The Terror Of Ugly Husbands

Earl "Buck" Van Dorn

       There are about as many conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn as there are surrounding the murder of President Abraham Lincoln. I believe this is what draws me to the murder of Van Dorn. Although, there are many theories, afterall, there were no actual witnesses to the murder, we can be at least ninety percent certain of what happened in Spring Hill, Tennessee on that May morning in 1863. 

       Earl Van Dorn was born on September 17, 1820 in Port Gibson, Mississippi. Earl, nicknamed "Buck" had two older sisters. His mother died while Buck was ten. Although, Earl Van Dorn had a brother two years younger than he was, his older sisters doted on him. The reason is not clear. Regardless, it seems that Earl "Buck" Van Dorn was a spoiled young man. 

       Van Dorn longed to be a soldier and because his mother had been the niece of Andrew Jackson's wife, he won an appointment to West Point. He would graduate there 52nd out of 56 cadets in the class of 1842. A year later he would marry an Alabama lady named Caroline Godbold. Together they would have two children. 

       In 1856, while stationed in Texas, Van Dorn would meet Martha Goodbread a laundress at his fort and together they would have three children. All this occurred while he was still married to Caroline Godbold. Remember, things like this didn't occur didn't this time period. 

       Van Dorn was known to be impulsive and highly emotional. He was about five feet, seven inches in height, well dressed, and handsome.

       During he Civil War, Van Dorn attained the rank of major general, yet he wasn't a very successfull commander until placed in command of cavalry in 1862. Making his headquarters in Spring Hill, Tennessee, he used an upstairs room in the home of Doctor Aaron White house named "White Hall." 

White Hall

       In April of 1863, Jessie McKissack Peters arrived at White Hall and asked Mrs. White if she could visit with General Van Dorn in private. Mrs. White replied that she would see. As she started for the staircase, Jessie brushed past her and announced that she would just introduce herself. She entered the bedroom upstairs that Van Dorn was using as his office and remained for over an hour. This greatly disturbed Mrs. White and when it occurred again three days later, Mrs. White had her husband ask the general to move his headquarters to another location. 

Ferguson Hall

       The general was only too happy to move his headquarters. The house he chose was called Ferguson Hall and it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that from Van Dorn's room, he could see Jessie' home across the field. One reporter had actually written that General Van Dorn was the terror of ugly husbands.

       In the meantime, Jessie's husband, Doctor George Peters, who had been attending his plantation in Arkansas for a year returned home and was greeted by ugly rumors in regard to his wife and General Van Dorn. This hadn't been the first time that Doctor Peters beautiful young wife had been involved in an extramarital affair. Doctor Peters was Jessie's first cousin and when they'd married, he was 44 years old and she was 20. They seem to have been married in an effort to keep the money in the family. 

       Not long after Doctor Peters returned home, General Van Dorn sent a message to Jessie by one of his couriers. Doctor Peters informed the courier to inform his "whiskey-headed master, General Van Dorn, I will blow his brains out..." One would think that this would end the affair, but not Earl Van Dorn. 

A drawing of Jessie Peters later in life

       Doctor Peters soon went to Nashville and upon returning learned that Van Dorn had spent every night of his absence at his home with Jessie. George Peters then planned a trip to Shelbyville, but returned to his home at 2:30 a.m. and caught General Van Dorn there in bed with his wife. Van Dorn was intoxicated and raced from the house and hid beneath the porch. Doctor Peters grabbed him by the hair of his head and dragged him from beneath the house. Holding a pistol to the general's head, Van Dorn began to plead for his life. Doctor Peters then told Van Dorn he would allow him to live if he would write out an admission of his guilt and also write a letter to his wife in Alabama admitting what he'd done. Van Dorn agreed to do this. 

       Two days later, Doctor Peters arrived at Ferguson Hall to see if Van Dorn had done what he'd agreed to the night before. He found Van Dorn had not written what he'd promised. He told Doctor Peters that he didn't love his wife and to write an admission to what had occurred would only harm the Confederate cause. Doctor Peters told Van Dorn he would give him thirty minutes to do as he'd promised the night before. George Peters then left Ferguson Hall, attended to some business and soon returned. 

       He found that Van Dorn was still refusing to write an admission of his guilt stating that it would harm his reputation. Doctor Peters replied, "You did not think so thirty hours ago when your life was in my hands. You were then ready to promise anything. Now you think I am in your power, and will do nothing; but, sir, if you don't comply with my demands, I will instantly blow your brains out."

       Van Dorn probably believed Doctor Peters would be too afraid to shoot him with his staff officers surrounding the house. If so, he was wrong. Van Dorn replied, "You damned cowardly dog, take that door, or I will kick you out of it."

