Morgan’s Civil War Raid

The Masonic Influence on World History

Morgan’s Raid

The raid took place from June 11-July 26,1863 and was named after the commander of the Confederate forces, General John Hunt Morgan.

Although it coincided with the battle of Gettysburg and Vicksburg it was not directly related to either campaign.

In fact, General Morgan ignored orders to not cross into the northern states by his commanding officer.

Crossing the Ohio River near Corydon Indiana, General Morgan raided the towns and villages along the route to northeastern Ohio where he was ultimately captured.   

While crossing southern Indiana, he raided, plundered and burned many small towns that crossed his path.

One such town was Versailles in southeastern Indiana, only about thirty miles from the Ohio border and about thirty miles north of the Ohio River.

Masonic Shriner Wall Clock

by lifejourneysimages

 

His army completely destroyed the town, burning, stealing and plundering everything in sight.

In the process his men destroyed the Masonic Lodge and stole the officer’s jewels, thinking they may be valuable.

The next morning, before breaking camp, General Morgan discovered the jewels his men had stolen.

He immediately ordered the jewels returned to the lodge where they are proudly displayed in a beautiful case to this day.

Gary has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.

His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.

He has published several books about his adventures.

For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.

Your comments are welcome

Civil War Masonry

The Masonic Influence on World History

Another example of masonic brotherly love during times of conflict.

Perhaps one of the best examples of these ties of brotherhood occurred on the battlefield at Gettysburg.

 

 “This battle, the turning point of the War, saw 93,000 Federal troops doing battle with 71,000 Confederates. Of those numbers, one in six were killed or wounded in the three days of fighting from 1 July to 3 July, 1863. Of the men who fought, 17,930 were Freemasons, including the roughly 5,600 who became casualties.

One of the most famous events  at Gettysburg was the huge Confederate infantry push known as Pickett’s Charge.

On 3 July, Pickett (a member of Dove Lodge #51, Richmond, Va) led nearly 12,000 men on a long rush across open fields towards the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge.

It has been called the last and greatest infantry charge in military history.

One of the men leading that charge was Brigadier General Lewis Addison Armistead, CSA a member of Alexandria-Washington Masonic Lodge #22 in Alexandria. Originally from North Carolina  he had attended West Point and fought with the US Army for a number of years before resigning his commission to fight for the Confederacy.

During that time, he  served with now Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, USA (Charity Lodge #190, Norristown, Pa.) The two had become good friends.

With Armistead’s resignation, it had been nearly two and a half years since the two men had had any contact. Until Gettysburg.

It was Hancock who had taken command of the fragmented Union troops on Cemetery Ridge on 1 July and organized them into a strong front that withstood three days of pounding from the Confederate guns. And it was his position, in the center of the Union line, that was the focus of Pickett’s Charge. During the action, both men were wounded. Armistead was shot from his horse, mortally wounded. Hancock’s saddle took a hit, driving nails and pieces of wood into his thigh.

As the battle ended, it was clear that Armistead’s injuries were fatal. Knowing that his old friend was somewhere behind the Union lines, Armistead exhibited the Masonic sign of distress. This was seen by Captain Henry Harrison Bingham, the Judge-Advocate of Hancock’s Second Corps (Chartiers Lodge #297, Canonsburg, Pa.). He came to the fallen Armistead and declared that he was a fellow Mason.

The two men spoke for a time,  when Armistead realized that Bingham had direct access to Hancock, he entrusted some of his personal effects to him, his Masonic watch, the Bible upon which he had taken his obligations and a number of other items. Bingham said his farewells, and then returned to the Union camp to deliver the items.

Armistead died two days later.”

Gary has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.

His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.

He has published several books about his adventures.

For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.

Your comments are welcome

The Battle of Bull Run; The Masonic Influence on World History

 

Written by Gary Wonning

Wilmer McLean’s farm in Manassas Junction, Virginia, was the location of the first battle of Bull Run in 1861.

Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard, who was using McLean’s house as his headquarters, wrote: “… of this artillery fight was the destruction of the dinner of myself and staff by a federal shell that fell into the fire-place of my headquarters at the McLean House.”

The Confederates won the first battle of Bull Run due in large part to General “Stonewall” Jackson holding his ground like a “stone wall,” resulting in his nickname.

With momentum on their side, Confederate troops could have pursued the fleeing and exhausted Union army 20 miles to Washington and won the war. Instead, an unusually heavy rain turned roads into mud pits and they called off the pursuit.

The Masonic Influence on World History

Gary has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.

