Stupid American History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Read online

  Colonel Leonard Wood, not Roosevelt, was actually in command of the charge on Kettle Hill. After the battle the “Rough Riders” renamed themselves “Wood’s Weary Walkers.”

  WHAT’S IN A NAME?

  Ulysses Simpson Grant was born in 1822 to Jesse and Hanna Grant. Actually, Jesse and Hanna Grant did have a baby boy but, when they finally named him a month later, they called him Hiram Ulysses Grant: Hiram for his grandfather and Ulysses for the Greek hero. When Hiram joined the U.S. Military Academy, his congressman incorrectly listed him as Ulysses Simpson Grant. Grant, who always disliked his name because his initials spelled H.U.G., decided to keep his newly appointed name. He never adopted it formally but used it as his own for the rest of his life.

  THE SLAVERY BILL

  A lot of revisionists [people who want to rewrite history to make it politically correct] have torn into President Thomas Jefferson because he owned slaves. Some have even gone so far as to suggest removing his picture from the $2 bill [yes, there is a $2 bill]. But if we’re going to be consistent, we’re going to be short a lot of money. There have been nine other presidents who also owned slaves: Washington [on the quarter and the $1 bill], Andrew Jackson [$20 bill], and Ulysses S. Grant [$50 bill]. The other presidents—James Madison, James Monroe, John Tyler, James Knox Polk, Zachary Taylor, and Andrew Johnson—owned slaves, but they aren’t on U.S. currency.

  THE PRESIDENTIAL LOOK

  When Gerald Ford was chosen by Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew, many people wondered, “Who is this guy? What’s he done before?” Well, among other things as a young man, Gerald Ford appeared in a 1939 edition of Look magazine with his girlfriend Phyllis Brown. It was an article about a weekend in the life of the “beautiful people.” He later appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan. Seems to make him as qualified to be president as nearly anyone else.

  GRIN AND BEAR IT

  At the Battle of Vicksburg during the Civil War, a servant girl accidentally poured out a basin containing Ulysses S. Grant’s false teeth into the Mississippi River. He was unable to eat solid food for a week until a dentist came and made him a new set of choppers.

  Julia Ward Howe [1819–1910] sold her poem, Battle Hymn of the Republic, which later was set to music, to the Atlantic Monthly in 1862 for $5.

  BRAND NAMES

  Most people are stuck with the name they are given at birth unless they legally change it. However, in the history of the United States, there have been five presidents who altered their name—just a little. Grover Cleveland’s real name was Stephen Grover Cleveland [which has a nice ring to it], but he decided to drop his first name, as did Thomas Woodrow Wilson and John Calvin Coolidge. Dwight David Eisenhower’s real name was David Dwight Eisenhower; he didn’t like the order and reversed his first and middle name.

  There are four presidents who are known by their initials: Franklin Delano Roosevelt [FDR], John Fitzgerald Kennedy [JFK], Lyndon Baines Johnson [LBJ], and Theodore Roosevelt, who hated the nickname “Teddy” and preferred “TR” instead.

  JOHNNY REBEL

  John Tyler wasn’t honored after his death on January 18, 1862, and no official word of his death was ever issued. Why? Because Tyler was considered a traitor in the North even though he had been president of the United States. On May 5, 1861, Tyler accepted a seat in the provisional congress of the Confederate States of America. A few months later, he was elected to represent his congressional district in the permanent C.S.A. Congress. Tyler was truly a rebel and the only president to ever hold office in the Confederacy. When he died, he even had the Confederate flag, not the American flag, draped over his casket. It wasn’t until 1915, fifty years after the Civil War ended, that the United States finally erected a memorial stone over his grave.

  THE GOOD OLE DAYS—PART II

  Here are more verbatim excerpts from the Historical Summary of Conduct Cases in the House of Representatives by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Makes modern congressmen seem like pussycats.

  Representative William J. Graves [KY] and Representative Henry Wise [VA], Breach of the privileges of the House Representative Graves killed Representative Jonathan Cilley [ME] in a duel over words spoken in debate; Representative Wise acted as a second [Feb. 24, 1838].

  Representative Philemon Herbert [CA], [1856]

  Arrested for manslaughter [May 8, 1856]; imprisoned prior to trial; acquitted [July 1856].

  Representative Lovell H. Rousseau [KY] [1866]

  Assaulted Representative Josiah Grinnell [IA] with a cane outside the Capitol for alleged insult spoken in debate [June 14, 1866].

  BUT DO YOU HAVE A RECORD OF IT?

  Thomas Edison worked on the ground floor of a telegraph company that used to be a restaurant and was literally crawling with cockroaches. The roaches, he said, would crawl out of the walls and up on his table while he was writing telegraphs. So he used his inventive mind and created a roach zapper. He placed a piece of tin foil on the ground and hooked it up to a “big battery supply current to the wires,” so when the cockroach scampered across it “there was a flash of light and the cockroach went into gas.”

