EASTER EGG

I don't believe there ever was a person named Jesus. There was, however, a man named Yeshua. A thousand years after Yeshua died, the first hand-written English translations of the New Testament used the letter “J” to represent the Hebrew sound for “Yod” . Then, in the 400 years after Gutenberg printed his first bible, the entire English language went through “The Great Vowel Shift”, and the vowel “Y” lost its Hebrew roots and sound wise became the consonant “J”. A few more linguistic adjustments and “Yod-shu-ru” became “Gee-zuhs” Back in the first century one in every ten males in Yehudah (Judea) was named Yeshua. And there wasn't anybody named Jesus. But for convenience we'll keep calling him that.

There is only one reliable reference to Jesus outside of the New Testament. At the end of the first century a Roman book appeared, “Antiquities of the Jews”, written by Joseph ben Matityahu, known in the Roman world as Titus Flavius Josephus (above). He was the son of a priest at the Jerusalem temple and his mother claimed to have the royal blood of King David in her veins. In other words he was a snotty entitled rich kid.

In 67 A.D, during the Jewish rebellion, Josephus became the prisoner of the Roman General Vespasian. Hearing that Vespasian was looking for prophets willing to predict his future success, Josephus had an epiphany, and predicted Vespasian would be named Emperor. When that actually happened, Josephus was rewarded with his freedom, moved to Rome and became an historian and a soothsayer. In short, his successful second career was built entirely on telling powerful rich people what they wanted to hear. So everything he writes has to be read with a jaundiced eye, including what he wrote about Jesus.

In his book “Antiquities”, Josephus says that in the spring of 62, Ananus was named the new high priest of the Temple. Josephus describes him as “rash”, but then Josephus knew it was better to blame the Jewish priests for destruction of their temple, rather than the Romans, who had actually knocked it down. But what he says Ananus did, was logical. Seeking to quickly establish his authority and silence those calling for a suicidal Jewish uprising, Ananus ordered the arrest of James, “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ...” Josephus says James was tried, found guilty of heresy and stoned to death.

Most historians suspect that Jame's execution was quickly followed by the elimination of all of Jesus' apostles still in Jerusalem, which is why the only apostle we definitively hear from after the year 62 was Peter. Earlier he had been sent north to deal with the troublesome new convert, Paul. And this also explains why Paul was able to have such an influence over early Christianity . He was wealthy and connected, while Peter was poor, and connected to nobody but Jesus. The mass execution of first generation Christian leaders also explains why Ananus was high priest for less than four months. All of this supports the accuracy of Josephus' brief mention of Jesus.

There seems no reason to think Jesus was not crucified. Lots of people were crucified by the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, even Judea had been nailing people onto wood long before the Romans took up the practice. When the Persian king Darius I captured Babylon in 519 B.C., he claimed to have crucified 3,000 people. But the Romans got it really organized. After the slave army of Spartacus was defeated in 71 B.C., Crassus crucified 6,000 captives along the 120 miles of the Appian Way between Rome and Capua. So the Romans crucifying Jesus would have been as common-place as Texas executing a random African-American. What made the execution of Jesus special, according to Christians, was that three days later Jesus rose from the dead. Of course that was not unheard of either.

The most Christ-like of all the born again gods was Mithra (above). He was the son of the virgin Anahita, born in a cave on 25 December. He became a traveling celibate Zoroastrian priest, and carried his ministry of peace and forgiveness out of India into the Persian empire. Sacred texts say that having angered Persian authorities in 600 B.C., and after a last meal with his 12 followers, Mithra was crucified on a cross. After he was taken down,  Mithra's dead body lay in his tomb for three days, until the spring equinox, when “...the light burst forth from all parts, the priest cried, Rejoice, O sacred initiated, your God is risen. His death, his pains, and sufferings, have worked your salvation." So the idea of resurrection was not new, either. It was a neat literary invention - turning a god into a living man, rather than the usual device of turning a man into a living god.

