POLITICAL SPEAK

I wonder how many of you know, dear readers, that the word “Gobbledgook”, meaning a nonsensical word or phrase designed to imply importance but in fact meaning nothing, has an actual birthday? The word was born on Sunday, 21 May, 1944,  in the pages of “The New York Times Magazine”. And it is just one of the many new English words born out of American politics. For example...

In 1812 the Massachusetts’s legislature contrived, with the help of Governor Elbridge Gerry (pronounced "Jerry"), to redraw the lines for the Essex County Congressional District, to insure a Thomas Jefferson Democratic-Republican won the elections there. According to legend it was famed painter Gilbert Stuart who first examined the twists and bends and curves of the new district and observed that, to him at least,  it resembled a salamander. But whoever said it first, it was Benjamin Russell, editor of the Boston Sentinel, who renamed the proposed district a Gerrymander, after the Governor. That name now applies, as a verb, to the redrawing of congressional district boundaries (Gerrymandering) to insure the election of one particular candidate or party. And allowing politicians to control the drawing of districts has Gerrymandered all negotiations out of American politics.

Almost as old is the word “Bunko”, meaning a fraud or a fraudulent spiel used by salesmen to sell bad or fake products.  Police departments around the nation still have squads of officers assigned to uncovering fraud and cheating scams, named “Bunko Squads”. Some linguists say this word originated with a Mexican card game, a version of three-card monty, but all of that is just so much "bunk".  Thirty years earlier the word was used to describe a speech by Felix Walker, a congressman from North Carolina.

Walker had been born in 1753 in the mountains of western Virginia. He worked as a store clerk in Charleston, South Carolina, and tried homesteading with Daniel Boone in Boonsboro, Kentucky. He fought in the American Revolution, and served in the North Carolina House of Commons, the state legislature. In 1816 he was appointed to Congress, to represent the Blue Ridge ‘hollars’ and the French River valley of Buncombe Country.

The county was named after American Revolutionary War hero Colonel Edward Buncombe, who had been wounded and captured at the battle of Germantown, in 1777. Recovering from his wounds in occupied Philadelphia that May, Colonel Buncombe was sleepwalking when he fell and bled to death when his wounds reopened. The new county named in his honor was so large it was locally referred to as “The State of Buncombe.”Facing contentious re-election in 1818 and again in 1820, Felix Walker quickly learned the value of a well publicized and well received speech. And on 25 February, 1820, while the House of Representatives debated the crucial issue of the “Missouri Compromise”, deciding whether or not to take the first step that would lead to the Civil War, Congressman Walker arose and began to pontificate about the wonders of his district. The leadership were ready to put the matter of the Compromise to a vote, and after listening to Walker’s rambling speech for several minutes, they urged Walker to stop wasting the congresses’ time and sit down. But Walker explained that his speech was not intended for the benefit of the congress, but for the "simple folk of Buncombe County back home". And then Walker returned to his endless platitudes.Almost overnight Walker’s speech was transformed from being about Buncombe to being “pure Buncombe” itself. And, with a little modification in spelling, it changed from "Buncombe", to "bunkum", and then to "bunk", as in a useless, pompus and empty speech, or :bunko" a false promise intended to further a fraud:an entirely new word had been added to the English political language.

Gobbledygook is a 20th century invention, and first appeared in an article about an internal government memo. The author of that memo and that article, and the inventor of the word, was Texas Congressman Maury Maverick (above), who was one of those rare politicians who actually believed that politics was a form of public service. He won a silver star and 2 purple hearts in WWI. And then he ran for Mayor of San  Antonio, Texas

He was limited to one term because during his term a communist rented a meeting room in the Civic Auditorium (above, left) . Legally Mayor Maverick could not refuse to rent the room. But his opponents were able to rabble rouse a little Texas-Hysteria, complete with tear gas shells being lobbed back and forth in front of the auditorium. His was defeated for re-election.

Maury Maverick later won election to Congress, where, in 1944,  he was named chairman of the "Small War Plants Committee" -  overseeing and coordinating the work of thousands of small factories all across the United States, seeking to avoid duplication of their efforts, shortages of raw materials and general waste.

