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Page 381
On assuming command of the Department of Indian Territory in November, 1862, General Albert Pike ordered the construction
of a new fort to serve as headquarters of the department. The site selected by General Pike for the new military post was
"a point on the south side of the Arkansas River, nearly opposite to and a little above the mouth of the Verdigris River."1 The post was named Cantonment Davis, but it was commonly known as Fort Davis.
"It is my intention," said Pike in a letter to Secretary of War Benjamin, "to throw up works there to command the crossing
just below of the Arkansas River by the great road running from Missouri to Texas....The site is a very formidable one, on
high ground commanding the crossing of the river, healthy, well watered, and well timbered."2
The buildings at the fort were erected under the supervision of William Quesenbury, brigade quartermaster.3 At one time Quesenbury had been a field clerk for Superintendent Elias Rector, and in the spring of 1861 he refused an appointment
by the Federal Government as agent for the Creeks. During the negotiation of the Indian treaties, he acted as secretary to
Albert Pike.
The statement made by a contemporary authority4 that the "Confederate Government expended upwards of a million dollars" in the construction of Fort Davis is undoubtedly
a gross exaggeration. "In the erection of the buildings all possible economy is being observed," said Pike. "The buildings...consist
of quarters for myself and staff officers, kitchens, and other necessary small buildings, all of them of planks or logs, and
put up as cheaply as possible."5
General Pike was detained in Richmond through the months of November and December. The Indian treaties were submitted
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to the Provisional Congress by President Davis on December 12,6 but Congress did not complete their ratification until the last day of the year.7 On December 24 President Davis approved an act by Congress "making appropriations to comply in part with treaty stipulations
with certain Indian tribes."8 Under the provisions of that act, $681,869.15 in Treasury notes and specie was placed in the hands of General Pike for delivery
to the superintendent of Indian affairs, Elias Rector, at Fort Smith, Arkansas.9 The specie—$265,927.50, all in gold except $65,000 in silver—was obtained partly in Columbia, South Carolina, where Pike
arrived about the 5th of January,10 and partly in New Orleans.11
By the time General Pike reached Little Rock, Arkansas, late in January, 1862, he was well aware that the large sum of money
he carried had aroused the cupidity of various persons. Writing to Superintendent Rector, he said:
"The Treasurer of the Choctaws means to sell the coin his people get, buy Confederate paper, and put the difference in his
pocket. We must stop that. I think the best way will be for you to notify the Chief, Hudson, the amount to be paid in coin,
and that you will pay it to the Treasurer only in the presence of three Commissioners appointed by himself....
"About 150 gamblers are here, following up the Indian moneys. I enclose an order requiring passports, that will keep them
out of the Nation."12
Pike expected to start for Fort Smith January 31. "It will take me, I suppose," he wrote to Rector, "six days to reach Fort
Smith with the money. This will bring me to the 5th, 6th or 7th of February."13
While Pike was in Little Rock, Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn arrived there to take command of the newly created Trans-Mississippi
District, which embraced the Indian Territory. "He told me," said General Pike, "that he left me the sole control of the Indian
country, and agreed that I should have three regiments of infantry then being raised in Arkansas."14
But shortly after his arrival at Fort Smith, General Pike received orders from Van Dorn to march all the Indian troops to
Mount Vernon, in Lawrence County, Missouri.15 He was to co-
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operate "in any emergency" with General Sterling Price, commanding the Missouri troops encamped near Springfield, but his
command was "intended for defense alone or as a corps of observation on the Kansas border." General McCulloch, whose division
was in winter quarters near Fayetteville and at Van Buren, Arkansas, also was ordered to send all his infantry, under command
of Col. James McIntosh, to Springfield, and to move with his cavalry to Pocahontas, in northeastern Arkansas, where General
Van Dorn had established headquarters. The order came too late.
"I received it," said General Pike, "after the enemy, pursuing General Price, had invaded Arkansas, and was thus relieved
of the necessity of disobeying it."
"When information of this movement of the enemy reached Fort Smith," continued Pike, "and General McCulloch, disobeying the
order to march to Pocahontas, ordered his command to Fayetteville, I sent orders to the two Cherokee regiments and the Creek
regiment to advance toward Fayetteville and receive orders from General McCulloch."16
The appointment of General Van Dorn to the command of the Trans-Mississippi District was due to dissension that had long existed
between General Price and General McCulloch. Their failure to act in full harmony during the fall of 1861 had led to indecisive
results in the military campaigns in Missouri. Partisan writers in the press widened the breach,17 and the Provisional Congress finally took notice of the matter by adopting a resolution of inquiry January 3, 1862:
"Resolved, That the President be requested to cause the Secretary of War to transmit to congress all the information, including correspondence,
within his possession or control, in regard to the cause of the troops under the command of Brigadier General Ben. McCulloch
riot having hitherto cooperated, and not now cooperating with the forces under General Sterling Price, in the State of Missouri;..."18
After making an agreement in June, 1861, to respect the neutrality of the Cherokees and not to enter their country with troops,
General McCulloch removed his two regiments of Arkansas and Louisiana volunteers from Fort Smith to Camp Jackson, near Maysville,
in northwestern Arkansas,19 where he planned to organize an army and carry out instructions to protect the Indian Territory from invasion from any quarter.
For that purpose the location of the camp was excellent, being only two miles from the boundary line between Arkansas and
the Cherokee Nation and seven miles from the Missouri line.
Before the removal of the regiments had been completed, McCulloch received information that Governor Jackson and the Mis-
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souri State Guard were retreating south from the Missouri River, endeavoring to reach General Price's camp in southwestern
Missouri, and that Federal troops were attempting to cut them off. McCulloch marched to their rescue at once, leaving Camp
Jackson on the 4th of July with Churchill's regiment of Arkansas mounted riflemen and some Arkansas state troops. On the following
day the cavalry, under Colonel Churchill and Capt. James McIntosh, McCulloch's adjutant, captured a company of Federal infantry
stationed at Neosho, Missouri; and on the 6th McCulloch formed a junction about twenty miles north of Neosho with Jackson
and the State Guard, which the previous day had fought a running battle north of Carthage with Federal troops under Colonel
Sigel. McCulloch returned to Camp Jackson July 9.20
The three generals—McCulloch of the Confederate Army, N. B. Pearce of the Arkansas state troops, and Price of the Missouri
State Guard—spent several weeks in organizing and drilling their forces, which under the command of General McCulloch fought
the Federal Army at Wilson's Creek August 10.
After the battle, the Missourians took possession of Springfield, McCulloch's force remaining near the battlefield. The dissension
between Price and McCulloch dates from that time.
"In their departure from McCulloch," says Tunnard, the historian of the Third Louisiana, "the Missourians carried with them
the battery taken by the Louisiana troops, by what authority was not discovered. They claimed the honor of capturing the guns,
causing much exasperation among the men of the regiment. This soon became a subject of serious dissension between the State
Guard and the Confederate troops, being the foundation of the differences, heart-burnings, and jealousies which existed afterwards
and followed McCulloch to his death. The guns, however, were finally returned stripped of almost everything movable about
Furthermore, McCulloch did not like the rough-and-ready ways of the Missourians, their numerous camp followers, their lack
of discipline, their appropriation of property belonging to his command, and their failure to return borrowed guns and ammunition.
He accorded them, however, an equal share, in the glory of the victory: "Soldiers of Louisiana, of Arkansas, of Missouri,
and of Texas, nobly have you sustained yourselves."22
General Price resumed command of the Missouri State Guard August 14 23 and requested General McCulloch to march with him to the Missouri River. McCulloch declined, first, because his force was
required for the defense of Arkansas and the Cherokee Nation, the Arkansas state troops having disbanded and marched for home;
and, second, because of a serious shortage of ammunition.24 He returned again to Camp Jackson.
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"As the regiment crossed the Missouri line, and when in sight of Camp Jackson, they cheered long and vociferously," says the
historian of the Third Louisiana. "It seemed like reaching home once more, after having traveled over 500 miles, fought a
desperate battle, and endured untold hardships and sufferings."25
Later on, in November, after General Hunter had withdrawn the Federal Army which under General Fremont had occupied Springfield,
Price again asked McCulloch to accompany him to the Missouri and again was refused.26 "Whilst General Price and myself have ever been on the most friendly terms personally," wrote McCulloch, "yet we never could
agree as to the proper time of marching to the Missouri River."27
In December General Price made a third request for an advance to the Missouri.28 General McCulloch at that time had gone to Richmond to explain to Secretary of War Benjamin his failure to pursue the enemy,29 but Col. James McIntosh, left in command of McCulloch's Division, was forced to decline, as he had just received an urgent
call from Colonel Cooper for aid in his campaign against Opothleyoholo.30
The solution of the impasse lay, of course, in a unified command. Governor Jackson, apprehensive of discord, had suggested
that remedy even before the battle of Wilson's Creek. He called President Davis' attention to "the fact that the present military
division of the territory contiguous to Missouri is not such as to insure concert of action..."31
When General Albert Sidney Johnston was assigned to the command of the Western Department in September, it was believed by
the War Department that "he would proceed at once to the west of the Mississippi and conduct the campaign in Arkansas and
Missouri."32 Johnston, however, was detained in Kentucky by an advance of the Federal Army and never crossed the river.
In October Governor Jackson suggested "the name of General Sterling Price as the man fit for the place, and under whose lead
the troops of Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas will rally as one man."33 In November, at the suggestion of General McCulloch,34 Jackson proposed the appointment of General Braxton Bragg to the general
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command.35 Late in December he again brought forth the name of General Price.36
In the meantime, President Davis had made up his mind to appoint no one to the command who was a resident of Missouri, Arkansas,
or Texas, and so informed the Missouri delegation to Congress when they arrived in Richmond early in December. He further
informed them that he had already appointed Col. Henry Heth, ex-captain in the U. S. Army, as major general to command west
of the Mississippi. The Missourians forthwith obtained pledges from every delegation in Congress against confirmation of the
appointment, and a few days later Heth requested President Davis to withdraw his name.37
The command was then offered to General Bragg;38 but as he was loath to accept,39 General Van Dorn was finally selected and assigned January 10, 1862:
"That part of the State of Louisiana north of Red River, the Indian Territory west of Arkansas, and the States of Arkansas
and Missouri, excepting therefrom the tracts of country east of the Saint Francis, bordering on the Mississippi River, from
the mouth of the Saint Francis to Scott County, Missouri (which tract will remain in the district of Major General Polk),
is constituted the Trans-Mississippi District of Department No. 2, and Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn is assigned to the command
of the same..."40
General Van Dorn, a native of Mississippi, was a graduate of West Point and served with distinction in the War with Mexico
as a lieutenant of infantry. In 1855 he was appointed captain in the Second Cavalry. He was severely wounded on the morning
of October 1, 1858, in an attack on a Comanche camp adjacent to the Wichita Village, near the present site of Rush Springs,
Grady County, Oklahoma.
"My first wound was in the left arm," said van Dorn in a letter to his wife, "the arrow entered just above the wrist, passed
between the two bones and stopped near the elbow. The second was in my body; the arrow entered opposite the ninth rib on the
right side, passed through the upper portion of the stomach, cut my left lung, and passed out on the left side between the
sixth and seventh ribs....I killed the Indian that shot me, and his horse, in two shots, going at full speed. My little horse
Fink acted nobly, and when I pulled the arrows from me, staining his shoulders and mane with my blood, and dismounting, the poor
fellow stood perfectly still over me and seemed to feel sorrow for me..."41
He was promoted to major in 1860 and resigned his commission January 31, 1861. After a short service with the Mississippi
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troops, he entered the Confederate Army and was promoted to major general September 19, 1861.42
On assuming command of the Trans-Mississippi District, General Van Dorn called on the governors of Arkansas, Louisiana, and
Texas for men and began preparations for an active campaign.43 Writing to General Price from Pocahontas February 14, he said: "I design attempting St. Louis."44 That plan was never consummated, for on the previous day General Samuel R. Curtis, commander of the Federal Army in southwestern
Missouri, had entered Springfield, and Price was in full flight toward Arkansas.45
Col. Clay Taylor arrived at Pocahontas February 22 with dispatches informing Van Dorn that Price had fallen back from Springfield
to the Boston Mountains in northwestern Arkansas, that McCulloch was near him, and that the Federal Army was but two marches
distant.46 "For reasons which seemed to me imperative," said Van Dorn in his official report of the campaign, "I resolved to go in person
and take command of the combined forces of Price and McCulloch."47 The ride across Arkansas was a remarkable feat of horsemanship.
"We took a steamer for Jacksonport," said Col. Dabney Maury, Van Dorn's adjutant, "whence, on February 23, we mounted our
horses and started upon our ride across the state to Van Buren.48
"Van Dorn rode a fine thoroughbred black mare he had brought from Virginia. I was mounted on a sorrel I had bought in Pocahontas
a few hours before we set out. Except my sorrel mare, Van Dorn's black mare was the hardest trotter in the world, and as we
trotted fifty-five miles every day for five or six days, we had a very unusual opportunity of learning all that a hard trotter
can do to a man in a long day's march. Had it not been that we slept every night in a feather bed, that soothed our sore bones
and served as a poultice to our galled saddle pieces, we would have been permanently disabled for cavalry service forever."49
At it was, in crossing Little Red River the second day out—"the horses by swimming and we one by one in a light canoe"—Van
Dorn was upset in the river, and as a consequence of the immersion contracted a heavy chill and fever. During the battle of
Pea Ridge the following week, he was too ill to mount his horse and was taken to the battlefield in an ambulance.50
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After an all-day ride from Van Buren over an ascending mountain road in bitter cold weather, General Van Dorn reached Price's
headquarters in the Boston Mountains at dark on the evening of March 2. He was welcomed by salutes from the Missouri artillery.51 The Missourians were encamped on Cove Creek, near the Cane Hill road, about twenty miles southwest of Fayetteville.
The following morning Van Dorn crossed over the intervening mountain ridge to McCulloch's camp on the Telegraph road a few
miles to the east.52 Driven back with Price by the advancing Federal Army, McCulloch had burned and abandoned his winter camp at Cross Hollow,
evacuated Fayetteville, and retired to the mountains.
After a conference with McCulloch, whose thorough knowledge of the roads and country was much relied on by Van Dorn in that
campaign, orders were issued to move on the 4th to attack Curtis, whose main camp was on Sugar Creek, northeast of Bentonville,
a distance of about fifty miles. Price was to lead the advance, followed by McCulloch.53
On the morning of the 3d the following order was sent to General Pike:
"I am instructed by Major General Van Dorn to inform you that he will move from here tomorrow morning with the combined forces
of Generals Price and McCulloch in the direction of Fayetteville. He wishes you, therefore, to press on with your whole force
along the Cane Hill road, so as to fall in rear of our army...."54
Later in the day a second order was sent to Pike:
"The general commanding desires that you will hasten up with all possible dispatch and in person direct the march of your
command, including Stand Watie's, McIntosh's, and Drew's regiments.
"The route indicated this morning in the order to you and to those colonels is such that they may not reach their position
by the time desired. I am therefore directed to modify those orders, so that your command will be near Elm Springs (marching
by the shortest route) day after tomorrow afternoon."55
When Pike arrived at Fort Smith in the fore part of February, Superintendent Rector was absent in the Indian Territory, where
he had gone to take charge of the public property at the Creek Agency and to meet a delegation of Comanches and Kiawas with
whom Pike expected to effect treaties.56
"When I returned to the [Indian] country in February," wrote Pike afterward, "I brought with me, besides the funds for the
quartermaster, the moneys due the Indians under treaties. These moneys, partly specie and
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partly Treasury notes, the superintendent refused to receive, and I was compelled to retain them, pay out part myself, and
send the others by private hands to be paid..."57
Rector, however, on his return to Fort Smith late in February, wrote to Acting Commissioner Scott in Richmond: "Genl. P— did
not leave the money here to be paid over to me but tuck it in the Indian country to his headquarters, where he will I presume
pay it out to the Indians himself."58 Several days later Rector protested to Scott against a payment Pike had made to Agent Dorn, who had not yet made bond.59
News of the retreat of Price from Springfield and the invasion of Arkansas by the Federal Army reached Pike at Fort Smith
about the 17th of February, as the order to Col. Stand Watie to advance with his regiment toward Fayetteville bore that date.
Watie went on ahead of the regiment and reported to McCulloch, but on returning to his camp in the Flint district found his
regiment had marched to Fort Davis. In a letter to Pike on the 27th, he branded a report that Opothleyoholo was advancing
from Kansas as "altogether an error," and recalled his regiment to the Flint district.60
On the way to his headquarters at Fort Davis, Pike reached the mouth of the Canadian, where Colonel Cooper's Choctaw and Chickasaw
regiment was encamped, on the night of February 22.61 Accompanied by the regiment, he arrived at the fort on the 25th. Col. D. N. McIntosh's Creek regiment also arrived there
that evening. Awaiting Pike at the fort were delegations of Osages, Comanches, and Reserve Indians, and the payment of Indian
moneys and other dealings detained him three days.62
He was delayed further by the refusal of the Creeks and the Choctaws and Chickasaws to march until they were paid off. As
provided by their treaties, they could not be taken out of the Indian country without their consent. The Creek treaty stipulated:
"The men shall be armed by the Confederate States, receive the same pay and allowances as other mounted troops in the service,
and not be moved beyond the limits of the Indian country west of Arkansas without their consent."63
The Creeks, in refusing to march, were influenced by rumors circulated by Opothleyoholo in the preceding fall:
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"They are incredulous people," said Pike, "and those who fought against us under Opothleyoholo were chiefly alienated by the
belief, induced by that crafty old man, that we would get them to become soldiers, take them out of their own country, first
into Arkansas, then into Missouri, then across the Mississippi, and when their young men were thus all gone would take and
divide out their lands."64
The Choctaws and Chickasaws were not so averse to crossing the line, but were influenced by merchants whom they owed. The
payment of that regiment took three days.65
On the morning of the third day, March 2, Pike left Fort Davis with Welch's squadron of Texas cavalry—attached to the Choctaw
and Chickasaw regiment—and the Creek regiment and marched to Park Hill. He induced the Creeks to move by a promise to pay
them at the Illinois River, near Park Hill.66
Not being overtaken by the Choctaw and Chickasaw regiment, as he expected, Pike moved the following day with Welch's squadron
toward Evansville, and on the 4th to Cincinnati—in Arkansas near the Cherokee line—where he overtook Stand Watie's regiment
of Cherokees.
Pressing on the next day, with Watie's regiment and Welch's squadron, he reached Freschlag's Mill; and on the following day,
Thursday, March 6, overtook Colonel Drew's regiment of Cherokees at Smith's Mill—also known as Osage Mills—about six miles
south of Bentonville. On receipt of Pike's order from Fort Smith, that regiment had marched toward Fayetteville.
"I accompanied the troops," said Chief Ross in a letter to Pike, "some twelve miles east of this [Park Hill], and I am happy
to assure you in the most confident manner that, in my opinion, this regiment will not fail to do their whole duty, whenever
the conflict with the common enemy shall take place."67
Late that afternoon Pike came up with the rear of McCulloch's Division and encamped with his force within two miles of Camp
Stephens, one of a number of camps established by McCulloch the preceding fall and located about seven miles northeast of
Bentonville.68 It was close to Sugar Creek, on the northern bluffs of which, though several miles to the east, the Federal Army was entrenched.
Van Dorn had decided against a frontal attack across Sugar Creek valley. He learned from McCulloch and McIntosh, who knew
the locality thoroughly, that by making a detour of eight miles he could reach the Telegraph road, leading from Springfield
to Fayetteville and Van Buren, and thus gain the rear of Curtis'
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army. Price was again to lead the advance, followed by McCulloch.69
The battle of Pea Ridge had already begun. A detachment of the Federal Army under the personal command of General Sigel loitered
in Bentonville that morning until the Confederates entered the town about 11 o'clock, and Price's advance guard drove them
back to Sugar Creek in a running battle lasting four or five hours.70 It was bitter cold. On Wednesday snow had fallen all day.71
Price began the advance at 8 p. m., but Van Dorn's order of march was not received by Pike until 9:30 o'clock. He was instructed
to follow McCulloch's Division. On inquiry, he was informed by McCulloch that the road would be clear for him at 12 o'clock.
Moving with his command at that hour, he overtook and passed McCulloch's train, but had to wait at Sugar Creek until sunrise
while McCulloch's infantry was crossing on a narrow bridge of rails. Price was delayed by obstructions of felled trees made
by the Federal troops the night before and did not reach the Telegraph road in force until about 10 o'clock Friday morning.72
Pike's command, following McCulloch, had passed the west end of Pea Ridge and temporarily halted, when Sims' Ninth Texas Cavalry
countermarched past them, an officer informing Pike that he was to follow the other troops to the rear. McCulloch had requested
and been given permission to attack the Federal Army on the flank.73 By giving assent, Van Dorn separated the wings of his army a distance of some three miles.
Pea Ridge, terminating on the east in a rocky hill fronting Elkhorn Tavern and the Telegraph road, lies in an east-west direction,
parallel to Sugar Creek, which is about three miles to the south. Between the two is a rough and, at that time, wooded country,
broken here and there by small prairies and fenced clearings. The Federal Army was entrenched, facing south, on Sugar Creek.
A mile to their north and rear was the village of Leetown.
Pike's command followed McCulloch's troops—infantry under Colonel Hebert, cavalry under General McIntosh—leaving the Bentonville
road and marching through the woods in a southeasterly direction. Pike was informed by a staff officer that they were going
to attack a "little place called Leetown," four and a half miles distant, which the Federals had fortified.
"We had marched from the road in a southeasterly direction about a mile from the point where we left it," said Pike in his
report, "and were passing along a narrow road, between a piece of woods on our left and a fenced field on our right, when
