Blog - Page 7 of 18 - Larry Auerbach

Today In Western History: Ulysses S. Grant Is Born

Posted on April 27, 2016March 15, 2016 by larry

April 27,

Hiram Ulysses Grant, but more commonly known as Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War leader and 18th president of the United States, is born on this day in 1822.

Ulysses H. Grant, 18th President — Ulysses H. Grant, Civil War Hero and 18th President

The son of a tanner, Grant showed little enthusiasm for joining his father’s business, so the elder Grant enrolled his son at West Point in 1839. It was in the process of joining West Point that his name was changed by accident, and he never bothered to correct it. Though Grant later admitted in his memoirs he had no interest in the military apart from honing his equestrian skills, he graduated in 1843 and went on to serve in the Mexican-American War, though he opposed it on moral grounds. He then left his beloved wife and children again to fulfill a tour of duty in California and Oregon. The loneliness and sheer boredom of duty in the West drove Grant to binge drinking. By 1854, Grant’s alcohol consumption so alarmed his superiors that he was asked to resign from the army. He did, and returned to Ohio to try his hand at farming and land speculation. Although he kicked the alcohol habit, he failed miserably at both vocations and was forced to take a job as a clerk in his father’s tanning business.

If it were not for the Civil War, Grant might have slipped quickly into obscurity. Instead, at the encouragement of one of his friends, a hot tempered red-haired fighter named William Tecumseh Sherman, he re-en-listed in the

US General, William Tecumseh Sherman, scourge of Georgia — US General, William Tecumseh Sherman, Civil War hero and the scourge of Georgia

army in 1861 and embarked on a stellar military career, although his tendency to binge-drink re-emerged and he developed another unhealthy habit: chain cigar-smoking. He struggled throughout the Civil War to control the addictions. In 1862, he led troops in the captures of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee, and forced the Confederate Army to retreat back into Mississippi after the Battle of Shiloh. (After the Donelson campaign, Grant received over 10,000 boxes of congratulatory cigars from a grateful citizenry.)

In 1863, after leading a Union Army to victory at Vicksburg, Grant caught President Lincoln’s attention. The Union Army had suffered under the service of a series of incompetent generals and Lincoln was in the market for a new Union supreme commander. In March 1864, Lincoln revived the rank of lieutenant general—a rank that had previously been held only by George Washington in 1798–and gave it to Grant. As supreme commander of Union forces, Grant led a series of epic and bloody battles against the wily Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy

It all came to an end, however, on April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. As a side note, Lee would never tolerate anyone saying anything negative about Grant after this because of the magnanimity of his surrender terms. The victory solidified Grant’s status as national hero and, in 1868, he was elected to the first of two terms as president.

Grant’s talent as a political leader paled woefully in comparison to his military prowess. He was un-able to stem the rampant corruption of his administration and failed to combat a severe economic depression in 1873. There were bright spots in Grant’s tenure, however, including the passage of the Enforcement Act in 1870, which temporarily curtailed the political influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the post-Civil War South, and the 1875 Civil Rights Act, which attempted to desegregate public places such as restrooms, inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement. In addition, Grant helped heal U.S. and British diplomatic relations, despite the fact that Britain had offered to supply the Confederate Army with the tools to break the Union naval blockade during the Civil War. He also managed to stay sober during his two terms in office.

Upon leaving office, Grant’s fortunes again declined. He and his wife Julia traveled to Europe be-tween 1877 and 1879 amid great fanfare, but the couple came home to bankruptcy caused by Grant’s unwise investment in a scandal-prone banking firm. Grant spent the last few years of his life writing a detailed account of the Civil War, urged on by his good friend, Mark Twain.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, humorist and author

He held off death by sheer will, the same sheer will that drove him to success in the war, until he deemed them completed and then died of throat cancer the same day, in 1885. Julia managed to scrape by on the royalties earned from his memoirs and a pension given her by Congress as the widow of a President.