His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.

He has published several books about his adventures.

For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.

Your comments are welcome

 

Masonic Shriners magnets

by lifejourneysimages

The End of the Civil War

The Masonic Influence on World History

Written by Gary Wonning

The spirit of masonic brotherhood was quite evident during the war between the states with many instances of brotherly love and affection being displayed on the battlefield, even in the heat of battle.

That brotherly love and affection also prevailed at the end of the war.

On April 10, 1865, Union and Confederate soldiers assembled  in Appomattox, Virginia to officially end the war.

Three days after the end of hostilities, Union and Confederate soldiers once again gathered  at Appomattox courthouse for a formal surrender ceremony.

In one of the most dramatic and memorable moments of the war, General Chamberlain ordered his Union soldiers to salute Gordon’s defeated Confederate soldiers as they passed through Union lines. Gordon surprised and stirred to similar action responded immediately and ordered his men to salute back , it has been described as honor saluting honor, thereby beginning to cement the friendship of brotherly and beginning the effort to heal the nation.

Gary has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.

His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.

He has published several books about his adventures.

For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.

Your comments are welcome

 

The Korean War Memorial in Washington D.C.

Photography by Gary Wonning

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950  when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. 

Please click on the photos for articles and photos relating to the era.

Washington D.C.

By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. They felt, an rightfully so that communism could not be allowed to spread across the world, it had to be stopped.

Washington Monument

Unlike World War II and Vietnam, the Korean War did not get much media attention in the United States. It became the forgotten war.  The most famous representation of the war in popular culture is the television series “M*A*S*H,” which was set in a field hospital in South Korea. 

Washington Monument

Many feared it was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world. For this reason, nonintervention was not considered an option by many top decision makers. (In fact, in April 1950, a National Security Council report known as NSC-68 had recommended that the United States use military force to “contain” communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring, “regardless of the intrinsic strategic or economic value of the lands in question.”)

The Korean War was relatively short but exceptionally bloody. Nearly 5 million people died. More than half of these–about 10 percent of Korea’s prewar population–were civilians. (This rate of civilian casualties was higher than World War II’s and Vietnam’s.) Almost 40,000 Americans died in action in Korea, and more than 100,000 were wounded.

A truce was obtained, with neither side winning, the start of an illadivised trend in American warfare that continues today. 

Growing up on a dairy farm in southeastern Indiana, Gary traveled very little until midlife, when the opportunity became available to him.

Grabbing his camera and a bag full of equipment, he began his vision quest traveling to most areas of the United States and several countries abroad.

Along the way he collected several thousand photographs that he wants to share with everyone.

http://www.travelnsnap.com

Gary decided the best way to accomplish his goal was to publish photo documentaries on the various areas of the world he has visited.

What will follow will be several photography books, who knows how many will wind up in his collection.

To contact Gary:

journeysthrulife@gmail.com.

http://www.journeysthrulife.com.

Major Wolf and Masonry in the Civil War

 

The Masonic Influence on World History

During the Civil War, Confederate Major Enoch Obid Wolf (1829-1910) served with Ford’s Battalion Arkansas Cavalry, Company C. In 1863 he was captured by the Union forces.

He was taken prisoners and along with six other was to be shot in retaliation for the shooting of a Union officer.

Major Wolf, a Freemason, cut a piece from his cane and fashioned a masonic ring from it.

His masonic brothers went to work with a zeal that is only known to a worthy brother in distress and wired to Washington and as a consequence President Lincoln issued a reprieve that arrived just as the firing squad were loading their weapons.

Gary has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.

His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.

He has published several books about his adventures.

For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.

Your comments are welcome

Masonic Brotherhood in the Civil War

 

The Masonic Influence on World History

A second reason why Masonry held together is that membership in a Masonic Lodge is by choice only. No man has ever been recruited into joining a Lodge. Our rules, in fact, prohibit Masons from actively pursuing someone for initiation. Instead, a man interested in becoming a Mason must, “of his own free will and accord,” actively seek out a member of the Lodge which he wishes to join and ask him for a petition for membership.

The third reason is the structure of the Craft itself. There are a number of internal rules and customs that helped the Lodge as a whole avoid the turbulent politics and divisiveness of the War. This allowed the Lodge to continue to function as a place a man could go when he needed help or a quiet haven from the storms that raged outside the Craft. It was then and continues to be today, a place where true brotherhood exists.

Gary has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.

His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.

He has published several books about his adventures.

For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.

Your comments are welcome

Masonry During the Civil War

 

 

The Masonic Influence on World History

An excerpt from my new book.

