed to respond to the Titanic's desperate pleas for assistance. Eyewitness accounts describe the ship's lights, which appeared to draw closer and then inexplicably move away. The identity and actions of this ship have been subjects of intense scrutiny and debate ever since.

The SS Californian

Amid the chaos, the SS Californian, a Leyland Line steamer, was stationed in the vicinity, allegedly within sight of the Titanic. Under the command of Captain Stanley Lord, the Californian had halted for the night amidst ice warnings. Crew members aboard the Californian reported seeing flares fired from a ship, but Captain Lord did not take immediate action, believing they were not distress signals.

Third Officer Charles Groves and Apprentice James Gibson both testified that they saw the flares and informed Captain Lord. However, Lord, convinced that the ship was too far away to be in distress, chose not to wake the wireless operator. As the night progressed, the Californian's crew watched as the lights of the distant ship seemed to vanish, an observation that coincided with the Titanic's final moments.

Investigations and Controversy

Following the disaster, American and British inquiries sought to unravel the events of that night. Both inquiries delved into the actions of Captain Lord and the Californian's crew, questioning why they did not respond to the distress signals. The American inquiry, led by Senator William Alden Smith, concluded that the Californian was indeed the ship seen by the Titanic, condemning Captain Lord for failing to act.

The British Board of Trade's investigation also criticized Lord, but with less severity, acknowledging the challenges of recognizing distress signals at sea. Despite these findings, supporters of Captain Lord argued that the lights seen from the Californian were from another ship, not the Titanic.

The Samson Myth

In an attempt to exonerate Captain Lord, some theorists proposed the presence of another vessel, the Norwegian sealer SS Samson. According to a journal purportedly kept by a crew member of the Samson, the ship was near the Titanic but avoided responding due to illegal sealing activities. However, evidence debunks this theory: the Samson was documented in Icelandic ports before and after the disaster, making it impossible for her to be near the Titanic on April 14.

Modern Perspectives

With advances in historical analysis and technology, modern researchers have revisited the Titanic's final hours. Tim Maltin, a Titanic historian, attributes the confusion to abnormal atmospheric conditions that night. These conditions, he argues, caused the lights of ships to appear closer than they were. This phenomenon explains why the Titanic and Californian misjudged each other's distance and movements.

Maltin's research, supported by testimonies and scientific analysis, suggests that the "mystery ship" seen from the Titanic was indeed the Californian. The illusion of the ship moving away was due to the Californian's slow drift and swinging to starboard, making it appear as if it were sailing off when it was, in fact, stationary.

Technological Insights

Recent technological advancements have furthered our understanding of the events. For instance, reanalysis of wireless communication logs and synchronization of ship clocks have provided clearer timelines. These studies reveal that the times recorded by the Titanic and Californian match precisely with the observations of lights disappearing and flares being fired, confirming the proximity of the Californian.

Moreover, Leslie Reade's extensive research, detailed in "The Ship That Stood Still," and Walter Lord's work, "The Night Lives On," have been instrumental in piecing together the puzzle. They emphasize that the Californian's failure to respond was a tragic error compounded by misinterpretations and human error rather than outright negligence.

Conclusion

The story of the mystery ship near the Titanic remains a captivating tale of maritime history. The interplay of human decisions, technological limitations, and atmospheric illusions created a perfect storm of confusion on that fateful night. While the SS Californian was undeniably the closest ship capable of rescuing the Titanic's passengers, the peculiar conditions led to a series of misjudgments that prevented timely aid.

This enduring mystery serves as a poignant reminder of the fragility of human perception and the profound impact of seemingly minor decisions. As we reflect on the Titanic's tragic end, we are reminded of the importance of vigilance, clarity, and prompt action in times of crisis. The tale of the mystery ship will continue to intrigue and teach future generations about the complexities of maritime history and human fallibility.

Richard Clements in his own words:

I am a dedicated writer with a passion for history and uncovering its mysteries. I specialize in creating engaging and well-researched content that brings historical events and intriguing mysteries to life. With a keen eye for detail and a love for storytelling, I have written on various historical topics, from ancient civilizations to modern history. My work aims to captivate readers and provide them with a deeper understanding of the past and the mysteries that intrigue us. He posts on X/Twitter here.

References

Ponic, Jason. “The SS Californian: The Ship That Watched Titanic Sink.” History101, 31 July 2023.

Lord, Walter. The Night Lives On: The Untold Stories and Secrets Behind the Sinking of the “Unsinkable” Ship – Titanic. Open Road Media, 2012.

Reade, Leslie. The Ship That Stood Still: The Californian and Her Mysterious Role in the Titanic Disaster. W.W. Norton & Company, 1993.

Maltin, Tim. “There was a ‘Mystery Ship’ Between the Titanic and the Californian.” timmaltin.com, 14 April 2019.

U.S. Senate Inquiry. “Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation.” Greenlight Publishing, 1998.

The Daring 1962 British Hostage Rescue in Limbang, Malaysia

The December 1962 British Raid on Limbang was a confrontation between British forces and the Tentara Nasional Kalimantan Utara (TNKU). The TNKU were holding hostages and the British forces were sent to free them. This happened as part of the prelude to the 1960s Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.

Terry Bailey explains.

A British soldier being winched onto a helicopter in Borneo in 1964, with another soldier kneeling in the front of the photo.

Prelude to the Raid

In the early 1960s, Southeast Asia was a cauldron of political turmoil. The Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation, also known as Konfrontasi, saw Indonesia opposing the creation of Malaysia, which it perceived as a neo-colonial project. Amidst this geopolitical struggle, the North Kalimantan National Army (Tentara Nasional Kalimantan Utara, TNKU), a group of Indonesian-backed insurgents, sought to destabilize the region further. They aimed to establish an independent North Borneo, free from British influence and the proposed Malaysian Federation.

Sarawak, a British protectorate became a focal point of this conflict. In December 1962, the TNKU escalated their campaign by seizing the town of Limbang, a strategic and symbolic target. The insurgents took several hostages, including the British District Officer, his wife, and other expatriates. They fortified the town and threatened to execute the hostages if their demands were not met, sending shockwaves through the British colonial administration and necessitating an immediate response.

The Amphibious Assault

42 Commando, which was in Singapore at the time, were flown to Labuan and given the task of clearing Brunei Bay, 'L' Company was detached with the task of securing the town of Limbang and gaining the release of the European hostages, which included a district officer, from the town of Limbang, held by the numerical strong force of rebels.

42 Commando Royal Marines, a unit renowned for its versatility and combat prowess, were the perfect solution to the problem, therefore, L company of 42 Commando Royal Marines, led by the company commander Captain Jeremy Moore, were embarked on board HMS Albion, the commando amphibious assault ship anchored off the coast of Brunei. Moore, who would later rise to prominence as a key figure in the South Atlantic conflict, (Falklands War), was tasked with planning and executing the daring hostage rescue and securing the town of Limbang from the rebels.

Side note:- Captain Jeremy Moore, retired Major General Sir John Jeremy Moore, KCB, OBE, MC & Bar (Born 5th of July 1928 – Deceased the 15th of September 2007) was the British senior Royal Marine officer who served as the commander of the British land forces during the 1982 South Atlantic conflict, (Falklands War). Moore received the surrender of the Argentine forces on the islands.

The Limbang operation was fraught with challenges, the town was located deep inland along a river, requiring a complex amphibious operation. The TNKU insurgents were well-armed and entrenched, and the lives of the hostages hung precariously in the balance. Nevertheless, the Royal Marine Commandos were undeterred. With meticulous planning and the element of surprise on their side, they prepared for one of the most daring rescue missions in British military history.

The Raid Unfolds

On the night of the 12th of December, 1962 under the cover of darkness, two assault craft carrying the Royal Marine Commandos embarked on the perilous journey up the Limbang River. The initial phase of the raid was executed with precision; the Royal Marines disembarked near the town's police station, which the insurgents had turned into their headquarters.

However, the element of surprise was partially compromised when the TNKU insurgents spotted the approaching craft and opened fire. The Royal Marine Commandos responded swiftly and effectively. Under heavy fire, they stormed the police station and nearby buildings, engaging in intense close-quarters combat. The TNKU, although numerically superior, were no match for the well-trained and determined Commandos.

Lieutenant Peter S Waters' team advanced toward the hostages' location, facing fierce resistance. Waters himself was wounded, but he continued to lead his men with unwavering resolve. The Royal Marine Commandos fought their way through, neutralizing the insurgents and securing the hostages. The rescue was not without cost; 5 Royal Marine Commandos were killed, and several others were wounded. However, L' Company secured Limbang and the release of the hostages in less than 20 minutes.