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Today In Western History: John Wilkes Booth Is Killed

Posted on April 26, 2016March 15, 2016 by larry

April 26 –

John Wilkes Booth is killed today, in 1865, when Union soldiers track him down to a Virginia farm 12 days after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

John WIlkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln — **John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln**

Twenty-six-year-old Booth was one of the most famous actors in the country when he shot Lincoln during a performance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., on the night of April 14. Booth was a Maryland native and a strong supporter of the Confederacy. As the war entered its final stages, Booth hatched a conspiracy to kidnap the president. He enlisted the aid of several associates, but the opportunity never presented itself.

After the surrender of Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9,

Booth changed the plan to a simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson,

Andrew Johnson, 17th President, alcoholic Reconstructionist and fanatical anti-southerner

and Secretary of State William Seward. Only Lincoln was actually killed, however.

William Henry Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln

Seward was stabbed by Lewis Paine but miraculously, he survived with multiple injuries and damage, while the man assigned to kill Johnson did not carry out his assignment.

Lewis Paine (Payne), Lincoln assassination plotter — Lewis Paine (Payne), co-conspirator in Lincoln assassination, he targeted Seward

After shooting Lincoln, Booth jumped to the stage below Lincoln’s box seat. He landed hard, breaking his leg, before escaping to a waiting horse behind the theater. Many in the audience recognized Booth, so the army was soon hot on his trail.

Booth and his accomplice, David Herold, made their way across the Anacostia River and headed toward southern

David Herold (after arrest): co-conspirator in Lincoln assassination, he took Payne to Seward's houseassassination, he took Payne to Seward's house — David Herold (after arrest): co-conspirator in Lincoln assassination, he took Payne to Seward’s house

Maryland. The pair stopped at Dr. Samuel Mudd‘s home, and Mudd treated Booth’s leg. This earned Mudd a life sentence in prison when he was implicated as part of the conspiracy, but the sentence was later commuted.

Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, physician and accused accomplice to John WIlkes Booth — Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, physician and accused accomplice to John Wilkes Booth

It also led to Dr. Mudd’s name going down in history as the originator of the phrase, “your name is mud” to denote someone as a scapegoat.nd refuge for several days at the home of Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent, before securing a boat to row across the Potomac to Virginia.

Booth found refuge for several days at the home of Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent, before securing a boat to row across the Potomac to Virginia. After receiving aid from several Confederate sympathizers, Booth’s luck finally ran out. The countryside was swarming with military units looking for Booth, although few shared information since there was a $20,000 reward. While staying at the farm of Richard Garrett, Federal troops arrived on their search but soon rode on. The unsuspecting Garrett allowed his suspicious guests to sleep in his barn, but he instructed his son to lock the barn from the outside to prevent the strangers from stealing his horses. A tip led the Union soldiers back to the Garrett farm, where they discovered Booth and Herold in the barn. Herold came out, but Booth refused. The building was set on fire to flush Booth, but he was reportedly shot by trooper Thomas P. “Boston” Corbett while still inside.

Boston Corbett, the soldier who is said to have shot John WIlkes Booth through the slats of a burning barn. — Boston Corbett, the soldier who is said to have shot John Wilkes Booth through the slats of a burning barn.

He lived for three hours before gazing at his hands, muttering “Useless, useless,” as he died.

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Today In Western History: The play “The Lion of the West” opens

Posted on April 25, 2016March 15, 2016 by larry

The play The Lion of the West opens in New York City, today in 1831. It was the first of many plays, books, and

Davy Crockett, Indian fighter, politician, and hero of the Alamo

movies celebrating Davy Crockett. It stars James Hackett as a parody of Davy, a character called Nimrod Wildfire.

Born in 1786 in Tennessee, Crockett grew up in a poor family that hired him out as a cattle drover at age 12. He eventually settled in middle Tennessee, where he became famous for his skill as a professional hunter. The Tennessee forests of were still filled with game at that time, and Crockett once killed 105 bears in a single season.

