BLOODY JACK Chapter Sixteen

I will, for convenience sake, date the beginning of Whitechapel the hunting ground of the so-called Jack the Ripper to March of 1643, when developers Thomas and Lewis Fossan foreclosed on a section of land outside the Old Gate (Aldgate, above)  of London. Not being farmers – Lewis was a goldsmith - they “plotted” a crazy quilt pattern of streets around what their maps labeled as Fossan Square and street – later to be “corrupted” to Fashion Street. In August of 1655, one of their 99 year leases was taken by a pair of ambitious bricklayers, John Flower and Gowen Dean. As only the living space produced revenue on their new Flower and Dean Street, the pair agreed their roadway between grand homes would be 16 feet wide at the eastern end, narrowing to just 10 feet wide at the west.

The Fossans now developed “George Yard” to connect Flower and Dean to Wentworth Street, and in 1658 (Henry) Thrall Street to connect George Yard to Brick Lane. By 1663 John and Gowen had subdivided their subdivisions and the street  was largely occupied by French Protestant Huguenots escaping religious persecution under Catholic Louis XIII. 

The newcomers brought silk weaving technology with them, and sought new fortunes and mansions faster rather than better. The London bricklayer's guild noted that Nicholas Higgins and Jacob Sewell had used “bad mortar” in their building on Flower and Dean Street, and worse, Samuel Twinn had hired “foriegners”. As early as 1704 the Twinn built mansion was said to be “decayed, ruinous and uninhabited”. And by 1750 most of the silk weavers had moved on and the mansions along the narrow street were being subdivided yet again into apartments, as English laborers, left unemployed by the switch from flax and wheat to sheep and wool, sought work and new homes in London.

As the 99 year leases ran out, the patchwork quilt of properties were bought up by corporations, which shielded their owners from financial risks and bad publicity. 

By the 1750's much of Spitafield's and large parts of Whitechapel – including Flower and Dean Street - was owned by poet and artist George Keate (above), of Bloomsbury, West End, London.  Under Keate's disinterested tenure the run-down subdivided mansions were subdivided again and again, with courts and alleys cut into the center of blocks to increase square footage without increasing space, and rebuilt only when they collapsed into the street. When George Keate died in 1797, the rents from the 250 buildings he owned in Spitafield and Whitechapel produced £700 a year in rents– a fortune in the day.

The trustees of the Keate estate noted in 1805 that many of the rental properties were “very old, and in a bad state of repair”. And yet the incomes kept coming. The estate was inherited by George's daughter, Georgina Keate, now Mrs Henry Henderson, of Number 1 Gutter Lane, London. Henry Hendreson's  profession in “Who's Who” was listed as Silk Manufacturer, because Slum Lord sounded too common. 

 It was under the Henderson family that the slums of Whitechapel were sublet yet again, to further shield the owners from the stench produced by the source of their income. As French writer Honre de Balzac wrote just about this time, “The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account, is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.”

This crime was magnified in 1844 with the clearing of slums for the construction of the 100 foot wide Commercial Street (above), as a north/south direct route to and from the London Docks – the investment that fueled a century of British empire.

In the first stage, only as far as Christ Church Spitaflield,  more than 1,300 people - now mostly Irish peasants escaping the potato famine - were thrown out of their homes,  with only the twin traps of doss houses and public house to catch them. The overcrowding in the side streets created “The Wicked Quarter Mile”, where there existed “the riot, the struggle, and the scramble for a living".

Augustus Mayhew - in his 1861 book “London Labor and the London Poor” - explained how men like Henry Henderson grew richer selling coffin sized beds at 4 pennies a night. Mayhew's example lived in “a country house in Hampstead”, but was supported by the 6 doss houses he owned on Thrall street. Each house was run by a “deputy” responsible for paying operating expenses and collecting the nightly fees. The less spent on maintenance, the greater the deputies' income. 

Each week a company man arrived to check the register of filled “beds” against money's taken in. And from this the company took their “dues” -  the lions share.  Mayhew also reported the company employed “poor fellow … to go and lodge in … his houses, and report the number present” to keep the deputies honest.

