ShadyStump
Imperial Masterpiece
So, one of the many events catalyzing the infamous Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 involved a stand of wild plums out on the eastern plains of Colorado- then still a territory while the American Civil War raged in the east.
At a small fort- a tiny forward operating base in today's parlance- the company surgeon had begun noticing the first signs of scurvy among the soldiers, and ordered a squad of men to take a wagon out to a stand if plums a few miles off where a young private had mentioned finding some while on patrol once. They were told to eat their fill and bring back every other last fruit to the fort.
However, tensions with the local indigenous tribes were high, and not every member of these tribes was convinced of the efficacy of the peaceful aims if their chiefs. While still some ways from the stand of plums the wagon of soldiers was beset by a small band if renegade indians. The wagon driver immediately turned around, and whipped the horses bloody until they had made it back to the safety of the fort.
The soldiers went plumless, and the scurvy began in ernest. Some months later, similar aggressions by a fistful of renegades eventually culminated in one Colonel John Covington- who had a sometime before successfully led a battalion against an incursion by Confederates working their way west- now leading a company's worth of volunteer militia to a bloody attack on peaceful Cheyenne and Blackfoot indians near Fort Lyons killing 93 men women and children.
I knew where a small stand was in town, and took some cuttings. The ones on the left and third from the left are not wild American plums- they're just photo bombing. However,there is a third plum in the same room, but I don't want to go looking for that picture right now. I am dead set on having one in our yard AND one in a pot, so I'm comfortable starting the thread before I have something not dead. If nothing else it will be a fun fail thread that lasts five years.
At a small fort- a tiny forward operating base in today's parlance- the company surgeon had begun noticing the first signs of scurvy among the soldiers, and ordered a squad of men to take a wagon out to a stand if plums a few miles off where a young private had mentioned finding some while on patrol once. They were told to eat their fill and bring back every other last fruit to the fort.
However, tensions with the local indigenous tribes were high, and not every member of these tribes was convinced of the efficacy of the peaceful aims if their chiefs. While still some ways from the stand of plums the wagon of soldiers was beset by a small band if renegade indians. The wagon driver immediately turned around, and whipped the horses bloody until they had made it back to the safety of the fort.
The soldiers went plumless, and the scurvy began in ernest. Some months later, similar aggressions by a fistful of renegades eventually culminated in one Colonel John Covington- who had a sometime before successfully led a battalion against an incursion by Confederates working their way west- now leading a company's worth of volunteer militia to a bloody attack on peaceful Cheyenne and Blackfoot indians near Fort Lyons killing 93 men women and children.
I knew where a small stand was in town, and took some cuttings. The ones on the left and third from the left are not wild American plums- they're just photo bombing. However,there is a third plum in the same room, but I don't want to go looking for that picture right now. I am dead set on having one in our yard AND one in a pot, so I'm comfortable starting the thread before I have something not dead. If nothing else it will be a fun fail thread that lasts five years.