The Chair: Volume I

John-4

Americana is fashioned by heroes villains winners losers, included in its lexicon are many bridges that span our history.

Andrew Carnegie, the steel industry titan from Pittsburgh by way of Scotland, has been notified by Eads and Roebling via, and you want to go straight forward with the connection, literally, think viaduct and Rome and all that water and people, telegraph, as to the urgent need for reinforced rebar steel. Instead of the once ever present “Caisson Disease” being the culprit for a clear lack of progress for the restoration work required, this time apparently the entire region having been afflicted with a major outbreak of a lackadaisical malaise and malingering disease, hampering earlier supposedly regularly scheduled efforts to preventively repair the hallowed and strategically vital span. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is closely monitoring the situation.

“Fortunately, we know what we’re dealing with here. It is Mañana disease, plain and simple, for which there is no cure. And while clearly not as common as it once was in Texas when it was battling for its independence in 1836, it, as history has proven, has seen numerous ferocious and crippling outbreaks coincidental with critical events throughout South Texas since. My sense of it is, simply, by damn, some people just not caring is at the root cause of it. Any damn fool can see clearly this should’ve been taken care of within seventy-two hours of its initial collapse,” Captain Eads announced.

“We discovered a major overuse of adobe Brazos River mud and straw in some, not all, of the foundational pillars, and are diligently working a redesign and replacement around that fatal design flaw. However, rest assured that the effort beginning this instant here, and the commitment we have seen from Mr. Carnegie, will allow us to complete this important endeavor with all post haste. Mr. Carnegie has telegraphed us that he has shipped by railroad from Pittsburgh railcars loaded with steel beams and rebar to implant here on site at span, replacing finally the muck straw adobe used in the original construction. Italian marble, from Anzio, Venice, and Roma, Portland cement, which we will mix with our proprietary sediment just a piece on up the road a mile west of here, French silver lattice, and Mississippi mud from between Nawlins and Baton Rouge, all getting here in the next two days, and key right now rightchere for a timeless solution will save the day. I am fully aware that the fate of Texas rests on our success here. Also, renowned architect and engineer, my esteemed colleague Mr. Arch I. Medes from Syracuse, will arrive this afternoon to look at all pulleys and levers, hydraulics, water flow, hydroplaning, circular vortexes, spiral dissonance, and conical resolution to ensure structural integrity. We shall rebuild. We must rebuild. We shall not fail. We will not allow this sacred bridge, and the hallowed sacred ground upon which it stands, to fall forgotten into oblivion. We owe it to all of those Texans who came before us, those who stand with us today, and those not yet born who will lead us into the bright future we foresee on the horizon.”

The Idlewood Arch & Aqueduct, aptly named for the surrounding large lazy oaks, many older than a century, crossing a bayou tributary that feeds into the Brazos River, is a long both bridge and pipeline, spanning the wild untamed enigmatic drought and flood prone river near what is present day Richmond, Texas approximately one thousand five hundred and fifty five feet in length, thirty feet in width to accommodate horse, wagon, meandering curious shiftless and wandering mostly barefoot pedestrians, and locomotive train traffic although no trains ran across it for nearly forty years after its construction, the idea being that a railroad company would find this a very attractive and cost free span with which to forge the river, and sixty five feet in height, twenty feet over what was then projected to be the maximum river crest, is significant because Sam Houston and his Texian rebel fighters, comprised of farmers, gun fighters, bounty jumpers, poker players, conmen, land speculators, preachers, magicians, and other ne’er-do-wells, slackers, and siesta takers, encamped on the site of it there for three days amongst wild roaming animals, including javelina, wolves, and rodentia, snakes, and biting insects in the rain, before finding their way down to San Jacinto, seeking only to avenge the earlier massacres at Goliad and The Alamo, and then destroying the Mexican Army on April 21, 1836, forcing the surrender of Santa Anna who had tried to conquer Texas, but instead suffered a crushing defeat having to immediately forfeit over millions of acres to the new Republic of Texas, thereby ending forever any hopes of Mexican imperialistic expansionism. It was determined years later, by President U.S. Grant and his War Department advisors, including W.T. Sherman and Philip Henry “Phil” Sheridan, known as “The Diminutive One,” to be “a perfect locale for a high ground defensive perimeter eyeing Mexican invaders who may again one day attack the country.”

John’s father Terry was a grandson of General Samuel Cooper, born June 12, 1798, who was a career United States Army staff officer, serving during the Second Seminole War and the Mexican–American War. Although little known today, and essentially forgotten, Cooper was also the highest-ranking Confederate general during the Civil War. After the conflict ended, he remained in Virginia as a farmer. Camp Cooper in Texas was named for him.

Samuel was born in New Hackensack, Duchess County, New York, a son of Samuel Cooper and his wife Mary Horton. In 1813 he entered the United States Military Academy and graduated thirty sixth in a class of forty-two years later, then customary as length of study in that period, and appointed upon graduation a brevet second Lieutenant in U.S. Light Artillery on December 11, 1815, nearly one hundred years to the day before later his great grandson John’s graduation at West Point. “Sam” was promoted to first Lieutenant in 1821 and to Captain in 1836, the year of Texas independence from Mexico.