By 1880, a commentator wrote,  the Wicked Quarter Mile was ’one of the most crime-infected districts in the whole metropolis. There are Flower and Dean and Keate-street, and innumerable other neighboring narrow ways, and courts, and alleys that afford standing room for a terribly wicked lot of common lodging-houses.’ 

Wrote another, “...if I examined the courts which ran out of Flower and Dean Street (above) and the houses in its alleys and lanes...I had seen the very worst that London is capable of producing".  By 1881 there were 20 “doss” houses on Flower and Dean Street alone, in each of which over 200 people slept every night. And such crowding allowed Henry Henderson to move his family to a new mansion at 5 Stanhope Street, Hyde Parkgardens, and to make substantial donations to the Conservative Party.

The political connections came in handy when the widening of Commercial Street south of Christ Church was begun. Once again the government bought out the slums. But the slumlords  had learned, and the new programs allowed them to keep collecting rents until the day the crews arrived to tear the buildings down. As that scandal was brewing, the piecemeal construction was found to be driving up property values  ahead of the work, especially south of Whitechapel High Street,  where the road jogged south and east a mile, toward the Limehouse basin, and the larger newer India Docks  By 1860 the entire project had become so expensive and politically unpopular, that further widening was stopped.. But the decision to not allow low cost housing along the new Commercial Street and Road, also drove up the cost of available housing for the working poor, worsening their plight.  

Thus there was a connection between one of the wealthiest families in England and a Swedish immigrant named Elizabeth Gustafsdotter , a.k.a. Elizabeth Stride.

Long Liz (above) spent most of her last day on earth, Saturday, 29 September, 1888, cleaning two rooms in the doss house at 32 Flower and Dean Street,  for the grand salary of 2 ½ pence, handed to her by Elizabeth Tanner, who worked - through several intermediaries – for the Henderson family estate. 

And before 12 hours had gone by,  Liz Stride would be dead on the pavement between Numbers 40 and 42 Berner Street, Whitechapel – south of the Commercial Road extension, and well outside the killer's previous hunting ground.

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NO COMPROMISE

I guess the lesson should have been obvious even before John Milton (above), the uncompromising Confederate Governor of Florida, decided that “death would be preferable to reunion” and shot himself on April Fools Day, 1865. The date was appropriate. But what actually drove the old slave master to suicide was not the approach of a vengeful Union Army, or even a slave uprising, but a desperate band Confederate deserters seeking to exchange the Governor for ransom.  Milton took advantage of the crises  to make a theatrical exit. In his dramatic wake, he left a state flat broke, its treasury filled with worthless bonds issued by other bankrupt rebel states, and reduced to paying its employees with play money. And the guy who got stuck with Milton's unpaid bills was a newspaper man from Wisconsin who eventually showed greater political savvy than a whole room full of secessionist thespians like Governor Milton.

When Harrison Reed (above) took the oath as Governor on 8 June 1868, Florida was so broke it tried to sell the port of Pensacola to Georgia. But Georgia was too broke to meet the price. As if things were not bad enough, Governor Reed was facing the additional annoyance of his Lieutenant Governor, William Henry Gleason. Gleason was a businessman who, like Reed, had entered politics because there was a sudden shortage of professional politicians in Florida. This was because the 1867 Military Reconstruction Act had disenfranchised everyone who had served in the rebel governments. This reduced Florida Democratic legislators to just 23. And that left control of the legislature to the 38 Republicans - 13 recently liberated slaves which the Freedman Bureau had registered as Republicans, and the white carpetbagger do-gooders (like Reed) who were on a moral mission to assist the Freedmen, and the rapacious white Republican carpetbagging businessmen (like Gleason) who were in Florida to feast on the destitute south. And this fractured ruling party functioned in a leadership role for only five months, until Tuesday, 3 November, 1868, when all 76 members of the legislature met in special session to vote the Federal Presidential election.

In the midst of the Republican victory, the inexperienced politicians presented the Governor with a bill authorizing reimbursement for their travel expenses to make the vote. Reed responded by informing the members that while he was happy to pay their travel costs to Tallahassee, he could not authorize a per Diem payment for lodging and food. So he vetoed the bill. It was a rookie mistake, and it convinced the rapacious Republicans like Gleason, and the man in charge of the Freedman's bureau, Thomas Ward Osborn, that Reed was a naive fool who could be quickly eliminated.

