Washington Irving was not a man given to idle intellectual speculation. But he was a patriotic man, and as Stephen W. Sears, a frequent contributor to AMERICAN HERITAGE , learned while doing some research in Tarrytown, New York, love of country once inspired in Irving an extremely odd notion, which he sent off to the editor of Knickerbocker Magazine under the pseudonym of “Geoffrey Crayon.” The magazine published it in its August, 1839, issue:
In the February/March, 1979, “Postscripts,” we questioned whether General Paul Sanguinetti actually had served at the battle of Gettysburg. Now we learn from reader Daniel T. McCaIl, Jr., of Mobile, Alabama, and Milo B. Howard, Jr., director of the Alabama Archives in Montgomery, that he did indeed. Sanguinetti, it seems, was a Corsican who came to this country in 1859, enlisted as a drummer boy in the 19th Virginia Infantry in 1862, became a private in 1863, charged with Pickett at Gettysburg, was taken prisoner by Union forces during the evacuation of Richmond, and was paroled at war’s end. He then served in the Alabama state militia for two decades, and in the last years of his life was the watchman at the State Capitol in Montgomery. He was even a general—of sorts—for that was his rank in the United Confederate Veterans, an unofficial gathering of former Rebel troops. We stand corrected—in fact, driven from the field.
This country is headed toward the adoption of the international metric system of weights and measures, as we are reminded when we are informed by interstate highway signs that, for example, it is fifty miles or eighty kilometers to New Haven. This has been a long time coming. James Madison, writing to his friend James Monroe in 1785, observed that “next to the inconvenience of speaking different languages is that of using different and arbitrary weights and measures,” and urged that the United States lead the way in establishing “universal standards in these matters among nations.”
During the spring of 1801 Charles Willson Peale learned of a remarkable discovery—the huge bones of an “animal of uncommon magnitude” had been found in Orange and Ulster counties north of New York City. The great relics were scattered abundantly through the swamps where the local farmers dug white marl for fertilizer but they were rapidly being dispersed among clumsy, amateurish collectors. No one had yet assembled a complete skeleton.
Peale resolved to try. If he succeeded, he would at once provide the final answer to the most teasing mystery of the age and win the world’s attention for his struggling museum.
As recounted in the preceding article, the descendants of ,Charles Willson Peale learned a bitter truth: museums are damnably expensive enterprises. Bereft of congressional support and unable to raise sufficient private funds, Peale’s successors ultimately were forced to dismantle his museum’s collections. P. T. Barnum got much of them, most of the rest was scattered to the four quarters of the globe, and some of it disappeared completely. As did the museum.
by Madeline Gray Richard Marek Publishers 13 photographs, 494 pages, $15.00 Margaret Sanger’s stunning achievement is indisputable. For forty years she fought for women’s right to control the number of children they would have. And she won. An admiring doctor once said of her, “How many people start a crusade and finish it in their own lifetime.” She was a brilliantly effective speaker, a canny publicist, and she could wheedle and charm money out of a stone.
by Richard Conn The Denver Art Museum 100 color and 400 black-and-white photographs, 351 pages, $40.00 hardbound, $20.00 paperback Indian art was utilitarian, but it was certainly not primitive. This selection of 500 objects from the Denver Art Museum’s vast holdings of native art, arranged by region and generously captioned, shows how various and ingenious the artists were. No object was too ordinary to decorate. A baby’s cradleboard is intricately carved at the top. A spoon has a fox-head handle. Even a horsewhip has a beautifully beaded wrist strap. This is a feast of a book—riches for the mind, splendor for the eye.
by William Hoffer Summit Books Approximately 16 pages of photographs, 256 pages, $11.95 There was no single glaring error that caused the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm , both equipped with radar, to collide in the fog off Nantucket on the night of July 25,1956. Rather, a series of small mistakes of judgment aboard both vessels interacted terrifyingly to cause the disaster. The Andrea Doria , completed only three years earlier, was certified unsinkable. But it is clear from this scrupulously researched account that the rescue of 1660 of the 1706 people aboard the Italian liner was due more to the proximity of the Ile de France and other ships that responded promptly to the SOS than to the safety features or procedures of the stricken ship.
The young man with the watch chain and handkerchief was photographed in the doorway of the American District Telegraph Company of Sioux City, Iowa, where he held the responsible position of day clerk. Despite his sober expression, Claude King might even then have been dreaming up the prank that led to his arrest.