Remember the Birkenhead

Quick, a history quiz!  February 23 marks the anniversary of A) the start of the siege by the Mexican Army on the defenders of the Alamo.  B) The Doc and I getting married forty-seven years ago, by coincidence, in San Antonio.

The correct answer is B, and The Doc and I think it very nice that the people of San Antonio start getting excited and hosting various celebrations every year in our honor.   Thank you.

I mention this, because every year at this time, I start getting emails suggesting that I write a blog post about the Alamo.  First, I’ve already done that, and since I wrote the truth, I’m still getting hate mail.  Secondly, like most Texans, I am uneasily proud of the courage of the Alamo defenders.  Uneasy because the primary reason for the fighting, stripped of a century of Hollywood hype, was that those Texicans did not want to accept Mexican law and abolish slavery.  

At the time of the fighting, Stephen F. Austin was in Mexico trying in vain to secure a second ten-year extension before Texas had to abolish slavery.  Had Mexico granted Austin’s request—there would have been no fighting in Texas during the spring of 1836.  

In the almost two centuries since the battle, the story has been rewritten, shaped, distorted and hammered down to fit a culturally acceptable mold.  The popular version tells us very little about what actually happened, and uncomfortably far too much about what we “need” to hear.  

Instead of the Alamo, let's consider the anniversary of a far better example of valor, but one that has been almost forgotten, unfortunately.  Let’s start at the beginning.

The nineteenth century saw such rapid changes in the design of naval warships that between the time a ship was designed and its being launched, it was not uncommon for ships to become obsolete before their christening.  So, it was with the HMS Birkenhead, one of the very first iron-hulled warships built for the British Royal Navy.  

The Birkenhead was designed as a frigate, with steam-powered paddle wheels amidships, but by the time the ship was launched, the British Navy had already determined that stern screws were more powerful and were far less susceptible to being damaged by enemy fire. 

The Admiralty was also having serious misgivings about iron-hulled ships.  If the iron was thick enough to provide serious protection, it was too heavy to be powered with the steam engines of the day.  If the iron was thinner, though the hull was still stronger than wood, if the iron was punctured by cannon fire or running aground, the irregular intrusions through the hull were difficult to patch under emergency conditions.

As a result of both concerns, though the Birkenhead was designed to be a warship, she was relegated to being a troop transport. 

In 1852, the Birkenhead was taking part in the Eighth Xhosa War.  Yes, this was the eighth of nine wars between the Xhosa of South Africa and various European powers—mostly British—that took turns demonstrating the advantages of gunpowder over spears.  I give both sides low marks for their learning curve, but high marks for determination.

In February, 1852, the ship was transporting the 74th Regiment of Foot and the Queen’s Royal Regiment to Algoa Bay, east of the cape of Good Hope.  Captain Salmond, to avoid the rough seas prevalent when Rounding the Horn kept the ship close to the coast.  Since the area was famous for rocky shoals—the nearest point of land is called Danger Point—the captain ordered constant soundings.  Immediately following the leadsman calling out 12 fathoms (72 feet), the ship struck a submerged rock.  

Note.  Vernon Wilson, my friend and flight instructor, taught me that while flying in the mountains, it is important to remember that the ground can climb much faster than an airplane can and that no one yet has found a way to fly through “Cumulus Granite”.  It is a shame that the Birkenhead’s captain never shared a cockpit with Vernon.

The point the ship struck was not marked on the charts as it is today.  The rocky point the ship hit is almost vertical, and when the ship rammed the rock, the stern of the ship was still in water over 60 feet deep.  Ironically, the point—just barely submerged—is easily visible in rough seas, but on February 26, 1852, the seas were calm and the point was completely invisible.

The Captain ordered the ship to reverse, but as she backed off the point, strong waves pushed the ship forward, again ramming the ship into the point, the combined impacts buckling the iron plates of the forward bilge.  The waters rushed in and quickly submerging the engine room and the forward hold, drowning over a hundred soldiers sleeping there.

