VICKSBURG Chapter Thirty-Seven

One of the things America lost with the end of the 19^th century, was a familiarity with death. Consider the life of one daughter of Mississippi, Mary Hynum. She was born in early April of 1805. In 1825 she became the third wife of Abner Pipes, who owned a plantation on the southern edge of the Chocktaw nation, 4 miles west of Rocky Springs, near the Harkinson's Ferry over the Big Black River. They had three children, first two sons, James born in 1827 and Isaac Newton Pipes, born in 1829. Six years later in 1835, the patriarch Abner Pipes died, just a few days before his and Mary's newborn son also died.

Even after the February 1839 passage of the Married Women's Property Act, women in Mississippi still could not sign legal documents. And with 2 minor sons, 34 year old widow Mary Hynum Pipes was in constant danger of losing the plantation. So in 1839 she married 49 year old Samuel Bagnell, 

He and Mary had 4 children – an infant who died shortly after birth, Ciaus, who died on 27 July, 1845, just 2 days short of his third birthday, 15 month old Emma who died 2 days after Ciaus, and William, who died at the age of 9 in the summer of 1846.  

Then, in August of 1847, at 54 years of age Samuel Bagnell, also died. That left Mary living in the house with only the two sons from her first marriage.  Two years later 20 year old Isaac Pipes married Ann Eliza Evans from Bastrop, Louisiana, and brought her home to Mississippi.

By the spring of 1863 both James and Isaac were serving as privates among the 200 or so members of the Fourth Mississippi cavalry “Battalion” called to the defense of their homes. The 4^th skirmished with Grant's army after the defeat at Port Gibson, and both sons would survive the war. But their service left now 58 year old Mary Hynum Pipes Bagnell and her daughter-in-law alone with the house servants, until Wednesday, 6 May, 1863 when Yankee Lieutenant General Ulysses Simpson Grant chose her home as his headquarters.

Camped around the Pipes Bagnell house were the 19,350 men of the XIII Corps, under 52 year old Lincoln doppelganger Major General John Alexander McClernand, with forward elements still holding the bridge over the Big Black River at Harkinson's Ferry.   Four miles to the east, around Willow Springs, was the XVII Corps, 17,390 men under 34 year old West Point graduate Major General James Birdseye McPherson. 

Left behind in Louisiana was the XV Corps, 15,975 men under 53 year old Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. The XV Corps was waiting while 2 million rations of hardtack and ammunition were ferried across to be stockpiled in Grand Gulf.

Quartermasters calculated that each Union soldier in the field required three pounds of food stuffs each day, in addition to the 13 pounds of “re-supply” required to keep him “effective” - armed with ammunition and powder, boots, uniform and medicine. The Civil War might be labeled “the first railroad war”, but before and after the railroad, all armies were carried on the backs of horses and mules.  And that added to the burden, because each regiment was expected to carry 25% additional supplies for their teamsters to transport all the other supplies.

To support each 1,000 men in the field required 40 to 50 wagons, drawn by about 300 mules, to carry foodstuffs for humans and animals - tents, blankets, cooking gear, ammunition, tack, horse and human shoes, and one or two ambulances. Each of the horses required 26 pounds of fodder per day and each mule required 24 pounds, half of which the army carried and half of which the animals were expected to find for themselves. When Grant proposed “living of the land” after leaving Port Gibson it was a literal proposal for the animals. Each 2-3,000 pound wagon load of supplies could cover about 20 miles in an eight hour day of marching. As the army marched the supplies would be used up, which would lighten the load a little, but the humans and the animals still had to eat.

On average a Civil War army required one horse for every three men - 20 horses to pull each artillery piece, and six mules to pull each wagon. And that was in addition to the mounts for cavalry and officers – which meant that Grant’s army of 42,000 men required 14,000 horses and mules. As mentioned earlier, each horse and mule lived a short, brutal life, even more so than the humans who controlled them.

