Chicago monuments under assault, Part Seven, Phil Sheridan

General Phil Sheridan was a Union Civil War hero. His victories in the Shenandoah Campaign in 1864 against the Confederacy secured the breadbasket of the Southern armies for the North. His victory in the Battle of Five Forks  the following year gave General Ulysses S. Grant the opportunity to end of the Petersburg Siege the next day. The day after that the rebels' capital, Richmond, fell. 

Two of my ancestors served with Grant's Army in the Petersburg Siege.

On Sheridan Road--named for him of course--at Belmont on the North Side stands the Phil Sheridan statue. Click here to view it. The bronze statue was designed by Gutzon Borglum, who was in charge of the carving of Mount Rushmore.

Sheridan was in Chicago the night of the Chicago Fire. The city was placed under martial law--with the hero of the Shenandoah Campaign in charge. 

The general fought on the Plains during the Indian Wars, which is likely why the Sheridan statue is one of the monuments that "warrant attention" according to the secretive Chicago Monments Project, which has 40 other statues, plaques, and reliefs "under review." 

Sheridan applauded the near extermination of the buffalo on on the Plains in the 1870s.

Allegedy Sheridan once said, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

Sheridan sits on an upright stallion in the statue. Yes, it's a male horse, anatomically correct, and for years in a bizarre initiation tradition in Major League Baseball, rookies painted the genitals of the generals' horse on their first road trip to Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs. 

Last fall radicals vandalized the Sheridan monument, tying the general to colonization, racism, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and the Chicago Police. 

Sheridan is one of the few men to have served as a General of the Army, which in the 19th-century was a four-star generals' rank. Now it's a five-star rank, although no American has been a General of the Army since Omar Bradley's death in 1981.

To comment on the monuments "under review" please visit the Chicago Monuments Project "Feedback page." Please be courteous but firm in your comments. 

Please Tweet this post. When you do so use the #ChicagoMonuments hashtag.

Earlier posts: 

• Chicago monuments under assault, Part One, William McKinley
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Two, Young Lincoln 
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Three, Melville Fuller 
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Four, Leif Erikson
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Five, John A. Logan
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Six, The Alarm

Related posts of mine at Da Tech Guy

• Lincoln statues under attack in the largest city in the Land of Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The Man)
• Well-deserved pushback against Chicago Monuments Project underway

Tucker: The key difference between 'equality' and 'equity'

Spoiler alert: Equity, which the Democrats are pushing, is designed to protect power.

White House cuts virtual event feed after Biden says he'll take questions

When Donald J. Trump was president there was no doubt who was in charge. With Sleepy Joe Biden his handlers are running things.

From Fox News:

The White House raised eyebrows on Wednesday when it suddenly cut the feed of a virtual event after President Biden said he was "happy to take questions" from Democratic lawmakers.

Accompanied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and the House Democratic Caucus, Biden addressed lawmakers on the topics of COVID relief and the ongoing vaccine rollout.

He closed his remarks by calling on Democrats to help "restore faith" in government. He then appeared ready to take questions.

"I'd be happy to take questions if that's what I'm supposed to do, Nance," Biden told the speaker. "Whatever you want me to do."

And then the feed was cut. Great Grandpa needed a rest, I guess.

Chicago monuments under assault, Part Six, The Alarm

Several of the Chicago monuments that "warrant attention" according to the secretive Chicago Monuments project incorporate Native Americans. As the artists who created them were white, my assumption is that the self-appointed righteous are accusing them of "culture appropriation." 

But such works, including The Alarm in Lincoln Park, are meant to honor the first humans to inhabit the continent. 

John J. Boyle designed The Alarm, it's a tribute to the Ottawa Indians who mainly populated Michigan and southwestern Ontario. 

There are carvings on the base, each portraying scenes of Ottawa life, "the Peace Pipe, the Corn Dance, Forestry, and the Hunt."

To comment on the monuments "under review" please visit the Chicago Monuments Project "Feedback page." Please be courteous but firm in your comments. 

Please Tweet this post. When you do so use the #ChicagoMonuments hashtag.

Earlier posts: 

• Chicago monuments under assault, Part One, William McKinley
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Two, Young Lincoln 
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Three, Melville Fuller 
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Four, Leif Erikson
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Five, John A. Logan

Related posts of mine at Da Tech Guy

• Lincoln statues under attack in the largest city in the Land of Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The Man)
• Well-deserved pushback against Chicago Monuments Project underway

Mark Dice: MORE BOOKS BANNED! - And This is Just the Beginning!

