The Epiphany Martyrdom of King Wenceslas, 935

beloved and instantly recognizable figure in Christmastime carols and lore—Good King Wenceslas, such as we now know him—was in fact a Duke of Bohemia during his lifetime, and was granted both sainthood and kingship after his martyrdom, in recognition of his singular legacy of Christian probity and benevolence.

The classic Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas” elaborately printed on a cookie tin in 1913, on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England

He lived in what is now modern day Czech Republic during the 10th century. Dubbed the “dark ages” by recent historians, it was a time of extreme testing for Christendom at large and one that made Wenceslas’ role as duke rigorous with the ever-encroaching threats of paganism from within and Islam from the east. To the west of his kingdom the Catholic Church was rending itself apart with petty jealousies, while the legacy of the grand old Roman Empire had continued in the East in the form of the Byzantine Empire. In far off England, King Alfred would stand alone in his island nation, defending the rights and practices of Christianity against the surge of Viking invaders.

King Alfred the Great of England (c. 849-899)

A young Wenceslas with his father, Vratislaus I, Duke of Bohemia, seated (c. 888-921) and mother Drahomíra (c. 877 or 890-934 or 936), standing

Such were the times, and in the midst of them a young boy was made Duke of Bohemia by reason of most of his senior family members having murdered each other to extinction. His Christian grandmother served as regent for a time, taking care to disciple him in the gospels until she too was murdered by Wenceslas’ own mother, who took control of the kingdom and enacted measures against the Christians of the realm. When Wenceslas came of age to rule in his own right at eighteen, the Christian nobles of his country overthrew his mother and—by sending her into exile—put him in control of the government of Bohemia.

Wenceslas’ paternal grandmother, Ludmila of Bohemia (c. 860-921)

As might be expected, this reforming zeal antagonized many of his pagan subjects and outraged his exiled mother who saw opportunity for herself in the public dissension and instigated his brother to overthrow him. On Epiphany morning, while on his way to worship, Wenceslas was waylaid by this brother—later nicknamed “Boleslav the Cruel”—at the church door and there was struck down. Three nobles—Tira, Česta, and Hněvsa—stabbed Wenceslas, before his own brother ran him through with a lance. He died reportedly saying, “Brother, may God forgive you.”

The murder of Wenceslas by his brother “Boleslav the Cruel” and his companions—the nobles Tira, Česta, and Hněvsa—at the church door

Boleslav then took power over Bohemia, but immediately the notoriety of his brother’s virtue grew throughout the nation and then to all of Christendom, with the common people claiming him to be a martyr of the faith. In his premature death before the age of thirty, Wenceslas was able to accomplish what had seemed an impossible task in life. In the words of Dr. George Grant: “his death brought about the complete conversion of Bohemia and the codification of his deeds of mercy as a standard for Christian civic justice and mercy.”

Memorial statue to Wenceslas in St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic

He is immortalized in the eponymous Christmas carol, written in the mid 1800’s by Christian historian, translator and hymn writer, John Mason Neale. Neale first highlighted Wenceslas in a small history he had written for children on defenders of the faith, then later he either wrote or dramatized an existing Czech hymn about the hero, introducing it into common usage by churches across the west. Reportedly it was even sung by both sides during the Christmas Truce of 1914 during World War One—a prayer lifted up the world over for leaders who establish justice and exercise mercy.

Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing.

‘Tempus adest floridum’—the tune used for ‘Good King Wenceslas’—as it appears in the original 1582 version of the Piae Cantiones

John Mason Neale (1818-1866)—an English Anglican priest, scholar, and hymnwriter—authored ‘Good King Wenceslas’ in 1853

NOTE: due to the antiquity of these events, dates and calendars have since shifted, and it is important to note that the feast of Saint Wenceslas is now held on the September 28 (to mark his martyrdom) in the Czech Republic and elsewhere.

Image Credits: 1 1913 Cookie Tin (wikipedia.org) 2 Statue of Alfred the Great in Winchester, England (wikipedia.org) 3 Wenceslas with his parents (wikipedia.org) 4 Ludmila (wikipedia.org) 5 The Baptism of Duke Bořivoj (wikipedia.org) 6 Murder of Wenceslas (wikipedia.org) 7 Wenceslaus statue (wikipedia.org) 8 Wenceslas Square (wikipedia.org) 9 Tempus adest floridum (wikipedia.org) 10 John Mason Neale (wikipedia.org)

The Angel of Marye’s Heights During the Defense of Fredericksburg, Virginia, December 13, 1862

lmost two years into the war that President Lincoln declared upon his own people in order to constrain the southern states to remain in the union, the Union Army of the Potomac was met at the small town of Fredericksburg, Virginia by General Robert E. Lee and his army of native men. There at Fredericksburg, the Union army was defeated by the natural defenses of the mighty Rappahannock River, the necessity of a wide open attack under fire from Confederate snipers, and one of the most formidable displays of artillery yet seen during the conflict.