Robust Mithraism was adopted by enlisted and NCO's of the Roman army, who spread it across Europe and North Africa.  Mithra was even worshiped at midnight services on Vatican Hill and at military outposts along the Rhine border and Hadrian's Wall. The omniscient Mithra was the Good Shepherd, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah, the god who became a man so he could die to atone for your sins. Standard Catholic theology is that Mithria was a false god sent by Satan to confuse Christians. That seems to me a convoluted logic, on Satan's part, and it assumes that God's motives can be quantified and comprehended by humans. And requiring such proof seems to prove a lack of faith. But that's just my opinion.

Doubters often suggest that Jesus survived crucifixion by trickery or drugs, and that is certainly possible. But considering the standard crucifixion protocols, it is unlikely. Crucifixion was not just a form of execution. It was also a form of theatre. First, in public, the convicted was stripped, tied to a post and scourged, jaggedly opening his back down to the muscle and bone. It was a bloody mess. This would have left Jesus, in the words of one medical expert, in the initial stages of shock, and in “at least serious and possibly critical” condition. The intent was not to kill him, but to so weaken him so as to make the next day's execution certain and smooth.

After recovering overnight the condemned would have been striped naked again, had a 100 lb cross beam tired across his shoulders, which he then carried to his execution site. There he would have been thrown to the ground onto his back – reopening his wounds - and either had nails driven through his wrists or more likely had his hands tied to the cross beam. The cross beam, with the prisoner attached, was then lifted up and set atop a post, creating either the Roman cross or more likely a “T”. It need only been tall enough to get the victim's feet off the ground.

The Roman guards would remain on watch until the man died. If the weather was unpleasant or dinner awaited them, the guards might break the victim's legs or even stab him in the side, to hurry the process along. Other wise death would eventually occur because of cardiac failure, shock, acidosis, asphyxia, arrhythmia, dehydration, sepsis, suffocation , or even being torn apart by vultures or wolves. You do not survive crucifixion because friends slip you a mickey after you're on the cross. In fact a sedative would more likely suppress breathing and hurry death along.

During the siege of Jerusalem , our old friend Josephus saw three of his frat brothers hanging off their own crosses. He begged the Romans for their lives, and the officer in charge “immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to ensure to their recovery, Two of them died under the physician's care, while the third recovered.” So even with the best and prompt medical care available, the survival rate, once you were up on the wood, was only 33%. And the best was certainly not available to Jesus.

So, to put it all together, there very well might have been a man we call Jesus, and he might very well have been a significant religious leader, who might very well have died on a cross. And people were willing to believe such a man, if he existed, had died for their sins. There is no proof that any of that happened, and no proof it did not. It depends on what you believe.

And every Easter, that all depends upon.you.

- 30 -

TOILET HUMOUR - ONE

“I advise you, if you are anxious to be read of, to look for some boozy poet of the dark archway who writes verses with rough charcoal or crumbling chalk which folk read while they shit”.

“Marcus Valerius Martialis” Rome, 70 C. E.

The average healthy human produces an ounce of poo for every 12 pounds of body weight, dropping a log anywhere between 3 times a day to once every three days. Our foul, stinking meadow muffins are so putrid a blind leopard with a head cold could track a human through a stink weed swamp. The only reason we were not hunted to extinction is that we used to live in the trees, where our “stinkies” magically disappeared when dropped.

“What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.”

Sumarian joke, 2, 500 B.C.

This “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” hygiene worked until 3 million years ago when we started to spend time on the ground. It must have been a short transition, as proved by our still smelly merde. But as long as our populations remained mobile we could usually outrun the lions and tigers and bears, and defecate away from where we hunted and gathered. When the ice ages restricted our outings, our Cro-Magnon siblings filled so many sheltering caves with aromatic and putrescent paleo-feces, we drove our Neanderthal roommates to prefer the cold outdoors to our proximity.

Strepsiades ; “Do you see this little door and little house?...This is a thinking-shop of wise spirits....

These men teach, if one give them money, to conquer in speaking, right or wrong.....They are minute philosophers, noble and excellent.”

Act I, Scene I. The Clouds by Aristophanes 424 B.C.