Being a man interested in results,  Maury (above) quickly grew frustrated with the growing complexity of official language which prolonged the already almost endless committee meetings he had to attend .

He defined his new word as a type of talk which is long, vague and  pompous,  "…when concrete nouns are replaced by abstractions and simple terms by pseudo-technical jargon…".  It all made him think of the wild turkey’s back home, and their conversations which sounded like,  "gobble, gobble, gobble, gook".

In his memorandum (above) Maury ordered, in pure Texas style, "Anyone using the words “activation” or “implementation” will be shot”. Of course no one was executed. But perhaps because no one was, the continued human attraction to verbosity has since produced such nonsense such as "Pentagoneze", "Journaleze", "circumlocution", and other such gobbledygook phrases used to describe Maury’s gobbledygook.

In an interesting (I think) side note, gobbledygook was the Maverick family’s second addition to the American lexicon. The first was their family name. There was a Maverick aboard the Mayflower. And 17-year old apprentice, Samuel Maverick, was shot down by 'lobster backs' at the Boston Massacre (above). But the most famous Maverick of all was another Samuel, born in Pendleton, South Carolina in 1803.

This Maverick, Samuel Augustus Maverick (above), graduated from Yale in 1825 and was admitted to the bar in 1829. A year later, he ran for the South Carolina Legislature, but his anti-secession and pro-union positions contributed to his defeat.  In 1835 Samuel Maverick moved to Texas. He was one of two men from the rebels from the Alamo elected to the Texas Independence Convention, and he thus missed being butchered when Mexican troops captured the mission.   He was elected Mayor and then Treasurer of San Antonio, and later served in the seventh and eighth Texas Congresses. He also dabbled in East Texas land speculation, and sometime in 1843 or 1844, as payment for a bad debt, Samuel Augustus took possession of a ranch around Matagorda Bay, Texas, on the Mexican border.

The only problem was that Maverick had no experience in ranching and no interest in learning. When he saw that every other rancher had branded their cattle, Augustus decided there was no need for him to bother with the expense of branding his new herd. In 1847, when Samuel moved back to San Antonio, he left his cattle under the care of his ranch hands, who saw no reason to pay more attention to their jobs than their absentee boss

They let the animals wander the open range. Cowboys who found unbranded cattle thus identified them all as the property of "Mr. Maverick", and mavericks thus became any unbranded cow or horse.

Samuel Augustus Maverick favored Texas annexation by the United States. And after it was, he opposed  secession from the union by Texas until he realized there was no stopping it.  When he died in 1870 he left holdings of over 300,000 acres and a reputation for independence - not being branded by any special interests. His son, Albert,  fought with distinction for the south in the Civil War and was promoted to second lieutenant. After the war Albert Maverick  helped preserve the Alamo, donated "Maverick Park" to the city and lived to swear in his own son, Fontaine Maury Maverick (above), as Mayor of San Antonio - and later inventor of the term gobbledegook.  Albert Maverick died in 1936 at the age of 98. Maury Maverick died in 1954. He was not yet 59 years old.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Forty-Four

Gazing down the gentle mile long slope toward Fourteen Mile Creek, the Federal skirmish line knew the rebels were hiding in the tangle before them. But they kept coming, offering themselves as targets because this morning, Tuesday 12 May 1863, that was their job. There were two quick shots from the rebel snipers. Then there was a long silence followed by four or five shots. Then the line stopped and was filled in by the forward regiments of the Federal 3^rd division.

The adjutant to Colonel Manning of the 20^th Ohio, 19 year old Henry Dwight remembered the long and painful descent, “The trees and underbrush were covered with thorny vines which trailed in tangled chains from branch to branch. Great moss grown trunks of fallen trees had to be climbed over...After passing such an obstacle it was always some minutes before the line could could find itself again. Sometimes it could not find itself, and a halt had to be sounded....there would be a great expense of time, breath and strong language, in trying to get the ends of the broken line together.”