Side note:- Lieutenant Peter Waters, was second in command 2 i/c of L, (Lima), Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines.

Immediate Outcome

The raid on Limbang was a resounding success. The hostages were rescued, and the TNKU insurgents were either killed or captured. The operation demonstrated the effectiveness, flexibility and professionalism of the Royal Marine Commando forces who had conducted a complex amphibious assault under extremely challenging conditions. The successful rescue bolstered British morale and reaffirmed their control over Sarawak during a volatile period.

In the immediate aftermath, the British authorities worked to stabilize the region. The surviving TNKU members were pursued, and their operations in Sarawak were significantly disrupted. The success of the raid also sent a strong message to other insurgent groups, showcasing the British resolve and capability to protect their interests and maintain order.

Long-term Aftermath

The raid on Limbang had far-reaching implications for both the region and the individuals involved. For Sarawak, the raid marked a turning point in the conflict. The TNKU's power and influence waned significantly following their defeat in Limbang and the region. British forces, bolstered by their success, continued to clamp down on insurgent activities, eventually restoring relative stability to the region.

For the Royal Marines, the raid became a celebrated chapter in their long and esteemed history. The bravery and professionalism displayed during the operation were widely recognized and honored. Captain Jeremy Moore, in particular, received commendations for his leadership, and he continued to have a distinguished military career, as indicated above, eventually commanding British land forces during the South Atlantic conflict, (Falklands War).

The raid also had a lasting impact on the local population of Limbang. The successful rescue operation fostered a sense of gratitude and loyalty towards the British, who were seen as protectors against the insurgent threat. This goodwill helped to strengthen the relationship between the British administration and the local communities, facilitating cooperation and development in the years that followed.

Conclusion

The 1962 Royal Marine Commando raid on Limbang remains a showcase of the courage, skill, flexibility and determination of the Royal Marine Commando forces during a turbulent period in Southeast Asia. The daring rescue mission not only saved the lives of the hostages but also delivered a decisive blow to the insurgents, helping to stabilize the region and reaffirm British control. The legacy of the operation endures, remembered as just one of the many defining moments in the history of the Royal Marines and a pivotal event in the broader context of the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation.

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Awards and commendations

BRIDGES, Ernest Robert

Lieutenant Colonel

42 Cdo. RM

Royal Marines

Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)

Mentioned in Despatches

CAMERON, Angus Arthur

Corporal

RM 16834

3 Cdo. Bde. RM

Royal Marines

Mentioned in Despatches

Corporal Angus Cameron received a Mention in Despatches for gallant and distinguished service in operations in Brunei during the period 8-22 December 1962

LESTER, William John

Corporal

CH/X 5001

42 Cdo. RM

Royal Marines

Military Medal (MM)

Corporal William Lester was awarded the Military Medal for gallant and distinguished services in operations.

MOORE, John Jeremy

Major General

3 Cdo. Bde. RM

Royal Marines

Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB)

Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)

Military Cross (MC)

Bar to the Military Cross

Major General John Jeremy Moore served as the commander of the British land forces during the Falklands War in 1982.

RAWLINSON, Robert Croft

Corporal

RM 17402

42 Cdo. RM

Royal Marines

Military Medal (MM)

Corporal Robert Rawlinson was awarded the Military Medal for gallant and distinguished services in operations. He commanded one of the two sections of the Commando that assaulted Limbang Police Station, Sarawak, on the 12th of December 1962 to release hostages being held there.

UNDERWOOD, Bryan Albert

Marine

RM 20505

3 Cdo. Bde. RM

Royal Marines

Mentioned in Despatches

Marine Bryan Underwood received a Mention in Despatches for gallant and distinguished service in operations in Brunei during the period 8-22 December

Killed in Action

FORMOY, Ronald David

Marine

RM 16883

42 Cdo. RM

Royal Marines

Killed in action or died of wounds

Marine Ronald Formoy, Lima Company, died during an action which resulted in the rescue of hostages taken and held at Limbang, Sarawak.

ENNINGS, Richard

Marine

RM 19233

42 Cdo. RM

Royal Marines

Killed in action or died of wounds

Marine Richard Jennings, Lima Company, died during an action which resulted in the rescue of hostages taken and held at Limbang, Sarawak.

KIERANS, Gerald

Marine

RM 16941

42 Cdo. RM

Royal Marines

Killed in action or died of wounds

Marine Gerald Kierans, Lima Company, from Widnes, died during an action which resulted in the rescue of hostages taken and held at Limbang, Sarawak.

MACFARLANE, Walter Grant

Sergeant

CH/X 4743

42 Cdo. RM

Royal Marines

Killed in action or died of wounds

Sergeant Walter Macfarlane, Lima Company, from Middlesborough, died during an action which resulted in the rescue of hostages taken and held at Limbang, Sarawak.

POWELL, Fred Stewart

Marine

RM 21017

42 Cdo. RM

Royal Marines

Killed in action or died of wounds

Marine Fred Powell, Lima Company, died during an action which resulted in the rescue of hostages taken and held at Limbang, Sarawak.

Notes:

Sarawak

Sarawak is a state in Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in the region of East Malaysia in northwest Borneo, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, Kalimantan (the Indonesian portion of Borneo) to the south, and Brunei in the north.

Abraham Lincoln and White Supremacy

In Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War, Jeb Smith argues that the winner writes the history. This is evident in many ways and categories. The North propped itself up and vilified its enemy, the South. Today, we will take a look at Abraham Lincoln and race.

This is part 1 in a series of extended articles form the author related to the US Civil War.

A U.S. Postage stamp issued in 1958. It commemorates the 1858 Lincoln and Douglas debates.

People are taught that Lincoln was a strong abolitionist, a champion of racial equality, and a great emancipator. They portray Lincoln as going to war to free the slaves; Lincoln advocated freedom and liberty for all; he is the savior of the Union and Constitution to boot. Lincoln was a kind, warmhearted, caring person, who never told a lie, and a great leader who united and led America to renown. This image comes perhaps from a desire for who they want him to be rather than who he was. Just as Southerners idolize their heroes, modern statists do the same with theirs, such as Lincoln. What most people think they know about Lincoln is well off the mark. We will look at his views on race below.[1]

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

 -Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln-Douglas Debate Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858

I understood Lincoln as someone who desired equality for all. Instead, I found Lincoln was a white supremacist who viewed blacks as inferior beings. During a debate with Stephen A. Douglas on August 21, 1858 in Ottawa, Illinois, Lincoln stated, "Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this…We cannot then make them equals." In response to the Dred Scott ruling, Lincoln said, "I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment." At the eulogy of Henry Clay in 1852, Lincoln gave a speech in which he called the declaration of independence the "The white man's charter of freedom."

Fear

Lincoln often used the N-word, and was known for his racist jokes. Abolitionist John Hume described Lincoln as "strongly prejudiced against the black man." According to Bennett's calculations, Lincoln stated publicly, at least twenty-one times, that he was opposed to equal rights for Blacks. Bennett writes, "Lincoln never pretended to be a racial liberal or a social innovator. He repeatedly said, in public and in private, that he believed in white supremacy." Lincolns close friend and biographer Ward Lamon said Lincoln had an "abhorrence of negro suffrage and negro equality." According to Lincoln, God has "Made us separate." Lincoln feared whites and blacks interbreeding. A former slave turned influential abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, spoke of Lincoln as "The white man's president." 

"Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man. He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country.…he still more strangely told us that we were to leave the land in which we were born; when he refused to employ our arms in defense of the Union; when, after accepting our services as colored soldiers… he told us he would save the Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the Proclamation of Emancipation of General Fremont; when he refused to remove the popular commander of the Army of the Potomac, in the days of its inaction and defeat, who was more zealous in his efforts to protect slavery than to suppress rebellion; when we saw all this, and more, we were at times grieved, stunned, and greatly bewildered." 

-Frederick Douglass Oration in memory of Abraham Lincoln April 14, 1876 

"If Mr. Lincoln were really an Abolition President, which he is not; if he were a friend to the Abolition movement, instead of being, as he is, its most powerful enemy...Whoever lives through the next four years will see Mr. Lincoln and his Administration attacked more bitterly for their pro-slavery truckling, than for doing any anti-slavery work. He and his party will become the best protectors of slavery where it now is...Slavery will be as safe, and safer, in the Union under such a President, than it can be under any President of a Southern Confederacy. This is our impression, and we deeply regret the facts from which it is derived." 