Even as Captain Salmond order the lifeboats lowered, Lieutenant-Colonel Seton of the 7th Foot ordered his officers and men to assemble on the poop deck for duty.  Sixty men were ordered to man the pumps, adding a little time left before the doomed ship foundered.  Another sixty were assigned to the lifeboat tackle, in an attempt to quickly launch the boats.  The rest of the soldiers were ordered to assemble on the poop deck, hoping that their combined weight on the most rearward part of the ship could help raise the bow, making the work of lowering the lifeboats easier.

It was apparent to all that there were not enough lifeboats to save everyone on the ship.  Though the ship was only two miles from the coast, the shore featured a rocky coast and violent surf for anyone that managed to swim the shark infested waters between the doomed ship and safety.

Captain Salmond ordered that the few lifeboats be loaded with “Women and children first”.  This order, so commonly understood today, was not yet a custom back then.  Indeed, what today is maritime law, if not human nature, was simply known as the Birkenhead Drill for decades.  Not too long ago, while I was teaching a class, the fire alarms sounded in my building.  I noted (somewhat proudly) that the men of the class lingered behind—without being told to—while the female students exited first.

The survivors recalled that the soldiers stood in orderly rows on the poop deck and that there was so little talking among them that the calm clear orders of the officers could be easily heard.  After the few lifeboats were launched, when Captain Salmond suggested that the men take to the sea and swim after the boats, Lieutenant-Colonel Seton calmly ordered his men to remain aboard the ship until the lifeboats were some distance from the ship, for fear of too many men swimming after the boats full of women and children might swamp them.  Seton did order his men to free the nine horses aboard.  The horses were so terrified they had to be pushed into the water.

Only after the ship had broken apart and the stern was still loaded with soldiers, did Lieutenant-Colonel Seton tell his men to try and save themselves, suggesting that the strongest swimmers might make their way to shore.

No high-ranking soldier or naval officer survived.  When a British cutter arrived the next morning, 40 soldiers were found desperately clinging to part of the Birkenhead’s rigging that extended barely above the waters.  Of the roughly 643 men, women, and children aboard the Birkenhead, only 193 survived.

Eight horses and a few men managed to swim to shore.  The surviving men reported that those in the water had been repeatedly attacked by sharks, and that most of those who somehow had made it to shore were killed when their bodies were dashed onto the rocks by the violent waves.

In 1892, the British painter Thomas Henry produced a work based on the incident.  The painting was widely distributed in England and was the inspiration for Rudyard Kipling’s 1893 tribute to the Royal Marines, "Soldier an' Sailor Too":

To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,

Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin' to shout;

Their work was done when it 'adn't begun; they was younger nor me an' you;

Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 'eaps an' bein' mopped by the screw,

So they stood an' was still to the Birken'ead drill, soldier an' sailor too

If we are going to remember the valor of men who died on this date, let’s remember the over 400 “soldiers and sailors, too” of the 74th Foot and the Queens Royal Regiment who died 168 years ago today, when the Birkenhead went down.

The Great Grain Races

The Michelin Tire Company is signing on with a French shipping company, Neoline, to start shipping tires from its Halifax factory to Europe aboard two newly-designed, but as yet to be built, sail-powered cargo ships.  Really, the return of sail powered ships!

Roughly a third the length of a conventional container ship, these modern-day clipper ships would be used to carry small loads of cargo along a triangle route comprising Canada, Western Europe, and the East Coast of the United States.  If you think these are likely to revolutionize the shipping industry…. well, it would take a fleet of about a thousand of them to replace one modern large container ship.  (Actually, it would require twice that number since the sail-powered ships are only capable of moving at about half the speed of their modern competitors.)

Perhaps I’m cynical, but this reminds me of a certain chemical company—far too litigious for me to actually name—that once donated $5 million to the families of workers who had perished in an explosion at its plant.  The company also spent $20 million to advertise its charitable donation.

Somehow, I really doubt that a tire company is terribly interested in wind power...Or, for that matter, in shipping a minute portion of its vast production on a ship for which the cost of simply loading the cargo will exceed the total cost of shipping on container ships powered by traditional bunker oil. 

What Michelin is doing is kind of like planting a single lonely green tree outside of a coal-fired generator station.  And it’s a Bonsai tree, at that.