Separated from Grant, Sherman's imagination of pending disaster for the entire army cut off in Mississippi, had once again gotten the better of him.  But on this Wednesday, 6 May, as the first of his men began the crossing from Hard Times Landing,  Sherman (above) dispatched a reassuring message to the commander of his 2^nd division, 42 year old Missourian Major General Francis Preston Blair. Sherman assured the tail end charlie of the Army of the Tennessee, “Grant reports plenty of meat and corn on the other side...”. That same morning, 60 wagons loaded with ammunition, left Grand Gulf for Willow Springs, guarded by 300 troopers of Federal cavalry.

As Major Mark S, Hurley observed in his 1992 paper, “Union Logistics in the Vicksburg Campaign”,

“Grant's original plan....(was to) detach McClernand's corps to General Banks to cooperate in the reduction of Port Hudson....(but then) he learned that Banks was moving up the Red River instead of up the Mississippi.”

So, with Banks tied down in southern Louisiana for at least the next 30 days, Grant decided to act alone. On 3 May, he notified his boss. 48 year old General-in-Chief, Henry Wagner Halleck  (above) that “The country will provide all the forage required for anything like an active campaign. Other supplies will have to be drawn from Milliken's Bend." The next morning, from Mary Pipes Bagnell's parlor,  he shifted that supply base to Grand Gulf.

That Wednesday, 6 May, he again telegraphed Halleck. “ I will move as soon as three days rations (are) received and send wagons back to the Gulf for more to follow.” But where would the army go next?  He might use the bridge at Harkinson's Ferry to strike directly at Vicksburg.  But, as Major Hurley notes, “...the broken nature of the ground favored the Confederates.”  And such an attack might give Pemberton's army an escape route north, into the Yazoo basin. However, “Skirting east of Vicksburg...could deny the Confederates access to supplies and reinforcements from Jackson....(and) the Confederates would not be able to easily tell whether Grant's main effort was against Jackson,...or Vicksburg. Furthermore, marching east gave Grant flexibility because he could easily turn either town into his main attack.”

On Thursday, 7 May, the first of Sherman's battalions left Grand Gulf and began marching the Rodney Road toward Willow Springs. At the same time the three brigades of 37 year old Major General John Alexander Logan's (above)  3^rd division, of McPherson's Corps, set out on a 3 mile march north along the Natchez Trace for Rocky Springs.  Grant was riding with General Logan, and for anyone aware of his phobia against retracing his steps, that was a highly significant journey. It was also important because Grant was no longer traveling with the troublesome General McClernand. He was close, but Grant felt the need for a wider view.

Rocky Springs (above) was a little village of 2,600 whites operating 3 stores and 13 shops. Within the surrounding Claiborne county were perhaps 300 more whites and some 2,000 slaves. None of the white residents of Rocky Springs lifted a hand against the Yankee infantry as they marched in, but they did not welcome the invaders, either. Still, despite the hate filled stares, said one Yankee soldier, “...we have good, cold spring water...”

On the same day, elements of John McClernand's XIII Corps marched further up the Rodney Road to Big Sand Creek, about 5 miles to the northeast. He was under strict orders to avoid a fight. The steps were small, but the army kept moving, both to keep the rebels uncertain about its exact location, and to keep moving to fresh territory for foraging.

Charles Anderson Dana (above), the Special Investigating Agent for Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, was supposed to be keeping an eye on Grant, and had arrived in Rocky Springs with the general.  But after years of editing and managing Horace Greely's New York Tribune, and months spent knee deep in the political maze of Washington, D.C, the 42 year old Dana had “gone native”, and reverted to being a journalist. He liked Grant, and filed positive reports about him.

It was Dana's reports supporting Grant, and questioning McClernand's capabilities, which inspired the autocratic and occasionally hysterical Stanton (above) to send a 5 May telegram to Dana. “General Grant has full and absolute authority to enforce his own commands, and to remove any person who by ignorance, inaction or any other cause interferes with or delays his operations. He has the full confidence of the government, is expected to enforce his authority, and will be firmly and heartily supported, but he will be responsible for any failure to exert his powers. You may communicate this to him.” However, because Grant was moving, this note would not reach Dana until 10 May.