-Fredrick Douglass Douglass' Monthly, December 1860

According to Bennett, for over two decades in Illinois as a lawyer and politician, Lincoln never supported abolitionists, rights for blacks, or their progress in that direction. Lincoln never spoke out against the state laws that did not allow blacks to gather in large numbers, learn to read, or play percussion instruments. In 1848 Lincoln supported the Illinois state law of not allowing blacks to migrate to the state and not allowing blacks citizenship. In 1836 Lincoln voted in support of denying blacks the right to vote, and he also voted for an Illinois state law that taxed blacks without representation. In 1858 Lincoln refused to sign a bill that would allow them to testify against whites in court. In Charleston, Lincoln declared, "I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro citizenship." and "I will to the very last stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with Negroes"

As a lawyer, Lincoln helped defend the fugitive slave law, publicly supported the fugitive slave law, and spoke out against its repeal. Nathaniel Stephens said Lincoln had a "wholehearted, one might say, serene, support of the fugitive slave law." Ward Lamon said Lincoln was the "steady though quiet opponent of abolitionist Owen Lovejoy." Donald Riddle said: "He did not make any attempt to advocate or support anti-slavery or abolitionist messages." In 1858 Lincoln declared, "I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all." 

When asked what he thought of having abolitionists in his party, Lincoln said: "As long as I'm not tarred with the Abolitionist brush." Bennett quotes multiple sources, such as Lincoln's close friend General James Wadsworth saying the welfare of Blacks "didn't enter into his policy at all." Donn Piatt said Lincoln "Laughed at the abolitionist as a disturbing element easily controlled." Eli Thayer said Lincoln spoke of abolitionism "In terms of contempt and derision." Abolitionist Sumner said Lincoln "does not know how to help or is not moved to help" and "I do not remember that I have had any help from him... he has no instinct or inspiration." Abolitionist John Hume stated, "The president was in constant opposition" to abolitionism. The abolitionist Journal The Liberator editorial on July 13, 1860, called Lincoln "The slave hound of Illinois" for his support of the fugitive slave law. Lincoln scholar David Donald in Lincoln Reconsidered states plainly, "Abraham Lincoln was not an abolitionist."    

Bennett argues Lincoln has received the glory that the white and black abolitionists, citizens, newspaper editors, churches, members of Congress, and pastors had worked decades for. The most prominent abolitionists in the political sphere were men like Senator Sumner, Senator Lyman Trumbull, Salmon Chase, Wendell Phillips, etc. They deserve the glory that Lincoln was falsely given. Congress were the ones that abolished slavery in the territories and authorized black troops. And the people of the states, both North and South, passed the amendment to outlaw slavery after Lincoln's death.

Forever Free From African Americans

"I wish to make and to keep the distinction between the existing institution, and the extension of it, so broad, and so clear, that no honest man can misunderstand me, and no dishonest one, successfully misrepresent me." 

-Abraham Lincoln Peoria, Illinois: October 16, 1854

Lincoln never intended to end slavery where it already existed, only the extension out into the West. In December 1860, Fredrick Douglass said, "With the single exception of the question of slavery extension, Mr. Lincoln proposes no measure which can bring him into antagonistic collision with the traffickers in human flesh, either in the States or in the District of Columbia." Lincoln did not want the West to become "An asylum for slaves and n******." On October 16, 1854, Lincoln stated, "The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new western] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people." 

The West was to be kept for whites to be segregated from blacks' presence, live off Republican federal land grants, and become industrial. Southern agrarians were to be fenced into the South; otherwise, they would bring their despised black slaves along. Robert Fogel summarizes the abolitionist stance by quoting William Seward and Owen Lovejoy, among others, as "They were quite sincere when they assured voters that as "True republicans" they "Cared nothing for the N*****" and that the republican party aimed to make white labor respectable and honorable by keeping negroes, free and slave, out of the West." In Lincoln Unmasked, Professor Thomas DiLorenzo quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson saying, "It is the black man whom the abolitionist wishes to abolish, not slavery."

Western expansion

Ward Lamon said that originally Lincoln was not against slavery in all the western territories, only those north of the 36°30′ degrees line. However, abolitionists threatened to pull support for his election unless he stood against all western expansion. Lamon also tells us that Lincoln would rather see slavery expanded than "See the union dissolved." Lamon said of Lincoln, "It was therefore as a white man, and in the interest of white men, that he threw himself into the struggle to keep blacks out of the Territories. He did not want them there either as slaves or freemen…" Bennett quotes Lincoln warning whites that if slavery was allowed in the territories, "Negro equality will be abundant, as every white laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave n******." According to DiLorenzo, Indiana (which voted for Lincoln) despised blacks so much that they gave out a $500 fine to anyone who encouraged blacks to come within their state. And ten years of prison for marrying a black. Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull, quoted by DiLorenzo, said, "Our people want nothing to do with the negro." It seems Republicans believed in a form of secession based on race rather than states.

"We, the Republican Party, are the white man's party. We are for the free white man, and for making white labor acceptable and honorable, which it can never be when Negro slave labor is brought into competition with it." 

-Lyman Trumbull Illinois Republican, United States Senator Quoted in The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War by Kenneth M. Stampp Oxford U Press 1981

Republicans did not care for equality with blacks, and they wanted separation from them. The Northern whites worked hardest to be segregated from the presence of blacks, while southerners worked with, ate with, lived with, played with,  and went to church with blacks.

"Many of those attaching themselves to the Republican party...were not in sympathy with Abolitionism. They were utterly opposed to immediate emancipation, or for that matter, to emancipation of any kind. They wanted slavery to remain where it was, and were perfectly willing that is should be undisturbed. They disliked the blacks, and did not want to have them freed, fearing that if set at liberty they would overrun what was then free soil."        

-John F Hume The Abolitionists 1830-1864 G.P Putnam's Sons NY London Knickerbocker Press 1905 

The fight over the extension of slavery was political. Northern industrialists needed the West free of blacks and agricultural interests. Dr. Charles Pace wrote in Lincoln As He Really Was, "Lincoln was an abolitionist when it suited him." And "Abolitionist activity was rising fast, fueled by northern capitalist and political interests needing an issue to neutralize the agrarian south." Lincoln and northern whites would fight against its extension into the West when it was politically helpful. Secretary of  State William Seward said: "The motive of those who protested against the extension of slavery had always really been a concern for the welfare of the white man, and not an unnatural sympathy for the negro." They had less concern with slaves in the South; as John Hume wrote of Lincoln, "He was opposed to slavery more because it was a public nuisance than because of its injustice to the oppressed black man."

"To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration."                                   

-Frederick Douglass Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln April 14, 1876

Before military defeats and public opinion began to change, abolitionists were condemned by the President. When Union general John Fremont emancipated slaves in federal occupied Missouri, Lincoln recalled the orders and relieved Fremont of his command. When Union general David Hunter issued general order number 11, declaring all slaves in SC/GA/FL to be "Forever free," Lincoln revoked the proclamation. Hunter was then pressured into disbanding the regiment made up of freed slaves he had begun to form. Late in 1862, Lincoln supported slavery continuing in Union-held territory in V.A and L.A and encouraging the slave owners to peacefully come back into the Union. Mark Neely JR wrote that in 1861, "He more than once actually forced others who were trying to free slaves to cease doing so." Not surprising when Lincolns' wife, Mary, was from a slave-owning family in Kentucky. In August 1862, Adam Gurowski summer up Lincoln's actions writing in his diary, "The president is indefatigable in his efforts to save slavery." 

Even after the war, Lincoln, the North, and the Republicans maintained slavery in states like Delaware and Kentucky. Lincoln had no problem calling on men from the slave states of the Upper South to suppress the rebellion in the Cotton States. 

"The Republican party does not propose to abolish slavery anywhere and is decidedly opposed to Abolition agitation. It is not even, by the confession of its President-elect, in favor of the repeal of that thrice-accursed and flagrantly unconstitutional Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850." 

-Frederick Douglass Douglass' Monthly, December 1860

In his book Battle Hymns; the Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War, Christian McWhirter quotes Federal general Phillip Kearny who said, "I think as much of a rebel as I do of an abolitionist." Today we have presented to us the idea of Northern tolerance and southern bigotry, but the reality was something else entirely. 

Abraham Lincoln the Great Emancipator? 

"If Mr. Lincoln had been told, when he entered on the Presidency, that before his term of office would expire he would be hailed as "The Great Emancipator," he would have treated the statement as equal to one of his own best jokes."

 -John Hume The Abolitionists 1830-1864 G.P Putnam's Sons NY London Knickerbocker Press 1905 

"Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do and for what he never intended to do," writes Bennett. Today we are brought up to believe the Emancipation Proclamation (E.P.) was part of the desired agenda to end slavery by Abraham Lincoln. Or worse, we are told with this presidential Proclamation; that all slaves were made forever free. Thus Lincoln was the great emancipator who ended slavery. But that story is far from the truth. 

