January 2011

It has been called the Redwood Empire, and not many years ago it stretched unbroken for 450 miles along the wet northern coast of California. It is an empire the like of which exists nowhere else on earth, for its imperious inhabitants are Sequoia sempervirens , among the tallest trees in the world and among the oldest of living things. Left to its natural devices “the everliving Sequoia” should not die at all, since it is marvelously resistant to fire, impervious to rot and termites, and supple enough to bend to the fiercest storms. Yet ironically, this very prescription for endurance constitutes the redwood’s death sentence at the hands of man. Fractions of trees that were sprouting their leaves when Hannibal crossed the Alps now serve as durable shingles and siding, patio tables, and other amenities of our ephemeral culture. Within the next ten years there may be little left of California’s virgin redwood empire except a vast array of tree stumps, looking for all the world like tombstones in a large, unkempt cemetery.

On February 6, 1783, nine weeks after the Revolution ended, a new flag flew in the Thames. It flew, said the London Times, from “the ship Bedford, Captain Mooers, belonging to the Massachusetts [sic].” That oil-laden Nantucket whaler was, the report continued, “the first vessel which displayed the thirteen rebellious stripes of America in any British port.”

“Twenty years ago,” said the passenger with the red ribbon in his button hole, “I knew that man whom you saw get off at the last station. He was a young man of rare promise, a college graduate, a man of brilliant intellect and shrewd mercantile ability. Life dawned before him in all the golden colors of fair promise. He had some money when he left college. He invested it in business and his business prospered. He married a beautiful young girl, who bore him three lovely children.… No one dreamed that the Poorhouse would ever be their home. But in an evil hour the young man yielded to the tempter. He began to drink beer. He liked it, and drank more. He drank it and encouraged others to drink. That was only fourteen years ago, and he was a prosperous wealthy man. Today where is he?” The clergyman in the front seat, solemnly: “A sot and a beggar.” The red ribbon man, disconsolately: “Oh, no; he is a member of Congress, and owns a brewery worth $50,000.” Sometimes it will happen that way.

A long line of nervous congressmen stood in the Capitol rotunda awaiting the arrival of someone of obviously high importance. Vice President John Nance Garner buzzed among the legislators trying to ease the tension with his famous stories. Toward the rear of the rotunda, members of the House tittered at Garner’s jokes, while sober-faced senators critically eyed the antics of the Vice President. The audience pleased him. His jokes became less appropriate, the laughs grew louder, and the senators seemed less impressed. Then Garner walked over to the door and peered down the Capitol steps. Suddenly lie turned back into the rotunda rasping, “The British are coming!”

The Army of the Cumberland was one of the principal Union armies in the Civil War, and it was about as good an army as this country ever had. Its soldiers thought very well of themselves, which is one way of saying that it was a high-morale outfit, and they also thought very well of their generals, especially of the one who led them through a couple of the worst battles any army ever had: Major General William S. Rosecrans, a red-faced, excitable, hard-fighting man who was known to his troops as “Old Rosy.” Rosecrans was a good man but unlucky. He lost a big battle, got into the bad graces of General U. S. Grant, and was removed from his command. As an indirect result, he and the army wound up with an unusual memorial in the form of a huge strip of painted canvas 500 feet long, eight feet high, and now more than a century old, some scenes from which are shown here.

Ask nearly any American today to define the word bulldogging and he’ll do a pretty fair job. So, for that matter, will many Europeans. But even as recently as the late 1800s, rodeo was still not much more than a Spanish word meaning roundup , and bulldogging was a term familiar only to a select group—people who knew Bill Pickett.

Pickett was a lonely man whose dark skin came from a Choctaw mother and a white-Negro-Indian father. Long a footloose cowhand, he had worked ranches in South America and in the American Southwest; he was nearing forty when just before the turn of the century he met Zack Miller in Fort Worth, Texas. Miller was one of three brothers who owned the sprawling, burgeoning 101 Ranch in Oklahoma, situated on the Ponca Indian reservation at the confluence of the Salt Fork and Arkansas rivers.

In the serious story of the exploration of the Mississippi River, there is one unique and preposterous character. He is Giacomo Constantino Beltrami, an Italian of comic-opera proportions. Beltrami was in every way a glorious misfit. He was wayward, unpredictable, and humorous. It was impossible for him to be anything but a charming maverick, and when this dilettante set forth alone to discover the true source of the Mississippi, he did so in a gush of hyperbole. His account of his explorations, written in the form of letters to a friend, is bombastic and extravagant; a delightful note of absurdity runs through every page of Beltrami’s adventures in the depths of Minnesota.

Prestons Retreat, Carrollton

February 6th, 1838

God bless you My dear little Sister, and may you ever be as happy as when you wrote the letter I have just received. It is a cold day in February & sitting by the fire writing to Mary & thinking of you all, the box was brought in containing your wedding cake & letter. My heart beats with love & my eyes are filled with tears of joy as I thank you for your kind remembrance. Oh, dearest, ever be watchful to guard your good husband’s heart—I am sure I should love him because he knows how to prize you & it was affectionate in him to write even a few lines—but now that you are married, do not always expect the lover. Be more than ever anxious to please, study his interest, make it yours. If any little domestic care troubles you, such as indifferent servants &tc let it not ruffle your temper. Is it not better to endure this than wear him by not being amiable?