Then, about 10,000 years ago, humans settled down in settlements and started farming. Human populations mushroomed, as did our fecal matter. This led to the first great invention to deal with scheisse – sewage. Whoever was running the palace at Knossos on Crete 3,000 years ago, could pass a BM without ever having to see or smell it, as the constantly running water in the palace pipes instantly removed the royal turd from proximity to the royal nose. This may be the origin of the Robert's Supreme Court legal precedent that rich people's poop don't stink. But, of course, the palace pipes had to end somewhere, and the property values just downstream must have plummeted, along with the the owner's odor and ardor.

“Eat lettuce and soft apples eat: For you, Phoebus, have the harsh face of a defecating man."

Marcus Valerius Martialis 70 C.E..

It was King Tarquin in 600 B.C.E. who first mixed socialism and sewage, when he built Rome's 16 foot wide Cloaca Maximum, aka the central sewer, aka “the big poop hole”, atop the cities' 100 foricae, public latrines, where King and commoner alike could discharge a brownie without having to give it a second thought. 

This sanitation reduced the city's death rate to a mere 30,000 a year, allowing the population to top one million during the first millennium. But that didn't last. After the Romans threw out the Etruscan Kings, they privatized new additions to the sewer system, producing some very rich crap merchants – from the Latin “crappa” meaning chaff, or rejected material. But squeezing every ounce of profit from the poop populi left the sewers leaky and often in disrepair and disconnected. Thus Rome suffered a series of plagues that killed over half the population every few decades. Where upon the patricians took their money and fled to the suburbs, like Ravenna and Constantinople.

“Apollinaris, doctor to the emperor Titus, had a good crap here.”

Graffitti on a wall in Herculaneum, Italy 79 C.E.

The fall of Rome brought on the dark ages, which meant even royalty were reduced to making night deposits in a chamber pot, a sort of portable latrine. Of course the wealthy had servants to dump their “cacha” (Latin profanity for poop) , usually in the nearest street, which became a sewer, from the old French “seuwiere”, meaning a drain cut in the ground. This was also the origin of the “High Street”, as the most valuable address, because, as any populist will tell you, shite runs downhill.

“With your giant nose and cock, I bet you can with ease When you get excited, check the end for cheese.”

Marcus Valerius Martialis 70 C.E.

By the 16^th century, the 200,000 subjects living in the fetid putrid sewer of London, then the largest city in Europe, were dropping dead daily from anthrax, measles, whooping cough, strep throat, syphilis, child bed fever, malaria, polio, tetanus, and cholera, to name but a few of the infectious endemic illnesses. In addition there was an epidemic of influenza from 1557 to 1559 that killed 5% of the city. The first half of the century saw five waves of the “Dreaded Sweats” or “English Sweats” that killed tens of thousands within 24 hours of affliction. The Black Death or Bubonic Plague swept through London in 1563 (17,000 dead), 1578 (3,700 dead), 1582 (3,000 dead) and 1592 (11,000 dead). And the cause was obvious, even without a viable germ theory.

“This Nicholas just then let fly a fart, As loud as it had been a thunder-clap, And well-nigh blinded Absalom, poor chap; But he was ready with his iron hot, And Nicholas right in the arse he got.  Off went the skin a hand's-breadth broad, about, The coulter burned his bottom so, throughout, That for the pain he thought that he should die, And like one mad he started in to cry, "Help! Water! Water! For God's dear heart!”

The Millers Tale – The Cantabury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1478

By 1600, the largest tributary of the Thames, the Fleet River (old Anglo-Saxon “fleot”, a tidal inlet), once called “The river of wells”, had been an open sewer for two centuries. Ben Johnson, Shakespere's contemporary, penned a tribute “On the Famous Voyage”, praising two lads who dared to boat down the 100 yard wide “ merd-urinous” stream. In the stone lined channel “Hung stench, diseases, and old filth, their mother...pills and eke in potions, Suppositories, cataplasms and lotions...the grave fart, late let in parliament.” At last a dead cat floats to the surface and curses the travelers. “How dare Your dainty nostrils (in so hot a season, When every clerk eats artichokes and peason, Laxative lettuce, and such windy meat) Tempt such a passage? When each privy's seat, Is filled with buttock, and the walls do sweat Urine and plasters?” But the waters of the Thames barely noticed the Fleet's filth, so contaminated were its own. The only thing more dangerous than being a child raised in sewage soaked Elizabethan London, was being Elizabeth in the the same place.