Last month warning labels were placed on some vintate Muppet Show episodes by Disney Plus.

And yesterday the publisher of Dr. Seuss pulled some of his books out of publication. 

Mark Dice has more.

Let there not be light: BGA learns that Lightfoot's Chicago Monuments Project is anything but transparent

Abraham Lincoln: The Man
in Lincoln Park, designed by
Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

It seems like a decade ago but just two years ago Lori Lightfoot was running for mayor of Chicago. Her campaingn, in her call for transparency in municipal goverment, was "Let there be light."

But the Better Government Association reports that her Chicago Monuments Project, that has placed statues of  prominent Americans and others under "review." A committee was formed after the July riot outside Grant Park's Christopher Columbus statue. That monument, along with a Columbus statue standing in a West Side park, were sent to storage last summer.

From the BGA site:

But during its first six months of work, the committee’s deliberations were kept secret. In fact, the mayor’s monuments committee was designed that way.

"What’s said here, stays here," is a message city officials delivered to the committee members at their Oct. 14 meeting, according to a slim, 24-page packet of committee agendas and minutes records City Hall released recently to the Better Government Association. 

The committee is tasked with identifying any public monuments linked to white supremacy and injustice that "warrant attention" and could be removed. It ultimately flagged 41 problematic artworks, including statues of Columbus as well as Presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley.

But despite Lightfoot’s transparency pledge, there was no public notice of the committee’s six meetings, no record which 30 committee members attended or any details about what they recommended during roughly 12 hours of online deliberations.

 If you Tweet this post--and I urge you to do so--please use the #ChicagoMonuments hashtag.

To comment on the monuments "under review" please visit the Chicago Monuments Project "Feedback page." Please be courteous but firm in your comments. 

Earlier posts: 

• Chicago monuments under assault, Part One, William McKinley
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Two, Young Lincoln 
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Three, Melville Fuller 
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Four, Leif Erikson
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Five, John A. Logan

Related posts of mine at Da Tech Guy

• Lincoln statues under attack in the largest city in the Land of Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The Man)
• Well-deserved pushback against Chicago Monuments Project underway

Chicago monuments under assault, Part Five, John A. Logan

Logan statue in Grant Park

"Not without thy wondrous story, Illinois, Illinois, 

Can be writ the nation’s glory, Illinois, Illinois, 

On the record of thy years, Abraham Lincoln’s name appears, 

Grant and Logan, and our tears, Illinois, Illinois, 

Grant and Logan, and our tears, Illinois." 

Illinois' state song, "Illinois." 

Just three people are named in Illinois' official state song, appropriately named "Illinois." Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and John A. Logan. And amazingly, each man has a statue on the Chicago Monuments Project's "review" status. Nearly 450 other monuments, plaques, and reliefs are not "in review." Hmm.

Oh, there is one clarification: Lincoln, you know, the Land of Lincoln fella, who defeated the slave-holding Confederate States during the Civil War, has five statues on the naughty list of the Chicago Monuments Project.

After serving during the Mexican War Logan, whose nickname was "Black Jack" because of his dark looks, was elected as a congressman in a southern Illinois district.

As I wrote in a blog post ten years ago:

Civil War General John A. Logan is largely forgotten, but in his day he was a major political figure. At the outbreak of the the Civil War, Logan was a congressman from southern Illinois. In his Personal Memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant wrote of the questionable loyalty of Logan's constituents, which Grant said consisted of "people [originally] from the Southern States, and at the breaking out of secession they sympathized with the South." Grant added about Logan, "As he went in politics, so his district was sure to go."

Logan went with the Union. He served with Grant at Fort Donelson [where he was badly wounded] and Vicksburg, and also fought at the first Manassas and Corinth. In late 1864, Grant became disenchanted with General George H. Thomas' performance in the Nashville campaign, he sent Logan to relieve him, but Thomas routed the Confederates before he arrived.

Logan switched to the Republican Party and campaigned for Lincoln in his reelection effort. After the war Logan became commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization of Union  veterans, from that post he was instrumental in the creation of the Memorial Day holiday.

Three times Logan served as a US senator from Illinois and in 1884 he was the Republican nominee for vice president. According to Encylopedia Britannica, "By 1886 he was widely considered the front-runner to become the 23rd U.S. president before he succumbed to the effects of rheumatism and died in his Washington, D.C., home on December 26, 1886."

Logan was just the seventh person whose body lay in state inside the US Capitol.