  KEEP YOUR TRAP SHUT

  Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet who is continuously quoted as saying that if you build a better mousetrap “The world will beat a path to your door.” The genesis of that idea is contained in a journal entry written in 1855: “If a man can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house…” But nothing about mousetraps. Scholars have scoured Emerson’s writings and have concluded that he never wrote anything about mousetraps. Apparently, Sarah Yule and Mary Keene, in a book published in 1889 [seven years after Emerson’s death], decided that the list of things for which a man can earn public attention wouldn’t be complete without a mousetrap, so they just threw that one in.

  BUT WHO’S COUNTING?

  When the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920, women were finally given the right to vote. Sounds pretty cut and dry, but of course, history is anything but cut and dry. During various times throughout American history, some women already had the right to vote, such as in local elections during colonial times in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. And between 1776 and 1807, women who were worth at least 50 pounds had the right to vote in New Jersey. In 1869, the Territory of Wyoming granted women voting rights in all elections, the Territory of Utah followed in 1870, and in 1883, so did the Territory of Washington. By the time the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, women already had the vote in fifteen of the forty-eight states.

  WHILE MARTIN VAN BUREN WAS VICE PRESIDENT UNDER

  ANDREW JACKSON, HE ROUTINELY PRESIDED OVER THE

  SENATE WEARING A PAIR OF LOADED PISTOLS.

  RUN OUT ON A RAIL

  Abraham Lincoln’s life is so steeped in myth, fiction, and legend that it’s difficult to know what to believe. Like this oft-quoted pro-tariff statement attributed to him: “I do not know much about the tariff, but I know this much, when we buy manufactured goods abroad, we get the goods and the manufacturer gets the money. When we buy manufactured goods at home, we get both the goods and the money. When an American paid $20 for steel rails to an English manufacturer, America had the steel and England the $20. But when he paid $20 for the steel to an American manufacturer, America had both the steel and the $20.” This one is easy to disprove. The reason Lincoln couldn’t have said it was that he died before the first steel rails were brought into, or manufactured in, the United States.

  DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

  It is widely believed that most colonists wanted freedom from the tyranny of Great Britain and that there were few “loyalists,” or people who remained loyal to the crown. That’s simply not the case. In fact, there were a great number of loyalists who fought against the patriots. For example, in 1780 there were 9,000 patriots in Washington’s army while 8,000 loyalists served in th
e British Army.

  ALWAYS ON THE WINNING SIDE

  What is now Jackson, New Hampshire, was originally known as New Madbury, New Hampshire. The town changed its name in 1800 to Adams to honor the election of President John Adams. But in 1829, when John Adams’s son John Quincy Adams lost the election to Andrew Jackson, the town changed its name to Jackson, New Hampshire.

  IN NOVEMBER 1939 DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION,

  FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT ORDERED THAT THANKSGIVING BE

  CELEBRATED ONE WEEK EARLIER THAN USUAL, THEREBY

  EXTENDING THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING SEASON.

  KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES

  Revolutionary hero John Paul Jones was actually born John Paul in 1747. He added the Jones part later. He is remembered for his bravery on the high seas and for supposedly remarking, “I’ve just begun to fight.” But what isn’t remembered about Jones is what he did after the Revolution. He left the United States, and in 1788 he became a well-paid mercenary in the service of Empress Catherine II of Russia. Once in her service, Jones once again took liberty with his name and changed from John Paul Jones to Pavel Dzhones.

  A JURY OF YOUR PEERS

  One would think that after women were given the right to vote in 1920, everything would be equal among the sexes. Far from it. As late as 1942, women only had the right to sit on a jury in twenty-eight states. It wasn’t until 1957 that they were guaranteed the right to sit on federal juries. In 1973 they were finally given the right to sit on all juries in all fifty states.

  When Jimmy Carter was the thirty-ninth president of the United States, he kissed England’s queen mother, Queen Elizabeth, on the lips. It was a shocking breach of etiquette that even obituary writers noted upon her death.

  BOSTON BEANS

  If there’s one thing that makes Americans stiffen with pride and justification, it’s the Boston Massacre. The idea of a group of fierce, armed British soldiers firing into a quivering, innocent group of patriots is beyond belief. And it should be, because it didn’t happen the way we’re led to believe. You see, it was the Americans who started the fight. The colonists were reacting to an incident earlier in the day. To protest the British presence in their town, a large angry mob estimated at between 300 and 400 people surrounded a small British garrison and threatened the troops with clubs and rocks. After Private Hugh Montgomery was struck with a club, he fired his weapon and other British soldiers followed suit. Five colonists were killed [three at the scene and two died later from their wounds], and six others were hurt.

  B4 BOSTON

  There were several less propagandized run-ins with the British before the Boston Massacre. A patriot in New York was wounded with a bayonet during a skirmish with British troops in 1766. Two years later, a Rhode Island man was killed in an argument with a British naval officer. And in New York in January 1770, there was a nasty battle between redcoats and patriots. The following month, during a patriot attack on the home of a Boston Tory, an eleven-year-old boy was killed.