Fredericksburg, VA in 1862 from the east bank of the Rappahannock River

The Union objective of flanking General Lee and seizing the Confederate capitol at Richmond utterly failed here, as did President Lincoln’s fresh reshuffling of generals—he had recently appointed General Burnside to replace the lackadaisical General McClellan, and perhaps in a drive to prove himself worthy of the promotion, Burnside pushed his luck one too many times during his drive deeper into Virginia. The Confederacy was ready for him on this day and even the muddled bureaucracy of Washington, DC played a part in crippling Burnside’s logistical chances of outmaneuvering his opponent. At the end of the grueling five-day engagement, General Burnside would withdraw his army back across the Rappahannock River, relinquishing all ground gained by the loss of a horrifying 12,500 casualties.

Fredericksburg, VA in February, 1863 from across the Rappahannock River showing the destruction from the Battle of Fredericksburg the previous December

Reports of the battle swirled across the country in the winter interim before spring came and any large scale battles resumed. The politicians in Washington were shaken by the staunch defense of Fredericksburg and the seemingly impermeable ground between them and Richmond, while the Confederacy was greatly invigorated by so unequivocal a victory. From the battle itself there came many individual stories that are still considered essential to and representative of the Civil War mythos. Amongst the carnage there were brave displays of humanity, and these are the tales that swell hearts and captivate those who read of war. In the words of General Lee after this very battle, “It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.”

Amongst these harrowing stories is that of “The Angel of Marye’s Heights.”

Marye’s House upon Marye’s Heights was the center of the Confederate position during the Battle of Fredericksburg, VA, 1862—Confederate troop encampments are visible to the right

Hunkered down behind a stone wall and armed to the teeth, stacked three ranks deep along a sunken road at the bottom of Marye’s Heights outside Fredericksburg, was the veteran division of General James Longstreet. Perched above them on the heights themselves was a portion of Confederate artillery under Colonel Alexander who assured Lee before the expected assault that, “A chicken could not live on that field when we open on it.”

Confederate troops commanded by Generals Cobb and Kershaw fire at attacking Union soldiers from behind a stone wall during the Battle of Fredericksburg, 1862

The Union soldiers had to charge into the face of this ferocious defense, thus earning that patch of ground the wretched name “the slaughter pen.” Line after line of men in blue advanced into the Confederate “sheet of flame” but not one man actually reached the stone wall. In one hour alone the Union army lost nearly 3,000 men.

Burial of the dead after the Battle of Fredericksburg

Only when nightfall descended on December 13 did the ponderous guns fall silent. Temperatures fell, the earth froze, and the haze of gunpowder clung noxious in the air, shrouding the opposing lines. Then, in that uncanny quiet, the cries of the wounded between that stone wall and their withdrawn comrades began to ascend until their noise grew cacophonous.

The Sunken Road at Marye’s Heights

The Sunken Road at Marye’s Heights

Unable to remain indifferent to their misery, one Confederate sergeant—South Carolinian Richard Rowland Kirkland—leapt over the stone wall that had served as his defense in the terrible hours before and began to minister to the enemy wounded beyond. He carried an armload of canteens his fellow soldiers had contributed and was prevented from touting a white flag as it might be misconstrued as a surrender of the entire Confederate position. He had begged his commander twice to be allowed to go, and after an initial refusal, finally prevailed in his plea.

Richard Rowland Kirkland (1843-1863)

Fully expecting to be shot as soon as he showed himself, and with dire warnings regarding the same from his superior, Sergeant Kirkland nevertheless dared and went over the wall—and so became a legend of mercy on a day of calamitous butchery. It was said the opposing Federal troops held their fire long enough for Kirkland to kneel down, lift up the head of one wounded man and give him a drink of water; with his incredible goal apparent, a loud cheer arose and rolled down the opposing Federal line. Astounded, the line of withdrawn Northern troops watched Kirkland move from one of their abandoned comrades to another, both sides holding their fire as Kirkland went back and forth over the wall for an hour and a half until after dawn had broken. When he had done all he could do, Kirkland returned safely to the Confederate line behind the wall. The fighting and the carnage would then resume for another three days.

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park Memorial to the “Angel of Marye’s Heights”, Richard Rowland Kirkland

Sergeant Kirkland’s moving display of humanity was most famously recounted in writing and commended by his superior officer, General Joseph Kershaw, CSA. The general wrote:

“‘Kirkland,’ I said to him, ‘don’t you know that you would get a bullet through your head the moment you stepped over the wall?’ To which Kirkland replied: ‘Yes, sir. I know that; but if you will let me, I am willing to try it.’