“In vain, the Workman showed his Wit, With Rings and Hinges counterfeit, To make it seem in this Disguise, A Cabinet to vulgar Eyes...So Strephon lifting up the Lid, To view what in the Chest was hid...So Things, which must not be expressed When plumped into the reeking Chest; Send up an excremental Smell, To taint the Parts from whence they fell. The Petty coats and Gown perfume, Which waft a Stink round every Room.”

Jonathan Swift “The Lady's Dressing Room” 1732

After years of living under the constant threat of a charge of treason, Elizabeth Tudor put on the crown in 1558 as a 25 year old paranoid anorexic, subject to panic attacks. Living just above the level of common sewage, the nobility survived eating slightly spoiled food, prepared by unwashed hands, unevenly cooked in polluted water. This lead to repeated bouts of stomach cramps, mild fevers, headaches, watery diarrhea and vomiting, which lead to dehydration. This gastroenteritis would rarely prove fatal to an otherwise healthy adult like Elizabeth, but it killed one in four of all infants and a quarter of all surviving children by the age of 10. However salvation from this rising tide of poo was offered in 1595 when a member of Elizabeth's court invented “The John”. Except he called it the “Ajax”, for a very punny reason.

- 30 -

DADDY DEAREST

I don't much like what genetics has to say about being a male. My growing disappointment sharpened when I read a 2003 paper in the “American Journal of Human Genetics”, which uncovered an “unusual linkage” on the MSY (the Male-Specific region of the Y chromosome) of some 400 million current male residents of Asia. They share a distinct thousand year old chemical inheritance from an ambitious, foul tempered, cut throat, sex crazed Mongol named Temujin, AKA Genghis Kahn. Among the Great Ruler's favorite past times was killing his enemies and then “to hold their wives and daughters in his arms.” Through serial rape, Temujin scattered more sperm around than Secretariat. Genghis Kahn's successful evolutionary strategy was to treat women as if they were horses.

About 5,000 years ago, when traders first appeared in ancient Mesopotamia selling equines, the Sumerians had to borrow words from the Hittites to describe the beasts - calling them “akk asca”, literally “mountain asses ”. And as anybody who keeps horses can tell you, horses ain't cheap. They eat a lot and require a lot of land to run around on. By about 2,100 B.C.E., rich and royal Sumerian speakers were breeding horses to pull their war chariots. Horses were worth their weight in bronze for men like 20- something Shulgi, who became King of Ur in 2069 B.C..

The first bronze weapons were developed by the Elam people, Shulgi's southern neighbors, who lived on the Iranian plateau. Elam was lucky because their copper ore was naturally contaminated with arsenic, and it was the contamination which turned soft copper into harder bronze. But bronze also ain't cheap. Melting copper requires almost 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees C), which means burning a lot of wood. And trying to make the best bronze required technicians, and experimentation. When the Sumerians replaced the arsenic with tin, they produced a harder weapon, with which Shulgi could boast he “broke the weapons of the highlands over my knees, and in the south placed a yoke on the neck of Elam.”

Like a bronze age Vladimir Putin, the narcissist Shugli (above) described himself as “a horse of the highway that swishes its tail”. “Let me boast of what I have done!” And he did. He claimed to be able to run a hundred miles, out fight, out quote, out cook and even out math everybody. “None of the nobles could write on clay as I could.” After he was dead his critics accused him of being “untruthful”. His claim to have defeated the Elam is instructive. Early in his reign, in 2065 B.C., he married his daughter to the governor of the Elam border town of Awan. Then when the locals overthrew his son-in-law in 2061 B.C., Shulgi crossed the border and sacked the town. But he did not linger, as Elam sent their own army to escort Shulgi home - thanks for the help, but really, Shulgi, don't do it again. And he did not, concentrating over the next forty years on expanding and defending his northern border.

