Petition for a Rename

Unless you are a civil war buff, you probably can't place the name John Pope.  But if you hail from Pope County, you may vaguely recall that the county was named for "someone", a railroad guy or a Civil War guy or ..?  I was born in Pope County and as I have read a boatload of Civil War history, I know of General John Pope's mediocre Civil War record and his subsequent posting to the Northwest Territories. As a result, I am envious of the naming history of neighboring Grant County and even Douglas & Stevens Counties.

The John Pope story is a dismal one ...

General Pope in Napoleonic pose

Like most Civil War generals, Pope earned promotion in the 1846 - 1848 Mexican-American war serving under General Zachary Taylor. In 1849 he was a member of Major Samuel Woods' exploration from Fort Snelling to Pembina passing by White Bear Lake, a.k.a Minnewaska.  (see Red River Ox Cart post). On the return to Fort Snelling, Pope led a party on a route that included a thorough examination of the Red River, traversing to Ottertail Lake, Leaf Lake and the Crow River and down the Mississippi to Fort Snelling.  "On the 27th of September, we arrived at Fort Snelling completing a voyage of nearly 1000 miles, never before made by anyone with a like object." Pope.  

In the 1850's he surveyed possible routes for a transcontinental railroad.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Pope was serving in the Missouri District under John Fremont. In 1862 Pope saw success at the Battle of Island #10 & seige of Corinth, Mississippi. He was promoted to Major General and called east by Lincoln to take command of the Army of Virginia, which he immediately denigrated in comparison to his lustrous accomplishments in the west. 

"Let us understand each other. I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he was found; whose policy has been attack and not defense." Pope

He soon discovered General Robert E. Lee and suffered a humiliating defeat at the 2nd Battle of Bull Run, when being engaged with Stonewall Jackson his army was outflanked by Lee and routed. 

Pope was little loved by the troops and compounded his unpopularity with the Army by blaming his Bull Run defeat on disobedience by Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter, who was court-martialed and found guilty and disgraced. 

In 1879, an investigation commissioned by Civil War veteran, President Rutherford B Hayes and conducted by General Schofield, concluded that Major General Fitz John Porter had been unfairly convicted of cowardice and disobedience at the Second Battle of Bull Run. The Schofield report used evidence of former Confederate commanders and "concluded that Pope bore most of the responsibility for the Union loss. The report characterized Pope as reckless and dangerously uninformed about events during the battle, and credited Porter's perceived disobedience with saving the Union army from complete ruin."

After Bull Run, the Army of the Potomac was turned over to General George McClellan and Pope was banished to the Northwest Territories (Minnesota) to deal with the Dakota Uprising of 1862.

In 1862, the Santee Sioux living near the Minnesota River were starving. Traders refused them food purportedly because the Congress had delayed an appropriation.  Trader Andrew J. Myrick notoriously turned them away with a shrug: "If they are hungry, let them eat grass." Little Crow led a brief, furious rebellion in the summer 1862 which became know as the Dakota Uprising.

Lincoln named Pope commander of the Military Department of the Northwest with orders to quell the rebellion.  Pope, in turn, issued orders to Colonel Henry H. Sibley: “It is my purpose utterly to exterminate the Sioux if I have the power to do so ... They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts.” Pope.  

The rebellion was brutally suppressed with Pope adopting a scorched earth policy against the starving Sioux.  Over 2000 tribe members were rounded up. At a trial in Mankato, 303 Sioux were condemned to death, most on flimsy or no evidence. Public outcry forced Lincoln to intercede and he reduced the list to 38, but, nevertheless, this was the largest mass hanging in American history, occurring on the day after Christmas, 1862, at Mankato. When Governor Alexander Ramsey complained that Lincoln would have preserved his popularity by hanging more Indians, the president responded dryly: “I could not afford to hang men for votes.”

After the Civil War, Pope continued his Indian fighting career in the Apache Wars and the Red River War (Texas/Oklahoma) which in 1874 saw the forceable relocation of the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native American tribes from the Southern Plains to reservations in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

So, whereas, as a former resident of Pope County and in lieu of John Pope's legacy of arrogance, ineptness and murderous behavior I hereby resolve that the embarrassing name "Pope County" be expunged and replaced with:

Vote for 1 

1.  Minnewaska County
2.  Pezhekee County
3.  Lowry County
4.  Halfway to Fargo County
5.  Gateway to South Dakota County
6.  (Write in) ________________


Sources
1. John Pope, Wikipedia
2. Lincoln's Generals - John Pope, Mr. Lincoln's White House
3. 1862 Dakota Uprising, History.com
4. Mass Execution, The Nation
5. Red River War, Texas History



Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin

Red River Ox Carts

Courtesy MN Historical Society

The earliest settlers around the area that would become Lowry, Minesota were Scottish. The townsite of Lowry was laid out in 1887 by the Soo Railway Company on land owned by Thomas Hume and Hugh Bryce who had settled in that part of Ben Wade about the year 1869. (See Lowry Pioneers post).

And although the Scandinavians and Bohemians now comprise a majority, Lowry still has remnants of those initial Scottish colonizers, most prominently members of the McIver family. The early Scottish settlers may have been drawn to the desolate prairies by an initiative of Thomas Douglass, 5th Earl of Selkirk. Lord Selkirk received a land grant from the Hudson's Bay Corporation and proceeded to establish the Selkirk Settlement which was to become known as the "Red River Colony", covering areas of southern Manitoba, eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota.  He then encouraged impoverished Scottish farmers to relocate to America.