Still, the drawings of the new sail-powered cargo ships look cool and if they put a few tourist cabins on them someday, I wouldn’t mind crossing the Atlantic on one.  Though the idea of cargo ships with flapping canvas sails sounds like something from another century, it really hasn’t been that many years since cargo was transported by such ships.

Up until World War II, giant steel-hulled four-masted barques called windjammers—each longer than a football field (or about 350 feet on average)—transported Australian wheat or Chilean nitrates to Europe.  The voyages took months and crossed dangerous waters, but the wind was free and the ships could carry as much as 10 million pounds of cargo at a time, making the enterprise profitable long after most cargo ships were propelled by steam turbines or diesel engines.

Note.  Some of that last paragraph probably needs explanation.  No, that will take too long, so let me sum up.  A barque is a sailing ship with three or more masts in which the foremast and mainmasts are square-rigged (large perpendicular rectangular sails) and the mizzen-mast (the one at the aft of the ship) is fore-and-aft rigged (think triangular sails).  Chilean nitrates are vast deposits of saltpeter caused by the rotting of sea vegetation and bird guano collected across countless eons.  Prized as natural fertilizer, it was shipped all over the world until the invention of artificial nitrates.  “Chilean nitrate” sounds better than “Chilean bird shit”.

Most of the ships were used to haul grain from Australia.  The ships would leave England in September, carrying either ballast or Finnish timber, go down the coast of Africa, then sail ‘round the horn, where the timber would be offloaded at Cape Town.  Next, they would cross the Indian Ocean to arrive in Southern Australia in December, to load up with grain, and then sail back the same route, to arrive back in England by June.

These were long and arduous journeys—both physically and mentally.  Since there was no electric power, there was no refrigeration, which meant the only fresh meat came from pigs living below decks in special pens.  The sailors kept twelve-hour watches, ‘topping the sails’ in the same manner as ships from the days of classic sailing ships.

These large ships left Australia each year at about the same time and the press eagerly reported on the “Grain Races” as each ship tried to set the record for rounding the horn and making it back to England in the shortest possible time.  People bet on which ship would set the year’s record, and a Silver cup was awarded to the company whose ship had the fastest time each year.

There is an excellent book about these ships, The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby.   Newby was eighteen when he signed on to the Moshulu in 1938.  Moshulu (right) was one of the larger grain boats still in operation.  His horrific account of bad food, hellish weather, and a vermin-infested ship reminds the reader of Winston Churchill’s quote about the British Royal Navy.  When asked about the tradition of England’s navy, he answered, “Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.”

As it turned out, Newby was writing about one of the last such voyages.  After World War II started, it was not feasible for the large, slow-moving windjammers to be used for any shipping.  By the time the war was over, most of the vessels had been scrapped or turned into floating grain barges (like the Moshulu).  Eventually, Newby’s old ship was towed to Philadelphia, fitted with fake masts and turned into a restaurant.

A few surviving boats tried to make the grain runs profitable again, but they simply could not compete with newer, more efficient, steam-powered ships.  At the end of the war, there were thousands of surplus cargo ships that were being sold as tramp steamers at bargain prices to the shipping companies.  Meanwhile, the unions had demanded that instead of two watches a day, ships must use a three-watch rotation, requiring more crew than the old grain ships could accommodate.  

The old Pamir continued to make grain trips until 1957, when she was sunk by Hurricane Carrie off the Azores while transporting 8 million pounds of barley to English breweries.  Ironically, the insurance money covering the loss of the old ship yielded the first profit her shipping company had made in years.  With the loss of the Pamir, any hope of reviving the great grain races was gone.

At the height of the grain races, a typical trip lasted 110 days, but in 1933, the Parma managed to finish in just 83 days—a record that still holds to this day.  I wonder if one of those new ships from Neoline will try to beat it with a hold full of Michelin tires.

A Spoil of War

Like a lot of other looted art work, it starts with a war...in this case, the Revolutionary War.  