Andrew Jackson, Indian fighter and President; responsible for the Trail of Tears — Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson, Indian fighter and President; responsible for the Trail of Tears

After a stint fighting Indians with future president, Andrew Jackson, Crockett began a career in politics, eventually becoming a Tennessee state representative in 1821. As a state legislator, Crockett was a strong advocate for the rights of squatters who were claiming land on the frontier without legal permission. At the same time, the political fortunes of his old commander, Andrew Jackson, were on the rise. When Jackson became president in 1828, he pointed to Crockett as a symbol of the frontier values and spirit he believed should be adopted throughout the nation.

Politics alone, however, would not have ensured Crockett’s enduring status as an American hero. For that, only the 19th-century version of Hollywood would be adequate. In 1831, the play The Lion of the West opened at New York City’s Park Theater. Starring the popular actor James Hackett as a legendary frontiersman named Colonel Nimrod Wildfire, the play was a thinly disguised and highly exaggerated account of Crockett’s life. Two years later, the play was followed by an equally larger-than-life biography, Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee.

After Crockett died at the Alamo in 1836, along with fellow frontiersman James Bowie, William Barrett Travis and nearly two hundred other volunteers, his posthumous transformation from mortal man to mythic martyr was almost inevitable. A bogus 1836 autobiography portrayed him as an American Hercules and established many of the tall tales that would remain forever associated with his name.

Fess Parker, as Walt Disney's Davy Crockett — Fess Parker, as Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett

In the 20th century, Crockett’s fame waned for a time, but Walt Disney revived the legend. In 1954, Disney began producing a series of movies and television programs featuring the actor Fess Parker as Crockett. The series was a ratings blockbuster, and it led to the largest media-generated commercial craze up until that time. Children all across America clamored for coonskin caps, powder horns, books, and records so that they could be just like their idol, Davy Crockett.

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Today In Western History: Morgan Seth Earp Is Born

Posted on April 24, 2016March 13, 2016 by larry

April 24 —

Today in 1851, Morgan Seth Earp, younger brother of Wyatt, Virgil and James Earp, is born.

His picture is often confused with that of his older brother Wyatt, as they looked remarkably alike. He does follow his brothers into a career in law enforcement, often working beside one or both of his two older brothers. Morgan is not of the same cool headed and even tempered disposition as his two famous brothers, Wyatt and Virgil, Morgan being more emotionally compatible with one of his older brother Wyatt’s best friends. The trait he does share with his brothers is that of family loyalty. Hurt one, you invite an attack by all of them. This unquestioned and unflinching loyalty, along with his quick fire temper, will lead to his death in thirty years, in Campbell & Hatch’s Billiard Parlor, when he is shot in the back, just a month before his 31^st birthday. This comes as an aftermath of the most famous gunfight in the frontier, that took place in a vacant lot beside a corral in the booming mining town of Tombstone, Arizona.

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Today In Western History: Jefferson Davis Sees The End Coming

Posted on April 23, 2016March 13, 2016 by larry

April 23, 1865

Confederate President Jefferson Davis writes to his wife, Varina, of the desperate situating facing the Confederates, today in 1865. Things

were falling apart very fast for the Confederacy in the last three weeks. “Panic has seized the country,” he wrote to his wife in Georgia. Davis was in Charlotte, North Carolina, on his flight away from Yankee troops. It was three weeks since Davis had fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, as Union troops were overrunning the trenches nearby. Davis and his government headed west to Danville, Virginia, in hopes of reestablishing offices there. When Confederate General Robert E. Lee was forced to surrender his army at Appomattox Court House,

Virginia, on April 9, Davis and his officials had traveled south in hopes of connecting with the last major Confederate army, the force of General Joseph Johnston. Johnston, then in North Carolina, was himself in dire straits, as General William T. Sherman’s massive force was

bearing down on him. Davis continued to write in his letter to his wife, “The issue is one which it is very painful for me to meet. On one hand is the long night of oppression which will follow the return of our people to the ‘Union’; on the other, the suffering of the women and children, and carnage among the few brave patriots who would still oppose the invader.”

