College & Snipers

 The Moneychanger

 

On 9 May 1457 B.C. occurred the Battle of Megiddo between the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III & a coalition of Canaanites under the King of Kadesh. It's the first battle recorded in relatively reliable detail. Well, reliable, but mighty churched-up, because it was recorded by Thutmose' lackey.

Stripping out all the flattery, he led his army through an unguarded pass & was able to surprise the Canaanites, but at the risk of piecemeal destruction. His gamble paid off with hegemony over Palestine for a couple of centuries. Thutmose required the defeated kings to send their sons to live at his court, so when they grew up they returned to rule their lands as converted Egyptians.

Sort of like sending your kids to college.

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 *On 9 May 1864 Union General John Sedgwick was shot & killed by a Confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania. His last words were, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist---"


*The Manchester-made Whitworth and its nut-shaped bullet also killed Gen. “Uncle John” Sedgwick at Spotsylvania Court House. The sniper was probably Ben Powell, a Rebel crack shot who, like today’s snipers, was conceded virtual independence by his officers. His only job was to rove along the Union lines looking for a clean shot. Berry Benson, another Confederate sharpshooter, recalled meeting Powell in the Wilderness (site of the May 1864 battle that resulted in nearly 30,000 total casualties) and examining his Whitworth, which was so powerful that it could serve as a sort of howitzer when no direct fire targets offered themselves.

“Having nothing to do, I went down across a field where Ben Powell, with his Whitworth rifle, was sharpshooting,” Benson recalled in his memoir, Confederate Scout Sniper. “There had been a number of Whitworth rifles (with telescope sight) brought from England, running the blockade. These guns with ammunition had been distributed to the army, our brigade receiving one. It was given to Powell, as he was known to be an excellent shot. In campaigns, he posted himself wherever he pleased, for the purpose of picking off the enemy’s men. I shot the gun a few times. It kicked powerfully. . . .

Once at Petersburg Powell gave [Blackwood] the gun to shoot, and as there was nobody particular in sight to shoot at, he held it up at a high angle and fired it over into the besiegers’ camp. Not long after, in a Northern paper, he read an account of two men being shot at a well, struck by the same ball, which had come so far that the report of the gun was not heard. And the day given was the same day Blackwood fired the Whitworth.”