Reed was vulnerable. Osborn pointed out to “his” Freedmen that Governor Reed had no blacks in his administration. Clearly, the Governor was not their true friend. That made it easy to convince enough Freedmen in the Florida house of Representatives to impeach Governor Reed on trumped up charges. The house Democrats were, of course, happy to depose any Republican governor, for whatever reason. But when the case was then transferred for trial to the Senate, presided over by Lt. Governor Gleason, things got really interesting.

Senate Democrats chose this moment to throw a tantrum and were refusing to take their seats. Without a quorum, Gleason simply graveled the senate adjourned. And then, since Governor Reed was under a charge of impeachment, Gleason declared himself Governor. It seemed a perfectly obvious solution, at least to Mr. Gleason and Mr. Osborn, and to Secretary of State George Alden, who slipped into the Governor's offices in the state capital (above) and stole the official Florida state seal.  Gleason could now issue proclamations and instructions to state employees with the official stamp of approval.

But now Governor Reed and his ideological Republicans finally woke up to his perilous situation and took bold action. On 6 November, 1868,  he fired Alden. The Secretary of State was an appointed office, and the Governor could do that. Better yet, Reed replaced his disloyal man with John C. Gibbs (above), a carpetbagging African-American,  and well qualified for the post. Reed now had an African-American in this cabinet. Alden was so stunned he actually showed up at his old office in the state house, to watch his replacement being sworn in. When Freedmen blocked his way, Alden whined that “All of us are true Republicans, my colored friends.” But this time the Freedmen were not buying it, and Alden slunk away. Now with Freedman support, on Saturday, 7 November, Reed issued a new memo addressed to Gleason. “I am, under the Constitution and laws of this State, the rightful Governor thereof, and shall continue to exercise the power and authority, and discharge all of the duties belonging to the office of the executive Department until the Judicial tribunals of the State shall determine otherwise.” Seal or no official seal, that sounded like a real Governor talking.

Observed a local newspaper, “Thus the matter stands...Governor  Reed occupying the executive chamber, and Johnathan C. Gibbs, occupying the Secretary of State's apartment in the state house, and Governor Gleason and Secretary Alden preforming their official duties at the city hotel.”  Then, on Monday, 9 November, the Attorney General filed a writ pro warranto with the State Supreme Court, alleging that Gleason had not been a resident of Florida for the two years required under the Florida constitution, and was thus ineligible for public office. This was true, but then everybody had known that before he was elected.  But because of a shortage of qualified Republican politicians, nobody had brought it up before. But Gleason had now made it worth the effort for Reed. Gleason felt required to respond, but he waited a week. On Monday, 16 November 1868, he issued yet another proclamation declaring Governor Reed was “Under arrest and disqualified” from preforming any official duties. Nobody but Gleason's business allies paid much attention to him or his memo.

A professional politician would have backed down, licked his wounds, apologized to Reed and hoped to fight again another day. Instead Gleason over-played his hand. He crossed Monroe street, and all alone, walked into Governor Reed's offices in the capital, removed his fancy beaver hat and sat down in the waiting room. He spoke to no one. He answered no questions. He made no statement. He delivered no ultimatum. He simply sat down on a chair in the waiting room, and...well, he just waited. It was a one man sit-in. Was he expecting Governor Reed and his staff to go home at five o'clock, leaving him to occupy the rooms?  Was he expecting them to all retreat from the building with their tails between their legs? Was he expecting that one of the assistant Attorneys General, one George Carese, would try to strangle him? Well, probably not. But that is what happened. Carese, who was on his way to speak to the Governor, spotted Gleason in the waiting room, and blew a gasket. Now, when Carese attacked, he may or may not have had a pistol in his right hand, but there is no doubt about the intent of his left hand, grasping for Gleason's throat.

Gleason came to the spontaneous conclusion that Carese meant to kill him. The beaver hat went flying in one direction, and Gleason went flying in the other, out the door, down the stairs and across the red mud of Monroe Street. He did not stop until he was safely ensconced again in his rooms in the City Hotel (above). After that everything was over except for the court cases, which all went against Gleason. On Tuesday, 24 November  Chief Justice Randall of the state Supreme Court, ruled that “without the actually-expressed consent of both houses, there has not been an effective impeachment and the suspension from official duties.” Gleason had been a little too anxious to adjourn the Senate. Oh, and Gleason was not qualified to be Lt. Governor, ruled Justice Randall. The amateur Gleason would appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but nobody was willing to help out yet another stupid politician who had cooked his own goose.