The Davis’ were reunited a few days later as the president continued to flee and continue the fight for Southern independence, but it was just not to be. Two weeks later, Union troops finally captured the Confederate president in northern Georgia. Davis was charged with treason, and put in prison in a casemate at Fortress Monroe, on the coast of Virginia, on May 19, 1865. He was placed in irons for three days. Davis was indicted for treason a year later. but he was never tried. After two years of imprisonment, Davis was released on bail of $100,000 (which would be $1,563,464.44 in 2015), which was posted by prominent citizens of both Northern and Southern states, including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith. he died at age 81 in 1889.

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Today In Western History: Grierson’s Raid Begins

Posted on April 22, 2016March 6, 2016 by larry

April 22 —

Today in 1863, Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s Union troops bring destruction to Central Mississippi as part of a two-week raid along the entire

Gen. Benjamin H. Grierson, leader of the Newton Station Raid

length of the state. This action was a diversion in General Ulysses S. Grant‘s campaign to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last remaining

Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. Grant had his army on the western shore of the river, but he was planning to cross the mighty river south of Vicksburg, and move against Vicksburg from the west. Grierson’s orders were to destroy enemy supplies, telegraph lines, and railroads in Mississippi.

Grierson crafted a brilliant campaign. He left La Grange, Tennessee, on April 17 with 1,700 cavalry troopers and began traveling down the eastern side of the state. Whenever Confederate cavalry approached, Grierson sent out a diversionary force to draw them away. The diversionary units then rode back to La Grange, while the main force continued south. On April 22, he dispatched Company B of the 7th Illinois regiment to destroy telegraph lines at Macon, Mississippi, while Grierson rode to Newton Station. Here, Grierson could inflict damage on the Southern Mississippi Railroad, the one specific target identified by Grant. On April 24, his men tore up the tracks and destroyed two trainloads of ammunition bound for Vicksburg.

On May 2, Grierson and his men rode into Union occupied Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ending one of the most spectacular raids of the war. The Yankees killed about 100 Confederates, took 500 prisoners, destroyed 50 miles of rail line, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of supplies and property. Grierson lost just 3 men killed, 7 wounded, 14 missing. More important, the raiders drew the attention of Confederate troops in Mississippi and weakened the forces at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana. Both strongholds fell to the Union in July 1863. For his efforts, Grierson was promoted to brigadier general.

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Today In Western History: Houston Captures Santa Anna

Posted on April 21, 2016March 6, 2016 by larry

April 21 —

During the Texan War for Independence, the Texas militia under Sam Houston launches a surprise attack against the forces of Mexican Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna along the San Jacinto River. The Mexicans were thoroughly routed, and hundreds were taken prisoner, including General Santa Anna himself.

After gaining independence from Spain in the 1820s, Mexico welcomed foreign settlers to sparsely populated Texas, and a large group of Americans led by Stephen F. Austin settled along the Brazos River. The Americans soon outnumbered the resident Mexicans, and by the 1830s attempts by the Mexican

government to regulate these semi-autonomous American communities led to rebellion. In March 1836, in the midst of armed conflict with the Mexican government, Texas declared its independence from Mexico. The Texas volunteers initially suffered defeat against the forces of Santa Anna and Sam Houston‘s

army was forced into an eastern retreat, and the Alamo fell. However, in late April, Houston’s army surprised a Mexican force at San Jacinto, and Santa Anna was captured, bringing an end to Mexico’s effort to subdue Texas. In exchange for his freedom, Santa Anna recognized Texas’s independence; although the treaty was later abrogated and tensions built up along the Texas-Mexico border.

The citizens of the so-called Lone Star Republic elected Sam Houston as president and endorsed the entrance of Texas into the United States. However, the likelihood of Texas joining the Union as a slave state delayed any formal action by the U.S. Congress for more than a decade. Finally, in 1845, President John Tyler orchestrated a compromise in which Texas would join the United States as a slave state.

On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the United States as the 28th state, broadening the irrepressible differences in the U.S. over the issue of slavery and igniting the Mexican-American War. When Texas seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy, Sam Houston resigned as governor in protest.