we discovered in front of us, at the distance of about 300 yards, a battery of three guns, protected by five companies of
regular cavalry. A fence ran from east to west through the woods, and be-
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hind this we formed in line, with Colonel Sims' regiment on the right, the squadron of Captain Welch next to him, and the
regiments of Colonels Wade and Drew in continuation of the line on the left."74
When General Curtis received reports that morning of Van Dorn's movement, he made a quick change of front and ordered Colonel
Osterhaus, a division commander, to advance with a detachment of cavalry and light artillery, supported by infantry, in the
direction of Leetown and attack the probable center of the Confederate Army.75 As Osterhaus was moving out, word reached Curtis that the Confederates were across his line of communication and retreat.
He ordered Colonel Carr and his division to Elkhorn Tavern to meet Price on the Telegraph road.76
Three regiments of infantry, with two batteries of artillery, under command of Colonel Greusel, took position in the open
fields north and west of Leetown.77 Osterhaus, with the cavalry and Elbert's battery of three pieces, under the immediate command of Colonel Bussey, moved forward,
passed through a belt of timber and came in sight of McIntosh's and Pike's cavalry. The battery took position and Elbert opened
fire on Pike's troops as soon as they formed in line behind the fence. Two companies of Iowa cavalry, charging to cut off
supports, ran unexpectedly into Hebert's infantry, received a volley at short range, and were thrown back in confusion.78 A moment later McIntosh's and Pike's troops charged, routing and dispersing the cavalry and capturing the battery.79
"My whole command," said Pike, "consisted of about 1,000 men, all Indians, except one squadron. The enemy opened fire into
the woods where we were, the fence in front of us was thrown down, and the Indians (Watie's regiment on foot and Drew's on
horseback), with part of Sims' regiment, gallantly led by Lieutenant Colonel Quayle, charged full in front through the woods
and into the open ground with loud yells, routed the cavalry, took the battery, fired upon and pursued the enemy, retreating
through the fenced field to our right, and held the battery, which I afterwards had drawn by the Cherokees into the woods.
Four of the horses of the battery alone remained on the ground, the others running off with the caissons, and for want of
horses and harness we were unable to send the guns to the rear."80
The charge was made just at noon. The Federal cavalry fell back upon and through Greusel's line, but the infantry held firm,
the artillery driving the Confederates back.81 About 2 o'clock a division of Indiana and Illinois troops under Col. Jeff Davis came up in support.82 Heavy fighting took place on Greusel's front. General Ben McCulloch and General James McIntosh were both
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killed there. McCulloch rode forward through the brush on the northern edge of the field, supposedly to reconnoiter, and was
killed by a shot said to have been fired by Peter Pelican, a skirmisher of the Thirty-sixth Illinois.83 McIntosh was killed shortly afterwards near the same place.84
General McCulloch, a native of Tennessee, was in command of the artillery in Houston's army at the battle of San Jacinto in
Texas, April 21, 1836. During the next ten years he saw much Indian fighting; and as commander of McCulloch's Rangers in the
Mexican War became famous throughout the South. He went to California during the Gold Rush in 1849 and was sheriff of Sacramento
for a time. Returning to Texas, he served as United States marshal for eight years. Early in 1861 he was in command of the
Texas troops to whom General Twiggs surrendered at San Antonio. He was 51 years old when killed.85
The capture of the battery apparently demoralized many of the Indians. Describing the situation following the charge, Pike
"Colonel Drew's regiment was in the field on our right, and around the taken battery was a mass of Indians and others in the
utmost confusion, all talking, riding this way and that, and listening to no orders from anyone. I directed Capt. Roswell
W. Lee...to have the guns which had just been taken faced to our front...but he could not induce a single man to assist in
doing so."86
A Federal battery dropped two shells into the field, and the Indians rushed back to the woods. Knowing that they would not
face artillery fire in open ground, Pike ordered them "to dismount, take their horses to the rear, and each take to a tree."
The battery shelled the woods for two hours and a half, but the Indians held their position. When the captured battery was
drawn back into the woods, the Cherokees burned the carriages.87
It was 3 o'clock before Pike heard of the deaths of McCulloch and McIntosh and assumed command. Firing on the field had about
ceased, the Confederates being badly disorganized and widely scattered. Pike was "totally ignorant of the country and the
roads," and knew next to nothing of the numbers on either side. He gathered together what troops he could and resolved to
lead them to General Van Dorn.
Placing Welch's squadron in front, followed by infantry and a battery of artillery, with Watie's Cherokees on the flanks,
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marched the command to the Bentonville road and north on it to the Telegraph road, reaching Van Dorn's headquarters at Elkhorn
Tavern long after dark. Price had driven Carr back during the day, but that night Van Dorn learned that the ammunition was
almost exhausted and that the ordnance officer could not find his wagons.88 He made dispositions, however, to continue the battle the next day.
Pike's order to withdraw failed to reach Colonel Drew, and his Cherokee regiment was the last to leave the field,89 marching to Camp Stephens, where they caught up with the retreating train. There they met Colonel Cooper, with his regiment
and battalion of Choctaws and Chickasaws, and Col. D. N. McIntosh, with 200 men of the Creek regiment, who had arrived too
late for the battle. They all remained with the train until it reached Elm Springs, then marched with their own train to Cincinnati.90
On Saturday morning Pike gave Welch's squadron permission to join one of the Texas regiments and posted part of Stand Watie's
Cherokees on the hill behind Elkhorn Tavern, the remainder being stationed on a ridge on the opposite side of the Telegraph
road. They were ordered to observe and give warning if the Federals attempted to turn Van Dorn's left flank.
The battle on the 8th of March was short. Van Dorn began to withdraw his army at 10 o'clock over the Huntsville road, leading
east.91 When the Thirty-sixth Illinois, "with its dark-blue line of men and its gleaming bayonets," swarmed over the hill, Watie
and his Cherokees retreated along the ridge and made their way to Camp Stephens. Two hundred of Watie's Indians were detailed
by General Green, commander of the train, to escort ammunition wagons to Van Dorn, but the army had gone before their arrival.
They rejoined the train, by a circuitous route, at Walnut Grove, southwest of Fayetteville.92
General Pike narrowly escaped capture by riding north on the Telegraph road, along which the artillery was retreating. After
several unsuccessful attempts to induce a battery to make a stand, he turned into the Bentonville road, where he was joined
by two other officers. Pursued by Federal cavalry, they took to the woods, skirted Pea Ridge, and rode westward between the
Pineville and Bentonville roads.
Owing to the circuit they were forced to make, it was several days before they reached Cincinnati and rejoined the Indian
troops. They then learned that Van Dorn and Price were marching from, Huntsville to Van Buren. "I did not know," said Pike,
"until I
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reached Cincinnati what had become of the main body of our forces."93
On Sunday, following the battle, General Van Dorn sent a burial party back to the field under a flag of truce with a request
that they be permitted to collect and bury the Confederate dead.94 Permission was granted, and on completion of the task the officer in charge of the party was given a letter by General Curtis
to deliver to Van Dorn, in which Curtis said:
"The general regrets that we find on the battlefield, contrary to civilized warfare, many of the Federal dead who were tomahawked,
scalped, and their bodies shamefully mangled, tnd expresses a hope that this important struggle may not degenerate to a savage
Colonel Maury, Van Dorn's adjutant, replying March 14, assured Curtis that the Confederate commander will "most cordially
unite with you in repressing the horrors of this unnatural war." Curtis had not named the Indians, but Van Dorn naturally
made that assumption.
"He hopes you have been misinformed with regard to this matter," Maury wrote, "the Indians who formed part of his forces having
for many years been regarded as civilized people....he desires me to inform you that many of our men who surrendered themselves
prisoners of war were reported to him as having been murdered in cold blood by their captors, who were alleged to be Germans."96
To that countercharge, Capt. H. Z. Curtis, assistant adjutant to General Curtis, replied March 21, quoting a letter from General
Sigel, "addressed to me before the receipt of yours," in which Sigel said:
"While Capt. Elbert's three pieces were taken by the enemy, and our men serving the guns were surrounded, they were shot dead
by the rebels, although seeking refuge behind the horses."97
"As 'dead men tell no tales,' it is not easy to see how these charges may be proven," conceded Curtis, "and the general hopes
they are mere 'camp stories,' having little or no foundation."98
General Curtis later forwarded to the Federal Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War four affidavits signed by members
of the Third Iowa Cavalry, which was driven back in the charge made by Pike and McIntosh at noon March 7. In one of the affidavits,
Adjutant John W. Noble stated "from personal inspection of the bodies of the men of the Third Iowa Cavalry, who fell upon
that part of the field, I discovered that eight of the men of that regiment had been scalped."99
That there was some truth in the charges made by the Federals was intimated by Pike himself. Following his return to Cincin-
Page 396
nati, he spent several days at Dwight Mission in the Cherokee Nation, where he wrote his report of the battle of Pea Ridge.100 On March 15 he issued an order to the Indian troops, in which, after expressing his horror at seeing in the action of March
7 a person unknown to him, "and who immediately passed beyond his sight," shoot a wounded enemy begging for mercy, he said:
"The commanding general has also learned with the utmost pain and regret that one, at least, of the enemy's dead was found
scalped upon the field. That practice excites horror, leads to cruel retaliation, and would expose the Confederate States
to the just reprehension of all civilized nations....Against forces that do not practice it, it is peremptorily forbidden
during the present war."101
The Cherokee National Council, on April 30, adopted a resolution expressing their opinion that the war should be conducted
on the "most humane principles which govern the usages of war among civilized nations" and "recommended to the troops of this
nation...to avoid any acts toward captured or fallen foes that would be incompatible with such usages."102
Little is known of the losses of the Indians in the battle of Pea Ridge, but they probably were small. Two of Colonel Drew's
men were killed and one wounded in the charge on the battery. In his report of the battle,103 Van Dorn made no mention of the part played by the Indians. Writing to Secretary Benjamin, Pike said:
"I regret that no other allusion is made by General Van Dorn in his report of 27th March of the action at Elkhorn to the Indian
troops engaged than the simple statement that he had ordered me to join him with my force. I did not expect that any credit
would ever be given them in orders for any gallantry displayed, since that would be contrary to all precedent, but surely
it would have been wise and politic to mention their presence, and not to have assigned to others the whole credit of what
they at least aided in doing."104
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Bronx Banter Interview: Rob Fleder
Posted By Alex Belth On March 19, 2012 @ 8:51 am In 1: Featured,Arts and Culture,Baseball,Bookish,Bronx Banter Interviews,Games We Play,Links: Interviews,Magazine Writers,Newspapermen,Publications,Sports Illustrated,Sportswriting | Comments Disabled
"Damn Yankees" [2] is a winning new collection of essays about the Bronx Bombers. Edited by Rob Fleder, it features an All-Star lineup [3] and is a must not just for Yankee fans or baseball fans but anyone who appreciates good writing. I recently talked to Fleder about the project. Here's our chat. Enjoy.
