I am amazed that it took an hour and a half to round up all the men and horses once the decision had been made. They had been scattered because of the threat of an air attack. And as the Australian Fourth Light Horse Brigade made their charge they were not waving sabers but bayonets. Still it may have been one of the most successful cavalry charges in all of history. But oddly enough what is usually written about the charge remembers none of that. What is usually written is that it was the last cavalry charge in history, and it wasn’t the last one at all; not by a long shot. 
It was October 31st , 1917 – Halloween - when the British Army made a third try to break the Turkish line at Gaza. They had a new General, Allenby, and a new plan. Instead of attacking the barbed wire and trenches close to Gaza, Allenby decided to try the other end of the Turkish defenses, at Beersheba. It was a similar choice to the sweeping left hook sent against Iraq forces in 1991: then, fast armored columns were supported by fleets of fuel trucks. But the limiting factor in 1917 was not fuel but water. 
It was October 31st , 1917 – Halloween - when the British Army made a third try to break the Turkish line at Gaza. They had a new General, Allenby, and a new plan. Instead of attacking the barbed wire and trenches close to Gaza, Allenby decided to try the other end of the Turkish defenses, at Beersheba. It was a similar choice to the sweeping left hook sent against Iraq forces in 1991: then, fast armored columns were supported by fleets of fuel trucks. But the limiting factor in 1917 was not fuel but water. There were 17 wells at Beersheba, and that made capture of the village vital for an army coming across the Negev desert, because the weapon of maneuver in 1917 was not the tank but the horse. 
It is simply astonishing that a horse, a prey animal, a grass eater, could be so powerful a weapon of war. Since 4000 B.C. humans have trained horses to assist in killing other humans and other horses. We have ridden their backs into close combat where Equus caballus is shot with arrows, pierced with spears and slashed with swords: and beginning in the 18th century, cut by shrapnel and surrounded by deafening gunfire and explosions. And what is most astonishing is that for a horse, such combat is much more frightening than for a human. 
Horses have the largest eyes per body size of any land animal. The construction of those lovely huge eyes also gives them a field of vision of 350 degrees, far wider than a humans’. Their ears can rotate 180 degrees, giving them the equivalent of hearing depth perception. In short, hoses can see and hear much more of the horrors on a battlefield more accurately than a human can. And the sound of a pistol in their own riders’ hand is more frightening because it is closer. So given this higher level of horror why have horses joined us in war? 
It has been pointed out that war horses actually lived much more happy lives than their pampered domesticated stabled pets of today because a war horse was constantly surrounded with other horses – a herd. An army was a strict hierarchical social structure that mimicked the herd. And learning to use a horse in battle taught humans how to teach them selves to fight: every combat maneuver used by cavalry is based on herd behavior. A horse in column with willing follow the horse in front rather than run for safety alone, and a horse in a charge will run because all the other horses are running as well. 
But the actual charge of Napoleonic cavalry (and the Australian Light Horsemen of 1917) was a good deal slower than the paintings might suggest. Sabers might be wildly waving and lances glinting in the sunlight, but charging horses do not slam into enemy troops at the end of a charge. The “shock” effect of a cavalry charge was far more psychological then physical. And that is the great secret of combat; the objective is not to kill your opponent. The objective is to convince him that he is about to be killed or worse, about to be painfully mauled, so that he stops fighting. The reality is that nobody fights to the death, not even a kamikaze pilot or a suicide bomber. They fight until they are convinced they cannot win. And seeing, as one general famously described it, “…a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friends face…” has proven a very effect way of making people stop fighting. For every soldier killed a dozen will run away. And that is what humans learned by teaching horses to fight. 
They formed up to the east of Beersheba, the 11th and 12th regiments, behind a ridge out in the Negev desert. They were 800 mounted men under the direct command of Lieutenant Colonel Bourchier, trained to fight as mounted infantry but this afternoon with their rifles slung across their backs and their bayonets gripped tightly in their right hands, they were pure cavalry, straight from the ancient steppes of Eastern Europe and the rolling fields of Belgium. 