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Today In Western History: Robert E. Lee Resigns From The Army

Posted on April 20, 2016March 6, 2016 by larry

April 20 —

Today in 1861, Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns from the United States Army two days after he was offered command of the Union army and three days after his native state, Virginia, seceded from the Union. This will be the Union’s biggest loss in terms of commanders,

and there will be no one to challenge his skill and genius until a former Army captain returns to the Army, after several years of failure in civilian life. Lee opposed secession, but he was a loyal son of Virginia. His official resignation was only one sentence, but he wrote a longer explanation to his friend and mentor, General Winfield Scott, later that day. Lee had fought under Scott during the Mexican War (1846-48),

General Winfield Scott, Union Army commander

and he revealed to his former commander the depth of his struggle. Lee spoke with Scott on April 18, and explained that he would have resigned then “but for the struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted the best years of my life and all the ability I possess.” Lee expressed gratitude for the kindness shown him by all in the army during his 25-year service, but Lee was most grateful to Scott. “To no one, general, have I been as much indebted as to yourself for uniform kindness and consideration…” He concluded with this poignant sentiment: “Save in the defense of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword.”

But draw it he would. Two days later, Lee was appointed commander of Virginia’s forces with the rank of major general. He spent the next few months raising troops in Virginia, and in July he was sent to western Virginia to advise Confederate commanders struggling to maintain control over the mountainous region. Lee did little to build his reputation there as the Confederates experienced a series of setbacks, and he returned to Richmond when the Union gained control of the area. The next year, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia after General Joseph Johnston was wounded in battle. Lee quickly turned the tables on Union General George B. McClellan, as he would

several other commanders of the Army of the Potomac. His brilliance as a battlefield tactician earned him a place among the great military leaders of all time. Lee was able to outmaneuver or outwit every general who was forced to face him through the war. Every general but one, that is.

His name was Hiram. Although Hiram had a bad reputation that was mostly undeserved and exaggerated by his jealous colleagues, Hiram rose to prominence based upon his personal philosophy. That philosophy was forged in his time in the Mexican War, when he discovered that his fear of battle was matched by his opponent’s and he never forgot this vital lesson. Although he struggled with his studies, he was a master horseman. He had a superb level of concentration, and when he was at his desk writing, if he had to get up to get a paper, he maintained his seated posture all the way to the document and back to his chair, where he would continue writing as if he had never gotten up. It was later said that Hiram, when he rose to the top of the ladder, was the ONLY commander that Lee had any real trepidation about, because he knew that Hiram didn’t back up and wasn’t scared or bluffed into retreating, he just kept coming on. Hiram wasn’t known by his real name, due to an error back when he entered West Point. He was called Sam by his friends, but the name the world knew him by was Ulysses S. Grant.

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Today In Western History: First Blood

Posted on April 19, 2016March 6, 2016 by larry

On April 19, 1861, the first blood of the American Civil War is shed when a secessionist mob in Baltimore attacks Massachusetts troops bound for Washington, D.C. Four soldiers and 12 rioters were killed.

Residents of Baltimore, Maryland, attack a Union regiment while the group makes its way to Washington, D.C., today in 1861. Baltimore’s hostilities to the North were already well known, as just two percent of the city’s voters cast their ballots for Abraham Lincoln for president while nearly half supported John Breckinridge,the Southern Democratic Party candidate.

John C. Breckinridge, Southern Democratic Party candidate

Lincoln was to pass through Baltimore on his way to Washington for his inauguration, but after Allan Pinkerton warned the President-Elect

Allen Pinkerton. founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, creator of the "Private Eye" concept — Allen Pinkerton. founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, creator of the “Private Eye”

about what he described as serious death threats forced the president-elect to slip through the city in the middle of the night in disguise. This subterfuge came back to hurt Lincoln very quickly.

Baltimore was a cauldron of secessionist feeling, and these tensions boiled over on April 18. Pro-Confederate volunteers gathered at Bolton Station to hurl insults and rocks at Pennsylvania troops as they changed trains en route to Washington. Now, on April 19, the 6th Massachusetts regiment disembarked from a train and was met with an even more hostile crowd. Tensions rose as the 11 companies of the 6th arrived. Cobblestones rained down on the soldiers as they prepared to transfer from the President Street Station to Camden Station. Shots were fired, and when the smoke cleared four Massachusetts soldiers lay dead along with 12 Baltimoreans, while 36 troops and an undeter-mined number of civilians were wounded.