Offered a senior command in the army of the new Republic of Texas by President Sam Houston, Cooper, while “very honored,” declined the offer, staying in the U.S. Army, then serving in numerous artillery units until 1837, when he was appointed Chief Clerk of the U.S. War Department. In 1838, he received a brevet promotion to Major and was appointed Assistant Adjutant General of the Army. Nine years later, with a brevet as lieutenant colonel, he served again in the same capacity.

Cooper’s service in the Second Seminole War of 1841–42 was a rare departure for him from Washington, D.C. He was Chief of Staff for Col. William J. Worth, for whom the town, and now city, of Ft. Worth is now named, and after hostilities ended, he returned to staff duty in Washington until 1845. Worth is buried in New York City at “’Broadway & 5th.” He received a brevet promotion to Colonel on May 30, 1848, for his War Department service in the Mexican–American War and was promoted to permanent rank of Colonel in regular army and appointed the army’s Adjutant General on July 15, 1852. Cooper also served very briefly as acting U.S. Secretary of War in 1857. According to the 1850 U.S. Census, Cooper owned six slaves. At the beginning of the Civil War, although born a Yankee in New York, Cooper’s loyalties were with the South. “I liked most everything about the South,” he said years later. “Besides, I was tired of winters up North. Damn it, I don’t care what anyone says, I do know ‘You can’t shovel sunshine.’” His wife’s family was from Virginia, and he had a close friendship with Jefferson Davis, who had also been U.S. Secretary of War. One of his last official acts as Adjutant General of the U.S. Army was to sign an order dismissing Brig. Gen. David E. Twiggs from the U.S. Army. Twiggs had surrendered his command and supplies in Texas to the Confederacy and was then himself made a Confederate Major General for his efforts. This order was dated March 1, 1861, and Cooper resigned from the U.S. Army six days later. He travelled to Montgomery, Alabama, at the time the Confederacy’s capital, to join the Confederate States Army.

“I knew it would be a rough go against the Yankees, but after so many years on the frontier, in Florida swamps with snakes, alligators, and nasty local women, and Texas barren land with winds and lonely nights staring at stars with no women, the only exception being an occasional fat frenetic fragrant forgetful lost stagecoach madam passenger travelling from New Orleans to points west including Los Angeles and San Francisco, in the heat and cold, and most of all, the bugs, which I was willing to endeavor to persevere all in all for the most part, if only someone, anyone from Washington, had given me a kudo, but something inside of me said ‘these fine people here down south really need me.’ Call it hubris, arrogance, or simply the attraction of a nice grey with gold trimmed commanding general’s uniform with my choice of a hat and feathers, I just could not say no, especially after eating so much catfish and drinking much too much bourbon at the get together and carnival, including dart games, teeter totter face offs, and pistol shooting contests for stuffed dolls that Mister Jefferson Davis had so adroitly planned for the recruitment of his top officers west of Montgomery on a crystal blue persuasive pond amidst tall Christmas trees soon to be felled, and as I was told later, most of all me, Bobby Lee already being signed sealed delivered and his with his various lackeys such as Longstreet, Stoney Jackson, and most every officer from Virginia.”

On reaching Montgomery, Cooper was immediately given a commission as a Brigadier General on March 16, 1861, then as both Adjutant General and Inspector General of the Confederate Army, a post he held until the end of the war. Cooper provided much needed organization and knowledge to the newly organized Confederate War Department, calling on his many years performing such duties as Adjutant General of the U.S. Army. “Marching straight and in cadence, along with lining up in alphabetical order was one of my top priorities for our army.”

In May of 1861, Cooper was promoted to full General in the Confederate Army. He was one of five men promoted to the grade at that time, and one of only seven during the war, but with the earliest date for that rank. Despite his relative obscurity today, he outranked other officers including Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and P. G. T. Beauregard. Cooper reported directly to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Sam’s horse at that time during the war was named Fury, a bold chestnut stallion that he rode mostly for the review of Confederate troops behind the lines readying for departure west and north into battle versus generals U.S. Grant and William T. Sherman.

Sam Cooper was player, along with P.G.T. Beauregard, including Union officers, most notably Adm. David Farragut, who had summoned various Confederate officers leaders city dignitaries after Capture of New Orleans, in what became historic game of cards, though “unofficial” meeting after surrender by rebel forces. Today this game is known as “Deal on the Docks,” organized by Farragut to clear up many mistaken misunderstood terms conditions to “determine pathway ahead for peace” there during Union occupation of Crescent City, named so because original town, Vieux Carré, also called French Quarter, was built at sharp bend in Mississippi River, outpost of officials, French soldiers, merchants, slaves, rivermen founded about 1718 by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville.

At the war’s end in 1865, Cooper surrendered and was paroled on May 3 at Charlotte, North Carolina.

While building defenses near Washington, D.C., the Union forces demolished his home and used its bricks to build a fort named “Traitor’s Hill” in Cooper’s honor.