  HELL OF A PARTY

  Another great event in the history of the United States is the infamous Boston Tea Party. You know the story. On December 16, 1773, a group of colonists, angry at paying higher taxes on their tea, dressed up like Indians and dumped crates of tea bricks belonging to the British East India Company into the Boston Harbor. Not sure why we’re so proud of an act of vandalism, but that’s beside the point. The point is, the Tea Act, which the colonists were supposedly angry about, actually reduced the duty on British tea imported to America. So why did they really revolt? Because once British tea was affordable, it would ruin America’s lucrative trade in black-market tea, because three-fourths of the tea sold in America was smuggled in by John Hancock. Now the whole idea of dressing up like Indians makes sense, doesn’t it?

  I GOT NO STRINGS TO HOLD ME DOWN

  Richard Nixon resigned his presidency after it was uncovered that he had ordered the break-in of the Democratic election headquarters at the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C. Years later, John Barrett, the first undercover officer to arrive on the scene, finally explained how the burglars had been apprehended. Apparently, the lookout stationed in the Howard Johnson Motel across the street did not see Barrett arrive because he was busy watching a movie on TV. The movie in question was the 1958 thriller Attack of the Puppet People.

  The Watergate burglars used tape to hold down a door’s spring-loaded lock mechanism so as not to be locked in. Their trick was noticed, however, because they applied the tape horizontally around the door rather than vertically along its edge.

  AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO

  Although used as a catalyst to initiate the war for independence, not everyone agreed with the actions perpetrated during the Boston Tea Party. In fact, Benjamin Franklin suggested the colonists should reimburse the East India Company for the destroyed tea. A New York merchant, Robert Murray, and three others visited Lord North and offered to pay for the losses, but the offer was turned down.

  A REAL STICKY SITUATION

  On an unusually warm January day in 1919, the fifty-foot-high tank at the Purity Distilling Company in Boston, Massachusetts, which contained more than 2 million gallons of steam-heated molasses, burst, sending a tidal wave of molasses into the streets. The wave, which reached fifteen feet, traveled at thirty-five miles an hour; it crushed trolley cars, swallowed trucks, horses, and carts, knocked buildings off their foundations, killed twenty-one people, and wounded 150 others. Finally, the molasses began to cool and congeal, and rescue teams arrived to help the survivors and find the victims. When the Red Cross workers arrived, they helped bandage the wounded and gave the survivors fresh hot coffee—sweetened with the molasses that still ran in the streets.

  FORGING ANOTHER MYTH

  Freezing, half-naked, half-starved soldiers leaving bloody footprints in the snow or shivering, huddled over a small fire—that’s what most of us think of when we hear about Valley Forge during the winter of 1777–1778. But studies by the National Park Service showed that nobody starved or froze to death, and morale was high. The men usually had plenty to eat as the camp was supplied each month with a million pounds of flour and a million pounds of meat and fish. The men didn’t live in the open but had constructed log houses that they described as “cozy and comfortable quarters.” Not to say that there wasn’t suffering or disease, but it wasn’t the horrible situation we’ve been led to believe. And who led us to believe this way? General George Washington himself. Wanting to make sure his men had the supplies they needed, he resorted to stretching the truth a little about their situation.

  The belief that some of the men went “naked” at Valley Forge results from misunderstanding the eighteenth-century use of the word. The term “naked” implied that the men did not wear proper clothing and were therefore considered unfit for duty, not that they had no clothes at all.

  THE CANE MUTINY

  Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts senator who was clubbed over the head with a cane by a South Carolina representative, has become part of Civil War mythology. The event did happen, and it did follow Sumner’s passionate speech on the “barbarism of slavery.” But was the attack so severe that it left Sumner virtually incapacitated for three years? According to David Donald’s Pulitzer prize—winning biography of Sumner, there is nothing in the senator’s medical record to explain why he couldn’t execute his duties. It’s assumed that Sumner suffered more psychological than physical harm from the attack.

  “ELEVATE THEM GUNS A LITTLE LOWER!”

  —President Andrew Jackson, in 1815, at the battle of Mobile, Alabama

  AFFORD THE TRUTH

  Henry Ford popularized both the automobile and the assembly line, but he was in no way responsible for their invention. The first automobile [non-gasoline powered] was the Puffing Devil, built and demonstrated by Richard Trevithick in 1801. Some suggest that Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot preceded Trevithick by more than thirty years, or even that Ferdinand Verbiest should be given credit for his steam-powered
car built in 1672. However, there’s no conclusive proof that either of these machines actually worked. The belief that Ford invented the moving assembly line is also an unwarranted claim. Ransom Olds [of Oldsmobile fame] patented the assembly line concept in 1901, and Ford implemented his assembly line in 1913.

  SPIRITS OF AMERICA

  After retiring from the presidency on March 4, 1797, George Washington returned home to Mount Vernon and started a new career as a producer of whiskey. He constructed a 2,250 square foot distillery that housed five copper stills, a boiler, and fifty mash tubs. It became one of the largest distilleries in America at the time. Two years after its construction, the distillery produced 11,000 gallons of corn and rye whiskey and fruit brandy.