Month: May 2020

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The Grandeur of Antelope Canyon

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The Grand Canyon gets all the press, but nearby and not to be missed is Antelope Canyon. With COVID-19 keeping most of us from any serious outdoors time, I decided to travel back in time to visit an old flame of sorts. Several years ago I arrived back in the Washington, DC area from my home in Brussels, then hopped a plane out to Las Vegas. After several days of losing money I loaded up a rental car for a road trip that took me to the Grand Canyon. The views were magnificent, both from the rim and the single prop airplane we took over the mighty gash. Then it was on to an inflatable raft and down the Colorado River from the Glen Canyon dam. I’ll have more on that later, as well as the continuing drive out to Bryce Canyon. This piece is about Antelope Canyon, another stop on the grand visit.

Antelope Canyon is actually two canyons, unimaginatively named the Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon. Both are on land belonging to the Navajo Nation tucked in between the famed Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell, the man-made reservoir created by the Glen Canyon dam. Access is limited, and to my surprise, only possible since 1997. To visit, you need to make reservations with a tour group led by a Navajo guide. Our guide made the experience much more than simply walking through the tight slot canyon. He was able to give a sense of both the geological history of canyon formation and the cultural importance of the area to the Navajo people.

Unlike the Grand Canyon’s mighty river, Antelope Canyon is dry. Visitors snake through the narrow winding passages, more like tunnels than most people’s idea of a typical canyon. No water flows through and a soft sand lines the pathway. But it wasn’t always that way. The smooth yet striated canyon walls easily reveal the canyon’s origins. Over hundreds of years, flash flooding during the monsoon season picks up sand and, as it rushes through the tight curves of Navajo sandstone –  essentially, petrified sand dunes – abrades the canyon walls into their iconic flowing designs. The dryness of the passages are deceiving; sudden rains can quickly flood the canyon. Even rains that fall far away can be funneled into the canyons with little notice. Which is one of the reasons for the mandatory guided tours.

Antelope Canyon

Our guide carried a recorder-like musical instrument, whose haunting song he played at one point in the tour. He explained that Antelope Canyon is a sacred site to the Navajo, almost like entering a cathedral. We pause and collect a sense of reverence and respect for the place we are about to enter, and the Navajo people who are our hosts. From our guide we can’t help but feel uplifted by the power of nature and the harmony of the experience. To the Navajo, this is a spiritual experience. The effect was heightened by beams of sunlight radiating down from openings in the top of the otherwise seemingly enclosed canyon. I too felt awed.

As I travel the world I find it is these small places, the ones many people never see, that inspire me the most. At Antelope Canyon I was able to experience both the science and natural wonder of the place and the deeper meaning to the Native American populations who struggle to retain their cultural history in an often unforgiving world.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Lincoln in England – Wiegers Calendar May

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Wiegers Calendar MayAbraham Lincoln is everywhere, including England. In January the Dave Wiegers calendar took me back to Edinburgh, Scotland. Now that it is May, I head to Manchester, England for the first time to see a statue I’ve already seen.

Yes, you heard that right. I’ve never been to Manchester but I’ve seen the statue. Wait, that isn’t true. I have been to Manchester, or at least the airport. In 2005 I was returning to the United States after living and working for three months in Edinburgh. My flight first went to Manchester where I caught a connecting flight back to Washington, DC. My layover in the Manchester airport was anything but smooth. I had several hours to wait between flights, and if I recall correctly, the airport wasn’t such a great place to bide your time for long.

And then there was the taser incident.

As I waited, suddenly the airport went into a lockdown. A man was on the tarmac with a bomb in his briefcase, the spreading rumor said. They closed Terminal 1 (guess which terminal my flight was supposed to fly out of). There was no official announcement of why we were being held out of the terminal, although we could see news coverage on the television screens in the waiting area. Airport security chased a man carrying a briefcase, finally catching up to him a stone’s throw from the gate I now wondered if I would ever see. They tasered the guy, took him into custody, and carried out a controlled explosion of his briefcase, only to find there was no bomb. I never found out what happened to the man, but he was more psychologically distraught than any real danger. Eventually they let us back to the terminal and I made it home.