The E.P. did not apply to slavery within the United States, and it did not free a single slave. According to Hume, Missouri abolitionists wanted the Proclamation applied to their state, and Lincoln refused the request. Instead, the E.P. applied only to Confederate-controlled areas and not to the Northern slave states still in the Union. A Confederate state only had to rejoin the Union, and slavery would be protected. Hume writes, "It was not ...intended to help the slave but to chastise the master. It was to be in  punishment of treason…The proclamation, it will be recollected, was issued in two parts separated by one hundred days. The first part gave the Rebels warning that the second would follow if, in the meanwhile, they did not give up their rebellion. All they had to do to save slavery was cease their treasonable practices." William Seward said of Lincoln's proclamation, "Where he could, he didn't. Where he did, he couldn't." The London Spectator, on October 11, 1862, read, "The Union government liberates the enemy's slaves as it would the enemy's cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States." 

The Proclamation would end with the war, and any slave freed by it would become subject to local state laws. The document did not apply to the legality of slavery. Lincoln wrote, it was "Merely a war measure" and "Have effect only from its being an exercise of war power." Lincoln stated, "It would have no effect upon the children of the slaves born hereafter."

The Proclamation was given at the end of 1862 after the North suffered multiple setbacks. Some viewed it as an act of desperation. Lincoln gave the Proclamation as a war measure, "As a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion." The war lasted longer than anticipated, and abolitionists put pressure on Lincoln; states threatened to withhold men and their support unless Lincoln helped the Northern war effort by going after slavery to weaken the South. Lincoln and his cabinet were concerned that a rebellion would start in the North if they did not begin emancipation and certainly did not want to lose some of their most ardent supporters.

Others said its purpose was to encourage slave revolts in the South. To encourage slaves to arise and kill women, children, and masters in a revolution while the men fought at the front. The Harrisonburg Patriot and Union newspaper called it a "Cold-blooded invitation to insurrection and butchery." Of course, many slaves, innocent women, and children would be killed if an uprising happened, but it was endorsed so long as it helped bring traitors under the master's authority in D.C.

The Emancipation Proclamation

The E.P. was not Lincoln’s desire, but he was "forced into glory," as Bennett would say. Bennet quotes Lincoln, "I am driven to it." And he said he had great "reluctance" about beginning emancipation. Abolitionists set up a meeting for September 24 with a plan to withhold support for the war and to call on Lincoln to resign. Knowing this meeting and the growing feeling amongst various state governors and the people, Lincoln issued the preliminary Proclamation just two days before the meeting. Lincoln said on July 12, "The pressure in this direction [immediate emancipation] is still upon me and is increasing." Lincoln said, "For a length of time, it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it as a military measure." Lincoln scholar David Donald in Lincoln Reconsidered quotes Lincoln writing an admirer, saying, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess that events have controlled me." In his diary, Adam Gurowski wrote, "The patriots of both houses... the American people whipped Mr. Lincoln into the glory of having issued the emancipation proclamation." Bennett described the E.P in complete contradiction to how many school children understand it when he wrote, “The high point of a brilliant campaign in favor of slavery not freedom, and was designed not to emancipate all slaves immediately but to protect the emancipation of all slaves." 

As Bennett shows in his book, the E.P. was a conservative pushback against the radicals. On July 17, 1862, congress passed the second confiscation act. This act declared all rebel slaves in the confederacy "Forever free." On September 22, 1862, Lincoln signed the preliminary emancipation nullifying the emancipation act of congress, re-enslaving slaves. The emancipation proclamation did not free slaves in the United States, and it did not free any slave that the confiscation act would not have. It was a reaction to the radical abolitionists in congress. As Bennett writes, "The proclamation had as its purpose and effect the checking of the radical [abolitionist] program." 

Both DiLorenzo's Lincoln Unmasked and Bennett correct multiple false quotes attributed to Lincoln or those taken out of context to claim he was an abolitionist or desired equality among the races. I would recommend both authors to those interested. I will let Lincoln's close friend and admirer Ward Lamon sum up Lincoln's opinions on the emancipation proclamation.

"He did so with avowed reluctance...he never at any time favored the admission of negroes into the body of electors...he claimed that those who were incidentally liberated by the federal arms were poor-spirited, lazy and slothful...he longed to see them transported to Hayti, central America, Africa, or anywhere so that they might in no event, and in no way, participate in the government of his country...he was no Abolitionist in the popular sense."

-Ward Lamon The Life Of Abraham Lincoln From His Birth To His Inauguration As President James R. Osgood And Company, 1872

The Corwin Amendment

As Professor DiLorenzo points out, the previously proposed 13th amendment was called the Corwin Amendment; and it was something Lincoln supported. The amendment would forever allow slavery in the United States and make it unconstitutional to abolish it. It reads:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he supported the amendment saying, "holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." According to DiLorenzo, Lincoln then sent a letter to the governors of the states transmitting the approved amendment. He told New York Senator William Seward to advocate for it in the Senate. He also instructed Seward to pass a federal law that would repeal the personal liberty laws in some Northern states used to nullify the federal Fugitive Slave Act. DiLorenzo sees Lincoln's inaugural address as the most pro-slavery speech given by a president. 

"Lincoln's first inaugural address...is probably the most powerful defense of slavery ever made by an American politician. In the speech Lincoln denies having any intention to interfere with Southern slavery; supports the federal Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution, which compelled citizens of non-slave states to capture runaway slaves; and also supported a constitutional amendment known as the Corwin Amendment that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering in Southern slavery." 

-Thomas DiLorenzo The Lincoln Myth: Ideological Cornerstone of the America Empire LewRockwell.com 

Lincoln the Ultimate Segregationist

"Horrified at the thought of the mixing blood by the white and black races: agreed for once---a thousand times agreed... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation...Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization; ... Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be."

-Abraham Lincoln Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 2 Speech at Springfield, Illinois June 26, 1857

Lincoln never wanted slaves freed and made equal. Instead, he wanted to make America white from "Sea to shining sea," as Bennett stated. He promoted the removal of slaves from America back to Africa. In his July 17th 1858 speech in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln stated, "What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." The same year at Ottawa, he declared, "If all earthly power were given  me...my first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send them to Liberia."

It is true that Lincoln disliked slavery, but not as much as white and blacks living together. So Lincoln spent many thousands of tax dollars on his colonization plan to send the future freed slaves back to Africa. He either wanted them deported or in their all-black state. While in the White House, he held a meeting with free blacks; he asked them to lead by example for future freed slaves. 

"You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side….It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated…You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life [as easily], perhaps more so than you can in any foreign country… an extremely selfish view of the case. There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us."

-Abraham Lincoln Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes August 14, 1862, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 5.Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865

Conclusion

According to our "greatest" president, for the good of humanity, free blacks should lead by example and go live in a foreign country. As a member of the Illinois legislature, Lincoln urged the legislature "To appropriate money for colonization in order to remove Negroes from the state and prevent miscegenation." In 1853 Lincoln gave a speech to the Springfield colonization society; his colonization plan would "Free slave holders from the troublesome presence of free Negroes." When pushing for his colonization plan, he said, "Where there is a will, there is a way." 

He promoted three aspects of his agenda. Gradual emancipation, compensation to slave owners, and colonization in Africa or Central America. His friend Henry Whitney said there was nothing besides preserving the Union that Lincoln felt more important. Ward Lamon said Lincoln "Zealously and persistently devised plans for the deportation of the negro." In the diary of Gideon Welles, we read, "Following the preliminary Proclamation, and as part of the plan…was the deportation and colonization of the colored race."

In Lincoln’s first state of the Union address, he suggested free blacks be included in his colonization plan when he said: "It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization." Lincoln called for three constitutional amendments for gradual emancipation, compensation, and colonization in his second inaugural address. He stated, "I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization." On December 31, 1862, Lincoln signed a contract to send 500 American-born Negroes to an island off the coast of Haiti; many died, and the survivors were brought back to America. Until his death, Lincoln negotiated with European nations to deport blacks to Africa. 

"Mr. Lincoln is quite a genuine Representative of American prejudiced and negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery...showing all his inconsistencies, his pride of race and blood, his contempt for Negroes and his canting hypocrisy…Mr. Lincoln takes care in urging his colonization scheme to furnish a weapon to all the ignorant and base."

 -Frederick Douglass The Life and Writings of Fredrick Douglass International Publishers Co 1950

In short, Lincoln was the ultimate segregationist. He didn't just want blacks removed from schools, restaurants, and work areas; he wanted them removed from the country. 

