Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

Richard Kirkland   I had the opportunity to visit several battlefields in Virginia when my son Rob Segroves was stationed at Norfolk. His guided missile cruiser, the U.S.S. Wainwright, was dry docked there for a year in 1991. He went into dry dock on Aug 1, and Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait the next day. Fortunate timing. This was a dream come true for me. I spent one whole day by myself driving and walking over battlefields like Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. Union soldiers were mowed down by the thousands in the battle of Fredricksburg which took place on December 13, 1862. This battle occurred just two weeks before the Battle of Stones River. I have since found out that December 13, 1862 is also an important date in my own family's history because my great, great, grandfather Isaac Mayfield, a Union soldier from Kentucky, died in a military hospital in Louisville at the age of 42. He left ten children without a father, includin...

  Commander Mitsuo Fuchida led the Japanese air attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was born on December 3, 1902. In 1924 he graduated from the Japanese Imperial Naval Academy and began a long career as a pilot in the Japanese Navy. On December 7, he radioed the signal for two waves of Japanese aircraft from six different carriers to open the attack. When he realized he had achieved complete surprise he radioed "Tora, Tora, Tora" to the flagship Akagi. He remained over Pearl Harbor until both waves were finished with the attack. Upon return to his carrier he discovered 21 flak holes in his aircraft and the main control wires were barely hanging together. In June 1942 he was wounded and barely escaped alive from the carrier Akagi when it was sunk in the Battle of Midway. The day before the atomic bomb was dropped Fuchida was in Hiroshima attending a week long military conference for Japanese officers. He received a phone call to return to Naval Headquarters in To...

Church where Archie and Elyse Mitchell attended.   When I was stationed at Kingsley Field AFB in Klamath Falls Oregon from October 1968 until April 1970 I visited a local museum where I learned about a historical event that very few Americans know about. There was a strange object in the museum that had been part of a Japanese balloon bomb found in the forests around Klamath Falls. In November 1944 the Japanese military launched 9,000 balloon's that were 33 feet in diameter carrying 35 pounds of explosives. The Japanese called them Fugo's. They rose to an altitude of 30,000 feet where they were carried by the jet stream east where they arrived three days later over the west coast of the United States. The intent was to start massive fires and panic in the U.S. when these bombs exploded in the forests of the Northwest. This was in retaliation for the firebombing attacks of Japanese cities by the American Air Force. This would lift the morale of the Japanese people....

Nat Love Nat Love / Pullman Porter   Nat Love, pronounced Nate, was the most famous black cowboy of the old west. His nickname was "Deadwood Dick". Nat was born a slave in Davidson County, "Nashville" in 1854 on the plantation of Robert Love. After the Civil War and the end of slavery Nat's father tried to run his own farm but soon died. Nat won a horse raffle, sold the horse, gave his mother half the money and headed west, ending up in Dodge City Kansas where he became a cowboy. He became so skilled he gained the respect of white cowboy's and eventually won a rodeo rope, tie, throw, bridle, saddle, and bronco riding competition on the 4th of July, 1876 in Deadwood South Dakota, which is where he got the nickname "Deadwood Dick". He was an expert shot and was captured by Indians in 1877 but because of his bravery they released him. He wrote an autobiography of his life and worked as a Pullman Porter in his later years. He died in Los Ange...

Thankful Taylor  There used to be a Sunday magazine section of the Tennessean newspaper which I liked because it had interesting stories about local history. I think they did away with it in the 1970's. It was through this magazine that I first read about the story of Thankful Taylor, a young girl who lived in Christiana during the 1800's that had a 23 inch long snake pulled from her stomach by a Murfreesboro Doctor in 1874. She apparently accidentally swallowed a baby snake while drinking from a creek in Christiana while working on her farm. For five years she suffered from convulsions and stomach problems before seeking medical help. A sympathetic neighbor made her drink liquor which exacerbated the problem. People could see the snake moving in her stomach. Her pastor looked in her mouth and saw the head of the snake. He was the first to identify the problem If you Google Thankful Taylor the Daily News Journal did a thorough story on the incident in 2010 under the heading...