Curiously, our Temujin-want-a-be left no record of his sexual conquests. It was almost the only thing he didn't boast about. Maybe he was gay, or just sexually repressed, but Shulgi would not be a candidate for one of the three “fathers” of 64% of all living males in Europe. According to a 2015 study in the journal “Nature Communications”, a similar MSY mutation indicates the first Euro Daddy Dearest was probably pater to the Vikings. About the same time a second Papa progenitor was spreading his sperm around the southern Atlantic coast of Europe, just before the last but not least forefather breeder appeared in north-central Europe. And all these of events correspond to the local arrival of bronze, and the use of war horses.

The latter study co-author, Dr. Chiara Batini, from the University of Leicester, explained the social-genetic implications. “We think that a social structure in which resources and power are more easily accessible to only some men may allow for a few paternal lineages to become very frequent in a short amount of time.” In other words, converging technologies created a few rich bronze age sires who controlled the sperm receptacles, i.e. women. Or, to the put this “jus primae noctis” in capitalistic terms, corporate management used unlimited secret political donations to create and protect tax loop holes for their bonuses, while preventing a raise in the Federal minimum wage for the under classes. Do you detect that my Irish is up?

In truth the rise of Genghis Kahn had nothing to do with his sexual productivity, that was just a by product of his personal indecency. But you can't argue with success. And the name “Temumin” means “iron worker”, which was the next great technological advance after the invention of bronze. It was iron weapons that were the strength of “Harold Tangled Hair”, who, not long after the founding of the Mongol Empire, swore not to cut his own ginger locks until he had conquered all of Norway - which “Harold Fair Hair” then did, followed by the large scale forced impregnation of many of the females living in in Norway.

Those Nordic tribes not wanting to carry Harold's genes around, scattered across the North Sea, looking for a safe haven, freedom, and easy loot and rape victims of their own. Their Celtic victims called them Vikings, or “Sea Rovers”, and they reached as far west as Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland, and as far south as Normandy, Scotland and northern Ireland, where Niall Noigialallach (above) - in English “Neal of the Nine Hostages” - carved out his Kingdom of Tara.

For centuries scholars insisted King Neal was mythological. Then, in 2006, geneticists at Trinity College in Dublin found yet another MSY marker in 21% of males from north west Ireland - the core of Neal's “mythical” kingdom - and in 8% of Scottish males, just across the 20 mile wide North Channel of the Irish Sea, where Neal liked to do a little raping, er, raiding. Some 3 million Irish and Scottish men with two dozen family names are members of the “Ui Neil”, descendents of the clearly non-mythical “most fecund man in Irish history”, Neal of the Nine Hostages.

An Irish bishop would later describe pre-Viking Ireland as “Rich in goods, in silver, jewels, cloth and gold”, which may explain in part the island's attractiveness to the randy pagan, who could claim 12 “legitimate” children. And then there are what Irish schoolchildren are taught were the offspring of Neal's “romantic conquests”. Odd how rape becomes less vile when described by the rapists. Consider the treaty Neal reached with the Airgialla tribe, ( literally the "hostage-givers"). Rather than fight a bloody protracted conquest of the Airgialla's Sperrin Mountains, known for their dreary weather, Neal agreed to respect the borders in exchange for one hostage from each of their nine clans. And it seems likely to me that many of those hostages were women.

During one of his Scottish raids, legend says Neal captured a 16 year old Celtic boy of Roman heritage, and after transporting him back to Ireland, sold the young man into slavery. It was the kind of business the Vikings were famous for, although Neal was participating in Celtic and Viking tradition. For six years the captive labored as a stable boy, until finally escaping and stowing away on a ship back to Scotland. The young man returned to Ireland 10 years later as missionary, later Bishop Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. Or so says the Catholic legend, which is at least as believable as the pagan ones. Legend also says that Neal, first High King or Ireland, died on one of his Scottish raids, murdered by his own son. Such was the barbarous tradition among the pagans (see Macbeth) , and the following Christian English Kings, (see Henry II and Richard I, Edward II, Richard III, etc, etc.)

But nowhere in any of these legends and history, does anyone get an opinion from the women. For that we are reduced to the next best thing – investigating the lives of living women. Sometime during their life time, 20% of all women will be raped, 1,300,000 American women during 2010 according to the Centers for Disease Control. According to the F.B.I., 90% of all American murderers are male. And of all those murder/rapists, how many carry the MSY markers from a Daddy Dearest? Genetics is not only who we were and are, it is who we want to be. And I don't want to be that. Do you?