While in camp at Rocky Springs, Dana watched the forage parties dispatched each morning, returning with a bounty of pork, chicken and beef every night. The expedition had briefly assumed the air of a hunting trip, and Dana waxed romantic about the soldier's life. “Away yonder, in the edge of the woods, I hear the drumbeat that calls the soldiers to supper...Pretty soon after dark they are all asleep, lying in their blankets under the trees...Their guns are all ready by their sides, so that if they are suddenly called at night they can start in a moment. It is strange in the mornings before daylight to hear the bugle and drums sound the reveille, which calls the army to wake up."

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YOU ONLY LIVE TWO OR THREE TIMES

I can't prove who the two fishermen pulled out of the high tide off tiny Pilsey Island (above) on 9 June, 1957.  The corpse was probably the earthly remains of Commander Lionel “Buster” Crabb.  But the body had been in the water for so long,  that when they hefted the corpse into the boat, the head fell off and was lost in the mud flats.  The hands were already gone, whether by accident or design. Margaret Player, Lionel’s ex-wife, could not identity what was left,  and neither could his current girlfriend, Patricia Rose. At the inquest a diving partner, William McLanachan, identified a scar on the left knee as Lionel’s, but later recanted.

DNA technology was still a half century in the future, but still...The diving suit matched the two piece type Lionel had been wearing. The height of the corpse matched his. The body hair color matched. The clothing Lionel had been wearing under the suit, matched the clothes on the corpse. Even the “hammer toes” of the corpse matched photographs of Lionel Crabb’s crab feet. The coroner ruled that it was Lionel Crabb and that he had been dead for several days.  And the mystery should have ended right there, in the tidal flats of Chichester Harbor, 17 miles to the east of Plymouth Harbor.  But what if the body was claimed to be that of Commander James Bond, would you meekly accept the evidence, or suspect the super spy had pulled off yet another misdirection and double cross, all in the name of queen and country?.  Lionel Crabb didn’t look like the movie version of James Bond, but he was a dead ringer for the Bond from the books. He hated to exercise. He was a chain smoker, and an aficionado of “boilermakers” (whisky with a beer chaser). He distrusted academics and experts (he would have shot Q long ago). And Lionel couldn’t swim three lengths of a swimming pool without collapsing from exhaustion. Still, a friend described him as having, “…a singular ability to endure discomfort…His lack of fear was unquestioned….(a) curmudgeonly but kindly bantam cock,…a most pleasant and lively individual. (However) His penchant for alcohol remained undiminished.”Lionel Crabb started his adventures as a Merchant seaman. And when World War Two began he was already thirty years old, and thanks to his consumption of alcohol. already past his physical prime. He joined the Royal Navy in 1940 and eventually ended up as a bomb safety officer based on Gibraltar, a job requiring calm dedication and not for a dare devil. But that is where the legend of Commander “Buster” Crabb really begins.

Across the straights from Gibraltar, in Algeria, was a force of Italian divers who were skillfully planting limpet mines on British transports and warships in the anchorage of Gibraltar Harbor (above). Lionel became part of the team assigned to protect those ships.

He learned to dive in the war zone, wearing the bulky “Sladen Suits” (above), often referred to as “Clammy Death.".  On his missions, Lionel was using the ancestor of the aqualung, "re-breathers" invented by the American, Dr. Lambersten. The British team didn’t even have swim fins, until two Italian divers where machine gunned by a sentry one night and Lionel retrieved the fins and used them,  out of curiosity.Working often in the black of night,  Lionel slipped beneath the oily water of Gilbrater's harbor, to inspect a warship's hull for any sign of explosives, and if discovered to carefully remove them, bringing them to the surface and disarming them, which was the only part of the job he had actually been trained for.

For his work Lionel was awarded the St. George Medal in 1944. By that time he was commanding the entire unit, in part because he was one of the longest surviving members.  Lionel was a pioneer in the field, even teaching himself to disarm the new German magnetic mines. In August of 1945 he was assigned to disarm mines placed by Zionists terrorists on shipping in the port of Haifa. He received another medal for his role in disarming mines and explosives in Europe left over from World War II.