RF: We've been catching up the TV series "Friday Night Lights." I don't really watch much TV but it's great, just so well done. If you summarized the plot line, it would sound like cliché after cliché, but that never occurs to you because it's great story telling, it's so well executed. It makes me think of Colum McCann's piece in the book. We've all read some version of that story. If you're a Sports Illustrated editor you've seen it a hundred times—and almost none of them have worked. It's very rare that someone can pull it off, and he did spectacularly. I think it's a fantastic piece.
BB: It's the father-and-son piece, the outsider-coming-to-baseball story.
RF: Right, but you don't even think about reducing it to those terms because it's so beautifully done.
BB: I think it's one of the best pieces in the book. Now, when you approached Colum, did you know that was the piece he was going to write?
RF: Yeah. Even before I got in touch with him, I knew from Dan Barry that Colum had a son and that he'd come to baseball through his son. He has lived here for many years but he's still an Irishman too. His kids have grown up here. I'd read "Let The Great World Spin" and some other things by him and loved his work. I thought if anybody could do this kind of story, it's him. What's cool is that because he didn't grow up in a baseball culture, I think he was more or less oblivious to the fact that he was doing something that many other people have tried, usually without much success.
BB: There is no guile or irony in his story.
RF: That's right, and it's an enduring theme in baseball, fathers and sons—except that he does turn the whole thing on its head, in a way. He's coming to the game through his son, and that process takes him back to his father and grandfather. It's great when someone is artistic enough to take material is familiar and seems predictable in some ways and does something truly original with it. That's the magic—to take something that's right in front of the readers eyes and to dazzle him by revealing something he never saw. That's what good writing is about to me.
BB: The other piece in the book that I think took a familiar theme and did a nice job making it work is Will Leitch's essay, which is really a Babe-in-the-Woods story. It's funny, and I think he really got the tone right.
RF: Very much so. I hadn't met Will, but he's a friend of my friend Dave Hirshey, who'd edited him at Harper Collins. So Dave said, let's go get a drink with Will Leitch. And when I started this whole project, my son, Nick, a deeply knowledgeable sports kid, said, "Oh, you've got to get Will Leitch, he's really funny and a really good writer." We sat down at a bar and we connected immediately. He had an idea for the book, and I was like, "Yeah, Huckleberry Finn comes to New York, that's it." And he ran with it. Again, a hard one to pull off, but he did a great job with it. His piece is laugh-out-loud funny but it's also sincere. The irony in it doesn't create distance, it does just the opposite.
BB: Going back for a minute, how did this book begin?
RF: Roy Blount was in some ways the genesis of the whole book. Dave Hirshey reminded me of this, because I'd forgotten. There is a charity dinner I go to every year where Roy is a featured guest, and he's always hugely entertaining. So I mentioned to Hirshey that I'd been to this dinner and Roy was telling all these great old Yankee war stories from his days writing sports. I don't know how the subject came up but Roy had all these great stories. I mentioned this to Hirshey in passing and he called me the next day and said, "Do think there's a book in this? The best writers you can think of, writing about the Yankees?" At the very least, I thought, it'd be a lot of fun to think about, and that's how the whole thing started.
BB: Did you know what you wanted each writer to do before you approached them or did they have an idea in mind when you first talked to them? Or did you say, I want Leigh Montville, I want Richard Hoffer, and they'll figure it out?
RF: Some had specific idea, and some didn't. I tried to have several possible ideas for each writer I called, things I thought might appeal to them and they might be especially good at, but I always wanted to hear the writers' ideas first—if they had anything specific—before I suggested possible topics for them. But I did want them to be aware of the range of possibilities, so I would tell them the sorts of things other writers were doing.
BB: You do have such a wide range in the book, not only of writers but of takes on the Yankees. I mean, you've got Dan Okrent and Frank Deford who are classic Yankee haters.
RF: Plus, there is a little cluster from Boston, Charlie Pierce and Leigh Montville. Montville, of course, had written a big biography of the Babe as well as one of Ted Williams [10], and Jane Leavy had written about Mickey Mantle [11]. And these are big books—-not just "big" as in best-sellers, but deeply researched, substantial volumes that cover a lot of ground. So I asked, "What's the best thing that didn't make the book?" It took Leigh a while and of course he drew on material that he'd used in the book, but his take was new, and I think what bubbled up for him with passage of time was a new perspective, a fresh insight about Ruth. And Jane just went out and did a whole lot of new reporting. She had a situation with Frank Sullivan, the old Red Sox pitcher, where she mistakenly pronounced him dead in her Mantle book. Sullivan contacted her and wondered when she planned to announce his rebirth—or something like that. It was very funny. She was mortified by her mistake, but he had a great sense of humor about it. So she dug into it and—typical of her—she did more reporting and came up with a terrific piece. So sometimes I went to people who'd already written about subjects involving the Yankees and other times I went to people who were just writers I admired who I knew had some feeling for baseball, though I didn't know what their feelings were about this team.
BB: Who were some of those guys?
RF: I knew our friend Dexter watched every Yankee game. And as much as I've talked to him about the Yankees over the years—even gone to Yankee games with him—it's never clear what Pete's going to come up with, how he's going to land on a subject. That's true with anything that he's going to write.
BB: Yeah, like that book review he did last year for the Times on the Jim Harrison novel [13].
RF: The book report, he called it. Exactly. You've read his columns and magazine pieces. That's part of Dexter's genius—-you never know where he's going to be coming from on a particular subject, or where he's going to land.
BB: Were you amused then when in typical Dexter fashion he chose Chuck Knoblauch, of all people, to write about?
RF: Well, Pete had been very sick a few years ago, very nearly died, as he writes about in the piece. Then it took him a long time to come back and there was a stretch where he felt seriously damaged by his illness, where he couldn't write. And it was awful. And it was during that period when he landed on the idea of Chuck Knoblauch, a guy who had done something as well as anyone in the world, had done it every day of his life, and then woke up one day and suddenly couldn't do it at all. Pete had a personal connection to that story, something you couldn't have predicted. I mean, I knew about Pete's illness and its aftermath, but I never could have predicted that he would connect it to that Yankees by way of Chuck Knoblauch. And you look at it and it's a brilliant, funny piece about the awful things that went wrong for him and for Knoblauch. Nobody else could have written that piece.
BB: You've known and worked with Pete for a long time. You edited "Paper Trails," his collection of newspaper columns and magazine pieces. How much editing did you do with him on his piece, and with the other writers too, for that matter? Did Pete give you a final draft and that was it or did you actually work on the piece with him?
RF: It varied with each writer how much editing it took to get from the first draft to the final. In Pete's case, it's hard for him to let go of what he's writing. He's a perfectionist. He will rewrite everything until you badger him to give you a peek at it. He sent a draft and it was late in the process of the book's production—meaning I was feeling the crushing weight of a deadline. The piece was brilliant, it was fall-out-of-your-chair funny but he kept working on it. He was just getting back up to speed for himself. A week or so later he sent a draft that was completely different. He tried to come at the same subject from a totally different direction. It was written like a mock children's book, and it might have been one direction too many. He sent me about half or two-thirds of it. He'd written the whole thing and then lost the original version on his computer— he was having technical difficulties as he sometimes does. It was like "Paris Trout" [16]—
BB: Jesus. That's when he lost more than 100 manuscript pages somewhere in his computer back in the mid-'80s and then took a baseball bat to the machine and had to start over from the beginning.
RF: Right. The second version of his Yankee piece was still funny but I liked the earlier way he did it better. So he did a third version, which was recreating the first version, different and better. That was classic Dexter.
BB: You talked about Pete not wanting to let things go and being a perfectionist, does there ever come a point where a writer can cross a line and keep hold of something too long?
RF: I think it happens to writers all the time, and usually they know it and can see that they've pushed it too far or changed directions once too often, and will go back to the sweet spot that was working before. For instance, Pete bounced the second version of his piece off me, and by the time I got it and read it—we don't work electronically with Pete, it still comes the old fashioned way, on paper, by Fed Ex—he'd already gone back to his first version, or what he could remember of it, and finished it that way.
BB: Is he the only writer in the collection who works like that?
RF: In technological terms, Frank [Deford] was like that for a long time—he was the last guy I worked with who used a typewriter—but he moved decisively into the electronic mode a long time ago. But there were other writers who were as meticulous as Pete, who worked on things until the last minute and wanted to see every draft, every galley, every version. It's a matter of style, I think—some writers work one way, some work another. It doesn't mean that someone like Frank or Jim Surowiecki or Roy Blount, who file pieces that are virtually finished the first time you lay eyes on them, are any less meticulous or aren't perfectionists. Their process is different—at least, that's the way it looks from the vantage point of an editor—but I think they're all trying to make their words as good as they can possibly be, one way or another.
BB: I'm sure for some writers it's never going to be good enough, even when the book is published they'll still look at their piece and want to tinker with it.
RF: Yeah, Bruce McCall is a very meticulous writer who found things he wanted to fix in his piece until the very end. And when the book was about to close we shot this little video, and Dan Okrent left the shoot with a copy of the galleys, which were outdated by that point, and by the time I got home from the video shoot I had a message from Dan saying that there were two mistakes in Bruce's piece. And Bruce is a careful writer. We were able to correct the things Dan found at the last minute, even though the book was already at the printer. I know there will be other things that we missed—it's inevitable—but you do the best you can in the time that's allotted.
BB: That's agonizing but at some point—
RF: You have to let go. And the writers do the same thing. Some writers sent me drafts that were virtually perfect.
BB: Was Richard Hoffer one of those guys?
RF: Actually Rick and I worked on it because he was worried in his first draft of the piece about making it baseball-y enough. I always think of Hoffer as a great essayist. He's always been one of my favorite SI writers.
BB: So understated and yet he's not humorless. There's a strong sense of wit in his writing. It's just dry.
RF: Very much so. He's extremely skillful and has a distinctive voice. And he has truly original thoughts in a world that I think is filthy with group-think. A Hoffer piece is never just the same old thing.
BB: And you don't think of him as a baseball guy especially.
RF: No, but Hoffer's one of those guys that I want to read on anything. I had an idea that I thought would make a perfect Hoffer essay, but at first he did much more of a narrative history piece without much of the essay component. He said to me as we were working, "I have two gears: this one and the other one." I told him that I was envisioning a piece that included more of the other one, so he wrote a draft that was almost pure essay and left out much of the great historical narrative, all these great details. So we took both versions and put them together and I think it worked out beautifully. I love the piece. And I think it's quintessential Hoffer.
BB: You were at Playboy and Esquire and SI as an editor and have worked with many of the writers featured in this collection. How many of the writers had you not worked with before?