The incident was even more stressful when you remember that 2005 was also the year of the London terrorist explosions that killed 52 people and injured 700 others a few months before. The very day I was arriving in Edinburgh, the bombs went off in the London Tube stations and a bus. Also that very day, President George W. Bush arrived in Edinburgh for a G8 summit. It was a very anxious summer. [A few years later, on my first trip to Rome from my new home in Brussels, I got stuck in traffic caused by the arrival of the very same President Bush. I was starting to feel like he was stalking me; I had left Washington DC to get away from the politics, but here he was seemingly following me around the world.]

But let’s get back to the Lincoln statue. George Grey Barnard designed the statue, which was intended to be displayed in London. But London hated it. Robert Lincoln hated it. Most people, yup, hated it. The UK refused to erect it in London. Some called it the “belly ache Lincoln” because it appears to show him holding his stomach. The original statue actually stands in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is where I saw it a year ago. He is depicted as a working man’s Abe, with large hands wrecked by a life of labor and large feet seemingly more at home in the farm fields than the law and political offices he later held. For some in Cincinnati the statue is an eyesore, but most see it as a source of pride.

Lincoln statue Cincinnati

Meanwhile, back in England, with London out of the running (they would get a copy of a different statue), the city of Manchester said “Bring it here.” Manchester was happy to have it because Lincoln in January 1863 had written a letter to “The Workingmen of Manchester, England” in thanks for their support of the Union efforts and in acknowledgement of the strains of the workingmen in England and elsewhere in Europe.

I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the workingmen at Manchester and in all Europe are called to endure in this crisis.

The people of Manchester never forgot Lincoln’s support. And so the statue nobody wanted was ensconced in Manchester. And there is remains, pensively, if not somewhat painfully, watching over visitors and working men and women in Lincoln Park.

[Photos: Calendar – David Wiegers; Lincoln statue in Cincinnati – Me, on a very rainy day]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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Abraham Lincoln Begins Law Partnership with Stephen T. Logan

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Abraham Lincoln PeoriaOn May 14, 1841, Abraham Lincoln’s law partnership dissolved when his mentor John T. Stuart was reelected to Congress. Lincoln immediately entered into a new partnership with Stephan T. Logan, the man who had assured his moral fortitude and “good character” when he first became a lawyer.

Logan had recently disbanded his partnership with Edward D. Baker, the man after whom Lincoln would later name his second son. Looking for someone as eloquent as Baker to complement his own more intellectual reticence, Logan saw a perfect opportunity with Lincoln. Logan was nine years older than Lincoln, and had established himself as a preeminent attorney in Sangamon County after being equally respected in his native Kentucky. He was serving as a judge in the circuit court when he vouched for Lincoln, but grew dissatisfied with the meager pay and returned to private practice. He saw in Lincoln someone who would be “exceedingly useful to me in getting the good will of the juries,” the one area where Logan was weaker because of his cracking voice and peevish demeanor.

It was a good match for Lincoln, too. Logan had a sharp analytical mind and a command of legal precedents and technicalities. In contrast, while adept at working a jury, Lincoln was rather lazy in his study of the finer points of the law. Like Lincoln, Logan was not overly concerned about his physical appearance; he was more likely to be leaning back in his chair, “his hair standing nine ways from Sunday, while his clothing was more like that worn by a woodchopper than anybody else.”

Lincoln continued doing mostly debt collection cases, but he now received only one-third of the money paid to the firm, as Logan had a less egalitarian profit-sharing policy. But whereas Stuart was largely absentee, Lincoln learned a great deal about the business of the law from Logan. Most critically, he began to understand the importance of detailed case research and preparation. Lincoln was inherently logical in thinking, but Logan taught him to write more precise and succinct case readings. Gone was the flowery language so common in that age; instead he learned to break down the case into its critical components. Under Logan he learned to search out precedents and watch for technical aspects that could be used in his clients’ favor. He still avoided thorough reading of law books—William Herndon would later say that he “never knew him to read through and through any law book of any kind”—but he did “love to dig up the question by the roots and hold it up and dry it before the fires of the mind.”