All of which left the ravenous Thomas Ward Osborn (above) hungry for revenge. And on 5 January, 1869, when the new session of the legislature convened, Osborn quickly reassembled his forces. The Freedmen could still be a dependable voting block,  but as Osborn himself had recently assured friends the Freedmen were smart enough to recognize their own self interest, and their price to do Osborn's bidding had gone up.  Also Osborn worked hard to cultivate the dozen or so white southern Democrats who willing to work with carpetbaggers -  meaning to be bought.  Osborn took several rooms at the City Hotel, and there entertained the pliable legislators.  A Democrat observed the gathering and wrote, “The poorest and the most shabby carpetbagger could be seen drinking the sparkling champagne and wearing fine beavers”  The House Democrats again voted with Osborn, and Reed was again impeached on trumped up charges, by a vote of 30 to 5.  Representatives of Osborn warned the governor that if he did not resign within 24 hours the entire legislature would surely vote to convict him.

However, by the time the legislature started considering the trial, Reed's allies had spread details of the goings on at the City Hotel, and they were being reported in the local Florida newspapers. The Representatives started getting nasty telegrams and letters from the voters. The politicians responded by opening an official investigation of the bribery and vote buying. The Osborn faction suddenly had to start spending more time covering their own tracks. And on Tuesday, 26 January 1869, both house voted down Reed's second impeachment, 43 to 5.

The Republican Party was losing what little respect it had with white voters in Florida, and pressure from Washington convinced the rapacious Republican to publicly swear fidelity to Governor Reed. But in private Osborn plotted and planned. And two years later, in February of 1872, the Republicans did it all again. Reed was once again impeached by the house, and his Lt. Governor, now an opportunist named Samuel Day, waited until the impeachment trial had begun before adjourning the legislature, and declaring himself Governor.

Then, amazingly, Day left town along with the other conspirators. Quickly, Reed was back in Tallahassee, and announced that he was re-assuming the role of Governor. Once again the issue went before the state Supreme Court. But this time Chief Justice Randall sided with the opposition. The trial had started, said Randall, and Reed was out as governor, at least until it was completed. However, added Justice Randall, Lt. Governor Day was “in no sense” the new Governor.  The weary Governor Reed (above) later wrote to a friend, “I have not suffered for four years, to now be willing to see my glorious work overthrown and freedom cheated of her triumphs”. It was debatable just how glorious Reed's work was, but that is another story.

As a disgusted Democrat observed, “This gypsy politics degrades the character of all who are concerned.” And it certainly degraded the Republican party. Public disgust drove the legislature back to work just a month later, and on 4 May, 1872, Justice Randall, who had presided over the trial, could inform Reed that he had been cleared of all charges, by a vote of 29 to 21.  In January of 1873 Reed finished his 4 year term as Governor, during which he had been impeached 3 times and cleared 3 times.  Reed The Carpetbagger stayed on in Florida, living outside of Jacksonville with his new wife, until his death in 1899.

The Jim Crow era in Florida began with the end of Reconstruction in 1877.  In 1881 it became illegal in Florida for a white to marry a negro,  in 1885 for white and "colored" children to be educated in the same building. Another African-American would not be elected to the Florida legislature until 1968 - Joe Lang Kershaw from Dade County.  And still, the voters of Florida seem incapable of learning the lesson that refusal to compromise, about race, sex, language or religion, leads to nothing but drama. And not even good drama.

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THE FIRST DAY Chapter Sixteen

I know that two years of campaigning had hardened private Marcellus Jones to the small discomforts, like sleeping through the night in “a drenching rain”, under a wet woolen blanket, with only his McClellan saddle as a pillow. But it took a toll, and an officer now, at 31,  his body was beginning to protest the mornings after. He spent last night of June indoors, in the tavern on Herr's Ridge.  Waking just before dawn, to drizzle and fog, he rode forward to check the 35 men scattered in skirmish positions along McPherson's Ridge. But Marcellus found himself hungry for the warmth of comradeship - and coffee. So after making certain that Privates Kelly, Hale, Heim and Dodge stationed in front of the blacksmith's house,  were alert and ready, and sending Sargent George Shafer to check with the New York and Hoosier boys on the flanks, Second Lieutenant Marcellus Jones then trotted his horse 300 yards down the Chambersburg Pike across the Willow Run bridge and then another 300 yards up to the company headquarters in the tavern on McPherson's Ridge.