It is simply astonishing that a horse, a prey animal, a grass eater, could be so powerful a weapon of war. Since 4000 B.C. humans have trained horses to assist in killing other humans and other horses. We have ridden their backs into close combat where Equus caballus is shot with arrows, pierced with spears and slashed with swords: and beginning in the 18th century, cut by shrapnel and surrounded by deafening gunfire and explosions. And what is most astonishing is that for a horse, such combat is much more frightening than for a human. Horses have the largest eyes per body size of any land animal. The construction of those lovely huge eyes also gives them a field of vision of 350 degrees, far wider than a humans’. Their ears can rotate 180 degrees, giving them the equivalent of hearing depth perception. In short, hoses can see and hear much more of the horrors on a battlefield more accurately than a human can. And the sound of a pistol in their own riders’ hand is more frightening because it is closer. So given this higher level of horror why have horses joined us in war? It has been pointed out that war horses actually lived much more happy lives than their pampered domesticated stabled pets of today because a war horse was constantly surrounded with other horses – a herd. An army was a strict hierarchical social structure that mimicked the herd. And learning to use a horse in battle taught humans how to teach them selves to fight: every combat maneuver used by cavalry is based on herd behavior. A horse in column with willing follow the horse in front rather than run for safety alone, and a horse in a charge will run because all the other horses are running as well. But the actual charge of Napoleonic cavalry (and the Australian Light Horsemen of 1917) was a good deal slower than the paintings might suggest. Sabers might be wildly waving and lances glinting in the sunlight, but charging horses do not slam into enemy troops at the end of a charge. The “shock” effect of a cavalry charge was far more psychological then physical. And that is the great secret of combat; the objective is not to kill your opponent. The objective is to convince him that he is about to be killed or worse, about to be painfully mauled, so that he stops fighting. The reality is that nobody fights to the death, not even a kamikaze pilot or a suicide bomber. They fight until they are convinced they cannot win. And seeing, as one general famously described it, “…a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friends face…” has proven a very effect way of making people stop fighting. For every soldier killed a dozen will run away. And that is what humans learned by teaching horses to fight. They formed up to the east of Beersheba, the 11th and 12th regiments, behind a ridge out in the Negev desert. They were 800 mounted men under the direct command of Lieutenant Colonel Bourchier, trained to fight as mounted infantry but this afternoon with their rifles slung across their backs and their bayonets gripped tightly in their right hands, they were pure cavalry, straight from the ancient steppes of Eastern Europe and the rolling fields of Belgium. They crossed the ridge line in three waves at a trot, about 8 miles an hour, and five meters between each horse. The three lines advanced across the open desert toward the Turkish infantry trenches four miles away. After a mile a battery of Austrian artillery began to bark at them. Shells exploded just behind them as the Axis gunners tried in vain to adjust their range to match the horsemen’s advance. 
About two miles out they broke into a canter, about 15 miles an hour. The Turkish machine guns began to pepper the advancing cavalry. But most of the Turkish infantry were holding their fire, waiting for the horsemen to dismount and attack on foot. But instead, a half mile from the trenches, they broke into a gallop, and fell upon the Turkish soldiers at 30 miles an hour. 
Trooper Eric Elliot remembered, “It was the bravest, most awe inspiring sight I’ve ever witnessed ...the boys were wild-eyed and yelling their heads off.” And Trooper Vic Smith would write years later, “Of course we were scared, whishing to hell we weren’t there…But you couldn’t drop out and leave your mates to it; you had to keep going on.” In fact the infantry was so stunned by the cavalry’s audacity that they failed to adjust their sights and most of the Turkish fire that finally began went sailing over the horsemen’s heads. And suddenly it seemed to the Turkish soldiers’ that their gun sights were filled with the barrel chests of charging horses, each carrying a screaming mad man directly at each Turkish private and corporal. 
About two miles out they broke into a canter, about 15 miles an hour. The Turkish machine guns began to pepper the advancing cavalry. But most of the Turkish infantry were holding their fire, waiting for the horsemen to dismount and attack on foot. But instead, a half mile from the trenches, they broke into a gallop, and fell upon the Turkish soldiers at 30 miles an hour. Trooper Eric Elliot remembered, “It was the bravest, most awe inspiring sight I’ve ever witnessed ...the boys were wild-eyed and yelling their heads off.” And Trooper Vic Smith would write years later, “Of course we were scared, whishing to hell we weren’t there…But you couldn’t drop out and leave your mates to it; you had to keep going on.” In fact the infantry was so stunned by the cavalry’s audacity that they failed to adjust their sights and most of the Turkish fire that finally began went sailing over the horsemen’s heads. And suddenly it seemed to the Turkish soldiers’ that their gun sights were filled with the barrel chests of charging horses, each carrying a screaming mad man directly at each Turkish private and corporal. The Australian horses leapt across the first trench line. And the Turkish soldiers, brave men and determined, well led and well disciplined, threw down their rifles and ran away. The Australian regiments carried the trench and the wells and the village beyond. The attack captured 38 officers, 700 men, 9 field guns and 3 machine guns. Many more Turkish soldiers, having run into the desert, came back to the wells over the next few days and surrendered. The cost for this triumph was 31 Australians troopers killed and 36 wounded, almost all of them in the fight for the trenches. 
