Lizzie Borden Reconsidered

Always on Watch is a Lizzie Borden buff.  She has studied the case for years.

Lizzie Borden was accused of killing her parents with a hatchet in 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts.  She was indicted and made to stand trial for murder.  If she had been found guilty, she would have been hanged.

She was found "not guilty" by the jurors after only ten minutes of deliberation.  (They sat in the jury room for another hour to avoid embarrassing the prosecution before announcing the verdict.)

The murders happened with only two other people in the house, Lizzie Borden and her maid, Bridget Sullivan.  Borden's step mother was hacked to death on the top floor of the house about 90 minutes before her father met a similar fate, after he came home and dozed on the couch.  In spite of the "not guilty" verdict, many people still believe Lizzie Borden did the deed and got away with it.  Until today, I was one of them.  Now I'm not so sure.

I just read a book "Forty Whacks" by David Kent.  This is a book with a detailed story line about what happened, what is fact and what is rumor about the case.

Kent makes it clear that Lizzie's guilt was by no means proved and the jury did the right thing.  While Mr. Borden's body was still warm and oozing blood, Lizzie yelled for help and a doctor from across the street came over to the house and examined Mr. Borden's body.  Others from the neighborhood soon showed up as well to comfort Lizzie, and Lizzie's clothing, hair and shoes were completely bereft of any blood.  All evidence against her was circumstantial and unpersuasive.  The jury acquitted, and I agree with the verdict.

However being found "not guilty" is not the same as "absolutely innocent."  There was not enough evidence to convict.  No murder weapon was ever tied to the crime, no motivation apparent.  Lizzie's life both before and after the crime was completely inconsistent with such an evil act.  Still, she could have done it, and it seems unlikely that anyone else could have done it without being detected by Lizzie or Bridget when they entered the house.  However, what is unlikely is not impossible, and the killer's identity may never be known.

If Lizzie did it, how did she escape being splattered with blood?  Where did she hide the murder weapon, which was never reliably identified?

Perhaps Lizzie hired someone to kill her parents so she could inherit their fortune without having to wait years for their natural deaths.  Lizzie could have hid the assassin in the house and helped him escape detection.  This would explain the 90 minutes between the murders.   However, this is speculation and not supported by any evidence.  We will probably never know the why, the who and the how of these murders.

Lizzie does indeed deserve the benefit of a doubt, and the jury gave her that.  RIP, Lizzie Borden.

Evil Capitalist Koch Brother Buys Only Known Photo of "Billy the Kid"

Original, Unretouched Tintype
of Billy the Kid

William Koch, 71, of Wichita (and one of the conservative Koch brother/rich guy/activists) has purchased the only authenticated photo of Billy the Kid.  Koch had the winning bid at auction of $1 million.

Democrats and other anarchists have recently made the Koch brothers a target of their two minute hate rallies, and now denounce all things Koch as the equivalent of Darth Vader on steroids.  No doubt they will try to insinuate that William Koch bought the 130 year old tintype because he admires the values and character of Billy the Kid, a 19th century outlaw who shot a lot of people in New Mexico before Sheriff Pat Garrett ended his career at the end of a smoking six gun.

The photo of Billy the Kid is a tintype, an early form of photograph that was printed on a piece of tin rather than on paper, as modern photos are.  I had a friend once in Santa Cruz who owned a 19th century camera, and took tintypes of Civil War reenactors and others.  There is no negative of the photo -- the finished product is a reverse or mirror image of the subject.  I have been photographed in a tintype, and you must stand very still for about a minute while the camera is taking your picture.  The photographer doesn't press a button to snap the photo -- he simply removes a lens cap, and replaces it after a minute of exposure.

Tintypes were often varnished after creation to prevent deterioration.  I own a couple of authentic tintypes, one of a little girl and another of a Union solder in uniform.

Tintypes often do not weather the decades well, and develop cracks, scratches and discoloration.  The tintype of Billy the Kid has deteriorated badly, as you can see in the photo of the tintype at the left.

Read all about Koch's purchase of this artifact here.

Memorial Day 2011

Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery
Sculpted by Moses J. Ezekiel

Confederate Memorial, Arlington Cemetery

Dedicated 1914; Sculpture by Sir Moses Ezekiel, former Sergeant of Cadets, Virginia Military Institute, who is himself buried at the base of this monument.

Inscription:
NOT FOR FAME OR REWARD, NOT FOR PLACE OR FOR RANK, NOT LURED BY AMBITION OR GOADED BY NECESSITY, BUT IN SIMPLE OBEDIENCE TO DUTY AS THEY UNDERSTOOD IT, THESE MEN SUFFERED ALL, SACRIFICED ALL, DARED ALL, AND DIED 

See also jameswebb.com, Speech at the Confederate Memorial, 1990.