The Civil War was the single most divisive event in our nation’s long history. No other war, political event, or national crisis has ever approached the levels of animosity and hatred that the Civil War caused. Brother fought against brother. Fathers against sons. Families were forever split over the idealism of the War. They were not alone. Major national organizations, notably the Baptist Churches, also broke up over the issues of slavery and States’ Rights. The War seemed to destroy the bonds of any organization it touched.

All the organizations, that is, except one: Freemasonry. While the War raged around them, Freemasons held on to the ties and the idealism that brought them together in the first place. Thousands of Masons fought in the War, and many died. But the tenets of the Craft, those ideals and moral codes that we, as Freemasons, strive to abide by, were able to overcome the hatred and the animosity that the War generated.

Elections Canvas Print

by lifejourneysimages

There are a number of reasons why this organization, more than any other, was able to survive the tumult that was the Civil War. A major reason is the long and storied history of the Craft. The beliefs and tenets of the Lodge predate not only the Civil War, but the Constitution, the discovery of the New World, and, according to some, even the birth of Christ. When a tradition of that many years exists, it is difficult to ignore.

Gary has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.

His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.

He has published several books about his adventures.

For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.

Your comments are welcome

Masonic Civil War Stories

 

An excerpt from my latest book:

The Masonic Influence on World History

“My father had been a soldier in the Union Army. . .He was made a Mason in a military Lodge. . .Taken prisoner at Arkansas Post, he was carried up the Mississippi River to Rock Island, Illinois. . .My father became. . . desperately ill, and made himself known as a Mason to an officer of the camp. The officer took him to his own home and nursed him back to life. When the war ended, he loaned Father money to pay his way back to his Texas home, and gave him a pearl-handled pistol to protect himself. . .This experience of my father, when I learned about it, had a very great influence upon my life. . .; the fact that such a fraternity of men could exist, mitigating the harshness of war, and remain unbroken when states and churches were torn in two, became a wonder; and it is not strange that I tried for years to repay my debt to it.”

    — Joseph Fort Newton, D.D. in River of Years

Gary has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.

His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.

He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.

He has published several books about his adventures.

For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.

Your comments are welcome

Ireland declares War on France

Jacques Chirac, The French President, is sitting in his office when his telephone rings.

“Hallo, Mr. Chirac!” a heavily accented voice said. “This is Paddy down at the Harp Pub in County Clare, Ireland. I am ringin’ to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!”

“Well, Paddy,” Chirac replied, “This is indeed important news! How big is your army?”

Right now,” says Paddy, after a moment’s calculation, “there is myself, me Cousin Sean, me next door neighbor Seamus, and the entire darts team from the pub. That makes eight!”

Chirac paused. “I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100,000 men in my army waiting to move on my command.”

“Begoora!” says Paddy. “I’ll have to ring you back.”Sure enough, the next day, Paddy calls again.

“Mr. Chirac, the war is still on. We have managed to get us some infantry equipment!”

“And what equipment would that be, Paddy?” Chirac asks.

“Well, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy’s farm tractor.”

Chirac sighs, amused; “I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 6,000 tanks and 5,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I have increased my army to 150,000 since we last spoke.”

“Saints preserve us!” says Paddy. “I’ll have to get back to you.”

Sure enough, Paddy rings again the next day.

“Mr. Chirac, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We have modified Jackie McLaughlin’s ultra-light with a couple of shotguns in the cockpit, and four boys from the Shamrock Bar have joined us as well!”

Chirac was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. “I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100 bombers and 200 fighter planes. My military bases are surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last! spoke, I have increased my army to 200,000!”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” says Paddy, “I will have to ring you back.”

Sure enough, Paddy calls again the next day.

“Top o’ the mornin’, Mr. Chirac. I am sorry to inform you that we have had to call off the war.”

“Really? I am sorry to hear that,” says Chirac. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Well,” says Paddy, “we had a long chat over a few pints of Guinness, and decided there is no way we can feed 200,000 French prisoners.”

Gary has been a writer/ photographer for over 20 years, specializing in nature,landscapes and studying native cultures.Besides visiting most of the United States, he has traveled to such places as Egypt,the Canary Islands,much of the Caribbean. He has studied  the Mayan Cultures in Central America, and the Australian Aboriginal way of life.Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in many different parts of the world!

He has published several books about the various cultures he has observed.

For more information and a link to his hard cover and Ebooks,and contact information: please check his website.www.commonsensejourneys.com

Your comments appreciated

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