Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

Ferdinand Porsche describing the new Volkswagen Beetle to Adolph Hitler   Adolph Hitler was the epitome of evil. However he was responsible for two positive accomplishments. The interstate highway system and the Volkswagen beetle. I am reminded of two old sayings. A stopped clock is right twice a day and even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then. For many years only the wealthy could afford a car in Germany. Only top end cars like Mercedes or Porsche's were available to the German people. The average German was lucky if they could afford a motorcycle. Several people had tried to design a car for the people without success. That is until Ferdinand Porsche came along. Adolph Hitler and Porsche teamed up 1933 to build a Volkswagen or (car of the people). Hitler wanted a car that would seat two adults in the front seat and three children in the backseat. In his opinion the average German should have the same access to cars as the average American. Hitler also wanted a c...

Elmer Ellsworth  Elmer Ellsworth was born on April 11, 1837. in Malta New York. In 1854 he moved to Illinois where he eventually studied law in Chicago. By 1860 he was living in Springfield working for Abraham Lincoln. Ellsworth worked on Lincoln's campaign for president and became a close friend. He accompanied Lincoln to Washington in 1861. Ellsworth joined the Illinois militia in 1857 studying drill and military tactics. He admired the French Zouave soldiers from Algeria and was impressed by their fighting abilities. Ellsworth travelled to New York and helped raise the 11th  New York Infantry Regiment better known as the Fire Zouaves. They were raised from the New York area volunteer fire companies. Ellsworth returned to Washington as their Colonel.   Alexandria Virginia sat across the river from Washington and each day when Ellsworth and Lincoln looked in that direction they could see a very large Confederate flag flying from the roof of the Marshall House Inn...

  Today I found the grave of my great-great-great grandfather Archibald Sherrill in Gladeville just off the Stewarts Ferry exit on SR 840. It was in the Sherrill family graveyard which is well maintained. Archibald was born on May 26, 1786 in Sherrills Ford, Catawba North Carolina. He joined the Tennessee Militia and was commissioned as an Ensign in the 17th Regiment on May 19, 1809 just before his 23rd birthday. Archibald was a veteran of the War of 1812. There is a possibility that he served in the Creek war and at the battle of New Orleans under Andrew Jackson. He was very tall standing 6'4" tall which was a giant for that time. This is probably why the men in our family are tall.. He married Nancy Elizabeth Anderson and they had seventeen children together. I found the grave of my great-great uncle Samuel Wilson Sherrill nearby. He was born on November 19, 1807 and died on his birthday November 19, 1895. Archibald died on June 27, 1853 in Gladeville Tennessee. The second...

Frogge Mountain    My grandmothers name was Ella Belle Frogge Brown. The Frogge family can be traced back to Scotland and the Wallace clan of the famous William Wallace portrayed by Mel Gibson in the movie "Braveheart". Her father John Clayton Breckenridge Frogge was from Fentress County Tn., near Jamestown, and his father James Mckinley Frogge was also from Fentress County and had thirteen children by one woman and two by a second wife. His brother Tom was very fertile and had sixteen children all by the same woman. The Frogge's owned the area which is today Dale Hollow Lake. They even had a mountain named after them in the valley where Alvin C. York was born and raised. A few years ago I read a biography of York and found out that he had long time friends that were Frogge's. A Frogge picked him up from the train station in Crossville when he returned as a war hero. He also had enemies among the Frogge's. One was a man named O.O.Frogge. Many Frogge'...

  Grant and staff at City Point Virginia in 1864. John A. Rawlins, is the first man to the left in the picture. He became Grants chief of staff at the beginning of the war and also his closest friend. Grant was a binge drinker and was inclined to drink too much when he was away from his family or he was bored. Historians believe that one of Rawlins main responsibilities was to keep Grant sober. Although Grant was one of my heroes he was a failure in every aspect of his life except for three things. He was a great general, a great horseman, and a great family man. Grant was a humble and imperturbable man but one of my favorite moments was when at the battle of the Wilderness he displayed a rare outburst of anger. This moment also revealed Grant's strategic thinking and the fact that the Union finally had the right man in command of it's armies.The following is from Horace Porters book,( Campaigning With Grant.) A general officer came in from his command at this juncture, and s...

Lord Cornbury   Lord Cornbury served as the royal governor of New York and New Jersey from 1701 until 1708. He is considered to be the worst governor ever appointed to the colonies. His subjects thought of him as a degenerate and a pervert. He spent half of his time in womens clothing.. Besides being a cross dresser he took bribes and plundered the public treasury. Witnesses said that while dressed in womens clothes he would hide behind trees. Then he would jump out scaring them and shrieking with laughter. Cornbury opened the 1702 New York Assembly dressed in a hoop skirt, elaborate headdress, and carrying a fan in the style of Queen Anne. He preferred to be called "His High Mightiness". When his wife died in 1707 he attended her funeral dressed as a woman. Finally, after causing too much turmoil, he was replaced by the Queen. Actor Cary Elwes is a descendant of Lord Cornbury.

Water Boarding in Vietnam   I just finished a fantastic book on World War II. Even though I have studied that war much of my life and have known many veterans of that war this book gave me an even greater appreciation of the absolute horror experienced by both soldiers and civilians. Over sixty million people died. Forty million of them were civilian. World War II was a war that we had to win. We were fighting an evil unlike anything that we have ever faced in the Nazi's and the Japanese militarist regime. Yes, we had our flaws as a society but they were not on a par with those of our enemies. While I was reading the book I told a friend, who is in his seventies, about some of the atrocities committed by the Japanese in the Philippines that were so horrible he refused to believe what I was telling him. In the Rape of Nanking Japanese soldiers made a game of throwing babies in the air and catching them on their bayonets. They forced sons to rape their mothers and buried people ...