By five-thirty the battle was over. The Turkish Gaza line had been turned. But so surprised and stunned were the victors themselves that it was almost another hour before anyone thought to send word back headquarters. We have no listing of how many horses were killed or wounded. But afterward a trooper noted, “It was the horses that did it; those marvelous bloody horses.” 
By five-thirty the battle was over. The Turkish Gaza line had been turned. But so surprised and stunned were the victors themselves that it was almost another hour before anyone thought to send word back headquarters. We have no listing of how many horses were killed or wounded. But afterward a trooper noted, “It was the horses that did it; those marvelous bloody horses.” - 30 -
It was a romantic’s quest. The Gold Rush would not begin for two years when they set out in April of 1846 from Ohio: George Donner and his brother Jacob and their families, along with the family of James Reed: including hired hands, thirty-three souls all together, with oxen and cattle and chickens, all bound for California. In mid-May while
The “Cutoff” was a disaster. It twisted and wound up and through and over the Wasatch Mountains. You cannot imagine the difficulties until you have walked a hundred yards up hill, straight through a dense wood. Now imagine trying to clear a path through those same woods for a Conestoga wagon, five feet wide and sixteen feet long, without springs, with iron sheathed stiff wooden wheels, pulled by four oxen and loaded with seven tons of everything you think you might require to start your life over. At the summit they walked themselves to the very edge of a cliff with no room to turn around, and had to unload the wagons and then lower them and their cargo and their oxen on ropes to the valley below. They rejoined the trail on September 26. The “Cutoff” had left them three weeks behind. 
After the mountains, came the desert, where, at the “Humboldt Sink”, an entire river is consumed by the heat. By the first week in October the bold romantics had started to die. A sixty year old man known to us only as Mr. Hardcoop, a farmer from Ohio, was the first member of the Donner Party to die. His feet had swollen to bursting, and he was abandoned beneath a sage brush in the Nevada desert. Finally, on October 15 they reached the valley of the Truckee River, and at Truckee Meadows, modern day Reno, they paused, spending six precious days gathering their strength for the hurdle that faced them; the front wall of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 
Stand on the shore of Mono Lake (to the south of the Truckee) and you see what gave these romantics pause. An abrupt wall of granite rises 1,500 feet straight into the air. And that is only the first step of a staircase that quickly climbs to over 12.000 feet. The “notch” or “Pass” through the mountains that the Donner party sought out is 7,000 feet high. And there the moist Pacific air climbing the gentle western slope of the Sierra, meets two lakes (Tahoe and Donner) and produces 415 inches of snow in an average year. In an average year winter storms produce ridge line winds of 100 miles an hour and higher, and temperatures down to -45 F. It was into this that the Donner Party began to climb the last days of October, 1846. There was already a dusting of snow in the pass. And this was not to be an average year in the Sierra.
It started to snow on October 31, 1846, Halloween. The party was already broken. A wagon had flipped over and snapped an axel, and George Donner and family had stopped along Alder Creek to repair it. Meanwhile the majority had pressed on six miles farther and actually reached the summit. They were at the very edge of safety. Had they been one day, maybe one hour, sooner, they would have made it. They would have all lived. But within hours of that first gentle flake floating down to melt on a human cheek, six feet of snow fell, driving the romantics back to the eastern shore of the lake where there was a cabin and level ground. And there they stayed. And there many of them died.
There were ten major storms that winter. A January storm formed ice in San Francisco, and in March it snowed in Monterey. At Alder Creek, where the winter was not quite as harsh as at the summit, George Donner cut trees off at the top of the snow pack, leaving a record of what they faced. At the pass the snow was ten to fifteen feet higher. 
The wonder is not that so many died, or that they were reduced to cannibalism, but that any at all lived. Out of fifty-five males, thirty-two died, out of thirty-four women just nine died. All the single males over twenty-one years old starved to death. On April 29, 1848, Louis Keseberg was carried into Sutters’ Fort, in the Serra foothills. He was the last survivor of the Donner Party to be rescued. And Iabella Breen McMahon, who had been a one year old infant during that starvation winter, died in 1935 at the age of 79. She was the last survivor of the Donner Party to die. 