And in 1949 Lionel managed to produce underwater photographs of a British cruiser’s spinning propellers while the big ship plowed through the sea within feet of him. He explored a British submarine lost in the Thames estuary (above), and helped build the outflow system for a top secret nuclear weapons factory. Lionel had become the “go-to guy” on anything involving underwater espionage, and was famous for it, not because he was a genius at it but because he was the only person doing it. Lionel was retired from active service in 1953,  but remained in the reserves. And in October of 1955, when the new Soviet cruiser Sverdlov paid a “good will” visited to Portsmouth, Lionel and a friend, Sydney Knowles, made nighttime dives, examining and measuring the hull, in an attempt to explain the ship’s powerful maneuvering abilities. So both men seemed obvious picks to repeat that dive in April of 1956 when the Soviet Cruiser Ordzhonikidze (above) paid call to Portsmouth, while carrying, Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Leader, Nikita Khrushchev on a state visit.Their dive might never have become public knowledge except,  after the visit of the  Ordzhonikidze  the Soviets filed an official protest, claiming a British diver was seen close to the Soviet cruiser on 19 April.   Lionel’s war record had made him the most famous diver in Britain, and the day after the Soviet protest was filed, a reporter spotted Lionel's name in the register of the Sally Port hotel in Old Portsmouth (above). for the date of 18 April  The day after his name was spotted, other reporters returned to find that page had been ripped out of the book,  and was now missing.  After that, Lionel could not be found.  He had disappeared.  The British navy eventually claimed that Lionel had been testing new diving equipment in the Solent,  to the West of Portsmouth, when he had disappeared and was presumed to have drowned.  But that story seemed so absurd it produced even more speculation.
It is speculated that the new British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden (above),  had hopes of reaching a rapprochement with the Soviet leadership, and had forbidden Lionel from making this second dive inside Portsmouth harbor.  But, the story went that  the CIA had encouraged Lionel to make the attempt even without official British endorsement.  What we do know as fact, is that after press speculation about Lionel's death,  Eden issued a public statement on 14 May saying   “It would not be in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Commander Crabb is presumed to have met his death. I think it necessary, in the special circumstances of this case, to make it clear that what was done,  was done without the authority or the knowledge of Her Majesty’s Ministers. Appropriate disciplinary steps are being taken.”  Shortly thereafter the head of MI6, Britain's intelligence agency, was relieved.
But from this point the stories and myths only multiply.  In 2007 Eduard Koltsov claimed he had been a diver aboard the Cruiser Ordzhonikidze when, while on underwater patrol under the Soviet Ship in Portsmouth harbor, he spotted Lionel fixing a mine,  and had cut the spy's throat. Lionel’s fiance claimed in 1974 that he had defected and was still alive, training Soviet frogmen in the Black Sea. Another version says Lionel suffered a heart attack while inspecting the Ordzhonikidze, had been rescued by Soviet divers,  but had later died from his injuries, perhaps under torture, and that the Soviets had dumped his body overboard after leaving the English port.What we now know for certain is that on 17 April, 1956, as the cold war was still heating up,  Lionel and another unknown man checked into the Sally Port Hotel, in Portsmouth. On the evening of 18 April, Lionel entered the water from The King’s Stairs Jetty (above), about 80 yards from where the Soviet warship was berthed.  Lionel returned to the surface just 20 minutes later, having gotten confused in the dark among the pier’s pilings. The decision was made to try again in daylight.

Lionel returned to the jetty just after 7 a.m on 18 April, in full daylight and re-entered the waters of Portsmouth harbor (above).  He came back up just 20 minutes later complaining of problem with his re-breathing equipment.  Repairs were made, and within a few minutes Lionel went down again for another try.

But this time he did not resurface, at least not until fourteen months later when his body was pulled from the shallow tidal inlet some seventeen miles further west down the coast. But was that really the body of Commander Lionel Crabb, or the other unknown man? We still don’t know for certain, and won’t until at least 2057, when the British government has promised to tell all they know.

Of course they had originally promised to do that in 1987, but then they changed their minds. They could do that again, too.  As they say, You Only Live Twice. 

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UP THE STAIRS

I confess that my favorite nursery rhyme might be considered a bit morbid. Of course there is nothing unusual in that. Consider the harmless "Pop goes the Weasel” - "All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel, the monkey stops to pull up his socks, and pops goes the weasel". Actually it tells the story of a gin addict, known as a weasel, and  gin is a product of fermented mullberries. . But my favorite is the rhyme known as “Burke and Hare”.   It is younger, but has a similar history, just a bit more bloody.