Jeb Smith is the author of Missing Monarchy: What Americans Get Wrong About Monarchy, Democracy, Feudalism, And Liberty (Amazon US | Amazon UK) and Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War (written under the name Isaac. C. Bishop) - Amazon US | Amazon UK

You can contact Jeb at jackson18611096@gmail.com

[1] This article was taken with permission from a section of Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War.

The Collapse of the Bison Population in the US: Evaluating the Legislation of HR. 921

Over the course of the 19th century a significant environmental cataclysm befell the United States’ Great Plains. The bison which roamed the plains for millennia went from a population ranging between 30-50 million in the early 1800s to less than 1,000 at the turn of the century. Multiple historiographical traditions exist in attempting to discern what occurred and what ultimately spelled the death knell for the great buffalo herds, however, the importance of consulting primary sources can still elucidate greater understanding in comprehending the complexity of the rapid downfall of the bison.

Roy Williams explains.

Indians hunting the bison by Karl Bodmer.

For the last century, images of bison carcasses and skeletons piled high have haunted the memories of American conservationists. Artistic renderings such as American Progress by John Gast which shows the steady retreat of the bison and the Native Americans who depended upon it at the march of civilization as a hallmark of the ideology of manifest destiny. Artistic renderings also show the wanton mass killing of bison from settlers shooting the animals from trains for cheap thrills. What then caused this massive collapse of the bison populations? The answer, like most of is buried within a labyrinth of complex interactions.

Popular mythology has created a narrative built upon the legacy of the Indian Wars and the genocidal heritage of United States policy towards Native Americans in arguing that the Reconstruction era United States government willfully and intentionally sought to destroy the bison as a form of ecocide and biological warfare against Great Plains Native Americans tribes in attempting to cut off their primary form of subsistence and force them into state sponsored subservience in reservations. While Native Americans of the Great Plains had always depended on the bison as a supplemental source of food, before the introduction of European horses and diseases, they primarily depended upon agriculture. The addition of European diseases such as smallpox forced Great Plains Native Americans to adapt and reconfigure their way of life to nomadic sole dependence upon the bison for subsistence, trade, and political autonomy. This change put additional stress on an animal population which already had to contend with the dynamic and volatile nature of the Great Plains environment. Each year natural factors such as wolf predation, disease, and drought significantly reduced bison numbers. The introduction of European horses also dramatically increased hunting efficiency leading to greater harvests and additional pressure on herd populations. These numbers could rebound with steady levels of human predation but could not endure multiple upheavals which would ultimately lead to their near extinction.

Phillip Sheridan

One of the most frequently cited primary source examples of United States government complicity in destroying the bison is the 1875 speech of Phillip Sheridan before the Texas legislature. Supposedly, the Texas legislature was considering conservation measures and protections for bison to reduce the number of market hunters who were driving the southern herd to near extinction. Phillip Sheridan is cited as appearing before the legislature to oppose these protections arguing that,

 “These men [buffalo hunters] have done more in the last two years, and will do in the next year, more to settle the vexed Indian question than the entire regular Army has done in the last thirty years. They are destroying the Indians' commissary; it is well known that an army losing its base of supplies is placed at a great disadvantage. For the sake of lasting peace, let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered with speckled cattle and festive cowboy, who follows the hunter as a second forerunner of an advanced civilization.”

The only problem with this primary source rests in the reality that Phillip Sheridan never appeared before the Texas Legislature in 1875 because there never was any consideration by the Texas legislature to protect the southern bison herd. No archival data supports this primary source as being legitimate, the only appearance of this source rests in the memoirs of a hide hunter named John Cooke, with The Border and the Buffalo multiple years after the supposed encounter. More troubling however, is the reality of another primary source which flies directly in the face of historiographical traditions claiming a conspiratorial link between United States government’s policy against the bison.

Legislation

The legislation of HR. 921 stands as one of the most important primary sources in reconsidering the collapse of the bison populations. If the United States government intentionally committed a conspiracy of destroying the bison to force Great Plains into subservience on the reservation system, why did both the House of Representatives and Senate of the United States of America in 1874 introduce a bill to regulate the hunting of bison only to Native Americans? Congressman Fort of Illinois introduced the bill with the goal of stopping the early extermination of the bison, recognizing that bison were “killed every year in utter wantonness without any object whatever except to destroy them.”  The fact that H.R. 921 passed in the House with a tally of 132 ayes and the nays remaining uncounted, shows that there was ample interest in protecting the bison from the onslaught of illegal hide hunters. H.R. 921 was designed to protect bison and give favorable hunting rights to Native Americans, stating, “That it shall hereafter be unlawful for any person who is not an Indian to kill, wound, or in any manner destroy any female buffalo, of any age.”

H.R. 921 ultimately failed to pass, dying at President Grant’s desk due to a pocket veto, however the significance of its passage in both the house of Representatives and Senate cannot be understated. The most likely culprit of the collapse of the bison of the Great Plains rests in the ascendancy of market hunting. For a time, it was profitable to hunt bison on a vast industrial scale. These hunts prioritized female bison for their tongues and robes providing the best meat and the best quality leather for production. The industrial revolution occurring in the east fueled the need for more leather products putting unsustainable strain on the bison populations. For a time, bison boomtowns popped up overnight in the northwest territories trading goods at extortionate rates to Native Americans who had honed and perfected their hunting techniques and could trade bison materials for these goods. This interaction in addition to the larger share of market hunting by white hide hunters ultimately spelled doom for the bison populations. The reason for this conclusion is not revolutionary in nature, the bison followed the same trends as any other animal in the United States that experienced the pressures of market hunting. The beaver of the northeast and northwestern United States was reduced to virtual extinction from market hunting. The whitetail deer and alligator of the southeast were also led to near extinction from the combined forces of deforestation and market hunting which prioritized meat and leather over the preservation of animal species. The collapse of the bison provides a cautionary tale of the dangers that unregulated capitalism can inflict upon the natural environment. Without the presence of clear and strict conservation measures, environmental cataclysm can and will occur again. Rather than being a story of intentional and willful political malevolence, the tale of the bison represents the dangers that unregulated capitalism can inflict upon nature.

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References

Dodge, Richard Irving. The Hunting Grounds of the Great West. 1877. The Newberry Library. Accessed July 2, 2024. https://www.americanwest.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Detail/the-hunting-grounds-of-the-great-west.-a-description-of-the-plains-game-and-indians-of-the-great-north-american-desert/4455563?item=4455597.

Flores, Dan. The Natural West. University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.

Gast, John. American Progress. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn, New York: Autry Museum of the American West, 1872.

Geist, Valerius. Buffalo Nation. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press, 1996.

Isenberg, Andrew C. The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Kindy, Dave. “How Buffalo Bill and a Civil War General saved Yellowstone National Park.” The Washington Post, March, 6, 2022.

Krech, Shepard. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York, New York: W.W. Norton, 2001.

Library of Congress. The Far West-Shooting Buffalo on the Line of the Kansas-Pacific Railroad. 1871. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington D.C. Accessed July 2, 2024. https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c33890/?st=image.

Meriwether, Lewis, and William Clark, Jonathan Carver, and Alexander Mackenzie. The Travels of Capts. Lewis & Clarke. Philadelphia: Hubbard Lester, 1809.

Protection of Buffalo. HR 921. 43rd Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record, Pt.3: 2104-2109.

Ramsay, Crooks. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. 1849, 31sr Cong., 1st sess. (Serial 550), 1022.

Sandoz, Mari. The Buffalo Hunters. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska, 1978.

Wade, Mason. The Journals of Francis Parkman. vol 2 New York: Harper, 1947.

The Clash of Power - 1914 Battle of the Falkland Islands

In the remote waters of the South Atlantic, the Battle of the Falkland Islands 1914 stands as a pivotal naval confrontation during the early stages of the First World War. The engagement, fought on December 8, 1914, between the Royal Navy and the German Imperial Navy, was marked by strategic maneuvers, notable naval commanders, and a decisive outcome that had lasting repercussions in that region.

Terry Bailey explains.

Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1914. By William Lionel Wyllie.

Prelude to Battle

The roots of the Battle of the Falkland Islands can be traced to the earlier defeat of the British squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock at the Battle of Coronel on the 1st of November, 1914. The German East Asia Squadron, commanded by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian Von Spee, had inflicted a severe blow to British naval prestige by sinking the two lesser armed British cruisers, HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth, with all hands lost. This victory granted the Germans temporary control over the South Pacific and South Atlantic regions, threatening Allied merchant shipping routes and colonial interests.

In response, the British Admiralty, under the First Sea Lord Winston Churchill, resolved to avenge this defeat and reassert naval dominance. Reinforcements were dispatched under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Sturdee, a seasoned officer known for his strategic acumen. His task was clear: hunt down and destroy Von Spee's squadron.