- 30 -

LAST GRASP, LAST GASP

I would not have granted Confederate Major General John George Walker (above) a pardon in 1866. And not because he betrayed his nation. About one in four of the 31 million Americans actively supported the rebellion of the slave states in 1860, that killed 750,000 soldiers and civilians. But I believe John Walker should have been punished for the death of one young union private in particular, who died at the age of 23 for no other reason than because General Walker was stubborn and arrogant. And what inspired Walkers' belligerence was the unexpected appearance at the mouth of the Rio Grande River of the quixotic Union general Lew Wallace.

On 11 March, 1865, the bookish Hoosier met with Walker's subordinate General James Edwin Slaughter, and local regimental commander Colonel John Salmon Ford, at the southern end of South Padre Island in Port Isabel.

But instead of the expected topic of prisoner exchange, Wallace(above)  wanted to talk about an immediate cease fire west of the Mississippi, and the negotiated surrender of all rebel troops. Slaughter agreed to forward the proposal to the Confederate Commander of the entire trans-Mississippi, General Edmund Kirby Smith. But first the offer had to cross the desk of the Texas Commander, General John G. Walker.

On 25 March, from his headquarters in Houston, Walker berated Wallace for “seeking an obscure corner of the Confederacy to inaugurate negotiations.” Having insulted his own command, Walker admitted, “It would be folly...to pretend we are not tired of the war...”, but even discussing surrender said Walker, would render rebel officers “infamous for all time.” Walker then closed by saying, “With the blessing of God we will yet...extort from your government all that we ask.” Wallace accurately labeled Walker's rejection as “childish”. Nevertheless Walker was encouraged by his superior, General Smith,  to passively accept Wallace's cease fire.

The Trans-Mississippi (Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas) had been isolated from the rest of the Confederacy since the fall of Vicksburg in July of 1863. And while federal troops had withdrawn from Louisiana and Texas in 1864, they still occupied the barrier islands (above), blockading imports, except for a trickle that could be hauled across the beach at Bagdad, Mexico, on the south shore of the Rio Grande river.  

Walker was convinced his soldiers had driven off the Federal invaders, but an enlisted man stationed in south Texas wrote home, “The soldiers are getting very restless, and some talk of breaking up and going home.” At the end of December 1864, General Slaughter had only 2,600 soldiers fit for duty along the Rio Grande. By the end of March 1865, desertion had lowered that number to less than 1,200 men.

Then during April of 1865 the eastern Confederacy shattered. The Army of Northern Virginia surrendering on the 9^th. , and on the 26^th General Joe Johnston surrendered all Confederate forces in North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. As their government melted away the inmates of The trans-Mississippi found the Confederate dollar was worth more as kindling than currency. 

Plantation owners could only sell cotton to the government for worthless paper, and the few small farmers who were not in the army had trouble growing enough for themselves. By early May, in Texas' largest city of Houston, a 50 pound bag of flour cost the entire monthly salary of an army captain. Even to the die hard General Walker it was now obvious only a Yankee invasion could unite his disillusioned and hungry soldiers.

As far back as February of 1865 Union commanders on the barrier islands had wanted to raid the Brownsville area. That request was denied because Washington did not want to pay for land they expected to get back for free. But then a rumor reached the Federally occupied southern most of the barrier islands, Bazos, that the Confederate army was evacuating Brownsville.

The new commander on Bazos, 30 year old Brevet Brigadier General Harvey Barret (above), knew if he asked Washington for permission to check out the rumor, they would say no. So he didn't ask. 