Washington was effectively cut off from the North. In the following months, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and hundreds of secessionist leaders were rounded up. Within six months, the Union was again in control of Baltimore.

One week earlier, on April 12, the Civil War began when Confederate shore batteries opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. During a 34-hour period, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. The fort’s garrison returned fire, but lacking men, ammunition, and food, it was forced to surrender on April 13. There were no casualties in the fighting, but one federal soldier was killed the next day when a store of gunpowder was accidentally ignited during the firing of the final surrender salute. Two other federal soldiers were wounded, one mortally.

On April 15, President Abraham Lincoln issued a public proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to help put down the Southern

“insurrection.” Northern states responded enthusiastically to the call, and within days the 6th Massachusetts Regiment was enroute to Washington. On April 19, the troops arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, by train, disembarked, and boarded horse-drawn cars that were to take them across the city to where the rail line picked up again. Secessionist sympathy was strong in Maryland, a border state where slavery was legal, and an angry mob of secessionists gathered to confront the Yankee troops. Intent on preventing the regiment from reaching the rail-road station, and thus Washington, the mob blocked the carriages, and the troops were forced to continue on foot. The mob followed close behind and then, joined by other rioters, surrounded the regiment. Jeering turned to brick and stone throwing, and several federal troops responded by firing into the crowd. In the ensuing mayhem, the troops fought their way to the train station, taking and inflicting more casualties. At the terminal, the infantrymen were aided by Baltimore police, who held the crowd back and allowed them to board their train and escape. Much of their equipment was left behind. Four soldiers and 12 rioters were killed in what is generally regarded as the first bloodshed of the Civil War.

Maryland officials demanded that no more federal troops be sent through the state, and secessionists destroyed rail bridges and telegraph lines to Washington to hinder the federal war effort. In May, Union troops occupied Baltimore, and martial law was declared. The federal occupation of Baltimore, and of other strategic points in Maryland, continued throughout the war. Because western Marylanders and workingmen supported the Union, and because federal authorities often jailed secessionist politicians, Maryland never voted for secession. Slavery was abolished in Maryland in 1864, the year before the Civil War’s end. Eventually, more than 50,000 Marylanders fought for the Union while about 22,000 volunteered for the Confederacy.

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Today In Western History: The San Francisco Earthquake Of 1906

Posted on April 18, 2016March 6, 2016 by larry

April 18 –

A devastating earthquake begins to shake the city of San Francisco in the morning hours of this day in 1906.

The first of two vicious tremors shook San Francisco at 5:13 a.m., and a second followed not long after. The quake was powerful enough to be recorded thousands of miles away in Cape Town, South Africa, and its effect on San Francisco was cataclysmic. Thousands of structures collapsed as a result of the quake itself. However, the greatest devastation resulted from the fires that followed the quake. The initial tremors destroyed the city’s water mains, leaving overwhelmed firefighters with no means of combating the growing inferno. The blaze burned for four days and engulfed the vast majority of the city.

By the time a heavy rainfall tamed the massive fire, the once proud city of San Francisco was in shambles. More than 28,000 buildings burned to the ground and the city suffered more than $500 million in damages. The human toll was equally disastrous: authorities estimated that the quake and fires killed 700 people, and left a quarter of a million people homeless. The famous writer and San Francisco resident Jack London noted, “Surrender was complete.”

Despite the utter devastation, San Francisco quickly recovered from the great earthquake of 1906. During the next four years, the city arose from its ashes. Ironically, the destruction actually allowed city planners to create a new and better San Francisco. A classic western boom- town, San Francisco had grown in a haphazard manner since the Gold Rush of 1849. Working from a nearly clean slate, San Franciscans could rebuild the city with a more logical and elegant structure. The destruction of the urban center at San Francisco also encouraged the growth of new towns around the bay, making room for a new population boom arriving from the U.S. and abroad. Within a decade, San Francisco had resumed its status as the crown jewel of the American West.