RF: I can count them. I didn't know J.R. Moehringer or Nathanial Rich or Jim Surowiecki. Pretty much everybody else I was at least acquainted with or had worked with directly. I met Will Leitch in the very early stages of the book. I'd been introduced to Colum McCann at Dan Barry's book party, but that was the extent of it at that point. I'd admired Mike Paterniti's work for a long time and tried to get him to write for me at one magazine or another, but can't say I really knew him.
BB: What about Bill James?
RF: Bill James I've known since he was sending out his Abstract on mimeograph. I met him when I was a fact checker or a baby editor at Esquire. Okrent introduced Bill to us at Esquire, and in some sense, Esquire introduced him to a wider audience. It was great. Okrent wrote the first big piece about Bill [20] that I remember and I worked on a little piece Bill wrote for an Esquire baseball package one year, and he was obviously an original thinker and, I thought, a terrific writer. I touched base with him every so often over the years and followed his ascension. I'd write to him from SI and say, "I don't know if you remember who I am but would you be on a panel to pick the greatest all-time team…" or whatever. And he always remembered our connection from way back and was always generous with his time. So I called him for this book. He works with the Red Sox but is still as clear-headed about baseball as anyone I've ever read, and he's a funny, quirky writer. I had no idea what he'd write about and neither did he, as it turns out. One day, late in the process, I got an e-mail from him in which he said, "I've been thinking about Yankee catchers…." And he was off and running.
BB: And it's really a perfect kind of Bill James piece. It's smart and irreverent.
RF: Analytical and full of all his digressions and humorous asides and deep baseball knowledge.
BB: That's one of the things I noticed about the book, you've gotten kind of a quintessential piece from so many of the contributors.
RF: That's the ideal—what you dream about as an editor. You pick writers of this quality and then you hope they get into it and just do what they do.
BB: I also like the variety. There are humorous pieces, memoir pieces—Sally Jenkins's piece that is so evocative of New York City, historical stories, analytical pieces.
RF: I'm glad it hit you that way. My big picture idea was to have a bunch of voices that I really like to hear on the subject of the Yankees, more or less directly. In some cases I had specific topics in mind, like Jane Leavy on Mantle or Tom Verducci on Jeter. I told every writer who some of the other contributors were, so they knew who else was playing, and I just hoped all the writers would bring their game. As it turned out, they did.
BB: I'm forever grateful for Charlie Pierce's piece if only because he punctured that horseshit Seinfeld routine, which has somehow become celebrated, that rooting for a sports team is like rooting for laundry.
RF: Charlie is another one you can count on to come up with something unpredictable.
BB: Right, because he starts there and shifts gears in the middle of the piece about growing up and what the Yankees meant growing up in Boston.
RF: He does lay waste that whole Seinfeld bit about laundry. But in a much larger context he also writes about what baseball's tribal experience means to people who come to this country from somewhere else, and he does it in a way that is immediate and on a human scale. Charlie's piece has a lot of common ground with Column McCann's, but they are totally different essays.
BB: Taken as a whole were there any surprises in the collection, a theme, or a player who jumped out as somebody that appeared in more than a few of the pieces?
RF: There are some threads that run through the book, yeah. And I was aware of them when I was figuring out the order of the pieces and was conscious of spacing them out so that they didn't come together too quickly. Catfish Hunter comes up more often than I would've anticipated. And he's the focus for Mike Paterniti, who wrote just a beautiful piece.
BB: The book ends with Steve Rushin talking about Catfish, too.
RF: And I was aware that. I'd really admired Mike's classic Thurman Munson piece [26] in Esquire. When I spoke to him, he mentioned that he'd seen Catfish Hunter near the end of his life and had written a quick remembrance of him in the early days of Esquire.com. He sent me the little post he'd done and he went back to that and really dug in. So I knew that Mike and Steve were going to touch on some of the same ground, and Rushin wrote a gem of a piece in which he gets the last word in the book, which is fitting. And Catfish also comes up again in Bill Nack's amazing story about the Bronx Zoo Era Yankees. There's a different focus and context in each of the three pieces in which Catfish appears.
BB: Also, what a beautiful guy to come up. A guy with a sense of himself and a sense of humor about the Yankees and how crazy George was even though he was the first big free agent. Yankee fans love him but also probably saw himself as being apart from that too.
RF: And there was another surprise in the book. Steinbrenner comes up, obviously, over and over again. But Jim Surowiecki, the financial writer for the New Yorker, who is another really original thinker, did a revisionist analysis of what Steinbrenner did with the team economically—a totally fresh take on Steinbrenner's ownership .
BB: I also like that there are a few essays on the modern Yankees. Verducci on Jeter but also Steve Wulf on Robinson Cano, which is important I think—to talk about a Latin star.
RF: As the book was taking shape I knew Tom was going to do Jeter but I thought it'd be good to have a piece on a player who represented the future. I think of Steve as the guy who first wrote about Dominican baseball, about Dominican shortstops. I remembered his piece from the '80s [30], and I thought Cano was the guy for this book. He is a monstrously good player and will be the center of gravity when Mariano and Jeter are gone. Steve took it and ran. He's been an editor at ESPN for a while now, but he was a great baseball writer at SI for a really long time and knows the game as well as anyone. It was a perfect match of writer and subject.
BB: And it's an important piece because for so many years the Yankees didn't have Dominican players, certainly not stars, despite playing a stones throw from Washington Heights.
RF: That's right. Another surprising piece came from Dan Barry [31].
BB: Which is great because the Mike Burke, CBS years were covered.
RF: The last thing you think of is the Yankees as underdogs.
BB: Celerino Sanchez.
RF: "Poor Celerino Sanchez," is a little refrain from Dan's piece, which is both poignant and very funny. And he had a deeper connection to that team than I expected before I talked to him. Then there's Roy Blount, who I knew had Yankee stories to tell, but the nature of a Blount piece—the beauty of a Blount piece—is that you have no idea how he's going to get at his subject and can't possibly predict where he's going to go with it.
BB: Then you see writers like Moehringer, McCann and Dexter and you think, I wonder what those guys have to say about them?
RF: J.R. Moehringer had an intimate connection with the team through his grandfather, who was a key figure in his life. "The Tender Bar" is J.R.'s great memoir about growing up with an absent father, and his grandfather is in that book. But what J.R. has done here is an element of the story that wasn't in his book.
BB: And Moehringer is a Mets fan [33].
RF: I contacted him and he said that he wanted to write about the Yankees from a Mets fan's point of view. And I already had Nathaniel Rich doing that. In fact, I had Nathaniel's story already, and it was terrific, extremely amusing. So I told J.R. that I had that piece but that I really wanted him to write for this book. At that point I suggested a couple of topics, but he had something else he wanted to try. And after a while he sent me what he said was a really rough draft of something that was well on its way to being this piece. He's another one who goes back to his copy over it over and over again, making it better and then going back to it again. It's a wonderful piece about how he connected with baseball. It's amazing.
BB: Plus, watching the games on TV and listening to the Scooter. You needed to get the Scooter in there.
RF: Had to. And he's another thread. He's also gets a prominent mention in Rushin's piece.
BB: Yankee fans will obviously be interested in the book but there are enough of the writers in the book who are Yankee-haters that I suspect you want to draw readers that aren't Yankee fans, too.
RF: Yeah, I think anybody who is interested in reading good writers is the potential audience for the book. The natural audience is Yankee fans, baseball fans. They are a team that people have strong feelings about: people love them and people really love to hate them.
BB: This is the book you want to read.
RF: That was the hope. The plan, insofar as I had one, was to get the writers I want to read on a subject I want to read about. Beyond that I didn't really know where it would go. I wanted to be surprised and delighted, and by that measure I think the book is a real success.
"Damn Yankees" is available for pre-order at Amazon [35]. It will be published on April 3rd.
[Photographs via N.Y. Daily News, N.Y. Times, ESPN, Corbis, Marisa Kestel, Peter Adams [36], SI, Illustration by Bruce McCall, photo of Pete Dexter by Stuart Isett [37]]
Article printed from Bronx Banter: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com
URL to article: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/2012/03/19/bronx-banter-interview-rob-fleder/
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[2] "Damn Yankees": http://www.harpercollins.com/Author/Tour.aspx?authorID=37794
[3] features an All-Star lineup: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/2012/01/30/hot-damn/
[4] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/get-attachment.aspx_13.jpeg
[5] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/yankees-a-rod.jpg
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[9] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/babe-ruth-candy-bar.jpg
[10] Montville, of course, had written a big biography of the Babe as well as one of Ted Williams: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ALeigh+Montville&keywords=Leigh+Montville&ie=UTF8&qid=1332111019&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B001IGOLDW
[11] Jane Leavy had written about Mickey Mantle: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7058409/the-last-boy
[12] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ByHimWB2kKGrHqVjcEw5BD8Y8PBMQb20Nf_3.jpg
[13] book review he did last year for the Times on the Jim Harrison novel: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/books/review/the-great-leader-by-jim-harrison-book-review.html?pagewanted=all
[14] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/image.jpg
[15] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/pete-dexter-19.jpg
[16] "Paris Trout": http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/24/books/unexamined-lives-in-cotton-point.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
[17] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/triple-play.jpg
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[19] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/bill-james-0790060781.jpg
[20] Okrent wrote the first big piece about Bill: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1124493/index.htm
[21] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Bill-Dickey.png
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[25] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/mlb_a_hunter11_576.jpg
[26] really admired Mike's classic Thurman Munson piece: http://gangrey.com/?p=2682
[27] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ws3f.jpg
[28] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/george-steinbrenner-billy-martin.jpg
[29] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/image1.jpg
[30] remembered his piece from the '80s: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1065712/index.htm
[31] Another surprising piece came from Dan Barry: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/sports/baseball/the-yankees-of-mediocrity-had-their-own-strange-charisma.html?pagewanted=all
[32] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Corbis-U1530325.jpg
[33] Moehringer is a Mets fan: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=moehringer/080929
[34] Image: http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Scooter_WPIX_WasWatchingcom.jpg
[35] "Damn Yankees" is available for pre-order at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Damn-Yankees-Twenty-Four-League-Writers/dp/0062059629/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332164151&sr=8-1-spell
[36] Peter Adams: http://www.peteradamsphoto.com/?attachment_id=232
[37] Pete Dexter by Stuart Isett: http://stuartisett.photoshelter.com/image/I0000mAegfZrQmKk
Click here to print.
Copyright © 2011 Bronx Banter. All rights reserved.