On the morning of 11 May, 1865, the “ambitious but inept” General Barret ordered Lieutenant Colonel David Branson to cross the lagoon over night and land 300 infantry and dismounted cavalry at Boca Chita – Small Mouth – of the Rio Grande River, before dawn. They were to carry 5 days rations and 100 rounds of ammunition each. If not resisted on landing, Branson was to push 7 miles east on the old military causeway road to the White Ranch, where the neck of land between the South Bay of the Bazos lagoon and the  Rio Grande was narrowest. There were thought to be about 65 rebel cavalry picketed at the ranch, but if he met no resistance Branson was to continue another 8 miles across the almost featureless landscape to the Palmetto Ranch. And if practical he was to probe another 12 miles toward Brownsville and Fort Brown. As a later report admitted, Barret's raid was “either without any definite purpose, or for some purpose that has never been made clear.” It was also without cavalry.

Colonel Branson's force of 8 companies – 250 men of the 62^nd Colored infantry (above)  and 2 companies of the 2^nd Texas (U.S.) Cavalry - 50 troopers without horses - landed at the end of the causeway about 2a.m. and pushed east ward. About 8:30 they got to the White Ranch, and found the place abandoned. Branson let his men grab a couple of hours sleep and then marched on to the Palmetto Ranch. As they approached the hacienda around noon on 12 May, the Federals took fire from some pickets, who fell back as the federals advanced. Left behind were 3 rebels on sick call, 2 horses and 4 Texas long horn cows, as well as rations for about 150 men. Burning the hacienda and supplies, Branson's men camped nearby.

The Confederates surprised at Palmetto Ranch were an under strength company of cavalry under Captain William Robinson. He gathered his 60 men in the sage brush a mile away, and sent word to his commander at Fort Brown, Colonel John Salmon “Rip” Ford. 

Ford (above), who earned his nickname because he always filled his causality lists with the notation “Rest In Peace”,  responded that he would arrive the next morning with reinforcements. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Robinson realized the federals had no cavalry, and decided not to wait. 

About 3a.m. he sent his men flanking the federal camp, and laid down an harassing fire. Unable to match the rebels for maneuverability, Branson woke his exhausted infantry and marched them in the dark back to the White Ranch with his prisoners – 3 rebels, a horse and 4 cows. Robinson chose not to follow. And amazingly, for all the marching and shooting, the only causality was one of the unmounted Texas federals. So far. It seemed nobody on either side wanted to be the last man killed in the Civil War.

Colonel Branson sent details of the encounter to General Barret back on Bazos Island, expecting to be ordered to withdraw. After all, the mission had been to confirm the rumor that Brownsville was being evacuated. And with cavalry picketed 11 miles east of Brownsville, it was clear the rebels were still there. Instead, Barret himself arrived at the White Ranch just after dawn on 13 May, with 9 under strength companies – about 200 men - of the veteran 34^th Indiana infantry. While the Hoosier soldiers rested, Barret pushed the 300 men of the 62^nd and 2^nd Texas Cavalry back toward Palmetto Ranch.

Marching out from Brownsville to meet the Yankees that morning was Colonel “Rip” Ford and 360 mounted cavalry, and six 6 pounder artillery pieces (above). 

Given the flat, open terrain, with the only trees bordering the Rio Grande River, the battle would be decided by who best used their cavalry and artillery, and Barret had none, and no combat experience with either. Why he was being foolish was explained to Barret that afternoon, when after a morning spent sniping at each other - again with no causalities - he tried to outflank the Confederates. About 4pm on the afternoon of 13 May, Ford's mounted troopers easily out flanked Barret's flanking maneuver.

In his after action report, Barret admitted what he should have realized before he launched his misadventure. “....a heavy body of cavalry and a section of (artillery),  under cover of the thick chaparral on our right, had already succeeded in flanking us...our position became untenable. We therefore fell back...This movement...having to be performed under a heavy fire from both front and flank.” In other words, trying to move infantry in cavalry country, without artillery or cavalry support, was foolish. Barret's excuse was he didn't know any better.

Luckily, the 34^th Indiana now arrived, and threw out the 48 men of Company B as skirmishers, to cover the retreat of Barret's over extended 62^nd regiment. 

In that line stretched across the hard dry chaparral, knelt Private John Jefferson Williams (above), a 23 year old blacksmith from Anderson, Indiana. The young man had been in the army since September of 1863, joining the unit after it participated in the capture of Vicksburg. And after duty in occupied New Orleans, this was Private William's first battle. And his last. 