"No Americans are to be accepted as settlers, but special inducements are offered to people from the highland of Scotland and some parts of Ireland, so that they will not be lost to the Empire by emigration."

The incentives being 100 acres of land, free and clear, after surviving 3 years. 

In the mid-19th century, this area was developing into a major wheat growing and flour production area. This, coupled with the Hudson Bay/Northwest Co. fur trade headquartered in Fort Garry (Winnipeg) and the establishment of Fort Snelling in 1821, presented trading opportunities to those willing to brave the hardships. There were no established roads, so 2 crude trails from St. Paul to Fort Garry - the "Woods Trail" & "East Plains Trail"- were carved out. A third, the "West Plains Trail" utilized the Minnesota and Red Rivers to Pembina and on to Winnipeg. The "prairie schooners" before the arrival of the railroads were ox carts transporting furs, flour and pemmican from the northwest to the Mississippi River steamboats.

From MNopedia: "The Red River cart was made entirely of wood. The only tools needed to build it were an ax and an auger. Rawhide, or wood found along the route, was used to mend breaks. The cart was suspended between two large wheels, each more than five feet in diameter. The wheels had spokes that angled outward from the hubs to the rim, which helped stabilize the cart.

When the wheels were taken off, they could be lashed together and, concave side down, used as a raft to cross water. When they were used on land, their squeal could be heard from miles away because they could not be greased; grease would mix with the trail dust and either stop the wheels from turning or wear down the axel. The axel supported the cart’s weight and, even without grease, wore out quickly. Travelers carried spare axels on their journeys; a typical trip from Winnipeg to St. Paul would require four or five."

Each cart carried up to 1,000 pounds and traveled an average of 20 miles per day. There were often 100 carts in a group and the sound of the groaning and creaking of the carts could be heard for miles. 

The "East Prairie Trail" paralleled the current Soo Line tracks and Highway 55. It forked from the "Woods Trail" at St. Cloud and went west to what is now Osakis and northwest to what is now Elbow Lake, passing very near what would become Lowry Minnesota. It ran parallel to the current Soo Line railroad line and state highway 55.  Continuing north, it linked back up with the Woods Trail west of Lake Itasca. Waypoints Fort Abercrombie (Breckinridge), Centralia (Fargo) & Le Grande Fourches (Grand Forks) owe their existence to these trade routes.

From Grace Flandrau book

The most prominent "ox-cart trader" was Norman Kittson, who has a Minnesota county named for him, but this trade brings me back to the Lowry Scots. Hugh Bryce farmed but also had a freighting business, delivering goods on the "Red River Trail" to Pembina, Fort Garry (Winnipeg) and other military outposts in the northwest. It is unclear what goods Hugh traded in.  

The teamster's life was not an easy one. From Grace Flandrau's book "Red River Trails" (published by Great Northern Railroad):  "As marathons of patience and endurance, these ox cart journeys are almost unequalled. Besides the difficulties common to all the routes: bad roads, absence of bridges, the peculiarly violent and often fatal thunder storms and cyclones common to the region at that time, and the devouring legions of mosquitoes which inspired the most impassioned eloquence in the contemporary writers ... the route east of the river which skirted the forests was pock marked with bottomless mud holes and in later years miles of corduroy jolted the travelers through tamarack swamps." 

Not surprisingly, when the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed to Moorhead in 1872, the ox cart trails quickly disappeared.

If you are northbound on 94 approaching Alexandria and need a rest, there is a historical marker at the rest stop just southeast of the Alex exit., 45° 50.235′ N, 95° 20.64′ W.  Also, I believe, if you are willing to search, there are remnants of the East Prairie Trail to be found near Fergus Falls.

Sources
1. Flandrau, Grace.  The Red River Trails, Great Northern publications
2, Red River Carts, MNopedia
3. Mankato Free Press archives
4. Red River Colony. Wikipedia Selkirk archive


Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin

Power of 2

There is a famous fable from India about the man who invented the game of chess. He presented it as a gift to the king. The king was so pleased he asked what he might want as a reward. The man requested that 1 kernel of wheat be placed on the first square, and a double amount on each successive square.  64 squares - seemed reasonable to the king but ...

Here is the arithmetic progression




For math geeks: 

Roughly 18 quintillion. To be precise, the total number of grains on the 64 squares equals 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 which represents about 6000 years of production by the world's current leading wheat producer, China.

Do you remember the 1980's Faberge commercial that started with a person on the screen and a voice over saying "she told 2 friends and they told 2 friends and so on and so on ..." and pretty soon the TV screen was filled with thumbnail sized images?  Same principal.

This is how social media works and how it can be used to propagate false and malicious information. I recently saw a post which made an outrageous claim regarding a politician's purported statements. (They are depressingly numerous). I would have thought that anyone would simply dismiss it out of hand - and yet, it had over 1000 reposts. People who believe everything they see on the internet  (or choose to believe) are the backbone of the Russian efforts to disrupt our democracy. I do not know if the post I saw originated in Russia, but the point is - they want to polarize and divide us. They post these things to "rile folks up", and it is working to divide us all too well. 

Before you repeat something you read on the internet, either to the internet or in polite conversation, VERIFY.  There are numerous fact checking facilities and when in doubt, stifle your urges. It is like the old adage, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Likewise if it seems outrageously false, it probably is.

We need to restore civility to our conversations and it starts with you and me.  And if we tell 2 friends and they tell 2 friends, and so on ... we might just change the world.


Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin