Wednesday, January 2, 2008 - Philadelphia MS
< previous day | archives | next day >
Leaving Tuscaloosa
This Lazy Daze doesn't deal well with temperatures much below 30 degrees. It's just not well enough insulated. The cold air slides down the glass, out under the drapes and out across my bed. It was in the high teens last night - brrrrr.
I'm headed generally westward. Down 69 through Moundville Alabama then west through Eutaw Alabama and on westward toward Vicksburg Mississippi.
First stop - Moundville Alabama
I'm writing from the foot of the large mound at the Moundville Archaeological Site.
Night camp
Wal-Mart parking lot in Philadelphia, Mississippi
Heliograph routes of the 1890 Practice
The date was May 15th, 1890, and the Army's Department of Arizona had just completed a major heliograph practice; it was, in fact, the largest the world had ever seen. I call it the "Volkmar Practice", after the man responsible for it, Col. Wm. J. Volkmar, the Assistant Adjutant General and Chief Signal Officer for the Department of Arizona. Although the practice lasted only sixteen days, preparations for it took months of reconnaissance and preparation. Involved in the long range signaling maneuvers were twenty-five heliograph stations stretching from Whipple Barracks near Prescott to Fort Stanton near Ruidoso, New Mexico. My guess is that close to two hundred men were involved, both cavalry and infantry.