Shortly after signing the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris as a diplomat for the fledgling republic.  Having just returned from almost a decade in London, where he had been unsuccessful in securing better colonial conditions from the crown, Franklin had hardly unpacked before being sent back to Europe, where he would remain until 1785.

Franklin missed the fighting in the states, but while in France, he had secured the crucial alliance of France in 1778 and had negotiated the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that ended the war.  His house, unfortunately, was not quite so lucky, and was an early casualty of the war.

In September 1777, the British Army marched into Philadelphia, more than welcomed by the majority of the remaining citizens.  As the Redcoats neared the city, the American Army had  requisitioned all military supplies and fled, accompanied by any prominent citizens who had supported independence.  (If you are wondering about the difference between looting and requisitioning—looting is done by the enemy.  In either case, the former owner is unlikely to receive compensation.)

British General Howe and his men marched into Philadelphia and converted the city’s churches into hospitals and barracks while the British officers occupied the best homes—including Benjamin Franklin’s.  Many of the city’s remaining residents were Quakers, who were shocked at the revelry and gambling enjoyed by the British Army.  General Howe was soon replaced by General Clinton, and neither man was in a hurry to leave the comfort of the city during the winter months when armies rarely fought.

By spring, General Clinton learned of Franklin’s success in securing the French alliance, and in fear of French warships blockading the Delaware River and cutting off his supply lines, decided to pull out of Philadelphia and move into New York.  Though the remaining Tories in the city, fearing reprisals after the British left, offered to raise 3,000 volunteers if General Clinton would agree to leave 2,000 soldiers in Philadelphia, Clinton ordered his army to prepare to leave.

‘Prepare to leave’ was military-speak for the army to once again take everything that wasn’t nailed down tightly.  When Du Simitiere, a Swiss-born citizen of Philadelphia, went by Benjamin Franklin’s house, he observed that British Major John André was packing up all the valuables of the home, including scientific apparatus, books, works of art, and musical instruments.  One of the works of art was a portrait of Franklin by the British artist Benjamin Wilson, painted in 1759.

Du Simitiere was surprised at the looting of Franklin’s home, as André was generally respected as a gentleman.  When pressed for an explanation, André remained mute.  It is likely that André was following the orders of his superior, Major General Charles Grey, who also had quarters in the house.  One thing is certain, however:  none of Franklin’s former possessions ended up  returning to England with Major André.  We can be sure of this, because it took more than four decades for the major to return, and when he did, he was in a box.  

When Benedict Arnold traitorously offered to change sides and turn over West Point to the British—in exchange for wealth and rank in the British Army—it was André who acted as a messenger between Arnold and Gray.  To escape notice, André dressed as a civilian and carried a false passport.  Despite his disguise, he was searched by militiamen who discovered the plans for the military fort hidden in his stocking.  

Since André was not in uniform, he was ruled a spy and sentenced to be hanged.  Despite personally appealing to General George Washington to be executed by firing squad—a more dignified and acceptable execution for a soldier—André was hanged on October 2, 1780, his body buried at the foot of the gallows. According to witnesses, the condemned man really was a gentleman, he put the noose around his own neck to spare the hangman the task.  In 1821, his body was shipped home and now he has a large memorial in Westminster Abbey.

Born the third son of Sir Henry Grey, Baronet of Howick, Grey did not expect to inherit either his father’s title or his estates, so he did what was expected of a younger son: he purchased a Lieutenancy in the British Army and set out to make a military career.  Grey was a respectable officer, serving in the Seven Years War (which lasted nine years just to make it hard on future history students) and at one time was the aide-de-camp to King George III.  

Early in the Revolutionary War, Grey earned the nickname of “No Flints Grey” after ordering his men to remove the flints from their muskets, thus forcing them to use only their bayonets during a successful night attack.  For his service, Grey was eventually promoted to Commander-In-Chief of all British troops in America, but before the promotion could take effect, Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown and the war was over.

After the American Revolution, following the death of his two brothers, Grey inherited his family wealth and title of Baronet; then, for his service in the French Revolutionary War, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Grey.  A few years later, he was created Earl Grey and Viscount Howick.  