The Combatants

On the German side, Vice-Admiral Maximilian Von Spee commanded a formidable force comprising the armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau, supported by the light cruisers SMS Nürnberg, SMS Dresden, and SMS Leipzig. Von Spee, an experienced and respected commander, had led his squadron on a daring voyage from the Pacific across the Indian Ocean, evading Allied patrols and posing a persistent threat to British maritime interests.

The British forces, under Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1st Baronet GCB, KCMG, CVO, (Vice-Admiral at the time of the battle), included the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible, alongside the cruisers HMS Carnarvon, HMS Cornwall, HMS Kent, HMS Glasgow, and the auxiliary cruiser HMS Macedonia. Sturdee's battlecruisers, heavily armed and faster than their German counterparts, were crucial to the British strategy of leveraging superior firepower and speed.

The Battle Unfolds

On the morning of the 8th of December, 1914, Von Spee's squadron approached the Falkland Islands, aiming to raid the British coaling station at Port Stanley. Unbeknownst to Von Spee, Sturdee's powerful battlecruisers had arrived the previous day and were concealed within the harbor. As the Germans neared, they were spotted by British lookouts, prompting Sturdee to order an immediate sortie.

Von Spee, realizing the presence of superior British forces, attempted to withdraw. However, the battlecruisers Invincible and Inflexible, supported by the faster light cruisers, pursued the retreating German ships. The ensuing engagement was characterized by the overwhelming firepower and superior speed of the British battlecruisers.

The Scharnhorst, Von Spee's flagship, bore the brunt of the initial assault. Despite valiant resistance, it was overwhelmed by the combined fire of the British ships and eventually sank, taking Von Spee and much of his crew with it. The Gneisenau continued to fight fiercely but met a similar fate, succumbing to relentless British bombardment. The remaining German light cruisers attempted to flee but were relentlessly pursued. The Nürnberg and Leipzig were caught and destroyed by British cruisers, while the Dresden managed to evade capture for a few more months before being scuttled by her crew off the coast of Chile.

Commanders in the Spotlight

Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Sturdee's leadership was instrumental in the British victory. His strategic decision to quickly sortie his ships from Port Stanley and his effective coordination of the British squadron showcased his naval prowess. Sturdee's emphasis on using the battlecruisers' superior speed and firepower played a decisive role in overwhelming the German squadron.

Vice-Admiral Maximilian Von Spee, despite his eventual defeat, was widely respected for his daring and strategic insight. His audacious operations across the Pacific and his success at Coronel demonstrated his capability as a naval commander. The 1914 Battle of the Falkland Islands, however, proved that even the most skillful commanders could be outmatched by superior resources and firepower.

Immediate Outcome and Tactical Aftermath

The Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914 was a resounding victory for the Royal Navy. The destruction of the German East Asia Squadron eliminated a significant threat to Allied maritime operations and restored British naval supremacy in the South Atlantic. The victory was celebrated in Britain and provided a much-needed boost to British morale after the earlier defeat at Coronel.

The battle also underscored the importance of naval intelligence and the element of surprise. Sturdee's ability to position his battlecruisers at the Falklands without Von Spee's knowledge was crucial to the British success. Additionally, the engagement highlighted the effectiveness of battlecruisers in hunting down and destroying slower, less heavily armed ships.

Long-Term Repercussions

The long-term aftermath of the Battle of the Falkland Islands had significant implications for the naval war and the broader strategic context of the First World War in general. Firstly, the destruction of Von Spee's squadron marked the end of Germany's naval presence outside European waters, ensuring Allied control of global sea lanes. This allowed the Allies to secure vital supply routes and maintain the economic blockade against Germany, which would gradually erode German war capabilities.

Secondly, the battle reinforced the strategic doctrine of using battlecruisers for their speed and firepower. The success of Sturdee's battlecruisers in swiftly closing the distance and delivering devastating firepower influenced future naval tactics and ship design, emphasizing the need for fast, heavily armed vessels capable of operating independently or in conjunction with a larger fleet.

Lastly, the battle had a profound impact on German naval strategy. The loss of the East Asia Squadron forced the German Navy to concentrate its efforts in European waters, focusing on submarine warfare and attempts to break the British blockade or lure the British Home Fleet into an ambush where submarines would be waiting. The shift to unrestricted submarine warfare would eventually draw the United States of America into the conflict.

Conclusion

The 1914 Battle of the Falkland Islands illustrates the strategic significance of naval power in the First World War. The confrontation between the Royal Navy and the German Imperial Navy off the remote Falkland Islands demonstrated the importance of intelligence, speed, and firepower in naval engagements. The victory restored British naval supremacy in the South Atlantic, secured crucial maritime routes, and influenced naval tactics and strategy for the remainder of the war. Reflecting on this naval battle serves as a reminder of the critical role naval operations played in shaping the outcomes of global conflicts and the enduring legacy of those who commanded and fought in these engagements.

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Getting Jewish Children Out of Nazi Territory: Unsung Heroes of the Kindertransport

The Kindertransport was the rescue of Jewish children from Nazi-controlled territory from 1938 to 1939. Here, author Mike Levy looks at some of the unsung heroes of this movement.

Mike’s book, Get the Children Out! : Unsung Heroes of the Kindertransport, is available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Jewish children arriving in London in February 1939. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S69279 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, available here.

When the word ‘Kindertransport’ is heard, one name often comes to the fore: Sir Nicholas Winton. Made famous by British TV’s ‘That’s Life’ programme in the late 1980s and the recent film ‘One Life’ starring Anthony Hopkins. Winton’s name has become synonymous with the rescue of unaccompanied Jewish children from Nazi-controlled Europe in the late 1930s. But Winton did not, could not have, acted alone. The rescue of nearly 10,000 young Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia involved hundreds if not thousands of people. I once asked Sir Nicholas, when he was 103 years of age, why his name is so well known and the others forgotten. Ever humble and self-deprecating, he replied, ‘That’s easy to explain, I’ve outlived the others’.

So let’s go back a bit here and look again at the history. On December 2, 1938, just 86 years ago, a group of 200 young people descended a ship’s gangplank in the Essex port of Harwich. They came from Germany without their parents, siblings, family, friends; they came alone. These 200 were the vanguard of one of the largest acts of rescue in the Holocaust era. They were Jewish children from orphanages and homes that had been torched, battered or smashed by Nazi thugs on the night of November 9/10, 1938 – so called ‘Kristallnacht’, the Night of Broken Glass, now more accurately dubbed ‘November Pogroms’. The children had witnessed SS and Hitler Youth beating up their parents, wrecking their homes and businesses, arresting men and carting them off to be brutalised in concentration camps. It was after this terrible night that parents in Germany decided to send their children to  safety. The British government had decided to waive visas for fleeing children under the age of 17.

Arrival

The children had no one in Britain to look after them; homes and support had to be found for them. Their arrival was entirely in the hands of volunteers – the British government took no part in their rescue from persecution. Enter an army of British helpers among whom, very prominently, were the Rotarians.

The children who arrived on that sunny December day had come on a train that left Germany the day before, travelled across the border into the Netherlands, on to the Hook of Holland and the night ferry to Harwich. This was the preferred route of most of the 10,000 children who came to Britain on the ‘Kindertransport’. The last such transport arrived in Harwich on September 2, 1939, one day before war was declared, all borders were closed, the fate sealed for the Jewish children, and their families, left at the mercy of the murderous Nazi state.

The nerve centre of this massive rescue operation was at Bloomsbury House in central London. Here committees were hurriedly set up by Jewish, Quaker, Church of England, Methodist and many other relief bodies. The building (now the HQ of Arts Council England) was packed with desks, telephones, filing cabinets and queues of anxious relatives or refugees already in Britain, desperate for help, news, financial support and more. The central committees in London totally relied on the goodwill of voluntary bodies throughout the length and breadth of the UK. This was after all, years before the Welfare State came into being. Voluntarism was key to the success of the Kindertransport rescue – the largest of its kind in the whole of the Holocaust era.

Many unsung heroes

The landscape of care in Britain involved a wide spectrum of ‘unsung heroes’. Winton and his team rescued 669 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Prague in the spring of 1939.

But who helped rescue the other 9,300 young refugees who fled persecution from Germany and Austria? Winton had no dealing whatsoever with the children from the German Reich.

The answer is a whole raft of forgotten figures. There were German Jews who played a key role in organising the emigration of the children from Berlin, Vienna, Frankfurt and Cologne. Wilfred Israel, British by birth but German by nationality was in 1938, de facto head of the benighted Jewish community under Hitler’s cosh. After the November Pogroms, Israel and his team worked round the clock to secure the paperwork and finances to help get the children out. He was aided by a group of formidable German Jewish women including Hannah Karminsky who often acted as a chaperone for the smallest children travelling alone on the fateful trains to safety. Despite pleas for her to stay in Britain at her journey’s end, she insisted on returning to Nazi Germany to bring out more children. After war broke out her fate was sealed and Karminsky was eventually murdered in Auschwitz.