       

Room where Van Dorn was killed

       Doctor Peters drew his pistol and shot Van Dorn in the back of the head, the bullet coming to rest behind his right eye. Doctor Peters then quickly left the residence and mounting his horse rode hard across the field to his home. There he gathered a few belongings and informed Jessie that he had killed General Van Dorn. He would eventually make his way to Federal lines. 

       A servant recalled Jessie standing in the doorway, hands on her hips as she watched her husband ride away, said, "Ain't that the devil, a sweetheart killed and a husband runs away in the same day."

       Van Dorn would never regain consciousness, dying about four hours later. He would eventually be buried beside his wife in Alabama. It is believed he had a letter in his possession from his wife that announced her intention to divorce him because of his adulterous ways. A few years later, his sister would have the general exhumed and buried beside their father in Port Gibson, Mississippi and many believe it is because of the contents of that letter. 

       Doctor George Peters would die in Memphis, Tennessee in 1889. As Jessie was dressing for the funeral, she said, "Well, I never cared much for George, but I guess I owe him this much." Jessie would survive until 1921. They both rest in unmarked graves in Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis Tennessee. Because of all their noteriety, their family chose not to mark their graves. 

       The story doesn't quite end here. Eight and half months after the death of Earl Van Dorn, Jessie would give birth to a baby girl which she named Medora Wharton Peters.
Was there in doubt as to who Medora's father is? Following the war, when Doctor Peters asked Jessie to return to his home, he instructed her not to bring that child. Ironically, it would be Medora who would care for Doctor Peters just before he died. 

       Historians still discuss the possibility that Jessie may have had an affair with Confederate Major General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham in 1864. We will probably never know for sure. 

The Curse of Ford's Theatre

       Ford's Theatre was constructed in 1833 to be used as the First Baptist Church of Washington. The building was used as a house of worship until 1861 when the First Baptist Church merged with another congregation and moved out. Many of the members of the church were dissatisfied that the building would be turned into a theatre which was considered a less than proper form of business at the time. Most third floor balconies were where prostitutes plied their trade in that day because of poor lighting in the theatre. Many former church members predicted a tragedy would accompany the use of a former place of worship being turned into such an unholy building. 

John T. Ford

       To John Ford's credit, he did all in his power to prevent prostitutes from plying their trade in his theatre, though the tragedy would still occur. In 1862, Ford would close the theatre and spend ten thousand dollars having it renovated by James Gifford and carpenter Ned Spangler. It opened as Ford's Atheneum and was considered extravagant with seating of 2500 people. Unfortunately, on December 30, 1862, a fire caused by a faulty gas meter destroyed the interior of the building. 

       Most would have called it quits there. John Ford had just lost twenty thousand dollars as a result of the fire. Ford immediately decided to rebuild. He would have James Gifford gut the building and start over. The rebuilt theatre would cost Mr. Ford seventy-five thousand dollars. The theatre would be even more extravagant than before. It would seat fewer patrons at 1,720, but provide greater comfort with the extra room. James Gifford had even consulted the Smithsonian Institution about ventilation and better acoustics to make it even better than before. 

       Of course, the tragedy the First Baptist Church had predicted occurred at Ford's Theatre in the eyes of most northerners on the night that Booth shot President Lincoln. Following the assassination, the Federal government paid Ford $88,000, some say $100,000 in compensation for the building and ordered that the place could never be used again as a place of entertainment. 

Interior of Ford's Theatre while being used by the Federal government

       Beginning in 1866, the building would be used to store government records for the war department, house the Army Medical Museum and serve as the Library of the Surgeon General's Office. By 1887, the building was being used to house clerks for the war department. On June 9, 1893, a forty foot section of the front of the building collapsed inward from the third floor throwing clerks and debris all the way to the basement. The casualty count was extreme, 22 employees were killed and another 65 were injured. The cause of the disaster was ruled to be the placing of too much weight on the floors and a building contractor who excavating beneath the pillars in the basement without proper supports in place. At this point, the curse story began to grow. Following the collapse, the building was closed. 

Views after the collapse of 1893

       The building would be used for storage by the Department of the Interior until turned over to the National Park Service in 1933. In 1955, congress authorized an engineering study to have the building reconstructed. The funds were approved and reconstruction began in 1964 and Ford's Theatre was reopened in 1968. It operated until 2007 before undergoing further renovations. Today, the theatre only holds an audience of 661 people. 

       My wife bragged to me that she stood in the doorway of the box where Lincoln had been killed. She stated that there is a glass barrier there to prevent anyone from entering the box as the site is considered holy by most. Imagine the frustration on her face when I informed her that she was not looking into the box where Lincoln actually died. When the building was renovated in the 1960's, the entire interior was gutted and rebuilt. Although, one may be standing nearly in the exact spot Lincoln was killed, there is nothing about the box that is original. Makes one wonder why it is blocked off by glass.