Martha White Lindsey   I will always remember Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs singing their jingle "you bake better biscuits, cakes, and pies, with Martha White Self-Rising Flour" after the announcer introduced them by saying "and this portion of the Grand Ole Opry is brought to you by Martha White". The real Martha White was Martha White Lindsey, who was three when her father Richard Lindsey Sr. opened the Royal Flour Mill of Nashville in 1899. He named his finest flour for her. When new owners acquired the company in 1941 they changed the name to Martha White. Martha White grew up in Nashville and attended Warner Elementary School and Hume Fogg High School. In 1923, Martha married Dr. George M. Russell, an orthodontist. The couple had three children and lived in Nashville until 1931, when they moved to Memphis. Martha White Lindsey Russell died there in 1949.

The Original Klan During Reconstruction The Klan In Nashville In 1957 By Mark V. Wetherington , The Filson Club Historical Society   The infamous Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was organized in May or early June of 1866 in a law office in Pulaski by six bored Confederate veterans (the "immortal six"). The Ku Klux Klan was, in its inception, a social club for young men seeking amusement and entertainment. It adopted similar oaths and rituals popular with college fraternities of the day, including oaths of secrecy, mystical initiations, outlandish titles for officers, costumed ceremonies, and pranks. The name "Ku Klux" was a derivation of the Greek word kuklos, meaning "band" or "circle." For the remainder of 1866 there is little evidence that the Klan was involved in vigilantism as new "dens" were formed for social purposes in many of the surrounding counties.   In February 1867 Tennessee enfranchised freedmen, and Republicans establis...

  Desmond Doss was the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal Of Honor. He was a devout member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and was born on February 7, 1919 He died March 23, 2006. Doss was ridiculed for his beliefs. Not only for his pacifism which was based on his interpretation of scripture but his strict observance of the Sabbath. Adventists believe that you should not work from sundown on Friday night until sundown on Saturday. He served as a medic in the US Army. His citation reads as follows.   He was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high. As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar and machine gun fire crashed into them, inflicting approximately 75 casualties and driving the others back. Pfc. Doss refused to seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying all 75 casualties one-by-one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering ...

Knoxville Kingston Murfreesboro Nashville    There have been four capitals of Tennessee since our founding as a state on June 1, 1796. Knoxville was the capital on two occasions. The first time from 1796 until 1812. The second time from 1817 until 1818. Kingston was the capital of Tennessee for one day! On September 21, 1807, the Tennessee General Assembly met in Kingston. They declared it to be the state capital, passed one item, and adjourned. That one item was the acquisition of Cherokee territory that was known as Fort Southwest Point. The Indians had ceded the land around the Fort to the State with the provision that it would be named the State capital, which it was, but only for one day. Before the Indians realized that they had been tricked, the capital was moved back to Knoxville.    Murfreesboro was the capital from 1818 until 1826. It was chosen because it is the geographic center of the state of Tennessee. While it was in Murfreesbo...

Sgt York Frogge Mountain  On October 8, 1918, Alvin C. York won the Medal of Honor, becoming the most decorated American soldier of World War I. York was an expert shot with a pistol and a rifle. He learned to shoot growing up in the mountains around Pall Mall Tennessee near Jamestown. He took out 32 German machine gun nests and killed 28 enemy soldiers. In addition, York single handedly captured 132 German POW's. This action was part of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The war would last another month, ending on November 11, 1918. York was born on December 3, 1887 and died on September 2, 1964 at the VA Hospital in Nashville when I was 14. My mother-in-law Margaret Traughber Phillips was born on October 8, 1918. Her mother, Grace Traughber Brown told me that she was 16 when she delivered Margaret. Nashville's General Hospital was so crowded with flu patients that day that she delivered in the hallway. Five patients died around her from the flu that day. The Spanish...