Marcellus Jones (above) was proof that American lives do indeed have second acts, and even thirds. At 17 the blue eyed 5'7” seventh child of a Vermont wagon maker worked his way across upstate New York and Ohio as a carpenter. By 1854 he had established his own factory in the Wolf River village of Weyauwega, in Wisconsin territory . He met with success and on 1 May, 1856 he married Sara Reese. Then, two years later, the factory burned down leaving him $4,000 in debt, and soon after Sara died in childbirth. Marcellus was not yet 30.

Seventy-six year old Fredrick Herr had bought his two story brick tavern at a sheriff's sale, 35 years earlier, expecting the Chambersburg Pike to bring business to his door. But Herr was forced to rent his basement to an unsavery fellow named “Louie The Robber”, who shaved the silver off silver dollars. And he rented the second floor to prostitutes. But, Louie was arrested, Fredrick lost his liquor license, and the upstairs ladies moved on. By the time Marcellus scrapped the mud off his boots on the front steps, the tavern was up for sale again. Inside, Lieutenant Jones was greeted by his friend and E company's commander, Captain Elishas Kelly. The familiarity and the coffee were free, but Marcellus had to pay Mrs. Herr's  hot biscuits.

After Sara's death, Marcellus had made a new life for himself -  as a builder in Danby, Illinois. He became a respected member of the local Republican party. In the spring of 1860, after Lincoln called for Volunteers to defend the union, Marcellus joined with his friend Elishas, fellow builder William Gamble and Congressman John Farnsworth in forming the 8th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry, also known as “Farnsworth's Big Abolitionist Regiment”  When offered an officers ' commission Marcellus said he wanted to learn the trade as a private. And thus began Marcellus Jones' third life, as a trooper in the federal Army of the Potomac.

Marcellus had just bitten into his breakfast when Private George Heim came pounding up the steps. He announced that Sargent Shafer (above) needed the lieutenant at the picket post at once. Stuffing the half eaten biscuit into his blouse, Jones ran for the door, while Kelly sent the regiment's battle cry of “Tally Ho” after him.  Somebody looked at their watch. It was just twenty after seven in the morning. Marcellus mounted his horse, and then he and Heim splashed through puddles at a gallop, back over the Willow Run bridge.

The infantry were fond of saying they never saw a dead cavalryman. In fact private Marcellus Jones and the Illinois 8th were in constant contact with J.E.B. Stuart's rebel cavalry, probing for weaknesses and information, studying the bloody trade for “twenty long, weary months”, back and forth across “the God-forsaken soils of old Virginia.”  But they learned. And on Tuesday, 9 June. 1863, the union First Cavalry Division (including the 500 men of the 8th Illinois) surprised and embarrassed Stuart at Brandy Station, Virginia.  At the end of June, at  Hanover, Pennsylvania, union cavalry even shoved Stuart aside, leaving Robert E. Lee's advancing rebel Army of Northern Virginia groping in the dark.  That same day the 8th was assigned to picket the Monterey Pass road into Fountaindale, Pennyslvania.  Ringing in their ears was the prediction of their craggy Division commander, General John Buford: “Within forty-eight hours a great battle will take place on a field within view.”

As they approached the crest, where the Knoxlyn Road ran into the Chambersburg Pike, Lt. Jones and Pvt. Heim pulled up their horses in front of the two story brick home of blacksmith Epharaim Wisler and his family (above). Handing their reins to private Dodge, Hiem and Jones joined Sgt. Shafer behind the split rail and stone fence (above, mid-distance center) along the crest.  The Sargent handed Jones a spyglass, and explained, “There's that old familiar flag.”  Seven hundred yards down the gentle western slope, Marcellus could make out the indistinct form of men in column on the Chambersburg Pike. And they were coming directly at him.