By the time his purpose was well understood on both sides, all danger was over. From all parts of the field arose fresh cries of ‘Water, for God’s sake, water!’ More piteous still, the mute appeal of some who could only feebly lift a hand to say, ‘Here, too, is life and suffering‘. For an hour and a half did this ministering angel pursue his labor of mercy, nor ceased to go and return until he had relieved all of the wounded on that part of the field. He returned wholly unhurt.”

General Joseph Brevard Kershaw, CSA (1822-1894)

Sunken Road and stone wall at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park

It is still considered by many to be the single most compassionate action of the war, and one that highlighted the cruelty fomented and waged between Americans of similar heritage and principles. In recent years modern historians have taken much enjoyment in suggesting this errand of mercy did not occur at all, pointing out that while corroborating reports to that of General Kershaw do exist, in many cases they also conflict. Perhaps not with the entire premise, but at least in the particulars of the report, these details being the supposed hour-and-a-half ceasefire, and there being only one man who dared go over the wall. This is at least partially supported by famed American author Walt Whitman himself, who was serving as a nurse and correspondent at a Washington hospital after the battle, and recorded that some of his patients wounded at Fredericksburg reported the presence of multiple Confederate soldiers moving amongst them on that dawn for “benevolent purposes.” And yet, other members of Sergeant Kirkland’s own brigade reported his act of bravery but insisted it occurred amidst an exchange of gunfire between the opposing sides. Among these was one Captain William Hix who published this narrative in an article published in Columbia, South Carolina’s Daily Phoenix during the year 1874:

“After the gallant charge of the Irish Brigade upon the stone fence behind which a portion of Gen. Kershaw’s division of South Carolinians were posted, the ground was covered with the dead and dying Unionists, who, on the repulse and retreat, were left to suffer the untold agonies of the battle field….The Irish made as heroic a charge as it had been hopeless and fatal; and when they retreated, both armies kept up a murderous sharpshooting upon each other….Sergeant Kirkland, one of the sharpshooters, stationed behind the stone wall, is the hero of one incident. The groans of the Federalists lying just over the wall pierced his humane heart, and his kindly human nature rebelled against the cruelty of their suffering. They cried for water, and there was no friendly hand to bring it. Kirkland resolved to make the attempt to relieve the wants of the dying, and with that moral and physical heroism which surmounts all obstacles, and dares death for the good of others, he went to them, the object of a murderous fire, and put his canteen like a blessed Samaritan to the lips of a dying soldier.”

Monument to Kirkland titled “Moment of Mercy”

With these accounts proliferating, it is no wonder the legend of “The Angel of Marye’s Heights” blossomed during the reconciliation period after the war. Near the turn of the century, the artist William Ludwell Sheppard painted a now-iconic scene of Kirkland giving water to a wounded Union soldier, and in 1908 the poet Walter Clark penned a moving tribute to the young South Carolinian. Proof of this growing public appreciation came a year later when Kirkland’s remains were disinterred from the neglected, overgrown family plot and given a “more prestigious burial” beneath a large engraved stone in the town’s Quaker cemetery in Camden, S.C.

Grave of Richard Rowland Kirkland, CSA in Camden, SC

Sergeant Kirkland himself was sadly killed in the war, not even a year after his errand of mercy. He was mortally wounded at the battle to Chickamauga, fighting again under General Longstreet and trying to cover the retreat of the Confederate line. Upon being shot he refused his friends’ offers to assist him. Kirkland is reported to have gasped: “I am done for. You can do me no good. Save yourselves and please tell my pa I died right.” He was barely 20 years old.

Image Credits: 1 Fredericksburg, VA (wikipedia.org) 2 Fredericksburg, VA (wikipedia.org) 3 Marye’s House (wikipedia.org) 4 Troops behind the stone wall (wikipedia.org) 5 Burial of the dead (wikipedia.org) 6 Stone wall 1 (wikipedia.org) 7 Stone wall 2 (wikipedia.org) 8 Richard Rowland Kirkland (wikipedia.org) 9 Battlefield Memorial (wikipedia.org) 10 General Kershaw (wikipedia.org) 11 Sunken Road, Fredericksburg (wikipedia.org) 12 “Moment of Mercy” (wikipedia.org) 13 Kirkland’s grave (findagrave.com)

Happy Thanksgiving

 will sing of the Lord’s great love forever” declared the psalmist, “with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.” It is a duty to give thanks to the Lord, it is right and it is good and it is a longstanding and sacred tradition in our country, acknowledged by an institutionalized day set apart for such thanksgiving.