Try to imagine little red headed girls playing jump rope, keeping time by chanting this Scottish ditty -  “Up the close and down the stair, In the house with Burke and Hare, Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the man who buys the beef. Burke and Hare they were a pair, Killed a wife and didnae care. Then they put her in a box, and sent her off to Doctor Knox. Burkes the Butcher, Hares the thief, Knox’s the yin that buys the beef!” Of course it didn’t quite happen that way, but it is still catchy, isn’t?

William Hare (above) was an Irish immigrant to Scotland who worked as a “Navvy” on the Union Canal. In other words he was a digger with a pick and shovel. William married Margaret Laird, who ran a boarding house called "Logs Lodging". She had inherited the business, in the West Port section of Edinburgh, when her first husband had died.

In 1827 Margaret renewed her acquaintance with William Burke (above), another Irish emigrant, who was returning to Edinburgh after working as a weaver, a baker and a shoe maker. Burke had abandoned a wife and two children in Ireland, but in Scotland he had picked up a common-law wife, Helen M'Dougal. They became two more lodgers of Margaret Hare’s.

In December yet another lodger of the run down establishment (above, ) known to history only as Donald, died of “natural causes” – probably alcoholism – leaving an unpaid bill of four pounds. Hare was so angry over the debt that he decided to take action. Enlisting Burke’s aid, a weight was substituted for the deceased in his coffin. After the funeral Burke and Hare lugged the corpse down Infirmary Street to Surgeons Square, where the old man’s remains were sold to Dr. Robert Knox, a lecturer at Barclay's Anatomy School. The value of Donald’s corpse was set by Dr. Knox at 7 pounds 10 shillings, for a profit to Hare of three pounds ten shillings – a small fortune to men such as Burke and Hare.

The market for selling dead bodies had been fairly steady in Edinburgh since the school of Surgeons had combined with the Royal College of Physicians to form the world famous University Faculty of Medicine in 1726.

Dr. Robert Knox (above) was not a member of the University, but since the University’s lecturer in anatomy was dull enough to bore students to death, the popular Dr. Knox made a nice living displaying brains freshly removed from skulls and explaining how the corpses’ medulla oblongata was just as highly developed as that of the Bishop of Edinburgh, or discoursing upon the ways an alcoholic liver reminded him of the Lord Mayor of Edinburgh. And all the students laughed. But besides a cutting sense of social humor, to remain in business Dr. Knox required a steady source of corpses. And there was one small problem with that.It was well known that the dissection of human corpses was essential for the training of doctors. People who were sick wanted an experienced doctor to save their lives. But the family of the deceased wanted their loved ones to rest in peace, in one piece, pending the resurrection. The conflict between those two desires could get very nasty.

In 1742 an angry mob whipped one John Samuel through the streets of Edinburgh after he was caught transporting the corpse of a young girl. The authorities banished Samuel from Scotland for seven years. The mob wanted him lynched. Unable to achieve that, they burned his house to the ground and attacked his family.

In part this social rejection of "resurectionists" accounted for the high price required to attract entrepreneurs to the profession of grave robbing. But the principles of finance being what they are, it was inevitable that eventually the field would attract sophisticated capitalists (think, Trump Investments for the dead) who found a way to undercut their competition in both overhead and underfoot - in the supply of fresh corpses.

Instead of expending the effort required to unearth their raw material, these savvy investors simply harvested the wheat while it was still able to deliver itself to the reaper. And rather than waiting until the fruit ripened and fell into their arms, these master cultivators forced the crop into early maturity. And who were these agrarian managers of such foresight that they would have impressed Scotsmen like Adam Smith and David Hume? Those two were the Irish transplants to Scotland, Msrs. Hare and Burke

In December (the off season for bodies, with the ground too frozen for excavations) another lodger named Joseph Miller fell ill.  Burke put his hands over Miller’s nose and mouth while Hare sat on his chest.  Afterward this technique, which left no visible wounds or bruises, would be called “Burking”. And the first product of the method produced a ten pound profit. Our new venture capitalists now had capital.

