Little Things Count

Bob Koning’s latest story was titled “Whalen – The Other Side of the Story” (you can read it here). In his research, he says the following: “23 civilians were killed and were not remembered. Wahlen has no church anymore. … It felt weird: 23 civilians were killed and there was no place to remember them.”

He goes into a lot more detail on why there is no church, and that the graves are now located in the neighboring village of Steinfeld. But because there is no church in Wahlen the people there, several of whom are descended from those civilians who were killed during the bombing of 25 December 1944, no longer feel comfortable visiting the graves in the next town.

Such a simple thing – the government decided to not rebuild the church in Wahlen, the graves were moved to a different village, and now they sit among weeds and small bushes with no one visiting them.

[Cemetery in Steinfeld]

 

But that got me to thinking – about how some simple things (also associated with war) had significant outcomes.

 

Ruloffe Van der Kerr (VanDeCar)

I wrote the story of Ruloff, my wife’s great*5 grandfather, a few years ago (see here). But why did he choose to enter the Revolutionary War on the side of the British when all of his brothers and cousins sided with the colonists? As I looked at all the details of the story, there were some simple things that accounted for this.

The Van der Kerr family had been in the Hudson River valley for over 100 years before Ruloffe was born in 1745. His great-grandfather had been born there in 1637. So why would some still be favorable with the British? There were a number of reasons.

The first is the terms that the British gave to these Dutch inhabitants when they took over the Hudson River valley in 1664. While Charles I was a horrible king (he was beheaded by order of the British parliament), and his son, Charles II, was not much better, when agents of Charles II approached the Dutch, they gave them very favorable terms. As you can see here, the Dutch got to keep their weapons, their ale houses could remain open, etc. The terms even stated that “All people shall continue free Denizons and enjoy their Lands, Houses, Goods, Ships, wherever they are within this Country, and dispose of them as they please.” So the Dutch were given no reason to hate the new British government (unlike people in other parts of the British empire).

A second reason is that about the time that Ruloffe was born (in what was called at the time Loonenberg, but is now called Athens, NY), the British colonies were involved in the French and Indian War. A man by the name of Edward Jessup (1735-1816) (see here and here) had been living in Dutchess County, NY, but served as a captain in the NY Militia in 1759. Following the war, he and his brother moved to an area above Albany, NY where they received 500,000 acres of land from the British Crown. The area where they lived became associated with the British and remained so when the Revolutionary War broke out not too many years later.

Meanwhile, Ruloffe had moved out of the farming community where his relatives lived and had taken the profession of tanner and shoemaker. This seemingly simple choice of occupation meant that instead of being bound to the land, having other farmers as his principal contacts, and needing to tend crops/animals every day, he associated with men who could afford shoes and who walked as part of their everyday lives. These would have included men like the Jessup brothers as well as British soldiers. Thus, when the war began, 30 y.o. Ruloffe had his allegiance to his customers, including the British, instead of to the colonists who tended to be farmers. So he joined the group known as Jessup’s Raiders.

When the war ended in the early 1780s, Ruloffe was forced to flee to Canada. The British there, following their pattern, reimbursed him for the losses he had suffered. He remained loyal to the British for the remainder of his life. It was only after his death in 1830 that one of his sons moved back to the US – but not to nearby NY. Rather he went to the newly settled territory of Michigan which became a state in 1837.

One small thing – the choice of an occupation – but significant consequences for Ruloffe.

 

Peach Tree Creek

Like my wife’s VanDeCar ancestors, my Russell ancestors who lived in the Hudson River Valley were not unfamiliar with war either. My great*5 grandfather, John Russell (1756-1833) had left his young wife and newborn son to enlist with the NY militia on 1 May 1776 where he served until Aug 1777. Thus, when the Civil War engulfed the country, it was not unexpected that Stephen Simmons, the husband of my great*3 aunt, Rebecca Russell, also enlisted in a NY regiment in the fall of 1862. Rebecca, together with their two children (ages 10 and 9) moved back with her parents on the family farm. But Stephen’s service was not confined to the Hudson River valley and by mid-1864 he found himself as part of General Sherman’s armies in northern Georgia.

On 17 July 1864, the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, had replaced General Joseph Johnston with General John Bell Hood, due to Johnston’s practice of a strategy of retreat (see here and here). As Sherman’s armies were approaching Atlanta, Hood’s strategy was to allow the Union Armies of Tennessee and Ohio to move east, but to attack the Union Army of the Cumberland, under General George Thomas, as they were crossing Peach Tree Creek and were most vulnerable. This was an excellent plan, however Hood lacked the insight to realize that he needed to position his troops where they could protect themselves from the Tennessee and Ohio forces on their right while still engaging the Cumberland forces crossing the river.

The original plan called for Hood’s forces to attack around 1-2 p.m. on 20 July, but because of the delay of about 90 minutes while they shifted to the right, they were not ready to attack until 3:30-4:00. By then the bulk of the Cumberland forces had completed crossing the creek and this led to a victory by the Union forces instead of the Confederate forces. With the Confederate forces once again being forced to retreat, the stage was set for the Battle of Atlanta two days later.

Just a small delay of 90 minutes in a war that had been going on for four years. But that simple delay was enough to change the course of the war by allowing Sherman’s March to the Sea.

But that outcome did not change the experience of Stephen Simmons. He was one of the casualties of the Battle of Peach Tree Creek. His wife filed for a widow’s pension, remarried three years later, and moved to CT with her new husband.  

 

Simple things sometimes have significant consequences. That’s partly why the study of history is so fascinating!