I have a couple of ideas on what to look into for a “Little Odd Histories” post. I imagine that they need to be small and odd, and not well known, or known at all. One idea is to describe the players in the pardon of an attempted murderer in 1916 by a California Governor and Presidential candidate. Another is to present the evidence that a fort the Union Generals thought was built by the Union Army was really built by the Confederates—this misconception contributed to a Union defeat. Another might be the rise and fall of the memorialization of the Confederate James Jackson an example of how one gets written in and out of history. And last, for now, were the Confederates so out of ammunition on the third day at Gettysburg that they were reduced to using nails as ammunition. The difficulty with the task is that in the end, nothing is small. In The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb related the attempt of a novelist to describe everything that happened on one street corner in Paris at one point in time and failed. Too much to describe.
In the murderer example, the crime was committed in Santa Rosa California in 1910. The trial took all of 1911. The San Quentin prison term of ten years started in 1912. In the story, we have a gold mine, an illegitimate child, a flight to Japan and forcible return of a key witness, and a mysterious woman who attempts to bribe. The conviction. The immediate appeal and its denial. A campaign for pardon starting with the collapse of the appeal. Around it all is the political life of the initial defense attorney who becomes the Progressive Republican Governor of California, a Presidential candidate, and to this day the state’s longest-serving senator. And his opponent, the Santa Rosa district attorney, who becomes to this day the longest-serving Democratic Congressman. The sources here are deep and wide. The question becomes how to focus, what to bring in, and what to leave out.
Alternatively, the fort that I claim was built by the Confederates as the result of a cavalry battle in June of 1864 has little direct source material. What was written about the fortification was written long after the battle. To support my claim requires an understanding of the battle, and the fort’s strategic, operational, and tactical situation. Reference is needed to contemporary maps. A lot to cover to get to support the “Odd” point.
Concerning “Odd”, the idea of tone and seriousness comes into play as does the need to make it readable by a general audience. If I did what happened with the attempted murder, I could take a somewhat playful tone and pursue a line of inquiry that goes: How to get rich? How to get rid of embarrassing claimants to one’s riches? How to blame the victim? How to bribe the victim? How to get rid of the witness? How to position the court battle for success? How to appeal? How to get your friends to get you a pardon? How to outlive them? Each question answered with all. a short paragraph and with an accompanying artifact. The other ideas could be addressed with like questions. The challenge is how to keep it accurate, succinct and interesting.