Christopher Columbus gives thanks to God in the New World

As soon as he stepped ashore in the New World in 1492, Christopher Columbus set aside a day for himself and his sailors to give thanks for their discovery. A full century later Sir Francis Drake did the same on the shores of California with his crew of Englishmen. The settlers of Jamestown, Virginia set aside a day of thanksgiving for their survival from famine and war in the autumn of 1619. Two years later in 1621, Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony of Massachusetts Bay held the most famous of all such observances when a bounteous harvest prompted him to proclaim a special day “to render thanksgiving to the Almighty God for all His blessings.” Then again, in 1777, amidst our War of Independence, the Continental Congress set aside a day for thanksgiving and praise for our victory at the battle of Saratoga. It was the first time all the colonies took part in such an event on the same day.

Pilgrims and Indians giving thanks together in Plymouth, Massachusetts

Although the exact date of the first American thanksgiving observance is uncertain, we know by accounts that it followed the tradition of the English Harvest dinners which the pilgrims had observed back home. These purposeful gatherings in turn were derived from the ancient traditions of the Feast of Tabernacles in the Old Testament.

An artist’s depiction of Christ preaching while at The Temple for the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7)

Giving thanks to our Divine Provider, noting His instances of specific care and broad mercy, and giving glory to God for such faithfulness to His promise is a crucial tenet of our Christian faith. Commands to render praise unto our God and encouragements to recount His deeds appear everywhere in the Scriptures, and have been solemnly heeded by the church age after age.

The First Thanksgiving, 1621, Plymouth, Massachussetts

Most recently, we have collectively been beneficiaries of a great mercy—the hope of being spared the imposition of four more years of regimented and relentless tyrannies from the Marxist religion while being granted a new national leadership exceedingly more favorable to Christian causes. For this we offer our praises to the God of Providence.

The Puritan minister Thomas Watson wrote of the Christian necessity of gratitude:

“A godly man expresses thankfulness in every duty, he does so in every condition. He will be thankful in adversity as well as prosperity: ‘In everything give thanks’. A gracious soul is thankful and rejoices that he is drawn nearer to God, though it be by the cords of affliction. When it goes well with him, he praises God’s mercy; when it goes badly with him, he magnifies God’s justice. When God has a rod in His hand, a godly man will have a psalm in his mouth. The devil’s smiting of Job was like striking a musical instrument; he sounded forth praise: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.’ When God’s spiritual plants are cut and bleed, they drop thankfulness; the saints’ tears cannot drown their praises.”

Thomas Watson (c. 1620–1686)

Thanksgiving Day, 1858 from Harper’s Weekly

On Thanksgiving Day, the remnant of God still gathers nationally to give thanks to Him who does all things well, and to remember, as He has charged, His deeds amongst our heritage. We recall those intrepid settlers who—having survived that first, harsh winter that wiped out half their numbers—came together in praise and opened their stores to those Indian neighbors with whom they had established community. Governor Winslow recounted the feast in a letter to his friends back in England thus:

“Our harvest being gotten, our governor sent four men on fowling, so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer; which they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

Edward Winslow (1595-1655)

First Thanksgiving in Plymouth, 1621

Image Credits: 1 Christopher Columbus (wikipedia.org) 2 First Thanksgiving (wikipedia.org) 3 Feast of Tabernacles (wikipedia.org) 4 First Thanksgiving (wikipedia.org) 5 Thomas Watson (wikipedia.org) 6 Harper’s Weekly Thanksgiving, 1858 (wikipedia.org) 7 Edward Winslow (wikipedia.org) 8 First Thanksgiving (wikipedia.org)

Historian, Archaeologist and Explorer Hiram Bingham III Is Born, November 19, 1875

t the height of America’s Gilded Age, Hiram Bingham III—American paragon of self-made academic prowess and explorational accomplishment—was born on the pacific island of Oʻahu, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, before the Sandwich Islands were consolidated and inducted as the state of Hawaii.

Hiram Bingham III (1875-1956)

Born an only child and the third in a lineage of Binghams, Hiram came from old New England, Protestant, missionary stock. His grandfather, Reverend Hiram Bingham, had been among the first in a wave of intrepid missionaries who brought the Gospel to the Hawaiʻian Islands (then called the Sandwich Islands) in the 1820’s.

Hiram Bingham I (1789-1869)

Hiram Bingham II (1831-1908)

Reverend Bingham’s care, immersion into daily cultural life, and the faithful outworking of his Gospel message bore immense fruit on the island, converting many of the natives including their royalty, the Kamehameha. As a result, he became a trusted advisor and friend to their queen, even translating the Bible into their native tongue. He oversaw a change in perspective on the islands in regard to the West, the natives’ only outside contact having been the occasional exploitive whaling crew or explorer. Kawaiahaʻo Church, which Reverend Bingham designed, still stands in Oʻahu and is referred to as the “Westminster Abbey of Hawaii”. Through Reverend Bingham’s influence and that of his fellow Baptist missionaries, Hawaiʻi’s religious allegiance would eventually veer towards Protestantism to such a degree that Catholicism would at one point be outlawed by her magistrates.