subset: commoncrawl


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Gov. Rick Perry today released the following statement on the decision by House Democrats to hide out this week in an effort to stop the Texas Legislature from completing important work on behalf of all Texans.
"The action by these Democrats is cowardly and childish. Their behavior is analogous to the pouting child who doesn't like the way the game is going and stomps off the field.
"This childish prank endangers tens of thousands of Texans who stand to lose access to health care by blocking passage of medical malpractice reform that is crucial to enabling doctors to continue to practice medicine.
"This childish prank endangers funding for our public schools, thus hampering the access of all Texas children to a quality education.
"This childish prank endangers the hard work legislators have invested in ensuring that homeowners insurance rates are lowered, and it jeopardizes dozens of other pieces of important legislation.
"These legislators have been elected and paid to come to work by hardworking Texans. They are asked to work for 140 days every two years - not to hide out because they don't like the way the debate is going.
"In my nearly 20 years of public service, I have never seen such a blatant abdication of responsibility."


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A man remains in a stable condition in hospital after being attacked by a shark while spearfishing off central Queensland.
It's understood the man, aged in his 30s, was bitten on his arms and legs while swimming near Miall Island off Yeppoon just before midday yesterday.
He's believed to have speared a trout when he was attacked, which attracted a school of mackerel and, in turn, the shark.


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Ransom Center Research Fellowships 2002-2003
Providing access to collections for the purposes of discovering and disseminating knowledge is one of the Ransom Center's highest priorities. To promote such substantial scholarly work in the Center's collection, in 1989 incoming director Thomas F. Staley initiated a plan to develop a strong research agenda. The Research Fellowship Program is an integral part of this institutional initiative. The fellowship program was also an imperative response to the clear need of scholars for financial support. Eroding budgets have been curtailing programs that support research, especially in the humanities. Scholars have simply been unable to find adequate funds to support their work, a fact documented by the large number of scholars' requests for financial assistance that had been received by the Ransom Center prior to the creation of the fellowship program.
The basic premise of a residential fellowship program is that scholars will best be served by being provided the opportunity to conduct on-site work in the archives. The very nature of unique, primary-source materials require that they be examined firsthand, in the context of the archive as a whole, with attention paid to colors of ink and types of paper, to erasures, and seemingly meaningless doodles and drawings. With the continued growth of the program, and increasing quality of the projects submitted, the Ransom Center continues to lead in the field of scholarly support.
The award year 2002-2003 saw a surge in applications received and a greater number of fellowships, and monies, awarded than ever before. It's with great pleasure that we welcome our thirty-eight newly designated Ransom Center Fellows for 2002-2003.
Debbie Armstrong
Scott, Ashley, University of Newcastle
"Early Modernism and the Avant-Garde Salon in London"
Claudia Barnett, Middle Tennessee State University
"After Autobiography: Adrienne Kennedy's Alexander Plays"
Rebecca Beasley, The University of London
"Ezra Pound and the Visual Culture of Modernism"
Megan Benton, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma
"Book Love, Book Lust: The Cultural Erotics of the Elite Book, 1880-1940"
Edward Bishop, University of Alberta
"Modernism and the Materialities of the Archive"
Scott Black, Villanova University
"History of the Essay in English, 1600-1750"
Mark Bland, Open University, Milton Keynes
"Jonson's Visible Signs"
Julie F. Codell, Arizona State University, Tempe
"Hands Across the Empire: Empire Cinema in Britain and the U.S., 1930-1940"
Lisa Cohen, Independent scholar, U.S.
"In Their Own Fashion"
Matt Cook, University of Keele
"Life-writing, Sex Lives, and the Diaries and Scrapbooks of George Ives"
Nicholas Daly, Trinity College, Dublin
"Up to Speed: Literature, Technology and Modernization"
Geoffrey V.Davis, University of Aachen
"Exiles, Expatriates and Migrants in the Literature of South Africa"
Robert L. Dawson, The University of Texas at Austin
"Books Across the Channel: Aspects of the French and British Booktrades During the Long Eighteenth Century"
Maud Ellmann, King's College Cambridge
"Elizabeth Bowen: The Shadow Across the Page"
Philip W. Errington, University of London
"John Masefield -- A Bibliography"
David J. Getsy, Courtauld Institute of Art
"Eric Gill, Inscription, and Actuality: Materiality and Representation in the Theories of English Modernist Sculpture"
Richard Greene, University of Toronto
"Edith Sitwell: A Life"
Selina Hastings, Independent scholar U.K.
Somerset Maugham papers as part of a critical biography, W. Somerset Maugham
Nancy Henry, Binghamton University
"Women and Investment in the Nineteenth Century"
Catherine W. Hollis, Lawrence University
"Do-It-Yourself Modernism: Women and Literary Production"
John Iverson, University of Missouri, Columbia
"Research on Voltaire in the Desmond Flower Voltaire Collection"
J. Gerald Kennedy, Lousiana State University
"Inventing America's Narrative: Literary Nationalism in the Age of Poe"
Morine Krissdóttir, Independent scholar, U.K.
Examination of the John Cowper Powys manuscripts and family letters in the Powys Collection
Christopher LeCluyse, The University of Texas at Austin
"Pseudo-Jerome, De generibus musicorum in HRHRC MS 29"
Nicolas P. Maffei, Royal College of Art, London
"Modernist Design and the Image of the Practical Visionary: Norman Bel Geddes, 1893-1958"
J.C.C. Mays, University College Dublin
"Edition of Yeats-Moore play, Diarmuid and Grania"
Karl Orend, Independent scholar, France
"Henry Miller in the Wake of the Lost Generation"
Bobbi Owen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Theatrical Design in the U.S.: The Role of Norman Bel Geddes and the 'New American Stagecraft.'"
Makarand R. Paranjape, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
"Literary Modernism in India with Special References to R.K. Narayan, Dom Moraes, and Anita Desai"
Roxana Preda, John F. Kennedy Institute
"Ezra Pound's Economic Correspondence 1933-1945"
Alan Rauch, Georgia Institute of Technology
"Private Reading, Public Knowledge: Science and Popular Discourse in 19th Century Britain"
Lois Rudnick, University of Massachusetts, Boston
"New Edition of Alice Corbin Henderson's Red Earth"
Kay H. Smith, Appalachian State University
"Burgess's Shakespeare: In the Archives"
Peter Alexander Swaab, University College London
"Editing the Selected Works of Sara Coleridge"
Robert W.Trogdon, Kent State University
"Joseph Conrad: A Descriptive Bibliography"
Gay Wachman, SUNY, College at Old Westbury
"Biography of Sylvia Townsend Warner"
James G. Watson, University of Tulsa
"Peter Matthiessen Archive: The Late Fiction"
Tricia Welsch, Bowdoin College
"Glory: The Life and Times of Gloria Swanson"