Moses J. Ezekiel was one of the VMI cadets who were called into action to plug a hole in the Confederate center at the Battle of New Market, and to repulse a Union Army advance.  Though young (17 to 21 years of age) and untested in battle, the VMI cadets prevailed, charging the Union cannon and sending the Yankees into retreat.  Ten of the cadets were killed outright or later died of wounds from the battle; fifty-seven were wounded.  Although Ezekiel later became a world-renowned sculptor, he chose to be identified on his tombstone simply as:

Sgt. Moses J. Ezekiel

Moses J. Ezekiel
Sergeant of Company C
Battalion of Cadets
of the
Virginia Military Institute

Ezekiel once wrote: "The VMI, where every stone and blade of grass is dear to me, and the name of the cadet of the VMI, the proudest and most honored title I can ever possess."

A detailed description of his life and works can be found here.  

Virginia never had a finer son. May he rest in peace.

****

For more of my views of Memorial Day, see my 2006 (updated to 2007) post, "In Flanders Fields." That story and the poem it created is unsurpassed in our remembrance of our war dead.

A list of several prior year posts on Memorial Days past can be found at this link.

New Mexico Governor Denies Pardon to Billy the Kid; the Kid Comments

Billy the Kid reacts to being denied a pardon!

Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, after reflection, denies a pardon to famous Western outlaw Billy the Kid.

The governor explains his decision:

"It was a very close call. I've been working on this for eight years. The romanticism appealed to me to issue a pardon, but the facts and the evidence did not support it and I've got to be responsible especially when a governor is issuing pardons," Richardson said.

Richardson said that Billy the Kid's decision to continue to kill after the pardon wasn't granted to him impacted his decision.

"What I think maybe tipped the scales with me is that Billy went ahead after not getting this pardon and killed two deputies, two law enforcement individuals, two innocents," Richardson said.

Read it all here.

Grave of Billy the Kid with protective cage

Who was Billy the Kid you say?  He was an outlaw in New Mexico who was killed in 1881. Billy was considered so dangerous that he was buried in a jail cell to prevent his ghost from continuing to murder people.  See image.

P.S.  Just kidding.  The cage around Billy's grave was to prevent tourists from chipping off souvenir pieces from the tombstone.

Bill would require textbooks to include historical contributions of gays. Will this reduce gay bullying? | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

Bill would require textbooks to include historical contributions of gays. Will this reduce gay bullying? | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

The 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War: Understanding History and the Cause of Freedom

My friend Donald Douglas has a post on the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, or as we Confederate sympathizers prefer to call it, the War for Southern Independence.  I generally like to steer clear of discussions about that war, because I fear some deep well of emotion will be tapped in my soul and I become filled with pure, unadulterated hatred for the North and for Yankees.  Well, not exactly; a pure and deep hatred for the Yankees and Northerners of the 19th century, all of whom are long dead.

I don't want to go there, because hatred is an ugly emotion and it is impossible to feel happy and feel hatred at the same time.  I would rather avoid such feelings whenever possible.  However, I do have my triggers and they are wired to strong emotions.

The Civil War was then and this is now.  No Yankee bummers still live who burned down the South, murdered civilians, destroyed private homes and farms, raped Southern women, starved Confederate POWs (or used them as human shields against artillery).  The current generation of Northerners are not responsible.  It would be stupid to hate the descendants of the Northern side, especially since many of them are now valued friends and allies in a new struggle for state sovereignty and individual freedom.

Instead of refighting old wars of 150 years ago, we need to focus on the current struggle against liberalism, socialism and big government tyranny.  The left would love to use the sesquicentennial of the Civil War to divide conservatives, make them hate each other, in a divide and conquer strategy.  We have to be smarter than that and not allow it.

However, there are very strong reasons why the true history of the Civil War be told, one without either Southern or Northern bias, if that is at all possible (it isn't, but we must try).  Modern politicians often rewrite history to justify political actions in the here and now.  History becomes a political tool for achieving modern political ends.  Carl Sandburg's celebrated volumes on Abraham Lincoln, or so I've read, were largely a disguised justification for Roosevelt's New Deal.  (Carl Sandburg was an avowed socialist.)

In George Orwell's 1984, the apparatchiks of some future tyranny are constantly rewriting history to justify current events.   The reason is simple:  "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."  It is for this reason that, though I wish to avoid unnecessary strife between myself and modern Northern allies in the cause of freedom, that I must sometimes publish articles about the Southern Confederacy and the cause for which my Confederate ancestors fought.

I am currently seeking reprint permission for the best article on the causes of the war that I have ever read.  It is "Why the War Was Not About Slavery," by Professor Donald W. Livingston of Emory University.  It appeared in the September/October issue of Confederate Veteran magazine, a publication of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, of which I am a member.  That article will put the history of the Civil War into a much more accurate context than now exists in popular culture.