Since I know what you’re thinking, I’ll go ahead and answer your question.  No, Earl Grey tea is not named after him.  It’s named after his son, the second Early Grey, who was the Prime Minister of England responsible for ending slavery in Great Britain.  (There is no definitive history of exactly how the tea was named after him, but it has something to do with his ending the tea monopoly of the British East India Company.  Every tea company in England has a different version of the story.)

Franklin’s portrait was certainly stolen by Major André, as there were several witnesses.  There still exists a letter dated July 14, 1778 from Richard Bache to Benjamin Franklin in Paris concerning the theft and describing the Wilson portrait.  And early in the nineteenth century, the painting is listed in the Grey Howick House inventories as hanging over the mantel in the family library, where it remained for over a century.

In 1896, while the American ambassador to England, Edward Choate was having dinner with Edward Henry, the 4th Earl Grey, when the Earl casually mentioned owning the portrait of Franklin.  Choate had an interest in paintings (he was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and asked for more details, which he passed on to a reporter, who wrote an account of the painting in the January 1897 issue of McClure’s Magazine.

A few years later, Ambassador Choate suggested to the Earl, recently appointed Governor General of Canada, that it might be nice if the family were to return the painting to America.  The Earl, conscious of his new responsibilities as the Canadian governor, wrote President Theodore Roosevelt offering the painting, which he referred to as a “spoil of war”, back to the United States, suggesting that it might be appropriate for the portrait to hang in the White House.  A cynic might think that the Earl was more interested in securing the good will of Roosevelt than returning looted property.  

Shortly afterward, the American Ambassador brought the painting from England to President Roosevelt, just in time to be part of the bicentennial celebration of Benjamin Franklin’s birth.  Artwork at the White House is moved around regularly, frequently being swapped out with items from a secret storage location, but the last time the portrait was visible in a photograph, it was in the White House library, on the first floor.

There is only one point left to be settled.  Why hasn’t the painting been returned to the rightful owners, the descendants of the Franklin family?  

Yankees Stole It, Naturally

Our story starts on September 23, 1789, when a congressional clerk with phenomenally good penmanship took 14 large pieces of vellum and began the laborious task of copying all twelve of the Bill of Rights.

Yes, I said twelve.  Originally, there were twelve amendments proposed to the U. S. Constitution, but two of them were never ratified.  One proposed amendment dealt with allocating representatives per state and the other was about congressional pay raises—never a popular topic, so they were just ignored.  Still, getting 10 out of 12 passed is a good solid ‘B’—not too bad for a brand-new republic.

After the 14 copies were finished, the President of the Senate, Vice-President John Adams and the Speaker of the House, Frederic Augustus Muhlenberg, signed each copy and, following the orders of President George Washington, kept one a copy for the federal government, and sent one copy to each of the original 13 states for ratification.

Today, four of those states no longer have their copies.  Over the last two hundred and thirty years, fires, floods and assorted mishaps have taken a toll on the old parchments.  If you buy a copy of the Bill of Rights at a museum gift shop, you are probably getting a facsimile of the one the federal government kept, which is on display at the National Archives.

North Carolina’s copy was sent to the state’s new capital, Raleigh, that was still under construction.  A planned new city, Raleigh was ten square blocks with the new wooden capitol building in the center—a layout that loosely followed the plan of Philadelphia.  The state clerk accepted the document, signing and dating the back of it.  In time, North Carolina ratified ten of the Amendments, and the original parchment was folded, wrapped in paper, and filed away.

I wouldn’t say the Bill of Rights—as the first ten amendments collectively became known—were forgotten, but they weren’t nearly as well known to the general public until the Twentieth Century, when they were cited in several prominent Supreme Court cases.  North Carolina, like all the other states, simply filed the documents away.  In 1831, when the Raleigh capitol building burned down, employees in the building grabbed all the important maps and documents and carried them out of the building.  Ten years later, the documents were safely stored in the new gray granite capitol, with the aging document stored in the safe in the office of the Secretary of State, where it was once again ignored.

Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War didn’t stop immediately everywhere in the country after the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, even though that certainly did mark the beginning of the end of the war.  Two days after Lee’s surrender, the 90,000-man army of General Sherman stood on the outskirts of Raleigh, North Carolina, and the combined efforts of the Confederate forces inside the city to repel the threat were about as effective as a flea fart in a hurricane.  

Governor Zebulon Vance sent a letter to General Sherman, stating that there would be no resistance if Sherman would guarantee that his men would not sack the city.  Then, the governor wisely, if not bravely, skedaddled.  What remained of the Confederate defenses followed the lead of their governor and abandoned the city.  The letter was, of course, ignored by the Union Army.  

The soldiers who entered the city were met with only token resistance.  A young Confederate, Lieutenant Walsh, a Confederate cavalryman, fired on the Union Army as it entered the city.  According to Southerners, Walsh was defending the city.  According to some Yankee reports, Walsh was looting a jewelry store.  Regardless of the nature of his actual motive, Walsh was captured and hanged on the grounds of the Executive Mansion.  

The city was not burned, nor were businesses looted, but soldiers certainly took just about anything that wasn’t nailed down inside the government offices.  By the time the soldiers left, a lot of important papers had gone missing, including the state’s original copy of the Bill of Rights.

And for decades, it was simply gone.  In 1897, a sharp-eyed reporter saw the document (now in a glass frame), hanging in the Indianapolis Bank of Trade, nominally the property of Charles Shotwell.  Shotwell claimed to have bought the document from Walter Clark, a veteran of the Union Army, who freely admitted to having taken the document, claiming it as legal booty during a time of war.

The term ‘legal booty’ is probably a universal oxymoron, but stealing that historic parchment certainly wasn’t legal during the capture of Raleigh.  Not only had General Sherman forbidden his men from looting the town, but in 1863, President Lincoln had issued General Order 100, that specifically prohibited the theft of Southern historic artifacts and documents.

Ironically, it may have been the death of Lincoln, just two days after the Army occupied the town, that so infuriated the Union soldiers and motivated them to tear apart the government offices.  Although he also was furious at the assassination, General Sherman threatened to use his artillery on his own army if order wasn’t restored, otherwise, the city would undoubtedly have been burned to the ground.

Every year, the city of Raleigh places a sash on the grave on Lieutenant Walsh.  If you ask me, they ought to be honoring the memory of General Sherman.

We’ll put aside for now the question of the legality of how Clark obtained the Bill of Rights.  He had the document, and not particularly prizing it, he sold the document to Charles Shotwell for $5.  

When the newspaper story was reprinted in North Carolina, the state quiet reasonably demanded its return.  Suddenly, the document vanished.  Well, not really:   Shotwell just took it home and hung it in his living room and quit showing it to strangers.

In 1925, a friend of Shotwell’s son, representing an “unknown client”, tried to sell the document back to the state of North Carolina.  So, a half dozen good ol’ boys, drove north and went medieval on the asses of the entire Shotwell family, ripping the document from the dead cold hands of the son and taking it back south where it belonged.

No—that is what should have happened.  Instead, North Carolina refused to buy the document and demanded its return.  Of course, the document promptly vanished again.

In 1995, Charles Shotwell’s granddaughters hired a lawyer and a prominent art historian from The Antique Roadshow to sell a “suddenly discovered” copy of the Bill of Rights.  These experts claimed they had no idea where the document had come from and that they had luckily “discovered” it in an antique store in upstate New York.  Since all the copies were identical, there was no telling where this copy had come from.  Indeed, it might have been a hitherto unknown fifteenth copy.  

These extremely “lucky” experts wanted to sell the Bill of Rights for $4 million dollars.  They offered to sell it to several prominent collectors, including Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael Jordan.

The FBI sent an undercover agent to buy the document, and it was quickly seized.  The FBI, to determine exactly who owned the document, sent it to the National Archives for study.  Unless it could be proven that the document actually belonged to the State of North Carolina, it would have to be returned to the agents of the Shotwell family, who could do as they wish with the aging parchment.

It didn’t take very long for the National Archives to send the document back to Raleigh.  Remember that North Carolina state clerk who had signed the back of the document back in 1789?  More than two centuries later, the signature was a little faint, but it was still there.