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Berrett-Kohler Releases John Hope Bryant's Second Book
LOS ANGELES, June 2, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ Berrett-Kohler will release its second book by John Hope Bryant, entitled How the Poor Can Save Capitalism: Rebuilding the Path to the Middle Class on June 2, 2014. The book will be available in Barnes&Noblebookstores, and online at Amazon.com,BAM!, IndieBound,iTunes.
Endorsed by former President Bill Clinton, with a foreword by legendary Civil Rights Leader Andrew Young, Bryant builds a compelling economic argument for investing in America's least wealthy consumers.
In How the Poor Can Save Capitalism, John Hope Bryant once again turns traditional thinking on its head, starting with its audacious title, which boldly asserts that capitalism in fact needs to be saved, and that furthermore, the poor can save it, a completely counter-intuitive idea to many. The latest step in his mission to eradicate poverty in America, Bryant seeks to radically redefine the very definitions of poverty and wealth themselves. Poverty, in his estimation, is not just finances; its values too. Bryant exposes why attempts to aid the poor so far have fallen short and offers a way forward: the HOPE Plan, a series of straightforward, actionable steps to build financial literacy and expand opportunity so that the poor can join the middle class.
After two decades of leadership in the fight against poverty, the founder of Operation HOPE, picks up where he left off in his previous bestselling book Love Leadership, in which he makes the case that the best way to get ahead is to figure out what you have to give in an increasingly self-obsessed world. In How the Poor Can Save Capitalism Bryant constructs a vision for America in which he fully embraces the power of capitalism to transform lives, and details Operation HOPE's Project 5117, an ambitious plan to change the world, by delivering a Memo on Financial Empowerment, Freedom and Self Determination. From now to 2020, this plan calls for the creation of the first national private bank for the poor, the working class and the struggling middle class.
At the root of this philosophy is Bryant's simple and deeply held conviction that when we all prosper, we all prosper more. That by including those so often excluded the poor and the shrinking middle class we can re-energize our stalled economy for everyone, the rich included. Bryant demonstrates by example, that when struggling people have the necessary tools, policies and inspiration, they will rebuild the middle class, and become a new generation of consumers, entrepreneurs, and leaders.
Last week, Operation HOPE announced a national book tour the HOPE 100 City Tour to promote the book. The tour aims to create opportunities for active engagement through conversation between key business and community leaders who can effect change.
Heralded by government, business and community leaders alike, here are some OF THE select endorsements:
"When John Hope Bryant talks about how to expand the middle class, I listen. I urge everyone to read How the Poor Can Save Capitalism and discover for themselves John's great ideas for creating an America with more shared opportunity and shared responsibility."
Former United States President Bill Clinton, CEO of the Clinton Global Initiative
"John Bryant is what I call a practical idealist who dreams big and then moves with precision to action. In 'How the Poor Can Save Capitalism' he reminds us of the age old adage, 'if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime' because he or she now has the skills and knowledge to become self-determined. One of the few and best plans for addressing poverty is outlined in this book. It lays out a clear and actionable path to address some of the issues that led my father to call for a poor people's campaign shortly before his assassination. You will have a different perspective on poverty and 'poor people' when you finish reading this book and realize that in order to secure our economy it requires that we ensure that everyone be given a fair and just opportunity to prosper."
Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. And CEO of The King Center


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It lies in a straight line westward of Mosul and the ancient Nineveh, and not far from the banks of the Khabur.
Our author probably wrote "from thence to Ras-el-Ain," at which place the Khabur becomes a formidable river.
The Khabur above referred to flows through Mesopotamia, not through Media.


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- 1 of 7 Photos | View More Photos
ORRVILLE -- Every time the Orrville volleyball team stepped on the court this season, it was no secret that its offensive attack ran through Rylee Scott.
Opposing squads set up double and triple blocks on No. 9, but time and again the 5-foot-11 senior barreled through them anyway. Every opponent knew what was coming, yet Scott's dominance led the Red Riders along their surprising run to the state semifinals.
Scott, who will continue her volleyball career next fall after earning a scholarship to Div. II Ashland University, is this year's Daily Record Volleyball Player of the Year as she helped her team reach the Div. III Final Four for the third time in school history. The Riders paid extra attention to defense because they knew their middle hitter could take care of the offense on her own as Scott led the team in kills (475), kills per set (5.0) and hitting attempts (1,067).
Even more impressively, her 475 kills set the Orrville single-season record and she also owns the school mark for most kills in a match after notching 31 earlier this year on Sept. 13 against Wooster. Her 884 career kills are fourth all-time, while her total of 269 blocks ranks fifth.
Scott is not the first Red Rider hitter with the ability to completely alter an opposing defense's gameplan. In fact, two years ago, Hillary Plybon won this very award for doing the same thing Scott did -- causing so many headaches for teams their back row players needed Excedrin after the first two sets. Scott is the latest in a long line of powerful hitters for Orrville, including Erin Short in 2009, Plybon in 2010 and Danae Stauffer in 2011.
Scott said as a sophomore she learned a lot from Plybon in terms of what it took to be a varsity front row player.
"Hillary helped me with blocking and transitioning," said Scott. "She helped me get to the varsity level."
The following year, Scott became a significant contributor for the Riders and teamed with Stauffer to give Orrville an unyielding 1-2 punch.
"Danae and I were kind of partners," said Scott. "She was the senior but we were both the go-to hitters."
This year, however, the Riders' only returning offensive weapon was Scott. Moreover, she was the only player on the roster taller than 5-foot-9. The senior knew going into the season she would be asked to finish nearly every single point.
"I knew we weren't going to have a lot of height," said Scott. "A lot of our players in the front row didn't have experience on varsity and I knew the ball would be going to me a lot."
From Day 1, the Riders' strategy was simple: set the ball for Scott. The plan worked as Orrville started the season by winning all four of its games in the highly competitive Ohio Cardinal Conference thanks to the senior's 77 kills.
"Rylee was our No. 1 hitter and when we walked into the gym everybody knew that," said Orrville coach Sarah Kutschinski. "They put their best blockers on her and their best defenders around the block. She had to go up against the best every single night.
"In the past we've had two or three really strong hitters so the ball was distributed a little more," added Kutschinski. "Teams could key on her and she still found ways to score. That's impressive."
Scott didn't just carry the offense by brute force, though. If teams set up blocks at the net, she wasn't afraid to finish with finesse.
"While she could put a dent in the floor," said Kutschinski, "she was also very smart. She found the right moment to tip to the deep corner or tip to where a defender was not."
Even as the Riders' top offensive option, where Scott really elevated her game this year was on the defensive end. Because of their identity as a defense-first team, every player was asked to improve her passing in order to keep rallies alive. Scott led the squad in solo blocks (53) as well as averaging 2.4 digs per game.
"A lot tall girls focus on the front row only," said Kutschinski. "They get in the back row and it's 'Hee hee, I made a dig' or 'Oh, I missed that one.' She was determined to play defense when she was back there. She wasn't just going to be a front row player. There were times when we had to take her out and she didn't like that."
Along with its relentless defense, what enabled Orrville to bounce back from a disappointing 6-7 stretch midway through the year was strong leadership. That trait is what distinguished the 2012 squad apart from previous teams -- and it's what set Scott apart from other talented hitters that came before her.
"She has been a vocal leader all year," said Kutschinski. "She's not afraid to say what she thinks, whether it's good or bad toward a teammate or coach. It's not in a disrespectful way, but it's 'This is what the team needs to do.' She was always there to be that voice, on the floor, on the bench or in the locker room."
Scott's play, just like her leadership, never relented all year as the Riders were one of 16 teams across all divisions that finished their seasons in Dayton.
"It's impressive for a player to go 29 matches and be able to carry the load she did and be successful," said Kutschinski. "Almost every single time she stepped on the court she dominated and that's with everybody knowing it was coming."
Andrew Vogel can be reached at 330-287-1624 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter at @andvogel.