In February of 1828 Abigail Simpson was “burked” -  ten more pounds. Then Margaret Hare got into the act, finding investment number three, another old alcoholic woman - ten pounds more. Next, a prostitute named Mary Paterson (above) and then a woman beggar named Effie made her contribution - ten pounds for each woman.  Business was booming!

Not that there weren’t problems. College students of today are no less given to sexual escapades than those in 1829, and several of Dr. Knox’s 1829 students had been customers of Mary Paterson – some of them recently. They didn’t remember her coughing or showing signs of illness. So her sudden appearance in the dissecting theatre of Dr. Knox was troubling. But none of the students felt comfortable enough with their suspicions to raise the accusation against the eminent Dr. Knox.With the approach of the spring thaw however, competition drove the price down to eight pounds per corpse. To offset this fluctuation Hare and Burke simply increased production. An old woman and her grandson produced sixteen pounds. Then there was a Mrs. Ostler, followed quickly by one of Helen M'Dougal’s aunts, Ann. And then our budding business moguls made their first big mistake.

They figured a mentally challenged 18 year old with a game leg named Daft Jamie (above) would be an easy profit.  But the boy actually was evidently a socialist,  who did not appreciate the virtues of Burke and Hare's business model.  He fought back. It turned out to be a lot of work for a mere eight pounds. And on top of that Jamie’s mother came looking for him. Now it was embarrassing.

There was worse to come. In the morning, when Dr. Knox unveiled his new corpse for the dissection class, several of the students recognized Jamie, having seen him quite recently - and in good health at that. Dr Knox was forced to dissect Jamie’s face and remove his deformed feet, to calm those few squeamish students and to disguise the evidence. Things were now getting frustrating even for Dr. Knox. There was no doubt, success had caused the stockholders and employees of Hare and Burke to put their foot in it.

Shortly thereafter a couple named Gray came back to their rented room at Logs Lodging to find some of the inventory stored under their bed. It was an Irish woman named Doucherty (above). The Grays called the police. By the time the officers arrived, Ms Douchety had moved on. But a tip led the lawmen to Dr. Knox’s dissection class where the product (i.e. Ms. Douchety)  was found, waiting to do her service for the medical profession. And at this point the corpses hit the fan. All four members of the corporation were arrested. The unlucky lady Douchety as the last of 16 known victims of Burke and Hare.  As best it can be figured, the business model produced about one hundred thirty pounds income. Not a bad return for the modest investment.

There was an added profit, in that the invention of "Burking" which had given rise to the company, had also disguised the method of death so that it might be impossible for the authorities to prove any murder had occurred. And, amazingly enough, the corporation was not accused of robbing a single grave.  The Authorities realized that if anybody was going to be punished for this crime spree the cops needed at least one of the conspirators to turn on their fellows.

The prosecutors  went to the smartest members of the corporation, offering them immunity in exchange for a full confession and testimony against their fellow. And that is why William Burke went up the stairs of the gallows in a downpour all by himself on 28 January, 1829, in front of 25,000 people.  Everybody else, Helen McDougal, Margaret and William Hare, got a walk - or a run, actually.  Mobs chased all of them out of Scotland.  Rumor was that Helen eventually took ship for Australia.  And William Hare was last seen being chased through a field near Loughbrickland, Ireland -  having abandoned his wife Margaret and their child in the road   And Dr. Knox, who financed the entire operation, escaped the angry mobs by moving to London, where he earned a good living as an lecturer in anatomy. He died in 1862. 

As part of his punishment, William Burkes’ corpse was cut down and removed to the Old College anatomy theater, where it was publicly dissected, as an abject lesson in sin and immoral behavior – not a very productive example when the profession was still seeking bodies to use in educating doctors.  His skin was tanned and turned into, among other things,  a "business card" case for one of the doctors.

And to drive that pointless point home even stronger, Burke’s skeleton (above) remains at the University of Edinburgh's Anatomy Museum to this day, in a glass case, labeled as a "notorious murderer". His public image remains as a villain in films, plays, history books and a child’s nursery rhyme. He was William Burke the butcher, while William Hare, the brains behind the outfit, is usually portrayed as "the thief".  In fact, William Burke was the man who paid the price, of being remembered as a fiend, but whose real crime seems to have been that he was just not very nice.

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