Plaque at Kawaiahaʻo Church commemorating the life and work of missionary patriarch Hiram Bingham I

Kawaiahʻo Church exterior, Punchbowl Street, Honolulu, HI

Kawaiahaʻo Church interior, Punchbowl Street, Honolulu, HI

The Reverend’s grandson, Hiram the third, was born into this rich environment and thus was uniquely reared compared to his fellow Americans back in the states. Emphasis on godliness, service to one’s community, scholarship and bravery were common tenets among his family and church. Counter to many revisionist tellings of the Christianization of Hawaiʻi, the Binghams and their fellow Baptist missionaries held in great esteem their native converts, even admitting a change from their original perspectives when leaving New England. Reverend Bingham himself admitted:

Three generations of Binghams in 1908—Hiram II and his sister Lydia (Bingham) Coan, his son Hiram III, daughter-in-law Alfreda, and four grandsons: Hiram IV, Alfred, Charles and Woodbridge

“The spirit of God is showered down upon the whole extent of the Sandwich Islands and those of us who have seemed to think the Gospel could hardly gain a lodgment in the heart of this people because of their alleged stupidity or ignorance or want of consciousness have been constrained to admit that they can as readily be effected by the spirit of God as any class of men with whom we have been acquainted.”

The Hale Laʻāu which was the home to the first missionary to Hawaiʻi, Hiram Bingham I

This perspective—which set upon native populations their due value and intelligence—would serve his grandson well when Hiram III set out to explore the lost kingdoms of South America—an endeavor that would cement his name in history and that was both predictable by his hereditary makeup and yet, entirely inconceivable in the early days of his life on Oʻahu.

Hiram Bingham I preaching to Queen Kaʻahumanu and her people in Waimea, Kauai, 1826 —she had been baptized in 1823, only 3 years into his ministry there

The Bingham family’s ambition for Hiram was for him to become a missionary to China after his education in New England at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachussetts and later Yale. Hiram Bingham III soon found his passion was captivated by the study of history which he began to teach after his graduation. Bingham was an oddity at both schools, almost a foreigner by the sheer distance of his birthplace. Being extremely poor—the ministry not having set up his family to any great prosperity—he didn’t naturally fit in. He was, however, ambitious and clever, and despite being considered reserved, he made many acquaintances and friends in return for his aid in their studies. He attempted to continue this tutoring after graduation, wishing to become a teacher himself, a leader of men in another sphere, and carry on his family’s legacy in this manner. Provision and social barriers in New England proved insurmountable, however, and Bingham soon returned to Hawaiʻi and his parents’ home.

Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachussetts

His dream might have died then and his gifts been returned to obscurity had it not been for the indomitable persistence of love—quite literally! While still back in New England at a house party, rubbing shoulders with the snubbing academic elite, Bingham met Miss Alfreda Mitchell. She was lively, warm, and heiress to the Tiffany Diamond fortune. The meeting bore no immediate fruit, with Bingham himself later saying he hadn’t even gotten the nerve to speak to her on that occasion despite being enchanted on sight. However, in the course of Providence, months later, while at home with his parents, Bingham heard that the Mitchells’ yacht had sailed into Honolulu harbor. He resolved to introduce himself and found that Miss Mitchell’s intentions to vacation in Hawaiʻi had been influenced more than a little by the knowledge of his whereabouts.

Madison Avenue residence of Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902) American businessman and jeweler who founded New York City’s renowned Tiffany & Co.,
and maternal grandfather to Alfreda Mitchell

Possessing an excellent character, a head full of dreams, and blessed with a golden complexion and imposing height of six foot four, Hiram Bingham found Miss Mitchell easily persuaded. They soon married, and she would give him seven sons, supply his status and housing during his subsequent study at Harvard where he got his doctorate, and go on to fund his archaeological career and pursuits with her family fortune.

Hiram and Alfreda Bingham during his time as a student at Harvard, 1901-1905

Bingham’s doctorate was a rather radical one: in history, yes, but Latin American history. He then became the first person ever to be hired exclusively to teach the same in the United States. Pivotally, at the same time, the Spanish American war broke out, followed by the U.S. taking self-imposed responsibilities in Central America—the grand undertaking of the Panama Canal being the capstone for this expansion. With these broadened national horizons, Bingham was convinced the U.S. would need experts like himself to supply leadership in regard to Latin American culture, politics, and economics.