The same source also says of Logan that he was "an advocate of African American civil rights" during his time in the Senate. But the Chicago Monuments Project ignores that fact and writes of Logan on his monument page, "In his early career in politically-held office [My note: can't these dopes write better?], he allied with Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and participated in legislation directed towards halting black migration and settlement in Illinois."

Douglas died in 1861 and Logan's views and actions evolved into better ones. 

Man oh man, what the hell is wrong with these people? 

As I wrote many years ago, "John A. Logan is "largely forgotten." That is enough reason for me why his statue should remain in Grant Park.

Logan's bronze statue is a collaboration of Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Alexander Phimister Proctor.

To comment on the Logan statue and the forty others "under review" please visit the Chicago Monuments Project "Feedback page." Please be courteous but firm in your comments.

If you Tweet this post--and I urge you to do so--please use the #ChicagoMonuments hashtag.

Earlier posts: 

• Chicago monuments under assault, Part One, William McKinley
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Two, Young Lincoln 
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Three, Melville Fuller 
• Chicago monuments under assault, Part Four, Leif Erikson

Related posts of mine at Da Tech Guy

• Lincoln statues under attack in the largest city in the Land of Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The Man)
• Well-deserved pushback against Chicago Monuments Project underway

Biden's rambling comments in Texas ignored by mainstream media

Last week President Joe Biden visited Texas to inspect the damage done by the February winter storm there. It didn't go well which is probably why Biden's protectors in the media aren't covering grandpa's rambling gomments.

"Representatives, uh, Sheryl— Shirley Jackson Lee," Biden said, botching the name of US Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). Biden continued, "Al Green, Sylvia Garcia, Lizzie Pinneli— excuse me, Pinell, and, uh, what am I doing here?" 

It got worse. 

"I'm going to lose track here, and, uh, um— Mayor [Sylvester] Turner, Judge [Lina] Hidalgo, uh, thank you all for welcoming us," Biden added.

If this was Donald Trump at CPAC on Sunday, how would CNN and MSNBC cover this debacle?   

pic.twitter.com/m2rJxlhKP1

— holly wiley (@hollyjayewiley) February 27, 2021

Chicago monuments under assault, Part Four, Leif Erikson

This entry, nomination if you will, for the "under review" Chicago Monuments list puzzles me, Leif Erikson. The Norse chieftan is likely the first European to land on North American soil, with his crew of course.

The first humans to encounter the western hemisphere landmass of course were hunter-gatherers from what is now the Russian Far East who crossed Beringa, the land bridge between that area and Alaska, thousands of years ago. They discovered America but either they didn't tell anyone about it or those who heard about quickly forgot about the news. 

Click here to see the Leif Erikson statue on the Chicago Monuments site.

Erikson, born in Iceland around 970 or 980, was the son of Erik the Red, who founded the first Viking settlement in Greenland, which, although not on of the mainland, is considered part of North America. According to Icelandic sagas, on a voyage Erikson was blown off course and ended up in Vinland to the west where they encountered Native Americans, skrælingi, Old Norse for "wretches." These stories were seen as just that by historians for centuries, stories, fictional ones. But in the 1960s, archealogists discovered a Norse settlement from the time of Erikson in Newfoundland. The Vikings made it to America, or as they call it, Vinland, nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus did.

In Humboldt Park on the Northwest Side stands a Leif Erikson statue, the Viking is decked out in traditional medieval garb. It was commissioned by the local Norwegian-American community and designed by Sigvald Asbjørnsen. 

Like some of the other people represented monments on the Chicago Monuments Project that are "under review," Erikson was a slaveholder, although his thralls were also European. It's possible that Erikson never encountered an African person.

But Erikson is "under review."

Why?

At the base of the statue it reads, "Leif Erikson, discoverer of America."

To comment on the Erikson statue and the forty others "under review" please visit the Chicago Monuments Project "Feedback page." Please be polite but firm in your comments.

If you Tweet this post--and I urge you to do so--please use the #ChicagoMonuments hashtag.

Earlier posts: 

Chicago monuments under assault, Part One, William McKinley

Chicago monuments under assault, Part Two, Young Lincoln 

Chicago monuments under assault, Part Three, Melville Fuller

Related posts of mine at Da Tech Guy

Lincoln statues under attack in the largest city in the Land of Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The Man)

Well-deserved pushback against Chicago Monuments Project underway

Five dead and twenty wounded over weekend in Chicago

It was another violent weekend in Chicago. Over the weekend five people were shot to death--and at least 20 others were wounded. 

With warmer weather here expect those numbers to climb.