Jump to content



Photo

OT: Three Six Thirty-Six: My Mnemonic historical device


  • Please log in to reply
No replies to this topic

#1 Rogerdodger

Rogerdodger

    Member

  • TT Member*
  • 26,863 posts

Posted 06 March 2021 - 09:21 PM

Mnemonic device: a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in remembering something.

 

TODAY is "Three Six Thirty-Six" It is my Mnemonic device
Remembering that date helps me remember the order of important historic events.

Three-Six-Thirty Six (3.6.1836) was the last day of the 10 day Mexican Army's siege of the Alamo in San Antonio Mexico/Texas.
And just like this past winter's late February snow, the Mexican troupes marching from Mexico to San Antonio marched through snow!
This was all preceded by the Louisiana Purchase on 4.30.1803 which slowly began the expansion West.
It was also preceded by the Indian Removal Act which forcefully displaced 100,000 Native Americans.
The Tennessee politician Davy Crockett, known as the "King of the Wild Frontier" was opposed to the removal of these people and lost his re-election because of his stand. His response is today famously emblazoned on San Antonio T shirts, "You all can go to Hell. I'm going to Texas!" He got to San Antonio just in time to die on 3.6.36, defending the Alamo.
Within weeks after the bloody defeat at the Alamo, U.S. General Sam Houston defeated Mexican General Santa Ana.
In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died.
"Go WEST young man, GO WEST" became the phrase of the day as many of my European immigrant ancestors left the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky for the promised New World.
Even California was a far away gem that many immigrants left the mountain country for that dream.
Explorers were hired to guide wagon trains West.
Soon a new route was promoted by two wealthy brothers named Donner. In 1846 the Donner Party, a group of 87 people, left Springfield Illinois and journeyed west for a new land and new lives in California.  Tragically however, they reached the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains too late, and were snowed in near Truckee Lake. Very few survived, but only by cannibalism.
News of this tragedy all but curtailed travel to California... until 1849 when gold was discovered in the Golden State! Thus the name "Forty-Niners" for the California football team.
However the world-wide practice of slavery was becoming more and more a dividing force between the States.
In 1857 The Supreme Court Chief Justice, Roger Brooke Taney wrote the infamous Dred Scott decision that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States. This pushed the country closer to the civil war of 1861 to 1865.
Surprisingly many of the uprooted Native Americans owned slaves and fought against the Union. This eventually lost them the land and rights that they were given in Oklahoma!
Today, they have gotten much of it back a nickel at a time... in their casinos!

 

Here is a photo of my ancestors in Swan Missouri near Branson before Branson was born:

It is in Taney County, named after that same Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney!

Before this picture was taken, Rebel forces heading to Springfield murdered my 17 year old 3rd great uncle for not supporting the Confederacy. The next day my 4th great grandfather and another one of my uncles joined the Union army to go kill the murders.

Within months the second son was killed in the war.

It's hard to believe that after all of that, one of the surviving sons, seen below standing opposite my 3rd great grandfather, joined with the Rebels!!!! (Note the gun safety.)

A family divided. North vs South. Sounds familiar today...

Mc-Clure-William-Sarah-Elizabeth.jpg

Visit the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield
Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, a unit of the National Park System, preserves the site of the first major battle of the Civil War in the West.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 07 March 2021 - 01:15 PM.