The Panama Canal under construction, September 14, 1910

By the turn of the 20th century, restless after years of teaching undergraduates and studying with no outlet for proving his studies, Bingham set out on his first expedition to South America. It was a small party, including only himself and a couple friends, and relying on the native populace as guides. The journey took him from Caracas in Venezuela, over the Andes Mountains, and into Bogota, Colombia—a path chosen to retrace the steps of Bolivian freedom-fighter Simón Bolívar. All the while he kept journals of his findings. His second expedition skirted the eastern coast of South America, following the old Spanish trade routes. Small though they were, these expeditions were private, independent, and wholly unique in their time for a historian to undertake. While in Santiago, Chile, Bingham’s area of study was greatly broadened by acquaintance with an array of Peruvian scholars who supplied for him the native perspective on the centuries which Bingham had studied almost exclusively from a European standpoint—dating and categorizing all things by the colonial conquest and its written narrative.

Simón Bolívar (1783-1830)

Melchor Arteaga (native guide of Hiram Bingham III) crossing the Urubamba River, July 24, 1911

By their influence, Bingham took a diversion from his intended route that changed his life and our understanding of the ancient world forever. He went first to Cusco and explored the foundations of Spanish colonial settlements there that had withstood centuries of war and earthquakes—foundations that were Inca in origin. He was further persuaded to visit Choka Corral (cradle of gold), which Peruvian excavators were uncovering and wanted his opinion on. It was said to be the last city of the Incas before their extermination by the Spanish. He wrote home to his wife from there that the ruins were one of the most incredible sights he had ever seen, and yet while beautiful and vast, he felt it did not correspond with what evidence he found for a true last city of the Incas.

Urubamba River Valley

He returned home, studied furiously, and began to outfit another expedition that would set out in 1911, this time with the backing of the Yale faculty of which he was now a part. It would become one of the greatest in the history of exploration, paramount and legendary even in a century studded with similar feats. They left Cusco in July, tracked over the mountains and down into the Sacred Valley where it was said many of the Inca Emperors had their favored estates, and from there followed the turbulent Urubamba River into the depths of the jungle. On July 23 they came to a sharp bend in the river, pitched a camp to recoup and inquired of the isolated locals regarding ruins. Their reply: a simple pointing into the mountains and the words “Machu Picchu” was thrilling beyond imagining.

Bingham (top) and guide at the ruins of Espiritu Pampa, Peru, 1911

Terraces at Machu Picchu

A farmer and his family had settled in this area and begun to cultivate their crops amongst the famed terraces. The man was actively hiding from the government draft. The family was initially alarmed by the presence of a Peruvian Army sergeant accompanying Bingham, but once assured that the big “gringo” merely wished to see the Inca ruins, they sent Bingham up the mountain with their five-year-old son as guide.

Machu Picchu amongst the clouds

What lay atop the mountain was a kingdom amongst the clouds. Out before him stretched a maze of nearly intact Inca temples, altars and palaces, constructed in a manner we have still not solved, with statues and icons singular in their kind due to being spared desecration by Conquistadors. Bingham, an amateur archaeologist, had been led by a five-year-old to the final citadel of an advanced and vast South American empire and civilization that European kings had dreamed of claiming for centuries.

First photograph ever taken of Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu as clearing of ancient vegetation begins to reveal the discovery

When Bingham returned home with photographic proof of his fruitful explorations of one of the lost Wonders of the Ancient World, donors and politicians were quick to crowd in with resources and stipulations for sending him back. National Geographic made their April issue of 1912 all about the mysterious Machu Picchu “discovered” by the now-celebrated Hiram Bingham III.

Map of Bingham’s 1912 Expedition

Bingham returned to Machu Picchu twice in the following years with the backing of both institutions and began extensive excavations of the ruins. He uncovered thousands of artifacts: ceramics, tools, jewelry and human bones—all, it is important to note, with the consent of the hosting Peruvian government. The laws that had been placed to prevent looting of such cultural artifacts were waived under the understanding that Bingham would take them back to Yale to be studied and that they would be returned back to Peru whenever requested. Some were indeed returned in the coming years, but many were kept at Yale in the Peabody Museum for over a century, and when their return was requested, it was denied on grounds of longstanding warden-ship. Peru would eventually sue Yale in 2008, and those artifacts once on display there were again returned to their country of origin.

