Archive for December, 2006

William Howard Taft started the tra­di­tion of the Pres­i­den­tial “first pitch” of base­ball sea­son. The event took place on April 4, 1910, dur­ing an open­ing day game between the Wash­ing­ton Sen­a­tors and the Philadel­phia Athletics.

Since Taft’s first pitch¹, every Pres­i­dent but one has opened at least one base­ball sea­son dur­ing their tenure. The excep­tion: Jimmy Carter. Maybe he just didn’t like baseball.

1. See Wikipedia for a com­plete list. [↩]

Mica­jah Autry¹had made his choice. Once he’d entered the Alamo his fate had pretty much been sealed. Out­num­bered and out­gunned, he and the band of rebels that occu­pied the mis­sion were wait­ing for the inevitable attack they knew would come.

He had vol­un­teered for mili­tia duty dur­ing the War of 1812 and, fol­low­ing the war, had prac­ticed law in Jack­son, Tenn. While on a busi­ness trip to New York City and Philadel­phia he heard about land oppor­tu­ni­ties in the new ter­ri­tory of Texas. Deter­mined to make an even bet­ter life for his wife and chil­dren he set off in 1835 aboard a steam­boat from Nashville.

Once there he joined up with the rebels fight­ing the forces of Anto­nio López de Santa Anna. On Jan­u­ary 13, 1836 while in Nacog­doches he enlisted in the Vol­un­teer Aux­il­iary Corps of Texas under the com­mand of Capt. William B. Har­ri­son. He and oth­ers, includ­ing Davy Crock­ett, set out for Washington-on-the-Brazos. He arrived in San Anto­nio de Bexar (soon to be San Anto­nio) with his com­pany on Feb­ru­ary 9 and joined the Alamo gar­ri­son under the com­mand of Lt. Col. William Bar­rett Travis.

But one thing made Autry stand out; he was an expert marks­man. Because of his skill with a long rifle he was cho­sen by his com­pany to attempt to elim­i­nate Santa Anna, who often walked out in the open across the grounds near the Mex­i­can bat­tle lines. Whether out of arro­gance or clue­less­ness he didn’t seem to under­stand that a sniper might try to take a shot at him.

Dur­ing one such walk by the Mex­i­can dic­ta­tor, Autry raised his long rifle and took aim as his com­pa­tri­ots looked on, and fired. In that moment, the his­tory of Texas and Mex­ico might have been changed, but either because of ner­vous ten­sion or the great dis­tance to the tar­get, Autry’s bul­let went wild and Santa Anna scram­bled for cover. After a siege last­ing 13 days, Autry fell with his com­rades at the stock­ade near the chapel, over­whelmed by the Mex­i­can troops.

1. From The Hand­book of Texas Online. [↩]

Nixon speech writer William Safire wrote a pro­posed speech in the event that dis­as­ter struck the Apollo 11 lunar lan­der¹ and Neil Arm­strong and Buzz Aldrin couldn’t get off of the Moon and return to Earth. It’s kind of creepy to think of it in a “what if” kind of way. For­tu­nately it didn’t have to be used, but some­thing very sim­i­lar could have been writ­ten if the Apollo 13 ordeal had ended on a less than uplift­ing note.

To: H. R. Haldeman

From: Bill Safire

July 18, 1969.

IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Arm­strong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recov­ery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are lay­ing down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their fam­i­lies and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the peo­ple of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their explo­ration, they stirred the peo­ple of the world to feel as one; in their sac­ri­fice, they bind more tightly the broth­er­hood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the con­stel­la­tions. In mod­ern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Oth­ers will fol­low, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the fore­most in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some cor­ner of another world that is for­ever mankind.

PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT:

The Pres­i­dent should tele­phone each of the widows-to-be.

AFTER THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN:

A cler­gy­man should adopt the same pro­ce­dure as a bur­ial at sea, com­mend­ing their souls to “the deep­est of the deep,” con­clud­ing with the Lord’s Prayer.

1. You can see the orig­i­nal doc­u­ments at The Smok­ing Gun. [↩]

For 11 days in April of 1836, the cap­i­tal of Texas was the steam­boat Cayuga.

The 80-ton side-wheeler had been haul­ing cargo on the Bra­zos River dur­ing 1834 and 1835. After their vic­tory at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, Mex­i­can Gen. Anto­nio López de Santa Anna and his troops began mov­ing toward Har­ris­burg (today it’s a part of Hous­ton), pur­su­ing the Texas rebels. In early April, David G. Bur­net, the interim pres­i­dent of the new repub­lic, impressed the Cayuga into pub­lic ser­vice to trans­port pro­vi­sions to the Texas army. On April 15, Bur­net and his cab­i­net boarded the Cayuga just ahead of the advanc­ing Mex­i­can army. The steam­boat made stops at Lynch’s Ferry and New Wash­ing­ton, in the vicin­ity of today’s Morgan’s Point in Har­ris County, then pro­ceeded to Anahuac and Galve­ston with the offi­cials, who con­ducted the republic’s busi­ness as they went. The offi­cials went ashore at Galve­ston on April 26, then moved to a suc­ces­sion of loca­tions before finally set­tling in Jan­u­ary 1839 in the new cap­i­tal at Water­loo, which soon was renamed Austin.