If you get the chance to walk Alder Creek meadows, or the trails around the Eastern edge of Donner Lake please, say a prayer for all of those who preceded her. And for all of us who are destined to follow. 
Railroads were still new technology in 1864. The Broad Street work shops of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, where the “Clinton” had been assembled in 1850, were the Boeing Aircraft of their day; employing 1,700 highly skilled workers producing 2,000 locomotives every year. But the history of American railroads is in large part a series of abject lessons in how not to run a railroad.
In 1860 the first vacuum braking system was patented by a mechanic, Nehemiah Hodge. In 1868 Eli Janny invented the knuckle coupler. And in 1869 George Westinghouse was granted a patent on his centralized air braking system. But it would not be until 1893 before the Federal Railway Safety Appliances Act required all of these safety features to be installed and used on America’s railroads. In the intervening thirty years literally thousands of passengers would be killed or injured and hundreds of workers would die or suffer crushed fingers, mangled arms and severed legs, and untold fortunes would be lost or destroyed in damaged freight, because of obsolete and needlessly dangerous equipment. 
The problem of communication was paramount. It was not until the advent of steam engines that humans were able to move faster than biology could carry them. No human or horse could maintain twenty-five miles an hour over thirty or forty miles. A civil war era steam locomotive, like the “Clinton”, had no trouble maintaining that pace. 
Normally George Lamb worked in the machine shops in the rail yards on the north side of Lafayette. (Purdue University students, who often found part time work in the yards, are still known as “Boilermakers”.) And the local ticket agent undoubtedly charged extra for the “special” delivery of those nine car loads of cattle, bound to feed the Federal armies blocking old John Bell Hood’s attempt to re-capture Nashville. The trick for George Lamb was to smoothly slip his “special” in between the already heavily scheduled traffic between Chicago and the war front in Tennessee, without taking too long or gumming up the works. For doing that he would earn a bonus. And so when he heard a distant whistle he assumed it was the regular southbound train bound for Indianapolis that he was to follow, and he felt confident in heading south twenty minutes early. 
So engineer Lamb accelerated across the Wea Creek Bridge, and slipped along the rails onto the flat prairie beyond. Twenty minutes later, as he slowed for the graceful curve north of Culver’s Station he abruptly realized he had made a horrible mistake.
A rescue train was sent at once and carried aboard it eleven local doctors. It was after dark before the first of the 35 injured reached Lafayette, and were sheltered at the “Bramble House” hotel at 3rd and South Street, and katty-cornered, in a billiard room at the Lafayette House Hotel. The thirty-two deceased were left in a freight house at the bottom of South Street along the tracks. Ten were later buried in St. Mary’s cemetery. Twenty-two Union soldiers (most on leave) who were either too injured to be identified or whose bodies were unclaimed were buried in Greenbush cemetery in Lafayette, their tombstones lined up in rank. 
The Grand Jury blamed Engineer Lamb for “…reprehensible carelessness and disobedience of rules and regulations”, but at least they also mentioned that the Lafayette and Indianapolis Railroad had employed him, despite being the cause of an accident at Culver’s Station the year before which had caused property damage but no injuries. It seems likely after this latest disaster the L&I would not continue to make that mistake. After the Grand Jury verdict Engineer Lamb disappears from history. But his is a conundrum that sounds far too familiar. 
On the evening of August 24, 1814 one hundred British troops marched up Massachusetts Avenue. They were the scouts out front of the British army that had just defeated a hodgepodge American force at Blandersburg, Maryland. Behind them Capital Hill was already ablaze. They burst into the abandoned White House, feasted on the dinner laid out for James Madison’s cabinet by Dolly Madison, and proceeded to loot the silverware and plate. And then, under the personal urging of Admiral Sir George Cockburn, they piled the furniture in the center of each room and set it afire, in revenge for the burning a year earlier of the Canadian village that would become Toronto. For his act of arson Admiral Cockburn would be rewarded with the order of the Bath.
After the debacle there was talk of moving the nation’s capital someplace safe, like Cincinnati, Ohio. But cooler heads prevailed and James Hoban, the original architect, was hired to supervise the rebuilding on the original location. To save time and money he kept many of the original supporting beams. But still it proved a career’s employment. James Monroe was the first President to reoccupy the structure, but the work was done so parsimoniously that the South Portico was not completed until 1824 and the North Portico not until 1830. Indoor plumbing was first installed in 1833, and a boiler for central heat in 1840. Eight years later James Polk replaced candles with gas lighting. Electricity was installed in 1892, but President Benjamin Harrison was so afraid of being electrocuted he rarely touch the switches.