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Today's Devotional
Know It AllWhat strengthens the church?
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Please NOTE! Additional materials for this county will be found in the Irish Resources page, which has documents and publications covering all of Ireland.
In the second century A.D., Ptolemy identifies the Menapii as resident in the area now embraced by counties Waterford and Wexford. Later, Waterford was called Decies and the dominent tribe the Desii or Decii, later called O'Phelan when surnames began to be used. Besides O'Phelan, the other major clan in Waterford was the Norman Power family. Lesser clans or septs included Aylward, Wyse, Henebry, O'Brien, McGrath, O'Keane, O'Brick, and O'Crotty.
25 Most Common Names in Waterford: Power Walsh Whelan FitzGerald Flynn Foley Murphy Ryan Brien McGrath Morrissy Keane Phelan Sullivan Hayes Kelly Tobin Murray Mulcahy Kennedy Carroll O'Brien Barry Connors Daly.
Waterford Publications
{The following publication is available on microfiche - if you do not have a fiche reader, contact your local library, they probably have one you may use (often with print capabilities as well). Click here for further information on placing an order.}
INDEXES TO IRISH WILLS (5 Volumes), Phillimore and Thrift
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© 2003 by Andrew J. Morris -- www.ajmorris.com -- All Rights Reserved


text:
Hearings and Business Meetings
Jun 09 2011
FULL COMMITTEE HEARING: to receive testimony on bills to promote energy efficiency and alternative fuel vehicles as described in S. 963, S. 1000, and S. 1001 (Hearing Room SD-366). OVERFLOW ROOM SH-216.
SD-366 Energy Committee Hearing Room 09:30 AM
Mr. Tony Crasi
President , The Crasi Company, Inc
Related Files:
- CrasiTestimony06092011.pdf (685.7 KBs)


text:
Scrambled Sentences: Fruit Fun
These fruity sentences are all mixed up! Can your child use her grammar skills to put all the words in the right order? As she rewrites each sentence correctly, she'll get great handwriting and sight word practice, too.
Click to find similar content by grade or subject.


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Me aboard the Coral Princess to Alaska.
Wayne's Travel Site Guestbook
I finally got around to doing it. I have created a guestbook for my travel section. If you have looked through my pictures from the Alaska cruise, Chile & Peru, India, Cambodia or the Iditarod, I would love some feedback from you. What pictures stood out? What did you think about the trip? Did you read the travel journal? Blah Blah.
Don't worry, if you sign the book you will not be added to any SPAM junk lists! You can sign without enterting your email address or you can make a private entry that only I can view.
To contact me: email@example.com (Just remove the NOSPAM.)
And no I didn't take the above picture of "the Afghan Girl", the famed National Geographic photo. But my "Varanasi Girl" during my India trip was a great photo also.
Back to Main Travel Page
Alaska Cruise Page
Chile / Peru Page
India Page
Cambodia Page
Iditarod Page
Europe Page


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Few people in the slums of Ahmedabad, India, know more about the supply of human guinea pigs for clinical drug trials than Rajesh Nadia.
Watch "The Hansen Files" on "Dateline NBC"
Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT.
When Indian firms working for pharmaceutical companies need test subjects, they often turn to Nadia, who has carved a small niche for himself as a recruiter in the international drug-testing industry.
"Companies call me or send me text messages," he told "Dateline NBC" correspondent Chris Hansen.
Self-confident and well-groomed with gelled hair and tight-fitting designer jeans, Nadia said he is paid about $12 for every recruit he brings to the three Indian research labs with whom he works. In a region of western Indian where the average worker earns 50 cents a day, that's good money.
Risks minimized?


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Twin towers dishes spark controversy in NYC
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has told a Manhattan retailer to stop selling housewares with the twin tower skyline, yet the same items are sold in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum gift shop.
"It's just really insane," said Julie Gaines, co-owner of home goods retailer Fishs Eddy, which sells the skyline items to that gift shop wholesale.
On July 24, Fishs Eddy received a cease-and-desist letter from the Port Authority, which owns the property where the memorial and museum sit.
Gaines said she has sold the skyline designs since before Sept. 11, 2001, and is in no way trying to capitalize on the terrorist attacks.
The cease-and-desist letter charges Fishs Eddy with "unfairly reaping a benefit from an association with the Port Authority and the (9/11) attacks," by selling items with references to the twin towers. That letter also says that Fishs Eddy is using "unauthorized reproductions and names" of other Port Authority "assets" such as One World Trade Center, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel.
The agency asks the retailer to discontinue sales of those items — which include cups, plates, bowls and placemats — and destroy any material with those images.
Fishs Eddy plans to continue selling the products, Gaines said.
"We have no intention of changing the pattern at all," Gaines said.


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Bad Manners Biography
A formidable chart presence when the UK 2-Tone ska revival was at its peak, this north London-based outfit originally came together in 1976 as Stoop Solo And The Sheet Starchers. The unit came to be known as Buster Bloodvessel And His Bad Manners, and then simply Bad Manners, and comprised Buster Bloodvessel (Douglas Trendle, 6 September 1958; lead vocals), Gus Hot Lips Herman (trumpet), Chris Kane (saxophone), Andrew Marcus Absent Marson (saxophone), Winston Bazoomies (harmonica), Brian Chew-it Tuitti (drums), David Farren (bass), Martin Stewart (keyboards) and Louis Alphonzo Cook (guitar). Fronted by the exuberant Bloodvessel, whose shaven head, rotund build, protruding tongue and often-outrageous costume provided a strong comic appeal, the band enjoyed a brief run of UK hits in the early 80s. Released on the Magnet label, their string of UK hits commenced with the catchy Ne-Ne Na-Na Na-Na Nu-Nu followed by 11 UK chart entries, including four Top 10 hits, Special Brew, Can Can, Walking In The Sunshine and a remake of Millies hit retitled My Girl Lollipop. Although this musically tight unit is still very popular on the live circuit, the bands mass novelty appeal had worn thin by the middle of 1983 when the hits ceased. In the late 80s Bloodvessel formed Busters All-Stars to motivate the other members of Bad Manners into doing something. In recent years he has toured occasionally with the band, done some film acting as well as trying his hand as an hotelier at the appropriately named Fatty Towers in Margate, Kent.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.


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RCMP carry the casket of a fallen colleague into Wesleyan Celebration Centre for visitation in Moncton on Monday.
©Canadian Press photo
MONCTON, N.B. — Three Mounties slain in the line of duty will be remembered today in Moncton as thousands of their fellow police officers join loved ones and grateful citizens to say goodbye.
The RCMP regimental funeral service for constables Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, Douglas James Larche and Dave Joseph Ross will be televised from the Moncton Coliseum.
Mayor George LeBlanc says he expects between 5,000 and 7,000 police officers to attend the funeral, which begins at 1 p.m., and it will be preceded by an RCMP parade scheduled to start at 11:45 a.m.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will speak at the service, and Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Gov.-Gen. David Johnston are also scheduled to attend.
So many people are expected to go to the service that the city has set up at least five other sites where mourners can gather together.
In Prince Edward Island, the Confederation Centre of the Arts has invited the public to view the funeral on two large screens at Memorial Hall. The hall will be open as of noon to show CBC's presentation of this memorial service.
Gevaudan, Larche and Ross were gunned down Wednesday evening after responding to a report of a man with firearms in a residential neighbourhood in the northwest area of Moncton.
Two other officers — constables Eric Dubois and Darlene Goguen — were wounded and have been released from hospital.
The shootings and the ensuing 30-hour manhunt for the alleged killer brought the city to a standstill until an arrest was made just after midnight Friday.
Barely a week after the shootings, LeBlanc says it's still difficult to fathom what happened in his normally peaceful city.
"It's hard to find words to describe it," he said Monday before a public visitation where hundreds of people paid their respects inside a dimly lit auditorium, where the three slain Mounties lay in flag-draped coffins.
Gevaudan, 45, originally of the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, was remembered in his obituary as an advocate of women's rights who adored his wife and "Twin Flame," Angela, and stepdaughter Emma.
The obituary for Larche, 40, of Saint John, N.B., says he died while working as a plainclothes officer who "without fear or hesitation ran towards danger to protect his community and family." He leaves behind his wife Nadine and three daughters, Alexa, Laura and Mia.
Ross's obituary says the 32-year-old dog handler died doing what he loved. He is survived by his wife Rachael and son Austin, with another child expected in the fall.
LeBlanc said the officers' families have suffered an unimaginable loss. Moncton, too, will need time to recover, he said.
"I hope that (the funeral) will be a step toward a journey of healing for the community," he said.
Justin Bourque, 24, of Moncton is facing three charges of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. He is scheduled to be in provincial court July 3.


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Best known for his Oscar-winning turn as football star Rod Tidwell in Jerry Maguire, Cuba Gooding Jr. made his Broadway debut in The Trip to Bountiful. His additional film and TV credits include As Good as It Gets, Men of Honor and What Dreams May Come.
Latest Broadway BuzzSee All
Did Our Word of Mouth Panelists Enjoy Their Trip to Bountiful with Cicely Tyson?
Word of Mouth panelists Yiping, Ruth and Phyllis traveled to the Stephen Sondheim Theatre to witness the emotional performances of Cicely Tyson, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Vanessa Williams in The Trip to Bountiful. Did they enjoy their journey?