Touching America's History: From the Pequot War through WWII

288 Pages·2013·3.796 MB·English

by  Meredith Mason Brown

Touching
America’s
History
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Touching
America’s
History
✯ ✯ ✯
From the Pequot War through World War II
Meredith Mason Brown
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404–3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
© 2013 by Meredith Mason Brown
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University
Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI
Z39.48–1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Meredith Mason, [date]-
Touching America’s history : from the Pequot War through World War II / Meredith Mason
Brown.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00833-6 (cl : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00844-2 (eb) 1. United States—
Antiquities. 2. United States—History. 3. Material culture—United States. I. Title.
E159.5.B76 2013
973--dc23
2012033294
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13
To my family—including several forebears whom,
as I met them working on this book,
I came to know, like, and esteem
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contents
List of Illustrations and Maps, ix
Acknowledgments, xi
Prologue: History through Things You Can Touch, 1
1. Axe Head, Adze Head: The Pequot War, 5
2. A Compass, a Rifle, and the Opening of the West, 20
3. Yr Most Obt Servt, G. Washington:
The Constitutional Convention, 44
4. Daguerreotype and Sword: Seminole and Mexican Wars, 54
5. Shavings from a Scaffold: The Hanging of John Brown, 80
6. Diaries from Indian Country, Civil War Back Home, 96
7. Travels of an English Pistol, 125
8. A Killing in the Philippines, 150
9. An Award from General Pershing, 177
10. The Czar of Halfaday Creek and Hitler’s Toilet Bowl, 196
Afterword: The Shaping of America, 225
Notes, 229
Bibliography, 253
Index, 263
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illustr ations and maps
Fig. 1.1 Stone axe and adze head, 6
Fig. 1.2 Colonists’ attack on the Pequot village, 12
Fig. 2.1a and b Hand compass of William Preston, 21
Fig. 2.2 Rifle owned by John Floyd, 22
Fig. 2.3 Other eighteenth-century surveying instruments, 31
Fig. 3.1 “Washington at the Constitutional Convention.”
Painting by Junius Brutus Stearns, 45
Fig. 4.1 Daguerreotype of Colonel Richard B. Screven (1808–1853), 55
Fig. 4.2 Sword and scabbard of Colonel Richard B. Screven, 56
Fig. 4.3 “Osceola, the Black Drink, a Warrior of Great Distinction.”
Portrait by George Catlin, 1838, 65
Fig. 5.1 Shavings from the scaffold on which John Brown was hanged, 81
Fig. 5.2 Execution of John Brown, 95
Fig. 6.1 Opening page of the 1862 diary of John Mason Brown, 97
Fig. 6.2 Catlinite (pipestone) pipes that belonged to John Mason Brown, 105
Fig. 6.3 Last page from the 1862 diary of John Mason Brown, 117
Fig. 6.4 Major John Mason Brown, 10th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, 120
Fig. 7.1 Deane Adams and the Deane 5 shot .44/.450 caliber double-
action percussion revolver, 126
Fig. 7.2 “General William Preston.” Portrait by H. Niemeier, 147
Fig. 8.1 Preston Brown as a lieutenant, 157
Fig. 8.2 William Howard Taft on a water buffalo, 167
Fig. 9.1 General Preston Brown, 178
Fig. 10.1 Spine and cover of The Czar of Halfaday Creek, 197
Fig. 10.2 General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 201
Fig. 10.3 “Freight Yard on the Sand,” 213
Fig. 10.4 The Berghof (Hitler’s mountain retreat) after the Allied
bombing on April 25, 1945, 223
Fig. 10.5 Piece of Hitler’s toilet bowl, taken from the Berghof
in May, 1945, 224