Shepherding the rebel's before them, the Federals reached the bottom of the hill and halted in a clearing near the creek, “...wiping the sweat off their faces as they stood fanning themselves in the shade." Dwight (above) continued,  "A staff officer was waiting...with the order to halt in the clearing and to rest for lunch...” The 20^th Ohio stacked their arms and, “...filled our canteens at the brook, or poured the cool water over our heated faces....

"The other regiments of the brigade came up, an Indiana regiment (in fact it was the 8^th Illinois) going into line along the edge of the woods on our right, and the 78th (Ohio) taking the place on our left, with the 68th (Ohio) near by (Captain Samuel) DeGolyer’s battery (8^th Michigan artillery)...(which) stopped in the road near the skirmish line...” Shortly after the Michigan gunners started to unlimber, “Bang cr r r r r rang! Bang cr r r r r r rang!” came the two shells from the peaceable country in front, bursting over the heads of the groups in the road.”

The canon fire was from Captain Hiram Miller Bledsoe's Missouri battery. It was answered almost immediately by DeGolyer's guns. Wrote adjunct Dwight, “...we hadn’t time to more than turn our heads when from out of the quiet woods on the other side of the brook there came a great yell, of thousands of voices, followed by such a crashing roar of musketry....some twenty or thirty were dead or wounded from that first volley....

But quick as thought, all who could stand had taken their guns and plunged through the brook. On the other side, not fifty yards distant, the enemy were crashing through the underbrush in a magnificent line determined to carry all before them.”

The rebels on the north side of Forty Mile Creek were the 305 men of the 7^th Texas infantry, under Colonel Hiram Grandbury, with the 348 men of the 3^rd Tennessee to their right. Luckily for the Buckeyes the rebel assault was not aimed at the 20^th Ohio, and instead slammed into the 8^th Illinois, shattering it, and  “...the whole regiment broke into inch bits, the boys making good time to the rear. This left the Johnnies a clear road to pass our flank...and putting bullets into the reverse of our line...At this moment the fate of the brigade...depended on the possibility of our holding those fellows at bay until the other brigades could be brought up.”

To 20 year old Osborn Hamline Ingham Oldroyd – so named so his initials spelled Ohio - newly elected 5^th sergeant of the 20^th Ohio, had advanced even farther forward - “...probably a hundred yards, when we came to a creek... down we slid, and wading through the water, which was up to our knees, dropped upon the opposite side and began firing at will...the enemy were but a hundred yards in front of us... Every man of us knew it would be sure death to all to retreat, for we had behind us a bank seven feet high, made slippery by the wading and climbing back of the wounded... For two hours the contest raged furiously...The creek was running red with precious blood spilt for our country. 

"My bunk- mate and I were kneeling side by side when a ball crashed through his brain, and he fell over with a mortal wound...The second lieutenant in command was wounded; the orderly sergeant dropped dead, and I find myself (fifth sergeant) in command of the handful remaining. In front of us was a reb in a red shirt, when one of our boys, raising his gun, remarked, "see me bring that red shirt down," while another cried out, "hold on, that is my man." Both fired, and the red shirt fell...the enemy charged, fighting hand to hand, being too close to fire, and using the butts of their guns.”

The impulsive counter attack by the Ohio boys had allowed the Michigan gunners to pull their artillery back up the slope to a new positions 600 yards above the creek. Here they were supported by the 78^th and 68^th Ohio infantry regiments, and the gunners worked the two 12-pound bronze howitzers and four 12 pound James rifles, furiously. 

These latter weapons had been developed by Rhode Island Democratic Senator and self taught engineer Charles Tillinghast James, as a way of giving longer range to obsolete smoothbore 6 pound cannon. 

But the rifling (above) in the soft bronze quickly wore down, and accumulating powder residue in the grooves made the guns increasingly inaccurate. In fact, just 7 months earlier, on 17 October, 1862, the inventor himself had been killed when a worker armed with a wrench attempted to remove a misfired round during a demonstration, and it went off, killing himself and the 57 year old inventor. 

