Good ol' government java
Honestly I think I need a few cups of this to get back in gear.
We’re going to do a “modified low power mode” for two or three more days to give me time to regroup and launch some cool things over the next few weeks.
When I ran a few “best of” columns last week, we got some of the best replies and feedback, and I have a few others I’m excited to share. However, I’ll keep the “7 other things” section updated.
Of course, the big news that I’ve been following over the last 24+ hours is about the death of Pope Francis, may he rest in peace. More on that below.
Also, this is just kind of funny: Yesterday’s Understandably newsletter was a mistake! I’d assembled it and programmed it in case my flight home was delayed or something after Easter, but then forgot to unschedule it.
So, if you subscribe both here and at Big Optimism, you got two newsletters yesterday.
Notorious hotels
In 1901, a man named William Crossley, who was then in his early 60s and who had a dry wit and a way with words, addressed the Rhode Island Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society.
The topic: a first-hand account of his experience as a Union soldier during the Civil War, serving only 46 days before being wounded and captured by the Confederates.
Crossley then spent 300 days as a prisoner before he was exchanged. (Then, he went back into combat, fighting in seven other battles between 1862 and 1864.)
Still later, Crossley turned his talk—which was based on his war diary—into a short book. Google helpfully scanned it more than 100 years later.
The title gives you a sense of Crossley’s sense of humor: Extracts From My Diary and My Experiences, While Boarding With Jefferson Davis In Three of His Notorious Hotels.
The Civil War started in April 1861. Crossley joined the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry Volunteers in May, was mustered into federal service in June, and was promoted to sergeant and then fought at the first Battle of Bull Run on July 21—becoming a “guest of the Confederacy” literally the following day.
His time in captivity was tough, but if you’ve heard of the notorious Andersonville camp, it wasn’t quite that bad. For one thing, he was a POW two years before that camp opened, and for another he was eventually paroled—which wasn’t really an option later.
(When the Union formed Black units, the Confederates refused to trade Black soldiers for White ones. So soldiers who were captured later were mostly stuck in captivity until the end of the war.)
Crossley writes that he was 21 when he was captured, but he explains in the diary-turned-speech-turned-book that he quickly learned to tell the guards he was just 17, so he’d get better treatment. Other excerpts:
Monday, July 22, 1861.
“Well, here I am, a prisoner of war, a lamb surrounded by wolves, just because I obeyed orders, went into a fight, and, by Queensbury Rules, was punctured below the belt [by which Crossley meant he was shot in his thigh]. So much for trying to be good.”
For the next few weeks, he records two things: what he ate for dinner, and the names of people who died. Examples…
July 27th.
“No bread to-day, only gruel. McCann, of Newport, died.”
And…
July 28th.
Major Ballou died this p.m. Gruel for supper, with a fierce tempest.
Here’s one more, since today would be the anniversary, August 26:
“Light breakfast, no dinner and small supper. The front of my stomach and my spinal column seem to be about three-quarters of an inch apart now.”
Eventually, Crossley and his fellow soldiers were carted all over the South by their captors. A dark sarcasm develops—describing a bleak existence, but with enough wry humor to make the reader forget just how bleak the surroundings actually are.
“Next morning, taken upstairs, and ‘bless my stars,’ put on cots, and given bread and coffee for breakfast.
What was the coffee made of, do you ask? I don’t know, and, as you didn’t have to drink it, it need not concern you; and we had soup for dinner, and it’s none of your affairs what that was made of either.”
Finally, this passage—which comes from just after Crossley’s release, when he and his surviving fellow soldiers have been turned over to the Union Army in North Carolina, and are beginning their way home—and which was excerpted briefly in a New York Times article about soldiers and coffee a few years ago, and which led me to the diary to begin with:
“Coffee, soup and crackers for supper. Oh! but wasn’t that coffee rich?
And can I ever forgive those Confederate thieves for robbing me of so many precious doses; just think of it, in three hundred days there was lost to me, forever, so many hundred pots of good old Government Java. …
Though I have been taught to forgive, seventy times seven is a good many, and it’s a long way back to last July. …”
When I first shared this story more than five years ago, I wasn’t able to find out anything about what happened to Crossley after his 1901 speech. But, a reader with an interest in genealogy came to the rescue with this summary:
Short version: William J. Crossley, who was born in Manchester, England, came to the United States as a child in 1842. After his Civil War service, he came home to Rhode Island, worked as a grocer, was married for 45 years and had five children.
In retirement, he and his wife moved from Rhode Island to Pasadena; after his first wife’s death, he remarried at age 73. Crossley died in 1929, at age 90. A pretty full life!
If you’re like me and you can get lost in this kind of obscure, old account, here’s a link to the whole thing (plus quite a few other accounts).
May none of us ever have a similar experience!
7 other things worth knowing today
Pope Francis, 88, a humble reformer who sought to make the Catholic Church more inclusive much to the ire of some conservatives, has died, the Vatican announced Easter Monday. The pope's death comes one day after a frail but determined Francis greeted thousands in St. Peter's Square after Easter Mass in his open-air popemobile − and just weeks after an extended hospital stay in which he battled bilateral pneumonia and other health issues. (USA Today)
Diplomats, theologians, mediators and Vatican insiders: Here are 15 cardinals who are among the potential favorites to become the next pope, known as the "papabili." This list is by no means exhaustive and Francis's successor could well be someone else. (AFP)
The White House has been hearing out a chorus of ideas for persuading Americans to get married and have more children. Proposals include reserving 30% of scholarships for the Fulbright program for applicants who are married or have children, giving a $5,000 cash “baby bonus” to every American mother after delivery, and funding programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles — in part so they can better understand when they are ovulating and able to conceive. (The New York Times)
Drones pose increasing a risk to airliners near major US airports. “If you have the money, you can go on the internet and buy a pretty sophisticated drone that can reach altitudes they really have no business being at,” said William Waldock, a professor of safety science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. (Associated Press)
A Korean woman who was adopted by an American family at 3 weeks old grew up in the U.S. and believed she was a U.S. citizen. Then, in her 40s, she applied for a passport -- and found out she's part of an unfortunate loophole from a citizenship law passed in the year 2000. (NPR)
Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won’t give their digital lives back. Some victims are taking Apple to court to reclaim years of personal data. (The Washington Post)
International shipping company DHL is temporarily suspending packages bound for consumers in the U.S. that are valued at over $800 “until further notice,” after the company was hit with a surge in formal customs clearances due to new tariff changes, which added the need for additional paperwork for more packages. (The Verge)
War stories are always good reminders of how soft we have gotten. That gentleman had a very interesting life. His writing kind of reminded me of my dad’s journal. He grew up on the Prairies in the 1930’s, and a lot of the entries were “saw a train today.”
Never give the pope much thought, always thought it was just another old boys club trying to tell women how they should live their lives. Organized religion has caused more wars than it ever ended.
And the Apple story is another reason I have Google devices. I have to use a Mac at work and it’s so backwards.
I like true stories about people who overcame tough circumstances. I’ve downloaded the book. Thanks!