“You ask me to say what I saw and what I did during the terrible days which witnessed the destruction of San Francisco? Well, there have been many accounts of my so-called adventures published in the American papers, and most of them have not been quite correct.” So began one of the most widely read firsthand accounts of the greatest natural disaster ever to befall a North American city. The words were those of the world’s greatest tenor, Enrico Caruso, who along with

the entire traveling company of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, survived the devastating earthquake and fire that struck San Francisco on this day in 1906.

The previous evening had been the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera Company’s San Francisco engagement. Caruso—already a worldwide sensation—had sung the part of Don José in Bizet’s Carmen at the Mission Opera House. He went to bed that night feeling pleased about his performance. “But what an awaken- ing!” he wrote in the account published later that spring in London’s The Sketch. “I wake up about 5 o’clock, feeling my bed rocking as though I am in a ship on the ocean….I get up and go to the window, raise the shade and look out. And what I see makes me tremble with fear. I see the buildings toppling over, big pieces of masonry falling, and from the street below I hear the cries and screams of men and women and children.”

The Palace Hotel, where Caruso and many others in the company were staying, would collapse by late afternoon, but not before all of its guests managed to escape safely. Caruso—or, rather, his unbelievably devoted valet—even managed to remove the bulk of his luggage, which included 54 steamer trunks containing, among other things, some 50 self-portraits. “My valet, brave fellow that he is, goes back and bundles all my things into trunks and drags them down six flights of stairs and out into the open one by one.” That same valet would eventually find a horse and cart to carry the great Caruso and his many belongings to the water- front Ferry Building—no mean accomplishment on a day when tens of thousands were attempting to escape the fires ravaging the city.

“We pass terrible scenes on the way: buildings in ruins, and everywhere there seems to be smoke and dust. The driver seems in no hurry, which makes me impatient at times, for I am longing to return to New York, where I know I shall find a ship to take me to my beautiful Italy and my wife and my little boys.” By nightfall, Caruso was across the bay in Oakland and boarding a train headed east—news that reached anxious New Yorkers the following day.

Amadeo Peter Giannini, founder of Bank of Italy

Amadeo Peter Giannini was a survivor of the Earthquake, and his story is an interesting one. He was born on May 6, 1870, the son of Italian immigrants. Giannini began his stellar career working as a produce broker, commission merchant and produce dealer for farms in the Santa Clara Valley. In 1892, A. P. married the daughter of a North Beach real estate magnate. He later became a director of the Columbus Savings & Loan, in which his father-in-law owned an interest. At that time in America, banks were run for the benefit of the wealthy and the well-connected. Giannini observed an opportunity to service the increasing immigrant population that were without a bank. The big banks in the town would lend money to big businesses, but not to the little man. In 1904, in frustration because the other directors did not share his sentiment, he quit the board in frustration. Amadeo opened up a brand new bank on a brand new concept. A. P. Ginnanini’s bank was going to be differ-ent, they were going to be there for the little man. And they were. He was always there for the little man, and he also broke tradition by seeking clients. He called his bank the Bank of Italy. It was growing very fast, and by 1906, he had some serious investors in his bank.

After the earthquake, the city was a wide spread disaster area and all the other banks were unable to get into their vaults, because the fires and shaking had rendered the steel doors of the banks either inoperable or impossible to open. Giannini took the money out of his vaults and took it to his home outside the fire zone in then-rural San Mateo. It was an 18-mile trip by horse and wagon, and A. P. carried it in a garbage wagon, owned by Hayward resident Giobatta Cepollina, who was himself a native of Italy (Loano). The cargo was disguised beneath garbage to protect against theft by making it look uninvit-ing to prospective thieves. It was Giannini’s goal to set up a temporary bank, collecting deposits, making loans, and he proclaimed that San Francisco would rise from the ashes. Giannini ran his bank from a plank across two barrels in the street. Giannini made loans on a handshake to those interested in rebuilding. Years later, he would recount that every loan was repaid. In 1928. A. P. merged with another bank, and the Bank of America began to grow.

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