 But this morning, the late Jame's invention proved more than adequate at blasting the 7^th Texas with grape and canister shot from close range, breaking up their attack.

About the same time General Logan arrived himself in the line, and “with the shriek of an eagle”, screamed at the soldiers of the broken 8^th Illinois, “For God’s sake men, don’t disgrace your country.” And it worked. Logan's horse was killed under him, but the shocked Yankees reformed just in time to blunt the assault by the 3^rd Tennessee on the 8^th Michigan artillery. Within ten minutes, the Tennesseans suffered 190 killed or wounded, including their commander, Colonel McGavock.

The insanity and ferocity of the fight was captured by Henry Dwight, with the 20^th Ohio, still defending the north bank of Forty Mile Creek. In amazement he watched while a rebel officer, “... not more than thirty feet from where I stood, quietly loaded up an old meerschaum, lit a match... and when he had got his pipe well a-going, he got hold of his pistol again and went on popping away at us as leisurely as if he had been shooting rats.” 

Like two prize fighters slugging it out in the center of the ring, the Ohio and Texas boys held their ground, just yards apart. Still, Dwight noted, “...we were left sticking out like a sore finger for the best part of another hour. There were only nine companies of us, and out of those about the number of one company had been killed or wounded.”

But they held. And Logan, now remounted, hurried forward new regiments, aided by General McPherson who ushered elements of Brigadier General John Smith's division forward to stabilize the Union right and regiments of Brigadier General John Stevenson's division to bolster the left. 

By now, about 1:00pm, the Confederate commander, John Gregg, realized he was facing more than a mere battalion. He pulled the 41^st Tennessee out of their position guarding the road to Bolton, and sent over 350 of them forward to slow the now advancing Yankee soldiers. And under cover of that counter assault the rebels began to withdraw.

Dwight noted, “Now we could stand up and stretch our legs and rinse the charcoal and saltpeter out of our mouths...I looked at my watch. We had been at work on those Texans near two hours and a half...We were a hard looking lot. The smoke had blackened our faces, our lips and throats so far down that it took a week to get the last of it out....

“Attention battalion, forward march,” came the order of Colonel Force again, and away we went with a shout, over the ghastly pile of Texans...Shortly we came out into a big cornfield beyond the woods, and the first thing I saw on the ground was the meerschaum which the Rebel officer had smoked in the fight. It was still warm as it lay where it had dropped from his mouth when he ran, and I picked it up and took my turn at smoking it.”

Tuesday, 12 May, 1863 was a tragic day for General John Gregg's brigade. A week before the ambitious Texan had left Grand Gulf with 7 regiments and a 3 gun battery. At Raymond the 3^rd Tennessee regiment had lost more than a third of its strength. 

The 7^th Texas had lost almost 50% of their members killed, wounded or missing. Bledsoe's 3 gun battery had lost crew members when one of its guns exploded. The wounded filtered back to the town of Raymond, where the citizens did they best to care fore the 100 killed, 270 wounded, and about another 300 captured or missing - or about 7% of General Gregg's entire force.

Yankee losses in the battle were 69 killed, 341 wounded and just 32 missing, or 442 causalities out of the 12,000 federals engaged, or 3.2% of McPherson's XVII Corps. But to Sergeant Oldroyd (above, 20 years after the war) that number 440 meant warm living blood. As the battle wound down, young Oldroyd wrote, “I took the (company) roll-book from the pocket of our dead sergeant, and found that while we had gone in with thirty-two men, we came out with but sixteen - one-half of the brave little band, but a few hours before so full of hope and patriotism, either killed or wounded. Nearly all the survivors could show bullet marks in clothing or flesh, but no man left the field on account of wounds. When I told Colonel Force of our loss, I saw tears course down his cheeks...”