It was dark as the two assassins strolled casually through Union Station Park and up Massachusetts Avenue. It was an Indian summer night, warm and mild. The Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered close to 230. There were 33,000 new cases of polio that year. There had just been an attempt to murder the governor of Puerto Rico, Muñoz Marín, and shooting was still going on around the mountain village of Jayuya by members of the Nationalists Party. Forty percent of American families were worth at least $5,000. General Motors was reporting record profits of $646 million. That year Isaac Asimov had published his science fiction classic “I, Robot”, and L. Ron Hubbard his fantasy “Dianetics”. Last month, September, the comic strip “Beetle Bailey” first appeared in newspapers, and this month it was joined by “Peanuts”. There were over 100 television stations nationwide broadcasting 130 hours of programming each week. The Negro baseball leagues had just folded, and the New York Yankees have just won another World Series sweep. And, you might not notice it on the streets of Washington, but there was a killing war going on in Korea.
On the morning of October 30, 1950 there had been armed uprisings by the Nationalists Party in several Puerto Rican towns, but the only one that succeeded was in the mountain village of Jayuya. There the police station was surrounded, one officer killed, three wounded and the garrison taken prisoner. But with the failure of the assassination attempt against Governor Marín, and the refusal of the general public to support the rebels, the United States reacted strongly. Martial law was declared. The Puerto Rican nation guard began to move troops to surround Juyuya, and their aircraft began to bomb the rebel strong hold. In the late edition of the evening newspapers available in Washington it was clear that the Nationalists revolt was doomed to be an utter failure.
After dinner the two assassins planned their next day’s attack using a map of the White House in the Yellow Pages. It would not be until the morning that they would learn the White House was empty, that Harry Truman was almost within their reach, and that because of a confluence of national passions, some almost two hundred years old, and some less than one day old - the next day would see blood flow. 
The James’ first serious duty was to accompany the cruiser USS Olympia to Le Havre, France to escort home the remains of America’s Unknown Soldier from the Great War. Nineteen twenty-six found her off Nicaragua, cutting off weapons shipments to rebels. In 1932 she was patrolling off Cuba during the Batista coup. And in 1941 she was assigned to President Roosevelt’s “Neutrality Patrol”, which escorted convoys from Newfoundland to 26 degrees west, where British escorts took over.
Beginning in August the U.S. “Neutrality Patrols” sailed between Argentia, Newfoundland, and mid Atlantic, just at the limit of the James’ 375 ton fuel load. A refueling harbor was established in the shelter of the 18 mile long and 3 mile wide Hvalfjordur fjord just south of Reykjavík, where the James could pause after shepherding a convoy eastbound, and refuel to guard a deadheading convoy returning west.
At 5:25 AM ship time, (8:25 hours GMT) a single torpedo struck the Reuben James on the port side about 200 feet from the bow. The six hundred sixty-one pound warhead vaporized the fire room, crumpled interior walls and sent a flash fire searching for anything to feed upon; furnishings or flesh. Almost instantly it found access to the forward powder room deep in the bowls of the James and in less time than it takes to suck in a breath it ignited the explosives stored there. In a great flash that split the Artic dawn the Reuben James was sundered in two. The 37 degree sea rushed in to fill the sudden vacuum. The integrity of the ship's water tight doors was overcome by the severity of her wound. Mercifully the forward section sank at once. Death came abruptly to over half the crew and all the ship’s officers but one as the bow went down. The stern section, being bigger, was able to float for a few moments longer. 
About seventy-five crewmen in the stern managed to scramble onto life rafts or into life vests. As they hit the frigid water they were they were instantly coated in a three to six inch layer of fuel oil. They sucked the poisonous sludge into their lungs. What was worse, they swallowed it. And as the stern dipped beneath the waves the depth charges began to slide off their rack. The safety forks could not hold them at the increased angle, and the armed charges fell free, one after the other, each to explode in their turn at fifty feet down. The carnage amongst the men struggling in the water was horrible.
The 115 dead from the Reuben James were the first Americans killed in World War II, 37 days before Pearl Harbor, on the Halloween dawn, 1941. “Well, many years have passed since those brave men are gone, and those cold icy waters are still and they’re calm. Many years have passed, but still I wonder why, the worst of men must fight but the best of men must die. Tell me, what were their names, tell me, what were their names? Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?”