Firing in the skirmish line, Private Williams stood to reload his musket when a rebel cavalryman fired a ball that entered William's skull just above his right eye, killing him instantly. 

Ford's cavalrymen herded the isolated Federal skirmishers into a bend of the Rio Grande River, and forced them to surrender, along with 30 stragglers from the 62^nd and 2^nd Texas.

The sacrifice of Company B and private Williams, allowed the 62^nd infantry to form a longer skirmish line behind the retreating 34^th. Their retreat was then covered by another line of the 34^th Indiana. And thus began a leap frog 4 hour march, which Colonel Ford described as “a run”, all the way back to the White Ranch. From there the enclosing swamps restricted Colonel Ford's flanking attacks, and he satisfied himself with lobbing an occasional artillery shell, and long range musket fire. The last shots of this, the last battle of the American Civil War, were fired by the last skirmish line of the 62^nd infantry, before boarding their boats for Bazos island.. Seeing the Federals heading to the water, Colonel Ford told his troopers, “Boys, we have done finely. We will let well enough alone, and retire.”

The final causality count from this final 2 day battle was, on the Union side, 4 dead – 2 from the 62^nd , and one each the 2^nd Texas and the 34^th Indiana, 12 wounded, and 101 captured. The Confederates suffered “five or six wounded” according to Colonel Ford. The low "butcher's bill" indicated that not only were few of the soldiers on either side willing to die for their "country", they were not willing to kill for it either. The last man to die in the “Battle of Palmetto Ranch” had been John Jefferson Williams, the last man to be killed by enemy fire in the American Civil War.  The $45 found in his pocket was sent to his widow in Anderson, Indiana. And even he would not have died if Confederate Major General John George Walker had not insisted on fighting for a month after the war should have come to an end. 

The next day, 14 May, 1865, the 400 man Confederate garrisoned in Galveston, Texas, tried to desert with their weapons. A soldier in Shreveport, Louisiana, wrote that, ”Mutiny and wholesale desertion was openly talked of.” A senior Confederate officer described “mobs of disorderly soldiery, thronging the roads, interrupting travel and making life and property exceedingly insecure”. On 20 May half the troops left in Texas did desert, and the remaining half refused to try to stop them. 

Final proof of the collapse of the Trans Mississippi was that not only were the prisoners of the 62nd Colored Infantry captured at Palmetto Ranch treated like full prisoners of war, but they and their white Union comrades were all released by Colonel Ford within a few days. The rebellion of the slave states was over, even in the hearts and minds of the die hard rebels. Finally, on 25 May, General Walker himself admitted defeat, disbanded his command, and headed for Mexico with his wife and children.

Six months later John George Walker was in Liverpool, Britain, writing to U.S. President Andrew Johnston, asking for a pardon and restoration of his citizenship. 

After a year of lobbying in person in Washington, he signed a pledge that he did, “solemnly swear in presence of ALMIGHTY GOD that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States... and...abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations...with reference to the emancipation of Slaves. So help me God.”  The  “ambitious but inept” Barret did not know better than to try and keep the war going. But the experienced professional John George Walker, certainly should have. 

In November of 1869 the stubborn Walker (above) went to work for the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, and in the spring of 1873 was seeking to attract European immigrants to the lone star state. In 1885 Walker was named U.S. consul to Bogota, Columbia by President Grover Cleveland, and while in Washington, D.C. John Walker died of a stroke at 72 years of age, in 1893. He was never held to public account for his part in the last death in the American Civil War.

The captured men of the Indiana 34^th regiment buried the body of Private John Jefferson Williams about 200 yards south of the walls of Fort Brown (above)  and 100 yards from the Rio Grande River. 

After the war the fort's burial ground became the Brownsville National Cemetery (above), where the earthly remains of Private Williams remained undisturbed for 44 years.

Then,  in 1909,  some 1,500 bodies, including that of Private Willaims, were disinterred.

He was reburied in the 8 acre Alexandria National Cemetery, in Pineville, Louisiana. The last man to be killed in combat during the American Civil War is still there, buried in plot 797.  Proof yet again, that starting a war is easy, but stopping always costs more than anybody wants to pay.

Rest In Peace

- 30 -