Seven miles away from the carnage Lieutenant General Ulysses Simpson Grant (above) was at the Dillon Farm, finishing a long day, and planning an assault on Edward's Depot, to be followed by the  crossing of the Big Black River bridge. And then the dispatches from General McPherson finally arrived. The news of a battle at Raymond, startled Grant. He had known of Gregg's battalion at Jackson, but so aggressive had the rebels been this day, that McPherson estimated their strength at double the 4,000 which had in fact attacked Logan's 7,000 man division. Taken together with the rumors that General Johnson was on his way from Tennessee to take charge of a gathering force at Jackson, convinced Grant he had best deal with this threat before he tried crossing the Big Black River and attacking Vicksburg. 

Grant's overworked staff now ground out new orders for the following day. McPherson was to move north, and take first Clinton, cutting the only rail line to Vicksburg, and then move on Jackson from the West. General Sherman was to advance up the Utica road to Raymond, and advance through Mississippi Springs to approach Jackson from the south/west. That would put the Mississippi capital between 35,000 Federal troops. General McClernand, once in position to lead the assault with his 17,000 men was now to continue to screen the Federal army by blinding rebel soldiers around Edwards Depot and along Bakers Creek before pulling back to be available should they be needed in Jackson.

But there was an inescapable feeling among the Yankee troops, from Grant down to the lowest private, that things were now going to begin happening very fast.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Forty-Three

When 34 year old Brigadier General John Gregg (above) awoke on that Tuesday morning, he was bone weary. 

His 4,500 man brigade had left Port Hudson just 7 days earlier, on Tuesday, 5 May, 1863, and after a 200 mile long odyssey  - by foot and by rail -  they had staggered into Jackson, Mississippi, having lost perhaps 500 men through injury and 'straggling'. After a day of rest, on Monday, 11 May, Gregg had been forced to urge his men another dusty 27 miles to the southwest, to the county seat of Raymond. The exhausted rebels found just six of Wirt Adam's cavalrymen in the town, leaving Gregg with little idea what was waiting just over his horizon.

He was forced to rely on guidance from his superior, 48 year old Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemberton, who on 12 May was finally taking a journey of his own, 20 miles east of the Vicksburg entrenchments. Around the little village of Bovina Station (above, center), a mile west of the Big Black River, Pemberton was struggling to concentrate the 18,000 men of the divisions of Major General Carter Littlepage Stevenson, Major General John Stevens Bowen and – the biggest pebble in his shoe – the one armed Major General William Wing Loring. It seemed every order Pemberton issued inspired the vainglorious “Old Blizzards” to respond with at least 3 telegrams of protest, suggestion and or complaints.

Right now, the arrogant and rude Loring was urging his commander to strike out toward the line of Baker's and Fourteen Mile creeks to force Grant into battle before he was ready. But forced into a straight jacket of passivity by Jefferson Davis's orders to defend Vicksburg and Port Hudson at all costs, Pemberton had little choice but to wait for Grant to launch a direct assault via the Big Black River Bridge. Which is why he had his men digging entrenchments to defend the bridge and adjacent fords, instead of probing for the Yankees as Loring kept urging.

In fact most of Wirt Adam's cavalry was available for such a mission, just a few miles up the road at Edward's Depot. Except nobody shared that fact with the commanding general, not even Wirt Adams. Nor did anyone in Richmond think to inform Pemberton of the imminent arrival in Jackson of his superior, General Johnson. Not even Johnson. The infection of suspicion and mistrust in the Confederate command originated with Jefferson Davis, and fed a lack of discipline in Pemberton's junior officers. 

So, struggling with the burdens of his first combat command, Pemberton vented his frustrations on General John Gregg and his 6 regiments, forty miles away on the other side of Grant's army. While the telegraph line to Jackson and Raymond was still working, Pemberton lectured the Texan. “Do not attack the enemy until he is engaged at Edwards or Big Black River Bridge. Be ready to fall on his rear or flank at any moment. Do not allow yourself to be flanked or taken in the rear. Be careful that you do not lose your command.”