The third corps of the Army of Northern Virginia had crossed the Potomac River beginning on Tuesday, 23 June, but despite outward appearances this was not an invasion. It was a 76,000 man foraging expedition, each disconnected part searching for supplies no longer available in war ravaged Virginia. On Friday, June 26th a brigade of rebels under Major General Jubal Early had entered Gettysburg  via the Chambersburg Pike (above), frightened off some Pennsylvania militia and confiscated 2,000 rations from railroad cars. But the next morning the rebels had to move on, looking to feed and clothe themselves for another day. When Buford's cavalry trotted into Gettysburg four days later, there were no rebels present, and the union First Cavalry division had now inserted itself into the very middle of the disjointed Confederate army.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jones realized Sargent Shafer had lifted his Spencer carbine to his shoulder. Marcellus knew the carbine had no chance of hitting anything over 150 yards, and the Marsh Creek Bridge was about 700 yards away. But the sound of the shot would carry back to Herr's tavern at 640 miles an hour, and from there word would quickly be sent up the chain of command - Rebel soldiers are coming down the Chambersburg Pike. And just as quickly it would tell the rebels they were facing armed men. Without cavalry, the enemy infantry would have to deploy, and probe, slowing their advance to a crawl. Marcellus Jones held out his arm. He told the sergeant, “'Hold on, George. Give me the honor of opening the ball.” Reluctantly Sargent Shafer handed over his carbine.

Laying the weapon in a crook of the rail fence, Lieutenant  Jones aimed at what he took to be “an officer on a white or light gray horse”, just beyond the Marsh Creek bridge. The troops in column were 105 Alabama rebels under Colonel Birkett Davenport Fry, lead element of General James Pettigrew's brigade, advance party for Major General Henry Heth's 7,500 man division.  Needing shoes for his men, Heath had come down this road foraging for shoes. Without cavalry, Heth had no way of knowing his own third corps had learned four days earlier there were no shoes in Gettysburg. But when Lieutenant. Marcellus Jones pulled the trigger on the Spencer, the CRACK snapped everyone to attention. And Marcellus' second shot confirmed the shock.

Expecting they were faced by untrained militia, Fry's rebels rushed across the Marsh Creek bridge and spread out in a skirmish line on either side of the Chambersburg Pike. That took twenty minutes. When they then advanced, they were forced back by rapid fire from the 35 breech loading Spencers of Jones' concentrated skirmish line.  In the pause that followed, Epharaim Wisler stepped out of his house to judge if his family was in greater danger staying or running. As he stood in the middle of the Pike, two Parrot guns from Willie Pegram's rebel battery fired at the ridge line, expecting the militia there to scatter and run.

The first shell was long, but the second was right on target. Wisler (above) saw it leave the gun 1,000 yards beyond Marsh Creek, watched mesmerized as it sailed directly at him, and saw it plow into the road ten yards in front of him. The concussion knocked Epharaim down, and showered him with broken earth and stones. The 31 year old farmer, blacksmith, husband and father of two young boys was physically uninjured. His scars were emotional. He staggered to his feet and back into his house. He took to his bed and never left it until he died a month later. He was the first casualty of the coming apocalypse.

When the reinforced rebel infantry advanced again, an hour later, they were met by 275 veterans under William Gamble. The federals did not run even though outnumbered, but kept up their rapid fire . Again the rebels were thrown back. More rebel artillery was brought forward. More rebel infantry was thrown into line. Another hour was bought, while the First Cavalry division was concentrated, and federal infantry marched closer. 

This time, as the rebels advanced in greater numbers, they met Union infantry under General James Reynolds, who slammed into the rebel lines and threw them back. And after McPherson's ridge would come Seminary Ridge, and then Missionary Ridge and Cemetery Hill and ridge, Culps Hill and Little Round Top.

Over the next three days some 7,863 men would be killed outright, 14,146 would be wounded, and another 11,199 men would be taken prisoner or reported missing from their units. It was the greatest single man-made disaster to have ever happened in North America. It was the Battle of Gettysburg. And it all began with the first shot that hit nothing, fired by Lt. Marcellus Jones at about 7:30 in the morning of Wednesday, 1July, 1863. The battle had begun

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