Care

Once in Britain, who cared for the 10,000 children? Up and down the country, local refugee committees were hurriedly set up to seek out foster families, raise money or secure places in hurriedly created hostels. My ongoing work on the UK Holocaust Map (created by the Association for Jewish Refugees) shows at least 50 such refugee hostels from Glasgow to Cornwall. Many more are being uncovered by research.

Foster families were urged in national and regional newspapers, in the pulpits of local churches and synagogues, in local clubs and societies such as the Rotarians, and by word of mouth, to offer a bed or two to a needy German, Czech or Polish-speaking Kindertransport child. Thousands came forward. Some were genuinely touched by the plight of the Jewish children and the fracture of their family life under the Nazis. Aubrey and Winifred Chadwick, both young teachers in Cambridge, offered a bed to five-year-old Suzi Spitzer who had been put on a Winton train in Prague. She was never to see her natural parents again. To Suzi, the Chadwicks, including foster sister Ann, became her new family.

Some foster families offered their homes with less creditable motives. Some wanted to treat older children as unpaid servants; some wanted to show off to their neighbours that they were doing a good turn – others neglected or even abused the children. Yet it seems that the majority of the Kindertransport children were well treated and taken into the open arms of strangers.

Among the host families was Alfred Roberts, father of future prime minister Margaret Thatcher. He was urged to take in a Jewish German girl by dint of his leading role in the local Rotarians. Similarly, the parents of David and Richard Attenborough warmly welcomed the sisters into their home in Leicester. They too became lifelong members of the family. Among other well-known names was the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams who chaired his local Jewish Refugee Committee in Dorking, Surrey, and aided dozens of Jewish children to find homes in the area.

These famous names are the exception. As I say in my book, most of the people who helped the children were ordinary Britons who neither sought nor achieved fame. In my small way, my book helps, I hope, to sing the praises of some of these forgotten heroes.

Mike Levy is the author of the book Get the Children Out! : Unsung Heroes of the Kindertransport published by Lemon Soul and available as a book, audiobook, or e-book on Amazon US | Amazon UK or via lemonsoul.com.

Mike is also lead researcher for the UK Holocaust Map https://ajr.humap.site/map

He is also currently researching British families who took in Kindertransport refugees. If your family, or someone you know, did host a Jewish refugee from 1938, please contact Mike on kindertransport4@gmail.com

Spy Mania and Conspiracy in Russia During World War One

Paranoia and conspiracy lurks around society, and this amplifies in times of great uncertainty and war. Here, Jamie Bryson looks at conspiracies, paranoia, and spy mania in the Russian Empire during World War One.

Vladimir Sukhomlinov, Minister of War for the Russian Empire from March 1909 to June 1915. He was later tried for crimes including high treason.

The relatively recent Kingsmen film (The King’s Man) had Ralph Fiennes and his co-star combatting an international conspiracy based around the First World War. A secret cabal, known as ‘the Shepherd’s Flock’, involving Grigorii Rasputin, Mata Hari and Gavrilo Princip (the killer of Franz Ferdinand), is the driving force of this story. The group is headed by a Scotsman who wishes to bring down the European Empires (by pitting them against each other) and achieve an independent Scotland. While most of this is nonsense, a vein of historical accuracy runs through the whole caper, perhaps unbeknownst to audiences. Many contemporaries did believe in fantastic conspiracies, intrigue, assassinations and espionage during the First World War. Rasputin, for example, was thought to have been the cause of the death of one of the war's most recognizable faces. Lord Kitchener’s demise at sea in June 1916 after the HMS Hampshire struck a mine was attributed to Rasputin, who was accused of giving advance warning  of the voyage to the German Kaiser.[1]

Tsarist Russia

Indeed, such fantasies flourished in Tsarist Russia during the First World War. The imposition of censorship in 1914 encouraged ordinary Russians to believe that the newspapers only reported half-truths. Some sections in newspapers were left blanked out which caused people to use their imagination to fill in the rest. The unstable political atmosphere provided fertile ground for fantasies of conspiracy to take root. The departure of Tsar Nicholas II to the front lines in August 1915 left Empress Alexandra Fedorovna seemingly in charge of the Russian government. Alexandra was born in Hesse-Darmstadt and her German origins encouraged many to believe that she was actively working against the Allied war effort. Though innocent in nature, her correspondence with relatives back home in Germany appeared intensely suspicious to the war-weary masses. By 1917, many came to believe she was actively working toward a German victory as part of a conspiracy involving court personnel and ministers who also had German heritage.

The ethnically diverse nature of the Russian Empire further fanned the flames of spy mania. Within Russia’s borders were high concentrations of Germans, many of whom arrived in the nineteenth century to escape their overpopulated homeland for the great open expanses of Russia. With the arrival of the war, they were the cause of intense suspicion. German surnames and family connections, viewed through the prism of war, were no longer innocent. Baltic Germans who had a close association with the Tsarist state, having served for centuries as Generals and functionaries, were cast as potential enemies. But it was not just Germans who fell under suspicion; Jews, Hungarians, Poles and Turks also found themselves in a similar category of ‘suspect’ populations. These fears were compounded when refugees from the western provinces arrived in the heart of European Russia, where they were treated with distrust. As fears increased, any eccentric who happened to be bilingual risked being detained for espionage.

Worry

Foreign commercial enterprises also aroused a similar level of worry. Russian military intelligence scrutinized foreign-owned companies and began a xenophobic, anti-commercial campaign against them driven at its core by fear of espionage. Early forms of ‘market research’ by such companies were interpreted by security officers as the gathering of intelligence for military purposes.[2]

According to an official of the tsarist secret police, known as the Okhrana, ‘spy fever ran through the whole of the Russian population like a plague’.[3] The same official recalled that even in the first few days of the war, a man came to his office believing he could hear a typewriter through the wall of his flat, convinced he had discovered a nest of spies.[4] This incident turned out to be nothing more than the work of a feverish imagination, but it was symptomatic of a growing paranoia about hidden enemies. In the Baltic states, a Lithuanian peasant claimed he had seen German biplanes coming and going to the estates of local German barons – one of which allegedly carried off a cow – important war materiel.[5] Another report suggested that a secret alliance of German Barons was supposedly waiting to take over the government in Estonia once the Kaiser’s armies arrived. In Poland, a ‘Singing and Gymnastics Society’ was allegedly a disguised Corps of 50,000 German soldiers ready to be deployed onto the battlefield. One official believed that a specific condition was afflicting the masses as early as 1914, which he described as ‘wartime psychosis’.[6]

Obsession with spies and traitors worsened in the second year of the war because of battlefield defeat. Both elites and the masses refused to accept that losses on the front were the result of strategic and tactical failures rather than the result of traitors behind the lines. A gendarme Colonel named Sergei Myasoedov became the target of recriminations because he had once hunted with Kaiser Wilhelm II before the war and had served on the border with the German Empire for a time. His contacts amongst German officers, which would have been unremarkable before 1914, took on conspiratorial undertones. Myasoedov and his associate, the War Minister Vladimir Sukhomlinov, were also associated with Jewish businessmen, which added further suspicion, implying connections with politically ‘unreliable’ groups. Myasoedov was hanged in Warsaw in 1915, but this did not put an end to the search for spies.

In fact, military intelligence officers unleashed a determined search for more traitors who were supposedly working behind the lines to the Russian Empire’s detriment.  One military intelligence officer came to believe that German spies had enjoyed ten years of uninterrupted practice in the Russian Empire, developing vast networks of human intelligence.[7] Military intelligence activities bordered on absurd, confiscating German notice boards and restaurant menus.[8] This was all symptomatic of intense paranoia. Part of this belief was rooted in the changing nature of war and intelligence gathering; most of Germany’s successes had come from signals intelligence rather than spies behind Russian lies, a fact that many contemporaries failed to appreciate.[9] In reality, there was very little basis for genuine spy mania, as the wartime German head of intelligence later recorded in his memoirs the very modest value of German intelligence within Russia.[10]

War progresses

As the war progressed, Russian society became enmeshed in ideas of conspiracy at the highest levels. Many ordinary people, as well as military intelligence officials, believed that Myasoedov was only the tip of the iceberg and that the trail of treason led all the way to the Empress and, of course, her infamous confidante Rasputin. Even the British ambassador to Russia, George Buchanan, believed in the potential of a pro-German conspiracy. At the same time, German propagandists argued that Britain was plotting a revolution in order to install a pro-British liberal government which would continue the war.[11]

The 1917 revolution, which saw the collapse of the tsarist regime, can therefore be interpreted in the light of these ideas of treason, espionage and conspiracy, which were very real parts of life in Russia and the other combatant nations; these ideas may have been fantastical, but took on historical significance because contemporaries believed them.