However, this morning, 12 May, 1863,  General Gregg learned from local militia of a Federal infantry brigade marching up the Utica Road, and decided to take the opportunity to stage a mini-Cannae. First he would tempt the Yankees into attacking the small bridge over the Fourteen Mile Creek, 2 miles south of Raymond. Once the Yankees had crossed the bridge, 1,500 Rebel infantry would sweep across the creek below the bridge, and then turning back, cut the Yankees off and crush them against Gregg's main body. To achieve that, however, Gregg would have to push his weary soldiers a little further.

Private Frank Herron of the 3^rd Tennessee infantry, remembered that morning. “"Without breakfast, tired, hungry and with blistered feet, sadness was pictured on the faces of my companions as we were hastening on through the dust...But our sadness was suddenly relieved when we saw on a porch of a palatial home some beautiful girls waving the Bonnie Blue Flag. We gave the old and familiar yell in return and no sad faces were seen for awhile...”

Gregg's plan was perfectly reasonable, but for two things. First, with Pemberton's warnings ringing in his ears, and without cavalry to screen his flanks, Gregg was forced to assign the 400 soldiers of the 41^st Tennessee regiment, under 49 year old Scottish born Colonel Robert Farquarson, to control the road north to Bolton and Edward's Depot. He also assigned the 350 men of the 50^th Tennessee regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas W. Beaumont, to block the Auburn road. Together those assignments cut Gregg's offensive strength by almost a thousand men. And secondly, what was marching north from Utica was not a Federal brigade, but the 7,000 men of John Logan's 3^rd division, with two more divisions of 34 year old Major General James Birdseye McPherson's Corps, right behind them – over 17,000 soldiers in total.

The Yankees were looking for water. It was the only essential which the Federal army could not bring along.  And while hungry men might march for a week, a thirsty army would begin to collapse within 72 hours. And after 12 straight days of sunny skies, the entire state of Mississippi was drying up. Wells were beginning to run dry. Creeks were reduced to a trickle. The only reliable source of water in the area was Fourteen Mile Creek, fed by springs south of Raymond. That was McPherson's immediate goal, get to the creek and fill his canteens. And only after that, march on to Raymond.

But McPherson's Corps was not totally blind. The 6^th Missouri raid on the Mobile and Ohio railroad of the day before had revealed that a rebel brigade had passed through Crystal Springs on the way to Jackson. In addition the rails destroyed had prevented a second rebel battalion from reaching Jackson. Worse for the rebels, the roads out of Raymond had not been picketed. Civilians - and there were always random civilians – trickled out of Raymond and were captured by Yankee pickets on the Auburn and Utica roads. Each traveler, no matter their loyalties, carried details of the rebel troops in Raymond.

Gregg put the 548 men of the 7^th Texas infantry across the Utica Road, to hold the bridge. It's commander, the recently widowed 32 year old Colonel Hiram Bronson Granbury, sent skirmishers across Fortymile Creek, to hide among the trees and brush on the south bank. 

In a support position a thousand yards behind the 7^th Texas, Gregg set the Irishmen of the composite 10^th and 30^th Tennessee regiment. He told their commander, 36 year old ex-Nashville mayor Colonel Randal William McGavock, to also be ready to also assist the 50^th Tennessee, a thousand yards to the west, at the Auburn Road.

As his strategic reserve, on high ground at the eastern end of his line, Gregg placed the 315 men of the 3^rd Tennessee Regiment, under 39 year old Colonel Doctor Calvin Harvey Walker. And to their west, on a knoll beside the Utica road, he placed Captain Bledsoe and his little 3 gun battery – two 12-pound Napoleon cannon, one bronze and one iron, and a single Whitworth Rifle, with the 500 men of the 1^st Tennessee infantry battalion protecting the only artillery he had.

The timing was close. As Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Beaumont of the 50^th Tennessee noted after the battle, even before reached his position astride the Auburn road, “...the battle was opened by the artillery, with occasional musketry.” Beaumont added, “It was not long before General Gregg rode up and ordered me to move...into a woods in rear of the enemy's battery, and attack...unless I should find it too strongly protected...”

The 50^th Tennessee, with the 10^th/30^th composite regiment in support, crossed Fortymile Creek, and quickly found themselves facing an entire line of Yankee infantry.

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