Where is the Lincoln box in this photograph from the 1960's

Another photo of the reconstruction of Ford's Theatre from the 60's

Betrayed

Betrayed on Kindle

       My book is finally released. To buy the kindle edition follow the link below.

http://www.amazon.com/Betrayed-Tim-Kent-ebook/dp/B00FUS08J0

       The actual book itself is set to release on Friday.

What it would be like to hear actual witnesses of the Lincoln Assassination

       You've heard the story a thousand times and probably read about it a hundred times. What if you could hear the story from one of the witnesses themselves. You may be surprised to learn you actually can. Thanks to an invention called youtube. Below I have posted a couple of links to actual eyewitnesses who were later recorded telling what they saw. The first is Samuel J. Seymour who was in attendance in the audience the night Lincoln was killed. Mr. Seymour was five years old on that fateful night and tells how he was more concerned with the man who fell from the presidential box at Ford's Theater. That man was John Wilkes Booth. In the video, Mr. Seymour appears on a television show called I've Got A Secret in 1956 and he would die soon after. He was 96 years old. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_iq5yzJ-Dk

The second link is to a sound recording made by Joseph H. Hazelton who was eleven years old at the time of the assassination. He was a program boy at Ford's Theater and he tells a great story about Booth and Lincoln. He would go on to become an actor and eventually play in movies. The recording was made in 1933.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SvKPACbx_U&list=FLUdlcf79OMkxlOdE1QGqfzA&index=8

Those are the only recordings that I am familiar with, but hopefully more will eventually come to light. Enjoy!

The Allegheny Arsenal Explosion

       

       The Allegheny Arsenal was established in 1814. The original arsenal was built on thirty acres of land near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on the Allegheny River. Prior to the Civil War, about 300 people were employed at the arsenal. At the height of the Civil War, there were over 1,100 employed there. What was known as the main lab contained 158 employees, mostly young girls and women who were making cartridges for the Union army. 

Women employed to work with dangerous gunpowder

       What would come to be known as the largest civilian disaster of the war occurred at Allegheny Arsenal in the main lab on September 17, 1862. The initial explosion occurred at 2 p.m. Windows were shattered in the surrounding community. A total of three explosions would rock the arsenal. The explosions could be heard two miles away in downtown Pittsburgh. Not a lot has been written about the horrors that were witnessed there that day. There were 78 people killed, a total of 54 bodies couldn't be identified and were buried in a mass grave. 

       An employee named Mary Jane Black described one scene as "two girls behind me; they were on fire; their faces were burning and blood running from them. I pulled the clothes off one of them; while I was doing this, the other one ran up and begged me to cover her. I did not succeed in saving either one."

       The Daily Post had this to say about the tragic event. "Of the main building nothing remained but a heap of smoking debris. The ground about was strewn with fragments of charred wood, torn clothing, balls, caps, grape shot, exploded shells, hoes, fragments of dinner baskets belonging to the inmates, steel springs from the girls hoop skirts, cartridge paper, sheet iron, and melted lead. Two hundred feet from the laboratory was picked up the body of one young girl, terribly mangled; another body was seen to fly in the air and separate into two parts; an arm was thrown over the wall; a foot was picked up near the gate; a piece of skull was found a hundred yards away, and pieces of intestines were scattered about the grounds. Some fled out of the ruins covered with flame, or blackened or lacerated with effects of the explosion, and either fell and expired or lingered in agony until removed. Several were conveyed to houses in the borough and to their homes in the city. Of these, four or five subsequently died."

Colonel John Symington

       Although the investigation absolved Colonel John Symington, the commander of Allegheny Arsenal of the disaster, it appears he should be given some blame. There were reports that he fired boys who had worked there for Irish immigrant women who would work for less pay. Most believe the tragedy occurred because of leaking powder barrels that were being re-used as a shortcut in a time of need for powder. 

      

Powder Magazine Today

       All that is left of Allegheny Arsenal today is the powder magazine which serves as a present day storage shed for Arsenal Park. Below is the monument to the victims which rests on the mass grave where the unknown victims rest today. The event didn't gain a lot of attention at the time due to the fact that it occurred on September 17, 1862, the same day as the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. Antietam would come to be known as the single bloodiest day in American history. Allegheny Arsenal would come to be known as the worst civilian tragedy of the war. 

Marker on the burial site

Lawyers and the End of America

Mark Potok

       I recently read an article about David Owen Dodd who was just seventeen years old. Actually, he was hanged less than two months after his seventeenth birthday. Everyone describes Dodd as a sad story in our nations history. Everyone that is, except Mark Potok, the extreme liberal who portrays the seventeen year old as defending slavery. Lawyer and liberal Mark Potok says that Dodd was a defender of slavery, yet if Dodd were on trial today for murder, this same Potok would be defending (if the price was right) saying that a seventeen year old is too young to execute. 