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[1] Douglas Smith, Rasputin, (London, 2016), pp. 526-7

[2] Alex Marshall, ‘Russian Military Intelligence 1905-1914’, War in History, Vol. 11 No. 4, (2004),  411-13

[3]  Alexei Vasiliev, The Ochrana: The Russian Secret Police, ed. Rene Fulop Miller, (London, 1930),

114

[4] Vasiliev, The Ochrana, p. 115

[5] Vasiliev, The Ochrana, p.

[6] Iain Lauchlan, Russian Hide and Seek: The Tsarist Secret Police in St Petersburg 1906-1914, (Helsinki, 2002), 363

[7] A. S. Rezanov, Nemetskoe Shpionstvo, (Petrograd, 1915), 140

[8] William Fuller, The Foe Within: Fantasies of Treason and the End of the Russian Empire, (Cornell NY, 2006)

[9] Andrew, The Secret World: A History of Intelligence, (New Haven CT, 2018), 502

[10] Walter Nicolai, The German Secret Service, (London, 1924), 121-3

[11] Boris Kolonitskii, ‘Politischeskie funktsii Anglofobii v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny’ in Nikolai Smirnov ed., Rossiia i pervaia mirovaia voina: Materialy mezhdunarodnogo nauchnogo kollokviuma (St. Petersburg, 1999), 276-77

Rescuing Mussolini: The Fallschirmjäger Gran Sasso Raid

Few operations are shrouded in intrigue and myth as the raid on the Gran Sasso mountain-top location where Benito Mussolini was being held. At the heart of this mission were the German Fallschirmjäger, the German elite paratroopers, whose planning and execution were pivotal. However, history often credits the mission's success to Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny, a charismatic SS officer who played a small role in the rescue. The mission was meticulously planned and executed by the Fallschirmjäger, however, Skorzeny ensured he was remembered as the mission's mastermind.

Terry Bailey explains.

Mussolini with German forces. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-567-1503A-07 / Toni Schneiders / CC-BY-SA 3.0, available here.

By 1943, the tide of the Second World War was turning against the Axis powers. In Italy, internal dissent reached a crescendo with the overthrow of Benito Mussolini, (Duce). Several of his colleagues were close to revolt, and Mussolini was forced to summon the Grand Council on the July 24, 1943. This was the first time the body had met since the start of the war. When he announced that the Germans were thinking of evacuating the south, Grandi launched a blistering attack on him. Grandi moved a resolution asking the king to resume his full constitutional powers—in effect, a vote of no confidence in Mussolini.

Thus on July 25, 1943, by order of King Victor Emmanuel III, Mussolini was arrested, he was moved to various locations to prevent any rescue attempts by his German allies. His final and most secure prison was the Hotel Campo Imperatore, situated high on the Gran Sasso massif in the Apennine Mountains.

Adolf Hitler was determined to rescue Mussolini, the task was assigned to the Luftwaffe's elite Fallschirmjäger under the command of General Kurt Student. Concurrently, Hitler ordered the SS, represented by the ambitious Otto Skorzeny, to get involved in the operation to track and identify the location where Mussolini was being held. This dual-command structure sowed the seeds for future credit disputes, a situation that plagued many German operations throughout the war, not only concerning credit but in some cases detrimental to a number Nazi operations.

The planning of Operation Gran Sasso began with exhaustive intelligence gathering. The Fallschirmjäger, known for their meticulous preparations, used reconnaissance flights to gather aerial photographs and detailed maps of the hotel and surrounding terrain that Otto Skorzeny had identified. They analyzed weather conditions, altitude challenges, and potential escape routes.

Key Elements of the Plan:

1.   Aerial Assault: The only feasible approach to the heavily guarded hotel was from the air. The Fallschirmjäger, experienced in airborne operations, planned a glider-borne assault. Gliders, being silent and capable of landing in confined space in a concentration of force, were ideal for the mission.

2.   Surprise and Speed: The element of surprise was paramount. The plan was to land gliders on the narrow plateau near the hotel, overpower the guards, and secure Mussolini swiftly before any reinforcements could arrive.

3.   Command Structure: While the Fallschirmjäger were responsible for the operational details, Otto Skorzeny, with no prior experience in airborne operations, was included in the planning due to his SS ties and Hitler's directives. His role was ostensibly to assist and ensure SS involvement.

However, due to his personality, Skorzeny aimed to use the mission as an opportunity to promote his ideas of unconventional warfare, as he had studied the successes of British special operations.

On September 12, 1943, the meticulously planned operation was put into action. The operation, codenamed Unternehmen Eiche (Operation Oak), commenced with a formation of ten DFS 230 gliders, towed by Heinkel He 111 aircraft, departing from Pratica di Mare near Rome, carrying the elite Fallschirmjäger troops, and Otto Skorzeny with 16 SS assault troops.

Key Phases of the Execution:

1.   Aerial Approach: The gliders, piloted by experienced Fallschirmjäger, detached from their tow planes at the precise moment and began their silent descent towards the Gran Sasso plateau. The challenging mountainous terrain required expert navigation to avoid detection and ensure a safe landing.

2.   Landing and Assault: Despite the difficult terrain, the gliders landed with remarkable precision near the hotel. The operational commander, (Oberleutnant Georg Freiherr), led the Fallschirmjäger in a swift assault. They quickly overwhelmed the Italian guards, who were caught off guard by the sudden appearance of German troops. (It is argued later that a number of the guards were pro-Mussolini and some welcomed the German's arrival).

3.   Securing Mussolini: Skorzeny, eager to assert his presence, was among the first to reach Mussolini. Ensuring he was visibly at the forefront, Skorzeny famously declared to Mussolini, "Duce, the Führer has sent me to set you free!" This moment, captured in photographs, was crucial for Skorzeny's later claims of leadership.

4.   Evacuation: With Mussolini secured, the team signaled for the waiting Fieseler Fi 156 Storch aircraft. The rugged terrain made the takeoff challenging, especially since Skorzeny had insisted on accompanying Mussolini even though the plane was only suitable for the Duce and the pilot. However, with great skill Captain Gerlach, managed to lift off with Mussolini and Skorzeny onboard.

The operation was a resounding success, achieved with only two Italians killed and two slightly wounded. Mussolini was flown to Vienna and then to Germany, where he was greeted as a hero. However, the real battle was just beginning – the battle for credit.

Skorzeny, with his flair for drama and self-promotion, was quick to present himself as the mastermind of the operation. His SS connections and personal rapport with Hitler gave him a significant advantage. The iconic photographs of him with Mussolini bolstered his narrative. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, and his fame soared.

In contrast, the contributions of the Fallschirmjäger, who had meticulously planned and executed the mission, were overshadowed, despite their pivotal role, and received comparatively little recognition. The post-war narratives, influenced by Skorzeny's memoirs and his relentless self-promotion, further cemented his legend.

While Otto Skorzeny's role in Operation Gran Sasso cannot be entirely dismissed, simply because Skorzeny not only identified Mussolini's location, in addition to, the fact that he was present with his men but also because he had suggested the exact landing zone for the gliders. However, it is essential to recognize the contributions of the Fallschirmjäger. The success of the mission was a true testament to their planning, skill, and bravery. Skorzeny's presence, though significant, was more of a political maneuver to ensure SS involvement and claim the glory.

Recent historical analyses have sought to rectify this imbalance. Military historians emphasize the Fallschirmjäger's expertise in airborne operations and highlight the comprehensive planning by General Kurt Student's elite Fallschirmjäger. These reassessments underscore the collaborative nature of the mission, with the Fallschirmjäger's groundwork being crucial to its success.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Operation Gran Sasso remains one of the Second World War's most dramatic and daring missions. The successful rescue of Mussolini was a remarkable feat of military precision, courage and flying ability. While Otto Skorzeny emerged as the public face of the mission, it was the meticulous planning and execution by the German Fallschirmjäger that ensured the success of the mission.

In the broader context of military history, Operation Gran Sasso serves as a reminder of the complexities of war, where deeds on the battlefield often become intertwined with political machinations and personal ambitions. The Fallschirmjäger, though overshadowed in popular narratives, remain the true heroes of this audacious operation, exemplifying the skill and bravery that defined Germany's elite paratroopers. These characteristics were true for all airborne operations of the Second World War for both Axis and Allied airborne forces and still are of airborne forces today.

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