The firm of Logan and Lincoln was dissolved in 1844, when Logan decided to go into practice with his son. Now an experienced country lawyer, Lincoln decided it was time he became senior partner. Enter William H. Herndon.

[Adapted from my book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Abraham Lincoln and the Ironclads Monitor and Merrimack/Virginia

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Abraham Lincoln had a particular affinity for ironclads, and today would bring him closer to both the Union ironclad Monitor and the CSS ironclad Virginia (formerly the Merrimack). On May 5, 1862, Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, and other dignitaries set sail on the revenue cutter Miami. Their destination – destiny.

The day began with a visit from Lieutenant John Worden. Worden was recuperating after receiving wounds while commanding the Monitor against the Virginia at Hampton Roads in early March. The “battle of the ironclads” changed the Navy forever, as it became clear the old wooden sailing ships would not be able to withstand an onslaught from largely unassailable iron vessels. Worden had been in the pilot house of the Monitor when a shell from the Virginia struck, temporarily blinded as the two ships battled to a draw. Still with impaired eyesight (he would eventually recover), Worden stopped by to brief President Lincoln at the White House; tomorrow he would visit the Capitol.

USS Monitor deck

 

That evening Lincoln would be headed for Fort Monroe on the Miami. With driving rain and stormy seas, even Lincoln, who had spent much time on the waters as a flatboatman and river pilot, felt ill and unable to eat, according to Chase, who suffered the same fate. During their trip they stopped off to tour the eponymously-named ocean steamer provided to the navy by wealthy magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. After arriving at Fort Monroe they sailed out into Hampton Roads and toured the Monitor, now improved with a new steam pump and engines in preparation for their next encounter with the Virginia. According to the Monitor‘s paymaster, William Keeler, Lincoln “examined these vessels with much care, making the most detailed inquiries as to their construction and operation.” He would have seen the dented turret made by the Virginia‘s cannonballs, along with the rebuilt and modified pilothouse where Lt. Worden had been injured.

As the week progressed, Lincoln would get close enough to see the Virginia sitting off Craney Island. The stage was set for another Monitor/Virginia battle, a battle that would never take place, in part due to Lincoln’s actions. In his book Lincoln Takes Command, Steve Norder describes how Lincoln served as his own commanding general in Hampton Roads, directing and pushing for the taking of Norfolk and the Gosport Navy Yard in nearby Portsmouth. He even guided a landing party on Confederate-held soil in search of a spot for the Union Army to make their trek into the city as it was being abandoned by the Confederates.

CSS Virginia

Meanwhile, all this activity being directed by Lincoln created problems for the CSS Virginia. Unwilling to take on the Monitor and its supporting ships, the Virginia‘s commander began preparations to run the ship up into the James River. Unfortunately, removing ballast to reduce how low the ship sat in the water made the Virginia neither capable of moving into shallower water nor in a position to fight its way out to the sea. Facing an unfathomable situation, commander Josiah Tattnall opted to save his crew for the future and destroy the Virginia to keep it out of Union hands. Lincoln and others could see the burning hulk from the Monitor and Fort Monroe. The Confederacy’s first ironclad was no more.

As they made their way back to Washington on the USS Baltimore, Secretary Chase wrote his daughter:

“So ended a brilliant week’s campaign of the President,” Chase wrote. He was “quite certain that if he [Lincoln] had not come down, Norfolk would still have been in the possession of the enemy & the Merrimac as grim & defiant & as much a terror as ever.”

This was the only case of a sitting president taking active command of troops in the field during a time of war. By the time Lincoln had returned to the Washington Navy Yard on May 12th, news of the capture of Norfolk and the destruction of the Virginia had already reached the city. Lincoln was greeted as a conquering hero. The Monitor never did get its second encounter with the Virginia, and it too would find a watery grave not long after in a storm. But the age of wooden sailing ships was over. The age of iron ships had begun.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!