Bingham outside his tent at Machu Picchu during the 1912 Expedition

Artifact collected by Bingham during the 1912 Expedition

Peru itself is now almost synonymous with Machu Picchu, and the tourism revenue it brings to the country is massive—a benefit that was felt almost immediately after Bingham brought international awareness to the remote site. Consequently, many cultural traditions, artifacts and even language of the Peruvian tribes were revived, respected and protected as they had not been since before the Spanish conquest. The occupation of explorer often leaves behind a legacy of outsider disturbances and the pilfering of the native environment, but the peaceful and prosperous reputation of Machu Picchu as a preserved site may, in many respects, be accredited to Hiram Bingham’s own respectful conduct to the native population and their history—a missionary’s son to the very end.

Machu Picchu in 1912 after rigorous cleaning efforts

Bingham would go on to serve his country in World War One as a Lt. Colonel in the Signal Corps while organizing the United States Schools of Military Aeronautics at eight universities to provide ground training for aviation cadets in what would become our country’s fledgling Air Force. He was elected to the Senate in 1925. Amusingly, he was elected to the governorship of Connecticut during the same cycle, serving only a single day—the shortest term to date—in order to serve as a Senator. He continued to lecture and teach until his death in 1956, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Bingham in uniform, 1917

Machu Picchu in 2007, beautifully uncovered and open to the world’s view, thanks to the tenacity, vision and persistence of Hiram Bingham III

Image Credits: 1 Hiram Bingham III (wikipedia.org) 2 Hiram Bingham I (wikipedia.org) 3 Hiram Bingham II (wikipedia.org) 4 Kawaiahʻo Church plaque (wikipedia.org) 5 Kawaiahʻo Church, exterior (wikipedia.org) 6 Kawaiahʻo Church, interior (wikipedia.org) 7 Three generations of Binghams (wikipedia.org) 8 Hale Laʻāu (wikipedia.org) 9 Bingham I preaching (wikipedia.org) 10 Phillips Academy (wikipedia.org) 11 Charles Lewis Tiffany home (wikipedia.org) 12 Hiram and Alfreda (wikipedia.org) 13 Panama Canal (wikipedia.org) 14 Simón Bolívar (wikipedia.org) 15 Crossing the Urubamba River (wikipedia.org) 16 Urubamba River Valley (wikipedia.org) 17 1912 Expedition Map (wikipedia.org) 18 Bingham at Espiritu Pampa Ruins(wikipedia.org) 19 Machu Picchu terraces (wikipedia.org) 20 Machu Picchu in the clouds (wikipedia.org) 21 First photograph (wikipedia.org) 22 Machu Picchu overgrown (wikipedia.org) 23 Bingham at tent (wikipedia.org) 24 Artifact (wikipedia.org) 25 Machu Picchu cleared (wikipedia.org) 26 Bingham in uniform (wikipedia.org) 27 Modern-day Machu Picchu (wikipedia.org)

Armistice Is Declared, November 11, 1918

lso known as Remembrance Day, and observed as such by countries across the globe, the eleventh of November marks the anniversary of the ceasing of hostilities between the Allied and Central Powers during the First World War. The war itself was a conflict unparalleled in human history up to that point by its global scale, weaponization of technology, cost of lives and admitted futility of purpose. A generation was decimated by its effects and they would go down in history mourned as “lions lead by donkeys”—a phrase popularized afterwards to refer to the incompetent leadership that supposedly lead to the slaughter one of the most promising generations Christendom had yet seen.

The 2014 Remembrance Day poppy installation at the Tower of London titled Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red: 888,246 ceramic poppies progressively filled the Tower’s famous moat between July and November 2014 in commemoration of the start of WWI. Each poppy represented a British military fatality during the war.

While debatably undeserving its notoriety for being the most wasteful of all wars, World War One has certainly become synonymous with inefficacy, with being the penultimate crescendo of centuries of imperial and moral decay and the setting up on the global stage a Second World War from which global politics has never righted itself. Amongst all the gloom, relativism and censure that the memory of the conflict evokes, it is notable and right that its solitary, annual day of remembrance has become one that is deeply personal.

A 1915 postcard honoring the Allied soldiers

Unlike the Second World War or other more glorified endeavors that have their battle anniversaries and victory days celebrated with great fanfare, World War One is acknowledged and commemorated on the day the killing stopped—victory being a hollow word for what was achieved after four years of industrial scale butchery and a death toll upwards of twenty million. After grueling negotiations, an armistice was at last agreed upon for the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month in the year 1918. The fighting and the killing continued until the very last moment.

Gravestone of Henry Gunther who died the day the Armistice agreement was signed

The “Victory Edition” of The Sun on Monday, November 11, 1918

Beautifully, in a gut-wrenching way, World War One’s single glorious legacy is that of its almost inexhaustible catalogue of stories bearing witness to the human spirit. Longstanding feuds, reactionary causes and ideological consequences aside, when the struggle is remembered—if remembered at all—the most common associations are the displays of individual compassion and common valor.