       Is there anyone out there today that questions how lawyers in this country work? They would slit their own mother's throats for a dollar and that explains Mark Potok. Potok to quote Metapedia is a "Jewish propagandist and spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate group that spreads disinformation against non-Jewish groups and ethnic European groups in particular. Potok is the editor of the SPLC’sIntelligence Report and joined the organization in 1997. Previously he was a reporter for USA Today, the Dallas Times Herald and The Miami Herald. At USA Today he covered the 1993 Seige of Waco and the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. He attended the University of Chicago from 1974 to 1978. Potok has a very whiny and simpering voice."

       From what I have read about Mark Potok, I may end up on the elimination list for writing this blog about him. More information I have read about him is "The Southern Poverty Law Center maintains a list of what it calls "hate groups", this is understood by radical Marxist supporters as a hit list of people to be eliminated. An example of this in action is taken from the terrorist attack against the Family Research Council in 2012."

       If being a Christian and reporting the facts about these extreme liberals is against what Mark Potok and his modern lawyers want to preach to the world is wrong, then I will gladly place myself on their hit list. Here are more quotes from what I have found on Mark Potok on the internet, "The Family Research Council is listed on the SPLC hit list as a "hate group" because they are Christians and uphold the traditional family, rejecting sexual perversions such as homosexualism. The would be assassin Floyd Lee Corkins II invaded the headquarters of the group and he attempted to murder the building manager Leo Johnson but shot his arm. The FRC leader Tony Perkins, correctly placed the blame on Mark Potok and the SPLC, as did the National Organization for Marriage."

       

David Owen Dodd

       The amazing thing about Lawyer Mark Potok is the fact that paid the right amount of money, he would defend David Owen Dodd in court today, saying he is too young to face the death penalty. This is another example why Capitalism has failed us and been replaced by plain old greed. Mark Potok says David Owen Dodd doesn't need monuments placed in his memory because he defended slavery, yet the same liberal would argue for anyone today that is facing the death penalty under the age of 18. He would say, "Give my more money and I will defend this young man, who happens to be too young to face the death penalty." 

       I very rarely discuss politics on my blog, but sometimes I have to defend the mess these lawyers have gotten our country in. I just want to scream, "Wake up America!"

Tennant Lomax: No Nobler Spirit

Colonel Tennant Lomax

       Tennant Lomax (sometimes spelled Tennent) was born in 1820 in South Carolina. After becoming an adult, he moved to Eufaula, Alabama and began a law practice. He served as a captain during the Mexican War and as governor of Orizaba, Mexico. His first wife Sophia Shorter died in 1850. He remarried in 1857 to Caroline Billingslea and moved to Montgomery, Alabama. When the war began, he became colonel of the 3rd Alabama Infantry. 

       Ordered to Pensacola, he fully expected orders to storm Fort Pickens, but the order never came from Montgomery. He paid a visit to the fort under a flag of truce. The officer there told him, "Colonel, we expected the honor of a visit from you some time ago." Lomax replied, "Sir, you would not have been disappointed had my wishes prevailed."

       His regiment was soon ordered to Norfolk, Virginia where it's twelve month service expired. Lomax then enlisted as a private, but his regiment soon re-enlisted for the duration of the war and he was it's colonel again. 

       His only action of the war occurred at the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31, 1862. Lieutenant James Thompson of the 6th Alabama described his final moments. "The 3rd Alabama Regiment...one of the finest regiments in the service was passing. General (John Brown) Gordon, then our colonel, was standing near us. One of the finest looking officers we ever saw reined up his horse, shook hands with him, and while they were exchanging a few words, some of our troops asked, who is he? It was Col. Lomax. His regiment had passed. He told Colonel Gordon that this would be his first and his last battle, and with a smile and a salute, he galloped away toward the fighting to the head of his regiment and they passed out of sight. It seemed to us hardly time for their column to form in line before heavy volleys of musketry were opened in that direction, and soon after, heavy numbers of the regiment were passing wounded or being borne on litters. The gallant Lomax was among the dead."

       The Augusta Constitutionalist pays the following tributes to the memory of this gallant officer: "No nobler spirit ever gave his life in defence of his country than Tennant Lomax, Colonel of the Third Alabama regiment, who bravely fell in the late battle near Richmond. He was a man of towering form and commanding present, with a countenance beaming with intelligence, and bearing the stamp of high-toned honor and of every generous emotion. His life was gentle; and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up, and my to all the world, 'this was a man.'"

       Tennant Lomax was 41 years old. Brewer's Alabama: Her History, Resources, War Record and Public Men states that he was to receive a commission from Jefferson Davis to brigadier general the day he was killed. He rests today in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama. 

Me at the grave of Tennant Lomax. Note his tombstone lists his age at 44.