American soldiers of the 64th Regiment, 7th Infantry Division celebrate the news of the Armistice, November 11, 1918

Americans should not soon forget the backwoods resourcefulness and courage of Sergeant Alvin York, or the second-generational heroism of Quintin Roosevelt, the trench chaplains or the doctors and nurses who advanced the art of healing on one battlefield after another. Nor those Americans who volunteered in the Lafayette Escadrille or joined the RAF before America’s declared involvement. Eventually, once war was declared, our country lost the lives of over 100,000 of her sons during the last year of the conflict.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottowa, Canada, Remembrance Day 2017

Scattered now across Europe, Australia, Africa and even Asia are touching memorials to the fathers, the sons and the civilians sacrificed over the course of the war’s four years. The aftermath held no such unity. To quote Dr. Bill Potter:

“The repercussions of the war among “intellectuals” and purveyors of cultural mores in Europe, reflected in their art and philosophies a wholesale abandonment of Biblical ethics, moral restraints, and hope in the future. An unrestrained moral turpitude and relativism, born in the evolutionary theories of the previous century, reached their climax in the post-war era. They quickly sifted down to popular culture and produced equally unrestrained offshoots of reaction and nationalistic paganisms represented in the Fascists of Italy and Nazis of Germany, not to speak of the revolutionary excesses of the Bolsheviks in Russia. In modern parlance, The First World War was the tipping point of world-wide change, and not for the better.”

The New York Times front page on November 11, 1918

Enshrined in its mythos are images of no man’s land and an endless labyrinth of trenches stretching across soil that once was fertile and prosperous and called home by those who then died and were interred in it. Yet there are also the symbolic poppies: first blooming thing to erupt from a blood soaked earth. The contrast of ever more sinister methods of destruction too—the gas and the flamethrowers and the introduction of aircraft—side by side with stories of Christmas Truces and the fellowship men on either side shared repeatedly as their personal differences were not so stark as in the following war; Protestant Germans still sang the same hymns in the same tunes as Anglican Englishman, only in a different language, and the German war slogan decreed “God with us”.

WWI Prussian belt buckle reading “GOTT MIT UNS”—God with us

In 1919, a year after the war, American President Woodrow Wilson—who had run and was re-elected on the platform of staying out of the conflict only to later renege on his stance—gave a memorial speech that did little to warm his disgruntled citizenry for the losses incurred during the war, nor the post-war fad pushed by European politicians for a League of Nations. In it he declared: “Never before have men crossed the seas to a foreign land, to fight for a cause which they did not pretend was peculiarly their own, but knew was the cause of humanity and of mankind”. World War One was supposed to be “the war to end all wars” and the humanist dream of educating all evil, cruelty and avarice out human nature soared high after it until it crashed twenty years later with the inevitable and ghastly commencement of the Second World War. It was something many a disillusioned soldier foresaw and dreaded while in the trenches of the first.

An artist’s depiction of the signing of the Armistice agreement on November 11, 1918

Whatever its causes, and however besmirched its legacy, on Remembrance Day it is not the conflict that is honored but the men, fathers and sons all, who gave their lives in the cause of their homelands, their principles and their God. They were a noble generation, reared on the Victorian faith of the likes of Spurgeon and Kuyper, belonging to the generation that sacrificed themselves on the Titanic and claimed the North and South Poles for God’s dominion. When called upon to perform their duty, they did not flinch or falter. Their memorials may be grim, but according to one of the most touching products of their environment—the beloved war poets—they would have you remember them another way. Lieutenant Wilfred Owen served England in the trenches of France and Flanders until his death seven days before the armistice was declared. He left us this:

“I, too, saw God through mud—
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.”

“Merry it was to laugh there—
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.”

“I, too, have dropped off fear—
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear
Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;”

“I have made fellowships—
Untold of happy lovers in old song.
For love is not the binding of fair lips
With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,”

“But Joy, whose ribbon slips,—
But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong;
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;
Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.”

“I have perceived much beauty
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;
Heard music in the silentness of duty;
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.”

“Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,
And heaven but as the highway for a shell,”

“You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.”

Poppy petals rain down in front of the Menin Gate WWI Memorial in Ypres, Belgium

Image Credits: 1 Tower Memorial (wikipedia.org) 2 Postcard (wikipedia.org) 3 Gravestone (wikipedia.org) 4 The Sun (wikipedia.org) 5 American Soldiers (wikipedia.org) 6 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Ottowa, Canada (wikipedia.org) 7 The New York Times (wikipedia.org) 8 “Gott mit uns” (wikipedia.org) 9 Signing (wikipedia.org) 10 Poppies in Ypres, Belgium (wikipedia.org)